#sometimes its the fact that your day job is in a creative field so when you get home you dont have any creativr energy left for yourself

[heliads]

Ink Stains

Moving from Amity to Dauntless was quite the lifestyle change. Still, nothing rocks your boat more than meeting Eric Coulter for the first time, especially when he seems to like you more than he should.

masterlist

Creativity does not flourish much in Dauntless, nor art for that matter. It is strange, then, that you, so fully borne of both, would choose this bloody faction as opposed to any other. Your birth faction, Amity, is better suited to your temperament and interests, but you had hardly realized that when you underwent the Choosing Ceremony. All of us must leave our homes when we grow up, and only very few can return.

Dauntless seemed like the furthest place you could run, so of course that was the one you chose. You missed it later, only after loathing it, blaming it for your troubles, and finally admitting that it might have been a good home to you, but only after far too long.

Sometimes, you think that’s why the city decided to force its inhabitants to choose their home faction when they’re so young. At that age, all you want to do is escape, so you pick something strange and foreign, a faction that your family would hate so you could fight back against them. When the dust clears and you realize that the past was not so terrible after all, you are in the middle of a strange place with no way of returning, so you have no choice but to fight to stay there.

It would instill a truly fascinating sense of dedication in its transfers, to say the least. Or perhaps no one is like that at all, and it is just that you have made a mistake with no way to fix it. Maybe you should have stayed in Amity after all, been content with familiar nothingness and learned to fake your smiles at least as well as your mother, or save your anger for when no one can see it, like your father.

You don’t think you were meant for Amity, though, not really. It vexed you to no end, the simplicity of it all. You did enjoy the painting, the artists that sprung up in every corner, common as dandelions, but that wasn’t the end of it. The rules were chafing yet vague, the expectations ever-changing. It should have come as no surprise that you would leave.

Besides, you did well in Dauntless initiation, to the great surprise of just about everyone there. They saw your brightly colored clothes when you leapt from the roof, but soon enough you blended in with the lot of them and people would double take when you told them you hadn’t been born in Dauntless proper. The thought that you could be from Amity of all places was insane, and had it not been for the fact that you still remember the waving gold of the fields, the high flying birds that soared above your head, you would have believed it as little as your new friends.

Despite your best attempts to immediately separate yourself from your former faction, you couldn’t shake the memories completely. That’s why you didn’t shoot for one of the top jobs or security positions. Those were snapped up by the really good kids, the ones who aren’t just not carefree but genuinely heartless.

You ended up taking a position among the ranks of tattoo artists and quickly soared to the top. Amity had taught you clarity and control in your art, and soon you were known for your original designs. More often than not, Dauntless looking for a new pattern would ask you to draw something directly as opposed to just using one of the countless templates already printed out.

It gives them a sense of originality, for one thing. No one tattoo is ever the same when it comes to your works. It saves members of the faction from the embarrassing experience of showing off a new tattoo just to see the guy across from you roll up his sleeve to reveal the exact same thing.

Soon enough, your name has spread far and wide across Dauntless, and you get more and more customers by the day. That’s how you know that you ended up choosing the right faction and way of life after all, and it’s also how you meet Eric Coulter for the first time.

Eric is somewhat of a mixed bag. He only graduated from initiation a year or so before you, so he didn’t lead your training when you first joined the faction. You’ve heard he’s a total killer, both in the fighting ring and at every other moment of the day, so you were more than a little uneasy when he first darkened the door of your shop.

You’re not really sure what you expected when he showed up in the beginning. That he’d yell at you, maybe, like you’d heard in whispers. Apparently he’d go off on anyone if he felt the need– someone taking the wrong water glass in the mess hall, or an idiot trainee who didn’t get ready in time– or he could have just been there to complain about some failed regulation you didn’t know about.

Instead, he was nice, actually, which was somehow even more unsettling than if he’d just been the harsh training leader he is to everyone else. He’d spent a lot of time admiring your works, even offering up a rare compliment here and there. At last, he’d decided on an initial design, and taken a seat on your chair.

Most clients talk at least a little while you’re tattooing them. New initiates usually rattle off their difficulties, grateful for an ear that won’t judge them or try to use their weaknesses to gain a position or two in the rankings. Experienced Dauntless sometimes swap gossip or discuss various pieces of information they’ve heard from contacts in other factions. Others just stay silent the whole time, thinking through ideas they’ll barely even hint at to you.

One of your friends has tattooed Eric before, and they told you he’d been absolutely icy the whole appointment, hardly even saying a word except to point out which tattoo he wanted. Maybe he’d just had a bad day then, because you and Eric actually end up talking the entire time. 

He complains about the initiates being unable to so much as tie their shoes without needing his directions, and laughs when you counter his stories with what you’ve seen outside of the scheduled training hours. Eric asks you about how you started tattooing and seems genuinely stunned that you grew up in Amity.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” he tells you over the hum of the tattoo needle, “you’re, like, normal.”

You laugh at that. “The Amity are normal, Coulter.”

He narrows his eyes. “They’re weird. Happy-go-lucky strangers. Not you, though,” he adds quickly, “you’re tough. A real Dauntless.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t take offense if you insult the Amity,” you grin, “I left for a reason, believe me on that.”

Eric frowns. “What was the reason, if you don’t mind me asking?”

You sigh, staring at the design you’re working through for a moment before getting up the strength to continue. “I clashed with the higher-ups a lot. If you weren’t totally happy and living life all the time, you felt like you were disappointing them. Everyone there claims that they’re only ever nice to them, but the faction leaders told me I was a screwup more times than I could count. Even my own parents.”

When you risk a glance up, you notice that Eric’s expression has twisted down into something colder, something almost like rage. “They were wrong. They shouldn’t have said that.”

“I know,” you laugh to yourself, “I did well in initiation, obviously they should have guessed that.”

After a while, Eric is convinced to laugh a little alongside you, but the anger doesn’t erase itself from his features for some time. “Yes,” he mumbles almost to himself, “they should have.”

The rest of the session passes without incident. The next day, you find yourself waiting at your empty station. He was supposed to come back to finish the piece, but he’s a few minutes late, and you can’t help but wonder if it’s on purpose, that you said or did something to chase him off. It could be nothing, of course, but you never know.

He ends up hurrying in soon enough, the slightly quickened beat of his walk the only sign that something is on his mind. You look up when he arrives, allowing yourself a small smile. He did come back, then. You were not too much.

“Glad to see you,” you say, “I was worried I scared you off with my inherent Amity-ness. I’ve heard it’s bad for Dauntless. Ruins the whole stoic demeanor if we smile too much.”

His lips twitch upwards briefly, but whatever had been bothering him before tamps that forbidden emotion down soon enough. “No, not your fault in the slightest. Some initiate was using the wrong kind of gun during today’s drills, nearly put another kid’s eye out. I don’t even know where he got the thing, but it happened anyway.”

“Ah,” you say with a knowing look, “Initiates.”

“Always initiates,” Eric grumbles, but he allows his smile to stick this time, and you think that maybe he isn’t as bad as the rumors allow.

The rest of the session is just as good, if not better. Eric is kind to you, says things that grow increasingly apparent to be jokes. It’s funny, you’d always heard that he was this terribly cold guy, but everyone else must have gotten him at a bad time. Either that, or that’s the Amity in you seeing the best of everyone. Still, you’re certain that his good attitude whenever you’re around isn’t faked. It can’t be.

There’s silence from him for a while. You don’t take it personally, or you shouldn’t, anyway– Eric’s a busy guy, you know that from his words alone if not from always seeing him rush around the compound. He’s a Dauntless leader, he’s not going to be hanging around a tattoo shop unless he’s actively getting new ink.

Then, about a week or so later, he comes back in. Busies himself with looking at the patterns for a while even though you both know he’s not going to get something anyone else could have. This time, he talks to you, asks what you wish you got to draw more often. When you answer, he has you put that in his latest design. It makes your stomach tie itself in tight knots, more intense than even when you’d thrown yourself off the roof on your first day on Dauntless earth.

Confusingly, Eric stops you when you’re about halfway through, says that’s all the time he’s got and that he’d like to continue tomorrow, if that’s alright with you. You ask him if he minds having an incomplete tattoo on his arm and he just laughs, tells you he’ll pull his sleeves down or something. It’s a terrible excuse, but it’s what he wants and so that must be what you want, too. It’s good business. You can tell yourself that when you’re lying awake at night, wondering just what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Eric comes in almost every day, demanding increasing progress on his tattoos. You don’t know why he insists on doing them piecewise– it’s not pain tolerance, he’s got more of that than anyone around and it’s not like Dauntless Leader Eric Coulter would ever admit to something pathetic like pain. It must be something else, then. It must be.

The tattoos spiral and change as they spread across his skin. They’re a mess, to be honest, no cohesive pattern, like he’s picking the templates with his eyes closed and only the goal of covering as much flesh as possible. 

You tell him his tattoo sleeves aren’t as coherent as they could be; he laughs, asks you to use your Amity artistry to make some sense of them. He seems unruffled by your accusations of poor taste. Later that same day, Eric punches someone’s nose in because some drunk fellow stumbling out of a party made the mistake of questioning the inked patterns. The idiot said the same things you did, more or less. One of you received a rare smile, the other, a broken bone. It makes no sense.

At some point, he’s going to run out of skin to tattoo. You warn him of this and he grins, flashing dagger-sharp teeth at you. Says that’s why he’s asking you to go so slowly with it. Inch by inch, he cedes control to you. You want to question what that means, but some part of you is scared to ask, scared that he’ll change his mind and leave, or worse, ask someone else to do it.

The last day comes, and this time you know it’ll be the end with certainty. Eric asks you to ink his throat in thick stripes, almost like you can see the angles of his spine through the skin. You sit there, trying to focus on your needle, finishing the design, instead of anything foolish like his head in your hands, his eyes resting quietly on you. He can’t talk while you’re working on his neck like this, but the weight of his gaze says enough anyway.

You finish the last stroke and allow yourself to sit there for one final moment, waiting for it all to be over. Your fingers rest on the smooth expanse of his cheekbone, and Eric raises his hand to cover yours.

“Well,” you say at last, trying to keep your voice light, “it’s been an honor to tattoo you, Eric.”

He smiles. The brief, unwelcome thought that this might be the last time you see him do that flashes through your head, and you banish it just as quickly. That’s not something you want to think about right now, if ever.

“I’d say I’m the one who’s been honored,” he returns, “you’ve got the best work in the faction and everyone knows it.”

You feel some small surge of pride in your chest when he says it, hot and bright like the Dauntless flames. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me in a different way,” he offers, “Drinks tomorrow night, maybe? On me?”

You smile back at him. “I think I’d like that.”

“Good,” he grins, standing so he can look down at you. “I’ll pick you up then. It’ll be fun. Maybe you can teach me some of that Amity optimism.”

You can’t help but laugh at that. It would suit him, you think, smiling more, trusting you so he can let down his guard. Looking at him, at how his eyes brighten when he laughs, you think it already does.

divergent tag list: @dindjarinneedsahug, @poisonmenegan, @ozyynka, @rogueanschel, @with-inked-solace, @gods-fools-heroes, @23victoria, @manyfandomsfanvergent, @imwaysthelastchoice, @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed, @crazyhearttragedy, @alex-1967s-blog

[daveinediting]

I can't tell you that every production team, every production company, embodies a healthy creative work environment.

Heck, I can't even tell you that every mom 'n pop, every small company embodies a healthy work environment. 

And don't even get me started on corporations.

What I will say is that I've met kids embarking on their careers who believed they made a terrible mistake. Who believed they chose the wrong career. When, in fact, what happened is that their first job involved working for people who are without. Who are not leaders or team builders. Who don't know how to communicate or get the best work from other people. Whose skill set is terribly sketchy. Who don't, if you haven't guessed it yet, don't actually know what they're doing.

It's not an obligation, by the way. We aren't at all forced to assume that authority and ability are characteristics that are inherently locked together. Because sometimes they're not. And when they're not, you often find a work environment that's not suitable to any serious professional's time and effort. You find that some workplaces, like certain bosses, are unworthy stewards of our time and abilities.

Only... 

Kids starting out their careers don't necessarily know that.

In my career, I had the distinct, well... I got lucky. I met the right people and went to work for them. Small companies, all. Except for the one big company where dysfunction abounded but I was largely working within a good team.

The dysfunction was breathtaking, though. Serious anger management issues that really do undermine authority. Straight up toddler tantrum behaviors. Actual conduct unbecoming anyone who strives to call themselves professional.

But me? I always had good role models. Great role models and colleagues. I didn't realize it at the time, but my early career experiences fundamentally shaped the professional I am and continue to be today.

Whereas...

Whereas a lot of the people who grew up in dysfunctional work environments have anger issues to this day. And that anger absolutely compromises judgment, wisdom, executive function, clarity, and problem solving.

Plus, these people suck to work with. No matter how talented they're apt to be.

Let's be clear: there is such a thing as healthy and unhealthy work environments. And if you think that healthy means coddling... you most likely have no leadership skills and shouldn't actually be working with, you know, people.

Because failure.

Because in my field, at least, failure is when you miss the deadline. And when a deadline's missed the efforts of everyone involved have just been wasted.

Failure also breathes its fire when a team effort produces what everyone—and I mean everyone—recognizes to be mediocre work. Basically, it's seriously hard work, enthusiasm, frustration, anxiety, and exhaustion that produces something that's meh. 

In both cases, the efforts are rendered meaningless. Just—

Meaningless.

So yes. The people we work for and the people we work with, profoundly affect the quality of our work and how we feel about our work. Which means some people are right for us, professionally. And some people are simply not worth our time. They can't be allowed the influence.

Now, corporate managers like to think that saying "It's not personal. It's just business." functions as an iron clad rationalization to ease the betrayal of being let go. And I understand that, of course. Corporations aren't about individuals. They're about scale. They're monoliths that move where they will, as they will, when they will. And collateral damage, chaotic messes, and broken trust, are simply factored in.

It's not personal.

It's business.

You understand, right?

Only... this is not the sound of anyone who's remotely invested in you or your career.

It's just business.

If that sounds harsh, well, I've heard the "it's not personal, it's just business" schtick live and in person as I learned which colleagues of mine had just been fired. And then most recently a client for whom I create content was left hanging through sheer benign neglect by a corporation. Not surprising, of course, because the relationships of corporations with people outside those corporations isn't of the same quality, intention, and commitment as the relationship between two professionals.

Relationship?

Sure.

How they work together. How they cooperate, collaborate, communicate. There's a difference you can tell, is my point. There's a striking difference between working with someone who works for a corporation and... working with someone who works for a small company or as a sole proprietor.

I'm not outraged at the difference, by the way. What I am is judgemental. Not only because benign neglect is a bad look for anyone but because it's simply unprofessional. Straight up unprofessional. Because again. Authority and ability don't go hand in hand. And large numbers work against being an essential part of something, being connected to a larger purpose not just serving one, or feeling like you're growing as a professional. 

Growing.

As a professional.

Lemme reel this back in, though.

How we begin our careers is crucial.

Who we begin our careers with...

Also crucial. The same crucial.

I was reminded of this truism this weekend during the 48 Hour Film Project as I worked with the team I was asked to join a coupla years ago as editor.

As I said before, I can't tell you that every production team, every production company, embodies a healthy creative work environment. What I can tell you is that for most of my adult life I worked for companies that do embody healthy creative work environments. And the weekend we just navigated is yet another example of that. 

For starters, the professionalism, experience, wisdom, and ability of the people at the top are beyond question. The mastery and experience of the people leading each area of production is also beyond question. As well, an online communication app functions as the connective tissue for the entire crew from pre-production to production to post-production and on through marketing and promotion. Every member of the team is connected in real time in this way and can be involved at times in areas outside their own. Similarly, the resources of the entire crew can be leveraged for needs like locations, costumes, props, even film titles to name a very few. 

Also, in general terms, the full crew is of a type: hard working, enthusiastic, of good humor, and completely engaged in the process from beginning to end. Even as the film's completed by only three members of the team while everyone else takes a well-deserved rest on the last day of the competition, there remains broad appreciation for the now completed shoot... as well as hope for two things: that all is going well in the edit suite and that the finish line will successfully be crossed on time.

Basically, that their efforts have meaning. That their work will be bad ass.

And oh yeah do I feel that.

My point though, is this:

Everyone. Every person who wants to participate in the creative industry in which we work should have this experience. Yes we all work the 48 without pay. But the effort we invest buys each of us a model of how the collaborative process of making a film—any genre of content, really—how that process can work.

And how it should.

It should be the rule not the exception that each of us, professionals to a person, but especially those of us just starting out... each of us should have the experience we're gonna chase for the rest of our careers right up front. Each of us should have a thorough taste of the best our careers can be first. So that we, without question, without doubt,  know what it is we're chasing and the kind of people we absolutely wish to chase it with.

Also, though...

So that we know what it is we should avoid at all times. Along with the people we need not include on our professional journey.

Of course your path is not my path just as mine isn't yours. But for sure we should, as much as humanly possible, strive to surround ourselves with people who not only challenge but help us to be better than we are right now. Full stop.

Surround ourselves.

With people.

Who not only challenge us.

But help us to be better.

Than we are right now.

Because that's how you build a career that lasts a lifetime.

☺️

[readthisspace]

Midjourney: Text-to-image AI art generator that is making waves around the world.

How Midjourney's AI Technology is Changing the Game.

(This is NOT a Sponsored Post)

As we usher in the new year, it's clear that AI technology is here to stay. And with the increasing popularity of tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, people are beginning to see the potential of AI beyond its initial applications. But today, we're going to focus on something even more exciting - the world of AI-generated art. So sit back, relax, and get ready to discover the magic of Midjourney.

Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.

We are a small self-funded team focused on design, human infrastructure, and AI. We have 11 full-time staff and an incredible set of advisors.

-midjourney.com

The Quest for the Perfect Image: A Marketer's Struggle

As a marketer, my job often involves scouring the depths of the internet in search of the perfect image to complement my content. Sure, there are plenty of royalty-free stock image sites out there, like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay (these are the sites I currently rely on for image hunting), but sometimes those just don't cut it. And let's face it, no one wants to fork over their entire budget for a single image from multiple paid sites like Shutterstock or Getty Images (unless you're secretly a millionaire or your company has a huge marketing budget every year). It's a never-ending quest for that elusive, magical image that perfectly captures the essence of your message.

Okay, the image above is somewhat unrelated to the content but doesn’t the unicorn look so cute?

Midjourney Saves the Day

For years I have been struggling to find the perfect image to match my content, until recently my friend (Thanks David!) recommended me Midjourney. This nifty little tool is an AI art generator that can bring your text prompts to life with stunning, realistic images. I was blown away by the results - in fact, all the images in my previous post, were generated by Midjourney. It's as easy as typing in your command and letting the AI bot work its magic. Trust me, it's a game-changer.

Here are a couple of examples of images that I’ve created using Midjouney, along with the text prompts that I used:

Even a wizard finds it difficult to define what branding is (cues previous post).

How to Generate Your Own Art Using Midjourney

Midjourney is currently in Open Beta and runs on Discord. So, you will need to create a Discord account first (signing up is free). As a quick side note, what is Discord?

It is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform where users can communicate via voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers." -Wikipedia

First things first, create a Discord account if you haven't already. Don't worry if you're not a tech whiz, we've got you covered! Check out the handy guide here.

Once you're all signed up, head over to Midjourney's website and hit the 'Join the Beta' button to hop on the Discord server.

Now, it's time to get creative! Look for the Newbies Channel on the left sidebar and get ready to command the bot to create your images.

To summon the Midjourney bot, type the command /imagine followed by a description of the image you want to create in the 'prompt' field. Hit enter to send your message.

Be patient - it takes a minute or two for Midjourney to process your request. Once it's done, you'll see a grid of 2x2 images, each a unique variation of your original prompt.

From here, you have the power to upscale your image, generate similar variations, or re-roll for a fresh batch of images. When you're happy with your creation, simply open it up to full size and save it to your device.

And voila! You've just unleashed your inner artist with the help of Midjourney. You don’t have to be a tech whiz to complete the steps above (no coding skills required!)

You are now a superhero armed with the power to save the day and create stunning artistic masterpieces.

A Small Price to Pay for Big Results

If you've fallen head over heels for the stunning images generated by Midjourney Bot, you might want to consider subscribing to their plan for a measly USD 10/month (or a more reasonable USD 8/month if you pay annually). After all, you only get about 25 free jobs with the Free Trial. But let's be real, that's still cheaper than your Netflix subscription, right?

Sure, binge-watching Kdramas and blockbuster movies is entertaining and can be a form of de-stressing (guilty as charged), but the whole point of this newsletter is to inspire action towards more productive endeavours. So invest in yourself, start building your brand, and let Midjourney take care of the visuals.

Try it out and don't forget to tag ReadThis.Space on social media.

https://www.instagram.com/readthis.space/

https://twitter.com/ReadThisSpace

Last but not the least, have fun and enjoy the process!

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[ch4nb4ng]

The Unexpected Encounter

Pairing: afab artist x artist DILF Hyunjin, enemies to lovers

Word Count: 12.2k (woops)

Warnings: degradation, penetration, nipple play, praise, cream pie, implication of blowjob, mentions of pain, semi switch!hyunjin, sub

Summary: Your new job working for your favorite artist was very exciting, but your work colleagues, well one in particular, was not so nice, and you wanted, no needed to get to the bottom of it.

Note: Okay idk what happened but this fic disappeared from my blog so im uploading it again !

Today was a nerve wracking day.

The professional painting scene was very new to you. Being a graduate in art and art history was very new. It was always your passion, you knew this from a young age. From the creative diary entries you made when you were 10 years old, to the several theses completed on why Jackson Pollock portrayed what he did in drop paintings, or how Claude Monet impacted the movement towards modernism: art was your one true passion in life.

Most college students know that the difference between studying and actually getting out into your field of choice could sometimes be a difficult transition. Sometimes it takes years before you find the connections you need to. To find the artists that you have looked up to to get in contact. But today was finally the day. After 5 years of working your ass off, you have attracted the attention of your all time favorite artist: Christopher Chan Bang. Everybody knew him. He was an artistic icon all around the globe in the modern world. From paintings, to sketching, even lyrical pieces and music making: Mr. Bang was an artistic prodigy. He was a man of many talents, someone you had discovered in your teenage years, all the way through until now. When you received that very formal invitation over email, you swore you almost passed out. A tear, or two, or three slipped from your eyes, and it was the first time in your life that things finally started to feel like they were falling into place.

Your life started today, and boy, were you excited to start this new chapter of your life moving forward.

***

A couple of canvases, some paint palettes and your trusty, old but very reliable, paint brushes, you headed out the door, jumping into your car, and making your way to the famous Christopher Bang Studios building. You had looked it up in your maps previously, multiple times, making sure you would be ontime by estimating how long it would take to get there at this time of the morning. Suitcase in one hand, morning coffee in the other, you trailed off, excitement riddling your bones. Even the drive up was scenic. Although a commercial building, the uniqueness of this man was close to none. Any person who saw a commercial building in the middle of nowhere, broad acres of green and hilled land surrounding the studio would think it was the closest thing to being strange. But artists understood. It was typical of him to do something as such. It reflected the way he portrayed himself in his art. The loneliness, the isolation. It was what all his pieces symbolized in some sort of way. The fact that he was surrounded by thousands of people daily, and followed by millions around the world spoke volumes, but the idea that he could still feel such emotions; that was what drew people in, what drew you in.

The ascending hill had reached its peak. A beaming smile came to your lips as your car approached the Victorian gates. Reaching into your handbag, you fumbled for the paperwork, sticking your head out through the window as you waited for the sound to come over the intercom.

“Hello and welcome to the Building of CB97, how can I help you?”

“Oh, uhm hi,” you mumbled, “my name is Y/n. I am supposed to start in the canvas department today.”

“Ah yes, Ms. Y/l/n, welcome. Once the gates open, you will need to drive straight for about 500m, then make a sharp left into the west car park. Please park in the carspot with the number 34.  I will meet you at your car. Do you have any questions?”

“No,” you blurted, “no thank you . I’ll see you then.”

The intercom went silent, and the doors began their grand opening, the rust of the metal beams aching as they slid open. You gasped, completely entranced by the grandness of it all. They moved quickly, and you began to drive forward, counting the distance to yourself, until you reached around the 500 meter mark. “West” covered the pavement in large black block letters, and the number ‘34’ on the edge of the spot on the floor. You took a deep breath as you opened the car and shut the door behind you. Even the air felt fresh. The secret was truly amazing, and it would be something that you might never get used to. You walked towards the closest door, a lady with a small frame almost guarding it. Her hair was blonde, and she looked around 5’5 ft tall. Assuming she was the one you had spoken to prior, you stuck your hand out, hoping she would return the favor and shake it.

“Ms. Y/l/n. Welcome to the team, My name is Yeji, and I will be helping you settle in today. Please, follow me.”

You nodded, thanking her as she opened the door for you. The walls were painted a variety of colors, the left mixed with cool toned, the right mixed with warm toned; it was like a hallucination. Although a very grand and bold first impression, it field your heart with warmth, soul with security. The creative juices and innovations were already oozing, and you couldn’t wait to meet the man that you knew was behind this. 

“I should give you a little bit of background. This building was first truly established in-”

“2005,” you interrupted, not realizing how obsessed you sounded at this moment, “sorry, I have done a lot of research before coming here.”

Yeji chuckled as she continued to walk, “I take it you're a fan of Mr. Bang’s work.”

“Oh, uhm, yes. He was kind of my biggest inspiration as a teen and in college. I can’t even believe I’m here right now.”

She smiled politely, enjoying your enthusiasm towards her workplace. “That’s great to hear. Of course, I am in the dance/musical department, so I may not see you much.”

“Oh,” you frowned, “that’s okay, I’m sure I’ll see you around more than you think. I’m very curious to see what goes on in such a department.”

She nodded. You felt like you were lost in a maze, walking down hallway after hallway. In all honesty, it probably was not that long, just the multitude of artwork covering the walls. Yeji had come to an abrupt stop, facing a pitch-black door in the hallway. ‘Creative Director and CEO’ were printed on a gold plaque in the center of the door, and your heart skipped a beat when you realized what was happening. The smile on your face dropped, and your palms were beginning to condensate. Was he really behind this door, waiting for you? You swallowed the large lump forming in your throat, coughing a few times to clear your chest as Yeji knocked a special kind of beat.

“Come in.”

She looked back at you once more before opening the door. You were so easy to read, exactly like a book. She placed the hand that was free on your wrist, giving you a small nod of enthusiasm.

“Don’t be so nervous. Mr. Bang may be a really well known person, but he’s not a typical CEO. He’s very nice, and I’m sure he’s looking forward to meeting you.”

And with that the door opened, a violet gradient filled the room as you took a step inside, and there he was. The man that you had looked up to for more than half of your life. The person who helped you to find your true calling. To create things that move people, make them feel things. He was sitting down, behind a desk, glasses pushed right up to his face as he looked to be drawing on an ipad screen. He looked super intimidating, and the closer you got, the more you wanted to run away from him.

“Mr. Bang, Y/n has finally arrived this morning. She will be starting her internship today.”

He looked up, swiping the glasses off his face as a rather large smile came to his lips. The side of his eyes crinkled, and two deep dimples formed in his cheeks. He stood up, walking around and putting his arm out in front of you.

“Ah Ms.Y’l/n,” he greeted, “so nice to finally meet you in person. Please, have a seat.”

Your mouth froze, saying nothing and just doing as you're told. Yeji was still standing next to you.

“Great, thank you Yeji, if there’s anything else you need for the dance studio today, please email me or don't be afraid to call, you know which number it is to call right?”

“Of course sir,” her tone was very polite, “always, 0325.”

“Great, thank you, see you later.”

And with that, she was gone. Just you. In a chair. In front of a very established, well renowned man that changed your life. No big deal. You weren't panicking or anything.

“Y/n.”

You looked down, unsure if he was okay with eye contact.”

“Y-yes,” you mumbled, “Hi Mr. Bang.”

“Please,” he smiled, slouching back into his desk chair, “call me Chan. I’d also prefer if you looked at me while I spoke to you.”

Your eyes snapped up immediately. It’s not that you were trying to be rude. If anything, it seemed impolite to look at him. Such an enormous figure running an enormous company. It felt like a burden to look him in the eye, but you did anyway, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot.

“Ah, sorry Mr. Bang – I mean Chan, just a little nervous.”

“Oh,” the smile on his face drained immediately, “why is that? Is there something I can do?”

“No no,” you blurted, putting your hands out in a swiping motion, “it’s just. This is really embarrassing to say, but I am such a huge fan. I have been following your work since I was a teen, as well as writing a couple of theses in my graduate year about your works,” you paused, “you’re the person that helped me find my true meaning and true passion in my life.”

“Oh wow,” he gasped, placing a hand on his chest, “I did not know I could impact someone so deeply. I appreciate your honesty.”

He got out of his chair, dragging it around as he placed it next to you. He sat back down, placing a soft touch to your wrist as he spoke.

“I feel emotional hearing your words. It’s people like you who truly inspire me to do what I do. I have looked over some of, actually no, most of your work and saying that I am impressed is an understatement.”

You could feel the moisture begin to soften in your eyes. You had to blink once, making sure that you weren’t living in a dream. A new layer of goosebumps coated your skin.

“My work?”

“Absolutely,” he smiled, tone calm as ever as he continued to speak, “it impacted me immensely. Through your work I see a lot of myself in you, you know?”

He stood up and wheeled behind his desk as he was previously. A tear slipped out of the corner of your left eye, making you chuckle as you quickly swiped it away, not wanting your boss to see such emotion. “Which is why I am very excited to have you here with us! Today will be very introductory. This is a big building so someone, one of the other painters,a fellow colleague, will give you a tour. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to knock on my door or shoot me an email. I’m always here to listen.”

He handed you a card with his name, number and email. You smiled and nodded, thankful for his gracious welcoming to such an environment.

“Thank you very much Chan, I am looking forward to the opportunity you've given me here today.”

“Oh please,” he scoffed, “it’s the least I can do for such an amazing artist.”

He picked up the phone on his desk, dialing a few numbers on the keypad before letting it ring through the speaker.

“Hello Mr. Bang, what can I do for you.”

“Yes hi. Could you please send Mr. Lee Felix down from the canvas please?”

“No worries, He will be there in 5 minutes.”

“Great thank you, bye.”

Your heart skipped a beat. Was it just a coincidence, or was the Felix he was talking about the one you knew from college. There was no way, surely. The Felix you knew was a video game engineer. He was bound to spend his career in the world of video games. Yes, this was a creative building of all sorts, but there was no way. You met Felix in college through an elective. It was an art elective, one you took with enthusiasm, but one he did not. You were always paired up in assignments, which he was very thankful for seeing as he had no artistic ability when it came to artwork. He was one of your closest friends, but you lost contact when he moved back to his hometown in Sydney. You thought about him from time to time, and the person that Mr. Bang had called over the phone and was pulling at the heartstrings. 

“Do you know Mr. Lee by any chance?”

You were snapped out of your thoughts by his question.

“Sorry?”

“Mr. Lee, I have it here that you both attended the same college. Graduated the same year, do you know him?”

“I actually did have a close friend with a similar name, but he was in an engineering major, so I’m not sure why I-”

You were interrupted by shuffling footsteps at the door frame. You snapped your neck around, a gasp covered by a hand covering your mouth as you looked at your long lost friend stared back at you.

“Y/n?”

“Felix,” you mumbled in disbelief, “Felix Lee.”

“It’s been a long time,” he beamed, walking to your chair.

You stood up, opening your arms as you took him into a very large, very warm embrace. The muscles in your face relaxed as you closed your eyes. The past couple of weeks made you homesick to say the least. Moving to a different country, getting used to the environment around you made you miss your family. You wanted to share it with them. Show them what's beautiful place this was. Seeing Felix helped relieve you of this stress. He reminded you of home, something that reminded you of home. Like a piece of home floating around you everyday from now on. It was nice to see a familiar face.

“I’ll take that as my answer,” Chan mumbled, “Felix, please show her around the art department. It’s important to show her the building, yes, but it’s most important that she becomes familiar with her everyday work environment.”

“Sure thing Chan,” Felix smiled, pointing his arm towards the door, “shall we?”

“We shall,” you giggled, turning to Chan and bowing one more time, “thank you for everything so far Mr. Bang, I’ll see you at a later time.”

“Please,” he chuckled, “call me Chan.”

Your lips folded in, a polite smile as you walked out of the door with Felix, bag full of supplies in your hand. You interlocked your arm with Felix’s skipping down the hallway as the two of you laughed together. It was like no time had passed. The conversation was broad, running from one topic to another. The thing with Felix was that he was the type of person where you could not see him in years, yet it was like it had only been a week. He was very attentive, wanting to know everything that had happened since you had left.

“I can’t believe it,” Felix sighed.

“Believe what?”

“You’re really here. You really made your dream come true huh?”

You stopped, facing him as the feeling of shock ran through your blood.

“You remembered?”

“Tsk, of course,” he beamed, throwing his head back in disbelief, “how could I forget?”

You smacked him playfully, shedding a tear. The sincerity was very genuine. It warmed your heart to a temperature that you didn’t know was possible. 

“Geez you cry so easily,” he scoffed, “keep it together, we are about to approach the studio.”

“Oh shit,” you gasped, quickly wiping any remaining condensation stinging your cheeks, “does it look like I’ve been crying?”

“No, you’re fine.” 

He nodded as you reached the mysterious blue double door. The letters “Canvas” were painted in large block white writing. It was a little intimidating, you couldn’t lie. It was extremely nerve wracking to be entering your dream career right now, especially at a young age. It seemed like you would probably be one the youngest coworkers. Solely based on the people you saw around, and Chan’s age, it was a fair statement. Felix gave you one last look, snapping you out of your nerve wracking thoughts, barely giving you a moment to get your cognitions together.

“Are you ready?”

A deep breath escaped your chest before you answered, “Let’s do it.”

Your hand was on the door handle, pushing hard as the loud sound echoed into the next room. Everybody stopped, staring at what, or more who, created the loud sound. The five different pairs of eyes could be felt at the pit of your stomach. They felt very hard at first, which in all honesty, did not surprise you. The art community was very competitive, and they probably were not very fond of a new person encroaching on their space. There were seven easels, placed in a circle, all filled with a canvas. Felix could feel your apprehension. Nonetheless, he dragged you to the center, keeping everybody’s attention.

“Now, everybody knows me of course. I am the wonderful Felix, but you don’t know the lovely person standing next to me.” He paused, grabbing you by the shoulders and pulling you in front of himself.

“This y/n. She is starting an internship from this day forward. Please be nice to her, she is actually a very good old friend of mine and she is a very talented artist.”

“Felix stop,” you mumbled, smiling at everybody before bowing in front of them.

“I’m y/n,” you stuttered, “it’s so nice to meet all of you. I’m looking forward to working with amazing artists.”

“Welcome to the studio.”

A man in green pants and white shirt greeted you first. He walked out of his chair, standing up and reaching his hand out to shake his own.

“I’m Seungmin, I am head of the canvas department. We’ve heard a lot of great things about you.”

“Oh,” you replied with surprise, “really? Thank you so much.”

“Of course, here I’ll help you get settled in.”

He picked up your bag, placing it beside one of the empty chairs. You looked around, still nervous as you ignored everyone else’s eye contact. 

“Let me introduce you to everyone.”

“Ah yes of course,” you nodded, moving back to the center, “I’d love to get to know everybody.”

“Great,” he replied. He pointed at each person, introducing you to Jisung, Minho, Ryujin and Hyunjin. The moment you made eye contact with him, everything had suddenly changed. His eyes were soft, very soft, extremely doey. The others got up and shook your hand, introducing themselves, except for him of course. He acknowledged your presence was very brief. It hurt your feelings at first, but you brushed it off, not wanting to let something small ruin the positive run that was your first day. 

You had settled in a little more, sitting down and opening your bag as you took out your brushes, lying them on the floor. A man looked at you with much confusion, an eyebrow cocked at your odd working space.

“Why on earth are you putting your brushes on the floor?”

You were looking down, not paying attention to who was talking to you. You decided to ignore him, unsure of what he actually said.

“Excuse me? Can you not hear someone talking to you?”

You snapped your neck, looking up to the mystery man staring at you. It was this moment when you finally got a good look at the one named Hyunjin. He was very mature looking, aged approximately early thirsties. His hair was medium length, black, and looked freshly cut. A few of the front pieces framed his face. His physique was tall, very slender, tattoos covering his forearms, once peeking out of the side of his neck. His hands were large, pointing to the array of brushes splattered across the floor. You stood up immediately, accidentally stepping on his foot as you used all your weight to stand. He yelped, stepping backwards as you jumped off of his foot.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, shaking your head with concern, “I’m so sorry I-”

“Watch what you’re doing,” he mumbled, “What are those brushes doing on the floor?”

You swore you broke out into a sweat. His face made you starstruck. His eyes were small, the speck of a beauty mark marking the underneath of his left eye. Nose in proportion, but his lips. So big, so soft, juicy. You had to swallow before responding, eyes fixated on them. Anybody would have noticed. The longer you stared, the more lost you got in them. Hyunjin brought his fingers in the air, snapping them and snapping you out of your almost perverted stare.

“Oh uhm,” you mumbled, “I like to have my brushes on the floor, it’s just something I’ve always done-”

“Don’t care,” he interrupted, brushing his hands towards them, “they’re distracting and will hurt somebody.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, seeing how Felix and Ryujin had their brushes on the floor.

“But other people have theirs on the floor, why can’t I?”

You could see Felix behind you, lifting his arms and crossing them into an X. His eyes were wide, warning you to stop questioning him.

“Because I said so. First you step on my foot, then you have the audacity to question me?”

“No I-”

“That’s what I thought,” he interjected, interrupting you once again, “once you’ve picked them up like I said, go next door, all the acrylic paint is there, I’m assuming that’s what you use”

“Sure thing Hyunjin,” you replied, voice sounding a little defeated, “sorry to upset you.”

He said no more, walking back to his seat and continuing his own artwork. 

Embarrassment and humiliation filled your body as you walked fast out of the room. You stood against the door, a heavy breath escaping your lips as you looked into the window, spotting the acrylic paint. How come everybody else was so lovely? Maybe it was because he was your senior, someone that demanded respect. Regardless, it really wasn’t necessary for him to scold you like that, especially on your first day. You were too much of a positive person to let someone like this bother you. This was your dream job, and you weren’t about to throw it all away from a bad first impression. You weren’t sure why, or how, but the words of such humility shot straight in between your legs. You ignored, however, ridiculing yourself for such a thought for such a rude man.

The room was huge, shelves upon shelves of different types of paint, as well as the numerous shades you could choose from: it felt like heaven. But it’s not like you cared at the moment. Too irritated by the crudeness of your new colleague. How could someone be so cruel? A rather annoyed sigh escaped your lips as you walked over to the wall of acrylic paint. Going for a warm toned palette, you picked out the brightest of oranges, deepest of reds, and mid-range shade of yellows. You were the type of person to let little things bother you. The simple thought of walking back into the room and everyone staring at you like you were a clumsy person, or just the disrespectful new girl who thinks she owns the place was becoming agitating. You were a nice person, but you were not a pushover. 

“Y/n, are you okay?”

You turned to see a concerned Seungmin standing at the doorway. You walked over, already planning to leave the room anyway, seeing as you had grabbed everything you needed.

“Me? Yes I’m fine,” you smiled, somewhat fake, “why wouldn’t I be?”

“Listen, y/n,” he smiled, placing a hand on your shoulder, “you don’t have to pretend with me. Hyunjin can be a little.”

“A little?”

“Well, a lot. He actually is a very nice person, but he just got separated recently and his life is in a bit of shambles right now. Sometimes he just lets his anger out on the wrong people.”

“Oh,” you sighed, that tiny build of guilt beginning to eat at your bones, “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, how would you know? A lot of people at the company don’t really know, just me and Felix. He is very private, so I’d appreciate it if you kept this information to yourself.”

“Oh yes of course,” you nodded, “I obviously do not want to intervene with anybody's personal life, especially on my first day.”

“Cool,” Seungmin paused, “I’m glad you’re okay, let’s head back into there and discuss what the topic of art shall be today.”

You nodded, allowing your nicer colleague to escort you out of the paint room and back into canvas. You looked at no one, but could feel the 2 orbs of sight burning holes into the side of your face. Great. Now you had to tiptoe around somebody whose life was supposedly ‘falling apart.’ Really, if this was someone you knew, or someone you saw on the street, you would give them a piece of your mind. But you did not want to do that here. Not on the first day at least. You were not going to give up everything you dreamed of to pick apart one person who was having an off day. It was fine. You sat back down into your chair, taking a deep breath as you watched Felix address you and your peers once more.

“Okay everybody, today’s inspiration for artwork is an emotion. Would anyone like to guess what it is?”

“Happiness?”

“Wrong.”

“Deception?”

“Close, but no.”

Everyone began to guess, yelling out the wide variety of emotions they could name. Well, everyone except you and Hyunjin. He sat back, legs spread open as he watched the rest of his coworkers guess hopelessly. A thin wooden paintbrush tip prodding at the tip of his lips. He opened his mouth, biting down on it gently, before giving you a subtle look. ‘Fuck,’ you thought, taking your focus off of him and back to Felix. You had been caught. But what were you worried about? Why would it be a bad thing about being ‘caught.’ 

The problem was, you couldn’t look away. The slenderness of his dress pants accentuated the length of his lower limbs, making your eyes travel. He continued, however, completely against your will as you looked at his stomach. The buttons near the bottom of the shirt were almost undone, exposing the bare minimum of skin. You could feel your eyes bulge, unable to take them away from the area that you should not see in everyday work. They traveled further, reaching his neck. His head was tilted to the side, ink peeking out from the upper area of his neck, mostly covered by the collar or his sheer shirt. He watched the other like a spectacle, some sort of amusement, allowing the rise of the warm sun to radiate across the half of his body that was facing you. You bit down on your lip, imagining what it would look like marked, which brought you back to his lips. You weren’t sure why, maybe because of how soft or plump they looked, but you were fascinated. Like a work of art, pun very much intended.

“Y/n?”

The heat came to your face immediately, knowing very well that truly had been caught in the crossfire. Your eye snapped back to Felix immediately, praying that no one saw you practically boring your soul into the man that yelled at you five minutes prior.

“Sorry, what was the question?”

“I said, which emotion would you like to paint today?”

“Oh,” you chuckled nervously, “ I would like to paint-”

“Anger.”

Everybody had turned to Hyunjin, who had just completely interrupted you and not let you answer. The smirk on his face was priceless, and Minho was covering his mouth in shock. The man stood up, walking over to Felix, placenta friendly hand on his shoulder as he opened his mouth to speak once more.

“I think anger would be the perfect one for the day,” he paused, maneuvering his glare to land directly onto you, “I know I’m feeling that a little bit today.”

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife. All you could do was stare back, knowing that if you responded, it would come across rude and unprofessional. He was such a smartass, dying for you to snap back at him. But you knew better. You would not give him the satisfaction of giving him a reaction. The more you were around him, the harder it was to empathize with the guy. 

“Okay that sounds great,” Felix whispered, patting Hyunjin to get him back to his seat. A roll of the eyes was inevitable, praying that he did not see you do it. He acted so high and mighty, but what for? This only increased your anger. Grabbing the thickest paintbrush, you ripped it out of your bag with one hand, palette in the other as you squirted heavy amounts of paint on the palette. You had no time to think, nothing but gross motor skills moving as you flicked your hand away on that canvas. 

Although you were beyond pissed, painting was always a way to relieve you of that stress. It was the only way you knew how to calm yourself. Everything around you became silent once the brush touched the canvas material. You had no time to notice him staring at you once more. You were much too engrossed. Another scoff could be heard, of course it was the cruel hater that was Hyunjin. Time flew when you painted, and before you knew it, it was lunch. The rest had already left the room, of course, you were much too distracted in your passion to see the only person left was the one you had already developed a disdain for. He tiptoed over, stood right behind you and he brought a hand to his chin, squinting his eyes and alaysing what you had created.

“Did you not hear?”

You jumped in shock, falling off of your chair and onto the ground, hard. You looked up, sighing as you prepared yourself for the scolding or hurl of insults that was about to be thrown your way. 

“I’m sorry Mr. uh, Hyunjin, sir, I’m not sure what you mean.”

The man bit down on the corner of the inside of his mouth, a chuckle of annoyance filling his lips.

“Do you think you’re a hot shot or something?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, genuinely unsure of what he was talking about. You stood up, looking up at the man as he spoke.

“Sorry?”

“You heard me?”

He took a step closer to you, gazing down on you patronizingly, too stubborn to give up his point of making you look bad. The thing is, Hyunjin did not know who he was messing with. You kept your stance, folding your arms across your chest as you glared back at him.

“I don’t think I’m a hot shot, and no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He reached below, snaking his hand around your palm, grabbing the paintbrush from your hand. Your heart skipped a beat, adrenaline coursing through your veins at his touch. You could feel your palms already sweating. He had suddenly become close, in your personal space. He was at eye level with you when he reached down, dark brown eyes boring into yours. Time had stopped, and you had to blink, bring yourself back to reality and how you were talking to. The previous image if his head tilted, neck covered in an array of purple and blue. 

“When I say it’s lunch time. It’s lunch time. You don’t keep painting, you leave. It’s that simple.”

Your lips smuggled into a line, left eye twitching, mouth salivating at how angry he was making you.

“So how was I supposed to know that? Huh?”

He said nothing. You took a step closer, elbows gently digging into his sides. Oh. Oh was all you could think when he was closer, feeling the hardness and firm tone of his body. He was attractive; there was no doubt about that. Tall, glowing skin, nice smile, delicate. The image of his neck flew into your mind once more, but this time you were determined to push it down and out. Yes, this was your first day, but there was no way the foundation of your relationship with this credulously rude man was going to be set like this: like you were just some pushover that would easily get scolded for something as simple as this. A smirk of arrogance turned on his lips as he saw you gulp, hard, mumbling a curse word under your breath. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

“How am I supposed to know that everybody goes to lunch at the same time?”

Hyunjin wasn’t intimidating in the slightest. His glare intensified the more you spoke back to him. He leant down, face now in eye level with your own. You gulped nervously, noses almost touching, why was he so close? His lips were slightly ajar, close enough to feel the delightful scent that was his breath tingle across your cheek.

“Don’t you pay attention to your surroundings? Tsk, you’re so ignorant.”

You went to open your mouth once more, but it was too late, he was already off. If you could punch the wall now, you would. You did not know it was possible to be this angry. You wanted to follow him, slap the shit out of him quite frankly. Anything that you could do to take out on him was good enough. It’s not like he even said much either. Yes he was arrogant, condescending, patrionsing, anything with a negative connotation you could label him with. You weren’t sure what it was, but Hyunjin had already found a way to crawl under your skin, make a home for himself there and kick around as much as he pleased.

What felt like two minutes ended up being fifteen, because everyone had already come back. Heat creeped on your face, and your palms became sweaty. A wave of humiliation came over you out of nowhere. You forgot to bring lunch, or even just take a rest. You don’t know why, but you were feeling embarrassed. Your head faced downward as everyone walked in, smiling or engaged in conversation, until they looked at you. The smile on Felix’s face faded immediately. Being an old friend of yours, he could tell when something wasn’t right.

“Y/n,” he asked, running over, placing his hand on your lower back, “is everything alright?”

You looked up, the first face you saw was Hyunjin’s of course, like your eyes were naturally drawn to him. It was the first time the two of you had made eye contact, and his facial expression was soft. No glare, no evil stare. If anything, it looked like concern. You only spent a brief moment looking at him, before turning to Felix. He could see the tear threatening to spill from your left eye. Maybe Hyunjin was right. Maybe you weren’t good enough to work here. Not talented enough. 

“Yeah, I’m um,”you paused, fanning yourself, “I’m just a bit hot in here, just going to go splash some cool water on my face. Where’s the closest bathroom?”

“Down the hall on your last left,” he replied, “do you want me to show y-”

“No no!” you accidentally yelled, already making a break for the door, “it’s fine, I’ll work it out.”

Nothing but forward worked into your stride and as you bolted down the long hallway, you skipped the bathroom altogether, finding the nearest exit from the building. A large sigh came to your lips when you felt the cool breeze attack your face. You sat down on the curb, feeling the previous tears give way. They kept coming, one after the other. The actualisation that you weren't good enough to work here had hit you like a ton of bricks. Nobody respected you, and if they did before, they certainly did not know after the way Hyunjin treated you in there. Any bit of sympathy you had prior to his situation was gone. Thrown right out of the door. It was until you felt the presence of someone not to you that you took your face out of your hands, quickly wiping your tears and standing up.

“Mr. Bang?”

“Y/n please, call me Chan. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes everything is great!”

The smile on your face was extremely forced; anybody could see that. He lifted a hand, patting you on the shoulder before asking you once more, “is everything okay?”

You could feel the lump in your throat about to burst. As if today couldn’t get any worse. A large sniffle came to your nose, refusing anything that could further humiliate you in front of your new boss. 

“I don’t think I should work here.”

Chan’s lips turned upside down, genuine concern filling his voice as he looked at you. It made him sad, very sad. He could see himself in you alot, especially when he was still an up and coming artist. Doubt was a strong feeling in these times, and he wanted to do everything he could to push past these feelings, and not deal with what he had to deal with.

“Oh y/n, trust me, I understand what you’re going through. You don’t have to be alone and trust me when I say this: you are very talented and deserve to be here just as much as anyone else.”

You looked at him, smiling at the sincerity his words meant. You could tell he was saying it with a heavy heart, wanting to make you feel better. He was a good person, and a really good boss; you couldn’t ask for more.

“Thank you Chan, that means a lot. Today has just been overwhelming. I’m not very good at meeting new people and making good first impressions.”

“Ah, I understand,” he nodded, “meeting other artists can be confronting. I say this, I know who the tough ones are and the sweet ones are. If someone doesn’t like you, do not pay any of them your mind. I can name a couple in your department that are like that off the top of my head, but since I am your boss, that would most definitely be a human resources violation.”

The joke made you chuckle, and in this moment you felt very grateful towards him.

“Thank you Chan, I should head back inside before Felix starts to worry about me.”

“Sure thing, take care of yourself. I hope you feel better soon.”

He walked back inside, yourself soon following, making your way back to the canvas room. The doors were loud, and everybody turned around to see you come through. A few smiles, a few expressions of indifference. The one you were told to ignore was looking, but no glare. Same expression as before, one that looked to be concerned as you took your seat. Taking on your bosses advice, you ignored everyone around you, mind endlessly filled with ideas and cognitions on how to enhance your artwork. It was your one true passion after all. Everything had become clear, and your reasons as to why you were hired here were reignited.

***

Time had flown and before you knew it, the work day was over. Everyone had put their brushes down, and grabbed their belongings as they stood around, chatting to each other and waited for what seemed to be some kind of public service announcement. Your confusion was soon cleared, seeing the team leader, and one of your more friendly colleagues, standing on the block in the middle of the room to address everyone. It made you giggle. He was already tall, and it’s not like he needed the extra height.

“Right everyone, that brings us to another day wrapped up. Usually now would be the time to discuss what we have come up with, but we shall save that for tomorrow morning. Instead, Mr. Bang has put us up to our first group task of the business quarter. Splitting into pairs, he wants each of us to come up with a logo for a new company he is getting into. Something musical, like you would see for a,” he paused, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and reading it carefully, “rock inspired edm.” 

The other looked around, barely phased. Maybe this was something Chan had asked of them often. 

“Now seeing as there are new faces around here, I probably should explain how we pick the partners. We basically just draw them out of a hat.”

He turns around, nodding at Ryujin as she hands him a cup, full of tiny papers which you assumed had names on them.

“Why not give y/n the honor of picking her partner first?”

Everybody agreed, making your heat begin to race. You were a good sport, and usually quite enjoyed group work. As you walked over to the podium, your heart began to speed up again. You truly were happy to work with anyone. Anything was worth the sacrifice of quality content. It truly would be good to make a new friend you thought, reaching your hand into the hat. Everything would be great, that was until you opened the folded paper, reading the person’s name you really did not want. The smile on your face faded straight away, opening your lips to tell everybody who you had chosen.

“Hyunjin.”

The room suddenly filled with awkward air, everybody averting your gaze. A large scoff could be heard from him across the room, causing you to roll your eyes. Of course, knowing your luck you would get partnered up with the one person that you already despise. He would probably make it so hard to work with, wanting to take the credit for everything. Nonetheless, this was for work, and if that meant you had to put aside your pride for a few days to get this project over and done with, so be it. The rest of the partners were sorted, Felix mouthing you a ‘good luck,’ before leaving with Seungmin. It didn’t look like Hyunjin was going to approach you, so you decided to be the bigger person for once, approaching him instead.

As you walked over, you stuck your hand out, politely waiting for him to shake it.

“Hi, I’m Y/n. I think we started on the wrong foot.”

He wasn’t even looking, too busy texting on his phone to even acknowledge your presence. It took him a good five minutes before he even looked up. He nodded, throwing his backpack over his shoulder as he rolled his eyes. Your hand came back to your side, obviously not going to be seen or heard by him.

“Look, I know you don’t want to be partnered up with me, trust me, the feeling is mutual. Come to my place at 7pm tonight. Let’s do as much as we can so we can get this over and done with.”

“Sure thing.” you smiled, exaggerating your tone, “really looking forward to it.”

 You exchanged numbers, waiting for him to text his address.

As you walked away, adrenaline dispersed in your body. All of a sudden you were nervous to see him. Maybe it was because it was outside of work hours. Probably because he hated your guts. It did not matter. You wanted to prove to him and yourself that you can do this. Put all the pettiness aside and get the job done. 

****

The dreaded time of 7pm had arrived. His place was not too far from yours, which you were somewhat thankful for. Not like he did that on purpose. Walking onto the porch, nerves setting in, your knuckles came to the sooden front of the door. You knocked, gently, not wanting to be more obnoxious than you were already perceived to be by this idiot of a man. Your lips stuck out, air from the sigh blew out pushing it as he opened the door. 

Your eyes opened wide for a moment, noticing a completely different look. His hair was wet, tingy strands covering his forehead as your eyes trailed, collar bone slightly exposed from the wide collared shirt he was wearing. The sleeves were short, practically non-existent as his tank top exposed his shoulders, oh my, they were large. His arms were slim, yet so defined, covered in a continued array of more ink. His bicep flexed even at rest as he stood there, hips slightly forward as he smiled. The smile caught you off guard, not the fact that he was standing over you, a lot more naked and exposed than he was today. Your eyes, however, traveled straight to his neck, now familiar with the rest of his tattoo now exposed. The rose was large, thorns spiking out and around. It was a beautiful piece, definitely something that was original and unique to the man.

“Welcome, would you like to come inside ?”

“Uh sure,” you mumbled, walking in front of him. The apartment was nice, almost too nice for someone like him. It was a very minimalistic style, but it was right up your alley. You appreciated it and it was the way you would design your dream home. You sat down on his couch, waiting patiently for him to join you. He was in the kitchen, opening the top cupboard and bringing out a glass.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Oh uhm, just water please.”

He nodded, turning on the tap and filling it up, walking over and placing it on the table in front of him. He takes his seat, awfully close to you, causing you to sweat a little. His demeanor had completely shifted from the moment you met him. He suddenly felt so warm, welcoming. You felt comfortable for the first time, really comfortable. You could feel a gentle ache erupting in your core, but it wasn’t enough to distract you. Hyunjin objectively was a very attractive individual. It would be ridiculous for anyone to look at him and not feel something, right?

“Before we even start, can I please apologize?”

“Apologize? What are you apologizing for?”

“I was having a really bad day,” he mumbled, unable to look at you as he placed a hand on the outer edge of your knee, making you jump slightly in your spot, “ I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

You could feel the sincerity in his voice, like it was the first time he had ever been sincere in my life.  His fingers were twiling on your knee cap, the tickling sensation making you want to squirm. It was so soothing. It was making you feel gently aroused. You leaned into him, closing the gap quietly and he continued to speak. His lips were all you could stare at, and you felt him getting closer and closer, those lips you began to fantasize about almost touching yours. You knew what he was doing, what you were doing, but you did not want it to stop. Your opinion on Hyunjin has changed drastically. All you could think about right now was his hands on you. Lips crashing into yours, and marking that-

“Dad?”

The voice startled you, covering your mouth to not scream and scared the person behind you. Turning round, you gasped, seeing a small child with a tiny frame standing from across the hall. Her hair was disheveled, and she had a hand on her face, rubbing her eye gently as she waited for her dad to come and get her.

“Hey honey,” he whispered, crawling over and kneeling down, hand on either side of his face as he looked at her, “what are you doing out of bed?”

“I could hear somebody outside, it sounded like mommy, but I’m not sure so I came to see if she was here.”

Hyunjin’s stomach dropped, and so did yours when you heard the doorbell ring. He stood up, grabbing his daughter’s hand as he walked over to the door. A heavy sigh escaped his chest before he opened the door. A very beautiful woman was on the other side, barging in without saying anything. She gave you one look, a look that said it all: anything but impressed.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hello to you too Hyunjin, what a surprise seeing you here.” 

She paused, pointing her finger at you as she rolled her eyes, “This your booty call for the night?”

“Excuse me?”

She was taken aback, not expecting you to talk back.

“She’s from work, we have a project to do. It’s not like you would care anyway, at least if something did happen, I would be single, unlike you.”

The smirk on her face disappeared within milliseconds. You could tell she did not like that comment. She ignored instead, swooping her daughter up and into her arms. The daughter was not smiling. If anything, she looked terrified. You weren’t sure what the situation was, but you knew that this wasn’t right. 

“Mommy, your breath smells funny.”

He stood behind his daughter, mouthing ‘you came here drunk?’ to his ex wife. You could feel your blood beginning to boil. You weren’t sure why it made you so mad, but it did. This lady that you knew from a bar of soap was getting on every single one of your last nerves. 

“Please put her down, let’s talk, but not with her here.”

She nodded at Hyunjin, putting her down. Her response was heartbreaking, seeing her run behind his legs. 

“Why don’t I put you to bed?”

You stepped forward, unsure if you were crossing a line here, but it was better than just sitting there like a bystander, doing absolutely nothing. 

“I can put her to bed if you want?”

He turned to you, and you could see the water foaming at the brim of his eyes. That guilt that had developed from when Seungmin told you his situation was coming back, and you felt this urge, no, demand to do anything to help him right now. 

“You can?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, walking over and grabbing his daughter's tiny hand, “you know, just so you guys can talk.”

Her smile came back, and she nodded as she came closer towards you.

“Daddy, can the pretty girl read me a story?”

He tried to suppress the smile, heat coming to his face at the description she used, “she sure can.”

You smiled politely at him as he gave his approval, death glaring at her as you walked down the hallway. You allowed her to guide you to her room, smiling when you saw the litter of dinosaurs sprayed across her bed. You sat on the edge, allowing her to get into her bed and pull the sheet over her. You tucked her in, making sure to get her chin under the cover. She giggled as she looked at you. It made you feel warm, reminding you of home ,tucking your nephew to bed. Children were so sweet, something you were always passionate about and loved, dreamed of always having. They were so innocent, so it made you sad, filled with despair when you saw the look and fear cowaring her face.

“Is there a story you would like me to read?”

“Yes,” she turned to her side, pointing at the book on the floor, “daddy just read it to me, but I couldn’t fall asleep.”

“Well,” you giggled, picking the book up, “ I better do a better job than your dad then.”

As you opened the book, you could hear the voices of the other two adults in the house starting to escalate. It wasn’t enough for their daughter to hear, but it certainly was for you. You raised your own, an attempt at drowning out the noise coming from the living room. You turned on the animations, ranting and raving, doing everything you can to make it a true story. She was such a sweet kid, giggling, chuckling, just bursting out laughing. She was really enjoying it, right until her tiny eyes fluttered shut, and all that could be heard was the sound of her chest rising, and falling with each breath.Your lips turned upwards, placing a hand on her forehead, stroking the skin gently. She looked peaceful. It was nice. 

You were too engrossed in how calm she looked to notice the door opening slightly ajar, Hyunjin’s head peering out of the side as he checked in. He came up behind you, down on his knees as he placed a hand on your upper back.

“Did she fall asleep okay?”

“Yeah,” you whispered, “she fell asleep as soon as I started reading her book.”

You stood, tip-toeing out of her room and back to the kitchen. He soon followed, grabbing your wrist, and pinning you against the fridge. The action took you aback, the cool temperature of the fridge calling onto your skin as he pinned you against it. His head bowed down, eyes boring into yours as he leaned in even closer. You bit down on your bottom lip, looking up at the once man of menace as you tilted your head, watching him move in what seemed to be slow motion as his lips touched yours. They connected so easily. You could feel the heat behind them, body already pushing up against you as he groaned into you. The contact was heavy, and you didn’t know why, but you really did not want it to stop. 

He was listening to your mind, hands snaking down your side, halting at your hips and squeezing the flesh, spinning you around, lower back hitting against the bench, hard as he continued to kiss you fervently. You pulled away, wincing from the slight pain it caused. His eyebrows furrowed, pulling away as he came to the realization of what he had just done.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, index and middle finger sitting on his lips, “I’m so sorry, I should have asked I-”

“It’s fine,” you nodded, averting his gaze at all means. Your chest was heavy, breathing dramatically in unison with Hyunjin. You weren’t sure what to do now, seeing as he had regretted his advances.

“I’m also sorry about,” he paused, waving his hands in the air, “all of that. She’s a lot.”

“Oh,” you nodded, “I understand. Did you want to talk about it?”

You could feel him pacing up and down, fingers on his chin as he began to explain himself.

“Ugh she’s just,” he grunted, anger visible in his face, “she’s such a piece of work. We were married for 10 years, 10 years!! She cheated on me for at least half of the marriage, barely paid attention to me or my art. Came home drunk around my daughter multiple times, bringing home different partners. Men, women, anybody she could cheat on me with.”

Your eyes squinted, cringing at how horrible she sounded. He paused, standing next to you with his back also against the kitchen bench. His head rolled back, hands covering his face as another large sigh escaped his lips.

“I finally gained the courage to file the divorce papers, but now, she shows up here every now and then, solely to just annoy me. Me? I don’t care, I was so over the relationship a long time ago, but it’s my daughter I worry about. She is terrified, and her coming here only reminds her of the times where strangers would come into the house.”

“She doesn’t need that,” you slightly interjected, turning to face him.

He removed his hands off his head, turning to face you.

“Exactly,” he exclaimed, “you get it!.”

“Yes of course,” you replied back, just as much enthusiasm in your voice, “children need stability.”

This side of Hyunjin was very refreshing. It was nice to see such a genuine side of caring, and your perspective of this man had changed drastically, and you were not complaining. He stood close to you once again, hands traveling back to where they were prior.

“Thank you for all of that, back there,” he smirked, thumbs pressing into your sides, “if there’s any way I could thank you for doing that, I would.”

The implication caused the heat in your face to rise. There were many things you were thinking. Hyunjin down on his knees, you down on your own, hair back. A chuckle escaped your lips, biting down on your bottom lip once more as you looked up at him. Your arms were in the air, traveling up and around Hyunjin’s neck. His hips pushed against your own, left leg splitting your legs down the middle. His thigh flexed, grinding against your core as you whimpered. His smirk grew, leg twitching more, almost like he was experimenting how much sound he could get out of you. You were treading on extremely dangerous waters. He was a very stressed out man, and you would be lying if you said that this day wasn’t a bundle of stress.

“Are you sure,” you paused, taking a deep breath, “you want to do this?”

“Take it as my thank you for, you know, being so good with kids.”

You said nothing, instead using your lips to reply, reaching up to his. The reconnection was even more passionate than before. His tongue was already pushing, begging for entrance as you opened your mouth, tongues wrestling hard as he subtracted his leg, hoisting you up and onto his counter. Your legs were parted, inviting him in as you took your hands away from his neck, wrapping them around his lower back and pulling him close. The sounds of metal clanging on the floor took you of your dazed lust. Luckily his daughter was a heavy sleeper, because he swiped everything off the counter, including his keys, wallet, even his phone as he lunged onto his own counter, pushing you down, grabbing your wrists and pinning them down above your head. His body was on top of your, crawling up your body as he skipped your lips, trailing past your jaw, down your neck, and right to your chest. The kisses were small, feverish and abrupt. These were little luxuries that he wanted to give to you. Small, yet teasing bits of pleasure as a sneak peak of what was to come. His face came back to your own, eye level with you as he whispered, “take it off.”

You needed to get up, pushing him off of you as you stood, slowly unbuttoning each button on your dress. Hyunjin stood there, leaning on his knees as he watched you. So much hunger, so much desire, lust. Desperate to relieve stress. To forget about what had just happened. In all honesty, it really didn’t matter, he just needed you right now. A huff came from his lips as he watched you, and in his opinion, you were taking way too much time to gett this stupid fucking dress off. He leaped from the counter, assisting you in getting the job done as he undid the last three buttons, ripping it up and above your head, planting itself on the floor. The sudden exposure of the no bra, panties only combo was a little confronting to say the least. Hyunjin’s eyes ogled at your body. It made you self-conscious for a moment, but that was quickly wiped away, seeing as he was pushing your back into the counter,pressing a quick kiss to your lips as he grazed straight down to where he wanted him. He looked up at you as he tongue stuck out of his lips,gently licking his top one before diving into your left nipple. The sound from you was immediate, a soft groan escaping your lips as your hands involuntarily traveled into the thickness of his hair as you brought him closer, more intimate to your body as his entire mouth latched onto your parallel nipple, teeth digging into this delicate flesh. His fingers were on the other, twisting and pinching in an attempt to stimulate the similar feeling.

“Shit,” you whispered, unable to contain your profanity, “Hyunjin I-”

“You like that,” he mumbled, taking his mouth off your breasts for a brief moment, “talk to me baby.”

“Yes,” you mumbled, unaware of how loud you were in the heavenly bliss that was Hyunjin’s mouth, “how are you?”

He arose at your question, grabbing your wrist, and placing it in between his legs.

“Oh wow,” you gasped, feeling his intense bulge, “you’re really hard.”

He scoffed at your response, “is that all you have to say?”

“Was there something else I was supposed to say?”

“Touche,” he smirked, stepping away for a brief moment. He lifted his arms, removing his own shirt. He quite enjoyed the way your smile dropped, gaze becoming enveloped by his torso. At least 65% of his torso was covered. Your mouth was agape, hands unconsciously stuck onto his body, feeling the texture of his ink under the prints of your fingers. You always had a thing for tattoos.

“Are you enjoying yourself there?”

You were brought out of your curiosity, snapped back by the seductive tone of the man of the body you were fixated on, looking up at his look of satisfaction at how lost you were, how attracted you were to him.

“Have you had these for a long time? The tattoos, I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” he replied, grabbing your wrist, placing your hand against the ink on his chest, “this one is fresh, about a week old, the other two,” he paused again, placing on hand on his rib, the other just below his waistline, “these are a couple of years old.”

“Oh wow,” you gasped, marveling at the artistry of the unique tattoos, “they’re so beautiful.”

“They are?”

“Oh of course,” you scoffed, looking back up at Hyunjin, “I never took you for someone that likes fine lines.”

He said nothing, instead using all of his force to push back up into you. A loud groan escapes your lips, Hyunjin’s hand wrapping around your lips. Your eyes widened, realizing how loud he was causing you to be.

“Sorry,” you mumbled under his hand, skin on his calloused painter's hand tickled from the vibrations, “I just, I don’t know what it is, but I just simply cannot control myself.”

Hyunjin’s hands traveled back to your hips. In a matter of seconds, you faced the opposing wall, back bent over the coolness that was his kitchen counter as your hand spread to your sides. His presence could be felt, outline the stance of your own as his fingers came to your ear, gently pushing the hair behind your lobe. Coming closer, you gasped, teeth gripping onto the bottom of your lobe as he whispered, low and harsh tones vibrating through your skin as he spoke.

“Please, let me thank you, you know, for helping me out.”

You could not see, but you could hear the drawstring of his pants coming undone, undergarments swiped off, all the way until you could feel him. Feel his nakedness pressing against your behind. He felt big, thick, you weren’t sure. All you were sure of was that your core was throbbing, dripping wet. The residue was dripping out and onto the floor, making Hyunjin salivate. He grabbed his length, jaw dropping when he saw how easily the tip of his cock glided through your folds. 

“S-shit,” he stuttered, trying not to get too carried away with things, “you’re so wet.”

“Yes,” you mumbled, though barely coming together at pleasure his cock was giving you, “so, good, more.”

“You want more huh?”

“Please,” you blurted, whining at the top of your lungs, “give it to me.”

“Fuck,” he shivered, lowering himself towards your gaping hole, “how could I say no?”

A simultaneous moan escaped both of your lips, another one coming from you as his cock filled you up, a very slow pace at that.

You were correct in your assumptions about Hyunjin being thick, seeing as he really was stretching you out. It wasn’t painful, just confronting. He went slow, able to tell that taking him was a lot. He cooed, lips attaching to your neck as he waited, wanting you to move against him. Give him a sign to say it was okay and that you were well adjusted to the gratifying stretching out his dick was giving you. 

“Holy shit,” you whimpered, sliding your hips against him, “you’re so big. Feels so good though.”

“Yeah? Does it?”

“Yes, Hyunjin.”

It was the first time he had heard his name from you in such a, well, sexual manner. It was a weakness he didn’t know he was capable of having. His throat swelled up, instead, hips snapping immediately. He didn’t know if it was because you were saying his name, or if it was the fact that you had completely let go, letting him take you. Maybe it was from past trauma in his previous marriage, he really didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted to hear it again, and again, and again, over and over until your throat gave out, vocal noodles rubbing together. Hyunjin wanted to fuck you so raw, so dumb that the only thing he wanted you to be able to say was his name.

“Say it again,” he grumbled, teeth sinking into your neck, “say my name again.”

“Hyunjin,” you moaned, causing his hips to snap one more time, hard, “fuck, Hyunjin.”

“You’re so fucking dirty,” he grinned, picking up his pace inaise of you, “you sound like such a slut when you say my name like that.”

Your hips moved against his involuntarily, little self control to be found at the heaviness of his words. Maybe it was the reason you found yourself caught up in this, well, entanglement. It was true. The first time you had conversed, it was hurtful. But the second, and the third time, you felt different. You should have just ignored it. That familiar ache that formed between your legs when he looked at you. So much disgust, so much irritation in his eyes, it really turned you on. 

You felt himself lean back, the pressure of his body weight removed as he put one foot up on his counter, hands grabbing your hips as he changed his position, thrusting into you from a new angle. Your head was thrown back, eyes rolling to the back of your head at how well he was able to fuck you. It hadn't felt like long, but the buildup from a nice slow, gentle pace to a fast, hard, loud skin slapping pace was nowhere to be found. His hips were already working hard, fingers clipped onto you for dear life as he truly fucked you hard. The sound of skin was so loud, so lewd, it really baffled you how his daughter had woken up from mere dialogue, but not from the sound of a moan escaping your lips at every thrust. Hyunjin’s breath was heavy, easily heard through his teeth as he began to grunt. His hands loved to travel, heavily gripping your ass, throwing a couple of spanks in there. The pain crept up into you quickly, but you loved every second of it. It was like Hyunjins already knew your body inside out. Where to touch you, how much heat to apply. He was reading you like a book, and not part, not one inch of your body was complaining. From the slightly purple marks already scattered across your neck, or the red handprints prominent against your ass cheeks, Hyunjin was truly blowing your mind, and every single bit of this was bringing you closer to the edge. 

“Oh my god,” you moaned, “Hyunjin I can’t-”

“Say it again baby,” he grunts, moving even faster, “ I love it when you say my name like that.”

“Hyunjin,” you whined, “Hyunjin, Hyunjin, Hyunjin.”

“Oh fuck,” he shivered, “I’m not gonna last much longer if you keep doing that.”

A small giggle left your mouth, truly enjoying how easy it was to rile him up. You reached around, gripping tightly onto his hand as you yanked him forward, abs pressed against your back once more as your brought his fingers to your mouth, eagerly sucking on his digits, coating them in spit and saliva, entrenching them with as much of your juices as you can before withdrawing them, and placing them against your bundle of nerves. Your legs gave way almost immediately. The combination of Hyunins slender fingers effortlessly rubbing your clit, and the utmost speedy pace was becoming too much. Hyunjin chuckle was justified, admiring how easily it was for you to falter, to become over-stimulated. In a way he was grateful, knowing you were close from the way you were clenching around him, knowing that he wasn’t far off himself. The other part of him loved to see it. It was so easy to fuck you like this. It helped him relieve himself of his stress, his ex wife, all of it. He knew he was mean to you today, sure, but he really wasn’t aware of the stress that was pent up in his body. It only became apparent when he gazed down, seeing his hard and fast his cock was moving in and out of your drenched pussy.

“Fuck fuck,” you mumbled, “I’m going to cum.”

“Me too,” he grunted, hips noticeably slowing, “fuck this pussy till it’s screaming, begging for me to stop.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you moaned, unable to form any coherent sentences, “fuck fill me up Hyunjin, please fill me up.”

“Fill you up with my cum huh?”

“Yes! Please! Fuck me fuck me fuck me,” you bursted, somtach beocming tight, “I need to cum.”

“Cum for me then baby.”

He couldn't finish his sentence, orgasm taking over your body as your back collapsed, hand gripping onto his counter top for dear life, not wanting to embarrass yourself and collapse onto the floor.  Hyunjin gasped, seeing his cum spill out of your abdomen, spasming heavily as he came to his own high, releasing himself into you. A gasp from your mouth soon followed, seeing his own juices spilling out of your pussy, dripping down your leg. You turned in shock, bringing a hand to your stomach, wincing at the pain, and the long red mark stretched across your stomach. Hyunjin looked down, bringing his own hand to it, concerned at the color of the mark.

“Holy shit, are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” you chuckled, brushing it off, “it’s fine, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

The expression on his face did not budge, and it made you appreciative. Someone who fucs, hard, but also someone who can be gentle. He moved swiftly, sweeping underneath your legs and taking you in, carrying you bridal style in his arms as he brought you to his bathroom. Opening the door, he smiled, putting you down, and opening the shower door. Any outsider would be in hysterics, seeing the two of you walk around his compartment completely butt naked. But it didn’t matter, you had other ideas anyway.

“You can shower in here. I’ll also grab your clothes. Then we can work on the project,” he paused, scarting the back of his head awkwardly, “if that’s okay with you of course.”

You twrield your finger in your hair, attempting to be innocent after such sinful acts had been committed. Your brain clicked, creating an idea that seemed too irresistible to say no to.

“You look pretty worn out yourself,” you smirked, twindling around, and yanking his arm inside with you, “unless you think that’s a bad idea, and you wouldn’t want to join me of course.”

Pushing his back against the wall, you dropped to your knees, watching him turn the shower nozzle, watching the droplets pour across your already drenched face, hair sticking to your forehead. They cascaded on the edge of his pelvis, dripping across your face as you looked up at him.

“I’m sure you have so much stress built up in those muscles,” you pouted, soothingly rubbing your hands on either side of his body.

“Just say the words,” you whispered, moving closer and closer to his hips, “or we can work on the project,” you pouted, “like you suggested.”

“No,” he shouted, quickly covering his mouth, “we can work on the project later.”

Inching closer, you stuck your tongue out, barely touching his tip. This was going to be a long night.

[ptergwen]

web of lies

take a leap. if you start to fall, the net will appear to catch you.

photographer!peter x journalist!reader || masterlist

w/c: 7.1k

warnings: swearing, one drinking mention, descriptions of anxiety, and angst if ya squint

summary: peter can’t stop holding your hands, betty and ned are the modern day bonnie and clyde, ned is a terrible guy in the chair, the osborn’s are up to something, and mj hates you all

a/n: y’all i’m super excited about this series like i haven’t had an idea i’ve really loved in months? so it’s good to be back !!! there are tons of things i have planned and i can’t wait to share them with all of you hehe i really hope you enjoy part one <3 happy reading

to be honest, which is what you do best, you’ve had a thing for peter parker your whole time at the daily bugle. you actually almost told him once.

a couple months ago, peter walked you home on a night you worked overtime. he’d came in last minute to leave some pictures on your boss’s desk. no one else but you was there, hunched at your computer in the dim office lighting. peter was pleasantly surprised to see you, yet concerned for your well-being. you had to put your finishing touches on a story.

he didn’t feel comfortable letting you travel alone at that hour. so, he went with you when you were ready. his company was more than welcomed. you told peter about your article while you two sat on the subway. he’d listened intently, your head resting on his shoulder and his arm around you. he made sure you got to your apartment building alright as well.

“hey, peter?” you’d asked, halfway up the steps. he was waiting until you were inside and safe to leave. “hm? you good?” he’d smiled sort of expectantly. “yeah. i... i wanted to say...”

your words got caught in your throat when he gave you the softest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen. you couldn’t do it. for some reason, you were too scared to confess how you felt. “thanks again for walking me home,” you’d settled on. he’d seemed disappointed that was what you wanted to tell him. nevertheless, he said not to worry about it before taking off.

that one moment perfectly captures it all; how yours and peter’s narrative plays itself out.

—

“we’ve got an update on hydra v. the people!”

“those freaky giraffes escaped the zoo... again.”

“shoot one more spitball and it’ll be your last.”

“does anyone have an aspirin?”

welcome to the daily bugle, where the chaos never ends and the calm never starts. you’ll find new york’s finest writers, publishers, and creatives of all kind right here. that would include you. you’re one of the top journalists in the whole building, according to mr. norman osborn. he’s the brilliant and slightly insane man who runs this place.

although it’s rare for someone in your field, you were hired straight out of college. norman read a few pieces you’d written and loved them so much that he offered you a job. full time, full benefits, no questions asked. there was something special about the way you wove your words together. your writing had its own voice. a strong voice, one the paper was severely lacking.

you’ve been with the bugle for just over a year now. it’s not the quiet, nine to five gig you were initially expecting it to be. you’re each very unique individuals in your office, and there’s never a dull moment because of it. your coworkers can be found hosting debates on the riskiest topics or tackling each other for blueberry muffins, and that’s just a regular tuesday. the place is stranger than strange. but, it’s become home.

thanks to mr. osborn being so accommodating, you actually settled in rather quickly. another big help has been the friends you’ve made. your first was michelle jones, who prefers to be called mj. she’s a fellow journalist with a wickedly dark humor that trickles into her writing. if you had to describe her in one word, it would be blunt. mj is as real as it gets, and also eternally loyal. she keeps her circle small, so you’re honored you get to be in it.

mj sits right next to you, which means you’re always talking through your days. that’s due in part to the way your office is set up. there aren’t any cubicles, tables and swirly chairs taking up their space instead. norman heard it was more progressive, probably from his son harry.

harry is about your age, only a couple of years older. he hangs around quite a lot, but doesn’t do much with his time besides that. according to norman, he’s still seeking out his passion. he’s banking on him finding a suitable career at the bugle. he’d like to pass this all on to harry some day, hopefully sooner than later. either way, you don’t mind having harry here. he’s super funny and friendly with everyone.

there’s also ned leeds, who’s an editor and reviews most of your pieces. he’s sweeter than candy, even when he’s ripping your grammar to shreds. on the rare occasions you’re not discussing breaking news, you two talk about movies. ned is a film buff and gives you the best recommendations. you’re convinced he was a critic in his past life.

last but so from least is peter parker. he only works for the bugle part time, since he’s still in school. you both graduated from your respective colleges the same year. peter wants to get his masters degree, though. he’s a photographer who’s aspiring to be a cinematographer. him and ned have their passion for the industry in common, and that’s what makes them such great friends.

you learned this and more from the times you and peter have partnered up on stories. he’s one of your best friends not only at the bugle, but in your entire life. the many long nights you’ve spent collaborating have brought you close to each other. they consist of drinking and deep talks, along with some actual work. he takes the pictures, you do the writing. you’ve been told you make a lovely pair.

peter says it himself, too. you’d like to believe he means it as more than coworkers. he’s so caring, and smart, and pure, and peter. yeah, you like him an awful lot. you can hardly stand the feeling of it sometimes.

the fact that you you haven’t come clean already is ridiculous.

“goddamn. not again,” you mutter out. “em, you better come look at this. it’s bad.” mj wheels over to you in her chair with a puzzled look. her eyes follow yours, landing on your computer. “leeds just sent this? to everyone?” she questions, your reply a short hum. you’re both staring daggers at the email your screen displays.

ned is responsible for assigning each journalist their own topics to cover. he’s been lacking a bit recently, having you write up think pieces on fluffy things. in other words, stuff that no one cares about. he asked you to compare oat milk and almond milk just last week. you’d hoped this week would be better, but here you are.

“this is ass. who does he think we are, buzzfeed?” mj scoffs at her own words. the daily bugle prides itself on being a reliable news source, on paper and tv. you’re starting to stoop down to the low level of your competitors. “he assigned me some tiktok dance trend. i’m not writing a single word about that app.” she sets her elbows down on the table, head in her hands.

“aw, why not? grandma mj isn’t down with the kids?” you tease and click out of the upsetting email. “i don’t write for kids,” mj deadpans. she pushes her glasses up on her nose. “what’d you get?” “the evolution of memes,” you gloomily reply. you’re surprised norman has been approving these topics. then again, ned is the head editor. he can do whatever he wants regardless of approval.

mj glares over at the kitchen, where betty brant currently resides. she’s making two hot chocolates instead of her usual one. “i blame her,” mj mumbles to you. your eyebrows furrow. “dude, what? betty is an angel. she doesn’t even work in editing.” betty is the bugle’s highest rated anchorwoman. her and her news team are on people’s televisions every night.

“no, but she has been spending a generous amount of time with leeds,” mj grumbles. she’s admittedly very nosy. the upside is that she tells you any juicy office drama there is. “my theory is betty’s making him give us crap stories so she can report the good ones.” she glances over at you to see what you think. “no way. that can’t be allowed... or legal,” you laugh back.

as if on cue, ned appears next to betty in the kitchen. he takes the extra hot coco that’s piled high with whipped cream. betty tucks a sheet of paper into his suit pocket and kisses his cheek, then he’s gone. you can only gasp as you watch this unfold. what has she done to poor, clueless ned?

“not such an angel anymore, huh?” mj smirks in satisfaction. “suddenly, she has red horns and a pitchfork,” you bitterly agree with your tongue in your cheek. betty waves to you two on her way back to broadcasting. mj gives her a fake nice finger wave, you ignoring her. “we can’t sit back and let this happen, em. we have to do something,” you decide. “let’s tell norman.”

uninterested, mj takes off her glasses and starts to clean them. “like he’ll believe us. yeah, golden girl betty brant is sabotaging the writer’s room,” she rewords her previous statement to put its stupidity in perspective. you throw your hands up. “she is, though! we literally watched it happen!” mj puts her freshly wiped glasses back on and sighs.

“i doubt norman would care, y/n. every newspaper to ever exist is corrupt somehow.” your pessimistic old pal has a point. however, you’re not so willing to accept it. “why can’t we be the first one that isn’t?” you offer a small smile. mj snickers, wheeling back to her own computer. “those are words of the innocent.” she’s already tapping her fingers across the keyboard.

“i thought you weren’t doing the tiktok piece,” you say under your breath. you’re slightly pissed mj turned you down, since she’s the reason you know about betty’s meddling. “i’m not,” mj answers sharply. “i’m gonna email quentin and ask if we can change our topics. happy?” quentin beck is another editor in the building. he’s not bad, but he is intimidating. no one typically goes to him as their first option.

“i’m thrilled,” you confirm and grin at mj to emphasize it. “thanks for stepping up. you’re forgiven.” “i didn’t realize i had to be sorry,” mj notes, this time in a playful manor. she shakes her head as she begins writing. “you and your morals.”

what you value most in your career is honesty, under any circumstances. of course, the other daily bugle writers are the same. norman strictly prohibits clickbait and crazy headlines because that isn’t real news. you leave that to companies like buzzfeed. you’re honest in the sense that you say whatever has to be said, what everyone else is too afraid to. you’ll speak your truth no matter who tries to stop you.

it didn’t used to be that way. there’s some childhood trauma that remains deep in the back of your mind. you’ve left that behind you now, having over a decade to cope with it. hey, they say the past is in the past. what’s important is your takeaway, that you would never let yourself or anyone else be silenced from there on out. never again.

quentin ends up giving you the okay to write different stories. he lets you and mj choose choose your own because he’s got “better things to do” and you’re “big girls.” what a peach he is. mj goes with how capitalism is continuing to provoke global warming. she has something to say about every major world issue, and you admire the hell out of her for it.

you’re a bit stuck when it’s time to write your article. it’s terribly ironic because you pushed for this. you aren’t too worried, though. the city is crawling with material, so you’ll find what you’re looking for eventually. lucky for you, some much needed inspiration comes skipping out of the elevator.

“morning, peter,” you hear liz greet him at the front desk. she’s your floor’s receptionist. her wisdom and patience keep this place going. “hi, liz. how’s it going?” he asks. “things have been quiet... mostly. can i do anything for you?” liz peers up at him. peter sports a shy smile. “uh, yeah. mr. osborn wanted to see me?” “right. hang on.” she nods, dialing his office phone number.

it’s endearing how peter calls him mr. osborn, seeing as the rest of you go with norman. he’s probably the politest guy you’ve ever met.

grinning, liz puts down the phone. “you can go in whenever you’re ready. good luck!” peter laughs nervously and turns to leave. “thanks, you too.” his face falls when he realizes his mistake. “wait, i- i didn’t mean to say that. that was stupid. you’re not-“ “it’s fine, peter,” liz reassures him. his anxiety makes him trip over his words sometimes. that, and he’s a bit dorky in general. you find it rather adorable.

you also wonder what exactly he needs good luck for. he’s not even supposed to be working today, so your curiosity as to what’s going on has been piqued.

“um, i’m gonna go now. bye!” peter rushes off, his face tinted pink from the embarrassing encounter. you’re hoping he’ll stop and talk with you for a little while, but he heads straight to norman’s office. your whole body deflates at that. mj notices from her peripherals.

“what’s the matter? missing your hubby?” she coos, her words dripping in sarcasm. “no,” you lie. “i’m... i don’t know what to write about.” ok, there’s some truth. mj gives you a couple pats on the shoulder. “ask parker for help. you two work... well together. don’t you?” this must be the zillionth time you’ve heard that.

“we do,” you murmur and glance at norman’s closed door. peter is hidden behind it. “i just don’t wanna bug him. he has finals soon, and whatever norman is putting him up to. it’s my job, anyway.” mj pokes your arm. “those sound like excuses to me,” she concludes, still jabbing at you childishly. “you really just don’t wanna tell him you like-“

“can you keep it down?” you hiss, yanking your arm back. “he’s literally right over there.” peter stands up and shakes norman’s hand. you catch it through the blinds on his window. “y/n, you were drooling over his mere presence only minutes ago,” mj prefaces, a smile pulling at her lips. “you can handle three little words. i like you, that’s it. spit it out already.”

you’ll never admit this to mj, but she’s right. you lost your momentum after your first failed attempt to say the three little words. you’re still not sure what stopped you. you’d shared the details of that faithful night with her, and she’s been pushing you to try again since.

the door to norman’s office opens, and out walks peter. he’s beaming after their conversation, which seems like a good sign. harry passes peter on his way in to pay his dad a visit. he claps him on the shoulder, peter happily accepting before continuing his stride back into the main office. it takes a moment to register that he’s coming towards you.

you quickly set your focus back on your computer so he doesn’t think you’ve been watching him. even though, you definitely have.

“y/n!” peter calls your name. he’s on the opposite side of your table, in front of you. “peter!” you match his tone. “i was just dropping by. i thought i’d say hey while i’m here.” he’s still grinning. “what’re you doing?” he looks cute as ever in an oversized and cream colored sweater. his curls are slicked back with a tad too much product, cheeks rosy. you gaze up at him when he rests his arms on the table.

“pretending to be productive,” mj answers for you, pressing her lips together. peter cocks his head to the side. “pretending?” “ignore her. she’s being a shit stirrer today,” you explain. “like every other day,” he jokes, earning a laugh from you. mj just tuts and keeps writing. “talk about me like i’m not here,” she mumbles to herself, then gets back into her article.

“anyways, i thought you didn’t work today?” you ask to take the attention off yourself. also, because you’re curious. “oh! get this.” peter perks up even more, if that’s possible. he has energy like no other. “you know alex in broadcasting? betty’s camera guy?” “what about him?” you wonder. “he called in sick earlier this morning, with the flu or something.” he’s oddly excited to announce this. that prompts you to make a funny face.

biting back another smile, peter elaborates. “mr. osborn needed someone to fill in for him, so he picked me. i’ll be here all week.” it makes sense, since peter knows how to work a camera and does so wonderfully. you give him a celebratory push at his chest. “peter, that’s amazing! this is the perfect way to transition from pictures to film, right?” he’s nearing his finals at school, which consist of more movie-like projects. the news will be great practice.

then, he’s off to hollywood. you’ll put that out of your mind for now.

“exactly! i think it’ll be a good place to start. the pay isn’t bad either.” peter wiggles his eyebrows at you, you giggling once again. you do a lot of that when he’s around. that’s going to be more often now. “plus, i get to see you. everyone wins.” he squeezes your hand that was just on him. your heart begins to thump. “except alex,” you challenge, playing with his fingers. “but, for real. i’m happy you get to do this and that we’ll be spending more time together.”

“thanks, y/n/n. me too.” peter grins and leans over, taking a peek at your computer screen. there’s a blank word document on it. “you never told me what you’re up to,” he chuckles. “guess mj was right... nothing.” “i’m always right,” she chimes in from next to you. you look between the two of them with a scowl. “i haven’t found my story yet. i don’t know, this never happens.” peter nods as you share your dilemma. “no good ideas are coming to me,” you murmur.

“they will. you have a way of attracting things.” he licks his lower lip, your heart completely stopping this time. “well, i gotta go set up for rise and shine with betty brant.” he waves his hand like he’s presenting his words. that’s what betty calls her morning news segment. “be careful with her. she’s being really sketchy these days,” you warn peter, mj grunting in agreement.

confused, peter purses his lips. “really? ned says she’s a sweetheart. they’ve been going out for a while.” mj pops her head up and adjusts her glasses. “did ned also tell you she’s bribing him to give her all of our scoops?” she’s asking rhetorically because she already knows the answer. of course he didn’t. “it’s one thing to not like her. you’re just making things up now,” peter huffs.

mj kicks your foot under the table. “i told you no one would believe us. not even peter gullible parker.” “it’s benjamin,” he corrects her. “whatever,” she brushes it off, resuming her work.

peter does tend to be sort of naive, to only see the good in things when there’s plenty of bad. you’re the same in that way, unless you hang around mj for too long.

“is that true? betty’s stealing your stories?” peter turns to you and asks. you gesture to your screen. “i don’t have one, so you do the math.” he hums sympathetically. he’ll listen to you, never mj. “i’m sorry. thanks for telling me, y/n. i’ll watch out for her.” he bends his fingers to look like goggles, putting them around his eyes. you sigh lightheartedly.

“are you twenty two years old or twelve?” mj remarks, but not without a comeback from peter. “you’re, like, eighty five. worry about that.” they’ve had this type of banter for as long as you’ve known them. it’s equal parts amusing and exhausting. “don’t be late on your first day.” you snap peter out of it with a knowing smile. he returns it.

“i hope something crazy happens so you can write about it.” he’s walking backwards now, towards the elevator. “see you later, pete,” is all you say back, yet another laugh threatening to escape you. “see you. bye, michelle,” peter says just to bug her. “it’s mj,” she groans without looking up. he shrugs. “not so fun, is it?”

after peter is gone, you try to get back into work. or rather, you try to start your work. what he said about you having a way of attracting things keeps ringing in your head. was he flirting? no, he couldn’t have been. peter parker doesn’t flirt. words aren’t his strong suit, and you have countless memories that prove this to be true. earlier with liz, for example.

you’re probably reading way into this. peter was simply doing what any good friend would do and gave you advice.

it’s late in the afternoon when anything worth mentioning happens again. peter is still with betty, as far as you know. they’re probably preparing for the nighttime news now. all you’ve done since seeing him is nibble on snacks and bug mj, who’s almost done with her story despite your distractions. this is really bad, considering your deadline to submit is at the end of today.

you’ve never missed a deadline.

mj emails her work to quentin while you repeatedly bang your head on the table. she hits send before deciding to entertain you. “whatcha doing over there?” she cautiously prompts, powering off her computer. “trying to get an idea. i’m desperate, if you couldn’t tell.” your voice is muffled. “i could.” mj grabs your shoulders and pulls you back so you’re sitting up. you childishly pout.

“y/n, the only thing that’s gonna give you is brain damage,” mj says sternly, then softens her tone. “why don’t you ask for an extension? norman gives me them all the time.” whining, you slump down in your chair again. “yeah, but you’re you! we do things differently, have different expectations put on us.” she’s back to cold mj after you say that. “alright. at least i did something today besides pine over that little-“

mj’s insult for peter is interrupted by harry. “ladies, what’s shaking?” he comes up to you two with a the hint of smirk on his face. you manage a nod to acknowledge him. “oh, hey... harry,” mj unenthusiastically replies. she’s the one person who isn’t really a fan of him. “not much. y/n was just having a tantrum.” “she was not,” you dismiss her. “it’s work stuff. you know your dad.”

harry clicks his tongue in a teasing way. “yep, the grind never stops in this joint. boss man is...” he does the sign for cuckoo with his finger. you laugh a little at that. “in a good way,” you add on. mj only watches you two, blinking blankly. harry gives you a definitive pat on the back. “before i forget, he wants to see you.” that gets mj talking. “norman?” she questions. “your dad?” you choke out at the same time.

“who else? he said you two have to talk.” harry flashes you a weary smile. “have fun in there, old sport.” you’re too busy biting the skin off your bottom lip to respond. “mhm... she will,” mj speaks on your behalf. even she sounds worried. saluting you both, harry leaves to go pester your other colleagues. you’re completely and totally fucked.

“that’s it for me!” you grin sarcastically, freaked out by harry. “i’m fired, aren’t i? i’m definitely about to get fired, and it’s all because-“ “relax!” mj cuts off your rambling. she reaches down and grasps at your wrists. “get it together, y/l/n. you’re the best we have, okay? you aren’t going anywhere.” your grin becomes a frown. “then why does norman wanna talk to me? and, why don’t i have a story?”

mj always has the answers, but this time is the execption. she lets out a breath. “i don’t know. you’ll go find out and tell me what happens.” there’s no use protesting. you’re going to have to face whatever you’re about to at some point. “ok,” you give in, defeated. “i’ll be back soon, i hope.”

the walk to norman’s office feels like a walk of shame. mj can do nothing but sit back and observe it. if this ends the way you think it will, you’ll be collecting your things and won’t ever return. norman is a kind man, and he’s usually pretty understanding. he doesn’t mind the workplace shenanigans as long as you get your job done. unfortunately, you haven’t today.

you hear your boss’s booming voice when you approach his door. inhaling deep, you knock on it, and the room goes silent. “come in,” norman responds after a few seconds. mustering up a smile, you open the door to be met with your doom. “hi, am i interrupting something?” you check. “not at all! you’re just the person i wanted to see. sit, sit,” he beckons you over. he’s not using his angry voice, so maybe you’re in the clear. you enter the room as told.

you’re shocked to see a terrified peter is already in one of the chairs. he visibly relaxes a bit now that you’re here. what the hell is happening? whatever you were expecting, this was the last thing.

taking the armchair next to peter, you sit facing norman’s desk. you nudge his arm to get his attention. his big brown eyes lock with yours. “what’s going on?” you whisper. “no idea,” peter whispers back. the two of you turn to norman again when he claps his hands. he’s plopped down into his cushy leather seat.

“so,” he begins, gaze flicking from peter to you. “you kids know why you’re here?” “is it because i missed my deadline?” you blurt out. you’re once again a nervous wreck. peter doesn’t speak, just winces. “not that. although, i did hear from ned that you turned down his assignment.” norman flicks at a post-it on his desk. “i asked quentin for one instead. me and mj,” you explain, peter’s eyes going wide.

“you talked to quentin? that guy’s bad news,” he murmurs to you. “how so?” norman questions, since it’s his employee. “he- he, um,” peter clears his throat before answering, “he’s super critical, you know? hates all my pictures.” “i love your pictures,” you assure him, the corners of his lips turning up. “your style is so cool. yeah, though. quentin’s pretty bitter.”

considering this, norman drums his fingers on the desk. “i’ll look into that. but, that isn’t why you’re here. i’m letting you off the hook this time.” your whole demeanor changes and a huge weight lifts off of you. “really? you are?” “i have a scoop of my own that i want you to cover,” he continues, peter bumping your knee happily. a toothy grin takes over your face.

“since peter will be sticking around for a while, i want him to join you.” norman waits a beat in case you have any questions. it’s been a minute since you last worked together. peter laughs in disbelief. “you want me to take over for alex and do this?” norman nods proudly. “y/n will need the extra hands, if you have them.” “yes, sir. i do,” peter immediately confirms. “my last class is next thursday, so i have the time.”

“wait, so you’re almost done? that’s awesome!” you bump peter’s knee this time. “yup, all that’s left is finals... and studying.” he mindlessly takes your hand, lacing your fingers together. you’re enjoying his gentle touches. “thank you so much, norman. seriously, i appreciate this a lot,” you tell him and mean it. “hey, no problem,” he chuckles at your eagerness. you grip peter’s hand tighter.

“what’s the story?” “ah, yes. the most important part,” norman starts, peter sharing an excited look with you. “how familiar are you two with spider-man?” his excitement fades at the question posed. it’s unbeknownst to you, caught up in the moment. “uh, same as everyone else, i guess,” you casually reply. “how come?” “he’s your subject.” norman points at you both. “you’re gonna study him over these next few months.”

peter’s hand goes limp in yours, and he gulps hard, throat feeling dry. “you mean, like, an exposé?” “no, no. there will be no exposing,” norman clarifies. “i’m sure he wears the mask for a reason.” that settles peter only slightly. you’re not sure why he’s so tense all of a sudden. “what’s our aim here, then?” you steer the conversation.

“see what new york’s favorite hero gets up to every day, how his life is beyond the crime fighting,” norman further describes your task. peter exhales a shaky breath, shifting away from you in his seat. the golden sun hits his face and reveals a bead of sweat dripping down it. you stare at his figure in worry. “you okay, peter?” “fine. i’m just... hot,” he murmurs back. his sweater does look pretty heavy, so you concede.

getting back to norman’s story, you grimace at the idea. “do you really think people will want to read that? for lack of a better term, it sounds kind of...” you pause. “basic.” “i thought the same thing at first,” he surprisingly agrees with you. “harry pitched the idea to me this morning. you won’t believe it! the other night, he caught spider-man hanging outside his window.”

“harry... harry saw him?” peter squeaks out. he uses the wool material that feels like it’s swallowing him to dab at his forehead. “he stopped on his balcony. must have been pretty late, the kid’s a night owl,” norman says about his son. your face lights up as you listen to him. “he took some shots of spidey in action, when he swung off. i saw a few. they were pretty great.” he’s grinning at his son’s success.

“maybe he’ll get into photography with you, pete,” norman suggests. peter gives him a weak smile in return. “we’d be happy to have him.” he usually has a lot more to say about his career than that. his behavior is starting to genuinely concern you. “anyway,” norman gets back on topic, “it got me thinking. how much do we really know about this guy? we’re supposed to blindly put our trust in him?”

you’re beginning to see the appeal now. you’ve written your share of pieces on the avengers and their methods, tackling the same questions norman just asked you. spider-man shouldn’t be overlooked, especially when he operates so close to your home. this could be another revolutionary superhero story in the making. and, you get to bring peter along for the ride.

“you know what? this has a lot of potential,” you smile at norman, then peter. he has his phone in his lap, fingers flying across the screen. it must be something important. you’ll discuss with norman while he takes care of that. “we could make it a weekly thing, about spider-man’s adventures. find out what we can about the man behind the mask...” peter shoots up in his seat. “without taking it off,” you finish, putting his mind at ease.

“see, i knew you were gonna love it! it was a blessing in disguise, you missing that deadline.” norman bangs his fist on the table with a hearty laugh. “what do you say, peter? you still in?” peter slips his phone back in his pocket. his tongue pokes out to wet his lips. “oh, of course. i can’t wait to work with you, y/n/n,” he speaks in a monotone voice, adding on, “again.”

something is definitely bothering him, and it isn’t the weather.

“i gotta go. betty needs me upstairs, so,” peter moves to get up, his body stiff. you assume that’s who he was texting. “thank you again, mr. osborn.” he’s rushing out of the room just like that, until you call after him. “um, don’t you wanna set a time to meet up? so we can get started?” you reasonably ask. “i... i really gotta go. find me later,” peter tells you, giving you both a tight lipped smile and running off.

“the dynamic duo is back!” norman announces to you. you’re disappointed you can’t share that sentiment with peter.

he’s absolutely booking it down the stairs, not bothering to wait for the next elevator. this is bad. this is a nightmare.

peter went from having one of his best days in a while to the worst in not even a full round of work. today started off fine, and got better when norman promoted him. it got way better when you came along. he saw your smile that makes his insides tingle, heard your laugh that’s the prettiest sound to grace his ears, held your hand that he never wants let go.

things went a bit downhill after that. betty was pushy and yelled at him a lot, demanding he only film her good angles for the segment. you and mj weren’t wrong when you told him to be careful.

later on when he saw you again, everything was okay. he was physically shaking as brad told him mr. osborn requested to see him. brad is mr. osborn’s assistant. a try-hard for sure, but good at his job. why did mr. osborn call him in? did betty complain already?

they’d been sitting in mostly silence, save for small talk until you came knocking on the door. simply being next to you was enough to ground peter and his racing thoughts. it was enough, then it wasn’t.

the whole day had gone to shit after he found out you were going to be writing stories about his alter ego. not only that, but he was helping. during the pitch, he’d texted ned to meet him in the bathroom. he was really anxious and needed a friend who understood why.

ned accidentally found out peter is spider-man last year. it’s a long story that involves peter hiding from some bad guys in the building and ned shrieking so loud the lights flickered. they’re cool now that peter talked things through with him. his secret has been kept, from what he knows.

pushing open the men’s bathroom door, peter is a mixture of sweat and ragged breaths. he’s panting from his fast descent down the staircase. he takes in his disheveled appearance using one of the mirrors. his styled hair is now damp and undone, hands trembling and palms sweaty, chest heaving. here’s his daily reminder that anxiety is not cute. as if he didn’t know.

his stupid, gigantic freaking sweater is only making things worse. it’s suffocating him. no one else is in here, so peter pulls it over his head and tosses it to the ground. he’s got a t-shirt on underneath that happens to be black. what a convenient day for him to wear the hottest material there is.

peter splashes his face with some cold water next to try and cool himself down. that doesn’t do much for him. his face still feels like it’s on fire, but now it’s wet. he takes his hands through his mop of curls, backing away from the sink.

“fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck,” peter repeats to himself. he’s silent for a moment, then rage overcomes him. he kicks open a bathroom stall. “shit! i can’t do this. what am i supposed to-“

the door creeks open, so peter shuts up in case it isn’t ned. it thankfully is, and he wears a deep frown at the sight of his best friend. “dude, what happened? you look...” “terrible. i know,” peter finishes for him. he tugs at his locks in another attempt to tame them. ned approaches him carefully. “you’re not, like, dying... are you? because betty was telling me you have to-“ “of course you were with betty,” peter exhales in frustration. “no, ned. i’m not dying.”

in ned’s defense, the text he received was very alarming. all peter wrote was, ‘EMERGENCY. SOS.’

“i mean, yeah. it was my break.” ned sits on the ledge by the window, close to peter. “you do the same with y/n.” the mention of your name upsets peter all over again. he hides his face in his hands as ned watches. “if you’re not dying, then what’s the problem?” ned finally asks. “me and y/n...” peter removes his hands from his face, meeting ned’s worried eyes. “mr. osborn wants us to do a project together.”

“uh, peter? you’ve been saying how much you miss her forever, dude! you’re not excited?” ned snorts at him. he means well, but he has no clue what he’s talking about. “no. it’s supposed to be about spider-man,” peter answers angrily. this isn’t the support he was hoping for. realizing the severity of the situation, ned gets serious.

“oh... but, you’re still doing it?” he questions. “i didn’t have a choice,” peter scoffs out. “i can’t let either of them down.” “you’ll expose yourself!” ned escalates things further. “it’s not like that. we’re gonna follow spider-man around and post updates on him,” peter says, technically in the third person. he’s given an are you insane? look from ned.

“you are spider-man! and, no offense, but you’re not so good at hiding it,” ned refers to himself finding out. “how are you gonna be in two places at once?” damnit, peter hadn’t thought about that yet. he can’t be taking pictures of spider-man and swinging from building to building simultaneously. “i- i’ll figure it out,” peter stammers, unconvincingly.

ned looks him over in a disapproving way. “jeez. you’re really putting your life on the line for this girl-“ “woman,” peter interjects, not loving ned’s attitude towards you. “have some respect.” unfazed, ned gets up from the windowsill. “speaking of women, remember betty? you’re still on the clock,” he changes the subject. peter nearly forgot he has to go film her segment.

“i’ll head up to her now,” peter gives in. he scoops up his discarded sweater, not bothering to check his appearance again. ned follows behind him to the door. “we wrote her script together, you know,” he gladly informs peter, who already knows from you. “not really a flex,” peter mumbles his response. “peter, lighten up.” ned hits at his shoulder. the two of them exit the bathroom.

“you’ll figure this out later. i can always help.” he shoots him a sugary sweet smile. “thanks, ned. for talking with me and everything.” peter doesn’t smile back. they do a quick bro handshake, then they’re going their separate ways. “have a good show, dude!” ned yells back, to which he doesn’t get a response. peter doesn’t have it in him.

he allows himself to take the elevator back up to broadcasting. he’s so drained from the several anxiety attacks he endured. while peter waists for the elevator, he contemplates all the issues he’d better solve. it’s a relief to hear it ding because it brings him back to earth. that doesn’t last long because both you and betty are there when the door opens.

you’d each had the same idea, to find peter. unlike betty, your intentions were good. you asked liz if she saw peter leave. she told you he went downstairs, so you did also. betty was already in the elevator when it got to your stop. she was looking for him because, you guessed it, he had to record the news. the small space was filled with tension as you and betty occupied it.

“perfect. we’re going right back up,” betty beams, motioning for peter with her index finger. “hop in!” “coming,” peter does as told, going to stand between you and betty. she presses the button for your floor and theirs. the doors close. “pete?” you speak up, voice soft. “you kinda ran off earlier. i thought you were with betty.” “clearly, he wasn’t,” betty sneers.

you’re less concerned with her and more with peter. the sweater he looked so huggable in is now folded in his arms, his face splotchy and jaw clenched. he must have gotten triggered by something back in norman’s office.

“are you sure you’re okay? you... you can talk to me about it.” you take a step closer to peter, your doe eyes searching for his. he meets them with a tiny smile. at least, it’s real this time. “i’ll be fine, y/n/n. ‘s nice that you came to check on me, though.” “don’t mention it.” your arms loop around his neck and bring him into a hug. peter hugs you back by your middle, chin resting on your shoulder, breathing out in relief.

you keep your hands on his shoulders when you pull back. his stay on your sides, a lopsided grin now crossing his features. “spider-man...” you quirk an eyebrow. “how are you feeling about that?” “should be cool,” peter somehow maintains himself. “i’m mostly looking forward to doing it with you.”

listening in, betty joins the conversation. “what’s happening with spider-man? anything i should know?” her hand reaches into her bag and emerges with a notepad. does she ever think of her own content? “she’s nothing if not persistent,” you grumble to peter. chuckling, he pulls you into his chest. if he didn’t hold you back, you would’ve pounced on her.

“we’re gonna do a piece on him,” peter tells her. “you can’t copy or steal this one because it’s already been approved,” you contribute, smiling smugly as peter holds you tighter. betty is taken aback. “are you accusing me of stealing? who said i-“ “ned ratted on you... sorry,” peter says in a sing song voice. squealing, you jump away from him. “he did? we were right?”

“mj’s never wrong,” he reiterates. “mj knew about this? oh my god, i can’t believe her!” betty stomps her foot. “we got you on candid camera.” you make a clicking noise with your mouth. peter mimes taking a picture to back you up. “alright, alright. i won’t do it again,” betty mumbles, turning away from you two in annoyance.

“finally!” you hold up your hand for a high five, which peter gives you. “we really do make the best team,” he hums. your fingers intertwine with peter’s, and he lays his palm flat against yours. he prays extremely hard you don’t notice that it’s sweaty. you do, but you couldn’t care less.

“i was wondering when you’d wanna start our... research?” peter asks you, his lip between his teeth. “you were saying something earlier. maybe we could make a schedule.” “how elaborate of us that would be,” you tease. that earns a breathy laugh from peter. with a knowing smile, you put your free hand back on his shoulder.

“what are you doing tonight?”

-

peter parker taglist

@saturnpeter @tpwk-grande @itstaskeen @missyouhollnd @becicamina @dummiesshort @zspideyy @watchitimreadinghere @my-patronus-is-mabel-pines @dpaccione @karispotters11 @theofficialzivadavid @thehumanistsdiary @kelieah @aayaissaa @petersgroupie @annab-nana @tayyx @swtltlmrvlgrl @magicalxdaydream @haoluvver @kjune113 @captainamirica @marvel-dork98 @emmastarz @killingbxys @viriditie @misshale21 @veryholland @liliswifts @tommydarlings @rebelemilu @peterspideysense @cr-uelsummer @dreamy-clousds @quaksonhehe @quxxnxfhxll @blackbat2020 @babyblue19 @falconxbarnes @zachary-s @dirtytissuebox @dracoswhore007 @heavenlyholland @thsquad @etheralholland @dhtomholland @awh-lilies @tomshufflepuff @multifamdomfan12

-

if i forgot you please lmk!

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

How I Became an Archaeologist

If you had told me when I was 15 that I would spend my life as an archaeologist, I probably would have been pretty surprised. I didn’t grow up knowing a great deal about archaeology or even being fascinated by arrowheads. At that time, I might well have asked what an archaeologist really is and what one actually does. I did get to visit the Parthenon and other ruins while on a trip with my aunt when I was sixteen. Even then, I don’t remember having more than a casual interest in what could be learned from these places. I was more interested in the living people and the new food dishes I encountered on that trip, which was my first trip outside the United States.

From talking to other archaeologists, I’ve learned that there are a lot of paths to deciding archaeology is going to be your life’s work. In my case, what led me to archaeology was anthropology, and specifically an elective course I took in the Fall of my senior year in high school that was taught by a Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts. Until then I had not been a serious student, although I did well enough in school. Perhaps I was slightly bored by most of my courses, but anthropology was anything but boring! It looked at people elsewhere in the world and over great periods of time. Many of these people lived different lives than my friends and I did, and they sometimes thought very differently about what was important in life than people here in the United States. I was fascinated, and, honestly, I particularly liked the fact that the conventions of American society, which to my teenage self were sometimes a little confining, weren’t after all the only sensible way to approach life. That year, as I chose a college to attend, I specifically looked for anthropology programs. I chose Beloit College in Wisconsin, which to this day has an excellent anthropology program.

Initially, I thought that I was most interested in cultural anthropology, but like most anthropology departments in the United States, Beloit required its anthropology majors to take courses in biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology as well as cultural anthropology. These are what are known as the four fields of American anthropology and together, they give us a more complete picture of humans in both the past and the present. Most people focus their careers in one subfield or another, though we recognize the importance of each one for understanding humans, and in most cases in North America our degrees are in anthropology not one of the subfields. In college, I found all these courses more fascinating than anything I had studied before, and I actually became a good student as I explored anthropology. I was learning so much neat stuff! I also did volunteer work in the Logan Museum at Beloit, which was founded at the end of the nineteenth century and holds some pretty amazing ethnographic and archaeological collections. It was there I first became interested in artifacts and learned to clean and care for them. After a college internship in cultural anthropology convinced me that cultural anthropology was not the most interesting part of anthropology after all, I began to focus on archaeology. I was most intrigued by my courses in Mesoamerican archaeology and North American archaeology, which before college had been completely unknown to me.

When I graduated from college, I still wasn’t sure what I would do with my life. I worked for about two years both in social work and as a tax auditor for the IRS, but decided in 1974 to try graduate school in archaeology because I still found what archaeology had taught me about past people compelling. I lived in Chicago, so I enrolled in the Ph.D. program in North American archaeology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

My graduate self in the late 1970s. Photo credit: Phillip Neusius

The biggest shock of graduate school was my professors’ almost immediate insistence that I pick what research I wanted to do. They pushed me to develop an expertise or skill within North American archaeology through my research. It sounds obvious to me now, but I think many beginning graduate students are like I was, lovers of the discipline’s knowledge, but a bit daunted by becoming an independent researcher. Developing an area of focus and specialty skills is part of becoming a professional archaeologist. One reason for this is because contemporary archaeological undertakings rely on teams of researchers, each contributing special skills and knowledge to accomplish the many aspects of excavation, analysis, and interpretation. If you envision archaeology as the solitary pursuit of an elusive artifact or site, you don’t have the picture quite right. Think instead of archaeological fieldwork involving groups of scientists working together to discover and carefully record many different bits of evidence about what the world used to be like and what people did in it. Also think about the many hours these scientists and others will spend not only in the field, but in the laboratory after an excavation is completed cleaning finds, describing artifacts, and analyzing data in order to make meaningful interpretations.

For someone like myself, who loved all aspects of anthropology, not to mention archaeology, and who had only gradually settled on North America as my geographic focus, picking a focus on entering graduate school was a hard task. There was so much that would be interesting to study! However, I did remember especially enjoying a research paper I had done in college on the relatively new interdisciplinary field of zooarchaeology, so under pressure, I told my professors I wanted to pursue this subfield in graduate school. Amazingly, this turned out to be a good choice of specialization for me. I found that I really love to work with collections of animal bone. For me, opening a bag of bone refuse from a site still is exciting. Bone identification work is a little like doing a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces. It is challenging, and it takes concentration and careful observation to piece together what you can. There is so much to figure out about any single piece of bone! What animal is it? How healthy was the animal? What part of the animal’s body is it? Has it been burned or cut? How was the bone buried and changed after the humans were done with it? Then you have to record this information so it can be combined with other observations on the assemblage of bone you are looking at. After identification, making sense of what a collection of the bones means and correlating these kinds of data with other information from a site and region requires careful analysis, but also insight and creativity. To me it is endlessly fascinating.

Besides finding that I liked the work, choosing zooarchaeology was also serendipitous since my professors were looking for a student to work with them on this aspect of a big project they were undertaking in west-central Illinois centered on the Koster site, which was first inhabited more than 9000 years ago and then reinhabited by people right up into modern times. Most importantly the poorly known Archaic Period levels were numerous, well-preserved, and distinct from each other so we could add a lot of new information through our work. For my dissertation I was able to look at the animal remains from levels of this site dated between approximately 8500 and 6000 years ago, which represent how people used animals at that time.

Koster site strata. All those dark layers are from Archaic period camps at the site. Photo credit: Del Bastian, Center for American Archaeology.

Graduate school was intense, but I continued to be fascinated by archaeology’s ability to tell the story of people lost to standard Western history. In those days I was excited to be part of this science that could do so much more than describe and take care of cool artifacts. It was a heady thing to learn that I could contribute to what was known about people who lived thousands of years ago. In later years, I’ve had to think more critically than I did then about what a privilege it is for an archaeologist to learn about the history and lives of other ethnicities. Today’s archaeologists recognize their responsibility to present information about past people for both scholarly and public use in ways that are sensitive to what is considered sacred and private by the descendants of those people. I think this is an important change in perspective, but in the 1970s most archaeologists just wanted to show that people’s stories from the past could be told using the techniques of archaeology. I certainly was happy, if a little naively so, to have found a way to contribute to telling the human story.

If I consider entering graduate school as the start of my professional career as an archaeologist, I have been pursuing this career for more than 45 years! Over the years I have done zooarchaeological and archaeological work in the American Midwest, Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast working on telling the story of people who lived as long as 9000 years ago and as recently as the Sixteenth century. I’ve worked at several universities, in a small museum, and on small and large archaeological projects in the field of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) doing archaeological survey, site excavation, and zooarchaeological identification and analysis. I’ve written scholarly papers and articles as well as a textbook on North American archaeology. However, beginning in the late 1980s, I spent more than 31 years doing research and teaching anthropology and archaeology here in Pennsylvania at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In this job I taught both undergraduates and graduate students, but, as is typical of university professors, I also spent time doing fieldwork and analysis as part of my research while at IUP. Fortunately, because archaeology is a team undertaking, I’ve been able to involve many students in my research. Working with students in research as they discover what fascinates them has been a highlight of being an archaeologist for me. I’ve now retired from teaching but not archaeology. I’m still working with both physical and digital archaeological collections both through CMNH and elsewhere and writing about archaeology. Who knows what this career still will bring me!

Drawing a profile at the Johnston site with one of my students in 2008. Photo credit: Erica Ausel, IUP Archaeology.

Tracking down a bone identification with one of my students in the Zooarchaeology Lab at IUP. Photo credit: Beverly Chiarulli.

If you are reading this blog because you are thinking about archaeology as either a career or a hobby, I hope you realize that mine is just one story among the many that could be told. Because there are so many aspects of archaeology, people come into it from all sorts of backgrounds and because of all sorts of interests. I think that it is important to remember though that it really is about understanding people and telling their stories through the artifacts and other evidence we find. This is what interested me in archaeology in the first place. Discovering the details of the human story is a giant undertaking. There is no shortage of research problems or work to do, but solving the puzzles presented by sites and collections is both challenging and fun. I’m certainly glad I decided to become an archaeologist and zooarchaeologist so many years ago!

Sarah W. Neusius is a Research Associate in the Section of Anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Definitions of Bolded Terms

anthropology -the study of humans including the physical, cultural and social aspects in the past and present.

cultural anthropology - the study of the cultural aspects of humans especially recent and contemporary social, technological, and ideological behavior observed among living people.

biological anthropology – the study of the biological or physical aspects of humans, including human biological evolution and past and present biological diversity.

linguistic anthropology - the study of the structure , history, and diversity of human languages as well as of the relationship between language and other aspects of culture.

archaeology - the study of past human behavior and culture through the analysis of material remains.

ethnographic – relating to the scientific description of people and cultures especially customs and beliefs.

Mesoamerican archaeology - the archaeology of the area from central Mexico southward through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica.

North American archaeology - the archaeology of the area from central Mexico northward throughout the United States and Canada.

zooarchaeology – a subarea of archaeology involves the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites and investigates the ecology and cultural uses of the animals represented.

assemblage - a collection of artifacts from the same archaeological context.

Archaic Period - a time period from approximately 10,000 BP to 3000 BP that is recognized in most of North America.

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) – an applied form of archaeology undertaken in response to laws that require archaeological investigations.

archaeological survey – the systematic process archaeologists use to locate, identify, and record archaeological site distribution on the landscape.

[plounce]

what if gay CATS........... were gay PERSONS

(info on this au under the cut)

theyre all shitty young adults just kind of. getting through their early 20s as best they can. or as much as they can. maybe things will get better someday, but right now they’re kind of spinning their wheels

magic exists but like eh it’s not a big thing don’t worry about it. it’s around but like whatever. not many people have it and it’s mostly just like. a curiosity or a party trick

demeter and bombularina are together, tugger and mistoffelees are together, bombularina and tugger occasionally fwb, it’s cool and aboveboard and it’s all fine

demeter:

bisexual with a preference for women. 24 years old

semi-psychic (not as powerful as tantomile or coricopat). tends to have vague and confusing prophetic dreams

dropped out of grad school for sociology due to trauma and ensuing intensified mental illness. kind of bitter about it, but tries to get through every day. general anxiety disorder even before all that

very nervous around most men she doesn’t know & trust

currently working at a barnes & noble starbucks, which sucks. she recently became the assistant manager, which turbo sucks because now she has more work for only like a buck raise, but at least she’s getting reliable shifts

her go-to therapy is cutting her hair with scissors. her hair is fried to all hell from regular bleaching

she’s learning how to crochet because she’s decided she needs to do something physically productively creative with her hands to distract herself from Stuff

bombalurina:

bisexual. 24 years old

got her bachelor’s in english two years ago and hasn’t found a job in her field and has kind of given up on it for now

she’s been bartending for like four years, does freelance editing work on the side. will occasionally write listicles for clickbait sites if she needs extra cash

literally any extra money she can save goes to tattoos. her right sleeve’s almost done

has natural red hair but dyes it cherry red

a hedonist to cope but is also just a natural hedonist. likes a good bath

i know that like the typical thing fandoms say about female characters is “doesn’t take shit” for the girlboss points but she truly does not take shit anymore. she used to take people’s shit sometimes but at this point in her life she’s tired and she has a girlfriend to be protective of. she has a couple people whose shit she will take (mostly just tugger) but besides them (and having to practice basic customer service to keep her job) she’s tired of other people’s shit! enough!

my personal take on bombalurina is a mix between the riot grrrls of the 90s and 80s punk girls, and then a dash of the greaser chicks from grease. i saw that spiked collar and my brain went OH okay i can run with this somewhere fun. same for demeter, but less so - she just has the piercings.

demelurina:

bombalurina met demeter in college at a women’s activism club, noticed her because of her dimple piercings and was like “oh someone else with a lot of metal in her face, i’ll sit next to her”

they were each other’s first off-campus roommates and were close friends. made out a couple times, but it was mostly a lot of sexual tension. there was a lot of bombalurina staring at demeter while she or demeter made out with someone else

demeter was on and off with her high school boyfriend munkustrap and bombalurina was like “oh he’s so much more stable/calm than me and she needs that, i party a bit too much for her, i shouldn’t try anything” so she just sort of. lets their almost-there peter off

(this is all bombalurina’s internal thoughts - demeter always was interested in her, but thought she was too boring for bombalurina. so neither of them thought they could pursue it)

bombalurina graduated and moved somewhere cheaper further away from campus. they kind of drift apart

munkustrap and demeter peter off and he moves away for a job (they’re still good friends, it was a very amicable breakup) and then demeter gets with macavity, which is a deeply toxic situation for her and sucks hugely and throws her whole life really off track. won’t go into further details

she finally manages to break up with him and calls bombalurina at like 2 am asking if she can pick her up, and also if she can sleep on her couch, it’s okay if that’s not okay, she just. really needs a place she feels safe, and her gut is telling her to. and of course bombalurina says yes

bombalurina also knew macavity and had also made out a couple times with him at like parties and stuff (see: staring at demeter as she makes out with people). something about transference of feelings - bombalurina was into him for a couple moments because he and demeter had a thing.

this is due to me interpreting the song “macavity” as actually about bombalurina wanting to fuck demeter and her singing as a half-repressed expression of that. i use my really good wlw brain to reach that conclusion. it’s kind of a non-competitive version of eve sedgwick’s take on the love triangle. (<-- normal thing to say)

but anyway demeter stays on bombalurina’s couch and she tries so hard to stay on track but eventually she just has to drop out. bombalurina helps her with that too. she’s just really supportive even as demeter’s life is at its lowest point. when she gets home from bartending she gets demeter to go to sleep

she just Stays with her and makes her smile and reminds her that her life isn’t over, there’s still things in her day to enjoy, to keep her trudging forward

bombalurina is roommates with tugger at this point - he also recently dropped out and demeter knows him because he’s munkustrap’s brother, so he’s Trusted and also is like “hey it’s okay that you dropped out, im here and im chilling and you like me and respect me at least a little, and you have a bachelor’s degree at least!” (more on him later)

demeter is like “oh god ive been crashing at their place for so long not paying rent, theyre gonna ask me to leave, im such a freeloader, they wont take my attempts at paying rent” but then bombalurina and tugger are like “hey! the lease is almost up! we found a pretty good 3 bedroom, do you wanna have your own room for real?” and she nearly cries because 1. the RELIEF 2. oh my god you want me around???

cut to bombalurina helping demeter put together an ikea dresser (tugger got banished to the kitchen to make crystal light lemonade for them because he’s useless with a screwdriver) and demeter has two epiphanies:

1. i thought i was ready to d*e four months ago and here i am making a dresser to put clothes into in my new apartment where i live and feel safe and loved. im still not happy but im still alive and im making a dresser

2. holy fuck im back in love with my best friend, and ten times more than i was back then.

so she like kind of freaks out because she’s already imposed so much on bombalurina, how could she impose her FEELINGS on her like this, oh no oh no oh no

meanwhile bombalurina’s back in love with her even MORE and she’s also like no... she’s already dealing with so much... i don’t want to make her uncomfortable or feel unsafe in her own home especially after her recent relationship trauma... i just want her to feel safe around me...

you might think tugger as their roommate would be like “JUST KISS” but he is in fact pretty oblivious because he is self-absorbed. mistoffelees on the other hand..

eventually they do have a big confession of feelings after demeter has a bad day and it’s very dramatic and they make out in the rain. and it’s like. well this is a movie scene. but also im cold and damp. let’s head inside our home and get warm and dry :)

and then they go inside and and talk through everything, all their feelings (not just their romantic feelings but like ALL their feelings) and their shared histories and bombalurina is like “do you think you’re... ready for a relationship right now? like that would be a good thing for you?”

and demeter considers it. she does stop and think. and then she says, “with anyone else... probably not. but it’s you. and i feel so safe around you, and we’re already so close. you make the future feel more worth it. you make more days alive feel not just tolerable, but something to look forward to. and knowing you’ve loved me all this time... it’s nice. it’s good. i’m - i’m understating it so much, it’s more than nice, it’s just - it’s a lot. i wish i had noticed back then.” “hey, hey, don’t blame yourself. i’m the one who never said anything.”

anyway. everything works out, and they start dating for real :)

tugger:

bisexual. 22 years old

dishwasher at the same bar bombalurina works at. she got him the job. he keeps bugging her to teach him bartending tricks and on slow nights she will agree to

he dropped out of their four year, but he managed to secure an associate’s in communications before he dipped

trying to be an ig influencer hotboy and hopefully get modeling jobs from that but his phone’s camera sucks shit so his account isn’t really going anywhere. but he continues to post his low resolution shirtless selfies

trying to cope with being the failure son who does not have a fancy nonprofit job with a salary and healthcare by being self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing

it works about 60% of the time and 60% of the times that it doesn’t he’s able to hide it

he dropped out right around when bombalurina graduated and he was like HEY! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A ROOMMATE WHO DOESN’T CARE IF WE LIVE TEN MILES AWAY FROM CAMPUS? WELL HAVE I GOT A SOLUTION FOR YOU: ME!

to which bombalurina (who has fooled around with him here and there and thinks he is funny little man and genuinely goodhearted, and also he has rockin abs as a plus) says munkustrap already asked me if i need a roommate and if i do to consider you, because you don’t want to move back home. in other words: yes, you little idiot

they do fool around with each other but they are both very understanding that it is strictly platonic and for fun, especially once they become roommates. they both do not desire each other for anything serious

he did have a bit of a crush on each other when they met (hot punk older girl who’s friends with his brother) but 1. it dissipated pretty quick after they fooled around for the first time because it was not a very serious crush 2. she was in the middle of being in love with demeter so she was focused on that, emotionally

he got his ears pierced a couple times in high school but bombalurina inspired him to get a couple more. she went with him when he got his nose pierced

demeter has always understood that him and bombalurina are strictly fwb, has never been an issue.

she and him like to bleach their hair together when their hair schedules line up (he bleaches his way less often then she does), but she refuses to use his fancy conditioner that keeps his hair unfried because it’s expensive, even though he tells her to go ahead and use it, please, the health of her hair is giving HIM anxiety, demeter please. please demeter

mistoffelees:

gay. 20 years old

has magic. it’s pretty good magic but again: magic is not a big deal in this concept

a bit spooky. skulks around. a bit of a bitch but also very very nice. chooses when to speak

he has postings on craigslist and fiverr about finding lost objects and people with magic. like a gig economy private detective

side job is a waiter at a fancy restaurant

sometimes he gets paid VERY well from the private detecting, depending on the client. he does ask his psychic friends (tantomile & coricopat) to give a quick glance over on some of the more suspicious clients just to make sure he isn’t finding someone who should not be found by that person.

doesn’t go to college. is roommates with his sister victoria, who’s a freshman and studying dance. moved into town with her so she wouldn’t have to live in the dorms by having a guaranteed roommate.

tuggoffelees:

the general vibe i want for these two is mistoffelees walking around town or driving around in his shitty toyota camry while tugger tags along because he’s bored and thinks this is cool as shit

the general tone of the au is “magic isn’t a big deal” except for tugger, who thinks mistoffelees’ magic and his magic freelancing is the coolest shit ever. this is mostly because he just likes mistoffelees. “there are people who can do cooler shit than me, tug” “yeah but i don’t KNOW them also theyre not as COOL as you” “you had to explain to me how instagram reels work”

idk how they met i just think tugger shows up at his and bombalurina’s apartment one day (this is when demeter has moved in but they havent moved to the 3br yet) with this dude to dash in and pick something up and bombalurina is like “uh. who’s this” “oh this is mistoffelees he’s SO GOOD AT MAGIC” [mistoffelees nods hello] “okay bye bombalurina see you at work!!!” “uh. later”

after that he just shows up a lot. sort of ambiguous if theyre dating or what for a while before bombalurina straight up asks like “hey does the dude you’re dating know we fool around” “the dude im - what?” “... the little magic guy who keeps using our hot cocoa mix. misty.” “oh. uh. we aren’t dating.” “... do you want to? because you’re kind of all over him constantly” “um. well! haha, if i wanted to, i could! haha!” “yeah get back to me on that”

tugger trying to use his ig clout to get mistoffelees more work even though 1. he has no clout 2. mistoffelees has a very stable client base. but mistoffelees appreciates the effort. the self-promo guy promoing someone other than himself... the highest expression of love...

mistoffelees is A Nonthreatening Man plus he’s pretty obviously gay so demeter is chill around him pretty quickly. when mistoffelees is over they’ll sit on the couch where demeter sleeps and watch documentaries quietly while she crochets

they both occasionally say spooky shit at the same time because magic stuff. bombalurina and tugger are both torn between “that was cool as fuck” and “god that’s unnerving”

just a lot of tugger following mistoffelees around on his jobs and mistoffelees letting him because he’s fond of him and them occasionally getting into minor peril and interesting shenanigans, but it is 90% fetch quests

i think the first time they met tugger was taking selfies in front of a hydrangea in a public park and he saw mistoffelees walk up with a shovel and start digging in one of the flower beds and he thought he was hot so he went over and offered to take over on the shoveling to look strong and masculine and he ended up digging up a skull, which mistoffelees picked up and said “thanks” and then walked away

mildly terrifying but also very interesting and tugger’s days are kind of boring and dishwashing kind of sucks as a job to do like every night and he is a person who thrives on novelty so. moth to a porchlight

i think they do start making out for fun here and there and then a while later theyre out on one of mistoffelees’ jobs and someone asks “who’s the guy with you” and mistoffelees replies “oh that’s my boyfriend, don’t worry about him” and then it’s like. “HUH? I’M YOUR BOYFRIEND?” “uh. yeah? i assumed. is that okay?” “i mean yeah of course i think you’re great! how long have we–” “oh like a while.” “oh. uh. cool!!”

they just hang out a lot. mistoffelees enjoys teasing him and enjoys his warmth and bombasticity and tugger likes watching and helping him solve little mysteries around the county because it’s always something new. they’re kind of a comedy duo. they just enjoy spending their time together and following mistoffelee’s internal magic gps to find lost dogs and lost necklaces

yeah right now this au is just vibes and just sort of. continuing forward with your days and your weeks and your months. just young adults hanging out

[cancerbiophd]

I'm defending my dissertation this summer in biomedical engineering. I'm looking for jobs and postdocs, but I feel unqualified for most of them. Because I had so little funding for my research, I didn't get to learn and use some methods like PCR, Western blot, flow cytometry, etc. except ELISA and Luminex. Most job listings say you're required to have proficiency in methods like these. I would otherwise be qualified, and the research is right up my alley. Am I better off getting a postdoc for further training, or are any of these jobs actually more forgiving about your skills and willing to train you?

Hi anon! Congrats on defending soon and getting that sweet sweet PhD!

My short and sweet answer is: 

Play to your strengths. Don’t let the companies hold all the cards. If you’re an expert on ELISAs and Luminex, then companies seeking candidates with that kind of experience would love you on their team, even if you may not have experience with other skills. 

Apply to as many positions as you can, including the ones where you may not think you qualify 100% for, because a) a candidate checking all the requirements in a job posting is rare and b) in some cases, a company or lab would be more than happy to spend time training you on specific techniques if they think you’re a great fit for the team.

If you feel that expanding your skills as a post-doc would be a good investment for your career, then for sure also apply to them as well. It’s also always helpful and reassuring to have more than one job option in the end too!

The post-school (no matter which level) job search can be a tough and time-consuming journey, so just keep throwing your ball into as many courts as possible. Getting into industry straight out of grad school without a post-doc first is especially hard for some fields, and may require dozens and dozens of applications and interviews over many months. 

Here’s the long and detailed answer:

Firstly, leverage your strengths. Outside of your technical prowess at ELISA and Luminex, these are some of the transferable strengths of hiring a PhD (no matter what field) that can benefit a company, and thus are aspects you can highlight in your cover letter/CV/interviews:

As far as basic knowledge goes, we’re experts in our fields. True, we don’t know everything, but when confronted with something new, just give us a few days, because we’re very good at getting to the nitty gritty bottom of things. 

PhD’s are fast learners, creative problem solvers (especially when given limited resources, like in your situation), and very dedicated to whatever task is on hand. 

And in order to do that, we’re meticulously organized, have great time management skills, and for those of us who have had undergrads in the lab, we have some experience in delegating tasks and managing personnel.

We have great communication skills: both oral (public speaking), and written (manuscripts). 

For those of us who have been successful at receiving financial awards (eg. fellowships, grants, etc), we’re proven ourselves great at marketing our work. 

We can take punches (criticism) and adapt well. 

And we have grit. The fact that we survived walking through hell and back for 4+ years proves our dedication and commitment to hard work. 

Secondly, let’s talk about job postings themselves and how they may not tell the whole story:

Some job postings may highlight the skills and goals that the candidate will become proficient in during the job, especially if it’s directly related to the company’s intellectual property. So it may not be necessary (or realistic) to be skilled in those yet.

The job posting itself may also be very broad and non-specific to the actual position (and is just a boilerplate posting the company likes to use for whatever reason), and thus may not actually include all the nuanced criteria the hiring manager/team is looking for. (I know from experience that Roche does this.)

Lastly, having a candidate right out of grad school who is proficient in every single one of the skills listed on a job posting is unrealistic. And companies know this, but they can still dream about the “perfect 1 in a million candidate” who may magically meet their wish-list. But realistically? That person most likely does not exist. 

Next, here are some scenarios when a team would hire a candidate who does not necessarily have experience in all the listed skills:

The candidate can prove themselves to be a fast and eager learner of those new skills.

The candidate has other desirable skills that the hiring team would value equally (which may or may not be listed in the actual job application, but you can certainly highlight in your cover letter).

The candidate’s personality works well with the rest of the team (sometimes it’s way more important to hire someone who will get along with the current employees than someone who checks all the boxes because protocols can be taught, but personality can not be changed). 

The technical skills that the job requires are not readily available or taught in a grad school setting, especially if it’s really cutting edge and/or part of the company’s intellectual property. 

Bonus: the candidate has network connections within the company/team who can vouch for their talent, work ethic, personality, etc. 

So, in conclusion: If a company is hiring a PhD specifically, the candidate’s transferable skills may be more valuable than their technical skills because techniques can be taught in just a few weeks or months, but those transferable skills take years to perfect. Therefore, as long as you meet the basic criteria (like education and experience level) and have experience in some of the listed technical skills, you should definitely apply. 

Lastly, just to end with a few notes of realism/other misc tips:

Technical experience is still important, especially if the hiring manager is specifically looking for that in a candidate. It may also be the deciding factor between two candidates who are otherwise equal in attributes. Some hiring managers may even put those experiences higher in priority than transferable skills, like if they need someone to hit the ground running when they start.

There is less job applicant competition in smaller companies/start-ups than in big established companies. The more competitive a position, the more “sparkle” the applicant must have, such as a post-doc or multiple publications, or being an internal candidate (someone who already works there), or was referred by the hiring manager/team, etc. So, pretty tough door to crack ajar (though not impossible!)

If it’s important to you to gain more experience in more diverse research techniques, then a post-doc would be the best path to take. I normally think post-docs should not be necessary for industry, but I think in your situation it may be a really great path to take in order to learn more techniques and to see what it’s like working in a well-funded lab (the differences in opportunities and organization can be pretty eye-opening). In addition, one of the downsides of industry is that because a company has its own specific niche in the market, your repertoire of lab techniques may start getting narrower and narrower. 

I recommend working with a recruiter. In exchange for a small % of your eventual salary, they will work with you to find open positions, get your application to the hiring manager, and in some cases will also help coach you in interviews. The easiest and most passive way to get in touch with one is to create a LinkedIn profile and set your status as Looking for Work (or something like that, I forgot what the exact verbage is), and usually a recruiter will personally message you soon after that. 

Wow that answer was way longer than I anticipated! But I always try to dump out as much knowledge as I have because I’m hoping something there will help! Good luck anon, and congrats again on finally seeing that finish line! Please don’t hesitate to reach out again if you have any further questions. 

[wistfulwatcher]

Hello I saw your tag on that "im 25 and dying post" please tell us how it got better for you. Im 26, still living with parents, currently having a fight with my boyfriend, and i still have a year until I get my bachelors. The comparison to everyone younger than me is killing me.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're struggling, but I hope you can take some solace in the fact that that post has a lot of notes and you are absolutely not alone in feeling the way you do! I can certainly try and share my experience, but unfortunately I think the biggest factor is just time (and like, a buttload of self-reflection).

I moved back home after college and worked full time at an administrative job I was doing during school breaks. I majored in psychology and anthropology in college, and was planning to eventually go into forensic psychology, but wasn't interested in going straight into grad school. So I did that administrative job for about a year, and tried to find something that was a bit more stable and at least semi-related to my field. I did end up finding a new job when I was 23 - stable, semi-related to my field (a psych/research background was required), and decent pay (especially as I was still living at home). Exactly what I needed, since I still wasn't ready to start looking into grad school.

I was doing pretty well, until I started getting comfortable at that job, and then I started getting hit with the "I'm not doing enough," and "I need to look into grad school," and "will I ever find a boyfriend?" (friendly reminder that 23-year-old me thought she was straight, yikes), "how will I afford to move out, I have to save my money and do it soon!", "I'm not doing anything but watching TV, I'm wasting my life," "I'm lonely, but I'm too tired to try and make friends," etc., etc.

But it wasn't constant. I'd have a flurry of those questions and fears, and then days where I was just living life and doing my job and taking care of my dogs, without any of that. And I don't think I felt good or particularly comfortable those days, it was more like I just wasn't actively thinking about it, like when you feel "good" after a physical pain goes away and you're just normal.

Eventually, I started thinking about all of these concerns I had, and the fact that it felt like it was URGENT whenever I thought about them. It felt like I needed to get my shit together immediately. I also started to acknowledge that there was this big sense of guilt around those concerns; I was too old to be living at home, I was too old to be single, I was too old not to be starting a career. I felt like I was wasting my life (cue the guilt), and I realized that part of why I felt like I was wasting it was that I felt like I was missing milestones I wouldn't be able to do at a later time because the older I was past "normal" the more humiliating it would be to try (cue the shame and embarrassment, hard).

I also started to doubt that I wanted to go into forensic psychology. More importantly, I started to seriously doubt that I wanted a "career" at all. My job (as I kept that same semi-related to my field one) was absolutely a job, not a career. And I think this was a huge tipping point for me, because a career had always been a given in my life. I'm passionate about what I'm interested in, so it literally just never occurred to me that I would be content with a job. I also started acknowledging that I had some messed up associations about being content with a job meaning that I was lazy (because the only way to be ambitious is with a career and, more damaging, a lack of ambition is fundamentally bad).

Now, I need to clarify that all of the above occurred over the course of years. I was constantly seeing "friends" (i.e., of the facebook variety) go to grad school, start careers, get married, buy homes, etc. And with all of that alongside the entire mess I've outlined in the above paragraphs, it was really, really, tough. It gets hard to find a foothold in better thinking, I believe, when seeing all of these people (some younger) doing things "right" was really just compounding my guilt and shame. (I feel like it's worth mentioning, too, that I was always "an individual" growing up, march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer, yada yada. I feel like that's worth pointing out for others who may be in the same boat, because I think it can lead to another layer of shame in comparing yourself to those around you - especially if it's a big part of your identity that you DON'T do that, because I think it's inevitable as you get older, and you're looking to reach these milestones that prove you're an adult.)

So, here I am, acknowledging that I feel guilt and shame about what I'm not doing. And suddenly I ask myself my first really important question: Do I want a career? The question hot on its heels is: Do I want to go to grad school? Honestly, my answer is no. There is nothing in me that's excited by the prospect. But what, does that mean I'm just going to work my job for the rest of my life? How is giving up going to make me feel better about Not Doing Enough?

As I'm opening this door (remember, years), three things happen: 1) I realize I'm gay, 2) I watch Dirty 30, 3) I start playing D&D.

First, realizing I'm gay. Woohoo! Not only was this exciting because girls are amazing, but it made me seriously look at myself. Realizing I had spent 25 years assuming one thing about myself that turned out to be completely wrong made me question everything for a while. I started to ask myself, "Do I really like this?" more often, which seems like a really obvious question, but I'm not convinced that it's one people ask themselves consciously all that often. But once I did, I realized how freeing it was to answer, "No," and move on to something I did like.

Second, I watched Dirty 30, the Grace Helbig/Mamrie Hart/Hannah Hart movie. It feels dramatic to say that it changed my life, but the older I get the more I honestly think it did. Mamrie Hart's character is a dental hygienist who is freaking out about turning 30 and feeling very much like that text post I reblogged. But (spoilers), at the end of the movie, she decides that she loves her job (job, not career!) because it's comfortable and she has fun at work, and that it makes her happy. She has other things going on, but the idea that a character in a film is content with her job and choosing to "settle" into her life as-is and she's genuinely happy about it? I honestly can't think of a single other time I've seen that happen on-screen. I still think about that ending very often. And after seeing it, I started to ask myself another question regularly: "Am I happy?" Again, this feels pretty obvious, but I think there is something incredibly empowering about making sure you are happy on a regular basis, instead of just assuming that you're fine until something hurts.

Third, I started playing D&D. This is not a plug for D&D! (Well, maybe a little.) One thing that happened to me when I started to get into the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion mess of my mid-20s was that I got very much into a routine of go to work, come home, sleep, go to work, come home, sleep, be totally brain-dead on the weekend, repeat. I found it very difficult to feel creative because I was just wiped, and as all of my creative outlets (gifs, fanfic) are self-motivated, it was really easy to brush them off. I ended up starting Critical Role (this is also not a plug for CR! well, maybe), and I wanted to give D&D a try myself. (I was VERY lucky - my best friend happened to be listening to the Adventure Zone at the same time I started CR, and she wanted to try to run a game. The stars truly aligned!)

I started playing, then DMing, and found that it was a great fit for my interests. I used to be a theatre kid, and I was getting to act again (something I didn't realize I was missing). I was getting to build and flesh out characters, which is what I love the most about writing fanfic. I was also discovering that I was stretching myself - world building and plot had never been my strong suit, but as a DM it became the majority of my creative effort. It gave me soft deadlines with people I didn't want to let down, and it made me truly social again for the first time since college. Essentially, it was filling in all of the gaps of what I felt lacking in my life. This isn't a D&D plug because it wasn't D&D specifically, but rather a hobby that satisfied what was missing in my life. For example, I didn't realize how isolated I was before D&D until I had regular interactions with friends, and that isolation absolutely made the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion worse.

D&D gave me that final push to realize that I was OK with having a job and being passionate about hobbies instead of trying to fit myself into a career, because I was getting out of that hobby what I had been convinced I would get out of a career. I started to really value that I could punch out and go have fun doing exactly what I wanted to do. (It feels so obvious as I type this, but it took me a long time to get here! Sometimes it really is that simple!)

The above is specific to my job vs. career struggle which may not be in the mix of things you're struggling with. But what I do think is universal/can be your take away, is that sometimes you just have to actively choose to let go of the pressure to be doing things. Which, I know, sounds so much easier than it is (and part of why I think it just takes time/is part of growing older). But I think it's something that can be worked at over time, by checking in with yourself about what you feel, why you feel it, and what you need to make yourself feel better in the present.

It's been 6 years since I started that semi-related job, and I'm still there. I still live with my mom. I'm still single. My circumstances have not changed since 24, but honestly? I'm OK. When I check in with myself about it, I do enjoy living with my mom and our dogs (even though I'm 30 and "real" adults move out). I am happy more often than I'm not (much more, actually!). I have a job that allows me to be done after 8 hours, and I have hobbies I look forward to doing each night (and the energy to do them, most of the time). My weekends are free to play D&D with my friends and laugh until I cry. That is what I've worked out as my definition of what I want life to be right now. You'll notice it includes none of the "milestones" that those younger than me have hit.

As I noted on that text post tag, I still struggle with this. I definitely have days where I think, I'm a mess, I'm not DOING anything. It's hard. But time does help, those days become fewer and farther between.

I know that was probably a hundred times longer than you wanted it to be, but I did want to illustrate just how much of a process it is. It takes time. My summary advice is to check in with yourself often, be honest about what you want and what you need, do not let anyone else define where you "should" be. And if you aren't living life how you want to be, identify what you can do (however small) to make yourself feel like you're getting closer.

[mirrinbelde-shitposts]

Hello!!!! I'm here to participate on your game!!! And, I think you're an Aquarius Mercury just like me!! Thank you and take care 😘

My chart:

Hey!! I'm not an Aquarius Mercury :( but I do have lots of Aquarius in my chart ^^ Have a nice day!

Welcome to your reading. Please remember to send feedback.

First impressions when looking at your chart: it's almost a bowl shape, meaning that there's approximately 180ª with planets and the other 180º are devoid of planets

SUN IN AQUARIUS

As an Aquarius, you are quirky, aloof, dreamy and humanist. People may think you’re awkward and detached, which is probably true for you since your Sun is at 0º of Aquarius. Your originality and uniqueness are probably the things you love about yourself the most. Your mind is also quite agile, which allows you to fulfil your dreams. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the Sun is in Detriment in the sign of Aquarius. This means that the Sun can struggle here, making you feel confused as to who you are and how you can express yourself. You very much value your independence and your rebelliousness. However, you can be stubborn to a fault when it comes to your thoughts and opinions.

SUN IN THE 8TH HOUSE

This is the house of Scorpio. With the Sun here, you may appear a bit Scorpionic, namely, you can embody that more powerful, secretive, intense vibes very associated with this sign. Whilst Leo is about yourself, Scorpio relates to your connection with others. By bonding with other people, and experiencing their emotions, you can further discover your own identity. Scorpio is known for its intensity, so you probably have a big need to know everything about those closest to you, but that’s not an issue, because people seem to want to disclose to you. Additionally, the 8th house rules other people’s money and inheritances, so you may be in charge of others’ monetary resources. You may even get a career in this area. Lastly, this house rules everything secret and occult, so there’s a big chance that you’ll learn more about yourself by delving into the mystic arts (such as astrology, for example).

PISCES MOON

With this placement, you acquire intuition, empathy and emotional intelligence. You are a caring person who seeks to help others comprehend and verbalize emotions, which contrasts heavily with Aquarius but flows well with the 8H influence. I'd say that you're the type of person that everyone goes to for advice. However, you should take care not to spend a lot of time being the “therapist friend”, for your high sensitivity can cause you to get overwhelmed by others’ negative energies. You probably need your alone time in order to recharge your batteries. You can be quite emotional and you're often with your head “in the clouds”. Ethereal is a good word to describe personal Pisces placements. On the other hand, if not developed, you can be manipulative, insecure and lie a lot, especially with the 8th house.

MOON IN THE 8TH HOUSE

This placement very much goes strengthens your interest in the occult and secret. It is a karmic position for the Moon; perhaps you have a very strong relationship with your mother. Additionally, it ties in well with Pisces' emotional abilities. You seek someone with whom you can form a deep emotional bond, someone with whom you can be vulnerable and share your secrets. It is also a good position for therapists because it allows you to connect well with people’s feelings and needs. Nevertheless, as I mentioned before, this can give you emotional control over people, which can lead to you manipulating them, even if you don't mean to do so. This can be especially true because your moon is not harmoniously aspected (conjunct Saturn, square Jupiter and Pluto). You can also benefit a lot from an inheritance, especially from your mother.

AQUARIUS MERCURY

This placement, even more so than your Aquarius Sun, brings you idealism and originality, as well as ideas that have the power to change society and the world. You are a free spirit and independence is definitely something very important to you. Your mind is all about being innovative and creative so you can make the world a better place. Your ideas may not always be viewed positively by others but you don't let that discourage you. People may also think you're a little off and detached but you just keep on doing your own thing, which is admirable. You may truly be ahead of your time, especially since your Mercury is in retrograde, which means that your ideas may be much more accepted after you communicate them. You have an agile mind and a good grasp of many different subjects, so people may enjoy speaking to you and learning your take on various fields of knowledge.

MERCURY IN THE 8TH HOUSE

The house of Scorpio. With Mercury here, your gain intuitiveness and inquisitiveness. To me, it is the Detective placement. It’s easy for you to understand what someone else is thinking because you have a knack for this kind of thing; telepathic, almost. You have a big interest in anything that has to do with the hidden and the human mind. Psychology would also be a good career. I’d say you think and listen much more than you think because, in your head, you’re connecting all the dots. There can be some fear in you, perhaps because of negative experiences in past lives. Due to this, you prefer to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself. Also, it is said that this placement can cause misunderstandings in contracts, especially regarding inheritances.

SAGITTARIUS VENUS

This Venus sign is independent and adventurous; it seeks someone with which to have fun and deep, philosophical conversations. You highly value morals and honesty, which is not strange, given that these things are ruled by Jupiter, hence associated with Sagittarius. Feelings are also very important to you. You may appear too detached and aloof, but that's not how you truly feel. Also, you can be viewed as flight and non-committal, but that is not true; you may simply take your time to actually understand whether or not to begin a relationship. Nevertheless, relationships may not be a concern of yours because of your need for independence. You very much enjoy travelling and acquiring knowledge to broaden your horizons. You may also date foreigners or have an interest in them.

VENUS IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Here, Venus gives great importance to things associated with Virgo: routine, health, job. It is important for you to have your routine and to plan things. Once you acquire a habit, it is difficult to let go of it (“Old habits die hard.”). Similarly, it is important that you incorporate activities with your partner in your daily schedule. Funnily enough, it is routine that makes you miss things you no longer have: for example, if you lose a friend, you may miss them more because you used to talk every day. You enjoy working on projects that make you feel like you’re doing something meaningful; your chosen profession must fulfil you. You want a harmonious workplace that makes you feel happy to work. Also, you have an eye for detail. There can be a need to obsess about your health, as well as your loved ones’.

MARS IN LEO

The red planet does well here. Leo wants to achieve great things in life and Mars gives it that determination and willpower needed to succeed. You probably do what you want and often act to stand out. This is a very bold, direct placement. What you want, you most likely get. You’re passionate about the things you love, which is admirable. You seek recognition and fame. You can be very proud and get angry easily, but it also goes away quickly. You are very brave, for sure, and fierce. Losing is not an option for you. You like to be in the spotlight and at the top. Admitting when you’re wrong can be quite difficult for you due to the aforementioned pride. Nevertheless, you’re warm, creative, romantic and probably good around children.

MARS IN THE 2ND HOUSE

Here, Mars is tied in with the themes of Taurus. Since Taurus is a fixed sign, I’d say that you are very good at getting what you want because you are quite determined and perseverant. You may have a strong will to acquire material things that bring you comfort and security. In that sense, you may wish to have a high-paying job that allows you to buy the things that allow you to have that comfortable lifestyle. However, you may spend your money too generously, so beware of that. You are brave and dynamic, qualities that help you to achieve what you want.

SAGITTARIUS JUPITER

Jupiter is in its rulership here. With this placement, your interest in the "accursed questions", that is, everything to do with our connection with the universe, is greatly expanded. Mundane life can seem quite trivial to you; your desire is to understand the bigger things. Like I mentioned in the Sagittarius Venus section, you have a deep desire to travel, to connect to other cultures, to experience different things than what you're used to, to expand your knowledge. In addition to this, you want to share what you know with others, sometimes without prompt, which may cause others to perceive you as a "know-it-all". Jupiter is also connected to intuition, so, if you learn to trust and rely on yours, you may achieve enlightenment.

JUPITER IN THE 6TH HOUSE

This placement may seem, at first, difficult, because this is the house of Virgo, in which sign Jupiter has its Detriment. Whilst Jupiter is all about the higher mysteries, philosophy and the bigger picture, Virgo prefers hard work, concrete aspects and attention to detail. You should seek to find meaning in life through your job, as well as acts of service. Also, this placement may manifest in more ways than one: you may be able to take on the Virgo traits by achieving focus in one thing, or, on the opposite, you can move from one thing to the next, in a bid to help everyone and achieve everything. Jupiter here needs to find a middle ground between the mundane and the mystical.

PISCES SATURN

This is, in my humble opinion, a contradictory placement. Pisces is known for being the sign of illusions, dreams, fantasies. Saturn, on the other hand, is the planet of blockages, traumas, karma. Pisces does not want to directly deal with the problems, whilst Saturn wants precisely the opposite. This can result in deep fears from you, perhaps regarding your individual conscience. You may be afraid to delve deep, to explore the limits of your mind and also to share these with others. Feelings are very important to you, but these have a tendency to be more negative and elusive. A coping mechanism may be to detach, to ignore, to evade. You deal with problems by not dealing with them. You will grow, but only when you accept your struggles and face them head-on.

SATURN IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You could have been brought up in a traditional, conservative religious community. This may manifest as you having clear opinions on what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps you have a lack of faith, or you’re merely sceptical of religion. This placement balances all the others in this house: with Saturn here, you might hold back all the desire to learn, to get out there and explore your beliefs. In a past life, you may have held all the answers, but in this life, you may not want anything to do with the higher mysteries. Nevertheless, I would say that this placement may not be that strong, given that all the other planets in your 9th house want you to learn and explore. ⬛️

[entitynumber5]

iceberg blues

this fic is basically one long jonmartin road trip but with depression and angst and yearning!!!!!! here’s the link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30788036. or you can read it below the line!!! <3

Content warnings: depressive episodes, disassociation, panic attacks, discussions of death and mortality, grief, emetophobia, economic anxiety, intrusive thoughts/images, very brief allusions to transphobia and xenophobia (in the context of UK politics), swearing, passive suicidal ideation, food, disordered eating, mention of hospitals, smoking, addiction, arguments, brief references to coercive relationships.

Martin has been sitting at his desk, shivering in his coat, for over half an hour. Still enough that the automatic lights have switched off for the night, one by one in an imploding cascade down the corridor he can see from his desk. Tim and Sasha left a while ago, and Martin had put his coat on and promised he would been right behind them, he was just going to check his emails one last time, when he’d seen Sasha had sent her part of the report on Naomi Hearne’s statement to him. He doesn’t know how to explain why he opened the document and scrolled through to Evan Lukas’s death certificate. But here he is. Stuck and staring.

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be staring at the death certificate of a man he doesn’t even know. Since Naomi Hearne’s statement two days ago, Martin has been—well, off. He wishes he had a better explanation, but his creativity has jumped ship, apparently, and either a wall springs up every time he reaches for a way to name what he’s feeling or it is energy he doesn’t have to waste, forcing his mind into forming words.

It feels like there’s a balloon inside his chest and no matter how much he expands his lungs, no matter how many deep breaths he takes, he can’t make it smaller. He’d vomited, when he got back to his flat on the day of the statement; yesterday, he had opened the cupboard and stared at the ingredients but been unable to make himself make anything. On the Tube to work, when a stranger looked at him, just in passing, Martin had wanted to cry, and that feeling lingered with him but nothing came of it except an odd sort of internal tension, like a headache.

Yet at the same time, there’s something so dull about it all. He can feel the boredom in his teeth. The blunt edge of a knife, never drawing blood. Why does it matter? Why does it need to be a big deal?

It isn’t, as far as Martin’s concerned. No one else has noticed, and sometimes he doesn’t either. Sometimes it just slips his mind that this isn’t how he feels all the time. Even now, staring at the computer screen, he almost forgets that he’s cold, that it will be dark outside. That it’s Friday, and he usually calls his mum on Friday because the care home gets fish and chips delivered, every week, a whole event, and it’s easier for them both if she has a proper excuse not to answer.

“Martin,” Jon says.

Martin jumps, but his movements are slower than he expects. His shoulders lift enough that the waterproof lining of his coat makes a high-pitched scraping noise, but he can’t move the hand that’s on the mouse to close the document in shame he knows distantly he should feel.

“Martin,” Jon continues, looking somewhat confused, as if he’d already said his name a number of times. There’s a hint of defensive disapproval in his expression. “You’re still here.”

Martin tries to talk, but his voice croaks as if from disuse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah. Just, um… finishing up.”

“It’s after seven.”

“You’re also still here,” Martin points out.

Another time, he thinks he’d be embarrassed by the remark. He should be feeling that hot, sharp lance of fear that this might be the fireable offence. But there was nothing in his tone except the monotone stating of a fact, and the phantom embarrassment is so vague he doesn’t even feel guilty about its reason for existing.

There’s a short, soft huff of laughter. Martin drags his eyes to Jon’s face, just in time to see his expression of defeated amusement before it disappears.

“Yes, well, I have my reasons.” Jon averts his eyes and doesn’t elaborate.

Martin turns back to the computer. It should be simple, moving the mouse to the corner of the document, pressing the red cross, shutting down the computer for the weekend, off-off, at the wall and all, not standby or Rosie would moan about the Institute’s already-failing green initiative. But he just can’t do it.

Jon lingers.

“Is… something wrong?” Martin manages to ask.

“I need to lock up,” Jon replies, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He lifts the small ring of keys in his hand as if in justification, a supply of proof. “Unless you would like to spend the weekend in the Archives, I suggest you leave in the next five minutes.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I—I’ll just—let me just…” He moves the mouse to the corner of the document, hovering, but he can’t bring himself to click off it. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to go home. He desperately doesn’t want to go home.

“Sometime today, please, Martin,” Jon presses.

Martin forces himself to close the document. The balloon in his chest feels very big. In his mind’s eye, he can still see Evan Lukas’s death certificate. The clinical recital of the cause, the dates echoing around in his mind. He feels like he might, at any moment, abruptly blurt the words out loud.

“S-sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Jon bristles, “I do have somewhere to be.”

Martin wishes dully that Jon wasn’t here. He could just pull the computer plug out of the wall and be done with it, although his fingers feel numb and he’s not sure he has the strength. Or rather he does have it, it exists, just not within reach.

Martin goes through the motions of small talk, nonetheless. A kneejerk courtesy that reminds him of all the commutes home he can’t remember, the familiar going-through-the-motions, arriving at your destination unharmed, but having done so on muscle memory alone.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Right.”

Jon lifts his eyes to the ceiling, as if he had considered rolling them and thought better of it. He takes a moment before he speaks again. “Actually, I had planned to drive to Wormshill this evening. There is a detail in Miss Hearne’s statement that I would like to check myself.”

“You’re going to Kent?”

“Yes,” Jon answers defensively. “It’s not far. A two-hour drive, at most.”

“But it’s—you just said it’s after seven.”

“Because I have an obligation to ensure my employees are not in the building after hours. What you do with the rest of your evening is none of my concern.”

Martin nods. The motion carries him away for a moment, and he gets lost in the gentle repetitiveness of it. He’s definitely nodding for longer than is acceptable—everything is taking longer than acceptable, today—and he should be embarrassed, but its vaguely soothing, a blip in the otherwise flat, linear trajectory of his mood.

Jon sighs. Loudly. “Is there anything unsaved on this computer?”

“No,” Martin replies, “Don’t think so.”

“Good,” Jon snaps, and then promptly switches it off at the wall.

Martin stares at the blank screen. He can just about make out his hollow reflection. “Oh.”

Jon is still standing there. “Martin…”

Martin hums in acknowledgement.

“There is—well, there’s the matter of the Institute’s health and safety guidelines, which stipulate that any employee conducting research in the field after seven p.m. must be accompanied by at least one other person,” Jon says, rushing but still somehow managing to keep the deep, unimpressed tone. “Ordinarily, I would disregard such bureaucratic nonsense, but I, uh, I rather suspect I’ll be receiving a complaint from Miss Hearne, and I’m—reluctant, I suppose, to attract any further attention from Elias.”

Martin doesn’t understand what Jon is trying to say.

“What I’m trying to say, Martin,” Jon continues, “Is that while I would much rather conduct my investigation alone, it might be pertinent to have company. If only to share the burden of driving.”

In the computer screen, Martin’s reflection doesn’t react to Jon’s statement. His eyes are cloudy, out of focus behind his glasses.

“Fine,” Jon huffs, “I’ll be direct, since nothing else seems to be getting through: Martin, will you come to Wormshill with me?”

Martin must say yes, because the next thing he knows, he’s still shivering in his coat but he’s outside, standing next to Jon on the steps of the Institute while they wait for the taxi that’s going to take them across the river to the car hire place in Croydon, apparently the only one willing to loan a vehicle on such short notice and at this time on a Friday. In his own coat, jaw set against his own shivers, Jon keeps stealing sideways glances at Martin as if expecting him to bow out of the bizarre excursion at any moment.

It occurs to Martin that maybe he should give Jon an out. A reason to go alone, since that’s what he seems to want. Now that Martin’s outside, at least, he thinks he can make it home. He can drift through the weekend, try to sleep off the feeling sitting heavy beneath his skin so that he can plaster on a smile again for Monday.

“Jon,” Martin says, “I can’t drive.”

Jon’s face snaps fully to Martin’s. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“I mean I—I never learned how?”

The car was one of the first things they’d sold, when they could no longer afford to top up the meter, and when he’d turned seventeen, it had been too much money and too much time away from his mum to take lessons, even though so many jobs stipulated—illegally, he’d been told by one disgruntled employee at the Job Centre—that he needed a licence to apply. He knew his mum resented the lack of transport. She would complain about the tins getting dented or the fruit bruising on the bus journey back from the supermarket. Martin would take on extra shifts to cover the taxi costs to and from hospital appointments. But otherwise, they were stuck. There was no way around it.

Moving into London had helped with getting around, but not so much with money, and it had been a sort of comfort to Martin that mostly no one expected you to own a car or even drive here. Until now.

“Why didn’t you say something—?” Jon begins, but at that moment, the lights of the taxi slice through the darkness and a white Prius jolts to a stop in front of them, the driver giving an impatient toot of the horn to get their attention.

“I—I’m sorry,” Martin says. “I thought you knew.”

“How on earth would I—?” Another blare of the car horn. Jon makes a disgruntled sound and starts off down the steps. “Just get in the taxi.”

Martin stares down at him. “What—but I—are you sure?”

Jon, with his hand around the door handle, looks expectantly back at Martin. “Yes, Martin, just—come on.”

In the taxi, Martin sits on his hands as his mind lists restlessly between the vivid, intrusive image of opening the car door for no reason and the worry that he should be making conversation, before settling back into familiar numbness. Jon doesn’t make conversation either, which Martin supposes is a relief. The driver fields a number of calls during the journey and ends up doing enough talking for the both of them.

Jon pays the taxi driver with the Institute credit card when they reach Croydon. Martin stands on the pavement and watches the back lights of the Prius fade into the distance, the way you might watch to check someone gets into their house safely after you walk them home, because he can’t really think of what else to do until Jon demands, “Are you coming?”

Martin jogs after Jon, catching him up just as they reach the car park of the hire place. Jon tells Martin to wait outside, so he waits outside with his hands tucked into his pockets and wonders idly if Jon has picked up on his quietness. And if Jon has noticed, does he think it’s a relief, not having to suffer Martin’s small talk, his stammering inquiries and useless observations?  

About ten minutes later, Jon emerges with a set of keys and a collection of paperwork. He barely glances at Martin, making a beeline for the car parked nearest the door, a yellow Citroën.

When Martin stops beside the car, waiting for Jon to unlock it, Jon snaps, “It’s all I could get on short notice.”

Martin stares over the roof of the car at Jon. Is Jon embarrassed because the car is yellow? Because it’s a Citroën? Martin feels like he’s missing something. “I didn’t say anything.”

Jon just huffs and climbs into the car. After a moment, Martin follows, ducking inside and settling into the passenger seat. Jon hands him the paperwork, somewhat unceremoniously, and Martin takes it and places it in his lap and doesn’t say anything about the fact that Jon has given the hire company a false name. Which likely means he has a fake ID. Which is a can of worms that Martin isn’t sure he’s ready to open.

They drive for a while in complete silence. Jon’s driving is a little shaky, at first. He stalls three times in the space of five minutes, and at one point gets flipped off by a teenager hauling Deliveroo via bike. Martin laughs, despite himself, a small huff of air through his nose—it’s a start, he supposes.

“Would you prefer to take the wheel?” Jon snaps and when Martin’s face drops, he adds. “I thought as much.”

Martin sinks back into his seat, the laughter forgotten. He stares out of the window at the other cars and wonders where their occupants are travelling—back to their families for the weekend? When Jon has to merge onto the M25, he clings to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white, and Martin wishes he hadn’t laughed earlier.

On the motorway, at least, Jon seems to settle into the familiar motions of driving and eventually reaches for the radio, tuning into Radio 4. They’re broadcasting a political debate, and Martin tries to watch without being caught as Jon’s face twists or he snorts at a particularly egregious comment from one of the participants.

“Who’s that?” Martin asks, surprising himself, when Jon rolls his eyes for the fifth time—he’s counting—at the same voice.

Jon blinks, turning momentarily from the road before returning to his eyes-ahead vigil of the motorway. He rolls his lips, like he’s pushing down a retort about Martin’s ignorance of politics. After a while, and a sixth eye roll, he says: “That’s Ann Widdecombe.”

“Oh,” Martin says, “She was on Strictly.”

Jon once again looks like he wants to launch into a lecture about Martin’s witlessness. Instead, he says, in that dry voice of his: “Yes. She has also been a particularly insidious member of the Conservative Party for forty years.”

“Right. Of course. I know that.”

“I should hope so.”

“I didn’t vote for her,” Martin tells him, “On Strictly.”

Jon doesn’t say anything.

“Or in the general election,” Martin adds.

“Not least of all because you don’t live in her constituency.”

“I mean I didn’t vote for the—”

“Yes, Martin, I understood what you meant.” Jon pauses. “And for the record, neither did I.”

There’s a very long stretch of silence after that. Martin wants to point out that he used to watch Question Time with his mum, before she moved into the care home, plus he’s trans and what little family he has left are Polish, so it’s not like he can be ignorant about the UK’s political climate, and just because he’s not some Oxford-educated prick who listens to Radio 4—but what’s he trying to prove, really? It’s a waste of energy, and the lull of the car and the cold pressure in his chest quickly extinguish the flare of indignation.

A radio drama about wartime Britain replaces the debate, and Martin tips his head against the window. He can make out the sound of the words, but not what they mean, and the inside of his mind feels like the road ahead: a blur of sharp asphalt and red-white light, the kind of place where it’s not safe to stop. He feels vaguely sick.

Martin thinks about the weekend again. He wishes he could sleep through and wake up feeling better, feeling real. He wants so badly to pause this feeling and pick it up when he’s ready to deal with it. A break. He just wants a fucking break, so badly that the tight-throat tension of tears he knows he can’t shed is back. He closes his eyes, in case Jon notices, and plays with the paperclip holding the contract for the hire car together.

He doesn’t know if he falls asleep fully or just drifts, but the next thing he’s really aware of is the slam of a car door as Jon climbs back inside. Inside? Martin squints at him through the sickly light of the streetlamp outside the car as Jon manoeuvrers his way back into the driver’s seat while holding a cardboard tray of drinks and two greasy paper bags. He hands one of the bags to Martin. It’s warm in his hands, almost burning, but he doesn’t think to let go.

“Where are we?” Martin asks, detached from the question, uncaring of the answer.

“Just outside of Maidstone,” Jon replies, balancing the drinks tray on top of the clutch with meticulous precision before gesturing with far less accuracy in the general direction of the service station. There’s a glowing sign indicating the presence of a Costa and a number of other chains. “Do feel free to use the, uh, the facilities.”

“I’m fine,” Martin mumbles, “But thanks.”

Martin realises he can’t remember the last time he used the facilities, as Jon so delicately put it, even back at the Institute. It should be embarrassing, but even this is hard to care about. There were plenty of opportunities, at work, to get up and make a cup of tea, or to reach into his rucksack and pull out the water bottle he’d bought with the markers specifically to remind him to drink at regular intervals. But he just… didn’t. And he’s dehydrated, clearly. And he doesn’t care.

“Right,” Jon says, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, “If you’re sure.”

Martin has no idea what to say to that. Jon saves him the effort by clicking the radio back on without starting the engine, and the midnight news drifts from the speakers in a deep, sombre voice that makes Martin feel intensely tired.

Jon clears his throat. “I hope you like cheese and tomato.”

Martin blinks Jon’s shadowed face back into focus. The lights are strange, transient—the orange glow of the streetlights interspersed with violent flickers of white as new arrivals pull into the car park.

“Cheese and tomato toasties, that is,” Jon adds, “That’s what’s in the bag.”

“Oh. Oh.” Martin blinks again, almost dizzy. “Thanks. I—I do. Like cheese and tomato toasties. What do I—how much were—?”

“You really don’t need—”

“I insist.”

“It’s fine, Martin.”

“But—”

“I bought it with the Institute credit card,” Jon interrupts, blunt. “If you would like to thank Elias for the cheese and tomato toastie on Monday, be my guest.”

It’s not really funny, but Martin finds himself giving one of those pathetic, half-formed laughs again. Jon looks momentarily surprised before he smiles and turns away.

Martin eats by rote because what else is he supposed to do? There’s an odd safety to mirroring Jon, following his lead. And so Martin does just that. He doesn’t taste the cheese and tomato toastie, and he can’t even tell if there’s sugar in the tea Jon hands him from the cardboard drinks tray, but it sits warm in his stomach, reminding him he hasn’t eaten anything other than crackers for nearly two days.

When Jon begins to drive again, the radio is playing a reading of a book about a Spanish painter Martin has never heard of. He feels like he owes Jon, in some way, for the cheese and tomato toastie, no matter who actually paid for it, and so he decides to remedy his previous disregard for Radio 4’s programming.

“This book sounds interesting,” Martin announces. There’s not much in his voice—no confidence, no real presence—but at least he’s saying something. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this Velázquez guy.”

“It’s Velázquez,” Jon corrects, although his pronunciation sounds no different to Martin’s.

“It’s a shame it’s the final episode,” Martin presses on, even though it’s painful. “Would have been nice to have a bit of context, you know?”

Jon hums in disinterest. “I suppose.”

This brief attempt at conversation is uninspiring, to say the least, so Martin instead resorts to an even more ridiculous line of inquiry. “Did we just pass a sign for Leeds Castle?”

“Yes,” Jon says, although he seems somewhat more engaged this time.

“But we’re in Kent.”

“Well-observed.”

“So why is it called Leeds Castle?”

“Well, there’s actually some debate as to why. In the Doomsday Book…”

Martin’s not watching the clock, but if he was, he would know Jon talks for a full twenty-three minutes about the etymology of Leeds Castle. It’s oddly soothing. Like a repeat of the emulsifiers at the ice cream parlour, except they’re not sitting across from each other, they physically can’t make eye contact, and there’s distance and darkness enough between them that they can both drop the performance. Martin doesn’t want to be looked at, to be seen, but he feels grounded by Jon’s voice. And Jon doesn’t stop every few minutes to make sure he isn’t being a nuisance, that he isn’t stealing time that others will resent the loss of.

They’ve made it to the Kent Downs. Martin supposes he should ask what it is they’re here to investigate. He manages it, and watches with something adjacent to despair as Jon’s open, almost excited expression falls away.

“Miss Hearne mentioned a chapel in her statement,” Jon says. His voice has dropped down an octave again, into the tone he uses in the Archives. “I can’t find any record of its existence, but I would like to be sure.”

Martin feels suddenly, impossibly cold. Like he will never be warm again. He shivers, and Jon turns up the car’s heaters. “I remember.”

Jon’s hands tighten around the steering wheel again. “You listened to the statement?”

“You—you asked me to transcribe it.”

“No, I asked Tim to transcribe it.”

“But Tim—well, he has an ear infection, he’s on antibiotics and everything, and Sasha’s the only one with access to the hospital records so she was cross-checking those, and I—I thought it was only fair if I transcribed it instead,” Martin says, the words falling out of his mouth in a blurred rush.

Jon deflates, just slightly, with a tired sigh. “Of course. I must have—I didn’t—I’ll apologise to Tim on Monday.”

Martin sits on his hands again. If he was feeling better, he might wonder if Jon has ever considered apologising to him. But perhaps he’s more truthful, when he’s in this place; perhaps he’s right when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

Jon sighs again. “So you heard…?”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant,” Jon mutters, clearly meaning the opposite.

“Do you really think she’s making it up?”

“Of course I don’t—‘making it up’ would imply some kind of fault or, or blame, which is not at all what I was suggesting.” Jon’s jaw is set, tense, even as he spits out the words. “There is nothing made up about trauma and the very real impact it can have on a person’s life. I think Miss Hearne’s experience was significant and, as I told her, she should certainly seek out help from someone more qualified to address the grief of her fiancé’s death. As for empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, well, I’ve read enough statements to know that the point at which they start to sound like an overdone ghost story is the time to deploy a reasonable amount of scepticism.”

Martin stares at the dashboard. The car’s heating is on its highest setting, the warm air blasting from the vents drying out Martin’s eyes, but he’s still shivering. Still so deeply, immovably cold.

“He was…” Martin whispers, but he can’t finish the sentence.

“He was very young, yes, and his loss was unspeakably tragic. That is not what I am seeking proof of, and that is far from Institute’s area of expertise in any case, but—”

“No,” Martin interrupts. His voice still so quiet, but Jon stops to listen nonetheless. “That’s not what I… I was going to say that she sounded lonely.”

Jon’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t seem able to form words. His teeth click as he shuts his mouth and turns back to the road, driving on in silence as the radio idly broadcasts the shipping forecast.

“I—I don’t mean the part with the empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, although I believe her. I do.” Martin pauses, letting himself linger in that realisation. “The loneliest part was when she spoke about him.”

Jon takes a deep breath. He frowns, as if he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

The tightness is sitting in Martin’s throat and behind his eyes again, and he wishes he could cry. Maybe if he cried, it would leave him be, he’d be emptied but in the right way.

“They only got two years,” Martin whispers.

“They were…” Jon says, his voice a feeble imitation of comfort. And when his voice fails, his jaw tightens and the defensiveness flashes back across his expression. “Does it matter how long they got?”

“Yes, it matters. Of course it matters,” Martin snaps. He surprises himself with the vitriol behind his words.

“The length of their acquaintance doesn’t change the extent—”

“Their acquaintance? They were in love.”

“I’m aware.”

“They were going to get married.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin,” Jon hisses. “I’m not unfamiliar with grief.”

“Then why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why didn’t you tell her what to—how to—to move on, or—I don’t know, couldn’t you just have humoured her? Couldn’t you have dropped the act for one day to help someone experiencing the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

Jon stares at the road ahead, exhaustion sitting in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch of his jaw. He hardly moves, aside from occasionally checking the mirrors, and Martin doesn’t expect an answer. The silence is cloying and choking and Martin lets it fester.

“If I knew how to move on,” Jon says, very quietly, after an indeterminable amount of time, “Well, let’s just say that’s not information I would withhold. And as for humouring Miss Hearne’s experience, what would you have me say?”

“You could have told her you believed her,” Martin presses.

“That would be a lie.”

“It would be a comfort.”

Jon’s lips twist humourlessly. “Aren’t those synonymous?”

“Then why are we here? Why drive around the Kent Downs in the middle of the night if you think it was all just a trick of the mind?”

“Because I need proof.”

“Of what?”

Jon doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he snaps: “I shouldn’t have bought you.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees, falling back into his seat.

“I’m pulling over,” Jon announces without preamble, as if this is a natural continuation of their argument. “I need to check my notes. I’m sure we’ve passed that sign for Bredgar at least twice already.”

Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon pulls the car into a cramped passing place on the side of the road and then takes his phone out of his pocket. The radio drones, and Martin stares out of the window at the darkness of the stretching rural road, the few specks of light in the distance where the sparse houses state their presence. He thinks about the process of lighting torches in order to send a warning. Smoke signals.

“No signal,” Jon mutters in frustration, and then he opens the driver’s door, climbs out and slams it behind him with enough force that the body of the car shakes.

Martin curls into his coat. His face is wet, he realises, and when he lifts his hand to his left cheeks, it’s cold with tears. Jon is a silhouette caught in the car’s headlights, shoulders up, body tensed. To Martin’s surprise, he seems to have abandoned his phone in favour of lighting a cigarette. Martin recalls Tim mentioning that Jon had quit, a while ago. He considers getting out of the car, too, and trying to convince Jon not to lift the cigarette to his lips. But he can’t move. He’s frozen in place, shaking with a chill that doesn’t belong to him.

In the silvery-grey plume of cigarette smoke, Martin thinks he sees the outline of the chapel they’ll never find.

*

Leaning against the car hood, outside a service station near Preston, Jon sneaks a cigarette while he waits for Martin. His hands are restless, twitching, and if he’s being honest, he has played hard and fast with the meaning of ‘quit’ ever since—well, ever since he started working in the Archives. And he needs a distraction because, for the first time since they left the Lonely the day before, Martin is out of his line of sight.

It hasn’t been long. Five minutes, at most. But Martin had insisted on going alone, had told Jon he was feeling car sick and needed a moment to himself to get cleaned up. To brush his teeth, which he had said with an odd smile, like this was a novelty. So Jon had let him go, and regretted it almost immediately, and began smoking soon after to take the edge off his gnawing anxiety.

Now that he’s alone, Jon finds himself thinking about the journey beyond the heart-pounding panic of getting out of London and the slower-burning worry over Martin’s drawn silence.

His lips curl into a humourless smile around another drag of the cigarette, and he huffs a small laugh. When Jon had turned on the radio after they’d finally made it onto the M6, it was already tuned in to Radio 4. He didn’t have the heart to change it, not least of all because he would have to explain to Martin, after all this time, that he doesn’t particularly like Radio 4. It’s not his station of choice by a longshot. The last time they’d been in a car together—a lifetime ago, it feels like—Jon had still been trying very hard to appear older than he was and, in a moment of panic, decided the only way to do this was to listen to a radio station that didn’t even play music, for god’s sake.

Ironically, he has been listening to Radio 4 recently, if only because Daisy insists they both stay appraised of The Archers. Insisted. Jon’s smile falls. Only a few weeks ago, while Jon had been attempting to organise his office while Daisy complained at the latest pastoral plot point, he had found an old, half-folded Post-it note. A jumbled collection of words in Jon’s handwriting: Martin Secret Santa. Velázquez - The Vanishing Man??

“What’s that?” Daisy had asked him. “I can’t read your handwriting.”

Jon had slipped the Post-it back into the drawer, although this time with his rib rather than the jumbled collection of paperwork it had been coexisting with before. “Then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Oh, come on, Sims.”

“It’s nothing important.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

The Eye had informed Jon that The Vanishing Man was the name of the book reviewed on Radio 4 on January 16th 2016, in the early hours of the morning, when Jon had been driving with Martin around the Kent Downs. Jon had written the name of the book down so that he’d know what to get Martin, if he drew his name for Secret Santa.

In the car park, Jon’s throat tightens with grief. There was never another Secret Santa after Prentiss. It seemed a silly thing, with everything that had happened, to care about. They’d never been a normal workplace, not really. And yet Jon still craves that brief glimpse of ordinariness, of a pointless tradition everyone rolls their eyes at and complains about but which is still repeated every year.

Jon is just about to walk to the bin and put his cigarette out in the tray resting on top when he notices Martin’s slow, almost unsteady approach. He quickly disposes of the spent cigarette and tries to look as nonchalant as possible, like he is perfectly capable of spending five minutes away from Martin without falling apart.

Except that as soon as Martin’s face catches the light and his expression became visible, Jon has no hope of maintaining the act.

“Martin,” Jon says, stumbling forward to meet Martin before he reaches the car fully.

“Jon.” Martin recognises him. It should be a relief, but there’s a dull echo to his voice that reminds Jon far too much of the Lonely.

Jon can see that Martin shivering, even in the too-big knitted jumper Jon had guided him into when they’d woken up sometime after midday, after sitting together on the sofa all night, Jon crying softly against Martin’s shoulder while Martin slept. He remembers the way Martin’s curls had sprung out of the jumper and how Jon had felt like crying again with how much love he felt in that moment, staring at the crown of Martin’s head, wondering what it might be like to kiss him there.

When Jon takes Martin’s hand, it’s so cold Jon feels a bolt of ice shoot up his own spine.

“You’re freezing,” Jon murmurs, pulling gently on Martin’s hand. “Come on.”

Jon places his other hand on Martin’s back, making small, soothing motions as he opens the passenger door as wide as possible and gently encourages Martin back into the seat. He pulls up the fleece blanket in the footwell up so that it covers Martin’s legs, where the worst of the shivering seems to be concentrated, and squeezes Martin’s hand until Martin’s eyes move to his.

“I’m just going to walk around to the other side of the car and get in, alright?”

Martin nods. Jon squeezes his hand again, one last time, before standing up and jogging around the car to the driver’s side. He climbs in quickly, kicks on the engine so that he can start up the heaters, and then re-takes Martin’s hand. Martin stares straight ahead, his eyes cloudy and fixed on a faraway point Jon can’t identify.

“Martin,” Jon ventures, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible. “What happened?”

“N-nothing.” Martin shudders violently. “It was nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs.

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Jon agrees, trying to keep the reluctance from his words. “But it might… maybe it would help?”

“To see what we’re up against?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Lonely, it…” Martin laughs, a hollow, humourless sound. “It’s not just going to let me go, is it?”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. They sit for a while in silence, the only sound the rumble of the engine and the whir of the heaters. In a moment of desperation, Jon almost considers turning Radio 4 back on, and he nearly laughs at his own ridiculousness.

“I—I was in Costa,” Martin says, at last, disrupting the quiet. “I was going to get you some coffee, since you’d been driving all evening. I’m sorry. That I can’t—that I don’t have a—”

“Martin, it’s fine.” They’ve already had this conversation. Jon brushes his thumb over Martin’s knuckles and tries not to well up because Martin thought to get him coffee, when he knows for a fact that Martin despises coffee as a point of pride and refuses to even keep it in his flat.

“I always wanted to learn. To drive, that is.”

Jon smiles, but it fades quickly. “Maybe you can. When we get to…”

Martin hums. “I ordered the coffee, that was… it was fine. A bit awkward, I guess. Haven’t talked to strangers in a while, you know? Or anyone, really. But I got through it. It’s just that when—when the barista called my name, she just—she looked through me, like I wasn’t there.” A brief, bitter twitch of Martin’s lips. “Maybe I wasn’t.”

“Martin.”

“It’s fine. It’s—it has to be—I’m fine.”

“Martin.”

“I just stood there, while she was calling my name. Looking at me, but not,” Martin continues, still staring out of the window. “In the end, she gave the coffee to the person who was cleaning the forecourt.”

“Oh.” Jon tips his head back against the seat. “I can—did you order anything else? Are you hungry? I can go back inside. Or we can go… t-together.”

Martin shakes his head minutely.

“We’ll eat when we get to the house,” Jon says, like it’s already decided. “I can make soup.”

“What kind?” Martin asks, so quietly Jon almost misses it.

“Whatever kind you like.”

“I don’t know. Is that something I—should I know?”

“We can find out.”

Martin doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you ready to move on?” Jon ventures.

At Martin’s minute nod, Jon reluctantly untangles their hands and retakes the wheel. He pulls out of the service station, and once they’ve navigated the helter-skelter of roundabouts and made it back onto the motorway, Jon lets his hand drift towards the radio. Would it be so earth-shattering, to listen to something other than Radio 4? Surely it wouldn’t shake the foundation of their relationship more than everything else that’s happened in the last two years. And yet he feels an extraordinary amount of pressure, like he’s about to expose some vulnerable part of himself to Martin by revealing what sort of music he enjoys.

“Jon?” Martin murmurs.

Jon retracts his hand. It’s ridiculous, it really is, but he’s not ready. “Sorry. Just, uh, just checking I know where the—the hazard lights are in this car.”

Martin doesn’t seem to be in any position to question him. Jon returns his hand to the wheel and stares at the straight, sparse road ahead of them. There’s not a lot of traffic, late at night and mid-week, and Jon loses himself quickly in the motions of driving. It’s strange, he thinks, the way skills stay with you after so much time dormant and unpractised. He wonders if he could remember the cords he used to play on his grandmother’s piano, if he sat down in front of one now, or the lyrics of the song Georgie taught him, his voice matching the gentle strum of her guitar. He wonders if the Eye would let him be bad at it, let him rediscover these half-realised skills or supply him with the unearned knowledge of how to perfect them.

Instead, he thinks about teaching Matin to drive. If the Eye is going to insist on perfection, Jon might as well share it with the person he cares about most. The Scottish Highlands aren’t the easiest place to learn, and they probably shouldn’t attract the attention of anyone nearby by hiring an instructor, but it would be something to do. A reason to spend time together. They’d argue, almost certainly. He can hear it: yes, Jon, I know the highway code and Martin, you’ve missed the turning again and well, maybe your instructions should have been clearer and I resent your tone and I resent your directions and—he smiles. Petty arguments, of course, the kind that don’t hurt, not really. They would laugh about it when they got home.

He turns to Martin, as if this is already a joke between them, already spoke out loud, only to find him fast asleep against the window.  

The suspended moment of surprise lasts far longer than Jon would admit to anyone, even himself, and he has to force his eyes back to the road just in time to avoid a large lorry with smiling cartoon produce on its flank. He takes a moment to breath around his pounding heart as he settles back into the speed limit. And then he can’t stop stealing glances at Martin’s sleeping form.

Martin’s head is tucked between the headrest and the window, a position that will likely give him an aching neck later, but Jon can’t bear to wake him. The fleece blanket—yellow with white flowers, Jon remembers, although he can’t see it in the monochrome lights of the motorway—rests atop Martin’s gently rising and falling belly. One of Martin’s hands is hidden beneath the blanket, curled around his knee; the other lies half-up in his lap, fingers twitching every so often. His mouth is open slightly, top teeth just visible. During one stolen look, Jon notices Martin’s nose curling slightly in sleep, his eyelashes twitching. It’s so endearing that Jon has to smothers the urge to cry.

Once again, Jon thinks about the last time they shared an unfamiliar car to traverse unfamiliar terrain. Martin had seemed to sleep then, too, although looking at Martin now, Jon isn’t sure it was actual rest. More just closing his eyes, because there was no real difference between that and keeping them open, staring absently at the road ahead.

When Jon had dropped the hire car off in Croydon around eight a.m. that Saturday morning, Martin bid him goodbye with a hollow smile, assured Jon he could would be fine getting home, and walked—purposelessly, somehow, even though he had a destination—towards the nearest station. Jon had gotten another taxi back to the Institute, weekend be damned, he needed to write up his notes, and picked up his phone at obsessive fifteen-minute intervals, beset with the need to text Martin to ensure he’d gotten home safely.

He never did text. And he still regretted it, even when Martin came in on Monday—still pale, still withdrawn—and assured Jon his weekend had been fine. Even now, two years later.

Worse still, he knew something wasn’t quite right with Martin that week. Tim and Sasha had been worried about Martin, and had come into Jon’s office before leaving for the night and asked that he ensure Martin wasn’t still there when he locked up. Jon had no real issue letting Tim or Sasha stay in the Archives after-hours; he trusted them, and they were experienced researchers, and they both worked best in their own time. Martin, not so much.

But he had noticed that Martin’s quietness in the days since Naomi Hearne’s statement, the way he drifted distracted through the Archives and sometimes seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Perhaps that’s what compelled Jon to invite Martin with him to Kent. To this day, he’s still not sure why he extended the offer. Why he made that decision over and over again, even when opportunities to turn back presented.

He does know how different he feels now. How sorry he is, that he tried so hard to avoid this. How angry he is, that it took him so long to discover this feeling. And he knows exactly why he invited Martin with him to Scotland.

He supposes it’s good, if Martin didn’t—couldn’t—sleep back then, that he is managing to rest now. Jon makes himself focus very closely on the road, on driving gently so as not to disturb the sleep Martin so clearly needs.

It’s not until they’re about half an hour away from the Scottish border that Martin begins to stir, a deep sigh followed by a more discontented murmur. Jon tries to keep his eyes on the road ahead, tries not to think it’s only been an hour, please let him rest just a little longer, but his gaze keeps wandering to where Martin is curling in on himself against the window, beginning to shudder again.

The car’s heating system is already on its highest setting, which Jon discovers when he reaches to turn it up. Perhaps he’s also running cold from their encounter with the Lonely, and the shivery anxiety still gripping him after their escape from London. Jon thinks about reaching across, waking Martin, but just as he wills his hand away from the steering wheel again, Martin sits up with a noise of confusion, the rasping outline of Jon’s name.

Martin stares at the darkness in front of the car, cut through with the white glare of the headlights. He’s stock still, the only movement the rise and fall of his shoulders at pace with his frantic breathing, and the small quivers running through him at merciless intervals. It’s almost reminiscent, Jon thinks, of the time they drove to Kent, except there is something visibly uncalm about Martin’s posture this time.

“Martin?”

Martin just keeps staring.

Jon reaches across the car towards him. “Martin?”

Martin draws a sharp breath, flinching away from Jon’s outstretched hand so quickly he thumps his head against the window. The impact seems to wake him fully, but his breathing gets quicker, if anything, and he hides both his shaking hands beneath the blanket, gathering it up to his chin as he attempts to stop his teeth from chattering.

“S-sorry,” Martin murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jon replies, trying to match Martin’s voice for gentleness, although his does not shake or warp with almost-tears. “Bad dream?”

Martin hums, but says nothing more.

“Would you like to stop? I think we’ll be coming up to another service—”

“No,” Martin interrupts, a new sharpness to his voice. He takes another breath, slower but still unsteady. “No, thank you. I’m—I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

Jon tries to smile, as soothingly as his can, but Martin won’t return eye contact when Jon glances his way. “Alright. We’re not far from the border now.”

Jon drives, trying very hard to focus on the road rather than Martin in the passenger seat. Every time Jon looks Martin’s way, the shivering seems to get worse, accompanied by a blurring at the edges of his figure that Jon attributes, at first, to the late hour, to the fuzziness of the light and the growing exhaustion behind Jon’s eyes. When he tries to focus on it, it gives him an odd, momentary headache—not dissimilar to when he attempts to Know something too big or too abstract.

It’s then that Jon realises this is the Lonely, clinging to Martin like heat haze to the road, except there’s something distinctly sinister and chilling about it. A claws-out, cloying presence in the car with them.

“Martin…”

“I’m fine,” Martin replies, voice as tense as his jaw as he fights down another teeth-chattering chill. “It’s—it will pass.”

Jon swallows around the ache in his throat. “Can I help?”

“It’s fine.”

“Martin—”

“Jon, I’m—”

“You’re not,” Jon snaps, not meaning to sound so harsh, but the worry explodes out of him sounding closer to anger. “You’re not fine, Martin, and I—I can’t just sit here and watch—”

“Then don’t watch,” Martin hisses back. “Would that be so hard? To just. Not watch. For once in your life just stop—stop looking, stop asking to know things that will—that will—”

“That will what?”

“That will destroy you, okay? Stop throwing yourself into—into the eldritch version of staring directly at the sun!”

“Already been there and done that, I’m afraid,” Jon mutters, with no small amount of bitterness.

“Oh, great! And how did that turn out? I’m not some—you can’t—I didn’t ask for this. I’m not a statement, I’m not—you can’t just Know me, Jon, that’s not—not fair. It’s not—” Martin is gasping now, almost gagging on his words, on the tears threatening to implode his facade of distance. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

When Jon turns to look at him, there is still something blurred and unspecific about Martin, like he is both here and somewhere else. Like half of his image is being left behind by each forward movement of the car. But he is crying, fully crying. And by some cruel twist of fate, Jon can see this more clearly than everything else around them.

“I know what you’re going to say. I know nothing’s fair. I know that’s the—it’s the way our world is now, right? Nothing’s fair, and nothing’s safe, and everything…” Martin coughs miserably, his voice stolen momentarily by the tears. “Everything ends.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t, Jon. Don’t say my name like that.”

“What would you have me say instead?”

“I don’t—I can’t. Not yet.”

So Jon says nothing. He drives. He tries very hard not to look at Martin, who curls against the door, crying in such a quiet, self-contained way that Jon wants to weep with the intensity of grief Martin seems to be denying himself.

By the time they’re nearing the border, Martin is even quieter. Jon risks a glance at him and finds that he is still crying, but sporadically, just tears now, falling silently onto the blanket he’s still holding beneath his chin. His face shimmers when it catches the headlights leeching across the road from the southbound side. The glassy look has returned to his eyes, and Jon wonders if he even knows that he’s still crying.

Up ahead, Jon spots a sign for Gretna Green. It twists a wretched, tearful laugh from his throat.

“What is it?” Martin rasps.

Jon turns to him, not caring if he misses the moment they cross the border—which before had seemed such an important milestone to him, a prerequisite of the journey. Martin is still crying those silent, ignored tears, but his gaze has moved from that absent nothingness to Jon’s face instead.

“I was just—Gretna Green,” Jon says uselessly. “We’re near Gretna Green.”

Martin takes a shuddering breath. It sounds like it could have been a laugh, too, if they were somewhere else, someone else—a perfect twin to Jon’s. “Oh?”

“Did you know that you can no longer get married at Gretna Green without at least twenty-nine days’ notice? In 1856, a law was passed requiring one member of the couple to have resided in the local parish for at least twenty-one days in order to be eligible to marry there. That has since been repealed, but the longer notice period maintained.” Jon didn’t know this until just a moment ago, when the Eye supplied it to him. “The tradition of Gretna Green marriages dates back to at least 1754, although the practice didn’t become commonplace until a toll road made it a more accessible location to those travelling from England. At the time, Scottish law was guided more by Celtic rather than Catholic tradition, and so allowed a couple to be married by anyone so long as there were witnesses, which gave rise to so-called anvil priests—local blacksmiths willing to perform wedding ceremonies.”

Martin swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand. He seems sturdier, more present. “I didn’t know any of that, actually.”

“The most famous anvil priest is Richard Rennison, who was recorded as having performed five-thousand, one-hundred and forty-seven wedding ceremonies before ‘irregular marriages’ were outlawed by the Scottish government in 1939.”

“That’s—that’s a lot of weddings,” Martin murmurs, a hint of humour in his voice. “He must have seen a lot.”

Jon frowns. “Of what?”

“Well, love, I guess. But it can’t all have been good.”

“Perhaps.”

“I mean, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, for a start.”

“Yes, but Mr Wickham is not a particularly helpful example of a potential husband. Would you hold his entire character against the integrity of Gretna Green?”

“I guess they never actually went to Gretna Green, in the end. But I bet there’s a lot of real-life examples of people manipulating their partners into a shotgun wedding across the border and then—”

“Goodbye happily ever after.”

“I never had you down for a hopeless romantic.”

“I was agreeing with your last point.”

“Yeah, but none of the points before that.”

“Yes, I was.”

Martin makes that noise again, something adject to a laugh that warms Jon’s heart. “No, you weren’t.”

“Yes, I was.”

“No, you—” Martin stops, shakes his head. “This is ridiculous.”

“Fine,” Jon says, lifting his hands momentarily from the steering wheel in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a hopeless romantic, thank you very much. But is it so terrible to imagine that some of those marriages were—well, happy or exciting or—or fairer? Than somewhere else? That there was a great deal of love here for a great deal of time, and that makes this place—unique. You’re right: not all of it could have been happy, or good, or honest. But—”

“But you’re a little bit in love with the idea of this place,” Matin says, and it takes Jon a moment to realise he’s teasing.

Jon feels heat rush to his cheeks, and he’s glad that it’s dark inside the car, that they’re between streetlights and passing vehicles. I’m a little bit in love with you, too, Jon thinks, and feels his blush deepen even further. The thought is so vivid that for a moment, he’s convinced he actually said it out loud. But Martin is just looking at him, his expression still somewhat distant, but there’s something like a smile sitting on his lips. No hint that Jon might have just confessed his love.

“Yes, well.” Jon clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s nice to…”

“Have a little hope?”

Jon nods, just once. When he looks at Martin, his smile has disappeared and there are tears in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers.

“For what?”

“For everything. For—”

“Jon, you can’t be sorry for everything,” Martin cuts in. “It will eat you alive. God, you—you don’t have to be sorry. Not for anything you think you’ve done to me.”

“Martin, I—”

“No, Jon, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“What an earth for? You haven’t—”

“I have. We’ve both—we’ve both made a lot of mistakes. And that’s… probably why we’re here.” Martin sniffs, curls his hands tighter around the blanket. “But I…”

Jon waits. He thinks they must have crossed the border into Scotland now, with little fanfare. Too absorbed in each other’s words to notice the transition.

“Can we stop soon?” Martin asks at last, breaking the silence.

It’s not what Jon is expecting, but he nods nonetheless. “Of course. We’ll stop at the next service station.”

True to his word, Jon stops at the next service station—which just so happens to be Gretna Green. He asks Martin if he wants to keep going, to bypass this service station for another, but Martin simply shakes his head and doesn’t say anything as Jon finds them an empty space.

They walk inside together, only splitting off into separate cubicles when they reach the toilets. Martin says very little, but allows himself to be guided by Jon through Waitrose, which is open despite the late hour. They’ll have to sacrifice affordability for practicality this time, since they’re only two hours away from Daisy’s safehouse and it seems like a bad idea to risk stopping again. Jon fills their basket with tea bags, powdered milk, custard creams, bread, bananas, baked beans and pre-grated cheese. None of it particularly glamourous, but it will tide them over, and he’s not sure either of them is in a state to do more than microwave what they have available.

Just before they reach the check-out, Jon notices the chocolate Martin likes. He remembers, because Tim had once returned from his lunch break having bought the entire box from the nearby supermarket when Martin had been staying in the Archives. Caramel Cadbury, the contrasting purple and yellow wrapper always showing up in the bins after that, and Jon feeling an odd sense of jealousy that Tim had so effortlessly, it seemed, made Martin’s unexpected stay more pleasant.

Jon places two bars into the basket with the rest of their goods. With the hand not holding the basket, Jon reaches for Martin. Martin closes the distance, taking Jon’s hand, and they cling to each other through the transaction and the return to the car.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks Martin.

Martin shakes his head. Jon adds this to the list of things to address later, when he isn’t so sleep-deprived he’s sure to say the wrong thing, push the wrong buttons. He places their shopping bags in the boot of the car and reluctantly relinquishes Martin’s hand so they can both climb back in.

Jon doesn’t start the engine.

“I can’t stop thinking about Naomi Hearne,” Martin announces, after a long stretch of silence. “I had a dream about her statement. Earlier. It was… different, though. I think it might have been—I think maybe I was—I belonged to that house.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. His own silence is choking him, and he knows now is not the time to cry, but it’s a difficult thing to wrestle down the onslaught.

“I was so stupid,” Martin hisses. He’s crying again, so suddenly Jon feels like he must have missed something. “I should never have gotten involved with the Lonely. I’m—this is—it’s all my fault. I did this.”

Jon swallows his own tears. “Martin, I don’t understand.”

“The Lonely won’t let me go.”

“It will. It has,” Jon says, quick, desperate.

“No.” Martin shakes his head with a mirthless laugh. “No, it hasn’t, Jon. You remember Evan Lukas.”

“Of course,” Jon replies, although it wasn’t a question.

“He escaped. He escaped, and it took him back in the end.”

“No.” Jon leans back, as if struck. This is—why has he never thought about this? But no, it can’t be true, it can’t be a possibility. “No, that’s—Martin, you aren’t like him. Evan Lukas was—he was born into it. The Lonely was with him for longer than it ever was you.”

“I think the Lonely always had me.”

“Don’t say that. Not again. Not now.”

“But it’s true, Jon! When I listened to Naomi Hearne’s statement—”

“I should never have let you—”

“You didn’t let me. I chose to.”

“It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was.”

“No, it—it compelled you, somehow. The statements, they can do that, they can—”

“I wanted to read it.”

“Exactly!”

“No, I wanted to read it because I was doing my job, because I was helping Tim and Sasha. I didn’t know it would—it just seemed like a normal statement. Until I listened,” Martin continues, voice growing in strength. “It called to something inside of me. I recognised so much of myself—”

“No, Martin.”

“My life is—was—it was just like—”

“Stop,” Jon snaps, “Stop. Please.”

Martin stops, but only momentarily. “We have to talk about this at some point. I know I’ve been putting it off, too, but… we have to.”

Jon drags a hand over his face, suddenly so exhausted he could fall asleep. But his heart is pounding and his hands, he realises as he’s lowering them from his face, are shaking. There’s no rest to be had yet. “Alright.”

“Being cut off from the Lonely might kill me,” Martin says, “Like it killed Evan Lukas.”

“I’ll be cut off from the Eye, too. I’ll—”

“Basira is sending you statements,” Martin interrupts, “And you’re going to read them, okay? You have to read them.”

“Then you’ll have to—to find a way to feed the Lonely, too.”

“I won’t do that.”

“That’s the only deal I’m going to make.”

“I won’t sacrifice anyone to that place,” Martin spits. “You saw it, Jon. You were there. How can you think I would ever send anyone there just to save myself?”

“Oh, and you think feeding the Eye is without its sacrifices?” Jon demands, fury rising to meet his grief in a perfect storm. “Is it okay to subject people to nightmares, to reliving their trauma again and again with me drinking it all in, just so I can survive?”

“At least they’d be alive!”

“Martin, this is ridiculous. You can’t—”

“Stop trying to find a way out of this.”

“Stop acting as if this is the only way!” Jon shouts, loudly enough that Martin flinches back.

With a shuddering breath, Jon tries to contain his anger, to hide it until it’s not so raw. He thinks about the last time they were in the car together. The argument then, and how he had pulled over and gotten out and smoked to avoid finishing the confrontation, to avoid letting his true feelings show.

He won’t do that again. He can’t. Not this time.

“Evan Lukas didn’t—it might not have been the Lonely that killed him. We don’t know for certain that it was,” Jon continues. “And if it was the Lonely… did Naomi Hearne’s statement give any indication that he lived his life differently because he knew it might happen? No. He got a job that he cared about. He surrounded himself with friends. He fell in love. You can have all of those things. You deserve all of those things.”

Martin’s tears drop faster and faster, an unstoppable flood, and Jon wants nothing more than to reach across and wipe them away with his thumb. He would, except that Martin is holding himself so tightly, curled with his back against the car door, and he looks so devastated, so far away, so unwilling to be reached.

“He died,” Martin sobs. “He died, and he left the person he loved behind.”

“Oh, Martin.”

“No, Jon, I—I know what that feels like.”

“Martin,” Jon murmurs. Afraid of what’s coming next. But he knows he has to say it. He has to keep going. “Can I ask you something?”

Martin hesitates, wiping at his eyes, digging his fingers into his sockets. After a protracted moment, he nods.

“Do you think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas?” Jon asks.

Martin stares at him, still crying. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t…” Martin takes a shuddering breath. “No. I don’t think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas.”

Jon almost smiles. “Neither do I.”

“But she was lonely again, afterwards.”

“Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she reached out to Evan’s friends. Maybe she realised they were her friends, too.”

Martin stares at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you know that?”

“No.” Jon sighs. “No, but I—I can Look.”

“No, that’s not fair.”

Jon steadies himself. Across the car park, he watches a young father bounce a little baby, pacing the length of his sedan as he does so. In the car, the faint silhouette of his partner is just visible; they look peaceful, at rest. Jon’s heart aches.

“Can I ask you one more thing, Martin?” Jon whispers.

“Yes,” Martin rasps, reluctance replaced with resignation.

“Do you wish you had never met me?”

Silence. Jon forces himself to keep watching the father, murmuring now to the fussing baby, giving Martin time to consider the question, all of its sharp angles, its gentle core. He wishes, more than anything, that he could reach for Martin’s hand and hold it. Hold it tight, kiss his knuckles.

“Jon?”

At last, Jon turns to look at Martin. Their eyes meet and then, in a blur of movement, Martin reaches for him, his hands pausing on Jon’s shoulders for just a moment, giving him time to pull away, but Jon reciprocates in full, grabs hold of Martin’s jumper and pulls until they’re a tangled mess, holding each other, crying and clinging and trying to move closer than the small car will allow.

“No,” Martin says into Jon’s shoulder. “I don’t—of course I don’t regret meeting you. God, Jon, I—please don’t—never think that, okay? I don’t want you to ever think that.”

Jon lifts his hand to Martin’s hair, runs his fingers through the tussled curls where they’re fuzzy from sleeping against the door. “Martin, meeting you—it was a gift. It’s always been a gift.”

Martin sobs, his face wet against the seam of Jon’s jumper. “I wish I’d never agreed to Peter’s plan.”

“I understand why you did. And I forgive you, if you need to hear it.”

“But I’ve ruined everything.”

“Nothing is ruined beyond repair, Martin.”

“What if the Lonely calls me back?”

Jon holds tighter, as if the Lonely is already at their backs, creeping closer. “We’ll deal with it.”

“You said yourself…” Martin sobs again. “You said—when we went to Kent—you said—”

“I said it didn’t matter how long Naomi and Evan had. I remember.”

Martin is shaking against him. “Did you…?”

“I meant it. Not because—it’s not because I didn’t care, although I know I was trying very hard to give that impression, at the time. I meant it because no amount of time would have been enough. Love is… it’s outlasting. It makes its own time.”

“Jon—”

“No, please, Martin, I—I need to say this. No matter how long we get, whether it’s days or—or years. It won’t be enough. I’ll always…” Jon laughs, a small, fragile thing. “Well, I’ll always want more. Perhaps you don’t believe me, or you—you can’t, right now. But you, Martin, you are enough. Always. I will spend every moment we get together ensuring you believe that. If you’ll have me, of course. There’s—of course, there’s no obligation, and I would—I’d understand if—but it’s true. It’s all true.” Jon laughs again, feeling giddy. “I want to spend all of my time with you, Martin. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Slowly, they pull away from each other, but not far. Jon moves his hands up Martin’s arms, over his shoulders, until they rest on his cheeks, and he finally allows himself the privilege of wiping away Martin’s tears with his thumb.

“I wish it hadn’t taken—well, all of this—” Martin makes a vague gesture with his hand, which still somehow encompasses everything: tea stains on statements, worms at the door and shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall, trips to the café heavy with paranoia, quiet goodbyes, missed moments. “To get here.”

Jon rubs his thumb against Martin’s cheek. “We can’t go back.”

“I know.”

“Will you…?” Jon takes a steadying breath. There are so many questions, but only one matters, in this moment. The rest will follow, one day. “Martin, will you take it day by day with me? And if that doesn’t work—hour by hour, minute by minute. Together.”

There’s a breathless pause. And then Martin laughs, a genuine smile splitting his face for the first time in—well, Jon can’t remember how long. It’s small and tentative, but it’s there. And it means everything to Jon.

“Yes,” Martin tells him.

Jon smiles, too.

“I’m scared,” Martin murmurs, smile wavering slightly.

“Me too.”

“But I—I want to try.”

Jon feels his smile grow. “That’s enough. Always.”

Martin’s smile finds its feet again.

“Are you ready to keep going?” Jon asks.

Martin lifts his hands to Jon’s and squeezes. “I’m ready.”

In the silvery-grey headlights on the tarmac ahead, Jon thinks he sees the outline of the words he is still looking for the strength to share.

I love you.

Soon. He’ll say it soon. He has time.

*

The sun is just rising when they reach the safehouse. It welcomes them like an old friend, worn stone bathed in newborn sunlight as if to say hello, as if to smile at their arrival. Jon insists they are safe here, though his heart is unsure. Martin can’t shake the feeling that this is won’t be forever, though his heart wants to hope this might be it.

Maybe they will have a lifetime here. Maybe not.

Love makes its own time, Martin thinks. And Jon smiles and leads them both towards home.

[igotyouniverse]

Breathe Me - Chapter 1 [nct vamp au]

Description: After dropping out of college and coming home for the first time in two years, 22-year-old Ava Lee gets caught up in a mystery surrounding the people she thought she knew for so long. Between friendship, affairs and true love the young women finds herself being pulled into a  nightmare she would never wake up from.

Pairing: Oc x Taeyong , Oc x Johnny [several side-pairing involving Mark, Ten, Lucas and Jaehyun.]

Included Members: Taeyong, Johnny, Mark, Lucas, Ten, Jaehyun, Doyoung, Haechan (maybe more)

Genre: Drama, Romance, Angst, Action, Fantasy

Warnings: none (this chapter)

suggestive content, strong language, violence, blood, death. probably more, not sure yet (later chapters)

a/n: Here it comes! After years of procrestination I finally managed to write the very first (very boring) chapter of my vampire au with nct! Anyway, the main drama will start in the next chapter so stay patient and bear this one with me. It took me long enough, haha. All the warnings will be for later chapters so don't start reading if u dont feel like reading stuff like that qq If someone wants to get tagged please send me a message, ask, comment or whatever qq

I really hope you guys enjoy it, it was a very heavy birth. ♥

ch.2 || ch. 3

                                                   †

The girl sighed deeply and took a look outside the small airplane window. She saw how the plane slowly drove into the prepared parking lot and felt how her level of anxiety rose with each second. Even though the flight was 18 hours long and her legs started to hurt she didn't want to stand up. Standing up meant for her to actually leave the plane, get her luggage and meet her family which would sooner or later lead to them asking all these questions. It wasn't like she didn't miss them.

She missed them very dearly. She missed the Sunday morning brunches with her neighbours, the movie nights where her dad would always pick out a movie because he'd pout if not, she even missed  her little brother Mark bursting into her room without knocking and asking her some totally stupid questions. She missed catching up with her best friend. She missed all these sleepovers when all they had to worry about was who the cutest boy at school was and what they'll do together once they were adults. She craved for all these past memories. The last time she set foot onto this ground was two years ago at her very first spring break after leaving home, moving to a town thousand of miles away, not knowing anyone.

She heard a beeping noise which indicated that the passengers could stand up and get out but she waited. All of them seemed in such a hurry to leave the plane, grabbing their belongings, everyone trying to get out first which ended in a crowded queue inside of the plane. She stretched her legs as much as possible, not making the slightest move to stand up.

Her eyes wandered back to the window, allowing her to take a glance at the sky, she wished to be into again. It was still quite bright outside, even though it was nearly evening, the sun nearly blinding her when she looked up, leading her to cover her eyes with her hand. The sunsets were so different in the States than here, in South Korea. Her eyes tried to focus on the slowly fading sun, leaving the sky in beautiful pinks and oranges with just a hint of soft white clouds.

Her mind started to spin, thinking about all the things she had to explain to her family sooner or later. But for now she needed to stay positive and hide the fact that she – the oh-so-perfect – student managed to drop out of a university, her parents nearly went insolvent to pay for to allow their daughter to get the best medical education they could think of. At the beginning the girl actually thought that it was her biggest dream to become a famous surgeon but after a short while she had to face the ugly truth that the job she so desperately wanted to do as long as she could remember just wasn't her thing.

She tried so badly to keep on and thought that it's just a phase every young adult went through when they started university but every time she talked to her friends at university she saw that that wasn't exactly the case. Everyone was so focused and motivated to become a successful doctor or surgeon they underwent the torture of endless sleepless nights, insane pressure and the feeling of not being able to even cut an onion correctly, which the professor didn't even care to make better. Every day she got told that she would never be able to work in the medical field and could try herself with some more basic and easy studies. It didn't matter how hard she tried to remember all the lectures and do her assignments – she failed miserably at everything.

Of course, her family didn't know. She was way too afraid to burst the bubble her parents created around her, leaving her in that perfect, white spotlight, portraying her like some sort of angel on a pedestal for everyone to see. They loved to talk about her in front of everyone, telling them that she'd be a successful surgeon, working hard and publishing groundbreaking articles, making herself a name in the medical community. Maybe even getting some famous award. Everyone in that small town knew about the smart daughter who got into one of the best medical universities in the United States, who worked so hard she was barely home.

She couldn't bear to see the disappointment on their faces once they see what she really was – a failure. She managed to hide her dropping out of university so well, she created her web of lies carefully over the last year, she sometimes even believed what she was saying. But as soon as her alarm clock went off, remembering her to go to work at a small corner café to pay her rent and even save some money in case her parents might throw her out, she had to face real life again. The life in which she dropped out only one year after starting, loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars and leaving the incident in her resume forever.

She was glad she got a job in the café as it belonged to the parents of one friend she met at college, who managed to get in because of a scholarship. They allowed her to work as much as she could to save money and even helped her sometimes.

“Excuse me, Miss?”, a soft and gentle voice made the girl leave her deep thoughts and look up. A beautiful, young flight attendant smiled down at her. “You need to leave the plane, please.”, she said in sweet yet demanding voice  and got her luggage out of the cabinet above for her. The girl didn't realise that the plane was already as good as empty. She thanked the attendant, grabbed her bag and went out of the plane into the airport, feeling her legs shaking more with each step she took.

She pulled out her smartphone, turning off flight mode only to get bombarded with dozens of messages, mostly from her mom asking if she already landed and that they waited for her at the gate. After that she only texted emojis. Hearts, heart-eyes and some other stuff which made her feel even more anxious. How could she disappoint a mother as proud as her? No, she needed to keep her secret for a bit longer. Maybe until her brother messed up. But what could he possibly mess up which would overshadow her dropping out of college? Maybe if he committed a crime.

Mark was different from her, She didn't know how but he actually managed to tell their parents that he doesn't want to become a doctor or lawyer, and instead insisted of becoming an author or journalist. To say her parents were unhappy would be an understatement. They were more than angry and told him to pay the tuition himself. They believed it was just a small teenage dream he had but when he finished High School and started working at the local bookstore to save some money to actually study creative writing they realized that he was serious. That small incident happened just 14 months ago, yet he continued to work there and save up. He even managed to visit her every couple of months, as she didn't want to come.

When she arrived at the luggage claim the suitcases were already out on the baggage belt and she waited as long as she could, watching her lonely suitcase making its turns on the device, purposely ignoring it until it was the only one left and she had to grab it. Her phone vibrated in her pocket again.

Mark [06.07pm]: Where r u?

She rolled her eyes and just put it back in the pocket of her jeans as she headed towards the exit. The girl took a deep breath, putting on the brightest smile she could manage and stepped out of the doors. Her family wasn't hard to notice. Her parents held a way too big and bright  banner in their hands

WELCOME HOME AVA

Ava tried to keep her smile up and waved at them. “Oh, honey welcome home!”, her mother shouted as she lowered the banner to hug her daughter tightly. “I'm so happy you're finally home again, our doctor!.”, she said and patted her back softly. She felt her dad joining the hug and giving her a warm smile as well, joining her mother in telling her how happy he was to have her back home. Ava clenched her jaw, trying to smile as honest as possible.

“You're really squishing me to death guys.”, Ava chuckled and was glad when her parents finally let go of her. She looked up and saw her brother Mark smiling at her.

“Come on, give your favourite sister a hug.”, the girl laughed, making her brother chuckle before embracing her in a loving hug as well. The last time she saw him he visited the campus a few months ago. Of course he didn't know she dropped out then and nearly choked on his water when she told him. She knew he wouldn't tell their parents but he thought it would be better if she told their parents as soon as possible, which she didn't of course.

“Happy to have you back.”, Mark said and squeezed his sister one more time before he let her go and took her suitcase.

Ava stretched her body slowly before getting into their car, really not wanting to sit down for another hour but apparently she had to. As soon as she sat down and put on her seat belt her mother turned around to look at her and smiled.

“Tell us, honey, how is Stanford? Is it going well, yes?”, she asked and Ava felt like she needed to throw up.

“Yeah, everything is fine. I handed in all assignments last week and I have a good feeling.”, she chuckled and felt guilt crawling all over her body. She smiled slightly and turned her eyes away to avoid her mother proud gaze, yet she could feel Mark eyeing her.

“Ah, that's so great, honey. Your father and I just talked to the Lee's from across the street and they told us their son wants to apply to Stanford, too. We told them you could talk to him and give some advice.”

“Sure.”, she just sighed and pulled out her phone again, hoping her mother would understand her silent plead to leave her be. Her mother smiled again and turned back to talk to her father about what she'd make for dinner on this special occasion.

Ava checked the other texts she got, scrolling through them. She smiled when she saw a text from her best friend, sending her a picture from her in her nurse uniform. She looked so cute, proudly standing in front of the mirror in the dressing room, posing with a finger heart.

[Ava 06.54pm] Cute! Just landed, on my way home. Wanna hang out later?

[Yunmi 06.57pm] Can't. Night shift today but pick me up tomorrow morning and get breakfast? The café next to the bookstore finally opened!

[Ava 07.00pm] absolutely! Can't wait. Miss you so much ♥

She scrolled through the remaining texts just to feel a little disappointment in her body after not seeing what she so desperately wanted to see. But then again, she didn't expect to see a text from him after he ignored each and everyone of hers the last two years. He didn't even care enough to wish her a happy birthday in November so he probably couldn't care less texting her when she came home.

She sighed lightly and looked outside the car window, seeing how the landscape came and go in front of her eyes and how the sky got all these beautiful colours in it, she could even see the moon already. A wave of tiredness crashed over her exhausted body as she decided to close her eyes for just  a moment.

The girl felt someone poking her arm multiple times, calling her name.

“Wake up, we're home.”, she heard Mark say and groaned, before rubbing her eyes.

“Yes, I'm awake, you can stop poking me.”, she said when her brother continued to poke her arm with a grin on his face.

“Don't make me hit you.”, she warned and slapped his hand away.

“Pff, please.” he answered mockingly and jumped out of the car before her fist could reached his body.

Ava chuckled , getting out of the car stretching her stiff body slowly, hearing all her joints crack at once.

“How old are you? 80?” Mark said teasingly, getting out her suitcase from the trunk.

“Trust me, I feel like it.”, she yawned loudly and slowly got up the stairs to their house.

She inhaled the sweet and calming scent of her mothers vanilla candles as soon as she set foot into the house, taking of her shoes before she walked further inside. It hasn't changed a bit. The beige coloured walls still had pictures of the family on them. Ava smiled and looked at the picture of her and her family from her Highschool graduation three years ago. She smiled when she saw the exact picture her parents had chosen. Mark and her making some weird pose while her parents rolled their eyes.

“Honey, dinner will be ready in half-an-hour, okay?” she didn't realize that her mother was standing right next to her and flinched a bit.

“Yeah, sure, thank you, mom. I'll start to unpack then. Love you.”, Ava said, kissing her mothers cheek softly before going up the stairs into her old room where Mark already put her suitcase and bag.

Her room hasn't changed either. Of course, it looked a bit colder as she took all her personal stuff with her to the US when she moved out, but it still felt comfy with it's cozy beige sofa and her queen sized bed, which her mother already prepared for her. She closed the door behind her and looked outside the big windows, which connected to a small balcony, which was only hers. She remembered how mad Mark was when she got the room with the balcony and not him and grinned. She stepped outside for a moment to breathe in the still warm air, listening to the rustling sound of the trees as a mild breeze blew through them.

The small wooden bench she made herself with her dad back when she was younger still stood in the very same corner and even had pillows on it and a blanket, indicating that someone still used it even while she was gone. Probably her mother when she wanted to have some time and space for herself, she thought and smiled before going back into her room.

She stretched her stiff body once again before squatting down and opening her black suitcase to unpack her things. Ava only brought some clothes and other necessities with her as she didn't believe of staying home for a longer period of time. She rented her tiny apartment, or as she preferred to call it, her shoebox to a friend from university who looked for her own place as long as she stayed with her parents so she didn't need to worry about paying rent. So she just packed her essentials and hoped to keep her pretty little lie for some more months to figure out what she actually wanted to do with her situation now. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to stay in Stanford . She just knew, she didn't want to stay here in this tiny town where everyone knows everyone.

She loved the size of New York, she loved the vibes, the people and even the stink it had. It was charming in some kind of way and she enjoyed the anonymity she had. She liked living in the famous city which never sleeps but it didn't feel like a complete home to her yet and maybe never would. Not to mention, that she was just working in a café which was barely enough to live so she needed to get something more permanent very soon. But she had no idea what that could be. Maybe she'd apply to another university, maybe she didn't want to go to college at all. But what were her options anyway?

Ava groaned, throwing a stack of clothes into her closet in frustration, before squatting down again to fold them neatly. She felt her phone vibrating in the pocket of her jeans and sighed when she saw the name of the person who messaged her blinking in front of her. She opened it and thought about her answer for several minutes before she decided to ignore it for the moment and maybe get back to it later, unsure about her wanting to meet the sender or not.

She furrowed her eyes as she looked at the clock hanging at one of her walls, showing that it was way later than she expected and her mother still hadn't called for dinner yet. She put the last of her belongings in the connected bathroom she shared with her brother and checked her phone to make sure she didn't receive a text from him telling her dinner is ready. Ava didn't realize how hungry she was until she thought about the dishes her mother was probably busy making and her mouth started to water. She really missed good Korean food. There were quite some Korean restaurants in New York but of course nothing tasted as good as her mother's home cooked meals.

Just as she wanted to open her door and check downstairs she heard her mother shout from the kitchen that dinner was finally ready. She opened her door and could already smell the kimchi and meat her mother apparently made and couldn't wait to finally taste it.

“Coming! I'm getting Mark”, Ava shouted back and wanted to knock on Marks door, telling him to come down but the boy who opened the door wasn't her brother.

“Oh, hey Ava. Haven't seen you in forever. How are you?”, Johnny asked, seemingly surprised but a small smile appeared on his pretty face.

He hasn't changed a tiny bit. He still looked as gorgeous as three years ago when she left and never heard of him again. His hair was still black but a tad longer than before. It framed the contours of his face just perfectly which made it hard for her to look away and think about how she was mad at him for ignoring her for the past years, even though the last thing she remembered with him was actually something very nice. Or that's at least what she thought it was. Apparently he thought differently and had to treat her like air. Not even daring to step a foot in their house when she came home for spring break once.

“Umm, fine. Are you staying for dinner?”, she asked, trying to sound as calm as possible but she couldn't hide a tint of anger in her voice, yet the anger mixed up with other feelings she was way too bad at hiding.

“Yeah, I invited him. He basically lives here anyway.”, she heard Mark say behind Johnny who didn't seem to sense her displeasure over his invitation. Why do they have to be best friends? She asked herself and secretly hoped for Johnny to disappear or something. But of course that wouldnÄt happen.

“Please, the food gets cold, come down.”, she heard her mother saying from the foot of the stairs with her hands stemmed in her hips, still wearing her red-dotted apron.

“Actually, I'm not hungry.”, Ava said taking a step away from Johnny as his simple presence made her legs feel stupidly weak.

Her statement got quite unbelievable when her stomach started to growl from the heavenly scent of her mother's food.

“Doesn't sound like it.”, Mark said and raised his brow looking at his sister questionably.

“I'm really not hungry and I'm meeting a friend. Can we postpone our family dinner to another time?”, she said while purposely emphasising the term family to show her displeasure about the clearly unwanted guest guest.

Before her mother could answer something Ava ran down the stairs, giving her mother another short kiss before running outside, leaving her house behind.

She took a deep breath before letting out some vulgar curses towards the situation and especially the person causing her to still feel all these things.

Ava pulled out her phone and messaged the only person she could think of, who might get her thoughts somewhere else, even if she might regret it in the morning.

masterlist

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: After 13 Years, Indie RPG Masterpiece Ruina is Finally Available in English

All screenshots of Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins taken by author

  This article was made possible through the invaluable contributions of translators Dink and bool, and further aided by context generously provided by writer, translator, and RPG Maker scene dweller Kastel (@kastelwrites). Sections from their answers were excerpted for this piece and edited for clarity and content.

  Last year, at the start of the pandemic, a lapsed member of the RPG Maker community known as Dink stumbled across a screenshot while trawling Japanese free game websites: a black obelisk standing in the midst of ruins. “This is going to make me sound like I've been huffing paint, but this image spoke to something quite visceral for me — like I'd been waiting to find this game. Something about the sepia tones, the light and shadows, the elegance of its very archetype. I knew I had to play it.” Dink had stumbled across Ruina: Haitou no Monogatari (Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins), one of the most acclaimed free RPGs ever made in Japan. Released in the antiquated RPG Maker 2000 engine in 2008 by developer Shoukichi Karekusa, it retains a strong cult following and has even been translated into Chinese. Yet unlike its RPG Maker siblings Yume Nikki and Ib, Ruina is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. Dink decided to change that.  “Once I realized that it had yet to be translated into English,” he said, “it was like I’d become possessed.”

  Ruina is unique. A role-playing game that takes direct influence from tabletop games and gamebooks, it boldly defies conventions established by classic console role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Rather than controlling the main character across a top-down map, the player slowly uncovers a hand-illustrated map of nodes. Survival in the dungeon requires the use of ropes, pickaxes, and oil for your lantern, resources that are all expendable. Your party members are valuable not only for their combat skills but for their out-of-combat abilities: thieving, sneaking, even swimming. Most of all, Ruina allows for choice and consequence, a phenomenon far more common in western RPGs than Japanese RPGs. Say you stumble across treasure in a dungeon, but are ambushed by thieves who want the treasure for themselves. Do you give the treasure to the thieves? Stand your ground? Or attack the thieves before they can do the same to you? Since your ability to save in the dungeon is heavily rationed, you may find yourself having to choose between restarting a save or living with the messy outcomes of your choices.

    There’s something to Ruina that grounds it in the Japanese RPG tradition, rather than a straightforward riff on Wizardry or Might & Magic. Those earlier games gave you several choices as to building your party, but little in the way of story or character. Ruina is a far more curated experience. On starting the game, you’re offered four “backgrounds” that align you with certain other characters, just one year before Dragon Age: Origins would pull a similar trick. Rather than being given the full freedom to explore a sprawling world, your options are limited to navigating a single, contained dungeon. The characters available to be recruited into your party have defined personalities and quirks — some are already good friends of yours, others are insufferable, and still others have significant flaws that speak to the kind of person they are versus their gameplay function. These are NPCs out of the Baldur’s Gate school, given the illusion of life, rather than the team of personalized murderers you’d recruit in an Etrian Odyssey game.

  Very little else in the Japanese games scene is like Ruina. You could draw comparisons with games like Unlimited Saga and Scarlet Grace, representing the legacy of controversial SQUARE ENIX auteur Akitoshi Kawazu. You could similarly connect Ruina with Yasumi Matsuda’s experimental Crimson Shroud, which takes influence from tabletop to the point that it has the player rolling dice in-game. But Ruina is more accessible and polished than a Kawazu game, and far more fleshed out than Crimson Shroud. Even Etrian Odyssey, with its comparatively barebones story and characters, doesn’t quite compare. Ruina stands alone in the Japanese free games community, a legendary title that people respect but don’t fully understand how to replicate.

    A few days ago I reached out to Kastel, an academic, writer, and translator who is very familiar with Japan’s RPG Maker scene, about where Ruina fit in Japan’s wider field of indie games. “I know many people in the furige (free game) scene who love the game to death,” they said. “But they also found it to be a hard sell due to its unique, almost western take on the scene. The fact that the game is even this popular speaks to something.” Despite its crunchy mechanics and niche inspirations, the game is popular enough to have spawned light novels, an honor not unique to it (other RPG Maker games have accomplished the same) but certainly significant. Kastel drew a comparison between Ruina and Darkest Dungeon, another weird and uncompromising game that draws from both Japanese and western RPGs. “Ruina is sorta different from everything, but you also see dungeon crawlers get inspired by it,” they said. “Not all games take direct inspiration, but you can’t help but see a little bit of Ruina here and there.”

  So why did it take so long for anybody to translate Ruina? Dink isn’t the only person to try his hand at translating it into English; just last fall, another forum dweller placed an ad recruiting a translation team to tackle the game. The unfortunate reality is that translating text within the RPG Maker engine into English requires intensive and repetitive labor. “There’ve been tools developed by vgperson [a prominent translator of RPG Maker games] for RPG Maker 2000 and some other machine translation tools for newer games, but they all remain difficult to use for translators,” Kastel says. “The way games are scripted uses events inside the map and developers rarely name them. So not only do you need to edit it via the appropriate RPG Maker engine, but you also need to go through each event contextless unless the creator actually notes things down.” So, the enterprising Ruina translator doesn’t just need to translate all the text in the game into English. It isn’t even a question of whether or not to manually edit the game’s many pictures and custom menus into English by hand. It’s the sheer difficulty of navigating between thousands of (often poorly labeled) events and variables in the RPG Maker engine, ensuring not to introduce any new bugs or errors in the process, while also finding the time to do all of the above.

    Dink was assisted by a friend of his named bool, who played through the game alongside the translation process and gave invaluable advice and fixes. “Uncovering the mystery in the game's story sort of ran parallel with the translation of the game itself,” bool says. “As the story progressed, the characters would decipher and learn more about the lore of the eponymous ruins within the game, and as the translation progressed, the same held true for us. It really captivated me to be a part of this process, and I started to look forward to each new area that I could explore and each new morsel of the story I could understand.”

  Without bool’s efforts, it might have taken far longer to put together something workable. As it was, it took four exhausting months. “I worked long hours — 12+ hours a day, 6, sometimes 7 days a week on top of my day job — and very rarely used my free time on anything else,” Dink says. “I did manually input the text in RPG Maker 2000, which has raised some eyebrows because there are some very nice tools available for game translation that would have saved me a lot of time. However, a huge advantage of working directly in the editor is being able to see the game more or less as it appears to players. A Notepad file streamlines the basic translation process, but it also heavily obscures context, whereas the editor allows you to see what switches and variables are being used, what music is being played, and sometimes even helpful creator comments, all in the same relative order you'd experience it from within the game.” Dink had one more secret weapon up his sleeve: the experience of working with the RPG Maker engine as an adolescent. RPG Maker has a reputation of being a tool designed to churn out Dragon Quest clones with ease; but nobody knows the intense difficulty of forcing the engine to do something, anything, like a former RPG Maker developer does. 

    The English version of Ruina, as it currently exists, is a workable but inevitably compromised version of the game. Running the game requires installing the Japanese RTP pack of visual and audio resources for RPG Maker to function, along with the use of the EasyRPG player to provide English-language player name entry. There’s the matter of the custom menus, as well. Several of the menus have been replaced with functional English equivalents, but by Dink's own admission they could use an expert's attention to better compare to the original. Other pictures, such as place name displays, have yet to be replaced by English-language equivalents at all. And the strict character limits of RPG Maker 2000 led to some creative truncating when translating from Japanese to English, especially with item and skill descriptions.

  But the existence of an English-language Ruina, one that renders the whole game playable from beginning to end with a readable script, is a miracle. Speaking for myself, I started the long process of learning Japanese two years ago in part so that I could one day play this game, never expecting there might one day be an alternative. Others in the Japanese RPG Maker scene, knowing the brutal difficulty of translating a game made in the earlier engines, were shocked that a game of Ruina’s complexity and length was successfully translated at all.  Speaking for themselves, Dink and bool insist that their own story doesn’t matter much. What matters is the quality of the original game and the hard work developer Shoukichi Karekusa put into its creation. Anything else is an addendum, another version of the game that — while it cannot ever be the original — might at least make something resembling that original experience accessible to others.

    Frankly speaking, I think there’s something to that. The “true” version of Ruina will always exist in its original form, released for free by Karekusa in 2008. It stands as the defining work of a creator who sought to create a unique experience combining the appeal of console and tabletop roleplaying games, with no concessions to market sensibilities. A creator who not only released their baby on the internet for free, but insisted that a game like Ruina must always and ever be free. An austere monolith, it stands side by side with Yume Nikki, Ib, and even Cave Story as one of the great works to come out of Japan’s independent scene. Now any English speaker can pick up and play this new version of Ruina, and learn what that monolith is and where it leads to.

  You can download the English translation of Ruina here. For those who want to learn more about the Japanese RPG Maker scene, I recommend checking out Kastel’s page here.

  Are you a Ruina fan? Let us know in the comments! 

    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not working through exercises in Wanikani, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at:@wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[tema-makes-art-sometimes]

Just saw your vent post and I think diving into your self indulgent stuff might help. For me personally, when working on original stuff, that's when I'll think about things like appealing to others/marketability/etc, but when it comes to fandom stuff, the only audience I care to pander to is Me, Myself, and I. Other people sometimes end up liking it, mostly it just goes ignored, maybe a like by a mutual if they see it. I prefer it this way, since worrying about appealing to more people when writing fanfic makes it feel too much like Writing I Do For Work, and I even never use betas for that same reason, it makes it feel too much like Work Writing, when fandom is Fun Writing.

I'm not sure what you do outside of fandom, but you have so much creativity, I've kinda assumed you've either been doing creative work or are studying to go into it--I can see you in a character design shop tbh, I can see Pin being a villain people would just eat up and love or love to hate.

If you're in a creative field, I feel like it's just good practice to go into Work Creative Space and Fandom Creative Space with different intents, if anything for the sake of mental health, as I've been in a very similar place, where silence on my fandom work would make me rethink what I'm doing, make me want to retcon WIPs, thinking "Maybe if I change this to that or this ship to that ship or change this character to be closer to fanon, more people will want to read/will comment/whatever".

You sound like you already very well know this isn't a healthy mindset, so I'm not going to go into that. I'll just say dive into that self indulgence, whether or not you're doing original creative work in the background as a job/part of study. You have great stuff, but audiences can get burned out just like creatives do. Sometimes it's because they're also creatives. Sometimes it's just burn out from seeing so much art/writing/media ALL THE TIME.

Something a professor told me was that if you got to go to an art museum, and you tried to really appreciate each piece, you'd end up exhausted before finishing even one section of the museum. This can lead to the 'mindless scrolling' a lot of the time. Fandom is becoming a large part of a lot of people's lives, but for most people, it's secondary or even tertiary media, and they're already putting a lot of energy into enjoying and appreciating the media they're in fandoms for. (Yes, there are some people who 'set fire to canon' and are in the center area of a fandom, but most people are closer to the sides, occasionally popping in from time to time but not setting up tents, if that makes sense.) So many of those people just don't have the energy to really get involved with a lot of media produced my fan creators, especially if they follow a lot of them and can only comment or otherwise get involved with a few posts/creators at a time. This can be what often leads to some 'visiting' the same 3-4 creators more often than they may go to another creator.

Setting up a place and waiting for more people to filter in can feel exhausting all by itself, especially when you're trying to create more to fill more of that space and hopefully entice more people to pop in and see what's going on.

When you focus on self indulgence for a while, you're not always looking at the door, since you usually don't expect people to walk in (at least, I never expect it), so when people actually do come in and tap you on the shoulder to see what you're working on and if they can see, it can really help offer that extra boost you need.

I really don't think you're doing anything wrong. A lot of artists who don't do what those "How to get more followers" tips still find an audience, sometimes due to the niche, sometimes starting out niche but expanding as more ideas get tossed in. Some artists who by the book, seem to do everything right, don't get nearly as much. There's really not a right or wrong way to create or share your creations. There are just a /lot/ of creators, so a lot of times, it boils down to how people find your door.

These are all really good points so I am going to share. Honestly a lot of my GerCanMano stuff is pure self indulgence but you're honestly right I think I'm probably gonna focus on some self indulgent shinanigans for a bit, and stop worrying as much about getting things out on time and making it perfect

but I do wanna point out this cause it hit me;

I'm not sure what you do outside of fandom, but you have so much creativity, I've kinda assumed you've either been doing creative work or are studying to go into it--I can see you in a character design shop tbh, I can see Pin being a villain people would just eat up and love or love to hate.

I was in school, but I never declared my major so I had to stop temporarily because I honestly don't know what major to be. There's so many things I like to do, but I don't know if I want to make a career out of them if that makes sense.

Like art, I love art and video games, I'd love to do things like animation or graphic design or be my own indie developer, but I worry if thinking about a game like a business slash whats making me money will ruin the creative process. It wont be making things for the joy of making things, it would be for my job because I had to, and idk- that just isn't as fun. Im worried about that mentality sinking in. I like them but idk if I wanna have to take them full on seriously as a career.

I'm trying to get a minimum wage job right now but its hard to find a job right now in the US job climate, especially with the fact that I have to find job willing to cater to a disability I have currently offrecord because my doctor wouldnt listen to me. Which is even harder because Ive had to walk away from jobs before because they wouldnt give me accomedations without doctors recommendation.

I am planning to set up a Etsy shop right now actually. I need to get a printer, but otherwise hopefully soon I will have a store up with stickers and preorders for keychains. One day I plan to get a button press and make my own buttons. I have hetalia merch planned, as well as my ocs. I'd love and have designs for all sorts of stuff, custom tshirt designs- like subtle hetalia fan stuff like pockets on the chest witht he character "sticking out" with familiar hetalia patterns. I have miraculous ladybug stuff planned. My friend gave me the idea of aster's heart as a friendship necklace and I love it, I could imagine all sorts of needle and thread themed pin merch I have a lot of ideas its just designing and making them and seeing if people would buy them.

I dont quite know what you mean by character design shop if thats something different or not, but yes.

Ill save a ramble about pin for a seperate post this ask is long and so is my response so Ill stop

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

tl;dr political rant post:

it had been my goal from 12 years old to do an arts degree in philosophy (yes what a nerd- thanks to my dad playing a Great Courses philosophy dvd one morning in 2007 and my dad always taking me to the botanic gardens/the uni some weekends).

i graduated from my arts degree in 2018, with a major in english and a minor in philosophy. i was so, so lucky to even get into my communications & media degree (at first i was originally going to do marketing communications, advertising & PR)... but i realised that i was not made for business subjects- despite my mark101 tutor telling me she thought i had knack for marketing- something under this policy that i wouldn’t undertake due to the price hike for commerce/business degrees. nor was i made for a media degree. so i changed to arts & humanities.

although under this atrocious policy, english subjects are made “cheaper”- why on fucking should the rest of someone’s arts/humanities degree be so much more expensive, all depending on the fields they choose???? so you’re telling me, if i was instead to enter undergrad this year to do my english degree... that my english major would be subsidised, but my philosophy minor would be at double the cost (along with the few first year business and communications&media subjects i did), unless i forced myself to pick maths or science subjects that i would most definitely fail, no matter how much work i’d put into them??? or there’s languages- but much like maths/science- there’s the problem with my handwriting that stopped me trying french and even japanese (ironically, since it’s know for its ~painstakingly neat and orderly~ script- but my handwriting is still messy, disorderly and confusing asf).

*please note that most of this next section is just me being highly spurious and cynical. it’d probably work out fine*

but you’re also telling me that under this policy that i’d also probably have to forego my reasonable adjustments in those subjects (yes i still have trouble with my handwriting to this day) mostly because a lot of software still won’t let you write out maths problems properly or i’d have to spend twice as long trying to get a graph to work in excel or idek matlab (please teach me maths nerds)???? and most maths working out is probably better handwritten or whatever??? and that’s besides the point that i still can’t use excel at all 😂.

so with these classes then, would i be battling from day one of first year with professors to let me use a computer during exam periods (unless of course they use online/take home exam methods like philosophy)???? probably (im being very suspicious here because i don’t know how science/maths etc faculties work).

although i did get this once with one particular english professor; who used the excuse that he didn’t know how to set a computer up for exams because he had been on “sabatical for 4 years” or whatever and so “didn’t know the policies anymore”.... so then according to him it was apparently “the students job to do it.... especially since you’re in third year, miss williams”..... however, i was promptly then told by EVERY uni offical that i approached for help to do it for me.... and my other professors across my course that had done it for me, that it was in fact the PROFESSORS job/responsibility to set it up, and not the student’s??? like. help your students fuckwit professor grant??? honestly. anyway. aside from my personal struggles in the english department: let’s proceed. (this was a real incident btw).

would i be at a significant disadvantage to other students by not being able to use a computer during maths exams or science exams because of the drawing of diagrams and graphs and “showing your working”???? hell yes. would i want the professors in that department to probably condescendingly telling me all the time to “present my work neater and more precisely”? FUCK NO. it’s exactly why i avoided every maths and science subject in undergrad- even including the astronomy subject that i wanted to do- because it also meant that fellow students had to read my handwriting for practicals etc as well, that i wasn’t entirely keen on either. but i did not need the harsh reminders of “be more precise and infallible in your work presentation” that i’d had at school constantly for 11 years of maths lessons; affecting my mental health and performance in a subject during a uni semester.

moreover, that’s besides the fact that i’d flat out fail the “year 12 band 4 maths” requirements- unless they want to waive those- for first year maths/science subjects (at least basing it on my local uni).... considering that i actually skipped out on maths completely in year 12 by doing a TVET/tafe/technical college course in live theatre, production and events (which no surprises here, actually included maths anyway 😅).

because, fuck. is ANYONE seeing a trend in my study choices here? hell, i almost did a commerce/business dual degree with a tafe diploma in event management for crying out fucking loud. and you’re telling me that’s also doubled in price?? it’s obvious that i was interested in the arts & humanities and business subjects from the get-go. but under this policy- i’d be charged double for having my interest in event management, instead of say, biology (which is a subject that if it weren’t for mark scaling in my final hsc exam- i would have failed completely)??? utterly ridiculous.

i even contemplated doing a double degree with law at one point (or doing a legal studies major/minor- which is now a course at my local uni, but was not while i was there). however, law course fees have also doubled under this new policy. leaving that out of reach for me, despite that a double degree with law was out of reach for me anyway..... since my mark average was 65% and not at least 75% lol. but as if those marks averages will actually matter under this new policy.

under this bullshit policy, i’d be forced to take science/maths or even teaching (another field i had to avoid, since people can’t read my writing on a whiteboard from a distance half the time either.... besides the fact that i’m not really the ~teacher type~) subjects- all so that my degree price overall will be ”reduced”..... meaning that i would have to trade out my philosophy minor for something in maths/teaching/science (or maybe creative arts- since those fees stayed the same roughly)... instead of sticking to what i was good at: philosophy and other humanities/social science fields like sociology and history????

i understand that many people will snub me with saying “oh why did you even BOTHER going to uni if you were THAT indecisive about what you wanted to do?” which is something i’ve seen many older people saying on posts about this policy. but hell, i was 19 FUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN I STARTED UNI, FOR GODS SAKE. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING INDECISIVE ABOUT MY DIRECTION IN LIFE! because, newsflash fuckwits: not everyone has a defined career goal at 19. hell, i still don’t have one at almost 25..... since i’ll admit here, that i flunked out of my postgrad library course.... because i realised that i simply couldn’t cope with learning simple HTML, CSS and javascript coding for website design & user experience design 😂 (again help me computer wiz friends). yes, believe it or not, librarians have to know that today. and most people think that it’s just all about books (okay that was me, but i was wrong). also, if you’re wondering: postgrad library courses aren’t affected, thank god. but my point is, aren’t we meant to fuck up and pick the wrong things in life sometimes??? aren’t we meant to be indecisive about our choices in our late teens up until our mid 20s???

but now you’re telling students that their very first year of uni is practically set out for them, even for arts/humanities degrees (im not counting properly prescribed degrees such as engineering/science/communications & media (they had prescribed majors and prescribed first year subjects, which is why i left it. because i felt trapped in the prescribed marketing et al major etc); all because the government is telling them that “oh to make your first year cheaper: (A.) get good marks.... so that we don’t cancel your HECS place and (B.) pick subjects outside of the arts/humanities like science/maths/tech related subjects so that you don’t pay a whopping $14,500 for your first year of uni and will be more likely to be “job ready”. whatever the actual fuck “job ready” really means. and this all as if there ISN’T enough pressure for a 18/19 year old to succeed in their first year of uni already.

although, the one thing i’ll say is that my one year advanced diploma in marketing that i did in 2014, was $16,500. i still haven’t made any moves to pay it off. but it was constantly in the back of my mind during uni, both undergrad and postgrad. it was there as a reminder to pick cheaper subjects, so as to not greatly increase my combined hecs debt and vet-fee help debt; which is now sitting at $42,500. which under this new policy is the new price of ONE arts & humanities undergrad degree. i’d hate to be going into uni next year at 19 years old (or any age really) with that price tag on my degree.

anyway. that’s the end of my non-sensical rant. morrison and the rest of the libs etc can go fuck themselves.

[blacksunscorpio]

Hii darling, how are you doing?🌹I would like your opinion on my 2nd house stellium, I have my moon, mars, venus, neptune, uranus and jupiter my chart ruler in 2nd. I would like your insight and advices on how to deal with it. Furthermore I have sun, pluto and mercury in 1st would you consider it a stellium? Thank you so much for your time, help and effort, I really appreciate it and pls take care of yourself and have a pleasant day and wonderful March full of blessings 💕

2nd House Stelliums

Like 1st house stelliums, 2nd house stelliums are simply a concentration of 3 or more planets/their energy in the house that rules our finances.

The 2nd house is ruled by Taurus/Venus so it is a house very much associated with security, our belongings, and stability.  Here, this energy is all about seeking comfort, creative investment, the need for financial security and powerful use of the voice [Taurus rules the throat]. In addition to that, This house is a deeply personal house. The house that represents the value we give to ourselves and everything we do. In it, we are able to materialize our energy into something we can touch, use, or hold in our hands, as if it was a natural consequence of the energy we carry in our body represented through our first house. Again, this house is ruled by Venus so the themes here are all about the tangible. All about the senses. The second house of our chart is the field of habit, the food we eat, with the purpose to feed our hunger created by the animal we carry in the first house. It is a source of income that nourishes and strengthens our body. Its motto in Latin is lucrum meaning “wealth”. Since most of your planets live here, all of the above will be major theme pervading your life.With that being said, You have

Moon is the 2nd

Moon in the 2nd house worry about money and keeping the security it provides. If money is plentiful, the chart holder might be complacent until the money dwindles, then this will cause a cycle of discomfort and worry. Financial security is necessary for a person with their moon in their second house. This person will be greatly distressed without it. It is truly their greatest need. This placement also indicates the native is emotionally tied to their finances and that they derive their security through their financial well-being.

Venus in the 2nd

Venus finds a perfect home in the second house. No planet appreciates the material world more than Venus, which has immaculate taste and appreciation of the finer things in life. The person with this placement loves to shop/buy things they think are beautiful and then spend the next day telling everyone how wonderful their purchase is. Men with this placement love to pamper their partners. Women with this placement will love to indulge on things that make them look or feel beautiful [clothes, make-up, jewelry, spa treatments]. In general, having Venus in the second house is one of the most positive placements there is. It indicates financial well-being and may bring great wealth. Extravagant spending is indicated as well. [look for supporting aspects]

Mars in the 2nd

2nd house Martians are decisive, outspoken about their values [2nd house]. They know what they want and go after it forcefully. Mars in the second house also values assertiveness and determination. These people are not shy at all regarding asking for what they want. People with this placement are likely to hate working for others and will try to succeed in their own businesses. Mars in the second house is willing to take all kinds of risks to further financial success. Not a bad placement for entrepreneurship. You need that cut-throat martian energy to get ahead in the business world. As a result, those with a second-house Mars’ find risks and challenges exciting. It invigorates them. This placement can also indicate the native holds tightly to their possessions. Remember Mars is god of war so in the unfortunate occasion were to come about where a possession is taken from them or if anything they value is lost or taken, an explosive temper is often encountered as a result. 

Jupiter in the 2nd

Jupiter in the second house is the best placement there is. Personally, I feel it’s even better than Venus, because Venus makes one likely to buy things that they simply don’t need, while Jupiter influences the wealth to expand. Also, Jupiter is the planet of luck, so natives having it located in this house will simply be lucky in this department of life. For example, they may be lazy but they somehow end up earning money regardless They just don’t seem to want for much. At least not for long. There is a faith [Jupiter] that the world will somehow provide all that is needed in life. These people often gain wealth without having it as their focus. It may come to them through a simple windfall. Jupiter Is also the planet of expansion, so natives may accumulate a lot of funds but also be just as generous sharing it or spending it. Be careful for OVER spending. Jupiter can indicate excess of spending accumulated resources. However, since this is still the planet of luck and abundance we’re speaking of, 2nd house Jupiterians are likely to regain their wealth despite it being affected/afflicted in any way.

Uranus in the 2nd

Uranus (which is the most unpredictable planet) in the second house causes sudden and unexpected changes a native’s financial well-being. For example, you might receive unexpected earnings, but also unexpected expenses. Uranus here may lead the native to find creative and unique ways of earning money. This placement also gives the native an ability to make money in some of the most unusual and ingenious ways. Also, even if Uranus causes one to lose money, it also gives resourcefulness and adaptability when it comes to finances and helps the native survive difficult times.

Neptune in the 2nd

This placement is a hazy one-- but of course, we would expect nothing less from Neptune. Typically people with this placement just don’t care about material things, and therefore the topic of money is not important to them. TYPICALLY. It is not uncommon for a situation to occur with a native where, even if they have money, they don’t pay attention to how much of it there is, or how much they spend. They can be absent-minded. Which is why natives here need to take care in regard to their cash. They can be scammed and easy to deceive, especially if one’s Neptune is negatively aspected by Mercury or Mars. 2nd house Neptunians are likely to spend most of their money on entertainment/art/ Sometimes even basic needs are neglected to satisfy the craving for that which is creative and beautiful. This will be further exacerbated if Jupiter and Venus are forming aspects in the same house or aspecting Neptune in hard aspect. A native may spend all his money in such pursuits, and yet not be too much affected by the fact. Instead, they'll start from scratch with their savings. Like nothing ever happened. If forming benefic aspects to Jupiter, the native will simply come across more money “luckily”. Best scenario job-wise or simply life-wise for this placement would have the native making a living doing something artistic and spiritual. Where they can tap into the unknown or abstract and make their bread and butter from it.