#that is completely the fault of the corporations choosing what they want to put on screen based on what’s the most financially lucrative.

[seilon]

not to be That Guy but as someone who’s been to Art School as an entertainment design major I just gotta say. as much as I think I get the point op’s trying to make and there is a case to be made for today’s environment corporatizing art to such an extent that people aren’t as inclined to create fully original work– generally this is a pretty bad take.

when you go to art school, especially if you take a character design class, illustration class, entertainment design class, etc- you will literally be required to draw in the styles of other people/various franchises. you will have to do countless studies of other people’s styles, and you’ll have to do master studies where the entire point of the assignment is to copy a “master”’s work as closely to the original as possible in order to break down what they would’ve had to do to create that work. the reason for this being: learning to draw, and learning how to develop a unique art style is pointlessly difficult without any guidelines or a repository of styles and techniques from others to go off of. it’s not an efficient way to learn, and it’s not fulfilling on a more personal level to bar yourself from what inspires you to draw.

you can ask so many full-fledged artists how they learned to draw the way they do, how they developed their own style over time, and many, if not most of them will say that they grew up drawing like crazy trying to imitate the style of their favorite disney movie, or favorite animated show, favorite manga, etc. artwork from other artists/franchises motivates you to create, to practice– even if you’re straight up copying something on tracing paper you’re still absorbing information and recognizing patterns and so on by doing so and it will help you build up the skills and confidence to develop something more recognizably your own (though- nothing is ever 100% original, every art style is an amalgamation of other art styles that influenced the artist– but that’s neither here nor there).

on top of everything, unless you intend on going into art as a career and publicizing your work to a sizable audience, there’s no need to even think about developing your own style or standing out amongst a crowd– the point of art as a hobby is enjoyment. you can draw the same character in the same style a million times and there’s no reason not to, so long as you get enjoyment out of it. if you wanna talk about corporatizing artwork, frankly, it’s more in line with what the capitalist monstrosity that is the entertainment industry wants to look at art as solely something that needs to be constantly improved or approved of by an audience to be worth doing. do whatever you want. who cares

learning to draw trees like hayao miyazaki (objectively a fantastic artist to learn from) of studio ghibli is completely unironically a fantastic thing to do. basically any art professor or industry professional would tell you the same thing.

"How to draw ghibli style trees" "How to draw like disney" How to invent something new. How to try something else.

[aeoki]

Candy House - Programme to Fall in Love: Chapter 9

Characters: Tsumugi Season: Winter

Euryale: But don’t hold a grudge against Stheno… against my sister and the others. Humans are weak creatures – nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future, so they just want some form of certainty.

At times, they might even cling to suspicious “divine messages” in order to dispel those anxious feelings.

I’m just a sorceress who passes on those divine messages. My life is about to come to an end, so they’ll search for another god in order to live – and the god they ended up choosing was money.

Tsumugi: This is all past redemption… But you reached out to us because you wanted to exploit “Gorgon Corporation’s” anxiety, right?

Euryale: Yeah. I told them in the “divine message” that in order for the rest of the world to learn of “SSVRS” – their money-making device – they’d need to be on good terms with idols, the ones who will prevail in this country in the future.

Thanks to that, you and Sora-kun were able to access the area where I was being kept.

The device hasn’t been released for the market yet, so “Gorgon Corporation” had no choice but to use their local area network for testing purposes.

Of course, I’m not bad mouthing you guys, but back then, you were a really weak and declining agency…

You guys were suspicious and wondered why they’d form a partnership with you, right?

Thanks to that, I was in a bind because I literally couldn’t do much.

Tsumugi: Well, I suppose I’d like to apologise for our lack of ability.

Euryale: It’s fine. Trying to outwit your opponent while they’re wary of you is kind of like a video game – it was fun.

Ahaha, I used to play a lot of games with Sora-kun…

Even though I’m an AI, I couldn’t win at shogi – Japanese chess – and I was pretty frustrated. Sora-kun uses some pretty dirty tricks, after all.

Tsumugi: I know what you mean~ He uses practically everything he can to win, doesn’t he? He’s definitely not a good boy that’s innocent and harmless.

But I think that part of Sora-kun should be respected and it’s also one of his many charms.

Euryale: Yeah. It was strange – even though he beat me, I felt frustrated, of course, but I also felt happy.

He’d trick me and I’d complain… I wish we did more of that.

But I guess I don’t have the time for that anymore.

I have to destroy the system “Gorgon Corporation” created that will ignore human dignity and extort them for their money right away.

Tsumugi: I’m sure Natsume-kun and Sora-kun will succeed in doing that in the virtual space.

They said they’ll destroy that world, reset it and turn it back into a harmless video game.

I don’t know the details, so I don’t really understand how it’ll work out, though.

Euryale: Yeah. Even so, you have lots of life experience since you’ve been working on behalf of your agency’s president.

You wouldn’t be able to hold your own against a veteran like Stheno if you didn’t have that experience.

Tsumugi: Well, I suppose I managed to somehow drive her away – like how we took her by surprise earlier.

But this Stheno person doesn’t actually exist, right? We can’t completely let our guard down until we do something about the person controlling them, right?

Euryale: Yeah. Stheno is just a pawn controlled by the president of “Gorgon Corporation”.

She doesn’t exist – she’s just an imaginary employee that was created so that the president could put the blame on her.

“Gorgon Corporation” have ended up in court numerous times because they went too far. Being cut off gracefully like a lizard’s tail is her job.

For example, they could say everything was the fault of an employee called Stheno and that the company itself had nothing to do with it. 

I don’t think that would actually fool the court, but they were made to expect that sort of role.

Tsumugi: Just like the yakuza’s underlings, huh.

Euryale: If we look at it that way, then I’d feel bad for my sister. She doesn’t have a mind of her own, unlike me, so she’s just a puppet…

If she did have a mind of her own, maybe we’d empathise and comfort each other. Maybe we could’ve gotten along as sisters.

Tsumugi: As the oldest and second oldest of the Gorgon sisters? Come to think of it, the “evil eye” Stheno-san had was…

Euryale: Seeing as Stheno made an appearance, it means the company has crossed a dangerous bridge. If they’ve chosen to be involved with her, then that means they’ve chosen to walk down a path of misfortune.

That’s why that evil eye exists. You’ll be destroyed once you’re bewitched by it.

Tsumugi: I see~ By the way, your clairvoyance is just another way of saying you can understand everything by gaining information on the internet, right, Euryale-chan?

Euryale: Yeah. I’m a captive but I can just barely use backdoors to access the internet and send messages.

If I peek into the information in security cameras connected to the internet, then I can “see” just about everything.

Tsumugi: I see. The last sister in that myth, Medusa, bothers me then.

Is there someone called Medusa as well? I wouldn’t want someone who has been invisible up until this point to show up and turn everything into a mess.

That sort of thing isn’t allowed in detective novels.

Euryale: Reality doesn’t take place inside a novel. Medusa does exist and she has “eyes that will turn everything into stone”.

Well, she’s harmless to you all, so you don’t have to worry about her.

I don’t think she’ll ever interact with your reality.

Tsumugi: Is that so...? I’m a bit anxious but I’ll believe what you say. I’m too much of a worrywart, you see.

Hehe. I feel relieved after understanding how the eyes work. If it really is some sort of curse from the occult, then a solution wouldn’t really exist, huh.

Euryale: In this world, gods, Buddha, ghosts, curses, magic and superpowers don’t exist.

But even so, miracles can occasionally happen.

Something that was born on the internet came to have a mind of its own by coincidence, and it was able to live as a human with intelligence and a soul for a moment.

They made a friend. Maybe they also fell in love.

Say, if you wouldn’t call that a miracle, then what would you call it?

Tsumugi: We’d call that magic.

No. We call ourselves magicians because miracles do happen.

Even if there’s no magic in this world, we call ourselves magicians for the sake of those who are praying for a miracle…

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[harrysmimi]

Lovely

Chapter 10: Miss Tinkerbell

Series Master list

More of my work

It's been two years!

Hebe was two years and five months old.

Hebe was such a perfect baby! YN might be biased but it was true. Hebe as a toddler is much more polite and obedient to her Mummy. She hardly throws any tantrums, her mum didn't let that happen because she'd get every thing she needs or asks for, but only when it's necessary. She was spoilt where she have to be.

She was so smart and such a fast learner! She started walking at nine months old! She can now have full blown conversations, and she talks and asks questions a lot. She liked to bake with her Mummy or help her cook in kitchen. She really looked upto her Mummy already, or at least it looks like it.

YN always got a back lash on her patenting. Because one, she was a young mom. She was just turned Twenty-two, two months ago. And two, Hebe lived up to every stereotype of a girl. YN never pushed anything on her. She was fine and supportive of whoever she wants to be. She was just two for gods sake! It wasn't YN's fault Hebe was more into dolls and girly things. YN always took her to the shops when she needed new toys or clothes, she let Hebe talk around and choose for herself now that she was grown enough to convey what she likes or find interesting. Hebe was ran to the pink side of the store. YN wasn't like that when she was her age. She had all "boy-ish" toys and dressed like a boy until she was ten.

It was definitely a stinger for YN. But not every human being turns out to be like their parent!

YN on the other hand was thriving in her career. She quit her corporate job. Now she was known director and cinematographer! Though she still completed her bachelor's and master's degree in business and law.

Yeah! She was finally making her dreams come true!

Success came to her so fast, it hit her like a double decker bus really. She Assisted many director (for about six movies and three music videos) for a year. Now she have direct her own movies and music videos. She have her own Production house, a business of her own clothing line. She had a few Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and other awards with her. An Oscar for Best Director!

YN was doing so much and was so successful and known within the industry it was insane! She have accomplished so much in two years it was unbelievable for herself.

She was able to buy her own beach house in California, get herself another car. Provide a better lifestyle for her daughter.

She was so happy now!

Harry on the other hand...

He was just normal. He haven't heard from YN in almost three years now.

It was hard for him to just live knowing she must have had the baby. He was convinced it was his. He lowkey followed YN's success through out, he was happy for her, he never saw YN post about their child on social media. Or even talk about her child in any of her Interviews. She have kept them away from social media. Or she didn't had the baby. It's one of those two things.

He couldn't reach out to her because she changed her number. He was too scared and nervous to reach out to her via Instagram dm. It broke his heart to see the two rumours of her potentially dating someone. It wasn't like she wasn't allowed to date anyone. But it still hurt him, there were feelings for her in his heart which never went away. Though she later denied those and even sued the media outlets spreading false rumours about her.

He was now thirty, alone, and single. Yeah...

He was in LA for recording his fourth studio album. Even recording and songwriting reminded him of her. He wrote so many songs for her and about her, he wasn't brave enough to put those out. Even playing guitar reminded him of her, especially his galaxy guitar.

He recently bought a house in LA again, he was tired of renting flats. He had his mum and sister fly down for little vacation and Halloween. He didn't held his Harryween party this year. He wanted to spend time with just his mum and sister.

The day before he went and bought a ton of candy to kids who'd come up for trick or treat.

His mum was making a nice dinner for them. He was having a very chill day. But he had this weird feeling that was... just very weird! He didn't know what it was, he felt scared and very nervous.

It was evening, he could already hear little kids outside screaming and playing around. He even had a few visitors, five Elton Johns, a few different Taylor Swifts, Harry Potters, Hermiones, Disney princesses came to trick or treat to his door. He could heard two voices arguing, they were kids, but he found the little girl arguing very adorable he didn't know what they were arguing about because they were on the side of the street.

"No, Aunty Cam we goin' there!" She said, pointing up the street.

Harry smiled shaking his head as he closed the door. He was just like that when he was a kid, his mum td him every time.

Here, YN was on her way back home. She had to run back to office last minute but she promised her daughter she'd be back before she goes to trick or treat. Hebe was very understanding. YN dressed her up in her Tinkerbell costume— which she picked herself— and did her hair before YN left.

YN saw her poor friend trying to calm two arguing toddlers, on the street. One wanting to go to the left and other wanting to go to right. It was a chaos. YN quickly parked her car and rushed there.

"MUMMY!" Hebe hot excited to see her mother. And got back to arguing with Alvin.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's happening here?" YN asked. The kids started complaining at the same time. Camryn covered her ears with the noise being unbearable for her. YN chuckled looking back at the kids.

"Okay, quiet!" YN stopped both of them. "Alvin you want to talk?"

"I wan' to go there. Bebe wan' to go there!" He said pointing at two different directions.

"No, we goin' there!" Hebe told him pointing to where she wanted to go.

"Hebe, that's not nice." YN said. "What about, we start from Aunty Sam's house yeah?" YN suggested.

"Yay! Yes, yes, yes!" Both of them started jumping in excitement.

The trio, YN, Samantha and Camryn bought houses in same neighborhood and they were neighbours. Samantha got married few months ago, she moved to her own house with her wife, she lived with YN until then. YN took the kids there with Camryn. After getting candy from Samantha, Alvin dragged his mom to his friend's house.

"Mummy, we go there? Pwease?" Hebe asked, pointing at a house.

It looked very... Dead. Like there were hardly any Halloween decorations. There were just a few pumpkins scattered around, a few bats hung up on the door. The front porch lights were on.

"Okay let's go." YN said. Hebe held her Mummy's hand as they crossed the street, with her grey Shark bag hung over her one should. Her feet padded down the road with white pompoms oh them. She looked really pretty with her fairy wings.

"Mummy, you did no' dress wike my fwiend's Mummy." Hebe pouted.

"I am sorry baby. I will dress up with you next Halloween okay? You can pick my costume." YN said.

"Okay!" She nodded. Simply.

YN was wearing a grey suit, she just came back from work, Hebe was with Camryn for the time. It was technically Hebe's third Halloween, for the first Halloween, she had her dress up like Olaf in a white onsie she was just five months old, and for second she dressed her up lile Elton John. Harry was the reason why YN listened to his songs. But none the less, Hebe looked really adorable dressed like Elton, especially the pink glasses, it just added to her charm.

"Pick me up. Pwease Mummy!" Hebe spread her arms out, wanting to be picked up so she can ring the bell. YN just did that. Hebe rung the bell with her chubby cheek. YN put her back down on her feet.

"Bebe, you're just going to take two candies, okay baby? We have plenty at home." YN said fixing her wings, the girlie nodded. "And what will you say after."

"Thank you. Happy halloween!" She chirped raising her shark bag.

"Good girl!" YN kissed her cheek tenderly before she stood up. Hebe gasped in excitement once the door opened, revealing a very gorgeous woman with pretty brown eyes. It looked like she was going somewhere by the way she was dressed.

"Oh who do we have here? Harry come on out!"

Oh she had an accent!

Wait... Harry?

"'ello, Twik or tweat?" Hebe said with huge smile on her face, two dimples denting her cheeks. YN heart felt so full watching her be so happy. YN glanced at the girl before she looked back at her daughter.

"Hey, would you tell me who you're dressed as if I give you candy?"

YN head shot up at the familiar voice! It was Harry!

Fuck no!

"Tinkerbell!" Hebe said, swaying side to side showing off her dress.

"Here you go, you can pick whichever you like the most." Harry was crouched down to match her height, with a bowl of candy in his hands.

YN was shocked. She tried her best to act unbothered. Her heart was racing. She saw him, in person, after almost three years! He looked the same. This guy really doesn't age!

YN looked back at her daughter, she picked out m&ms and small chocolate bar. She watched her try to open up her shark bag and put the candy in it with her other candies she got from her Aunty Sam's.

"Here, you want me to help you?" Harry said putting the bowl down and helping her with the bag. Hebe smiled as she took her bag back from Harry.

"Hey, you're YN right?" Gemma spoke out of nowhere getting Harry's attention away from the little girl, his heart beat picked up a new fast pace, as he slowly lifted his head up to look at her.

There she was! Looking like a whole new person. Harry never saw her pictures or videos from past four months. She looked so different!

She now had her hair at a long bob length, she looked slimmer. Wearing a grey pant suit. With a black turtle under it. Just her glasses and her pearl necklace was only thing unchanged about her! He swore he saw a silver chain along the pearl necklace with a H hanging from it. Her eyes still managed to take his breath away! She looked so... so grown up and more mature!

"Yeah." YN nodded replying to Gemma.

"I love your new movie. You definitely deserved the Oscar!" Gemma said. "I am Gemma by the way."

"Awh! Thank you so!" YN smiled her genuine smile at Gemma. "It was nice meeting you Gemma. I think it's time we leave, yeah baby?"

"It was nice meeting you too. And you too Ms. Tinkerbell." Gemma was so swooned by Hebe's cuteness.

YN looked at her daughter. Hebe lifted her head to look at her Mummy and squealed a big yes.

"Did you say thank you?" YN reminded her.

"Oops!" She poked out her tongue hitting her forehead with the heel of her palm at her own forgetfulness.

"Thank you, sir." Hebe said to Harry with a huge grin on her face. She was very happy to be able to choose her own candy, "Happy Halloween!" She turned to Gemma.

"Happy halloween!" She repeated to Gemma.

"Awh! Happy Halloween!" Gemma cooed at her cuteness.

"Ha— happy halloween!" Harry squeaked.

"Let's go?" YN held out her hand. Hebe held YN's pointer finger and lead her Mummy down the porch. She left her Mummy's hand and started running.

"Hey, no running on the road!" YN scolded her and rushed to hold her back. She made sure to turn back and wave bye to Harry. Hebe let out squeal as she ran on the side walk to the next house. YN laughed and let her do her thing, she had her eye on her.

"You know her?" Gemma asked watching her brother lost somewhere all of a sudden.

"I, I know her like you do..." Was Harry's explaination.

"Looks like you've got a crush on her." Gemma teased him fixing her shoes.

Oh I am in love with her! You just met the out come of my love, Gemma! Was what Harry wanted to say to her, that would be too cheesy and she doesn't know anything about her, yet. YN was still his sweet little secret he still kept to himself. He doesn't think he'd ever stopped loving her, he was just dumb back then to not confess his love. Or he'd be out with his daughter trick or treating, dressed as Peter Pan or whatever she wanted him to dress as!

"Are you going somewhere?" Harry asked to change the subject.

"Yeah, I was running to the store to get me a toothbrush. I forgot to bring one." Gemma remembered where she was going.

"Oh, okay. Drive safely." Harry said. Gemma left.

Harry closed the door behind him. He can't believe he missed two years years of his daughter's life!

Why did he asked for paternity test? He's so stupid! God, she looks just like him! She is so pretty and adorable, she sounded beautiful. The picture of her pretty big green eyes, and her pretty and big dimply smile her were now stuck up high in his head with super glue already.

God! He fucked up real bad!

"Mum I'll be back in a minute, don't worry about me!" Harry called before he slid on his shoes and ran out quickly.

He watched Hebe running up the side walk to the next house on the other side of the street. He saw his daughter trying to open the door a white and black BMW which was parked in front of a very fancy looking house which was just next to his. They were neighbours again?! The little got distracted and ran to a some flower bush by the next house.

YN had a deal with Hebe to just go to her friends' houses and the neighbours who YN knew. She just had two friends, and YN just knew three of her neighbours. They were at their last house. And Hebe had a bag full of candy. They crossed the street again and Hebe lead them to her Mummy's car as they were going out on a dinner date together tonight!

"Mummy I wan' chocowate cake, pwease? Can we get a cake? Pwease?" Hebe spoke as she hopped her way to the car.

"Of course baby, whatever you want." YN agreed. "You will hurt yourself, let Mummy do it."

Hebe got distracted by the flower bush by the gate of their other neighbour. She was actually allowed to pick a flower if she wanted to, she got away with pretty much everything with how adorable she was. The bush was just right her size. She went up on her tippy-toes and picked out two small pink flowers. She turned to her Mummy and gesturing her to get down and that's what her Mummy did. You gotta do what a Princess says! Hebe messily tucked that flower on her Mummy's right ear.

"Awh! Thank you baby!" YN cooed.

"Yo wewcome Mummy." She smiled, "will you— will you pwease put it on me?"

"Of course." YN took the other flower from her tiny hand and tucked her hair behind her ear before she placed the flower on her tiny ear. She instantly posed for her Mummy, smiling with her closed and baby teeth showing, showing off her new accessory.

"Look at my gorgeous Princess!" YN hyped her up. "Let's go now, shall we? Are you not hungry yet?"

"Mhmm." She nodded holding her hand out for her Mummy.

God she reminds her of her Harry! The same way Harry would hold out his hand for her to hold before they would go somewhere, to get food or to get coffee, or just walk to another room in one of their apartments.

"Wess go!" She said.

"Let's go!" YN repeated. They walked back to where their car was.

"Hold this pwease?" She held up her shark bag towards her Mummy and let out a sigh, "Hebe is tired." She said, YN chuckled taking her candy bag from her. Apparently holding a bag half filled with bunch of candy was tiring, wasn't it? Hebe did not looked tired though, she was hopping up and down. She twirled showing off her green dress.

"Mummy, how I look?" She asked.

"You look very, very gorgeous baby!" YN said admiring the girl she made. She was proud!

"Can you pick me?" She stopped and spread her hands out wanting to be picked. She was playing with her friends all day and she walked a lot now. She was tired. YN scooped her up in her arms.

"You have grown up so much! Stop growing up, please!" YN hugged her. Hebe smiled and planted her kiss on her Mummy's lips, and rested her head on her shoulder. "I love you." She just smiled and rested her head on her Mummy's shoulder.

"YN!" YN heard her name being called. "Wait. Please!"

She stopped and turned around. YN was nervous when she saw him, but to be honest, she had herself ready to encounter with Harry someday. She was just mad at him. So mad!

"What do you want Harry?" She asked.

"Can I have a moment with you, please?" He asked.

"I promised to take her out. I am sorry, I am busy." YN shook her head.

"Just five minutes please? YN, please?" He looked so guilty. It broke her heart to see him that way. No! She can't let him get to her that easy. He fucking ignored her even after she reached out to him.

"What do you want to talk about now? What is there to talk?" She asked.

"I regret it." He answered.

"Of course you do now, don't you?" She nodded. Hebe just looked back and forth between her Mummy and this man she got candy from few minutes ago. "I am sorry, we'll go soon okay?" YN told her.

"Mhmm!" She nodded. Understandingly. "Aunty Cam!" She wiggled down YN's arms and ran to her Aunty's house taking her shark bag from her Mummy.

"What? You still want the paternity test, Harry?" YN turned to Harry once she saw Hebe was safe with Camryn.

"No, I don't." He shook his head, "I am so sorry YN."

"Don't you think it's too late?" She said stuffing her hands in her pocket. "And you should be apologising to her not me. There was nothing between us, you don't owe me any apology. I don't think you do."

"There was not nothing between us, don't say that." He was feeling so guilty for not being there for his daughter and her mother for two years!

"There was nothing. We just slept together. At least that's what it appeared to me, it didn't mean anything to you." YN shook her head. "You just had a "thing" for me— to quote you. And my stupid ass fell so bad for you." She added.

"It wasn't like that. I was in love with you too. I still am!" Oh he finally confessed, it was a little late, wasn't it?

"Oh that's a news! A made up one like the Italy Vacation?" She asked. God she's just torturing him now, and seemed to enjoy it. She's got a sarcasm now too. "Just please come to the point, I promised my daughter I'll take her out. I do not have time for this."

"You think I can see her someday? Please? Don't say no." He asked.

"I am gonna have to say no. And I am not sorry." She shook her head, "I don't think that will be a good idea. She now understands whatever goes on around her. I don't want her to be sad once you decide to leave her, like before."

"I won't. Trust me!" He assured her.

"I can't." She countered, "I want to, but I can't. I don't trust you, I don't care if you're hurt with that. I don't trust you. At all." She made it clear.

"I'll do everything. Please? I regret it so much." He was begging.

"One hour. Not five minutes more, no ten minutes more on top." She said thinking it through. It wasn't fair for Hebe to stay away from her dad, was it? He can still be in his life even he was an asshole to her mother. She can decide once she is grown up enough to understand what happened. She knows she is not going to hide what happened before she was born unlike her own mother did. It hurt her really bad after living all her life trying to find out why her own dad hated her so much. She wasn't going to hide this test thing Harry brought by the influence on his stupid ass manager.

"Yes! Yes!" He nodded his head like an excited puppy.

"You can come over for lunch tomorrow at two." She said. He nodded. She nodded back and went back to her daughter.

"Mummy I'm hungwy!" Hebe said.

"I know, Mummy is really sorry baby. Let's go yeah?" YN felt so bad. "Does Alvin want to join us?"

"Mom can I?" Alvin asked.

"If you're not going to bother Aunty YN then yeah." Camryn agreed.

"I pwomise, I won' bother Aunty YN." He said.

"Okay, you can go." Camryn said.

"What you gonna do staying back? Come with us." YN suggested.

"No it's fine I'm really tired." Camryn said with her shoulder deflating with a sigh.

"Then you definitely shouldn't cook. Let's go, it's on me." YN winked already grabbed the kids' hands with either of her hands.

YN had two toddler car seats ik her car, one for Hebe and one for Alvin. The girls baby sat for each other and YN liked taking both the kids out some days. Camryn strapped her son in his seat and YN did the same to Hebe.

......................................................................

YN couldn't believe Camryn let the kids listen to One Direction songs!

They were now jamming hardcore to No Control. YN was shocked but not surprised seeing her daughter knowing each and every word to the song. It was insane!

They had a fun dinner. Hebe got her chocolate cake that she wanted. She shared it with her Mummy. And they went back home. YN got her baby ready for bed, in her PJs.

Samantha said she wanted Hebe to come over to have a sleep over, Alvin was there too. YN dropped off Hebe to her Aunty Sam's house, she was way too excited because she usually got to stay up past her bed time at Aunty Sam's and just play.

YN thought she needed the time to herself. She hardly got time to herself. She wasn't a big fan doing skin care routine and pampering herself that way. She just by herself and let out all her emotions in tears, that was pampering for her. She can count on her fingers how many time have cried her heart out in last two years. It was just two times.

The Last time she was crying in room, Hebe came in there because she had a nightmare. She got all sad seeing her Mummy cry, it made her forget about her nightmare but it broke YN's heart to see her sad. She was being good to her that night, gave her Mummy aot of cuddles and kisses. Telling YN it was okay and fine, just like she tells her when she's crying.

After changing into her PJs, she went out on a walk at the beach just by her house.

YN never would and never will admit she was lonely. Really. She have seen herself change a lot in two years. She have put up a tough act, like she wasn't alone, she had no one to hold her and kiss her forehead and tell her it was fine or she is safe and sound.

Like she imagined, her grandparents did cut her off completely after knowing she got pregnant. It wasn't expectable in their opinion to be having sex before marriage, they told her how big of a disappointment she is, and such a whore she is for sleeping with a man who she wasn't married to. How she should have gotten an abortion instead of keeping her or should gave her up to her father or to an orphanage, it was really brutal for her to hear all that. She had people calling her names for being young mother, how bad she is going to be when she a "child" herself.

How was she going to raise this girl? Without a father? Does she even who the father is?

It was worse in the media. She deleted the only picture she posted with her daughter when she was a month old. She kept her out of the lime light. Refused to answer questions about her or who and where her father is. She had all those articles taken down by her PR team which had her baby's name and the only one picture she posted. YN was doing everything to protect her child from all that. Keeping Hebe was best decision she's ever made, she didn't know what she would have done without that little girl. Who was exactly her name, she was the prime of YN's life now.

YN went to therapy twice. It didn't worked for her so she dropped it. She found it very hard to open up to her therapist and that's what she was supposed to do there. She simply just didn't felt comfortable. Maybe therapy wasn't for her.

Sitting there few feets away from the shore on the sand, she just let it all out. She didn't know why she was crying. Well, she did. There were so many reasons pin point out one to start. With her knees pulled up to her chest, she rested her cheek on her knee.

God she wants someone to hug her so bad!

This man with gorgeous big green was stuck in her mind all the time. God she always saw him in her daughter! It was hard enough. Heart break have been fairly easy for her for the first time, and the relationship went on for two fucking years it was way easier for her to move on from him. She just knew Harry for about nine months, it shouldn't be that hard. Why was it so fucking hard to move on from him? He might have had a girlfriend, he dated two girls after her. They were not dating, they were just "He-had-a-thing-for-her" thing... She was fucked up in her mind. She didn't had her shit together at all, and she needed to get it together or she would go really insane. This was not good for her dwell on someone who clearly doesn't reciprocate the same feeling for her.

She hear squealing and happy sounding screams from her neighbour's side of beach. She saw two ladies running after each other and a man laughing his arse off watching them chase each other. She didn't had a glasses on so she couldn't see clearly. But she could make out the name. Gemma, that girl was named Gemma!

Wait, Was—

Oh for fucks sake!

Harry can't be her neighbour again. YN hopes he have rented the house and he'd move out of there once his lease was over. She can't bare with him anymore. She didn't wanted to avoid him but at the same time she did want to avoid him. It was even hard to avoid him because he was constantly in news with his amazing new endeavours. He's recently donated a huge amount to some charities— which was good thing, his new album was coming out soon, he released three music videos in the span of two months, he launched his own beauty line with few of his friends, his new merch was launched and on and on.

She eventually heard the voice die down. Samantha texted her saying the kids were off to bed now. YN was relieved, Hebe hardly could stay away from her Mummy, her "sleep overs" at Aunty Sam's ended just before she want to go to bed. She'd cry and eventually YN had to go and pick her up or Samantha dropped her off. Hebe now slept in her own room, she is big girl now, but she'd mostly sleep in her Mummy's bed tucked up under her blanket and snuggled up all warm and cosy into her Mummy. She is a true Mumma's girl.

YN liked to think it was just her influence because she sometimes took Hebe to work with her. She didn't hired a Nanny because she always had either Samantha or Camryn ready to look after her, since both of her friends were YouTuber they were home most of the time. Or when both of were busy YN takes her little Princess to work with her. YN also did a few photo shoots here and there along with directing movies and handling cinematographer role. So Hebe would see her Mummy take photos or some times behind a huge camera. She'd steal YN's phone and open the camera and try to mimick her Mummy. She was actually pretty good for her age. Most of her pictures or most random videos she took were not blurry. YN's wasn't being biased, even her friends said that they were very good to be taken by a two year old toddler. YN can write books on books with the antiques of her daughter.

"Hey, can I sit here?" YN heard a voice which was tattooed in her head for about three years now.

"No." She said.

He didn't said anything and sat down next to her anyway.

"Harry please go away, I don't want to deal with you now." YN lifted her head up with look at the man sitting next to her.

"I am literally just sitting here."

"Yeah, on my property." She pointed out. He just smiled without his eyes as if to say he doesn't care. Or he does, he could call cops on him.

"It's technically not. We're on a beach." He said.

YN would call the cops, but he was right the beach wasn't her property. And even if she could, she wouldn't because it would just make a commotion and she didn't had any energy left in her. She just sighed dropping her head back on her knees. Harry just stared at her for a while. His YN has changed a lot. The big change that didn't sit well with him was her hair. She had them chopped off! He loved her long hair and how well they suited her, like it was her staple look, and she had it trade marked. She always wore her hair in a side braid over her right shoulder. Now her hair was pulled back, away from her hair and secured in a messy half up, half down look. Tiny hairs poked out of her tiny bun at the back of her head.

He approached her because he was seriously determined to get his shit together. Fix this with her, he never ever wanted to break hurt her like that. He'd want to reach out to to her regardless of her having his child, he'd still try his best to mend things with her even if she decided to not keep their baby. But she did keep her. He wanted to be there for their daughter too now. He had his own family, he already believed both the girls were his family. He had to get his scattered family together. It was a spontaneous decision he made few hours ago, and was going to stick with it. Would it be dramatic to say till he dies? He doesn't care! All he cares about these two girls he just abandoned two years ago.

"Can I ask you something?" He spoke.

"No." She answered. He sighed.

"YN, please—"

"Be quiet please!" She deadpanned.

"I want to fix this."

"It's too late." She mumbled. Not even bothering to look at him.

"No it's not."

"Look Harry, I have a lot going on. I don't have the energy to deal with you. I said yes for you meet my daughter because she deserves to know who her father is. It wouldn't be fair for her to not know who he is. Be there for her. And stay away from me." She made it clear

"You really hate me now, don't you?" He sighed again.

"Happy realisation!" She said, fake enthusiasm coating her words, her celebration was punctuated with a hard look at him before she looked away.

She doesn't hate him. She wants to, but she can't. He was her baby's dad and her love. She can't hate him even if she wants to. She just straight up lied to him and he was not that stupid now to not get it.

"I can not apologise enough for everything, can I?" He asked knowing he wouldn't get a response from her. "I promise YN, I tried reaching out to you but you changed your number."

"Bullshit." She said to herself.

God! She was really mad at him. No, she was furious!

She changed her number about six months ago because it got leaked some how. He could have messaged on Instagram. Twitter. Facebook Messenger even!

"No, it's not I promise. I was really worried about you— I still worry about you YN. Don't know how I went on with you on my mind all the time." He confessed. "I— I thought you— you... You know; I don't want to say it. And you didn't had to do anything with me. I was so worried for you all the time until I started seeing you on media so much. I am proud of you. It was a relief that you are fine, or at least that's what is seemed like."

"But I didn't know you kept her. You never talked about her." He finished his tiny speech.

"I did keep her." YN nodded.

Harry stayed silent for a little while. Not wanting to overwhelm her bringing back everything all at once. It broke his heart all over again to see her like that. It gave him flash backs of when he helped her with her door the first time. He remembered her talking about it, how she was so devastated because she was rejected for a job just because she had a bandage on her arm. Her sobbing from that day played all over again in his mind. The way she was hitting the door. How she almost snapped at him but later apologised. But would she accept his apology now? Was he worthy of her forgiveness?

"What did you name her?" He asked breaking the silence.

"Hebe." YN answered.

Harry smiled at that. Hebe. His baby girl was named Hebe. He did not know what that meant but it for sure went well with her, he could tell just by few minutes long interaction with the girl. And the H around YN's neck made so much sense. He felt embarrassed to think it was because of him. What can he say though? His narcissism got him every time.

"Go back home. It's getting late." YN told him getting up with her phone clenched in her hand. She just spared him one glance before she walked back to her house through the back door. He watched her close the sliding glass door and heard a fait sound of lock clicking into it's place.

He sighed and went back home.

"Where do you keep disappearing out of nowhere?" His mum was standing by the door. "You called her here and you just keep disappearing."

"Sorry, just went on a walk by the shore. Wanted to be alone." He explained.

"Is Gemma still awake? I've got to tell you both about something." He finally brought up the courage to talk about this girl he kept to himself until now, and that she was the mother of his first born!

"I'm still up. What's up?" Gemma called from living room.

He went in there and told everything to them.

[archived-kin]

petty ghost haunts their murderer but doesn’t actually do anything vengeful, more at eleven

note from kin: i don’t even know what this is myself to be honest but the simple way of putting it is that you were accidentally killed by one of satan’s fits of rage and now your ghost follows him around and messes with him at any given opportunity out of pettiness

basically i came up with the prompt ‘vengeful spirit is more of a slightly miffed and extremely petty spirit who doesn’t actually do much but inconvenience their hauntee, shenanigans ensue’ and ran with it

(as a heads up, reader is not mc in this situation, and this takes place before any of the exchange program stuff, so belphie’s not in the attic and solomon and the angels aren’t in the devildom)

fandom: obey me!

character(s): gn!reader, satan, beelzebub

pairing(s): satan/reader (though it isn’t particularly romantic since you’re, y’know, dead, so it’s more of a satan & reader)

warning(s): references to death, beel eats an entire rotisserie chicken

genre: crack (with a bit of fluff i guess???)

“For the last time, [Name], put the knife down.”

“Bite me, bitch-boy.”

Satan lets out a long-suffering sigh and sets down his mug of coffee, then reaches out and carefully pushes the floating butter knife pointed directly at his jugular back down onto the table. “I don’t know why you keep trying that. You do know it wouldn’t actually get through my skin even if you did manage to hit me, right?”

“It’s the thought that counts,” comes your disembodied voice from somewhere near the ceiling. You’ve probably decided to float up there to sulk like you always do after a failed attack.

“I’d prefer you didn’t think about it at all.”

A still-wet towel pulls itself from the rack on the wall and hits him square in the face. Satan gives an exasperated groan as it slides down his face and lands on the table with a soft splat.

“That’s what you get,” You sniff indignantly, finally materialising in front of him with a scowl. You’re floating upside down in a way that makes it look like you’re standing on the ceiling. “Buttface.”

“Come on, you can come up with better material than that,” Satan shakes his head, pushing back his chair and picking up the wet towel you’ve just flung at him to hang it back up again. “Where did all your creativity from yesterday go?”

“Six feet under with the remains of my body, probably,” you reply with a scowl. Then, as an afterthought, you add, “Confounded cheese wheel.”

“Oh, that’s a new one,” He comments, mildly surprised. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Made it up myself. Ha!” You bob past him and through the wall, most likely to go terrorise Mammon by making his lights flicker on and off again. “Guess my creativity isn’t as dead as I am after all.”

“You still haven’t gotten over that, I see.” He sighs.

Your head immediately pops back out of the wall and glares across the room at him. “Excuse me?”

“It’s been weeks now - months, even,” Satan explains carefully as he sits back down at the table, not wanting to aggravate you further. The last time he'd brought something like this up, he’d ended up making you so angry that you’d managed to become physically corporeal enough to fling him across the room. “I would have thought you’d have passed on by now, that’s all. Surely it doesn’t take this long for the gates to the Celestial Realm to open?”

You consider his words, apparently appeased by their logic. “...I guess. Maybe I’m not passing on because I can’t rest in peace yet, like the ghosts do in horror films.”

“They’re films, you can’t expect to apply what happens in them to reality,” Satan replies flatly. “Besides, even if that was the situation, you've met all the criteria to 'rest in peace’, haven't you?”

“Are you trying to tell me, the dead one here, what merits as ‘resting in peace’?” You counter, floating back through the wall so that your entire body is in the room again. “My murderer’s still walking about like he doesn’t dress in the entire green colour spectrum and think it’s a good idea. How am I supposed to rest in peace knowing that?”

Satan looks down at his outfit, a little offended. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“What’s right with your clothes?” You shoot back, drifting over to him and passing a ghostly hand through his shoulder, apparently too lazy to muster up the energy to make your hand physical enough to touch him. “Look at it! Your blazer doesn’t even have lapels!”

“It isn’t a blazer.”

“Jacket, then.” You make a move as if to pinch at the fabric, but your fingers just pass right through it like a hot knife through butter. “It doesn’t even fit you. The sleeves are too short.”

Satan resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to wear it if it didn’t fit me. Besides, why does it matter to you?”

“The demon I might be doomed to be attached to for the rest of my afterlife has the worst fashion sense in all three realms is the matter,” You sigh dramatically and float up to the ceiling again. “Why do you even wear rip-off jeans if you’re going to put a belt over it?”

“First of all, they aren’t rip-off jeans,” Satan tells you as you start idly making the kitchen light flicker. He should probably tell you to stop doing that whenever you get bored, but he’s gotten so used to it at this point that he can’t really be bothered to. “And, second of all, why does it matter if I’m wearing a belt on it?”

“Rip-off jeans are meant to be ripped off,” You explain with all the patience of a mother explaining something to a curious child, completely disregarding Satan’s first point. “Putting a belt on top of it kind makes that redundant.”

Satan thinks about it for a moment and begrudgingly comes to the conclusion that your statement is correct - not that it makes a difference to him. “...they’re still not rip-off jeans.”

“Think whatever you want to think, burro verde.”

“What?”

“It means green donkey in Spanish.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Where’d you get that from?”

“I took Spanish for, like, three years when I was in high school,” You shrug, and the light brightens and dims slightly with the movement of your shoulders, as if it’s shrugging with you. “Failed all the exams, but at least I got something worthwhile out of it.”

“Three years of linguistic lessons and all you learn is how to string together bizarre insults,” Satan shakes his head. “You really are incorrigible.”

“That’s a big word. You sure you know what it means?”

“Of course I do,” He gives you a slightly disgruntled look. “I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t. What do you take me for?”

“Someone who doesn’t know what incorrigible means, obviously.” You pretend to aim a kick at the spider perched quietly in the corner of the ceiling, but Timothy ignores your efforts to boot him from his web. After a moment, growing tired of bothering the little guy, you ask, “...what does it mean?”

Satan snickers, then answers, sounding as if he’s reading the definition directly out of a dictionary, “In reference to a person or their behaviour, unable to be changed or reformed.”

You contemplate his words for a few seconds. “Is that a good thing?”

“Not usually when that particular word is used for it, no.”

“Oh. Bitch.”

He pauses at that, moving his mug of now marginally cooler coffee away from his mouth again, having been in the middle of taking another sip when you decided to insult him again. “Where did that come from?”

“You called me incorrigible, which you just said is not a good thing to be,” You explain as if it’s obvious, frowning down at him. “So I’m taking it as an insult and insulting you back. Bitch.”

“You didn’t have to say it again.”

“I didn’t, but it’s fun to call you names.” You snort and glide down from the ceiling to float above the table, crossing your legs and pretending to sit down on it. “It’s not as fun as it used to be, though. You never get all puffed up about it anymore.”

“That’s your own fault for doing it so much that I got used to it,” Satan reproaches. “Besides, it was pointless getting angry. It’s not like I can do anything to you in return.”

“You could ignore me and pretend I don’t exist or something.”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

“No!” You hurriedly throw up your hands in a gesture of surrender and shake your head so hard that Satan swears he actually feels a breeze - an even more impressive achievement considering that your body isn’t even tangible. “Please don’t. You’re the only being in the entire universe that I can actually interact with.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing,” Satan mutters.

“It’s a good thing for me, and that’s all that matters,” You reply, unfazed.

No one other than Satan appears to have the ability to see you, which is an odd thing in and of itself. Ghosts aren’t a foreign thing to the Devildom - they’re so common that you could probably just walk into a convenience store and find one shelving cans of soup - but you don’t seem to follow any of the rules that they do. Sometimes Satan wonders if you’re able to actively choose to not allow his brothers to see you as you drift around the house, but then again, he’s pretty sure that, if you had the option to make Lucifer watch you pretend to fist fight that weird skeleton hanging in his room, you definitely would.

Satan doesn’t pretend to understand the laws of your otherworldly existence - he’s read so many variations on the rules behind lingering spirits like you that he can scarcely tell the difference between pure fiction and actual logical hypothesis. It’s easy enough to wrangle you into behaving for a day so that he can observe you properly by promising to leave his radio on for you while he’s out, but the observations themselves never seem to lead to anything. He knows that you’re able to pass through any physical object (as far as he knows), can make lights (of both the electronic and candle variety) flicker at will, can muster up enough physicality to move and touch things if you try, and can phase in and out of perceivable view, but he doesn’t know why you can do any of those things.

“Quit trying to come up with explanations for everything,” You’d told him wisely a month or so ago, when you’d floated in on him muttering to himself about the possibility of something called ‘ether energy’. “You’re just gonna give yourself a headache.”

Then you’d started making his candles flicker like disco lights until he stopped.

“...but I don’t think he spotted me, since he probably would’ve commented on the floating meat cleaver if he did, and— hey, big guy!”

That last exclamation is aimed at Beel, who has just walked into the kitchen and is now rummaging unceremoniously through the fridge, most likely in search of something to eat. At this point Satan’s pretty sure that you still don’t know any of his brothers’ names - at the very least, even if you do, you’ve never called them by them.

Beel continues to sort through the various already empty boxes and containers in the fridge as you start zooming back and forth through him, marvelling over the sheer broadness of his chest and shoulders. It isn’t the first time you’ve done this to him - or indeed any of the brothers - but Satan can tell that it’s more innocent awe than any kind of objectification or intent to harm, so he doesn’t mind. As mischievous as you are, he’s pretty sure you don’t have a genuinely malicious or wanton bone in your body... well, you don’t have any bones anymore - or a body, for that matter - but the point still stands.

“Hungry?” He guesses, but it’s honestly more of a statement. It is Beel, after all.

The Avatar of Gluttony withdraws from his search briefly to offer a nod. “I didn’t get to finish all of my lunch.”

“Well, there’s a surprise,” You comment as Beel sticks his head back into the fridge, finally tiring of buffeting yourself back and forth like a pendulum and choosing to start hovering just over the second youngest’s shoulders to watch his hunt. “Wonder what he was up to that got him to stop eating.”

Satan opens his mouth to reply, then stops and closes it again. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Beel with the not-really-a-secret of your existence, but he’s sure that at some point or another, Beel will end up letting it slip to Lucifer, who would most likely want to know why your death ended up attaching your spirit to his brother, and Satan’s already gone to great lengths to make sure that the oldest won’t find out about the rampage he went on that cost you your life in the first place. It'd just be a waste of that effort for Lucifer to find out anyway. Besides, it isn’t like the information will make much difference to Beel - he can’t see or hear you, and you’re pretty harmless, so there wouldn’t be any need for him to get involved in the situation anyway.

You, meanwhile, are well aware that Satan isn’t going to be saying anything to you while one of his brothers is in the room - you don’t really understand his reasoning for it, since you like to think that you’re a pleasure of a ghost to know, but you suppose you can’t really force him to make any decisions. Besides, you’re pretty content with the way things are right now; you don’t want to complicate the situation by bringing in another demon who, as far as you know, might just smite you on the spot if they find out about your existence.

Instead, you busy yourself with watching in fascination as Beel somehow pulls what looks like a rotisserie chicken from the very back of the fridge and shove the whole thing in this mouth. You exchange slightly disturbed looks with Satan as he begins to chew - you’re pretty sure you’ve just seen him dislocate his jaw like a snake to fit it in there.

“You might want to calm down, Beel,” Satan advises after a brief moment’s stunned silence, though even he knows that it’s a fruitless warning. “You’ll end up choking.”

Beel nods, but makes absolutely no move to slow in his aggressive chewing.

“This must be what the peak of evolution looks like,” You say in bemused awe as Beel finishes eating. The entire chicken has disappeared down his throat - bones and all. “How the hell does he manage that?”

Satan doesn’t answer, but his subtle shrug says that your guess is as good as his.

Much to your surprise and Satan’s resignation, Beel immediately goes back to the fridge, apparently unsatisfied by the copious amount of fowl he’s just eaten. To be honest, you feel sorry for the guy - while the you from when you’d still been able to eat would have done some unspeakable things to be able to consume as much as he does and still remain that fit, you’re sure that the black hole he calls a stomach must be an awful thing to have to deal with. At least he gets to enjoy a lot of food because of it, though you suppose it’s a double-edged sword if he’s also constantly being scolded for it. Personally, you don’t understand the reasoning behind telling someone off for eating as much food as they need, but they are demons. You probably shouldn’t expect them to have that level of compassion.

By the time you break out of your train of thought, Beel has found something else to eat amidst the many empty boxes in the fridge. It’s much smaller than the rotisserie chicken - some kind of pastry with a dollop of snowy white cream on top, decorated with a few lines of melted chocolate to look like a cat’s face. In fact, it looks almost identical to…

“Hey, wait!” You swipe a useless hand through Beel’s arm as he raises the pastry to his mouth. “Don’t eat that—!”

Too late. The pastry disappears into Beel’s mouth, and you drift backwards again, letting out a defeated groan. Satan shoots you a curious look - you can’t eat, after all, so why are you so upset about Beel eating that pastry? Is there something special about it?

His question is answered when he actually turns to look at his younger brother. The Avatar of Gluttony has gone rigid on the spot and is blinking rapidly, his eyes the size of moons.

“Beel…?” Satan questions hesitantly. “Are you feeling alright?”

Beel takes a long moment to respond, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Satan takes a closer look and realises that Beel’s pupils seem to have dilated to an almost impossible degree, resembling a cat’s eyes when it’s about to go absolutely feral. Whatever it is was in that pastry, it’s definitely hit him hard.

Now, Satan isn’t one to interrupt good fun when it’s about to happen, so instead of stepping in and performing some sort of spell that might help on his possibly-high brother like a good guy, he sits back and watches as Beel’s head swings around the room as if he's never seen anything in it before like the mischief-loving little shit he is. Beel himself doesn’t appear to be negatively affected, so it can’t be that bad, right?

You float cautiously around the giant as his hands ball into fists. His entire body is trembling slightly with pent-up energy. Then, a split second later, as if he’s been zapped by some catalystic bolt of lightning, he abruptly snaps back on his heel and positively zooms out of the room. You can practically see the cartoony cloud of dust that he’s kicking up as he disappears down the corridor.

“He’s absolutely zooted right now,” You comment, flipping upside with a resigned sigh and crossing your arms a little grumpily. “I told him not to eat it.”

“He couldn’t hear you, you know,” Satan says, moving over to the fridge and slamming it shut, since Beel has neglected to. “What was even in that thing?”

You shrug. “Don’t know. I’ve just been calling it demon-nip.”

“I suppose that it does to demons what catnip does to cats, then?” Satan doesn’t even wait for you to answer before continuing - rude. “How did you even get a hold of it? Never mind that, how did you manage to get it in a pastry and put it in the fridge?”

“I got some help from one of the poltergeists downtown to make it,” You wave your hands about dismissively. “You should pay more attention when you go out. I disappeared for, like, five hours, and you didn’t even notice.”

“When even was this?”

“Tuesday, I think. Remember when you bought that giant bag of cat paw-shaped biscuits and then accidentally dropped the bag in the hall and got them everywhere?”

You don’t miss the way that the tips of his ears go slightly pink as he coughs subtly and averts his gaze. “...why would the poltergeists help you? They hate humans.”

“I don’t know, actually…” You ponder for a moment, then decide, “...probably because I’m cute.”

“Are you?” Satan deadpans. “Cute is what you’d call a cat. You’re just… tolerable.”

“Oh, fuck you, I think I’m adorable.” You huff, flying over and poking him hard in the side of the head. Satan hisses in pain and reaches up to rub the sore spot, but he supposes he should have seen that blow coming - you’re never too humble to make yourself physical enough to hit him after an insult.

“Where did that idea even come from?” He asks quickly, not wanting to take another attack. You may be a mere imprint of a dead human, but your fingers are sharp, and he’d prefer not to provoke you further if he can avoid it.

His change of subject is so abrupt and obvious that it’s almost laughable, but you choose not to call him out on it. As much as you’d like to set him on fire or something, he hasn’t given you a really good reason to commit arson yet, and you’d just end up feeling bad for doing it. Well, to be fair, he did kill you… but still, you don’t want to keep holding that over his head.

“I read it in a book.” You answer. Satan’s eyes light up slightly.

“Do you remember the title?” He asks almost eagerly, and you disguise a snicker. His intentions are practically painted in bright red paint across his face - he’s hoping that there’ll be more schemes like the one you’ve performed that he can use against that sadist of an older brother of his.

Unfortunately for him, the book doesn’t exist. “Yeah. It’s called One Hundred Ways To Get Back At The Ass That Killed You, Free Of Murder and Actual Crimes That Might Get You Persecuted And Sent To Super Hell.”

Satan clearly isn’t thinking very hard today, because for a moment he actually looks as if he believes you - you suppose it’s because he’s grown desensitised to the oddness of such long titles after hearing so many weirdly specific anime titles from the otaku brother that you still have yet to see come out of his room. (You’ve floated in a few times to have a look around and appreciate the decor, but other than that, you’ve barely even seen his face. You’re not even sure what his name is, to be honest…)

He realises what you’re getting at after a moment, though, and immediately frowns at you in disapproval. You just grin, pleased with your small victory.

“You're insufferable,” He says, shaking his head with an long sigh.

“No, I'm cute,” You counter, frowning. “Weren't you listening to me earlier?”

He throws his hands up hastily as you drift forward with a hand brandished and a nasty glint in your eye, unwilling to get jabbed at again. “Okay, okay, I get it.”

You, however, don't relent. Eyes narrowing, you float even closer - so close that, if you'd been physical, he’d have been able to feel your breath on his face. “Say it.”

Satan may be one of the seven most powerful demons in the Devildom (below Diavolo, of course, and possibly Barbatos), but the aggression of a pissed-off ghost, especially if that ghost is you, isn't anything he wants to be on the receiving end of right now. “Fine, fine! You're adorable, you're cute, whatever. Now will you leave me alone?”

You finally pull back, beaming in a gratified fashion. “That's all I wanted to hear!”

Satan gives you an irritated look as you drift back across the kitchen, a satisfied grin on your face. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’ve said that already,” You sing back, laughing in victory when you see his eyebrow twitch slightly in annoyance. “And you had the nerve to lecture me about creativity earlier! Why don’t you come up with better material, Mr Shoes-Up-My-Ass?”

He doesn’t reply for a good moment, attempting to think of a insult to counter your admittedly slightly juvenile one. Try as he might, though, all of his good jibes seem to have evaporated. “...shut up.”

His pathetic response, of course, immediately compels you to take the piss out of him. Clutching your chest dramatically, as if Satan’s just stabbed you with the knife you’d been waving about earlier, you wail, “Oh, thy words do wound me! 'Tis like thou hath rip’d my heart out with thy own hands!”

Satan glares you for a long moment, but he doesn’t have the heart to keep it up when you’re grinning so brightly. Honestly, you’re a nuisance and a brat sometimes, sure, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t consider you his closest friend at this point. “...do you even know how to use those words?”

You drop the act faster than Asmo throws it down on a Saturday night, shrugging and floating back over to hover just above the chair across from Satan’s. “Nope. It sounded right, though, right?”

“I haven’t read enough works in Old English to know,” Satan admits with a shake of his head. “But it did, I suppose…”

It’s kind of weird that he’s agreeing so easily, you think. Has he just had enough of your bullshit and is complying with to keep you quiet? Or has he just finally seen the light of your brilliance?

...well, you suppose it doesn’t matter. You grin and move to ruffle his hair, but forget to make your hand physical and instead end up flying right through his head. Satan shudders slightly - though he doesn’t feel it, it’s still weird to have an entire hand and arm go through his cranium.

“Could you not?” He complains as you right yourself and pull your hand back again. “This feels weird.”

“Baby.”

“Pet names aren’t going to do anything,” He sighs, pulling his chair to the side so that he’s no longer half-inside your torso. “Hands to yourself.”

“No, it was an insult,” You correct him. “I was calling you a baby. Though bitch-boy works too.”

Satan lets out a long sigh. Now you’re just back where you started.

[nevermindirah]

I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?

[brain-depositary]

Kiddos, I see there's a post about "problematic media" going about and how to read it and I just want to say that media, especially media that's put out by large corporations like major publishers, film, etc., is not created by individuals in a vacuum-- especially today with creators being paid less than ever and publishers wringing more and more "content" out of them.

Like even with extremely cut and dry cases like Jay Kristoff naming one of his major villains, a friggin cabal-running vampire, Adonai, in one of his novels, you cannot lay the blame entirely on Jay Kristoff. Even if he was the most virulent antisemite in existence, if Nevernight had remained in a private file on his computer never to be read by anyone or even just read by a close circle of associates, it's hard to argue that the novel itself would be perpetuating "harm". Even if he had self-edited and self-published it and sold a few hundred copies, it would not have had that far of a reach. The real kicker is that this passed through a major publisher and got published as it was. I mean if there's any proof that Jews don't run the media, this is it -- there would have been no fucking way anyone Jewish would have seen that and not raised some sort of alarm before it was printed. The elephant in the room is not just that Jay Kristoff had this "problematic" thought in his head and decided to write it down, but that we don't also consider the sheer number of eyes that went over his manuscript and decided there was no problem with it and just let it steamroll on through.

And like, there's a whole cascade of reasons why there are these recent 'Eastern European'-inspired fantasy books that end up with wildly antisemitic subtext and even text getting through publishing. There's the sentiment that "(Western) European Fantasy Stories are boring" but at the same time extreme risk aversion to anything new and unwillingness to work with PoC authors to publish anything else. So, white people latch onto eastern Europe as a "safe" region they're "allowed" to pilfer from as eastern Europeans are white but that will still make their fantasy stories "unique", while not realizing how baked-in the antisemitism is to so much writing and folklore from there. And, if you're looking to eastern Europe for your dose of exoticism, you're not going to know enough about antisemitism there to recognize it even if it if bites you in the ass, and so, at best, you're going to replicate it out of ignorance. This fiction was not created in a vacuum. And it's so strange that none of the blame is laid at the feet of all the people who are making demands of this story, not the original writers but the ones who insisted on changing it so it would sell and the ones who did eventually choose to sell it. The writer is the one who wrote down the antisemitism and that is by some measure bad, but is it not the fault of the people who thought antisemitism would sell that it sold?

I think about the Isabel Fall attack helicopter story and I think about the publisher a lot here and how nothing happened to them, how they were completely ignored in all this controversy. I've long felt like a lot of short story markets are exploitative -- like in the manner of writing a college essay, that you're intended to mine your 'trauma' or 'culture' for brownie points and set it up in a particular "punchy" style that makes it appealing for these markets. I've felt like Clarkesworld, the publisher of Fall's story, was one of the bigger offenders of this, so while I didn't like her story, I didn't find what made it bad to me unique. What was unique was that it was on such an inflammatory topic that it got a lot of attention outside of those who usually read short stories from magazines like this. I can understand if Fall herself did not anticipate the fallout of such a story, and I can't blame her, but I seriously question the wisdom of Clarkesworld of publishing it at all. Did they not have an inkling that it would be inflammatory to the point of causing a shitshow? If they didn't, they hadn't been paying attention to any writing circles on social media, and I would say they therefore did not know enough about the topic to publish a piece on it, and therefore what happened was their fault; if they did have some inkling that this shitshow was even a possibility, did they tell Fall? Not warning her, at the very least, is negligence on their part, and they're still the ones at fault. Even if you thought that the story was problematic to the point of being dangerous to trans people somehow, blaming Fall for writing it and not Clarkesworld for publishing it is just so absurd, because no problem occurred until it was published. Clarkesworld chose this story to publish above all others, and I'm not sure if people understand, but according to publication statistics, Clarkesworld only publishes 0.57% of stories it receives. Yes, that's right, they could have published one of about 199 other stories instead of Fall's, but Fall's was the one they chose. That it existed at all may have been Fall's doing, but that the world saw it was absolutely a very deliberate choice by Clarkesworld.

When writers submit, submit, submit, and are continuously rejected, it's because their writing does not satisfy some arbitrary standard. Even if it's not "not good enough", a lot of marginalized people are always told that what they write is "too similar" to something they already have. The entire publishing apparatus poses itself as an arbiter of taste, of knowing what the market, the people, will consume, so when those same people wrinkle their noses in disgust at what they're being sold, why are we not finding fault with the people who are doing the selling?

I think it is hard lay blame at the seller and not the writer because the people doing the selling are a mostly invisible force, a faceless company, with so many hands touching the product to distribute responsibility, while the author is often right there on Twitter to scream at. But if publishers aren't for you, the reader, a sign of quality editing to find and correct at least the most egregious faults, and they're not help for the writer to correct these most egregious faults, you've got to wonder what the hell they're even there for.

[renee-writer]

The Surrogate Chapter 27 Plans

Claire stands back and holds tight to her hands to prevent herself from reaching out to him. They had discussed it and decided that their relationship would not be discussed right now, not until the situation with Geneva is completely cleared up. So for her to reach out to him in front of his parents, isn’t advised. As much as she wishes too.

 

“Alright son, you have done the hard job of confronting her. We are quite proud of you. What are the plans now? What can your mam and I do to help? You have this child coming. We know that you don’t want Geneva involved in it’s live.”

 

“No, I don’t. I have already had Ned change the contract to remove Geneva from having any parental rights. She has no genetic tie to the child, so..”

 

“Her egg wasn’t used then?” his mam asked.

 

“No. She didn’t want the bother.” Ellen just shakes her head. “So the baby is just mine. Not hers.”

 

“That helps. Do you want her removed from all of Lallybroch’s accounts.”

 

“Yes, but let me check in with the head investigator and make sure they have all they need..” While he speaks on the phone, Ellen turns to Claire.

 

“Are you alright luv? I know this wasn’t what you expected when you signed up to do this.”

 

“No, it wasn’t. But Jamie is a grand father. From the beginning, he has put the baby first. I don’t regret going in. At all.”

 

“That is wonderful. You are okay with him being a single father?”

 

“We’ll,” she looks to him but he is still on the phone. “I have agreed to be in the child’s life enough that he or she knows me. Maybe not as a full time mum. That was never in the plan. But enough that a mum is known. After all, it isn’t the child’s fault that Geneva turned out to be.. well, who she is.”

 

“Grand point. They did well choosing you. I can say that.”

 

“We did. Claire is just perfect.” Jamie had just got off the phone.  “They have all the info they need. They can file charges of corporate theft and intellectual property theft. We can and will remove her from anything to do with Lallybroch.”

 

“I will get that done immediately.”

 

“Thank you. I know this wasn’t the dinner party you were expecting.”

 

His parents share a look. “You know Jamie that we never fully approved of Geneva. There was always something off. Something that keep us from getting as close as we should of to our daughter-in-law. I am sorry she turned out to be as she did but glad you finally see it.”

 

“Thank you da. Not only for saying it but for not saying anything until I saw it myself.”

 

“Your marriage. We couldn’t tell you what to do.”

 

“It is hard though, to see your child hurt and not be able to help. You will see.” His mam adds.

 

“Thank you for your patience mam.” She smiles giving him a hug.

 

“I think we will leave you to just start dealing with the reality of all this.”

 

“Thank you. I will let you know when she and Bonnet are picked up.”

 

“Aye. Sad but necessary.”

 

“It is da.” They hug them both and walk out. Jamie and Claire are alone. Now what?

[larryfanficwriter98]

Chapter One

-You Are My Favorite Distraction-

It wasn't that Harry didn't love his job. He did and he loved the company, but the building was understaffed, and Harry was doing five different jobs at once. His official title was Chief Media Officer, however at the moment he also filled in the roles of Chief Communications Officer, Chief Costumer Officer, Chief Listening Officer, and Chief Brand Officer. Granted most of those jobs could he pushed into three separate ones however the Manchester Branch wasn't exactly paying much attention. To say he and other Chief Officers were overworked and underpaid for all the work they did was an understatement. It came as no surprise when Janitors started getting fired then lower employees and then finally the first top level employee was let go. Despite Liam, Chief Networking Officer along with Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Human Resources Officer, in constant communications with the other Chief Networking Officer at the Main Branch located in London, nothing was ever done about it.

"Hey Haz, what do you think is going to happen?" Liam asked entering his office with his laptop and a few files.

"I think we should probably pack up our desks and find new jobs." Harry said as he continued to type out an email to one of their Manchester customers.

"But which position do we apply for?" Liam questioned.

"Your favorite." Harry guessed with a shrug, "can I help you with something Liam?" Harry asked looking over at his best friend since childhood.

"Yes, actually you can help me decide on what to do if- no when we get shut down." Harry sighed as he saved his work then stood up and rounded his desk, "I like working here...well not here but here."

"Yeah, so do I and I know it sucks because you done everything you could, we all did, but it's not our fault." Harry told him.

"I know that. I just-" They were interrupted by Liam's phone ringing inside his office across from Harry's, "We'll talk later."

Harry has worked for Preserve Earth ever since he was eighteen working in the warehouse having to wear tacky white polo shirts. Back then Preserve Earth was still new and was barely considered more than a small business. They only had biodegradable dinnerware like cups, silverware, plates, and bowls. Standard things. They had just started biodegradable bags of various types when Harry had applied for an office position in London. He had worked in customer service on the second floor for two years. Then the accident happened, and Harry hadn't been able to stay in London after that and had applied for a transfer to the, at the time, new Manchester location. He had started interning with the Chief Media Officer and then had gotten a position as his assistant. Fourteen months after that he had left to train new employees at Liverpool and Harry had been given the job six months later when he decided to stay in Liverpool.

He had been the youngest Chief Officer of the entire company which had gotten a lot of attention from everyone. Everyone had told them it was a bad idea having someone in their early twenties be the front man for the media. The President of the Manchester Branch had stood by his decision and by Harry and Harry had made sure to do his absolute best in his work and it showed by twenty-five, two years after being put in his position Harry had been wanted as the Chief Media Office by large corporate organizations all over the UK and even some from America. The Manchester branch revenue grew in twenty-eight months more than it had grown in the past four years it had been opened. The President had retired soon after and a new president came, and Harry had tentatively brought up social media and how it could grow the business and connect to the customers better and the new CEO had agreed to a trial run of six months. Harry watched a few training videos online and then started ''Preserve Earth Manchester'' social media profiles on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The first two months only showed minimal growth as Harry grew the platforms, but then he wore a pink suit and apparently it was very controversial, and his picture traveled everywhere and then they found his personal Instagram account which promoted his work because he did love the company and he really did love the products. Then the company had to start limiting sales of the products they sold to regular people like backpacks and water bottles and even ecofriendly biodegradable phones cases. Even then it was in high demand and had shipping wait times.

Harry had been called into the President's office while he had been on the phone with the Owner of the company. He had apologized as soon as he entered the room then had sat there quietly for two hours not able to listen to anything they said. When he had ended the call, Harry had wasted in silence for five anxious minutes before he had grinned and told Harry that he was welcome to keep the social medias and that he needed everything Harry had done and read by tomorrow so he could send it off to the other branches. However, they had been a few companies that had left the company as they didn't think a man in a pink suit was a good representation of the company. Or whatever the bullshit excuse was. Every President and the Owner had done a press release stating,

"Preserve Earth is an ecofriendly, biodegradable, and compostable company that is LGBT plus friendly. Our employees are encouraged to wear whatever they feel comfortable in as long as it is appropriate for their position. We encourage all of our employees to be their authentic selves and to be whoever they want to be and to wear whatever they wish to wear. The Chief Media Officer dress policy states and I quote, "The Chief Media Officer must wear business formal attire during press releases that will be aired on television. They are not required, but are encouraged to have their skirts, if they so choose to wear them, at their knee. However, they are allowed to wear them to their thighs, miniskirts are not allowed it must be two to three inches below the bottom. This is to prevent cameras from getting inappropriate shots of a person as they bend, squat, walk up or down stairs, or sit down this is not an act to prevent 'distractions' in the workplace. The Chief Media Officer is required to wear business casual attire to work unless told otherwise." With that said Mr. Styles did not break dress code policy and therefore will not be 'held responsible'. That is all thank you."

Harry had been very embarrassed and had apologized multiple times to his boss, but he had laughed and waved it off.

"Harry I'm forty-three years old and even I know that the world is changing for the better. You can wear whatever you want as long as I do see Harry junior or his two buddies down there. Got that?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Get back to work kid."

Harry had loved his boss and had been saddened when he announced his retirement only three years ago. Mr. Fritz wasn't a terrible boss right away, but after eighteen months Harry and everyone else got a pay cut. Which...okay it was reasonable since they wanted to divert some of the money towards opening another branch and Harry was paid a lot. Then six months later and there was another pay cut. Then employees started getting fired and well...here they were. Three years with a new boss and completely overworked and fearing they were next on the firing list.

"Excuse me." Harry looked up from his computer to see a woman dressed in a black blazer and skirt combo.

"Yes?"

"I need to speak to Mister Payne where is he office?"

"Directly across the hall he's on the phone at the moment."

"Thank you." Harry didn't bother reminding her he was on the phone and went back to typing when he heard another male's voice coming from Liam's office. Harry paused furrowing his brow as he listened to the conversation.

"Sir-" that was Liam, Harry knew that for sure.

"Your job was to contact my networking officers. Miss Caldor is head of Networking at the London branch. I had to find out this branch was broke was through my financial officers. I understand everyone here is overworked and I apologize for that however you did not do your job-" Harry stood up and stormed across the hall entering the office.

"Who the hell are you talking to like that?" Harry asked only faltering slightly when he noticed the large group of people in Liam's office one of them being the CEO/Owner of the entire company.

"Excuse me." Louis said raising a brow.

"Liam has been in constant communication with Eleanor since he started working here five years ago. They exchange weekly emails he told her when we got the first pay cut then the second then the firings. I've been in constant communications with her for over a year. So don't you dare come into his office yelling at him as if he's on the wrong when it was your side who didn't do their job. We barely have enough time to pee during the day let alone write twenty-five emails to your employee to make sure she takes us seriously. I don't give a damn who you are I will not allow anyone who has stuck out this long with this treatment to be blamed while your bullshit Networking officers spent three weeks in the Bahamas two months ago for doing excellent work while this man has put in one hundred hours a fucking week with three pay cuts in less than two years. Also let's not forget that when you first opened your second branch you promised one to two annual visits only for you not to show up for the past six years. So how about you talk to your officers before you come over here and start pointing fingers at people who barley sleep five hours a night for your company. If you would have let Liam speak before jumping down on him, I'm sure he would have been more than happy to show you the email your officer sent us telling us we are being overly dramatic, and no one can possibly work roughly fourteen hours a day. Which we don't we clock out after ten and work the rest of the six off the clock for free. You're welcome for that by the way. Also-"

"Harry." Liam hissed.

"What? No fuck this guy I have a whole lot more to say to this fuck head who thinks he can just waltz right in here and-" Liam covered his mouth and quickly shoved him out of his office locking the door once Harry was out, "Pansy!" Harry shouted before he closed and locked his office door around his office to stare at the document upfront of him. Harry slowly calmed down and continued working until he was interrupted yet again, but this time by three sharp knocks at his door.

"Go away." Harry said.

"Can I at least apologize?"

"There you just did now go away." Harry groaned when he heard his lock turn and he glared at Liam who held up the spare key Harry gave him out of trust, "you're a traitor."

"Sue me." Liam said pocketing the key as Louis Tomlinson walked into his office.

"May I explain myself?" Louis asked.

"That depends is this going to be where you make up an excuse of stress then I, for whatever reason, forgives you despite you not learning from it and doing it again later on? Because if so, then no you may not." Harry spoke as he continued to type too focused on getting this document finished before his train of thought left him.

"He watches too many Hallmark movies around the holidays, and I sort of messed up his tea this morning. He's pissy."

"And not sorry by the way so if you're expecting me to apologize after you I won't. I shouldn't have snapped nor cursed at you, but I don't regret it. Oh, and this isn't me trying to be rude this is me trying to get these words on screen before my train of thought leaves me for a different task." Harry explained.

"Good luck." Liam said before he was hurrying out of his office.

"What is it that you want then?" Harry asked.

"I apologize I didn't realize my Networking Officer wasn't completely honest with me when she told me of the only email she had received which was yesterday morning."

"Thank you."

"So...we're good?"

"Yeah, we're fine."

"It doesn't feel like we're fine." Harry looked away from his screen towards Louis who admittedly not two hours ago he thought was extremely hot.

"I do not apologize for what I said however I do apologize for the way it came out. I should have spoken to you more calmly and more rationally. We're fine now I do have to finish this template before we all meet up together and discuss what's going to happen next. So, give me like...thirty minutes?"

"Thank you, but you didn't need to do that."

"I'm a grown mature man I know when I'm wrong- well in this case half wrong."

"We'll have a meeting in an hour." Harry nodded in acknowledgement then looked at him when he didn't leave right away.

"Yes?"

"Nothing just... Why haven't we met before?"

"Because I live in Manchester, and you live in London?"

"Yes, but I have visited this office quite a few times."

"I lock my office door or I'm busy on the phone. Besides during the annual gala, we all sort of stick to our own coworkers and don't mingle. I especially tend to stick with Liam and Niall who stick close to the back, so we're not spotted sneaking sips of a flask."

"Right. Well, it was nice to meet you, Harry." Louis said giving him an appreciative once over that, unfortunately, made heat rise in his cheeks as Harry focused on the screen upfront of him.

"Yeah...you too." Louis smiled at him before he turned and walked out of the office, Harry quickly stood up and locked his office door again shaking his head. Absolutely fucking not.

[featheredpheonix]

I watched the 4th (and final, if reports hold true) season of Netflix’s Castlevania series, and I am now putting as many of my (many, many) thoughts on it in the read more below to prevent them from continually filling my head until I die from a brain herniation. Spoilers for the new season obviously below.

The really short version of this is that, in contrast to a lot of the sentiment I have been seeing online, I don’t think this season is very good. I think it might actually be worse than season 3. If that thought offends you, please bear with me for a bit, as I suspect it is Netflix itself rather than the showrunners who are to blame.

Season 3′s fundamental flaw, in my opinion, was that it tried to cover too much at once, which made the pacing really fast and resulted in the season’s more obvious problems (how inconsequential Trevor and Sypha’s arc felt, how generally messy and underwritten Alucard’s whole section was, etc.). However, Season 3 did bear some merit, as so far as some of the conflicts it seemed to be setting up held some decent potential. Alucard was poised to have some real inner turmoil as he sent back to square one of his isolation in the castle, and by way of a far more traumatic series of events than during his initial farewell with Trevor and Sypha. Isaac was faced with a pretty open suite of paths to take his life, and a new philosophy on life to help guide him. There was the question of how would the world react to Carmilla’s expansionist ambitions, and just how far she would go to see them through. There was even a lot of engaging stuff that could have come out of Hector’s entrapment into magical servitude by Lenore. I was ready to give Season 3 some slack because I saw it as setting up interesting conflicts for Season 4, which while technically counting as kicking the can down the road, might have at least counted for something.

The issue with Season 4 then, for me, begins with it utterly ignoring or cutting short many of the potential story lines just discussed, opting in favor of conflicts devoid of set up, with threadbare emotional stakes, and which didn’t really challenge the cast in any way beyond testing how well they can swing a sword or throw a fireball.

Alucard seems barely fazed at all by the killing of his father or his brief pair of homicidal lovers, so much so that his recounting of the latter, an event which must have been a traumatic experience for him, is delivered off-screen and then promptly joked about. Carmilla’s character her arc is resolved with her complete abandonment of any of the political wit or strategic thinking she displayed in seasons past, getting promptly curb-stomped by Isaac for reasons only tangentially related to her manic world domination plot, and then girlbossing so hard she explodes. Most inexplicable of all, Hector, Lenore, and the story in general appear to have forgot or moved on from the whole “sexually-induced magical slavery” thing altogether, and the two are getting along swimmingly until Lenore decides to kermit herself (If I had a nickel for every morally-questionable vampiress who committed suicide this season, I’d only have two nickels, but it’s weird that it happened twice). Only Isaac’s story at all resembles what was being foreshadowed in Season 3, and even then only by the narrative being very vague about what his future plans actually are.

What we receive instead of payoff on previously established story threads are a coalescence of the different character arcs in a manner so rushed as to make them logistically impossible were it not for the sudden and conspicuous abundance of magical teleportation mirrors, a rogue’s gallery of new villainous vampires who exist only to be introduced and killed off in quick and meaningless succession, and a BBEG-from-the-machine who could have been interesting and entertaining if he had been given any build up or time to breath as a character, in either a previous or current season. Even the happy endings I was hoping for this season feel somewhat spent, more a product of consequence than something the characters actually struggled for. As such, the resolutions of the character arcs I did like felt less like rewards for sticking with the series, and more like bribes meant to convince me to forget the bad writing which preceded them.

Now that I’m finished beating this season with a stick, I think it’s worth noting that none of this feels like something the showrunners should be blamed for. Rather, this feels to me like one of my favorite Netflix properties being brought low by Netflix’s internal policy of cancelling beloved shows in search of greater market yields. I suspect that the showrunner did not choose to end this series after four seasons, but were commanded to do so by corporate higher-ups sometime either late into season 3′s production, or more egregiously, prior or even during the creation of season 4. This would obviously mean the Castlvania crew were doing the best they could to deliver any sort of half-decent ending in the short time they had left, and any blame for the faults of the show should instead be laid at the feet of the larger corporate machine behind them, and at the feet of the capitalist mode of production more broadly.

As far as the show itself is concerned, I’m still a fan, and would probably still watch whatever spinoff might be in the works, if hints from the Castlevania team are to be believed. Even in isolation, the first half of Castlevania still more than makes up for the latter seasons, with Season 2 being perhaps one of my favorite seasons of TV ever, and the S2 finale being one of my favorite finales respectively. Still, I wanted to express my critiques of this season, albeit from a place of love. I feel like there was a lot more story the team wanted to tell, that they would have preferred to tell, that they were ultimately made unable to tell by the external constraints of their less-than-benevolent corporate overlords. If such a desire existed amongst the Castlevania team, I can certainly say that I share in it, and hope that whatever they make from here on out is given the opportunity to be all that it can be.

[originofjaehyun]

Interlude: No More Drama | Part 8 | Love Me Now

Interlude: No More Drama Masterlist

Word count: 4,985

Warnings: Angst, language

Part 8 | Love Me Now

“Now I realize those shining days, those days left alone being stuck in the dark you disappeared.”

Prev • Next

The clinking sound of the spoon touching your cup of tea can be heard. It was not the usual prototype of a cafe that you would come to. It’s even too grand to be called a cafe. Butlers are stationed nearby, and although their presence is to make sure you’re at ease, it does exactly the opposite.

You’re worried about your table manners, your speech, and the way you dress up. You’re choosing a nude-colored coat, pairing it with a black turtle neck to keep the theme neutral. You complete the look by wearing a minimal gold layered necklace over it, with few stacks of thin rings on your fingers.

The steps from oxford shoes snap you out of your daze. There, you saw how this tall man gracefully walks towards your direction. Two men can be seen walking next to his side, to which he dismisses when he’s about to reach you.

“Good afternoon, Ms. [Y/L/N]. I hope I didn’t take too much of your time.”

Mr. Jeong took his seat, immediately crossing his legs and clasping his hand together.

You straighten your back, trying hard not to look nervous, “No problem, uh, Sir. I already make sure I book my calendar for this so please be at ease.”

After what Jaehyun has told you about his father, you could not believe that man in his story is the same person as the one who’s sitting in front of you. Sure, he looks intimidating by his prideful aura, but he is the perfect epitome of a gentleman. A posture that is so perfect that it must be from years of keeping his manner on check.

Not long after, the butler brought his share of tea. He never ordered, so you wondered how the waiter would know his choice of drink. Perhaps he was a regular here, or his men ordered it for him.

The butler poured his tea, left immediately afterwards. You were about to take a sip of your tea because the silence kills you before he suddenly speaks up.

“So, how is your company running along? What was it called again?”

“The Paper Plane, Sir.”

“Ah yes, that one.” He took a sip while fixing his gaze on you.

You gulped, “It’s been doing well, Sir. Our project with NCT Corporation is on track so that’s great. Johnny has been nothing but wonderful, he’s been a great help.”

“What do you do again at your company?”

“I’m the creative director, Sir. I oversee the general artistic direction of a brand or company, making sure everyone has a shared vision of the direction things should be moving in.”

“I see,” He placed his cup back on its saucer, seemingly impassive about the topic. 

“So, Jaehyun.”

Your heart drops at the sudden change of topic. Although you want to remain calm, you can feel the anxiousness start to creep in and you unconsciously press your lips together. 

“How long have you been together?”

“Sorry sir?” You are taken aback by his sentence, clearly didn’t expect him to be so direct, skipping the unnecessary chit-chat. Furthermore, you’re not sure whether Jaehyun told him about your relationship. Presuming from the story Jaehyun has told you, it doesn’t seem like he did.

“Indeed, Jaehyun introduced you as our client,” He took a glance at his teacup, leaving it untouched as he diverted his pupils to you. “But I know you’ve been dating Jaehyun.”

You widen your eye, revealing more sclera. “Uhm…” unsure how to answer, especially in front of Jaehyun’s father domineer aura.

But you decided that you don’t want to lie.

“We’ve only been together for almost four months, Sir. But I’ve known him for seven months.”

“Ah, young love.” He twirls his spoon on his tea, “Must be great, I assume?”

You gulped nervously, not sure whether you answered correctly. 

“Jaehyun has been treating me well, Sir. Even though he is working hard at the office – which I heard from Johnny he’s always a stellar performer, he always make sure he spare some of his time for me. He’s gentle, and appreciates my opinions too.”

“I see,” He breaks your sentence, taking another sip. “Then, I take that as he would listen if you asked him to end it with him?”

You almost drop your spoon, “Sorry?”

“Jaehyun is an excellent young man, Ms. [Y/L/N]. He would face more challenges moving forward, and surely you’d rather be free with your creative field.” He holds his cup, putting a sarcastic tone especially at the word creative.

“Well, I think it’s up for Jaehyun to decide, Sir. He’s a full-grown man and I think he’s excellent at making his own decision.” You tried to keep your calm, debating with him.

“Ms. [Y/L/N],” He lets out a cold snicker. “I do not like to repeat my words.”

You hold your breath, surprised at the sudden change of personality. 

“Our Jaehyun already has his life crafted for him. His future is bright, and I know he would continue doing well. You lived in a world, completely opposite of his. It would be difficult for you to carry on with the relationship.”

“Thus my advice, Ms. [Y/L/N], since it’s only been a short while since you started seeing my son, I would suggest you would end it soon. It would make the parting more bearable.”

He clasped both of his hands, elbow on the table. He gives you a smile, and a dimple appears on his right cheek, probably where Jaehyun inherits his. However, his smile was monochromatic, dark and cold. 

“Sir, with all due respect,” You unconsciously formed a fist, clawing yourself for a grip. “Both of us can decide what’s the best for our own, and Jaehyun is more than capable of deciding his own path. He would be happier if he could walk on the path that he chose.”

“If.” He shrugs his back to his chair backrest. “My dear, you don’t know anything about his life. And believe me, it’s time for you to no longer be a part of it.”

You could no longer stay in the suffocating air, you rose from your seat. He remains unfazed, as if he knows you would react this way.

“Sir, I apologize if this may come off as rude.” Even at the tip of your patience, you tried to be polite to someone who shares the same blood with your lover. “But I’m a woman of my own decision and I love Jaehyun as much as he loves me. I think you just crossed the line by telling me that I’m unsuited to be a part of his life. I don’t even think you even asked Jaehyun about this. Please think more about your family’s happiness if you truly care.”

You grabbed your purse, storming outside without even trying to say goodbye to the rude man. You saw in glances that the butlers seem uncomfortable with your conversation, but you don’t give a damn. You don’t even care even to split your bill, that man probably has the fortune to purchase the entire building anyway. 

You took a march outside the tea salon, and after you judge you’re far enough, the walls that hold your tears finally break down like a broken dam. You squatted because you don’t want anyone to see the sight of you crying, even though you’re sure people would still take a peek at you crouching down, sobbing.

You cried because you feel insulted, not at the way he talks to you. He looked you down, and it hurts your pride. You built your career from the ground and you’re very proud of it. So for a father of the person whom you love refused to give his blessings to you merely because he sees you as unbefitting as his son’s partner is devastating.

“Hey, are you OK?”

You’ve heard that voice before. Although the overall tone of his voice was cheery, he tried his best to calm you down.

You look up at the owner of the voice, eyes are still wet from crying. As if the stars were trapped inside, his eyes were full of sparkles. The gaze that gives a spoiler of his innocence and purity. From the way he looks at you, you know behind his iris lies his kindness.

“Ah, you’re… Jaehyun’s brother?” You’re quick on your feet, standing up so he doesn’t have to stare down, ending your sentence awkwardly because you don’t know how to address him.

“Just call me Mark.” He said in a friendly tone, “Uhm, I realize you’re just from the tea shop, but would you like a warm cup of hot chocolate?”

You realize how awkward he is, his hand keeps scratching his non-itchy scalp. He probably never asked someone out, so he doesn’t know what to do. But you know he did so because he wished to calm you down.

“Hot chocolate sounds fantastic, Mark.”

--

The familiar sight of the cafe makes you comfortable. The smell of the fresh pastries and grounded coffee fits you better in comparison to the high-end tea setting just now. 

“Here,” Mark handed out a warm towel.

You stare at him confusedly, and he immediately answers your unspoken question, “Oh, it’s from the kitchen. One of my friends is the staff here. It’s fresh from the sterilizer, so it’s clean, don’t worry!”

Finally, the feeling of discomfort starts to fade at how genuine he is in trying to cheer you up. You took the towel out of his hand, “Thank you.”

You patted the towel over your swollen lids. Mark took his seat, fidgeting on the cup’s handle before he talked about the elephant in the room.

“So, uhm…”

“Was it my, uhm, father who did this?” He stutters as he is very careful about touching the sensitive subject. 

You paused, trying not to recall the bitter memory. But you see Mark glancing at you like a lost cheetah cub, and you don’t have the heart to ignore his question.

“Well, sort of, I guess. He’s not entirely on fault, I think.”

Though you know deep inside he is, you tried to keep your statement as democratic as possible, avoiding to hurt Mark’s feelings if you bad mouthed his father.

“It’s OK, you can be honest with me.” He leans forward so you can see his sincerity.

“Truthfully I saw when you talked to Father. Sorry, I overheard my father at home, he said he’s meeting you today. I realized he was talking about you, hyu…”

“I mean, elder brother’s girlfriend.”

“Just address him comfortably, Mark. I realize you forced yourself to call him that way. Also, it sounds overly polite.”

He lets out a warm chuckle, “Ah, you got me. Father asked me to call him that way, so I want to make sure I’m used to it.”

“Why do you have to force yourself? He is your brother, no family does that.”

Your statement causes the lines on his face to appear, forming especially near his cheekbones, showing how prominent they are.

“Anyway,” You swirl your cup, melting the marshmallow on top. ”Jaehyun never mentions that I am his girlfriend, how does he know?”

Mark almost choked on his share of chocolate. He cleared his throat, “Well, Father has his own connection…”

You furrows your brows, demanding him to elaborate his statement.

“Please don’t be offended? I think he did a background check on you. It’s just the way he does his thing, and I know it’s wrong and I oppose it.”

“Also, you did steal the show on that night. Not only are you linking arms with hyung, but you’re different from the rest of the wannabes on that event.”

You laughed, but it dies down instantly as the thought of their father investigating you makes you uneasy. “Well, he could’ve just met me and get to know me. That is some illegal shit he’s doing.”

He then asks you whether Jaehyun has told you anything about him. You did tell him the snippets of the story that Jaehyun has told you, telling him that you know the situation between them through Johnny initially.

You keep it nice and short before he proceeds to tell you a bit of Jaehyun’s childhood. About how Jaehyun always acted like the ideal older brother but you’re almost out of breath when you laugh at the story on how Jaehyun sulks because he wanted to eat his cereal with a cold milk, but they were out of it so he sobs while saying that all he wants is just some milk.

“Hey, bro. Sorry it took me a while to clean off the stain.” You are equally as surprised as him, who just skipped his way to where you and Mark is.

“What is she doing here?” Taeyong openly showed his hostility.

“You know him, Yong? Oh no, wait, yeah you told me she came with hyung during your class.”

“Mark just asked me for a cup of hot chocolate, to cheer me up.”

“Why?” He furrowed his brows, directing that question to Mark like he didn’t want to engage a conversation with you. 

“She met father, Yong. And I, uhm, happened to be there so I took her here.”

The explanation seems minimal but it seems enough for Taeyong to grasp the situation. “Hah! Let me guess, the meeting doesn’t go well, does it?”

You fidget with your fingers, not sure how to answer him. Mark took your place by giving his friend a nod.

“Well I guess it's bound to happen. The Jeongs are always overprotective with their old money business. Thank God you kept your mother’s last name.”

“Yong!” He rose from his seat, moving his palm to cover Taeyong’s mouth.

“Oh shit, his man could be around, doesn’t it?”

“No, no, no!”

You’re confused with his statement, especially when Mark became so alert at the sudden piece of information.

“What business, Mark?”

“Wait, she doesn’t know?”

Mark shook his head lightly, trying to keep his movement minimal so Taeyong aware that he just landed on a minefield. It was like a scene from a movie, where both of them slowly looked at your direction.

“Answer me.”

“He doesn’t have the obligations, though.” Taeyong tried to ask you to let this one off.

“Mark.”

“[Y/N], I’m sorry can you just pretend you didn’t hear it? I-”

“Mark, your father just insulted my career or basically just me as a human being for loving your older brother. I’m about to move in with him and I think I deserve to know the truth if there’s anything that he’s hiding.”

The way you demand makes Mark flinched, “But, if Jaehyun-hyung didn’t tell you then I don’t think I have the rights to do so.”

“Mark, please.” You beg, and you can feel your vision start to blur. The water that starts to collect on your tear duct instantly made Mark’s decision.

“Yong, can we borrow the classroom?”

Taeyong nods, and with that he swiftly walks to the classroom direction on the second floor. You and Mark followed right after.

“I’ll wait outside. There’s no more class today so take your time.” Taeyong said gently to Mark.

“Sure, I owe you bro.”

Mark then took a seat next to you. With no table in between, you can now see the frustration in his eyes. You know you don’t want to force him to tell you anything, but you’re just tired of this new information that keeps appearing with every breath you take.

You just want to know the truth.

He looked left and right, making sure there’s no extra pair of ears that could listen to your conversation except for Taeyong.

“[Y/N], I really don’t think I should tell you any of this...”

“Mark... Jeong? Wait, Taeyong did say that you kept your mother’s last name.”

“It’s Lee. Mark Lee.”

He is fidgeting with his fingers, vexed with the fact he has to be the one who deliver the news.

“Please, what I about to tell you is suppose to be a secret. And please, please I beg you don’t let this change the way you see hyung.”

You tilted your head to one side, confused with the sudden warning.

He then spoke softly, “My adoptive father, and grandfather. Well, mostly my grandfather... Uhm, I guess there’s no way he could build an empire like what we have right now without… a little bit of help.”

Lines appeared on your forehead you might get wrinkles as you frowns harder.

Mark looked down, took a deep breath before he looks at you, “The Jeongs have been doing underground business.”

He looked at you and immediately regretted that you have to hear it from him, and not Jaehyun. But there’s no way you letting him go after that piece of puzzle he just revealed.

“Grandfather knows in order to fulfil his dream to live with power, it would be nearly impossible to run just a property business. Long story short, he made connections with people from higher ups to do business behind the scene. Father, as the only child, has no option but to…”

“What business, Mark?” You demanded him to cut to the chase, frustrated because he keeps on concealing the truth.

Worries are stamped all over Mark’s face. He pressed his lips together, wishing that he could seal this information forever, but your eyes told him to unfold the truth.

“Gamblings, drugs, prostitutes.” 

You closed your eyes in disbelief. Breathing in trying to not let another tear fall.

“As a company, NCT Corp. is doing great now. Of course as the founder we’ll get a lot from there but once Father tasted how much it triples with his side business, Father just couldn’t stop.”

“Also, it’s even easier to do their business because Father is the founder of NCT Corp.. As a property company, he can easily conceal where the transaction happens. We are the biggest in our sector, and with Father’s connection, that he inherits from grandfather, boom, easy as a snap of a finger.”

“Hang on,” You push your palm to Mark’s direction, interjecting him. “Is Jaehyun the heir?”

He widens his eyes, “He is the next in line for NCT Corp..”

“Mark, you know I’m not talking about that.”

Mark constantly grips his jeans, visibly anxious. “I swear, [Y/N], Jaehyun-hyung don’t want this,”

Before Mark could continue his sentence, you quickly grabbed your purse, ready to leave.

“Wait, [Y/N], please!”

Mark holds your arm, begging you to stay.

“You’re not leaving hyung, will you?”

You squeezed your lips together, as the next sentence that you’re about to say feels like a thousand needles piercing your heart. 

“What is there left to make me stay, Mark?”

He rose from his seat in panic, “No, no! Please don’t, I beg you! This is all my fault, I shouldn’t have told you! I just ruined hyung’s happiness. Please don’t leave his side, you don’t know the look that he gave you that night. He truly cherishes you and he will continue to do so, I promise!”

He hold your arm, begging you to listen to his explanation.

“Jaehyun-hyung will try his best to protect you, I know that, so don’t leave him, [Y/N].”

You pull your hand, escaping it from Mark’s grip. “Your father,” No matter how much you tried to be collected, the droplets finally fell down from your eyes. “Done a background check on me. Insulted me to the bones, and he is a freaking mafia? Tell me, Mark, would it be wise for me to stay?”

He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t because he knows if he were in your shoes, he would probably do the same. He knows the thing that his own father would probably do, so he can’t really defend his own argument.

You gave Mark one last look before opening the sliding door, exiting and ignoring Taeyong who just called you rude.

—

Thank God you took a half day leave because the last thing you would’ve wanted is to deal with work. You finally reach home after sobbing inside the cab.

“Hello?”

There’s no way Doyoung would reject your call, so he answered after a few tones. 

“Doyoung, where are you?” You called him, meekly.

“Hey, are you alright?” He noticed that your voice is shaky, and he knows that you’ve been crying.

“I… don’t think I am.”

“Hey, hey, stay with me.”

“Who’s that? Your girlfriend?”

Another voice alerts you. You saw the clock, it’s past seven and it should be over his working hour.

“Doy, should I end the call? I wanted to call Hanbyul but she’s currently vacationing with Mingyu.”

“No it’s fine, I already clocked out but I planned to have dinner with Yuta – no, this is not my girlfriend. Remember her? The one I told you about before you got drunk?”

“Ah! I remember! The one who’s dating The Jeong, right? Man, she’s dating one powerful guy!”

“Wait, Yuta, you know Jaehyun?”

“Who doesn’t? It’s a wide-known fact. Nobody messes with The Jeong – even with all of their doings, they got the higher cops backing them up. My friend back in Osaka, he got connected to a yakuza group, you see, told me that they wouldn’t even dare to come for them. Taka’s yakuza group is pretty poweful, too.”

You can’t see Doyoung, but after eavesdropping their conversation, you can imagine how Doyoung’s face turned pale.

“Shit, [Y/N], is this what it's all about?”

You break down at how perfect he hits the target.

“Fuck, and you just move in too.”

“I can’t stay Doy. I’m fucking scared right now. I don’t feel safe.”

He sighed, “Shit. Yuta, I have to cancel our dinner.”

You can hear Yuta whined in disappointment, but you’re glad on how Doyoung always prioritizes you.

“Is Jaehyun at home?”

You struggle to reply to him, as you’re choking from your tears. 

“I was planning to drink tonight so I didn’t bring my car. I’ll go back home and pick you at your place. I’ll stay until Jaehyun’s home, then hopefully we can make peace with him.”

—

Strange.

Usually by now Jaehyun would see you in front of the TV, with any snack available from the pantry. You would watch a drama while waiting for him to return. Sure, it’s way past drama prime time, nevertheless you would always wait for Jaehyun no matter how late he’s coming home.

But all he heard was noises coming from the master bedroom.

“Babe?”

After he called for you, he noticed your movements become faster. He automatically looks up for you, only to find you just finished packing your stuff to your suitcase.

“Baby what’s going on?” He is confused with your action, colors start to wash out from his face.

“I…” You’re nervous because he caught you red handed, and Doyoung is probably still on his way. It’s partly your fault because you didn’t check your phone, which you left in your handbag in the living room. “I can’t stay, Jaehyun. I’m sorry.”

You quickly grabbed your suitcase, didn’t have time to check whether you left anything behind. You couldn’t care, when all that matters is the sight of Jaehyun’s puzzled face. It breaks your heart to see him, knowing that you love him so dearly but you have to leave.

He grabbed you before you could leave, “You can’t stay? What do you mean?” His voice was shaking, you can tell that he couldn’t catch the situation clearly.

“Please let me go, Jaehyun. It is as I said, I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Are you going back to your apartment? Did you leave anything important? I can drive you there.”

“No, Jaehyun.” You closed your eyes, fighting the tears that were about to come, “I can’t stay with you anymore. I’m sorry.”

You drag your suitcase, turning your back from him as you couldn’t bear to look at his face any longer, which is painted with disappointment.

He rushed out of the room, halted you by standing in front of you, “Don’t joke with me, [Y/N],” He finally drops the nicknames he gave to you, “This doesn’t make any sense. Why are you suddenly leaving? What did I do?”

You look at him in the eyes, to see how his eyes start to turn red. You know it’s not his fault, but you also know that it wouldn’t be wise to stay with him, when his family just screams danger.

But Jaehyun deserves to know.

“I met your father this afternoon,” His eyes instantly grew wider, “He told me that you and I live in a different world. He asked me to break it off with you.”

“Bullshit, [Y/N]!” He grabbed your arms. “You know I’m trying to win this battle with him. I promise I will, don’t worry about that fucker and stay. Stay with me.”

He tightly gripped you, tears welled up in his eyes though he did not cry. He’s angry, and you know it.

“Let me go, Jaehyun. Please.” You begged him, pushing the last bit of energy you had left. You’re tired of crying, and you feel like you could cry again anytime soon.

“No, I won’t. If I let you go, you’ll be gone forever. Don’t do this to me, [Y/N]. You’re precious to me and I will not let that goddamn father of mine ruin my only happiness.”

His sentence makes your defense collapse, teardrops left their trails in your cheeks, “Winning what battle exactly, Jaehyun?”

He looked at you confused, not sure which part that you don’t understand. You broke the silence, “When will you tell me that you are an heir to some fucking underground business?”

His jaw drops, clearly blown by the fact that now you know. “[Y/N], I swear to God I never meant to hide it from you,”

“This again Jaehyun? You keep hiding things from me! You tell me a lie, but not exactly. The truth, but not entirely! Which one is it?!”

The aftershock lingers, Jaehyun unable to speak back to you.

“Your family is doing illegal stuff, Jae. And you hid it from me! I can’t believe you asked me to live with you without telling me about this! What do you expect, me obliviously living in danger?”

“No, baby, of course not. Please listen to me, there’s a reason why I didn’t tell you.”

“No reason would be good enough, Jaehyun. Let me go.”

He blocks your way, desperate to make you stay.

“[Y/N]?”

Doyoung suddenly came in, relieving you. Jaehyun, on the other hand, is baffled with the fact he could enter your place.

“How did you come in?”

“I asked him to pick me up, Jae.”

He turned his attention to you, perplexed.

“Please, I have to leave. Let’s go, Doy.”

“You’re leaving me for another guy?” Again, Jaehyun took a grip at your upper arm, refusing to let you go. This time, his grip was tighter. Confusion and anger, as well as disappointment mixed together.

“Jaehyun, that hurts.”

“Answer me, [Y/N]!”

The sight of Jaehyun losing his calm shocked you, as well as Doyoung.

“Bro, let her go. Let’s talk about this…”

“You stay out of this!” 

Jaehyun reactively pushed Doyoung away, causing him to fall. He hit his back to the nearby coffee table, and that is enough to fill your eyes with rage.

“Jeong Jaehyun, you don’t fucking hurt my best friend!”

You immediately rushed yourself to Doyoung, checking whether he received any injuries. Although he hissed in pain, there are no visible cuts or wounds.

“Fuck,” Jaehyun murmurs, “[Y/N], I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to, I…”

“Don’t fucking apologize to me! Is this how you're going to treat people, being all violent? How are you different with your father, Jae?!”

As much as Jaehyun wants to deny it, he knows that your words are true. 

“We’re leaving, there’s nothing else we could talk about. We’re talking doesn’t change the fact that you are doing illegal business.”

You helped Doyoung to get up, before taking your suitcase and ignoring Jaehyun who just stood in his place.

Before you could leave, he took your hand again, taking every chance he got to change your mind.

“[Y/N], please.” 

And as if he just lost all of his hope, a single tear runs down his face. 

“I love you, and I know you love me too. I would do anything in power to protect you, I promise.”

You took a glance at your lover – the one that you have to leave soon. Your heart shattered when you saw the desperation in his eyes. 

“I beg you, [Y/N].” He entwined his fingers to yours, “You are the most wonderful thing that ever happened in my life. The day you come and fill my day with joy, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Please don’t look at me like that. Look at me like you did that time. Please come love me once again.”

You wish you could stay. How you wish you could return to his embrace, removing the trails of his tears.

Then it strikes you. How you staying means you have to live a life in constant fear. Knowing you have to come home to a person who his family sells women for pleasure.

You could not help but to shake your head. Telling Jaehyun that your decision is final.

“Jaehyun, I’m sorry.”

Your heart breaks into million pieces, for you to leave the love of your life behind.

You love him, so infinitely, and you never sought to hurt him.

But you know continuing your relationship will be a vain.

So you left, leaving Jaehyun there, staying rooted on the same spot.

A/N: I’m sorry...

[ifthereisnowind]

capitalism

context: why does it make me cringe? why does sales make me cringe?

why did I feel for a while that I don’t want to get caught up in the career ladder?

why do I judge people who chase money or fame?

what should truly motivate us at work

In a perfect world, when it came to choosing an occupation, we would have only two priorities in mind:

– to find a job that we enjoyed

– to find a job that paid us enough to cover reasonable material needs

But in order to think so freely, we would have to be emotionally balanced in a way that few of us are. In reality, when it comes to choosing an occupation, we tend to be haunted by three additional priorities. We need:

– to find a job that will pay not just enough to cover reasonable material expenses but a lot more besides, enough to impress other people – even other people we don’t like very much.

– we crave to find a job that will allow us not to be at the mercy of other people, whom we may deep down fear and distrust.

– and we hope for a job that will make us well known, esteemed, honoured and perhaps famous, so that we will never again have to feel small or neglected.

reforming capitalism

The system we know as Capitalism is both wondrously productive and hugely problematic. On the downside, capitalism promotes excessive inequality; it valorises immediate returns over long-term benefits; it addicts us to unnecessary products and it encourages excessive consumption of the world’s resources with potentially disastrous consequences – and that’s just a start. We are now deeply familiar with what can go wrong with Capitalism. But that is no reason to stop dreaming about some of the ways in which Capitalism could one day operate in a Utopian future.

What we want to see is the rise of other – equally important – figures that report on a regular basis on elements of psychological and sociological life and which could form part of the consciousness of thoughtful and serious people. When we measure things – and give the figures a regular public airing – we start the long process of collectively doing something about them.

The man is indeed employed, but in truth, he belongs to a large subsection of those in work we might term the ‘misemployed’. His labour is generating capital, but it is making no contribution to human welfare and flourishing. He is joined in the misemployment ranks by people who make cigarettes, addictive but sterile television shows, badly designed condos, ill-fitting and shoddy clothes, deceptive advertisements, artery-clogging biscuits and highly-sugared drinks (however delicious).

We intuitively recognise it when we think of work as ‘just a job’; when we sense that far too much of our time, effort and intelligence is spent on meetings that resolve little, on chivying people to sign up for products that – in our heart of hearts we don’t admire.

Fortunately, there are real solutions to bringing down the rate of misemployment. The trick isn’t just to stimulate demand per se, the trick is to stimulate the right demand: to excite people to buy the constituents of true satisfaction, and therefore to give individuals and businesses a chance to direct their labour, and make profits, in meaningful areas of the economy.

This is precisely what needs to be changed – and urgently. Society should do a systematic deal with capitalists: it should give them the honour and love they so badly crave in exchange for treating their workers as human beings, not abusing customers and properly looking after the planet. A standard test should be drawn up to measure the societal good generated by companies (many such schemes already exist in nascent form), on the basis of which capitalists should then be given extraordinarily prestigious titles by their nations in ceremonies with the grandeur and thrill of film premieres or sporting finales.

There’s no shortage: we need help in forming cohesive, interesting communities. We need help in bringing up children. We need help in calming down at key moments (the cost of our high anxiety and rage is appalling in aggregate). We require immense assistance in discovering our real talents in the workplace and understanding where we can best deploy them (a service in this area would matter a great deal more to us than pizza delivery). We have unfulfilled aesthetic desires. Elegant town centres, charming high streets and sweet villages are in desperately short supply and are therefore absurdly expensive – just as, prior to Henry Ford, cars existed but were very rare and only for the very rich.

But we know the direction we need to head to: we need the drive and inventiveness of Capitalism to tackle the higher, deeper problems of life. This will offer an exit from the failings and misery that attend Capitalism today. In a nutshell, the problem is that we waste resources on unimportant things. And we are wasteful, ultimately, because we lack self-knowledge, because we are using consumption merely to divert or quieten anxieties or in a vain search for status and belonging.

If we could just address our deeper needs more directly, our materialism would be refined and restrained, our work would be more meaningful and our profits would be more honourable. That’s the ideal future of Capitalism.

In the Utopia, businesses would of course have to be profitable. But the success of a business would primarily be assessed in terms of its contribution to the collective good.

On changing the world

the only way to bring about real change is to act through competing institutions. Revolutions in consciousness cannot be made lasting and effective until legions of people start to work together in concert for a common aim and, rather than relying on the intermittent pronouncements of mountain-top prophets, begin the unglamorous and deeply boring task of wrestling with issues of law, money, long-term mass communication, advocacy and administration.

Our collective ideal of the free thinker is that of someone living beyond the confines of any system, disdainful of ‘boring things’, cut off from practical affairs and privately perhaps rather proud of being unable even to read a balance sheet. It’s a fatally romantic recipe for keeping the status quo unchanged.

We have to make what we already know very well more effective out there. The urgent question is how to ally the very many good ideas which currently slumber in the recesses of intellectual life with proper organisational tools that actually stand a chance of giving them real impact in the world. From a completely secular starting point, it can be worth studying religions to learn how to alter behaviour.

This is what religions have, for their part, excelled at doing. They’ve realised that if you put down an important idea on paper in somewhat pedestrian prose, it won’t have any lasting or mass impact. They’ve therefore, over their history, engaged the most skilled artists to wrap their ideas in the coating of beauty. They have asked Bach and Mozart to put the ideas to music, they have asked Titian and Botticelli to give the ideas a visual form, they’ve asked the best fashion designers to make nice looking clothes and they’ve asked the best architects to design the most impressive and moving buildings to give the ideas heft and permanence.

We should use the history of religion to inform us about the role of repetition, ritual and beauty in the name of changing how things are.

There is a great deal of large-scale ambition in the world, but all the largest corporate entities are focused on servicing basic needs: the mechanics of communication, inexpensive things to eat, energy so we can move about. While our higher needs – for love, beauty, wisdom – have no comparable provision. The drive to grandeur is missing just where we need it most.

Good business

So, inevitably, businesses will evolve to profit from their wishes. Capitalism has not traditionally been interested in whether these are sensible, admirable or worthy desires. Its aim is neutral: to make money from supplying whatever people happen to be willing to pay for.

Philosophy, by contrast, has long recognised a crucial distinction between desires and needs:

A desire is whatever you feel you want at the moment.

A need is for something that serves your long-term well being.

And it’s our needs that are required for a satisfying, fulfilled life (which Plato, Aristotle and others call a life marked by eudaimonia).

Capitalism goes wrong when it exploits this cognitive flaw: large numbers of businesses sell us stuff that we desire but which (in all honesty) we don’t need. On longer, calmer reflection we’d realise those things don’t actually help us to live well.

Sadly, it’s easier to generate profits from desires than from needs. You can make much more money selling bad ice cream than by marketing Plato’s dialogues.

In a utopia, good businesses should be defined not simply by whether they are profitable or not; but by what they make their profit from. Only businesses that satisfy true needs are moral.

Good capitalism requires that we address two, core educational needs. Getting us to focus on what we really need, what the real challenges in our lives are. And getting us to focus on the value of particular goods in relation to our needs: that is, how do these particular purchases help with eudaimonia?

So, in search of a better economy, we should direct our attention not simply to shopping centres and financial institutions, but to schools and universities and the media. The shape that an economy has ultimately reflects the educated insights of its consumers. When people say they hate consumerism, what they often mean is that they are dismayed at peoples’ preferences. The fault, then, lies not so much with consumption as with the preferences. Education transforms preferences not by making us do what someone else tells us. But by giving us the capacities and skills to understand more clearly what we genuinely do want and what sort of goods and services will best help us.

tbc

[terrascookiejar-archive]

What about other official discords? I know Minecraft and New horizons has one. How come they are better handling it than CR despite with possible more massive fan base?

Well I’m not 100% sure. But I have a feeling those discords being ran by official sources managed to have a plan and keep things organized from the start. They probably had a strict process for choosing moderators, or hired their own moderation team whose job it is to keep things in line. Multiple people combing multiple channels and being there to hear things out when things go wrong.

The thing is, Cookie Run Official Discord didn’t start like this.

It’s a well known fact that the Discord was started without anyone on the Devsis Team really fully understanding discord. Originally there were NO moderators at all, aside from these “test mods” that seemed to be floating around, and it was essentially like a wild west where Dev Sis kind of assumed they’d just, figure it out over time? There’s no clear cut rules, they’re constantly changing. There’s no consistent moderation. They are in and out. So that means there’s no communication, so when Moderators come in that DO promise and try to change things, they very quickly realize that they aren’t getting the help they need higher up the ladder and yet are somehow expected to just keep things in check with a vague and broken system that DevSis assumed could build itself.  So often times those good mods leave in frustration, because like a bad job with poor communication you can only handle so much of that. In the end they bit off way more than they could ever hope to chew and... yet still kinda ignore/assume the issues will solve itself and they’ll just... figure it out later?

I know it’s not entirely Devsis and MicMac’s faults. But considering how MicMac responded kind of half-heartedly to CookieRunUpdate’s very blatant harassment by a past moderator... it gives off the impression that they don’t really care that their Discord is a shit show and would rather just ignore the issue until it “resolves itself”

Either because they don’t care/want money, or they don’t have the capacity to handle any of it.

That might not be their intent but that’s completely how they come off.

Edit: Additionally with Minecraft and New Horizons. THOSE companies, Mojang/Microsoft and Nintendo, is that they have a strong company base in the United States and Canada. And if something were to go wrong there they could very easily be sued there. So there’s a stronger pull for preventing things from happening to the best of their ability. 

Litigation is always a threat when it comes to america  as a continent, and even if it’s conjecture it’ll be a messy prospect to deal with any kind of lawsuit so they’d rather avoid it at all costs by properly staffing their forums with reliable moderators, having a system and rules clearly displayed, and taking proper courses of action legally to handle things as needed.

The thing with Cookie Run and DevSis? They’re based in South Korea. I don’t know Korean Laws! I’m assuming most of my english-speaking followers don’t either. 

The only time Devsis really took action over anything was when there was an uproar caused by the publisher of the comics for adding a Cookie Hitler to the plot of Adventure Masterpiece. I’m assuming only because it would cause a significant uproar in Korea- (For those who don’t know, Korea used to be the victim of fascist and abusive dictatorship when Japan had control of the country years and years ago. Plus considering the current state of North Korea, they generally aren’t exactly ones who take too kindly to any depiction of fascism in any facet, even if they are the villain.)

Since MicMac had to give a public statement about how this was not something under his control since the Publisher writes and makes the comics and they only license the Cookie Run brand name out to them. Subsequently the Publisher had to pull the issue and stop running it, so even though it’s still listed in korean online storefronts it’s limited and not in print. 

Yet that’s the thing. The Cookie Run Official Discord is run most mostly the Western Fanbase as far as I can tell, and if someone wanted to sue DevSisters for maybe putting their children in danger... well that would be harder than filing a lawsuit against Microsoft or Nintendo.

There’s no Devsisters of America. or Canada. They’re all based in Korea. So they probably have the safety net of knowing that if anyone outside the country could even have a chance of filing a lawsuit perhaps due to the Pedophilia issue, they’d have to be exceptionally powerful. Like Someone with a lot of power and legal prowess. 

The fact of the matter is, DevSisters ignored the Burning Sun issue, DevSisters ignores the harassment their fans inflict on each other on a regular basis, DevSisters will ignore pedophilic behavior because they either don’t want to deal with it or don’t have to worry about facing consequences.

You need to remember DevSisters is not a small indie group making video games as a passion project, DevSisters is a CORPORATION. Corporations aren’t your friends. They aren’t here to protect you. They aren’t looking out for you. Their only job is to make money and at the end of the day unless something threatens that, they aren’t going to do anything about it.

[digilocussolution]

How To Choose A Cheap And Best Graphic Designing Company?

Design of the Times

Design companies are an interesting lot. They are as varied as the field they are employed in. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes rebellious, sometimes beautiful and at other times downright ugly on purpose. No, I’m not talking about their deliverables, I’m talking about the agencies themselves. Navigating your way through a graphic design company in India is like navigating through a shifting maze where the mood changes suddenly and friend turns foe just as suddenly. Let’s take a peek at this bizarre world of creativity.

The Mavericks:

These are the ones that want to tread the unbeaten path. They want to be trail blazers. If by some twist of fate, a mundane project comes there way and if it gets accepted, it is bound to go to the junior most rookie who has yet to prove his or her mettle. They excel in looking down upon bean counters and their spreadsheets while lighting incense at the altar of the Gods of inspiration. They are the best ones to go to with an impossible task or a never been done before project. What would be a nail bitter for most is a project right up their alley.

The Rebels Without a Cause:

These are the activists of the design world. They will balk under the yoke of discipline and timelines. They believe in striking while the inspiration is hot (not the iron). Give them a socially inspiring cause to design for and watch their creativity bloom. Give them a stodgy, corporate account and watch the fight that ensues for every visual, every comma and every line that doesn’t belong where it has been added. Try to tame them and you’ll wake the beast. Instead, let their imaginations run wild and you’ll find yourself fighting for their cause. The result is always worth it.

The Yes Minister Abbey:

Do you fancy yourself as the king or queen of your own kingdom at work? Do you see yourself as more of a titan than a business leader? Then this is the agency for you. Rest assured that all your ideas will be accepted at face value with a smile and then executed to your command. The disappointment that follows is entirely your fault because you never them the reins and took charge from conception to completion. However, if you say that it’s their fault, they’ll willingly take the blame, as long as you pay for it. You can make all the costly mistakes here that you’d like. No one will ever stop. Burning money is a luxury that can be quite freeing, isn’t it?

First Come First Crapped:

If the “Road Runner” had an agency, this would be it. They win every race, come first on every account, not in terms of quality but in terms of speed. If you give them a deadline, they’ll beat it by a large margin and leave other agencies in their dust. If you want something done in a rush, this is where you head. As long as it will pass by in a blur of activity and not be a commission work meant to stand the test of time. To be truthful a few alone will be able to stand what they create and those too will either have vested interests or be too polite to say otherwise. But if you worship deadlines, you’re at the right place.

The Penny Pinchers:

This agency is every bean counter’s dream. They know how to pinch pennies, cut corners, stretch a buck a mile etc. Stretching their imaginations however is an unfair ask as far as they’re concerned. They use templates, reference images, basically anything that can shorten the time they take and lessen the effort they put. Time is money and man hours cost money. It’s just good sense to them to save on both. That’s how they get you the sweet deals they promise. Yesterday’s trash is fished out of the bin, straightened out, dusted off, painted and perfumed and resold to the nearest bargain hunter. Resourceful little rascals, aren’t they?

The Hidden Treasure Hunters:

Do you like to have a fair estimate of a particular work before you commission it? Then it is best to stay away from this type of agency. They lure price-fishers with their attractive rates and they fall hook, line and sinker without reading the fine print. They have hidden clauses here and there that serve as their personal goldmine once the contract is signed. If we dig a little deeper here, we’ll have something better in our hands, but it will cost more. If we target those markets as well, we can change the design to include them, but it will cost more. Do you get my drift? If not, I could explain further but it’ll cost you more!

The Touch Me Nots:

These are agencies that employ the artists of the design world. You leave them to work in their Ivory tower and keep your questions at a minimum. You let them walk around barefoot in their offices or homes wherever they function best and have their coffee just so or splashed all across the intern’s face. Whatever. You don’t interrupt the process. The end result is priceless but the emotional cost of the wait is even more. God forbid you being the lowly human you are and make a mistake, your project gets thrown in the reject bin, never to see the light of day again.

Mother Knows Best:

You give a brief. That has your requirements. You have certain expectations. You are the client after all. Set your expectations for this: It will all be contorted beyond recognition. But it is all for your own good. The agency knows best. It doesn’t matter what your market research says. It doesn’t matter what your boss, who has dealt in this market for his entire professional career, says. This agency with its two years of budding success knows best. Expect every need to be catered to and expect to be mothered like you have never been before. However, like any good parent, watch them wash their hands off any failure saying your decisions are your own. We’re not responsible.

[willowfoot]

🐍

As the years pass, and the humans get more and more thorough with their records-keeping, it’s a given that Aziraphale and Crowley are forced to get a bit creative with their human personas in order to blend in.

For instance, birthdays. Neither angels nor demons have birthdays precisely, at least not any comprehensible by human standards of time, so they’re obliged to make one up. It’s not quite as simple as picking a single year and sticking to it, because people tend to look at you askance if your ID states a year of birth from several centuries ago. So every few years, the two of them update their “birthday” to match with their current corporation’s apparent age.

For the sake of ease, the month and day of their “birthdays” stay the same. After some dithering (and influences from a certain Globe performance around 1599), Aziraphale settles for March 15, and is unreasonably smug over the joke of it. (“But angel, isn’t that technically mocking the murder of an actual human? How very… unangelic of you.” To which Aziraphale only swats a smirking Crowley’s shoulder and refuses to dignify him with a response.) Crowley, rather predictably, chooses June 6. (“Really, my dear?” “What? I have a reputation to maintain.”)

But while Aziraphale tends to pluck a random year that’ll set him at roughly middle-age, then proceeds to forget about the whole business for two decades or more until Crowley reminds him about it, Crowley is decidedly more methodical in choosing his years of birth. 1893. 1929. 1941. 1965. (Plus other years before and in-between.) It takes Aziraphale a while to notice a pattern, but eventually he realizes; Crowley’s birth years are all twelve (or some multiple of twelve) years apart. Perhaps it‘s simply a matter of convenience, but Aziraphale knows Crowley, and suspects there’s some deeper meaning to it.

He tries to subtly (or not so subtly) bring up the subject in conversation in the hopes of getting an explanation. “I do believe it’s that time again,” he says as casually as he can on one occasion, while he and Crowley are dining at the Ritz one lovely afternoon in May 2009. “Mrs. Wang down at the manicurist said something to the effect that I look remarkably spry for a person of fifty-five. No danger yet, of course, but I felt it best to… amend my birth certificate, somewhat, just in case.”

“Good move,” Crowley says, though he looks far more interested in aiming a piece of mashed potato with an improvised spoon-catapult at a businessman sitting nearby, dressed in an expensive suit and loudly berating a young waiter.

“I was thinking of changing it to your current birth year, in fact,” Aziraphale continues. “1965. How does that sound?”

“Mm.” Crowley fires his projectile once the waiter leaves the table. The businessman sputters and turns scarlet as the mashed potato lands neatly in his cup, spilling red wine all over his suit.

“Stop that,” Aziraphale scolds, though he discreetly twitches a finger and ties the laces of the man’s Oxford shoes together beneath the tablecloth. “I was thinking that perhaps you also ought to change your birthdate to save yourself the hassle later. Perhaps the year,” Aziraphale pretends to think, “1976?”

“Nope,” Crowley says cheerfully, popping the ‘p’. “1977”.

“What a coincidence,” Aziraphale says triumphantly. “Isn’t that exactly twelve years after your last birthday?”

“It sure is,” Crowley says, and digs right into his slice of angel cake without a word more on the matter.

Aziraphale gives up.

It’s very much a reverse Dick Turpin situation. Much as Newton Pulsifer desperately hopes for someone to ask him why he gave such a name to his car, Aziraphale unsuccessfully tries to get Crowley to explain the pattern behind his birth years, while Crowley blissfully ignores the angel’s increasingly obvious hints each time.

It takes another nine years, one failed Antichrist-raising, and one Armageddon’t later, when Aziraphale finally gets his answer.

A month after the first day of the rest of their lives, Aziraphale and Crowley are mildly tipsy in the bookshop’s back room, Crowley sprawled across the sofa and Aziraphale settled in his cozy armchair.

“You know, we didn’t celebrate our birthdays this year,” Crowley says, swilling his wine around his glass. A few drops spill out, but have the good sense not to stain Crowley’s shirt or the sofa cushions.

“We don’t have birthdays,” Aziraphale points out, somewhat fuzzy with drink. “Those dates are only for our records. You know that.”

“We can do yours first, since yours comes before mine,” Crowley continues as though Aziraphale hasn’t spoken. “But even so… the Ides of March? Really? That was the best you could come up with?”

“It’s a ref’rence. A clever one. Shakespeare said it,” Aziraphale mutters. “And you’re one to talk. Your birthday is bloody 666.”

“Technically only 6/6. Haven’t had a six in my birth year since… oh, 1965.” Crowley sighs happily. “That was a good one. Put it on my annual report to Hell and everything. Dagon didn’t appreciate it, unfunny bastard never does, but I swear I saw that arse Asmodeus nearly laugh.”

Aziraphale sits up straight in his armchair. Even sobers up, because he wants to remember this after trying for decades to find the truth. Crowley sees the revived clarity in Aziraphale’s eyes and sobers up, too.

“Angel? What is it?”

“Why are your birth years always twelve or some multiple of twelve years apart?” Aziraphale demands. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for ages, but I never could, and you were never any help. Don’t try to fool me, you old serpent. I know it must mean something.”

Crowley looks startled for a moment, then slowly begins to grin. “Why, angel. I thought you’d never ask! I wondered how long it would take for you to break and ask me outright instead of dancing around it like you always do.”

Aziraphale huffs. “Fine, you win this round. Now tell me — why?”

Crowley sits back on the sofa, cross-legged, yellow eyes alight with eagerness.

“D’you remember when I stayed in China for a spell, around 560 A.D.?”

Aziraphale frowns. “Yes, of course I do. That was when you bought me that lovely vase from Hangzhou. What does that have to do with anything?”

Crowley grins again. “I was assigned to carry out the temptation of a noble, but I ended earlier than expected and took the rest of the week off.” What he doesn’t mention is that the noble in question had already thrown himself headfirst into a thoroughly immoral life before Crowley even arrived in the country, leaving him twiddling his thumbs as he tried to figure out what to do next. “I was staying at a hotel near the Yangtze River when I heard from the locals that some sort of big event was taking place nearby.”

“And this was?”

“You see, apparently this event had been in the works for years. Sanctioned by the emperor and everything. It was going to completely revolutionize the way the Chinese used their calendar.”

The story begins to sound vaguely familiar to Aziraphale.

Crowley grins again. “They gathered some of the most popular animals together in order to host a race. A Great Race. The first twelve animals that could cross the river and reach the finish line would have the privilege of becoming part of the new Chinese zodiac… forever.”

“Crowley, you didn’t,” Aziraphale says, realization dawning.

“Oh, I sure did.”

“You invented the Year of the Snake?”

“There wasn’t a single serpent among all the contestants! Seemed a bit prejudiced, if you ask me, unless a snake was invited but simply didn’t show. So I just,” Crowley waves an airy hand, “slipped into something more slithery and lined up with all the rest.”

“I cannot believe your nerve.” Aziraphale sighs, but a smile pulls at the corners of his lips.

“Rather a neat job, wasn’t it?” Crowley beams. “I came in sixth, and so the snake became the sixth animal in the Chinese zodiac, representing the birth years of millions of humans around the world for the past two millennia.”

“And that’s why you always choose birthdays that are twelve years apart — so you can be ‘born’ in the Year of the Snake each time.” Aziraphale shakes his head in fond disbelief. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner.”

“Well, I invented it, didn’t I? Would be a shame if I wasted my contribution.” Crowley thinks for a moment. “Your current birth year is 1973, isn’t it? That would put you in the Year of the Ox.” He smiles at the angel. “Tough, clever, set in their ways, strong sense of justice, a tendency towards scholarly pursuits… fits you pretty well, I’d say.”

“And you’re a snake, of course. Crafty, passionate, optimistic, observant, and loyal to those they love.” Aziraphale gets up and moves to sit beside Crowley on the sofa, taking his hand. “Sounds about right to me.”

“Tell the whole blessed world, will you,” Crowley grumbles, though there’s little heat to it. He burrows his face in Aziraphale’s neck.

They sit there contentedly for a while, enjoying the silence and each other’s presence. Then Aziraphale frowns.

“Didn’t you ride a horse to get to the finish line?”

Crowley slowly lifts his head, cornered. “Er.”

“You did, didn’t you? That’s how the story goes, at least. The snake hides on the horse’s hoof to cross the river, then startles the horse at the last second, so that the snake finishes in sixth place and the horse in seventh.” Aziraphale narrows his eyes at Crowley. “I thought you disliked horses. What really happened?”

Crowley groans. “It wasn’t my fault, honestly. I was in the middle of crossing the river when I nearly got stepped on by that blasted creature. I only managed to avoid discorporation by latching onto his leg. I kept yelling at him to stop running, for Somebody’s sake, but he didn’t notice me, at least not until he looked down near the end and gave himself a fright.” He shudders at the memory. “I didn’t so much as cross as I was thrown over the finish line. 臭马,” he mutters.

Aziraphale kisses the pout off Crowley’s lips. “Well, look at it this way. At least you ended up finishing before him, my dear.”

—

(I’m a snake zodiac myself, so of course I had to write this.

Some notes:

I did my best but this isn’t very historically accurate, apologies. However, the Great Race that I mention here is the actual myth behind the formation of the Chinese zodiac.

In Chinese astrology, the snake and the ox are said to be “heavenly compatible”, relationship-wise. 👀

Thanks for reading!)

[islandcontractors]

Selecting the Right Roofing Contractor Company for Replacing Your Roof

The shingles in your roof will need replacing and also you are minded to locate a roofing contractor to interchange the them. Probably you have previously referred to as a handful of and are evaluating which contractor to work with to your upcoming roof mend. How can you pick out the ideal contractor for focusing on your roof? Listed here are various items you should look at when trying to find a respectable roofing contractor.

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