#the art is terrible and most of it is boring and nonsensical | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dollarbin · 11 months

Text

Dollar Bin #21:

Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon

When I was little my mother loved to brag about how ugly I'd been as a baby.

"He looked just like a frog," she'd tell her friends while I stood about, often with my finger deep in a nostril. There was always love in her eyes when she said it, but looking back on the photos, I'd say she was putting a positive spin on things. Frogs are, after all, fairly cute.

And so, when my own children were about to be launched into existence I felt fairly excited. Would they look like aged dwarves/me or cosmic goddesses/my wife? Sadly, they all were angelic and beatific, and wound up smart and kind as well, which makes them fairly boring to write about.

So, forget about them. Let's talk instead about one of the ugliest record covers in my entire collection. There's plenty of grossness to report on...

If you want sheer trashiness, cast a terrified eye upon Neil Young's American Stars and Bars. It's ugly on a number of fronts: first, we've got a directly vertical, up from a glass floor, vantage point of Young's plastered and pressed face; work in the barmaid's ridiculous unmentionables and take note that my own 99 cent version is ripped to shreds, and you've got a contender for the ugliest record of all time.

But the vinyl inside is pristine and the album features two of the best songs of all time back to back (Like a Hurricane and Will to Love, of course), so who cares: ugly is awesome in the Dollar Bin.

And then there's Fairport Convention's Live at L.A. Troubadour which is famously horrifying to gaze upon. The art department at Island Records either hated the band, or themselves, or the whole planet. As dedicated Dollar Binners can tell you, my own coveted copy is also slightly melted so its ugliness knows no bounds.

And no ugly cover contest is complete without mentioning Dylan, the infamous Screw You Bob! record of outtakes Columbia put out when Bob jumped ship in 73 for Asylum Records. The only thing uglier than the portrait on the cover is Dylan's cover of Big Yellow Taxi.

(But don't buy the hype that Dylan is terrible; in spite of Columbia's best efforts to end the Bobster's career, the album contains a few great tracks; but that discussion will have to wait for Dollar Bin #642, or maybe #643. That's right: I've got the next 64 years of this nonsense already planned out...).

I could go on and on (we haven't even touched on the giant weird stylus phallus on the cover of The Bunch...). My personal Dollar Bin is chock full of unsightly greatness.

But, without further adieu, let me submit for your very personal consideration what is arguably the greatest ugly record of all time: Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon.

Behold the horrifying cover art concept: every track on the album gets its own infantile piece of pop art horror somewhere on the gatefold. Mingled in are an archival photo of teenybopper Simon with a full head of hair and another photo of daddy Simon with a full head of combed over hair.

The Dollar Bin teems with copies of this record; everyone, and their weird uncle, bought a copy of Rhymin' Simon in 73 because the music within it is awesome, but they, or their grandkids who inherited the collection, just couldn't bear to look at the insidious cover and therefore eventually pawned it off on dollar bins the world over. If you don't own a copy, get a life and go get it. Put it on your turntable but don't look at the cover; like Medusa's visage, it may turn you to stone. And I like you just the way you are: unstoney.

Indeed, I'd argue that There Goes Rhymin Simon is proof positive that most people in these troubled times are more focused on how their record collection looks on the shelf than how it sounds. You know 'em: they've got Steely Dan albums enshrined in plastic and they can't wait to show you their minty copy of The Wall. Yuck. Lend me a ruler and I'll draw you some bricks, if you really want to see some, but I won't force you to listen to Roger Waters drone on and on about his own hideous meaning of life.

I was deep in a dollar bin recently, knees aching on the floor, when two college kids came in, asking for directions to the Yes records. They very clearly did not own a record player; rather they wanted Yes to grace their dorm room walls. Indeed, that's probably the sole reason anyone on earth has ever had for owning a Yes record. I've never owned one, and I never will. I declare Hell No to Yes.

Only a masochist would mount Rhymin' Simon on their wall. Who, you ask, do we have to blame for undercutting the fourth masterpiece of Simon's career (The first three are Bookends, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Paul Simon) with such shoddy pop art? The answer is none other than Milton Glaser, the guy who foisted the following on us all:

Imagine the greatest, most recognized thing in your entire life taking you six seconds to create and being something a fourth grader could come up with. I heart NY to, but I mean Neil Young when I say so; why isn't anyone offering me a solo show at the Pompidou Center?

Glaser could have designed a plain brown paper bag to hold Simon's record, then slipped a fresh cow pie in alongside it and thereby have done Simon an immeasurably better turn in the art department.

Before you accuse me of just being ignorant about modern art let me offer the defense that I actually took a course in modern art at Cambridge for a term which led to religious experiences in front of Rothkos and Chagalls. Furthermore, Glaser has made some wonderful art in his career. Consider Dylan's psychedelic hairdo:

I'm guessing that Simon finished Rhymin' and then ordered Glaser to give him the Dylan treatment on his cover. But Glaser took one look at Simon's hair and said, "Paul we're going with ugly rather than comb over with this one," then turned out Rhymin's abomination. Simon learned his lesson: every one of his album covers since then has either featured tasteful art or a photo of Paul with a hat or hairpiece carefully in place.

It's tempting to think of Rhymin' as Simon's own version of Chrome Dreams, Neil Young's abandoned (but recently released) 70's album of masterful individual songs. Almost every track on Chrome Dreams comes from a separate recording session and every song stands on its own, seemingly unrelated to its neighboring tracks. Like the eclectic stops on Odysseus's journey home, both Rhymin' and Chrome Dreams can be experienced as a series of only vaguely related adventures. There's plenty of terror from Polyphemus cave to be witnessed on each record, just like there's a lot of lust to be had in Circe's bed.

Glaser's juvenile and segregated artistic approach on Rhymin' only strengthens this sense. What does a cheap, jaundiced Mardi Gras mask possibly have in common with equally cheap, inverted dollhouse chairs? And what's with the terrifying heart-pupiled eye? Can't we ask Odysseus to ram a spike into it or something?

But on close listen, Rhymin' finds cohesion, its greatness unfolding around us as we sail narrow straights between the Scylla of 70's pop schmaltz the Charybdis of cultural appropriation.

Let's start on the Scylla side, shall we? Simon can sound saccharine on occasion. Songs like Why Don't You Write Me and The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine sound like byproducts of a men's retreat with Stephen Stills and Paul Anka. Everyone ate whipped cream out of tubs, compared biceps and combed their chest hair with care.

The album opens in these Scylla infested waters with Kodachrome, an almost too perfect pop number which, if taken a step further, would sound like a Chicago song. But Simon adds kick to the mix, enunciates the word "crap" with aplomb, and chides his ego whilst among the ladies. And so the whole thing rolls nicely: when this number comes up on FM radio, you'll hum along.

Other moments when he dodges the six heads of schmaltz include Quincy Jones' feathered pillow arrangement on Something So Right and the overall daddyrific vibes of Saint Judy's Comet. But both of these songs are masterpieces lyrically and melodically; we lean into the schmaltz because everything about the songs is indeed so very right.

youtube

I'm pretty convinced Dylan listened to Something So Right with great care before wrestling, over and over again, with You're a Big Girl Now a year later. Simon famously told Dylan in the mid sixties that he liked the rough sketch of a song Dylan had just cut in the studio. Paul encouraged Bob to take his time and build the track up into something great. Dylan responded by saying that the single rough take would be the only take; he had bigger fish to fry. The story is cute, but not altogether accurate; after all there's about 4000 studio takes of Like a Rolling Stone. And by 74 Bob gave Simon's perfectionist approach an even more earnest try. Thank god he did.

youtube

Listen for the organ to come soaring in, landing on the fence of Dylan's soundscape like a precious bird of flight. Am I wrong to think that this glorious track is a fitting cousin to Something So Right?

Okay, that covers the schmaltz. But the awkward whirlpool of cultural appropriation has also been a hazard in Simon's career and he narrowly dodges a few Charybdis sized abysses on Rhymin'. Three years after going full karaoke on El Condor Pasa he swims his way through two slightly cringy, I Wanna Be Black, soul numbers on Rhymin': Tenderness and Loves Me Like a Rock. Both come with the full support of The Dixie Hummingbirds. I'm even whiter than Simon so I can't comment with any authority on the ethics of Simon taking the lead while these great Black artists support him.

But I can tell you that I love both songs, especially Tenderness, and that Simon did a lot more than any other white artists of his generation to promote and give credit to the artists of color he worshiped and leaned on. He took the Peruvian band responsible for El Condor Pasa, Urubamba, as well as the Jessy Dixon Singers, on tour with him after this record, and both groups are featured with prominent respect on his subsequent live album (Live Rhymin' is another Dollar Bin classic and another significant entry in the ugly cover contest).

And we all know how Simon earnestly introduced American audiences to Brazilian and African artists in the 80's. Simon's career may be built on a good deal of appropriation, but it seems to me that he always tries to do it with respect. After all, he treats Aretha Franklin's version of Bridge over Troubled Water as the song's authoritative take.

But I'm not sure that even all those qualifiers can rectify the soft reggae vibes of the Rhymin' track Was A Sunny Day. If it's okay with you, let's give Simon a pass there, as the song does feature the vinyl debut of The Roches.

Alongside these skillful schmaltz and appropriation dodges Rhymin' also features a few straight up Paul Simon classics. Take Me to the Mardi Gras, One Man's Ceiling, Learn How to Fall and America Tune: these are beautiful songs from start to finish, each of them simple and incredibly complex all at once. Simon has the uncanny ability to turn easy listening into high art and there's a dark turn to be found in each song if you lean in. Listen to the Reverend Claude Jeter sing the glowing, devout bridge on Mardi Gras; worry about who's doing what behind Simon's building in Ceiling; count the impossible number of balanced harmonizing parts in Fall; and, most of all, take a moment to appreciate the towering greatness of American Tune.

youtube

As a teenager I saw Simon twice on the Rhythm of the Saints tour. Everything was dense, earnest and slick. But when Simon came out alone, in midst of the First Gulf War, and sang American Tune I got my first real taste of true patriotism: Simon loves his country enough to criticize it through earnest, complex and open-ended metaphor. I'd say he did the same thing on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 as well:

youtube

I don't care how little hair he has, and I don't care what his albums look like. Paul Simon is a Dollar Bin genius, an old friend who's still standing with us as we watch the Statue of Liberty sail away to sea. I sure hope we can come together and reel it back in.

Happy November everyone.

#milton glaser #paul simon #neil young #bob dylan #stephen stills still sucks #Youtube #fairport convention

7 notes · View notes

himmelgrauart · 2 years

Text

Some time ago I started getting asks and offensive messages after posting illustration tagged #brutrish. I was surprised because it was a redrawing of a scene from the anime series wich wiewed all JoJo fans.

I need to censor some words but I hope you'll understand it anyway. I did not expect to receive almost accusation of endorsing p3d0philia as feedback for my art wich was no sexual implication. I don't make NSFW content in any form. Anyone who follows me see it. I didn't plan on reacting to this nonsense until it began to bore me. I'm shocked that I must to clarify the obvious things.

I find disgusting the relationship between an adults and a minors and I do not endorse it.

Do not project your perverted fantasy into my artworks. I don't want to know what's going on in your ugly mind.

As for my 1600 AU. This is an Alternate Universe. Another historical time and another headcanons. Nobody's stopping me change the historical period, costume and age of the characters because it's fiction. They live in a story that has development. They can't be 15 or 20 y.o. for years. There are no underage characters in my visual stories.

I think everyone knows in the manga industry there is a cult of a teenager. Most of the plots are built around teenage characters. It's in trend. This is the only way I can explain why Araki gave his characters 15 years old. Can you imagine that schoolboy became a police officer or led the mafia? I'm not. It's impossible. In JoJo the age of some main characters is lowered according trends. Let me take it so.

Fun fact. I used the #brutrish or #brugio tag only to mark the characters depicted. Then I didn't know that content creators use this to mean some relationships. I often use the "×" or different symbols instead of "&" for example just to decorate the text part. But even this detail becomes a reason to accuse the artists of terrible things... Frankly, it all is beyond my comprehension.

Maybe I had to figure out the meaning of some tags first and be more careful. But I'm not responsible for the shit in other people's heads.

The artists don’t owe you art. And they especially don’t owe you art that satisfy your specific likes and dislikes. No need to harm them if you thought something. Instead of helping to prevent real crimes against children, you protect fictional characters and do your best to harm artists. This is so hypocritical and stupid!

Also, if you see p3d0philia, inc3st and other ghoulish things everywhere, I don't want you to interact with me. Just unfollow/block me. And please stay the fuck away from me with yours isterics.

Thanks (sorry for my bad english).

#vento aureo #golden wind #1600 au #jjba #jojo #jojos bizarre adventure #bruno buccellati #giorno giovanna #trish una #ask time #artists on tumblr #jjba part 5 #jojo fanart #jjba fanart #jojo golden wind #jojo no kimyou na bouken #bruno bucciarati #important #personal

23 notes · View notes

novelmonger · 1 year

Text

Thoughts on FMA: The Final Alchemy

tl;dr - All the live-action FMA movies suck like an industrial-grade vacuum cleaner, and watching them will only not be a waste of your time if you do so with friends who are already familiar with FMA so you can have fun bashing them with each other. Still, this one managed to suck ever so slightly less than the previous one...maybe???

Elaborating slightly on the notes I took while watching, here are my thoughts:

I can't get over how unbelievably stupid and nonsensical the title is! "ThE fInAl AlChEmY" What does that even mean? Not "The Final Transmutation," oh no; we can't make the title be an actual reference to a line Ed actually says in the original ("the last transmutation of the Full Metal Alchemist" or however it's worded). "The Final Alchemy." I ask you -_-

There were so many scenes where they didn't play any music at all, and it was super awkward! What kind of creative choice is that? Instead of it being used to make a statement or ramp up tension or whatever usual reasons people have for not putting music in, it just came across like they forgot to add any music in some scenes.

What on earth is up with Raven's actor? He was overacting so much, it was distracting - especially when contrasted with Mustang's complete lack of expression, lol. It's like Raven's actor just saw that one panel of Raven guffawing and decided that was his entire character. Like...there's overacting like some of the villains in the Rurouni Kenshin movies...and then there's this. Super weird and out of place.

Not that I'm surprised at all, but the CG looked really bad for the most part in this movie. By far the worst was Sloth, though. I can't remember when the last time was I've seen something that bad x.x Not only did it look super fake, it just looked...really low-quality even compared to some of the other stuff in this movie, like a child's scribble next to an art student's painting. All of the effects around Sloth (like broken pillars and crumbling walls) looked terrible and fake too, like he was infecting the entire VFX team with his mediocrity or something.

But on the flipside, I actually thought the effect of Ed, Ling, and Envy flaking away as they went through the Portal of Truth was really good! Guess that's where all their VFX budget went.

Al's actor was nowhere near emaciated enough. Sure, they didn't go into the whole thing about Ed eating and sleeping his share, and I get that they wouldn't want to make the actor starve himself or anything...but still. Just sayin'. Also...he had zero emotion, even after soul and body were reunited. What's up with that?

And speaking of which, just like in the other two movies, they hardly had Al do anything at all, nor did most of the other characters act like they cared about him much at all - not even Ed most of the time. If I didn't have such a wealth of other versions of this wonderful character, I'd probably think he was super boring. Which is a crime, I tell you! He's one of my favorite characters ever!

So many of the sets were so empty. You could really tell when they were using greenscreens.

When they showed Greed inside Ling's head, they made him blue??? When it's supposed to be depicting the torrent of souls that is a Philosopher's Stone, and the Stones are red??? Just...why?

Oh, also...when the Stones were in a liquid form, it totally looked like sweet-and-sour sauce you get from a Chinese restaurant ^^' It was like...almost pink! Weird. I always assumed the Stones were supposed to look red like blood.

Yet again, the way they messed around with the timeline is paying dividends of confusion in this movie. Because they shoved all of Scar's character arc into the second movie, and everybody's okay with him now, they have him just come out and show Ed and Al his brother's research notes, which is how they find out about the country-wide transmutation circle, and only after that discovery does Ed decide to go to Briggs. Or how about Greed just immediately deciding to leave Father practically the minute Ling accepts him? And Father doesn't do anything about it? And later on, Greed joins up with them for literally no reason other than "lol I'm a rebel," because there was nothing about Devil's Nest or the previous Greed, so he didn't have the realization that Wrath killed his friends.

Wait. They didn't do Devil's Nest, did they? They didn't do Devil's Nest. THEY DIDN'T DO DEVIL'S NEST HOW DO YOU MESS UP THIS BADLY ALDKGFJSLKDGJSLDKGJSDKLGF

Also, because they never bothered to put Yoki into these movies, Mei's brainwave for the secrets within the notes make waaaaaay less sense. Sure, you could say her figuring it out because Yoki sneezed is too convenient, but she had even less reason to think along those lines in this movie. Oh, and they never even tried to explain why she's the only one reading the notes, and Ed and Al can't.

Buccaneer's head looks just as lumpy and bulbous as Armstrong's. Why didn't they just shave these actors' heads instead of slapping a bald cap on top of their hairy heads, or whatever they did? It would have looked a million times better.

Okay, Olivier is practically perfect in every way. A+ casting job for once. She looks about as natural as a blonde Japanese woman can, and she gets across the disdain, poise, and hyper-competence of the character really well.

They never explained why Ed can't speak freely with Olivier about the Homunculi, etc. The revelation that Winry's being used as a hostage isn't revealed yet when Ed first shows up, and Raven's not there yet, so why did they have to go to the trouble of going into the underground tunnel to talk? Yet another example of the film creators trying to condense and simplify while still keeping in iconic moments from the anime, but showing a glaring lack of understanding of why those moments happened the way they did. Because now you've got a bunch of disjointed scenes that are supposed to be iconic, but will make no sense unless you already know the story.

Speaking of which...why did Ed go to Briggs in the first place? Because he already knows about the country-wide transmutation circle at this point, his stated purpose is to stop them from carving the last crest of blood they need at Briggs and completing the circle. And yet...the crest gets carved anyway, and Ed just sort of...leaves? Without much, if any, protest? At first I thought they were going to do the whole Briggs arc because they wanted to show what I would definitely classify as an iconic moment: Ed getting impaled. But they never did that scene at all! Kimbley is absent from this movie, so there's no scheme to get Winry away from him, Raven disappears as soon as he shows up (yeah, they don't even do the memorable scene of Olivier stabbing him and shoving him into setting concrete), so they don't even need to get Winry away from him, there are no chimeras (probably because it would be quite taxing on the budget, which I kind of understand), and they've already covered the whole Winry-forgives-Scar scene in the previous movie, so I guess they decided there was no way to work in Ed falling down a mine shaft, getting impaled, and then closing his own wound by using his own soul as a Philosopher's Stone. Nope, instead they just abruptly shift to a goodbye scene between Ed and Winry whose dark hair still bugs the heck out of me whyyyyyyy is she special like that.

Wait, let me reiterate: Kimbley is absent from this movie. I actually don't remember if he was in the second movie or not (it was that forgettable if he was). Yeah, they just decided that one of the most interesting and memorable characters from FMA didn't need to be in their movie. Besides the part I mentioned above, Kimbley's absence also throws a wrench into a very important part farther down the road: Ed defeating Pride. In the original, Pride eats Kimbley to take advantage of the extra souls he has in his Philosopher's Stones, but because he absorbed such a strong, rebellious soul, Kimbley is actually able to help Ed overpower Pride in the end. This is a very important factor in Pride's defeat, because he looks down on humans, while Kimbley points out that the way he's acting is actually dishonorable. "You are nothing to be proud of," I think is how he puts it. If you consider the thematic implications of the Homunculi and how each one dies, you'll realize that this is the only way Pride could be defeated, because Homunculi are defeated by their opposites. But then, I don't think the people who wrote these movies would recognize a theme if it smacked them in the face. Many of the events are the same in these movies as they are in the original, but they're stripped of any subtlety or significance.

Oh, also Pride's death is much stupider in this movie because it looks like he just stands there and lets Ed do it, rather than it being an actual fight with the shadow-spikes and everything, and Ed getting the drop on him because he knows what it's like to be shorter than his opponent....

Okay, but one thing I will say in favor of this movie is that Ryosuke Yamada was by far the best actor in the whole cast. He captured the various sides of Ed's character, and there were far fewer moments where it felt like he was an actor on a stage than anybody else. I believed him. I've thought that in both of the previous movies, but I don't think I realized just how good of an actor he was until this installment. Because he doesn't just have to play Ed. He also has to play teenage Hohenheim in the flashback, and Father's final form on the Promised Day. And in both instances, Ryosuke Yamada utterly killed it. He didn't just do a good job of delivering the lines with appropriate emotion and expression. He also made the characters feel like completely different people. Everything, down to his stance and the way he talked, was different! And I could tell that he'd studied the way Seiyo Uchino had done his performances as both Hohenheim and Father, and was trying to match them in his own performance. That was so cool to see. I've never seen Ryosuke Yamada in anything else, but now I kinda want to.

Oh, and while we're praising the cast, Kokoro Terada did such a good job as Pride! It's a tall order to ask such a young kid to act like such a creepy monster, but he did an excellent job. That kid's got a future in acting for sure.

They cut out soooooo many of the best scenes about Mustang and his team, and what they didn't cut out was so rushed and just gutted of all emotion T_T They didn't even bother taking the team away from him, which leaves the Homunculi looking a bit stupid and lax. Because the whole fight with Lust went down differently (in the first movie a;ldkjfa;dlskf;sdlkfj DX), Havoc isn't even paralyzed! I never thought I would be upset that he didn't get paralyzed! But because we don't go into any of that, a huge chunk of character development is just gone completely. And though they did do the whole showdown with Envy, which is one of my absolute favorite parts of the story, it was taken out at the knees by the actors being terrible and emotionless. Oh, and the coup is introduced very abruptly and just as abruptly forgotten about, and there's nothing about Mrs. Bradley. And the moment with Hawkeye's neck getting sliced open? Blink and you miss it. Mustang barely reacts, and they don't even use Hawkeye's life being threatened as a way to try to coerce him to do human transmutation! Hawkeye doesn't give him the signal with her eyes, Mei doesn't close up the wound...I honestly have no idea why they bothered wounding her at all.

They already did the zombie things in the first movie (ad;lkjfgda;slkjg;sdklfj;dskfl), so they show up in one scene in this movie, have little to no impact because we've already seen them, and then are never heard from again. What even.

Why in the name of Flamel did they wait the entire movie to reveal that Miles is part Ishbalan? Why did they bother revealing that at all? They literally could have just said they were going to help Scar rebuild Ishbal, and left it at that, instead of having Miles dramatically take off his sunglasses and make the audience try to figure out why because it's not immediately obvious that his eyes are red because they made the color much duller than it is in animation and a;lkdjfg;ladkjhg;dlksgjlsdgj;ldksfjdslg

Oh, and you wanna know what the biggest kick in the teeth is? THEY DIDN'T EVEN HEAL MUSTANG'S EYES. Marcoh isn't in this movie - I can't remember if he died or what in the first movie, and can't be bothered to check - so there's no one to use the Stone on him. So Mustang's storyline in the movie ends with Hawkeye saying, "Maybe we'll find a way to heal your eyes somehow." Maybe. MAYBE?! -_-

So yeah. To sum up, this is a terrible movie and an even worse adaptation. I didn't think it was possible to take such a phenomenally good story and butcher it this badly. FMA is one of my very favorite stories of all time, and even though I've read and watched it more times than I can count, the fight scenes and tense moments still grab me to this day. But I kept on finding myself bored while watching this movie, and checking to see how much time was left. I never thought I would be bored watching the Briggs soldiers or the Armstrong siblings fight Sloth, or Wrath and Scar duking it out, or the last stand against Father.

But here we are.

#full metal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist #fma #live-action fma #fullmetal alchemist: the final alchemy #i'm chewing the carpet at this point #now excuse me while i go reread the manga (aka the TRUE version of the story) for the 1290872398750392785th time

2 notes · View notes

shifuto · 1 year

Text

youtube

alright so.. I'm mostly finished with Thousand Autumns and this series was... something! Really out of my comfort zone and I'm so happy I gave it a try!

the whole thing is about political and territorial disputes, fancy magical martial arts ("wuxia" is its own genre) with a queer plot ("danmei" is basically the chinese equivalent of boys love/shounen-ai)

didn't read the books and won't do that because the main plot actually bored me a little.. too confusing and convoluted (and I think those kinds of political plots that go nowhere ad infinitum are a little nonsensical) BUT the gay stuff? Oh man, that's the real thing

unfortunately with all the censorship and anti-queer crap, you won't get anymore than hints in the animated show, but yeah, sure I'll take it (the extra chapters actually have kissing scenes and alluded to sex, I wonder why they were not put in the main story? This video is the audio drama from one of the extra chapters)

I think I always avoided getting into wuxia/danmei because all the stories look so similar - they have to, it's literally why the genre exists - and I'm not that interested I guess. I always preferred historical japanese stories anyway

a few things really stood out to me in this though

1- the main characters are in his 30s and 40s, and I've never really seen much of that before considering so many queer stories tend to focus on younger characters so this was extremely refreshing to me

2- the main characters are a "hero" and an actual "villain" - and no, the "villain" is never reformed in the end. Love that, love to see it, would love to have more

3- the hero character, Shen Qiao, at first looks like a doll without any personality or will of his own, bound to his "mission", to his "home", and I guess I get it? He's handsome and that's constantly brought up in the series, where characters of all genders are attracted to him and he's just kind of.. there? He is prude and has morals, all that virtuous crap that makes such boring characters until........ you get to see more and more of him and he's actually something huh?! I was so shocked when I saw him killing people, and seeing his internal conflict with the "devil" too, there's just so many cool things honestly

4- Yan Wushi, the "villain", was one of those characters I fall in love with off the bat. He is SO. MUCH. FUN. He's charming, he's probably the most powerful out there and he knows it, he has a terrible personality and, basically, the whole plot of the series is about how he saved Shen and spent the whole time (probably years) trying to get him to turn evil, getting turned down every time, laughing it off, trying again. He also spent a long time flirting and insinuating himself "jokingly" and he was always there, in a way or another

5- they end up together even though they're so different and they make no effort to change each other - one love the other as they come - which, to me, was incredible considering how righteous Shen is and the fact that Yan would be his natural enemy because he is canonically one of the bad guys

there's a few downsides that will make it very likely that I won't revisit this such as the fact that this is a novel (and the actual consummated relationship only happens on extra chapters), the show is in CGi (I can't stand 3D animation), the gay stuff is not gay enough and there's not enough of it for me to hold onto (there's enough wars and martial arts though, if that's your cup of tea)

it was a delight any way!

#thousand autumns #shif writes

2 notes · View notes

seasideretreat · 2 years

Text

What I tell you

Are you planning to listen to me? Of course you are: it is a thing to listen, a thing to be together in this world and have quality time together. But I do not feel it is all so important. I am just a fool.

The truth is I came upon something that might interest you. You're going to like it. It's your identity; well no, of course not really, I don't really know you, but there's something identitarian about so many things and you are just another person, so I feel there might be something about what you are, that I can fathom somehow, even though there ain't nothing about you that I can really appreciate, it is all nonsense and craziness and I don't get to do anything ever, my life is a stagnant pool of nothingness.

I have been thinking about writing you. The great weirdness that surrounds us everywhere is a real thing, but there ain't nothing real about it, it is all just a thing. I don't know. I feel you are a wise man, but there's nothing I can say that will help you recover from your reality: you just don't have any use on my help. I wonder if you really read my words, or if you just pretend to read these words, which is certainly possible, in your world, but your world is good, mine is foolish, that's how it has always been; but you can figure out what I say, and yet at the same time do something that might help me, or not, I don't know, it's a strange situation, yet at the same time it might be very normal, maybe, if we regard it as such - it's a mess and a struggle, but a blessed struggle, a struggle of normality versus craziness, happiness versus sadness, a constant war.

And so I tell you: we are at war, man. How are you? Do you know how terrible the world really is? I suppose you do: you too have suffered, and everybody feels the same way most of the time, but that's just a cynical remark, and I apologize. Have you seen the news lately? There's been a terrible Earthquake in Turkey, we're all pitching in to help the relief program start up. Do you like me? Aaaah! A foolish remark again, I wish I hadn't written it, but here it is. You're the best. I love you.

You know what they say: a day without laughter is a day not lived. I miss England, and I miss you, but you are a mystery to me, whereas England is obvious, large, present, yet not here, far away. Have you considered that everything is just impossibly complicated? Of course, I believe you will say that you have, but your entire life is just a strange chaotic whole, and you don't even realize it. I wish I could talk to you direct and tell you what I think. I have been thinking a lot, about life, about religion, but it is not coming to any resolution, I am still completely in the dark, and I don't know anything, I am a fool, you know? A fool... I do what I can to find out everything, but I am just a fool, there ain't no future for me, I can't figure things out, it is all a mess. You must know, I have tried really hard to live a meaningful life: I wrote endless tracts on complicated subjects, I worked hard every day at menial jobs, I read endlessly on human biology, semiotics, art history, but it was all for nothing, I learned nothing. i have thought about you, too. Maybe you are the most meaningful thing in my world, but I can't get to you. You are everywhere; I am nowhere; you are kind and benevolent; I am mean and malevolent. I think you need to know how everything fits together. Big things dwarf small things, happy days are rare compared to hard days, ordinary life is more boring than extraordinary life. Do you know Heidegger? He was a philosopher, he wrote a lot, I guess he is famous. Now many people will say he was a charlatan, I think I kinda agree, but he had a profound literary quality to his language use, so much that we ought to consider him considerable, even though he might not have anything to say - and we should not fall into the trap of the Buddhist journalist who interviewed him one day and ask him after the practical use of his work, because it doesn't have any, it is just pretty sounding philosophical stuff, I don't know. Is philosophy useful? I think so. I am a philosopher, like Heidegger, but my words are not so gracious as his, maybe because I am not nearly as wise, but was he really wise, or was he just emblematic of a certain form of wisdom? I know it is something like the last thing. Anyway, a philosopher, yes that's what I am. Like Kierkegaard: I continually start over and that's how I compose my vast works, my infinite writing. There used to be a time when I didn't care about writing, I just cared about being wise, and I wrote wisely incomprehensible, self-absorbed mumbo-jumbo. That was a different time. I want to write these days, I am just afraid I will appear crazy, but I am crazy so that's not the worst thing that can happen, right? No. Can I write to you a legible letter? I don't think so. I am not a real author, I am just a random guy who puts his gibberish on the internet. But I want to reach you, I want to communicate with you, you are my obsession, my healthy obsession; however, I don't feel very obsessed, I am just hoping I could write one day, instead of just sitting and moving my fingers about on the keyboard, I dunno, even that is too much, truth is I just do nothing, my work is meaningless.

I wonder if I have said enough now. I don't want to stop writing, but it is very important not to write too much. Truth is, I can only write this much because of technological support. If I had to write all this stuff by hand it would've been impossible to write this much every day. I don't write that much per day though. I have been writing mostly out of the idea of wisdom, which is not very productive. It's better to write out of the idea of writing. That's more rewarding. Have you ever read The Bible? I am reading it right now. It try to read one chapter per day. I must say, it is really quite edifying, but it is not very fun. I don't really care much for the stories, and those people who call it a boy's book need to reconsider it's literary qualities, it really reads like a system of religion, not like a novel. We need to mark out our subject matter. Before we can really begin to scrutinize the entire world and introduce a new world order, we have to find out what we are. Are we splendid people? Ordinary people? Are we wise men, or fools? We must know these things. It is really hard to exist, and if we don't try our best we will fail in everything. I salute you. You never cease to amaze us with your elegance and your great style.

#england #christianity #sun tzu

0 notes

quirkycombatants · 5 years

Text

Me: well, I gave Noburu the techniques of southern snake style wushu, designed his style to be around gaslighting an opponent similar to Dorian from Baki and Yuzaki Mumon from Kengan Omega, adopted the techniques of both rihito from Kengan Asura and Sikorsky from Baki...

And that’s not considering the various other techniques such as the fa jin I’ve adopted to him, or the one technique from Wakatsuki from Kengan Ashura I gave him.

Basically, instead of a quirk, I added techniques to make up the difference and explain his ability to hang with the big boys. Thus his ‘genius of martial arts’ concept.

also me: so should I give him Anji’s mastery of two layers technique from Rurouni Kenshin...?

#ooc #me: I may have a problem with adding fighting techniques to noburu to make up for him lacking a quirk #also baki as a series is garbage and you should not read it #the art is terrible and most of it is boring and nonsensical #but in terms of exposure to weird techniques a person could think of it's serviceable

0 notes

theprettynosferatu · 3 years

Text

Empty

She tried not to listen, she really did-- but the neighbors were making it legitimately impossible, with their shouts and laughter and the kind of raised voices that usually were a telltale sign of being high. She could have closed her windows, but it was a hot night and besides, she had become strangely invested in the whole affair despite herself. The whole conversation was, in its particular way, fascinating. In fact at some point Andrea had to assume this was some sort of strange performance art titled: How long can four people hold a conversation without ever uttering a single interesting thing?

Topics ranged from “how drunk X was on Y night”, “stories of dumb shit I did while drunk”, “my crazy ex” to the masterful synthesis that was “how drunk my crazy ex got and what she told X on Y night, who also was so drunk.” Andrea had little choice but to admire the commitment to mediocrity. One would think that given a group of four and three hours, statistically speaking something interesting would come up sooner or later, even if by accident: maybe a drunken political statement, or one of those drug-induced metaphysical revelations that made dumb fucks go “woah, that’s deep, man.” Just… anything not related to getting wasted and crazy women. Anything of substance at all. The world was full of situations to have a right chat about, but the neighbors bravely steered away from them all with the skill of an Olympic skier dodging trees. These fuckers were doing triple helixes over anything of substance and sticking the landing every time. It was a thing of utterly depressing beauty.

She felt so alone. She tried telling herself that the quartet of banality next door were an anomaly, a particularly vapid sample of the general population, but she knew better. She was the anomaly. Most people simply didn’t give a fuck about important things, and when they did, they usually spouted misinformed, simplistic, braindead takes regurgitated from some online poster or another. It hurt. People had always told her “oh, you’re so smart!”, or “damn, how do you know about that?”, or “girl, you’re brilliant!”; they all meant it as compliments, but they sure didn’t feel positive to her. Sure, she smiled and cloaked herself with false modesty when she encountered such statements, but she knew very well that when she walked into a room chances were she’d be the smartest person in it. It was terrible.

Listening to the neighbors she wondered if they could ever know how she felt. Of course they couldn’t. They couldn’t know what it felt to dumb down their speech, knowing that saying what was truly in her mind would be a waste, for the listener lacked the basis to comprehend a complex, nuanced idea. They couldn’t know how it felt to be treated like living fucking wikipedia by everyone, because apparently googling shit was harder than asking the smart girl. They couldn’t even fathom what it was like to try dating: trapped between posing men that tried to impress her with facts and trivia and pointless debate and nice guys who served a purpose for a while but inevitably became boring and frustrating as they failed to understand her over and over again.

Sometimes she felt the only ones that could relate to her were strangers online, which added to her frustration with her chatty neighbors on their terrace. How on Earth was she supposed to relax and edge looking at good content with that bunch spewing nonsense three meters away?

A part of Andrea was slightly worried about her online habits. It was true, no doubt, that she was spending more and more time looking at her phone or her PC, sleeping less and less, often going to work with barely a couple of hours of rest to keep herself semi-sharp. Not that her work required more than the ability to filter out the inane bullshit around her and mastering the art of suppressing the urge to reply to all business emails with “This is meaningless. This contributes nothing to human growth or prosperity, and our jobs shouldn’t exist. Thank you, fuck you, bye.” Sadly, she couldn’t afford to tell everyone to go straight to Hell and get gangbangd by demons, so she endured in silence and occasionally used her smarts to make herself invaluable to the company.

...And now she was thinking about work. Fuck. Miserable in the office, miserable at home because she would have to return to the office. That settled it. She was going to have her goddamn escapism and if the chatty neighbors naged to hear something, hey, good for them. She logged on, and the world melted away.

It felt like home, much more than her apartment, her city, or even the house in which she had grown up. All those were places of loneliness; the site was a community, a sort of self-actualized society playing by rules that made sense, with a purity of purpose lacking in everyday life. In the website everyone could be whoever they wanted to be, paradoxically free within the limits of the screen. It was all performance to some degree, of course. People chose and curated what they posted, how they reacted, who they followed. It was something like psychological self-design: you looked at what you had chosen and the site suggested similar things, more of what you enjoyed but maybe slightly different, slightly more extreme, slightly darker. Every now and then you discovered a new side to your kink, your body reacted to something unexpected and unthinkingly you hit that “follow” button and the site would learn a little bit about you that you yourself didn’t know, and like a skillful dom subtly pushing their sub it shifted your limits and tastes just a little bit at a time… Andrea liked that: It felt like the site knew her, understood her in ways that sometimes shocked her, toyed with her mind and libido and existed only to give her a safe haven from a grey, dull world.

That particular evening the site welcomed her with an animated caption. Oh, she loved those. Anything could be turned into the most perverted of ideas just by the skilful addition of a few words. A simple sexy swimsuit picture, the kind that barely was worth noticing suddenly became a call to embrace the patriarchy, to expose her body, to destroy her boring life and be reborn as something else. It was the power of language: it got inside her head more than anything else, because thoughts were built on language itself-- to read was to let some foreign mental being colonize her brain, just for a little while. To read was to surrender and let someone else’s thoughts inside her. It was a profound intimacy, a sort of consensual mind rape.

She let the words and images wash over her as she rubbed her needy cunt under her shorts. It was all fantasy, of course, but she couldn’t help mouthing along to the words. “I’m just a fucktoy”... “Good girls obey”... “Good girls never cum”... “Toy always on display”... “I don’t need a mind, I need cock”... “Good girls make more good girls”...

If she had been truly aware of herself, she would have noticed the slight changes, the way the words made more and more sense, the way time shrunk and twisted and hours passed without her even noticing, the way she was refusing herself the release of an orgasm. Good girls edge. God girls never cum. It was all fantasy, that much she knew; but her body was soon covered in sweat and drool and the need to blur the line between fantasy and reality.

One content creator had a special effect on her. She had no idea who he was, or where he was from. She only knew he understood her, even if she had never dared to dm him. He was inside her, she was sure of it with the certainty of madness. He teased her mind, molded it, chose the exact words and images to make her feel weak and docile and slutty… and she loved it. She loved him, loved the image she had built of him in her head: she saw him as a somehow strange, not quite human being; a ghost in the site that haunted it and her, like a living virus feeding her addiction.

Dawn caught her by surprise. She had no memory of anything except edging and feeling empty and dumb and horny and needing to be useful, used, abused. She had been scrolling through His page and at some point everything had gone… blurry. It was a first for her, a line crossed: she would go to work with no sleep at all, just because she was edging her needy pussy like a mindless animal. That realization only made her spend the last hour before work playing with her big, sensitive tits, just to be sure she wouldn’t accidentally cum at the last moment. She didn’t even shower, and went to the office smelling of sex, sweat and arousal.

The day went in a haze. She got home fully prepared to collapse on her bed and let the sweet, sweet arms of Morpheus take her away. Then her phone pinged. She knew exactly what it was: Andrea only had notifications enabled for a single creator on the site. It could wait. She could look at it after sleeping. She should, in fact. Yes, that would be the smart thing to do. Oh, that idea hit her like a train: yes, it would be the smart thing to do, but wasn’t it more fun to do the dumb thing? The slutty thing? Her eyelids felt heavy like tombstones, and yet she reached for the phone.

There exists a place, or a state of existence most people only experience briefly: the liminal area between sleep and wakefulness, where judgement is eroded and the boundaries between dream and reality become a blur. Usually, a person either falls asleep or snaps awake immediately and so they don’t explore that most peculiar mental space. Andrea, on the other hand, found herself stuck in it. She read the new story by the Creator, but she wasn’t sure if she was following the plot or even making sense of the words at all-- rather, it was bypassing her conscious self altogether as images, words and situations lodged themselves in her brain. Where they dreams, memories or fiction? It was impossible to tell. She saw herself wearing tight leather pants and heading into a bar. Had she done that? Had she read it? She felt some stranger’s cock in her mouth, and remembered her heart swelling with pride at being a good, useful little fucktoy. No, that wasn’t right. That was a caption, wasn’t it? It felt so real, though… She tasted the lips of her best friend as they watched degrading porn together and Andrea rubbed the girl’s cunt over her panties and whispered “don’t you want to be a good girl like her?” No, that hadn’t happened. That was a story by the Creator, right? One of the more popular ones? She couldn’t focus. If it wasn’t real, it should have been. She should have broken her pretty little innocent friend and turned her into a living fucking fleshlight…

She edged, drifting between what was real and what wasn’t. The difference was insubstantial, and the need to become an empty vessel for the words was too strong. She didn’t cum. The idea never crossed her mind, and she stopped right at the edge on reflex. Good girls didn’t cum. She was a good girl. Or she should be? Maybe? It was too confusing, her mind and the Creator’s work melding into a single, twisting spiral…

Birds heralded the dawn once again, and once again Andrea was welcoming the new day by drooling and edging, humping the air and letting the Creator’s words and images wash over her, eroding her mind like the tide eroded rocks until they were smooth, slippery, featureless. She felt less and less like herself, if indeed there had been a real “self” there to begin with. She wasn’t so sure anymore. Wasn’t she an act? Wasn’t she performing always, even when she was the only audience? Did she even have a core, a solid thing she could call “Andrea”? Every minute it became harder and harder to find. Maybe it had never been there at all. Maybe it had been a particularly devious illusion, and there had never been a “self”. Maybe the only thing inside was emptiness, her personality just the result of an accumulation of experiences and situations, like mold growing on a tree trunk. Now, edging it all away, she realized there was no tree trunk at all. There was nothing there, which meant anything could go into that space. “Andrea” could mean anything. And the Creator’s words told her exactly what it should mean.

In the end, she had no one to blame but herself. The fact was that she edged and refused sleep and so, her mind broke. Sometimes things are as simple as that. Andrea would have liked the simplicity, if she could have appreciated it. As it was, she skipped work and edged herself into a deeper, almost meditative state of blank arousal. Andrea didn’t exist. Andrea had never existed. Andrea was whatever the site said she was.

Andrea was a cunt. Andrea was dumb. Andrea was empty. Andrea was slutty. Andrea was always horny. Andrea never said no. Andrea lived for cock. Andrea did anything to make men cum. Andrea had no limits, no morality. Andrea could be whoever made a particular cock cum. Andrea had no core, so she could become anyone. Anything. She was empty, and only cock could fill her: it was her purpose, her obsession, her God. All this came to her with the certainty of religious revelation. The Creator had told her so. She started to believe that they, whoever they were, made content just for her. The Creator was in her head, and was guiding her to the proper Path, to more profound enlightenment in the heaven that was complete, slutty submission.

She must have slept at some point, taken micro naps, perhaps-- or perhaps she was so far gone that sleep and vigil had lost all meaning, the duality destroyed by her new, elevated awareness. Dream and reality were the same thing, so who cared if she was asleep or awake?

Days and nights came and went in a mist of pleasure and emptiness. How long had it been since she had slept? She didn’t care. All she cared about were the voices. They were talking again, loud again. She didn’t quite understand what they said and didn’t much care. In another life she would have been annoyed, but that Andrea was long gone. Instead, a new idea popped in her head. A simple, shining, overriding thought: there were four cocks that needed to be worshipped.

Andrea showered and did her makeup. She liked what the mirror showed her: a slutty, eager, glassy-eyed slut with a vacant, lustful expression. Her instincts told her the men next door liked trashy girls, so she became trashy. She could feel the curse words surging inside her, her neediness and shamelessness taking hold. She looked for trashy clothing, and failing to find anything appropriate she grabbed her scissors. Anything could be trashy if you cut it short enough, added a big V-neck, carelessly chopped away whatever made the outfit respectable. She was sloppy. Sloppy was good. Sloppy was trashy.

In the end what she created could barely be called clothing: it was the bare minimum to cover up her nipples and her pussy. She was dripping, and she felt the juices visibly running between her legs added a certain charm to the outfit. No one could confuse her for anything other than a cock-hungry whore. No one could ever respect her while she wore that. Good. Respect was bad. Only cock mattered.

She knocked on the door, hard. She needed to serve, needed to be useful, and needed it without delay. She hadn’t planned ahead at all. She didn’t need to: once she was inside she knew nature would take its course. Her nature, the primal lust of an animal in heat. They would use her, and if for some reason they didn’t want to, she’d just edge and become a different kind of slut until she was good enough to deserve their cum. She was nothing. She could be anything. The door opened and the man made no effort to hide his surprise as his eyes instantly were drawn to Andrea’s tits. Good. A man that wasn’t scared to be a man, to see her as the fuckmeat she was.

“I hear you are having a party. Mind if I join in?”, she said. The man was taken aback. It took him a little while but finally he recognized her from fleeting encounters in the elevator. He stammered a bit, but let her in.

The rest of the guys were already drunk, laughing on the terrace. They looked at her like hungry beasts as the host awkwardly introduced her as “the neighbor”. Suddenly, there was silence. She could feel them struggling with themselves, with the idea that they shouldn’t take any cunt they wanted, with a million social norms crashing against the embodiment of free sexuality before them. Fine. She’d take the first step. She took a beer from one of the men’s hand and downed it before sitting on his lap.

“Fuck, that’s good”, she purred. Yes, trashy felt right. Felt fun, at least for this set. She would become someone else for others, she knew-- but subtlety wouldn’t work here.

“You know”, she added nonchalantly, “I’m on the pill.” One of the men managed to mutter something like “Uh… that’s good?”

Andrea smiled.

“It is good. Because it means you can fill my slutty cunt with your warm cum, if you want. Or I can swallow it all for you… or drool it on my tits! Oh! You can cum on them directly! Or on my face! I just need your cocks! All of you! Use every fucking hole, treat me like the cumrag I am! Gangbang me, pass me around, slap me, make me say disgusting things, make me shove bottle up my tight asshole! Please… use me. Make me feel useful. Make me feel like a complete fucking whore! You, grab my tits… I feel your cock hardening under me… why don’t you take it out? All of you, please, let me see those beautiful cocks! I exist for them!”

They got the message. Still, Andrea had to make sure of one thing. She looked at the host.

“You. Take your phone out. Make sure you film every little detail”

He pulled his phone out and pointed it at Andrea. He gestured that it was recording. She smiled.

“Hi! My name is Andrea Jackson… and today you’ll all see what I truly am”

Did you enjoy this story? You can support my work at patreon.com/prettynosferatu

1K notes · View notes

quindolyn · 3 years

Note

Hey I was wondering if you could write a sub!regulus X Dom!fem reader fic?

One where it’s angsty as Regulus had been acting different around the reader, and eventually after being questioned about it alone, Regulus breaks down and admitting his parents forced him to get the dark mark (there was nothing he could do about it), and the reader comforts him while they fuck. Regulus had been through a lot and the reader wants him to know that they love him.

Including: praise kink, subspace regulus, scar/mark kissing, aftercare for regulus, riding, and anything else you think would suit this situation <3

Resilience || Regulus Black

Word Count: 6154

A/N: Do I hate this? Yes, most definitely, without a doubt. Did I only proof read 5/15 pages. Yes, again, certainly. But I'm tired and I'm with my friend so it's not gonna get better than this. I love you all and hope you enjoy it

warnings: pretty much included in the ask, can't really think of anything else

Being light on your feet it doesn’t appear as though Regulus notices you tip toeing your way across the Slytherin common room. As you come up behind him you peer over his shoulder; he has his legs tucked beneath him with what appears to be his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook resting in his lap. Standing over his shoulder you let your eyes scan across the pages laid open and what you first believed to be a chapter on counter curses you realized was actually detailing how to cast the curse.

Realizing what you’d just read you let out a small, involuntary gasp that catches the attention of the boy sitting in front of you.

“(Y/N)!” Regulus quickly exclaims, glancing over his shoulder before slamming the book closed and sliding it into his book bag which sits next to him on the plush, green velvet sofa.

“What was that Reg?” You ask, brow furrowed as your eyes lock onto Regulus’ grey ones.

“Just a book love, that’s all.”

“Your Defense textbook?” You ask, hoping he would slide it back out of his satchel to show you the familiar scarlet cover you’d scratched your initials into on the bottom right hand corner.

“Something of the sort,” He answers vaguely, pushing himself off the couch to face you. Instead of making his way around the couch to meet you he stayed on the other side of the piece of furniture. Feet planted, hands fiddling with each other while instead of making eye contact with you his gaze seemed to be directed just past your right ear.

“Don’t lie to me Regulus,” Your voice is clipped, when you’d come to check in on Regulus after he’d come home from winter break at his dreaded family’s house this wasn’t what you had expected.

Regardless, it was what you’re met with, “What the hell is that book?”

Your voice jumps and you can hear the panic rising in it. Regulus had spent the weeks up to his departure date dreading the time he would have to spend at the Black Mansion. You’d stayed up countless nights, wishing you could somehow keep him from having to go to that hellish house but when it came down to it there was nothing either of you could do.

Finding him pouring over some dark arts book the first time you saw him after nearly two weeks apart wasn’t exactly the reunion you’d been picturing in your head. Nor was it comforting.

You can barely make it out but you believe you hear him whimper something about “it’s nothing” as his gaze drops from just over your shoulder to his toes.

You two stand there for a minute, then two, each waiting for the other to say something, anything to break the tension currently hanging heavy over the room. Regulus silently begging you to let it go, to leave the room and give him some time to stash the book before coming to find you to act as though nothing had happened and it was all fine.

Unwilling to yield, you hold your ground, maintaining your silence while your eyes bore into the top of his head, awaiting his explanation as to what you’d walked into.

You’re the one to finally break the silence.

“If it's nothing, then I’d like to see it Regulus.” It's the second time in the span of five minutes you opt for his full name instead of one of the nicknames coined by his brother, who he’d recently mended things with, and made popular by yourself. You knew it would strike a cord for him but you were scared, you were on the offensive.

With a deep sigh Regulus retrieves his bag from the spot it’d fallen to on the floor, pulling the book from the bag, bound in emerald green, Regulus hold it both far from his body and with a surprisingly tight hold, somehow both wanting it as far from him as possible and not wanting it to leave his grasp.

Though visibly ancient the book appears to be in remarkable condition, engraved on the front cover in gold leaf reads “Mendel's Most Malicious Curses”.

Studying the cover you don’t recognize the book’s title but based on what you’d glimpsed inside of its pages you hadn’t expected to. Even as a fifth year you doubt this would ever be included in O.W.L. curriculum.

Despite knowing better you can’t help but feel a strange, strong attraction to the book, an overwhelming urge consuming you to take that book. Your fingers itch at your sides as you imagine getting your hands on the book, wondering how hard Regulus would fight before relinquishing it from his grasp.

Somewhere in your subconscious you register that these thoughts are not organically your own, that somehow that book is influencing you and that in reality you want nothing to do with it. Frightened thoughts simmer at the back of your mind but they are lost in the shadows of your curiosity regarding the secrets that lie beneath the ornate designs swirling over the cover.

Expectantly you extend your arm, a nonverbal signal for Regulus to hand you the book but your movement throws him into action and has him clutching it close to his chest, both arms cradling the text.

“No no no no no,” He chants frantically, shaking his head as though to shake off the thought of relinquishing the book to you. “I can’t give you this (Y/N),” He swallowed deeply, shining silver eyes seaking out yours, ablaze with conviction.

“And why’s that?” You challenge with a raise of your brow.

Inhaling deeply he seems to be bracing himself to respond, “Because you’re a muggle born, it’s not meant for you to touch.”

You can feel rage bubbling up in your stomach, threatening to spill out your mouth in a flurry of angry words admonishing Reg for his remarks, “What? Is my simple muggle born mind not worthy enough to read words in that precious little pureblood book of yours? Do I need my pedigree intact to understand what it says? Not meant for mutts, is that it?”

You thought you were past this, you thought you’d left the aloof little third year you’d first met who’d called you a mudblood and asked you to move to a different table in the library because he didn’t want you looking at his charms homework behind.

Had the past year and a half of apologies and growth on Regulus’ part all been a lie? Was that hate not as small a part of your boyfriend as you’d thought? Did it really only take just shy of two weeks back with his biggoted relatives for him to start spewing this pureblood nonsense again?

Bouncing around in your head those questions overwhelm you as you try to ignore the most pressing one, pushing at the forefront of your mind.

Does he even love you?

“B-because you’re not a pureblood, this book (Y/N), it can’t be held by anyone not of pureblood,” Reg’s shaking voice broke through the flurry of questions wreaking chaos in your mind.

“God damn it Regulus! I thought we were past this! I thought-”

“It’ll kill you (Y/N)!” His voice is frantic and you pick up on the tears welling in the corners of his eyes, threatening to leak over.

Those words that seemed to carry a fatality in themselves cleared away the din clouding your mind, everything went silent. Too silent even as the implication of those words wash over you.

That book may as well be a gun, cocked and being held steady at your temple as you feel tears of your own begin to well in your eyes, distorting your vision.

The mess of questions doesn’t return to your mind, instead they begin thumping one by one at the base of your brain though they all carry through the same theme.

How could he have brought that near you?

“Kill me?” You curse yourself for how obvious your voice is shaking but the book that just moments earlier you were dying to get your hand on seems to have cast an oppressive air over the room and has you recoiling away from your boyfriend.

Regulus nods, holding eye contact with you as he slips the book back into his bag, sliding it under the sofa before cautiously striding towards you.

“That's why I can’t give it to you to look at, it's cursed and if you so much as bump it you’ll…” His voice trails off, the words too terrible to speak aloud.

Your arms wrap around yourself, clutching as hard as they can as you fight to wrangle your thoughts under control. His response revealed to you that he doesn’t intend to hurt you, not with the book anyways which has dozens of other worries popping up in your head. You’re desperate for answers as to what happened to Regulus at his house. He seems ready to give them to you as he offers to take you back to his dorm away from any prying eyes or ears that may lurk about in the Slytherin common room.

You’d both agreed to arrive back at school two days early hoping to get some alone time in but that didn’t mean that the castle was empty and that anyone couldn’t walk into his common room at any moment.

You stall as he lets you into his dorm, you’ve been there a thousand times, often under the mask of night but your usual spot, atop his always made perfectly bed, seems wrong now. Without answers to your countless questions the entire room feels foregin to you and leaves you standing by his desk, not quite leaning against it but also not quite supporting your own weight.

Regulus seems equally awkward but eventually settles on his bed, perched precariously on the edge of the mattress, he barely looks comfortable.

You stay there so long in silence that after a while your breathing syncs, the singular sound becoming the only noise in the drafty room.

Long after it becomes clear Regulus isn’t going to speak first and you finally tire of the silence you find your voice, somewhere deep inside of you summoning the words to your most pressing worry; “What happened at your house Regulus? What did they do to you?”

Your words have him crumbling, your usually stoic boy folding in on himself until he is but a ball hanging off the bed.

You hesitate for a single second before you’re racing towards him, dropping before him at his knees to cup his face in your palms. Directing his visage upwards to meet yours you feel your heart wrench in your chest as you take in his puffy, red eyes, red nose and flushed cheeks already marred with twin trails of salty tears cascading down his face.

“Regulus,” You choke out feeling tears from earlier resurface as you push yourself off the ground to take your place next to the scared boy beside you.

Pulling him into your lap as much as his size permits you too you take great care in cradling his head, clutching him to your chest as your rock gently back and forth humming into his hairline in hopes to calm his sobs. Raw and ragged they each tear at the fragile, brave exterior you’ve erected in hopes of comforting the boy, giving him something solid to hold onto.

Whispering sweet nothings into his ear you feel him melt into your touch, slowly the breathing becomes stronger and his sobs quiet to weak sniffles swallowed by the occasional gulp.

Feeling him shift under your touch you can tell he’s working himself up to something, he always gets fidgety when he’s trying to summon the courage to do something hard, his movement triggers a memory.

It floods through your mind as you’re reminded of a similarly terrified Regulus, knees bumping against the table at breakfast one lazy Sunday as he repeatedly bounced them, seemingly unable to sit still. He’d spent weeks working himself up to speaking to his brother for the first time in far too long.

The memory of him being so strong and brave even as the entirety of the Great Hall tracked his movement from the Slytherin table to the Gryffindor had you drawing a deep breath. The strength the memory provides you has you summoning the breath to prompt Regulus into some sort of explanation, anything.

“Reggie, your mother gave you that book didn’t she?”

He goes still at your words and even involuntary actions seem to still, his lungs draw no breath and his pulse seems to fade away under your touch.

“Bellatrix,” His voice is hoarse from crying, “Her idea of a Christmas gift.”

“That bitch,” You spit.

“Walburga’s was worse.”

You pause at the mention of her name, there is no doubt in your mind that he is the one who’s actions have sent Regulus into this downward spiral of despair and fear. You’re not even sure if you wanna hear what he has to stay but what you want stopped being important a long time ago.

“Do you wanna show me Reg?” You ask, breathless.

“No,” Comes his meak voice, “But I need to.”

You nod understandingly as you regrettably allow him to slip from your grasp so he can turn to face you, one leg tucked under his bum and the other hanging over the edge of the bed.

His eyes are downcast before he peaks them up through thick, dark lashes to meet your gaze, “Do you promise not to hate me (Y/N/N)? I don’t know if I can do this if you hate me.”

Your brows are drawn together as your response comes emphatically, “I could never hate you Regulus, I could never and I will never.”

“You can’t make that promise,” He says through a watery chuckle, leaving you wondering where the hilarity in the situation was. “I shouldn’t have asked you to.”

“Regulus,” You latched onto his hand before he could turn away from you, “I am incapable of hating you my love, please. Tell me what happened.”

Silver eyes locked with yours as though they would reveal the solidity of your promise. You’re not sure what answer he found in them but regardless he broke your gaze as he snuck his hand out of yours.

You watch as he slowly rolls up his sleeve and an idea as to what he’s going to show you begins to form and you find yourself regretting ever demanding to know what’s going on. You quickly shove those thoughts back down, there's no use in even entertaining them, ignoring your problems won’t make them go away.

Your worst fears are confirmed as Regulus rolls the sleeve of his black sweater to reveal swirling black ink sunk deep into his skin. Even just by looking at it you could feel the permanence of the ink, the meaning behind it causing a chill to shoot through your bones.

In the back of your head this had always been a possibility but not one you’d ever truly considered. You always thought that you would be able to get yourself and Reg away from everyone, from everything. Blood purity, the ministry, his family.

You were going to get out and you’d thought you’d have plenty of time, half way through his fifth year neither of you ever expected him to be forced to take the Dark Mark before his eighteenth birthday.

You were supposed to have until his eighteenth birthday.

Staring at the ink that seemed to pulse with life against the pale white of Regulus’ skin you suppose that it doesn’t really matter what you were supposed to have, what was supposed to happen. Regulus has taken the dark mark.

Godric, Regulus has taken the dark mark.

“Y-Your mother did this to you?” Your voice wobbles, anger, confusion, and terror evident in your voice, each betraying the strong front you’re trying to keep up for Regulus.

“She came for me in the middle of the night, (Y/N/N). First time I’ve ever been woken by her instead of Sirius or a house elf and she forced me up, made me get dressed before taking me downstairs and they were all there,” His voice cracks as a silent sob racks his body, you can only imagine how difficult it must be to relive the horrific events of that night. Hoping to provide him with any sort of comfort you inch closer to him, throwing your arm around his shoulder allowing him to rest his head on yours before continuing.

“They were all there (Y/N), not just her and Father. Bellatrix, Cissa and her husband, the Lestranges,” He pauses to swallow, “ And him. He was there.”

Regulus needn’t clarify who “he” was. The idea that he had even been near Regulus made you sick to your stomach and you could feel the distinct sensation of bile rising tickle at the back of your throat.

“Shhh, it's okay Reg,” You soothe, tightening your grip on him as sobs shake his body, “It’s going to be okay Red we’re going to figure this out.”

“He did this to me,” He sobs as he shakes in your lap, letting the enormity of his circumstances finally sink in after suppressing it for the past week, the fear of your response keeping him occupied.

To say you aren’t scared would be a lie, you’re fucking terrified but holding Regulus’ trembling form you know that this decision was not his. He would never swear allegiance to a group hell bent on destroying you and people like you, a few years ago maybe but not today. Not the Regulus you’d come to love, even if it began despite yourself.

Without hesitation you reach out, wrapping your hand around the skin now stained by dark magic.

Regulus let’s out a hiss at your touch and you feel him tense under your hand, afraid you’ve hurt him you start to pull away, “Does that hurt Reg?” You ask warily.

“Yes,” He spits out through gritted teeth, “But don’t let go please,” He pleads, raising his gaze to meet yours, “Please don’t let go.”

“Not gonna let go,” You promise, keeping your hold on his forearm tight.

Dipping your fingers under the strong bone of his mandible you turn his visage upwards to meet yours, heart breaking at the sadness and pain swimming in those beautiful grey eyes of his. Slowly you lean in before your eyelashes are brushing against the soft skin of his cheeks and your eyes flutter closed as you watch his do the same.

Your lips brush each other’s gently as your hand cups the side of his face, giving you complete control of the kiss as you keep the swipes of your lips light, you can just barely make out the taste of the pomegranate lip balm you’d given him as a part of your holiday gift to him.

“I didn’t wanna take it (Y/N/N),” He sniffles against your lips, “I don’t wanna be a Death Eater, I don’t wanna hurt you.” The sincerity in his voice has more tears welling in your eyes, you just can’t bear to see your beautiful boy in so much pain.

“Oh I know you don’t bubba I know,” You calm him, throwing a leg over to the other side of his lap so that you can perch yourself atop the hard smooth surface of his thighs. Gently pressing kisses along the canvas of his face you feel his arms wrap around your waist and the tips of fingers graze against your ass as his hands hover above it.

“Can I touch you please?” His words are barely audible but his desperation is loud and clear.

You grant permission as you lean forward to capture his lips in another kiss, this one more passionate than the last. Posing little, if any, challenge before letting your tongue delve into his mouth, quickly claiming dominance over his as you feel his palms clutch the globes of your ass, kneading the soft flesh as he holds onto you as tight as possible.

With care you slowly guide him onto his back as your lips trail from his down the column of his throat, in your journey down you leave sloppy hickeys along the delicate skin of his neck. Pulling away slightly you smile to see the various shades of purple and blue painted along his pretty ivory skin.

You know you’re going to have a real conversation about this later, what it means, what the two of you are ready to do about it but right now all you can think about is how you can make your pretty boy feel better, how you can show him that your love for him hasn’t changed. And there’s one way you know how to do that best.

“Do you want me to make you feel good Reggie?” You whisper against his skin as your lips ghost over his collar bone, drinking in his scent.

“Please,” He whimpers, “Need you.”

That’s all you need to hear before your hands are delving under the hem of Reg’s sweater, hands sliding against the smooth planes of his abs, your hands gliding over the occasional ridge of a long healed scar.

Sliding the hem up all the way to his collarbone you look down to see the beautiful lines of his chest and stomach. The scars you’ve become used to seeing a dark but faded pink now shine an almost brilliant purple as though the dark magic imprinted upon his arm had somehow interfered with scars caused by Walburga, most of them when he was much younger. You know for a fact that there are more ones on his back, deeper and darker from taking longer to heal.

“Come on pretty boy,” You coach, propping him up so that you can slip the soft sweater over his head before discarding it over your shoulder, “There we go, that’s a good boy.”

He lets out a low whine at your praising words as his hips thrust up towards yours which are perched directly atop them.

While removing your own sweater you smile, realizing it’s actually one of Regulus’ old Quidditch jumpers from the year prior. With no bra beneath your top your tits are left bare for Regulus’ viewing. His eyes gloss over as lust creeps into the stormy grey of his irises, they’re locked on your tits as though they’re the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

“Do these hurt more than normal baby?” You ask as your fingertips graze over the raised scars on his chest, if the dark magic of the dark mark made his scars more sensitive you wanna be careful not to hurt him.

“A little.”

Frowning you lean down to press your lips against the puckered scars, your kisses light and fleeting as you trace the dark lines with your lips.

Dancing from one scar to another you hear him exhale deeply and the tension seems to be slowly leaving his body as he settles into the mattress and he becomes malleable under your touch.

“You’re so beautiful Reg,” You praise against his scarred skin, needing him to understand just how much you love him.

“I love you so much,” You look up through your lashes to see Regulus’ eyes already locked on your body.

“I love you too.”

With that your lips are ceasing his once more as you feel the overwhelming need to comfort your boy. Gently, you grind your hips up against his as you become lost in the kiss, savoring the feeling of his lips against yours before you feel a familiar bulge pressing on you.

Your hand ventures back down the hard muscle of his stomach before you bump against the bulge of his erection, straining against the soft material of his sweatpants. You palm gently over his cock as your face buries itself in the crook of his neck, giving him sweet, light kisses while teasing his throbbing member.

“Please,” Comes his choked pleas at being teased, “Please, need more.”

“Of course pretty boy,” You promise as you lift yourself off of him, giving him one last kiss at the waistband of his sweatpants before helping him ease off his bottoms and boxers.

Once he’s devoid of all clothing you too strip down so that you’re both bare naked, your eyes are fixed on the red, weeping head of his half hard cock, sitting against the inside of his muscled thigh.

He whimpers as your hand wraps around his member, pumping up and down his hardening length, brushing your thumb along the sensitive tip of his cock.

“Wanna be inside of you,” He whimpers, hands grappling for your wrist to stall your movements and pull you on top of him but all he succeeds in doing is making you stubble closer to him.

You release your right hand from his cock, instead taking his hand in yours while your unoccupied hands resumes stimulating his member.

“I know you wanna be inside of me, pretty boy, but I gotta get you hard first.”

“But I am hard,” He argues in a pretty little whine, and now that he mentions it you realize that he is harder than he was when you’d pulled him from the tight confines of his pants.

“Your cock’s so gorgeous,” You murmur watching the way he twitches in your hand, “Think you’re hard enough now, yeah?”

He nods his head, squirming as he fights the urge to buck up into your hand.

Making sure that he’s comfortable, propped up against the pillow at the head of the bed you brush away the hair that’s fallen into his face as you straddle his lap, the shaft of his cock pressing against the warmth of your cunt.

Lifting yourself a few inches off his thighs your help guide his prick to your entrance, slowly sinking onto him you allow yourself to take your time accepting each and every inch of him inside of you.

Reg’s eyes are glued to your pussy as he watches himself disappear inside of you, all the way down to his base. His eye brows furrow from the overwhelming pleasure that swims through his veins, sinking deep into his every nerve at the bliss of being completely surrounded by your warm pussy.

Pleasure shoots up your spine at the sensation of slowly becoming full, once you’ve finally taken every inch of him inside you you throw your head back, mouth dropped open as the breath is stolen from your lungs. It feels so good to be so full with him you have to remind yourself to breathe.

“Good boy,” You say breathlessly, rubbing your arms up and down his flexing arms, fists furled with the sheets between them as he too adapts to the sensation that comes with being inside of you.

“You ready for me to move?” You ask once you finally become used to the full feeling.

Desperate nods answered your question, it takes you a minute to find your rhythm but soon you’re grinding his hips against his, lifting yourself slightly off his cock before grinding back down onto him.

Your movements are slower than usual when you fuck Reg, but after the terror he’d gone through in the past weeks you’re deliberate in your gentle movements.

As your hands grip the muscles of his arms you hear him take a sharp breath, your eyes fly open, landing on his face, your movements stalling before you realize that you’re clutching the newly marked skin on his left forearm.

“Oh baby I’m so sorry,” You apologize, loosening your grip on him as your lips frace the dark lines of the ink against his skin.

Seeing that mark on anyone else would’ve made you recoil, have ice shooting through your veins as fear petrified you. While you would’ve preferred never to see that symbol of hate tattooed into Regulus’ skin it didn’t evoke its usual reaction from you. The only fear you have is fear of the future, fear of what lies in wait for the two of you beyond the walls of Hogwarts, but it doesn't matter right now. All that matters is comforting your boy, all you think about as you press your lips to his mark.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when you hear sobs break through Regulus’ lips, quickly you abandon the stain of ink , moving to cradle his head so that your tits are right in his line of vision.

“I thought you were going to hate me,” He cries into your chest, tears wet the soft skin of your tits.

“No baby, I’ll never hate you, not ever.”

You feel the wet warmth of his mouth brush against your right nipple, gazing down you see his tongue lazily circling the pebbled flesh and you’re reminded just how cold the room actually is but pressed up against Regulus it feels like your entire body is on fire.

“You wanna suck on my titty Reggie?”

He responds with a weak nod and quickly you’re easing your nipple into his mouth, helping him find the correct angle all the while stuttering your hips against his.

“You fill me up so good Reg,” Your praise, fingers tangling in the dark mess of curls.

At your praise he begins lifting his hips in times with your thrusts, helping you as you fuck youself on top of him, wanting so desperately to make you feel as good as you make him.

“There we go, that’s a god boy.”

“M’getting close,” His words are muffled by the soft flesh of your tit stuffed into his mouth.

You too are nearing your orgasm as your clit brushes against the hard bone of his pelvis pulling a sharp whimper from you. To better grant Regulus access to your breast you’ve settled on rolling your hips in circles, ceasing the up and down movement from earlier so as to not disturb him.

A familiar tightness is brewing in your belly as Regulus’ hands run up and down your back before gripping the globes of your butt, maintaining as much physical contact as possible.

“Go ahead bubba, go ahead and cum. Fill me up pretty boy, want your cum. Need your cum. Godric I love you,” You ramble, seizing his lips again, needing them against yours as you feel him cum inside you.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” He mutters as your cunt grips around him with the tell tale signs of your quickly approaching orgasm.

“Y’gonna cum with me baby?” You ask as you press your lips to his forehead, his mouth having once more found the plush of your breast.

“Yes,” He nods, “Please.”

You throw your head back in ecstasy as your orgasm washes over you, wave after wave of pleasure racing through your veins as you ride out your orgasm, continuing to move your hips as you simultaneously help Reg through his. Stars flash behind your closed eyelids as the pleasure building up finally releases, sending you into euphoria so intense it seems to cloud your every sense.

The second he felt your cunt squeeze around his cock it tipped him over the edge and as he lost himself in pleasure, rope after rope of cum releasing inside of you, he tried his best to match the movement of his hips to yours.

You flutter your eyes open as the warmth of his cum floods your pussy as you come down from the height of your orgasm, letting yourself collapse so that your chest is pressed up against his.

With your chests pressed so close together you notice the exact moment that your breathing syncs, feeling as Regulus’ arms wrap around your bare torso keeping you close to his body.

“How are you feeling?” You murmur against the ivory skin of his chest, keeping your voice hushed.

“Better. A little happy.”

Glancing up you catch the smallest smirk slink across his lips as he stares up at the vaulted ceiling.

“Happy?”

“You make me happy,” His eyes flicker to yours as he pulls you closer to him causing his softening prick to slip out of your tight hole. You both hiss as the cool air hits his cock and the cum he’d emptied into you begins flowing out yout pussy.

Regrettably you push yourself off of him, pulling his sweater over your head before waddling into the connecting bathroom, being ever so conscious about the sticky white mess between your legs as you wet a washcloth using warm water from the sink before applying it to the insides of your thighs. Ginger touches hastily cleaning up the excess cum before rinsing the wash cloth to take it to Reg.

“Hey pretty boy,” You coo upon reentering the room to find him in the same position you’d left him in, “You ready for me to clean you up?”

“You look so beautiful in my clothes (Y/N/N),” He responds instead of answering your question, pushing himself onto his elbows so that he can watch you, his black sweater enveloping you all the way to your lower thighs.

“And you’re just beautiful,” You smile, sitting next to him on the mattress. You aren’t lying, he looks absolutely gorgeous leaning back, mop of dark hair in tangled tresses, grey eyes glossed over, abs sheening with sweat as are his equally toned thighs. Merlin bless the poor bastard who invented Quidditch.

Dragging up his muscled legs your eyes settle on his softening member, just as pretty as the rest of him.

With care you make quick work of cleaning the cum off his cock, resting your hand on his thigh when he tries to squirm away from your over stimulating touch.

“I know baby, I know but I gotta get you all nice and clean for me.”

“Hurts,” He mumbles in a pathetic pout.

“I know it does pretty baby but look,” You say, pulling the cloth from his skin, “All done already.” Pressing a kiss to his temple you go to stand but you’re quickly pulled back down to the mattress by cold hands wrapped around the warm folds of your waist.

“Don’t go,” He mumbles into your hair as he keeps you tucked into his side.

“Just gotta go put the washcloth back Reggie,” You explain trying to slip from his hold but he’s not having it and just tugs you back against the hard planes of his chest.

“No,” He says simply before reaching over to the bed side table where he’d set his wand, mumbling a quick banishing spell the rag flew from your hand before flying into the bathroom.

Resting your head against his strong shoulder you yank a blanket from the end of the bed up to throw it around your bodies, nestled close together.

“You said you were happy Reg.”

“Mhm,” He responds with a noncommittal hum.

“What else are you feeling, love?”

You hear him take a deep inhale, as his own answer seemed to overwhelm him, “I don’t know. I’m scared, I’m really scared but not so much now that I know that you don’t hate me.”

You nod against his chest, you can only imagine how petrifying that thought must’ve been for him and you can’t deny the tug you feel in your chest at the idea of Regulus ever thinking you would hate him.

“I’m still terrified but I think I’m gonna be okay.”

“I know you’re gonna be okay Regulus, you are capable and strong and smart and the bravest boy I have ever met,” You can feel the blush radiating off of him at your words.

“Thank you (Y/N/N),” He mumbles bashfully into your hair once more.

You were telling the truth, if there was one thing that you know for certain its that Regulus is just as resilient as he has proven to be and if Walburga, or anyone else for that matter thought he was going to take this lying down. If they thought you were going to take this lying down, they have another thing coming. There is no doubt in your mind that Regulus will fight for what he knows to be true and if there was ever a point that he would have obeyed his mother’s every command without question that time was long past.

Reg isn’t to be underestimated. He’s just as every bit courageous as he’s proved to be over and over again. To underestimate him is to dig your own grave; and unlike Walburga you aren’t ready to count him out quite yet. On the contrary actually, your boy wasn’t about to take this lying down and even if it meant total self destruction, the two of you are about to raise hell.

taglist: @randomoutsiders @weasleyposts @amourtentiaa @kittykylax @superbturtlemakerathlete @oliviashea05 @pinkandblueblurbs @thatvenusbabe @zzzfour @temporaryissue @gubleryum @msmb @marauderswhore07 @st0nesnglitter @priii @miraclesoflove @shadesofvelma @drachoesimp @artemis1orion @skaratjung @ava-brooke-blog1 @fairyprettygirly @ohwowimlonley @padfootswife @roonilwazlibswhore @swearingsolemnly @teenwolfbitches28 @lilypad-55449 @jamespotterslover @wh0reforthemarauders @myalupinblack @ashesandstars @daisyyy2516 @remugoodgirl @itzstacie @planet-wolfstar @steveharringtonswhore @saintlike78 @i-love-scott-mccall @thatdummymarie @trashyvicks @sprucewoodlover @slut4drvc0 @pagesbetweensheets @locnylupin @mjoubertt-1@blowing-mikey @slvt4fakerealities @kaqua @pottahishotasf

#Harry Potter fanfiction #Harry Potter fanfic #Harry Potter imagine #Harry Potter imagines #marauders fanfiction #marauders fanfic #marauders imagines #marauders imagine #regulus black fanfiction #regulus black fanfic #regulus black imagines #regulus black imagine #regulus black x reader #regulus black x you #regulus black x y/n #regulus black smut

746 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 3 years

Note

Re: money vs passion anon. Hard same. I don’t even want to make my passions my work. I actually have tried and it was like hell. I also tend towards hedonism and as soon as something becomes *work* it stops being fun at all. So I picked a career path that seems to pay decently that I don’t loathe but isn’t like… my “dream job” or anything. People still ask me why I enjoy doing it and the fact is… I don’t. But I also don’t care that I don’t. I work to live not live to work.

As people are saying on the other post, there's a big difference between a job you loathe—one that is terrible for your mental health—and a job you are indifferent to. A boring job that pays the rent and provides stability and structure is exactly what a lot of people around here need.

Freelancing sucks. Even if you can make enough at it, you're running your own business with all the headaches that entails. Many, many of the "cool" jobs people dream of are permanent freelance ones. These aren't a great combo with the cocktail of anxiety, depression, and executive function problems that a lot of people here have.

We should fight back against the idea that everyone has to "settle" for a job where they are emotionally abused all the time. But at the same time, we should also fight back against the idea that going for just some old job in a boring office but with a decent boss is "settling".

You don't have to find your ~calling~ in life. If you fail to find a ~vocation~, nothing has gone wrong. That's most people.

The very idea that the other anon was unusual is a symptom of the nonsense people get told about how they must have this pull to do something ~great~ deep down inside of them. (No. It's enough to live your life. You don't have to do anything special.) And it's also a symptom of hustle culture where every spark of passion for art or a topic or a hobby must be turned into some sort of side gig instead of just meaning you have a rich hobby life outside of work.

164 notes · View notes

c-optimistic · 4 years

Note

for your happy prompts ask, perhaps kara is a documentary film maker who follows ceo lena around for a doc and ends up falling in love with her by learning a bunch of little things she finds out during filming? also p.s. i absolutely adore your writing even when it tugs at the heartstrings. thank you for writing what you do! it makes my day everytime i see an update or get an email

She wasn’t allowed to see Lena Luthor until she’d signed so many papers that, if stacked together, would be taller than she was. She wasn’t even allowed to touch her camera around Lena Luthor until the woman herself, CEO extraordinaire, had personally vetted Kara out.

“You know,” Kara said as casually as she could, finding herself nervously adjusting her glasses when Lena’s cold gaze fell on her, “I usually have a whole team with me when I do this.”

“And I agreed to this on the condition that only one nosy filmmaker follows me around, not a whole team.” Lena’s reply was like everything else Kara had learned about the CEO thus far: she was blunt, a little harsh, tone and eyes cold and emotionless. She gave nothing away, not in her walk, in her mannerisms, in the ridiculously healthy food she ate, in the way she spoke to her employees or board members. She was cool, detached, wickedly smart, and utterly composed. “And I must approve the final result,” she added, gesturing to the mountain of paperwork Kara signed.

(Kara sighed internally, a tiny part of her sure Lena was a robot.)

“But it’s everything, right?” Kara clarified. “A total look into your life, no holding back?”

“You may follow me around to your heart’s content,” Lena said, leaning back in her desk chair, studying Kara intently.

“May I ask, Ms. Luthor, what made you agree to this, when you’re usually so distrustful of the media?”

Lena gave Kara a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “What made you ask to do this when you know I distrust the media?”

Lena hadn’t answered, so Kara knew she didn’t have to either, but she felt it was important to establish some kind of rapport with the woman she’d be following around for the next few weeks. “I’m of the opinion that things are rarely as simple as they seem from the outside, that’s all.”

“Well,” Lena said, looking pleasantly surprised and offering Kara a grin (a real one, one that touched her eyes and transformed her face), “perhaps that’s why I agreed to you doing this.”

“You’re one of Ms. Luthor’s closest friends, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Since before your daughter was born?”

“Yup.”

“So would you say you know her quite well?”

“Sure.”

“Do you plan on answering any of my questions with more than one word?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. So, in one word I suppose, how would you describe Ms. Luthor to a stranger?”

“Flawless.”

The rules of her arrangement with Lena were rather simple. For the next several weeks, Lena consented to having Kara around from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep. In return, Kara was not allowed in certain meetings at L-Corp, was not allowed to bring her camera with her at all when Lena went down to R&D, and if Lena asked for her to stop filming at any point, Kara was bound to immediately do so and erase any footage she may have inadvertently captured.

For the first two days of the arrangement, it was actually rather boring. Lena was awake before the crack of dawn, she didn’t acknowledge Kara’s presence as she made coffee and toast (though she did push a cup and a plate towards Kara), and then spent the next fifteen or so hours in her office, sifting through papers, answering phone calls and responding to emails, and forgetting meals. It wasn’t until the third day that Lena’s routine changed slightly.

She received a phone call at breakfast, and whoever it was caused a bright red blush to bloom on her cheeks. Kara zoomed in slightly on Lena’s face as she answered the call. “Now’s not really a good time, Sam,” she began, falling silent at whatever this Sam was saying on the other end. Lena’s eyes flitted over towards Kara, but to her surprise, she didn’t ask for Kara to shut off the camera. “That sounds terrible,” she said, sounding truly apologetic, something about her countenance changing. She seemed softer, more open, calmer than Kara had seen her yet. “And Ruby was so excited too.” Lena fell silent once more, nodding almost as if unaware of it. “I agree with her,” Lena suddenly laughed, still nodding, “it’s not fair at all. But there’s no way I’m not going to visit. Do you want me to bring anything?” Lena laughed again, and Kara wondered if her camera was capturing the change she was witnessing with her own eyes. “As if I could forget Ruby’s chocolate.” A pause. “Give her all my love.” Another pause, a tiny smile on Lena’s lips. “All right, I will. Bye.” As she hung up, she looked over at Kara, as if daring her to comment, everything about her shuttering at once.

“Who was that?” Kara asked, not really expecting an answer. To her surprise, however, Lena’s eyes flitted to the camera and she let out a soft, resigned sigh.

“That was my CFO, Sam Arias,” she answered, her tone a complete 180 from what she was using on the phone. She studied Kara for a moment and must have read something on her face, because her shoulders deflated and she motioned towards her phone. “Sam is my best friend. Her daughter, Ruby, is my goddaughter. We were supposed to go to the animal shelter today.” Lena smiled softly, almost as if unaware of it. “She’s finally convinced Sam she’s responsible enough for a pet. It’s actually—” Lena stopped suddenly, her eyes shifting to the camera once more, any warmth that had managed to leak out dissipating at once. “In any case, she’s sick. So we’ll have to reschedule.” She waved her hand towards the camera. “Can you turn that off, please?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Kara said quickly, making a show of turning the Camcorder off and setting it aside. “Is something wrong?”

Lena shook her head, leaning against her kitchen counter as she eyed Kara with something like curiosity. “You know, I’ve seen all of your other work,” she said after a moment, frowning at Kara like she was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out.

(Had she? Seen all of Kara’s work? A part of Kara was curious as to how, after all, most of her stuff was tucked away in a closet back in Midvale, waiting to be opened up and viewed during Christmas, when Alex would laugh at the films she’d made in high school about how the boys’ sports teams were unfairly given more attention than the girls’. The others were projects for her degree and one or two failed attempts to get a real production company to take the risk on her.

In fact, if not for Cat Grant’s decision as ‘The Queen of All Media’ to get involved in filmmaking, funding a project from a no-name creator, Kara wasn’t even sure she’d have the film she was making now.)

“Oh,” she said inarticulately, not quite sure how to word what she was really thinking. How rich did you have to be to be able to bribe anyone into giving you anything?

Lena nodded carefully, her face a perfect mask. If not for the way her eyes followed Kara’s every movement, Kara would’ve even thought that Lena was bored. “You’re very fond of certain themes. Hope. Love. Endless optimism in the best of humanity.” She said it like it was a bad thing. And it was suddenly Kara’s turn to lean forward on the opposite end of the counter, feeling her head tilt to the side questioningly.

“Is that what you got from my films?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Lena seemed wary of the question, standing up straight and crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “Isn’t that what you intended?”

“You know,” Kara said slowly, “I don’t actually believe in all that creator’s intent nonsense. I think we search for parts of ourselves when we consume art. So if that’s what you got from my films, that says more about you than it does about me.”

If anything, this seemed to offend Lena. “So you’d deny having any sort of intent with your work? What about making something with meaning?”

Kara laughed, shaking her head. “That’s not what I mean, and besides, who says art has to mean anything?”

“Of course art means something,” Lena argued, narrowing her eyes at Kara. “What’s the point of doing it if it doesn’t mean anything?”

Kara shrugged easily, giving Lena a small smile. “I disagree. I think art says something. But meaning is up to the people who consume it.” She picked up her camera and pointed it at Lena without turning it on. “Doesn’t matter what I intended to say with my films, you got meaning from it. So I’d say there was a point in making it, don’t you think?”

Lena eyed her for a moment, apparently not liking that Kara wasn’t giving her an answer, wasn’t telling her what she was trying to say with her work. But then, after several long seconds, she relented, letting out a chuckle and shaking her head. “Well, fine,” she said, her smile touching her eyes. “As long as you don’t try to say anything silly like hope, love, or endless optimism in the best of humanity with this film.”

“I’m afraid I can’t change who you are, Ms. Luthor,” Kara said softly, turning her camera on and effectively cutting off any response Lena may have had.

(And when she looks at the footage weeks later, she’ll freeze that frame, breath catching at the look on Lena’s face: the softness of her eyes, the curve of her lips, and the pleasantly confused crinkle between her brows.)

“Do you spend a lot of time with your godmother?”

“Oh yeah, loads! She’s great.”

“What sort of things do you do with her?”

“I mean, normal stuff? She takes me to get ice cream all the time. The other day, she rented that new horror movie that came out and watched it with me when I stayed over. My mom went nuts when she found out.”

“So you like her?”

“No, of course not. I love Lena. She’s my aunt, you know? She’s family.”

“And if you had the chance, what would you want the world to know about her?”

“That she cares, so much. And that she’s funny and super smart and helps me with homework and after my mom she’s the very best person I know.”

The visit to Luthor Children’s Hospital was, as far as Kara was aware, unplanned and in fact gave Jess a great deal of anxiety. For her part, Kara was mostly frustrated and annoyed, wondering if this film was worth it at all. Because Lena Luthor seemed to be asking Kara to turn off the camera more and more, especially when her day deviated at all and she was forced to leave her office.

(Walks in the park, lunches with her goddaughter, a touching moment with the child of one of her employees...all locked away somewhere in Kara’s memory, but destined to remain there instead of on film, where it should be.)

She huffed a little bit as she leaned against the wall, watching Lena walk quickly towards the group of nurses and doctors. She didn’t say anything when Jess joined her, a contemplative look on her face. “She always does this,” Jess told Kara after a long silence, rolling her eyes fondly. “She’ll cancel meetings last minute because she heard one of the kids in the hemoc ward has finished treatment or that they’re out of toys to give to the new patients.”

“Why isn’t there any press if she does this often?” Kara asked, turning to Jess but watching Lena out of the corner of her eye. She was talking to one of the doctors now, looking comically out of place with her designer clothes while surrounded by colorful artwork by kids that littered the walls of the Children’s Hospital.

Jess fixed Kara with an unimpressed look. “You’ve met her, right?” she asked rhetorically. “She goes out of her way to hide these visits. She says that she has to keep it under wraps because she wants to keep it about the kids and not her. But I think the truth is she’s just worried people would mistreat the kids and their families for allowing a ‘Luthor’ within ten feet of them.”

“Oh,” Kara said dumbly, a little stunned by the new information, and feeling guilty for her thoughts earlier. “That’s...awful.”

“I’m not telling you this for nothing, you know,” Jess continued, frowning at Kara. “She’s been avoiding lots of her usual charitable work since you’ve been around. The whole point of this was to get everyone else to see the real Lena Luthor, but she’s ruining it by being humble and noble.”

(Kara wanted to groan, roll her eyes, or better yet go over to Lena herself and shake her until she understood what Kara’s job was.

How was she supposed to make a documentary about Lena Luthor if Lena Luthor was so determined to hide herself away from the world?)

“What would you have me do?” she asked, not voicing her frustration, though it seeped into her tone anyway. “We have a deal, and she doesn’t want me to film these things.”

Jess shook her head, looking terribly unimpressed by the answer. “Don’t you have artistic integrity? Would you allow anyone else to boss you around and tell you what you could and couldn’t film?”

Kara looked over at Lena, who was now smiling at a young boy who had ambled up to her with his mother and infusion pump stand in tow. She watched as Lena actually dropped to her knees to talk to the boy, nodding vigorously at whatever he was saying. After a long moment, she turned back to Jess and shook her head. “No,” she said finally. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

And after Jess had given her another significant look before walking off, Kara raised her camera and began to film.

“Mr. Spheer, you’re an ex of Lena Luthor’s, right?”

“Ah, I see this documentary is quite personal. Are you sure that Lena is okay with this sort of thing going into her movie?”

“Well, it’s my movie. But she’s free to ask me to take things out.”

“Fascinating. Yes, I am Lena’s ex. I was quite brokenhearted when she broke it off to move to National City.”

“Oh, she broke it off?”

“So curious, Ms. Danvers. Perhaps you’re interested in something beyond a mere film?”

“W-what? No, that’s—please be serious, Mr. Spheer—”

“It’s Jack to you, my dear. What else do you need to know about Lena? Her favorite flowers are plumerias, her favorite food is—”

“—oh that’s really not necessary. If we could just focus on who Lena is as a person. A friend. A former girlfriend?”

“Hmm, yes. Well, just imagine your perfect woman, Ms. Danvers.”

“Oh, um, I—”

“—exactly, you see Lena. That’s an universal experience, I’m afraid. Lena is simply...too good for this world.”

“So you’d say the treatment she gets by the public is unfair?”

“It’s unfair how much people attack pineapple on pizza, Ms. Danvers. The way they speak of Lena without knowing her? That’s a pure travesty.”

They were about ten days into filming when Kara saw Lena relax for the first time.

She was using the word ‘relax’ rather loosely, of course. Lena didn’t do what Kara did after a long week—put on a pair of sweatpants, order loads of junk food, and watch so much Netflix that it eventually felt the need to ask her if she was still watching. In fact, Lena’s idea of relaxing was more work. Just, fun work.

She was dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, knees pulled up to her chest as she sat at her desk, mumbling under her breath as she did whatever she was doing. (She hadn’t bothered to explain to Kara, had just sighed and acquiesced to the presence of the camera in her home office.) Perched precariously at the tip of her nose were a thick black pair of glasses, her hair falling to her shoulders in gentle waves.

She looked different. Softer, somehow. Gone was all the trappings of a badass CEO, and all that was left was a clever (and beautiful) young woman, working on the things she loved in her spare time.

Kara zoomed in slightly, focusing on Lena’s face, on the furrow between her brows, her lips twisted in concentration. There was something there, something different, and Kara just wanted to—

“Is that camera heavy?” Lena asked, looking up suddenly, a curious expression on her face. She was good at that, the polite looks, gently asking for more information. Tiny eyebrow raises, nearly imperceptible softening of her eyes, lips quirked the slightest bit, all intended to disarm her quarry, making them drop their guard long enough that they give everything held close to their chest away.

“Not really,” Kara answered, grinning at Lena. This made the other woman blink in surprise, clearly not the response she was looking for, that expression on her face shifting suddenly, becoming more calculating. “I work out,” Kara went on to explain, shrugging easily, careful not to jostle the camera. “Besides, it’s not that heavy, I think about five pounds.”

“What kind of camera do you use?”

“Oh, it’s a Panasonic AG-HVX—” she cut herself off. “It’s not that interesting.” Kara adjusted her glasses and made sure Lena’s face was still in focus. Somehow, this made Lena’s tiny smile reappear. She stood up and circled her desk, and Kara was forced to back away to maintain focus.

“You love filming, don’t you?” Lena asked, and Kara blinked, not quite sure where she was going with this.

“Ms. Luthor, as I’m sure you’re aware, this film is about you.”

If she thought this would in any way cow Lena, she was wrong. Lena just grinned, looking like she’d somehow won something.

“Do you know what I don’t understand?” she said with faux casualness, crossing her arms and tapping a finger against her elbow. “Why would you, someone Cat Grant speaks so highly of, be willing to agree to this assignment? Something most people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.”

Kara frowned, not thinking as she responded. “It wasn’t assigned, Ms. Luthor. I pitched the idea. I wanted to do this.” Lena’s words sank in a moment later. “Wait. Cat Grant spoke highly of me?”

“Why?” Lena asked, no longer smiling.

Kara blinked at the change in tone. “Why what?” she asked, genuinely confused. This was, apparently, the wrong answer, because Lena chose that moment to begin pacing in front of her desk, looking more than a little bothered.

“I don’t get it,” she said as she paced. “I tried to figure it out, looked into you, into your work. I thought maybe you were doing this to build fame, but I’ve seen your work and even without a movie about the last Luthor, I have no doubt you’ll be very popular—”

“Oh, that’s nice of you, thank y—”

“—then I thought maybe you have a vendetta against my family and just want me to look bad,” Lena continued, barreling over Kara’s words and ignoring her entirely, “but the only connection between you and my family is your cousin, Clark Kent, and he’s the journalist who broke the story on my brother, so if anything I should dislike you—”

“That’s not exactly...Clark and I aren’t—”

“—so I really need you to explain it to me. Why did you want to make this film?” She paused her brisk pacing as she asked the question, meeting Kara’s eyes with a fierce look, one Kara was infinitely glad she was capturing on film. Because this, this glint in Lena’s eyes, was why Kara wanted to do this.

“Do you remember the speech you gave when you came to National City?” Kara asked, and judging from the way Lena’s eyebrows rose in response, she was rather thrown by the question. “Because I do. I watched it maybe a few dozen times. All those horrible questions, all the absolute certainty that you were like your brother, and you kept your head up and you promised to prove them all wrong, to make up for what he did.” Kara sighed, shutting off the camera and setting it aside gently. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I was...interested. I wanted to see more.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Did I meet your expectations? Disappoint you? What?”

Kara smiled, unable to help it. “Does my opinion on you really matter?”

“Do you always answer a question with another question?” Lena shot back, eyes narrowing.

Kara’s smile just widened and she began to gather her things, preparing to leave for the night. Impressively, Lena didn’t question her further, just watched her then followed her to the door, looking rather cross. Pausing briefly to adjust her glasses and the strap of her bag, Kara turned suddenly and met Lena’s eyes. “You exceeded them. My expectations, that is,” Kara added when Lena offered only a quizzical look in response.

For a moment, Lena didn’t react, then that same look from her office—the softness of her eyes, the curve of her lips, and the pleasantly confused crinkle between her brows—overtook her expression, and she let out a laugh.

“Well, good then.”

“You went to boarding school with Ms. Luthor?”

“I don’t think that’s public knowledge, how do you know that?”

“Um, Ms. Arias told me about you. She mentioned your relationship with Ms. Luthor is unique.”

“Well, Sam would know, wouldn’t she?”

“Ms. Rojas, if you don’t want to speak to me, you don’t have to.”

“It’s fine. Look, Lena and I have been estranged for a while now. I...I did something to break her trust.”

“So would you say that Ms. Luthor is difficult to get along with?”

“No, I’d say that Lena values things like honesty and trust, and—you know that Austen novel? With the man who says that once you lose his good opinion, it’s gone forever?”

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“Exactly. Lena is like that.”

“Ms. Luthor is like Mr. Darcy?”

“No, she’s classic. No matter what’s going on, she’ll endure.”

“So...you were the one difficult to get along with?”

“Have you ever thought about taking your work to a whole new level, Kara? How do you feel about virtual reality?”

“Oh, um, I don’t have particular thoughts? But I’d love to know yours about Ms. Luthor. For the film.”

“She won’t believe this, or that I’m saying it coercion free, but Lena is...a visionary. More than that, she’s just a decent person. Which is more than most of us can say, don’t you think?”

After their conversation, Lena opened up dramatically.

(Well, dramatically was a stretch, but considering how closed off she’d been before, the difference was rather drastic.)

Kara filmed Lena’s visit to an animal shelter, capturing the way her fingers gently ran over the fur of the dog that immediately trotted over to her, placing its head in her lap. Lena had then explained that she went to shelters often, just to volunteer, as she was unable to adopt for fear of not having time to give the dog the attention it deserved.

Later that week, Lena let Kara stay later than usual, putting on some music as she got to cooking, going as far as to teach Kara the basics of the dish, laughing when Kara admitted that her skill in the kitchen was limited to making sandwiches. At one point she grabbed the camera and set it aside, dragging Kara into the kitchen, giving instructions and lessons as she swayed her hips to the music.

(It was silly, it was lighthearted, it was fun, and Kara couldn’t help it.

She forgot she was there to make a film.)

And as the days and weeks dragged on, when Lena showed off her skills at the piano—apologetically explaining she hadn’t had time to really play in months—or when she told Kara about her very ‘nerdy’ stamp collection or even when Lena seemed to ignore there was a camera between them and she began to talk about her day and her hopes for the weekend, Kara forgot that it was a job. She forgot that she was supposed to be making something, paying attention to more than Lena’s smile or the way her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned work she was particularly passionate about.

Somewhere along the way, Kara cared more about the opportunity to spend time with Lena than she did the film itself.

More worryingly, that realization didn’t even bother her.

“Why filmmaking?” Lena asked one morning, pushing coffee and toast towards Kara with a tiny smile. The camera was still in its bag, untouched since Kara had arrived nearly an hour earlier. “Why not journalism like your cousin?”

“My cousin and I,” Kara began awkwardly, adjusting her glasses, “well, our relationship is a little strained, I guess.” She didn’t need the slight tilt of Lena’s head to know that Lena wanted her to keep going, to explain further. She let out a soft chuckle and rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Um, so my parents died when I was twelve. And Clark sort of...left me? I went to live with the Danvers instead, and they bought me a camera for my birthday.” Kara grinned at the very memory, still able to feel its weight in her hand, the eyepiece against her eye. “It was one of those old camcorders, do you remember? The ones with the tapes? I drove them nuts, filming literally everything. I don’t think they ever saw my face for the first few months I was with them, it was constantly behind the camera.” She didn’t explain why she wanted to document every moment with her new family, but judging from the way Lena’s eyes softened, she understood anyway. “From there it became serious. I started making films. School projects, etc. Now I’m here.”

“Why documentaries? Why not something like...oh, I don’t know, action movies?” Lena prodded, looking curious, looking interested, looking like the answer mattered.

Kara just shrugged, suddenly not able to look Lena in the eye. “I guess there’s a part of me that wanted to take after Clark.”

“How long have you been working for Ms. Luthor?”

“Um, this December will make seven years.”

“As her assistant, you have remarkable access to her. What’s she like?”

“Driven, ambitious, works way too hard. I don’t think she’s ever taken a holiday or even a break...but um, maybe don’t say that in the film.”

“Artistic integrity, remember? She works hard, that’s clear. But what about personally? Her relationship with you and the other employees? What kind of boss is she?”

“She cares a lot. A few years ago, before Lex Luthor, well. You know. Before all that, LuthorCorp was facing serious losses. Mr. Luthor wanted to just get rid of entire departments, but Ms. Luthor said the research was vital, and more than that, the researchers were important. She convinced her brother to keep them on—she won’t admit it, but it was more than being persuasive. She paid for it out of her own pocket.”

“So you’d say she’s charitable?”

“No, she’s passionate. And she fights for the things she believes in. Ms. Luthor likes to say that charity implies pity, and she doesn’t do anything out of pity. She just does what’s right by people.”

“Some would disagree, they’d argue that LuthorCorp, and by extension its new iteration, L-Corp, don’t care about people, but about profits. Do you think that’s a fair assessment of the company you’ve devoted seven years to?”

“Look. I get it, people are suspicious of L-Corp because it used to be LuthorCorp. But it’s not just a name change. When Lena took over, she gutted her company. There’s not a single program left from Mr. Luthor’s time as CEO. L-Corp is all Ms. Luthor.”

“So if L-Corp is Ms. Luthor, who is Ms. Luthor?”

“She’s a woman who’s been hurt all her life, Kara Danvers, and whose only goal is to keep as many people as she can from hurting too. Sometimes I just wish she realized she doesn’t deserve to be hurt anymore either.”

“Oh.”

“Also, I don’t care about your artistic integrity, that last bit does not go in the film.”

One afternoon, when Kara was dangerously close to dozing off on the couch in Lena’s office—camera turned off and set aside, not really needing more footage of Lena working at her desk—Lena suddenly jumped to her feet, an excited gleam in her eyes.

“They’ve done it,” she said, the smile forming on her lips so wide that Kara found herself smiling back.

“Done what?” Kara asked, fairly sure this would lead to Lena’s refrain of ‘that’s company business and I’m afraid you’re not privy to that information’ but instead, Lena looked at her appraisingly, then rolled her eyes.

“If I allow you to bring your camera in R&D, do you swear not to film my ongoing projects?”

“You’re going to let me film in R&D?” Kara said excitedly, jumping to her feet and grabbing her camera.

“Kara, do you swear?”

“Yes, yes, of course, Ms. Luthor. I absolutely swear.”

And the next thing Kara knew, she was filming in the one place she’d been told was off-limits, capturing the lab and Lena talking to her researchers animatedly about the advancement they’d made in gene therapy, not entirely surprised when Lena shoved the scientists towards Kara and urged them to brag about their achievement—while also warning them to be as vague as possible—and then sank into the background, clearly thrilled to have her scientists as the center of attention.

And later, when Lena decided to actually take a lunch hour as a ‘reward’ for the great strides L-Corp had made, she took Kara along, bought three different appetizers, and smiled her wide smile before she said, “It’s Lena, by the way. Just Lena.”

Mouth still bulging with the three potstickers she’d practically inhaled, Kara couldn’t manage much more than a nod, but later—when she was alone—she tried saying the name aloud, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

“Mrs. Luthor—”

“It’s doctor, actually.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Dr. Luthor. You adopted Ms. Luthor when she was four, is that correct?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time for this nonsense. I consented to this interview only to say one thing: Lena was always the more clever of my children, but she’s foolish and soft, and this silly film is yet another example of that.”

“You agreed to meet with me to just say...that. Okay. That’s um. Fine.”

As the weeks dragged on, Kara had little reason to continue filming. Her deadline with Cat Grant was fast approaching, and she had more than enough footage. All that really remained was editing, of putting the final pieces together. But she found herself filming anyway.

Every day, she’d make her way to Lena’s apartment, making flimsy excuses about how certain footage was no good, or had been corrupted, and that she needed retakes of Lena doing ordinary things (like reading the paper, cooking dinner, or talking about her day). She knew that Lena could tell her excuses were just that, but mercifully, Lena didn’t seem to want to call her out on it, merely gave soft reminders not to stay up so late every night to edit (the ‘you could just as easily stop wasting your time here and be editing during normal hours’ going unsaid).

(Jess had rolled her eyes when Kara came by L-Corp and Lena mentioned offhandedly that Kara somehow hadn’t gotten a shot of Lena entering her building in all the time she’d shadowed the CEO, and wasn’t that odd?)

But what Kara knew, what made her stretch out these moments as long as she possibly could, was that once the final product popped into existence, once she showed Lena and got her okay to send off to Cat Grant, that was it.

No more Lena.

And that terrified her.

(So she gathered more footage, fruitlessly hoping that the final product would never be ready, dragging her feet at every step.

She edited, studying Lena’s every expression, tried to pinpoint the exact moment she’d started to fall for the not-so-detached CEO extraordinaire, and wished it didn’t all have to come to an end.)

Two days after Kara had sent Lena the finished film, she got a curt email from the CEO herself with only three words: come see me.

Jess gave no indication about how her boss was feeling when Kara arrived, merely stared evenly at Kara and gestured with her head for her to just go on in. When Kara tried to ask her, Jess shook her head, pointed at the door to Lena’s office, and made a shooing gesture.

“It’s odd to see you without a camera,” Lena said when Kara sat down across from her, trying to keep her hands from fidgeting.

“It’s odd to be in here without a camera.” Kara took a deep breath. “Did you watch it?” she blurted, unable to keep it in. “What did you think?”

“You’re really fond of certain themes,” Lena said, then she raised her eyebrow. “You also filmed quite a bit when I had asked you not to.”

“Artistic integrity?” Kara tried, and Lena...laughed.

“I don’t know if I agree with the way you portrayed me,” she said slowly as her amusement faded. “You took a lot of liberties.”

“I was very faithful to the subject of the film, Lena.”

“What do you think you were trying to say?” Lena asked, waving off Kara’s comment.

“What meaning did you get from it?”

Lena studied her for a moment, as if she was trying to read Kara’s mind. “I’m not some selfless genius, Kara.”

“Is that what you think the film is saying?” Kara asked her, not rising to the obvious bait. “Like I said, Lena. I was very faithful to the subject of the film.” For a long moment, Lena didn’t respond, and Kara felt the worry she’d managed to push away since sending the film to Lena creep back in. “Does this mean you don’t approve of the film?”

“Hmm?” Lena said, distracted. “No, I’ve already sent it along to Cat Grant, giving my okay. Even though you broke our agreement, I can’t deny the final result was very favorable to me.”

“I wouldn’t have made something that wasn’t completely true,” Kara said, somewhat hotly, most of her irritation bleeding away with the knowledge that Cat Grant was in possession of the final product, that the rest was up to her.

Lena smiled, eyes soft, and she nodded her head almost incredulously. “No, you wouldn’t. I know that.” She cleared her throat, seeming a bit nervous. “But I was thinking. I’ve been missing our talks about your work, and I know you don’t like talking about what you’ve made, but perhaps you’d make an exception for me. Would you be willing to give me a private showing of your film? Give me all the insider secrets? I know your subject quite well, it would be a fun exercise.”

Kara’s heart slammed to a stop, the jump-started at the sight of Lena’s amused eyes, that tiny curve of her lips. “A private showing, huh?” Kara mumbled, feeling a little dazed. “I still won’t tell you what I was trying to say.”

“That’s completely fair.”

“But I suppose I could give you some insight on my thoughts.”

“Only if you wanted.”

“It may have to be more than one session,” Kara said, trying and failing to stop the spread of her smile. “There’s a lot of footage you know.”

“So it’s a date?” Lena asked, and Kara couldn’t help her eager nod.

“It’s definitely a date.”

#thank you so much!#supercorp #fanfic

1K notes · View notes

bailey-reaper · 3 years

Note

Barok getting roped into a Dance of Deduction by Herlock while out on an investigation. Either as the subject of the dance, or Herlock's dance partner.

Of Death & Deductions

Notes: Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to this one, anon - it's such an amusing premise and I've been trying to think of the best way to deliver it! Hopefully this offering is alright!

Content Warnings: Herlock. Sholmes.; Tia tries to create a Logic & Reasoning Spectacular; tries is the operative word...; I'm sorry Capcom.

"Mr. Reaper!"

Herlock announced his presence loudly and with dramatic flair as he threw himself through the Prosecutor's (thankfully open) window and rolled along the floor before hopping up to a stand before the man's desk.

". . ."

Barok was quietly penning a letter to the Attorney General's Office at the time, and his pen did not even flinch at the sudden appearance of the irksome detective. Instead, he ignored his 'guest' (lit. intruder) and continued with his work.

"What? No welcome?! Not even a cry of shock!? I'm disappointed... clearly I must redouble my efforts," Herlock folded his arms while looking thoughtful.

"... A novel suggestion," Barok said, not looking up from his letter, "But perhaps try the door next time and, shockingly, maybe arrange an appointment?"

Herlock arched an eyebrow, "That's far too boring, my good fellow!"

"Ah yes..." having finished his letter, Barok set the quill down and powdered the paper so the ink would take hold, "Silly me," he folded it in half, slipped it into an envelope and proceeded to seal it with wax, "... Fine. Why are you here?"

"I'm SO glad you asked! There has been a murder most foul not far from here, I wondered if you might wish to accompany me to the scene!"

Barok arched an eyebrow, wondering why the detective had come here to inform him rather than a policeman. Still, it would be remiss of him to ignore the problem, "Why didn't you say that sooner?"

"I've said it at the appropriate time, now let us be off ── posthaste!"

──────≪⊰✥⊱≫───────

They arrived at Madam Tusspells in record time and went into the 'Law and Order' exhibition, where a number of prominent figures from the world of law were preserved in wax forever more - including Lord van Zieks himself.

He paid his own waxwork no heed, even though the corpse was collapsed before it.

"Now, dear fellow, everything is ready and thus it is time!"

"Time for what?" Barok asked, peering at the detective.

"Why!" Sholmes held up a finger and smiled, "Time for the main attraction that is Herlock Sholmes's 'Logic and Reasoning Spectacular'!!"

"... huh?"

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱 𝔇𝔢𝔡𝔲𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫

..... The game is afoot!

𝔗opic 1: the victim's identity

Sholmes (somehow) casts a spotlight upon the corpse, "Firstly, we must consider the man's attire. He does not appear to be wearing a uniform that would identify him as a member of staff. The fact he is wearing a suit might point toward him being a member of the nobility, but no! Look at how ill-fitting his suit is and how he clearly ignores all good and proper fashion trends. Clearly this man is an undercover police officer!"

"Let me stop you there," Barok interjected, already annoyed by the monologue, "This man clearly is not a police officer."

"Oh ho! So the reaper waits for no one! You wish to correct my deductions ad lib? Well... it's unconventional, but very well Mr. Reaper! What's wrong with my deduction?"

"This," Barok held up a business card, "The man is a fine arts dealer by the name of Maurice De Lioncourt. It would appear he is here on a visit from France, given that he also has his passport on his person with corresponding details."

"Oh ho! Well, yes, that wraps this topic up rather nicely!" Sholmes exclaimed.

ℭonclusion: the man is an undercover policeman a fine arts dealer by the name 'Maurice de Lioncourt'!

"Onward, then! To the second deduction!"

"Do we have to?" Barok muttered.

Apparently the answer to that was a resounding yes--

𝔗opic 2: the cause of the victim's demise

"So that leaves but one mystery for us to unravel, my dour friend! How did this poor visitor to our shores meet his untimely end?! I believe the truth of the matter is plain as day and incredibly shocking!"

Barok sighed, knowing full well the answer was about to be mangled into some nonsensical drivel by the 'Great Detective', "... Do tell."

"It is obvious that this man is a thrill seeker! Those who deal in fine arts clearly enjoy the heart pounding terror that comes with purchasing works and not knowing whether they've secured a genuine article or a terrible fake! With that devil may care attitude, our poor victim came to the Madame Tusspells Museum of Waxworks with the intention of being entertained -- but clearly he got more than he bargained for when he came face to face with the terrifying visage of a real life vampire! The horrifyingly pallid and dour face no doubt sent him into the throes of a most awful shock, causing him to suffer a most sharp and unmistakably fatal heart attack!"

"OBJECTION!" Barok snarled, "Are you truly going to suggest that the man, upon seeing a wax work of me, went on to suffer a heart attack?!"

"Indubitably my good fellow! Yours is a face that strikes fear into the hearts of hardened criminals! Think what it would do to an innocent museum goer!"

"This ... is ridiculous!" Barok hissed as he glowered at the detective, "Your narrative is full of holes!"

"Oh ho is that so? Then do feel free to point out where I've gone wrong, good fellow!"

"First of all, you claim the man is a thrill seeker who enjoys being terrified but this is NOT the 'House of Horrors' where one would go to be thusly terrified! This is the Law and Order exhibit!"

"Well perhaps this terrifying waxwork of a vampire has been mistakenly placed in the Law and Order exhibition?" Holmes opined.

"It's a waxwork of ME, man! And I am not a vampire!" Barok shot back indignantly.

"I fear the jury is out on that one, Mr. Reaper, but I suppose it's true enough that you are a Prosecutor so your waxwork might well be placed in the Law and Order exhibit. Pray tell, then, if you claim this man did not suffer a fatal heart attack upon laying his eyes on your most formidable and imposing visage, what did kill him?"

"Oh I wonder... Perhaps the knife in his back?!"

ℭonclusion: the man suffered a heart attack upon seeing Prosecutor van Zieks' face was stabbed in the back with a knife!

𝔇𝔢𝔡𝔲𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 ℭ𝔬𝔪𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔢!

....... Elementary!

"And thus concludes Herlock Sholmes's 'Logic and Reasoning Spectacular'!" Herlock announced proudly, before sighing and looking dismayed, "I have to say, Mr. Reaper, you make for a rather woeful dance partner... your sense of decorum is quite shot! I shan't be in a hurry to invite you to take part in one of my Deduction Dances."

"Good, never darken my door again and call the police for God's sake man!" Barok snarled, before stalking out of the museum and directly into a Hansom, "To the Prosecutor's Office, good man, and send the bill to 221B Baker Street."

Sholmes sighed as he watched other man leave, "... Truly I do miss that brilliant young man... come back to London soon, Mr. Naruhodo!"

#barok van zieks #herlock sholmes #silliness #request

50 notes · View notes

capricornwriter5 · 2 years

Text

Always on time - Chapter 2

Pairing: Jooheon x female OC

Genre: childhood friends to enemies, enemies to friends, friends to lovers, smut (later chapters), fluff, angst, slow burn.

Words: 6k

« Previous Next »

Chapter 2

Jules' heels resonated in the wide gallery space with every step she took. She had a lot to do. A renowned Japanese artist had chosen the art gallery she worked in to make the first exhibition of his new collection of paintings. Julianne had been personally involved in the planning of each of the details of the exhibition. From the order in which the works would be arranged to the type of napkins they would have in the snack area, everything had passed through her hands and nothing had left without her approval.

"This light bulb has to be changed," Jules told one of her assistants, "the color of the light is not right and out of tune with the others. And here, you have to raise the label of 'Don’t touch' to be at the level of people’s eyes..."

So it went on all day. Julianne worked out all the details for the exhibition that would take place the next day. This was her biggest and most important project so far, it had to be perfect.

Once everything was ready, Julianne left the gallery and headed for her car to go home. Just as she sat behind the wheel, her phone rang. It was Kang-Dae.

"Hi, oppa, I just finished at the gallery and..."

"Julie-ah, you forgot about today, right?" he interrupted her in mid-sentence.

About today?

SHIT, ABOUT TODAY!

"Oppa, I’m so sorry" Julianne began to say "I lost track of time, I remembered the event all week and today I forgot. What time is it? It’s not that late, I still have time to get there, right? I think in the car I have an elegant pair of shoes and a nice blazer and a bag to go with them. Yeah, here they are, I just put them on and that’s it".

"Julie, Julie" she was cut by him "calm down, love, I didn’t mean it as a claim, I’m sorry if it sounded like that. I know you’re busy with tomorrow’s exhibition. Don’t worry, in any case, it’s very boring, I think I’ll leave right after dinner, so go home and rest. I’m sure your feet are killing you after a whole day of walking in heels. Don’t worry and go to rest, I’ll take care of my mother, I’ll tell her something and she will understand”.

Julianne felt terrible. How could she have forgotten that today was the gala where her mother-in-law would be recognized for the charities she has promoted? God, she had to be stupid.

"I’m so sorry, oppa" she apologized. "My head is in the clouds. I know how important tonight was for your family and I wanted to be there with you. I can still make it, you know? The blazer and the extra shoes were true".

"Nonsense" he said. "The last thing I want is to force my girlfriend to come to an event full of strangers after a hard day’s work. Don’t worry about anything, I mean it".

"Well... okay, I guess we can..." she started saying, but she was cut by her boyfriend.

"Ah, Julie, I’m sorry, but they’re calling me. I have to hang up. Rest and we’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t worry about anything, love, okay? Well, goo night" and with that, Kang-Dae ended the call.

Julie sat still for a moment. He was busy, she understood but having a sentence cut off never feels right. Anyway, it was nothing to go thinking too hard about, so Julie just put her cell phone back in her purse, put on her seat belt, and started the car.

The streets weren’t so full of cars. Judging by the time, office workers had long since left their jobs and were probably having dinner with their families or colleagues. In addition, it was Wednesday night, so the bars and roads were not as crowded with young people as on weekends. Julie appreciated that the traffic was light, so she could put the radio on and clear her mind a bit to the rhythm of the music.

At that time a song from a group of female idols began to play. Julie didn’t follow any bands, but she knew some songs from some groups and always liked discovering a new band she liked. Sometimes she missed her school days when she had enough free time to spend listening to music half the day. In those years she discovered many artists, both national and foreign, who caught her attention and also heard many genres that her mother-in-law would probably disapprove of. The lady was... conservative.

Of course, she didn’t discover them alone. He always had something new to show her.

No, Julie, don’t think about the past, she said to herself as she shook her head.

Julie stopped the car in front of a red traffic light and breathed a couple of times to put her mind blank. There was no point in remembering those things, anyway, she was sure he didn’t waste time with those memories.

The light changed from red to green, but Julie didn’t notice. She was immersed in her thoughts until the car horn behind her made her jump in her seat and she realize she had to move forward. She stepped on the accelerator and, shaking her head once more, concentrated on the road ahead until she reached her apartment building.

*****

Julie was ready to go to rest. She had arrived at the building where she rented an apartment a couple of hours ago. She cooked dinner, read for a while, and was done with her night routine. She was ready to turn off the light when her cell phone started ringing.

She picked it up from her bedside table and saw that it was her mother calling. Considering it was already late, Julie immediately answered thinking something had happened, but her mother’s cheerful voice quickly calmed her down:

"Julie! Sweetie, how are you?" her mother greeted her as soon as she answered the call.

"Hi, Mom" she replied. "Is everything okay? It’s a little late".

"Oh, Julie, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice what time it was. I was just talking to Jooheon’s mom, your friend from school, remember?"

Julie froze. She did not expect that question from her mother.

"Sweetie, are you still there?"

"Ah? Ah! Yes, yes, I am still here" she said. For the second time that night, she had been left speechless by Lee Jooheon. What was wrong with her?

"Do you remember him, sweetie?" insisted her mother. "You were so close. You did everything together, even getting into trouble".

"Yes, Mom, I remember," Julie said. "What about him?"

"Well," his mother continued, "although I know that you are no longer in touch because of work and so on, I have talked to Jooheon’s mom a few times these years. I told her about you and your job and she told me how hard her son works and how hard it is to be an idol and..."

"Mom, he’s not the only one who has a difficult job," Julie said a little upset. Her mother had always worshipped Jooheon, it’s true, and she had sometimes been jealous. She thought she had moved on from it... apparently not.

"Sure, honey, you work hard too, I know," her mother replied with a calm tone. "Anyway, she told me that she had prepared a special gift for Jooheon for his birthday. It’s in a week, remember? And it turns out that today he and his band have the last concert of their tour in Seoul, so she thought it would be nice to prepare a presentation with pictures of Jooheon as a baby, isn’t that an adorable idea?"

"Emmm, yes, I suppose," Julie said. In reality, "adorable" would not be the word she would use: embarrassing, strange, unsuitable to the public would be more appropriate adjectives.

"I know, right?! Oh, and she told me that you’re in most of the pictures, so she is going to send me a copy of the presentation. I can send it to you if you want".

"I’m fine, Mom," Julie replied as she yawned. "That was a long time ago, I don’t need the pictures".

"Oh, sure, I understand," her mother said somewhat discouraged.

Julie felt bad about answering her mother with such a dry tone, but the last thing she needed was more memories of him.

"Mom, I’m sorry, but today was a very tiring day. Would you like me to call you tomorrow morning?"

"Oh, yes, yes, sweetie, go and rest," her mother said. "I’m sure you’re super tired with tomorrow’s exhibition coming on, but you’ll see that everything will be perfect. Anyway, I’ll leave you. Sweet dreams, Julie".

"Good night, Mom".

4 months later

Julie was happy. She felt that her hard work was finally being recognized.

Her last exhibition had been a total success, they even had to extend it one month more and several recognized critics had written favorable reviews of the artist, his works, and the curating process carried out by Julie and her team.

It was not the first time that an exhibition organized by Julie was reviewed in a newspaper, but they had never been as successful as this one and they had never had to expand the time the exhibition was open to the public. Everyone was happy: the artist, her boss, her boyfriend. Everything was perfect.

Now, a month after that project had ended over, the art gallery was still receiving visitors and Julie was looking for ideas and inspiration for her next exhibition. Her boss had sent her to some art auctions to renew the selection of the gallery and Julie had had the opportunity to see other styles and artistic techniques, but nothing that caught her attention.

"Julie-ssi, do you have a moment?" her boss said outside her office.

"Sure, Mr. Kim, what do you need?" she asked.

"We have a special order. He’s a private client who’s looking for a work of art that is, and I quote, 'new, fresh, novel, different from what collectors usually buy, something your grandchildren would like to throw away for not knowing how to appreciate it, but they would never do it because it would remind them of their beloved grandfather and his extravagant taste,'" Mr. Kim said, reading on his tablet the email that had reached him.

"Emmm, ok. That’s both specific and ambiguous" was the only thing Julie could say to such a... particular request.

"It is. I was thinking about you helping me with this."

"Me?" Julie asked a little worried. She could organize large events and exhibitions without much trouble, but buying for private clients was not her strong suit. The taste in art was very subjective and, well, sometimes people’s standards were hard to achieve. And someone who gave a description like that fell into the "tough customer" box.

"Yes, but don’t worry too much," her boss told her. "It says here that he is evaluating options, so what he wants is that we send him options of works that can fit that description and, if he is satisfied, he will contact us to make the purchase".

"I understand," Julie said. "Well, I guess I can pick something up and send it to him by the end of the week."

"Perfect, Julie-sii!" her boss said. "Well, I’ll leave you to it. I look forward to the proposal on Friday morning" and with that, Mr. Kim left her alone.

It was only Tuesday, and it was 1 p.m., so she had two and a half days to put together a proposal with a selection of works for the client to choose from. The selection parameters were: new, fresh, novel, different from other collections. It wasn’t like that restricted the options, but it was a starting point. At least she could set aside any work made with classical or traditional techniques.

Where could she start looking? Following artistic trends? Year? Theme? Period? Artist?... What if she started with the type of work, the materials, or the media? The client never said if he wanted a painting, a sculpture, a portrait, an engraving... he just said "artwork," so Julie could start her search based on the type and material of the artwork.

After a couple of hours, Julie decided to put together the proposal with photographic works. She selected some fine art photography and abstract photography pieces from artists such as Kirsten Mitchell, Elzime, James McLarnan, Alex Stoddard, Corrie White and Alan Cleaver. She was so focused that she didn’t realize how late it was. The clock said it was 10 p.m. and Julie was the only one left in the gallery. She decided to stop for today, tomorrow she would review the proposal, make sure the selected pieces were available for purchase and send the document to Mr. Kim.

****

On Friday morning Mr. Kim knocked on Julie’s office door again with a smile on his lips.

"Good morning, Julie-sii. You got a minute?"

"Good morning, Mr. Kim".

"I have good news," his boss said. "The customer loved your selection of photographs. He wants to buy three pieces through the gallery. Could you take care of the purchase?"

"Sure, I’d be delighted. I’m glad the proposal was to his liking," Julie replied. "You leave me the contact information of the customer and I will coordinate the purchase and delivery of the pieces".

"Well, the communication with the person is done only by mail," Mr. Kim said. "Both payment and delivery would be coordinated via email, here is the address".

It wasn’t the first time a client behaved like this. For some reason, some of them wanted to keep their identities confidential. Julie always thought it was strange, but she figured they had a reason for doing it that way.

Julie took the paper where Mr. Kim had written the client’s email address and the name of the three pieces selected. The mail was [email protected] and the selected pieces were Peering into the distance by Elzime, Alan Cleaver’s Wave Reflextions and James McLarnan’s Really wet window.

Julie thought that a person’s artistic taste said a lot about their perception of life, and in the case of this client, she thought he should feel a little lonely. The three photographs were wonderful and were of those minimalist images that said a lot, but they said it in whispers, without shouting or flaunting colors or striking shapes.

Anyway, her job wasn’t to analyze the people who entered the gallery, so she’d take care of the purchase and that’s it.

"Very well, Mr. Kim," said Julie, "don’t worry about a thing, I will handle the purchase with all discretion and as soon as possible".

"Thank you very much, Julie-ssi," her boss said as he left the office.

In the following hours, Julie contacted the galleries that had the pieces on sale to confirm, again, their availability. She also wrote to the client to introduce herself and ask about the purchase budget; to the latter, he replied that he was willing to pay what Julie, as a professional, considered fair. It wasn’t the first time they left the price negotiation in her hands, so Julie didn’t even flinch.

By the end of the day, Julie had negotiated the prices of the three photographs, coordinated their import to Korea, since they came from two galleries in Europe and another in the United States, and calculated the delivery dates to then coordinate with the customer the delivery address to send the artwork once the images were in Julie’s gallery. Emails came and went, and every time Julie received a message from the client, she couldn’t help but feel that she had seen that name, or user, elsewhere.

Maybe it was just her imagination. The week had been long and tiring, but it was over. Julie had two days off before she had to help Rei with her oil art exhibit and had plans with her mother.

She was tired but happy.

3 days later

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry" came Julianne apologizing. "I’m so sorry, Areum-ah. I missed the hour and the traffic was terrible and..."

"Julie, relax," her friend told her as she helped her take off her heels and coat to get into the apartment. "You’ve been full of work, I understand. Honestly, I don’t understand why you volunteered to organize the alumni meeting. It’s not like you have time to spare".

"Yes, well, I like to organize events, you know," Julie said. "Besides, I wasn’t going to leave this meeting in the hands of Kim Kyug-Bok. He would have made us pay three times more, and who knows what kind of disaster he would have organized".

"True" Areum said, "although I still don’t think you should have volunteered as the lead organizer".

"Anyway, everything is almost ready," Julie replied with a smile as she sat on the sofa in her friend’s living room. "The hotel is confirmed, we were given a salon on the fourth floor and, in a few days, I have to go there to check the activities options of the party package that we were offered. We already rented the chairs, the tables and today I called to confirm the catering service and everything is in order. How are we doing on the attendance confirmations?"

"More than half of the class confirmed their attendance. Others have either not answered or have said they might be able to attend," Areum said. "Another thing I don’t understand is why we had to send the invitations by mail. It was easier to do by e-mail, don’t you think?"

"Easier for sure, but these invitations are more beautiful and, like, intimate" Julie defended herself. "Also, receiving a letter feels more sincere than sending a mass email".

"All right," Areum said, rolling her eyes. "So, what’s missing?"

"A few days ago, I received a call from the interior decoration company and they told me that there was a problem with the centerpieces we had chosen, apparently they don’t have enough and they do not think they can have more ready before the gathering. They mailed me other options they have available, the problem is that none combines well with the color palette we had chosen for the rest of the living room decoration, so we have to decide whether to change the colors of everything or not".

"All right, show me what they sent you," Areum said.

Like this, the two friends spent the next three hours discussing color palettes, fabrics, laces, tablecloths, and other decorations until they could no longer differentiate between the multiple options.

"I think we should take a break," Areum said yawning.

"I feel the same way," Julie replied, "if anything, we’re close to the finish. Do you have coffee? We can have a cup and watch TV for a while. Then we can finish and send the proposal to the decorators".

"I think so. Black coffee with two sugars?"

"You know me."

Areum went to the kitchen to make coffee. Meanwhile, Julie turned on the TV and started passing channels trying to find some show to watch.

"Here you go," Areum said a few minutes later.

"Thank you," Julie said, grabbing the cup from her friend’s hands.

"Ah, by the way, Julie, a couple of days ago Ely called me. She wanted to know what kind of entertainment there would be at the reunion".

"Well, the hotel offers us some options as part of the package with which we rented the lounge," Julie replied. "I’m not sure what they offer, but Kang-Dae told me that he has made events in that place and that they have very good options".

"And you believe him?"

"What does that mean?"

"Well, nothing, it’s just that Kang-Dae has a somewhat... bland taste," Areum said hoping her friend would not bother with her comment.

"It’s not bland, it’s just…" Julie replied but didn’t know what to say. "His taste is very refined if you ask me".

"I didn’t say it wasn’t, it’s just that the entertainment for a Kang-Dae office event can be very different from that of a high school alumni meeting. Especially if Kim Kyug-Bok is on the list".

"Yes, I understand," Julie said with a sigh.

"How about I take care of that part?" Areum asked.

"What?"

"Yes!" Areum said excitedly. "I can go to the meeting at the hotel, see what options they have and, if necessary, look for a plan B. I can even ask some of my colleagues for help".

Areum worked at an online content production company. As a graphic designer, she was responsible for the conceptualization and design of the image of the different shows produced by the different teams that worked there. Over time, she had met several producers and directors of web programs and variety shows, so she was sure that some of them could help her with ideas for activities or events she could hire for the reunion.

"Are you sure?" Julie asked.

"Of course I am. I feel a little bad for not helping you more with the whole organization. Let me do this".

"Okay, Areum-ah, thank you," Julie said. She didn’t say anything to her friend, but she felt a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

"It’s gonna be great, you’ll see".

2 weeks later

It had been long since Julie had as little work like that day. Everything was in order in the gallery. The last exhibition organized by Rei, Julie’s colleague, had been premiered a week ago, so the hustle and bustle of the first couple of days had passed and now fewer people were arriving every day. Besides, being Rei the main curator, Julie wasn’t in the eye of the storm.

Next week they’d have a couple of events and field trips with schools and colleges, so Julie still had details to take care of as a second-in-command, like printing the fact sheets, finishing the presentation of each work of art, and coordinate the snacks, but she had all week to do it, so she decided not to run with any of those tasks and dedicate her day to looking for new talent.

That was the part she liked most about her work as an art curator: finding new artists and helping them promote their work. She liked to go to art fairs and exhibitions organized by the communities, she never knew where she would find the next diamond in the rough.

At that time, she was reviewing the website of the National University of Seoul that announced the upcoming art exhibition for students of the Faculty of Fine Arts. She was so focused, she didn’t hear Kang-Dae open her office door.

"Julie?" he asked.

The girl jumped on the chair and looked up.

"Oppa, hi," she said, "I didn’t hear you come in, I’m sorry".

"I noticed," he said with a smile on his face. "You were so focused that you didn’t hear me knock on the door three times".

"Sorry," she said. "What are you doing here? I thought you’d be in the office all day today".

"I just came out of a meeting with the board and I thought I’d stop by and invite you to lunch. Do you have time?"

"Yes, of course," she said. "Would you give me ten minutes? I want to save this page and give Rei some documents to photocopy".

"Sure, I’ll wait for you here," her boyfriend told her as his phone started ringing.

Kang-Dae answered the call as Julie left her office for Rei. Once back, her boyfriend was still on the phone. Julie knew those calls sometimes took time, so she decided to keep looking at the university page in the meantime. Again, she did not notice the passage of time and it was another forty minutes before Kang-Dae hung up and talked to her.

"Julie, I’m sorry, love," he said apologizing. "I have to hurry back to the office; I’ll have something to eat on the way. We’ll have dinner another time, okay?"

"Ah, of course," she said, trying to hide her disappointment. They hadn’t been on a date in months, Kang-Dae was always busy and, although she understood it, sometimes it hurt. "Don’t worry, we can go out on Sunday and..."

"No, love, I’m going on a business trip in a couple of days, remember?"

"That’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot".

"Don’t worry. You have other things to worry about," he said. "It’s only a couple of weeks, but I promise to write to you as often as I can and take you to dinner when I get back, okay?"

Kang-Dae got closer to where Julie was sitting and kissed her forehead goodbye. She smiled at him and saw him walk out of her office door as another phone call came in. Julie was a little disappointed, not so much because she could not go to lunch with her boyfriend, but because of how distant Kang-Dae could be at times.

They’d been dating for almost three years, but sometimes Julie didn’t feel close to him. He came from a conservative family, yes, but Kang-Dae was not as innocent and inexperienced as his mother might believe, Julie knew that. The problem was, sometimes Julie needed a little more from him. She wasn’t asking for more time or attention, because she knew he was busy with his work and she respected that. But sometimes she hoped that in the moments when they were together he would take her by the hand or put his arm on her shoulders or kiss her on the lips and not on the forehead like a schoolgirl. Anyway, Julie had come to accept that Kang-Dae was not one to need physical contact to show affection, but sometimes she wanted... more.

No, no. Kang-Dae was a good man. Honest, hardworking, intelligent, from a good family... and relationships are based on making concessions. If he could accept that she forgot some important dates and events, she could accept that he was shy about constant physical affection.

In any case, Julie’s lunch plans had been canceled and now she didn’t know where to go to eat.

"Helloooo, may I?" said a voice at her office door.

Julie looked up and saw Areum with two bags of food in her hands.

"Areum-ah, I wasn’t expecting you. Sure, come in".

"I figured you hadn’t had lunch yet, so I took the liberty of ordering for two," her friend said as she put both bags of food on Julie’s desk.

"You’re the best," Julie said.

"I know, I know. By the way, I saw Kang-Dae leaving the building when I parked the car, were you with him? Here? Alooooooone?" she asked her with a playful tone.

"Feet on the ground, Areum-ah. He came to say hello and invite me to lunch, but he had to deal with a problem in the office and we couldn’t go" Julie replied.

"Typical," Areum said, rolling her eyes.

"Leave him, Areum-ah, he’s busy, just like me," Julie defended.

"Yes, yes, I know," replied her friend. "Well, that means I have you all to myself. Now, eat!"

The two friends spent the next 30 minutes eating and talking about different topics. It had been a long time since they met for lunch, so spontaneously, so that moment reminded Julie of the college years when the two of them had become much closer. Both had studied art, but Julie had specialized in Art History and Areum in Graphic Design; Areum never understood why her friend had left the brush and devoted herself to the theory, but never had the courage to ask her, not after what happened in the third year of the career.

"Ah! Before I forget. Here is the list of those confirmed to the Saturday meeting," Areum said as he passed a document to Julie. "Most confirmed, there were only about ten people who said nothing".

"Perfect, we’re ready, right? Nothing’s missing".

"All set," Areum confirmed.

Julie began reading the list of people to whom the invitation had been sent and her gaze set upon a specific name.

"Lee Jooheon?" Julie asked her friend. "Did you send him an invitation?"

"Emmmm, yes," she replied. "After all, he graduated with us".

Julie was silent for a few minutes. The box next to Jooheon’s name was empty. Obviously, he hadn’t confirmed.

"I mean," Areum continued, "I know he hasn’t come to any events, he doesn’t keep in touch with anyone and he’s probably super busy with the life of an idol and so on, but I thought it was polite to invite him. For him to know that, if he wants, we still remember him".

Remember? Yes, unfortunately, yes. Julianne still remembered him and the fact that maybe he decided to show up on Saturday made her... nervous? Uncomfortable? She wasn’t sure.

Calm down, Julianne she said to herself. Areum is right, the odds of him appearing are mininal. More like null. It's gonna be okay.

"Well," Julianne said, trying to change the subject so her friend wouldn’t notice what the name Lee Jooheon provoked in her, "what’s for dessert?"

On Saturday, Julie got up a bit earlier. She had to leave her house at noon to go and oversee the final details at the hotel. She had breakfast, checked her mail, ordered the clothes she had washed the day before, and went out of her apartment with her dress and makeup in hand. She had booked a room at the hotel where she and Areum would get ready for the party and spend the night.

Julie arrived at the hotel half an hour later. She went up to her room to leave her things and saw that Areum had arrived before her.

"Finally!" her friend told her as soon as she walked through the door. "What took you so long? I’m starving, let’s eat" and with those words, Areum grabbed the belongings from Julie’s hands and threw them carelessly into bed.

"Hello to you too," Julie said as she was being dragged out of the room and straight to the hotel restaurant.

Both friends had lunch together and then went to the room where the meeting would be held to oversee the final details. While Julie was taking care of the food and the disposal of the bar, Areum finished setting up the table where they would welcome their classmates. If necessary, there would be badges with everyone’s names and a book where they could sign and write a message as a souvenir.

Everything was going great and the two friends were ready to go up to their room, until a loud voice shouted behind their backs:

"AREUM-AHHH! And... SEO JULIANNE?!"

They both turned around but didn’t need to see the voice owner’s face to know who he was: Kim Kyug-Bok.

"Seo Julianne, is it really you?" asked Kim Kyug-Bok.

"Hello, Kyug-Bok-sii," Julie replied. "You’re early".

"Wooooow, you look great," he said, looking at Julie from head to toe.

That look made her uncomfortable. Kim Kyug-Bok had always been an idiot, but he had never noticed her, especially since in those days Julie would have been able to beat him up if he tried to play cocky. But those days are behind them. Julianne had lost the muscle that years of training had given her and now her figure was smaller and more delicate than before. However, she still had the same character as always, and the cold look that Kim Kyug-Bok perceived in Julie’s eyes was confirmation of that. Though instead of feeling intimidated, the playboy took it as a challenge. This meeting had just become more entertaining for him.

"If you’ll excuse us, Areum and I have to go. The salon doors open at 5:00 p.m. to start welcoming everyone, so please don’t make a fuss before that hour because no one will open the door for you, understand?" Julie told him with the coldest, most cynical tone she could.

"Sure, beautiful," Kim Kyug-Bok said, winking at her, "all clear".

The two friends then headed to the elevator to their room. None of them said anything about the encounter with Kim Kyug-Bok and his sudden fascination with Julie.

Once in their hotel room, they both set out to get ready for the event. It was not very formal, so Areum dressed in wide dark green trousers and a button-down shirt with ornaments on the neck; meanwhile, Julie had brought a short, slightly loose dark pink dress, with long sleeves, a gift from Kang-Dae she had not had a chance to wear yet.

At five o'clock, the two friends arrived at the salon. They opened the doors and, gradually, their former school friends began to arrive. At seven o'clock, most of the guests had already arrived and the conversations were heard throughout the room.

Julie went around waving to different people and supervising that everything was going as planned. There was enough food and drinks for everyone, there were tables and chairs for everyone to rest and Areum had had the idea of putting up poker tables, blackjack, and billiards, so some were playing.

Areum was at the door receiving the guests. Julie was about to go to replace her when she heard, for the second time that day, a shrill scream, only that time it wasn’t her name that was shouted.

"JOOHEOOOOON-AH" shouted Kim Kyug-Bok.

Julie froze on the spot. No, she must have misheard. He couldn’t be there.

But he was.

Julie watched as all her classmates approached the door to see if Lee Jooheon, the celebrity, had indeed arrived. She didn’t have to go near him, she didn’t even have to see his face. It was him; she was sure.

At that moment, Julie felt like running out of there, but she didn’t move. She was practically nailed to the floor as she watched Jooheon being engulfed by the crowd. Everyone greeted him as if they were best friends and he returned all greetings, although his smile was not real. It was the professional smile that Julie had seen in photos and interviews, it didn’t reach his eyes, it wasn’t...

Wake up, Julianne she thought. She noticed that she was facing the hall entrance, so she turned around before anyone noticed her surprised face. I mean, he’s here, all right, he’s entitled, he was invited. But that doesn’t mean you have to talk to him, so calm down and get on with it, she continued to talk to herself as she took a couple of deep breaths.

Exactly. Clearly, everyone was more interested than she was in knowing about the idol life of the newcomer, so it wouldn’t be so hard to avoid him and the hall was big enough for him not to see her. Yeah, that would do, good plan.

****

The hours passed and Julie felt calmer and calmer. Her plan had worked. She had gone from table to table talking to her former classmates, always staying out of the range of vision of Jooheon and his groupies. She was gonna make it, she was gonna get out of there without having to look him in the face. Great.

Julie got up from the table where she was to go get a drink. She arrived at the bar they had set up on the side of the hall and asked the bartender for a martini. While waiting for him to serve it, Areum came to her side

"Julie, I was looking for you," said her friend.

"Tell me, Areum-ah," Julie replied.

"I have to go out for a moment," Areum said. "Remember the entertainment we talked about? Well, it just arrived and I need to go meet them. Could you take everyone to the pool in about... 20 minutes?"

"To the pool?" Julie asked. "What did you plan, Areum-ah?"

"You’ll see," she said as she winked at her.

Julie just laughed, told Areum she’d take everyone to the pool, and saw her friend leave the room. She would take everyone to the pool, yes, but she wouldn’t give out the ad. She would ask someone else to do it; after all, she hated speaking to crowds as big as this one, specially if they were drunk. Seconds later, the bartender arrived with her drink, Julie thanked him and was about to return to her table when a voice behind her said:

"Jules, so long".

Her back tensed.

SHIT. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, FUCKING SHIT.

It had been a long time since anyone called her that. Well, actually only he called her that, she never understood why. For a few seconds nothing happened, Julianne needed that time to mend herself and erase any trace of nervousness from her face. Finally, she turned and greeted him back.

"Hello, Jooheon-ssi" she replied. "Yes, it’s been a while".

Jooheon-ssi? It felt strange to call it that. It didn’t feel right, but Julie decided it was the safest thing to do.

The girl saw the guy who was once her best friend in the eyes. For the first time all night, Jooheon showed a sincere smile, but Julie saw his expression waver after her cold greeting.

Come on, Julie, you can do it.

« Previous Next »

#lee jooheon #monsta x #monsta x fanfic #jooheon fanfic #monsta x jooheon #monsta x scenarios #enemies to lovers #monbebe

7 notes · View notes

gyuphorias · 3 years

Note

I'm feeling very low mentally rn (deadass felt extremely hot a minute ago and now I want to disappear) and one of my friends told me that beomgyu seem to be the type to suggest you do one of your favorite hobbies (baking, writing, painting etc.) To cheer you up when you feel bad.. but he'll purposely make his work terrible to try and draw a laugh out of you, because he hates to see you upset.

Just say he suggests baking a cake from scratch, he'd purposely put the wrong amount of sugar into the mix, spill flour everywhere. He'd add all the sprinkles he can possibly find.. probably adds food colouring too and the entire kitchen is just a mess, let alone the monstrosity of a cake the two of you made. (He's also the type to put icing on your face when you're not realising only for him to be a complete menace and lick it off like a dog because he thinks it's funny he'd do that laugh where his head shrinks into his shoulders yk??)

Or if it's writing, you'd be boring out your emotions into your notebook and it looks like beomgyu is doing the same but by the time you finish, he's still not done. It'd be another hour until he's finished and you're so intrigued about what he's writing you're dying to see what he's wrote.. you'd both agreed at the start to swap notebooks once the two of you are finished so when he does finally stop writing, you're more than shocked to see that he'd wrote a whole self insert fanfiction.. deadass would be reader x beomgyu, probably the most random fic ever.. like those fics tweens write when they first learn about Wattpad.. he's portrayed himself as the "mafia prince badboy who has a soft spot for the reader" and he just goes into WAY to much detail on meaningless things, but you're still chewing nervously at your fingernails as yoh read it because it's somehow so interesting.. and when it comes to a intense romantic scene, it feel like an insert from an actual book, the way he described every look, every feeling, it makes your heart swell, "is this how you feel when we kiss?" And he'd just look at you with a soft blush whilst nodding

And if it's art making, he's probably gonna put so much effort into it but like it'll be sesame street fanart?? And you can't help but piss yourself laughing, because you'd agreed to paint eachother and he's been acting as if he'd been painting you, telling you to look at him and mixing paints to match your skin tones all for it to be complete nonsense.. and he'd act like it wasn't on purpose "no baby I swear it was an accident! It just turned out like this! I truely did paint you!"

-yh

oh this made my whole night i swear 😭 i'm with u tho baby tonight has not been particularly great for me (but i'm watching big hero 6 rn and talking w my favorite people on the internet rn so i'm feeling better)

anyways i'm so behind the idea of beomgyu doing literally anything and everything to make you feel better, even and especially if it makes him look like a fool. he just loves catching you totally off guard with stuff like fanfic about himself or painting because it makes you fucking die of laughter, so bright and clear it's almost like music. he finds other things to get you to feel better too if those aren't working out so well. he insists on reading to you, but gives the characters terrible voices. he dubs over a movie that you picked out to watch, creating an entirely new storyline that is completely disjointed from what's actually going on. he just wants you to feel better and he'd seriously go to the ends of the earth for you just to make you smile.

beom best boyfriend ever </3

#🌙 — talking to the moon #🌙 — younghoon anon #🌑 — new moon #🌑 — txt #beomgyu x reader

7 notes · View notes

whatifxwereyou · 3 years

Text

Firestorm Part 7: Tipping Point

Fandom: Mortal Kombat 2021 Liu Kang x Reader

You train with Kung Lao. This might be the final straw.

A/N: Next chapter is from Liu Kang's point of view. Also there will be a hilarious shopping chapter with Kung Lao and Chen at a reader's request. Hope everyone is doing well <3 Don't worry, there will be more fluff soon too.

Start From the Beginning << Previous Chapter Next Chapter >> Chapter Index

The rain had dried up while you were eating and conversation had quickly become less awkward. You had managed to separate what had happened with Liu Kang from your friendship with Kung Lao mentally. You cared about them so much. Somewhere along the line you’d decided that your friendship with them was the most important thing to have. No matter who you chose, you wanted to maintain those friendships.

Though you were pretty sure of what your heart wanted at this point. You’d been sure of it for some time. Since that night in the rain when Liu had wrapped his arms around you, as a matter of fact. It had felt like home. Nothing had ever felt like that before. You knew that no matter what happened next, things would be okay between you.

You also knew that what was happening to you was extraordinarily complicated and dangerous. That was your biggest hang up through all of this. When it came down to it, that was the true dilemma. Because whatever happened with Kung Lao and Liu Kang? That was something you could fix, something you could work on. You were all just people making human decisions. This thing with your arcana, however? That was beyond your control.

You didn’t want to hurt them. You didn’t want to hurt anyone. You would gladly lock yourself away if it meant keeping everyone safe.

Things between you and Lao relaxed once you’d mentally coached yourself on the reality of the situation. You felt sobered by your own thoughts. It was something that you attributed to Liu Kang. Perhaps it was because of how frequently he’d helped you find your calm or maybe it was just that his calming presence had rubbed off on you.

This would pass.

All things did.

Kung Lao had agreed, with very little convincing, to go with you tomorrow to the nearest city to get your ‘lady things’. He’d hated you using that term which was precisely why you’d used it. It would keep him from asking questions. He’d asked you about lady problems the other day with disdain so you figured it would be the best excuse. Then after breakfast you made your way to the fight pit.

“We’ll start with your shoulder. But afterwards we’re working on your arcana.”

“Why? Because the shoulder thing is boring?”

“Yes, obviously.” Kung Lao teased. He seemed relieved that you had shaken your weird mood. You were relieved too. That brief moment of panic had threatened to send you into a spiral. But it had passed and you were rather proud of yourself for it. “And because you’ve been avoiding it.”

“I know, I know. I psyched myself out for a bit there. No more avoiding it. I promise.” You’d changed into a gi to prepare for training. You would do your best to try and keep from overdoing it but if Kung Lao could help you get a hold of your arcana than it would be worth the strain. He was watching you skeptically as he kicked up sand in the fight pit. “I mean it. I want to get back to where I was before this. At least. I want to be able to give you and Liu a run for your money again.”

“It’s nice to hear you sounding more like yourself.” Kung Lao turned away from you but you could see the smile on his face before he did. It was like he wanted to hide it. Why? It didn’t much matter.

After that you spent some time working on your shoulder. He really did have a few exercises to help stretch the muscles and strengthen them. It’d hurt but it had been worth it. He also taught you a few strategies to avoid putting strain on it in combat when you needed to. It was nice that your styles of Kung Fu weren’t too terribly different. Kung Lao understood which stances would put strain where and you picked up the modifications easily. For the first time in a long time you felt competent and strong.

Even with your shoulder the way that it was after the incident with Raiden you had managed to find your footing. And you understood your limits. You moved with confidence. Kung Lao went easy on you after that even if he denied it when you confronted him for doing it. You imagined that it had been traumatizing for him to watch his childhood friend struggle for weeks on end. you considered that you both needed therapy.

“Now your arcana.” He dusted his hands off and then wiped them on his pants. With that familiar tug of the strap beneath his chin, he removed his hat and sliced with it through the air before crouching low and back into his stance.

“Was that necessary or… were you just showing off?”

“I’m going to show you how I use mine.” He flipped the hat in his grasp and then slipped it back on his head with a polite bow afterward.

“So, showing off. Got it.” You muttered but caught the smirk on his face.

“Arcana has an energy all its own. With time you learn to recognize it.” Kung Lao tossed the hat into the air and it spun around the perimeter of the arena, twisting through the air. He didn’t so much as look at it, it just did as he commanded it to. Kung Lao walked toward you and without looking, he reached out and the hat flew into his hand. He placed it again atop his head. “It’s a part of you. You have to treat it like it is. Another limb if you will.”

“I’m fairly confident that you’re just showing off.” You smiled. He chuckled beneath his breath then tossed his hat again. It flew behind you and with a twist, he disappeared into the ground in a white light and then reappeared behind you, hat landing perfectly atop his head. Then, arms folded behind his back, he leaned over your shoulder with a smirk.

“Now I’m showing off.” He clicked his tongue and then walked in front of you. “But I’m also making a point. I’ve been using my arcana far longer than you have. To me it’s second nature. We need it to be that way for you too. Sometimes that means getting in control of part of you that seems beyond it.”

“…kind of like when learning martial arts.”

“Exactly. Learning how to use parts of you as a weapon or a shield. Your arcana is no different except that without the dragon marking, you wouldn’t have it.”

“It’s like those exercises you made me do early on, right? It’s about control.” You had understood that to an extent but putting it into terms you understood, like martial arts, had helped considerably. You hadn’t felt in control of much of anything for a long time. In fact, the last few times you’d even tried to use your arcana it was as though the control had been ripped away from you. If you could become more in tune with your arcana then maybe when whoever it was that was manipulating you with this curse nonsense showed up again, they wouldn’t be able to use you as easily.

“I don’t think the sorts of exercises that Liu used are going to be helpful for what you do. Your arcana is different. His was dangerous at first too, just in a different way. I think that most arcana, by nature, will be dangerous.” Kung Lao smiled fondly, as though the idea delighted him. “My hat was obviously dangerous too. It’s not like zapping around like I do is exactly safe. Or easy.”

“The implications of that are awful, Lao.”

“All I’m saying is that there’s a learning curve to everything. Even for warriors like me and Liu.”

“Is this your way of trying to make me feel better about my arcana? You know that you can just be encouraging. That works just fine.”

“What I’m trying to say is that this is difficult in the beginning for everyone. You get the hang of it, like anything else. Your circumstances are definitely abnormal Y/N, but not that much so. I know that the past few weeks have been difficult for you.”

“Kung Lao, you don’t need to reassure me. I’m okay. Really.”

“No, I do, Y/N.” Kung Lao frowned, brow furrowed with compassion, with worry. Who were you to argue with him? “I can be hard on you but only because I know what you’re capable of. But the truth is that we understand this isn’t easy for you. Even just having the mark and learning to control your arcana is a difficult task. But these circumstances have made it that much more complicated. You’re doing a wonderful job, Y/N. It’s why Liu and I are so understanding. We’ve been there before.”

“I appreciate that, Kung Lao, really…”

“Raiden understands too. I know he can come off as harsh but I don’t want you to think that he…”

“No, okay, stop.” You laughed and took a step closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. He bowed his head apologetically. Serious Kung Lao made you uncomfortable. It was just such a rare thing. What had brought this on? You struggled to picture him having moments of self-reflection but you supposed that he must have. Not enough to tell you about the best that he’d made with Liu, but still. “Do you think that this has me upset? Unhappy?”

“Um… yes.”

“There are parts of it that I struggle with, of course. This curse thing sucks. The inability to get back on my feet sucks. Feeling like a ticking time bomb? Not in love with it. But overall? I’m grateful to be here.”

“Even after Raiden…” He mimicked the action of shocking you and you laughed, then patted his shoulder sympathetically.

“He did what was necessary. I’m not holding it against him. And I’m grateful to have come to Raiden’s Temple, Kung Lao. Yes, it was kind of traumatizing and is a little scary but also… I got my best friend back. I never thought in a million years there was even a chance of that. I know that things are different for us now but I’m also so grateful that it was you that found me that day. Grateful that it was you that came into my shop all those times. Whatever brought you back there, Lao, I’m just so damn grateful. And I’m grateful to have met Liu Kang. He’s a wonderful friend. I’m even grateful for the crazy gossipy monks down in the infirmary. And grateful for Raiden. He’s kind of fatherly, isn’t he? In a weird way?”

“He can be. And he seems fond of you. He isn’t usually so nice.” Kung Lao smirked but you could see the relief behind his eyes. Apparently, he’d been the one who had really needed reassuring. You were happy to provide it.

“Well, it’s hard to be mean to someone you almost killed.” You joked and Kung Lao laughed. “We got super off topic here. We need to focus.”

“Yes, that’s what we were talking about. Focus. And control.”

“We are terrible at this.”

“We need to decide what works for you.” Kung Lao took a step back. “Can you summon your arcana for me? Your sword, perhaps?”

“Sure.” You stepped back and focused. He was right. There was energy around you and it wasn’t the first time you’d felt it and recognized it as your arcana. It was about focus and control. You could do that. In fact, you had excelled at both of those things. Being a teacher, you’d needed to be focused and controlled. You could do this. Especially today.

You had plenty of focus and control.

Without so much as a wave of your hand, you summoned your jian in a swell of ink. It dripped down your hand and formed the hilt and then the blade. It didn’t drain you and you smiled. It felt natural to do, like the sword was an extension of you. You flipped the hilt in your palm and then back again. Then you dropped into your stance and used your other hand to beckon Kung Lao to come at you for a fight. But he didn’t. Instead he clapped in a slow and unimpressed way.

“Now do more.”

“Excuse you? You said to summon my sword. I did that.”

“I want you to try and recreate me again.” He looked rather excited about that and your cheeks flushed.

“I don’t know how I did that, Kung Lao. I needed help and you weren’t there and I was worried that you’d been hurt too badly and then suddenly… ink you to the rescue.”

“I was your hero then, huh?”

“Don’t read into it, Lao.”

“You were worried about me too? Wow, a lot to unpack here, Y/N.” Kung Lao was trying not to look terribly smug and doing a terrible job at it.

“I mean, you are human, Kung Lao! Being thrown through a door and then a wall and then a door… that takes a toll on a man, I would imagine.”

“I’m still pretty bruised up, honestly.”

“I would imagine.”

“Well, I want you to try that again but without being in peril. You can’t rely on something like that in a panic. You need to be able to control it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I have a few ideas I can try. I don’t know if they’ll work but I’ll try.”

“When we’re finished, if you’re still worried about me then I’ll happily let you check me out.” He grinned and walked further away from you. You flushed but held your tongue. He was baiting you. Kung Lao enjoyed bickering with you. You knew that already and now wasn’t the time to give in. You were so terrible at staying on topic today. You had to focus! You were feeling so good about your strength and your arcana. You wanted to take advantage of that. Besides, flirting with Kung Lao was on a list of things that were difficult to deal with.

You focused on the ink, remembering how it had coated your fingertips in direr moments. You willed it to do just that and were pleased when it obeyed. It spread up to your shoulders. Your arms and fingers were stained black. Then you used your index finger to draw another sword and it materialized with your will. Slow, bored applause from Kung Lao again. It was like a pen. That was your true weapon, you’d decided. That gave you another idea.

What about words? Would words have power? You spelled the first thing that came to mind.

Fire.

Just like that, the word floated before you and then burst into flame. Kung Lao laughed, eyes wide with delight.

“What? No! Do it again.”

“Uh, okay…” You laughed and spelled ‘hat’, visualizing Kung Lao’s hat as you did. It materialized and clattered to the ground. Kung Lao made his way back to you and picked up the hat. It stained his fingertips, but he was able to toss it. It splattered against the wall but the ink didn’t stain the stone. Instead it decayed into a frail gray substance, like ash, before disappearing on the wind.

“You could create anything with that.” Kung Lao seemed to mentally be rattling through the possibilities. You were sure that it had limitations. Even as you considered what to make next, you could feel that it had drained you. Maybe that was your limitation. The ink would exhaust you before you created anything too catastrophic. That was a fair trade off. You could find a way to manage the weariness that went with your arcana.

He wanted to see that drawing of him again.

So you wrote his name and you could feel the excitement radiating off of him.

Kung Lao.

He stepped into his stance, face blocked out by his hat and ready for a fight. You focused your energy into his name and then the words spread out into a dome and created his hat. From the hat came the image of Kung Lao in a great leap. You gasped and covered your mouth. The ink was shaky so you focused harder.

The drawing of Kung Lao ducked into the same stance as Kung Lao. Then you had the drawing rush at him and feint left before attacking. Kung Lao blocked the attack and you maneuvered the ink duplicate, trying to remember the way that your father fought, the way that you knew Kung Lao fought. But the ink duplicate moved on instinct. You didn’t have to control it like it had strings. It had your knowledge of him.

That was until it stopped attacking Kung Lao and turned toward you. You willed it to turn back around but it didn’t obey you. What the hell? It approached you aggressively, using its hat as a blade with a spin.

“Whoa, hey, what gives, Y/N?” Kung Lao walked around the image of himself but then ducked out of the way as it sliced toward him. “Hey! Cut it out!”

“I’m not doing it!” You stepped back nervously as the drawing continued toward you. You stumbled in the sand and sunk your feet to get your balance but instead, you dropped through the ground into darkness.

You knew that hadn’t really happened. This was a feeling you recognized now.

You were having a vision.

Well, this was terrible timing.

You stood in a frozen wasteland. Everything around you was coated in a thick layer of ice. It looked like it had been a warehouse once. But then you caught sight of training equipment. A gym. You’d seen big gyms like this in the city but you had no idea where it was. Everything was so coated in ice that you couldn’t make out any of the signs. You were freezing.

In the distance, there was the sound of combat but it was muted, like you had cotton in your ears. You tried to get closer to the sound but had no real control over anything. Whatever this vision wanted to show you, it would show you whether you liked it or not. It was like you were on rails. It was cruel. To have felt like you had regained so much control only to have it stripped away from you. It was like something was playing an awful game with you where you always lost.

You refused to let it crush you.

Whatever your ink was doing outside of your vision you had faith that Kung Lao could handle it.

Two men fought, both masked and unnatural. This was beyond your understanding. One man was made of fire and the other was made of ice, holding a blade of the same ice. They were armored. They fought so quickly that you could barely make out what they were doing. Their movements were blurred in streams of ink. The fiery warrior sliced with a blade but the man made of ice blocked every blow. He then twisted the fiery man and threw him into a wall of ice that shattered. You ducked out of fear of the ice but again, you had no body, really. You weren’t actually there.

Their fluid fighting was a terrifying dance. They were both so threatening. These two men, whoever they were, were the most skilled martial artists that you had ever seen. There was a crashing sound behind you but when you turned to find the source, the world melted into a haze. You didn’t know what anything meant anymore. Sometimes the visions were so vague and blurry that they were barely visions at all. Maybe that thing in your head didn’t want you to see this particular vision.

When you opened your eyes again, you were staring into darkness. You could move again and you were awake but where were you? It was so damn dark. There was sand beneath where you laid. You were still in the fight pit! Distantly, you could hear Kung Lao fighting but there was a spinning wall of darkness between you and him. What the hell?

There was a vortex of ink swirling all around you, thick and slow moving. It muted all other sounds with a roar. Your heart was pounding out of your chest but you focused like Kung Lao had taught you. But no matter how you focused, the ink didn’t budge. You had no control over any of it even if you could feel that it was your arcana. It drained you just existing.

You touched the vortex in hopes that you could run through it to the other side but it sliced at your fingertips as though the vortex was made of ink needles. Was it protecting you? And if so, from what?

“Kung Lao!” You shouted but you couldn’t hear anything but the muted chaos of combat beyond. What had you done? What had you summoned? “Kung Lao!” You screamed to him but there was nothing. He probably couldn’t hear you.

Okay. Deep breaths.

You focused on your arcana. It spread up your hands and over your arms. You would draw a way out if you had to! As you made to draw a door, the ink was swept away from your arms and the tornado consumed it and roared threateningly, as if you had fed it. Maybe it wasn’t protecting you. Maybe it was imprisoning you. Your heart was slamming with panic in your chest. This couldn’t be happening! It couldn’t! You had to get this under control.

But you were panicking.

Maybe you were better off without the mark. Maybe you should be locked away so you couldn’t put anyone else in danger!

Then there was a horrible, loud ringing in your head.

You held your hands over your ears to try and escape it but it was in your head so there was no escape. It was so loud that it was making you feel sick. Your legs wobbled so you shrunk down into a crouch and tried to breathe through the painful sound. It reminded you of the dolorous ringing of the bell. The bell that had cracked along with your shoulder. That was it. It was the bell. Your shoulder was aching so much so that you could have collapsed. But you refused to fall.

This wouldn’t take you again.

It wouldn’t hurt you again!

“Who are you?” You yelled in frustration. Because that was what was happening. There was someone else there, something else there, that horrible demonic thing was destroying you, using you. “Who is doing this? Face me, coward!” You taunted in hopes of drawing it out. You didn’t think it would work but the ringing stopped. You managed to stand up but your legs were trembling beneath you. “Who’s doing this?” You shouted again but suddenly you weren’t alone. You expected the demon to walk right out of the ink.

But it wasn’t the demon.

Instead the icy warrior from your vision stepped out of the ink of the vortex, made of the same ink that formed it. He was dripping with it but you could see the details of his outfit his armor, his mask imprinted in the ink. The air became frigid within the vortex. You knew now that he had been the one that had coated that whole gym in ice. How powerful was he that he could do that? And who was he?

Panic shot through you but you stepped back, careful not to back into the vortex. How? How did whoever was manipulating you have such a hold on you? What kind of curse could do this? Who had this kind of power? It was too dangerous for you to have arcana. Too dangerous for you to be in Raiden’s Temple. Too dangerous for you to have the mark. You were dangerous.

You summoned your sword. The vortex tried to consume the ink, as if hungry, but you refused to allow it. It took nearly all your strength and the aching in your shoulder spread into your chest but you refused to give in. You yelled in frustration and charged at the man who stood threateningly before you. He summoned a blade of shadow and ice and stabbed toward you with a graceful twist. You blocked but barely. His icy blade left shards of ice on your sword and it spread toward your hand. You tried to shake it off but the jian shattered and you let go of the hilt. The vortex devoured the remains of your sword.

You summoned another but the panic was making you shake.

You had to stop it. Something had to stop it.

If you had to then you would do something drastic. You wouldn’t let your arcana destroy everything.

27 notes · View notes