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felassan · 3 years ago

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Zero To Play podcast episode: John Epler, Narrative Director at BioWare

In the most recent episode of Zero To Play podcast the guest was John Epler, Narrative Director on DA4. He talked about narrative games, how they fit inside an industry leaning towards games as a service, his experience being at BioWare for almost 14 years, and advice that he has for aspiring devs who want to create memorable, impactful and transformative moments in games.

The episode summary read as follows:

In this episode John brings his 13+ year experience being at BioWare and working on titles like Mass Effect & Dragon Age: Inquisition to explain how he believes storytelling will evolve and develop through the medium of games.

He shares some of his favorite moments and why he thinks games are the most powerful and interesting medium to be exploring in this generation.

It’s a good and interesting interview, so worth checking out if you can! You can listen to it here or on Spotify.

This post contains some notes on what was talked about in the episode, in case a text format is better for anyone (for example folks that can’t listen to it due to accessibility reasons). It’s under a cut due to length.

A bit of paraphrasing.

The average dev stays with a game company/studio for about 5 years. John joined BioWare right after the EA acquisition happened.

[on going into Trespasser] “Myself and the Lead Writer Patrick Weekes both knew that we needed to wrap up at least this part of the Inquisitor’s story, and set up where we want to go next with the franchise, with the IP. We learned a lot of lessons from DAI itself. DAI was a game with a lot of exploration and open-world content, and while we stand by that (I still think it was the right call for the game), one of the pieces of feedback we got from the fans was that they really wanted some more directed storytelling. Jaws of Hakkon was more of a continuation of open-world, more free-from exploration and free-form design. Trespasser was our opportunity to tell a story in a much more linear and focused way. [this way of telling stories] really does help to be able to create that sense of pacing and emotional escalation. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re mixing up storybeats with big, wide open-worlds. Trespasser was a project where everyone was kind of in sync, we were all building [towards] the same thing.”

“There were [story]beats [in Trespasser] that I don't think we would have been able to get away with in basegame DAI, one of those being the - quite frankly - incredibly lengthy conversation you have with Solas at the end. Because by this point we knew that if someone is playing this DLC then they are in it - they’ve been in it for the last two DLCs, they’ve played through the entire game, they want something incredibly story-focused. And we were able to really dive deep into that, some of the deep lore, some of the narrative. This was one of the only conversations that I’d worked on which, due to limitations of the engine, we actually had to break into two different conversation styles because it was so massive. We also got opportunities to do some fun callbacks. One of my favorite ones was one Patrick suggested which was, ‘What if I [didn’t like Solas much and] spent the entire basegame telling Solas I didn't want to hear anything he had to say?’ So we had the option that if you never chose ‘Investigate’ or a dialogue option that implied that you wanted to hear him blather on, there was one dialogue option that you could pick which was basically ‘Solas, when have I ever wanted to hear any of the shit you have to say?’ And it just kind of wrapped up the conversation super quickly, and Solas looked exasperated. It was fun because it’s not the kind of thing you can necessarily do in the main game, but in a DLC which is entirely for those core fans, you have a lot more options as to what you can do.”

John has an understanding of games as an interactive medium.

“Choice of combat, choice of mechanics, all of that does have an impact on the storytelling and on the narrative that you’re trying to put through. A lot of storytelling in games is trying to make sure that the - there’s a phrase, ludonarrative dissonance - [for example, say] I’m making a game where I’m trying to make the player feel powerful. How do you [do that?] [...] In games, this is kind of the challenge. Interactivity is so key to it. [...] It’s a lot harder [compared to characters in film] to put the player in a situation that they are going to lose, because as soon as you take away that autonomy, you’re taking away some of that interactivity. [...] If as a player I'm making you feel strong and powerful, and then I pull you into a cutscene and suddenly you’re losing the fight, you’re losing what’s going. That is a much different sensation, that is something movies can get away with that games can’t.”

“What are [players/our audience] actually meaning when they say that they ‘want choice’? I think that in a lot of cases we conflate that with ‘Oh, they want to make a big decision that changes the world’. But in a lot of cases what players want is the game to react to what they’re doing and the choices that they’re making in a way that feels organic and natural. I think this is something CD Projekt Red and the Telltale games did really well - of making it clear when the game is actually going to pay attention to what you said or did, so that when you see it later you’re like ‘Oh right yeah, I made that choice, the game said it was going to remember it, and it remembered, this is cool’.

And it doesn't always mean completely changing the course of events. The Telltale writers, as they got on through the games, they realized that the better way to address choice - and something we’ve done too - is, if we make the game have three endings, four or five - like DAO had an absolute massive amount of ways that it could turn out. How do you pay that off if you want to do a sequel? There's basically two choices. One is that you make an incredibly short game because you have to account for these very different branches, OR you collapse them and say ‘Sorry, this is what we’re going with’. And I don't think either of those are necessarily satisfying. For me it’s about making the players feel like their time and the choices they made have been respected. More than anything else that's the key, it comes down to understanding your fanbase, what it is they’re looking for, what it is they’re asking for, because there is that desire for choice, reactivity, consequences. And it’s something that BioWare, that we’re especially sensitive to because it’s always been a big pillar of the games we make. It’s just about understanding what this actually means from a practical standpoint and how you execute on that in a way that makes your fans feel satisfied, while still not writing yourself an impossible check to cash, because, you know, you can react to anything, but if you have a game that ends in three separate ways, you have to go with one of those two options and neither of them is going to be intensely satisfying to the player.”

“A phrase I’ve been using is, what I'm describing as - the half life of quantum. ‘Quantum’ is what we say when it could be like, one of six different things. The half life of this is how long before you actually resolve that down to a single point. Like, provide the player with that reactivity, but collapse those into a way that you can proceed forward. This is 100% a lesson learned from Dragon Age, for all the games. ‘Ok, what do we do with this? Holy shit, that is huge, how are we actually going to pay that off?’ Reactivity, but without putting yourself in an impossible-to-win situation [from a story/writing standpoint].”

“More than anything else, the advice I would give [to aspiring devs] is, come up with some fundamental pillars of your story and of your design. There's a misunderstanding that we plan out the exact story for years in advance. We know what we want to get to, we kinda know how we’re going to get there, and a lot of it is just making sure that you have those pillars and those razors. So as you go through development and find, ‘Oh this piece is not working, this piece is clunking’, you’ll always have principles that you can go back to. What is important about this story? Does the piece that isn't working satisfy any of those things? If no, then we have to change it or get rid of it.”

[more advice] “Don’t be afraid to fail (I say fail here as a good thing). Don't be afraid to put something out there and have it absolutely torn to shreds. Feedback is your best friend, having people that you trust to provide that feedback. If I were building a big epic narrative, a big epic franchise, [I’d advise that you] start with your principles and the core of what you want to do, and then just start putting out ideas. ‘Here’s my idea for this story’. It’s easier for me, I'm inheriting a lot of work that's already been done, a lot of ground that's already laid - I have a Lead Writer that has been doing this longer than I have, PW is fantastic. But for myself, it’s just been a lot of like, okay, taking this stuff that's already been built, and making sure that I know what we want to do with whatever the next project is. It sounds overly reductive and overly simplistic, but it really is about just having a really strong sense of what is important to your franchise, what’s important to your brand. If you’re coming up with a new IP, it’s a little trickier. You need to spend some time thinking: what’s the tone, what’s the setting, what kind of story do we want to tell.”

[more advice] Don’t be afraid to heavily reference existing media [as actual razors, internally]. But that's not something you ever want to have go out to the public, because people go like ‘Oh, you’re just being derivative’. It’s like no, we’re just leaning on cultural touchstones that people know, so that when you’re communicating with people outside your discipline, or with people above you like executives, they can at least get a sense like, ‘Oh I kinda get what you’re doing, okay that makes sense’, versus ‘Let me first of all explain the entire history of the world’. My experience with executives is that they don't have time for that and justifiably so. But if I tell them we’re doing X but with Y and Z it’s like, ‘Ok cool, we get that’. [...] It’s a tiered approach. You have levels of detail that you provide to different people based on what they need to know. You yourself may need to know the history of these characters and how they relate to each other and the thousands of years of history for that, but the person building combat probably doesn't need all that detail and just needs to know ‘What am I working with, how do these characters fight.”

“A razor is a statement that you use to slice away what doesn't fit. The narrative razor for Trespasser was, I can’t remember exactly, we were basically trying to go for the Avengers meets Indiana Jones, Winter Soldier. Avengers meets Winter Soldier. [a razor is] a statement that you take all the content [by], ‘Okay, does this actually fit this statement? No? Okay, get rid of it’. It’s about focusing your game. Cutting away the ideas that don't really fit is how you avoid scope-loading and people crunching, and how you keep your project focused.

Trespasser was an intensely-focused DLC, in that it focused on basically two main core things, Solas and the fate of the Inquisition. Everything kind of wrapped into those two razors. As we were going through content, we had stuff like - I said this at a GDC presentation in 2016 - the Qunari are farming lyrium to make Qunari templars. And then we looked at it like, how does that apply to either razor? It doesn't, it doesn't fit either one of them. So we simplified it to, ‘Okay, what actually makes this work in the context of what we’re building?’. [a razor is] a statement that you use to slice off what doesn't fit into the game that you’re building. It can be painful, but having strong razors means that it never comes across as a personal thing.”

Narrative does not mean story.

Two of his least favorite mechanics in games [not including Stalker and DayZ] are weight limits and weapon degradation.

On games as a service:

Interviewer/host: “Talking about games as a service, it’s definitely something that is talked about a lot in gaming in terms of the most successful games. With Dragon Age, putting DLCs out is kind of maybe that same influence, but games that are launched and then iterated on and updated and pushed with content every month, like Fortnite, Riot Games, League of Legends, Valorant etc, that's kind of I feel where the trend of games are trying to go and make the most of those interactions between other people, to make replayability possible and easier. How do you see narrative, do you see it being forgotten with this increase of games as a service? [...] Do you see that as a positive part of narrative in games or do you think there’s still work to be done in that space?”

John: “[...] The place we start to see some confusion, a lot of people think it’s one or the other, but to me, it’s another way, another option for telling stories that by their nature have to be different. I think that's where you need to be, again, very cognizant of what you’re building and of the genre you’re working in, because a story that works for a more traditional box product is not necessarily the kind of story that would work for a games as a service product. [...] Games as a service, understanding what the cadence is that you’re planning to deliver to and what kinds of stories best fit that cadence - some games are better at it than others.

One game that did a pretty decent job of it is Destiny 2, through patches. Final Fantasy 14 is another example, they do a lot of their storytelling between the big expansion releases as part of their free patches. They always know that they have - I think, five big patches? - between each expansion, and they’ve structured their stories to fit into that very specific five-act structure. If they tried to do it weekly or bi-weekly it would be a very different experience. I think there’s always room for narrative. It’s about knowing that there are different lessons to learn and not being afraid to learn those lessons, as opposed to trying to fit the traditional box product square-peg narrative into a live service round hole. And that’s why you need to have a strong vision and why you need to have somebody at the Director level who understands and plays the kinds of games that you’re building, so they kind of understand what works and what doesn't - ‘This type of story worked really well for this game, and I'm not saying you should copy it, but you should at least be willing to learn those lessons and not reinvent the wheel every time.’

We’ve been making games for a long time now, there’s lots of lessons to learn, we should be trying to learn from them and not trying to like, change everything every single time.”

[on length of narrative] “In a lot of cases you know how long your game should be and the hardest part is sticking to that. [...] There is always a worry that fans are going to see a number and be like ‘That’s not big enough or that’s not long enough.’ I do think that there is sometimes a lack of confidence in what you're building, and a desire to make it shorter or longer, but I think at the core, the people building [a] game know how long it’s going to take to tell this story that they want to tell. I say this specifically for narrative, but even stuff like progression, you know how long you want it to take. For myself, I will always take a short but well-executed game over a long game that feels that it has a lot of [useless/boring] padding. It’s about identifying the kind of game you’re building. Open-world games are always going to be bigger and longer than more linear games. Being confident in that number and recognizing when you’re adding time and space for no other purpose than just to make that number on the back of the box longer [is important]. Fans don’t love that, they can see right through that.”

“It was nice to see the amount of hard work that went into DAI rewarded by the press [with the Game of the Year award]. There are definitely parts of it that didn't land that we wish we could have done differently, but it was a project that felt like we were all pulling in the same direction and when we started getting that positive feedback, it was definitely a sense of relief. Especially because a lot of us had been on DA2, and while we were proud of that project, it obviously didn't get the reception that we wanted at that time.

[when they were watching DAI’s release and tracking its reception] We’re keeping a running tally, like ‘Okay, this is really looking like we did something special here’. I’m proud of every project that I’ve worked on but DAI is definitely one that I’m especially proud of.”

“Part of the advantage to being at a company for as long as I have, I've worked with a lot of the other people [responsible for things in other departments like art, writing, audio etc], so while there is that anxiety like ‘I reeeally hope that this works out’, I know it’s going to, because I know that everyone who is doing these roles, like our Animation Director, our Audio Director, Levels, all those other people on the project know what they’re doing and they know their shit better than I could ever hope to. So I’m just kind of standing here like ‘Hey y’all this is what we need’, and it’s coming in. And when it does come in, when you see the pieces together - I think for myself, on DAI, the moment that I first finally started feeling like it was really all coming together was, one of our music designers, going into one of the moments at the end of Redcliffe, doing the music/audio pass, and me finally seeing this scene that I’d been staring at and banging my head against for months - turn into something that actually conveyed emotion, that actually was something that I was excited for our fans to get to see and get to experience. That’s always a special feeling.”

Cinematics is one of the last things to come in, which means that audio is always waiting for them to come in: “They always did an amazing job with very little time, I will never not praise our audio and music designers.”

“Patrick Weekes is the Lead Writer, which means ultimately PW is responsible for the writing side of the game. As Narrative Director, I’m there to offer, to basically take the vision of the project and interpret the part that focuses on narrative and then provide that to my team - because I work with writing, cinematics, level designers and everyone - I’m there to be like ‘Hey this is the narrative we want to achieve’, which sometimes involves getting involved in the story side of things. But a lot of that is PW’s job as Lead Writer, they’ve been doing it for a long time, they’ve been in the industry longer than I have. It’s a really good working relationship. We worked together when I was in cinematics and they were in writing, we worked together on the Iron Bull, then we were both leads on Trespasser, so we have a trust.

I think what’s been really helpful is that they know that if I tell them something’s not working, it’s not coming from ‘I wanna do it my way, you better just do it my way because I’m the boss’, it’s coming from ‘This is something I think we need to do for the project’. And vice versa, if they push back on me about something, I know it’s not coming from ‘Screw you I'm the Lead Writer, I make the decisions’, they’re saying it because this is an actual concern. I do writing, I’m a writer on the project too but I will fully admit PW is a way better writer than I am, so I'm comfortable leaning on them for that stuff, and then I’m the person who can provide that ‘Okay, we know that gameplay is providing this, we know levels is providing this, let’s shift the priorities'.

It’s also about knowing, being able to take that back from any one discipline and say ‘Okay, what is the right decision for the project as a whole’, and sometimes that means telling PW something that they may not think is their favorite thing to do, but they will listen because they trust me and I trust them. I don't know how it works at other studios, there are places where Narrative Director is also the Lead Writer, or where there is Narrative Director and Lead Writer is the highest authority on narrative that exists, but it’s worked for us again because we have that lengthy experience. It would be interesting to see how it would work if we didn’t know each other for a while before this. It’s largely a relationship of trusting each other to know our areas of expertise and also just understanding what’s important to the narrative vision of the project.”

When they did Tevinter Nights it was ‘extracurricular’ work: “It was fun, I got to do some writing, I got published, which was really fun”.

[source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #solas #long post #longpost

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heuristicallyinclined · 4 years ago

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SPF Five Million or Whatever

Summary: Mspa Reader figures they need some sunlight and recruits a few friends to help them get it.

Rating: T for language

Notes: I haven't written any of the jades before and I really love them and tried my best to capture their dynamic. I really love imagining Mspa Reader's adventures between Friendsim and Pesterquest. I feel like the games were really just scratching the surface of their shenanigans.

(AO3)

You are pretty sure that people need about twenty minutes of sunlight a day to stay healthy.

Or at least that is what you think it is. You never really thought about it too much to be honest. Having spent a decent amount of time outside walking, you figured you were getting your daily dose in without much effort, and maybe you just didn’t realize how good you had it, not living on a planet that even passively was trying to kill you. Because right now, you know for a fact you’re getting the ideal amount of sunlight on Alternia, which in your personal experience is fucking ziltch.

You tried it once and learned pretty fast that what might leave you with a healthy glow on Earth, would leave you well done on Alternia, a disgusting state for any piece of meat to be in, let alone your body. So that was clearly an Earth exclusive recommendation.

Still, you think some sunlight would do you good.

Especially since you were starting to feel this constant exhaustion after a few months on Alternia. After ruling out your questionable diet and semi existent sleep schedule, you were left with the fact that you were likely getting a vitamin D deficiency.

Frankly, you have not survived your various trials and many tribulations here on Alternia to let rickets be what finally kills you. Absolutely not. No. You’re too proud to die in the lamest way possible on a planet with significantly more respectable and less preventable ways of dying.

This does mean you’ll have to face off with the Alternian sun, which really isn’t that much better on the lame death scale. Last time you got caught out during daylight, you got really lucky. You aren’t counting on a second time where a gorgeous cowgirl, alien Lassie, and a lot of dumb luck would happen to rescue you from your own poor life choices.

So this time, you were going to try to be smart about doing something this monumentally stupid. You were going to get water, a floppy hat, and some ice packs. Now you just had to not do this alone, especially when you knew someone who touted the merits of the buddy system.

Luckily, you also know a few people who could withstand the sun’s rays.

Finding out that jadeblood sun resistance was in fact a real thing and not just the latest in fucking with the local alien made this a whole lot easier and left you with a few options to consider. You figured Wanshi was too young to be kept up that late and that you’d rather not traumatize her if this went sideways. Bronya mentioned being busy with a new brood hatching and managing the herd of lusii they attracted to the caverns so that was a no go. Lanque would likely be otherwise occupied or at least claim to be and you’d rather him not see you like this if you could help it. That left you with Daraya, who you knew would be up and likely be down for some alien shenanigans. But most importantly, Lynera.

One massive check in her favor is she already had experience inconspicuously carrying your injured body through the caverns unnoticed by literally anyone else to a secondary location So discretion was clearly already a strong suit of hers. The context for how she even got that much experience in the first place is none of your business, especially now that you’re friends. And you’d say you two were actually pretty close after all the time you’ve spent hanging out with her in the caverns and going out on little cafe trips.

Really, she was the ideal candidate for this by every observable metric. Well, almost.

While she is loyal enough that you knew that she would help you hide a body if asked, she has also threatened enough people for perceived slights against you that she would very likely be the reason there was a corpse hanging around in the first place. So having Daraya be there too was probably a safe move.

Oh it’s all coming together now.

You were feeling really good about this. Your confidence in yourself, your friends, and your planning abilities carried you through two difficult conversations. One with a veneer of apathy trying to conceal some very real concern, the other incredibly loud and extremely worried, but you got through them and that’s what matters.

So here you are at the brooding caverns, tucked away inside the turn just before the mouth, clad in some cool guy shades from Cirava, a sun hat from Charun, some shorts from Remele, and a Xoloto brand tank top complete with strategic ripping that makes it basically impossible to wear anywhere in public without a layer underneath.

Your friends are right here with you. Lynera is alternating between pacing and fretting over the placement of your sun hat for the seventh time to really make sure your hair doesn’t ignite. You know it won’t and you told her it won’t, but you let her fuss. She just needs to do something with her hands to stay calm. You can at least let her have that with what you’re about to do. Daraya checks her palm husk again for the time as dawn steadily approaches. You take a deep breath in, psyching yourself up.

So you never actually figured out what the Alternian sun equivalent to twenty minutes of Earth sun is. But you think a minute should be enough to do it and not pass out. It feels about right. You have based this off of no math whatsoever, but you’ve done worse with less prep, so you’re not going to let some nerd shit stop you. Especially not now, when you hear Daraya sigh. You know that it’s show time.

You look at her to confirm as she pockets her device and you see some light begin to stretch into the cavern’s entrance. She looks at it too, frowning as it approaches.

“▲▲ try not to fry your pan ▼▼"

You give her a reassuring smile and run up through the mouth of the cave, and stop just past the entrance, arms up wide and outstretched, like you were doing the YMCA dance and lost rhythm just past the first letter, ready to receive that sunlight you so desperately craved. The sun hits your skin and there is a comfort in feeling’s its warmth after living in eternal night.

You really missed this.

...

Actually, you know what? No you don’t. Fuck this.

That “gentle warmth” quickly became a scorching blaze and to your credit, you made it a solid ten seconds under the full wrath of that relentless bitch they called a sun before you decided to quit while you were ahead and conscious. You dash back towards the entrance, uncomfortably aware of every step you take. Lynera stops nervously pacing and stiffens when you reenter the shade and runs towards you. Daraya is ready and quickly hands you a water bottle. You struggle to open the cap because of the condensation making the bottle slick and it exacerbates the painful tingle you’re feeling all over your hands. And your face. And your everything actually.

You continue struggling until you finally succeed in twisting the cap off, but your victory immediately proves to be a hollow one, as your tight grip on the bottle has water going everywhere.

God. Damn. It.

You’re vaguely cognisant of a screeching sound somewhere behind you, but you have more important concerns right now. By some absolute miracle, a decent amount of the water seems to have gotten on you and saturated your top, soothing the skin under it. You feel less like you’re on fire and more like you had marinated your entire body in icy-hot for a few hours before getting deep fried.

You’d like to believe that that is a much more manageable situation. Your skin can’t tell much of a difference though so you waste no time and pour the rest out all over your face like you were a champ who just scored the winning goal instead of a dipshit speedrunning skin cancer.

Daraya mercifully cracks a cold one with the boys and pours the contents of another water bottle on you like you were a plant she forgot to water. The cool sensation on your skin causes you to sigh in a relief that doesn’t last long, before you lose contact with the ground. Lynera has you thrown over her shoulder and starts quickly making her way back into the caverns to her respiteblock. The physical contact takes that previous painful tingle and absolutely fucking floors it, bringing you to a familiar world of pain that your ass was very content not revisiting. Daraya keeps pace behind the two of you with her arms crossed the face of someone who is totally not panicked.

You try to calm them, telling them you feel better already. Really, you mean it.

This just causes Lynera to speed up and Daraya to grimace down at you instead of giving you an actual response.

While, yes, you resent having flesh, you actually feel really awake right now.

Daraya narrows her eyes. “▲▲ you mean from the pain? ▼▼”

No. No. That's different. And way more familiar.

God. Despite looking like a freshly hatched octogenarian, Lynera can really book it.

She carries your limp, increasingly dizzy body with ease. You knew she was deceptively strong and fast first hand, based off of her being able to immediately able to knock you the fuck out and lug you back to her combination study block murder dungeon. Honestly, being able to do anything with an alien discreetly deserves commendation. Commendation up and out the wazoo.

You’re about to attempt to try to verbalize that thought, but just before the turn to get to Lynera's study block, she suddenly stops. She nervously glances between this hallway and another adjacent one one. Daraya almost bumps into her but stops herself just in time.

"▲▲▲ what are you doing? We said we were just going to put them in a spare recuperacoon ▼▼▼" Daraya whisper yells.

"They're a new color Daraya !!!" Lynera whisper yells to the point of negating the whisper part of the whisper yell and more just using a normal speaking volume with a hiss. “-they need !!! A medicull kit !!!”

Oh. You glance down at one of your dangling arms. That happened fast. In retrospect, you should have mentioned that was a thing that would potentially happen. How did you forget that?

“▲▲▲ and do what? A medicull kit could make them worse. We don’t know shit about aliens ▼▼▼”

“-!!! well how would you know all of their injuries were taken care of! that we didnt miss anything!”

“▲ they’re fine. We just, I don't fucking know? Rotate them in the slime? ▼”

“-like some sort of !!! rotisserie cluckbeast !!!” Lynera indignantly whisper shrieks.

"▲▲ No!▼▼" Daraya quickly defends. The way her eyes quickly glance to the side seems to imply that's kind of exactly what it's like.

Just like them rotisserie chickens.

The longer their arguing went on, the more uncomfortably aware you were getting about the fact that you had a body and Lynera's clothes felt like steel wool grating against your poor skin. That and describing what they were doing as “whisper arguing” was becoming more and more of a stretch as it went on and started to get louder. You were worried you were going to attract unwanted attention.

It is as soon as you have that thought, that a door opens, and you see an irritated Lanque groggily peek his head through to find the source of the commotion.

His face remains still at first, blinking tiredly as he takes in the fuckery and only opens the door wider when the other two turn at the sound of his door opening and he registers you slumped over Lynera’s shoulder with a single raised brow.

You smile and wave at him, despite how lightheaded her turn had you feeling, and Daraya quickly pulls your hand down and stands in front of you like there was nothing to see here. You let out a weak, “ow,” as she did, your flesh protesting at the touch. She glances back at you quickly, before exasperatedly turning to look back at Lanque with her arms crossed.

“▲▲ what? ▼▼”

He measuredly looks at the scene before him. Really taking in all of the bullshit before side eyeing Lynera.

“You threW the alien into broad daylight? EVen for you, that's crazy.” He almost sounds surprised, before smiling sweetly, “NoW Who’s going to tolerate you?”

Lynera sputters something, clearly offended, but Daraya cuts her off with a groan,

“▲ they literally need sunlight to live Lanque ▼”

His face twists. “Are they a fucking plant?”

“-no!!!" Lynera considers for a moment before yelling again just as loud. “-most likely not!!!”

He looks from your trio, to the small puddle of water forming under you, and glances back to the trail of water you apparently had dripping from you this whole time.

You know, you’re really starting to see the plant angle here.

“▲▲ look they just needed some stupid sunlight and we hung around to make sure they didn’t just get too cooked or whatever. What, are you going to tell Bronya on us? ▼▼" Daraya half mocks, half asks.

“No, of course not.” Lanque almost seems offended. “I don’t see any reason to inVolVe myself With you tWo Watching the alien give themselVes sun sickness.”

You ask no one in particular what sun sickness is.

“-can aliens get sun sickness???” Lynera asks with a newfound panic.

Lanque irritatedly replies, “HoW Would I knoW?”

You feel briefly dejected that no one answered. Until another thought crosses your mind. It wasn’t related to anything occurring at the moment, but it was weird enough that you don’t know how this was the first time you had ever really thought about it. Maybe the events of this morning were what it took for you to even be able consider this quandary.

Why do they say troll before a name? Like troll Will Smith? Doesn’t that imply there is another kind of WIll Smith? Like if they’re all trolls, why say troll? Oh shit, is that why they do it? Did you tell them about human Will Smith or would that be like human Whillh Smithh? Human Willhh Smyyth?

You rack your mind for other ways of making Will Smith a valid troll name, concentration evident on your face.

Lanque looks at you like you’re an idiot. “What the fuck are you talking about? You're just repeating the same name.”

The spelling? You narrow your eyes as you consider the spelling. It is the clearest thing in the world right now to you. It’s spelled different Lanque.

“I can’t hear how it’s spelled.”

Daraya’s eyes widen. "▲▲ They fried their fucking pan ▼▼ "

You still don’t know what sun sickness is, but you strongly suspect you may have it, especially since most of what happened afterwards was kind of a blur.

What you think you can remember is the sound of someone coming. Quick, determined footsteps that you couldn’t recognize, but Lynera clearly could as she stiffened first. She maybe said something about Bronya doing a curfew round? You think? Either way, it had everyone else on immediate edge and was enough for Lanque to decide this wasn’t worth staying awake for. He made a final comment and you heard a door shut, leaving your trio behind.

Daraya and Lynera exchanged words, finally remembering the “whisper” part of whisper yelling. They came to an agreement of some sort with Lynera nodding and heading to her studyblock and Daraya going off in the direction of what was probably Bronya.

Mentally, you are pressing F to pay your respects. Physically though, you register your orientation rapidly shifting. While you weren’t crazy about your position over Lynera's shoulder, what with her sweater vest grating against your torso and all, it turns out you enjoyed being moved out of it even less. The blood running away from your head had you feeling woozy in a whole new way.

To her credit, Lynera did not just immediately dunk you into the recuperacoon a la Space Jam like you’re sure she wanted to. She instead carefully lets you sink into it with a gentleness that starkly contrasted her worry. Normally, you would say that being put into a vat of slime is not an experience you would be looking forward to. Right now though, you’re loving it. It is an absolute godsend as it acts a cool balm against your skin.

Lynera continues and gingerly removes your shades and places them on an end table next to your sunhat. You were about to thank her and let her know she was in fact “a real one,” but you got cut off by her grabbing a handful of slime and smearing it on your face.

You sputter and instinctively try to move away, but you’re no match for her. She’s dealt with fussy grubs with sharp teeth for way too long to actually be deterred by your feeble efforts to resist. You don’t know how you’d rate the experience between, “children haphazardly covering you in slick grease paint” to “alien clay mask ensuring you don’t have enough skin to even entertain having clogged pores,” but you aren’t in a position to be opposed to it. It actually feels kinda nice when it’s in a smooth, even layer and not a huge fucking dollop on your face.

When she’s done, she wipes her hands while saying something to you. You don’t really register it, so you just kinda smile and nod. It’s your usual go to when you aren’t quite sure what is happening around you and it hasn’t led you too astray in the very many times you’ve done it. You’ll just ask her what she said in the evening.

Lynera seems pleased and starts moving to turn off the lights. Before she does, you thank her. She smiles at you, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and glances back at you as she goes, leaving you feeling warm inside and out for two extremely different reasons.

You settle down, trying to get cozy. You're not going to pretend you know much about sopor slime. You assumed it comes from a plant and haven't tried to confirm that little theory of yours because you need to believe that for your own sake. It's plant goo. From some kind of alien aloe vera or something. An extremely fleshy plant just ripe with goo for the taking. If you ever learn otherwise, no you didn't.

After you wake up and wipe off the slime, you find that you’ve healed surprisingly quickly. You’re still very tender to the touch, you find that out real fast, but your skin looks a lot less irritated than when you last saw it. This bit of good news and vitamin d that you assume you now have coursing through your veins that hopefully was not mostly used up on healing your skin, puts a little pep in your step as you get ready for the night. Before you exit the caverns, you feel a pang of hunger.

You can practically hear Bronya reminding you how breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so you walk into the meal block, figuring that no one would mind too much if you grabbed a breakfast bar or two before you left. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and find the ones that kind of taste like peanut butter and are crunchy for reasons you’d rather not identify. You aren’t alone when you enter. Lanque is there, sitting at a table. He looks up from his palm husk and eyes you.

“Did you change color?”

Yeah. Humans being exposed to sunlight makes them create a protective pigment so they're more able to be exposed to the sun.

“I’m fascinated.” he says, anything but. “So you're going to turn jade?”

No, more of a slightly darker version of what you are now.

He hums, now totally disinterested and looking back down at his chittr feed. Guess the limits of your rainbowdrinker like attributes have worn off on him.

Anyways, this just means that this will be easier next time you go out during the day.

That statement gives him pause. Lanque looks up from his palm husk, looking out before glancing at you dubiously.

"Next time?"

#hiveswap #hiveswap friendsim #Lynera Skalbi #Daraya Jonjet #Lanque Bombyx #Mspa Reader #This is just me having fun and getting real stupid enjoy #Can you tell I love Lynera?

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honeyjaez · 4 years ago

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Y’all ready for my shitty opinion on the Introduction Kingdom performances that literally no one asked for?

I preface this by saying I love every single group equally and each of these groups (with the sad exception of iKON) I am a hard core fan of. But I also love practicing thinking subjectively and I pride myself on not being too biased when it comes to performances and Kpop, like I know how to understand sometimes my ult might not be the best vocally or whatnot. I like being unbiased with this. So without further ado.

This is not based on scores already known, just my own thoughts.

(And also like these ranking do not reflect my love for a group or if I think they are untalented because all these groups are so massively talented. but rankings have to happen right? Like someones gotta be last but i don’t love them any less lol)

6. Stray Kids (and this hurts as a Stray Kids Ult)

A group that I think really hurt with forced to having to perform the song that they did. (Their only other option was Back Door or levanter but it doesn’t really hit the same as Miroh so I understand why they chose it). The song is still my favorite title track by them (Also Im such a hoe for center Minho like....), but it’s SUCH a hard song to perform live. I remember all the issues they had during the era and still saw a lot of that here, more specifically with the insane rap parts. Its just not something easily done live (I say this like I know how to rap) but it doesn’t take a lot to realize that Changbin’s rap is so insanely fast (which props to him) that it can still be difficult for him. Also I think the backtrack of the song really hindered the performance. It was just too loud. Like you know those performances when you can really tell a group has some relying on the backtrack and others don’t? I have nothing wrong with lip synching, honestly, I could care less by it because I understand they are doing so much movement on stage that I couldn’t understand how to do both. But it takes away from the performance when you hear the difference in members performing live and those who are relying a bit more on it. Stray Kids are AMAZING performers and CAN sing/rap live. It was very cool though I guess with props but it was like they were trying to distract people from the lack of performance. I just think that having to perform Miroh (I know they didn’t get to pick really) was their downfall to me. But the outfits were cool! Regardless, they are still #1 in my heart and I look forward to the other performances!!! But with more Seungmin!!!!!

6. ATEEZ

Next to The Boyz, I am most excited about seeing ATEEZ on Kingdom. One because Korea seriously needs to stop sleeping on them, but two because they are such intense and talented performers. True to form they came in crashing! Unfortunately, the only reason they are so low is that there wasn’t anything that really made them stand out from the others to me. I do appreciate the classic ATEEZ intensity (but like also Hongjoong please don’t be all serious and death stare while suddenly saying Hakuna Matata, I couldn’t take it seriously). But the VOCALS win most intense which sells towards their performance. I appreciated Ateez so much for their intense singing (looking at you Seonghwa and Jongho). I do think that having to perform Wave didn’t really help them. (From my understanding is that MNET told them they had to perform a song that placed #1 which for them was only Wave, or Inception which they already performed at MAMAs (we did Wonderland so dirty)) Not that I hate Wave (its actually my favorite title track by them) and I did enjoy the composition of this new darker Wave, but could you imagine if they had come in swinging with Pirate King or Wonderland? Hell fucking yes. Regardless, looking forward to see how they grow as the youngest group on there! I have nothing but high hopes for them!

4. SF9

Now You guys know how much I love SF9. They are practically an unofficial ult group for me. But this is not based off song because I actually can’t stand Good Guy (I overplayed it when it came out and now I hate it (not really but ya know) ) I remember people saying SF9′s performance wasn’t really memorable, but I didn’t see that. I saw an idol group coming out for the first time to prove something and actually shocking me with how intense they were. They really looked like Gang Members (handsome ones at that) ready to rule the world with their performance. Their looks and their dancing was great. I love SF9 and they haven’t had a lot of opportunities to showcase their talents like this so I look forward to how they shock the other group (also if they don’t do the wheel from K.O in a single performance I will riot) but all in all I think this was a solid performance by them! I laughed at the beginning with Inseong holding the crystal diamond because I couldn’t help but think back to tbz and the crown on rtk. I hope they also do story driven performances on here because I haven’t seen that from them before and I think it would be great!

3. BTOB

Can I just say I appreciate the fact that they are staying true to their vocal roots? So much Kpop these days is intense and in your face with everything, and I worried about a vocally driving group like BTOB being on this program because they’ve never been about the choreography (though I’ll be your man was lit) but just like how everyone reacted, BTOB focusing on their vocals rather than dance was such a breath of fresh air in this round. They really are vocal kings in KPop and the chills that some of those idols felt were so important. Like Wooyoung said after their performance “Vocals are so powerful” (or something like that) and I sometimes feel that people forget that. Intense dancing is great and all, but to wow people with just your voice like they did is a feat not every group can do. The acapella was such a nice tough too. Beautiful Pain is such a beautiful song (ha) and the remix they did for it was just so nice. My only complaint is that we didn’t get enough Minhyuk vocals :(((((

2. The Boyz

Aight, people might accuse me of being biased based on how whipped I was for The Boyz back during RTK, but I’m really not. Like the other groups agreed on, you can tell The Boyz were on RTK. You can tell they have been through a program like this and they came in swinging. They have a lot of pressure on them after the wonderful performances on RTK and I think the opening performance they did didn’t disappoint. They are such good storytellers when it comes to performances (something Ateez is also really good at as well). They just get you immersed in their performances and thats something unique to certain groups. They were just meant to perform. Regardless of scores, The Boyz are proving to be fierce competitor from the get go and not to name names, but Sunwoo is such an amazing rapper live like holy shit. He needs more credit. RTK was amazing for them and I am sure Kingdom will be just that as well!

1. iKON

God I hope Kingdom will turn me from a casual fan to a hardcore ikonic. What I loved about iKON’s performance is a lot like BTOB’s or even SF9′s. There was a sense of branding, like this style was their’s and theirs alone. Also their performance brought so many smiling and happy faces to the crowd. A lot of younger groups look up to iKON and you even heard how many idols there and evaluations to their songs or what not. They just had so much fun on stage and that reflected on the audience who in turn also had a blast. I wasn’t sure how I would feel watching them since out of all the groups I’m least attached to iKON, but just with that causal, fun, but intense performance of rytham-ta one could easily see them as Kings already. I didn’t notice any thing out of place because I was just enjoying the performance completely. And to me, thats the most important part of a performance.

Again, these were just my opinions on this introduction stage. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the performances. Your rankings, and who you look forward to see more from! We will have a fun time with Kingdom on my blog! <3 :3

I look forward to future rounds and what other groups have to offer!

#despite all the issues i had like not seeing Hyunjin at all and what not I actually really enjoyed this first episode #BTOB is such great seniors I can't even #same with ikon #and don;t even get me started on StrayBoyzTeez interactions #and the fact that everyone simps over SF9 #Kingdom #stray kids #the boyz #ikon #btob #ateez #sf9

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justdreamsstuff · 3 years ago

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Here are 75 quotes about success to inspire you to keep pushing forward and achieve your dreams

"If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success." James Cameron

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." Henry David Thoreau

"Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out." John Wooden

"Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence." Lisa M. Amos

"If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary." Jim Rohn

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life--think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." Swami Vivekananda

"Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion." Tony Hsieh

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them." Walt Disney

"If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do." Anonymous

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill

"Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them." Vaibhav Shah

"Success? I don't know what that word means. I'm happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody's eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me." Denzel Washington

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them." Chris Grosser

"Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." Albert Einstein

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." Charles Darwin

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt

"The best revenge is massive success." Frank Sinatra

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Thomas Edison

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." David Brinkley

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

"The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it." Henry Ford

"If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." Oscar Wilde

"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success." Bruce Feirstein

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." John D. Rockefeller

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." Nathaniel Hawthorne

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Albert Einstein

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed." Ray Goforth

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." Arthur Ashe

"People ask, 'What's the best role you've ever played?' The next one." Kevin Kline

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." Thomas Jefferson

"The starting point of all achievement is desire." Napoleon Hill

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out." Robert Collier

"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work." Thomas J. Watson

"All progress takes place outside the comfort zone." Michael John Bobak

"You may only succeed if you desire succeeding; you may only fail if you do not mind failing." Philippos

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear." Mark Twain

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone." Pablo Picasso

"We become what we think about most of the time, and that's the strangest secret." Earl Nightingale

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." Bill Cosby

"Though no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending." Carl Bard

"I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing." Martha Stewart

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself." Mark Caine

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." Bruce Lee

"Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy." Jimmy Spithill

"Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down." Charles F. Kettering

"If you genuinely want something, don't wait for it--teach yourself to be impatient." Gurbaksh Chahal

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." Steve Jobs

"If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you!" T. Harv Eker

"Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better." Jim Rohn

"The No. 1 reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors." Napoleon Hill

"In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it." Jane Smiley

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time." George Bernard Shaw

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." Diane Ackerman

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." Jim Ryun

"Our greatest fear should not be of failure ... but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." Francis Chan

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." Jim Rohn

"Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don't have a plan." Larry Winget

"To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can't just accept the ones you like." Mike Gafka

"Be content to act, and leave the talking to others." Baltasar

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." Margaret Thatcher

"Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no greater investment." Stephen Covey

"I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite." G. K. Chesterton

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Thomas A. Edison

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." Robert Hughes

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?" Robert Schuller

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing." Abraham Lincoln

"Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential." John Maxwell

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that's where you will find success." Thomas J. Watson

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." Albert Einstein

"Success is just a war of attrition. Sure, there's an element of talent you should probably possess. But if you just stick around long enough, eventually something is going to happen." Dax Shepard

"My tombstone? I'm thinking something along the lines of, 'Geez, he was just here a minute ago.'" George Carlin

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katsidhe · 3 years ago

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Hello as a long time silent lurker with post notifications on, and someone who has been very into the minecraft roleplay for about 9 months, I am oh so incredibly intrigued on your thoughts! I hope you don't mind if I ramble a little. Sam (both minecraft and spn, but in this context the minecraft one) is one of my favourite characters because he's so incredibly complex. The prison story has sparked so much discussion and conflict in this fandom, so I would love to hear your thoughts if you want to share!

oh noooooooooooo don’t enable me. (Jk <3)

I’m putting this under a read more for those of you who don’t want to be inflicted with my minecraft roleplay brain worms. I would apologize but I think we’re well past that.

So, like, full disclosure that I am pretty new to dsmp and am surely missing out on big ol swathes of Essential Character Content, etc etc. But I do know the basics, and I’ve (naturally) watched all the Torture Box Content, because I mean come on, that’s my brand.

k so First of all, THE most essential part of any media: x-coded y girl. Dream is a textbook Cas-coded Sam girl. Sam (Minecraft) is a Cas-coded Dean girl. Quackity is a Dean-coded Sam girl. I’d say Tommy is Dean-Dean. Techno is, hmm, Cas-Cas. Okay, important part done.

Minecraft Sam is very fun! I find it absolutely delightful that he clings to moral high ground while torturing and starving a prisoner. And at least from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of room for interpretation as to the level of guilt and involvement he actually feels about what’s being done to Dream. He goes back and forth between justifying the treatment as something Dream categorically deserves, and justifying it as a means to an end. Whether that end is the book itself, or whether it’s Quackity’s cooperation/satisfaction, or whether it’s some twisted and bloody sense of justice and duty, seems to vary wildly. On top of that, of course, is the irony that Dream was the one to give him this commission and this job in the first place: in every respect, it’s a duty to Dream (to punish him; to secure him; to uphold his rules) that Sam’s fulfilling. Dream isn’t the only one to suffer from Sam’s inflexibility surrounding the entire concept of Dream: Tommy and Ponk do too.

And yet it’s not the inflexibility that ends up hurting Dream the worst: it’s the gaps in that rigidity. If Sam had kept the prison operating as apparently originally commissioned, it would be inhumane but just about bearable: hardly the level of absurd, over-the-top war crime that it’s reached by now. His choice to begin starving Dream in earnest seems to have been mostly an emotional reaction, after Tommy’s death. (Ironic, too, that Tommy also suffered the result of this choice.) And this is fine, because it’s not active: it’s passive, something that’s happening by inaction. Same with giving Quackity specially made weapons and total carte blanche.

The level of trust that Dream has in Sam’s sense of duty is also fascinating. Even as late as the most recent stream, after the guy’s been permitting him to be tortured for months, Dream appeals to Sam’s need to keep Dream static, in one place as his prisoner, in order to save his life. Incidentally, I do think that convincing Sam to keep Quackity from straight-up murdering him is the only concession Dream was actually hoping to win with that conversation. because like, food and a courtyard visit? after a jail break? Like hell is Sam going to grant that, even before the stunt he and Techno pulled, and Dream knows it. I think that the rest of that conversation was just to deflect, and keep Sam from questioning Dream more sharply about whatever he and Techno have planned. Bringing up Tommy and letting Sam go off on his predictable diatribe about morality and just desserts seemed similarly strategic: Dream knows what Sam thinks about what kind of treatment he deserves. He’s had months to figure it out, and it wasn’t exactly rocket science to begin with.

Anyway, that trust is the same reason Dream appealed (unsuccessfully) to Sam when Quackity first showed up: it devastated him to realize that he’d miscalculated the degree of Sam’s willingness to set aside his duty in this one particular way. Quackity in general represents a HUGE blind spot in Sam’s otherwise completely rigid inflexibility: so huge it’s almost baffling, given what Sam was ready to do to Tommy and Ponk and Ghostbur. But Quackity represents a loophole Sam badly wants. He badly, badly wants some good old-fashioned vengeance, without dressing it up with any pretensions of procedure or justice, but he can’t allow himself to actively act on those impulses—or else he would be Bad, and he can’t have that. He has to believe himself to be Good, and he wants to indulge himself with Dream’s suffering anyway. So he explains that, actually, Dream’s treatment is Dream’s own fault. It’s hilariously deluded.

Which brings me to Quackity, because what makes Quackity fun is that he’s actually NOT hilariously deluded—not about this, at least. Unlike Sam, he’s not laboring under the insane mental acrobatics necessary to convince himself that torture is Good Actually. He knows that what he’s doing is terrible, but he owns it: he’s fine admitting that he enjoys it, that he’s doing this for personal gain and personal vengeance and not for reasons of high-minded civic duty. He’s justifying the torture with brutal simplicity: Dream has hurt him and Dream has something he needs, done and done. He seems to be a firm believer in vengeful and disproportionate retribution, just as with his whole Butcher Army thing. To which I say, neat and fun! I also really really enjoy the power dynamic between him and Dream. Dream is someone who commands respect and fear and power, who could murder Quackity with one hand tied behind his back if they were on equal footing, and who probably barely spared him a thought as a threat. Quackity lives in terror of the thought of Dream escaping and wreaking his vengeance. And Quackity is trying his very best to wrestle that power away from him.

He seems to be pretty unpracticed and ineffective at torture, too—like, yeah, I get this is Minecraft and props are limited, but torturing someone long-term with an ax and a sword is going to be more than a bit unwieldy. and did he even bring in health potions his first day? It’s pretty telling and hilarious that Sam is the one who offers the shears, a far more practical choice of tool. Not to mention that the entire premise of his interrogation gives Dream massive, massive incentive to never give Quackity anything. Quackity straight up admits to Dream that the information he wants is the only reason he’s letting Dream live, which is utterly counterproductive if he wants the book sometime this year. Functionally, he needs to torture Dream not merely into admission, but into suicide. And as the days and weeks and months pass, he’s still got nothing to show for it but growing vindictiveness, paranoia, and frustration. By the time of the latest stream, he’s completely lost the plot—his threats don’t even make sense, his violence is ineffective and unhinged and indiscriminate. He’s lost all leverage and he’s needlessly (re)made a powerful enemy in Technoblade.

So, like, characters like Lucifer are fun because they’re good at torture. Characters like Quackity are fun because they’re bad at torture. But that doesn’t much matter. He doesn’t need to be particularly talented, or strong, or skilled to make Dream’s existence hell: the bare facts of the situation are more than enough for that. What does he learn, over the course of these visits—what skills does he hone, what kinds of violence does he discover that he can stomach? What depths of ruthlessness and creativity and hatred does he discover within himself? What threats does he make that he finds himself following through on before he’s even thought through the implications? It’s a learning curve, for him and Dream both. They’re learning each other, they’re learning the corners of this little hell together. Dream wasn’t expecting him to be capable of this degree of hostility or violence. Quackity is sick of being underestimated.

Which brings me finally to Dream. My general and hastily-gleaned impression of the fandom gives me the distinct impression that there is somehow a school of thought convinced Dream’s earned this treatment? Which baffles me. not only in how its absurd extremity (daily torture in a tiny box for literal months, jesus fucking christ) isn’t something even the most terrible villain could earn, but also in how Dream himself strikes me more as a morally gray fallen/falling antihero type than anything else. I was honestly completely prepared to find him to be a straightforward Bad Guy pre-prison, but that’s not at all my impression. He’s clearly got people and things he cares about and wants to protect, and big picture goals he’ll ruthlessly sacrifice anything to advance (ahem Cas-coded Sam girl). Really, it’s more that roleplays don’t tend to lend themselves easily to those types of narrative classification: nearly every character is a POV character; consuming the content from every perspective is nearly impossible. There aren’t super neat ways to sort antagonists and protagonists in essential terms, only in their relationships to one another. In terms of manipulation, war crimes, power-grabbing, and general destruction, practically everyone on the server is guilty to some degree or another. Dream’s treated Tommy pretty damn terribly, but that hardly makes him unique. What does make Dream unique is that he’s been singled out for near-universally-agreed-upon confinement (which oh so conveniently aligns with him being held as a tool, for information). And that’s neat!

…Look, tldr I just like it when people are in torture boxes. more media should have torture boxes, they are good and fun.

#not spn #anyway nonny I would LOVE to chat more about this tbh #suicide mention #torture #dsmp for ts

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #306

i’m v talkative today so pardon my jabbering below.

What is the strangest type of candy you have eaten? I think I've had one of those lollipops with a bug in it before as a kid? I don't remember. What would be your most ideal profession? A freelance photographer. But I'm honestly starting to lose hope. Have you tried those coloring books for adults? Yeah; it's funny you mention 'em, 'cuz a family friend got me one for my birthday earlier this month. What is a topic you definitely don't want to talk about with anyone? I don't like talking about my sexual history, doesn't matter who you are. It's just uncomfortable. What was your first gaming console? An Atari. Is there something you're eagerly waiting for? What is it? *SLAMS FISTS ON TABLE* MAY NEEDS TO FUCKIN' HURRY. My tattoo appointment is set then. :''') Do you/have you ever belonged to an organization? If so, which one? I was a Girl Scout when I was young. What is something you're very passionate about? Nature conservation, gay rights (equal rights in general, really), the pro-choice movement, and then there are less "important" things like certain hobbies interests and such. I'm sure there are more big ones that are just slipping my mind right now, considering I feel passionately for a shitload of stuff. What are you studying or what was the last thing you studied? I majored in Art & Design with a focus on Photography in college. But guess who dropped out. What was the last present you gave someone? I don't know... I mention enough that I don't have a source of income where I can really buy anything. I think the last thing I did was a Christmas gift for Mom a year or two back of a drawing I did of our late dog Cali, whom she absolutely adored. Do you enjoy plays? If so, what was the latest one you saw? Not really, no. What was the last thing you achieved? PHP has helped me focus on little victories, so prepare for an underwhelming answer haha, but it's something. I Facebook messaged an old friend I really wanted to catch up with, and everyone in group cheered for me. :') It was really heartwarming. What a shocker that this program is really helping me once again. What is something you would like to achieve at some point in your life? I would love love love to take at least one "famous" or award-winning photograph. It'd be such amazing validation that I'm talented at something I love so much. What is one philosophy you have regarding life/living/purpose? That's... difficult to answer seeing as I'm trying desperately to find my purpose. I do try to live by this old quote a therapist said once: "Deal with life, or life deals with you." I think it holds an incredible amount of depth and meaning in such a short phrase. How would you design the inside of your own home? I don't know the details of it, really, besides that shit is gonna look like a Halloween house year-round. I can imagine wanting black furniture, too, and having loooots of decor expressive of what I love and find comfort in. Gotta make a house feel like a home just for me. What is a band you remember liking from your childhood? Backstreet Boys, duh. Do you ever get mad at people for not having the same opinion as you (i.e. abortion being wrong/right, meat-eating being wrong/right)? Two things: it depends on the topic, and "get mad" is the wrong term for what I feel. It's more disgust; ex., I'm repulsed by anti-gay rights people and want absolutely nothing to do with 'em, but I'm not like, mad at them. Do you edit any of your pictures? In what ways? Oh yeah, and it definitely depends on the raw photograph. I edit depending on the mood it emanates; like if you've seen my roadkill photography versus nature shots, there is an extremely distinct difference in editing style and vibe. I'd say in general though, I tend to like to brighten my photographs and add more vibrance. If you like to take pictures, what is your motivation? God, I could write an essay on this. I just love and am so thankful for the fact we can literally freeze time forever with the click of a button and look back on fantastic sights, beautiful moments, memories... It's just magical to me, and I adore contributing to that art. Would you ever consider living anywhere cold? Well yeah, that's my preference, actually. What is your absolute favorite food? The spicy shrimp fritas from Olive Garden, jfc. Would you ever wear snake-skin pants, or other animal clothing? Fuck to the absolute hell no. What foreign country would you like to go to for a shopping spree? Idk, considering I'm not well-versed in the artistic creations of other countries. Perhaps India? Japan? I dunno. If you met your favorite musician, what would you ask him/her? I'm asking for his fucking autograph and a hug while I smile my face in two AND cry lmao. What do you spend most of your day thinking about? I ain't gonna bullshit nobody, my PTSD. In some way or another, he's lurking in that head of mine through memories, flashbacks, wonders of what could have gone differently... but thank God it's no longer in the forefront of my mind after my first PHP. I've come very, very far, but especially when trying to blank out my mind to fall asleep, parts of PTSD strangle my brain until I'm just finally out. I really hope that changes someday. Where is a busy place you would like to go to? Yikes, nowhere, really. I like to avoid busy locations. Do you think video games cause people to become violent? Absolutely not. You are responsible for the decisions you make; music, games, movies, etc. have no deciding voice in stupid shit you do, and it's bullshit that people blame art and entertainment for such things. Vocabulary: What was the last word you learned? I'm unsure. Have you or could you build your own site? Absolutely not from scratch. The closest I've gotten to that is my photography website, but it was through the assistance of Wix. What's the best thing you can cook yourself? Scrambled eggs, haha. I do make some bomb eggs at least. Are there a lot of graffiti around your neighborhood? No. Do you have a hobby that forces you out of the house? If so, what is it? Nature photography. Would you stop eating meat, if you had to raise and slaughter it yourself? Absolutely. God, I want to go vegetarian again... Besides English, what other languages can you speak? I can speak a very little bit of German. Took four semesters of it in high school and became very good at it, but lack of practice has pretty much ruined that. Besides English, what other languages can you read? I can read German well; as in, I can pronounce most words I see, but that doesn't mean I understand what is written. Do you think you could make it as a chef? Gordon Ramsey would deadass kick me off his show on day one, lmao. What's your favorite kind of tea? It marvels me JUST how many tea and coffee questions are in surveys. Anyway, I don't like tea. I am an embarrassment to NC culture. What thing/person/happening has made you the happiest you've been? lask;dfjal;wekrjwe What's the most freeing thing you've ever done? Stealing my happiness back from someone who had no right to hold it all in its entirety. That shit's mine. Do you think today's kids are really impatient? Most, probably, but in some ways I can understand it - at least, in the sense that with the assistance of modern technology and advancements in satiating our wants so quickly, kids just expect it. I definitely believe that patience is something to try to be deeply instilled in everyone, though. I don't have an ounce of it (in most situations) and wish I did. Have you ever tasted birch sap? No. How about the young buds/shoots of spruce trees? No. Which edible flowers have you tasted? One of my favorite Southern experiences is finding a bunch of honeysuckles and tasting the honey (is it technically even honey??). Tastes amazing. My family's hairdresser lives down a beautiful path that sprouts a massive amount of them, and as kids, my sisters and her two boys would go tasting them while our parents talked for so long, or if we were waiting our turn. Good memories. What has been your worst restaurant experience? I'm not sure, really. What's the most immature, adolescent thing that still makes you laugh? "Inappropriate humor type jokes." <<<< They can get me sometimes, too. Have you ever had a life-threatening condition? If so, what was it? No, thankfully. Have you ever had a custom print done on a shirt? If so, what was it? I don't believe so, no. Besides making a tye-dye one in HS with our school colors. Wasn't my idea and never wore it, haha. Do you ever read other people's survey answers? It depends on the person. If it's a friend, absolutely, because I love learning usually obscure things about them I wouldn't have known otherwise. If it's a user I don't know from wherever I got the survey, sometimes, depending on how short the answer is and my eyes kinda just scroll over it. Do you like daytime or night time better? Why? Daytime, especially mornings. I'm generally happier when there's light around. What's your highest level of education so far? Some college. Describe your ordinary day: My average day is embarrassingly uneventful. It's sitting on the laptop doing shit on various sites, none of which are actually important, and playing WoW, which is also without true substance, save for social interactions with my friends on there. I spray Venus' terrarium everyday multiple times as well to keep the humidity up, and obviously eat and handle that kinda bodily needs stuff. Would you ever have a UV tattoo? Ugh, that'd be so dope. I've seen some awesome ones, but idk if I'd get one, considering when am I actually going to be under UV light?? Like I wanna be able to see my tat. What is the brand and color name of your favorite lipstick? I have one black lipstick, but it comes right off so I don't even like it. I only ever put it on to take pictures. What do you like on your tortilla? Just ham and cheese. How about inside your pita bread? I've never had pita bread, actually. What do you like in your burger? It depends on where I'm getting the burger. My basic is cheese, ketchup, mustard, a bit of mayo, pickles, and a light sprinkle of diced onion, but sometimes I add bacon and take away the onions. How about on your pizza? I have three I tend to pick from: pepperoni, jalapeno, or meat lovers. Do you work better alone or in a group? Alone, definitely. Which body part would you not mind losing? I'ma be extremely honest, with just how horribly weak my legs are, I could live without them, I guess. Not saying I want to by any means, it's just exhausting using them. Ideally, I'd take away something minor, like a finger or something. What common saying people use is absolute BS to you? “'Everything happens for a reason.'” <<<< Fuckin' colossal "same." I won't rag on people who believe it, especially if it gives you courage to keep moving forward, but I don't believe it in the slightest. If it were so, I'd like to talk to whoever is in control of those "reasons," please. What is the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week? I had no idea elephants were pregnant for two years, like holy shit, can you imagine. It was in an article I saw on Facebook about a mother and daughter elephant who are both expecting and doing well. Wonderful to hear. What’s the most useless talent you have? Ha, I'm a master in the arts of catastrophizing and jumping to conclusions involving people hating me in one way or another. What’s something everyone looks stupid doing? I'm one of those people who hate dabbing done by anybody, like you look like you're just smelling your armpit. Which kids’ movie scarred you for life? I wouldn't say "scarred me for life" by any means, but when I was little, I was terrified of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz and even had nightmares about her. It sucked because my little sister was obsessed with that movie, haha. In one sentence, how would you sum up the Internet? A source of incredible knowledge but also hate and misinformation. What would be the most ridiculous thing for the government to make illegal? I literally dread the idea of Roe vs. Wade being reversed. Banning abortion would kill so many people with operational uteruses and cause absolute pandemonium. How many friends do you have on social media and how many of them do you know for real? On Facebook, I have 124 friends, and I'd say I know most of them "in real life." However, having been on the Internet since I was so young and befriending loads of incredible people, a good chunk are "online friends." Hell, I'm more interested in their lives than most "real" ones. Long-distance friendships are so valid. What fact amazes you every time you think of it? Lots of things, generally regarding the stupidity of humanity. What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? Probably going to the beach w/ my old friend Colleen. We had zero plans of doing it, but she just called me one morning and asked if I wanted to go, and off we went. It was a fun day. What has taken up too much of your life? I'ma be real, WoW. I don't think I'm addicted to it like I once was seeing as I go through spans where I barely want to play it at all and don't, so I truly am capable of not playing it, but rather it's just the most entertaining way to kill time in my life. I just don't like how much time I've invested into a game over six or seven years regardless. Where do you not mind waiting? Uh, nowhere lmao. Is there an app you hate to use, but still use every day? No; why would I use it if that was the case? Who is the funniest person you know? My friend Girt is fucking hysterical. What three words describe you best? Complex, passionate, and creative. What makes you think you’re smart? Lol who says I think I'm smart? Who inspires you? Korean Jesus. Okay on a serious note, not just him, of course, but he's #1 in an entire universe of ways. Do you aspire to be like somebody else? If so, who? No; I want to be my own authentic self. How did you meet your best friend? YouTube, back when it had more social aspects. Which one of your accomplishments are you the most proud of? I want to say my recovery, but like... I wonder a lot if it's "enough" to be proud of with how scarred I still am? I still struggle with a lot and feel like I could be so much better by now if I tried harder. If I'm completely honest with myself, I think it's finishing high school in the top percentile of my graduating class. There was a ceremony for the handful of us and all, and I cherish my plaque probably too much. Reminds me of a time when I knew what the fuck I was doing. What's the strangest thing you ever did as a child? Thinking I had "animal powers" where I could invoke the traits of certain animals at will, like what the actual fuck, Brittany. What did your mother teach you? Christ, a lot. Dad didn't do a lot of the raising, honestly, so much of my core values and whatnot were instilled by my mother. She taught me to care for and be nice to others, respect myself, try my best in everything, and most importantly that she is always there for me and my sisters no matter what and can tell her absolutely anything. She was very serious about us going to college and saving sex for marriage when we were younger, but she diverged from those ideas as absolutely necessary with experience. I'm extremely lucky with who I call my mom, overall. What did your father teach you? Eek... Read above. Not a lot as a kid (save for riding a bike and playing softball); most he's taught me has come following reuniting with him after my parents' divorce. I remember we went to lunch once and talked about my breakup, and he talked to me about sometimes, you just have to let people go in order to be happy, like with him and Mom. He's very serious now about ensuring us girls know that he is always there for us and will help us in any way he's capable. What makes you feel powerful? "Powerful" isn't something I really feel, if I'm being real. What are you ready to let go? It would be inexplicably fantastic if I could let every speck of Jason go in both my head and heart. What is your most bizarre deal-breaker? I don't really find any of my expectations and limits as "bizarre?" They're all valid to me. Well wait, idk if you'd find it strange that I absofuckinglutely would not date someone who hunts, but it's not to me. That's a difference in a very serious value to me. Would you rather be hated or forgotten? Hated. God, I don't want to leave this earth having given just nothing. I can live with some people hating me for whatever reason. What’s the biggest personal change you’ve made? Accepting my bisexuality, probably. That's something that I consider pretty big for two reasons: 1.) I could end up with a woman forever, and especially 2.) I was originally homophobic. I still have difficulty in fathoming how I ever was. What are some of your short-term goals? PHP is finally starting to make me build these again. I want to get better at selfcare, draw, write, and read more, I want to drink a lot more water, exercise way more... Lots of things, really. What is the weirdest thing about you? Uh. I dunno. Probably that I RP meerkats, which is a very obscure RP niche for sure.

#survey #surveys #questions

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feelingbluepolitics · 5 years ago

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We Can't Overlook Elizabeth Warren.

Behind the early ups and downs of this Democratic primary, there is one quality we are all looking for, both progressives and moderates: The ability to beat trump.

Warren is the one candidate already running directly against trump.

This is about whether we support the anti-corruption candidate who directly confronts and undercuts not just trump, but his entire agenda and everything trump stands for.

Right now, Warren is a bit like Ukraine's anti-corruption candidate, Zelinsky, who is holding out against Russia even while it is uncertain that America has his back. He didn't look like the toughest or the most fierce either, but he ran on a solid and heartfelt campaign against corruption. The strength of those principles resisted trump's attacks time after time, withstood every threat and every trump minion, brought trump's targeted corruption efforts to a standstill, and led to trump being exposed and impeached. The people of Ukraine united against corruption in their Revolution of Dignity, and chose the person who represented anti-corruption as the core of his campaign.

Ukraine versus Russia isn't where we are, though, as Democrats against the trump-led Republicons. Democrats together, with Independents and new voters and shocked, repulsed, moderate Republicons, are unstoppable. But building that coalition begins with Democrats united. Why would others join us if we fragment the power we have? As Blue Voters, as Democrats, we need to be positioned to work together.

"What it takes is a united Party. We can't have a repeat of 2016 when we roll into the general election with Democrats still mad at Democrats, Democrats still angry, some Democrats staying home. We need to have a Party that is united." (Warren, MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes, 2/12/2020.

Bernie is uniting the progressives.

Buttigieg, maybe Klobuchar, are coalescing the moderates.

For all that many of us say and mean, "Vote Blue No Matter Who," we will lose moderates who are too nervous to support Bernie, the "self-described socialist," at the top of the ticket. People tend to fear the unknown. It is a terrible risk that people could consider trump the "known" factor, the disaster who telegraphs every despicable move so that at least people know what's coming, while seeing Bernie as the unknown, the greater fear of what "socialism" means in America between one day and the next.

Conservatives have long fear mongered against "socialism" and blotted out the distinctions between socialism and democratic socialism. We can start saying, "Well, it's like Denmark, it's like thriving countries in Northern Europe, not like Venezuela." But pictures of unrest hit harder and more viscerally than pictures of foreign success. Fox, dug into the political landscape for a long time now, has a formidable head start. There is also an ingrained version of American exceptionalism, where we Americans want to be who we are and not anybody else. We just want to be better at who we are.

Young Democratic Socialists and leaders like AOC are the brightest future, but we have to get there to reach it. trump stands in the way. As against trump, there will be inevitable, additional, multiple and damaging fights over Bernie and his platform before and after he faces trump directly.

It is unfair, and it is frustrating beyond measure. But ultimately, what most progressives want is the progress represented by Bernie's decades of vision, and they must consider whether that is more important, or if having Bernie himself as the standard bearer is more important.

In a better world, in a better America, Bernie could be president. That isn't where we are.

In a steadier world, a moderate candidate could make a suitable candidate for president, to run the country with small, incremental course corrections here and there.

It isn't as though progressives won't also look for bipartisanship! That is not a qualification unique to moderates! It's just that more progressive leaders don't stall while waiting for it. We cannot afford to do that. That is absolutely not where we are. On so many fronts, we are in a cataclysmic phase in our nation's history and in the future of the world. This is not the time for cautious incrementalism, for trying to back up to a safer-seeming status quo that isn't there anymore, or really never was.

To choose a moderate who seems confident about grasping the reins and taming the runaway is to be looking at the wrong moving picture entirely. What it really is, is pulling a blanket over our heads during a massive earthquake, and imaging that as reasonable because we'll just pat everything back into place afterwards.

We need to stop overlooking Elizabeth Warren. We need to support her before we lose her.

She is a fighter, which is why bloated billionaires and corporate CEOs fear her.

Her authenticity and her resolution are why Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely set against her.

What better protection can there be against the dangers Facebook represents to our elections than Zuckerberg having confessed in advance he will do anything to try to prevent a Warren presidency? She has a built-in shield like no other candidate because he's already on record against her. If people are suspicious about the mass of disinformation coming at us, it can't work as well.

Warren is a fighter, but she fights to unify us. As she says, everybody on the political left, up and down the ticket, can run on anti-corruption as a platform. We need them to.

That is the fight that can completely destroy trump. Every time trump brings up his economy, Elizabeth is positioned to show who "trump's" economy is really working for and why.

For all that people are talking about "electability" -- an amorphous and meaningless quality on its own, whatever it is -- any of our candidates have it if most voters nationwide support that candidate. That is actually what "electability" really comes down to. At this fraught junction, progressives are in no mood to support moderate candidates, although many, with trump as the alternative, will if they must. Moderates are always nervous of progressives; Bernie has long been the unimaginable for them, and Republicons excel at exacerbating fear.

If both progressive and moderate Democrats remain determined to win it all on their own respective merits, we stand to lose all. We need Warren for so many reasons which become more obvious once we look.

Those who hated Hillary saw her as a corrupt insider, with too many set implacably against her from the outset. Warren isn't a career "insider," and she is running against corruption. trump's projections of corruption, his go-to comfort zone, are useless against Warren.

Warren also resolves a deep residual disappointment over American backwardness, of not yet electing our first woman president. Warren also resolves some of the terrible disappointment of having Hillary's extensive knowledge and extraordinary qualifications wasted. Warren not only has detailed plans for every situation we face, she is willing to listen to and adopt a stronger detailed version, like Jay Inslee's climate plan. With Warren we will not face trying to move forward with "one person alone," one "brand," to fix the range of severe problems we face.

Warren parted the political walls to come in first from outside to set up protection for every single American as a financial consumer. Every single American, every person living in this nation, of every age, race, religion, origin, and political affiliation. That is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren, before she ran for any office, proposed the CFPB and established it, setting it up so solidly it has withstood incessant Republicon attempts to get rid of it entirely.

Warren stepped up to help protect every American from being cheated financially before she ever ran for office.

Klobuchar believes that she is the one who can best bring everyone together. The single most popular proposal across all of America though? That's Warren's wealth tax, which draws "broad support from voters, across party, gender and educational lines. Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republicon men with college degrees." (The core profile of those who will pay it.)

Klobuchar, a very skilled politician with a solid record, is still promising that as the moderate, she will bring everyone with her, but Warren, with her breakout proposal in the Democratic presidential primary, which appeals across coalitions, already did it.

Warren, a relative political newcomer as of her first election in 2012, mirrors Mayor Pete's freshness in politics, which also dates to 2012. She ran a Senate race and won. He ran for mayor.

Warren is not completely inexperienced with higher government, and it isn't an asset to be completely untested and inexperienced. Brilliance is one thing, but nobody on the debate stage is anything less. It is hubris of an astounding degree to plan with self-confidence to go from young mayor to President of the United States.

Warren, for example, knows exactly who to bring into her administration. She has been working with and reaching out to top people in their fields since before she entered politics herself. She can bring in the leaders who can bring in the staffers and experts who we have critical need for after trump has gutted every department and agency, leaving only hollow props fronted by trump loyalists. Buttigieg, in contrast to Warren, knows few contacts except, presumably, his McKinsey and Company contacts and their lobbyists, which is not a reassuring prospect.

One of the best articles on why Warren should be getting our votes sooner rather than too late is this one:

Warren's own words speak best, though, if we listen to her. On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, 2/12/2020, Warren said this:

"Jesse Jackson made a wonderful statement,

'It takes two wings to fly.'"

And I think that's where we are right now in the Democratic Party. A lot of good people in this Party. A lot of good ideas.

"But we need someone who's going to be able to unite this Party and to be able to fight hard for core Democratic values. To fight on behalf of hard-working middle-class American families. To fight on behalf of people who've just been getting the short end of the stick over and over and over.

"You know, I came to politics late, but that was my life's work. And I'm running for president because I know how bad it's gotten for hard-working people, but I can see the ways that we can make this better. We get in this fight together. We can turn this around. We can make this a country that isn't just working for rich people, but a country that actually invests in all our children. A country that actually builds a future for everyone. It's what makes this so exciting."

That's Warren for president.

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classpect-crew · 5 years ago

Note

Hi! If you're still doing session analyses, can you tell me what you think of a session with a Witch of Time, Mage of Space, Sylph of Life, and a Knight of Doom?

For sure! It’s 4/13, after all, so this is the perfect time to bring out the big guns for some session analysis. It appears you’ve got a pretty good team setup as far as power goes, but I will warn you that if these players aren’t closely in sync, things could go awry very quickly. It’s going to be of utmost importance to keep everyone’s head on straight.

As we’ve seen with our favorite canon Witch of Time, Damara, having such a powerful Class and Aspect combination can be either a ticket to victory, or a surefire way to massively doom your entire session by way of emotional catastrophe. Think about it this way: Witches aren’t often keen on doing what others want them to, at least once they’ve accepted their role. Their great power comes with great responsibility, and they aren’t well-known for bowing down to authority, so that self-discipline has to develop from within. Granted, this Classpect isn’t a death sentence for your session just because Damara managed to fuck shit up so spectacularly. After all, the main reason she went off the rails is because Meenah was doing her best to spur the team into action, and her attempts to strengthen them through constant bullying backfired. Rather, it’s up to the individual Witch—as well as their allies—to put the team down a path that will secure victory.

The Witch of Time is going to have an incredible amount of sway over the timelines themselves, being able to travel through time as easily as breathing. They’ll certainly be able to increase or decrease an entity’s lifespan at will, or manipulate the flow of time in ways that will give their team a humongous advantage in the endgame. Doomed timelines will seem quite arbitrary to the Witch, who may not fully understand—or care—about the consequences of creating them. After all, while the Witch is gifted with an insane amount of power over their Aspect, it’s all quite instinctual. They don’t fully understand the inner workings like a Mage would, therefore their abilities will likely remain limited in their scope as far as creativity goes. You likely wouldn’t find a Witch of Time theorizing about timelines resembling musical staves and trying to combine them in harmony for some sort of metamagical feat, for example. That’s closer to the Mage’s domain. I analyzed the Witch of Time briefly here, almost exactly one year ago.

On the opposite side of the coin, you have the Mage of Space, which I’ve briefly discussed here. This is another very powerful Classpect, but for reasons quite different than the Witch of Time. The Witch/Mage opposite pair is defined thusly: Change/Manipulate versus Know/Understand. While a Witch can use their Aspect to create devastating effects, they lack the ability to understand its inner workings, which keeps them from using it in more creative ways. The Mage, on the other hand, isn’t going to inherit the game-breaking power of a Witch. Rather, their power comes from studying and understanding their Aspect inside and out. The Mage isn’t going to be surprised by the revelation that the purpose of frog-breeding is quite literally tied to the creation of the new universe. After all, this was all part of a theory they’ve been formulating since reaching their planet.

Having a Mage of Space in particular means your team is going to have a very clear shot toward victory, so long as you keep the Mage from doing something insanely reckless. This mostly depends on the Mage, since some are quite content to use their knowledge to benefit their team’s ultimate goals, but others will try to go off on their own if they feel their team is dragging them down. When the endgame hits, though, your Mage of Space will no doubt be a powerhouse, capable of an incredible array of utility-based feats. Need a place to recuperate mid-battle? Don’t worry, the Mage has pocket dimensions on speed dial. Think of it like a D&D Wizard using Rope Trick. When you fully understand how to shape and fold the fabric of spacetime, suddenly beating the Black King seems like child’s play.

One of the biggest indicators that your team can succeed is your Sylph of Life. As your team’s healer, and a powerful one at that, they’ll be tasked with ensuring your team stays buddy-buddy with existence. After all, the Aspect of Life isn’t just about health and vitality: it’s also about securing one’s ability to impact the universe. It’s not quite the same as relevance, since that’s part of Light’s domain. One doesn’t need to be relevant to have an impact, even from the shadows. In this way, your Sylph will also be your biggest cheerleader, making sure everyone has an impact on the path toward the Ultimate Reward. They’ll also be your go-to when team morale dips low, since they’ve got a hundred and one ways to get people feeling optimistic again.

Life players are insanely durable. Death rarely finds them, and in the odd case that it does, it simply doesn’t stick for long. A Sylph of Life would keep the team alive, but they would only be able to do so as long as the teammate in question is able to make further impact in a way that’s sanctioned by the universe. Think of it this way: when a God Tier dies a Heroic or Just death, they do so because their impact on the universe has come to an end. A Heroic death passes the torch onto the survivors, while a Just death ends the monopoly of influence that the person holds at the expense of others. Therefore, unlike the Maid of Life’s limit of one resurrection per person, regardless of past or future impact, the Sylph of Life would more or less be able to resurrect at will, though they wouldn’t be able to bring someone back from beyond a Heroic or Just death, and other limitations may apply. (Note: this is all theory on my part, since we’ve never seen this Classpect in canon. Because the Sylph is a Passive Class, though, it stands to reason that their Aspect would influence them, rather than having control over it. Therefore, their ability to bring entities back from the dead would be subject to the universe’s balance of influence regarding Heroic and Just deaths.)

Finally, we’ve reached the Knight of Doom. This one’s going to be a player to look out for and watch carefully. From the very onset, Knights have a way of masking their true feelings and intentions, putting up a mask to shield the more vulnerable parts of themselves. For a Knight of Doom in particular, this can be incredibly dangerous. Doom players have a tendency toward depression and anxiety by virtue of their Aspect’s influence over them. Thankfully, since the Knight is an Active Class, and a very scrappy one, they’ll likely be able to push through their own troubling thoughts, and can even use them to their own advantage. As one who weaponizes Doom, they’ll have a very good understanding of bending rules to meet their needs, exploiting loopholes and restrictions to support their end goal. They may also excel at hacking or programming in general, which will assist them in exploiting the rules of the game and the universe itself.

Look to your Knight to bypass the most difficult restrictions and open up the weak points in the game to devastating ends. They’ll be the one to ask when a seemingly insurmountable obstacle appears. Chances are, they’ll have at least five backup plans tucked away. They know how to game the system better than anyone, and when “the system” involves the entire multiverse, you’re looking at someone with a lot of game-changing power. The biggest risk you face by having a Knight of Doom at your side is the double-whammy of a Knight’s self-flagellation and a Doom player’s affinity for great power at the cost of great sacrifice. Your Knight will try their best to be the self-deprecating hero. They won’t just jump on the grenade: rather, they are the grenade, ready to sacrifice their life for a chance at victory. Don’t let them play the martyr until your team is good and ready to take full advantage of the massive effect their demise will cause. This should only be taken as a last resort, when shit truly hits the fan and victory is impossible without it.

All in all, you have a very solid chance of winning with this team, as small as it is, but team cohesiveness is of utmost importance, especially since there’s no Blood player to keep everyone working together. Still, as we’ve seen with the Beta Kids, sometimes the power of friendship can arise from within. Keep them focused toward the goal, make sure you take full advantage of their powerful Classpects, and you’ve got yourself a one-way ticket to a brand-new universe.

#classpect #homestuck #classpect analysis #knight #doom #knight of doom #mage #space #mage of space #sylph #life #sylph of life #witch #time #witch of time #anonymous #Anonymous

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raendown · 5 years ago

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Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4747 Chapter: 37/42 Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

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Chapter 37

“I’m bored.”

Tobirama lifted his gaze from the book he’d been lost in for the past – actually he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He found his husband staring back at him with a baleful glare and crossed arms, hunched deeply in to the opposite end of the couch and knees bent to dig his toes in between the cushions they both sat on, thick socks disappearing under the wrappings around his calves.

“Are you sure you’re not just cold?”

“Of course I’m cold! Stupid weather taking a stupid dip. If it gets any colder it won’t need to snow because the air will just freeze on its own!”

Rather than point out the ridiculousness of that statement from a scientific viewpoint Tobirama set his book aside with deliberate movements and reached down between them to free his husband’s feet. Ignoring all protests he drew them in to his lap and curled both of his hands around the chilly toes he could feel even through such thick woolen cloth.

“If you moved around a bit instead of sitting still I’m sure you’d feel warmer,” he suggested. Madara turned his head aside to stick his nose in the air.

“Yeah, well, you’re over here. So.”

“So?”

“So shut up! Maybe I don’t want to move around!”

Tobirama smiled and closed his hands a little tighter when he felt the toes in his grasp wriggling a little. Most people probably thought him to have a cooler body temperature, what with his affinity for water, but he’d found over the years that he weathered the cold much better than most perhaps because of that. Sharing a bit of his body heat wasn’t a massive hardship really. And if it gave Madara a reason to stay here at his side that was all the better.

Not, apparently, that the man needed any more excuses. He seemed prepared to hang around even without thinking of any sort of good reason to and Tobirama was pretty okay with that.

“Would you perhaps like to do something together?” He was polite enough not to laugh when Madara perked up, tensing in that way that said he’d been offered exactly what he wanted but wasn’t ready to admit he wanted it in the first place.

“It would have to be something fun. And something that would actually keep us warm, not just strolling around the marketplace. Or drinking. Hashirama's suggestion is always drinking.”

“Yes and have I recently expressed my gratitude that you deny him?” Tobirama shuddered. One drunken escapade per year was plenty for him. He was the last person who would ever think to tell someone else what they were allowed to do with their body and their time but the thought of Madara crawling in to their bed smelling of a brewery the way he knew he must have the night he did the same, it was not a pleasant one. He found himself awash with gratitude all over again that Madara had taken care of him so well the next day.

Grumbling indistinctly under his breath, Madara took his feet back so he could sit up properly and gaze out the window. “I don’t really want to go outside,” he said, “but I would if we could spar. That’d certainly keep us moving around enough to stay warm – and we can always dress in layers.”

“If we have a proper spar with chakra you’ll be warm from the first jutsu. Or have you forgotten your own element?”

For a moment Tobirama smirked thinking the dumbfounded expression on the other’s face was a reaction to his comment. It took another look for him to see the slowly building light in the dark eyes he loved so much. That was a look he knew well, though it didn’t always spell good news for everyone around them and sometimes it meant he needed to duck and cover right quick.

“We’re married,” Madara blurted and Tobirama paused.

“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “We are.”

“So you’re an Uchiha now.”

“Mn, that’s what you tell me.” The Uchiwa fan he carried between his shoulders never felt so light as the moments when he was reminded of the easy acceptance between them now.

Leaning over to bump their shoulders together, Madara gave him a warning look before going on. “Come on, I’ve just decided how we’re going to stay warm without getting bored.”

“Oh you’ve decided, have you?”

“I have.”

“Well thank you, your highness, for making that executive decision on my behalf.”

Tobirama was already laughing before Madara glared at him and he figured he deserved the hands that bunched in his sleeves and pulled roughly on them, dragging him to his feet.

“You offered!” Madara insisted and he decided to let his husband win this one.

Since apparently he had annoyed his way out of getting to know where they were going he opted to follow Madara's lead and not add any extra layers than a jacket to ward off the chill as they marched out the door. He thought he had a pretty good idea considering which direction they were headed but Hashirama had been after him lately with the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ concept so he decided to wait before making any accusations.

Ten minutes later he smirked to know that his guess was right as they arrived at one of the exclusive Uchiha training grounds, the same one where he so often trained with Kagami. Since Madara usually preferred to use the training grounds outside the village where he and Hashirama could cause as much destruction as they wanted without terrifying the civilians Tobirama thought maybe he would have the advantage here, familiar as he was with the terrain and its uses. Between them only he would know about the softer dirt in the eastern quarter of the field and the badger holes dug in to the north sitting empty and ready to trip up unsuspecting people.

“Right, so, I know you think we’re going to spar,” Madara began and Tobirama blinked at him. Not such a good guess after all. “I’ve got something, uh, different in mind. You can use fire release.”

“I can use all five elemental releases,” Tobirama interrupted him.

“Yes we all know that, you big show off, that wasn’t my point. I was thinking…”

Tobirama valiantly held off on making some kind of distasteful joke. Clearly there was something going on in the other man’s head that he wouldn’t be able to guess at but what he could tell for sure was that it seemed oddly important and so he held his silence, waiting patiently.

“I want to teach you the Grand Fireball Jutsu.”

“What?” His jaw didn’t quite drop but it was a close call. “Isn’t that a protected clan jutsu?”

“Yes and you are a part of this clan so it’s only right that you know it.” Madara continued on despite the deep red color rising in his cheeks, ignoring the matching heat spreading over Tobirama’s entire face. “As an Uchiha you have a right to all of our clan secrets and that includes knowing our signature jutsu. Honestly I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get around to teaching you. If you…want to learn?”

“I would be honored,” Tobirama told him with complete sincerity.

Those were the only words he had in him but they were enough. Nothing could possibly have expressed how touched he was by this gesture. With the amount of times Izuna had thrown the matter in his face or the even more bountiful number of times Madara had assured him on it Tobirama had never felt so much like he belonged, so accepted. He met his husband’s warm gaze and he thought to himself, not for the first time, that this was truly where he was meant to be.

After ages spent doing nothing but staring deeply in to each other’s eyes Madara bit his lip and turned away, freeing Tobirama from having to make a bad attempt at expressing what he was feeling. His husband understood. They both knew each other very well by now. Tobirama just hoped that Madara understood all the nuances of how he felt, more than just the vague knowledge that he was grateful but also that he had never been more in love. Nothing Madara could have done would ever have shown him quite so perfectly that he was accepted here, was truly a member of the family, the clan, the people that he had chosen as his own as surely as he had been thrust upon them unwittingly. From the moment he first realized his own burgeoning feelings there had lingered some unshakable doubts and here at last was his clarity.

He may have been born an heir of the Senju but on the day he married he became an Uchiha. There were no regrets.

Learning a new jutsu was so much less difficult for him than it was for his student but there was still a learning curve with teaching his chakra to mold in to brand new shapes. As they ran through the string of hang signs over and over to get his hands used to the pattern Madara told him that learning this way was tradition for all children, use of the Sharingan expressly forbidden. For any child with the nature to mold fire chakra performing the Grand Fireball Jutsu for the first time was considered their first steps towards adulthood. He refrained again from making any bad jokes about the legitimacy of his own manhood now.

Since he was an adult with years more experience and a dozen more jutsu in his arsenal than the average child Tobirama was able to create at least a mildly impressive Grand Fireball by the time the sun began its descent in the sky. He would need quite a lot more practice before he could make one anywhere close to Madara's and honestly doubted he would ever be able to achieve quite that size. Madara had the advantage of fire being his first nature whereas Tobirama’s was water, fire a hard earned skill that would never come quite as easily.

“Would it be cheesy to tell you that you look dashing with firelight on your skin?” Madara asked as the burn of that first massive Grand Fireball faded from the air, the final product after hours of hard work. He gave an unrepentant grin when Tobirama rolled his eyes in response.

“Yes. It would.”

“Right, then I won’t say it.”

“I’m not sure if I love you more for your terrible sense of humor or if I’m going to make removing it my next science experiment.” Tobirama tapped at his chin with exaggerated thought.

His partner wasn’t fooled in the slightest. To his absolute mortification Madara sidled up close and tugged on the front of his shirt, asking him to bend down for a kiss, even seeming to enjoy it when the tips of his ears flushed a light pink and his eyes darted from side to side like he expected a horde of gasping onlookers to appear from the tree line.

“Out here?” He asked dubiously. Madara tugged a little more insistently.

“Kiss me, damn it. I just showed you a very lovely gesture and now you’re being mean to me.”

He did sort of have a point there so Tobirama bent and allowed Madara to drag him in to a kiss fiery enough that he began to worry all over again about how public these grounds were – in the back of his mind, of course, since most of his attention was immediately distracted by the feel of those gorgeous lips against his own.

Naturally the moment he stopped paying lots of attention to the world around them that was when the world decided to intrude itself upon their solitude in the form of two familiar faces. One of them was more than welcome, or would be as soon as she quit making wolf whistles across the field; Susumu hadn’t a drop of shame in her entire body. The other face Tobirama could have lived without. Likely his husband would be happy to see Izuna there, the two most precious and beloved members of his family together, but Tobirama could only think that having his brother-in-law appear had ruined the calm and happy atmosphere they’d been enjoying all afternoon. He was smart enough to keep that to himself as well though.

“Getting in a little exercise, are we?” Susumu waggled her eyebrows until Madara shoved her, Izuna turning his head to mime gagging. “What are the two of you scrumptious little bits getting up to then, eh?” Her curiosity only increased when they shared a look. Madara waved him on so Tobirama cleared his throat to bring all eyes to himself.

“We were practicing the Grand Fireball Jutsu,” he revealed softly.

“No shit? Well it’s about time!”

At her side, Izuna clearly did not share that opinion. His face pinched immediately but, to his credit, he managed to keep his mouth shut, a massive step up from all the months of deliberate antagonism. Tobirama almost thought he deserved a reward for such good behavior but bringing attention to it in any way was likely to toss them right back to where they started.

“So how did it go then?” Susumu demanded, as timely with her distractions as ever. Tobirama smiled for her.

“Quite well,” he said. “I’m not quite able to imitate what Madara can do but I imagine that few can.”

“What he means to say is that he made incredible progress in one day and we should all be very impressed.” Madara interrupted, jabbing him with one elbow.

“I know I am. Good for you, muffin, good for you!”

Tobirama hummed noncommittally, not sure what to do with so much praise. It was different when it was Hashirama. His brother was naturally dramatic at all times and he’d stopped taking the man seriously a long time ago but with others he never quite knew what to say. Much easier was attempting to push the focus off of himself by asking what such an unlikely pair as Susumu and Izuna were doing out here in the middle of the day.

“What else would we be doing out here on a training field?” Izuna grumbled, low enough Tobirama didn’t think anyone else heard him.

“Oh, you know me. I get bored. This one was moping around the tower so I told him to put all that boring shit down for the day and pulled him out to work off a bit of steam with me. With you two here maybe we could make things a little more interesting?”

A terrible swooping feeling nearly ripped Tobirama’s stomach right out through his throat but the gods had mercy on him in the form of Madara shaking his head and declaring them already tired enough after their own training. If the four of them were to pair off for a spar he knew exactly who he would be matched against and fighting Izuna in any way was precisely the opposite of what he wanted. That was just one more thing that would have taken them right back to the start.

Listening while the three of them started gossiping and trading juicy tidbits about things happening around the Uchiha compound, small clan dramas he had no interest in, Tobirama eventually zoned out of what they were saying to focus on observing instead. He loved seeing Madara like this, so relaxed and happy as he chatted without thinking about his reputation or trying to impress anyone. And he was growing fonder and fonder of Susumu every time they met. Either of them could have easily drawn his eye and yet it was to Izuna that he looked, Izuna whose body language both yearned for his brother and held back at the same time, who leaned in to everything his most precious person said but kept his arms folded like an unconscious barrier between them.

Someone, it seemed, had been doing a lot of thinking. Not once since arriving had he made any snarky comments besides pretending to gag, though that could easily be attributed to brotherly teasing, and in fact he had mostly avoided even looking in Tobirama’s direction almost as though he wished to avoid the temptation to start a fight. The idea of rewarding good behavior suddenly didn’t seem like such a terrible idea after all.

Even better, Tobirama knew just how to do that without making it seem like he was trying to make fun of his brother-in-law. All he needed was the right moment and he didn’t even have to wait too long for that. The stars weren’t even out yet but they were all aligning just for him. Just as Madara began excusing them to go back home and let the other two have the field he laid a hand on his husband’s arm and tilted his head down in apology for the interruption. Then he looked to his brother-in-law.

“I’m glad we ran in to each other,” he murmured to the man’s obvious surprise. “I have something that I wished to give you.”

“Well that’s suspicious.” Izuna jerked when Susumu reached up to punch him in the arm, twisting his mouth in to a wry expression while he rubbed the sore spot but not taking his words back.

“Unexpected, I’m sure. He is not wrong to say so, Susumu-san, there’s no need for violence.”

“He could try being a little more polite,” she snapped back.

Tobirama very carefully did not smile or laugh. “He may react in whichever way he feels. And to that note, he is not in any way obligated to accept my offer; I would appreciate it if you do not disparage him no matter how he chooses.”

If the group of them hadn’t been looking at him strangely before then they were now. Madara eyed him from the side with a dubious expression while Susumu gave him a look that blatantly questioned whether he might have contracted some sort of fever. He understood their concerns, though, so it was easy enough to ignore them and concentrate on Izuna who had subtly dropped his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice in case this was all a trick.

“Go on then,” he demanded. “What do you want?” He watched intently as Tobirama brought one of his hands to the opposite arm and pressed his thumb in to the seal inked there along his wrist, a seal that their other two companions had only seen him use once.

“This is not a gift for any specific occasion or with any obligation. It is also not a gift given lightly.” With a brief flash the Raijin no Ken appeared between his hands from where he kept it stored in the seal on his arm. “This sword has been a Senju heirloom since their clan head won it from ours so many generations back that many have forgotten where it originated from. As our clan’s most skilled warrior with a lightning nature I wish for you to be the new bearer of Raijin no Ken, that it be returned to the place it truly belongs.”

It was hard to decide which part of that had shocked everyone the most. That he was willing to give up his most powerful weapon maybe. Perhaps that he would give it to Izuna specifically. Or maybe, for Izuna, it was that he referred to the Uchiha as ‘our’ clan, including himself in their number so naturally as though he belonged here as much as the sword and all of them, passed through generations of Senju only to come home to the Uchiha where he was meant to be.

Silence reigned while Izuna visibly struggled with how to react. Both Madara and Susumu were good enough to keep their mouths shut despite how they were obviously bursting at the seams with their own opinions and for that Tobirama was grateful. He coached himself to patience as well, carefully observing the way Izuna’s weight rocked back and forth like he wanted to reach for what had been offered but held himself back for reasons known only to him. The fingers of his left hand twitched. His brows furrowed and relaxed so many times they seemed to dance across the top of his face until finally he looked away and for a moment Tobirama felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. Disappointment rippled through him.

Then Izuna took a deep breath in, let it out slowly, and turned to meet his eyes with a determined set to his jaw.

“You’re not going to regret it in a month and ask for it back?”

“No. The blade is yours if you will take it from me.” A significant caveat and they both understood that. The meaning of the gift would be changed entirely if anyone else were to offer it; Izuna had to accept that the blade came from Tobirama’s hands if he accepted it at all.

“And you’re not trying to bribe anything out of me either.”

Tobirama didn’t bother gracing that with a response. It sounded more like a statement than a question but even if it was a true worry it wasn’t worth soothing. He had nothing to gain with bribery and would never lower himself to such tactics when it came to making peace with his husband’s family. Another moment of silence passed before finally Izuna reached out with both palms turned up to receive the sword.

“I accept your gift and will treat it with the honor it deserves,” he intoned, snapping a quick glare over at his brother when Madara blew out an explosive breath of relief.

“May it serve you well.” Tobirama let his fingers tighten around the handle of a blade he had cared for and loved since he was first allowed to bear it as his own. Then he gently cradled the weapon across Izuna’s palms and released it in to the care of another who, though he loathed to admit it, could make use of such a legendary weapon much better than him. Seeing the Raijin no Ken once again in the hands of one who had truly mastered lightning would be a wonder, if nothing else.

As he handed it over Tobirama wondered, for a moment, just how angry the Senju elders would be when they found out he had given one of their most prized heirlooms away. Then he serenely dismissed the thought. He was a member of the Uchiha clan himself now so he could hardly be faulted for passing the blade along his own line.

Reverently and with awe poorly hidden in his eyes Izuna clasped the handle of his new weapon and raised it up, infusing just enough chakra for the blade to burst in to life the way it was meant to, a strike of lightning contained in human hands. The light of it against his skin made him look sallow but the excitement on his face almost made Izuna handsome. Almost. Tobirama bit his lip and peeked sideways. He would always prefer the older brother in every way.

“What do you say?” Susumu asked, her elbow uncharacteristically gentle when she nudged it in to her companion’s side.

“Thank you,” Izuna breathed. “It’s…a good gift.”

“A worthy gift,” Tobirama corrected him.

Their eyes met once more and he saw the battle in the other man’s gaze but it was a softer look than he’d ever seen directed at him and the battle was, at long last, over in only a few heartbeats of silence. He watched Izuna capitulate right before him and, strangely, felt none of the triumph he might have expected. They might never come to enjoy each other’s company but they would both be a part of Madara's life for the rest of their own and it seemed as though the gravity of that was finally getting through Izuna’s thick head. As Susumu had advised one brother in the earlier stages of this marriage, so too had the younger brother finally come to realize: they may not have chosen the connection between them but there was little point in making themselves extra miserable by fighting it so strongly.

“Want to try it out properly?” Madara asked with eagerness in his gaze. Izuna returned that look all too easily and the two of them darted a good enough distance away that there was space for Madara to take up the blade Izuna had brought with him so his brother could test out this new one.

“That was very well done,” Susumu murmured once they were out of earshot. When Tobirama looked down she was looking back up at him with knowing approval.

“I received some very helpful advice on the timing of it,” he acknowledged.

She smiled and patted him on the arm, gently for once. “Whether I’ve said it before or not this feels like a good day to say it again. Welcome to the family, kiddo. You’re doing great.”

“Am I?”

“The way you two started was foreign to me - to all of us - but even an old crust like myself is allowed to have a change of heart sometimes. After watching your relationship grow I can’t imagine anyone else by his side. You’re good for him; and I think he’s good for you too.”

Both of them turned their gazes away to watch their loved ones making a spectacle of themselves, hooting and hollering with joy as lightning sparked around them unheeding, and though Tobirama said nothing in return he knew that he didn’t have to. Instead of words he very slowly lifted one hand to rest it on Susumu’s shoulder, holding tension in his own until several seconds had passed with no reaction from her. She really had gotten to know him well, enough to know exactly what such a gesture would mean from him and, thankfully, how embarrassing he would find it for her to point it out.

“Should we rein them in before they destroy this whole field?” He asked eventually, eyeing the long scores of burnt grass adding themselves to the damage he’d already done himself during training.

“Oh let them play for a bit,” his companion tutted. “They’re having fun.”

“Their fun runs the risk of burning down the whole village if it spreads too far.”

“Killjoy.”

Tobirama looked down at her again with a mild expression. “My apologies for protecting the people of this village from two idiots with no restraint.”

He was glad to hear her laugh but even more glad when she moved forward to put an end to the play they were watching. Partly because he was worried about them getting a little too out of control as he’d said but also partly because he wanted to take his husband home and enjoy the rest of their day together. After such a peaceful start he hadn’t expected the last few hours to be riddled with so many emotions and he was ready for evening to bring back the calm.

Seeing Madara so filled with joyful energy was oddly reminiscent of the way he looked after a good spar with Hashirama, the ones where they didn’t run themselves in to exhaustion, and Tobirama decided he was glad to see the man so happy. Positive interactions between him and his brother had been few and far between over the past year.

“I guess they want to spar now,” his husband said as he came back across the field. “Ready to go home?”

“Mm, very. I believe a nice bath is in order and then perhaps something to eat. After all that exercise I am famished.” Tobirama put a hand to his belly, feeling more than hearing the empty gurgle it made.

“That sounds good, actually.”

It really did. Tobirama was in such a good mood he didn’t even spare a single thought when Madara wove their hands together for the walk home. Why should he? He was proud to have this man as his husband and if he wanted to show that pride off a little bit then he should be able to, especially when most of the people who would see them were members of their own clan.

A clan that Tobirama was proud to call his own.

#rae writes #madatobi #madara #tobirama #izuna #susumu #fanfiction

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luvknow · 6 years ago

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KINGPIN | han jisung

genre: hitman!jisung x fem!reader | light angst ; swearing ; drug cartel ; guns ; blood summary: your dad, kingpin of a secret drug cartel, hires a hitman slash bodyguard named jisung so both yours and his life are well-protected. you find your life is a little more exciting with jisung around, but not always in the best way. wc: 15k

There’s an eerie chill in the company building as you made your way to your Father’s grande office that sat ten floors below the surface - The Office in Hell, as you’d call it. Maybe it was the poor insulation of the windows or the mob of men who encircled you and invaded your space bubble, but them and the chilling air was something you could never get used to. The awkward elevator music going down didn’t ease your nerves, either. Why your Father ever insisted on such measures like an entire escort crew for your ‘protection’, you’ll never understand, but you knew better than to argue. Besides, you practically grew up with these men - it was like you had eight uncles.

Well, some of them watched you grow up. Some had, uh, disappeared and had to be replaced in the process. That’s daddy for ya.

The extravagant but incredibly outdated seemingly infinite corridor had the huge cliche oak doors at the end. The two handles, gilded in bright gold, were shaped like the Rod of Aesculapius in honor of you getting accepted into medical school. Although you didn’t follow your Dad’s footsteps and go to business school, he was still very proud of his little Princess for making a name for yourself and this was his daily reminder of how accomplished you’ve become. Business school was what brought this crazy kind of life upon your father anyways, and he’d worry everyday if you got involved in this lifestyle. So he thanked God you got into med school.

Two of the men opened the door for you as if even the Rod of Aesculapius did not deserve to be touched by your hands. It’s been a while since you’ve visited home that you forgot how much they treated you like royalty, like an actual princess. You supposed they weren’t exactly wrong… Drug Pusher Princess had a certain ring to it, didn’t it?

Your Dad sat in his favorite leather chair staring at some paperwork with his glasses resting on the tip of his tiny nose. If this were anywhere but ten floors below, you might have believed he was doing real paperwork for the Soju company, but the wads of cash next to the wooden cart of cocaine made it less convincing.

You saw your Dad’s eyes light up and sparkle when he realized it was you. “My little girl!”

“Hi, Dad,” you greeted warmly before walking over and giving him a big hug. Kingpin of a massive drug cartel, CEO of an international Soju brand, and Professor at the University, your Dad’s number one job was to be your number one supporter and love you endlessly. Really, you couldn’t hate him for living life on the edge like this after he and your Mother got divorced - he was still the best Dad anyone could ask for, and that was the most important part, right? Being filthy rich helped you oversee the cocaine, too.

“It’s not everyday a Dad gets to see his only child. This calls for a drink. Jisung! Get the good whiskey from the glass case!” he called into the neighboring room.

“Yes, sir,” you heard an unfamiliar voice.

“Dad, it’s like one in the afternoon…”

“A celebration does not wait for five o’ clock, Princess.”

From the room over came a man who you’ve never seen before carrying a tray with ice, two crystal tumblers, and a huge vial of liquid gold whiskey. He must be new, at least in the last couple of years since the last time you’ve visited. He was definitely different than the rest of your Dad’s henchmen. He was on the shorter side, so it probably wasn’t his strength that got him hired. Maybe he was intelligent? A hacker, perhaps?

The man could tell you were staring - no, analyzing him, so he dared to look back. He knew better than to glare at the King’s Princess, but you could tell he didn’t like how you were already judging him after five whole seconds.

After pouring your drinks, handing them off, and exiting the room you dared to ask. “Fresh meat?”

“Hardly,” your Dad chuckled. “I hired him shortly after your last visit a couple of years ago.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s my right hand and my Hitman.”

“Whoa, what!? Dad! You said you would never do that kind of thing!” you whined worriedly.

“You don’t understand how dangerous this business is.”

“Uh, yeah I do! How many times have you called me while I was doing my rotations at the hospital to keep an eye out for your men? I literally see everything.”

“That’s exactly why I hired Jisung, a Grade-A Hitman. I don’t want to involve you anymore than I have to already, so hopefully he’ll lessen my calls to you while you’re on duty. And you don’t want your old man to end up in the hospital either, or worse yet dead, now do you?”

“No…”

“Ok then, end of discussion.”

“No, not the end!” you leaned over his desk to whisper so neither that Jisung guy nor even the wall of men behind you could hear. “Where did you find him, anyways? Off the street? What if he’s working for someone? Or-or worse, trying to overtake your empire?”

“With Jeongin’s help, we did an extremely extensive background and everything. No record of him ever getting involved with another group. And to answer your question, yes, I found him off the street.”

“What the hell, Dad! You’re so careless!”

“I’ll drink to that.” Without your consent, he clinked your two glasses together with a cheeky grin on his dumb, wrinkly face. “Lighten up, Buttercup. There’s no need for your inherent apprehension on such a happy day.”

You didn’t answer before sipping on whiskey with the glass between your pouty lips. Your eyes naturally drifted around the room trying to see how much it changed since the time you cried to your Dad about how you thought about dropping out due to the immense pressure. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place, so nothing had changed other than the unfamiliar man in the next room. While your Dad busied himself with another glass, you dared to get up and peak into the room.

Jisung was wiping down a pistol. Knowing that he was ‘off the streets’, you bet it was unregistered. The sight of a gun and being in its presence really made your skin crawl. You didn’t know Jisung at all, but if he was your Dad’s Hitman, there was no way he’d be reckless with a pistol, right? So at least you knew he was skilled with a weapon. He wore all black and the piece of clothing that stood out to you the most was his leather jacket.

He noticed you peaking in almost immediately and raised his brow. What could the accomplished Princess be looking for? You watched him eye you up and down so slowly that you felt like you might as well have been naked. His gazing and the slight curl on his pretty lips was incredibly intimate and hardly appropriate, especially for a first meeting. Maybe seduction was part of his specialty. Or was he mocking you with it?

“Who are you?” you asked hoping your tone was strong enough to hide your embarrassment.

“Jisung.”

“Where are you from?”

“Off the street,” he teased. “At least that’s what you assume, right?”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

“It’s hard not to when it’s my job.”

“Your job is to protect my Dad, not eavesdrop on uninvited conversations.”

“Spying is just a small fraction of my job, love.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Are you picking a fight with a Hitman already, Sugarplum?”

Your Dad interjected at the perfect time to break up the tension between his precious prodigal Princess and his right-hand unbounded Knight. Jisung was not bothered since he was accustomed to arguing with the enemy, but you on the other hand might as well have steam coming out your ears. You may have gotten the last word, but the smirk on Jisung’s lips let you know that he didn’t care that you won this battle because in the end, he was going to win the war.

“Not a fight,” you corrected before flashing your Dad a fake smile. “Just some bantering.”

“As you always do - it’s what you’re best at, after all. Just like your mother ~”

“Dad!”

Jisung didn’t try very hard to hide his snickering and now you could check off ‘Dad embarrasses you in front of his Hitman’ from The Drug Cartel Bingo sheet.

“Are we going out for lunch, or what?” Your Dad began to push you out of the room before you could object. “Jisung, I trust you can take care of my office while I’m away.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Excellent. I’ll be sure to order you something.”

“A bit generous for office-sitting, don’t you think - ow!” Dad nudged your arm with his bony elbow, shoving you through the doorway and forcing you out the office in general so you both could finally get going to lunch.

“You were never nice to strangers, you know,” he scolded while you two and eight men stuffed into the elevator. “Every time we went to parties or ran into friends on the street, you were always so suspicious of them.”

“Yeah, because all the girls at school only liked me for our money, so I figured the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong. But Jisung’s different, ok? He’s a good kid, he’s just a kid.”

“‘Just a kid’, yeah a kid you found off the street who can wield a pistol? Seriously, he’s a total stranger! What makes him so special!?”

“Ok I lied, he’s not from the streets, or whatever you kids call the bad neighborhoods these days.” Dad made you wait until you both got into his completely blacked-out car limo thing before continuing. “He’s one of my teacher’s assistance.”

“You’re kidding, right? You have a TA as your Hitman? Is this not like… conflict of interest?”

“Not when he’s my best and most loyal student.”

“How did you convince him to join you in this kind of life?”

“He doesn’t look like it, but Jisung’s a total suck up, so it wasn’t very hard. Of course he was surprised at first when I offered the position, but completely willing. Did the whole drug test, psychological test, multiple physicals, hazed him a bit and everything - he’s perfect. I like him a lot, too - might even offer him a permanent job once he graduates and it doesn’t look like he’s leaving anytime soon, so you better play nice and get used to his company. He’s family now.”

“These men are not real family, Dad.”

“Tell that to your eight uncles.”

Lunch was filled with the most extravagant salads, daytime cocktails, and Dad only ordered the finest cuts of meats. Even for his Hitman, he ordered nothing short of a Michelin star special. There were many moments in your life when you thought your Dad was too nice for his own good and your ‘inherent apprehension’ as he worded it was at an all time high towards everyone around him because of those thoughts. It would break your heart if anyone were to get too close and bring down his entire empire he built just so you, him, and even your Mom could live a happily and worry-less. You didn’t care how many Hitmen or guards he considered family - you were his real and only family and you were the only one truly looking out for him, even if that meant you would be put in danger.

Just don’t tell Dad you care too much, otherwise he really might think you’ll take over as the head one day just so he wouldn’t have to do it anymore.

When you both arrived back to his office, Jisung was exactly where you left him - except instead of cleaning a pistol, he was cleaning a silencer. Immediately upon seeing you and Dad, he got up to bow. Ugh, he was a total suck up!

“See, I don’t even make him do that,” your Dad defended. “Most loyal TA, I’m telling you.”

You only rolled your eyes. “I’m heading back to the hospital.”

“Jisung will escort you.”

“No,” you said flatly.

“C’mon, it’ll give you to some bonding time! And the hospital isn’t exactly in the safest part of the city.”

“Oh my God, I’ll be fine -”

“That’s an order,” Dad said in his strictly no funny business tone. “Am I seeing you again soon or through facetime for the next two years?”

“I promise I’ll visit more often. I just hate going up and down the elevator and walking the mile-long hallway.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise. Just ask one of your uncles to carry you next time, or something. Jisung, text me when she’s at the hospital.”

“Yes, sir.”

You didn’t even bother arguing your Dad’s over-protective measures. “Bye, Dad.”

“Bye, sweetie!”

You’re out of the door before Jisung could catch up and he thought how this must be the med student in you. He clearly remembered that was how all the med students walked around his campus like they always had somewhere to be and were more important than all the other ‘smaller’ students. He was never a fan of them and he wondered if he was about to add another person to his list.

Why was Dad’s elevator music always this awkward and cliche?

“So… you TA for my Dad?” you asked, trying to play nice, as your Dad had put it.

He chuckled a bit before responding - or maybe it was a scoff. “So you figured out I’m not from the streets?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that… I’m not as trusting as my Dad.”

“No worries. You’re just smart. I would harass a stranger if they got near my family, too.”

“I didn’t harass you…”

“What would you call it then?”

“Being protective.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Jisung’s car was already outside of the company building. At least you think it’s his car, but could a business grad student really afford an all-black Ferrari? There was no fucking way.

“This is your car?” you asked incredulously.

He thought you’d be used to these types of cars by the way your Dad lived his life, but maybe he was wrong. “Yes and no - more like your Dad gave it to me.”

“He’s just giving out cars now?”

“No ~ Think of it as a business car.”

“Business cars are shitty silver-colored sedans that have to be manually opened with a key, not a shiny black Ferrari with butterfly doors!”

“Would you rather take the subway?”

“No…”

“Well then,” he began before fluttering the car doors open. “Your chariot awaits, Princess.”

“I have a name, you know.”

“Your chariot awaits, _____.”

Damn, so he knew your name. Was that all part of being a Hitman? Knowing their name, their background, their entire life… or did he just have to know what their face looked like before he shot a bullet through it? Did he just know your name, did he know everything about you, or somewhere in between?

The beginning of the car ride was silent until Jisung hit the highway and began weaving in and out of the lanes like those douchey car dudes who revved up their engines any chance they could get to show off how big their dick was. What the hell was wrong with this guy!? He must have been used to this kind of driving from all the chasing or whatever the hell he does, but that didn’t mean he should be driving like this with a good ol’ civilian like yourself in the passenger’s seat!

“Are you trying to take me to the hospital or put me in one!?” you shrieked loudly while gripping on to the handle on the roof like your life depended on it.

“What do you mean? This is normal driving for me.”

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you? Is it because I said you’re from the street? I said I was sorry! Is this part of your scare tactic, or something?”

“I could never hurt you. I’d lose my job,” he teased.

“Then please, for the love of God, slow down!”

“I would if we weren’t already here.”

“Huh?” Looking outside the tinted windows, as much as you hated to admit it, Jisung was right. You arrived safely in front of your hospital with your heart beating faster than his driving. “Oh… That was fast…”

“You’re welcome.”

The sarcastic man left the car first, running around to flip your door open like some chivalrous Knight. It was weird labeling him as a Knight - that and Hitman weren’t necessarily synonymous, but both were somehow appropriate. The door flipped open and Jisung held his hand out for you, but you took a pass on that.

“Thank you for driving,” you muttered to him, feeling a bit awkward. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around?”

“Of course you will. Have a nice day, ______.”

“W-Wait!” Jisung turned back around and raised his brow, which you now figured was his curiosity quirk. It was quite cute, but don’t tell him that. “How much do you know about me?”

He pursed his lips tightly together as if he was too embarrassed to answer. “Do you really want to know?”

“Never mind, you already answered it.”

Then he breaks out laughing. Ah, even cuter than his eyebrow quirk… What was with you and simple things that boys do that made your heart leap? You hated it. Well, he was definitely charming like a Knight.

“Have a nice day, _____,” he repeated. “Call me if you ever need a ride anywhere.”

“Thanks, but I don’t have your number.”

“I’ll text you so you’ll have it.”

“Wait, you have my number?”

Jisung only winked before getting in his car and driving off as fast as you arrived.

“Have a nice day, too,” you muttered to no one. “This is why I hate mobsters.”

When you walked into your unit, you saw all of your lady classmates eyeing you teasingly. Oh no, did they see everything? Now the whole department’s going to know about Jisung because for some reason med students do not know how to shut their mouths when it came to juicy gossip. They erupted in a song of oohs and ahhs, but luckily it was only your closest friend Somi who rushed to your side with heart eyes and open ears.

“Is that the famous guy you’ve been seeing?” she teased. “You didn’t tell me he was a whole man.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked innocently.

“Oh, come on, the entire hospital saw you come out of his car! We could hear the engine from a mile away. No one expected little _____ to date a man like that ~! He’s tasty, dude.”

“Somi!”

“A whole ass meal.”

“Ok, that’s enough!” you blushed.

“He’s hot.”

“Look, I’m not seeing him! He just works for my Dad, that’s all.”

“Well, maybe you should pretend you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dr. San didn’t seem too happy seeing you with him ~”

Dr. Choi San, the apple of everyone in the entire hospital’s eyes. Name any person in any of the departments, patient or faculty, and they’ll tell you how much and what they love about Dr. Choi San. You were no exception - you’ve had a major crush on him since your volunteering years as an undergrad student and he was still in med school. If you thought he was hot then, well damn, how would you describe him now? Like McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy? You’d talk here and there, and at times you’d follow him on rotations, but there wasn’t much interaction beyond that. You simply admired him from afar at this point. But to hear he’s upset about you being with Jisung? A total stranger? Man, if only your ego could fly higher than space.

“Really?” you grinned happily. “Do you think he’s jealous?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, in that case then yes, that is the guy I’m seeing.”

“Ugh, you dog… I love this side of you. So what’s his name? Does he have any brothers?”

Let’s see how long you can pull this off.

unknown [13:15]: Hey, Princess. It’s Jisung.

old man [02:45]: Hey, hun. Are you working overnight?

you [02:48]: Yes, why? What did you do this time?

old man [02:49]: Room 430.

“Dammit,” you cursed. A long, tired, heavy sigh escaped your lips as you dragged your feet to the fourth floor. Dad had a pretty good streak of keeping his men away from your hospital, but at 2:45 in the morning was the regression back to day zero.

Room 430 was one of the fancier and completely private rooms, so it was just one of your Dad’s men that was hospitalized. You walked in expecting to only see him unconscious on the bed, but you were welcomed with that and an unscathed Jisung reading next to him. It’s been a couple of weeks since you last saw him, so it was a little awkward, but you were mostly embarrassed because now he’s seen you in your scrubs and white coat with messy hair and droopy eyes.

“Hey,” he greeted casually.

“Hi. You look completely fine, what are you doing here?”

“It was my fault this happened, so I wanted to stay until he wakes up. Plus, I was hoping I’d see you.”

“Did you need something?”

“No. I’ve just missed you since our first meeting. That’s all,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes. “Ha ha… But you’re ok though, right? No bullet or stab wounds or whatever you guys go through nowadays?”

“Completely fine. No need to worry, love.”

“I said to not call me that!” You sighed again for the millionth time that shift. What was the point of arguing with him? “What happened tonight? Why did you say this was your fault?”

“Some guys tried to scam us during a delivery and we got ambushed. They were merely pawns in the enemy’s operation though, it didn’t take long for us to eliminate them, but Mingi here got stabbed from behind and I failed to watch his back.”

“Same old thug shit as usual.”

“Exactly. God, I feel so stupid.” The Hitman ran a hand through his messy hair before rubbing the tired from his eyes. You almost felt bad. His sleep schedule must be as fucked up as yours was, maybe even worse. Who knows what times of the day Dad needed him? But what do you say to a Hitman having a crisis?

“It’s not easy working for my Dad, but you’re doing fine. He likes you.”

“Yeah? How would you know?”

“You’re alive, right?” You saw Jisung’s eyes widen in fear for a split second before you laughed. It was entertaining to see his face express something other than pure cockiness. “I’m kidding! Half kidding… he told me likes you.”

“Wow, look at you. Who knew you could smile,” he teased again. He liked your smile. It was charming in its own way - in a way that was you. He liked the color of your blush after he told you, too.

“Shut up… What did the doctor say about Mingi?”

“He’ll be just fine,” a familiar voice said.

Behind you stood Dr. San with his signature charming smile on his lips and a clipboard with Mingi’s paperwork. You felt your heart leap in your throat, stopping you dead silent and that did not go past Jisung. The way your eyes widened, how your back stiffened - you were a totally different person around this guy. You saw Jisung do the eyebrow thing at you and you glared back, telling him that he better shut up or else.

“How are you, _____?” Dr. San asked gently.

“Good! I mean, I’m well. Tired, but well!” Oh God, were you stuttering?

“Yeah, overnight shifts can do that to you. Do you know these men…?” he hesitated, mostly indicating to Jisung rather than the unconscious patient on the bed.

“Close family friends.” At least you weren’t lying. “How is Mingi?”

“He didn’t lose too much blood. He has his stitches, so once he wakes up he’s ready to leave whenever.”

“And the reason for the IV?”

“He seemed dehydrated, which may be the reason he’s unconscious. Rather than fainting from blood loss, he fainted from the sight of it. The IV should help him recover and get his fluids in check quicker.”

You couldn’t help your face from falling flat. God, what kind of weak men did your Dad employ nowadays that they couldn’t even stop an ambush and fainted from the sight of their own blood!? Really, it was unbelievable, and even Jisung thought the synopsis was ridiculous.

“Thank you for the debrief. I’ll take it from here.”

“Sounds good.” Dr. San headed towards the door, but stopped himself and laid a hand on your shoulder. You instantaneously tensed up and prayed it went unnoticed, though Dr. San was known for paying close attention to the small details. “Call me if you ever need anything,” he said. And then he was gone.

“S-Sounds good!” you called out the door.

“He reminds me of those doctors on all the dramas,” Jisung scoffed. “Totally theatrical with that exit. What’s with that guy? Is he in love with you, or something?”

“More like the other way around… Although rumor has it the day you dropped me off a couple of weeks ago, he was not too happy to see that. Why, are you jealous?”

“You like that guy!? Why!?”

“He’s a smoking hot doctor, what else can I say?”

“He has no personality! Where’s the gall? The entertainment? What a bore… so he��s threatened by me, huh?”

“He… may be jealous because I may or may not have told a few friends that you’re this guy I’ve been seeing…”

“Oh?”

Jisung got up from his seat with the widest smirk on his playful little lips. Even his strut to you was playful, like you boosted his ego out of this atmosphere and into another one. He ended up centimeters in front of you, leaning his face in to see if he could get some sort of reaction out of you the same way Dr. San did, but better because HE was better. He heard your breath hitch in your throat and that was all he needed.

“I don’t remember consenting to this, Princess.”

“I know, I’m sorry! I got a little too excited hearing Dr. San was jealous… And everyone would not shut up about asking if I was seeing anyone.”

“Are you even seeing someone?”

“No, but whenever I said no, all the nurses tried to set me up with their sons so before I trapped myself into a series of bad blind dates, I lied and said yes and now here we are… But by next week, everyone will forget I ever said anything, so there’s no need to be upset, right?”

“Does that mean I win in the end?”

“Win what, against Dr. San?”

“Mhm.”

“I mean, I guess? I didn’t think this situation called for a winner or loser…”

“Silly girl, there’s always a winner and a loser no matter the circumstance. And like hell am I going to lose you to a guy like that. I always win in the end, anyways. So if you must, by all means say I’m your incredibly sexy, irresistible, and delicious boyfriend.”

“Jeez, are you always this competitive? And I’m not a trophy…” you muttered. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest? It seems like you’ve had a long day.”

“I did, but I’m not tired. When does your shift end?”

“At six in the morning.”

“I’ll wait for you. You look like you could use the company and we can get breakfast after.”

You wanted to object, and maybe it’s because you’re a little disoriented due to lack of sleep or because breakfast sounds so good right now, but you didn’t. “I’d like that.”

“See, look at us getting along. Your father will be happy to hear about this.”

“Oh, he’ll be ecstatic.”

“Why the hyperbole?”

“If he hears stuff like I’m getting along with his Hitman or anything remotely related to The Business then he’ll think I’m that much closer to taking over.”

“And that’s the last thing you want, right?”

“Exactly -!”

“_____, get back to work,” Dr. San said uncharacteristically strict while passing the room.

“We can talk more during breakfast,” Jisung reassured. “Have fun with the rest of your shift.”

“Thanks. You have my number for some odd reason, so text me if you need me.”

Jisung’s laugh was the last thing you heard before you left the room with a newfound burst of energy.

Maybe you were wrong to judge him too quickly. He seemed like a totally normal guy, right? But no, that couldn’t be it. He was first and foremost your Dad’s Hitman. There was nothing totally normal about it at all. But at least he acted normal around you. That was all that mattered for now.

The last hours of your shift went as normal other than receiving a lot of compliments of how you’ve adjusted to the overnight shift life quite easily. Even Dr. San was giving you more attention. Could it be because Jisung was here and Dr. San was feeling jealous and territorial? No, _____, you were in over your head… Well, whatever the reason, you’d have to tell Jisung later that he was winning.

“That guy is yummier up close,” Somi giggled brightly just as she was clocking in and you were clocking out. “Good catch. You should bring him to the faculty party as your plus one.” You groaned as a reply and left without saying anything. “Does he have any brothers or not!?”

The rising sun was shining brightly through the floor-to-ceiling high glass windows in the lobby. Your Dad was one of the few commissioners who donated to the hospital so they could redo the lobby and it turned out so beautiful. It was the little things like this that made the overnight shift worth it. Jisung texted you to meet him outside and he already had the car pulled up and ready to go. The sun hit him and his car just at the right angle as if whatever God that was up in the sky was letting you know that hey, this dude isn’t so bad! Give him a chance and be his friend! But again, maybe you were being delusional due to lack of sleep.

Like a gentleman, he opened the door for you once again.

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” you told him.

“Princesses never open their own doors.”

“Why do you keep calling me that? Am I a prissy brat, or something?”

“Before I met you, Mr. _____ kept on referring to you as his Princess. I guess I got attached to the nickname. I kinda like it, don’t you?”

“No!”

“Fine fine, I won’t call you that anymore ~ Whatever the Princess wants.”

You buckled your seat belt extra tight and held onto the overhead handle before Jisung even settled in his seat. He stared blankly at you, unable to believe that you were being this extra and dorky. So he’s a crazy driver, what student wasn’t these days!? He didn’t bother responding - rather, he just drove safely like a nerd.

“See, is that so hard to do all the time?” you scolded.

You had absolutely no idea where Jisung was taking you. He didn’t even ask where you might want to go. He could be kidnapping you, for all you know, and you were letting him! The idea sounded ridiculous, but it was all fine when he pulled up to a local diner.

“I know what you’re thinking - it’s not your typical bottomless mimosa and avocado toast kind of place. But their french toast is to die for.”

“Is that really what you think of me?”

“It’s what I think about all daughters with a terrifyingly powerful father. Besides, I don’t know anything about you.”

“You’re such a liar! You knew my number before I even met you! I bet you know everything about me!”

“Not everything ~ Like I didn’t know you could look so good in scrubs,” he winked. “I only know the basic stuff - like your academic and athletic accomplishments, your allergies, your past pets, favorite color, etcetera etcetera.”

“Yeah, that’s totally basic knowledge… How did you even find all of that out?”

“Mr. _____ gave me your file the day before you came to visit. He thinks we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so might as well get to know you a little bit.”

“Couldn’t we have done that the normal way? You know, like a regular ass conversation? Wait, I have a file?”

“It sounds worse than it is. It’s actually kind of cute. Like his weird mobster version of a scrapbook.”

The diner looked like those old school types you see in American movies. The booths and bar stools were a candy red, the walls were turquoise, everything was accented with tacky chrome, and there was a jukebox busting out the oldies in the corner. Although this place was a bit odd, it was still home-y in its own way. The hostess sat you two at one of the booths by the window that overlooked the busy city.

The menu was ginormous. There was a whole side just for drinks! On normal days when you had class or had rotations in the morning, your go-to drink was anything with three espresso shots in it. You can’t remember the last time you had a tall glass of cold orange juice with your food. Breakfast was always one of the hardest foods to choose from because both sweet and savory options were just too good to pass up. You were probably just shopping with your eyes. You trusted Jisung, for whatever reason, on his french toast suggestion, so you’ll order that.

The man of the hour already knew what he wanted to order and was flipping through his phone while you were looking. You noticed all of the bloody cuts and bruises that dressed both of his hands and your loud gasp made him look up at you.

“What?” he asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Instinctively, as if Jisung was one of your kiddie patients, you tenderly took one of his hands and ran your thumbs over the dried-out scars. He hissed in pain, so they must have been deep cuts.

“They’re just small cuts, it’s not like I could die like Mingi.”

“But they could get infected! Who knows what rusty, dirty stuff you touched last night. We have to go back after breakfast so I can take care of it.”

“You mean so you can take care of me ~?”

“No, you idiot -”

“Are you two lovebirds ready?” the cheery waitress asked.

“Huh? Lovebirds?” You guessed it did kind of look that way because of how you were holding Jisung’s hand, but didn’t the scrubs and his blood (was it even HIS blood?) sort of prompt a stranger’s eyes that you guys weren’t together? … Ok, maybe not. “We’re not -”

“Yes, we’re ready!” Jisung held onto your hand tightly before you could pull away. He didn’t have to look at your face to know you were mortified and that only made him stifle his giggle. “I’ll have the cinnamon french toast special. How about you, baby?”

Hey Google, what’s the cruelest way to kill your Dad’s Hitman? “I… will have the same thing. With orange juice, please.”

“Coming right up!”

She took both menus and the second she walks into the kitchen, Jisung is lying down on the booth laughing it up like a hyena.

“You should see your face!” he giggled.

“You think you’re so funny, huh?”

“I think I’m hilarious.”

“If I don’t like my food, you’re paying.”

A bullet whizzed in between you and Jisung and then there was shattered glass everywhere. Time paused. There wasn’t enough time to cover your face, so bits and pieces stuck to one side of your cheek and you can feel the blood trickle down like they were tears. While the rest of the restaurant ducked under the tables and counters for cover, you were too mortified to move on your own.

From under the table, Jisung took your hands and pulled you down with him before other gunshots were fired.

He picked off as much glass as he could on your cheeks before holding your face in his hands. Your eyes couldn’t focus on one space at a time like you were trying to take in as much detail of what was happening as possible, but the tears were getting in the way. You were terrified.

“Hey, look at me,” he said sternly. You did as you were told, but then the tears started to fall. This couldn’t be real. “Listen to me, ok? Stay here and don’t move.”

“D-Don’t leave me…!”

“I promise I’m not leaving without you. I’ll be right back, ok? Promise me you won’t move.”

You nodded, wondering how could he be so calm under this circumstance? He must be used to it, after all. Before leaving, he pulled out his shiny pistol from his hidden holster and made his way towards the shooter or shooters.

From the broken window, you could hear indistinguishable yelling and multiple gunshots. He was alone out there. And who knew how many shooters he was up against! There was no way he could do this alone. But you were defenseless and had absolutely no way of helping other than doing what you were told and staying put under the table.

Then the shooting stopped. For a solid five minutes, there was complete silence, with the exception of your loud breathing and other innocent people’s soft crying. Everyone’s breath hitched in their throat when the doorbell rang. You heard heavy boots travel towards your direction and that’s when you knew you were the target from this whole thing all along. Daughter of a Kingpin, of course! What else could be the reason? Were they going to kill you? No, that would be stupid. What would they gain out of that? They must be here to kidnap you and force your Dad to pay them in billions so you could come home.

The boots stopped right at your table and you felt like you could die right there. You had no clue what this man even looked like, but he was easily the most terrifying man you’ve had the pleasure of meeting. He didn’t move at all while he was there. It was like he was teasing you, like he was making you wait and then when you least expected it, BAM! He’d drag you from under the table and throw you in their blacked-out van.

Another gunshot was heard from inside the diner and the man in the heavy boots fell to the floor with a big thud that vibrated the whole restaurant.

Jisung was the next face you saw when he crouched down to check on you. Before he could ask if you were ok, you lunged out from under the table and went straight into his arms.

“Are you ok?” he whispered while holding you tightly. You could only nod while your face was buried in his shoulder. “We gotta go, Princess. You can fall in love with me some other time.”

Reluctantly, you pulled away. There were splatters of blood all over the poor Hitman’s face and it was horrifying.

“Blood…” you muttered, trying to wipe it off.

“It’s not mine,” he reassured. “C’mon, I need to take you home.”

He took your hand and the both of you booked it to his car before any of the diner staff or customers could question you. Just outside, the streets were empty of people and cars and sirens could be heard far off in the distance. It was a total mess in the parking lot with five huge ass men laying in their own pool of blood.

“Holy shit,” you said, all wide-eyed.

“Yeah… This job gets a little messy at times,” Jisung sighed.

The car ride to your apartment is silent. Hell, you didn’t even question how he knew where you lived without having to ask you. All of what just happened happened so fast… like in a matter of seven minutes. You’re still completely shaken up about it, but what mattered was that both you and Jisung left as a whole with no major wounds. You had a bloody cheek with glass in it, but did Jisung even get a scratch on him?

He parked the car and did the courtesy of walking you all the way up to your room so he knew you were safe. The air between you two was tense at the moment and now might not be the most appropriate time for Jisung to be thinking this, but holy shit, were you filthy rich or what. The lobby of your apartment complex had a full blown marble fountain smack dab in the middle of it! True, you were in medical school, so your money was hard-earned, but didn’t your Dad own this building, anyways? And of course you lived on the highest floor in the farthest corner of the entire complex. You must have an incredible view.

“Don’t leave home for the rest of the day, ok?” Jisung demanded once you reached your room. “If you have work later today or tonight or any other day, call me. I’ll drive you.”

“Ok, but you have to come inside first.”

“Why?”

“You need to clean up. Your scratched up hands, all the blood, you can’t go out in public like this the whole day.”

“I can do that later -”

“Please?” you begged. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

With your teary puppy dog eyes, how was he supposed to refuse? “Ok, but I can’t stay long.”

Your home isn’t exactly how he imagined it. Rather than huge expensive paintings and fancy golden vases and marble counter tops, your home was quite simple and clean. Minimalist was a good way to describe it, with bits and pieces of what made your home totally you. His personal favorite touches were the scattered coffee mugs, the ginormous fuzzy rug in the living room, and pictures of you and your friends hung up in different places.

You led him to the kitchen table. “Sit,” you ordered like he was your puppy.

He did as he was told while you ran to the bathroom to get your emergency kit full of all kinds of stuff that only hospital faculty could get their hands on. You came back with a huge plastic case and Jisung’s eyes widened.

“Damn, do you have the whole hospital in that thing!? You’re not gonna give me a shot, are you?”

“No, you idiot.”

“Good, I don’t do well with needles.”

“You don’t do well with needles, but you can shoot a perfect head shot?”

“Yes, and never forget that.”

You started at his face, taking a damp warm towel and wiping off the sticky blood. Jisung could have easily done it himself, but it was nice to be cared for like this once in a while - like he meant something to someone. He watched how your eyes moved bit by bit to make sure you wiped his face clean entirely. You could feel his eyes etching his name into your soul, but somehow you were able to ignore it this time. Maybe because you were too busy worrying.

“Stop worrying,” Jisung scolded.

“How can you tell?”

He then harshly poked your forehead. “Your eyebrows make you look stressed. You’re going to get wrinkles if you keep doing that.”

“Sorry,” was all you could mutter out before you started cleaning his hands.

His hands were surprisingly warm - a striking contrast to your icy ones, like your blood was running cold. But they were soft - much softer than his calloused ones, and they felt nice. First, you wiped away the dirt and dry blood. Then, you took out the sanitizing solution and cotton swabs.

“This is going to sting,” you warned.

“Like… A lot?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Wait wait wait - ah -!” he shrieked loudly while yanking his hands to his chest. “Bro, that shit hurts!”

“Give me your hands back!”

“No!”

“Oh my God, how old are you?”

“Old enough to reject medical care if I want to!”

“You’re such a child. Some bad ass Hitman you are,” you sighed before packing up the emergency kit and putting it back in the bathroom. “If that gets infected, don’t come crawling back to me to fix it.”

You take a moment for yourself in the bathroom to calm down and try to process what happened this morning. You got into Jisung’s car, drove to the diner, ordered food, and then got in the middle of a shoot out. Somewhere in between there had to be some indication the shooting was going to happen, but you couldn’t recall any suspicions. Maybe they were just too good and neither you nor Jisung noticed them. Even though that was all over with, who’s to say that it won’t happen again any time soon? And how was your Dad going to clean up all the blood?

After collecting yourself, you joined Jisung back in the kitchen only to see him talking on the phone.

“I’ll be right there,” he said before hanging up.

“Is that my Dad?” you asked.

“Yeah. He wants me back at the office so I can tell him what happened. I told him you were safe and sound here at home.”

“You’re leaving…?”

Jisung walked up to you and laid his heavy hands on your heavy shoulders. “I have to report back to him now that you’re involved. If I don’t soon, you could be in really great danger, and I don’t want that to happen. Like I said, call me or text me if you need a ride anywhere, need to go to class or work, or just want to talk. Understand?” You nodded, trusting his every word. “Good. Now get some rest, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Can you text me once you get to my Dad’s?”

“Are you worrying about me now? A little backwards, isn’t it?” he teased. “I’ll text you as soon as I get there. I promise.”

Jisung left you to your own devices and you spent the following half hour closing all of the blinds, covering all of the windows, and crawling under your fluffy blankets waiting for Jisung to text you he was safe at your Dad’s. For a Hitman, he was acting more like a bodyguard than anything, but you can’t complain. Without him, you’re sure you would have been kidnapped by whomever was at the diner. You’re thankful for him, and he’s great company, too. Your mundane life was a little more exciting when he was around.

jisung [07:56]: I’m here at your Dad’s.

you [07:57]: good.

jisung [07:57]: Raincheck on breakfast?

you [07:59]: only if you’re paying.

jisung [08:01]: Sure thing. Rest well, _____.

You fell into a deep sleep.

The next time you saw Jisung was the following day when you told him you had an 8:00 am lecture. Jisung’s circadian rhythm may have no reasonable cycle, but even he knew that 8:00 am was way too early for class to start! His business lectures didn’t even start until nine! You felt terrible when he pulled up with messy hair and barely-opened eyes, but you were too terrified to travel without him. Besides, he offered! He’s totally consenting to this.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” you teased. You held out one of your coffee thermoses to him and his eyes lit up like the sun. “Figured you needed some of this.”

“God, you have no idea.”

Jisung continued to drive you to and from places for weeks, whether it be to school, the hospital, or even to the grocery store or some general store. You thought he’d act more like a chauffeur than anything, but really he was acting more like your husband.

Grocery shopping often went like this:

“Kale? Really?” he gagged. “Can’t you buy some good food? You know, like meat and beer.”

“Do you live at my apartment and eat my food?”

“I will if it means you’ll eat good food. I should cook for you. I bet Dr. San can’t cook.”

Shopping at the general store went like this:

“Why are you buying such expensive towels? Just get the cheaper ones.”

“These are softer. Stop policing my shopping!”

“Quit throwing your money away!”

And then dropping you off at work went like this:

“Have a nice day at work, honey ~!” he screamed out the window. “Love you! Stay away from Dr. San!”

The rest of the week went about the same way and you were already tired of seeing Jisung’s annoyingly handsome face for that many days straight. On your only day off, just when you thought you were going to have a whole day of relaxing and staying home, a knock came at your door. At first, you’re terrified. Only a handful of people know where you live and nothing ever gets delivered right at your doorstep. You take one of your chef’s knives from the kitchen and approached the door cautiously.

“_____? It’s Jisung, open up.”

“Oh, for the love of -” When you opened the door, you pointed the knife lazily at him.

“Whoa, chill!”

“I didn’t call for your services.”

“‘Services’, what am I, a stripper? I know you didn’t. I’m here because your Dad wants to see you.”

“God, I hate it when he does this! He never gives me a heads up or anything! It’s my only day off, do I really have to go?”

“Yes. He said this is urgent. He also said to change into some work out clothes.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.” You groaned in protest and dragged your feet back to your room to change. “Cute jammies, by the way.”

“Shut up.”

After changing into some clothes that you haven’t touched for months, Jisung drove you back to the Office in Hell. You had a feeling this had to do with the diner shooting earlier this week, which made national news. You for sure thought there was going to be some wanted pictures of you and Jisung fleeing the scene, but all the anchors mentioned was that all suspects ended up dying on the spot. Dad must have done something or paid some ungodly amount to the police so that you and Jisung were completely erased from the story, but you weren’t complaining. You didn’t want a bunch of reporters or police asking you questions.

The elevator ride down and the walk down the hallway doesn’t get any shorter the more you travel through it, but you would much rather have Mr. Hitman beside you instead of eight men in suits and sunglasses.

The second you walked through the door, you’re Dad ran to you and hugged you tightly.

“Oh, Sweetie, are you ok?” he cooed, checking the scars on your cheek where the glass hit you. “My poor daughter! Those fuckers are going to pay -”

“Dad, I’m fine.”

“Of course you are, all thanks to Jisung, right? Did I raise your pay yet like I said I would?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent.”

“So what was so important that you called me here unannounced on my day off?”

“Right.” Inside your Dad’s fancy Dior suit jacket, he pulled out a pistol that matched Jisung’s and handed it over to you like it was a tv remote.

“Whoa, what the hell, Dad!?” you flinched, bumping your back into Jisung. “Why are you giving that to me?”

“You need it for self defense.”

“You think I know how to use that?”

“No, and that’s why Jisung is going to teach you. He’ll teach you how to shoot a gun, defend yourself if someone tries to kidnap you, the whole package.”

“Dad, you know I don’t want to be involved in this any more than I already am!” you whined, refusing to take the gun. “I’m digging a deeper hole for myself the more I’m around either of you. I can’t be doing this kind of stuff, I’m about to graduate!”

“I know. You know I fully support the life you chose as a doctor and I did my best to separate this lifestyle from you. But now you’re involved. People know your name, your face, where you work, and it’s my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it other than to give you what you need to protect yourself. I can’t let you walk around defenseless. Can you do this for me?”

You hated that he was right. If you were to walk away, he’d probably have Jisung and a bunch of his other men escort you everywhere you go and that’s the last thing you want. Reluctantly, you took the pistol from your Dad’s hands and he couldn’t look any prouder. You know the doljabi test that babies take when they turn one? The one with a pencil, some money, a sports-related thing, and various other objects that predicted the fate of your future? You’re almost positive your Dad snuck in a gun or a knife in there somewhere and your dumb ass took it so now fate was playing games with you and here you were with a heavy pistol in your hands.

“Jisung’s going to drive you to the shooting range and then to the gym for self defense. Sound good?”

“Do I even have a choice?”

“You know I love you, right? Do this for me if you love me, too.”

“... Ok. Love you, too, Dad.”

He held you tightly one last time before you left with Hitman slash bodyguard slash self-defense trainer Jisung. He was silent for a bit thinking that saying anything would ruin the sentimental moment you were cherishing, but by the way you eyed the new toy in your hands, he figured he had to distract you somehow.

“Some couples have matching clothes, but you and I have matching pistols,” he teased, lifting his shirt to reveal the same one on his holster.

“Tch, couple. As if.”

“What, you don’t think we’d make a cute couple? The waitress at the diner thought so.”

“A Hitman and his boss’s daughter. Sounds like a drama.”

“I’d watch sixteen hours of it.”

The shooting range was indoors, so the drive didn’t take you out of the city. The inside was all black with the targets that you could barely see at the opposite side of the room. For a place colored black and filled with guns, you thought it’d be scarier, but somehow it was familiar. Jisung led you to the one all the way down at the end.

“Ready to play?” he asked while hanging up the target for you.

“No. I’m terrified, actually.”

“You’ve never shot a gun before?”

“Does it look like I have?”

“Right… Show me how you think you should stand.”

You awkwardly did your best to have your back straight, feet facing towards the target, and aimed your gun straight ahead with your arms straight.

“That’s good if you were just shooting here and not moving, but you’ll be moving a lot. Turn your hips like this.”

Jisung had his hands on your hips before you know it and if this was anyone besides him, you might have blushed a deep red. But simply because this was him, you can’t get over how overused this drama-style flirting situation was. He guided your hips to face slightly to the side and kept your torso facing forward.

“You want your hips to face the side so you can quickly turn around and shoot someone from behind if you need to. Does that make sense?”

His fingertips creeped under your shirt on accident and touched your skin. You felt the goosebumps travel through your arms. “Y-Yup!”

“Ok then. Lift up your arms.” His hands made sure your elbows were bent and shoulders steady before returning to ghost the skin of your waist. “Ready, aim, shoot.”

You pulled the trigger and the bullet totally missed.

The breath of Jisung’s hyena laugh tickled your ear and you couldn’t help but laugh, too. You hit him in the chest with your free hand.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“I can’t help it! You were totally off!”

“Ugh, ok let me try again.”

Again and again you readied, aimed, and fired and the closest you got to a good shot was the shoulder. Your playlist the entire time was a grown man’s giggle.

“You’re kind of cute when you’re shooting. Like the personification of ‘pew pew’.”

“If we were to leave this facility and get into a shoot out, I would not survive, so can you please shut up and help me!?”

“Ok ok! Maybe it’ll be easier if you square out your hips like this.” Mr. Professional Hitman applied more pressure to his grip on your hips and evened out the spacing of your feet and the angle of your hips.

“Does that feel better?” he whispered.

Whoa, your heart was beating fast. “U-Uh, I-I guess…”

“Ok. Try one more time and we can try again some other day.”

You would rather die than try again some other day, so you focused all of whatever energy you had left into this one final shot. You pulled the trigger and the bullet whizzed through the target’s chest slightly to its left.

Jisung whistled, impressed that you caught on. “Right through the heart, baby.”

“Fuck yeah, finally.”

“I guess that’ll do for now. Ready for self-defense training?”

“Now? Like, right now?”

“It’s now or never. C’mon, the gym’s close by.”

Actually, the gym was right across the street. Jisung told you to go to the room that was under your Dad’s name and that he’d meet you after he was done changing into his own gym clothes. The room in your name had the floors covered in gross gym mats and all of the walls were mirrors. It reminded you of a boxing gym, but without all of the equipment. It was kind of creepy.

The door opened to reveal Jisung in sweatpants and a sleeveless shirt - completely different than his normal black jeans and leather jacket get-up. This time you could clearly see his biceps and deltoids and you had to force yourself to look away before he caught you. It was too late. You were never going to hear the end if this.

“Like what you see, Princess?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Your high-pitched voice gave you away. “I understand the gun training, but do I really need self-defense training? Do you really think I could defend myself against some huge dude?”

“I highly doubt that you can, but that’s why I’m going to show you some basic tips and tricks. Ready?”

“No.”

“That’s the spirit. So tell me this, Princess. If I’m walking up to you with my hands grabbing your arms so you don’t hit back, what will you do?”

Jisung did just as he described and took hold of both of your wrists so tightly that it was hard to believe he was playing with you. “I’d kick you in your nuts,” you said, fake-kneeing him and making him flinch.

“Ah, careful! Good, that was the right answer. What if I have my hands on your neck and try to cut off your circulation?”

His hand found his way to your neck. Rather than thinking of the right answer, you were thinking of something slightly less appropriate. Only slightly… should this be feeling good?

“_____ ~” Jisung teased. “What’s your answer?”

Oh, right. “U-Uh, aim for your eyes.”

“Good girl.”

You couldn’t recall how long you and Jisung were practicing, but you’re sure you had bruises on weird places of your body right now because for questions that you couldn’t answer, Bad Ass Hitman made you the offender and he’d play a little too roughly with you so you knew what to do in that scenario. Somewhere near the end, you’re sweaty, tired, frustrated, and ready to go home.

“Jisung, I’m tired,” you whined.

“I know, but we have to keep going for a little longer. I have to go through everything on the list Mr. _____ gave me.”

“Can’t we do that another time? I need food, I need a shower, and I need sleep before work tomorrow.”

“We can’t fall short on this, _____. You and I got lucky that no one touched you at the diner. But what am I to do if I’m not with you and someone takes you away, hm? Your Dad will be devastated! And I’ll never forgive myself for not taking the time to help you defend yourself.”

“I can defend myself! I’m not totally helpless you know! I answered most of those questions right, didn’t I? I don’t need you to babysit me all the time just because my Dad told you to. You don’t have to act like you care, in fact you didn’t have to do anything involving me ever. Just lie to my Dad and say you did and hell, I’ll even be your alibi, but stop acting like you care about me when really you’re just looking for my Dad’s approval and that approval is gone the second you step away from me, right?”

The air was tense. Then Jisung walked up to you, swept his feet from under you so you’d fall on your ass, and towered over you. His legs were on both sides of your hips so you couldn’t move your legs and his hands were occupied with pinning your arms to the mat. Everything happened in less than a second and it took you a couple more to adjust your eyes and realize what happened. You focused on Jisung’s face. His lips are pursed, brows furrowed, and overall he looked hurt.

“If I’m the enemy trying to take you away from me and I have you in a hold like this, how are you going to escape?”

Take you away from him?

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t because what he thought about you all along was right - you were just the weak, defenseless, stuck up daughter of his boss. You felt like crying, but that would only further confirm his speculations, so you held it in.

But that’s not what he thought about you at all. You may be this little Princess he’s looking out for, but if anything were to happen to you, he wouldn’t know what to do. He’d probably go on some rampage, thinking irrationally and only doing what he could to get to you or find you or whatever these other mobsters wanted with you. He couldn’t let anything happen to you. He wouldn’t. He didn’t know what to do with this effect you had on him, but it was his fault for deciding to roll with it.

It’s been a minute since Jisung asked you the question. Since that time has passed, you noticed his face softened and you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was hurt - you said right to his face that you thought he didn’t genuinely care about it you at all. He couldn’t blame you, because you were right - this all started out because he was protecting you the way your Dad had ordered him to. But wasn’t it more than that by now?

You’re still pinned down and even when both of you realized it, neither of you moved from your positions. Instead, as if from the pull of the Earth’s core, Jisung leaned down almost too slowly. So slowly that you even bothered to strain your neck and meet his lips halfway.

His hands tightened their grip on your wrists like he was afraid you’d slip away. His lips were soft, and they were sweet like cherry-flavored candy. You tasted sweet, too, but more like honey. He could kiss you for hours. He should have done this earlier.

Your ringtone echoed through the room.

“Phone!” you yelped in a panic, crawling out from under Jisung. Your fingers were all twitchy and had a hard finding your phone in your bag. “H-Hi, Dr. San?”

Jisung involuntarily chewed on the inside of his cheek when he heard that name coming from your lips.

“Right now? Can you give me an hour? Ok, thank you, I’ll be there soon.” When you turned back to look at Jisung, he was already packing his gym bag. “I got called into work.”

“Ok,” he said briefly. He sounded annoyed.

Again, the car ride was silent and awkward. Jisung had been good about driving safely while you were with him, but today he went back to his old ways, like the very first time he drove you to the hospital. You looked at him and was going to ask what was up, but he looked angry. Did he regret what just happened in the gym…?

No, it wasn’t that. It was that stupid handsome Dr. San who ruined his one and only perfectly imperfect kiss with you and you jumped at the opportunity to answer the phone and get away. What a childish way reason for him to be bad.

“I… didn’t mean what I said earlier,” you began awkwardly. “I don’t think of you as a babysitter or someone who sucks up to my Dad like that… I’m sorry.”

Jisung sighed. “Then what am I to you?”

You couldn’t answer that.

Even though he was annoyed, Jisung still opened the door for you, but avoided eye contact once you arrived at the hospital. You said your quick goodbyes and he watched you walk in just like every other time just so he knew you were one hundred and ten percent safe inside.

Halfway to the door, you turned around.

“Would you want to go with me to a party next weekend?” you asked quickly like a high school girl asking out her crush.

Jisung did his lovable eyebrow raise. “Go with you? As what, your bodyguard?”

“No. As my date.”

“Whoa, as your date?” You couldn’t tell if he was smirking because he was scoffing and couldn’t believe you would ask him such a stupid question or because you sent his ego into space again. You hoped for the latter. “Why don’t you ask your precious Dr. San?”

“I kind of don’t want to go with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I kind of want to go with you more.”

He bit his lip and you couldn’t help but think about kissing him again. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“So…?”

“I’ll go.”

He swore your smile lit up the night sky brighter than the moon. “Pick me up after work?”

“Anything for you, _____.”

You talked about kissing Jisung to Somi your entire shift.

The next time he kissed you was ten hours later after the overnight shift.

“Kiss me,” he demanded when he dropped you home. Your back was pressed against the door as he towered over you.

“Seriously?” you blushed.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“What’s the magic word ~?”

“Kiss me now?”

You were looking for please, but that was close enough, right? From then on, kissing was normal. Almost too normal, like you couldn’t keep your lips away from each other.

From the weekend you kissed him to the weekend of the party, you and Jisung hung out everyday all day. Sometimes it was training as your Dad’s Hitman and his precious Princess, but it was mostly as two people who liked each other. The other stuff was arbitrary. For once, you guys did normal things together, like cooking, shopping, playing games, and your favorite - kissing.

The hospital faculty party was going to be the first ‘date’ together publicly as a couple. Jisung always thought the firsts for anything were awkward, but not this - not with you. He was surprised to find out that everything with you happened naturally.

“Whoa…” was what Jisung said when he picked you up for the party. He knew the attire was formal, but never in his time of knowing you did he think he’s see you in something that made you shine like the stars. You were going to make everyone in the room turn their heads.

“Whoa yourself, even if you are in all black. Again.”

“I’m sexy though, right?”

“Very.”

The party wasn’t some adult house party or at a dinky banquet hall. No, this one was at the most expensive hotel in the city in the biggest ballroom. Decorated with jewel tones and gold accents, this party was the most extravagant party you and Jisung had ever attended. Everyone can thank your Dad for booking it. Anyone who was anyone was at this party and you wondered who was keeping it down at the hospital, but that wasn’t your problem tonight.

You spotted your group of friends over by the bar and where there was most traffic for the hors d'oeuvres. Typical. You took your hot date by the hand and walked over, finally getting the chance to introduce him to them, especially Somi.

“_____! Is this who I think it is!?” she gasped loudly.

“Guys, this is Jisung. Jisung, these are my co-workers.”

“Is that really all I am to you?” Somi and a couple of others fake-cried.

“Shut up.”

While Jisung was distracted with the food, Somi leaned in to whisper to you. “Hey, don’t look now, but Dr. San is staring.”

“Really?”

If Somi told you this months ago, you would have been all over that. But now you were just genuinely curious as to why. When you looked back, it was certainly true that he was staring, but he had his hot date right next to him, so why did it matter? Something was off.

“Jealous?” Jisung teased.

“Only that you have food. Sharing is caring.”

“No way, get your own!”

You disregarded Dr. San’s stares for the rest of the night. Your attention and affection were for Jisung and Jisung only. Whether it was his arm around your waist or your hands playing with his, there was always some sort of skinship shared between you two and you neither of you wanted to separate any time soon. So he took the initiative to pull you to the dance floor.

“Does my Dad’s Hitman know how to dance?”

“Of course! There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, baby.”

“I’ll know all of them eventually.”

“Ok, bet.”

The songs changed from upbeat bops, to goofy bops, then finally ended with the slow and sexy songs allowing Jisung to hold you close like he always wanted to. He’s done so behind closed doors a few times already, but this was different. He got to show you off to the whole world. To your friends, to strangers, and especially to Dr. San.

“Safe to say that I won, right?” Jisung asked, referring to the night that Mingi got stabbed.

“By a landslide.”

“What do I get?”

“Another kiss ~?”

“You know me so well.”

Your man dipped his head down and kissed you with all of the passion he held in every cell of his body. Even during the kiss, you could feel yourself getting light headed and all the blood went to your cheeks.

“Whoa,” you said once he pulled away. “When did you learn how to do THAT?”

“Like I said, there’s a lot of things you don’t know ~”

“I think I need a drink after that.”

His cute laugh rang in your ears. “Ok, I’ll be at our table.”

You got a couple of sodas for you and your date so you could boost your blood sugar back up. While waiting, you overlooked the entire room full of people you worked. Even then, your eyes still found their way to Jisung. He was happily talking to Somi and the rest of the girls probably talking about how you two met. As if knowing you were looking, he returned your gaze and did his cute little wink so he could see you blush again. Well, it worked, because now you were smiling like an idiot and staring at your shoes.

“_____,” Dr. San said, tearing you away from your thoughts.

The handsome man was smiling down at you when you looked up. He was wasn’t with his date at the moment, so it was just you two.

“Dr. San, hi. How are you?” you asked.

“I’m doing well. Yourself?”

“I’m doing very well.”

“Really? I knew there was something different about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling a lot more. Your cheeks are practically glowing. It’s charming.” Cutely, he pinched your cheek.

You didn’t think anything of it, but oh man, did Jisung think otherwise. Now he was angry. It wasn’t your fault, and maybe he shouldn’t even be angry in the first place, but like HELL was he going to let some fucking tacky-ass doctor be friendly with you like that.

“Is someone else making you blush the way I used to?” Dr. San asked.

“I-I guess? You knew about that?”

“Of course. I thought you were cute, too. I could still make you feel that way.”

“Dr. San…?”

He took steps closer to you. “You should be with a real man.”

Just in time, Jisung stepped in between before this creep could touch you again.

“Back off,” Jisung sneered. Uh-oh, this wasn’t going to end well…

“I’m not doing anything,” Dr. San said calmly. “We’re just talking.”

“It doesn’t look that way to me.”

“You’re just a thug. What are you even doing here? She’s too good for you.”

Before Jisung could land a punch on him, you held him by the waist and laid your chin on his shoulder. That stopped him dead in his tracks and he hated how weak he fell when you held him like that.

“Don’t do it,” you whispered. “He’s not worth it. Let’s go home, ok?”

Your Hitman didn’t answer. Rather he took your hand and walked swiftly towards the exit.

“See you Monday, _____ ~” Dr. San sang tauntingly.

“What an asshole… Can’t believe I ever liked that guy.”

When you arrived outside, Jisung let go of your hand and wiped the sweat on his nice dress pants. He walked a few steps ahead of you to take some time to cool off before he talked because he knew if he didn’t, he’d say something wrong and maybe you’d run away. After running a hand through his hair, he turned back around to see you smiling and waiting patiently. It was so hard for him to believe he had you.

“Are you ok?” you asked.

“Yeah… Sorry, I don’t know what got into me. Just seeing him with you like that… It really got under my skin.”

“You must like me, huh?”

“Nah, that can’t be it…”

“Hey!”

“You know I’m kidding,” he said, his hands finding their way back to your waist. “I like you. A lot. Almost too much.”

“There’s no such thing as too much.”

Your annoying ringtone yet again ruined the moment between you and your man. Normally, you had your phone on silent, but you only let it ring when important people like your Dad, Jisung, and Dr. San were texting you. You checked and saw it was a message from Dr. San.

He sent you a picture of your Dad in a room with no windows tied up to a chair and beaten bloody with only “₩10B by 3AM” and an unknown address written.

“J-Ji-Jisung…” you stuttered. “W-What does this mean…?”

“What’s wrong?” His eyes narrowed at the image on your phone. Now he was furious. He knew there was something wrong with that guy from the get-go. “I’ll call for our crew in the car. Let’s go.”

You and Jisung sprinted to his car in the eerie underground parking lot. What if Dr. San was watching you right now? Watching you run away with a man that wasn’t him. Watching your every move so he knew you were following his demands.

Panic flowed through your entire body and you were finding it hard to breathe evenly. Your Dad was your entire world and now someone - Dr. San, of all people - had him. What were you to do without your rock? The only man who ever believed in you?

“What are we going to do?” you asked once you both were in the car. It sounded like you were crying, but no tears were present.

“We’re going to get your Dad, but it’s going to be messy.”

“But what about the money? I have it, won’t that be easiest?”

“First thing’s first about this line of business is to never trust anyone. Even if we have the money, who knows what they’ll do in that time? We’ll get the money, but we need to be quick and we need to be prepared to fight back, is that clear?” From inside his suit coat, he pulled out his pistol and gave it to you. “Are you ready to show me what you’ve learned?”

“What about you?”

“I have mine,” he said, revealing the one on his belt. “I brought yours just in case because I knew some shit was going to go down. This night sounded too perfect to be true.”

“I-I don’t even know the time…! What if it’s past three already!?”

“It’s 10:25. _____, look at me.” Through your panicked and shifty eyes, you tried to focus on Jisung’s calm and handsome face. It was helpful when he held your hand. “We’re going to find him, but I need you to stay calm, ok? I’ll be right next to you the whole time.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I could never. Are you ready?” When you nodded, Jisung wasted no time and started the car. “Let’s fucking go.”

First thing’s first - go to your Dad’s office and find ₩10B lying around. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? You knew the password to the safe that was embedded in the wall and hidden behind one of the bookshelves. That was probably what Dr. San was looking for.

Dr. San… Who was he in all of this? Was he like your Dad, the leader of the pack? Or was he more like Jisung, the guy who did all of the dirty work? And why would an accomplished doctor like him need a side hustle like this? How did he even have the time!?

Entering the long hallway that led to Dad’s office was scarier at night with the possibilities of an ambush. Ahead of you, Jisung pulled out his pistol, indicating that you should do the same. With shaky and unsteady hands, you followed his lead. Despite the circumstance, dressed in your formal wear holding a gun next to your man made you feel kind of invincible - like you could do anything with Jisung by your side and look good doing it.

The office really looked like it came from hell when you entered. Everything was flipped upside down, all of Dad’s papers were everywhere, the books on his shelves were on the floor, and the cocaine corner was completely empty. Dr. San’s men did major work in such a short amount of time.

“The safe is behind the shelf,” Jisung instructed. “I’ll watch your back while you open it.”

“You know about that safe? And know that I know the code?”

“Mr. _____ trusted me almost too much.”

The safe combination was rotated between yours and your Dad’s social security number and you had to get it right in three tries or else you were locked out for twenty-four hours. This time it was yours. You’ve never opened it before or even knew what was in it, so when you opened it both you and Jisung could not believe how much money was stashed.

“So this is where my paycheck comes from.” Jisung handed you one of the many black duffle bags your Dad owned. “Start counting, babe.”

Even with ₩10B in the bag, there’s barely a dent in the safe. You both knew your Dad was filthy rich, but this safe was downright NASTY. When you save Dad from this whole mess, you’ll convince him to never do this drug stuff ever again. He could live luxuriously and then some with just half of what was in the safe.

The next step was to go to the unknown address. Jisung couldn’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. You must have been scared, furious, worried, or all of the above. With one hand on the wheel, he reached over to hold on to yours and there’s a wave of relieve that washed over you. It didn’t last long when the GPS lead you to an empty warehouse under a bridge with only your men’s cars filling up the property. The second they saw Jisung’s car, they all came out. Did Dad really have this many men in his army? You don’t even think you’ve seen some of these men before.

“Miss _____,” the leader of the pack greeted politely. “What’s the move?”

“I-I don’t know… Why are you asking me?”

“You’re next in charge, aren’t you?”

“Uh… Jisung, help?” you nudged.

“We’re going to go in there, give them the money, and demand Mr. _____ back. Be prepared if they disagree or things get heated. There are two number one priorities here - bring back Mr. _____ alive and keep _____ safe. Is that clear?” All the men nodded obediently. “Go!”

A couple of the men broke down the door. Instead of the building being an intricate maze of hallways and arbitrary rooms, it was just one big, empty gray space and your Dad was tied to a chair right in the middle of it, not moving.

“Dad!” you cried out, running past all of the loyal men.

“_____, get back here!”

Jisung couldn’t let you run alone in such an open room with potential shooters hiding God knows where, so he ran after you and kept an eye out for all hidden corners and crevices. The tears you kept hidden these last few hours all flowed freely the closer you ran to him. It felt like you were running a marathon on the longest treadmill. The closer you got, the more you could see the fresh blood oozing out of his body and when you reached him, you knew why he wasn’t moving.

He was already shot dead.

“Dad?” you whimpered, shaking him by his cold, limp shoulders. “Come on, wake up…! I’m here!”

“_____, it’s a trap,” Jisung warned. “We have to go -!”

“No, not without my Dad -!”

“_____, look at me.”

Jisung tore you away from trying to untie your dead Dad and held you by your face. Your crying and sobbing echoed so loudly throughout the room. It broke his heart to see you this way. He hoped to never see you like this ever again.

“We have to go. It’s not safe for you here. My priority is to keep you safe, remember?”

“But Dad -!”

“I know, baby, I know. You know what we’re going to do?” You shook your head. “You’re going to take over your Dad’s spot. You are going to rule this Kingdom and we’re going to get our revenge.”

“Revenge?” Revenge sounded good.

“Yup. You’re going to sit in your Dad’s office and run that shit like nothing happened, right? You’re going to keep this business running. And we’re going to find Dr. San and find all the other men responsible then we’re going to get our revenge. And I’m going to be right beside you the whole time, ok? Do you trust me?”

You could only nod. His plan sounded perfect.

“If you want to do this, we have to get out of here. Now.”

You let Jisung take the lead by helping you up. He dropped the bag of money next to your bleeding Dad, took you by the hand, and ran. There’s no shooting to be heard, no other footsteps, hell you couldn’t even hear any breathing. Was anyone even here? Why the fuck did they even bother if they already killed your father!?

“Grab the body and take it to get prepped for a memorial. Watch out for snipers,” Jisung warned.

The rest of the men stayed back when you and Jisung left to get you safe inside the car.

“Why did you leave the money? Dad was already shot,” you asked.

“Dr. San or whomever he works for only wanted the money. They didn’t care about negotiating. They have that place bugged. If we didn’t leave it, something bad was going to happen to you. I’ll throw away ₩10B any day as long as you’re left untouched.”

“Dr. San… no wonder he tried to get closer to me. Not too obvious, but not too subtle, either. He knew a lot about my relationship with Dad, too.”

“Like what?”

“I told him I chose med school because I didn’t want to take over Dad’s business. He knew if they killed my Dad, the company’s Drug Pushing days would be over. God, I’m such an idiot!”

“Hey, that’s not your fault. You had no idea some tacky doctor could be involved in this life.”

“Yeah, and now I’m going to be. I’ll be doing exactly what I never wanted in the first place. But this is for Dad. I have to do this, right?”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“You’re right. Now I want to.”

“_____-”

“It’s ok. This is for Dad - I can do this. I-I think… You said you’d be there with me, right?”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, Princess.”

“Good... Where are we going now?”

“To your home. You need rest, you had a long day. Then tomorrow, we’ll clean up your new office, and I’ll show you the ups and downs of this God-forsaken business.”

“I’m both terrified and excited.”

“Maybe you were meant for this job all along.”

“Dad used to say shit like that, too. Maybe you’re both right...”

Your heart was incredibly heavy when you arrived home. You needed your bed to hold all of the weight of your sorrow. Seeing your Dad dead and tied up like a pot roast was one kind heartbreak, but realizing he was gone forever was another. You couldn’t be alone tonight.

“Don’t leave me,” you begged Jisung.

“Do you want me to stay tonight?”

“And tomorrow... Maybe for the whole week... And then some...”

His light chuckle rang in your ear and he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Anything for you.”

EPILOGUE

Life is simple. Life is spent calmly after your Dad’s memorial and taking over the Soju business and cocaine side hustle. It took you a while to adjust from med student life to business student life, but you’re thankful for Jisung who helped you with the transition and studying every step of the way. It wasn’t as bad as you thought - then again, business students don’t have overnight shifts.

Being the CEO meant you knew the recipe of the Soju and who to pay in whatever amount. You were more like the overseer. As time passes, you’ll learn the rest of the ins and outs on the go, so you’re not as worried.

Besides, you have your hands full with cocaine, among other things.

“_____?” Jisung opens the door to your office with a triumphant smirk on his lips. “Dr. San’s ready to see you.”

“Thanks, love,” you said. You take your shiny pistol out from your holster. “Can’t wait to see him.”

#jisung #han jisung #skz #stray kids #skz jisung #han #skz han #stray kids jisung #stray kids han #skz scenarios #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #ah holy shit LOL finally #15k i wanna die #ok #love her pls i worked hard #she's messy but #yeah

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riverboundao3ff · 4 years ago

Text

Riverbound Chapter 8

As it turned out, you would not be dashing off on a dangerous quest as the valiant hero determined to save Alternia. Not yet, anyways.

However, you would be helping to prepare for Tyzias’s mission that is planned for tomorrow, which has your blood pumping as the teal whips out a map of Thrashthrust, with one smaller area circled in red marker, and slaps it down in the middle of the carpet you’re all gathered around.

“This is Her Imperial Condescension’s Drone Factory of the General Thrashthrust Area,” Tyzias begins. “In about thirty hours, all drones in the city will report back to the factory in four waves for about one hour each to upload new information to the government’s databases. Information like this includes individuals who are at risk of being culled, cellular data that’s been used to track people as they go about their night, and most importantly, if there’s any signs of rebellion. The drones will also be undergoing their regular maintenance checks.”

Daraya reaches over and taps a claw to the area circled in red. “While there are a few trolls there to make sure everything’s running smoothly, the uploading of data and maintenance checks are done by computers. What we want is to get into those computers and wipe out the data. Bonus points if we can wreck the computers, too.”

“That kind of technology won’t just be out in the open for anybody to get into, much less the information needed to actually access the good stuff,” Mallek says, tapping the pad of his pointer finger to his other fist. He’s tense, and for a good reason.

“We won’t be doing any hacking this time. Maybe if we had more time in between waves, but…” Stelsa shakes her head. “No, we’re going to have to take a more… crude approach.”

Tagora smiles and drums his claws against his knees. “The factory’s heavily protected against things like solar flares, but only from the outside. If something like, say, a massive electromagnetic pulse were to go off inside…”

Mallek raises a brow. “You have electro-bombs?”

“For legal reasons, no. For other reasons… just don’t ask me anything about any bombs, please.”

You grin at Tagora. “Hell yes, Gor-Gor.”

“Hell no, Gor-Gor,” Tirona begs, tugging on his sleeve.

“Try and stop me, you little gremlin.”

Tirona groans dramatically and flops back on the loungeplank with her hands over her face.

You’re absolutely amazed at how much your friends have changed since you disappeared. Who could have thought that Tagora Gorjek, of all people, would join up with a whole-ass rebellion? Or Stelsa, for that matter? Even Tirona seems resigned to the fact that she’s going to end up involved whether she likes it or not.

“So how are we getting the bombs in there?” Wanshi chirps.

“Orginally, I had a plan that consisted of people sneaking in and out of the buildings between waves. Different drones go to different buildings for their business. Now, we have a much easier and quicker way of doing the whole thing.” Tyzias nods to you.

“We understand if you still need more time to recover, though,” Daraya adds quickly.

You meet her gaze without hesitation. “I’m ready.”

This is why I’m here, kiddo. For your future, for all of our futures, for this planet. I just wish I could tell you that.

“... Wait. Before we go any further, there’s something you said earlier that everybody seems to be overlooking. Something very important.”

You turn to Lanque and are surprised by how intensely he’s looking at you. Dark green eyes glint sharply through his bangs.

“What’s up?” you offer.

“When you explained to us what happened to you, you said that you had come back to Alternia, but… in the future. If you went to the future, then you must know how this all turns out,” Lanque states matter-of-factly.

Your heart sinks.

“Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about that,” Tyzias growls before you can try to defend yourself. “But the thing is, we can’t know.”

Watching the realization hit your friends is like watching a car accident. You wince as Tagora, Tirona, and Stelsa glare at you furiously. Wanshi and Karako look confused, and then nervous.

“And why not?” Stelsa demands.

Thankfully, Daraya chucks her pen at Lanque with a hiss. “Because, you morons! If we know the wrong things, we could screw up everything! If they tell us we win, we might slack off at the wrong times and get ourselves killed. If we lose, then what’s stopping you from just giving up?”

“I don’t like not knowing things,” Tagora says coldly.

“Tough!”

Lanque grimaces. “This is definitely not where I meant to go with this. I was just hoping for a few words of reassurance from our dear friend that they actually have a plan to help us succeed.”

“And I do!” you promise desperately, shooting to your feet. “Look, I know it’s crazy of me to ask you guys to trust me with something like this, especially since I’ve been gone so long. But in…” You pause to do some quick math. “In seven nights I’m supposed to report back to my friends in the future. If we all work together, then we will be able to do this with the least amount of casualties, in the least amount of time.”

“Can we trust these friends of yours?” Tyzias asks.

“Yes. I wish I could tell you more, but…” you trail off, at a loss for words.

“This is barnacles,” Tirona whispers to Wanshi.

“The thing is, y’all don’t have a choice. They can time-travel. They can provide your rebellion with critical information about what to do next. Like it or not, they are your key to victory,” Mallek snaps, pointing to you with one sharp claw. “If you guys wanna keep whining about them trying to protect the stability of the timeline or whatever then that’s your fuckin’ problem. I trust them to do the right thing no matter what, and so should you.”

You want to hug him again. “Thank you, Mallek.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Adalov’s right. With all the shit they’ve been through, I think they’re more than capable of doing this for us,” Lanque agrees.

There’s a moment of tense silence. You’re nauseous again for an entirely different reason.

“... Fine. I mean… yes. You’re right,” Tagora finally admits, trying to not quail under the vicious stares of Daraya and Tyzias. He glances over at you a little remorsefully, and then sits back down besides Stelsa without another word. Stelsa nods, surprisingly quiet for once. Tirona gives you the peace sign and also keeps her mouth shut.

“I won’t let you guys down. That, I promise you,” you tell them.

“Then let’s go already,” Lanque sighs.

“Oh, yeah… uh, where are they?”

“I had them commissioned from a… special artist,” Tagora admits. “An indigo acquaintance of my kismesis.”

“Oh, worm? You and Galekh are official?” you gasp.

“Yes, yes we are. Now don’t go spreading my business around to just anybody! Anyways, his name is Bovois. After I pay him he will most likely try to kill me.”

“I… yeah, I don’t know why that took me off guard. Continue.”

Tagora smiles thinly. “The plan is simple. Bovois and I complete the transaction, I thank him for his time and walk away. He is a wealthy man and will therefore have somebody do the dirty work once I leave his property. I will be… relying on a few choice trolls to help me make sure they don’t succeed.”

“Or I could just teleport you out of there,” you protest.

“And have him call the drones on us once he sees you? I think not.”

You know he’s right, and it pisses you off. “Fine. I’m still coming, though. Just in case.”

“If you insist,” he says, but you can tell he’s happy you want to go with him. “Lanque and Stelsa will be the backup.”

“I’m taking Wanshi and Karako back to the caverns for afternoon classes. Call me with the results,” Daraya orders as she shoos the kids back towards the elevator.

“I’m taking back our brat, too.” Tyzias opts to just sling a squealing Tirona over her shoulder as she marches past Daraya.

“But I’m strong! I can beat up anybody!” Wanshi argues.

“Honk!” Karako makes his displeasure known with a few low notes deep in his throat, which sounds like somebody playing a rusty trumpet.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Come on, Bronya’s already gonna kill me for bringing you two outside, anyways.”

“I know how to walk, Tyzias!” Tirona shrieks.

“Stop screaming in my ear, you short f--”

The chaos is shut off when the elevator doors slide shut. You decide right then and there that you’re never going to have kids of your own.

“Tegiri’s missing out on all the fun,” you tell Tagora.

“Tegiri can shove his sword where the moons don’t shine.” He looks over at Lanque and Stelsa. “I hope you two have been brushing up on your fighting skills, because it’s about to get messy.”

You feel something cool brush against your wrist, and you take Mallek’s hand in your own. He’s looking down at you with big blue eyes that say stay.

It’s too much, and you look down at the sign on his hoodie. “I’ll come back soon.”

“... Promise?”

“Always.”

:::

The four of you take the omniscuttlecar-- no, the omniscuttle… the bus. You take the fucking bus to the highblood part of Thrashthrust.

Somehow you guys find an empty car so that nobody sees your alien ass, but even then you stick close to your friends. You take the chance to catch up with Stelsa, who chats animatedly about a case she just won, which is super cool except you know nothing about Alternian law, so you just smile and nod as she goes on about some legislation invented to protect lowbloods except it really doesn’t. Tagora and Lanque launch into a passionate conversation about different high-brand clothes, which delights you until they turn and start making fun of you and Stelsa.

“Okay, okay! But at least my hair isn’t greasy!” Stelsa yells at Tagora.

“How dare you. I’ll have you know all of my hair products are the highest quality a teal can afford in this economy--”

“Economy? Bitch, that’s just caste oppression,” you shoot back.

He pauses for a second. “Shit. Maybe you’re right. It’s a shame about your pores, though.”

“Gor-Gor, I’m homeless, why would my pores be a priority.”

“Your hair is a little greasy,” Lanque snickers.

“It is not! That’s just hair gel--”

“At least Stelsa and I have asses,” you cut in.

Both Lanque and Tagora turn to you, looking so damn offended Stelsa starts cackling and almost falls out of her seat.

“That was low,” Tagora hisses.

“Yeah, I get low every time I do squats. That’s why I have an ass.”

The boys definitely would have taken turns destroying your life after that, but you’re literally saved by the bell when the speakers above you chime, letting you know you guys reached your destination. You feel the bus slow and your heartbeat speed up.

All at once, the fun drains out of the air like water down the drain. You all look at each other before Tagora gets up, pulls the door open, and marches down the collapsable stairs with his head held high. You’re not fooled, though. Tagora Gorjek is afraid, as he rightfully should be, and he’d rather die than admit it.

You fall in close behind him, with Stelsa and Lanque fanning out on either side. It’s easy to see why they were chosen for this mission-- both of them are big and strong.

“Never took you for the fighting type,” you tell Lanque as you walk down a road that leads to a fancy neighborhood. Each property is so large each hive is no bigger than a pencil eraser on the horizon. The place reeks of privilege.

He winks. “It’s called being well-rounded, darling.”

“Where’d you learn?”

“Let’s just say growing up in the caverns isn’t kind to those who… don’t become what people expect you to become.”

You’re not sure what to make of that, but he doesn’t say anything else on the matter, and you don’t push him. Right now, there’s bigger fish to fry.

Tagora leads you around a curve in the road and stops before the first path on Shatterbone Avenue. Charming. It leads up to an absolutely massive hive that makes Vriska’s castle look like a treehouse. Elegantly pointed spires reach up into the cloudy sky like they’re trying to spear the stars themselves, and buttresses line all the outside walls that you can see. The yard’s just as magnificent, with a lavish garden and an assortment of trees and shrubbery lining the property.

It’s beautiful, but just looking at it makes you feel lonely. How could one person possibly live alone like this, much less grow up in it?

“... Huh,” you say instead of voicing your thoughts.

“Indeed.” Tagora swallows and takes a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.”

“We’ll be ready,” you promise him.

He nods stiffly before striding up the path. You, Stelsa, and Lanque slip into the cover of some dense shrub-thing. You’re glad this neighborhood is so spaced out, because if somebody saw some weird pale creature, a teal, and a jade all trying to hide in a bush the drones would be on you like Zebruh trying to get a date.

Through the brush, you see Tagora knock on the door three times and wait. It’s a solid twenty seconds before anybody answers, which you think is a little rude, but whatever.

You become a little less worried about social etiquette when Galekh’s indigo friend steps out to greet Tagora. The dude is fucking massive, with horns that twist around to the front like a bull’s, and with muscles like one, too. Tagora’s always been a little small, but standing in front of this absolute unit he didn’t look to be much more than a wiggler.

“Holy fuck,” you mumble. “Who let that thing out of the caverns?”

“Wasn’t me,” Lanque whispers back.

“Ssh!” Stelsa hisses.

The two start talking after Tagora bows to him. Bovois’s body language looks friendly enough, but from this distance it’s hard to tell. That, and troll body language is way different than human body language.

“Bovois is about to go get the bombs,” Lanque murmurs in your ear.

You shiver a little and tell yourself it’s because your friend is about to be attacked. “You can hear them from here?”

“Can’t you?”

“No.”

Stelsa flicks the both of you upside the head, and you wince. That was gonna bruise.

Sure enough, Bovois disappears back inside the hive for a moment before bringing out an innocent-looking black bag. Tagora opens it and looks inside. Apparently what he wants is in there, because he steps back to clasp Bovois’s huge hand.

“Are they shaking on it or is Gorjek getting his arm ripped off?” Lanque mutters.

“Pfft.”

Without fanfare, it’s over. Tagora bows again and strides off down the path, slinging the backpack over his shoulders. The door closes behind him and takes Bovois with it.

You hold your breath as Tagora nears the end of the walkway, turns, and looks around.

Nobody else is there. Nothing happens.

Stelsa and Lanque look at each other, then at you, and then you all look out at Tagora before carefully emerging back on to the road. Something stabs you in the thigh, and you grunt as you yank out the offending thorn to rub at the irritated area. Lanque brushes off a dead leaf on his sleeve with a look of disgust.

Without a word, the four of you start power walking back down to the neighborhood entrance. Nobody’s running, except you because you have short-ass legs. Just a small group of friends who got turned around and ended up in a highblood area. Nothing to see here, folks.

The walk to the entrance is the shortest and longest of your life. Somehow, all of you make it there, and no other troll in sight. The bus stop is just down the street, and a scuttlebuggy drives by with the bass turned all the way up.

“... Huh,” you say again.

“You’re gonna give me white hair, Gor-Gor,” Stelsa scolds.

Tagora makes a face. “Well--”

Annoyingly enough, it’s Lanque’s crazy good ears that save your asses when a dark blur comes flying around the corner with knives drawn. Tagora gets knocked out of the way just in time for the jade to take the full impact of the attack.

Stelsa screeches with fury as Lanque and the attacker go horns-over-heels into a tree and flings herself into the fray. You stare in horror as Lanque snarls and bites the shit out of his assailant’s forearm, only to get a knife to the shoulder. Stelsa grabs the attacker and flings them back into the tree with a solid thud. The new troll has to be tough as shit, because they just dodge out of the way when Stelsa goes in for the kill. They’re smaller but insanely fast, and before you can so much as blink they’re lunging for Tagora.

A scream builds in your throat, and then--

Lanque hooks his claws into their side, takes them to the ground just as you skid to a stop in front of Tagora. The two flip around in the turf, clawing at each other and screaming like mountain lions. There’s green and teal blood everywhere. It’s on fangs and hands and clothes and all over the blue-gray grass. Stelsa jumps back in, is slashed across the face, and almost gets stabbed, leaning back just in time to get cut across the nose.

Seeing trolls fight is terrifying to watch, but when they really get into it, it’s like watching wild animals try and kill each other.

The attacker finally kicks Lanque off them and whips around to slam their knee into Stelsa’s stomach. The teal goes down with a ragged wheeze, gray face going white. Lanque doesn’t even get the chance to get back up again before there’s a knife going for his gut.

You don’t even think about it, you just act. With a speed you didn’t think a human could have, you charge and ram into the assassin’s side as hard as you possibly can.

The ground and the sky switch places several times before you’re flat on your back. A million miles away, Tagora is screaming something. A shiny point of a silver blade comes down towards your chest.

You brace for impact.

It never comes.

Two huge yellow eyes are staring down at you, pupils blown out in shock. The rest of their face is hidden by their hood and a mask, but even before it’s ripped off by a shaking hand you know who this troll is. You’re not winded but there’s no air in your lungs.

“Polypa?!”

#pesterquest #Hiveswap Friendsim trolls #hiveswap #c8 #riverbound #jadebloods #teals #POLYPAAAA #MSPA reader #The Guardian #holy shiiittt!#homestuck

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