#what’s right no matter the cost. we love seeing families form under pressure like a diamond and we love each other and that’s all this is

[prof-peach]

Hey Professor! I was wondering if there's a story behind your aversion to water and water type pokemon?

Well yeah kind of. But it is a bit of a long one, so buckle up buttercup.

When I was very young I lived on a farm, a stones throw from the ocean, you could leave the back door, and walk down about 30meters and be at a cliff face that dropped down to rocks and waves that would crashed against the stone cliff face no matter the weather, and though the view was beautiful, it held a lot of danger. I was free to wander, my family were very free-reign with my upbringing, and so I had a lot of time to myself. They had to run a farm, handle a herd of 300 strong Miltank, plus the 15-20 Tauros, numerous gogoat, torchic, some Rapidash, mareep, you know, the works. No time to watch the kid.

Our farm was so far away from other people, I never got to hang with other kids, but I liked that a lot, never was social. So my one friend was Valka, an angry little vulpix who had been entrusted to me, instead of being put down. She had broken into the torchic coop and got herself stuck, after killing many of them. So after fighting for her life and arguing her case to the adults, I was granted her to prove I could reform her, or be trusted? I’m not entierly sure, it was a very long time ago, all the same, we paired up, and eventually bonded through reading and working together. A silent partnership, I watched the chickens, she watched me, it worked for us.

Where I was got nothing but heat, all the time, winter was hot, spring was hot, summer, like the devils butthole, autumn, hot but rainy. The sweet relief from this was swimming in the ocean. Back then I was confident! I’d wade into tide pools, hang around all kinds of water Pokemon, loved it, you could hardly get me out, eventually I got a little older and was trusted to use a reasonably sharp metal stick to go spear hunting for stunfish to eat, and krabby to boil up. It was good, even Val would hop about the rocky ledges to the tide pools, and accompany me far out, almost to the edge of the reef during low tide.

Little did I know the dangers I was right next to, as a child you don’t focus on that, you deal with what’s directly in front of you for the most part. So one day I’m out with Val, fishing as per usual, one of the farm staff was on the beach keeping an eye on me half heartedly, but we wandered round the coast’s harsh corner, into new territory, and out of sight. The rocky ledges were harder to traverse but I was determined, I had plenty of time to check out the new location and get back before the tide changed, so why not right?

One misplaced footing, that’s all it took, I slipped into a pool that was 4-5 meters across, scratched my leg on some dead coral, and sunk, way deeper than any rock pool I was use to wading into. This under water cavern opened up into a space that could possibly hold a Wailord. It was dark, and cold, and the tide seemed to pull me further down. Val being a fire type was adverse to get in, and I am to this day glad she didn’t jump in. With the water dragging me further down, I felt my whole body go cold as the light above got dimmer, and the pressure of being under that far began to hurt my chest, ears feeling like they’d explode under the depth.

The scratch I’d acquired on my way into this watery space led Pokemon to me, first small, a school of chinchou, they seemed passive and quickly left me to sink further. Then a great cluster of Staryu, one even tried to pull me back up to the surface, but they again fled, something moved behind me, made my blood run cold. I swivelled and clocked eyes with a Carvanha, one, then two, no three. I heard the area was riddled with them, but because I stayed in shallow water I never got too close, and seemed to consider myself safe. One got a little closer, but they all fled, something far bigger and way meaner was close by.

I heard water above me shift, something disturbed it, looking up all I could see was a figure, big but coming towards me, and below, another form shifted, the far meaner Pokemon everything had been afraid of. A Sharpedo, white tip on its fins, rows of teeth as it’s mouth hung open, coming at me with unnervingly slow speed. I’m usually pretty chill with Pokemon but this one just didn’t take its eyes off of me, seemed to look through, I was snack sized compared to this thing, and it was very aware of that.

As the air began to run low, and fear set in I struggled and kicked, and squirmed, and did just about everything I could to look bigger and meaner than the Sharpedo, who just kept slowly swimming forward, so calm yet completely focused. It took a bite at me, enough to nick my leg, but I was pulled to one side, by a familiar family Pokemon. My mother had a particularly kind Azumarill, who had noticed torrents of fire being spewed from Val as she sent an alarm to my disappearance above the water I had sunk beneath. The big water mouse Pokemon had dove in from the cliffs at the end of the garden and come to the rescue, just in time too.

We all jetted our the ocean at such speed, landing hard on the coral rocks, scrapes and scratches, covered in cuts from impact, the shadow of that Pokemon that stayed in the deep rock pool vanishing into tunnels. I never ran so fast to get to land, it was far too close for my liking. I did not volenterily get in the water again after that.

In the years ahead while I stayed on the land, occasionally fishermen would be pulled to shore, missing limbs, some not surviving the waters. There was sightings of that same Pokemon, out far in the deeps, past the reef, but occasionally its white tipped fin would be seen in the odd deep pool, waiting for something to fall in.

I couldn’t get back in the water after that, not confidently. It’s not that I don’t like water Pokemon, I love them, most are very kind, well rounded and certainly fun Little dudes, I just can’t give them the care and time I would like, I don’t like to be in the environment they prefer, and getting into a man-made pool with them is about as far as I can go. I use to not even manage that, it’s taken me years to get ahold of my fears, and now I will happily don waders and get into fresh water ponds and lakes if they’re small enough and trustworthy. I do all the pond care on the island, but rivers and the ocean are still a no go for me. I don’t mind a boat ride, I can stomach a wade into water up to my knees, but any further and I lose my cool.

Over the years I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been fully submerged, and none of them have been pleasant. The only time I willing have gone into water is to get Val, who had been thrown in herself. She was afraid, I had to go get her out.

Now days Professor Grey handles mostly all of the ocean based work, and I get a lot of time with his water Pokemon when they come on land, so it’s been easier being around the ocean as a whole, and coming to terms with my weaknesses. Don’t think I’ll rush to get in anytime soon but it’s not something I’d never do at any cost. I know it’s beautiful down there, and it holds some special memories for me, so there will always be a quiet respect for it all, and the things that live in it.

Despite fears I would never condemn Sharpedo as a Pokemon, I have had the joy of working with some lovely individuals, and despite my personal aversion, I know they have a huge part to play in the eco system, and hold great importance to many other species and the way the environment manages itself. They are good, I just got a bit of bad luck with the one I had a close encounter with.

[scuttle-buttle]

Chapter 10

WC: 1633

Rated: E

Chapter Tags: anxiety, angst, brief fears of infidelity, discussions of childbearing and marriage/gender roles, psych theories, some manipulation, age difference, brief mention of domestic violence (there is none)

A/N: If you have any questions regarding the tags for this chapter and want to ask me about it before reading please do so! The chapter is not necessarily dark but I understand that some may want me to give a more detailed warning/context. I want all my readers to be as comfortable as possible 💙

🧠

It started out small. He would bring up Dr. Stratton during conversation more and more often. Three times now he had been late to office hours, causing you to have to wait outside his room, nervously checking the time. But it’s nothing, you continue to remind yourself. They’re just good friends that haven’t seen each other in years. And you trust them both.

When another Friday night passed with Laszlo skipping drinks in favor of meeting with Karen, you decided to stay in as well. It had been a month since they reacquainted with one another. In those weeks you had seen less of him outside work. Your sex life was stagnating too, much to your annoyance. He had even canceled at the absolute last minute on a dinner date. Naturally, you had begun to feel a twinge of jealousy at his lack of attention. He kept saying it was work related. Nevertheless, the sullen temperament you'd adopted went unnoticed by the doctor. You felt foolish; you weren’t so needy that you had to make a big deal about it. So you said nothing on the issue.

You sat on the old couch in your apartment. Bitsy was getting ready to go out with Lucius for date night. Picking at your fingers, you decide to ask your roommate for advice. “Hey Bits?”

“Yeah?” she called from her bedroom.

“Can I ask you a question about Lucius?” you start.

“Sure, what’s up?”

You pause as you think of how to word your thoughts. “Do you ever, like, get jealous? When he hangs out with other girls I mean.” Her head pops out of the door frame as she finishes fastening her earring, eyebrows raised in question. “It’s just that Laszlo has been spending a lot of time with Dr. Stratton now that she’s back in town. I trust them and everything, but I’m starting to feel a bit left behind I guess…” you trail off.

“Oh honey, that's normal.” She waves a hand through the air as she speaks. “There’s this girl at the lab that Lucius works with and for the first month I was convinced she was trying to steal him away from me. Turns out she just wanted Marcus, his brother!” Bitsy lets out a cackle.

“Right…” you pick at the skin around your fingernails. “I just feel silly about it. I’m sure I’m overreacting to the whole thing, though. Laszlo would never do anything, and I don’t think Dr. Stratton would either,” you remind yourself outloud. "There's just this thing John said to me about them having a past and I can't get it out of my head."

“It's not silly.” Bitsy had moved further into the bedroom, causing her voice to be slightly muffled. “But if it bothers you that much, talk to him about it. He’s a psychologist, it’s kinda his job to understand emotions and things like this. And if he loves you like you say he does then he’ll put a bit more effort into giving you his attention.”

You marinate on what she’s told you. Bitsy is right, if it bothers you that much then you need to bring it up with him. Be an adult, use communication, and all that. “Why’re you always right and level-headed about everything?”

“Someone’s gotta be, with a hot head like you,” she snarks. Her phone buzzes letting her know her date is downstairs. With a squeeze on the shoulder she bids you goodbye, telling you to let her know if you need anything.

_

The atmosphere in Dr. Stratton’s office felt off. What was usually so open and warm had felt forced and awkward. You were still ignoring the guilt of your jealousy at the doctor. She wasn’t as talkative today, unlike usual. Instead, it was strictly business. You chalked it up to her having an off day.

The two of you discussed in more depth the fetishes and kinks from the list you had compiled. Unfortunately, due to spending less time with your boyfriend the last few weeks you hadn’t had much of an opportunity to try any of the new tricks you were learning about. Therefore, you had little to really talk about in that regard. You found that you didn’t particularly mind, as you were feeling less inclined to want to share about your love life due to your envy towards the woman in question.

Dr. Stratton quietly gathered together her notes from the session and placed them into the folder. You were about to ask if she needed anything else from you when her lips parted before closing again. She leaned forward on her desk towards you. Her fingers steepled under her chin.

She licks her lips. “There is something I wish to discuss with you unrelated to the study.”

You didn’t like where this was going. Dread pooled in your gut at the concerned look on her face. “O-okay.”

“Now I want you to understand that I only bring this up out of concern for your wellbeing and emotional health. But some of the things you have told me over the course of this study have me worried.”

What on earth could you have said that would cause this sort of reaction from her? She was the most calm and collected person you had ever known. To have her speaking out made your heart race in your chest.

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts before opening her mouth again. “In truth I worry about your current relationship. I fear that-”

Brows furrowing, your mind goes to the worst conclusion. You blurt out “what? No! He doesn’t hurt me or anything, I don’t know what would have given you that impression but I- ”

The doctor reaches out with her hand to settle on your forearm. “My dear take a breath, I meant no such thing.”

You take a deep inhale to compose yourself. “Then what are you talking about?”

“Speaking as your friend, and as an alienist, I fear that this boyfriend is potentially using you for your youth,” she begins the tale she concocted, unbeknownst to you. “In my experience as a psychologist, the young women such as yourself that I encounter with significantly older male companions find themselves locked into the relationship. Typically, it is from dependence on money at first. Over time, the male pressures the woman to be compliant in things like marriage and childbearing. I understand how difficult it is for a woman as driven as you to balance your aspirations with relationships and domestic matters. Do you want children?”

Her statement and question take you back. Confusion is written all over your face. Marriage? Children? Neither you nor Laszlo had ever brought up either subject. You didn’t even know if it was something he was interested in. “Wait what? I'm not sure I follow…”

“Men around his age go through an identity crisis in which they begin to become aware of their mortality. A change in priorities. The most common desire is to procreate, to start a family in which to pass on their wisdom is strongest here. Are you prepared to give him children soon? Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a mother, it is a very noble role. Yet you do not strike me as someone ready for such a large step.”

You can barely form a coherent thought at her onslaught. The whole conversation was so out of the blue that you felt incredibly lost. Did you want children? Did he want children? Now? You wrap your arms around your torso to stave off the uncertainty and anxiety you feel creeping in. No words come to your defense at her interrogation. You are speechless, jaw dropped.

She stands and crosses the room, placing her cool hands on your cheeks. “My dear you are still a child yourself. This is something you need to consider. To… consider the possibility that you can’t give him what he needs. That he may need someone closer to his age with the same priorities, someone more willing to give in to his needs now. I don’t think you’re ready for that. I’ve seen the cost that these girls face. And the societal pressures and judgement you would face being with someone so much older? I think it could throw you into a state similar to after your friend passed. I wouldn’t want to see you in that position again. I want you to have your freedom."

Dr. Stratton looks up at the clock suddenly; “oh! My, I’m going to be late for a meeting, you’ll have to go. I don’t believe we need any more sessions for the study, but I will let you know if anything changes.”

You are too in shock trying to process everything she said to you as she ushers you out of the door with a “think about what I said, dear.” The door shuts behind you.

Karen sat with a huff. She felt a tad guilty for what she had said to you. She had no idea if Laszlo wanted marriage or children, he hadn’t when they were first together. But times change. She hoped that by using the angle of kids and identity crises that she could subtly plant a seed of doubt in your mind. Strike quickly and overwhelmingly, plant the doubt that you weren’t right for him, then push you out before you have the chance to seek answers or reassurance from her. It seemed you bought her false concern as actual worry. You were a great girl. But you were just that - a girl. You couldn’t give Laszlo what he needed, not like she could.

Now she simply had to wait and let your mind eat away at itself, leaving him for the taking.

Tag list

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[yandere-sins]

The Fox Wedding - Prologue I

Summary: You are to marry the fox spirit Kita Shinsuke after you accidentally agreed to become his wife by signing the deed to your new home. A contract is a contract, he says, but is there more to this marriage than you know? Will you be whisked away by one of the foxy twins instead, or have to marry Kita after all? Can you be with a creature that only seems tender on the surface, or will you try to run even if it might cost you your life? Choose your route carefully, you never know what these foxes are up to!

Characters: Kitsune!Kita Shinsuke, Kitsune!Miya Atsumu, Kitsune!Miya Osamu, Kitsune!Suna Rintarou, afab!Reader

Rating: Explicit Warnings for this chapter: Yandere, Kidnapping, Forced/Unhealthy Relationships

a/n: Welcome to my new series! I’ve been carrying the starts of this idea around for a while now, but while I was doing commissions it really began to spread it’s roots, so here we are! You can, of course, read every chapter that will come out, or choose your ‘route’ from the ones available after they are all finished (; Please mind the specific warnings for each chapter, as they will vary. Here’s the prologue, please enjoy and leave me a comment what you thought about it! ♥

There was no use in screaming and crying, only a few annoyed sighs you heard from the guard on top of the staircase leading outside. No matter how hard you banged on the bars, yelled for someone to release you, or sobbed into your hands, no one came to your aid, having decided to let you have your ‘temper tantrum’ down here alone. What an inhuman way to keep you, in a moldy, make-shift cell, underground, with only a bucket for your needs and a - stolen - bottle of water. 

“If we’re lucky, you’ll lose a few pounds before the wedding,” they said, bringing their long kimono sleeves to their faces to hide the ill-willed smirks behind them. But that was the least terrible thing the foxes appearing as human women had done to you so far.

Walking back from the bars to the small window, you stepped onto the single chair in your cell to look outside. Occasionally, you heard voices echoing from the buildings around you. The wind swayed the tall grasses covering every inch of the small village, aside from that, everything seemed abandoned. Roofs you could see had holes, there were no streets with cars or rails with trains nearby. The only thing you knew was there were the animals. The bugs in the grass, the deers in the forest, and the foxes in the village.

Crouching off the chair, you sat down, deflated, scared, cold. Not even your pullover could keep you warm, and you shivered, rubbing your hands against each other and blowing air on them in an attempt to warm up. But it was an effort in vain, you just tried to trick your mind into doing anything. Anything, besides freaking out. 

You had every right to be unnerved. It wasn’t every day that some strange man with perky fox ears and a fluffy tail swaying left to right appeared in front of you, announcing you were to become his wife. Actually, the chances of that to happen were so low, you couldn’t even speak of it as a common occurrence at all. He introduced himself, but no matter how hard you tried to remember, the name ‘Kita Shinsuke’ wasn’t one you were familiar with. As absurd as it sounded, you really tried to use logic on a person that was beyond any kind of human reason in the first place.

For the first few seconds, you thought you had actually made a promise to marry this man. Perhaps by accident, maybe drunk? But the longer you thought about it, the clearer you realized that there was no such thing as accidentally accepting a marriage proposal. However, by that time, you had already let him into your newly bought home, served him tea, and questioned his announcement. 

“It’s in the contract,” he had explained, softly, no immediate expression on his face. You couldn’t tell if his voice sounded upset or amused. Everything about him was so relaxed and indifferent, he made the situation seem almost laughable easy. “You agreed to be my wife when you bought the land.”

That was ridiculous. Even you knew there had been no such agreement, and yet, you still tried to find your contract, unable to discern it from all the other documents you hadn’t yet sorted in after just moving into this house two days ago. Much to your surprise, it had been Kita who helped you find what you were looking for, all the other papers seemingly flying out of his hand’s way as he reached by you to grab the contract from them. The old, parchment-like deed of ownership in his hand made you realize for the first time how odd the features of this man were. Fingers as pristine as a child, yet, with sharp, pointy claws instead of nails on them. Not to count the ears and tail that moved accordingly to his doings.

It also made you realize for the first time how deep in trouble you were as you read over the deed again. 

In a matter of seconds, your life had changed around completely. You saw darkness in front of your eyes every time you tried to focus, your mind becoming dizzy from realizing your name underneath the additional marriage condition listed on the deed. Next thing you knew, he caught you with one arm, and you held on to the soft fabric of his kimono, scared you might lose conscience with your heart both setting out and raising your blood pressure way too fast. But that was only just the beginning of your troubles.

You barely remembered everything that happened until you eventually ended up in this cell. Just a lot of denial and refusal, people storming your house and dragging you out. You could still feel their long fingers and sharp claws pressing into your skin, your wrists and digging into your shoulders, and how their mouths formed grins too wide to be human. Screaming and kicking, you didn’t make it easy for them, but with your house so secluded from everyone else’s, you doubted anyone could hear you.

Moving to Japan, starting over, and live the best life you could imagine for yourself, that had been your dream. Now, more than ever, and in a scenario you couldn’t even have imagined in your worst nightmares, it was taking a turn for the worse.

“Kita-san,” you greeted him, your lips shaking as you held back more tears. Looking at him, it was almost unbearable to see him so calm in your distraught presence. “I want to leave--”

“You’re cold,” he noted, unfazed by the words you were about to mutter. Hugging yourself a bit tighter, you couldn’t deny what he was saying. The bars - as sturdy and metal as they seemed when you rattled them before - twisted and turned as his hand approached them, creating a gap big enough for him to step through. Only now, in the dim light of a candle he was holding, did you see the fur blanket over his arm, which he brought to you. Though you dodged away, Kita was unfazed by your fear, letting the cover fall from his arm and draping it over your shoulder no matter if you wanted him to or not. Admittedly, you were glad to receive a little something to warm up, gripping it with your hands quickly to pull it tighter around you. 

Only when you were done shivering, you noticed his hand hadn’t vanished, picking at the part around your neck. With a flinch, you felt his cold fingers dig beneath your hair, pulling it out from under the fur and adjusting the neck properly. It was uncomfortable to have him touch you so casually, perhaps more like a parent would than a stranger who called himself your fiance, but you had to admit it was warmer this way.

“Do you want to marry?” you asked him quietly, a bold question perhaps, but what else was there to talk about? His hand halted, laying down on your shoulder gently, yet you felt almost as if this was a simplified neck hold like you’d do with a cat or dog if they misbehaved. “There’s no use questioning what we want or not. We have a contract, and you signed it. That’s why we are marrying.”

There was a logic to the way he was speaking, yet his words haunted you. Contract here, contract there, what did it matter when this was about marriage? An act of love and partnership? Was this what people called ‘settling for someone’? He couldn’t be seriously wanting to go through with marrying a total stranger just because of a contract, right?

“But I don’t love you! I don’t even know you!” Turning to him, you regretted searching for eye contact with this man, his eyes being just as unnerving as his whole demeanor. Especially now that they seemed to be lit even without the candlelight reflecting in them. Almost as scary was the deep breath that he took after you said what was on your tongue for too long, and you turned away again, not expecting an answer from him. Shrugging off the blanket, you mumbled, “I don’t want to marry you…”

Before it could leave your shoulder, Kita caught it, placing it back where he thought it belonged, and proceeded to make sure it sat right again. This time, the tugs on your hair were a bit rougher, and one of his fingers even scratched you, which you noted briefly with a whine. Kita rounded you, hand falling from your shoulder to the front of your neck, driving up your throat with its claws until it reached your chin, and lifting it, he made you look back into his eyes, despite the tears collecting in yours falling from your cheeks and wetting his hand too.

“My family wants us to marry, and I care about my family.” 

He dragged his hand up your cheek, wiping the tears collecting in your eye with his thumb before leaning down to give your forehead a short kiss. “And now you’re my family too, so I care about you. Keep the fur on, I don’t want my wife to be sick on our wedding day, and then sleep until you’re woken up.”

“How can you care for me if you don’t even know me?” you sobbed, lowering your eyes, unable to keep looking at him. 

“Who said I don’t?”

Ears peaking up, you held your breath, trying to listen if he said anything more. But Kita didn’t care to explain until you finally looked up again, expecting an explanation that you feared he wouldn’t give you. “The ways of the gods are unfathomable, but that doesn’t mean everything that happens is without reason. We met before, [Name], even if I’m afraid you don’t remember.”

For a split second, and perhaps, for the first time that you met him, you saw his brows furrow slightly as he said the last words, his hand falling from your face, as he turned towards the exit, his feet not making any sounds as he stepped away from you. “What do you mean?” you mumbled after him, his back now illuminated by the white moonlight coming through your cell’s window. 

“Who are you?” you kept asking, standing up, barely able to hold on to the fur as you chased after him. However, the moment he stepped through the opening in the bars, they closed rapidly, keeping you from following him outside. All you could do was grip the cold iron with your hands, as Kita turned around briefly. “What are you?” You wished he’d answer you, at least now, at least before this whole ordeal was about to go down. Answer all questions, or even just one, so you could tame those raging feelings of confusion and fear inside of you. 

But instead, he merely put his free hand next to yours, fingers laying down on your wrist for a moment before they patted down your arm, telling you to let go of the bars. Instead, he caught your hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing the cold knuckles tenderly. 

The candlelight vanished as a cold draft filled the air, coming from above the stairs. “Kita-sama?” an unknown voice asked, and you shied away as all you heard was a short growl in return. However, he held your hand tightly in his, not letting go even when the door seemed to fall shut quickly.

“I’m your husband,” were his last words before he finally let go of you, taking his quiet, barely noticeable leave.

Even when you assumed he was gone, you couldn’t find a calm second to collect your thoughts, the questions and lost answers working you up endlessly. You wished for some clarity, a miracle, or preferable even - an explanation. 

But your night was far from over, even if there might be even more questions than answers awaiting you.

➤ [Move forward to Prologue II]

[waiting-for-motivation]

tea and berries

summary: Din discovers something shocking about the caretaker of his son. Of course he tries everything to help (Y/n).

request: (tw: eating disorder) so reader is friends with cara dune and she's just an ordinary human being, while din, cara & the others are on a mission the reader has to babysit grogu, since it's too dangerous for him. soon din starts to notice that reader doesn't eat and that she's constantly wearing too big clothes that hide her body. he's getting worried and maybe just some fluff?? ~ @notyoursneverwas-post

pairings: Din Djarin x Reader, Cara Dune, Grogu

warnings: trigger warning !!! eating disorder but fluffy mando is here to help :))

words: 1363

a/n: sorry it took soooo long writing this but I hope you still like it (btw kind of inspired by me skipping meals every day)

MASTERLIST REQUEST RULES

“You can have mine“, a female voice whispers and the Mandalorian watches one of his friends pass her food to his adoptive son. The little one giggles happily and starts pushing the meat inside his mouth.

At first, Din smiled under his helmet because (Y/n)s gesture is sweet and caring. But then he realized that she needs some protein in her body too. Besides the kid already had a larger meal than every one else.

The Mandalorian stands up and reaches for Grogus plate but (Y/n) stops him. She lays her small hand on his wrist and shakes her head.

“It‘s okay. I‘m not hungry“, (Y/n) smiles and as Din looks down at her skin touching his glove, his eyes lay on very delicate fingers. He would love to feel her touch him for real - her soft skin against his rough one.

Cara who joined the Mandalorian on a rather difficult bounty hunt raises her eyebrow at her friend. She knows something the warrior doesn‘t know and it hurts her heart. But she knows better than to force (Y/n) to eat.

The two of them continue to eat while (Y/n) watches the foundling mess with his food. Dins eyes stay focused on the caretaker and examines her whole being. Only then does he realize that he never saw (Y/n) in anything but her oversized tunics. Is she hiding something underneath?

“I think I‘m going to take a shower“, (Y/n) says after she put away as well as washed the dishes. She turns around from the makeshift kitchen and smiles at Cara and Din arm wrestling while Grogu sits on his fathers lap. The Mandalorian nods and (Y/n) leaves their field of view.

“Could you take care of her while I‘m gone?“, Cara asks her armed friend, still looking at the door through which (Y/n) left. Slowly, she lets her gaze wander to the Mandalorian who nods. He thinks nothing of it. Cara is her friend. Why wouldn‘t she want (Y/n) to be safe?

Later that day he completely understands what the former shock trooper intended to say. After Cara won their little wrestling, Din left for the cockpit to check on the ship. On his way he got stopped by (Y/n)s door that is ajar. Din didn‘t think anything of it as he let his gaze wander inside the room. The sight of a half naked (Y/n)s changing in her room startles him. (Y/n) doesn‘t notice the Mandalorian standing in the door frame.

Din can see almost every bone in her body. Her collarbones stand out. Under a towel Din can clearly see the outline of her ribs as well as hip bones. Legs as well as arms are nearly as thin as his beskar spear.

Before Din can move he has to swallow hardly. There are even tears in his eyes. At least, (Y/n) is his beloved friend and she looks like she didn‘t took care of herself.

With a queasy feeling the Mandalorian turns around and runs back to Cara. She looks at him confused.

“She...doesn‘t eat“, Din states because that is all he can think of right now. The realisation appears in Caras expression and she stands up to fully face the bounty hunter.

“Yeah. I tried to help her but...she doesn‘t want my help“, the former storm trooper explains and her eyes get glassy. “But we have to help her because otherwise...I don‘t know how long she will...“

Din places a comforting hand on Caras shoulder and squeezes it - that‘s his way of telling her that he will do whatever it may cost. They sit down and for a while silence fills the cargo bay. Both try to think of a way to save their friend.

“Can you make me a list of her favorite food?“, the Mandalorian asks and gets up to find paper as well as a pen. Quickly, he places them in front of Cara and she starts scribbling. “I don‘t know if it will work but...“

“It‘s worth a try.“

Two days later and after a short stop on Naboo the Mandalorian has everything Cara wrote on the list. A lot of food is scattered on a tray which Din holds in one of his hands. He has a few blanket under his right arm.

A knock echos through (Y/n)s room and she looks from her book to the door. Slowly, the mandalorian warrior enters and confuses her. She sets her book aside and stands up from her bed.

Din places the tray full of her favorite food on a table and then turns towards his friend. Now he holds the fluffy blankets in both his hands, fiddling with them because he tries to find the right words. But what are the right words in such a situation?

“I‘m by your side whenever you need me“, the Mandalorian starts and takes another step forward, now standing directly in front of (Y/n). Her eyes widen because she already fears that her friend knows her secret. A strange feeling fills her whole body - anxiety.

“You are not alone. Cara and I will help you, no matter what“, Din adds the moment (Y/n) opens her mouth to ask him what he is talking about. But now she is sure that the bounty hunter knows that she has problems with eating.

“I got you these blankets because the Crest is always cold and I don‘t want you to be cold“, Din states and would hit his own head because the sentence sounds quite stupid. Still, he wraps the two blankets around (Y/n)s small form and even keeps one of his hands on her shoulder.

“And with Caras help I brought your favorite food. I know it will be difficult to start with so much but I even made you this tea you like so much“, the Mandalorian points with the other hand to the tray. As he looks back at (Y/n) he can see the fear in her eyes. She swallows hardly.

“But it‘s only tea“, Din adds with a sigh and a sad expression under his helmet. He should have planed this better. Now he frightened (Y/n). Maybe he should have entrust this to Cara, at least she is an old friend.

Before Din can overthink even more, (Y/n) wraps her weak arms around the warrior and hides her face in his neck. It can‘t be comfortable but that doesn‘t matter to her. She takes in his whole being and sighs almost happily.

“Thank you“, (Y/n) whispers into his shirt and makes Dins heart beat even faster. He can‘t believe it. He did it! He helped (Y/n) somehow. He made her happy - even for just a few seconds.

The thing making (Y/n) relived is that the Mandalorian didn‘t ask one question. It would have put her under pressure.

After what feels like a good eternity, the two part but before they take seats on (Y/n)s bed, Din presses the forehead of his helmet to hers in a keldabe kiss. The caretaker closes her eyes and shows the Mandalorian a weak smile.

Sitting on (Y/n)s bed, she leans against Dins strong shoulder and for a few moments they stay like this, enjoying the presence of the other. Then (Y/n) straightens up.

“Can I have the tea?“, she asks and surprises the bounty hunter with her words. However, Din reaches quite quickly for the cup of tea and gives it (Y/n). She thanks him but her eyes stay focused on the tray.

“Are those berries? I used to eat them straight from the bush in my families garden“, (Y/n) tells her beloved friend and watches Din take the bowl full of blue berries in his hands. He lets the gaze of his helmet wander to her face because he isn‘t sure if she wants to eat them.

(Y/n) takes a sip from the steaming tea and slowly grabs a single blue berry. There is a dreamy smile on her lips as she eyes the fruit and considers eating it. Then the berry disappears between her lips and Din smiles under his helmet.

“Just because you are a caretaker doesn‘t mean we can‘t take care of you.“

star wars taglist: @shadowfoxey @luvzoria @remmyswritings @periwinklehoney @maximumcoffeeme

din taglist: @hp-hogwartsexpress

[potassium-pilot]

Prompt 24: Illustrious

“Is it done, Alphinaud?” Dia pestered excitedly.

“No, it is not.”

She waited for approximately five seconds before asking again, “How about now?”

“Do you really want me to rush through this?”

“You’re the Artist Alphinaud, I am your assistant; what else can I do if not make sure you finish?”

“Will you ever let go of that?”

“Never.”

Alphinaud sighed defeatedly and continued his drawing. He was commissioned to create a current portrait of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to hang in the Solar. To their relief, he had everyone’s figures wrote to memory and therefore, did not require them to pose. That in mind, Dia couldn’t help but be a shadow to the boy, watching his artistry at work. The Warrior of Light was many things; an artist, she was not. It seemed the act of using a paintbrush did not come with the same ease as using a sewing needle, or a cooking utensil.

In the middle stood what he believed looked like himself holding a carbuncle while Alisaie stood on his right side at roughly the same height with her rapier held out in front of her. Dia towered behind him carrying Tataru on her shoulders (at her behest) with Thancred on her left with his arms crossed, Y’shtola on her right with a cane being wielded, Urianger on Thancred’s left with a book in hand, G’raha between Alphinaud and Alisaie with a big grin on his face, and Krile in front of Y’shtola to the left of Alphinaud leaning up against him.

“All right, I’m not done, but what do you think so far, Dia?” She scrambled from the Solar door to the desk to look it over with enthusiasm. “Ahh, I love it so far! Why’d you make yourself so short though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Alphinaud, you’re not that small. You almost made yourself into a lalafell compared to me.”

“It feels accurate to me…after all, ‘tis no secret I’m of a smaller stature in comparison to many of you.”

“Smaller stature, sure, but you’re not miniature. Give yourself more credit.” He shook his head before she inquired, “And where’s Estinien?”

“Oh…”

“What?”

“He…told me not to draw him…”

If her eyes could turn red in fury like Nidhogg, they would have in that very moment. “Give me but a moment, Alphinaud…” she told him quietly. She turned away from the smaller elezen and exited out the door in a seemingly calm manner, concealing her fury.

*********

Estinien, Thancred, and Urianger enjoyed a cup of coffee in the lobby.

“So you sort of just…wait for an assignment?” Estinien confirmed. The other two nodded. “Frankly, it’s been a bit more trouble to have the patience recently, particularly since our last assignment wasn’t exactly taken by choice”, Thancred stated.

“Indeed. Though we only aged some few moons in the Source, our souls hath lived on for years in the First, and kept us all plenty occupied, particularly when our friend finally arrived”, Urianger affirmed. Estinien made a hum. “What did you do while waiting before?”

“Oh”, Thancred began nervously, “Nothing too unusual. We just took our rest, did something leisurely, enjoyed ourselves whilst we waited.”

“Is that what thou calleth courting several maidens at once?”

Thancred scowled at Urianger while Estinien made a slight smile at the remark. Suddenly, Thancred and Urianger made horrified faces and scattered from their positions, abandoning Estinien to his fate: a furious Warrior of Light, wearing a look she wore when she killed gods.

“Do you want to explain your thought process here?” Dia confronted him.

“You’re under the assumption that I care to explain anything.”

“Look, I get you that you like to work alone; frankly, it’s understandable in a way. Twelve knows half the work I do needs to be done alone, lest anyone without the Echo be tempered, but I have news for you: you are not alone anymore!”

He growled, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” She placed her face in her palm, then explained annoyedly, “The portrait, Estinien.”

“By the Fury, you’re angry with me about that?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“It’s a bleeding portrait. What does it matter?”

“It matters, Estinien! It matters a lot to me, to Alphinaud, to quite a few of us.”

His face betrayed his befuddlement. Not having been a Scion for very long, her irritation seemed misplaced.

“That portrait’s not my place”, he attempted to explain, “And quite frankly, I don’t understand why you all so desperately want this portrait in the first place.”

“We want to commemorate our little family.”

“This isn’t my family. It never was.”

“Never?” she repeated incredulously.

He raised an eyebrow at her tone.

“Estinien, Alphinaud fought for you after your possession by Nidhogg. I fought for you. When everyone seemed intent on killing you, even yourself, we did everything we could to keep you alive. We even entreated Hraesvelgr to help us save you when Aymeric seemed content with just stopping Nidhogg at any cost. Then you go and follow us through Gyr Abania, to the point where you even pushed back an Ascian in the body of Zenos yae Galvus, and pulled my comatose body out of a battlefield and back to the front. And on top of that, you helped take out Black Rose facilities for us while the rest of us were off in another world. You mean to tell me that meant nothing?!”

Estinien blinked.

“Guess what, dragon boy? You were a Scion before you even offered your lance!”

He looked away to the floor, pondering her words, irritated by the nickname.

“Don’t call me ‘dragon boy’…” he snapped.

“That’s what you’re taking from this?”

He remained silent, still thinking through. What in hells had he done? What did he get himself into? He let out a frustrated breath and walked away. She watched him get away from her in disbelief, and followed him as he aimed for the Solar.

Estinien opened the door and called, “Alphinaud?”

The young elezen looked up and away from his efforts. “Yes, Estinien?” The dragoon hesitated, then begrudgingly ordered, “…put me in your damn portrait.”

Dia flashed a huge grin, and Alphinaud’s eyes lit up in excitement. “I’ll do just that! Thankfully, I was still sketching, so I can find a way to add you.”

“Hm…good, I guess.” He closed the door behind him and glared at Dia, still chipper from his agreement. “You’re a pain in my side, Dia Sito.”

“You have to be to do what I do. Thank you, Estinien. He’s a great artist; he’ll do you justice.” He shook his head and stomped off while Dia hurried back inside the Solar.

*********

A bell had passed since Estinien agreed to be in the portrait. Making sure he wasn’t followed, he quietly slipped into the Solar where Alphinaud continued his work unabated. He sat down in front of the young artist and bade him, “How goes the portrait?”

“Quite well, all things considered. I did have to remake the idea a bit, but overall, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.”

“I see.” The dragoon shuffled in his chair for a moment, unsure how to phrase his next question. “Alphinaud…you are doing this of your own free will, correct?” He brought his attention from his work to the question brought before him. “Of course I am”, he answered incredulously.

“You’re sure, Alphinaud?”

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“I want to make sure this is something that you truly wish to do. Dia has a tendency to be a bit dramatic as I’ve recently learned.”

“Fear not, Estinien. I’m under no influence but mine own.”

Estinien let out a long breath and asked, “I know her reasons, but what of yours? What does obsessing over a painting get you?”

Alphinaud smiled at him. “I get a chance to relax.”

“Really?”

“I do. The past few times I’ve drawn, ‘twas out of necessity in order to locate our missing comrades or to gain entry into forbidden cities. This isn’t like that at all. Despite our friend’s being a bit more enthusiastic than I’m used to, I feel no pressure.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself at the very least, Alphinaud. But is that the only reason why?”

Alphinaud brought his gaze back to the portrait. In particular, he focused on the outlines of two people; Dia and Estinien.

“When I lost command of the Crystal Braves…when I heard that everyone I knew had been lost to that bloody banquet, all I felt was hopelessness. I felt stuck in a dark abyss, where nothing could see me nor pull me from it’s shackles. That’s what I earned for dehumanizing those who would help me, for seeing them all as pawns in my game to unite Eorzea.

Then Dia pulled me out of it. So did Tataru and Haurchefant.

Despite everything I ever thought of her, despite the way I would send her out as though she were my trusty god-slayer from my toolbelt, she stood with me, and helped me find a new home. Had she not saved Haurchefant’s friend from the Inquisition, and slayed Shiva, and the dragon that threatened the gates of Ishgard, we would not have found refuge within it’s walls.

After everything that came of our tenure in Ishgard, the Scions became something different. Especially now that my blood family has forsaken me, the bonds I’ve formed with my comrades became a great source of comfort to me. Everyone has their reasons for why the Scions are their home. If we wish to commemorate that with a painting, I see no reason not to oblige.”

Estinien didn’t usually pry into this sort of business; that was Aymeric’s domain. Yet, he did find himself in a better understanding of Alphinaud after that. He met the boy when he was still so immature, inexperienced in many things that were obvious to him growing up with Ser Alberic. It was interesting to hear how he changed, and what he missed.

“So this truly is more than just Dia’s will being imposed on others, then.”

“Dia’s not wont to impose her will onto others. She merely expressed a wish that the rest of the Scions shared, myself included.” Alphinaud raised an eyebrow. “Now that I think of it…I’m not entirely sure what her will is on a normal day. What does she want?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps it’s best for that to remain her business, hm?”

“When this is all over, and the Final Days are halted, I mean to express my sincere gratitude to her in any way I can.”

“Heh. Good luck with that”, Estinien commented as he rose from his chair. “Well, I won’t pry from your work any longer. Keep at it, Alphinaud.”

“I will, Estinien, thank you.”

The dragoon turned away and left through the door to the Solar. Alphinaud returned his full focus to the portrait.

******

The days passed while Alphinaud took his time to focus on the painting. The Solar was nearly forbidden territory, with the exception of Dia, who nobody would dare try to stop. After nearly a week’s worth of effort, Dia finally opened the door, and approached her fellow Scions.

“If any of you would like to view the portrait and help us decide where to place it, that would be most welcome”, Dia announced to the group as they sat in the lobby. All but Estinien rose from their chairs and walked towards the Solar.

“That means you too, Estinien.”

“Your suggestion is noted.”

“Get in here, or I’m telling Alphinaud to put it on your bed.”

He stood up reluctantly and followed her into the Solar, where they beheld the group fawning over the portrait. Estinien and Dia looked to each other, Dia wearing a smile on her face, Estinien his usual stoic look. He slowly walked towards the portrait to join the group.

For the most part, the positions of everyone stayed the same with one notable exception; Estinien stood between Dia and Thancred with a smirk and with his hand placed on Alphinaud’s head.

“I’m glad he took my suggestion and made himself taller”, Dia mused. Estinien tore his eyes away from the painting and looked to Dia. “Didn’t he do a good job with you, Estinien?” He nodded, “Aye, he did.” He brought his attention back to his portrait self.

Is that how he sees me, he thought.

“All right, now the question remains: where do we place it?” Alphinaud asked the group.

Everyone took a moment to think. “What about up there?” Estinien suggested, pointing to a spot above the desk…the spot that once held Tupsimati. Most of the group shifted uncomfortably with the exception of G’raha and Dia.

“Well…” Alphinaud started.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Dia defended. The group made faces of disbelief towards her. “Look, I will never forget Louisoix, nor will I forget Moenbryda’s sacrifice. But that spot is perfect. Anytime we walk in, we’ll see us hanging there proudly. After all, Tupsimati’s not hung there in how many moons now. Why don’t we use that spot to honor a new legacy?”

The Scions considered her words. “Did I touch upon something sensitive?” Estinien whispered to Dia. “‘Tis a long story. You did nothing wrong”, she whispered back to him.

“All right. Perhaps it would be better for us all to let our own story be told. After all, we saved not just one world, but two. That should be worth a nice spot, don’t you think?” Thancred reasoned. The group nodded.

“Allow me”, offered G’raha. He took out his staff and levitated the portrait from it’s spot. Y’shtola took out her cane and prepared a nail for the painting to hang upon. The two combined their efforts, and in a matter of minutes, the portrait hanged proudly in the very same spot Louisoix’s legacy once stood, the legacy that Dia had unfortunately sacrificed along with Moenbryda in her attempt to destroy Nabriales.

“There. I like it there quite a bit”, Dia complimented. “Thank you, G’raha, Y’shtola.”

“Of course. Now would you care to explain to me why that spot seemed to cause discomfort?” G’raha questioned.

Dia smiled. “I owe you two an explanation, it would seem.”

[rhetoricandlogic]

Kazuo Ishiguro Returns to Sci-Fi With Klara and the Sun

Em Nordling

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro’s eighth novel released this past February, has all the trappings one would expect from an Ishiguro story: dramatic irony, a mounting sense of dread, and careful ruminations on power, memory, love, and the unknowability of both self and other. It follows AF (Artificial Friend) Klara as she is purchased from a department store to act as companion to a young girl named Josie. Her simple happiness with her new home is short-lived, however: Josie is deteriorating from an unnamed illness and Klara becomes convinced that she’ll be the one to save her. She simply needs to convince the Sun—the being that powers Klara and the other AFs, and yes, that sun—to lend his nourishment to Josie.

Ishiguro’s oeuvre is one of those rare literary sets that is immediately identifiable by both style and theme but rarely by genre, as he more often than not examines similar questions under different generic constraints (his last novel, The Buried Giant, is based on Arthurian legend; his most lauded novel, The Remains of the Day, recalls post-war England). Klara and the Sun stands out in its return to the science fiction genre that Ishiguro explored with his 2005 Never Let Me Go. In fact, it’s all but impossible not to compare them. Even aside from genre, they share a concern with children specifically as a pressure point for asking what it means to be human. But Klara’s story is uniquely moving, its questions more expansive. Though perhaps not as gracefully rendered as Never Let Me Go, Klara is a stunning book in its own right and a vital addition to today’s proliferating sub-genre of climate change novels.

The setting of Klara is ambiguous, however it takes place near enough in the future to feel unsettlingly close to our own reality. Though Ishiguro clearly wrote it pre-pandemic, its characters live almost entirely isolated, relying on digital schooling and carefully planned social events. A consistent conflict in the novel revolves around a process called “lifting,” wherein a child is genetically “edited” to become more intelligent, leaving the unlifted behind to languish in worse (if any) schools (an outcome that will be all too familiar to readers, gene-splicing aside). To be lifted is to become successful. It comes at a cost, of course—that’s why Josie is dying. Her mother chooses to have her lifted even after intimate encounters with the risks. The family drama in the wake of this decision forms the scaffolding of the novel. And Klara’s quiet observations and insights—and her eventual intervention—provide the dramatic irony we need to see that scaffold as part of the more existential questions Ishiguro’s work thrives on.

In Never Let Me Go, Kathy H. and her fellow clones are tasked with creating beautiful art by their teachers, a challenge which is later revealed to be a test to prove that clones have souls. Klara picks up the question yet again: what makes us human and what makes us worthy (of rights, of personhood, of love)? This will likely not come as a surprise to any SF reader, since the protagonist is a robot and we’re all quite used to this song and dance. Instead of taking the obvious route and asking if technology is capable of gaining humanity, however, Ishiguro seems to state that we’re asking the wrong question—that we should instead ask if we are capable of seeing each others’ humanity in the first place.

At no point does Ishiguro really entertain the “do machines feel emotions” question—it’s transparent and matter-of-fact that they do (Klara was quite literally engineered to do so), and just as transparent and matter-of-fact that the humans in the novel have ceased caring in any real way what that means. Klara’s personhood is sidelined in favor of the family plot, in favor of watching the humans’ desperate scramble to prove their own worthiness in a ruthless meritocracy. Klara throws herself into it as well—she was designed to be selfless and so she is, caring more for the emotions and wellness of her human family than for her own. But Ishiguro is far from making the human characters unsympathetic—their love for one another motivates much of the novel’s action and conflict, their emotions are portrayed as real and tragic. Misunderstanding, as always, proliferates. If the human characters can’t see Klara’s deep interiority, they often can’t see one another’s either.

Tied to this question of what makes a being “human” is a background parable about climate change. Though climate change is scarcely named directly as a villain, Klara’s reliance on and obsession with the Sun creates threads of tension that wrap around the entirety of the novel. Over the course of the story, she becomes absolutely convinced that, in exchange for saving Josie, the Sun wants her to destroy a machine that causes pollution (the machine that causes it, in Klara’s mind). We as readers begin by finding Klara’s quasi-religious faith in this quest to be ridiculous, even sad—but is it any more ridiculous than most of our own tepid attempts to save future generations from impending climate disaster?

Klara isn’t wrong about the pollution machine making people sick, just as we aren’t wrong that plastic straws are bad for the environment. But their destruction won’t make Josie unsick and it won’t unmake the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The humans in the novel aren’t wrong that technology can improve the aspects of their lives obliterated by climate change—like Klara herself, a substitute for the in-person socialization now denied to children (as well as something ultimately much darker). But this new technology can’t undo the harms caused by other new technologies. And the more distant humans become from one another—a process in the novel that is perpetuated by technology—the less connected they are to the thing that might actually save them: their love for one another.

Klara and the Sun is not anti-tech nor is it a moralistic episode of Black Mirror. It is far more concerned with the complications of love and power than it is with crafting a cautionary tale. Readers of Ishiguro’s other novels will be familiar with his lack of easy answers as well as his heart-breaking exploration of what it means to care for others and the impossible contradictions inherent to that care. Humanity, the novel argues, is more than the sum of its parts—more than emotion, more than memory, more than perception. How surprised can we really be that loving another human (or AF) would be such a complicated thing?

Despite its characteristically deft prose, Klara is perhaps too close to home to be lauded as an epiphany of a novel like Ishiguro’s past works. It is quiet, understated, and slow. Despite the presence of robots and climate change, it is not a dystopia—it’s reality with a filter on it. But there are notes of hope in its gentle devastation and there are banal everyday responses to its own cosmic questions. Even when it treads the same water as past works (Ishiguro’s as well as SF more broadly) Klara and the Sun feels vital—like noticing the sun rise one morning despite living through countless sunrises past.

[spiritualnightmoon]

Psychotic: Part 1

“Mom!”Young William Grossman exclaimed as he desperately opened the door of the apartment, looking around with great concern. It did not take long to feel a completely metallic smell in the environment, causing his skin to crawl when he noticed that the floor was full of blood, which formed a somewhat disproportionate path to the kitchen that was with the door closed.

>> Please ... God, please let her not have fallen into his clutches ... << He thought as he swallowed a bit of saliva and a cold sweat showed on his forehead.

In complete silence, he took out the knife he had decided to carry since that madness had started, from his pocket had a rather shaky pulse, beginning to walk stealthily.

His heart was pounding, was that last video by that "The Crooked Man" really true? He had not seen more than the clown approaching his beloved mother from behind with a small wooden mallet with black white stripes, noticing that it was bloody which, sure because that he had smashed it on the heads of several people, ending with the black screen and a few blank words that said, "It's time for the weasel to stop running, Will."

With great care, when he reached the door, he supported his ear in silence to listen to some movement related to the clown, since somehow, he managed to learn certain things that he did and at what moment he moved to catch him, but he never expected what would listen.

There was a muffled moan, to be more specific, a feminine moan but that carried pain, so without having a cold mind he kicked the door open to find a rather bizarre scene: his mother was tied tightly to an old chair made of oak as well as a gag that was beginning to bruise him due to the pressure with which they had put it, in addition to showing that his lower lip had been broken due to a slap. His blond hair that was always neatly arranged was dirty and stained with blood from the blow that the threat had given him, his garments were torn on his arms, legs, and stomach with their respective cuts in the skin. On the table were the inert bodies of the two canaries that she had cared for years, having their sockets empty and their tongues stretched out as far as possible from their beaks, as well as how they had taken the time to screw all their organs as if were the hats that the sultans used to wear on their little heads.

On the left side of the chair where his mother was, there was said clown with a sharp smile from ear to ear, as if it were a child who was showing his father some forms of plasticine that he had made in school in art hour. His white eyes were fixed on the blue orbs of the young adult, while his crooked index finger played dangerously with the woman's chin, noting that with the long nails that it had, he had made the cuts in her body without problems.

"Oh, finally the little weasel has approached the monkey who wanted to have fun ... Although, well, the monkey had to take it out on mother weasel for not being able to socialize with her baby." something funny, as if what was happening was just an innocent game. Seeing that the young blue-eyed man was raising the razor, he gave a loud laugh that made both victims tremble a bit before a muffled scream was heard from his mother as his hair was pulled back, giving him a better view of his neck to the young man, that if he did something, his hand would not shake to open his throat as if he were a fish. "After all, we don't want this beautiful evening to be ruined due to one of my fingers acting like a can opener for her neck, do we?"

"P-Please ... L-Leave her alone, you're not interested in her. ”He barely managed to say, lowering the knife a little, having his eyes teary because his mother's life was on his hands, and it all depended on how he handled the matter with this one.

"You're right, this bitch is not of my interest, but yours. You know? It has cost me a lot to be able to make you stay and listen to my words, even when I tried to be as "diplomatic" as possible but you always ran away when you saw me approach you. I don't understand why humans only pay attention to one when there is something of value that is at risk." form his other hand relax the grip of the hair and pat her on the head, implying that if he cooperated, he would too.

"W-Why? ... What do you want from me ?!" He managed to say while raising his voice more and more, due to the frustration of various factors, which were filling his patience with the lack of sleep.

"Tch, tch, little Grossman ... You lower the tone of your voice because otherwise, I'll make her raise hers." He said showing an angry smile, while slowly pulling the woman's hair back to the point that it seemed to be removing your scalp little by little, being something that was shown in the moans of pain on her part. After a few moments, he let go of her completely to rest one of his elbows on her head and smile a bit calmer.— As for the other, what I want from you is a little bit of your time since I must tell you something very important..."

"S-Something very important? ... W-What is it? ..." He asked while keeping the dagger with the edge down, trembling slightly since if he had done such things to those poor canaries, if he did getting angry could do much worse to the hostage.

"Well ... have you ever wondered where your father went, kid?"

"I-I only know that he left, leaving my mother alone and ..." He managed to say before starting to hear the aberration of laughter and a blow on the table, causing the carcasses of the birds to jump slightly, leaving them the "hat" made from your intestines.

"Ahh ... Really, angry women are snakes ... They simply let themselves be carried away by their stupid emotions ..." Said the clown as he took one of the aforementioned cheeks to squeeze it as if it were a little girl. Your father, Thomas, was a great man, Will. He had to abandon them due to a great family secret, which goes from Grossman to Grossman, something that unfortunately the children of this offspring do not have to be part of until they are of age. deep way, noticing something serious, no longer than mocking way with which one used to see and hear.

"W-What do you mean? ..." He asked again as his eyes became more and more watery. What did her absent father have to do with a being of that scale? The only thing he knew from his mother's mouth is that he was a man who had some anxiety as well as psychosis and, therefore, had to go to a psychiatrist for a long time.

"Well, it's a long story so you should take a seat," he said before snapping his fingers and making one of the chairs creep up to the boy, who still didn't trust any of them being actions. He just shrugged, then looked back at him. “This goes back two centuries, to be specific, to the year 1800, a London on Christmas Eve. Your great-great-great-grandfather, Isaac Lee Grossman was a very unfortunate child, his family had been poor for several generations since all men ended up being shitty alcoholics, in addition to being abusers with their wives and children, and in this case, not was the exception. Because he had to work as a newspaper boy or shoe shiner, he couldn't have friends because of not having time, so while his father was beating his mother, between his sheets he asked the angels to They conceived someone with whom he could have a break ... "He replied before having a somewhat lost look as he caressed the woman's head a little, as if he remembered something profound" ... And they created me.

Will looked at him roughly, for although there were things that were considered bizarre today, the clown completely surpassed them: his sharp teeth, his careless hands, his unfriendly voice, and his white eyes made anyone would mistrust him. Noticing his gaze, he laughed lightly.

"Don't think I always looked like this, kid. I was more colorful and much less son of a bitch. Continuing with the story that brings us together today, we were both very close, and one of my many skills was that I could adapt and develop to his mood swings as a personality. It was three beautiful months of fun until his father started to get more violent than normal, so his mother decided to take him to the orphanage in the hope that he would have a better life. He couldn't take me, so he promised that when I was old enough, he would come home even if he had been adopted, so he asked me to get into the music box the angels had kept me with. Obeying his words, I got into that little place and faithfully waited for 13 years, until in the end the inevitable happened: in one of the fits of rage, the bastard of his father ended up killing your grandfather's mother, causing that the policemen sentenced him to hang, leaving the house completely alone since no one was interested in the place because of its poor condition and that it was not a place to do anything either, besides being the poorest area of ​​London. I was completely alone for a few days until I heard someone enter the place, being an adult Isaac, but like my colors, his soul had lost its essence because he had lost the woman he loved, falling into it. vice that her father and trying to forget her, was with other women until ... One day, a young woman with golden hair like the sun and a smile that melted any man's heart arrived at the place, helping him up the rustic stairs to the bedroom. They both started chatting and even though he was drunk, it was quite nice until a kiss was present. Although I did not know what the hell he was doing at the time, it caught my attention as he progressed from caressing her cheek to descending to her legs under her salmon-colored dress, but the girl refused even though this he insisted carefully, to the point that her patience ran out, giving him a strong slap and ..." He said while showing anxiety of happiness, making a morbid smile.

"S-So what? ... W-What happened? ..." He managed to ask while swallowing some saliva. From what he sensed, his ancestor could have committed a sexual crime.

"... He turned her body into a beautiful human chair ... Her soft skin was the padding, her bones were the base of the chair, and her fucking skull was the decoration for the top. That took several hours, in addition to certain parts of the chair, the skin was hanging a bit, but it was a beautiful work of art. ”He answered licking his sharp teeth as if that had been something so exquisite to see as a banquet. Mother and son closed their eyes in disgust at having imagined the shape of the poor girl's body, he finished. "I had never been exposed to such violence, but it was something that stimulated both of us and made Isaac know how to regain consciousness. his shattered life, beginning to massacre all his enemies as well as his children, giving them a slow death. One day, finally on the shelf where my music box was sheltered, it had fallen due to rotting wood due to humidity. Your grandfather went up again to where was his old room to look at the cause of the noise, coming across my discolored box after so much time, and out of nostalgia, he began to move the handle ... When I left it after the song "Pop ! Goes The Weasel "reached his climax, he was just as surprised as when we first met, only this time he was intimidated by my new look."

"A-And what did you do when you saw that I was afraid of you? ..."The blue-eyed asked again, keeping the dagger glued to his leg in case it were to pounce. Something inside said that at any moment he would do something to her since his expression was a mixture of seriousness and some anger with a hint of meditation on what he would say.

"I must admit I was very infuriated by the fact that he thought it was just a figment of his imagination, but ... you know? He was the person I loved the most, so I tried as much as possible that anger did not dominate me, to start a loooong conversation like in the old days. ”He answered giving a melancholic smile, showing a certain warmth that he had not shown before but that in a few seconds he disappeared to continue. "From that day on, I continued with the mission of my existence: to make Isaac happy, helping to get rid of the bastards who hurt him and managing to stay with the woman he loved, giving me the gift of having a little Grossman under my tutelage ... For what each generation that has passed, I take care that they respect his last wishes: that they continue with the tradition of being the best assassins of the decade." He replied before returning to stare at it.

At that moment, the silence was present in the place as Will took a seat and looked at the floor seriously. Did your entire paternal family have to follow the clown? Had everyone suffered such extreme harassment to the point of going crazy? He looked up again to see his mother's eyes, which reflected pain and sadness as if he had understood something. The wrinkles that were beginning to appear on his face, the gray hairs that were also taking initiative in the roots of his hair because old age was coming more and more into his life ... He owed many things to that woman, already that she had always helped him when he hit rock bottom, even more so because of the last love affair that was a complete disaster even though she was exhausted from work. In silence, he got up from the chair as he approached the clown, who grabbed the woman's blond hair tightly and with the claw of his index finger placed it on her throat, slightly prodding her causing her to complain to keep the threat in force until that he noticed how the boy was half a meter from them to do something that none of the older people thought he would do: he let the knife slide from his trembling fingers to fall on the wooden floor and immediately afterward, raise his gaze with haggard orbs and completely lacking in happiness.

"From what I can guess, all this time you have tried to make me know my paternal roots and follow in the footsteps of my grandfather like those who followed him, right?" Asked the boy, not even looking at the eyes of his mother, who begged him between muffled sobs not to do it, which made the clown pull his hair more sharply before nodding in response, showing himself very seriously. "I'll do what you tell me, as long as you leave mom out of this."

At that moment, everything returned to tense silence. The being was somewhat thoughtful by the boy's words, in addition to being the first that had not tried to attack him being so close, while the woman wanted to make eye contact with her son, trying to somehow make him come to his senses.

>> Please ... Don't do that ... I don't want to do this either, but I don't want to lose you as my best friend Mark because of him << He thought, pressing his lips together to try not to show the painful feeling that it was taking over her heart.

"Fine, child," the clown finally said as he gently slid his claw from the throat to the hostage's chin and stared into the young adult's eyes. "But once you left this apartment, you won't see her again or else ... "He said while making a not-so-deep cut in the woman's right temple, causing her to squeal a bit." Got it? "He asked with notable seriousness while he saw how he nodded in response.

Once the terms of the deal had been made clear, he let go of the blond hair to reach out his long arm and lead it to the kitchen counter to hand the boy a very old wooden mask painted white, which looked like the Venetian carnival masks of the Doctors of the Black Death. With some hesitation, he looked at the monochrome clown, as if searching for some explanation.

"That was the mask that your grandfather Isaac used for his massacres and that has been passed from generation to generation." He replied while gesturing for him to try it, which he did with great care as it was a relic. When the mask was finally on his face, a big smile was present in the being before approaching the young man and putting his hand on his shoulder. "It's time to go and start your life of crime, Will." He said before turning around. her head towards the woman with a wince of victory when she saw that several tears ran down her sore cheeks. "Don't worry, weasel mom. I will take good care of your baby. ”He added, giving a tone of responsibility as he cut the gag from her mouth a little so that she would alert the neighbors even though they would think she was a lunatic like several mothers from whom she had taken their children.

When she had managed to remove the cloth from her mouth, from one blink to another, there were no traces of the monochromatic clown or her son, only the corpses of the canaries and the wounds on his body.

The woman's screams of pain were present throughout the apartment, causing neighbors to call the police with some fear. There was no worse pain for a mother than her son was in constant danger because of having something in his blood that had always brought trouble to all subsequent generations of that man who had asked the angels for something positive.

[mca-attack21]

Words Unsaid

AN: This is loosely based off of The Final Problem and is Sherlock x Reader. There is violence and death, so consider yourself warned. I hope you enjoy and as always feedback is appreciated. 

Emotional Context. Sherlock had once been able to deny its importance, instead, governing himself with logic and reasoning. However, his connections with his friends and the people who cared about him had started to change his mind on such matters. This came with both benefits and negatives as it had opened him up to new vulnerabilities and pain, especially now. As it was during this time that he discovered that his sister was more than just a suspicion. In fact, Eurus was a secret that scared his dear brother Mycroft more than anything else. 

Sherlock struggled to retrieve any memory of her. That was at least until the name “Redbeard” was brought up. He had loved Redbeard his faithful dog and childhood best friend. He couldn’t remember what had happened to him, at least not until Mycroft filled in the gaps. Since that discovery, he, his brother, and John had left to check in on Eurus’ security. Sherlock and John wanted to prove that she had left multiple times once impersonating as a girl that Sherlock met during a case, and once as John’s new therapist. Mycroft was insistent that this was impossible, so they went to settle the matter once and for all. What they were not expecting was for it all the be a trap.

They were soon captured and forced to complete trials that tested personal morality and will power all centered around Sherlock. It seems that Eurus was fascinated by her brother and wanted to better understand him. It didn’t help that she had previously formed an alliance with Moriarty and knew more about Sherlock than he did her. But that was all Mycroft’s fault now wasn’t it? The first challenge forced Sherlock to choose either John or Mycroft to shoot an innocent man in order to save his wife. Both inevitably refused and the man in a last-ditch effort took his own life in front of them. Eurus didn’t hesitate to kill the wife, questioning the three whether or not keeping their hands clean costing two lives was any better than taking one life and leaving one to survive. She then ordered Sherlock to collect the gun, which now only had one bullet, and continue.

The next trial was equally grim. Sherlock was forced to deduce which of three brothers was a murderer provided only the gun and three pictures. To add to the suspense, she presented the three brothers hanging over the ocean tied up with weights. If they dropped they would inescapably be drowned. Sherlock made the correct deduction much to everyone’s relief, but Eurus dropped all three explaining that the life of an innocent weighs no less than the life of the guilty.

The third trial was where it got personal. There was a small wooden coffin. It was nothing special about it. Sherlock quickly deduced that it was built for a woman, one with no close family, one who was sensible, one that- he was interrupted when Mycroft brought over the lid which had a mere two words on it, “Words unsaid”. 

“Whatever does that mean?” John asked.

But deep down Sherlock knew and he feared what was about to happen next.

“It’s Y/n,” he replied.

“Y/n? What does she have to do with this?”

“Why quite a lot Mr. Watson, and very good Sherlock. Now then, this ought to be fun. In a moment, I am going to give her a ring. She’s alone in her apartment which is hooked up with explosions. Now then brother, you will have two minutes to get her to say the magic words. The catch? You can’t say them yourself, you can’t give her any indication that you or she is in danger. Just play your mind games like you used to,” Eurus grinned.

“What are the magic words?” Mycroft asked.

Sherlock’s face fell into a pained expression as he considered the task at hand.

“He has to get her to tell him that she loves him,” John realized.

“Yay! Now that everyone is on the same page, let’s give her a ring.” Eurus cheered, “Oh and for added fun,” she clicked on the tv showing video of you in your flat.

Sherlock studied the video feed, you looked horrible, something had clearly upset you. He could tell that you had recently been crying. As the phone rang he prayed that you would answer it. The clock seemed to loom over him as it continued to click down. He watched as you slowly retrieved yours and glanced down at the name answering it almost immediately.

1:40

“Sherlock?”

“Ah, Y/n, I-” he started.

“I ought to kill you for giving me such a scare. Baker street exploded it’s all over the news and I’ve been trying to get ahold of you ever since. Are you okay? Is John okay? What happened?”

“We’re fine, just a little accident,” Sherlock replied calmly.

“I thought you were dead, the least you could have done was sent me a text” she whimpered.

“Oh come on now, you know I’m more clever than that, besides I’ve been busy, you know how it is” he mused.

1:20

“Y/n, do you remember the phone call we had just before Reichenbach, right as Moriarty had begun his master plan?” he asked feeling rushed.

“Of course I do, I still have nightmares from that call,”

“Well, I need you to tell me what you said that day,”

“There’s no way in hell,” you replied. Sherlock was able to see how much this upset you and clenched his eyes shut feeling the pressure.

“Please Y/n, I really need to hear it,” he begged softly.

0:60

“Sherlock, is everything alright?” you asked concerned at his unprecedented demeanor.

Eurus warned her brother to remember the rules. 

“Everything is fine, I just need to hear you say it,”

“Why? This better not be one of your experiments,”

“It’s not, I promise. I wouldn’t do that, not to you,”

“I don’t get the big deal,” 

“Please Y/n,” 

0:30

“I-I can’t”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t say it back,”

0:25

“If you meant it then, if there is any chance that you mean it now, please say it again,” he begged.

“Sherlock,” you pleaded

“Please Y/n, please tell me what you said that day on the phone, our last call together before the fall,” he said with such sincerity and emotion.

0:18

“You called me to tell me that everything had been a lie, that Moriarty was right. You told me that  you only had one choice left. I begged you to stop, to wait until I could get to you, that together the two of us would figure something out. But you said it was too late,” you recalled tears streaming down your face.

“And then…” he prompted.

0:12

“And then I pleaded with you not to do it,”

“Why? What was your reason?”

0:08

You hesitated for a moment, “ because I cared about you,”

“That’s not what you said Y/n, what exact words did you say?” His own eyes were betraying him at this point.

0:03

“I told you that I loved you, that fake or not, I would still love you” you cried, “And you didn’t say it back.”

Just then the phone clicked off as Eurus ended the call. 

Sherlock redirected his attention to Eurus’ screen, “Okay Eurus, I won. I made her say it. What now, what happens next?”

“Funny isn’t it? I don’t recall her actually saying the words ‘I love you’. She said ‘I loved you’ and ‘I would still love you’ and while close, I just don’t think that cuts it for me.” 

“Wait!” Sherlock screamed launching forward as Eurus hit a button and he was forced to watch your apartment explode. All that Mycroft could manage was staring in shock as the tv quickly cut to black. John went to his friend who had sunk to the ground staring vacantly.

“You didn’t tell her before Reichenbach and now you’ll never be able to, tell me Sherlock, are all those complicated little emotions worth it? Because to me it seems that the emotional context is what destroys you. Now pull yourself together as the next challenge is even more enduring.”

She paused for a moment before adding, “take your time,” and shutting off her screen. 

Sherlock rose to his feet and John and Mycroft hesitantly went towards the next door, turning back when they heard him whisper “no” before aggressively attacking the empty coffin taking out his rage and immediate grief. After annihilating it, he sat back against the wall. 

Regretting that he could not properly console his friend, John forced himself over to Sherlock handing him the gun saying, “I know this is beyond difficult and you are being tortured, but you have to keep it together, we have to keep moving”

“This isn’t torture, it’s vivisection, we are experience science from the perspective of lab rats,”

“Right now, we are soldiers who just need to survive, this is not the time nor place for mourning,” John said firmly.

“Alright,” Sherlock agreed and John helped him up.

The three men continued to the next room where Sherlock was tasked with choosing whether to kill John or Mycroft. He made his decision, Eurus’ game was over, and he pointed the gun under his own chin taking a calculated risk.

When he awoke, he was alone in a small cell plastered with pictures from his childhood. He quickly called out for John and Mycroft. John answered explaining that he was in a well, but otherwise seemingly fine. There was no response from Mycroft.

Sherlock quickly figured out that he was not actually in a cell but rather in a collapsable structure outside his childhood home. Eurus tasked him with discovering the location of Redbeard and upped the stakes as she started filling the well that John was chained to the bottom of. Sherlock racked his brain trying to solve the same problem who’s solution had evaded him as a child. That was at least until in an escape attempt, John solved an important piece of the puzzle.

Redbeard was never a dog.

Sherlock suddenly remembered his childhood best friend Victor Trevor who his brain had so cleverly disguised to help preserve his psyche. With this new information, Sherlock was able to figure out the Eurus’ song corresponded to the gravestones with the weird dates. He quickly deciphered the message and went to free John who was running out of time.

Outside of the well, he discovered his sister, “I’m so sorry Eurus,” he spoke sincerely.

“You needed me and I abandoned you, I could have saved you,” he added.

“I just wanted my brother,” she replied childishly.

“I’m here now, and we can fix this, just free John, don’t make the same mistake you made with Victor,” he pleaded.

“I don’t want to quit playing the game, I don’t want you to leave me again,”

“I’m not going to leave, I’m going to save you,”

Not knowing how to respond she simply stepped back and allowed Sherlock to save his friend. He dove into action turning the water off and then retrieving a key carefully tossing down to John so that he could free his ankles. He searched for a moment to find what Eurus had used to get John down there to begin with and found some rope that he leveraged against a tree and tossed down to his friend. 

It was as John was climbing over the side that the police cars and helicopters arrived. Mycroft’s people were there to collect Eurus, who went with them peacefully. Sherlock and John were both checked over by the EMT’s and given shock blankets. They were informed that Mycroft was safe and simply left back in Sherrinford. Once he regained consciousness, he his people and sent them in helicopters to take care of Eurus. But then? Who called the police?

“William Sherlock Holmes” you yelled slamming the door to Greg’s station car.

John and Sherlock had never turned around so fast in their lives. How were you here? Hadn’t they both watched your apartment go up in smoke? Or, was that merely another one of Eurus’ tricks?

“You’d better have a good explanation for-”

“I love you too,” he interrupted shocking both you and John.

“What?” you asked in disbelief.

“I said I love you too, I wanted to say it during that call two years ago, and I wanted to say it earlier today. I promise I will explain everything, and I understand if you no longer fill the same way, I’m sorry for not saying it before,” he confessed. 

You stared at him in awe, taking a step closer still staring at him. You closed the remaining gap between the two of you and smoothly connected your lips with his allowing them to communicate for you. After an instant of shock, Sherlock reciprocated allowing the blanket to fall off of his shoulders as he pulled you in closer. When he pulled away, both of you were slightly dazed and smiling. 

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” you whispered.

“That I do,” he answered.

From there, Greg dropped John and Sherlock off at John’s place where he happily greeted Molly and wasted no time collecting Rosie. The next day the three of you would meet up at 221B Baker Street and begin cleaning and repairing that flat as Sherlock did as promised and explained everything. After two weeks the renovations were complete and John and Rosie moved back in with Sherlock who had decided to utilize space in 221C for experiments to keep Rosie away from them both for her safety and his sanity.

You became more than a frequent visitor and eventually moved into one of the bedrooms of 221C however you spent far more time in Sherlock’s bed than in your own. You watched Rosie as the boys went out on cases and would occasionally tag in for John. Being in a relationship with Sherlock was interesting to say the least, but you wouldn’t trade a second of it. 

[all-of-the-above]

Being a woman today

As a woman in today’s world, you may feel…

a)     Insecure

b)    Body conscious

c)     Unpopular

d)    Not pretty enough

e)    Not perfect enough

f)      Weak

g)     Scared

h)    Unsatisfied

i)      Pressured

j)      All of the above?

Well, I think most of us can say me too. One thing I think we know for certain is that we are not alone in how we feel, yet the world can still make us feel like the odd one out. You see, being a woman is entirely one thing, but to be one in the society we have today is another. We face so many different things, fight for so many rights and are still put down, shamed and ignored. To feel uncomfortable in this world I think is honest and true. I hear you, so many of us are listening its just not enough. Who knew those princess stories weren’t true?

To be male or female in our society is highly pressurising, but I think we can all agree it is more so for women. Social media has infiltrated our lives, bringing connection, laughter and creativity but also pressure, bad body images, abuse and suffering. We scroll through pictures and think this is how I should look, why am I not that skinny, why don’t I have her hair, my teeth aren’t perfect, my lips are too small, I should wear more makeup, but also, I shouldn’t wear too much makeup. I need that outfit, I should go there, I need to be that happy, I should have that by now. No. Stop. Stop hurting yourself, stop hurting your body image, stop hurting your mental health. Take a breather, step back. No one is that happy all the time, no one looks like that 24/7. Stop comparing yourself to others, stop putting yourself down and wishing you could be more. You are already enough, and I know it is hard and it is tough, but so are you. Since when did life become this huge competition sometimes with complete strangers? Why put yourself through more stress just to look good for people who don’t really care. We consistently want something we don’t have and forget what we do have. You don’t need to post every time you do something just to show off. You don’t need to edit your photos so much that you lose yourself. You need to be you, post reality, post if and when you please, post for you. Stop editing and instead start loving what you see, embrace your ‘flaws’, your individuality. Life is for living, for real conversation, for smiles and for sunsets, for food, for music, for friends, for family, not for a screen that makes you feel unhappy in who you are. Stop competing, stop wishing to look like them or be like them, stop scrolling and start being you each and every day and don’t hide it from the world, share it, make a change, be someone who posts life and inspire others to stop wasting precious time editing and putting down and under appreciating themselves and their life.

Something else that really bugs me is the cost of being a woman. Why is everything so much more expensive? No, I don’t want to hear all that rubbish about women being the bigger consumers okay, I get it, we all do, but its still no reason for such stark differences. Why can a man get is hair cut for £10 whilst I have to pay £40 and up? So, women’s hairstyles can be more complicated, okay, but that’s a lot of money! Why is my plain white top £10 whilst his is £5, there’s no difference? Oh, and last time I checked sanitary products still cost. Those are not cheap, it is something we haven’t even chosen, we have no choice, but have to pay for it? What’s all that about? And why in the hell are they considered a luxury? It is a necessity, a healthy and clean way of caring for our bodies and they should be available everywhere for everyone, free of charge. But no. We pay again. And not only this but men have the gall to say periods aren’t painful, we shouldn’t be so moody, there’s no need it’s just natural. You see they refuse to understand, to listen, to help. A Professor of reproductive health at University College London, John Guillebaud, told Quartz that patients have described the cramping pain as 'almost as bad as having a heart attack.' Even a fact like that isn’t believed. Yet again women feel another form of pressure to be a certain way, to deal with it and move on. We are told to look certain ways, so we buy the latest fashion instead of being mocked, we cut our hair to just simply keep it healthy, we get our nails done, our eyebrows, eyelashes, we tan, we wax, we shave. We do so much, yet still pay more. How is it fair that we should pay more for things that men have too (like a haircut) when we also have so many other expenses. To be a woman means to feel under constant pressure. Maybe we don’t need to update our wardrobe every year, or consistently get our nails done, okay, but I think the point still stands. To be a woman is not cheap, it’s not easy, it’s not for the faint hearted, it’s tough.

A woman feels pressure from many aspects of society, and I know one in particular is clothes. We can feel insecure and even scared to wear a particular outfit to a particular place at a particular time. Why is that a thing? How is that fair? Its not. I should be able to walk down the street in a dress and not be starred at by men that are old enough to be my dad. I shouldn’t worry that someone may take my outfit as an invitation. I should be able to wear what I want and not be called out for it. Why am I starred at for wearing leggings and a top yet when I wear jogging bottoms and a large sweater, I’m invisible? You see sometimes it’s like a disguise, a safety net, a comfort blanket. My own invisibility cloak where I can go out and feel maybe just that bit safer, less looked upon, freer. This isn’t right, we shouldn’t be creating a world where girls are scared to wear skirts, to wear shorts or a dress or even jeans or leggings. Girls shouldn’t feel scared to wear their clothes. We don’t take a guy walking around with no top on and shorts as an invitation do we? So why take a girl in a dress, more covered up than a guy like that, as an invitation? I think we’ve proved that even at this point sometimes it doesn’t matter what you wear, its still scary out there. So how on earth have we built a society where women now could wear a mini skirt or high-vis coat and still be taken advantage of, still abused, used and even killed? Its wrong. Why is being a woman labelled as easy, that we don’t have to do much or worry about much. If you listened, looked, read, researched, you would see just how hard it is. It’s not easy, it’s scary, it’s pressurising, it’s tough.

To be a woman today means to be tough, it means to have a hard shell, to be prepared for the world, to support yourself, to love yourself as much as possible and feel comfortable in who you are. It means to be satisfied in your life and in you, whilst trying to not let the world around you scar your skin. This is for all the women out there, I hope you know you are not alone, you a brave, beautiful, bold and brilliant. The world is cruel but don’t let it stop you, know you are strong and capable of so many things. Know that who you are right now is more than enough.

[ariainstars]

Star Wars, the Last 20 Years or Can We Please Try to Stop the Blame Train?

I would like to touch a subject that’s starting to grate on my nerves a little.

Anyone here knows that I disliked The Rise of Skywalker heartily. And I’m not the only person here or elsewhere who tore it to shreds. But I am reading (again) over and over why and how JJ Abrams, Chris Terrio, Kathleen Kennedy and Co. made this mess. Instead of searching for culprits, this time I would like to point out a few things.

I. Star Wars Prequels

Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best and Hayden Christensen had to endure awful harassment in their time: the audience largely vented their frustration on them because when the prequels hit theatres, they did not get the Star Wars they had wanted. Politics are a dry subject, and young Anakin and the Jedi Council were all too human to be liked by fans who expect coolness in a hero more than everything else; which is probably why Darth Maul is a huge favorite although we hardly learn anything about him and he says almost nothing. Ditto Obi-Wan although he is clearly not suited to train Anakin and it’s him who maims him and leaves him to burn in the lava. (Until I saw the film, I had always assumed Palpatine had tortured Anakin to push him to the Dark Side.) 

The prequels’ messages in general were not liked: the Jedi were not perfectly wise and cool wizards, the Old Republic was stagnant, Anakin was a hot-headed, frustrated young man desperate to save his wife and unborn children. The films do not want to excuse what he did; however they portray him not as a monster but as a human being who was under an almost unendurable pressure for years and years until he finally snapped.

These messages may not be “cool”, but they were realistic and most of all, humane. Portraying the Jedi as well as Anakin as powerful, flawless heroes and the old Republic as a just, prosperous and balanced place would have meant undermining a central theme of the original trilogy: the former generation could not have been all that powerful and wise, else the collapse of their world and the failure of their convictions would not have happened in the first place. It is a sore point, but still twenty years later Obi-Wan and Yoda denied that Vader was human and expected Luke to commit patricide. 

All of this goes to show that the Jedi’s moral standard was flawed and their attitude not rooted in compassion and pacifism the way they claimed. In the end, what they cared about was winning, no matter the cost. In this, they were no better than the Sith.

~~~more under the cut~~~

II. Star Wars Sequels

J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Bob Iger and company were the ones who introduced the Star Wars sequel trilogy and with it its themes, characters, setting etc. to us in the first place: I think we should give them credit where it’s due. Rian Johnson made a very beautiful second chapter with The Last Jedi, but he did pick up where the others had left. 

Kelly Marie Tran made experiences similar to Jake Lloyds or Hayden Christensen’s when The Last Jedi was hit theatres. She was disliked for not being “Star-Wars-y” enough, chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire, and also taking a lot of screen time while many fans were impatiently waiting for some grand scenes from Luke and / or Leia. 

That Episode VIII, the central and most important one, was called “The Last Jedi” cannot be overstated. Luke was literally alone with the heavy task of rebuilding a religious order that was gone and destroyed long before he even learned about it, and at the same time he had to patch together his own family and atone for his father’s sins. This is a crushing burden for anyone to carry. It was important both for Rey and for the audience to meet Luke to see that he was a good man, but still just a man.

When Luke spoke openly to Rey about the failure of the Jedi Order, it was the first time he ever spoke about it that we know of; this wisdom he obviously acquired only after his nephew’s fall to the Dark Side. Luke has understood that the ways of the Jedi were wrong; but he does not know a better alternative. Force users are still born all over the galaxy, and they have to learn to use their powers - only how? Again, Luke is not to blame. How is he to know, when the Jedi of the Old Republic had lost sight of Balance in the Force for so long that they didn’t know what it actually meant anymore? 

Same goes for Leia, the princess without a realm, who tried to rebuild the Republic after the galaxy had been terrorized by the Empire and devastated by war for many years. She assuredly did her best, but she was only human. That she failed her son is of course shocking, but after the horror she had to endure at the hands of her own father it is not surprising that she would be terrified of her son possibly going the same way. Ben, like Anakin, was crushed under a legacy and responsibility that was by far too heavy for him. The tragedy of his life and the disruption - and in the end, obliteration - of his family was another proof for the failure of the ways of the Jedi. 

All of these lessons until now were not learned from. But let’s be honest: how many of us come from dysfunctional families? If we do, was getting away from them enough to heal the wounds of the past? Did we find out what to give our children on their way in life, or did we fail them because we had not elaborated the past enough to make way for a better future? Such problems are very common, and to heal them is complicated and takes time. A “happy ending” e.g. in form of finding a new family is not enough, on the contrary, it can lead to wanting to leave the past behind, leaving wounds unhealed that will fester their way through our lives again, sooner or later. Star Wars always was an allegory of the human mind, even if deeply cloaked in symbolism. The saga also abundantly takes inspiration from the Bible, and I think it’s not coincidentally said there that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. 

As fans, we would have wanted to see films that cemented the Jedi as guardians of the galaxy, with the Skywalker family right at the center. Which in itself is impossible because Jedi are supposed to remain unattached, making the mere idea of a Jedi having a family absurd. If the prequels told us that the Jedi were flawed, the sequels tore down the myth of the Skywalker family. And both trilogies showed that you can’t be a Skywalker and / or a Jedi / Force user and have attachments and a happy family of your own at the same time. At least, not until now. 

 III. Film production

Many fans of old complained because the sequel trilogy implied that the “happy ending” of the original trilogy’s heroes had not been so happy after all and that after having made peace for the galaxy, they had failed to keep it that way. Other viewers however liked the new trilogy and new characters right away and began to root for them. But they, too, jumped on the blame train when the trilogy had ended: expectations were not met, and now director, producers, script writers, cutters etc. are faulted all over again.

The first person coming up with the idea of Han’s and Leia’s only child turning to the Dark Side was Lucas himself. It always was a main theme of the saga that war separates people who actually belong together, like family, couples or close friends; that is not played for mere drama, but because it emphasizes the absurdity of war.

We as the audience do not know how production went - it is very possible that Lucas approved the general storyline, and there is always a whole team on board. It is not easy to purchase such a large and immensely popular franchise; it was to be expected that if things went not the way the audience expected, the Disney studios would be blamed harshly for having “ruined Star Wars”. With the prequels, at least Lucas was still at the helm; it was conceded that maybe he had lost his magic touch with storytelling, but certainly not that he was trying deliberately to ruin his own creation. And the fans who could not praise the Disney studios enough after The Last Jedi came out, now blame them over and over.

The Disney studios have long-term politics to consider and contracts to observe, and we don’t know their contents. We have every right to be disappointed, but I think it’s not fair to blame one or a particular group of persons who are trying their best to satisfy as many viewers as possible. If they simply wanted to satisfy the average dudebro who sees nothing but clichés, two-dimensional characters and Good against Evil - then why did they allow The Last Jedi to be produced in the first place? The studios obviously are aware that there are fans out there who are ready to look deeper in the saga’s themes, who wish to see the Force coming to Balance, who value family, friendship and love over “victory at any cost”, and who do not place the Jedi on some kind of pedestal.

In a sense, The Rise of Skywalker seems like a bow before The Last Jedi: the weakest chapter of the saga followed one of its strongest. Maybe the authors were aware that equaling or even topping what Rian Johnson had created would be next to impossible, so they patched up the open threads of The Force Awakens together with some fan service hoping to be out of the business as quickly as possible.

In retrospect, the infamous podcast with Charles Soule might also be tell-tale: Soule obviously is not elbows-deep in the saga and largely ignores its subtext. Since his The Rise of Kylo Ren comics are quite well-made, I assume that the general storyline did not stem from his own creativity and that he only carried out what he had been advised to do. The production of the whole sequel trilogy may have happened in a similar way. I am not excusing the poor choices of The Rise of Skywalker; merely considering that one or a few persons cannot be blamed in a studio that has thousands of creative minds on board.

I am still hoping for the next trilogy to finally bring Balance to the galaxy, and also into the fandom. Rian Johnson had negotiated the rights for the next trilogy along with The Last Jedi; I assume it is very possible that there was a clause about intellectual property saying that only he would continue Episode VIII’s topics, nobody else. This would at least be an explanation, given the embarrassing, jumbled mess that Episode IX was.

The overall title of the saga assuredly never wanted to inspire the audience to start online wars attacking the studios or the actors or other fans out of the conviction of being entitled to blame someone else’s worldview. The saga’s message is compassion. Both George Lucas and the Disney studios are telling us their story; the idea and the rights do not belong to us. Harping on “whose fault” it allegedly is won’t bring us anywhere; what we can do is make the studios understand that we’re not too stupid not to understand the subtext, the symbolism and metaphysics of the saga beyond the action story. If they listened to the Last Jedi haters, in all fairness they are bound to listen to us, too. 😊

  IV. Will Ben’s story continue?

My husband already warned me years ago that Ben most probably wouldn’t survive, or at least not get a happy ending. As Kylo Ren he had already been the head of a criminal organization for six years at the start of The Force Awakens, but all of that perhaps could still have been condoned within the scope of war. It was the very personal and intentional act of patricide, the killing of an unarmed, forgiving man, who turned him into a damned person. And after the deed, Ben was aware of it. He knew there was no way out for him, he had gone too far.

Many members of the audience did not understand that Kylo / Ben is not an out-and-out villain and that this narrative ultimately was about his redemption. Bringing him back to the Resistance after the Exegol battle alive and by Rey’s side would not have been accepted; how was Rey to explain everything when she hardly understood it herself? How would the audience have reacted to the former head of a criminal organization, a patricide, suddenly standing out as a hero? Remember how in Return of the Jedi Luke asked Vader to come away with him. Now suppose Vader had complied? It would have seemed (and been) sheer madness. Nobody would have believed neither father nor son that the terror of the galaxy had had a sudden turn of heart. Nobody knew that he was Luke’s father; Luke himself did not know Anakin’s backstory; nobody knew what had transpired between Luke and Vader so far. Yes, Ben was young and healthy, but he still had terrorized the galaxy for years and killed his own father. He knew himself that he was damned and could not go back to normality, as Vader did.

Rey was coded as the heroine: narratively, the sequel trilogy was her story. Ben couldn’t become the hero, with or without her, at the very last moment. She usurped power like her grandfather in his time, the Skywalker family was obliterated the way the Jedi were, she takes over another mantle (Skywalker) the way Palpatine did (becoming the Emperor). Balance in the Force never was truly in the cards, it was only vaguely hinted at in The Last Jedi by the Force mosaic in the Ahch-To temple. Balance is a complex and difficult subject; it would have been extremely difficult to develop it in the sequel trilogy together with introducing the new characters and giving the old ones closure.

However: if Ben is brought back in the next trilogy, his sacrifice for Rey will have been his atonement. If his role this time is not that of the villain but of the hero, it would reverse Anakin’s path and make clear that he no longer is the same man. Vader was redeemed, not rehabilitated. His grandson might still have the chance to go that way.

- Luke had promised Rey a third lesson, and it happened. He also had promised Ben to “see him around”, which has not taken place yet.

- On Tatooine, Rey watches the twin suns setting, same as Luke before he met the other half of his soul (his twin sister) again.

- The studios had said that the sequels would be “very much like the prequels”; the prequels were a tragedy where the Dark Side (Palpatine) won that was followed by a fairy tale where the Light Side won.

- The Skywalker saga is closed, so if Ben comes back it would be justified by his being a Solo, i.e. the story of his own family and not his grandfather’s.

- Given the parallels with Beauty and the Beast, the Beast died before the broken spell brought him back, making him a wholly new person - his past identity, purged and redeemed.

- George Lucas repeatedly said that the prequels and the classics belong together as one narrative, with Anakin Skywalker at its center. First news of the next trilogy came up with The Last Jedi. Since there are strong parallels between Ben and his grandfather, we may assume that this six-chapter instalment will be his; Anakin also was left for dead but came back with a wholly different role and name.

- When Anakin was reborn as Darth Vader, he “rose” slowly from the ground, clad in his black armor. Ben fell to the ground abruptly and shed his black clothes, disappearing. This could be another clue. (It was also already speculated that Leia’s body dissolved exactly in this moment because she gave her life-force to her son for him to have another chance to live. Both Han and Luke had done what they could to atone for their remorse towards Ben; this might be her turn.)

- Much as I love Luke Skywalker, I can understand that Lucas did not see him as the saga’s protagonist. The overall arch is not so much about Luke’s heroism than about Anakin’s redemption and atonement. It is unusual because we expect the story’s “hero” to be the one who kills the Bad Guy; and indeed Anakin is, because he kills Palpatine in the end, the twist being that technically he is also a villain though not the archvillain.

- Ben had promised Anakin he would finish what he started. Anakin had been meant to bring Balance to the Force, and he had started a family. Until now, Ben did neither.

- If Ben and Rey are a dyad, i.e. one soul in two bodies, then Rey is in urgent need of her soulmate for her future tasks. She has her friends of course, but none of them gets her the way he did.

So, I still see reason to hope for a continuation, and, hopefully, satisfying conclusion of The Last Jedi’s themes.

  Film production: on a side note…

In the Nineties, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale were the directors both of Beauty and the Beast and Atlantis: two more different stories are hardly imaginable with regard to everything - drawing style, setting, characters, development, music etc. This outcome can’t have been only due to the director’s choices, there must have been a wholly different idea behind both films right from the beginning. Just saying.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift Opens Up About Overcoming Struggle With Eating Disorder

By: Chris Willman for Variety Date: January 23rd 2020

Taylor Swift tells Variety more about "how unhealthy that's been for me - my relationship with food," a subject boldly broached in her Sundance documentary, "Miss Americana."

In the new Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, there’s a montage of derogatory commentary about the singer that has appeared on cable shows over the years. One of the less nasty remarks: “She’s too skinny. It bothers me.”

As it turns out, it eventually bothered Swift, too.

In one of the most revealing and surprising segments of the Netflix film, Swift talks for several minutes about having struggled in the past with an eating disorder.

After being pictured facing a phalanx of photographers after she emerges from her front door, Swift is heard in voiceover saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Although she says “it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” Swift admits there have been times in the past when she’s seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or... someone said that I looked pregnant... and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit - just stop eating.”

Swift elaborated on what she’s gone through with that in her interview with Variety for this week’s cover story, saying that it was difficult for her to speak up about it for the documentary.

“I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me - my relationship with food and all that over the years,” she tells Variety. “But the way that Lana (Wilson, the film’s director) tells the story, it really makes sense. I’m not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience. And my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.”

In the quiet of a hotel suite, she goes into greater detail on how formative an effect that one early tabloid torpedo had on her. “I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “And the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I’d walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.”

She hesitates. “I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,” she says quietly. “But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense” to have it in the film, she says.

Wilson, the director, is proud of Swift for taking up the subject with such candor. “That’s one of my favorite sequences of the film,” she says. “I was surprised, of course. But I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud about it. And every woman will see themselves in that sequence. I just have no doubt.”

The filmmaker points out that there were clearly plenty of people who didn’t think Swift was too thin back in the mid-2010s. “You can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy-skinny, and that’s become normalized.” Even with non-celebrities, Wilson says, everybody’s a body critic. “It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like ‘You look skinny’ or ‘You’ve gained weight.’ People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win either way. So I think it’s really brave to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. I think it will have a huge impact.”

As much as Swift may be seen as a role model for speaking frankly on the subject, she’s got her own favorite artist, so to speak, when it comes to advocacy for women’s bodily self-image issues.

“I love people like (actress and activist) Jameela Jamil, because she says things in a really articulate way,” the singer tells us. “The way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. If you read her quotes about women and body image and aging and the way that women are treated in our industry and portrayed in the media, I swear the way she speaks is like lyrics, and it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down. Because women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty. We’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have harmful or unhealthy thoughts. So she’s one of the people who, when I read what she says, it sticks with me and it helps me.”

In the film, then-and-now photos illustrate just how thin Swift had gotten during the “1989” era, versus the still svelte but healthier look she sported by the time she toured behind the “Reputation” album in 2018. Swift says that her under-eating in that earlier time severely affected her stamina on tour.

“I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it,” she attests in the documentary. “Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).” Swift says she doesn’t care so much now if someone comments on a weight gain, and she’s reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.” Swift says she was completely unaware that anything was wrong in her double-zero era, and had a defense at the ready should it come up. If anyone expressed concern, she’d say, “‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat... I exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating.”

Few women viewing the film will fail to nod their heads as Swift describes the impossibility of any body shape or size living up to all the standards for beauty. “If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,” she says in the film. “But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f—ing impossible.” As she became aware of the problem, Swift says in the film, it would cause her to “go into a real shame/hate spiral.”

The word “shame” comes up elsewhere in conversation with Swift, who by virtue of becoming one of the most celebrated women in the world has also had to deal with more catty comments than almost any celebrity in the world - and hasn’t always succeeded in shaking it all off.

“I was watching a Netflix Brené Brown special on shame, because I read a lot of her books, because I have dealings with shame every once in awhile,” Swift tells Variety. “She was saying something like, ‘It’s ridiculous to say “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” because that’s not possible. But you can decide whose opinions matter more and whose opinions you put more weight on.’ And I think that is really part of growing up, if you’re going to do it right. That’s part of hoping to find some sort of maturity and balance in your life.”

She continues, “I don’t expect anyone with a pop career to learn how to do that within the first 10 years. And I know that there’s a lot of bad stuff that’s gone on recently, a lot of really hard stuff my family is going through, and a lot of opposition and feeling pressure or suppression of one kind or another. But I am actually really happy. Because I pick and choose now, for the most part, what I care deeply about. And I think that’s made a huge difference.”

*** You can read other parts of Taylor’s interview with Variety here: Taylor Swift: No Longer ‘Polite at All Costs’ and How Midterm Elections Inspired Taylor Swift’s New Song, ‘Only the Young’

[thinkyoureholy]

Fragile Figures [21]

[A/N: I’m sorry 🥺😭]

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Pairing : Choi San / [fem] Reader

Genre: Angst, Violence, Language, Fluff, Smut, Character Death, Mafia!AU

Words : 4.1k

Previous Chapter. - Next Chapter.

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

-Y/N’s P.O.V-

I grit my teeth, blocking a punch but the sheer force Kei put behind it was enough to make me stumble back. My forearm was already starting to bruise as it took the brunt of his blows but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, not yet.

I can still keep going!

I let that thought spur me on as I let out a fierce cry, swinging my own arm and connecting my fist to his face. He stumbled back, a hand coming up to his jaw. I didn’t give him any time to recover as I swung again, putting more power behind each punch. Some connected but others were deflected. I hit his cheek, then managed to get a hit in on his ribs, his stomach next but no matter how many times I landed a blow he seemed unfazed. He’s either more resilient than I had originally thought or he’s so fucked up these blows, even if they do hurt him, they do absolutely nothing to him. 

I guess I was starting to get desperate as I threw blow after blow, I was getting sloppier and sloppier. Kei must have noticed as a smirk played at his lips. I swung forward once more, Kei dodging it easily. He grabbed a hold of my arm, squeezing tightly as he pulled me towards him, bringing his knee into my stomach. A choked groan fell from my lips, the air being knocked out of me. I clutched at my stomach with my free hand, falling to my knees. I gasped for air, desperately trying to fill my lungs with the oxygen I needed. Kei stood over me without saying a word, my arm still in his hold. With a scowl on his face he brought his elbow down on my arm harshly, the sound of the bone cracking reaching my ears milliseconds before the pain set in. A blood curdling scream left my lips at the excruciating pain I felt in my arm. I reached out and clawed at his hand to get him to let me go but he only tightened his hold. I grit my teeth at the pain but another cry was forced from my lips when he kicked at my side. He finally let me go after that, my body curling in on itself. A wet cough wracked through my body, blood trickling down my chin as I trembled at the unbearable pain I felt all over my body. 

Have I always been this useless? Did I never stand a chance? Was I just fighting a battle I would never win in the end?

I set my jaw, baring my teeth as I shook those thoughts from my head. I pushed myself off the ground, pushing my body past it’s limit as I rose to my feet. I swayed in place like a drunkard, staring Kei down. I’m not going to stop, not until I take him down. I’ll do whatever it takes, even if it costs me my life. He watched me silently, his hand twitching at his side.

“Just how stubborn are you?” He asked rhetorically, his face showing just how infuriated he was, “I thought it’d be fun to throw you around like a rag doll for a bit but even I’m growing tired of this. Stay the fuck down!”

He shouted that last sentence as he kicked at my leg, my knee bending at an unnatural angle. I swallowed the cry that crawled up my throat as I crumbled to the ground. I clenched my teeth and began to push myself up once more but he kicked my arm out from under me. From that moment on he kicked and stomped on my body to the point where I became numb to the pain. By the time he was done I was laying on my back, barely conscious. He had his foot on my chest, pressing down on my sternum. I wheezed with every breath I took, Kei crushing my lungs with his foot with every second that ticked by.

“Just die already. I’m tired of playing with you,” He spat, digging his heel into my chest, “The faster I deal with you the faster I can get back home and get rid of the runt Mei has tied up.”

At the mention of San I mustered up the last bit of my strength and brought a hand up, grabbing at his ankle weakly. He looked surprised to see me moving but that surprise vanished as soon as it came his face twisting with vexation, the pressure he put on my chest more than doubled. It felt like my sternum would collapse any second. A choked cough fell from my lips, tears falling from my eyes at the pain. Black dots were dancing in my vision, the lack of oxygen getting to me. Just as I thought I’d pass out or finally die the weight on my chest disappeared. 

-Yunho’s P. O. V-

My chest heaved up and down with every breath I took, my hands shaking at my side. It took every ounce of self restraint I had not to tear him apart limb from limb. I stood with my back to Y/N who was laying on the ground, barely breathing. I should’ve tried harder to reach her. I should’ve done everything I could’ve done to stop her from going after Kei. I should’ve stopped her from even coming here in the first place! This is all because of that bastard! If he knew his entire family was this unhinged he should’ve grown stronger!

“Ah…” Kei let out in a drawn out breath, shaking off the hit Yunho landed on him, “It took you long enough to get here, Yun.”

My blood ran cold at the nickname. Y/N was the only one that called me that and she only called me that when we were at home, never when we were on missions. So how...how did he know about that name? Kei noticed the look on my face, a smug smirk settling on his face.

“I’d like to tell you how I know about that name but it’s not that interesting,” He paused to gauge my reaction. He must’ve seen something he liked because he beamed over at me, “It’s not from an inside man if that's what you’re thinking. Your guys are disgustingly loyal.”

I growled low in my throat, making to take a step towards him but froze the second he pulled out a gun. I clenched my teeth at the sight, “Just how dirty do you plan to play?”

He grinned at the question, a chuckle falling from his lips, “As dirty as I have to. I would love to go a round with you, believe me I really would but you see...I’m a bit tired from throwing Y/N around. She didn’t injure me much but,” He paused to let out a heavy sigh, scratching the back of his head with his free hand as he waved the gun in the other nonchalantly, “Just blocking her punches and rendering her immobile was more work than I had hoped. The bitch just doesn’t give up.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I spat out through my teeth. 

“Did I strike a nerve there?” He asked, something flashing in his eyes, “Oh right, I almost forgot about that. I guess I wouldn’t like anyone talking about the one I love like that either.”

“I said shut the fuck up! What the hell do you know about me, huh!? I’m sick and tired of hearing you talk!” I shouted. 

He chuckled but said no more, giving a shrug of his shoulders. I should’ve knocked him out with that first punch if only to save myself the trouble of hearing him speak. This is why I always hated fighting this bastard. He loved hearing himself talk. If he could he’d talk your damn ear off. What pissed me off more than anything is that he wasn’t just all talk. He was one hell of a fighter, better than Seonghwa and Seonghwa was the best fighter I had ever known. He talked as much as he did because he knew just how good he was. Well I’m done hearing his voice. I don’t care if he starts shooting, he's not the only one that has something hidden up his sleeve. 

With that in mind I charged at him but again like before I was stopped in my tracks. I didn’t get very far, my legs refusing to move at the scream I heard that came from behind me. A lump formed in my throat the moment her whimpers reached my ears. I looked back to see Y/N clawing at the ground underneath her, tears cascading down the sides of her face, a bullet wound as clear as day on the side of her leg. The way her face twisted in pain had my legs go weak, my knees almost failing me but I stayed upright. 

“Dammit!” I shouted, frustrated that I couldn’t take the pain away from her, frustrated that I let her get this bad in the first place, frustrated that I couldn’t protect her, frustrated that when she needed me most I was of no use to her.

My hands trembled at my sides, the anger I was feeling overwhelming. I was angry with myself for being useless, angry with San for being the reason why we were even here in the first place, angry at Kei for injuring her this badly. I let that anger fuel my, letting the dagger I always kept hidden in my sleeve fall into my hand. I could’ve pulled this out from the beginning but the instant I saw Y/N laying on the floor on the verge of death with Kei’s foot on her chest my mind went blank. Had I just pulled out my dagger and stabbed him when I threw him off of her I wouldn’t be in this situation but I had no time to think of what I should’ve done right now. Right now I had to disarm him, bring him down, and kill him. Like hell would I let him live after what he did to Y/N. 

I grit my teeth as I lowered the dagger in my hand, grabbing at the blade with my fingers. I should’ve done this from the start but seeing Y/N covered in her own blood had my mind go blank. If I timed this and aimed properly I’d be able to embed the blade into his heart but there was just one thing that made me hesitate. The bastard had crazy quick reflexes. If he was going to do what I was thinking of then I only had a split second to get in the way. Will I make it in time? I shook my head, firmly holding onto the blade of my dagger. I was going to make it, I had to make it. 

So with that I brought my arm up quickly. When my hand adjacent to my shoulder I swung my arm back down, letting the dagger slip from my fingers and prayed it hit its mark. As soon as the danger left my fingers I ran to cover Y/N, hearing the sound of his gun firing just as I reached her. I winced at the pain that bloomed from my right thigh, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment and falling to my knees as my leg gave out. I bit down on my bottom lip harshly, swallowing the groan that crawled its way up my throat. I opened my eyes to see if the dagger hit where I wanted it to, my heart sinking at seeing that I had missed, the dagger embedded in his arm instead of his chest. He grinned but the look in his eyes told me he was less than pleased. 

“Ah...you two...really are something else.” He let out slowly, soundlessly pulling the dagger out of his arm. He threw it to the ground, the blade digging into the dirt by his feet, “You could’ve walked out of this alive you know that? I have no qualms with you...or any of the others for that matter. My orders were to take her back to Mei and that’s all I was going to do but...fucking hell man, you lot just don’t give up do you? You could’ve all saved yourselves if you just handed her over, no, if you had just given up on my worthless little brother then all of this could've been avoided. Tell me, what the hell is so special about him, huh? What qualities does he possess that make you all fight for him this hard?”

I stared at him wide eyed, seeing an unfamiliar emotion creep into his eyes. I’ve known Kei for a few years now and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know him that well because we were anything but friends. But the Kei that stood before me now, asking these questions...seemed so vulnerable. His eyes held a certain emotion that if I wasn’t trying to protect the love of my life from him I would’ve felt sorry for him. Something told me he wasn’t just asking me these questions...but who else could they be for?

“Answer me! What’s so special about that bastard!? He brings misfortune everywhere he goes yet everybody still wants him! What the hell is it about him!?” He asked, his voice wavering every so often, “I do everything I’m asked of without hesitation. I kill when told to and torture when told to. I’m worth more than San ever will be yet I’m still second best! Why!? I try so fucking hard to please Mei, but I’m nothing more than a pawn she can play with however she likes! But San...San is her damn pride and joy. She may be doing unspeakable things to him but she would never, never actually get rid of him. But me? She’d kill me the second I make a mistake.” He paused, the hand he was using to hold his gun shaking as he aimed directly at me, his eyes glazed over, “Even Kiri prefers him over me. I’m their brother too so why!? Why am I always being cast aside for that runt?”

I was too shocked to say anything. Where the hell is all of this coming from? Why is he the one getting emotional? What kind of messed up shit is going on inside his head? All these questions I was asking myself was just making me angrier and angrier. I can’t believe he has the audacity to be like this in this situation.

I chuckled darkly, but neither my face or eyes displayed any type of humor, “Wanna know why you’re always being cast aside? Because your a narcissistic egomanic and top top it all off your a fucking psychopath! Do you really think anybody would care for a sick and twisted person like you!?” I shouted, pushing myself off the ground, taking a step towards him.

He didn’t move a muscle, his hands beginning to shake violently. I took another step forward, pausing only when I heard my name fall from her lips.

“Yun...don’t. Just...run...away…” She let out in a strained voice, her breathing ragged.

I shook my head, clenching  my hands at my sides as I kept walking towards Kei, closing the distance between the two of us, “I can’t stand San either but I can tell you that he is so much better than you in every way. He is one hell of a fighter. He is a hell of a sniper. He is a hell of a strategist. But above all he is loyal and he would gladly die for any of us. Can you say you’d die for Kiri? What about Mei? Would you put your life on the line to save theirs?”

Kei remained silent and his silence was all the answer I needed. I let a rueful smirk play at my lips, standing directly in front of him now. 

“San is twice the man you will ever be.”

And with that I swung, my fist connecting with his face. He stumbled back, his grip on the gun now completely gone as if fell to the ground with a thud. I didn’t stop with just one punch. I lurched forward and grabbed onto the collar of his shirt, the two of us toppling to the ground. I hovered over him, my knuckles going white, the hate in my eyes burning hotter than ever. I pulled him up slightly off the ground before slamming him back down.

“You don’t get to do this! You don’t get to suddenly become so human! Not after everything you’ve done!” I cried out, my voice breaking, my emotions getting the better of me, “Where were all these emotions when you had Kiri kill-”

I cut myself off, swallowing the lump that formed in my throat as the image of Hongjoong’s dead eyes staring into mine came to the forefront of my mind. I felt a tear slip out of my eyes, slowly making its way down my cheek, “Where were these emotions when Kiri killed Hongjoong-my brother? Huh? Answer me! Where the hell were they!?” I choked out, my lips quivering as I tried to reign in my tears.

His eyes darted from one of mine to the other but he offered no words. Angered by his silence I landed another blow to his face. I pulled my arm back once more, letting it hang in the air for a few seconds, my whole body shaking as I bit down on my bottom lip harshly. He didn’t try and fight back, seeing the fight in him basically gone brought my anger back up and I struck him again. I landed blow after blow, my knuckle bursting open at the force, his blood mingling with mine until I couldn’t tell whose blood was whose. How dare he break right now? After everything he’s done? After everything he’s put us through in just this one night? He almost killed her with no remorse yet here he was finally acting human...he makes me sick. He doesn’t know what it feels like to have someone you love taken from you. He has no idea how it feels to have a genuine relationship with someone. He knows nothing about and yet--yet he craves it more than anything. He craved to be loved but he doesn’t deserve it.

I don’t know how long I was hitting him for but when I came to he was barely conscious in my hold, his head lolling back as I held him up. With a scoff of disgust I let him go, pushing myself up. I staggered back, exhaustion washing over me. I had the urge to kill him but if he was feeling like this then he deserves to stay alive and feel every little thing. He doesn’t even deserve death, that’d be showing him too much kindness. My chest rose and fell, my breathing labored as I stood over him, the anger still in my system but I couldn’t afford to waste another second on him. 

So with that I left him there, stumbling my way over to where Y/N was, struggling to stay awake. When I reached her I fell to my knees, brushing the hair that was glued to her face with her blood out of the way. I cradled her face in my hands gently, my thumbs brushing away the tears that had stained her face more than her blood had. She gave me a small smile, weakly reaching up, her fingers just grazing my cheek ever so slightly before she let her hand fall back down to her side.

“You’re safe…” She whispered, looking up at my through half lidded eyes.

I choked on a sob as I gave her a smile of my own but with how hard I was trying to not cry it must’ve looked like a grimace to her. I leaned forward, resting my forehead against hers and closed my eyes for a moment. I let out a shaky breath before leaning back again, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. I didn’t waste another second as I scooped her up into my arms. I hesitated when she whimpered the second I touched. And when I picked her up, the cry of agony that left her lips was enough to make me second guess if I should even be carrying her right now but her wounds needed to be treated right away.

“I’m sorry...just bear with it for a little bit longer.” I mumbled as I began to walk back to our cars.

But the second I took a step forward I stumbled, my right leg giving out but I refused to fall. The adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins disappeared and the pain in my leg resurfaced. Just standing on it had a groan of pain crawl its way up my throat but I forced it back down. I grit my teeth as I pushed myself to keep going. I had to get her out of here and treated, that’s the only thing that mattered right now. Whatever happens to me doesn’t matter...all I cared about was carrying her to safety. I kept repeating those words over and over again like a mantra. I was so focused on getting her to the car that I didn’t notice what was going on around me...until it was too late. 

I knew the mercy I showed would come back to bite me...but I didn’t think it would come this quickly. Two...I had made two mistakes tonight. The first one was letting Y/N run out of my grasp to fight Kei and the second one was letting Kei live. I never thought one of those mistakes would end up costing me my life.

-Y/N’s P.O.V-

I opened my eyes when I heard what sounded like gunfire, Yunho grunting low in his throat drawing my attention. I furrowed my brows in confusion when Yunho fell to his knees, adjusting me in his hold. I hissed at the pain I felt spread through my entire body but I forgot about it as soon as I looked up into Yunho’s face. He was staring down at me with a look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite place. The corners of his lips curled up the slightest bit but I could tell the simple action was causing him an immense amount of pain. 

“Yun..?”

He sucked in a deep breath but the second he did he started coughing violently. And that’s when I noticed it. He had blood covering the inside of his mouth, some of it dribbling down the side of his chin. His entire face contorted in pain, his grip on me tightening for an instant before it was gone completely. I cried out the moment my body fell to the floor but that pain was nothing compared to what I felt at seeing him fall next to me, his face inches from mine. My eyes widened as I finally took notice of the red splotches that stained the back of his shirt, the once white fabric painted red. I reached out, gingerly touching his back. He didn’t even cry out when I touched him, my vision blurring over as I realized what that meant.

“Don’t...cry. I’m sorry...I couldn’t...protect you…” He forced out, a smile playing on his lips. That smile trembled before turning into a frown, the tears falling from his eyes, “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry…”

I shook my head the best I could, my own tears falling freely. I opened my mouth to tell him that none of this was his fault, none of it. This was all my fault, I should’ve planned properly, thought everything through, not let my emotions take over. There were so many mistakes I made that could’ve helped avoid all of this. Every single thing that went wrong tonight was my fault but before I could get a word out I felt my body being lifted up. Before I knew it Kei had thrown me over his shoulder and was beginning to walk away from Yunho. I pounded his back with my fists but I was too weak, my punches not having any effect. I screamed and cried for him to let me go. I can’t let Yunho die alone, not him, anything but that, please. I have to be with him!

“Yunho!!” 

.

.

.

Tags : @choisofty​ @woosanville​

[webuyhousebellingham]

We Buy Houses Bellingham, WA

We Buy Houses Bellingham, WA for Cash! Sell your House Fast Yes! That’s right, we buy homes in Bellingham, WA, fast and pay cash. So, sell your house today without a hitch and within a few days!

Need to sell fast? Get that burdensome property off your shoulders in just 7 days. No commissions, no fees, no repairs, sell “as-is.”

We will buy houses in Bellingham, WA, regardless of their condition, and will make you a fair cash offer. Nobody buys homes the way we do while taking care of closing costs. So, you walk away with 100% of what we give you. Sell your Bellingham home, its never been easier.

Fill out our short form, and we’ll shoot an offer to you within 24 hours!

We Buy Houses in Bellingham, Washington within 7-Days Selling your home to us is the only way to take it off your shoulders in the shortest time possible.

At His Hands Properties, we buy your house in Bellingham for cash and have the ability to close on homes very quickly. If you want to sell a home fast, our team would love to talk with you.

We will buy houses regardless of what type of condition they may be in. Even if the home is beat up or requires a ton of repairs, we will still buy it.

As people who buy houses fast for a living, we can tell you that you’ve got options as a seller. However, not all options may be the best for you. In this next section, we’ll break down what sets selling your house to His Hands Properties apart from all the others.

Here is How Selling Your Home to His Hands Properties Works:

• You start by filling out our form to get an offer, and we’ll schedule for one of our team members to pay you a visit.

• We will take a look at your home to see if it is a good fit and then make a cash offer via phone/email.

• You can take your time to accept the offer, decline the offer right away or proceed with the sale. If you decide to proceed with our fair offer our team takes care of the paperwork and pays all the closing costs, all of which is done within your timeline. So, you’re under no obligations or pressure from us.

How It Works Step 1 CONTACT US We research the details of your home and start crafting a great offer for you.

Step 2 GET YOUR OFFER We present you with a fair cash offer with no obligation and no fees.

Step 3 GET PAID Get the cash you need now. You do NOT have to wait 6 – 12 months to get your house sold.

How to Sell My House Fast in Bellingham, WA? The best and perhaps the only way to sell your home fast is to us. We are cash home buyers that pay cold, hard cash for homes in Bellingham, WA. To us, the condition of your home and why you are selling does not matter; what matters is that you’re willing and looking to sell.

We know that selling your home is both complicated and scary and while there are many real estate solutions they may not always be the best ones for you. You probably have a host of questions and maybe wondering which steps to take? Fortunately, we can help you.

What sets us apart from other cash for homebuyers in Bellingham is that we create a win-win situation for you. We work with you, i.e., the seller, to find a way to make sure that everyone goes home happy. That’s one of the reasons why we are so eager to meet with sellers.

However, we want to be clear, selling a home to an investor like us isn’t going to be for everyone. But it is an excellent way to get rid of a property you don’t need, don’t want to spend money on, or want to sell fast in order to may avoid foreclosure. Regardless of why you want to sell, we are eager to talk with you.

Sometimes a home can be a major financial and emotional drain; if that’s the type of home you have, we can buy it from you in just 7-days! Just leave us your street address, city, state, zip code etc., and we’ll get in touch.

We Buy Houses As-Is in Bellingham, WA Whether it is a single-family home, multi-family, duplex, townhouse, apartment building, or any other type of home, we buy them as-is. What that means is, you don’t have to spend money on updating, cleaning, or repairing the home. Plus, you pay nothing in the way of closing costs when selling to us because we take care of it.

Here is why you will want to sell your home to us:

• We promise to pay cash for your home. In other words, sell your house for cash.

• We also take care of any and all closing costs after purchasing the property.

• We will buy ugly houses, as-is, so no repairs, painting, or cleaning.

• We buy houses right away, You don’t need to wait for a bank loan approval or underwriting or any other headaches.

• We close quickly and fast, which means that the process will not hold you back from going on with your life.

Don’t Let Your Home Continue to Be a Source of Stress Whether it is going into foreclosure or falling apart, it is the stress that we can easily relieve you of within a few days if you choose to sell to us vs. a realtor. In fact, we even buy properties that are in relatively good condition and were on the market for months without a proper offer.

When you sell a home to us, you’re dealing with professionals with years of experience and who care about you. We work directly with homeowners, to ensure that you save on agent commissions, fees, etc.

If you have a home that you want to sell, start by filling out our form or give us a call. We will be more than happy to make you an offer without any obligation on your part. Have a question about our cash offer? we will be more than happy to answer any questions you have right away.

Have Unwanted property? Contact Us Today Get your fair cash offer on your Bellingham house, at any time by filling out our short online form. Selling your house has never been easier!

[housesbellingham]

We Buy Houses Bellingham, WA

We Buy Houses Bellingham, WA for Cash! Sell your House Fast Yes! That’s right, we buy homes in Bellingham, WA, fast and pay cash. So, sell your house today without a hitch and within a few days!

Need to sell fast? Get that burdensome property off your shoulders in just 7 days. No commissions, no fees, no repairs, sell “as-is.”

We will buy houses in Bellingham, WA, regardless of their condition, and will make you a fair cash offer. Nobody buys homes the way we do while taking care of closing costs. So, you walk away with 100% of what we give you. Sell your Bellingham home, its never been easier.

Fill out our short form, and we’ll shoot an offer to you within 24 hours!

We Buy Houses in Bellingham, Washington within 7-Days Selling your home to us is the only way to take it off your shoulders in the shortest time possible.

At His Hands Properties, we buy your house in Bellingham for cash and have the ability to close on homes very quickly. If you want to sell a home fast, our team would love to talk with you.

We will buy houses regardless of what type of condition they may be in. Even if the home is beat up or requires a ton of repairs, we will still buy it.

As people who buy houses fast for a living, we can tell you that you’ve got options as a seller. However, not all options may be the best for you. In this next section, we’ll break down what sets selling your house to His Hands Properties apart from all the others.

Here is How Selling Your Home to His Hands Properties Works:

• You start by filling out our form to get an offer, and we’ll schedule for one of our team members to pay you a visit.

• We will take a look at your home to see if it is a good fit and then make a cash offer via phone/email.

• You can take your time to accept the offer, decline the offer right away or proceed with the sale. If you decide to proceed with our fair offer our team takes care of the paperwork and pays all the closing costs, all of which is done within your timeline. So, you’re under no obligations or pressure from us.

How It Works Step 1 CONTACT US We research the details of your home and start crafting a great offer for you.

Step 2 GET YOUR OFFER We present you with a fair cash offer with no obligation and no fees.

Step 3 GET PAID Get the cash you need now. You do NOT have to wait 6 – 12 months to get your house sold.

How to Sell My House Fast in Bellingham, WA? The best and perhaps the only way to sell your home fast is to us. We are cash home buyers that pay cold, hard cash for homes in Bellingham, WA. To us, the condition of your home and why you are selling does not matter; what matters is that you’re willing and looking to sell.

We know that selling your home is both complicated and scary and while there are many real estate solutions they may not always be the best ones for you. You probably have a host of questions and maybe wondering which steps to take? Fortunately, we can help you.

What sets us apart from other cash for homebuyers in Bellingham is that we create a win-win situation for you. We work with you, i.e., the seller, to find a way to make sure that everyone goes home happy. That’s one of the reasons why we are so eager to meet with sellers.

However, we want to be clear, selling a home to an investor like us isn’t going to be for everyone. But it is an excellent way to get rid of a property you don’t need, don’t want to spend money on, or want to sell fast in order to may avoid foreclosure. Regardless of why you want to sell, we are eager to talk with you.

Sometimes a home can be a major financial and emotional drain; if that’s the type of home you have, we can buy it from you in just 7-days! Just leave us your street address, city, state, zip code etc., and we’ll get in touch.

We Buy Houses As-Is in Bellingham, WA Whether it is a single-family home, multi-family, duplex, townhouse, apartment building, or any other type of home, we buy them as-is. What that means is, you don’t have to spend money on updating, cleaning, or repairing the home. Plus, you pay nothing in the way of closing costs when selling to us because we take care of it.

Here is why you will want to sell your home to us:

• We promise to pay cash for your home. In other words, sell your house for cash.

• We also take care of any and all closing costs after purchasing the property.

• We will buy ugly houses, as-is, so no repairs, painting, or cleaning.

• We buy houses right away, You don’t need to wait for a bank loan approval or underwriting or any other headaches.

• We close quickly and fast, which means that the process will not hold you back from going on with your life.

Don’t Let Your Home Continue to Be a Source of Stress Whether it is going into foreclosure or falling apart, it is the stress that we can easily relieve you of within a few days if you choose to sell to us vs. a realtor. In fact, we even buy properties that are in relatively good condition and were on the market for months without a proper offer.

When you sell a home to us, you’re dealing with professionals with years of experience and who care about you. We work directly with homeowners, to ensure that you save on agent commissions, fees, etc.

If you have a home that you want to sell, start by filling out our form or give us a call. We will be more than happy to make you an offer without any obligation on your part. Have a question about our cash offer? we will be more than happy to answer any questions you have right away.

Have Unwanted property? Contact Us Today Get your fair cash offer on your Bellingham house, at any time by filling out our short online form. Selling your house has never been easier!

[langdxn]

A request "Missing You" by John Waite with Duncan Shepherd? Maybe the song reminds him of his ex and the really bad heart brake he went through , sees her in a public place while he waits for his wife. He's now a happy married man and makes sure his knows. Please and thank you!

So I had a huge dilemma over whether to make the reader his ex or his wife... I hope I’ve made the right decision! Also this is an amazing song, I’ve heard it all my life but never knew who it was by so thank you for that! 🖤🖤🖤

Duncan Shepherd wasn’t one for eye contact with strangers.

It wasn’t that he had anything to hide, he just preferred not to make any form of interaction with the people of DC. If someone spotted him and grilled him about the app outside a downtown branch of McDonald’s, he’d never live it down in his family’s social circle.

After an arduous day in the office, Duncan called his shift to an early end as he raced from the Shepherd Freedom Foundation headquarters to his wife’s favourite store to surprise her. Waiting outside the glass doors, he idly glanced into shop windows just to avoid looking like an impatient husband waiting outside a department store, faintly listening to the nostalgic tunes booming through the doors.

Every time I think of you

On the rare occasion his head lifted to catch someone’s eye, his eyes fell upon hers.

His heart dropped like a stone.

I always catch my breath

Diverting his gaze away from her as quickly as possible, his breath hitched in his throat.

The girl that broke his heart was waiting outside the next store. The blonde-haired, green-eyed siren that lured him to his downfall a matter of years before. The Medusa of his past, the person who made him feel as if he had turned to stone. That is, until he met his wife. His beautiful, loving wife that showed him how to live again.

And I'm still standing here

Fidgeting his fingers nervously, Duncan’s palms started to sweat under the pressure of her glance as she continued to look in his direction. He panicked, reaching into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and sparked up with a shaking hand.

And you're miles away

Venturing to look back as he drew a toke, he clocked the rest of her appearance. She looked just the same as the day he threw her out. She wore the same vacuous smile, the grin that concealed a multitude of unfaithful encounters.

And I'm wondering why you left

It would have hurt less if she’d changed. Dyed her hair. Worn more makeup. Dressed differently. Held herself differently.

It would have hurt less if she didn’t still live in DC.

And there's a storm that's raging

The years he spent forgetting her flew straight out of the nearest window the second those eyes stared back at him. The same eyes he used to gaze into while making love to her. The same eyes that swore she wouldn’t cheat on him. The same eyes that remained emotionless as he lay shattered on the kitchen floor, reeling after finding countless texts from her other lover.

Through my frozen heart tonight

“What are the chances of seeing you here?” A familiar voice startled him from his day-nightmare, spinning on his heels to see those same eyes right next to him. “Still smoking, Dunc?”

A shiver vibrated through his very soul at the use of his old nickname. The name she used whenever she’d committed her another indiscretion and needed his forgiveness to get through the day. The name she used when she answered his calls while screwing her side dick.

I hear your name in certain circles

Duncan froze. The ultimatum between exuding agonising politeness and spitting vitriol at point-blank range tore away at his insides. There really was no backing out of the situation now, no shaking her off and running in the opposite direction, no pretending she had mistaken him for someone else.

And it always makes me smile

“Hmm?” He hummed back, low enough in the hope she hadn’t heard him. “Oh, hi.”

“You’re miles away, honeybee.” Another pet name that surged bile up to his throat. “How’ve you been?”

I spend my time thinking about you

Her voice grated more now than ever before. Duncan swallowed hard, hand firing up to yank at his tie as if he was choking on the starched collar.

And it's almost driving me wild

“Ye—yeah, I’m fine,” he stammered weakly, eyes widening as he realised the implication of such a poor reply. Dismissing it with a curt shake of his head, he charged in with a second attempt. “Actually I’m great! And you?”

And that's my heart that's breaking

“Oh,” she sounded downhearted at the confidence in Duncan’s voice. “That’s great to hear,” she lied. “I’m okay,” she lied again. “What brings you out of the office so early?”

Down this long distance line tonight

“I’m meeting my wife as it happens,” he shrugged up his sleeve to check his watch. “She should be here any time now.”

I ain't missing you at all

“Oh right,” she nervously shuffled her feet. “I remember seeing her on the news, she’s beautiful. You’re punching, Dunc!”

Bitch.

“Too right I am,” Duncan cocked an eyebrow at the malice laced between her words, the loaded emotion weaving amongst the syllables taunting him into retaliation. He raised his cigarette for a long, awkward intake to busy himself.

Since you've been gone away

Would asking her about her life come across as if he was genuinely interested? He wasn’t, not by any means, but the silence between them was deafening Duncan to the point he would’ve rathered the ground swallow him whole. Scratching his stubble to occupy his shaking hands, he tripped over every word that came tumbling from his lips.

I ain't missing you

“Are... are you still working over in—“

No matter what my friends say

“Oh hell no,” she dismissed, waving gesticulating hands in the space before her. “I gave that up a long time ago. I’m applying for an internship at the White House right now.”

As if this conversation couldn’t get more painful for Duncan, whose cigarette in one hand neared its end and whose other hand brushed uneasily through his brunette curls.

There's a message in the wild

“That, that should be interesting,” he raised his eyebrows feigning interest.

“Yeah,” she sighed, rinsing her hands in front of her. “Listen, I’m really sorry about how things ended between us—“

And I'm sending you this signal tonight

“Baby!” You cried out as you swung open the store doors, wrapping your arms around Duncan as your shopping bags swung around his waist. “What’re you doing here, Mr Shepherd? You’re out early!”

You don't know how desperate I've become

“Of course, I figured I’d give a late night in Guantanamo Bay a miss so I could spend it with my beautiful wife instead.” Duncan leaned in to press a haunting kiss on your lips. As you pulled away, you caught a glimpse of a woman stood beside your husband.

And it looks like I'm losing this fight

“Oh I’m sorry darling, you’ve got company! I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet you!”

Your words poured sincere and heartfelt through your genuine smile as every word ever did. Even though you knew perfectly well who the woman was, you gave her the benefit of the doubt and offered her a chance to dispel your apprehensions.

In your world I have no meaning

“I’m Genevieve—Genny,” she half-shrieked, her ear-piercing high pitch indicative of a crippling insecurity at meeting her ex’s new love. “It’s great to meet you, Dunc’s an old friend of mine.”

Two lies in one sentence, Duncan thought, this sounds much more like Genevieve.

Though I'm trying hard to understand

“Oh that’s wonderful,” you smiled warmly. “How did you two meet?”

The answer wasn’t important to you in the slightest; you had no reason to distrust your husband, you simply needed something to break the ice between you.

And it's my heart that's breaking

“Oh yeah, we met at college—“

“Yeah, college,” Duncan nodded, brushing the back of his neck and staring at the ground in the vain hope the discussion would end there.

Down this long distance line tonight

A stony silence fell between the trio, clawing for new ice-breaking avenues to pursue but finding zero in common except for Duncan Shepherd. No sooner had Genevieve scanned around the three of them for conversation starters, she noticed the subtle wording and colour coding on your shopping bags.

But I ain't missing you at all

“Any—anyway,” she stammered, shaking her own shopping bags demonstrably. “I better get home and drop these off!”

Since you've been gone away

“Sure, we better head back too,” Duncan nodded, hands shoved in his pockets to avoid a farewell embrace at all costs.

I ain't missing you

“It’s been wonderful to see you again, Dunc, and to meet you, Y/N.” Genevieve’s words poured from her mouth faster than she could process them. Waving a hand out to Duncan, she smiled awkwardly. “Let me know when you’re next free, we could go for a coffee and a catch-up? That’s if you’re not too busy with the Shepherd Freedom Foundation, though.”

No matter what I might say

“Sure, sure,” Duncan spluttered, shrugging and staring at the gleaming tiles beneath his boots.

“Have a great day, won’t you?” She grinned, spinning on her heels and pacing hurriedly away into the crowd.

And there's a message that I'm sending out

“Well fuck,” Duncan huffed as soon as she left earshot. “I’m so sorry about that.”

Like a telegraph to your soul

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, baby,” you sighed comfortingly, looping your free arm into the crook of his. “We all have a past, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

And if I can't bridge this distance

“That one certainly is. Anyway,” he dismissed with a waving hand, gazing down at your bags. “What’s the Shepherd dynasty been funding this time?”

Stop this heartbreak overload

“I—er...” you stuttered, trying to conceal one specific shopping bag from his view but failing.

'Cause I ain't missing you at all

Duncan ventured a hand toward the baby blue carrier, holding it out in front of him to read the word etched in powder pink bubble print. Duncan read the brand name aloud.

“Maternity And Beyond?”

Since you've been gone away

You drew your bottom lip between your teeth, clenching until you felt your blood rushing to the impact.

“Look, Duncan, I can explain—“

I ain't missing you

“Are you?”

“I didn’t want you to find out this way, I was going to wait until you got home.” You reached into the bag and pulled out a baby sleepsuit, personalised on the back with the words Little Shepherd.

No matter what I might say

You scanned Duncan’s face for a response, terrified he would instantly overanalyse and worry himself about the situation. The conversation on starting your family together hadn’t been raised in months, he’d been so busy with the app and you had your own career to think about. For all you knew, he could storm away into the nearest surging crowd and never be seen again, that wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility with a panicking Shepherd.

I ain't missing you, no way

Once he picked up his jaw from the floor, Duncan scooped you up in his arms and span you around in a circle, shopping bags swirling wildly around you as he held you close.

“Duncan, be careful, the baby!” You chuckled as he suddenly dropped you back to your feet and resorted to holding you by the waist, dipping gentle kisses into the nape of your neck and onto your hair.

Since you've been gone away

“You’re really pregnant?” Duncan beamed from ear to ear, planting feverish, grateful pecks all over his beautiful wife as she giggled into his touch.

I ain’t missing you

Across the street, Genevieve watched her ex drop to his knees and plant a loving, haunting kiss on your abdomen.

Duncan was not missing her at all.

[sellmyhousefastlasvegas]

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We Buy Houses As-Is in Vegas When selling a home through a realtor or when the home is for sale by the owner (FSBO), it is imperative to make sure that your bathroom, kitchen, in addition to the rest of your home, is up to date. You'll also want to make sure that the plumbing, drainage, electrical system, and your roof are in the best condition. All of this takes time and money, something which not every seller has. That's why putting a home on the market to sell isn't for everyone, even if you do stand a chance to get a slightly better offer.

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We Are Dedicated to Serving Homeowners in Vegas We have a dedicated team and work to invest in real estate across the city. However, we think that the city of Vegas is in particular need of help, especially folks who are stuck with homes that they are unable to sell. Unfortunately, many real estate companies and investors look past the homeowner who badly needs to get rid of their home because it has become a liability.

While we are dedicated to helping homeowners, in fact, it is our primary concern. We are also businesspeople. That means the homes we buy have to turn a profit for us after we've invested in repairs and other expenses. That's why we buy homes in our experience that helps the homeowner and ourselves as investors turn a profit.

Sure, it is possible to sell your home via a real estate agent. A real estate agent is professional and with often years of experience. However, they can't sell every home unless it is in a market where the demand for homes outstrips supply; unfortunately, that isn't the city of Vegas. That's why many homes remain on the market for months with no results. If you have tried by putting your home on the market, you know exactly what we are talking about. Even after spending all that time and money, there is no guarantee that the home will sell. We buy houses in Las Vegas, regardless, of it is in good condition, what's important to us is that you own the property and are willing to sell for the offer we make.

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