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shikai-the-storyteller · 5 years ago

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Mae Catt’s Cyberverse Q&A

Here’s a neater version of some key Q&A responses from Mae Catt’s Cyberverse stream.

Please note: not everything is verbatim, and also note that Mae Catt said “Don’t take things I say as the end-all be-all.” She’s a big supporter of fanfic writers!

This Q&A session contains spoilers for Season 3 of Cyberverse. For a (somewhat) more comprehensive transcript, please refer to this post.

Q: Megop rights?

“Oh absolutely, duh.”

Q: What does Optimus do when he’s not giving speeches / being a leader when they were all hanging out on the ARK?

I think he reads, he seems like a heavy reader. It’d be cute if he read really bad Earth romance novels. He seems like a guy who needs a break from everything.

Q: Does Optimus have hobbies?

Not to borrow from Rung, but doesn’t it seem like Optimus would make model ships? Very quiet, very focused detail-oriented hobby. *pauses* Oh duh, he also plays basketball.

Q: How did the Decepticons learn to stream?

Because they’re deceptive! Megatron knew he should dedicate some time to winning the hearts and minds of humans. Starscreams’ funeral was not the first time they streamed. Optimus would use the official media channels (like the news), not a streaming service. Megatron would try to speak more directly to the people.

Q: Is Optimus the type of streamer who would take 10 minutes to figure out how to un-mute his microphone?

Optimus is a dad. He has no idea what’s going on with streaming. Optimus would say embarrassing things while Bee and Hot Rod were in the middle of streaming something.

Q: Is Megatron dead?

In discussions we wanted to kill him. We wanted to do a reverse Optimus death. However, in the final product, I kinda enjoy the ambiguity rather than the final decision. Can’t remember if we were decisive about that in the script.

Q: Did the Titan mind Decepticons living in them?

The Titans want to be cities. They want citizens. They want to be lived in, that brings them joy.

Q: Does Megatron do anything for fun or is he too angry?

I want to say he’s too angry, he has fun beating people down but I don’t think he’s had fun for a long time.

Q: How would you feel about a female Optimus Prime?

[GAY LAUGHTER]

The question is: do you turn Optimus Prime into a woman, or do you take characters like Elita One and uplift her? I would want to lean more into giving Elita One more oomph, I do love how Optimus doubts himself and if he’s worthy of being a Prime.

(Mae Catt talked a lot about representation and later mentioned how there's more pressure to write the girl characters well, especially because of the need for better representation. They wanted more girls in the show, and they planned to have Jazz be a girl).

Q: Elita prime when?

All the time, in my heart!

Q: Did you plan to have ___ character in the show?

Almost every character was discussed at least once.

She really regrets that they didn’t get to have Beast Machine Obsidian or Rumble and Frenzy in the show, and says she would’ve loved a MTMTE-style Ultra Magnus / Minimus and Transmutate. She didn’t know what Obsidian’s personality would be, it was just a “Look how cool he is!” sort of thing.

(Note: We have Mae Catt to thank for Whirl getting into Cyberverse)

Q: What was your favorite episode?

“I Am the AllSpark” because of the Megatron and Starscream dialogue (which she wrote). Also S2 04 Soundwave and Shockwave.

I enjoyed writing Starscream most, Clobber and Hot Rod became a joy, S2 E4 was my first episode, and it was fun getting into Hot Rod’s voice. It was hard doing Optimus’ voice, I’d always pass it off to someone to look at it.

Q: Did you ever plan to have Hot Rod become Rodimus?

Rodimus was never considered for the show because Optimus dying has been covered to death, but we were adamant about portraying Hot Rod as someone who wanted to be a leader. Hot Rod is someone who is learning to be a leader.

(On that note, when someone asked if she thought Bee would ever become Prime, Mae Catt said:)

I don’t think Bee would be a Prime. Windblade and Hot Rod would be a better Prime. He wouldn’t want to be a Prime. He’s the #2 to Primes!

Q: Did Megatron always plan to return to Cybertron?

Megatron’s priorities changed when he saw his doppelganger. Realizing he was a horrible tyrant, that scared him enough to return and not kill Optimus and make peace no matter what.

Q: Which death hurt you the most?

Starscream. (Slipstream’s hurt too).

We didn’t want to kill people off willy-nilly for shock value, but in certain instances it made sense. Like, the audience will fall in love with Slipstream because she’s becoming good, so she has to die. (She apologized for that sounding harsh). We killed Prowl because it was Shadow Striker doing the killing and he’s a self-sacrificing lieutenant. I almost wanted Starscream to emerge from the Judge’s head untouched, but I’m ultimately glad that idea got shot down.

(She circles back to this comment later, so I’m making note of that here since it wasn’t a direct response to a question)

When I was desperately trying to save Starscream’s life even though I brutally murdered Slipstream, I wanted Starscream to have amnesia and have a redeption arc. I wanted him to have a Windblade shard and have it be kind of like Castaway, where the only person he talked to was that (and the shard only had 5 phrases it could say). Eventually Bee would befriend him and he’d wind up with the Autobots.

I wanted to write Starscream kind of like an abuse victim who expects the worst of the Autobots, but I wanted him to warm up slowly to them. I wanted to have a Starscream and Optimus episode where Starscream messes up on something and Optimus is like “you did your best and that’s what counts”, a response which is totally new to Starscream. But obviously we didn’t have time for that.

Regarding redemption arcs (a continuation from the previous question, and a huge highlight from the stream):

Re: the potential for Starscream’s redemption arc “A redemption arc needs to be facilitated by a character acknowledging that what they did was wrong. He would have had a laundry list of excuses for it, even if there was all that evidence to the contrary, but the character needs to acknowledge that reasons don’t matter because people got hurt [by their actions]. [The character] needs to intend to do better. Let them try and let them fail, they don’t need to do a 180, it’s hard work to be a better person.”

NOTE: Mae Catt also made a few more comments re: the idea of a Starscream redemption arc on her Tumblr page.

Q: Did Megatron really kill Starscream?

The Starscream beatdown was super severe and they were like “holy frick they’re really going for it” when they saw the storyboards. According to Maecatt, Megatron didn’t kill Starscream when he slammed him down (which is a bit confusing since the show definitely made it seem like Starscream died).

Q: Did Drift die? Why was he a double-agent?

According to us, Drift did not make it, but I fully endorse whatever you want. We needed a double-agent, someone who would (seemingly) kill Hot Rod. (She says they went with Drift because of his history in the comics).

(Later on in the stream)

Maybe Drift is alive, maybe he’s rethinking his decision and he’ll come back later. Drift would’ve been helpful in S3 for sure, maybe he’d come back with Repugnis or something.

Q: Why are you so mean to Percy?

He's so mature and pragmatic that he can take it, and is willing to take one for the team bc he understands that it's what he needs to do. (In response to someone’s comment about his personality) Yes, he’s calmly feral.

Q: Is Skullcruncher Percy's bouncer now that he's running Maccadam's?

Oh totally.

(She later mentions that Percy has permanently taken over Maccadam’s. Also: Skullcruncher is a lady! She misses Mac, but Percy takes good care of her).

Q: If Tarn is the perfect Decepticon who's the perfect Autobot?

A firetruck alt mode, and an Autobot insignia as a face. Nat (her fiance) and I talked about it a lot. Optimus SHOULD be a fire truck, it makes the relationship between him and Ratchet a little more fun since Ratchet is an ambulance, and Optimus has an ax. It just makes sense!

(She agreed that the perfect Autobot would be Thunderclash after the chat said that).

On that note, Mae Catt said they used Tarn for the show because: “OBVIOUSLY (the perfect decepticon) should look like this guy. A faceless mindless Decepticon that only serves Megatron”.

Q: What sort of documents DID Optimus work on in the archives?

Probably historical archives and working on stuff about all the Primes. Something like the French / American revolution equivalent, which informed his speech writing for Megatron and his own ethics.

Q: Did you always plan to make Optimus socially awkward?

We “found” the social awkwardness for Optimus. Optimus was depicted as a father figure in S1 (implying it’s because S1 is from Bee’s perspective), S2 / S3 we were able to explore more and found the limits [writing him] and found it was hard to maintain that level of heroic dialogue. Optimus would feel awkward about it too. Randolph did an impression of Optimus’ speech for the Party Down episode. “[Optimus] can’t not be in war-mode.”

Q: Were Optimus and Megatron ever friends, or did they just work together on the speech stuff?

Oh hell yes, I think [the story] is always enhanced when they’re friends and when Optimus really believes in what Megatron was working on. Optimus’ rejection of Megatron is what pushes him over the edge, his best friend rejecting him pushes him into a place where he becomes a tyrannical person.

Q: Does Maccadam know we love him?

Mae Catt: *puts hand over hear heart and looks off into the distance dramatically* Yes.

Q: What’s the best selfie Arcee’s ever taken?

I like the one with the giraffe. Or maybe a selfie with some humans. I like the idea of Arcee having a bunch of human friends.

Q: What do the Transformers think of the Florida Man?

They can’t really tell the difference between humans, they don’t really get it. It just sorta looks like all the normal stuff they see on Earth (or something).

Q: Who’s the Florida Man of the Transformers?

Rack ‘n Ruin. But he’s too nice. Hmmm.

Q: What was most important to you personally to put out in each episode? Like humor/characterization/arcs

I wanted to make sure I didn’t write dialogue that was condescending to kids, wanted to be true about the character. Dialogue needs to be true to the characters, and gay. (Laughs)

Q: Do Transformers know what memes are?

They know what they ARE, but they don’t get it. We wanted Hot Rod to be super into Earth culture (winning races and driving off before humans could realize no one was in the car), but we never had time to really get into that.

Q: What music does Soundwave like?

We had a cut joke from S2 E5 [where Megatron and Optimus are popping through portals all around the world trying to find the All Spark] . Soundwave pops into Brazil where there’s a music festival and he crashes the concert and hang out. He likes EDM the most?

His favorite song is Despacito. He thinks its so sad.

Q: Were you surprised that Jake Tillman was in his 20s listening to his Optimus voice the first time?

She apparently listened to his vines a lot when he was in his teens so meeting up again like that was a cool coincidence.

Q: What other dimensions or places did you want to be in the show?

I would’ve liked to have the other Transformers series show up (TFP, TFA, G1, Shattered Glass) but we don’t have those assets or budget.

“This will quickly become unclear to audiences who aren’t (you people).” They couldn’t have all these references when some of their audience wouldn’t get it.

Q: What about ____ ship?

Mae Catt says she doesn’t want to yuck anybody’s yums. For example, someone asked about Arcee/Grimlock, and while she said she sees them more as friends, she didn’t say they can’t be in a relationship. (Mae Catt also said she doesn’t ship Bee with anyone because she sees him as a little brother).

As she said several times in the stream, “Don’t take things I say as the end-all be-all”!

That being said, she did say she likes Dead End / Perceptor and Windblade / Slipstream.

Q: Why are there no humans in the show?

From the show’s conception, there were no plans to include any humans. They didn’t want humans distracting from the Transformers.

Q: Why did the Scientist collect Soundwaves?

He collects Soundwave because Soundwave is COOL! Wouldn’t you collect a single father of 5 who carries them around in his chest?

Why does anyone collect what they collect? “That’s a really angry dad who’s got five children he carries around in him and he plays music. Gotta have that!”

(Later on, she circles back to this question)

All the Other Universe Soundwaves the Scientist collected also had their own Laserbeaks. I wonder if the scientist would’ve taken them out. He might’ve just gotten rid of them.

(And of course, here are the boyfriend questions from the stream:)

Q: Is Dead End a good boyfriend?

Dead End is a work in progress, but maybe Percy is patient enough to get him there

(Mae Catt says she really loves the Deadceptor ship. She knew people would ship it, but she didn’t ship it herself until she saw the fanart for it).

Q: Is Astrotrain a good boyfriend?

No, no...he’s not a good person, really.

Q: Is Percy a good boyfriend?

Absolutely--WAIT HOLD ON. He’s very blunt, he doesn’t mince words, if you can handle his bluntness then you’re good. He is what he is and you have to deal with him.

Q: Is Soundwave a good boyfriend?

Soundwave is not a good boyfriend. He’s a good casual romance but he’s not a good boyfriend. Soundwave would be a terrible listener. He hears a lot but he’d tune you out.

Other information tidbits:

- If Thunderclash was in the show he and Jetfire would HATE each other. Thunderclash would be a rival reality star (maybe) to Media Fire.

- Mae Catt said “A lot of intelligent life is inherently mechanical” in space, explaining why so much of the non-Cybertronian life we saw in the show were robots.

- Knock Out was considered for the show, but every Transformer under the sun was discussed at some point in the writer’s room. (Ex: “Rumble and Frenzy are always considered in my heart, but there wasn’t enough time or space or assets to do so”).

- “The brand team had grown up on the toys as we had grown up on the ‘toons, so we just wanted to make the best thing imaginable.”

- They decided Optimus would be in the Other Universe’s Matrix and have a plinth because they wanted to show he was dead. “Logical backflips because he needed to be among the 13 to talk to Windblade.”

- Dead End’s eyes are white.

- The team wanted Jazz to be a lady (!!!!!!!)

- These characters have their own lives that we don’t see. Lots of stuff happening between episodes that we don’t always necessarily see.

- Developing Sky-Byte’s character was simultaneous with Jetfire’s character. “We knew we wanted Sky-Byte to be a poet, and we wanted him and Megatron to be chummy”.

- Percy did permanently take over Mac’s bar.

- Her favorite VA is Jeremy Levy, he’s a really cool guy.

- She thinks Starscream and Cheetor could become (not necessarily friends, but connected?) because of their connection to the All Spark. Mentions how Starscream acknowledge Cheetor as the “Guardian of the Allspark”.

- Mae Catt describes Starscream as an “Awful gremlin” several times.

- Astrotrain and the Insecticons are from Megatron X’s universe.

- She thinks Cliffjumper and Bee wouldn’t get along, solely because of the IDW2 comic stuff. (They had a cut joke about someone telling Bee he should paint himself red and Bee saying, “But then everyone will think I’m Cliffjumper!”).

- Cyberverse got 26 episodes for season 3 because they had the 4-part episode movies.

- Megatron cares about his troops, but not in a way that we would notice that care.

- AcidStorm is genderfluid.

- Cold Construction doesn’t exist in this show. When asked why all the Seekers look the same then, Mae Catt says “Maybe there’s one jet mode all the seekers really like”.

- She loves the idea of Wild Wheel robbing Astrotrain in train-mode, totally Wild West-style.

- One of the things she’s proudest of was turning Lugnut into a gal (and having so much body diversity and gender-neutral designs for a lot of characters). They wanted to include many more girls in Cyberverse (Nickel and Lightbright among them). She also mentioned that Shadow Striker is taller than Optimus or is his height.

- She describes Cosmos as “R2D2, but a Transformer!”

- Maccadam looking like a buff Rung was just a strange coincidence.

- Blurr really was the fastest.

- Mae Catt says we absolutely SHOULD write fanfic. Fanfiction made her into the writer she is today. She wrote non-stop Matrix fanfic from the age of 12-20 years old. It helped her learn a lot about writing.

- She uses “They” pronouns for Rack ‘n Ruin when referring to both of them, but says that individually they both use “he”.

- She’s really sad that Skywarp didn’t get a speaking line.

- Mae Catt won’t say whether Ratchet finished medical school or not. (She laughed when someone commented "I don’t believe that man has ever been to medical school”). She also says she wants “I choose to believe Ratchet has never been to medical school” on a T-shirt.

- When asked why Rack ‘n Ruin were captains of the Ark in one universe, she says they’re probably the Prime in that one weird universe (lmao).

- She loves the idea that Transformers have siblings / families.

- In a world where they had an unlimited budget, it’d be fun if Cybertronians were constantly shape-shifting and changing their forms. Example: she’d like having Transformers who “grew a beard” and decided to “shave it”.

- She doesn’t understand cycles or astrocycles, she doesn’t understand the weird Transformers time stuff. (mood)

- She loved Beast Wars Inferno, she loved that Inferno called Megatron a Queen. It was played as a joke because the 90s weren’t very socially conscious, but she liked that Megatron never corrected him or beat him down.

- Shockwave altered his spark to have maximum bad vibes to destroy the All Spark.

- She said it’s hard talking about writing a show because you’re designing the experience and you have to make sometimes what sounds like cold and pragmatic decisions (eg: "we need a cold and spunky female”) which sucks, but they need to balance out the show. She says she’d never do that just for the sake of doing it, but it’s part of something that they do need to be aware of while working on a show. “It starts from a weirdly cold pragmatic place, but we try and put truth in it”.

- They didn’t want to have Unicron in the show since he’s the default “big bad”, but if he was in the show, Mae Catt says “If you put the proverbial budget-gun to my head, I’d keep Unicron in planet-mode because it’s more mysterious, but I want both alt modes”.

- Her favorite Megatron is Beast Wars Megatron.

- She doesn’t like Sky Lnxy’s design, it’s creepy. “He talks in the G1 episodes and the voice makes it worse.” She can’t get over his face.

- “I’d love to see more jets [who aren’t our usual gang] and find out all jets are kinda snobby, which explains why Starscream’s the way he is”.

- Everyone on the Autobot side are friends with each other.

Thanks for your time Mae Catt! We’re lucky to have you. Thank you for all your hard work on this amazing show.

#Megaop #Megop #Deadceptor #Cyberverse #mae catt #Primordial Robot hell #Transformers #I'm watching Cyberverse #i talk #Cyberverse spoiler /#Legitimately half these questions were ones I asked thank you Mae Catt for being so sweet #We're so lucky to have you #I loved that moment in the stream where everyone spammed the Lesbian / Bi flag #that was so cute!#(I was DecepticonGroupie)

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nellie-elizabeth · 5 years ago

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Queliot Fic Recs - Master Post (March 11, 2020)

Hi everyone! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but now that we’re staring down the barrel of the show’s official ending, I thought I’d finally take the time to post a master fic rec list!

A couple of notes:

This is by no means comprehensive; I’m sure I’m forgetting several lovely fics, and will be updating this list as I remember/find more.

This list will not include WIPs (the only exception being where I rec a completed story that is part of a series, and mention that sequel(s) are still in progress). I will add the WIPs I’m reading once they are complete!

I am open to suggestions from others, so please reblog and add your own recommendations! I would love to add to this and make it a one-stop-shop resource for people looking for something new to read.

When I know the tumblr handle of the author, I have included it. But in several cases I don’t know the author’s tumblr, if they have one - if you have this information to fill in, please let me know and I will update the master post. (Also, if you notice any broken links or mistakes - I did my best, but this thing is hefty and I’m sure there are errors!)

This took me… forever to put together, so if you find it useful, please reblog - and more importantly, please leave comments & kudos on the stories you read!

Link to the Google Doc, if that’s easier for you to read.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sIUMZcIcpnZ1_9T3o7dkqUaqEw0miwNTfTuZjvjGto4/edit?usp=sharing

Hefty rec list under the cut.

Season Three Gapfillers/Deviations from Canon

These stories usually deal with the aftermath of the mosaic in some way. Many of them were written before the revelations of 4x05, but some were written later, and either comply with canon, or deviate from it from that point.

shipping it by Mizzy (@mizzy2k). Mature. 16,344 words. The Muntjac “ships” Queliot and is trying to help them along. What else can I say? There’s angst, there’s love, it’s silly and it’s sincere.

Sense Memories by mtothedestiel (@summersteve). Explicit. 2,616 words. This is an ABO fic, which is not something I would typically read. But I love this author so much that I decided to give it a try. The thing I like about it is the idea of the mosaic timeline leaving a tangible, physical impact on Quentin and Eliot, and how they might deal with the fallout in this more extreme scenario. If ABO isn’t for you, though, proceed with caution.

throw your shadow over me by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 8,187 words. Okay I’m going to recommend basically everything peacefrog has written, but this one is probably my favorite. It’s a super angst-y sex scene between Quentin and Eliot during season three, where Eliot believes this is his last chance to be with Quentin, and is basically dreading the emotional fallout even while it’s happening.

i start spinning (slipping out of time) by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Teen. 2,570 words. Before Eliot goes to Margo to discuss the god-killing bullet, he and Quentin have a conversation about Quentin’s choice to stay at Blackspire. Features a heartbreaking memory of their life together at the mosaic, and just generally gorgeous canon-compliant angst.

Promises by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Explicit. 7,751 words. Eliot and Quentin have it out about Quentin’s decision to stay in Blackspire, and hash out their feelings for each other. This one is canon-divergent (and is probably the one-shot I am the most proud of!)

Overthinking It by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Teen. 3,581 words. Eliot finds out about the abyss key, and it prompts a discussion about Quentin and Eliot’s relationship.

Honey You’re On Fire, Let Me Help by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 5,857 words. Quentin accidentally picks up the abyss key… Eliot finds him and does what he can to distract him. This is hot, of course, but also so desperately full of feeling and love. As the summary implies, there is a good deal of depression and talk of suicide in this story, so take care.

Can’t Let Go by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 5,384 words. UGH. This is what SHOULD have happened after Eliot and Quentin remember the mosaic time-line. This is so satisfying and gave me some catharsis in the aftermath of the direction the story has taken in canon.

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Post-Season Four Fix-Its

These stories maintain the canon of season four, and continue on from there. They generally involve bringing Quentin back from the dead.

What Matter Where by achray. Explicit. 28,782 words. Eliot becomes Prince Consort of the Underworld. He gets to be with Q when he’s back home, though. This is almost tough to read, because my brain doesn’t want to accept any half-happy endings, any reality where Eliot can’t spend all of his time by Quentin’s side. But on the other hand… Eliot has to make a big, big sacrifice to bring Quentin back, and you definitely feel the gravitas of that.

life ain’t fair (so i guess we’d better cheat) by micksgotkicks (@lovelyquentin). Teen. 1,137 words. This is more of a pre-fix-it. Eliot rages against the heavens for taking Quentin from him, and resolves to get him back. Short and painful. Cathartic.

Being Alive by miss_whimsy (@bambiesque). Gen. 7,022 words. Eliot sends the letter to Quentin with the magical stamp. And when that doesn’t work, he sends a bunch more. This is one of the very few fics on this list that has any connection to season five canon, which I’m not watching. I did watch 5x03, however, and this fic is borne out of Eliot Waugh never giving up - the way we all know it should have gone.

What kind of man (loves like this)? by destielpasta (@queliotpasta). Explicit. 3,160 words. Eliot and Quentin go out dancing. This fic has a certain quality about it that’s difficult to describe - I could just really feel their love for each other jump off the page, specifically in how badly they clearly want to care for each other. This fic also straddles the line between categories - the author describes it as a “fix-it” and it does deal with Quentin’s resurrection in a more immediate way, but the subject matter itself is much more about the aftermath, rather than the actual “bringing Q back from the dead” part.

You’re a Story (I Can Follow) by Page161of180. Mature. 19,695 words. I think everyone’s read this, but how could I not include it? This technically isn’t a fix-it, because it was written before the season four finale confirmed the theory of Quentin’s death. This author, like the collective fandom, assumed that death would be temporary… and thus, this is the story of Eliot being the Orpheus to Quentin’s Eurydice. It is stunning - a gold standard in writing intense grief with a happy ending. Eliot is undone by Quentin’s death here, and has to fight through obstacle after obstacle to get him back - the biggest one being, his own lack of self-worth. There’s also a somewhat-connected sequel/prequel called And Remember What You Were Before (Not Rated, 6,998 words), which is completely worth the read.

(like a perfect picture) in a broken frame by PanBoleyn (@eidetictelekinetic). Not Rated. 20,631 words. Another resurrection/fix-it fic… Really great group dynamics as everyone works on bringing Quentin back, but also a focus on Eliot’s despair. Kind of your standard fix-it, exactly what the characters should have tried to do, in a world where canon hadn’t betrayed us so badly.

life fades (but you remain) by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 62,735. Stunning. STUNNING. Eliot finds a way to get Quentin back, but it comes at a cost. The two of them have to work it out. This features some incredibly good angst with a happy ending, scorching sex, a really intriguing OC in an early chapter, and some nice screen-time for the lovely Alice Quinn, to boot.

as it was by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Mature. 3,913 words. Short and sweet - Penny-40 leads Quentin to where he needs to go, and that’s back home to Eliot.

In the Woods Somewhere by pineapplecrushface (@pineapplecrushface). Explicit. 15,528 words. This is the most creative take on a fix-it I’ve seen! The summary outlines the premise best: “Alice being unable to wipe younger Quentin's memory during the timeshare spell had a ripple effect.” Eliot is so desperate for Quentin in this one, and Quentin, from the afterlife, is having to work out how he feels and where he wants to be.

In Which We Grieve by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Teen. 3,413 words. I hesitate to call this a “fix-it” really, since Quentin doesn’t come back to life. But despite that, he and Eliot make it work. This is sad, but cathartic too.

(this is not a) Temporary Love by rizcriz (@sadlittlenerdking). Teen. 20,684 words. A fix-it that includes some intense mosaic feels too, as Margo and Eliot read over some letters/notes written during the mosaic timeline. I also like this one for how the rest of the gang finally notices how sick and worn-down Quentin is, and forces Q and Eliot to take a mental health vacation once Quentin is back in the land of the living!

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Post-Season Four/Post-Possession - Not Fix-Its

These stories take place after the events of season four, or, in some cases, after an imagined ending of season four (written before the series finale aired), ignoring season five canon. They are not fix-its in the sense that either a) they ignore Quentin’s death in canon and proceed like it never happened, or b) Quentin’s resurrection happened “off-screen” and is not the focus of the story. These fics often deal with the aftermath, both physical and psychological, of Eliot’s possession. They also usually deal with Quentin and Eliot’s reconciliation after the events of seasons three and four, and sometimes continue through their time as an established couple.

your body (your heart) in his hands by Allegria23 (@allegria23). Explicit. 18,636 words. This fic follows Eliot and Quentin into their future. I’m recommending it specifically for the way it deals with Quentin’s discipline - I’ve never seen a fic tackle the subject in quite this way, and with so much care and gentleness. If you are not a fan of kid!fic, don’t be put off by the premise - Eliot and Quentin are great fathers with amazing kids in this future universe, but the focus really does remain on their romance. This story is part of a series called second time around which is all worth a read, especially the latest part, entitled The Special Dish. The whole series really embodies the romance of effort, and how putting in the time to nurture and grow a relationship is what makes it work.

Be still my foolish heart (i’m almost me again) by Butterfly (@butterflydm). Explicit. 3,754 words. A birthday fic for Quentin - he’s a little overwhelmed by the party held in his honor. He sneaks off to be alone, Eliot follows him, and Q tells Eliot about his discipline.

Living Room, NY by cartographies (@honeybabydichotomy). Teen. 11,254 words. Eliot goes to therapy. I’m recc’ing this specifically for Eliot’s rambling confession of love to Quentin in chapter two. The whole thing is lovely, but that part really knocked me the fuck out.

Imagine being loved by me. by destielpasta (@queliotpasta). Explicit. 11,225 words. Holy moly. This is a top-tier fave for me. It’s about sex, it’s about love, it’s about working through a relationship after trauma. Eliot is touch-starved but can’t be touched - so Quentin and Eliot must get creative.

Yes and Yes and Maybe Yes by hetrez (@hetrez). Mature. 5,542 words. The author describes this as “consent porn, with feelings,” and that’s a pretty good descriptor. Quentin has PTSD because of the Monster, and Eliot’s touch can be triggering for him. They work together to get through it. This is hot, yes, but it’s hot specifically because of how badly Eliot wants to take care of Quentin and make him feel safe.

The Dreamers by hetrez (@hetrez). Teen. 10,143 words. Post-possession, Quentin and Eliot are together but things aren’t smooth sailing. The scene from this story that always sticks in my head is Quentin asking Eliot if he wants to have a family again, like they did before with Arielle and Teddy - and Eliot’s horrifically wrong-footed response: “You’ll get a wife again and we’ll have another baby.” As might be predicted, Quentin doesn’t take that very well… and this story is at least partially working out where they stand, what they both want.

The Drum Beats Out of Time by HMGFanfic (@hmgfanfic). Mature. 68,605 words. This series features two stories: Suitcase of Memories and I Fall Behind. Both are amazing, but I Fall Behind in particular is one of my top-tier favorite fics in the whole fandom. This fic does not pull its punches in terms of the effects of Eliot’s possession, and it makes things really rough for Quentin and Eliot’s relationship. Quentin does a reckless thing, Eliot panics, they hash it out - but it’s not easy, and it’s not so clear-cut. These fics also features glimpses of their life together at the mosaic, and a lovely epilogue that shows how they’ve made progress and are still healing as a couple.

the right time and place by impossibletruths (@impossibletruths). Teen. 3,675 words. Eliot trying to propose to Quentin. It’s sweet and fluffy and good for the soul.

hearts like houses by impossibletruths (@impossibletruths). Explicit. 11,888 words. Quentin and Eliot celebrate Eliot’s birthday, post-possession. They get away for a trip, to try and put their worries behind them. This story is full of so much intimacy and gentleness that it just melts my whole heart.

five times my writing was better than the magicians by micksgotkicks (@lovelyquentin). Teen. 6,019 words. These are just… soft. It’s five different short fics, all with slight variations on the simple concept of Quentin and Eliot reuniting post-possession. There’s no intensive deep-dive, nothing too grim or challenging. It’s just the two of them finding their way to each other again and again. Very healing to read, in light of canon’s (inferior) version of reality.

struck from a great height by mtothedestiel (@summersteve). Explicit. 4,517 words. “Life affirming sex” is the most telling tag on this thing. Post-possession, Eliot and Quentin find their way into each other’s arms. Really hot sex, lots of feelings… everything we deserved at the end of the Monster story-line.

And So Lift Your Spirits by OrchardsinSnow (@orchardsinsnow). Explicit. 3,437 words. This was one of the first fics I remember reading in the aftermath of my desperate post-season four feelings, and it hit the spot in the best way. Eliot’s POV - he loves Quentin, but has doubts that he’s actually deserving of something so wonderful, that Quentin could really reciprocate and want to stay. Quentin finds an insanely hot, insanely romantic way to reassure him.

Ten Twenty-Eight by Page161of180. Not Rated. 5,974 words. This is slice-of-life about Quentin Coldwater and how he’s spent Eliot’s birthday, October 28, over the years. It’s told through notes from the Library branch of the Underworld, with added comments from Alice and Penny. It’s weird, but rewarding. I love the record-keeping aspect. This author has a real gift for outsider POV, and this is one of my favorites!

Nights and Mornings by Page161of180. Mature. 6,734 words. Two connected stories, in the aftermath of possession. Quentin doesn’t die, but he does still get back together with Alice, a la 4x12. These stories deal with Eliot’s thoughts on that, and… spoiler… Quentin/Alice is just not meant to be. Quentin makes a different choice.

The Honor of Your Presence by Page161of180. Mature. 18,117 words. Quentin and Eliot get married, and we hear the story from three different POVs… Todd, Rafe, and Marina 23. Random? Yes. Brilliant? Also yes. I love how each POV has a different and distinct literary style. And how even the people who aren’t closest to Quentin and Eliot can see how insanely in love they are with each other.

The Wanting Then, the Needing Now by Page161of180. Not rated. 3,799 words. Alice’s POV, as Eliot is saved from possession, and Quentin falls apart. Basically, Alice realizes where Quentin really belongs. I love the way this author does justice to Quentin’s love for Alice - it’s not a footnote, it’s not an insignificant blip. It’s real, and that doesn’t invalidate the fact that Quentin chooses Eliot. This has a much longer sequel which is also very good - but that story is more Alice-centric and not really focused on Queliot as much, even though they definitely play a part.

Lay Me Down (Pockets Full of Stones) by PanBoleyn (@eidetictelekinetic). Not Rated. 10,024 words. Post-possession, Eliot realizes how badly Quentin has been dealing with things. He’s angry at their friends for not keeping a better eye out - but all that matters right now is finding Quentin and making sure he’s alright. I love this story for how messy their reunion is - how all of their feelings just come spilling out of them without finesse.

(one kiss) it all comes down to this by PanBoleyn (@eidetictelekinetic). Not Rated. 6,391 words. True Love’s Kiss… the boys need to talk about their feelings, and a curse forces the issue. This is so entirely my jam.

box of chocolates by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Mature. 9,256 words. This short series begins with the Teen-rated for love (if it finds you worthy) and features Eliot asking Quentin to be his valentine. Because Quentin and Eliot are… Quentin and Eliot, it still takes them a little while to get their shit together, after that.

when lips and skin remember by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 6,163 words. This is for the monthly prompt challenge - “blindfolds” and features Quentin helping Eliot through some sensory issues, post-Monster possession.

an end (but the start of all things that are left to do) by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 2,388 words. Birthday smut! Q is alive and gets a blowjob, as the universe requires.

the one with the dog by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 80,517 words. If you haven’t already read this series, what are you waiting for?? It is IDEAL for soothing the soul. Eliot and Quentin deal with the aftermath of their trauma, both physical and mental. They hang out at the condo in New York, they take care of an adorable dog named Lady Desdemona, they have lots of hot sex of course. They heal. Every single one of the twelve stories in this series is worth reading, but my favorites are probably (this is) the beat of my heart (Explicit, 11,700 words), Five Card Draw (Explicit, 3,531 words), all the way home I’ll be warm (Explicit, 15,640 words), and Come What May (Teen, 3,352 words).

5 Scenes from a Road Trip by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 16,218 words. In the aftermath of season four (sans Quentin’s death), the boys need a change of scenery to begin healing and finding their way back to one another. I love how this fic shows their closeness, and how the boundaries of their relationship often defy description. They love each other beyond sex, beyond conventional romance - although they achieve those things, too, as they definitely deserve.

did you know my baby loves me? by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 7,776 words. Quentin tops Eliot on his birthday. What it says on the tin. But as always with this author, even something that should be ostensibly a PWP is filled with so much feeling and love that you could just drown in it.

To Learn to Be Again by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 18,295 words. “I don’t think- I can’t be anyone’s boyfriend right now, Eliot.” Eliot loves Quentin, Quentin loves Eliot, but that’s not always enough to give them a happily ever after. Quentin goes to therapy, deals with his trauma and his mental health, and Eliot is right there beside him with no expectations. This is so, so lovely and every ounce of their happiness feels earned and all the more precious for the pain that’s mixed up with it.

do not go gentle by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 10,260 words. This is almost a fix-it, in that Quentin imagines the events of 4x13, but they don’t actually happen. So be warned if any depiction of Quentin’s death is a trigger for you. I love the way this story deals with the Alice of it all, and also the way Quentin and Eliot talk through their situation and find a way back to each other once again. (Also shower sex happens). This author has written multiple versions of this same reconciliation, but each one is so lovely and I’ll never get sick of it.

the strange act of living by propinquitous (@propinquitous). Explicit. 13,632 words. So there are a lot of fics out there that deal with the aftermath of Eliot’s possession of course. A lot of fics that feature Eliot and Quentin slowly, painfully, finding a way to reconcile. This one holds a special place in my heart for this particular moment, where Quentin walks past Eliot without saying anything, grabs a muffin from the counter, and leaves the room. Later, Q finds Eliot crying in the shower, and Eliot asks him why he just left, taking the food Eliot had made for him, and then ignoring him. That one moment has stuck with me ever since I read the fic, and I keep coming back to it. In all, this captures a very specific kind of hurt that both Quentin and Eliot are feeling, and gets them on the path to healing. Gorgeous.

the safety of others by propinquitous (@propinquitous). Teen. 8,122 words. Quentin doesn’t die in 4x13, but he does get injured. And Eliot keeps vigil. This is - so powerful. I don’t even know how to describe it. Just read it, please.

Magic Curses by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Explicit. 134,886 words. This series includes six stories, each dealing with Quentin and Eliot’s relationship as they undergo external threats from creative and somewhat evil magical curses. It’s my attempt to write in some more hurt/comfort to the fandom, and also to indulge in some established-relationship goodness! The first story, Lover’s Touch (Explicit, 24,781 words), is summarized thusly: “Q gets cursed, and Alice can’t help. Magic forces Q and Eliot to cuddle and talk about their feelings.”

Coming Home by rizcriz (@sadlittlenerdking). Not Rated. 2,958 words. Short and sweet. The author succinctly describes this as: “Eliot gets to be brave.” And he does. He says the thing he wants to say to Quentin, and Q eventually believes him.

Enough by SabbyStarlight. Teen. 2,746 words. This was written just before 4x13 came out. If only if only this is how it had gone instead… basically just Quentin and Eliot talking about their feelings, negotiating their relationship.

Boyfriend by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Teen. 6,727 words. Quentin is sensitive about the fact that Eliot isn’t introducing him as his boyfriend. This is just… the sweetest. I love that there’s some jealousy and insecurity, but it’s a manageable, reasonable type - Eliot and Quentin are able to talk about it and get past this small bump in the road.

Hunger by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 4,327 words. Quentin gets a birthday blowjob. The end. :)

~~~~~

Mosaic Timeline

These stories are ones that take place almost or entirely within the mosaic timeline - both in keeping with, and in deviation from, what we see in 3x05.

help me hold onto you by ameliajessica (@ameliajessica). Explicit. 14,768 words. This one will hurt your heart, but it’s so rewarding. Featuring Eliot being ridiculously turned on by talking about feelings during sex… and Quentin loving Eliot while grieving for Arielle.

‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be by destielpasta (@queliotpasta). Teen. 645 words. Tiny fic - maybe the shortest one on the list. Quentin and Eliot are bad at talking about their feelings. Who’s surprised?

flowing all this time by mtothedestiel (@summersteve). Explicit. 5,488 words. This is one of those fics where Arielle isn’t an obstacle for the boys… but rather, Eliot is an obstacle for Quentin and Arielle, in a way. It has some bittersweet moments, but I love how much Eliot loves Quentin here. This is also (spoiler) the rare fic where Arielle chooses to leave, rather than dying.

a cure i know (that soothes the soul) by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 4,857 words. Little snippets of Quentin and Eliot’s life through the years at the mosaic. Recc’ing especially for middle-aged Queliot, which we see all too little of in this fandom!

measure in love by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 51,827 words. This is a series about Quentin, Eliot, and Arielle’s lives together at the mosaic. I don’t know if the author plans to write more in this series or not, but each one can stand alone. I am particularly enamored with The Ways We Fit Together (Explicit, 11,661 words), which is summarized succinctly as “sex and love in the mosaic timeline”, and You Steer My Heart (Explicit, 25,217 words), which follows Eliot’s mindset as he watches Quentin and Arielle fall in love with each other, while Quentin and Eliot continue to love each other as well. It’s stunning, and probably my favorite take on the three of them and their polyamorous relationship. This series has everything - the best combination of smut and feelings you could hope for.

Running All This Time by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Explicit. 179,478 words.The story of the mosaic timeline, built on the foundation of love and communication. To my knowledge, the only completed mosaic long-fic in the fandom thus far! Includes Fillorian nonsense, a quest within a quest, plenty of sex, lots of hurt/comfort, a different take on Arielle, and happy endings for everyone.

Reciprocal by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Teen. 8,259. Eliot is an idiot about his feelings (what else is new?), and he tries to make things better in the worst possible way. This fic imagines a world where Eliot and Quentin find happiness together without Arielle as a part of their romantic/sexual lives.

my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 9,586 words. This is the porn-iest version of “Quentin and Eliot don’t know how to talk about their feelings.” Basically, the boys keep jerking off next to each other in bed, and they don’t talk about it because they’re IDIOTS.

you know that’s my love (bursting loud from inside) by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 11,904 words. Another fic where Arielle decides to leave. Eliot is so good at taking care of his family.

tomorrow past tonight by vegansheilseitan. Explicit. 7,676 words. Okay - if you’re only going to read one gap-filler for 3x05, that’s basically just the missing sex scene and nothing else, make it this one. It’s hot, and it’s aching with everything Quentin and Eliot aren’t saying to each other. This is one of my absolute favorites.

~~~~~

Brakebills Alternate Universe / Season One

These stories are generally, but not always, pure relationship fics where the plot concerns of canon (i.e. the Beast, and time loops) do not exist, and instead Quentin and Eliot get to be magical grad students together, and fall in love.

Every Blessed Thing by achray. Explicit. 7,795 words. Quentin turns himself invisible. This fic is complex in how Alice and Quentin’s relationship is portrayed, and the resolution isn’t clear-cut. I really like this characterization of both Quentin and Eliot.

saturate the atmosphere (wake me from a dream) by Allegria23 (@allegria23). Explicit. 7,394 words. This is some good ol’ sexy times with a healthy dash of feelings. Eliot involuntarily levitates them while Quentin’s giving him a blowjob, so… that’s honestly all you need to know about this one. Go give it a read.

i feel it in my body, know it in my mind by ameliajessica (@ameliajessica). Mature. 11,817 words. Let’s pretend that this is what happened in 1x03, okay? Kady doesn’t interrupt when Eliot pours Q a drink, and sex ensues. I love how flabbergasted Eliot is by everything that happens - especially his reaction to the news that Quentin isn’t straight, and isn’t going to be squeamish at the thought of sleeping with a man. So hot, so cute.

if being him is who you are / say it loud say you know you are by ameliajessica (@ameliajessica). Mature. 5,293 words. Okay, holy shit. Mike’s POV - he decides that he and Eliot should have a threesome with Quentin, so Eliot can get it out of his system. Uh. Yeah, that backfires. Poor Mike. But also - the sex in this is the epitome of tenderness and love. Eliot is so careful with Quentin, so awed and desperate and shaky at the chance to be with him. There is a sequel in the works, too, so watch out for that!

Hedonism for Beginners by ceeainthereforthat (@ceeainthereforthat). Explicit. 20,730 words. A series of filthy sex, basically. Eliot is teaching Quentin about what he likes in bed. I don’t know if the series is abandoned or not, but in any case, each of these works on its own as a PWP but with a deep undercurrent of feelings.

Something Good by HMGFanfic (@hmgfanfic). Teen. 162,260 words. The Gold Standard slow-burn rom-com AU! Seriously, I know everyone’s read this, but if you haven’t for some reason… please do. The slow-burn is so slow you’ll be tearing your hair out by the end, but it’s all worth it when you get to the catharsis. How oblivious can Quentin be about Eliot’s feelings? This fic asks and answers that question, and the answer is - very. There are also two fics that accompany the main story: Someone Good (Eliot’s POV of the main story) and Somewhere Good (future one-shots of Quentin and Eliot’s life together). Both are on hiatus but the author plans to return to them. You can read the existing chapter of each without feeling like anything is unfinished, though.

Not Always Folly by HMGFanfic (@hmgfanfic). Explicit. 262,583 words. Another amazing romantic… comedy? but this one is from Eliot’s POV and is in some ways more a character study of Eliot Waugh than it is simply a romance. Although the romance… you guys… the pining levels are off the charts. Eliot ends up hurting Quentin, and really everyone else he cares about, in this story, but he puts in the work to make it right. I admire this fic for diving deep into Eliot’s psyche while also delivering on an amazing slow-burn of a different sort. Bonus points for Alice and Eliot getting to be friends like they deserve!

Be kind by longnationalnightmare. Explicit. 10,069 words. It’s the highest kudo’d fic in the fandom! I assume that means you’ve all read it? This is a PWP, but I love it specifically for how much Eliot loses his usual control when he’s with Quentin.

to be unbroken or be brave again. by milominderbinder (@disasterbiquentin). Teen. 14,135 words. Hey, it’s a 10 Things I Hate About You AU! Kind of! Josh asks Quentin to pretend to date Eliot to cheer him up after a breakup, so that Margo will go out with Josh. But Q tells Eliot what’s up right away - so they’re fake dating but real feelings happen. Super cheesy, of course, but it hits the spot!

in the world full wrong (you’re the thing that’s right) by Mizzy (@Mizzy2k). Explicit. 5,307 words. Eliot tries to hook up with Quentin Coldwater and gets more than he bargained for. I love this for how matter-of-fact Quentin is, about the fact that Eliot wants to seduce him… and then hpw he ends up doing some seducing of his own.

If You Haven’t Yet by OrchardsinSnow (@orchardsinsnow). Explicit. 5,828 words. Obviously we all love confident Eliot Waugh totally rocking Quentin’s world… but I have a soft spot for oddly confident Quentin who really knows what he’s doing, and this fic has the perfect blend of both dynamics. The best part is Quentin slowly and methodically undressing Eliot and not letting him help. It’s… whew. *fans self*

the heat that drives the light by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 9,296 words. Quentin and Eliot have an antagonistic relationship, until Eliot realizes Quentin might be what he’s looking for in a sexual partner. Sub Eliot, new-to-being-a-Dom Quentin. Super hot.

it started out with a kiss (how did it end up like this) by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 7,896 words. In the aftermath of a bad breakup, Quentin and Eliot find their way to each other. This is super amazing all on its own, but the author is also working on a sequel that I’m really enjoying thus far. Either story could probably be read without the other, too.

the bridge between us by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 16,201 words. Dom Eliot, Sub Quentin. Quentin and Eliot navigate their BDSM sex life, but also their feelings. Eliot is so tender and soft with Q, and Q learns to take care of Eliot in return. This is one of my absolute favorites from this author. Also, as a note, there’s a “prequel” to this fic called paint it red (Explicit, 7,197 words) that could totally be read as a separate piece, but is worth checking out as the origin story of how these two got together and started shaping their dynamics, sexual and otherwise.

(Everyone Has) That Drawer by ProofOfConcept and wilddragonflying. Explicit. 5,782 words. Eliot finds Quentin’s stash of sex toys. It’s enough to get him to finally act on their mutual, unspoken attraction. Hot!

Wake Me Up by rizcriz (@sadlittlenerdking). Not Rated. 4,000 words. Quentin has sleep apnea, but Eliot doesn’t know that… and he gets a little - alarmed. This is objectively an odd premise, but it’s incredibly sweet. rizcriz has about a million stories and I’ve read a lot of them, but I’m a fan of the ones like this, that take a specific concept and run with it, sort of like slice-of-life. Check out more of their work, though, I can’t possibly put them all on the list!

Migraine Mastery by SabbyStarlight. Not rated. 2,012 words. Short and sweet - Quentin has a migraine and Eliot helps.

Between Friends by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 15,019 words. This is the quintessential (Quentin-sential?) Brakebills get-together fic. It’s a party, Quentin and Eliot end up going to bed together… both of them are a little uncertain about what this means, but they work it out. Recc’ing for the hot sex, but even more for the “wake up in the middle of the night to have a tender round two without talking about what it means” sex.

Sex Magic by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 42,006 words. Uhh… what it says on the tin. Every one of these is scorching, but my favorite is probably the first one: How Easy You Are To Need.

All Of You A Verb In Perfect View by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 6,398 words. PWP where Eliot distracts Quentin while he tries to do his homework.

You Can Devastate Me by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 9,018 words. Marqueliot sex scene - Quentin and Eliot are a couple, but Margo is running the show. Just… hot, but of course Eliot’s love for Quentin still permeates the whole piece. So much tenderness, with so much filth.

~~~~~

Alternate Universe (No Magic)

So many of these seem so completely random in premise, but they’re all amazing!

Our Sublime Refrain by destielpasta (@queliotpasta) and mtothedestiel (@summersteve). Explicit. 233,929 words. It’s 1836, Eliot is a pianist. This one is Marqueliot, y’all, and let me tell you - it is a journey. If you are somewhat put off by the idea of an AU so far removed from canon, about a topic you know very little about… please give this a try. I was a little hesitant too, but I promise it will not disappoint.

Pretty Good Year by Hth (@spiders-hth-is-an-outlier). Explicit. 175,728 words. I’m not going to lie - this is a difficult fic for me. It’s stunning, but getting through it was an incredibly emotional, challenging journey. While many fics in this fandom deal with Quentin’s mental illness, I’ve never seen a fic talk about it quite like this one. That’s not to put you off from trying it if you haven’t already - this is one of the most achingly real stories I’ve ever read, and it will reward you for giving it a chance.

opening doors by impossibletruths (@impossibletruths). Mature. 52,230 words. Quentin is a playwright! Eliot is an associate director who used to act! This is a slow-ish burn, and the worldbuilding of the characters in a theatrical setting is so fun!

couch party verse by marcel. Mature. 33,725 words. These two stories feature Quentin, Eliot, and the rest of the gang at a non-magical grad school. The thing I love about these stories is how slow and realistic the escalation of the relationship feels. It’s not a hot hookup right away - they clearly like each other, but circumstances sometimes get in the way, and there’s also no big rush to the finish line. This is a softer, gentler universe that still has its own realism and trauma, too. I hope the author chooses to add to it someday!

Saltwater by mtothedestiel (@summersteve). Explicit. 35,560 words. It’s a pirate AU! What more could you possibly need to know? I love how all of the characters and locations are cleverly repurposed here - the Whitespire and Our Lady Underground are ships, Quentin is a ship’s doctor, Eliot is a captain, etc. And the slowburn between Quentin and Eliot is masterful. This is actually a series - part one is complete, and part two is in progress.

A (Gingerbread) House that we can Build by mtothedestiel (@summersteve), with art by eliotsvests (surprisegents). Explicit. 28,189 words. I am not a cheesy Christmas movie person, and I am not a kid!fic person. So I thought this might not be the story for me, at first. But I’m so glad I clicked on it - this is a story about second chances, and finding happiness when you aren’t even looking for it. And I love the way little Teddy is written here. He’s got all the sweetness of Quentin Coldwater’s son, without tilting over into being saccharine. This is just the right amount of sweet if you want to put yourself back in the holiday spirit.

I’ll Follow My Secret Heart by OrchardsinSnow (@orchardsinsnow). Mature. 17,613 words. I don’t really know how to describe this one… it’s weird! It’s a meet cute, Eliot gets in an accident, there’s a blizzard, bed (floor) sharing so as to prevent freezing to death, Eliot is kinda famous and Quentin doesn’t know. All I can say is, this is precious, and odd, and I got totally swept up in the world.

I Need You So Much Closer by OrchardsinSnow (@orchardsinsnow). Explicit. 14,436 words. I love this story. Eliot is a musician, he and Quentin are exes from years ago, who fell apart because of Eliot’s alcoholism. But he’s sober now, and he’s touring where Quentin lives - so they reconnect. Eliot calls Quentin the “smoke show love of [his] life” at one point in this fic, and that phrase just… stuck with me in the best way. Don’t miss the mini-sequel, You Need Me So Much Closer (Explicit, 3,874 words), either. I really hope the author writes more in this universe!

Experimentation by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 4,812 words. PWP where Eliot meets Quentin at a sex shop and Eliot teaches him what he’s into. Hot hot hot.

(i just might) remember that night by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 4,732 words. This might be crack, I don’t know. There are dick pics, and it’s silly, but also Quentin and Eliot feel this amazing connection to each other right off the bat, and that is honestly my jam.

and if tomorrow it’s all over (at least we had it for a moment) by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Explicit. 45,461 words. Quentin and Eliot were a couple in high school, but they haven’t seen each other in years. They run into each other again at Julia’s wedding, and everything comes rushing back. I like the fact that this fic features very little (if any) angst. The idea is that these two people missed out on their chance to be together, but they haven’t been desperately pining for years. But once they’re back in a room together… their connection is undeniable. Also, the sex is great.

hold me like a (liar) lover does by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart) with art by Doomkitty25. Explicit. 80,812 words. A holiday fic! Fake dating! Mutual pining! So tropey and excellent. Really hot sex, as is the norm for this author! Warning for Alice being something of a villain in this piece, although there’s a potential reconciliation implied right at the end. I love this fic for going beyond just the romance, and also telling a story about Quentin and Eliot’s careers, and what they want out of their lives - in terms of romance, yes, but in terms of their work lives as well.

Ask Me, I Won’t Say No by vegansheilseitan. Explicit. 22,616 words. A… pub trivia AU? Which is a thing I didn’t know I needed? Mostly this is about widower!Quentin, with a kid, meeting Eliot Waugh. They fall in love. The sex in this is incendiary, but the growing relationship between these two is what really makes it worth the read.

~~~~~

Alternate Universe (With Magic)

These stories feature roughly the same worldbuilding as the show’s canon, but the character’s journeys deviate significantly. Maybe Quentin and Eliot don’t meet at Brakebills, or their journey to getting there is different in some other way!

fire and life by everytuesday. Teen. 7,060 words. This is a high school AU, where Eliot discovers his magic, and accidentally kills his father. Quentin helps him to bury the body. It’s a little bit dark, obviously, given that description… so take care.

First Year by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Mature. 11,957 words. Quentin is a Brakebills student, who also happens to be a sylph from Fillory. He has wings, and Eliot is more than a little intrigued. The author may have plans to write a sequel!

push me (further than i thought i could go) by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 15,036 words. Quentin and Eliot meet at a game of Push, and then have their own private contest later on. Mostly recommending this one for the sex, but also for Confident Quentin Coldwater, and for the fact that no matter the circumstances, these boys are gone for each other pretty much right away.

Hedges, Bitch by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 56,568 words. This series has four works, the longest “main” story of which, theón kai andrón, is another personal favorite of mine. It features Eliot as the leader of a coven of hedge witches, and Quentin as a magical novice who didn’t make it into Brakebills. I love the dynamic between Quentin and Eliot in these stories, as they fall naturally into a dom/sub relationship, but Eliot works to make sure the power differential between them doesn’t adversely affect things, either on the job, or in their personal lives. Eliot is just so soft for Quentin in these stories, while also admiring him and depending on him as the gang gets themselves caught up in a dangerous threat to hedges all over the world.

~~~~~

Fillory/Royalty

These stories are sometimes canon deviations, and usually deal with Eliot as the High King, and his relationship with Quentin from there.

oh this is us, this is love and this is where I sleep by buckybunnyteeth. Explicit. 4,360 words. Quentin is jealous of Idri! Eliot is way, way too delighted about it. Really hot. I probably shouldn’t be as charmed by jealous!Quentin as I am. But this is amazing.

Make a list of things you need by longnationalnightmare. Explicit. 10,264 words. Eliot and Quentin are getting married, but Eliot’s okay with keeping it platonic. Quentin… is not. Hot, hot, hot.

i’d be the last shred of truth (in the lost myth of true love) by milominderbinder (@disasterbiquentin), with art by gilestel. Eliot and Margo are made the High Kings of Fillory, and then later Eliot meets a cute Brakebills professor Quentin Coldwater, who is staying at Whitespire for research. There’s a truth curse! Eliot is set to marry Idri, but uh-oh, feelings happen! Tropey as hell, super cute.

and this is the map of my heart by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 14,033 words. Eliot is High King, and he is expected to marry. Quentin magnanimously offers himself for the position, and of course there’s angst about that. And scorching hot sex. And Eliot struggling to be emotionally vulnerable. One of my absolute favorites from the author.

whitespire by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 1,529 words. Eliot sits on his throne, Quentin drops to his knees and calls him “Your Majesty.” So… yeah. Yum.

~~~~~

Brian and Nigel

This is an area where more content needs to exist! Send me a note if there are some I’ve missed.

A Little Disguised, or a Little Mistaken by Page161of180. Mature. 17,807 words. Brian and Nigel find each other, and fall in love. This is gorgeous. Quentin and Eliot are recognizably themselves, but also just different enough that when their real selves start poking through the memory wipe, you can feel the change coming. Another story where canon comes along and steals happiness right out from under them. They were so close!

Shine Through My Memory by PanBoleyn (@eidetictelekinetic). Mature. 61,311 words. This one starts as a fic about Brian and Nigel meeting and falling in love… and then the Monster still possesses Nigel/Eliot, and the events of season four continue from there. But with memories of Brian and Nigel’s love in Quentin’s head, things play out a little differently. We follow the story all the way through to Eliot getting saved by Margo and Quentin, and the reconciliation/reunion afterwards. This fic has a little of everything, and it’s really the only re-telling of season four I’ve seen that covers the canon plot while adding something new and unique to the story!

Reaching in the Dark by sirfoxheart (@sirfoxheart). Mature. 53,040 words. Eliot remembers who he is, but Quentin thinks he’s Brian. Eliot and Alice work together to protect Quentin from the Monster. This is so complex and difficult and sad and challenging, and when you reach the end, you’ll feel so frustrated about how close they were to figuring their shit out. But ultimately, canon comes back to snatch that happy ending away.

~~~~~

Other

The few fics that I couldn’t categorize neatly into any of the above sections.

So It May As Well Be Me by achray. Explicit. 14,596 words. There was only one bed. Trapped in a closet. Sex pollen. Sex magic rituals. Every fanfic trope becomes manifest. Quentin seems oblivious; Eliot is freaking out. This is just the epitome of fun.

our place in the family of things by greywash, with art by yourtinseltinkerbell (@yourtinseltinkerbell). Explicit. 208,582 words. This is sort of a Brakebills AU, I suppose, but it takes place after Eliot has graduated. Quentin comes to visit over the holidays. So here’s the thing about greywash’s prose - they are stunning. They are dense, and complex, and almost hard to read - but I mean that as the highest compliment. This story, and really all of this author’s work, rewards careful study. This story has so, so much to offer. So if you haven’t given it a shot, or you’re intimidated by the length, please give it a try. Featuring Eliot’s complex relationship with his mother, with religion, with his sexuality, with Quentin, with Margo. Featuring a story of queer love that transcends time and convention. Featuring some excellent worldbuilding, especially as concerns Quentin’s family, and Eliot’s career. Featuring beautiful accompanying artwork. Featuring a proposal scene that knocked me the fuck out. Featuring love, in every way.

To Give You Hope and a Future by Page161of180. Not rated. 4,374 words. I couldn’t put this in the fix-it category, or in the mosaic category, or really even in the post-season four category. It’s all and none of those things. Eliot, in the aftermath of Quentin’s death, goes to the mosaic and talks to old man Quentin, who is grieving his husband. This is sad, y’all. But cathartic, too.

Cheat Day by peacefrog (@lizardkingeliot). Explicit. 1,624 words. Set during season four. Quentin misses Eliot, and does something sad and dangerous. Short and… well, sweet is the wrong word. This one will punch you right in the gut.

Movement by pineapplecrushface (@pineapplecrushface). Explicit. 17,036 words. These are three stories that are only loosely connected in that they are about sex, and introspection. They fit into lots of categories - parts of them take place in Eliot’s happy place, parts at the mosaic, parts in the aftermath of possession. All three stories in the series are scorching hot and full of so much feeling. I really admire how they weave through time, following the changing dynamics through the events of canon in a really unique way.

darkness, welcoming by portraitofemmy (@portraitofemmy). Explicit. 17,748 words. I almost put this in the Alternate Universe (With Magic) section, but this is not the same world as canon. Eliot is a vampire! He saves Quentin’s life and then… uh… well, they fall in love, and there’s some blood play. Eliot is super smitten, and it’s precious. Also really hot.

What Was and What Will Be by ProofOfConcept and wilddragonflying. Mature. 35,996 words. This is part mosaic-fic, part post-possession fic… it’s basically just another story of these two idiots being so bad at communication, but finally getting it right. A really satisfying journey, encompassing so many elements of what we all wished for in canon. I especially loved the long and difficult conversation they have during their reunion. The line that really punched me in the gut was: “fuck you for saying ‘I love you’ for the first goddamn time when you’re breaking up with me.”

kiss me harder, you’re better than you know by propinquitous (@propinquitous). Explicit. 4,633 words. This could easily take place in a nebulous post-season-four world, but it exists in its own little bubble and could really slot into any given universe. It deals with Quentin’s depression in a really direct, really devastating way, but also features Eliot being there for Quentin as best as he can. As the tags say, “not the healthiest of coping mechanisms.” But it’s filled with so much tenderness I can hardly stand it.

To Feel the Same by Rizandace (@Nellie-Elizabeth). Teen. 1,725 words. A small gap-filler at the end of the “I think you should probably hug me right now” scene in 2x01.

#the magicians #queliot #fic recs #my posts #this took me forEVER #so please reblog and add your own suggestions!#also yes i did put my own fics on here... i'm proud of them and want more people to find them!#117 fics & series (and counting!)#the links seem to be working on mobile #but not desktop #which is annoying?#but that's tumblr for ya

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populus-tremuloides · 4 years ago

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Hey I noticed you linked the BLM website in a post but can you tell your followers not to donate to the organization

The donation link the website has is secure act blue and secure act blue funds democratic campaigns

So for the past 7 years all that money they collected over $1 billion probably none of that has touched the black community

Hoo boy so while I agree with the gist of this ask, there’s some misleading info here:

ActBlue is not giving BLM donations to the DNC, and this claim has been debunked multiple times by reliable sources. However, the BLM Global Network Foundation has faced questioning and controversy this year thanks to their nonprofit partnerships and a lack of transparency. I always advocate for donating as small-scale and locally as you can. I’ll put the rest of this analysis (with sources linked) under a read more, since it’s LONG (but it took me forever to put together so pls read thx ❤️).

ActBlue is an online fundraising platform that is not explicitly related to the US Democratic Party, but which only funds left-leaning and progressive candidates and organizations. It’s a tech company. It earns money by functioning as this service, so yes, your donations help fund it. Organizations and candidates pay ActBlue a 3.95% processing fee for donations, but the rest of the money donated does go to the organization or specific candidate. ActBlue is also registered as a PAC (political action committee) which is a whole can of Political Worms I don’t want to open, but that means it has to report to the Federal Election Commission/the IRS which is a positive because it results in transparency of conduit funding.

So...96.05% of the money you donate through the BLM website SHOULD go to the BLM Foundation. It does NOT go to the DNC. The person who started this rumor (from a since-deleted Facebook post which led to a viral video) is a member of a Students for Trump organization, and other conservative pundits picked up on it and posted it. It just isn’t true, and has been debunked many times.

HOWEVER there’s still a problem. It’s hard to say where the money donated to the BLM site actually goes, and that issue is directly related to tax laws and nonprofit organization status in the US. There were questions and lawsuits about this earlier this year. There is an interesting loophole in ActBlue’s policy that states that “contributions...which are not cashed or affirmatively refused will be kept by ActBlue and used generally to support its social welfare activities”. In other words, ActBlue will keep money that is not cashed by the organizations within 60 days and use it to “generally support its social welfare activities”. No, I don’t know exactly what that means--it’s probably used by ActBlue for program costs, or is reallocated to its general fund (which gives grants to nominee funds, the Flip the Senate campaign, etc) but it does mean that money doesn’t go to those organizations, even if it was donated to them, if the organizations don’t claim it. Then, in a Reddit AMA in June, a BLM Foundation organizer provided less than satisfying information about where the money they fundraise goes. It’s difficult to find that info online thanks to the way nonprofits function within American tax law.

It’s important to note here that the BLM Foundation and BLM Global Network are not necessarily associated with individual community activist organizations, protests, or the general BLM social movement. There’s plenty of discourse on this you can research on your own if you want. Google is free.

What’s important here is that the BLM Foundation operates as a nonprofit with a “parent” charity. From 2016 to this year BLM worked with Thousand Currents, which “fundraises grassroots groups led by women, youth and Indigenous Peoples”. In July they switched to a “working relationship” with TIDES, which is a “philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice”.

I’m not going to get into my personal feelings about large scale nonprofit organizations and the oxymoron of conscious capitalism (because organizations like this are essentially venture capitalists for nonprofits imo), but personally I think the larger and more decentralized the organization (or parent organization, in this case), the less effective your donation. More on that later.

Essentially though, Thousand Currents and TIDES are organizations that focus on fundraising and infrastructure and then fund smaller grassroots groups that might not have the infrastructure or foothold to do that for themselves. This is not uncommon in the nonprofit world. I work for a nonprofit that ran though a university foundation and an established local nonprofit for ten years before we got our 501(c)(3) designation and started functioning independently. It’s not abnormal that the BLM Foundation works with an organization like that, given BLM is pretty decentralized by design and is also a fairly new organization (2013/2014).

Thousand Currents and TIDES have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. It can be difficult for smaller and newer nonprofits (as well as nonprofits that function outside of the US but which rely on donations from the US or other countries outside of where they’re headquartered) to gain that status, so they often work under a larger organization. 501(c)(3) status means financial records have to be made public, which means anyone can access the financial records for Thousand Currents and TIDES. You can also find tax filings for the BLM Foundation, but it’s less comprehensive (the most recent I could find was Form 990 from 2017, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place). Anyone can request tax documents from 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

This is getting complicated, right? Welcome to American tax law and nonprofit organizational hierarchies functioning under late stage capitalism. i’m not trying to throw the BLM Foundation under the bus here, because honestly this is just how it goes with a lot of organizations in the US. I don’t think it means you shouldn’t support them. But it gets pretty twisted up. Maybe you made a $20 donation to BLM back in July and now you’re wondering where the hell it went. Here’s the pipeline: your donation goes through ActBlue (which takes 3.95%, or .79 cents of your donation) to TIDES, which then directs that money to BLM. They know how much money is coming to them for BLM because ActBlue differentiates fundraising campaigns--the BLM money going to Thousand Currents or TIDES is separated from the funds coming to them for, say, CLIMA or the Farm to School Network . However, Thousand Currents and TIDES probably take a cut to support their operating costs, too. I couldn’t find data on this, so this is conjecture and I’m not sure how much--this statement is just based on knowing how nonprofits and fundraising usually work.

So, the money stream from you to BLM is like this: You------> ActBlue (takes a 3.95% cut) ------> Thousand Currents or TIDES (probably takes a cut, then directs the money to)------> BLM -----> Whatever BLM uses it for. Despite that strange loophole in ActBlue’s policy, Thousand Currents appeared to be claiming the donations and directing them to BLM (as of 2018...will be interesting to see tax stats from this year since their move to TIDES after unprecedented donations).

BLM does have a huge grassroots organizing fund that began this June in response to overwhelming donations following the murder of George Floyd. The fund provides grants up to $500,000 to smaller grassroots organizations and activists, as well as educational curriculum and political platforms. Their grant campaign is supported by TIDES, which provides the infrastructure and tax-exempt funding conduit needed for such a large scale effort. I’m guessing most of the money they’re fundraising goes to that fund. A chunk definitely goes to paying employees, running their website, and funding outreach and education.

So ALL THAT BEING SAID, I would always say donate directly to bail funds, mutual aid funds, legal fee funds, and local activism organizations before donating to a larger, all-encompassing charity or organization. If you can Venmo someone you know and you know where that money goes, that’s always the best.

Venmo accounts, gofundme campaigns, cashapp accounts, paypal accounts...that’s often what smaller scale organizations and activists are using on a local level and it’s generally collected and distributed more directly. The BIPOC and COVID mutual aid funds where I live are active on Facebook and Instagram and operate based on requests for help from community members that are posted on Google documents available to the public. Here is a good example of a grassroots COVID mutual aid fund that is directing A LOT of money locally and transparently--there are similar funds and organizations like this worldwide for COVID, BLM, and beyond.

The biggest impact you can make always comes at the community level--you should do some research into figuring out what’s going on in your area. There’s almost always something nearby, even if you live in a rural area or smaller town like I do, and if there’s not, hey--you could start something! Engage in your community and put your money into that, or into other communities in need. Pay attention to stuff going around on Twitter and Instagram--a lot of community organizing is facilitated there.

I included the BLM link in the original post because the website is a good place to learn about actions around the globe, organizing basics, and has a lot of up to date news and educational materials. I advocated for donating to bail funds, mutual aid funds, water projects, and local activist organizations and I stand by that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t donate to the BLM Global Network or other larger-scale foundations, but the conduit of money to cause is usually not as direct. I still don’t think it’s a bad thing to donate to them.

But ALSO don’t spread straight-up misinformation like this ask does. ActBlue is a fundraising platform and it’s not stealing the money you send to BLM and giving it to Biden or the DNC. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and this is a great way to dissuade people from donating money to progressive organizations who use ActBlue because it’s an easy, accessible online fundraising platform. Funny how right-wing pundits latched onto this so quickly, huh?

Feel free to correct me or add more info. I’m white and operating within US-centric organizing circles. But PLEASE give some sources if you do have corrections or arguments and PLEASE do a google search before you spread stuff like this.

_______________________________________________________________________

TL;DR: ActBlue is a fundraising platform, it is not stealing your money and giving it to the DNC. The money you donate to BLM goes to that organization, though it is a meandering path from donation to impact. Donate to bail funds, mutual aid organizations, legal fee funds, local activism organizations, etc., over larger organizations. Invest in your own communities, and directly in black communities, and always do your research.

#us bs #BLM #mutual aid #activism #american politics #fundraising #donations #i really hope people read this i spent so long trying to write it out in a way that made sense and its so fucking long #but i rly want people to understand a) how nonprofit fundraising works because its fucked #and b) that the shit about actblue is total bs #and c) that mutual aid funds are the future #also #i hate this country #and i hate that i know this much about nonprofit tax law when fundamentally i do not believe that nonprofits are doing that much good #but that's the hellscape we live in folks #black lives matter #politics #answered asks #okay goodniGHT

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justasparkwritings · 4 years ago

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Codename Cupid: Chapter 25 (Final)

Previous: OT8

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x OFC

Genre: Secret AgentAU, Government AgentAU, Angst, Some Fluff

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 1.3K

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Rape (as in, when I brought it up, she got mad)

Summary: Our Lovely P.I. reminisces on the end of her mission, and the fate of the Lee’s.

To Have Loved and Lost

Present Day

I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t watch the trial of Lee Enterprises, the plea deals through sentencing.

I’m not going to lie and tell you I wasn’t at the courthouse, listening to testimony, jotting down notes to add to my files.

I’m not going to say that I haven’t spoken to Lee Euna since her family and the majority of their coworkers were sentenced, escorted off to prisons where they were certainly going to be targets. You don’t embezzle, trade and engage in fraudulent activity without being a target to the very people you stole from. Though their clientele skews towards the upper echelon of society, the everyday person knows that anyone who deals with the upper 0.01% is scum.

But I did watch.

And I have spoken to Euna, regularly actually.

She’s been kind to me, connected me with a few other higher up clients that have utilized my services for more than cheating husbands. It’s been really nice to have steady work from clients who pay bank. It’s also been nice to speak to Euna in a non-worker-employer environment. Euna doesn’t have many friends, at all, Genevieve Yang turned out to be a plant from OT7, and anyone she had worked with or gone to happy hour with was either in jail, on probation, or on house arrest.

Together, the entire board, Mr. Lee and Dae-Seong were sentenced to 50 years in prison, each. They were ordered to pay nearly 2 billion in restitution, fines across the globe totaling 100 million, and should they be let out early, probation for the entirety of their lives.

Jun-Seo and Kwan-Min, though accomplices in their father’s bidding, faired far better due to testimony and expert opinions on their mental states. Dae-Seong had been subjected to the same scrutiny, but being the sociopath that he is, did not fair too well under the gaze of multiple experts. Kwan and Seo were sentenced to 10 years, a fine of 50 million each, and upon turning into witnesses, 5 years’ probation and a combined 75 million in restitution.

Rest assured, the three free Lee’s still sit on an Everest size amount of money. They won’t be singing for their suppers or scraping by paycheck to paycheck.

Euna had been caught unawares, scared out of her mind when the raid had begun, video cameras and film crews stalking the office as various federal agents descended upon her office. She watched, horrified, as everyone was hauled off. She called me immediately, asking what I knew, and as the only person she knew not arrested, I was tasked with running to her side.

I did stay with her.

I was in the court room for her.

I was with her during witness prep, when she cried over the lies her parents had told her, when the lawyer told her what her finances and career would be like.

She was heartbroken, bewildered that her entire life had been a lie. They all knew, they were all taking part in it, and they had prepped Euna to be the lone wolf, the soul proprietor of the family name and their legacy.

Let’s be clear, I felt deeply uncomfortable the first few weeks, but what was I supposed to do? I too had been a pawn, but, but, she had no one. Literally, no one except for her lawyers and me, the P.I. she paid to find the men who ruined her life and subsequently aided in her demise. She doesn’t know that though, that I was part of it. Euna does know that Jungkook is friends with Taehyung, and I did abandon the friendship on the truth that she raped Tae. She argued at first, that our friendship was stronger than that… but the irrefutable knowledge of her sexual abuse was too much, it was the nail in the coffin of our friendship, as it should’ve been all along.

In a shocking turn of events, Yoongi is my best friend. I’m obsessed with him, truthly and deeply in love. He is easily the most pragmatic, off putting, cuddly monster I have ever come in contact with. I spend whatever time I’m not with Jungkook and the rest of OT7, with Yoongi. It helps that Jungkook idolizes him, not as much as Namjoon or Seokjin, but pretty close. I just, I hate that I love his friends so much, and that I’m so jealous of his connection with them. They believe in one another, are rarely tired of each other even after a decades long mission. OT7 is, as cliché and disgusting as it is, a family. Jungkook was right, he can’t breathe or move without any one of them knowing.

Also? They’re ridiculously funny, thoughtful and compassionate. I truly hate them, and so desperately want to be a part of their club. If this is true friendship, well, maybe I would’ve held on to some of my acquaintances longer.

The other bit of news, I guess, is that I retired the old P.I. hat. I’m getting too old for this shit, and also, Euna had begun sending shitty threatening letters and packages to my office. While I was devastated to abandon my corner office, my safety took precedence and Jungkook nearly lost his shit when he saw the “gifts”. Amongst this outrage over my safety, I have fully been onboarded with OT7, well, adjacent. The company that oversees them, Big Hit, a horrible name, has put me to work. I don’t work with Jungkook, but am in constant communication with Namjoon, Yoongi and Hoseok. Thankfully, I don’t have to work with Seokjin, finances aren’t really a part of my gig. Jimin and Taehyung have come in handy, and I might be obsessed with Taehyung, too. I was right, tailing him was terribly terrific, and being in his orbit is equally as thrilling.

My first case with Big Hit was working a heist job, replicated documents, tracking who had been in and out of the museum, matching facial recognition across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and federal databases as well as creating a comprehensive program to track comparisons.

I couldn’t tell you what my sister does, but when I described a few aspects of my new job, she said “Seems familiar.” C remains, as ever, a mystery.

Jungkook and I have been in therapy for a while. It’s amazing what you can unlock when you pay a professional to help you heal yourself. I’m, obsessed with therapy? Not even a question, I love therapy. I went regularly as an adolescent but stopped when I was about 22. I go separately, and every other week, Jungkook and I go together. He goes on his own, something everyone in OT7 encouraged. We live together, blissfully, and moved to a bigger apartment where we promptly got a dog named Gureum, a name Jungkook picked out.

I love him, so much more than I did when we started dating. So much more than when he told me he loves me, or when we moved in together, or when I met his family or when Namjoon told me that all Jungkook wants is a life with me. Which, one, was none of his business, and two, didn’t freak me out as much as I thought it would. Probably the therapy, or the acceptance that a life with him is all I want, too.

When Lee Euna came into my office, all Versace and dripping, oozing, pooling wealth, I didn’t know this is where my life would lead me. I didn’t know I would end up working for a major organization, steeped in secrecy, that I would find the love of my life, or friends that make every moment a little bit brighter. I didn’t know that sitting in that little office, sun streaking through stained glass, bourbon cheesecake waiting in my mini fridge, that the click-clack of Louboutin’s would alter the trajectory of my life forever.

But that’s the thing with secret missions, or shady surveillance under the cover of night and letters placed on your car seat, you never know what you’re going to find. Now, nearly three years later, all I have left to say to Codename Cupid is this:

Mission Accomplished.

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kentuckywrites · 3 years ago

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Imperium 2: Chapter 7

Tu reliquisti me. (You left me.)

The further inside they got, the worse it became. Nessa found herself sickened by all the bodies they had to tiptoe over, and as they made their way into what appeared to be the central building, they were forced to navigate rubble and debris as well. Some of the walls looked torn and thrown apart, as if something had taken them and thrown them across the halls like a toy. The chilly wind seeped in through these holes, and it did nothing to stop Nessa from shivering, her arms folded in an effort to ward off her fright.

“Was this...it couldn’t have been Starr, right?” Nessa tried to fool herself, though the moment she spoke her theory, Solstice’s shoulders slumped.

“This could very well have been Starr. I am not an advocate for the Ganglion by any means, but this...this is a massacre.”

Nessa could only afford to nod once, forcing herself to continue on into a stretch of the building that seemed more sturdy and undamaged. Claw marks and dents still littered the walls, but the wind couldn’t reach them this far in. Nessa was thankful for that, for the time being.

The hallway they’d entered continued for a long and winding way, until it opened up into a room far too large for the purpose it likely served. In the center of the room, a large towering console that connected the floor and ceiling, dull and lifeless. Around the console were more bodies, even more bodies, and a startling amount of debris and rubble compared to what they’d found outside. The source became apparent once they’d fully entered. One of the adjacent walls was completely ripped apart, a giant gaping hole where someone - something - had forced its way out. Tables, chairs, documents, all scattered across the floor, bodies of their own accord, with information and evidence just as comprehensible as the organic dead.

For a change of pace, however, two living beings were stationed next to the center console. Elma waved them over, her guns both drawn and at the ready, while Lin was hunched over one of the console’s many screens, looking quickly between it and her comm device in her left hand. Nessa approached first, her brow furrowed.

“Looks like you guys won the race. Don’t tell me you caused all this.”

“I did a sweep of the entire fortress before you both arrived,” Elma relayed her information with a solemn heart, “Everyone was already dead. No signs of anything living in here. The bodies aren’t fresh, but Ganglion tend to decompose at a slower rate, so I want to say this likely happened within the past few weeks.”

“So the likely conclusion is that this is Starr’s handiwork,” Solstice put their head in their hands, rubbing away at more unborn tears, “This is horrific. I should've worked faster, I should’ve done more to arrive in Cocytios sooner so as to avoid this mess -”

“Hey, Sol, this isn’t your fault,” Nessa reassured them, “Besides, better Ganglion than humans, right?”

“Their species does not matter. What does matter is that this is a tremendous loss of life.”

“I agree,” Elma said, “Though that doesn’t mean this is your fault. I don’t believe anyone could have thwarted this. That being said, Lin is hard at work attempting to unlock the computer and access its data. We’re hoping to discover what truly happened here, as well as uncover any existing files on Starr or Pongo.”

“There wasn’t any sign of him here, then?” Nessa asked, slightly hopeful.

But Elma shook her head. “None, I’m afraid. I even checked amongst the bodies, but there’s -”

“No. No, he’s not dead,” Nessa interrupted, suddenly defensive and colder than she felt, “I refuse to believe he’s dead. He probably picked up a brain cell and stayed as far away from here as he could.”

Elma opened her mouth to object, but before she could speak, the computer Lin was standing in front of lit up, emitting a soft static to indicate that it was awake, that it was powered on and ready to go, though likely damaged. “There! Looks like this one still works.”

“Great job, Lin,” Elma commended her efforts, and everyone quickly gathered around the young Outfitter to gaze at the currently black screen. Letters decorated the edges and some of the sides, a language Nessa couldn’t understand. However, Lin pieced things together and started to tap random sequences, unfazed.

“You can read Ganglion?” Nessa asked.

“I can’t exactly read it, but I know enough from my past attempts at hacking these to know where things are, if that makes sense,” Lin explained, pulling up a long string of letters accompanied by tiny thumbnails Nessa couldn’t quite understand. “This subsection is full of videos. Might be worth watching them, since...well, can you read Ganglion?”

“Nope,” Nessa scoffed, “But we should start somewhere, I guess? Mira, can you confirm that you’ll be able to translate the Ganglion if they’re speaking in the video?”

Yep. No worries there.

“Okay, it’ll translate. Pick a video and pray.”

Lin tapped on one of the lower video entries, and the screen switched to a new interface. Solstice flinched as a Ganglion appeared on the screen, a Misaaldi in standard attire. She spoke clearly, staring into the screen with such a silent rage that it made the hairs on the back of Nessa’s neck raise.

“Entry 22 in the superweapon experiment. We believe we have identified the ritual’s formula in the creation of an endbringer. The puny natives utilized ether in their day-to-day lives as easily as air. If we can collect enough ether from the surrounding environment and consolidate it into one location, we could theoretically force a subject to intake that ether and transform. The specifics of this process shall be outlined by Sharnaak, once he returns from his journey to the lava continent. We have great hopes for this next step in the experiment. The Great One shall be pleased with our hard work in restoring his honor. End log.”

“They...they replicated the ritual?” Solstice’s hands began to shake, and this time, Nessa didn’t hesitate. She took one of Solstice’s hands, squeezed it tightly, felt them squeeze back. Their eyes remained glued to the screen, attempting to say something, though words failed them. Elma was the one to speak in their stead, taking a deep breath in, exhaling out.

“The superweapon experiment...and what exactly is the ritual you’re speaking of?”

Solstice looked to Nessa, and with a small shake of their head, Nessa stepped up to the plate to explain. “The Telethia in Noctilum was created through an ancient ritual. It’s a person - or it was one, a very long time ago.”

The lie flowed easily, and Elma and Lin believed with with all their hearts. However, Elma’s confusion was still apparent. “So then, the Ganglion tried to harness this ritual and create their own Telethia? That would explain Starr, as well as his behavior.”

“Find another video,” Solstice finally managed to stutter, “I-I need to know more.”

Lin scrolled through the available videos for a moment, clicking on one that was farther away from the one they’d watched. Once more, the screen switched to the same Misaaldi, still in standard attire, though far more activity behind them indicated that something in the atmosphere had changed.

“Entry 59 in the superweapon experiment. We’ve successfully completed the ether serum. We will begin testing on our human subjects shortly, and I shall report back the details at a later time. Pause recording.”

The video cut to black for a second before returning to the Misaaldi woman, who wiped her brow before addressing the camera.

“Resume recording. All five human test subjects did not survive the injection. We have reason to believe that, once they successfully transformed, their consciences remained in tact, and they utilized their newfound strength to turn against us. We are awaiting data analysis from Sharnaak before conducting more experiments, as we wish for his input before proceeding. End log.”

The video ended. Lin didn’t waste any time in picking a new video log, and the Misaaldi soon reappeared, now wearing a confident and knowing smile.

“Entry 81 in the superweapon experiment. As per Sharnaak’s guidance, our team has created a secondary serum to combat the existence of being. Finely crafted and tuned, this serum is far more technological in nature, as the human body is not organic. The serum shall enter the data bloodstream of the human and remove everything that makes them human - their puny dreams and desires, their personality, their useless memories. Their mind shall become a blank slate, and thus, their transformation shall not be hindered by their humanity. Now, we must locate another test subject, and perhaps this shall be the final experiment required before we complete the transition. The Great One will be pleased to see that his servants have gifted him an army, forged from his enemies, forged into mindless, willing servants. End log.”

“A serum to erase someone…” Elma’s voice cracked, the fear radiating from Solstice contagious. “That…”

“There’s only one more video,” Lin told everyone, her voice barely a whisper, hushed and quiet and full of dread. “Should I…”

“We have to know.” Nessa said, clearing her throat. “Play it.”

And so, with that final, resolute command, Lin pressed the final file. The scene changed, though the Misaaldi still stood in front of the camera. Behind her, Nessa could make out a steel board, with cuffs placed where wrists and ankles would go, a larger strap where hips would likely be. Many other Marnaak and Misaaldi stood nearby, some walking around with medical tools, others standing guard off to the side, bystanders to the beginning of the end. The Misaaldi chuckled before starting her speech.

“Entry 82 in the superweapon experiment. We’ve found a perfect candidate. Alone, rather strong for a human. We think he will make the perfect base. As such, Sharnaak has given us the all-clear to begin the test.”

She glanced over her shoulder, and her voice rose as she ordered, “Bring him in!”

Nessa held her breath as, from off screen, she heard the sounds of protest, wincing, startled yelps and cries. Two Marnucks dragged another humanoid in, his legs kicking and struggling, though because of the Marnucks’ height advantage, she couldn’t see the human, couldn’t identify him. They brought him to the board, strapping him into place, all while the human continued to cry out, begging, pleading with them to stop, to tell him what was going on. When the Marnucks finally stepped away, and they had a clear visual on who was strapped to the board, who the Ganglion had picked as their test subject…

Nessa was met with a pair of pupiless indigo eyes, identical to her own. Wide with fear, obscured only slightly by long black hair, draping over pale skin and a torn purple combat vest.

No one said his name. Everyone was frozen, watching, waiting.

The Misaaldi stepped up to him. She had the nerve, the fucking nerve, to reach out and place her hand on his cheek, shushing him with one of her fingers.

“Not to worry, my dear. It will all be over soon.”

She then addressed the Marnucks standing slightly behind the board, to the Marnucks that were standing close by in preparation. “Inject the first serum. Let us put an end to his suffering.”

On command, a Marnuck with a syringe stepped up, tall enough to look him in the eye as he forced his head up, exposing his neck fully. The syringe went deep inside, and he screamed, and Nessa nearly covered her ears because it shattered something deep inside her that she didn’t know could shatter, and tears were forming in her eyes, obscuring her vision, what was happening to him, what were they doing to him, make it stop make it stop make it stop -

He stopped crying. He stopped screaming, he stopped struggling. He simply went limp, head dropping as if he had no energy left, no will to fight or to live or to escape this madness. The silence was overwhelming.

Then, his head picked back up.

Nessa was met with a pair of dead, pupiless gray eyes. Void of life, obscured only slightly by long black hair, draping over pale skin and a torn purple combat vest.

The Misaaldi returned her hand to his cheek. He did not respond.

“My little puppet...it’s time to give you strings.”

She waved another Marnuck over, another one holding a syringe. The injection was performed without resistance into the same place as the former. It took a good ten seconds for anything to happen, and his eyes suddenly began to shift, his body started to swell, his fingers formed claws and tried to scratch at the air as he let out a howl, not a scream, a full blown howl, guttural and from the deep confines of his empty body -

Nessa couldn’t watch. She squeezed her eyes shut and simply listened to the sound of metal snapping under pressure, the howls turn into roars, the tearing of flesh and the new symphony of Ganglion screams as heavy thuds echoed against the walls, as structures began to tumble and fall and collapse under pressure, and it only kept going and going and going and -

Silence.

Nessa opened one eye, and the video had ended abruptly. Its aftermath, however was clear as day, scattered around them, the remnants of a massacre.

It was her turn to start shaking. It was Solstice’s turn to squeeze her hand. Elma and Lin sat, staring at the screen as if they were hoping it’d provide something else, a little message saying “it’s all a prank”, “it’s all a dream”, “none of this is real”. But nothing came. They were only met with darkness. Quiet. Nothingness.

But of course, even if Nessa asked for nothingness, she would always have a little voice in her head, a separate being acting as her inner conscience.

My...my baby…you...

She didn’t think she’d ever hear Mira’s voice waver, she didn’t think Mira was capable of showing such a parental kindness. But here it was, and it sounded so torn, so lost.

Before she could respond, a distant roar echoed across the skies, and Solstice looked up to meet it. There, behind the clouds, descending towards them…

Solstice stared dead into Starr’s eyes as he landed, teeth bared, ready to fight. They addressed Nessa without looking at her. Their hands remained intertwined.

“Your brother has great timing,” They whispered.

#xenoblade x #Imperium 2: Chapter 7 #CATCH ME CRYING OVER ALL THIS #I TOLD YALL IT'S PAIN TRAIN TIME #I WASNT JOKING #ANYWAYS ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO #(and an epilogue)#LAUGHS EVILLY AS TEARS STREAM DOWN MY FACE

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my-autistic-things · 4 years ago

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Guess who's making a "how to manage dealing with a massive list of edits" post instead of working on said edits! Me!

Ok so this has taken me FOREVER to really figure out and implement in my life so I thought I'd make a post about it. This is how I deal with getting edits back after sending in a paper (specifically my thesis proposals) to my mentor.

Step 1. Open the document.

This is the absolute hardest step. No seriously. It is. You get the email back, you see the attachment with their initials at the end of the doc name, you know there's edits in there, the email says "here you go! Good work!" That day, ASAP, download that attachment and open it briefly, to scan just how terrifying this task will be.

Step 2. Close it and cry. (Tears are optional but the soul crushing feeling of being on your 5th round of edits is not).

It's okay, deal with it tomorrow. Seriously, go work on something else while you emotionally recover.

Step 3. Mentally prepare yourself to do the edits.

Put it on your to do list for tomorrow. Then when you don't do it, put it on the next day. And the next day. Even when you know it's impossible to get to, put it on there because the stress will build and you'll eventually get to it and Not forget it exists (vvvvv important).

Step 4a. Actually start your edits by opening the doc.

Don't set out like you're going to do everything in one sitting. Open the document with the intention of Starting, not doing. This is a mental battle. Yes battle. Having a good strategy will trump any "smarts" or writing ability you have.

Step 4b. Get out a notebook to write down what you have to do.

If you have do a split screen and can write in a separate document, go ahead, but I found that the absolute only way I can make progress is if I fullscreen my doc and have a notebook and pencil to write stuff down. Now you have 1) doc open, 2) notebook in front of you. Yes these are considered a whole ass step bc they are.

Step 5. Go through and accept all the edits and write down things to do as they come up.

Skip that "read your edits first!" bullshit, you won't, you'll just get stressed, then you gotta reread it all over when you actually start editing. Dive right into dipping your toe in. DO NOT start fully editing. Look at each revision and decide if it's a Quick Fix (i.e. click "accept change" in Word) or a Task. If it's a Quick Fix, go ahead and do it. If it's a Task, even if it's just revising a singular sentence, write it in your notebook. Don't worry about an order/priority/anything, just write everything down. If you're doc is longer than a few pages (mine is 26 so...yeah) write down the page number along with the Task.

Step 6. Organize your Tasks.

Now you have gone through your whole doc and there's no little spelling errors, grammar mistakes, or simple edits to make. And most importantly, you have a list of bigger edits to do, start to group the Tasks. This is when it starts to get super individualized (to you, your paper, and your mood). I start with going through and marking with a line anything I am in the mood for, can do, or should do today (or first, and by first I mean "now" vs "ehhhh later").

Step 7a. Go through your marked Tasks and make more marks.

Only focusing on the initially marked Tasks, start to group them into stuff you can do together. For me, this is any simple info that needs to be inputted or sentences that need editing. My dash next to these Tasks gets turned into plus mark. Note this is the simplest edits I will need to make. You can also designate the initial dash to be its own grouping, but it should naturally end up like that at the end.

Step 7b. Go through marked Tasks again and do the same thing with a different grouping.

Relooking at my dashed Tasks, excluding my + Tasks, I make more groupings. Now it's more time consuming stuff like finding more resources, or rereading sources to be able to accurately edit the sentence. This new group now get more lines to be an asterisk!

Step 7c. Make even more marks!

Can your Tasks be further grouped??? Probably! If you have a short paper, maybe you only have like two groupings, but maybe you have like 5. Who knows! Get creative with your marks! The Tasks I'm designating as last/a lot of work and comprehension are an asterisk with a circle around them. If it's been a few weeks since you asked for edits, you probably will need to work A LOT harder on paragraph and key sentence revisions if you out those first than if you put them after you've been immersed in your topic for a couple hours.

Step 7d-z. Keep making groupings depending how many Tasks you have. I'd suggest keeping it to 2-5 Tasks per group so it's manageable but not excessive. For this particular round of edits, I have 5 groups and that's perfect.

Step 8. Find the easiest/quickest group and do all those Tasks.

My first grouping I made of sentence edits will be the easiest I think, so I'll do that first! If you're motivated and inspired to do a harder group, go for it! But again, do something that will allow you to start really working without being overwhelmed.

Step 9. Cross off all the First Group Tasks you've done!

Yes this is its own step! Cross them all off! You did a good job! Erase them! Get a Sharpie and black that line out of existence! Yay!

Step 10-?. Keep doing the Tasks in each group until you're out of groups and Tasks!

Step 11-?. Cross off the groups and Tasks! Seeing your progress visually makes a big difference! You got this!

Step 12. Read over any non-task comments your teacher/mentor has made and/or your entire paper. Make sure everything makes sense!

Step 13. Save the doc with the date you finished your edits (or fudge it and say sorry forgot to send it to you lol) and send it back to your teacher/mentor (if applicable; if you only get one round and it's not a proposal or something then you'd just submit it). In your email, briefly go over what you did. This is when grouping tasks really comes in handy because I can reference "oh yeah all these edits were x type of edits" and I can say "I accepted all your in-text edits and made the sentence changes you suggested. Additionally, I added abc sources and rearranged the order of the paragraphs specified." This also avoids your mentor re-reading everything and giving you MORE edits on everything (bc they will; this round my mentor is editing his own words from past sentence edits at various places lol) and just focusing on the key changes you made and need feedback on.

Step 14. Take a nap! Seriously! Reward yourself for doing such a Big Thing and take a break! Don't immediately go onto the next assignment, make sure your brain separates *chunk of edits* from *other simpler assignments* so it isn't mentally a whole block of *work*.

I hope this helps somewhat??? Or someone can reference this when coming up with a way to tackle feedback that works for them. I'm starting grad school next year (hopefully) which will actually be a reduction in long-term research projects lmao but I will be having more Giant papers that will receive feedback. Having a system, or knowing options is so incredibly helpful for me because when I read what other people do I can be like "nope not doing that" and it can help narrow down what would work for me. Most importantly, just break up your work into a lot of different sections! It helps with (poor) executive functioning, motivation, and brings it out visually so you can mentally tackle what you're doing instead of "ahhh ~lots of edits~"

#college #writing #paper edits #thesis edits #max tries to give advice #i think ibe significantly procrastinated enough now lol #to do list

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thekytchensynk · 4 years ago

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Save the Earth (Fictober Prompt 17)

Prompt number: 17

Fanfiction Fandom: Ducktales

Rating: G

Warnings: No Warnings

Read this story on AO3

Fenton thought Huey was many things. The kid was smart, smart enough that the sciency side of Fenton’s brain could already see a bright future out there for him. He didn’t always have the world smarts to match the book smarts, but hey, who was Fenton to judge that? Wasn’t he the same? The kid was thoughtful too, seeing quick answers to immediate problems. He could get overwhelmed, he could get tunnel vision, but he was a kid. He had a lot of time to grow out of those things.

But moments like now, Fenton wished he’d grow out of some of them just a little bit faster.

“But if you just redirect the old cooling vents through the pie filling receptacle, you’d get the same thing as your pies, except an area of effect!” Huey said, moving around Gizmoduck with impressive speed as he examined the locations of the vents.

Fenton wretched him run around, torn between a cringe at the thought of what Dr. Gearloose would do to him if he started digging into the suit’s guts -- much less letting a kid do it -- and a genuine amusement at just how excited the kid got about mechanical mundanities.

And he supposed he could see where a multi-target pie filling attack could come in handy. Though the speed at which the suit put pies together made it basically a moot point in most instances. However…

“I thought we were here to work on your Crime Prevention badge,” Fenton said, trying to steer the conversation back toward their actual purpose.

“Yeah, sorry. I just can’t help myself.” Huey didn’t sound very sorry, and again, Fenton found it hard to be bothered by that. When Huey had asked to join him on a patrol so he could document potential safety improvements to this area of the city as part of his badge progress, Fenton had been happy to agree. Truth was, he didn’t just owe a lot to Huey’s uncle, he owed a lot to Huey himself. If he hadn’t been quick to act…

Well, things could have gone a lot worse.

The pair of them began walking through the area. This side of Duckburg was in the middle of a renaissance of sorts, which was partly why Huey had chosen this area for his project. It had been an industrial and warehouse section, but as the companies had moved production to cities without eccentric billionaires whose meddling in the arcane routinely caused massive property damage, it left large swaths of cavernous, abandoned property. Recently, the city had made moves to reach out to the owners with grants, and to condemn properties whose owners could not be found, so they could tear down buildings which were becoming dangerously dilapidated. Several development companies had moved in, and the skeletons of new construction were all over the place -- a business park, a lot of retail, a transit hub. There were plans for a small park and a slightly larger amusement park.

As he’d explained when asking Fenton to accompany him, this area attracted Huey’s attention because it had fallen into a sort of valley, where there were so few people here that the police didn’t spend much time here, but the buildings were often half finished, making them easy targets for criminals looking for a place to hide or plot.

And Fenton thought the kid had probably asked for his help in part because as a hero, he’d be security-minded as well, and partly because that whole family was always on the go, always bosy. Wasn’t that why Mr. McDuck had given the OK to Gizmoduck in the first place?

But honestly, Fenton was glad he had, and here was a reason he was here in his suit and not just as plain old Fenton Crackshell Cabrera. Because Huey was right. Criminals had been using this area for a variety of activities. He’d had to step in on a few of them. And some of them were petty shoplifters checking out their haul of clothes or electronics, but some … some were a bit more serious.

It should be fine during the day, but just in case … well, just in case.

They made their way up a broad central street with the skeletons of buildings under construction on either side. Up ahead, the road came to a T-shape intersection at the park. Some of the trees remained from before, fully-grown arboreal specimens, but many of the trees were just saplings, hend straight by stakes and loose wiring. The grass had mostly grown in, but he could still see the straw peeking through where the more recent seed had been sown.

“This is going to be a very nice area when it’s done,” Fenton observed. He could see the business campus up on the other side of the park, its taller, tan buildings looking over the mostly adolescent trees.

“I agree. Which is why I don’t understand why they don’t have a comprehensive plan for maintaining the security of these sites,” Huey said. He had the tip of his pencil in his mouth as he observed the locks on the chain-link fences around the construction sites. “I understand the logistics have to be tough, coordinating so many companies, but really! It’s in all their best interests.” He shook his head and made some notes in his notebook.

The park looked to be in good condition. They walked down smooth cobblestone walkways, noting all the benches and garbage cans. (“Garbage cans aren’t just there to keep the litter down,” Huey told him, tone confident, like he was giving a school presentation on material he already knew by heart. “A cleaner park encourages people to visit, and the traffic can help keep people from using the place for more nefarious purposes.”)

The next stop was the business park -- a nearly completed campus of buildings that all shared the same general features, but in different dimensions. The closest one was a seven-story buildings with an all-glass front facing the street. Another stood only three stories but had a much larger footprint, in an L shape, with a grassy area nestled in the crook. A few benches and a little stone garden made the area inviting, and a couple picnic tables might tempt future employees out there for a lunch in the sunshine.

The exteriors looked good, but Fenton knew the insides were basically half done -- drywall and flooring was still going in, some of the windows still filled with boards and sheeting instead of glass, things like that. The low L-shaped building seemed to be a particular favorite of ne’er-do-wells who used this area as a hideout.

“They did a really nice job around here,” Huey said, with sincere appreciation. “But I think they definitely need a couple more cameras. Look, what good is that going to do?”

He pointed at a camera, mounted under the roof overhang of the L-shaped building. Instead of watching either of the two doors it could see from there or the courtyard and the road beyond, it aimed high and far to the right. What could it see there but the wall?

“Give me a second to check that out, Fenton said, speeding over to underneath the camera, then extending the suit up until he was face to … er, well, face? With it. It looked even stranger from up here. There was a bend in the metal holding it to the building. Eyes narrowing, Fenton reached toward the rubberized coverage protecting all the wiring. It looked like someone had sliced it, and when he pulled it back…

Yup. Cut wires. I guess this helps explain how they keep getting in there.

As he returned to the ground, Huey arrived and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Looks like vandalism. We should inform the police and the security company.”

“I-”

“Eat gum, polluting scum!”

Fenton started to turn, saw an indistinct blob of … something coming at him and acted on instinct. He put himself between the projectile and Huey in the split second before it hit. Hoping this wasn’t some sort of explosive or-

The stuff hit not with a slam, but with a weird sort of gooshy sound. At the same instant, his movement slammed to a halt, rattling Fenton a bit in the suit. A moment later and the readouts were screaming at him: air intake blocked -- missile hatches sealed -- sensors malfunctioning -- Movement systems locked. Even the visor had been blacked out by the attack. He tried to raise the arms, to try to scrape it clear, but his arms only moved a little bit before seemingly being yanked back to the position he’d been in when he was initially hit.

Fenton wasn’t panicking, not yet, but he was worrying. Can’t move, can’t see, can’t use most of the suit’s functions. What do I do? I need to see. And the suit is useless. Maybe once I see the problem…

“Blathering Blatherskite.”

Usually, the keyword would release the whole suit. This time, the suit tried to do as usual, but whatever held it wasn’t letting go even for this. The pieces just kind of came off and remained around him in a jumble. Fenton shoved his way free of the pieces, doing his best to avoid the sticky, rubbery substance that had immobilized the suit. It didn’t quite work though -- he was lucky enough to only come away with some missing feathers on his arm and the side of his neck where the stuff touched him and he’d had to rip himself free. Huey helped him once he got partway out, and together they moved away from the suit -- which now looked like nothing more than a jumble of metal pieces wrapped in pink. He looked toward the third-story window where the shot had come from. Who could have-

“Hey boss! It’s just a regular guy,” A voice with a heavy drawl drifted downfrom above. From one of the windows. “It’s not a robot, just a suit.”

“Huey, we need to get out of here,” Fenton said, trying to keep an eye on every window at once.

But before they could run, someone leaned out of one of the windows again. This time, Fenton got a good look at the weapon. It sort of had the look of a rocket launcher, but it definitely hadn’t shot a rocket. It actually looked like chewing gum. The area had almost no cover. And that weapon likely had some range.

“Change of plans,” Fenton said, and apparently Huey was already on the same wavelength because he’d already started running toward one of the windows that had plywood in place of glass. The guy upstairs leaned out, trying to keep them in sight, but theplywood was on the inside. And the two ducks hopped into the recess just as he fired the gun again. A mound of the pink goo plopped down where they’d just been.

Up above, they could hear the voices echoing. “I think I missed em.”

“Them? I thought you said it was that one robot guy.”

“Well, the other one was a kid. What, I’m going to be worried about a kid?”

“That kid probably has a phone on him! They both do, numbskull! Just arm the bomb and let’s get out of here.”

Fenton and Huey exchanged a look. Bomb? What had they stumbled into?

Because of the unfinished walls, they could hear scuffling around upstairs, then the sound of footsteps pounding across the floor, receding away from them down the longer wing of the building. As they faded, Fenton’s mind was going a mile a minute.

“We need to get out of here,” he said, more to himself than Huey. “But there could be other people here. Even if they didn’t trap anyone else with that strange weapon, what if there are people working on the buildings? Even if not here, depending on how big the bomb is, it could take out others. If I … wait! Where are you going?”

Huey had pried up the corner of the board covering the window and slipped inside just as Fenton noticed.

“We have to find that thing and defuse it, right?” Huey called back through the board.

He knew the futility of shouting at the kid to come back, to run, to get out of here. He was already inside, and his family had a reckless streak a mile wide. Even Huey, for all his plans and lists, could succumb to it when there was a clear right and wrong in front of him. So cursing the string of choices that brought them here, Fenton kicked at the board until it moved enough for him to slip inside after the boy.

Finding the bomb turned out to be a pretty simple mystery to solve. They just followed a trail of food waste up a set of cement stairs to the third floor, down a hall and into a sizable space that, once finished, might eventually be a conference room. A few bugs milled around the banana peels and bread crusts that lay scattered around the large wooden box -- and the mass of wires and electronics inside.

Fenton peered inside. Not an explosive, not really. It looked like … chemicals. At least two vials. The sides of the glass containers were frosted, preventing him from even guessing what was inside. The timer -- there was always a timer -- said they had a bit under 10 minutes to deal with this thing.

Fenton squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember back to working on circuits. Mechanical stuff wasn’t really his forte. The vials were touching. Would the “bomb” mix them by opening a passage to one from the other, or just crack them both, releasing the chemicals into the environment where they could mix freely and…

“I think I can defuse this.”

Honestly, for a couple seconds upon seeing the messily made bomb, Fenton had forgotten Huey in the urgency of stopping it from going off. Explosions were bad. But chemicals … anything could happen. They could go a lot further than a blast radius. Linger for years. They could make this whole area uninhabitable. Go into cloud form and move over other parts of the city. And do who knew what. Quirky villains could come up with things that did more than just poison a person.

But Huey was here, and he was staring intently into the guts of the thing, as Fenton had a moment before.

“You think you can defuse … a bomb?”

“Well, it’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice at, but I may have gone a little … overboard … studying for the Junior Woodchucks’ robotics and circuitry badges. Plus, I may have studied up on it specifically, just in case.”

Fenton wasn’t even sure how to take that. Was this that hyper preparedness talking? Or was this a situation where he considered finding a bomb such a legitimate possibility that understanding how to handle one was just a natural course of study for some afternoon?

But then again, he realized, this kid had rewired the Gizmoduck armor, sight unseen, on the fly. He looked nervous. But he was also concentrating, using the pencil from before to carefully push back the wires here and there. He … honestly did look like he knew what he was doing, and Fenton would only be guessing. If he knew what the chemicals were in there, he might be able to come up with something to neutralize it at the moment of detonation. But he was flying blind.

“Ok,” he said. “You take care of that. But if you want me to help, or take over, just say the word. OK?”

“Sure. Give me a minute,” he said. Then, after a couple seconds, his fingers stilled as he added, “or an hour. I wouldn’t say no to that.”

“I don’t know if we can do anything about the time,” Fenton said, willing his voice to say calm. “So if you are anything less than sure about this, say so. Otherwise, I’m going to call the police. Let them know. They may have some advice.”

When Huey didn’t ask for help immediately, Fenton stepped away to let the kid concentrate and called the cops. They got the details from him, and said they’d call back the moment they got ahold of one of their bomb experts.

That done, he went back into the room and sat nearby. A show of support and trust. And to be there, just in case the kid needed him.

Twenty minutes later, police were sweeping all the buildings on the site, looking for any more bombs or other weaponry. A talkative young detective was supposed to be taking Fenton’s statement, but things weren’t exactly going like that.

“I mean, want to get angry at businesses that are polluting the river or something, sure, I get that.” the detective looked like he hadn’t slept properly in some time. He had his notepad and pen out, but was gesturing with them instead of using them for their intended purpose. “But they were mad because tearing down rotting old death traps was killing bugs. Bugs! They’re really escalating though. A bomb? Usually they just chain themselves to the front door of the company headquarters or something.”

“That sounds … inconvenient,” Fenton said, a bit at a loss as to why the guy was telling him about the suspects like this.

“It wasn’t that bad,” the guy said. “They kept only chaining themselves to one door and there were like … four. So it was a strange choice. Though I guess I’d prefer they keep doing stuff like that to repurposing used chewing gum as a weapon or trying to seed a building with poisonous mold spores.”

“Should you be telling me this?”

“Ah, probably not,” the detective said, but he didn’t look terribly bothered about it.

As he wandered off, Huey ran over. “The reporter wanted to ask me about how I defused the bomb,” He said. “Dewey is never going to believe this. Or else he’s never going to forgive me.” He seemed really gleeful about either option.

“Well, I’m just grateful,” Fenton said, putting a hand on Huey’s shoulder. “You really came through. If they have a hero badge, I’ll nominate you.”

“There isn’t,” Huey said matter of factly. Then, after a pause, he hesitantly asked, “but once you get the suit out of the gum -- and speaking of that, I’d recommend peanut butter for that -- can we finish the safety survey?”

And how could he say no?

#fictober20 #17 #ducktales #huey #gizmoduck #fanfic

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damnprussia · 4 years ago

Text

Love Is Not A Victory March

Synopsis: Gilbert makes a difficult decision which questions his identity as a nation, and the strength of his emerging humanity.

Part 1 of 3

Berlin, Germany. July 1939

Gilbert signed his name, the last of several signatures from a large stack of papers in front of him on his desk. His office was still grand, with luxurious furniture, a fireplace off to the side, currently unused, and all of his finest comforts surrounding him, including a portrait of his dear Frederick the Great - the original - hanging nearby. The only sounds were the scratching of his pen and the sounds of Berlin street life drifting in from the cracked-open windows behind him.

He gazed at one of the papers he had just signed his name - it was for the termination of one of his best employees. He recalled nine years ago, facing financial ruin following the global Depression, a young man answered his “help wanted” advertisement. He had wanted a financial analyst to rebuild his carefully-curated wealth portfolio, and Karl Hopf had answered.

Gilbert smiled remembering his first impression of the young man. He had strode into Gilbert’s office, wearing a too-big suit and a suitcase that was clearly older than he was. He had slammed his credentials down on Gilbert’s desk before him and told him those magic words: “I can make you rich.”

It wasn’t the young man’s proposed skill, nor his prestigious education that had impressed Gilbert. No - it was his confidence. That was Prussian confidence. He had liked this kid right off the bat.

Nine years later, Gilbert was indeed rich. Karl Hopf had a way with the stock market and wealth management that seemed magical; an understanding of some kind of mystical language that was beyond Gilbert’s comprehension. He would grow to trust the man almost completely with his money and where it would go.

It was for this very reason - this implicit trust - that Karl had to go.

There was a light knock on the door and Gilbert commanded to enter. In came Karl, much quieter and more sullen than he was from years past. Gilbert could understand. There was exhaustion in persecution.

“Good morning, Karl.”

“Good morning, Mr. Beilschmidt.”

Karl sat down in the seat facing Gilbert, avoiding eye contact. Somehow, he knew at least a little bit of what this meeting would entail.

Gilbert glanced down at the termination letter on his desk before he sighed and anxiously folded it in half. This would be harder than he thought, it seemed. He didn’t know quite how to proceed, so he just blurted out what was on his mind.

“New York is a wonderful town.” He leaned back in his chair, carefully watching the man sitting across from him.

“I wouldn’t know - never been,” the young man mumbled, squirming uncomfortably and glancing almost anywhere other than Gilbert. He was probably wondering where this conversation was going.

Gilbert reached into a leather file on his desk and pulled out several pieces of paper. Very important, very official documents. “You will be. This is for you - Train tickets. Boat ticket. Work visa. You’ll be living there.” Blunt, but Gilbert didn’t have the emotional energy to put it nicer.

Karl did not react for several moments. Only his eyes, darting back and forth between Gilbert’s very serious face and those very serious documents in front of him. “W...What?”

The Prussian took a deep breath and leaned forward, placing two deliberate fingers on the documents before sliding them closer. “You are going to leave Germany. Forever, preferably.”

“No I’m not...Why?” His voice was only a whisper.

“Because, Karl, you’re too good for this country right now. I can’t stand to watch you suffer for everyone else’s cowardice. I know you’ve lost every other client you’ve served and that’s a disgrace. I know you have been forced out of your home and shoved somewhere else. You’re my responsibility, and I need to make sure that you stay safe.”

“You’re not responsible for me - you’re just my boss - m-my client. I’ve only helped you with your financial - “

“Trust me, Karl, when I say that you are my responsibility,” Gilbert interrupted him. He remembered that hallmark Prussian confidence from years ago. He could not let it die. “Just...you must accept this. You must. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this to anybody, but I have to.”

Karl could hear the pain in his client’s voice. He reached forward and quietly took the papers, leafing through them.

“You have family, right? A wife?” Gilbert asked after moments of silence.

The young man nodded slowly, not making eye contact. “We’ve been married a few years. She...she just told me she was pregnant. A few weeks ago.”

“Then all the more reason for you to leave. So many others have left. You must give your family a future. They want you gone, and I wish I could have you here working with me as you have been, but that just cannot be possible anymore. You know people have been leaving in droves. I want you among them.”

Karl was silent for several minutes. “I am afraid,” he admitted quietly, eyes drifting over to the portrait of Frederick the Great, hanging on the adjacent wall, seeming to observe them. “My family - we’ve never left Germany. We can trace our lineage all the way back to Frederick the Great. We’ve just always wanted to be -”

“-- Good citizens, I know.” Gilbert finished his sentence with a heavy sigh. He looked down at the piece of paper on his desk. “Karl, your nation is so proud of you,” he said quietly. “Regardless of whatever you hear out there, please believe me.”

Karl nodded slowly, taking a deep, long breath. “So. New York...?”

“You’ll love it, Karl. You will flourish. The country will accept you and keep you safe.”

A pause. “And if I stay here?”

Gilbert’s face fell. “If you stay, Karl, you’ll lose everything. You might even lose your life.”

While Karl digested his last words, Gilbert pulled out a briefcase, a single piece of paper clipped to the top, sliding it over to him. “You will take this with you. I need you to sign the form on top. It will help you get started over there.”

Karl frowned and grabbed the slip of paper. “What is this?” he opened the briefcase and peered inside. “Mr. Beilschmidt, this is your stock portfolio...this is all your money - “

“ - It’s yours now,” Gilbert said. “I don’t trust my finances with these fools in charge. I trust you more. Sign that paper, it will all be yours.”

Karl went to push it away from him but Gilbert’s hand on the briefcase stopped him. “You will do it,” he said sharply. “Or you will watch it go into the fireplace. As well as those tickets.”

Karl’s face fell and for several long moments, he only looked between Gilbert’s uncompromising expression and the briefcase. Finally, he slowly slid it closer to him again. Gilbert wordlessly handed him a pen, which he accepted and signed.

Gilbert watched as Karl stuffed all the papers given to him in the single briefcase. Together, they rose from their seats. The young man clutched the briefcase close to his chest, taking a deep breath before looking up at the older man.

“I don’t want to leave,” he whispered at last.

“I know,” Gilbert responded. “But you must.”

Karl nodded wordlessly, slowly turning on his heel to leave. “Mr. Beilschmidt...I do hope I will see you again,” he added on his way out.

It was only then that Gilbert smiled - a small, sad smile. “Don’t you dare worry about me, Karl. I will see you again. Maybe on the other side of all this.”

When Karl left, Gilbert exhaled a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. He hanged his head, closing his eyes and trying to justify what was happening.

A nation sending his own people away? Unheard of.

He opened his eyes and raised his head to the portrait on the adjacent wall of Frederick the Great. The old king’s eyes stared him down, and it made Gilbert sneer. “Don’t you judge me,” he snapped, collapsing into his chair again and leaning back. “This whole administration would be a lot more fun and exciting if I hadn't developed a conscience somewhere in those trenches.” Gilbert ran his fingers through his hair. “You’d do the same...I think.” There was doubt in his voice. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore what you’d do.”

For several moments there was silence between Gilbert and his King, eye contact unwavering.

“--Mr. Beilschmidt.” His head snapped over to see Inge, his secretary. She was a young woman who had just graduated university. She was smart, quick on the typewriter, and her most important trait - she could keep his darkest secrets. She had in her hands a cup of coffee for him. She knew that Karl was coming - she had booked the meeting, after all.

“Inge. I could use a coffee. Thank you.” He beckoned her to enter the room.

She stepped in wordlessly, placing the cup down and leaning one hip against his desk, watching him. “You sure talk to that painting a lot. Does it ever talk back?”

He smiled at her cheekiness. “Hasn’t for a while, I’m afraid.”

She nodded. “Did the meeting go well?”

Gilbert sipped his coffee. “As well as can be. I've told a man he must leave the only home he’s ever known or face a firing squad, betrayed my own country and the core of what I am - and I’ve also handed over my entire fortune, so now I am destitute.” He sighed behind the coffee cup. “I spent centuries believing that the human life was cheap and replaceable, taking my people’s unwavering love and support for granted. And now I’m desperate to save every last one I can. I only wish it would mean something in the long run. It feels like far too little, far too late.”

“If human lives aren’t cheap and replaceable after all, then perhaps, for at least one of them, it was just enough at just the right time. Is that good for your conscience?”

Gilbert paused, considering her words. “For now it is.”

Inge straightened herself and smoothed out her skirt. “Good. Now, I have called your superiors and informed them that you will not be attending tonight’s banquet. I figured you would not want to attend.”

“I’d rather eat my own shit, good call.”

She walked towards the door, before pausing. “And, Mr. Beilschmidt...if I may ask - you gave Mr. Hopf your entire fortune, you said. Is there...any way you put some aside for my salary?”

Gilbert did not speak for a long while, thinking carefully. He then sighed, and moved to remove the watch on his wrist. He tossed it at her. She caught it wordlessly.

“It is Swiss. It should suffice you for the rest of the year.”

Inge just smiled brightly before leaving, shutting the door behind her. Gilbert sighed and turned to look out the nearby window, gazing at the city below him. It was bustling with life - but he felt none of it.

“I suppose I have a lot more work to do.”

#drabble #feedback is welcome #I have wanted to write this lil thing for a while #thx to everyone who has beta'd it for me!

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kpopscenario · 5 years ago

Text

Brown eyes

Pairing: Yunho x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 6.2k

Summary: what started as a normal day at university turned out to be more interesting than expected.

A/N: ice skating

(8:52am)

There were only two lectures on this Friday morning that I had to attend, so not too bad. With my heavy chemistry book under the arm, I walked through the hall and scanned people’s faces as I walked past. For now, I’d attended every single lecture. Firstly, I was scared to miss important information. Secondly, I was actually interested in my subject. I liked the university lifestyle. In school, you couldn’t choose on which subject you wanted to focus, or how you wanted to study. Everything was kind of planned for you, but now I had to handle everything myself, which wasn’t really a bad thing. Since I was an organized person and liked to be prepared, I was pretty confident that the university was something I could manage well. Almost five minutes too early, I sat down in the lecture room and eventually scanned the rows for my new friends.

Although university had started almost two months ago, I hadn’t made more than two friends, and those only because we were sitting together in the library and one asked me for a pencil. They were nice and I was incredibly relieved to have made some friends already. Wasn’t this a fear of every new student at university? To stay alone while everyone would make new connections and bonded with more and more people in those large and intimidating halls? Those at least were my thoughts for the first two weeks, until I met them. They weren’t in the lecture room, so I took out my phone after opening my laptop.

‘Went out last night and am still hungover – Sorry! We’re not coming.’

With lips pressed to a line, I quickly replied that it was fine and then went to social media sites, since I was bored without nobody to talk to. I heard how the lecture room got more and more filled within minutes, but I still didn’t look up.

“Is this seat taken?”, someone suddenly asked, obviously right next to me, so I looked up. There stood a young man, maybe my age with hazel brown hair, dark big eyes – packed in a coat and scarf.

“No, have a seat”, I responded hastily as I realized my stare. With a smile on his face he sat down after pulling off his heavy looking coat. There wasn’t a lot of space on those narrow benches, so it wasn’t to my surprise when he had his difficulties to put his backpack under the table without brushing it against my leg. Few knowing chuckles later, he finally was ready to open an empty document on his laptop, the same procedure I did a few minutes ago.

That was when the tutor came in to start the first lecture of that morning. With all my concentration on the man at the blackboard, I shut everything out that was happening around me, like a good student was supposed to. My skillful fingers quickly hit the keyboard when the tutor said something important, my eyes attentive and focused. For good 15 minutes I was working like this, until I heard a loud sigh from my left. The sound ripped me out of my bubble, making me turn my head towards the man who looked like he would fall asleep any second. The way he leaned back and tried to shift to a more comfortable position for his legs, combined with the blank facial expression that showed me everything but interest, was too funny to watch. I let out a little chuckle, making him look at me with a knowing look.

“You look very motivated”, I stated sarcastically, which made him smirk lazily as his eyes looked to the front again.

“Sorry but it doesn’t seem too interesting to learn that multiple sclerosis is a demyelinating disease, where the, with myelin covered, axons in the brain and spinal cord are severely damaged.”

The way he said that – amused but still with a sign of annoyance towards the subject made me giggle. I quickly looked at the tutor to see if he had said something important but it didn’t seem so, that’s when I turned my attention towards the man again, who was obviously way too tall for those narrow seats. He looked like a grown-up in a bobby car.

“Well, I can’t relate to that since I really like this topic, so…”

“You’re joking, right?”, he cut me off and looked at me, like as to see if I was playing with him. Again, his facial expression made me giggle quietly. With a shrug, I answered him.

“No, really. Call me crazy but I’m interested in it- even if it’s complicated and a lot of strange names. Guess, I just like a challenge? If it was too easy, wouldn’t that be more boring?”

Based on the look he gave me, he was disagreeing with my statement. He tilted his head to the side and sighed again - exaggerated like the first time he did it.

“It just feels like he’s coming up with random word-like sounds, connects them to a way too long sentence and looks at us as if we should do a standing ovation for his impressive sounds that sound more ridiculous to me than comprehensive”, I was a bit taken aback by his highly accurate example and I could see now that he was maybe smarter than almost the whole lecture room. He just seemed like someone really smart, just based on the way he was choosing his words. Maybe my reaction was a bit too slow for his liking or I just spaced out, because he now shrugged his shoulder and had lightly blushed cheeks. “Just my opinion, maybe I’m the only one with that opinion and I’m just stupid for not focusing enough.”

“Oh, no I don’t think that you’re the only one”, I quickly replied so I wouldn’t seem mean for not responding properly. “I guess more people here would relate to you than to my nerd-self.”

This again made him look at me with a warm smile, he was amused I guessed. Before he answered, I could see him scanning my document, that contained a full page of notes, graphs and even different kinds of titles. Immediately I followed his eyes, then looked at his almost empty one and couldn’t help but had to chuckle. He sighed with an embarrassed smile on his face and scratched his neck. As a reflex, his fingers were placed on the keyboard again, as if he wanted to be ready for making notes again – a little gesture that made him seem adorable.

“Don’t compare yourself to me, oh god.”

“You pressured me”, he replied and chuckled when he heard my gasp.

“I didn’t!”

“You did, with your notes looking like one of a professional and mine looking like the ones of a 12-year old.”

“And how is that my fault?”, I teased and laughed when I saw that he didn’t have anything more to say and pressed his lips to a line. He looked to the front again and sat straight for the first time since he’s there, looking way too amusing than I could take him seriously. I shook my head and paid attention to the tutor again, practically for the rest of the lecture.

A quick peek here and there towards my left showed me how the man with the mesmerizingly dark but soft eyes was focused, he even put more effort in his notes now. Was it because of my notes? The thought of that made me smile again, as I continued to listen.

“Mh?”

“What?”, I looked confused at him and met his eyes.

“You laughed at me”, he stated and made me chuckle, making me even more confused.

“I didn’t! Why do you think that?”, he looked at his notes again and then at mine.

“You compared my document with yours again and laughed at me”, the fact that his mouth was formed to a small pout, made him seem like the purest man ever. It was funny because he was probably the tallest man I’d ever met but he still didn’t have one bit of an intimidating side of him. Or I just hadn’t seen that side yet. He was cute, actually.

“That’s not true, believe me. And again, stop comparing yourself!”, at that, he chuckled and made a grimace, as if he wanted to say ‘yeah sure’. The lecture was soon over - to my surprise. Never before had a lecture passed that fast as this morning. And never before had a lecture been that good fun.

“Well, that’s a wrap”, the man stated as he closed his laptop with a relieved expression on his face, which made me smile once more. I stood up to collect all my things, when he suddenly stood up from his chair as well, leaving me speechless for a moment. I knew that he was tall but well, I didn’t expect me to be more than one head smaller than him, since my height was where his chest ended. It must have looked ridiculous to others, the height difference between him and me. Still surprised, I walked towards the end of the row rather quickly because I was scared that I might had stared too long at him when he stood right in front of me. At the exit, I couldn’t help but looked back to see where he went. Would he have the same lecture as me now? For a moment I was confused since I couldn’t spot the tall man until someone tapped my shoulder. There he was, his signature smile gave his appearance a sense of warmth.

“Room 401?”, he asked with raised eyebrows, to which I grinned and nodded. We really had the same lecture, again. His smile grew the second he saw my nod, then walked out of the room and down the hall – next to me. Right then, I didn’t really know what to say or what to talk about. To start and talk about chemistry might had not been the best way to loosen up. Not that I was nervous or tensed, I just didn’t know how to continue the conversation, or if I should try at all.

“What’s in that bag you carry with you? It seems heavy”, he suddenly said to break the silence between us. Unconsciously, I thanked him for making the first step and looked down at the black sports bag.

“Oh, uhm skates?”, now he looked at me with a lot of surprise.

“You go ice-skating after school? That’s nice!”, I liked how interested he seemed in my hobby. I nodded and explained to him that I always went after my lectures, even though if I only had an hour. He nodded, seeming impressed. Before asking him something in response, I bit my lips.

“Do you like ice skating?”, at that, he grinned brightly. Eventually, his fingers went through his thick, brown hair.

“Actually yes, but it has been a while since I last went on the ice. Maybe three years? But I really like it. It’s relaxing in its own unique way, I guess,” I nodded heavily when he said that and walked into room 401 with him casually following me. The next lecture was exactly like the last one. From the beginning on, we both tried to focus on the tutor and the material he was giving us, but at a certain point, one of us complained or sighed, the other chuckled and a conversation started. In the end, we had been talking the whole lecture basically and the bell came way too fast in my opinion (not that I’d complain). In the hallway again, the brown-haired man swayed his arms slightly, seeming happy.

“Finally lunchtime, I was starving”, he finally said on the door to the cafeteria which laid on the way out of the big building. He turned towards me and scratched his neck. “Want to have lunch together?”

“No, thanks”, I said quickly without any thought behind it. But maybe I said that too quick because his happy expression dropped and changed to a mix between confusion and disappointment. With a blank expression, he looked down at me and then held his heart in the most dramatic way possible.

“Uhh okay, then not”, he laughed but I widened my eyes and shook my head in ‘no’. Fuck, I didn’t want to sound as if I wanted to reject him!

“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that!”, I sighed when he gave me an exaggeratedly heartbroken expression. “Let me explain first. I said no because I’m used to eat at the ice rink. It’s faster and their food might not be better than here but it’s cheaper”, I chuckled a bit embarrassed because the misunderstanding but was relieved to see him calm again. “If you want, you are very welcome to come with me?”

He was thinking for a long time. While he was humming and looking around him for a bit, he rubbed his arm. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him? What if he didn’t want to come and now tried to find an appropriate excuse? I pressed my lips to a line as I had those thoughts, regretting asking him with every second that he wasn’t answering the question.

“You don’t have t-”

“I’ll look like an idiot on the ice, I can tell you”, he said at the same time as me, which made both of us chuckle.

“Ah I bet you’ll be fine. Otherwise, you can get those supporting devices for children? Though I think you’re a little bit too tall for them”, I teased him.

“Or I can hold onto your arm and if I fall, you fall with me”, now he was the one smirking. “But yeah, I think I will come with you then. If you want to me to?”, at that I nodded quickly, walking outside with him. The good thing about the university was that they had a wide range of sports offers, for which you didn’t even have to pay. So it was perfect that the ice rink was about 5 minutes away from school and had a free entry. One more reason for me to come here everyday after the lectures were finished. Since it got colder the longer we were outside, he dug his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“What’s your name by the way?”, he suddenly asked and turned his head and looked down at me. The fact that we had been talking to each other for several hours and still didn’t know the name of the other made us laugh. After I told him mine, he mouthed it a few times, which looked kind of cute.

“And you?”

“I’m Yunho.”

“Yunho”, I mouthed the unique name and made him chuckle. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“Thank you?”, he opened the door of the ice rink so I could enter. “Uhh, met you on the rink? I have to rent the shoes.”

“Okay. Good luck walking in them”, I teased. “Don’t fall!”

“I try to, thanks”, he rolled his eyes and stood in the queue when I walked into the dressing room and changed the shoes, put on some gloves and checked my phone for a bit, knowing he would take a while.

After ten minutes, I stepped out onto the ice rink, walking skillfully on the skates, since I was trained. Yunho obviously wasn’t there yet so I decided to go in the ice already, it was way too tempting so I couldn’t just wait for him. My eyes closed when I slid over the white ground, feeling the cold breeze in my face, causing my hair to float. In that very moment, as I had my eyes closed and just enjoyed myself, I felt the happiest I could ever be. There were a few children and only a few couples, one or two beginners and me on the ice. It was fine because the rink was big enough that nobody would have had trouble with too little space. Usually if I was here on my own, I’d put my earphones on because there was no better feeling than listening to calm music while ice-skating. But I guessed that talking to Yunho was probably more appropriate. After five minutes of skating on my own, I felt myself getting impatient. Where was he and why did it take him that long to put on some skates? I stopped skating on the track and was about to slid towards the exit when I suddenly spotted the tall man – and I swear to god – it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.

The giant, packed in his coat, scarf and black gloves, shakily placed one foot on the ice and held onto the handrail as if his life depended on it. He was worse than the little children next to him, that were not even half his height and practically jumped on the ice, while he was gripping the handrail, turned his back towards the ice rink so his ass popped out and placed the second foot on the white ground too. I couldn’t even TRY to stop my laughter. Even though I never had difficulties to keep the balance on the ice, in that very moment as I laughed while holding my stomach, I almost slipped, which left me gasping in shock. Luckily, Yunho was too busy trying to stand on the ice (of course still with his hands on the handrail) so he didn’t see me almost tripping. I then decided to slide over the ice and stopped five feet apart, grinning widely at him. He looked up and instantly chuckled but with a sense of frustration in it, which made him look so freaking adorable.

“Tell me how a six-foot-tall man like you is worse at standing on ice than little children?”, I laughed as he let his head sink for a moment and tried to stand up. While doing so, his body was stiff as wood and was tripping back and forth at every little millimeter.

“You know that you can also help me instead of standing there?”

“I could. Should I?”, I giggled as he glared at me.

“Please?”, he said that with so much frustration that I could tell how hard it must have been to ask me for help. How could I have resisted to those big teddy bear eyes? I got closer and took his hand in mine. Immediately, he shifted his weight on me, which made it hard for me to stand even. It was enough to make us both laugh.

“My goodness, relax”, I laughed and balanced us both out the best I could. He really tried, I could see it, but it was so hilarious to see this giant struggling with just standing on the ice.

“Sorry, sorry”, he whined and eventually managed to take the other hand off the handrail as well. He put that hand on my shoulder, again pulling me down a bit. “Sorry! I don’t do it on purpose”, he whined more, making me laugh more. After a couple of seconds, he was steady and exhaled loudly. He then threw his head back and looked relieved. It was weird to stand that close in front of him, holding onto each other’s hand. As he looked down on me again, he grinned brightly out of a sudden, making me look up in a confused way.

“What?”

“I just realized how tiny you are.”

The fact that he was the one laughing over me now was a plot twist I wasn’t ready for, so I pouted and decided to push his chest with my free hand. That may or may not had been a good idea, since he lost his balance and almost pulled me with him. Eventually, I could hold the balance again and pulled him closer. This made him laugh and me groan.

“If you have to fall, can you at least let go of my hand?”

“You pushed me in the first place!”, at that, I just rolled my eyes and looked at my feet for a moment. To be honest, it was quite exhausting for me to lay my head in my neck just to look into his eyes. Why did he have to be so tall?

“Whatever. Do you want to stand like this the whole time or do you actually consider ice-skating?”, he pressed his lips to a line and looked around for a bit. It made me tilt my head. “Or are you scared?”

“I’m not scared!”, he laughed and slowly let go of my grip. Only now I realized how strong his grip had been on me, which was quite funny. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve last been ice-skating. Let’s try.”

Slowly, he let go of me and to my surprise, he stood straight. However, his eyes were glued on the ice and that didn’t change as he started to move his feet in the tiniest way possible. I moved slightly away from him but still in a distance where I could catch him if he’d fall. He didn’t look particularly steady when starting to slide over the ice, but he got more and more confident the longer he was skating and it was quite impressive how fast he made progress. Not even 5 minutes later, he was skating with increased speed, arms not spread anymore like the little children did. He only did that on the first track. Soon, his footwork was way more skillful than of most of the people on the track. I didn’t have trouble to catch him up with, however he was quite fast. His right hand now laid on his lower back, making him look a lot more elegant and smoothly.

“Where did the sudden skill come from?”, I asked him with amazement once I was next to him once again. He chuckled and put an a exaggeratedly confident expression.

“It has never been away.”

“Are your sure? The beginning looked pretty miserable”, he gasped in shock when I exposed him and turned his head towards me. “Even the children looked at you with pity.”

“Will you stop!”, he pushed me a bit and laughed with me. “I told you I needed some time. But look at me now, I’m confident and nothing could make me trip now.”

“Nothing?”, I teased and immediately saw some kind of challenge in his words. He shook his head, smirking in a cocky way.

“Nope.”

“We’ll see about that”, I replied and kept sliding over the ice. It was really calming, being here with him wasn’t awkward at all. Actually, it hadn’t been awkward for one second of the day. As time went by, we were talking about all different kind of things. He told me about he used to play hockey as a kid but gave it up since he had a tough school schedule. That was probably why he was so smooth and deft when quickly skating around a child that just tripped in front of him. What was really nice of him was that he always stopped and helped them up again, eventually wiping some snow off their jackets. The sight of his tall-self kneeling in front of a little child, mixed with his warm smile made such a good impression on me. He really was caring, not only with actions like those but also because he listened to me with such an honesty and interest that it made me feel comfortable. When the ice machine came on the rink and everyone had to go off the ice, he asked me if we could go to the little restaurant. I then remembered that we still hadn’t had lunch, which made me realize how much time we just spent together talking and skating without paying attention to anything else.

“I didn’t even realize how hungry I’ve been”, he stated once he started to eat the French fries in front of him. I nodded and agreed as I ate the burger in rather silence. He stuffed his mouth with food for the next five minutes and then got up to buy another portion. As I looked outside the window, I noticed the sunset coloring the sky in a faded purple, mixed with all the different kinds of pink and orange. It made me smile. Sunsets always changed the complete mood of the scenery, no matter where.

“What are you looking at?”, he suddenly ripped me out of my thoughts. I smiled and nodded towards the window, seeing him following my eyes.

“Somehow the ice rink changed into something…magical?”, I looked out of the window as I said that and waited for him to hum or say something. But when he didn’t give me any sound, I looked back at him and instantly froze. He was already looking at me with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile. His crossed arms rested on the table, he was a bit leaned over the table. Something about this look, the way he watched me like that without even saying anything, caused a weird feeling to grow in my stomach. “W-why are you looking at me like that?”, I asked and instantly got surprised because my usual steady voice suddenly was shaking and sounded hesitant. My reaction must had been amusing to him because he chuckled and looked away from me and then out of the window.

“Magical, really?”, I hummed as a response but it sounded like a question. Again, he smirked and looked back at me. “What are you, a Disney princess?”

“Stop teasing!”

“How can I when you say magical? It’s just a sunset”, he laughed and made me lean back with a massive pout.

“It looks pretty.”

“It does.”

“Then why do you tease me?”, I snapped a bit and pouted even more when he clapped his hands and laughed.

“Because nobody uses magical to describe a sunset except you!”

“Let me live in my fantasy, okay?”, he eventually calmed down from his laughter and protectively held up his hands as to apologize.

“Alright, alright.”

“Thank you”, I groaned. For a moment it was silent between us and I calmed down from the situation.

“Magical.”

“Stop, oh my god!”, I whined and kicked his leg under the table when he started to laugh again. “I wouldn’t have guessed that you could be so mean!”

“You just gave me the perfect base for it, I’m sorry”, he grinned and cupped my hand for a moment. I looked down at the action and noticed how giant his hand was compared to mine. His was almost cupping my whole hand. He calmed down from his laughter once more, looking at his hand as well before letting go after a while. I pressed my lips to a line and looked up at him, still with a slight pout on my face. I met his brown eyes and for a moment, we just looked at each other without anyone saying anything. Somehow it wasn’t awkward at all, it was the opposite. “Do you always blush when you’re embarrassed?”

It took me a moment to realize what he just said. Did he…? As an instinct, my hands went up to my face and cupped my cheeks. Indeed, I could feel how hot I was. He chuckled, which made me curse on the inside. Why was I blushing! That was so embarrassing, I hated that feeling so I groaned and hid my face behind my hands.

“Ahh stop this, take your hands away”, he said but I immediately shook my head. I heard him sigh and a moment later, he grabbed my hands and lowered them so I could look at his stupid smile again.

“Satisfied with yourself?”

“Kind of”, he smirked.

After that little interaction, we decided to go on the rink again. Now, it was already late afternoon and the sky had a navy blue-greyish color. Artificial light illuminated the ice and made it look even nicer because there weren’t a lot of people left. All the children had gone home already, there only were a few couples and single skaters. Back on the ice, I smoothly made a little pirouette to turn towards Yunho. I was curious if he would go back to being a clumsy mess when getting on the ice. But to my surprise, he followed quickly after me without any problems, chin high and with a cocky smirk on his face. I laughed at his dorkiness and started to skate away from him. Now that there was a lot more space to use, I could work on tricks I wanted to perfectionate. Things like a double pirouette, making a perfect circle or sliding on one foot for a long time. While I practiced some of those, I didn’t really focus on Yunho or the other people – at that moment it was just me in my element. While I was just struggling with getting the perfect angle of my leg in the pirouette, I could see Yunho imitating my actions from the corner of my eye. That made me stop, so I could look at how he was doing it. Again, it was adorable to see him being so focused. He even bit onto his tongue as he was trying the pirouette several times and though it didn’t really had any sense of elegance in those movements, his technique wasn’t too bad, which impressed me and made me giggle. I think he heard me because he then looked up, almost tripped while doing so and scratched his neck.

“That wasn’t even that horrible!”

“Didn’t expect that, huh!”, he laughed and slid closer to me. I shook my head and watched him doing it again, soon both of us were doing pirouettes while giggling. I didn’t even want to know how that must had looked from the outside. But I didn’t care, since I hadn’t had this much fun in a while.

“Can you help me with a double pirouette?”, I asked him after a while and smiled when he nodded and came a bit closer, ready to support me if I slipped. While I was practicing, he hummed a lot or gave impressed gasps from him, which made me giggle and almost trip sometimes since I kept losing my concentration. One time, I must have been somewhere else with my thoughts because one foot collided with the other while I was turning, so I tripped and was about to fall on my back. But suddenly, I felt a force pulling me forward again. It was Yunho, who reacted quickly and had grabbed the collar of my jacket and pulled me against him – However, there was a bit too much strength in his action since I crashed into him and…

“Ouw!”, with a muffled bang, we both landed on the ice, me on top of him. A loud groan escaped his lips, while I was still a bit in shock.

“Did you hurt yourself?”, I immediately asked when I supported myself with my hand on the ice next to his head, so he wouldn’t feel my full weight. For a moment I was really worried because on one’s back could really hurt but instead of whining or having a painfilled expression, Yunho started to laugh. Somehow I couldn’t help but to join him, the more I thought what just happened, the funnier it seemed.

“Ahh what was that”, he rubbed over his face before I rolled off him and stood up. Then I helped him getting on his feet.

“Your grip was way too strong”, I giggled and wiped some ice off his back, that was practically covered with it. Like a dog, he shook his head and removed white flakes from his hair.

“My self-control is nonexistent, I guess”, he whined and smiled at me. “But this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t trip, just saying.” His sudden change of tone to a way cockier one left me gasping.

“I trip once in a month maybe!”, Yunho didn’t seem impressed and skated to skate backwards now. Was he showing off?! I tilted my head and followed him, then imitated his action by his side. Like this, we were skating down the whole rink, then eventually started a race who could make it faster to the start again. I soon discovered that the tall brown-haired one was as competitive as me, which was to my liking because I always was down for a challenge. After I won the race and saw him rolling his eyes, I had to giggle.

“That was luck, again.”

“Fine, but don’t cry if you lose again”, I nudged his shoulder and got into position again. Like that, Yunho and I started race after race, had a competitions about who could make the smoothest circle (it was a tie) and who could slide the longest on one leg. This last part was especially entertaining, since Yunho could slide really long tracks on one leg, however his leg didn’t go higher than maybe 5 centimeters. I laughed at the lack of elegance and he joined me because he expected himself to be better than that. For the next minute he tried to convince me that he wore the wrong kind of pants but I wasn’t believing him one bit of that.

“I’ll show you the next time!”, he called and sounded really confident in what he was saying. However I was focusing on something else, something that made me smile and tilt my head at him.

“Next time?”, I repeated and saw how he was nodding his head slightly.

“Yeah?”, now he sounded a bit hesitant. A cloud of hot air escaped his mouth before he started to speak again. “I mean, unless you don’t want me to join you again. Would be understandable, I beat you in most of the races and practically am a better skater than you who practices this hobby way longer than me.

At that I had to roll my eyes, making him chuckle softly.

“I’d love to compete against you again. There have to be a lot of revenges”, I grinned and saw him putting his hands in the pockets of his coat once more.

“Winner buys the lunch tomorrow?”

“Deal”, I agreed with a bright smile on my lips, that were shivering at this point. Yunho noticed that I was cold and looked around a bit before nodding towards the exit.

“It’s getting freezing, should we go?”

“Yeah, I think so…”

He nodded and we left the rink, being the last ones now. Ten minutes after, I was ready to go and waited for him in front of the entrance. This day had been way better than I had expected it to be. I was really glad that I met Yunho in the university. The fact that I now knew we had the same lectures made me happy when I thought about it. Maybe we would see each other again tomorrow? I hoped so, he promised so at least. As I was a bit lost in my thoughts, I didn’t quite hear him coming out and jumped once he tapped my shoulder.

“Don’t scare me like that”, I softly hit his arm and made him laugh.

“Not my fault if you’re that easy to scare”, I rolled my eyes and looked up into those big dark eyes. Even though they were almost pitch black, there was not one second during this day where I felt a coldness coming from them. Together with this warm smile of him, they gave me a comforting feeling whenever I looked up at him. It was easy to get lost in them. I said that because he was suddenly smiling brightly and ripped me out of my obvious stare.

“Mh?”, I said confused and felt the heat coming back to my cheeks.

“I said”, he exaggeratedly underlined his words. “I see you tomorrow in the lecture room?”

At this point, I couldn’t look at him somehow. Knowing that I was blushing once more because of him and knowing that he for sure noticed it made me want to rush past him here and then. But I stayed and nodded.

“I’d love to”, I added and eventually forced myself to look up at the tall man once more. Only to see that his eyes already on me. “So I can see your demotivated expressions again.” We both laughed at that, I instantly remembered how he had sat in the narrow chair with a blank expression that was hilarious. He pushed his hair back and rolled his eyes. It got silent again between us, however, this time was a bit different from all the other times. Completely different. Why did the heat in my cheeks didn’t fade?

“See you?”, he asked after a while of thick silence. The kind that made you smile without you really intending to, but you still smiled because it seemed more natural than just staying with a blank expression. I nodded my head and cursed at myself when the heat increased instead of decreasing.

“See you…”

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profitcord71 · 4 years ago

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Will Writing - Exactly How To Select A Professional Firm

Legalzoom Online Will Evaluation

Content

If You Don'T Wish To Utilize A Solicitor

Indication Your Will In Front Of Witnesses.

To Establish Who Will Take Care Of Your Minor Kid

Key Records To Have Along With Your Last Will And Testament.

When Should You Obtain Legal Advice To Prepare Your Will?

Making Older Individuals'S Voices Heard.

Full An Estate Tax Type.

Utilizing A Lawyer To Compose Your Will

What Is Probate?

What To Expect From Your Solicitor

If You Don'T Intend To Use A Solicitor

You might think that the generated paper shows your desires, however you would not recognize if there was a much better method due to the fact that you have no solicitor leading you. Further, if points fail, customers won't necessarily have the ability to complain to the Lawful Ombudsman or any one of the various other regulators if they depend on membership of the SWW or IPWW alone. Whilst the SWW as well as IPWW have a grievances service, they have no real comparable power to claim, the Legal Ombudsman, SRA, CILEX or ACTION. By contrast, a qualified lawyer such as a Solicitor or Chartered Legal Executive should follow a stringent specialist Standard procedure and also can be sanctioned both by the Ombudsman and also by their corresponding Regulatory authorities.

You can learn about the recommended minimum contribution quantity, and details of lawyers that can assist on the Will Aid website. Every November, participating solicitors will create a basic will at no cost in return for a contribution to Will Help. Prior to making a decision on who to make use of, it's constantly suggested to get in touch with a couple of neighborhood solicitors to discover just how much they bill. The fees for creating a will vary between lawyers and also depend on the intricacy of the will. However, will-writing firms are not controlled by the Legislation Culture so there are couple of safeguards if things go wrong.

The requirements for a valid will are much less strict for service employees on active service. If somebody makes a will yet it is not legitimately valid, on their death their estate will be shared out under particular rules, not according to the dreams shared in the will. They will need to accumulate with each other all the possessions of the estate, deal with all the documentation and also pay all the financial obligations, taxes, funeral service and also administration expenses out of money in the estate. Executors are the people who will be accountable for carrying out your wishes and for figuring out the estate.

Possibly you're not sure of your dreams-- or don't know what the best alternatives to take may be to safeguard your estate for the future generation. When this occurs a person's assets are dispersed according to a collection of guidelines called Intestacy Rules. This is a set legal order which decides where your money goes-- and the outcome might not mirror your desires. Many individuals recognize exactly how crucial it is to have a will in position-- yet an alarming number don't yet have one in place, as well as haven't place their desires down in writing. Mostly individuals put it off since they see it as something to deal with when they are older, or they know they require to sort it out however then forget it.

Who should keep the original Will UK?

1. Leave it with a solicitor. If a solicitor writes your will, they will usually store the original free of charge and give you a copy – but ask them to make sure. Most solicitors will also store a will they didn't write, but there will probably be a fee.

Release your brand name and increase exposure to hundreds of wills as well as probate professionals daily by protecting an advertising and marketing room on the Today's Wills & Probate web site and once a week newsletter. Established in 2014, Today's Wills & Probate is the leading news magazine for wills and probate experts. We offer comprehensive training, technical support, as well as literature/resources to our accredited members, and offer fully detailed estate planning services. Our Consultants are available free of charge on the internet consultations as well as telephone consultations, to use you suggestions on all your estate planning requirements, whilst you stay in the security and comfort of your very own home. We additionally have 2 workplaces in Hellesdon, Norwich as well as St Ives, Cambridgeshire and are using Face-to-face appointments in accordance with Government standards on social distancing.

Indication Your Will In Front Of Witnesses.

I'm single or single without children.Even if you lived with your companion, your making it through companion is not qualified to anything.

I'm single or solitary with children.Even if you dealt with your companion, your enduring partner does not inherit anything.

plenty of software supplies a certain degree of legal protection for married or civil-partnered couples, however this protection doesn't apply to cohabiting pairs-- also if you've been together for 20 years as well as have 3 kids.

The rules are complex though, so legal recommendations deserves having, and things vary discreetly across the UK nations.

Actually, there are just limited civil liberties for cohabiting companions.

If you're not married or in a civil collaboration, also if you split up, there is generally no lawful commitment to merge your assets and also divide them.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic and also the fact some individuals need to 'protect', the Federal government has actually introduced regulation enabling the observing of wills to be done using video clip.

If you have no making it through blood relatives, your estate will go to the Crown.

If it's less than ₤ 2million, consider looking in other places, as you may discover it tough to get payment from companies supplying much less than this should points go wrong. A lot of lawyers save wills for free if you made the will with them.

To Identify Who Will Take Care Of Your Minor Kid

Your will writing firm might maintain your details on data and advise you when it's time to review your will. It's a great concept to assess your will often to guarantee that it stands and still reflects your dreams. If you leave an old will as well as don't upgrade it you might locate that it does not abide by current laws and also might leave your estate available to Intestacy Law.

Solicitors operate in a controlled market, which indicates that you have much more rights as a customer need to something fail with your Will. Typically, you can get in touch with the Legal Ombudsman to whine if you have actually talked with the solicitor directly and also your issues aren't attended to. Many Will-writing services are covered by the Customer Civil Liberty Act 2015, yet it deserves examining as policies can vary from business to firm. Some also come from main organisations that can action in to assist you out if you're not delighted with the procedure.

Can I leave my wife out of my will UK?

Under UK law you have a lot of freedom in your Will to leave your Estate to whoever you like. However, you need to be aware that legally you have to provide reasonable support to all people who are financially dependent on you (e.g. spouse, children etc.) and anyone you maintained / supported financially.

Secret Documents To Have Together With Your Last Will As Well As Testimony.

Complete the form below to find out more concerning any of our solutions. By giving away today, you might aid us respond to much more phones call to our recommendations line, project harder for older people's rights and also fair therapy as well as provide normal relationship calls to people who are frantically lonesome. If you have children as well as your spouse or companion is deceased your youngsters will acquire every little thing, split equally between them.

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The new will should start with a provision specifying that it withdraws all previous wills and also codicils. Withdrawing a will implies that the will is no longer legally legitimate. You can also ask the firm to get in touch with lawyers in the area where the individual lived to ask if they hold a will. The individual that has actually passed away, or their solicitor, may have registered their will with a commercial organisation such as Certainty () as well as, after the person's death, you can spend for a search of the wills signed up on the firm's database.

April King's team of attorneys is led by Paul King, a complete member of the Culture of Trusts as well as Estates Practitioners. ACTION is the worldwide expert association for practitioners that specialise in family members inheritance and succession preparation. Full ACTION participants like Paul are internationally acknowledged as professionals in their area, with proven credentials and experience. In addition, even if the service states that the Will is inspected by a certified person later on, that person can not correctly check the paper suits your conditions since there is no interview or notes to compare to!

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Use our rapid online service and also established your own will within 20 mins. Alternative 1-- You can look our directory of will writing experts, which you can discover right here. from a lawyer in case of a complicated scenario, such as multiple separations, abroad investments, organization properties or large estates.

When Should You Obtain Lawful Advice To Prepare Your Will?

Will-writing solutions start at around ₤ 80, and also will increase to a few hundred extra pounds, depending on the intricacy of your estate, as well as the competence of the firm. When writing a will, many people select to take the DIY course rather than seek professional aid.

Can my husband throw me out of our house UK?

In short, then you cannot simply kick your husband out of the house. Instead, you will need to apply for your own occupation order from the court, which will determine who can occupy the property.

Along with becoming part of an acknowledged network of professionals, becoming a member of the IPW can help your business attract attention versus competitors, demonstrating the high requirement of your solutions. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 22/09/ In accordance with the current Federal government suggestions, we have actually returned to functioning from residence. Our solutions continue to be uninterrupted and also our functioning hrs are customarily. This is excellent for any individual that doesn't have an e-mail address or would simply choose to speak to an expert. In this circumstance, your partner would additionally inherit 100% of your ₤ 325,000 tax obligation allowance, giving them an overall allowance of ₤ 650,000.

Making a Will enables you to define where your properties must go on your death. You can attend to liked ones and also in doing so, show that you care. Furthermore, Wills can cover issues such as philanthropic gifts, guardianship for small youngsters, care for pet dogs and whether the testator wishes to be hidden or cremated. Every Will is backed-up with ₤ 2m of specialist indemnity insurance.

If you are in any uncertainty regarding whether or not you ought to make a will, you need to consult a solicitor or a Citizens Advice neighborhood office that can provide you lists of solicitors. Regardless of whether you choose ahome check out, telephone orvideo chatappointment, the same team of pleasant, skilled legal professionals will direct you through the intricacies of writing your Will.

This is due to the fact that it is followed up by on-going area guidance to improve knowledge every step of the means. Distinctively, we are the only network to evaluate and inspect every Will that is written. Finally, we are the only Will writing company to take duty for ALL suggestions provided. An extremely sincere organization as well as have actually currently made myself reassured that my family is secured.

Your partner might after that leave an estate as much as the value of ₤ 650,000 without needing to pay any type of estate tax. The estate tax rate for 2019/20 is ₤ 325,000-- this is additionally known as the nil price band. If your estate is worth greater than ₤ 325,000, you will typically have to pay 40% on whatever over the zero price band. Nonetheless, if you're married or in a civil partnership and also your companion is domiciled in the UK, anything you delegate your partner will be free of tax, regardless of the size of your estate.

What is better a will or a trust?

Unlike a will, a living trust passes property outside of probate court. There are no court or attorney fees after the trust is established. Your property can be passed immediately and directly to your named beneficiaries. Trusts tend to be more expensive than wills to create and maintain.

The most well-recognised organisations are the Institute of Expert Willwriters and also the Culture of Will Writers. It's also worth inspecting if they're certified by the Trading Specification Institute Customer Codes Authorization Plan. Ultimately, you ought to ask the Will-writing business where their indemnity cover starts.

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If you as well as a spouse or partner want substantively the exact same wills - called mirror wills - you'll generally obtain a discount rate for writing both at once. Before writing your will, it deserves recognizing all the possessions you have, along with any type of emotional products you wish to leave to enjoyed ones.

If you do not feel great writing a will online, among our specialists would certainly enjoy to make your will over the phone. We can then get it printed, bound and also sent to you in the blog post. After writing a will and getting it inspected by our specialists, you require to print and authorize it before 2 witnesses to make it lawfully binding. You can do it from the comfort of your very own home in simply 15 minutes. Create a will online in as little as 15 minutes and also take care of what actually matters.

You ought to also work out plans for your kids's care, and take into consideration whether you would love to leave details guidelines for your funeral. If you're intending to write a will, you can choose whether to do it yourself or seek aid from a professional. The right alternative for you will depend upon exactly how complex your affairs are, as well as how much help you're most likely to require. We discuss your options for doing-it-yourself, making use of a solicitor, or hiring a will-writing service below.

What happens if the witness to your will Dies UK?

That said, the death of a witness does not necessarily invalidate a will. At the outset of probate proceedings, if the witnesses have not survived, the executor will be required to produce proof that the original witness signatures were valid, as well as proof of the witnesses' deaths.

The Will Associates is just one of the UK's largest estate planning companies, being experts in Wills, Depends On, Powers of Attorney as well as Probate. We have hundreds of qualified professionals and head office team and we have actually aided over 7,000 individuals protect in excess of ₤ 1.5 BN in properties. If you are named in someone else's will as an administrator, you may need to look for probate to ensure that you can take care of their estate. There are rigorous time limits for testing a will and if you intend to test a will, you must look for legal advice immediately.

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uwaisstephenson-blog · 4 years ago

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bekkertechnologies · 5 years ago

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How to Organise your folders and files

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Let us consider some excellent practices for maintaining your documents as well as files cool, in folders and also easily searchable as well as easily accessible.

The suggestion of arranging files and also files returns to the good-old-days of declaring cupboards and paper.

The benefit of the original paper-based closets was that you actually needed to consider where to place files to make sure that you can find them easily when they were required. With digital records, given that you can not see or touch them, it ends up being too very easy to have actually files spread all over your computer.

Because this is an electronic mess as well as not a physical mess, frequently you don’t realize you have an issue– till you have an issue! You don’t really feel the pain of a topsy-turvy system till you can’t find a file you require.

Even though search is a powerful device, and also there is a training program in The Dojo taking you via searching for documents, you still wish to have a basic organizational framework to make sure that you do not need to rely exclusively on search.

Note: We’ll be talking about folders as well as directories on your hard drive in this write-up.

The Objectives of Your Organizational System

There are three overarching objectives for your documents organization system:

Easy to Submit– You don’t desire your system to be a huge, ordered puzzle. You want it to be easy and also rapid to save data so your system does not trigger friction. Easy to Discover– You desire your system to make it simple to find the file or folder you require, either by jabbing via folders or utilizing search. Reusable– Where feasible, you want to utilize re-usable themes as well as naming conventions, both of which support the previous 2 objectives.

Some Basic Rules

Let’s begin with some simple guidelines for managing your folders as well as documents.

Do not place files on the desktop computer

Your desktop is meant to be tidy and display that stunning high-resolution wallpaper you’ve got going on. It ought to contain your trash/recycle bin, and that has to do with it.

Now and then, it can be useful to put a documents or two on your desktop for momentary storage space if you’re referring to it routinely as well as don’t need to file it right now.

If you do not make use of FileBoss, limitation folder development. You can make use of hundreds of thousands of folders without any type of trouble or delay if you use FileBoss you do not need to fret regarding this.

Think minimal when you’re developing folders. If you have actually done a good task of at first mapping it out, the majority of documents as well as files can fit somewhere in your power structure.

Generally, just produce new folders (particularly top-level folders in Records) if you find yourself continuously coming back to save similar data in the exact same location, just to find that it doesn’t exist yet. You’ll know when it is time to create another degree in the hierarchy rather than creating a substantial comprehensive multi-layered tree before you need it.

Call your folders and files purposefully

Among our objectives for organizing our data is “Easy to Discover.” An essential means to achieve this is by putting some believed right into how you name your folders as well as documents.

It does not have to be anything challenging. Friend-of-AE Brett Kelly suches as to talk about the concept of calling your data by remembering your “Future You”. Below’s what he indicates by that:

When attempting to find it, … try to envision the circumstance in which you’ll need it and also which words you’re likely to use.

Think regarding saving a phone bill. Do you think phone.pdf is an excellent name?

When you’re naming that phone costs, assume regarding just how you might look for it. Probably:

By date (I want the August 2018 phone costs). By company (I want the Heaven Telecommunications phone expense). By number of document (I want a phone expense that contains the number 369 since they are requesting for repayment of this invoice ).

So a good name would certainly allow you to take a look at the files in a folder as well as soon as possible see what each data lacks opening it. It would certainly give you things you can make use of to search.

So an excellent file name, in this case, could be Heaven 369.pdf.

It is not practical to have a bunch of folders called Billings inside other folders. It would be far better to call the folder defCorp Invoices (also if it is inside a master defCorp folder) so that you can use that name to look on later. Dropbox and Data Sync.

Before we get into the basics of directory site organization, I wish to give a mention to Dropbox and also various other similar solutions.

Sync solutions (including those built into macOS and Windows 10) are incredible devices for having accessibility to your files in between different devices as well as being able to be effective anywhere you are. They’re additionally wonderful for sharing documents with others.

We make use of Dropbox thoroughly.

The frameworks and methods we discuss right here can be utilized on your regional file system, or can be synced to the cloud if you position the folder structure in the unique folder for your solution of choice. Files.

Now exactly how you divide up your individual documents is mainly a matter of exactly how you psychologically divide up your life. A very fundamental split could be Education and learning, Employers, Household, Finance, Health And Wellness, Home, Purchases, Traveling, and Car.

There might then be a modest amount of subfolders under these. For instance, if you have children and have files pertaining to your parents, you might want to break up Family:.

/ Documents/Family/Highstreet. / Documents/Family/Hoekstra. Kids.

If your mind goes in this manner, you could additionally do a split by life locations, like:.

/ Documents/finances. / Documents/social. / Documents/sports. / Documents/restaurants. / Documents/entertainment.

The general policy to comply with is to pick a folder structure that matches just how you mentally organize points. If you make use of a task management system, it’s probably not a negative concept to mimic the framework that you utilize in there too. Business Files.

Comparable to your personal documents, your organisation records and also just how you organize them will greatly rely on your profession, firm, market and job position.

If you remain in a huge company, you will likely be functioning from a shared drive, in which situation the directory structure will typically be rather set, so you do not need to worry about it too much.

If you are a small team or company and also are constructing your structure, it can be handy to obtain individuals together who will be working with these papers as well as think of the framework with each other. You’ll be more likely to have buy-in if individuals that are most acquainted with the documents have a say in just how they’re structured.

If you determine to keep some records in your area or if you’re not functioning from a common drive, it mostly boils down to what you do. For instance, say you’re a business analyst doing job job. Your directory structure might look something such as this:.

/ job name 1. / project name 1/development. / task name 1/brainstorming. / task name 1/output. / task name 2. / project name 3. / archive.

Each job would certainly then have subfolders associated with sensible devices of organization, like the type of work, stakeholders or who you’re reporting to. / archive is where you would move your completed jobs when they’re done. In contrast, state you’re an online marketing professional working from your laptop computer on the coastlines of Algarve, you may have something even more similar to this established:.

/ finances. / legal. / marketing. / items. / projects. / planning. / systems. / innovation.

How you arrange your business-related directories comes down to how you determine to split up your business or job into rational units. Team related tasks into logical groupings– think of it as an organization chart for your job/company, minus the positions.

Every time you have to dig around for a file you can’t have or find to do unnecessary clicks to access a folder, you are not as productive as you could be. Your document checklist is simply going to grow steadily so currently is the time to do something regarding it.

You ought to not be sacrificing your time simply clicking and also looking for a document. You must be able to discover that file in five seconds, not five mins. If you make a decision to store some records in your area or if you’re not functioning from a shared drive, it mostly comes down to what you do.

Even if your organisation of folders and files is not very good you will still be able to find any file or folder within a second by using FileBoss. Click on the link below to know more and to install a free 14 day trial (no credit cards or email required for the trial) :

FileBoss information and download page

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cassafra5 · 6 years ago

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Where Have I Been?

I’ve been a bit nervous to post this.

Two month or so ago, I teased at a possible announcement and something I was very excited to share with you all. I had been given the opportunity to work on a temp-to-perm basis for a comic start-up headed by Marvel alumni. I applied on a whim to be a freelance Storyboard Artist, but I was instead offered the chance of working in a full-time Editorial and Admin position with a few hours dedicated to storyboarding and participating in creative meetings each week. As someone who's always wanted to get into creative work, this was a really huge deal for me and I was excited to learn and be able to have projects to add to my portfolio.

Now, part of the reason I held off was because I wanted to make sure it was solid before I made the announcement. It was a dream come true and it seemed too good to be true ... and it was.

Read below if you'd like to hear about how I unwittingly signed up to take care of a herd of entitled neckbeards and had to work on preventing them from literally walking into glass instead of actually storyboarding as advertised.

TL;DR of my experience:

2018 unfortunately was a pretty rough year. The good news is that I managed to push for a mutual termination of contract and should be a lot more active very soon now that I’m not as emotionally drained by an incredibly toxic environment.

Credit to @kirain for looking through this and helping to edit it when I just rage-typed all of this together lol;

I walked away from my interviews in tears after being told that my work really had potential. I told them I had been a comic fan since I was a kid and this was something I was excited about. I grew up with family trying to dissuade me from doing art and I had friends/partners who really weren't interested in my work. I am by no means a professional, so I threw up whatever I could be proud of and applied to the role on a whim. So as you can imagine, having real professionals say I had potential was something amazing to me.

My first day, they sat me at a desk with a tablet and computer and I was super excited to start learning and was immediately approached with a Sexual Harassment plaque and told to mount it. Weird but alright. It was a start-up and I already assumed we’d all be helping out with small jobs around the office. I helped them fix their scanner and they suggested I move it to my desk. I was a bit confused but did so. I asked if they wanted me to set their computers up for it but they waved their hands at me and said we could do it later.

This would eventually result in me scanning every single document for every person in the office, and also measuring the office for furniture that they would randomly decide not to get. When I had a day off, I came back to piles of documents they refused to scan themselves since "that was my job". I got chastised since they wanted them in a hurry and it should have been done sooner ... i.e., the day I was off.

Alright.

I also ended up doing the following duties:

Calling the IRS every single day because the Controller was too uppity about something that was in the mail and somehow thought they could track it...DURING THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. I was required to do this and told it was part of my job.

Calling Instacart at the behest of their Legal Counsel, a man who bitched on the phone for 2 hours because he didnt want to go downstairs to drop off a faulty computer part, and having to tell them that their avocados were too soft and their almond milk had too many ingredients. I was required to do this and told it was part of my job.

I had to ask for multiple vendors to provide quotes and COI and do site visits to our office for things that they, on a whim, would decide they wouldn’t want....resulting in multiple vendors getting angry at me.

I had to get what “everyone wanted for Christmas” for their luncheon...they expected me to get cakes same day from a fancy bakery, as well as LOBSTER (one of them said this was apparently a Christmas tradition of theirs?) Mind you, they repeatedly spoke about budgeting since they were working on investment money and the owner repeatedly would mention how “every day we weren’t producing was a day we died a little more.” I guess that death would have been from gout.

I had to take on dealing with all building requests. Fine ...until they started to tell me I should be reaching out to building management about the "radiation coming out of the cable box". They said it was shooting at a person given their angle and, because I'm *that person*, I mentioned it'd probably be more of a radius vs a direct shot. They started talking about it causing a mushroom cloud over the office. I laughed. Apparently it wasn’t a joke :/ They also complained about the fan making noises and being able to hear people partying and singing songs ... during the holidays ... when people normally do that sort of thing.

I also had to deal with things such as their electrical work and assistance with general interior work in the office...for some reason

They put me in charge of the Party Committee for a Housewarming Party where I was the only one actually making arrangements. This would be fine but the office was sublet and, due to their clumsiness in handling their electrical work before I got there, part of the office has no electricity and there was also a fallen over power beam in the middle of the office...but I guess that can be an accent piece.

I literally had to rename their files. Rather than renaming documents themselves, they would email me to rename them and reupload them because they couldn’t be bothered to change them themselves.

I made the mistake of telling them I had worked with DocuSign in a previous job. What resulted was them forcing me to teach it to them...but then they would argue with me about why it couldn’t mail merge or allow them to revise their documents. A Docusign rep mentioned they could just do their work outside of Docusign and import it since the whole point is to maintain the integrity of the document but they just kind of blamed me for not knowing enough about something I had only briefly used in another completely different setting.

I was literally approached by the person who should have been leading me in storyboarding and told that I needed to look into “distraction graphics” for the office because he was concerned that the two head people (WHO WORKED AT MARVEL) kept bashing their heads on the glass and he was afraid they’d go through the glass eventually. My literal reaction:

Yeah...he didn’t laugh. It was apparently serious and I had to have some very awkward talks with some window vendors. Do you know it apparently costs more than $3.5k to cover glass that you could probably avoid if you just looked up from your phones when you walked?

Frustrating, but whatever ... it wasn't a big deal and so long as I got to do some creative work, I was willing to tolerate it.

I asked the person in charge of art and asked when we'd be able to work on creative and was told that my role was mainly in admin and to "leave the storyboarding to the storyboarders".

I guess I just imagined every single mention of that during the interview process.

I was taken aback but he assured me it was fine since I could work in production and work on other items, like cutting comics up for Webtoons. This wasn't what I wanted, but fine ... maybe I could get something out of this regardless and learn, even if I was just cutting up and processing other peoples' work. By the way, they ended up not even letting me do that.

And here’s where I get to the owner of this establishment...

I got called in to meet with him and told I would be given a special project. He wanted me to suggest a few themes that would be used for a promo project the company was working on. Okay ... this could be good. I started thinking of all my favorite genres and comics and wrote out a decent list. I asked him if it there was a limit and he said there was no limit, so I made a comprehensive list.

He brought me back in a week later and ripped my report apart.

First, he didn't want Marvel and DC included, but then he got upset when they weren't.

Star Wars and Serenity weren't Scifi, according to him; they were "Space Opera". So that had to be done. They were set in space but apparently that wasn't scientific. Alright.

Spongebob and Ducktales were irrelevant, but apparently The Simpsons was super relevant.

He smiled at me and told me I needed to redo it because I obviously didn't know what I was doing. Okay ... sure. Then he kept changing his mind. We started this before the holidays and I worked on making a very sortable report in case there were anymore last minute changes.

Me and another co-worker who were avid comic book readers spent a lot of time looking at sales numbers and articles to compile what we should focus on; however, for one reason or another, the owner would dismiss everything we brought up since he "hadn't heard of it". Deathstroke apparently never existed. Teen Titans also ... totally not relevant. Although he said he was open to ideas, he'd bash every single suggestion, answer every question by asking us why we'd ask such "stupid questions", and he literally asked us to bring in articles and statistics just so he could completely dismiss them. He was completely un-open to hearing anyone else's opinions and already had a dead-set idea of what his audience wanted ... despite having told us he hated comics and that "normal people [like him] don't read comic books". He knew what these idiots wanted, and it was just a matter of making us redoing the report over and over until we happened on the right combo HE wanted. I.e., pretty much the top comics he last saw at the dawn of the early 2000's.

I literally had taken pics of a few bestseller displays I’d seen in stores (Newsbury Comics, Barnes and Nobles etc) but he literally said that that didn’t mean they would sell. What does Best Selling even mean then?

But it's cool to just completely dismiss your customer base and act like you know better, right?

I ended up having to work until 10:00pm one night in order to make all necessary changes and print covers for him to review. What started as a simple list of themes became a report that had over 600 rows in Excel. Even then, 80-90% of it ended up not being used. I was so exhausted at this point and burnt out. I loved comics ... but having to rip them apart by category, put them back together, eliminate whole categories because he didn't want them, and then having to remake them after he changed his mind was agonizing.

I had another meeting with him and he smiled at me and simply said, "Aww I thought this would be a fun project for you, since you're a fangirl after all"

He was taunting me. This was a game to him. Of course, I should have expected this from someone who literally made a cheat sheet so "idiot comic book fans" would get his jokes. I'm not joking. It actually exists and I'm sure it's something Marvel would rather not even remember.

A couple more weeks passed and, at this point, a majority of the office depended on me to get people's food choices for their snacks, following up with building maintenance, and I barely had any creative projects whatsoever. I did get to create the party invitation the main art guy refused to make but he pushed me to make in Canva, because he thought Canva was the end all and be all to graphic design and that it should be used for all presentations for our LinkedIn. Pretty much everything Canva (something used mostly by Instagram and Twitter users) probably wasn't meant to be used on.

Keep in mind that this person was in charge of creative and was also in charge of gate-keeping me from doing the one thing I was tolerating everything for. I had literally repeatedly asked about the storyboarding during the interview process and even though they had changed the duties, they always confirmed that storyboarding would be a part of it.

Last week, I asked the main art guy again about my job description and about how he had mentioned storyboarding being off the table entirely. He immediately got defensive and reminded me that I was an admin. I mentioned I still had the job descriptions and emails mentioning me having a hand in creative, and he accused me of talking back and said that he could tell from how I looked that I thought he was an idiot.

He also accused me of not being enthusiastic about his projects. I was confused since I was actively asking for projects and had literally been trying to find some way to take on creative assignments. He got even angrier and said I wasn't telling him how much fun I was having and how excited his work was making me.

What?

It suddenly dawned on me that every talk I'd had with this guy about how excited I was to learn from him/to work on the team gave him some sort of weird satisfaction. I mentioned that I didn't think I should have been sending him emails about that, and he asked, "Why not? You shouldn't assume I don't want them. I want you to tell me my stuff is fun and how excited you are about them!" I was ... very uncomfortable. This grown man. This grown ass man wanted me to fawn over his work and send him emails about how excited I was about his work. About HIM. What a narcissist.

He made enough commotion that the owner brought us in. He sat us down and said something about him being a bit familiar with this sort of thing, having gone to marriage counselling himself. I was already uncomfortable and that really didn’t help.

What ended up happening was they berated me in his office and told me I was "too honest", and I was told that I didn't know my place. I was told that at the very top were the two Marvel alumni, then underneath there was everyone else and I was right at the very bottom of everything and I should know my place.

These were the two people who had told me I had potential and who had made me so happy just a couple months prior. I was frozen in place as they grinned at me and told me that obviously there was some misunderstanding on my part. They then told to run along while they thought about what they could throw at me to make me happy. The guy who yelled at me was not chastised or told his behavior was wrong in any way, shape or form. I got dragged into a staff meeting afterwards, where the owner proudly told all of us, "This is the best company you can work for, where you can work with people you like." And in the same breath, he told everyone not to fuck up or otherwise it would be "resume time".

I felt broken the rest of the day, where I heard them blatantly laughing and insulting the creators they were going to work with. One creator was commented on as being able to "...work as a writer but you shouldn't look at her stuff unless you want your eyes to bleed.” They said worse stuff too and laughed like a bunch of entitled douchebags on DeviantArt trying to get kicks off of stuff they thought were cringey. It was insane. These were supposed to be professionals in the field. It made me uncomfortable to think what they said about my own work when they told me I had "potential". Some of these were small time Tumblr creators like me who probably thought this would be their big break too...

I thought about putting in my two days, the amount that was specified in my contract, and worried about what they'd try to do in the time I had left. I was miserable and scared and nervous.

On Friday, the owner approached me and asked me for my portfolio while smiling to himself. I was skeptical and asked why, and he firmly said, "Because I want to see it." I sent it and prepared for the worst.

He brought me in for a two minute "friendly" chat in the conference room, and once we sat down, he mused over his computer and said it was "coming back to him” I did art.

He remembered now. It had been so forgettable, after all. Aww, maybe there was something there.

With a smile, he told me I "shouldn't take it personally", and that only one artist so far had been able to get along with him and work with what they wanted. They'd thrown out 8 artists after they just simply "didn't work". They admitted that they had promised me storyboarding, but no one was working to their intended vision. That they hadn't really figured out a place for me in the company, but maybe going out on a business trip would help him clear his head and he could find something I could do. "I guess we've been letting you down a bit, haven’t we?"

I felt like at this point he wanted me to act desperate and happy for the possibility of a chance and buy into it and take his offering with gratitude...

...but I was done with his shit.

I told him that I had started at his company a few months ago and that if they hadn't figured out where I was supposed to be in all that time, then maybe it wasn't a good fit. He was quiet and didn't seem prepared for it. "Well ... what do you think we should do about it then?"

"If it's alright with you, I would like to terminate this contract immediately." I said it through gritted teeth. I'm not a confrontational person, but after everything that had happened, I was worried I'd lose it. I could feel myself shaking, but I just couldn't deal with it anymore. "I didn't appreciate being told I was at the bottom of the food chain and I really didn't appreciate you allowing me to be treated this way. Frankly, after that, it's taken every bit of motivation out of me and I'd like to end this. Now." I was trying to be professional and control myself, but I was quietly seething with every word. I told him I had saved all my job descriptions and had the contract if he wanted to review it, and I knew that what they had been telling me was bullshit.

He was really quiet and his eyes were wide open. I really think he expected me to be grateful and happy and willing to do more and more for the company just for that little chance. He mumbled something about not prolonging my suffering and told me to just assist in transitioning over my duties and typing things up.

Once I did, I asked if I was free to go and he said I was and I left. It was so much of a relief not to have to come back to that office.

So this is what happened with something I thought would have been a great in to an industry I was excited about. I got used up (and not even for the skills I actually have under my belt) and kept around as an emotional punching bag, and for the dumbest things imaginable and essentially just assisted them with setting up their office after they'd sublet it.

On the plus side, I feel like it was a big deal that I could actually stand up for myself, even if it happened to be to someone like that. Even though I'm not a professional and even though some people would consider me insignificant, I feel like there's never a reason to make any person feel insignificant and like they're the lowest of the low. I hated how they spoke about other creators and I hated how they spoke to me, and there isn't any reason anyone should have to deal with people who are just bent on being condescending.

Ironically, around this time, Steven Universe released an amazing episode and the ending theme kind of hit home with me. I loved its message and I think that ep. kind of helped me in a way.

2019's off to an interesting start, I guess ... but I guess I can be proud that I'm stronger despite it. I am passionate about my art and do want to be able to work professionally but there’s no reason to ever tolerate disrespect and dishonesty in a company.

In the words of Raul Julia/Gomez Addams:

Hopefully, one day, I’ll get my break but this definitely wasn’t it.

If any of you guys are in NYC and happen to come across a mildly shady startup toted to be headed by Marvel alumni, maybe just be a bit careful. I normally don’t post about stuff like this and honestly tend to get quiet when things happen because I have trouble opening up about personal issues but maybe it can help someone or at the very least be an interesting read.

#personal #job stories #comics

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superchartisland · 5 years ago

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Super Mario All Stars (Nintendo, SNES, 1993)

Any overall roadmap for this project (and my brother’s related predecessor) is very lightly sketched, but this is a useful point to reflect on it. We grew up playing Dizzy games; part of what we’re doing is trying to reclaim video game history as we and many other Brits lived it, to demonstrate how the American-led received wisdom is a rewriting of the record. All of my research suggests that we were in the majority there -- in the UK the NES didn’t get a look in, and we’re not going to properly encounter the Game Boy until it’s a decade old.

Even this first Nintendo direct encounter is somewhat of a guess. Super Mario All Stars was a documented best-seller for the SNES, but in an absence of evidence I don’t know for sure that it was big enough to be an overall UK #1. I remember hearing about it a lot at the time, and by then the SNES had had a chance to build an audience, but remember that this blog covers games which were a #1 but not necessarily always the #1. Yet at the same time as I refute the story that Nintendo swept in to replace a dying industry -- neither happened like that in the UK -- we’re pretty keen on many things Nintendo. I have a NES Classic Mini, SNES Classic Mini and a Famicom Classic Mini sitting under my TV: loving recreations of consoles which I never owned.

In the internet era, this kind of adoption of history is probably more common. When I wrote the first version of this post I had recently watched the period piece music video for Satellite Young’s “Don’t Graduate, Senpai!” and was overwhelmed with contented nostalgic feelings, left with the power of a glimpse into a familiar and loved past. All that despite the fact I’ve hardly ever listened to the Japanese genre that it takes after, City Pop, or watched shoujo anime, and never when I was growing up. The person who it is precision targeting isn’t me. But it needn't be. There can be a feeling that is just as real, but second hand, a gravity exerted on adjacent culture that was invisible until something made me look over and notice its force.

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There are lots of ways that the influences on the song and video reached me. My partner did grow up with a lot of Japanese pop culture in Hong Kong, and talking with her about that and having watched a couple of episodes of Creamy Mami means having a feel for her fond memories. I have years of happily browsing tumblr gifsets of Sailor Moon, absorbing love for it and its place in culture. I can still get good use from a “but you didn’t do anything!” meme even if I’ve never actually watched the show. I’ve listened to 80s referencing music elsewhere, and modern Japanese music taking cues from City Pop, and that has added up to giving the sounds of the song a similar personal gravity.

And all of that has been made easier by the world getting smaller, by the internet giving providing an easy route to interests you share with people elsewhere in the world and from there to interests they share that you don’t. Look at it negatively, and it means a winning narrative can travel faster and become more comprehensive than ever, reaching into places where it doesn’t belong. But at the same time, it gives us a Japanese band and some Swedish animators uniting in their shared nostalgia, and it reaching out to me through next door culture which I’ve taken in via friends from all round the world, and me having feelings shared with those friends. That’s an amazing thing.

In common with most people I knew, we didn’t have the internet when Super Mario All Stars came out, and the world was still huge. Nintendo had other tools to work with, though. Their games were successful enough to reach out and have an outsized cultural impact beyond the limits of people actually playing them.

When I started primary school, before football stickers, there was a craze for Nintendo sticker books, and friends and I collected images of all of their games. People tried to negotiate enhanced swaps for stickers of Game Boy screenshots by maintaining that they were gold stickers, even more valuable than the special silver ones. I knew more about the characters and background for Mario through Saturday morning cartoons, and I remember watching American TV programmes where people competed through playing Super Mario Bros. levels. I assume it made it to the UK’s own Gamesmaster at some point too. And of course, many of the European games we were playing took their own influence from Nintendo. I may have been unaware of Metroid until years later, but hours spent playing Turrican still gave my first impressions of it that nostalgic gravity.

Mario was Nintendo’s most successful reach out to the wider culture, and that wider culture drove people back to Mario’s original form. That could work better for Nintendo if Mario games were easier to access, and so we get Super Mario All Stars. What to do when moving on from the NES to the SNES? Reissue, repackage, re-evaluate the games! Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3, now brought together in one place. With an extra track, no less, in the form of Japan’s very different Super Mario Bros. 2, new to the rest of the world and hence called The Lost Levels. From 2019 the very idea of levels being lost feels faintly absurd – someone will dig it out in a mod, or you can just log onto your alternate Japanese online console account, surely? I guess a handful of British people probably did own imported Famicoms even in 1993, but everyone else got their cross-fertilisation of culture mediated by Nintendo’s eccentric international release schedule.

Super Mario All Stars presents each game in its entirety, complete with newly upgraded graphics. Yet, in some way, the games seem to shrink in the transition. The act of selecting a game to play from a menu, turning them into pinned specimens labelled by year, emphasises the overall history and starts you off with a reminder that each world is only a part of a newly defined whole. Maybe that's why there is no Super Mario All Stars on the SNES Classic Mini, an assessment that the bird-inside-a-bird effect of featuring a retro collection on a retro collection would be that bit too spookily recursive.

And that idea of recursion is where the realisation struck me as I played Super Mario All Stars. It wasn't the first version of Mario I played, (it was the first Super Mario Bros. 3 that I ever played, though, the briefest of enchanting glimpses). But it feels absolutely right as my version of these games, even for Super Mario Bros. 2 where I'm pretty sure I'd never played this version before. The very sense of diminished scale, the way that All Stars exists as a Mario game aware that not only each individual game, but the games as a whole, are but a small part of the Mario out there in the world, feels totally fitting. The feeling runs through everything. The upscaled renditions of the music which expand on it but nonetheless can't escape how iconic the basic originals were. The decision to put Super Mario Bros.’ underwater waltz on the title screen with the new confidence that duh, it rules. The little portraits of what to expect that have been added to the start of each level, not spoilers but cute reminders. This is a Mario for the late to the party, an artefact of the games' immense second hand cultural gravity, reflected back into the games themselves. It's a sign of so much to come.

In reflection of it being the first time these games have come up on my route through history, here are miniature entries for each of the four games on Super Mario All Stars, pinned to one place:

Super Mario Bros.

It’s all about the movement. Specifically, the jump, the balletic means of progression which sits at the tempting boundary of predictability and control. It is not the only game jump, it was not the first game jump, but it is somehow still the Jump. When you press the jump button the moment stretches in time, a repeated joy that resounds slightly differently from Jump to Jump. Sometimes the Jump is relaxed, sometimes the Jump is tense, sometimes the Jump is a celebration of achievement. Gravity and momentum make their claim on you, and you must not reject them or bow to them, but turn towards them, take their hands, and dance. Only when you are the lead in the dance can it proceed in its full majesty. All of the subtle design, killer music and cleverly revealed secrets play their part too, of course. The richness of the world, day and night, water and dungeon, clouds and green groundclouds, isn’t to be underestimated. The dance wouldn’t be as kaleidoscopically beautiful without all of that. Fireworks might not always be necessary, but they are still fireworks. And yet it is the dance of the Jump that gives meaning to it all.

The Lost Levels

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“The Lost Levels”) introduces one such shadow as almost its first move with the poison mushroom, power-up turned to power-down. It takes that to a whole new level with the negative warp zones: welcome to warp zone, now a trick on you. The whole game, in fact, is a cruel mirror held up to Super Mario Bros., a reflection that looks right but doesn’t wave back. Much of its cruelty comes from luring players into familiar actions and then turning them back against them. This game is a dance too, but it’s one where the floor is trying to throw you off, where the steps and flow that you have learned are not only impossible to use but will quicken your downfall. But for some people who already know the dance back to front, perhaps trying to freestyle your way through some spiky math-rock is an enjoyable next step.

Super Mario Bros. 2

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“Super Mario Bros. USA”) is the Waluigi of early Mario games, a mirror of a mirror. It doesn’t focus on the shadows of objects and characters, though, but whole shadow worlds. Pick up a magical potion and you can open a door anywhere, take a subtle knife to the fabric of the universe, walk through the doorway and find yourself literally in shadow. Even outside of that mechanic, there are doors everywhere, and each one could go anywhere. This is the world of the subconsciousness, where possibilities extend to such things as a playable princess and gliding across the world on a gravity-resistant egg. Super Mario Bros. 2 is barely even a Mario game, and handles more awkwardly than one. Yet among all of its doors, it opens one to one of the series’s futures, platforming which is first and foremost a series of puzzles and doors to unlock.

Super Mario Bros. 3

This is the game where Mario learns to fly, tail flapping, on unseen wires in front of platforms casting shadows on a sky painted on sheets. The game is a show, and it’s some production. It has a cast of thousands and is the introduction point for almost as many iconic series images as the original. Its brilliance as sequel and as theatre is in taking the solid and dependable gameplay and mechanics of the original and using those as building blocks, the platforms of its stageset, then rearranging them. Each world rejigs and relights them and makes them interact with new props and characters for a set of dramatically different scenes. Water levels go from brief distractions to an entire world; the desert and an idyllic grassland emerge; World 7 turns off all of the lights to interact with the bare mechanics of pipes. The transitions between levels feel like curtains down and a chance to move things round. And then occasionally it breaks all the underlying rules and throws you into giant world or climbs up through the clouds, and there is nothing to do but laugh in delight. This is the game where Mario learns to fly.

SNES chart, Edge 004, January 1994

#every number one #retrogaming #SNES #Super Mario Bros.#Super Mario All Stars

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