#(says i who already have a plan for a potential phd that i most likely won't do but also involves said book + more by the same author) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justmaybee · 3 years

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Stocks

Summary: Knights of Favonius college AU at the Ren Faire ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ w/ hinted Kaebedo b/c it’s me

A/N: October is over but my procrastination knows no bounds ✨ so imma just keep doing the prompts I had planned…whenever I happen to get them out. It’s supposed to be for fun anyways, right? So have this ridiculously specific combination of things and I’ll catch y’all in a month or so~

Once more, from the top. Repetition is the key to memorization after all.

Miss Lisa, a clinical psychology major, currently in her final year of post-grad and well on her way to an outstanding PhD program.

That one’s easy. Lisa was among the first people whom Albedo met when he enrolled. It was a stroke of luck, getting a job in the library alongside the school’s brightest PhD candidate. Though it’d taken a while for Albedo to grow accustomed to her naturally flirty way of interacting.

Next, Miss Jean. Criminal Justice and Conflict Resolution, a dual major, with plans to apply for law school come the next year or so, if Albedo recalls correctly.

The difference between Lisa and Jean’s mannerisms is stark, but somehow balanced, in a way. Lisa brings a sense of calm to Jean’s strict—borderline overbearing—work ethic, and Jean motivates Lisa to act on the boundless potential she carries.

How very complimentary.

And the last piece to the puzzle, for today.

Mister Ky— Ki? Kae?

Albedo can’t remember seeing it on paper. He’ll have to mention that to Sucrose later.

But yes, Kaeya. Albedo doesn’t actually know what his major is. They’d only met fairly recently, and he’d quickly taken to conversation without any of the usual ‘icebreakers’ used by students.

He’s a childhood friend of Jean, growing up in the same neighborhood. And via Jean, Kaeya met Lisa. An awful combination, Albedo must say, even if he’s only known the combined pair for a short time. He has no doubt any one victim to their teasing would combust rather quickly.

Okay. Hopefully he can remember everything as they make their way throughout the day. He’s never been that great with names or faces, especially in groups. And Sucrose isn’t here to assist him, so he’ll really have to stay on top of things.

How long he’d been wrapped up in his head, Albedo isn’t sure. But when the car comes to a lurching stop, he knows it must’ve spanned enough time for them to arrive at their destination.

Kaeya announces their arrival, gesturing outside with a flourish. Jean offers a little cheer that has Lisa laughing softly in response.

This is Albedo’s first time at a Renaissance Faire. He didn’t have a lot of expectations going into it, but his first view of the fair grounds certainly delivers.

The door to his left pops open, startling him from his train of thought. He hadn’t realized that everyone was already on their way out. Kaeya stands beside Albedo, thankfully blocking most of the now beaming sun. His hand is on the door handle and his lips tilt up into a smirk.

“Coming?”

———

To say it again, Albedo’s never been to a ‘Ren Faire’ before. He can’t remember who’s idea it was either, just that he’d been dropped into a group chat very suddenly a few days ago.

He didn’t have too much of a preference going or not going, but when Amber had to drop last minute to help her partner from dance class—

Well, Albedo found the decision being made for him.

He made sure to thank Amber for her spare ticket—it was the polite thing to do—but he did worry a little.

Sucrose had a biochem exam approaching, so she couldn’t make it. Timaeus…didn’t know any of the others all that well.

And…Albedo didn’t really have any other friends his age to consider.

(The idea of bringing his little sister did flutter at the base of his head for a second before he shooed it off, a tad embarrassed.)

Thankfully, things seem to be going decently well. Lisa is a familiar presence. Jean is wholly accommodating. And Kaeya—

Albedo has the patience to deal with types like him, he’ll just say.

That’s why he does little more than roll his eyes, an amused smile tugging at his lips, when Kaeya immediately directs the group to a period-catered costume shop upon entrance.

It seems a bit much, but Albedo’s silence is outvoted unanimously.

There is the option to rent consumes but—

“That doesn’t seem sanitary,” Jean mumbles, hand at her chin while she frowns at the advertising sign.

“I don’t think ‘sanitary’ was a major concern in this century,” Kaeya offers when he walks by, an assortment of clothes already on his arm.

“But it is the present, so I’m sure they’d be fine,” Lisa chimes in, lightly pulling Jean’s hand from her face.

Wrist in hand, Lisa begins leading Jean off to a corner of the store. Her voice fades.

“You won’t be needing those anyways though, dear. I’ve got just the thing for you.”

———

Albedo hadn’t gone into this with the knowledge he’d be purchasing a costume, but he did bring an ample amount of spending money—just in case—so it doesn’t pose much of a problem.

He isn’t exactly sure what he should be buying though, so he just purchases what he can find on a similarly sized mannequin.

That leaves him in a white, long sleeved shirt that he cuffs to his elbows to match the display. It’s a bit—um—poofy? But the collar keeps it settled on Albedo’s shoulders fairly well. There’s a pair of baggy, but otherwise generic, brown pants on his legs and a yellow sash around his waist—for an accent? He supposes? That’s really the gist of it.

It’s not bad, Albedo thinks, but the rest of the group definitely took the idea to heart.

Lisa’s gown is a rich purple, complimented by the flowers in her hair. Roses, he thinks. Do roses come in purple? That’s beside the point—

She looks like royalty, elegant and poised. Albedo hopes she doesn’t overheat.

Jean’s dress is much more subdued, though that isn’t meant to come off negatively. Albedo doesn’t have the fashion background to describe it, but the dress seems well-fit to Jean’s style.

A white peasant dress with a blue bodice, flowing loose around her ankles. The sleeves hang off her shoulders and puff out, much like Albedo’s. A simple chain of daisies sits on her head, a subtle statement in her golden hair.

Kaeya’s outfit is the only one he can’t recall seeing in the store. Which is strange, since Albedo has an almost photographic memory.

His pants are almost identical to Albedo’s, just black and—obviously—a size larger.

His top…

….

It’s…another white top, long sleeved and of a thinner material. There’s ruffles or ruching—Albedo doesn’t know the specific terminology—around the neckline, which, ah—

—drops, a bit low. In a v-shaped cut that ends about mid-sternum and it—

It looks good — on him. Albedo will leave it at that.

…though leaving it there would mean glossing over the corset fitted around his waist. Navy blue and secured snugly on his lower abdomen.

How can a man be so tall and yet have a waist so small, it’s just—

“So that’s where that corset went.” Lisa says, slipping into Albedo’s line of sight.

Kaeya only shrugs his shoulders, a ‘guilty as charged’ smile on his face.

“Oh, you’re lucky you got ahold of it before I could. Jean has a figure to die for, and that would’ve gone a long way in getting others to properly appreciate it.”

Albedo doesn’t miss the look of relief on Jean’s face, nor the thankful smile she shoots Kaeya over Lisa’s shoulder.

———

From then on is a blur of vibrant colors, spirited music, and brisk, autumn air.

Kaeya leads the way, for the most part. Albedo follows gladly; the last thing he wants is to lose himself in this bustling faux city. Thankfully, Kaeya’s height makes that difficult to achieve.

There are many stalls set up, lining the walking paths of the town, but the group gets only a few steps in before someone starts taking an interest in one of the shop’s wares.

Lisa is taken by the handcrafted jewelry, glass pieces that catch the light and make it dance on the dirt path. Jean’s attention is stolen a minute later by a batch of artisan wind chimes, as beautiful in craft as they are in sound. Kaeya gets stopped by a weapons display, which doesn’t entirely surprise Albedo. But the way he slowly approaches a small tray, picks up a modest, old slingshot with an expression that’s almost—wistful…

Some part of him wants to ask, but he doesn’t.

Albedo doesn’t find much interest in the shops. He browses over the items when the others choose to stop, but the clothes on his back will be a significant enough momento as is. He doesn’t find himself pausing until they’re passing by the live music.

He doesn’t stop intentionally, just steps more and more slowly, lingering beside the small amphitheater. It’s upbeat music, though not in the sort of way he’d describe any music today. The percussion is light, the strings are vibrant, and the woodwinds ring distinctly clear in the white noise of people.

He’s startled by the applause that sounds around him when the piece ends, finding himself in the middle of the group. He—didn’t expect them to leave him, but—

“You know, for as many times as I’ve come here, I can’t remember the last time I stopped to really take in the music.” Kaeya says, standing to Albedo’s left.

He meets Albedo’s eyes, then shuts his own in a smile. “Thank you for that.”

They continue walking. Albedo wonders briefly whether the heat is getting to him.

The browsing continues on like this for another mile or so before something breaks the cycle.

“Oh, would you look at that.”

The amusement is clear in Kaeya’s voice, though Albedo can’t say at what in particular. Not until Kaeya sidesteps past him and up to a hunk of wood off the side of the path.

There’s a decent amount of space around the wooden stocks, sitting in a circle of dirt beside the main road. They’re not the most popular of attractions, as far as Albedo can tell, so it’s not a problem getting their group of four situated around them.

It’s Albedo’s first time seeing something like this in person, and it’d be underwhelming if he had any expectations, but he really doesn’t. Two boards of wood with a few holes split between them. Albedo doesn’t see the appeal.

Kaeya still seems to be interested though. He fishes around in his pockets, eventually finding his phone and handing it off to Jean.

“Take a picture, would you please? I’d like to send it to Diluc. I think seeing me locked up will make his day.”

Albedo doesn’t know the circumstances, but the way Jean muffles a giggle behind her hand makes him want to.

Kaeya lifts the top piece gingerly; the hinges squeak, probably from disuse. He slots himself into place, bending at somewhat of an awkward angle to compensate for his extra height. Lisa assists in carefully repositioning the top piece before stepping back out of frame.

The first picture is all smiles. Bright and sunny in a way that completely contradicts the setting. Kaeya flashes a peace sign and Albedo has to feign a cough to cover up his laugh.

“Kaeya, you’re a prisoner,” Jean reminds behind the camera.

Kaeya’s smile drops, to what could only be called a pout, for a moment before he ‘gets into character’. Hanging his head in defeat. Gazing blearily off to the side. So dramatic — a good thing, in this circumstance, Albedo supposes.

Eventually Kaeya calls Jean over to look at the pictures. Though he chooses to remain in the stocks while he scrolls through his phone, for whatever reason. He hums his approval, saving at least a couple of the pictures Jean took to work with later.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,’ Lisa purrs, draping herself over one side of the stockade.

Kaeya sighs, overdramatic as he hangs his head once again. “Yes, of course. I’ve seen the error of my ways now.”

Albedo holds back from rolling his eyes. He can see where this is going.

“Oh? And how am I meant to believe that?” Lisa coos.

“I’ll be a model prisoner going forward.” Kaeya presses. “I’ll accept my punishments graciously and be good from here on out.”

It’s so cheesy, Albedo considers turning around and leaving. They’ll catch up eventually. But his attention is taken by a weird sound — almost like a…yip? — before he can move.

The angle Kaeya bends to fit into the stocks leaves him just about level with Albedo, so it’s easy to see when his hands tug suddenly against the wooden frame. Like the stocks intended though, he doesn’t budge.

“H-hey, wait now—“

Kaeya’s tone has changed completely. He’s dropped the prisoner act, voice going cautious, even wavering a little.

“Hm?” Lisa hums, smiling sweetly. It sets off multiple alarms in Albedo’s head, even though he’s fairly sure it’s not meant for him.

“Now, I thought you were going to be good for me?”

“Hmph—“

Again, another weird noise. This time obviously from Kaeya, muted and kept in his throat. His wrists rotate in the stocks’ hold, but there’s no slipping them out.

Albedo blinks, processing. He feels like he’s missing a piece of the puzzle.

He can see Kaeya fidgeting—trying to casually remove himself from the stocks, but the loss of his cool is visible as the seconds tick by. His jerky movements against the wood increase in frequency, until eventually his eyes shut, lips pressing together like his life depends on it.

Lisa, on the other hand, has all the cool Kaeya doesn’t. She’s still lounging lazily against the stock mount. Though it’s quite obvious now that her position was intentional, resting atop the frame to keep it shut over Kaeya’s twitching body.

Albedo doesn’t get the joke. Not until Jean intervenes.

“Oh,” Jean frets, stepping from behind Albedo to get closer to Lisa. She peeks over to get a better view of the stocks’ back side. “Don’t go too close to his back. He used to scream whenever his brother—“

“Jea-hean!”

And that one shout is all it takes to loosen the iron seal of Kaeya’s lips. The air is immediately filled with bright, bubbly giggles as Kaeya loses his grip. He tries, more than once, to bottle the sound back up, but every attempt leaves him sputtering and squeaking in failure.

Ah, so he’s ticklish.

“Oops! Sorry, Kaeya!” Jean cries, hands flying to her mouth.

Albedo takes one step to his left, adjusting his view to the back of the stocks. Where—apparently—all the action’s been happening.

Now he can see Lisa’s hand—delicate and dainty—with long, painted nails that—in this situation—must be absolutely brutal. She scribbles a fast back and forth motion up and down Kaeya’s side. Starting at the top of the corset, hugging his waist, then sliding up the curve of his side and the bony protrusions of his ribs.

The way she lingers, spidering around each divot and bone of Kaeya’s rib cage makes something sympathetic flutter in Albedo’s own chest.

With no way to hide it now, Kaeya seems to have given up on keeping his composure.

Shuffling his feet, shaking his head, and laughing entirely unfiltered. His arms pull against the wooden boards sporadically, getting especially jumpy whenever Lisa’s hands venture too high.

He can’t stop his yelp when Lisa’s hand finally does poke around his armpit, but he does lower his head, hiding the redness of his cheeks under a mane of messy blue hair.

“Oh, hun,” Lisa trails, all smiles despite—and probably because of—Kaeya’s predicament. “Don’t make her feel bad. It’s not like I didn’t know about that spot already…”

As if to prove her point, Lisa moves her hand, inching towards the expanse of Kaeya’s back. She scratches with what seems to be the slightest use of pressure yet, and it’s got Kaeya folding in on himself. Half-standing, half-crouching as his legs give out. All from one finger gently scratching along the inside of his shoulder blade.

“L-Lisahahaha! Aha! Mph—n-nohoHOHOHO!”

“No?” Lisa tilts her head. “I don’t recall prisoners getting to choose their punishment—“

She adds another finger, pressing more firmly against the bone. Kaeya’s body lurches forward. The stocks must be keeping him upright for the most part now. He shakes his head, squeaking out partially intelligible pleas and apologies between his frantic laughter.

Albedo didn’t know the back could be so ticklish, but he’s getting a first-hand account of what a very bad spot it can be.

Kaeya’s hands curl into fists, his back arching and jerking away from Lisa’s precise and deadly touch. There’s a slight wheeze to his exhale, already breathless with laughter, that pitches to a fresh whine when Lisa reaches over to mirror her touch on his opposite side.

And as entertaining as this is—truly—Albedo thinks they may be causing a scene. He’s seen at least a few people stop and laugh before continuing their stroll down the main road. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on perspective—Kaeya speaks up before Albedo has to.

“Okay! Okahahay! E-enou-hah! Enohohohough!” Kaeya gasps, tapping his hand against the wood desperately.

Lisa’s giggle is barely audible above Kaeya’s laughter, but she finally grants him mercy, removing her hand and stepping back from the stocks.

The hinges squeak loudly when Kaeya frees himself, arms wrapping around to hug his sides as soon as he’s able. His hands rub at the ghostly sensations, letting the last of them fade with his laughter.

It takes him a minute to unstick his arms from his torso, but, when he can, Kaeya eventually plants his hands on his hips. He attempts to glare at Lisa, but his lips are so wobbly with leftover laughter, it’s impossible to take him seriously.

Lisa definitely doesn’t, moving to ruffle his messy hair fondly.

“Wha-! No!” Kaeya squawks, batting away her hand. He tries to fix himself up, but it’s basically a lost cause at this point.

“You can’t play nice now,” Kaeya huffs, getting his hair to a moderate level of disheveled. His arms settle to cross over his chest. “Taking advantage of a poor, innocent soul like that.”

Lisa is—understandably—unphased, the remnants of a winning smile still on her face. Jean doesn’t help when she muffles a laugh into her hand. Albedo is just lucky to have mastered the art of a convincing poker face.

It’s probably why, before he can blink, Albedo has an arm resting over his shoulders. Kaeya stands firmly beside him, shooting the others a haughty look.

“I’m treating Albedo and I to a cup of mead. You two can join us when you’ve thought over what you’ve done.”

Then he turns back towards the path, dragging Albedo along with him.

———

What a strange situation to be in — with someone he’s only recently met nonetheless.

Albedo can’t possibly be feeling this comfortable around what’s practically an acquaintance. But there’s no other way to describe the ease he feels, stepping alongside Kaeya as he leads them through the fairgrounds.

It must be this feeling which prompts him to say what he does next.

“And if I decide to take advantage—?” Albedo reasons, tone light. “—of what I just learned?”

Kaeya’s arm disappears in an instant.

It snaps back, elbow pressing to his side, hand reaching around to cover a tiny portion of his back. When Albedo looks, he finds Kaeya wide-eyed and already fighting back a nervous smile. Albedo’s never seen him like this.

His laugh breaks the tension, Kaeya’s relieved chuckle following suit.

“Don’t worry,” Albedo smiles, taking up their earlier stroll. Kaeya quickly falls into step beside him. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Not to say that Kaeya would always be safe from Albedo but — that’s an experiment for another day.

#tickletober2021 #technically but not #but for organization purposes #bee stuffs #tickling #tickle fic #ticklish!kaeya #Albedo #Kaeya #Lisa #Jean #genshin impact #taking so long between post that I forget my own tagging system ✨

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zettaiunmeis · 3 years

Text

HI THANKS TO @raventrigonsdaughter LETTING ME KNOW THAT OG GAME CARMEN AND JULIA USED TO BE PARTNERS BEFORE CARMEN WENT ROGUE, LET ME PROPOSE: VILE!JULIA.

details under the cut because this got Long

jules is part of the either the same class the ~infamous~ black sheep

and they don’t? really like each other? like julia is still kinda Serious and she doesnt really appreciate the vile squad goofing around and tossing water balloons or whatever and black sheep finds julia a little too uptight even if she’s interested in a lot of the same things (history, etc.)

black sheep’s speciality is Being SLick, as we know, but julia’s is patterns (and also historical artifacts)

ok but the important part of this is that bc julia’s is patterns, she ends up being like a scout or smth along those lines bc she can analyse patterns and report back to help plan the caper

and that basically means that when she graduates, she ends up in far more long cons than any of the others

anyway, after black sheep gets in trouble for the water balloon thing, the faculty decide she’s far too mischievous, and so, they assign her a partner — julia

(side note: its kind of the same thing that ends up happening to jean-luc and antonio a bit later on, but thats more because they work well together, and less bc either one of them needed a grounding influence)

anyway black sheep and jules again. do not like each other. but that doesnt mean they dont work well together — julia’s got an eye for patterns, and black sheep has every thieving trick in the book ready and waiting up her sleeves (alongside an instinct for thievery)

slowly, as they are forced to work together more and more, they kind of reach a less tense partnership and then one day black sheep makes a history joke and thats how they become friends

like julia is still very pointedly Not friends with the rest of the vile squad bc they’re still very reckless and immature, etc

but shes sort of seen black sheep when she’s been more grounded and less hyper/feral and she?? kind of doesnt mind??

bc grounded black sheep isnt constantly trying to prove that she’s The Best and grounded black sheep isnt trying to prove that she’s more than just the teacher’s pet — she’s kind of just having fun with julia and julia’s been so serious about her training that she hasnt really made any other friends and…. its nice

its nice to have black sheep loudly slip into the seat next to her and and tease julia about whatever recent historical discovery she’s researching and pull her out of her own head once in a while

and its nice to have black sheep glance over in the middle of class when sheena — sorry tigress — whines about something or the other and roll her eyes in the same way julia feels like doing, even if something strange sticks in her throat when carmen does the same with gray

she can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but at some point, she starts thinking of black sheep as her friend and it’s an exciting enough thought that she’s got a little smile on her face next time black sheep slips into the seat next to her in professor maelstrom’s class

and at some point julia stops being just julia to black sheep, and starts being jules because we’re in a school for thieves, but we’ve already got plenty of ~jules~ right here and thats sincerely the worst joke i’ve ever heard and oh really ~jules~? bet i could find an even worse one

and like all the usual stuff is still happening in the background — shadowsan-black sheep rivalry, gray and the Squad being black sheep’s friends, the phone and player, etc.

its just that now, black sheep has a bit of a calming influence and that does help!

and they work well enough that most people assume that julia and black sheep will be partners after graduation

even crackle acknowledges it — despite the jealousy he feels at the knowledge

so things continue and all this happens, but then comes finals.

things go the same. black sheep gets perfect scores in all of her exams, except stealth 101

julia — now the historian — can’t help but check for whether black sheep graduated too and just as she does, she hears crackle say it: she didn’t pass

and she wants to go to black sheep and ask if she’s okay because everyone knows how much black sheep’s wanted this, how much she’s been working for it, but by the time gray’s been dragged off by tigress, black sheep has disappeared and julia has no idea where she’s gone

so she waits for a bit in the cafeteria and in the dorms and anywhere else she thinks that black sheep would be and she sees… nothing

and about twelve hours after the results, the faculty pulls her for her first mission (for context, this is before the whole,,, hear the true name of vile thing) which is basically being a plant for the morocco mission, by pretending to be an archaeology phd student from oxford who’s come to study the findings in the excavation

and she’s busy enough with that that she barely gets to think about black sheep or graduation or anything other than the near-overwhelming anxiety that comes with the horrifying ordeal of potentially being Known but she just manages to figure out like,,, guard rotations, as well as the exact objects that are at the site for the vile squad to steal

and then she’s out before they even get there — julia’s pattern recognition and historical knowledge made her pretty useful when it comes to planning capers so it meant that she’s always travelling around the world ahead of each caper, but would also make her a pretty invaluable asset to vile, so they can’t afford to get her caught

julia doesnt hear about black sheep nearly messing up morocco until much later, and even then, she doesn’t have all the info

all she can do is wonder why the hell the faculty would fail someone who somehow managed to sneak out of vile island without anyone realising until much later

and yes, maybe a part of her misses her old partner, but she knows that it wouldn’t matter anyway — she was the mole, and she’d barely get to work directly with carmen so.

but then cut to a year later, when a vile counterfeit operation in boston is suddenly sabotaged

cut to the moment when, julia, despite not having seen her in a year, is still able to somehow recognise black sheep’s work

its Slick. its the Slickness that tips her off, and part of her is reluctant to tell the faculty who it is, but her allegiance demands it and she tells the faculty and she hates herself for it when she sees the murderous rage on each of their faces

and somehow, that — her ability to recognise this carmen sandiego — gets her in a new position, as a mole in interpol, passing on the information they get as they try to track the scarlet super thief as well

and then one day, in poitiers, julia sees her

its black sheep. it’s undeniably black sheep under that red trench coat and julia wants to go and talk to her capture her and bring her in to vile but her new partner ~chase devineaux~ is everything that once made her turn away from her interest in law enforcement and he orders her to call for backup while he tries to stroke his own ego

she does, of course, but maybe she delays it a bit, if only because she’d rather let carmen sandiego get away than have devineaux’s ego get any bigger

and the rest of the season goes much the same except after julia ends up in acme, she reports to vile about everything that’s going on, and they no longer suspect devineaux of helping carmen etc etc

and she can’t help but somewhat sympathise with what carmen’s doing — she’s returning invaluable historical artefacts and julia’s always loved history and- it’s just… altruistic. and that’s admirable. and that’s the only reason i feel so torn about helping vile. that’s it, that’s the only reason.

and then comes the chasing paper caper

what was originally the first real conversation between julia and carmen goes completely differently

(note that most vile operative outside of jules’ graduating class do not know of her existence bc she barely interacts with most of them since she’s more a spy/mole who’s out of the picture by the time anyone else gets on the scene)

carmen still needs to be able to spy on paper star without anyone noticing, so she still goes for the seat right in front of the cute short-haired girl sitting alo- and oh my god jules?

and its the first time julia has heard that nickname in over a year and oh God they were just friends this should Not hit this hard what the Heck

and carmen still sits down and just quietly grills her as to what the hell is going on bc she Knows that jules is a always a mole and never an active part of a caper and she doesn’t?? understand??

and jules is kind of in a daze, but she’s been Trained so she feeds carmen her cover story:

she defected from vile when she saw how they were treating historical artefacts — melting down gold, selling priceless works of art to the highest bidder, etc. etc. — and that since then she’s been silently helping interpol with taking down vile ops, etc.

and it takes a bit but carmen kind of starts to believe it — she knows julia loves history with all her heart, and she’s… well, she’s never been the kind of recruit that carmen’s expected to see in vile anyway, so. it’s not out of the realm of possibility, is it, for julia to be a defector working against vile? after all, isn’t she the same?

so she starts looking around, while waiting for paper star to make a move, and she ends up noticing the briefcase in the seat next to her, and for some reason, those initials — clearly chase devineaux — make her want to scowl

“new partner?” “oh… its… well, work. work... partner” “oh.”

uhhh anyway i might actually. write this? idk don’t count on anything lmaooo.

#carmen sandiego #carmen sandiego (show)#carmen sandiego (character)#julia argent #carulia #carjules #julethief #my au #this took SO long to write out but it was so Worth it

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dhaaruni · 2 years

Note

What do you think about Kamala Harris saying she’s looking to ‘creatively solve’ the student debt crisis?

Caveat: When I’m talking about people with student loans, I’m not talking about college dropouts or victims of predatory lending or public defenders or otherwise sympathetic victims here, I’m talking about college graduates who don’t work in public service (since public service employees are already having their loans forgiven).

Kamala Harris is most likely going to do very little to “creatively solve” the student debt crisis and that’s not her fault. Quite bluntly, I think any student loan forgiveness that’s not means tested and/or in exchange for public service is electorally harmful and even if it’s means tested, it will still going to lose Democrats more votes than it’ll get us. The majority of college-educated voters already vote Democrat! If your argument is that Democrats should help their base that’s fine but student loan forgiveness is not going to be electorally beneficial to Democrats and people need to stop pretending it would be. If Biden forgave student loans, it could have an infinitesimal impact on Democratic turnout, but like I said yesterday, increased turnout of a group that already reliably votes Democrat doesn’t flip states and districts, we need to convince moderate/independent voters who lean Republican in swing areas to vote Democrat to actually maintain and flip seats/states.

I personally don’t mind my taxes paying for rural broadband or expanded Medicaid access that I won’t benefit from but I sure as hell know that non-college white and Hispanic people who benefit from rural broadband will absolutely lose their shit if they found out that their taxes are going to paying off the student loans of college graduates. These people often couldn’t afford college, and they’re not wrong to be angry that people who were able to go college are having their educations subsidized by the government. An undergraduate degree increases earning potential a great deal in this country and that’s without even going into graduate degrees. And, non-college white people decide the electoral college and Senate map. The reason that Biden won and Hillary lost is that he improved on her numbers with white men even when doing worse with white women (and every non-white demographic).

That magi-jay person on Twitter tried to convince us all that her husband who has a PhD in philosophy should have his loans forgiven and I just laughed out loud like go tell that to some swing voter in Wisconsin where 20% of the state even has a 4-year degree let alone a PhD. I would love to go get a PhD in Shakespeare but the return on investment for such a degree is very little, and I’m not taking out student loans to make very little money. I have the ability to google what the return on investment is, and given that her husband already had an undergraduate degree, he was very capable of googling how much money a philosophy PhD earns before taking out loans to get it.

Capping interest rates and ramping up the public service loan forgiveness program are much more electorally sensible than any point blank forgiveness but a lot of that stuff has to go through Congress (although the Biden admin is working on revamping the PSLF program which is good), and that means means legislators have to write a bill that gets 60 votes in the Senate so good luck with that.

In any case, the student loan pause has been extended until May so Harris has got time to do whatever she’s planning on doing.

#answered #anonymous #politics

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margridarnauds · 3 years

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Things I Wish I Had Known About Being A Celticist (Before Becoming One):

1. If you’re North American, you’re going to have to work twice as hard to get the same level of respect as your peers from Europe. Get used to that now, because it won’t get any easier as time goes on. You’re also going to very likely be in classes with people who, while not FLUENT in Gaeilge, have at least some background in it. This can be a blessing and a curse - The curse is that you have less of an idea of what’s going on, the blessing is that the professors will focus a lot of the tougher questions on them, at least at first.

2. “So, do you have any Irish family?” You will be asked that question. All the time. If you’re North American or English. Unless you have, say, a grandma from Tipperary, the safest answer is always “No, not at all! I just love the literature/history/language/etc.”

3. Love languages? You’re going to! On average, depending on your program, it’s likely that you’ll at least be learning two languages. At enough of a level where you can get pretty in-depth when it comes to the grammar. Most Old Irish experts are expected to know Old Irish, Middle Welsh (at least enough for comparative purposes), and German, with Latin often being brought in. You’ll also be expected to be able to comment on the development of Old Irish, Middle Irish, Early Modern Irish, and Gaeilge - It’s essential if you’re going to date texts. There are also multiple other Celtic languages (Breton, Manx, Cornish, Scottish) that, while they might not be ESSENTIAL for whatever you’re doing, are still going to be cropping up at different times for comparison purposes - I’d be lying if I said I knew them WELL, and most people tend to stick fairly firmly to their area, BUT you will probably be learning at least a little of them. (Personally, no one asked me, but I honestly think that I couldn’t call myself a Celticist if I just knew one Celtic language, it’s why a longterm goal of mine is to build up as much knowledge of the others as I can.) I’ve seen quite a few scholars go in thinking that the linguistics part won’t be important, only to be slammed by the program early on. Even if you just want to do literary analysis, you’re going to have to explain the meaning and development of individual words, as well as situating it in the broader scope of the development of your language of choice. (IE “This is a ninth century text, and we know that because it has intact deponent verbs, the neuter article’s dying out, and no independent object pronoun. Also everything’s on fire because Vikings.”)

4. You’re very likely going to have to move. This applies mainly for North Americans who want to do it (unless you happen to live directly in, say, Toronto or Boston, in which case ignore what I said and, Bostonians, polish off your GREs and prepare to listen to Legally Blonde the Musical on repeat because you’re going to be applying for Harvard). There are very few Celtic Studies programs in the world and, in general, most of the major programs, sensibly, are in Celtic-speaking countries - So, if you want to study Scottish, you go to Scotland, you want Irish, you go to Ireland, Welsh in Wales, etc. If you already wanted to move to Europe for a year or two while you’re doing your MA, then great (and for EU students this doesn’t apply, since they can relocate much easier...unless they were planning on going to the UK in which case.....my condolences), but if you didn’t have any sudden plans to move, keep it in mind. From an American perspective, it was literally cheaper to move to Ireland and do my MA there than to deal with the school system here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other inconveniences associated with moving to another country. Even if you’re European, the field is fickle - An Irish scholar might find themselves moving to Scotland, an English scholar might find themselves moving to Ireland, etc. etc. These things happen when you have to take what you can get.

5. You don’t need Old Irish to go for your MA in Celtic Studies. You do not need Old Irish to go for your MA in Celtic Studies. When I first applied for my MA, I thought I didn’t have a chance because I had a general Humanities degree and didn’t have any formal experience with a Celtic language, least of all Old Irish. As it turns out, most programs do not expect you to have a background in this sort of thing beforehand, and quite a few have different programs for those who have a background in this stuff VS those who don’t, so don’t feel, if this is what you REALLY want to do, like you can’t just because of that. Show your passion for the field in your application, talk a little about the texts you’ve studied, angles you’re interested in, etc., make it the best application you can, and you still have a shot even without Old Irish (or, for non-Irish potential Celticists, whatever your target is.)

6. It’s competitive - Just because you get your MA, PhD programs are fewer and farer between. Academia in general isn’t known for its phenomenal job security, but Celtic Studies in particular is very fragile, since we generally are seen as low priority even among the Humanities programs (which, in general, are the first to be axed anyway.) If you focus on medieval languages as opposed to modern ones, you might very well find your program ranked lower in priority than your colleagues in the modern departments. Especially since COVID has gutted many universities’ income. I found that getting into a MA program was significantly easier than planning on what to do afterwards, since, for a PhD, you generally have to go someplace that can pay you at least some amount of money. Going into your PhD without any departmental funding is a recipe for burnout and bankruptcy, and there are very few Celtic Studies programs that can pay. Doesn’t mean you can’t try, and, when paid PhDs become available, they tend to be quite well publicized on Celtic Studies Twitter/Facebook, but keep in mind that you’ll be in a very competitive market. Networking is key - Your MA is your time to shine and get those treasured letters of rec so that you can get that sweet, sweet institutional funding for your PhD.

7. You’re very likely not actually going to teach Celtic Studies. Because there are so few teaching positions available worldwide, it’s much more likely that you’ll be teaching general Humanities/Composition/etc. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be giving up Celtic Studies (conferences are always going to be open, you don’t have to stay in one department for your entire life and can snag a position when it becomes available, and, even if you go outside of academia, the tourism industry...well, it was looking for Celticists, before The Plague), it just means that if teaching it is what you REALLY want to do with your life, it might be good to check your expectations. A few programs even have an option where you can essentially double major for the sake of job security. (So, if you always wanted to be the world’s first French Revolution historian/Celticist/Gothic Literature triple threat......................the amount of reading you’d have to do would likely drive you insane but................)

8. Make nice with your department. Make nice with your department. Celtic Studies departments tend to be small and concentrated, so you’re going to be knowing everyone quite well by the end of your first grad degree, at least. You don’t have to like everyone in it, but they aren’t just your classmates, they’re your colleagues. You will be seeing at least some of their faces for the rest of your life. I can say that my MA department remembered students who left the program a decade ago. Your department is supposed to have your back, and they can be an invaluable source of support when you need it the most, since they understand the program and what it entails better than anyone else can. You’ll need them for everything from moral support to getting you pdfs of That One Article From A Long Discontinued Journal From The 1970s. I’ve seen students who made an ass of themselves to the department - Their classmates remembered them five years later. Don’t be that guy. Have fun, go to the holiday dinners, get to know people, ask about their work, attend the “voluntary” seminars and lectures, and do not make an ass of yourself. That is how you find yourself jumping from PhD program to PhD program because your old professors “forgot” your letter of rec until the day after the deadline. Also, since your departments are small and concentrated, it’s a good idea to prepare to separate your social media for your personal stuff vs your academics as much as you can, since it won’t be too hard to track you down if people just know that you do Celtic Studies.

9. Some areas of the field are more respected than others. If you want to do work on the legal or ecclesiastical aspects, excellent. If you want to focus on the linguistic elements, excellent. If you’re here for literature.....there’s a place, though you’re going to have to make damned sure to back it up with linguistic and historical evidence. (There’s less theory for theory’s sake, though theoretical approaches are slowly gaining more acceptance.) But if you’re here for mythography or comparative approaches...there is a PLACE for you, but it’s a little dustier than the others. There are fewer programs willing to outright teach mythology, mainly because it’s seen as outdated and unorthodox, especially since the term itself in a Celtic context is controversial. Pursue it, God knows we need the support, but just...be prepared to mute a lot of your academic social media. And, really, your social media in general. And have a defense prepared ahead of time. With citations. Frankly, I think my Bitch Levels have gone up a solid 50% since getting into this area, because consistently seeing the blue checkmarks on Twitter acting like you’re not doing real work while you’re knees deep in a five volume genealogical tract tends to do that to you. If it ever seems like I go overboard with the citations when it comes to talking about the Mythological Cycle, this is why - I have to. It’s how I maintain what legitimacy I have. I’d still do it if I’d have known, but I would have appreciated the heads up. (On the plus side - It means that, in those few programs that DO teach mythology, you’re golden, because they want all the serious students they can get.)

10. If you really, really love it, it’s worth it. After all this, you’re probably wondering why anyone would sign on for this. The work’s grueling and often unrewarding, you might or might not get respect for what you do based off of where you were born and what your interests are, and you’re subject to an incredibly unpredictable job market so you might never see any material compensation for all of it. But, if you can check your expectations of becoming rich off of it, if all you REALLY want to do is chase it as far as it can go, then it’s worth it. There’s a lot of work to be done, so you don’t have to worry too much about trotting over the same thing that a dozen scholars have already done. You might get the chance to be the very first person, for example, to crack into a text that no one’s read for over a thousand years, or you might totally re-analyze something because the last person to look at it did it in the 19th century, or you might get to be the first person to look at an angle for a text or figure that no one’s considered. If finding a reference to your favorite person in a single annal from the 17th century makes you walk on air for the entire day, then you might very well be the sort of person the field needs.

#celtic studies #long post #school tw

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ready-to-obeyme · 4 years

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[OM!] (American) College!AU Demon Brothers

Scenario: Headcanons on the demon brothers as college students (specifically in the US because I don’t know how college works elsewhere), their possible majors, career goals, extracurriculars, ~GPA~ and whatever else I could think of + how meet you in college

Note: I’m hoping to do a Part 2 with the Undateables but honestly… we’ll see lol. This is based off something ~A~ and I thought of for our specific university but we’ve made it broad enough to share HAHA this turned out VERY long

Lucifer

Majoring in Political Sciences with a minor in Psychology

Pre-Law-- most likely immigration law or child custody (there’s definitely a backstory here)

Initially went to community college for the first two years to save up money to take care of his younger siblings

Rejected an offer to go to an Ivy League because it was too expensive; if his siblings ever found out they’d be furious that he’d give up on that chance, but he knows he can succeed wherever he goes (and besides, family is first)

Transferred into a 4-year university his junior year

Very high GPA-- VERY

In a professional fraternity with Diavolo and Barbatos

He didn’t think he’d join one either but Diavolo was the vice chair when he transferred in and the president the year after so… ~nepotism?~ and also Lucifer is charming as heck so no surprise he’d get in

Also rooms with Diavolo and Barbatos

Goes to the gym regularly just to keep fit; gets goaded by Diavolo and Satan into joining an IM team with his frat brothers and actual brothers-- probably basketball or flag football

Probably meets you at a interclub council meeting and mutters under his breath how useless the board members are and you overhear

“Never have I met more incompetent people.”

“Lmao mood”

“!!!”

Keeps sitting next to you at every interclub meeting then after because at least there’s someone that can keep his mind stimulated (thinks you’re hot if you’re competent btw)

If you somehow meet him on campus, he’s the type of guy to put his hand up and pretend he didn’t see you (just kidding, he always ends up saying hi anyways)

Will Absolutely Lecture You if you are procrastinating on studying especially if your midterm is, like, TOMORROW

Always ends up studying with him because he’s actually focused on studying and glares at you if you get distracted (but hey you get good scores in the end)

Mammon

Majoring in Business Econ/Economics, Minoring in Statistics

(always ends up in the middle of the “is econ a humanities or a STEM major” debate that leaves him left for dead)

Planning to work in Business as Finance -- probably has been treasurer or finance director for a club; can even see him being a banker if it suits his plans better

Goes to a four-year university

Decent GPA (or Lucifer would absolutely destroy him), and does REALLY well in mathematics classes

Would room with Lucifer and his posse if they all go to the same school

Probably in a Business Frat as well because he’s pretty charismatic when it comes down to it but was an RA for some of his years for the free rooming and dining hall privileges

Is a very chill and understanding RA (as in he smokes weed with you when he’s off-duty) but is surprisingly well-versed in dealing with roommate issues

Works part-time (gasp) to buy stuff off of Amazon and go out to places

Spends a lot of time exploring places with his friends, going hiking, rock-climbing, clubbing-- which is expensive, as it turns out, so he needed to be able to afford it somehow

Meets you when you’re eating your lunch outside somewhere and he asks you if you have a dollar he could borrow for a vending machine snack

You exchange numbers with him so he can pay it back (even though you honestly don’t really need it, but why not) and turns out he’s in your GE class

“Heyyy wassup! So glad I have a friend in this class”

“Oh by the way, did you finish the homework? Haha, I forgot it.”

Mammon always repays you for your help in food though so you aren’t complaining

Leviathan

Majoring in Computer Sciences

And honestly that’s too much for me already-- the man is doing computer programming, coding-- WHEW-- and they do NOT rest

Goes to a community college but honestly has no problems cinching internships. The computer is his domain-- online applications are EASY, doing projects NOT as easy, interviews? HARD-- REALLY HARD (someone help him)

Probably intends to work with a big company like Google if only to help supply his income so he can live his life going to AX and buying merch

Most likely moved out of his house mid-college with his online friends (who are luckily compatible with him living-space wise) and visits home once a week

There’s two potential sides you can meet first:

Either you meet him at a convention and you both gush about the same character and anime and somehow find each other online (not college related)

Or his favorite Ruri-chan keychain gets broken off in the computer lab, and you’re the one running after him to give it him

He may or may not owe you his life after that (and if you enjoy anime, well that’s a bonus)

Both of these meetings can happen if he doesn’t recognize you in class because you were in cosplay-- imagine the surprise

The two of you as friends are MASTER PROCRASTINATORS at every assignment the two of you have-- so low-key not a great influence-- but you have fun together watching animes, playing games, talking about life-- anything but actual work

Always ends up scrambling to finish things-- but he keeps doing it because it’s been working for him so far

You help him prepare for interviews because he’s always nervous before each one regardless of how well his application looks

Satan

Majoring in Comparative Literature AND Anthropology (ya boy is doing the whole nine yards)

Planning to get his Master’s and then a PhD in one of his majors (whichever proves to be more engaging for him)-- visibly excited to become a Professor

College was meant for Satan-- like REALLY; the man is in LOVE with learning; most likely to go and be accepted to an Ivy-League after Lucifer but... truly believes you can get a good education anywhere so it depends on his financial standing (and how much scholarship he gets)

Does get a little disgruntled when his classes aren’t available but doesn’t mind learning something new-- if the professor bores him to death, he’ll read the book

Really good at tutoring people; someone suggests that he works as a peer-learning facilitator/writing tutor and he does-- might as well make bank doing something you always do anyways

Joins a writing/journal club as an extracurricular and a club that provides tutoring services to the underserved community-- surprisingly good with kids!

He knows friends in high places, so if he wanted to, could get into any party without batting an eye and his favorite professors love him

Spends a lot of his time going out to the city and exploring places, similarly to Mammon, rock-climbing, hiking, paragliding-- anything

He is VERY well-rounded as you can see; competes with Lucifer to see whose GPA is better though

You probably meet him during office hours, and you can only stare in awe as he asks questions that you had in mind, but better; if you’re visibly confused about something, he’ll take his time to help you too (it’s habit at this point)

Ask him for his contact info and you’ll get it, and maybe repay him in coffee? (You always see him at the cafe on campus.)

Most likely to have a specific spot in a cafe that he is always at that the workers actually save a spot for him or give him his usual order before he even arrives-- may or may not have helped them edit their essays or with their homework as a thank-you so you KNOW they’ll love him forever

The type of person to help you make flashcards and cram if you need it

Asmodeus

Majoring in Dance and Fine Arts (I HC going to NYU specifically)

Considering going for an Master of Fine Arts degree but he might just move to New York and go for being a Broadway Star

College is mainly just training for him and hoping to land gigs in local theater-- and the university theater if there is one-- and building his resume for his big break

Has SO many extracurriculars, all pertaining to his career choice, but also because he enjoys what he does: drama, competitive dance team, acapella, fashion design

Makes an unbelievable amount of friends, incredibly good at networking

The first time you saw him was when he was performing for a local theater and you were in love with his performance, and the next time you saw him in the hallway of a classroom building, you told him how much you enjoyed it

Always accepts compliments about his looks with grace, but there’s something about truly being admired for his acting and singing that has him preening

Invites you to come out to his next performance, and if not his, then to another play-- and it can be a date, but up to you ;)

The man is the KING of Multiple Talents and has big dreams to match

Always finds a way to hang out with you and drag you to every club that he can use his fake-id for (and when he’s actually 21 and above, gets a little offended that he doesn’t get ID’d)

A night in the town with you is always a good night!

Sometimes when he has practical exams coming up, he asks you to watch him perform-- and he likes your compliments but actually takes getting all the moves seriously so you better pay attention!

Most likely to move far away to reach his dreams, but he would take you with him if he could-- his little star

Beelzebub

Majoring in Physiological Sciences

Pre-Nursing or Pre-Sports Medicine

He’s a little undecided, but he’s definitely going to go into the health field because he likes the idea of being able to use his strength to help others

Gets a scholarship from the university because he’s part of the football team, which is actually pretty hard on him because Fall Semester/Quarter he has to keep skipping classes for games

Always brings a snack to eat with him during lecture-- and is not afraid to bring his entire lunch and make it right in the front row, though he tends to stick to the back because they tend to have electrical plugs

You most likely meet him during lecture: he offers you an entire sandwich (not a chip bag, not fruit snacks, an entire LUNCH) because he heard your stomach growl during class

From then on, you collect notes for him when he’s gone from games and even go to games if you aren’t usually the type to just to see how he’s doing; it’s hard trying to find you among the huge bleachers, but he always asks you where you’re sitting anyways

Really appreciate it if you help him study into late at night because it IS hard balancing sports and academics

He most likely doesn’t really have any time for anything else so he usually makes up for it during the rest of the year when training is less to volunteer in the hospital or at the gym as a personal trainer

If you ask him to teach you how to properly lift weights, he’ll definitely help out and the both of you can work out together-- though you feel bad when he has to add four extra weights to each side after you finish your reps

Belphegor

Majoring in Computer Graphics/Animation

Intending to go into making animation or game design-- is one of the brothers who doesn’t really know exactly what he wants to do yet because he’s afraid that doing what he loves as a job will ruin it for him

His family reassures him that they’ll support him whether or not he continues with his path in life, but he’s considering art school and then taking internships in places so he has a better idea on what he wants

Most likely to sell his own original work and become a full-time artist regardless

I think you already know how you meet him-- he’s sleeping in a lecture hall-- either against the wall or on the small piece of wood they call a desk when class ends and he’s still sleeping; and you wake him up

Sleepily thanks you and continues to sleep through every class that you wake him up to; when you ask him why he doesn’t just go home and sleep, he tells you he’s too lazy to walk back and forth from his dorm/apartment to campus (mood)

When you add each other on Snapchat or something, he sends you pics of ‘places to nap’ on campus

You always end up studying together because he’s actually pretty good at understanding lecture stuff despite not being awake for most of it-- apparently he’s used to teaching himself

Will make you art for your birthday and will vehemently refuse payment so he just tells you to take him out for dinner instead

If you talk about how you’re not sure on what you want to do in life too, he’ll probably say ‘mood’ but is most likely to encourage you to do whatever you want to do in life too

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me leviathan #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me shall we date?#ngl i would date beel in this au 100%

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chemicallady · 4 years

Text

Matching

Greg Sanders x Reader!

A/N: Hi everyone! Have you ever noticed that there are not enough Greg Sanders fanfiction in the world? I have looked for some for a while, but nothing. Now, stop complaining and let's have fun togheter, this is my first Greg Sanders x Reader! I hope you will like it! Besos!

Couple: Greg Sanders/Female!Reader

Category: Fluff

Content Warning: //

Summary: this is the first time Greg tries to find love with an app. Who knows whohe is gonna meet with a cyber matching?

***

Las Vegas, October 5th 2015

The last month was rough for him. Many things had changed forever. Nick had resigned from the team, Sarah decided to take a break after a big promotion in order to restore her relationship with Grissom, Catherine is back to her position as the leader of the night shift.

Russell is moving on with his life and Finn is gone. Forever. No matter how much his tried to save her life or they prayed for her, she is gone.

Greg is not confortable with big changes. For the first time in forever he is feeling like he is flooting. Dr Robbins said that is normal, in a moment like this one, in which he has escaped the death again, to feel this way.

«Maybe you need a fresh new start.»

Everyone is starting something, whatever. Nick is a boss now, Sarah is happy with her ex husband and former director of the lab. Even Hodges is living the moment, with a new girlfriend.

«He met her on a website», Henry said to Greg during a coffee break.

He laughted, then he used this information against Hodges.

«It isnt a website... I am not dating a russian wife!»

Greg smirked, «No more girls interested in your Visa after the italian one?»

«Shut the fuck up, Sanders. Nowdays is normal using dating app. You should try and stop wasting my time!»

****

He didnt download Tinder only because Hodges suggested it.

Of course.

He decided to try the app only to dimostrate that is a poor life choice.

But the amounth of time he have spent in looking at girls profiles is already too much to look credible. Furthermore, Lindsay have noticed him swapping girls away and she giggled amused. «You should try to go on a date. Dont tell my mom, but I met a guy once, on Tinder. He was really awsome, but he was a tourist. An advice, always take a loool if she is a resident!»

And he followed her suggestion, making the opposite. Just to have some fun.

There are many people who only are in Vegas for having fun and even if was cool, meeting girls who only want a one night stand, after three or four date started to make him feel bored.

He always talk a little about is job, fake interesting in the girl’s plan for her vacation and everything ending in the morning.

So he decided to try something else.

A serious date, for once.

***

He is exploring your profile since the moment you two matched. He is fascinating by your (y/e/c) eyes in the profile picture. You look smart but gentle at the same time. No mention to the fact that even if you are linving in Vegas, you are from (you hometown/nation) and you are a PhD candidate in Archaelogy.

You dont look like the other girls he met in the last period. You are a student, a really good one. You have a picture in front of Columbia University, which you attended for your MSc and graduated.

So you are not only smart, but really intelligent.

You have those beautiful (y/h/c) hair and a gentle smile.

So he picks all his courage and writes you a simple ‘hi’.

You dont answer immediatly, even if you have read the message. So Greg closes the app with disappointed. Well. It’s proved. You cant find love in one of this app.

He decides that is far better to start with the awfull pile of documents on the desk, before is too late. Or to early, depends by the point of view.

***

He had finished with paperwork around 7 am and so he decided to go home.

In the moment he enters the living room, he feels so lonely. It’s happening quite often in the last period. He kicks his shoes away and sits on the sofa, taking a deep breath. With his eyes close, he starts to thing about the last serious date and its look like a century ago.

And it was a complete failure.

Everytime he fell for a girl is always the same old story. Firstly, amazing. Then a mess because of his job.

But he doesn't have to change is life only because he feels the emptiness of his house. He has worked so much to achieve this results and now...

Now? What he has? A good position in an horrible schedule shift. An amazing group of team mates - unfortunately Hodges is still working in the materials lab, but who cares- but no social life. No family. He is 40 now and he was looking for a 25 years girl.

So silly.

So stupid.

But what's is even silliest? Losing himself in those throughs instead of sleep. He has his shift starting at 11 pm, but he has the laudary to do. And he need to clean the apartment. Is full of dust.

****

After seven hours sleeping, he feels himself far more positive. It's around 2 pm when he wakes up and start with the laudary. He gets a look on the phone and answer to Morgan under a pic on facebook, than he notices that he has a new notification on Tinder.

He is so surprise when he realises that is you.

-who wrote 'hi' at 4.30 in the morning?-

He blushes a little, thinking about it. It was really early and he hasnt realised it.

-someone who is working at night...?-

The answer is not the best. But you are smart and you bring a good observation.

-like a hooker?-

He laught a little, rising his elbow.

-sorta. But not so well paid.-

Making fun of the hookers is not a good way to start a conversation, but someway, it works. You two share some messages and then you give your phone number to him.

You are free tomorrow for lunch, even if is unusual meeting someone with the sun in the sky, in Vegas.

And he is totaly down.

***

Is strange for you to go on a date with someone you don't know. But it is even strangest go for a lunch date. It's look so formal to you, but the guy in the profile pic looks potentially awsome. You have read from his description that he works for the Clark Country Police Department and this is a hot detail: you have a thing for cops.

You dressed nicely for the lunch inside The Venice's restaurant. Classy choice by the way. But not elegant because is 12 am. You also decide to go easy on your make up, because after this date you have to help in teaching a bacherlo class and you are hoping that you won't have enough time to change, after the meal.

So here we go.

In front of the restaurant.

You look around and see a figure a couple of meters away from you. He is pretty tall and with dark blonde hair. He is also well dressed, better then you, but not formal.

Your glazes meet in the middle of the atrium and you both smile embarrassed. He is the first one to move some steps near to you.

《Hi. You are (y/n)?》

《Yes. And you must be Greg.》

You shake his hand and then catch his invitation to enter in the restaurant first. The waiter reserved you a nice place on the balcony. The cannel is fake, not even similar to the Italian one, but is romantic.

One score for Greg.

《What would you like to eat?》, he asked so politely that you can't help yourself, but smile back.

《I thing I'll go with a sandwich for lunch》

《Nice choice, I am down. Wine?》

《Sorry, but I have a class in the afternoon...》

This time he is smiling. 《Then water for two.》

He is so kind. He decides to drink water because you can't drink wine. This is another score.

After you two have made your orders, it's time for questions.

《Do you usually meet people this way?》, je asks, nicely. Even if there is no accusation in the tune of his voice, you blush a little.

《It's not the first time, but I am still a skeptical, by the way.》

《Why?》

《Because I've met only morons on Tinder. 》 You try your best smile. 《Hope you are not one of them.》

《I share this hope with you》, he jokes. 《I am looking for your verdict at the end of the meal, so.》

You both laught. Is a nice company and the tension is going away.

《So you are a cop?》

《Not exactly. I work for the crime like as a crime scene investigator.》

You looked impressed. 《Sounds amazing but hard at the same time. I am asking to my self you an awsome guy like you is still single.... is for your job?》

This time is Greg the one who blushes. 《Yes is really... It takes most of my time. Someday all of my time.》

《I can relate》, you say. 《I am not cool as you are, I don't save people for live, neither I am good in puzzle but... I work on field so I spend several weeks abroad. Sometimes even a month or two and when I come back...》

《...You have the feeling that everyone is carries on with his life but you are static》 he ends your statement. 《Yes, you can relate, totaly.》

You two share a smile and then he starts to ask you some questiom about your job, your position at the UNLV and stuffs.

In the end, after a sweet fight, he insists to pay the meal, but you put on the table the tips.

《It was really nice 》, you say and he agrees. 《We should do that again. What's your spare night?》

《Monday》 he aswers, immediately 《If my boss wont tell me otherwise.》

《If you are agree, you can see eachother again on Monday, so.》

《It will be amazing.》

Another smile and a little silence. You have no idea of what to do now. Is too soon for a kiss, but an hand shake would be awful. So you decide to come closer to him and kiss his cheek. Is so cute the way he blushes again. Greg is near now and you can feel his breath on your lips. For him, is not too soon. He gently puts a hands on you hip and drag you into a soft kiss.

The best way to end a good date.

****

《So how is she?》

After two weeks dating, Greg decides to tell the guys about you.

Terrible idea.

《She is so nice!》 He starts excited, while Catherine is laught, shaking is head and look at David Philips in the classical 'told ya' way. 《She is beautiful and gentle. She is also tremendously determinate. More than anything, she is so intelligent and her smell is amazing.》

《She can cook?》, Super Dave asks, joking.

《Everything you can say, she can do it. Is incredible. She speaks like five languages and is so sexy in bed.》

《This information is not necessary 》 is Catherine's comment.

But Dave wants to prove a point now. 《....She speaks five languages in bed or it was not correlated?》

《Guys, we are on a crime scene.》

The two boys share a small smile and wait for Russell to be far enough. So Dave asks one last question. 《Are you only fancy her... or maybe you are already in love?》

Greg thinks about it for a couple of second. 《I am already fucked.》

Dave laughs, 《of couse you are.》

#csi #greg sanders #greg sanders imagine #greg sanders x reader #greg sanders fanfiction #csi fanfiction #fanservice #fanfiction #character x reader #csi x reader

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secret-captain-swan-blog · 3 years

Text

Castle on the Hill

English Literature PhD student Emma Swan just needs money to pay for her last semester of grad school tuition. Killian Jones has always dreamed of opening a bookshop but has never been able to afford it. So when the small principality of Misthaven is looking for their lost princess, the pair decide that this might just be the perfect money making scheme.A Multi-chapter Modern Day + Lost Princess (think Rapunzel/Anastasia-esque) + Book Lovers in a Coffee Shop AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 94580/ ?

Prologue (Part 1 + 2) // Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 3 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 7 // Ch 8 // Ch 9 // Ch 10 // Ch 11 // Ch 12 // Ch 13 // Ch 14 // Ch 15 // Ch 16 // Ch 17

Read on: Ao3

Killian is reading in the garden when it starts to rain. It’s not a lot, just drops against the thin pages of his book. He’s nearly to the end of Jane Eyre now. He’s honestly ready to be done with the book. Where it had once been enthralling, it now seems tiresome. The pain of the loss of Alice lingers folded in it’s pages.

He’s wondering if he should seek some refuge from the rain, when he looks up to see Emma running across the field. She’s windswept, her hair falling loose from her ponytail. Yet she’s still beautiful, like a Romantic heroine, her dress sticking to her torso. He can tell there are tears in her eyes.

He rises to his feet, striding as quick as he can to her. They meet in the middle. He wraps her in his arms quickly. Something is wrong, he notices instantly, from the slump of her shoulders and the desperateness she clings to him with. Her hands knots in the back of his shirt, holding on to him.

“Emma, love?” He asks into her hair. “Whatever is wrong?”

It must be the statue, he thinks. It must have gotten into her head. He should not have left her there by herself. She had heavy emotions that he should have been there to help her with.

“Killian, I can’t,” she mumbles, her voice half delirious.

“Can’t what?” He prods, fear trickling through his body.

She sniffles and whispers again, “I can’t.”

It’s windy outside, the rain picking up, and he can’t hear her well.

“Come, love,” he says. “Let’s get you inside. It’s getting bad out here.”

She shakes her head against his chest, “No. I can’t.”

He rubs his hands up and down her arms. “You’re going to catch a cold, love. I want to hear what’s upset you, but some place a bit less damp and cold.”

“No, no,” she says. “We can’t go into the castle. I can’t deal with it.”

“Deal with what, Swan?” He asks, slipping his hands down her arms to take her hands in his. He raises them to his lips to kiss them softly. They are already freezing.

“They’re going to tell me that I’m the lost princess,” she whispers. “And I’m not ready for it.”

He tries to process what she is saying. She’s the lost princess. She’s not ready.

His mind flits through all the evidence that he’s been trying to not point out for so long. The uncanny resemblance between the girl in Killian’s memories and Emma herself. The name. The accent. The right history. The scar on her shoulder. Even the chin. Killian’s spent so long trying to get Emma to remember something. For the connection to hold. And maybe, just maybe this visit to the gardens triggered the very thing that Killian’s been dreaming of. Maybe, even after last night’s fight, she has finally had the epiphany that he knows, he’s certain, must be coming.

But maybe that’s not it? Killian doesn’t want to get his hopes up. Reality rushes through him. Maybe the Queen or Regina just think that Emma is the lost princess and they want her to go public about it for publicity. Maybe now they’re manipulating her, asking her to pose as the princess. For what? For Misthaven Morale?

He’s going to need more information. Emma’s given him such few words, but his mind is spinning with possibilities. He knows, he’s certain, that something fundamental, potentially something he’s yearned for, is changing right here and now.

He brushes his hand against her hair softly, like he would a timid animal. She curls into him more, shivering.

What she needs, he realizes, obviously isn’t to go back into the castle. She needs to talk and in more than one way, unfreeze.

“Come love,” he whispers into her hair.

He leads her out of the castle grounds, the statues and winter garden behind them. Looking back now, he’s uncertain why he thought it was a good idea to take her there when she was in a bizarre state from the night before. As they weave down the cobblestone, she sniffles now, looking a bit less anxious. He thanks the gods for that.

There is a little tea shop in the grey stone shops lining the road. Called “The Castle Gate Cafe,” it’s lace doily sort of place. The counter boasts an assortment of cakes. He situates Emma in a table that’s tucked into a bay window off to the side that overlooks a damp patch of garden.

As he orders an Americano, a cappuccino, and a slice of lemon lavender cake, he glances back at Emma. Her face is distant, as if her thoughts are in another world.

When he comes back to join her, he presses a cappuccinos into her hands. She closes her eyes and takes a sip, her shivering subsiding.

“Sorry,” she says, after another pensive sip. “I must have seemed crazy back there. Or pathetic.”

“Emma, love, you seem traumatized,” he tells her.

She swallows, “I think I am a little.”

He takes a bit of the lemon cake. It’s sweet and soothing. He puts a piece of it on a fork and passes it to Emma. She takes the bite and gives him a smile.

“I was really affected by what I saw in gardens. I felt so ashamed for scamming the queen. I honestly couldn’t take it anymore. I was like in a weird trance or something, I swear. I felt like an out of body feeling, I don’t know.”

He takes a bite of cake and nods at her to continue.

She rambles, ”So, I went into the castle and all of a sudden, Mary Margaret was there and I just had to tell her everything.”

Killian chokes on his cake, “Everything?”

“Yeah, about the opera and our old plan and everything,” Emma manages.

He frowns knowing this means risking her security in Mishaven, her trust with the Queen, and the possibility of her returning to the country- and to him. “What happened?”

“She didn’t care. Killian, it’s crazy. She said that it doesn’t make a difference. She loves me,” Emma admits.

He reaches out to take her hand. Killian knows how much this means to her- to get the Queen’s affection and approval, to be loved by a parental-type figure in the way she’s always yearned to be. He knows it because he’s wanted it too. That’s part of why he’s never taken Ruby’s Granny’s generosity for granted. He rubs his thumb against her palm, part of him so understands and is proud for Emma.

“That’s marvelous, Swan,” he says.

She takes another sip of cappuccino, before she presses her lips together, and looks up at him.

“But then all of a sudden, Prime Minister Mills walked in,” she tells him.

He lets an eyebrow lift in place of a question.

“And she said that she took DNA from us both, without either of us knowing,” Emma says.

Killian thinks back to the week before, the suspected break-in. Of course it wasn’t the hooded man, it was the Prime Minister.

“We’re related,” Emma tells him. “I’m Mary Margaret’s daughter.”

So he was right.

He’s been right all along. It’s her. Emma is the girl from his childhood. It was Emma who he used to play games with in the castle courtyard. It was Emma who he used to eat sweets with in the kitchens when the cook would make them an extra treat. It was Emma who he ran across the field with that dark night. It was Emma who saw his brother right before he died. It was Emma who was now his sovereign. Emma.

“You’re the lost princess,” Killian says.

He feels a weird bit of emotion well up in him, a feeling of completeness that now is crescendoing. The girl who disappeared that night has been found. The lost girl who never had a family has been welcomed home.

When Emma looks up at him and sees the emotion in his face, something changes in her too. Tears spring again to her eyes. He quickly moves from his seat to slide in the booth next to her. His arms wrap around her. His lips kiss her hair. He tries to hide his sniffles, but he can’t.

She wraps her arms back around him, burying her face in his chest.

“We found you, Emma,” he whispers. “You came home to us.”

She sniffles.

“Killian, I don’t know how to react to this,” she murmurs back. “You’re crying, Mary Margaret is crying. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t feel like a princess. I don’t feel like my life is changing. I still don’t remember anything. It’s not like a sudden dramatic flashback or anything. All of these people keep looking at me like I’m supposed to be crying, but I don’t even know.”

Killian tries to be attentive to her. He realizes that Emma isn’t experiencing this moment as he is. He needs to be there for her. Princess or not, Emma is his girlfriend. She needs him to support her through this emotionally cataclysmic moment.

“Don’t know what?” He asks, brushing another hand through her hair.

“How to be a princess? How to be a daughter? I’ve only ever been Emma Swan. I’ve only ever been lost or alone or fighting for myself. I just want to go back to Durham and write my thesis. I don’t want to learn how to curtsey or use dumb shrimp forks or whatever people do in those Hallmark lost princess movies.”

“I’m not quite sure what a Hallmark is,” Killian replies.

“It’s not important,” Emma says, sniffling and sighing. “It’s just. I’m not really sure I ever wanted this.”

“Emma, you have a family,” he says emphatically, tears still in his eyes. “You have a real life fairy tale. You weren’t reading Blanche Neige all these years to run away from that. Princess Emmaline Georgette Analise Charmant Blanchard Nolan, I promise this is everything you’ve ever wanted.”

She smiles and sniffles and nods, “Yeah, I think I know that. Maybe that’s what scares me the most.”

He hugs her tight.

“I still don’t know what to do,” Emma says. “I ran away from the Queen.”

“You ran away?” He laughs.

“Yeah, I didn’t know how to react and she was crying and I absolutely couldn’t be in that room another moment,” she says.

“Oh love. Oh Swan,” He says, amused. His voice is still ragged from tears. “I think we should go find your Mum now. She’ll be wanting to hug you too after all these years.”

They walk back into the castle. Emma has to fight against everything inside her that says to turn her back, head for the Misthaven airport, and take off for North Carolina. But Killian’s hand inside her own helps, a lot actually. She lets it ground her, stabilize her. He’s still looking at her with tears in his eyes that makes her uncomfortable, but she’s managing.

Queen Mary Margaret and Prime Minister Mills are standing in the foyer when they arrive. She realizes that everyone else is gone- the secretaries, the dignitaries and diplomats, or whoever else might be in the castle. It’s just them.

“Your Royal Highness,” Regina says, “I’m truly sorry for springing the news on you in an improper way. I apologize.”

Emma tucks some hair behind her ears. It’s still damp from the rain earlier, which has now turned into a gentle mist.

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’m sorry for running away. It’s an old habit, I guess.”

“Emma,” the queen says finally, her voice choked up.

Mary Margaret takes a step forward, her lips pursed to hold back a sob.

Emma realizes that like it or not, this is her life now. She can keep running from it. Or she can embrace it. It doesn’t mean she needs to give up everything. Those details- her thesis, her livelihood, the dumb shrimp forks- they can be sorted out later. But right now, she’s just found out that this woman who has been nothing but a kind motherly figure to her these last few months is her actual real life mother. The least she can do is hug her.

She crosses the space and steps into her arms. It feels like melting, like comfort. Like a blanket wrapped around you on a cold day. Like turning the doorknob on your apartment door. Like a bowl sized cappuccino made just how she likes it. Like home. Mary Margaret, Killian, Misthaven- this was her home. She has a home. She is home.

“I’ve had a few assistants go out to get some Mamie’s coffee and croissants for you,” Mary Margaret says. “And we’ll call in some take away later for dinner.”

Emma doesn’t say that they just got coffee, because really, she always wants coffee. And it sounds, oh so cozy, to drink more coffee in this castle with the Queen. With her mom.

“I was thinking that I could give you a tour of the castle,” Mary Margaret says. “And then maybe, this is silly, but we’ve got these old home videos David used to take of you as a child. They’ve been too painful for me to ever watch, but maybe, since you’re here- we could watch them together.”

Emma smiles. She could do this. And maybe the home videos might even help her process and visualize and remember.

“That sounds great,” Emma tells her.

“I’ll just see you later then,” Killian whispers from behind her.

“No, no,” Mary Margaret says. “Please, Killian, you are family. Stay.”

Emma turns to smile at him and offer him her hand. “Stay.”

It’s late that night when they make it back to Emma’s apartment. After the long, harrowing, revelatory day, the clean white apartment and cozy house plants are the perfect greeting.

Emma is pretty sure she’s never been so tired. The rain and the emotions of the day have left her past drained. She leans on Killian as they walk in.

“Shower,” she mutters, as she stumbles towards the bathroom.

When Killian doesn’t follow immediately, she turns to him, “You too.”

He chuckles, before following her into the bathroom. She turns on the shower and cranks it up as high as it will go. That’s all she can think of right now- warm water and then a long sleep in her bed.

She strips off her clothes. Despite how tired she is, she glances behind her to see Killian’s expression. It’s something of admiration as he takes her in. She smirks and raises her eyebrows, before stepping in.

He’s inside the stream with her, sooner than she expects. The hot water alongside Killian’s arms wrapping around her lulls her and she feels the stress of the day leave her. She lets her eyes flutter closed as she leans back against his chest.

“What did you think of the evening with your mum?” He asks.

Emma smiles at the fact she has a mother. It’s a fact that is going to take a very long time to accept and set in, but for now she’s honoring her personal intention to embrace it.

“It was good,” Emma says.

“You know you can be honest with me,” Killian tells her, his hands moving to rub her shoulders. She realizes all the tensions she’s held in.

“No, I’m being honest,” she insists. “It was like having a family. A very rich, ridiculous family. But a genuine cozy little family.”

Killian nuzzles her hair, before moving to get her lavender aromatherapy body wash. He dabs it on a loofa and begins to rub it all over her.

“It was weird with those videos,” Emma murmurs.

She thinks back to the happy memory from less than an hour ago: of her, Killian, and Mary Margaret piled on a couch in one of the more comfortable lounges of the hilltop castle. They’d had takeaway pizza, which Emma could process now as a gesture from the Queen to be “chill” and let her ease her way into this.

They’d watched these videos of Emma with her family as a child. Baby Princess Emma waltzing with her father. Baby Princess Emma riding around on Prancer in the woods. Baby Princess Emma giggling as she plays tag with Killian down palace corridors. It’s weird to look at that little girl and know that it was her who did those things.

“I guess,” Emma says, as Killian switches from washing to shampooing, “I’ve been thinking for the last months, since I got here, that Princess Emma is this other person. A person who probably hates me for impersonating her. A person who is far more innocent than myself. A person who is probably dead.”

Killian starts rubbing shampoo into her hair and it’s fundamentally soothing. She lets out a soft sigh.

“It’s just weird to think that she’s me,” Emma says. “We are one in the same.”

She turns to face Killian and looks up at him. “You aren’t saying anything. I’m just monologuing here.”

He shakes his head as he runs his finger along the scar on her shoulder.

“I know, love,” He says softly. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve thought you were her this whole time. I know you don’t want to hear it.”

She takes his hand from her shoulder to bring it to her lips to kiss his palm.

“No, it’s fine,” Emma says. “As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew you had your suspicions the whole time. Even last night, you did. And in the end it doesn’t matter, because here we are anyway.”

Killian reaches behind her to turn off the water. He kisses her softly before opening the curtain. He passes her a towel and she wraps it around her shoulders, following him out of the bathroom.

She pulls on a Duke Writing Studio t-shirt and a pair of underwear, before toweling off her hair and crawling into bed. Killian is already there, arms ready to pull her close.

Her eyes flicker closed naturally and she sighs softly.

She supposes that is another good, but terrifying thing about this whole situation: every obstacle of distance that was between her and Killian has faded. Misthaven is her home now.

She knows that she has plenty of thoughts about that to fret over in the future. A tendril of fear and another of anticipation wind in her stomach, but for now the wave exhaustion crashes over and pulls her under.

The next morning, Emma tries to fall into her normal schedule. She needs routine and hard work to ground her. She always has. It’s a coping mechanism.

Killian is still sleeping when she wakes. She makes coffee in the French Press before heading to her desk overlooking the park. She pulls the soft grey blanket off the couch and wraps around herself, before opening up her thesis materials. She’s just a happy little Emma in her quaint, minimalist Misthaven apartment enjoying her coffee and working on her PhD.

She doesn’t know much about what the future holds, but it has to hold her dissertation. She’s spent so much time on it. She’s put in so much work. Looking at it now, she hopes that she won’t look ridiculous for writing her thesis on her own mother’s work or specializing in the literature from the country she is now sovereign of. But she thinks that if she can keep the Blanche Neige secret under wraps and she can probably pass off a decent thesis.

She smiles fondly at herself as she starts typing- she can be the first Princess with a PhD. She googles it just to fact check herself. Frowning, she realizes that a Japanese princess has already beat her to it.

A princess , she reminds herself. She’s still processing it. If she’s being honest, she’s probably at a sort of denial stage in the process because she’s feeling pretty chill about it. The shock of it has worn off, but she’s certain that the reality hasn’t set in yet either.

“How is my princess this morning?” A groggy voice asks from behind her.

She turns to see a disheveled Killian leaning against the door frame of her bedroom. He’s just in boxers and his hair is sticking up in all directions.

She purrs, “Come here.”

He walks behind her chair and loops his arms around her. She feels the scruff of his beard on her cheek as he leans down to give her a kiss.

She turns her head to kiss him on the lips, her hands cupping his face to pull him down to her. His body curves around hers to deepen the kiss and pull her close. She feels so soft and delicate, like she’s something so precious to him. She’s grown to like that feeling- like she matters.

Her arms lift to his shoulders and he uses his own arms to lift her. Her legs curl around his torso.

“Sorry about the coffee breath,” she whispers, self conscious.

“Dammit Emma,” He whispers, as he falls onto the couch.

She transitions perfectly into straddling him. Her hands dive into his gloriously disheveled hair. His head lowers to kiss her neck, then her collarbone, before he settles to lick at the base of her throat.

She hums in pleasure. All her thoughts, her worries, her cares are gone. All she can think of is Killian, the man she loves- and it’s bliss.

Then a phone's ringtone strikes the air and the spell is broken.

Emma stumbles off of him to head for her bedroom where her phone is lying on her bedside table.

“Hello,” she asks, not pausing to glance at the number.

“Emma, darling,” replies Mary Margaret.

Her mom. The queen. Blanche Neige. It’s almost dizzying.

“Oh hey,” Emma says, sitting on the side of her bed.

“I was wondering if you and Killian would like to join me and Regina for brunch,” she says. “We have a lot to go over- publicity, citizenship, castles, balls.”

Emma can hear a smile in her voice, but her own stomach churns. The denial phase is slowly slipping away into something else, some sort of reality setting in. She can’t have slow and silly mornings with her boyfriend because she has princess responsibilities.

But she feels, alongside of that, a weird sense of duty well up in her. Of course, she must be at this meeting. She can tell that just like the night before, the Queen is trying to make it easier for her. She isn’t throwing her into royal duties, just inviting her to a casual brunch.

“Yes, certainly,” Emma says. “We’ll be there.”

“It’ll be at my place,” Mary Margaret says. “The Summer Palace. I’ll send a car for you in about a half an hour. See you then!”

Killian pokes his head in and she explains the brunch meeting.

“I’ve actually got work this morning, love,” He explains. “I can skip it, for certain, darling, if you want. I don’t want you to go alone if you are nervous.”

Emma can’t believe she forgot that Killian has a life outside of her. But of course he does. She senses that everything for them is going to change very soon. “Publicity” the queen said. It may be one of the last times that Killian will get to work in peace, or work at all.

“It’s fine,” Emma says, rising to meet him and kissing his cheek. “Go to work, Killian.”

They launch into action, mutually displeased to leave behind their moment on the couch, but both busy with their plans. Emma changes into a pair of black jeans and a sweater, hoping that it’s a nice enough outfit for brunch with the Queen. Her hair, messy and tangled from sleeping it in wet, goes up into what she hopes suffices as an elegant top knot. A spritz of perfume, a bit of concealer and mascara, a peck on Killian’s lips- and she’s out the door to meet the car.

The Christmas decorations are up in their full glory when Emma arrives at the summer palace: fairy lights, garland, and wreaths of evergreen adoring the palace. She exits the car and is greeted by a doorman who informs her that the Prime Minister and Her Majesty are in the Forest Room. Emma nods and makes her way through the palace, trimmed with Christmas cheer, before finding the tea room.

“Emma, darling,” Mary Margaret says, crossing the room to envelop her in a hug.

Emma wants to resist, because that is her instinct. Flashes of Ingrid, of other foster parents flash through her mind. People she thought she could trust, but proved her wrong. It’s hard to believe that there is actually someone here who truly loves her and won’t leave. But it’s true. So she lets her mother hug her and lets herself relax into the hug. A part of her that has always been raw and ragged, now feels soothed.

“Did you sleep alright?” She asks.

Emma nods.

“Well there is fruit and patisserie on the sideboard, coffee and tea as well. If you prefer a hot breakfast, you can just order from one of the footmen,” The queen directs.

Not being fussy, Emma takes some strawberries and a pain au chocolat. She fills one of the dainty mugs with coffee and then joins Mary Margaret and Regina at the table.

“Shall we dive into it?” The Prime Minister asks. “We need to decide when to send out the press release. I’ve already had it drafted and you can review it if you please.”

She pushes Emma a piece of paper with the official Misthaven seal on it. Emma tries to skim it, but her mind is too all over the place to focus.

“I think it’s best to do it as soon as possible,” Regina informs her. “It would be disastrous if the information was leaked from someone else. Obviously there will be a lot of commotion about it at first. This is, afterall, a nearly impossible event to happen- lost princess finds her way home. So I expect that we’ll have a fair bit of international coverage. It’ll be best if you lay low during that time, avoiding reporters and the like. However, once it dies down, you should be fine. Misthaven is too small to have the insane paparazzi that English and Swedish royals face.”

Emma nods. The words paparazzi makes her squirm and want to run away. She thinks about the simple pleasure of drinking coffee at Mamies or sitting, editing her paper, in Killian’s pub. She wonders if she’ll ever get that pleasure again. Or at least how long she’ll have to wait to do that again.

“We’ll hire you security as well,” The queen adds. “At least until the hype dies down and even after, so we all know you are safe.”

Emma nods again. She wishes she brought a notebook to take notes.

“You’ll obviously move into the house in the Southern Valley,” the Queen tells her. “And we’ll have to make plans for the Christmas ball. It’s a bit last minute for a dress, but we can figure something out.”

Emma feels her forehead crinkle, all of it hitting her too fast to process.

“But, I’m leaving Misthaven next Thursday to be back in America for Christmas,” Emma says. “I already bought the ticket.”

The only way that Emma could buy the ticket was through her grant and fellowship. There was no way she could afford it on her own. She couldn’t just buy another one because she changed her mind about when she wanted to go back.

“What do you mean going back to America?” Regina asks, perplexed.

“To go back to Duke and finish my PhD,” Emma explains.

“Well clearly that isn’t important now, is it?” Regina says.

“What do you mean?” Emma says, startled. Her mind races with defensive thoughts. She can’t lose her thesis. “That’s everything. My life’s work.”

“Emma will finish her PhD,” Mary Margaret says. “Of course she will.”

Emma feels her pounding heart decelerate.

“It might be in your best interest, however,” the Queen says. “To take a semester off. See if you can take a small leave of absence. I’m sure it’s understandable, just so you have time to transition.”

Emma wants to say no. She wants to say that she spends Christmas with Belle and her father each year. She wants poinsettias in the green house and presents under the tree.

But then she thinks about waking up on Christmas morning with Killian beside her. A Christmas tree in her own house. Emma’s never even entertained the thought of having a house of her own before because it seemed too impossible. But now she’ll have one and a family of her own to spend Christmas with. Yes, she’ll have to stay. It seems silly now to have even thought otherwise.

“What about my flight home?” She asks. “I already bought it.”

“Don’t take it, obviously,” Regina says. “I’m not even sure why we are talking about this. You’ve just inherited a hundred million euros, I’m not quite sure why you’re hung up on this.”

Oh.

Emma tries to process a hundred million.

She thinks about stealing concealer from the drugstore because she couldn’t afford it and she wanted to cover up the bruises.

She thinks of eating a grilled cheese every other day and sleeping in the library.

She thinks of all the opportunities she said no to- studying abroad, nights at the theater, dinners out with professors- because she couldn’t afford it.

And now she has a hundred million euros.

Emma doesn’t realize she is crying until her fat tears fall into her coffee cup, a sob coming out of her chest.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret gasps, coming over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “My dear, what is it?”

Emma tries to breath and chokes on her breath, a hiccup forming.

“I’ve never had money like that,” she says. “Nothing close to that. I’ve always had to scrape and fight for scraps. I don’t know how to have this life now.”

Mary Margaret and Regina exchange a look and the Prime Minister leaves the room. The queen lowers herself down so that she meet Emma face to face.

“Emma,” the queen begins, rubbing her back as tears tumble from Emma’s eyes. “I am terribly sorry that you’ve lived a life you didn’t deserve. I’m so sorry that you’ve had to experience such horrible poverty and so much financial anxiety. I’m sorry for every moment you’ve been lonely. Every moment you’ve wondered where your mum was. I’m sorry that I couldn’t tuck you in at night and take you on nice holidays and buy you new books. I can’t begin to understand what your life has been like, but I can tell you it’s going to be better now.”

Emma sniffles and looks up at her.

“You’ll never want or fret about money. You’ll be able to help others with that money, make a difference in the world. You and Killian will be able to give your kids everything you didn’t have,” The queen says.

The queen beckons Emma into another hug and she obliges.

“You are going to have a good life now, Emma,” the Queen tells her.

Eventually Emma’s tears lull and Regina returns. They start to make plans for Emma’s move, which is to happen in two days. They take her measurements to send to the dressmaker for Emma’s dress for the ball, which will also double as her public debut. And they pass along a debit card for her new royal bank account. Regina advises she starts updating her wardrobe with pieces that are “couture” and informs her that once her move is finished, a stylist will come to help her look a bit more sophisticated.

The comment makes Emma want to roll her eyes, but she decides that isn’t very princess-like and resists.

It’s overwhelming and totally new. But Emma is trying, with all her might, to shove the walls down. If they come up now, she’ll only hurt Mary Margaret and Killian. She hasn’t worked this hard to turn on them.

As the driver takes her back down from the mountaintop palace, she leans her head against the window. She imagines herself turning into a tree, roots growing deep into the ground, branches reaching towards the sky. She tries to think of herself as being unmoved here, firm of purpose and place. Growing a home here in this place, here in Misthaven.

She has the driver drop her off at Mamie’s, where she gets a cappuccino and reads a book of fairy tales. Emma decides she needs to make the most of her last few days of anonymity. It starts to rain again, the weather decidedly cold now, Indian summer behind them. From Mamie’s, she can see Killian’s pub across the street and across the blustery street she can just make him out at the counter. She sends him a text telling him to come over when he finishes his shift.

As she flicks through her phone, she realizes she has a text from Belle.

Sorry to change our usual plans girl, but Will invited me to Misthaven for Christmas to meet his family. Any chance I can convince you to stay in Misthaven for Xmas as well?

Emma taps back.

Haha I just decided today to stay in Misthaven for Christmas too.

Emma smirks to herself and sips her cappuccino as she waits for a response.

Yes, amazing!! Can you stay with Killian then? Is it okay if Will and I take back his apartment?

Rolling her eyes, Emma replies:

In a huge plot twist, I’m actually getting my own place in Misthaven. I’ll explain more later on facetime when I am not at a coffee shop. Loooong story.

#Captain Swan #CS fic #CS fic rec #cs ff #cs ff au #cs modern au #killian jones #emma swan

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johnstibal · 3 years

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Career advice for law students wanting to practice in international law

Hello,

I was recently asked by a law student for some career advice on how to get a job internationally, and particularly how they could get engaged in international (public and private) legal work.

While my legal background stems largely from doing multinational corporate work, particularly in the IT sector, here are my basic ideas outlining a few generic things to think about in terms of your career planning and some key approaches to pursuing these types of careers.

My background. For the past several years, I have worked primarily in London, and secondarily in Paris, for a very large telecommunications company. I was originally working for another one of this companies' affiliates in USA, and this enabled me to move internally to another one of their companies in the UK. Making this move internally within a large company allowed me to move abroad far easier, especially in terms of sorting out work visas and professional qualifications, etc.

Three Career Principles to Never Forget. In terms of general career advice, there are three principles which you must keep in mind to work in international law related field. While I recognize the risk of sharing a 'firm grasp of the obvious' (and I can almost hear some cringing already) most law students do not receive this message framed in this sort of a utilitarian light. So, here it goes:

The sole purpose of your first legal job is to enable you to get a better second legal job.

It is all about Brand. Your CV / Resume is a personal marketing tool. It is your personal ‘brand’. The choice of your first job should strongly take into account the value which the ‘brand’ of your new employer will add to your CV, and your future ambitions. This lasts for decades.

You cannot save the world if you cannot pay the bills. Public international law has some of the most interesting legal work around. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it also has a tendency to attract incredibly brilliant people who will work for a minimum salary. If you are independently wealthy, then great, no problem. If you have large education debts, please do not neglect the fact this will undoubtedly impact your choice of jobs in the short term, even if not necessarily in the longer term.

Your first Legal job. Getting your first Legal job is always a nerve wracking experience at best, and especially if you want to take a track other than going directly into a large law firm. Unfortunately, nearly all major law schools are set up to build a funnel for large firms. For your interests, even if you do not wish to 'end up' in a law firm or major global corporation, it usually makes considerable sense for you to go out to find the best ‘brand’ firm which you can, either in the US, UK or elsewhere. You will be able to extract the majority of the benefits during this time by working at a firm for exactly two years (or three years, if in New York City) doing whatever type of legal work - - of course, its even better if your firm or company has a public international law practice, but this is not required. By the end of this time, you will have ‘checked the box’ on your CV, and you can happily move on to what you really want to do. This is by far is the safest option for most, and also incidentally, completes one of the requirements enabling you to be admitted to practice in other common law countries (e.g. the UK). I’m not certain whether this is as helpful in other civil law countries, but I suspect it would be.

There is no question that working at a law firm, and potentially billing in ‘6 minute’ increments gets very tiring. Reviewing e.g. commercial leases is even less fun than watching paint dry. But this said, you will probably be practicing law for a very long time off and on anyway. Having a good initial first employer on your CV, who has ‘trained’ you is always a good investment for your CV even if not necessarily beneficial to you over the long term.

As a lawyer who has graduated from a US law school, you are able to come to Europe with a well respected professional background (speaking generally). In terms of global perceptions, US lawyers are highly respected, maybe in a similar form of the admiration to being world-class in other professions e.g. French engineers, British accountants, or Indian mathematicians - - not to foster bad stereotypes… But, needless to say, the USA legal professional qualification travels well around the world, particularly among global employers.

This being said, there is a particular area of confusion when you first come out of law school. Legal training is not the same around the world, meaning in France, a jurist has may have only attended the equivalent of undergrad and not graduate school (in terms of USA style nomenclature, depending on their qualifications). In the UK, while there are some permutations, most young associates at large law firms will attend around a year and a half or so of graduate school, followed by two years of a training contract to learn how to practice law. In Germany, many associates hold an LLM, or a PHD, at minimum, staying in school much longer. While you probably can research the differences in the number of years of schooling better than me, you should be particularly aware of this issue when you turn up to speak with a new potential employer in Europe. There is a risk of being perceived as wanting to find only a training contract, which is not needed as a USA law school graduate. After your first job, the timing issue goes away as you accumulate more PQE (Post Qualification Experience). The same is true in France, as I understand it.

An alternative path in human rights / non-profit sector for law students. This is an area where my knowledge is limited. But, if I wanted to pursue a career in this field, I would adopt some of the following key approaches.

First, figure out who are the heavyweights thought leaders in your particular field of interest, either individuals or organizations - - and, do your best to somehow associate yourself with their organization or sphere of colleagues. You want to try to figure out who these organizations interact with, and by extension, which of these organizations might hire you. Linkedin is an extraordinarily powerful resource for this research. To test your hypotheses, try calling up or meeting up with the General Counsel of any public interest foundation (if not possible to meet in person, then email / Skype also works but is far less effective than in person). Introduce yourself, and ask him or her for some general advice, in particular what ‘outside counsel’ their foundation typically uses - - make clear that you admire the work of their foundation, and look to gain relevant experience by doing similar work in the future. Ask about their Legal department organizational structure (General Counsels - GCs) love talking about this stuff), and what skills they look for over the long term, but even if not necessarily immediately. If it goes well, you might get some really good information, and maybe even a referral to a firm or sister organization. Senior Executives are very used to people asking them for jobs on a daily basis. But, they get asked for their advice far less often. Use this to your advantage... but do not be a pest.

As an example coming from NGOs, from time to time, I have occasionally dealt with some of the affiliates of the United Nations as a supplier. There are probably 20 of these, e.g. World Bank, IMF, UNHCR, IATA, WIPO, Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal. Some of these organizations you are probably more familiar to you than others. There are two consistent traits that I see when dealing with their personnel. First, many of the staff are about to retire, and second, their staff have all consistently bounced around the world working in many different UN affiliates and national governments doing all sort of different roles, both legal and non-legal. The first of these is a well known problem for the UN and its agencies, at least, at a macro level, which might be helpfully to you. While I’m not certain what formal hiring programs may exist in these orgs, you should check with them around world, and particularly in Geneva, Switzerland and New York. Also, in terms of firms which advise this types of groups, you should also talk with McKinsey & Company. They do some very impressive pro bono work consulting for non-profits, and like to hire people with diverse backgrounds often having law degrees.

To get the attention of any large organization, and not just the UN agencies, you will always want to first find a way to get through the door, even if you need to do the unsexy type of legal work. Once you are inside, it is usually far easier to move internally. For example, if you work for a big organization like the UN, they have a vast array of legal needs, ranging from the basic to the exotic. It is undoubtedly the case that a large portion of the UN’s legal budget goes to HR and Procurement legal advice (e.g. doing commercial leases, procuring pencils and IT projects) (whether done in-house or by external firms.) When a UN agency needs to lease a building in sub-Saharan Africa, some lawyer somewhere in the world needs to review and advise on the tender process (often in combination with other local lawyers). Therefore, this is an opportunity to target. Yes, this is not sexy work, but it gets you a pass into the ‘club’ to work on other more interesting projects in the future.

As a final thought. Having outlined all of above, if you truly want to work in the non-profit / human rights space, it might be the case that being a ‘junior file clerk’ for Google.org or the Gates Foundation is equally beneficial (from a brand perspective to get your next job) as being a senior associate at Skadden Arps.

On the one hand, being at a big firm allows you to potentially develop a deep legal specialty, which might be later retooled for a good purpose. For example, undoubtedly, at some point, a brilliant lawyer in some large law firm will figure out how to package up millions of ‘microfinance’ loans using mezzanine financing techniques (i.e. allowing Wall Street money to start funding billions of very small loans around the world) - - in so doing, they could indirectly create prosperity in Africa for a life time.

At the same time, NGOs have a potential to do great things too. These are the people who are likely to generate the next generation of new legal concepts / quasi-regulatory regimes. For example, a newer area which I am following lately relates to 'conservation services' and 'natural capital' (see Conservation International) (www.conservation.org). These structures are, essentially, quasi-voluntary regulatory schemes to allow companies to share and manage ecological externalities (see Jennifer Morris's speech at Stanford). For me, CI's approach is just a start of a major trend in this area: soon there will be ISO certificate schemes covering externality pricing, as well as voluntary business case weighting methodologies which hopefully over time will become a standard approach in global commercial activity - - yet, this said, few individuals in the world understand how these types of governance tools work in practice. It simply cross too many intellectual domains, which so far has stymied adoption on a global level. 'Deep Greens' are not well suited to create these types of applied 'corporate' innovations around externalities, but maybe you are the one given your legal background.

Highly innovative organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, look great to onlookers because, in large part, by comparison, the other large global NGOs have tired ‘business’ models. Often major NGOs have been doing the same exact thing for decades. For me, I could see this as creating an opportunity. It might be great fun to join one of these NGOs for the express purpose to reshape it, remake it, and help them to reinvent their bag of tricks as an NGO. As a lawyer, you can have this level of influence within these types of organizations - - but, remember, always ask for forgiveness, never for permission when trying to affect major change within large organizations.

Keep in touch. If you like this or have other items to add, please drop me a note. I always enjoy hearing from people and what they think. These are changing times!

Best of luck,

John

#UN affiliates #career advice #career planning #change management #emory school of law #gates foundation #international law #law school #law student #non-profit #open precedents #public law #skadden arps #united nations #conservation services

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foilfreak · 4 years

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Headcannons for my favorite One Punch Man rarepair: Golden Ball x Spring Mustachio

Both joined the Hero Association around the same time and knew of each other in passing, due to living in the same city, but didn’t officially meet until about 8 months in, and as a result of that, these two did NOT like each other at all during those first 8 months. Spring Mustachio thought Golden Ball was just another crass and reckless delinquent using heroism as a legal outlet for violence, and Golden Ball thought Spring Mustachio was an entitled rich boy who was probably paying his way up the hero ranks. When the two heroes were finally forced to formally introduce themselves to one another at the first annual Hero Association banquet, or some other equivalently pointless publicity stunt the Associacion probably put on at some point or another, they were shocked to find just how wrong their initial judgments of one another actually were.

Despite Golden Ball’s appearance, what with the bleach-blonde hair, slightly baggy clothes, tall, muscular frame, and the lollipops that Spring Mustachio correctly guesses are a substitute for cigarettes, Golden Ball is actually incredibly intelligent, having earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering (this particular headcanon is inspired by @batneko) from a highly prestigious university (currently considering going back for his PhD if he can save up the money), and all of his signature weapons are his own personal inventions. Likewise, Spring Mustachio, despite having the appearance and persona of someone who grew up having everything handed to him on a silver platter, had long ago rejected the escalator to success his parents had offered him in the form of taking over as head of their family business, in favor of going out on his own to explore the world and everything it had to offer, mastering the art of swordsmanship and opening his own restaurant (where even after hiring a decent sized staff, he still took up menial tasks such as washing dishes and serving guests) along the way.

After getting to know each other at that first meeting, the two heroes became surprisingly fast friends, their personalities mixing rather well together on top of having many shared interested, and even began hanging out outside of their hero duties, where they already spent a considerable amount of time together considering how frequently the Association paired them together for missions. Most of their time outside of work was spent at Spring Mustachio’s restaurant, engaging in casual, slightly teasing conversation over onion rings and a couple rounds of beer after a long day of hero work. Later on into their friendship however, it became much more common for Golden Ball to also come into the restaurant during the day to bother the older man during his shift, not that Spring Mustachio minded the company one bit, especially if it meant having a couple of extra hands available to dry the dishes he’d just washed. It eventually got to the point where it was pretty much common knowledge throughout the city that if Golden Ball wasn’t out on a patrol or sent away on a mission for the Association, the first place you ought to check if you’re looking for him would be Spring Mustachio’s. Likewise if it’s Spring Mustachio you’re looking for and the restaurant is a no-go, try your hand at getting ahold of Golden Ball, cuz wherever he is, chances are that Spring Mustachio is standing right next to him. Its a wonder how the whole city doesn’t start assuming the two are dating when they begin referring to each other as ‘Gold’ and ‘Spring’, during hero work, and exclusively by their first names when off the clock.

The two heroes remain nothing more than close friends for full year after their first meeting, and while both had developed more-than-friendly feelings for one another over that time, neither were planning on doing anything about it, not wanting unrequited feelings to potentially ruin the incredible friendship they’d formed, among the other internal struggles that come with accepting that you’re attracted to other men in a society that, although no longer criminalizes homosexuality, definitely still doesn’t view it in a positive light by any means. Spring Mustachio has been in the closet his whole life and plans to keep it that way to avoid the potential social backlash. Golden Ball on the other hand didn’t realize he was bisexual until grad school and has since only managed to work up the courage to come out to his (thankfully incredibly supportive) family and closest childhood friends. Needless to say neither of them were in the headspace to even think about confessing, especially when they had so much to lose should it not go well, and both heroes were content to simply let their feelings die out over time if it meant that their friendship would remain intact.

Things change however, when Golden Ball’s place gets totally trashed in a monster attack, and the younger man finds himself staying with Spring Mustachio at his house until it can be repaired. Now not only do both men have to deal with their budding feelings for one another, but they also have to deal with their budding feelings for one another while also figuring out how to coexist in the same space, made even more interesting by the fact that Golden Ball has two pitbulls, Gizmo and Tonka, and Spring Mustachio isn’t the biggest fan of dogs (spoiler: Spring Mustachio falls in love with the sweet little puppers and spoils them absolutely rotten, much to Golden Ball’s amusement). Over the couple of months it takes for Golden Ball’s apartment to be fixed the men learn several things about each other that never would have come to light in any other context, including, but not limited to: Spring Mustachio’s extensive collection of alcohol bottles from all the drink’s he’s tried over the years (and of course all the stories that come with those bottles), Golden Ball’s horrific nicotine addiction being the result of an undiagnosed anxiety disorder that got BAD toward the end of undergrad and was forced to come to an end when he had a heart attack at 25, the tumultuous relationship Spring Mustachio has had with his family (specifically his parents) since breaking away from the plan they had created for him, the fact that Golden Ball is easily the biggest nerd that Spring Mustachio has ever met (and probably the smartest too), the brief run Spring Mustachio had as a competitive fencer in his early 30s that Golden Ball thinks he should get back into, the adorable way Golden Ball talks to his dogs when he thinks no one is listening, and so much more.

These things of course only cause their feelings to worsen and the situation just continues to spiral out of control from there. Im torn over whether I want them to actually get together in like a nice, mature way, like they ultimately end up talking abou their feelings to just get them off their chests, you know like adults, or if i want them to confess after getting into a huge fight, like maybe one of them got really hurt and some things they didnt actually mean were said and so they didn’t talk for a bit but then they end up tracking each other down and confessing after the tension finally snaps or something like that. I’ll leave that up for you all to decide but what i will say is that they get together just as Golden Ball’s apartment is finished being rebuilt, but with his lease being up at the end of the month and having already settled rather comfortably at Spring Mustachio’s place, he decides not to renew the lease and just stay where he is, much to Spring Mustachio’s delight.

As for their families, Spring Mustachio tells only his older sister and younger brother, who are confused, but ultimately supportive and happy that their brother found someone he truly loved and wanted to be with. His parents end up finding out somehow and while they aren’t exactly thrilled about it when they first learn that their eldest son is dating another man nearly 20 years his junior, they are, to their credit, polite and avoid making any inappropriate comments on the rare occasions he and Golden Ball do agree to visit the estate for dinner. Golden Ball initially only tells his parents, but things rarely stay secret for very long in his family, and not even a week goes by before his grandparents are calling asking if he’ll be bringing his new boyfriend to the cookout at the end of the month. Spring Mustachio has a fantastic time meeting the plethora of grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and close family friends that make up Golden Ball’s wonderfully lively family, though he does end up getting thrown into the pool by Golden Ball’s older brothers at some point, as is custom treatment for “new members” of the family. He doesn’t seem to mind all that much, especially when Golden Ball’s mother finally breaks out the baby pictures and he gets to coo over how adorably plump his boyfriend was as an infant, much to said boyfriend’s growing embarrassment.

For professionalism’s sake they decide to keep the relationship on the dl and though the two are rarely seen apart, they save the more intimate moments and actions for behind closed doors. No need to give the press an excuse to start shit.

Let me know what you think of my headcanons and what your headcanons are for this rarepair if you have any!!!

#one punch man #opm #golden ball opm #golden ball one punch man #golden ball #spring mustachio opm #spring mustachio one punch man #spring mustachio #mine #headcanons #golden ball x spring mustachio #golden mustache #ship

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blowkiss-buttcheeks · 4 years

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I HAVE MORE SKY: COTL THEORIES (+ Mini theories and personal headcanons)

The mini theories are put in-between the bigger ones, and are colored.

They're put before a theory that might connect with them, and the title of the theory connected to the mini-theories are colored with the same color.

PART 1: M O R E THEORIES

people who makes these theories should get a PhD in Sky Lore

1. Sky Kids = Eden Elder Theory

Winged Light are left behind by Child of Light, who appears in the intro in the place for the Eden elder. In Eden before we die we give winged light to fallen skykids as replacement souls. If skykid souls are made of bits of the long lost Eden elder's soul, then you could say that skykids are all collectively the new incarnation of the Eden elder.

The reason we "shepherd the light through the storm" is because we need to bring all skykids back home so that the final star is reunited with the light.

In the intro the light that falls down to awaken the skykids is coming from just above where the Eden elder was, implying that this is when the king finally died, spreading some bits of his soul across the realms (winged light), while the rest of his soul pieces became the souls of skykids. When they say the Eden elder is beyond saving, I think he died a lot more recently than we expect: at the start of the game.

This theory also explains why Child of Light and children of light have such similar names: because they're parts of the same thing. Basically skykids are a result of the king relinquishing his past form and 'starting over' to bring an era of unity rather than selfishness.

Mini 1: Eden was a haven of civilization. Whatever happened in Eden lead to their downfall

Mini 2: Corrupted King/Eden Elder. In one of the Tomcepts (Concept Art by Tom Zhao) there is a drawing of a corrupted king. The King is corrupted by the darkness and is now in Eden

2. Project Ark Theory (somewhat connected to the Eden Stormlock Diamond Theory)

Based off of some concept arts, a massive ark was being built. An ark large enough to hold an entire civilization, so that they could all return home(to the stars/space/orbit). Since they were already used flying boats for transportation, why wouldn’t a huge ark do the same? The ark was planned to land in eden, because it was the highest point of the kingdom(it’s closer to their true home). To help power the ark, they built a massive diamond. Something went wrong and the diamond broke. Things turn black/red and everything falls apart.

If including the King…

The King watched over the ark project(like god watching over noah building the ark). Assuming that he cared about his kingdom, he wants all of his people to return to the stars. Maybe while the ark was being built, cities were also being built in eden(explanation of the presence of pipes and steel beams in Eden).

Some aspects of the concept art suggested that the King IS Eden. The King probably got greedy because of the abundance of light and materials produced from the ark project. He became corrupted possibly due to the dark stones ability to work with light and he turned into the Storm. Maybe there was too much light being added to the dark stone, more than it could handle.

The King becomes the Storm, the ark project is abandoned, and so was eden. The dark stones become more corrupted and turn red. The stones gain the ability to suck light out of things. Eventually, the huge diamond that was built becomes corrupted too and splits , spurting out dark energy.

3. Stormlock Diamond Creation

The Creation of the Big Diamond Eye

The spirits/elders wanted to create something more powerful than the blue diamonds. Blue diamonds needs to be powered with light to function. The blue diamonds cannot harness light itself. The blue diamonds have to be recharged manually repeatedly.

The spirits only had so much light(only what’s inside themselves and inside creatures of light). Where/How are they gonna get more light?

Where did light come from initially? The Megabird.

The Megabird is linked to the kingdom through a giant beam of light reaching up from Eden. The beam has likely been there since the beginning of time and is a source of infinite light. For a long time, no one had been able to tap into that much raw energy because it’s extremely powerful.

Whoever created the Diamond Eye wanted to siphon that infinite energy/light directly into a diamond to be stored and used like a giant battery that could power the entire kingdom. Maybe they believed that since civilization has advanced so much, they would be able to create something stronger than any diamond they had built before. As a backup measure to prevent the Diamond Eye from overflowing, they created concentrated forms of darkness(red crystal rocks) and attached it to the Diamond. The darkness would suck out any extra light that the Diamond couldn’t store. They thought it would be enough to stop a potential surge of energy from pouring out of the Diamond Eye. But of course, they were wrong. The red crystals didn’t just prevent the Diamond from exploding, they actually caused the Diamond Eye to siphon light at a faster rate than it could handle, resulting in a huge explosion of massive energy, scattering shards of red crystal and shockwaves of darkness that spread throughout the kingdom, corrupting creatures and killing the ancestors(currently spirits). After the explosion, an infinite vacuum was created(taking in light and everything around it, stirring in a huge storm).

4. Rebel Wasteland theory (possibly connected to the Two Shields Theory)

Golden Wasteland was the second most industrialized realm (first would be Eden) in the sky world and possibly the most militarised one (four out of six spirits are military, and there are soldier statues at the entrance corridor to the broken temple).

For it’s potential to be a threat, especially due to its proximity to Eden, the King fills the realm with his statues (there are 9 in total - 2 of them broken in half - not counting the turrets atop the GW temple) as a way to assert his position of leadership over the land.

Then the anti-power diamond movement started and, considering the polluted water, it must have been stronger in Wasteland than any other realm. So the people there start a strike on diamond mass production, threatening the entire line of production, and, when the king send his men in to end it, the GW spirits are backed by their Elder.

There starts the civil war with GW troop’s winning at first, and it ends with the king using his giant diamond to level wasteland (the level of destruction there is comparable only to Eden, and hardly was caused by only men-to-men combat). But by doing so, the king corrupts his giant diamond, leading to the eventual fall of Eden and the spread of darkness to all the other remaining realms.

PART 2: PERSONAL HEADCANONS AND THEORIES

1. The krills are corrupted whales. No proof except that they look similar

2. The darkness is slowly killing the krills and dark crabs.

The krills have dark particles dropping from their body, and the dark crabs have the same particles on their body. These particles are very similar to the one we see when our Skykids are dying in Stormlock Eden, after we lost all of our Winged Lights.

After we die, the dark particles drop down to the ground and disappear.

This makes me believe that these particles are slowly killing the krills and crabs.

3. The King is just the Prince on a mech.

You see this?

Look at the King's head.

It's just the prince on a gigantic mech.

GET IN THE ROBOT ALEF

#sky children of the light #sky: children of the light #sky: light awaits #sky cotl #sky cotl theory #lore #vault elder #wasteland elder #GW elder #sky children of the light theory #sky children of the light king #sky elders #sky elder #don't mind me i'm sleep deprived

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doflamingadonquixote · 4 years

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An Almost Perfect Life - 1/?

Summary: You are a young career woman at one of the bank in London and, at the same time, attending a PhD in Statistics. Your life was perfect until your apartment was invaded by two demons.

Pairing: Sebastian Michaelis x Fem!Reader x Claude Faustus

Chapter: Page 2

I. A tragic decision

The alarm clock above the nightstand rang with the usual deafening singsong, making a silent snort escape your lips.

You forgot to unplug it so you wouldn't let that thing hit your eardrums the night before. Yes, you used to do it, because your lack of practicality with that hellish affair...

Speaking of hell...

The curtains in your room began to creak, letting the light of day enter to illuminate the darkness in which you used to bask. You growled disturbed as your (Y/E) eyes closed on a tall figure, with a pair of glasses and the hardest facial expression of a marble statue.

You took the pillow with your right hand and turned on your side, allowing one side of it to cover your ears and eyes.

Even though you were well covered and hidden, you still warned that man to approach your alarm clock and click on its top to silence it. And a voice reached you anyway, as if it were speaking directly to your ear and this made your nerves jump.

"Miss, it's time to wake up. I made you the usual coffee and pancakes with slices of strawberry and raspberry, on a bed of maple syrup."

You hated it when they talked like they were fucking waiters in a five-star restaurant.

"It's Sunday, disappear!" you murmured, still covered by the pillow but certain that they had heard you the same.

The pillow was gently removed from your head and hands, but still with enough force to make you drop all the weight on the mattress.

You got up on your elbows, casting a look of pure hatred towards the demon with glasses who had put your soft protection of soft cloth under his arm.

"If I'm not mistaken, you had planned to go for a run this morning after yesterday's dinner."

You frowned, sitting with your back against the headboard of the bed and ran your fingers through the tangle that had become your hair during the night. You hoped that the makeup on the eyelashes had not poured all over your face but from the spots you saw on your pillow you shouldn't have been a good show.

"Don't throw programs in my face that I say just to make myself feel good, damn it ..."

You brought your hands to your eyes, to erase embarrassing traces, and at the same time something was resting on your knees hidden by the gray and heavy blankets because the terribly harsh weather of London.

You turned around just in time to observe a flash of red eyes very close to your person but before you could slap him away, he was already retreating to the base of your bed.

In front of you, on a table, the food seemed to give off a sweet aroma that asked to be bitten despite the thousand thousand calories that governed. You got watering but you took it down as if it were a hard pill to swallow. You wouldn't have given any satisfaction to those two.

You observed them, statues at the foot of the bed as if they were really waiting for your order or your comment. There, in their white shirts and black pants.

"You have no intention of leaving, huh?"

As an answer, only that usual cryptic and malicious smile came from both.

It all started four days earlier. It was a Wednesday like any other. You had your morning coffee, you dressed in the usual uniform with a black skirt and white shirt and you went to work. Your apartment was located in the center of Westminster, in the small district where about 40 families stayed but not more and about 400 meters away from the underground.

You had a car, of course, but you preferred to save money by taking an annual public transport pass and avoiding, at least during the week, the terrible traffic that filled the streets of London.

By divine grace, that day had decided not to rain and you cursed randomness for it.

At the end of your shift at the bank you worked for, you collected your things and said goodbye to all your colleagues. The bank was located in central London and wasn't very close to the tube station but still busy and viable enough to be reached.

Besides, it was also a beautiful day, until...

Many passersby seemed to stop in front of an alley but, after being vaguely interested, they passed on. Intrigued, you approached and the sound of flapping wings and a loud croaking came to your ears.

It seemed as if a bird was stirring. Maybe he must have got caught in something.

The alley was dark, so many left it alone and went their own way, but don't let that put you off. You loved all the animals except the flying insects, those you just couldn't stand them and thinking that maybe that bird could have stumbled into some trap made your heart tighten.

You took your cell phone from your pocket and turned on the torch, to allow you to better see in the darkness and there, a few steps away from you, a black crow was flapping its wings furiously.

You didn't see anything blocking him or forcing him to the ground but he seemed irritated by something.

"Hey, shh, shh-" you tried to murmur, trying to get him back to the ground but suddenly, as if the light had momentarily blinded him, with a strong blow something hit the crow and they both ended up against the wall sliding on the ground.

With a lump in your throat, you advanced quickly to that point and pointed the flashlight at the two animals on the ground.

The crow had bruised wings with rivulets of blood that wet the ground and what appeared to be a bat even had one of the wings pierced.

"What am I doing now?" you wondered, going back around you. You couldn't run out into the street and yell at someone to rescue beasts, but you couldn't even abandon them there. You were sure that some wild cats would eat them at the first opportunity.

You pointed the flashlight away from there and near a garbage bin you found an abandoned cardboard. It was dirty and even slightly wet on the sides but it would have been better than putting the two blood-filled creatures directly on your shirt. Then, you weren't sure they didn't bring disease.

You grabbed it and went back to where they were slumped and, with the help of a handkerchief, placed them inside the cardboard. Your phone indicated that it was 6 pm and if you had not hurried your area would have been packed with neighbors returning from work. Seeing you come in with two potentially sick animals would not have been an easy topic to avoid.

The journey home was quiet, London had seen oddities far more gradual than a woman carrying a dirty box.

When the bat woke up he began to scratch the crow that croaked in response and with a nervous tic you shouts to stop. In addition to receiving disturbed looks from the passengers, what surprised you was that the two had started to stare at you and at the same time stopped poking themselves.

You entered your apartment in the most discreet way possible, avoiding to greet someone and placed the box on the ground near the entrance door.

The two creatures watched your movements and suddenly that pair of yellow and red eyes started to upset you a lot.

You went back to them with two pieces of cloth you had made from an old hole in the sheet and you started to treat the crow first.

You passed a piece of wet paper on its wings but as soon as it came into contact with a wound, it croaked. You were about to drop it for fear that it would prick you with its beak but didn't venture anything like that.

You came to the conclusion that his wing was broken and that you couldn't do much without being practical. You cleaned it with the greatest possible care and together with the cloth, you placed it gently in an empty shoe box, then you returned to the bat.

That seemed like waiting for you, resting with your front and back legs as he stared at you.

You lifted him by his hairy chest, but beyond one of his clawless legs and pierced wings, all you could do was put him in a small box surrounded by cloth.

In the end, you decided that you would take the animals to the vet before going to work and they would take care of the situation.

Or so you thought ...

When you woke up the next morning, you felt that something was wrong. More a feeling than a real conscience.

You got out of bed, carefully, intending to check the two creatures that you had placed in the bathroom but when you arrived at the door that was already open.

You entered and in the makeshift kennels there was no trace of anything but the blood that had been left there.

As you closed the boxes, hoping that the animals had come out of the window and that they had not wandered around the house, the unmistakable sound of the gas being solicited was heard in the kitchen.

The blood froze in your veins.

Your ex-boyfriend no longer had the keys to your apartment and your parents would have warned of a possible surprise visit.You left the bathroom and grabbed the collectible dagger that your ex had left at your house on the shelf in the hallway.

You knew that one day, a weapon at hand would be useful.

The house keys were exactly where you left them the day before, hung on the wall in front of the small mirror above the shelf and swallowed loudly when you arrived in front of the door that separated the corridor from the kitchen.

Now the sound of cutlery and a pot on the fire was unmistakable.

What should you have done? Calling the police seemed the obvious choice, but when you turned to grab the charging cell phone in the same place where the dagger was lying, you only found the cable. The cell phone was gone.

You held the weapon tightly in your hands. You had possessions at home, possessions you cared about a lot and you didn't want them to be taken away but you had no other choice. Maybe if you started screaming down the corridor that a thief had entered your house someone would have rushed, even if only to put him on the run.

You took one last look at the kitchen and advanced towards the exit but when you tried to open the door you found it locked, you never locked it.

You raised a hand to grab the keys but took the void.

Confused you turned your gaze to where they were supposed to be but you found nothing in their place.

You opened your lips but immediately covered your mouth with your free hand to avoid that no sudden sound came out. You were sure you saw them there moments before.

"Are you looking for these?"

You turned suddenly and there, a few centimeters from you, a man was waving the keys of your door in the palm of his hand, a sharp smile on his fine lips.

You pushed yourself against the door, trying to put as much distance as possible between you and the stranger and you raised the knife in front of your stomach as if to protect yourself.

His abnormally red eyes seemed to pierce you from side to side.

"W-What do you want from me? I have no money in the house, I swear! " squeaked, letting your anxiety pour over your hands causing the knife to vibrate.

The man looked down at the weapon and raised an eyebrow.

"But take a look, the kitten has claws." He raised his hand to try to grab you but before you knew it you pushed the knife against it, trying to stop his advance but he stopped the blade as if it were made of rubber. He squeezed it tight and pulled it from your hands with little difficulty making you almost collide with his chest.

Caught off guard by your advancement, you managed to escape from under his arms and ran to your room desperately looking for something that could protect you or contact someone.

"Now, now, don't you think the best solution is to play after a good breakfast?"

The man in the corridor was right in front of the door of your room, watching you as a cat observes a trapped mouse.

Not panicking, you felt the cold breeze of the London air go through the pile of your pajamas. You had the window open, it would have been enough for you to come closer and scream and someone would surely have arrived...

But just as you took a step, your back collided with what was definitely a body.

You had checked the room, there was nobody there, there could be absolutely no one! And the man with the mocking grin was right in front of you!

You turned your head just to look at a serious, square face with a pair of glasses that covered bloody yellow eyes.

Thieves and even madmen. How many of them were still in there?

You tried to escape from the newcomer, turning around to reach the window but before you could scream the man grabbed you by the arm and forced you against him placing a hand in front of your mouth.

You clawed his arm, trying to hurt him as much as possible but that didn't seem to move in the least. Just as if you were a stupid butterfly in a spider's web.

Tears came to your eyes and you didn't bother letting them run down your cheeks and on the hand of your kidnapper.

Distracted and desperate, you couldn't even notice that the red-eyed accomplice had bent over you and raised the blade right in front of his lips.

"You used so much discretion when you let us in, Miss, let's keep it, okay?"

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Yeah, I know.I still don't know how to use verbs properly but try to understand, I'm an Italian girl who still has some difficulty with English.

Let's say that by writing this story, I keep myself trained.

Please let me know what you think because I am going to continue it for an audience, not just myself.

Bye for now ;)

#sebastian x reader #claude faustus #claude x reader #sebastian michaelis x reader #black butler #kuroshitsuji #demons #human reader #kuroshitsuji au #anime #manga #season two exists #thriller #romantic #hurt and comfort #death characters #kuroshitsuji fanfiction #sebastian michaelis

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100 rewatch: 5x03 Sleeping Giants

Continuing my joint rewatch of season 5 with @jeanie205. After two great episodes where we caught up with our main characters and saw (or did not see, in the case of Spacekru) their experiences during the 6-year time jump, Sleeping Giants is another excellent episode, this time fully about the present day action with the Eligius prisoners moving into Eden, their conflict with and capture and torture of Clarke, and most of all about the Spacekru trying to find a way to deal with the Eligius crew, get to the ground and save their people.

It’s also a great Bellamy episode, just as 5x01 was a great Clarke-centric episode and 5x02 a great Octavia episode. Raven also gets still getting pretty good character moments here (and has maybe more lines than in any other episode, but to be fair, most of it is exposition).

What particularly struck me - especially after quite a few slower episodes in season 7 - is just how fast, intense and full of both action and loads of new information (about Eligius 4 and Diyoza, but also a lot of setup for season 6, and even for the possible prequel). There are also lots and lots of parallels and contrasts to season 1, and callbacks to previous seasons in general; morality debates, fights, and one very epic (and romantic-looking) reunion of the show’s two main characters in the closing scene.

Timeline: 2 days have passed since the present day events of 5x01 - it is 2201 days since Praimfaya.

This episode is full of action and new information - if you don’t pay attention to every second, you may miss some of it:

First mention of Eligius 3: their mission may have been top secret. but the crew of Eligius 4 obviously knew that the corporation was sending Nightbloods and that one of the planet was a binary star system (Shaw males a comment "Two suns, no sunscreen”).

Eligius 4 was a mining ship; one of its engines got busted in the rebellion of the prisoners, which is why the ship needed a hundred years to get back to Earth (as opposed to Eligius 3 - which we later see took just a few years to reach Sanctum from Earth)

Possible prequel info: Raven mentions great-great grandpappy Blake who was an astronaut with multiple PhDs (but it’s unclear if he was an ancestor of both Bellamy and Octavia, in which case he has to be Aurora’s ancestor).

We start getting some of Diyoza backstory here (there’s more in the following episodes), when she mentions to Clarke that she fought when the “fascist government” tried to take her home. (This could’ve been seen as just Diyoza’s bias, but now that we have an idea - from 7x08 - what USA - under a President Wallace - was like just before the apocalypse, her description seems fitting. Callie also considered the government fascist.)

Instead of more exposition, the show follows the Show, Don’t Tell rule and gives the backstory about the rebellion in a more exciting way, by having Spacekru find and watch a video message that the late captain of the ship filmed and was about to send when he was killed. But the show also still intentionally withholds some info: the captain mentions that the prisoners have learned about Order 11 but we don't find out what that was until a few episodes later - that it was an order to kill all the prisoners. This would change our perception of Diyoza and the entire situation to quite an extent, but so far, all you get from this is that the prisoners, and Diyoza in particular, are very dangerous. The captain was about to send the message that Eligius be blown out of the sky, saying that “Diyoza can't be allowed to weaponize the cargo", which first hints at her terrifying reputation. But considering he was just going to do that, I’m not sure you can’t blame Diyoza for letting McCreary kill him. (Even though Shaw just does that, reminding Diyoza that she promised she wouldn’t kill any of the crew - to which she laconically replies she didn’t promise the others wouldn’t.)

There is, however, already some moral ambiguity there because Spacekru learn that prisoners were seen as “expendable” by the people in power - and Murphy says this sounds familiar, pointing out a parallel between the Eligius prisoners and the Delinquents. In general, season 5 plays a lot with the (imperfect) parallels (and contrasts) between season 5 and season 1. Some of the not-so-subtle callbacks include Diyoza saying “We’re not alone” in 5x01, Clarke making notes and drawings of the weaponry that the newcomers have, which is kind of a "parallel" to how Lincoln made notes in his notebook (except Lincoln was mostly making notes of how many people were there, not their weapons - since they didn’t have any), Clarke being captured and refusing to give any info by staying silent, and Clarke getting tortured, like Lincoln was. And just like Octavia argued that Lincoln didn’t speak English, but Bellamy was sure he did, now Shaw tries to argue that Clarke can’t speak English but Diyoza is smart enough to know she does. (It was really obvious in both cases - someone who doesn't speak your language but wants to communicate would say something in another language and make gestures, a mute person would make gestures, but when someone is looking at you silently and with a stone face, they obviously don't WANT to talk. Octavia seems to have actually believed that Lincoln didn’t speak English, since she was later surprised that he did - but she was still naive at the time. I find it hard to believe Shaw really believed that - he was probably just trying to dissuade Diyoza from letting McCreary torture someone.)

But here’s the thing: a parallel doesn’t have to mean two things are really the same - sometimes, as in this case, it’s more like “this is kind of reminiscent of that other thing, but when you compare them, you see that they’re drastically different”, which is pretty obvious, as in one case, we had a hundred kids with no weapons (aside from one gun and one knife), just going around without a plan and trying to have a good time in a rather small area, vs thousands of organized people with at least hundreds of armed warriors in a much wider territory. In this case, we have a bunch of heavily armed (and that’s an understatement, they really have all sorts of incredibly powerful weapons) adult murderers who came in with the express plan to take over the Valley - which was the only habitable area on Earth, vs a sole woman and a child. In other words, the Eligius prisoners are exactly what the Grounders claimed in season 1 that the 100 were, but what the 100 most definitely were not - a real and massive threat. But on the other hand, there is a reason why this parallel exists - and that’s to point out that the prisoners, no matter how scary they are, no matter how good the reasons to be afraid of them, no matter how bad they may be... are still people who were sent as forced labor, deemed expendable, and now are trying to get back home, to Earth. What else could they do - float forever in space, in cryo?

Another callback in this episode was to season 3 - and it’s a particularly important one for Bellamy’s character arc: the dilemma of what to do with the 283 Eligius prisoners in cryo. Murphy is the voice of ruthless pragmatism and suggests that they simply pull the plug and kill them all, before Diyoza could wake them up from the ground and use them as her army. Echo, though she says she understands why this is hard for Bellamy, backs up Murphy’s suggestion, but Bellamy refuses. You can see how awful even the idea is to him, reminding him of one of the things he has been regretting and feeling guilty for years - helping Pike kill Lexa’s army while they were sleeping. There are differences in circumstance, but it is basically the same thing, kill people in their sleep pre-emptively, before they could be potentially used against you, because if they are, they would be a huge threat to your people. (Well, it is the same thing for the purposes of the show - if we believe that experienced Trikru warriors could all sleep at the same time and not wake up and start fighting - which the show really wants us to believe, though it never made any sense. The Eligius prisoners, however, are really helpless here because they are cryo frozen, so this would really be the massacre that season 3 pretended Hakeldama was.) Murphy brings up Clarke, in what is one of the weirder lines in this episode - “If Clarke was here, this wouldn’t even...” I’m not sure what exactly he was trying to say - did he mean to imply Clarke would be in favor of killing them all (which doesn’t make much sense - it’s not like Clarke was the one more in favor of violent solutions than the peaceful and diplomatic ones compared to Bellamy, in fact, it was typically the opposite in seasons 1-4, especially whenever Murphy was around to witness their actions and decisions, On the other hand, the show went on to give Murphy some weird opinions about Clarke in season 6. Or did he mean that Bellamy himself would opt for drastic measures to protect Clarke?

It’s unclear, and it feels like this line just exists to set up Bellamy’s response and show how much the loss and memory of Clarke is still weighing heavy on Bellamy and motivating him. Bellamy has been trying to be better and redeem himself for mistakes of his past that he made when he was more inclined to react violently against enemies - and, since Praimfaya, he has been trying to honor Clarke’s memory, and be the kind of leader she wanted him to be, and the kind of leader she was. "Clarke didn't die for us to go back and make the same mistakes".

Ironically, Clarke has in the meantime become a lot more like season 1a Bellamy: her focus has narrowed to trying to protect a single person, a child she loves and feels responsible for, and in her present situation, she’s a lot more inclined to opt for violent solutions. We’ve already seen that in 5x01 with the “There are no good guys” scene, and in 5x03 she is quite ruthless when she doesn’t want to mercy kill a prisoner stabbed by one of her and Madi’s traps, even when Madi is asking her to do it. Season 5 Clarke characterization is pretty controversial - and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. It was clearly meant to show Clarke changed and not like herself after 6 years isolation with just Madi as a companion - but I don’t like the way it seemed to almost reduce Clarke to the “Mama Bear” trope. On the other hand, this is not entirely new - Clarke was always kind of mother to the Delinquents, even though they were her age, and driven by the desire to protect those she loves and/or felt responsible for - especially in season 2, we saw how far she can go when she is cornered and desperate to save her people. And she is certainly cornered here. We could argue whether some of her decisions here - such as to start attacking the prisoners - were smart, but with Eden as the only livable place, there wasn’t much else she could do other than hide, which she and Madi couldn’t do indefinitely.

Bellamy’s. Echo’s and Raven’s fight with Kodiak - a particularly large and dangerous prisoner that Diyoza had woken up because of the alarm Spacekru had set off - is IMO one of the best in the show, very raw and brutal and desperate. It reminds me of the 2x11 fight where Bellamy also ended up strangling a man after a desperate fight, with the help of Echo and someone else who’s mostly a non-combatant - in S2 it was Maya, here it’s Raven. (For someone who isn’t a fighter and in spite of her disability, Raven has the right moves - going straight for the eyes.) Bellamy and Echo work well as a part of the team, the leader and his right hand, but if you just saw this episode, you’d have no idea that they’re a couple. They don’t get the little everyday moments of chemistry and coupley behavior that we see here with Marper (when Raven teases “lovebirds” about Zero G sex, we immediately see that Marper is who she meant) or that we see with Memori in other seasons, whenever they are together. Here, they are on a break, and it’s so weird after seeing them in S7, watching Emori and Murphy snapping at each other with animosity - but there’s a thin line between love and hate.

Sleeping Giants is generally a great showcase for Bellamy: this is arguably him at his best as a leader, not only negotiating and saving his people while also refusing to commit mass murder, but we also see how good he is at instilling confidence in other team members - be it asking Murphy for his opinion, or building up Emori’s confidence as a pilot. The moment where they smile each other after she lands successfully is one of the best scenes in terms of the Spacekru dynamic - and in terms of genuinely platonic m/f friendships in the show (which should get more screentime).

It’s also a good episode for Raven, who insists she stays behind even though she knows there is a huge chance of dying, and lies to Bellamy that there is an escape pod for two, to stop him from insisting on staying instead, with his own self-sacrificial tendencies. In season 7, Raven felt guilty for not putting her life on the line in 7x03, but she did it here. Murphy ends up unintentionally kind of doing the same - fooled by her lie about the escape pod. Would he have stayed behind if he knew there was no escape pod? At this point in his development, probably not, but he is still showing the desire to contribute and do something heroic. He isn’t even sure himself what his motives are - was it just to impress Emori and show he’s not selfish, or if he really wants to be a hero who is ready to sacrifice and/or risk his life, the way the others do?

There are so many callbacks in this episode! Murphy even says the line "See you on the other side" and Raven tells Murphy: “You're right, dying alone would have sucked", referencing their scene in 2x01, back when they were just starting to not be enemies.

But of course, what this episode is mostly remembered by is Bellamy learning that Clarke is alive, and their first meeting in 6 years, in the epic last scene. The show made Bellamy and the rest of the Spacekru a bit incompetent for a moment when they get themselves captured by two prisoners, so Madi would rescue them and deliver the news that Clarke is alive. Clarke has obviously told Madi stories about Bellamy and described him, since Madi immediately recognizes him. We get Bellamy’s Harper and Monty’s reactions (as they are the Delinquents and much closer to Clarke than Echo and Emori). So Madi rescues Bellamy and then Bellamy rescues Clarke, and it feels like a lot of the plot was written in order to set up that last scene. (Incidentally, Bellamy and Clarke are paralleled with the way they both say the same line: “No, Madi”.)

Let’s be honest here - there was no plot reason whatsoever to put this kind of emphasis on Bellamy rescuing Clarke in this scene, other than to emphasize the importance of Bellamy’s and Clarke’s relationship. He was already planning to use the prisoners in cryo as leverage to rescue Octavia and the rest of the people in the bunker - which he will also do. He could have rescued Clarke in a brief scene and then continued negotiating with Diyoza. In plot terms, this is not a cliffhanger or last scene material. But in relationship terms? That’s another story. And there was no reason to make it look so goddamn romantic - other than to portray their relationship as a romantic one, regardless of their actual relationship status.

The entire scene is filmed to look like a dream. We see Clarke looking at him, with a dreamy look in her eyes. From Clarke’s POV, it looks like Bellamy is appearing out of the darkness, bathed in light (and holding the “Best dad in the universe” cup from Eligius 4).

If this was just your run-of-the-mill rescue of some of our protagonists by other ones, there was also no reason for Diyoza to say the line: “283 lives for one. She must be pretty important to you.” In fact, this line used to bug me - because I thought it didn’t make sense for her to ask that. Come on, Diyoza, you know how hostage negotiations and leverage works! You know he is making a smart play here. Release my people and I don’t kill your people - there’s nothing strange about that. But on second thoughts - I can see Diyoza bulls*itting like that in order to try to suss out what exactly Bellamy’s relationship to Clarke is, so she could potentially use it later in dealing with them. In any case, this line clearly exists to set up Bellamy’s answer: “She is”. Set o dramatic music, as the ending line of the episode.

Rating: 8.5/10

#the 100 #the 100 5x03 #sleeping giants #the 100 rewatch #the 100 season 5 #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #raven reyes #charmaine diyoza #john murphy #bellarke #marper #emori #madi griffin #eligius prisoners

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adhd-sorcha · 3 years

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Hi, is it okay if I vent in here a bit?

I'm a 2nd year Chemistry PhD student and I've been Really struggling since I started. I don't know if I have adhd (but it feels like it sometimes) but I do know I have lots of anxiety and bad time management and imposter syndrome and a bad case of "my worth only comes from academics."

And well what I thought was only my anxiety turned out to be a Real potential problem. Basically (I think this is standard across universities, but in case it isn't) I have to enroll in courses and research credit to fulfill full time status. And this semester my advisor is giving me a U (unsatisfactory) for research and, while it doesn't effect my GPA, it is bad news. So I'm kinda panicking while also trying to pass finals but I have to stop avoiding him and talk with him about it and figure out how I'm going to do better next semester but I've already been struggling so much and I feel so alone and I feel like a failure and I'm scared of having a panic attack in front of him

Oh anon, big hugs!

This is easily the most relatable experience of postgrad that I have ever read. That first paragraph is basically my own experience.

Some big things to remember here:

1) You made it to your second year of a PhD!! That’s amazing!! Anon, you’re amazing to have come this far! (you’ve gotten further than me. I made it to four or five months and quit XD)

2) Your personal well being should come first. Grades second. It’s much easier said than done, I know! But you can’t do well if you don’t feel well.

3) Many supervisors/advisors really want their students to do well. Both my MSc and PhD supervisors were so helpful, understanding and accommodating when I finally worked up the courage to say “Actually, I’m struggling and need a bit of help/more time”. It’s definitely worth it to speak up.

Postgrads are sooo stressful. The teaching staff are very used to it, they went through it themselves. I’ve gone into full-on panicked rant mode at my supervisor (after just letting myself into her office and sitting myself down!) and I’ve done it over the phone to an unsuspecting lab technician!

Having a full on “Oh no!!” is very common in academia. Never feel ashamed of showing it. You’re far from a failure from feeling the pressure. I know someone who started bawling crying because she labelled a test tube wrong! There wasn’t even anything in it yet, she was just that stressed!

If it’s possible, you should look into an ADHD assessment. You could get accommodations from your university which might take some of the pressure off. You’re university may even give accommodations on mental health grounds! Mine was willing to give me accommodations because I had anxiety and depression.

You’re first step should probably be to talk to your supervisor. Don’t even touch next semester yet! That’s next semester. Tell your supervisor what’s been happening this semester (or whatever you’re comfortable with) and he should go through a plan for next semester with you. If not, ask him to. It’s the job of a supervisor to make sure that their students have goals that are actually achievable and the support to achieve them.

You’re not a failure for struggling, anon, you’re simply someone who needs a bit of a hand to get themselves on track.

And if in the end you decide that a PhD is not for you, there’s absolutely no shame in that either!

#answered asks #anonymous #neurodivergent academia #i've no idea if you actually wanted advice or just to vent sorry #but you're not alone!#this is such a familiar situation #this was exactly me last year #it's a rotten feeling anon i know #but alerting those around you to your situation can help *so much*

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eliotquillon · 4 years

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the h.i.v.e timeline

(this is going to end up massive, so sorry in advance to all my none h.i.v.e followers).

obligatory disclaimer that while i’m trying to follow canon fairly closely here, i know i might have missed some details; this is a writeup of a google doc i made immediately after my feb reread and while i have reread books 1 and 2 since then, i haven’t had the time to double check anything from dreadnought onwards. there are also canon elements that i am deliberately ignoring/reordering, and i will make it clear that i am doing so when those details come up.

part one: student ages

currently, we only have two canon ages: raven, who is thirty-one in deadlock (or thereabouts; i’m basing this off her being 16 when she tries to kill nero and that being in the 15 years ago flashback), and otto, who we know turns thirteen just before he is sent to h.i.v.e (the specific age comes from the blurb of book one). we also know that nero taught diabolus and duncan cavendish as students, and that h.i.v.e was founded in the 1960s, which seems vague but actually gives us a lot to work with; cavendish’s records being faked implies that h.i.v.e does provide public examination results for its students, and that h.i.v.e’s entry year was deliberately chosen to parallel the english private school system (which, unlike the state system, is split into pre-prep, prep, and senior), where entry to senior school coincidentally takes place at the same age of entry to h.i.v.e

when it comes to making age estimations for students during the various points of the series, i’m making three assumptions:

1. all students in otto’s year are thirteen when they start h.i.v.e, just like otto.

2. otto turns thirteen in august 2006, making him one of the youngest students in his year, assuming the h.i.v.e school year starts in early september like most british schools. most of the ‘age’ section of this hinges off otto, because he’s the only student who is given an age and is seen celebrating a birthday.

3. the six years spent at h.i.v.e span what would be year 9-13 + the first year of university in the british system. in the american system this is grades 8-12 + the first year of university. therefore, students graduate at the age of nineteen.

h.i.v.e:

every first year alpha is thirteen.

the overlord protocol:

this is still set in first year, but is months after the events of book one. otto is still thirteen, but we can assume that, at this point, some people have turned fourteen. my money would be on wing, shelby, and possibly franz as being the older kids in their year (and therefore fourteen), but the semantics don’t really matter.

escape velocity:

this is the first book with a sizeable time skip - we see otto trying to steal the end-of-year exam for second years. this means everyone is now at least fourteen, and because (in my personal experience) late july/august birthdays aren’t very common, i’d wager that shelby, wing, laura, and franz are all fifteen; i’m excluding nigel here because i think, based off his physical description, he’s probably one of the younger kids in his year, and otto is obviously still fourteen, nearly fifteen. this is supported by raven telling otto that she was almost exactly the same age as the core four when she went on her first mission; we know from deadlock that she was sixteen, which would only be a year (max) older than the alphas at this point in time.

dreadnought:

dreadnought is set at the start of third year; we know this because the 93-percenter is specifically a third year field trip. this means that everyone, including lucy, is fifteen.

rogue:

rogue is where our perfectly constructed timeline slips, because it seemingly ages otto backwards - it is set thirteen years after we see otto being cloned in the tank, which would make otto thirteen even though he ends dreadnought at fifteen. there are multiple potential explanations for this - i favour the idea that otto is registered as older than he is biologically because he’s a clone/genius and was left at the orphanage with no birth certificate - but either way, i’m still going to say that otto is fifteen and that everyone else is a third year and either fifteen or sixteen. side note: otto’s benjamin button trick here is one of my least favourite ‘slips’ of the series and ruins what is otherwise one of my favourite entries.

zero hour:

there is a year between rogue and zero hour, meaning zero hour is set in fourth year and that otto is sixteen (and again, everyone else is either sixteen or seventeen). in my original doc, i made a note saying that apparently everyone is still in third year, but based off a quick search for ‘three’ and ‘third’ in the ebook, there’s no proof for that. lucy dies when she’s sixteen/seventeen.

aftershock:

there’s another short timeskip here, and based off the fact that this is when penny and tom join and that it’s the introduction of new security chief dekker, we can guess that this is the beginning of fifth year (incidentally, the fact that nero and raven are available at the beginning of the book to go meet joseph wright in london does appear to suggest that nero wasn’t needed to teach that day, meaning that there is some form of summer holiday at h.i.v.e). i also think it’s likely that this is fifth year because penny and tom a) had time to gain relative notoriety for their thefts and b) would’ve needed to be at least sixteen to leave school and local authority care (although tom is apparently a year or two older than otto and penny according to book one) and it being fifth year sets everyone at seventeen. seventeen is actually pretty old for the alphas to be taken to the glasshouse (raven went at age eleven), but i think it does make sense that the hunt was targeted, and not the third years on the 93 percenter; tom and penny actually had time to go to lessons pre field trip, and lucy didn’t, meaning that the 93 percenter mostly likely happens in the first few days of the school year and was organised before dekker became a member of staff, which wouldn’t have given the disciples the necessary time to plan and execute a retrieval. also, laura was obviously in fifth year and not third, making the hunt a far more attractive choice for anastasia to target.

deadlock:

deadlock is similar to rogue in that it fluffs an important timeline detail, but it’s not relevant to ages here, so i’ll revisit it later. it’s set several months after aftershock, but seeing as no other students are recruited to pad out the three left in the alpha stream and that aftershock was only set in the first month or so of the school year, i think it’s safe to assume that everyone is still in fifth year at this point, so either seventeen or eighteen. my gut feeling is that shelby, franz, and wing are all eighteen, and that’s because they’re allowed on the mission to break into the glasshouse; obviously we see them get into danger/be involved in plans before this point, but this is the first time we see nero actively sign off on them being allowed into a tactical situation with a known risk to life (and i’ve made a shitpost on this, but raven does say that nero would “have her shot” if she brought thirteen year old otto into a tactical situation back in the overlord protocol, so i think the only way nero would’ve allowed this to happen was if the remaining alpha students were all legal adults). the exception to this is otto, who would still be seventeen, but seeing as he isn’t an enrolled h.i.v.e student at the time of the mission, i don’t think nero’s no-student policy applies to him.

book nine:

obviously none of us know what’s going to happen, but i think it’s safe to say book nine will probably be set in otto’s final year, when he’s eighteen.

part two: adult ages

really, i should just be transparent and call this what it is, which is just blatant nero age speculation. while it’s implied that nero is immortal in book one, this is also literally never mentioned again, and the only physical indicator we know is that he has a streak of grey in his hair. however, i do have a bunch of info that can give some clues at how old nero really is.

1. nero taught diabolus, and is implied to have been headmaster of h.i.v.e at this time. we’re not really sure how old diabolus is, either, but seeing as he has a teenaged son and was old enough to have had a considerable career and be made head of g.l.o.v.e, he can’t be any younger than his late thirties by the time he pops up in escape velocity, and i’m guessing he’s inching towards fifty purely because he isn’t described as being particularly young when we see him in hong kong with nero 15 years before the events of deadlock. (i am, however, aware that this means nothing, because walden sucks at describing people). that means nero’s been teaching some forty years, which lines up with him co-founding h.i.v.e with his father in the 60s, and seeing as h.i.v.e is nero’s great passion project, i don’t think he could’ve been any younger than 25 when h.i.v.e opened in the original icelandic facility. basically, this tells us what we already know: nero is old as shit, and doesn’t look it.

2. the duncan cavendish thing interests me a lot more, because we see that nero actively switched cavendish from polfi to alpha. again, it was already implied that nero was headmaster from the beginning, but this shows that nero was always running the show and wasn’t just initially his father’s apprentice as deadlock almost seems to hint at.

3. nero has a doctorate. “well duh”. but again, if nero had that doctorate when he founded h.i.v.e, he has to be nearing seventy. he could’ve gotten it earlier, sure, because nero is a very intelligent man, but he’s not otto-levels of academic genius. i don’t think he could’ve been any younger than 15/16 when he got his phd.

i did say that this would be an ‘adult ages’ section, so i’ll do a bit of background on raven, the only adult with timestamps. her being thirty one in deadlock makes her twenty seven in book one (if we follow the logic of otto being seventeen in deadlock), and because i personally believe the h.i.v.e timeline starts with book 1’s publication in 2006, this means raven was born around 1979 (which, if you subscribe to the theory that raven is elena and nero’s kid, makes her born after h.i.v.e was founded, which has some interesting implications about the origins of the glasshouse).

i know we’re all in mutual agreement about the soviet training being a bullshit throwaway line that walden wrote in before deciding to make raven a major player, but i’ll do the work of disproving it anyway: if raven was born in ‘79 and she came to the glasshouse at 11, that means she started her training in 1990. the soviet union officially fell in 1991, but the berlin wall fell in 1989, and the cold war was pretty much over by the time raven came to the glasshouse thanks to gorbachev’s new policies and military cuts. there is absolutely no way that the furans were soviet-funded, or that raven was trained by the soviet government. in fact, the only feasible way raven could’ve been trained by the soviet union in, quote from book 1 here, “their cold war prime”, would be for her to have been born almost a full 20 years earlier in the early 1960s, which would’ve made her middle aged in book 1. but, like, you tried walden.

part three: overlord

the overlord incident - the one that led to the destruction of the chinese facility and inadvertantly led to wing’s birth thanks to wu zhang and xiu mei shacking up together - is probably the most crucial part of the h.i.v.e timeline. without it, number one never would’ve been corrupted, otto wouldn’t have been born/manufactured, the seed code for h.i.v.emind wouldn’t have existed, cypher never would’ve launched his assault on h.i.v.e and nero (or felt the need to come into existence at all), and, of course, overlord himself wouldn’t have been the world’s most annoying LED lightshow for five books (because book one hardly counts). but even though raven had nothing to do with the original overlord incident, she’s still strongly linked to it. i’ll explain.

the overlord incident had to have happened before raven met nero. i can’t stress that enough, and this is the conflicting detail that i mentioned in deadlock. the nero’s internal monologue in the fifteen years before flashback appears to indicate that the overlord incident hasn’t happened yet - but that can’t be true, otherwise wing wouldn’t exist.

like i’ve laid out, wing is thirteen in late august 2006, and most likely eighteen (but at least seventeen) in 2010/11, aka deadlock. this gives him an approximate birth year of 1992/3, and all roads lead back to raven, who would’ve been fourteen when wing was born. already, that makes her too young to have met nero pre-overlord incident. but even more importantly, wu zhang and xiu mei only ended up together because of the overlord incident. like i said, if it weren’t for overlord, wing would not exist. we don’t know when wu zhang and xiu mei‘s friendship turned to romance, but if xiu mei got pregnant in 1992 (which fits with either of wing’s birth years - either he’s late ‘92 or early ‘93), i’d wager they got together in 1991 at the latest. raven would’ve been twelve.

i’m putting the overlord incident at a tentative year 1990, which would’ve allowed plenty of time for xiu mei and wu zhang to escape china together and fall in love before wing’s birth, and also gives overlord a handful of years to start corrupting number one to convince him into cloning himself to make otto (who was dropped off at the orphange in august ‘93). raven came to the glasshouse in 1990. there is absolutely no way she could’ve met nero while he was still making arrangements for overlord, unless wing was born after 1995 when raven tried to kill nero, in which case wing wouldn’t have been at h.i.v.e at the same time as shelby and laura (and nor would otto, come to think of it).

anyway, i’ll do a tl;dr with the final timeline below.

TL;DR (final timeline)

1960s: h.i.v.e is founded.

1979: raven is born.

1980s: both duncan cavendish and diabolus darkdoom presumably attend h.i.v.e during this period. the zero hour contingency plan is drawn up.

1990: overlord is created in a lab in northern china, and is destroyed by number one. it then takes up host in his body. there are three named survivors: nero, wu zhang, and xiu mei. raven is sent to the glasshouse.

1991: wu zhang and xiu mei move to japan and rename themselves as the fanchus. they fall in love around this point. this is also the year where raven tries to escape from the glasshouse and claws out pietor’s eye.

1992: overlord/number one starts work on cloning himself. xiu mei falls pregnant, and possibly gives birth.

1993: otto, shelby, wing, nigel, franz, laura and lucy are all born at varying points throughout the year. this is most likely also the year where dimitri is shot by anastasia furan, and raven is forced to murder tolya.

1994: presumably the year when h.i.v.e’s original location is compromised, and plans start being made to relocate from the icelandic facility.

1995: nero meets with the architect/his father to discuss his plans for the new h.i.v.e facility. raven tries to kill him. the first glasshouse burns.

1996-2005: construction on h.i.v.e 2.0 is completed. overlord slowly takes over more and more of number one’s body. survivors of the overlord incident start disappearing. xiu mei dies of unknown causes. nero receives his half of the amulet. lucy’s parents die of natural causes and she is sent to italy. gregori leonov’s son, yuri, attends h.i.v.e and graduates. cypher pops into existence around this time. diabolus darkdooms fakes his death.

2006: otto, wing, laura, shelby, franz, and nigel start attending h.i.v.e (cue the events of book one). duncan cavendish becomes prime minister.

2007: cypher launches his assult on nero after successfully convincing the contessa to join his cause. after cypher is captured and his identity is revealed, nero keeps him alive unbeknownst to number one. by august, everyone is fourteen.

2008: cue the events of escape velocity. number one and the contessa die. diabolus darkdoom is elected leader of g.l.o.v.e. cue the events of interception point. otto turns fifteen. lucy joins h.i.v.e at the beginning of september and the events of dreadnought take place. otto does not return to h.i.v.e.

2009: events of rogue. cypher and pietor furan die. otto turns sixteen at the end of august. laura’s baby brother, douglas, is conceived.

2010: douglas is born. the events of zero hour occur. lucy dies. overlord is destroyed. nero becomes leader of g.l.o.v.e and fires the ruling council. duncan cavendish steps down. construction of the new glasshouse is completed. otto turns seventeen. penny and tom join h.i.v.e. the events of aftershock occur, and otto is expelled.

2011: the events of deadlock occur. raven turns thirty one. tom dies. the new glasshouse is destroyed. the countdown for the disciples’ new batch of clones begins at 99 days. the artemis project discover the existence of h.i.v.e. at the end of year, otto is eighteen.

2012 onwards: otto turns nineteen and hopefully graduates h.i.v.e.

#h.i.v.e #otto malpense #the overlord protocol #escape velocity #deadlock #rogue #zero hour #aftershock #long post

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