#analyzing my own stuff almost six years later

[crjupdates]

A Decade After ‘Call Me Maybe,’ Carly Rae Jepsen’s Future Looks Brighter Than Ever

On her new album, The Loneliest Time, how she feels about her signature early hit, and why she’s "the grandma of TikTok"

Rolling Stone • Jodi Guglielmi • August 23, 2022 • Photo: Meredith Jenks

People keep asking Carly Rae Jepsen how she’s doing. After all, between the pandemic and the three-year gap since her last proper album, we haven’t heard much from the pop star lately. “It’s a loaded question,” she says, “and my answer has been complicated.” Jepsen admits she struggled to adjust to life at home during quarantine after years of nonstop touring and recording, and she suffered a family loss during the pandemic that led her to therapy to deal with her grief. “It caused a lot of contemplation,” she says. “Like, ‘Where am I? What decisions have I made to get here? Am I happy?’ Many of those hard questions you have to face one way or another.”

From that time of self-reflection, she birthed her fifth album, The Loneliest Time (due out Oct. 21). But now, on Zoom, sitting in front of a painting made by her aunt and uncle, the answer to the dreaded “How are you doing?” question is clear by the smile on her face. “I’m happy,” she says, later adding with a laugh, “I’m glad I went through those last couple of years — and I don’t want to do it again.”

The Loneliest Time balances real emotions with a sense of light, upbeat energy. How did you find that balance?

Loneliness is a big theme of this album, and the extremes that come with it. It sounds like it has a negative connotation, but when you analyze your loneliness, it can be beautiful. Extreme events can take place because of loneliness, at least in my own life. Running over to your ex’s house in the middle of the night in the pouring rain and screaming, “Let’s start this again” — something happened before those decisions! Even though it’s a sad title, I feel like it’s also uplifting.

What song are you most excited for people to hear?

“Beach House.” It’s the silliest song by far, but it came from such a natural place. Everyone on dating apps has had a horror story or six. You feel vulnerable and often come up disenchanted by the whole thing. I know some people genuinely join apps to find love, but I’m after the people that are in there to play a game with you. They need to be called out.

Are you looking forward to touring again this fall?

I’m going to tell you the nonpolished, honest answer: The reality about touring right now is that it’s not for the faint of heart. Flights are delayed, gear is not arriving on time. I’m borrowing someone’s in-ear [monitors] from the set before because our stuff is still in Minneapolis. It’s a bit of trains, planes, and automobiles to get anywhere. You have to love what you do if you want to tour this year — and luckily, I do. The euphoria of being onstage and being in those moments, sharing the feeling with the crowd … it’s so worth it.

You have a strong LGBTQ+ fan base, and you’re donating $1 from each ticket on this tour to the Ally Coalition. What does that connection with your fans mean to you?

I feel so lucky. When I’m onstage, it feels less about me and more like I’m just a conductor of all this good energy. It changed how I performed; it changed how I thought about everything. I’m trying to create a playful and safe space for anyone to be whoever they want to be. I feel so happy in those moments that I almost feel like I might combust.

What do you like to do in your off time, when you’re not working?

I’ve been on a huge jazz kick, so I can spend an evening just playing my favorite records back and forth. But having those after-sunset conversations with a friend, or more than a friend, where you talk in all directions about everything — that’s just heaven to me. I’ve also made a new goal for myself where I learn to play a new song once a month. That’s been a fun little project.

Is there a song you’re trying to learn right now?

I’m currently learning “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” because I know it’s going to be hard, and I want to have it ready by the holidays so I can play it when everyone is around. I’m also learning Billie Holiday’s “You Go to My Head.”

How about social media? Do you enjoy that at all?

I’m the grandma of TikTok [laughs]. I say this in a small personal-growth way: I’m having more fun with it. I only want it to be a place where I have fun. I don’t want it to be a place of stress, where I feel like I have to post certain things at specific times. I don’t look at it as an outlet of my soul [or] creativity. I’ve heard artists say they can no longer write songs because they use all their creativity to write a good caption. That sounds terrible. I’m still figuring it out.

Most people fell in love with your music during the “Call Me Maybe” era, in 2012. A decade later, do you still feel connected to that song?

I do, which is strange because I’ve sung that song more than most people have sung most songs. There was a definite time when I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this song is scary because it’s so big” — but I’ve shed that pressure. Now, it’s a really fun moment of nostalgia. The crowd takes over. You can’t be in a room with people singing your song and not feel elated. It doesn’t feel like it’s what people are there for anymore, though, and that’s a mini victory for me.

#category: interview #source: rolling stone #album: the loneliest time #tour: so nice #type: link #song: call me maybe #08/23/22 #august 2022 #2022 #🍐 #writer: jodi guglielmi #photographer: meredith jenks

[matthewstiles]

Placing Mianite’s Gods on an Ideological Spectrum (but not taking it too seriously)

It sucks to be dead center on an an ideological spectrum. Opinions pull at you from both sides. Politically and religiously, I’m – well, I wouldn’t say I’m a fence sitter because that implies hesitation – but I’m grounded between camps. I’ve been Christian, I’ve been conservative, I’ve been liberal, and now I’m realizing that none of the labels fit me. But I know what does. I like being able to wrap my head around as many viewpoints as possible. I like bringing conflicting ideas together and helping people find common ground. Sure, I voted Democrat this election (and please tell me you did, too). No, I don’t believe in the Christian God. But if you’re a Trump supporter, we can have lunch. If you’re an old friend from church, I miss you and would like to catch up. It struck me today that I might be an Ianitee irl. This is all on a whim, of course. I’m not trying to “sort” myself into her “house” or assign anyone else a Mianite god, for that matter. My point is not to assign a label, but to explore an idea.

The goddess of balance walks a tightrope. She holds a scale. She is both light and dark in a photograph—and therefore, she can also be grey. She’s an impartial judge. Her job, although far grander in scope than mine, isn’t totally unlike what I do for my tiny group of friends on the internet. Her followers might be people who struggle to navigate the warring dualities of their worlds. This makes Prince Andor a bit of a chaotic Ianitee if you think about it. It comes naturally, of course. If the balance leans toward Mianite, then Dianite must bleed into Ianite for the brothers to equalize. The goddess of balance wields both order and chaos. If Mianite reigns, the neutral sister stands with Dianite in bringing chaotic revolution to the doorstep of tyrannical order. Likewise, if Dianite has plunged the world into darkness and fire, Ianite joins with Mianite in building armies and sanctuaries. “We are not pacifists, nor are we vindicators,” Andor said. “We are nature. We are whatever balance demands. We are void and we are hurricane. We are the healer. We are the warrior.” If Dianite had ravaged Ruxomar and Mianite had lay dormant for ten years, a blade in his chest, both Helgrind and Andor may have preached quite different yet still conflicting ideas. As a psychological note, an Ianitee will have a hard time if they’re conflict-avoidant, but they’ll go through Hell if they’re ill-tempered. The magic word is temperance. (See the Temperance arcana in Tarot.) I suppose I might as well go ahead and draw the comparison between an Ianitee and a centrist, a term which may hold some emotional charge for you if you follow politics. Put simply, a centrist holds moderate political views. I don’t identify as a centrist, but the term does describe me, and my refusal to accept the label might serve only to exacerbate the problems a centrist already has. My problem – which a certain type of Ianitee might share – is a lack of belonging. Few people consider you their ally because few have the time or interest to let you engage in the long, convoluted process of proving your character and earning their trust. On the surface you might seem – as I said before – like a fence sitter or even an enemy simply because you refuse to accept a proposed solution. Most people wish even their enemies some amount of good, but when it comes to choosing between friends and enemies, most will choose friends. You might not want to make that choice. You might want to save everyone. If you can’t, you won’t. Your stance may sound sensible once you’ve had time to parse it out, but it’s far smoother on paper than in practice, and it’s nigh impossible to preach “love thy enemy” to a wounded wolf. On the other hand, maybe you are a fence sitter. Maybe you genuinely don’t know right from wrong. Maybe you’re a bit of a nihilist. “Is all this conflict really worth it? Return it all to nothing. Void.” (In your local RP group, ever thought of playing an Ianitee who wants to “End It All?”) But hopefully, you’re more of an existentialist. You see meaning vested in people and their accomplishments. You want to help them find the best meaning for them and you don’t think they’ll do it by veering blindly toward every impulse. Extended streams of impulse gratification can lead to extreme ideological thinking, such as totalitarianism. You don’t want a world full of people who all think the same thing. Again, the magic word is temperance. There’s real importance in having two sides to a system. Take, for instance, the political structure of the United States. Democrats and republicans are ever at war, but what are they really doing under the surface? What are they intended to do? Well, that’s up for debate (some might say “kill each other”), but if we take a broad look at history, a pattern emerges. One party – the party of order, you could say – establishes hierarchy. It defines who is who and who gets what. It puts competent people in positions befitting them and treats the less competent with compassion. That’s if all goes well, but the party of order isn’t impervious to corruption. People who tout themselves as servants of God and the State turn out to be monsters who ravage the environment, the economy, the rule of law, and each other. That’s when – take this with a grain of salt – the party of chaos steps in. At first it calls for change. It articulates and expresses visions for a better order. It doesn’t seem so chaotic now, but as the corruption spreads, unhearing and unyielding, moderates and liberals become radicals. Calm discussions become battles for sweeping change. The rebels rage for equality and take it by massive persuasion or by force. They break up the calcified structure of the old order and drag it back down into the primal, bloody sea from which new order springs. (I’m dipping into Mesopotamian mythology here, and if you’re familiar with the Enuma Elish, you’ll know the significance of what I’m about to say.) Order will return, but it must be guided. Someone must ensure that the reborn world is more just and peaceful than the dead one. We need order within chaos—Yang within Yin—white dot within black swath.  I’ve just tried – and perhaps failed – to describe the eternal cycle of order and chaos in terms of real-world society. Now let me place it in a simplistic Mianite shell. Mianite builds hierarchy, Dianite tears it down, and Ianite stands in the middle, bearing two communicating vessels, ensuring that neither too much nor too little blood is spilled in the process of transformation from old to new. 

#mianite #analyzing my own stuff almost six years later #it's a process man #prince andor #ianite #dianite

[bopbopstyles]

harry and y/n are famous and dated privately for a while but it didn't work. they meet again at this event and she's with a date, and he gets super jealous. they fuck in the bathroom and he's super rough?

BETTER NOW

SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG I’VE BEEN WRITING OTHER STUFF!!!!! BUT I LOVE THIS SO I KEPT IT!!!! 4k of BIG ANGSTY HARRY WARNING!!!!!

It was one of those benefit parties, one of the many Harry had been to in his career. Most of the ones he was invited to he couldn’t make--or didn’t want to attend, but made donations anyways. But this one...this one he accepted, despite the fact that his reason for going was completely selfish. 

He was going because Y/N was going to be there. 

It was a cause she cared deeply about, having had family who were unhoused, and always made a point to attend if she could. So when he got the invitation and saw the organization and its work, he knew she would be there. She was between movies, a rare period of time off, information he was only privy to because of their mutual friends, the same ones who set them up two years ago. 

So on a warm April evening, he was walking into fancy house of a star in the hills, people in suits and long dresses all around him, black cars circling the drive as people were dropped off. Harry smoothed he lapels of his tan suit, straightened the light blue shirt he wore underneath, and sucked in a breath. 

It wasn’t even like he was trying to find her. He just...immediately found her in the crowd, a pale pink dress floating down her body, her dark hair swept up into an up-do he knew she loved. She had a glass of an amber liquid in her hand, because he knew she hated wine. She had always been a go hard or go home kind of girl, no half-assing anything in her life. 

Which perhaps was why the two of them had fallen apart--they were both workaholics in every definition of the word. There would be whole weeks where they’d play phone chase, and when they finally talked they would both be so exhausted it wouldn’t even fill the holes in their hearts. But when they were back together, it was like fucking fireworks, every moment Harry was around her he wanted to be touching her skin, hearing her voice, consumed in her. And despite as hard as he tried, he couldn’t shake that desire, even six months after they had broken up. It was “mutual” but he knew she wanted it more than him, and he loved her too much to force her to stay. 

She’d been filming right after the breakup, a new film that was going to be the highlight of her career so far, and Harry had gone into the studio, pouring his heartache into a microphone and recording booth. He hadn’t seen her face in six months, heard her voice, watched her laugh at someone who wasn’t him. So seeing her in the flesh for the first time since the breakup threw his mind into overdrive. 

What ripped his heart out, though, was the fact that a man had his hand on her lower back. A place that used to be his, a place he had treasured, a place he missed for every second of the day. For some reason, he hadn’t thought she would have brought a date. Perhaps that was because the prospect of Harry even putting his hands on someone else made him want to vomit, but as he watched her turn and say something to her date, it was obvious she didn’t feel the same. She was dating someone. 

Fuck, Harry thought as he grabbed a flute of champagne from a tray to his left. Usually champagne wasn’t his thing, the headaches after making it not worth it, but he needed something. He wanted to rip his eyes away from her, but he just couldn’t. Because she looked magnificent. 

Color in her cheeks and a twinkle in her eyes, the rise of her breasts visible from the scoop neck of the dress, dainty straps that sat on her shoulders that he used to pepper kisses across, the neck he used to leave love bites on visible because of her hairstyle. He couldn’t hear her voice, but he knew what it would sound like if he did, because he still heard it in his dreams. When he told Mitch that in the studio, he had been given the most pitiful look, but it was true. It was why he slept so much lately. 

Harry leaned against a wall, eyes on her, ignoring everyone else in the room. He was sure people were trying to get his attention, but he didn’t care--he wasn’t there for them. He had come for her, and he was going to absorb every second of being in the same room as her, even though it made him want to sob. 

After about five minutes of watching her, of being an utter and complete creep, her eyes finally swept over to his. Their gazes locked and it was as if the room fell away, as cheesy as that was, because the feeling of her eyes on him made Harry’s mind go haywire. Then he saw her step away from her date, just enough to wear his hand dropped from her back, and he couldn’t help but smile smugly. 

He could feel her eyes trace up and down his body, just as his had been doing for the past few minutes. It felt good to have her eyes on him, like a drug being pumped into his system after being without it for so long. A relapse back into loving her. 

As if he had ever stopped. 

Harry once told her he was built to love her, and he still felt that way. Even though it was hard, even though their relationship was far from perfect, it was still the happiest he had ever been. As she looked at him, her brown eyes swirling over him, he wondered if she felt the same way. 

But then she turned her head, her eyes focusing back on the people she was talking to. So Harry went to the bar and got a glass of straight tequila, because he was going to put himself through his own personal torture, he was going to at least have a drink. 

An hour and a half later, Harry desperately had to pee. He found his way to an bathroom, almost running into a potted plant he didn’t see. 

“Be careful.”

His head snapped up, knowing the owner of that voice immediately. She was leaning against the wall opposite him, a glass perched between her fingers. “What--what are you--”

“Escaping my date,” she replied, and his breath caught in his throat. Escaping her date? This had to be a dream.

“Why is that?” He was trying to keep his cool, but he knew it was slipping fast. 

She took a sip of her drink and Harry couldn’t help but watch her lips around the rim of the glass. “He’s had too much to drink and is being obnoxious.” 

That immediately made Harry nervous, although he knew he no longer had any right to be. “Are you okay?” He asked anyways, wanting to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable or felt unsafe.

But she just nodded, eyes focusing on his. “I’m fine. Thank you though.” She twirled the glass in her hand, and Harry had forgotten all about his need to go to the bathroom. “So, how are you?”

“Um,” Harry mumbled, trying to figure out how to both make it clear he wasn’t great but also wasn’t the disaster he actually was. “Okay, I guess. You?”

“Same,” she replied and Harry suddenly found himself analyzing that single word. Did that mean she was still as broken up about their breakup as he was? Or was she actually okay? Because he certainly wasn’t. It was just a better word than “mess” or “disaster” or any of the proper words to describe how he was doing. “Are you seeing anyone?”

The question threw Harry for a loop, making his palms sweat. How could she just throw that out there so flippantly? “No,” he said, watching her face for a reaction, which he didn’t get. “You--oh, I guess your date--”

She shook her head though. “No, he’s not...we’re not together. Just a friend of sorts.”

“Oh.” Now Harry was wondering if they were fucking. Which was something he had been actively trying not to think about. “Well, that’s...good.” 

Her eyebrows raised at his words and Harry could’ve kicked himself. “Why is that?”

Because it means you could date me. “I--no reason. Fuck, sorry, didn’t mean that.”

Her lips pursed as her thoughts rolled over in her head, an action Harry knew well. “We’re just...seeing each other? We’re not like hooking up or anything.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this.” She stood up straight from the wall and turned away from him. “I--I’ll go, I assume you were here for the bathroom--”

“Y/N,” he said, her name a prayer on his lips, a memory of something he clung to in his moments of need, a name on his phone screen that he barely restrained himself from calling. Then he took two steps towards her, her back facing away from him where she was frozen in place, and against his better judgement, fastened his fingers around her wrist. “Wait.”

He could hear her shaky breath, the drag of air in her lungs when he touched her skin and he wondered if she could hear his heartbeat quicken. 

“I--I know I have no right to say this, that we’ve been broken up for months, that you’ve probably moved on.” It was easier somehow to say these things to her back, easier than see her face as he poured his vulnerable heart out to her. “I still love you.”

She exhaled sharply at his words. “You don’t get to do this,” she replied, turning to face him. “Not like this, not right now, not here. You can’t just...do this.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, voice breaking. “I know, I just can’t pretend anymore.”

Finally, her eyes fastened on his properly, and that same feeling that had captured him when their eyes met across the room ran through his body. That tension. “Pretend?”

Harry threw abandon to the wind, knowing this might be his last chance. “Pretend like I don’t think about you every second of the day. Pretend like I’m not jealous of your date. Pretend like I don’t want to kiss you right now. Pretend like I don’t want you.”

Before Harry even knew what was happening, she was surging towards him, crossing the distance, her lips slotting against his and her hands curled around the lapels of his jacket. Harry barely paused before his hands were in her hair, her hair that he was messing up, but he didn’t care because he could taste her on his tongue and feel her body against his, and he could touch her. God, touching her was euphoria like he had never felt before. 

Kissing Y/N had always been an experience like nothing else, but after not having it for months it was even better. Their kisses had always consumed him, and this was no different--her hands were all over him, fingers gripping his body through his clothes, breathy moans in her mouth when he pulled on her lip and tugged her closer to him. He was going to take every advantage of this moment, he decided, and not think of what would happen after or how much harder it would be to get over her after this. 

So he turned her against the wall, and pressed a hand next to her head for leverage. The angle had her arching into him, chasing his lips with her own, and when her hands tugged on his hair he groaned, low and deep and unabandoned. Then, she slipped her heeled foot up the back of his leg, her dress sliding up, and pressed the back of his thighs. The action had Harry’s pelvis moving closer to her, and they both moaned into each other’s mouths. 

“Y/N,” he rasped against her lips, his hands moving to try and cover every inch of her exposed skin. His mind wasn’t even operating anymore, overwhelmed with the smell of her perfume and the feeling of her skin under his palms. 

“Bathroom,” she muttered, a hand to the nape of his neck. “We--we can’t do this here.”

He didn’t know what this was other than a steamy makeout in a hallway, but he knew she was right. He pushed open the door of the bathroom and flicked on the light. Suddenly, he remembered his need to pee the second he saw a toilet. Her lips were searching for his, but he pulled away, taking a shallow breath. “I like really need to pee.”

Y/N laughed into his neck, before nodding. “Go.”

He didn’t move though, not an inch from where she was leaning against the closed door. 

“I won’t leave,” she said, softer this time. 

Harry nodded, and with that he stepped away, turning to the toilet in the corner. Perhaps with someone else the sound of him pissing in the same room would’ve been uncomfortable, but he was comfortable with her, even after the breakup and she seemed to be as well. When he was done, he moved to the sink, washing his hands, his eyes flickering to her heaving chest. “C’mere,” he said when his hands were dried, still standing next to the bathroom counter. There was a double wide bathroom counter and only one sink, which meant an open counter. 

Without pausing, she was moving towards him, hooking her arms around his neck and leaning in. But Harry had other ideas. He grabbed her hips and turned her against the counter, and then pulled her legs up, scooting her up and onto the top of the counter. He looked up at her to see if it was okay and all he found was puffy lips and blown out irises staring back at him, a tongue darting across her lips to moisten them. 

Her dress was pushed up on her thighs, exposing the length of her legs and Harry’s fingers dug into the exposed skin, pulling them apart to slot himself between. Then, he pulled her waist towards him and the minute his covered cock pressed against her center they both moaned, deep and wantonly. Her head fell back and Harry took the opportunity to pull and suck on her neck, no one place too hard to leave a mark, but enough to have her scrambling at his chest to push his jacket and shirt open, searching for exposed skin. 

The strap of her dress was slipping down her shoulder, and Harry ran his tongue over the skin, a hushed gasp leaving her that made him smile. He had missed her sounds, the reactions to his touch that had been his anchor to the world. “God, you feel so good,” he mumbled, words escaping his mouth before he could stop them. 

But she just scratched at his chest, thumb pushing against the butterfly tattooed on his abdommen. “Harry,” she rasped, and the sound had him thrusting against her, the sound of his name on her tongue making him need her like ever before. 

“Fuck,” he breathed out, hand crawling up her body to hook his fingers around the back of her neck. He lifted his head from her skin and found her face, her lipstick a mess. “I want you so bad, Y/N.”

“Then have me,” she replied, and Harry thought he had died and gone to heaven. 

He wasted no time pushing the other strap of her dress off her shoulders, letting them slip down and expose her heaving breasts, a bra nowhere in sight. “Beautiful,” he mumbled to no one in particular. Then her fingers hooked into the waistband of his pants and his focus was sharpened. When she popped the button and pushed down the zipper, his hands moved under her skirt, pushing it up around her waist so he could see her underwear. 

Which were pink and lacy and practically see through. “If you rip them I will never forgive you,” she told him. “Harry--”

It was too late though, he was too desperate, the material too flimsy, that he pulled on them too hard and the material came apart in his hands. “Shit,” he said, looking from her panties to her. “I didn’t mean--”

She wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled his head to hers, whispering in his ear, “Just shut up and fuck me.”

This was one of the many reasons Harry had fallen in love with her. One of the many, many, many reasons why she lived in his mind rent-free. He pushed down his pants and his briefs, leaving them in a pool around his knees, and tugged the remnants of her pants away. His shirt and jacket were still on but he didn’t care, he just wanted her, wanted to be inside of her finally. 

“I--I don’t have a condom,” he told her, mind swirling. He hadn’t needed one in forever, had stopped carrying one in his wallet for whenever things like this would happen with her, but also they had stopped using one a year into their relationship. 

She shook her head. “I’m on an IUD. And I--I haven’t...”

His eyes widened. “Not you and...”

“No.”

The information didn’t really properly sink in, but it had settled enough for him to process the basics. That she hadn’t been with anyone since him, that maybe she was as ripped apart by their break up as he was. Maybe he wasn’t the only one suffering. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, fingers flexing across his skin. “Please, H, I--”

He didn’t wait any longer, he needed her as much as she did, if not more. He swipe a finger across her slit, seeing how wet she was, and he groaned when he felt her slickness. “Fuck, baby, you’re so wet,” he mumbled in awe. “All for me?”

“Yes,” she rasped, pushing her hips towards his fingers, “all for you.”

He could still read her body like a book he had memorized, a song he wrote himself. She was ready, even though they’d done barely any foreplay, and he was too--he had been ready for her since the moment she kissed him. He nudged his tip to her slit and she gasped at the feeling, his eyes darting to hers to make sure she was okay. But then she hooked her ankles around his waist and pushed his waist, making him slide into her, and he nearly screamed from the feeling. She was wet and hot and tight--fuck she was too tight--and his mind couldn’t focus on any one thing. His hand was clenched against the countertop, barely holding himself together. 

“More,” she said, pulling his hair. “Please.”

So he gripped her waist and pushed all the way in, her broken moans filling his ears. She was so tight he could barely breathe and she felt so good, like coming home and finally being able to think again. “Fuck, Y/N, holy fuck.”

“Move, please--”

He didn’t make her wait to finish the sentence. He had a feeling neither of them were going to be able to wait. So he gripped her waist in his hands, his rings sitting heavily against her skin, and drove into her fast and hard. Their skin slapped as his hips moved into hers, and he knew she would probably have bruises on her inner thighs, but she didn’t stop him, simply egged him on with moans and begs for more, his name leaving her tongue every time he pushed into her. 

“Like that?” He asked, his voice rough with desire. “Hmm, baby, like the feeling of me inside of you? Bet he couldn’t make you feel this good. Doesn’t know you like I do, doesn’t know how to fuck you right.” 

He was babbling, he knew that, but that didn’t seem to bother her because she clenched around him when he spoke, dug her fingernails into his scalp. She had always loved it when he spoke like this to her, told her what she did to him, how good she felt. That didn’t seem to have changed. 

“Fuck you so good you didn’t want anyone else,”  he said, dropping his head to her shoulder as he thrusted in and out. The sound of their skin hitting filled his ears and he loved it, loved fucking her, loved how she held onto him for dear life. 

“Best I’ve ever had.” Her words rang in his ears and he growled into her skin, nipping at the flesh at her shoulder, his former care for her skin gone the moment she said that. “God, H, please, I need--”

“Need more, baby?” He grunted, his hand falling to her clit, sensitive and delicate for him. He rubbed at it in a circle and she gasped, bucking up into him. “Like that? That good?”

She couldn’t even reply, just moved her head up and down, her eyes screwed shut as pleasure wracked through her. He could feel her tightening on him, her high coming fast. His own was barely over the edge, holding back because he needed her to come, needed to feel her spasm around him, needed to feel her hold him inside of her. 

“Close, baby?” He mumbled, pulling at her hair, the updo long gone. It was falling around her shoulders in pieces, some still clipped up, but most of it falling. 

He gripped the pieces into a fist, pulling her head back so he could suck onto her neck. When he did, her hands scrambled across his chest, finding purchase anywhere they could, red scratches across his skin that he knew would be there in the morning. 

His teeth grazed across tender flesh and she shook in his arms. “Come for me, baby. Want to feel you come around me.” He doubled the pace on her clit and drove into her deep, knowing the combination sent her into overdrive. 

He wasn’t disappointed. She gasped, her breath leaving her body as she shook and squirmed in his arms, her high crashing over her immediately. “Harry, Harry, Harry,” she chanted, his name the only thing on her lips. 

When he pulled her into him, their lips refastening, she tugged on his hair, knowing he loved it, and then broke away to murmur, “Come for me, baby, please, I need it.”

It was as if his pleasure was connected to hers, because the moment she said the words, he had to pull out of her, coming in long spurts across her lower stomach and her pussy, strings of come decorating her like a masterpiece. His breath heaved in his chest and Y/N scratched down his chest, knowing it made his orgasm prolong slightly. 

When he was done, he slid his head into the crook of her neck, struggling to find air to breath. He sucked in air, focusing only on the sound of her breathing and the feeling of her fingers pulling through his hair softly, tenderly. “You okay?” She finally asked him, voice dry. 

He lifted his head and looked down at where his come marked her skin. “Better now.” He grabbed a kleenex, not daring to see her eyes, and brushed his come away, stealing just one taste that made him moan. 

“Harry.” He looked up at her, her dress still around her waist, rest of her body exposed. “I--”

“I love you,” he said, cutting her off. “Fuck, Y/N, I’m so in love with you. Never stopped.”

“You interrupted me,” she said, an admonishment that made him smile despite himself. “Was going to tell you the same thing.”

His eyes widened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

When he kissed her, the sound of her giggle made his heart soar, as if he was being sewn back together on the spot. “Will you come home?” He asked against her lips, sucking and pulling on the flesh. “Need you to come home and never leave.”

It didn’t faze her when he called his house home, because it was their home for a while. What he didn’t know yet was that their home had always been hers, because he was her home. She dusted a kiss across his eyebrow, tenderness seeping from her. “Take me home, H.”

somehow this became a fucking 4K ONE SHOT help me please this took me an hoUR ANd a HalF! i had THINGS I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO!!!! whoopsieeeee

masterlist | concepts/requests always open!!!!

#concept night #good FUCK #i need hELP #anon #answered

[nkogneatho]

"Promise me forever"- Fushiguro Megumi x gn!reader.

Genre: fluff, angst, action | I do not own the character.

Wc: 1.9k | Requested by @unabashednightmarepizza

Warnings: mentions of death, heavy angst, mentions of blood, jujutsu fight style, hyperventilation, mentions of depression and anxiety, bringing human back to life.| A/n: I did it finally. It took me long time. If anything above triggers you, please don't read it. I am still new to fics and stuffs so please be kind and don't send hate.

SUMMARY <-

The only people who ever understood you were your parents so processing the fact that they are no more wasn't really easy for you.

You inherited both infinite void and six eyes technique and some different abilities due to mutation to although they weren't very reliable. But for several reasons, you're mother asked you to keep it hidden. You really wanted to feel normal but the clan started gossiping about you and how helpless you are.

"Why are you showing pity towards me? I am strong. It's just that I can't show you. I promised my mother. Why are you behaving like that?", unfortunately these were the only thought running in your head.

Gojou saw you and couldn't take it anymore. The way the clan verbally abused you made his blood boil. You were his precious cousin and he didn't want you to get hurt so he took you to Tokyo along with him while enrolling in school.

You felt safe in Tokyo. It's like that was the place you belong although you had to keep up with your cousins antics but watching him getting his ass whooped by the principal is fun.

New semester, new first years joined in. Your days before were so busy and traumatic that you didn't even have the time to think about dating.

Gojou took this opportunity to introduce you to the hottest single guy.

"Y/n, this is Fushiguro Megumi. Megumi, this is my cousin Y/n", Megumi bowed and greeted you, you did the same. The white haired bitch ran leaving you two in an awkward state. Well you did propose a conversation and turned out you both had similar interests. Two of you eventually started dating. It was nice to have a boyfriend. The feeling was very different maybe because you never felt it before.

"Ah! What are you doing baby? You should be more careful", he helped you get up when you slipped. A little O's leaving everyone's lips watching Megumi so caring.

He always held your hands from onwards. The little squeeze he does when he feels insecure about losing you when you guys go on a date or twirling you around with the support of your fingers as you sing and dance on empty streets at night. "We'll stay like this forever. Promise me", he sneakily slipped a ring up your finger as you were busy singing. "Yes", you smiled.

You gasped later when you took notice to it and then immediately hugged him. Before you didn't even know what a promise felt like and now you had it with a person you love the most.

Never have you ever felt so content with anything in your life. Guess good things come to an end.

Being close to the group, Sukuna sensed the potential and power in you when you fought the cursed womb. Well yes, the team was there but you panicked and lost control. Your powers were now visible to both Sukuna and Megumi. He was shocked at how his strong attacks still left you unscratched. Your rage got the best of you. Some of it was the frustration of all the taunts you heard.

You were sure that Megumi wouldn't want to see this monstrous version of you. Growing up alone, scared as if you didn't belong to the family, you never got the chance to control or monitor on how actually your power works. Although Gojou did help you grow enough. But the thought of him hurting your friends was enough to make you snap. Being the monster he is, he wouldn't let this chance slide.

"You're a beautiful bud y/n. You just didn't get a chance to bloom. Seems like it's not too late", he tried so hard to lure you in but the only thing on your mind was now to tear him apart. Sukuna did retreat or should I say Yuuji made him. Fushiguro ran up to you two as you were there with Yuuji's heart in your shivering hand, blood raining down on floor.

"You guys are the best buds I ever had", the last words leaving his mouth as he tumbled on the floor. Your hands were shivering. Even though Megumi knew how to handle such situations, you didn't. Losing a friend? You didn't even have a single friend in the first place but now? You were the one who thrusted his heart out.

"Y/n. It's not your fault.", he tried to convince you. "I am a monster. They were right. I shouldn't have come here. I was good, rotting in a corner in that place. I am helpless", breathlessly blaming yourself.

It took you a few days to finally calm down and think about what was actually going on. Not to mention you were badly injured after the fight. Megumi and Nobara were there the whole time taking care of you when you were recovering.

Gojou after some days took you to somewhere, a place you weren't aware of.

Shocked to very own core you ran towards to hug your friend Yuuji who was alive.

"Y-yuuji.....", not sure what to say afterwards.

"It's okay y/n. It was not your fault. Plus the good thing. I AM ALIVE", he was so excited to see you, that was clearly visible. You both stayed up late and watched movies though Gojou gave you major spoilers so he got kicked out of the room. Gojou warned you to not speak about Yuuji being alive, yet.

A few days later when you were with Yuuji and Junpei at his school, Mahito arrived.

Turns out the reason behind Junpei's whole brainwashing was this man. You tried to snatch Junpei but before you could, Mahito manipulated his body and he was converted into a curse.

"I just wanna have a conversation", he said but you both ignored his shit talk and punched him but seems like it had no effect. Your moves focused on finding his weak point or atleast holding him until Yuuji brings Junpei back.

"Sukuna. Do it."

"No.", the entity inside him denied. A shock hit Yuuji. How did you guys did not expect this? They both are curses in the end.

"Why me?", Junpei tried to ask, fingers clinging on the hem of Itadori's shirt.

"Yuuji, switch with me", you ordered him. You were aware of what Mahito was trying to do and you let him do it. How fool of him to think he can enter and have a conversation with Sukuna. Sukuna striked a blow on his arm causing him to collapse on the ground.

You brought Junpei back to life with all the strength you had left, it didn't work perfectly because his body was still wounded. Sukuna witnessed your Potential and was impressed. He switched with Yuuji, tricking him that he wanted to help you and he will do anything for his friends so he agreed.

Sukuna's fingers brushed throughout your face, as if he was analyzing each and every single cell of it while you pant, brain hazy. "How long are you planning on staying on the good side? Hm? Don't worry. I am going to steal you anyways", his hands cupped your face but soon was cut off.

"HANDS OFF THEM", Megumi passed a blow, voice raging, the vein on his neck was visible.

"Ah. This is good. Two of my adored humans. I'd have you both for me".

"Dream on. There's no way you're having them", he spat.

"No. There's no way you're having any of us", you balanced yourself on your palm, eyeing the curse in front of you.

"I won't ma-make the same mistake again", you were still pretty beaten up, although you had to save everyone. Yuuji tried his best to control but he won't faze. The lust for your power grew more and more and made it unstable for Itadori to tame him.

"Megu-mi. Do as I say".

"Are you sure y/n you can fight?", the one trait you always liked about him was that he never ignored your dedication and just supported you instead of saying "You are weak now." Or "You should rest".

You blew a punch making Sukuna fall back so now you had a calculated distance from him. Your lover joined, standing beside you.

"Trick him into thinking that we are losing in combat and bring him closer", he wasn't sure what were you upto but this was your only resort.

He summoned the Shikigamis one after another and delivered continuous attacks on him. Of course it was useless. He won't concede just like that. Afterall he is the king of curses so he decided to play along with you two for a while. In the end, you both are coming to me anyway or so he thought until......

Your image swiftly appeared in front of his eyes at which his pupil dilated, forehead bleeding, jaw clenched. The bloodlust was clear in your eyes but now it had a different look. Almost as if you earned a control on your powers.

"I told you, didn't I? I won't make the same mistake again", you latched your palm on his chest where Yuuji's heart was.

It's okay, if it's just for a bit it's okay, you convinced yourself.

You stopped the heartbeat for a couple of second with your ability to send shocks and control organs of the body, sort of reakted to body manipulation, causing Sukuna to loose control.

"Yuuji. NOW!", he took the chance and switched back. His torso tumbled down as a fear hit you causing you to fall too. Maybe you made the same mistake again. Megumi approached you two apace.

"Itadori! Y/n! Get a hold of yourself".

"I guess I did it again.", you cupped his face. "I count myself lucky that I me-met you. I am so.....s-sorry. I love yo-", your arms slowly lost velocity and thud the ground.

"No. Atleast learn to complete your words before you stop", megumi fisted his hands in nothing but air.

Later Gojou and others arrived, immediately taking you and Yuuji to the Jujutsu medics.

Luckily, Yuuji switched back at the right time. Thanks to you he was alive.

Your eyes gradually opened up and wandered around the room for a bit until they caught Fushiguro's. (You thought you can die leaving Megumi alone? SIKE!)

Mind still hazy, but was able to comprehend what happened before.

"Where's Yuuji?",you suddenly rose from the bed. Your voice was soft and low but will never go unheard by your lover. He wanted to scold you at how selfless you were. All beaten up yourself but still asking for someone else.

"He is fine and perfectly alive. To be honest it's a surprise since Gojou told me he was alive all this time. He is so annoying that even death doesn't want him", he chuckled lightly making you too. The smiled on your face faded when you saw a tear fall down from the edge of his eyes. His hands squeezing yours a little tighter than before.

"Don't ever do that again.", he was trying hard not to burst out the water from his eyes.

"I won't. I promised you forever. Remember? There's no way I am going to leave you alone.", you stroked his cheekbones.

"Yes. Otherwise there won't be no one to annoy me"

"Hey!", you slapped his chest lightly but he gripped your hand.

"Complete your sentence. Now."

"I love you", three words left your mouth after recalling what you left him hanging on. Megumi sighed in relief and the placed a kiss on your forehead.

"I love you too. Forever.", you embraced each other for the rest of the night.

Taglist: @1-800-teddybear @kenmathepuddinhead

©All the written contents above belongs to nkogneatho2021. Do not modify and repost.

#fushiguro x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fluff #gojo x reader #itadori x reader #jjk x reader #jjk angst #jjk fushiguro #fushiguro megumi #jjk fanfic

[notebooknebula]

Dr. Paul White of RealNumberz

https://www.jayconner.com/dr-paul-white-of-realnumberz/

Jay Conner is joined by none other than Dr. Paul White, the founder and CEO of White Orthodontics, and author of several best-selling books.

White Orthodontics is a high-end, technology-focused orthodontic practice based in Virginia.

Dr. White created RealNumberz with his son, Trey, to utilize the latest technology to “supercharge” his real estate investments.

RealNumberz is the only comprehensive software application designed to help investors manage a diverse set of assets that includes rental properties, private lending, fix-and-flip, and fix-and-hold projects, as well as mortgage notes and syndications.

This incredible software eliminates investor anxiety by using real-time data and an automated reminder system to allow real estate investors to maximize their returns with 50 percent less time.

Paul believes the key to achieving financial freedom has as much to do with optimizing your existing investments as it does with acquiring more of them.

RealNumberz is the easy-to-use solution for the ongoing problems associated with late or inaccurate rents, incorrect note payoffs, uncontrolled and over-budget rehab projects, “yield drag”, and much, much more.

RealNumberz has helped many of its clients save thousands of dollars and manage their real estate investments from their pockets! Go to https://www.realnumberz.com to see how you can “supercharge” your portfolio with this amazing software!

Real Estate Cashflow Conference: 

https://www.jayconner.com/learnrealestate/

Free Webinar: 

http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

#RealEstate #PrivateMoney #FlipYourHouse

————————————————————-

Jay Conner (00:00): Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner. I’m Jay Conner known as the Private Money Authority. Also the host of the show today. And if you’re brand new to the show, we talk about all things that relate to real estate investing. We talk about how to find off market deals, motivated sellers. We talk about how to get your deals funded without relying on banks or mortgage companies also talked about how to rehab houses. We talk about how to sell them fast. And just as importantly, we talk about how to automate the business because after all, why are we in this business? Well, we’re in the business for the wealth and the freedom. So we’re not looking to replace our day job with another job, called real estate investing. We’re looking to run the show to where we are running our business and our business is not running us.

Jay Conner (01:03): Well, again if you’re brand new, I started back in 2003 in Eastern North Carolina, investing in single family houses. And for the first six years, until 2009, I relied on the local banks. I got cut off like the rest of the world did in January, 2009, after being in the business for six years. And I learned about this world of private money and private funding. How to use people’s individual investment capital and their individual retirement accounts to where I can have an unlimited number of private lenders into an unlimited number of private deals. As of today, my wife, Carol Joy, and I have got 49 private lenders individuals, just like you, that are investing with us and and funding our deals. So if you are also interested in learning how you can get funding for your deals and not ever miss out on another deal, because you didn’t have the money and you don’t want to rely on your credit, you don’t rely on your verification of income and your credit score.

Jay Conner (02:05): I’ve got a free gift for you. And that free gift is to come join me, access free for the first 30 days to my new Private Money Academy membership. So why in the world would you want to come check me out for free? Well, first of all, you get me live two times a month in a Zoom coaching call in the group setting for all of the members. Right now, we’ve got about 150 members or so, and it’s growing very, very quickly. We do that twice a month. You can bring all of your questions to the Academy membership, Zoom call. And we also update content every month, talking about locating deals and funding and et cetera. And on each Zoom coaching call twice a month, we put one of the Academy members such as yourself in what we call the hot seat, where we analyze your business, figure out what your challenges are and help you put together a plan to help take you to the next level in your business.

Jay Conner (03:04): So come join me for free for the first 30 days at Jay Conner, www.JayConner.com/Trial again, that’s Jay Conner, JayConner.com/Trial. You will absolutely love coming and checking out these Zoom calls and et cetera, with all the benefits that you get as being in the membership. Well, if you are brand new to joining the show, you may not know this, but if you’ve been tuning in for awhile then my lands, we launched June, 2018. We’re almost North of 300,000 downloads and growing very, very quickly. I have some amazing experts here as guest on the show. Well, today is no different. Let me introduce to you my friend and expert. Well, this gentleman is the founder and CEO of a company called White Orthodontics, which is a high end technology focused orthodontic practice in Virginia.

Jay Conner (04:12): And he’s also the author of several bestselling books. Now this gentleman also created a service that is called Real Numberz that ends in a Z. And he created that with his son, Trey, and the reason he created it, they created it was to utilize the latest technology to supercharge their real estate investments. Well, here’s what Real Numberz is about. It is the only comprehensive software application that’s designed to help real estate investors manage. And that’s the key word because this gentleman is an expert when it comes to managing deals after you bought them, which is a challenge for some people, but he designed this software to help real estate investors manage a diverse set of assets, which could include rental properties, private lending. There you go! Fix and flip properties, buy fix and hold properties, as well as if you’re into notes, mortgage notes, or syndications, his software will also help manage those investments as well after you get in.

Jay Conner (05:25): So this incredible software that he and his son Trey developed eliminates the number one investor anxiety by using real time data and an automated reminder system that allows real estate investors to maximize their return with 50% less time of yours involved in the deal. He also believes the key to achieving financial freedom has much to do with optimizing your existing investments as it does with acquiring and getting more investments. Well, his software Real Numberz is that easy to use solution for the ongoing problems associated with later inaccurate rents, incorrect note pay offs, uncontrolled or over budget rehab projects, and much, much more. In addition to that, this software has helped many of their clients save thousands of dollars and manage their real estate investments from their pocket. So with that, let me welcome my friend to the show and expert Dr. Paul White. Hello, Dr. White!

Dr. Paul White (06:35): Hey Jay, how are you doing?

Jay Conner (06:37): I am Fantastic! And just for the sake of these, may I call you Paul on the show?

Dr. Paul White (06:42): Oh, please do.

Jay Conner (06:45): So. Welcome to the show Paul. So glad to have you. Of all the experts and guests that I’ve had on this show. I haven’t had anybody else come on the show with this type of software and this kind of service to help real estate investors. I mean, in my business still today, we keep up with everything on an Excel spreadsheet. Seems to work pretty well since our average profits are 67,000, but you know, one of the four pillars that I teach in my business is what I practice. And that is automation. I actually work in the business less than 10 hours a week because of automation, other software we use and the team we have. And so I’m so excited to hear about this automation software that you and your son Trey have developed.

Dr. Paul White (07:33): Well, Jay, thank you so much for having me and, you know, I appreciate so much what you do and the great coaching that you give your clients. And it’s an issue that I have seen. It’s the same thing you just said. There’s just not much out there, right? We’ve never had anybody on that talked about this stuff. And it was a problem that I had and, went to solve the problem by looking for software. And all I found were spreadsheets and things like that. And I had sort of a bigger list of things I wanted to accomplish. And so spreadsheets are great, but they don’t take care of everything that you want to do with them. And so as a matter of fact, I was a member of a mastermind years ago, and I’m doing a lot of what you were coaching and that is to acquire stuff.

Dr. Paul White (08:09): You know, I had been for too long that guy that did what Dave Ramsey said, and that was to just save your money and pay off all your debts and do all those things. And that’s great if you’re in debt or if you have, if you can’t manage your money, but it’s not a great formula for managing wealth , and so anyway I started, you know, I had some money saved up. So when I got into these masterminds, I started, you know, acquiring a bunch of assets and I was feeling really good until the phone started ringing, you know, for more money and, you know, verifying payoffs and all this stuff. And I just started going, Oh my gosh! You know, what do I do? And here’s the problem. I went and talked to some of the guys in the group that had been in there before me.

Dr. Paul White (08:43): And I said, what are you doing to kind of keep track of all this stuff? And surprisingly the answer was nothing, you know, and occasionally the really sharp guys were using spreadsheets. And so then I asked, okay, well, what, what kind spreadsheet? And one guy said, well, I got this one off the internet. And other guy said, well, I got this from my brother-in-law. And I looked at him and they weren’t even the same, you know, and as orthodontists, we were like things nice and straight and neat, and even, and I just, I wouldn’t see in any kind of congruency there. So it made me a little nervous. So that’s sort of how it got started.

Jay Conner (09:11): There’s no doubt. There’s a huge demand for this type of service. Let me go to your background for just a moment.

Dr. Paul White (09:17): Sure!

Jay Conner (09:17): Please share with me and the audience, your story. You’re a doctor. And you know, you can straighten people’s teeth, right? And then you got into real estate investing along the way. So let’s hear your backstory.

Dr. Paul White (09:31): Well, you know, thank you for the question, cause it’s a great question. And it’s a lot of what we wrestle with it, you know, Warren Buffet famously said, you know, if you don’t make money, while you sleep, you work till you die. And that was sort of a, you know, kind of a crazy thing. And the Aha moment for me was when I finally understood the difference between income and wealth, you know I have a great job, but as Kiyosaki would say in his book, Cashflow Quadrant, I owned my job and that was all I had. I didn’t have wealth and I wasn’t building any wealth I was just working. So, you know, just like you’re trying to do with your clients, we’re trying to have freedom. You have to have income for that. Actually I have to have wealth from that.

Dr. Paul White (10:08): And I had income and I didn’t have freedom. And even still with my job, I own a good job and I make a good living, but I can’t leave the job for more than, you know, a week or so because of the amount of work that it creates before I leave and the tremendous amount of work that leaves when I get back. And so you just never gone very far and you’re always, you know sort of tied or chained to the practice. And so that was sort of a big Aha for me, is understanding that if I’m going to have some more freedom, I have to have something that’s making money while I’m not there. And for me, orthodontics was not that, not that thing. I love it it’s been great, but I started looking for other ways to make money and I discovered what you know, and what all your clients have known or will know.

Dr. Paul White (10:46): And that is that all the wealthy people in the world that are successful have real estate as a major portion of their portfolio, if not all of it. And so including our current president. Thanks. So, anyway it’s one of the things that I’ve learned is that real estate is the way to go. And, as I said, when I was in this mastermind sort of, you know, a little hand holding and trying to learn how to learn the ropes I just found that no one was keeping track of things. And so you see these pictures of messy desk and and so mine, wasn’t a messy desk. It was on a pool table. So I had paperwork spread everywhere and I was just excited, you know, I was acquiring stuff left and right. And I was just leaving this pile of, paperwork and assets behind me.

Dr. Paul White (11:26): And I thought, that’s all I had to do. Right. Cause you hear the term passive income. And so I thought that was it right? I’m there I’ve arrived. And then, you know, the headaches started coming and the questions started coming and you’re getting a lot of emails and phone calls asking for more information or more money or any of these things. And I just started going, Oh my gosh, how am I going to handle this? So my, momentary moment of sort of peace and I feel finally arrived and I’ve got it going, just sort shattered into the reality of my portfolio was chaos. And so I had to find a way to get control of it. And and that’s when I went to my son. Cause I know you mentioned you know, spreadsheets Excel. And to be honest with you, I’m a little intimidated by that.

Dr. Paul White (12:08): It’s not that I don’t like numbers, but for some reason I never learned Excel and all the other software that I ever learned, I just sort of picked it up and started working with it. So, and I can do the basics in Excel, but I can’t really do, you know, create all the sales and do those kinds of things. And so I asked my son who is a programmer. I said, can you make me an Excel spreadsheet? And he said, sure, what do you want on it? And so I told him a few things and as he’s programming, I said, I started asking more and I started adding more things. He goes, alright, do me a favor before I keep this madness going, make a list of all the things you want this to do, and then I’ll make it happen. Right? And I made the list and I handed it to him and he goes, he said, data, a spreadsheet.

Dr. Paul White (12:42): I mean, spreadsheets, can’t do this kind of stuff. I said, If I said, so what are we doing? He goes, you need an app. And I went, A what? Cause I had no idea what an App was Right? And so that’s how we started Real Numberz. And that’s been the, probably the most rewarding thing for me has been to have these ideas of how I want to manage my real estate and all the different investments that are real estate related investments have him sort of have these ideas in my head and I write them down on a piece of paper and he makes it happen. Now in the software world, they call Wire Frame is how you plan out every little step in the development of software out. And I, I call what I’m doing, you know, Wire Frame me. He said, dad, just writing crap on a piece of paper.

Dr. Paul White (13:20): You’re not Wireframing so, that’s been kind of fun, but it’s been amazing. Number 1, to recapture some of the money or my investment in his education. And number 2, to be able to work together with him and sort of work through these tools. And to be honest with you when it first happened, you know, and I looked at for spreadsheets, I go, well, there’s gotta be something else out there. And I looked everywhere for some software that was as comprehensive as what we’ve created and there’s nothing out there. So that’s been, you know, my why for 30 years was to make the quality of orthodontic treatment in the Richmond area better than it was when I got into it. And now my why’s to help real estate investors know their numbers so they can get to freedom faster.

Jay Conner (13:59): I love it! S, what different, before we actually get into what Real Numberz does.

Dr. Paul White (14:07): Sure!

Jay Conner (14:07): And the benefits of it. Because it definitely sounds multifaceted as to what it will do before we get into that. What type of different business models can this software serve and help real estate investors? For example, my business model is two fold. I either buy them in single family houses. So we’re talking to here all single family houses, I mean, in my case. So that will be a subset of my question. What different business model is that many single family houses only is it also commercial? We’ll get to that in a second. But in my single family house world, I’ve got two business models. I buy them. Business model, number one, I buy them, I fix them up. I flip them, I cash out, right? So we kill the golden goose, no wealth right there.

Jay Conner (15:01): That’s just big checks. My second business model or that I do with other deals is I’ll buy them. If they need fix up, I’ll fix up. If they don’t need fix up. And they’re a pretty house in either case. The second business model is I sell on rent to own. Now what makes my rent own or selling a lease purchase different is I actually believe it or not actually require my buyers to enter my credit repair program. And I actually help them get a mortgage. Therefore, 80% of mine cash out. Most of the real estate investors may be 5% cash out on least purchase. Those are my two business models. So leading up to my question what are the different models that Real Numberz will serve?

Dr. Paul White (15:54): Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, you know, what’s so funny about software and this is a true expression software’s never done. So you have this long runway of things that we’re trying to accomplish. And, basically real numberz is divided into four basic buckets. One is real property. The next one is private lending. The third is mortgage notes. And then the fourth is funds and syndications. And so within the real property space you can it takes care of any kind of property think of multifamily, single family you know, self storage, all those kinds of things. And, and what’s really neat about it is also there’s a dashboard for the entire portfolio. And so what we’re trying to build is a piece of software that not only manages all of your properties or all of your assets day to day as needed, but it also gives you a global input about how you’re doing as far as having some kind of target date for retirement or job transfer or, you know, whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

Dr. Paul White (16:49): And so what we’ve gotta do is have weighted average returns on all those things. And that’s a pretty complicated piece that we’re building. As far as real estate now, all there’s a general ledger for the entire portfolio for your entire asset base. And so, regardless of what kind of assets or different types of assets you’re doing, there’s a ledger that keeps track of all the money coming in and out of your portfolio. Then each individual asset has a ledger as well. And so it obviously takes care of transactions. And then those ledger items are then used to drive analytics, and then eventually it’ll drive tax reporting as well. And one of the features that we added to it, what’s sort of speaks to your fix and flip is I, years ago I was buying active turnkeys, like you’re talking about.

Dr. Paul White (17:35): And I had bought a piece of property and and from a guy in CG and so they were rehabbing it. And then I got an email that said we needed, you know, $8,000 more. And so I just wired the money site on scene. And, you know, one of the challenges with professionals, doctors, dentists, lawyers, whatever is at least for medical professionals, is we do whatever it takes to make things right for a patient, even if it costs us money. So we’re just, you know, we just want people to trust us. So we do whatever it takes. And we tend to have that same mentality with those that we work with. And what I’ve discovered in all other walks of life is not everybody’s that way. And even there’s some, I guess, in the medical profession, not the way, but I don’t know any of them.

Dr. Paul White (18:15): And so we’ve just always done whatever it takes to make it right. So there’s a high level of trust. So if somebody said I needed $8,000 more, I just would wire the money. Right? I don’t do that anymore, but that’s what I did when I first started. And it turns out after the the property had been rehabbed and closed, and then we had a tenant in place. We had actually then just finished creating real numberz. So I went back and just to play with the software, entered in all of the the data from the acquisition. And it turns out that that $8,000 was $8,000 over the budget. And I didn’t know it, and I had no clue. And and so I called the property management. So what’s the deal with this $8,000 is, Oh, we put new windows in the house and I go, well, great!

Dr. Paul White (18:53): I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done it, but that certainly would have been a decision I would have liked to been involved in. And so that really sparked me to create one of the features of a real property is a thing called a rehab tracker. And so you create a budget and you create as many different rehab projects as you want to name them. And then you put the amount of the budget, and then you start making deposits towards that budget, which come off your balance sheet, but then any of the charges against those do not, again, hit your, ledger again. So it keeps track of those things, and it keeps a running balance of how much money was spent in those kinds of things. So it can certainly be used for that. If you’ve got a business where they’re flipping a bunch of houses all the time, you know, there are other softwares out there where you need a professional to help you develop it for you, but for the average investor, it’s a great, it’s a great solution.

Dr. Paul White (19:37): That’s a fairly inexpensive to be able to manage those things, and then to have the property and track the income, if you’re renting it as far as the the selling part of it, it’s one of the things that’s actually in development is a sell feature that then you create a subject to, and then seller finance the houses as well. So in our mortgage note section, we already have that capability. So you can then turn and open that app up in the mortgage part, and then keep the mortgage that way, if you want it to. But eventually I want to meld the two, but we’re trying to get a basic program that works for enough people. Cause that what you’re talking about is fairly sophisticated. So,

Jay Conner (20:12): So you mentioned there’s actually four different categories for Real Numberz, one was flipping, Right?

Dr. Paul White (20:22): Well, real property in general. Yes.

Jay Conner (20:24): So just real property though whether you’re flipping or holding,right?

Dr. Paul White (20:27): right, right.

Jay Conner (20:28): And then you said private money or private lending. Tell us how.

Dr. Paul White (20:31): Yeah.

Jay Conner (20:32): Tell us how the software helps that category.

Dr. Paul White (20:37): That’s ,Thank you for the question. Yeah, one of the things that’s funny is, you know everything that we do in Real Numberz, I wanted everything lifestyle wise to be able to my portfolio from my pocket. So everything you need is stored on the app. Your pictures, your photos, your contacts, your documents,security duct, documents, all those things are right there in the app. And so one of the things that’s interesting if you’ve done, I know you have, but I don’t know about your listeners that have done private lending, but you know, at some point in time that the borrower wants to pay you back. And so they want you to verify the payoff. And again, because of my ignorance and inexperienced, I just assumed when they gave me a pay-off amount, I went, yep, that’s right. And it turns out I went back and checked them off by several thousand dollars or one of them.

Dr. Paul White (21:18): And so, and I typically lend out of my self directed IRA for those, those types of investments. And so one of the things that I kept noticing was the sense of urgency when they want to close all of a sudden, they out of the blue, they need to close some cause some deals coming up or they need money. And so anyway I got an email one time that said,we want to close this deal today, if possible, can you verify this pay-off? And I got, well, you know, my stuff, the documents are on a pool table back in my house. I don’t even have them here at work. And I’ve got my hands in somebody’s mouth all day. And so, I said, I can get it to you as fast as I can.

Dr. Paul White (21:52): And so, you know, worked all day. And then I went home and then I found the folder. At first I had things in piles on the pool table, my wife at least put them in folders put address on. So I found the folder and I find the the promissory note and I started doing the math. And at first I didn’t even understand that. So I’m doing it monthly, which is not the right way to do it either. And so of course now know that. And so I did the math for how much I was owed. Then I had to log into my self directed IRA account, find that asset, then look at all the amount of money that had been paid to me and then subtracted them, and then add it back to my original principle. And five hours later, I got the instant pay-off for him.

Dr. Paul White (22:27): And I was like, well, there’s gotta be a better way to do this. And so, because each asset, regardless of whether it’s your lending or flipping a house or whatever, has its own ledger, you’re tracking all the payments that you’ve received, which actually saved me a lot of money in the long run. But anyway, and so it knows the deal of the, of the original note, even if you’re wrapping somebody, which you can do, you can have a, we shouldn’t use the term JV, but a partner in the terms it’ll keep track of what the partner what his portion of the deal is. If you’re wrapping somebody. And when you hit, pay-off, there’s a button called pay-off and you hit that button, select a date, and it’ll give you the pay-off amount instantaneously. And it’s accurate. I closed five lending deals in January and every one of them was wrong to my favor, you know? And so it’s nice to have a piece of software. I just pull it out of my pocket and do find the, you know, open the app, find the asset and then push a button. And it tells me what I need. So it takes no time. And, It’s really kind of fun to be able to do that and people know, I know what I’m talking about now, so.

Jay Conner (23:25): That’s awesome! So that’s,

Dr. Paul White (23:27): yeah,

Jay Conner (23:28): That’s an App or that category confirms to the private lender as to how much they should be paid off.

Dr. Paul White (23:37): That’s right. So, yeah. And so it’s great for me. So I’m doing mostly most of the lending, so it’s telling me to pay off what it should be so that they, and they want me to verify it. So that’s the way that it works best. What’s really interesting is again, before I hadn’t created the software with my son I went back and again, sort of historically looked at a deal I’d done. And it turns out that they had missed a payment to my IRA. And I just thought, I didn’t really understand what a custodian did. I just thought they keep track of all the payments and call them when there’s a missed payment. And then they will give you some analytics to tell you how much money they’re making. And it turns out that that’s not right either. I looked up the word custodian means, it hold your stuff.

Dr. Paul White (24:19): You know, so I had closed the deal. I went back and just entered all the numbers. And this particular borrower had not paid a $1,500 payment during the whole transaction of the whole note. But then they closed the note as if they had paid that. So I missed a $1,500 payment, you know, and didn’t even know it and had already closed the note. So I couldn’t get that money back. So the app, just for that reason alone has saved me thousands and thousands of dollars. And it’s been great. And we hear that same thing from other investors that use the software.

Jay Conner (24:50): And I suppose that, of course, for the app to give you an accurate pay-off, then when you receive money you or someone is putting in the App, Oh, I received.

Dr. Paul White (25:03): that’s right.

Jay Conner (25:03): $1,500 payment on such and such a date. So it’s keeping up with what you have received so far.

Dr. Paul White (25:09): Yeah. And even if you get part of your capital returned, it’ll track that as well. So it’s really doing the math based on what you’re owed and what you’ve already received. And so that’s really, you know, and again, if you have a lot of these going, it’s hard to keep up with that kind of stuff. You know, spreadsheet can do it, but you know, what’s great about this software is it sends me a reminder of somebody misses a payment. Now, again, my need was somebody didn’t pay me and I didn’t know it cause an IRA is not calling them. I thought they were right. So, now I get a reminder if the payment has not been entered as received into the software. And so it’s a great way for me not to have to scan all the investments all the notes that I’ve got to see if there’s a problem. You know, it tells me if there’s a rent, a missed rent payment, it tells me I don’t have an interest payment from a loan, or if a note, a monthly payment hadn’t been made, all those things I know without having to go looking for it. So it really does make it easy to it reduces my stress and it alerts me when there’s a problem. So I can kind of keep doing what I’m doing and not have to worry about it all the time.

Jay Conner (26:06): Dr. Paul White’s website, that you can check out Real Numberz is www.RealNumberz.com , Paul there’s two other categories you mentioned that this software keeps that where, so it keeps up with any kind of real property investment keeps up with private money when you are the lender and what was the third category?

Dr. Paul White (26:32): Well, the other is a mortgage note, and I make a distinction between private lending and mortgage notes, because it’s a longer term investment and what’s unique about, and you can do these things with a lot the private lending, but a lot of private lending is usually straight answers with some points. And so what’s interesting with mortgage notes is you know, it’s an amortizing investment. And so it keeps track of all those things. And basically you can just buy a note and hold it and that, and just have this income for as long as you want. But there are other things you can do with a mortgage note that really can supercharge it. And one of the things you can do is sell it. And you can sell either a portion of it, or you can sell all of it.

Dr. Paul White (27:08): If you sell a portion of it’s called a partial.And so you can actually, in some deals, like if you bought a note, that’s, you know, say $50,000 and you bought that note for $30,000 let’s say a 10% rate, you can turn around and sell it to another friend or investor let’s say a 6% rate and get your 30,000 back out of it. And they will tell you in the app itself, it’ll calculate the number of payments that you have to sell in order to get your money back. And then at the end, the note comes back to you and you’ve got zero money in and invest it. And yet you have this stream of payments that are coming to you. And so, you know, a zero invested money returned is a pretty good infinite return that we all like to hear about.

Dr. Paul White (27:45): So that’s one of the things you can do. And the other thing you can do is borrow money against that note. So it’s just like having a house where you can borrow money against it. You know, it has that same kind of value to a bank or to a private lender. So there’s the things, and it keeps track of all these things. And again, if you sell five months, five years of a mortgage note, it creates a reminder at 4 years and 11 months to tell you that this payment’s coming back to you. So again, it gives you a heads up when a note is coming due when investment’s coming due. When rent is coming. And when the end of a lease on a rental that you have, it’ll send you a reminder, say this rental is coming due in 30 days. And so it helps me to send a note, send that very thing I just forward it cause it comes to my desktop or to my phone to be able to forward that note to the property managers say, okay, what are the plans for this property? We got anybody rolling here. Is he going to reinvest, you know, or renew? And so that way, again, I look like I’m on top of my game and I’m not having to do all that. I love that kind of aspect to it.

Jay Conner (28:41): That’s what I call automation. And then there’s a fourth category that this app provides service for, right?

Dr. Paul White (28:47): Yeah. Some people do funds or syndications and we’re just starting to build that part of it out. It’s mainly to track, you know, the issue with funds or syndication, is really no money in it and not much is returned to you until the deal closes. So, you know, a typical fund or syndication, will go five to seven years. Some of them pay off early. And so that one, we haven’t put as much time into it. Cause not as many people do those. It’s a great way for people that maybe don’t have a whole lot of experience to, if you can trust them. That’s, that’s the deal because a lot of those things can, you can lose your principal real quickly. So you have to be able to trust the people that you’re doing business with, but you don’t have to know a whole lot about real estate. But again, everything has due diligence. A better way is to have somebody like you start them off with a single family home because you can see that thing. You have all the control where you have no control over a syndication. So it’s one of those things that we’re sort of programming out for some of the other investors that have requested that. But most of what we do is those first three buckets.

Jay Conner (29:45): So the bottom line Paul, as I understand it is whether you are investing in single family houses, commercial, any kind of real property, the software is going to keep up with where you are and make sure you’re not, you know, wasting money or losing money, same thing as a private lender, make sure you got coming to you. What was in the promissory note and then mortgage notes, which are longer term you can do fractionals and then again, syndications. So, wow!This is simply amazing, Paul! And I’m so glad I’ve had you on here. So what do people need to do to go check out this software?

Dr. Paul White (30:25): Well you know, if you go to our website, RealNumberz.com and there’s a 14 day free trial. If you want to check it out, we’ve now adjusted it. So we’ve got a special running now where there’s a discount of 30% off the monthly fee and we do it by property. So if you have five properties or less, it’s less than it’s $47 a month as a subscription. And you have all the software, one of the cool piece of software that I didn’t talk about, there’s a piece of software attached to this, again, that you can’t do with a spreadsheet that actually connects to your bank account securely. So we don’t store any of the data. So it’s secure and encrypted, but it’ll pull the numbers and the transactions that go to that account. So on the general ledger, you’ll get uncategorized transactions and you would simply assign those transactions to one of your assets and it automatically populates the the ledger for that particular asset.

Dr. Paul White (31:14): And then it keeps track of all the other things that are going on. So it’s really helps you understand what’s going, coming and going and your business account. So it’s a great way to keep up with things and you should have a separate business account. Don’t keep this in your personal account. I’m sure you already have taught them that, but I’ve seen guys do that too. And it’s like, yeah, they have no idea where their money is or what’s going on with it. And you have to keep some reserves. Cause you know, real estate takes a little bit of management sometimes. So anyway, and then there’s an unlimited version of that, which is which also includes the mortgage notes part plus all the other things. And it’s unlimited data, all those other things and it’s $97 a month with a discount.

Dr. Paul White (31:49): And so one of the things that’s interesting to me is we had a client that was, I think he was spending a thousand dollars a month for a Bookkeeper’s account just to keep track of some rentals. And I’m like, dude, we can save you some money here. And he jumped on this in a heartbeat. He goes, this is way more than what I was getting before. I said, well, that’s, you know, we’re trying to make it something that you just, after you start using it, you won’t want to go without it. And that’s been my experience. It has saved me literally thousands, thousands of dollars.

Jay Conner (32:14): That’s wonderful!

Dr. Paul White (32:15): Yeah.

Jay Conner (32:16): Well Paul, thank you so much for joining me here on the show. And folks there you have it. Be sure and check out www.RealNumberz.com And go check out how to stay on top of your business and save a lot of money. Paul, thank you so much. I look forward to staying connected with you and folks, I’m Jay Conner, Private Money Authority wishing you all the best. Here’s to taking your Real Estate Investing business to the next level. We’ll see you on the next show!

#Jay Conner #Private Money Lender #Real Estate Business #Real Estate #Real Estate Investing #Real Estate Investor #Real Estate Profit #The Private Money Authority

[sidhewrites]

CHAPTER THREE. Project info. Approx 1000 words. Content warning for mentions of food/drink. As always, please feel free to send an Ask with any questions you might have.

Previous. || Next.

When I return, I’m armed with two coffees and a backpack full of stuff. Some snack bars, the EMF generator, a small speaker, and Josie’s dowsing rods, just in case we get caught. At least then we can have a more solid excuse just in case we get caught. I doubt she’s going to want them back tonight anyway. 

Lucy is nowhere to be found. I figure we have plenty of time before the archivists start production, though, so I make my way over to the grave where we first met to wait. It’s a weathered stone, probably at least a hundred years old at this point, and even in this low light, I realize that the words are too worn away to make out clearly. Josie probably knows who it belongs to, but I resist the urge to turn my phone on and check if she’s sent any messages. I tell myself it’s not just because I don’t know if I even want to talk to her or not, and, for once, that’s actually true. 

The light could attract unwanted attention, and the plan tonight is to not be noticed. Just to be extra safe, I’ve got a dark jacket on with the hood up over my pink hair, so I blend in just a bit more with the background. I am secret. I am stealth. “I am the night,” I mutter as hoarsely quietly as I can.

“Is that so?”

I startle, falling forward and swallowing a yelp of fear. Instead, I smile, turning around to see Lucy standing behind me, nearly invisible in the deep shadows of the tree. “When did you get here?” I whisper, realizing just how tall she is. I’m already short, five feet and two inches on a good day, but she seems to be pushing six feet, even when accounting for my view from the ground. 

Lucy gets a wistful look in her eyes, and shakes her head as she kneels down beside me, her dark skirts spreading out elegantly as she moves. “Some might say I never left.”

“Okay, Mary Shelley.” I stick my tongue out at her, prompting Lucy to giggle, and I hold one of the coffees out. “Brought this for you, just in case you’d need it. Oh --” I pull it back and hold the other one out instead. “Or this one. I don’t know if you prefer it sweet or black, so I got both.”

“How very kind of you, though I hope you didn’t burden yourself too much in getting them. I can’t drink coffee, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could have them both?”

“That’s a horrible idea. I’ll be vibrating ‘til next week. I’ll do it.” 

“You, ah -- you don’t have to?”

 “Nah, I’m gonna.” I chug.

“Amazing.” Lucy does not sound amazed.

Once I down a good amount of the first coffee, we turned our attention to the archivist team. They look to be satisfied with their setup, though the sound operator still has second thoughts about the leaves on the ground stirring in the breeze. 

“Alright, Luce, how do we wanna start?” I list off the items in my bag as the team goes over their own filming schedule. “I know they like to just kind of talk into the air and analyze audio later. Not much we can do there, but I think we can hijack their communicator thing.”

“Communicator thing.”

“You know, the thing. It, like, listens to the air waves and the computer translates that into actual words. It’s called, um…”

“Spirit box.”

“No, that’s the one with the radio, isn’t it?”

“There’s multiple types. Trust me, I’ve seen my share of investigator teams. They’re a sight more sophisticated than the early spiritualists, to be sure.” Lucy’s smile grows. “They have the teddy bear.”

I follow her gaze, and, sure enough, the team is bringing out and testing the light up bear. It’s to attract playful spirits and measure vibrations and static charges in the air, but I might have bought one just to have something that lights up when I hug it. I’m a mature adult, and I make good choices with my life. 

“Let’s see if this works.” I raise the EMF generator, and point it in the direction of the bear. Slowly, feeling very slightly James Bond-y, I press the switch and turn the dial gently. Sure enough, the lights start to glow a bit brighter, just enough to be noticeable, and the team gasps collectively.

 Lucy and I duck down again, fighting to suppress our giggles as the team gathers around the bear, all talking at once. Who was it, is she here already, I wasn’t expecting this sort of activity --

“We should start filming now,” the director says, half-breathless already.

I clamp down on my laughter and look up at Lucy. She’s closer than I had expected her to be, and I’m grateful we’re both trying to be silent right now or else i’d probably say something stupid, like wow you have really long eyelashes. 

Instead, she probably mistakes my distracted gazing into her eyes as some sort of intelligent silent communication and nods. I nod back, and raise the generator again just as the director announces, “Rolling.”

Instead of even bothering with the introduction, they start right out with getting fully set up and going over the plan one last time. If I remember correctly, there’s usually at least five hours of unused footage to go with the half-hour video they end up with. Almost automatically, their usual closing plays through my head -- And monthly pledges get one hour of deleted content, so click the link on your screen or in the description to --

The stupid music they play is going to be stuck in my head all night. I would probably do a stupid little dance to it if someone asked. I really hope Lucy doesn’t ask.

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[lunaticlua]

how do you make a home? // part 7

series masterlist

also available on ao3

a/n: hi! college is taking up most of my time this week. this chapter doesn't have much going on, but i like it nonetheless. soon, we will embark on a more canon part of the story. hope you like it :)

additional note: the title of the chapter is from 'time alone with you' by jacob collier ft. daniel caesar

gif by @mclines

chapter 7: time alone with you

“lay all day in bed with me and teach me how to love ya” (time alone with you – jacob collier ft. daniel caesar)

Lulu is scrolling through her Instagram feed on her bed Sunday morning, enjoying the sun's rays entering her bedroom and warming her body, when she hears a tapping. She gets up and walks to it. After opening the curtain completely and lifting the windows, she finds a pile of blonde hair and a pair of ocean blue eyes grinning at her. She tries to hide the growing happiness on her heart as she speaks. “JJ, what are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Seeing you,” he shrugs. “Now, can I come in?”

“Yes, but you do know that we have a door, right?” She jokes as he is jumping through the window into her bedroom and almost falling. She notices the same backpack he had with him the day prior on his back. Before sleeping, she revisited all the instances that should have given her a red flag about the state of his home life, but she hadn’t paid too much attention until now. Him practically living at his best friend’s house was one of those.

“Of course, I do. But this way is more romantic.”

“Oh, you are romantic now,” she teases, even though she is aware that she can’t stop smiling at his antics. His silly behavior had been the biggest cause of the lightheartedness that came with seeing him every workday of the last month, despite her attempts at closing herself off and not letting him in.

“Always have been, babe,” JJ winks with a juvenile smirk as he comes closer to her, taking her into his strong arms.

“I am ‘babe’ now?”

“Could have been earlier if you wanted to.” Instead of answering, she simply laughs, savoring the closeness of the hug. The comfort that it brings to both of them is unmatched. Lulu loves her aunt and uncle more than anything else in the world and she is forever grateful for having them in her life. JJ recognizes that, without the Pogues by his side, his life would be so much harder and sadder. But they know wholeheartedly that, even as cliché as it sounds, they had found a safe heaven on each other’s embrace.

The teasing atmosphere is gone by the time Lulu stares into his kind, loving eyes. Bearing her soul to him and listening to his deep secret the day before solidified the feeling she had been harboring for the boy. The words they hadn’t spoken yet are evident on their gazes and smiles. He leans forward, placing his callous hands on her rosy cheeks and connecting their lips.

As the kiss deepens, she moves her hands to his shaggy hair, feeling its softness through her fingers. His heart skips a beat at the caring touch. A lifetime with a negligent, runaway mother and a violent father made him unaccustomed to this kind of affection, even though the Pogues weren’t shy at showing their love for one another.

After some time, they end up, laying on her bed. Lulu has her head rested on his chest and he is playing with her fingers, relishing on the comfortable silence and on each other’s company. She props up and turns to look at him, still leaning on him. “Tell me something no one knows about you.”

“I am the best surfer in Outer Banks,” he deadpans.

“Be serious,” she pouts at him.

“I am! People should acknowledge this, but they don’t. It’s a shame,” she stares at him skeptical. “Okay, okay... Let me think.”

“I am waiting.”

He sticks his tongue out at her, making her laugh. “My real name is John Jackson.”

“John Jackson?”

“Yeah. For some odd reason, people in this island love to name their children John. But, since I became friends with John B in third grade, I go by JJ. I don’t even think Pope and Kie know my actual name.”

“I like it. Your name,” the answer brings out a smile on his face.

“It was my grandfathers’ names. My parents wanted to honor them or some shit. I think that the last person that called me John was my mother, but, after she went away, it is weird,” he grimaces, as it clearly is a sensitive topic for him.

“It makes sense. My mom used to call me Luluzinha, which it is an affectionate Brazilian way of saying Little Lulu. My aunt tried to keep calling me that, but I hated it. It sounded so wrong in another person’s mouth after everything.”

“You miss your mom a lot?”

“Every single day,” she replies, touching the star pendant on her necklace that it used to belong to the woman. “Do you? Miss your mother, I mean?”

“Not really,” he tries to sound nonchalant, but she notices the conflicted emotions on his eyes. “Tell me something no one know about.”

He changes the subject and she accept it without questioning. Talking about family is not easy for everyone and she understands it. “I like taking pictures.”

“Of yourself?” He asks with a malicious smirk, moving with a loose strand of her brown hair from her face.

“No! Pictures of places, of things, of fully clothed people.”

“Bummer,” he jokes. “You are any good?”

“I think so. The school paper back in Ohio used my photos quite a lot.”

“Can I see it?”

“Of course,” she voices cheerfully. His interest on her and all the things surrounding her never failed to make her happy. She gets up from the bed and walks to her closet, pulling a big box. It is filled with the pictures she took and revealed through the six years she been doing this. She picks some of her favorites, the majority from the two year. “It is not much. There weren’t many exciting things back there but photographing the football games was nice. I liked the movement and the emotion of it.”

He goes through the ones she puts on his hand, analyzing it carefully. “I don’t understand a lot about art and stuff, but these are good.”

“Thanks.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Since I was ten. When I moved to Ohio to live with Auntie Rita, I was appointed a therapist. I didn’t speak for a long time after that night. It was hard and Betty, the therapist, she said that I should try to find a way to express myself. After some time, I began talking again. Sounds dumb, but it made sense.”

“It is not dumb. It helped you, right?” She nods and he pulls her into his arms again. “Whatever helps you with all this pain is not dumb. Nothing regarding you is dumb.”

“Thank you, J,” she kisses him lightly. “I know this deep down, but it is hard to remember.”

They get back to lying position, cuddling. They are in complete silence for some minutes when he breaks it. “I want you to meet my friends.”

It draws a genuine smile from her. “Tell me more about them.”

“I think that you will get along with Kiara fine. She is this environmentalist, hippie chic. Her family owns the Wreck. She is actually a Kook. You know what a Kook is, right?”

“I grew up here, JJ, remember?” She quips, thinking about the Pogue v. Kook thing that everyone learned at a young age.

“Anyway, she is rich, but for some reason she likes us better than the trust fund kids from the Kook Academy. She is bossy and creative. Pope got the brain, but Kie is the one who actually makes sure that we don’t get arrested.”

“I already like her, then.”

“Of course, you do. Oh, man, you two being friends will be the death of me,” he grumbles, prompting a giggle from her. “Pope is the one who will get out of here. He has a scholarship lined up for him. He just needs to pass this one last interview, which he will definitely do, because he is the smartest person I know. And there is John B. The one who lets me crash at his place practically every other night. He is my best friend. His dad disappeared at the sea some months ago. He is in denial. Kie humors him with it, but we know that he is not coming back. No one get lost at sea these days and lives to tell the story,” he ends with a sad expression. Big John had been a father figure for him as well and his death shock him hardly.

“Is he living by himself?”

“Technically, no. His uncle is his legal guardian, but he hasn’t been home for months now. This would be a good thing during the summer, if DCS wasn’t all over John B because of it.”

“This sucks.”

“Yeah, it does. Family is a messy thing.”

He holds her tighter and brings her closer to his chest, seeking comfort with the action. Sensing that he is not on the mood to continue to talk about it, she just looks up to his face. His eyes are closed, preventing her from seeing the ocean of emotions present in it. He seems peaceful like this: lying down with her by his side. She analyzes his sun-tanned skin and his blonde hair, taking in his beautiful face.

“I like you,” he opens his eyes startled. “I know that it is pretty obvious now, but I wanted to say it either way. You are the first person my age who got close to me and I am happy that you did. I like you, J. A lot.” His surprised expression softens.

“I really like too, Lulu.” He beams at her and, then, brings her face closer, kissing her passionately. They spend the rest of the day together, enjoying the fact that her uncle was away for a fishing trip with some friends. They cherish the calmness, without knowing that the moments of peace were fleeting, and they would miss easiness of this day later on.

“do you realize you have the most beautiful face?” (do you realize?? – the flaming lips)

#outer banks #jj maybank #jj maybank fic #jj maybank fanfic #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank x oc #jj maybank x oc fic #jj maybank x reader #jj x oc #jj x oc fic #jj x reader #jj fic #jj fanfic #jj imagine #obx netflix #obx fic #obx fanfic #obx imagine #my fanfics #hdymah fanfic

[crownedbyluke]

Long Road Ahead (Chapter Fifteen)

Estelle Finley has been friends with Ashton Irwin and Luke Hemmings for three years. When the boys bring her along on a jam-packed road trip to Cape Cod with the rest of the band, their adventures are just beginning. Through long hours driving, exploring cities, and hidden secrets, something more is bound to happen on this journey. How will this road trip change Estelle’s friendship with the friends she’s come to love so dearly?

Word Count: 2,560

{Chapter One} {Chapter Two} {Chapter Three} {Chapter Four}{Chapter Five} {Chapter Six} {Chapter Seven} {Chapter Eight} {Chapter Nine} {Chapter Ten} {Chapter Eleven} {Chapter Twelve} {Chapter Thirteen} {Chapter Fourteen}

The sound of my phone buzzing jolted me from my sleep. My eyes slowly adjusted to the bright sunlight shining through the windows of my room. There was a text from Luke.

L: Hey little dove. We gotta head out soon. 

E: Okay. I’ll be out in 5.

I blinked a few times, the memory of last night ebbing back into my mind.

“I love you Lu.”

He kissed me with all of the passion and love he could muster up. It felt like I had been away from home and this was the moment it was finally coming back. His hands pulled me closer, desperately grabbing as if I’d fade away. My fingers tangled in his hair, gently tugging. He let out a small moan. Before I had time to think, Luke lifted me up. I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist. It felt slightly weird how needy we were since we had kissed already. 

“You’re mine,” he almost growled, gently dropping me onto his bed. 

I nodded in agreement, pulling him back towards me. We kept kissing for what felt like hours until Luke sat up and moved away from me. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What changed between getting back and now?” he asked. 

I sighed, unsure how to phrase the thoughts that had been causing a storm inside my mind. 

“I’m tired of fighting. I want to be happy and pretending to be that perfect daughter again made me feel disgusting. I used to do that all the time before college and before I met you and Ash. It doesn’t feel right or even remotely okay anymore. I watch Mikey and Crystal all the time and they’re so happy together, and deep down I know we could be that happy too. I’ve dated plenty of guys and none of them make me feel the way you do. I just want to be with you, Luke. Is that so horrible?” I asked.

He nodded, needing a moment to process my words. I pressed a kiss to his cheek before getting up. I felt his eyes on me as I walked towards the door. 

“I want this little dove. I really do, but I’ve got to take care of some stuff first okay?” he asked as I reached for the door. 

“Take your time. I’ll wait.”

A smile came over my face. It felt easier to breathe now that everything was out in the open. I checked over my outfit in the mirror, adjusting my black crop top and green sunflower shorts. As I pulled my denim button up over my shoulders, I felt secure. Once again, it was in Luke’s hands and I was putting all of my trust in him. He was it and I just hoped he’d feel the same once he handled everything. I grabbed my stuff and headed over to his room. He opened the door a second later. 

“Good morning,” I said with a smile.

“Morning. You look beautiful as always,” he said. 

I felt my cheeks flush from the compliment. He took my bag out of my hand and gestured towards the elevator. There was a weird tension between us, not exactly sexual or nervous, but just unsure. We checked out and headed to the car. 

“Do you want to drive again?” he asked after putting our stuff in the trunk.

“No, you can.”

I climbed into the passenger seat and moved it so I could relax. Luke turned the radio on, handing me the aux chord. It was simple, but meant that he wanted me to tell him what I was thinking. I scrolled through some playlists before I found the perfect one. The soft acoustic guitar from the beginning of “Hesitate” by Jonas Brothers started to fill the car. My nerves kept me from looking over at Luke as the chorus hit. As the second verse started, he put his hand on my thigh. I glanced over still nervous and caught the goofy smile on his face. Maybe this feeling wouldn’t last, but right now, it was me and Luke in the little happy bubble of our own. 

                                                     --

Ashton was running after Calum when we pulled up. It made me wish even more that we didn’t have to leave. 

“My lady,” Luke said, opening my door for me. 

“Why thank you good sir,” I said, taking his hand to get out. 

“There they are!” Crystal yelled from the porch. 

“I brought her back in one piece as promised,” he said. 

I laughed at them, feeling grateful Crystal had us go in the first place. Ashton came running around the corner with the familiar playful smile on his face. 

“Bugs!” he cheered.

Before I was able to tell him to slow down, he was wrapping me up in one of his bear hugs. 

“Don’t break her!” Crystal yelled, now coming down the stairs.

“She’s fine!” Ashton said, releasing me and gesturing as if he was Vana White. 

“Good, because we have lots to discuss,” she said. 

“Lots and lots,” I said, smiling. 

Girl talk was much needed right now and talking about almost having sex with your best friend after being into him for three years was not exactly Ash territory. 

“Don’t keep her too long. I missed her,” he called.

“No promises!” she said. 

We sat down on the side porch in one of the bench swings I felt her watching me. 

“Spill.”

“It went well okay?” I laughed. 

Her look intensified as she analyzed my face.

“I don’t see any hickeys so clearly not that well,” she said. 

“Oh my god Crys! That didn’t happen.”

“So what did?”

“I told him about the threat from my dad and after we got back, we kissed.”

“That’s it?” she asked, sounding shocked. 

“Yes! Why are you so surprised?” I asked.

“You had post-sex glow so I was hoping things had gone extremely well,” she said with a shrug. 

My laugh rang in my own ears. I hadn’t realized that we looked so glowy. 

“Well, are you two at least together?” she asked. 

I felt a sudden unease wash over me with the question. Even I had no real answer to that one. I looked at the ocean, hoping in some way it would magically present the answer. 

“I don’t know. He said he had to figure some stuff out,” I said. 

“That’s not a no though right?” she continued.

“Right, but I don’t know what those things are.”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you once he’s done,” she said, putting a comforting arm around my shoulders.

“I hope so.”

                                                     --

LUKE’S POV

“What was the name of Estelle’s real estate agent again?” I asked, pulling out my laptop. 

“Junie. Why?” he asked. 

“If her dad can take her dream home away, I want to know why and how, and if I can prevent it,” I explained. 

Ashton looked at me with surprise. My fingers flew as I searched for the office’s number. Once I had it, I dialed without hesitation.

“Hi there. I have a few questions regarding finances on your properties,” I said once someone answered.

“Of course. How may I help?” she asked politely. 

“Once a property is purchased and finalized with a move in date, can anything happen to change that?” I asked.

“Logistically speaking, no. However, we have had instances of the bank of a client deciding to back out of mortgage financing which lead to the client scrambling to find a new one,” she said. 

“In the event of a client using a trust fund, would that change that process?” I continued.

“Most likely, no. Typically, we take trust money right away just for financial security and then we require the client to obtain a mortgage through that bank still.”

I asked a few more questions before ending the call. Ashton kept staring at me as I finished up some research. 

“What?” I asked.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked.

“Estelle worked her ass off to get that house and I don’t want that to get taken from her for wanting to be happy.”

“Dude, I’m moving in with her. I’ve got that handled,” he said. 

“What about the threat to our career?” I asked. 

“I believe our record label wouldn’t let that happen.”

“So what does he have that makes him think he could?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got our publicist on it,” he said with a wink.

It still felt like I was missing something. Maybe I was being paranoid, but the pit in my stomach told me otherwise.

                                                      --

ESTELLE’S POV

My heart was beating extremely fast, the nerves about what I was going to do sinking in. I was hovering over the call button, just waiting on the courage to call.

“Elle?” I heard Calum call from my door.

“What’s up?” I asked, tucking my phone away. 

“How’d it go yesterday?” he asked.

“Good. Tiny bit unresolved right now.”

“Are you going to be together finally then?” he continued. 

“I don’t know. I’ve gotta make a phone call though. Can we talk later?” I asked. 

He nodded, giving me a small smile. I locked the door after he left. My hesitation from before was gone, leaving me to just click my dad’s name. The ringing felt longer than normal causing my nerves to rise. 

“Estelle,” he said upon answering.

“Hello father,” I said. 

I felt my leg starting to shake, anxiety growing the longer the pauses were.

“How was your art gallery opening?” he asked. 

“It went well. Only one reporter asked me about you,” I said, getting to the point.

“And how did that go?”

“I said exactly what you wanted me to and gave her some winks so she’d write up something nice for you.”

“And how did your friend react to that?” he continued.

“He was surprised, but as you said, we’re just friends,” I said, trying to hold back the bite in my words. 

“Good.”

“Do you mind explaining why I can’t date him? I would have assumed you’d be thrilled by the press it could bring,” I said, slightly hoping to angle it better.

“We both know how you and the press interact,” he said, his tone getting sharper. 

“And we both know that I’ve gotten more mature since then. The college mistake was not entirely my fault and after that passed, I did everything you asked. I’m media trained, have my own job, and rarely ever do anything that would reflect bad on the company,” I argued. 

“Do you honestly believe the life of a musician is suited for you?” he asked, changing the subject sort of. 

“Luke is not every musician that parties all the time,” I said, gritting my teeth. 

“Really? Is that why a photo of him kissing someone who isn’t you was all over the internet five days ago?”

The memory came back full force, images swirling around as I took a deep breath. 

“He reacted badly to the news of the inability of being together because of you,” I said, digging my nails into the palm of my hand.

“What makes you believe he won’t react badly whenever something doesn’t go his way?” he pressed.

“Because we’ve been friends for three years! While you were out producing Inked and sticking your head farther up Wesley’s ass in the hope that he’ll be the promise child, I was working hard to gain my spot as a teacher. Unlike my brothers, I have listened to you and kept my head down. I am an adult now and if you can’t understand that enough to let me love who I want then you’re no better than when Mom left you,” I fired off, feeling how heavily I was breathing. 

“Estelle Rose Finley!” he yelled. 

“Harass Wes or Parker, but stop treating me like her,” I said. 

“Watch your tone,” he warned. 

“I love Luke and if I want to see what a relationship with him would be like, I can do that without needing your permission.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, angrily before ending the call.

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. I hadn’t meant for the phone call to go that way or end in a big argument. My hands were shaking and there were nail marks indented on my palm. A tear fell onto my leg causing me to wipe at my cheeks. There were plenty of tears that had fallen from the anger that my father caused. It was rare for me to lash out or let him get under my skin. I felt exhausted from the conversation and it was only midday. There was a knock on my door, making me pull myself together. Ashton was standing there, concern all over his face. 

“I heard you yell. Everything okay bugs?” he asked, stepping in and gently putting his hands on my shoulders. 

“Yeah. Just another phone call with my dick of a dad.”

“Were you crying?”

“A little. I got really angry,” I explained.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It was just about Luke. He keeps trying to control my choices when I’m an adult. It’s frustrating,” I said with a shrug. 

“I don’t mean to pry, but your mom left?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Oh, um, yeah. She left him when I was in my first year of college after the whole party incident,” I explained. 

He moved to sit on my bed, nodding as if to say go on. 

“When she found out about him threatening to move me, she lost it. I was already away for a couple months, so I didn’t know he was being mean and controlling towards her. I guess it was the final straw.”

“Where is she now?”

“She lives in England and has her own design house. We don’t really talk that much,” I said.

“And Wes and Parker?” he continued. 

“My brothers. Wes is three years older than me and Parker is two years younger.”

“You’ve never mentioned them.”

“I know and I’m sorry. My family isn’t the best at doing family stuff. They probably don’t even know I got my master’s degree,” I said with a sigh. 

“Weren’t they at your graduation?” Ashton asked, giving me a look of surprise. 

“I didn’t walk,” I replied, not meeting his stare. 

“Why?” he pushed.

“My dad didn’t want the press showing up and finding out I’m a teacher.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t fit into the Finley legacy,” I said, quoting the exact words I was told.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re an amazing teacher. Those kids love you and you make their lives so much better. He should be proud that he has a daughter willing to do that,” he said, reaching over and wrapping his arms around me. 

“Thanks Ash,” I mumbled, returning the hug. 

His pride brought a few tears to my eyes. I had given up on searching for my father’s approval, but hearing how highly Ashton thought of my career, made it worth it. My family was awful, but at least I had friends that supported me. 

“Estelle!” Crystal yelled from what I assumed was the stairs. 

Ash and I broke apart, heading towards the landing to find out what was going on. Crystal looked nervous, almost unsettled. 

“Yeah?” I called as we headed down. 

“Um, your, uh-”

“Hello there daughter.”

A/N: I KNOW AND IT’S GONNA BE EPIC. Tell me all the feels please. 

tagged loves: @bbycal​ @emptysanity​ @floraldawg​ @cakesunflower​ @tommossoccer​

#d writes #my writing #5sos #5sos fic #5sos fluff #5sos angst #luke hemmings #luke hemmings fic #luke hemmings fluff #luke hemmings angst #ashton irwin #michael clifford #calum hood #luke #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fic #5 seconds of summer fluff #5 seconds of summer angst

[diyunho]

The Joker X Reader - “What Death Tastes Like” Part 2

Scarecrow’s daughter might be only 22, yet the terminal lung cancer she was diagnosed with six months ago didn’t discriminate against her age; the young woman didn’t show worrisome symptoms until it was too late. Y/N always had a fascination for the much older King of Gotham and despite the consequences, maybe it’s finally time to do something about it.

Part 1         Part 3        Part 4      Part 5

“That was very nice,” you whisper in The Joker’s ear. “I know you’re not sleeping,” you sigh and force yourself to get out of his bed after watching TV together for almost 3 hours. “I’m going, OK?” you whisper, not sure why he’s ignoring you. But you have a clue: he probably just wanted to avoid a huge fight with Emma or your father finding out about his cruel words regarding your illness. “Fine, whatever…” you admonish and exit the premises, upset he’s behaving like that since he offered truce a few hours ago. The King of Gotham is actually completely out, even if you believe otherwise.

It was awesome having him carry you in his arms and not protest when you kissed him; you have to admit you were disappointed he didn’t initiate anything once you ended up in his bed; you really thought he would. J let you snuggle to him and you hoped for more to happen, yet his lack of interest made you realize it was stupid to try and hint you wanted him. What is a 40-ish old man supposed to do with a 22 years old woman that playfully keeps flirting with him? In this case, obviously just enjoy a couple of movies which proved he doesn’t take into consideration your dumb crush.

The more you analyze this night, the more you’re inclined to vote for the exact opposite of what you did: you should have kept your mouth shut and refrain sharing intimate matters with him.

I guess sometimes genius truly skips a generation …

*************

3 Weeks Later

You didn’t come to the mansion in the last 3 weeks: when J woke up the next morning after your visit, you were gone. Emma informed him you waited for her to catch up and then went home; he wondered if you left because of what happened or if there was no reason for it at all. One thing’s for certain though: The Joker got the slight impression you evade him, especially since two days ago you dropped Emma off then raced out of the property in a hurry when you noticed he was coming out of the house. The skid marks on the pavement were a pretty clear sign you didn’t want to linger at the place you normally enjoyed hanging out at.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean you can escape The Clown Prince of Crime forever.

“OK,” Emma gives you a soft nudge in the restaurant owned by her parent. “You gotta help me out,” she pleads to a skeptical Y/N. “I insisted we have lunch here for a good reason: my dad brought his wacko-on-and-off-girlfriend and I can’t stand her; I need backup. Please flirt with him and say that stuff you usually say!” she giggles. “You have my blessing to go crazy, I swear you won’t hear a peep out of me! It will be hilarious to see her reaction!” she pushes you and it’s too late to escape the unwanted rendezvous you had no clue about until now.

You are already at the table and didn’t have a moment to take in your best friend’s proposal: you wish you had a warning about this plan of hers but Emma impulsiveness and surprise element runs in the family.

Maybe she thought you would love such a funny challenge…

Yeah… not really...

You know Mara anyway and bumping into her alongside J is not enjoyable to say the least, mainly due to the odd atmosphere you hope his daughter won’t notice.

“Hi daddy,” Emma pulls her chair and you take a seat by her muttering a faint hello.

“Hey kid!... … Miss Crane,” he sneers and you intensely stare at the menu in front of you without blinking.  

“I didn’t see you in forever,” Mara addresses you and you indifferently glare at her. “I must say you look terrific: you are glowing! What’s your secret?” she snickers and you duly inform:

“I’m dying. I’m sure you remember I have terminal cancer; my dad makes my meds and they do help somewhat, thus the glow.”

“As long as you’re not contagious,” the woman underlines and Emma gasps at her affirmation.

You smirk and reach over to touch her forearm, softly digging your nails in her skin.

“I am and now that I touched you, you’ll die too!”

You get up from the table while hearing The Joker saying something but your ears are ringing so you can’t discern a word.

“How can you say stuff like this?!” Emma reprimands and you calmly take a small ampule from your pocket, open it and pour some dust in the palm of your hand.

“I was just expressing a concern,” Mara gesticulates and you bend over, blowing the fine ashes in her face.

“What the fuck?!” she quickly brushes the ticklish powder off her cheeks, worried at your action. “What is this?!”

“Nightmare,” you scoff. “One of my father’s top products. I recently assisted him make it stronger and there’s no antidote. Don’t worry though, it won’t kill you and it will wear off in a few hours. Plus, it’s not contagious. Enjoy!” you leave the gathering and Emma follows, enraged things didn’t go as planned yet she can’t blame Y/N.

Since the restaurant is closed to the public due to his owner’s presence, there’s not a soul around besides J that can hear Mara’s terrified screams once the wicked hallucinogen kicks in: it’s called Nightmare for a good reason!

*************

6:02PM

“Knock, knock,” The Joker enters Scarecrow’s lab, already in a foul mood.

“Not a step further!” his movement gets halted. “Sterilize yourself if you want in: I’m making more capsules for Y/N,” Crane points at the numerous ingredients on the counter.

“Your lab is huge, if I stay right here…” J tries to convince Jonathan although he’s aware he has zero chances: it never succeeds but his stubbornness prompts him to fight the request each time.

“No!” your father firmly rejects the proposal. “Sterilize yourself and come help me!”

“Where’s your daughter?” The King of Gotham starts washing his hands in the sink by the glass sliding doors.

“She went to stay at the cabin. I got lectured,” your dad huffs, scolding in the next second: “You’re not done! More!” he commands and J reprises the cleaning process required by his very obliging host.

“Ugh,” he mumbles and continues. “Why did you get lectured?”

“Apparently, I buried myself in this place and she hates it. I also got threatened that if I don’t stop trying to find a remedy for her incurable disease, she’ll quit taking the current medications. I received orders to call Evelyn and beg for reconciliation also,” Scarecrow briefs a gratified King of Gotham:

“I guess we both have someone in our lives we can’t neglect,” The Joker dries his hands, puts on latex gloves and snatches an immaculate lab coat from the hanger nearby.

“What am I to do?...” Crane whispers. “Let my daughter die without trying to save her?...” then immediately snaps out of it. “Hair net!!!!” he shouts at The Joker, annoyed he’s trying to skip it.

“For God’s sake,” J complaints … still does as required. “What’s in for me in exchange for my services?”

“What do you want?”

“Two vials of your new, improved Nightmare formula. I witnessed it at work today and let me tell you, that stuff’s amazing!”

“How did you witnessed it at work?! It’s not released on the black market yet,” Jonathan carefully measures the quantities for your medicine.

“Oh, funny you should mention,” the evident sarcasm makes your father pay attention. “Y/N used it on Mara earlier today and she totally lost her mind! I had to lock her up in the pantry at the restaurant with three of my men guarding the door! She went bonkers!!!”

“Sorry,” Scarecrow’s flat tone irritates J. “I guess either you or Mara did something Y/N didn’t like. Welcome to my daughter’s shit list,” he cordially emphasizes.

“You shouldn’t talk to me like this,” The Joker fixes his green locks under the hair net. “One of these days I might become your son-in-law, you know Y/N showers me with her undivided affection.”

“Over my dead body!” Jonathan shrieks and The Clown Prince of Crime seems delighted.

“Hmmm… I can arrange that.”

“Just shut up and help me, would you? What am I paying you for?! Y/N needs more capsules; she’s almost out. Can you tell Emma to take this to her? I’m gonna let her chill, she’s still mad at me.”

“Wimp, you’re afraid to confront her,” J rolls his eyes and Scarecrow is not the one to be intimidated by his guest’s nonsense:

“Says the man that freaked out and searched the town for hours thinking his daughter run away when in fact she was asleep behind the rose bushes in the backyard at their mansion.”

“I didn’t freak out!” The Joker sulks at the unwelcomed reminder.

“Of course you didn’t,” Jonathan serenely replies. “Now fill out the capsules with the amount I already weighted and don’t mess up! I’ll verify your performance.”

“Give it a rest!” J growls. “Emma left for New York; she’ll be there for a couple of days. I’ll take this to Y/N.”

“Don’t think so,” he gets cut off. “I’ll send one of my couriers.”

“I’ll do it for free.”

“Why?”

“I have a score to settle,” J confesses to Scarecrow’s dismay. 

“If you hassle my daughter, I’ll create a plague designed only for your genes and I’ll exterminate you from this planet!”

“Imagine this is not the first time I’m threatened with a pathogen manufactured to ensure my demise,” The Joker hints even if he doesn’t have to.

“She is my daughter,” Crane explains, entirely understanding the reference. “The branch doesn't fall far from the tree; she knows I would so you’d better watch it!”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, right?” the pushy menace concentrates on his task, adamant in finding a way to see you no matter what.

**************

8:31pm

The Joker drives on the narrow path leading to the cabin, stirring left when a car coming from the opposite direction hunks at him.

“Heeeeyyyyy, Mister Joker!!!!!” someone yells and the other SUV accelerates past J’s yet he has enough time to recognize the aggravating pest: Sam aka Bane’s son. A few unpleasant phrases are grumbled regarding the encounter when another detail sets off the pissed King:

Y/N is racing towards the cabin after recognizing her best friend’s dad vehicle; you came out to say goodbye to Sam and take a walk when your idea abruptly changed.

“Are you kidding me??!!” J grinds his teeth while watching you stumble in the grass, then energetically gather yourself up and sprint inside, slamming the door behind.

“Wow!” he exclaims while parking close to the stairs, unsure on how this day will evolve; so far it goddamned sucked.

“Miss Crane,” The Joker taps at the heavy oak door. “Open up, I have your med!”

Maybe if you don’t engage he’ll leave.

“Is this how you thank me for delivering your pills?!” he gets worked up, thumping intensifying.

“Leave the package on the porch and go away!”

“Oh, she speaks!!!” J instantly snaps. “Open up, it’s cold out here!”

“No it’s not,” you call him out on his bullshit.

“You owe me apologies for what you did to Mara!” he demands, cringing at your defiance.

“Ha! When hell freezes!!!”

“What was Bane’s son doing here?” he tries a different strategy, definitely losing patience.

“None of your business!”

“I brought dinner,” J adds because that’s the last ace in his sleeve. “From the restaurant… your favorite. Aren’t you hungry?”

Does the silence mean you’re giving in?...

“Did you bring strawberry crepes too?”

“Yeah,” The Joker lies since he naturally forgot about desert.

The door faintly creeks and you unlock it, finally letting him in; you’re hesitant about your judgement and snatch the two paper bags out of his hands: the small one contains capsules, the big one harbors foam containers with the foods you like.

“Where are the crepes?” you frown at the lack of the delicious treat.

“I have this suspicion you’ve been avoiding me,” J talks about the reason he’s there without answering your question.

“I’m not…”

“Then why don’t you come to the mansion anymore, hm?”

His gaze circles the living room, involuntarily noticing the blood stained tissues in the trash can by the couch.

“Did you have another episode?” The Joker inquires. “Should I call your dad?”

“No…I’m fine…”

“Are you sure?” he insists and you unwrap the plastic utensils, sniffing.

“It’s not a big deal, it happens more and more often… I wish Emma was here,” you wipe your teary eyes and J bestows his infinite wisdom upon the young woman.

“Well, my daughter’s not here and I’m not renowned for making people feel better,” he twists the cap of the bottled water near him. He takes a sip then gives the container to the confused Y/N. “I’m not sure if this will help, but you can touch something my lips touched.”

You smile at his offer, kind of happy he’s using one of your catchy lines.

“What’s this? Reversed flirting?” you pout and drink from the bottle, placing it on the table afterwards.

He doesn’t bother to respond besides apathetically mentioning:

“I’ll spend the night; it’s dark outside and I don’t want to end up in a ditch.”

“It’s summertime, still sunny,” you highlight the indisputable truth to a guy that couldn’t care less.

“I’m tired. Crane pressured me to work! Did you know he took advantage of my kindness and made me sink a couple of hours in his project? What project you ask?” J cracks his neck although you weren’t curious. “I helped made your treatment,” he blurs out and your blank attitude irks The Clown. “You can compensate me by letting me crash here for the night.”

“I’m 100% sure my dad already compensated your efforts,” Y/N utters.

“Why was Sam here?” the earlier question is reprised in order to distract you.

“Are you jealous?” you nibble on your lasagna and J snarls:

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Then why do you have to know?”

“Professional interest,” the vague disclosure scores absolutely no credits with the feisty Y/N.

“That’s a huuuge load of baloney,” you shake your head and decide to unravel the mystery. “He picked up an item for his father. Don’t worry, you’re still my favorite,” you tease and The Joker protests.

“I’m not worried! I don’t even care! Can I sleep here?” he switches the topic and has to boast: “We can party all night long like we did last time!” J sassily reveals; he believes you’ll mock yet it’s not the case.

“You’re very late to this party…” your voice dies out and The King of Gotham is aware what you’re referring to. He digs his fork in the fresh salad, reassuring on a whim:

“Better late than never…”

 Also read: MASTERLIST

#the joker x reader #the joker fanfiction #the joker imagine #the joker jared leto #the joker #joker leto #the joker suicide squad #joker #joker suicide squad #joker imagine #joker fanfiction #joker jared leto #mister j #Mistah J #Mr.J #dc #dcu

[lattaeyongs-main]

Always Running

Summary: You made him forget about the spider seal etched on his chest. In which he feels like he has normal friends, a normal family, and a normal life, but his spider mask starts to fall.

Pairing: Mark x reader

Genre: fluff+ angst, spiderman au, high school au

Word count: 4.7k

Warnings: alcohol consumption, dangerous situations

a/n: inspired by the spiderman movies (obviously). requested a while ago, but I finally got to it! Let me know what you thought in the comments in the notes or in an ask!

-

Mark Lee liked a lot of things about you, he realized while he sat in your shared science class this morning. He liked the way your notes were clean and organized with different colors decorating the page compared to the monochromatic mess that were his own. He liked the way your voice that was clean and melodic at debate competitions before it would be his turn to argue. And he liked how you had a silent beauty to you that could make the heavens above jealous. Maybe it could be because of your window seat in the rising morning light that made you look ethereal.  

You and Mark attended a well off high school with the children of doctors and lawyers who expected only the best. That didn’t mean that these children didn’t live and experience like other high schoolers, often times amplifying it with their privilege. But everyone were still cookie-cutter students when they entered the school’s campus. The area seemed well off and average from the outside, but that didn’t mean that crime didn’t exist. Evil and bad were everywhere, Mark learned. And he had the chance to help people who needed it.

Today, it was one of those mornings where the teacher wasn’t in the room before the first bell rang. He noticed how everyone else in the class chattered with friends or quickly tried to complete last night’s assignment. You still weren’t in the room yet, and Mark could feel his eyes wandering to your spot near the window.

“Are you even listening to me?” Donghyuck exclaimed. He was seated in front of Mark, tapping on the desk expectantly.

“It’s the same stuff. Just break up with Sooyoung already.” Mark could feel his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

“I’ll do that once you ask out Y/N. It’s starting to get creepy how much you stare at her. And even when I was in debate club-”

“Okay I get it. I’m just analyzing the situation before I do any of that.”

Donghyuck let out a faint “hmph” before saying, “Y/N, six’ clock,”

Mark moved his head ever so slightly when he saw you with your cup of coffee, your backpack strapped across your shoulder while you made your way to your desk. You took a quick sip before placing your backpack in the space next to you and collecting your books.

“Now’s your chance. Sooyoung told me that Yeri is sick, so she’s probably not going to talk to anyone this morning.”

Mark sighed. He was going to have to do it sometime to avoid Donghyuck and Renjun’s constant teasing. He finally took a deep breath and pushed back his chair.

“Remember, It can’t be that bad if Y/N is the way you describe.” Mark squinted at him disdainfully before Donghyuck said again, “You’ll thank me later.”

You were reviewing your notes while sipping on your coffee when Mark slid in the seat next to you. You looked up, noticing Mark’s nervousness.

“I just wanted to say,” Mark stopped mid-sentence and you nodded for him to continue.

“that I thought your notes were really nice and that you’re really pretty.” Mark took a deep breath.

“Aww, that’s really nice of you. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten complements like those-” You stopped when you heard you phone ring. Once you saw the caller ID, you said, “I really have to take this.” Your bag and books were still in your spot when you left the classroom, phone pressed against your ear.

Mark went back to his seat behind Donghyuck, and he said, “I’m guessing that it didn’t go that well.”

“It wasn’t a yes or a no. I didn’t have the chance to ask her before her phone rang.” Mark still felt his heart sink for some reason.

“That’s still better than being rejected.” Donghyuck shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t help.

A few days later while Mark was at his locker, you approached him on the other side of the hall, your coffee almost finished. He saw you in the corner of his eye but went back to packing his books in his bag in an attempt at nonchalance.

“I felt a little bad after I blew you off like that last week, and you're really nice in debate club. It was my boss by the way.” Mark nodded, feeling slight relief while his cheeks slightly reddened. “So I was wondering if you wanted to study together.” You were straight to the point.

Mark spluttered a little bit before saying, “Sure, of course. Where do you want to meet?”

“How about the library after school? Today’s Monday. We can start on Thursday.”

“Sounds good to me,” he responded quickly, hoisting his backpack onto his shoulders.

“Good. You better not flake on me like you do with the debate team.” You say in joking humor Mark only nervously laughed. “I’ll see you around then.” Mark waved at you, a large grin forming on his face.

-

Mark could feel his arms and legs ache when he climbed into the window of his bedroom. His vision still felt spotty even after it had been twenty minutes since the robbers threw a homemade bomb at him. He luckily escaped, only leaving with a few scratches and bruises that he could hide easily. It was around ten at night while he waited for the police to come by and put them in jail, and now he jogged home, his spider suit packed tightly in his backpack. The jog wasn't long, so he didn't need to board a bus to get back home before his aunt got suspicious. The TV was silent, so that meant that his aunt was probably asleep. He tiptoed, remembering the creaky wood near the left corner of his bedroom. He took off his mask and took a deep breath- it could get stuffy in there at times. He jumped when he heard something fall, the creaky wooden floor amplifying his anxiety. From the shadows, Donghyuck picked it up and put it back on the nightstand,

“Donghyuck, what are you doing here?” Donghyuck’s mouth was wide open.

“You’re-you’re Spiderman?” Mark was silent while Donghyuck still pointed. It was a few minutes before anyone said anything. “Oh my God, that’s so cool! What does this do?” he moved to press a button on Mark’s wrist. Mark moved away, crossing his arms delicately.

“Don’t touch anything! But what are you doing here?” Mark felt himself whisper yell.

“We were supposed to hang out. Your aunt said that you were staying after school and were coming in a little bit.” Mark put a hand to his temple. He completely forgot.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“I know. I’ve read enough comic books to know what happens.”

“This is serious. You can’t blab it out like you did-”

“That was seventh grade! We’re almost done with high school, and you’re still holding that over my head-”

“Alright, alright. Just please don’t tell anyone.” Mark’s eyes were pleading.

“Fine,” Donghyuck said while he took a deep breath. “But you have to show me your cool stuff later.”

-

"Okay, what do the buttons on your boots do? And how do you channel the shooting power of your suit? And-and-"

"Okay, Donghyuck, that's enough. It’s only been two days. We're in school. We can talk about this later."

"Come on! I’m just so excited, that’s all. You have to spill the beans!" Donghyuck whined. They were making their way to the lunch line, grabbing a tray while the lunch ladies handed them food.

When they finally left and moved to their spot, Mark reiterated, "I'll tell you later. We're in school. Someone could hear us."

"Whatever. You’re going to crack sometime," Donghyuck said, taking a large bite into his sandwich. Mark picked at his food. He sat with Renjun and Jeno, some of his other members of the debate club. After Donghyuck quit near the middle of sophomore year, he befriended them, Renjun being new and Jeno being as sociable as he was, now being very close friends with them. He almost felt a pang in his stomach because close friends were supposed to tell each other everything. That’s what Jeno told him one night at the end of sophomore year right after he built his suit.  

"Earth to Mark!" Donghyuck waved his hand in front of him, and he looked up. "Are you thinking about Y/N again?"

"No." His voice was confident when he started the first syllable, but he later trailed off when all three boys gave him the same look.

"You have to stop being so obvious with her, it's getting kind of disgusting," Renjun said, scrunching his nose while shoving some food into his mouth.

"You're being overdramatic, Renjun," Jeno said. "I think it's kind of cute. Look, Y/N’s with her friends,” His gaze pointed to three tables away where you sat with Yeri, the president of the debate team. You conversed with her, and from the look of it, you were enjoying the conversation, your eyes turning into an adorable squint when another girl and boy joined you, their names having left Mark’s memory. 

Renjun munched on potato chips before wiping his hands on his pants. “By the way Mark, where were you yesterday? We practiced against the college team and Yukhei looked pretty upset that we were missing a person.”

"Speak of the devil,” Donghyuck muttered. Yukhei, eleven o'clock."

Before he could think of that dreaded name, he heard his voice first.

"Another family affair, right?" Wong Yukhei said. His backpack was slung across his shoulder while he sauntered towards Mark's table. He gulped. Yukhei had been tormenting him since the beginning of time- or just when he moved in with his aunt years past. He always found a way to torment him, and it didn't help that he was promoted to vice president last year. His shirt was crisp while his slacks were neatly pressed. As the vice president of the debate club, he always needed to look his best and keep everyone in line. Unfortunately, he did the second part too well.

"Sorry. I promise that I'll be there next Tuesday." This line was rehearsed, something that took him ages to say without cowering under Yukhei's tall frame.

"I would boot you out of the debate club if I could, but it seems like you're in cahoots with Yeri. And we had a competition-”

“Practice.” Renjun interrupted. He went back to eating food when Yukhei gave him a look.

“You weren't there. You have to remember that this is a commitment, right? Or are you too busy ogling Y/N?” Yukhei’s voice was menacing, and he gulped. Mark felt his cheeks flush.

“You never know what he could be doing,” Donghyuck butted. Mark shook his head. When Donghyuck intervened, things didn’t go well.

“Oh, really like what?” His shadow encompassed him. 

“You know, a lot of clubs have their meets on Tuesday like lacrosse or astronomy or swimming-”

“That would have been a good excuse if the swimming season didn’t end two months ago.” He scoffed. He came closer and closer until Donghyuck blurted.

"Mark knows spiderman!" Mark turned over and stepped on his toe. He let out a yelp before Yukhei smirked.

"Dude, what's the matter with you!" Again with the whisper yelling. Donghyuck raised his shoulders.

"Really, Mark knows spiderman?” His eyebrows were quirked, as if feeding off of the victory that he said it loud enough for you to hear. A few others tuned in, staring at Mark.

“Really Mark, you know spiderman?” Your voice was in awe while your friends whispered among each other.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Mark stumbled.

“If Mark knows spiderman, then why doesn't he come to my winter party." Yukhei's smirk could be the equivalent of the grinch.

“I mean, that party is a month from now-”

“Is that a problem, Mark?” Yukhei’s arms were crossed over his chest, his foot tapping impatiently.

“No, no, it isn’t.”

“Good. Cause I thought that spiderman would be a busy guy with a schedule, so I wanted to make sure that he could come.”

"Oh, he'll be there." Donghyuck said.

"I can’t believe I said that! I could kill you right now!" Mark said when he and Donghyuck were at his house after school.

"It just- it kind of slipped out, I’m so sorry Mark." Donghyuck’s head hung low.

"I can't follow through with this. I'll just not show up and deal with him when I have to go to school the following Monday."

“No, you can’t do that!  You’re going to forfeit your reputation!”

“I’m going to be found out-”

“Well, you’re going to have to change your mind.” 

-

Thursday came, and Mark practically counted the minutes until school let out before he rushed into the school library. He double and triple checked that he had everything he needed to study, zipping and unzipping his backpack in the quietness of the library, earning dirty looks from the librarians.

You came in five minutes later throwing an empty can of club soda before seating yourself at the same table as Mark. He sheepishly greeted you, and you smiled. He didn't remember if he ever told you that he liked your smile.

"Okay before we start studying, we should do some practice problems from the previous chapter," you say, opening the textbook. Mark did the same, and the room was coated in silence except for the rustle of notes and pages from other students sitting at tables and computers working on assignments.

In the background, Mark heard the small portable TV that the librarian had.

"Two nights ago, spiderman came in and saved the day once again! Today, we’re sharing the report again, showing never before seen footage of spiderman up close, caught by the Lemon Bakery in their security cameras at around nine. He caught the criminals in the middle of their act and miraculously survived a small bomb that they set out for him. Luckily, they are in prison awaiting their hearing and sentence. Here we show you the footage that was caught."

“I still can’t believe that you know spiderman. And he’s going to come right?” You set your pencil down, taking a sip from a water bottle while you looked at him curiously.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get to ask him yet since this is a month in advance.”

"I understand. He must be busy, fighting crime. You know,” you say, your eyes glowing. “Spiderman is really brave.”  

"He really is." Mark felt the butterflies in his stomach rise at the indirect comment.

"I kinda start to wonder what really keeps him going. This is dangerous business, and he’s always putting himself in danger for everyone else."

"It could be the people that surround him that he wants to protect." You looked at him, your eyebrows quirked. "I mean, that's probably just an assumption," Mark said quickly.

"If that's the reason, then it's noble one, and I can’t wait to see him. Unless my boss makes me work overtime." You slightly chuckled, flashing Mark a small smile that made the butterflies in his stomach rustle uncontrollably the same way you rustled through the pages in your textbook. "So do you want to go over those practice questions?"

"Sure." Mark looked down at his paper and opened to the same page as you, a small smile forming on his face. His mind was running in circles for a full minute before you continued studying.

“I knew you were going to change your mind,” Donghyuck says at the local burger place at the mall. It was near the clothing store where you worked, Mark learning that after he waited for your ride to show up when you finished studying together. You said that you liked his company and that you should do this more often, making Wednesday and Thursday after school at the library one of the most appealing time of the week. And he hated it when his watch beeped at the end of your second time studying together, and he had to run off, saying that he was going to the bathroom. The words were on his mouth “You know just some crime fighting”, but he never said it out loud. For once he felt normal- you made him feel normal, like a high school student with normal friends, normal family, and a normal life.

“Don’t swim in your victory too much.”

-

“I can’t believe that I’m actually doing this.” Mark said, moving his hand away from the wheel and to his temple. “It’s a bad idea. Do you really think that Yukhei is that dumb?”

“I mean-”

“Okay don’t answer that one. But do you think this plan is actually going to work?”

“It’s simple. Just show up, change into your spidersuit, say hi, Yukhei will be shocked and stop bugging you, and boom,” Donghuck said, “You got Yukhei off your back for the rest of high school. Not to mention Y/N-”

“Is she even going to believe that?”

“I had another plan-”

“Donghyuck, I already told you,” Mark said, exasperation in his voice. “You can’t dress up as me.”

“Why not?” He whined. “You promised to show me your cool stuff.” The car was silent until Mark made it to a red light.

“The suit rejects anyone that isn’t me. If you wore it, it would make an even bigger scene, and Yukhei will be on me for the rest of my life. Not that this alternative plan will get him off of me either.” Mark slowly turned his head to Donghyuck, his eyes angrily squinting. He heard his phone ding in the cup holder and reached out to grab it.  

“Hey!” Donghyuck snapped his fingers. “Eyes on the road. I don’t look like I want to die tonight.”

“At least read it out to me.”

“It’s from Y/N. When did you get her number-”

“Not important. Now what does it say?”

“On my way. On the elevator.”

“So she’s coming.” Mark felt a fresh pang on anxiety grip his stomach.

“It’s not like we can turn back. We’re already here.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Yukhei’s house was actually very nice with towering ceilings and a pool house in the back, closed off for the winter season. Yukhei was known to throw loud parties that seemed like they were asking for visits from the cops when his parents weren’t home, a contrast to his vice president image. Mark wished for a long time that he would get caught in his act for once, but never would he have thought that he would find himself in the line of cars that decorated his driveway.

Donghyuck hopped out of the car and said, “You have the suit, right?”

Mark opened the trunk to reveal his backpack. “But I didn’t bring my crime watch.”

“Relax, it’s one night, nothing is going to happen.” Donghyuck put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and shook him slightly. He strapped his bag on his back and took a deep breath while making his way to the front door. It slightly creaked when he pushed it open, and Mark found himself get hit by the bass the minute he stepped in. Mark was lead by Donghyuck to a table littered by red cups, his head scanning the room for you. It reeked strongly of alcohol, and Mark jumped when he felt his foot squelched against the soaked carpet.

“Donghyuck?” Mark felt Donghyuck brush against him.

“Jaemin! What are you doing here? I thought you were at a taekwondo competition or something? Jaemin was one of Donghyuck’s friends that he knew in passing, having quit debate team before Donghyuck really introduced them. 

“It got cancelled.” Mark could barely hear his voice over the throbbing noise. “I heard about the spiderman thing. Do you really know spiderman?” Jaemin asked, taking a gulp from his cup.

“How do you-” Mark didn’t finish his sentence. It wasn’t supposed to be this big.

“Yukhei posted it on his social media. But really, spiderman?” Jaemin’s eyes were round with awe.

“Yeah, I do.” The words felt odd on Mark’s tongue.

“My younger brother is a huge fan, so I would hate it if he was disappointed. Hey, Jisung!” Jaemin yelled through the music. A taller boy with chestnut hair and a childish face came through the crowd, leaving behind another boy he was talking to.

“You must be Mark. I wanted to say that I love spiderman and all the good he does for this city. So I just had to tell Chenle. You don’t think he would mind if we could get a picture with him, right?”

“No, no,” Mark said, his voice surprisingly high-pitched. “I don’t think that he would mind it at all.” Mark turned his head to Donghyuck, but he only held a thumbs up.

“Good, I brought my good camera with me. See you guys later!” Jaemin stayed, taking another sip from his cup before squeezing Jisung’s cheek affectionately. The younger boy groaned while Jaemin chuckled, waving him and his friend Chenle off. Jaemin chatted with them for a while, taking sips from his seemingly endless beer cup while he listened. It took only fifteen minutes for his words to mesh together incoherently. 

“I’m going to deal with him. I forgot that he drinks like a fish at these things.” Donghyuck put one of Jaemin’s arms around his shoulders and hoisted him to a standing height, earning a groan from him.

“So you’re really just going to leave me alone at this thing? I can’t do this by myself!”

“Well, I just thought that you would want to get changed or see if Y/N is here while I take care of him. I mean, Jaemin is a good friend, but once he has a couple of drinks in him, there’s really no going back.” Mark surveyed the room, looking for a path to a less busy area. “Well, I guess that it’s my time to go. Wish me luck,” Donghyuck took a large swig of some champagne in his red cup before making his way around the house- more specifically to a bathroom. Mark waved at him before making his way around people ambling in the house.

He felt an arm lean on his shoulder.

“So, where’s spiderman?” Yukhei’s breath reeked of alcohol. Mark tried his best for his voice to not sound shaky.

“Oh, he might be a little late. He might be here right now though. I’ll check.” Mark scurried away from Yukhei, finding doors and opening them one by one. Once he found an empty room, he locked the door and changed. Behind him, the TV lulled in the background, playing the news channel.

“Well, breaking news. It seems like the elevator on the ninth floor of the fifth avenue mall connecting Quick burgers and The Clothing Hut has been stuck for what has been thirty-five minutes according to the fifth avenue mall engineering team. According to bystanders there is a teenager working at The Clothing Hut that is in there and the state police have been working to get her out. Closer inspection found that the railings aren’t strong enough to support the elevator for much longer, and this mall will be closed for more inspection afterwards-”

His heart dropped. Not you, please not you, he begged. But it was the only thing that made sense.  

-

His car would take too long and so would a bus since they would go through regular traffic rules. But the only way he could get to the other side of the city to fifth avenue on time was to use his webs. He swung from house after house, building after building until he found himself in the inner city. He dashed through the sidewalks and roads, earning looks and pictures from the civilians walking at around ten thirty at night. It was like whenever he blinked, he could see you biting your nails- a nervous tick he noticed while you studied together-while waiting hopelessly in the elevator, and that alone was the thing that pushed Mark to run faster, swing higher, and jump longer.

The fifth avenue mall had many floors, and the parking lot was filled with firefighters and police officers trying to push away the crowd while others secured the perimeter with security tape. People were being led by other officials out of the building while others yelled “Quarantine!” He only managed to stare for a minute because of the newswoman’s words. Not much longer. He flung his arm to attach the web on the side of the building when he heard someone with a megaphone.

“Spiderman, we assure you that we have the situation under control. It is too dangerous for the inexperienced to work on the elevator, and we already have trained professionals working on getting the teenager-” Mark didn’t listen. Whatever words that he heard were tuned out of his brain. He felt his foot falter and gasped, only to make the mistake of looking down while putting his foot back into a brick crevice. He gulped.

“We need backup. Send the swat team after the teenager and get the rest of the civilians out of the second through eighth stories. Top to bottom.” Mark looked over his shoulder to see firefighters lead people from different stories through working elevators and to the front entrance. 

Mark saw the iconic sign of The Clothing Hut at the ninth floor. He pushed himself through a window to notice that the floor was empty. He ran towards the elevator doors and shoved his fingers into the gap between the doors. He didn’t realize he was bleeding until a few stray drops of blood fell on the floor, and he held his hand, pacing near the elevator. He heard a helicopter behind him, and in a dazed panic, ripped a tile off the floor. He pushed it between the doors and it opened, banging against the sides. Mark couldn’t help but feel his heart beat in his head when he looked at the black abyss below. His feet wanted him to turn back, but his mind still kept him on the edge. He was lost in his own thoughts until he heard metal groan against metal. Your scream only sent needles in his heart.

Mark looked below to see the ceiling of the elevator torn off to reveal your face, pale as a sheet while you tried to take deep breaths. Mark cleared his throat, deepening his voice.

“Hold still. Don’t make any big move-” The rails groaned again. Your muscles were tense. 

He moved downward, wrapping his spider webs around the elevator door while his other hand shot around the elevator box. He tightened the ends together and tried to move up. His squeezed his eyes shut while he moved upward, but another creak resulted. Mark was dragged down another five feet when you gasped. He felt his breath leave his throat. He tried again, but it was too heavy for him. He instead found his back skidding against the vertical hallway, foot by foot. His blood ran cold when he heard a snap.

“No!” He bellowed while you screamed. He shot his spiderwebs, and you caught it, the elevator making a loud bang when it hit the floor. Your mouth was agape. Mark descended once again each step making him more nervous while your body shook like a leaf. Mark took shallow breaths, each breath signalling him to extend his web and move another foot downward. Breathe, extend, move. A pattern. He was knocked out of his pattern when his web caught something. 

“Spiderman! Look out!” He heard a pop from his other hand, falling. Mark could feel his ears bleed at the way the elevator door rubbed against the door frame. Mark felt his arm thud on the floor, while your hands covered your face.

He was alive. You were alive.

“His spider webs broke the fall, and Spiderman was able to save the day once again!” A reporter said while other people were swarming him outside. He answered a few questions, and law enforcement eventually made people leave in order to quarantine the place.

You approached him from behind, your hand playing with the rings on your other fingers.

“I just wanted to say thank you for saving me. I remember this one thing my friend said that you do this for the people around you. That’s really noble.”

“Thank you,” Mark didn’t say anything else. He didn’t know what to say. So in any spiderman fashion, he did what he always did after a job was done. 

He ran.

But he didn’t notice you follow him.

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[dressupdressshopp]

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RESTROOM SHE DOES I DO NOT TRUST A Fishing I Love A Good Pole Dance Vintage T Shirt POLITICIAN WITHOUT CHILDREN WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THAT I DON’T KNOW MAYBE MAYBE TO USE HARRIS’S OWN WORDS MAYBE SHE WAS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18 AND 24 MAYBE SHE DID SOME DUMB THINGS THAT MAY OR START STERILE STERILE YOU FROM YOU IS THAT DUMB THINGS ALL THEY SAID OH NO THEY SELL THEIR EGGS IN ALL THEY SELL MONEY YOU GET WHEN WHO KNEW THAT THE YOUNG YES I SO SOMETIMES THEY DO SOME DUMB THINGS I DON’T KNOW I DON’T KNOW I HAVE WHY SHE NEVER HAD ANY CHILDREN SHE’S PROBABLY STERILE SOMETIMES A WOMAN MAY NOT BE STERILE SOMETIMES THEY SIMPLY DON’T WANT CHILDREN SOMETIMES YOU HAVE WOMEN WEAR SOME STERILIZE THEM AND IT WAS NOT THEIR DESIRE TO BE STERILIZE YET IS YOU THAT BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA NOT JUST AMERICA BUT THEY BEEN STERILIZE HYSTERECTOMIES WHERE THAT THE UNIVERSE IS REMOVED SO HARRIS A STORY I DON’T KNOW BUT YOU ALSO NOT REALIZED THAT MICHELLE OBAMA HER TWO DAUGHTERS WERE BORN OF SURROGATE MOTHER SURROGATE MOTHER SO I DON’T KNOW THE WHOLE STARTING MAN OKAY SO AND. Make sure to litigate the fact that check this out boysand we didand he didn’t affect his idea about this movieand were discussing the going on with all is after a while what we started I get taken it seriously does realize it was a pretty cool idea about you taking to the movieand fit in with the overall song is pretty basic idea songs about the bookand a movie after that the state tells that little guy with a box on the day he now cool to do it with like when you concept with it also noticed with in a sanity is yet a concept that’s really only telling half of itand then do so many things about videos I think that we still don’t know that work learning about things you do when you like I did get all with different visual things he can do with blending thingsand all the crap that were like complete newand weird so you know the idea was that it was pretty cooland the whole way was put together that’s what made it work very focused trialand message to the family until incurring the going anti now seems to be the site awareand you know Texas about which were by yearand a half takes us you know which is about six months offand then the we start writing salsa wood on the recordsand longed to year is three years already so it seems to be what we can stuck in right now so you know only on 94 is taking time with anything you know you want to just write in the mechanic at the money now to make sure that it’s rightand how long you’re in the studio always causing as much oh my God you know in the long run it is really matter if you’re happy with the workand six month break we definitely needed after that long to her in writing materialand we take pride in his chair out in a 30 sauceand pick up 12 best whatever caseand it would To finally write daily life cannot be fairly quick actually clicked by standards I think the whole brining process took about eight weeks eight weeks premature never saw him it was quiteand I was just like been three years last on the ideas are stacking up was just kind of taking eight months offand all that was really an email the right thing to do because when we can actually like really gung hoand going for some pretty much the right thing to do is fill out we get a couple must account a jam onand I was the cool thing we didn’t get to do that on some of the other albums you have a few of them readyand we all jam togetherand go in the studioand still be writing stuff for the other guys never even played it with us so you two is about the stars maker is a risk can safely say that this lonely can add them off a couple monthsand generally settled in to see where they were going all the vocal stuff is almost ready to go to the next phrasing so when you can where the song was sitting helps like with each person doing drum step by step on the vocals of time things it was the first time that we ever actually counted with a producerand somebody else was kind of like weird at first light when the rehearsal roomand the site guys in the room taking notes of my of those scary first couple days but got comfortable with that he was just as great you really changed much around the song line but it was good that somebody can fit throwing ideas can blend almost like what other bands do refining is a no signing they want a lot of things I regret like a year later Lindsay like the last couple years just to open up your mind to different things got to go with what feels like you can’t worry about what you said four years ago in an interview in Langley look at things differentlyand get olderand obviously felt thing I was even like it was like a list of people that was just like well it is Bob rock on it we should meet him so we flew upand then was not like a huge thing to me does not like people history something being forced upon us by management a record company payroll very happy that we finally sort of look outside todayand for somebody else to help with planning unit was never really a producer in the classic sense of how worried he was more like a technical for super engineer Canada push the buttonand when really cannot say in there this amino real Canada coaching he said at a counter is not a performance oriented which I think it became apparent to those who really needed somebody to start helping us get some life into Iraq Tinaand him Bob makes pretty lively records flooding knew what we wanted sound wise the sign performs at an early screw this I thought I could fulfill that the way you really knew what is supposed to doand the producer does is makes you sound more like you not not taking Bon Jovi ideasand put them on this band is not his thing in pulling the best of value being object from a different way you might sitand go you know how I want to know what they did because you like in the middle of tracking is something like they just can’t step outside yourselfand can looking for somebody like Bob really helpful when Canadian what is your afterand then when you feel that okay now this guy understands what it is whereafter then you can leave it with you Dominicans were a lot more about performancesand going for them the engines were about overseeingand making no major decision you know cannot about that kind of stuff so it can lilies of us to deal with potential to greatly justify the ones we didn’t trust him it took a little while when you finally say this guy knows aware what we want do is wake upand it was cool in any so that the couple weeks but I’m low levels strain theand domestic fail taband select thought unknown failing to agree that is little will pull the simple timing the simplicity of it all you hear the easy things to Gary register saw a different approach to songwriting in a different thing to go for production wising a lot of people have been shown the last couple weeks is easier record to Mason to mechanic say that you know suggesting a contrived thing but the thing is when you have a different approach the way you write the songsand you have like she almost like enjoy yourself when you’re playing that comes across like a different feeling record before then I think all those things make it easier listen to is not sent down to make a record that is you listen to dislike were like having fun in all this attitudeand then comes through in the planeand that makes it easy for you listen to cannot be part of what we trying to deny me heavy load that isolates the styleand how the law last think we really try a lot of that stuff a lot more self conscious if I comes up interviews afterwards sitting somebody throw the question is what you want we do that will make you know we just do things you would always wanted to do things differently than what a lot everybody else is doing sometimes might look at somebody elseand discounted subconsciously save your cell wall maybe things will be differentand wanted to spend a go this way for a while is not to vilify myself interviewsand talking about it seems like what we do things happen in people always want answers afterwards weird analyze something that doesn’t really take a lot when it is taught is getting together you mean it will fit adult looks like shorter songsand conversation taken off five seconds like arthritis source out okay in a letter to this okay like you know 30 seconds later why do you think of things that contain one more more answers in England but anywhere else What would you think about all this concept that’s happening the mine would get sand shooting a band engineering band shooting us never a big fan of being shot but the video cameras okay you get you get professionals out there that their little jaded with all that hailand put my mark on this with thisand this is my styleand that I well anybody really if you’ve been doing it long enough you you develop a styleand it’s kind of hard to break out of that the fans shoot from that basically she was able to see so it makes total sense one thing that people can be curious about the tatsand dumb I was just wondering what you had any that you could maybe briefly show whatever it’s a good bit of the story about what it’s in the means to you yet while I mean these guys here first of all means but through my time of the country infatuated with Angelsand just the the next afterlife or somethingand you know my parents leaving us are earlier than others having some kind of guide in my life because I know I like I should’ve died hundreds of timesand I’m not the only one but I can only speak for myself that I know there are things like after I’ve done something like that was really stupid I could like man made my mom or dad or somebody is it made made car turn this way instead or somethingand it’s it’s kinda nice to see those those are realize those things this is my higher power this is an angel bringing the gift of music to me these are actually my hands the the tattoo artist Jack Rudy he he took a Polaroid of my handsand then he copied him so that’s meand struggle this is the angel bringing me music to help me through the fireand this in Latin is don’t die which means gift from God so this one is besides my kids namesand all of the other many of obviously are not meanings but this one is pretty importantand then Cliff you know this is cleverly Burtonand this is the middle bit 20 Ryan the base part delete duty duty do it on right those people find it hard enough to stop drinking like you to win stresses alive around the I know I my battle leaving the bottle way too often some like yourself who has a polygon the US scrutinized by people unfairly whatever like what you kept you going to be Abba to do to do what he can do what you did set deck can’t be an easy thing is it is tough inand learn in certain tools is important to be on the road especially while you are nowadays there’s a lot more bands out there that the bottles not that important to them or the drug or the smoke of the whatever the checks into whatever it is that sidetrack you a lot is not as important as it seems as it used to be but yeah can be challenging on the stuff they’re sitting right in front of you know in them for me is it I’m not really haven’t been really good at long term goals in healthand long term happiness is was always pretty foreign to me to be happy right now I want it now is I feel like shitand into the drain chair that whatever was always a quick quick fix to use it but if I want to if I want to miss it if I eat off of five of five feed the dog that says this was so great remembering this or if I feed the dog that says do look how great your life is right now look at the crap that you used to be in the know this that depends on how you look at itand I know I could I could I could go back in things up pretty quick quickand I don’t need to do that so but also you went you know the criticizing that the public guide of things like that it really depends on my mood is on a really good mood I can I can take anything at any time but if I’m feeling a little insecure little tired or look hungry or whatever it is or just know fraid from the roadand that’s why we don’t go out for such long periods of time as you do you start to get fraid in your head starts to swell you think you’re greater than you are in all of this stuffand I could do whatever I wantand then all of a sudden you don’t do stuff I don’t need to be doing so keep in keep in the tour legs shorter has helped a lotand in all the criticism he has is people are people man you know were no greater than each other we get the same size souland were trying to try to feel happy nor trying to feel loved simple as thatand some people think if they could put someone else down they feel a little more the ego comforts them a little bit I know what that’s like mad so I I contributed to that psychologist being like that now you know get nothing to do with me so been able to tick tenant let it bounce off it is sometimes difficult but that’s the tool I like to use what is it that so that prevents you from some straying away from you telling it there there there are two sites me on that the one side is I’m so happy here I get to write whatever I want to I just wrote an intro to my apocalypse last weekand we played at the concert the other night all this is awesome is a lot of freedom if you let it you know that is a lot of times when we all can it get hung up on each otherand want to try this is like wool may be no way you know this the democraciesand and now I got step backand think second level maybe that’s best that’s best for us for not all in agreement with it let’s not do it man you know or management thinks while this is maybe a bad idea likeand fighting a little bit on itand then click well wherever the passion is I’ll believe you probably be on that the true passion is the keyand that is that we go with that so obviously enough of that in the band to be Abba to the sustain you without taking to the credit elsewhere I think I keep trying to do stuff outside of it you even feel like writing nothing else matters that was not metallic I was not gonna be from attackand I was just meand my head in my know misery for a whileand they heard itand said he ring it onand so it seems like anything is able to be metallic now which is fine as the other side of me this like well you know they’re keeping me know management doesn’t me to do this because it’s affecting the name of the band so I can’t do what I want here in theand he gets gets it gets single mindedand this does notand I know that’s not the right thing to do you know we got a great thing going here is this this part of me that thinks you know as soon as somebody goes offand does a side projectand how I don’t take them seriously anymoreand not not to knock other bands but say it you must let not Corey amazing from an amazing singer please don’t really know which band e zine at the moment you know he’s got so many things going onand if that’s you knowand I can’t I certainly won’t judge him on that if the if it’s maybe it’s maybe he’s doing that to survive maybe the money thing is tough or who knows what it is but maybe not getting in all the stuff that he needs to get in but that’s his that’s his journey I don’t I know I would much rather I think I think I think dedicationand loyalty it was a long way with me what album to you like what you a young kid was one of those outlets I said this is this is my calling man like what the hell is this a guardian more of it by add abuse set black Sabbath no one out of all the records in my brother’s record collection my my my brothers 10 years older than I he was in a bandand he had all kinds of albumsand email from Jethro told of the Beatles to whatever all this other stuff in a put on black Sabbath that was that was pretty much it like Sabbath like Sabbath you self taught here had the first album put it onand it was while this is differentand I like this you know this is got some cool it’s got some ball this got some heaviness it’s got a little bit of scariness in there but as its next level you know it’s is taking it a step further this is just not regular bouncy rock this is the highlight of the way this has this has emotion behind it says howand help our fear whatever it really has to do with your roots man when you’re growing up that stuff so importantand it’s so impressionable on you so everyone has that in their lifeand whatever bandit is at that time you know for my wife it’s no Phil Collins that’s okay it moves her that she reminds her of stuff of her teen years or something that she connects withand goes while I can ground myself in his music for me going back listening to Sabbath listening to Skynyrd listening to UFO listening to priest listening to early maiden stuff like that it does that it does that for me with your proudest track that you overwritten personally itself that’s difficult question because I think we’ve all we’ve all accomplished some great things that with different feels there are some songs that we cannot forget about that I think are pretty amazing I think leading me is one of those moments I think outlaw torn I think the picture you a little bit of those epic E in a with its cut instrumentals with lyrics really there is I’d say the third verse in unforgiven to is a distant when it when it breaks downand there’s that way around land where you know the little law plane is parting from Bob Roxio in the lawand second were professional now it sounds like it’s almost Jimmy page you know so where we were entering the realm of zeppelin at that pointand not pretty proud of that to this easy to most of them going on stage he says something which is up to the back your head that use of sale as you used to be afraid of on the stage but obviously five that yeah water afraid of drowning them out I would say I think all of us together used to be a lot more scared to be okay with no wrong to be wrong were playing just a variation on the album you can get away or you can just say hey I felt it my best I try my bestand that’s all I can do if it was you know 30 in Russia when we played that soloing in my fingers froze up that’s as good as I could do work at my throat was swollen shut like that I’m trying to say nothing else matters I did my best so I think were a little bit better at accepting how things are in the I’d say the thing I’m most afraid of his probably like something like my back going out something like that on stage wishes like you go downand then the wheelchair comes up at the stretcher SCA will make this one up you know you don’t like making gigs upand I’ve kinda been the one who’s been making everyone else make up most the gigs with’s broken arms are catching on fire backs going out or eating bad oysters yeah that’s actually not remembering something on the website about that is like you seem to have that strength that you two way this way keep on going to get the fuck right train rolling while your bestand if it we can do a show you where human at the end of the day if we can’t will make it upand that’s the best we can doand if people travel a long time ways you know to come to that show that they can’t make it the other dates it’s a bummer but it’s part of life in can be superhuman fuel questions always late but yet thank you I really appreciate on really hope they show guys wealthy guys next to not something awesome displaying a part of everything he liked the three days of living doing this with Chaffin Vicki’s it’s it’s been great also experience I really had tends out good looks greatand stuffed as is Le Havre so that ion thanks again Bob we we dignified man we we love having fans come from all over the placeand it’s no snow short swim man for youand others you know we appreciate thatand the dedication that you guys have for usand you know this is upand spread the word of this to good vibes man in a row to have some fun absolutely thinking that if I had to have a right has to get going even investors came to the aliases Celia McKim on again the 20 validated on the task I have lensesand interviewand married okay to a economic spaceand shows NAM Davis been POC for a movie steadfast but it still see pod people answered all the others in their bestand send them in is a public heand Elder can set up it was in a deal of schedulingand reforming a few of spirituality staying here always in a suit all lost key to get the M Solvay spitting us to form signify such assets need to lean in in in some industrial opportunism it could since it will start to buy on a naming scam it’s speeded in dust beneath these needless to all of you to be ancient veins set aside a DEA area today is okay piano I think is a is the government will be seen as that come to an Anita lost the was awarded mainand said that Kindle edition one minute station shows two super massive be the people at on the lobby wasand for scabies cleaning today get some stated that in some cities to diabetesand take other people in schedule started I put sword at the UK the putting she showed on CD you know you need made. 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[tolkien-in-beleriand]

so a number of people is curious about PhD here in Brazil and as I have nothing else I want to do right now let me tell you about it

I’ll talk about the two processes I went through for my PhD (masters is kinda the same but a bit simpler)

as I already told you here in Brazil the best universities are free, it’s kinda hard to get in but if you do you have the best education available in the country and chances are you will get some kind of scholarship. in my case as I am poor as hell I had a scholarship since first year of grad school and also a place to live. yes, I was paid to live in a nice city away from my abusive family and to study in the best program of my field in Brazil

then came the masters in which I also had a scholarship

and then the nightmare begins

see as part of my scholarship I had to finish my masters in two years. what does it mean? it means that in my second year I was writing my masters dissertation, finishing papers, preparing for qualification, then argumentation, writing my PhD project and preparing for the PhD tests

and of course as you probably know by now I love complicating things so I applied for two PhDs programs. why? only God knows, but I did. now each university has its own way to deal with PhDs applications so I’ll tell you about the two kinds of tests I had to go through

first my home university:

first you write a project. 20 pages. must have: abstract, key words, title, introduction, methodology, cronogram of activities, bibliographic references. it must present a certain novelty in the idea, they want something new, a thesis (that I will later prove right or wrong in 200 to 300 pages). my thesis was basically “Fantasy is a literature genre and it IS NOT the same as fantastic literature (don’t get me started - I wrote a PhD thesis about it but I’m still bitter)”

you need to hand this project in September. then in October is the written test. in our field the written test (in this particular university, as I said it varies) is: they pick a literary topic, that is a surprise only reveled to us mortals the day and hour of the test, and we have four hours to write an essay about it, in a room like an exam, no researches allowed. the topic in my year was History and Literature. then they grade the essay 0-10 and you need at least a 7 to go to next phase.

fine, now the few people who got the 7 go to phase “analyzing the project”. you get a grade on that too. and you need a 7 to pass as well.

then if you are lucky enough to have your project accepted you go to phase “interview” when a board will make all kinds of questions about your study, project, plans, you know... to make sure you were the one who wrote the thing and know what you’re talking about (I just need to mention here that at my interview they said my project was perfect and made 0 questions because, and I quote, “we know your trajetory and we know what you are capable of and no one else studies Fantasy Literature here”)

then they grade the interview. if you didn’t get at least a 7 bye bye bird, it doesn’t matter if your project was perfect and you aced the written test, it’s goodbye

after this they add all the scores and divide by something and if your final score is below 7, that’s goodbye too.

then you need to do the language test because oh yes YOU DO NEED TO KNOW TWO FOREIGN LANGUAGES to be accepted in any PhD program here.

and that’s it for my first application. I passed first place. usually the good programs gets scholarships and our program was very good so we had like six scholarships every year for sure and then maybe more. they give the scholarships according to the final score so yep I got it

but... when I traveled for my second PhD application I still didn’t have any of my scores, I didn’t even know if I had passed the written test and let me tell you I was desperate and honest to God terrified I wouldn’t pass

anyway, now process number two:

they make things quite different there and they are way more demanding so I was just really terrifie that I would end the year with a crappy masters and no PhD perspective.

first test they do is the language one, a translation and ooooh boi do I hate translating stuff. but it was okay, I wasn’t worried about that part. the system there was very different. while at my home university the process was spread through months, here you had three days of tests and if you failed the first day you are not even invited for the next day. again, you need 7 to pass.

so first day: language test, 52 people applying. 20 passed for day two, me included.

second day, written test. I knew they had a different style from my home university but I was not prepared for that. they gave you 10 questions, all about literature. you had to pick five and answer. so you kinda had to write 5 mini essays on 5 different topics and the questions were like “in the page 25 of the essay Memory in Baudelaire by Walter Benjamin the author express a view on how experience play a central part in the story of the narrative genre. comment on that.”

one of them was to “comment on” the trajetory of the novel as a genre. I read the 10 questions then I started laughing. then I noticed the Professor in the class was the one I wanted as my supervisor there (she is like a big deal in Fantasy studies), the one who, in two months, would be in the board of my masters argumentation. I started crying. so much. I had to be escorted to the bathroom to “calm down”. well, I thought, it’s over, I better not even come back to the exam room and save me the embarrassment of looking the Professor in the eyes. but I couldn’t do that. I had to at least convince myself that I did everything I could. so I went back and started answering the ones I thought I had a shot at. we had four hours too and after doing my darnest to answer 4 questions I wanted to die before having to answer one more. so I chose the novel one because, you know it’s not that hard to trace a genealogy of the novel as a genre. but I was so tired. so incrediby tired and I thought I won’t pass anyway so I might as well have some fun. and friends, what did I do? I wrote a mini novel where my protagonist was the novel “living” through all its phases. I can’t remember a word of that but I did it.

when I was back to the hotel I started crying so much and felt so guilty, I was sure I would fail both programs. next morning the result would be on campus and honestly I only went there because I had spent too much money to just ignore the result, I would never have peace if I didn’t check. but I was really really sure I didn’t pass so I checked out the hotel, got into a taxi, asked him to take me to campus for two minutes, so I could check a thing, and then he could take me to the station

ooooh I have no words to describe my happiness when I looked to a list of FIVE names who had got through to the next phase and my name was there.

I still can’t believe it and until this day I wonder what kind of crap did people write because they considered my “novel is a protagonist of a novel” answer over other 15????

anyway so I was happy but fucked because I had checked out the hotel so I had no place to go and the interview would be only at 5pm so there I was full of bags wandering around the campus waiting for my interview.

interview time: board with two fucking specialists in the Fantasy field and an ass who thinks she is above this. I was very nervous, they asked a bunch of questions about my project (oh yeah I forgot to say you had to hand a project like in the other uni and it is considered part of your application as well) and then... last question... from the ass “why do you consider fantasy as literature” I froze, the other two smiled (they knew my reputation). I want to murder that woman. why do I consider fantasy as literature? WHY?? son of a motherfucking bitch. so I smile*** and ask “what do you study?” she answers “Goethe” with an air of superiority. I say “oh I love Goethe, he is magnificent and the way he.... bla bla bla” I was just showing off. then I say “now think about why you consider Goethe literature. that’s your answer.” I want to say that if I had a mic I would drop it but nah... if I had a mic I would probably make that bitch eat it.

they didn’t have score there, you only passed or failed. I passed. one of five. from 52. I got a scholarship there too, but I decided to stay home. my supervisor at my uni was amazing and a wonderful person and so so smart and funny and he is in a band and is super cool and nerdy, also one of my best friends and one of the most successful translators in Brazil

so yes. this is two of the possibles processes you can go through to get in a top PhD program. and that friends is the easy part. seriously, masters and doctorates are exhausting and it breaks you. neurotypicals get mental illnesses because of it and honest to God I don’t know how I managed it. neither does my doctors. no, actually I know. it was spite.

*** funny story: because of an incident in my masters interview, before my PhDs interviews my supervisor called me to “teach me how to interact with stupid people”. he basically told me I was not supposed to laugh at a stupid question, I was not supposed to death stare the board after a stupid question and, of course, I was not allowed to get up and leave. because I did all that in my masters interview and almost didn’t get into the program. then he made me pretend he was the board talking shit and I had to smile and take notes. his words “it doesn’t matter if you are writing a curse and planning that person’s murder, smile and take notes.”

in my defence I did all that because in my masters interview a Professor asked me if I knew that Tolkien was an author who died in the 70s and that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t just a movie. after I laughed and asked if she was joking she got mad and then I tried to explain that yes, I did in fact know that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born in January 3rd, 1892 and dead in September, 2nd, 1973, was an author and wrote the book called The Lord of the Rings who inspired Peter Jackson’s trilogy. then I pointed out that my study had nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings, book or movie. I was in fact studying Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” and how critics point out The Lord of the Rings as the base of moderny fantasy without noting that Tolkien himself wrote the theory I consider the foundation of fantasy as a genre. then she said “that was done before” and I said “no it wasn’t, surprisingly enough people never came to this conclusion until now” and she looked me in the eyes and asked “are you sure? did you do a deep and careful research on the matter?” and I said “yes I did” and I swear to God she asked “did you try google it?”

yep I just got up and left. did I try google??? are you fucking serious? yes I did, when I wasn’t even at the uni yet you moron. google. can you believe it? I was reading papers from Oxford and Cambridge and this ass ask me if I used google.

I had a very bad score at my masters interview but my supervisor loved it anyway.

so that’s it. I hope it helps to have an idea how things work around here.

#phdblr #phd #masters #academic life #long post #very loooong post

[roundtwowiththeblue]

Hello.

I’m a bit nervous, truthfully. You see, I’ve been reading up a lot about autism/Aspergers in women and everything I’ve read makes a whole lot of sense to me. So much so, in fact, that it makes me wonder why I was never diagnosed earlier. Why I slipped under the radar as a child and now in my early 30s that I’m finding all of this stuff out on my own. Of course, I can’t go for a diagnosis because of personal reasons, but I just need people to talk to who are like me.

I’ve never been great at social interaction. Most of my young life I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I tried to fit in desperately, even giving up pieces of myself to try to be ‘normal’ and make friends. I had trouble with speaking to kids my own age and found that I got along better with teachers instead of students. More often than not I would be reading books instead of talking to others. I’d watch more than I would play. 

I was bullied often for liking other things or being different. I loved video games and comic books, and wrestling shows, instead of dolls and girly things. Sure, I had dolls because I thought that’s what I needed to like, but that was about it. I didn’t really like them. As you can tell by my title, Sonic has been in my life since I was six years old. I can infodump about the franchise to exhausting degree and know pretty much everything about him, the series, and SEGA. He and the series have been my special interest for almost all of my life.

Of course, I learned a valuable lesson about trends when I was in school. At one time Pokemon was all the rage (I’m dating myself here) and for that entire year I fit in a bit, but when the next school year had rolled around, no one talked about it anymore. I still loved it. I had a bookbag, almost all 150 Pokemon, shirts, shoes. But I was laughed at with other kids saying, “You still like Pokemon? Grow up.” But it was just the year before. 

So, I did the only logical thing in my brain and got rid of it all. Everything. Cards, bookbag, shirts. Everything. I regretted it because I still liked it, but I buried it to fit in. 

When my teenage years came around, my mom started introducing me to makeup, and frilly clothes, dresses, skirts. I hated it all. I tried wearing makeup, I did, but it was so uncomfortable. It made my skin itch. It was horrible and no matter what I couldn’t itch my face or else I would smear it. Most of the time I ended up in the school bathroom washing it off my face because I couldn’t take it anymore. I rarely, if at all, wear makeup. 

As for clothes, I tended to still wear tee shirts, hoodies, and jeans. I hated skirts, dresses, and hose. I tended to shy away from girlish things because they were severely uncomfortable. I would shop in the boy's section for band shirts, video game apparel, jeans that were baggy. The only thing I kept was my long hair, and even then I wanted to cut it off several times because of how much time it took to care for. Yet, it was a habit that I wanted to keep the hair for at least one feminine thing. 

I had my routines, shows I would always watch, times I would always get up for school. I enjoyed choir and attended it every single year. I had very few friends that were girls because they would talk about makeup and celeb crushes. I often talked about video games and comic books, and my crushes were always different. I liked computers and typing, and just things that didn’t fit. I was thought of several times as being a lesbian just because of my attire and mannerisms. I liked boys though, all of my celeb crushes or comic book/video game crushes were men. 

I learned to keep my special interests mostly to myself unless someone asked about them. I was told often of how unladylike I was. How I needed to change and stop acting a certain way, be better. I tried several times, but wound up very unhappy and went back to being myself. I ended up keeping to myself more to avoid being called out for my flaws. 

Later, I found it even harder to socialize. My emotions were not what was expected, and as I came into my adult years I still was told to grow up and it felt like no one was understanding me at all. With limited resources, I just kept being myself and tried to make myself more social amongst others. I had a few jobs that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but it was expected of me since I was an adult to get a job and socialize. 

After that, I finally was able to get into a relationship and get married. My husband, God bless him, understands me to a certain extent and he also helps with a lot of my anxieties, fears, and he loves me for me. 

Yet, recently I’ve been at odds because I love to research things in my spare time and, well, Autism came up from a few blogs I follow. Specifically, Aspergers before it was squeezed into the Autism spectrum. I read a lot of it, and it fits me. It makes me feel validated and gives me relief like I’ve never known before. It gives a voice to my over-anxious and exhausting need to analyze everything, even hours after it happened. It explains my nail-biting in my younger years which has led to leg shaking and now loose skin picking on the sides of my fingers. (These were, and some still are, my stims). 

It explains how I feel things more strongly emotionally. It explains my aversion to certain loud noises including thunder, power tools, snoring, insect buzzing, and certain music genres. It explains my anxieties, my fears, my inability to concentrate at times. It explains my need to make lists in my head, follow a schedule during events, anxiety to stay on budget. My need to sit a certain way at restaurants. My like of certain foods, and my exhaustion socially when I want to leave or other people to leave. It explains my phone anxiety, I hate making calls and someone else often does it for me. 

I just really want to know that I’m not alone...And it’s taking me a lot to finally put this out there and speak to others because I’ve been afraid that if I’m not officially diagnosed, or can’t get one, that I’m not really autistic and my thoughts and feelings are invalid. 

#women autism #adult woman autism #finding myself #aspergers in women #aspie #others like me #need to talk #nervous hello #anxious #autism woman #autisic woman #self diagnosed autism #autistic women

[round2withtheblue]

Hello

I’m a bit nervous, truthfully. You see, I’ve been reading up a lot about autism/Aspergers in women and everything I’ve read makes a whole lot of sense to me. So much so, in fact, that it makes me wonder why I was never diagnosed earlier. Why I slipped under the radar as a child and now in my early 30s that I’m finding all of this stuff out on my own. Of course, I can’t go for a diagnosis because of personal reasons, but I just need people to talk to who are like me.

I’ve never been great at social interaction. Most of my young life I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I tried to fit in desperately, even giving up pieces of myself to try to be ‘normal’ and make friends. I had trouble with speaking to kids my own age and found that I got along better with teachers instead of students. More often than not I would be reading books instead of talking to others. I’d watch more than I would play.

I was bullied often for liking other things or being different. I loved video games and comic books, and wrestling shows, instead of dolls and girly things. Sure, I had dolls because I thought that’s what I needed to like, but that was about it. I didn’t really like them. As you can tell by my title, Sonic has been in my life since I was six years old. I can infodump about the franchise to exhausting degree and know pretty much everything about him, the series, and SEGA. He and the series have been my special interest for almost all of my life.

Of course, I learned a valuable lesson about trends when I was in school. At one time Pokemon was all the rage (I’m dating myself here) and for that entire year I fit in a bit, but when the next school year had rolled around, no one talked about it anymore. I still loved it. I had a bookbag, almost all 150 Pokemon, shirts, shoes. But I was laughed at with other kids saying, “You still like Pokemon? Grow up.” But it was just the year before.

So, I did the only logical thing in my brain and got rid of it all. Everything. Cards, bookbag, shirts. Everything. I regretted it because I still liked it, but I buried it to fit in.

When my teenage years came around, my mom started introducing me to makeup, and frilly clothes, dresses, skirts. I hated it all. I tried wearing makeup, I did, but it was so uncomfortable. It made my skin itch. It was horrible and no matter what I couldn’t itch my face or else I would smear it. Most of the time I ended up in the school bathroom washing it off my face because I couldn’t take it anymore. I rarely, if at all, wear makeup.

As for clothes, I tended to still wear tee shirts, hoodies, and jeans. I hated skirts, dresses, and hose. I tended to shy away from girlish things because they were severely uncomfortable. I would shop in the boy’s section for band shirts, video game apparel, jeans that were baggy. The only thing I kept was my long hair, and even then I wanted to cut it off several times because of how much time it took to care for. Yet, it was a habit that I wanted to keep the hair for at least one feminine thing.

I had my routines, shows I would always watch, times I would always get up for school. I enjoyed choir and attended it every single year. I had very few friends that were girls because they would talk about makeup and celeb crushes. I often talked about video games and comic books, and my crushes were always different. I liked computers and typing, and just things that didn’t fit. I was thought of several times as being a lesbian just because of my attire and mannerisms. I liked boys though, all of my celeb crushes or comic book/video game crushes were men.

I learned to keep my special interests mostly to myself unless someone asked about them. I was told often of how unladylike I was. How I needed to change and stop acting a certain way, be better. I tried several times, but wound up very unhappy and went back to being myself. I ended up keeping to myself more to avoid being called out for my flaws.

Later, I found it even harder to socialize. My emotions were not what was expected, and as I came into my adult years I still was told to grow up and it felt like no one was understanding me at all. With limited resources, I just kept being myself and tried to make myself more social amongst others. I had a few jobs that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but it was expected of me since I was an adult to get a job and socialize.

After that, I finally was able to get into a relationship and get married. My husband, God bless him, understands me to a certain extent and he also helps with a lot of my anxieties, fears, and he loves me for me.

Yet, recently I’ve been at odds because I love to research things in my spare time and, well, Autism came up from a few blogs I follow. Specifically, Aspergers before it was squeezed into the Autism spectrum. I read a lot of it, and it fits me. It makes me feel validated and gives me relief like I’ve never known before. It gives a voice to my over-anxious and exhausting need to analyze everything, even hours after it happened. It explains my nail-biting in my younger years which has led to leg shaking and now loose skin picking on the sides of my fingers. (These were, and some still are, my stims).

It explains how I feel things more strongly emotionally. It explains my aversion to certain loud noises including thunder, power tools, snoring, insect buzzing, and certain music genres. It explains my anxieties, my fears, my inability to concentrate at times. It explains my need to make lists in my head, follow a schedule during events, anxiety to stay on budget. My need to sit a certain way at restaurants. My like of certain foods, and my exhaustion socially when I want to leave or other people to leave. It explains my phone anxiety, I hate making calls and someone else often does it for me.

I just really want to know that I’m not alone…And it’s taking me a lot to finally put this out there and speak to others because I’ve been afraid that if I’m not officially diagnosed, or can’t get one, that I’m not really autistic and my thoughts and feelings are invalid.

#aspie #aspie woman #autistic women #self diagnosed autism #others like me #am i valid

[aka-willow]

Heroes, Pt. 3

gif 1 gif 2

Words: 1732

Characters: Willow Wren, Jessica Jones, Kilgrave, Trish Walker, Jeri Hogarth

Prompt/Tag: “Well, that’s tragic.” x  /

Summary: Willow reveals her past while trying to discover Kilgrave’s

Timeline: April 2015

Song: Heroes – Peter Gabriel

A/N: Part 3/4

—————————————————————————–

“I’m sorry, so who are you?” Trish asks me later, as Jessica continues to rewind and replay the final moments of the fight on the camera. “And how old are you?”

“I’m Willow,” I say. “I’m in eighth grade.”

“Jesus, Jessica,” says Trish. “Why is she here?”

“Don’t let her fool you,” says Jessica. “You know the Manhattan Angel everyone was talking about? Yeah, that’s her.”

“Wait,” says Trish. “No.”

“Yup,” Jessica says dryly.

“So,” says Trish, lowering her voice. “She actually flies?”

“I’m right here,” I say.

“Sorry, Willow,” says Trish. “I mean, can you?”

I squirm at the question, and even my wings draw themselves tighter into the sides of my spine. “Yeah.”

I can tell that she wants to ask more questions, people always do, but she falls quiet. Jessica takes a swig from a bottle and replays the video yet again.

“He didn’t have to tell me to do a goddamn thing and he had all the control,” says Jessica.

“Got to admire his commitment,” I say, as we rewatch Kilgrave take hit after hit.

Jessica sighs. “Look at that.” She hits play again and scoffs. “Even I feel sorry for him. I just helped his case.” She takes another drink. “I’m such an idiot,” she says and clicks on Kilgrave’s childhood video again, like she’s turning on Netflix. Kilgrave’s eyes open.

“What if we just walked out of here right now?” Trish asks. “Locked the door and never came back. Just left him. Hope could take the deal. I have enough money to get anyone far away.”

Yeah, you know what? I could almost be on board with that. Wait, no. Could I?

“Trish…” Jessica starts.

“I mean it. As long as he has your attention, as long as you care, he’s in control.”

“I won’t let Hope lose twenty years of her life.”

“Why is she your responsibility?”

“That’s not you,” Jessica says. “That’s your boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” I ask, snapping back to the conversation at hand.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Trish says quickly. “And can you blame him? Kilgrave murdered Simpson’s buddies. He almost died.”

I need to find out who this Simpson guy is. Now things are interesting. I search for Simpsons in the city on my phone. Finally, something to do. As Trish goes on about something with a bomb, I’m scrolling through Whitepages. The video continues to play in the background, and I try to not let the experiments on the screen send my mind back to the Facility.

“Wait, okay,” Trish says again, turning to me. “Where are your parents? Do they know you’re here? Aren’t they worried?”

I pause. “It’s complicated. I don’t actually know them? My parents?”

“What, were you abandoned?” Jessica says, and I realize she’s talking to me.

“Uh… it’s a whole thing,” I say. “I’d rather…”

“Well, we’ve got time,” says Jessica. “This asshole’s not moving.” She’s slightly drunk and Trish shakes her head.

“Leave her alone, Jess, if she doesn’t want—”

“Yeah, abandoned,” I say, wondering if I should quickly make a PowerPoint on my trauma or something. I sigh and try to think of the best way to phrase everything. “My mom… okay… I don’t know who my mom was. But she was part of some secret experiment that I think involved manipulating the DNA of embryos. But instead of giving me in like she was supposed to, she was unreliable, or something. I don’t know. So, she ditched me when she saw how messed up I came out and the homeless guy who saw her leave me said she said something about not wanting to raise a demonchild. Whatever that means.”

“Eh, she got that part right.”

I glare at Jessica and continue. “So homeless guy brings me to the fire station on the same block and those guys take me in. They were going to turn me into the police until they saw the… you know.” I gesture to the wings. “Two of them were married and lived in an apartment above the station. So, I lived at the firehouse. In secret.”

“You were, like, what, a firehouse dog?” Jessica asks.

I cringe. “Basically. I couldn’t leave though. After I had been there for a few days, agents from the experiment started going door to door, looking for me. That’s why they decided to keep me there. In secret. So, yeah. I was there for six years. Didn’t leave much. Didn’t go to school. But my dads were great.”

“What happened?” Trish asks. “How did you end up…?”

“Well, they found me,” I say. “Eventually.” How do I explain this part? “There was a bad fire one night. All hands on deck and firefighters got trapped on the top floors. I left the station, flew in, saved the firefighters. But it got caught on camera.”

“I remember that on the news,” says Trish. “I thought they said it was a hoax.”

“Yeah, of course they did,” I say. “The Facility people came knocking the next day to take me away. And that was it. I went away for the next seven or so years. Until I got out almost a year ago.”

“God, I’m sorry,” says Trish, “That’s fucked up.”

“Eh, it is what it is,” I say, shrugging. “Things are fine now.”

“Are they still looking for you?” Jessica asks.

“Oh, definitely,” I say. “Invested way too much money and time into me and the others not to.” I pause to think again. “They were working on a second part to the experiments,” I say. “Obviously, the… wings… and the physical stuff, that’s all the embryo manipulation. But there was other stuff they were working on. Other powers.”

“What kind?” Jessica asks, looking wary.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “It involved exposure to this thing? It was blue? I don’t remember a lot of that.”

I think back to that phrase from the testing, again. October, shh. It’s time to play Monster.

“Helpful,” quips Jessica.

“I know,” I say. “Totally.”

“Well, that’s tragic as shit,” says Jessica. “Makes this look almost tame,” she says, nodding back at the Kilgrave video, still playing in the background.

“Nah, this almost makes me glad I didn’t know my parents,” I mumble to myself. “At least it was strangers.”

Trish shook her head, watching the video. “Who does that to their own child?”

“No one gets under a person’s skin like their parents,” Jessica says. She looked pensive. “That�� could push him to the breaking point.”

“If they’re still alive,” I say.

“He thinks so,” Jessica says. “He looked for them for a long time.”

“Should’ve hired a P.I,” says Trish, and I laugh.

We start panning through the videos, pausing and analyzing. I pull over a chair and look over Jessica’s shoulder, listening, trying to hear something, anything that would indicate a location or a name. It looks more like a homegrown or school lab, not like the shiny and bright place I was raised. We spread out work into the hallways, as Kilgrave opens his food and starts each, chewing slowly and staring at us the entire time.

Trish dozes off on one of the cluttered countertops and as Jessica and I continue to work, I hear a squeaking noise on the glass, followed by a knock. I jump, and Jessica gets up to deal with Kilgrave, clearing her throat.

Exhausted, I sit down on the floor, up against the wall, and lean my head back, shutting my eyes. What time is it? How long have we been here?

“Who is Eric?” Jessica asks aloud, sitting back down. “His brother?”

I open one eye. “Could be another kid from the study?”

I hear her typing and I shut my eyes again, dozing off on the floor. I hear snippets of conversation, even while asleep, but most of it is hushed and scattered, although at one point I catch a halfhearted “She’s almost sweet when she’s asleep,” which I despise. When I wake up hours later, it’s just Trish in the room.

“Where did Jessica go?” I ask.

She tells me that Jessica has a lead on Kilgrave’s parents and went to go track someone down. I sit up and rub my eyes to see Kilgrave still staring at us through the glass.

“He’s been like that for hours now,” says Trish, turning to whisper to me.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

She searches in her bag and pulls out a granola bar. “Hungry?”

I nod, taking it and tearing it open. It’s the shitty crumbly kind, but I don’t complain. She rustles around in her bag a little longer until I hear footsteps from down the hall. Hogarth has returned.

“You’re back,” says Trish, and I see her shove something into her purse.

“Jessica said she had something urgent to show me.” She looks over at me. “She’s still here?”

“Jessica will be back soon,” says Trish.

“Why don’t you both go outside and get some fresh air?” says Hogarth. “Last thing I need is another woman losing her mind.”

Oooh. Drama.

“Yeah, I guess we could use a break,” says Trish. “Come on, Willow.”

We leave the room and take a walk to the end of the hall, where we push the doors open, clamber down the several flights of stairs and step outside for the first time in ages. I take a deep breath and suck in the fresh air. It’s nighttime, now, and the sky calls me, but I keep my feet planted to the ground.

“Sorry about… Jess making you tell us all that stuff,” says Trish suddenly. “I’m sorry that happened. To you.”

“I’m over it,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

“Would you tell someone if you weren’t okay?” Trish asks. “I mean, this stuff… it’s heavy.”

“No worse than what I’ve seen,” I say, quietly. “Trust me.” Eh, I could probably use some therapy or whatever.

She sighs. “I just wish Jessica would get back here already.” She picks up her phone to make a call.

I pace around the lot behind the warehouse, and finally start climbing the stairs of the fire escape, onto the roof, where it’s finally safe to take off my jacket and let my wings breathe as well.

I could just fly away, right now. Forget all of this. Run again.

But, no.

After a few minutes, I fold my wings back in and climb back down the escape, not even letting myself glide on down and enjoy the night. There’s more work to be done.

#ww writing #willow wren #jessica jones #kilgrave #jeri hogarth #trish walker

[mars-barssss]

heya, it's me again! ((I still dont know why people dont ask on this)) I saw your reblog and wanted to ask about your fav sanders sides headcanons? also, I ADORE your sticks and stones fic! 😁😁

Oh! Thank you! I’ll probably be updating that fic and my first fic on here soon. Either way, it still means a lot that you like my stuff.

And for my favorite headcanons? I’ve got a few- sorry if this is long-

One, I love the headcanon that Virgil is like really protective. Just because of the nature of his side being so overly protective of Thomas, I’d think he’d be just as protective of the other sides. (EX, If they are all having a sleepover thing in the living room, he’d probably wake up naturally at like 1 AM, just to slip away and look around for dangers. Then he’d always slip back so he didn’t worry them.)

Also, another thing to say about that one, Virgil would notice little changes in someone if they’re trying to hide an emotion/stressed/lying. Anxiety is all about over-thinking and reacting to dangerous stuff, and at least for me, over-analyzing other people’s actions. (EX, If Patton was trying to put a fake smile over his problems, he would notice the tiny clues about it.)

---

Two, Logan used to be a lot more better off than now. When Thomas was younger, he used to get listened to a lot. Whether because of just school, or the major Thomas was supposed to go to, either way Logan was heard. Sometimes he’d be unheard, but not often. Logan always could go on and on about the stuff Thomas loved, that was more educational. Like stars, science, anything along those lines. He could go on and on about stars, especially! But one day, somethings just became more realistic. Gushing about stars wasn’t enough anymore in the real world, and his own logic had to shift. His excitement and smiles when he ranted about stars disappeared one day, the other sides say. The other sides also used to say, he was a lot more fun back then.

---

Three, I love the idea of Spider!Virgil. The spider legs on his back and other eyes as his animal trait. I forgot who exactly came up with the headcanon, but I love it. Also, the idea of Patton having to get over his fear because of his dark strange son is cute, and the idea of Roman not believing all people who look like villains are villains is nice too.

---

Four, it’s about the whole issue with the dark sides and Virgil. I believe that Virgil was happy with them originally, but they began to get ambitious. Like, eventually, Deceit was a like, “We totally couldn’t change the tables, right? We shouldn’t even try.” Once the idea was out, after all of their time locked beneath the light side’s common room, the dark sides could only talk about it. 

Except Anxiety. Honestly, Virgil didn’t like it, since while he knew his dark!family was excited for a chance to help Thomas, even Virgil knew it’d be a bad idea. When they tried to excite him about it, he just grew more recluse. Eventually, they told Virgil to go to the light sides and cause some problems. If that was all he had to do to keep them from bugging him about the idea, he would gladly do it. However, he slowly began to like the sides. And then Accepting Anxiety happens.

He becomes a part of their family. And the dark sides are not happy at all about it. When Remus specifically calls him into his room, Virgil already knew it wouldn’t be good. He was already wearing his new purple hoodie, although this one is different than the one we see in the video he reveals it. It’s like his original with the plaid, but it’s just a brighter purple and clean. But a few moments after he rose into Remus’s room, he saw Deceit there as well as few other dark sides. Moments later, the hoodie was torn off of him and ripped, by the decency of Remus. After getting beaten a bit, Deceit is the last one in the room. He tilts Virgil’s head up, and asks if he’s going to return to his “family”.

Virgil says yes, because you can’t lie to the embodiment of lies. Deceit kicks him in the leg, before leaving him by himself in the room. Virgil stumbles up, looks at his ruined hoodie. (This was before the harry potter houses video.) He takes a few pieces of the hoodie that was completely ripped off. Pieces of purple plaid fabric. In his room, he tries again, sewing these pieces to a black hoodie, adding large stitches and his symbol this time.

And this time he wouldn’t let it get destroyed.

---

Five, dark sides again, between each other and others, dark sides seemed to have no names. They were born with them, but they never said it. They believed that it was a weakness, to have or use them. That’s why Deceit never had his name revealed. Remus, he revealed his name, to try to fit in with the light sides. Because maybe it’d have them trust him more. Virgil, well, he only said his name when he trusted them, after being saved. His hesitancy was just a mark from being a dark side. Deceit, in later ones, called Virgil by his name as more of a taunt, as well as Remus, because after he betrayed him, Virgil’s actual name got around the mindscape.

---

Six, it’s about the whole creativity split thing. Morality believed he genuinely was doing good at first. He was ignorant at what his actions would do at the moment. Thomas was just a kid, and a drawing from Creativity got Moralitys attention. Thomas’s brother being electrocuted. Morality knew that wasn’t a good thing, and it sent him a bit off-guard. Later, Creativity had been slowly changing. He was muttering to himself, almost a full-conversation. He kept having both pure and wonderful ideas, and the most questionable that the other sides have ever seen. The conversations slowly got even worse as days passed. Creativity was being heightened and almost insane, but completely stable. Like the two entities were fine with being together, but screamed for their ideas to be heard.

Anxiety remained on the sidelines, watching the creative side curiously. At this point in time, Dark and Light sides weren’t formed yet. Although, Anxiety still kept to himself, besides a few conversations. He wasn’t hated, he was just a bit of an outsider. Thomas’s anxiety wasn’t the worst in these years, so it was more like he was Fear/Caution. Deceit also watched from a distance, as Morality began to approach the side, which was now freaking out between drawing a gorey drawing and a drawing of a prince. They turned to Morality when he approached. “Yes Padre? What does he want- I don’t know. Will he tell us- yes of course, just shush-!”

That sentence that came quickly out of the creative side’s voice made Patton stiffen. When Creativity looked back up at Patton, Patton could see his eyes were two different colors. Green, and Red. It used to be brown.

Morality’s powers tingled at his fingertips. He ability of judgement, the ability of morality. The knowledge of bad and good. Right and wrong. He had never used it before, and never even felt his power until now. He didn’t even know what would happen if he used it. But Creativity was slowly becoming catatonic, and he already moved to reach at the side. It almost felt natural, but he reached forward, gripping at where the side’s heart would have been. And in a bright light of red and green, two new sides were formed, laying on the ground.

And immediately, both sides rung out in a confused, “WHO ARE YOU-?!?”

Morality stumbled back in shock of everything, staring at his hands. The power was gone, and his eyes raised to the two new sides. One was green, and one was red. “H-Heya kiddo- kiddos!” Morality backed up nervously, glancing to the under sides. Both Red and Green looked at him curiously. Each had one eye that matched their colors, the other was still brown, like the original creativity. “D-Do you remember me? C-Creativity?”

They looked at Morality confused. They both tilted their heads at each other. The differences soon became obvious to all sides involved. The strange ideas that came from Creativity were in Green now, and Red had all of the nice ideas.

The two twins were seemingly inseparable. They held hands, played make believe with each other, etc... (They even got Anxiety to play with them both at one point. As the damsel in the distress, actually. Back then, Anxiety wasn’t the villain.)

Morality didn’t like the strange ideas that came from Green. It made him nervous, for Thomas. And honestly, Green was the only one of the twins that caused harm to the other sides. Red seemed okay. Green kept hitting people and laughing. It never seemed to hurt Logic, but it hurt Morality.

Anxiety was even getting nervous, the poor kiddo.

So, Morality went to Deceit. Asking for if he could hide that aspect of Thomas, fearing it would mean more to Thomas than anyone would thought. Besides, Adults were suddenly giving Thomas more strange looks when he brought up ideas.

Deceit said he could hide them, but that could cause more problems.

Eventually, the deal came down to Deceit taking and hiding Green, since Deceit honestly liked him more, and Morality taking Red. Logic remained by Morality, but Anxiety was more or not taken. Deceit convinced Anxiety to come with them, without the Moral side knowing. Anxiety didn’t know why.

But that was the beginning of the great split between the sides.

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I hope that’s good! I might actually write something based on my last headcanon! I’ll be updating some older fics soon!