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player1064 · 2 months

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Literally obsessed with the ask fics you’ve been doing, thank you 🥰 my suggestion to throw in is something on Jamie being whipped as hell…. I just love that as a concept and the latest STF where Gary’s instinct is to demand he provide him with clothing alternatives made me think of it hehe… like something regarding everyone knowing Jamie’s basically at his beck and call

JAMIE! IS! SO! WHIPPED!!!!! this is honestly such a core part of my carraville belief system anyway like ngl I do try sprinkle a bit of it into most of my fics so YES I loved writing this!!!

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“Alright guys, we’ve got a fifteen minute break and then I need you all back in your seats,” a producer calls out once they’ve cut to the match.

Immediately, everyone on the set of Monday Night Football starts bustling around, setting up equipment or wandering over to the craft table for something to eat or drink.

Jamie rushes off without a word, and David stands up to do the same but ends up hovering awkwardly next to the desk when Gary doesn’t move from his seat, just gets his iPad out from under and starts to type furiously on the little bluetooth keyboard.

“You’re not coming for a coffee?”

“Huh?” Gary blinks up at him. “Oh, no, Carra’ll get me one.”

David gives Gary a disbelieving look but goes off to get his own refreshments anyway. By the time he gets back, Jamie’s wordlessly setting a mug down next to Gary’s elbow, along with a couple of custard creams. He doesn’t wait for Gary to acknowledge him (which he doesn’t), just sits back down in his seat and starts scrolling on his phone, glancing up across the desk with a smug smile when Gary picks up the mug to take a sip.

“Where the fuck is Jamie?” Gary asks as he whirls around Sky studios lobby, not stopping for long enough for anyone to actually respond. “James! James, you twat, where are ya, I ‘ave to be back in Manchester for five, can’t believe you’re makin’ me wait –”

“Alright, alright, keep your tits on,” Jamie says as he rushes in, coat only half pulled on. “Jesus, it’s your fault I’m late, y’know. You left your airpods in the dressing room, I ‘ad to go back and get them ‘fore I was stuck with your whining for the next four hour.”

Gary frowns, pats his pockets, then looks at Jamie bewildered when he finds nothing. Jamie drops the case into his hands.

“How’d you even –” he starts, but Jamie’s already hurrying towards the waiting car.

“I always get so hungry while we’re commentating, wish there was a – a runner, or somethin’, who could go get us some snacks.”

Jamie, who’d been about to start saying something into his mic, shoots Gary a glare and then starts raving about brilliant possession. While he’s talking, though, he uses his foot to push his bag out from under his seat and towards Gary, gives him a little kick in the ankle for emphasis.

When Gary opens the bag there’s a few packets of hula hoops, some chocolate bars, a packet of wine gums, a couple of apples which he studiously ignores, and some granola bars. He grabs a few things so that he doesn’t have to go rummaging again later, then holds out one of the chocolate bars to Jamie.

Jamie glances at the offering and shakes his head, waves it away. “Not big on sweets, am I?” he says once he’s put his microphone down.

“Jamie – Jamie, can you c’mere for a second?” asks Gary, waving him over to where he’s stood talking to Wrighty.

Jamie gets up from his seat and walks aver, looks between the two of them expectantly. “Yeah?”

Gary reaches up to pluck the glasses from his face, which gets almost no reaction from Jamie beyond a surprised blink when Gary’s hand first approaches him.

“See, Wrighty, look at this,” Gary says, as if Jamie were nothing more than a mannequin. “He’s way blinder than you or me, I dunno how ‘e’s not always crashing into things when he’s not got them on.”

“I think you’re right, check out the magnification on these things!”

“Ugh, Jesus, what kind of place only takes cash?” Roy complains, searching through his pockets to no avail. “And to only tell you after they’ve made your order, now I just look like a prick. Do either of you boys have any notes?”

Gary and Jamie both say no, and Roy’s about to turn back and go to the counter to tell this poor teenager that he can’t buy the food after all, when Gary squints at Jamie suspiciously then holds up a finger to say hold on to Roy.

“Shame, that, ‘cause them sandwiches look really good. An’ I only had a piece of toast at breakfast.”

“Not my fault you’ve not been grocery shopping in two weeks,” Jamie says, rolling his eyes. At the same time, though, he’s reaching into the pocket of his jeans for his wallet, pulling out a ten pound note and handing it to Gary.

Gary grins triumphantly and hands the note to Roy.

“Glad ‘e’s got too heavy to pick up now,” says Paul with a nod towards Gary. “Else he’d be jumping at us every time Salford scores.”

“Oi!” Gary reaches out to whack Scholesy in the arm. “I am not fuckin’ heavy, d’you mind? If I wanted to jump at people I’d jump at people, ta very much. I’m just more civilised now, like.”

“No, Gaz, y’just know that if you try it we’ll both end up on our arses looking like twats. You prob’ly don’t even have the leg strength to –”

“Jamie!” Gary cries out, interrupting him. “Jamie, go stand over there, would ya?”

Jamie raises an eyebrow at him but gets up off his seat and goes to the flat platform at the back of the stand. Gary follows, then without warning does a pathetic little run-up and launches himself into Jamie’s arms, his legs wrapped tight around him.

Jamie gives a little humph under his weight, which Gary ignores to raise his hands in the air in celebration. “Ha!” he says, “see, Scholesy, told you y’were talkin’ nonsense!”

“Gary, y’great lump, are you planning to stay up ‘ere much longer? Not sure my old man knees can take it.”

“Shush, you.”

Jamie shushes.

#not sure if in this one they're together yet or not. funnier if they're not and jamie's just. insane.#and gary doesnt realise how insane jamie actually is about him. but everyone else is like oh my fucking god #thanks again for the suggestion!#carraville #drabbles

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kc5rings · 8 months

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If you're doing the sticker prompts I rolled 1 for Nian

I more intended it as a game for folks who want a prompt for themselves for art or fic, but luck is on your side because I happened to be thinking about Nian already this morning after seeing some metal gear that made me insane

(Not taking any other prompts at the moment but the game is here if anyone wants to use it for themselves)

Under the cut: Chastity, heat reference, improper use of medical equipment, improper definitions of medical equipment, Nian Gets Trolled.png

“I should have figured when Hibiscus messaged me to come drag you out of medical that it would be something ridiculous like this.”

Nian crossed her arms, grinning and unrepentant, as ever immune to Lava’s scathing reprimands.

“All I’m saying, is you’d think an open minded medical facility like Rhodes Island would be a little more receptive to a holistic, non medication approach to a very common medical concern for many of its op-“

Lava cut into Nian’s speech before she wound herself up into full pitch mode, leaning heavily on her cane with one hand while gesturing vaguely at what Nian was wearing.

“Is that what we’re calling….. all this then?”

Far from being deterred Nian’s grin only widened as she did a little turn to make sure Lava got a good look, which she happily did, taking a moment to appreciate forge hewn muscle before sighing and taking in Nian’s “outfit”

Her regular clothing had been discarded the moment Lava had shut the door to her quarters, Nian having been in a hurry to show off her latest project. Across her chest was a tight band of steel, with a cup covering the entirety of each breast. Continuing down from there revealed a steel waist corset cinched reasonably tight, though Lava couldn’t begin to imagine how that was accomplished with metal.

Finally, there was the belt.

Just a bit below the edge of the corset sat the waist band of what could only be described as what it was, a chastity belt. Perfectly shaped to fit the lines of Nian’s body, with a ring in the waistband to settle at the thick base of Nian’s tail, a sturdy, contoured, front shield and capped off by a pair of wide metal bands on her thighs. As with the rest of the ensemble it was all secured with ornate locks and polished to a near mirror shine.

Lava pinched the bridge of her nose

“Nian, this is obviously fetishwe-“

“Medical aids, Lil Lava, please”

“Not calling it that.”

Despite her curt tone Lava knew this was a losing battle, once Nian had a concept she wanted to talk about she refused to let it go until someone heard her out and that someone was usually Lava

“Fine. I’ll bite.”

“Promise?”

“Just make your pitch Nian. How is any of this possibly medical?”

Lava could swear she saw a literal flame in Nian’s eye for a moment before Nian gave her an overly dramatic bow, setting the many locks adorning her accessories jingling

“It’d be my pleasure. Ya see I’ve done my research and found that a sizable number of Terran species experience heat, now heat is the common term for-“

“I know what heat is Nian, you know I do.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll skip ahead.”

Nian made a placating gesture and rolled on with her pitch, pointing to each relevant piece of gear as she went

“The cups on the top prevent contact with sensitive nipples even during rigorous activity or while laden with equipment, the front shield prevents contact that might worsen symptoms and splits at the back for comfort, the bands on the thighs and tail help keep everything in place and secure. Obviously it’s all padded, every measure had been taken to ensure both comfort and hygiene during long term wear while-“

“And the corset? What “medical” benefit is that providing”

Nian flashed her teeth again, despite her protests Lava was an excellent “yes and” partner when she felt like it, and now Nian had gotten her to play.

“Well you see.” Nian drew herself up to her full height, head and shoulders over Lava to the point she almost loomed.

“They are great for your posture.”

Lava rolled her eyes, sure that Nian was familiar enough with the movement that she’d recognize it even with Lava wearing her visor

“Right. Well putting aside the frankly astounding number of ethical problems with all of that, it still wouldn’t work here at Rhodes.”

Nian tilted her head, curious.

“Oh? And why’s that?”

It was Lava’s turn to grin, she knew she was playing Nian’s game now, no helping that. But they’d been at this for years and Lava had gotten very good at playing.

“Haven’t you ever seen the combat logs of some of our operators once they get riled up in a fight? That pretty belt of yours wouldn’t last a second against someone like operator Horn in heat, no chance in hell”

“Lil Lava you wound me! In my pride as an artisan no less.” Using her tail Nian fished something out of her pile of discarded clothes and with a flick, sent something through the air at Lava. “Catch.”

Lava snatched the object with one hand before taking a moment to look it over. “Key” would be an accurate description but a very reductive one, the body of the key was cylindrical, with the teeth numbering in the dozens all around its circumference. Stranger though, was the fact that as Lava stared at the key it’s teeth became less defined and fuzzy, seeming to almost move.

“Give me fifty years and I *might* be able to produce that same exact key from memory, anybody who’s not me though? No chance.” Only Nian could make admitting she couldn’t do something in less than fifty years sound like a boast. “And that’s not all.”

Nian lifted one clawed finger up for Lava to see, the tip glowing forge hot after a moments concentration, and reached down to drag it up the front shield of the belt. Lava winced at the terrible screech and sparks the contact made, but when Nian finished her little display the belt hadn’t even lost its shine. “I built this piece as sturdy as I can make something, trust me when I say that without that exact key it’s not going anywhere.”

“….. Ok I’ll admit it, that’s pretty impressive.” Lava had seen Nian shape ingots by hand and shear chunks off of them with those same claws, that belt really was something else.

Lava pocketed the key.

From the same pocket she’d stored the key in Lava produced a small injection gun, with casual ease she reached out and pressed it against the exposed skin of Nian’s hip, right in the gap between the bottom of the corset and the top of the belt and pulled the trigger.

Nian, for her part, made no move to stop Lava and barely reacted to the injection. Lava had the basic medical training afforded to all higher level Rhodes Island operators and had long since become adept in administering her own meds so Nian hardly felt a thing.

Aside from a sudden burning curiosity.

“What was-“

“Highly concentrated heat inducer.” Lava let the now empty injector clatter onto a nearby table. “Gavial slipped it to me when I was coming to get you, mentioned something about how she owed you a prize after handing her a string of losses and that because you never had a proper physical she had to take a “Gavial Guess” at the dosage.”

Lava took advantage of a rare moment of stunned Nian silence to close the gap between them. “You’re so sure this stuff is a good answer to heat? Fine, but you’re doing the testing. Be sure to record your findings while I’m gone.”

Lava allowed herself a smile only after turning away from Nian’s dumbfounded expression, trying to process what had just happened. Only the last word of “gone” snapped her out of it. “Wait, what do mean by “gone” Lil Lava?”

Lava tossed a hand up in farewell as she headed out the door. “Oh didn’t I mention? I’m leading an away mission of new recruits later today, shouldn’t be gone more than three weeks, probably.”

With that, Lava turned down the hallway, the staccato rhythm of her cane on metal flooring slowly growing distant. Leaving Nian reeling.

“Ok Lil Lava I get it, you got me fare and square this time, you can come back now!” The only answer Nian received was a sudden involuntary muscle clench, a spike in temperature and sweat slowly beading on her brow.

“L-Lava?!”

#arknights #nsft #once again I can’t keep things short to save my life #my writing #Nian and Lava’s dynamic is so fun to me #I’m firmly in the Domme leaning switch Lava camp #Nian is an immortal brat #all this because I saw some gear and thought of Nian this morning #also Lava has her cane because I feel like it gets forgotten a lot #and there needs to be more disabled dommes in things

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venusiansilk · 3 months

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Hi!!! Sorry if this is vague but do you have any writing tips? I live the way you write so much! From ur characterization to dialogue (especially your dialogue)!! It’s all so wonderful!

hai anonie! omgee thank you sm. <3 ah i really appreciate your kind words n even that you’d wanna ask me on something like this. although i don’t know if i’m the right person, i’ll do the best i can to help you. here’s some things that i personally do.

i’m sorry bc this is really long. i tried to be descriptive bc i personally need an excruciating level of detail when having things explained to me, but feel free to skim lmao.

1. write. as much as you can. even if you hate it ( me lately ). i think any writer will give you that advice first and foremost. do drills with a purpose in mind if you have a specific thing you want to get better at.

— i really want to work on prettier descriptions of simple things. so i’ll write a short scene. probably 100 words or less. i’ll write it as simple as it can get, and then i’ll expand that small scene by rewriting each line in a more ~ poetic ~ way.

example:

he looks into your eyes and smiles.

my goal would be to portray some sort of emotion, both the feelings that prompt him to look into your eyes and feelings that result from doing such. i like to use metaphors of things i find pretty to write an emotion that feels pretty. so in my case (and many other writers) the concept of spring is always a great way to throw in some ~ pretty ~ imagery while conveying a feeling. you can also use this to describe your characters or highlight their features. so say i’m using this line in the context of gojo, i might rewrite it to include the color of his eyes and the emotions he feels before his action. you might also use this time to try out different words that mean the same thing.

result:

sweetness fills his gut; adoration blooms in his eyes, a garden of lapis lazulis coming to life as he peers. it’s involuntary, the way fondness stretches across the span of his lips when he takes in the sight of you.

it’s time-consuming to do this, which is why i like to practice it in small drills. but also, you can just do sprints that aren’t to correct or expand on a particular thing but more so to get into a habit of writing a stream of thoughts as they come without interrupting them. sometimes i set a timer and simply write. doesn’t have to be pretty. or perfect. or good. i don’t stop to correct my typos or fix my mistakes. i literally just go and go and when my timer is done, i’ll go back, read what i wrote, and make corrections.

2. read. read fics. books. poetry. essays. articles. epics. scripts. mythology. multi-cultural literature. read a myriad of material. equip yourself with a big variety of voices, styles, and word play. there’s so many things to gain from so many different types of reading material. the best way to enhance your own vocabulary and narration dexterity is to get familiar with tons of them. find things you like about them. practice doing those things and incorporating those techniques in a similar way on your own (i wouldn’t advise publishing things you make while practicing likeness. it’s really just a mental exercise to get your brain making those connections on its own without material being present and across tons of differing contexts).

3. submerge. this next thing is a little hard to describe as everyone has different ways of thinking/imagining. personally, i see pictures and words as well as hear audio when i’m thinking. when i have a scene in mind i press play in my brain like a film lol and watch it pan out. and then as i’m writing i recite the dialogue out loud. i also write dialogue before i touch the descriptions; i get the back n forth out of my brain stream first. then i go back to watch the scene in my mind again on mute. i study the body language i see and i write that. you can also recall conversations you’ve had with others or observed others having and reference your own body language or someone else’s. reciting helps on this front because often times, when i say the line, my body language speaks along with it. so say a character’s trying to express annoyance or exasperation.

example:

“what do you want?”

when i said this to myself out loud two times, there was emphasis on two words, depending on context. if the exasperation is centered on the other person, the word ‘you’ was emphasized. if it was a general exasperation, the word ‘want’ was emphasized. but no matter what, i closed my eyes and sighed before i said it.

result:

frustration bleeds out of her sigh, eyes squeezing shut before asking through gritted teeth, “what do you want?”

upon seeing him, her eyes squeeze shut and she breathes an exasperated sigh. “what do you want?”

4. study up! being technical isn’t always necessary but i think getting familiar with different literary devices and tools is a great way to add some flare to descriptions/exposition and develop your own writing voice.

5. build aesthetics. playlists! pinterest! moodboards! webweaves! whatever your medium, find a way to make a sort of map for your characters n the story: their ideals, personality traits, mannerisms, beliefs, values. a general aesthetic. helps you build an image of them in your mind so you can hear the way they’d talk, quips they’d make, how their temperament would make them react to certain situations. it just makes them feel more real to me. playlists help me with overall vibes of a scene while moodboards/web weaves help me with a person navigating the scene in question.

this is really all i can think of. if anyone else happens to read all of this n has anything additional to add that may be more helpful to anonie, please do!

#𖥨. ݁︀ 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐛𝐨𝐱 ꒱ ֺ💌ৎ #୧ ‧₊ ☁️ ⋅ 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐞.

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spotsupstuff · 11 months

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i'm glad you enjoyed brandon F

little note about the uniform thing, the reason why he drags on a bit on that is cause he's a reenactor, 18th century uniforms are his insane obsession. he even jokes about it in the video i sent, saying "i'm finally back to my insufferable self!" when talking about the muskets

i don't blame him tbh, after watching his content for a while i had the realization that 18th century isn't like the romans, whose equipment we deduce through archeology, old sources and guess work.

like, the actual documents that standardized 18th century uniforms still exist and are not hard to access, i realized that after Brandon noted that his source was the fucking British Royal Library in London. ( i mean ffs there's literally photos of Napoleonic era vets heres a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npSru7xEzX8)

and i honestly think its relevant, because if a million dollar historical production didn't want to put in the effort to go to a library and get the official documents. then what else they weren't bothered to get right?

but Brandon doesn't just do historical reviews he also talks a lot about the history in general. like, why fight in lines? what were marines in the 18th century? the history of tactics. and what role did cavalry play in line warfare? for example

heavens bless people of utube that manage to get hyperfixated on one topic for basically their entire life and then proceed to make stuff about it for us to watch, right? it's a delight to listen to someone who actually enjoys the subject and their subject therefore basically guarantees the authencity of what they put out

oooh but yes, the concept itself of what we actually get to know about things in what manner is fascinating in on itself. so since i was small i had been very fascinated by chinese mythology and mythology somewhat comes along with other parts of the culture and so on. and you know how the chinese culture is one of the oldest in the world?

as a result i've somewhat grown accustomed to the numbers that are typical to the span of chinese history and now whenever i go look into the history of my own country i'm actually stumped over how recently certain things happened! then again you wouldn't believe how oppressed or manipulated slovaks had been across history. ain't that right -glares at hungary-

to what extent we know which culture's history is so wild. the ability for certain historical things to simply last is absolutely incredible (such as military uniform documents or musical pieces of 18th century). fun fact! there's still messages written in stone by the soldiers of the roman empire on slovakia's territory. right near Danube, i think, p sure i visited that

thank fuck for reliable sourcing and also thank u for that vid that's gon come in handy for clothing references at Some point, i can feel it

and you are absolutely correct, yes! it Is relevant! as mister Brandon has said, there's of course a certain leeway allowed when it comes to more kid oriented stuff, but i'll admit! i was surprised to learn that serious historical productions apparently put less effort into these kind of things than the sea beast did (i don't usually watch those kind of things, i'm very fantasy/sci-fi and cartoon focused)

this kind of muddling of history that may seem "insignificant" to money grabbing bastards really screws up the perception of the eras for people who don't really have the time or the drive to look into things themselves. it's annoying

oh while we are on this history stuff, i saw this originally in utube shorts, but Apparently they are making a netflix movie or smth about Cleopatra and they made her black?? which is weird, considering that Cleopatra was greek and all that stuff. like don't get me wrong, yes give silenced/less known cultures like black folk more space to present themselves and who they are but like don't do it in a way that heavily skews the history? why are you going out of your way to create misinformation that could heavily impact understanding of history by taking out an already famous (not poc) person instead of Actually making the space for historically important black people. like maybe why not make a movie about that one super rich king from the southwestern coast of Africa (i think) that crashed the egyptian economy twice by being just too damn generous. that would be SO much more helpful to black peeps' history than shoving a black person into the place of a white one

i swear films nowadays either lack soul, heart, spine or brain like 98% of time

#Spot says stuff #// long post //#gklsdmglk you say 'not only history reviews but also history in general' and then all that is listed is battle focused things #saying historical warfare is okay i wont get mad even if the current political things here would perhaps justify me to #ill keep him in mind when ill need help with battle research for a story or smth along those lines. wonderful to have a well sourced place-#-to get info from #i personally think its good to talk about these historical things includin stuff like the world wars. ever since i heard that some people-#-think that ww2 was not real i became of the opinion that it should be talked about more and not seemingly tabood by society in a rather-#-quiet subtle manner. on internet too. we have taggin systems and ways to warn those who dont want to see it. they can dodge it and-#-us? us that are okay should talk and joke. cuz then that creates Conversation n it prevents cretins out there who think all that suffering #-that happened is just some fabricated silly drama from existing #she is of the 15th century but lately ive been interested in joan of arc. if u happen to have smth on her id like to check it out!

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truffhollowell · 8 months

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Just a few half baked Gwen Stacy thoughts.

sighs Gwen Stacy is just so freaking trans. Like, I just cannot engage with her as a character anymore without viewing her as such because it's just so freaking thematically blatant. You've got the concept of living two lives, which is inherently queer.. We see her bold and loud personality shine through as spiderwoman, and we see a muffled, emotional form of that as Gwen. Wearing the mask allows her to be more of herself, and by extension, happier. We see her quips, we see her snark, and we see she has a tendency to "blow up" at people as Gwen. (Comics.) But that's normal, people have spoken about that in reference to Spiderman for decades, why this character specifically?

…It's about how that impacts her relationships. Not only is she expected to juggle these two lives, she is expected to be emotionally equipped enough to handle relationships. The difference between her and Peter Parker, is that instead of having to hear her father spout about catching the morally corrupt vigilante, we get to watch Spiderwoman herself deal with her singular parent proclaiming his hate for her. It's a hell of an internal conflict. It's about the dramatic irony of living with someone who you know would turn you into the police were they to uncover who you truly are. …Which is very much the reality of being transgender for a lot of people. (And in the case of Florida and Texas, it is a literal situation.) But more often, it's the sentiment of it. "Two lives that silently kill any form of close relationship you could have had with your parent, and you cannot get rid of either despite their wishes."

There's also Peters death being viewed as a metaphor for Gwen coming out. (This is personally something I haven't considered, nor am I transfem so this'll be brief, I'm just speaking on what I've heard others say they've felt.) Her father views Peter as his son, something directly referenced in the comics, and hinted at in the Spiderverse films. When "Spiderwoman" kills Peter, he is interpreting it as killing his son, and as a result he's upset that this representation of femininity has killed his son, and replaced it with another. I don't really have any personal thoughts on this, but it does add up enough for me to feel like it's worth noting. And there's a lot of people I hear talking about it.

And on a more lighthearted note, Gwen plain teases her identity as spiderwoman a lot in the comics. Like, a lot of it can be attributed to her being a bit sloppy with how she manages keeping it hidden, but this girl will leave her mask in the same bag she puts her clothes for the Mary Janes's performances with the knowledge that her bandmates might come across it, lmao. She is NOT trying very hard and directly admits that she wishes she had been more honest sooner. The narrative is constantly putting her in a position to properly "come out" as Spiderwoman, in an intimate, personal manner, without the inclusion of a villain. (That aspect being vital, because while Spiderman does have identity teases, it's moreso to show how nefarious the villain is, or to embarrass him. For Gwen, the narrative uses it as a means of making her question whether being honest to those close in her life is worth it. It's done to forward her development about considering letting those two identities become one, and coming out.) Also again, the narrative just keeps making it happen in such an awkward, personal way, it's hard not to raise an eyebrow. She straight up loses her phone as Spiderwoman, and her dad, the chief of police, finds it at the crime scene. That's literally the equivalent to accidentally leaving a pride pin at home, and your parent peeks into your room and finds it.

#spider gwen #gwen stacy

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transgirl-gaming-thoughts · 2 years

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Breath of the Wild: Great Standalone Title, Bad Zelda Game

Unpopular opinion: Breath of the Wild really disappointed me. Don't get me wrong, I love Breath of the Wild! I'm even going for 100% on it! I enjoyed my time in the latest iteration of Hyrule, and played the entire Expansion Pass. It's a top-tier game, deserving of its Metacritic score of 97.

...but it would be downright untruthful to say I wasn't disappointed by it in a lot of ways. Everyone knows by this point that Breath of the Wild really broke the mold in a lot of ways for the Zelda franchise. There's always been a certain aspect of open-world exploration in Zelda games, all the way back to the very first game from 1986. However, Breath of the Wild is 100% fully open-world, allowing you to go anywhere and do anything from the very start (at your own risk, of course). This format for the game has lead to a lot of things I loved, and conversely things I hated.

Warning: The following may contain spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and other games in the Zelda series

First of all, it granted a sense of freedom. Being able to do absolutely anything at all in any direction from Central Hyrule was absolutely incredible. There were so many things to do and places to go, I had no idea where to start! I loved being able to unlock new parts of the map. It reminded me a lot of The Wind Waker's sea chart. Being able to challenge the main "dungeons", the Divine Beasts, in any order allowed me to customize the game progression to my own strategy.

However, this brings us to my first issue: dungeons. In previous Zelda titles, dungeons have not only introduced new challenges to the player while giving them new pieces of equipment, but they've also added to the depth of the lore and the atmosphere of Hryule. I remember the first time I entered Deepwood Shrine in The Minish Cap, or Ganon's Tower in A Link to the Past. Dungeons were always these unique locations that marked a milestone in your quest, and inspired a certain sense of awe and wonder when you stepped inside. In Breath of the Wild, they didn't have traditional dungeons. The Divine Beasts are the closest thing you find, and there's only four of them. If you measure the length of a Zelda game by the number of dungeons, Breath of the Wild just might be the shortest game in the series. The Shiekah Shrines scattered across Hyrule offer mini-dungeons almost, but they're even shorter than the Divine Beasts. Most of Breath of the Wild's content comes from the shrines, side-quests, and overall optional content, as opposed to the actual main quest. Regardless of the length of the game's main quest, the puzzles themselves are pretty hit-or-miss. Some of them are extremely easy, and some are so difficult they require a YouTube tutorial. Why isn't there an in-between? In previous titles, I always felt like the game started easier so you could get the hang of it, and then got progressively more difficult. Breath of the Wild doesn't feel like it does this, and I think it suffers from that.

Something else I liked was the concept of this version of Hyrule. The developers perfectly captured the "soft apocalypse" vibe. It's not harsh and violent like the Fallout series. There's a certain peacefulness about the landscape, and it's quite relaxing most of the time. The atmosphere, the soundtrack, the art-style; it all coalesced into a fantastic experience.

On the other hand, I was severely disappointed by the story. Breath of the Wild officially unified the three Zelda timelines (maybe I'll write on that in the future), and it accordingly features references to all three timelines. However, this didn't result in a deep, impactful story that took advantage of the entire series up to this point. Rather, the story was incredibly bland and basic. Zelda is sealing Ganon in Hyrule Castle. Go stop him. ... That's literally it. The lost memories quest with Impa is optional, freeing the Divine Beasts is optional, even claiming the Master Sword is optional, all of it is optional. This might offer the freedom to play your own way, but this also means that the story has to be stripped down to its core so as to be relevant to any of the many play styles available. This concept definitely worked better on paper. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that I don't want to sacrifice story for freedom. That's not a fair trade-off in my book.

Additionally, every single Zelda game up to this point built onto the lore in some way, shape, or form. Skyward Sword established the origin of the Master Sword and the cycle of reincarnation. Ocarina of Time split the timeline and explained all the different universes. Every game offered something new that built onto the expanded Zelda universe in a meaningful way, and allowed us to watch the timeline grow into a beautiful world where everyone was able to love something entirely different, and still be able to connect with other Zelda fans.

With Breath of the Wild, and this is partially a result of the basic story, but there was no meaningful building on the timeline beyond disregarding 20 years of lore in favor of everything being destroyed anyway and unifying under this newest Hyrule. I've had conversations with friends who've only ever played Breath of the Wild, and I actually find myself having to explain most of the lore to them before we can actually have a conversation. Breath of the Wild introduced little to no new lore that has any impact on the Zelda universe as we know it, and hardly reiterated any of the previously introduced lore. I found it hard to engage in the exploration of Hyrule or pay attention when I talked to NPCs, because there was never anything meaningful. I found it hard to become immersed in a Zelda game that only felt remotely like a Zelda game.

Now, I'm by no means saying this is a bad game. I enjoyed all 205 hours I've spent on it. However, I never truly felt like I was playing a Zelda game. It felt like I was playing an open-world indie game, that maybe had some Zelda references in it. When I'm in the mood to play a Zelda game, Breath of the Wild never even crosses my mind. I think if Breath of the Wild were released as a stand-alone title, with it's own world and story, but maybe retained some crossover content from Zelda, I'd be happier. As it stands, it makes me feel disappointed and even a little sad to think of it as a Zelda game, because it was such a weak entry in the series. I love the art, the music, the controls, the mechanics, everything about this game... but it's such a weak Zelda title.

Thinking about the future of the Zelda franchise, especially knowing that they're developing a sequel to Breath of the Wild, I can't help but feel concerned. If things continue going the way they are, and the "formula" for Zelda games changes entirely, then I probably won't say I'm a Zelda fan anymore. I'll still love the old games, but I won't be able to say I enjoy or follow the franchise as a whole, because that style of game is not why I was roped into the series, and it's not why I love the world of Zelda. I came for games like The Minish Cap, or The Wind Waker, or Skyward Sword. I play Breath of the Wild because I want to play Breath of the Wild, not because I want to play a Zelda game. I hope Nintendo will recognize the fact that different players are after different things, and hopefully do more remakes like Link's Awakening on Switch. I'd personally love to see the 3D titles like Ocarina of Time remade on the Breath of the Wild engine for more immersive combat. Bottom line, I hope Zelda doesn't 100% go for this new style. I think that would stray just far enough from their roots that we the fans would loose a big series that we've been able to depend on for games we'll enjoy. Let's all hope and pray that wherever the series goes, we'll all find something to enjoy from the amazing world of Hyrule. May the way of the hero lead to the Triforce, and may the goddess smile upon us!

Thanks for reading another post! I want to emphasize that these are just my thoughts and opinions, not facts or predictions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me! For now, have fun, stay hydrated, do what you love, and God bless!

~Alex

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lauesen64korsholm · 2 years

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Top Quality Louis Vuitton Replica

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dismal-alien-darling · 3 years

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The Gentle Heart of the Monster

Alcina Dimitrescu x female reader

Bela, Cassandra and Daniela Dimitrescu

Summary: Lady Dimitrescu and her daughers take care of a very pregnant reader.

Warnings/tags: pregnancy, slight pregnancy kink, talk of impregnation, some sexiness, Lady D and her daughters are so caring, personal attention, caring for a pregnant woman, wholesomeness

A/n: For the sake of the fic Alcina carried and birthed her daughters so she has extensive knowledge on vampire babies/pregnancy. Let’s say they are fraternal triplets to make things simple. No father involved just witchy baby magic just let me have this please!

y/n=your name

b/n=future baby’s name

“Ugh! You’re close to overstaying your welcome b/n!” you groaned as b/n gave your ribs a firm kick. You were seven months pregnant with still two months to go and you were over being pregnant. As if being pregnant wasn’t hard enough, having a human-vampire spawn growing inside of you was an entirely different animal. Alcina had come to you with the request of you carrying her next child a few years after you had come to live in the castle. You started as a servant, then her personal hand maid, then her lover and now her brood mare. Lady Dimitrescu would have trusted no one else to carry her next child. You had initially refused her request. You deeply loved Alcina but not enough to have some Dimitrescu man rut you like a rabbit in heat. Lady Dimitrescu had laughed, given you a very sly look and then explained how the conception would happen. You had listened mouth agape closing it after Alcina was done explaining. When you were told SHE would be the one impregnating you your decision instantly changed to a resounding yes. The rest was history.

“B/n hurting my dove again?” Alcina cooed kneeling down to take your shoes off. You grumbled in response. You had spent most of your pregnancy in one of the lounge rooms upstairs. It had the most comfortable chairs in the castle accompanied by equally comfortable foot rests. It had a fireplace and an adjacent balcony with a lovely outside dinette set. The doors leading to the balcony were made of glass so you got plenty of sunshine and had easy access to fresh air. Lady Dimitrescu had joined you every day as often as she could in your little sanctuary. She would often read in the chair across from you, rub your feet, neck, shoulders and back or you would curl up in her lap so you and her could caress your growing bump. Even the first two months your pregnancy had been challenging due to the circumstances. You had been around countless pregnant women in your old village and none of their pregnancies resembled yours, in some aspects yes but most aspects no.

“B/n, you little shit, stop hurting your mother,”Alcina chastised the baby inside you. You chuckled. It always made you laugh when Alcina and the girls would talk and vaguely threaten b/n. Alcina sat on the floor, placing your shoes to the side and began rubbing your feet with her inhumanly strong hands. You sighed in relief. You settled further into the chair placing your hands on your stomach as b/n continued their assault on your insides.

“Ow fuck!” you cried as b/n dragged their foot along the length of your stomach as if they were trying to rip your skin. You sat up doubling over.

“My dear sweet y/n,” Alcina said placing a comforting hand on your head stroking your head. She glared at your stomach and as if the baby could see her terrifying glare b/n finally settled and stopped moving. You lifted your head and slumped back into the chair. Alcina gave you a delicate smile and continued to rub your sore feet.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up my lady,” you confessed tears forming in your eyes.

“I know I know dear one. Growing a vampire baby is a daunting task. The girls were fist fighting even in the womb and look at them now! Ah, but alas my body was more than equipped to handle the pregnancy.” Alcina admitted. She had been in her same form she was now when she had been pregnant with her triplet girls. You however, were still a feeble human so just one vampire-human baby was more than enough for you.

“I’m so weak and fragile I’m too-” you were cut off by Alcina placing a hand on your stomach.

“My dove don’t start...” Lady Dimitrescu trailed off. You simply nodded in response wiping your eyes. You hated how emotional you had become. Alcina hated when you tore yourself apart especially now since you were carrying her fourth child. Alcina and you had discussed the mechanics of what a vampire pregnancy would entail making sure you were fully aware of what was ahead of you. You accepted the task because you would literally die for Alcina Dimitrescu. You had also discussed that if b/n were to almost kill you coming out she would turn you no questions asked.

“Would you like me to rub your neck and back draga mea?” Alcina asked breaking your recollections. You nodded leaning forward as Alcina moved behind the chair. She could fully sit on the floor and still be tall enough to reach your neck and back comfortably. “You look so beautiful cel mic, I love how you look with your child growing inside you, our child. I must admit I’m going to miss you looking like this when b/n arrives,” Alcina fawned as you gave her hand a quick squeeze. “If you weren’t hurting sweet one I would take you right here and now,” Alcina purred into your ear. You twisted your neck meeting your lips with hers. During the first few months Alcina hadn’t held back making love to you in your early stages but now you were too sore to entertain the idea.

“You flatter me so Alcina,” you said licking her lips before deepening your kiss. Alcina reached down snaking her hand over your belly rubbing it softly. She moved her hand and ever so gently touched your swollen breasts. “Oh my dear lady,” you moaned into her lips. Lady Dimitrescu moved her hand down your stomach again and was just passing your hips when the doors to the lounge room flew open. You and Alcina jumped apart breaking your tender moment.

“LUNCH TIME!” Bela announced pushing a tray full of delicious food and snacks. Her sisters followed in behind her pushing another tray of herbs and drinks.

“Oh thank you my loves,” you thanked as Bela, Cassandra and Daniela presented the spread to you. Cassandra began mixing the herbs into a liquid which she poured into your tea. It was mix of supplements and pain relievers. You gladly gulped the tea as the almost instant effects settled into your aching body.

“I have water, more tea, juice and milk,” Cassandra offered.

“Thank you Cassandra just set it down for the moment,” you said.

“So you have bread, that’s...feta and brie cheese, tomato slices, ham, salami, fresh basil, I picked it myself,”Bela boasted.

“But I have grapes, strawberries, almonds, roasted chicken and chocolate cake,” Daniela boasted back glaring at Bela. Since you had been pregnant the girls had been competing to see who could take care of you better.

“You’re feeling better aren’t you y/n because of my herbal mixture right?” Cassandra asked pushing past her sisters.

“I can rub your feet!” Bela offered kneeling down and getting right to work.

“Well I can rub your neck and shoulders,” Daniela barked bulldozing her mother out of the way. Alcina looked sternly at her daughter in response.

“You two didn’t ask her what she really wants! What would you like me to do for you and b/n y/n?” Cassandra asked sweetly. Alcina could see her daughters were overwhelming you.

“GIRLS!” Alcina bellowed making all three girls freeze. “You’re going to make y/n go into early labor if you don’t quiet down.” Alcina continued in a low and deadly voice. You spoke up to diffuse the situation.

“My lovely caring girls. All three-four of you,” you started looking up at Lady Dimitrescu, “are doing a wonderful job taking care of me and b/n. You all have made this pregnancy so much easier for me and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able repay the countless hours you’ve devoted to us.” You finished eyes welling up with tears for a different reason this time.

“AWE Y/N!” The girls squealed in delight as they gathered around you hugging you lovingly but gently because they knew if they were the slightest bit too rough with you mother would have their necks. You gave them each a kiss on their heads eliciting even more squealing. You glanced over at Alcina who had a single tear running down her face. She quickly wiped it away and cleared her throat.

“I can clearly see you and b/n are well taken care of here so I’m assuming I’m not needed,” Lady Dimitrescu teased. You rolled your eyes as the girls removed themselves from you.

“Oh no my lady, you’re job is to be the most beautiful view for me,” you teased back as Alcina leaned down kissing you chastely. “Now my angels you can each take turns rubbing my feet and then when I’m finished eating you can take turns rubbing my neck, shoulders and back. Does that sound like a good plan to all of you?” You finished with a feigned tone of exasperation.

“Yes!” The girls said in delight and just before they could bicker about who was to go first you exclaimed “Bela you can be first, then Cassandra and then Daniela and that was the order that popped up in my head,” you assured before any of their feelings could be hurt. Bela knelt down again as her sisters sat on the floor waiting their turn. Alcina walked over to the chair opposite you and picked up her book from where she had left it the other day. She took a seat admiring the beautiful picture of her pregnant lover and her three daughters so eager to attend her.

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Arab Character Joining Corrupt Superheroes, Police Parallels

Anonymous asked:

I’m writing a story with a Arabian diaspora main character. The story is about corrupt superheroes, and how they affect an oppressed superpowered minority. The main character is one of these superheroes, naively joining them in his teens believing he’s going to help people. Doesn’t help that his parents are having money trouble. Eventually he ends up fighting a superpowered crook, and gets a bystander killed.

1)I know portraying an Arabian character committing violence is a pretty touchy subject, even if accidental. Is there any way I can write this that makes it clear to the reader that the action itself is messed up without the unfortunate implication that Arabs are violent?

2)A large part of the story is the MC’s parents reaction. They are loving parents, however after this incident happens, they are confused and ashamed. While they still love him, they temporarily cut ties with him. Eventually they reconcile and start to be a family again. In my research (they are diaspora Saudi Arabians), Family is very important and tight-nit. Shame towards the family is to be avoided at all costs. However I’ve also read that disowning a family member rarely ever happens. Is there a way to write this kind of narrative with respect to this aspect of Arabian culture?

Let us begin with some terminology.

- If a person is from Saudi Arabia, they are Saudi Arabian, or more commonly, Saudi. This is their nationality.

- They may or may not be Arab. Arab is an ethnicity. Not all Saudis are Arab. Not all Arabs are Saudi.

- Arabic is a language. Lots of people across the world who are neither Saudi nor Arab speak Arabic.

- Arabian on its own is a word used to refer to a specific breed of horses.

If you are referring to humans, you want to either say "Saudi Arabian" (both words) or “Saudi” to indicate nationality, or "Arab" to indicate ethnicity. If you’re looking to describe your character’s culture, you probably want to call it Saudi culture. (While grammatically correct, talking about “Arab culture” doesn’t make much sense because Arabs are an incredibly diverse ethnic group and there is no such thing as a single monolithic Arab culture).

Now for the first question. In my mind, the issue is less about the character committing violence, and more about the premise of the story and how it mirrors real-life oppressive structures. You have an organized group of superheroes who think they are doing good by fighting “crooks” but in reality are enacting systemic oppression upon a marginalized group. This immediately brings to mind police violence, racial profiling, and the way that policing in North America is used as a tool of white supremacy while glorified in propaganda as a force for good. Essentially, you are telling a story about a character who joins an oppressive policing force, enacts violence upon a marginalized group as a result, and (I’m assuming) eventually realizes that they are not, in fact, the good guys. This is very close to being a “bigoted character learns not to be bigoted” story. I recommend re-examining your premise in light of the real-life parallels and asking yourself whether this is the story you want to tell.

The issue is compounded by the fact that your character is an Arab teen, who in real life is more likely to be the one facing racial profiling from the police. Taking this character and making him the oppressor in your story makes the already flawed premise even more problematic, especially if the characters in the oppressed group are white.

As for your second question, it seems believable to me that a teen’s parents might reject him if they learned that he committed a crime. However, when the family in question is Arab, you are suddenly feeding into harmful tropes about oppressive and violent Arab parents. You are asking if there is a way to write this respectfully. I believe that there is, but it requires a great deal of care, nuance, and cultural awareness. While it is possible to write a Saudi Arab character grappling with the consequences of violence and familial estrangement in a compelling way, the way your ask is phrased leads me to believe you are not equipped to do it justice.

- Mod Niki

Think about why Arab people committing violence is a touchy subject, and then think about the general propaganda narrative that came about from the act that made things so touchy.

It’s going to sound one hell of a lot like what you have here.

Military and police use buckets and buckets of propaganda to continue hooking in young, impressionable teens to commit state-sanctioned colonialism and oppression. That propaganda looks suspiciously like “we have health insurance, we will pay for your education, you just have to do what we tell you even if that means hurting or killing others, but it’s okay because you get to be the hero in the situation.”

Now, propaganda is a very powerful tool. I was taught, in my media classes, that controlling the message means shaping reality. The media is built as a propaganda machine, and when you start to see who owns what media properties you start to see some really disturbing patterns (Rubert Murdoch owns a lot of right-wing sources across America, the UK, and Australia, and he’s too rich to investigate his culpability in spinning terrible narratives found in right-wing publications. He owns the big names).

As Niki said, this situation mirrors police violence and police-sanctioned terrorism. And the very, very unfortunate implications of making the target of police violence be in that wheel. But I want you to look at the media situation that has made the plot happen.

Because even if you swapped out ethnicities, you’d still have a reckoning to do with the American culture that their primary social safety nets involve killing people.

I am not kidding.

Some of the most well-funded unions in the country are police unions. These people have pensions. They have health insurance. It’s damn near impossible to fire them. They get overtime very well mandated, and it’s a known thing among defence lawyers that arrests happen right before a cop’s shift will end so they get the overtime of filing the paperwork. They absolutely go into poor neighbourhoods and recruit based off people needing an escape, and them having the money to provide it.

A similar sentiment is true for the military, except they push for college education a bit more and don’t really have overtime, but they do have deployment bonuses. So the way to get extra pay for yourself is to go out and do colonialism outside the borders. The military doesn’t necessarily like it when the economy is doing well, and don’t like the idea of college being affordable, because they rely so heavily on poverty and fear of college debt to recruit.

The story you’re telling here goes so far beyond an individual’s actions and instead taps into America’s single biggest cultural investment: that oppressing others makes you a hero.

The Pentagon funds most military media out there as a propaganda tool, including most superhero movies and a large number of video games. This is in their budget. They will also go so far as to literally commission the games to exist. Part of getting that funding is you cannot critique America’s military, basically at all (the only exception I’ve seen is Ms Marvel, but that’s set in the 90s). This turns any sort of military-using media into a potential propaganda tool.

And the thing is? Even if you fall for that propaganda and were part of the military or the police, you still have to reckon with the fact you put whatever your own desires were above a huge track record of those groups being terrible. You still have to reckon with the fact you didn’t realize they were wrong, and were complicit in a lot of crimes.

This goes very far beyond “the action is terrible” and goes into “the system is rotten to its core, and you chose not to believe it, or to believe you could change what was built with blood.”

“Good” police officers get fired. If you try to question anything, if you try to say this action is wrong, you will absolutely get destroyed. Military’s much the same. You need some degree of buy-in to the concept of white supremacy to sign up for the military or the police, because you need to see their actions as not deal breakers instead of actions that violate multiple international laws.

In short: you need to see the people being oppressed as deserving of being oppressed to some degree in order to participate with police and the military.

Marginalized people can hold this belief, it happens. But that is a very sticky situation that outsiders shouldn’t touch.

It’s possible but difficult for you to write a white person having this sort of arc, but it would be extremely challenging to have it not come across as a white guilt story. To not have a socially aware audience roll their eyes at how long it took. You’d definitely not be writing a story with a diverse audience in mind, because you’d mostly appeal to those who saw the propaganda as just fine and not that bad.

This isn’t even getting into the oft-cited adage that boys who bully others become cops, while girls who bully become nurses. And the more police atrocities become mainstream news, the less and less people can convince themselves that becoming a police officer is a good thing.

Which brings me to the point of: how well-documented is this oppression? Is this character walking around in an oppressive situation like, say, pre-social-media where there was no direct access to the oppressed groups and you could close your eyes and look away even if it made national news? Or is this in a media connected world where these oppressed populations have a voice in the narrative?

The former has an angle of the character slowly realizing the horror and it’s slightly more forgivable for their early ignorance. But in any sort of world where there’s access to the people getting hurt? Things get more and more “ignorance is indistinguishable from maliciousness.” And keep in mind, these stories are read in the real world, where police brutality and war crimes go viral, and a lack of knowledge is getting harder and harder to defend as a position.

Media plays a huge role in shaping our perception of what’s happening. Cameras on a situation makes different activism tactics work, as we can see with how activism changed in the 60s and 70s as tv reached the masses. Social media has made it possible for you to look up firsthand accounts of discrimination within seconds.

This is a factor you are absolutely going to have to consider, when you want to look at how nice your hero is seen by marginalized or otherwise socially-aware people. If there is a way to find out how bad this superhero organization is before you sign a contract with them? Then that doesn’t look particularly good on the “hero”. You’d really have to establish them as super idealistic, super sheltered, super desperate, and/or just swallow the knowledge that they really don’t see anything that happens “over there to those people” as that bad.

All of the above is more than possible. And they’d still be seen as complicit no matter what justification you gave, because they are.

Does this mean all corrupt organization stories are off limits? No. The reason these stories have such deep cultural resonance right now is because of the propaganda I outlined above.

But you as the author are going to have to examine your own engagement with the propaganda narrative and do your own private reckoning so your own sense of guilt and compliance doesn’t bleed through the narrative too strongly, so you can tell a good story instead of an overt message story that’s you working out your own feelings.

By all means, write a story where police and the military are taken down, where propaganda is weaponized and the media is controlled (because that’s sure as hell the modern world).

But know that stories where the hero discovers the corruption already have a ticking clock because we, in the real world, are slowly being faced with a mountain of apathy instead of ignorance. The knowledge of oppression is out there so much that marginalized people are tired of the ignorance defence.

As the saying goes, “privilege is the ability to ignore the oppression of others.”

Propaganda, centralized media, and strategic cultural investment made it possible for police and the military to have a chokehold on their public perception. But that’s changing. The chokehold is starting to fade, people are starting to question their beliefs.

The past year has shown that knowledge isn’t the issue; it’s white supremacy. People don’t want to believe that any of this is that bad. People want to believe that oppression is justified, that if people just followed the law they’d be fine. They don’t want to question themselves. And marginalized people are tired of these narratives where, suddenly, people snap out of it. Because there was so much evidence to show it was bad, but it was only when you do one of the worst crimes imaginable that you realize this is bad? It’s only when it becomes personal that things are worth looking at critically?

No. And you need to examine where you are in processing your own complicity before writing a story where you’ve swapped around the ethnicities to try and distance yourself from the problem, where in the end you made the target the oppressor.

~Mod Lesya

#police brutality #oppression #arab #saudi arabia #military #superhero #superheroes #asks #violence #propaganda

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redorich · 3 years

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Oh, Iove the reverse!Hermit Au! (That's what I've been calling it in my head anyways, don't mind me) I love the concept of them reclaiming L'hole and just slowly turning it into something beautiful. I wonder, in this Au are the hermits stuck on the dream smp (yes, please, that would be so cool!! Them trying to find a way back to their own world could be a whole story in and off itself) or do they just randomly pop into the world because they can? And if it's multiple hermits (If it's all the hermits) then how long until the crater can't hold them anymore, until they spill out like a more benevolent version of the blood vines? How long until they follow their namesake instinct and split off? Just, the idea of Dream smp members travelling really far out to find a mansion or something the like and suddenly they come across these monumental builts that are now just there. Imagine the eariness of that, of finding something like 'just' Grians Mansion or Scars Village (not to speak of something the size of Cubs Pyramid or Keralis City!!) and having it be completely empty. (Except of course for the singular shadow in the corner of one eye. But that was gone so quickly, was that even real?)

Imagine the hermits doing their hermit thing, were they built huge farms and cart giant amounts of resources to and fro, and have impressive shops but now it's all underground, hidden somewhere! (And also they've replaced shulker boxes with mules, because I love mules, and the idea of mule highways is hilarious). Imagine someone stumbling in on that! No, like, please, imagine that. And... And possibly write your imagination down perhaps? Maybe? If you would like? That would be extremly pog.

(Bonus points if someone drops into like, a nuzzling day with multiple hermits shopping and haggling over prices)

-Fidget

The Hermits are, for the moment, stuck in this unfamiliar server due to an event called The Split, wherein the Hermits attempted to jump to a new world, but ended up stranded in the Dream SMP when everything went wrong. Why things went wrong, they don’t know yet. Their admin, Xisuma, was critically weakened by his efforts during The Split; he managed to keep everyone alive, so he doesn’t regret it, even if that means that he’s bedridden and magically weak.

The Hermits are unused to living together in such a small area: they are called Hermits for a reason, after all. From the very start, they spread out, digging into the walls just to get some space. The Hermit compound is massive. They’ve already started to spill out of the canyon, venturing above ground and hiding in the shadows as they collect resources. If they had the resources, they’d have all split up ages ago, but this server is dangerous and Xisuma is in a precarious state, so they put up with the crowding for the moment, until each and every one of them is equipped.

Even after the Hermits have acquired gear and supplies, it’s not enough. They still need to survey the land, create secretive Nether pathways, figure out what’s wrong with the End and how they can fix/exploit it, divvy up the resources, and choose who’s going to live with whom. After all, the Hermits have seen firsthand Dream’s death at their own traps. The people native to the Dream SMP are violent by nature. None of the Hermits are going to live alone in this world.

They have started construction outside of the canyon, though, so that when they’re ready to make their move they won’t be caught unawares. All of their builds are thousands of blocks away from civilization, and the only way to find them is through a single Nether portal which can be found in the second mark of the Upside Down. Grian, False, and Tango have set about recreating the Upside Down because while building it is a lot more difficult without elytra, having a base in the Nether will prove beneficial in the long run in a way that it wasn’t in Hermitcraft.

As far as the Hermits are aware, no one has come across their half-built, Brobdingnagian structures. They’re hollow and shadowy and that’s just the way the Hermits like it.

In the meantime, they’ll settle for their well-loved canyon and the anthill-like tunnels and chambers carved into its walls. The biggest chamber by far is a massive cavern which Scar has made to look like roots are holding all the dirt above their heads. (Meanwhile, Wels runs about placing torches while Scar builds, because Xisuma can’t overtax himself respawning Scar fifty times in a row just because the man’s builds always turn into unintentional mob farms.) This chamber becomes the shopping district, and it has an architectural vibe of a speakeasy or a black market-- a literal underground market.

All their individual small bases are connected through tunnels-- and yes, instead of shulker boxes they have Bdubs breed them mules and turn the tunnels into a mule highway.

As a rule, they all carry splash potions of invisibility in their hotbars. Most of the Hermits don’t enjoy being perceived as scary, dangerous entities, but the mystery and fear surrounding their reputation keeps them safe. It’s entirely possible that someone’s strip mine will intersect their underground society, and they want people to be inclined to forget what they’ve seen and decide to mine in another direction, for their own safety.

#mcyt #hc x dsmp #hermit canyon au #xisuma #xisumavoid #grian #falsesymmetry #tango tek #goodtimeswithscar #welsknight #dreamwastaken #me.cpp #Anonymous

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leiawritesstories · 3 years

Text

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair.

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job.

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth.

As if she knew anything her staff actually did.

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together.

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation.

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself.

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order.

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English.

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple.

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved.

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure.

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved.

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve.

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind.

“You broke both of your hearts”

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart.

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice.

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds.

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city.

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner.

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed.

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction.

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth.

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love. We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath.

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages.

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan.

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof.

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech.

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying.

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan.

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing.

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow.

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything.

She was worthy of him.

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified.

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

Present day.

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked.

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch.

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.”

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

#my writing #rowaelin month #aaaaaangst

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themoonsbeloved · 3 years

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Can we just take a moment to rem that Yana literally reinforced the stereotype that Muslim/Ethnic people have too many kids to count 😐. Seriously, she could have said 7 kids (coz thats how many siblings I have) if she wanted kalim to have a large fam. But nope 40+.

I also just get rubbed the wrong way when non-poc twst fans have to push the narrative that Kalim's dad got some sorta harem or somthn. I cannot tell u how many kalim analogy headcannons I've read with this bull.

Or worst of all, the friking Scarabia Ocs. Why do they all gotta have orientatilst bull crap with their clothing/design!😭 GOOGLE EXISTS!

RIGHT??? Like at the end of the day Yana clearly has a thing for making her brown characters stereotypical (Like her South Asian characters from Black Butler), as well as the source material of Disney's Aladdin being extremely racist and islamophobic with all the annoying orientalism lol, so it just goes to show no one really cares about how the perpetuation of these racist stereotypes negatively affect real people from these cultures and religions that the characters are based off of. Yana deciding that Kalim has 40+ siblings and implying that his rich billionare father has multiple wives is racist and islamophobic and of poor taste. And even though its only implied based on the information of the number of siblings, people don't stop to think like maybe I don't have to perpetuate that stereotype? Because I personally view it as his father owning an orphanage, since caring for orphans is a very religiously important concept in Islam. I don't really care if you think its a common practice in cultures (that you're again not from or have any profound knowledge on), if you're only going to associate people like me with things like that, then I'm clearly not surprised I had to come across a post exploring why Kalim is apparently more likely to be a fuckboy because his dad is implied to have more than one woman. The cultural ignorance is real in this fandom lol.

Also most of the time the people who make these headcannons can't even name a single country in MENA other than Saudi Arabia and Egypt, or have never actually met a real Arab or even a Muslim or know anything about MENA cultures, so they're quite frankly not even equipped with the knowledge and cultural understanding to try and delve into Kalim and Jamil's lore without churning up some kind of racially/culturally offensive, bigoted viewpoint and pass it off as just their opinion.

I've made so. many. posts. about the orienatalism and insensitivity around scarabia over the past two ish years? And how to like, not repeat that shit in your ocs. But I've also had to block so many ppl cause every time I gotta see an oc with a Muslim name dressed like she's a seductive belly dancer/shows a lot of skin (no one dresses like that especially in hot desert climates????), or acts like one, and it seriously just makes me go insane that no one stops to question whether its an offensive harmful depicition of real people?????? Like whats not clicking??? Stop viewing Arabs and Muslim characters as exotic, seductive, devious and savage people?

#twisted wonderland #twst #kalim al asim #jamil viper #twst racism

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get-shiggy-with-it · 2 years

Text

shigaraki x bitch (endearing) from my fic here college au!graduation edition ramblings below the cut

tw: unhealthy relationships, contains shigadabi, fear of rejection, miscommunication, mentions of smut, 18+

tagging @druidcrft and @husbandtotomurashigaraki since y'all send me asks abt it <3 also I literally didn't proof read this, I just rambled so if you see typos no you didn't

OKAY

I've had this concept floating around in my head for months now so we all know reader is a bit of a try hard when it comes to academics.

Not Shigs though. He has sort of always just been coasting.

He's good at what he does, and while he enjoys it, he hasn't ever found it all that challenging. I envision him being content enough with just doing what he's always done, not overwhelmingly concerned with where he's going or what he ends up doing after getting that degree in the bag.

He doesn't have all that much to prove or anyone really to prove it too for that matter.

But you're different. You're going to be successful on purpose, so painfully impressive out of pure spite for everyone who thought you were just another dumbass sorority chick without a thought in your pretty little head.

You're gonna be something.

And that compulsive need for revenge via over-achieving is not something Tomura can relate to.

So he pulls away a bit--not truly because he wants to, he never wants to be more than six inches away from you at any given moment the freak--but because he can't stand to hear any more about it.

About all the interviews or the grad school applications or the plane tickets--

About all that distance.

It makes his throat tighten up and the skin on his neck burn in a way it hasn't since 'locked you down' as Dabi calls it.

And it's Dabi that he retreats back into to fill all the space left behind. But Tomura's roommate is a poor substitute on his own. He's abrasive and rude and not equipped to offer the level of affection Tomura's become accustomed too. But Dabi tries.

He's got ways of getting his nasty lil asshole friend to say what's really on his mind.

It all comes to a head (heh) in one way or another when you announce that for *insert whatever amazing opportunity here* you're going to be skipping town after your degree affective date.

You sound so excited when you say it, throwing yourself into his arms for not nearly long enough before you're rushing out the door of Tomura's apartment (yours too he used to think) to track down Spinner or Jin, at that point he isn't exactly listen.

The world is just white noise as he watches the door slam shut and his mouth tastes the way his bathroom smells after Dabi's stumbles home from a night at the club(s).

And it's Dabi that finds him, hours later, sitting on his bed--with clean sheets now ever since you started spending weekends there--and it's Dabi that pulls him from the spiral just like he did that first time when Tomura refused to just spill his guts about how much he liked your unfairly hot ass.

The fucking is sloppy and it's up in the air as to whether or not they've ever done this just with each other and no you around to mediate. It's mostly for Dabi if he's being honest, mostly to work them both into a headspace altered by endorphins and limbs that feel heavy enough to remember there's a physical body under all that turmoil. Mostly so he can say what he knows he's gotta.

cause Dabi is going to need at least one mind-blowing orgasm under his belt before talking about any of that feely shit. An orgasm or some whiskey, but he finished off the bottle last night and he thinks if he runs to the corner store now he might just not come back.

So they do what they have to do and this time Tomura doesn't find himself behind tossed halfway across the room when everything is said and done.

Dabi isn't often kind but he knows what it feels like to be left in the dust of someone else's race to happiness. So he pokes and he prods until Tomura finally fesses up to what's been eating at him these past few weeks.

It isn't even that you're going.

That you're leaving him behind.

It's that you never asked him to come with you.

And Dabi thinks this all might be the stupidest shit he's ever heard but Tomura sounds like he's about to fucking cry so what comes next is worded with a bit more restraint than it would have had otherwise.

"So why don't you tell your fucking girlfriend that then?"

It's a good question but it earns him knee to his naked dick.

But Tomura thinks about that the rest of the night.

Thinks that of all the shit he's spilled to you, why was this the one thing he really couldn't stomach to lay out in the open.

And the answer is all but smacking him upside the head, but it takes him another week to accept that it's because he's afraid.

He's afraid that you'll refuse. That you haven't asked because you don't want him anymore. That there was an expiration date to all of this and it's gonna start to stink of rejection soon.

The timeline from here on out is a bit wishy washy but in any case, there comes a time where he just can't take it anymore. Graduation is coming up and time is running out and when you start talking about your lease coming up and Tomura just snaps.

You're just cuddling and he's in your lap propped up on his bed while he get's through a particularly challenging boss battle when you notice his shoulders start to shake.

And that his character on screen is just standing motionless as the music plays and Tomura's breathy is shakier than normal.

You can't really do much other than hold on a bit tighter and listen while he blubbers, please don't leave and for you take him with you and maybe he is being incredibly manipulative but he doesn't particularly care in that moment.

And I'm not entirely sure what I want to happen after. Ya know, how it all wraps up. Depends on the vibes, but I just want some angst with a potentially happy ending for shigs and his gf 😌 its what they deserve.

#bee.writes #college au things #I just love them your honor #tw unhealthy relationship

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dogtoling · 3 years

Text

What is a Special Weapon? (a speculation)

So let's get straight into the post. (LONG post under the cut)

A Special Weapon is: - the weapon itself: a powerful ink battling weapon manufactured and regulated specifically for this purpose (Bubble Blower, Sting Ray, Inkstrike, Inkzooka etc.) OR - a specialized attack or response treated as a special weapon (Kraken, Splashdown, Booyah Bomb etc.) - Supposedly uses the Inkling's own ink - debatable, but highly likely based on evidence

Before we can get deeper into the special weapon lore, we must look into what comes BEFORE a special weapon. That's the special gauge.

There are multiple ways to fill up a special gauge: - Inking turf - Having control over an objective in Ranked Battle - Being in an underdog situation in a match (Tenacity) - Equipping a Canned Special What happens when the special is then activated? The meter slowly depletes, and once it is fully drained, the special ends. In practice, what IS the special meter? Now, when looking at the meter objectively, it looks as if it's filled with ink. That alongside its function in powering Special Weapons, as well as draining like an actual Ink Tank, can give the impression that it is LITERALLY a secondary ink reserve the player is filling up. This is in order to then use all of that ink as ammo for the special. And this actually makes a lot of sense. well now it's time to open a whole new can of worms (or weapons i guess)

CANNED SPECIALS Canned specials are literally, well, canned specials that make an appearance in Splatoon's single player modes as well as the Battle Dojo from the first game.

(From the splash screen of the first game, we can see that they are approximately the size of an actual tuna can.) Upon obtaining a canned special, your special gauge immediately fills up and you gain the ability to use said special weapon, which heavily suggests that the special weapon itself is stored inside.... the tiny can. You know, stuff like a force field, or a 7ft ink cannon. Or a pressure washer that includes more ink than the volume of an Inkling. Yeah. Right. So this implies insane hammerspace technology if it IS to be taken at face value - although i find it odd that there's not a single official art or tidbit of lore that acknowledges that inklings in fact obtain their specials from tiny hammerspace tins. (Even sub weapons and their inner workings make a tiny appearance in official art. Specials are never elaborated on too much, unfortunately...)

As an alternative, there is the concept of the cans holding a specific amount of condensed ink enough to power any of the included specials that you could then pop inside the weapon. That is not at all how it's implied to work, but it's a cool alternate explanation that makes slightly more sense - and if we take some liberties and assume that the cans are a LIIITTLE bit bigger, we could even argue that the cans could be THE special gauge itself. Looking at the special gauge, it IS designed to be round, just like a tin. I don't recall what it was modeled after if anything, or if it's just a coincidence, but food for thought.

Oh yeah also here's a picture of a NORMAL main weapon can that you can get at Kamabo Co. They have one for like every weapon type as well as some bombs which implies that weapons are oftentimes stored inside cans (although these might be bigger cans). Either way, the ink tank idea might be down the drain considering the implications of this one.

Anyway, moving on. Hi guys! I brought you guys all the way through that wall of text... just to dunk on that literal ink tank theory and dump it in the trash because there is another theory that makes more sense on like every scale possible. I'm so sorry. (But I also really like the idea of the special gauge being a literal ink tank that you fill up, so I had to include it, because it's not like it doesn't hold a lot of ground.) I'll get straight to the point. The other theory is that the special gauge is only a hypothetical concept created for the sake of gameplay and balancing, and in reality, it is simply the buildup to what I'll refer to as the "special rush" state of an Inkling. It has no physical value, varies between Inklings, and has no ties to actual points at all. Observe these bits from the art books 1 and 2:

1. Some Inkzooka trivia. Although the entry refers to SPECIFICALLY this weapon, it is very likely that the same is true for all special weapons - or at least the ones that primarily use ink (so not necessarily things such as the Bubbler and Echolocator).

(Ignore the random lines. Those are my notes lol) This Baller entry tells us a LOT and i mean a LOT of what we needed to know. First of all, the Inklings' ink output breaks the laws of physics there is no way a single inkling has enough ink inside it to even fill THAT ball at least 4 times the volume of its body NOT TO MENTION producing enough ink to fill one SEVEN TIMES THAT SIZE anyway the important part is the one where it confirms that Inklings produce an abnormal amount of ink while they are using a special weapon. Because the Baller was specifically developed for the purpose of containing all the excess ink, there is a big implication that the ink is originating from the user itself, specifically in the moment of using a Special. Then why is this? Well now we get to the concept of the "special rush" that I mentioned before. It refers to this state that we see Inklings enter when their special gauge fills up:

Their tentacles will glow, bubble up as if boiling, and they will look as if caught in an epic dramatic action movie wind at all times. This is when they're able to use their Special.

I think it's safe to say that this is "a heightened emotional state". As opposed to for example the Kraken which could be a repurposed panic response (if you haven't seen my post about that, that exists too) the special rush is likely a similar all-out response, although caused by getting really in the zone of battle. So to put it simply, a POSITIVE chemical response, in which the Inkling's body starts pumping more ink through channeling one's fighting spirit and yadda yadda yadda.

To put it shortly here; this "rush" likely evolved as a response to intense territory disputes or even hunting. More ink means more defense AND more offensive power. In Turf Wars, reaching this rush means that Inklings can - and probably have to - channel this excess ink elsewhere, which in this case is into special weapons that quickly gobble up all of the excess ink (with part of it going in the ink tank).

A lot of the weapons second this excess ink theory by including a heightened coating of ink across the user's whole body (Ink Armor, Booyah Bomb, Splashdown) or even rounding up the excess ink that's built up into an offensive endeavor (Splashdown, Booyah Bomb, other specials utilize it as ammo). Once all the ink is used up, the Inkling's emotional state stabilizes and the cycle soon starts over again until they hit the high mark again. (For a second ignoring the fact that it is physically impossible for them to produce this much ink. I guess I'm not ignoring it since I'm drawing attention to it here but it bothers me so much. My work is never done lol) So I guess this theory makes sense, but why is it inherently BETTER than the "special gauge is an ink reserve" one? Let's see the arguments for the ink tank version: 1. The Special Gauge is literally filled up with ink as the game is played. This is potentially something that happens as the weapon is shot, and some of the ink is channeled into the special gauge instead.

> It doesn't make much sense for this to be the case. The ink is being SHOT OUT, not stored; at least not stored anywhere visible and although you really have to have room for imagination when trying to draw logic for this game, i would really assume the developers would include a physical indicator of the gauge if it was meant to be literal.

2. There is potential for the Canned Specials to BE the gauge itself, as something that attaches or "fuels" the special. The gauge could be designed the way it is to reflect this.

> The canned specials are a weirdly inconsistent thing in the world of Splatoon, appearing ONLY as insta-fills in single player campaigns and the Splatoon 1 battle dojo. True, there are some on the player's desk in the splash screen of the first game, but we also don't know if those are for Turf War, or the dojo, or from Hero Mode. There's not even any for sale at Ammo Knights, whereas entire special weapons outside of cans very much are. Even if the special gauge isn't a can, it also doesn't mean that a can as an ink tank can't essentially serve the same purpose of providing the ink needed for a special. 3. The gauge fills up with a very distinct ink graphic, so it could literally mean it's ink!

> This one is true! But taking into consideration one thing; as a hypothetical gauge, the connection with ink is STILL there, as by the time the gauge is finished, the Inkling is basically overflowing with excess Ink. So rather than an external tank being filled with ink, the player itself is. 4. The gauge fills, then it's full, and it slowly depletes as a special is used. Basically the perfect flow; and a perfect reasoning for where all the ink comes from, and WHY you need to fill up the gauge to be able to use a special.

> This same reasoning still makes complete sense for the hypothetical gauge. The graphic goes up to indicate how close the Inkling is getting to the rush state, clearly shows when they are IN the rush state, and then the state slowly wears off as the ink is used. Where the ink comes from is directly explained in canon at this point; an Inkling in its special weapon state emits a crazy amount of ink - according to what the art book shows, more than like 10 times the volume of the inkling itself. Which makes zero sense whatsoever but, well, it does explain where the ink comes from. 5. The special meter being hypothetical wouldn't be good because it wouldn't be consistent at all. Some people surely get way more pumped WAY faster and use way more specials than others! No balance!

> The special meters aren't consistent to begin with, even in the game. People who stack Special Charge Up will sometimes use a special upwards of five times per 3-minute-game. People who get splatted a lot may literally never get to use a special once. Just like people's personalities in real life, the rates at which different Inklings would "charge up" can vary by a mile. And furthermore...

We see examples of the "special rush" outside of the gameplay!

Pearl, in the ending of Octo Expansion, enters a special rush mode seemingly out of nowhere (though you could also maybe say she might have used a canned special) after getting pumped to literally save the world. So does Agent 3; DOZENS OF TIMES, in both iterations of battles against them. They use a bunch of special weapons completely out of left field, take way more hits than the player and continuously use Splashdowns. This is because they're continuously triggering their Rush in the midst of intense combat, and especially under mind control, during which most of what they probably have is survival instinct, which means drastically raised ink production upping both offensive and defensive capabilities. But wait, there's actually even more that supports the theory of the special gauge referring to a buildup to a rush state: - Tenacity as an ability. This ability makes it so that your special gauge will automatically fill itself up if your team has fewer players on the field than the enemy team. This ability makes very little sense in the situation that the special gauge is literally an ink tank, as you're not actually shooting ink at all for it to fill up. However, as an emotional thing, a player that is also an underdog is SURE to be really giving their all in the competition and thus building up their rush faster. - Your special gauge supposedly fills up passively while your team has control of the objective in Ranked (I literally didn't know this because I barely play ranked ever). Again, this has nothing to do with actual inking. But what it DOES have to do with is potentially winning the game, and that totally gets you pumped. - Again, the inconsistencies in a special gauge. If it was an ink tank, you would assume the amount of ink needed for each special weapon was a very specific amount. Instead, players fill their special gauge at different rates, and getting splatted cuts down the gauge... again, depending on your abilities. Losing ink from a pre-filled ink tank that is being specifically saved up for a weapon doesn't really make sense as one gets splatted, but getting demoralized and frustrated when getting splatted makes a whole lot of sense, which would also set you back in reaching your special rush.

In conclusion: The Special Gauge is a hypothetical meter that exists for gameplay purposes; in practice, it only conveys how close or far a player is to their "special rush" state, in which their senses and emotions are heightened and their ink production is greatly increased due to a surge in fighting spirit.

1. When a battle starts, no one has their rush going on because everyone is only just warming up. Different people with different objectives and personalities may get their rush very quickly, very slowly, very frequently or only once. You get the picture.

2. As players find themselves doing intense physical activities, participating in tense combat and so on, they build up towards their rush state (likely building up endorphins, dopamine and adrenaline or the like), which increases the body's ink production. It is likely that contact with ink also naturally increases one's ink production.

3. When players hit this rush state and the "special meter" is filled, they can channel all the excess ink into a special weapon. Once the ink is used up, the rush subsides into a less intense emotional state, until the cycle may start again soon after.

Well, there's my thoughts on specials and mostly the special gauge and what it means. Thanks for reading yet another one of these essays.

#squidthoughts #splatoon #splatoon headcanons #special weapon #specials

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escapewithbts · 3 years

Text

Secrets in a Foreign Language - Jungkook (Part One)

So I’m not entirely sure if this is going to be just a couple parts or a small series, I kind of just came up with it randomly! I also couldn’t think of a better title so bear with me please haha nevertheless I hope you enjoy! I loved writing this beginning so far!

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>>next

You fiddled with the keys in your hand, searching for the one you marked for this particular unit. Finally, you found the correct one, pushing it into the lock and opening the front door with a click. It looked like pretty much every other apartment in the building, modern with a large living space, open concept kitchen with stainless steel appliances, large windows that looked over the city of Seoul. Just another multi-million dollar home you could only ever afford in your dreams.

Yet here you were, entering the home of an individual who could afford such a space in their reality... because it was your job to clean it. Yes, you were a housekeeper for the company who owned this apartment building; one of the most expensive places to live in all of South Korea.

You had moved here to Seoul from your home country abroad in search of change. A new adventure? Something to push you out of your comfort zone? Really you were just extremely bored back home; sick of the same routines, the same people, the career you didn’t enjoy. So, before you could talk yourself out of it, you contacted a job agency based in Seoul, South Korea whose mission was to find jobs for foreigners who spoke little to no Korean (aka you). And that is approximately how you landed this gig. Only a few months in and your Korean had significantly improved (requiring basic necessities like, you know, food and toilet paper, forced you to learn how to acquire said items in this new language) and you weren’t hating this job at all. You were alone most of the time, cleaning wasn’t too difficult since you have been doing it your whole life, and because it was for such a wealthy company the pay wasn’t bad either. Was it what you wanted to do for the rest of your life? Probably not. But it paid the bills and still left some income for exploration of your new home country.

And honestly, the most difficult part of it all was the scheduling. Sometimes you had limited time to clean a home based on the person’s day, sometimes you had an excessive number of units to clean in one day and wondered how exactly you were going to finish them all. But once you came into a routine that stuck you quickly found a pace for yourself that worked perfectly.

And since you were entering the homes of some of Korea’s wealthiest and most famous, the contract and background check for the position were quite lengthy. For example, you couldn’t touch anything unnecessary in their homes, couldn’t snoop around (obviously, you wouldn’t do that for a “regular” person anyway?), you weren’t even allowed to use their bathroom if you had to. The company had contacted all your previous employers, colleagues, some friends, even randomly requested internet browsing history a couple times! (I guess they wanted to make sure you weren’t a crazy stalker “fan” some K-pop groups you had heard about having, or a spy for another company’s CEO). The process was rather insane in your opinion, but alas, you passed, and honestly, the fact that you were a foreigner who didn’t speak much Korean probably helped your case. And to be fair, you really didn’t care about whose house you were in, you were just thankful to have acquired a job after your decision to move across the world that happened on a whim.

This particular unit was actually decorated quite nicely. It was more minimal style, with modern furniture that still felt warm and inviting. You figured it must be the home of someone younger, probably mid-twenties like you, but you also got the feeling they didn’t spend much time here. It was already in fairly immaculate shape (thankfully, it was your last job of the day, so you knew it was going to be quick) and didn’t seem very lived in in general. You couldn’t help but notice what looked like speakers and recording equipment shoved into the corner of the room. This place must belong to a musician or producer of some sort, you thought. You shrugged and turned back to where you had entered, lugging your cleaning supplies in through the front door. Then you put in your wireless headphones, pulled on your rubber gloves, and began by dusting around the surfaces of the living room.

Not long after you had started, you were in the bathroom off the guestroom wiping down the sink. A sudden sound of what you thought was the loud slam of a door shutting startled you. Your head shot up and you stopped what you were doing to remove an earphone from one of your ears. Immediately you heard the raised voice of a young woman coming from down the hall, followed by a quieter one from a man. Your heart started racing. Were you in the wrong unit? Had you read the schedule incorrectly? Did you get the address mixed up? You frantically pulled your phone from your back pocket to check the schedule that came directly from management. Yes, the date matched, it was Tuesday. Yes, the time matched, 2 in the afternoon. And the address was correct, too. So why were there people suddenly in the home? Did they know you were here? This had never happened before in the short time you had been doing this job, so you had no idea what to do. Continue working like you didn’t realize they were here? Make your presence known so you don’t seem like you’re being suspicious? Were you going to get in trouble with the company? Certainly not if you were just following the schedule, right? Your mind was going a mile a minute.

Then before you could quite make up your mind, the voices sounded even closer, and you could only make out a little bit of what they were saying, especially since your Korean wasn’t great yet.

“Why didn’t you go with me?... What were you thinking?” you heard the woman’s voice say (or something like that so you thought?) She sounded angry.

“I don’t know…” the man replied, followed by something else you couldn’t comprehend. He was still a lot quieter than her.

She spoke again.

“What are people going to say, Jungkook?”

You froze.

Jungkook.

Jungkook? Of BTS?

Okay, so you weren’t a crazy stalker fan or anything, but it was impossible to avoid knowing about the K-pop group BTS. They were literally everywhere around Seoul. Commercials on tv, billboards all over the city, posters on the subway trains… their faces even appeared on the coffee drink you had every morning for goodness sake! Since you kept seeing them, after you had gotten the job, you researched them a little bit. Their music was good, they seemed like genuine people, but never did you think you would be in one of their houses. There were hundreds of Korean businessmen, executives, celebrities, and only 7 members of BTS. Honestly, what were the chances?

Pretty good apparently. Fuck.

“I’m your girlfriend, Jungkook,” she continued annoyingly.

Ah, that’s right. In your brief research you had read he was seeing another idol. What was her name again?

“No, Cho-hee,” Jungkook replied.

Oh right. Kim Cho-hee. You remember now.

“You’re my pretend girlfriend.”

Your heart stopped.

Oh fuck! You definitely weren’t supposed to hear that. You had to show yourself now. That’s it, your decision was made for the sake of your career.

You quietly walked out of the room and found the two of them in the hallway with their backs turned to you. Just as Cho-hee was opening her mouth to respond you cleared your throat.

They both whipped around at your sudden sound. Yep, it was them alright. You recognized them immediately. They stared at you stunned for a second before Cho-hee spoke up.

“Who are you?!” she practically barked in Korean, taking a few steps towards you with her long slim legs, her large brown eyes wide, her dark hair whipping around her shoulders, her pale skin painted with a red hue.

“I, uh, I’m…” you stuttered, attempting to find the correct Korean words but failing miserably from being put on the spot.

Jungkook calmly put his hand around Cho-hee’s arm and pulled her back slightly.

“She the housekeeper,” he answered in Korean for you. Yes, that was the word you were looking for. “I don’t think she speaks Korean.”

Not well, anyway, thanks Jungkook.

He turned toward you, his dark brown eyes finding yours. Your stomach flipped from nervousness.

“You speak English?” he asked timidly in your native tongue.

All you could do was nod.

He let out a sigh of relief and said something you didn’t understand to Cho-hee, causing her to step back and a look of relief to wash over her face, too.

It was then that you realized they probably thought you didn’t understand their conversation. That you didn’t know the meaning of any of it. Should you come clean and tell them you understood? Particularly the “pretend girlfriend” stuff?

Cho-hee turned back toward the main room and beckoned at Jungkook.

“Come on, let the help continue working.”

Oof. ‘The help’. You definitely understood that. You knew cleaning the homes of rich people meant you may run into some entitlement, but dang, you didn’t think someone would make it so obvious, language barrier or not.

You winced.

Jungkook cocked his head, a confused look on his face. But then he shook it off.

“I think…” he said hesitantly in English, then shook his head to correct himself, “Ah um no, I thought you were here on Wednesday?”

You shook your head.

“No, um, my schedule says Tuesday. So, unless it’s wrong then…”

Jungkook put two fingers to the bridge of his nose in thought.

“Aiishh, no you are right, I’m sorry. I’m not here very often so I never can remember which day.”

You began taking off your gloves.

“It’s-it’s okay, I can go, come back at a better time…”

He waved his hands in front of him in protest.

“No, no, stay, continue, please. I don’t want to be an... interrupt... interruption? That’s the right word?” a blush formed on his face as he chuckled at himself.

You smiled. Cute.

“Yes, that’s right. Thank you. I’m almost done, I promise.”

He smiled at you again and nodded.

“Jungkook-ah!” Cho-hee yelled from the kitchen.

Jungkook then bowed to you and whispered a quick “thank you” before disappearing into the other room.

You hadn’t realized how tense your body had become until you they were out of your sight and you released your muscles with a deep breath.

You quickly decided to keep their conversation to yourself; no point in letting them know you accidentally heard every word and understood, right? You wouldn’t tell anyone, after all it wasn’t your business. Still, there was that thing you felt for not speaking up right away. What was this feeling again? Oh yeah. Guilt. You tried to shake it off and just continued scrubbing.

There were, thankfully, no more loud conversations between the two of them while you cleaned, but just as you were finishing up in the last room of the home you heard the front door open and close. Were you by yourself again? You listened for noises. Silence. You couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief.

However, upon stumbling back into the kitchen with all your cleaning supplies you noticed Jungkook sitting on a stool at the kitchen island. He was scrolling through his phone and eating a bowl of cereal. He jumped when he saw you, clutching his tattoo covered hand to his chest.

“Holy shit, I forgot you were here,” he stated breathlessly.

Your face turned hot.

“Sorry, I’m... sorry for startling you. And again, for being here while you’re here; the, um, schedule mix up, I’m, uh, not sure what happened…” you stumbled over your words. Real smooth.

He waved his hand while shoving another spoonful of cereal and milk into his mouth.

“No, no, really, it’s my fault. I forget the schedule sometimes.”

You shrugged and nodded.

“Yes, well, I imagine you’re pretty busy most of the time.”

Shit. The words fell out of your mouth before you could stop them. Weren’t you not supposed to know who he was? You mentally smacked yourself in the forehead.

He didn’t seem bothered though, he just replied with a nod and a small “mhmm”, as if to say, ‘you’re not wrong’.

You started walking towards the front door to leave (before you could get yourself in even more trouble), but right as you did so Jungkook lifted the cereal box up from its place on the counter, looked at you and asked, “Want some?”

You stopped in your tracks and hesitated.

“Umm… I’m not sure… I’m allowed?”

You felt silly for saying this as you were a grown ass adult, but you knew it was true. There were so many rules put in place with this job, and they hadn’t quite gotten to the clause about eating the client’s cereal.

Jungkook stood up and walked around to the cupboard, pulling a bowl down from the shelf and grabbing a spoon from the drawer.

He placed them at the spot across from him and gave you a small smile before sitting back down.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Your secret is safe with me.”

He ran his fingers along his lips like a zipper which made you both laugh.

“That is my favorite cereal…” you admitted, putting your things on the floor and walking over to the stool.

As you were sitting down, Jungkook began pouring the milk into your bowl. You stared at it confusingly, caught off guard for a second. Not cereal first? He read your expression immediately.

“I know, I am weird, I put milk first, okay?”

You put your hands up and laughed, a blush on both your faces.

“I didn’t say anything,” you retaliated.

Jungkook jokingly narrowed his eyes at you as he poured in the cereal, a grin still across his lips.

“I saw it in your face.”

You chuckled nervously and looked down at your now full bowl, taking a spoonful up to your mouth.

“What’s your name?” Jungkook suddenly asked.

You swallowed before answering.

“(y/n).”

There was a pause.

“What’s… yours?” you asked coyly, wondering if you could get away with pretend naivety.

Jungkook cocked his head and let a breathy giggle out his nose as he chewed, it scrunching and creating wrinkles.

“Hmm... my name is… Park Jimin.”

You snorted, thankful that no milk shot out your nose.

He laughed at that, his perfect teeth on display.

Clearly, he was testing you. Two could play at that game.

“Oh yeah? Well then it’s nice to meet you, Jimin.”

He didn’t break eye contact with you as he took another bite.

“You too, (y/n).”

You smiled and shook your head, looking down to fill your spoon once more.

The two of you continued eating, just causally chatting, mostly about you and your move to Korea and your life back in your home country. Jungkook seemed so shy and sweet, the complete counterpart to his “pretend” girlfriend.

Your stomach flipped at the memory of the conversation you had overheard. You had almost forgot about it by now, wrapped up in the random moment of eating cereal with Jungkook. The guilty feeling returned. You knew you had to let him know, especially after how kind he has been to you. He could hate you, that was okay, it’s not like you had anything to lose.

Oh, except your job.

You dropped your spoon into the now empty bowl and took a deep breath.

“Umm... I have to tell you something…” you began before you could chicken out from this awkward conversation you were about to have with basically a stranger.

He put his bowl to his lips and slurped the milk while simultaneously looking up at you, waiting for you to continue.

“I speak some Korean. And I heard your conversation earlier… with, um, Cho-hee, and I understood… well, most of it,” he slowly placed his bowl back on the counter in front of him and stared at you with wide eyes, his lips slightly parted open, “But I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure what to do, and I-I swear I will keep it to myself and never mention it ever again; I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear anything, okay? Seriously. I promise.”

He didn’t say anything, and you couldn’t read the expression on his face. He stared off into space for a minute, then stood up and grabbed the empty bowls, walking them over to the sink and placing them inside. His back was to you as he hunched over, his hands supporting him on either side. Your heart was beating a mile a minute, your hands getting sweaty as you fiddled with your fingers.

“I really am sorry,” you whimpered softly, “Please, please don’t have me fired.”

He turned back to you, a surprised look on his face, his doe eyes wide.

“What? Why would I do that?”

You looked down.

“I don’t know… for not telling you I heard right away. For listening. For… being here while you’re here.”

Jungkook sighed and ran a hand through his long black hair, then shut his eyes tightly.

“I’m not worried you tell anyone, it’s okay. I have been thinking about… trying to end it anyway.”

He opened his eyes again and suddenly looked tired and worried. But you didn’t want to pry. It really wasn’t your place.

“Okay.”

Was all you could come up with to respond.

He glanced at you briefly and gave you a shy side smile.

“So, I don’t tell anyone you ate with me, you don’t tell I have a fake girlfriend?” he said jokingly, knowing he was the one who persuaded you to eat with him in the first place.

You chuckled and stuck out your hand.

“Yeah. Deal?”

He put his hand in yours. It was warm and felt so strong against your small one.

“Deal.”

You were so thankful he didn’t seem upset about the whole thing. In fact, he almost seemed relieved that someone else knew now. In this short time spent with him you knew you were leaving with only high praises and positive thoughts of Jeon Jungkook.

“Well, I better get going,” you said, standing up from the stool. You grabbed all your supplies and looked back up him.

“Thank you, um, for the cereal and being so understanding about everything.”

He nodded at you.

“I will remember your schedule next time and not disturb you by being here, okay?”

You smiled.

“You didn’t disturb me, but okay.”

“Tuesdays at…umm what time do you get here?” he put his fingers between his brows in thought again.

“2pm.”

He grinned at you and gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay! Okay okay! I got it! Let’s get it!”

You laughed and he chuckled embarrassingly.

“Well it was nice to meet you, Jungkook. Take care.”

You gave him a little wave as you went to the front door, opening it and stepping out.

“You too, (y/n),” he called after you, “I’ll see you around.”

>>next

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