#i guess talking to a trusted teacher or like social worker would be a good start they might be able to point you to more local and accessibl

[williamkergroach55]

I have a job that is a little difficult to explain. I specialize in money laundering. My clients are criminals, cartel people, killers, pimps; enriched scum, human shit.

What is even harder to explain is that I love my job and some of my clients are friends.

My office is in London, I never set foot there. I travel, most of the time, with my clients to all the continents of the world, wherever billions are made illegally.

My office colleagues hardly know me. I'm the only employee in the company who doesn't account for his time and doesn't even appear on the employee register. I am an associate.

My bosses always meet with me in secret and talk to me with infinite caution. I think people are afraid of me, they sense the danger.

The other business managers suspect that I'm making a lot of money. It's true, in fact, my income is astronomical. I own several shell companies, luxurious villas where I don't live, beautiful cars that stay in the garage, girls that I kiss when I feel like calling them.

I have no children, no wife. I spend my time with escorts.

My co-workers hate me, but they all speak to me with deference. None of these branch pussies could take my place. Because I work with clients for whom a man's life isn't worth much. My clients trust me with their money, for which they risk death or life in prison.

So I often have a gun to my head or a knife to my throat. This profession, where professional mistakes are severely punished, requires a lot of composure.

PSYCHOPATH

I have composure. Since I was a child, I have always been a loner, a little frightening for my classmates, for the teachers, for all the people who crossed my eyes.

In the playground, the bullies always looked at me with caution. I wasn't aggressive, not physically impressive, but there was something in my eyes, I think, that alerted. Sometimes, some bullies, some sleepy ones, tried to racket me when I got out of school. While they held me by the collar, I would pull out my knife or grab their balls. There were a few accidents, gouged eyes, broken ribs, nothing serious. It was always self-defense. And because I was a good student and disciplined, I was never bothered. But the social services were alerted, they wanted me to be followed by psychiatrists.

Fortunately, my parents belonged to the influential social classes of the country. Thanks to their connections, they were able to keep me out of juvenile social services. I was followed by a reputable analyst, paid to be discreet. Of course, this did not change my mentality at all. I went back to defending myself whenever some idiot thought he was allowed to bother me. I simply learned to be discreet.

Now I kill regularly, methodically. The difference is that now my targets die every time. So far, there have been no surviving witnesses. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence against me. The perfect crime requires, I assure you, a lot of coolness and method.

A COMPLETE EDUCATION

I was able to get a good education in international finance, while always quietly hanging out with the thugs in my city. I've always loved the criminal underworld, that's where I hunt. Since I don't judge them on the merits, I'm not afraid and I'm not in the same business as them, it usually goes well. Some of them have become friends, before I eliminate them. With friends, I take care to be quick.

I have been practicing martial arts since I was a teenager. My parents let me do it hoping it would channel "the violence that was in me" according to my analyst. I quickly gravitated towards the more extreme disciplines, the ones where you learn to kill. I still train with the sharpest guys. I keep myself in shape. Indeed, you could say that it channels the violence in me.

You guessed it, I'm a psychopathic fetishist: I only hunt the bandit, the professional killer, or even the simple scoundrel, at the limit.

After studying finance, I joined the army commandos for a few years. After my contract with the army, I did some mercenary work. It was not bad, it had less limitations to my impulses.

It was while participating in a humanitarian mission with the army that I realized that I preferred the "rebel" side, the ones who raped, pillaged and did not respect any article of international law. But then, these brutes were always useful idiots, manipulated types, disposable when the geopolitical context required it.

I decided to get closer to real power. At the end of my contract in the army, I targeted the London bank where I wanted to work.

I carefully prepared my interview for years. I knew exactly what job I wanted, who to meet, what skills to acquire. I wanted to handle "sensitive" accounts, to advise mobsters, warlords, outlaws, terrorists.

I asked to meet with a bank manager, one in particular. He had the right psychological profile, the bias I was looking for. He received me, I told him my motivations, my information about him. He listened to me for a long time without saying anything.

Then he asked me to excuse him for a moment. He called someone in another room. The next day, I was invited again to present my candidacy in front of the other directors of the bank, in secret committee. I was searched to make sure I didn't have a hidden microphone on me.

They made me talk, I had to demonstrate my knowledge of the mechanisms of money laundering and my knowledge of the files. I gave some clues about the files I had compiled.

I explained my background, my time in the army, my missions, my training, my motivations. They quickly realized that I was the ideal candidate.

AN OLD GODFATHER IN SAIGON.

To test me, they wanted to send me to an old godfather in Saigon. The man was devious, annoying and insulting. The interview was not conclusive, I was bored. I asked around, the old man wasn't that influential anymore. I found out the name of the guy who had ousted him: Nam Cam. I went to make an appointment directly at his home.

Before I could even explain the purpose of my visit, I was beaten up by his henchmen and kicked out. They were afraid that I was a journalist. I let myself get beaten up a bit. It wasn't mean. I noted the techniques, the skills. Except for one guy, there wasn't much professionalism.

The next morning, I was sitting quietly at the foot of Nam Cam's bed in his room. I had killed his personal bodyguard and the girl who was next to him in bed.

I let Nam Cam wake up. When he saw me, he turned pale. He thought I had come to eliminate him. He looked for his Tokarev TT33 under his pillow, but the weapon was in my hand...

I told him, smiling, in Vietnamese, the purpose of my visit. I have to say that I speak fluently twelve languages and master more or less correctly about thirty of them.

He was intelligent, we did business. My career in the bank was launched.

I strangled the old mobster, the one who had been unpleasant, the same night I made the deal with Nam Cam. I don't like to end on a bad note.

As for Nam Cam, that crazy pervert, I waited a few years to deal with him. I prepared a personal recipe for him, mainly based on arsenic anhydride and potassium chloride, during the last meal we had together in his lair in Ban Son Cop, on the Laotian border. I was already gone when the first effects of my mixture must have taken effect. But where he was, too far from the hospitals in Hanoi, he had little chance of recovering.

COSA NOSTRA

I have, of course, worked a lot in Southern Italy, a big reservoir of bandits, with all the "families". The Sicilian Cosa Nostra has more than 5,000 members, divided into some 190 families, the Coscas, each headed by a "Capo di famiglia" or "Rappresentante. Around these "men of honor" gravitate more than 150,000 people (families, accomplices, protégés). The "Coscas" usually have about twenty members who control a territory, a "borgata" in rural areas or a neighborhood in the cities. I personally know only about ten of them, the most important ones. I discreetly favored the elimination of three of them, all of whom were involved in the murder of the young Giuseppe di Matteo in 1996. The young man was the son of a repentant. Those thugs had kidnapped him three years earlier to silence his father.

I don't know why Giuseppe's fate moved me. I didn't have any particular feelings for this guy or his family. I fucked one of his cousins, in the course of my investigation, but that's irrelevant.

Killing Italian mafiosi is really tricky, because the Sicilian Mafia has been under constant police investigation since the late 1970s, after the scandals and murders that moved public opinion.

My activities in Italy have therefore always been under close surveillance. I was summoned several times by the police who were surprised to see a well-dressed foreigner walking around with impunity in the most underprivileged areas of Palermo, and being received as a friend by the godfathers. They never got anything from me. I collaborated, on the other hand, fully with the Sicilian families that I informed as best I could in their fight against the judicial investigations. My goal was to gain their trust. I was very cautious and tried to meet prospects among the new generation of capos that succeeded the old one. I had interesting investments to offer them, new financial products adapted to the times. This allowed me to identify new talent. I tried to poison them slowly or to irradiate them chemically or radio-actively so that they would die young.

The old godfathers were easier to kill. With their old-fashioned rules of honor and their Catholic hypocrisy, they disgusted me. Those old fogies didn't understand anything about international finance. They didn't even make me any money.

They thought they could continue to hide their fortunes under their mattresses, and escape the police by hiding in their pigsty when the weather was stormy.

I helped many of them to leave this world faster by visiting them in their homes or in the hospices. All I had to do was spray them in the face with a nerve agent, as if to refresh them, after reminding them how much they had to repent for their lives. In the afternoon or the next morning, the case was closed. At that age, we leave so quickly. After that, with COVID, visiting old people in nursing homes became complicated.

At that time, the members of the Cosa Nostra were still, in principle, Catholics, Sicilians and from "honorably known" families. Excluded from the Coscas were not only alcoholics, drug addicts, children of magistrates and policemen, which was understandable, but also children of divorced parents, women of "bad reputation", pimps. It was tartuffery, of course, these dinosaurs almost thought they were the salt of the earth. They hated Communists, Atheists, Anarchists. They went to church with their wives and kids every Sunday. I always found it hard to imagine Jesus welcoming them with open arms. Whether they got killed or ended their lives being watched over on their deathbeds by the old ladies of the village, they were bastards. I never liked those hypocrites who killed their victims by signing their names and burning a candle afterwards.

I gladly helped my Sicilian clients to find the traitors who turned them in to the police. It was always one less thing on the market and it assured me of their trust. I was responsible for the liquidation of this family in Palermo in 1980. This Cosca was infiltrated by dubious elements. Some guys, who had been turned around by the judges, were asking me strange questions. I alerted my clients. The "Coupla", a sort of council of elders, decided to clean up the group. I know that a good part of these traitors ended their lives in the cement of the Sicilian roads.

TRADITIONS AND MODERNITY

The individual who joined the Sicilian mafia before was forced to make a whole salamalec to try to justify his bad life. He would prick his finger, pour a few drops on a pious image while taking an oath in a chapel or a place of veneration of a saint. I once attended one of these ceremonies as a tourist. It was very interesting.

But they were burdened with rules that soon became impossible to keep in modern society. It was the Sicilian women who started the trouble when they started watching television and reading women's magazines where they were told they had a clitoris. They understood that, in the traditional Sicilian society, men had it good. These hypocrites had sex with their whores, but wanted to keep their wives behind the walls of the family home. These jerks thought they could continue to hold their females by making love to them "Sicilian style": one minute of ecstasy maximum, the time to take off and put on their pants. Their wives started to look for sensations elsewhere, with young vigorous men, letter carriers, delivery men, teachers, well-dressed foreigners, anything that could educate them.

I was, therefore, entitled, on a few occasions, to a particularly affectionate welcome when the husbands were not there. My charm as a foreigner seemed irresistible to these beautiful brunettes raised in convents. It must be admitted that we were taking risks, because their little bristling husbands would not have taken kindly to the fact of being cuckolded. But the pleasure of the forbidden always won. Even in the heat of love, I kept my weapons and senses alert.

Originally, these mobsters, very "catholic", did not practice, it seems, theft or usury and did not touch the drug trade. I didn't have to convince promising young people, with figures to back it up, of the need to get involved in drug trafficking, as in the legal economy, and to drop the two-tone shoes for more relevant outfits for the bank branches. They had it all figured out.

I am modestly proud to think that I also contributed to the expansion of the Cosa Nostra outside the walls of the city of Catania, where it was founded around 1920. It was on my advice, among others, that the young Sicilian leaders progressively extended their influence to the whole of the Italian peninsula and then to countries where the Italian diasporas were important, such as in the South-East of France and in Switzerland.

It is true that they had already been present in the United States for a long time, but I encouraged several young people to study at American universities to better seize the new opportunities of the globalized economy. I remember the son of a Corleone bigwig whom I introduced to skydiving in Boston. He became addicted to the sport. He had a fatal accident a few years later, caused by me, of course.

It has been said that the Cosa Nostra has lost influence. It is exactly the opposite, the Sicilian mafia has simply adapted to our modern world. The folklore of Mario Puzo's characters has disappeared, the new men of honor have invested the world economy, acquiring several nationalities. They are now fluent in several languages and run the world economy.

CAMORRA

The Neapolitan Camorra is, like the mafia of Campania, rather urban. It has more than 6,000 members, a hundred clans around which about 300,000 people are gathered. Each clan is headed by a "capo in testa", assisted by a lieutenant and a cashier, the "contratuolo". In Campania, I met women who ran the clans, like the famous and feared Pupetta Maresca, Rosetta Cuttolo, Ermina Giulano or Maria Licciardi. These types of women were more formidable than some men, and they often understood more quickly the interest of my skills for their business. I believe that women are going to have more and more space in the mafia. They bring a plus, that is undeniable.

I had a problem with one of them. I won't name her, out of gallantry. She had imagined herself becoming my lover. Since this was not an option from my point of view, I suffered some embarrassing assaults. I tried to minimize the incident.

But nothing is more dangerous than a wounded panther, it must be put down. So I had another leader take her out a few days later, purposely revealing a nasty trick she had done to him a few years earlier.

I witnessed some rather bitter scenes of friendship in Naples: some men were executed before my eyes. We went from blood crimes to financial setups the next minute. I think it was also a way of informing me of what would happen if I were indelicate enough to embezzle the money entrusted to me. Since I was not moved by this, they let it go. I did not forget. I took care of each one of them. It's amazing how hard it is for a police investigator to link cancer to a hunting accident.

The Camorra is mostly involved in extortion, smuggling, counterfeiting, drugs, procurement fraud and garbage management. I advised them to look more closely at the misappropriation of European funds, the reinvestment of their dirty money in florists, greengrocers and butchers. I also advised them on the financial arrangements necessary to finance charitable works and sports and cultural patronage. My advice has, of course, often enabled them to win elections. But I also contributed to the fall of some dirty cops, such as the former Minister of the Interior (SIC), Antonio Gava, by opportunely disseminating some information of primary importance, taken up by the "repentant" Pasquale Galasso.

As for the others, I helped the Camorra to establish itself where Italian diasporas already existed, in France, Germany, Spain, Canada and the United States. As the Neapolitans were bold enough to set up shop, profitably, in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, as well as in Thailand, Kenya and Nigeria, this allowed me to meet new trophies, er, clients. I was able to have profiles, each one more exotic than the other, to add to my hunting list.

N'DRANGHETA

The N'Drangheta, the Calabrian mafia, developed by taking advantage of the indigence of the Italian state in Calabria. The 155 Calabrian families, the Drina, had some 6,000 members. The Calabrians were quite violent. The last inter-family war, in 1985, had resulted in the death of 700 people, including some of my clients.

Once, a friend of mine was killed right in front of me, while we were having a quiet dinner in a trattoria. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish my meal: there were pieces of brain in it. It was an average culinary argument.

I liked working with these Calabrians. Those hot-blooded little browns were so stupid that I could start a massacre just by spreading compromising information, sometimes fake. I would simply let one know what the other had done. One would get the other killed, then the other's family would get revenge, etc. The thing was, I had to get out of there fast because they were into massacres basically.

At one point, they were really having a lot of losses. They wanted to set up a council, "la Santa", intended to settle conflicts more peacefully. Their leader, "u Zianu", the uncle, Domenico Oppedisano, was an 80-year-old straw man put there to serve as a fuse. I had him arrested with a few others so that he would let me continue to provoke settlements in peace.

I was then able to work with the real leaders of the N'Drangheta: the Piromalli, Alvaro, Pesce families, the big ones. It was during this period, in particular, that I was able to take part in the preparatory work and investments that allowed the Calabrian mafia to take control of coke in Europe.

I also once attended the annual gathering at the shrine of the Madonna di Polsi in the Aspromonte Mountains, a traditional gathering place for members of the Camorra. It was a bit creepy. I don't like the mix of religion, mafia, family, friends... Well, it's true that I kill those I sometimes call friends. But I don't claim to be religious.

Anyone who joins the N'Drangheta commits himself for life, on pain of execution, and his family. As a result, the number of N'Drangheta repentants is very small and its infiltration by law enforcement is almost nil. The organization has executed many politicians, trade unionists and rivals, even abroad, as in Duisburg, Germany, in August 2007.

The entire economy of the area from Gioa to Reggio is owned by the N'Drangheta men, who were initially enriched by arms trafficking, drug trafficking and extortion. Here again, I brought my skills in setting up operations to divert European subsidies and loans with usury. It must be said that the local banks were reluctant to grant loans in the region, it was necessary to make the local economy and trade work.

I also took part, as an advisor, in arrangements designed to ensure that local people would obtain public contracts, such as the construction of the industrial port and the iron and steel center of Gioa Tauro, or the freeway linking Salerno to Reggio. It was necessary to convince the families to invest in the legal economy, such as the olive groves and other farms in the area, transport companies, tourism, construction, camping sites or many suppliers of medical equipment.

The links between the Calabrians and other Italian mafia organizations are close. Several leaders of the Calabrian criminal organization also belong to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and to the famous P2 Masonic lodge, where I had many useful contacts. The N'Drangheta itself is at the origin of many mafia organizations, such as the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia, in particular the Cosca of the "Rose of the Winds", and especially in the city of Lecce. Divided into 47 clans and regrouping more than 1500 members, the Lecce mafia allowed me to get into Albanian and Macedonian gangs that specialized in cigarette smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and human trafficking. I did a lot of work to eliminate the filthy Albanian. The individual was as bad and stupid as his Calabrian cousin, but he was less protected. I usually shot him with a rifle, a Sako TRG M10, which I was always very happy with.

The Calabrians also work closely with the Turin, Milan and Genoa mafias. The Calabrian mafia is also present, like the Neapolitans, on the French Riviera, in Germany, in the United Kingdom, in Switzerland, in North and South America, but also in Africa and in the Middle East as far as Australia. These links have always been an opportunity to diversify my work... And my hobby.

For the small game, there is also the Stidda, in the region of Agrigento and Gela, in Sicily, where the industry has recently developed, leading to a strong immigration and a disruption of the traditional structures. But the Stidda is more a group of marginal people, unemployed and immigrants. They have taken over the activities neglected by the Cosa Nostra: gambling, human trafficking or prostitution. These groups are particularly aggressive, responsible for over 500 crimes since their foundation. I'm not really interested in them, aesthetically speaking. I occasionally shoot them Sako-style, for training, when I pass by. But it's small game.

RUSSIAN MAFIA

It is in Eastern Europe, with the Russian "Maffya", that I found more exciting targets. Long before the creation of the USSR, the Russian mafya was used by the Bolsheviks to destabilize the Tsarist government. After the October Revolution of 1917, many of these delinquents served as auxiliary law enforcement in the camps. The Vor v Zakonye, literally "legal thieves," survived Stalin's regime. They flourished in black market activities, smuggling caviar, wood, precious stones; currency and car trafficking. Their activities, I believe, helped to mitigate the economic consequences of a disastrous totalitarian ideology. They put oil in the wheels.

The Bratiskys, the "brothers", took advantage of perestroika from the end of the 1980s, with smuggling. The shapnas were able to flock to the cities to form powerful gangs. In Moscow, I worked with the Lyubertsi, Dolgoprudniki, Solnstevskiye and Balashnikhinskiye gangs. This gave me great opportunities, especially in 1994, when I convinced my clients from the Balashiklinsky gang to kill each other with my clients from the Podology gang for the control of Moscow gas stations. They suspected something, they started to look at me differently. Finally, there was a contract on my head, cancelled at the last moment when I shot the principal and his family in their apartment in Skatertni Lane, near the Patriarch's Ponds.

I bet that my death would have been less publicized than that of the wood millionaire Eugene Polevoi and his family in France, in 1995; of the Forbes journalist and author of "Godfather of the Kremlin", Paul Klebnikov, in 2004 or of the journalist Anna Politvskaia, in October 2006.

The Russian mafia was very expeditious, so was I.

I confess that I enjoy working with the Russian underworld. These people are intelligent, very organized and far-sighted. Moreover, they know how to live like great lords. At the top, the Vor, often a man of great value, decides on operations, appointments, plans, settles disputes, and manages the obschlag, the common fund. The Sovetnik, the advisor, usually assists him in legal and financial matters. Downstairs, the shestiorka executes, deals with drug trafficking of heroin, cocaine or synthetic pervitin manufactured in the Czech Republic. The mafia is involved in prostitution, arms trading, fuel detour and corporate racketeering.

The ramifications of the Russians go as far as the United States, notably in Brighton Beach, New York, which has since been nicknamed "Little Odessa", where I often visit. There I got to know Joshua Shapira, the Jewish hitman who had had trouble with the men of Godfather Volkoff. He often helped me, afterwards, when I decided to eliminate several characters from the East Coast milieu. His technique, to make the bodies disappear, has always amazed me.

Russians are very fond of Spain, especially the Costa del Sol. I often went to see the bosses on their boats or in their palaces. The Russians were among the most financially competent people I met. It was a pleasure to talk business with them. To make matters worse, they had a sense of hospitality: they often let me enjoy the beautiful dolls they surrounded themselves with.

It has been said that Russians have fled the country since Putin. This is absolutely false. The researcher Oleg Grechenevsky has amply proved that Putin was put in power by the mafia. This is, by the way, a good thing for Russia, and a good thing for my business.

THE ALBANESE

The Mafias of the Land of the Eagle, the Albanian gangs, took off after the fall of communism in 1992. The agreements between the Italian mafia and the former members of the SHK, the security services of Enver Hodja, allowed to set up a lucrative cigarette smuggling, in connection with the Sacra Corona Unita, from the ports of Durrës and Vlora.

There are about fifteen clans, among which I had my clients, including the Hassan Hassani, the Delila, the Fteja, the Meka, the Mehmedovic, the Cakonie, the Mitera Canski, mainly based in Tirana, Elbassan, Skhoder, Dürres, Fier, Vlöre or Girocastro, where they worked profitably with the Greek underworld.

The Adriatic ports, mainly Dürres and Vlora, served as a hub for heroin from Turkish wholesalers, their cannabis grown in the northwest, in the Puka region, and amphetamine from Macedonia. I had the opportunity to go on board the Scafi, the fast boats that deliver to Italy and European countries, to visit some of their clients. I put them in contact with my Colombian clients when they wanted to start selling cocaine.

The Albanians have specialized in prostitution. Half of the prostitutes in Brussels and three quarters of the girls in Soho, London, are controlled by Albanians.

I had a good friend in this business, an Albanian from London who worked in a prostitution ring. His whole family was in the business. I must admit that he was not, like most Albanian pimps, a gentleman.

I took him down, obviously, as soon as I could. The practical thing, as I said before, with the Albanians is their "Kanoun", their vendetta. It was enough for me to make known a bad move of his family towards another group to start a real collective massacre. Everyone was killed, even the women.

Some members of the UCK, the independence movement of Kosovo, wanted to contact me. They were mainly extorting Kosovar workers abroad, through an NGO, Vendlija Therret, and delivering weapons, taken during the 1997 insurrection, to Muslim terrorists in the Middle East. I did not feel them, these political bandits, I declined the invitation. As a result, I didn't have the opportunity to shoot any Kosovars, except for the father of an old girlfriend, by opportunity. She pissed me off, it was the father who paid.

Through the Albanians, I made interesting contacts with some Buyuks Babas of the Turkish mafia. They were generally involved in the opium trade, heroin from Afghanistan; they also extorted money from companies or bought them up, as in October 1997, when the Turkbank was bought up by the businessman Kurkmar Yifüt, after an agreement between the godfather Alatin Caké and the minister Eyup Ader.

My clients, like Sedat Peker, organized large-scale car theft, the casino industry, and match-fixing. I was more likely to meet them in Istanbul, Western and refined, than in the depths of Eastern Anatolia. Finally, I must admit that it was easier to shoot them in the highlands with a sniper rifle.

The Turks, especially since Erdogan, were beginning to impose themselves everywhere. They made so many enemies that they were easy to eliminate. I could always find a Kurdish independence fighter, an Armenian or Russian mobster to pull the trigger or at least take the blame. Decimating the Turkish gangs was my personal contribution to avenge the victims of the 1915 genocide. I have always been annoyed by the fanaticism of the Turks. They clearly massacred over a million Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, and have never acknowledged their crimes. This deserves a modest rebalancing, I think.

CHINESE TRIADS

The Chinese Triads are difficult to penetrate, but I have a few clients in Sun Ye, in Hong Kong. I also have some in Macau, in the 14 K, the Wo Chi Tau or the Tai Huen Tsai, formed by former Red Guards who have taken refuge in Hong Kong. I was also able to approach the "United Bamboos" of Yunghu, a working-class suburb of Taiwan; the same ones who had assassinated the journalist Henry Liu, exiled in California in 1993, on behalf of the Taiwanese government.

Again, there are many traditions that are quite poetic to our eyes, but these people are often sordid. The leader, the "Long Tou", the dragon head, surrounds himself with a "master of incense" for recruitment, a "patroller of the winds", for intelligence, a "fan of white paper" for accounting, "straw sandals" for communication and "red sticks" for killing.

They also had their rituals in front of an altar, with the finger pricked for a drop of blood, etc. But at least they didn't have the Judeo-Christian pretension of being little saints.

They sold heroin from Burma, cannabis from Sin-Kiang and Yunnan, synthetic ephedrine from Fujian, and even Colombian cocaine since I had put them in touch with my friends in Cali and Medellin.

My Chinese friends ran the lupanars in Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Bangkok, Macau, Hong Kong and the Hainan Islands. They made sure that I never slept alone. My old friend Ho Hung Sun, who was nicknamed "Stanley Ho", used to run the Macau casinos magnificently. He was an old fox. I could never really work with those Chinese. They had their own banking channels. They were very autonomous, difficult to penetrate psychologically.

Again, I encouraged my clients, especially in Hong Kong, to invest in real estate development or in tobacco, like my friend Ted Sioeng, who became a tobacco tycoon in Indonesia. To eliminate the Chinese, I had to be very careful. My presence never went unnoticed. I often worked at Polonium 210. I would either offer them expensive tea or chocolates from Europe, filled with the radioactive substance, which they would taste or offer to others.

YAKUZAS

The Japanese Yakuza, called "Boryukudan", violent groups, by the police, are exquisite people, unlike the young Gurentaï, more brutal, who do not respect much, not even honest people.

I have many clients among the Kanto-kai, the gangs of the Tokyo area or the Yamaguchi of Kobe. The excellence of the Yakuza comes from their apprenticeship in the "Young Apprentices' Houses" where the jun-kosei-in learn Jingi (obedience to superiors), Giri (sense of duty) and Ninjo (compassion for the little people)

Each clan, or Ikka, is led by a Kumi-cho, a family head, assisted by his lieutenant, his wagashira, a possible second deputy, the Shatelgashira, and cadres, the saiko-kanbu, who hold the kumi-in troops at the base.

Again, they have rituals, Shinto altars; sake ceremonies, salt ceremonies, two fish ceremonies, etc. The excellence of this education gives the Migawari, where the subordinate can denounce himself of a crime to spare his superior. I also had the honor of witnessing the amputation of a little finger, the Yubitsume, to seal the peace between two yakuzas. I found this quite classy.

The Yakuzas deal in methamphetamines, rob nightclubs, cafes, restaurants, run brothels, illegal gambling. They also control the immigration of Asian prostitutes or Russians with big breasts, which the Nipponese are fond of. This fascination of the little yellow man for the big Slavic mares has always amused me. A simple consultation of the precepts of the Kâma-Sûtra should have enlightened them.

So there were Russian girls who were bored in the land of the rising sun. I tried to console some of them.

My main clients were Sokayas, professional racketeers. They would "protect" company executives or threaten to expose their misdeeds or misconduct. They were mostly bad guys, scavengers that I enjoyed killing, unlike the Boryukudan who, as you can understand, I respected much more.

I also had some clients who were Jiageyas: their business was to "convince" peasants to give up their land to their real estate development companies. Others were Sarakins, managers of Toicha who lent money at usurious rates (60% per year) to their clients. Others, finally, the Songiriya, bought up at low prices the companies that they had often helped to bankrupt.

These last groups were the ones who invested the fastest in my financial products, in construction and real estate loans. There too, I distributed a lot of polonium 210 chocolate...

AFRICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

I'll quickly slide over the African gangs of Lagos, Nigeria, which are involved in heroin trafficking between Asia and America, arms trafficking, diamonds, scams (the famous "scam 419") or the detour of crude oil, from the Niger Delta region. I had several interesting hunting trips there. I used to shoot these sunglassed fools with powerful ammunition, like the 458 Winchester Magnum used to hunt elephants or rhinos. I dressed for the occasion in a big white hunter's outfit, with a large hat. I know, it's a bit provocative, but I like folklore.

When you think of people of color, you might think of the "Posses" in Jamaica or the "Yardies" in the UK. There was a lot of money flowing among those people. But, as with the Shower Posse and the Spangler Posse of New Jersey, who had made their name with Marijuana, the famous "Jamaican Gold", then cocaine, crack, arms dealing, kidnapping or pimping, I didn't find any organization or personalities to take to the next level.

It's terrible to say, but, like in Africa or the West Indies, these guys were too full of dope to really think usefully. There was no way to make them understand the financial investment.

I was, in fact, sequestered for a week by one of these groups, the one dubbed the "scooter gang" in 2017. They had bought, or squatted, an old abandoned boarding school, not far from Homerton, in the suburbs of London.

In this building, coke and cannabis were freely available. There were stoned girls walking around all the rooms, half-naked. There were couples having sex, all of them completely stoned. The music was blaring day and night.

I had gone there for a meeting with the boss, but he was completely stoned, unable to talk to me or even listen.

I was locked in a bathroom, in the dark, and just left there for about ten minutes. As I was about to break down the door, a girl opened the door.

I was wasting my time with these morons. Plus, there were cops lurking all around. It's unfortunate to say, but these people aren't sophisticated enough. They don't have the stature. It's the same with the North Africans in Europe.

In London, I just set the building on fire. Two people died. I haven't been back there, I don't associate with those guys. I don't think I understand them. I'm glad I don't have kids.

THE COLOMBIANS

I will end my story with the Colombian "Cartelitos", the ones I consider my greatest professional success.

After the dismantling of the big cartels, the fall of Pablo Escobar and the Orejuela brothers, it was necessary to reorganize everything.

I came across a new generation of young entrepreneurs who understood that we had to continue the business with a low profile.

There were no longer any charismatic leaders, and apart from the Urabeños and the paramilitary group of Rastrojoros, there were only a multitude of small entrepreneurs who lived very well hidden.

They bought coca paste from collectors who went around the plantations, refined it in small laboratories scattered in the jungle. They had the cocaine transported to the United States by people from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Venezuelans of the Cartel del Sol in the province of Julia, or by the Mexicans. The goal was to make transportation random, with lots of independent carriers that were difficult to monitor or infiltrate.

My new Colombian clients run their business like good fathers. They don't get noticed, they don't play politics. They invest in legal businesses and put their money with me. They invite me to weekend barbecues or family fishing trips. Again, this is the new generation, the one that has evolved with the times to last.

The only thing that bothers me about these people is that I don't want to kill them, or even hurt them a little. When I see them in the midst of their kids, in rather quiet families, and I know they avoid blood and prefer to stay in the shade, I don't know what it does to me. I relax, I catch myself laughing with them without any ulterior motive. It's almost like happiness.

MURDER ON A GRAND SCALE.

I think I'm going to give up this job, I don't enjoy killing people as much anymore. It's become complicated to kill people nowadays, between the drones, the cameras, the cookies, everything is monitored. It's time for me to retire.

The COVID crisis has restricted my movements, like everyone else's. The financial circuits are set up, with lots of penguins with ties who don't invent anything and are well under orders.

In this age of globalization, if I were to feel the urge to eradicate, it would be to shoot members of the globalist oligarchy. But those people are untouchable. We don't know where they live, they erase what we can tell about them online. They are well hidden.

These fuckers have managed to enslave the planet, to control our comings and goings, to vaccinate people with shit. They control everything, they have files on everyone. Now we're dealing with real bad guys, real demon worshippers.

I admit, however, that I admire the professionalism of these globalist elites: they are anonymous, they control everything and they will kill us by the billions if nothing stops them. They are professionals, there is nothing to say. A third world war is beautiful.https://www.amazon.fr/~/e/B07BR6V6D9

[ddonggeun]

Hey! So I’m suspecting if I got adhd/add but is there any symptom idk. It’s really exp here to get it diagnosed

sorry it took me a while to get back to you because honestly i dont know whats a good alternative for you can be so i guess i can share my own experience? 

first of all i think googling symptoms and types of adhd and reading peoples account on how adhd/add manifest is a good start? my doctor and the reddit /r/adhd REALLY help me to accept myself (which is the first step i think) but the way i get diagnosis (i am adhd with predominately inattentiveness - but at the same time i have depressions and dyslexia which is like a killer combo 10/10 would never rec) is that i came across with an article a couple months about how girls with adhd are more likely to be (mis)diagnosed with depression and it basically fucks up multiple generations because they cant get the help they need and i was like wait whats describe in it sounds kind of like me but at the same time i have always been very lethargic and rather well behaved in class growing up i am nothing like what you would typically associate with adhd (you know the hyper-activeness) so during my next visit to the doctor (im getting treatment for my depression) i mention to the article to her and she said wait you know what describe how you feel in a classroom setting growing up and is there anything you do that teachers complain about repeatedly and tell me how studying and doing homework is like to you and so i did (i can go further into details of my life since a lot contributes to why i only get diagnosis when im 21… let me know if you would like to know i guess?)

my doctor (who just so happens to be an adhd specialist and is quite active in the research area i didnt know before then we stan forever i love her really she is so encouraging and so good at her job) took some notes as i was talking and after im done she said you know what i think you might be onto something but i cant be sure yet (since i have depression and dyslexia which both overlaps quite a lot with adhd/add) why dont i first explain to you what adhd is and i’ll give you the set of official diagnosis questions you dont have to do it just take a look at it first do some research organize your thought talk to your parents about it and if you think getting a test on it is something you want we can set up another appointment and we can go from there - which is really really nice because adhd has always been a taboo at least with my upbringing it makes you a loser socially academically and you know just in general its not something you will want to have…. 

in hind sight there are SO MANY SIGNS even in early childhood how come no one notice i dont know prolly because i grew up in the 00s if you are different you need to kys lmao rip: 

trouble paying attention in school or work,

the appearance of not listening - although im an audio learner funny enough

avoidance of activities that require sustained focus,

being easily distracted 

restlessness

fidgeting and cant sit properly - i shake my legs or click my pen so much especially when im thinking or anxious lmao, i got into trouble a lot when i was younger because i only sit in my seat facnig the teacher 5 mins max at at ime then i move around or i move the chair around i think better when i cross my legs but i went to a uniform school and i always make my skirt too short so you know

interrupting - if i dont say what comes to mind when it comes to mind, the thought is gone forever

frequent talking and talking way too fast - i get the exact same comment every single report day class from when i was 4 till i graduated high school im not even kidding “she has excellent comprehension skill and reading speed. it would be great if parents can help her out a bit in maths or chemistry.  she has a lot of potential if she applies herself, she seems distracted although when we ask her questions she can answer. very helpful and bubbly and yet she talks too much in class. she is not disruptive and her seatmate never complains but she just doesnt stop talking. we have been pairing her up with quiet students in class in the hopes that she will talk less in class but she just turn the quiet student talkative”

trying to do multiple things at once - i cant do one thing at a time, even when im say writing a paper i need to be listening to music or talking to someone if not switching between tabs or word files

mood swings

hyperfocus - oh boy oh boy oh boy

impulsiveness - i dont know if i get better as i age or is it getting worse i just know how to clean up my mess lmaooooo

poor time management - although i would say ever since i start listening to stuff 24/7 it really helps build a sense of the passage of time or whatever? its like now i know ok by the time i get to the third song in the shower i need to be washing out my conditioner; or say i need to go somewhere in 40 mins which is really abstract to me i set timers and put on a show thats 35ish mins even tho im not watching it just so im aware of time is actually happening if it makes sense

fail to follow through - i start things and once i have it figure out in my head i struggle to put it down in words or explain it to others i work well with other adhd peps tho

doesnt follow instruction and only do stuff their way

burnout - this is the worst especially if you are a perfectionist or a control freak and guess who is both 

trouble coping with stress - 

i luck out because im canadian and my doctor (in my schools clinic) just so happens to be a specialist who is very passionate about helping undergrads and grad school students to achieve as much as they can - so doctor and diagnosis for me is free. i do have to pay for my medications out of my pocket for a bit since im on vyvanse (to treat both my adhd and depression-lead anxiety its complicated but it makes sense when my doctor explained it to me lol) and this drug isnt covered by Pharmacare (CAD $130ish for 3 weeks worth of 30mg, im mostly on 30mg but on days when i dont have work on stuff or go to school i take 20mg just so my anxiety dont cause me to explode lmao) and very expensive but recently my doctor and i have agreed that vyvanse really work for me and it is something that i should be on daily for the foreseeable future we applied for special authorization which means i only gotta pay the tax… of course medicating isnt a must but it is what works for me and we figure out a way to make it affordable so i cant be more happy about that

at the same time i work with my psychiatrist to you know configure the whole adhd thing cause you know 21 years of repressing and forcing your feet into a shoes that not even your size frick you up thats something people dont tell you 🤷🏻‍♀️

what my doctor said to me then stuck with me - she told me adhd or add really is no monster or flaw in fact it is a very valuable set of traits we inherit from our ancestor - we hate it now because modern society render these skills useless well you see adhd isnt all about the hyperactiveness you see in the media people with adhd are extra sensitive to their surrounding and prefer hands on experiences (today we call them distracted) they are always aware of the change around them and is capable to attend to a couple things at a time and act fast because their brains are always making sense of things even when they arent consciously doing it. in todays society we dont want these kind of people why? because they ask questions they are curious people who notice trivial stuff that dont contribute to productivity they cant sit still which makes them not the ideal factor workers or pupils BUT! you have to remember that industrialization started like a century ish ago before that our ancestors live in predominately tribal society - adhd people then are the perfect caretakers and protectors, why? because they are always noticing things they adapt and react fast… so yeah it kinda suck for us growing up in a system thats designed to be everything we are and it is something that need to be changed but for those of us who “made it out alive” especially people who only get diagnosed in adulthood more often than not they look back and realize they have developed so many incredible ways to cope to make things work - are they always the perfect way? are they always health? no definitely no but at the same time it shows you how incredible these people are they make things work yes things are really hard sometimes but you got to give yourself a pet in the shoulder for not giving up… with the help of science and research we now know a little more about how adhd affect people we now have medication and programs developed to help people with adhd - they arent to dumb you down or numb you but instead it helps you to focus better so you can actually hear your entire thought and not just phrases or sentence fragments

#i rambled but i hope my personal experience give u a slight idea of how adhd/add manifest in others? but like i said medicating is not the #only way i think talking to people with similar experiences is helpful too even tho they might not be able to offer you professional medical #advices not feeling alone or that you are a weirdo is so important people talk a lot of about how poor self image among adhd ppls are common #and i think the social pressure is def one of the things that make it worse #i dont know where you are but if you are still in school #i guess talking to a trusted teacher or like social worker would be a good start they might be able to point you to more local and accessibl #resources.... and i mean you can always talk to me im very new to the whole actively combating adhd and not just cope with it but you know #sometimes you just need someone to hear you rant about stuff and im always here... i might not be able to reply fast since im in my last #semester 😳 and school is killing me lmao but ill try to response as soon as i see it :))) #ask #anon

[fernpost]

looking forwards

[link to ao3]

Angus McDonald, boy detective. Greatest detective, if you asked him. And if you asked most of his clients.

He could solve any case, any mystery or murder or missing persons case. He’s always able to find the truth.

He just struggles sometimes, when it comes to himself.

His own emotions are swirling masses of weird bubbly feelings . He does not like how hard it is to decipher his own feelings.

Deciphering people's feelings about him is often just as hard. He knows social cues. He’s studied them thoroughly, and knows why people say what when he’s asking them certain questions and what they’re hiding when they ask him to leave.

Working a case is easy.

He’s solved plenty of murders before. Those are easy. Child’s play! And Angus is not a child anymore. He’s twelve whole years old, and had the first birthday party he’s ever really enjoyed to celebrate with all his friends.

Sure, most of them were adults, but he’s always gotten along really well with adults.

And they’re his family, so it’s fine-

Well. They’re not really his family. He’s not blood related to them. He’s not sure he has any immediate family now that his grandpa is gone. He’s never asked Taako or Magnus or Merle of Kravitz or Killian or- or any of them if they consider him family.

They’re his friends. That’s fine. He’s perfectly content with that (he thinks. Again, his own emotions are confusing).

But that’s okay. Because he’s going to school soon. It’s kind of far away from where most of them live, though. Far from the home Taako, Lup, Barry, and Kravitz have been sharing. Where Angus has been staying.

Very far from where Magnus has been setting up his school. And a whole day's ride away from Killian and Carey’s home.

The school is three hours away from Angus’s ho- from Taako’s house, where Angus is staying.

He hasn't- he hasn’t told Taako he’s going to school yet. He doesn’t know how to tell him he’s going to need to move out because obviously he would never ask Taako to uproot his whole life- all of them to uproot their lives just for Angus to be able to attend school. Not when they finally got settled down.

He really doesn’t even need school, but when his parents passed away and he went to live with his grandpa he dropped out. And if he wants to go on to college (if Lucas is serious about the potential teaching job) he needs to at least graduate high school. He was almost done too, but his grandpa didn’t have a lot of money like his parents did, so he started solving more and more cases to help out.

His parents didn’t give his grandpa any of their money because they didn’t expect him to be around when they passed on- not that they were bad people! He doesn’t mean to make them sound bad. They weren’t bad. They weren’t the best, he guesses. They’re not as fun as Taako, or as warm as Lup, and didn’t give as many hugs and Magnus, and didn’t talk to him about science like Barry, or-

But they were nice. They just weren’t really into parenting. They still left their small fortune to him, he’s just not old enough for it.

He’s thinking of petitioning the banks and saying he’s perfectly independent to get the money so he can move out easier.

He wonders if Kravitz would help, because he’s really good at that type of stuff, and the bank workers would be much more likely to listen to an adult than him.

Being young had its perks when solving cases, but it sucked for his day-to-day life.

It also sucked when his stomach churned for no reason that he could deduce. He’s just sitting in the kitchen, watching Lup cook in her still-slightly-fresh body as she sings a funny folktale song (Barry is sitting next to him, and he’d leaned over when she’s started singing to tell him how she learned this song early on in a world that had no writing system, and the song was about a man who could never remember where he left his pants. Angus didn’t really get it, but Barry kept laughing and smiling like it was the funniest thing in the world. Angus was pretty sure Barry would laugh at anything Lup did as a joke, though. He didn’t need to be a great detective for that).

But despite how good the food smells, his stomach hurts really bad. He’s barely eaten today, so it can't be food poisoning. Not that he’s had that since moving in- the Taaco’s are wonderful cooks and he trusts anything they feed him implicitly.

He tunes out Lup as he thinks.

The stomach pains are probably anxiety. Kravitz was telling him how he used to get them all the time, so it’s possible it’s just that.

But he shouldn’t be anxious . He’s a big kid- he’s just waiting for Taako to get home so he can tell him he’s moving out.

He has already looked for an apartment. Once Lucas' Academy of Arcane Sciences is fully up and running, he should have a highschool diploma and will be able to move on campus to work on his own degree. And be a student teacher while he works on it. It’s very exciting! If he should be feeling any physical effects from his emotions, it should be excitement, not this. This gross conglomerate of mushy feelings he can’t piece together.

He hates this.

Lup is holding a spoon to him, and Angus snaps back to the present to hear her softly ask, “you okay, little dude?” He doesn’t like the look of concern on her face- she’s been through too much to have to worry herself with him (he can’t get the century out of his head, these people are so amazing and they just let him hang around them. He doesn’t know what he’s doing right and he’s scared he’s going to stop doing that and they’re not going to like him anymore).

“I’m fine, Miss Lup! Thank you for asking.” He folds his hands tighter in his lap as he smiles. Whatever is on the spoon smells great, but he’s not sure his stomach is up for it yet.

Lup continues to stare at him for another second before pushing the spoon a little closer, “if you say so. Now, tell me, how’s it taste?”

Angus shakes his head and pulls back, “my stomach isn’t feeling too good right now, I don’t want to infect the rest of the food if it’s contagious.”

A hand appears on his head and he jumps a little, still not used to the casual touch-language of the household, and Barry’s nasally voice joins the conversation. “You don’t feel hot. Want us to call Merle over and give you a check up?”

The spoon is back, “it’s a good soup, Ango. It shouldn’t upset your stomach, and I can just get a new spoon. Barry can call Merle while you give me pointers.”

“You don’t need to, it’s fine really.” He waves his hands at Barry before turning to Lup. “And I’m not sure what help I can be with the cooking, I haven’t improved much these past few months even with Taako walking me through those other recipes.”

Lup snorts, “you’re improving much faster than Barry ever did. And I haven’t been helping Kravitz much with it, but he’s worse than anyone I’ve ever met at cooking. You’re doing just fine.”

Angus straightens up, discomfort momentarily disregarded, “Mr. Kravitz hasn’t needed to eat or cook in a long time, so he’s forgotten a lot of the basics so it’s not fair to judge me against him.”

“Sure, sure.” Lup waves her free hand in the air, the other still holding the spoon. “Still, this spoon is staying in the air until you taste it.” She glances at Barry, “and don’t worry about bothering Merle, he’ll never admit it but he likes the excuse to come over. Barry will pick him up; gives him more practice on perfecting the portal spell.”

Angus frowns, but reaches out to take the spoon anyways, “you really don’t need to call him. I’m sure it’ll pass by tomorrow.”

A hand is now on his shoulder, and Angus glances over to make eye contact with Barry, who speaks. “I won’t call him tonight, but if you still feel bad tomorrow we’ll tell him, okay?”

“Okay.” He’s not going to tell him if his stomach still hurts tomorrow, because it shouldn’t. Because he’s going to tell Taako right when he gets home and there will be nothing making him anxious or sad or excited or whatever that will make his stomach hurt. Because he’s going to do it.

He punctuates the thought by sticking the spoon in his mouth. Lup has turned back around, a fresh spoon stirring the pot, so she doesn’t see Angus’s eyes widen, but she turns back to face him with a smile when he gasps.

“This is really good, Miss Lup! Thank you.”

“Anything missing from it?” She crosses her arms, a new spoon dangling from her fingers as she twirls it around. It feels like a test, and the stomach ache is back.

Maybe it is from anxiety, because he used to get them before really hard tests. But why is he anxious? Taako is most likely going to take the news well, because Angus will finally be out of his hair.

(But maybe he doesn’t want that. Maybe Taako being okay with him moving out would hurt. Maybe the thought of Taako not just being okay, but being excited at the thought of him moving out is making him sick with worry and sadness and-)

“I’m not sure what else. It tastes perfect as-is.” He can’t think about cooking anymore. “I’m going to read on the couch, if that’s alright.”

The twirling of the spoon pauses, before she gives him a smile he knows is a bit forced, “okay, but when Taako comes home complaining that something is missing from the soup we’re blaming Barry.”

“Hey!”

Angus slides from the stool, moving to the sink and placing the spoon in there before heading to the couch. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and he can hear Lup puttering around in there as she and Barry speak quietly to each other.

He’s unsure if they’re talking about him, or just being polite because he said he was reading, but his stomach twists again anyways. He picks up his book from where he set it on the coffee table this morning, and tries to read- he really does.

But he can’t focus.

The words blur together as he stares down at them blankly. He’s so zoned-out he misses the sound of the door opening, and the ensuing whispering in the kitchen.

It’s only when a hand is on his shoulder does he notice someone else is in the room, and he almost jumps out of his skin. Turning his head quickly, he catches sight of the gaudy sequin coat Taako had bought a few months ago. He’s paired it with a pair of jeans with tassels, and Angus doesn’t know much about fashion, but he’s fairly sure that’s not a normal outfit combination.

“Lup said your stomach hurt? Did you eat the so-called muffins Barry made yesterday? Because I told him those were toxic for human consumption. Probably dwarven consumption as well.”

Angus shakes his head, eyes following Taako as he slips his coat off and throws it on the armchair. He’d taken one look at those burnt muffins and slid them behind the milk, hiding them to prevent anyone from eating them. The elf walks around the couch and sits on the opposite side as him, tucking his knees under him as he stares at him with those eyes that are far more observant than most people think.

“Uh-huh. I’m throwing them out anyway. Don’t want to risk it.”

Angus nods, fiddling with the pages of his book. He runs a finger down the edge, finding a temporary calm in the weird texture of the uneven edges. He’s wearing a crease into the sides, he knows, but that’s fine. His grandpa liked to talk about the beauty of a well-loved book.

He’d spent all night planning on what he was going to stay. He wants to make sure Taako knows he isn’t throwing his kindness back in his face, and that he is going to be able to do this mostly on his own. He doesn’t have many belongings, so the move itself would be pretty easy. There won’t be much for Taako to worry about. Angus has always been very self-reliant. He isn’t a pushover, and is fine taking care of himself. While living here has been nice, he’s fine going back to living like that.

A foot knocking against his knee gets his attention, and he glances over to Taako. The elf’s face is pinched, ears flicking back and forth.

It’s a weird expression to see directed at him. Taako speaks, “you with me, Agnes?”

He nods, eyes flitting away. The nickname is an endearment, something he figured out soon after he started living on the moonbase. Their story being projected into his mind only reinforced that knowledge; seeing how Taako interacted with the others (and how the others teased everyone as well) proves that Taako being mean normally shows he cares.

He states instead at the fireplace; it’s still kinda dirty because no one has wanted to clean it out from when Lup caused it to flare up during a particularly intense board game night (they banned board games when the fire was going after that, at least while Lup was in her lich form. Far too much magical energy waiting to be released).

“Angus. You sure you’re feeling okay?”

He doesn’t mean to flinch, but seeing a hand come towards his face after already being stressed all day caused him to react unfavorably.

The hand yanks itself away, and Angus forces himself to look over at Taako, apology already leaving. “Sorry, sir. I just didn’t expect it- I’m fine, really.” He almost says ‘I promise,’ but stops himself. He doesn’t like lying, and it wouldn’t have been a lie but it wouldn’t have been the full truth.

Taako doesn't seem to believe him anyways, as he squints at him. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Angus starts, “I’m not sick!”

“I know you’re not sick, but you’re acting all weird.” He wiggles his fingers, and it almost makes Angus laugh.

He takes a deep, steadying breath. It only makes his stomach clench even more. His face gets hot, and suddenly his throat is tight and he can’t- he can’t do it- he doesn’t want-

“I need to move out.” The words leave him at once, just barely slow enough to be comprehensible.

The soft conversation in the kitchen stops at once, though neither of them walk over to the couch. Taako is staring at him, face blank.

He finds himself beginning to ramble. He hates it, he’s normally more composed, but working a case is much, much easier than navigating people he cares about. “Mr. Miller offered me a position at his school once I graduate, and the school is on the other side of town. I can’t make the commute each day, it’s too far and the walk would be too much. So, I found a small place that’s cheap, and once I get access to my parents money they left me I’ll be fine on that front. And-”

“Miller? Lucas Miller?” Taako cuts him off. He hasn’t done that in a long while, and it shuts Angus up immediately.

“Yes? He’s opening his school, the Academy of Arcane Sciences.”

“And he wants you to teach there?”

Angus' face flushes, and he gets hot with indignation. “I’m very smart, sir. I am very qualified to teach, and it’s not a stretch that he would seek me out and-”

Taako puts his hands up. “Not what I was implying. You’re just young.” He glares off to the side, before pulling his crystal out. “Thought Miller was above hiring a child.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“How old are you, then?” Taako glances back over at him, eyebrows raised in that annoying way he gets when he thinks he’s made an excellent point. He’s typing without looking down, and Angus wants to know what he’s doing.

“I- that’s not what I meant.”

Taako leans back on the couch, looking back at his crystal. “You should be focused on being a kid, not teaching nerds at Lucas’s subpar school.”

The indignation that started when Taako brushed off what he’s been worrying about has been building and building. He clenches his hands into fists, letting the book drop to the floor as he stands and yells, “stop trying to make me have the childhood you wanted!”

He regrets it immediately, but can’t bring himself to look at Taako. The room is so, so quiet. It’s almost worse than if they yelled at him. He runs past the couch, dodging the hand that reaches out as he passes by Taako. He slips into the room he’s been staying in, closing the door and locking it behind him. He sits on the floor, back resting against his bed, and shoves his face into his knees, pulling them tightly into himself.

At least he made it easy, right? He’ll wait for Taako to cool down, finish packing his things, and leave.

He doesn’t even know why he said that. He knows Taako was just being nice, even if he phrased it poorly. He just wants him to be a kid because he knows what it’s like to not have a childhood. Angus had no reason to say that. He didn’t mean it.

The hot press of tears builds in his eyes and he forces them down. He has no right to cry when he was the one in the wrong.

Knowing Taako, Lup, and Barry are in there, talking about him, is almost as bad as the guilt. Not knowing what they’re saying is disquieting.

It doesn’t take long for a soft knocking on his door to fill the room. He says nothing, but looks up at it. He stares at the handle, checking it’s still locked.

“Angus, it’s Lup. Can I come in?”

He considers not answering. They’ve been good about not barging in before, when he makes it clear he wants to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone, though. He’s just not sure he wants to have this conversation.

“Yeah.” He stands, unlocking the door and holding the handle. Breathes. Opens the door.

Ears tilted down low, Lup stands there with hands in a neutral position at her side. Gods, she’s being so aware of her movements right now so she doesn’t startle him. He turns, walks over to his desk, and stands by it. He’s now very aware of his backpack and small suitcase against the wall, half-packed. Not enough to be obvious, but enough so that when he told them he was moving he could do so quickly.

Lup is staring at it. She hesitates, then goes to sit on his bed. She doesn’t shut the door all the way, leaving it just barely cracked.

He hates being treated like this.

“We’re not mad.” She begins, and Angus can’t bring himself to look at her as she talks, staring instead at his bags. “Taako isn’t mad either. We’re just confused as to why you want to move out.”

Angus furrows his brow, glancing over to Lup for a second before retraining his eyes on his bags, “I told T- I said that it was too far for me to walk there each day.”

“Me and Barry have basically mastered rifts, we could bring you there and back you know. So could Kravitz.”

“I already thought about asking you to, but you’re called to go help the Raven Queen randomly, and I wouldn’t want to be stuck on campus.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, “I didn’t phrase it very well out there.” He forces himself to make eye contact, “I am very grateful for everything you all have provided me, and I’m not leaving because I’m unhappy or anything. I just know I’ll be fine on my own, and I really want to go to school.”

Lup purses her mouth, “I’m not going to argue that you aren’t responsible or that you couldn’t live on your own. But you are young, there’s no reason you should be teaching at this age.”

“I’m not though! I’m finishing high school, and then student teaching until I graduate from his school. I’ll just be helping the professors until I have the proper qualifications.” He clenches his hands, trying to keep himself calm. He doesn’t like when people don’t understand what he’s saying.

She takes in what he says, keeping her gaze steady. “Okay. That’s better. But, you still shouldn’t be living on your own, little dude.”

“I used to-”

She holds her hand up, “come on, this is a group conversation. The other two people living here should be here for this.” Angus casts an anxious glance at the door when she says that. She continues on, “before we go out there, though, we do need to talk about what you said.”

Panic fizzles through him again. “I know! I didn’t mean it, and I’m really, really sorry. I just got frustrated because he was patronizing me and I don’t like being treated like that. I’m very smart and capable- I’ve done- I’m just-” He feels his emotions begin to well up again, and it only makes him more upset. He knows he’s more mature than this. He’s caught numerous serial killers, solved murder cases, and helped so many people. He can keep up with serious adult conversations, as well as banter with everyone easily. He’s good at words. He hates getting sensitive like this.

“Hey, hey. Angus, it’s okay. Breathe.” She steps towards him, moving slowly to not startle him and he hates how he’s already shown that she needs to do that. “Taako was being rude when you spoke to him, no one is denying that. But what you said at the end was also pretty rude. And we understand needing to take a minute to ourselves, but we have to make sure we have hard conversations. You’re telling us you don’t want us to treat you like a child, and we are not going to baby you. But you are still very young, especially compared to us.” She closes the gap to him and rests a hand on his shoulder, kneeling down. “Being mature means hard conversations. Being nice means having harder conversations. All we want from you, Angus, is for you to be honest with us and listen to us when we want to be honest with you.” She removes her hand from his shoulder and spreads her arms wide, offering a hug.

If he says no, she won’t make a fuss. He knows this.

He crashes into her, smushing her face into her shoulder. Her arms tighten around him as she runs her hand through his hair. “Here’s the plan. We go out there, Taako apologizes to you for being an asshole, you apologize for snapping, and then we all talk about you moving out, okay?”

Pulling his head away from her shoulder, he nods. He knows if he tried to speak, he would devolve into tears. She smiles and pulls him back into the hug.

They stay there for another moment, before Angus pulls away. Lup stands and gestures for him to lead the way.

His stomach clenches again, but some it’s not as intense as it was a few minutes ago.

They walk down the short hallway, and find Taako and Barry sitting on the couch. Both are staring at them as they enter the room, and Angus finds his hands twisting into the hem of his shirt.

“I shouldn’t have said that, sir. I’m sorry.” Angus says it fast. He hopes it doesn’t sound dishonest, the way it tumbled out of his mouth, but he knows if he slowed down the tears would fall too and he doesn’t want that.

Taako moves to stand, but Angus watches as Barry’s hold on his hand keeps him on the couch. Taako, instead smiles. “It’s okay, Ango. I was being an ass first. Should have listened to you all the way instead of cutting you off. Taako’s better than that.”

Lup brushes past Angus, moving to sit on the armchair next to the couch. Angus stays where he is. “I am still moving, though.”

No one speaks for a moment, but all three of them look at each other. After a moment of silent conversation, the type born from living together for a long, long time, Taako speaks up. “Okay. We’ve been talking about getting a bigger house anyways. This one is too close to the city and when the others visit it’s far too crowded. We need more extra bedrooms.”

Angus blinks. Then blinks again. “What?”

Lup sighs. “That’s one way to bring it up. We’ve already been talking about it- there’s a chunk of land just outside of the east end of the city. It’s not far from the school we assume is the one you plan on attending. Magnus has already said he’ll help us fix up the house there.”

He is still wildly confused.

Barry gathers that, and he sighs, “we will all move. So you can be closer to your school.”

He starts shaking his head, “no, you guys just settled down, you don’t need to do that.”

“Do you really think you could make us do anything we don’t want to do?” Taako asks as he begins to walk over to Angus. He mimics the position Lup took earlier, squatting in front of him. “If you really don’t want to live with us, fine. But we had already been talking about getting a bigger place. This isn’t a sudden decision- if Krav wasn’t on some mission he could tell you the same thing. The house we were looking at was empty before the Hunger arrived, and it got fucked up even more during the fight, so the land there is cheap. So if you want to stay with us- and I’m not asking what you think we want, I’m asking what you want- then one of the rooms will be yours.”

The tears he’s been working so hard to hold back begin to fall, so he just nods quickly. He lets Taako pull him into a hug, “I’d- I like living with you. Are you- you sure?”

“When has Taako ever lied?”

Angus just laughs, and does so even harder when he hears a pillow thwack against the back of Taako’s head (it’s a common occurrence in this house).

He feels someone approach on the side, and their hug is yanked to the side, both of them stumbling as Lup pulls them towards her, and he glances up to see Barry hovers right beside them. Taako must see him too, “Come on, Barold. Looks like it’s hug time.”

It’s awkward, and not at all very comfortable, but it’s warm. Angus’s tears have dried up, and he’s about to pull away when the familiar zip of a portal being created precedes Kravitz’s voice.

“Oh, am I interrupting?”

Taako laughs, “just missing out on a group hug.”

“Come on,” Lup speaks up now, her voice coming from just behind Angus’s ear, “it’s a family hug.”

Angus barely has time to process that when Kravitz steps forward. He’s almost as awkward as Barry, but it’s nice.

They separate eventually, Lup heads back to the kitchen to finish the food, with Barry close behind. Kravitz gives Taako a hello kiss, the two of them sitting on the couch, and from their low tones Angus can tell Taako is giving him a quick rundown of… today.

Angus see’s his book was placed on the coffee table at some point, and sits on the armchair once he grabs it, pushing Taako's discarded jacket to the side. Opening it to where he left off, the page is bent with a large crease down the center, from when he dropped it on the floor. He reads for a minute, before Taako speaks up.

“Mending should get rid of that crease, if you like.” Taako says.

Angus just smiles and shakes his head. “It just proves it’s used.”

He shrugs, looking down at his crystal, and Kravitz nudges him. It causes Taako to huff and hold out the crystal. A flyer for a recreational soccer team is displayed.

Join the new Neverwinter recreational soccer league! Ages 10-14. Help your kids make new memories and friends- Create everlasting bonds!

Angus frowns, “what’s this?”

“Soccer team. Was looking for one in the area when we started looking for potential houses to move to. Planned on signing you up.”

Tears begin to well up in his eyes again, and Angus finds himself frustrated. Not with Taako, no, of course not. Not now, not with this. But with himself, and how emotional he’s being.

Because he’s been talking about Caleb Cleveland books at Taako for so long now, and he’d always assumed he’d only been tolerating it. But Caleb Cleveland was a part of a soccer team- it wasn’t even a big part of the books. Angus has probably only mentioned it once or twice. And yet, Taako specifically looked for a soccer team and-

“Thank you, Taako!” He grins, and the way Taako’s ears are flickering, he knows he’s embarrassed.

“Just thought you could use the exercise. You know, you can’t be running around solving crimes if you can’t run.”

The smile doesn’t leave his face as he snarks back, “but sir, you never do physical training and you saved the world.”

“I just transmute my legs to be strong and fast if I need it. Or get Magnus to carry me.”

He leans further onto Kravitz, who smiles. “Or he just calls me to pick him up.”

“Exactly!”

Snuggling back into his chair, Angus holds the book close to his chest, “thank you, really, sir.”

“Come on, little dude. We’ve been over this. The ‘sir’ thing is so formal.”

“Would you prefer me to call you ‘sappy bitch’?” He turns up his fake innocent charm, the one he uses often on cases, as he says it.

Kravitz bursts out laughing, and he can hear Barry and Lup in the kitchen do the same.

Taako flares up, pointing an accusing finger at him, “who taught you that kind of fucking language!”

“I’ve always known curse words!”

“Not in my house!” Taako stands, and Angus climbs out of the chair and starts running. He knows what will happen if Taako catches him, so he runs to Barry, calling out for help.

Barry, the traitor, only holds him still so Taako can grab him and ruffle his hair. He begins yelling at Barry, cursing his name, but it’s hard to get the words out through his laughter.

Kravitz is the one who saves him, pulling him out of their arms and holding him high in the air. “Do not assault the child, please.”

Taako steps towards Kravitz, “you heard what he called me, didn’t you?”

“And he was right.”

Taako’s affronted gasp is so loud, it must scratch at his throat as he begins coughing.

Angus is giggling, kicking his dangling feet lightly in the air.

Whatever Lup is pulling off the stove smells delicious, and he cannot wait to begin eating.

As they sit down, Taako looks over at him and says, "you know, you should be careful about accepting a teaching job at Lucas's lame school. Taako here is working on a much cooler idea, and he could use a smart kid like you, if you can pass the rigorous application process."

"What is it?" Angus asks, getting excited. He hasn't heard Taako talking about anything like this.

"Top secret."

Angus laughs, "it won't be for long!"

"You're pre-emptively fired, then."

"Wait-"

#angus mcdonald #taako #lup #barry bluejeans #taz balance #my works

[gaymershigh]

hulloh! I've only been on tumblr for a few hours, and me and my friend already love your work! Is it ok if I request some TWST parent scenarios with Riddle,Lilia,Sebek,Vil and Floyd? If so, thanks! Also once again, me and my freind love ur works alot!

Of course! Since there's no s/o really mentioned in here but people might still want to be included, s/o will be mentioned just a tiny bit (the kids being biological or adopted is up to you since I want to make the s/o gender neutral.) Also, thanks a lot! I'm still and probably be forever an amateur writer so this means a lot to me 🥺💞💞

Triggers: None

Parents au: Riddle, Lilia, Sebek, Vil and Floyd edition!

From what we've seen, his parents are not the best role models like, at all. They were too strict, pressuring him and treating him like a trophy child. However, he will definitely not treat his child like that at all after Ace slapped him with reality.

He will be a bit strict, having some rules and will scold them if they did something wrong but not as scold them the way his mother does. He won't raise his voice at them, showing them the right path after he scolded them. He will give them freedom and try his best to not make his children suffer the same thing he did, especially when he's the source of the pain.

Though, he might accidentally adapt some things from his mother and project her ways to his children, being completely not self aware. If you're his s/o, please teach him the baby steps to avoid this from this occurring too often.

Unfortunately, having a good life and children won't make his short temper extend. This is the only reason why he doesn't spoil them too much, they might act entitled and may be too late to change them back to the innocent infant they were back then. He tries very hard to control his temper if his children unintentionally knock furniture over or damage something. He just needs a few minutes alone, everything will be back to normal later.

There was one time where his child's birthday was near and decided to bake a cake from scratch, without any assistance from Trey nor his s/o. Thinking he could do it and don't want anyone to underestimate him. He was planning to make a burnt strawberry cheesecake and did the mistake of leaving the oven on for an hour for 400 degrees fahrenheit. The cake went on fire but it tasted very good when he for some reason tasted it. Nobody knew about the incident and the cake was actually used for its purpose. Yay for him, I guess.

He was already pretty outdated in trends when he was in his teens so do expect him to be like a middle aged soccer mom on Facebook every time his children send him memes or something like that. If he does even use any sort of social media and stumbled upon a 'funny' minion meme or something, he will definitely send it to the family group chat. He will make those 5th grade types of edits with one of the family pictures with a "I love my family". It's funny but still wholesome so don't laugh at him.

There is no alternate universe where Lilia isn't a good dad. Silver and his other wards are already an amazing example of how amazing of a parent he is! He has gained a bunch of experience so he got this in the bag.

Though, his way of taking care of children might be different from how it is now. Times have changed, there are probably some new and uncomplicated objects or toys to entertain the baby or child. He would love to go on a shopping trip to buy some fascinating kids toys he found in the toy store. Please stop him from buying everything in there because it looks "intriguing".

If you're his s/o, you're very lucky since if you have a baby who always cries at three in the morning or a kid who really have trouble sleeping, Lilia will sing a lullaby and they'll doze off in any second. He can wake up easily or he'll just always stay up playing his games so you don't even need to break a sweat in this situation.

His kids or any kid in general loves him lots. He will always tell his tales anywhere, anytime. If the kids ask him for a story to tell, he will always have a new one ready to tell. They also make amazing bedtime stories! It can be funny little innocent stories like his funny experiences taking care of his three wards to actual battles he went through. Any story is a good story.

He really got along with his child when they're young and innocent but when they get into their teenage years, oh boy. He will unintentionally embarrasses them but their friends won't mind. If anything, they will love him being around as he's always keeping up with the games and trends, not being a fat, shirtless creepy dad. One of the positive parts about his child growing up is that he can play video games with him just like he did with Silver! Reliving the nice memories.

He would always try to cook something in any opportunity he gets and of course, he gets stopped by either s/o or his own children. Yes, they have to go through the hard way to realize their father is garbage at cooking. He would always try to cook some food everytime something good has happen in order to celebrate but most of the times, he just wants to cook something for them to show how much he loves them. They really made him happy, he finally have a biological/adopted offspring to watch growing up (again).

Sebek unfortunately doesn't have that much time to spend time with his children due to being Malleus' trusted escort. Of course, when he does have free time and is not exhausted he will use the opportunity to spend it with his adorable younglings.

Knowing him, he still loves and worships Malleus but he's no longer his only priority in life when he finally has a life of his own other than just being Malleus' bodyguard. He will ramble and tell so many stories about his young master to his kids. They will be infatuated but will later complain about how everything is just "Malleus this, Malleus that". He will get a bit upset about that comment, so he will only talk about Malleus stories for 3 days a week.

He only has focused his life on guarding Malleus and advancing himself on magic and education. Now that he's now an actual father, this is a new chapter in his life and he's not prepared at all. He will seek Lilia for guidance and of course, Lilia being Lilia will rope him to doing something absolutely ridiculous and he would of course, woefully fall for it. Pretty surprising that no matter how much he has fallen for his teacher's trap, he still seeks him for advice.

His kids will definitely learn how to read fast. He loves reading and he really wants his kids to appreciate it too. He was about to immediately give them the books that have old and poetic language without even knowing what the alphabet was. Lilia put a stop to this and you couldn't even bear seeing how sad he looked because he needs to wait for a few years for him to have little reading buddies. Oh well, it doesn't matter now. He will teach them how to read and appreciate the art of reading no matter how long it takes.

He has exposed his children to a bunch of Malleus propaganda so there's no surprise if the children become just like him. Loud screaming, Malleus worshipping, smart but naive and other things Sebek has. If you're his s/o, please keep the children in check as they might cause problems to the neighbors. As this might be troublesome, it's at least entertaining experience I suppose.

Just like Sebek, he has even less time to spend with his kids as he always has modeling, acting and other businesses to attend. He's probably going to be exhausted when he comes back as well. Though, of course he's going to try to use all his energy to talk to his children till he can no longer open his eyes anymore. He prefers an s/o that is a stay-in mom/dad so the children won't feel lonely while he's gone.

They're definitely gonna grow up just like him. A model, actor, media influencer, or the combination of the three and it's not a bad thing. If they're going on the same route as him, he will teach them in a strict but still in a somewhat caring manner as he has learned a lot from his experience of the VDC boot camp and the overblot incident. He will only show his threatening side if they start to misbehave like those ADeuce rats.

Just because they are his children, doesn't mean they get a free pass if they intentionally neglect or not doing their best at all times, especially when it comes to appearance. He's known to be a neat-freak and a very hard worker to the point it's concerning. He will scold them if more than two pimples pop up on their face but he knows when to cross the line. He learned this easier if their child is rather sensitive and just emotionally fragile in general but they still need to take care of themselves.

He expects his children to follow his footsteps when it comes to where they're schooling. He wants them to enter a prestigious school like he did for his reputation and for the sake of his children's future. This is optional (not really) but he also hopes his children to enter Pomefiore as well and take the dorm head title at least the second week they enroll in this school. If they were sorted to a different dorm, they still want them to have a role in their dorm or in the school at all.

He begs to the Great Seven that paparazzi or desperate losers obsessing over him don't intrude into his personal life, especially if it's about his family. The last thing he wants to witness is his family in pain or being uncomfortable for their whole life. He usually avoids or straight up tells the interviewer that he's not comfortable answering questions when they're going too personal when it's about questions of his family.

You cannot feel anymore blessed when you see his smiling face when he received news about having a vacation. He can finally spend more time with his wonderful kids he's raising with all his heart. He will tell them about some funny incidents in the studio while he was involved in some modeling gig or he will bring them to a private island with gorgeous scenery for both of them to enjoy. Of course, his children's happy faces are more beautiful than the island.

Floyd is seen to be very warm and sweet despite having a very intimidating height. Naturally, he's not going to be ruthless and act the same when it's with his children because it's his children of course, family is precious to him. He has a lot of energy even after a long shift at Mostro Lounge, so he will always spend a lot of time with his kids.

He's physically affectionate so expect him to be always close and wrapping his arms around his children at almost all times. He'll usually let them sit on his lap when they watch TV or sleep with them if they can't go back to sleep because of a nightmare. Headpats are needed, especially if the kids did something good or got good news. Not saying he won't give any headpats if something bad happens, maybe headpats of sympathy perhaps.

He's very patient when it's with his children because he doesn't want his children to fear him when they grow up. If anything, the s/o have to do the scolding to avoid him snapping or anything like the sort. They rarely do anything bad though, since they're aware of how their dad acts from how he treats a dirty burglar who once tried to break in.

Since he's usually very active and hates just standing around, he expects his children to be just like him. It's never boring if your dad is Floyd as he always has something really entertaining to do at most times. If you're his s/o, you have the free entrance to see an eel man dancing around with his kids or playing some basketball either inside or preferably in the backyard. He tried showing the art of parkour but is stopped due to it being very risky. He sulked about this but oh well, once they're ten, they have no choice but to learn it!

Floyd is an amazing cook and he sometimes lets his children be involved like chopping some vegetables or stirring the macaroni. He sometimes teaches them the perfect way of doing it or let's them try doing their own meal with his assistance. There was one time they decided to make one of the weirdest food combinations and try to eat it, he won and ate it all as it was too gross for the kids to eat it. It's not gonna be a surprise if everyone in this household is an expert cook when Floyd is here.

If possible, he really wants to bring his kids at work no matter how troublesome they could get. If Azul has a "bring your kids to work" day (which I doubt of him doing), he's going to bring all his children no matter how many he has. If there's no day like that, who cares! He's bringing his kids anyway and nobody's stopping him. Sure, he will get scolded by Azul but if that's the only thing stopping him then he'll take his chances.

I don't if it's still Christmas or not since I don't celebrate it but if it's still is, Merry Christmas! 🎉 I'll just say this is a Christmas gift for you and your friend, Mouaietaru! Especially for that Jamil and Silver fanfic that you made. It's very good, keep up the fantastic work! ✨✨✨

-𝕸𝖎𝖗𝖎

#twisted wonderland #twst wonderland #twst writing #twst riddle #riddle rosehearts #riddle x reader #twst lilia #lilia vanrouge #lilia x reader #twst sebek #sebek zigvolt #sebek x reader #twst vil #vil schoenheit #vil x reader #twst floyd #floyd leech #floyd x reader #twisted wonderland x mc #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x you #x gn reader #gn reader

[woodrokiro]

Bar Service (fic)

Fandom: Bleach

Characters/Pairing: IchiRuki

Summary: Bartenders--especially bartenders around the corner from her apartment--are strictly off limits. Restaurant AU. Written for @ichirukimonth . TW warning for mentioned child abuse. 

She doesn’t think much of the restaurant a few blocks away from her new apartment.

She always passes it to and from her work commute, of course. Maybe from time to time she glanced over, musing how it looks cute enough--a great place to take a date or some friends....

Before Rukia remembers: 1. She doesn’t have the time or capacity to date, and 2. She has no friends here yet… And probably won’t for a while, considering her lifelong difficulty making them in the first place. 

It’s fine by her, honestly. She likes throwing everything she has into her job, loves doing her best to earn a smile or laugh from her patients. That’s enough social interaction for her, and at the end of the day she can go home, pour a glass of wine, switch the television on to some silly drama and order takeout without mourning the “loss” of a Friday night.

So for the first few months that she’s living in Karakura: no. She doesn’t even think about stepping foot in Amore e Morte. 

Until she gets a particularly bad case at work. 

The fact that it was a foster child case alone makes her heart hurt--but of course, there’s always more with these sort of situations. 

A little girl named Hina, aged eight but looking so much smaller waiting there in her office. The social worker sitting with her--a woman named Rangiku, who Rukia knows a little and actually quite likes--squeezes Hina’s tiny hand before pulling Rukia to the side, quietly explaining the situation. 

Physical abuse from her former home where she had been for a year. Her teacher kept noticing bruises in odd places and finally called CPS, who did nothing for two months before the behavior escalated and Hina ended up in the ER.

Her new foster mom is a real nice lady, says she hasn’t been acting out or anything but… Rangiku shrugs, flashing a reassuring smile when the little girl looks their way. You know. 

She knows. 

So Rukia does what she does best: she goes to the little girl, introduces herself by her first name, and focuses on her work until she can sob angrily in her car at lunch break. 

And when her workday is done, when her emotions are fried and she’d really like a drink or three anywhere but her lonely apartment--she sees the restaurant’s sign, glowing warmly in the dusk light. 

Amore e Morte. Love and death. A weird name for a restaurant, she thinks, and wonders if the owners either don’t know Italian and thought the name was cool or are just uppity snobs. 

If you’d stop being so cynical you might go out and actually enjoy life. She can practically hear Renji’s voice scoffing in her ear now.

She parks her car at home before walking back over to the restaurant.

--

The outside of the restaurant is nice enough, but the inside is… Well. Lovely.

Brick walls painted white make the entire place look minimalist yet cozy. A couple of trendy paintings hanging sparsely through the restaurant makes the environment chic, but not overbearing. A few hanging lanterns bring just enough light to let everyone see where they’re going, but otherwise candles are utilized at each of the tables for a romantic touch.

Rukia sees by the sheer number of couples there that it is indeed a good place to bring a date.

And by the looks of one dish smelling deliciously of chicken and bell peppers that passes her by in a waiter’s hand, the food isn’t too bad either. Rukia’s mouth waters. 

“A table for one, miss?” 

Rukia startles from her musings, feeling rather silly as the bright and cheery hostess smiles patiently back. 

“Oh! No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I wouldn’t want to take up one of your tables. Do you have bar seating?”

“Of course! Right this way.” 

The hostess leads her into an adjacent room that sits tucked away from the main dining room. There’s still a couple of tables in this room, and two of the eight bar stools are occupied but it’s so much quieter here, the noise of the dining room a mere buzz. She breathes a small sigh of relief as she takes the stool at the far end. She wanted to be out and about, just… Not that out and about.

“Our bartender Kurosaki-kun will be taking care of you. I believe he’s just in the back talking to Chef, he should be right back.”

Rukia thanks her, taking a glance at the menu. 

She quickly finds out Chef Yasutora Sado’s menu inspiration is Mexican-Japanese fusion cuisine, which is… Interesting, considering the restaurant’s name is Italian. In any case, she’s fascinated. Rukia by no account considers herself a foodie, but the thought of blending traditional Japanese dishes with Mexican spices and turning them into something like sukiyaki tacos makes her stomach growl. 

“Can I get you something other than water to drink?”

Her gaze flickers from the menu to the well-toned arm extended out toward her, pouring a glass of water. Her eyes move up the arm to the man it’s attached to. 

A handsome guy, she’ll admit: if it wasn’t for the obviously bleached orange hair, the sword tattoo on his forearm peeking out from under his rolled sleeve, and the fact that he looked like he wanted to be literally anywhere else.

If she had to pick him out from a crowd, there’s no doubt she’d know him as a bartender. What a walking cliche. 

“Yes, I’ll take--” She didn’t even take a glance at the drink menu. She looks down quickly. “Sorry. Can I get a matcha mojito?” 

He nods, his hands suddenly flying through liquors and shakers and mixes to make her drink. “You ready for food, too?” 

“Any recommendations?” 

“Everything.”

She snorts. She’d be irritated by the subpar service if it wasn’t for his small smirk at her response. 

“Seriously, everything’s good here. If you get something you don’t like, drinks are on me.”

“Risky.” Rukia lifted an eyebrow. “You place that bet with every customer?”

“Every single one.” 

She highly doubts that, but she appreciates the trust in his workplace nonetheless. She orders a couple of small plates, and he tends to his other drink orders while she sips her own. 

The food, when it comes out, is… Infuriatingly good. Infuriating because she would have loved to have scored a couple free drinks off the arrogant punk bartender, but she’ll have to swallow her pride because the sukiyaki taco is absolute divinity. She sips her second drink, already accepting that she’s gonna have to admit to him she’ll be paying full price for everything she ordered.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like she’ll have a chance to gloat. From what she hears next door, dinner service has picked up and with that: drink orders. He’s doing as well as he can--hands expertly flying through the liquors, garnishing the cocktails with an expert flourish before passing them on to a server--but she can tell he’s feeling the stress, particularly when he reads his second to last ticket in the rush.

“Fuck,” she hears as he rolls his eyes, stalking over to the wine cabinet. A server comes by, concerned. 

“You need anything, Ichigo?”

He waves a hand, not turning to look at his coworker. “No, no I’m fine. Just annoying when I don't open a bottle before rush, that’s all.”

The server scuttles off to tend to her tables while Rukia watches him bang a (very expensive looking) wine bottle on the counter, clumsily ripping into the foil with an opener. At one point he cuts his thumb, and he half-hazardly wraps a paper napkin around it while he tries helplessly to pull the cork up. The wine opener doesn’t grip the bottle steadily a couple of times, she waits on baited breath to see if he’ll break the bottle. After a few dangerous-looking test runs, he manages to hoist the cork up, cursing out a “fucking finally” at the sound of the cork popping.

The whole thing must have taken ten minutes.

Maybe it’s the matcha mojitos finally hitting her, but she can’t help it. She laughs. 

He shoots her a wild look and she covers her chuckles with the back of her hand. 

“Sorry, sorry! I’m not--it’s not funny. I just… That was the most atrocious opening of a wine bottle I’ve ever seen.”

Ichigo stares for a moment before scoffing, turning back to his (finally opened) bottle and pours the wine into a glass. “Yeah, well… I don’t do wine service here, lady.”

“Excuse me? That’s ridiculous. You’re a bartender.”

“Exactly. Bartender. I do cocktails, not fancy wine stuff.”

“Let me guess, you consider yourself a mixologist.”

“Don’t ever call me that. Ever.” He’s shaking his head as he moves on to his next order, but oddly enough Rukia feels like she knows he’s suddenly having a good time. “Like I said, I don’t do wine etiquette and all that. That’s for the servers.”

“I’m just… It’s hard to believe you’ve made it this far in a nicer restaurant’s bar without knowing how to open wine.”

“Not that far. I’ve been here for like, six months.” He shrugs at her inquisitive stare. “Old buddies with the chef. I bar backed in college where he was a line cook, so… And if he ever got sick of me, my sister is his sous chef. Then again, she’s more likely to fire me than he is, the brat.”

“Especially with you not knowing how to open a fine vintage.”

“Get over it. When it’s not busy I get one of the servers to help me.” He looks down, having seemingly forgotten about his paper toweled thumb. “Shit. Hang on, I gotta get a bandaid from the back--”

“I have some, if you want.” Rukia starts digging through her purse. “If there’s not some restaurant code for the kind of bandage you’re supposed to use, of course.”

“If it looks neater than a shoddy paper towel job, ‘should be fine. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Here.” 

He stares at her outstretched hand. She stares back, getting more irritated as she waits. 

“What?”

“... It’s a Chappy bandaid.”

“So?”

“So why are you a grown ass woman carrying around Chappy bandaids?” 

“They’re for my patients, for kids.” She’s telling the truth, technically. To say she also quite enjoys Chappy as a character does not need to be mentioned. “Do you want it or not? Swallow your manly pride or go looking for an ugly beige bandage while your tickets pile up again. Tick tock.”

“Fine! All right, already.” He takes the bandaid and starts unpeeling the paper adhesive. “You a pediatrician or something?” 

“Child psychologist.” Suddenly Rukia remembers Hina’s sweet face and feels terrible for not thinking about her once this entire dinner. 

“Jesus.” Ichigo’s shaking his head, pressing Chappy to his cut.

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the guilt, maybe it’s the fact that it’s such a weird response to her revealing her profession, but Rukia can’t help it. She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms.

If he’s uncomfortable with her sudden hostility, he doesn’t show it. He shrugs. “It’s just… I can imagine it’s a hard job. Sometimes, anyway.” 

Oh. 

“Oh,” she exhales. “I’m sorry, I--yes. It can be, yes.I just… That sort of response I’ve only ever gotten from people that don’t believe in the importance of mental health. ‘Shrink talk’ and what have you.”

“Nah, I believe it.” He’s finished his job of covering his wound and moved on to his next drink order. 

She’s abashedly stirring the ice in her glass when she barely hears him say: “I had to go to a children’s therapist once, as a kid. Helped me a lot.”

She raises her head to look at him. He hasn’t changed his facial expression, nor is there any change to his body language as he continues to do his job--but as a psychologist, Rukia can’t help but wonder whether she’s the first person he’s ever told this to. 

“Me too. When I was a child, I… A therapist had helped me, too.” She raises her glass and clears her throat. “To recognizing childhood trauma, I suppose.”

He lets out a short laugh at the sudden dark joke, a sound so quick and so… So nice she can’t stop the fleeting thought that it’s a sound she’d like to hear more of. She shoves it away. 

Bartenders are absolutely off limits. 

He raises the glass that he’s mixing a cocktail in. “Yeah. Cheers.”

--

Later when she finally picks up the check, she pauses.

“Excuse me.” She waves Ichigo down, maybe just a tad tipsy. “You got the check wrong.”

He frowns, taking the bill from her and scanning it. “What are you…”

“You forgot to put a drink on there. My third one.”

It clicks and he rolls his eyes. “Oh my god.”

“What? I’m being honest.”

“It’s on me.” He slides the receipt back to her. 

“But I didn’t dislike any of the dishes!”

“Take some advice, will you Doc? If the restaurant staff didn’t put something on your bill and you still got it, chances are: we wanted to give it to you.” They lock eyes for an intense moment before he clears his throat, looks down to wipe his (suspiciously clean) bar. “‘To childhood trauma,’ and all that. Now stop yapping so loud about it. You want everyone in the restaurant to hear about me giving out free stuff?”

She shuts her mouth at that, but one small detail about what he said is bothering her.

“It’s not ‘Doc,’ so you know. I have a name. It’s Rukia. Rukia Kuchiki.”

“Okay. Whatever, Rukia.” He turns around and waves his hand. “And I’m Ichigo. Just pay your damn bill and come back soon or whatever.”

And with that: she guesses she has a new spot.

#bleach #ichiruki #irmonth2021 #ichigo kurosaki #rukia kuchiki #my stuff #may or may not be multi chapter if I'm being reeeal #but this was fun so maybe

[romantic-suggestions]

Hi! I’m not sure if you’re still doing advice(?) but I kinda just wanna word vomit if that’s okay—? I was talking to my BF (we’ve been dating for almost 2 yrs) and he said that part of him is very happy with like “have a few friends, meet someone young and fall in love forever” but there’s also a part of him that wants to meet new people, not really date for sex or commitment but just to meet new people and learn about people and I said “would you ever want to like, take a break to get out there?” Bc I don’t want him to feel unfulfilled and he said “idk” bc it’s not a matter of him feeling unsatisfied and that he’s not that invested in it and that with current events meeting people isn’t exactly easy anyway. And like, I trust him 100%, I know he wouldn’t hurt me, and above all things I want him to be happy and I’d never want to bind him back. I guess a part of me is just anxious that one day I might not be enough for him? Which I kinda know is irrational bc we already have talked about long term plans with each other, we almost never have big fights, and like, I’m pretty sure We always both do our best to make sure we’re happy. Sorry if this is weird and disjointed sounding— do you have any thoughts? Thank you for your time—!!

To be blunt anon, every time I've ever had the same thought as your boyfriend, it's been bc I've just really wanted more friends to have a human connection with! And it's really different to people going "oh help I got in a relationship early so I couldn't sleep around!" because it's just... nourishment for the soul? And I know that sounds a little silly, but given the Global Situation it's really understandable he wants to meet new people, learn about them, discover what makes them tick, and care about them; that's human nature! and it also shows he's really compassionate <3

on a very quick side note, has he considered a career with people? like, HR, social worker-ing, teacher, trainer, therapist... like, this sounds so odd, but if getting to know people and understand their perspective is his thing, perhaps working towards a field in which he can help people could be good! and in the meanwhile, he could volunteer with people, or try nannying-- I'm aware this is a mildly bonkers suggestion, but it's an option if he's down for it! he could also join various discords/clubs and such for meeting new people (again, bit hard given Everything) and doing voice calls could be an option :)

I'm good at wording these usually, I promise!!! <3 but it's so good you trust each other, because it means that having a conversation about this is going to be really effective! I don't get any romantic intent from what he's saying (although this is me, an outsider, saying this), and honestly? I think if he hears your concerns, he'll be able to understand your perception of it, and I wouldn't recommend taking a break, but being there to support him! You're there for each other through thick and thin, and when he's seeking connections with others on a soulful level, you encouraging him would be very lovely for him, I'm sure!

You might also want to mention your fears about not being enough for him too... I know that sounds utterly terrifying, but it's the sort of thing he'll notice over time, and will worry about; telling him now rips that metaphorical bandage off, and it also lets him know where you're at with this whole thing <3 ! you both love each other and want to be together; don't let your worries consume you over this! It's going to be okay <3

Good luck anon, to you and your bf!!! Stay safe!

#not a suggestion #ask thing #borders are closed where i am so it did take me a second to go 'oh yeah!! poor lad' #bc honestly... yeah!!!!!!! I met a guy at the cinema last Sunday!!! and we talked a bit abt Sparks (was there to see the movie) #and like... we got each other for a sec! got the excited light in each other's eyes! #i understand your bf wanting those little moments w ppl!!! and i can reassure you they're platonic #or at least a bit spiritual!!! hehehehe <3 #but also make sure he doesn't join any cults <3

[onceuponaloonatic]

i meant for this to be a little more so i’m sorry but this is the best i can do with my courseload rn it’s a namo drabble in the new misahyo au i hope you enjoy !! 🥺🥺

tw: ptsd, learning disabilities, panic attacks, etc...

Nayeon really wouldn’t say they planned to have Kazumi when they did. It may sound strange, since they obviously had worked very hard to have Kazumi, as they had to go through all the work of finding a doctor and doing the procedure over and over again. But despite all the work that went into having her, Kazumi Hirai-Im was not planned.

A part of her regretted adopting the twins right before they had Kazumi. It wasn’t that she regretted having any of them, and she wouldn’t trade a single one of them for the world, the timing was just not ideal. 

They found the twins through a co-worker of Momo’s. Momo’s coworker’s husband was a social worker, and she was complaining about the twins when he first brought them to her home. She said she was used to him bringing random children home occasionally, but that these two were especially problematic. She talked about how she couldn’t sleep because the girl kept having nightmares and that the boy would always steal food when he thought she wasn’t looking. And apparently, the two were not getting along with her co-worker’s children. Taking the twins in as a favor for Momo’s co-worker was supposed to be a short term thing. It was just a crazy idea Momo had had after a long day at work. She had seen how stressed her coworker was, and ever the people pleaser she had just offered without thinking much. She didn’t even ask Nayeon until after she offered. (In Momo’s defense, Nayeon was teaching a class at the time so it’s not like she could have answered that second, but Nayeon still held it against her.) Nayeon didn’t take much convincing though, once she laid eyes on the twins, she fell in love. Nayeon loved kids, and seeing those two young children completely melted all of her inhibitions. 

They had some issues with the twins at first. Haneul did in fact have pretty violent nightmares, plus getting her to open up was nearly impossible. Jae opened up easier, but he did have some quirks. He stole food and hid it under his bed frequently. One day, Momo found it under his bed when she was trying to clean, and when she tried to address it with him he had a meltdown. Haneul had run over when she heard her brother crying, and tried to be protective over him, physically putting herself between Momo and her brother, glaring at Momo the best she could at her young age . Momo had reassured them both it was okay and she wasn’t mad, and that if they needed more food, they would gladly give it to them. It just needed to be kept in a better place, in case there were ants. That explanation seemed to calm them both down, but it was a testament to how they both still didn’t trust them. 

A few days of taking care of the twins quickly turned to a few weeks, and that was when Momo and Nayeon knew they wanted to keep them forever. Sure they were difficult, but they were also sweet. They had been hurt, and they needed patience and care that the foster system couldn’t provide for them. It wasn’t much later Nayeon found out she was pregnant with Kazumi. 

It was right about when they had talked to the twins about the idea of them staying with them forever. They were both so young, forever was a difficult concept to grasp. But they had agreed that they were nice. Jae said they had good food and Haneul said she “liked their puppy.” They were in the process of officially adopting the two of them and not just fostering them when they found out. Nayeon had only gotten the procedure once after the twins came into their lives. She had only done it since they had already paid for the session, and she was convinced it wasn’t going to work. But it had. And now they were in a difficult situation.

Of course they were happy they were having a baby, but it would make things complicated with the twins. They both knew it would, they knew the twins would feel like they were being replaced and that they didn’t want them, which was so untrue. Nayeon and Momo both wanted both the twins and the new baby so so much.  

When they eventually did tell them, they reacted how they expected. They had tried to phrase it to them like a proposition for them to be a big brother and big sister, and tried to reassure them they still wanted them, but it didn’t work. It ended with a poorly planned attempt to run away by Haneul that ended with her falling down the last two by their front door and breaking her arm. Jae, despite being on board with the run away plan, was so freaked out by Haneul’s crying he instantly ran to them crying. Of course they were mad, but they were more worried about the twins. They took Haneul to the emergency room and Momo stayed with her, holding her tight in her arms as she got a cast for the first time while Nayeon held Jae, who still hadn’t calmed down either. 

After Haneul had a purple cast put on her wrist and they had all gotten some sleep, they talked about it with them. They told them they were worried and that they didn’t want them doing that again. They also talked to them again about how even if they were going to have a baby, they still wanted both of them. It was the first night they told the twins they loved them. 

After that they were still a little skittish about baby things, but they seemed to open up to them a lot more. Especially Haneul. She seemed a lot more comfortable with them after that incident. Her nightmares even started to slow down a bit. 

When the two met Kazumi for the first time, they both kind of fell in love with her. They both giggled about how small she was and how silly she looked. They loved calling her Zumi and helping out with them as much as they could. They were just about as helpful as young children could be, but Nayeon and Momo both thought it was so cute. It was a nice change, and they could see they were both kind of coming around and accepting Kazumi as their little sister. 

That time right after Kazumi was born was hard. Between waking up for Kazumi and for the twins' nightmares, they barely got any sleep. And trying to keep up with the twins' newfound energy now that they were more comfortable with them and Kazumi was hard. But they managed, even if sometimes it seemed like they wouldn’t. They even enjoyed it. They loved their family so much. Even if Kazumi’s timing wasn’t great they were happy to have her, and it seemed the twins felt the same.

Things never really got easier. They just, changed as the kids got older. Hanuel’s nightmares got better, but she started showing clearer signs of PTSD and anxiety. Jae was having trouble keeping up in school and was struggling with some of the same PTSD as Haneul. Kazumi had issues with seperation anxiety. It started when she was a baby, but it got worse when she started school. It wasn’t just towards Nayeon and Momo either. She directed it towards both her brother and her sister as well. The first night Jae had a sleepover, Kazumi had insisted on saying up until he got back. Of course, she ended up falling asleep in Momo and Nayeon’s bed, but she had pushed herself to stay up later than usual. Haneul didn’t like being separated from their family too much either, so they guessed it had rubbed off on Kazumi too. Haneul specifically hated being separated from Jae. They had been together forever, she absolutely hated being separated from him. That first night he had a sleepover and after Kazumi fell asleep, Haneul had a meltdown in their kitchen. It took almost an hour of gently holding her and telling her Jae was fine for her to calm down. Once she was calm, she fell asleep, but getting her there had been difficult. Jae always seemed the most okay with separation. He was a little more trusting than Haneul, and he wasn’t as attached to people as Kazumi. He still had issues, specifically in school and with anger, but he was better than his sisters in the making friends department. 

Once all the kids were in elementary school, Momo went back to work full time and things did feel a little smoother. Not easier, just smoother. They both had a pretty good idea of what they were doing and even if there were times they felt overwhelmed, it felt easier to deal with. Over time, things just got more and more polished to the point they were like a well oiled machine. Of course there were times things hit a snag. 

The first major snag they hit was learning to manage Jae’s dyslexia. He had been diagnosed in first grade, but at first his teachers had said he had a mild case and would be fine with little intervention. But by third grade he started hating school, refusing to go no matter what Nayeon and Momo promised. After some probing they found out he was just struggling a lot in school at the time, and they took him to a specialist that helped lay out a learning plan that could work with him. They had always known Jae was really smart, but once he started getting the care he needed his life improved a lot. He was angry less often and he started to like school more and more. 

The next came with Haneul. While she had never struggled in school, making friends was never something she was good at. She was shy, and didn’t really seem to get along with her classmates very well when they tried to force her to open up. She got along with her brother and sister, and she got along with Emi, Jeongho, and Hansol pretty well, but she really struggled getting along with anyone else. They thought she would be fine with that, but when Jae started to make his own friends and have his own life things changed. She seemed more withdrawn and she even started taking it out on Momo and Nayeon. It felt like all the progress they had made towards their relationship was cast aside as Hanuel lashed out at them for weeks. It took a couple group therapy sessions with both of them and Haneul for them to figure it out, but once they did everything became really clear. Haneul ended up having to work with another therapist for a while, one who specialized in social skills, but it ended up working out for her. She was only able to make a few friends, but it did wonders to improve her mood and overall happiness. 

Kazumi was always the easy kid. Sure, she was the youngest and so she was more needy at times than her older siblings but overall she didn’t really require as much from her parents as her siblings. She always got okay grades and her social skills were arguably the best in the family. The only issue they ran into with Kazumi was her separation issues, but other than that she really was an easy kid. She even helped her parents out with her siblings, becoming pretty in tune with both of them emotionally from a young age and understanding them even better than their parents sometimes. As they got older, the kids mellowed out. By the age of fourteen, Jae didn’t even go to therapy anymore. Of course, they still recommended they keep an eye on him, but he was in a good place emotionally and was happy in his life. Haneul wasn’t quite ready for that yet, so much to her own chagrin she stayed in it. 

“I don’t understand why Jae’s allowed to stop and I’m not.” Haneul was the only one in the car with Momo. She was usually the one to take Haneul to her therapy appointments as Nayeon usually had a class around that time, so she had gotten used to it over the years. When she was little Momo had a little tradition of taking her to get ice cream after each appointment. “We’ve talked about this kiddo, it’s just until both your therapist and you feel comfortable stopping.” Momo informed, turning the car on. She had gotten used to waiting for appointments like this. Nayeon usually had work, so she was the one who usually took care of little appointments like this. 

“I feel comfortable.” Haneul pouted. “Your therapist doesn’t think it’s a great idea sweetie.” Momo sighed. “I know you are frustrated,  but really, it’s okay. Being in therapy is okay. You are doing well, and we are so proud of you.” “Fine.” Haneul pouted. 

“Ha-chan I can tell you are frustrated but this is what’s best for you.” Momo sighed. “Cheer up. You can get toppings on your ice cream if you want?” “Can I get M&Ms?” Haneul asked. “Yeah, whatever you want. Just don’t tell your brother and sister.” Momo rubbed one of Haneul’s arms. “Fine.” Haneul sighed again uncurling herself from the ball she had curled up in. Momo couldn’t help but smile. Haneul had grown up so fast. She remembers when she first came to stay with them. She was so tiny back then, so frail and so fragile. She used to cry when anyone would raise their voice at her. She used to get upset by loud noises. When things fell or when the tv made a loud noise, she would always freak out. She was so much better now. And she had put in so much work for them to get this far, and Momo was just so incredibly proud of her for getting this far. 

“Hey mama?” “Hm?”  Momo hummed as she began driving. “Why-why did you and Mom decide to take Jae and I in?” Haneul asked, her eyes nervously darting around. “I mean- you never really told us why. And Zumi and I were talking about this the other day and I realized I couldn’t really answer the question. I know you guys were still going through the whole science procedure thing, that's why Zumi was born, but why did you decide to take us in while you are doing that?” Haneul asked. “Well… I guess you are old enough to talk about it.” Momo nodded. “Well… you know my coworker Miss Kim? Her husband is your social worker.” “Yeah- I guess I remember her.” Haneul shrugged. “Yeah, anyway she was the first to take you two in. But it wasn’t really working out. You weren’t getting along with her kids, so she asked me to take you two in for a few days. I didn’t even ask your mom before I said yes. I knew she was struggling and I just- you guys just needed a place to stay. When I told your mom she was a bit mad, but she agreed. Once we had you two, it just-it felt right. We loved having you two- we loved you two.” Momo explained. “Kazumi did have interesting timing, but it worked itself out in the end. We love all three of you and really wanted to have all of you.” 

“So you just- you just decided you wanted to keep us?” “It less of we decided it- we just, it felt right. We couldn’t imagine letting the two of you go, even when we found out about Zumi.” Momo explained. “Well… Thank you.” “Of course kiddo.” Momo giggled. “We love you so much Ha-chan, you and your siblings.” “Yeah yeah.” Haneul giggled. “I know and...” “And?” “And I love you too.” Momo smiled at Haneul. She really meant it. She loved them more than anything in the entire world.

#twice #namo #im nayeon #hirai momo #kazumi #haneul #jae

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 23

Today’s fic features young, black haired Shiro, and wittle baby Keef!

 As a side note, I just wanted to clarify that all of these fics take place in different universes (I don’t think poor Keith would survive all these things actually happening to him in one universe!). I say that because even though I most definitely subscribe to the headcanon that Keith experienced some not so great foster homes (as I’m sure you’ve noticed), I don’t stick with any specifics. So you’ll likely never see me mention the same foster home twice.

Read on AO3

Read on FFN

Day 23 - Exhaustion/Sleep Deprivation

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: foster homes, referenced child abuse

“Hey, kiddo. You fall asleep waiting for me?”

Lifting his head from his arms, Keith blinked up at Shiro, then scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “No. Just resting.” There was no way he could fall asleep, not with the way his brain was running in circles at ninety miles per hour.

Shiro frowned, settling down onto the bench next to him and resting a hand on his upper back. Keith tried to hide his flinch at the touch. “You look exhausted, bud. Everything okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just, you know...nervous about the exam, I guess.”

His newfound mentor smiled knowingly. “Nerves keep you up last night? I can’t count the number of times that’s happened to me.”

Images and sounds from the night before flashed through Keith’s mind, and he barely held back a shudder. “I guess. Mostly, just, you know...studying.” 

“Couldn’t resist last-minute cramming, huh?” Shiro’s smile widened, and he ruffled Keith’s hair. Despite the friendliness of the gesture, his spine stiffened, waiting for it to turn painful. “I told you you had this in the bag. I’m certainly not gonna blame you for studying hard, though. As long as you at least got some sleep.”

The truth was he had only gotten an hour at the most, but he really didn’t want to tell Shiro that. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer.

Standing, he reached a hand down to Keith with a smile. “Ready to ace this?”

His stomach turned a flip. Ace it. Shiro expected him to ace it. He had to ace it, no matter what Shiro expected, because acing it was the only way the Garrison would look twice at a foster kid with a record like him. If he didn’t ace it, he’d be stuck in that house for the foreseeable future, or sent back to the group home, which was almost as bad.

Which is why he desperately needed to have spent as much time studying as Shiro seemed to think he had. He wanted to be studying that much. He just...couldn’t.

Now he had taken far too long to respond, and Shiro was giving him an odd look. “You sure you’re okay, Keith?”

“Mm-hm.” His head ached fiercely and he felt like he might implode from sheer exhaustion at any second, but those were the kinds of things that adults didn’t care about. All they wanted to know was whether he could do the tasks he was supposed to do, and the answer to that was yes. He hoped. 

Taking the offered hand, he stood from the bench. Immediately the room swirled around him, and his knees buckled. He vaguely heard Shiro shout his name from a distance before his head smacked into something hard and everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling greeted him. He blinked, trying to sort through the fuzziness in his head, until the smell of antiseptic assaulted his nose and woke him further. It smelled like the doctor, but why was he at the doctor he hated the doctor and he was supposed to be taking his entrance exam…!

“Hey bud.” Shiro’s voice pulled him out of his spiraling thoughts. “How’re you feeling?”

“Why ‘m I here?” Keith mumbled, then brought his hands up under him and pushed himself up, disregarding the way his head throbbed and swam. “What happened, what about the exam? I can��t miss the exam!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Hands came down on his shoulders, preventing him from standing. “Calm down, buddy. You had some kind of fainting spell and hit your head pretty good on the floor. You need to take it easy.”

“But the exam,” he protested, breathless. “I have to take the exam, I have to!”

“And you will. Just not today.”

Keith’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“I’ve already talked to the officer in charge of admissions. They’re gonna give you another chance to take it in two weeks.”

Two weeks. Keith slumped over, releasing his breath with a whoosh. Two extra weeks in that house, but also two extra weeks to study. This time, he’d make sure he actually could. Somehow.

“Keith...are you sure you’re not sick?”

He shook his head, slowly. “No. Just...tired. Like I said.”

Shiro studied him, making him want to squirm. “How much sleep did you actually get last night?”

Keith looked down at his fidgeting hands. “Some.”

“What about the rest of the week? Have you stayed up studying every night?”

“No,” he answered far too quickly. It was the truth, he hadn’t stayed up studying. That wasn’t the reason he hadn't slept. 

“Keith.” He couldn’t meet Shiro’s gaze, despite his firm tone. “Something is going on here. People don’t just collapse for no reason, and you’ve got huge bags under your eyes. Talk to me.”

He swallowed. “It’s just...hard to sleep. Sometimes.”

“Yeah?” Shiro’s voice had softened. “Why’s that? Nightmares?”

“No.” Yes, but not always. “My…” He didn’t want to say it, but he had to say something. “My foster parents fight.”

“Oh. I gotcha. And that keeps you awake?”

The way that Shiro just took the answer in stride made him pause. There was no sigh, no eye roll, no insistence that he was overexaggerating or that he shouldn’t make excuses for himself. Nothing like how many social workers and teachers had responded to his complaints over the years...before he learned to stop bothering to complain about anything that wasn’t life-threatening. It put a little spark of hope in his chest. Before he knew it, more of the story was spilling out.

“Yeah. They, um. They yell a lot, and sometimes...sometimes he throws things? So it, you know, it gets pretty loud. It’s been...worse. This week. And I’m the oldest there, so...somebody has to watch the babies, and make sure they stay in their room and don’t cry. He hates it when they cry. I don’t want them to get hurt.”

Shiro’s face was etched with concern. “Does he hurt them, ever?”

“Um...no, he...he hasn’t. Yet. I just...I don’t trust him.”

“I understand.” Shiro nodded, and Keith felt like he really, actually did understand. “I need you to tell me something, though. Has he...ever hurt you?”

“Um.” He continued staring at his fingers, heat creeping into his face. He’d known the question was coming, eventually. He thought he could trust him enough to tell the truth. It was just...scary. He wasn’t used to trusting anyone. 

The answer came out just barely above a whisper. “Sometimes.”

Shiro’s voice dropped in volume, too. “Can you tell me about it?”

“He…” His shoulders drew up around his ears. “Sometimes, when they’re fighting, she’ll leave. Like, get in the car, and...and drive off. And a lot of times...he’s not done. He’s still mad. So...so he…”

“He takes it out on you.”

Keith nodded slowly. “Yeah.” 

“What does...he do?”

He hesitated, torn between wanting to say and thinking he shouldn’t, but finally decided just to show him instead. Shuffling around on the bed, he eased his shirt up until his back - and all the marks on it, a few old and many new - was mostly bared.

“Keith,” Shiro breathed.

Yanking the shirt back down, he turned quickly and shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I’m okay. And that wasn’t even last night, it was...I don’t know, a few nights ago, I guess. Last night nothing really happened besides them fighting, I was just…” He cut his eyes to the side. “I was scared.”

“Hey.” A gentle hand was placed on his knee. “I’d be scared, too. And it is a big deal. Nobody should be allowed to hurt you like that. That’s not okay.”

Keith shrugged again. “I thought...I thought if I could pass this exam and get into the Garrison, then that’d be over, so I figured I’d just put up with it until then. But every time I try to study, I get interrupted by them fighting, or telling me to do chores, or...or the babies need me, or...something.” Tears pricked at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Shiro. I really tried to do my best.”

“Hey, listen kiddo. You don’t have to apologize to me.” The hand still on his knee squeezed. “I want you to get in for you, not for me. And it doesn’t sound like any of it was your fault. Including today.” 

When he looked up, Shiro was smiling sympathetically at him. “You’re exhausted, Keith, and I don’t blame you. But hey, now you’ve got two more weeks to get ready for the exam, and in the meantime, I think you and I should go and talk to your social worker. I know it’s a pain to have to change houses again, but I don’t want you staying there anymore. Or the other kids, either, if we can help it.”

Keith nodded, though a bit reluctantly. “Yeah. I guess that’s probably best.”

“And maybe this time around I can actually help you out with your studying a little. If whoever you’re staying with next doesn’t mind, maybe you can even spend the night at my place a time or two. Make sure you get some sleep in a place that’s nice and quiet.”

Though he could hardly believe what he was hearing, Keith found the corners of his mouth quirking upwards. “Yeah. That...that sounds really nice.”

#whumptober2020 #no.23 #sleep deprivation #Voltron: Legendary Defender #fic #foster home tw #child abuse tw #keith #keith kogane #voltron keith #vld keith #hurt keith #keith whump #voltron whump #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron fanfic #vld fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction

[they-say-you-go-blind]

Close Around the Campfire | Jack / Davey Fanfiction

Davey and Jack were close. It was different, instantaneous kind of close that neither had experienced until this point. Did either of them intend to find the person they were meant to be with forever at counselor orientation day of a summer camp? Never in a million years.

———————————————

Davey had turned 19 less than a week ago. With one year of Political Science under his belt, but a hearty student loan to pay off, he was desperate for a job. With that first application, and a couple of phone interviews later, and he was set for the summer . However, now that he was pulling into the staff parking lot at Blockwood Summer Camp, he wasn’t so sure. He turned the keys of his beat up car and typed a text to Les.

I made it to camp safe. Going to do some counselor stuff for the next few days so probably won’t be able to talk much. I’ll see ya in a couple of weeks for A.R.K. camp.

He slumped in his seat. 10 weeks of leading campfire songs and doing archery and making sure a weekly rotation of kids stay alive... maybe he hadn’t thought about it enough. He opened snap and took a picture of his bags that were crammed into the back of his car. He looked at the photo for a second, captioned it with ‘I believe I’ve made a horrible mistake’, and sent it to the groupchat with his best friends.

He knew he had about ten minutes until he should start making his way to the Mess Hall, as it said in his Orientation Day email. His best friend, Katherine, was trying to call him and he nearly let it ring out. At the last second, he pressed answer and spoke,

“I don’t think I should be here.”

Katherine and Davey had been best friends since diapers. In Kindergarten, their teachers were convinced they were twins just because of they way they acted with each other (and their aversion to all others). In middle school, the two of them sang and did a choreographed dance number at the talent show. They were the Closet Gay prom king and Queen, most representation that their school had ever had. And now, going into their sophomore year of college, they were honest with one another about everything, could joke about anything, and be trusted with the deepest secrets the other had. It’s no surprise that Katherine blurted out,

“I’m sorry, have you seen your co-workers?!”

Davey was taken aback.

“How the hell do you know what they look like?”

Katherine blushed. Her secret was out.

“You gave me access to your email before you left, in case you got anything important.”

Davey nodded and and whispered out an ‘oh no’. Katherine started to send the screenshots as she spoke.

“I saw your orientation email... it wasn’t hard to find their socials from there...”.

Davey couldn’t believe it as he swiped through the profiles of the three other boys who were his new co-workers. Katherine started to narrate each of her discoveries.

“First off, is Harrison “Race” Higgins. Seems fun and all. Also, I’m sure you can see in the profile picture, but Rainbow Flag!”

“Ah yes, Christian church camp is where I��m going to find my b...”

Davey could barely get the words out. Katherine was the only person in his “real life” who knew that the “you two should just get married” comments about him and Kath would absolutely never happen. Katherine just giggled, like a schoolgirl keeping a secret.

“Just you wait, Davey.”

Davey pondered on Race’s profile picture. Seemed cute, a little goofy, a lot like a best friend. Katherine continued.

“Next is Zachary “Spot” Conlon. Don’t tell me why they both have nicknames. But he is...”

“He looks like he could beat me up with a glare.”

Katherine laughed at that.

“They’re dating, by the way. They give me forever together vibes.”

Davey swiped between the two profiles as she talked. She wasn’t wrong, forever vibes were There.

“Huh, noted.”

“And the last one,” Katherine cleared her throat.

“ and I’ll let you narrate this one yourself, is Jack Kelley.”

Jack Kelly was the most attractive boy Davey had ever seen. His profile picture looked like it was him in a painting class for University. He had a little bit of pink paint on his cheek and a beautiful smile. His eyes were the color of a clear blue sky. It looked that his cover photo was one of his paintings as well,... a landscape piece with the initials J.K. in the bottom right corner. His “about me” was a gold mine, and he would be sure to read every detail later.

“Dibs on this one.”

He told Katherine. It had been their thing, that once they’d both seen someone attractive, the first one to call dibs would have zero roadblocks to them. Davey was so enthralled. He just kept staring at the profile picture.

“He’s just...”

“Perfect? I know...”

She chuckled to herself.

“And, there’s one more thing you should know.”

She spoke and sent him the final screenshot. When Davey opened it, he was confused.

A picture of Katherine’s Facebook?

She nearly squealed, but kept composure to say.

“You really were not observant when you pulled into the parking lot. I expected better from you, Davey J.”

Davey was in shock. She couldn’t have made this up! He got so excited and nervous and relieved all at once. Looking around, he saw her car and waved.

“You’re not pulling my leg, right? This isn’t some twisted joke... really?!”

“Yes! Apparently one of the female counselors was Not who she said she was, so they called me last night and I am here for the summer!”

She spoke quickly, Davey could barely understand what she was saying.

“You’re literally my favorite person in the world.”

He spoke with sincerity. He couldn’t believe his best friend in the world would be spending the summer with him.

“I might have to become your second favorite. If I’m not mistaken, Jack Kelly just pulled in the parking lot.”

Davey turned his head to see him and couldn’t help but stare for a few seconds. Photos did not do Jack Kelly justice. Davey’s head was spinning. He didn’t know if he could manage spending five seconds with him. How was he supposed to survive the summer? Davey’s face grew red as he realized Jack was pulling into the spot next to him.

———————————————

“Kath, holy shit.” Davey blurted out as he snapped his head to the front. “Language, Daves. Christian children’s camp...”

Katherine snorted as she laughed at Davey, who was now flustered and red in the cheeks.

“What are we gonna do?”

He asked, his forehead falling on the steering wheel in defeat. Katherine pondered.

“We? No, you. You called dibs! I’m just along for the ride.”

“You’re an asshole. I’m actually going to die. He is... God Kath-”

Davey stopped mid-sentence as he heard a knock on his window. He lifted his head to see Jack Kelly.

“Good luck with that, babe.”

After making a frustrated noise, and trying to refrain from looking like an idiot, he hung up the call, cranked the window down, and smiled, waiting for Jack to speak.

“Hey there. You must be working here, too?”

Davey nearly combusted as Jack leaned back onto the passengers door of his car, which was nicer than his own. Did Davey care about that? Not really.

“Yeah, I’m David Jacobs. Most people call me Davey.”

“Jack Kelly.”

He stuck out his hand, Davey shook it through the window and chuckled. Jack continued.

“It’s nice to meet ya. You’re radiating ‘camp counselor’, but don’t wanna assume.”

Davey’s brain was all but melted. This boy wanted to talk to him. He got out of his car and made the effort to talk to him.

“Yeah, course. I- yeah.”

“What’s got ya so bothered you can barely form a sentence?”

“No, nothing it’s just- did they have other jobs? Not like I would want one but like-“

Jack laughed. This Davey kid was adorable.

“Sure they do, got my buddy Finch running around as a lifeguard, couple of others do maintenance, and I think they brought on Albert to be a ‘activity coordinator’. That basically means when we do archery, he’s in charge of us not shooting each other in the leg.”

Davey chuckled.

“So you’ve worked here before?”

Jack nodded and looked around. This place was a second home to him.

“My ma’s the camp director. Been goin’ here since I was like, 7 and workin’ for the past two years.”

Jack smiled wide and continued on.

“Speaking of workin, we should probably head in. I usually come early to help set up but she insisted I try to be more “normal” this summer. Famous last words, I guess.”

They both laughed quite a bit.

“You’re very friendly, Jack.”

Davey spoke, metaphorically walking on eggshells as to not mess up the friendship that he hoped was forming. He got out of his car and realized he was the same height as Jack, if only a little bit shorter. They were very close to each other.

“Why thanks, Davey. Tell her you said so...”

Jack laughed with him as they made their way to the mess hall. He explained to Davey the in’s and out’s of Blockwood. Most of the people who worked their had gone to camp in their teens and it was just natural to apply for a job there, too.

Before Jack walked in the mess hall, he turned to Davey. Jack had made eye contact every time he spoke with him. It was nice.

“Just double checkin, because ma ain’t always good with hiring ages, ya 18?”

“Oh, yeah. Just turned 19.”

“Good good. I’m about to turn 21, if that matters.”

“It’s good information to have, especially when we’re about to spend all summer together.”

Was Jack blushing? He didn’t know, and it was hot out. Either way, he didn’t care because Jack Kelly was talking to him and adorable.

“Yeah, Davey. For sure.”

Jack opened the door to see Race and Spot all over each other. He snapped his fingers at them and both looked towards Davey. Jack spoke up.

“Hey boys, we got a new one. Be civil, this here’s Davey.”

Race smiled, got up from his seat, and stuck out his hand.

“Name’s Racetrack. You can call me Race or Racer or Sweetheart. It’s good to meet ya, Dave.”

Davey chuckled and shook it. He really was late to the party. They all knew each other.

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

“That shortie there is my pal-“

Race shot a look at Jack, who shrugged. He continued.

“Sorry, are you?”

Race gestured to his rainbow friendship bracelet. Hoping that would be enough. At camp, they tried not to use the word. Some people had gotten very angry when their child had come home saying, ‘my counselor was gay’.

“No, no, no. I am. Not out, but, I guess I am, now. Yes.”

Race nodded and amended his statement.

“I gotcha, Davey. That’s my boyfriend, Spot.”

Davey gave a wave and Spot nodded and waved back. Had Davey really come out to people he met ten seconds ago? Jack looked surprised. At least you’re not obvious.

Katherine came inside soon after. She was immediately swooped up by Race and told to “lose the good girl vibe” from Spot. She laughed with them for awhile about the instant ‘Davey and Jack’ connection. It wasn’t hard to see for either of their friends.

Jack introduced Davey to the whole gang. Finch and Albert were in the corner trying to decide who was right about a candy from the snack shack. Sarah and Chutchie dancing to the approved “Camp Playlist”, and his mama trying to finalize a little bit of paperwork.

He got to Romeo, trying a pick-up line on Katherine, and stopped.

“Hey there, Miss. Don’t believe we’ve met before. My name’s Jack. Jack Kelly.”

He stuck out his hand and she shook it.

“Charmed. I’m Katherine, Katherine Plumber-Jacobs.”

Katherine and Davey smiled at each other and laughed. Jack looked between the two of them and his’s face was turning red.

“What... y’all ain’t married or something, are ya?!”

Davey and Katherine started to laugh without cease. Davey tried to explain through snorts.

“No... she just uses that line because she wants to be my twin. Kath, here, she’s my best friend.”

Romeo spoke up.

“Oh goodness. Well ain’t that the best of both worlds for ya, Jack?”

Jack narrowed his eyes and shot a glare Romeo’s way.

“Now that I know there’s two of ya, I won’t be so scared to let Davey wander. Thought I was gonna have to be glued to his side!”

“Don’t think he’d like me very much if you stopped leading him around.”

Davey was flustered, but Katherine and Jack laughed and laughed. She waved goodbye, going to talk to Sarah instead of interrupting their “together time”, as she called it while recounting the day with Davey. He tried to apologize to Jack.

“Sorry about her.”

“No way, she’s spunky and loud. She’ll fit right in.”

Davey looked around. He wasn’t wrong. It was chaotic and were Romeo and Race arm wrestling? Was Katherine really cheering them on?

“Yeah, she’s... great.”

“You’re great.”

Jack backtracked as his face grew red.

“Oh shit, um sorry about that. That didn’t-”

“Hey, it’s... you’re great, too. Just cut that language out before kids get here in a few days, Kelly.”

Davey smiled and Jack swears that if this was literally any other setting, he would kiss him or draw him a picture or do anything to see that smile every day. Unfortunately, Jack decided to revert to a Jack that didn’t like getting emotional in front of his friends. Chalk it up to force of habit.

“So, you enjoy it here?”

“Is that even a question? It’s awesome, Jack.”

———————————————

It had been a full day of training. Ms. Medda, as Davey had learned was Jack’s mother, and some of the more experienced staff got newcomers ready for camp. She explained how these first three days were training and that there were still things that needed to be done before kids came on Monday. Everyone did some basic first aid and some get-to-know-you games.

Katherine and Davey worked on learning names and people’s jobs. It seemed that when you thought you had it all figured out, Jack or Race would call ‘em a whole new nickname and the pieces would all fall apart. Maintenance (Elmer, Buttons, and Jojo) and lifeguards (Finch and Romeo) had a bit more training to do. Albert and Crutchie, outdoor and indoor activity coordinators, needed to organize some things for the first day.

That left the counselors. Davey, Jack, Race, Spot, Katherine, and Sarah decided to go on a nature walk. That group, of all people, would be spending the most time together. They took them through the woods, showed them the cabins, made sure that Davey and Katherine were somewhat oriented on the camp property. During the walk, Jack took the lead to explain where they were and what needed to be done.

• “Alright, adventure course- never go there without Albert... or me, I’m more fun.”

• “Cabins- good stuff. We can drive down the path to unpack cars later. But Ma’s got me on a tight schedule.”

• “Swimming house- also doubles as a bath house. None of us are going to smell particularly great until Off Days. But please, for the love of our Lord and Savior, make sure your kids shower.”

Race chimed in on this one, acting as if he were passing down an urban legend as Spot started to chuckle.

“They will try to persuade you, tell you they don’t need one. But they do.”

Sarah and Katherine had instantly been drawn to each other. Davey didn’t know how, but Katherine had already managed to be given two friendship bracelets. She would be just fine. He would be, too.

Jack sighed as the timer on his phone went off.

“Sorry gang, walk’s been terminated. But, now it’s time for my favorite part of camp.

Please don’t say hazing. No hazing.

“Building the campfire!”

Davey chuckled as the others wooed. Jack was the leader everyone needed.

———————————————

Over the past three days, Katherine and Davey had melded into this friendgroup seamslessly. They would roast each other and laugh and exist as a family. Neither were quite sure how they pulled it off. Each now had friendship bracelets from fellow counselors, and likewise made them for others. They had swam in the pool and laughed and sang and, Davey recounted, prayed together. It didn’t make sense how it could all be so perfect.

More than anything else, Jack had instilled the need in Katherine and Davey for a ‘Perfect Cooking Fire’. He knew that, of all things, this would have to be the thing they remember how to do. They built it well, only with a little help from Sarah, as Jack filed paperwork for him mom.

He would do that often. Disappear and reappear like a magician. He knew what needed to be done, and did it before his mother even asked. Davey had tried to offer help, but Jack just took out his reading glasses and said ‘No, no. It’s stuff I gotta do, Dave.”

The final night before campers were here, and all the college kids just wanted to drink in the moment. Race and Spot went to get the food for the “Last Supper” as they called it. Hot dogs, of course.

Davey was relived that Jack came to sit next to him after the food was done. The entire staff was sitting around, laughing and chatting and eating. Jack knew that he needed to talk to Davey, just not with everyone around. David blurted out exactly what was on his mind.

“I really like it here.”

“I’m glad, Dave. You did a great job with the cooking fore, too.”

“Thanks, I thought I wouldn’t. Ya know, in the car that first day, I was convinced that I made a horrible mistake.”

“I’m glad I knocked on your window then.”

“Why’d ya do that? Just to be nice?”

Jack looked around as he grew flustered.

“Can we, talk abou that later?”

“Of course.”

The festivities lasted until “Light’s Out” at 11pm. Medda suggested that everyone should turn in soon, as they would all have to be ready by 8am tomorrow. Race asked her, fishing for laughs, as she walked away-

“What if I just never got to bed, Miss Medda?”

“Then you would be unfit for the job, Mr. Higgins. Get some shut eye!”

The entire fire laughed at her retort.

The gang started to slowly disband. Katherine and Sarah were the last to go, hand in hand, except for Jack and Davey. Davey made a comment.

“God only knows what they’re off to do.”

“God is one lucky son of a gun.”

They both laughed at that.

They both sat there, next to the ashes of a once great fire.

Jack looked around and talked in a low tone.

“Davey.”

“Yeah, Jack.”

“I’m ready to talk about it...”

Davey gulped. This was it. He was going to tell him that it meant nothing that they always say next to each other. That talking until four in the morning wasn’t real. That these past few days weren’t an indication of anything.

“I, whew, that first day you were so nervous. Now look at me...”

Jack’s palms were sweaty and he wiped them on his pants.

“Hey, dude. It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, no I want to. We need to.”

Davey’s stomach turned and he closed his eyes.

“I- shoot. I knocked on your window, because you’s were the prettiest boy I’d ever seen.

Davey opened his eyes and looked at Jack, who was now near tears.

“God, I’m real emotional about this, sorry.”

Jack took a breath and looked Davey in the eyes.

“Just, you’re perfect. And, I know we just met and all, and it’s highly unprofessional to say this but... I really think these three days have been a dream come true.”

“Oh Jack...”

Davey held out one of his hands. Jack took it with his.

“Honest, ya know... I’ve got so many friends and they’re always dating and everything but, you came along and just...”

He put his head on Davey’s shoulder and kept going.

“You’re just really nice and kind and, I don’t know, make me feel a new sorta way.”

Davey couldn’t believe it.

“You, like me, Jack?”

Jack spouted off, sarcastically as ever.

“No, it’s all an act! I caught ya in a gay lie!”

Davey laughed as Jack lifted his head and squeezed Davey’s hand.

“Nah, I do. And, nothing’s gotta happen, tonight or this summer or ever, especially since there’ll be kids and it’s a Christian camp and-“

“Your mom?”

“She doesn’t care. You’ve seen the way some of ‘em hang all over each other.”

“I know that, just wanted to check.”

“Yeah, but- like, God. You’re perfect Davey Jacobs.”

“C-Can I kiss you?”

Davey didn’t mean to say it, but he did. And Jack did. His eyes lit up and he closed the distance. It was warm. Davey had never kissed a boy before. He was certain Jack had, though.

Jack hadn’t. Coming out to himself was one thing, his family and friends was another, but to kiss a boy next to a campfire when you’re about to spend all summer with him? No, he hadn’t. Kissing girls was one thing, but this? With Davey? Was something he could never compare anything to. Jack pulled away for a second, wanting to be frank with him.

“Did you like that?”

“Do that again, Kelly.”

Davey pulled Jack back in. And that’s how they stayed, for a while. Neither could tell if it had been an hour or just a few seconds when they finally pulled away. Davey wanted to be honest.

“I’m not, out-out yet, if that could be an issue.”

“No, nah... and it doesn’t have to, nothing’s gotta come of this, ya know.“

“I know. It’s, it’s nice, though. I want it to.”

Davey leaned on Jack’s shoulder. He was so hesitant, usually. Jack Kelly might’ve been the only boy in the world who could do that to him.

“God, I was so worried I was scarin’ a closeted catholic boy away.”

Davey laughed. Everyone seemed to get that vibe from him.

“One, non-denominational. Everyone gets thrown off by that. Two, you’re not scarin me at all.”

Jack pressed a kiss to Davey’s temple and started to play with his hair.

“This okay?”

“Yeah, this is wonderful.”

They don’t know when they turned in for the night. But, 8am rolled around and camp was in session. Jack came up behind Davey, right before campers were about to enter and spoke calmly, putting his hand into David’s .

“It’s gonna be a good summer, Davey.”

“Yeah, it is, Jack.”

David gave his hand a tight squeeze as Jack walked away to unlock and the door. Upon opening the door, a boy, while looked to be no older than ten, ran to Jack and threw his arms around him.

“Cowboy!”

“Hey there, dude! How are ya?”

Davey smiled and looked at Katherine, who was standing by with the other counselors. He gave her a nod, and that was all they needed.

This summer is going to be great.

#jack kelly x david jacobs #davey jacobs #david jacobs #newsies #javid #katherine pulitzer #katherine plumber #sarah newsies #racetrack newsies #racetrack higgins #race newsies #race x spot #spot conlon #spot x race #david jacobs x jack kelly #davey jacobs x jack kelly #jack kelly #jack kelly x davey jacobs #albert newsies #romeo newsies #finch newsies #crutchie newsies #buttons newsies #elmer newsies #jojo newsies #newsies fic #newsies fanfiction #newsies forever #fanfiction #hints of sarah x katherine

[elexica]

Wasted

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671706

Summary: Kaiba gets drunk at Mokuba's fraternity initiation party and does the cute orientation leader's calculus homework. He's bad at flirting, but he's good at math.

Rating: Teen for Drinking

Pairing: Kaiba/Joey; Puppyshipping/Violetshipping Word Count:1568

(exactly what the summary says; read under the cut!)

“You are the glass half empty, sippin my ocean dry , emotionally spin me so that our planets cannot align, but I guess I can stand you one more night. . . I like us better when we’re wasted.”

– “Wasted,” by Tiesto.

“An’ over here is the cafeteria!  It’s all you can eat while ya live in the dorms!”  Joey smiled brightly as he waved an arm towards the cafeteria dorm.  “But if yer not in the dorms, you gotta pay.” He shook his head in exaggerated sadness.  “Unless you can get some Frosh to swipe ya in!”

Seto nodded serenely.  They continued to walk around campus, heading back to the student union.  Joey was the best orientation leader on campus—known for making everyone feel welcome and comfortable.  This was why they were always giving him the most difficult transfer students, he was sure.  He was also the only transfer student who worked for the orientation office as part of his financial aid work-study plan.

“So uh… yer clearly a little older than the freshies here… are you a transfer student or something?”  Joey rubbed the back of his neck nervously.  “Not that I’m judging or anythin’! I’m a transfer student too! Saves a lotta money and you get the same degree anyway!”

Seto did not look at Joey, as if he was wholly preoccupied by observing the various bicyclists streaming past them.

“It was time for my brother to start as a freshman, and I determined that I might as well secure a diploma simultaneously.”

Joey laughed, not because Seto had said anything funny, but because he was trying to lighten the mood.  His partner didn’t offer anything else, and it was painfully awkward.  Joey looked down at the information the admissions office had given him.

“So ehhh, looks like you’re a computer science student.” Joey offered.

“That’s correct.” Seto said.

“Which means…  you any good at calculus?”

“I am excellent.”  Seto rolled his eyes.

“So uh, if you got the time… you think you could help me?  It’s a pre-req for a biology class I gotta take for my Child Development minor and…”

“A minor in Child Development? Are you studying to be a teacher?”  Seto’s voice was harsh with derision.

“Close—social worker!” Joey beamed a little extra.

Seto rolled his eyes, his ice finally freezing any further pleasantries.

. . .

Seto Kaiba hated Fireball whiskey.  He was a man of taste, and had no problem sipping quality whiskey with the best of them.  But four shots of fireball in at his brother’s initiation Frat Party left him entirely nauseated.

Cinnamon-tinted bile worked its way up his throat as he balanced against the sticky wall of the party.  Portraits of the last 50 Fraternity Presidents glared at him, and he had half a mind to projectile vomit on them.

The world was spinning, but if he put down the red solo cup of what Mokuba had affectionately called “Jungle Juice” he would be forced to interact with another living soul in the building, so he choked down the fireball with some of the alcoholic fruit punch.

That was a mistake.  If the world had been slightly off-balance before, the combined effect was really hitting, and the whole world was clearly spinning.  He didn’t dare dislodge himself from his spot on the wall.

“Kaiba?”  Joey approached.  Kaiba wanted to bite out some witty line about the profit margin on social work, but he didn’t totally trust himself to open his mouth.  “You ok?”

With a thick swallow, Kaiba looked over and bit out, “Fine.  How do you remember me from…”

“Yeah uh, I don’t give a lotta tours to CEO-billionaire transfer students, ya stuck out.”  Joey leaned in, clearly concerned.  “You don’t look so hot, you wanna sit down?  Have some water?”

Kaiba stepped away from the wall to get out of the situation, and maybe start walking back to his apartment.  Within two steps he stumbled.  His spatial reasoning was totally shot.

And so was all his good sense, melting into the strong arms that caught him.

“Yeah, let’s get ya some water, alright?  Man, you do not look like yer having a good time.”

“Still want me to tutor you in calculus?” Seto managed to say, leaning embarrassingly into his counterpart’s chest.

“Honestly, if you still understand it, in yer condition, then yeah, that’d be great.”

“Ha! It would be easy.”

“Look, I’m gay, okay, I can’t do math!” Joey laughed at his own joke.

“Pathetic! I am also gay, and I am the best at math.” Seto slurred, but sounded devastatingly serious.  Joey leaned the belligerent drunk into a chair in the dining room of the frat house.  “You don’t believe me?”

Joey raised his hands defensively, “I believe you!”

“No, you don’t.  I’ll prove it.  Bring me your homework.”

Joey wandered away.  At some point, he must have told his fraternity bros that Kaiba was going to do his calculus homework drunk, because Mokuba and a group came over.

Mokuba was wearing a Delta Mu shirt from their charity event last week—some sort of poker night—and his hair was even wilder than normal.  “Seto! This is so like you.  Did you really have to steal the spotlight at my initiation party?”

Seto looked up from a solo cup of water that Joey must have left behind.  “I am not here for any spotlight.  I’m going to prove a point.”

And with that, Joey reappeared with his old laptop wide open.  “The worksheet is open.  The software calculates your grade immediately after you press enter.”

“I know how the interface works, dumbass.”  Kaiba rolled his eyes and stretched his fingers in front of him.

“Ahh yer a mean drunk.  You might need a graphing calculator, by the way.”

“Then bring me a graphing calculator.”  Joey flipped him off, but left the room to get one.

The pledge-master, Tristan, stepped in.  “I dunno if this guy’s actually drunk, or just faking.”

“What incentive do I have to—”

“Moki-Moki, he’s your bro.  What do you think?  What would he never do if he was sober?” Tristan said.

“Talk about his feelings,” Mokuba said instantly, rolling his eyes and taking another sip to hide his smirk.

“Ok.  Well?”

Kaiba opened and shut his mouth a few times, before he announced, “I’m about to puke on this fool’s laptop.”

“Sounds like Seto.” Mokuba’s smirk blossomed into a smile at getting to make fun of his brother for once.

“FINE!”  The cold fire behind Seto’s eyes lit up.  “I am thissss close to making out with the hot blond dumb ass, but instead I’m going to do his homework.  Happy?”

“Moki?”

Mokuba’s smile vanished, and he wasn’t in any state to hide his shock.  “Checks out.  I’m … well I was… the only person who knew that Seto liked boys.”

Seto leaned into the computer.  “Great.  Bring me that graphing calculator and tequila shots for everyone.  I’m going to raise that guy’s grade 15%, and this is supposed to be a party.”

Joey reappeared with the calculator, and was shocked to see Seto actually making some headway on the problem set.  There were about fifteen problems.  Tristan put a neon plastic shot glass on the edge of the laptop, and without looking away from the screen, Seto slammed the shot.  If it burned his throat, he didn’t show it.

The gathered crowd looked at each other, holding matching neon shots awkwardly.  Tristan had clearly expected that Seto would have followed proper shots conduct and waited for the announcement.

Mokuba had years of experience with covering Seto’s faux pas.  “You saw the man! SHOTS!”  Everyone else downed them in tandom.

After a few minutes the group was chatting about other things and several of the brothers had entirely lost interest in watching Kaiba do calculus.  A smaller group of hold outs was extremely entertained, and Seto was going shockingly fast.

Within fifteen minutes the homework was complete.

“Done!” Seto shouted, pushing the graphic calculator across the table and was handed another tiny neon green shot glass, which he quickly downed.

Joey inspected the website.  It looked right enough.  “I dunno if I should submit this…” Joey waffled.

“Fool! Then we won’t know if I was right.” Seto looked unbearably offended.  

“But the academic honor code?”  Joey was actually nervous about this.

Seto leaned all the way back, and threaded his hands through his long hair.  “Screw the academic honor code.  I have money.”

“C’mon, don’t you wanna know if he’s the genius he’s supposed to be? Plus, no one else is going to know!” Tristan prodded.

Joey pressed enter.

The whole room paused while the site processed his answers.

“PERFECT SCORE!” Joey shouted, throwing his hands up!

The group had grown again and cheered, and Mokuba called for another round of celebratory shots, which served to drive the group back into the kitchen.

Joey and Seto were left alone.  Seto rested his head against the table and looked up at Joey.

“So… uh… ya wanna make out with me?” Joey blushed a little.

“I am literally going to puke, right now. Step aside.”  Seto shifted to get up.  He looked determined to make it to his feet, but it was not promising.

Joey leaned over to help.  “I can’t believe that you can do calculus, but ya can barely stand.  Yer ridiculous.”

“Still want me to tutor you?”

“So much.”

The end.

#kaiba #kaiba seto #seto kaia #joey wheeler #jounouchi katsuya #ygo #fanfic #fanfiction #my work #also on ao3

[swifteforeverandalways]

Riding the Edge All Day

Notes: So this is a new AU that was inspired by Poltergeist by @riottstheory and @thirst-n-bullshit (check it out btw! It’s an amazing fic!). This is a high school AU, and is less of a story and more of a collection of random one-shots and drabbles/mini fics. They will mostly be in order, but might not depending on how much I write each part. As a warning, future parts will have some darker themes involving past sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, past abuse (both relationship and child). But the parts with these darker subjects will have a warning in front of them. Now that all that is done, sit back and enjoy the first part of “Riding the Edge All Day”

Tag Squad: @riottstheory @thirst-n-bullshit

Austin Theory looked up at the house in front of him. It was a simple looking house, two stories with light blue siding. A white fence surrounded the house, it looked so utterly normal that it made Austin’s chest ache. He had never had a normal life, growing up in and out of foster homes or group homes. 

“Willie and Ree are nice people, they’ll be good,” Austin’s social worker, Lita Stratus, said. Austin looked over at his social worker, nodding. Lita wasn’t like his previous social worker from when he was a kid, an older woman who always looked tired. But Lita was different, really different. She was younger than most social workers, maybe forty or so with dark red hair and a tattoo on her arm.

“I guess,” Austin said uneasily. Lita gave him a smile.

“Trust me,” she said softly, “Their daughter goes to the school that my ex boyfriend’s brother teaches at. He said she’s a really nice girl, the tire family is nice.” Austin nodded again as Lita led him up the stairs, ringing the doorbell. The door opened and a man stood there.

Austin would guess he was somewhere in his fifties, graying hair and looked very southern. The man was dressed in a pair of jeans and a red plaid shirt tucked into the jeans, a brown belt around his waist. A white cowboy hat sat atop his head.

“Hello, ya must be Austin,” the man said with a slow southern drawl, “I’m William, but please, call me Willie.” 

“Hi,” Austin said softly. Willie smiled and turned to face the inside, “Nee, he’s here!”

“Comin’!” A voice from the direction of what appeared to be the kitchen said. A few moments later a woman around Willie’s age walked out. She had black hair streaked with gray and was dressed similarly to Willie, jeans and a plaid shirt. 

“It’s nice to meet ya. I’m Renee, but please call me Ree. Everyone does,” Ree said with a nice smile. Austin smiled back shyly.

“Lita, it’s good to see you. You and Trish doing good?” Willie asked Lita, who grinned.

“Just perfect. Matt actually suggested you two, he mentioned how Jeff just dotes on your daughter” Lita replied.

“He’s her favorite teacher that’s for sure,” Willie said with a laugh. 

“Speaking of your daughter, where is she?” Lita asked. Ree craned her neck up towards the stairs.

“Austin! Come on down to meet ya new brother!” She shouted up. Austin startled slightly, unsure of who Ree was talking to. 

“Comin’ Ma!” A female voice replied. Down the stairs came a teenage girl with light strawberry blonde hair. Unlike Willie and Ree, who were dressed very southern, the girl had on dark jeans with a blue shirt. She had a smear of paint on her cheek along with a dot of it in her nose. 

“Hi, I’m Austin Flynn, you must be Austin Theory,” the girl said, her voice not nearly as accented as Willie and Ree’s, as she stopped on the first step. Austin T nodded, blinking a few times as even on the first step, Austin F was shorter than him. 

“I will check on you in a few weeks?” Lita said to Austin T, who nodded again. Lita smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze before leaving.

“C’mon, let me show you your room,” Austin F said, “It’s upstairs.” Austin T nodded again and they headed upstairs. 

“You uh….you have…..” Austin T made a vague motion towards his face. Austin F reached up, realized it was just the paint, and laughed. 

“The paint? Yeah, I was helpin’ Ma paint your new room,” she explained. Austin T looked at her in surprise.

“New room?” he asked.

“Yeah, we turned our old guest room into your room, you’re part of the family now,” Austin F replied with a shrug. Austin T shook his head in surprise as they stopped in front of a shut door. Austin F pushed it open, revealing a simple room with a bed, nightstand, and dresser. The walls were painted a dark blue color. It was a simple room, but it was a nice room.

“Wow,” Austin T said. Austin F gave him a smile, “Take some time, get into the room. Dinner is at five, so you can come down at that time if you want to.” Austin T nodded and Austin F left, leaving the teen boy to his thoughts. 

#austin theory #austin flynn #austin dos veces #riding the edge all day #my writing

[wolfwhiteflowers]

I found this on twitter and wanted (try) to answer them here instead. :B Great questions! thanks. @LM_Nocass twitter.com/LM_Nocass/ status/1292935841258647553

-----

𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥/𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐥/𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 (𝐩𝐥𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲); 2:28 PM · Aug 10, 2020 --------------@LM_Nocass

1. Which part of herself does Carol see in Daryl?  ||um same brokenness past and seeing that there’s good parts in him. He’s not like Merle and Ed. 2. Which part of himself does Daryl see in Carol?  ||They both know what it’s like to be abused and have an understanding. He sees strength in her. /...I think they slowly start to think they’re not alone on feeling like the odd one out or fighting to live before Apoc. They eventually think they’re a lot alike and connected right away. s1-s2. I guess they both started to grow at the same time and look after each other’s back ever since.

3. If there was no za and they met each other, would they be so close? Why?    ||Yeah I think so. But not so close or “early” on. Probably lil glimpse of like oh they’re alike and good people. But other things in the way...like Carol or Daryl be stuck in bad situations and die or something. Y’kno Daryl would’ve been like “mini Merle” or like.... dead from stopping a fight or prison. Carol could just be dead or lost herself from being with Ed. ...Unless they got away from their abusers :) I can see there’s a chance of them getting close.   *”mini Merle” I think I got this phrase wrong. Mini Merle is Merle’s hand weapon thing. I meant that Daryl would have become more damaged,lost, and be similar to Merle then. ..like a younger Merle.

4. How do you think, Alexandria's ppl ship them or they don’t care? Why?  || BTW, I think of what the writers want or had in mind.. Anyway, when Rlchonne happened or Abe and Sasha went canon, it just seems like very neutral whatever way. Well I guess the show isn’t that .. charactery and romantic. -_-  Anyway, I think they care and are supportive and of all Team family but mind their business. I think practically everyone knows about Caryl and their close relationship. I guess they’re like in the same boat as us or general fans. We would be happy if they get together but if not then like ....hmm you guys are so together~  Um..I guess people would be going WTF if Caryl grew apart.

5. AU: real life. Which one of them is more attractive to believe in supernatural stuff? Why?   || they both seem to be into that. erm I’ll say Daryl.

6. AU: real life. Which one of them is more attractive to send a lot of Red heartFace throwing a kissSmiling face with heart-shaped eyes and etc? Why?   || Carol is more open to display of affection. But Daryl got his heart on his sleeves. He’s straightforward tells/show you how he feels and means it.

13. What would do today's Carol if she met someone like Ed?  ||Probably she be able to stand up to him when he starts to be controlling and she speak out and say it’s not right. Idk..maybe them talking it out will make Ed change himself if he wants to. And she walks away from him early on. 14. If today's Carol met past Carol, what would she say to her?   ||You’re stronger than you think you are. You are enough. These hard times made her wiser in Apoc./life. She’s always a mother..when they’re gone, they’re still with her. 15. If today's Daryl met past Daryl, what would he say to him?    ||This doesn’t always have to be this way/Merle-life. You’re not alone. Good people will stick with you. Trust them. Your goodness matters. You don’t need to depend on Merle. If Merle wouldn’t change now then he won’t later on. Idk... Daryl is so loyal and to his brother. So it’s just he gotta let Merle/his past go. 16. Why does Daryl prefer the crossbow, not a bow?   ||I guess that’s what hunters like to use most often. Idk. 17. AU: real life. Which one of them is most likely to surfing in the Internet for hours? Why?   ||Carol because she mentioned internet in s4. lol Okay um yeah Carol I guess. I think she likes to research on things. Daryl is more outdoorsy kind of person. 18. AU: real life. Which one of them will have a private acc on social medias and who won’t care?   ||I think both would be private...or heck Daryl not private but barely any content. lol Just hunting, nature stuff and games.

19. AU: real life. Which one of them will send memes?   ||Carol because she like goofy or sassy jokes.

20. AU: real life.  What profession is suitable for Carol? Why?  ||hmm housewife, teacher, nurse, or something to look after the community.. She likes to cook but Idk if she likes to do it often. Some job to care about the people and place.

21. AU: real life. What profession is suitable for Daryl? Why? ||A hunter, mechanic, or construction worker. Something like hands-on job.

22. Which of them has a black sense of humor?   ||I think Carol have a dark/black sense of humor. Daryl is ..more less humor-y. more sarcastic. idk what im saying.

23. Had Daryl ever thought about having children? If he did, he would prefer boy or daughter?    ||I think he never really thought of it till he’s away from Merle/past life. But Idk I think he doesn’t really think on it. He just wants to protect all kids. He’s Uncle Daryl. I don’t think he has a preference.

24. Is Daryl asexual or demisexual? Or other? Why?    ||Read ? #10. I say so far it seems like he’s demisexual from what Kang said and from what people/fandom been always questioning him from the show and from that 6 years in woods plot. (Also the show isn’t that showy on romance and relationships so I didn’t think they would bother to address his romance/sexuality but they did so ok.) I guess I always think of him as demisexual...or someone who would be friends to lovers kind of person. He’s the closest with Carol so..slowburn to canon, yeah? /// This makes me think of Carol’s relationships and how she is fine having sex anytime ..no emotions involved way...She doesn’t really have or know a good emotional canon relationship except almost with Zeke, I guess. 25. Carol’s fav movie genre(s)? ||Romcoms <3

26. Daryl’s fav movie genre(s)?  ||action / horror :O 27. When the show ends, what kind of ending do you want for them?   ||I want good writing and that flows right. Caryl be Caryl. I guess them riding off to the sunset to New Mexico. Or..looking after team family in ASZ or TF working together to find/help Rick and living their best lives in a community. A happy ending pls. 28. Which one of them is good at math?  ||hmm Carol. Daryl would be good at reading..science.

29. If there was Caryl movie, what song(s) would you add to it?   || hmm a song to add, I would pick ..”You and Me” by Pink I think. Or, “X and Y” by Coldplay. Or, “Cosmic Love” by Florence Machine. 30. Did Daryl help you?   ||I really appreciate the writers and the acting did with Daryl and Carol. They’re really unique, interesting and relatable characters. Daryl helped me to keep being myself and do what’s right even when you feel odd ball out. Idk I also like that we see characters like Daryl and Carol what we stereotypical think they may be like in s1 but then we see they’re relatable and we can be more open minded to other people.  I liked that we see him getting a chance to grow and see how loyal he is. 31. Did Carol help you?  ||Yeah. I really like how she’s like I guess most people in s1, quiet, timid, not quite fit into the Apoc. world, but learns to trust herself, get braver and open up. She’s like so strong and brave now but it’s not surprising to see that in a way because we see her character development and I like how writers and acting, made it so relatable and realistic to me. We all can be like Carol. //I think she’s a great character to watch for mothers who lost kids or was a abused wife/person. Same with Daryl as a abused child/brother in that Merle’s lifestyle.

32. What did Caryl give you? Hope? Strength?  ||I really like what became Caryl in the show for years. They became one of my fave ships. They’re unique and I love that we see their strong bond and connection. They’re soulmatey and angsty. Idk I feel like they gave hope that there are people that will get you and have your back. And strength, they grown so much and made me think about myself to keep facing my fears and be in a healthy relationship. 33. Carol’s fav music genre(s)?   ||Country pop. Idk.. I think McReedus are into Rock music so. 34. Daryl’s fav music genre(s)?   ||Country rock. ...Idk Metal music.

35. Describe Carol in one word. ||Brave

36. Describe Daryl in one word. ||Loyal or uh a word that means does what he think is the right thing to do...and caring. Uncle.

37. What do you expect from them in season 11?  ||Idk I’m really clueless. TWD right now is really not by the comics anymore and it’s hard to speculate now. I’m kinda hoping they have something a plot that relates to taking care of the Grimes kids and a plot/s that relates to Rick’s journey/TWD show. Idk well I guess they be figuring it out what to do with Maggie and politics with the ..spoiler- new communities.

I hope for good writing and if they go canon, I hope they write good relationship/romance writing. As in they don’t separate them and break up a bunch of times or be boring. eek. I hope it’s like they still be like the subtle canon ship..like RIchonne as there is something else they have to do together. Like they be canon but they talk about the new plots/problems/family in s11 and their relationship grows.

38. Your favorite Caryl season(s)? Why?  ||It’s season 2 or s10. I feel it’s the most Caryl interaction and them deepening their relationship. 39. When do you think Daryl was ready to start a relationship? Or do you still think he isn't ready? Or he is ready rn?    ||Whenever the writers are ready. :\  I think as a character he’s ready...yeah especially s10. He’s not hiding and being emo in the woods in s9. He’s not the (Rick’s)sidekick character anymore. He’s I think grown a lot by being with people and opening up being a leader-like now, domestic?,leading character, and I think he’s now more ready to have romantic relationship if he wants to. And for Carol ..rn is like does she feel worthy or ok to have love again. ooh angst. 40. Which of them is owl, and which of them is lark? Why?  || I think Daryl is a lark/early bird because he likes the quietness and time to hunt, and Carol is a night owl because she likes to know what else is going on when it’s the dark.

#caryl #caryl positivity #*twd #2nd time posting this but no link added..

[amphtaminedreams]

We Voted for Murderers

65.2%.

That’s the percentage of people who voted for the Conservative candidate in my constituency, and I feel completely heartbroken. See, things have properly gone to shit. 

If we’re talking numbers?

Local councils estimate the number of people sleeping rough on any given night between 2010 and 2018 has risen from 1,768 to 4,677, a 165% increase. The Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity, has reported a 5,146% increase in emergency food parcels being distributed since 2008. An 8% cut in spending per school pupil since 2009. Funding from central government to local government cut by 60% in that same period. £37 billion less spent on working-age social security compared to over a decade ago by 2020. A 90% fall in the number of social homes being built since 2010. A £7,300,000 decrease in funding for women’s shelters between 2011 and 2017. Don’t even get me started on the government’s treatment of the NHS.

I’ve heard stories of individuals applying for PIP due to mental illness being berated about suicide attempts and the likelihood of another as part of a “formal interview” process to see whether they qualify. People collapsing in job centre queues, freezing to death on the streets and the elderly in their homes, suicides whilst on never ending mental healthcare waiting lists. In fact, 17,000 sick and/or disabled individuals have died whilst waiting for PIP payments to come through, and in total, UCL researchers have linked 120,000 deaths to austerity (I’m not going to comment on the irony of my former university that’s notoriously lacklustre when it comes to giving a fuck about the wellbeing of its students publishing this unless...I just did?). 8 years of negligent homicide of the most vulnerable people in our society under the Conservative government and we voted them back in.

So I ask, are people really stupid enough to believe that the politicians responsible for this mess are the ones who are going to fix it just because they make a few characteristically empty promises on TV or does the British public at large really give even less of a fuck about other people than I thought? As in actually not give a fuck about people dying?

I have to tell myself it’s the former. The press’ treatment of Jeremy Corbyn and Labour was scathing. 

Corbyn, a man who has stood by the same principles of fairness, justice, and equality, for the entirety of his career, was criticised by the likes of The Sun, The Daily Mail, and The Telegraph, for being indecisive and a threat to this country whilst Boris Johnson, a man who can barely string a sentence together when he is asked to give a straight answer to something and blocked the release of a report covering Russian interference in British politics, was held up as the one people should put their faith in. 

I know, the press are never going to be completely neutral. But shouldn’t they at least be committed to integrity? And the truth? Isn’t that the WHOLE FUCKING POINT of journalism? I’ve been hearing the phrase “post-truth world” thrown around a lot and it’s probably an indication of my privilege that it was only with this election that I properly understood what that meant; it was found by the NGO First Draft just 2 days before the election, damage way past the point of done, that 88% of the Conservative Party’s Facebook ads (compared to 0% of Labour’s ads) contained misleading information. The repercussions were non-existent. After Boris Johnson’s claim that Jeremy Corbyn wanted to raise corporation and income tax to the highest levels in Europe was publicised, only Channel 4′s Factcheck website published the actual statistics (France, Belgium, Portugal and Greece all have much higher corporation tax rates than Labour’s proposal). Similarly, in many constituencies, the Lib Dems were posting fliers where Labour candidates were, in the previous election, the runner ups to the Conservative candidate, claiming that it was instead THEIR party’s candidate who had the highest chance of unseating the latter. Days before the election, the headline of one of Britain’s most highly circulated papers claimed that a Corbyn government would plunge us into a crisis the likes of which “we haven’t seen the Second World War”, which is kind of wild considering that 130,000 preventable deaths have been linked to austerity under the Conservative government compared to 70,000 civilian deaths in said war. Not that either is good, obviously, and I can’t believe I have to point that out. But then, right-wingers did paint Jeremy Corbyn as a monster for passing up watching the Queen’s Christmas Day speech to volunteer at a homeless shelter, so I thought I’d just cover my back, y’know. 

Shouldn’t there be standards that the media is held to? You know, like not making slanderous statements about some politicians that have no actual basis in fact whilst brushing over the statements of others. Whilst the PM’s father Stanley Johnson was on nation television calling the public illiterate, and Jacob Rees-Mogg was blaming the Grenfell victims deaths on their “lack of common sense”, and Michael Gove was stating that people who needed to use food banks had brought it on themselves because they were not “best able to manage their finances”, it was Jeremy Corbyn who was being called an enemy of the people, accused of trying to plunge us into a “Marxist hell”...I mean, if Denmark and Norway and Finland with some of the highest living standards in the world are “Marxist hell”s  then sure, that’s what he’s doing. But that’s a hell I’m sure a lot of people would find much comfier than a freezing cold pavement. Before Labour had even released their (fully-costed!) manifesto, barefaced lies were being published about how much it would cost and how it would plunge us into trillions of pounds worth of debt, as if it hasn’t increased from £1 trillion to £1.8 trillion in the years since David Cameron took office. Meanwhile, when Labour did publish their manifesto and the Financial Times published a letter signed by 163 prominent economists and academics backing their spending plans? Crickets. Nothing sums it up better than the debate around Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged anti-semitism, discussed ad-nauseam whilst Boris Johnson’s actual racism, islamophobia, misogyny and classism, RIGHT OUT OF THE HORSE’S MOUTH, was completely ignored by most news outlets. 

You know what, maybe people earning £85k just DON’T want to pay an extra £3 in tax a week to make sure children get an education. Maybe everybody IS just as selfish as that one twat on Question Time who got all red in the face over the prospect of having to give up an amount less than the cost of a tub of Ben and Jerrys a week. But if that’s true, this isn’t a country I want to live in at all, or a planet I want to live on, really. I hope it’s not. I hope it’s a case of a need for some kind of collective realisation that the Sun ain’t shit. Merseyside did it. The younger generation are catching on. And look at the results there.

Labour probably couldn’t fulfil ALL of their promises. No political party is perfect. I was told again and again how unrealistic those promises were as if that was enough to make me go ”oh...I guess I’ll vote for 4 more years of people dying in the streets instead”. Yes, in an ideal world, the entire manifesto would be made a reality, but it depended on far too many rich people being good and honest. Let’s be real-the elite will always find a way to avoid paying their fare share on the premise that they “earned it”, as if anybody earns billions by sheer hard work alone and past a certain point, not off other people’s backs. As if there aren’t nurses and teachers and firemen and other public sector workers who don’t put in just as much energy and as many hours and emotional labour as CEOs and business owners and investors. But the point is that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn acknowledged this, and their manifesto aimed to give the power back to the average person, from the vulnerable to the supposedly middle class still struggling to make ends meet, and give them the quality of life they deserve. It was built on the simple premise that the people should use their government, not the other way round, and that everybody deserves the basic human rights of shelter, nutrition, safety and dignity, regardless of their fortune in life. However many of Labour’s policies would actually have been fulfilled, it would’ve been a shift in the right direction. 

Now the election’s been and gone and I’m scared. Already, the narrative is being rewritten by the billionaires in control of this country that a manifesto like the one we saw this year will never sit right with this country, when it is what so many desperately need. The people putting this information out there know the truth: that Labour��s membership trebled in size under Corbyn (more people voted for him than for any Labour leader since Tony Blair), that most of the safe labour seats were lost because of Brexit, and that if the manifesto had been represented accurately, there’s a good chance that Boris Johnson would no longer be our Prime Minister. I’m scared a person like Jeremy Corbyn will never front Labour again. 

Because I do not want a tory painted red who’s friends with Jacob Rees-Mogg behind the scenes, I do not want a war criminal who thinks that bombing innocent people is ever acceptable, I do not want a person who doesn’t see people of colour as part of the working class and indulges in the occasional bit of TERF-ism.

Already, the Conservative party are backpedaling on the few promises they made to increase NHS spending, and I am scared. I am scared for myself, in the event that I need urgent mental health care again, and I am scared for those less privileged than me who don’t have a family to support them, who don't have a roof over their head, who weren’t fortunate enough to be born in a country with relative economic and political stability, who cannot physically go out and work to earn a living. I am worried about the bigots that this election has already emboldened, the Katie Hopkins and the Tommy Robinsons of the world, who think the things that blind luck have graced them with they somehow earned, who pride themselves on ignorance and cruelty and selfishness.

So for now, what can we do? 

Join trade unions. Organise. Write to your MPs. Bring attention to those who are vulnerable. Be vocal with your criticism of the establishment. Call out those in politics for an ego-trip hiding behind “personality”. Do your research. Keep an eye on the numbers. The “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote” sentiment is old, because it does. No “as a feminist, I exercise my right to vote for whoever I want”, because as a feminist, you should care about ALL women, not just the white, middle class, able-bodied ones. 

And if anyone has any more suggestions, let me know. Because I am sick and tired of living under a government who doesn’t give a fuck about the people it’s supposed to protect.

Lauren x

[DISCLAIMER: The photo is not mine. Just devastated and trying to find the words to express it.]

#socialism #labour #politics #british politics #feminism

[viktormaru]

okay here’s my full character analysis??? Headcanons???? canon retelling with my shit slapped on??? on

VIKTOR LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

(under read more cause its gonna get long)

Viktor is said to be born in the borders of the Entresol level of Zaum (aka the middle), but I’m guessing that means the lower border because of how often he’d have to move or stay away from home due to accidents.

I assume Viktor had good parents. They were artisans and seemed to encourage his creative pursuits with robotics and so on. (I also believe he is trans and that his parents supported him in that as well haha).

So yes, we have this child who likes building things. And he lives in this place that is not healthy or safe for the people that live there. His parents probably go to the upper levels to work and Viktor gets a glimpse of a better place there. He sees where he’s at and at first, he is motivated by both kindness and frustration. He is a child with a passion and all these leaks and accidents are getting in the way! So he starts studying to see what he can do. Time passes though and he realizes the extent of those things, the casualities of those humam errors. So he takes his work more seriously and soon he is producing results. But of course no one takes a teen seriously, no matter how good he is.

Until someone does and it works. His inventions are good! So he keeps doing it! He’s awkward and socially anxious but he really LOVES building things so he does it and sells his work to the factories until he gets the attention of the Zaun academy of techmaturgy (this is canon btw). 

He goes into the academy and he’s.... awkward... Like, Zaun is full of weird people sure but Viktor is pretty bad at talking about anything but robotics and stuff and comes off as blunt often, so he’s kinda isolated by his peers. He doesn’t mind, he’s there to study. But professor stanwick approaches him with interest in his work and Viktor is happy he is recognized by a professional. He’s a little naive back then and trusts his teacher a lot. Which is why he is convinced to move to Piltover, despite a bit of his reluctance to leave his home. His parents wave him goodbye and he leaves.

He moves to Piltover and gets a better lab, more tools, more money and more people to help. His work just improves in time and he’s put to work with a lot of people. He once again fails incredibly of socializing properly and falls into isolation yet again (hello darkness my old friend). People end up working with him either because he’s really the best option or because they can stand him for the time he is needed {:- (

Well, that is, until he works with Jayce. Jayce is infurating and doesn’t do things the way Viktor likes doing and has this weird outlook on how things are done that sometimes just works despite it all. He’s a puzzle that doesn’t make sense and the two end up doing a lot of things together. And having a lot of discussions. A LOT of them. They are both kinda lonely. But its like.. they don’t dislike eachother?? Because they kind skipped some steps in how socializing usually goes so it just kinda worked. 

They could’ve kept going, getting comfortable in eachother’s spaces until they could just go out to chill together or something but neither of them was brave enough to try it (or smart enough to realize that could be good). 

But then at this time that awful chem spill happened in Zaun in the entresol level and Viktor rushes home to help.

I’d say this is where Viktor’s character starts like, solidifying I guess? Because I think for the first time, as a grown mature person, Viktor is seeing death and suffering with his own eyes. Death and suffering that could’ve been avoided. He’s watching all these people die and suffer and he can only do so much to repair the damage. If only it could’ve been avoided, could’ve been stopped. He knows it’s possible. Why didn’t anyone do it? 

He doesn’t find his parents either.

So he spends the next several months throwing all his energy and sanity into doing whatever he can to help these people. He builds blitzcrank and they fix evertyhign they can. It’s a fucking CHEM spill, can you imagine just how AWFUL it all was?? people were dying for several weeks after the accident , even after the damage to the structures were already fixed. These people were slowly suffering around him and he was trying and they kept dying around him. These are workers, families. It’s a pretty bad situation.

He learnes how to infuse mechanical parts with flesh in an astonishing way just to try to replace the rotten, sick parts of the people around him. Get rid of the parts that were kiling them.

And then! He finally goes back to Piltover, after it all, and the first thing he gets is the news that Stanwick stole credits on his invention of Blitzcrank.

Like.. the emotional toll of it all? He’s tired! He’s burdened with the ammount of death he saw and people wanna be shitty and play games like that for glory and fame! It’s stupid and he doesn’t understand it! He tries to fight for his right and loses because no one really bothered to support him through it (Jayce didn’t think he’d really have to and would you look at that).

He’s angry and upset and grieving and possibly traumatized. He keeps wondering why would people do that to eachother and comes up empty. So he’s here, obsessing with replacing every part of human error to garantee that people WILL live. Of course, he’s more isolated then ever and people don’t bother to sit down and listen, they just think he’s weird and obsessed and stuff like that.

So when he needs to do the colaboration on the dive suits with Jayce and they have their fight about free will, people side with Jayce quickly. They think Viktor is mad and they had seen it coming miles away. 

He gets fucking expelled from the Piltover academia and sent back to Zaun.

To his ruined home, alone, with nothing but his name and his thoughts.

Clearly that leads him into a deep depression. After all, he lost everything but he doesn’t understand why ! because sure these people in piltover like acting high and mighty and theorizing and politicizing but they didn’t have to watch children crying because they were coughing so much blood was coming out because their lungs were corroded and they wouldnt last another week. They thought viktor was mad. 

And viktor had a lot of time to wallow over it, and think about his failures and suffer on his own and he’s actual conclusion is that negative emotions ( envy, pride, sadness) clouded people’s judgemetns. They’d let others suffer for their own gain out of fear of losing. 

He thought that himself feeling sadness was just another obstacle to do what he had to: save people.

So he basically starts operating on himself until he can barely feel emotions anymore, removing his own happiness with it (but its not like he felt it anyway so what difference did it make). And then he starts plunging into work like never before, dedicated to this new cause that is the glorious evolution. He starts again from the bottom and once again he rises, because Viktor is a genious, and he is honest in his work, in his intentions. He wants to help.

 People were scared of the Mad Man Viktor, but Viktor would do anything he could to save you if you came to him. He understood limits though, he never imposed over people. Do no harm, as they say ( what would be the point of doing that?? )

And then the other toxic even happens in Sump, another really bad one, and Viktor rushes in to help. He’s keeping these people alive in his lab but he knows he doesnt have the power to keep them so. So he goes to Jayce after an energy source.

He thinks Jayce will listen to him now, now Viktor isn’t emotive and easily hurt, now he isn’t insecure, he has a cause, he has something he fights for. A brighter tomorrow.

And Jayce calls him mad. 

Viktor is kind of dissapointed, he’d think Jayce, who has always been so uncaring of people’s opinion’s would at least try to understand. He doesn’t. So he takes the crystal by force from Jayce (petty arguments can be saved for later, those people on his lab needed him NOW).

When Jayce follows him there with a hammer he understands the stakes. 

One life against hundreds is an easy math. Viktor chooses to sacrifice Jayce (Jayce chose to come here after all)

But then Jayce actually destroys his lab.

And like... imagine waking up to your laboratory destroyed, just dozens of corpses of innocent people laying around. yet another failure, yet another big price to pay.

He has to start from zero again. His reputation is completely stepped on ( he is truly crazy now by everyone’s eyes) and Jayce is a hero. Blitzcrank sticks around for a little while, moved by the same passion to help people, but blitzcrank can stand the deaths and the gruesomeness of viktor’s work, he leaves to try to help in other ways. Viktor lets him of course, blitz has free will and he isn’t anyone to stop him. 

Some people, desperate people, still come to him for help. He does his best to give them what they need. A strange cult forms and idolizes him, he hates it, he is no god, he is just another man. People thinking of him as an etheral being just proves his theory on how fear and wayward emotions lead to dumb, dangerous mistakes.

In the end, Viktor is trying to cheat suffering, cheat death at all costs.

I don’t believe he sent any golems or anything after Jayce, vengence is way too beneath him. Stealing? Maybe not, depends. I think Jayce became a bit paranoid after ��defeating” viktor. Because Viktor said some big words and Jayce is suddenly realizing that truly, he has no purpose. He’s just a useless tool. He makes things sure, but what for? He’s raised as a hero but damn he doesn’t feel like it.

And to end it all, this is why I think Ekko and Viktor should sit down and chat at some point. They are so similar and so different all at once. They both love Zaun and its people, they both wanna protect them and have a passion for inventing. But while Viktor wants to reject his human side to achieve his goals, Ekko embraces it. Like, I don’t think Viktor shouldn’t even be his mentor, more like his colleague. Ekko is his own person and has a different way of doing things, but they could do a lot together as well. 

Also Ekko and Blitz are totally friends in canon so like.. yeah.. Zaun for life....

Anyway this is it thank tou all for reading this is UUUH like 1,8k words long 

extras or stuff I already said and will say again:

viktor is trans

he was an anxious yet hopeful (and maybe a bit naive) teenager

he still loves sweet things and thats canon.. he likes chilling sometimes

workaholic as seen

blames himself for literally everything like a dumbass

is kinda of very afraid of death in general

is not the kind of person that steals children to experiment on them cmon guys thats propaganda

is embarrassed of the cult following him

i guess he doesnt have his whole left arm anymore, chop chop it went

USED braces as  kid

loves blitzcrank like a son, doesnt realize it

I think thats all, sorry yall

#league of legends #viktor #VIKTOR META #sdfjiusdfjsdf yea i wrote this nonstop forgive me

[thedevillord-writes]

Pandora - Filler

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God's gift, that's why we call it the present"

-Joan Rivers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Eight Years Ago*

His first day of work was not going as he had expected. Because of the name Ichinomiya, he had been carrying a burden that no one else could see. He could not mess up, especially not on his first day. He wanted to prove himself but instead, he was confined behind a desk interviewing for his secretary the entire day. He did not see the need in the urgency but Akira was insistent on the fact that without a good secretary, he would not be able to work well. Stuck in his office, the only thing Eisuke knew he would not be able to work well without was a good cup of coffee and he had been denied that all morning.

It was exhausting, listening to the same thing over and over. Every person who walked in looked the same to him; expensive blouse with an expensive skirt, and expensive shoes. They looked the part of an executive's secretary but none of them fitted the part. Eisuke was starting to think that Akira was really playing with him.

Eager to get it over with, he picked up the next resumé from the pile Akira's secretary had so nicely organised for him. This one, however, was different from the rest. This file was light. So light because there was only two pages in it. It was the most pathetic and if he was being honest, saddest resumé by far. How it even slipped past Akira's secretary and ended up in the pile was a mystery to Eisuke. With no intentions of hiring whoever it was, he simply buzzed them in so he could reject them on the spot.

Leaning back on his chair, Eisuke kept his eyes trained on the door. There was a knock and the door opened slowly, revealing a girl. She had her hair down, flowing past her shoulders. Her white blouse was obviously a new one but he could tell straightaway that it was just some cheap department store item. Her black pencil skirt did not fit her at all, going way past her knees and had to be kept up by what one would call a belt though he saw it more as a piece of string. Despite the sad resumé, so far, she had successfully captured Eisuke's attention.

"Good morning, sir."

"Speak only when I ask you to."

Taking a closer look at her resumé, Eisuke could not help but feel a little sorry for the girl though it was one resumé that impressed him. Matsuoka Haruka, eighteen years old, and recently graduated from high school. Her grades were good. Amazingly good. With grades like hers, she could have gotten into any university she wanted in Japan. She could have gone overseas if she wanted. Yet here she was, rubbing her wrist nervously, worrying about passing the interview.

The next page in her file was a reference letter. She had but one part-time job since she was sixteen, working at one Moe Moe Café. The name of the café was questionable but what caught his attention was the letter. Most people who walked in today had the standard resumé and references. They were praised for their hardwork, how they would be a valuable employee. Her letter was the same, except whoever wrote it used her given name while others' were formal. Her reference spoke highly of her yet it felt as if they were speaking of a friend, a family, and not a worker.

"Shouldn't you be at an orientation? Like all those your age?"

"I guess so."

"So why aren't you there?" Eisuke asked, waving her resumé. "This is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."

There was a flicker of anger in her eyes though it dissipated as soon as they made eye contact. She was speechless but there was nothing she could say in retaliation; she knew Eisuke was right. A resumé as weak as hers, no one in a reputable company would hire her as an executive's secretary. Eisuke was only entertaining this interview because despite the lack of qualifications, she was the most interesting thing to walk into his office today.

"I know I'm not qualified," she said, her voice so soft Eisuke could barely hear her. "I don't have fancy clothes like all those people who walked in here before me. But if you are going to hire someone based on what they wore today and what they flashed in front of you instead of what they could actually do for you, then I don't want the job. Thank you for your time and I hope you find someone who's good enough for you."

"I didn't say you could leave."

There was no reason for Eisuke to stop her, really. He never intended to hire her anyway. Though, something she said struck a chord in him. All those he interviewed before her, Eisuke had no intentions of hiring either. None of them suited his taste. They were either too pompous or too obvious with their other purposes. He highly doubted that there would be anyone else suiting after her too. He had seen firsthand from those working under Akira that qualifications meant nothing if they were not willing to work. So many men Akira placed his trust in was nothing more than a high school graduate. So why was he so quick to judge this girl?

"It says here you worked at a café. Do you know how to make coffee?" She nodded. "Then make me a cup. Lots of milk, three sugars."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

One cup of coffee.

One cup of coffee was all it took and now one month in, she was still here. She was hopeless to begin with; there were times when Eisuke would question his own decision. She barely understood the different programs on the computer and made severe mistakes with the documents. Each time, he wanted to let her go but then he would see the determination in her eyes and somehow, that reminded Eisuke of himself. They both had something to prove, and all to lose.

Instead, Eisuke would grit his teeth and correct her mistakes, making sure that she knew she had no more chances to make the same mistakes. They would stay late in the office, sitting side by side at her desk having IT lessons. He taught her the functions in Excel and how to type. Every time she made a mistake, he would hit the back of her hand with a ruler much like a teacher. But she learnt fast. Soon, there was nothing to hit her for and nothing for him to teach her. What a shame because he liked their late night lessons. That was the first time Eisuke realised he enjoyed her company.

He came up with more lessons: dining etiquette, social etiquette, and even fashion. Whatever Eisuke could think of, he made a lesson of it.

"How the hell did she get the job? She's just a high school graduate."

"She slept with him."

"Did she?!"

"She must have! Otherwise, why was she hired out of everyone else? And she's having all those late nights with him, who knows what they're up to in the office?"

"Oh God, you don't think they did it in the office, do you?"

"I know they did. The cleaning lady said she heard some noises one night. I'm just surprised, really. I had no idea he had such bad taste. I always thought he would go for the sexy type, you know? Not the cute, pity-me type."

It was coincidence that he happened to walk past that pantry that day. He was never one to be bothered by rumours. He lived much of his schooling years swimming in them, in fact. He rose above them all because he knew they were not true and if they were not true, they would not be able to hurt him. Hearing the gossips about Haruka, however, stirred something in him.

His body moved on its own, walking toward the pantry with his mind set on telling the gossiping women off. Haruka was far from what they said she was. She wanted the job because she needed the job. Those late nights with him were so she could improve for the job. She was not the type of person they said she was, nor would she ever be. He wanted them to know. He needed them to know. But just as he was about to step into the pantry, he froze on the spot. Standing by the doorway on the opposite side was Haruka.

Her eyes were red with tears swelling in them. Her knuckles were white from how hard she was gripping onto the folder in her hand. As she made eye contact with Eisuke, however, the tears rolled down her cheeks and she turned away. He had learnt from day one that Haruka was a crybaby. She cried at almost every mistake, and she would cry whenever she thought Eisuke would fire her. He would roll his eyes at all those times but not this time. This time, it felt as if someone took a dagger and stabbed him right in the heart. What was this feeling?

~.~

She knew there would be talks about her, that much she expected. In a company as big as Ichinomiya Group, there was bound to be rumours spreading from every corner and being an unqualified secretary for an executive, it would be more surprising to know that no one whispered anything behind her back. But Haruka shut her ears to everything she would hear. She was here for the job and that was all. They would start to see how serious she was about her job and despite the lack of qualifications, she was still capable.

They would talk about her clothes, how they never heard of the brand and how the materials were cheap. It did not bother her. They would gossip about her background, snicker about the fact that she was orphaned. That did not bother her either. Then, they would blatantly show their displeasure at her lack of IT skills but Haruka was not bothered still.

Standing outside the pantry and listening to them gossip about her would not be something new either. Except, they were saying something different this time. They were accusing her of seducing Eisuke, using her body to get the job. That bothered her. This was what her mother went through, and what pushed her over the edge. Every word they said stabbed her hard and she could feel the tears swelling in her eyes though she was determined not to let them fall. She was prepared to let it go, as she did with everything else they said about her. Then she made eye contact with Eisuke.

Seeing Eisuke, she could not help herself. The tears she was so desperate to keep in were finally rolling down her cheeks. She wanted so badly to prove herself to him, that he did not make the wrong decision in hiring her. She wanted to become the secretary that he had been training her to be. Would he believe those words? Would he believe those women over her? Why would he believe in her?

Unable to face him, she turned and left.

She wanted to leave the job entirely but her sisters came to mind and Haruka could not do it. She needed the job, no matter what anyone else said or thought of her. Even if that someone else was Eisuke. She would have to keep a distance between them, to make sure that their relationship was strictly professional so no one could spread any other rumours.

"Yeah...he fired them."

"Seriously? Because they were gossiping in the pantry? My God, he's a tyrant."

"Yeah well, they were gossiping about her."

The whispers started to change after that day; all rumours ceased. When she used to be met with cold stares and stoic expressions, she was now greeted with warm (but fake) smiles and kind good mornings. Those who once gossiped about her were no longer with the company. She would later find out that they had been transferred far away or let go by the company. No one else dared to spread anything about her.

"Is it true? Did you fire the two women in the pantry that day?"

"I did."

Eisuke's answer was brazen yet expected.

"Because they were gossiping?"

"Because they were incompetent," Eisuke stated. "They've been at this company for more than ten years each but have nothing to show for it. It's a miracle if their team did not have to pick up after them every single day. And since they would rather spend their time gossiping instead of improving themselves for work, I gave them all the time to gossip. And if you have time to ask about them, you have time to work. Or else you'll end up like them. I don't need incompetents in my office."

Somehow, a part of her wanted to believe that they were fired because of her. Then again, why would an executive fire someone just because they were speaking ill of their secretary? Who was Haruka to Eisuke for him to do so? With a nod, Haruka dismissed herself but just as she was leaving, Eisuke said something that changed her mind forever.

"You belong to me," Eisuke said, looking her straight in the eyes. "Remember that. No one can touch or hurt anything that's mine and you, Matsuoka Haruka, are mine."

#pdr filler #kissed by the baddest bidder #kbtbb #kings of paradise #kop #eisuke ichinomiya #yosuke sagara #voltage inc #did tumblr change their edit thing? #i couldn't find the line thingy #had to improvise a line #also sorry for the shitty filler

[tuulikkink]

PORTAL - the art expo

Stress... Anxiety... Rush... These were the things I was feeling while trying to draw my piece for the exhibition. My brain felt like a empty plastic bag filled with slime, and it was impossible trying to catch a thread from one thought or another. Portal... What comes to my mind? A room of a teenager? A song that takes you away from where you are? Yes. Something like this. I also tried a little bit more direct approach and sketched a mushroom gatherer, who finds an ancient portal. I really liked the sketch, but the idea seemed... shallow. It needed more work, and I struggled to settle on an idea. I was also getting feedback from my teachers, that my ideas are superficial and there’s no feeling in them. I had to agree, which only annoyed me more. But I had learnt to take in constructive feedback over the summer, so now I was able to let it fuel me.

Now that we had found a venue, the curation team needed to do some shopping... There were many things that needed to be decided, one vital one being how we would hang the work.

On one Tuesday, I was the only person present from my team. I could hear my ears ringing as I realised that I would be the one speaking for the whole team...! I felt pressure building in my head... I can do this, I told myself. Just breath. Confidence. Thank god we have the most amazing person as a lecturer on this module, and she was very supportive. I told everyone, that the size would have to be changed from A4 to A3, as the exhibition space was so large. I took notes on things that still needed to be done, and sent updates to our curation chat. C promised to start looking for frames and other ways to hang the work, and R and H said they’d search for decorations for the space. We had gotten the permission to use tables and sofas from the Jacob’s market, so we didn’t need to worry about those. People from our class were also able to bring in cameras and speakers, so those could be considered done too. I talked about budget from our university, and my lecturer promised to look into it, and help with covering the printing costs. This was amazing news, and I felt elated. She also mentioned, that one person from each group should attend a vinyl cutting workshop held by our university, and naturally since I was the only curation team member there, I put my name down. We would be able to have a smaller exhibition, kind of as a tribute I guess, in the space outside of the classrooms. This would give attention to our actual exhibition happening elsewhere, and it would also bring the artists visibility within our university. Me and a few other people from my class took some measurements of the space, and designed what could go where, and what would need to be moved.

The following week was busy. The location team was buying food and drinks for the opening night, and the curation team was finding decorations and mounting equipment. Then came troubles... I tried contacting the man from the Jacob’s market, but he didn’t reply to any of my emails. I had sent a few, and it had been a few days so I was getting desperate, but thanks to my amazing teammates, we were able to reach then by phone and we settled everything. Then... We had the first big fight. This was regarding the food and drink side of the exhibition, as this girl I have told about before was unhappy with the food and drink arrangements the people who were assigned to it had done. In my opinion, they had done alright, but there had definitely been conversations, that I hadn’t heard of. I didn’t really had anything to say to this except that the bossy girl has to learn to let other people to take responsibility, and she has to learn to let other people decide. I found it unfair she took their job and they were left with nothing to do. Well, on the drawing side, I had made some progress. I wasn’t happy I had done this again: I have a tendency to not listen to others and I’m too stubborn when it comes to certain things. As I wrote in the last post, I was struggling to find a good idea. Well, now I had found it, and it was completely different than what I was going for before, but because I was running out of time I just went with it without even telling about the idea to my lecturers. I know this is a very stupid way to work, but I felt too much stress from being so behind with the drawing process, that it felt like the fastest way forward. I had also learnt to trust myself slightly more during the summer, so I convinced myself, that this was the right way to go.

She is a girl, and when she puts on  the headphones, the music takes her to another world. She’s here, but isn’t. This is my portal.

Beside this, I had prepared some prints to be sold at the exhibition opening night. This was a way to make some extra cash, and I love stalls; meeting people, seeing them buy my art, seeing how it connects us in some unexplained way when it makes them feel something... I didn’t want to turn down the opportunity. 

It was also time to send the exhibition pieces to print in a few days, and a huge load was lifted from my shoulders, when my amazing lecturers told us that they would take care of that for us. I was so happy, as I still had quite a bit to do with the exhibition piece itself. 

The next few days passed in a blur: sending my finished piece for printing, coming up with a name for it, designing placards to go by the artwork for the exhibition, cleaning the exhibition space,... There was so much. I had gotten ill a few days before this all, so I honestly pushed through these events with the power of paracetamol. I don’t have many feelings about it all, because I worked like a robot, from task to another, as quickly as I could with as little rest as possible. There was also problems with promoting, or actually, the lack of it. There wasn’t much publicity and the social media handles were quiet. It was only a few days before the opening night, so we needed more action. Everyone in the class posted the event on Facebook; this way we were hoping to gain more publicity to it. The problem with me is that all of my family and friends live in other countries, so me sharing the event wasn’t much help... But at work, I tried to talk about it with as many people as possible; it was a free event in the end, and if they didn’t have anything to do, they could come see it! It was now two nights to the opening night, and the curation team started prepping the space. This included cleaning the venue, arranging sofas, chairs and tables, decorating the space and testing the mounting technique. I had been shown magnets on ebay by one of my lecturers, and he suggested we could use the magnets and small nails to hang the work. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but when the magnets arrives, they were way too weak to hang the A3 artwork. So, a few of us quickly ran to the nearest artstore and brought plenty of masking tape, which is very strong, but leaves no marks on the walls after peeling it off. This, we tested too. Just in case, because the owner had told us not to damage the walls.

In just two days, everything was ready for the exhibition to open the doors. My fever was running high, and I felt weak and sick, but the pride from having out together something this amazing overrode the nasty feelings. The prints had arrived the previous day, and together with the whole curation team we had hanged them on the walls; colour coded. It was all ready for people to see. It was ours for the weekend; that’s what the old man had told me when I had paid for renting the venue for three days. His friendly smile still made me feel, like this was our space. For three days.

And so came the opening night... And when you looked through my portal with Artvive app, the silence would turn into music and transport you into another universe...

It was over. So much work had gone into just three days of exhibiting art, but it had all been worth it. The experience taught me, how important it is to establish clear roles and a schedule for everyone, and most important thing of all is to be patient, talk to one another and learn to listen. This also showed me, that I still need lots of practise on my time management skills... Working for eight hours straight to finish animating my piece made me shed tears, and the fever didn’t help anything. I think I might have even gotten ill from all the stress I was feeling trying to get everything done and hold it all together. I also had gotten better in communicating what need to be done, if one compares me to the person I was in the summer. The work placements had made me grow thicker skin, and I could better put a border between me as a person and myself, and me as an illustrator and as a worker. All in all, I loved being a part of the Portal exhibition class, and I felt so proud of us all as a class, but also the curation team; we had all done amazing job, and even though I was left on my own a few times, I could still count on my team to have my back. They had done most of the shopping, and I had gathered information and made lists of the things that needed to be taken care of, so it all worked out together. I couldn’t have asked for better team members.

This is the end. That was Portal. Thank you for taking your time to read, and if you will, message me if there’s something you were left puzzled about, or jus tto leave any comments on my writing. Lots of love, Likki

#university #art exhibition #art #artist #illustration