#i hate the me who volunteers and signs up for stuff

[tennessoui]

I'm begging on my hands and knees for more Twilight au, and those are words I never thought I'd say! Anakin being able to resist compulsion, and Obi-Wan seeming instantly obsessed, and poor Shmi! Pretty please 🥺🙏

hey!! sure! here's some more!

(2.5k)

Having a sheriff for a mom sucked a lot when he was a kid growing up in a small town. There was probably nothing Anakin was rebelling against more at eleven, at thirteen, at seventeen than the rule of law his mother represented. 

All things considered, she was pretty good at separating her home life from her worklife. It was Anakin who was bad at respecting the separation, Anakin who couldn’t keep son out of delinquent.  There’s only so many times he could be pulled out of wreckage and bars and buildings with Keep Out No Trespassing signs on them before he got The Sheriff at home and out in public.

He’d hated it growing up and had come to grudgingly respect it later and in fits and starts. His dad dying had, terribly and ironically, helped a lot. His mother had had a stroke just before and then Anakin had been faced with the possibility of being an orphan, and the terror of that had mellowed him out.

Sorta.

He still hates a lot of things about his mother’s job. Especially the fact that she’s the sheriff of a very small town.

And when people talk, she listens.

The thing about small towns is that everyone’s always fucking talking. And other people are always fucking lsitening so they can talk later. One big fucking community, which means when Anakin comes home from his weird doctor’s appointment with Dr. Kenobi, a few hours later because he took a detour biking along the edge of the seaside cliffs just to spit in the good doctor’s metaphorical face, Shmi Skywalker already knows more than Anakin ever planned to tell her.

Like, for instance, “Sheila says that Dr. Kenobi thought it would behoove you to spend some time at the local library volunteering.”

Anakin pauses, backpack half-slung off his shoulders. He hangs his stuff up slowly, careful to keep his tone very light. “Did Sheila say what I told him after he said that?” 

His mom’s silence is very loud.

“I don’t want to do i—”

“I asked the new librarian about it on my way home from the station. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Apparently we used to have a program like that in the forties but it died out during the war.”

“Mom, come on—”

“It’ll look good on resumes, saying you created and supported a local reading program.”

“Yeah, but I’m a bit too old to be applying for babysitting positio—”

“It’ll look good for me as well,” Shmi says in her sheriff voice. “Elections are coming up soon. It’ll be good, if my kid was involved in the community.”

Anakin’s glad that his back is still turned to the living room, where his mom is sitting. “Are you gonna run again?” he asks, paying special attention to his tone this time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” his mom replies. “I’ve been sheriff for a decade and a half.”

Anakin lets his eyes fall closed for a second, knowing that his face can’t be seen. This is how they end up half the time: Shmi’s ardent belief that she is invincible, going up against Anakin’s desperate desire for her to be so.

And they just don’t talk about it. As if they’re actually in agreement.

He knows how this is going to shake out.

“Do you have any plans tomorrow?” His mother asks.

Anakin’s eyes remain closed. “I guess so,” he says.

—--------

Mrs. Kenobi—call me Satine—is sort of scary up close. She’s tall. She glides between bookshelves. Anakin’s never met someone who glides before. And she’s so intensely, incredibly, blindingly perfect that Anakin would rather be anywhere but in her vicinity. There’s something incredibly unnerving about the symmetry of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones. She’s obviously an absolute knock-out, just drop-dead gorgeous, but it makes Anakin’s skin crawl and his heart beat fast, but not in a good way or a normal teenage boy way.

Anakin tries to keep the unease off his face as Satine leads him through a tour of the library, a gentle hand on his forearm. That’s another thing Anakin doesn’t really like. She’s wearing satin gloves. He doesn’t know anyone who wears gloves anymore.

It’s just all a bit…unsettling.

“I put in a few words around the school yesterday afternoon,” Satine tells him. They pass by the mystery section, the fantasy section, and take a hard right into the young adult section. The shelves are smaller here, and Anakin feels rather stupidly gigantic as he and Satine walk through them. “To some parents picking their children up after school. They agreed it would be good exposure to bring them to the library for an hour or so of reading before supper.”

Anakin highly doubts it will be, but Satine hasn’t really asked him.

She sweeps past his figure and pushes open a pair of double doors with a flourish better suited for a Russian tsarina hosting an elaborate ball than a small town librarian showing off a small, cramped, and dusty room filled with padded seats and threadbare rugs.

And then, as if she has been waiting to put the last nail in the proverbial coffin, Satine adds, “A few students from the local high school will be here as well.”

“Sorry,” Anakin says, “are you saying I’m going to be reading to high school students? Can’t they do that themselves?”

After all, Anakin went to high school here. Academics hadn’t been too rigorously challenging, but they’d taught the fucking basics.

Satine raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction. “They’ll be volunteering as well.”

Oh. Right.

“It looks good on their college applications,” Satine waves a hand through the air and the words linger there. Anakin looks out the rather dirty window, jaw clenching. “I’ve already chosen a handful of books I think the young ones will enjoy.”

Anakin, committed to his fate, pads over to the titles placed carefully ontop of a short, stout side table. 

“Peter the Rabbit,” he reads off the top. “Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Prince and the Pauper—look, you’re the librarian here, but don’t you have anything written this century maybe? Harry Potter, even.”

“These are classics,” Satine tells him, her nose raised into the air as if she has encountered something particularly foul-smelling. She turns away, presumably to return to the front desk so she can welcome half the fucking town inside the library so Anakin can read them fucking Anne of Green Gables and become a better person.

“These are fucking boring,” he mutters to himself, flicking the cover of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz open. Publication date: 1900. “I’d rather be in Kenobi’s office getting lectured at.”

There’s a sharp noise of disapproval from the doorway, and Anakin’s head snaps up to see the tail end of a very heated look from the librarian before the door closes behind her.

He shivers, alone in the emply room, and it takes several long minutes for his heart to settle back into its normal pace. 

—----------

After the fourth kid sneezes, Anakin closes his book with a snap and stands from the very small chair they’ve got him sitting on. “Come on,” he tells the cluster of children he’s been assigned to. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Are you kidnapping us?” One of them, a snot-nosed kid who’d started the sneezing says, rubbing at her cheek beneath her glasses. “Cause mommy says that’s not allowed.”

“I’m not kidnapping you,” Anakin snaps back, barely holding in his natural follow-up to the sentence which is of course, I don’t want to be around any of you in the first place. “Also, just for future reference, you shouldn’t ask if someone’s kidnapping you after you already start following them.”

The girl scowls and reaches up her hand to hold onto Anakin’s. 

For the love of Christ.

“We’re just going to go into the main part of the library,” Anakin tells his children, all six of them. “They have windows out there.”

They have windows out there and they also have parents. Parents who absolutely should be doing other things with their lives and precious hour of extra freetime.

Parents who are clustered instead around the library’s front desk as the town’s newest librarian holds court.

“Is reading time over?” one of the kids asks him, turning his head to look up at Anakin.

Anakin thinks about it. “Do you want reading time to be over?”

The kid thinks about it back. “Yeah,” he decides. “You don’t do the voices good.”

“It’s a boring book,” Anakin tells the kid. “Voices aren’t going to make it better.”

“Voices always make it better,” another kid says. “They make everything better.”

“Oh look,” Anakin says. “Is that your father?”

He gestures vaguely towards the cluster of drooling middle-aged somethings focused on Satine.

The kid peeks around his thigh and then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s Dr. Obi.”

“Dr. Obi!” The kid holding Anakin’s hand says, and she lets go.

Anakin gets a bad feeling about this, a feeling that only doubles when he turns around to see Dr. Kenobi sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of a long dark jacket that makes him look even more pale than he already is.

He scowls automatically as the man gets closer. “Dr. Obi.”

Dr. Kenobi spares him a look that’s far too amused for Anakin’s pleasure before he crouches down to the level of the kids. “Hello there, young ones,” he says, opening his arms to accept a hug from the traitor of a girl Anakin’s just spent thirty minutes reading to. “Are you eating all your vegetables? Even the brussel sprouts?”

“I like brussel sprouts,” one of the kids reports sounding proud, and that starts a cacophony of opinions about brussel sprouts from all around Anakin.

“Wow! One of mine just absolutely hates them,” Dr. Kenobi says. “She refuses to eat them, so you’re very brave, Michele.” He lets go of the girl and turns his golden-brown gaze up to Anakin. “And what does Mr. Skywalker think?” he asks, raising a hand for Anakin to take. It’s very obvious he’s asking for a hand up and Anakin is obeying before he thinks about it. He snatches his hand free almost too soon, but Dr. Kenobi doesn’t even have the grace to lose his balance and fall over. 

His hand is like ice in Anakin’s, and Anakin stuffs his fingers into the pocket of his jacket automatically a second later.

“Do brussel sprouts help with circulation?” he’s biting out before he can stop himself. “Cause you may need some then.”

Kenobi’s head tilts very slightly to the side as his eyes catch and hold onto Anakin’s. “Oh?” he asks lightly. 

“You’re cold,” is all Anakin mutters in return. He swipes his other hand against the back of his neck. “”S poor circlutation, isn’t it? Something in your diet maybe?” Dr. Kenobi blinks at him and then breaks into a wide smile. “I can assure my diet is very…circulation-mindful,” he says. “Blood health positive.”

Anakin’s mouth thins into a line. He guesses that’s what he gets for trying to give health advice to a doctor, especially a doctor like Kenobi who just so happens to be devastatingly attractive and also smart.

And also an asshole. And also married.

Speaking of which. “Are you here to fend off your wife’s admirers with a scalpel?” Kenobi’s eyebrows raise. “Young ones,” he turns his head away from Anakin, down to the children.

The strangest feeling breaks of Anakin the second Kenobi looks away, almost as if a strange pressure he hadn’t even realized had been building was suddenly dissolved.

The very small beginnings of a headache begin to thrum in his temples.

“Young ones, it’s time to find your parents, isn’t it?” Kenobi says, and like fucking magic, the crowd of six children around Anakin disperse, children swarming away from him towards the group of adults surrounding the front desk.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Anakin blurts out, even though he’d meant to ignore Kenobi now that he doesn’t have to make nice in front of small kids. Not that he was really making nice in the first place. But now he definitely doesn’t have to.

Kenobi gives him a half-smile, eyes heavy-lidded. “It’s a special sort of skill that takes, above all else, much practice.”

Anakin scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Kenobi think he can’t commit himself to something even as mundane as a fucking commanding persona? Does he think he doesn’t have it in him to be–-

Kenobi’s eyebrows go up again. “Has anyone ever told you that you are exceedingly defensive?” 

“You’re extremely nosey,” Anakin snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have better things to focus on right now anyway?”

He gestures loosely towards Satine, who has started playing with one of the mother’s bracelets as the other woman stands and looks at her rather dumbfounded.

Kenobi follows his gaze and then lets out a huff of laughter. “Satine can take care of herself,” he says, even though it hadn’t really been Satine that Anakin was worried about.

He’s about to open his mouth to say so when Kenobi turns back to him. His eyes are piercing, a dark, captivating sort of gold. 

“Do you find my wife beautiful, Anakin?” he asks.

Anakin blinks. His headache is getting worse, which is probably down to what can only be a trick-question fashioned to look like a grenade lobbed at his feet. “I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” he mutters, rubbing absently at his forehead. “What the fuck.”

“An honest answer is a good one,” Kenobi says lightly. “Tell me honestly.”

The words feel pulled from Anakin’s stomach, and he’s opening his mouth before he realizes it. “No,” he says. 

Kenobi’s eyebrows crinkle together. “No?”

Anakin curses his stupid impulse control. “She’s beautiful,” he adds quickly. “Really. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”

Kenobi’s lips purse, and then there’s something like disappointment in his eyes as he examines Anakin. “Ah yes,” he murmurs. “I’ve been told my wife can make countless young men feel rather uncomfortable. It’s normal in men your age, Anakin. Sexual ar—”

“Uncanny,” Anakin blurts out. He doesn’t mean to, but he also doesn’t want to listen to  Kenobi trying to lecture him on fucking arousal in the public library. When it’s not even relevant. “She’s so beautiful, it’s uncanny.”

“Uncanny.”

“Yeah, like. Monstrous.”

Kenobi’s mouth falls open, pink lips parted in what looks like honest surprise.

Anakin’s own eyes widen as it hits him that he’s just called Kenobi’s wife a monster to Kenobi’s face.

“Shit,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m going to go.” 

He throws a look at Kenobi, whose eyes are lit with something a lot like interest and then across the library to where Satine’s head is turned, cocked, and eyebrows up high on her forehead, as if she’s just heard everything he’s said.

He decides rather immediately that he’s going to take the backdoor exit.

#asks #twilight au #obikin #a couple of things: #all the books mentioned are published before 1920 because satine was probably a young mother around that time #imo she became a vampire during ww1 #brussel sprouts tasted very bitter in the 60s through the 90s before we tweaked how they were grown genetics wise #so kids used to hate them and one of the vampires in obi-wan's coven was a kid during the 60s so has strong memories of brussel sprouts #being awful #satine's special vampire power is her beauty which is like double that of the normal enthralling/alluring/perfect predator beauty #so anakin's own sort of immunity to vampire powers a la bella means he just finds it unnerving and uncanny #but he did fall prey to obi-wans mind trick at the end there because the immunity thing i think would be something he has to practice #to get strong at #so his immunity kicked in at satine's beauty and it didn't affect him #but he couldn't also effectively protect himself from obi-wan's mind compulsion #to tell the truth #because systems overloaded

[loveroftoomanyfandoms]

Cooking Up Love, Chapter 13

Pairing: Chef!Matt Murdock x F!Journalist!Reader

Rating: T

Story Summary: Here

Warnings/Tags: Hallmark levels of fluffy, cheesy goodness (and speed that their relationship develops, lol), no use of Y/N, Matt is not a vigilante, idiots in love, misunderstandings, minor Foggy/OFC

Word Count: ~3200

A/N: We're almost to the end! Thank you to everyone who has read, liked, and commented on my little self-indulgent Chef AU -- y'all keep me writing!

As always, thanks to @theradioactivespidergwen for the line break -- it's being put to good use!

Tag List: @yarrystyleeza @hailey-murdock @mattkinsella @bellaxgiornata @danzer8705 @chezagnes @shouldbestudying41 @thepunisherfrankcastle @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @roseslovedreams

"Wait, Matt actually accused you of screwing him over and using him just to make a name for yourself?" Skyler asked as you sat in your kitchen together after work later that evening. "I don't remember anything in your article worth him getting upset over when I read it yesterday."

You shook your head. "That's because there wasn't anything! I absolutely raved about both his culinary skills and his food, I talked about how much care and consideration he puts into perfecting his recipes, and I even mentioned his volunteer activities at Clinton Church."

Skyler shook her head. "Walk me through the conversation again."

"I emailed him my article then decided to call him a little later to let him know that I had sent it over. He seemed a bit put off but I wasn't sure if he was still upset with me over running out on him the other night or if something else was bothering him, so I asked him if he had read it. Suddenly he just went off on me, saying how all journalists were exactly alike and how we're always looking for the next big scoop no matter who we screw over in the process, then he said that he thought I actually cared about him and that I was no longer welcome at Daredevil." 

Your voice broke, the hurt and anger in Matt's voice upsetting you all over again. "The worst part of it is that I do care about him, Sky, I -- I think I might have been falling for him."

Skyler reached out and gave your hand a gentle squeeze. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

You shook your head with a sniffle. "I hate to admit it, but maybe Kelsie was right and Matt was just stringing me along but got tired of waiting until my article was actually published to stop speaking to me, so he just made an excuse."

Skyler made a face. "Ugh. First off, don't ever use the phrase 'Kelsie was right' in my presence ever again. Secondly, didn't you say that he opened up to you about some personal stuff but asked you to keep it off the record?"

You nodded. "Yeah, and I did. I didn't mention anything to do with that in the article."

You pulled up your work email on your phone, opening the attachment you had sent Matt so you could read over it once again. "I didn't even -- wait, what is this?"

You scrolled through the document, your blood turning to ice in your veins. "Oh shit. Oh no, no , no, no, no, no. "

A look of alarm crossed Skyler's face. "What's wrong?"

"This isn't my article."

"What? What do you mean, that isn't your article?"

I mean , the article I sent Matt is not the article I wrote, Sky." You handed your phone to Skyler. "It's got my name on the byline, but I didn't write this. It's no wonder Matt was so pissed at me though -- this article is a smear campaign."

Skyler's eyebrows raised as she read through it. "Someone had to have switched the documents. Did you leave your computer unlocked and unattended at any point today?"

You shook your head. "No, of course not, I--"

You sighed. "Wait, yes. I was getting ready to send my article to Matt when Kelsie told me I had a package downstairs that I had to go personally sign for."

Skyler raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess, there was no package."

You nodded. "Exactly."

Skyler tapped at your phone screen. "Um, did you also send it to Max and Carrie and tell them Ellison approved your article and said to go ahead and send it to them?"

You shook your head. "No, why?"

"Because it looks like you did."

"What?" You grabbed your phone, scowling as you saw that the same attachment had been sent to the people who handled the layout for the physical paper as well as the digital edition. "Oh, but hell no. It's a good thing you caught that."

Skyler shook her head in disbelief. "That absolute bitch. I'm going to destroy her."

You sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to prove Kelsie is the one who wrote it and planted it on my PC though."

Skyler grinned. "Oh, I do. You didn't know that you can see who the original author of a document is and look at a document's editing history, did you?"

You shook your head.

"I bet Kelsie didn't either. I need your laptop."

You retrieved your laptop and pulled the document up on it before letting Skyler take over. 

After a few clicks, Skyler nodded. "Sure enough. Not only is she listed as the original author of the document, but her digital signature is all over it."

You shook your head. "We need to go talk to Ellison."

You sent him a text message. Are you still at the office? I need to talk to you about something important.

A few seconds later, he replied. Yeah, still here trying to get this editorial column done. What's up?

I'll be there in 10 minutes. Don't go anywhere.

You saved the file to a flash drive, grabbed your keys, then you and Skyler practically ran to the Bulletin.

As soon as you got there, you booted up your computer and printed a copy of Kelsie's fake article. "Okay, let's go talk to Ellison."

You picked up the printout of Kelsie's fake article from the printer before you and Skyler headed to Ellison's office.

He looked up at the two of you tiredly. "Whatcha got for me?"

"Sabotage," Skyler replied. "As well as sneaky, underhanded, unethical so-called journalism."

Ellison's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I have reason to believe that Kelsie swapped my Restaurant Week article out with a fake one in an attempt to discredit me," you explained. 

You set the copy of the fake article down on Ellison's desk. "I wound up sending this to Chef Murdock, who was understandably upset by it and is how I caught it. And not only that, but Kelsie sent it to Max and Carrie while I was away from my computer."

Ellison's eyebrows raised as he read the fake article. "What makes you so sure it was Kelsie?"

Skyler scoffed. "Isn't it obvious? She's an evil, backstabbing bitch."

You shook your head. "Kelsie's had a personal vendetta against me ever since I got promoted to Features and has been going around all week accusing me of 'stealing' the Restaurant Week feature out from underneath her."

"And she's been saying all sorts of horrible things about Chef Murdock," Skyler added before pointedly looking at you. "Things that probably aren't even true."

Ellison sighed. "I knew she wasn't very happy with me for passing the Restaurant Week feature to you, but I wouldn't have suspected that she'd actually resort to sabotage."

He set the article down. "However, you both know that simply providing me with a copy of an allegedly-written article isn't enough. I need solid proof."

Skyler set the flash drive down on Ellison's desk. "Here's your proof. You'll notice that Kelsie is the original owner of the document and has edited it multiple times, and I bet if you look on her computer you'd find it there as well." 

"Plus if you review the security footage from around 1:30 today you'll probably see her poking around at my desk." You set copies of the time-stamped emails sent to Max and Carrie. "She sent me on a wild goose chase trying to find some package I needed to personally sign for while she sent the fake article to Max and Carrie for publication."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she was behind the email server conveniently going down on Wednesday afternoon so you couldn't email your article to Mitch then," Skyler added. "It's a good thing you decided to print it and turn it in anyway."

Ellison sighed. "Do you still have your original file?"

You nodded. "She deleted it off of my computer here at work but I keep a copy of all of my articles on an external hard drive at home."

"Good. As soon as you get home, resend it to Max and Carrie marked urgent and CC me so I'll also have it digitally. In the meantime, I'll get Phil to pull the security footage from today."

"Okay." You bit your lip. "Um, is it okay if I take Monday off? After the week I've had I need a mental health day."

Ellison looked at you sympathetically and nodded. "Yeah, sure. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for all this."

You shrugged. "Not your fault. What I don't get though is why Kelsie also chose to go after Chef Murdock so hard."

"I think I can answer that," Skyler said, handing you her phone. "Take a look at Kelsie's Facebook."

You looked at her latest post, which was a picture of her cozying up to a handsome, dark-haired, blue-eyed man. Romantic weekend away with my love, the photo was captioned. "So?"

Skyler shook her head and pulled up Kelsie's boyfriend's profile. "See who she's dating?"

Your eyebrows raised as you read his bio. "Huh, yeah, I guess that makes sense now." 

Skyler showed it to Ellison. "Did you know this?"

Ellison shook his head. "No, I had no idea. It does explain why she was pushing so hard about getting the feature switched back though."

You nodded. "That way she could control the narrative."

Ellison sighed. "Let me go ahead and call Phil. Don't forget to CC me on that correction to Max and Carrie so it's documented."

You nodded. "Okay."

"I'll send out a staff-wide memo on Monday after everything is said and done, but in the meantime, don't say anything to anyone else on staff about this. I don't want it getting back to Kelsie so she can try to cover her tracks."

You and Skyler both nodded. "Yes, sir."

As you left the office and were headed back down the elevator, Skyler asked, "So what are you going to do about Matt? Still want me to kick his ass for you?"

You let out a light laugh. "No, that's okay. I'll just… move on, I guess? I mean, I'm going to send my actual article to him but he made it pretty clear that he didn't want anything else to do with me so I doubt he'll even open my email."

"Then it's his loss."

You stepped out of the elevator as the doors opened. "Thanks, Sky."

Skyler bit her lip. "What about Foggy? You think I should cancel my date with him tomorrow?"

You shook your head. "No way. Just because it didn't work out with me and Matt doesn't mean you shouldn't at least give Foggy a chance."

You gave her a wink. "Besides, just because I'm not welcome at Daredevil doesn't mean that you can't bring me some takeout from there, especially if you're dating the other owner."

Skyler laughed and gave you a hug. "Thanks, bestie."

"Let me know how it goes, ok?"

Skyler nodded. "I will."

You headed home and grabbed your laptop so you could send the correct article to Max and Carrie, CCing Ellison on the email with the explanation "Sorry, wrong attachment sent. Please use this attached copy in the print and online editions on Monday." .

You opened a new email and attached the correct file.

To: [email protected]

Subject: Explanation About Bulletin Article

Attachment: Restaurant Week Feature V1.doc

You took a deep breath.

Dear Matt,

You probably won't even open this email, but I wanted to let you know that the article I sent you earlier today was not the article I had written about you, nor is it the article that will be appearing in Monday's edition of the Bulletin. Long story short, someone else on staff replaced the file for my article (which I had given a hardcopy of to my editor for approval on Wednesday) with the one I erroneously sent you earlier today.

I promise I never meant to hurt you and I swear I would never use you (or anyone else, for that matter) just to get a lead on a story or try to pad my portfolio. This past week was one of the best of my life and it was genuinely a pleasure spending time with you and getting to know you… both inside the kitchen and out. 

You bit your lip, trying to decide if you should tell Matt exactly how much he had begun to mean to you. Ultimately you decided against it, instead closing with ' Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors'.

You added your work signature, then sent the email. 

You sat back and sighed. While it hurt knowing that you would never get to find out if the spark you had felt with Matt could've ignited into something real, you also knew that you would treasure the time you had spent with him forever.

"Matt, there's a gentleman on the phone asking for you," Karen said as Matt and Foggy prepped for brunch service on Sunday. "Says he's from the Bulletin."

Matt nodded and wiped his hands. He had called the editor on Friday evening and had left a voicemail disputing the information contained in your article and asking for a resolution. "I'll take it in the office. Thanks, Karen."

He could feel both her and Foggy watching him as he exited the kitchen and headed to the office.

He picked up the phone and transferred the call. "Matthew Murdock speaking."

"Chef Murdock," the man replied. "This is Mitchell Ellison. I'm the editor over at the New York Bulletin. "

Matt was hit with a pang. You had emailed him again on Friday afternoon but with his hurt over your article being so fresh and so raw Matt had been letting your email sit unopened in his inbox until he was ready to hear what kind of (undoubtedly poor) excuse you'd had for using him. 

He cleared his throat. "Mmhmm."

"I just wanted to call and personally apologize for the feature article you received in your email on Friday. That was not the article I had approved for publication and I wanted to let you know that after a brief internal investigation, the person responsible for it is being terminated first thing tomorrow morning. I assure you, we do not stand for such unethical behavior at the Bulletin ."

Matt winced. While he was extremely hurt and angry with you, he hadn't actually set out to get you fired. "Thank you for letting me know."

"I'm sending over the feature that I actually had approved for tomorrow's edition of the paper and I must say, it's some of the best, most honest writing I've ever read. I think you'll be much more pleased with it."

Matt heard his inbox chime with a new email. "I think it just came in."

"Great. Apologies again for the mistake."

"Mmhmm. Thanks for returning my call."

"Of course. Have a good day, Chef."

"You too. Goodbye."

Matt hung up and sighed, then popped in his earbuds and pulled up Ellison's email.

From: [email protected]

Subject: NYC RESTAURANT WEEK FEATURE

Attachments: Restaurant Week Feature V1.doc

Chef Murdock, 

Attached is the article that has been approved for this year's New York Restaurant Week feature. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Mitchell Ellison

Editor-in-Chief, New York Bulletin

Matt opened the attachment and tapped the keyboard command to begin his text-to-speech program, surprised to hear your name on the byline. He would have thought that whoever had been reassigned the article would get credited, especially since the editor-in-chief had said that your employment at the Bulletin was to be terminated.

Either way, Mr. Ellison had been right -- the rewritten article was immensely more positive than the previous one had been and actually included information that Matt had revealed to you during your recorded interviews… as well as information that hadn't been recorded and therefore only you would be able to include.

Matt's brow furrowed. Something's not adding up.

He closed out of the article, then navigated to your email.

He took a deep breath and opened it.

"Dear Matt," his text-to-speech program dictated,

"You probably won't even open this email, but I wanted to let you know that the article I sent you earlier today was not the article I had written about you, nor is it the article that will be appearing in Monday's edition of the Bulletin. Long story short, someone else on staff replaced the file for my article (which I had given a hardcopy of to my editor for approval on Wednesday) with the one I erroneously sent you earlier today. "

Matt tapped the spacebar on his keyboard to pause his program, filled with an odd mix of confusion and relief. So if you hadn't actually written the first article you had sent him… who had and why?

He tapped the spacebar again to continue.

"I promise I never meant to hurt you," your email continued, "and I swear I would never use you (or anyone else, for that matter) just to get a lead on a story or try to pad my portfolio. This past week was one of the best of my life and it was genuinely a pleasure spending time with you and getting to know you… both inside the kitchen and out. 

Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors, sincerely yours…"

Matt navigated to the attachment, sucking in a breath as he realized that the article that the Bulletin 's editor-in-chief had sent him a few minutes before had been your article -- your real article, apparently.

Matt groaned and covered his face with his hands. He had been so caught up in his worry about getting hurt again that he had never even considered the possibility that you hadn't written the other article.

"Everything okay?"

Matt shook his head as Foggy entered the office. "I messed up."

"What do you mean?"

Matt sighed and said your name. "I was wrong about her, Fog, I was completely wrong. She didn't write that article."

"She didn't? How did she wind up sending it to you then?"

"Apparently one of her coworkers had replaced the file for her real article with the one she sent me -- I'm assuming as some form of sabotage or something. The editor at the Bulletin told me that the person responsible is being terminated first thing tomorrow morning."

"So did you get to read the real article?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah, it's right here."

Foggy moved to his side and leaned over his shoulder so he could read it.

After a few minutes, he straightened. "Damn, Matt, that was beautiful."

Matt nodded. "I know."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Apologize profusely and hope like hell that she'll forgive me."

Matt sighed. If you didn't forgive him, at least he had the memories he had made with you over the past week.

But if you did … Well, he wouldn't screw up a third time.

#lotmf writes #Cooking Up Love Masterlist #Chef!Matt Murdock x Reader #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock x female reader #matt murdock x you

[vodika-vibes]

**Chapter 1**

Summary: When Commander Wolffe is forced into early retirement after losing an eye in a terrorist attack, he thinks his life is over. However, when his twin brother volunteers him to help a younger cousin adjust to life outside the military, he doesn’t fight as much as he normally would have. Still when his younger cousins, Rex and Gregor, told him that they signed up to play security for Doctors Without Borders, he genuinely thought that it was going to be the easiest job he’s ever had. Right up until the plane falls out of the sky and they end up stranded on an island that doesn’t follow any of the rules as he knows them.

Characters: Commander Wolffe, Captain Rex, Captain Gregor, F!Reader character called Bumblebee or Bee in story

Genre: Adventure, Supernatural, some romance (because I'm me)

Word Count: 2394

Warnings: None, so far

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: So I wasn't going to start this story until I finished my event stuff, but apparently I had an idea and needed to get it down.

This is the worst.

The absolute worst.

He should be home, in the barracks, looking after his brothers in the 104th. He should be standing next to his general as they prepare for the next push against the Seppies.

But no. He’s here, miles away from where he should be, waiting for the tiny plane to finish getting loaded for the last stretch of his, and his cousins, journey.

Wolffe can’t even bring himself to enjoy the scenery, why bother, it’s not like he’s going to be here long anyway. He leans against the back of the bench that he’s sitting on, his gaze flickering around the airstrip until he spies Rex and Gregor, talking with a pair of women near the building. 

Good. So long as they’re not getting in trouble.

Not that he really expected them to. But as the oldest, he can’t help but look out for them.

Especially Gregor.

His cousin had healed very nicely from the injury that nearly killed him. He’s still himself, the TBI doing very little to change his personality, but his memory is still spotty.

It’s one of the biggest reasons that he didn’t fight quite as hard as he normally would have when Fox volunteered him for the position. Besides, Doctors Without Borders is a respectable organization.

He could do worse.

Sure that his cousins are safe and aren’t wandering off to get mugged by someone who hates tourists, Wolffe casts his gaze back to the plane. And slowly his eyebrows raise when one of the doors open and a young woman hops out of the cockpit.

She looks familiar.

She looks very familiar.

He knows that jacket. He damn well better, he was the one who bought it in the first place.

He pushes to his feet and approaches the plane, and…there, on the side of her neck, a bumblebee tattoo with a honeycomb behind it.

A grin crosses his face without his permission, “Well now, look who it is. Lieutenant Bumblebee, in the flesh.”

She turns, and a wide grin crosses her face, “Wolffe? What brings you to my corner of paradise?” She walks over to him and bumps her fist against his, “I thought ‘vacations are beneath you’.” She mocks.

“Yeah, yeah. They are. I got a job with Doctors Without Borders, with some of my cousins.” He jabs his thumb over his shoulder, “I heard that you were living in the lap of luxury, though. White sandy beaches and fruity little drinks with umbrellas-”

She laughs, “Does this look like retirement to you, Wolfy-boy?”

“Dunno, you always loved to fly more than anything else.” He folds his arms over his chest, “Seeing you with a plane doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.” Wolffe pauses, “You know, I did hear a rumor-”

Her smile becomes slightly strained, “That I was Dishonorably Discharged and slapped with a court martial? Cause that’s not a rumor.”

“Shit, really?” She doesn’t respond and Wolffe rolls his eyes, “Come on, Bee. It’s me. What happened?”

“Gross Insubordination.” She says with a sigh, “Look, after I was transferred from Koon, I was given to Krell.”

Wolffe inhales sharply.

“Yeah.” Her laugh is slightly bitter, understandably bitter, “Well, I took issue with how he treated the men under his command and I didn’t hesitate to tell him so. So I was grounded and slapped with a court martial. And by the time Krell was removed and arrested for abusing the men under his command, everything had taken a life of its own, so I just took the Dishonorable Discharge.”

“You could have fought it.”

“Could have.” Bee agrees, “Just…the way that some of the people I’ve known for years looked at me.” She sighs and pushes her hand through her hair, “There was no point. Luckily, Plo put in a good word for me here.”

“Good thing the General likes you.”

“Tell me about it. I could do far, far worse than being a pilot for an organization as well respected as this one.” She shrugs and glances at her clipboard, “Not to mention, they’re pretty good about making sure that my prosthetics are up to par-”

“Prosthetics? What prosthetics?” Wolffe asks, his gaze snapping down her body, “Since when do you need prosthetics?”

Bee arches a delicate brow and lifts the leg of her long pants, revealing a matte gray prosthetic leg. “Parting gift from Krell.” She pauses, “Or, well, that’s my guess. I was officially injured in combat. But I’m almost positive that there weren’t any seppies on that planet-”

She pauses and takes a deep breath, dropping the leg of her pants and gestures vaguely with her clipboard, as if to say well, what can you do.

As if Wolffe needed another reason to hate Krell. Life in prison is too good for him.

“Sorry, I didn’t know. No one told me.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not as if I had very many friends left behind after the Court Martial.” She shrugs, “Anyway, what happened to your eye?”

“That blunt, huh?”

“That blunt.”

“Seppies.”

“Isn’t it always?”

Wolffe releases a humorless laugh, “Seems like it.” He leans against a crate, “Officially, I was medically discharged. Technically, I’m on medical leave for the next six months.”

“General Koon favors you.”

“Don’t I know it.” Wolffe’s gaze drags across the crates of medical supplies and other supplies, “So, who all are you transporting.”

“Well, according to my manifest-” Bee flips to a back page, “You, Rex and Gregor-” She pauses, “Is blondie over there, Rex? Shit, last time I saw him he was still in high school.”

Wolffe grins, “He’s a Captain now.”

“Ugh, I feel old.”

“You feel old? How do you think I feel?”

Bee laughs, “That’s what you get for being one of the oldest.” She glances back at her manifest, “Anyway, I’m also transporting a new nurse, her name is Raya Valencia. And a mechanic on loan from the GAR, Maty Wilson. Also, someone from the local government forced his way onto the manifest.”

“Mm, politics.”

“There’s no escaping it, I’m afraid.” Bee sets her manifest aside, “Anyway, someone will have to sit in the cockpit with me with the new addition.”

“Is that an offer, Bee?”

“What, you want a handwritten invitation?”

Wolffe laughs, “Hardly. I’ll be more than happy to sit up front with you. Maker knows we clearly have some catching up to do, LT.”

Bee grins at him, “Hardly my fault you went and got promoted to Commander and stopped associating with us minions.”

“Hey, I’ve always had a soft spot for you minion-y types.”

“Yeah, yeah,” There’s a laugh in her voice, “Beat it, Wolfy-boy. I have work to do. We’ll be lifting off in thirty.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” He tosses his bag over his shoulder and meanders on over to his cousins, as Bee turns to shout at a worker in a language he kind of recognizes.

It’s damned good to see her. Though it is a shame to hear about what happened to her.

“Making friends, Wolffe?” Rex asks with an arched brow.

“Chatting with an old friend,” Wolffe replies, “One that you know. You’ve met Bee before.”

Rex blinks, twice, and then his head snaps towards the plane, “Wait Bee? That Bee? The one we met at your graduation?”

“The one and the same.”

Rex stares in her direction, “Small world-”

“Tell me about it.”

“What happened between you two anyway?” Gregor asks, “If I remember correctly, you two were a thing-”

“Drop it.” Wolffe frowns at them, and then he sighs, “We were never a thing. I chickened out before I could ask her. And then I was promoted and it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

“Well, she’s not in the military anymore-” Rex prods with a grin.

“Drop. It.”

“Okay, okay.” Rex holds his hands up, “Sorry. There’s no need to get snippy.”

Wolffe opens his mouth to say something, only to pause when Bee jogs over, “Alright Boys, and Girls and both and neither,” She says as she claps her hands, “The Airstrip is needed for an emergency medevac so we’re hauling out of here early. Get your stuff on board and make sure everything is secured.”

“Copy that, LT.” Rex says with a cheerful salute.

“Don’t you sass me, Rexy. I remember you as a pimply high schooler.”

“Yes, but I outgrew that. See, pimple free.” His grin widens, “You, however, are still short.”

“Get!” Bee shouts as she points at the plane, and Rex, laughing, hurries past her. And then she turns her glare on Wolffe, “How is he just as obnoxious now as he was when he was a kid?”

“It’s just his personality. Sorry, Bee.”

Bee scowls at him and then hurries off to go and find the politician, probably.

Wolffe shakes his head and joins his cousins at the plane, where he promptly smacks Rex across the back of the head, “You piss her off and I’m the one who pays for it, how’s that fair?”

Rex, for his part, doesn’t look the least bit apologetic. Which only serves to make Wolffe more annoyed with him. Still, he’s mature enough to let the situation settle as everyone climbs on the plane.

Wolffe stows his bag under some netting, and then climbs into the co-pilot’s seat, while making sure that everyone else is strapped in properly. He’s not so worried about Rex or Gregor, but the two civvies might need some help.

And then Bee is back, with an older man in tow. He’s wearing a nice suit, nicer than anything Wolffe has seen anyone wearing since he arrived here, and he’s holding a cloth over his mouth and nose.

“My dear,” The old man says in a raspy smoker’s voice, and Wolffe doesn’t even have to look at Bee to know that she rolled her eyes at the diminutive pet name, “Surely there’s someplace…private for me to sit?”

“Nope.” Bee replies, “Small transport vessel. No private rooms.” She points to an empty seat across from Gregor, next to the door, “Sit there.”

“Well, I suppose the door is the best seat.” He muses as he sits down and only fastens the belt around his waist.

“You need to fasten the-” Gregor starts.

“Young man, I know what I’m doing.” The older man interrupts with a sniff.

Bee rolls her eyes again and lightly claps Gregor on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.” She moves through the aisle, taking a moment to make sure that everything is secured, and then she moves into the cockpit and pulls the door shut behind her.

She tosses Wolffe a lopsided grin, and offers him the spare headset, “I know you don’t fly much anymore, Commander, but surely you can co-pilot for one flight?”

Wolffe chuckles and takes the headset, pulling it on, “Well, I suppose I’d better.” He leans back in his seat and he watches as she effortlessly goes through the pre-flight check.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the plane is in the air, and pulling away from the airfield. And Bee activates her radio, “Alright everyone, as of now, our flight will take three hours, we’re taking a circuitous route to avoid a storm-”

She’s interrupted when the radio from the back crackles to life, “Absolutely not! I refuse to spend more time in this tin can than I have to. Take a shorter route or I’ll have your job!”

Bee glances at Wolffe, and then sighs, “As you wish. Then our flight will take an hour.” She cuts the radio, and glances at Wolffe, “This is going to go horribly.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky?” Wolffe offers.

Bee just sighs, and turns her gaze out the front window, “We won’t.”

Wolffe wakes with a pained groan. His head is throbbing.

Actually, his everything is throbbing. Including his eyelashes.

His eyes crack open and the sun, high overhead, nearly blinds him.

Wait. Sun?

Wolffe opens his eyes properly. The top of the plane is gone. He’s still strapped to his seat, luckily, and he still seems to be in the cockpit, but the roof is gone.

“Bee?” He, painfully, turns his head to the side, looking towards the pilot’s seat. Bee is still strapped in her seat, her head lolled to her chest, blood dripping from a wound on her temple. “Bee!”

She groans at his voice, “Stop yelling,” Bee’s eyes crack open and she groans, “Ow…”

“What happened?” Wolffe asks, “Do you remember?”

“I was ordered to take a shortcut, and then-”

The storm.

The clouds came from nowhere. One moment there were clear skies, and then it was like flying through a hurricane. Wolffe had been forced to actually co-pilot to help Bee keep the plane under control.

“-the door ripped off,” Wolffe remembers, vague memories of the various consoles flaring to life in front of him as the side door opened.

“Which would have caused a pressure imbalance,” Bee agrees, as she unfastens her harness and falls out of her seat, “Which would lead to-” She gestures to where the roof used to be. “You okay?”

“I think my everything is bruised.” Wolffe says as he pulls his own harness off and reaches for the door separating the cockpit from the rest of the plane.

“Better bruised than dead,” Bee replies logically as she adds her weight to the door. Together, they push the door open.

Rex and Gregor are unconscious, but clearly alive. As are the two civvies, Raya and Maty. The politician is missing.

“We’re missing one,” Wolffe notes as he checks over his cousins.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll find him.” Bee says, “he wasn’t wearing his harness.”

Wolffe glances at the ripped seat belt and silently concedes that she’s probably right. “We need to get them off the plane.”

“Yeah. Let’s make a path first, make sure we’re not bringing them into something more dangerous.” Bee says. “We have plenty of equipment, at least.” She adds with a wry smile.

“Small blessings.” Wolffe agrees, “Come on, Bee. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

He walks over to where the door used to be, and he hops out, with Bee hot on his heels. With luck, they’ll find someplace safe nearby. 

With luck, they’ll only be here for a couple of days.

Wolffe isn’t going to hold his breath, though. He’s never been very lucky.

#star wars #tcw #star wars au #commander wolffe #captain rex #captain gregor #the wolf's pack

[bedupolker]

What was your journey towards working as a ranger?

I was dumped by a girl in animation college, so I did what any self-respecting nineteen year old would do: listen to a shit load of weezer and risk my life by rock climbing and hiking with inadequate gear and little to no experience. One day during an expedition I met a wise old ex-convict who told me there was a place I could hike and climb and listen to weezer every day without anyone telling me otherwise: the wilderness. He used to work at one of the restaurants at yosemite. Since I hate having money and affording things, instead of working I decided to volunteer, with Grand Canyon. I did audio video at first but quickly realized that it was stupid to do audio video at the Grand Canyon and I just hiked every weekend. I quickly learned that I could walk very fast in high temperatures, that this was probably my greatest talent yet. But alas I had to return to the city to finish animation college. I no longer cared about Steven Universe or Tangled, all I could think about was the sunbaked red rock that had forged me into the man I am today. Nothing made me feel more alive than being on the brink of heatstroke. I worked odd jobs, I even worked at a Patagonia and still own all the clothes I got from there to this day. I worked on an island with a prison on it. I worked in a climbing gym. But then, covid happened. I lost all my jobs. But I had something better than a job: two thousand dollars, plus unemployment, courtesy of daddy Uncle Sam. So I signed up for EMT school. It wasn't glamorous. My first day working as an EMT was also the day I learned that the California Minimum Wage was, in fact, less than fifteen dollars. I toiled as a covid tester, spelunking in nostrils of all shapes and sizes. But then, a beacon of hope: a nearby mountain was hiring for ski patrol. I didn't know how to ski at the time, but being a straight white man, if there's one thing I'm naturally good at it's being hired for jobs I'm massively under qualified for. It was one of the best jobs I'd ever had, I would've gone back if the housing situations wasn't one of the worst I'd ever had. I saw all kinds of blood, and bones, and learned all the ways a shoulder could pop out of a human's body. Very cool stuff. I also learned how to ski pretty well. But alas, spring came, and I had to come face to face with USAjobs dot gov. That's when my current supervisor contacted me. He had one question for my references: was I an alcoholic? My references both said no, I only drink at social events after work. And thus, I was hired. The rest is history.

[amanitaphalloides]

Please give me all your unemployment, job hunting, interviewing, etc tips!

hi unemployed community member <3

I am so sorry in advance for the length of this. I’m coming at this as someone who got laid off from a corporate job and is basically looking for the same job again, so ymmv with how relevant this is, but here’s a random array of tips I have found helpful.

MY GUIDE TO BEING UNEMPLOYED!

Getting your shit together after losing a job

Things you may need/want to do quickly if you have just lost a job (ie my week 1 unemployment to do list):

apply for unemployment benefits

review, negotiate, and sign your separation agreement

make an unemployment budget

take advantage of your final weeks of employer-sponsored insurance by having last-minute doctors appointments and getting your prescriptions refilled

look for new health insurance

contact student loan servicer to request a deferment/update your payment plan

More about this:

Unemployment benefits

If you’re eligible for unemployment benefits, apply to them right away. Different states are different, but you may need to have an in-person meeting at the unemployment office before you get any money. Scheduling this can take weeks. The world will look so much brighter if you have a little income. So if you qualify, do this first!

You will typically qualify for benefits if you got laid off or fired, but you also made qualify if your contract ended. Also you can usually freelance and still get benefits depending on how much you make.

Budgeting

Making a budget was really important to me so that I could concretely see whether I needed to panic about money and so I could give myself permission to relax. My goal was to stretch my severance and unemployment as far as possible while also doing stuff I enjoy.

Here's my budget template just in case our brains work the same way. This template is based on an old budget of mine - there are items on here that I set to $0 once I got laid off. I literally did budget in movie tickets because that has a massive impact on my joy in life.

Severance

If you are getting severance, it is possible to negotiate how much you get! I was able to get a few extra weeks basically by saying “this is bad timing and my income also supports my family."

Negotiating severance is like negotiating salary in that your former employer will probably give you less than you ask for. It's unlike negotiating salary in that you usually have zero leverage so honestly you might as well do an emotional appeal. IMO

Putting together an unemployed life

Stuff I consider absolutely non-negotiable aka things I MUST do not to spiral:

Make plans with friends. Write all your social plans down in your calendar and treat them as seriously as work.

Do something other than job hunting. Pick up a hobby. Give yourself a really specific reading or movie watching challenge. Volunteer. This will allow you to feel like you have a life which is absolutely critical to your self esteem, your ability to socialize, and your ability to function. You are going to have days when you NEED to feel cool. That will be way easier if you volunteered a few days ago than if you haven't done anything joyful for weeks.

Try to take care of your physical health. Move your body, eat full meals, go to bed at a regular time. I have really realized that sometimes the difference between me feeling good and despondent is truly just like, have I slept well and eaten and exercised recently.

Do things you like doing. I think it is very common to become unemployed and feel like you have to strip away everything in your life that's not focused on the job hunt. But you cannot stop doing everything that brings you happiness and expect to be okay. You will love your life if you fill it with things you love and you will hate it if you don't.

More tips....

Make a list of free or cheap things you can do for fun and then do them! Being unemployed is a great time to go to free days at museums if there’s anything like that near you. It’s also a good time to try a new recipe, check out a new walking path, FaceTime with a friend, write your grandma a letter, make diary comics, listen to new albums, watch movies you always meant to watch... for me though getting out of the house is especially important. I am constantly googling "free things to do in chicago this weekend" lol it pays off especially in a city!

I literally make Google calendar events for myself that are like "free museum day." I need to protect that time and treat it like an appointment to make myself actually do things.

If you have friends who wfh, go hang out with them and job hunt while they're working!

Applying for jobs

Tell everyone that you are job hunting. Post it far and wide. A lot of people get referral bonuses so they'll be trying to help you!

Job boards I use most heavily: Idealist, Otta, Built In, LinkedIn

This is so obvious but a lesson I really learned recently: only apply to places if you would take the job. If you're like "realistically I would not do that for that salary range" do not apply. you are gonna get yourself in Situations @ me two months ago

If you have a 1st or 2nd LinkedIn connection at a job you’re looking at dm them and say you'd love to hear what they think of the company!

I have also had success messaging random people on LinkedIn. Basically following this format: "Hi [name]! I came across this job at your company - I'm really interested and I'd love to hear more about what it's like working with the team. I'm sure you're busy, but is there any chance you have 15 minute this week or next to chat with me about the company before I apply? Thanks either way!"

Not everyone will want to talk but sometimes people still give you good insight into the hiring process.

It is really important to me to have boundaries around my job search. This has varied a bit depending on my schedule but the best thing I've found is telling myself I apply to jobs 9am-12pm. At noon I am DONE.

Interviewing

My interview prep: practice my elevator pitch with a focus on why it lead me to this company, pick out a few anecdotes from my past jobs I can share (a time I messed up, something I worked on that had a good result, something that didn’t go as expected, a time I had to deal with conflict), read the job's website and any news items I can find about them, and do a little quick review of the industry.

Most commonly repeated questions I've encountered recently: what's a time you made a mistake, what kind of management style do you like, why should we hire you.

This is the first time in my life I've ever genuinely practiced an elevator pitch and I hate to say it but it's really helped

After an interview (especially a panel interview) immediately take a few notes on what people said so you can write personalized thank yous.

I hope something in that was helpful and if not I'm sorry for the wall of text LOL but hugs and kisses it is all gonna be ok!!!

[meraki-yao]

Yo, meraki, just checkin' in, you okay???

Aw! Hi! Thanks for checking in!

I'm doing okay! Sorry I haven't been as active, but I've been kind of busy in my real life: I have classes to catch up on (because I missed like, half of my physiology class due to shitty mental health and me just hating the subject) and assignment deadlines approaching. On top of school I have some other commitments and stuff I want to do: RWRB Big Bang that I'm writing for, I volunteered to help with backstage work for a carnival at the end of April, I started going to the gym twice a week, I'm still trying to look into getting a diagnosis and changing majors, and I'm trying to sign up for a theatre showcase that would demand rehearsals. So all this to say, I've been busy 😅

Something I also realized was I was putting the fandom's needs before my own. I have such a drive to help out people who come to my inbox that I spend more time answering asks than doing my tasks. It didn't help with my productivity, and it was starting to get draining. So I'm also learning to set boundaries and limits for myself when it comes to that.

Oh but please don't take this the wrong way! If you have a genuine question I'm still more than happy to answer you! It's my fault for not doing this in a way that's suitable and healthy for me. I'll get around to answering your ask, but I have to do it at my own pace. Please be patient with me, and thank you.

So yeah! That's a little life update! Again, thanks for checking on me! That was really kind of you ❣️🫂

#anon ask #answered #personal

[damnknoxandothernonsense]

knox’s head cannons for sam

He gives me the vibes of being scared of heights

no I will not elaborate

Avid tea drinker as well

despises coffee

he doesn’t see the appeal to it at all

however flavored leaf water???? 

where does he sign up???

Has an entire cute set up in his kitchen dedicated to various teas he has

Darlin’ also got him a cute tea kettle for his birthday and teared up

obviously he won’t admit it and swore Darlin’ to secrecy

Darlin’ refuses to come to him about any major injuries

however will in fact force him to look and kiss every tiny paper cut they receive

Sam hates this with a burning passion

still “kisses it better” every time without fail

Also knows how to sew?? 

And is pretty good at it

like he makes it so no-one knows that it was even torn in the first place

Sewn up all of Darlin’s ripped clothes when they aren’t home

Really wants to rescue a Pitbull

he doesn’t want to ask Darlin’ 

he doesn’t know how that all works with the werewolf stuff??

like will there be territory issues??

could that traumatize the dog???

Does regularly go an volunteer at animal shelters to satisfy his intense desire to get one without talking to Darlin’

Darlin eventually finds out and started laughing because they found it hilarious 

they got him one for his birthday and that man didn’t stop smiling for months

if you want to read more, you can find my master list here!

if you want to request something my rules and the characters I write for can be found here!

who would be interested in a taglist?

#redacted asmr #redacted headcanons #redacted audio #redacted sam #redacted sam collins #redacted sam/darlin #sam/darlin #sam collins

[lyssified]

i'm asking you about hemingway what would you like to say?

okay first of all THANK YOU for this ask and i'm so sorry I took my sweet time answering it

anyway I have a lot to say abt this so I hope you don't mind if it turns into a little bit of a rant because YES Hemingway was terrible and kind of a freak in a /neg way but he also had the most insane 22 years of life I have EVER heard of

buckle up y'all :)

also trigger warnings for discussions of war and not super graphic injury, dead bodies, horrifying age gaps, discussion and threats of suicide, and just generally Hemingway being a fucking awful person

guys my sources for this is 4 weeks of reading and documentary watching in English class, don't come at me if this isn't exact because i'm going mostly off memory here

so Ernest Hemingway, if you haven't heard of this guy, is a super super famous American writer remembered for his short stories and completely changing the game in literature. he was also kind of a womanizer and had like 4 wives, he was also homophobic and misogynist and stuff. in my opinion his stories are pretty average although the subtext is usually super interesting & there's a lot of great discussion to be had (I will refer you to this pdf of the complete collection of his short stories)

so anyway, Hemingway was born in 1899 and he grew up in Oak Park, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America as the second oldest of like 9 kids. growing up, his mother used to do a silly little thing where she would twin Hemingway and his older sister as either two boys or two girls, and it would be so convincing that their neighbors were confused and thought she had 2 sets of twins. Hemingway eventually grew out of that and started to hate the practice. he began to idolize his father, who was a doctor and also had depression. Hemingway blamed all of his father's issues on his mother and most people think his hatred from women stems from his hatred of his mother because he wanted to be like his dad so badly

so anyway, as much as Hemingway would grow to have literally 4 wives, he was essentially remembered as being a no bitches loser in high school. he had very few friends, sucked at most sports, was pretty clumsy because of his nearsightedness, and really enjoyed taking solo trips to hunt and fish in Michigan. by himself.

naturally, when he was 17 all he wanted was to enlist in the army and fight in WWI because he was a manly man like that. however, he was also really really scared that the army would reject him because he kind of sucked at physical exertion and was also nearsighted and so he signed up to join the red cross!! he was immediately fucking deployed to the FRONT LINES in Italy and promptly almost fainted upon seeing his first dead body. he decided he wasn't really about that almost fainting life so he decided he wanted to drive the ambulance !! and he did that pretty well. for about 2 weeks

and then he said quote unquote "i'm bored of that shit" and volunteered to BIKE up the MOUNTAINS with a CART full of CHOCOLATE AND CIGARETTES to bring to the soldiers. he was the snack boy. he was the fucking snack boy for the army. and then a mortar shell exploded like. 2 feet away from him and embedded him with an absolute Fuck Ton of shrapnel ! he actually wrote that he felt as if his soul left his body in that very moment and then floated back to him

so that absolute Fuck Ton of shrapnel stayed in his leg for quite a while actually, because when they finally got him to a hospital in Milan, he REFUSED TO BE TREATED. he said there were people that needed the treatment more and that he could live with the Fuck Ton of shrapnel for a little while longer. so anyway when he finally did get around to having like 275 pieces of shrapnel removed from his leg, he had some serious mental illness going on. he went through somewhere around 13 surgeries without any painkillers or stuff to numb the pain because a) he was super depressed and wanted to die and b) was also kind of a masochist and enjoyed the pain.

so Hemingway was in the hospital recovering for a fucking WHILE right, and he meets this nurse. she's 27 (he's like 19 or 20 or something) and her name is Agnes von kurowsky. she's his night nurse and they fell in love. they did some cute things like her leaving her hairpin under his hospital bed pillow and them reading to each other late at night. they also did some not so cute things like her calling him "kid" and also sneaking alcohol into the hospital in the wee small hours of the morning and her getting drunk on the job

anyway, Hemingway finally recovers and shit is going GREAT for him. he's got a nurse girlfriend who is 6 or 7 years older than him who writes him every day from france, and he just got back to Oak Park and the US was so impressed with his masochistic depressed surgery-with-no-painkillers thing that they gave him a medal!! so naturally, he thought he was hot shit for that. he started parading around the neighborhood in his full uniform and charging the residents to listen to him tell completely false stories about the war.

around this time was when shit started going downhill. Hemingway received a breakup letter from France from Agnes, and the letter said that she did love him, but not in a boyfriend girlfriend way. IN A MOTHER SON WAY (eeeeeeeeeeeeew). so he got son-zoned. and he wasn't very happy about that, so he decided to start partying in the woods with minors and going hunting and fishing again to prove to himself that he was still hot shit. and his parents really didn't like the "parading around in full uniform telling lies and then going to party with minors in the woods" schtick, so they told him hey ! cut that out !

direct if somewhat paraphrased quote from hemingway's dad: "shorten your temper, respect women, and fear God"

so Hemingway moved the fuck out of there and found himself ANOTHER girfriend !! her name was Hadley Richardson and she was also really really depressed. on the day of their wedding, Hemingway actually threatened suicide but she guilt tripped him into not doing that and then they moved to France and made friends with a lot of artsy people and Hemingway started writing again. He got a job for a newspaper and tried to get some of his short stories published. he got invited to a conference in Sweden at one point and met a publisher that was interested in his work. he asked Hadley to bring his work up to meet him, so she packed EVERYTHING into a trunk and took it on the train- she had it delivered to her car. when she got there, the trunk was gone. to this day we still don't know where all of Hemingway's early work is.

anyway. let's recap. AT THE RIPE AGE OF 22!! Ernest hemingway was: dressed as a girl by his mom, learned intense hatred of woman at a young age, got no bitches in highschool, got too scared to join the army, drove an ambulance, became the snack boy, got a Fuck Ton of shrapnel in his leg, underwent 13 surgeries without painkillers, fell in love with his nurse, got a medal for masochism, got son-zoned, got told to respect women and fear god, married his first of 4 wives, and lost every single one of his short stories that he had ever written

AND HE WENT ON TO DO MORE INSANE SHIT but this is getting really really long so we'll call this part 1 and i'll reblog this with some other stuff I find insane about him !!

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK SORRY THIS WAS A RANT

#asks #ernest hemingway #rants and ramblings #lyss says things

[finerllines]

at the listening party [dad!h]

a/n: hello back with another blurb from the darcy and dylan universe. i know this is a little late considering the release happened months ago but i think its a fun blurb nonetheless so i hope you guys like it :D ALSO my posts havent been showing up under some tags which is quite annoying so reblogs would be very helpful!!!

summary: the missus helps organise a harry's house event and harry loves being with his family

wc: 1.6k+

cw: just fluff

-

Life has been moving fast. Since promo for Harry's House begun, Harry has been flying around America, doing interview after interview, and rehearsing a new setlist on top of that. Coachella was the first big event of this work cycle with Harry leaving London for the first time since finishing filming. Even though his team was prepared to make special accommodations for y/n and the twins to accompany him to the dessert, she didn't feel comfortable bringing their barely one year old babies to a music festival, so she elected to stay home. She was glad she did because as Harry's unofficial representative, she volunteered to plan the Harry's House fan events, which meant that she was in meetings and liaising with vendors and organisers daily.

The Styles family only reunited about a month after at the listening party in New York. When she arrives at the party venue, she situates her nanny and kids in a room at the back of the venue before going around to check that everything is in place. And that's how Harry finds her, signing for the food by the back door.

Before she can start pushing the trolley of food to the tables, a strong pair of arms wrap around her body, tugging her back into something sturdy. She knows its her husband without even looking, of course; his scent and body is too familiar.

He kisses her once on her temple and once on her neck. "I missed you lovie. I hate leaving you at home so much," he whispers into the crook of her neck, burying his face as deep as he can.

That is his favourite place to be, tucked into his wife and breathing her in.

"I missed you too, H. I'm so proud of you. And the babies miss you so much."

"Are they here yet, I wanna see them."

After delegating the task of setting up the food to a member of staff, y/n leads her eager husband, who is swinging their connected arms excitedly, to the baby room. The moment Harry sees the twins crawling on the carpet in matching duck onesies, his face lights up and starts making grabby hands at them.

"Hi my loves," he coos, "daddy missed you." Joining them on the carpet, he seats the twins on his lap, one on each thigh. "Oh, I missed these cuddles so much. Both of you look smashing. Matching with daddy, very good choice."

Maybe it's the narcissist in him but he loves commissioning baby replicas of his outfits. He loves when his mini-mes look like mini-hims. And he has no shame letting people know too, didn't even stutter when asking Gucci to make identical feather coats for his one-year olds.

"Do you want to bring them around? I was thinking of letting them explore the couches and the pop-up house before everyone arrives. They also have a change of clothes so they could try painting the mural."

Harry looks up at his wife and smiles. "You think of everything don't you? Thank you for organising the event, you did such a good job."

They share a quick kiss as she blushes, feeling shy from his praise.

"I didn't do much and it was fun. You know I love doing stuff like this."

He rolls his eyes at her modesty and passes Dylan to her before asking a photographer to take a family photo. One of them smiling and one with him quickly kissing her cheek.

-

They let the twins waddle around the pop-up house as they watch with love and adoration in their eyes. Seeing how steady the twins have become on their feet makes Harry a little emotional, feeling proud yet sad that they are slowly becoming their own individuals.

When Darcy makes her way towards the shallow steps, his arms shoot out on instinct, ready to catch her if she falls. But she is completely unphased. She does take pauses between each step, waiting for both feet to meet on each step before making it up the next, but she manages by herself no problem.

"Since when can they walk up stairs? They're babies.” y/n doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s pouting.  

"H, those are barely stairs. And once you see what a mess they make with the paint you'll remember that they're still very much babies."

Sure enough, their tiny baby hands don't even try to grip onto the paint brushes. They toss them onto the ground then attack the plates of paint with their bare hands, shouting in excitement when their hands emerge pink and yellow.

Harry recognises the mischievous look in Darcy's eye and quickly picks her up when she starts inching towards her brother with her hands outstretched.

"Uh, uh, uh. We are not having a paint fight with our brother today. Mummy got special matching duck outfits for us so, let's try not to ruin them, okay."

He places her in front of the mural instead, encouraging her to smear her hands on the wall.

"Is that fun?" he asks in a baby voice, face matching Darcy's look of delight and amazement. "That's a very good job honey. Let's see how your brother's doing. Oh, he's an artist just like you."

Waddling back to squat beside y/n, he bumps his shoulder against hers and they both lean in until their heads rest on each other. There's no need for words. They wear matching smiles, eyes following Darcy and Dylan's every move, only breaking away when the twins start smearing paint on their faces and manically giggling.

"Okay, messy babies, we're done with the paint for today. I was wondering how long we could keep the paint off ourselves."

"I want a photo with them like this," Harry says, turning to call the photographer over.

The Styles family smile for another photo, or the parents smile while the kids continue to rub paint all over them, then they are popping into the back room to change into clean clothes.

A knock on the door interrupts them. Someone from the team pops their head around the door to inform them that doors are opening in 10 minutes and asks y/n if she wants to perform one last check. So, their family time is cut short, but they let their nanny take over while they prepare for the day ahead.

While y/n has a checklist of items to oversee, Harry doesn't actually have anything important to do before the event starts. He's more than happy to accompany her. Like an eager puppy, he is just a couple steps behind her, following her from one area to another, trying to peak over her shoulder to see what she sees. When he gets bored of all the counting and ticking things off lists, he slips his phone out and tries to take sneaky candid shots of her working. Of course, his movements hardly go undetected.

"H," she scolds, covering her profile with her hand, "stop."

"But you look so pretty, especially when you're in work mode."

She blushes. "You're embarrassing me."

"Oh yeah," he challenges, "how 'bout now."

Harry basically tackles his wife, wrapping his arms tightly around her, the momentum causing both of them to stumble to the side and reach out to the table for stability. Completely unbothered by the commotion or attention, he loudly plants kisses all over her face, causing her to giggle girlishly from the affection.

"H, we are at work." She tries to push him away.

"Yeah, and we're the bosses. So, I'll smother my wife in kisses if I want to."

-

It took a lot of convincing to persuade y/n to participate in the listening party with everyone. She never liked to be too visible at any of his shows or events because she never wanted to take any attention off of Harry. Harry, however, likes when he gets to share the spotlight with her, because none of it would happen without her. That's why she gets writing credits on songs that she gives input on, even if all she did was tell him which version she likes best. Tonight, is the perfect opportunity to appreciate her, so he laid it on thick with the whining and the pleading, wearing her down by reminding her that they only have a short time in the city together and he wants to spend every minute with her. It worked, as if she could say no to him, so she is stood at the back of the room instead of hidden away with the babies.

"Before we begin, there's one more person I need to thank." He extends his arm towards his wife. "None of this would have been possible without my wife. I'm not even talking about being my muse and inspiration for so much of my music. Everything you see here today, the mural wall, the food, the colour scheme – literally everything – was all planned and organised by my wife. She did all this and kept the house together while I was away pissing about in the dessert in feather coats. So, if you get the chance to speak to her today, please tell her what a good job she did and remind her that I love her."

Trying to prevent herself from crying, y/n rolls her eyes half-heartedly and flips him off, earning her a wink.

To his credit, Harry manages to last more than halfway through the album before he makes his way over to y/n to tuck her into his side. When the opening notes of 'Keep Driving' start to play, he cups her face that is resting on his chest and strokes her cheek tenderly.

"I love you," he mouths when she looks up at him with watery eyes.

"I love you, too."

#harry styles fanfic #harry styles blurbs #harry styles imagines #harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles blurb #harry styles imagine #finerllines

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for killing a guy?

So where I grew up was like all culty, out in the woods, isolated, don’t like outsiders and such. Everyone there sucks. My whole life I tried to prove myself to them but they just weren’t having it. I was a weird little freak and they didn’t know my mom and my dad left so ig that just made me defective or something. Anyways, my big day finally came where I could prove myself without it being subjective opinion or anything. Just plain and simple black and white. Nothing complicated about it. The new second in command was going to be chosen.

How that works is anyone who wants to try to get the newly opened position can volunteer to go in the fight pit basically. Everyone who volunteers goes in at the same time and it’s a big fight to the death (or until forfeit). The only rules once you’re in there basically are: you can’t leave the pit without forfeiting, you can’t kill someone who has forfeited and must allow them to safely leave the pit, you can’t un-forfeit, and the last one remaining gets to be second in command. Very simple rules, no one ever breaks them cuz there’s so few and stuff. People also tend to forfeit rather than die and most people don’t wanna kill the people they grew up with so there doesn’t tend to be as much deatb as you’d think there would be in a “fight to the death.”

Anyways, the big day. I volunteer ofc cuz then if I win, everyone will have to respect me and see me for my skills and how much I’ve trained and everything. My two former best friends (they don’t know what the internet is so I can use their names, haha (ooc: these are ocs. Using names won’t spoil any media or anything). Python F and Leaf M. I basically grew up with them. Python stole the job I had wanted for my whole life tho so I hated her a bit and then the two of them stopped talking to me and pretended we were never friends) also volunteered for the fight. Yayyy… Also I overheard them plotting before the actual fight. Python didn’t even want to become second in command. She was just helping Leaf become second in command so he could impress his stupid mom (she sucks. And that’s not just my opinion, like she objectively sucks. Not the point tho). I feel like that shouldn’t be allowed, but the rules say nothing about it so whatever. I didn’t say anything and it’s not like anyone would listen to me anyways. I’m still pissed about it tho

Fight happens, blah blah, long story short, I dropped some big rocks that were like loose along the walls of the pit on Leaf and the person he was fighting, which would be fine and dandy except for the fact that right as I did so and couldn’t stop the rocks from falling anymore, the guy Leaf was fighting forfeitted, making it so I *technically* killed someone who forfeitted and therefore not only eliminating me, but also getting me sentenced tl the death tunnels (exactly what it sounds like) cuz I killed someone I wasn’t allowed to and yk, murder is bad and all. Then freaking Python got second in command, stealing the job I wanted for a second time, but not only that! Her role was effective immediately. She just watched as I was taken away to the death tunnels and didn’t say a word. Didn’t use her new role to even *try* to save her childhood best friend. Like yeah, I hate her guts, but I find it hard to believe that I’d just stand by and watch her get sentenced to the tunnels without a single word. And everyone says I’m the heartless one! She didn’t even want the job!! If she saved me and everything got cleared up and I wasn’t found to be guilty of illegal murder, I could have taken the job she didn’t want anyways. I could be second and everything would be fine!

Yeah, I did in fact kill two people and not feel bad about it really, but that was allowed. It was legal murder and they knew what they were signing up for. The only issue is that technically that guy forfeitted. What was I supposed to do?? Reverse gravity????? I can’t just suddenly gain magical powers to reverse stuff. If I could’ve stopped the rocks from hitting the guy, I would’ve, but there was absolutely zero way for me to do so so idk what they expect of me. They just saw a chance to get rid of me and also not have me as the second of command, so they took it.

Anyways, though, I know I’m not the asshole, but I need to prove to someone that I’m in the right so I need more people to agree with me. Thanks in advance for helping prove I’m in the right B)

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

[icemankazansky]

Tag Game: Get to Know Me

Thanks for the tag, @brendaonao3! (Note for people who tag me in tag games: I love to be tagged in tag games, even though my typical response time suggests otherwise.)

Name: Carly

Pronouns: she/her

Star sign: Maverick sun, Iceman rising Sagittarius sun, Leo rising, Pisces moon

Number of siblings (+ any fun facts): One of each, both younger. They look like each other, but I don't look like them at all. (Oddly, my sister and I both look like our mother, but in different ways.) When my sister and I were little, my mom used to have to tell people that yes, we had the same father. (Bc people think it's fine to ask stuff like that? Also I have very curly hair, and it's a recessive trait that one person in every generation on my mom's side gets, but people are so weird about natural curls, and every new hair dresser I see asks, "Who did you get them from?" and a disturbing number of them have made jokes about my mother's infidelity and my questionable parentage when I inform them no, neither of my parents have curls. Who raised y'all?)

Number of pets & their names: Currently, I myself only have one animal, my dog, Elio. But 1. I am actively looking for another dog, 2. My family has a ton of dogs, and 3. We all volunteer for dog rescues (Yes, plural. My sister actually started her own 503c NPO rescue a couple years ago bc her own, like, extra credit financing of homeless dog medical bills was going to bankrupt her, so she had to start a charity so people could donate. She specializes in senior and special needs dogs, but works with local city and county animal control agencies so she gets a lot of breeder and hoarder surrenders, and subsequently ends up with, for example, 18 purebred Bernese Mountain Dog puppies several times a year.) The point is, there's, like, a whole lot of dogs in here.

Fandoms: They are legion. Mostly active in Top Gun rn. Again. Still. Still again.

Favorite song: They too are legion, but include Fiona Apple - I Know, Fleetwood Mac - Silver Springs, Hozier - From Eden, Lake Street Dive - Good Kisser, Bad Company - Bad Company, Natalie Merchant - My Skin. Lately, I'm listening to the following a very normal amount: Tracy Chapman - You're the One (it is Icemav af BTW check it out)

Favorite author: Fiction: Neil Gaiman. Nonfiction: Mary Roach.

Favorite fic type: I like established relationships, true love and people just enjoying each other, and happy endings.

Favorite holiday: Ugh I hate this. Um, New Years Eve.

Do you have a partner (romantic, qpr, etc)?: I already told you I have a dog. Nope.

Hobbies: Dogs, writing, art of various kinds (mostly drawing, some painting, and I am always trying new things like building a tufted headboard, teaching myself to sew, or making custom funko pops), gif making, Val Kilmer.

Fun facts about you: I've never had a cavity. I ran over myself with my own car. I can't figure out if I have 12 tattoos or 13. I can French and Dutch braid my own hair. My favorite perfume is Chance by Chanel, but I also wear Daisy by Marc Jacobs if I want something lighter.

#Tag games #About me

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

starting with the self-ship questions! first of all, how did you and your beloved meet? was it love at first sight or did some time have to go by? c:

allie~ i never do self-ship stuff on this blog and i should, i deserve it. we all deserve to indulge in self-shipping

mikasa and i are the epitome of friends to lovers. i don’t see her being the type to just get into relationships or start dating on the fly, she likes to know a person first. we meet through a mutual friend, probably armin, who says he thinks we’d get along and we exchange contact info to be nice. it’s kinda awkward at first since she isn’t the most talkative person and i am and if i think someone isn’t into a conversation i’ll drop it because i don’t wanna force it if someone ain’t feeling like talking. but i make a joke after seeing an exchange between armin and some poor soul triggering his sassy scorpio ass about how “we really can’t judge a book by its cover, armin be putting people in body bags i swear” and she laughs and starts telling me stories from their high school days where his pettiness really unlocked

friendship comes naturally from that with us talking quite frequently through text and we’ll end up planning to go to bookstores together and so on and so forth. i ask her out and because i don’t do ‘dinner dates’ for a first date, i ask how she feels about a couple’s cooking class for a date. the rest is history

mitsuya my beloved who i met by virtue of me seeing him looking fine as hell across the way. i fell first, he fell harder definitely because his voice sounds like liquid gold to me and he is such a pretty boy. i volunteered as tribute to be a model for one of his projects even though i hate that type of thing but it was just the excuse i needed to hang out and segue into some sort of friendship because i’ll be damned if we ain’t at least friends. when i need a break from the tired college life and he needs a break from work or being the best brother in the world, we hang out

he beats me to asking him on a date and i get strangely competitive after he asks by mentioning i wanted to ask him on one first and i insist we play rock paper scissors to see who gets to ask who first. he wins because he cheated by kissing me. i’ll get back his ass eventually but i enjoyed the kiss while we were having it

chigiri is another one that takes a while after meeting. in my mind, we both went to go see a movie and we were the only ones in the theatre and the movie was so bad we started complaining and those complaints started bouncing off each other as jokes and we decided to sit next to each other and complain about the movie proper. it takes a while for us to get together though because... i don’t take Ls that are preventable. i don’t confess to anyone that i don’t think there’s a good 50/50 to 60/40 chance they like me back. vulnerability? nope.

i confess first and got rejected but we remain friends but in an effort to maintain the friendship i try too hard to deny any signs of his feelings towards me changing towards the romantic. reject me once, that’s cool and completely valid. reject me twice because i possibly saw too deep into your feelings? absolutely not and that is an L i undoubtedly deserve. anything he does is twisted into being platonic if i try hard enough. chigiri says he appreciates me on a deep level? cool i just went from friend status to bestie status. bro got me flowers? he got me sunflowers, that’s pretty platonic to give a friend. he asked me to tutor him on a subject he already knows well? bruh that ain’t an excuse to spend time with me, he just wants to make sure he fully understands the subject!!

with nagi i think it was more like, clumsy encounter meet cute. like, you already know how clumsy i am TAT i remember complaining to you one day last year about how i dropped my christmas presents two times in a row and then proceeded to fall in the kitchen trying to dance. literally there is no way my first encounter with nagi isn’t based in clumsiness

like, maybe i knocked over his phone and panicked and insisted i’d pay to fix the screen. he says it’s cool but i insist we meet again to talk at the cafe on campus and figure out a venmo situation in a couple hours after a class. fast forward to then he tells me it was just the screen protector that just broke and he already has a spare. then he says something like “but if you really feel bad and have some weird honor system, if you play genshin just help me grind in co-op. i’m grinding for dehya” and we go from co-op buddies to occasionally hanging out in person buddies to now i’m wearing his hoodie and he’s wearing my bonnet because he likes how it just falls over his face like an eye mask and then we start hooking up and nagi randomly asks one night “this is an exclusive thing between us right?” “yeah” “cool, good night zzz” “zzz”

#look she's answering #the godsend ask while i'm sitting in a class i am auditing #look it's self shipping hours #nyla + mikasa #nyla + nagi #nyla + mitsuya #nyla + chigiri

[bringmefoxgloves]

(vent cw)

i really hate myself rn. i need to wash my bedding cause it feels gross but my step dad is washing the entire high school football team’s uniforms. i want to rip off this heart monitor even though i have one more day on it and i want to feel clean and normal and not hate how my hair looks and that i’m sweating so much, so i always feel gross. my room and this house feel disgusting and stresses me out and yet my room is the only place i can hide.

and i just now sat out in the kitchen eating something i fear will affect my tummy (chicken alfredo which has a lot of cheese but i forgot my lactaid) and trying to hold back my physical cringing at how loud my younger brother was yelling directly in my ear as he was telling a story to my mom on my other side.

it something about his wallet disappearing from the locker room because my step dad snagged it so it wouldn’t get stolen and how he was ready to beat up any kid who took it (they were all freshmen and he’s a senior) and then blew up on my step dad for taking it. i think my younger brother honestly has anger issues in how he was ready to employ violence as his first instinct.

and then as soon as i finished my plate i stood up, felt dizzy as my family immediately commented on me getting up so fast without talking to them. i told them i was tired, i just wanted to get the hand washes done while i had energy left as i was fading fast. which lead to my brother bringing up last night and then i had to expel more energy i didn’t have to defend myself against my brothers half assed apology as i tried to explain what happened. all for my step father and mother to say that ‘this seems to be a communication issue’ and take his side and it fell on me and *i* should have informed my brother that i was going to bed.

however, i told my parents i was going to bed early because my younger brother was still on an hours long facetime call with his girlfriend (who he drove to see… overnight? like he stayed over with her. wtf. so it’s fine for him, a 17 year old, to do that when you never would have let me do the same if i had asked when i was his age? i smell some sexism here) and wasn’t available for me to tell. i fucking told someone, i told my brother but he was too eager to get back to his facetime with his girlfriend to listen to me as i half sobbed from my bed when he woke me up with a pound on my door, i told him that i was too- and that’s all i could get out before he slammed the door last night telling me to just do the dishes. so i told someone, he just didn’t fucking listen because i must be lazy or trying to avoid chores.

i would have assumed my mom or maybe my step father (but who am i kidding. he’s not done hand washes if someone else cooks in years) to help cover for me but they didn’t, last night they just watched another episode of the good doctor and went to bed. or maybe i just wanted my younger brother to do them (he had a standing offer to do all the dishes if i was tired a few days ago? guess that has been rescinded) but no.

instead i had my entire family telling me this was my fault while i was trying to shakily walk around to put stuff away in the kitchen. they finally shut up when i told them it took me two whole hours to do the dishes last night. and then my step dad muttered under his breath that he could hear how long i was doing dishes last night. like i was still the problem.

but i’m now on my bed and i just want to cry but i won’t because someone will come in and try to comfort me and ask what’s wrong and i can’t explain it without sounding ungrateful and entitled and weird and asking too much from my family and this fucking world

my entire scalp itches and i should finish repairing the pants i wanted to wear to pride which is in three days but i don’t know if i’ll have the energy. i also signed up for two volunteer shifts at pride cause i thought i would have more energy but this week has just been fucking draining me. i don’t want to let people down, i don’t want to miss out on my community, but i’m afraid i won’t be able to summon up the energy. i know i will crash afterwards for sure.

i can feel myself on the verge of a meltdown and i am in sensory overload mode cause my brother played such loud music in the shower that i could clearly hear it in my room, and everyone eating and talking made me want to scream, and now my parents are watching another good doctor episode in the living room with the sound up so loud. i stg i’m going to break.

today i still had to clean up after everyone just leaving random dishes out and crap scattered around cause i’m still the live in housekeeper as an adult child not paying rent, my bank account is empty (i have less than two dollars in there but i’m scared of asking my parents for more money cause i see my brother taking more money from them while they say we have to tighten our finances), i can’t get a job because of my health. i want to continue in my plans of opening my own business but i don’t know how i will with everything going on.

i’m scared and uncomfortable with how weak my legs are, i just want some time alone and to rest. i want my own space without anyone breathing down my neck, without judging me, without thinking if i just applied myself i could do things. i want someplace without my step dad asking me if i have more energy now, as if that answer will change right now in the conditions i’m in. someplace where i didn’t have my mother going on a new diet kick or shaking some alternative medicine that will surely cure my long covid and fix my gut microbiome (because if i fixed my gut i would get all my energy back and be normal again, it will fix whatever is wrong with me, cure me and make me normal again) in my face.

i want a place where i could eat at the table without feeling like i’m in the middle of a battle field and i can hear everyone’s chewing and breathing like they’re right in my ear, a place where my brother won’t walk in on me naked in the bathroom (because that happened today). a place i could shut my door without being called antisocial and leave it open without everyone coming to ask me to do something for them.

i want a place i could be alone, where i could spread out and inhabit my own space, someplace i could eat and make my own food, control what is in the cupboards and fridge, that i could lay on the floor and stim freely, a place where i didn’t have five pets assaulting my nose and demanding attention and getting hair everywhere.

a place i could use a shower stool without being called lazy or over exaggerating, someplace i could use a wheelchair because i desperately need to, someplace i could have things laid out to assist me rather than hinder me.

someplace i could dress as i want/have my hair as i want with no one questioning what my gender is. someplace i could have my own private sexual life and not have to answer my brother’s questions about my sexual orientation and identity and what i have done or listen to him boast about his conquests.

i want my own place, independent and stable and safe for a disabled and neurodivergent person like me.

but the world isn’t set up for that.

i look at other people my age or even younger who are in better places, with better jobs, living on their own, able to care for themselves and it just feels so unfair that i can’t have that. that my mind and my body aren’t set up to operate like that without a lot of help.

i know i will need help for a long time yet and it’s clashing with my desire for independence. i’m fucking 26 and living in my parents house. but i still need to stay here cause in two years my top surgery will take place and i have no one else to care for me.

i feel like i’m stuck in amber and going fucking nowhere.

i’m just…. i’m so tired. i know i’ll be fine eventually, all’s well that ends well and if it isn’t well yet it isn’t over and all that, i know. i know i just have to be patient but i’m tired.

anyways thanks for reading and i’m certain i will feel better tomorrow.

#wes babbles #sorry for the super long vent. it’s write this or sob until i feel like puking and for reasons in the vent i don’t want to do that

[tiffanylamps]

I wish you would write a fic where...after crying in each other's arms over Nam Sang Bae in episode 10, Joo Won volunteers to take Dong Sik home (as a partner should, he reasons), but takes him to his apartment instead when he thinks about the empty Lee family home and the hole in the basement where Yu Yeon was found. Dong Sik is too distraught to complain, so Joo Won just takes him and puts him to bed. And while Joo Won observes the man sleeping in his bed, he wonders why he did it, why did he feel such a strong need to make sure Dong Sik wasn't alone...basically pining very hard but being very unaware of it at the same time 😂 there is something about your Joo Won that makes me think you could project that kind of oblivious but helpless longing really well!

I wish you would write a fic where... Hey anon, I did kiiiiind of write this already a long time ago! But I wrote it as Dong Sik looking after Joo Won (who's in shock and dealing with mild hyperthermia, as a result of being in the February-cold seawater). It's a chapter from my fic By Desire, and Dong Sik is trying so hard to keep it together but he's numb as fuck (and at one point, dry heaves into Joo Won's kitchen sink because he can't believe he's lost another person). Whereas Joo Won is a mess. He showers and after receiving a phone call from Hyuk, he falls apart as the gravity of the evening's events finally sink in. He expects Dong Sik to hate him, and keeps trying to get Dong Sik to answer why is he being so kind to him? He brings up some stuff that happened in the previous chapter but Dong Sik doesn't want him to talk about it, so he puts him to bed. He wraps him up and waits until Joo Won falls asleep before leaving his side of the bed. He thinks about Min Jeong and how - when she was a child and distressed - he would stroke her hair to calm her down. But he can't bring himself to do it for Joo Won; he's terrified of what will happen if he gives in to that feeling (wanting. needing. pining). He thinks about leaving but before he knows it, he's fallen asleep on the end of Joo Won's bed, only to wake up to a phone call from Jung Je. He leaves without Joo Won knowing he stayed.

Here's a super rough snippet. It's pretty different to my current writing style and I don't like it all that much, but I hope you enjoy it:

“Lee Dong Sik,” Joo Won’s eyes are tearful, forlorn, and so, so sorry. Dong Sik swallows the tightness in his throat, his eyes are burning, and gives the lost boy opposite him a piteous smile, or as close to a smile as he can muster. Joo Won’s features fall into fragments but that doesn’t stop the older man from nodding over to the bed, “at least sit down, Inspector Han. You might fall over.”

Joo Won’s lip quivers but he lets Dong Sik send him back to bed anyway. “I don’t understand,” he mumbles through tired breaths.

Dong Sik bends and pulls the covers away and without touching him, he guides Joo Won onto the mattress. “Good. Now get under the covers,” he coaxes gently.

Joo Won moves awkwardly, his face grimacing, making that injury to his ribs all the more real. He gasps, his eyes snapping shut as he rides out the pain. Breathe, Han Joo Won. “Why-?”

“Lift your arm,” Dong Sik says gently.

Joo Won lies on his side facing Dong Sik and the older man takes his place, sitting in the curve that Joo Won's body left behind. Regrettably, he's reminded of how yin and yang chase after one another, but he sighs that unhelpful thought away. He used to do this for Min Jeong when she wasn’t feeling well or had a bad day at school, or the many nights she didn’t want to go home. He would sit with her and let her talk, sometimes when she was inconsolable, he would run his fingers through her hair until the tears eased off. If only he had seen the signs- if he hadn’t been so blind- if he had actually been paying attention- if- no, don’t do that. Not now.

The young man eyes him and takes in the extra weight on the bed, the warmth of central heating, and the soft glow from the bathroom light and… starts to cry. Dong Sik wants nothing more than to run his fingers through his hair but they're ice cold, rigid and unable to move. He shouldn't, he won't, he can't. They can't.

Joo Won chokes on a cry. He must be exhausted if he’s allowing himself to be so openly vulnerable and Dong Sik can't stop the pickling ache in his chest: a feeling he has only reserved for a select few. When did Joo Won become someone he cared for? Fuck. This isn't fair. The young inspector continues to cry quietly and doesn’t even notice when Dong Sik has a moment of weakness and brushes a tear away from his cheek. 

“I still smell like it... When will it go away?” Dong Sik knows what he really means: when will this pain go away? Never. That’s the truth, but he can’t bring himself to say it. Han Joo Won will always feel this pain: the pain of being involved in another person’s murder, the pain of not being there on time, and the sickening pain of physically holding a dead body whilst trying to stay afloat in winter-cold water. He will never forget this pain. Nor should he. 

But Dong Sik can’t possibly say any of that to him, so, he just settles with the next best thing: “Take another shower in the morning. You’ll feel like yourself in no time.”

“I don’t want to be myself.”

Dong Sik’s eyes sting. What a heartbreaking thing to say- why would he want that? Joo Won covers his face and sobs like a child: foolhardy, fat tears shed with his whole heart. Dong Sik is a loving man, he can’t stand to see others in pain. So, despite it being a bad idea - one that he might regret - he places his hand on top of Joo Won’s. 

He expects him to recoil, to push Dong Sik away and it would be okay if he did. What he doesn’t expect him to do is to open up beautifully, twining their fingers together like daisies opening their petals to greet the sun. They stay like this and it’s awful but wonderful- everything he needs, everything he shouldn’t have.  His stomach flips and it takes more than it should not be pulled down in Joo Won's embrace.

Joo Won sniffles, his eye finding Dong Sik. There was something there, raw and askance: anger, confusion, greed. He pulls away with a frown, “I don’t understand.” This again. Dong Sik runs a hand over his face, he can still smell the salt. 

“I don’t understand,” Joo Won repeats, his voice heavy from exhaustion.

That was half of the problem, Joo Won doesn’t understand and he’s earnest when he says that. It’s an annoyance, no, it’s utterly disarming. Dong Sik knows how to work a room just as well as he can play a person. He’s a conductor of a band that is slowly building to a symphony in size. He sets the pace and leads the players through each movement. 

It’s almost genius how he’s able to fashion his emotions into layers by toying with other people’s assumptions, or their ideas of social norms; in times of strife or battle, his sincerity is artificial for the means of survival. Anyone who knows him is aware of this, they can see through it and even call out his bullshit if they have the huts. They know that Dong Sik shines a mirror and lets others see what they want. But Joo Won doesn’t seem to understand how mirrors work. Whenever Dong Sik holds it up to deflect him, the kid will just look past the frame and ask Dong Sik what he’s doing, completely dumbfounded. 

It wasn’t safe for Joo Won to come to his own conclusions. The boy had a creative imagination, one that will only cause issues for the whole orchestra. He’s a rogue konzertmeister, who fucks with the whole piece by modulating the key. How is Dong Sik expected to direct the way when his konzertmeister is leading himself astray?

“You don’t need to understand.”

- there is something about your Joo Won that makes me think you could project that kind of oblivious but helpless longing really well!- Thank you for saying this! I take that as a huge compliment because it is something I strive to convey whenever I write from Joo Won's pov. He's just so loving but he doesn't what love is, so the way he feels is more of a burden to him than something he can harness and use for good. Obviously, he learns and grows, but it can take him a long time to get there 😩 I hope this was of interest to you, anon!!! Thank you so much for sending me this ask. I absolutely loved it! It's a fantastic idea and I think this sequence of events would be so interesting to explore through Joo Won's funny brain, especially in a time of tragedy. Hope you have a great day! 😊

#beyond evil #jwds #ask game #ask answered #thank you <3

[i-love-you-all]

Whumptober Day 1: A Little Out of the Ordinary

If you weren’t w me last year, this is my first story for Whumptober 2022! Everyday I’ll be positing a short fanfic relating to the prompts of this event. Most stories will stay as they are, but I’ll also be posting them on AO3 as well, and some of the days that I like might get turned into longer fics (like Memory Lost and Found). Please keep in mind that any potential triggers/warnings will be found right before the story or in the tags!

This is a Viper/Omen story pre VP era when they were both just brilliant scientists.

~2k words Viper/Omen, medical experimentation

There was a silence in the room. Then, a single hand raised up.

Sabine had a million nightmares before today, and this was just one more. When they were dismissed from the meeting, she rushed to Fredrick’s side as they walked down the hall to have a chance to talk to him before the team would rush him at his lab. This would be her one time to talk to him before he had to do whatever it was that this project was attempting. She still didn’t quite understand what they were asking for. Volunteers for what? Radianite as far as they knew it was a trace substance with the potential for high volumes of energy. She heard snippets from Fred that they may have traced its existence on ancient pieces of human history, even if it went undiscovered until just recently. But what was this about integration into the human genome?

“You can’t be serious,” she whispered when she finally got a hold of him by his sleeve and dragged him into her lab. No one had even entered the same room as this substance without all the protective gear they could feasibly put on one person. When the effects were this unknown, Fred just signed up for a death wish.

But this was Fred. He was kind, intelligent, and sometimes too charismatic for his own good. So, of course, he didn’t see the issue.

“Why can’t I be? I’ve worked with this stuff longer than anyone else. I know the most about it. No one else is better trained on radianite than I am.”

She shook her head. “And what if something goes wrong? This is dangerous, you could get hurt, you could—”

“Then it’s good that I have the best doctor looking after me, yes?” He brushed some of her bangs to the side so he could stroke her cheek. “And she just happens to be so stunning and takes my breath away, and—”

“Fred, if I really took your breath away, you wouldn’t be saying all these useless things.”

He laughed despite Sabine’s frown.

“Sabine, I understand the dosages and the risks. I know what we expect to happen, and I know what the margins are. I believe in the project. Will you believe in me?”

There was that charisma that she both loved and hated. It was what drew her to him in the first place. The brilliant scientist trying to tempt the equally brilliant doctor with sweet words was not a trope she was expecting, but it was what she eventually fell for. She looked up at him and his puppy dog eyes and sighed. He held her hands in his and leaned in to press his lips to her cheek.

“Darling, what’s the worst that can happen? I end up in a hospital bed? Having you as my personal nurse for a few weeks? I’ll do my best to be careful. I just need your support.”

Sabine really had no choice but to sigh and nod her head.

“Ok. You can go do this. Just promise me – promise me, that you’ll be safe. You’ll make it out alive.”

“Of course. I know I have to live. As long as I do that, you can fix anything else.”

They shared one last kiss, then he snuck out the back to regroup with the new team on the project.

What’s the worst that can happen? A lot of things. Fred didn’t go back home with her, and even as she tried to sleep on her side of the bed, just in case he came home late, the image of the empty side of her bed prevented her eyes from closing. What was he doing right now? Did they already start the trials? Who authorized something like this? Were they maybe just doing more complicated calculations that he would review with her tomorrow to give her brain something to look through? No, that last one was wishful thinking. Sabine curled up a little tighter around her bedsheets and, eventually, a restless sleep came over her. She was relieved to wake up.

She used to dismiss superstitions. They were often associated with wild theories or personal beliefs, nothing that she had any use for. But today, the very air around his lab was hazy. It was all in her head. She kept repeating that to herself, even if she didn’t believe it. The steps up to his lab felt arduous and she almost turned around a few times. Fred was… Ok. He looked tired, but when she walked through the door, he smiled wide and held his arms out for a hug. Sabine made sure to lock the door before she walked in. His hold around her was comforting as she sat on his lap.

“Long night?”

His voice was muffled from how his head was buried in the crook of her neck. “Not a single minute of sleep.”

She let her fingers run through his soft, fluffy hair. “Should I get you coffee?”

“If you have time this morning.”

She herself had hundreds of tasks to get through today. However, one look at him and she decided she could add one more.

“I’ll be right back.”

The fact that he was up all the time was just the beginning. Even when they went to bed together, she could feel him shifting around all night. During the day, it was like a shadow clung onto him. His smiles were smaller, his words a little quieter. He was still himself, just muted. And she hated it. She watched the man she loved change from the person she recognized, to some ghost that did all the things she remembered Fred doing, but with none of the gusto of a man who loved his life. But she wasn’t about to tell him otherwise because Fred would let her know when he’s had enough of this project. So, until he said so, she kept quiet.

One night, as he crawled into bed with him, he wrapped himself around her, tighter than he ever had before.

“Everything ok?” She managed to whisper.

“I can start to feel the side effects.” The whisper was strained, almost like it was said through gritted teeth. “It’s starting to hurt. Like it’s pulling me apart.”

“Do… Do you think you should request to stop?”

“No, no... I’m so close to the end, Sabine.” He was speaking through his teeth, afraid of what horrible sound of pain would escape his lips if he relaxed even a little. “Just a little longer, I promise. Then everything will slowly go back to normal.”

It’s funny how things slowly get back to normal but quickly fall apart.

It happened when she was pouring over the latest medical papers in her lab. A new experimental super antibiotic with promise going through mouse trials. Genetic modification that augmented DNA in primate trials. A new effect observed in workers at Radianite factories. That one caught her eye. An observational study that concluded that there was a higher percentage of mania amongst workers at a Radianite factory than the general population. They felt like they were being ripped apart, despite no physiological abnormalities. These people spent years working at the factory before the symptoms began. Fred went from normal to the exact same symptoms listed here in two weeks. The consequences of such a drastic change did not settle easily in her mind.

Just as she reached for her phone, the lights flickered and went out. As she turned on the flashlight she saw shadows, not of her desk or herself, but long, claw-like shadows that dispersed to reveal a face. A face she hoped to be a stranger. And yet in that look, she saw love.

It was just moments later when she burst through the double doors into the Radianite lab in a panic. Her hair was a mess, and she was out of breath, doubled over trying to recompose herself.

There were a dozen guards in there, all with their guns raised at something in the middle. She had to blink her eyes hard because her eyes couldn’t see clearly in the dim thrumming of the emergency lights. They made it hard to make out the shape of whatever was just standing at the end of all those guns. A living shadow she eventually figured out. It looked like a man, but there was no visible shape. Formless, but just for a moment because she saw it form one. It looked around at everyone and seemed to try and copy them. That was when they noticed her as well.

“Doctor, you shouldn’t be here.” It was the captain of the guard here. They talked on occasion. He liked to listen to her explain the newest medical news and she liked an audience. It helped her straighten out her thoughts. Fred was jealous on occasion, and he always made sure to dote on her with what little time he had to make up for it, even if he knew that she would have eyes for no one else. He didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t there enough, despite all the pressures of their jobs.

He cleared a patch for her, but she could only stand there and stare at the one in the middle. The more she looked, the worse she felt. Because where was Fred in all of this? Even amongst all the scientists she passed, there was no lovely face lighting up as she passed. There were no golden-brown eyes that reminded her of afternoon sunlight dappled across his face. And she was smart enough to deduce her worst fear.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

She heard the crackling words from a speaker somewhere above her. Grief, horror, whatever it was welling up in her unleashed itself in an inhuman sound screaming a single name. Fred.

“What did you do to him?” Her voice was quiet, a contrast to the inhuman noise she had just made. No one had seen Dr. Callas like this before. But no one, not even the captain moved close to her again. Her words dripped with too much venom. Her green eyes darted around, looking for someone to blame, someone to accuse. It burned at any who dared look at her directly.

There was no answer. And she knew that when this was all… cleaned up, this would be written off as an unforeseen consequence. An accident. An adverse effect. She saw it in the medical reports of other experiments. It would be the same here. A single tear rolled down her cheek. The guards around her backed off. Was the one tear that powerful? Did it properly convey her despair? Then she looked up and saw what other people were backing up from.

The creature – no… this was Fred. He walked up to her, and she reached up for him. He flinched at first, then let her fingers pass through him. There was nothing to hold, nothing to squeeze. No way to make him understand how much she needed him now. In turn, as she watched her fingers pass through his biceps, his chest, he tried to hold her cheek and use his thumb to wipe the tear away. She could feel the slightest stirring of the air against her face. If she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine the man, not the shadow, she could almost smell his cologne.

“Who are you?”

Her eyes flew open again. Her hand reached for his and once again passed straight though. But she had no answer. Still, he waited.

“Fred. Is that my name?”

She was frozen, just staring into the wisps of blue fire. Where did his eyes go? His smile? That charisma?

The silence was getting heavier.

Eventually, she gave a shaky laugh. “No… Fred was someone else. I don’t know you.”

#whumptober 2022 #no.1 #adverse effects #this wasn't supposed to happen #valorant #valorant fanfic #medical experimentation #valorant viper #viper #valorant omen #omen #viper/omen #my writing

[j0ystix]

Been contemplating this OC for awhile. I really wanted a love interest for Lloyd so I created Meredith D’or (she’s half French)

- she has a twin sister named Meredy (this fits in well with the narrative if she becomes the mother of Maison and Manson(my two OCs that are Lloyd’s twin sons) because the siblings have matching twin names)

- Meredith is a shy, gentle, firm, intelligent, soft-spoken girl. She’s introduced into the show as this serious-people-pleaser waiter who doesn’t know how to have fun.

- Meredith is a child of divorce, she and her sister were eventually under the care of her mother who practically neglected them. Meredy became her motherly figure but she was forced to grow up. She grew up feeling insecure. She has to help people or not she feels useless.

- Meredith is raised by her grandparents

- Meredith is older than Lloyd by one year (she’s taller by 5cm too)

- Meredith has no fighting background but she is a musical and art prodigy

- During Sons of Garmadon, her sister sacrificed herself to protect Meredith (the stone giant stepped on her sister when Skylor and Garmadon were trying to gain control of it). This traumatised Meredith.

She’s Akita and Harumi mixed but one unique thing about her is that she isn’t spiteful. Although at first she was angry with Garmadon, she soon managed to forgive but never forget. When she met face to face with Lord Garmadon, she refused to speak. She knew that revenge wouldn’t do anything good, revenge wouldn’t bring back her sister.

She has pitch black hair and rosy cheeks. She can sing very well too. She often interacts with the poor as she volunteers a lot.

- she represents forgiveness , she’s good while Lloyd is bad(yinandyang)

- Garmadon is interested in her because she describes her as having his mother’s tenderness. Meredith is also smart (she actually goes to school) and she isn’t some dumb bimbo (Lloyd is a dumb bimbo tho)

- Initially, Lloyd tried really hard to grasp her attention but he soon realised that he couldn’t be attached to her because trouble seems to follow him everywhere he goes so she’ll just get entangled in it

- Her grandparents were the First Aiders during the serpentine War. They saved countless of lives, some even speculated that her family has the ability to heal and make people feel better with mere words and actions

- Lloyd gets so nervous around her but she’s so chill

- Nya will be her older sister like how Kai is to Lloyd

- People of Ninjago generally really like her, she’s incredibly generous and has a sincere personality but it’s really hard to impress her

- She swore to protect and take care of Lloyd even when she couldn’t fight or is not an elemental master. (She became a first aider and will gradually learn to fight bit by bit)

- it takes super long to get her to open up. Her mother is an alcoholic so whenever her mother became neglectful, her sister will try to distract her by coming up with games. She played one of the games with Lloyd

- her character development is her getting over her sister’s death and accepting that her family will never be whole once more but she can find a new family. She’s already confident, don’t get me wrong, but she never tried to fight for anything in her life. If she wants something she’ll try to get it but if she doesn’t get it, she wouldn’t be vehement about it. She lacks passion in her future (a sign of depression but since this is a kids show we can’t rly explicitly show it but yes, if this was a mature show, I would’ve shown Meredith going through a depressive childhood and youth years)

- I kinda hate the cliche where she will become a better person once she meets her love interest so the person who helped her developed as a character are the girls. They acted like her older sisters and showed her that the future is bright and she should have passion

- her last name means gold, suggesting that she’s Lloyd’s complementary.

- Lloyd makes handmade stuff for her

- the wholesome couple

#ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago oc #ninjago lloyd #I should write ninjago #if i was a story board director of ninjago i swear