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hauntedelation · 3 years

Text

Repeat

Description - The Hammer proves to utilize surprising ways to settle down after a rough assignment.

Pairing - Black Male Reader x August Walker

A/N - This is my first male reader insert and AW fic! I wasn't sure how I should write the man but I found my August to be a little unpredictable, maybe hard. (Maybe he has some feelings, but he won't tell you what kind.)

Word Count - 2.4k

Warnings - descriptions of blood, wound tending and cleaning, anxiety, surprise fluff and maybe pining? Just partners being partners.

(no real proofreading this time y'all sorry 😅)

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What he applied to your hand forced a pitiful sound from your body, something like a whimper subdued poorly by you.

By the sickly fluorescent light you can see it, the split that was the palm of your hand. Crimson upon crimson flooded the tissue, renewing again.

Your insides overturned, and for the first time in your career you averted your eyes. You had to. For a reason you couldn't place your finger on, you knew you shouldn't stare.

The way your pulse was working more warm liquid out of your hand, his fingers stained and slipping back and forth to tend, you felt unsteady.

The spaces in your mind were gradually being occupied. So there was no shortage, no problem taking your mind off of it.

You went back to that first mistake, back to where you foolishly under-packed. This assignment was far, but a swift turnaround. Accordingly, you thought it good to keep the amount of bags you carried to a minimum.

A good number of things were left, a tool here and there that didn't stand out. You had done it before. One notch carved into the wood and you were null of any mistakes up until this point.

What you couldn't grasp was that these absent devices were the key to this assignment. It hit like a ton of bricks the moment you were met with the complex screen of a security lock.

You were deflated when your eyes met the empty space of what could have been the bypass key. There you spent upwards of an hour working through the perimeter of the place.

The next one could have happened regardless, but it didn't make you feel less inept.

Where you went right when you should have gone left. The opponent you met was just as trained as you were: blank, unrelenting and practiced with a blade. You fell to a place where you were at a strident disadvantage.

Would you have picked your jugular or your hand? There had to have been something better, a third choice? You should have been faster than that.

You could have.

Still, your hand caught the edge and it wasn't until much later, long after you were walking away that you could feel heat trickling down your fingers.

It's like the movies until it isn't. You've got yourself thrumming, high from the situation. You're locked in and can take anything to your vessel, then you're coming down slow. All the little details enter your mind, focusing and you notice. He noticed, actually.

With the most austere set of eyes you had ever seen, he did.

Before you were given the chance to sit down he was standing over you, breath hot and charged from the brawl. On the top of your head you could feel it. The fabric of his suit was torn and twisted over his chest, rising and falling with his loosened tie.

He'd backed you to one of the steel tables, squinting through the dim and the dark. You had in mind that you were to be spit in the face, condemned for dragging the job to left-field. The glower had already been there.

You were bracing for it, balling both of your hands. The blunt object in your fingers collided with the brick floor. And it rang out, filling the empty spaces with a loud echo. Soon there was nothing.

That's how it was seconds after.

A pair of boots brushed against yours before there was a hand capturing your right arm. He'd brought your dripping palm up and opened your curled fingers. Your wound was inspected with cautious eyes, the extent picked apart.

His calluses dragged around the edges of your sticky palm. You sucked in a breath when he had gone a little too close, but he ignored it. There was a drilling leer into your face before he spoke, "You were sloppy."

The back of your throat had grown bone dry. You took a second, swallowing then pulling your eyes from his hardened face.

That had been the first time that you'd been told that. Knowing in the very depths of you that this was the beginning to many months of second guessing, wishing you could have done better.

You don't know why you had let this one go. Everything seemed feasible in the documents, from the time requirement to the objectives. You expected to have gone above and beyond.

That is close to what you told Sloane all those weeks ago,

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"This one looks like it's going to be less of an issue."

She had her arms crossed in her crisp sleeves, her hip propped against the hardwood of her desk. You were called in to provide an updated report over your assignment, your feelings and projection.

It had gone to the point where you could no longer count on your fingers how many jobs you'd been on. The second anniversary from your first day recently passed, the bouquet still sitting on your dining room table.

You recall being introduced to your boss, the gratification in seeing someone like her in such an esteemed position.

(Someone who reminded you of your mother at times.)

Right then, the woman appeared to be getting ready to give a critical reply. Her brow was curled sharply but you could see the corners of her lips begin to upturn.

"You have been assigned an associate with this task, agent."

This was of no particular issue. It was not every mission that you collaborated with another. Be that as it may, you've grown accustomed to this practice, it evolved into something that you improved with. This was your dream, and you intended to flourish.

You were sure there was no one you wouldn't be able to work with.

When your superior uttered the name, 'Walker,' you had asked her to come again.

"You're up and coming, still figuring things out in this line of work. I'm placing you with my best on this one," Sloane announced.

You withheld any signs of protest in front of her, flashing professional countenance and a nod. She dismissed you with a lingering gaze, most likely holding the same thing in her mind as you were. You kept up the front until you were situated at the chair by your desk.

Upon your back touching the seat, a sigh was released, one that you felt in the pit of your stomach.

You wanted to smile at how comical his name sounded. One would have thought you were speaking about an exotic dancer, The Hammer. You didn't think it fit at first.

He's just a man, but he is the kind that exceeded the weight behind his title. He had discharged far more in his profession by the time you were approaching yours, taking the limits of what an agent could do to the stratosphere.

You could wax poetic about those stories, try to recount those details. But, truthfully there had been such a divide in your experience when compared to his. You could feel the pricks of uncertainty in your chest.

Perhaps you were only afraid.

He'd never once acknowledged your existence until you met on the tarmac the following Tuesday morning. The moon was leaving the twilight sky. Under an orange colored light, shining on the side of his face you could see him check his watch.

And then those eyes flicked over to you, sizing up your bags, your clothes. You think you may have even caught those blue slits drag along certain parts of you.

Your voice was weak, coughing low in your throat you tried to press out, "It's nice to finally meet, Mr. Walker."

(Ah, Mr Walker? You wanted to flinch, but you found no time.)

Then you provided him your name with a reluctant hand. It took far more composure on not showing the tremor in your limb but when the man peered down at you, securing your hand with a firm shake you knew.

He'd felt how clammy your skin was.

That mustache made a microscopic twitch, "Call me August, and, ditto."

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You allowed your hand to remain elevated, but your period of self-loathing was eventually disturbed.

The sensation of his large hands appeared, firm and wrapping around your waist before hoisting you on the surface of the steel table. There was a soft thud from your good hand landing to bear your shift in weight.

It was then that you froze, ears pricking to that steady footfall departing from the table.

You listen and—what?

What crosses your mind is maybe you hit your head back there, sometime during taking that grunt to the floor. Yet, you don't feel anything, no pounding in your skull. The musing is washed away the moment the flicker of a pale-green light shines above.

The room is revealed to have been an abandoned kitchen of sorts. Pots and pans layered in a thin veil of dust with more grime to compliment. With your good hand you wipe at the sweat falling down your temple, you'd become a little hot.

Glass crumbles underneath his boots, he rotates his back around to you with a small kit that strongly resembles the one you stored in your bag.

The white plastic had your name scrawled on there in your handwriting. While you could sit there wondering how August retrieved that, you are still processing the way the man picked you up. How he brought you up like you were made of feathers. Why he…

He comes in real close, your vision floods with a view of his chest, his gloved hands shedding away the garment and laying them on the metal surface.

The soft click of the first aid box click echoes out, and under the hum of the lights above August murmurs down to you,

"At least you had enough sense to pack this."

His tone is the same, puncturing only not quite as breathy. The rise and fall of his chest had slowed far more, the dark curls on his chest soaking in the sweat running down his skin. And you blink, not realizing how enthralling the sight is.

Your pulsing hand is taken again, gingerly, by a pair of rough hands. You brace yourself on the edge of the table upon seeing the clear liquid bottle.

He's cleaning your wound throughly and you're trying not to take it like a kicked puppy. Through grit teeth, "You think I could skip stitches this time?" They never were your favorite.

"No dice," he breaths out, placing the bottle of alcohol down next to your thigh.

"You about had your hand sliced in half, Agent. You're lucky anyway. But,"

The needle and thread is pulled out, more cleansing and draining. Rinse and repeat. Walker was moving quickly, probably sensing the adrenaline in you draining by the minute.

Your communication devices buzz in unison, you don't have time to check your screen for any updates before he reaches with one hand in his pocket to retrieve his.

He sets your hand down on your own thigh and you listen to his voice shift to a formal tone. The female voice on the other line, (Sloane most likely) sounds curt and questioning.

Your stomach begins to roll in circles. Your fingers wrapped around the table's edge tighten around the metal, almost enough to leave marks.

Through those training sessions all those months, you learned to properly squash any threats of anxiety, distraction. You could feel yourself slipping, your body seizing up in front of the man. Walker seemed to have been approaching the height of his conversation with your boss, shifting so the phone rests between his ear and shoulder.

In the meantime, you were breathing. That familiar rhythm, flowing in and out, counting. You fall into the headspace that you became acquainted with all too well.

You lost yourself in it, not realizing that Walker was dissolving Sloane's interrogation. Every syllable. The way in which his voice formed the words was unknowingly steadying your brain, calming your heart rate down slowly.

All the while taking your wounded hand was taken in his, he set about cleaning it one more time before starting to close it with the thread.

"Yes ma'am. No, he had everything in his detail under control...Yes. That's correct. The only slip up had been breaching the security wall but we successfully infiltrated."

You could feel the sharp pricks in your skin, your arm tensing after each pull to the string when closing the wound. Eventually Walker drifted, and your eyes landed on the semi-clean criss cross stitching in the palm of your hand.

The man's eyes were dead set on his handiwork, narrowing on the lines before clearing his throat to part ways with your boss. There was a, "We will report back upon leaving this location."

He hung up the phone, and slid the device next to your thigh. You didn't think anything of it, only Walker's hand didn't leave where his phone was sitting. And you were encircled, the fabric of his shirt practically enticing his body closer to yours.

It had been a number of seconds before you could bring yourself back. The same exercise was reaching its tail end, and maybe, just maybe you could believe Sloane would not chew you a new one when you return.

Those words, It's okay, you tried your best. Everyone has bad days. You said them once again, inaudible and only in your mind. The room at this point only held the echo of the cars outside, Walker's heavy boots shifting before—

His fingertips were cold against your jaw, you almost jumped away from him. You should have, what was he doing? His thigh brushed so light against your knee, and when he guided your eyes up, you saw him already peering at your damp face.

Everything about the man's face was blank. Thick brows, lips hidden under a bushy trail of hair, all set in a firm line. You made no attempt to divert, you weren't sure he would let you. You had been planted there, decided by him your next move would be included.

Then those words fell silent.

His fingertips pushed up your jaw, against the grain of your facial hair growing there. Then you felt him cup your cheek, strong hands dragging along your skin.

Walker used his thumb to brush against your temple, wiping away something sticky. Red tint coated the little grooves in his skin and he pulled away, wiping his digit on the material of your pants. His tone was far more entertained then,

"Looks like you hit your head back there."

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Taglist - @mansaaay @hope-to-hell @feralrunaway @thetaoofzoe @luclittlepond @madbaddic7ed @brandycranby @emyearns

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#August Walker x Reader #Male reader #Black reader #henry cavill x reader #Henry Cavill fluff #Repeat #henry cavill x black reader #henry cavill x black!reader

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sup-hoes-its-me · 3 years

Text

Golden II (Kakashi x Reader)

A/N: hello. This is the second part of the Kakashi amnesia fic. I was so conflicted on what to do in this one and admittedly, I am not satisfied with this. Not completely. I really struggle writing the second part of a trio, and it's evident here.

Part three is up!

Word count: 4200

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Kakashi struggled to maintain his normal persona after Y/N got into the incident. He just couldn’t shake off that desperate need to be around her. At this point, it was just instinctual to look for her in the crowds, and expect to see her waiting for him each time he got home from a mission. He missed her laugh and her smile, and the people in the village did not help.

His only solace was on missions where he could forget about it all. It was an impossible struggle, especially when everyone and their mother was consoling him every time he stepped outside to do literally anything. He didn’t want people in his business, especially something so sensitive.

The mornings were now cold and depressing. Each time he rolled over in an attempt to throw his arm around his girlfriend, he was only met with the hollow space where she used to be. He would bury his face in his pillows and shut his eyes, just trying to drown out her voice from his mind. But her scent still lingered on his linens and buried deep into the pillows.

He imagined her groggy eyes opening just a peek to see if he was awake before her, and he usually was. She would smile and scoot close to his body, curling up and hugging him around the waist, her head resting against his chest. He missed wrapping her up in a cuddly hug, peppering the top of her head with kisses.

He missed going to get breakfast with her, and her ranting to him about this new novel the store had in shipment, comparing the plot to that of other books she had read and gushing over the character development or the vocabulary or a plot twist she'd never seen. She was always such a nerd, it was adorable.

And he missed meeting up with her each night as she closed the store, her hugging him so tight he could feel her heart beating against his. She'd attack his face with kisses and giggles, pulling down his mask in between the bookshelves where no one could see and gracing his lips with a kiss, or a dozen, depending on the day.

He just missed her. But he knew it was for the best-not knowing her anymore, not getting attached all over again, or letting her get close to him again. He thought of her amnesia as a fresh start, a way to break up with her without crushing her emotionally. She would never know what she was missing.

He would be the only one suffering, and that was better to him than the other way around.

For Kakashi, it was always hard to imagine he would get to a place in life where he felt comfortable enough with someone to maintain such a relationship. He didn’t think he would grow to have these moments with someone he loved. He worked through so many walls he had built up over the years, fought against all his paranoia and superstitions, and for what? To feel his heart break?

He felt betrayed, by whom, he had no idea. He just felt like the stars had aligned perfectly in favor of screwing him over the moment he was comfortable, the moment someone was able to squeeze into his heart and share their love. It would take time to get over his feelings for her, he knew that. The memories would always linger, but they wouldn’t cut through him like they did now.

For now, the only thing he could do was lie in his bed until his next mission the following day. Without her, he didn’t see any reason to get out of bed anyway.

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Y/N returned to her apartment after being discharged from the hospital, and did as she was instructed to do. Each day she would look through her belongings, pictures, trinkets, anything that had emotional value, hoping it would bring out some of her old memories. Nothing really changed. Sometimes she could see flashes of people in her head that lived in the village. Kakashi, that guy in the green suit, Yamato, the sweet girl that took care of her all her days in the hospital. All of them appeared in her mind at one point or another, but nothing strong enough to give her any knowledge.

Tsunade told her to just keep trying and hopefully, something would fix itself. It seemed like a shot in the dark, but anything was worth a try.

It wasn’t until a few hours into the cleaning process, scrapping blood and ink out of carpets and stocking her shelves of the store, that she found something of real importance. Deep in the back of her front counter, hidden in a drawer, sat a small shoebox, filled with stacks of papers.

At first, she assumed they were probably just old receipts, but that was not the case.

Inside she found many things. Photos, notes, letters, and little trinkets all stacked carefully in the box like her previous self took extra special care of them. For this reason, she took the box to the table to sit down and go through everything one by one. Anything was worth a try, and maybe this would propel her recovery in motion..

First she examined the letters. They were very short, but full of information about her past self, and she found herself more intrigued and surprised with every word. Each one was from Kakashi, she noted that immediately. Out of all people, she could not imagine that man sitting and writing out anything nice or thoughtful to her.

But she was wrong.

They stated things about how he was on missions and wouldn't be back for a month or so at a time. He often stated how badly he wished to come back home and visit her bookstore again. How he was sorry for being gone so long that he couldn’t help around the store.

The first few, dated as far back as 7 years, were very friendly, nothing out of the ordinary for a correspondence between friends. It still seemed sketchy to her that Kakashi took time out of his day to send her letters, but not unbelievable. It wasn’t until they progressed right in front of her eyes that she was taking in every word with awe.

They detailed how much he missed seeing her face, which he often described as beautiful and precious. She was his motivator that kept him going each morning and through the long nights, he said. The man proclaimed his love over and over in the letters starting four years ago until the very last which was from a few months ago. He was never very descriptive or detailed, but he got across what needed to be said and what was on his mind very effectively.

She had no idea Kakashi felt that way about her. He really didn't act like they had any relationship at all. He actually spent most days avoiding her at all costs. Of course, she would see him walking down the street, and wave through the glass panels of her bookstore, not that he ever cared. He would usually take one look over at her, and then walk faster in the opposite direction.

To say her first impression of him was a bit off putting was an understatement. Where other people like Yamato treated her with kindness and humility, he seemed to think he was too good to try and reconnect. Although, he was certainly a handsome man and very courageous. She could vaguely see why her old self was at least physically attracted to him. Even if he wasn’t acting the nicest now, the letters led her to believe he was possibly a hopeless romantic.

She scanned through the other things in the box. The photos were ones of her with all her friends, but the majority were just Kakashi. The first few photos, the oldest, with the most damage around the frayed edges, were of them when they were much younger. He didn't have on the jounin vest he wore, and she had such a baby face to match a toothy grin. Maybe they were teenagers, 20 somethings? She couldn’t tell for sure.

The photos were just of them together. Sitting by certain sights or buildings, hugging, eating, on every kind of date you could imagine. It looked like she documented each one. Time stamps on the backs in whatever pen color she had at the time, scribbled details here and there.

It made sense now, why she had a pile of disposable cameras in her room. Dozens of photos of Kakashi, decades of memories all piled up in this box between the pair. It felt surreal, seeing herself in places she couldn’t recognize, in the arms of a man she barely knew.

She must have really loved him before. Their relationship was one of quite a few years from the looks of the things in this box, and obviously she cherished even the little moments. She felt guilt pang in her chest, and her stomach to turn over painfully. How he must have felt when she told him she didn't remember him. How it must feel walking past her in the street and knowing what they had was gone. She couldn't imagine the pain he had to be going through.

And he said that the entire thing was his fault. That day he walked into her hospital room, he apologized for what he did to her, saying that his family was the cause for this, and that he should have come to the store earlier to make sure something like that never happened. He wasn’t a superhero, despite what everyone thought of him. He was merely a man, a shinobi with a love for porn novels and dogs and one girl he desperately wanted to protect. Now that was gone.

Needless to say, she felt awful. It wasn’t her fault for not remembering him, but it sure felt that way.

She set everything back into the box and put it in its place under the counter before flipping the open sign to closed and heading out into the street. She knew where he lived, only because of the return addresses on the envelopes of the letters. She was still quite familiar with Konoha and it's workings, some of the street names hazy but there. She was now determined to make it to his apartment, even if she had to ask everyone in town to help navigate.

If he was on a mission, so be it, but if he was home, she wanted to see the man.

Thankfully, she realized that he lived only a few streets away from her when a street vendor pointed her in the right direction, but damn, he lived on the fourth floor and she inwardly cursed him. Her legs were still a bit shaky from the incident, and she hadn't healed completely. Stairs were a pain for her. This entire man seemed like a real pain, honestly.

She finally made it to the fourth floor after hobbling up like an old man, and knocked on the second door. She was going to have a conversation with this man, the same man who was keeping their history a secret this entire time without trying to make a connection again.

No one in this town wanted to explain anything to her. Yamato was nice but he always beat around the bush and left when things started getting informative. Sakura just fawned over her broken limbs and injuries. And the man in the green jumpsuit was too loud, she usually had to kick him out once she felt a headache coming on. Other than that, she didn’t have many friends. They’d told her her family died in a “jinchuriki” attack, whatever that meant, so she didn’t have any family to ask either.

As she waited at the door, she felt her stomach churn. Part of her was genuinely curious how her younger self fell for him and what they were like together. Like, what was the appeal? He seemed kinda strange and distant, and she couldn’t help but want cuddles and love constantly. It seemed like an odd match, and Y/N couldn’t help but question it.

Opposites attract, I guess.

After a couple seconds, the door opened a crack, and a half dressed man answered the door. She found her face heating up a bit. He wasn’t even exposed in any way, he just wasn’t wearing his headband, nor did he have his jacket on, revealing toned arms and fluffy, messy hair that she had to admit was pretty adorable. Okay, so she could definitely see herself falling for someone so handsome, but regardless, she was on a mission.

He looked startled to see her standing there in all her glory, out of breath and bent over like she’d run the whole way here. She held onto the doorway to balance herself. Perhaps she was just a tiny little bit out of breath from climbing the stairs still. Y/N apologized quickly, “Sorry, give me a second. Going up the stairs is really hard to do and you live on the fourth floor so, yeah.”

“Who told you where I live?” He questioned, scanning the walkway to make sure no one else was around to be listening.

“You did, actually,” she answered after taking a deep breath. “I found an old box of letters from you, and I just went to the return address.”

The letters. How could he forget about them? He had tried to rid her place of all signs of him, taking out pictures of the two of them together save for a few with other people included. He took out every single belonging he had. The only thing he missed was the letters, ones he didn’t even know Y/N had kept in the first place. He cursed himself.

Her reading the letters made him feel violated. Even if the letters were for her, it felt like a stranger had just read some of his deepest and most pathetic thoughts, the ones of love and adoration and depression all piled up in a few letters addressed to a Y/N he used to know. He felt sick thinking about what this woman now knew.

“Okay. Well, listen, you really shouldn’t just come to my apartment like this. I’m not fond of drop in visits.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do whatever I want, Kakashi Hatake, or should I say, my lover,” she laughed, resting one of her hands on her hip proudly. He felt himself wince at the sound of those words coming from her lips, seeing her childish grin. It reminded him too much of before, how they used to be, and he couldn’t handle that. Suddenly, he felt that familiar sickness rolling in his stomach. “How come you never said anything about it?”

“Because, I didn’t think you needed to know.”

“Why? Obviously you were a very big part of my life and I, yours,” she asked.

He sighed and leant on the doorframe, his eyes never leaving the village over her shoulder, anything other than meeting her eyes. He really did not want to have this conversation with her. He would have talked her ear off about a month before when she actually had her memories and knew who she was, but today, with the way she was, he might as well be speaking to a stranger.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Of course.”

“It’s because I was going to leave you after the accident either way” he confessed, and she could only nod. It wasn’t like she was gonna get offended by his words, she didn’t even know him. He continued, “It makes me sick knowing that all this was my fault in the first place.”

She tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“The reason that man and his lackeys kidnapped you is because of my father’s mistakes,” he sighed, “That bastard wanted to get revenge by hurting you, since you and I were close.”

She nodded, tapping the floor with her foot as she absorbed everything he’d said. That is what he alluded to before when they met in the hospital. She replied calmly, her tone so understanding it made him feel nauseous.“I see. Well, I wouldn’t exactly call that your fault. You definitely didn’t directly cause anything to happen, if anything it was your father. I’m not offended at all.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t make this anyone's fault but mine.”

“Really, it’s not your fault. You could have never predicted this,” she tried to say, but he just went on, words flowing out faster than she could argue against them.

“It doesn’t matter. I knew that it was wrong to let you into my life. You would have lived just as happily if I’d have ignored you and let you meet some son of a baker, get married after a year, have a bunch of kids, shit, I don’t know,” he cursed. She could tell he was breaking down feelings he had been harboring for a while, and she pushed past him into his apartment, walking right under the arm he was resting on. This wasn’t something to talk about in public, out in the open. “I knew that if you were with me that you would never live a normal life, and I still let you fall in love with me, all because I was too selfish to put my own feelings aside.”

“Love shouldn’t be suppressed like that. You did what was natural.”

“Yeah, and look where that got us. Look where that got you, Y/N.” He waved to her bandaged legs. “You’re never going to remember me again, so it doesn’t matter if I rekindle our relationship, does it?”

She took a seat on the edge of his bed to rest her tired legs. He seemed so angry with himself, so much self hate radiating from his person. He was hurting so badly, and she just wished he would let her comfort him.

For a moment, she wondered if he would let her hold him like before, so he could pretend that things hadn’t gone wrong, even for a short time. Put his mind at ease if only for a short while. Y/N refrained from saying anything, though. Physical touch was probably one of the worst things for him right now, especially from her.

Instead, she meditated on what he said. She sat there fiddling with her fingers, trying to figure out what to say to him, anything that would make the situation easier for him. All she ever wanted was to make life easier for others, and if her way of doing so was being kind and thoughtful toward these worn shinobi, then that is what she would do.

She leaned back on her hands and let out a soft sigh, words surfacing in her brain that might just do the trick. “Kakashi, do you want to hear something that might bring you hope?”

“Whatever,” he brushed off, not thinking anything she could say would make the situation better. He’d tried for a month to make things better and nothing was working.

“I’ve been having dreams. Dreams of the past, dreams of memories that I have forgotten. When I look through photos, new images appear of people that I used to know,” she told him softly. “Tsunade says that means I’ll regain my memories with time, it’s just taking a bit longer than we had hoped. She thinks I can get everything back. The girl that you used to know.”

He stood there for a moment, just processing what she said. He could feel his heart beat a little faster in his chest, and he lifted his eyes slowly to meet her own. She always had such soft, gentle eyes, even now. “Do you have any dreams of me?” He was hesitant to ask, but she gladly nodded. “What do you remember?”

“Well, it’s mostly just snapshots here and there of you and everyone else. Short little tibbits of what life used to be like. I know Yamato has wood nature jutsu because in one of my dreams he had summoned this ginormous tree. I know there is a younger guy with the most yellow hair I’ve ever seen. I know that you have a red eye under the headband, but I don’t know what it’s for,” she explained, listing off some examples of things shehad dreamed of.

He hummed. “Firstly, you’re right about Yamato. He’s actually the only one alive who can use that jutsu.”

“Really? That’s interesting. Is that why he’s head of the...uh, that group? The ones with the animal masks?” she asked, feeling foolish at her lack of knowledge.

He let out the tiniest of chuckles, just a hint of one. “It’s actually ANBU, but good on you for knowing about them. And it’s not just because of his wood jutsu, he is also a very skilled and strong shinobi. He is a good team leader,” he explained. For a moment, he almost found it fun to listen to her struggle to remember things and then help her out. He noticed the way her nose crinkled when she was thinking especially hard about something, and god, it reminded him of before. He felt his heart thawing with each look her way.

Kakashi shut his front door and walked over to the other side of his bed. He took a seat against the wall, kicking out his legs. He was beginning to relax. “And about the yellow haired kid? That’s one of my students, Naruto Uzumaki. He’s a handful, but also a very talented, determined shinobi.”

She mouthed the name to herself a couple times, trying to memorize it. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t be too sure. A lot of things sounded like she should remember them, and she couldn’t exactly figure out which were right.

“And your red eye?”

“It’s a long story, and we won’t go into it. Simply put, this eye is called the sharingan. It’s a special dojutsu that only members of the Uchiha clan possess.”

“So you’re part Uchiha?”

“No. That’s the part I’m not gonna get into,” he brushed off her question. That was something that he really did not want to discuss again. He’d already told her the story once, he didn’t need to do it a second time, even if she had amnesia. When he looked over at her, she looked so familiar. Her eyes were filled with happiness, and he noticed that her lips were curled up into a sweet smile. “What are you happy about?”

She shook her head and turned her head to hide the upward curl of her lips. She was just so glad, her whole body felt warmer because of it. “Because you are being nice to me and explaining things. No one really explains things to me, they just skip around stuff usually,” she confessed as she tapped her heels together.

He could only shake his head at that. “You deserve to know at least the basic stuff, just until you get your memory back.”

“Hmm? You’ll explain any of my memories? Like any of them?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Oh, yeah, well explain this dream I had.”

“Shoot.”

Her smile took a mischievous turn, and he definitely noticed the change. He could only imagine what she was about to ask. “I’ll give you a hint...I know what you look like completely naked,” she giggled, falling back on the bed and covering her face with her hands.

“And you call me the pervert…” he sighed, crossing his arms behind his neck. Her laugh, it was like music to his ears. No matter what she could say, he was just relieved to feel her beside him, gleaming with a happiness he missed for nearly a month now.

“I really had a sex dream about you the other night, but you can imagine my confusion. I was like, what the hell, I don’t even know the guy,” Y/N laughed, “It all makes sense now.”

He rolled his eyes at her sense of humor. Things felt so normal, like before. He felt his chest grow warm at the feeling. Kakashi’s lips cracked into a grin under his mask, not that it mattered to wear the mask. She already saw his face in a dream, it seemed kinda pointless if they were alone.

Maybe he would let things go back to normal. Maybe he would talk to her more, and let her visit when he was home. Maybe he could go to her store when she waved to him instead of running away like a coward. Maybe he could let himself be happy, despite his faults, despite what happened to her. The wounds could be mended, he decided.

He just couldn’t help but be selfish and let her back in.

#kakashi hatake x reader #kakashi imagine #kakashi x reader #kakashi hatake #naruto x reader #naruto imagine #naruto one shot #i really love reader in this #i would marry her if i could #steal her from kakashi lol

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jjmaybanksbaby · 3 years

Text

Where It Leads (Rafe Cameron)

Summer II

Part 03: Been A While

series masterlist | previous part

summary: Your second summer in the Outer Banks becomes a whole lot more complicated when you realize a year away from Rafe hasn't changed your feelings for him at all.

a/n: And we're back with summer two - the summer before sophomore year whoop whoop! Writing this gave me butterflies so I hope you have the same feeling reading it! I always love hearing y’all’s commentary so don't be shy to scream about your favorite parts back at me.

word count: 2.5k words

Your mom reached over and tapped you gently on the arm.

"Put your phone away please, y/n. You can text Evan when we land."

"We're not even moving yet." You replied.

As if on cue, the pilot's voice echoed over the intercom. "Good morning passengers. This is your captain speaking. Welcome onboard Flight 4B7 with service from Portland to the Outer Banks. We ask that you please fasten your seatbelts at this time and secure all baggage..."

You stashed your phone in the pocket of the seat in front of you and closed your eyes, hoping that by the time you woke up you would be landing.

After the way last summer had gone, you were surprised when your mom announced that you were spending the summer in the Outer Banks again.

Frankly, you weren't that happy to be headed to North Carolina. Alice and Kensie, your two best friends back home, had opted not to go to camp this summer so the three of you had planned to spend every day at Alice's pool, biking to the Dairy Queen a few blocks away or begging of your moms to drive you to the mall.

Plus, there was Evan. Your boyfriend of six months. You'd both been cast as the understudies for the leads in the fall musical. Because of some freak food-poisoning accident, both you and Evan had to go on as Cinderella and Prince Charming in the final show. When he kissed you under the bright stage lights, it had felt like more than just a stage kiss. He'd asked you out at the cast party later than night and you'd been dating ever since.

Evan was great. He really was. He was thoughtful and cared about you. But ever since your mom had bought the plane tickets to the Outer Banks back in March, every time you kissed Evan you could only think of Rafe Cameron.

☼☼☼

You trailed behind your mother on the way to baggage claim, bent over your phone responding to the texts Alice and Kensie had sent in the group chat while you'd been in the air. Apparently, they'd bumped into Kensie's crush and need to analyze every detail. A feeling of jealously you hadn't anticipated crept into your chest, weighing you down. Even indoors, the muggy heat of the Outer Banks made it clear how far from Oregan - and from your people - you were.

You looked around the airport, searching for the baggage claim with your flight number and noticed an incredibly familiar head of blonde head of hair standing nearby.

"Sarah Cameron?" You asked.

Sarah spun around a joyful smile on her face. "Oh my god! Y/n!" She ran over, wrapping you in a hug. "Are you back for the summer?"

You nodded your head which elicited another excited scream from her.

"What are you doing at the airport?" You asked her.

"You'll never guess! We're getting a house in the Bahamas!" She gushed.

"Sarah!" A deep voice called. You looked up to see another older-looking version of Rafe headed in your direction.

Your mom froze beside you. "Oh dear," she whispered.

The man's gaze didn't leave your mom. "Heather," he said.

"Ward," she responded.

Oh, you thought. So that's Rafe's dad.

"It's good to see you," your mom continued. "You look," she paused for moment, "good."

"You as well," Ward responded.

The carousel behind you started to move and luggage streamed out.

"That's us," your mom said, pointing over to the moving carousel. "We should go."

"I'll tell Rafe you're back," Sarah whispered to you. "He's gonna be so excited."

You smiled down at her knowing that you'd already made a vow to yourself to avoid him all summer. You refused to let Rafe ruin what you and Evan had and the only way you could guarantee that was making sure you didn't see him at all.

☼☼☼

Sarah bounded in the front door of the Cameron's house. "We're home" she called out, her sing-songy voice echoing through the big house. Ward entered after her, carrying their luggage.

"Welcome home," Rose said, greeting Ward at the door with a kiss.

Sarah rolled her eyes at the exchange. It wasn't that she actively hated her step-mom, she would just have rather her dad not married her. Though he was buying her a house in the Bahamas as an anniversary present so maybe she wasn't all bad.

"Is Rafe upstairs?" Sarah asked.

"I think so," Rose replied.

Sarah ran up the stairs, skipping every other one, the way Ward always told her not to do. She came to a sudden stop in front of Rafe's closed door.

"Rafeeeeee," she yelled, knocking rapidly until his voice bellowed back at her through the wall.

"What do you want Sarah? Go away!" He yelled.

"Fine," Sarah said. "I guess you don't care that y/n is back in town then?"

The door swung open just a few seconds later. “What did you say?” Rafe asked.

“Y/n was at the airport. She’s back in the Outer Banks for the summer.” Sarah turned on her heel and sashayed her way to her own bedroom leaving Rafe in his doorway to process the information.

Maybe this summer will be a whole less boring, Rafe thought.

☼☼☼

The summer was going exactly how you'd expected. It was surprisingly nice to have your younger brother to keep you company and more importantly, keep you busy. You spend your days either on the beach, tanning, watching your brother splash in the waves, and making your way through the reading list of the Honors English class you had opted to take next year or at the Club's pool, eating chicken tenders for lunch and washing them down with the thick chocolate milkshakes.

Rafe's friends frequently made an appearance at the Club. You watched them sneak vodka from flaskes into cups of spirit from being your shaded sunglasses. So far, Rafe had yet to join them.

Currently, Phoebe was flirting hardcore with Sawyer, begging him to put sunscreen on her back so she wouldn't burn. It was all too predictable.

You turned your attention back to Nick Carraway and his descriptions of Gatsby's grand parties momentarily.

You heard Sarah's voice before she appeared next to you and plopped down on the chair your brother had been occupying before he decided he needed more ketchup for his fries and had ran off.

"Y/n," she started with the same youthful energy she always talked with, "has Rafe invited you to our Fourth of July party yet?"

"Umm," you hesitated. "No, he hasn't said anything about it."

"Ugh," Sarah threw her head back in a dramatic motion. "I told him to text you about it. He's useless. Anyway, we throw a huge party for the Fourth every year and you have to come. There are fireworks and everything..."

Sarah's monologue faded to the background as you looked up and noticed Rafe standing at the top of the steps that lead down the pool. Your stomach flopped in the same way it always did when you saw him.

Rafe started walking down the steps and a small panic set in. His own eyes wandered across the pool deck and it was only time before he recognized you. You shifted your body slightly, trying to use Sarah to block yourself from his view.

You turned your attention back to his younger sister, afraid that you'd accidentally make eye contact with Rafe.

Crap, crap crap, you repeated in your head. Rafe was for sure heading in your direction. Even as you forced yourself to focus on Sarah, you couldn't stop yourself from watching Rafe out of the corner of your eye and he was walking straight toward you. Your 'avoid-Rafe-all-summer' plan was going to be impossible now. With every step he took, you could feel your heart beating faster. It felt just like last summer.

Rafe stopped in front of the chair Sarah was sitting in and you couldn't stop yourself from looking up at him, a smile threaten to slide onto your face. The same warm but dangerous feeling you only got when Rafe was around took ahold of you.

"Sarah," he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. "Ward's looking for you."

She jumped up with a sudden spurt of energy, "Okay, I'll go find him!" She leaned down engulfing you in another hug. "See you around y/n." She said before running off.

"Bye Sarah." You replied.

"You know, you're like my sister's favorite person," Rafe said, still standing above you. "She mentioned you were in-town for the summer..." He let his sentence trail off.

But I hadn't seen you around. You finished for him in your head.

"Yeah, we got in about a week ago." You said. The tension that hung in the air between the two of you was exactly the reason you were trying to avoid him. The last time you had seen him he'd kissed you in a way you hadn't been able to get out your head for months afterward. It was a dangerous game. Nonetheless, here he was standing in front of you and you were barely holding it together.

Your phone began to ring and the photo of Evan kissing your check from homecoming popped up with the caller id. Rafe's eyes glanced over it and an unreadable expression crossed his face.

Right, it was 4 o'clock on Wednesday. The time and day you and Evan had decided you would call each other every week.

"Uhh, I gotta get this." You said to Rafe, reaching over and picking up the phone.

"Yeah, okay. See you later y/n." He replied before walking away from you and to his friends.

Your eyes followed him all the way even as you clicked answered and Evan's voice filled your ear.

☼☼☼

A feeling of nervousness set in as you approached the Cameron's, the absurd number of cars parked outside confirming you were at the right place. You glanced over each of your shoulders worried that your mom would pull up any second to drag you back home after you lied about where you were spending your evening. You felt decently bad about saying you were going to the Club to watch fireworks and coming to the Cameron's instead but you knew your family's stance on Rafe and his dad.

It seemed like the entire population of the Outer Banks was spread across the Cameron's backyard. Adults sipped festive cocktails as little kids, hyped-up onto much sugar, weaved in between their legs, chasing one another around. You looked around hesitantly, thankful when Sarah emerged from the crowd, frosting smeared across her face.

"You made it! I'm so happy you're here!" She screamed.

"Sarah," you laughed. "You have blue frosting all over you." You used your finger to wipe it from her cheek.

"Rose ordered the most delicious cake you've ever had. You have to try it. I can get you some. Do you want some?" She asked eagerly.

"I'm okay right now. Thank you though. Have you seen Rafe?" You asked. You were at his party, after all, it wasn't like there was any point in avoiding him now.

Sarah turned and pointed to the dock where Rafe and his group of friends were standing. "He's over there."

"Great. Okay! I'm going to go say hi."

"Have fun!" Sarah replied with a smile before running off in the same direction she's appeared in.

You made your way through the crowd to the dock, the groups' attention turning to you as you approached.

"Hey," you said, shyly.

Cleo and Riley jumped up from where they had been sitting with their legs dangling in the water.

"Y/n, right?" Cleo asked before leaning in for a hug.

"Yeah. Hi! It's good to see you guys again." You replied.

"You too! Rafe said you were back in town and I was wondering when you'd finally make an appearance." Cleo said.

You look over at Rafe to find him already watching you. He pushed through Cole and Milo and was suddenly in front of you

"Um, y/n and I need to get the fireworks." He said to the group. You watched Riley shoot Cleo a confused look but Cleo just shrugged it off.

Rafe grabbed your hand and pulled you along, leaving you no choice but to follow him. You walked in silence, other than the sound of your heart beating rapidly.

Rafe stopped at a small brick shed on the side of the house. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, pulling you in after. There were kayaks and paddleboards hanging on the walls and some old lifejackets littered the floor.

"Rafe-" you tried to start but he cut you off.

"Y/n, I seriously can't go one more minute without kissing you again."

Rafe looped his arm around your waist, cupped the back of your neck with his hand, and landed his lips on yours.

For a moment, you tilted your face upwards and leaned your body into his before your senses came rushing back to you and you shoved him backwards off of you. Surprise registered on his face.

"Rafe. No. I can't do this." Your voice broke, panic coursed through your whole body. "God, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have come here today or followed you here."

"Y/n." Rafe said but held your hand up warning him to say quiet.

"I have to go. I have to go," you repeated. "Tell Sarah I'm sorry I missed the fireworks. I know she'll be disappointed. I have to go."

You turned to leave but Rafe grabbed your wrist and his eyes locked with yours, his expression begging you to stay.

"I have a boyfriend." You blurted out. The weight of those four words settled on Rafe's face and you jerked your arm out of his grasp. You spun on your heel and walked out the shed and putting distance between you and the boy making your life so complicated.

You crossed the Cameron's yard, trying to gather yourself and slow your chaotic, unsteady breathing. You hurried down the long driveway, making it to the road without any tears slipping out of your eyes.

Rafe had tried to kiss you. He hadn't tried, he had kissed you. And you sorta kissed him back. No, not sorta. You kissed him back. But then you stopped. You pushed him away. You realized it was wrong. You didn't want to hurt Evan. You weren't gonna hurt Evan.

The fireworks began to explode behind you, large booms thundered across the sky, their big colors illuminating the night. You didn't dare turn around watch them. They reminded you too much of Rafe: the boy pulling your head and your heart in two different directions.

taglist! @oreoenthusiast13 [drop a ☀️ in my inbox or messages if you want to be added]

#outer banks #obx #rafe cameron #rafe cameron series #outer banks fanfiction #where it leads series #where it leads #obx fanfic #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron!high school #outer banks netflix

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leviskokoro · 4 years

Text

Idk I just wanted to write my mc with yanderes from @thelazystrawberryboi ‘s fantastic Flipped AU

WARNINGS

Unhealthy relationships, gore, emotional manipulation

GENERAL

So, Mari isn’t the defiant or combative darling type. She’s no idiot. These boys have tried to kill her before and can very easily kill her now.

However, that doesn’t mean she won’t try to figure out some way to escape.

Her plans are usually detailed and thought out

Unfortunately, these boys don’t make things easy for her at all

Waits for some sort of opening or chance before making a move.

Is actually rather tolerant because she’s also aware that she’s in Hell, these are demons, and that this is all probably normal for them.

LUCIFER

Genuinely thought it was a normal relationship

She was mostly embarrassed at how he shows her off and at the amount of gifts he gives her but still liked him a lot

Until he brutally murdered someone that touched her

All with a smile on his face, clearly enjoying the process and the suffering he brought

When he tells her that this is the length he’d go to keep her safe and how much he loves her, she feels kinda conflicted

Because on one hand, she does understand the feeling of wanting to do literally anything for someone she loves

But on the other hand doesn’t want people to die because of her

Just decides to go with whatever he says

Waits and sees what happens next

She’s still aware he’s the eldest and strongest among the brothers so it becomes more difficult to figure out an escape plan. Or if she even should.

After all, he also has the Demon Prince on his side supporting him.

MAMMON

Honestly Mari probably won’t mind too much if it’s him since he leaves her alone for the most part

Appreciates all his gifts. Sends him texts to thank him since she can’t see him.

Prefers him spending time with her but also understands that he’s busy and doesn’t wanna bother him

Then she sees that he’s texted her, telling her how much he loves her. He went into descriptive detail on literally everything he likes about her

Cries. Treasures those messages more than anything

But then he pulled a 180 and sent a picture of a demon on the streets in tattered clothing. She recognized it as one of the demons that she hit it off with at RAD, guilt and horror immediately filling her senses

Then as she read his novel-length message on why he did it.

It’s a fucked up situation and she didn’t even know what to do.

Coming up with a plan to escape him might be somewhat easier since he’s always so busy.

However, he’s still the second eldest and likely has many resources to track her down and lock her up.

She’s pretty much a bird in a gilded cage. Her only solace is that he’s not as bad as any of the others.

… Right?

LEVIATHAN

Well, Mari probably should’ve seen this coming

But plays along with the married thing. It’s pretty simple for her when she’s played the motherly role for so long.

Ngl I don’t particularly see how anyone would touch her if she’s already locked up but in the event that does happen, he immediately goes into a jealous rage and just goes ham.

When he comes back, blood and guts all over him, he holds her in his arms with an iron grip

It was difficult for her to ignore all the blood. She tried convincing him to wash himself off

“Darling, it must be uncomfortable with all that blood on you. I can join you if you want.”

He refused, only gripping her tighter.

She could’ve sworn she felt her spine crack under the pressure.

“Do you really love me? You do, don’t you? I mean— I’ve done so much for you.”

“Of course I do, dear. You don’t need to question it”

She nervously nods, trying her absolute best not to gag.

Levi has probably watched a lot of anime with yanderes. Heck, it’s probably a very common trope for Devildom anime.

So he probably knows his shit.

He’s got her locked up tight and she won’t be escaping anytime soon.

SATAN

Also thought it was a normal relationship. She quite enjoyed spending time with him.

The places he showed her were all wonderful and the experiences she had were so fun.

Also quite liked his affectionate gestures and liked having him hug her so much. She’s just very touch starved.

He treats her with such care that it’s hard to see the obsessive glint in his eyes

It probably seems like a great relationship for a while since people leave her alone and don’t mess with her

But one time a demon was running and accidentally bumped into her

Well, he’s not the Avatar of Wrath for nothing.

She watched in horror as he destroyed everything in the scene. The demon, the building, the furniture, all of it.

And yet somehow no debris fell on her, not even a speck of dust.

He comes back. His expression was as if he didn’t just demolish the entire place.

“Can I have a hug?”

“Uh, maybe after you’ve gotten the blood off of you? Humans can be… squeamish around blood.”

He was fortunately understanding enough to go clean himself up.

The fact that he’s usually so clingy doesn’t work well for her, making it very difficult to formulate a plan.

ASMODEUS

Mari actually gets along better with this version of Asmo so a friendship between them happened faster than her and normal Asmo.

She lets him confide in her and always offers him her support.

He’s quiet and shy when it comes to his feelings so she didn’t even know he liked her

That is, until one of his flings had found them in public and decided to strike up a conversation with her, trying to get in her pants. (Though admittedly, she usually doesn’t actually wear pants. She pretty much wears anything other than pants)

They’re dead now. Killed in less than a second.

Asmo looked at her, desperation and sickness in his eyes.

He’s even clingier than Satan this time and holds her tighter than everyone else. Not only that but he wants her to scream that she loves him until her throat bleeds.

Once he’s calmer, he just locks her up.

I’d say his one of the most impossible ones to escape due to just how clingy he is.

She’s still waiting for some sort of chance

Only for it to never come

BEELZEBUB AND BELHPEGOR

So, Mari has lived with manipulative family members for most of her life. She knows what Belphie is doing but still remains compliant because well, Beel was behind him and very willing to do what he tells him to.

Also, she tries to plot something but Beel immediately notices that and reports it to Belphie, who then tells her that they’re aware of what she’s thinking with Beel staring at her, a threatening glint in his eyes.

Probably the worst among the brothers mostly due to them being able to work so well.

Beel can read her like a book and is the muscle.

Belphie is the mastermind and knows what to do and how to do it.

However, they’re the ones that spoil her the most out of the brothers as well.

Gifts, affection, treats. Everything she could possibly want and more.

Is too scared of what they’d do to her if anyone came too close. Not only is there two of them, one of them plays the Devildom equivalent of American football and works out quite a lot.

Plus the other one has already killed her before.

She was shut down so quick

But at least this life isn’t too bad, right?

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jurijurijurious · 3 years

Text

Writerly ephemera meme

I was tagged by @thisbluespirit in this rather intriguing meme!

Find five bits of yourself that you gave to your fiction (memories and places and phrases and things into our stories), post and tag five or more writers to share as well.

Now I know I do write bits of myself and my experiences into my stories, one way or another, I think everyone does, but it doesn’t half put you on the spot when you have to try to remember where you’ve done it!

1) I know that recently I wrote Walsingham passing out at the end of a scene in “Mea Culpa”. The entire description is based on personal experience. I went through a scary few years as a young teen where I would pass out for little to no reason, usually at school where there were lots of people watching to cause me huge embarrassment, which then almost gave me a form of PTSD. I was constantly anxious about fainting, it was not good, and we never found out why it happened. But that’s another story... I still occasionally pass out but it’s usually for a reason, after having a vaccine or blood taken or something, but the whole process of fainting, though horrible, is like an old nemesis to me, uncomfortably familiar. I generally feel intense sickness in my stomach, my vision is puckered increasingly with white dots, my entire body comes out in a sweat, and I hear a high pitched whistle-type noise as I lose consciousness. And so since that is my experience, it became Wals’s too:

His palms sweated, his pulse raced... He shuddered and emitted another strangled breath, fingers white where he clutched the window sill, body trembling. He needed rest. Ursula's voice was becoming distant, the room was swaying like the deck of a ship caught in a storm. He felt a sudden nausea in his stomach, could hear a high pitched sound in his ears, a siren's wail beckoning him into the abyss.

“I am sorry. So very sorry,” he whispered, though he knew not exactly who he was addressing. His own voice now sounded as if it was coming from underwater, far away; he was drowning and could resist no more, slipped where he stood and descended into the open arms of oblivion.

2) This is another Walsibeth example I’m afraid because I haven’t written anything else for about a decade! So... Though the pandemic and my lack of funds has put a temporary hold to my hobby of horse riding, I am a half-capable rider and love tearing across country if opportunity allows on horseback. I can thus write people riding horses (English style, anyway) with a degree of accuracy. So in my smutty one-shot fic “In perpetuum et unum diem” (the one which is mostly a pastiche of the raunchy finale of “The Tudors” season 1, and also an excuse for me to write shameless sex), I began the ficlet with a bit of a horse-race between Bess and Wals to get the blood up (a scene that in itself mirrors Elizabeth’s racing with Raleigh in TGA, I later realised). Though I personally haven’t raced a person on horseback per se, I have done beach rides and also ridden on a horseback safari in Africa where you gallop as a group, and “giving your horse its head” is the order of the day! So a lot of this passage is me:

She turned her head back over her shoulder and caught Francis’ eyes. His lip quirked slightly at the corner but otherwise there was no change to his countenance. But that was enough. Her smile deepend as if to invite him to race her and she turned her head back around, gave her dappled grey mare its head and pressed her calves to its flanks. And the beast responded, driving its legs harder, faster, into a gallop and flew like a falcon through the trees.

...

As the wind flew in Elizabeth’s face, making her eyes water, a great whoop of exhilaration escaped her. There was nothing but her and the horse, and the knowledge that her blackguard of a lover galloped behind her. This was what it should feel like to live, even in tragically brief snippets; to feel the blood in your veins, the air in your chest, and the sun on your face, wild and free.

They then jump a tree trunk which I’d love to say I’d do, and I might, but most of my falls have been from jumping so I’d probably wimp out and go the long way around... ;)

3) Annnd another one from my Walsibeth fic “Mea Culpa”, just because it’s fresh in my mind. When I was driving to work last winter, there was one Sunday morning which had a jaw-droppingly beautiful sunrise. I tried to take a photo of it but could not do it justice. I did find a photo of Lincoln Cathedral on instagram from the same morning though which captured the sky perfectly. It literally looked like the sky was on fire, or something, and I immediately worked this memory into my story! I felt that a sky like that would make the perfect backdrop for a single, forlorn, broken bastard riding his horse in a clear, freezing morning:

There was a strange light in the sky as the sun began to make its ascent. It turned a deep crimson then lifted to shades of rich amber and gold; this combined with the few grey clouds passing overhead gave it the illusion of a huge fire, as if a great furnace now filled the heavens. Some might have called it beautiful, others would see a grim omen.

4) I had a look in my dreaded old fic archive, so full of cringe, and I found this from the end of my Doctor Who fic “Choices”, which I reckon I wrote between 2005-2006, possibly finishing it later than that. This scene right at the end (told from the perspective of Rose and the ninth Doctor’s daughter, Hope) is literally my old senior school - the class length, the finish time, the uniform was what I wore, and my history teacher was Mrs. Gaskin, and my mum would be waiting in her car to pick me and my sisters up:

By a quarter-to-three in the afternoon, she was in another History lesson with Mrs. Gaskin, and was spending another forty-five minutes hearing about the Black Death, the plague doctors, and the red crosses that were painted on people’s doors. It was fascinating, but Hope’s concentration wasn’t there. She kept looking out of the window at the school yard, noticing the little details that other days she would take for granted - like the way the trees swayed in the wind, the way a crisp-packet rolled across the concrete, and the pure azure-blue colour of the cloudless sky. Something was afoot but she had no idea what it was, or why she was feeling this way.

The bell rang finally at the end of the lesson, as the clock read three-thirty, and the class disappeared swiftly out of the door. It was home time! The voices of myriads of children echoed and shrilled down the corridors, and desperate feet, eager to get home, pounded down the stairs, making for the exits. White shirts were un-tucked from trouser and skirt hems, blue-and-red ties were loosened from about shirt collars, and black blazers were thrown off and carried over shoulders as the mass of pupils took flight.

Hope, however, took things slowly, almost as if she might never see them again, picking up on every smile, every individual laugh, and every joke pulled on every unsuspecting victim. She waved goodbye to friends, hitched her backpack over her shoulder, and made her way out of the school gates toward the spot where her mum or Uncle Jack would usually be waiting to pick her up. As she turned the corner onto Petunia Grove, though, she stopped and sighed. The car - either her mum’s or Jack’s - was not there.

Hope pursed her lips and shrugged, taking another good look around just to make sure that she hadn’t missed it, but there wasn’t a familiar car in sight. She thus let her bag slip off her shoulder, and she perched her backside on the street sign, swinging one of her feet back and forth as she waited for the arrival of her escort.

In the meantime, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander again, as it had been doing often throughout the day, and looked around the street. There was a blue tit on the hedge over the road, stood near a couple of sparrows and a robin. The front door of house number five was a brilliant shade of red, something which she had never really noticed before, and there was some graffiti on the road sign on the opposite side of the street. It read ‘Bad’ something or other, but she couldn’t read the other word since it was blocked off by the blue box.

Hope blinked and slowly rose to her feet. It couldn’t be…

5) And for number five, this is a short extract from the an unpublished Star Wars fic I wrote around 2010, where I tried for what must have been the third time to re-write the Star Wars nonsense I wrote as a teenager, all starring my very Mary Sue OC, Nadia, who became Vader’s apprentice and was mentored by Veers. I have here again worked my experiences of passing out into the story - a psychologist would have a field day with me. Nadia’s thoughts about showing weakness were also real fears of mine - I never liked to be weak, to be ill, to be a burden, and my character was the mouthpiece for my own self-disgust. It’s written in the first person with Nadia narrating in this scene where she accompanies General (Maximilian) Veers to the Kaminoan’s cloning facility to review further batches of troops and is taken ill by the experience of seeing the thousands of farmed foetuses:

Max nodded whilst I remained breathless and shaky in his shadow. I could not get those tiny, wriggling foetuses out of many head - they floated upon my consciousness, their inhuman eyes glaring into my face and their tiny hands reaching out toward me. I tried to rid myself of these infantile phantoms, but I could not, and I suddenly felt quite ill.

“We shall need many more in our next delivery,” Max told the creature, who began to babble on about the problems of this request, but was halted mid-sentence when Maximilian wheeled about and grabbed me, saying my name over and over. He disappeared amidst the snowstorm of white dots that littered my vision, however, and I collapsed upon the floor.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a bright, white room. The walls dazzled me for a moment and it took my eyes and my mind time to adjust and to recognise reality. I looked slowly at the plain walls, finding myself alone upon a bed with my hands by my sides and a drip feeding liquid into my arm. This seemed quite surreal - I knew I was not ill enough to warrant this - but I resolved to stay put until someone came to me. I felt extremely tired and I thought that I may as well take advantage of the rest.

I fell back to sleep again and, when I next woke, I saw Max sat in a chair beside me. I glanced about the room - we were alone. I looked at him uncertainly, my visage undoubtedly betraying the signs of my mortification, for he first said: “Do not worry, Nadia, I am not angry with you. It cannot always be helped.”

...

I wanted to defy him, to be strong, but no, I just showed him weakness and insecurity. What indignity was this?

Thanks for the tag, that was fun! I can’t think of 5 writers to tag but off the top of my head: @feuillesmortes, @robins-treasure and @captainofthegreenpeas? Have a go if you fancy.

#memes #writerly ephemera meme

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anxiouslyfred · 3 years

Text

Stubborn Words

Summary: Remus can’t get the words to work for this years letter to his soulmate so he decides to colour instead. He is not expecting to see those pictures framed on the wall of his friend’s home the next time he visits.

/\/\

The soulmate letters were a waste of time, if you asked Remus at least. You couldn't share any personal information or even anything that could remotely help your soulmate to find you and generally that meant people could only write vague descriptions of what's happening in their lives or recount specific situations with everything from names to place descriptions edited into nothing. Completely pointless for getting to know anyone, let alone somebody as important as your soulmate was meant to be.

Instead Remus decided to throw the entire 'getting to know you' idea out of the window and just write a story instead. As long as everything was fictional then it would get sent and he had a long list of stories people around him refused to listen to. Each year he could perfect at least one, but more often a few, stories to send off for his soulmate to read.

They even went along with it, usually replying with stories of how his letter had helped over the year, and occasions where they'd used something from Remus's stories to end an uncomfortable conversation. It was a fun exchange to get that kind of feedback in return and he loved it.

Words weren't working for Remus this year though and he hated it.

They felt clunky or fell flat. The descriptions were forced and nothing seemed to fit with the images in his head. It was a battle to get a sentence written and even then Remus felt like he had lost it.

So he turned to paints, to colour, and just let his hands rush over the pages, trying to capture the images in his thought in any form, even one he wouldn't usually turn to.

The first page that Remus covered in colour showed a vague figure in a fighting stance. It was blurry, made mostly of shadows and coloured shapes but clearly there, as were fallen forms of other people and he just had to carry on colouring, and find out what other forms might appear on a new page.

The style carried on with no outlines and it surprised Remus as much as it thrilled him to see an actual story growing on the pages.

He didn't need words this year to share a story with his soulmate.

/Let's visit a Friend's house\

Virgil had been friends with Remus for years, and he could only describe that friendship as an adventure, but they'd never spoken about their soulmates at all. It had put Virgil on edge when Roman had spent a month quizzing everyone he met on insignificant details his soulmate had mentioned, and that had been the time when he'd met Remus. The other had picked up on it and decided they shouldn't talk soulmates unless Virgil wanted to bring it up, which would never happen.

Now however he was beginning to think perhaps talking about their soulmates, or at least the letters they sent would have been a good idea.

At the very least it might explain why his friend has been frozen in the doorway of his home for 5 minutes, just staring at the picture he'd framed.

His soulmate had sent something of a comic strip this year and instead of carrying it with him to read in times when the pressure got too much, Virgil had decided to frame the pages and hang them around the entrance and hallway of his home. Now he could move to work out excess energy and lose himself in his soulmates story at the same time, with the added benefit that the pictures wouldn't risk being damaged from getting carried around.

Virgil did not anticipate having a friend frozen in his doorway as a problem that might come from hanging pictures up. Actually it had been one action he couldn't think of causing any problems at all so this was very concerning.

“Remus, I really would like to y'know, shut my door sometime today?” He tried asking again. He'd been ignored the first time he spoke, but now had a wild and lost gaze snapping onto his face.

Before he could ask what was wrong, Remus had pulled him into a hug, arms under his so Virgil was hanging in the air. “It's you. It's actually you! I dreamed and wondered so many times, but thought you'd be uncomfortable but it is really really you!” The words were muttered into his hair, almost trilling, like a song and a whisper joined together.

“Yes, it's the wonderful, worthless Virgil. You've known me for years, so is this a Remus method to say we haven't hung out enough or is there something else happening?” Virgil tried to pat his back, hoping to be put down, or at the very least given an explanation over what was happening. Somehow this didn't seem to purely be about the pictures any more and Virgil was not letting his thoughts go in that direction any further.

“No! Well Yes! Definitely! All the Hangouts, hook-ups, catch-ups, movie nights, everything! I need everything, every minute you'll let me be around and I'm gonna be here.” Remus was bouncing them now, as well as twisting his head every which way to try and look at Virgil while still tightly holding him close. “It's YOU! You're my soulmate! My wonderful story reader! Wait, have I been the cause for you hiding in my stories? I'll stop if things are too much for you, you know that right?”

He was suddenly put down, his friend now very concerned and searching his face but Virgil was still a few steps behind in the conversation. His soulmate was Remus? Actually, really Remus, this mad, energetic Remus, 'jumps from subject to subject faster than blinking but somehow knows when to just slow down and let Virgil zone out for a while if he's struggling' Remus?

But the door was still open and Remus was looking increasingly concerned and upset the longer Virgil tried to process that revelation. They didn't need an audience of any passers by for this scene so that became the immediate concern, turning away from his friend to shut and lock the door. Usually Virgil wouldn't lock it when guests were over but he was more focused on having security for the moment.

“You already do that before I even say anything Remus. I know.” Virgil said first, another glance to him showing that Remus had been wriggling uncomfortably in place since asking his last question.

He didn't say anything more though, heading through to his living room since he'd be laying on the floor if he didn't sit down soon. The table was at least clear so he could have a good perch to continue the conversation from.

Remus had followed him through just flopping onto the ground and staring up at him now. “Soulmate?” He asked.

“Yeah, I erm, was that why you were complaining about words being useless last month? Because you were struggling to write a story for me?” The memory had jumped into Virgil's mind from the last time they met. He'd listened to Remus brainstorming ideas a lot of their friendship, but knew, now completely, that from the things Remus would chat about with him to the stories that actually got written everything could change.

“Stupid things didn't co-operate at all. Your letters always talk about how my stories help so I just wanted to write something, give a story somehow. I loved it when the colours decided to tell the story the words ran away from.” He grumbled, pulling a face again at the issues he'd had trying to write.

Virgil snickered. “Look at it this way, you'd never have realised we're soulmates without having the change in what you sent.” It still felt unreal, but the more Remus mentioned the things he'd written in reply, the more he could believe they really are soulmates.

“I'm not going to thank my words for going on strike if that's what you're aiming for.” Remus stuck his tongue out, but grinned a second later. “You know, I could just move in and we can start figuring out who we are as soulmates with that.”

If they hadn't been friends for years, it wouldn't even be a consideration. If Remus hadn't shown time and time again an astute understanding of what helped when Virgil got stressed, anxious or simply upset, it still wouldn't be likely. But they had been and he had proven it, and Virgil found himself nodding. “Just separate rooms. You can have my spare room and if we want to change that later we can talk about it then.”

#dukexiety #remus sanders #virgil sanders #soulmate au #writing letters #sending pictures

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choices-ethanramsey-4life · 3 years

Text

Days with you make me feel better part 4

Pairings: EthanXMc

Warnings: very few, just angst

Description for part 4:

Ethan has returned to Boston to see Samantha. Only to try and put things together. With the questions in his head he follows after Samantha as they talk. One of the longest talks. One of the hardest talks they’ve had.

***Ethans POV***

I reach my place flicking the light on. As I head to my bedroom on my bed a jumper was there with the unmistakable scent of a light floral perfume.

“Samantha.” I quietly breathed out.

Heading to Donahues to see Reggie i hoped to see Samantha as-well. I walk in say hey and look over at a table outside. Samantha’s friends sat there all of them...but her. Dejected I sit as Reggie looks over at me.

“You seem glum.”

“Nothing.”

“Really? I was starting to think you were looking for that doctor. The small one with blonde hair.”

Damn it. He knew. And I knew.

“Did she come yet?”

“No. She started to come less after a while. She used to come alone at times sit in the corner and write often sketch at times. We talked at times. She hasn’t been coming for the past week.”

Why? Was it me? Was it something else? Why did she used to come alone?

Just then my eyes catch a glimpse at the girl who sat at a table outside. Her friends cheering.

“About damn time!” Dr. Varma exclaimed.

“Don’t listen to her glad your feeling better.” Dr. Trinh hugged her.

Feeling better? Was she sick? Is she still sick? Is she ok? Did I cause her pain? My mind tormented me. Reggie glancing at me.

“Speak to her.”

“What?!”

“You heard me. I’ve seen you two give eyes at each other all of last year before you left...”

“What! No we weren’t- I shocked by this. How many more ppl saw us like that?

Just then I got up and went outside and my eyes glanced on her.

She wore a black off the shoulders jumper with a sliver locket. With regular jeans and black ankle boots which was had heels on them.

The jumper which clung off her and her hair. Her beeline honey blonde hair which grew out longer... Her smile and the green emerald eyes which Emits pure joy and soo much love.

But under all that I see something else...pain, tiredness... loneliness. Her face despite the smile has both physical and mental fatigue.

She had also lost a lot of weight from everywhere. Which was shocking as it was concerning. But despite those imperfections she looks soo...

“Beautiful...” came out as a whisper.

I Walk up to the table as she hesitantly looked up and then says “hello Dr. Ramsey.”

Just like that we went back to Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Valentine.

***Samanthas POV***

“Hello Dr. Ramsey.”

“Hello Dr. Valentine.” He meets us and walks away. But how did I end up here? After staying in my room.

Some time earlier:

I sat in my room dejected. I looked out the window. Sunlight. Sitting on the seat next to the window I take it in.

A knock on the door.

“Samantha we’re going to Donahues come if you want. We really want you there. All of us.”

I flopped down on my bed. Elijah’s words ringing through my ears. He wants me there. They want me there.

Did I want to be wallowing in pain for ever? Is this who I want to be?

No. Of course not. Who wants to be like that?

I’ve been this person before. Broken. Alone. I’ve promised myself never to slip back into that again. But here I am. I’ve slipped back. I wasn’t going to slip back more.

Getting dressed for the first time in ages I curl my hair. To boost my confidence. I put on make up to cover the weeks, the two months of insomnia. Looking over at the mirror.

“I can do this. I’m Samantha Valentine.”

I hesitated as I walked in reggie giving me a smile.

“Hey Samantha.” Smile so genuine.

“Hi Reggie all good?”

“Yeah great. What about you? You seemed to disappear for a while I didn’t scare you off now?”

“No, no it’s not that. I’m fine. I’m feeling just fine.” I smile. Bryce comes from behind.

“Hey.”

“Bryce! Hey.” We hug as we go back out back to my place of peace. We sat in silence as he broke it.

“You feeling better?”

“Yeah...I feel better. I’m getting there.”

“Good. I’m glad your feeling yourself again. Everyone’s missed you.”

“Really?” He looks at me pulls me in for a hug as we sat on the grass.

“Yeah of course we did. You make Jackie more tolerable.” We laugh.

“Shut up.” As he drove back we made our way outside. Everyone cheered.

“Welcome back Samantha!” Elijah yells

“You guys are going to get us kicked out of here by Reggie with all the noise.” I laughed.

After that my eyes glance at a figure at the regular spot. Ethan.

He comes up to us as we all take in his new look. The beard, the green Jacket.

After pleasantries and moving inside and after an eventful hour, Reggie does his last call as my friends leave area waiting for me.

“Samantha all ok?” Aurora asks

“Yeah, yeah you guys go I’ve dropped my locket on the ground I’ll be out in 5 minutes you guys go.”

“Are...you sure?” Sienna asks.

“Yeah sure go don’t wait.”

“Don’t be too late” Sienna hugs me as Jackie pulls her arm.

“Come on! She’s not a baby. And you si need to get out more come on!” Jackie teases.

“But- Sienna tried to protest

“She’s right you know si, you can put your inner mom away for one night ok.” I pat a hand on her shoulder as they hesitatingly left.

I look on the ground as Reggie says “all good Samantha?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m just about to leave. I dropped my locket I’m just going to find it and I’ll be gone.”

“Sure thing. Take your time.” He smiles and goes by cleaning the place.

Found it! I get back up and bump my head on the table. “Ow!” I rub my head as Ethan looks back at me getting up.

“You ok?”

“Yep.” As I turn to leave he holds my wrist and says

“Rookie.” That word causing my heart to beat faster. I turn to face him.

“Yeah.”

“Join me? For a little while.” I nod.

He smiles “want anything?”

“No. It’s ok.” We head outside in the cold which pinches my skin. Sitting on the bench in front of the fire he watched me stare at the fire.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m fine.” He comes closer arm around me.

“It wasn’t a question.”

“Ok.” We sat in peaceful silence my head on his shoulder. Nothing but the sound of our Breathing.

Just then he broke the silence.

“Samantha can I ask what happened? You didn’t write or call and Reggie says you rarely used to come with your friends. At times you came alone.”

“Nothing happened. It was simple. You left. Made it clear that you didn’t want this.”

“I didn’t say that or mean that. I had to clear my head.”

“Yeah. So did I. You don’t see me running off again. Maybe because at this point it’s too predictable.”

“What do you mean predictable? What happened Samantha I want to know. You’ve changed. Look at you it’s clear you over work yourself.”

“I’m going. I don’t need to say anything. If anyone should explain anything it’s you.”

“Samantha wait-

“For what? The next time you get scared and run away?” I walk off don’t turn back.

***Ethans POV***

I sit processing what happened as Reggie says “go after her! She’s right you know. She need an explanation.” He pushes me to the door before I could protest.

Driving I didn’t know where to go. I think and remember what Samantha showed me at the end of her intern year.

“This is my place of peace. When I come here everything feels right. I know that life is crooked. With it it can ruin or bring joy.”

Heading to the cliff area a small figure sat on the grass looking over at the city.

“Samantha.” She doesn’t look I sit next to her.

“Tell me.” She lays a head on my shoulder as she involuntarily shivers.

“Honestly rookie.” I take off my jacket which was huge on her small frame.

“I don’t need it you know. I have a jumper on.” She smiles

“It’s not doing a good job keeping you warm. Anyways tell me. Now.”

Her head on my shoulder my arms around her. She was crying.

“Rookie.”

“Just. Let me explain.” She calms down after a couple of minutes and says

“October 5th 2009. The day my brother died. I was 17 he was 21. He got in a fight with my dad they argued I couldn’t stop him from leaving. His car crashed into a bridge. His breaks failed for some reason.”

I understood her better a layer of her being exposed. I knew her brother died she didn’t go in detail. She never did.

“I couldn’t believe it. He was my support system. More of a family than my dad could give. When I came to Edenbrook a part of me never believed he died. I knew he died but I could never say it. After the case i thought that...that for a second I... I saw him.”

“Oh Samantha.” I held her a little tighter.

“He wasn’t there. I started to come to terms that he died.” Her voice breaks in between tears “and then you left me. I just felt alone despite having people around me.”

“I’m sorry it’s my fault. I shouldn’t of left i should of been here for you...”

“Don’t Ethan. Don’t. It’s not your fault. I would keep my self busy at work. Or I would sit in my bedroom and think about what i did wrong. Naveen took me to Seattle to see his grave my dad was at a conference with my aunt in LA. So chances of seeing him was none. I even got some of his things Naveen gave me.”

“Are you ok?”

“I will be. Don’t worry. I’m just glad you came back you didn’t leave.”

“Of course rookie why would I leave? I have you here.”

They sat watching the city lights and the stars twinkle above them. In an embrace holding each other. Taking it a day at a time. They though of only then and then. Ethan and Samantha. Samantha and Ethan. At that moment they were just that... and nothing else.

Thank you soo much for reading this fic Days with you make me feel better. I’m glad you’ve read until now and supported me, given I take forever to write😂😂. But Really enjoyed writing this mini series. If there’s any suggestions do let me know in the comments I’ll do my best to make it happen. ♥️

Tags: @schnitzelbutterfingers

#choices ethan ramsey #choices open heart #ethan ramsey #open heart #open heart ethan #bryce lahela #choices bryce #choices jackie #jackie varma #open heart jackie #choices oh #oh choices

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thegirlwholied · 3 years

Text

fic writer interview game

(though I go such long spans between updates 'fic writer' is a generous description... look, I may not have glorious purpose but I have glorious excuses)

& thanks @aurorawest for the tag 💕

name: Cara

(...not sure how many of you out there know this actually- except those of you who know me IRL! - as while I love my name I rarely reference it here & do enjoy that a certain corner of the internet knows me as lyin)

fandoms: I am a dabbler, a renaissance fan, a reader-of-all-trades (master of none!)- I'm all over the place; if I like something I check the Tumblr tag; if I reblog it I have probably at least stalked the AO3 page to see what folks are up to (I am in my own little fandom corner- but kitty-corner to many avenues!).

two-shots: the closest I've come to a two-shot I wound up putting up as a one-shot instead (or we could count my one fic that only has 2 chapters, but in my head it has more)

most popular multi-chapter fic: I had to check but my guess was right, it is Glass of Water, & you know, imho the one thing ol' fan fic dot net still has going for it over AO3 is its cool statistics - I don't know who you are, 50-100 people from all over the world reading till the last chapter every month on FF Dot Net even now, but much love!

actual worst part of writing: making myself sit down & get going. When I really get going - I forget to stop, I forget to eat, I don't hear people talking or music (when I toured the Louisa May Alcott house they described her writing like this and I related so much), I go for hours upon hours without meaning to and then I stop and - tend to stay stopped too long. I'm not good at the 'write everyday' process; I'm best at it when traveling, when I'd settle in at a coffee shop or location (or on a plane!), write some, & have to move on, but, uh, global pandemic put a cramp in that. I know it has to be on the page to count but I really, really do a lot of my writing in my head first. Most of my fics, if you've read one, are first drafts, straight up. They just got rewritten in my head & half-started notes & beginning scenes until I finally sat down and the whole thing came out at once feeling right. Or half comes out in one burst and the rest in another burst however much later. Typically I'd adjust a few typos & post. This is by no means writing advice! It'd be bad writing advice! But just how I operate. I've tried other ways but I've learned over years that my work's better when I accomodate/work around my natural creative process rather than trying to change it. (Also deadlines. I'm so good at delivering on hard deadlines; I am weak with soft deadlines.)

how you choose your titles: as this is a fic specific 'interview', how I title fics is very different than my og fiction. Most commonly: song lyric (...actually I did title my og fiction grad school thesis after a song lyric too; i may not hear/play much music while I write but I sure think about writing while listening to it), canon reference that is typically One Dramatic Word, poem/quote references with a heavy lean on Yeats.

do you outine?: not for fan fics, but I have a general shape in my head of 'this chapter where this happens' - if I have an unfinished fic with expected number of chapters, those are pretty accurately predictions; I have at least a big picture of what happens in each chapter. & probably some of the conversations, sometimes even already jotted-down dialogue. A written outline? Not so much (my original novel did have a list of chapters with notes to keep it straight but they looked like "Chapter Thirty-Seven: epilogueeeeeeee denoumenttttttttt job" - direct quote down to the # of t's, there)

Ideas you probably won't get around to, but wouldn't it be nice?: I still convince myself I will finish All the Things! but uh some have gone wayside yeah. One I really thought would be cool & know is blowing in the wind was this Buffy fic (yes, A Fic Not Appearing On My Actual Fic Profiles) which was a *whole* Big Concept thing even though I thought I could do it in 5 chapters. ...And then I didn't.

spicy tangential opinion: not that spicy but the fanon/canon gulf is often wide & deep for certain characters in particular &🎶I'm frightened by those who don't see it🎶. really, a character’s fanon version at times may be more fun (though more often it softens character's edges amd I like edges) but... with *certain characters in particular* it feels like that distinction’s been weirdly lost. Also, random, but probably because,my formative years were fan fic dot net, not livejournal, I always feel odd when my AO3 replies to comments (instead of reviews) are a) public and b) add to the comment count. AND I tend to wind up in a loop of 'wouldn't this person rather I spent this time working on an update' where I just... never reply which seems counter to the expected AO3-cultural norm these days, so I feel guilty? Despite the guilt I just reply to so many emails for a living (3 inboxes just for work, plus then my personal email & texts!)... so for the record my default approach is 'I appreciate all comments SO SO MUCH & do read them all but please message me on Tumblr instead if you want a response".

These opinions are 'pumpkin spice' levels of spice, not exactly cayenne here, but hey I think I achieved tangential

callouts @ me: I always think I will get there faster than I do - this is true when I am driving places too! My friends expect me to be late even though I don't expect me to be late!- so I have been known to, let's say, overpromise on update speed. (I meant to do my work today, goes a favorite poem that always applies @ me) (Time between 2011 and 2021 feels especially timey-wimey and oh no 🎶well, I guess this is growing up 🎶).

(also @ me: overly fond of parenthesis.)

& definitely some people-pleasing tendencies that spill over into, not so much my writing itself, but how I feel about it.

best writing traits: detail, dialogue, ...deaths? Lol but really. My favorite thing as a reader is when writing make you laugh & cry so those are my favorite compliments as a writer. Humor/angst: always my fic genre. Even my closest-to-fix-it fics are labeled 'somebody lives' not 'everybody lives'. ...and I need to update them (dammit)

tagging: ...this is way too long to tag, aka inflict directly upon, anyone else, except @aurorawest who asked for it 😂

#about me #tag games

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illfoandillfie · 4 years

Text

5 Simple Rules for a Successful Fake Relationship: One Small Hitch

READ PART 1

Pairing: Ben Hardy x Reader

summery: You and Ben have your first official date and settle into your "relationship". But, with filming coming to a close, you'll need to be more committed to the act than before, especially when Ben's keeping secrets.

Warnings: Again, nothing much. Some language. Drinking. Nothing else I can think of.

Words: 8355

AN: Chapter 2 is finally here! Sorry for the delay but hopefully the next part will be up faster. I'm really really enjoying writing this series and I am so very excited about what's coming! The song mentioned is Reckless Serenade by Arctic Monkeys. Sidenote: Can anyone work out the theme of the chapter titles?

Taglist: @laedymoon @dtfrogertaylor @vee-ndetta @atomic-watermelon @kellypenac @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @hannafuckingsucks @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @queenmylovely @supersonicfreddie

“I’ve got something for you,” you half shouted at Ben when you saw him walking towards you from across the field you were filming in. You shuffled your shitty takeaway coffee into your other hand so you could reach into your bag, pulling out a piece of paper folded in half. He took it and pulled you into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Funny cause I have something for you too,” Ben said as he let you go, reaching into his backpack and handing you a magazine, “Oh, shit, it’s our rules. You want page 15 by the way.” “Figured you’d want a record of them. What exactly am I looking f-” you let the word hang as you found the right page. It was decorated with a photo of you and Ben kissing on his doorstep, his hand around your back, the shirt you’d borrowed riding up just enough that it was clear you didn’t have shorts on underneath as you clutched at him. There was some text beside it, mentions of your most notable roles and his, a brief description of the movie you were in the process of making, and some speculatory remarks with a couple of innuendos thrown in. The usual gossip mag fare. On the other side of the paragraph was another photo, both of you leaving set the previous Friday, hand in hand and smiling. “We look pretty good together,” you laughed, getting only a noncommittal grunt in return. He’d suddenly become very interested in the sheet you’d handed him, staring at it like he hadn’t been there when it was written. You reread the brief article, trying not to gawk at the photographs. It certainly looked believable. “I’ve had about four people wish us well this morning,” Ben suddenly said, seemingly pulling himself together, folding up the rules and shoving them into his back pocket, “and I’ve not been here long. It’s kinda weird having everyone know we’re together. Or think we’re together,” he quickly corrected himself. “Yeah, Mel kept asking me questions about it while she was doing my makeup this morning, so I hope she took my awkwardness as me wanting to keep things private and not me not knowing how to answer some of them.” Ben chuckled, “yeah, Gail gave me a bit of a grilling too. I just told her we’d been sort of seeing each other for a few weeks and had only just like made it official or whatever and she seemed to buy it.” “Good, I told Mel the same sort of thing. Hopefully that’s enough for them.” “I’m more concerned with what my friends are going to say. I don’t think any of them read Heat though so hopefully it doesn’t come up any time soon,” “Lucky. My friend Felicity has the dumb site bookmarked. Checks it religiously. Bloody miracle she hasn’t called yet.” “Better turn of your phone then,” “And come back to a full voicemail and about a hundred texts demanding to know why I’m ghosting her?” “Tell her you were filming. I do it all the time,” he was grinning at you and you couldn’t help but grin back as you pulled your phone out and shut it off, “atta girl,” he pulled you into his side and gave you an affectionate squeeze that you leaned into , fully aware of how many people were around you, potentially watching. It was a feeling that didn’t really let up. You knew, rationally, that everyone there was focused on their jobs, but you couldn’t help feeling like you were constantly being scrutinised, and not just for your acting. It didn’t help when Seth had to stop recording to fix a problem with the boom mic and, good-humouredly, said, “don’t worry lovebirds, we’ll have her running in a second.” Or that one of the ADs delivered your call sheets for the next day with a, “I always thought you’d be cute together.” And it certainly didn’t help when you turned your phone on at the end of the day to find a series of texts from Felicity each with more exclamation points and capital letters than the last, and a missed call from Mary. “Better call her back,” Ben said, following you towards the carpark. You rolled your eyes, already holding the phone up to your ear listening to it ring. “Y/N, I was just about to try you again,” “Sorry, Mary, I had my phone off while we were recording, what’s the matter?” “Are you free this weekend?” “Um yeah, I think so, why?” “We’d like for you and Ben to go on a date this weekend. Somewhere in London preferably but it’s up to you. You saw the article in Heat? It seems to be going well. The hits your names have got on google have increased and there have been a few tweets about it. Nothing huge, you’re not trending or anything but you’re still relatively unknown so we weren’t expecting that to happen, certainly not overnight. But we think if we get a date story out quickly it’ll really help get people interested.” You rubbed your temple as you tried to process everything she’d just said, “Okay, I’ll talk to him and we’ll organise something. I’ll text you the details once I have them.” “Okay, let me know as soon as you can though. And send Peter the info too.” “Will do. See ya Mary.” “Was that about me?” Ben asked, smiling as he leaned against your car. “You up for a date this weekend? Apparently the first story went well and they want a follow up ASAP.” “Sure, where are we going?” “I don’t know, somewhere around London would apparently be best, but we get to choose. Any thoughts?” He thought for a moment, “This isn’t our first date is it? Like, we’ve said we’ve been on others before, right?” “Yeah, why?” “Well normally for a first date I take girls out for dinner and then, depending on the girl and how the dinner went, either a quiet drink or like a romantic as fuck walk in the park or something.” “That’s pretty standard stuff, Ben,” “Yeah, but in the fiction of us as a couple, this isn’t our first date. This’d be, what?” “Fifth maybe?” “Fifth. So I’m still trying to impress you a bit, but it’s like, more relaxed. We’ve done the dinner date, we’ve done coffee and a movie, we’ve even done the Museum. Now we’re getting into the fun shit.” “Museums don’t count as fun shit?” you chuckled, not sure where his train of thought was taking you. “It’s a bit overdone is all.” “What do you have in mind then?” “There’s this place that runs art classes during the day, right? Life drawing or like painting for beginner's type stuff. But a couple of nights a week they run these art and wine nights. They’ll give you a canvas or a ceramic figure or something like that and some paints and you can have a few drinks and do something arty. I did it with some mates a while ago, had heaps of fun. Seemed like the sort of thing yo- a girl might like to do on a date.” “That definitely sound fun.” “Really? You’re into it?” “Yeah, for sure.” “Okay,” Ben pulled out his phone and began typing, “shall I book us in for the Saturday night ceramics session?” “Go ahead. What time was that, so I can let Mary and Peter know.” “Seven thirty. If we get a cab in a little earlier we can grab something to eat on our way.” “Cool, okay I’ll text them. Is it BYO?” “Yeah. They do sell some stuff but it’s a pretty small selection.” “Okay, well that’s something to look forward to. Anyway, I should be going since I have about a million texts to sort through, I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Wait, one thing,” Ben said before you could open your car door, “There’s a few people coming off set now so I’m going to kiss you, okay?” “Thanks for the heads up,” “No worries,” he stepped closer, his hand rising to cup your cheek as he kissed you softly. He took longer to break away than you’d expected, letting the kiss deepen instead, but you didn’t mind too much. It was a good kiss. And if it hadn’t been for Ben and the movie, you would have been severely lacking them recently. Which explained the vague feeling of disappointment that hit you when he did step back.

On your way home your phone beeped with another text from Felicity but you ignored it until you were inside and changed into the comfiest clothes you could find, flopping down on your bed to scroll through what she’d written. They varied from, “omg why didn’t you tell me about this Ben guy?” to “Y/N!!! Answer my texts!!!” all the way up to, “BITCH!!! CALL ME!!!!” She picked up on the first ring. “Where the fuck have you been all day?” “Some of us don’t have office jobs we hate,” you laughed, “I actually had to work, funnily enough, and because we were on location I had to keep my phone off while we recorded.” “Well I’ve been going crazy over here. Imagine my shock when I boot up my computer and open Heat and see your fucking arse being grabbed by your co-star.” “He was not grabbing my arse.” “Close enough. You didn’t tell me how fucking gorgeous he is.” “No, well, I don’t usually think about the people I work with like that, do I?” “Which is why I was so surprised to see you’ve shacked up with one of them.” “It’s not quite that serious.” “One night stands aren’t your usual thing. Definitely not with guys you work with anyway.” “I never said it was a one night stand, just that it wasn’t super serious!” “How many times then?” “We’ve been on like four dates.” “You fuckhead! You mean to tell me you’re actually dating this guy, who by the way looks like he could be a fucking underwear model, and you didn’t think to tell me? No so much as a I got dicked down by a total babe aren’t you jealous message?” “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it if it wasn’t going to go anywhere.” “But still, I’m your best friend, I tell you about every shag I have.” “In graphic detail,” “Exactly.” “Look it’s just a bit weird still. Neither of us have really hooked up with a co-star before and we didn’t want to say anything until we worked out what was happening.” “I guess that makes sense,” you could tell she didn’t mean it, “But, now that it’s out you owe me. I want to hear all about it.” “There’s not much to tell. We became quite good friends during all the pre-production stuff when we were rehearsing and all that. Our director wanted to make sure we clicked and had the right chemistry and stuff, since it’s a romcom and our characters get engaged in the first scene, so we hung out a lot. And then just before filming started he asked me out. Took me to this nice Chinese restaurant. It was fun so we agreed to go out again and it’s sort of just kept going.” “Those photos, was that the first time you’d stayed over at his?” “Second. First time was a couple of weeks ago. The night that led to the photos was just a few drinks after work with some of the others and we ended up ducking out a bit early and wound up at his.” “And?” “And what?” You had a hard time not laughing when you heard her groan. Her eagerness to know every sordid detail made her easy to fuck with, and that made the whole business of being secretive a lot more fun. “And, how was he?” “I mean…y’know,” “Y/N, I swear to god,” “He was good, okay? Really good,” you remembered what Ben had told you to say, trying not to laugh too much while you repeated it, “like, three orgasms good.” “Shit, really?” “Uhuh. And then another in the morning.” Felicity replied with a long whistle, “shit, girl, hold onto that one then. That’s definitely worth any trouble working together could cause." “Believe me, I know. We’re going out again this weekend.” It was surprisingly easy to lie about dating Ben. Though, of course, you weren’t technically lying since you would be going on a date. “Shit man, date five. That’s serious shit. You better tell me everything, in graphic detail.”

When you told Ben about the conversation the next day, admitting you’d spent ages praising his sexual prowess, he laughed and then thanked you, pulling you into a tight bear hug. You thought it was a slight overreaction considering he’d been the one to tell you what to say but his happiness was infectious, and you found yourself smiling more than normal as you hung out between scenes. An attitude which could only help your performance, making people more ready to believe you were a couple. His easy laughter and bright smiles continued until the afternoon when you were telling him more about Felicity and what you’d talked about. “She thinks you’re a keeper and kept telling me not to let you go.” “Your friend knows what she’s talking about.” “Lucky for you I can’t let you go since it’s all written up in a contract,” Ben laughed but when you glanced at him his smile seemed to falter. “You okay?” “Brilliant. Just had a bit of a late night and it’s catching up on me. Think I might try to have a quick nap before we’re needed again.” “I was thinking of grabbing another coffee if you want one?” “Thanks Y/N but I think the nap will do me more good.” “Probably better people don’t see us heading off to a trailer together anyway or they’ll suspect we’re getting up to mischief.” “Very true. I’ll see you a bit later.” “Sleep well!” Ben turned to leave, his smile seeming more forced than earlier. You would have worried except he seemed to be back to normal when he was called for your next scene. And it continued on through the week, his happiness only getting more pronounced the closer it got to the weekend.

You couldn’t quite match his energy on Friday, anxiety over your date getting stronger the closer you got to it. Hanging out at his place had been easy, even if it did include leaving half dressed. All you’d had to do was kiss him which you’d done enough times during filming that it was no longer too odd. But a proper date was something else. It was going to be the first real test you faced, the first time you’d really have to sell yourselves to the public as more than co-stars and more than a hook-up. “Hey are you okay?” “Huh?” “Your jiggling your leg a lot which you only do when something’s worrying you, what is it?” “Oh,” you forced your leg to stop moving, “nothing,” “Is it about our date tonight?” “What if it’s bad? What if we don’t look like we’re actually together and Mary and Pete have to cancel the whole thing?” “I’d get a decent night sleep not thinking about us,” he muttered. “What?” “I’ve been worried about it too,” he said louder, “but I think we’ll be okay. It’s not like we’ll be starved for conversation and we’ll have the paint and the wine and we’ll be fine. Plus, weren’t you the one who said this would be easy?” “Yeah I was,” you said sheepishly, “but -” “No buts. It’ll be a piece of cake. We go and have a good time painting a couple of plates or bowls or whatever, and then hold hands while we head home. They’ll get whatever shots they get, and they’ll spin it so we look like a couple.” “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry,” “It’s okay,” he reached out to rub the back of your hand, smiling softly at you, “the nerves might actually help you look like you’re legit. And worst comes to worst we can always run lines. I’m honestly so much more nervous about shooting that scene tomorrow.” “The one where we’re playing matchmaker?” “Yes! Have you seen how many names are in there?” “Theres like six, Ben,” “Yeah but they’re all repeated, and I know I’m going to get the order wrong,” You giggled and shook your head, “You’re unbelievable,” “Oh whatever,” he pushed your shoulder almost making you overbalance, “Just cos you know the lines already.”

Ben’s efforts to calm you down worked and you got through the rest of the workday without a hitch. Though your stomach was once again tight with nerves in the hours before the date. You spent a solid half hour standing in front of your wardrobe, freshly washed hair slowly dripping down the back of the towel you had wrapped around you, trying to settle on what to wear. When you were finally dressed you checked and rechecked the contents of your purse, and, in a moment of panic, you grabbed the heavily highlighted and notated script pages with the matchmaker scene and shoved them in beside your lipstick and bank card. By the time Ben arrived in an Uber to pick you up, ushering you into the backseat with a kiss on the cheek and a complement about how lovely you looked, you felt like you were on the verge of throwing up. But, once again, Ben’s natural charm eased your mind. The way he talked to you and smiled constantly had your heart rate slowing and your stomach settling within minutes. Even the way he squeezed your hand when he helped you out of the car, and the way he laced his fingers with yours as he led you towards your destination were welcome comforts. “D’you wanna grab something to eat?” Ben asked, stopping on a corner and looking around, annoyed people passing by on both sides. “Uhh, s’pose so.” “Has anyone ever told you you’re indecisive?” “I swear I’m not normally.” “Oh? Do I make you nervous, snookum?” he asked, playfully. “No, you git,” you laughed back, though you found it hard to meet his eyes, “I just don’t know I’m that hungry.” “Well, keep in mind there’ll be wine drinking. Don’t want to do that on an empty stomach.” “Valid argument. What’s nearby?” After some wandering you ended up in a McDonalds, Ben wolfing down a burger while you picked at the fries, not quite certain you’d be able to keep your food down. It was when you were coming out of a bottle shop, Ben holding the wine you’d agreed on, that you spotted the photographer. It was the same one who’d been outside Ben’s house when you stayed over, camera aimed at the two of you. Quietly you nudged Ben. He just wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side as you walked. You struggled to not watch the photographer as he followed you towards the art studio, having to keep reminding yourself to pretend he wasn’t there. “Relax,” Ben said softly in your ear, “He’s not important.” You nodded, afraid if you said anything you’d lose the meagre dinner you’d had. Ben’s thumb rubbing over your own gave you something else to focus on, counting each soft, smooth stroke, until you reached the right place.

You weren’t the only couple there, far from it. Most of the claimed tables were taken by pairs sitting close together, hands clasped or laying on thighs as they talked. A few tables held larger groups, double dates maybe or perhaps just friends. You felt a few eyes on you as you found a table close to the clear glass of the shopfront, but they turned away again quickly, more interested in their own little bubbles than yours. You glanced outside to check if the photographer was still there but couldn’t see much more than the reflection of you and Ben. His knee bumped yours under the table as he leaned toward you, pressing a finger to your jaw to turn your head towards him. “Forget the photographer. Forget Mary and Peter. Forget our arrangement. We're just two friends having a fun night out, okay?” “Okay,” “Okay. So what are you thinking of painting then?” He unscrewed the bottle of wine and grabbed one of the glasses you’d been handed on arrival. “Well what are my options?” “Well there’s your classic teacup, mug or plate options. There’s a couple of different jewellery boxes, I think. And then there are the statues, ummm, fairy, dragon, alien. Maybe a princess one, I can’t remember.” “More than I thought there’d be. What were you thinking?” “I did a dragon last time I was here. But I think I’m going to do a mug this time. Need some extras if you’re gonna be staying over more often.” “Maybe we should both do mugs, then? Something we can use at each other’s places.” “Alright, deal. But we can’t look at what the other is painting until they’re done.” “That’s going to be so hard!” you laughed, feeling properly relaxed for the first time all night. “Yeah but it’ll be fun though. Wait here, I’ll go grab us the mugs.” You took the opportunity to look around the room, trying to think of what Ben might like on a mug. There was art everywhere – paintings hanging on walls, examples of what the classes could teach you, decorated ceramics lining windowsills and shelves. Judging by the wildly differing levels of talent displayed, you assumed at least some of them were left behind and never claimed. There were plates decorated with fruit trees and ocean scenes, jugs covered in splatters of different colours, aliens in shimmery blue and princesses with green hair and orange dresses. But nothing that sparked your imagination. The noise of the room was steadily growing as everyone got stuck into their creations. Ben sat down, took a drink and got to work mixing colours. “You know what you’re going to do then?” “I have an idea. But I will warn you I’m not a particularly good artist so it might not look anything like what it’s meant to.” You picked up your blank mug and put it down again, tapping the end of a paintbrush against the table as you tried to come up with an idea. What did Ben like? He liked coffee. And dogs. And his guitar. More than once he’d brought it to set, playing it in his downtime. He’d been embarrassed the first time you mentioned overhearing him as you passed by his trailer, but you’d assured him you’d liked listening to him. You’d had the song stuck in your head for a week afterwards. “Made up your mind, have you?” Ben asked, glancing up from his handiwork as you mixed a pale peach colour. “No peeking,” “I wasn’t peeking. If I’d been peeking, I would have done this,” Ben craned his neck, leaning over to where your mug was. You laughed and pulled the mug closer to you, pushing him away with your other hand. He caught it in his own, taking the paintbrush from you, “Oi, careful with that.” “Oops, sorry,” Ben laughed and kissed your palm before letting you have your hand back, “No harm done. But y’know if you splattered me I’d have no choice but to get payback.” There was no need to reach for the script you’d brought as you and Ben fell into conversation while you painted. He asked if you’d had any more awkward phone calls with your friends and told you about what had happened when his mates had found out. Nothing like the conversation you’d endured, though there’d been plenty of teasing. You had to admonish him for nearly getting paint on your work when he began using the largest brush he had to artistically spray drops of paint over his mug. And then he’d laughed when you paused, admitting out loud that you weren’t actually sure how to paint the thing you’d planned on painting. He’d promised not to peek while you whipped out your phone to look up a reference image, going to far as to cover his eyes just to make sure. Once you gave him the okay he went back to painting, switching to a thinner brush and shushing you so he could concentrate. It was ridiculous how cute he looked, tongue between his teeth, bent over the mug as he slowly outlined the design. You shook your head to clear the thought and went back to your own work.

“Okay, I’m done. You wanna see now?” “Yes, absolutely. Unless you think we should wait until after they’ve been glazed?” “Fuck that, we can’t pick them up for a couple of days, I wanna show you now.” “Alright, show me then,” you put down your brush, focusing all your attention onto the mug in Ben’s hands. The base coat was a light purple, with splatters of darker purple over top. Slowly he turned the mug to show you the design on the front. It bore a slightly wonky engagement ring, similar to the one his character gave yours in the movie. On either side of the ring, in thin, not quite straight lettering, was the words we’re really good at this dating thing. You smiled as soon as you read the quote from the script, “I love it, Ben” “Thought it was kind of fitting,” he chuckled, “plus it’ll be a nice little souvenir once the movie wraps.” “That was a fun scene to shoot. Best proposal I’ve ever had.” Ben smiled and carefully turned his mug back towards him, “Best proposal I’ve ever given,” He seemed to be about to say something but stopped himself, shaking his head. You lowered your voice, “Promise I’ll get to keep it after we break up?” “Promise,” Ben said, matching your level and leaning in close, “Until then maybe you can use it as a reminder whenever you feel anxious about this whole dating thing.” “Thanks, I will.” You were suddenly very aware of how softly you were speaking, how close you were sitting, leaning in to hear each other over the rest of the room, and for a split second you thought he was going to kiss you again. But then the moment passed, the noise of the room intruding as Ben leaned back in his seat, “So do I get to see mine?” “Uh, it’s not quite done,” you said, picking up your brush again, the moment gone, “give me another couple of minutes.” “Masterpieces take time, I get it,” “This is by no stretch a masterpiece,” “I’ll be the judge of that thanks very much,” Ben turned to look out over the room while you tried to finish your painting without smudging anything, occasionally making comments about other people there or the art that decorated the room. You took one last look at what you’d painted, the guitar with the words stun gun lullaby written in cursive beside it, “Alright, I’m done now, you can look. Careful, some of it’s still wet.” Ben gently took hold of the handle and turned the mug so the design faced him. He broke out into a grin and you felt relieved that he liked it. “It’s definitely a masterpiece. For someone who didn’t know how to draw a guitar you’ve done an incredible job. And how did you know that’s one of my favourite songs?” “Is it? It's just the song I overheard you playing that one time. I thought that line was a good one for a mug. Nice and short so I didn’t have to paint too much.” “This is definitely my new favourite mug.” “Oh stop it.” “And hey, they kind of match.” You laughed when he pointed out the similarities, “Guess they do. Y’know that’d make a pretty cute Instagram post.” “You going to tag me as my mug?” “Of course. You could post a photo and tag me in it too,” “I don’t know. I don’t really post much personal stuff online.” “Well at least comment on mine,” “I can do that.”

After you’d taken a decent photo and posted it online you cleaned up, handed your mugs over to the woman running the night’s activity and stepped back out into the night. There was no sign of the photographer anywhere and you supposed he’d got what he needed and then left. Still, Ben grabbed your hand as you walked back up the street, just in case you’d missed the photographer in the crowd. “Guess that means we don’t have to worry about going home together,” you said, nudging Ben. “Guess not,” his lips quirked down in a soft frown.” “What is it?” “Nothing, nothing, just...feels kind of weird to just end the date here, I guess,” he scratched the back of his head and laughed, “Normally I’d offer to give you a lift home. Or at least give you a good night kiss, but I guess that’s not really needed now.” “Well, it’s like you said, we’re just friends having a fun night out. We could share a ride home though, if you wanted. You live near enough to mine it wouldn’t matter.” “Nah, don’t worry about it. I actually might go grab something to eat, don’t think that burger was quite enough. See you on Monday?” “Oh, yeah, okay, see you Monday.” There was a pause, both of you hesitating and then Ben gave you a much too quick hug before he walked off, disappearing into the crowd. You sighed and hailed a passing cab, spending the whole ride home wondering what the hell had just happened. But you pushed it from your mind once you were home, going through your usual nightly routine and very deliberately thinking of anything other than Ben. It didn’t help much. You still dreamt about him. Dreamt about the goodnight kiss you’d missed out on.

When you woke you had to laugh at yourself. You were sure that, had you binged a few episodes of a tv show or read something before you’d gone to bed you would have dreamt about it instead. Brains were suggestable like that. When you felt awake enough you rolled over and grabbed your phone finding a text from Ben and one from Felicity and an email from Mary. You opened Mary’s first, skimming over it and vowing to look at it properly once you had a coffee in your system. Ben’s was much easier to understand, a short message to say he had fun last night and that he’d pick the mugs up on his way to work on Monday. Felicity’s was just a series of question marks. You sent back a short response saying the date had been a lot of fun. It wasn’t enough and she was bound to come back at you asking for more details, but it would have to satisfy her. Slowly you got out of bed and made yourself a coffee, setting your laptop up next to you at the kitchen counter so you could try to read Mary’s email again. There was some information about some scripts she was going to send you, a couple of potential future roles, but the majority of the email was about you and Ben. She’d already seen the photos, apparently, and some of them would be run in the coming week’s magazine while others were being put online. She’d also seen the Instagram post and commended you for thinking of it. Another date would have to be organised, but it was better to wait until the next weekend or even the one after, so as not to fatigue the public.

So you and Ben fell into the routine of it. An email from one or other of your agents sometimes as vague as just telling you to organise a date, sometimes much more specific in what they wanted you to be doing, then the date itself, and in between work where you played up the romance as much as possible. You got good at pretending to stay over at each other's places, often just hanging out watching TV or running lines until the photographer called it a night and you were free to leave. Once or twice you’d opted to sleep in your own bed but get up early and head over to Ben’s for the required morning after shots but that process got old very quickly so you ended up actually staying over more and more. There was one day when your period came unexpectedly while you were at Ben’s. You were halfway through asking him to take you home when he offered to run to the store for you instead. “No, no, you don’t have to go out of your way like that, I’ve got plenty at home I just didn’t think I’d need any today.” “Y/N, I promise, it’s no trouble. I feel bad I don’t have anything here for you already. Been a while since I’ve lived with a girl and it didn’t even cross my mind. Seriously, it’ll take me two minutes.” When you still weren’t convinced he continued, “Plus, if I go we won’t ruin Peter and Mary’s plan for today. And the Paps can get a shot of me staring at boxes of tampons like a good caring boyfriend. It’ll help our image.” “Oh alright, as long as you don’t mind.” He was out the door a second later and back within ten minutes, though you did get a call from him at the shop, asking what brand you preferred. Once he was home, he made you a cup of tea, gave you a painkiller and, after checking you didn’t mind, cuddled up with you on the couch, teasingly calling you his cuddle bunny as he pulled you back against his chest. You almost complained, almost cited Rule 5, but it wasn’t so bad. Some might even go so far as to call it cute. It was better than snookum at any rate.

The dates themselves got easier after the first. You knew what to expect now so it wasn’t as nerve wracking as before. And Ben was always fun to be around, your list of inside jokes steadily growing as he became the one person you spent the most time with. You let yourselves relax a bit. On your third date Ben’s arm stayed glued around your waist as you walked around the zoo, only losing contact when a lemur jumped on his shoulder and you stepped back to take a photo. It wasn’t low enough to violate the rules you’d put in place but his hand was dangerously close to falling below your belt, and it was definitely something you would have put a stop to when you first started the charade. The Instagram posts had got more frequent too, though Ben still refused to post anything to his own profile. But he commented on everything you posted whether it involved him or not. And people were buying it. You’d been moved from page 15 to page 13 and then to page 10 in the magazines. You both picked up more followers online as your photos were shared across Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. There were some downsides like rude comments and nasty messages but mostly they were easy to ignore. Worse were the phone calls and messages from family members and friends asking when they’d get to meet Ben. He’d had to fend off his own family as well, but you both stuck to Rule 4, making up excuses and promising it would happen eventually, but it just wasn’t possible right now. But your biggest problem was the issue of intimacy. It wasn’t the lack of sex itself, that was easily managed. It was that Ben had started to intrude on your fantasies. You’d be there with your fingers or your toys and suddenly it was Ben’s voice you were thinking of, Ben’s hands, Ben’s teeth and tongue and chest. Ben’s name falling from your lips. And you knew it was just because you were pretending to date him, on and off set. It was the dumb suggestable brain thing again. The thoughts were only there because you were pretending to be in love with him and usually sex was tied up with love or at least relationships. And really, you hadn’t been attracted to anyone much lately because you hadn’t been looking because you’d been pretending to be attracted to Ben so it’s really no wonder you’re brain got all confused and mixed him into those other thoughts. The first time you saw him after it first happened you wondered if he could tell, a slightly flustered awkwardness hanging over you. But it wasn’t worth mentioning to anyone. You just vowed to push him out of your mind as much as you could.

Nearly two months later you found yourselves back in the office where the idea of pretending to date was first floated. With filming drawing to a close Mary and Peter were keen to check in with you. The first thing either of them said when you and Ben turned up is how well the story was going. “Projections have the sales for this movie increased by five percent, just because of your relationship and that number is expected to grow as we get closer to release,” Mary spoke fast though whether that was excitement at the boosted numbers or just a busy schedule rushing her along you weren’t sure. “What happens now?” Ben asked, “I mean, since we won’t be filming together anymore after this week,” “That’s exactly why we wanted to talk with you both today,” Peter opened a pocket notebook and thumbed through a couple of pages, “so not much will change but we may occasionally need to balance out the loss of on set photos with shots of you out and about together. Nothing stressful and all very easily staged. You probably wouldn’t even need to be out for more than an hour or so at a time. People have been loving the domestic sort of photos you’ve been putting online, Y/N, that one of you using the coffee mugs you painted was especially good. So we’d like a few more of those sorts of moments. The two of you grocery shopping or walking a dog, do either of you have a dog? No? Hmmm, we could hire a dog and write a story about you sitting for a friend. We’ll put a pin in that for now. But yes, just some candid shots of you walking around London and doing regular everyday things together.” “We’ll also need to schedule the argument soon. We’re thinking somewhere within the first two weeks of filming being over. It means we can run speculation about whether the relationship is on the rocks now that you aren’t working together anymore. We’ll see how things go this week and make some decisions later, but we’ll give you plenty of warning before you have to perform it. Obviously, it has to be scheduled so we can guarantee someone will get photos but we need it to seem as natual as possible so we’ll leave the specifics of the argument up to you.” You nodded along but Ben had more questions. “What does this mean for any jobs we might be looking at taking after this movie wraps?” “You can still take on whatever roles you want provided they’re filming here. It’s harder to keep you in the public eye if you’re separated and while the drama of a long-distance relationship might be interesting at first, it’s not sustainable.” “If it was filming somewhere else in the UK we could maybe organise something. We’d have to look into it and see if it was possible to stick to our same plan but just shift the location. Maybe have a weekend visit angle to it, Y/N flies out to see Ben, Ben comes home to see Y/N, that kind of thing.” “Leave it with us Ben and we’ll get back to you on the logistics of it all.” “Oh, that’s okay, I don’t have anything set in stone, I was just curious.” “Is there anything else you have questions about?” “No, I don’t think so,” He looked towards you. “No, I’m all good.” “Okay, well, if you think of anything you can message us any time.” “Really, though, this is going very well. It’s already paying off but we need to keep the momentum during the post-production phase, so we need you both to be committed to this.” “We are.” “Unbelievably committed,” Ben added.

You and Ben left the meeting joking about potential arguments you could have and for the rest of the day, whenever you passed each other in the halls or had a moment alone you’d try to one up each other's suggestions. It was a good way to keep your spirits up even though the end of filming was fast approaching. One by one each cast member recorded their last scenes, saying an emotional thank you to the crew when the director called cut. You and Ben were the last to finish since you were the leads. A small pillow talk scene that you could do in your sleep. It was a nice way to end it, lying in bed with Ben’s arms around you, even with the heat of the studio lights. While you were waiting for the cameras to be positioned you and Ben joked around with the crew that were flitting around angling mics and adjusting set decorations. “Hey, Seth,” Ben said suddenly, “can you pass me my phone. I think we need to document this moment. What d’you say, cuddle bunny?” You laughed and poked him in the side but agreed. Ben stuck his arm straight up into the air, trying to angle the camera just right but he couldn’t quite get the photo to take without blurring. Seth took pity on you and offered to take the photo himself, allowing you and Ben to snuggle in close. “If you post it on Insta you better credit me,” Set laughed, turning it round to show you. “I’ll do that,” He said with a smile, “It’s pretty cute, I think I have to post it.” “Really?” you asked, surprised he’d volunteer to do such a thing. Ben didn’t have a chance to respond because everything was ready to go. Seth put the phone back away so you could film the scene, laughing in between takes until everyone was satisfied. “That’s a wrap on Ben Hardy and Y/N Y/L/N everybody,” A round of applause started as you pushed yourself to sit up, trying to stop yourself from welling up. “And that’s a wrap on The Perfect Match.” The applause continued and Ben pulled you into a tight hug, rubbing your back and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. You had to say a few words but you managed to get through it, and Ben’s little speech, without completely losing it. Afterwards, as people packed up the equipment and you headed back to your trailers to change, Ben pulled out his phone again. “I guess I should post that photo now, how’s this caption,” he said each word slowly as he typed it out, “Thank you Y/N for being the perfect Edith to my Andy. And thank you @theperfectmatchmovie for finding me my perfect match.” “Did you tag me?” “Of course,” “Did you tag Seth?” “Uhhhh, camera emoji by @seththesoundman. Now I have,” “Then it’s perfect. Little bit cheesy but I’ll let it slide.” “I’ll post another lot of photos with everyone else later and write a longer thing about how much fun this movie was and all of that, but I think this’ll do for the minute. Mary and Peter better fucking appreciate it.”

That evening most of the cast and crew headed out for drinks at the local pub. The official party would come later but everyone needed to get out and celebrate for an evening. You and Ben stayed for a few hours, Ben getting a little more clingy with each drink he finished. You limited yourself to only a couple. Ben wasn’t going to be able to drive so you decided to fall on that sword, switching to water quite early on. When he reached the point of intoxication that had him constantly complementing everyone you decided to call it a night, taking a final lap to say goodnight to everyone. There were a few wolf whistles and slurred comments about getting some as you left, Ben’s arm around your waist and his laugh in your ear, but you waved them off and led Ben out to your car. “C’mon Benny boy, I’ll drop you home.” “What about my car?” “Well you’ll have to come get it in the morning, won’t you.” He hummed and lay his head against the back of the seat, chatting animatedly as you made the trip to his. You wished him goodnight as he got out of the car and watched him make his way up to his front door. There he paused, patting his pockets. “Everything alright? You called out to him. “I don’t have any keys,” he laughed, turning around to come back to the car. “You fucking goon, did you leave them at the pub?” “Guess so,” he shrugged, “Can I crash at yours?” “Get in,” “Thanks cuddle bunny, you’re the best” You rolled your eyes, “Guess this means I’ll be your taxi tomorrow, running you around to find your keys and your car,” “That’s what girlfriends are for,” “If you say so.”

Once at yours you headed to the kitchen to make tea, Ben following to grab a glass of water and a snack. He knew where you kept everything by now, making himself a sandwich with whatever he found in your fridge, and then carrying it out to the couch. By the time the teas were made Ben already had Netflix queued up, ready to play the next episode of the series you’d started watching together. Nearly Twenty minutes into the episode Ben’s phone dinged. “Ah shit,” he said as he glanced at it, “forgot I said I’d call Joe. Do you mind if we pause the ep? We’re trying to organise travel stuff for him and it’s easier if we talk it through rather than texting it all.” “Sure,” “I promise I won’t be long.” “Take your time, it’s fine,” you were already reaching for your laptop. Ben smiled at you before ducking out of the room. You head him walking down the hall, footsteps fading as he got further away. For a while you just enjoyed the quiet as you checked your emails and social media profiles but after commenting on the photo Ben had posted and replying to a few messages from people you knew there wasn’t really much left to do. You drummed your fingers on your keyboard trying to think of another website you could visit. There was still no sign of Ben and you didn’t want to continue the show without him so you stood up, stretched, and headed back to the kitchen to grab some chocolate from the stash you kept. You were just about to shut the fridge when you heard Ben’s voice coming from the other side of the wall. Your spare room where he’d clearly gone to make his phone call. “Yeah, Joe, I fucking know. But I don’t have much choice.” He sounded more sober than he had when he’d got up. There was a pause as Joe spoke and then you heard Ben again. “I don’t know what I was thinking getting into this mess…..Yeah maybe. Doesn’t really matter though now does it…. What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t just call it quits now, the story is doing too well and Peter has assured me that the numbers are promising or whatever I don’t really know how they measure it. All I know is that people are going to see the movie because of us.” There was a long pause. You quietly shut the fridge and took a step back towards the doorway. This was not a conversation you should be listening in to. But then Ben spoke again, and curiosity got the better of you. “It doesn’t matter Joe. It doesn’t matter how I feel.” He laughed but it was completely devoid of humour, “Of course it sucks. It’s fucking shit, man. I just keep waiting for her to tell me she feels the same but it’s not happening…... No, I know it’s completely one sided…..No, I don’t think she knows. She wouldn’t have wanted to do it in the first place if she knew…. I just wish things were different. I love being around her and being able to hold her and kiss her but it fucking sucks that it’s only in public….. I don’t know. Maybe not filming together will ma-” You could feel your cheeks burning as you tiptoed back towards the lounge room, not quite sure what to do with yourself. You paced back and forth for a moment before deciding to go to the bathroom, at least then Ben couldn’t walk in on you as you tried to process it. You let the door shut loudly behind you, hoping that if Ben had heard movement he’d think you’d just got up to use the loo. He couldn’t know you’d overheard him. You leaned against the sink and tried to make sense of what you’d heard. Ben couldn’t have a crush on you, he just couldn’t. But it was the only thing he could have been talking about. What the fuck did that mean for your arrangement? What the fuck were you meant to do now?

#my writing #my fics #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy imagine #ahhhhhhh #ya'll im so excited about this series #i have all the chapters planned out #i have all the titles planned out #i wrote a short synopsis of the film they're making #so that i can reference it throughout the fic and be consistent in what the scenes might be #god can ben please just make a romcom now #i want it more than anything in the world

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lairofsentinel · 4 years

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[This meta probably will be under better redaction in the following days since I wrote it in a rush before going to sleep] Well, it's more than clear that when the name of Nine Eyes or Eyes of the Nine appeared, we were going to see all that stuff that Taliesin said was thrown into trash because Molly's death. In fact, I can't stop thinking in Molly and his relationship with Dunamancy and Astral Sea stuff here. Specially now that I've just watched the episode 110.

[Details ahead due to length]

Let’s start.

Nonagon now has a clear meaning to me. I was not reading this name in latin before simply because Matt says in his interviews that he tends to name things and NPCs just by the sound of it, inspired in other languages and contexts, of course, but it's usually more an ear-thing or a rolling-the-tongue-thing. Now I believe Molly's previous name doesn't follow that rule: Nona is the latin prefix for Nine, and gon is side or angle, like in “polygon”. Nonagon would mean a geometric structure of nine angles. The other artefact we know in Critical Role following a geometry like that is the dodecahedron; a 3D structure with 12 sides.

Dodecahedrons, also known as Luxon Beacons, are artefacts of unknown origin that storage souls for further reincarnation through the process of consecution, and they are powered by Dunamancy magic. Because of this relationship with this particular school of magic, it gives to living creatures a “fragment of possibility”. The images it gives to each person who sees into it is about time, about the infinite different time-planes that such person could be. It's a moment of overlap between time-planes.

Dunamancy and the echo-spell we saw that Essek taught to Caleb, show that there are multiple time planes going on in every instant, and with this magic, you can pick a shadow or echo of yourself to use in this plane. So, the dodecahedron works as a link to overlap different time-planes.

With this in mind, I can't stop thinking that Molly was “like” a living “dodecahedron”. He may have been an experiment of someone (we can go into this later) to storage souls, and hence his concept of “being a sacrifice”. We never had great reveals about this since he died early in the story, but relating the concept of sacrifice to an experiment subject who keeps replacing his soul is not a bad metaphor.

We also know he died before and his body returned, like an empty shell. His previous soul was gone, and he had to craft his own personality from a big blank. It's like the process he was under was still being polished. The person experimenting on him wanted to create a vessel, whether to let souls being transferred into him and work like the Luxon Beacons do in order to have “immortality”, or like a link to another planes (not only time-planes, but space-planes); in short, a welcoming vessel for creatures beyond this plane (I'm going to retake this point ahead)

On the other side, we have the concept of Molly and the Gods hidden in his tattoos. For this link I want to bring attention onto Molly's tattoos:

“Between his shoulder blades rising towards the hairline, he had tattoos of an eye within a pyramid, illuminated by another eye above it.”

This seems to me a symbol of the Knowing Mistress, but she is being observed or guided by another. There is another entity eye-related that seems to be higher than her. Or maybe is a patron from which the Mistress pulls her powers?

“one eye on back and palm of his right hand”

The eye on the palm is another symbol of a Deity: Vecna, a Betrayer God that prefers to hide the knowledge of the world in opposition to The Knowing Mistess. The eye on the back of his hand feels to work in the same way that one in his shoulder blades: There is another eye over the deity. An observer, or a more powerful being over the symbol of a god.

“A red eye tattoo on the right side of his neck, on his right shoulder.”

Since there is no much description about the other eyes and tattoos on Molly, the only deity I can relate to the one on his neck is Gruumsh, another betrayer god who has a symbol of an eye crying a red tear.

I don't know if Uk'atoa could be placed in these relationships, since he is a “god” depicted with 3 eyes on its head and many in its tentacles.... but Avantika had another interpretation of it: a serpent ouroboros with Nine eyes. This creature is not a god, but it's quite a powerful entity (maybe as powerful as Vokodo, who had only 4 eyes. Could the eyes of the entities mean the level they are? how powerful they are?). Uk'atoa was a creation of Zehir, the snake god, which is also a Betrayer God. Detail to add: Molly had a snake along his arm too. But again, this last concept maybe is too much. I discarge it even though I feel there is a lot of repetitive symbols.

So, I go as far as I can, and I would say that Molly was deeply related with gods, and who knows if his body was an attempt to craft something like the dodecahedron but for gods or similar entities (aka astral creatures). I'm not meaning Molly is an ancient experiment like a pre-Calamity creature. No. More like a current experiment of someone who found an ancient (pre-calamity) book or (pre-calamity) lost knowledge of how to do such things. I mean... it doesn't seem odd that someone, exploring those weird Ruins in the North of the Empire or in similar places where the prosperous floating isles of mageocracies fell, could have found the recipe to be immortal and experimented with him?

Hallas is a living proof that it's possible; certainly he was pretty close in succeeding since his recipe consisted in “transferring a soul to a jar” (quite a beacon procedure) and he only failed in finding a “vessel” to receive his soul after the many clones done with the tissue of The Laughing Hand's heart. In that sense, Molly was the perfect “vessel”, working perfectly in receiving a transferred soul. The Luxon Beacon or Hallas' jar seemed to work much better in the procedure of “storage of souls”.

So, Molly seemed to have a body “touched” by the gods, marked by them, or more like a big “Pillars-of-Eternity-gods-are-only-more-powerful-creatures”, a body that could work as a link between space-planes. I say this because Molly had these 9 eyes on his body that were impossible to be tattooed on them. It's fair to think that this is not mere magic but an overlap of dimensions or scars from the convergence of different planes. We saw the rarity that comes from it: like the waterfall rising to the skies in Rumblecusp, or the strange tower cut half in the Ruins with sarcophagus of the isle as if it could have been cut off from the planes. It's the same kind of oddity like the lava rivers in the North of Eiselcross. They tend to be explained as “weird powerful magic”, but maybe it's just singular points in the space-time of Wildmount that seems to connect different planes, and in such places, the unexpected, the impossible, happens. This impossibility of writing over Molly's tattooes makes me think that his body, cultivated to be a vessel, could be also touched by extra planar spaces.

The few creatures we saw that came from these planar spaces are the Astral Dreadnought and Vokodo. About the Dreadnought we can't say much, it was shackled, and there was no gravity around him (another sign that maybe Dunamancy is related to magic from another plane). It's not minor that the Dreadnought had its eyes covered. Can the eyes of these creatures be connectors to the planes? Are the eyes of these creatures the source of their power?

About Vokodo, it was clear that he was escaping from where it came from, and all the Rumblecusp arc was a proof of how god-like these entities can be in this plane. So, to think that maybe some Betrayer Gods are in fact entities from another plane escaping from that weird city, or some Primal deities are watched or connected or receiving their powers from other planar entities (Molly's tattoos of eyes over Deity symbols) doesn't seem weird to me. Therefore, preparing a vessel to take a “safe” form in this plane could explain Molly's body as a vessel.

Taking the point of who “revived” Molly... it seems more than fair to think that it was Vess DeRogna. She had a book that allowed certain procedure on Molly that left him “dead”. This was the experiment I was talking about. DeRogna, as a person looking for ancient knowledge, having access to a book that who knows if it is not part of what these mages from the floating isles left, activated something in Molly that seemed to kill him just to wake up later like an empty vessel. No wonder why the Assembly, once they had access to a beacon, started to understand it faster than any hedge mage in Xorhas. They were already aware of how this procedure could work, at least, to a certain degree.

Another unnerving thing that keeps track of the “vessel concept”: when Jester sent a message to Cree and she said that she did not remember her... I had this idea that Cree lost her soul. Like it had happened to Molly, Cree returned like an empty Vessel. The name of the Gentleman should have meant something to her if she only truly forgot about Jester. Matt never rolled a die to see if she remembered Jester or no. It was decided beforehand that Cree was not going to remember them... and probably, not even herself.

So, in short, Molly's bits of story that we know seems to lead to the concept that he could have been a living vessel for living creatures (nah), betrayer gods trying to materialise (doubtful) or astral sea creatures trying to escape their plane (I'm pretty inclined to this hypothesis, since we saw in Vokodo that there was some shit stuff going on in that plane). If some particular person submitted Molly to this procedure full aware of its goal or more like a procedure hidden in religious dogma and rituals or simply out of curiosity is hard to discern.

We do know that Dunamancy allows that process, since the dodecahedron is a real proof of it. We also know that Dunamancy works with time and gravity (things that shift a lot around astral sea creatures) and it's probably an ancient magical school left by these lost societies of mageocracies that fallen, in the form of artefacts that were target of religious devotion by the Drow. But it would not be strange to believe Dunamancy as a magic that comes from the Astral Sea.

I believe nobody knows anything about the Nine Eyes because this is something out of this plane. Only people dabbling in astral-sea stuff could offer some light on the matter. Therefore Hallas is the only one we know that could. Or any Githyanki or Githzerai, but so far, they are non-existent in Critical Role so far I see.

#critical role #mollymauk tealeaf #meta data with a lot of sleep #hope is clear #I needed to express all this before going to sleep #cree #cree gave me all the creeps #vokodo #Uk'atoa #dunamancy #beacons #betrayer gods

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felassan · 4 years

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How does exactly healing in DA work? Is its power unlimited, or is it rather magical acceleration of natural healing process, so a mage can in a flash fix things that would take more time in normal circumstances? What can be healed by magic and what is impossible to heal? [mini-spoiler alert ahead!] I remember Fiona conjuring friendly spirits from Fade in Deep Roads to heal some injuries and broken bones, but how about ilnesses, poisons etc.? Is there any canon for healing process?

Hi Nonnie, this is a grand question. tbh I love getting Qs like this. (❁´◡`❁) pls feel free to send them to me folks if there’s stuff like this you’re wondering about.

This answer focuses on healing magic and spirit healing. One note is that there seem to be healing spells that don’t require the mage to be a spirit healer i.e. that don’t seem to require the assistance of a spirit, but not all non-spirit-healer mages have or know these spells (Adrian doesn’t for example). Another is that within the actual spirit healer discipline are the mages able to take healing and restoration far beyond a normal mage’s capabilities. We therefore infer that spirit-assisted healing magic is a lot more powerful. I’m not really focusing on stuff like “spirit healers in the lore are rare”, “the specific spirits they summon are […]” and “Wynne is especially powerful because she’s very accomplished, long-studied and bonded to Faith” because that’s getting off the question of canon for healing process.

Healing magic in DA is a bit odd/frustrating cause it’s not extensively detailed in terms of capabilities, limitations etc. It’s very spotty. It’s not even internally consistent, and there’s also the issue of gameplay/story segregation. What’s just gameplay mechanics? who can tell. Beyond some notes on the spirit healer spec and how it works in the lore which you can read on the DA wiki (they do indeed call benevolent spirits from the Fade to help like you mention with Fiona; there’s more detail on that process at the link), and what you can see from the healing spell skills present in the games (so their descriptions and what they look like when used in combat), it’s never really like… set out. So we kind of have to infer from examples from places like books and cutscenes and try to build a picture from there.

Here are some notable instances. It’s under a cut because parts of the post contain spoilers for Tevinter Nights and Blue Wraith.

In the Dragon Age Comic from IDW, the one about a mage called Gleam: A dwarf called Minderel has only has one arm, having lost the other. He injures his leg in a fight, and instructs Gleam in how to heal him. This is odd to me because he’s a dwarf (uhh how does he know how healing magic works?) and Gleam doesn’t have formal training in this kind of magic, she’s like 17 and was raised by a non-mage blacksmith on a farm, not in the Circle or by an apostate like mage Hawke… Anyways, she heals his leg, and like, in the process.. unintentionally regrows his entire freakin long-lost arm?? Healer mages can regrow lost limbs?? WAT? His new arm is half the size of what it should be, but it’s there and functioning. Would it be the right size if an experienced healer did it?? Honestly.. this entire segment was so totally random and ‘tha fuk?’ that I pretend it didn’t happen. This comic in general wasn’t good quality. It’s like the ugly stepchild of the DA comics. The one nobody ever speaks about. it has other nonsensical-by-existing-lore stuff in it (like it says dwarves can’t see in the dark, when they can). actually this comic is a hot mess lore wise and iirc even some of the actual DA writers (the comic was written by an outside person) were like uhmm yeah you guys can decide for yourselves if these are canon… lmao. so I tend to write this incident off as world-breaking third-tier nonsense, like the kid Eiton in Dragon Age Legends who was supposedly born Tranquil (that can’t happen) and go with the line of thinking that no, mages in DA cannot regrow long-lost limbs. You’d think that if they could, this would be like, mentioned? The world of Thedas would be different if this was a thing that was possible. Like, if this is possible, why does Neve Gallus have a metal prosthetic leg of dwarven make…? ok I guess maybe she just wanted one or they’re stronger or sth? but cmon… anyway It did happen in a canon material though, so folk can make up their own minds ofc. imo though the power of healing magic is limited, and this would really be something that is impossible to heal.

There’s a moment I adore in Blue Wraith. Francesca, who has quite unique nature/plant magic for a human (such magic is usually only seen among Dalish elves), is also able to use healing magic, tho she doesn’t seem to be a spirit healer (which is consistent with what I said above). Aaron’s horse, Cassé, gets injured in battle. from the looks of things it’s an injury which would get a horse put down in our world. (that’s less a comment on the severity of a leg injury and more a comment from a biological perspective about how.. weirdly delicate horses can be despite appearances and strength, and how their specific body structure and such means broken legs in horses have only a small chance for recovery) Aaron, knowing Fran is a powerful mage, says that she may be able to heal him. she does so, re-knitting his bone. she also used her magic to grow Embrium blossoms to calm him during the process. Her writers note that even Fran’s healing is supplemented by plant magic, and this makes her unique even amongst healers. Aaron calls this magnificent and comments that he hasn’t seen magic like that since his time with a group of Emerald Knight restorationist elves who he travelled with in the Dales, possibly implying that some elven mages do similar things. From Fran’s comment on bone re-knitting, which is what bone in our world is sometimes said to do when it’s healing from a break, it sounds like healing magic is magical acceleration of the natural healing process. this is supported when Rhys healing is described as “knitting flesh back together”. that also sounds like it’s basically mimicking a sped up version of how our bodies would naturally heal given time. I wouldn’t say mages can heal things in a flash, because we see different examples of mages leaning over their charges and there’s glowing light while it happens (Fran here, meeting Anders in DAII), so it does take a bit of time. but certainly it seems rather quick and is oodles faster than the time it would take in normal circumstances.

In Tevinter Nights, Myrion is a mage who knows a little healing magic, but isn’t a spirit healer. He talks about his friend Jasecca, who “worked with spirits” - she was a spirit healer. she taught him a few tricks. On the subject of the capabilities of healing magic - Jasecca once reattached a man’s hand after it had been chopped off, presumably like very soon after. this mimics surgical limb re-plantation in our world, where most patients need to have the limb reattached within hours of the injury.

In the same story Myrion’s healing of Strife, who was punched clean through his torso with a big Qunari arrow, gives a lil bit more insight of how healing magic works. Myrion uses magic to close the wound and Strife feels a humming warmth seep into his back. it seems like Myrion does this without calling on a spirit.

Isabela goes to Anders in DAII in order for a magical cure (or relief from the symptoms of?) a disease which is implied to be an STD.

In TME Dalish mage Mihris uses healing magic to reduce inflammation on Celene’s wound, which had been stitched up I think manually beforehand. her hand glowed with cool white light which made Michel’s skin crawl.

In the Dalish Origin after Mahariel has been Tainted by the mirror, they are delirious with fever after Duncan found them unconscious. Marethari used “the old magic to [apparently] heal” them from the sickness. She says it was difficult even for her magic to keep them alive. Merrill apparently knows a degree of this magic and would be able to increase Tamlen’s chances of making it back to camp alive if they found him. It transpires that Mahariel’s ‘recovery’ was only temporary. Marethari weakened the Taint but couldn’t cure it with her healing arts.

what’s super interesting is the healing and related capabilities of (ironically) blood magic. We’ve seen it extend lifespans and keep youth despite aging. We’ve seen it cleanse the freakin Blight. a mage called Seraphinian used his own blood to cure his lover from a “wasting disease”. it’s even implied somewhere that I can’t remember that blood magic can restore sight if you’ve gone blind. edit: thank you @pugfaced for the help/note on where this came from. per pugfaced in the notes below, this “implication that blood magic can help restore sight – there’s a senior enchanter in the mage origin in DAO who says his eyesight is bad, you can ask if there’s magical ways to fix that, and he says “not any magic i’d be caught dead doing””.

as you say there are also written examples in The Calling when Fiona uses her magic. these are fairly informative in terms of the frame of your question. here she heals herself from fairly serious wounds (arrows in her stomach):

With a wave of a hand, a warm blue glow suddenly suﬀused her entire body. She gasped out loud as the pain was lifted from her, arching her back as the magic worked its way through her body. Maric watched, impressed, as several of the smaller cuts along her arms slowly closed and healed. When the spell was ﬁnished, the glow disappeared and Fiona collapsed limply.

this isn’t the only instance of a spirit healer healing themselves outside of gameplay. Rhys does the same thing in Asunder.

back to Fiona, here the limit seems to be the limits of Fiona’s power, i.e. her remaining strength and magical reserves, mana reserves. (she was exhausted at the time and they’d just been in a big ass fight). she drinks what seems to be a lyrium potion after in order to regain strength enough to then go on to heal some of the injuries the rest of her party sustained. The book notes that the magic she provides had its limitations. whether that’s of Fiona’s power specifically or of healing magic in general isn’t clear, but I lean towards the latter, because Fiona is a powerful and capable mage. We’re told it can mend flesh, stem bleeding and restore a degree of health, but that severe wounds were beyond her ability to heal. She wasn’t able to heal Julien’s broken arm, or Nicolas’ internal injuries. her own injuries were not fully healed. Maric’s twisted leg feels better immediately, but not completely repaired.

Her tone was gruﬀ but her ﬁngers were gentle, brushing his skin lightly as the tingle of her magic began to wash through him. He tried not to stare at her, and instead concentrated on the aura of sapphire light that surrounded him.

some further description of what it feels like to receive. the glowing blue light is the most common theme.

here I’ll note that it’s not clear if this sort of partial healing is typical, as in this is the lore saying “healing magic is good but has limits, it’s not like a mage does the glowy blue light on your wound and you’re in brilliant shape again”, or whether it’s limited here because Fiona was so exhausted and also having to like “ration out” her power and heal her party members each just a bit, if that makes sense, as most of them had sustained pretty intense injuries.

healing magic clearly significantly sap’s the user’s strength. we see this in Fiona, in Asunder after healing Rhys Wynne is pale and drawn, we see it when we meet Anders in DA2 and he’s wobbly after healing the boy. these facts lead me to believe that the way healing magic is just flung around in battle willy-nilly in-game when we play in DAO and DAII is not.. truly representative of how it works in the setting. imo it probably requires a lot of focus and is more tiring than more usual forms of battle-magic like flinging a fireball. there are totally points in these books when Fiona etc do it in battle. but I think it’s hard and not at all like how it plays out in game.

later we see more of healing magic’s hard limits. in this bit I’m confident it’s a limit of healing magic itself, not of Fiona’s specific abilities, because at this point iirc she wasn’t injured herself and wasn’t like super exhausted. Julien lies mangled and probably died of a broken neck. Fiona pours magic into the body,

but very little seemed to be happening. Some of the gaping wounds on Julien’s body were closing, but no color was being restored to his pale skin and he didn’t move at all.

She keeps trying but he’s clearly dead… :’( reading the death of Julien always makes me teary, shit..

As Genevieve bluntly puts it, magic can’t bring someone back from the dead. although it can clearly mend flesh wounds on a recently-deceased corpse, presumably because at this point the tissue itself, purely mechanically, is still warm and ‘living’ enough in order for there to be an effect. This is reinforced in Asunder when someone dies. Even summoning healing spirits won’t wake the dead.

[Wynne] desperately summoned healing spirits to mend the woman’s injuries, but the magic she poured into the body was pointless. The woman was dead and gone

the same thing happens again when Evangeline dies. this one echoes what happened with Julien - her flesh knits and wounds close, but she doesn’t come back to life (not until Wynne gives her Faith obviously and dies herself).

There’s also a bit more info in Asunder. Evangeline gets injured in a fight. she gets burned, inhales smoke, cracks her head off the floor, is made dizzy. force magic had also knocked the breath out of her and her body got kinda battered as she crashed to the ground. she passes out and Leli has a mage heal her.

Despite the healing magic, it still felt as if her bones were covered in bruises and her lungs filled with soot.

Magic can’t do everything, she reminded herself.

this excerpt lends credence to the notion that healing magic doesn’t heal injuries perfectly and people still feel pained and aren’t 100% healed after.

There’s a limit to healing oneself - Rhys can’t do it at one point when he’s too hurt.

Rhys tried to summon mana to heal himself. He closed his eyes and concentrated, but the pain was simply too great. It was a white blaze he just couldn’t fight his way past, and trying only made it worse. He doubled over, the light-headedness threatening to make him swoon.

I will also say that all magics in general seem to be more developed and so forth in Tevinter due to the lack of restraints on mages / lack of distrust of magic. I therefore think it’s reasonable to infer that healing magic too is more powerful and advanced/capable in Tevinter, especially with the prevalence of blood magic there (see section on blood magic above).

Umm so let’s recap/summarize because this has become a whole ass thing…

There are healing spells / healing magics that do not require the mage to be a spirit healer. Not all mages have or know these spells.

Spirit healers are far more powerful and capable at healing, thanks to the assistance of spirits. A bit more detail on how getting the spirits to help works and how one might become a spirit healer etc in the lore is found in the DA wiki article on spirit healers.

Healing magic and indeed medicinal practises in general in DA is frustrating because it’s spotty. Canon specifics and details on the healing process are thin on the ground and not well or clearly set out. Some of it is also inconsistent. Most of what we know is from isolated examples. We have a limited picture built mostly from those examples. We also contend with gameplay-story segregation - how much of the healing magic skill descriptions in-game and the way they play out on screen in front of us holds true for how healing magic truly works in the setting?

From what we can seem to tell however, its power is not unlimited. It seems to largely be a magical acceleration of the natural healing process. It’s not done in a flash, but it is of course a lot quicker than mundane methods or unassisted healing.

Examples of what is possible to heal/do with healing magic: regrowing a long-lost limb [?], re-knitting bone, knitting flesh back together, growing specific blossoms in the ground at the time to calm the patient while he’s being healed [rare], reattaching body parts soon after they’ve been chopped off, cure or help with a disease which is implied to be a sexually transmitted disease, heal oneself even when badly injured, restore health, stem bleeding, close wounds, close flesh wounds on a recently-deceased corpse, help with burns and smoke inhalation, dull pain, reduce inflammation.

Notes on the above: The regrowing a long-lost limb is super questionable. The segment it occurs in doesn’t make sense as a whole. This segment is from a poor quality source that gets a bunch of other lore stuff wrong. The source is such that even some of the dev-writers are like “umm.. yeah.. nvm probably” about it, lol. imo this would be impossible to do. The growing of flowers to assist is technically healing being supplemented by plant magic. This is a rare skill or thing to do that makes its human user unique even amongst human healers, but might also be something found among Dalish elves. The reattaching of a body part was done by a Tevinter spirit healer. I imagine that healing magic, like other kinds of magic, in a general sense is more advanced/capable in Tevinter, due to the lack of restrictions on mages.

Blood magic can also be used to heal. We’ve seen it extend lifespans, maintain youth, cure a wasting disease, and cleanse the Blight from both inanimate and organic/living objects. Lore implies blood magic could also restore sight after having gone blind. These instances of blood magic curing a disease and cleansing Blight are pretty much the only things that we know of currently that spring to mind at this time as regards the illnesses and poisons part of your question (aside from the STD).

On canon for the healing process - basically magic flows from the healer to the patient (they can either touch them or hover their hands over them it seems), there’s a blue/white glow or aura, the patient feels suffused with warmth as magic flows through their body. Wounds then slowly seal and such. Pouring magic into a dead body is pointless.

On limits: the healer’s individual power, their strength reserves, their mana reserves. Healing saps them and they can’t do it if they’re exhausted. Anders becomes woozy in a cutscene and Wynne becomes pale and drawn after an instance, for example.We’re also told healing magic has limitations multiple times. There are some examples of this which I think are partially due to Fiona’s exhausted injured state and number of patients at the time, but also partially due to the natural limitations of healing magic. Severe wounds were beyond her ability; she couldn’t heal a broken arm; she couldn’t heal internal injuries; some of her work left people feeling better but not fully repaired; some of her own wounds were not fully healed. In a general sense it does seem that healing magic doesn’t heal injuries perfectly and people still feel pained and not 100% after. It mostly seems like superficial healing. Further hard limits are not being able to bring back someone from the dead, even if flesh wounds on their corpse close over and you have the help of healing spirits (which would imply rez spells in-game are not rezzing dead chars but knocked out ppl or something, or that it’s purely a mechanic), and not being able to heal oneself if you’re in too much pain.

Also, no magical artifact can do something that a spell cannot do. In Tevinter Nights the healing bauble Bharv stole heals his injuries and closes his wounds til they’re purple welts. It also smooths the skin of one hand til it looks 10 years younger, and earlier on it didn’t close a wound he had on his stomach but it dulled the pain from a sear to a dull throb. The amulet couldn’t rez Elim from the dead. These things are consistent with the capabilities of healing magic as explored in this post.

Hope this helps you Nonnie. :)

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cleverphilosopherbluebird · 3 years

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ALL ABOUT PINTEREST AND PINTEREST MARKETING

Did you know that Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social networks in the last decade? According to Sprout Insights, Pinterest’s share of social media referrals soared from .68 percent to a whopping 26 percent in just one year, generating more than 400 percent more revenue per click than Twitter and 27 percent more than Facebook. Do you want to increase the likelihood of a purchase? Well, then you should know that shoppers referred by Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to follow through with a purchase than visitors from other social networking sites. Pure and simple: Pinterest can be the star of your social media sales and marketing efforts.

Pinterest is a social media network aimed at image diffusion. But unlike Instagram, Pinterest is not restricted to a mobile app. Users can share their graphic content, known as “pins” (a photo or any kind of graphics work is shared as a pin), and pins can be grouped in albums, known as “boards”. The names resemble the idea of physical photos, messages, or drawings pinned to a corkboard.

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Below, I’ve created a quick resource and how-to guide for Pinterest success. Will start with setting up a business page for the Marketing strategy of Pinterest.

To help you build a strategy for your brand on this channel, I have selected 5 tips below that we use for our customers on this social network:

Create a company page on Pinterest;

Create boards that are related to your business. Fashion e-commerce, for example, can create panels like: looks to work, summer fashion 2015, long skirts, silk shirts, etc ...

Use good images. Be creative and remember that these images can inspire people to buy your products or services. If you have a hotel, how about putting pictures of nearby tourist spots? Or details of the rooms or the restaurant? If you have a restaurant, you can upload photos of the dishes, your beautiful cuisine, recipes, etc.

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To increase engagement with your brand, follow other people's panels so they can see that you exist and follow you too. Despite being simple, many brands do not do this.

Now let's discuss the recommendations for using Pinterest for marketing, or to advertise your products:

Recommendations for Pinterest Marketing.

Complete your profile information. This is a common recommendation when signing up for any social media. If people like your pins, surely they will want to know more about you. Hence, be prepared to make all the info you can available. Think of that as your business card.

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Use description captions wisely. Pins can show a caption, but if it is too long, it will be cropped in the thumbnail. This allows you to use a punch-line caption, or instead, write a long caption that leaves the readers in suspense, motivating them to click on the image.

Select provocative images. Pinterest’s main feed shows a huge collection of images, all of them competing for your attention. To catch your customers’ attention, you must show creative, neither boring nor repetitive pins. Evocative, vintage pictures are very appreciated, but you also can show innovative, modern, and breathtaking photos.

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This is all about Pinterest Strategies and Marketing Methods. But Inorder to achieve success just strategies and marketing methods are important. We need to know the possibility of increasing the followers and also need to know the difference between Instagram and Pinterest as both of them work only on Images.

Let's discuss in detail Pinterest Followers and The Magic Of Pinterest City!

Pinterest is a magical discovery and I am not the one saying it, but the millions of Pinterest followers all over the world. This has become one of the most famous social networks that are slowly starting to catch more and more ground over the oldies of the business (Facebook, Twitter). The working concept that lies behind Pinterest is the sharing and exploring of human life and beauty through pinning images and videos on boards. Same as with Instagram, the emphasis is placed on beautiful pictures that can take your breath away and raise awareness on whatever your heart desires.

The difference between Pinterest and Instagram is that on Pinterest you can work with images (and videos) created by others, while on Instagram you’re the one taking the photo. Pinterest is for curators.

Pinterest users can do all these things with the help of pinboards which are boards that host pictures or videos known as pins. It is pretty simple once you have uploaded your first pin. The rest is history. You will simply adore pinning and it will not become an obligation like in many other different cases.

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But what is the best way to reach maximum potential when it comes to Pinterest followers? Below you will find a list of tricks and tips that might come in handy when you are looking to make your profile visible and loved by all the Pinterest followers in the world.

Pinterest followers. Tips and tricks:

1. Create interesting boards. Since Pinterest is more about pictures than actual content, use these boards to attract people to a specific topic. For example, if you own a gym or if you are a sports instructor and you want to highlight certain aspects of your teaching create a board destined for stretching, one for fitness, one for aerobics, and so on. This way those interested in fitness will go directly to the board specifically created for this purpose, pleasing his or her needs faster.

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rose-director · 4 years

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Blooming Roses, part 1

Content warnings:

Masks

Face covering

Momentary loss of breath

Neural connection

Hypnotic theming

Corporate setting

Cyberpunk

Description:

A new hire at Rose Cybernetics is given their final interview.

~2800 words

Story:

The megalithic building stands proud against the concrete and glass towers beside it, making mortals of titans. Sheer, elegant, imposing; the structure kisses the sky, inspiring awe in those who observe it. This effect becomes overwhelming in its courtyard, where these same observers are rendered ants in a temple of giants. You let a breath fill your lungs, feeling it sweep out through your anxious smile. Here it is. Rose Cybernetics.The sliding doors of the atrium open with a hissed breath as you enter. You knew that the company did its best to impress its visitors, but if the scale of the building hadn't already set an imposing stage, its lobby would finish its show. Seeming as though it was open to the air, the 'ceiling' of this enormous space rests comfortably at the top of the building itself. From this, a tiered array of circular floors wrap along the outer walls like a serpent's coils. Light permeates the structure from a myriad of sources, all carrying a natural hue that - if what you've heard is accurate - mirrors the color of the sky outside. The sterile whites and greys of the building carry accents of saturated color across its industrial carpeting and in stripes along its walls. Of a similar color set, furniture that seems more like modern art gives the entire area an almost organic quality. The structure itself, though, is complemented in its unique qualities by those within. Figures all around you work busily, writing on whiteboards, collaborating in clusters of various sizes, darting from group to group, and delivering items as though their need was known preemptively. Interestingly, these forms all appear dissimilar from each other. They represent myriads of body types, clothing styles, and gender presentations, yet they all wear a sleek cover across their faces; a brushed, dark curve that obscures all facial features while displaying imagery of its owner's choice. Pulling your attention from your surroundings, you return to your task. A desk labeled 'check-in' sits at the atrium's center, and inquiring there seems to be the place to start. "Hello, welcome to the Rose Cybernetics Center! How can we help you?" The person at the desk carries a spritely, delicate voice, and their words appear across their faceplate as they speak. Almost as if understanding your hesitation, the words 'she/her/hers' flash across her screen. "I- um, hi," You've practiced this interaction many times before, but trying to get words out when you're already off-beat is a bit like trying to tame a tiger while wearing rollerblades. The staffer looks at you again, tilting her head curiously in a motion that dangles her blonde ponytail against her shoulder. It's unsettling to interact with someone with no face, yet looking into her faceplate is somehow calming all the same. Rippling waves of various colors splash across the black of her display, soothing cool tones that remind you of northern lights. You take a breath to settle your heart, acclimating yourself to the unusual sight, and try again. "I'm here for my in-person interview. I-I heard that you'd be expecting me?" Even without seeing her face, you get a good sense of the smile under her faceplate as its colors take on a gentle warm hue. "Of course, applicant 3B90, right this way." The staffer stands and walks out from behind the desk, as another worker wordlessly takes her place. You find yourself unsettled by the exchange; it almost felt more mechanical than human. Suppressing a shudder, you follow the staffer as she leads you to one of the elevator wells built into the side of the building."If you don't mind, um," you speak, immediately cursing the way your words always drift away midsentence. "How can I help you, applicant 3B90?" The warmth associated with her smile appears again, easing some of the anxiety in your chest."It's ah. Sydney, please. What's your name?" "Oh, I'm sorry, Sydney. I'm GIU-2CE5, but you can call me 2C if you like!" As with all of her words, these too float across her display, as does a small '^-^' emoticon afterward. Having gotten more accustomed to the way she emotes, you see the way her tone seems to perk up at the opportunity to share this particular bit of information."Sure," you say as she guides you into an elevator and presses a button for one of the middle floors, "that's your employee number, or um. Whatever, but how about your name?" She pauses for a moment, and you can see her faceplate's slow visualization stutter briefly as she thinks. "Nope, but 2C's my nickname!" It's painfully clear to you that she likes that 'nickname' at least, and you doubt you'll get further on this line of questions, so you let it go with a sigh. "2C it is, then." Okay, maybe it *is* a bit cute to see her get excited about something so simple.The elevator dings and she leads you out through its doors, grabbing your hand to pull you along. The contact is startling, but you don't seem to mind too much as you shrug and let the enthusiastic girl drag you along. On these lofted floors, full glass windows look out on the open atrium while the walls of offices and cubicles emerge, finally welcoming you into something more familiar. She pulls you into an office, empty except for two chairs and a small cabinet, and gestures for you to take a seat. You comply, settling into a piece of furniture that has no business being as comfortable as it is. 2C takes the opposite chair, crossing her legs. "Okay, Sydney, I'll be conducting your interview! Let me know, and we can go ahead and get started." Hearing this surprises you. Sure, you keep an open mind when it comes to most things, but getting interviewed by a front desk greeter for a network administration position is almost surreal. "Alright, so what is this, exactly?" 2C's 'smile' flashes again, and she cheerily explains the Rose Cybernetics hiring process. You know most of this stuff already; the company runs a series of difficult online challenges that lead the way to their application portal. From there, you don't need to submit a resume (thankfully, since yours is in desperate need of some TLC), but they do ask you to solve a problem in realtime over an internet call. If you've shown your skill, they speak with you in a brief remote interview to learn more about you as a person, then give you one final in-person meeting. This last interview, to your knowledge, is a formality; they'd already told you to bring everything you needed to move in, after all. It's at this point where the details get fuzzy, though. As much as you've searched for information about what this would even be, you'd found nothing but missing links and dead-ends. "This meeting is a different kind of test! We're going to hook you into our internal network for a moment, and see how you take to it." She reads your confused look, and the waves on her display bubble lightly, almost in a light giggle. "What do you mean? Will I have a laptop?" You watch as the laughing effect grows. She holds up a hand as if to ask for just a moment, then stands and walks over to the cabinet. Sliding out a slim, black box, she strides back over to you and places the box in your lap. It's blank, unadorned, and made of showy cardboard. You start removing the lid, suction keeping the base from falling as it slides slowly, and an idea of what might be waiting inside dawns on you. Tossing away the newly-liberated lid, you stare directly into the item you'd been expecting and dreading; a faceplate, returning your stare.Just above the glossy covering, embedded into the packaging foam, a small bolt-like object sits ominously. You've already seen the faceplates, but this thing..? It makes the whole situation even more concerning. "Don't worry about that receiver - for now, just put your faceplate on - I bet you'd look so cute! Oh, I'm so excited, I get to see what your display shows before anyone else!" 2C's demeanor is a confusing thing; her screen jumps and reacts to her mood, and so does her voice, but her body language and physical responses - while present - are significantly muted. Her posture is almost perfect, and her movement is unsettlingly smooth. Just one more uncanny part of this business, you suppose. Considering your current situation, you catch yourself worrying about the results of this interview again, for very different reasons this time. Your eyes widen with anxiety, as your heart beats faster in your chest. "Sydney, look at me, okay?" her faceplate's coloration shifts back to those comfortable blues and greens. "Putting the faceplate on won't do anything permanent." Her hand is holding yours. "It'll press against your face, make a tight seal, and beam everything its cameras pick up into your eyes once it starts up." She's holding both of your hands now. "When I press the receiver to your neck, it'll let you control the faceplate with your mind, just like I do!" Her display wiggles in a playful pattern for emphasis. Her hands are soft, reassuring. "Once you take them off, it'll be back to normal, okay? Just a taste now, that's what this interview is for." You nod, thoughtlessly. With 2C's hands still holding yours, you reach to the faceplate in your lap. Her reassurance pools in your chest, and after slowing your heartbeat with a couple of deep breaths, you press the dark shape to your face. It's cold, almost like your face is pressed against a window, and begins to shift against your skin. You can feel it exerting a suction force, and for a terrifying instant, you realize that you can't breathe. As you try to pull in a breath, a refreshing current of air wafts in through its respirator, and your brief panic recedes. At first, your vision is blank. Another few deep breaths go by, and imagery starts to flow back into your eyes. Dim at first, most likely to keep you from being immediately overwhelmed, slowly building until your surroundings resolve around you again. You've needed glasses, apparently; the world around you appears sharper now than before, and much more detailed. Looking over at 2C, a small blurb of information hovers over her head. It's a single word; 'contented.' You'd figured that she was just good at reading emotions, but this was cheating!"H-have you been reading me from your s-screen this whole time?" you stammer. "Oh, no, not quite. That info comes from your receiver. I'm just good at guessing!" The panel shifts to 'proud,' before progressing to 'flirty.' You're about to comment on it, when she decides to continue. "By the way, that faceplate looks so so cute on you!" Your cheeks redden, and you're, surprisingly, thankful that the unlit display is covering your face. You still have almost no idea why the company would require wearing these things, but the anonymity is surprisingly refreshing. "O-okay, I've handled the mask-faceplate-whatever, I'm good to keep going." 2C's faceplate lights up a monochrome green as she tilts her head, and you see metadata confirming that it's posed as a question. You nod again in response, and she stands up to walk behind you. Your anxiety builds at the thought of a person directly behind you, but it subsides as chilling metal touches your skin. The mechanism's electromagnetic fields warp your thoughts, pulling at them as though they were elastic. The tension builds and builds as your mind becomes a coiled spring, the receiver forcing it ever tighter. The force, the pulling, the pushing; it feels like everything that makes up your mind is about to explode. "Relax," 2C's voice cuts through the swirling forces and mental struggle, "just let go, let the flow of information sweep over you.” “Relax.” At her last word, your entire being stalls, before sinking into a state of extreme ease. All of that tension, so overwhelming moments ago, courses through your body, letting you accept this new pathway for information to travel through. As you pick up the pieces of your consciousness, you shake your face from the empty stupor it carried a moment ago - thanking your mask once again - and actively sift through the data streaming into your brain.The Rose Cybernetics building is already impressive from a visual perspective, but looking at it for what it is, the glowing connected consciousnesses of every mind in the structure lighting up before you, you feel your jaw drop automatically. Your gaze returns to 2C, whose current emotions register as 'pleased.' [You can talk to me like this now, you know.] The thoughts sound like her voice, and you jump as you hear them. [It's strange to start with, I know, but this is how we all communicate here; much faster.] Realization dawns on you, and without prompting, your thoughts pour through the connection between you. [How do I respond- oh wait I'm responding now this is amazing but hard to control how do I sto-] flows out of you, in combination with a variety of related emotions, images, and half thoughts. You spend the remaining interview time experimenting with this paradigm shift in interaction, communication, and existence that's somehow both entirely new, yet confusingly familiar and natural. After only a few minutes, it feels as though 2C understands you on a deeper level than anyone you've ever met, just as your understanding of her reaches that same depth. She explains that for the sake of getting you used to this, she's the only one linked to you. She shares - with enthusiasm - that after you've had enough time to acclimate to this shift, you'll be able to open connections with anyone and everyone in the entire facility. Her excitement bounces through your mind, and you can't help but let that positivity bubble up until it begins to play across your faceplate, too. Your display is a lot less abstract than 2C's; instead of the amorphous waves against a black background, your faceplate decorates itself with images of the cosmos. Galaxies, nebulas, constellations, all proudly used to emote in a way that words never could. It feels freeing, strangely enough, wearing a screen like this. It's a window, you think, glasses for the mind. You can feel 2C thinking to herself, the sign to expect a burst of new information broadcast from her mind to yours. As you do, you can't help but think just how cute she is! So excited over being called 2C; of course, if someone called you 3B90, you'd probably melt too. It's confusing to you, looking back, why you thought that names were so important. After all, designations are just so much more convenient! [You were broadcasting that, 3B,] 2C's smug feeling drips between your connection. Your blush returns to paint your cheeks bright red, and you notice another - somewhat less innocuous - response between your legs. She waits, perfectly aware of the effect her words carried as she feels it flowing through her mind from yours, before continuing. [I think that our interview was a success! Come back tomorrow, and we can get you fitted with a permanent set.] [I have to take it off?] [It'll be alright, just one more day.] Through your mental link, she sends you more feelings of relief, complemented by a physical hug. She looks up at you for a moment questioningly, before you nod gently, confirming your begrudging acceptance as she pulls the receiver away from your neck. With all that meta-information gone, you squeeze against her even tighter to compensate. As your mask falls away, you feel strange; naked even. Leaving the office room, stepping into the elevator, and giving your goodbyes to 2CE5 all serve the singular goal of making you feel that much more alone. For a brief moment, you consider just how strange it is to be feeling these things at the hand of your new employer, but at this point, you're in far too deep to do anything but shrug. "Before I- um... go, will I see you again?" you stumble out the question, mouth once again failing you. 2C's smile lights up her faceplate again - stars, it's so beautiful to see - and a giggle creeps out too. "I wouldn't be too worried about that, 3B! After all, I'll be your new supervisor!" Hearing your designation excites you in a way that feels almost enchanting, and you blush deeply in response. The part of you that might have questioned why she of all people would be your supervisor remains muted, as the excitement of the prospect tingles down your spine. Only a few hours ago, you would have scoffed at yourself, but now you can't help but be excited; tomorrow is your first day at Rose Cybernetics.

#droneplay #what do you mean this isn't a self insert story totally not hahahahahaaaaa #sometimes you just gotta wear a faceplate bc hhhhh

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btsficfinds · 4 years

Text

google searching: a step-by-step guide (with examples)

hey guys, admin rumu here~ we’ve already provided a fairly straightforward guide to google searching in our tips, but it seems some people are still having some issues. if you needed something a little more in-depth or if you were just curious about the process, this is for you! this will be very lengthy as i will be going through every step with different asks. i will not be addressing searching with google cache but if you’d like to see how that's done, dawn has already explained it in this post.

our searches are based on what you send us. if you’re looking for a fic but are confused about what terms to use in your search, write an ask like you’re going to send it to us (but don’t actually send it yet). i’ll be showing you how asks get turned into google searches using some of the asks we’ve previously received, so try this with your own!

general rules (these apply to all examples except example 1)

1. as you might have seen in the google section of the tips, there are some keywords that every search should have:

-the pairing (namjoon/seokjin/yoongi/jimin/taehyung/jungkook) (if you don’t remember the pairing, use the generic ‘bts’) -the platform (tumblr/ao3/etc.) (*if you don’t know where you read it, do not include this) *IF YOU READ THE FIC ON AO3, YOU MAY NOT FIND IT ON GOOGLE. you can (and should) still try, but google gets weird searching for ao3 fics. you might have better luck using ao3′s fic searching system first.

2. USE QUOTES IN APPROPRIATE SITUATIONS. quotes are only useful if used correctly, but they can make a HUGE difference. conversely, use them incorrectly and your search will not work.

3. make sure to actually read through your search results! don’t just assume it’s not what you’re looking for. if it looks like it could be a potential match, click on it and find out.

now let’s take a look at some examples:

*example 1: looking for a specific blog

we already have a tutorial on how to find lost blogs (you can find the link for that in the tips) but maybe you still can’t find it. thinking about asking us? try tumblr search/tags first, then google, then check our lost blogs list (link also in the tips), THEN ask us.

for these asks, you would search the blog name in quotes followed by ‘tumblr’ (e.g. “mintedmango” tumblr or “bluesxde” tumblr)

example 2: you remember...something (it’s extremely vague)

maybe you sent an ask without reading our tips (specifically the part showing how to write an ask for the best results), or maybe you did read them and unfortunately this is really all you remember. we hate to say this, but if you send us an ask like this your chances are slim to none.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: seokjin/reader fic type: one shot au: best friend

as you can see, there is little to no information here. even if we’ve read the fic they’re looking for, we probably wouldn’t have any idea what you’re talking about. in these situations, we probably would not make any suggestions because there are far too many to list. if you don’t send us more details, then there’s nothing we can do :(

example 3: you remember the title

depending on how unique the title is and how accurate your memory is, this should be fairly easy.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: title: somebody else pairing: taehyung/reader writer: aiscka

unless you misremembered the title or the title is an extremely common word/phrase, you should be able to find the fic simply by using quotation marks. if the title is a common word/phrase it would help to include other details in your search, but if the title is unique enough you probably wouldn’t need it. for this example, you could search: “somebody else” taehyung bts fanfic tumblr and you would be able to find this:

this is one of the top results but maybe you don’t feel like clicking through all the potential options to find the right one. the anon knew the author is this case, so they could also find the fic by searching: “somebody else” aiscka taehyung bts fanfic tumblr which would allow them to find a reblog from the writer’s previous name.

having more details will narrow your search down and make it faster for you to find what you’re looking for.

example 4: you remember the plot and specific/unique keywords (best case scenario)

the more details we have, the better chances we have of finding it. we are not exaggerating when we say we want you to send us EVERYTHING YOU REMEMBER. think we can find it even without all that? or perhaps you aren’t sure if it’ll help? maybe so but it doesn’t matter, we want it anyway!

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: namjoon/reader au: aquarium, veterinarian/doctor, single parent, twins plot: reader meets namjoon and his sons at the aquarium while working

more specific details = more search options but this is enough for us to work with because these details have unique keywords (note: we would still prefer you give us more details than we need than not enough. PLEASE SEND US EVERYTHING YOU REMEMBER). my first search for this would be: namjoon reader tumblr fanfic "aquarium" i can immediately find:

i’ll still skim through the fic to double check, but just based off this i can already tell this is probably what we’re looking for! some other searches we could have tried are: namjoon reader tumblr fanfic "aquarium" vet namjoon reader tumblr fanfic veterinarian “twins” namjoon reader tumblr fanfic single father veterinarian all of these would find the fic we want, and i’m sure you could try other combinations as well. notice that some words have quotes around them and some don’t. how do you know which ones to use quotes for? if you are SURE that those are the exact word/words, put them in quotes. if you don’t know for sure how it was phrased, consider trying searches with and without quotes. ‘single father’ with quotes will only search for ‘single father’. ‘single father’ without quotes will give you results for ‘single dad’, ‘single parent’, ‘single fathers’, etc. in this example, you can see that the correct phrase was ‘single dad’, so not using quotes was the right idea!

example 5: you remember the plot and a name

searching for names is tricky. keep in mind that names must be exact. if you get the spelling wrong, a name will be useless as a keyword and will probably ruin your search.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: taehyung/reader au: best friend, fuckboy(?) plot: reader is best friends with taehyung, taehyung is blowing reader off for his girlfriend named vicktoria

there are a couple of issues with searching for this: -there is no universal spelling for fuckboy/fuckboi/fuqboii/etc. we all know they mean the same thing, but people can spell it however they want. unfortunately, google doesn’t know how to handle that. it’s also possible that the fic was not tagged with fuckboy, but there was fuckboy behavior present. either way, very difficult to google. -plot events can be hard to search for since it could happen over the span of multiple chapters and/or be explained different ways and google doesn’t know how to search for that either. plot points are useful for fic verifying, but not so much for fic searching. -the aus for this fic are very common. if not for one keyword, this would have been near impossible to search for and to verify.

you could probably guess what the initial search would be: taehyung “vicktoria” bts fanfic tumblr from that you would get:

based on the description, this search result is worth checking out. note that if they had remembered the name as ‘victoria’ or ‘something starting with a v’, this probably would not have worked.

example 6: you vaguely remember the premise, but nothing in detail

unfortunately there isn’t much you can do without specifics. there are TONS of fics out there and we simply cannot find what you’re looking for if there isn’t enough detail. we will try our best, but just know that you should not expect much.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: taehyung/reader/? fic type: multiple chapters au: yandere plot: reader is in some kind of danger and is saved by taehyung

not very specific, which is why we ask that people try to be as detailed as possible! this ask is pretty vague and it’s difficult to search for a fic without concrete details. ‘yandere’ is a pretty unique keyword so you might want to put it in quotes (some yandere fics aren’t tagged as yandere, but i’m going to assume it was in this case). NOTE: each exact term/phrase should get its own quotes. for example, it would be “taehyung” “yandere”, not “taehyung yandere” so from there you could have: tumblr taehyung “yandere” reader fanfic this search is still extremely broad so there will be a lot of irrelevant results. if you have the patience to check all the pages on google you can, but it would definitely take a while and you might not even find it. too many terms could confuse your search but less terms means more to look through. unfortunately everything from here would be guesswork. if it’s not in quotes, google will include results that are a match for synonyms and/or different tenses. let’s say my search is: tumblr taehyung “yandere” reader fanfic die rescued you can tell i’ve chosen those words based off of the plot detail. from the term ‘rescued’, google could give me results for ‘saved’ (synonym) or ‘rescue’ (word tense variation). click through the google pages and scan through your results. if the google summaries seem like they could be a match, check it out. if not, try a different search. from that search, i found:

it seems like a potential match since it’s a yandere taehyung fic involving another member, so i skim through the fic and check the details (reader is involved in a life or death situation and is saved by taehyung, fic is not a oneshot). this fic is only a suggestion as it’s possible this isn’t the right fic. from there we would ask for confirmation/denial, and unfortunately a lot of fics get left as pending. if your fic is pending, PLEASE let us know if it’s correct or not!

*edit: this fic was not the fic the anon was looking for, but we’ve received a potential fic suggestion from another anon. if this was your ask, please check back in!

example 7: you remember the plot and details, but you don’t remember the pairing

this might be tough since the pairing really helps narrow the search results down, but it’s not a deal breaker if you have enough unique keywords.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/?(taehyung/hoseok/jimin) platform: ao3 au/genre: soulmate (red string), demons(?) plot: jungkook can manipulate his string, jungkook cuts his string, jin and namjoon are in a relationship, jungkook gets sick at jin and namjoon’s house, alex(?) is a demon(?), jungkook gets tricked by alex(?)

lots of information so lots of potential searches, but unfortunately a lot of unsurety. the concrete words here are going to be ‘jungkook’, ‘soulmate’, and ‘red string’, but everything else is up in the air. it’s even more complicated because it’s an ao3 fic and like i said before, google gets weird with ao3.

my first search for this would be: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “alex” note that i did not include the other half of the pairing in my search terms. if you want to take a guess for the pairing you can (i would have guessed taehyung because taekook is the most popular pairing for jungkook on ao3), but it’s best not to take too many leaps in logic from the very start. i usually save that for the end when i’m just trying my luck with different searches. i also chose not to include the platform in this search in case it was crossposted and could be found elsewhere. the initial search does not provide any promising results. after that i might try searches like: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “manipulate” jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “red string” “alex” jungkook fanfic “red string” manipulate sick jungkook fanfic “red string” “soulmate” demon but unfortunately the fic doesn’t turn up for these either. now we’ve got to start guessing. i won’t lie, this is pretty difficult. i typically try to think about how the fic might be written/consider the most obvious or common way for them to say something and make guesses from that. i might try something like: jungkook fanfic “soulmate” “won this round” that doesn’t work, so i try: jungkook fanfic "cut his string" "soulmate" from that i get this:

looks like it could be the fic, so i skim through it for the details in the description and it is! obviously this will not always work, but sometimes you’ll get lucky.

example 8: you remember a quote (word for word)

the success of finding a fic based on a quote is dependent on how accurately you remember it. if the quote is unique to the story and you know the exact wording, you have a very high chance of being able to find it! *if you DO NOT know an EXACT quote, this probably will not help. i would advise searching using your other details instead of a partial quote because misremembering even a few words will ruin a quote search.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/reader au/genre: college, f2l plot: jungkook asks reader for a pencil, reader remembers him from high school, jungkook remembers reader from kindergarten, reader defended jungkook when he was bullied for his knockoff ninja turtle shirt

lots of information here, but what stands out is the quotes! it’s SO specific that it would be surprising if other fics had them. assuming you didn’t misremember the phrasing, you 100% want to use quotation marks for this. my first google search would be: jungkook “it’s morphine time” bts fanfic tumblr

as we thought, there it is! alternatively you could have used the other quote (the search would have been jungkook “it’s morphin time” bts fanfic tumblr) and found it as well.

example 9: you remember lots of plot but no unique keywords

this kind of ask probably won’t be found through google searching (or if it is, there is a LOT of guesswork involved). hopefully the community remembers it or one of the admins will read it somewhere and recognize it (i’m always on the lookout for old asks!), but unfortunately google isn’t your friend this time.

the fic relevant parts are highlighted. based off of that, you would know the following: pairing: jungkook/reader au: established relationship, cheating plot: reader is dating taehyung or jimin, jungkook is dating someone, reader goes to taehyung/jimin’s apartment to give them food and sees jungkook in the hallway, jungkook’s girlfriend is in taehyung/jimin’s apartment, jungkook and reader sit outside and eat the food that was supposed to be for taehyung/jimin and jungkook’s girlfriend, taehyung/jimin and jungkook’s gf leave the apartment and see jungkook and reader together, taehyung/jimin is pushed back by jungkook

this is a very specific plot, but unfortunately there’s nothing concrete we can search for. these google searches would be all guessing, so i’ve tried variations such as: jungkook reader tumblr fanfic cheating "hallway" eating food jungkook reader tumblr fanfic "his girlfriend" eating food cheating jungkook reader tumblr fanfic "eating" "apartment" pushed and a lot of others, but none of those worked (as expected).

we’re still looking for this one so if anyone knows this fic or has other information please let us know!

JUST A REMINDER: please try all your search options BEFORE sending us an ask! i would recommend trying google first, then our tags, then the search bar for our blog, and if all of those don’t work, THEN try us.

if you send us an ask, PLEASE GIVE US ALL THE DETAILS. it doesn’t matter if it’s super long or you think the detail might not help, the more the better. maybe we might end up not needing everything you sent, but it increases your chances of the fic being found and helps us confirm what you’re looking for. so assuming you really want to reread it, tell us everything you know! if you aren’t sure what to write, you can check the ‘be detailed’ section of the tips for the best way to write an ask.

hopefully this cleared up some things about googling :)

#info

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