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trashheappro · 6 months

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The Anomaly - Ch. 5

Ch: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Miguel punched a hole in the wall of his room in the medical ward of the Spider Society HQ. The kids needed at least an overnight stay, even Hobie who got off easy in comparison. They shouldn’t have been there. Why did he approve it? They weren’t ready. None of them were.

He and Peter B didn’t get away unscathed. They also had to stay in for medical observation and would be discharged by the end of the day. But it didn’t matter because the kids nearly died. Pavitr had a nasty head wound and Gwen… Mierda, Miles had brutalized her.

Miles Morales.

Bile gathered in his throat. He swallowed it down.

A knock at his door ripped his mind off that track before he could get too lost in it. “What?” he called out.

The door slid open to reveal Peter B. “Hey,” he said lamely. He pointed to the hole in the wall. “You know you’re going to have to pay for that, right?”

“Shut up.” He owned the building, repairing a hole was cheap in comparison.

“How are your injuries?”

“Fine. Yours?”

“Healing.”

“The kids?”

“Awake. Want to see them?”

See them, yes. Speak to them, no. How could he face them when he knowingly threw them into danger. It was different from the dangers they faced being Spiders. He knowingly pitted them against a multiversal threat.

He followed Peter B down the hall. He hated spending any amount of time in medical, all Spiders did. The chemical smell was too strong, the lights too bright. Nothing he could do about it, it had to be a sterile environment. But fuck, his eyes. He squeezed them close, following the sound of footsteps.

“We’re here.”

Miguel begrudgingly allowed the blinding light to touch his retinas once more as the door opened. Jessica was already there, speaking quietly with Hobie who was already out of his bed. Pavitr and Gwen weren’t so fortunate.

Pavitr’s head was wrapped in bandages, arm in a sling, and attached to too many machines. He was awake, head turned to listen to Jessica and Hobie’s conversation, answering any questions she threw his way. He spoke softly and in stiff sentences, not the boisterous boy he knew him to be.

But if looking at Pavitr was hard, Gwen was impossible.

She was much in a similar state as Pavitr except still comatose and her whole face was covered, only a swollen eye visible. He read the injury report. She had a fractured skull, but thankfully the doctors determined there was no significant brain damage. That didn’t make any sense because her skull was fractured.

Mierda. How did he let this happen?

“How is she?” Peter B asked.

Jessica’s tired eyes met his. “Healing. They took her off anesthesia. She should be waking in a bit.

“That’s good to hear.” He turned to Hobie and Pavitr. “And how are you guys holding up?”

“I’ve been better,” Pavitr murmured.

“Like shit,” Hobie said, scowling.

“Yeah, fair.”

The kids were safe for now. He had to figure out what to do about the Spot and… “I’m going back to my lab, call me if anything comes up.” Seeing the kids eased his mind a bit, but he had to focus on the mission.

“Miguel,” Jessica said in a way that meant ‘You can’t be serious.’

“They’re alive and I have work to do,” he said, curt and to the point. “They got away from us and I need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

“Got away? Bruv, they pummeled us!” Hobie gestured wildly at their injured forms. “Look at what they did to–”

“I saw!” He snapped, teeth bared. “I am acutely aware of what happened, which is why I have to figure out a solution before it happens again.”

“You’re making it sound like a miscalculation when in reality, we got outclassed.”

“Are we going to ignore the behemoth in the room?" Pavitr asked, voice still soft, but a determination settling in.

Miles Morales. Back to where it all started. “I’m trying to figure that out too,” Miguel’s voice softened along with his expression. The kids needed to stay out of this; it was too dangerous.

“Alone?”

“Alright,” Jessica cut in. “First, explain.”

Pavitr’s mouth screwed shut. Funny for the guy who wanted to discuss the issue in the first place. “Miles Morales is the Spot’s protege,” Hobie spoke up for him.

“Morales? The one from the incident over a year ago?” Jessica raised a brow.

“Yes.” Miguel said.

“And you’re sure it’s the same kid and not a look alike or a variant?”

“No, but I intend to find out.”

“Thought you had him under surveillance," Hobie spat, the mere word tasting vile on his tongue.

“As heartless as you think I am, even I can only take so many hours of watching a kid in mourning,” he hissed. That got Hobie to shut up, but that ever present scowl, at least when Miguel was in the room, remained. It was no secret he and Hobie had their differences. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that Hobie hated him. Hell, Miguel hated himself more often than not. “Lyla, compile the most recent record of Miles Morales of Earth-1610.”

Lyla appeared over his shoulder. “Might take a bit. Scrubbing data from another universe without direct access isn't what most would consider easy.”

“Do it.”

She gave a lazy salute and fizzled away.

“What if it is Miles?” Peter B asked.

“We have to capture him and see what’s going on,” Miguel said.

“Something’s not right,” Hobie said. “No way Miles be running around with the likes of him.” Miguel was inclined to agree. Miles wouldn’t be a villain, wouldn’t willingly follow the man who killed his father.

“Like brainwashing?” Pavitr asked.

“Or a mind wipe. He called the Spot ‘Mr. Ohnn’.” Hobie shivered, disgusted by the thought. Miles had been a bit too chatty for it to be a conventional brainwashing, not that brainwashing itself was. No, it was more likely to be something along the lines of forced amnesia or some sort of memory tampering.

“And if it’s not the same kid?” Jessica asked.

“Send him back to his correct universe and get him some help,” Miguel said.

“Woah, hold on a second, are you saying that if it is my Miles, you would do something different?” Peter B nearly snarled.

Miguel ignored the sort of parental attachment because they’ve discussed this already. “No, but if it is Miles Morales of Earth-1610, then we need to be careful.”

“Careful?! He’s just a kid and he needs help–”

“I meant how we handle the situation. If it is him…” He sighed. “Kid has enough trauma.” God, he knew he wasn’t the best communicator, but did they really think he was that much of an asshole?

At least Peter B had the decency to look apologetic. “Right.”

“Either way, we need to think of a way to contain both him and the Spot.”

“Ey, he’s not a wild animal,” Hobie said. “We can reason with him, yeah?”

“But the way he looked at me… I know he wore a mask but…,” Pavitr said unsure.

Miles had been vicious. He went for hits that could have easily turned fatal. That wasn’t the same kid that proclaimed he could save both his universe and his father. That wasn’t Miles Morales of Earth-1610. At least he hoped not.

But their odds weren’t looking good. He had the same powers, which didn’t immediately rule out a variant but… Something in his gut just told him to expect the worst.

“What do we do about the Spot?” Peter B asked. “When he’s focused on the fight, we couldn’t corral him into the containment unit.”

“We overwhelm the kid, force him to ask for help. It’ll distract the Spot long though for us to lock him down.”

“His name is Miles.” Since the incident, Peter and Miguels’ relationship had become tense to say the least. Even if he went along with it, Peter had his grievances about how the situation was handled.

“And if it’s not him? Don’t get soft just on the off chance it is,” Miguel snapped.

“It’s him.” Peter B stood his ground. “Even if it’s not my Miles, he’s still a Miles.”

That didn’t change the facts of their situation. “Regardless, our best bet of beating the Spot is to use his protectiveness of the boy against him.”

“Don’t you think you’re focusing on the wrong thing? We need to save Miles.”

“No!” Miguel barked. “You’re losing focus. Stopping the Spot will save the multiverse and everything else will fall into place. You didn’t care about the kid until you saw his face, don’t pretend like saving one person was your priority.”

“Lay off him, bruv,” Hobie said.

“He’s just worried. We all are.” Pravitr added.

And Miguel wasn’t? Just because he kept his eyes on the main threat didn’t mean he wasn’t… concerned. Clearly everyone else cared about the little things enough for him. “Both need to be dealt with. I need to get back to my lab to figure out how.”

“We can brainstorm here,” Pavitr suggested.

“No. You kids will not be going.”

“We ain’t kids.” Hobie pushed himself off the wall. Yes, they were. Just because they were teens didn’t mean they weren’t kids. But telling them that won’t make them feel differently.

“No, you’re not.”

“Then why not?”

Miguel gestured to them and Gwen. “Need I say more?”

“We made some mistakes, we learn from them.” Hobie crossed his arms. “We’re in.”

“It was my mistake. I should have never approved this.” He ran a hand over his face. “You weren’t ready.”

“Don’t say that,” Pavitr said. “We put in the work. We had the scores!”

“And none of it mattered!” Miguel snapped. Jessica and Peter B stayed silent making it clear they agreed even if they didn’t want to voice it. Fine, he would be the bad guy. “All that training, all the simulations; none of it could have prepared you to fight the Spot and–”

His teeth clacked shut on his name. Fuck, why was it so hard? An uncomfortable bubble expanded in his chest. He hated thinking about the kid. The only thing that Miles Morales brought to mind was the image of a boy weeping into his pillows in an empty house. The wails still echoed in his nightmares.

“And Miles…” the quiet voice had the whole room springing into action.

“Gwen!” Hobie and Pavitr exclaimed.

Jessica and Peter B hurried to her beside.

Gwen’s bleary eyes locked onto Miguel despite the clamoring of everyone else around her. “Was it really him?”

Miguel looked away. “We don’t know.”

“They got away?”

Peter B took her hand. “I’m sorry, Gwen”

She groaned, holding her hand up to her head, skull still throbbing. Perhaps they took her off anesthesia too soon. “What’s our next move?”

“Not ‘our’,” Miguel shut down.

“Gwen, you and Pavitr still need time to recover,” Jessica said. “And it’s clear your team wasn’t ready to take them on.”

“But it’s Miles,” Gwen said, like it justified her throwing herself in the jaws of death again. It didn’t.

“We don’t know if it is Miles Morales of Earth-1610 and even–”

“Miguel,” Lyla appeared over his shoulder.

Ay, dios mio. “I thought you said it would take a while.”

“I did and it would have if the report wasn’t so short.”

Miguel had hoped that it would take long enough or he would be faster to return to his lab so he could listen to her findings on his own and plan the next course of action without the soft-hearted input of the Spiders in the room.

“You better not be thinking about leaving now.” It was so easy for Hobie to read exactly what Miguel wanted to do because it was always exactly the opposite of what he wanted.

All eyes were on him. Even Jessica and Peter B looked at him expectantly. Fine. “Lyla.”

“Miles Morales of Earth-1610 was reported missing 472 days ago by Anh Nguyen, a neighbor and family friend.”

A year and five months since the incident. About five months after the battle with the Spot and four months after Miguel could no longer bring himself to watch the kid cry himself to sleep.

Miguel hadn’t even noticed a growl rumbling in his chest as Lyla went on about how the police found no trace of him or had any leads on where he could have gone. Phone was left at home. No train tickets, no plane tickets, not even an Uber. CCTV had nothing. It was like the kid went poof. Police ruled that he ran away after the “heartbreaking funeral of his mother, Rio Morales,” Lyla finished.

A slew of curses left his lips. The chances that the Spot kidnapped Miles Morales of Earth-1610 and turned him into a killer was a near guarantee. Fuck. This was his fault. He should have been watching over Miles. He suspected the Spot had a bone to pick with the kid, and yet he still chose to never again tune into Earth-1610.

But Miguel had reached his limit with Miles. The zombie-like shambling around the house, barely putting enough food in his mouth to survive, and sitting alone in the dark reminded Miguel too much of his own grief. And knowing he put a child through the same pain that nearly had him take his own life… Guilty was too kind of a word. It suffocated him, formed a lump in his throat that he just couldn’t swallow.

Gwen shifted in her bed, enough to warrant Jessica and Peter B keeping her down. “I’m going after him,” she said with a surety Miguel would silence.

“No, you’re not. None of you are,” he snapped, making eye contact with all the teens so they knew none of them were excluded.

Gwen knew he wouldn’t budge so she looked to the other adults in the room. “Peter, it’s Miles. We have to help him.”

“We will, but not you.” Miguel didn’t have time to have Peter B flounder for a response that wouldn’t leave her fuming.

“If anyone can get through to him, it’s me and Peter,” she tried.

“Maybe, but only after he’s captured. You’re not going into the field.”

“Miguel–”

“No.”

“Please, I can do this!”

“Clearly not.”

“No, I can! You have to let me try!”

“I said no!”

“Please!” Tears fell from her eyes, soaking into her bandages. “I can save him! I won’t fail this time! I won’t!” Right… because her canon event was losing her Peter Parker and there was some still healing wound about being unable to save her crushes from villainy. That didn’t mean she got to throw away her life trying to fix this.

“This is not up for debate.”

“He’s my friend!” Like that made a difference.

“Then you’re clearly too close to work on this.”

“I’m not!”

“It’s a common protocol. Your dad was a cop. You should know this.”

She glared at him, or managed the best she could with an eye nearly swollen shut and tears flooding her vision. He felt a little bad using that on her. It was a sore subject, but the silence was so gratifying. “You've proven that he is not an opponent any of you are capable of handling.”

“We can help,” Pavitr tried. Miguel didn’t think he would, considering how silent he had been.

“Look at yourselves. You’re in no condition to swat a fly, let alone fight Miles again.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Kids. “Rest. Heal. I need some time alone to figure this out.”

“Miguel,” Jessica said, before he could leave the room. “Don’t do this alone.”

Miguel could be a bit of a hot head, but he wasn’t stupid. He would need two groups that were up for the job and unlike when he let Jessica and Peter B convince him to let children onto the mission, he would hand pick these Spiders.

“I don’t intend to.”

He closed the door behind him as he trekked back to the lab. The kids didn’t like his decision to kick them off the mission, they didn’t really like him, period, but he didn’t need them to, he just needed them to be safe.

He had to get back and run some tests, figure out how he was going to contain both Miles and the Spot. He probably needed a new containment unit for Miles’ bioelectricity.

Lyla, Jessica, and the doctors would probably tell him to get some rest, but he had no time. He had too much to take care of. He still had other missions to assign and more reports to go through. He would have to work overtime.

Miguel ran a tired hand down his face as if it would ease the exhaustion from his veins. It never did.

#Spiderverse #platonic!spottedflowerfang #Miles Morales & Miguel O'Hara & The Spot #Miguel O'Hara #Peter B Parker #Jessica Drew #Gwen Stacy #hobie brown #Pavitr Prabhakar #The Anomaly #trashtexts

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pornaddictionsymptoms · 1 year

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How to Know if You're a Porn Addict

Porn addiction is a serious problem that can destroy lives and families. It's important to be able to recognize the signs of addiction so you can get help before it's too late. Here are some things to look out for if you think you or someone you know may be addicted to porn.

Porn addiction is a real problem that should not be taken lightly. Porn addiction is a real problem that should not be taken lightly. While it is normal to be curious about sex and to watch porn occasionally, some people develop an obsessive need to view pornography. This can lead to problems in their personal and professional lives, as well as difficulty forming or maintaining intimate relationships. Porn addiction can be difficult to overcome, but there are resources available to help people recover. If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction to porn, please seek out professional help. With treatment, it is possible to break the cycle of addiction and lead a healthy and fulfilling life.

The therapist's point of view on porn addiction. As a therapist, I often see clients who are struggling with porn addiction. While the details of each case are unique, there are some common themes that emerge. Many men who come to see me feel immense shame and guilt about their use of pornography. They may have started using it casually, but it quickly spiraled out of control. In some cases, they spend hours every day viewing pornography and may even miss work or neglect their responsibilities in order to do so. This can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, as well as anxiety and depression. Porn addiction can also cause problems in relationships, as trust is often broken and intimacy is replaced by sexual detachment. If you are struggling with porn addiction symptoms, please know that you are not alone. Therapy can be an effective way to address this problem and make positive changes in your life.

How to get help for someone who is addicted to porn. Pornography use can have a number of negative effects on your life, including causing problems in your close personal relationships. When you spend a significant amount of time viewing pornography, you may begin to compare your real-life partners to the people you see onscreen. Your partners may feel like they can never measure up, which can lead to feelings of insecurity and resentment. In addition, pornography can desensitize you to intimacy and connection, making it difficult to form or maintain close relationships. If you’re struggling with a pornography addiction, it’s important to seek help from a qualified therapist who can assist you in overcoming this problem and rebuilding your relationships.

The importance of family support in overcoming porn addiction. Porn addiction is a scrolling, searching, clicking compulsion that leads to harmful consequences in a person's life. Although it's not yet recognized as an official diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), it shares characteristics with other behavioral addictions, such as gambling and internet addiction. And like those disorders, porn addiction can lead to feelings of shame, anxiety, isolation, and even depression. If you're worried that someone you care about is addicted to porn, there are some steps you can take to help them get the treatment they need. First, try to have an open and honest conversation with the person about your concerns. If they're reluctant to talk, you may need to seek out professional help. There are a number of therapy options available, including inpatient and outpatient programs, 12-step groups, and individual counseling. With the right help, people who are struggling with porn addiction can learn to manage their urge to view pornography and rebuild their lives.

Resources for further information on porn addiction. If you are struggling with an addiction to porn, it is important to seek help. There are a number of resources available that can provide you with support and information. Here are just a few of the organizations that can help:

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation: This organization works to expose the harms of pornography and fight for strict regulation of the industry. They offer a wealth of resources on their website, including articles, videos, and research reports.

Fight the New Drug: This organization is dedicated to educating people about the harms of pornography and providing support for those who are struggling with addiction. Their website offers a variety of resources, including articles, podcasts, and an online community.

Covenant Eyes: This organization provides software that helps people avoid pornography and other harmful content online. They also offer a blog and podcast that discuss issues related to addiction and recovery.

If you are struggling with an addiction to porn, these organizations can provide you with valuable resources and support.

Conclusion paragraph: Pornography addiction is a real thing, and if you're struggling with it, you're not alone. There is hope, though. In this post, we've outlined some steps that you can take to overcome your addiction to pornography. If you need more help than what we've provided here, don't hesitate to reach out for professional assistance. Recovery from pornography addiction is possible, and we want to help you get there.

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weissmerritt07 · 2 years

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What IPO Traders Need To Know

Initial public choices, or IPOs, signify a big step in the life of any firm. They're an opportunity to offer investors with an equity stake in your business. Traders know that the IPO investment process is complex and stuffed with dangers. In this text, we'll discover some issues IPO traders have to know before they make an funding resolution.

What's an IPO?

An initial public offering (IPO) is when an organization first sells shares of inventory to the public. This is typically performed to boost money for the company, which can be utilized to finance new tasks or develop the business. IPO investors need to concentrate on the dangers involved in investing in a brand new company, as there could be quite a lot of volatility within the early phases. Nonetheless, if the corporate is successful, IPO investors can see important returns on their investment.

Why should I put money into an IPO?

Investing in an IPO can be a terrific approach to get in on the bottom ground of a company with excessive progress potential. IPOs also tend to be extra volatile than different stocks, to allow them to provide the opportunity for higher upside. Nevertheless, it is vital to do your homework earlier than investing in an IPO, as there are some dangers to be aware of. Right here are a few things to bear in mind: 1. The share price could also be volatile within the brief-time period. 2. There isn't any assure that the corporate will be successful. 3. You may not be able to sell your shares instantly if you'll want to. 4. There may be restrictions on how you can use your shares.

How do I spend money on an IPO?

The IPO process may be quite confusing for traders, so it's essential to understand the fundamentals earlier than leaping in. Here are a few things you need to know about investing in an IPO: 1. What is an IPO? An IPO, or initial public offering, is when a company first sells shares of inventory to the public. This may be achieved via a variety of methods, but most often IPOs are carried out by way of an investment financial institution. 2. How do I buy shares in an IPO? If you are occupied with buying shares in an IPO, you'll have to work with an funding bank or broker that focuses on most of these offerings. You will additionally need to put down a significant amount of cash, as most IPOs require a minimum funding of $10,000 or more. 3. What are the risks of investing in an IPO? IPOs are a excessive-threat funding, as there isn't any guarantee that the corporate will be successful after going public. Additionally, you may not have the ability to promote your shares for a while after the IPO, as there's typically a lock-up interval of 6-12 months. Finally, you'll also pay increased commissions when shopping for and selling shares

Widespread IPO Investing Errors

Investing in an IPO might be a great option to get in on the ground floor of a promising new firm. However there are additionally some potential pitfalls to pay attention to before taking the plunge. Listed here are some common errors traders make when investing in IPOs: 1. Failing to do your homework. Simply because an organization is going public doesn’t mean it’s an excellent investment. It’s essential to research the corporate and its financials before making any decisions. 2. Getting caught up in the hype. It can be straightforward to get caught up within the pleasure surrounding a sizzling new IPO, but beware of letting feelings guide your funding decisions. 3. Buying shares at the unsuitable time. One widespread mistake is buying shares proper when the stock starts buying and selling, without knowing the place the price is prone to go in the future. It’s usually higher to look ahead to the mud to settle earlier than shopping for shares in an IPO. 4. Overpaying for shares. One other mistake buyers make is paying a lot for his or her shares, both by shopping for at the highest of the market or by excessive commissions. Make sure to compare costs and charges earlier than shopping for any IPO shares. 5

Conclusion

As an IPO investor, it is essential to do your research and know what you're getting into. The inventory market will be volatile, and IPOs are sometimes risky investments. But if you are cautious and smart about it, investing in an IPO will be a terrific strategy to make some money. After all, there is no guarantee that each IPO will achieve success. However in the event you understand the risks and do your homework, you could possibly find yourself making a lot of money from investing in a single.

#IPO investment

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starglow-xx · 3 years

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(About the brother!atsushi) aRE YOU READING MY MIND MISS?! Because that has been on my mind for MONTHS. TYSM For writing it was amazing!! If you don't mind, may I request (if requests are open) atsushi, still an older brother, but with a sister that's 10-13 yrs old? It's totally fine if you don't wanna do it. Keep up the good stories, ily mwuah!

*sobs* you’re so kind thank youu 🤧🤧

i wrote this a bit differently i hope that’s okay anon! at first i planned for this to be mainly abt atsushi and the reader, but i decided to add in relationship hcs with the agency bc i ran out of ideas

if you guys liked this don’t worry! im planning a special part two for this one so be the look out for it hehe

atsushi with a tween! sister

ft. the armed detective agency

like in my baby sister hcs, you’re still the most important thing to him period

the two of you got picked up by dazai and kunikida when he was 18 (obviously) and when you were 12

for a 12 year old, you were a bit small bc of malnourishment (which makes atsushi feel so bad) so both dazai and kunikida thought you were a bit younger than you actually were

they assumed you were about 9-10ish

you and atsushi both share a favorite food !! chazuke :)

so when kunikida treated the two of you, he made sure you got more bowls bc like i mentioned above, he feels really bad that you were malnourished and under weight

(don’t bring this up but kunikida felt bad too hehe)

when dazai went with your brother to the warehouse, you were with kunikida

imagine the surprise of the other ada members when kunikida came in with a little girl dressed in rags that popped out from behind him

kenji was the one who vocalized his thoughts

“kunikida-san you have a daughter?! wow! i didn’t know that! :D”

when you found out your brother was a tiger, you were a bit concerned but you were actually kind of excited

you were even more excited when you found out the two of you were going to be taken in by the agency

anything was better than the stupid orphanage

and besides!

you got a tiger for an older brother and a bunch of other super powered agents to take care of you! who could want anything else?

at your age, you’re very impressionable and can be influenced easily so atsushi makes sure to teach you more in depth of good morals and the importance of kindness

his heart swells with pride and relief when he catches you being kind to others

pride bc he’s proud that even after all the two of you have gone through, you still ended up being a good kid and having a bright view of the world

and relief bc he hasn’t failed as a big brother

pfftt like he could ever fail

but please, from time to time reassure him that he’s perfect and the only big brother that you’d ever want bc he rlly needs that kind of validation

with his salary and savings, he tries to buy nice things for you

what a sweetheart 🥺

he saw you eyeing that one dress at a store window? fast forward abt a week and half and it’s inside a pretty gift bag for you

you wanted to try that dessert from the nice bakery? that’s dessert after dinner at one point

but other than buying you things, he sets money aside for you

like all the time

(y/n), here have this, you might need it”

“but nii-san you just gave me—”

“take it”

#1 spoiler

also your #1 confidant and source of physical affection

you tell him anything and everything (except crushies and those kinds of things)

atsushi loves it when you talk abt your day and he can see the big smile on your face and the sparkle in your eyes

it gives him the strength to keep going 😖😖

the two of you aren’t as touch starved as you’d probably think, but that’s only bc the two of you had each other

in your opinion, no one can match the hugs of your big brother

and it got even better bc YAYY he has tiger arms now ٩(◕‿◕)۶

if you ask, he’d carry you around too hehe

you also get nightmares quite often so he’ll always be there ready to calm you down, talk if you need to, and rock you back to sleep

god i love him 🤧🤧

atsushi will do everything in his power to protect you and make sure you get to grow up happy, supported, and loved

port mafia attack? oop he’s already taking you to the nearest escape route

someone is starting to harass you? they just got suckered punched into the next week

you want to go out to have some fun? he’ll go ask the president for a day off

you’re not feeling well? he’ll take another day off and take care of you

whatever you want to do, he’ll do it with you! (as long as it’s within reason)

will always be your #1 supporter! and he’s the president of your fan club hehe

he loves you so so much and will do anything for you; your life and happiness will always be more important to him

you are his reason to keep going

agency head canons !!

atsushi is your big brother, but kunikida is most definitely some sort of father figure

everyone can see it

except kunikida of course

kunikida scolds you lightly if he thinks your manners need work or if you make a mess in the agency

you listen to him of course and in turn as some sort of a reward, he’ll give you pieces of stationary

he always gives you the nice, good quality kind and you’re over the moon

atsushi adores it when you come running to him showing your new notebook or fountain pen and blabbering what you’re going to do with it

sometimes it isn’t even as a reward for being a good child; he’ll just give it to you and he’ll say smth like “i noticed you’ve used up your last notebook quite quickly, so here’s another one” or “did you run out of ink? here have this then”

he usually has a soft spot for children in general, but he most definitely has a soft spot (or a thousand) for you

yosano is kind of like a motherly figure to you

she gives you the guidance a mother should and goes on shopping trips with you!

atsushi always gets dragged along by you, but he thinks it’s worth it seeing you look so happy

yosano being a doctor also tries to teach the things you should know, or things that would be helpful to you

she’ll teach you the basics of cooking, sewing, how to treat a cold/fever, etc

also gives you excellent advice 1000% of the time

“remember (y/n)-chan if someone hurts you come tell me and then i’ll chop them into—”

“yOSANO-SENSEI DONT TELL HER THAT—”

fukuzawa is like a father to most in the agency but you see him more as a grandfather figure

bi weekly tea and gossip sessions hehe

along with cat talk!

most of the time though, it’s just you talking and him listening to you, but the two of you enjoy it nonetheless

“and then kunikida-san ended up crashing into a pole and dazai-san started to laugh at him and i did too because it was really funny but we ended up getting scolded—”

“hmm i see...”

he’ll let you stay in his office as he fills out paperwork; you’re usually doodling or drawing in your notebooks

sometimes he’ll meditate and you’ll join him, but 4/7 times you’d fall asleep

you always wake up with a blanket over you

dazai is like a cool but a highly concerning and kind of high maintenance uncle

frequently takes you out with him when he ditches work

walks in the park, eating at uzumaki so he has the excuse of treating you so he doesn’t have to pay his tab avoiding kunikida and sometimes chuuya and akutagawa, all that fun stuff

also tries to not talk abt suicide in front of you especially if it’s just the two of you alone

he knows that you mean the world to his pupil and that said pupil would probably hate him for putting suicide inside your brain

he teaches you random but useful things like how to pick a lock, how to steal kunikida’s notebook if you’re looking for some information, how to sweet talk your way out of things, etc.

is also the one to tell you that if you ever get a significant other to introduce them to the agency first

he always wants all of your gossip; some of them work pretty well for blackmail

“dazai-san! dazai-san! did you know that kunikida-san lost his glasses and he was looking for them for nearly an hour when he was just holding them the entire time??”

“woah really (y/n)-chan?! hey hey can you say it again into this recording device so kunikida-kun would believe me when i tell him—”

always ends up giving kunikida a heart attack when he says that you’ve been with him all day

ranpo is also like a cool but a highly concerning and kind of high maintenance uncle

will share some of his snacks, but don’t push it or you might not get anything at all

loves it when you compliment him

if you tagged along with him and your brother on a case, he will show off to impress you

“...and that’s how the crime happened”

“UWAHH RANPO-SAN YOU’RE SO COOL”

atsushi is lowkey and kunikida is highkey stressed that ranpo’s eating habits will rub off on you

“ne (y/n)-chan do you wanna try this highly caffeinated drink and this concerning amount of sugar filled snack?”

“can i really?!”

“rANPO-SAN NO—”

ranpo definitely does stuff like that on purpose

the tanizakis are like siblings to you!

a weird set of siblings but siblings nonetheless

the two of them adore you and think you’re precious

atsushi definitely knows how to do your hair whether it’s long or short but he got even better at it when he asked the two

hehe braid trains are definitely a thing + kyouka and kenji (and maybe even dazai)

sometimes you have sibling swap days

you’re with junichiro for most of the day and atsushi is with naomi

strange i know

each of the tanizaki siblings try to make it fun bc they know that the two of you did not at all have a happy upbringing

junichiro likes spending time with you by taking you out to different places that naomi likes to frequent

like the mall, different stores and restaurants, the park, places like those

naomi does the same thing with atsushi so if you ever bump into them, you go out and eat together :)

besides atsushi, the next one in line who spoils you the most would be junichiro (and yosano & kunikida both coming in at a close third)

he honestly can’t help it; you remind him of how naomi was when she was younger

and besides

he’s always been a sucker when it came to the happiness of a little sister

“would you really buy this for me junichiro-san?!”

“of course! don’t worry about it” :)

wanna talk abt boys/girls/celebrity crushes things like that? naomi is your girl

you feel a bit embarrassed to go talking to yosano or your brother abt that and kyouka does not know a thing abt them either

“uwahh naomi-san look at all these people in this magazine! they look so good!”

“right?! but of course onii-sama is still the best—”

you get along with kenji and kyouka quite nicely being roughly the same age as them; they’re also like siblings!

just pure, wholesome vibes from the three of you

you’re over the moon when she finds out that kyouka is staying with you and your brother

atsushi is twice as happy seeing you talk your mouth off and finally having a girl around your age to talk to

“do you think demon snow can change how she looks?”

“hmm... im not sure...”

you and kenji talk abt anything and everything

he even teaches you how to take care of plants!

sometimes the two of you are kind of in the same boat bc you don’t know much abt yokohoma being stuck in the orphanage and kenji doesn’t know much abt cities in general

“wait where are we again kenji-san?”

“ah we’re close to the ports! but im not really sure how close because i don’t know what the symbols on this sign mean”

“don’t worry! neither do i!”

bonus things!

yosano was kind of too late teaching you abt you know what

“NII-SAN IM BLEEDING IN BETWEEN MY LEGS”

you’re sobbing in the agency’s bathroom and atsushi is panicking trying to get you to open the door

“Y/N?! H-HOLD ON LET ME GET YOSANO SENSEI”

ranpo overhears and cackles making everyone around him confused

suddenly atsushi bursts in the agency basically on the verge of tears rambling incoherent sentences abt the bathroom, you, and blood

it just clicked for everybody in the room

(im going to pretend that kenji has sisters back home so that atsushi is the only one who remain oblivious here hehe)

atsushi is genuinely confused and sort of concerned that no one is freaking out with him

yosano waves her hand saying smth like that she’d take care of it and junichiro pulls atsushi to the side to talk to him

fast forward like half and hour and dazai and ranpo are cackling on the looks of both of your faces

honestly not sure who’s more traumatized, you or your brother

“why does this have to happen” :(

“ne ne (y/n)-chan!~ you’re too young but at some point you’re not going to have it!”

“uwahh really dazai-san?” :D

“yeah! but first you have to have ANFK—”

next thing you know your ears are being covered by your brother and dazai is thrown across the room by kunikida

you know

the normal

you’re twelve and have never gone to school, but the agency takes care of that

it’s too dangerous to go to school so they teach you what’s necessary and whatever else they can

kunikida takes care of math (obviously)

yosano takes care of science/biology/anatomy/health (whatever you wanna call it)

ranpo even dragged poe to help you with english

atsushi even got lucy to help you out with english too!

as tanizaki and naomi used to be students, they give you their old work books and they try to teach you all the other subjects

sometimes kyouka and kenji are there learing with you too!

sorry if there’s some errors! i’ll read through it again later :)

and as always, reblogs and shares are appreciated! i hope you all stay safe! and just in case nobody told you they loved you today, i love you! you are enough! <3

writing belongs to me! please do not plagiarize! the reblog button is there for a reason

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thefreakinthemirror · 2 years

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i come bearing my thoughts/theories about the new sanders sides episode, so spoiler warning for that!! 1. thomas's little quip at the beginning about all his interactions with the sides basically being a dream/hallucination has had me fucked up all night. he had no right throwing that joke at me because i did not take it as one /lh 2. logan comments about how they've only had a little over 9 hours of screen time together, not counting the "interactions that are not considered canonical to the core series." to me, this hints at the sides not spending significant amounts of time personified with thomas unless he's in a dilemma, which would make sense when thought about. the sides do spend time together in the mind palace though, which is referenced later. 3. ROMAN IS A CONFIRMED GEMINI (HE SAYS SO HIMSELF!!!) WHICH MEANS REMUS IS ALSO A GEMINI. (this isn't really important canonically but it's fucking funny okay.) 4. JANUS'S FIRST NICKNAME GIVEN IS "BANANACONDA" IS NO ONE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS??? (also probably not important but also equally hilarious.) 5. "nothing compared to what's coming up" REMUS PLEASE THIS IS THE SECOND TIME IN THE SPAN OF TWO VIDEOS BACK TO BACK THAT YOU'VE TRIED AND FAILED TO VAGUELY REFERENCE FUTURE LORE AND IF YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME IT'S WORKING. 6. logan talks about their "day-to-day interactions" and how they're getting better at communicating and acting better toward each other. he also, however, hints at the other sides continuing to not listen to him. the poor baby please he's trying his best. 7. remus brings up the mind palace!! i almost forgot that place existed tbh. 8. remus and janus hang out together!!! they even go to what i assume is the sides' general place in thomas's mind (mind palace probably???) when the lights aren't around. 9. which, brings up another point. that means that remus and janus don't hang around the others (which is almost a given), but it also hints at the light sides and the dark sides having different places of residence. 10. janus and virgil apparently wrote a song together??? which means they had shared hobbies and bonded to an extent when virgil was a dark side. (snatching that for new headcannons.) 11. when roman talks about a "new addition to the cast" (talking about nico) thomas panics for half a second, and looks so relieved once he specifies. ah, thomathy. so clueless, yet so aware. 12. LOVE HOW LOGAN REFERENCES THE BLOOPERS WITH VETAL MIKING 13. when asked "what do you think is next?" logan, roman, and patton all respond positively with their hopes and goals. virgil is virgil and remus is remus, as always, but janus intrigued me: "Oh, who's to say? Heartbreak, betrayal. You won't be bored, I can tell you that." he says it with such a soft, almost caring tone. and his expression at the end is almost melancholy, in a way?? it may just be me, but, ughh. he knows something is going on, and to me it seems like he's almost sorry about it. after all, he does just want what's best for thomas. he's said so himself, and that might just be one of the only times he didn't lie. 14. THE ORANGE AT THE END??? REALLY THOMAS??? REALLY YOU BASTARD??? and don't get me started about the trailer for the new series because that's a whole other can of worms that will drive me crazy if i open it. but, anyway, yeah, there are my thoughts. feel free to add.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #deceit sanders #sanders sides spoilers #tw caps #tw swearing #this series has my heart <3

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rebsrebsrebsrebs · 4 years

Note

Hey heyyy!~ I hope you're doing well! May I request a short hc of the brothers seeing MC cuddled up in their jacket? Maybe they had a long day or just got sleepy and hey, the jacket was just laying around. Please remember to take care of yourself! ❤

Hi hiiiiii! I’m well, thanks for asking! I’ve eaten well lately (with Beel and friend encouragement) and been getting plenty of sleep. This was a fun one to write!! I included the setup too bc I had so many ideas and.... MC is absolutely a jacket stealing thief <3

Lucifer

He had left it on the back of his dining room chair while he cleaned up after dinner, since it was his turn

Which you saw as the perfect opportunity to steal it for cuddle time, of course

He finds you asleep at your desk, your head on your folded arms and breath slow, having dozed off while studying (you only meant to close your eyes for a moment, you swear)

Well… clearly you needed rest. And he refuses to be the reason you don't get enough sleep and miss class the next day.

Any anger he feels about having his jacket taken away is overwritten by warm fuzzies

You wanted his jacket….. for company while you studied…. it's immeasurably cute. He absolutely blushes

He'll collect his jacket the next day and leave you to your snooze

Mammon

You can find his jacket lying around anywhere, he has a habit of just… leaving things around.

You've seen his room haven't you???

Mammon comes home from a shift at Hell's Kitchen and tosses it aside while he undresses to go shower

Yoink, your jacket now

You lay in his bed, in his jacket, surrounded by his scent while you wait for him to finish getting cleaned up

Second best thing to real Mammon cuddles

Oh and he loves seeing you in his stuff

"Wha- hey, what do you think you're doin'?" turns really quickly into ".... Guess it makes sense you wanna wear my stuff, since I'm your first and you wanna let everyone know!"

Leviathan

You won jacket privileges after beating Levi's ass in Ruri-chan Racer ten times in a row

He is so distracted by the sight of you in his jacket - because holy fuck this is like, top tier romantic stuff…!!!

He definitely loses round 11

and 12

and 13 and 14 and he finally has to call it quits

"Aww, what's the matter Levi, tired of losing?"

Levi blushes so hard

"No! I mean, yes, but - I wanna watch something with you instead! Andmaybecuddlealittleokaythanks"

More beneath the cut!

Satan

Satan finds you curled up in both the armchair and the jacket he abandoned in the library, fast asleep

You're cute, but the way you're laying in the chair is so bad for your posture

So he scoops you up and you wake with a start

The first thing you see is a warm smile and green eyes

"Comfortable, are we?"

He'll chuckle and kiss your forehead

"Let's get you to bed."

Asmodeus

He wants to show you this new blouse he got and just straight up abandoned everything he was wearing on his torso the second you got to his room

So you decide to play with him, donning both his jacket and his scarf and laying down on his bed in the goofiest 'seductive' pose you can think of

And when he pops back out from the closet you smile

"Guess who I am~!"

You have approximately 0.2 seconds before you are smothered in kisses

"How are you so cute? This might be the closest you've come to my level yet!"

Beelzebub

Beel spilled some kind of sauce on his shirt, so he ditched his jacket with you while he went to change

And also get more snacks

Which takes a minute because it takes a while to prepare the amount of nachos that he wants

By the time he comes back, you're cuddled up in his jacket and sound asleep, the very image of comfort and peace

Kinda makes him want to give you the jacket permanently, tbh

But for now he chows down and then snuggles up behind you

Belphegor

You had to steal his cardigan right from the laundry because you know you'd never get it otherwise

Watching Belphie look for his cardigan is probably the most energetic (... and angry) the brothers have seen him in a while

He actually doesn't suspect you of anything, because he's going to immediately blame Mammon and spends a significant amount of time fighting him about it

Then he gets a text from Beel

"Found it."

Attached is a picture of you, asleep in your bed

Pause

Looks at Mammon

".... You're off the hook" but no apologies asshole

Goes right to you for cuddles

Mumbles "just ask next time" and smooches your forehead

masterlist

#obey me #obey me!#obey me headcanons #obey me demon brothers #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphie #obey me belphegor #gn!mc #obey me gn!mc #rebs writes #deanobeanoqueero

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doitwritenow · 4 years

Text

How long did Stephen spend in the 14,000,605 futures?

So, I was doing some thinking. 14,000,605 is a big number--big enough that it’s meaning sort of becomes unquantifiable, just like the blank looks you get when you try to explain how far the sun is from Earth. And remember, it’s canon that Stephen didn’t just see the CliffsNotes of those timelines:

"He has to physically live them, and then die in each of them, and right before he dies, he has to reset it, as we saw at the end of Doctor Strange, and do it again. And take copious notes each time he does it." - Joe Russo

So, if every one of those timelines was a life Stephen lead, what does it translate to? What, in terms of time, is the value of all those realities?

Math time.

There are two broad designations we can sort Stephen’s ultimate futures into. The first are futures where Stephen focuses on preventing the Snap, and the second are futures where Stephen focuses on undoing a Snap that did happen. I can only imagine it takes a significant number of futures for Stephen to give up trying to keep Thanos from getting all the Stones. I’ll call that 3/5 of the futures; little less than half of them spent undoing as opposed to preventing.

Within those two broad designations, there’s another set of factors: the Dusting itself. Assuming the Blip is truly random, we can generalize that in 1/2 the futures, Stephen was in the dusted 50%. By definition, if Stephen (and indeed anyone) is dusted in the prevention futures, it’s game over and he abandons that timeline. That leaves us with three vague situational constants:

Okay, great. Now for the part where I get to make a couple of educated guesses.

How long, then, is a “prevention future”? The shortest one probably starts around the length of the battle on Titan in Infinity War. From the moment Stephen returns from the time projection to the moment Thanos supposedly kills everyone and takes the Time Stone is, by my estimation, at least 45 minutes. We all know Stephen Strange is a self-sacrificial bastard (I will cite canon for this if you truly need me to but I choose to assume you aren’t blind), so he wouldn’t have considered this a true loss until Thanos retrieved the rest of the Stones in Wakanda. (The events on Earth aren’t a variable in this; Stephen can’t influence them when he’s not actually there). Let’s tack on another 45 minutes for Wakanda.

Shortest prevention timeline: 1.5 hours

What about the longest time, then? The longest possible situation I imagine goes something like this:

Stephen & co. leave Titan and hide in the reaches of the universe

Thanos goes to Earth, kills everyone there, and probably mind-controls Wong using the Mind Stone into disclosing who has the Time Stone and preforming some sort of tracking spell to find it.

Thanos tracks down Stephen & co.

Thanos captures Stephen (”You’ll find removing a dead man’s spell troublesome”)

Torture. Extraordinary amounts of torture.

Snap

OR:

Stephen & co. portal back to Earth and collect all the remaining Infinity Stones

The Guardians help them hide the Stones amongst various parts of the universe, in pocket dimensions, behind containments, etc.

(Now I think this is a great plan, but canon dictates it has to fail so:) Thanos eventually finds the Stones.

Pain, suffering, death of Stephen & co.

Snap.

Now, Stephen spent a whole other blog-post worth of time repeatedly dying inside a time loop to save the dimension as we know it, so we’ve got to assume he doesn’t break quick under torture. Therefore, I’m going to call the longest prevention future 7 years.

Longest prevention timeline: 7 years.

That’s quite a difference! I’m going to assume that most of the futures fall on the shorter side, and these higher futures are outliers. By standard distribution and some rather arbitrary bounding of graphs, I find the average time spent in these futures to be about 10220 hours, or approximately 1 year and 2 months. (There’s 8760 hours in a year, and in favor of underestimating instead of overestimating, I chose to assume that very few futures drifted in the 7 year direction.)

Alright, so, Stephen spends an average of 1 year and 2 months in each of the the prevention timelines. Remember, we decided about 3/5 of the 14,000,605 futures are prevention futures. That’s 8,400,363 futures. 1 year and 2 months in those futures means Stephen lived 9,800,423 years and six months in just the prevention futures. That’s a hell of a long time.

But now, let’s do the undoing futures.

So, in 50% of these, Stephen gets dusted. He has to stick around these futures a while after that before abandoning them as failures--and a really long time to be sure, as well. So depending on how long it takes him to realize the consistent factors that lead to undoing a snap (Tony being alive, Scott coming back from the Quantum Realm, Nebula in general), he’d have quite a long time to wait in these. He’d only know to abandon them when those critical factors were undermined/killed/prevented by Thanos or other means.

In the One Future, he would’ve had to stick around for 5 years because of that stupid rat. But Scott’s escape from the Quantum Realm could have been hurried by Stephen mentioning that fact to Tony or somebody before Thanos Snapped. Remember, though, that Stephen would have had to live out timelines, probably a good number of them, where the rat thing happened all on its own to even know it was important. Let’s say, then, that the One Future was on the higher end of the spectrum for the length of this type of future (undoing: Stephen dusted). On average, the length of the dusted undoing futures was about 2 years.

Blah blah blah, math math math. 2/5 of 14,000,605 is 5,600,242, and half of that is 2,800,121. 2 years in each of those futures gets us right back to 5,600,242, but years this time.

So what about the timelines where Stephen lived? Since he knows the way the future will play out, it’s safe to assume his existence speeds those futures. I would say the longest of these (undoing: Stephen lives) is around a year. Giving up the Stone means Tony doesn’t trust him and hesitates at the wrong moment, etc. etc. etc. Stephen is killed by other factors besides the Snap in some. Thanos still has the Stones when they try and kill him to take them. On and on and on and on.

The shortest ones would probably be no longer than a month--those Infinity Stones can really do some damage. Which means the average time in the non-dusted undoing futures is around 6.5 months.

14,000,605 * (2/5) * (1/2) = 2,800,121. 2,800,121 * 6.5 = 18,200,786.5. 12 months in a year means approximately 1,516,732 years.

Adding all those sections up gives us 16,917,397 years.

That is 208,857 lifetimes. That’s longer than humans have existed on earth. That’s about 84.6 times as long as humans have existed on Earth. If Stephen truly lived through all those futures, he’d be 1/250 the age of planet Earth itself.

Even if we take the very bare minimum and say Stephen spent only a day, on average, in those 14,000,605 futures, that’s still 38,357.8 years. If we say he only spent an hour in each of those futures THAT’S STILL 1,598.2 YEARS!!! WHAT THE FUCK????

*a series of deep breaths*

And in every single one of those futures, in every one, Stephen fought and died and killed and lived beside Tony Stark, Peter Parker, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In every single one, he got to know them, got to understand them. Thousands upon thousands of lifetimes, and Stephen Strange grew to know the Avengers like he knew himself.

Think about that, and think about the look on his face when he kneels to Tony’s dead body, mmhmm?

(Thanks, I’ll just be crying for 14,000,605 years).

Tl;dr: 16,917,397 years is a reasonable, even low estimate for the years Stephen Strange lived while viewing ultimate futures. Give my sorcerer the recognition he deserves.

#stephen strange #meta #14000605 futures #mcu #infinity war #tony stark #ironstrange #scott lang #nebula #marvel cinematic universe #film analysis #ramble #marvel #dr strange #doctor strange #peter parker #dr dad #supreme family

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certifieddilflover · 3 years

Text

Hi guys ! this is my very first fan fiction and i wanted to write on none only Chris evans 😫🙏🏼 LOL anyways i hope you guys enjoy it ! :)

Summary: It’s been awhile since you saw your significant other Chris Evans. He’s been away for a while because of filming a new movie but he comes to home later than expected and it leaves an argument between the two but later things turn into something spicy. 😲

Warnings: Smut, cursing, some fluff, kinks etc.

You were home alone quite often the past few weeks because your significant other Chris has been out working for his upcoming new film. You both loved each other dearly but it was hard being away from each other for large amounts of time. You were thankful that the two of you always had a special spark with each other that you had with no one else.

But you weren’t going to be alone tonight because Chris was soon to be home from his work. You were excited for him to come home and wanted to surprise him when he came home. You made his favorite dinner with candle lights and some nice music. You put hard work and much love into this meal cause obviously you wanted Chris to enjoy it. Chris had told you he were to be home around 9 at night. But he was late, it was already 11:30 at night and the food was already cold and disgusting. You tried not to get angry and you kept calling and texting Chris to make sure he was alright and if he were coming home like he said. But no replies what so ever. You tried to calm your self down and to not get angry and start an argument with Chris because you just wanted him home. You waited as long as you could but you grew tired and cleaned up dinner and went to bed.

As you headed to bed alright tired and dozing of the sleep you check the time once more to see it’s already 12:40 at night. You send chris one last text explaining how you were to tired to wait up late for him. Frustrated with no replies you find your self to sleep. Chris gets home super late, as he walks into the dark house he checks his phone and it’s already 2:30 in the morning. He tired and exhausted, he feels bad because he had seen all of your text after the flight but he couldn’t reply. The reason chris was late because his flight has been delayed and he couldn’t text you because there wasn’t any service at the airport and it killed him knowing he basically stood you up. But Chris being Chris he had a plan to make it up to you. Chris takes of his coats etc and heads upstairs to the bed room to see you sound asleep. He has flowers in his hand he had picked up from the store that’s open 24 hours for you because he wanted to give you a little surprise. He walks into the room and walks towards the bed and slowly wakes you up. He plants a kiss on you forehead and brushes your hair out of your face whispering loving words into your ear. You slowing wake up to handsome sight in front of you. You were excited and hung Chris tightly around his neck causing him to crash down onto you. “ Finally your home, i waited forever for you to come what happened ?” you asked him. “ I’m sorry my love, my flight had been delayed and there was no service in the airport for me to text you back, i saw your text as soon as I got in the car, I had tried texting you back but you didn’t answer so I assumed you were sleeping” Chris explained and he kissed your face ever so softly and he was brushing his hands across your back. “ But I got you these flowers ! There not as nice as I wished I had gotten them at the closest store that was open at this time.” He gave you flowers sure they weren’t as nice but you still appreciated him, it’s the thought that counts. “ They’re beautiful thank you Chris” you thanked him kissing him and hugging him tightly towards you. “ Anything for you my love” He whispered into your mouth kissing you. As you both kissed each other in quickly got heated I mean of course it would you haven’t seen each other in weeks and missed what each other felt like. As Chris kissed you deeply he started to feel around your body and kissing down on your neck. Causing you to slightly moan in his ear. At this moment anything you did caused him to go crazy, looking at you Chris had thought you looked beautiful and sexier than ever. Loving this moment Chris started to take his shirt off and your shirt off as well. Missing how his body felt and looking you started to explore his body as well. “ I missed you so much.” Chris whispering to you. You moaned into his mouth because you couldn’t catch any air to reply. Letting you breath Chris had started to plant kissing around your naked body kissing in all the right places. He took in one of your breast in his mouth while playing with the other one with his hand. Causing you to moan and pulling him by his hair closer to you. That’s one thing Chris loved you did. Pulling his hair knowing he was giving you pleasure. Taking your pants off he started to kiss down your body to your underwear staring into your eyes and he did so. “ Your so beautiful” Chris says as he takes your underwear into his teeth pulling them off with his mouth. He starts to kiss your legs and the inside of your thighs. You really missed him. He starts to tease you with his mouth only kissing light kisses on your folds as he holds your legs spread open for him to get a better view. “Already soaking wet for me my love” He practically growled saying it as he goes down on you. Licking your folds and sucking you. “Hmmm.” you moaned bucking your hips in the air. Chris pushes you down into the bed and back into place not letting you move. “ How much did you miss me my sweet ?” He asks and he starts to kiss back towards your stomach. Your mind is going crazy and your forget to answer his question.

Slightly grabbing you by your throat choking you ever so lightly. “Use your words like a big girl love, how much did you miss me huh?” He says in your ear with his hands around your throat pinning you into the bed. “ I missed you so much” you choke out. “Good girl, I missed having you like this fucking you senseless like the little whore you are for me.” Chris says. Those words made you go crazy getting wetter by the second, you pull Chris closer with your legs so you can feel his erect member onto you. Giving him the message you want him inside you already. “ What do you want my love?” He says staring into your eyes. You get nervous as you forget to reply again. “Say it, what do you want hm?” Chris says as he starts to unbuckle his pants. “ You, my god i want you i’ve missed you inside me Chris please.” You whine. That sparks something in him as you say that. Quickly taking his pants off and boxers his large member springs out. You can never get over how big he is like this. “ Alright my love, you asked ever so nicely I’ll give you what you want.” As he teases you with his cock around your entrance you can’t take it anymore and push him into you with your legs yourself. “Always so eager y/n.” “ You just couldn’t want any longer hm?” he moans out as he pushed in and out of you causing you to squeal. “ Yes!” you practically moan and shout out. “Ohh fuck.” Chris moans into your ear. He moved faster in and out of you. You cling on to him so you won’t move out of place. You loved how he knew just how to pleasure you. Going harder and faster into you Chris sits up and pushed your legs down farther near your head to get a better angle. He fucks you senseless into oblivion. “My godd !” You scream out holding onto his arms. You can see how big his arms were since he was working out, you see his veins pop out ever more holding you like this. You see Chris going faster and out of place and both of you are getting closer to climax. Chris pulls you closer to him and he digs his head into your neck sucking and bitting softly on your neck. He continues to whisper sweet nothings in your ear and both of you reach the end of your climax and out of breathe. He lays on top of you as you feel him come in you, you squeeze your legs tightly around him so you can get every last drop. He groans out and smacks your ass lightly as you squeal and smile. As you both grew tired Chris is still on top of you, he pulls out but doesn’t get off of you. You hold him and start to brush his hair and you both go into slumber. You kiss his head and scratch his back lightly whispering “ I love you.” as you falls asleep. He does the same to you kissing you and saying “ I love you more than anything.” You both fall asleep, with Chris on top of you. Excited for tomorrow to come. You can’t wait to spend the day with your love and talk about his work and trip.

AHHH okay so this is my first writing ever as i said please leave any comments or any requests please ! i’m gladly to take them i can’t wait to write more ! ;)

#smut #chris evans #y/n #steve rogers x y/n #chris evans x reader #marvel mcu #fantasy #fanfic

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kaitycole · 3 years

Text

the countdown

Summary: There’s a countdown on your wrist, but what happens when it randomly resets?

Pairing: Daichi x Reader, Hinata x Yachi (side pair)

Warning: Fluff, I guess?

Word Count: 3578

Prompt: Soulmate AU: There is a clock countdown on your wrist to when you meet your soulmate

A/N: Part of the @celestialarchiveshq soulmate collab

Y/N

It has always annoyed you, the ticking clock on the underside of your wrist, to the point that you started wearing things to cover it. Over the years, you watched people close to you obsess over the clock, a few of your college friends had dropped out because the constant partying and searching to meet their soulmate seemed to overshadow their grades.

When you were younger the idea of the clock reaching 0:00 excited you, meeting the person who was supposed to know you best, who wouldn’t want that? But as you matured, you started to believe that soulmates don’t always mean forever, they don’t always mean romantic partners, so how could you stay excited over something that could lead to a huge disappointment? Not to mention the depressing thought of what if your soulmate was the romantic type and they weren’t attracted to you. That could happen, right?

What if they preferred long hair but you had just cut it? Or the opposite? What if you had just colored your hair a color that reminded them of an ex? That thought would put you in a tailspin. What if they had exes? Even with the soulmate system, people still found themselves attracted to other people. It made you think of that trashy MTV show where everyone has a perfect match, but there’s always one couple that finds out they aren’t matches, but they refuse to move on. What if your soulmate had someone like that?

You drop your head down onto your desk, the loud bang catches your coworker’s attention as she walks back towards you with two mugs of coffee. Not that she needs it, just like her soulmate, she’s like an endless ball of energy.

“Still upset about last weekend?”

You slowly lift your head, rubbing your forehead knowing you’ll have some embarrassing red mark. Yachi Hitoka has to be one of the sweetest people you’ve ever met, she’s always there for anyone who needs it, helps out whenever she can, and at first you were worried when you met her. You instantly became protective of her, not wanting anyone to take advantage of her kindness, but then you saw her lay down the law when it came to someone missing a deadline for one of the ad campaigns and all you could do was smile proudly.

“I just can’t believe I was this close,” you hold up your hand, using your index finger and thumb to show a small amount, “to meeting them and they just disappeared.”

* * Over the weekend, Yachi’s soulmate Hinata Shoyo came in from Osaka to visit and the three of you ended up attending the Bunkyo Plum Blossom Festival. Despite being the third wheel, you couldn’t help but find yourself smiling, watching just how well they not only complimented their similarities but their differences as well.

You glanced down at your wrist, for no particular reason and felt the wind get knocked out from your lungs. Yachi turned to ask if you had heard her before she stopped walking, backing up to be at your side.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?”

You couldn’t find the words, your mind completely blanked as you held up your wrist, showing her just how low the clock had gotten.

00:01:13

00:01:12

00:01:11

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Yachi started to jump up and down, causing a small scene on the tightly packed sidewalk. Hinata tilted his head, waiting to be filled in as the two of you walked back towards him.

“Kinda romantic, Y/N. Meeting your soulmate at a festival.” Yachi now had her arm looped with yours, scanning the sidewalks.

“It’s never been this low before.” You said casually, but a knot started to form in your stomach. It felt as if every emotion you could imagine started to wash over you, grabbing ahold of you and making you realize just how real the situation could be.

What if they didn’t like you? What if it was a best friend type of soulmate? What if they simply brushed you off, telling you that they were going to be with someone that wasn’t their soulmate?

What if…?

Yachi hand slightly squeezed your arm, pulling you from the anxiety that had seemed into your chest, tightening with each breath. “Look at your wrist.”

00:00:20

You started to look around, wondering briefly if your soulmate had been looking around for you, eyes on the clock waiting to bump into you.

00:00:13

Your stomach dropped and you walked over to a wall, leaning against it with fear that you’d just drop if you didn’t have support. Wasn’t this supposed to be an exciting moment in your life? If so, then why did you currently feel like you were about to melt into a puddle of nerves?

00:00:09

“Are you okay?”

You glanced up, seeing two uniformed officers standing around you. Hinata quickly drug Yachi up to the brunette officer, the three seeming to be familiar with each other while raven-haired officer was waiting for your reply.

“Oh, uhm, yes.” You felt dumb, but you held up your wrist, “just a little nervous.”

00:00:07

He let out a small chuckle, “I’m sure things will be fine. My husband ran into a light post when we first met.”

Yachi waved you over, you could hear her mention your name to the other officer but your movement halted when the officers’ radios crackled, a voice requesting back-up. The two officers quickly excused themselves, a few other officers gathering around them before they left, disappearing around the corner.

When you saw a person walking towards you, you glanced down, wondering it this person could be it, but something in you cracked noticing a drastic change in the clock on your wrist.

1368:59:52

* * 1200:03:25

50 days.

That’s how long you have to wait to meet your soulmate. But would you ever meet them? You had asked around and no one else had ever heard of someone’s clock restarting, what if you didn’t actually have a soulmate? If it was just some glitch, your clock just resetting to some random time like an electronic clock after the power cuts out and then back on.

Absentmindedly, you sip on the coffee Yachi had brought you, looking out the window wondering that if it wasn’t a glitch, had your soulmate being eagerly looking for you that day too? Were they just as upset that your clocks reset? A smile twitches on the corner of your lips, maybe the whole soulmate thing wasn’t so bad after all.

* * * * Daichi

Sawamura Daichi tilts his head back, squeezing his eyes shut as he lets out a yawn. Daichi is tired and stressed, all he wants is to sink into his bed and sleep. At least until his clock hit zero and his soulmate was standing in front of him.

He pulls himself up in the chair, rubbing his eyes before glancing down at the countdown that’s on his wrist. He isn’t someone that spends large amounts of time staring and obsessing over each tick of the clock, but just a few weeks ago, it seemed to have reset and that alone caught his attention.

960:12:46

40 days.

Part of Daichi wants to say the clock on his wrist doesn’t bother him, that it’s not something he thinks of often, but that’s a lie. His dedication to his job, to protecting not just his loved ones, but those around him often painted him as a strict, by the book type of guy. The guy that wouldn’t bother to think of love or soulmates, being too focused on his job, but Daichi is just another hopeless romantic.

Which is exactly why he often wonders how it will fit in with the whole soulmate aspect. Even with the ups and downs his job brought, the uncertainty that sometimes came with each day, he has never regretted his choice of profession. But while those things didn’t sway his own personal opinion, it leaves him wondering how his soulmate would feel about it. If it would be something that they’d be able to accept and understand why he went that route.

What if they couldn’t accept it? What if they asked him to change careers? What if it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and tore them apart?

What if…?

“Keep it up and you get forehead wrinkles.”

He feels a warm hand on his shoulder, turning to see his silver-haired best friend smiling at him. Sugawara sits across from Daichi, the two finally having a free day to meet and catch up.

“Keep worrying about me and your hair will go white.” “Take that back right now Daichi!” Suga rolls his eyes as the former captain starts laughing.

After ordering drinks, the conversation sways to Suga and his new group of students before it inevitably goes to Daichi and his soulmate mark. When he called the former setter, he, like everyone else, had never heard of a mark resetting, but he refused to let his best friend dwell on it. Even now, Suga places a comforting hand on Daichi’s forearm as he gives him a comforting smile.

“Maybe fate decided it wasn’t the right time.” Suga offers, he didn’t have too much room to talk. His current significant other isn’t his soulmate and yet he refuses to let it go, saying that what he has makes him happy and that’s all that should matter.

Daichi sighs, taking a sip on his drink, one of his fears sitting on the tip of his tongue. “What if I end up arresting my soulmate?” “You’d have a pretty unique meet-up story. Ow!” Suga rubs his shin, Daichi sitting there with a smirk on his face.

“That aside, it doesn’t change the fact that it reset in Tokyo and I was just there temporarily.”

“Visit on a day off.” Suga shrugs, “though you were there for a festival that attracts tons of people.”

“I hope you’re better at advice when it comes to your students.”

Suga rolls his eyes, shoulders drooping in defeat, he really was out of ideas. “When exactly did it reset?”

“Not sure, it was low before I ran into Hinata, but by the time I got back from a call it had already reset.”

“Was there anyone else around? Besides Yachi.” Daichi just shakes his head, finishing off his drink before he twists his wrist causing the ice to circle around the glass. Then it hits him, there had been someone else, but he didn’t get a good glance, his partner was talking to them. He simply shrugged it off back then, but now he wondered if maybe, just maybe they had been his soulmate.

* * * * Y/N

720:03:36

30 days

You’re dancing around your apartment, headphone in as you straighten up the throw blankets on the couch, so you didn’t hear the knocking on the door or the voice calling you until you turned and let out a scream.

You’re doubled over, panting as you struggle to catch your breath, Yachi apologizing frantically and repeatedly until you finally stand up, telling her you were just a bit startled.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The worry on her face as plain as day.

“I swear,” you flop down on the couch, “what’s up?” “Oh yeah!” She instantly perks up, “my high school is doing an alumni volleyball game and Hinata’s going to be in it. Thought you might want to join!”

“When is it?” You know this is her way of saying ‘you can’t meet your soulmate if only go to work and home’ but you were pretty confident that if you waited long enough, they could just end up moving in next door.

“Next month! It’ll be so much fun!” She pulls her hands up to her chest, putting on her best pouty face, “please Y/N.”

You want to just tell her no because who knows what you could end up doing that clashes with her plans. Plus, if you had counted correctly and your clock didn’t decide to reset again, that would be close to when you were supposed to meet your soulmate. And you had been in Tokyo when it almost hit 0, so they had to be here, right?

“Yeah, of course.” You gave her a smile as she gave you a quick hug, telling you just how excited Hinata and the rest of the crows would be, apparently, she bragged about you to all her former classmates. She excuses herself to make a call, most likely to Hinata, and you take the time to sigh, you had never cared about your soulmate before, what was so different now?

* * * * Daichi

“Did you just put in for time off?” His partner Ito teases, sitting down at his desk that’s next to Daichi’s.

“I’ve taken time off before.”

“Three years ago, doesn’t count.”

“It was—” Daichi starts to protest before he realizes that Ito’s right, the last time was just before Ito was assigned his partner and it had been for one of his sibling’s graduation.

“This much be important then.”

He shrugs, “just getting together with some old teammates from high school.”

Ito smirks, “should I call you captain to help take you back?”

“Don’t even.” Daichi shakes his head, getting up before heading to the breakroom. Maybe meeting up with old friends would help take his mind off the whole Tokyo debacle. Glancing down, he signs when he sees his countdown.

480:52:46

20 days.

* * * * Y/N

“My mom said that you are more than welcomed to stay, she has the guest room ready.” Yachi beams, bringing you the usual after lunch coffee she gets. For the last few days Yachi has been eagerly gushing about the upcoming alumni event, having the entire weekend planned out with tons of things to do.

“I don’t want to impose.”

“You aren’t, if anything she’s excited to finally meet you!”

You haven’t had the courage to actually tell Yachi that you no longer wanted to go, that you would rather just stay at home instead of being the one that brings down the mood. The countdown on your wrist has all but consumed you lately and as you get closer and closer, you just want to forget about it. People lived happily without them, right? Who was fate anyways, trying to tell people who they should and shouldn’t be with. If you put in the effort, anything could work, right?

Part of you knows that’s not true, you watched someone try to date their someone who wasn’t their soulmate. They were blissfully happy and everything seemed wonderful, until one of them met their soulmate and soon their relationship had burnt out. It seemed no matter what, that bond from a soulmate just overfloods anything else.

But then again, when you watched just how much Yachi lights up when she hears from Hinata or when someone mentions him, you couldn’t help but want that too. Wanting someone who acted like they were seeing you for the first time each time they saw you, being able to just know how you felt with one look. You look down at the clock again, wondering if maybe it had reset because you didn’t have the right mindset back then. That if maybe fate somehow knew you weren’t ready yet, if it took almost having them to losing them for you to finally realize just how much a soulmate could offer you when you let your guard down.

240:26:01

10 days.

* * * * Daichi

Night patrols are something Daichi never really thought he’d find himself enjoying, but the ability to just causally drive around in silence is more welcoming that he considered it would be. Originally, his partner Ito was supposed to have patrol but he offered to pick it up since he was getting the next few days off to visit with his former classmates, he really didn’t mind the last-minute change to his schedule. Especially since he was getting nervous thinking about the game tomorrow, it wasn’t that he was worried about his skill set, but there were going to be several pro players in attendance.

It was already 8:45PM which meant he only had 15 minutes before his shift ended and he could go home, which he figured would go by slowly since most people were already in for the night. The sudden blur of speeding headlights catch his eyes and he let out a defeated sigh, of course it was too much to ask for a quiet night.

16:14:32

* * * * Y/N

Shit!

You curse yourself, you had told Yachi that you’d take the train to Miyagi, she left the day before to meet up with Hinata, but you ended up staying later at work than intended. So here you are, five hours into your drive, half asleep and irritated, you should’ve just told her no.

You hear your phone going off, no doubt it’s Yachi asking where you are, you look down briefly to grab it, not paying attention to the change in speed limits as you continue down the road. It’s not until you hear police sirens that your attention is pulled away from everything else and you just want to scream.

Luckily due to the almost empty streets, you are able to pull over with ease, the patrol car pulling in behind you shortly after. You close your eyes, hitting your forehead to the steering wheel repeatedly before you hear a car door close and brace yourself.

* * * * Daichi

He taps on the driver’s side window twice with his knuckle, waiting for it to be rolled down. A speeding ticket wouldn’t take long to write up, so his plans to be home by 9:30PM was still looking good which he was thankful for.

As the window rolls down, he catches his soul mark in the reflection and he scrunches up his face, getting an odd look from the driver of the vehicle.

00:00:02

* * * * Y/N

“This is awkward, but—” You stop, noticing where his line of sight is and you finally look down at your wrist.

00:00:00

He smirks, “I never thought I’d meet my soulmate right before issuing them a speeding ticket.”

You aren’t completely sure why, but you end up laughing to the point you end up coughing. You couldn’t believe it, your whole life wondering at what moment you’d meet your soulmate, thinking of all the different situations that could possibly set up running into them, for it to end up like this. Talk about anticlimactic.

“Speaking of soulmates, think you could let me off with a warning?” You bat your lashes at him, really hoping that the soulmate card will work.

He clicks his tongue, smile on his face, “no can do.”

You drop your jaw in disbelief, “I guess this will be one hell of a meet-cute story, huh?”

* * * * “You are so lame, Daichi.” Sugawara laughs, Nishinoya joining in on joking with their former captain.

Daichi glances over to the other side of the gym where you are, laughing with Yachi and Kiyoko and he can’t help but be smitten. He had tried for the longest time to not imagine his soulmate, not wanting to put that imaginary burden of being what he had wanted on the one he ended up with, but with you, you just smashed through any expectations he had and it had only been half a day.

You look over and see Daichi looking at you before you quickly turn your head away, getting a laugh from the former team managers. You were thrilled to have your soulmate, everything made sense, and it definitely helped that he was easy on the eyes.

“I still can’t believe he gave you a ticket!” Yachi protests, shooting Daichi a scold.

“I can.” Kiyoko smiles, “and I don’t think Y/N minds.”

Kiyoko’s right, you don’t really mind at all, because that’s part of your story with your soulmate, with Daichi. The person who had you waiting at the edge of your seat since before you could even tell time, the person that the stars had willed to be yours.

The first time you had almost met, he was in Tokyo because the festival needed more officers to help monitor things, it was just by chance that he ran into his former classmates that you happened to be with. The time you actually met, he was covering a shift that he wasn’t even supposed to be working and you were running late which was something you didn’t tend to do.

He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you into his side, placing a soft kiss on the side of your forehead. You let yourself melt into his side, finally understanding what was so special about soulmates, why so many people spent forever trying to find theirs.

“You know, I can talk to my boss, erase the ticket.” “No way! I’m gonna frame it!”

Daichi’s face deadpans, “what?” You nod, “oh yeah, you aren’t gonna live that one down.”

Daichi just shakes his head, letting out a deep breath, suddenly realizing you were gonna be as much trouble as Kageyama and Hinata were. But somehow, he feels himself looking forward to the adventure that was you.

#haikyuu!!#hq daichi #haikyuu sawamura daichi #sawamura daichi #daichi x reader #daichi x y/n #haikyuu reader insert #haikyuu soulmate au #soulmate au #hq soulmate au #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu fanfiction #hq fluff #hq fanfic #post timeskip daichi #hq post timeskip #daichi sawamura #sawamura daichi x reader

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romewritingshop · 3 years

Text

I’m a Dad

Fandom: Choices, Open Heart, AU

Relationship: Dr. Ethan Ramsey X F!MC (Name: Alyssa Brooks)

Warnings: Fluff, slight angst, mentions of birth complications, Alan is okay no need to panic 😅, anxieties of fatherhood, slight injury (nothing gruesome).

Rating: 12+ Word Count Total: 3209

AN: This is a birthday commission for @tsrookie who wanted a fic of dad!Ethan. I hope this is what you wanted and enjoy. The song that inspired this was Michele Morrone’s Dad (Accoustic Version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDNO--sPgE

I wanted to portray the significance of Alan in Ethan and Alyssa’s lives. It was emotional writing this 🥺.

Rome’s Birthday Celebration Masterlist 2021

CHOICES MASTERLIST

Tagged: @eleanorbloom @juliafranquet @me-and-my-choices @drethanramslay @choicesficwriterscreations @queencarb @miss-smrxtiee @melaninnntae @they-callme-ami @openheartfanfics @mvalentine @starrystarrytrouble @drariellevalentine @nikki-2406 @caseyvalentineramsey @kiara-36 @choicesreal @sophxwithers @brightningstar @tsrookie @gryffindordaughterofathena @arnikki-2406 @mercury84choices @theinvisibledreamergirl @stygianflood @ethansramsey

A blissful silence settled in the room as Ethan tossed his house keys onto the kitchen countertop. Flicking the switches as the lights turned on in his house. A large suburban white painted house that he and Alyssa bought a few years ago. Ethan’s eyes wandered around the living room, taking in the quiet. Alyssa wasn’t home yet which gave Ethan the time to head to his study. Clambering up the stairs and going to the first door on his left, a spacious room with forest green walls. A metal case of shelves with wooden baskets filled with stationary, was diagonally placed in the corner to the door. Directly opposite the door was a mahogany table with a cushioned wheeled office chair.

To the left of the door, was a red and green small plastic table and bench. Crayons and pencils were scattered on the table and floor, there were sheets of coloured papers with indiscernible scribbles. The furrow in Ethan’s eyebrows relaxed as he slipped off his black cashmere jacket and hung it on a hook to the left of him. Crouching by the small kids table and glanced at the drawings, noting the curved shapes to be attempts at writing. Writing what exactly? He wasn’t too sure.

Nathan and Savannah were the smartest kids he knew. Why wouldn’t they be though, since their parents were the acclaimed doctors of Bloom Edenbrook’s diagnostics team. Ethan put their drawings in a woven basket which had a label of ‘kids’, he held onto all the crayons and pencils and placed them in their respective labelled pots. Placing the pots in their woven basket and placing their basket on top of the shelf unit. Alyssa probably didn’t have time to tidy up their mess because they were spending the afternoon and evening with Alyssa’s friends.

Maybe now was a good time to get started on his project as he pulled out a basket and took out a few sheets of thick matte paper and an envelope. Bringing them over to his desk and seating himself, opening a drawer in his desk. He took out a few ink pens and placed the pens next to his paper, his eyes darted to the wooden picture frame of Alyssa and their three kids: Allison, Nathan and Savannah. He still couldn’t believe that he was theirs, and they were his. It was only yesterday, when he and Alyssa were in the reception, treating for a thoracotomy and now they had a house and kids.

Ethan knew what he had to do as soon as he brought his pen to the paper, the words flew right through him as he wrote. The memories of his kids flooding his brain with a warm familiar glow.

~~~~~~

“Out of the way!”

Ethan rushed down the stairs, shoving past nurses and doctors before slamming the corridor door open to the maternity ward. Sienna was hot on his heels as he growled and grimaced at people, his eyes went to the pager as a message from Naveen popped up. ‘4cm dilated’. Ethan was close as he weaved through a never ending maze of Edenbrook’s corridors. In the distance he spotted Naveen, his dad Alan, and his daughter Allison were looking into the window of one of the maternity rooms.

“Ethan! There you are!”

“Daddy!”

His crinkled grumpy face relaxed at the sight of Allison. Five years old with a knack for mischief and a carbon copy of himself. She had his eyes and ears but Alyssa’s nose, lips and hair. Alan was taking care of Allison while Ethan and his wife were working, however, Alyssa’s contraction pains strengthened and her constant lavatory needs indicated that she needed to be checked in. Naveen came up to stand beside Ethan; who took Allison into his arms.

“Naveen, how is she?”

“Well the contractions are hurting and I have a feeling the babies are coming now. Dr. Delarosa is in there with her. Are you ready Ethan?”

Ethan gave a nod as he turned to Allison, a calm gentle smile reserved for her.

“Time to get your new siblings. You okay to wait here with Uncle Naveen and Grandpa?”

“Yeah! Uncle Naveen is buying me chocolate!”

Ethan quirked a brow at his mentor, who in return stuck with a confident grin before Ethan placed Allison down. Naveen clasped his hand around her tiny hand and led her to the staff break room, whilst listening to her ramblings about her new siblings. Ethan took a deep breath as Alan stepped up to rest his hand on his shoulder.

“I’m proud of you, son.”

Ethan smiled and was about to step into the room, when something held him still. His buried nerves leaked through his wall as memories of Dolores seeped to his front. Alyssa was pregnant with twins, that alone carried several complications in terms of the positioning of the babies, possible post partum haemorrhage. On top of that she was one week late, twins born post due date carry risks to the mother and the babies.

A flash of baby Ethan in the NICU drained the warmth from his face and he felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t breathe as he pressed a hand against the door ledge, bowing his head as Alan stood beside him. Alan could tell Ethan was panicking. His shoulders shook as Alan gently probed.

“Ethan?”

“What if something happens?”

“Boston’s famous doctor is worried about a twin birth? Ethan, you’ve done this before. You know what to do.”

“It’s different. Alyssa is in there. She’s the patient. What if I can’t make the right decision?”

“Ethan Jonah Ramsey. You are a diagnostician. A famous one at that. You look at the possibilities before you make your decision. You have it in you son. Plus she’s a fighter. She won’t back down. But she needs you. Be brave and if you can’t be brave, be brave for her. She needs your support.”

His father’s words felt like a warm wash of life as he inhaled the air, exhaling his anxieties and giving a steady nod. Ethan smiled at his father before pushing open the door to step into the room, stepping into action to help make Alyssa’s labour as easy as possible.

~~~~~~

“Daddy! When is Twilight Sparkle coming?”

“In a bit. If you finish your lunch, then she’ll come.”

“Daddy! Will she bring a lot of presents for us?”

“An average amount, Nathan.”

Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched over the several little kids munching on their mini pizza slices and tater tots. It was the twins’ birthday today and the two of them invited their whole class to celebrate, the sun was shining as the kids sat on picnic blankets. The Ramseys’ had a spacious garden which could hold for nearly twenty five kids and several adults. Bryce, Jackie and Elijah were keeping an eye on the kids as Ethan slipped away to the kitchen where Alyssa was sat on a breakfast stool with her foot in Sienna’s lap. Aurora was beside them as she carefully tapped a finger against the swollen skin near her ankle. Jenner paced on his paws with nervous energy as he whined at his mom, Alyssa.

“Alyssa has sprained her ankle … Ethan.”

The friends still had a difficult time addressing Ethan by his first name but he paid no heed to it as Alyssa tried to come off the stool, trying to brush off the pain.

“It’s nothing, I’m sure I’ll be fine as long as I don’t walk on it.”

Ethan sighed rather exasperatedly as he folded his arms at his wife. That motion alone made Alyssa meekly smile and remain in her seat. Aurora handed her a cool pack for Alyssa to use for her sprain. She knew that she needed to rest her ankle but the twins would be so upset.

“Fine. But how are we going to solve the entertainment issue?”

At that moment the front door opened and closed as Alan strode in with a confident excited gait. He had a white cardboard box in his hands as he hummed and placed the box on the table, unveiling it to reveal a My Little Pony cake with ‘Happy 4th Birthday! Nathan and Savannah’. Alan’s brows sagged at the sight of his daughter-in-law.

“What happened?”

“I … fell.”

Ethan resorted to pinching the bridge of his nose before explaining the story. The children were showing off dance moves and there was a little girl who was showing off her gymnastics ability. Alyssa thought she could show off her talent by demonstrating a cartwheel, unfortunately her cartwheel was aimed the wrong way and Alyssa landed awkwardly in a bush with her legs askew. Alan smiled at Alyssa as he realised that there was an issue of entertainment since Alyssa was planning to dress up as the kids’ favourite character, Twilight Sparkle.

“I guess that means Alyssa can’t be Twilight Sparkle.”

Sienna gave a nod and spoke up.

“Aurora, Jackie and I would do it but I don’t think there’s enough time for any of us to learn everything about My Little Pony. The kids are gonna see right through us.”

“It’s a conundrum.”

Everyone took a moment to think before Alan’s eyes twinkled with an idea.

“I have an idea. Sienna, start watching some My Little Pony, I’ll stall the kids. ‘Lyssa, where did you keep your guitar?”

Alyssa’s eyes twinkled as she informed Alan of the guitar, to which Aurora ran up to search for it. It seemed everyone knew what to do, everyone except for Ethan, who placed his hands on his hips, turning to his father.

“Would you mind clueing me into your plan?”

“A little singing will have the kids distracted while Aurora, Alyssa and Sienna get ready. The kids will love it!”

At that moment, Bryce popped his head through the glass garden doors, there’s a slight line of sweat near the crown of his neck as he nervously glances back.

“The kids are going rabid if Twilight Sparkle doesn’t come in the next five minutes.”

Aurora rushed back down and handed Alan a brown varnished acoustic guitar, a gift from Alyssa’s patient Remy. Alan hung the strap over his shoulder and strutted outside to where all the kids shrieked and yelled.

“Okay kids! Who’s gonna sing the My Little Pony theme song?”

Ethan went out and noticed all the kids sitting at their picnic blankets, bopping and singing while Alan strummed the tune of the My Little Pony theme song. Ethan and Rafael took the time to begin cleaning up the rubbish whilst Bryce, Elijah and Jackie kept an eye out for Sienna, Aurora and Alyssa. All the kids and the twins were enraptured, even Jenner was happily panting to the music. Alan was going through a list of songs going from the My Little Pony Theme Song, to the lime and coconut song and to the rhinestone cowboy.Not long after, Alan got a thumbs up from Bryce and Jackie to which Alan smiled and announced.

“Now children! There is someone who’d like to wish two special children a Happy Birthday!”

Nathan and Savannah jumped up with excited shrieks as Alan strummed the music of the theme song and out came Twilight Sparkle. It was Sienna donning a purple sparkly dress, wings protruding from the back and a dark wig flowing off her shoulders. Her unicorn headband was fixed into the wig and her purple make-up shone in the sun as Sienna skipped towards the kids, tossing bounds of glitter.

Aurora and Jackie were helping Alyssa settle on a deck chair as the twins hugged and cried at the fact that Twilight Sparkle had come to their party. Ethan and Alyssa sent a thankful smile as Alan returned their smile, everyone’s faces warming at the twin’s excitement.

~~~~~~

Ethan used the back of his hand to wipe off the sweat on his brow as he pushed the front door of his apartment open. Baby Allison happily chewed on her yellow teether while bouncing in the baby sling, strapped across Ethan’s chest. Alyssa was working at the hospital after spending four months at home and it was Ethan’s turn to stay home with Allison. He was glad he opted for a loose linen shirt and khaki trousers as the Boston heat was slowly racking up. Ethan had gone out to buy some ingredients for their dinner: stir fried tofu and broccoli.

Alyssa would need some good comfort food after going back to work and he knew that Chinese would delight her. He unclipped one arm strap, pressing a palm to hold up Allison before unclipping the other to carry his daughter to her high chair in the kitchen. Allison was teething so he handed her a teething ring to help Allison improve motor skills. His daughter smiled and babbled at the sight of her dad as Ethan pressed a kiss onto his daughter’s forehead.

Allison was a daddy’s girl since she would whine and cry with Alyssa, but when it came to Ethan, Allison babbled and laughed. Alyssa was sure that she would say ‘Dada’. Ethan grinned as Jenner padded into the kitchen, bringing himself up to stand on his hind legs beside Allison. The dog was protective and loving to Allison as she tried to swat at Jenner’s nose.

“Jenner, keep an eye on her.”

Jenner barked as Ethan began taking out utensils and the shopping to get started. Draining the water from the tofu and breaking up the broccoli into florets. Every so often, his eyes would wander to his little girl on the high chair. Ethan still couldn’t believe the fact that he was a father. A living breathing child was in his care, one he made with the woman he loved as his eyes glistened at the memories of her birth. Despite expecting for children to not be in the cards for him, life had a way of telling him that it was always the case.

As Ethan stared longingly at his daughter, Jenner could smell something faintly burning; turning his head to hear a loud crackle and pop. Jenner barked furiously which had Ethan snap out and realise the onions and garlic had burnt in the wok, the broccoli was charred beyond recognition as Ethan turned off the induction hob. The loud barks caused Allison to startle and little beads of tears streamed down her face.

His heart lurched as he immediately stalked to his daughter to take her in his arms and get her to settle down. It was the first time in a long time that Ethan burnt dinner as he exhaled at the time on his wrist watch. Alyssa would be home in an hour and it was too late to restart. He didn’t have enough ingredients and he couldn’t whip up something else in time for Alyssa to sink her teeth into.

At that moment his phone rang as Ethan reached into his pocket to rest the phone between his ear and shoulder, while bouncing a teary Allison in his lap.

“Ethan Ramsey.”

“Ethan.” The corner of Ethan’s lips curled upwards at the recognition of his father’s voice. “I’m just about ten minutes away from your home. Alyssa invited me to have dinner, do you need anything?”

Ethan glanced at the mess behind him, a low exhale left his lips.

“Can you please pick up some Chinese on your way here?”

It wasn’t long when Alan arrived with several bags of Chinese take out from Xing-Fu’s Restaurant. Ethan took the bags from Alan and set up the dining table while Alan took the time to talk and play with his granddaughter, Jenner wagged his tail rapidly as he watched Alan and Allison. Not long after the kitchen was clear and the dinner table was set, Alyssa had entered the apartment with a smile on her face.

She took a moment to freshen up before joining the Ramseys at the dinner table. Her eyes sparkled at the array of side dishes as she pecked Ethan’s cheek before digging rather ravenously into the food. All the tension from the day melted under the spicy heat of duck and the softness of lotus buns. Ethan and Alan share a knowing smile as they too get stuck into their meal, Allison smiles and babbles in her high chair next to Alyssa. Glad to have her mother with her.

~~~~~~

The memories faded as Ethan lifted his pen from the letter, a soft nostalgic smile brushed on his face as he pushed the frame of his glasses up the bridge of his nose. A faint sound of the front door opened as excited chirps and barking fluttered into his study. The kids, Jenner and Alyssa were home as Ethan smiles at the incoming thunder steps, spinning his office chair to the direction of the door. The twins come tumbling in and launch themselves into Ethan’s arms, not giving a chance for Ethan to pay attention to their chatter. Jenner is sitting at the entrance of the door, while Allison stands behind him with her hand scratching the top of his fur.

“Nathan, Savannah! I cannot understand your rambling.”

“Yeah, they had a lot of pastries. Aunt Sienna made a lot of cakes and biscuits.”

Ethan shook his head with a teasing grin at the twins. The two of them hid their mouths as Nathan denied.

“No we didn’t. Ally did!”

“Liar, I saw you two take two slices of the chocolate fudge cake.”

“No! You’re dreaming Ally.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow at his troublesome twins but pressed long kisses into their hair. Savannah leaned over his shoulder and noticed the pen and paper before pressing her two palms on Ethan’s face, forcing him to look directly at her as she asked.

“Are you drawing without us?”

Ethan shook his head as he explained.

“I’m making a gift for grandpa.”

“Are you gonna give it to him tomorrow?”

Before he could answer, Alyssa appeared at the door with her hands on her hips, dressed in a green cotton dress and brown knee high boots. Her mom voice was coming through as she moved her eyes between the troublesome twins.

“Nathan and Savannah. Time for bed. We’ve got to wake up early tomorrow if you want to spend the whole day with Grandpa.”

“Do we have to?”

Ethan stood up and held on to the twins as he smartly urged.

“Come on if you get dressed for bed, you can stay up late tomorrow.”

The twins gasped as they scrambled off Ethan’s arms and rushed to their bedroom to get into their pyjamas. A small smile curled up on Alyssa’s lips as she turned to the eldest Ramsey child.

“You too, Ally!”

“But Mom!”

“Come on.”

Ethan steps up to the doorway and sweetly kisses his wife as she cupped his cheek.

“You coming?”

“Just finishing up.”

Alyssa gave a nod and led her daughter away to her bedroom, Jenner obediently bounding behind them. Ethan returned to his desk to read over the last words he wrote.

Look at me now. I’m a dad.

Thank you for making me the man I am today.

Love,

Dr. Ethan J. Ramsey

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57plusthree · 3 years

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This may be unpopular, but I am not a fan of how time skips were handled in db. While certain medias do have time skips, they also take the time to explain certain things and how they happened, especially if they're heavily plot relevant. However, in db, not only does everyone suddenly know how to fly, yamcha gains 2 battle scars, Goku for some unknown reason apparently talks to no one when he was raising gohan as a child, or when he was on yardrat (not like he couldn't since king kai can communicate for others like in buu when vegeta threateningly pleaded for earth) or when he was dead for 7 years or at the end of z. These lot are incredibly close friends, it shouldn't be that they only meet up for crises, toriyama himself said that yamcha helps tien with his farming and piccolo has helped with pan. However, that's my opinion, I know others prefer time skips with an air of mystery and unknowns, so I ask how do you feel the time skips were handled?

Those are a lot of good points! I do think that sometimes the timeskips leave more questions than answers so I can understand finding them frustrating.

However, I'll have to disagree with the notion that there are no reasons for Goku not to be in contact with anyone during certain timeskips. As a child, he was raised alone in the middle of the woods, then lost his guardian and basically raised himself for an unknown amount of years until he was ~12. He was shown leaving off by himself at the end of each arc in DB. He spent the majority of the Red Ribbon Army arc by himself and spent a big chunk of the King Piccolo arc acting on his own as well. Despite being very friendly, Goku shows a noticeable pattern of solitude, truly embodying the idea that he's a free spirit who up until the start of Z did as he pleased (which is partly why him spending ~5 years living with Chichi is so significant but that's a discussion for another day). He wasn't raised knowing what it's like to be around people nor was he ever shown the significance of staying in touch with others, something people like us grew up with and take for granted.

In regards to Yardrat, I think it's important to recognize the sheer amount of high stakes, frankly traumatic events that happened right beforehand. Besides having to now deal with a new, dangerous power he doesn't know how to control, a lot of really, really bad stuff happened to Goku in the year and months prior to being on Yardrat. Goku has a lot of mental fortitude, but he's still a person and I think it's unreasonable to assume he's completely unaffected. So combine those things with his predisposition for being alone and I think there's reasonable explanations for why he didn't contact anyone while on Yardrat, even of it's not stated to us outright.

As for being dead... he's dead. He's not supposed to be contacting anyone, he's dead. The only time where he does interfere are the movies which we know are noncanon and some state outright that it was against the rules (Bojack Unbound). Plus, King Kai's pissed at him for blowing up his planet and killing him, and iirc he wasn't keen on being used like a phone in the first place.

Anyway enough of me rambling about Gonkbu for a sec. I personally don't have a problem with the timeskips because I'm the kind of person who enjoys filling in story blanks myself. There are some things I would like answers to (like yeah how did Yamcha get those scars?) and some definitely just feel like they're there to get around writing actual explanations, but otherwise I have no issues. I also like how thanks to the timeskips, big events aren't happening immediately on top of each other. We the readers get shown the big Action parts of this Action series without lost momentum (most of the time) and without looking back and realizing something like "wow Frieza was salvaged, rebuilt, and got sent to earth in two days and then a day after that the androids appeared". So yeah, all in all I'm cool with them.

#blues rambles #ask answered #anonymous #hi i didnt proofread this so it probably doesnt make any sense #also sorry this is so old

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natsu2501malo · 2 years

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Reading Official Published Books vs Books Written by Aspiring Authors

My main issue with published books is how little patience I have for them. My reading journey started with reading fanfics on Wattpad of animes I liked. The great thing about that is that I was already interested in the characters, world and I actually knew what they looked like.

Reading published books was always hard for me for many reasons. They take FOREVER to get interesting on average through my limited experience, it took at least half a book until they started to make me be like alright, this is kind of interesting. Other times it took 1 or 2 books before I even started to care wether the MC lived or dies, the only thing keeping me going being a close friend promising that it would be worth the wait. (And it was eventually)

Another thing I find uh, a pain really, is descriptions. To be fair my first language isn't english so it might just be a me problem (so just keep that in mind). Like do they really need PAGES to describe a room?? It happens to me so much that they'll spend ages to describe a room in words I've never heard before that I always have to end up googling them to even know what they're on about. The most frustrating of all after all that effort is when the character doesn't even spend 5 minutes in there?? Like what was all that for?? Was that really necessary?? It just never ends they need to describe every little thing for what I feel is just to waste my time and make me completely lost. Is that just me? In my mind they should only ever do that is if the character spends a very extended amount of time in the place described or if a significant even just happened.

Meanwhile although I enjoy reading books on Wattpad it still comes with its own challenges. Such as finding them gems among the mountain of hay. A lot of books on Wattpad are written by beginners or 12 year olds and finding the good ones takes a lot of looking trust me.

However stories on Wattpad are so interesting!! one of my favourite books on there starts with what the main character assumes is an easter prank being played on TV but is really the start of the zombie apocalypse!! (A Different Virus: Heartfire by CrystalScherer) it only takes 15 chapters for the story to grab you by the collar and drag you into a 200 chapter approximately 500,000 words adventure.

Another example is (Silver Bound Girl by LaurenDMSmith) That starts with the main character checking that she has all her jewellery on her in the morning while getting ready in the morning since without her silver she'll turn into a Sasquatch and expose her family secret. Aka THE STORY IS INTERESTING FROM THE START WHICH MAKES PEOPLE WANT TO READ THE BOOK!!! While if I read published book I’d waste an hour or more just to figure out if I’m interested in reading it IN THE FORKING FIRST PLACE ARGHH!!!

I'd like to clarify that these 2 stories are in fact not written by 12 year olds but by two adult woman that have an extraordinary talent for writing.

The stories are diverse and interesting from the beginning, they are easy to read while still allowing me to imagine what is going on. A cool feature that is on Wattpad is that you can comment on every chapter of the story if you wish to do so and although I usually don't the first time I read a story (to remain spoiler free) you can usually tell when something big is about to go down when the average comments of 50 ish per chapter goes up to 200 out of nowhere XD. When rereading a story reading the comments is such a great experience... You get to see details that a reader may have noticed that you didn't, learn everyones opinions on certain bit of the story or just see the fandom frantically gather armies to destroy hated characters luring people to join with promises of cookie emojis as reward XD.

The only downsides I'd say is that 1, although sometimes you get lucky and the book you are reading ends up released by them on amazon most of them sadly don't and you don't get to read a physical copy. 2 It is extremely hard to find the good stuff and 3 no one around you has heard of them and while you've found a treasure of a story, unless your succeed in forcing your friends to read them (which is what I am currently trying to do) you have no one you know irl to talk too about it.

#Bookworm #Wattpad #Published Books vs Aspiring Authors #Text #Fact #A Different Virus: Heartfire #CrystalScherer #Crystal Scherer #Silver Bound Girl #LaurenDMSmith

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fantasticallyfoolishidea · 4 years

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So, bath scenes. Amirite?

The Witcher fandom is quite blessed. Over the course one season, the showrunners decided to gift us with not one but two scenes of Henry Cavill, naked in a bathtub, two episodes in a ro-

Wait a minute.

Two back-to-back episodes featuring drawn out bath scenes that go on for 2-3 minutes each. That's a lot of time to dedicate to fanservice when you only have 8 episodes to get your point across. Unless, of course… No. They wouldn't. Or would they?

I re-watched these scenes more times than I care to admit. For science. They’re interesting for numerous of reasons (Henry Cavills’ pecs being only two of them). But you know what’s even more interesting? Some sexy, sexy cinematic and narrative parallels and contrasts.

(Obligatory linebreak for your protection. You thought I went overboard analysing Her Sweet Kiss? This is worse. If you’re on mobile – I apologise. Now’s the time to scroll fast. It’ll take longer than you’re expecting, trust me. I’m sorry.)

Bath in “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials” Bath in “Bottled Appetites” Please excuse the terrible of the second clip. It’s the only one I could find that had the whole scene in it.

First things first,

the setting

The scene in “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials” takes place in an inn. The room is dark. Throughout the scene you can hear chatter from the bar. Candles are the only visible light source, although, at the beginning of the scene you can see more light coming in through what’s presumably a window outside the shot. Due to the lighting, the majority of the room has a noticeably blue tint, except for the cabinets on each side of the room where most of the candles are placed. Apart from the cabinets, the bathtub Geralt is sitting in is the only area that’s properly illuminated.

The room itself seems big enough, although we only get to see the bathing area which is separated from the rest of the room by blue curtains, but due the way the scene is shot – frequent close ups of the actors, wider shots frequently partially blocked by the curtains – it appears smaller than it actually is. Geralt stands out against the background due to his skin appearing orange in the candle light; in wider shots he usually appears centred.

In contrast, Jaskier moves from one side of the room to the other a lot and doesn’t remain in either light source for long. Unlike Geralt’s skin, the colour of his clothes matches the background. This is somewhat unusual because in many of his scenes Jaskier and his colourful outfits tend to stick out like a sore thumb – the red outfit in “Rare Species” probably the most visually distracting out of the bunch – but in this scene, the exact opposite happens. Whenever Jaskier’s not the focus of the shot he frequently fades into the background or even gets obstructed by the curtains.

(While I’d love to add visual references for every single point I touch upon, honestly, the amount of editing that’d require is astronomical. Jokes on me though, because it already is. Watching the scenes should give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, though. Also, full disclosure, screenshots and gifs had their brightness an colours altered slightly for better visibility.)

Now, on the other hand, we have the room inside the mayor’s house, which – while also dimly lit by candlelight – appears open and spacious. Due to the candles, the room appears tinged only in colours on the orange/yellow spectrum. No curtains to obstruct parts of the shot, and unlike the inn, this room has got visible windows one of which sits behind Geralt. That window in particular lets in a stream of blue light that, in wider shots, often appears to frame either Geralt alone or both, Geralt and Yennefer. However, the blue light remains behind the characters, neither Geralt nor Yennefer are ever directly illuminated by it.

Why is she going on and on about the lighting you might ask? It’s because there’s basically a whole science to colour theory, colour grading, and the ways they’re used in visual media. It’s one of the reasons why, for example, Guillermo del Toro movies are always such goddamn feasts for the eyes. TV Tropes also has a page dedicated to it, if you wanna get a rough idea of what’s going on here.

Both bath scenes in the Witcher (2019) are gorgeous examples of colour grading and set design. You can tell that a whole lot of thought went into it. “Bottled Appetites” even takes it a step further, carrying the orange/blue colour scheme over into the next scene and directly contrasting the bed frame that’s bathed in amber light with the blue windows it’s framed by.

Fun fact, while colour grading can be used to give colours that certain “pop”, you can also achieve the exact opposite effect. See how washed out and grey Jaskier and his blue clothes appear on the orange bedding in this shot? It becomes even more apparent later on in the scene.

He might as well be one of the pillows for the way his clothes make your eyes just kinda slip over him. Honestly, I wanna marry whoever was in charge of doing colour correction on the Witcher. That person is a fucking artist. I’ll get back to the matter of colours and backgrounds in a minute. For now, let’s talk about

body positioning

Or in other words, yet another reason I’d sell my immortal soul to directors Alex Garcia Lopez and Charlotte Brändström.

One thing the scenes have in common (apart from the copious amounts of eye candy) is that Geralt remains mostly stationary at the centre throughout the scene. Jaskier moves around a lot. He dries his hands behind Geralt, moves in front of him to fiddle with the bath salts, sits down next to Geralt, sets Geralt’s mug down on the cabinet behind him and only stops his continuous back and forth motion when the conversation takes a turn for the serious and he settles down in front of Geralt.

Yennefer, on the other hand, starts off at Geralt’s right hand side, slightly to the back of him. She briefly lies down, stands up, and moves to Geralt’s left while taking off her gown. Same as the other scene, Yennefer settles down as the conversation is about to grow more serious. However, unlike Jaskier, Yennefer is far less restless, once she’s moved to Geralt’s left she settled down and doesn’t get up again.

What’s really interesting about this scene is that throughout the entirety of their interaction, Yennefer and Geralt never look at each other at the same time. They both alternate between staring off into the distance with varying degrees of wistfulness and/or melancholia and turning to look at the other. But their eyes never quite meet, not even when Geralt turns around in surprise after Yennefer says she won’t be taking any payment. The conversation ends with Geralt abruptly getting up and out of the tub and Yennefer turning around to watch him leave (dry up? get dressed? who knows what he’s getting up to in that moment). Notably, when the shot focuses on Yennefer alone in the tub, a significant portion of the room that previously appeared mostly orange suddenly is tinted almost all blue.

However, where eye contact is conspicuously absent in the scene in “Bottled Appetites”, it’s a vital component of the scene in “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials”. Eye contact is a significant part of Geralt and Jaskiers communication. Mainly because Geralt spends a significant amount time sending glares Jaskier’s way with Jaskier paying him varying amounts of mind, even poking fun at his “scary face” when the opportunity presents itself. Jaskier is all over the place in every sense of the word. His attention is divided between Geralt, the bath, the banquet, etc. before it eventually turns back to Geralt and the whole cycle begins anew. The shift in conversation, from the banquet to Geralt, coincides with a shift in Jaskier’s behaviour. He stops moving around the room and his attention settles on Geralt. He then kneels down and holds Geralt’s gaze until Geralt abruptly switches the subject.

Look at the screencaps above. See how, even in a screencap, the lighting is capable of creating an entire visual narrative all by itself? Yennefer and Geralt are sitting in the water together with their backs to each other in a room full of orange light but their immediate surroundings are tinted blue. Jaskier and Geralt are facing each other directly but despite the orange light surrounding him Jaskier appears shadowed as he kneels in front of the tub while Geralt who is sitting inside the tub glows orange against a blue background.

There’s a metaphor hiding somewhere in that juxtaposition but I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

edit 12/01/20: I actually got a submission from odense who elaborated on the blocking of the scenes from a theatrical perspective. Go read it for even more meta on the bath scenes.

Anyway, moving on. Next on my list is

the matter of service

What, no more Film Studies for Fandom 101, I hear you ask? Well. Originally, I wanted this part to be about the conversation as a whole but that would’ve gone on for too long (ha! too long, she says like that means anything) so I divided it.

Both scenes deal with the performance of service in one way or another. Jaskier is trying to convince Geralt to act as his bodyguard for a night, while Geralt asked Yennefer to break the djinn’s curse and they’re still settling the matter of payment.

In a way, you could look at both scenes as very, very unusual forms of negotiation. Jaskier may spend a lot of time talking about himself but his actions are almost all focused on Geralt. He douses him with water, “rubbed chamomile onto his lovely bottom” at some point (decide for yourself what you wanna make of that statement), prepares the bath salts for Geralt’s bath, and – also at some point – arranged for Geralt’s clothes to be washed. All throughout the scene, he’s performing a variety of services. He’s taking care of Geralt, whether Geralt likes it or not, and does so like it’s the most natural thing in the world, to the point where it just kinda comes across like more of Jaskier’s usual antics and theatrics.

Geralt may claim he needs no one and doesn’t want anyone needing him but there is some form of reciprocity in their relationship – big things like the shared adventures and the ballads about which made both of them famous in their own right, but then there are the little things like drawing your friend a bath, or watching his back at a banquet so he doesn’t get stabbed by a jealous husband, which Geralt eventually agrees to do despite all of his grumbling and glaring protests.

Which is one of the reasons “And yet... here we are.” is such a brilliant line. Just from this context, you could read it in a number of ways. Jaskier could be calling Geralt out on his bullshit like, e.g. “You might not like it, but yeah, you do need me and I need you.” or he could be asking him to make a decision, e.g. “I know you don’t like it but I really do need your help. What will you do?” or it could be an affirmation, e.g. “I know you didn’t want it but somehow we still ended up here.” etc., etc. And you might have guessed, there’s still more to come regarding this line. Later.

So while Jaskier’s scene is about getting Geralt to perform a service, Yennefer’s scene is about figuring out the cost of the service Geralt asked of her in the previous scenes. Where the first bath scene was about persuasion, this one is about payment. The initial negotiation has already happened, the service been rendered, what’s left to do is figure out the price. And Geralt already offered to pay whatever the price.

Since Geralt seems intent on honouring his promise, that creates a bit of a power imbalance between Yennefer and Geralt at the start of the scene because Yennefer could ask for whatever she wanted, Geralt even brings up that he’s worried about “having agreed to indentured servitude”. (That being said, he does not seem too bothered by current the situation or Yennefer’s company. Quite the opposite, he actually seems quite comfortable talking to her.)

Aside from the payment they haven’t agreed on yet, Geralt’s also got a second promise to make good on since he initially offered Yennefer to “indulge her curiosities” (take that however you will). It’s quite apparent that Geralt is a lot more forthcoming with his thoughts and emotions (actually, his words in general) with Yennefer than he is with Jaskier. In Yennefer’s scene, she and Geralt talk about equal amounts whereas in the other scene Jaskier mostly carries the conversation by himself while Geralt reacts.

However, Jaskier also reaches out where Yennefer keeps to herself. She occasionally teasingly bumps her back against Geralt’s as she’s washing herself but other than that she makes an effort to keep out of sight, even magically turning away a mirror to hide herself, whereas Jaskier touches, quite literally gets all up in Geralt’s “scary face” and just generally repeatedly puts himself in Geralt’s line of sight going so far as to kneel down until they’re at eye level.

Despite the matter of coin coming up repeatedly (mostly in the form of harmless teasing about brothels and prostitution, but also on a more serious way when Geralt accuses her of making a profit off the townspeople), Yennefer eventually decides not to ask Geralt for anything in return for saving Jaskier’s life, determining his “company and conversation payment enough”.

Interestingly, in the scene preceding the bath in “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials” Jaskier also broaches the topic of coin as he’s setting up to ask Geralt for help. In a sense, Jaskier initially attempts to use that thing about reciprocity I brought up earlier to convince Geralt to do him a favour. He lectures Geralt on his role in making him famous and that he should be making money off their arrangement in an attempt to make the favour he’s about to ask off Geralt seem irrelevant in comparison, like “Look at everything I’ve done for you. Please do this tiny little thing for me.” Obviously, that approach doesn’t work. The (un)holy trinity of “food, women and wine, Geralt”, on the other hand, seems to do the trick. Or maybe it’s the bath and a heart-to-heart. Kind of like Geralt’s company and conversation were payment enough for Yennefer?

While we’re still on the matter of conversation, let’s talk about one of the components that make up part of the emotional core of the scenes. Let’s talk about

the matter of past and future

Geralt has lived a long, long life and its history is written on his body in a web of scars. What struck me is how differently the bath scenes deal with those scars.

With Yennefer, the scars are on full display. She notices and scrutinises them as someone seeing Geralt naked for the first time can be expected to. The scars on his shoulders and back are placed front and centre of the shot several times.

In contrast, with Jaskier, you, as a viewer, barely notice the scars. Most of the time they’re simply not visible to the camera. They’re never in the foreground of the shot and you never even get to see Geralt’s back. The scar on Geralt’s shoulder that Yennefer noticed could easily be mistaken for remnants of dead selkiemore. There’s only one moment that draws attention to the scarred shoulder and that’s when Jaskier pats it as he’s getting up to put away Geralt’s mug of ale.

Again, I feel like there’s a metaphor hiding somewhere in there but what do I know?

Back to the point. While Geralt and Yennefer are talking in the bathtub it immediately becomes obvious that they have a connection. They’ve both had unhappy childhoods, lived long lives and as Yennefer points out Geralt was “created by magic. Our magic.” They have an understanding that quickly let’s you forget that they’re virtual strangers at this point in the Witcher canon.

In the other scene, Jaskier and Geralt have known each other for quite a while already, yet the conversation seems to be restricted to superficial topics at first, mainly Jaskier’s prowess as bard and lover. However, Jaskier unwittingly steers the conversation in a more serious direction when he asks Geralt about retirement, what he wants to do when “all this... monster hunting nonsense” is over and done with.

So far, there’s a pattern in the show that when Jaskier talks to Geralt about serious matters, he starts making plans for the future. After the incident with the elves in Posada he promises to work hard to change Geralt’s reputation. In the infamous scene in “Rare Species” he’s trying to figure out what to do with his own future and offers Geralt to go to the coast with him. Here, in this scene, he’s trying to work out what Geralt wants from his future. Even if Geralt claims to want nothing.

At that point, Jaskier’s already made good on his promise to change the public tune about Geralt. The people in the beginning of the episode are talking about the White Wolf, not the Butcher of Blaviken, which makes for such an interesting parallel when paired with Yennefer’s comment about “Our magic”.

Yennefer’s magic created the Witcher; Jaskier’s song created the White Wolf.

Which, in all frankness, would be a good point to end this post but what’s the point of doing anything if you’re not gonna overdo it? I said the matter of past and future makes up part of the emotional core of the bath scenes. So there must be other parts of that supposed emotional core, right? Of course, there’s still

the matter of want and need

While discussing Geralt’s lack of retirement plan, Jaskier and Geralt keep tossing the word “want” back and forth. Jaskier tries to find out what Geralt wants; Geralt rebuffs him, he wants nothing; Jaskier turns it around on him by saying, well, maybe someone will want you. You could, of course, read that as your run-of-the-mill “just wait, the right person will come along (and that person might just so happen to be me – if you’re wearing shipping goggles)” shtick but the thing is, that’s the kind of reply you usually offer someone who’s bemoaning the fact that they’re single, the exact opposite of what Geralt is doing, and Jaskier strikes me as someone who’s emotionally intelligent enough to know that wouldn’t work on Geralt. I think Jaskier might be very literal when he’s saying “Maybe someone out there will want you.” As in, “even if you want nothing, maybe someone who wants you will come along (and that person might just so happen to be me – again, if you’re wearing shipping goggle).” But Geralt changes strategies and rebuffs him again, he needs no one. And the last thing he wants is someone needing him.

What’s interesting about this bit is the body language. I mentioned Jaskier and Geralt communicating a lot via eye contact. And Geralt is looking at Jaskier quite intently right up until Jaskier kneels down in front of him as he’s saying “Maybe someone out there will want you.” The camera cuts to Geralt and he’s looking off to the side while he says “I want no one.” Then, a pronounced pause follows before he turns to look Jaskier directly in the eye as he finishes, “And the last thing I want is someone needing me.” (I really want to say that this looks so much like he’s warning Jaskier to reconsider whatever he’s building up to say. But alas, that’s just fantasy.) The camera cuts away again and we see that Jaskier’s now looking down behind his clasped hands before looking up and answering “And yet... here we are.” Geralt acknowledges his answer with one of his famed “Hm”s. Then, he immediately changes the subject to the whereabouts of his clothes which Jaskier sent away to be washed.

In the other scene, Geralt and Yennefer breach the topic of “want” and “need” while talking about coin. Geralt claims she’s profiting off the political situation, whereas Yennefer claims she’s working in the interest of the people, “filling a need. Ever heard of it?” Which, yes, Geralt has, literally one episode ago, and he pulls a face that’s simply beyond words. (btw, kudos to Henry Cavill for cramming like five different emotions into one expression.)

Geralt and Jaskier had an entire conversation about how Geralt wants nothing and needs nobody. Jaskier even references that conversation when he yells at Geralt while they’re arguing over the djinn. “You always say you want nothing from life, so how was I supposed to know you wanted three wishes all to yourself!” he screams.

(Also, upon rewatching that scene, I literally just realised that Jaskier was drinking at the beginning of the scene. Combine that with the fact that he repeatedly brings up the Countess de Stael, and flat out states he’s currently heartbroken, and yeah, that explains a lot about his comparatively sour mood and short temper; also, why his speech comes across as much more chaotic than usual. Seriously, compare it to the way he speaks to Geralt after he’s gutted the selkiemore. He talks a lot in both – ok, Jaskier always does – but in the selkiemore scene, or basically any scene that isn’t the djinn scene, his diction is eloquent, artistic, florid; in the djinn scene, it’s all over the place, repetitive, and often bordering on the nonsensical. Frankly, you could probably make a whole post about that scene by itself. I’ll get back to that some other day.)

(Also, am I implying that Jaskier seems bitter over the fact that Geralt apparently keeps telling him he wants nothin from life? ...Yesn’t. Hard to pretend I’m not wearing shipping goggles when I’m literally almost 4000 words deep into a meta post. But remember, nothing but speculation!)

Anyway, and now there’s Yennefer broaching the subject, asking him if he’s ever heard of “filling a need”.

The conversation carries on until Geralt is blindsided by Yennefer telling him that his company and conversation are payment enough. He whirls around but Yennefer isn’t looking at him so he hurriedly gets out of the bath. In the next scene, he emerges with a new set of clothes he doesn’t like, which his companion from the previous scene procured for him. Now why does that feel familiar?

In conclusion...

honestly, I don’t even know where I was going with this originally. This started off as a joke but then things inevitably escalated and now I’m really tired and I wanna go to sleep. (Also, the whole djinn thing is giving me feels now which kinda puts a dampener on the humour in the episode. Jaskier’d already been having a bad day and things just. Keep. Getting. Worse. Ugh, my heart.) But I feel like this post needs a proper conclusion.

I feel like, in the context of these scenes Jaskier and Yennefer could be seen as foils to each other? They’re two of the few people Geralt lets close, very close, actually, since getting naked in front of someone is frequently equated with showing vulnerability to someone. In a lot of ways, Jaskier and Yennefer’s roles work in ways that are the exact opposite of that of the other. Jaskier tries to be seen where Yennefer wants to remain hidden, yet Jaskier gets obscured by the environment while Yennefer is exposed. Jaskier is asking Geralt for a favour, Yennefer did Geralt a favour; Jaskier insists on taking care of Geralt where Yennefer gives him space. Yennefer sees Geralt’s past, Jaskier his future. Jaskier touches the scar but doesn’t look, Yennefer looks but doesn’t touch. But both find a way to scratch at the emotional walls that Geralt’s put up and both times Geralt reacts by immediately trying to escape the situation. Both times, he ends up wearing clothes he doesn’t like in the following scene.

Speaking about nudity and emotional vulnerability, maybe that’s kind of part of the conclusion as well? Sorta? Especially, since Geralt seems to start looking for his clothes or for a way out of the tub the moment someone gets too close. Furthermore, afterwards, he never seems comfortable in the clothes he’s been given, which you could read as a metaphor of sorts, I guess? Like something inside Geralt getting knocked loose in the conversation with his companion and Geralt consequently having to arrange himself with an uncomfortable truth in the aftermath? Does that make sense? Have we finally reached the point where I’m getting too cerebral? Or did we sail past that point like 4000 words ago? God, my brain hurts.

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #jaskier #geralt x jaskier #geraskier #geralt x yennefer #gerlion #fantastically foolish literary analysis #this might take the crown as dumbest idea i ever saw through #i have written college essays shorter than this #how do people 'enjoy' things casually?#i mean #if you haven't written at least half a thesis' worth of meta about a show #can you honestly say you've watched it?#somebody commented 'op your galaxy brain' on that post about Her Sweet Kiss #i've been trying to see how much further i can push it ever since #this is it #this is as far as my brain'll take me #now it's fried #just waiting to see how long it'll take for someone to go #'welp'#'looks like she's finally gone off her rocker'#'nothing we can do now'#god i miss livejournal #tumblr really isn't cut out for posts of this length #this might be the longest post i've ever written #i just realised that the fact that i can honestly say 'might be' is kind of concerning

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baoshan-sanren · 4 years

Text

Chapter 45

Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

Nie XuanYu has one task.

It is a simple task, and a boring one to boot. He is to monitor a single Jin Sect disciple for the entirety of the Gifting Ceremony. Young Master Nie has informed him that this particular Jin Sect disciple will also need to be closely followed throughout the day, as a detailed report of all his movements must be given to the Nie Sect Leader before the banquet starts.

So far, observing the Jin Sect disciple has been as thrilling as watching the trees grow. The boy has gone nowhere on his own, preferring to remain in the company of other disciples. Still, Nie XuanYu has gathered a few bits of information that may or may not be relevant.

The Jin Sect disciple has a penchant for sweets. All day long, the boy has been reaching into his sleeves for pieces of candy, an action that seems almost unconscious. XuanYu has never seen a person eat that many sweets in such a short time, and thinks that this cannot possibly be healthy.

Also, this disciple may prefer to spend his time among the other disciples, but Nie XuanYu does not think that the boy is very well liked among them. While the rest exhibit the type of closeness natural among disciples who have spent years training together, XuanYu’s charge appears to have only one friend, a small, delicate boy, whose sweet smile and gentle manners set him apart from the rest.

Had XuanYu not been tasked with watching the Jin disciple closely, he likely would have never noticed the two boys interact. Even now, they stood apart, a dozen disciples between them. Despite the appearances, however, XuanYu has caught them glancing at each other often, every time a set of minuscule expressions and raised eyebrows giving away their silent communication.

XuanYu does not understand why the two boys would not just speak to each other, face to face, if they had something to say. He thinks that one of them must be of significantly lower rank. Or maybe, their relationship consists of more than friendship, and they feel pressured to keep it a secret. XuanYu does not know the rules and hierarchies that govern the Jin Sect, nor does he care to know. Any sect where one must hide their innermost thoughts and feelings in order to belong, is not a sect worth belonging to, in his opinion.

If Nie XuanYu wanted to be friends with someone, there is not a force in the world, Sect Leader Nie included, that could pressure him to give up that friendship for some stupid sect rule. But he would not be surprised if things were different for the Jin. It stands to reason that such a useless sect would have equally as useless rules.

If one of the boys is lower in rank, the boy he has been tasked to watch must be the one. Nie XuanYu is certain of this. He had spent his early childhood on the streets, brawling with boys twice his size, and begging for scraps of food. He is painfully familiar with the attitude and bearing of those like himself, boys who had learned to fight tooth and nail to survive another day in the world. There is an arrogance in this disciple’s posture that is not likely to be rooted in his actual skills or worth. It is an armor, meant to discourage conflict before it occurs. The boy is a dog that growls often, so others would know that he is always ready to fight. Whether or not he is capable of fighting, XuanYu cannot guess.

He thinks it is unlikely he will get to fight anyone today. The Gifting Ceremony is long and tedious, an endless procession of gifts that XuanYu does not get to see from his remote position near the entry arch. Nie XiuYa and Nie ZhuYi have joined him in solidarity, although neither understands why XuanYu has been banished to such an unfavorable location. Both are excited for the banquet, where they intend to divert a few jars of wine, and get pleasantly drunk in the Imperial gardens. Nie XuanYu, the mastermind of the stealing-the-wine plan, will not be able to join them.

He has wondered, more than once, if the Young Master Nie had caught wind of their plans. Nie HuaiSang rarely ever expresses disapproval or censure, regardless of the type of mischief the Nie Sect disciples carry out. But if he had decided to express his disapproval, this is precisely the type of punishment that Nie HuaiSang would dispense. Nothing difficult or painful, but so unbearably tedious, that it would surpass every other possible punishment by a large margin. Given a choice between having to watch the Jin Sect disciple, his stupid sweets and his ridiculous silent conversations, and having to swear never to steal or drink again, Nie XuanYu is prepared to become the most respectable disciple the Nie Sect has ever seen.

“What is that?” Nie ZhuYi whispers, “Do you feel that?”

Nie XuanYu does not grace his words with a response. The others are always feeling things that XuanYu cannot, and this has become a tightly suppressed cause of irritation. No, he cannot feel an attack coming before his eyes can perceive the threat. He cannot feel the saber spirit guiding his every thrust. No matter how hard he practices, how much he learns, how often he meditates, his spiritual power will always be average at best. It is not a lack that gives him grief, but it does cause a certain amount of annoyance when the others insist on bringing it up.

“What--“ Nie XiuYa says, his voice high, “What is that?”

Nie XuanYu had been watching the Jin Sect disciple, but XiuYa’s tone is sufficiently alarming to divert his attention. He means only to scan the hall for the source of their attention, before returning to the task at hand, but the sight of the Emperor wrapped in coils of black smoke is so staggering, that he forgets, for long moments, why he is not among the other disciples, all of them now scrambling in panic.

The Emperor is under attack. Next to the Jiang Sect, the shield that protects the Emperor, the Nie Sect is the first line of offense, the living sword in the Emperor’s hand. XuanYu is clutching his own saber and stepping forward before his mind has fully caught up with the rest of him.

Surely, the ridiculous task he has been assigned is no longer a priority. Surely, he is needed somewhere else.

Still, before moving any further, he glances at the Jin Sect disciple again.

The boy is smiling.

The rest of the Jin Sect disciples are milling around in panic, Young Master Jin attempting to keep them from any impulsive action. He looks to be on the verge of panic himself, however, and the Jin Sect Leader is no more composed than his flock of disciples. But the Jin Sect disciple that XuanYu had been watching is not panicking at all. His smile is small but feral, reminding XuanYu of the sharp-toothed hounds he has had to fight for every scrap of meat, who nearly cost him an arm more times than he cares to remember.

By then, Nie XiuYa and Nie ZhuYi have gotten their senses back, and make to rush past him, to join the others. Struggling to keep the Jin Sect disciple in his sights through the pandemonium, XuanYu latches onto them tightly, pulling them back. ZhuYi, always the more impulsive of the two, nearly pulls his shoulder out of its socket, trying to storm the dais regardless of XuanYu’s grip.

“Stop struggling,” XuanYu snaps, “I need you here.”

A swarm of Fan Sect disciples obscures his sight of the boy for a moment, and XuanYu curses under his breath. Clearly, the boy has something to do with this. Clearly, this is why XuanYu has been told to watch him. But why has he not been given any further instructions? What is he to do now?

The Fan Sect disciples disperse and the boy is gone.

XuanYu swears again, his eyes frantically searching the hall, cursing every bright yellow Jin Sect uniform that draws his eye.

There. The small side entrance that leads to the meeting hall. Ordinarily, it would be guarded, but in the mayhem, the Imperial guards have scattered in every direction, providing more of an obstacle than any significant assistance. Not for the first time, Nie XuanYu finds himself thinking that the Imperial guards are far inferior to Nie Sect members.

He does not see the boy’s face, only his gold-clad backside as he slips through the entrance, but XuanYu had been staring at that backside for close to five hours now. He would recognize it half-blind.

“Come on,” he pulls on ZhuYi and XiuYa, “quickly.”

“Where are we going?” XiuYa exclaims, “The Emperor is in danger.”

XuanYu smiles, a grin as feral as the Jin boy’s had been,

“We are going to hunt.”

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #ficlet #m #wwx emperor au #a small chapter from nie xuanyu's pov

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