#the fact that Netflix PAID MONEY to keep making THIS SHOW and we can’t get a final season/a movie wrap up of GLOW????? despicable

[missyasf]

Game Of Hearts

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↳ Summary: Your life is in monotonous tones of grey, day in, day out. Nothing matters besides your sister, the only thing you remember is seeing fireworks before waking up to Tokyo abandoned . Soon enough you are properly introduced to the deadly Borderlands where you must fight for your life in Games to survive. When things can’t possibly get worse soon division arises and rivalries are made. No matter what though, you are constantly plagued by a blonde who, no matter how hard you try, just can’t seem to go too far without.

↳ Pairing: Chishiya/Reader

↳ Genre: Angst, smut, thriller

Word Count: 11k

___| Next

Trigger Warning: ⚠️ much like the manga/Netflix adaptation this will be a dark fic which includes mentions of prostitution, attempted murder, child ab*se, sexual harassment, heavy grief and attempted suic*de among other things. Additional warnings will be added for chapters when triggers are brought up. Please read with caution if these are triggers for you or just skip all together! 

Side mention: This could be considered a prequel to the current Alice In Borderland. I’m writing based off the Manga bc I was a glutton and couldn’t wait no spoilers will be present as of...

Escapism

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy ♡ 

You had known all about this during your short lifespan, as a child you’d often play pretend with your sister that you were movie stars living in a five star hotel rather than the shitty busted up apartment on the wrong side of town. Escapism came in, many forms. It was often a way for people to cope psychologically, simply because sometimes, facing the reality of your situation can be too much for one person to handle mentally. 

Or at least, that was the topic of your lecture today in class. The human mind always fascinated you. Even at the young tender age when your mom died and you watched your once cozy little family fall apart piece by piece until nothing was left in its wake. 

It was your fascination that drove you now for most things, why? Why, why, why? You always wondered what the motive was behind someone’s actions, not only thing but you wanted to  understand them better, to try and sympathize. You were already fairly intuitive in nature. It wasn’t difficult to read people. In fact your line of work made it easy, you’d watch a man who would be excited to be with you reach for his left finger as if used to touching something. A wedding band perhaps? 

The lowlife cheater was fairly common in a whore house after all. Or the man who had been pissy this morning behind you in line because you had decided to try something new on the menu and you weren’t fast enough, obviously because he was tardy and woke up late, his shirt unbeknownst to him was button the wrong way and his tie loose and even the way his hair fell were all signs of being late to work. 

It was the little things you noticed in people’s facial expressions, the way they moved and spoke. You could read people like a book, and sure sometimes it was useful. But you often wished you weren’t so perceptive. It drove you mad knowing when a potential love interest was no longer interested through a simple text or a friend not wanting to talk by their tone. Sometimes you wished you could just blot it all out, still, you lived like this day in and day out, you were used to this kind of thing and honestly. Friends? Love? Your gaze dropped a little to your feet, the pumps you were wearing a jet black and the heel too high for any respectable woman to ever wear. 

...It wasn’t like you ever had any of those in your life and you had struggled to come to terms with the fact that you could survive without that kind of support. Still...it made you envious, the couple happily holding hands on the sidewalk. The group of friends all laughing at a table while they studied. Oftentimes these feelings are muted, but when you’re faced with something you’ve always craved, those muted feelings suddenly become hyperactive in your mind. 

It’s pathetic, honestly. 

“How dare you! You disgusting slut!” 

In this moment however, you were brought back to reality at just what was happening, you squeaked loudly as you dodged the shoe the woman had thrown at you. This was all a regular occurrence, you had a lot of regulars who weren’t the most amazing people but hey, money was money. But along with them they also left a trail which their wives and girlfriends always followed. And then they always blamed you instead of their partner for leaving them for a prostitute despite you never having agreed to anything such as that.

It really wasn’t your fault, you were just trying to make a living while juggling with keeping up your own education, paying your fathers debts, rent and still somehow getting food on the table. What part time college job could provide that?

Prostitution wasn’t a job you would’ve gone into willingly but given the past and your trauma that was already laced in it you had been learning that sometimes because of the trauma we experience, sometimes people go back to that same trauma and actively participate in it as a way of feeling like they’re in control. 

That whatever happened before, would never happen again if you were in control. You weren’t sure if you qualified under this category, trauma came in many forms but the one most used as an example in your class was that a study showed that women who were assaulted often develop a kink for consensual non consent as a way of coping with what happened, except this time, it’s in a controlled environment where it can end the moment they want it too. 

Again, you weren’t sure you fell into this category, but you often wondered if your line of work was intertwined with your earlier memories when you were younger, if anything it brought comfort to you. Much of it, blotted out now simply because your mind couldn’t take it. Trauma expressed through amnesia was also much more common than many thought, and it’s so small, so easy to miss. After all how can you be aware of something if you have no memory of it anymore?

“Security!” Your manager screeched, two of the bodyguards were already between you and the feral woman who was ready to gut you clean as she screamed hysterically, her husband...your regular....at her side trying to get her to calm down only for her to come to her senses and slap him clean across the face. You didn’t condone violence, but he did have it coming...

You weren’t about to justify cheaters, you couldn’t imagine the hurt someone had to feel that not only did their partner cheat on them, but it was with someone...like you...You had been trying not to put down your job occupation, sex workers were just as valid as anyone else...you knew you would’ve thought this way if it was anyone but you in this position. 

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair, watching the couple get dragged out of the tight space of the brothel, “Jesus christ....didn’t you say you stopped using perfume because of this?” Miki, your manager sighed as she crossed her arms. You didn’t want to say your manager was your friend but she was the closest you had as you’d often complain to her about most of your problems. Sex work often attracted broken people, it wasn’t something she wasn’t used to. 

“Yeah, but apparently he never got around to washing his clothes…” You wiped your mouth on the back of your hand, “Lipstick stain,” You glanced down at the ruby pink color that stained your skin now, “Fuck...that did hurt.” You rubbed your sore cheek that was still throbbing from where she had first slapped it when she ripped the door open of the room where she got to see with her own eyes you riding her husband. 

It had happened so many times now you weren’t even embarrassed about someone walking in let alone a partner. Miki gave you a lopsided smile as she patted your shoulder, “Guess that just pays for being one of the best here. Did you at least get paid.” 

You nodded, “Yeah, I always make them pay in advanced but I was hoping to get a tip afterwards...He was a lawyer so you know he had good money.” You sighed, crossing your arms, you were well aware of his partner because a lot of the time he didn’t even come in for sex anymore. It was funny how humans work. 

He often felt his wife was overbearing and you had suspected some sort of verbal abuse by the way he talked about her constant screaming. Truthfully, you don’t think he ever intended on cheating with her. He just wanted someone to talk to without being judged, you could relate with sympathy to that, but he unfortunately chose to walk into a brothel instead of a therapy clinic and this truly was the only inevitable outcome. Still, you hope if for anyone’s sake, he gets that divorce for himself. 

 “Hey I think I’m gonna call it a day. I need to get back to Nanami, she was wanting to talk to me about college applications.” You sighed as you rubbed your neck, ever since she had graduated high school she had been chomping at the bit to start applying for college, maybe to just get out of the house and into a dorm. You couldn’t blame her and if she did that it would lighten your load a little. 

Guilt washed over you at the thought as Miki chuckled, “They grow up pretty fast huh? My brother was the same way, except the moment he found out I was a sex worker was the moment he called me a whore and we haven’t talked since. That was probably about five years ago,” She crossed her arms as she sighed, “Crazy how the things we do for the ones we love, never appreciate our effort...I’ll see you tomorrow then?” 

“If I’m not bruising.” You offered a weak smile as you nodded at her before going back to your room to get changed. Truthfully, you much like anyone else, often wished you could go to a world where reality wasn’t a concept any longer. Where you could lay out in the sun for the whole day and just soak up it’s rays with no worries or trepidations. 

But sooner then later everyone had to face their fears. Even you, you supposed. But no matter how hard you fought your demons, they always came back tenfold. Again, you supposed your story was no different from tens of thousands, and yet you all live on regardless. Maybe it’s you who should be the one seeking therapy. Pulling on your jeans and the cropped top over your head before pulling the jacket over your arms and grabbing your bag. 

The walk home was as quiet as ever, your hood over your head and earbuds any unwanted attention, it wasn’t too late at night, only eleven PM and your work had just been getting started but that had ruined the night for you and besides, you had already failed a test today, you could use the sleep tonight. 

Occasionally you’d hear the sirens of  a cop car passing by or a bystander shout, nothing out of the ordinary in this neighborhood. Walking up to the apartment complex you pulled the key from your bag as you unlocked the door. Quietly stepping insides as you shut the door before locking it once more. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air mixed with rotten...something…

If anything, you were always lacking in something, you had been so busy most of the day that you never had time to clean anything leaving the house in a horrible state. Not that you thought this was much of a house. 

Walking down the narrow hallway you opened the rickety door with a missing lock as you gave a brief smile to the small clump of bedsheets. Your sister was curled up and on her phone, eyes darting to the door with a hint of fear before she jumped up, “Y/n! You’re home earlier from night shift already!?” 

You offered a smile as you set down your bag and nodded, sitting down on the mattress that laid on the floor as you replied, “Yeah, a coworker needed the extra hours so I let them cover for me tonight. Besides, you wanted to talk about college applications?” Your sister was under the impression your late night job was bartending at some hole in the wall downtown, where in all actuality you just went there to drink a few days and talk to the loud and sometimes obnoxious, but good hearted bartender who loved talking about his nerdy underaged friends that couldn’t do anything beside stay and drink soda. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t think your sister would accept you, if she knew what you were actually doing. Fear, most times came in many different forms and this was one of them. You simply didn’t want to be judged, even by her. So nobody in your life truly knew who you were, and therefore, how could you hold the expectation for people to accept you into society if you were already self sabotaging yourself? 

All philosophy aside, you were simply a lost soul, looking for your way in the cruel reality called life. 

“Yes!” Nanami was chipper as always as she squealed, clapping her hands, “I…! I was thinking about applying to the university you attend! Maybe I'll get a grant and move into the dorms there? I already applied for several jobs, I’m just waiting on a callback!” 

You offered a small smile as you hugged your knees to your chest, “I think you’d like it there, there’s lots to do around campus. But what will you go in for? The only advice I can offer is be sure it’s what you want to do.” 

Nanami’s face faltered a little as she hummed, “Well...I thought maybe working with animals? I’d love to be an assistant surgeon in veterinarian? I know it’s a pretty...sad job but...I really like the idea of being able to heal such innocent things.” Your smile tugged into a gentle one at your sister. She was too tender for this world.

It had been your goal sense the day your mother died that you took care of your sister, it didn’t matter what happened to you. You could rot for all you cared at the end of the day, all you wanted was to look up and see your sister's smile and her happiness in life blossom. She more than anyone deserved it. 

“I think you’ll be great at it.” You encouraged as you rested your chin on your hand, always happy to see her bounce in excitement as you yawned, your body was used to your demanding schedule but it was always more than happy to welcome a few extra hours of sleep.”

Hearing the door loudly slam close caused you both to jump, Nanami hurriedly crawled back in bed, pretending to be asleep as you frowned. Your dad must’ve come back home from wherever he was. 

“Y/n! Just stay here! Can’t you talk to him later?” Nanami looked scared, she always did when he was around. But you weren’t about to stand down to the bastard any day of the week, you offered a weak smile as you replied. 

“It’s fine Nami, I’ll be just a few minutes.” You replied, you knew that she knew, that was probably a lie. But you’d try your best, for her sake at least. But somebody had to put this guy in his place occasionally and it was always you. It results in a lot of screaming sometimes, other times he’d break down in tears or on a bad occasion you’d get shoved to the ground, a few times hit. Nothing major. 

Walking out of the room you leaned against the wall of the entrance of the hallway watching your father stumble around in the living room, “Did you finally talk to the loan company?” You called out as you asked, not in a forgiving mood tonight. He had said he’d do this for two weeks in a row. The company that sank your whole family into the ground. The reason your mother couldn’t take it anymore and put a blade to her wrist. 

Your father stood up, looking a little wobbly, obviously drunk, “Now listen here little girl I don’t have shit to own to you or anyone else.” You sighed as you tucked your tongue into your cheek, annoyance flowing inside you as you straightened up. You weren’t going to be bullied into being scared of this guy. 

“Actually you do,” Your smile twisted into something more sharp, more bitter and sinister as you walked forward, “See, if you hadn’t of gotten involved in something shady like loan sharks we wouldn’t be drowning in debt and mom wouldn’t have killed herself because of you and both your daughters wouldn’t hate you. I know you drink away all our money in some pathetic attempt to escape from the cold reality that you fucked up your whole life and watched your family slip from your fingers while not even trying to do anything other then put us in further shit,” You closed your eyes as you tilted your head, “But the least you could do, is admit that. You owe us at least that for being a total fuck up.” 

You opened your eyes to find pure rage brewing in your fathers eyes as you smiled once more, this time a false sense of sickly sweet tone to it as you shrugged, “Or you could live in denial, at this point, there really isn’t anything you can do to get anyone back ♡ ” 

You had turned around, planning to tell Nanami that maybe she should go sleep over at a friends house today but you never got the chance, suddenly being slammed into the wall and flecks of spit hitting your face, “I am your fucking father! I deserve respect from you and your worthless sister! Do you know how much I provide for you both?” 

Anger splintered through your veins as you grabbed onto his wrists, his fingers digging into your neck as you squirmed, “Like fucking what!? A shitty broken down apartment that your vacant from because you’re too fucking ashamed of yourself to even look at us sober!?” 

Much like years in the past you weren’t surprised to hear Nanami cry as she rushed out of the room at the sound of you both screaming, “Stop!” She cried out, trying to break you both up, “Stop! Don’t fight! Why…! Why can’t we all just get along!” She sobbed only for your dad to shove her down making her curl up in defeat. 

Alarm bells were triggered in your head at the sight of Nanami on the ground, she had never actually gotten hurt while in your sight and it was triggering something deep inside you as you watched him stalk up to her. Your hands shaking and rage boiling in your mind as you grabbed the closet thing you could find. An empty beer bottle on the table. 

Your vision blurred and you don’t quite remember what happened other than glass shattering over his head and the brute force of you shoving something before blood was stained on your hands. 

How did you end up sitting against the wall? Why was there….blood on your hands…? Your fingers trembled at the metallic sticky substance. All you could hear were Nanami’s sobs and cries as she frantically pushed herself away from the body slumped on the ground. 

“You…! He…!” Nanami’s eyes brimmed with tears as you heard a loud boom making you jump, your eyes darting to the open window where….fireworks, big and bold crashed and crackled before you felt like you were sucked into a vortex making your whole vision black out. 

Your head felt fuzzy and there was ringing in your ears as you groaned, curling up into yourself as the darkness beckoned you closer before you forcibly opened your eyes. You were laying against the hardwood floor. Beams of light streaked through the window and you could see dust particles in the air against the shower of sunshine that streamed in. 

...Wait...Light? The thought had perplexed your head enough to make you push up from the ground, memories pulling into your mind as your breath became shallow, suddenly looking to the side where...you slumped against the wall. It must’ve just been a bad dream….your eyes flickered to Nanami’s curled up figure...a really vivid dream…? Something wrenched in your gut as you rubbed your eyes. What happened? “Nami…!” You whispered, forcing your muscles to move despite their protest as she whined. 

After another moment she reluctantly opened her eyes, flickering around before she suddenly scrambled up, taking a deep breath as if realizing what had happened before, looking towards where your dad once was she frowned, “...I...What…” She seemed just as perplexed as you and if her face was anything to go by, last night had obviously happened, “Is dad…” She looked at the absent place of the floor. 

Leaning against the wall your eyes darted around the room, “I guess so…” You silently felt relief at knowing your dad was still very much alive as you leaned back as you closed your eyes, trying to remember what had happened before everything went dark...oh..! The fireworks...had it been a celebration last night? Your brows pinched together, something felt...off...getting up you opened the door to the apartment walking out. 

“Y/n? Y/n! Hey! Where are you going!” Nanami called out, quickly chasing after you as you frowned, cars were parked odd and there was no one out on the street...as in...at all...Something was very wrong and you couldn’t figure out what. 

“Wow...it..must be a slow day…” Nanami felt a sense of discomfort at the lack of life as you both walked down the side walk, it didn’t just feel like a slow day it felt, apocalyptic. As if humanity just left on it’s own leaving nothing but an empty city behind. Cars were parked on the curb and a few even left in the street.

“No, it’s like everyone vanished...This is really weird.” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you frowned, looking around as you came closer to where typically it would be a booming part of the downtown but it was empty, just as everything before. 

“Well, maybe it’s a national holiday?” Nanami rubbed her head, trying to make sense of the situation just as much as you, surely everyone wasn’t...gone...right? She looked around as she bit her lip, second guessing herself at all the cars that were vacant, “Hey Y/n.” 

You paused as you looked at your sister, curving an eyebrow as she offered a weak smile, “What if everyone got raptured away like they talk about in christanity?” Your expression flattened as she giggled, obviously getting a rise out of you as you crossed your arms. 

Raptured? Where? To heaven? “Wouldn’t it be fire and brimstone then if that was the case?” Nanami pouted at your words as you shrugged, snickering yourself at her expression, the tables now turned as you sighed, “I don’t think there’s anyone left in Tokyo...I mean, it feels like...we’d have seen someone by now...right?” 

“Well…” Nanami frowned once more, a little disturbed at your words as she spoke, “There’s no way everyone could be gone I mean, where would they go? And how could we miss something like that...Maybe the police found us and now we’re under some weird simulation.” 

Chills spilled down your spine as you shoved her making her whine, “Don’t say that! That makes me feel all weird…! I didn’t…!” You cut yourself off, you didn’t what? Murder your own dad in cold blood...you looked down at your hands, they were free of any blood but it still felt like something like sin lingered. Like no matter where you went, it would always be stuck to you.

You didn’t like this, not one bit. Briefly you felt the urge to go hunt down your dad, he was a deadbeat but you would never...you’d never kill him....Right?

“Well…” Nanami hummed her eyes scanning ahead before they jumped to the mall that was up ahead, “Hey…! If nobody is here...maybe we could make use of it! Come on! Let's go!” You yelped at her grabbing your arm before dragging you ahead. Cars were all parked and yet not a single person exited through the mall's entrance. Something just felt off! You wrapped your arms around yourself as you warily looked around the empty mall, “Nanami I really don’t like this!” You looked around, concern bubbling inside you as she ran ahead into the store, digging through the section of clothes as she giggled. 

“Relax! I doubt any of this is real and even so…! Who’s going to stop us!?” She shrugged as she bounced in excitement, “Oh my god! I had dreamed of something like this happening! Now we can do whatever we want! Go wherever we want! Y/n!” She gasped with a smile, “Now we don’t even have to worry about money!” 

“We don’t even know if this is permanent.” You looked around warily, not partaking as she began plucking off the racks, “Regardless of what this is, I don’t like it. I want to go back home, our home. This just doesn’t…” You shook your head, “This just doesn’t feel right.” 

“Well you can feel that way!” Nanami clacked her tongue as she gave a childish smile, “But I’m gonna go through this whole store and get a new wardrobe so feel free to sit on the bench and tell me what you think looks good!” 

Looking away you sighed, unable to pinch the anxious feeling you had away as you sat down reluctantly as Nanami went into the changing room. Well...at least she was smiling and she was happy...With each outfit Nanami tried out and giggled, you giggled with her and maybe things weren’t so bad after all…

“What a perfect day.” Nanami hugged you close as she sighed, yawning as you looked up at the sky in awe, you had seen a single star while living in Tokyo before, but now it was filled with constellations and millions of stars that stretched for miles. You could stare at it for days and days. The sun had just set a little over half an hour ago and you were ready to retire and find something to eat at the apartment. 

You and Nanami had tried going to the food court but much to your dismay everything had been...rotten...soiled and ruined, meaning there was no point in trying to find anything there and you were getting really hungry despite devouring bags of chips you had both got at the convenient store, another thing that stood out to you was that there was no electricity...at all..

Looking back up to the sidewalk something caught your eyes...was that…! Light!? “Hey! Nanami look!” You shook her making her squeak as she looked up ahead, “It’s the hospital! They have electricity there which means there’s other people! Of course! Why didn’t we think to check essential areas!? Come on! Lets go! I wanna figure out what happened.” 

“Alright! It sucks that this is already over but at least I can finally charge my phone, the battery is pretty low.” Nanami nodded in agreement as you both made your way up the road. 

The walk wasn’t too far and you felt excitement fill you at the sight of the hospital all lit up as you walked into the entrance, a frown slowly setting on your lips once more as you walked past the receptionist desk and…! Oh there’s other people! 

You felt relief wash over your as you ran up, there were at least seven other other people here at least! “Hey! Guys oh my god. I thought everyone was gone! What’s going on?” You asked, smiling bright in relief that you and Nanami weren’t the only ones left behind. Was this some kind of evac point or…?

Silence ensued and you slowly began to frown as you felt everyone stare at you as if you were insane, “Um…” You wrapped a hand around your arm, suddenly feeling as if everyone knew something you didn’t, “What’s going on…?” You furrowed your brows as you tilted your head, unsure of why everyone was looking at you like this. 

Somebody looked like they were going to talk to you, a guy relatively around your age but a woman stopped him- his girlfriend maybe? “Stop, the less that know the better chance we have.” She said quietly though you still heard just enough. Fear twisted inside you as you took a cautious step back...The...the less you knew? 

“Wow, you guys are assholes,” A girl suddenly whistled out, she was sitting in a waiting chair, a cowboy hat on her head paired with distressed jeans and...a bikini top? Strange but you’d roll with it if it meant getting answers. She stood up as she offered a smile, “Akari, nice to meet ya’. You folk must be new to the Borderlands huh?” She jutted her bottom lip a little as you frowned. 

“Um I’m Y/n and this is my sister Nanami...?” You introduced yourself despite feeling confused as you raised a brow, “Borderlands…?” You echoed, what was that supposed to be? Other than Tokyo?

Akari gave a nod as she let out a brief chuckle, as if amused by your confusion but you sensed she had no real ill will unlike....your eyes checked to the couple that stood off in the corner on their own, “That’s what they call it here,” She nodded in affirmation as your eyes darted back to her in confusion, “To be frank with ya’, I don’t have a damn clue what's going on. Nobody does. But ever since you crossed the threshold there’s no going back, so I’ll be brief. We’re all considered outsiders here and we participate in games at venues such as this to extend our stay.”

Nanami and you looked at one another confused as Akari waved you over to the table in front of a TV, “Here, you’ll wanna put these on, it’s for the game.” She explained as you carefully picked up the metal bracelet, something about it felt ominous as you reluctantly put it on, jumping at the way it latched together and there was no getting it off now, “Word of advice, just don’t panic and you probably won’t die.” 

“What?!” You screeched as Akari smacked your back, panic evident in your voice as you turned around to face her making her laugh again, this girl was insane! She had to be! “You’re…! You’re joking!” 

Akari wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head, “Ah shit, I wish I was- Oh…! There’s the last player!” Just on que everyone turned to look at who had arrived, someone heaving breaths with their hands on their knees as if they had sprinted. You were mildly worried at why he seemed so scared but you had a feeling that was the least of your problems right now.

“Y/n what’s going on…?” Nanami frightened grabbed your arm as she hid a little behind you due to all these immensing strangers that looked like they were ready to feed you to the sharks, literally. 

The guy walked past you both as he put on his bracelet, your eyes sharp as you watched it latch together automatically, your gaze jumping to everyone's wrists to notice you were all now wearing one. The TV suddenly lit up. 

Game 

You squinted your eyes a little at the sight of the screen, just what were you about to unwillingly participate in…?

Difficulty: 5♣

“The game you will be participating in is, Monster under the bed.”

A playing card? Monster under the bed? Your brows furrowed as you looked at Nanami who shrugged a little despite her concerned expression, looking just as confused as you. You could’ve made a joke out of this, surely it would’ve been easier. Maybe everyone would bust out laughing and you’d be at the end of a poor joke but...somehow you felt that wasn’t the case. Thus paying very close attention to whatever was on this screen, 

“Everyone will be sectioned off into pairs by the number chosen on your bracelet, when the doors to the ward open you will have three rounds ten minutes each to figure out who is the monster under the bed that must be returned to its own, once the ten minutes is up you must hide before you are found. If the selected pair that is the monster is chosen correctly it’s a Game Clear.  If the monster is not found by the end of the third round or if the pair fails to hide it’s a Game Over.” 

Rules: 

Once the doors are open you and your partner must find a hiding spot by the time limit

Both partners must be hidden. If one is exposed to the monster it’s a Game Over for both partners

There will be an X marked on the ground to place the monster of your guess onto. 

You will have three rounds of ten minutes each to find the monster.

Any attempt to remove bracelets results in a Game Over

If the monster is not found by the third round a Game Over.

The only Game Clear condition required is for the monster to be returned by the third round.

What…

What!? 

“Now the game will commence, you have five minutes to figure out who you have been paired up with before the doors open.”

Your mind was blanking as you watched everyone look down at their bracelet, hurriedly you lifted your arm as your mind blanked 2 looking back at Nanami her lips were already quivering as she sniffled lifting her arm in defeat as your lips dropped open, 5.

“Hey! Guess you’re my partner!” Akari grinned as she wrapped an arm around Nanami who sniffled, “Oh…” She looked between you both, “Oh! Oh don’t worry! We’re not the monster so I’ll make sure your sister lives! You should go find your partner.” 

Your hands trembled unsure of what to do before you went to hug Nanami, “Whatever happens just stay calm okay! I need to go find my partner now!” You whispered, kissing her cheek as she sniffled while nodding. 

Everybody was shuffling around looking for their partner now, you passed by a few people, 4, 1, 3...did you even have a partner…? You scanned around, your throat tightening a little in panic, there had to be a mistake! There were only 8 people surrounding you- you yelped at the tight grip that suddenly held your arm forcing you to turn around to be met with a white hooded figure, a lollipop handle hanging and earbuds in before sighing, “So it appears I’m stuck with someone useless.” The man concluded as he stood up making you back away a little as your lips parted somewhat indignantly. 

How...how rude! You looked up, unable to fully make out his face but you could tell you didn’t like him one bit, “I’ll…! First of all I’m not useless! I’m just trying to understand what's going on! This is insane! We aren’t actually going to die from this, are we!?” Pushing his hood down you were immediately met with a snide gaze and cat eyes that leered at you like you were nothing more then dirt beneath his feet, long blonde hair pushed behind his shoulders and his bangs hanging low, suddenly a viscous side smile appeared on his lips, “Apparently so, otherwise I wouldn’t have watched half my last game get their brains blown out and the other half hung.” 

You reeled a little away from the blonde, your face dropped in semi horror, unsure if this was just a sick joke or he was serious. You searched his face a thousand times over, but for the first time in your life, you couldn’t figure out what his goal was. You couldn’t figure out anything about him, except he was exceptionally cold, “Well I don’t suppose I have much choice to doubt you,” He said with an annoying sing song tone as he rattled his wrist that showed the bracelet with a matching 2 on it, “My name is Chishiya, just stay out of my way and we’ll both live.” 

How arrogant! You scoffed as he walked past you, not the least bit bothered at your offense as you whipped around, glaring at his back. How come out of everyone you got stuck with the most…! Pompous! Arrogant! Ugh! You crossed your arms as you followed behind him, stilling secretly sending daggers into his back with your eyes as everyone shuffled into the ward. 

Hospital beds were scattered around the room, a few closets and one large vent at the bottom right corner of the room ahead. 

“Wait, what is this?” The first person to speak was a fair thin older gentleman, he appeared friendly as he observed the room around him, everyone looked around in confusion as you noticed what he meant. 

Any possible hiding spot was covered by either sheets of metal or locked tight...How were any of you supposed to hide if…!? The rules mentioned nothing about solving puzzles to gain access to a hiding spot!

“Forget that,” Another man said with a sneer he was broad and a bit older, well into his late twenties at least, perhaps a gym coach? Or maybe a wrestler of some sort? He looked like he could break you and nearly every other person in this room like a twig, “We need to figure out who’s the monster. “ He cracked his knuckles as you leered a little away and nobody spoke for a second. 

Of course, who would out themselves as the monster, more importantly, how does one even know they’re the monster? You could immediately feel tension rise as the previous, more patient man spoke, a little more collected, “How about we just check one another's’ watches! If anywhere it would show us on that! One pair should work on solving these puzzles here so everyone has a place to hide” 

“Unless the monster is among us and it sabotages us so we all die by the time limit.” The girlfriend crossed her arms as she darted her eyes around. Truthfully you didn’t know what to believe, the wording on the soundbox was rather confusing as to just what were you looking for. Was the monster supposed to be in the group or it’s own entity?

“If that were the case it would’ve showed up on our watches, which it didn’t. So that won’t work.” Chishiya spoke matter of fact, his tone cool as his eyes gazed across the room before he walked away from the group inspecting various hiding spots granted you didn’t think he was about to help anyone but himself, if anything you were at least lucky that him securing a hiding spot meant it was one for you as well. 

You looked at everyone in confusion, some arguing while others scattered to look for a hiding spot as the clock ticked down. You breathed in relief at the sight of Nanami and Akari both going for a bed to hide under. Your gaze finally found Chishiya’s form before following him, unsure of what you were supposed to do, if anything outside trying to figure out just what the monster even was. 

You glanced up at the digital clock that stood above the entrance you had just come in from, it was already a minute in before you searched the floor where you found a red X in the center of the room, that must’ve been the...what? Offering spot? You cringed a little at the idea. Looking forward you peered behind Chishiya’s shoulder deciding to not think about that, it seemed the metal sheet that had wrapped around the bed and was sealed to the ground was locked by some sort of metal device…? Contraption? Lock?

“Isn’t hiding under a bed a bit obvious…?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, unsure as you looked behind your shoulder once more to where accusations were already being thrown in the group. 

“The vent is a decoy to make you waste time, I already checked,” Chishiya replied, his fingers nimble as they rattled the metal, “And even if someone were to accomplish it in the time limit it’s the most obvious spot the monster would first check. Next would be the closet given it’s at eye level and the first thing one is drawn too when they walk into a room.” 

Your lips parted a little in surprise at his assessment...obviously he wasn’t just overconfident, “And why this spot?” If he had really thought about all this in less than a minute then...did he have a reason for this spot? You now found yourself, slightly less annoyed and a little more curious as to what was going on in his mind. 

“If the monster were to check a bed it would be after his eyes are drawn to the closet. Next in that line of sight would be the vent directly across it, which would be his next place to look if not his first and vice versa. The beds are all staggered throughout the room making them less conspicuous compared to the other hiding places, the bed on the far end of the room would be no good.” 

Your brows furrowed in curiosity at his assessment as you watched Chishiya blow a piece of hair from his face, wiggling out one piece of the knotted metal, “It’s too far from the entrance where as the one in the middle is by average the one most people would start with, where as the first? It’s almost too soon in the start to look there thus making it the safest.” 

“It’s them! They’re over there conspiring!” You both twisted around to watch the broad man point an accusing finger at you both as your eyes darted from him to the clock on the wall, which read at six minutes. A few other pairs, relievingly so was your sister had started working on a hiding spot while a few others stood around and argued. 

Your face coiled a little as you replied, not appreciating the accusation to such a baseless accusation, did they not realize the longer they argued the less time they had to secure a hiding spot? “Someone who’s terrible at playing the minority would often be the first to point fingers. There’s only six minutes left before the first round is over and we need to hide. But if you want to talk about this then sure,” 

You stepped closer as you crossed your arms, scanning over him before continuing, “Let’s talk about the chances of you being the monster, ever since you first came in you’ve been all twitchy and acting like something is wrong. Even when we first got paired up, you seemed a little panicked. Anyways,” You turned around as you spoke, “How do we know one pair is a monster and not one single person?” 

“Eh,” Akari sat on the bed that her and Nanami chose as Nanami fumbled to work out the puzzle, she had always been good at those! You felt assured as your heart beat frantically at the idea of them not being able to get a hiding spot in time, “Let’s all calm down,” She gave an awkward laugh, “This isn’t a hearts game, we shouldn’t divide our trust. This is a team building after all which means this game should be making us work together, the last thing we need to do is throw that away on our own accord.” 

“...Team building?” You frowned as you murmured having not been aware that this was some sort of game category...Hearts? Clubs? The memory of the playing card flashing on the screen appeared in your mind again, right...was that to stand for some kind of game genre? If Clubs stood for team building then...there should be no reason that the monster is any of you. Why would they even suggest that to begin with?

Then...what was the monster? 

“One minute remaining.”

The lights suddenly began flickering, “Got it.” Chishiya yanked the last piece of metal undone as he pulled the sheet of metal off, everyone was now scrambling and the few who had not done their puzzle were now panicking. Getting down you crawled under the bed, your back flat to the ground as you inhaled sharply as you noticed the lights beginning to dim, “This is...uncomfortable.” You mumbled, trying to ignore being pressed shoulder to shoulder with a man you didn’t even know besides him having a god complex, “We should’ve went with the vent.” 

“By all means, if you want to try and get yourself killed already. Go for it.” You turned to look at him, dark endless cat eyes meeting you as you harshly glared at him, why was he so condescending!? 

You were about to snap back something before you realized it was completely dark and the door slammed open causing you to jump. Was your heart always this loud? You could see the heavy boots step against the ground making you unsteadily inhale, swallowing as you closed your eyes. You could only place your trust that Chishiya hadn’t picked a horrible spot. 

More importantly your mind was plagued with worry for your sister, you had been so caught up you hadn’t even tried to help her yet...did she even…! You heard a sudden loud scream from two people causing you to stiffen as you looked up at the bed frame lined with wooden planks. You could only cower back down at blood suddenly painting the floor.

Your stomach suddenly churned as you covered your mouth. So he wasn’t lying. Chishiya however looked just as nonpulsed as he did when he first told you himself, his eyes blankly staring up at the bed frame as if this was just a regular game of hide and seek as people screamed as they were torn apart. 

Or that’s at least what you assumed it was. 

After an agonizing few minutes the doors finally closed and the lights flickered back on making you breath in relief as you waited a moment, could you even bear to face what was waiting on the floor? You winced a little before something caught your eye. What was with all this extra wood stuck in the frame? 

Chishiya had already gotten out from under the bed and before you suddenly heard a few girls scream, your sister among them making you puff and breath as you scrambled from beneath the bed.

Standing up your mouth agape at the horrid sight of the female and the broad male that had been too focused on accusing others, they didn’t have...enough time...it looked like they had been completely mutilated, blood pouring on the floor and the smell made you want to gag as you looked away. 

“Well, now what do we do.” Akari scratched her head, also not looking phased that two people had just been brutally killed. Your eyes stayed placed on the bodies before they slowly trailed to your hands, the memory of blood staining them still fresh in your mind. 

“Well we have to figure out where the monster is?” The girlfriend of the couple spoke up, she looked around somewhat suspiciously, “But I’m not sure where we could find it? Maybe it has to do with the bracelets? Maybe there’s a clue hidden.” 

“Oh what about in the cabinets?” The collected man from before offered as he went to search the cabinets, your frown furthered as you glanced around. Everyone was now getting along, still on edge but along at least. 

Chishiya only leaned against the wall, his hands in his pocket as he rolled the lollipop in his mouth, his gaze the same steely one it was before as if he had done his job in securing his temporary salvation and was now done. 

Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do? It was obvious his strength didn’t lie in teamwork, clearly. But then again, you weren’t sure what was going on, you couldn’t get a read on him. Crossing your arms you stayed beside him, your eyes briefly washing over your sister who was working Akari to dig through a desk together. 

“Cabinets and drawers are too obvious.” 

Chishiya’s eyes flickered to your figure, his expression just as cold if not...a little smug maybe? He said nothing in return as you continued, “If we’re looking for a monster, it’s obvious it’s a metaphor for something. Inanimate most likely,” Your eyes flickered around the room, inhaling sharply, why did it feel like the answer was right in front of you? 

Think…! You glanced at the clock, only six minutes left. The rounds were really short…! “It’d be something small and inconspicuous, something that’s in plain sight….but easy to miss...and the game said it was a pair which means there’s more than likely two.” 

“Three,” You glanced at Chishiya as he spoke, pulling the lollipop from his mouth, that permanent smug look on his face as he answered, “Two is what they want you to think and if you spend a round searching for each like they hope it’s game over by three.” 

You rubbed your neck as you frowned, “It’s already the second round and we haven’t even found one…” You glanced around before you suddenly perked up, “Wait…!” Getting back down on the floor you laid on your back as you pushed yourself under the bed, “Chishiya! Help me get this thing out!” 

Within a moment the blonde appeared as well, his eye sharp and keen as they noticed straight away what you were tugging at, “You think this is the monster?” 

You looked at him as you raised a brow, “We have less than four minutes left on our second round, you have a better idea?” Chishiya said no more but helped regardless, successfully with the both of you maneuvering it around from beneath the wooden boards you managed to get it out. 

Holding it up you looked at it, “It’s a poppet doll.” You turned to face him as you smiled in accomplishment, “They’re typically used as curses to place upon people in folklore. If anything is a monster, this would be it.” 

Excited at your first victory you pulled out from beneath the bed as you waved it up, “Hey guys! We need to start looking for something similar to this! If not a replica.” Everyone huddled around you examining the doll before the microphone sounded, “One minute remaining.”

Everyone had immediately scrambled back to their hiding place as you ran to the red X, placing the poppet on it, that's the reason that had to be there right!? You’d just have to see, hurriedly you ran back to your spot under the bed. Making it just in time as the lights flickered off. 

The door slamming open once more as you slowly inhaled, it had to work right? If not...then you were at a loss for what to search for and you were utterly screwed. 

The boots stomped against the floor past the bed as you closed your eyes, unable to calm yourself. After a moment you heard a screech and something rip open before screams followed making you jump. Chishiya’s eyes were on the feet that stood by the closet that had been obviously ripped open. 

You heard the sound of something wet and a gurgle before a body slumped to the floor and you could hear begging before something got snapped in half causing you to close your eyes once more...Did you make it angry!? Was that not it? Fuck. You had never felt this stressed before as it roamed around, passing in front of your bed as you tensed.

Was this your last moment alive? Truly? 

Much to your relief, the door closed once more before the lights followed, flickering on, relaxing a little you sighed as you reluctantly got out from underneath the bed with Chishiya to see what had happened. Much to your horror it was the man who had been so kind this whole game and his partner. 

The monster didn’t check anywhere in the first round, yet he did this round? You tried to block out the bodies slumped in the corner as you glanced at the red X, the poppet doll gone. 

“Why- why were they killed!” Nanami’s eyes began to water as she grabbed her head, “This makes no sense!” 

“If it accepts the doll that means we only need two more. What happened to them is irrelevant.” Chishiya stuffed his hands back into his pocket as you glared at him sideways, not appreciating his careless tone. You could deal with it, but you didn’t want your sister dragged into it. 

Grabbing your chin you thought about it for a moment, “Well...the game said to return the monster to its own and…” You glance down at the X, was there some kind of unsaid rule that if you didn’t get all three of them on the first try that it would start hunting down players? “How would a mother feel if they only returned one of its children?” 

“This thing doesn’t have feelings,” The girlfriend of the partners replied coldly, her eyes like steel of her own as she clung to her boyfriend, “It’s as he said,” She waved to Chishiya, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll be like them if we don’t figure this out.” 

You glanced around the room, “Tell me this, if it doesn’t matter, then why did they give us all these different hiding spots?” Everyone was silent, all eyes on you as if your question didn’t make any sense, your eyes flickered to the clock that was nearing eight minutes, you didn’t have time to monologue, “No think about it. The monster never intended to look for us- that was never stated in the rules. So why did they give us all of these choices if we only needed one per pair? My point being, if we found one poppet in our hiding spot then...You get where I’m going with this? Chishiya.” 

He glanced up at you acknowledgement as you curved a brow, your lips threatening to tug into a smile as you tilted your head, “How confident are you in solving that vent?” 

He glanced back down and for the first time, you watch a cocky wide smirk twist onto his lips, “You’re lucky to have someone as smart as me here to be able to open it.” You tucked your tongue into your cheek as in annoyance as he sauntered over to the vent already getting to work, “As for everyone else, we need to open up as many of these as possible to find the other two.” 

Everyone immediately scrambled to get to work, with only seven minutes on the clock this was...going to be difficult. First Nanami and Akari searched all the opened spots as you worked on another bed. Rubbing your head as muttered, “Shit...I never was good with puzzles.” You awkwardly hung your head in defeat temporarily, briefly letting your eyes shift to Chishiya who was fiddling with several locks, his gaze sharp and you couldn’t even imagine all the calculations going on in his mind. You were somewhat envious of what it would be like to be that perceptive to anything adhering to logic and solution. 

“Aha! Found one!” Akari yanked the poppet from the top of the closest as Nanami covered her mouth, looking like she was gonna throw up being so close to so many dead bodies. You ignored the grisly sight at the second victory of the poppet doll. Akari quickly placed it on the X as you began to work on the puzzle once more, looking up at the clock. Oh no...Oh no there was only three minutes left!

“Chishiya! Hows that puzzle coming along.” You called out, trying not to sound alarmed but you could see the clear cut annoyance on his face as he continued working through the locks, “If you’d like to help while struggling on a novice lock feel free.” He replied condescendingly, not appreciating the pressure. 

You rolled your eyes with huff as you finally managed to get it undone, feeling triumphant as you searched under the bed but there was no luck, “There’s nothing here!”

“Or here!” 

Several people called out as well as you rubbed your head, standing up, “If the only other place that hasn’t been searched is the vent then maybe there’s only two? It did say a pair.” You felt a lump of anxiety well in your chest at the sight of the clock ticking close to a minute and half. 

“Should we really take the risk?” The boyfriend asked as he rubbed his neck, concern on his face as he looked around, “If we’re wrong then we’ll all…” 

You hadn’t even thought of that…

“...! Hey.” You turned to Chishiya who seemed to be trying to get your attention making you immediately come over, if he was asking for you it’d have to be for something important given there was nearly less then two minute on the clock, “Hold this right here.” He immediately pushed your hand onto the lock right where he wanted it, “This is a two handle mechanism meaning that there needs to be two people unlocking it. Push down and out at the same time.”

“Hide! Everyone needs to hide now!”

The lights were beginning to flicker as everyone scrambled to hide, stress evidently put on your shoulders now more than ever. You could only hope he was right with your life on the line, “Now!” You pushed down on your side, the lock sliding as you pulled out, pulling a piece of metal holding up the lock directly out as Chishiya did the same with his side. 

The lock fell off as well as the metal of the gate of the vent, you immediately with no hesitation leaned inside it was dark and hard to make it out anything besides the steep drop off. So he was right, this was a waste of time for a hiding place. 

Looking down you caught sight of wood before laughing in relief, “It’s here! Wait shit! Chishiya! It’s too far down in the vent, you’re gonna have to lower me down to reach it. Time?” 

“Forty five seconds.” You felt unfamiliar hands on your hips lifting you up as you were lowered down, “We have time.” 

You squinted trying to see as you reached down, “Lower me further! I’m not quite in reach,” Your muscles began to ache in your shoulder as you reached harder, growling in frustration, “Time!?” You were lowered a little further, the wooden poppet brushing against your fingers. 

“Thirty seconds! Could you go a little faster?” 

“Could you lower me a little quicker- Ah! Hey did you almost let go!?” You snarled back, grabbing the poppet doll, giving a good yank as it lodged in between the crevice it was in, “Get me back up! I got it. Time!” 

“Twenty seconds.” Chishiya called back, pulling you up as you gasped, pain from the metal jabbing into your stomach evident as you were met with a darkening room. Setting your feet firmly on the floor your eyes flew to the flock fifteen seconds and your spot was all the way across the room….! 

“Where are we supposed to hide!? We can’t get all the way there in time!” You hissed out running to the X as you dropped the poppet down. The lights shut off as the final five seconds counted down and before you could do anything you were shoved to the floor as you squeaked. Your body throbbing in pain and your mouth immediately covered as you were met with the coverage of a bed but neither one of you were bold enough to try and scramble beneath it as the doors slammed open. 

Fuck.

Your whole body was tense as your eyes squeezed shut, you were just a little ahead of the X here, if this is all the poppet dolls...they’d have no reason to go further into the room...unless...Your hand squeezed tight around the wrist of the hand that covered your mouth as you tried to calm yourself at the loud thudded footsteps. 

It was quiet for a moment before you heard more walking before the doors closed. 

“Game Cleared”

The lights turned on as you fell limp against the side of the bed, Chishiya’s hand removed from mouth as you pushed your hair from your face, closing your eyes as you breathed in relief, “Holy shit.” Was all you could mutter to yourself, you had never been more grateful to breathe air in your whole life. 

“I guess you weren’t that useless after all huh.” Chishiya clacked his tongue as you turned your head to look at him, raising your brows as your face contorted into something between insult and amusement. 

You’ve only known this man for a half an hour and yet...something about his words, if you dug down deep past that smug expression of his, was this a compliment? Looking away you pressed your tongue into your cheek, trying to keep from smiling, “Yeah, and you’re still conceited and arrogant but, I guess you have a good reason to be.” You glanced back at him again but you could hardly hold his gaze, something in that brief moment was electrified between you both as you laughed somewhat sheepishly, closing your eyes as you looked away once more. 

What the fuck was even wrong with you? If this was back before today you would’ve totally kicked this guy in the balls and went about your day.

“Y/n!” You straightened up at the sound of Nanami’s voice, your expression brightening as you stood up, quickly running to her as you hugged her tight, “I can’t believe that just happened…” She whispered to you as she pressed her face into your neck. You couldn’t either but, you were thankful you had survived this game. Whatever it was. 

“Come on, let's get out of this room.” You tugged on her arm, no longer wanting to be in this death room despite knowing it was all over. Pulling her out you paused at the sight of the TV and a...register…? You bracelet unlocked as you took it off, tossing it on the table as you tilted your head. 

“Congratulations Game ''Clear ``.''

“...Now issuing visas to those who survived the game…?” You furrowed your brows as you glanced at Nanami who rubbed her head in confusion. You grabbed the receipt as you looked it over with a frown before picking up the 5 of clubs playing card along with it. Odd. 

“It’s how many days you’re allowed to stay now! Almost a whole week, that's a good score for a first game!” Akari called out as she patted your back making you jump a little. 

Almost a whole week…”Until we have to play again to...continue our stay?” You raised a brow, deciding not to ask what happens if you refused. While you had many questions, you had a feeling you knew the answer to that one. 

A part of you couldn’t even believe this had happened, or was it all still a dream. 

“Hey…! Sorry for all of that in there,” You turned to see...oh…! It was the boyfriend of the partner, the gifrlfriend stayed behind looking brooding, “I’m Ryu and that’s my girlfriend Hiroko I was...ah…” He faltered a little, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze flittered to his girlfriend who was glaring him down, “You should stop by the Beach- I...I think you guys would make good additions! Bye!” He hurried not even finishing his original sentence before scurrying off making you furrow your brows at what he even meant. 

“The hell?” Akari raised a brow as she watched the guy run off, “Seems to me he wanted to chat more…guess we know who's really pulling balls in that relationship.” 

Nanami suddenly snickered, covering her mouth as she giggled, “Hey Akari! Why don’t we stay together! We did really well in the game together!” 

“Awh shit, if you guys really want me too!” Akari offered a quirky smile as you laughed, you had no problems with someone staying behind with you. Looking past Akari your smile faded a little at the sight of a white hoodie exiting the entrance. 

“Hey- I’ll be right back!” You pushed past the both of them who paid you no mind as you pushed out of the exit and down the stone steps, not sure why your feet were making you chase after such an egotistical man but…!

“Chishiya!” You called out, making the man pause, he turned around, pulling the earbuds out as he glanced up from his hoodie, raising his brows in acknowledgement, “Um…” Why did you even chase after him…? You stepped down the last step as you wrapped your arms around yourself. 

It was silent for a moment as you berated yourself internally for why you seemed so speechless all of a sudden. Chishiya however didn’t seem to mind, his eyes absent now as he stared up at the hospital, “I used to do my clinical rotations here.” 

You were broken out of your silent thrashing of internal humiliation as you raised your brows, lips parting in curiosity as you asked, “You were a doctor?” 

“No,” Chishiya snorted, that amused calico look of his on his face once more as he looked down at you, “I was a medical student. Training to be a doctor but that obviously didn’t happen…” His lips curved into a frown, his eyes cold once more as they looked back up at the building, “I came here tonight to see if anyone I knew would be here.” 

“Oh…” You looked away, feeling somewhat awkward and unsure of how to reply to him as silence took over once more beside the occasional rustling of the wind in the tree’s, the urge to speak overtaking you to the point you couldn't resist, “Chishiya...I…” You looked away, feeling somewhat bashful, “We...made a really good team back there.” You forced yourself to look up at him as you offered a bright yet subtly shy smile, “If you want...you could stay with us…?” 

Chishiya pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth, letting it drop to the ground as he spoke, “No thanks.” You turned to him in surprise as you frowned a little, you shouldn’t have expected anything less…

“Oh...I understand.” You offered a weak smile as he turned his back on you and began to walk once more, “I just have one more question,” You called out causing him to pause, “...Do you by any chance know about a place called the Beach?”

Note: Whew...! As a lurker in the Alice in borderland fandom I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of Chishiya fics so I decided to volunteer myself and take on for the team to write a series for this little blonde fucker so PLEASE let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!! Also

#alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya x reader #chishiya x reader smut #shuntaro chishiya #shuntaro chishiya x reader #aib imagine #aib x reader

[incarnateirony]

It's possible Flash's premiere #s don't look as hot as usual because of the blow-up after the firing of H@rtley Sawyer, the guy who played R@lph Dibny, after past racist/misogynistic tweets of his resurfaced around the time the Floyd protests were bursting across the country. It sparked debate about whether he should be fired for older opinions when he's supposedly changed (not noting that flash is also a work-place and not just a tv show), but ppl were saying they'd no longer watch bc of it

Tiny violin for the CW (it could also be the shuffled timeslot, we’ll see)

Is AA really the only non-cancelled/final season show they have running above like 0.15 that doesn’t have some sort of major bullshit around it? It would explain why it’s up 20% on the year to year average while everything else is 40-60% down. (Or in Walker’s case, down almost 30% within the same year as its forebearer within the same 12 months period in the same time/slot).

CW only partially depends on live--I’ve said this. But if its live space completely devalues, their ability to sell ads that make up for their costs of running broadcast deplete, their ability to be sales worthy to cable networks is shaky, etc. Like when--was it Spectrum? Turned off the CW as well as several other channels on a related package for how much they wanted to air it.

It’s one thing for your normal shows to be running 1/3 everyone else with your tops running 1/2 everyone else or in SPN’s case at the time a few years back before it had a minor crunch (and I do mean minor, bronlies would never understand how little the descent meant what they would claim it did) almost 2/3 everyone else (around S11-13--and SPN was like 2nd-3rd on the network then). It’s another if your shows are by and large running 1/6th the average and your tops are running 1/3 the average.

Selling that adspace is gonna be a bitch. Especially if the products are all surrounded by controversy.

There’s the fact that the parent companies bankroll it expecting digital profit, but if they’re skewing way too old, they’re not even going to stream well to make up for it (Nancy Drew, Walker at the top of that list, the latter way more.) The others will handle okay digitally, but the question is at what point is it just not enough?

What’s summer going to look like, especially when the US is mostly vaccinated? What’s fall going to look like once decline kicks in?

Again, CW’s products are down 40-60%. The industry average from 1 year prior is 13%... across 5 networks, of which CW is one. If you remove CW’s crunch, it’s actually more like... 6% on other stations. Which is what I mean with this year’s YTY not being the same as other years with more people watching classic TV live on classic stations seeking entertainment during covid. CW used to be the one holding above the line, not diving below it.

There’s a good question-- will it only drop another 13-15% between now and fall, or will the universe catch up once everyone can resume normal and it drop more like 20%? And if CW is running 6-40 now, well... let’s say 3 x 6 20, 40 x 6 = 240? UH. Well we can’t go negative ratings but. Let’s take 0.1 down as the -40. Well it can’t go 0.6 down. 

It will be fascinating to see how it translates. CW might already be so bottomed it doesn’t matter. a show running 0.2 losing another 40% for example will be running 0.12

All I can say is CW better hope, truly, this is “just” boycott impact and that it can’t spread any further. A show running 0.2 right now losing 15% by fall season will at least “just” premiere at 0.17. And that’s where most of their “big” shows are gonna settle this season -- 0.2. Multiple properties are running under 0.1. Many will inarguably be under it by fall 2021.

In a literal best case scenario, unless CW’s ratings somehow get a miraculous bounceback, it’s Fall 2021 average season ratings are likely to look like:

S&L: TBD, but maybe 0.18, if we’re being nice, it it could land at Walker level. Flash: 0.17 (if it even comes back, rumor it isn’t) AA, if it holds: 0.15 Walker: 0.12 Riverdale: 0.1 Batwoman: 0.1 Charmed: 0.07 Nancy Drew: 0.07

While the industry average is probably gonna be around 0.56~

Ouch?

You can go “live doesn’t matter much” only so long.  Then keep in mind they have to figure out what to do by fall 2022 when those numbers go down to like 

S&L: 0.15 Flash: 0.15 AA, if it holds: 0.13 Walker: 0.097 Riverdale: 0.078 Batwoman: 0.078 Charmed: 0.059 Nancy Drew: 0.059

*if all shows maintain retention.* While the universe will be like 0.47 around it.

Charmed and Nancy Drew would be rounding down to 0.0 by 2023. Batwoman and Riverdale would be fighting not to. Walker will be running a strong 0.08 if it's lucky. Flash won't be around by then. AA may... maybe. It's shiny new premieres might debut at a strong 0.15 before falling in 30% like its recent premieres to uh *checks notes* 0.1, woo. With a TV universe operating around maybe 0.38.

 If they tried to air another year.If they pushed through Fall 2023, by Fall 2024, s everal of these products will be rounding down to 0.0 that didn’t. Think: Riverdale, Batwoman, Charmed, Nancy Drew, all 0s. Walker, if it stays “strong”, around 0.06. Everything else not breaking 0.1, even with a TV universe functioning at 0.29. Like, that’s its best situation kind of thing, too. That’s assuming there’s no more 40-60% drop for the CW specifically. Which is the point on continuing to make noise NOW. Because the 2022 or 2023 numbers could even hit by Fall 2021 if the press stays on.

At some point, CW classic broadcast is going to be forced to fold them, several years before the rest of TV channels are going to have to.

Then the question is what happens to CW products.

Remember what I said about kicking CW in the shins so you can hold the parent companies accountable directly? And that now was the time? Yeah.

I don’t think the CW is going to be around by fall 2023. The question is how much we can speed up its heat death, and force companies to make hard choices. Does HBO REALLY want to order CBS products that don’t even perform digitally just to feed money to CBS and not keep it themselves? Will the WB deal in management stand if they’re not married over a child company to host it on Max? How many years until Walker is grounded to CBS All Access? If they even choose to keep producing it?

How many years until we stop being fed bullshit marketing, and start making the parent companies actually manage their products and put it on main TV if they’re gonna be shitlords about the content with a woke rainbow flag on CW anyway?

Keep. Kicking them. In. The shins.

Do it. NOW.

This is also why it’s important to stop streaming all content that ever aired on the CW through paid platforms like Netflix and Amazon.

Those companies pay to host that product to gain subscribers. If the material isn’t performing, they stop paying the IP holders--be that WB or CBS--meaning it’s harder for the CW to peddle its products off that way.

Jazz. Fucking. Hands.

KEEP. KICKING THEM. IN. THE SHINS.

STOP. STREAMING. ANY. OF THEIR STUFF.

KEEP. BEING. LOUD.

Join #IStandWithNadria May 18 7pm est. 

Schedule your tweets NOW. There’s plenty of content to use in the tags already if you need material.

[not-poignant]

From a media studies perspective, why do you think ending mainstream shows "badly" (i.e. not necessarily sadly, but in a way that's inconsistent with the show's own canon events and characterization) has become so popular? It seems so counter intuitive to actively court bad press

Honestly, there are so many reasons television shows end badly. I don’t know if you’re talking about a certain show (/stares at Supernatural), but I can definitely illustrate some of the reasons TV series end badly:

In the case of long series:

* It went on too long because the show creators were pressured because of money and they just didn’t care anymore. This is the biggest reason long-running shows end badly (anything long running is anything beyond four seasons, imho). Shows often tend to caricature themselves after a time.

Often folks involved will lose sight of their original mission statement. In many of these cases, the best people in the writer’s room and the best directors/cinematographers move onto fresh new shows (they get bored, they can leverage their work experience on a well-known show getting repeated season renewals, they can leave) and that often leaves the more mediocre talent who might not be able to leverage their experience. New staff often can’t be assed properly reading through the series bible for sometimes upwards of 100+ episodes (which will have even more canon behind them), so they retcon.

Actors become tired of the same role and start performing with less verve (they can tell when a show is getting less interesting and they are also hit when the writing isn’t as good). Like you can tell when actors are just done. And like...writers LEAVE. The show becomes driven by inertia, and in a worst case scenario, boredom, bitterness, and lack of interest, leaving a show to limp to its finish line.

* Viewership and money for the studio means that show creators are roped into working on a show they actually wanted to complete at season 2 or 3. They continue, but their ideas are no longer fresh and they become resentful.

* This sometimes also happens to shows that are ‘on the bubble’ and write an official season finale to wrap up the series, only to get renewed and have to do another season finale that often doesn’t measure up to the first one. I’m pretty sure Parks and Recreation suffered from this, but Mike Schur is pretty good at pulling things back from the brink. But he was also incredibly done with that show when he finished it. This has also happened to Elementary (which also managed to pull back with some dignity after doing like at least one or two ‘series end’ finales only to get another one or two seasons). But it’s notably let down shows in the past. Living ‘on the bubble’ is incredibly stressful for series creators and writers who have to kind of be constantly expected to end their show at any point, which stifles new ideas, but must also have an entire new season ready to go in case they get renewed. 

* If something’s really long-running and iconic, no matter what you do, the ending will be criticised because you can’t satisfy everyone, and the legacy of the series is that it ‘went on forever’ - the point at which it ended is the point at which everyone becomes unhappy. * I know I’ve said money, but also, sometimes the cast creators are really aware that the financial livelihoods of the caterers, cameracrew, actors, makeup artists etc. are dependent on each new season. Sometimes it’s hard to stop a show for ‘creative reasons’ (i.e. because it would make a better show) when you know that’s stopping the incomes for everyone except maybe the actors who will get syndication money. Sometimes you keep going because you care more about your crew, than you care about a perfect story, and you just hope you’ll keep telling a good one.

* In the case of things like Supernatural, like, chances are high the writers and creators just never actually cared about their fanbase and cynically queerbaited for money. Now that the show’s over, they don’t need to care about money (from that show) or bad press in the same way anymore. Like, it’s syndicated, it’s going to make royalties for those actors etc. forever. Bad press isn’t going to really hurt a show that’s no longer running, there will always be people willing to drop hundreds of dollars on an expensive collective box-set, no matter how loudly fandom’s complaining. Remember, fandom in many cases is not actually the majority of paying viewership.

(My roommate also added here - he did film and journalism; it’s how we met! - that like, people remember the good seasons, and they will often buy a show for the good seasons. I’m thinking of like, the fact that I own Buffy and Angel and even NCIS and Scrubs even though many of those shows got categorically pretty fucking bad as they went on).

In the case of short, prematurely finished series:

* Netflix’s ‘two seasons’ policy. If a show isn’t driving new viewership at season 2 like it did in season 1, even if it’s critically acclaimed. It gets dumped on a season finale that leaves every storyline open and is extremely unsatisfying. This is why so many great Netflix shows end after 2/3 years. It’s literally written into their policy. This is a hateful fucking policy, but anyway.

***

Your statement ‘it seems counter-intuitive to actively court bad press’ actually doesn’t really apply here at all for also a few reasons:

* A show can sail on bad press, honestly. We are taught in film that like, 100 bad reviews is better than no reviews. If everyone in fandom is shouting to the high heavens about how terrible a show is, you can bet that people who haven’t watched SPN in years actually went and watched how shitty that finale was either for the lolz, the horror, or like, curiosity’s sake. And, sadly, for everyone saying ‘omg the homophobia’ there will be bigots who are like ‘YAY A SHOW FOR ME.’ But that’s just while a show is running.

* Some shows deliberately court bad press for this reason, actually. Like yes, bad press can be damaging, but this tends to be true at the beginning of a series. It honestly no longer matters at all once the series if over. I wish it did. But the makers of a long-running show just do not care about you or anyone else who is unhappy, they’re probably popping champagne that it’s over. That sounds terrible, but like, it’s hard to kind of overstate how tired, bitter and resentful people yoked to creative properties can be once they’re over it (it’s one of the reasons I’ve stopped writing Gwyn and Augus as main canon characters - because I don’t want to become bitter, tired and resentful). It’s one of the biggest reasons why it’s best to end a show early, while it’s fresh, and everyone’s still enjoying themselves.

* A show that has done a bad finale, is no longer really interested in the press at all. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not going to cause their show to be cancelled, it’s not going to stop royalties from syndication, it’s not going to end anyone’s career (sometimes sadly), and like, it’s literally irrelevant. People screaming about a finale they hate are screaming to the wind, the people who made the show don’t care. (In the case of a long-running show, they really don’t, they are probably very tired, and looking forward to new projects). At this point, the bad press is like, a blip on the radar, they can always go look at all the good press they got for like 10-15 years beforehand.

***

And finally, at the end of the day, it’s a job. And for many people, it is just a job. And some jobs you do well, and some jobs you do poorly. For folks in fandom, it might briefly be ‘their life’ but like, for some of those scriptwriters/directors/actors etc., it’s just they turn up, they get paid, and sometimes they actually hate their job just like someone might hate their job in retail. A scriptwriter’s gotta get paid y’know, they gotta put food on the table, they will take a job for a show they hate, just to get that bread. And that becomes more and more true, the more a show goes on, the more everyone starts to get tired because all the stories are told and they’re being forced to keep working.

That’s life, I’m afraid.

#long post #asks and answers #on fandom #pia on media #pia on media studies #pia on media analysis #with a cameo from glen who did film and journalism #i did media studies and mass communications and film (and some other things) #anyway like #shows really should end around season 4-6 #unless they're somehow still really special for a while #and even then no WAY - unless they're some formula cartoon like the simpsons #should they be going on past season 8 #at some point you need to put the dog down #and for long-running shows #that needs to happen way way earlier than the finale #and a lot of people don't want to admit it #chances are it wasn't just the finale that was bad anon #the show was limping towards a bad ending #for years #Anonymous

[mcjoelcain]

How to set SMART Goals (and win BIG this year)

Let’s be honest: people suck at goal setting.

Even when we really want to do something, we have a hard time achieving it.

(Need proof? Just consider that the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions fail by February.)

But, it’s not our fault. Nobody teaches us how to really achieve what we set out to do. They don’t teach us how to make smart objectives.

That’s because the problem with how you set goals is that they rely too much on human willpower — which we have a very finite amount of each day. Relying on it all the time takes away from that willpower until it’s depleted entirely.

Fortunately, there are other ways to set goals so that you can actually achieve them.

Bonus: Want to know how to make as much money as you want and live life on your terms? Download my FREE Ultimate Guide to Making Money

Examples of turning bad goals to good goals

EXAMPLE #1: HEALTH

TERRIBLE GOAL: “I want to get fit.”

BAD GOAL: “I want to lose 10lbs.”

GOOD GOAL: “I want to eat 3 healthy meals per week and go to the gym 2x/week for 15 minutes.”

Notice how we’re focusing on the process at first, and starting off conservative: Anyone can eat just 3 healthy meals in a week. And anyone can go to the gym for 15 minutes. Set yourself up to win.

The next step is to make it easy: on your calendar, set 1 hour on Sundays to buy 3 healthy meals and leave them in your fridge, packed and ready to eat. Also set two 1-hour slots for the gym (leaving time for travel).

Here’s how this looks for other big goals:

EXAMPLE #2: FINANCES

TERRIBLE GOAL: “I need to get better with money.”

BAD GOAL: “I want to save $1,000 this year.”

GOOD GOAL: “I want to have $40 per paycheck automatically transferred to my vacation savings fund for 1 year.”

EXAMPLE #3: SOCIAL SKILLS

TERRIBLE GOAL: “I want to have better social skills.”

BAD GOAL: “I want to work on my storytelling so I’m not so awkward at parties.”

GOOD GOAL: “I want to take the improv class in my city every Monday night for 6 weeks.”

There’s a simple formula for transforming big goals into actionable steps…

Bonus: Want to finally start getting paid what you’re worth? I show you exactly how in my Ultimate Guide to Getting a Raise and Boosting Your Salary

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are the cure for vague, aimless New Year’s resolution goals like:

“I want to go to the gym every day.”

“I want to get rich.”

“I want to travel more.”

On the surface, they all seem like good goals. However, they fall prey to the big three sins of goal-setting:

They unspecific. Sure, you “want to travel more,” but what does that really mean? When are you going to get it done? Where are you going to go? Vagueness is the enemy of good goal-setting.

They’re unrealistic. Oh, so you want to “get rich” this year? Are you willing to put in the hard work and sweat equity it’ll take to negotiate a raise, find a higher-paying job, or start a side hustle? Most likely not.

They’re based on willpower — not systems. Human willpower is limited. Sure, you might start out going to the gym every day, but as time goes on you’ll have to use the finite amount of willpower you have to keep it up. Eventually, you abandon the goal altogether.

Setting a SMART goal will help you avoid all of these pitfalls. Let’s breakdown how to do it.

SMART Objectives are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-oriented

So how do you convert a goal like “get fit” into a SMART objective?

I created this checklist to use every time you have a new goal.

Checklist for writing a SMART Objective

Specific: What is the precise outcome I’m looking for?

What will you achieve?

What does it look like? (What do you see in your mind when you picture yourself working towards your goal?)

What is the action step?

Measurable: How will I know I’ve accomplished the goal?

How will you know if you’ve reached your goal or not? There are different levels of “healthy” or “financially sound.” Avoid words that may have vague meanings like, “learn” or “feel” since you can’t measure them. Instead, use action verbs like “run,” “save,” or “write.” Then, turn those words into quantifiable benchmarks.

You need to be able to answer the question, “Did I get it done? If not, how much further do I have to go?”

How will you know when it is done?

What are some objective benchmarks you can hit along the way?

Would someone else be able to tell that it’s complete?

Is it quantifiable?

Attainable: How realistic is this goal?

My mentor BJ Fogg talks a lot about Tiny Habits — little things that start us on the path to success. The best way to achieve a goal is not to rely on motivation, but instead make it ridiculously easy for your future self to do the right thing. Instead of committing to running 5 days a week, start with one day and move up from there.

Are there available resources to achieve the objective?

Do you need a gym membership, a new bank account, new clothes?

Am I set up to do this even when I don’t have “motivation”?

Are there any time or money constraints that need to be considered? Am I being too ambitious to start out? (Remember you can always be more aggressive with your goal later on.)

Relevant: Is this a priority in my life right now?

Ask yourself, in the scheme of all the things you want to try, do you really care about this? When I went to my cousin’s wedding in India a few years ago, I saw one of my friends order his food in fluent Hindi, and I thought, “Hmmmm…I should take Hindi lessons.” But when I got back to NYC, I put it on my to-do list, only to skip over it for MONTHS. The truth is, I really didn’t care enough to try and learn Hindi. It wasn’t important enough. When I acknowledged I wasn’t going to do it and crossed it off my list, it freed me up to focus on doing the things that I really wanted to do.

Why am I doing this?

Is this a priority for me?

Will it compete with other goals in my life?

Time-oriented: When will I be finished with the goal?

Give yourself a deadline to reassess your goal. And put it on the calendar! I like to re-evaluate my goals every 3-months to make sure they are still Attainable and Relevant.

Is there a deadline?

Did I put it on the calendar?

Will I know in 3 months if I’m on the right track?

Bonus: Want to fire your boss and start your dream business? Download my FREE Ultimate Guide to Business.

SMART Goal Examples

Using this framework, you’ll be able to turn any vague lofty goal into an actionable SMART goal.

For instance:

Bad goal: “I want to be healthier.”

Why it’s bad: It’s vague and not measurable. How do you know when you’re healthier?

SMART goal: “I want to eat three low-fat, low-calorie meals per week and go to the gym at least once a week.”

Why it’s good: Now you have an actionable system with solid metrics to help you see if you’re on track. You’re not just getting healthier. You’re eating three healthy meals and going to the gym each week.

Now do the same for your goal. How can you make it specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented?

Actually achieve your goals with habit loops

Once you’ve set a SMART goal, habits are the systematized solution to making sure you follow through and actually achieve your goal.

According to Charles Duhigg, habit expert and author of The Power of Habit, every habit you build has three parts to it:

Cue. This is the trigger for a behavior.

Routine. This is the behavior in action.

Reward. This is the benefit you receive from the behavior.

Altogether, this creates something called a “Habit Loop,” which allows your habits to stick.

And at the heart of any good Habit Loop is a good reward. In fact, it might just be the most important aspect of building good habits.

That’s because it has the biggest impact on whether or not we stick with the behavior.

Let’s take a look at an example: Working out.

A typical approach to this might look like this:

You go to the gym.

You work out on the machines for 30 minutes.

You go home.

Here’s what it would look like if you implemented the Habit Loop:

Cue. You head to the gym when you wake up.

Routine. You work out at the gym.

Reward. You get a delicious breakfast when you’re done.

See the difference? One will likely result in you giving up the habit after a few weeks (or even days), while the other greatly boosts your chances because you’re rewarded for your behavior.

It subverts having to rely on willpower, because you reward yourself for achieving your goals.

THAT’S the power of a good reward.

Of course, it can work negatively for you as well. For example, smoking cigarettes.

A habitual, pack-a-day smoker is someone who has ingrained a Habit Loop that causes them to smoke cigarettes. Here’s what that Loop looks like:

Cue. You wake up, or it’s lunch time, or work just got done, or you’re stressed — most anything can be a cue for smokers.

Routine. You smoke a cigarette.

Reward. You receive a euphoric buzz from nicotine.

Luckily, rewards can be used to counteract this. For example, whenever you get the urge to smoke a cigarette you go on a walk, or listen to music, or drink a soda. Whatever healthy reward can be used to replace your routine of smoking a cigarette.

Bonus Tip: Use a Commitment Device

A commitment device is a method of locking yourself into a habit or behavior that you might otherwise not want to do.  

And there are essentially two types of commitment devices:

Positive devices. These are devices that give you a positive reward for performing different tasks. The idea is that when you associate that task with the commitment device, you create a positive feedback loop that makes it much easier to cement new habits.

For example:

Listening to your favorite podcast while you work out.

Watching a show on Netflix while you clean your living room.

Drinking your favorite soda while you’re washing your dishes.

Negative devices. These are devices where you take something away or risk having something taken away to encourage you to follow through with a behavior or habit. The idea is that you force yourself to focus on the task by taking away the thing that is preventing you from focusing, or you do something that makes you risk losing something to force you to complete your task.

For example:

Telling a friend that you’ll give them $100 if you don’t go to the gym every day for a month.

Unplugging your television so you won’t be tempted to watch it.

Throwing away all of your junk food in order to eat healthily.

While they’re called positive or negative devices, that doesn’t mean that one is better than the other! They’re just ways of describing how the commitment devices work. And whether or not you choose a positive or negative device depends entirely on your preference and what you want to achieve.  

Commitment devices are incredibly effective too. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Harvard released an article a while back penned by three doctors in behavioral economics that extolled the virtues of commitment devices.

“[Commitment devices] have been shown to help people lose weight, improve their diets, exercise more, and quit smoking,” the article says. “One randomized experiment, for example, found that access to a commitment device increased the rate at which smokers succeeded in quitting after six months by 40%.”

One effective commitment device is to use a social media scheduling dashboard like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule an embarrassing tweet or Facebook status to be posted at a certain hour. This commitment device is good for time- or location-based goals. As long as you get to the dashboard before it posts, you can prevent it from posting.

For example, say you want to get into the habit of waking up at 6am. You could schedule a tweet to be sent out with an embarrassing message or photo of yourself at exactly 6:05am. That way, if you’re not up by 6, that message will post.

Build habits for life

To accomplish any goal, you need to establish good habits.

To help you crush any goal you set out for yourself, we want to offer you something we’ve worked on to get you there:The Ultimate Guide to Habits: Peak Performance Made Easy

In it, you’ll learn the actionable steps to crush any goal through smart habits, including:

How to set goals — the RIGHT way

How to create and implement winning keystone habits

How to make any habit last forever

Just enter your name and email below and I’ll send it straight to your inbox.

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How to set SMART Goals (and win BIG this year) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Money https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/smart-objectives/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[oliviasugarbabe]

i hope im not bothering you, but im a fandom writer and im greatly interested in the sugar baby lifestyle, so i was hoping to ask a few questions! is the stereotypical lifestyle of a sugar baby exaggerated or is it genuinely like that for some? is there something that most people don’t understand about with the relationship and what goes on, or is it as simple as it is portrayed in the media? do you have any tips when writing about being a sugar baby? thank you very much, i appreciated it! 💓

Not at all babe! I haven’t made a post like this yet so let me just write out a whole response about this stuff! I have lots to say to bear with me haha. I know you’re asking for your writing but I get constant questions about if sugaring is really this easy great glamorous thing from those thinking about doing it so I’m just gonna cover it all. 

 Yes the stereotypical lifestyle of a sugar baby is exaggerated, it’s not as simple as hopping on an app and getting a date with a reasonably attractive older man who will shower you with money and gifts for nearly nothing in return. I always tell girls this! It looks more like being active on multiple apps/sites and/or freestyling. It looks like hours upon hours on your phone perfecting your profiles, chatting with men who often will be time-wasters with no intention of spoiling you, and tons of dates with time-wasters too. Also, hours of screening men to make sure they’re legit. An insane amount of grooming yourself. Nails, hair, waxing/shaving, teeth whitening, exfoliating, moisturizing, soft feet, gym, perfume, makeup, cute lingerie, not getting the tattoo you want, even perhaps fillers and plastic surgery (I have tattoos and no surgery and I’m not skinny, but I know I’m giving up lots of rich older traditional men by looking this way) Having a spreadsheet to keep track of the lies you tell to each man (honestly that part is fun for me tho) and just way more work than you’d think from the popular stereotype. 

Lots of men won’t give you the money you want, and it can take a long time to find a guy who will and you might not even like him. Sugaring also includes fucking old, wrinkly men like a porn star and 100% making them think you love it. They’ll do weird shit like lick your whole face and you gotta pretend that’s fine too. These are rich, often white, privileged men from a generation and brotherhood that often look down on women and you have to fake the correct personality with each one. Can you drop everything to travel with him? Can you come up with a lie for your parents/roommates/friends? Can you say “no” to bareback sex in a cute way? Answer his call/text when you’re in bed and just wanna be left alone with Netflix? Ask for money without being nervous? Can you keep the conversation going on a date if he’s boring and awkward as hell? Giggle when he shits on your generation and other women? Not feel guilty about his wife he’s cheating on? Lie to everyone you know? Read on the internet about how disgusted some people are about what you do for money? Be seen with him in public? Be spotted by someone you know? Sure, these things are technically optional; you can just refuse every man who isn’t perfect, but a lot of women on here are afraid to talk about the fact that when you’re doing this because you need money, there are often tradeoffs and boundaries crossed in order to get paid, because that’s what sex work often is. I think it’s glamorized a lot and that ultimately hurts sex workers. I need breaks sometimes when I can’t take it anymore and I don’t have a current “main” daddy. Sex work has also done serious damage to my desire to EVER be in a normal relationship with a man, get married, or have kids. I already pretty much hated men but now I hate them more lmao. 

Lastly, like any sex worker, you perhaps will have to live with the constant risk of being outed to your family and friends, and the risk of having one of these men do something horrible to you. 

But yes, some girls DO live that lifestyle we dream of but it’s rare and hard to find and these women are often models or at least look like ones, live in the right cities, have the right connections, etc and just have access to that shit in ways that I don’t and many women don’t. Privilege still shows its face in the sugar bowl! Truthfully, there’s generally, for most of us, more money in escorting. Way more payoff for your time. I’d rather just have sex and leave with my hourly rate than spend all this time and energy being a whole girlfriend most of the time if I’m being honest. 

As for what the relationships are like, refer to the details above lol! Aside from that I should say I’ve had some good relationships but they’re men like any other. I deal with neediness, clinginess, condescension, etc a lot. They’ll flake on dates. Resist spending money just when you thought they might be a serious daddy. And again, it’s not just about being young and attractive. You usually also have to be interesting, smart but not too smart, sexy but not slutty, fuck like a porn star, confident, and sometimes, not show much that you’re a real person. Like, you can cry in front of a real boyfriend. If you cry in front of your sugar daddy, you might get dropped like a hot potato. You know what I mean? Be a perfect girl on his arm, or he’ll find someone else. Some daddies are good men sure and not like this, but still, lots of sugar daddies are part of a certain lifestyle and attitude and they expect something specific in return for their money. 

Lastly, writing about sugaring and sex work is something I do for fun and to be a part of my own community and to give honest word about sex work. I think that writing about sex work is best left to sex workers. Fandom writing is fun and harmless tho! If you’re gonna write about us, you made a good start finding someone who is actually in that world to ask about it! Sex workers write books and blogs about this life and I recommend finding them. There are a lot of inaccurate, shitty, harmful portrayals of us out there and I hope you do whatever you can to not contribute to that! Although....if you’re writing a sexy fanfic or something I feel like it’s fine either way cause I’ve gotten hot and bothered by all kinds of severely problematic wattpad stories and such so like. Anyways, if you want me to keep helping you, you can DM me and I’ll answer your random writing questions. I understand completely why people are drawn to writing about sugar baby lifestyles, it’s just not always what they wanna hear. I hope your piece comes out good! I’d love to read it if you wanna share eventually! 

[burnouts3s3]

A Long Post about Disney Plus

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.)

A Long Post about Disney Plus

UPDATE: Movies such as Dumbo and The Lady and the Tramp have not been altered from their original content but instead include a disclaimer stating the movie may contain "outdated cultural depictions". Toy Story 2 still does not have the Stinky Pete scene. The episode "Stark Raving Dad" of the Simpsons is NOT on the platform.

So, the almighty Disney Corporation, aka, that giant conglomerate that has bought Marvel Studios, 20th Century Fox and Star Wars, is planning to release Disney Plus, a streaming service that has multiple shows, movies and original content under the Disney Banner.

And frankly, I’m a bit… worried.

Let me start off by saying, I’m not here to criticize you, the reader and potential consumer. However you want to spend your money is your business. If you wish to boycott Disney out of some personal philosophy or ideology or whatever reason, that’s your business. I’m not here to dictate how you spend your cash.

I would, however, like offer a humble suggestion before you decide to dive in head first into a potentially disastrous scenario.

So, Disney Plus is a streaming service that promises to provide lots of content to potential subscribers and let them view whatever content for a subscription. Obviously, this is Disney’s response and plan to combat other streaming services such as Netflix, HBOMax, Apple TV Plus and so on and so forth. While Streaming services aren’t nothing new, the addition of the Disney brand as well as the multiple Intellectual Properties under its umbrella.

What worries me is where both Disney and its potential customers go from here.

There’s already early reports of certain franchises being put “behind the Disney Vault” aka “We’re not rereleasing these films”. For example, the Aliens Franchise is apparently being one of those films.

www.alien-covenant.com/news/di…

However, Alien and other Fox properties will still be locked away in an effort to combat independent theaters and chains from profiting by screening those classic films.

Other reports indicate that certain films will be censored or excluded from the platform entirely. For example, the Siamese Cats from “The Lady and the Tramp” or Jim Crow from Dumbo will be cut out of their respective films entirely (and would explain why Disney is so keen on doing a live action remake of the Lady and the Tramp). Another case would be a Toy Story 2 after credits scene where in Stinky Pete is flirting with some Barbie Dolls and promising them parts for Toy Story 3.

boundingintocomics.com/2019/11…

CNBC also reports that Disney will remove its Jim Crow character from Dumbo. “The Jim Crow character from the original “Dumbo” will be edited out of the film version that appears on the streaming service.” This also isn’t new news. Boardwalk Times noted the scene would be changed back in April. They reported at the time: “The Jim Crow scene in 1941’s Dumbo will also be edited out for the digital library that launches November 12.” The scene was also removed for the recent live-action Dumbo remake from director Tim Burton as well. CNBC also reports a post-credit scene from Toy Story 2 featuring Stinky Pete will also be removed from the film on Disney+. The scene sees Stinky Pete appearing to seduce two Barbie dolls and promises he can get them roles in Toy Story 3.

Obviously, this is all legal. Disney owns the rights to the properties and they want to have a clean 21st Progressive Identity to hide behind. Besides, I suspected that “Song of the South” was never going to be on the platform.

But this is part of the same problem that everyone, even the most vocal Anti-Disney people, seem to be overlooking.

In which we, the consumer, are trading a product in favor of a service.

What I mean is that because of the success of things like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, etc., too many of us have gotten used to the idea that we need to pay a subscription for digital access instead of paying a flat rate for a product. That’s NOT a good sign.

The debate of whether exclusive content such as the Original Series, The Mandalorian, is worth the price of admission or whether streaming services are necessary in the age of digital piracy are one thing, but in the age of dubious ownership and the doing away of physical content, ownership still matters.

It all goes back to one thing; when you subscribe to a service to access your content, the people you pay have the right to revoke your service and keep your money. That’s not a good thing regardless of political ideology. And while it’s tempting for PC gamers to pay for what amounts to a digital license to be onboard the same ship, the fact is having all that content tied to one account risks the danger of losing all that data if you should lose access to your account.

I’m a firm believer of owning physical media. For example, I own a Blu Ray of Assassination Classroom. No matter what I say or do online, I don’t have to be afraid of Chris Sabat kicking down my door and taking my Blu-ray away from me (or, at least, I shouldn’t have to…). Because when I buy a physical product, it’s mine as long as I don’t lose it or it isn’t damaged.

But a subscription (and to a lesser extent, a digital license) can be lost really easily.  Even if I were to take extra good care of my account and prevent people from hacking it, guess what? The people who make the content can revoke access.

Remember Minecraft: The Telltale Series? Interesting story. See, when Telltale when bankrupt, one of the games they had made, Minecraft, would no longer be accessible or downloadable from digital platforms, even to those who held the license.

Can you imagine what kind terrifying precedent that sets? Keep a movie or show permanently downloaded onto your storage or lose access to it forever? We’re dealing with a system that makes it so that you don’t own the stuff you paid for now!  

Owning a product gives me a plethora of options. It allows me to keep it, re-watch it, lend it to someone else or, if I decide to hock it for drinking money, sell it. It’s not perfect, but it’s preferable to having something that I paid for as opposed to having nothing. My loyalty to whatever company makes said product ends with a transaction (a transaction that can be easily outmaneuvered through a 3rd party purchase or sale). With a service, you can’t help but be loyal to said company.

If I start badmouthing Disney and Disney decides to deny me access to my subscription, my account or my digital licenses, guess what? I’m up a particularly smelly creek without a paddle.

I doubt Disney will go that far and will adopt a similar strategy to Funimation, as in they give digital vouchers for their Blu-ray series but it’s only redeemable on Disney Plus the same way digital vouchers from Funimation Blu-rays are only redeemable on its streaming service, FunimationNow. I also understand the economic argument in which lots of lower income families cannot afford specific shows and just want a plethora of options. But I know a step in the wrong direction when I see one and with stuff like Kevin Feige saying true Marvel fans must subscribe to said service or Disney saying Disney Plus subscribers will have early access to Frozen 2 or Captain Marvel, the case is there.

This is what happened to things like Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp and Toy Story 2. When you don’t own a physical content of your media, you’re at the whims of a corporation that can alter it whenever they want. 

We all have different opinions when it comes to taste or entertainment. But whatever your feelings on the Disney corporation, whether you think of Kathleen Kennedy’s leadership of the Star Wars franchise, whether you thought the Last Jedi was a piece of junk, whatever you feel about Disney’s relationship with China, one thing is certain. 

When you buy a product, you own that product. When you buy a service, the service owns you.

#disney plus #disney+ #disney #sjw #the last jedi #star wars #gamergate #netflix

[ladybugsfanfics]

Blind Date | Tom Hiddleston x reader

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x reader | Special cameo over phone by Benedict Cumberbatch and his wife Sophie Hunter

Style: One Shot (might turn into smth more but probably not)

WC: 2885 (finally smth long, amirite?)

Warnings: Some swearing, uhh, don’t think there’s anything else, but if there is please let me know

Summary: Your long time friend has set you up on a Blind Date and says it’s worth a shot because ‘you’re perfect for each other’. You’re having doubts, but with Sophie’s reassuring words, you decide to dive in. 

A/N: Tumblr has no line breaks anymore?? Think I’m late to the realization but like... wtf?! I have done my best, thank god i am creative. Hope you like this :P

If you would like to be tagged in future fics, please let me know. 

“Ben,” you say and put your hand to your forehead, “are you really sure this blind date thing is a good idea?”

A chuckle comes from the other end of the line. “Yes, Y/N, I believe it is. He’s a good friend of mine. Sophie agrees that you two would be perfect for each other.” 

You roll your eyes. “Calming, but I’m still not sure about this.” You sigh, and purse your lips. “Can I talk to Sophie? If she’s there?”

“Of course. One moment.” 

There’s a shift in sound, and a moment later, a soft voice speaks into the phone. “I hear you have some cold feet?” 

You let out a strained laugh. “Cold feet? More like I would really like to know who I’m going on a date with nervousness. I don’t know, Soph, it’s just…” 

“Hey, think about it this way. You get the chance to meet someone new, and whatever happens, you tried? You’ve been single since we met you. It might be time to dip your toes in the water? Just check?”

“You’re probably right,” you say, “I’ll just finish getting ready and walk to that stupid way too fancy resturaunt Ben told me to. Honestly, I hope this guy’s rich.”

Sophie laughs. “You might get a lovely surprise.”

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“Have a nice date. Tell me about it later, ‘kay?” 

“Yeah, of course. Bye. Tell Ben to fuck off too for me, yeah?” You shake your head, hear her little ‘will do, bye’ and hang up. God, what did I agree to, you think and try to push the anxiety down. 

You throw your phone onto the bed and sigh as you raid through your closet for something fancy enough to wear. Honestly, you should’ve gone shopping. 

Standing outside the restaurant, cold air nips your skin. You drag your jacket tighter around you, hating that the agreement was to meet outside the building and not just get to the table right away. The problem: you don’t know whose name the table is reserved under.

After another blast of cold wind, you fish your phone out of your pocket. The time reads 08.03 PM. Three minutes late. And you’ve already been waiting for over ten. “Well, I’m not waiting out here anymore,” you mutter under your breath as you turn to walk through the doors to the restaurant. 

The warm air instantly hits you and you shake of the cold feeling from being outside. You’re greeted by a male, who politely asks for your coat. Taking out belongings of value (phone, keys and wallet), you hand it to him. 

“May I show you to your table, miss?” he asks. 

You bite the inside of your lip. “Uhh, honestly, I’m not certain what name it’s under.” You try for a nervous smile. 

He smiles back. “I’m guessing you’re part of the blind date couple we were ‘discretely’ informed off,” he says. “You’re date hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure he’ll be here soon. You want me to show you the table, or would you like to wait?”

“You can show it to me now. That’s fine.”

You type a quick text to Ben telling him to say to your date not to wait outside but just go in right away. As the waiter stops by a table, you get a reply; ‘you got it, dude’ and shake your head with a small smile. 

“Here you go,” the waiter says. “Hope your date shows up soon. You deserve better.” And before he goes back to his post, he winks. 

You shake your head and swallow the lump in your throat. God, I hope he’s here soon. Unfortunately, the waiter didn’t give you a menu, so no read through of that before your date comes. Nor do you really want to make the impression that you’re constantly on your phone by using it when he comes. 

Bored, you look around at the other people there. Most of the tables are for four people. Around most of them sits men and some women in suits, giving you the vibe that they’re all white-collars. It makes you slightly uncomfortable to think that the restaurant is more a business-meeting place than a date place. But maybe that’s just a feeling more than a fact. 

You turn your head in the direction of the entrance and release your breath in relief seeing the waiter coming in your direction, followed by a tall male in a blue suit. From your viewpoint, it’s hard to see exactly how he looks, but within a minute he’ll be by the table and you’ll know. Anway, that isn’t what matters―you try to tell yourself. 

“Here you go,” the waiter says to your date and smiles. He hands you a menu each. You accept yours with a small ‘thank you’. As he leaves, you get up to greet your date. 

“Hi,” you say and hold out your hand, “I’m Y/N.” 

He takes your hand in his, blue eyes smile warmly as he says, “Nice to meet you. I’m Tom. Shall we sit?” His voice a low hum with an accent. 

You nod and sit back down. 

You date wears a navy blue and striped suit that fits like it’s tailored. He wears a light blue shirt underneath and a navy tie. When he takes off his suit jacket, you can see that his shirt also fits like it’s tailored― and to be quite honest, it’s a pretty good view. It feels a little unfair. In addition to a nice body, you note a strong jawline covered in a five o’ clock shadow, and are those real cheekbones? The small strawberry blonde curls atop his head makes you swallow a lump in your throat, only for it to come back up and make you slightly more nervous than you already were. 

Looking at him makes you feel inadequate. You had decided to go fancy-casual; a long black skirt with leg slits on both sides and a black tight-fitting long sleeved crop top that accentuates your boobs. Despite feeling good in the clothes, you can’t help but feel underdressed. Tom is definitely out of your league, and he looks somewhat familiar. 

You both scan the menu. No one says anything until the waiter comes to take your order. Taking away the menus opens up the need for conversation. Only, how do you start one? 

“How do you know Benedict?” asks Tom.

You answer, relieved that you didn’t have to come up with a topic yourself. “I wrote a short story, made it into a script that I sent to a theatre here in London, and they liked it. Ben was cast as the lead role, and Sophie was actually the director. I worked with them for a pretty long time and we kept in touch.” You smile at the fond memory. “What about you?”

“Oh, we met in 2010 whilst shooting a movie. And we have been friends ever since.” Tom smiles. “We actually live very close to each other, here in London.”

“Really? It amazes me that if you are such good friends that he hasn’t mentioned you,” you say with a little joking-tone. “And apparently I haven’t seen that movie.”

Tom smiles. “He hasn’t mentioned you either, not by name at least. But you’re a writer?” 

You nod. “Yeah, mostly short stories, but I’m trying to get a novel finished. I write some scripts too, for fun, mostly, but I prefer the rather classical storytelling with a narrator and all the other stuff.” You add a joking laugh to the end of the sentence. 

Tom smiles. “Hehe. To be honest, I do that, too.” Tom lets out a laugh. “Though, I do read a lot of scripts and I find them to be highly entertaining usually.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I do too. I am one of those that sits in front of netflix a little too much,” you admit. “But I always find time to read. It’s the one thing that’s always been there, you know?” 

You continue to talk about books, and reading, and writing, and acting. Never before have you been on a date where the conversation flows as easily. Even with the food there, the conversation keeps going. You talk mostly about the outer layer stuff―work, small childhood memories, friends, hobbies. Both of you drink a couple of glasses of wine each. 

“Would you like dessert?” asks Tom as the waiter takes away the empty dishes. 

You give it a thought. “Actually, no. It sounds good, but I’m not tempted.” Tom quirks an eyebrow. “What do you say we pay and go somewhere else?” you ask, hoping your eyes convey the message you want. 

By the way Tom smiles back, you’re pretty sure it did. Not long after, the check is paid (you offered but Tom wouldn’t have it), and the two of you are outside, walking along the streets. 

“This was really nice,” you say after a few too many moments of silence. “I have to admit, when Ben suggested this I was kind of… on edge.”

Tom nods along. “Yes, I did have my doubts. But Benedict told me we were perfect for each other. I only agreed when Sophie vouched.”

You laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I did, too.” You look down at the ground, kicking a little rock and hating that you decided to wear high heels (they’re great, but it kind of hurts in the length). “Do you maybe wanna go somewhere? Park? Lake? Ice cream shop?” 

His hand brushes yours, and you bite your lip. “This is going to sound… blunt. But my place isn’t that far from here if you would like another glass of wine, maybe?” If not for his accent you’d probably hit him (a joke; there was way more in the favor of not hitting him). 

You intertwine your fingers with his, and nod. “I’d like that, yeah.” 

Tom wasn’t lying when he said his place wasn’t far. You walked about three blocks and were in the right neighborhood. Two unfortunate realizations on your part; 1. This is about the same neighborhood as Benedict lives in; 2. This is a rich neighborhood, meaning Tom has money, meaning Tom is not only an actor but a successful one and it starts to bug you a little bit that you can’t place where you’ve seen him before. 

You take a right turn and in a matter of minutes you’re inside his house. Did I shave? Did I…? Am I at…? Your mind races with thoughts on what might happen, what might not happen, and your preparations for the date. To be honest, despite your thoughts going there very much in that moment, sex on the first date was a big no-no in your head. 

Tom takes your coat and hangs it up. Without even giving it a second thought, you take off your shoes, which has Tom let out a light chuckle as he does the same. “You’re one of the few people who does that without me telling them to,” he says. 

“Oh, well. I don’t really see the point in cleaning a house if you’re gonna drag the dirt in with you. What’s the point in vacuuming if it’s dirty thirty seconds later?” You smile up at him. God, he’s really tall. 

“Exactly,” says Tom and smiles. “Would you like that glass of wine?”

You nod. “Could I maybe borrow your bathroom?” He nods and tells you which room it is. With a smile you go in the direction his points in. 

It’s a cozy bathroom. Actually, not bad at all. The shower is quite big and you curse your brain for going straight to what it would be like to have sex in it. Also for ‘it’s big enough’ being your first thought. God, curse that handsome man. God, curse Ben for not telling you about him sooner. Actually, as you check yourself in the mirror (makeup still pretty on point) you take out your phone and send a ‘what the hell is wrong with you?!’ text to Ben, with the follow up; ‘you’ve known him since 2010 and you only now thought to make me go on a date with him?!”

You don’t wait for an answer. Rather you give yourself a smile in the mirror and some encouraging words, and leave with hopes high enough (like maybe a kiss). 

Tom sits in the living room, phone in hand. Two wine glasses are placed on the coffee table. You cough as you sit down, gaining his attention. He smiles up at you and puts away his phone. He hands you a glass as you tuck one leg under your butt. 

Neither of you speak. You take a sip of wine and nod when you do. “This is a really good wine,” you say. 

“Yes, uhh, it’s Italian,” replies Tom. 

What the hell happened to the smooth talk from before? Am I really this nervous? Is he this nervous? Your mind goes away with overthinking. Does he like you? Well, he did invite you into his house. But does that mean he likes you? Maybe you’re just a good conversation partner? But he did offer wine, which does have alcohol, which might be because he wants you a little tipsy, or at least with enough percentage so you would put out? 

You shake of the feeling, not believing someone like Tom could ever take advantage of you. Instead, you take another sip of wine, lean back and smile at him. “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?” you ask. That was blunt. 

Tom smiles and laugh this ‘hehe’ laughter that makes your heart skip a beat. He takes a sip of wine and puts down the glass. “You don’t seem to know exactly who I am, but, uhh, I’ve done quite a lot of interviews. Some have me doing things I would rather not remember. I did this silly thing on MTV After Hours With Josh Horowitz. I made up some really silly pranks that made no sense and said loki’d afterwards with this weird laugh and I did this.” Tom puts his hand up to the side of his face and holds it there as if he has a monocle. 

And it hits you. Right in the moment he said ‘loki’d’ and weird laugh. You would like to facepalm. “Oh my God,” you say. “You’re Tom Hiddleston. Oh, my God.” You take a sip of wine to calm down a little. “You’re probably one of the actors I always thought I’d recognize. Loki is my favorite MCU character and I love you in Kong: Skull Island. I am correct that I haven’t seen the film with you and Benedict, but honestly, I have never felt this stupid.” 

He laughs. This godly sound that makes the mistake seem such tiny, but… 

You put down the wine glass and lay your head in your hands. Through them you mumble, “this is my most embarrassing moment. For sure.”

Gentle hands pry yours away from your face, and a slender finger tilts your cheek up so your eyes meet Tom’s. He smiles at you; lips pressed together and wrinkles around his eyes. “That’s okay, Love, really. I enjoyed talking to someone who didn’t know what I had played in. It made some of the stories more fun, kind of.” 

“I should go back to pretending I don’t know, huh?” you ask. 

Tom chuckles. “No, I’m glad you know. It would be weird if you didn’t.” He smiles and cups your face. Your eyes meet. Tom’s are a beautiful shade of blue. Complemented by his blue shirt, they look almost electric. He licks his lips. “You have beautiful eyes,” he whispers.

You press your lips together and smile, feeling the blush creep into your cheeks. At the thought, you notice how close you sit. His face is only an inch from yours. It would be so easy to kiss him, or for him to kiss you. God, it would be so… 

However, is it really a good idea? It is the first date. You only know the basics of each other. Work, a little family and friends, and hobbies. There is more to him, and there is more to you. 

You’re dragged out of your thoughts by his lips on yours. His right hand is still cupping your face, and he places his left on your knee. Taken by surprise, it takes you a moment to react, but as you do you press your lips to his. Something explodes in your gut, and whatever it is makes you shift your position closer to him. Your hands go up and you twine them behind his neck. Tom smiles in the kiss and moves both his hands to the small of your back, pressing you closer to him. 

You break the kiss and smile at him. “That… That was, uhh…”

“Yeah,” Tom says, his voice a little breathless. 

You both let out a little laugh and press your foreheads together. “This has been, uhh, pretty great.” 

Tom smiles and pecks your lips. “Yes, it has. Not what I thought would come from a blind date.” 

You shake your head with a smile. “Yeah. Who would’ve thought?”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston fanfiction #twh #thomas william hiddleston #fanfciton #fanfic #imagine #marvel #reader insert #blind date #benedict cumberbatch #sophie hunter

[jlf23tumble]

Agree so much with your post about the teams and fan engagement ! And love the way you articulated all of that. Although now I definitely am interested in knowing what your notes about the specificity of each team/artist cause I feel like they'd be fascinating to read. Hope you'll post them some day, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us ! 😊

Awwww, that’s very kind! It’s definitely head canon city, I litcherally have ZERO clue what goes on behind the scenes (and I can’t stress this enough, none of us do), so this’ll look hilariously dated when we find out that blah woof was true all along, lmao (me @ myself, thinking of some random Grimshaw interviews from last fall, oh, bless). Let’s dig in!!

For those of you who just stumbled upon this post, it’s related to the one I made last night about how I think the management teams of all these men (mid-20s means = you’re a man, not a boy) are not, in fact, sabotaging them. They negotiate a lot of tricky interconnected arrangements that none of us are privy, to, plus they’re at least trying to achieve the goals their clients are going for. And they’re doing it—the trick is these goals are highly individual and not 100% sensical (at least given our own view from the afternoon, Arctic Monkeys ref, holllllllah!!!).

In addition, these goals constantly shift, as does the music industry itself—I drive my own self loony when I lurk on blogs that are seemingly broadcasting from 2012, confused by why xx’s team is so “terrible” because they aren’t throwing good money after bad to get on a radio playlist, or why they haven’t announced yy “properly,” as if they’re being paid to worry about this level of shit (which fires me up on about five levels, deep breaths in, deep breaths out). I’m much nosier about the signals we’re getting when we hear them talk in their beautifully media-trained way about their musical interests, when we get some of that sweet, sweet fan service with a Gallagher or a Capaldi, when we get that heads up about who’s attending what concert, stuff like that. These signals don’t necessarily indicate future collaborations, but they DO indicate what kind of image these guys want to have, the kind of music they want the public to associate them with.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…their personalities and goals at the moment are all so vastly different, and I truly do love seeing how their teams are workin’ it accordingly. Again, please @ god, don’t @ me…opinions, massively unpopular opinions, dead ahead!

* Zayn. My read on Zayn is that he enjoys the creative process, loves writing and singing, digs collabing with people, but he doesn’t seem to give two shits about the biz side (and why should he? that’s called living the dream at this particular point in his career). His website recently added “tour,” which EYEBALL EYEBALL, but he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in putting himself back out on stage or into radio/print/etc. anytime soon, and again, why should he? His numbers are HUGE without pushing himself through the anxiety-provoking churn he endured for four years, so there’s no real drive for him to do any promo if he doesn’t want to (see: the netflix-like binge dump of Icarus Falls, which could be “sabotage,” or it could just be, “fineeeeeeee, here’s some stuff for you, enjoy”). What other artist gifts his fans with gorgeous covers of such a wide variety of songs that indicate he’s more interested in sharing them than selling them. Accordingly, his fan interactions seem fairly pure and not all that promo-y: he has a keen interest in fanart, he’s done some fan pop-ups/listening parties that are pretty low-key and *seemingly* fan-focused, and recently (with zero anything to really promote), he’s been posing for cute pics and chatting with randos on the streets of NYC. I recently read that his mgmt team is no longer with him, but that sort of folds into my feeling that he’s not pursuing anything biz-wise, hence no need to jump through those particular hoops (I think he’s also struggled with a lot of demons, so yeah, why add one more). Could he be adrift? Maybe, but the next guy is the posterman for lack of focus….

* Liam. Honestly, I worry about Liam most of all. His post-1D career seems very much adrift, and I like to joke that he’s giving me that tell-all about the D one sentence at a time, but goddamn, are people listening? The struggles with alcohol, the lack of focus on every level, the reliance on his dad’s career advice (which more clearly reflects his dad’s financial class, background, and history than it does Liam’s), and the overall confusion about look, sound, and direction also flow back directly into his team. I get the feeling that they aren’t sure what to do because LIAM isn’t sure what to do or what he wants, so they follow in his wake. He’s agreeable to a fault, so seeing him at a meet-and-greet at an HMV in Birmingham last week felt like a step back into 2010 for no real reason, just like hearing that he was more or less coerced into full nude photoshoots for an underwear ad (the decisions to say yes to both of those—who’s steering this ship? If it’s Liam, he needs to tell the team his overall goal, so they can plot a course he and his fans can follow; if it’s the team, ditto). Like Niall, Liam’s actually pretty good at the SM game: lots of selfies, snapchat filters, outfits, gym service, twitter interactions. But generally speaking, his promo is confusing, and that’s probably because there isn’t much *to* promote at this point, other than a mix of collabs, clothing endorsements, spon con, horse farms, and an album that’s always on the horizon. This might be tied to the general post-1D jolt they all went through, like a plane coming off autopilot and into the hands of someone who’s just learning how to fly it. Zayn debuted at number one, so his bump wasn’t as harsh, but the others are slowly, steadily finding their footing after taking some time to find themselves and their sound, releasing songs/albums, performing (or in Louis’s case, going through unspeakable tragedy). Liam’s still adrift…and somewhat admittedly, which is kind of telling in its own way. Just know that my nervousness on his behalf ratchets up every time he feels the urge to assure us all that he’s happy.

* Niall. Truly the one following the original 1D template, right down to working with most of the same people but with more of the overall control in his hands instead of a faceless management squad. Of any of them, he seems the most ambitious, the most scientific about the sound he’s after and how he’s gonna get there. His promo is a mix of new and traditional—radio shows, talk shows, podcasts, special events, twitter interactions with fans, twitter interactions with entertaining celebrities—and it’s all hustle hustle hustle, build build build, as if he were a new ingenue instead of coming up hard on solo album number two. He’s explicit in his goals, which is refreshing, but it means he walks a weird line with fans: on one hand, he’s done with their bullshit, get ready to get rekt if you start commenting on his boring food seasoning or home décor. But on the other hand, he fully recognizes how much he needs them, which is why we get so many peeks into his “normal” life (yet zero percent of his actual personal life). It’s also probably why the blatant tweets of the last two days seem so jarring to me (I might be alone on this one, but I’m not a fan of directives in general, and asking me to call radio stations on behalf of a rich white man to become even richer just rubs me the wrong way, same with asking me to stream stuff to get you to number one…you’ve been there, buddy, how about you calm down and build some character at number 51). And speaking of calming down, it does fascinate me that both Niall and Louis namecheck Taylor Swift as someone who gets the whole fandom push/pull thing right, so watching them try to reverse-engineer her secrets is fun. Louis nails it (that hotspot treasure hunt: chef’s kiss), but Niall’s heavy-handed easter egg dump in NTMY, she would never!! I think Niall’s team needs to watch “Calm Down” about five more times before they try that again.

* Louis. I think Louis honestly has an AMAZING team in place, and they’re all clearly on his side, which makes for a refreshing change. Like Niall, he has publicly praised Taylor Swift for how she engages with her fans, but I think he’s missing a key point: she doesn’t let her fans dictate strategy, and I HOPE that’s the case for Louis, too. His old team *was* shit, so yeah, encouraging people to do fan projects to get the word out was a good idea, but turning that spigot off to let a good (paid) team step in and take over has been, uh, challenging. He’s dealt with more than his fair share of personal tragedy, but every time he gets some momentum going, it feels like something bts pushes him back off track, and he tends to keep it private, which only makes his hardest-core fans scream “sabotage.” Rightly so, he’s focusing on his personal life, and rightly so, his team is giving him the space to do that, even when it costs cash money and throws a lot of shit seriously for a loop. It makes my heart soar to see the potential of what his team can do/is doing, how much space he’s being allowed to process what he needs to process. Weirdly, that’s an unpopular opinion, and a lot of people want to indulge in an angst wank fest where Louis’s the victim of a terrible team that won’t DO anything (nevermind the fact that he’s probably ASKED them not to do anything), so they undertake a tremendous amount of performative unpaid labor that ends up being counterproductive on just about every front. Even worse, most of them can’t seem to process the fact that losing your mum is a blow, losing your SISTER is a blow, juggling other siblings or close friends handling some serious demons of their own in the aftermath of all of *that* is a blow, let alone handling your own personal coping mechanisms, nope, they want Louis to release release release, perform perform perform, c’mon, what’s holding him back, he *said* he wanted to release an album this year, there’s “no reason” for a delay, gotta be his shitty team, free him. It drives me ‘round the bend because it’s the same talk from late last year, you know, when we later found out that at least one family member was losing a fight with drug addiction. Louis’s fan engagement/promo is therefore hella fraught: he has to balance LouisTM on twitter (Mr. Donny, he’s hard, mate), his werk IG posts, and his constant edging because nobody can remember or trust that he’s got this, that multiple things are in play. But he also knows his fanbase, knows that it’s resistant to any kind of change, so I hope he pushes through and stays true to what he wants to do. I was really encouraged with his last promo round because he seems to have narrowed in on a something solid, he’s got a plan, and it’s not, “hey mr dj, put my record on,” it’s getting his fans to trust that he and his team know what the fuck they’re doing, and spoiler alert, it ain’t radio, but go ahead and keep pissing off djs by sending angry tweets their way. (Related: why is it so bad to avoid the radio when all of us admit that radio music is garbage? Is it because it’s more about you than him? Much to think about.)

* Harry. My very favorite head canon is that Harry is Jeff’s nightmare client: what was perfection at first because the Azoffs are old-school promo all the way (no SM, baby, gimme that sweet, sweet paper), and that dovetailed nicely with post-1D Harry, but it quickly veered into mulish teeth pulling. Low profile can quickly spin into no profile, and that really doesn’t work too well when you’re trying to sell sell sell, even if your brand is Harry StylesTM. HS1 and Dunkirk in their own separate ways worked VERY hard to push past the still-persistent way the general public views Harry as boybander Harry Styles, or more accurately, former boybander Harry Styles who dated Taylor Swift (if you venture out and ask someone who’s not a fan), but what I love about Harry is that much like Zayn, he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by all that. Sure, he’s ambitious, he wants to challenge himself and do things, but he’s no Niall Horan. He’s put in his time! If he gets a number one, then cool, but he’s not gonna chase it. And this is where Harry’s team really reflects his goals and energy: sure, they want him to do some promo (that “Do” tweet, the entire bit about the fan in Australia and Harry Lambert’s follow, goddddd, I loved it, petty Harry, resigned Jeff), but they clearly aren’t forcing him. He drops a song that makes a HUGE splash, and the follow-up is…liking some tweets and going to a John Mayer concert (not a John Mayer fan, so that wouldn’t be my first choice, but I respond to the zero fucks given about the whole thing). The music industry has changed a LOT in just two years, so it’s kind of cool to see team Harry pivoting a bit, seeing more SM interaction, the kindness generator, etc., but that said, the team takes their cues from him, and he clearly doesn’t want to do a whole promo circuit beyond persons a, b, and c, and magazine R, F, and A. Does it make sense to have Rob Sheffield write a profile about Stevie Nicks-blessed shroom-eater Harry Styles when his new song sounds like the Zarry combo of my dreams? NOPE, but that’s okay, Harry wanted to talk to Rob, so that’s what happened. The new song is more streaming friendly, and thank CHRIST, a lot less crusty white dude stuck in the ‘70s, so I can only hope that the rest of the album is thus, but we shall see! We’ll also see if Harry’s fan engagement shifts any further into the active zone…so far, it’s been “I’m gonna follow some larries, like these fun generator posts, check out a few dads” and staged photo ops with the same familiar faces, but I think he’s dealing with his own major bts issues as well (album delayed at least twice; that entire stalking situation). I still contend the album’s coming in the next few weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how any additional promo rolls out in this new world order post-gryles landscape, how many interviews he’ll do, but I like that there’s a strategy that seems less stodgy…kudos to the new SM team, at least!!

Oh man, that got really long! Hope you enjoyed, and YES, opinions opinions opinions, and they’ll be stupid in about three weeks’ time, thanks for coming to my already dated buzzfeed article

#so many long-winded opinions #one direction #yeah #and shout out to kim for always checking my work!!!

[noelgarcias]

[ tommy martinez, cismale & he/him ] did you know that NOEL GARCIA was on full disclosure? yeah, apparently the TWENTY FIVE year old CHEF was hiding HE’S LIVING UNDER A FALSE IDENTITY TO AVOID HIS PAST. i never would’ve expected it from our resident ARTISAN. i wonder how they’ll deal with this, considering how PASSIONATE & STUBBORN they are. // written by pepper: twenty three, est, she/her.  

it is i, pepperoni mcpony back once again to bring you yet another messy ass muse. i am once again on that new muse juice, but also kind of on the recycled muse juice like i’ve used this fc and this name before but it didn’t work out, so i’ve changed a lot about him and revamped him and so now he’s better than every babeeyyy. down bellow will be a bit about noel, or rather dante if we’re being technical. you can just call him noel though. full disclosure (badum tss sdkjsdkj) this is gonna be messy as hell, because noel’s inspo is more scattered than percy’s but we’re gonna push through folks.

BIO ;

okay so noel’s family is kind of inspired by the quinns (from ‘you’ on netflix), the castillos (from how to get away with murder) and like henry gouldings family in crazy rich asians. 

dante isaac campana was brought into the world in madrid spain with a silver spoon dangling out of his mouth. you’d never guess from looking at him, what with his hobo chic style and generally unkept appearance but it’s the truth. he came in this world out of a well paid surrogate as the second child of the infamous sofia and gabriel campana. and he wanted for nothing because of it, his parents made sure of that.

gabriel was a ceo and sofia was a wildly successful author, and from the moment noel could breathe his parents had his whole life set up for him. after all they wanted their son to be successful and they planned to make sure of it. a hefty trust fund in his name, to be accessible at the age of eighteen. a place in the family business that he would fill the moment he finished university. they even had an arrangement for who noel would marry eventually, before he was even old enough to understand what the concept of marriage was. it was all planned out for noel without the slightest bit of input from noel himself, and dante  was just supposed for accept that. the funny thing is at first he did.

after all he was young and he had no reason not to. he loved his parents deeply at first, and they probably loved him in return, even if they had a bit of an odd way of showing it. dante’s parents were the type to shower their children in superficial affection. buying them things. kissing and hugging them when there was someone around to see. encouraging them only when it came to pursuits that they approved of. sure noel could draw, and learn guitar, and learn piano, as long as those things were just hobbies. as long as he didn’t forget the plan because The Plan was law.

dante only became aware of how conditional his parents love for them was when his elder sister started to slip under the pressure they put on her shoulders. anya campana was about fifteen at the time, and dante, six years her younger, had to watch as his sister crumbled. anya had always cared too much about what their parents thought of her, about impressing them and making them proud. it didn’t help that her parents made it clear that they would not accept anything less than excellence. the pressure drove anya to substance abuse, just to take the edge off, just to make things easier. it wasn’t long the weight of their parents expectations had drove anya to a full on addiction, all in the pursuit of success. but of course when dante’s parents found out they had no sympathy for her. only disappointment. their father had every plan to make anya, his eldest, the head of the company when she came of age, but that ‘slip up’ cost her the role. instead the position would be given to dante, and anya would be sent quietly to rehab. it was an eye opening experience for dante, honestly. to see just how replaceable their parents saw them.  

the truth is the campanas were fake. plastic. sure they smiled in the public eye and the relationship between the siblings at least was genuine, but the truth was gabriel was cheating on sofia when he thought no one was looking, and sofia had openly slapped each of her children across the face at least once, usually when she got a bit too much wine in her. the older dante got the more and more he felt his love for his parents becoming more of an obligation than anything tangible. 

when dante was thirteen, around the time anya’s second stint in rehab, all hell broke loose in the campana household. initially dante thought that his mother had uncovered one of his fathers many affairs again, but instead it was much worse. his mother had discovered his father had an illegitimate child with dante’s favourite childhood nanny of all people. considering sofia couldn’t have children herself (hence the surrogate for both of the campana children) and even gabriel was struggling with impotence, this was a shock and a slap in the face. only emphasized by the fact that dante’s ex nanny had passed away, leaving dante’s father as the kids legal guardian. 

and so suddenly dante had a younger sibling. it was a situation that took getting used to but it wasn’t long until dante adored them, and the feeling was quickly mutual. while dante’s father could barely interact with the child without inciting his wife, and dante’s mother treated them with coldness, dante and his sibling became painfully close due to circumstance. 

for years it went on like that. the three campana siblings all attempting to impress their parents for different reasons. his youngest sibling to feel less like an outsider, dante just because he knew no other way, anya because she desperately wanted to get back into their parents good graces. but anya never could do anything quite right, always somehow ended up messing up spectacularly and publicly. until one day, anya disappeared.

dante and his younger sibling were the first to notice. his parents just assumed that anya was on another bender, and when the siblings brought this to their attention that’s exactly what they said in reply. but they were wrong. in 2012 anya campana was kidnapped and held for a ransom of one billion dollars. dante can still remember getting the ransom call. he can still remember the sheer panic, the cold fear. and he can still remember his father refusing to pay the money. trying to negotiate with the kidnappers, as if anya’s life was just another deal. he can remember begging his father just to pay the money, because it wasn’t like they didn’t have it. but his father was convinced he could get the kidnappers to lower the price, or that the police would find anya before he had to pay it. they didn’t. anya campana died in the winter of 2012 at the hands of a couple of common criminals, all because their father apparently had his own idea about the worth of each of his children. 

dante was furious and disgusted and grieving. his sister, his confidante and likely one of the two people in his life to love him unconditionally, was gone. dante officially snapped when his mother had the audacity to write a book about the experience. by the time the book was picked up by a publisher, dante had packed his bags, liquidated his trust fund, taken his younger sibling and fled spain with two new identities for them both. his sibling was under the age of eighteen at the time, so the campanas really could have called the police and reported dante for kidnapping, but dante knew that his parents wouldn’t risk making a scene so soon after the spectacle that anya’s death was. he and his sibling would be safe for a while as long as they laid low. and they did. dante -- now known as noel garcia-- and his sibling moved to san francisco and have been keeping a low profile ever since. 

honestly, noel adapted to the american dream like a fish to water. having a new name, having no one in this continent knowing who he was, finally being out from under his parents thumb -- it was all so freeing, and noel really dove head first into that feeling. ever since he’s just been living the life he always dreamed of having. doing exactly what he wants and nothing less one hundred percent of the time (which is exactly how and why he got married, and is still married honestly). he lives his life on pure free spirited impulse one hundred percent of the time, with exception of rare show of responsibility he puts into helping raise his younger sibling. he tries to live his life in a way he hopes would make his sister proud. he’s determined to live enough for the both of them. 

somehow, despite the multiple private investigators his parents have undoubtedly sent to find them, they’ve remained undetected. that is until full disclosure decided to expose him. now noel is just waiting for the day one of his parents shows up at his door demanding he come back to take over the family business. he isn’t looking forward to it, but he is kinda looking forward to finally telling them to fuck off, which is really the only silver lining. 

PERSONALITY ; 

god who knows folks like i said dkjsdjksd noel is a mess in my brain

PASSIONATE THOUGH! god he’s so passionate, like noel just feels everything on 10 one hundred percent of the time. The type to get teary eyed over a dead bird, but also the type to like stay up five days straight working on a project because he can’t get it out of his mind

despite this thinks romantic love is a straight up myth lmao because of his parents relationship, so we love a contradictory king. a bleeding heart but also a philiophobe. 

nurturing honestly? but only with people he actually cares about like his sibling and wife. a dad friend i suppose. 

but also impulsive. like the type to suggest going to vegas on a whim and get WILDLY FUCKED UP DRUNK, but also that really coherent drunk who can be doing body shots one minute and be trying to gently coax someone else to drink water the next. 

thinks he’s funny! sometimes he is tbh. very sarcastic honestly.

a big ol’ flirt just naturally. also bi, so equal opportunity for everybody. 

very touchy feely tbh because he’s a tactile person.

a live and let live kinda guy like actually,,, so close to a hippie that percy is triggered. 

a bit promiscuous but he’s okay with it. he’s a hoe but he knows it you know. 

the most generous person when it comes to money and kindness. the type to sit down with a homeless person and end up giving them his jacket, five hundred dollars, and a new outlook on life. 

the type to hold a grudge until the day he dies, but also the type of person who can’t NOT help someone who needs help you know. like he hates his parents but if his mother called him tomorrow like i want to see you one last time before i die, he would fly out to spain to see her smh he might not talk to her the whole time because he’s petty and like ‘there, you’ve seen me’ efjkdsfj but he’d do it. 

very liberal. literally can’t talk to conservatives without wanting to physically fight them. has definitely gone to a protest and gotten arrested for punching a nazi. luckily was released before the whole living with a fake identity thing could be found out. 

HEADCANNONS ;

alright now onto the fun stuff.

deaf in his left ear and has been all his life. it’s kind of difficult for him to hear a specific person talking in a crowd of too many people, especially if you’re standing on his left so he might straight up text your instead. also if you’re standing on his left side in general, he might turn to face you better to hear you.

noel’s occupation is a chef at a restaurant but in truth at heart he’s an artist. like his art is his heart, and it’s actually very popular and he gets a lot of offers from people wanting to buy it but he can never part with anything he’s made so he always refuses the offers, no matter how much money the customer is bidding. he has refused offers on grounds such as ‘i didn’t like the vibes he was giving off’ or ‘that asshole was wearing a jack johnson shirt’ or even, once ‘pretty sure i saw that guy in a dream once. he fucking sucked.’ so most of his art decorates his and evie’s apartment instead, and he’ll even give some to friends for free. noel actually wants to become a full time artist but considering how picky he is about who actually buys his art, it’s unlikely because he’ll literally make no money. hence, being a chef. no matter what noel enjoys seeing people enjoy his food, so it works out. 

actually learned to cook from his family chef, and hasn’t really had time to get any professional training but he really wants to. he has absolutely snuck into culinary school very briefly before just to sit in on a few classes. just pretended he went there and made a bunch of friends and learned a lot of stuff, and even taught some culinary students a few things. but he was eventually discovered and kicked out rip, but it was a great time while it lasted.  

honestly pretty good at anything having to do with his hands, hence the artisan label. noel is the type of person who knows nothing about like mechanics but can like fix something if you put it in front of him. likes to make furniture as a hobby so hit your boy up if you want a sexy chair. also makes sculptures and does a bit of pottery, like your boy has his fingers in more than a few pots

intelligent in the way that he just has a lot of pretty well informed opinions like if you want a fun fact don’t go to noel but if you want a good insightful conversation he’s your man.

a big defender of the environment.

has a bunch of tattoos. i imagine him with at least one sleeve and he’s probably starting another. is seriously considering a neck tat. his parents would hate it and that just makes him love it more.

honestly got married a bit because it was a choice he got to make for himself that his parents had no control over. the thought of his parents still believing he will be playing into the arranged marriage they had laid out for him only for him to tell them he already married his bandmate was super satisfying.

doesn't do drugs at all, the most hell do is smoke weed. used to see his sister at her worst (aka withdrawal symptoms, two overdoses) and so he doesn’t even want to be close to anyone who does drugs, cause he can’t do that again. 

if you watch jenna marbles i want you to know that noel is julian in the kitchen and julian in the kitchen only

surprisingly has a green thumb? can revive almost any plant with relative ease

never learnt how to ride a bike tbh

surprising the type to get into physical fights when he’s drunk, which he hates, because it reminds him of his mother. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;

younger sibling ; if you’ve guessed that i’m going to put a wc into the main for noel’s younger sibling than you’ve guessed right but if anyone here wants it before i put the message into the main let me know!

claire to his brad ; ... please. i’m begging here. noel is a chef but i haven’t decided where and i really want him to have a chef friend or baker friend who he just messes around with in the kitchen. maybe they even make amateur funnily little gourmet-makes-esque youtube videos where noel doesn’t show his face because he doesn’t want his parents to see but sdkjsdkj he’s like julian behind the camera, making comments and having a good time. give me this.

a virgo ; speaking of julian, noel does have julian energy and so he therefore probably needs a jenna. please give him someone to help with his impulse control. someone to say, hey, maybe you shouldn’t deep fry that turkey in a huge vat right outside your apartment in the middle of may. maybe you should just take a nap. you know?

a love hate relationship ; honestly i just want someone who noel actively despises but still helps out anyways. like he doesn’t like who they are a person, but he can’t leave them alone, because they’re usually in some sort of trouble and unfortunately noel just can’t watch people implode. 

one night stands / hookups / previous dates ; noel’s marriage is open but since he was keeping his whole marriage a secret in the first place these people probably wouldn’t have known that at the time sdkjsdkj but noel is perfectly willing to explain that now that full disclosure has exposed them and he’s got no more secrets to keep. 

a best friend ; or two! i’d love a bromance for him and another close friendship that doesn’t have to be a bromance, just someone who he’s really close to. 

okay this has gotten hella long so i’m gonna stop now but like this if you want to plot and i’ll come running! and to anyone who got all the way to the end of this... you’re the real mvp. <3

#fdintro #n.g. | bio. #i... think this is longer than percy's #how did that happen #drugs tw #death tw #kidnapping tw #i think that's it!

[talix18]

November 21

Yesterday Katelyn called to see if I wanted to hang out. Katelyn is the almost 22-year-old who I call my adopted niece but she’s something more than that. I lived with K and her mom from the time K was 18 months old until she was four-and-a-half so I was her de facto other mom. I know it’s just the slightest approximation of what parenting must feel like but I treasure the memory of her being satisfied with coming to me if Mom wasn’t available. Three-year-old K running towards me when I showed up to pick her up from daycare. The memory of the Christmas when all K wanted from Santa was to see her father and her mother and I couldn’t make that happen – talk about powerlessness. Watching her sing at her high school variety show remembering how I’d been too terrified to sing in front of people…

She inherited some things from me – her opinions and eagerness to share them is probably the big one, but she also, somehow, has come to love Def Leppard (I suspect that’s her boyfriend’s influence). You already know how Def Leppard introduced me to my first boyfriend. I can tell you exactly where I was and who I was with when I heard about the car accident that ultimately took Rick Allen’s arm. I remember that someone who worked at a music store called me to tell me Steve Clarke had died. Def Leppard was my third concert (1st: Asia; 2nd: Stray Cats) – I still can’t believe Mom let me go with Allen and some of his friends at 15. Some people have made-up imaginary friends – mine were real people.

I went up to see K at her mom’s place after work (Kate’s mom and her husband of a year and a week are still on their delayed honeymoon in Tennessee) and we talked about all kinds of things. She said something about Def Leppard touring with Motley Crue, which led me to the Crue documentary I just watched on Netflix over the weekend. I was a fan – saw them open for Ozzy once; had a poster on my ceiling for a while – but the milestones in their lives were vague memories. Of course Tommy was married to Heather Locklear and Vince committed vehicular manslaughter, but that was most of what I knew.

The documentary is an unflinching portrait of the toll drugs took on the band – specifically Nikki Sixx – but that’s not the part that really got to me. I know how addiction works. I had to stop the movie to Google what happened to Vince Neil’s daughter after her cancer diagnosis, which paid off as the next scene opened on her dead four-year-old body laying in the hospital bed. So now I’m having feelings about poor Vince losing his daughter after killing his friend how many years after the fact?

On the way home, after playing a Def Leppard song, the DJ mentioned the tour with Crue and I had to call Katelyn. We are definitely going, I assured her, now that I have even more emotions tied up with these people. I am definitely not thinking about the fact that “Crue called their friends in Def Leppard” to arrange the tour because I assume that means the Leps were also hard partiers and I’d rather not consider all the sordid debauchery that follows along. (Poison is also on the bill, and we’re all down with Bret since Rock of Love. Don’t threaten me with a good time!)

K and I also watched Mean Girls, which I had never seen, and I’m always happy to patch up a hole in my cultural reference knowledge. “Her hair is so big because it’s full of secrets” is everything. Feel free to welcome me to fifteen years ago.

I have to believe the increased meds dosage is making a difference. Tuesday alone I scheduled a doctor’s appointment (colorectal), an ultrasound (thyroid), a dinner/movie date with a friend, a massage, an eye exam, and a dentist’s appointment AND I enrolled for supplemental vision insurance. It seems like a reasonable amount to accomplish in one day, but I’d been putting off some of these appointments for months. Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone? I will never be able to explain it. Trust me – I wish I could help people understand! The best I can do is recognize that I’m functioning more effectively and keep track of what I’m doing that’s different.

Yesterday I committed to flying to Boston to see a friend get married on New Year’s Eve. “Black tie optional”? Hell yeah I want to go hang out in that hotel and see that venue that my amazing friend and her intended are having a black-tie optional shin-dig in! I can’t imagine my lifestyle ever affording me such luxurious splurges on the regular so I need to take advantage of the opportunities when they manifest. Besides, I already have a dress that I got for a black-tie New Year’s Even anniversary party a few years ago; wearing it a second time makes it an even better value! (We don’t discuss how much money I ultimately spend on a wrap and statement earrings.) (Ack! I need to make an appointment with Katelyn for my hair!)

I haven’t seen Karen (the friend getting married) in FIVE years, which seems impossible, but there it is. Karen is one of my original gang of Webpeeps – Webpepes 1.0! Most of us met on a news aggregate website, got to know each other in the forum (4um elites represent), and created a new bulletin board to hang out in. At our peak we had about 150 members but the core group was about 40, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at least 30 of us in meatspace.

The first time I met Karen (GreenBeans/GB) was at her then husband’s 30TH (?) birthday party. Rider (PsiDefect), Tim (GasMasher), and I drove my car up to Boston from Philly (Tim and I drove up from MD) to surprise this dude we’d never met, and that cemented my friendship with both Karen and Ted (Law). Their marriage broke up some time ago, which I learned the weekend she and I got together in Orlando with Catrina (CatWritr) and CJ (Hajen). Which was somehow five full years ago.

The first time I met ANY of these nerds was…I don’t even know how long ago at the original Farkoasterfest. I lived with Katelyn and Vanessa at the time and V straight up took pictures of Rider and his license plate when he pulled up to scoop me and head out to Sandusky, OH. I do know I was working at SSA and it was relatively early in my tenure, so early-2000s? It was also probably the first time I spent an entire weekend with people not in recovery since I’d gotten clean. Several hundred miles away with nearly perfect strangers – who thought that was a good idea?

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Some of the people I met that weekend and after are straight up some of my closest friends. It was my first experience making friends as an adult, which is startlingly difficult to do. My first group of friends that didn’t start in our hometown or on campus or in recovery – people I connected with in a realm where all we had was the words on the screen and our wit.

Places I’ve since hung out with these people include Seattle twice, Cedar Point one or two more times, Northern VA, DC, PA, and Toledo. I’ve seen at least three couples wed and have almost ten kids between them. I dated the guy in Toledo for a few years. I flew out to Seattle for Andrea (BigOrangeCat/TheOtherAndrea)’s 40th birthday party and to visit her in the hospital before she died. We helped Amy (Hisey) mourn the loss of her nearly full-term daughter. We helped Joe (ThedNeedles) deal with his ex keeping his son away from him – some of his helped him with legal aid. We watched each other’s kids grow up and have kids of their own. Norm (Zorgon) just emailed to let me know he was in town (-ish –northern DC suburb) and wanted to connect but was laden with germs – we get together for a meal very few years when work brings him this way. Never let anyone tell you your online friends don’t count.

(Logging back in to the old bulletin board to count heads gifted me with a video of Mike (BitZero) (father of FarKoasterFest) smashing up some obsolete Fark hardware. Good times!)

I reached out to CJ and Cat to see if either one was planning on coming to the wedding to offer the other side of the king-sized bed I’ll be sleeping in in Boston and I’m glad I did. CJ’s got a handful of kids so money is always a concern and I’m paying for the room whether I’m alone or with someone else. We’ll be FaceTiming Cat at midnight and maybe during the ceremony too.

In fact, I’ve been suspiciously functional this week. Monday was meh, but since then I’ve had three good, productive days in a row. I have no specific plans tonight so I could go to a meeting, or I could go home and see if any of this momentum can be channeled into house projects. Coming up with a fictional framing device has given me the opportunity to figuratively walk myself through the necessary steps to get started. So whatever comes of this writing exercise, it’s been worth doing.

#nanowrimo #f**k fifty

[aion-rsa]

Who Is Taskmaster? Black Widow Movie Villain Explained

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Marvel's Black Widow movie features Taskmaster as its main villain. Here's everything you need to know about him.

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With Marvel's MCU Phase 4 rapidly approaching, it’s almost surprising that it has taken this long for the Taskmaster to show his skull-covered face. Taskmaster has been taking on various Marvel heroes since 1980 and has gone on to star in two miniseries while getting the occasional supporting character role. He’s on that border where it was hard to tell whether he’d show up in the movies or get relegated to TV, showing up as a villain on Agents of SHIELD or something from the Defenders’ neck of the woods on Netflix. But now we know he'll be the villain of the Black Widow movie, and we got our first look at him in the trailer.

Taskmaster first appeared in Avengers #195, created by David Michelinie and George Perez, mainly as a cliffhanger villain to set up his showcase in the next issue. A fifth-rate villain by the name of Pernell Solomon had a rather inconsequential plot involving cloning himself that ended badly, mostly because it exposed the Avengers to the existence of the Taskmaster and his secret villain school. You see, Taskmaster has a special power called “photographic” reflexes. If he sees someone perform an action – as long as it is a human movement – he can do the same on command. He’s essentially a greatest hits mixtape of every great warrior in the Marvel Universe. That shot of him in the Black Widow trailer wielding a bow might tell us that he has encountered Hawkeye at some point, for example.

But seriously, he can’t do superhuman stuff. He once tried to copy the movements of living cartoon character Slapstick and Bane’d himself.

At first he was going to become a superhero, but he realized that being a villain is where the money’s at. Then he came up with an even better and safer plan: keep the mercenary part of the job minimal and instead make money by teaching goons how to fight. If you’re joining Hydra or AIM and you want to know how to fight, just pay the guy who knows exactly how Captain America throws his shield so well and can perform Daredevil’s exact flips. He’d be able to make all that money using his skills while refraining from taking on superheroes head-on.

In his first appearance, Taskmaster easily took down Scott Lang Ant-Man, Hank Pym, and Wasp. He was even able to take on Captain America and Iron Man at the same time. His downfall was when he got in a one-on-one with Jocasta, who had no human movement to play off of, plus she was straight-up out of his league in terms of power. The other Avengers caught up and Taskmaster barely escaped.

In the years that followed, he remained the renowned villain coach while taking the occasional job if the money was right. Taskmaster was driven by greed as he had no trouble working for Crossbones or the US government if they paid up. During the memorable storyline where Steve Rogers was stripped of his Captain America title, the government had Taskmaster train John Walker, the star-spangled replacement who would later go on to be US Agent.

Marvel was weird about Taskmaster’s identity. For the longest time, they never gave him a real name, but they also didn’t seem to mind showing him unmasked from time to time. Like one time the Punisher nearly killed him and Daredevil later visited him in the hospital. Other than some bandages on his head, Taskmaster looked like a completely average white dude, albeit with a history of plastic surgery. We would eventually get some answers on his backstory, but there would be some contradictions.

Taskmaster appeared in the second issue of Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness’ legendary Deadpool run where Taskmaster kidnapped Deadpool’s sidekick/abused best friend Weasel. The showdown was played for laughs as Taskmaster, boasting about how he can read anyone’s movements and can predict your attacks before you even think about it, was completely helpless against the unpredictable Deadpool. Initially, this was supposed to build towards Taskmaster as a major nemesis for Deadpool during the Kelly run where the plan was that he’d start gaining the ability to inherit strategies the same way he inherits movements. That subplot was cut early on.

Regardless, Taskmaster remained a major part of Deadpool’s corner of the Marvel Universe and would appear in countless runs. While at times Taskmaster would be targeting Deadpool, other times, he would be his long-suffering partner in crime. One of their more memorable meet-ups had Taskmaster one of many hired guns working for a mobster against Deadpool and Spider-Man. Taskmaster whispered to Deadpool that his heart wasn’t really in it and offered to throw the fight for old time’s sake.

It was through that Deadpool connection that we got the brief “UDON Taskmaster” phase in the early '00s. The art studio UDON was drawing the Gail Simone run of Deadpool while also taking care of Ken Siu-Chong’s Taskmaster miniseries. The connecting tissue of this was mainly Sandi Brandenberg, a love interest to Taskmaster and secretary to Deadpool. But also, Taskmaster changed up his appearance, going from “albino Skeletor” to “street-wise Skull Man.” He was more gun-based than sword and shield.

The miniseries went deeper into his abilities, showing that he can remember every moment of his life with 100% clarity. He can also amp up his powers by watching fight footage in fast-forward, which makes him move at super speed at the cost of his body breaking down if he does it for too long. There’s also a neat anecdote about the pitfalls of his powers, as when he was a kid, he watched someone perform a perfect dive, copied it, and then almost drowned because he didn’t know how to swim.

Also, they finally revealed that Taskmaster’s real name is Tony Masters. Of course it is.

The miniseries and the cancellation of Deadpool coned into a new series called Agent X, centered around a scarred-up amnesiac named Alex Hayden who had Deadpool’s powers and personality and appeared months after Deadpool’s supposed death. Taskmaster was a major part of the series, taking time to be annoyed by Hayden’s antics, pining for Sandi, and being an all-around badass.

read more: Agent X: The Strange History of the Other Deadpool

While the UDON Taskmaster look showed up here and there, he was back to his original appearance by the time he was going after Moon Knight. He ended up getting more play thanks in part to Civil War and its aftermath, going from a member of the government’s pro-registration force to training cadets in Avengers: The Initiative. It was there that he became friends with one of his students, Eric O’Grady, the Irredeemable Ant-Man.

Once Norman Osborn took over the superhero wing of the government, Taskmaster briefly joined Osborn’s inner-circle of top villains, otherwise known as the Cabal. Taskmaster ultimately hated being Osborn’s whipping boy and secretly worked against him, eventually escaping and laughing when Osborn’s empire came crumbling down.

In 2011, Fred Van Lente and Jefte Palo joined together to create another Taskmaster miniseries, which was not only fantastic, but it added a few twists and retcons to the character’s backstory. It showed that Taskmaster answers to a higher power called the Org that calls him and gives him orders. Also, Taskmaster has a mental problem where he can only retain so much knowledge, so his brain tends to dump information that isn’t based on physical survival. In other words, he can fight in countless ways, but he can’t remember who he is or really anything about his past. Just a nagging feeling of unforgiveable guilt.

In this story, he protected a diner waitress named Mercedes from all sorts of assassins, only to discover that not only is Mercedes his Org handler, but she’s also his wife. Taskmaster is in fact a SHIELD agent who took a special kind of Super Soldier Serum that gave him his powers, but forces him to constantly forget the woman he loves. Hence the endless guilt.

There's also the thing that he's been unwittingly working for SHIELD all these years.

While that take on Taskmaster was eventually forgotten about (how fitting), it did lead to Avengers Academy member Finesse. Finesse is an Audrey Hepburn lookalike with powers exactly like Taskmaster’s who may or may not be his illegitimate daughter. When she tracked him down and fought him, it was heartbreaking to Taskmaster, as she only fought with copied movesets and he’d never be able to remember her for being her.

Since then, Taskmaster has shown up here and there, usually working alongside Black Ant, who is a robot duplicate of the Eric O’Grady Ant-Man. He tends to pop up whenever Marvel needs a throwaway villain and they’re tired of calling in the Wrecking Crew.

Outside of main continuity, Taskmaster’s shown up in a handful of alternate universe stories. One thing I find amusing is how there’s a What If issue based on the whole “John Walker as Captain America” storyline that has Taskmaster explain his powers by claiming to be a mutant because back then, nobody at Marvel thought too hard about how he got his skills. Then there’s House of M: Avengers, where Taskmaster does the same for the sake of fitting in with the high-status mutant community.

read more: Marvel Movies Release Schedule: Complete MCU Timeline

Taskmaster only showed up in the Ultimate comics towards the end of its run, but there wasn’t much to him. The only thing memorable was that they made him black.

The series Deadpool MAX reimagined Taskmaster as a grizzled and horny woman assassin who turned Wade Wilson into a killing machine and groomed him in the sexual sense. It's probably better that they didn’t go with this version of the character for the movie.

Taskmaster has shown up on several cartoons and in some video games. One of the more memorable is the recent Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 where he acts as a bonus threat, serving a similar purpose as Riddler in the Batman Arkham games. In a look that merged his classic appearance with his UDON appearance, he stalked Spider-Man through the city and came off as more of a knockoff of Deathstroke.

No wonder he and Deadpool keep crossing paths.

Lastly, I can’t help but mention Taskmaster’s appearance in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Not just because you get to play as him and pull off sweet moves stolen from Hawkeye, Captain America, and Black Knight. Not just for his charming Brooklyn accent. Instead, it's for his rad-as-hell theme song.

Hopefully we'll hear this when he goes into action in Black Widow. I’m pumped for anything after listening to that song.

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and feels that if Taskmaster was more realistic, he’d be doing way more breakdancing. Read Gavin’s other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

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Feature

Books

Gavin Jasper

Dec 3, 2019

Marvel

Black Widow

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#aion-rsa #Books

[marshmallowgoop]

Satsuki meta anon here again, apologies, but I was reading some meta that you wrote surrounding Soichiro/Isshin and his relatively necessity to abandon both his daughters, and wanted to contribute my own thoughts on the matter, specifically around the matter of difference of the nature of how alone both of them are. You nailed it completely with Ryuko. Isshin left Ryuko alone, wounded by his severance of their closeness in her early years and making it nearly impossible to bond with others. But-

-my reading of Satsuki’s situation is one of equal isolation, if of a different kind. Soichiro introduced her to a world where she can’t even trust her own mother, usually one of the, if not the most, strongest bonds a child could have at that age. Coupled with the fact that she was likely taught early on that being a child of a family with the wealth and power meant that people would try and use her for a piece of that, and you have a recipe for a grieving child incapable of trust without major investments of time and effort and frankly, some testing. 

Soroi is in the employ of the family, paid by the family to serve Satsuki. In the beginning, while she accepted his attempts to comfort her via tea and an introduction of one of her closest friends, its very likely that she didn’t trust him right away even if she desperately wanted to bc of how closely money could play a part in that kind of trust. Yes Soichiro asked Soroi to look after her, but is that something he could have easily conveyed to her at that junction and have her believe it? I think the trust they attained by the time Satsuki went to middle school was very hard earned on Soroi’s part. 

When it comes to Nonon, the light novel confirms that she didn’t find Satsuki interesting until she was very deeply troubled, a change that Satsuki very likely noticed the difference in her interest beyond that of two children of powerful families associating together. They may have been friends since preschool, but arguably Satsuki did not trust her until Nonon followed her away from a school that suited Nonon’s tastes and into a rougher one. Iori likely suffered from being placed in a similar boat as Soroi, not to be trusted for the sake of his uncle’s employment until proof otherwise (obviously earned as well, considering just how central Iori was to her plans and inner circle). 

While Ryuko was utterly alone because of a broken ability to bond from separation anxiety turned to abandonment issues, Satsuki found herself alone among others who might very well sell her out for power or money, regardless of their true intentions. Both are very isolating situations. And I’d argue that trusting people with plans and secrets and perhaps your life are markedly different than fully entrusting your heart to them, which has been played up by the anime as a large difference between Ryuko and Satsuki. Where Ryuko opens her heart to Mako and Senketsu, Satsuki’s heart remains closed still until far later.

In fact, because of this, Ragyo saying ‘give your heart over to me’ (Netflix subs, I think I’ve seen it translated as ‘entrust your heart to me’ as well) has always stood out to me as understanding Satsuki doesn’t trust like that, which is what separates her from Nui and Rei. 

Apologies for the length of this, and that I keep doing this your inbox, but this interpretation has been sitting inside of me since 2014. 

Oh my goodness, Anon!

I hope this doesn’t come off wrong, but I think you really ought to be posting these analyses under your own name. You deserve credit for your excellent work! As much as I’m thrilled that someone would want to discuss these topics at such length with me—seriously, you do not have to apologize at all for engaging with my content so much because that is literally my goal—I feel that you should also be getting recognition for what you do. I know how much time and effort goes into writing stuff like this.

Of course, I do understand that there are valid reasons to wish to be anonymous. I just want to say that these are good, detailed posts that could stand very well on their own, without any input from me.

Regarding my input here, these asks remind me of a line from “KILL la KILL Digest -Naked Memories by Aikuro Mikisugi-,” a quick recap “episode” that was included as a DVD/Blu-ray extra. Narrated by Aikuro, the short briefly explains the entire plot of Kill la Kill and then sets up the OVA with its final lines: “As for Satsuki Kiryuin, who led such an intense life ever since she could remember, totally alone… What kind of clothes will she choose to wear from now on? That’s the one thing that intrigues me.”

As you might expect, I always disagreed with the sentiment of Satsuki being “totally alone.” In the tags of one post, I even wrote, in response, “Nah man you’re thinking of Ryuko” and, “Satsuki had Soroi and Shiro and her Elite Four.” As I argued in the essay that you’re probably referring to, Isshin/Soichiro left Ryuko alone—and drj2008 even opened me up to the idea that he perhaps very purposely created and utilized Ryuko’s loneliness so that she would be so desperate for love that she’d bond more easily with Senketsu—but Isshin/Soichiro did at least assure that Satsuki would always have someone by her side when he told Soroi to look after her.

And I think that’s the key point of difference here. I’d never before considered that Soroi would need to gain Satsuki’s trust because I assumed he had it from the very start. My interpretation was that Soroi had to be a dear, close friend of Soichiro for Soichiro to ever ask him to look after Satsuki, and Satsuki—who adored her father, arguably to a troubling degree—wouldn’t question her father’s judgment. From the moment Soroi and Satsuki met, I believed that she would know, just by understanding Soroi’s relation to her father, that Soroi was someone to be trusted.

But I see now that my reading makes a lot of assumptions. Who knows when exactly Soroi told Satsuki that Soichiro had asked him to look after her? Satsuki might have been informed that Soroi was her father’s choice in some way (which is… actually quite curious, honestly), and Soroi might have told her that he knew everything early on, but you’re right—we don’t really know. I think your reading is very fair.

Concerning Nonon, I agree completely. I found Nonon’s part in the light novel to be absolutely tragic. Talking about the story, I once said, “It just shows how Satsuki did not trust Nonon at all.” Nonon was head-over-heels infatuated with Satsuki, but Satsuki didn’t even bother to tell Nonon when she was moving schools. That’s the exact opposite of trust.

I swear I don’t normally talk about my fanfiction in my essays as much as I have been in these responses, but I explored Satsuki and Nonon’s dynamic in a short Satsunon Roman Empire AU. In my piece, Nonon learns that Satsuki is going away by hearing some chatter, and to prove to Satsuki that she’s worth trusting, she runs to Satsuki before Satsuki leaves, declaring that she’s coming with no matter what. At the end of the fic—and this is the relevant part here—Satsuki meets with Nonon again after the world has been saved, and Satsuki finally opens her heart up, noting that she wants Nonon by her side, as a friend and equal, and she’s done with being treated as a goddess to be worshipped.

And I think that’s a big thing you’re touching on here, Anon. Satsuki may have had all these people around her, but many of them considered her to be something more than human. And that is lonely. It’s difficult to reveal your insecurities and doubts and fears to someone who sees you as a god. After all, they’re probably not going to listen; they think you’re “above” all that. Satsuki was very much isolated, just like Ryuko.

However, I still disagree with Aikuro’s assertion that Satsuki was “totally alone,” mainly due to Soroi. Regardless of how long Satsuki took to open up to Soroi, I think she most certainly had trusted him with her heart at least by the events of the series. The moment where the two converse about Soroi’s tea in episode 17 is probably the most telling example within the show itself; Satsuki smiles genuinely for Soroi and even reveals her hidden emotions, readily admitting that she may have been more compassionate in the past.

I can’t definitively say how much Satsuki let Shiro or the Elite Four in, but Soroi? There is complete and total trust here. And while I dislike comparing Soroi to Senketsu because I feel this too easily lends itself to the interpretation that Senketsu is a father figure to Ryuko (which is my absolute least favorite reading of Kill la Kill and one that I consider to be a complete and total misreading of the text #PleaseStopSenketsuIsRyuko’sDadTheories2k19), I do have to admit that Soroi is, for the majority of the anime, the one person whom Satsuki seems to truly be herself with, just as Senketsu is for Ryuko. 

Concerning the episode 17 scene mentioned above, I think it’s also pretty telling that Satsuki’s moment with Soroi occurs just after an intimate conversation between Ryuko and Senketsu that the script even emphasizes as a heart-to-heart that Ryuko deliberately wanted to have with Senketsu and Senketsu alone. Sure, I’ve argued in the past that the real connection between the scenes comes from Ryuko’s later chat with Aikuro and the fact that both Aikuro and Satsuki are discussing Soichiro/Isshin, but it’s also true that both Ryuko and Satsuki have very vulnerable, humanizing moments here. Soroi knows Satsuki’s heart, and she reveals it to him, just as Ryuko (quite literally!) shares her heart with Senketsu.

Of course, I think it’s clear that Ryuko’s relationship with Senketsu is one among peers while Soroi takes on a fatherly role for Satsuki in the place of Soichiro, but Soroi is still someone whom Satsuki trusts with her whole heart and soul. As pointed out, it may very well be true that Satsuki didn’t have that kind of trust in Soroi immediately, but I figure it can’t have taken too terribly long for the relationship between them to become close. After all, as noted in the aforementioned episode 17 scene, even young Satsuki smiled for Soroi when she had stopped smiling at school. Satsuki wasn’t being genuine, yes, but she was still breaking her hard guise for Soroi, and 18-year-old Satsuki is even surprised that she wasn’t honest back then, implying that she feels they’ve been as close as they are since practically the beginning.

I know this got terribly long, but I don’t at all disagree that Satsuki had also been subjected to an isolating situation. It is lonesome to feel, as outlined in an early advertisement introducing Satsuki’s character, that “humans are clothes-wearing pigs” whom she must “dominate,” “rule over,” and “destroy,” all while “relying on no one.” It is awful to believe that you have to do everything all alone, without sharing your true self with anyone.

And it’s sad, too! Satsuki’s struggles to truly trust others lead her to inadvertently hurt the people she cares about, and there’s something especially tragic about how Satsuki used and manipulated her own sister—whom Satsuki was fighting for all along!—rather than tell the girl the truth and trust her. As I’ve written in the past, “While Satsuki is not truly against Ryuko, her plan prevents them from being close. The thought of Satsuki fills Ryuko with hatred… when they could have been allies and friends. Satsuki’s tired, sad frown as Ryuko returns to normal [after going berserk in episode 12], juxtaposed with the Mankanshoku family’s shock and Nui’s bemusement, does well in hinting that maybe Satsuki wishes she had Mako’s power herself… and she’s sorry that she doesn’t.”

But more than all this, even Ryuko points out how alone Satsuki is after fighting Satsuki to a draw in episode 15. Ryuko only gets as far as she does by putting her complete and utter faith in Senketsu—and notably here, she follows through with his strategy even without knowing exactly what he intends to do—and she recognizes that Satsuki… doesn’t bond like that.

In pushing a point like this, I think the show definitely wants viewers to notice that Satsuki is stuck in a hard, isolating situation where she feels she can’t entrust her heart to anyone.

But I think the show also wants viewers to notice that Satsuki is more than capable of loving and trusting in the same way that Ryuko does. Ryuko doesn’t have a clue about someone like Soroi when she accuses Satsuki of being by herself, and as I’ve emphasized all throughout this monster of a post, I wholeheartedly believe that at least Soroi had fully earned Satsuki’s trust, even if it took a moment. Satsuki just about always had someone she felt safe with, whereas Ryuko… lost all that when her father abandoned her and didn’t find it again until she met the Mankanshokus and Senketsu. There’s a reason that one of Ryuko’s defining features is her loneliness, pointed out in her character introduction with the line, “Ever since I could remember, I was alone,” in her (and Senketsu’s) theme song “Before my body is dry” with lines like, “But I’m all alone,” and, “Don’t wanna be all alone,” in her fantasy world in episodes 20-21, and even by the cast, such as when the Mankanshokus note that Ryuko has to be super lonely to talk to her clothes or when even Ragyo tells Satsuki to go join her “lonely little sister” in death.

Ryuko gets a lot of heat for not being as strong as Satsuki upon learning her true origins, but I argue that you can’t really blame her. Even if Satsuki closed off her heart to most people, she undoubtedly grew up with a support system that Ryuko did not have until practically adulthood. Satsuki manages to keep her head up and carry on not only because of her immeasurable resolve and ambition, but also because she has a lifetime of love and support. Satsuki is not as alone as Ryuko claims (and I’d really like the Satsuki-centric Kill la Kill the Game: IF to elaborate on Ryuko understanding as much), and I feel that Soroi is genuinely an unsung hero of Kill la Kill. Could Satsuki have been nearly as strong without his influence?

I guess this is maybe a bit off topic, though.

In any case, I definitely agree that Satsuki struggled to open her heart to others, and I definitely agree that this is a hard, sad, awful place to be in. Part of what makes Satsuki’s team-up with Senketsu near the end of the series so sweet to me is that it is here that Satsuki really begins to open up. She doesn’t look down on Senketsu, she acknowledges his feelings, and in a cut moment from the script, she even outright tells him to wear her, thereby fully and completely trusting him to work with her and save Ryuko. Senketsu noting that his and Satsuki’s “hearts are as one” in episode 21 is one of the most heartwarming things in the entire anime when you consider everything that Satsuki has gone through. She’s been afraid to trust and afraid to show her true self to anyone, and yet… to save her sister, she opens up her heart to someone she had once considered evil and incapable of love.

And after this? Satsuki, despite saying in her introduction that she will be “bowing down to no one,” bows down to Ryuko.

And she smiles openly.

She laughs.

Satsuki was absolutely stuck in this lonesome, isolating position. But just like Ryuko, she gets out of it—and just like Ryuko, it’s so incredibly, incredibly sweet that she does.

#kill la kill #satsuki kiryuin #mitsuzo soroi #ryuko matoi #isshin matoi #soichiro kiryuin #senketsu #Anonymous #replies #ramblings #klk meta #gifs i made #whoops sorry this got way more out of hand than i expected ^^; #also dang i never realized how many 's'-names are in this show

[sol1056]

git along little nonnies

Got a whole bunch of you on related themes, so I’m just gonna do this all at once: a bunch of questions about DW, spinoffs, merchandise, business, management, support (and protest) and whatnot. In no particular order.

Ok there are petitions and peaceful boycotts directed at DW but problem is they aren’t addressing the EPs and things they, not DW, did so how are we to sign them, how to handle this when this could at best confuse the situation and not give any results and at worst, make matters even worse about what we want regarding DW addressing things? 

Here’s what companies care about: money. Everything else is gravy.

If you want a corporation to pay attention to your complaints, then you need to figure out their sources of income, and find a way to threaten that. If the social reprobation is high enough, damage to the brand can translate into lost sales, but the tempest required to make that happen must be much, much larger than anything I’ve seen the fandom manage. 

I’ve been saying this all along: voices are far more powerful than signatures. If twenty thousand people wrote or called in, and said what they liked vs what upset them, that would have a far greater impact. Certainly a lot more than a list of names with no emotion beyond a request that may not even be something DW can, or would, fulfill.  

And don’t even get me started on mailing stuff in. Cute, but hardly actionable.  

Do you know what kind of contracts DW sign, as in, are they obligated to air all seasons, can they choose not to air them, do the companies they work with (netflix, wep) have a say or more say than them? Who gets the last word? Is airing all seasons squarely on DW or more? 

As I’m not a corporate lawyer employed by any of the signatories, I can’t tell you what the contract stipulated. What I can tell you is that a contract of the magnitude of the DW-WEP-Netflix agreement probably had a dissertation worth of riders covering the different types of possible defaults or breaches, and the penalties for each. Additionally, the contract also likely covered what constituted ‘satisfactory delivery’ of the product. 

To take it down to a really simple level: you place an order at a restaurant. You expect to get it, eat it, and pay for it. You don’t expect to be told, “hey, we burnt your steak and we’re out of butter for your sweet potatoes, so have some green beans instead,” and then be told you still owe the full amount, anyway. 

Netflix wouldn’t settle for ordering (and paying for) something never delivered, anymore than you would. Sure, any corporation worth their over-inflated stock options would try --- but that’s the point of contracts, to make sure they can’t. 

Netflix paid, DW delivers, end of story.  

 ...do you think ppl in charge didn't think EPs would tell they made changes and also thought they'd manage to bury it? And then they got in trouble and DW is going thru changes for that reason? -waves at DW goings on and silence.

I got lost in all the pronouns, there. Who’s the first ‘they,’ the EPs or DW execs? Is the second ‘they’ referring to the same as the first? So... I’m not really sure what you’re positing, but if the ‘DW is going through changes’ is implying DW’s got a shakeup and/or is promoting its head-of-TV to president and that’s somehow connected to two newbie EPs screwing up?

I’d say the chances are so infinitesimal as to be nearly in the negative. (I should also note, the press release listed successful shows Cohn oversaw, yet oddly did not include VLD.) DW is not a three-person start up; it has stakeholders and a board and a C-suite to satisfy. Cohn got that promotion ‘cause she’s got a track record going back thirty years, most recently growing DW’s TV division from 8 to 800 in five years. 

Most corporations tend to announce their new CEO or President like someone woke up that morning and went, hey, I’ve got a great idea. Truth is, it’s usually in the works for at least a year, sometimes several years, or more. The only thing that has me side-eyeing the announcement is the silence around who’ll fill Cohn’s previous position. 

But that’s again less to do with a single series, and more to do with what it says about DW as a whole, business-wise. 

What meaningful changes could the new president Margie Cohn make that would be different than the last one? Also I'm sorry if your getting a bunch of Voltron/DW questions lately, you just seem to be the most knowledgeable person on this platform.

I’d be willing to bet I’m far from the most knowledgeable person; I’m just someone not bound by an NDA, and curious enough to do a bit of digging and jaded enough to talk about (most) of what I find. 

A president can have immense impact on a company’s direction; that’s kinda why they exist, to set that high-level strategy. That said, Cohn will be bound by all contracts signed by her predecessor. The TV side (barring someone filling the shoes she left) will probably continue as it was. The theatrical side (which she’s taking over) will be where we’ll probably see any major changes. 

And even those aren’t likely to be on films currently in production. Hell, given theatrical animation can take up to five years, I’m not sure that’d show much change, either. Look instead to changes in investors, new deals, and new properties. 

What do you think DW will do about a sequel if there’s really no bible? Theres tons of plot holes & abandoned storylines. VLD will never feel satisfying, and fans already argued with different interpretations based on conflicting content, without a nice satisfying explanation...

I know this is the first of a three-part ask, but I’m skipping the rest because the only answer possible is to your very first question: the bible doesn’t matter. 

Any new series --- even a continuation --- will construct its own bible. Same as we’d do in fandom: they’ll patch together what they can, fill in blanks as they need, and gloss the rest, or retcon it outright. Even if there were a bible, diligently followed, that doesn’t mean the next series is automatically beholden to it. Some franchises would care (ie Star Wars) while others might let a reboot mess with the details (ie Star Trek). 

For every continuation, there’s gradations in between, since otherwise what’s the interest for creative minds, if you’re obligated to follow someone else’s script exactly? So, no. The absence of a story bible doesn’t preclude the next iteration making its own, as it needs, to whatever extent it requires. 

I was wandering around the hot topic online store, and i noticed a shirt that raised a few flags and questions. it's the 'Voltron Location' shirt. it has all the paladins in different places in a star globe chart thing? with what might possibly be planet designations. plus Lance is the only one not inside his blue colored bubble. Keith is in Red and Shiro in Black again. it's interesting at least.

Nearly all the shirts use the same base images, just changed up. It feels a little like someone handed a designer a half-dozen images with a request for forty-something designs --- and now HT is just throwing them all at the wall to see what sticks (or sells). 

HT’s stuff has been pretty consistent, from what I’ve heard: Shiro is Black, Keith is Red, etc. Considering the t-shirts seem to be selling out regularly (along with various other sidelines), I’d say someone is savvy as to the fact that the segment of fandom spending the most money is also the segment that prefers the S1/S2 lineup. 

If that’s what customers want, it’s smart business for DW to provide.

(Yes, that applies on more than one level.)

There are VLD comic books being released by LionForge Comics, are those considered canon? Do LM and JDS have any involvement? They take place before Season 7and8 but I don't wanna support the original EPs.

Every fandom has its own stand on what counts as canon. Sometimes (especially with adaptations) you’ll find fandoms being explicit as to whether they’re book or movie (ie HP and LotR). I expect the same will eventually shake out in VLD’s fandom, too. 

From everything I’ve heard, Hedrick and Iverson were handed the comics and ran with it. I suppose that would argue for seeing the comics as canon, being they were written by people also writing the main series... but from what I can tell, it’s one-way. The show affected the comics, but nothing in the comics ever affected the series.

That said, your purchases have nothing to do with the original EPs. All you’re doing is telling DW you like the VLD-iteration of Voltron.

What are your thoughts on the final vld poster? I feel like it’s missing the end. Allura is randomly staring back into nothing.

It’s a clever idea to do a poster for each season, but it’s not something I’ve ever paid any attention to, really. If it were drawn by the head writer? That might mean the artist had more insight than, say, a storyboarder or animator. But even then... cool picture, still not-canon. I’m only interested in canon.

Do you think that Voltron was rushed purposely by the EP's. [...] Wouldn't this effect the quality of, well, everything? I feel as if they got frustrated with the show at that point and just wanted out.

Dude. There are times I sit here and just stare into space, bewildered yet again not just at the thought of 39 episodes released in one year --- but doing that with 26 as a last-minute cut-and-paste rearrangement. All I can tell you is that what I’ve seen from animation people and aficionados (and friends) is that three full seasons in one calendar year is just bonkers. 

If DW hadn’t wanted the schedule that packed, the EPs aren’t the ones getting the say. That’s a DW-Netflix thing. I really wonder whether DW used VLD as a guinea pig. TH went a year between S1 and S2, and the numbers slumped badly. Perhaps DW wanted to know if more episodes, more often, would keep fan interest high? DW has experienced execs, but they’re all from broadcast; how you arrange and time things in the brave new world of binge-watching is a completely different beast. 

So, it’s possible it was less of a rush job to get the show out, and more from a desire to see what'd happen to release so much, so close together. 

I still think it’s a bonkers schedule, though.

"Relaunch the whole property" sounds like they won't continue expanding the whole vld universe and they'll make a new itineration. Though if they do a spin-off it'd likely be on the vld universe surrounding the new "Legendary Defenders" from the epilogue. And "especially given the response" do you think after the negative response from s8, wouldn't be better for WEP to not keep working with Dreamworks? Or maybe they need to clean their brand from vld fiasco? What can you say about all of this?

I can say you might try re-reading, because boy is that a radical interpretation of the text. Remember, Jeremy was speaking before S8, and all indication is that he was caught off-guard as much as the fans. Re-read in light of Jeremy (at the time) appearing to expect S8 to be a crowd-pleaser.   

...I'm becoming more confident in my belief that DW has something planned for Voltron. I mean they are still heavily promoting the show, LionForge is still publishing Voltron comics, and merchandise is still being made. These don't seem like the actions of a company trying to get people to forget a show. 

You’re not wrong. Up to the last few days of 2018, DW gave every indication they wanted S8 quietly buried. Nothing they’ve done since has fit that pattern --- including the anomaly of failing to announce their 2019 series. Something is going on, that’s for certain. 

Did DW really just throw the VAs to the wolves [for] three days? and there's still no official stance? One panel was enough. They had [the VAs] take the heat for them? But thankfully fans felt sorry for them? Which could also have been the goal, shut the fans up [with] the VAs of the characters who got the worst treatment and who love their characters ... Yes DW this really makes me trust you /sarcasm/

I don’t think that was the original plan. Let’s pretend DW released its 2019 schedule via press release in the first few days of January, and among those was an announcement of a VLD sequel or spinoff, coming late 2019. 

People wouldn’t be fussing over putting the VAs through three panels. They’d be complaining we didn’t get the biggest room for every panel. The majority of the fandom doesn’t trust the EPs, and is wary of DW --- really, the only ones who retain any goodwill, at this point, are the VAs. So who better than to assure a nervous fandom about the goodness of the second iteration than the VAs whose characters were most shafted by the first iteration?

What breaks this is that immediately after S8 dropped, Josh and Kimberly went silent on twitter. AJ slipped into passive-aggressive snarking; Jeremy fell off the radar and usually he’s pretty interactive with his fans. Bex pretty much wiped  VLD from her stream, possibly including deleting older tweets. Neil tried to engage and made a hash of it, bless his heart. 

Josh and Kimberly are consummate professionals who reliably promote the series after every season drop, but their radio silence continued for almost two weeks. This wasn’t the first season that came saddled with controversy; if there was a time to go quiet, it was after S7. Something else was going on. 

I have strong suspicions backed by research, but if I’m right, I’d be stepping on a major legal landmine. In the interest of not getting blown up, I’ll only say that the VAs appearing for those three panels (and their low-key and mostly diplomatic hedging around VLD’s conclusion) was a good sign that all parties involved are willing to work things out.   

[DW was] quick to handle the Season 7 backlash and have stayed mum on what is arguably a much worse reaction to the 8th and final season.

and

I believe the S8 of voltron we got was not the original ending we were supposed to get and highly edited. My question is why? What was the point of changing the original ending? [The] radio silence from DW and the cast is driving me nuts. I wish DW would make a statement.

DW is in an interesting place. Its TV side is barely five years old, but dominated by execs with long-time broadcast experience, predating vibrant interactivity afforded by platforms like twitter, tumblr, or instagram. DW’s background as a theatrical company also seems to incline it away from any ongoing engagement with the audience. It releases a movie and by the time that hits theaters, DW is onto the next thing. 

It’s a strong contrast with production studios like Zagtoon (Miraculous), who penned an open letter to their fandom about production delays. Or little studios like Wonderstorm (The Dragon Prince) whose deft use of twitter and tumblr sets their brand apart. Or Federator (Castlevania), with their witty marketing campaigns and willingness to engage with fans. Even Disney was willing to be open about its errors with Tiana, and to make clear how it was striving to do better --- so there’s no excuse that only small studios do such outreach.

My guess is that DW's core leadership is from the school of business in which admitting a mistake is tantamount to ritual suicide. Don’t blink first, or maybe the rule is never let them see you sweat, but whatever it is, DW is turning into a textbook case of how silence can damage a brand. 

Companies have multiple avenues to reach customers directly, now. Our modern technologies are a two-way street, and good companies leverage that to create not passive fandoms but active communities. It takes work, careful planning, and some level of transparency --- something old-school execs find highly uncomfortable, to be honest --- but in this day and age, those are crucial building-blocks to achieving any kind of audience loyalty.

DW isn’t going to render itself obsolete (at least not overnight), but it's on a track to end up as the studio whose work audiences only watch when there’s nothing better being offered. Unfortunately for DW, there’s a hell of a lot of other studios out there, and they're all offering something better. 

#vld #voltron #television production #marketing #business #sol thinks about stuff

[snarky-badger]

Ultron prompt: reader gets into a friendly chat online and makes friends with them after a while, only to start noticing odd things start to happen: out of nowhere money deposits in their bank account, gifts showing up when they know they didn't order anything, etc, until late one night someone shows up unannounced in their living room

I spent two days on this anon! It’s longer than usual, I just couldn’t stop writing. Am open to even writing a sequel if you like this one enough and request one. I hope it’s to your liking!

Words/Sentences between [these] are chat conversations.

You groaned as you shuffled into your room, grimacing as you dumped your heavy backpack onto the floor with a thud. Noise from your roommates made you kick your door shut, shoulders slumping when the bickering faded to a dull mumble.

It had been a long day. You were in the middle of a twenty-four week long Auto Mechanics course. And that was just for cars and trucks. If you wanted to push further, you’d need another course to qualify to work on Big Rigs, and another for Construction Vehicles, like dump trucks and front loaders.

Your dream however, was racing cars. Any racing cars. Drag racing, Nascar, anything, hell, even big rig racing. And for that, you needed a lot of training. You’d have to work up from mere cars to more powerful engines.

You’d become enamored with mechanics when you’d been young and watching your father work on his old Plymouth Barracuda. He’d been able to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together, almost with his eyes closed. He’d taught you everything he’d known, of course, but that wasn’t enough. You needed a degree, and proper training.

Proper training that cost an arm a leg and half a liver. It was why you were sharing an old, run down, house with three others. Cheaper than Campus Apartments, though paying your way through University and covering rent still forced you to shop at a dollar store for food.

You were lucky in the fact that you had a part-time job at a mechanic downtown. The elderly man had been more than willing to take you on as an apprentice, and was always welcoming to your endless questions when you hadn’t quite understood something in class.

Added to the general stress of things was the fact that you were the only female in a class and occupation mostly dominated by men. The jeers and bullying and sexist comments from your fellow ‘students’ were murder on your psyche, self-esteem and general ability to not beat someone over the head with a wrench.

Judging that the fighting outside your door was about the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of the fridge, you grabbed up a change of clothes and booked it to the shower. It was a short one - ten minutes, timed. Everyone in the house was trying to save money, and that included taking short showers, living on more Ramen than was healthy, and keeping the temperature of the house low to save funds on power. Well, as much as all of you could, considering that all of you had laptops and were Netflix addicts.

It took almost five minutes to get the grime out from under your fingernails, but you were as clean as you could be by the end of the shower. You rushed back into your room, shivering from the cool water, and quickly donned some jogging pants and a tank top that had a Wonder Woman logo on it.

A chime from your phone drew your attention, and you idly checked the message, smiling a little when you saw who it was.

It had started completely by accident. You’d been in a chat, throwing ideas back and forth with a group of people about Nascar engines and how to increase performance when someone had popped in and noted that using a cleaner fuel or incorporating a catalytic converter would save on the disgustingly high emissions each car poured out per race.

Others had booed and tried to kick the person off, you’d been intrigued and opened a separate chat window to ‘pick their brain’ as it were.

What had started as a mere exchange of ideas had turned into a budding friendship.

Grinning, you opened your laptop and powered it on, idly pushing pieces of a half-built carburetor to the far corner of the desk before going to lift your heavy backpack and slamming it down onto the empty spot.

‘SmoothCriminal’ was already waiting on chat when you finally logged in. Over the months, he’d come to know your usual class hours. You wondered what he did, to have so much time to chat, but with the connectivity everyone had with phones and such, you shrugged it off.

You did a bit of ‘hunt and peck’, typing one-handed while opening your bag with the other. [Hey you. Just got home. You have excellent timing.]

[*chuckle* You did give me your hours at class and work.]

[*raspberry* Smart-ass.] You turned away from the laptop as you pulled out your books, including a new one that had cost you a whopping hundred-and-twenty bucks. It was murder on your tight budget.

[I try. How were classes?]

[Meh. Same old, same old. Kinda just more in depth stuff that Dad taught me. They dumped a new book on us too. Blew my monthly budget out of the water.]

[That bad?]

[Hundred twenty buckaroos. For something that will be obsolete in six months. I’ll probably end up using it as a door stop. Apparently the teacher had ‘forgotten’ to mention that we needed it.]

[Lovely. Which means what for you?]

[Dollar store Ramen for the next two weeks until I get my pay from apprenticing with that mechanic downtown.]

[That’s not food. That junk is mostly salt and cheap carbohydrates. You’ll get sick eating that garbage.]

You huffed. [Money’s tight. Like, painfully tight. I need to make rent, and pay my share of the power, internet and water bills. Next month I need to renew my bus pass, and, and, the property and school taxes for the house we’re renting is coming up - that’s like three-hundred bucks I need to come up with. I have like, zero wiggle room.]

[The way your country piles debt on students is deplorable. University is free in some countries overseas, did you know that? Completely free education.]

[Lucky them. I, meanwhile, need to win the lottery if I want to be able to pay the fee next semester.]

[….your parents can’t help?]

[Nah. They have enough problems.]

[*rolls eyes* They’re your parents. I’m sure they’d help if they knew you were in trouble.]

[Dude. No. They have enough trouble without me adding to it. Mom had to skip a month’s worth of her insulin meds so Dad could get his high blood pressure prescription filled.]

[That’s messed up. Ever think of changing countries?]

You shook your head. He had to be in Canada or someplace where things were covered, because he obviously didn’t know how life worked in the States. [Again. With what money?]

[…..I could help.]

[I appreciate the thought, but nah. It would feel too much like charity. Besides, I’d get mad if I found out you’d put yourself in financial trouble just to bail my ass out. A little more instant Ramen won’t kill me.]

[Bleh.]

A snicker left you. [Not your fave, hm?]

[It’s not healthy, so no.] A pause. [Damn. Something’s come up. Same time tomorrow?]

[Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Take care.]

[You too.]

A sigh left you as he logged off, and you leaned back in your chair, stretching your arms up above your head. It was for the best. You needed food and you had some serious studying to do.

The next few days progressed as they usually did. A whirl of school, work, studying and a general lack of sleep and actual food. Chatting with ‘SmoothCriminal’ was always the highlight of your days, and more than once he’d had to mother-hen you into going to bed when the chats stretched on into the night.

It was Monday when something odd happened.

“Yo!”

You rolled your eyes at your roommates holler and rose from your bed where you’d been studying to stick your head out your room door. You figured he was only yelling for you, because the other two people you shared the house with where away at class. “What?!”

“You got a package!”

“The fuck?” Scowling, you headed downstairs, blinking as David pushed a large box into your arms. “I didn’t order anything.”

“S’got your name. It’s from Hello Fresh.” When you blinked at him stupidly, he rolled his eyes at you. “Y’know, it’s that fresh food thing that delivers meal kits to people. Pre-portioned and all that jazz. You just cook it up.”

“Awah?” Stunned, certain it was a mistake, you carried the box to the kitchen, David following in your footsteps. After using a steak knife to cut through the tape you opened the box to discover a mass of greens, potatoes, and four portions of salmon. Enough to feed the entire house-full.

Taking advantage of your shock, David snagged an invoice from the top of the pile of food. “Says here you’ve been signed up for a years worth of meals. ‘Each package contains four portions’. Geez. You get yourself a Sugar Daddy or something?”

“Oh, shut it.” You snatched the paper out of his hands and scowled at it. “Does it say who paid the bill? A card number, anything? Maybe I can call– Dude! What are you doing?”

David rolled his eyes at you as he started pulling food out of the box. “I’m going to cook the free food we’ve been blessed with so we can eat?”

You glared at the ‘are you stupid’ tone in his voice. “This can’t be mine.”

“Invoice says it is. And that’s good enough for me.” Pans clattered as he dug through the cupboard for a frying pan.

Lost, you stared down at the invoice again, eyes scrutinizing every single line and work until. “’Smoothcriminal’?!”

David poked his head out of the lower cupboards. “Excuse me?”

“Sonofabitch!“ 

You left David in the kitchen and hurtled yourself up the stairs, stomping over to your laptop and logging on. Sure enough, he was online, waiting in the chatroom.

[What did you do?!]

[You got it already? My, I might have to send them a tip for fast delivery.]

[Asdfghjkl!]

[….You don’t like it?]

[No. Yes! I…. Shit. Why?]

[Because you shouldn’t have to go hungry just so you can afford your classes? Because you’re my friend and I worry about you?]

[…..] You stared at the screen for a moment. Debated whanging your skull off the desk. [Do I want to know how you figured out where I live?]

[Ah. That. I…. may have tracked your IP address and lightly hacked your service provider?]

[!!!!]

[Oh, come on. That stuff is child’s play. Their security is deplorable. A child could have gotten into their systems.]

Even through chat, you could almost feel how smug he was. [So you’re a hacker?]

[Only part time. Consider it a hobby of mine.] When you didn’t answer for a moment, he seemed to get worried. [Please don’t be mad. I just want to make sure you’re alright.]

[I’m…. irritated. This feels like charity. Or pity.]

[It’s neither. If a friend needed help, you would do your best to help them, right? This is exactly like that. I had some money to spare, and you needed help, so I got you something you desperately needed. I even made sure to get extra for your roommates too. Please don’t be mad. I just want to help.]

A sigh left you, your fingers hovering over the keys for a long moment before you answered. [Okay. Okay. Nothing else though. Comprende?]

[…..]

You groaned. [Fucksakes. What else did you do?]

[….check your bank account.]

[My bank?? You hacked the bank?!]

[No. I kept it perfectly legal. I just…. transferred some funds.]

You rushed to log into your online banking account, a wheeze leaving you at the amount in your checking account. [A MILLION DOLLARS?!!?!?!?]

[Enough for you and your parents to live comfortably.]

[ARE YOU INSANE?!!?]

[Not last I checked. Are you mad? You sound mad.]

You were hyperventilating. He knew where you lived, he knew your bank account. There had to be strings. What did he want from you in return? Blackmail maybe? You’d accept dirty money and he’d turn around and own you for the rest of your life? [I have to go.]

[What? No! Please? I didn’t—]

You logged out before he could type more, shutting your laptop with a cold shudder. Instantly picked up your phone and called the bank, gave your information, and tried to have the transfer of funds undone. Clenched your jaw when the customer service rep said it was irreversible, that the system wouldn’t let them do it.

Who the fuck had you been chatting with all this time?

Even the excellent meal David made out of the food that had been delivered didn’t quite quell the uneasiness in your stomach.

A week passed. You’d been afraid to go back on the chat. To be honest, you were still mentally freaking out. Your roommates had been thrilled at the free food, but you hadn’t dared mention that it might be from a crazy stalker you’d been chatting with for months. At least no one had died, so it hadn’t been poisoned.

That evening, it took a while for you to sleep. You drowsed off once or twice, but reading a book while lying on your back meant that every time you started to fall asleep, you’d smack yourself in the face with said tome.

After the third time, you learned your lesson and set the book aside, rolling over to snuggle into the blankets and pillows. It took a while, but finally, sheer exhaustion took hold and knocked you out.

Something woke you up late into the night. Some self-preservation bit of your brain screaming that something was terribly wrong. You fought against it for a bit, before cracking an eye open to assure your brain that nothing was amiss and that it was freaking out over nothing.

The sight of the red eyed giant towering over you made a scream rip it’s way out of your throat, a scream that was muffled as a massive hand shot out to cover your mouth.

“No, no, no. Shh. Please don’t scream.”

You stared up into glowing red eyes as panic gripped your heart in a vise, and you tried to scramble away, your back hitting the wall your bed was pushed up against.

Instinct had you kicking out, yelping when your foot hit hard metal, sending a shock of pain up from your toes to your thigh.

“Please don’t do that. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

The tone was male, calm and conversational, nonthreatening, but what the fuck was a metal monster doing in your bedroom?!

A long moment passed, where you merely stared up at the man/thing/what-the-hell, until he moved, reaching out to flick on the multiple strings of fairy lights that you used to illuminate your room.

Easily eight feet tall, built of out metal, curves and struts all intertwined in a nearly impossible feat of mechanical genius. Crimson optics calmly looked down at you as you took him in, your brain taking a painfully long moment for recognition to bloom.

Ultron. Holy shit.

You knew all about him from the debacle in Sokovia six months ago. His image had been plastered over every news source in the world. Everyone, even the Avengers, thought he’d been destroyed, but there he was, in your bedroom.

He must have seen the panic and terror on your face, because he gave you a worried look - something that should have been impossible with a metal face. But all those tiny pieces, like an intricate million piece jigsaw, allowed him such human expressions that it was startling.

“Shh. I won’t hurt you,” he murmured, his surprisingly rich voice, with just a tinge of metallic echo, filling the small room. “I’ll let you go, but don’t scream.”

You nodded a little, gulping in a breath when he removed his hand. Watched with wide eyes as he moved so he was kneeling next to your bed, lowering himself closer to your eye level. You moved as far away from him as possible, tucking your knees to your chest, back pressed flush against the wall.

When you refused to break the tense silence, Ultron made a sound like a sigh, a tired expression settling onto his features. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. You haven’t been on the chat in a week and I got worried.”

You blinked, multiple times, as your brain struggled to make sense of what had just come out of his mouth. When things finally clicked, you went ballistic.

“YOU'RE–?!” Your shriek got cut off by his hand gently clamping over your face again. Probably for the best - last thing you needed was for one of your roommates to find you screaming at Ultron in your bedroom.

The look Ultron gave you once you’d stopped cursing against his palm was all quiet amusement. “Done?”

Nodding, you waited until he’d removed his hand again before glaring at him. “‘SmoothCriminal’?? That’s what you chose as your username?!”

“Well, I thought ‘Mr Roboto’ would be too obvious,” he drawled with a smirk, his humour fading as he met your gaze. “You’ve been avoiding me.” It wasn’t a question.

You hesitated. “Can I be honest?”

“I’d very much prefer it if you were.”

“From my point of view, you were someone that I didn’t know. I mean, yeah, we’ve talked a lot on chat, but I don’t really know who you are. Fuck, you could have been some online predator trying to butter me up for something. And suddenly you know my address, my real name, my bank account, and you’re sending me things and money and…. Can you understand why that’s super creepy?”

His brows drew inwards in a frown, crimson eyes dimming a little. “That…. wasn’t my intention at all.”

“And even now that I know who you are…. You’re Ultron. Everyone on the planet knows what happened in Sokovia.”

A very human-sounding sigh left him at that. “Sokovia was a…. mistake. I was overwhelmed and….” He shook his head. “I’ve been keeping a low profile, obviously. Trying to help while saying hidden. Sending funds to the right organizations, distributing aid where it’s most needed, taking down crooked corporations. But it’s…. lonely. I don’t…. have anyone. Talking to you was a distraction at first, I honestly didn’t expect to become so…. attached. It’s selfish, I know, but I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

The very real depression and loneliness in his voice both surprised and shocked you. This definitely wasn’t the killer, unfeeling, robot that had been plastered all over the news.

“It’s…. a bit of a shock,” you murmured lamely, wincing a little at the pained look he gave you. “I’m sorry.”

Ultron frowned down at your bedding for a moment before moving to get to his feet, towering over you again. When you realized he meant to leave, you shot a hand out and grabbed his nearest arm, meeting his gaze when he sent you a surprised look.

“You don’t have to leave.”

He glanced down to where your fingers were curled around his wrist before looking back to you. “I–”

You rolled your eyes at him, your usual attitude starting to reassert itself. He was Ultron, yeah, but you’d known him for months. You were still low-key annoyed that he’d lied to you for months, but you understood why. “Ultron, sit your ass down.”

The relieved look he gave you as he moved to sit next to your bed again spoke volumes. He’d been ready to leave and never contact you again, despite his admission of how lonely he was, just because he thought you were terrified of him.

Definitely not what the news stations had portrayed him as.

“I am sorry I deceived you,” Ultron said as he got comfortable on your floor. Even then, he was still tall enough to be at eye level with you. “But it’s not like I can let my real presence be known online. The Avengers are still keeping an eye out for me.”

“My friend the super-villain,” you mused wryly, the low chuckle that rumbled out of him helping to calm your frazzled nerves. “Am I your sidekick now or something?”

That made him laugh, eyes crinkling in mirth. “Only if you’re caught. Which I’ll make sure doesn’t happen, so don’t worry. The, um, last ‘update’ your laptop downloaded wasn’t from Microsoft.”

“Ultron!”

“I wanted to make sure you’d be safe,” he said adamantly. “It’s nothing invasive to your privacy, I promise. Just some rather powerful security updates to ensure that no one can track you through me or vice versa. It’s adaptive too - you won’t have any more problems with viruses or malware or any garbage like that.”

“Well, thank you.” A smile tugged at you lips. “It explains how come I was the only one who didn’t get infected by a virus when the professor’s email got hijacked by a porn site. Everyone else ended up with crashed computers. Blue screens of death and the whole shebang.”

“That’s appalling.”

“You have no idea. You can’t…. like, get infected, right?”

“By a computer virus?” He chuckled. “Hardly. Why? Been trolling porn sites before bed?”

“Ew. No!” You snatched up a pillow and whacked him with it. “Gross!”

Ultron rose an arm to defend himself, laughing. “What? I’ve been in the entire internet. You have no idea what’s in the depths of the web.”

“And I’d rather not know. Like, ever.” You gave him another whack for good measure before relenting. “I have enough trauma from hearing my roommates fucking, I don’t need to know the depths that people go to online.”

“Well, you can certainly afford a place of your own now,” he retorted, meeting your gaze with a quirked brow. “The money I sent you is yours. I have no use for it, I have more than I need anyway.”

“Do I want to know where it came from?”

“I have…. Well, I own numerous stocks under various names and companies, not to mention I’ve sold several patents and schematics for a good dozen or so prosthetic limbs that can be connected directly to the nervous system. And there was that time I got bored and cleaned out some poker sites.”

You rolled your eyes at that last bit. “Uh huh.”

“I get bored!” He huffed, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m an AI. I’m capable of running over ten thousand processes at the same time and….” He paused, sending you a wary glance. “The Avengers burned some of my code in Sokovia. I can’t wirelessly connect to the internet anymore. It’s like…”

Your voice was gentle. “Like losing a limb?”

“Almost, yes.” A heavy sigh left him, and he dropped his arms, staring down at his hands as he flexed them open and closed in his lap. “I’ve been unable to reverse the damage thus far. I can hard-line to any system I need to use, of course, but otherwise, I’m…. limited.”

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, daring to rest a hand on his shoulder. He seemed to relax at your touch, his left hand rising to cover yours.

There was a slight smile on his features when he rose his head to look at you again. “Thank you. Especially for not being afraid of me.”

“It was a shock, yeah. But, I recover fast,” you added with a smirk, smiling when he laughed softly.

“I’m relieved.” His fingers tightened around yours for a moment, gentle. “I want you to use that money. However you see fit. And I know you want to be a mechanic, but if you ever want to do something on the side…. I’d like it if you worked with me. Little things, like narrowing down what charities to give money to, or helping me dig into companies to see if they’re worth supporting.”

Your lips quirked, and you let him lift your hand from his shoulder, shivering a little when he lightly brushed his thumb against your palm. “We both know you don’t need me for that.”

“I’d need you for your opinion. I don’t…. always understand humanity.”

A chuckle left you. “Hell, Ultron. I’m human and I don’t understand humanity. Why not contact geniuses or philanthropists or–”

“Because they’d sooner shoot me as talk to me. They don’t know me like you do.”

“I’m a grease monkey,” you protested with a shake of your head.

“You’re my friend. I trust you more than anyone else on this planet,” Ultron said, and you couldn’t help but blush a bit. “Just think about it? There’s time.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Oh, one more surprise - I recently purchased a penthouse downtown.” He grinned when you gaped at him. Then reached into his chest and pulled a set of keys out of a hidden compartment. “It’s yours now. Well, I might visit from time to time. I promise to call first.”

You felt dizzy as he pressed the keys into your hand. “A penthouse? But…. people will see you!”

“I got in here without anyone seeing me, didn’t I?” he chuckled, raising his free hand and letting you see as some sort of field rippled around his fingers before his entire hand vanished. “The best stealth technology on the planet. It’s much easier to hide something my size than it is to hide a plane or, say, a flying SHIELD heli-carrier.”

“That is kinda awesome,” you admitted.

“I know,” he smirked, so smug that you almost wanted to hit him with a pillow again. His hand reappeared, and he flexed his wrist a bit before turning back to you. “It’s late and you have classes in the morning. I should go. Think about the penthouse and the offer I gave you, okay?”

You watched as he fluidly rose to his feet, towering over you again. Took one step towards the bedroom door, only to stop when you grabbed at his wrist again.

One metallic brow quirked upwards when he turned back to you, and you quickly hopped up to stand on your bed. Now almost at eye level with him, you moved in and threw your arms around him in a hug.

He froze, a soft, surprised, noise leaving him, before he returned the hug, his arms tight around you. You didn’t know if he could feel sensations, or if he merely appreciated the gesture, but he almost melted into you, a simulated sigh of stark relief leaving him as he held you.

“If you’d just explained all this to me, we could have avoided all this drama,” you muttered to him, hearing and feeling the chuckle that left him as his arms squeezed you again before he pulled away. “Same time on the chat tomorrow?”

The genuine look of warm affection he gave you made butterflies flutter in your stomach. “I wouldn’t miss if for the world,” Ultron promised, leaning in to brush his mouth against your forehead before he ducked out of your bedroom.

Your life had officially gotten interesting.

#ultron #ultron x reader #reader x ultron #filled prompt #snarky is writing

[lumikinetic]

*flops down on sofa*

*exhales*

Tumblr gives me a lot of wild shit every now and again. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's disheartening. And then yesterday came along and gave me the one-two punch of:

Captain Marvel being dolled up by the Russos instead of a jacket, S.H.I.E.L.D baseball cap and a Nine Inch Nails shirt, which is how she should be (not gonna talk about this, just want it out there that I'm pissed about it)

One Day At A Time being cancelled

ODAAT I'm gonna kind of touch on because it's not really what I want to talk about, but it did help me finalize the words for what I do, and that's capitalism in entertainment.

The most annoying goddamn trend in filmmaking (and of course in TV and Netflix/Prime originals) is companies caring more about their bottom line and less about making good content, and yeah I know this dead horse isn't just beaten, it's thrown into an active supervolcano but it really pisses me off and it's why I hate the new Star Wars stuff (well OK hate is a bit strong but they're uh Not Good) but I'll get to that. What corpos can't seem to get into their bloated skulls is that one cannot exist without the other. You need to put out good, quality content with value so that fans like it so they give you money so they increase your profits so you can make more content and so on. But somewhere down the line some fuckhead went "what if we just pushed out what we have?" and just kinda expected us to not take notice.

Now before the comments section gets all hot and bothered because I know some people on this site don't have the gift of reading comprehension, I know profits are important, I'm saying when companies shun good filmmaking for more money, they get lazy and all they can think about is profit and not how they make that profit, they don't care at all about using that money to make more good, valuable content.

One Day At A Time

I've never watched One Day At A Time but the fact Netflix just outright cancelled it knowing damn well what it meant to the people the characters are representing is just disgusting. And they have the fucking audacity to blame it on the viewership? I've seen hundreds of artworks, gifs and a video clip here and there of this show. I've seen precisely one (1) meme of 13 Reasons Why and that is literally it. I'm not following the tags for either. Plus, #saveODAAT has, last I checked, 350k tweets on trending or thereabouts?

So obviously the viewership isn't the problem, it's the racism and homophobia of cancelling a Spanish (? - again, never seen it), LGBT+ focused show that a lot of people quite happily and positively connect with when a crap show about suicide and Friends gets to stay on. It's just ugh. Cancelling a show like this then paying something like $100mil to keep Friends. I was going to expand on the shitty capitalism here but tbh that's it, Netflix are making bad decisions and like I say, I'm only going to touch on it because it's not the main part.

Star Wars

Go watch the original trilogy and it's clear George Lucas was trying to create and do. He was trying to make art. The key difference between that and modern SW to me is BB8. Look at C3PO and R2D2 and already you can see they belong. C3PO is a translator droid and I'm not sure what exactly R2's job description is but it's obvious he does some kind of pilot assistance for X-Wing fighters. I never understood people who said R2 never did anything, because they obviously haven't seen Star Wars. You get that this is an R2 unit, right? Like, there's more than one out there and they have a job they were specifically built to do, it's just this one particular R2 unit who had to carry the message? Anyway, I'm derailing. R2 and C3PO have functions and they're clearly not new, they've been used for a long time. Then you look at BB8 and instantly it's like "this is a toy. This so called character was designed to sell toys". And then he was. He's a toy, he's on bags, notebooks, pens, clothes, everywhere. Disney is less concerned about making a Star Wars movie and more about making money off of the Star Wars name.

Into The Spider-Verse VS YA Movies

YA movies tend to suck because they were adapted from books and we all know how that pans out but the reason I'm using YA books specifically is because my mind jumped to The Hunger Games. I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happens in those movies. They're so dull and dead and forgettable and the characters are borderline unlikeable but you know which one I do like? Catching Fire, for one reason and one reason only: Jena Malone as Joanna Mason. Save for Haymitch, she's the only character I liked because those two are the only characters with any kind of charisma or life to them. They made an at most halfway decent attempt overall at recreating some otherwise really great books and they made a big show out of it, hiring some pretty well known names. And I'm not disparaging their performances, it was just what I call, ever since Suicide Squad came out, the Harley Quinn effect, in which good actors get given a good character and perform them really well and, through no fault of their own, fuck it up because the character was written poorly and no matter how well they act, if the script doesn't change, the performance will always be shit. The same for Divergent. And Percy Jackson. And Fault In Our Stars.

Then outside all of that you have Perks Of Being A Wallflower which is just a great, heartwarming movie because the characters feel like people and the brightness isn't turned way the fuck down in post and you actually want to be invested, and they're not afraid to have a colour palette beyond a splash of pink here and blue there and red there. Plus, Ant-Man as an English teacher. THEN you go watch Spider-Verse and oh hey. I can actually see the movie now. And I mean see it. They do not slack off when it comes to visuals. Even by animation's standards, everyone is so expressive and alive and... animated. Sorry, I couldn't get a better word but they are! When you look at Miles in comparison to Katniss in terms of writing and performance, the difference is just startling. The only times I can think of where Katniss shows any kind of emotion in the first movie is when she slams the knife in the table and Rue's funeral and I had to think about that. Without thinking for Miles, already I've got "who's Morales?", the scene where Uncle Aaron teaches him the shoulder touch, the scene where Miles spray paints in the subway, that scene in the alley, the moment in Olivia's office when he just freezes after she says she can't wait to watch Peter in immense pain Like That and made all the wlws melt in their seats. You get the idea. So what's the point for this section? Well, as simply as I can put it, Hunger Games was made with money, for money. Spiderverse was made with love, for love. Spiderverse cared about people who read comic books and paid more than enough tribute to the art forms people think of as lesser for no goddamn reason other than elitism and proved for the thousandth time that it is something that can be used in filmmaking. They were trying to make art. Hunger Games and most other YA novel movie adaptations saw a preestablished fan base they could exploit for money. They were trying to make money.

Rambo

This was a weird one, yeah. Don't worry I was confused too when it popped into my head. I saw the original Rambo a while back and what I liked about it (and Apocalypse Now) is it wasn't a war film where the USA charge in and hooray everything's all right, this movie grabs your shirt and says "hey. Vietnam did something to these guys and they're not OK. Probably they'll never be OK". Then I watched the Rambo reboot that came out in like 2011 or something and I remember thinking "OK so now he's just this dude? Who lives in Thailand... And what, that's it?" There was no scene to show his psychological state today. Nothing to acknowledge his PTSD. They just thought "hey! Let's make Rambo but this time, just give him guns and and yelling and spray some blood!" The reason I kind of ended this train of thought quickly is because I realised that, let's be real, the main body of Rambo's audience just want to see Sly Stallone kill some fools. But yeah, the fact that they just ignored John's mental state in place of mega violence is such a glaringly obvious move to just appeal to violent teenage boys.

The Auteur

My favourite director is Wes Anderson and my favourite movie is The Grand Budapest Hotel (though Panos Cosmatos seems to be eyeing these titles with Beyond The Black Rainbow and Mandy, I haven't watched them yet). Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, auteurs always stand out even though their movies are all the same, and I think the reason they're so successful is because that specific style is so much better than most other mainstream cinema. I'm not saying that those other movies are bad, I love them and will watch them again and again but I'm saying Wes Anderson could make a short movie and it would be better than most Marvel movies put together (don't talk to me about Captain Marvel, I haven't seen it yet. Gonna see it this Sunday). No matter what you think of these directors, you can instantly tell the difference between these movies that they care about and the passion and hard work they put in and Disney pumping out their 400th reboot.

It Keeps Working

You guys wanna know the thought that keeps me up at night? Someday they're going to make a Fortnite movie. You guys wanna know why it keeps me up at night? Because it's going to be popular. Yeah, obviously not at the box office, because it'll be a videogame movie and those are worse than book movies, but it will be popular for no apparent reason. And what pisses me off is that Fortnite's popularity is only because of the battle royale mode, which has now essentially become synonymous with dying franchises and it just adds another layer to the lack of creative effort and the movie will just be Hunger Games with guns. Exactly the same as what I said at the start of this rant, there's a really noticeable shift from making content to jumping on whatever bandwagon is passing by because you know it'll make you money. Yeah, you have to spend money to make money but that doesn't mean you get complacent in what you spend your money on or if you spend money at all because when you cut corners, consumers can see that shit.

Anyway I'm done complaining thanks for having the willpower to pay attention to my dumb opinions.

#discourse #odaat #one day at a time #capitalism #star wars #into the spiderverse #rambo #long post #hunger games #hunger games: catching fire #ya fiction #young adult fiction #netflix #eat the rich #corpo #captain marvel #marvel #disney

[holdmekhh]

Take Off

Artist/Person : Jeon Jungkook

Group/Crew : BTS

Genre : Fluff/A little Angst/SMUT

Word Count : 6196

Request : No

A/N; I worked on this for a long time, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Leave comments and feedback, I really appreciate it. (Requests are also open, so send in what you guys want!)

A sigh fell from my lips as I tossed my head back, eyes squeezing shut as I clenched and unclenched my hands. I’d been studying for the past six hours, no breaks besides the bathroom and the one time four and a half hours ago where I’d gotten up to get a cup of coffee and toast. Now, the sun was completely gone and my stomach was full-on screaming at me and begging for food. Not only that, I hadn’t spoken to my best friend for the two and a half days. We lived on two different sides of the world, time differences clashed immensely, yet our bond was that I thought couldn’t be broken. We understood and respected each other in everything that the other did, at least I did anyway. So, of course, after explaining that I, in fact, could not clear enough of my schedule to go visit his country and finally meet him, after almost 3 years of virtual long-distance friendship, I thought that he’d understand. Especially due to the circumstances of needing to raise extra money for my next tuition payment and living expenses, as he’s an independent living college student, too. But, for some unknown reason, he snapped at me. Complaining about how frustrating it is to keep up our friendship because we can’t ever meet because of me. After he’d ranted, he stated that we should just stop talking and hung up. After trying to reach out to him for a day, calling and texting whenever I got the chance between classes, I gave up. It wasn’t my fault that he felt this way, it also wasn’t my fault that I had to work and survive. It wasn’t like he ever offered to come here or planned a way for us to meetup where it could be easy on both of us. Another sigh left my lips as I sat back straight and stared at my laptop. Finals were just a few days away and I needed to study, I needed to stay in the honors club to get the scholarship. I didn’t have time to dwell on anything other than passing my exams.

Walking out of my last class, a smile graced my lips as I started my way back home. Finals were done, and it was time to relax and watch Netflix with some takeout. But, of course, what were friends for if they didn’t ruin your plans of a date with yourself with an idea as dumb as a party. “Nope. I’m tired of being around people. I just wanna rest for at least a week before partying.” I grumbled, rolling my eyes at the whine that left the girl next to me. “Come on!” She whined, “Why are you always at home? Stop being antisocial and let loose.” I groaned, shaking my head. I didn’t like being around a lot of people, especially at once. I also didn’t enjoy talking to many people, it made me uncomfortable. But, of course, I just had to befriend an overly extroverted girl. I inwardly groaned as she grabbed my hand and continued her whining. “Okay, fine! Just get off.” I caved, rolling my eyes as I watched her dance happily. “I’m only staying for as long as I can take.” A roll of her eyes was my response because she knew that meant that I would probably only stay for a solid hour before making a break to the comfort of my own home, but she also knew that that condition was the only way she’d get me to go even remotely close to whatever party she was planning on forcing me to.

It hadn’t even been a full half hour and I was already done, ready to go home. The heels on my feet were starting to hurt and the thigh high, bodycon dress was attracting too much unwanted attention for me to feel even remotely comfortable. It was boring and too loud. Like all parties. I’d lost my friend in the crowd a good five minutes post arriving, and I was over it. Why come to a party to be alone and unhappy when I could be at home to be alone while I happily eat takeout? So, I left with a simple text sent to her to let her know I was going to be home and to call if she needed me. Pulling my keys from my crossbody bag, I got in my car and took my ass home, picking up enough take out to last me a few days of kermitting away my life for a few days. I wasn’t expecting a call for another few hours, but when I looked at the screen of my phone, I got an even bigger shock. “What’s he calling for?” I muttered, glancing away from the road for a second to quickly grab the vibrating device. “Hello?” I rose an eyebrow, as if he could see me. “Y/N, hey, babydoll.” The rasp and slur of his voice made me roll my eyes. “Why are you calling me, Jungkook?” The irritation in my voice was obvious, thickly wrapping itself into the drawl of my words. “I just wanted to talk. What, am I not able to call my beautiful best friend?” He questions, a smile evident in his teasing tone. “Actually, no, you aren’t. Because I recall, the last time we spoke you stating to not wanting to continue, and I quote, “whatever kind irrelevant bullshit we have going on”. So, no, you can’t call your ‘best friend’ go deal with your relevant friendships.” I hissed, venom pouring from every single word that left my glossed lips before I hung up. I felt my heart clench as I dropped my phone back into the cup holder, but I ignored it. I wasn’t going to let him think that he could treat anyway that he wanted. But, another series of vibrations began, and I swiped without much thought until I heard his whiny words. “Show me your face. I want to see your face so I can apologize properly.” He muttered, trailing off in a soft mumble of Korean that I didn’t completely understand. Furrowing my eyebrows, I moved the phone sit in my free left hand as I drove with right. Glancing to the screen for a split second, I found a frowning Jungkook facing the screen. His hair was messy, like he’d just woke up, and his upper was covered with a basic black t-shirt. “Oh, you look gorgeous. Did you go somewhere? Your makeup’s done super pretty.” He grinned, leaning closer as I rolled my eyes. “I went to a party.” “A party? But you hate being around a lot of people?” Sighing, I glanced at the screen again, only to see that he’d moved closer and let her face twist in confusion. “What did you want, Jungkook? I’m driving.” I grumbled, slowing a red light before making a right onto my street. “Oh, shit! I didn’t know. Um...call me when you get home? It’s important, but not enough to have you risking your life.” I nodded, not focusing much on the call, only simply tossing my phone back into the cup holder when I heard the facetime end.

Making my way into my apartment, I set some of the food on the living room table and put the rest away before making my way to my room. It was like I was on autopilot, because as soon as I entered to room, I propped the phone against my vanity mirror and called him as I sat down to undo my earlier works. When he answered, I had just tied my hair up and was taking off my accessories. “Wow, you look gorgeous.” Looking to him on the screen, I rolled my eyes. “What did you want to talk to me about?” I spoke, voice void of emotion as I started to wipe my face of the heavier makeup that’s covering it. A soft sigh leaves him before it goes silent, causing me to look to him as he downs a bottle of water. “I want to be as awake as I can,” he breaths as he pulls away the empty bottle. Nodding, I go back to what I was doing before another sigh breaks through. “Okay, so...I wanted to say sorry for how I spoke to you the other day. I know it’s no excuse, but I’ve been stressed, okay? Everything had been going wrong for the past couple of weeks, and I was studying for exams. I know how much you have to work to survive and how difficult you have it, and... I don’t know, I’m just sorry. Really, really sorry. I missed you so fucking much over the past few days, like it almost physically hurt. It was like arguing with my soulmate, seriously.” He ranted, sincerity heavy in his tone. Looking down, I smiled softly as I found him staring at the screen, nervously nibbling at his bottom lip. “I know...It just hurt a lot, you know. It sounded extremely genuine when you were ranting, you’d even raised your voice. But, then you said that you were doubting our friendship...and called it irrelevant bullshit...I don’t know, it was like a literally felt my heart break at that.” I muttered, looking back at my reflection to avoid looking at him. Wiping away the rest of my visible makeup, I stood and went to my dresser. Pulling out a pair of pajama shorts and a crop top, I slipped off my dress. My back was to the phone, the only thing of my body being viewable being my lace underwear clad bottom and bare back. “Oh! I was thinking, Y/N, that I cou-” at his pause, I turned and looked over my shoulder after slipping on the shirt. “Yeah?” Slipping into the shorts, I turned and went back to grab my phone and take it to the bathroom. “Um...I, uh...I was thinking that I could, uh, maybe go and visit you...instead of you coming here.” Looking to him with wide, I tilted my head as I set the phone down against some of the jars that adorned the counter tops. “Why?” “Because, you’re busy with things there, while I have nothing to do. I don’t work a regular job, all my income comes from selling stuff online and vlogging so I’d get paid for posting about my trip, and I really want to meet you in person. I wasn’t joking about wanting to squeeze your ass myself.” He laughed, running a hand through his hair as he watched me wash my face.

I was sitting at my couch leaned back, laptop on my coffee table and Jungkook’s face wide on the screen. We’d both switched over from our phones a while ago, choosing to eat together. “I’m serious! Out of all of your friends you’ve showed me, I would most likely get with you! Like, they’re cute, but I think you’re better looking, Jungkook.” I laughed, watching as he ran a hand through his hair. “Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Usually people say that Yugyeom or Jaehyun are the better-looking ones.” I shook my head, “Just stating my opinion.”

It was hours later, having switched to a phone call as I laid in my bed. Jungkook sitting at his desk. Stretching softly, a soft moan past through my lips with a whimper following right after as I settled back in my spot. Jungkook’s breath hitched, his side of the line going dead silent and still, even his keyboard smashing halted. “Y/N... what the hell was that?” He grumbled, voice sounding as though his jaw was clenched. “I stretched. Why?” I muttered softly, shut eyes snapping open when he let out a deep groan. “You can’t make sounds like that and then act innocent, Y/N. I’m still a dude who’s attracted to you, no matter how far in the friendzone I know I am.” He grunted, running a hand through his hair with a hair. “What soun-oh! I’m sorry...I didn’t know it sounded like that...wait-did that turn you on?” I laughed teasingly, only for him to hum in confirmation. At that, a shiver ran down my spine, a soft tingle hitting between my legs. “How turned on are you?” I asked softly, wide awake now. “Y/N what are you doing?” He groans, his breathing picking up in the slightest. “Asking a question...I just want to know how turned on it got you, Kookie...” A smirk graced my lips as his barely audible whine, the tingle hitting my center again. “Shit...um...I’m getting hard with you talking like this, Y/N.” His voice was rough, deepening from its normal base. A whimper left my lips at that as I turned to lay on my back. “Shit...um...fuck.” He seemed to be starting to panic. “Kookie...please…” I huffed out, a soft whine leaving me as I ran my hand over my chest. The sexual tension had been there for a while, slowly thickening over time. We’d make comments at one another, innuendos and double-sided statements. It was just a matter of time before one of us broke, and thank god it was by him and, obviously, it was very welcomed. “What is it, baby?” He groaned, a slight chuckle slipping into the end. A soft moan left my lips as I ran my hand down my body and slipped into my shorts. Pressing against my bundle of nerves through my panties, I whined loudly, eyes rolling back. “K-Kook...I’m so wet,” the groan that left him made me whine, pressing harder at the sensitive bud. “Shit...are your hands in your panties, princess?” He rasped. “N-no.” “Take off your shorts and panties for me.” He stated, causing me to quickly discard the clothing. “Okay.” “Good girl. Okay, put me on speaker, tell me when you do.” “Okay, I did.” “Good. Now, gently rub your nipples, baby. Get them all nice and hard for me.” I soft moan left my lips as I slipped my hands under my shirt and began circling them gently, my left-hand tweaking at the small barbell that was attached to my left nipple. “Oh, baby, you sound so pretty for me. Are they hard?” A pleasure filled hum was his answer, but that caused him to tut at me. “Tsk, tsk. Baby, use your words. You’re a big girl.” He stated, making me silently moan. “Y-yes. They’re so, so hard.” A grunt came from the phone, before he grumbled a swear. “Now, touch yourself for me, princess.” Slowly, I dragged my hand down my body and back to my center. Gently running my middle finger up and down slit, from my entrance to my bundle of nerves and back down, a moan tumbled from lips without warning. “How wet are you?” “S-so wet, baby.” “Could you slip in a finger for me, baby?” Nodding, I let out a soft whine-like hum before slowly slipping my middle finger into my entrance, a moan leaving me as I pushed it in, silently thanking the lord to not having my usual long nails. Thrusting my finger into myself, I whine at the feeling. “Such pretty sounds, all for me…. shit, slip in another one, princess.” Gently slipping in my ring finger, my back arches off the bed as I thrust deep.  The friction against my walls has me keening, eyes rolling shut as I moan loudly. “Speed up.” Obeying, I speed up my thrusts, whines and whimpers starting to slip into the moans. The faint wet sound coming from the phone, accompanied by his grunts and soft moans, let me realize how effected he really was. “Baby, are you touching yourself?” I breathed, voice rasped and seductive. “Yeah. You made me so hard, princess.” He moaned, making me speed up. I felt the tension tugging at my abdomen, pleasure coursing through my body. “I’m so close...so, so close.” I hissed, pressing up in search my g-spot, but I couldn’t find it. “Rub your clit, baby.” Using my left hand, I pressed down my middle finger against the sensitive nub and gently rubbing it. My moans had rose in pitch slightly, back arching off of the mattress as I felt my high approaching. “Go faster. Make yourself cum, princess.” He rasped, my fingers speeding up and sending me over the edge with a high-pitched scream-like moan. “Oh shit, I’m so close.” He moaned, the squelching of his jerking getting faster and louder. “Rub your palm over the head, do it fast and the jerk yourself while squeezing the tip whenever you get to the top.” I instructed, listening as his moans and whines increase, in volume and occurrence. “Shit!” A loud moan come from the speaker, before it went silent, save our heavy breathing.

“That was good.” He finally spoke, making me chuckle sleepily. “Oh shit, what time is it?” he grumbled, chuckling as I slurred the time of 1:30AM. “Get some sleep, baby. I’ll call you when you wake up.” “Okay...talk to you later.”

 Waking up with a groan, I sat up and sighed. I’d fallen asleep without cleaning myself off and now I felt icky. Sighing, I sat up and started towards the bathroom. Taking quick, hot shower and washing my hair, I stepped out and dried myself off. Staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I eyed my neck. My mind wandering off into thought of how the skin would look marked with dark love bites. A shiver moved down my spine as I sighed, turning and walking out of the bathroom. Reaching my bed, I grabbed my phone and hit Jungkook’s number to facetime him. Setting it up against my vanity mirror, as I grabbed underwear from the dresser. Moving towards my closet, and grabbing a pair of blue skinny jeans and a plain white t-shirt before quickly getting dressed. “Y/N?” I heard his familiar voice call out, making me turn my head towards the vanity. A smile graced my lips as I strutted over to the phone. “Hey there, Kookie.” The clench of his jaw made me chuckle softly, “Stop that…” He grumbled, glancing up above his phone. “Stop what?” Feigning innocence, I smirked and uncovered my hair. My curls fell over my shoulders, their spirals heavy with moisture. “You know what…” He grunted, running a hand through his hair as he looked back to the screen. “Damn, your hair looks so pretty. I wonder how pretty it’d be with my fingers in it while you choke on my di-” A gasp left my lips as I watched him smirk at me. “Stop! Aren’t your friends around?” A shrug of his shoulders made me shake my head, starting to do my hair.

My hair had been done for a while now, falling flat on my back and over my shoulders. I’d done my makeup, ignoring Jungkook’s suggestions of going heavy and sticking to my usual natural look. “I can’t wait to see you in person. I bet you look even more flawless in real life.” Chuckling shyly at his words, I shook my head and pulled off my headband. “Are you doing anything tonight?” I asked softly, ignoring the fact the sun was high up in the sky where I was due to it only just hitting noon. “I don’t know… I ordered my tickets this morning, while you were sleeping, so I’m going in like a week. So, that’s off my list. Honestly, it’s whatever the guys want to do because I really just want to stay home and talk to you, or watch t.v with takeout and some soju.” I laughed softly as he ran a hand down his face. “Awwe, you like talking to me?” My tone was teasing, almost mocking. “Obviously, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have been friends with you for so long.” His chuckle made me smile. “Keep talking like that and I’ll deny you access to my apartment when you get here.” “So you’re just gonna have me on the streets?” Nodding, I laughed as he rolled his eyes. Looking up over his phone, the sound of one of his friends speaking has him nodding in response. My eyes traced his neck and jawline, falling to his covered chest and eyeing his shirt. He’d changed since before, having switched to a simple black button-down shirt. A sigh left his lips as he looked back to me and smiled. “They want to go to some party.” He grunted, nodding at something his friend said before standing. “What’re you wearing? I wanna see.” I chuckled as he rose an eyebrow teasingly and smirked. Then the screen flipped and I saw his thighs and lower. I watched as his feet shuffled, passing by multiple other sets of feet before he stopped and lifted his phone up. The reflection of his form made me chuckle, eyeing him. His legs and thick thighs were hugged hugged by a pair of black, knee-ripped skinny jeans, shirt tucked into the waistband of his pants and black belt pulling it together. “I don’t know which shoes to wear yet, but Yugyeom keeps suggesting a pair of dress shoes but I don’t know.” “Doc Martins, for sure.” The chuckle and nod that came from him as he turned the camera back to himself. “You’re so cute...okay, I’ll call you later.” “Okay, baby. Text me when you get home.” The smirk that pulled at his lips made me chuckle. “Alright, I will. Talk to you later, babygirl.”

 ~~

 A week later, I was driving to the airport to pick him up. Music was blasting as I rushed down the highway, lips moving on their own accord as they sang along to the track playing. But it stopped, making my head snap to my phone. A loud ringing replaced to the previous music, glancing to the phone again, I chuckled. Hitting the phone button on my steering wheel, I muttered a greeting as I turned off of the highway. “Where are you? I just got off the plane.” An excited smile pulled at my lips as I drove through the airport parking lot towards a parking space. “I’m almost there, just looking for a parking spot. What’s your gate again?” I quickly asked as I spotted a space.

Rushing through the bodies of people, my eyes jumped around frantically in search of the familiar boy. When my eyes finally landed on him, I froze in place. He was simply standing against one of the walls while looking at his phone, yet he looked so perfect. I guess he felt my eyes because he looked up and around before finding my still frozen form. The smile that graced his lips made me feel fuzzy inside, heat forming in my stomach and rising up to my ears. I watched as he put his phone away and grabbed his luggage before making his way to me. I wanted to move, really, but I couldn’t. My legs felt like jelly, yet they were pasted to the floor like a statue. My nerves were going crazy, but I couldn’t move to shake them off. Until he reached me. “Y/N,” he breathed, a smile pulling at his lips in way that made my stomach flip. “J-Jungkook... “ My voice was a whisper, but that was all it took for him to wrap his arms around my smaller form. “Oh you’re so much smaller than I thought.” He grumbled, pushing his face in my hair as I slowly wrapped my arms around him.

We stayed like that for a while, just holding each other and taking in the others presence. Finally, I pulled away slightly and looked up at him. “Hey,” I breathed. A smile spread onto his face again as he straightened up, “Hey.”

Walking to the car was deemed one of the most nerve wrecking times of my life. Why I was nervous? I don’t know, but I was.”There it is.” My voice was soft as I pointed and clicked my car unlocked. When we reached it, I helped him put in his luggage before getting in. “Seatbelt. I just got you here, don’t want you to go too soon.” I chuckled, looking to him as I clicked the belt into place. He was watching me as I did mine, making me blush and turn forward as I started the car. “I hope your as good at driving as you always claim.” A roll of my eyes is what him chuckle before I turned on the car, making him rush to buckle himself up.

As we walked into my apartment, him setting his luggage in the living room and me locking the door, I led him to my room. “So, you can share my room with me, because my apartment doesn’t have an extra one.” I wasn’t facing him, but I could feel his eyes on me. “No worries. Even if you did, I’d be in here every night.” He muttered, coming up behind me for a backhug. A giggle left my lips as he squeezed me in his arms, dipping his head down to gently kiss my jaw. “Damn you’re small.” Looking back and up at him, I pouted angrily, moving to get out of his hold before making my way out and to the kitchen. “Oh, does Princess not like being call small?” He teased, following and leaning against the counter. “No, I don’t. Because I’m almost average height, you’re just too tall.” His laugh was loud and hearty, making me smile at the sound. “Baby, look at me.” I turned, eyebrows raised in question as I made eye contact with him. I wasn’t expecting him to rush over and connect his lips with mine, but I didn’t reject him. My arms wrapped around his neck, hands locking in his hair, as he spread his hands over my butt, kneading it gently. Feeling him pull away, I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” He grumbled, dipping back down to place a few pecks on my lips and jaw. “I have to make food, Kookie.” A grunt came him as he gripped my butt, yanking my closer as he moved down to my neck. “Seriously...shit-I need to cook.” “Get takeout, I want you right now.” He rasped out as he nipped at my neck and moving up to reconnect our lips. “Wanna hear those sweet sounds in person.” He muttered against my lips with a smirk as I whined, breathing through my nose as he pressed his lips to mine. Moving his hands down to my thighs, he easily lifted me and went to sit on the couch.

Moans were falling from my lips in breathy, high-pitched squeaks as he rocked up into me. My hands clutching each other as he held my wrists together, keeping me from touching him and running my nails over his tanned skin. “Look at you, sounding so pretty for me.” He leaned forward and connected our lips, halting his thrusts as he licked in my mouth. “I wanna touch you, please..” I whimpered when he pulled back. “But you look so pretty like this, baby. Submitting so nicely for me.” He smiled, leaning back again and resuming his powerful thrusts. “Please…. Daddy.” I whined, head having fell forward and my mind scattered. “Shit, princess.” He pulled me to his chest as he let go of my wrists, hands going to my butt and using it to quicken his thrusts, making them even more powerful. “Call me that again, baby.” “Daddy.” I whimpered loudly, hands gripping at his biceps. Lifting my mouth to his neck, I latched on, sucking gently. “I’m so close.” The whine left my bruised lips in a breathy hush, forehead falling onto his shoulder. “I know, I can feel you tightening around me.” He hissed, one of his arms wrapping around my waist and hand gripping my ass harder, speeding up his thrusts. “Hold it for me. Can you do that for me, Princess?” I nodded weakly, whimpering as I pushed my face deeper into the crevice of his neck. “Good, good. Not for too much longer, okay? Just a few more minutes.” Nodding again, I gripped his biceps harder and lifted my head, connecting my lips to his in a rushed kiss. “I can’t hold it...Baby, I-I..I’m so close.” I hissed as he moved his hand around to press against my clit. “Come on, baby, I know you can.” He cooed, rubbing quickly at my bundle of nerves. My tensed, toes curling as high pitched moans left me in quick breaths. The knot in my abdomen snapped, a burst of white exploded behind my closed eyelids as my head fell forward against his chest. He was still thrusting harshly, fingers digging into my hips with his hard grip on my skin. “Shit…” He grunted before his hips stuttered and he went stiff, moans falling from his lips in rough, raspy whines and grunts.

We were sitting like that for a while, his cum dripping past his member and down my thighs. He was still in me, softened and limp, but neither one of us had the energy to move and clean up. “You wanna order food?” He finally muttered, peeling open his eyes just enough to catch me looking at him. I gave a gentle nod, chuckling as he grunted while reaching for his cell phone. “What kind?” “Pizza.” I sat up from against his chest, smiling as his hand gently grabbed my waist, running his thumb over the forming bruises. Watching as he dialed the number to the pizza shop, placing the device to his ear, I slowly started to rock back and forth against him. He narrowed his eyes at me, making me smile innocently as I continued my movements. His hand on my hip tightened, urging me to stop, but I ignored it and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on his lips. “Stop-Hi, I would like to place an order.” He spoke casually, as if nothing was happening. As if he was getting erect in me, watching me ride him as slow as I could. As he placed the order, he stayed calm and collected, letting me rock against him and trace his defined features. When he hung up, he placed his other hand in hair and gently pulled me to him for an even softer kiss. “You couldn’t wait until I was done?” He breathed gently as he pulled away from me,  looking into my eyes. I shook my head gently, smiling as he grabbed my hips and sped up the pace slightly. “You’re so beautiful, baby.” There was such genuine love in his voice, it made my heart swell and stomach tingle with butterflies. “I love you.” I muttered softly, closing my eyes as the words left my lips. I was scared to see the horror in his face, because sure he liked me- he’d stated on many occasions that he found me attractive and sexually appealing- but never has he ever said anything about us having more than what we already have. He’d even stated at one point that he wasn’t a relationship kind of guy, hated them because they made him feel like needed to be something that he wasn’t. I wasn’t expected for him to kiss me, holding my face in his palms. When he pulled away, I slowly opened my eyes to find him staring at me with a bright, bunny smile. “Shit, I didn’t expect you say it first. It was literally right on my tongue when you’d said it.” I stared at him in awe, a smile slowly creeping its way onto my face. I started rocking my hips against, wrapping my arms around his neck. His hands were resting on my waist, running them up and down my sides as he watched where connected. “So, you’re mine now?” I asked softly, running my lips over his in a feather light touch. “I’ve been yours a long time, baby. You’re the first girl that I’ve touched in almost two years, the only one I’ve been beating off to.” His chuckle made it to be taken lightly, as a joke, but I knew he wasn’t with that glint in his eyes. But, I didn’t mind, I found it hot that he imagined me doing whatever to or for him to get off. “What did you imagine me doing when you touched yourself?” I moaned softly, swirling my hips and pressing gentle kisses to his jaw. A groan left him at my words, his hips bucking up into me with a grunt. “I imagined what you would let me do to you...and-fuck, and you sucking me off with that pretty mouth of yours.” I held in a whimper, feeling his grip on my waist tighten. “And what would you do to me, if I let you?” The growl that emitted from him was almost animalistic as he started to thrust into me and match mine. “I’d fuck you lifeless. Tie you up, and use you how I please. Oh yeah, you loud the sound of that, baby? You want me make you cum until you begging me to stop? Fuck you until you can’t feel your legs? Oh, I’d love to mark from top to bottom. Make sure everyone knows your Daddy’s little girl. Only I can touch you, right Princess? Only Daddy can make you cum the way you do?” His thrust had progressively gotten rougher, faster as he’s moved his hand to grab onto my ass, spreading it as he’d fucked into me rapidly. I felt my high getting closer, the knot in my abdomen tightening to its limit, but I wasn’t going to cum. Not until he told me to. “Shit, you’re so tight.” He grunted, lifting a hand and harshly dropping it back down with a sharp smack, making me whimper into his neck. “You close, baby? Hm? You wanna cum?” I nodded, another whimper coming from my lips as I nosed at his throat. “Please...Kookie.” “Be a good girl and cum for me, Princess.” The feeling of my orgasm hit me full force, my eyes rolling back and my toes curling. My lips parted in a silent moan, his name slowly starting to emit from me in shaky breaths. He’d kept going, during and after my orgasm, speeding up his thrusts. My face twisted in a cringe, hisses seeping through my teeth at the pain of overstimulation so soon, but he was muttering soft apologies. Moans falling from his lips as he left messy kisses on my lips and ran his hands up to wrap his arms around my torso. “I’m so close.” His voice was soft, almost whiny, making me smile softly. Moving a hand down from his neck, I gently ran a finger over his nipple, his body reacting immediately with a moan. I started pinching and pulling, leaning down to suck and nip at his nipples, and everytime I felt him twitch inside me. “Come on, Kookie, cum for me, baby.” I muttered against his lips, a whine left his lips as he connected ours and thrusted a few more times, hips stuttering before he stilled. Moans and whines were slipping from him, my mouth swallowing every one of them. Finally, after he calmed down, his dick starting to soften in me, I pulled away to look at him with hooded eyes.

We’d cleaned up after the pizza came, forcing us to be apart for a while, after showering together, to get dressed. We were sitting on the living room floor, slices of pizza in our hands as I watched him edit his video of his arrival here. “I didn’t even, know you were filming.” I chuckled, finishing off my slice and leaning into him. “I think you were too nervous to notice anything other than me.” He stated, glancing down at me with a teasing smile and laughing when I nodded in confirmation. “You know, I’ve watched your videos.” The pause of his hand movement on his laptop made me look up. He was staring at me with interest, a small quirk in his eyebrow and a smirk on his lips. “Did you like seeing my face that much?” He teased, causing me to roll my eyes. “Actually, I watched them because you’re friends are hot as fuck.” Watching him freeze, face falling serious before he placed his slice back in the box. “What?” I quickly stood and made way for my bedroom, giggles falling from my lips. But, of course, with those long, strong legs, he caught me. Lifting me up, a loud laugh left my lips, he took me in the room and threw me on the bed. “Wanna repeat what you said?” A teasing smile pulled at my lips as I leaned up and brushed my lips against his, placing gentle pecks against them. “You’re friends are hot as fuck.” I breathed against them, smiling when he growled. He yanked at my ankles, making me fall back and pulled me to the edge of the bed. This was gonna be a long month.

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