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zeroeightzeroone · 4 months

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your heart and my anchor - han jisung

love collection

genre: hurt? comfort?

pairing: fem!reader (infp) x idol!han jisung (intp)

warnings: descriptions of anxiety and of a panic attack

wc ~2.6k | moodboard

notes: if this looks familiar, it was originally posted to my secondary blog @zerothreetwentyfive so i'm republishing everything here on my main blog.

originally requested by @pcchacoseung

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ｡｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:

sometimes, you wonder why you decided to work and be a university student at the same time, that is until you remember the money that goes into tuition fees and the fact that you needed to move out in order to attend school. you're privileged enough that your parents are able to help pay your tuition whilst you pay for your rent and the other necessities you need to live in the city but that doesn't lessen the amount of stress that plagues you on and off again throughout the semesters. especially at the end of the year when exams are creeping up on you, figuring out how to move your schedule around to accommodate studying, working and finding the time to take a breather and relax; the latter option is usually dropped from the equation.

when you aren't on campus or at work, you've locked yourself up in your room. sitting behind your desk and stuck to your laptop, your textbooks and notebooks sprawled and spread over the surface, multiple pens around the area. sometimes you lose all sense of time when you're so hyper-focused on the task at hand that you only get a couple hours of sleep before you rush to get ready for work. you're done work when the sun goes down and once you get home you're back behind your desk, working till the sun comes up. the routine only repeats whether you like it or not.

jisung has been pretty busy as well. behind-the-scenes work with writing, producing and directing songs that may or may not end up on the next album, attending schedules and practicing day in and day out. it's been a while since you've been able to see each other, the both of you exchanging a few texts here and there.

j.one<3: i miss you baby i wrote some lyrics today thinking about you

you: i miss you too :,) a lot, a lot a lot

j.one<3: how have you been love? school and all?

you: it's been good

whenever he asked how you were doing, you'd always tell him that things were going fine, that it's okay, that you've got everything under control; acting like everything is a hundred and ten percent fine and dandy and you aren't on the verge of a breakdown every couple of hours. you didn't want him to worry about you. you didn't want to add to jisung's own current struggles, not wanting to burden him with your own.

j.one<3: hmm ok love you know i'm here right whenever you need me

you: of course and i love you for that

j.one<3: i love you more you got this, i believe in you baby

after your short text conversations, you'd turn on 'do not disturb' mode and a little message would pop up on jisung's side that you've switched it on.

j's one and only has their notifications silenced

a little signal for both you and him to get back to work.

…

j.one<;3: hey love i'm gonna be in the studio all day working you wanna come by and do your work here too?

and that's how you ended up sitting on the couch inside the studio. your laptop rests on your thighs, two browser windows opened up alongside each other on the screen with a notebook and pen sitting next to you. across the room, jisung sits at the recording desk in front of the computer with the program opened up on the screen, a headset over his ears and a notebook sitting in front of him, twiddling a pencil between his fingers.

although, the longer you're seated inside the studio, with your laptop displaying your calendar on one side and schedule on the other; showing off tasks that need to be finished today whilst the other side shows off the tasks and events coming up in the week.

the more you're convinced that you're going to have a mental breakdown with each passing minute.

you thought that maybe, just maybe, being in the same room as jisung would help as motivation, as comfort. having your person in the same room might hold you back from taking cover inside a hole, alone, curled up into a ball and ignoring the stresses life's currently throwing at you.

but instead, as the time passes you feel deep envy growing for your boyfriend who is seated at the recording desk. you find yourself envying the way jisung is twirling his pencil, bopping his head to whatever track is playing through the headset and the way he is able to—unlike you—focus on the tasks at hand.

how were you supposed to focus on anything when your mind continues to relentlessly remind you of all the work that needs to be done today? that you'll wake up tomorrow, only to repeat the process of slaving to get the work done.

how could you even try to focus when that tightening sensation in your chest, the one that restricts your airflow, only gets worse as the time passes?

you couldn't—you can't and you hate it.

you absolutely hate how you feel right now.

how you're mentally and emotionally trying to calm yourself down. trying to talk yourself back onto the ground and out of your frantic mind to breathe.

your heart's racing, the pulse only picks up as the time passes. it beats so loudly you can't seem to hear anything other than your own heartbeat, your hearing completely zeroed in on it.

your chest not only feels heavy but it starts to hurt, a throbbing sensation begins to come and go. it's like there is someone sitting on your chest and no matter how hard you try to get them off, you just can't. the harder you struggle, the more you feel suffocated, as if the air inside this vast recording studio only occupied by you and jisung is being sucked out, the walls closing in on you.

that painful feeling of your breath caught in your throat only leads to your heart rate picking up double time, your body feels restless while your mind repeats the same shit over and over again. the angel on one shoulder tries to calm you down, telling you to take a breather, take a break but the devil on the other only talks over her. overpowering her completely, as she reminds you that you aren't deserving of a break or a breather right now; seeing as you haven't completed any significant amount of work since entering the studio.

unbeknownst to you, your body trembles as your hands come together in front of you, fingers fiddling and picking at the skin on the opposite hand.

y/n, you think to yourself, come on, pull on your big girl panties and get on with it.

you're distracted trying to calm yourself down.

trying to bring yourself back down to earth instead of currently being inside your own head, you feel like you've lost any semblance of control you once had. god, you hate this feeling, you absolutely loathe how your heart quickly palpitates beneath your heavy chest, gradually getting dizzy as your restlessness only builds. however, no matter how anxious you feel, your body is nailed to the couch—you're frozen and unable to will yourself to get up on your feet.

it's like everything around you is speeding up and leaving you behind. they're leaving you behind in a state where your self-control slips away and causes your fear to grow tenfold.

you're scared. you're terrified that you won't come down from this— that you don't know how to come down from this, how to regulate everything inside you. the dread slowly sinks in as you slowly convince yourself that you will never be free from this state of overwhelming emotion that consumes you as the minutes pass.

jisung's hands move to adjust the headset, moving one cup away from his ear as the track has finished playing a moment ago. initially, he wanted to note something down in the notebook in front of him but the moment that one cup is off, he completely removes the headset and places it down in front of him on the desk. for a moment, he stills, listening to the room:

the echos of you clicking around on your laptop isn't heard.

this leads jisung to wonder if you've dozed off in the middle of working prompting him to spin around in the rolling chair, only to be met with you sitting on the couch wide awake.

when his brown eyes are laid on your figure, jisung's heart drops at the sight; you gnawing at your bottom lip, your chest trembling as it heaves, your whole face is flushed and your eyes are the slightest bit blown.

jisung immediately knows what's going on, he knows it all too well.

your boyfriend rushes to his feet and towards you, shutting your laptop and moving it on the couch beside you. slowly, jisung is kneeling in front of you as he gently encapsulates your hands in his.

he can feel the way your body trembles beneath his touch.

"y/n, baby, my love," jisung calls for you softly, his chocolate brown eyes sparkle as they gaze up at you, "you're okay, you're safe."

his eyes scan over your face, watching as your own slowly meet his. there's a dullness to your eyes, a sense of apprehension laced in your features as your thoughts plague your body and mind.

"hey, love," he smiles and lightly caresses your hands with the pad of his thumbs, "just keep your eyes on me, i'm here. i'm not going anywhere, okay? just focus on my voice, love."

you fight your own body to regain control, to regain the strength to regulate your own emotions. you've grit your teeth in an effort to stay focused on your boyfriend's voice.

"hey, hey… you're safe love. i'm gonna move beside you, okay baby?" he moves slowly to sit next to you on the couch, careful not to startle you with any quick or sudden movements.

one of his hands move to your cheek gently caressing you there as well. a feeling of delight washes through his body at the sight of you instinctively leaning into his touch.

"you're okay. i know it feels scary right now but you're going to be okay. you're going to get through this, yeah?"

the hand on your cheek moves to pat your hair down gently. jisung's gentle touch moves around your body as a physical reminder that you aren't alone and that he is here with you.

"just keep focusing on my voice."

jisung continues to look over you, observing your current state and identifying how else he could help.

"i'm proud of you, you know?" he says fondly, "i know things get hard and it's scary sometimes but you always find a way to get through it. you're always doing such an amazing job."

a deep, unstable breath leaves your lips.

"good girl! you're doing great. breathe, breathe with me okay?" he inhales deeply and you attempt to follow him. then he exhales, "...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

your exhales are shaky, your control not totally regained as you're fighting to get yourself out of your own head. but you feel the tension slowly dissipating from your body.

"one more time with me. concentrate on your breathing, okay?" this time jisung shuts his eyes as he inhales, hearing you take in a breath as well, before letting the air out slowly, "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten..."

jisung notices your previously blown-out eyes have softened, he then decides to move on another strategy to further help you anchor yourself back down into the present.

"that's my girl, i'm so proud of you," he pats your hair once again, "does my y/n need anything right now?"

your voice is incredibly hushed and strained when you squeak out the next two words, "hold me."

jisung scoots even closer to you. adjusting himself so one arm is around your shoulders, wanting to hold you close to him. his other arm moves your head to rest on his chest and he gives you a moment to adjust as he whispers reassurances that you're okay, that you're safe and that he's here.

your ear presses up against his clothing as his hand rests on your jaw, caressing your skin with his palm. the warmth radiating off of jisung's body has your body reacting the way it usually does, melting into him as a wave of comfort washes over you. another deep breath leaving your lips, still a bit shaky but an improvement nonetheless.

"what are three things you can hear right now?"

your eyes flutter close as you try your best to tune into your surroundings, trying to identify noises inside the quiet room.

you hum, "your heartbeat… the vent… your breathing."

"how 'bout three things you can smell?"

"your cologne… coffee… brownies."

"now, can you tell me three things you can see?"

your eyes open slowly with blinks as you adjust to the light before you scan around the room.

"recording desk… microphone… computer."

jisung's hand moves to wrap around your wrist, gradually lifting your hand up in the air in front of you both.

"wiggle your fingers for me," your fingers wiggle, "kick your leg up for me," you kick your leg up slowly, "roll your ankle around." you roll your ankle around, "good job my love, i'm so proud."

your arm moves to wrap around jisung's body, pulling yourself closer to him. a breath of relief leaves your lips at the sense of ease that comes with the action, how you're able to grip onto the fabric of his shirt and nuzzle your face further into his chest.

"inhale," he sucks in a breath and you follow suit, "exhale... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. do you need anything else, y/n baby?"

you shake your head, melting into his side as you feel your pulse and breathing regulate to a normal pace. you feel like your feet are back on solid ground, in control and in the centre of your mind instead of backed into a corner hiding away from it.

"i'm here," he coos, swaying your bodies back and forth, "you're not alone. never. i'm here. i'm right here with you."

when you shut your eyes, tears fall down your flushed cheeks-- tears that had welled up due to stress and overwhelming bursts of emotions you weren't able to control--but now they fall with a sense of relief.

"i love you," your voice is quiet, trembling the slightest bit, "thank you… thank you for being here. i love you so much."

jisung hushes you, his hands gently running up and down your back, "it's the least i can do. I'm always gonna be here, y/n, always."

you nod, your eyes still closed as you take a couple of moments to yourself in jisung's arms. this time you're trying your best to anchor yourself back down to earth by thinking of what you love, what relaxes you, reminding yourself of the light and the good.

you know this isn't going to be the last panic attack you're going to have but at least you know that you aren't alone, there's always someone willing to help. jisung continues to remind you of that, that he'll be there for you no matter what, in any way he possibly can. at the same time, jisung knows that you'd do the same for him as you've done it time and time again.

jisung has told you multiple times that he doesn't know how he'd function without you, feeling like he would be completely lost without you.

you are his heart.

meanwhile, jisung is your anchor.

in the middle of an uncontrollable storm, when the harsh waves rock the boat every which way, an anchor is vital to stay strong and controlled during such conditions. an anchor is a symbol of stability, a symbol of strength; a person you can rely on to support you to stay strong, to hold on even during the toughest of storms.

you found that person in jisung.

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soaringthoughts · 10 months

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:: A MISFORTUNE'S VESSEL. (chapter 2)

[ lowercase intended. ] a misfortune's vessel : chapter 2/? chapter - 1 PAIRINGS: aqua hoshino x reader

A/N: I actually didn’t expect for people to see and read my work, but here we go! School just finished for me and I just graduated so I've been very busy for the past month and wasn't able to update.

I procrastinated too much on this.. But now I finally finished it. ╰(❁´◡`❁)╯

word count: 3492 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it felt as though time had flown. you're glad that your body is finally capable of self care.

what relieves you the most is that you finally reached the age where people wouldn't suspect you for walking and talking.

it didn't take long before you can finally stand up on your own two feet, you've always sworn to never leave your crib at all rather than do all the crawling.

everything changed, however, when the news regarding Ai reached you.

you didn't get to hear an ounce of it from Miyako. but due to Ai's popularity, the news spread like wildfire all across the internet.

you were devastated. Ai passing away was the least thing you'd expect to receive after not hearing from her for years.

it made you wonder, what about Aqua and Ruby?

you can't gather the wits to ask Miyako about it. perhaps letting her recover from it would be the wiser decision.

over the past years since the incident, you barely got any attention from your parents.

Saito deserted his responsibilities. he spiraled into depression and disappeared from the company grounds. perhaps it was because of what happened to Ai.

it was all so sudden that Miyako was forced to be bombarded with these responsibilities, which only occupied more of her time so you barely got a chance to see her.

you are often alone at home, well at least that's how you felt. Saito stayed with you, but he would often lock himself up in his room and only come out to eat or use the bathroom.

hell, he even wastes his time on drinking alcohol and only gives you money just so you could take care of yourself.

Miyako, however, thought that this was bad parenting and so she decided to leave you with a babysitter.

you were upset as to why her, your own mother, is out there taking care of other children instead of her own daughter.

but you were considerate enough to understand that she's still working for strawberry productions which concludes of being present at her workplace most of the time.

but despite all that, you still managed to graduate from primary school and live your life as it is.

you are currently a highschooler. and for this next school year, you are struck by the decision of whether to take general or entertainment program for your new school.

you've always wanted to be an iconic idol like Ai but after hearing Miyako's opinion regarding this matter, you've decided to just pursue being an average student.

she didn't sound too supportive of it, especially after what happened to Ai.

being an idol really does have its ups and downs.

“I'm going.” not sounding too optimistic, Miyako was concerned by your well-being.

“I'll give you a ride.” Miyako snatched her car keys from the kitchenette's counter, accompanying you outside the house to head for the car.

normally, the atmosphere between you two is awkward. perhaps it's due to the relationship you both have and from the times that you two barely spend time together.

but today seemed different. unlike before, Miyako seemed to be more talkative around you after the disagreement you had regarding being an idol.

“I'm sorry, [Name].” Miyako tried to clear the atmosphere. but the rest of the ride was in silence, almost deafening at that.

you didn't have any response to this. you had already given up from the start, or so you thought.

taking things slow, that's your current objective.

“I believe in you, good luck.” as soon as you arrived at the destination, you stepped out of the car.

brushing a hair strand to tuck it behind your ears, Miyako's lips lifted into a bittersweet smile. perhaps it was due to her stress. but despite that, you took her smile all whole-heartedly.

“Thank you, mom.” with the return of a heartwarming smile, Miyako gave you a gentle squeeze of a hug before you head inside.

the school didn't look all too fancy, it didn't look all too good-for-nothing either. just an average school to be precise.

the clanks of your shoes reverberated through the school halls as you made your way inside.

the campus looked almost empty, but you were still passing by a few students throughout the way. perhaps they were also here for the enrollment.

you fixated your gaze over the plates of each classroom you are passing by to look for the general program you'll enroll in. it didn't take long, you eventually stumbled upon the said room as you lined yourself up with the students who also seemed to be here for this strand.

there was nothing special about the area. the building was simply structured and barely furnished. the atmosphere was dull. but perhaps it's because it's a new opened school.

as you got done signing the papers and passing the qualifications and requirements for your enrollment, which took a toll of time, you returned outside the halls and started heading back into the direction from where you came from to head back home.

it was quick, the long line was what kept you in.

unlike earlier, the sun seemed to shine brighter now. the rays of it reflected through the hall windows and over your figure. it was almost blinding.

you were able to see the hallways more properly. now that it's lit up, it actually doesn't look that bad.

you made your way throughout the area, standing out in your proper school attire and your bag slinged in your back.

your mind was stirred with your current emotions of what you feel about your upcoming school year. your mood swinging from both anticipation and nervousness at the same time. even though it's just the same strand you chose in your past life.

almost drowning in your thoughts, you didn't notice the group of people you bumped on. specifically a girl that's facing the opposite direction.

they seemed to be arguing about something, or maybe that's what you thought.

“Oh?- are you alright?” the girl was startled and swiftly turned around to check you out. luckily, it was just a small bump so you managed to stay on your ground.

you were in daze by the familiarity of her voice. you blinked a couple of times to clear your sight, before taking in the figure of the girl, along with two other people with her.

the two that were right in front of you were lookalikes despite the opposite genders they are, they must be identical twins.

as for the other girl on their back, she was immediately silenced by the sight. she had scarlet orbs and hair locks unlike the two.

you felt the guy's gaze dart at you, as if examining your features. “..[Name]?” as well as the girl, the guy's voice also seemed all too familiar.

you were surprised by how he knew your name. and that's when it finally rang a bell, it was Aqua and Ruby.

“You guys..” was all you managed to mutter. you were still in shock by the sudden encounter. you didn't expect that you'd reunite with them here, out of all places.

considering the school attire they are also in, it was obvious that they are also enrolled for this school.

you can say that nothing much changed. they were still the twins that you knew.

Aqua is still as stoic as ever. his phlegmatic tone remains the same. Ruby, still a bundle of joy, much to your surprise.

Unlike Aqua, Ruby is still as talkative as ever when comparing the two, “Aw, is that all you have to say? it has been years!” to your surprise, the two seemed to still get along with you despite not seeing each other for years.

you indulged in a small conversation, mostly about updating yourselves about what happened over the years of being separated.

“So, what program did you take?” just as Aqua had decided to chime in, the atmosphere immediately shifted from someone clearing their throat. done on purpose.

that's when you remembered that the two were also with someone else.

“I'm still here, you know.” said the 'unknown' girl to ease the atmosphere, almost feeling bad for leaving her in the dark from the reunion of you three.

she had red locks with a length that extends to the central of her neck. as well as cerise doe eyes that somehow resembles Ruby's, which complements to the color scheme of her hair.

she had a navy blue beret on, unlike you, Ruby, and the rest of the females in the school. making her stand out.

“Well.. this is kind of a personal matter, [Name] is a friend that we haven't seen for years.”

you didn't expect for Aqua to respond, but you were glad that he is finally somehow being more open than letting Ruby do all the talking.

this earned a scoff from the girl, a name that is still unknown. “Maybe let me chime in at least.. maybe we can get along.”

although you appreciated the fact that this girl was willing to talk with you, you can't help but wonder if she only said that so she wouldn't feel left out.

setting your thoughts aside, you decided to conversate anyway.

“I'm [name].” there was no need for formalities, and so you decided to just simply introduce yourself by letting her know your name. you're awkward at starting conversations after all.

“I'm Kana!”

and without a word, the girl, who is named Kana now that you knew, slipped in between the twins to close the distance between the two of you.

she abruptly dragged you by the arm with a gentle grip, turning you two away from the twins as she whispered in your ear, “So.. are you and Aqua dating?”

this question caught you off guard, especially from someone you've barely met for an hour. not even for 15 minutes.

“huh? no, we're not.” you whispered back in a sheepish manner. you didn't even know why this girl, who is practically still a stranger, would ask this.

the situation was overly awkward. you felt the eyes of the twins watching both of you from behind.

“Really?” Kana exclaimed with a hint of enthusiasm in her tone, her voice now more audible that it was probably heard by the other two. shortly after the realization sinks in, she immediately clears her throat to brush the awkward atmosphere off.

“I- I mean, really?” she followed with her voice now less excited than before to cover her excitement up.

the two of you then turned back around after clearing Kana's question up, now facing the twins once more.

the twins glanced at each other's faces as if communicating by thoughts, confusion evident in their expressions. “What was that about?” asked Ruby, staring at the two of you intently.

“Nothing!~” said Kana, with the brightest smile on her face. “Don't tell them I asked you that, okay?” she whispered once more, in which you gave a nod of approval. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“For how long are you two going to keep on following me?” Aqua remarked in his usual tone.

― “Until you answer all my questions!” said Kana.

― “I'm not. I'm headed in the same direction.”

he simply hummed at the difference of your responses, spiced with a hint of displease from Kana's perseverance.

the two went on in their way with a small conversation, although it was mostly Kana just bombarding Aqua with questions.

you were headed for the same path as Aqua, it just happened that your destination was the same route as his.

throughout the entire conversation of the two, you were quiet. but you couldn't help but pique curiosity from their topic, especially from how persistent Kana is to suggest Aqua to continue acting.

so he used to be an actor? a child one at that. or so you thought.

“I'm headed that way, see you two.” you pointed in the opposite direction of two paths you three came across. this time, your route is now different from what they are taking. so you decided to inform them of your route before parting your ways.

“Wait! Why don't you come with us, [Name]? Aqua and I were just planning for a hangout so you might as well come,”

you abruptly stopped on your tracks from hearing Kana. you then turned around to face them again, an inviting expression on Kana's face in contrast to Aqua's impassive ones.

“No we're not.” Aqua remarked,

“Come on, Aqua! you haven't seen us both for a very long time!”

“My destination is not somewhere that will keep you two entertained.”

“As long as the three of us can hold a conversation..”

“Fine.”

it took a chunk of Kana's convincing before finally persuading Aqua into it. it made you wonder as to how she can even handle his unexpressive attitude.

she waved her hand at you to call you back. and so you decided to come along since you were free after all.

“Oh, Kana Arima. I haven't seen you in so long― and..? Aqua's girlfriend?”

almost choking from your own saliva, you cleared your throat awkwardly and as well as Aqua. do old people just often ask the most off-putting questions and embarrassing things?

“No, we're not. I'm a friend. That happened to end up here for a hangout.” you emphasized the word 'hangout', as if not expecting for it to occur in some strange old man's room. you didn't even know the guy.

with a chuckle, the man twisted his chair to face you three. “I see, I see. I was kidding.”

“That wasn't very funny..” said Kana who was patting your back to ease you from the coughing, the situation almost dramatic.

the room was then eventually beaming with a light atmosphere as you all conversed with general topics regarding your lives. such as school, relationships, and.. acting, which you cannot relate to.

but despite that, you all got along despite you just meeting the other two this day.

a while after for what seemed like an hour, you four were invited to dinner by an elderly woman that barged into the room, in which you all complied.

the dining table was in silence as you all fixated your attention on the food. but the silence was also broken from time to time with short paced conversations.

“So you still live off your parents, Director.” Kana remarked in the most casual tone.

'that wasn't his wife?..' you thought to yourself. it was bizarre to think about now that Kana mentioned it.

the dinner went on with them talking about the careers they used to have with acting. it seems that Kana was still in it, unlike Aqua who apparently already quit a long time ago.

of course, they made sure to include you in as well, asking you about your route in life and as well as your interest in acting.

and so you just found out that the man used to be a director.

hell, Kana even suggested you to be an actress with her.

she really is a persistent person. she even offered to give you a training after excusing yourself that you're not fond of acting. she seemed really desperate to have a friend with her.

if only they knew how talentless you were in your past life.

but that was in the past.. right?

even so, that fact deteriorated your self-esteem despite living in a new body that is probably way better than your previous one.

it didn't take long before the sun went down. only then you realized that you spent too much time in the hangout.

Miyako must be worried by now..

as you three dismissed yourself from the director's house, Kana parted her way. her dorm was in the opposite direction unlike you who's headed for the same destination with Aqua, which is the bus station.

the walk was quiet, considering the two of you are not fond of idle chit-chatting. but of course, the tension was less awkward with a few chats.

shortly after reaching the bus station, the both of you sat on the bench.

the next bus was the last, so it's only good that you two made it in time.

the surroundings were dark. the moonlight barely lit the ground, the only light source being the flickering street lamp that was beside the bench.

“I didn't know you did acting.” you suddenly commented to put a halt to the silence.

“Not for long. It's not my course.” Aqua simply remarked. he was still a tad replier up until now.

you were slightly taken in by surprise. throughout the hangout with Kana complimenting his skills, you didn't expect him to actually dislike acting.

“So you didn't take entertainment program?”

“I took general program. I wasn't even fit to act in the first place.”

“Shame.. I would've liked to see you perform.”

“Enough about me. You took the general program too, right?”

your face shifted into one of intrigue at Aqua's response. it was nice to finally have a talk with him after hours of just awkward greetings. much to your surprise, now that you two were alone.

“I did. It would be a good coincidence if we end up in the same batch!” this earned a hum from Aqua, not showing any signs of displease of having you as a classmate.

“Hm, you're right. But it seems less likely to happen considering the amount of those that applied.”

just as you two were finally conversing once again, the moment was interrupted when the bus had finally arrived.

you two rose up from your seats to quickly head inside, not wasting any matter of second in order to not miss the bus.

the vehicle immediately drove off as you two got in despite not even getting a seat. this caused you to almost stumble, in which you managed to stay on ground by holding onto a pole and with Aqua's hands firmly grasped in your arms from behind.

“Thank you―” you sheepishly remarked, returning with a simple nod from Aqua.

you two got further inside the bus, only realizing that all the seats were full.

that must be why the driver immediately drove off, because there were no seats left available.

just then, the driver abruptly stomped the brake, causing the both of you to stumble once again.

good thing the both of you were strong enough to stay on your grounds.

as the bus stopped, one passenger left his seat as he left the bus for his stop. the bus drove off again shortly after.

you two eyed the seat.

“You sit.” said Aqua, gently shoving you closer to the available seat. of course you couldn't refuse due to how exhausted you are from the day.

as you sat, Aqua stood beside you as he held onto the bus hanger for support.

the ride was surprisingly long. and the silence was frequently broken with small talks.

you shared stories, emotions, and laughter― well, something Aqua didn't reciprocate to say the least.

he was still as stoic as ever. but that's what makes him recognizable from all the people you know. and somehow, with that distinctive demeanor of his, it reminds you of someone. 'what was his name again?..' you couldn't quite remember his name, but his face was still as clear as skies in your mind. all that you know is that it was someone in your past life.

it didn't take long before you reached your stop. you were first to get off the bus before Aqua.

“See you, Aqua.” you waved your goodbye and rose up from your seat, stealing one last glance on him.

“See you, [Name].” he returned. as you eyed your gaze on him, you noticed the faint smile that lifted up on his lips. one you've never seen from him before.

maybe you only stereotyped him of not having emotions at all, that he's unexpressive.

now you found out that he actually is, well, except for his friends.

but with all those thoughts aside, you can't help but notice how good he looked with a smile. almost charismatic.

“You should smile more often. You'd get a lot of girls.” you playfully remarked with the smuggest look you had.

his face immediately shifted back into his neutral one, as if masking his smile. in which you found kind of funny.

“Is anyone going or not?” the driver eventually spoke, impatiently tapping his foot on the bus floor as if a sign to skip the stop if no one's going down.

not wasting anymore time, you quickly got off the bus. and with a few studs of walk, you finally arrived back at home. mind at ease from having to reunite with your friend. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taglist: @lumiriai, @miyakoa, @dododododooosworld, @kimiko-the-angel, @fukumiai, @kat-kaps, @karma-gisa

#aqua hoshino #aquamarine hoshino x reader #aquamarine hoshino #ruby hoshino #kana arima #oshi no ko #oshi no ko anime #fanfiction #aqua hoshino x reader #slow burn

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kazarinn · 4 months

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I'm finishing up the retranslation for Saint Tail's anime right now, so I'm at the stage where I'm thinking about my next few projects, and I've currently at least decided that I want to do something for Megumi Tachikawa's other works as well. Tachikawa is an incredibly amazing writer, and it's such a shame that her work has been so poorly represented in translation; even beyond the fact that a good chunk of her work hasn't even been translated at all, the ones that were translated seem to have been run through the translation equivalent of a meat grinder.

I prioritized Saint Tail both because it's her most famous work and because it's the one that took the most damage (it's definitely pretty disturbing to find out that around half of the plot was translated to suggest the opposite of what it was actually supposed to mean!), but I do want to call attention to Cyber Idol ☆ Mink (localized by Tokyopop as Mink), generally considered to be Saint Tail's spiritual sequel. Unlike with Saint Tail, the Tokyopop release of Mink didn't flip it horizontally, and it doesn't have incomprehensible nonsense lines like "Great Big Deal!!" that Saint Tail's release did, but...well, I think some examples would demonstrate it better.

Here's Tokyopop's version of a spread from chapter 6:

And here's the proof of concept I sent to my group when pitching this series (done very quickly, so definitely not my best work, but probably enough to get the point across), which was translated directly from the Japanese text:

...Huh? That's not even remotely similar! The original scene is meant to draw a clear parallel between Mink's view of the chocolate and her view of herself, and the progression of the scene plays on the ambiguity of whether "あたしじゃなくて" means "this isn't from me" or "this isn't me". The reason Mink is considered to be Saint Tail's spiritual sequel is that it explores similar concepts of self-identity and the feeling of inadequacy compared to an idealized, sanitized self, something Mink is even less subtle about than Saint Tail was at times, but the nuance here seems to have been lost in translation. (In fact, I'm not entirely sure what must have led to the Tokyopop version's interpretation; the Japanese text doesn't resemble what's there at all.)

Which also means that when you get to later parts of the series like this...

(Tokyopop version)

(Our proof of concept retranslation)

In this case, the Tokyopop version roughly corresponds to the Japanese text but interprets it in ways that really don't get the point of this scene very well, ranging from not catching the specific use of "small and tiny" (ちっぽけな) invoking the earlier scene with the chocolate to making too many specific assumptions about Mink and Kyo's feelings that are actually out of character. (Let alone the fact that the way they phrase Mink's lines here really just doesn't convey the sheer level of desperation and emotion at all...)

For instance, it's a very important part of Mink's character that she doesn't have self-awareness about wanting to feel needed; she says 必要としてくれるなら because she legitimately feels like she's useless or has nothing to offer without the help of the WANNA-BE program. This kind of thing is a common trait of Tachikawa protagonists, and while I know many people might think it's not that big of a deal, I think the difference between "wanting attention and thinking your alter ego is cooler" and "having insecurity from believing you'll never be good enough unless you blot out all the undesirable parts of yourself" is big enough to mean something to a lot of people who would be reading this!

In any case, once I'm done with Saint Tail, I do have some other projects I want to prioritize first, since Mink's official translation is at least somewhat readable (kind of a low bar, but...). But I did want to call attention to this for now in case anyone was interested, because while Saint Tail and Mink are far from the only shoujo or magical girl manga from this era to have such poor treatment in localization, I don't think this issue has been well-documented when it comes to Tachikawa's work, and it really does break my heart.

#Cyber Idol Mink #Dennou Shoujo Mink #Mink #Saint Tail #Kaitou Saint Tail #Megumi Tachikawa #Magical Girl #Shoujo Manga #Shoujo

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abybweisse · 8 months

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Do you see Doll pulling an “I am a victim, too, I have no choice but do as my terrible master bids” act next chapter, to convince Snake and Finny to go along with her directions? The one advantage kids have so far is that they outnumber Doll and that lone female staffer…

What will Doll say?

Yes, I think she will probably play the victim card, much like Joker did when our earl confronted him and Kelvin. But I'm hoping that, unlike our earl, Snake (and Finny) will confront her -- not with the idea that they are taking away something she took from them but -- with the truth that regardless of how she was treated, she had a choice whether or not to obey. Well, back in her circus days, anyway.

Because, of course, her situation is honestly a bit different from Joker, since she's now a bizarre doll following cinematic records that Undertaker has used to "program" her. Still, these should be her own cinematic records, specifically the "future memories" that show her goals in life. No, her personal goals don't include harming children. In fact, she was the most resistant among the circus members who were kidnapping those children.

When Doll gives her reasons/excuses for going along with Undertaker's and real Ciel's plans, this would be a good time for Finny and/or Snake to flashback to their backstories and talk about the choices they made. Finny could have just sat there and let the researcher shoot him, but he decided to fight for his life and escape. Then he could have fought to get away from our earl and Sebastian, but he decided to accept their job offer. We know much less about Snake, but he put up with whatever came his way for a long time, too. However, when he realized the other first tier circus members might never return, he could have stayed on with the failing circus, but he decided to take matters into his own hands. Then he decided to also accept a job offer from our earl.

Both of them broke away from their situations, even though it was probably a very difficult decision to make. In some way or other, they felt programmed by the little systems they were in, but breakdowns to those systems provided them with opportunities to do something else. They could argue with Doll that this break (they intend to cause) in the orphanage's system is her opportunity to change her own behaviors.

This could go a few different ways.

She could double down on her programming and fight them (as soon as she has enough strength)

She could agree with them but finish getting the blood transfusion, so she'd have the energy to help them destroy the place and/or help them escape

She could agree with them, remove the tubing, and allow herself to further deteriorate/weaken from a lack of fresh blood supply. Idk how long that would take or what would happen to her mentally because of this

She could be forced to break down completely, like Agares, and start attacking them in a mindless manner, forgetting her programming as if she'd run out of "episodes"

Personally, I have a feeling we will end up with some sort of fight scene between Doll and Snake and/or Finny.

About the three ladies who work behind the scenes here, the head matron seems to be the only one that doesn't really question what the orphanage is doing. Jane ends up helping Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao at Heathfield's manor. Ada helps Baldo, Lau, and the vets at Athena Sanatorium. So, perhaps the two other staff ladies decide to help the kids, even if the head matron doesn't. Maybe just Susan helps... since we know her name....

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traumacatholic · 5 months

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I need advice. I abandoned Catholicism over 5 years ago due to trauma. I recently decided to try to reconnect with my faith and get closer to God but I don’t know where to start.

This is really going to depend on whether you are a baptised and confirmed Catholic or not. I'm saying this because I know a lot of adults that were baptised and who for whatever reason, didn't get confirmed.

In both instances, I would recommend reaching out to your local Church and ask to have a discussion with the local Priest who will be able to advise you on your next steps. If you are a baptised and confirmed Catholic, then he's likely going to ask for you to arrange to attend Confession, as well as recommending going forward that you attend Mass where possible. This way, going forward after your confession, you will be able to receive Communion. It may be possible that he can also recommend you some resources that speak to your particular situation.

Some Churches are certainly in better positions than others with regards to providing ongoing support. If the Church has any Bible studies, or would let you enrol in RCIA even as a fully baptised and confirmed Catholic then I would recommend getting involved in them when they're up and running. It can provide a lot of support and guidance.

If you are only baptised, then your next steps would be enrolling into the RCIA program when it's up and running. Because if you're not baptised AND confirmed, then you're unable to participate in the Sacraments of Communion and Confession.

Something I would also recommend doing is developing a prayer rule. These should generally only be established with the help of a Priest, so I would recommend asking the Priest you reach out to for better advice on where you should start. But something that would be beneficial would be to have a morning and/or nightly prayer where you say the Our Father 3x as well as the Hail Mary 3x. (This should serve as a baseline, if you feel the need to add other prayers that address something you're going through that day, then do but please don't try and establish a long lengthy prayer rule. It should be short and manageable).

I would also recommend reading small parts of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John daily until you finish reading them all. You don't have to do the prayers and Scripture readings in one go, definitely spread them out throughout the day if that's easier. And only start with small bitesize chunks of Scripture. It's better to read a small amount each day than to read a huge chunk and then not pick the Bible up again for weeks on end.

Once you've finished reading them, I would recommend going to https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120123.cfm. Each day, read the daily readings. These are the readings used in the Mass for that day. And draw from the Old and New Testament. I would still recommend reading outside of those, but these can be a good starting point.

An alternative (to the second part) would be to work your way through the Ascension presents - Bible in a Year playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeXS0cAkuTPqFMtZQ379qdEmcfxO1SvXc . Commentary and prayer is provided alongside the readings, and you might find this helpful. And you could always have this playing in the background while you get ready in the morning / before bed.

If you don't feel ready to attend Mass yet, that's okay. I would still recommend reaching out to the Priest and talking about your situation with him. And incorporating prayer and Scripture into your life is so important. Don't feel like you can't pray or read the Bible just because you don't feel ready to attend Mass.

Spending time with the Scripture and spending time in prayer is a really good means of reconnecting with the faith. Especially because you can take things at your own pace. Don't feel like you aren't doing enough. Starting off slow and steady is always going to be better than trying to jump into everything all at once and burning yourself out. God bless you on your journey!

Also if you're interested in religious books that explore themes such as mental health issues and trauma, then I would recommend checking out this list: https://hislittleflower-throughconcrete.tumblr.com/post/161442647997/i-have-no-idea-if-youd-actually-know-but-is

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perfectpaperbluebirds · 8 months

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Sicktember #3

Prompt: “What happened to your phenomenal immune system, huh?”

Fandom/OCs: New Girl (Schmidt and CeCe)

Words: 1240

Sicknario inspo: Knowing someone is sick because they sleep in from this post, "sounding like that" from this post, sleeping on her side of the bed from this post.

Author’s comments/background: I’m not used to writing this fandom, so idk how good the characterization is. But I love Schmidt and CeCe’s dynamic and it was fun to (attempt to) explore. And there is simply not enough New Girl sickfic in the world so here you go.

~~~***~~~

Dating a person like Schmidt was never boring. He was anything but predictable. However, he WAS a man of routine. Every time CeCe had slept over, it was always he that woke her, whether by bringing her breakfast or by exercising in the room to show off his body, or by kissing her somewhere sensual, he was always the early riser. Therefore, when one day she woke to find him still snoring beside her, she knew immediately that something was wrong.

She ran a hand down his arm, and he barely stirred. His skin was very warm. All of him was, she realized, and had been for a while. She was sweating just lying next to him. She slid out of bed, and still he didn't move. She watched him for a moment, frowning in concern as she debated waking him. He slept like the dead, though, breathing thickly, so she decided to leave him be.

Pulling on a robe, she padded out to the kitchen just as Nick and Jess emerged from their rooms as well. They headed straight for the coffee pot, barely awake, but stopped when they realized it was empty. They wordlessly turned to CeCe.

"Why didn't Schmidt make coffee this morning?" Jess mumbled, barely awake.

"Schmidt's not up yet."

That roused them more than anything else could have. Nick and Jess glanced at each other worriedly.

"He's not… awake? How is that possible?" Nick asked. "It's Schmidt. He's like a robot. He's programmed to get up at the exact same time every day and make us coffee."

"Not today, I guess," said CeCe. "I think he's sick. He's like, super warm. And he's snoring. It's not normal."

Nick groaned. "Great. His delicate internal wiring is compromised. Who knows what'll happen now. Sick Schmidt is a very bad thing. I'm not sticking around here until he wakes up. We're getting dressed and we're leaving, Jess."

"But–" Jess tried, looking at the coffee pot forlornly. Nick grabbed her arm and led her back to the bedroom before she could finish, closing the door behind them.

CeCe sighed. So much for getting any help from them.This was the first time she had ever dealt with sick Schmidt before, and she was at a loss.

When people were sick, what did they need? Medicine probably. Soup. Water. She could handle that. She didn't want to wake him up, though, since sleep was important too. She decided to leave him be for the time being. At least it was Saturday and she wouldn't have to worry about dealing with his job for a few days.

She got ready around him, listening to him snuffle and snore and mumble. Just as she was nearly finished, he rolled over suddenly. The movement apparently shifted whatever was in his nose, because he suddenly lifted his head to sneeze thickly:

"Hnnkkt'CHUH! Hehgg'CHUHH! EHHG'choo!"

He had clumsily thrown his elbow over his face in an attempt at covering, but the spray had still gone everywhere. Schmidt made a disgusted noise, clawing several tissues out of the box by his bed and scrubbing everywhere he could reach.

"Bless you," CeCe said, making him jump.

He looked beside him where she had been lying then back at her, as if making sure he wasn't hallucinating.

"CeCe? Why are you upb so early?" he mumbled, his voice rough and congested.

"It's not early, babe. It's late. It's after ten."

"Whadt!?" He jumped out of bed, staggering against the wall for a minute before he found his balance. "I godda go for mby Saturday run," he croaked. "I ndever mbiss mby run." He began to rifle through his dresser for his running clothes.

CeCe moved to his side, grabbing his hands to still them and pushing the dresser drawer closed with her hip. "You're definitely not going for a run sounding like that. You'd pass out from not breathing."

"I'mb fide, CeCe," he said, swiping at his nose with his shoulder.

"No. You're not. You're sick," she said.

"I'mb ndot sigck. I take extreme precautions and have a phenombenal immbune systemb. I ndever gedt sigck. Idt's jusdt… allergies."

CeCe rolled her eyes. "You're sick, trust me. You have a fever. You woke me up because you were so hot."

"Girl, you know I'mb always hodt," he said, taking a stab at his usual attitude and failing miserably.

"Uh huh, sure," she said, unimpressed. "I'm just saying, you should take some medicine for all that hotness or you're just going to feel worse."

"Girl, they don't mbake mbedicine for whadt I godt," he tried again, coming off even less convincing.

"Nope, they sure don't," she said flatly, grabbing her purse. "Whatever, do what you want. I have to go, Schmidt, I've got a gig at noon. But I'll be back when I'm done. Jess and Nick and Winston left, so please try not to do anything stupid until I get back. At least drink some orange juice or something. And maybe don't leave the apartment. I'm worried you'd get lost with a fever like that."

"I'mb fide, CeCe, really."

"Whatever you say, Schmidt. I'll see you in a few hours." With that she left, shaking her head, hoping against hope that he couldn't do too much damage to himself in that time.

~~~

She let herself into the loft with some trepidation that evening, wondering what she would find. The apartment was dark and quiet, and Schmidt was nowhere to be seen. Tossing down her stuff, she went in search of him. To her shock, she was exactly where she'd hoped he'd be… in bed, in his pajamas, napping, surrounded by used tissues. There was another break in routine, though: he was sleeping on her side of the bed, his face pressed into her pillowcase. Her face softened at the sight, and she went to his side, trailing her nails over his arm. His eyes flickered open, then lit up upon seeing her.

"CeCe, you're bagck! How was your gig?"

"Fine. The usual. Hot, dumb models and ugly, dumb directors everywhere. You would've loved it."

"Sounds like a dreamb," he yawned.

"But how are you? How are you feeling, actually?"

"Sigck," he muttered. "Tired. I barely lefdt this roomb all day."

"What happened to your phenomenal immune system, huh?" she gently teased as she shimmied out of her shoes and dress and pulled on a robe.

"Idt abandoned mbe, jusdt like everyone else," he sighed pathetically, closing his eyes.

"I'm here, aren't I? And look, you didn't even leave me room on the bed. Why are you lying over here, anyway?"

"Smbells like you," he said, barely audible, even as he shifted over to make room for her.

She had no smart remark to that, since it tugged on her heartstrings just a little too hard. She brushed away most of the tissues, then slid in next to him on the bed, letting her boyfriend cuddle into her arms immediately. He made a needy sound.

"I mbissed you," he sighed. "I hate bei'g sigck. Idt ruins everythi'g."

"Yeah, I get that," she said. "Makes for great cuddle time, though."

At last, she saw him smile for the first time all day. "Guess you'll have to show mbe."

And that's exactly what she did.

#sicktember 2023 #skt 2023 #prompt 3 #ne/w gir/l #sch/midt and ce/ce

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eponymous-rose · 1 year

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I'm gonna do this again because it turned out last week kinda went off the rails without it and the little bit of accountability is super super helpful.

Monday!

It's a busy week! It's also my birthday week! Let's do this!

E-mail with coffee: sent a prospective grad student a congratulations on her admission to our program. I'm really hoping to hire her, but I do need to consider whether I might want to admit two students for this position and just get the extra funding for the second one elsewhere if both decide to come. Hmm. Confirmed coffee on Friday with the wonderful admin I've been wanting to befriend for a while - finally we'll interact outside of paperwork! Sadly Wednesday's seminar speaker is ill and won't be able to present - I'm leading the seminar so that does add up to a little less work for me, which is the silver lining there. One of my student groups is struggling to grab data from the weather station they built on the roof because the dang software doesn't work on Macs - managed to coordinate getting them a loaner PC laptop from the department, whew. Completed two letters of reference for an undergrad student applying to internships. Somehow managed to double-book a meeting and gave one a heads up to cancel. Showed my availability for scheduling a PhD defense for a student whose committee I'm on. One of the speakers for my seminar series sent a somewhat passive-aggressive e-mail to the department chair to let him know his info's not up on the website yet. Department chair forwarded it to me, I replied with, essentially "hold your dang horses, your talk isn't until mid-March". He replied back with a sheepish apology. All good.

Formulated my list of essential stuff for this week:

finish Wednesday's (and next week's?) lecture(s?)

prepare next week's homework & key

work on grant proposal

work on commissioned review article

So excited that we're finally to the part of the class that I have taught before in past years! Great lecture today about statistical data analysis. Hurt everyone's brains with the Monty Hall problem. Showed a lot of XKCD comics, got some laughs. Good times. Answered some student questions on the homework assignments, looks like everyone's on track to ace this one as well. This is a really strong class and I'm very proud of them!

On to a virtual meeting with my peer mentoring group! We talk about how utterly wild it is that different departments manage research funding in completely different ways. I vent a bit for the umpteenth time about having to rely 100% on grants to pay my grad students (bigger departments often have student funding provided if they TA, but we just don't have enough classes to sustain that). Easily the biggest source of stress in my life right now is running out of funding for my students: "in order to pay your graduate students, you have to receive a major grant" "cool! how likely am I to get one?" "success rates are about 1 in 15" "uhhhh" "also the applications (if you manage to find a perfect match for your research) take about 40-60 hours to plan and write and it's not work that's looked at formally as part of your tenure review so you're actively taking time away from research" "uhhhhhhh" "and you won't find out if you have been awarded the grant or not before you have to make the decision to hire a student so you just gotta gamble on it" "UHHHHHHH" "you don't get paid in the summer either unless you pull in 2-3 grants that can each cover one month max of salary so I hope you're not putting well over 50% of your take-home toward rent in one of the worst markets in the US or anything haha." It's A Lot. But it's very helpful to talk to people about it!

Realized I left my half-finished Wednesday lecture on my computer at home so I can't work on it during my break between meetings. Shoot, guess that's a tomorrow problem. At least I can work on the homework assignment! This one was an absolute nightmare last year but I think I've come up with a way to simplify it while still hitting all of the learning goals. It's complicated but hopefully very satisfying and builds on everything they've learned thus far. Even with the simplification, I'm definitely expecting some traffic in office hours next week. Opted not to include the more tedious section of the homework because I've tested that particular skill amply in the earlier assignments this quarter. Ran through it once on my own, sent myself the key, then posted the homework and the submission portal for their online module for next week, so all I'm missing now is the lectures.

E-mail break! A professor at a small university nearby wants to bring in a grad student from my group to talk to her class about tornadoes! I have someone in mind (who is both a great presenter and also could use a little confidence boost to get back on track with his research), but of course he's working remotely on the other side of the country, so it's time for a quick check to see if a remote presentation is possible. Checking in on my seminar speaker for next week - project title and abstract up on the website, phew. She's a grad student, so I should find out if her advisor can introduce her or if they want me to do so (and if so, I gotta do some digging for fun facts to share!). Got an invite to a lunch with the faculty & chair where we're going to be brainstorming our next faculty hire, so I gotta be there for that (also because free food)! Surreal to think that we might be hiring my colleague for the next 30 years. It's... kind of intimidating and I definitely want to be in the room for that discussion. Aha! A reply already: virtual talk is fine, so I put the professor and my grad student in touch.

Nice virtual meeting with my former postdoc advisor - we commiserate for a while over his recent illness, but he's feeling better now so we quickly jump back to talking research. The small grant I was awarded recently actually dovetails with some of the broader research ideas he and I had been talking about, so I'm gonna keep him in the loop on that!

Up next: a meeting with my two undergraduate research interns. They're coadvised by my colleague who is flying research aircraft on the other side of the country right now so it's just the three of us. Due to holidays and conferences, this is actually the first time in 2023 we all managed to meet! We go over some paperwork to make sure they get college credit for this research. They're spinning their wheels a little bit but I had them shoot off a couple emails while I was there to start them getting their data ASAP. We then chatted about severe weather we'd all witnessed. One of the students mentioned she's been saving the candy from my office candy bowl for whenever she forgets to bring lunch to campus and now I'm realizing I should maybe get some protein bars or something for some variety.

All good stuff. There's a seminar in 15 minutes but it's a chemistry seminar so... I may just sneak home a bit early.

Tomorrow: no meetings (maaaybe one remote meeting), so work-from home! Should be able to get the last bit of coursework done for the week so I can start on my research to-do list.

#eponymous academia tag

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squidhominid · 2 months

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15 Questions for 15 Friends

Tagged by @venort!

Are you named after anyone?

Oh this is a fun one. So, the name I picked for myself after coming out as trans comes from the character Ellie Williams, from The Last of Us. I almost named myself 'Emma', after the Japanese name for Lady Timpani from Super Paper Mario. My deadname, which I won't share for obvious reasons, comes from... I think my great grandpa? I'm not 100% sure. Something like that. And my dad almost gave me the name Jean-Luc, after Picard, y'know, Star Trek, or Jean-Claude, after Jean-Claude Killy (although I suspect this was just a failed cover story to try and convince my mom to go with Jean-Luc).

When was the last time you cried?

Not answering this one, sorry.

Do you have kids?

Not answering this one, sorry.

What sports do/have you played?

I don't, uh. I'm not. I'm not very physically active these days. In high school they rotated us constantly between soccer, softball, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball, badminton, and I think MAYBE football? I was terrible at all of them, y'know, vision/coordination problems and whatnot.

Do you use sarcasm?

Do I? I'm not sure. What do you think?

What is the first thing you notice about people?

Man I dunno, uh, I just think some people are neat.

What's your eye color?

My V-Tuber avatar has orange eyes. I'm not saying more than that. Eat pant.

Scary movies, or happy endings?

Both, neither, and everything in between. Movies are good. Have you seen The Boy and the Heron? You should go see The Boy and the Heron. Also Paprika. Paprika is really good. I wish Satoshi Kon had lived long enough to finish Dreaming Machine. Actually I just wish he hadn't gotten cancer at all. Fuck cancer.

Any talents?

I'm pretty good with OBS, and tech stuff in general. I enjoy streaming, and people seem to think I'm pretty good at it.

Where were you born?

Washington

What are your hobbies?

Video games, programming, VR/AR, motion capture/streaming/video editing stuff, just, techy stuff in general.

Do you have any pets?

Not at the moment, but I kept a few fish as pets as a kid, and the last place I lived had a local colony of stray cats that me and my dad would feed and look after.

How tall are you?

5'2" in real life, my V-Tuber avatar is supposed to be either 4'11" or 4'9", I'm not 100% decided yet.

Favorite subject in school?

Probably the classes where we just got to fuck around with computers. But if I had to give an actual answer, probably math or physics? If we include university, probably the classes I took on VR, UI design, and product design, or the cognitive science class I took that was about the intersection between cognitive science, society, and popular technology.

Dream job?

Honestly, anything where I'd get to apply my interests in both technology and internet media. Whether that's working on software for streaming, working as an editor or a writer at a tech YouTube channel, working at a video or livestreaming platform like Twitch or YouTube... Alternatively, maybe working on VR software or hardware? Just as long as I'm making a good income, working on something I'm passionate about, and with time to spend on my hobbies.

Tagging @minty-cups @lunacapra @pbyukionna @quinnydoll @largedragonmilf @super-tired-robot @mudmouths @missylanieous @capncococharms @ardnin @dooper64 @astrophelcallisto @emery-matsushita-vt @mammeata @friendbreakfast

#tag game #questions #rambling

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palialaina · 9 months

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Uncle B keeps saying "It's GRAPE to see you, Berry!" so I decided today, I was going to change up my colors. I have never seen someone ready to make a joke and then look so crestfallen so fast. I think he went through the stages of grief in about twenty seconds while his brain started back up, and then he said how sunny I looked.

It's a new, terrible joke, I'll take it.

Jina found me a Kamera! I don't think I'm the best at taking pictures, but she said I could use it to keep track of my home progress, same as this journal, so I'm going to give it a try.

It's been kind of a whirlwind, I've totally lost track of time again. Einar really likes shiny pebbles, and he started talking to me about Oneness. I don't really get it, but Jina said it's something programmed into beings like him and Hekla, and it's kind of like a Path? But the difference being is that people choose, and these guys didn't get to.

Feels kind of sad. It was kind of fun trying to understand it, but I don't really think Oneness is my thing to worry about. That, or I find it in my garden

I am way too proud of it, for sure.

I picked up my third hallway piece today, but there's always so much to be distracting. Elouisa asked me to bug hunt, I had to catch crickets for Aunt Del (Seriously, auntie, you live next to a place called Leafhopper Hill, what were you expecting?) Maybe after I've relaxed a bit I'll go try and mine for stone and iron again, like I totally meant to do.

I wish Zeki would lower the backpack price though. Jeez. 5k for a bigger bag is wild, but I guess that's the way Grimalkin do business. Which. Rude. But I don't really have a choice.

Dad was having some trouble earlier too. Apparently he has a son! Who went into the military, and there was a kerfluffle about that, but he's trying to reach out now. I told him that owning up to his gaff was better than using the death of his wife against his son, and he agreed with me. Even said I was a good child!

Okay, I'm not a child, but heck it. I'm calling him Dad forever, even if not to his face.

Aunt Del gave me a pie for helping her with the crickets, so I had some for dessert, and man, I wanna learn how to cook like she does! I just... don't have time. So much else to run around and do. And not enough hours in the day, it feels like.

Also, Uncle B keeps trying to sell me his fertilizer recipe, but like... if I go beachcombing for a few hours, and then drop all the oyster meat into my worm farm, I end up with more fertilizer than I know what to do with! So I don't know that I'll ever buy it from him. I did buy my better how and watering can though, and wow, that makes the garden a lot easier to work in. He's hinted something about apple trees and blueberry bushes--with the obligatory Berry related pun that I had to sigh about--but he says I need more experience with what I've got first.

Maybe once I can grow those, I'll get to make some pies!

I wish I didn't have to catch fish for the weird temple thing over by the farm. I am not good at it. No wonder it's not really my Oneness (sorry Einar). I think I almost had a thing, but then it snapped the line just before I could finish, and ugh, that's twice now with that dang thing. Bahari Bay fishing is hard...

I did catch this guy though!

I decided against keeping it though. Angry little thing kept glaring at me, and I don't really have the space for pets yet anyways. So I sold it instead. Hopefully Auni got a kick out of seeing it in the shipping bin.

Oh, and Sifuu had me canvas town for opinions on what makes a good book. I have so many concerns for what she tries to write next. She's... well, got a lot of work ahead of her, I think.

I told Jina I'd send her little bits of mail for fun, so that she can practice reading ancient human. She was all for it, since our current dilemma with her puzzle door thing isn't going well. I keep going back and forth on whether the next answer is water, or like... the library. It seemed pretty straightforward at first, but now I'm not so sure.

Maybe once I've had some rest, I'll actually be able to go mine stone, iron, and see Najuma. Mayba Tamala too, but she kinda makes me uncomfy. Still, being that far out, she must want some visitors, right? Take another shot at getting those darn Bahari fish I need for sure, and comb the beach for as many oysters as I can get for my worms!

....man. That list seemed shorter in my head.

Oh, and I got a letter from my friend Lark!

Heya Berry, Do you like soup? Please save me.

Let me explain- I got pretty tired of eating grilled mushrooms and fish for days, and Reth told me he'd give me more recipes once I got my cooking level up. But the only other thing I know how to make is soup. I'm not half bad at it, if I do say so myself, but at this point I've made so much of it that at this rate I'm gonna out-soup Soup Guy. I can't eat all this ramen myself, please save me from my soupffering. (I mean, I'll be fine. I ate mushrooms for a week, I can eat soup for a week. Buuut seriously. If you get a hankering for ramen, please come over)

Drowning in soup, -Ya pal Lark

Poor Lark! Maybe I should send some of the steak dinner I've learned how to make... Auntie Del might know how I can send that in the mail and not tip off Auni. I mean, her pie made it here intact, and he loves her pie!

I shall have to think about it. Hm.. Auni-proofing a steak...

#palia #palia online #singularity 6 #Berry plays Palia #Palia journaling #Palia journey #Palia game #FOR THE RECORD! If you hit K in-game you will open up the camera.#If you want to save pictures you must save them into your album before you quit the game #It's definitely better quality than my attempts at screencapping that's for sure!#Also if you wanna friend me I am Laina Inverse in game #I am always down for friends!#I am just... awkward and don't talk much.#But if you need help #I have tips!#I've been here since Alpha!#Also the wikia exists XD

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azar-rosethorn · 2 years

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TDIS Short Stories: Just Like He Used to Build

Summary: Brick is really good when it comes to robotics, but has almost never touched anything of the sort in years. Blossom, being fed up with his refusal to join the school's robotics club after 3 years, finally finds out why.

Rating: T for swearing and mention of parental death

Note: THIS IS NOT A SHIP FIC!

She's seen him.

She's seen the way he uses his laser eyes to weld the parts together.

She's seen the way her friend spends hours on a computer trying to get the programming just right.

She's seen the way he builds, wires, rewires, programs, all until it's just right.

She's seen the way his face lights up when it's finished, when he looks around the machine to see if there's any more kinks to work out, but there isn't. It was perfect.

Brick's face doesn't light up like that anymore.

Nor does he spend hours building or programming any sort of robotic machine.

But he's always loved it, Blossom thought, When we first became friends, we'd built weird little gadgets and gizmos together all the time. We'd always argue about whether we'd use it to help the world, or take it over. What happened?

When the robotics club at their school was first announced and were taking members, Brick was the first person Blossom went to.

"Yeah, I saw it," he'd said, "You should join. Looks like you'd have fun."

"You mean we should join, right?" Blossom had asked, hopeful that this 'Brick doesn't like machines anymore' thing was all in her head.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. Brick shrugged. "Eh, I just don't think I'll have the time, ya know? I mean, with the band and sports-"

Blossom knew it was bullshit. But, she just brushed it off. Brick will come around, she thought, eventually.

Then sophomore year came and went. Blossom joined the robotics club again, and again, Brick didn't. This time, when she asked him about it, he was a little more irritated and defensive.

"Why are you even nagging me about this, anyway?" he asked, a little loudly, might I add. "You got Princess and Dexter to hang out with, and you're like, on top of the entire school! Why do you even care?!"

This of course, caught Blossom off guard. Sure, Brick was a bit of an asshole, and sure, they have their little disagreements (probably a little more often than two friends should), but he never snapped on her. Usually nothing really got to him, and if it did, he would just take it out on the punching bag with HIM's face scribbled on it down in the training room at home. This was just, kinda concerning.

Junior year, she didn't even try.

Senior year, she'd had enough.

"Okay, what is it?" she asked once they got home.

"What?"

"Come on, we used to build all sorts of amazing robotic machines together! You've always loved robotics! What happened to you?"

"Oh my- this again? Just let it go, will ya?"

"Not until you give me a legitimate reason why you won't do something that you love!? And don't say you've 'outgrown' it because I've seen you looking at my robots like an ex-girlfriend you regret breaking up with. Which, by the way, is really weird, can you please stop?"

"When did I ever-"

"So," Blossom patted the seat next to her on the couch, "You gonna spill it or do I have to keep annoying you?"

Brick rolled his eyes and started walking away. "Again, Bloss the Boss. Why. Does. This. Even. Matter?"

"Because, you're my friend, Brick, and on the contrary to popular belief, I'm not sorry for wanting to help you with whatever you're dealing with."

Brick stopped in his tracks, definitely thinking of what to say next.

"Well, ya wanna talk now?" Blossom asked, hopeful that she was getting somewhere.

But, finally, Brick was able to move again. "See you tomorrow, Blossom."

And just like that, he was gone, and all Blossom could do was sigh. You know what? Blossom thought, Whatever. What. Ever. Brick's right, why am I worried? If he wants to be a dick, let him. He'll open up when he's ready. And if he decides to do robotics again, he can do it outside of school, well, as long as he doesn't blow anything up. . . he’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.

The next day, Blossom did her usual crime-sweep of Townsville. She looked through every nook and cranny of the city, yet there was nothing. No news is good news, she thought, Now, time to head home.

But on her way, she heard a weird noise coming from. . . the Volcano Lair? Frankly, any noise coming from there is weird, since it's been abandoned for over four years, ever since Mojo Jojo bit the dust.

Blossom, excited for something interesting, immediately went to investigate. She crept around the perimeter and peered through a window.

But what she saw wasn't at all what she expected to see.

"LIAR!!!"

Those machines, all of them. The things that once brought him joy now laughed in his face every time he saw them. His failure and his grief has haunted him through all things artificially intelligent.

This was the last time those things would ever drag him down again.

Before he knew it, his fist dented the metal. It felt like nothing. Or was he just distracted? He just didn't know anymore.

"YOU PROMISED!!"

His eye beams cut a hole into the cockpit, and before he knew what he was doing, he flew in, taking apart every piece of that damn battle robot.

"YOU SAID EVERYTHING WOULD BE OKAY!!"

Bolts. Wires. Buttons. Screws. Levers. Scraps of metal. Everywhere. He didn't care about his newly cut scars from his spree. He didn't feel a thing.

"YOU SAID WE WOULD BE OKAY!"

Except he felt everything. Every negative emotion known to humanity, all at once.

"YOU SAID THAT YOU WOULD HANDLE IT!! AND-AND THAT YOU WOULD TAKE US HOME, AND WE'D NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING HURTING US EVER AGAIN!!!!"

Grief. Sorrow. Pain. Betrayal. Regret. Failure. Loneliness. Helplessness. Emptiness. You'd see all of it on his face had he not let his firey red hair drape carelessly over it. It didn't matter, though. Nothing did.

"WHY DID YOU LIE TO US!?!"

He didn't stop until the battle robot that once stood tall in the laboratory of Mojo Jojo was reduced to nothing but scraps of metal, wires, and ashes. And when it was, the only thing Brick could do was land next to it, and take it all in.

"Why did you lie to me?"

And he was finally face-to-face with it. The metal, artifical figure in which all machines like it was nothing but a constant reminder of his failure. After four years of bottling up all his emotions, four years of being the big, strong leader his brothers needed, he finally fell to his knees, and screamed.

"WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME????"

Everything was a blur. The fire of his hair mixed with the water of his tears, blinding him from the chaos unfolding around him. Was all that heat coming from him? Or the fire he'd caused in his fit of rage? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Brick Rowdyruff knew how much of an absolute failure of a son and a brother he was. He couldn't even keep his own family safe from HIM. How utterly worthless is someone who can't do something as simple as that?

With no warning, Brick felt a slight weight on his shoulder. Its fingers curled around his shoulder, but not too tightly. A hand.

Internally, for his mental breakdown was too far gone to be stopped, Brick went into panic mode. No, no, no, you idiot! he thought to himself, Why did you let anyone see you like this! What if it's one of you brothers?! You're supposed to be taking care of them, not the other way around! You're gonna fail them, too, just like you did your dad?

But it wasn't his brothers. It was a girl. A girl with firey red hair identical to his. Another arm emerged, and together they wrapped around him while a head was placed on his shoulder.

"It's alright, Brick. It's okay."

Goddammit, Blossom. Why the hell did you have to stick your nose in my business?

But no matter how hard Brick fought it, no matter how much he told himself that he couldn't let anyone see him in shambles like this, and how much of a failure he was for not being the bigger person and actually depending on someone, he couldn't help it. He hadn't had anyone to break down in front of, or to turn to when things got hard, or to comfort and care about him ever since. . . .

Brick turned around, collapsed into Blossom's arms, and sobbed louder than ever.

Instead of pushing him away like he expected, Blossom encompassed her arms around his body like a protective shield. One arm moved up and down his back, and the other circled around his neck, covering his face. Her head rested on top of his, and she kept whispering things like "Shh. . . let it all out. . . you're okay. . . I'm here. . . it's okay".

After what felt like hours, though it was probably only like, 10 minutes, Brick finally spoke.

"It's my fault. All of it."

"No," Blossom argued, her voice still gentle, "None of HIM's actions will ever be your fault."

"I couldn't even keep Dad safe."

"You didn't know HIM would take it that far."

"I should have. If I was just fast enough maybe I-"

"Stop it, Brick. Stop blaming yourself for things you knew were out of your control."

"But it was up to me to-"

"You were thirteen, Brick. Your father was supposed to protect you, not the other way around. And that's exactly what he did."

"Butch and Boomer, they. . . I need to be there for them. I have to be the person they know they can depend on. I have to protect them."

"From what?"

"Huh?"

"HIM is gone. And us and our siblings are friends now. And you three all have food to eat and a roof over your heads."

Finally, the tears stopped. Brick sat up and looked around. It seems that during his breakdown, Blossom used her Ice Breath to put out the fire that his outburst had caused. Brick decided to fix his gaze downwards.

"All you have to worry about now, Brick, is you," Blossom concluded, standing up and reaching out her hand, "And I'll be there every step of the way."

Before he accepted her offer, Brick had one more question to ask.

"Why?"

Blossom smiled. "Because after all we've been through, you are just as much family to me as Bubbles and Buttercup. And this, is what family does."

A smile couldn't help but appear on Brick's face as he took her hand and stood up. And as they flew home, Brick asked one final question.

"Hey, is that robot club thing still open for new members?"

A/N: Wow, you guys actually made it this far? I'm impressed. Here's a cookie 🍪

#ppg #the powerpuff girls #the day is saved au #tdis #mojo jojo #brick rrb #blossom ppg #tdis short stories #ppg reds #blossom utonium #blossom x brick #but platonic

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moonbeam-dreamer · 10 months

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Reawakened (Continued from part 2)

"James O' Barr wasn't an emo trying to make himself famous or give the world another hero to idolize", I stated flatly, while holding up the novel for him to focus on. "It was his way of getting justice and lashing out where he couldn't in real life". I paused a moment to let that sink in before continuing.

"His girlfriend was struck and killed by a drunk driver while she went from home to pick him up. He always blamed himself for this, and the driver barely had anything of a sentence handed down. He created Eric Draven, whose girlfriend was gang raped and killed before his eyes, and all he could was lay there and watch as he lay dying. Legends state that a crow can bring a soul back from death to right a wrong, and so he spends nights hunting the men across the city. Days were for himself, spent in their run down and deserted home, where he tortured himself with memories of Shelly and their love, just as James must have". I could see his self assured stance faltering, but I wasn't finished yet.

"The book later became a movie where Brandon Lee played the role of Eric. He died during the making of it by a truly fluke accident, and James felt that sadness and shame all over again. He believed that if he had never created the novel, then Brandon's fiancee Eliza would still have him". I let this knowledge simmer in silence and it was here that I got my first look at his name tag, and the black letters that spelled his identity; Li Brekker. Well, at least I had something to call him beside the tall guy with black hair, or mystery man. It would make our meetings a little less awkward, though not to any worthy extent. I still knew nothing about him save for his wit, and even that was biting. For someone that exuded the 'loner' vibe, he was certainly curious about strangers. Must have been the small town upbringing.

"You don't seem like a girl that's had significant loss", he stated after a time. "So why do you like it so much?"

It was my turn to stand mute and find the right words to answer. How I hated payback when it worked its way around. There was much to unpack with that question, even more that I could say and part of me longed to tell my story. He was an outsider in my world and didn't know my family personally. It was an opportunity too good to pass up. Inwardly, I kicked myself. I'd long ago decided not to share my business with the world. Whether out of embarrassment or fatigue at the whole crazy story, perhaps both, I wasn't about to break my mental peace for anyone.

"All of us have a story that speaks of injustice and a desire to see it end. That novel gives me a sense that one day, a time will come for me to be vindicated. My only hope is that I'm still here to see it".

"You're in danger?" His gaze turned from thoughtful to serious, and I knew my usual thoughts had turned what I thought to be a simple statement into a penny dreadful. No doubt he was envisioning the witness protection program or a gang of mobsters coming after me. Still, I wasn't up for sharing the horrible details but I had to say something to put his mind at ease.

"Nothing life threatening", I clarified and tucked the book beneath my arm. "Let's just say that I've taken steps to keep myself off certain radars". His stare stayed constant but rather than give into his silent demands, I side stepped for the counter. I'd stayed long enough and wanted to get home for some mental downtime.

A touch at my arm stalled me. He didn't grab like most people would, but the inference was enough to halt me.

"You have friends you can call on?"

For anyone else, this request would have seemed odd. Given our history and climate of friendly serial killers, it was better never to answer honestly. Yet there was something about him that put me at ease. Even if I wanted to run away at times rather than endure his surliness, this moment held importance and I wasn't going to be my usually bitchy self and dismiss it.

"In my need for escape, I had to create a physical distance". They were over an hour away. I had friends, just none that I could to when in need.

His eyes grew contemplative and I wondered where his thoughts were taking him. Would he be cross for my disregard of safety rules, or was he going to demand a right to escort me home? Having him know where I lived seemed worse than what I'd shared. It was the definition of secluded and though I enjoyed it, he he seemed to take the role of the over cautionary type and I could practically hear the lecture as he went through it in his head.

Surprisingly, he took gentle hold of my elbow and escorted me to the counter. There, he pulled out a business card from the holder and quickly scrawled his name and number before handing it over. My only thought was how immaculate his handwriting was and wondered just how many letters he'd written to make it so perfect? Silly, absolutely, but in moments of mental shut down, you found the oddest things to focus on and this was presented to me by his own hand. Like him, it was dark, graceful, yet beautiful and thoughtful. What had I done to receive this gracious attention?

#creative writing #writing #short story #writerscorner #writerslife #writersofinstagram #story time #survival #drama tw #writerscommunity #slow but steady #slow burn #romance #the crow 1994 #eric draven #protection

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mahoutoons · 2 years

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Amy Rose: One of the most mistreated Sonic characters

Alright, I was just thinking about this again. As you probably know, Amy Rose is my favourite character in the Sonic franchise. I've loved her since I was a kid and she holds such a special place in my heart. I'd say she was my first comfort character. But having a character who's so mistreated by the franchise hasn't been easy. In fact, her mistreatment has contributed to the amount of hate she gets from the fandom. Whether its the games themselves, or the comics, or cartoons, or even the official Sonic Twitter account, its safe to say the Amy Rose is probably one of the most mistreated Sonic characters. Granted, her treatment has gotten a lot better now, and she may be playing an important role in Sonic Frontiers. But that was after years of mistreatment. In this essay, I'm gonna examine how Amy Rose is treated in different pieces of Sonic media. Be warned, this is gonna be a long post.

The games

Lets start with the games themselves, as they're the most important part. Amy Rose was introduced in Sonic CD as a love interest to Sonic. In that game, she's kidnapped by Metal Sonic and Sonic has to save her. Okay, fair enough. She plays into the classic damsel in distress trope prevalent with female characters in video games at the time. She makes a bunch more appearances in classic games such as Sonic R and Sonic the Fighters.

Fast forward to the Adventure era. In Sonic Adventure, Amy remembers the old days she spent with Sonic. As she's reminiscing, she runs into a bird who's being chased by one of Eggman's robots, ZERO. Amy doesn't know why the robot is after the bird but she decides to protect the bird from him. A great display of her kindness that goes ignored by most of the fandom. She then runs into Sonic. Who's.... not so happy to see her. She tells Sonic about the bird and asks him to protect it. To which he replies no way.

They then go to Twinkle Park. Shortly afterwards, Amy and the bird get kidnapped by ZERO. Amy tries calming the bird down when she's approached by Gamma, who asks her to hand over the bird. She refuses. After more prodding, she asks him why he wants the bird. He says he does not know. She asks Gamma to help her and he asks why she cares for something she knows nothing about. She says she pities him because love is not a part of his programming. After pondering for a while, Gamma sets her free.

Fast forward to the Sonic vs Gamma fight. Sonic is about to finish off Gamma, but Amy protects him and asks Sonic not to hurt him as he helped her. Sonic obliges.

See, this is something I'd show to people who say Amy doesn't care about anyone other than Sonic or her whole personality revolves around Sonic because if that was true, then she would just let Sonic destroy Gamma. But she didn't. She may love him but she was willing to stand up to him.

Afterwards she helps the bird find its family. She succeeds, but then ZERO knocks it out. Amy. Gets. MAD. She's pissed off and after spending the entire time running away from him, she finally decides to fight him. And she beats the shit out of him.

At the end of her story, she says that she'll make Sonic respect her. And that's what gets me. She doesn't say she'll make him fall in love with her or anything. She wants Sonic to RESPECT her. To see that she's capable, that she's worthy.

I like Amy in Sonic Adventure. Her gameplay wasn't the best but her story was pretty good and the way she protected the bird really shows her kindness. I'd say Sonic Adventure treated Amy well. Its sequel, however, is a different story.

Next, we move on to Sonic Adventure 2. And oh my God. One of my complaints about this game is how they treated Amy. Save for that one scene with Shadow which I will get to shortly, she doesn't do much. She just gets left behind by everyone. And honestly, I understand her sentiment here. In just the previous game she vows to make Sonic respect her. And here everyone just leaves her behind every time.

Before I get to her scene with Shadow, there are two scenes I wanna talk about.

The first scene is where she manages to get into the prison where Sonic's being held. She mentions seeing Shadow, and Sonic asks her where he is. She says, "If I tell you, will you marry me?" Sonic, of course, says "No way!" Amy says "I thought I had you this time!" and then proceeds to free Sonic. Now this scene is just Amy teasing Sonic. She didn't LITERALLY want Sonic to marry her in that moment. But the Sonic fandom, being.... well, the Sonic fandom, decides to use that scene to say stuff like "Omg look at her, she's blackmailing Sonic into marrying her, so psychotic" even though. SHE WAS TEASING HIM. If she was serious she wouldn't have freed him. But she did.

The second scene I wanna talk about is the one where she's captured by Eggman and held hostage. Eggman tells Sonic to give him the Chaos Emerald or else Amy will die. In his recap, Sonic actually says "I'll have to think about that one". WHAT. THE FUCK. SONIC YOUR FRIEND'S LIFE IS LITERALLY ON THE LINE HERE. Like he does nooooot display any worry for her whatsoever. Its stuff like this that makes people think Sonic hates Amy or does not care for her.

And now we make it to the signature scene. The one where Amy reminds Shadow of his true promise to Maria. So, Amy mopes about being left behind as usual, then she finds Shadow. She tells herself that everyone's doing their best and so must she. She begs Shadow to save everyone. Shadow tells her that its useless and he has no reason to help them. Amy says that while some people are selfish, they have good hearts and work to make their wishes come true. Her words trigger Maria's memory in him and he remembers his true promise to her. He then goes away, telling Amy "I have to keep my promise to Maria and you" (the "you" part always confused me because he didn't make a promise to Amy?? Well anyways). Shadow helps Sonic and they save the Earth together.

So because of Amy, the Earth was saved. You'd think such an important moment would be mentioned. You'd think that they'd build up a bond between Shadow and Amy because of that moment. Because Amy reminded him of Maria. But NOPE. Nothing comes of that. It isn't acknowledged by the others, and Shadow and Amy barely interact. But okay.

Sonic Heroes.... oh Sonic Heroes. You were my first Sonic game and practically my childhood. But replaying you, I find that you have some problems. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still a Heroes stan through and through. That game means a lot to me and I still have fun replaying it. But I can't deny it does have its problems. Like the way the team battles were started were so stupid and could be avoided had the characters just fucking communicated with each other. And one of this.... is the Team Sonic vs Team Rose battle.

*BIG SIGH*

This is another thing that has been used by the fandom to paint Amy as obsessive, stalkerish, psychotic, you name it. And even I will admit, the way this battle starts is stupid, it gives me second hand embarrassment (then again, the way ALL the team battles start give me second hand embarrassment). Basically, Amy finds Sonic and says "Got'cha, my darling Sonic". Sonic asks what she's doing there. Amy says this time, there's no way out of marrying her. And they start fighting.

*EVEN BIGGER SIGH*

Given that Team Rose are looking for Froggy and Chocola, whom they think Sonic has, Amy could've said something like "Give back Froggy and Chocola!" Sure it would still give me second hand embarrassment because guys.... you can just fucking COMMUNICATE PROPERLY, but it would've made her look less obsessive.

And its sad because Amy's portrayal in Heroes is actually good aside from this. She leads Cream and Big, she encourages them when they're worried like in Hang Castle, reassures them they'll be okay, gives pep talks and never gives up on finding Froggy and Chocola. But no, this one moment is what defines Heroes Amy in most fans eyes and that'd fucking sad.

Sonic '06..... that game's infamous for a lot of reasons. But I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about how Amy is treated in the game. So here, Amy mistakes Silver for Sonic.... and oh boy, its FINALLY TIME FOR ME TO TALK ABOUT THIS BECAUSE THIS HAS ALWAYS ANNOYED ME.

Amy mistook Shadow for Sonic in SA2 and then mistook Silver for Sonic and that has led to the fandom making colourblind jokes about her and never letting her live it down. But the thing is.... she wasn't the only one who did this. The entire reason Sonic got arrested in SA2 was because everyone mistook him for Shadow. When Eggman first saw Shadow, he too mistook him for Sonic. When Elise first saw Sonic, she mistook him for Silver. So how come none of THOSE character get heat for it while Amy's been the butt of the joke. And I'm gonna be honest, some of the jokes about this seem ableist. I've seen people cite Amy being "blind" or "colourblind" as one of the reasons they hate her. Like how do you not see how ableist that is? I'm not even talking about the people who joke about this, I'm talking about people who actually hate her because she's "blind". And as for the jokes, they get old REALLY fast. Please give those colourblind jokes up to God, we've had enough.

Anyways, Amy mistakes Silver for Sonic. After finding out he's looking for someone, she decides to help him. Then they find Sonic.... and Silver starts attacking him. Amy defends him and Silver tells her to get out of the way and that he'll destroy the world. To which Amy says "If I had to choose between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic". And here's another line people use to paint Amy as "selfish", "obsessed", etc. Now listen. Amy is a preteen girl. Preteens and teens in love say stupid things. And also, Amy didn't LITERALLY mean she'd put the world in danger for Sonic omg. She meant she'd choose Sonic over a world where an innocent person has to die for something they didn't do. Also.... characters say shit like this to the person they love all the time. Why is Amy the only one who gets heat for it? Anyways, moving on....

Lets talk about that infamous kiss scene. You know, the one where Elise brings Sonic to life by kissing him. Some people are confused why Amy didn't beat the shit out of Elise for kissing him. Both fans and haters. And to you I say, you don't understand Amy's character. In that moment, it doesn't matter if she kisses Sonic or not. Elise is the one bringing Sonic to life. Do you really think Amy would beat the shit out of THE PERSON WHO'S BRINGING SONIC BACK TO LIFE just out of petty jealousy? That would be a stupid move. Even if she WAS jealous, she could cast that aside because now she was worried about Sonic.

Sonic Unleashed.... Amy didn't really do much in Unleashed. She did "mistake" the Werehog for Sonic. And Sonic seemed bummed by her not recognizing him. She believed in Sonic all the way through and made it clear she'd love him no matter what he looked like. I actually have no complaints about Amy's portrayal in Unleashed. Next.

Sonic Generations.... there's not much to talk about other than that one scene where Sonic is pushing Amy away and Sonamy detractors have used that as an excuse as to why Sonic hates Amy. I'm telling you, that scene really fuelled Sonamy detractors. But we're not here to talk about shipping. That scene bothers me because it makes Amy look obsessive and Sonic look like a jerk for pushing her away. Other than that scene, there's not much to talk about in Generations.

Sonic Lost World.... Amy doesn't play much of a role here. Next.

Sonic Forces.... again, not much to talk about here. I do wish we'd gotten a reunion moment between Amy and Sonic just like with Sonic and Tails. But again. Nothing much here.

I'm not gonna talk about Free Riders because everyone except Cream was a dickhead in Free Riders.

Lets talk about Sonic Mania next. For a game that's supposed to be a celebration of Classic Sonic, they sure did leave out one of the oldest classic characters who predates even Knuckles. Really says a lot that Mighty and Ray, two obscure characters, are in the game and not Amy, a core character. Y'all made fun of the whole #RoomForOneMore movement, but can you truly blame us? Amy's been excluded so many times and for her to not be included in this game when she's a classic character too is so insulting.

Sonic Frontiers.... oh God if I have to relive that debate about who the voice in the trailer is. When the trailer first came out, people were debating who the voice is. People thought it was Tails, or the Ghost Girl from the leaks. Even I thought it was Tails when I first listened to it. But according to the captions on the Xbox version of the trailer, and Sonic's Japanese voice actress, the voice was Amy. Amy stans like me rejoiced. Everyone else.... debated even more. Some people were sure this was absolutely the Ghost Girl who's just pretending to be Amy. Someone from the official social media team confirmed that the voice was, indeed, Amy, and that Cindy Robinson had returned to voice her. People STILL weren't convinced to the point that they started accusing the OFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM of lying and tried to analyze their body language. Eventually the person who runs the Sonic Twitter account confirmed it. And if that wasn't enough, Mike Pollock, the voice of Dr Eggman, also confirmed it.

From the looks of this, it seemed like people didn't WANT the voice to be Amy. Its almost like they hated the idea of Amy possibly having an important role in Frontiers. Because let me tell you, they wouldn't do this with any other character. If it was Tails I bet there wouldn't be any debate. At this point I don't even think all this debate is because they trust 4chan leaks that much. They just hate Amy and don't want her to have an important role.

Alright, I'm done with the games. Now, for the Archie comics.

The Archie comics

Oh God, now its time to talk about the Archie comics. I'm gonna be talking about the pre reboot comics here because her treatment was much better in the post reboot comics.

The pre reboot Archie comics were a mess for many reasons. From all the furry soap opera, convoluted plot lines, sometimes bad art style, and a lot of OOC moments for our main characters, pre reboot Archie Sonic was.... a lot. One of the reasons I dislike it, however, was Amy's treatment in those comics. Obviously I'm not gonna go over every issue, just the more important moments that stand out to me.

The first is this moment here

There's a lot wrong with this image. It paints Amy in a very unflattering light. Its paints her as bratty and immature. Here she wants to become a freedom fighter. But Sally says she's too young and inexperienced. Amy asks, what about Tails? And she makes a good point. Tails is younger than Amy. Sally says he has experience. He was allowed to show that experience. Amy wasn't given a chance, she's told right off the bat she's too young. And the next panel.... "You're just saying that because you want to keep Sonic all to yourself". Like wow, way to stroke shipping wars here. This makes Amy look bratty as opposed to Sally, who's painted as the smart, rational leader figure.

My next problem is about the whole Ring of Acorns situation.

*BIGGEST SIGH EVER*

In issue 80, Amy wishes on the Ring of Acorns to become older. There's one problem with that. Elias and Sally needed that ring to heal their comatose mother who might have only a week to live. Yeah she didn't know this but this makes Amy look incredibly selfish and fueled her haters. It made her look like everything they said she was, selfish, obsessive, you name it. And the worse part? Is that some people actually think this is canon to the games. No, I've seen people who actually think that Amy wishing on the Ring of Acorns to be older is how she actually went from being 8 in Sonic CD to 12 from Adventure onwards. Yeah, that's how bad it is.

And now I just wanna talk about two particular covers that really grind my gears. The first is the issue 174 cover

The actual issue is about Bunnie and Antoine's wedding. Which makes this all the more unnecessary and mean spirited. Was it necessary to show Amy crying in the background while Sonic and Sally look like they're about to be married?

The next is this cover.

The cover itself is not bad but was it necessary to have Amy there? You could remove her from the cover and nothing would change. Why does she have to be there? It seems like the artist was just taking a dig at her. Its like they were saying "Look, Sonic and Sally are such a perfect couple, Amy will never compete, haha!" But again, I'm not here to talk about shipping wars.

And I wanna talk about this particular moment in the same issue

Everyone praises Amy for being so mature here, but me? I'm not so happy. Of course she'd want Sonic to be happy. But you can't tell me that this girl, who's had a crush on Sonic for so long, isn't at least a little heartbroken? And to those saying she's so mature for this, I wanna point out a line in one of these pages.

"Sonic'll be mine one day, until then... I just want him to be happy."

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make her look mature, that makes her look like she's in denial. Sonic will never get with her in this continuity yet she believes he will.

And this also implies the only way Amy can be mature is if she lets go of her crush on Sonic. That's not maturity, that's taking away a big part of her character. Amy's crush was never the problem, the way it was portrayed by writers was.

And also, that line, "But aren't you Amy Rose, the chick who always chases after Sonic?"..... was that really necessary? Did we really need another dig at her?

Now thankfully, post reboot Archie Sonic has treated her a lot better. There's plenty of great character moments between her and Sonic, her and Knuckles, and other characters. But the way pre reboot Archie Sonic treated her was so bad and it will forever be a reason why I act really salty towards the Archie comics.

Sonic X

I often cite Sonic X as the reason I started shipping Sonamy, because of that one scene in episode 52 (you know the one). But even they are not immune to mistreating and mischaracterizing her. In particular, the 4KIDS dub.

In episode 3, Amy and Sonic are reunited after being separated and landing on Earth. In the Japanese version, Sonic does get flustered by her hugging him and claims he's choking her, but he does seem happy to see her again. In the English verison, he seems disgusted and wants her to get off him. Like, why are you trampling over their friendship like that? Y'all are making it seem like he doesn't like her. They're supposed to be FRIENDS, make them act like it.

And now I wanna talk about the big one.... that is Chris being the one to remind Shadow of Maria instead of Amy.

First of all, Shadow is so uncharacteristically violent here. Sure, he's a bit of a fighter in the games, but he never fights without a reason. Here, he just beats the shit out of Chris. Like, was it necessary to make him so violent? Especially since he never acted that way towards Amy in the game. My only guess is that the writers wanted Chris to appear more sympathetic. Well, they failed in that aspect.

So anyways, after Shadow, in a way that's uncharacteristic for him, beats the shit out of Chris, he asks if what Maria wanted was to destroy humanity. Shadow remembers his promise to Maria and, like it was in the game, helps Sonic to defeat the Biolizard and then "dies" by falling to Earth. Sonic gives Chris one of Shadow's rings (in the game, its Rouge who gets the ring so he's stealing the role of two characters).

This was Amy's defining role in Sonic Adventure 2. It showed that she wasn't all about Sonic like detractors said, that she was compassionate, that she could get people to the good side and believed in giving them second chances. Here, its Chris who takes that role. And you know what, I wouldn't even be so mad about this if Chris wasn't a giant fucking brat who didn't even deserve this role. He talks about selflessness but then he's willing to put two worlds at risk just to be with Sonic. If it was someone like Helen taking the role, I would still be salty because that was Amy's role but I wouldn't be as mad because Helen being the one to remind Shadow of Maria would actually make sense. Not only does she look like Maria, but she's actually a sweet, selfless girl.

But back to Amy here, as I said, this was her defining role in SA2, and it was taken by some audience surrogate. It doesn't help that many people see the X version of Amy as obnoxious, this could help her character but they fucking took it from her. Yes, I'm salty about that to this day.

And you know what? I like Amy in X but sometimes the writers could make her so damn obnoxious. Like the time she tried to use a love potion on Sonic to get him to fall in love with her? That does not do well for her character.

Sonic X, for all its flaws, is actually my favourite Sonic show. But sometimes, its treatment of Amy bothers me.

Sonic Boom

Honestly, I like Amy in Boom. Yeah, she may be bossy sometimes but her dynamic with the group is fun to watch and her friendship with Sticks is interesting. The only thing I can think of here is how they kinda used her as a strawman so Knuckles could explain feminism. But that's about it. The reason I'm talking about Sonic Boom is because this version of Amy is paraded as the best version of her. Fans say she's "superior", that she's more "mature", that she's so much better than in the games etc. I do like Boom Amy as I mentioned by God, fans really tend to overrate her. They tend to forget her flaws, like how she could be bossy. I remember that one episode where she forced Sticks to sell her stuff, and God that pissed me off so much.

Again, there's not much to be said for Sonic Boom. The only problem I have is how fans parade this version of Amy as the superior one.

IDW comics

I also don't have a problem with the IDW comics' portrayal of Amy. My only complaints come from two things.

One, I don't remember where he said it, but Ian Flynn said that the reason Amy takes charge of the Restoration in IDW is because "no one else wanted to do it", implying she was forced into this role and didn't want to do it. Honestly I'd disagree. Amy has shown she's a capable leader, like in Sonic Heroes. She encourages her team to carry on and always has their backs. I feel like people forget that.

And the second is the fandom reaction to IDW Amy. Now there are two camps of fans here.

1. The ones who parade this as the best version of Amy since Boom, claim she's so much more mature here and not as obsessed with Sonic, and

2. The ones who claim she's a Sally ripoff or she's "too perfect".

Let me talk about the first camp of fans first. Now I adore IDW Amy to bits. But just like with her Boom version, the fans who say she's so much more mature here and her personality doesn't revolve around Sonic here bother me. Her personality has never fully revolved around Sonic. She has a huge crush on him, yes, but that's never been her entire personality. She's kind, she's compassionate, she cares for her friends, and she can be strong. If her personality did revolve around Sonic, then why did she stand up to him when he was about to destroy Gamma in Sonic Adventure? Why did she remind Shadow of his true promise to Maria? Why did she cheer Cream and Big on in Heroes and encourage them when they were unsure. Her crush on Sonic is a big part of her personality but not the only part, y'all have either never played a Sonic game or cherry pick moments.

The second camp is even more ridiculous. They claim that Amy is a Sally ripoff because.... she has leadership skills, she's strong, she encourages her teammates etc. Traits that she's ALWAYS HAD. Because female characters cannot be independent or leaders now or else they're ripping off Sally. And y'all were the same ones hating on her because she was selfish, obsessive, only caring about Sonic etc. Now when she's taking charge, she's suddenly a Mary Sue and a Sally ripoff? I swear there is no winning with Amy detractors.

Other than these aspects, I have no complaints about Amy's treatment in the IDW comics.

The movies

WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE POST CREDITS SCENE OF SONIC MOVIE 2. DO NOT READ THIS SECTION IF YOU DON'T WISH TO BE SPOILED.

The movies are the latest iteration of the Sonic franchise and I think they're really great so far. I watched Sonic 2 recently and loved every bit of that movie. My only complaint is with the post credits scene. I've ranted about why I was disappointed if it was who I thought it was before and I'll do it here again now.

MAJOR SPOILER STARTS HERE. LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED

So Shadow is the character in the post credits scene. When I was actually in the theater, my heart was racing. I'm interested to see how they'll adapt his story, especially considering that in the movieverse, GUN was just formed because of Sonic while in the games they're a vital part of his backstory as they're the ones who got Maria killed and locked him away (also side note, I doubt they're gonna show Maria being killed since this IS a kids movie after all)

Honestly, I'm STILL a bit salty that Amy wasn't the one who appeared in the post credits scene. She's a classic character. To put Shadow in before her shows that they care more about popularity. I know Jeff Fowler said the movies won't go in chronological order of the games, but still. Also, Amy is a vital part of Shadow's character. She was the one who turned him over to the light.

But honestly, I'm not optimistic about them having Amy remind Shadow of his promise to Maria in the movieverse because for some reason, adaptations of the game seem eager to replace Amy with someone else. In Sonic X, it was Chris. In Archie.... actually the SA2 arc was never fully adapted in Archie but they never mention Amy reminding Shadow of Maria which means it probably didn't happen.

Now there's still a chance of her appearing in the third movie but honestly, I'm not too optimistic about that. Obviously I plan to see the third movie when it comes out but I'll keep my expectations low when it comes to Amy being in that movie, or her portrayal if she is there.

The official Twitter account

Yes, I'm also talking about the Sonic Twitter account here because even they like to take digs at Amy.

That last one is from 2020, so its pretty recent. You guys may say "Omg its just a joke you're too sensitive". And you're right, I AM too sensitive, because Amy's my fave and she's been mistreated so many times through the years to the point that the social media account is taking digs at her too. I'm sure if it was your fave, you would be upset too.

Currently

I've been a pessimistic bitch throughout this post so I wanna end on a positive note. Amy's treatment has gotten a lot better in recent years. Sega of Japan seems to be promoting her a lot on social media. And ever since Katie took over the official Twitter account, the digs at her seem to have lessened. If there are any memes about her on social media, its usually positive ones like this

There's also the TailsTube segment where Sonic praises Amy and calls her a real hero and honestly, its really heartwarming and long overdue.

And with her possibly having a big role in Frontiers, who knows where this will go?

The ongoing IDW comics, too, treat her really well. Evan Stanley seems to have a good grasp on her character. Also, Amy had a cute little arc with Tangle, Jewel, and Belle.

Amy's been mistreated and mischaracterized a lot in the past but its gotten a lot better now. I hope Frontiers will give her more spotlight. Maybe even have her in the next Twitter Takeover! In any way, I hope the mischaracterization of Amy Rose is a thing of the past now.

#sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #sonic x #sonic boom #idw sonic #sonic movie #sonic movie 2 #sonic movie 2 spoilers #amy rose #rebecca talks #a lot #this is perhaps my longest post ever #because this topic has been on my mind a lot #and i have a lot to say about it #sonic cinematic universe

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glamrcks · 2 years

Note

You probably have so many asks rn but can i see the glam gang (i thought that was funny for some reason💀) reacting to hearing their s/o sing for the first time? And they’re all like “omg what i didn’t know you could sing 😩😋💀🤪”/j. Gn reader if it’s alright! Ty :)

-Urmom

... GLAMROCK CREW HEARING THEIR S/O SINGING FOR THE FIRST TIME

. characters included: glamrock freddy, montgomery gator, roxanne wolf, glamrock chica.

. word count: 1 495

. pronouns: none! gender neutral reader.

. warnings: hmm, none, i think!

. bow's note: i actually only have a couple other asks besides this one in my inbox as of posting this ehehe! but i'm flattered you thought that <3 anyways, the way u worded ur ask is super funny and i had so much fun writing this !!

p.s. tysm to @srslysierraa for fixing the "read more" issue ! that helps a lot :]

> GLAMROCK FREDDY would first hear one of his s/o's little performances during a walk he was taking around the pizzaplex, noticing a humming sound coming from one of the party rooms you'd been assigned to clean up.

genuinely curious, freddy couldn't help but peek his head around a doorway. he was met with the sight of you holding a broom, sweeping up confetti from the marble flooring into one corner of the room. after recognising that you were the source of the now increasingly loud humming sound, he decided to stay still at his spot in the doorway, watching as you pranced around the room in all of your glory.

it was so incredibly amusing, and if freddy could smile, he'd definitely be doing so. your humming was quickly turning into singing, the lyrics of the song leaving your mouth gracefully. he could recognise it as one of the songs that had played at the birthday parties today. despite the way you turned and twisted on what you could call your dance floor, not once did you see freddy who still stood idly by the door. he didn't want you to, either, if it meant you'd stop singing.

unfortunately, as all good things must come to an end, a loud clang coming from a s.t.a.f.f bot in the corridor made you freeze halfway during a spin. you turned around, jumping in fright at the large animatronic bear in the doorway. you placed a hand over your chest, breathing hard.

"oh-! oh my god, freddy, it's just you." you'd exclaim, laughing a little to shrug off the awkwardness. that's when it had hit you - how long had he been there? you could feel your face become hotter. "uuh, did you- did you hear all of that or-"

"i did. but it was very nice, [y/n]. you never told me you could sing." his sharp, robotic voice cut you off, it made you shrink into yourself a little.

"uh, yeah, well- thanks." you'd finally responded.

"i'm being honest, superstar! it was very pleasing to listen to." freddy reassured you. did you really look that unsure? shaking it off, you stood a little straighter, a small smile and nod enough for freddy to take a step back from where he stood. "i'll let you continue with your duties." freddy finished, his loud steps down the hallway signifying his exit, yet still your heart remained to beat so so fast. now, to figure out whether he was being nice, or if you were the next ariana grande.

> MONTGOMERY GATOR wasn't much of a singer himself, and as much as he hated to admit it, he did have some sort of pang of jealousy in his chest whenever he'd be watching replays of their performances at the way freddy sung so effortlessly. sure, the guy was programmed to do it, so it was no more challenging than playing a recording, but damn did it sound nice sometimes.

so, when he'd came across you, his s/o, with a spray bottle full of sanitiser in one hand and the other shot up in the air as you sang your tiny heart out to the song they'd performed earlier, the least he could say is that he was surprised.

what shocked the bassist so much was the fact that your singing wasn't even.. bad. actually, it could've been considered good in some ways. was his s/o really better at singing than monty himself?

the poor gator was so surprised, in fact, that he hadn't realised your song had stopped moments earlier, and now the two of you were just staring at each other in complete silence.

"monty?" you voice called, snapping the animatronic back into reality. you looked embarrassed, worried even. alright, time to cover for himself.

"yeah- uh. so you sing, huh?" he hadn't heard his voice waver like that in a long time. what do you even say in these situations? sorry? thank you?

"i dunno, can i?" you asked bashfully, doing a 360 of the floor to locate the rag you'd thrown over your shoulder in a rush of adrenaline. reluctantly, you turned back to the railing you had been in the middle of cleaning, spraying the sanitiser over the surface before scrubbing as if the last 10 minutes had never occurred.

"well, you aren't bad..- i mean, like, not in a bad way! you're pretty good, if i'm being honest. i didn't mean it like-" monty cut himself off, this was turning out more humiliating for himself than it was for you, and he'd just been standing here! "i think i'll take a walk." he finished, turning on his heel and making his way towards the exit of gator golf.

"yeah, maybe that's for the best!" you called out after him, a newfound confidence reigning in your chest.

> ROXANNE WOLF never really found much enjoyment in singing, in the band or not. she sticks to her keytar, and focuses on becoming the best player at that before anything else. it's pretty simple minded, roxy likes to think.

the wolf never took you, her s/o, as much of a musician, either. she had offered you lessons on her keytar in the past just after the two of you begun dating, which you had politely declined, claiming you didn't have the time - though, partially you didn't want to embarrass yourself playing her instrument. it made roxanne assume you had no interest in music, which didn't bother her too much - someone had to be musically inclined in this relationship, after all!

there had been music blasting in one of the bathrooms in roxy raceway for what seemed like hours now, and roxy was tired of it. she knew it was you, it was pretty common for you to play music while you cleaned around the pizzaplex, and roxy didn't always mind it, but now, it'd been going on for too long.

roxy stormed towards the bathrooms, steps growing slower the closer she grew to the building. the music suddenly seemed almost.. distorted, like there were two tracks playing at once. a frown made it's way onto her features as she peeked around the doorway, finding her s/o singing and dancing around the room with so much energy it made roxy smirk.

"i'm supposed to be the performer here, babe!" roxy's robotic voice cut off your movement almost immediately. you locked eyes with your girlfriend, face flushed with a hot warmth that made you want to sink into the floor.

"ahaha.. yeah.." you attempted to laugh it off, turning your body around to turn the music down so you could keep on with your duties without the added exercise this time.

"nono, keep it on! that was cute." roxy grinned, turning around and leaving those words hanging in the air.

and so, you did.

> GLAMROCK CHICA knew that everyone in the pizzaplex was aware of her singing.. style. the time she was almost decommissioned because of her delightful singing has been brought up around her by almost everyone she knows, including some suspicious parents and questioning kids. it's not one of her proudest moments.

despite complaints when she does so, chica still enjoys singing, and dancing has become a nice substitute for when she needed to release that creative energy. what chica never would have anticipated, was finding you in the large kitchen of the pizzaplex bouncing around like the world was about to end while on one of her ventures to a local trash can. it was amusing, she had to admit.

when you had started singing, though, it was enough for chica to join in and start moving with you. to say you were shocked was an understatement, but your questionings were suddenly shut down by a wave of her arm, her hand reaching out to you with a giant smile on her face. how could you ever say no?

the two of you had the time of your lives, prancing around the room like total idiots. you had to bring chica down a couple times, making sure she took a few breaths before she started singing too.

by the time the two of you had gotten through your whole cleaning playlist and two extra songs, it was almost 5am. you panicked, realisation hitting you that you'd only completed a portion of your job in what could've been almost 3 hours. you told chica this, and she merely responded with a laugh.

"let's get cleaning, then! we'll get it done in no time with the two of us." you didn't believe this, but agreed anyway, it's not like you had other choices to choose from.

in the end, you didn't get your job done, and ended up with a harsh warning from your boss, but part of you believed the extra company was worth it in the end. just make sure it doesn't happen again, the last thing you need is to lose this job.

. . got a request you'd like to see come to life? my asks are currently open!

#glmrck.grfreddy!#glmrck.monty!#glmrck.roxy!#glmrck.grchica!#tags 4 reach:#fnaf x reader #glamrock freddy x reader #montgomery gator x reader #monty x reader #glamrock chica x reader #roxanne wolf x reader #roxy x reader

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seabass17 · 3 years

Text

All that’s left | Pt. 2

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem! Reader

A/n: So, this is... a different reader in comparison from the one in the first part but I kinda like it? Anyway, Im considering making a third part and im thinking it'll contain some smut. I used google translator so please don't judge me. Tell me what you think. Happy reading.

All that's left pt. 1

Warnings: angst, mentions of scars, swearing, implied smut?

Word count: 3.263

Summary: After moving from her life in New York, away from the Avengers and him, she finds happiness and a life that she actually enjoys, but that seems to last little when she spots the familiar jet on the roof of the building she lives in. Is she ready to face them? To face him?

*Three months later*

The warm air surrounding my body made me take a deep breath and unconsciously smile. I was happy, I was free, I was whole. I was with my neighbor drinking coffee in our usual spot, which was a cafe near the main street of the place that I decided was going to become my new home.

“Продолжай рассказывать мне о своем боссе, который сводит тебя с ума” (Keep on telling me about your boss who drives you crazy) Andrei said making me laugh and shake my head.

“Не о чем говорить, он просто засранец, который дает мне слишком много работы и заставляет меня плакать” (Nothing to talk about, he's just an asshole who gives me too much work and makes me want to cry) I laughed. I had met Andrei a week after I moved in and there was an immediate connection. No, it wasn’t in a romantic one, god no, we were just really good friends that had a lot in common.

“Now now, that was not what i saw the other day when i went to pick you up from work” He said with a playful smirk plastered on his light brown face. I gasped, a fake indignant expression on my face while my hand went to my chest. He laughed loudly. “Don’t play that card, I saw you!” he added

“I don’t know what you are talking about” I said, trying to fight the smile that tried to come out but failing miserably, we both laughed.

He and I had become quite close in the little time that we had known each other. He was an American with a Russian name. He explained that his mother was from the states while his father was a russian spy, they fell in love against all odds and eventually, Andrei was brought to this world. When he was fifteen his father died and he and his mom went to America, where he finished high school and surprisingly, entered the military. He did two tours before he decided that he had enough and returned to Russia. Hence why he could speak both Russian and English fluently. As for me, I told him that I was in some sort of organization that worked for the government, and that’s why I knew russian. He believed me, thank God, I didn’t want to talk about how I was part of the Avengers and why I left. Obviously I will tell him when the time is right and I know that he can be fully trusted.

“Oh, come on Ames, are you going to tell me that you don’t like him one bit? Not in the slightest?” he asked, smiling and I shook my head. He stayed silent for a second and stared at me, like he was considering whether he should ask me something or keep quiet. “Is it because of him?” he finally asked, watching me closely to see my reaction. I felt my stomach twist at the mention of him. Of course it was because of him, because of them, I couldn’t afford getting hurt and betrayed one more time. Andrei didn’t know his name, or theirs for that matter, so I smiled weakly and nodded.

“Yeah, I know it sounds stupid but… I just can’t afford getting hurt, not again, not anymore” I said looking at my hands.

“I understand, believe me I do” he said, his hand reaching out to hold mine. I looked up to find his brown eyes looking for mine, I saw nothing but genuine love -the friendly kind- in them. I smiled and squeezed his hand. He was going to say something but his phone rang; a notification. He withdrew his hand to look at his phone and the moment he did, people around us started getting up and running in the same direction. I looked at him confused to find him frowning at his phone.

“What is it?” i asked.

“The Avengers are here…” He said and my heart skipped a beat and my body went rigid. Andrei noticed. “What 's wrong?”. Well, there’s no use keeping him from the truth anymore.

“So, remember when I told you that I worked for an organization for the government? Okay don’t freak out and hate me but, here it goes” I took a deep breath. “That organization was called The Red Room were they trained me from a very young age to be a perfect cold-blooded killer, years later i escaped and was on the run until i got a new identification, name, address, new everything and then joined the avengers to amend the wrongs I made in the past. To my luck, it didn’t go great because it ended up breaking me the same way The Red Room did, so I left to find a fresh start and came here where I met you. Please don’t hate me” I concluded in one breath. Andrei was silent with a straight face, which was hard to read, and eventually after a few seconds that felt like an eternity and shrugged his shoulders. WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN.

“Believe it or not, I've heard worse” he simply said

“Worse than finding out that your best friend is a train killer and former avenger?” i asked incredulously and he tilted his head and smirked

“US Agent mother and Russian spy father” He said. I laughed and he followed right after. “So, I'm guessing we are running away?” he asked. Say what now?

“We?” I asked, almost in shock to which he simply nodded, “You don’t think im just gonna let you go like that, please, is not that easy to get rid of me” he snorted. “And I'm supposing Amelia is not your real name either, given the fact that you ran off,” he added. Damn, he is good.

“Y/n, y/n y/l/n” I said and he slowly smiled

“Well y/n, nice to meet you, my name is Andrei Petrova” he said, extending his hand, i repeated his action with the same smile. “I’ve got to say, I like the name y/n more than Amelia '' he added and laughed. We were brought back to the matter at hand when the screaming of the people were getting louder. I snapped my head up and saw the familiar jet on the roof of the building where I was living.

“Here’s what we are going to do, I’m going to my apartment and buy us some time while you go get a car and,” i handed him my card “you are going to get all the money from my bank account. I will meet you in front of the cafe that’s two blocks away from my place”

“Are you going to be okay?” He asked with clear worry in his eyes. I smiled and nodded

“Yes, I promised. Now go” I said before he got up and ran. I sighed and went to my apartment. Was I really going to do this? After months, was I ready to face them, already knowing the truth? Well, guess I'm going to find out.

Once in the building I decided to programmed the lights to go out in 50 minutes and then I went to the elevator, wanting to appear as normal as possible even though I felt like my heart was going to explode from how fast it was beating inside my rib cage. When the elevator stopped at my floor I walked until I was standing in front of my door. I didn’t need to wait and confirm, I knew they knew I was here, now there’s only one thing left to do. But before I did anything, the door creaked open.

*10 hours earlier*

Bucky paced from one side to the other, finding himself incapable of staying put. Natasha sat silently on her chair, Tony was in the front with his head in between his hands, Steve was resting on the side of the wall looking at the floor, Bruce was just standing there holding his chin analyzing everyone in the room. Sam sat on the couch looking through his phone, Vision was sitting next to Wanda on the other couch, while Clint and Thor were sitting on the other chairs. Peter had some school stuff to deal with like the teenager that he was. They’ve been looking for her for the past three months, and about a week ago, a picture was found of someone that looked exactly like her, all except her hair that was a bit shorter and the color was different, but other than that, it was practically her.

Not wanting to get their hopes -or rather enthusiasm- up, they decided to look deeper and found out that the picture was taken a month ago in the city of Magadan located in Russia. They found out that before three months, the name Amelia Agapov, didn’t exist. The more they looked into it, the more they were convinced that it was her.

“The mission report from Agent Carter arrived, should i put it on the screen?” the voice of the AI filled the room. The team had been waiting for that report for days, the nerves of the question that lingered in the air ‘was it her?’ being present for that time only grew stronger as Stark asked FRIDAY to project the report on the screen.

Pictures were shown, most of them were about this woman buying in the market, having coffee with a guy, but there was one, where her face was looking straight into the lens of the camera, and it was that picture that left the people in the room absolutely rigid. It was her.

“We found her…” Tony said in a whisper. Everybody kept their gaze on the picture on the big screen. After months looking for her, they finally had found her. To everyone, it was like someone just discovered something new, a kind of relief and anxiety all at the same time.

“Suit up, we’re going to get her” Steve said to the group, but see, it was the choice of words from Cap that Bucky found unsettling.

“Get her? Like she is some kind of criminal?” he said, looking at his best friend dead in the eye. Steve opened his mouth to say something but Tony beat him to it.

“She was trained by The Red Room to be an assassin, we can expect nothing more from her '' He said, trying to calm Bucky down, but instead it only caused him to get angrier, and not only him.

“So was I” Natasha said, her voice low that could scare anyone to the bone if they weren’t so used to her.

"It's different" Tony said

“How is it different?” Wanda said this time, “It wasn’t when you practically recluded me after I helped Ultron and tried to kill you all” she added.

Tony sighed and looked down, realizing that he might be overreacting.

“Let’s just get suit up and get on with it” Steve said, cutting the rather awkward silence that filled the room.

The avengers were suit up and on the quinjet in less that forty-five minutes, and they were in Madagan in nine hours, it took them an hour to find her building, and once they found it, Clint landed the jet on the roof and they all got out and looked for her apartment. Funny enough, it was the same number as the one she used to live in New York; 108. They waited for what seemed an eternity until they heard footsteps just outside the door. Suddenly, the air felt thick with anticipation, but Bucky couldn’t wait any longer so he crossed the living room in two steps and opened the door. She was standing there. Silence took over the entire apartment until she broke it.

“Well, are you going to move so that I can get inside my goddamn apartment Barnes?” she said expectantly. Bucky realized that he had been staring at her since he opened the door. Her hair was different, more wavy and a shade or two lighter. He moved to the side and she was able to see the rest of the team. This was going to be one hell of an evening.

Breathe. In… and out…

It was hard. Fuck. Okay i can do this.

“Well isn’t this nice. All the team back together again!” I said with sarcasm dripping from every letter.

“What the hell did we ever do to you?” Steve said firmly.

“Damn, getting straight into it. That’s okay” i shrugged as I went to my room but the sound of the blasters of Tony's suit stopped me.

“Stop, don’t take another step” He said, lifting his hands and I smiled.

“Really? Well unfortunately i have to change, so i’ll leave the door open if it makes you comfortable” i said as i continued to walk to my room, and like I said, i left the door open.

“Y-you don’t have to do that, you can…” Wanda said but trailed off. I had taken my shirt off; my scars were shown.

“So, Steve” I broke the silence as I put on a black shirt, “the thing that you did wasn’t as bad as tin man over there, but you still let Hydra take me the day we took out the helicaries” i added. His face got pale and started shaking his head.

“What? No, you made it out safe, you-” He started saying but i interrupted him

“You sure? Who do you think stopped Rumlow when he tried to interfere with the exchange of the chip when you were in the helicarrier with Bucky?” He started thinking for a moment until he realized what I said fell into place. “Yeah, I took one hell of a beating, and if that wasn’t enough, I fell to the water. I fell thirty floors down, and I alone got myself out, because I didn't have anyone to cover me or have my back” i concluded.

“Your scars…” Tony said this time and i turned to him

“Yeah, thanks to you Mr. Stark” i said and he looked at me. “Doctor said that 74% of my body is covered with scars, along with one or two burns”

“You were that girl in The Red Room” Natasha said, causing me to turn my head to look at her and I smiled cynically, “You are Eliza” she finished.

“Давно не виделись с Натальей” (Long time no see Natalia) i said and she looked at me in pure surprise in her faced. That’s something coming from the famous Black Widow.

“What about the rest of us y/n?” Sam said this time, redirecting my attention from Natasha to the rest of the group. Thor was standing there holding his hammer, Bruce was next to the fridge, Clint was by the sink, Wanda was with Vision beside the kitchen table and Bucky was by the door. They were all looking at me. I took a look at the clock, I have to leave in less than thirty minutes.

“Long story short, Clint, Bruce, Sam, Wanda and Vision are the ones that didn’t do anything, so just chill out, you are still on my good side” I smiled and waved my hand.

“Hold on, but what did I do?” Thor asked and I looked at him.

“God it really is unfair how such a little thing can cause such a big problem. The first time you came down to earth, met Jane, bla bla bla… when her stuff was under custody of shield, and you took that notebook; they blamed me. I know it may seem weird because, how? Thing is, I was undercover at that time inside Shield, so when the notebook disappeared, guess who was the one that got beaten for it. I couldn’t move from the pain.”

Thor was standing completely still.

“Lady y/n…”

“How is it possible? I was there and never saw you” Clint interrupted Thor.

“It was before the avengers, i was on the run and a girl's gotta eat. Don’t worry, I never gave them anything. Got the money and then killed them, they were nobodies” I shrugged off.

“So, that’s all you needed to know, so if you please leave my…” I said but then he interrupted me.

“No” I would be lying if I said it didn’t send shivers down my spine at his tone, and I hate even more that he noticed it. “You’re missing one doll” Well fuck me

I turned to see him and he was walking painfully slow towards me and I was praying for my legs to not give out.

“Barnes” I simply said, thanking God and all the saints that it didn’t come out as a whimper. I took a look at the clock once more. I have to leave. Now. “Such a shame, wish you had fought for us, I would have gone through hell and back for you, Buck” his eyes were looking straight to my own and I felt like he was staring at my bare soul. In a way, he was. I smiled and I saw behind my back that the team was looking at us, we’ve never been this close, not in public anyway. I standed on my tiptoes and reached for his right ear, he instinctively reached down so it was a bit easier for me.

“If you want to know, you’ll have to find me first дорогой” (Sweetheart) I whisper. Next thing, the light went out just like I programmed it to and I slid beside Bucky to reach out to the door and to the hall. I could hear the team screaming ‘what the hell just happened’. I ran to the emergency stairs, and once out I could still feel him behind me, getting close. I went into an alley, having to detour, knowing that he eventually was going to catch up to me and I couldn't have him follow where I was really going. A few seconds later, I felt him caging me to the wall on the alley, both of us breathing heavily. His flesh hand went to my throat and his metal one rested on the wall.

“Given a different occasion, I would have loved this, don’t get me wrong, I still love how you…”

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked huskily and I smiled.

“I told you, you’ll have to wait until you find me again. Alone.” i said

“Come on Barnes, do you really think that the charade of being your personal fuck toy would last forever?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t like that, i…” he said but trailed off. The pain in my chest starting and clenching my heart.

“There it is…” i said lowly, the hurt in my voice evident, “listen, i’d love to keep talking about how you used me, but like i said,” i got close to his face, my nose touching his, “find me to found out” after that, I raised my knee kicking him right in between his legs.

He let out a pained groan and fell to the floor, causing his grip in my neck to give out. I took advantage and ran. Two blocks away, I saw Andrei. When he saw me running to him, he immediately got in the car and turned the engine on, then I got in.

“Drive, fast” it was the first thing i said

“Where?” he asked while we took off. I smiled and looked at him

“You’ll see”

Taglist

@silentkiller2374 @vikingqueenlove @girlfriday007 @supraveng

#avengers #bucky x reader #steve x bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes angst #steve rogers #natasha romonova #tony stark #the red room #wanda maximoff #marvel #imagines #hydra

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