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onf-headcanons · 10 months ago

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ONF Fake Marriage AU headcanons

(idea dump version, might expand and elaborate to single post when i got more time to spare. Also, happy belated ONF month~)

Hyojin

-Maybe a long lost friend/classmate/university club mate, and coincidentally your parents nagging you two to get married asap.

Both you and Hyojin already passed a few candidates and you two knew that your family members are getting annoyed.

So when both of you end up matchmaking with each other and the moment you two recognised each other, you two hurriedly clicked on the plan of fake marriage for the short time being.

The one that agrees to play along but will list down a bunch of rules and consequences to make sure both of you are on the same page.

No one is taking anyone's advantage. (not even if he is actually in love with you deep down).

Cues in comedic moments that migh happen: because your lifestyle are still like of a non married single, for example, you went out clubbing and Hyojin is at home. Parents decided to visit without notice, and then Hyojin had to hurriedly call you to prevent things go south lol. And then it made both of you understand the importance of the power of teamwork.

Also I think the tendecy is high to happen, so I will specifically write it here, Hyojin defending on your behalf when parents are pressuring you to get pregnant.

if 10/10 is super slow burn, I think for this, the speed maybe a 6 to 8 on character relationship development.

Changyun

- More like marriage as politic kind of arranged marriage at first, but he fell harder later.

Might be your aristrocratic family corrupted and nearly died out, and then Changyun's family took you in. (Or even worse for you, your family sent/presented you to his family hoping you can influence his family to provide your family benefits)

You don't want to use and manipulate him so you come clean on the first day you both met.

Nevertheless, Changyun agreed and said he can help you to be independent. Maybe you are actually very good at doing business (is just that your family thinks you are better off married away, or maybe they value male heir/eldest rather you being the female/second or younger child).

It could be Changyun helping you by paving way for you to build your business foundation, but in return, you need to pay him back some income shares later on.

Respects you and even though he can put up an act of PDA but in private he is very timid on getting close to you.

*btw, younger prince who is not qualified for the throne X the younger child whose talent being dismissed by family is actually not a bad setting imo. Slow burn meter wise, I think could be 7 to 8.5 for this one, as it will take even longer time for both of you getting to know each other.

Seungjun

- IDK but I think it will be crazily hot to imagine this under Spy undercover family AU (yeah like SPY family and Mr and Mrs Smith). Enemies to lovers and then kick*ss together.

(could be rival in business like he is top 1 and you are no.2 and both of you are assigned to complete this mission. or spyX assasin like Spy Fam)

Cue in awkward PDAs from you but when it was initiated by him, it was smooth af and you flustered really hard.

Also, to your suprise, he actually admires you and see highly of you very much (if its Seungjun X fem Spy colleague), I can see him mentioning and praising your hardwork and he sometimes felt he should not be the top 1 only just because of gender advantage.

Another trope that I think it will be cute is that in secret, you are crushing on him so hard and you start to confuse yourself later on.

Slow burn meter, 3 to 4. (I wont elaborate, but in terms of spice this has the highest tendency to be the spiciest lol.)

Jaeyoung

- Happy to help you, but, i do feel this will be fluffiest Friend to lover ever. Helping you out with the act not because he is aloof, more on he is kind and gentle.

He doesnt want people to hurt you so if that is the most efficient way to protect you for the time being, so be it. However that does not mean he will let things slide just like that.

Just my selfish thoughts, Mafia! Jaeyoung vs reader might do the trick. I mean we can emphasize more on why Jaeyoung does not want to make a move on you because he does not want to put you in trouble (might be safer when people only see you as plaything rather than soulmate.), and also he thinks that he is not qualified to "walk under the sun" with you.

BTW, if you think this is the defrosting the ice king trope, you might be half right. Jaeyoung might be just holding himself back alot because he does not want to burden you, he doesn't want to cross the line.

Alot of activity you two did are more on hanging out with each other and getting to know each other better.

High chance this might just end up with you two getting divorce but remaining as best friends.

Or, another high chance is both of you are not divorcing, but end up continuing the play until both of you are so used to each other, and maybe 4 to 6 years later both of you agreed to stop thinking too much and officially become a true couple instead.

slow burn meter might be 6 to 8.

Minkyun

- maybe come to you with a contract and even set up rules like, divorce in 3 years later.

another Office AU maybe? The rich CEO X reader trope.

But actually he wanted to try his best to make you fall in love with him within 3 years.

(He has been eyeing on you ever since, but you are the independent type and unlike those who will constantly circling around him. Might be thinking having you as his fiancee/bride is a conveninent case but fell in love with you damn hard when he got to know about the values you believe in).

BTW if wanna include angst for this, may insert you thought Minkyun trying to use you as a bluff so that he can see other person, cues in love rival that creates unwanted drama, and you are scared af that people might know you are the one that got married to him.

And you did thought the love rival is more of a match to Minkyun than you are.

I think this one might be fun and comedic when it is more on you trying to hide the secret that you are married with him, but on the contrary he has no problem telling everyone he is already married (but he did not disclose your identity).

Under the comedic moments, insert some serious moments/conspiracy that actually Minkyun purposely chose someone else(you) for the marriage was due to him trying to protect family business.

Should he really engaged/married with the love rival, things might end up real bad.

Cues in Minkyun saying things like, I am not manipulative and prudent enough like my family members but I am still capable enough toprotect the things and people that I treasure deeply.

Slow burn meter I think will be 6 or 7.

Yuto

- I felt that Yuto X Single parent AU might work(?), also very very loose citizenship marriage trope can be applied here. Oh, I will very much prefer the idea of dead spouse single parent rather than divorced single parent for this idea.

You see him as younger brother/junior before. But knowing that you need a father figure/another parent to keep your child. And knowing that he a local to help him prolong his visa/PR. After a long talk, you two agreed to get married (only just on papers).

Of course I am don't feel it is wise to cage the idea that Yuto being a house husband and you are the one providing for the family. (not that this idea is a bad one, but its too cliche for me)

I would like for this to epxand on how both of you adjusting life to take care a toddler, and the bond slowly grows. Maybe you are not that used to taking care of your toddler and Yuto will help out and guide you.

Also because of the change of your mindset, your character also started to change in a good way.

In the begining, both you and Yuto will still act up some PDA to trick other people. But as times goes by, both of your chemistry and bond getting stronger, the interaction between single parent and Yuto gets more natural.

Because of good chemistry, alot of people around you really thinks both of you are truly a pair. And both of you will deny every speculation that you two are a couple.

I think this one might either end up you both being really good friends/team mate in the family, OR once both of you found someone (and the child is now older lets say 12 or 13) a friendly divorce to end the "relationship". Two of you be like BFF until old age.

Cues in the child calls you "Mama"(for those who identify themselves) and Yuto "Papa", but with your new partner, the child calls them "Dad".

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acidangel-fromasia · 19 days ago

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HI POOKIE HRU

I WAS ASLEEP SORRY FOR THR LATE RESPONSE 😭

Prepare for a long ass text incoming btw

I’ve actually been doing good lately!! my baby nephew has been staying at our place since 2 days ago so I’ve been babysitting him since then and It’s definitely helped me be more active instead of sleeping in bed, we were doing stuff like playing with cars, pretending to fish with cat toys and swim in the ocean (floor besides parents bed 😭) doing stuff like pretending to reel each other in with the cat toys too, he also loves the trampoline I was exhausted from it the first day even though it was literally only 5 minutes like I was kinda gagged by that

The bad thing is that since I also have a baby sister they fight a lot over something and either one of them will end up crying because of it which is annoying but I try to make them both happy and be reasonable, like I bought this Spongebob and Patrick in their food cars a while back and he (my nephew) wanted to open and play with them so I did and then we brought it to my baby sisters school to pick her up and he was playing with them on the playground while we waited for her to be dismissed, they were playing with them together racing then down the slide and when we went to pick up my other younger sister (in high school) she (my baby sister) said she wanted to get frozen yoghurt and my mum said no but we can get normal ice cream which we did go and get, when we were walking from tour parking spot to baskin robbins my nephew only wanted to hold my hand and refused to hold the girls hands 😭I’m pretty sure they almost started fighting cause there was only one of those toys from earlier since my baby left the one she was holding in the car but they stopped because she got to eat the leftover ice cream my nephew didn’t eat (most of it) with my other sister, when we got home is when they fought over the Patrick ice cream cone car toy specifically because they both wanted it and my nephew gave her the Spongebob one, since I didn’t want to pick a side I just took them both away so they stopped fighting 😭

I remember on the night of the first day he was here we watched a few music videos on the tv and they were dancing along to them but it was kinda chaotic since they almost kept hitting each other doing their dance moves 😭, which was mainly from my baby sister trying to do a handstand kick thing on the couch which kept almost hitting my baby nephew plsjshs, the songs we listened to in order was Namida no SeeSaw Game by AKB48, Ai Chuseyo by SDN48 which I had to cover my nephew’s eyes for one of the scenes where they’re in the bathtub but my mum said not to or he’d get upset plsjdj, Koisuru Fortune Cookie by AKB48 which I even danced along to cause I know the choreo, Flying Get bff AKB48 which was the most chaotic since they were very energetic during they one and I said before where my baby sister almost kept hitting my nephew, Yobisute Fantasy by AKB48 which was their bedtime one and the music video even suits the theme of going to sleep plus my mum liked the mv too along with the funny purple monster entity in it

Yesterday I was got out of my bed at like 7:30AM and started playing with cars with my baby nephew and I only got back in bed at 4:41PM to lay down for a bit after showering

I also played some racing games on the PS4 with my baby nephew too that night but only two since the disc reader sucked and couldn’t detect the game, which made my baby sister cry cause she wanted to play it as well after us

There was a bit more but this is mainly the stuff I thing is relevant but anyways thanks for asking again bff!! it’s probably the only time I’ll write how I was this long plsjdh

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jikookpancakes · 4 years ago

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JIKOOK FIC RECS that no one asked for (2021)

but im giving anyway because THE TALENT IN THIS FANDOM IS INSANE

long post incoming!! this is probably just part 1 because i wont stop reading anytime soon so i’m inserting that link just in case i do make another one in the future

What’s a Soul Really Worth, Anyway? by thisneedsmorefilth - 130k words, fantasy, demon!jm, witch!jk, listen, this and the next one are my top 2 jikook fics of all time, so well-written, plot so exciting legit reads like a book, better than a lot of books tbh, the world-building is INSANE, jungkook and the gang accidentally summon demon!jimin and chaos ensue, especially for jungkook...and you know why!!!, so funny, angsty, cried so much, happy ending but listen to me: you gotta read the sequel too, YOU GOTTA.

Militat Omnis Amans: The Beginnings by edaen - 92k words, fantasy, werewolf!jk, vampire!jm, forbidden love, super slow burn but super worth it, JIKOOK IN THIS IS MY FAVORITE JIKOOK IN ANY FIC EVER EVER EVER, this is the ultimate all or nothing will freeze hell over for the other kind of love, and the way this is written is just so... how do i describe it. like you can just tell the author wanted to be very realistic with their feelings. you’ve seen the word count, this is SLOW burn. like you will legit feel their struggle to just be able to love each other and while it hurts, it’s also SO GLORIOUS. i love this one so much and if you like reading angst with happy ending but like cranked up to 200% then read this. bonus feels if you read the whole series

Until Dawn (series) by edaen - this is the long series where the previous one above is part of. highly rec if you love fantasy and you wanna read about bts being a rag tag group of supernatural beings fighting evil yay. also it makes the above fic more satisfying because you see more of jikook just being tgt and in love (with bonus angst because of course)

7 Signs by NamHyora - 27k words, secret spies au, abo, alpha!jk, omega!jm who is always used as a raven in their operations aka they use jimin and his attractive self to attract people and gather information or acquire targets and all that spy stuff, and his bestie alpha jk is not too happy about it hehe, friends to lovers, iove this one so much i wish it was longer but i think the author is planning to write a sequel!

Drop Like Confetti by annie_vi - 110k words, ceo!jk, age difference, age swap, ahhh i love this fic so much cause jimin smart and mature and has this no bs attitude, and he can keep up with jk despite the age gap and the difference in status/experiences, jk sexy dilf in this one eheh, i love it cause the drama/angst tackles a very real concern for such couples, like there’s no angst just for the sake of having angst, it really makes sense where they’re both coming from, they’re so whipped for eo too so love that for me

Fold it Up Like Origami by annie_vi - 99k words, gamer!jk, model!jm, same author as above and jk is so boyfriend goals in this one and in all this author’s fics in general like wow my standards are so high now i will legit be single forever just reading jikook fics (with no regrets), secret relationship due to their celeb status, well-written as usual, dialogues/banter in this author’s fics are just YES

The Tournament by kinkmins - 34k words, prince!jm, bodyguard!jk, abo, i’ll paste part of the summary here “Prince Jimin gets ready to hold a tournament where 50 alphas compete for a chance to court him, his father the king hires a new bodyguard who is a little too blunt and a little too talkative.“, i really love this oneeeee

Screwed Up and Brilliant by annie_vi - 113k words, escort!jk, jimin needed a date for a work event and in comes jungkook, escort extraordinaire with a no sex rule and jimin is just dasdkjfhasl, a lot of that “is this real or is he just acting” kinda angst, fluff smut angst

Like Everything Glows by annie_vi - 180k words, merman!jm, aquatic vet!jk, ok this is like my 4th rec from this author just read all their fics you’re welcome, this is their first fantasy fic but soso good, i rec’d this to someone who doesn’t really read fics and she really loved it and said “their love is so pure hhh”, she’s right

Track one: I love you by honeydice - 30k words, they’re “just” best friends, lots of pining it hurts, there’s some yoonmin and mentioned past jinmin in this so just noting in case, angst, denial of feelings, siiiiigh

InYou by edaen - 4k words, pwp :), abo, the morning after jikook mating, more sexytimes ensue + fluff

Falling For You Again by Rose_gold715 - 30k words, amnesia au, jk forgets about jimin and idk just something about this hits right in the feels. btw i don’t support the jk hated jm before in real life agenda so i don’t like this fic for that reason but i like this fic because i love me some good painful angst with happy ending.

The President’s Son by AmeliaBedelia - 55k words, bodyguard!jk, president’s son!jm, jk is assigned to shadow jm bc his life is under threat, and things develop :), jm is jk’s gay awakening :) :)

A Touch of Sin by pettey - 102k words, fantasy au, police officer!jk, supernatural!jm, shamanism, LOOK AT THE RANGE OF JIKOOK WRITERS YALL, this is such an interesting concept, so different from every other fic i’ve read, really well-written, sometimes you come across fics and you cant help but go “someone out there rly blessing me with this art for free”

Tears to the Tide by haromame - 65k words, abo, alpha!jk, omega!jm, honestly there’s not a lot of abo elements it’s focused more on jungkook having ptsd as he just came from war, established relationship jikook, he comes back home to jimin and things have just... changed. except their love ok THEY LOVE EO SO MUCH this made me cry so f much ugh so good tho.

Zero Hour by edaen - 5k words, canon compliant, a little drabble based around rosebowl jikook, it’s part of a series/collection of canon compliant jikook so if you’re looking for more canon compliant here you go!!, also if you can’t tell already i tend to like several things from a single author, i haven’t read their other fics im legit saving for sad days but i am confident enough to say their other fics are also rec-worthy.

Wonder by wordcouture - 7k words, im sorry in advance, mcd :( pls take care of yourself, i don’t like sad endings ok i don’t, but this is so popular and i was like, ok let’s see what the hype is all about, i get it now, :((((((((((((((((((((, well-written tho, bc the author will manage to crush your heart in just 7k words ha ha

The Omega Revolution by PinkBTS - 158k words, abo, alpha!jk omega!jm, dystopian au, the hunger games more specifically mockingjay vibes, angst with happy ending but there’s some...things... lost along the way and i think that’s realistic for a dystopian war au, well-written

Blind Switch - 226k words, jockey!jk, rich spoiled brat!jm, jm gets exiled to his grandparents ranch where he meets jk yeehaw, im sorry for the yeehaw, anyway fluff smut angst enemies friends to lovers hurt/comfort slow burn happy ending, all the good stuff, ugh jk so boyfriend goals, also the amount of fluff in the later chapters thank u writer

Finally by Rose_gold715 - 12k words, abo, alpha!jk, omega!jm, angst with happy ending, jikook mate out of convenience and jimin runs away from jk and his pack feeling unloved and outcasted, but jungkook goes after him :((

Park Jimin’s Guide to Good Housekeeping by Ashlyn17 - 235k words, fantasy au, when i say jikook has the best fic writers i mean jikook has the best fic writers because THE WORLD-BUILDING in this one?, THE PLOT TWIST?, yesyesyes, jungkook is a powerful fae and jimin is assigned to be his housekeeper hehe, listen my entire fic rec has several that could be great netflix shows and this is definitely one of them

A Spell That Reminds Me of Your Name by Chimneycricket - 42k words, wizards!au, enemies to friends to lovers and the development felt natural, well-written plus the author sometimes makes art of their fics and other jikook fics and posts on twitter, both their fics and art are so good, i’ve heard good stuff about their other fics too :)

that’s it for now!

just a quick one about my preferences: idc about tops/bottoms, i read just about anything but i prefer fantasy and multi-chaptered fics, i love established relationship jikook so hmu with recs anytime, i don’t like reading anything with cheating and mcd, i love fics where jk and jm are just so friggin in love they are just IT for eo, and at the end of the day even if there are elements to the fics i wouldn’t normally read, as long as they’re well-written then i’m all for it

#jikook #kookmin #jikook fic rec #bts #jimin #jungkook #there's some that i wanna include but they're gone from ao3 now so sad #lesson: read these while you still can #i have so much more saved to read omg #i shall return with a part 2 #fic rec

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lilyrachelcassidy · 3 years ago

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Brawl Over Hallucinogens [1]

A/N: IT IS DONE!!! Oh, and btw, happy HP22 Event everyone! I’ve been anticipating the finals of your team project for so long, and they are finally out. And I cannot be any more proud of all of my mutuals who engaged in writing this non-smut content for our lovely Draco community! A big thank you to @draconisxcaput who was a chief organizer of the event and arranged everything so wonderfully! Also, @drawlfoy and @war-sword who came up with the idea and pulled it all together to make it look all fancy and professional;) I hope we’d be able to repeat such a huge project, and yeah, that’s all about the event as for now...

A new series I came up with. And I know, I know, I leave Summer Nights unfinished and so forth, BUT I have a very good forecast for this series because I have the whole thing planned out in my head and I just know that it’s gonna flick. I’d be posting the second part of BOH in 4 days I think, for the next day of HP22E. But I also thought of posting every new chapter once a week, so that’d be able to breathe, squeeze some fic writing into my schedule, and still could keep up with my school stuff, etc.

Okay, so not prolonging too much, let’s dip into some Draco-non-smut fiction!!! Pls, also, don’t forget to check out other wonderful masterpieces prepared by my friends for THE EVENT! I’ll be reblogging them, however, in the link you’ll find the whole index for each of the pieces!

Enjoy:)

Index

Warnings: No specific, I think?? Just some langauge but you’ll survive;)

Wc: 3.1k

Tags: @draconisxcaput

“Have you heard?” Susan entered their mutual room and, without preamble, started off with a question. Sparing her a glance, Y/N could easily detect the exhilaration and curiosity all over her face, which was a typical reaction of Susan’s at every mystery-involving news, as Y/N thought about it. She bit her cheek, preventing herself from letting out an amused giggle.

“No, I wasn’t at the feast today.” Y/N turned her sight back to the magazine she had been reading previously, somehow not expecting her roommate to say anything up to the minute. “So what’s that?”

“Today’s pre-meal speech belonged to Snape actually,” said Susan, and Y/N made deer-in-the-headlights-like eyes, diverting the attention back to her friend. “He said some vials of potions had been missing from the storeroom, and no matter what a thief’s purpose was, the consequences will be dragged out. And they’ll be severe.”

Y/N gulped. “And did he mention what kind of potions are missing?”

“Just mentioned a few of them. But I can only remember the tranquilizer and… —um— a sleeping potion.” Flipping on one of the pillows next to Y/N, Susan sighed and took off her auburn slip-ons as to locate herself comfortably on a bed. “I don’t get it really, why would anyone steal those? I mean, you can easily get them without such an effort, in Hogsmeade, for instance, right? Or simply ask Madam Pomfrey for some. It’s not like they aren’t available or something…” Still getting no response from her friend, she continued. “Do you think that it could have been Ron Weasley, perhaps? Or his siblings? The rumors say their father had recently dropped off the work in the Ministry. So now they have to behave on the cheap.”

“The Ministry is the rotten place, but Weasleys would have to be out of their mind to cut off their only source of income. You shouldn’t be judging them by their wealth, you know?” Y/N peeked at her friend from the corner of her eye, simultaneously flipping the page of her ‘Weekly Witch’ magazine. “I think it could have been anyone. And besides, you know how rumors can be — depending on nothing more than lies. Do you remember the one time when a Gryffindor gal accused you of being a Squib just because you couldn’t operate with your wand properly?”

“I hexed her for that.”

Y/N laughed at Susan’s sudden gloom. “Yeah, but you know what I’m going for.”

“I agree, but it still bothers me, like…” She threw herself in the pile of pillows and imitated the angry yelp, causing Y/N to continue with her laugher. When Susan didn’t stop with her act-out after a while, Y/N grabbed her by the shoulders forcing her to lift up, all hair ruffled and soaring in different directions, and she looked her straight in the eyes with a serious mien.

“Don’t you bother your pretty head with all those thoughts, alright? The Slytherins organize a grand party today as to celebrate, you know, the opening of another year of tortures. Same old drill. And I think we could visit at least for an hour…” Noticing the idea didn’t quite appeal to Susan, she proceeded. “Oh, come on, that’s our only chance to get ripped throughout this semester. And we haven’t seen our friends in forever. What do you say?”

“Under one condition.”

“And what’s that exactly?”

Sudden mischief appeared in Susan’s eyes, and it instantly occurred to Y/N that she wasn’t up for too much good with her inventory of ideas. Something in terms of a smug smile appeared on Susan’s lips, and before she could utter a word, Y/N interrupted. “Okay, just an FYA, I’m not going for some crazy-ass shit if it’s that what you’re thinking of.”

“No, it’s not that,” Susan chortled, wiggling her eyebrows in an opposite-suggesting manner. “I- I mean, we could kick off with the investigation about those potions. You know, to find out how’s snicking them out and what for. Satisfying the curiosity is one thing, but how many points we’d be able to obtain for Hufflepuff, can you imagine?”

“Susan…” Y/N sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Before you say anything,” she covered her friend’s mouth, apparently finding it the best way to mute her down. “I know that the House Cup doesn’t really matter to you, but it’s such an honor to finally get it for the first time in a few decades. It was always either Slytherin or Gryffindor to get it, and for once we’d get some fame out of that. Merlin, we would even go down in history for something like that.”

“Don’t exaggerate it.” Quite a pause there. “But if it’s that what you want, yeah, sure we can do that.”

“Really?!” Susan’s loud squeak carried over the entire room, which got Y/N very startled with her roommate’s sudden change of heart.

“Sure.” She smiled, nodding. “The key question, though — how are we supposed to, you know, find the suspect?”

“We will find our way. Looking at the clues, observing people, and so forth.” Frowning, she shrugged her arms, jumped off the bed, and walked over to her wardrobe. “I presume, I’m going to choose this glittery dress you gave me on my birthday. Can you do the curls for me? I’d appreciate that.”

XOXOXOX

As much as Y/N tried to make an impression of insouciant, she couldn’t get the taboo topic about the potions disappearance out of her head for days. Obviously, Susan broached the subject as well, not once nor twice, but numerous counts of times, which made Y/N reflect even more on the case. Why would anyone need those vials? What was the use of them? Has Susan really remembered all the relevant details back from the feast speech that she hadn’t bothered enough to attend to? She now contemplated how matters would have been different if she could change her past life decisions, and in lieu, go on the fucking feast that night. Things could have been different by now — she could have caught much more out of Snape’s diatribe than could Susan; she could have noticed other students reacting to the news. Maybe not so new to some after all. But that didn’t matter anymore…

She had attempted, in various ways, to pursue her detective-like role and, following Susan’s advice, tried to look out for any kind of hints that could help out in their common investigation. Until now, however, everything was for no use because every piece of information that was found only led to a blind alley. One time she thought she had even caught a suspect in the act, as she espied the widely-opened door to the Potions Stock and found a black-haired Slytherin inside it, however, as it later turned out, he was only collecting the ingredients for his lessons with Snape.

So that was the next failure on her account, unfortunately.

Currently, Y/N was bracing herself to go for her night shift as a Prefect she was involuntarily elected to be (her parents forced her to submit herself), and she put on several layers of clothes due to a freezing temperature in the corridors, especially in dungeons. She was supposed to meet up with a Ravenclaw boy who would be making rounds with her in a few minutes on a third floor, and she hadn’t yet left her dormitory, much more made her way to the appointed spot. That’s why she tried to gather herself in a great hurry, causing tremendous mayhem all around.

But she couldn’t care less at that moment, because she finally tracked down the pair of shoes she was looking for, thus she swiftly put them on, and almost sprinted out of the room.

‘I’m not gonna make it, I’m not gonna make it…’ Y/N thought to herself, criticism swirling in her head. ‘I’m not gonna mak—‘

“You don’t fucking understand, do you?” Y/N halted in her steps. Breathing like a sore rhinoceros, she succeeded in reaching the fourth floor with her best speed time yet. She didn’t have enough audacity, however, to think about her achievement because the conversation she happened to overhear particularly gripped her interest. “I needed to have them.”

Y/N recognized that voice. Harsh. Bold. Very masculine. Derogatory. She had encountered it too many times in her life as not to detect who the person was — Draco Malfoy, it deemed to her instantly. From what could Y/N detect, he sounded very agitated and vexed, even for himself.

“Watch your tone, Mr. Malfoy,” a man, apparently Snape, scolded him. He too seemed to be a little over the edge, however, could master his temper much better than his interlocutor. “If you needed my help, you should have given a sign. That would provoke much less trouble for both of us. Dumbledore and other professors are getting suspicious, Malfoy, so the next time you try to pull something like that, contemplate twice.”

“I don’t need the advice from you!” Although he lowered his voice a few timbres, Draco huffed and made an impression even angrier than before. “I told you, I’m perfectly capable of doing the whole thing by myself. I don’t need you leeched to my glory.”

“Say that again, and you are going to lose my assistance for once. I pay no interest in acquiring the glory whatsoever,” Snape warned him, sternly. "If it wasn’t for me, everything would have leaked out already. Dumbledore is not foolish. I had to offer him a very far-fetched story to clean you up from the suspicion after the last turn of events.”

Y/N peeked from behind the wall, and indeed, got a hold of a very perplexing scenery. Draco bristled and, with a scorn on his lips, stood with his back pinned to the cobblestone wall whilst Severus Snape, hovering over him with his bat-like garments and greasy hair, stared him blankly in the eyes, disclosing no rage nor irritation. No emotion, really. Draco, on a contrary, had a death-lust painted all over his face.

Wanting to get a better view of the whole situation, Y/N wriggled a little more to get a more favorable position. However, Draco’s gaze suddenly snatched in her direction, and Y/N could only wish that it was too dim for him to perceive her in the cheaply-lit corridor.

‘Don’t move, just don’t move,’ she repeated to herself, withdrawing her breath and deeply praying to come off unnoticed.

His eyes were piercing through her mind, pupils dilated, and what could have been said even from afar was that he wasn’t the same mocking, adolescent Slytherin he had been a year ago. He had the oddest air rising up around him. And his posture was slightly but noticeably hunched, with his ink-black suit hanging on his slender arms. Truthfully saying, he looked more than sick in her opinion and probably must have skipped a few nights of sleep, judging by the bags under his eyes and the extremely pale complexion.

Try as might to suppress it, Y/N felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

“I’m not sure whether you are aware of a weight of the task you have been given, Mr. Malfoy.” Snape turned Draco’s attention back to the conversation. “Dark Lord expects you to perform the task to the nines, and from what I have heard, the progress of your work is hardly perceptible.”

“I told you, I’m handling it,” said Draco with his jaw tightly clenched. "I’m trying to mend a fucking cupboard up. But I need more time.”

“I can be patient Draco,” said Snape. “However, the Dark Lord won’t be.” And with a swift sweep of his cloak, he vanished into the vast darkness of the corridor, leaving flustered and annoyed Draco behind, who had an apparent influx of anger because he hit a wall with his fist with the greatest force he could gather.

Using the advantage of a momentary lack of Draco’s attention, Y/N tried to escape a place of witnessing the scene between a platinum Slytherin and her, what she had reckoned in the beginning, not so innocent Potions teacher.

Thoughts were swirling in her head like a tornado. What were the two of them talking about? Was their conversation related to the latest potions pilfering, and if so, why would Snape make such a fuss about it during the feats if he had had a clue of a potential robber? Why wouldn’t they use more secluded area to talk over such matters?

Nothing made a coherent answer in her head.

Y/N acted as quietly as she could, withdrawing her breath and hoping that Draco was far gone in the other direction of the school so that she could reach her room with no disturbance. However, before she could make a second step, a voice carried over, leaving a great echo behind. “Come out. I know someone is out there.”

What she could say was an act of desperation, Y/N collected herself to the fastest dart she could manage, feeling a little bit jittery and panicked. She couldn’t be caught by him. She wouldn’t bear standing with him eye to eye, especially after what she had overheard. Her plan was to run over back to the Hufflepuff Tower. But if she couldn’t make it, she would hide behind one of the old tapestries (after wandering alone around the school at night, she had discovered a lot of interesting spots she could make use of). Then, after waiting a while, she would return to her dormitory and, in the following day, she would offer a far-fetched lie to the Ravenclaw boy about not being able to make it to her Prefect shift due to the sudden flu. Or a cold?

Yes, that was a good plan.

His hasty footsteps were approaching her from behind, and Y/N couldn’t be less surprised — he was a head taller over her. With this height, he could beat her up in the race three times, if not more. Not yet losing her determination, Y/N ran further with an unsteady breath and an extremely high heart rate. She had bunked off her Quidditch lessons many times in her life, and she had never thought she would wish to participate in them again.

Y/N could swear her run prolonged from minutes to hours. But she couldn’t stop. Not now, when her destination was finally so close — the tapestry next to the Great Hall that she was the only one who knew about.

A few more steps.

Y/N felt a sudden yank, and before she could get a grip of what was happening, she was pinioned to the wall by an unimaginable strength she hadn’t known Draco owned. She gasped from bewilderment. Draco was holding both of her hands above her head, and the approximation of their faces made Y/N startled because their noses were almost touching, and she could smell his sandalwood cologne from a little distance. With his breath puffing on her skin, she could feel her cheeks burning from the blush and, suddenly, she was very thankful for the darkness that surrounded them.

“Why were you running away?” he asked, his buzzing eyes inspecting her every flinch.

“Why were you chasing me?” Y/N couldn’t articulate the reason she was running away because she had no particular one. It was her common sense telling her that what she had done, eavesdropped, was inappropriate and should act as she had never witnessed anything. Apparently, that didn’t work out.

“Don’t give me that shit,” he said, huffing. “How much have you heard?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Somehow, Y/N felt even tenser than before, and she had an instantaneous urge to kick him in the guts and flee.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw you peeking.” A next sneer. “Nosy Hufflepuffs, can’t just mind their own business, can they?”

“It’s not that I did it on purpose!” she defended herself instantly, knitting her eyebrows together. “I was only doing my rounds as a Prefect. It’s not like you couldn’t go to the more private area or something.”

“Again, how much have you heard?”

Y/N deflated, sinking in her chest becoming sharper every minute. “I-um... Not much, all right? I only heard something about the task. Nothing specific… I swear, I didn’t know someone was there! I was only patrolling, you know, with my Prefect duty.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that already.” Draco removed his hands, releasing Y/N from his grip and, try as might to suppress it, she felt partly wistful because she oddly enjoyed the heat radiating from Draco’s body. He, however, didn’t seem to notice her swift change of mood, and with a little sigh, he continued. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“About what?”

“About this night. The quarrel, this conversation. Nothing. Understood?”

“Bu—“

“Please, just don’t make me explain that,” he cut her off. “I know this might be confusing but believe me, you don’t want to be mingled into this shithole. Just keep your nose out of it, and nothing bad’s going to happen.”

What did he mean? Did he view her as that oblivious as to not ask questions?

“I—“

“Y/N?” A different voice rang from the opposite side of a hall. Stamps approached Y/N and Draco in surprisingly fast time, and out of nowhere, Terry Boot was standing right in front of them, staring at them in awe. “What are you doing here? We were supposed to meet with each other an hour ago.”

She scratched her head nervously. “I overslept. Took a too-long nap.” Avoiding any eye contact, she let out a neurotic laugh, wishing to have this whole chatty-chat situation behind her.

“And him?” Terry took a suspicious glance at Draco.

“Oh, um — he was just walking back to his dormitory, I assisted him.”

“A little late for a stroll, ain’t it?” Terry asked, folding arms and directing his suspicious gaze back to Draco.

“That’s why I was walking back to dungeons, Boot,” Draco sent him an in-verbal warning, the intensity of his upsetness hovering around. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have early classes tomorrow.”

Uttering nothing more, he ambled away from the pair of them but not before sending Y/N the last caveat with his wary eyes over his shoulder. She should be feeling relieved, but instead, even more conflict arose in her head after her conversation with Draco. What she finally realized was that something much more dangerous than a student’s frolic was standing behind the potions' disappearance. And Draco could be one of those reasons.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Terry inquired when he had an assurance Draco disappeared off the horizon.

“Hm? Oh, ye-yeah, I’m fine…” she stuttered out, still gapping at the black void of darkness where Draco had been standing a few minutes ago.

XOXOXOXO

A/N: Thank u sm for reading and hoped you liked it!! yes, yes, our Terry Boot is returning back to the scenery [spoiler: ‘Turn’]. I’m sure that at least @drawlfoyknows what i’m alluding to hehe.. Idk what’s with the bad, secret boys but i always liked that image of Draco, so... I MADE IT. There’s not too much steam going on rn since, yk, it’s only the beggining. But expect some more heated-up scenes very shortly;) If you want to stay up-to-date with the series, don’t hesitate to ask me to be added to the taglist!

#draco malfoy x reader #harry potter writing event #draco x reader #draco malfoy #draco x oc #draco x you #hp #hp fandom #slytherin #hufflepuff #draco malfoy series #draco malfoy fanfiction #pottermore #harry potter imagine

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softprincesso · 5 years ago

Text

✨HOW TO BECOME A WEALTHY MIDDLE-AGED MAN✨

PT.2: Overview to understanding different saving/retirement methods, investments, and forms of income

2.1 Savings and Retirement

Welcome lovelies to (what I hope will be) a helpful series on gaining wealth and becoming financially literate and independent!

*disclaimer: while this advice can generally apply to many it will not apply to all. Everyone is in a different situation and should do their own research before they take what ANYONE says as fact or law. This is also coming from the perspective of a young, biracial, first generation female business student following a hypergamous lifestyle and who does sw so some advice may be specific to my like-minded ladies, but for the most part I just love money and want to help others find joy in their wallets as well. I am also operating in the US so things regarding accounts, stocks, and certain laws will vary by your country. Also, this is just a fun thing I wanted to do because talking about leveling up and learning and growing and money are my favorite past times. None of these pictures are mine, however I am using some links which may compensate me in some way, but I only used links which were mutually beneficial and would help you gain something as well, they are still just actual sources I use for myself.

✨THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND✨

Financial independence is different than financial confidence.

Financial Independence: “The most common sense of the term is that someone has enough wealth to live as they wish for the rest of their life without having to work.” -Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/declare-your-own-financial-independence-day.aspx

Financial Confidence: “We define financial confidence as having three aspects,” says Miler. “The first is awareness of how money can be a tool for helping you reach your goals and dreams. The second is financial literacy and understanding economic factors. The third is trust and knowing where to turn for financial advice.” -Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2018/06/16/women-money-8-steps-for-growing-your-financial-confidence/?sh=2175b65e2468

While the ultimate goal is financial independence, financial confidence should be the main focus. I’ll give an example why. Imagine there are two people: Rhonda and Jill. Both of them like nice things, love to shop, and participate in the occasional splurge. Rhonda works a regular 9-5 and has a decent salary. She doesn’t have much financial knowledge (translation: financial confidence), but she has a savings account at her local bank and puts a couple hundred into retirement each year and she thinks that's enough. Suddenly, Rhonda wins the lottery. Overnight she has become a millionaire, so she quits her job, moves to LA, and goes on to live life to the fullest. She would now be considered financially independent. However, Rhonda has no idea how to manage all that money. She puts a small amount into that bank savings account and takes the rest to do what she will. One day she tries her luck at a casino, in less than five hours she has lost all of her money and has to start back at square one with no job, only a few thousand to get her through, and no-good way to explain to employers that she just wasted the last 5 years spending money on handbags she now has to sell at a depreciated value. (BTW you would not last not working with only a million dollars in LA for that long)

Now, let’s look at Jill. Jill is an independent contractor and has a relatively steady income. She knows very little about finances, but she actively learns how to manage what she has and keeps up to date on the latest money news. The day that Rhonda won the lottery was just another Thursday for Jill, the only unique point for her was that she opened a savings accounts with a high APY (we’ll say 1%) and put in $5000.00. A little later she also opened a Roth IRA and puts in the maximum yearly allowance of $6000.00. Along the way she opened a brokerage account of her own and started trading in the stock market along with investing in real estate which has given her some extra income to play with each year. Unfortunately, another housing crash occurs, and all of the money Jill invested into real estate is gone. However, since Jill learned the skills behind her choices early on, she is knowledgeable and understands the ups and downs of the market and how to invest her money in other places in the meantime. And, that High yield savings account accrued around $50 more without her doing anything and she has that to fall back on, or worst case she can take out part of her principal Roth IRA contribution. 10 years from now Jill should start to see a steady increase in her Roth IRA that by retirement will be a little over 1 million and she should be comfortable and invested enough into stocks that she gains around $200-1000 extra each month.

I think you understand why you want to be Jill.

✨HAVING ADEQUATE SAVINGS = BEING YOUR OWN LIFEGUARD✨

As discussed in Pt.1 the first goal you should achieve is securing an emergency fund that could sustain you for a couple of months if things were to ever hit the fan, and starting a retirement fund should be in your top 5 goals to complete. The saying, “the rich get richer” is popular for a reason. Wealthy people know how to make their money work for them instead of them having to work for money. An easy way anyone can do the same is by opening the right accounts for your savings and retirement.

Savings:

All of your savings should be in a high yield saving account or split between different high yield accounts. This is an account which will reward you some interest every period for having money in your account with them. This is incredibly easy to do. You can either research/ask your bank about their high yield accounts or do some googling to find some other bank. Then transfer your money and there you go! When looking at banks understand that the highest Annual Percent Yields (APY), or the interest they will reward you, are going to be from online banks because they have less operational costs than a brick and mortar, but they will also come with their own disadvantages, like less ATMs to access or the inability to use when outside of your country so make sure to look into that. IMPORTANT: Make sure that whatever bank you choose is FDIC-insured so if the bank were to ever collapse or lose your money you have insurance up to $250,000.This won't generate a lot of extra cash, but an extra $20 every year is better than $0.

Retirement:

These accounts usually go by your current situation and what you see for your future.

401K: Probably the most known (I believe it’s only in the States but there might be something close to it in other countries) and that’s just because this is what employers usually offer if they offer anything. It is a retirement fund that your employer will set up and you can predefine how much of your paycheck you want to automatically go into it every time. Sometimes, the employers will also have a match program, and if they do you better max out the money they will contribute because that is FREE money! Most advice that I have seen has said to really only focus on this fund if your employer has that match program, otherwise I would focus on one of the accounts below. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/08/401k-info.asp

IRA: An IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account. There are three kinds…

Traditional: This IRA lets you put in pre-tax money and lets it grow tax-free until you make a withdrawal. Once you make the withdrawal that money is taxed at the current rate of your income at the time. Your contributions are tax deductible so you can write them off of your taxable income of that year. There are limits to how much you can contribute depending on your income, status, and whether you have another retirement fund as well.

Roth: With this IRA your contributions are taxed, but when you withdrawal money later on it is tax free. For those of you in a lower tax bracket than you believe you will be in the future, this IRA makes the most sense as you will pay less taxes now than you will when you are 59 ½ (The official age of retirement in the States). There are limits to how much you can contribute depending on your income, status, and whether you have another retirement fund as well.

SEP: Simplified Employee Pension. This is also an employer-based plan and may also work better for my self-employed gals out there. I don’t really know a lot on this one so I’ll just leave a link you can look into if it interests you: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/how-does-simplified-employee-pension-sep-ira-work.asp

You can have both a traditional and Roth IRA as long as you are eligible for both. Anyone with earned income (with a job or can prove a steady income) can contribute to a Traditional IRA, however with a Roth IRA, as a single you can earn up to $139,000 and contribute. Personally, if you are just getting started with all of this just set up one IRA and as you learn more you can take steps to get another or switch accounts.

https://www.investopedia.com/retirement/roth-vs-traditional-ira-which-is-right-for-you/

There are a plethora of other accounts, but they are more specialized and the top four should get you started on the right path to saving for retirement. I’m guessing that the majority of the audience reading these are women between the ages of 20-30. Trust me when I say that I love to spend money as much as the next girl, but I also would like to be completely comfortable should anything happen in my older years that screws up my marriage or job, and no one is going to secure that for you.

Also, I’m sorry this is so US-based, but once again it is all I know. I believe IRAs are more widespread than a 401K, but all that takes to find out is a Google search on your part.

Either way, make sure you have a plan going into 2021 for your savings and retirement because this economic whirlwind is far from over and there is always a chance for another recession, depression, or disaster. (Wow O, way to keep the mood light)

This was getting way too long with the investments added so look out for Pt.2.2 on the overview for investments (where the actual fun begins and I can stop being such a stick in the mud)…

VOCAB TO KNOW/RESEARCH:

Financial independence

Financial Confidence

APY

Roth IRA

brokerage account

High yield savings account

principal

401K

Traditional IRA

Once again… if in these posts I ever give bad advice, F- something up, or am just generally ignorant PLEASE call me out! Remember that just like you I am a young woman figuring everything out and while I am confident when talking about money, I am by no means a genius (only in spurts) so any chance to learn I appreciate. I hope you all learned something new today and as always…

With Love,

#how to become a wealthy middle aged man #wealth #money #money management #wealth management #finances #hypergamy #affluence #heauxlife #heaux advice #heaux tips #spoiled girlfriend #spoiled gf #spoiled heaux #black woman in luxury #luxury #sugar tips #oadvice #softprincesso

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benevolentbirdgal · 4 years ago

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9. If you want to get married, what Jewish wedding practices are must haves and what are must have nots?

27. What is your ideal synagogue like?

31. Have you been to any Jewish spaces while traveling, and if so where?

(very cool ask game btw, thank u :D hope ur passover is going well!!!)

Thank you for asking! My Passover is going well, lots of scrambled eggs and salads.

9. If you want to get married, what Jewish wedding practices are must-haves and what are must-have nots?

Must-haves:

My new spouse must step on the glass/shard/whatever, regardless of whether they’re Jewish or not.

Getting married under a Chupah. Some people have friends make them one and I think that sounds super cool.

Not getting married on Shabbat, holidays, or the omer. Seems like bad luck anyways and I don’t want my anniversary to forever be “3rd day of Pesach” or whatever.

Commemorative kippahs (yes, this is a modern tradition but I still hold it sacred).

Also modern: programs that have explanations of the Jewish traditions, because I have a ton of goyish relatives (and statistically, so will my future spouse).

Absolutely nots:

Traditional Ketubahs. I object strenuously to the traditional ketubah’s wording and intent.

Head shaving or wig-fitting. This is a thing is *some* orthodox communities do, so not quite my frame of reference anyways, but not something I’m interested in.

Lukewarm:

Sheva Brachot and circling - I don’t object to either of these traditions, I’m just not that into it.

If my partner really wanted a ketubah, I could compromise for a modern one but I’m not actively interested.

I was dropped at my sister’s Bat Mitzvah, so while I’m lukewarm about the Horah itself, I’m not going up in the chair.

27. What is your ideal synagogue like?

I LOVE PLAYING FANTASY SYNAGOGUE. I could literally write a thousand words on this and get incredibly specific, but in “brief:”

I’m not terribly picky about denominational labels, but I like the reconstructionist ethos and my personal practices and beliefs fall somewhere in the upper-Reform or lower-Conservative range. What this means in practice:

Medium-length services, not so short I feel like I just arrived and not so long I’m reading the end matter at the back of the siddur.

Mostly in Hebrew, particularly the Torah service. Full ceremony to take out the Torah and return it.

Inclusive of women and LGBTQ+ people as full members of the congregation who can do all the things.

Welcoming to interfaith families.

Kosher kitchens, separate for meat and dairy.

Services for holidays, Shabbat, Friday night, and regular minyans.

Inclusive and demographically diverse (ethnicity, JOC, JBC, interfaith families, sexualities, gender identities, geographic origin, income, etc). Actively strives to avoid Ashkenormativity, proactively inclusive of LGBTQ+ folks, welcoming JBC, understanding that not all American Jews are from NYC (or adjacent).

Financially accessible:

Programming that is free or cheap for dues-paying members (not built around assumptions of massive disposable income).

Sliding scale for dues.

Scholarships for more expensive programs.

Age-related:

Has good mix of different age groups, but skews a bit to young professionals. Has stuff specifically for said young professionals (disclosure: I am a 20-something and a recent grad).

Separate kids services for most of the service.

Programming for teens that is separate from kids, maybe some overlap with adults.

Takes care of community:

Checking in on people in vulnerable stages or transitions, like lonely seniors, kids going away to college, and families who have recently experienced a loss or gained a child.

Relief program to bring food to those who need it.

Ability to produce minyan for mourners to say kaddish.

Social Stuff:

Fun social events outside of services.

Good place to hang out with Jewish friends.

Dating/matchmaking/young adult mixers specifically for young professionals/singles.

Educational stuff:

Classes on Jewish topics (history, religion, culture).

Judeo-language classes, especially Hebrew.

General classes (philanthropy, food, travel, interfaith).

Guest speakers on a variety of topics.

Group trips to museums and other cool places.

Adult classes as separate from kids’ classes.

Classes specifically on how to do Jewish skills, like wrapping tefillin, kashering a kitchen, putting up a Mezuzah, etc.

Good relationships with other nearby Jewish institutions, friendly relations with other nearby houses of worship (for interfaith and joint charity efforts).

Up to date website with calendar and clear explanations of dues, events, and expectations.

31. Have you been to any Jewish spaces while traveling, and if so where?

Oh, a whole bunch! The three I’ll answer about today are Savannah, George, Berlin, Germany, and Warsaw, Poland:

Savannah: I visited the third-oldest active synagogue in the U.S. and the only gothic synagogue remaining in the U.S. It was built (mostly) by Sephardim fleeing the Portuguese inquisition, although it now affiliates with the Reform movement. It’s an active synagogue, but they have tours and a lot of information about their history visible as you walk through it. It was super interesting and I’d definitely go back.

Berlin:

I went to the Berlin Jewish Museum and did not like it. It felt like it was by and for goyim, not us, and was really a Holocaust museum for the most part (and I object to the Holocaust being presented as the whole of the Jewish or Jewish-European experience).

I liked the Chabad of Berlin, which was a bit difficult to find but super welcoming.

Warsaw: I’m really not a fan of Warsaw on the whole, but I LOVED the Polish Jewish museum. They advertise as “1000 years of Polish Jewry” and they really freaking mean it. It was fun, educational, and super well-curated. It balances modern history with medieval history, has some incredible artifacts, and is designed so you walk forward through time. It isn’t shy about the (many) traumas of Polish Jewry, but it also talks about the joys and triumphs as well. The design of the building and the progression of the exhibits really works, and the cafeteria was pretty good too.

#jumblr ask game

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bryyo-data · 6 years ago

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What if Samus had Metroid powers: design for a hypothetical game

I got this ask the other day and my answer was a bit of a ramble, but I've come back to it with a clear head. I decided to have a go at hypothetical game design, for a Metroid title set post-Fusion in which Samus Aran gains Metroid-like abilities due to her DNA changes! Some of the stuff below is rehashed from the ask reply itself.

Be warned! Bit of a long post, and I apologise in advance for mobile users for whom readmores don't always work.

Premise

I tried to stay vague with the story details because I was more interested in writing about the gameplay, but I failed at that and wrote a lot. Story has it's own section at the bottom. However, the basic idea is that Samus, now an enemy to the Federation and probably on the run, ends up on a world where the environment triggers the manifestation of strange powers. Metroids are known to adapt when introduced to new worlds, and Samus is essentially doing the same- her Metroid DNA, previously doing little more than sparing her from the X, is now active and granting her abilities.

New abilities

This isn't solid ideas so much as a brainstorm, but I tried to come up with a few ideas for what Samus might be able to do with Metroid DNA. None of it has any scientific basis but that's okay, there's dragons in this franchise.

ENERGY DRAIN: This is the first ability you learn, perhaps one you start off with. Samus starts the first area trapped, maybe after a ship crash, and is told how to shoot and jump etc. by the game. Or alternatively, maybe she doesn’t shoot. Let's say her weapon is down for now, hence being more trapped than usual, and she's stuck using a melee move to break through the surrounding rocks. While doing this, she comes across a biological barrier. But as she goes to use her melee attack, something unusual happens... The barrier turns to dust, and the health she lost during her crash-landing is replenished.

Henceforth, that melee thing becomes a drain attack. This power allows Samus to drain energy, killing a foe quickly and restoring some of her own health, but it isn't unlimited or easy to perform beyond the starting portion of the game. With mobile and aggressive enemies, it requires very precise timing to pull off. I would personally make it so that the game relies on this move much less than Samus Returns relied on the melee counter, but have it function in a similar way. Samus can still blast quickly through enemies like she could in Super Metroid/Zero Mission/Fusion, but if she wants to absorb health she can coax enemies into a specific position and with the right timing, perform a drain move.

If the move is a success, it will insta-kill a low-level enemy and is more rewarding than a standard kill. This might even replace normal energy drops from shooting, or at least would give much more health back than a standard drop. If she fails, she opens up to the enemy attack and risks taking more damage than usual. So if a skilled player is at low health and might die, they can take the risk of draining from an enemy. They may either stabilise themselves, or take double damage and die instantly.

If we don't replace normal energy drops altogether, this becomes less of a thing. In fact for the sake of health grinding and general convenience it's probably better to keep regular drops in- this would just become a fun extra which allows you to get past certain points in the game, like barriers, and can let you heal up quicker if you've learned how to pull it off without fail.

Regardless, this allows for OPTIONAL bullshitting past segments and sequence breaking; for example, you might be able to just get past a standard too-hot-without-Varia region by energy draining the whole way through.

Most bosses would have opportunities to use this if you position yourself right, but I'd personally cut down on flashy cutscenes when it happens. They're fun but I don't want to sacrifice the flow of the game for cinematics too much. Just a quick draining move, steal a bit of health. This move wouldn't work on mechanical enemies, because it relies on life energy specifically.

As you go along, this ability might power up, perhaps triggered either by the environments Samus moves into (since Metroids introduced to new environments will alter accordingly). Perhaps there are ways to power up every Metroid ability, or even an item that allows you to enhance one at a time by channelling your energies-something like that. An enhanced Energy Drain may steal more health and even fuel your weapon ammunition or something like that. Plus, it would make it easier to insta-kill some stronger enemies with the move.

I kinda like the idea of using an item to power up one Metroid ability at a time. To add a bit of challenge to the game, so you can't just switch to the most convenient one at any given time, maybe have it so that you can only change your powered-up ability in certain areas? Special Chozo statues? Interfacing with the other half of whatever this technology is, maybe a computer system found in a couple of rooms across the planet (with all except the first one or two being in hidden and slightly hard-to-find locations? Is that being too mean?)

(Btw just to get retro, we're giving this hypothetical game cheats- one of which is the ability to switch power at any time. Among others like immortality and fun suit colour changes.)

One thing I considered is that, similar to Aeion, Samus might have a power meter for using other Metroid abilities. This would give more function to the draining move outside of just health, and could explain some of Metroid biology too. It would imply that they specifically have to feed on life energy in order to do the things they do, and normal food wouldn't power them up the same. For that reason, Samus could power up her energy meter by draining. The amount of power she absorbs would be proportional to the enemy difficulty.

This could make certain segments trickier; for example, if there were a region similar to the end of Metroid 2 (not Samus Returns) where Metroids have killed off most of the life in the area, Samus would have to use her powers sparingly. The player might find it a bit trickier to traverse the area if they run out of power. Enemies here might be easy to kill and give a lot of power back on easier modes, but harder to kill and less rewarding on hard difficulty.

An alternative is that Samus's powers are fuelled directly by her own life energy, i.e. her health. This would essentially work like Phazon, but not in bursts; each time Samus activates a power, she sacrifices a bit of health, either continually or at once (again, same as how Aeion works, but depleting the health meter instead of a separate one). This makes it vital to locate energy tanks, which could prompt more exploration and may lead Samus to interesting locations that have hidden lore and such (see the section below for more on that). This might also be interesting from a lore perspective because it explains why Metroids are so aggressive as predators- they waste so much energy on simple things like flying, it means they have to near-constantly feed.

Which brings me to the other power-ups. I imagine Samus wouldn’t pick these up traditionally like items. There would still be items in the game, including several brand new ones not directly comparable to those in previous games in the series (obviously we can bring back some old favourites but copy-pasting the exact same items over and over again can get a bit dull even with new abilities). Most normal items would play to the normal Metroidvania game design, of “can’t access area -> locate pickup -> move to new area. These abilities might be triggered by moving into new environments, or if Samus is under stress i.e. during a specific boss fight. So you wouldn’t necessarily be hunting for them, but they could still let you get to new areas or items.

FLOATING: Samus floats, draining power continually until she stops or runs out. This one would require significant limitations; for example, perhaps as you move further away from the ground, you drain SIGNIFICANTLY more energy. This means you are welcome to try and sequence break, or get an item that you were meant to get with grapple beam, but you're wasting a LOT of energy doing so. Maybe gravity is still trying to pull Samus down once you lift off, so you have to actively fight it, and each ascent drains energy faster the higher you go. Sort of like a built-in jetpack. With that said, this would have interesting applications in world traversal.

An enhanced float may have a significantly lower cost for ascending or just maintaining the float. Because we all love some Aesthetic(tm), maybe Float+ gives Samus a faint wing-like aura when she uses it- especially if we go with the above idea that Samus uses Chozo tech to power it up. Imagine the sick fanart that could come out of that.

SHIELD: A fairly standard one ripped off of Samus Returns' lightning sheild. By sacrificing some energy, Samus can temporarily keep up a shield that will mean she takes less damage. If we go with the function of sacrificing health for Metroid abilities (rather than a separate power bar) it would require some careful balancing as well as player learning- for example, trying to ensure that (at least for stronger enemies) it's worth turning it on at all, and that the energy loss to create the shield is less than the theoretical energy loss if you took hits from the enemy.

Maybe this would be a pulse thing rather than an ongoing one; you activate it, and it lasts maybe 10-30 seconds, taking a defined amount of energy. During that time, you get an opportunity to pummel the enemies around you while not being knocked back or stunned when they hit (though you might still take e.g. 1/2 or 1/4 damage from incoming attacks). Of course, it could also function to protect Samus from things like lava, allowing her to access subsurface items if the game never gave her a Gravity Suit or equivalent.

A powered up version would obviously be something like a stronger shield, or a less costly one, or longer lasting if it's activated in pulses. Or a mix of them all. Maybe even a lightning shield effect where things that come into contact with Samus take damage, possibly even feeding her a bit of health (in TINY amounts, not comparable to the drain ability). Visually, so it looks as pretty as the powered-up float, it could maybe have an effect similar to the traditional big-shoulder Varia suit (assuming Samus is still in some form of the Fusion suit by this point).

SENSE/METROID VISION: I'm ripping this one off Samus Returns as well, but I'd change it. This would allow Samus to detect the life energies of all creatures in the area by focusing. It would also indicate how the larval Metroids, lacking eyes, locate their prey. Sensing would either come as a pulse like in Samus Returns, or a toggle on-toggle off ongoing thing, which you can't keep up indefinitely due to energy waste. Like in Skyrim where you can use the Aura Whisper shout or Detect Life/Undead etc.

Key differences include that this ability doesn’t show you hidden entrances by default; it would just indicate that "something is living in this wall" and you have to make judgements based on that info. Is this an enemy that will jump out and kill you (hence, you can avoid it)? Is it a hidden room with enemies in, and an entrance nearby? Thus, it keeps in a little challenge and exploration work.

A powered up version might be able to show other things too, including nearby items, entrances, or breakable blocks- like scan pulse from Samus Returns. That would make it useful for players who don't want to spend hours bombing every wall, or 100%ers like me who are at the endgame and getting frustrated because they can't find the last two missile upgrades. Obviously it's offset by the aforementioned fact that if you choose this ability, you can't choose another without going back to one of the set locations.

TELEPORT: I'm hesitant to include this one because it was fairly signature to Phazon Metroids, but I guess it could be passed off as "a hidden Metroid ability that Phazon unlocked". This would allow Samus to do short-range teleports for an energy cost. I dunno who's played Axiom Verge here, but there's an item which (spoilers if you haven't played it) lets you teleport through walls, and once upgraded it lets you go through bigger and bigger gaps. Samus's teleport would be more instantaneous than that one, and available to use from any position, but costly to perform.

The teleport could help her dodge enemy attacks (though like energy drain, success would rely on timing, and Samus might still take damage just before she teleports assuming there's a slight delay from inputting the command to actually jumping). It would also allow Samus to get through certain walls, though there may be some which are inpenetrable due to the material they're made of. I don't know how it would work in terms of control schemes, but maybe the player could choose their jump distance, with smaller jumps needing less energy.

A powered up version might be able to take Samus further or even have her emit an energy burst when she leaves/emerges from the jump, damaging nearby enemies- though with a greater energy cost.

METROID COMMAND: I can't think of a lore reason why this one would cost energy, unless it's some weird energy psychic thing that specifically resonates with Metroids. Anyway, let's assume Metroids aren't unique to the end-game Tourian-esque area in this game, and there are several locations where you can encounter them throughout the world. This ability would allow you to communicate with them, actually stopping their attacks and saving yourself or other nearby innocent creatures.

Maybe these Metroids are communicating with a "parent" who is actually an evil enemy (i.e. intelligent species that bonded parentally to them- see lore section below) which may result in more co-ordinated attacks than you see from wild roaming individual Metroids. But Samus can use this ability to stop their coordination, or even turn them on their handlers!

An upgrade of this... Maybe Samus turning the Metroids on their allies, including each other and the enemies commanding them? Keep it up long enough and you might be left with just one Metroid standing for you to take out. That could lead to some dark stuff as well. I can imagine Samus needing to be ruthless by using this ability for survival, but feeling baaaad about it.

The upgrade may also include things like asking local Metroids to affect the environment; bringing inaccessible power-ups to Samus, such as ones on high ledges (if she doesn't want to waste energy floating up there) or opening new passageways that Samus herself couldn't get open, either via draining or using brute strength, depending on the Metroid form.

SOMETHING TO DO WITH SHAPE CHANGING: This is one that, cool as it would be, would be REALLY hard to implement because I cannot think of an idea for how it would work. Especially because Samus is in the suit, and we're presuming that the suit itself can't really change shape along with her. But the basic idea is that Metroids famously mature and change, so what if someone with Metroid DNA could undergo controlled, temporary form changes? Or just change certain body parts? I'll come back to this one in the plot section but I'm not convinced Samus could use it herself, though it would be really cool, if potentially OP. Why have a Metroid Vampire when you can have a METROID WEREWOLF kinda I guess.

Just going for bullshit here, perhaps Samus could unlock this one close to the end in a Zero Mission-esque sequence where she's parted from her suit. She seems vulnerable and really has to rely on her Metroid abilities while being extremely energy-conscious, because she's no longer got extra energy tanks to keep her alive (going by the life=power method anyway; slightly less relevant in the separate-energy-bar method except for the fact that energy refills require enemy draining, and that move is much riskier without the suit, since it already increases damage if failed.)

At the end of the segment, she starts growing claws and being able to slash through thick wires or whatever un-drainable thing is in her way. Then she grows bigger and gets more hunched, scaled, and armoured, until she's starting to look like a warped variant of an Omega Metroid. Maybe even a Queen. Luckily she gets under control of it and reverts when she finds a power suit to fit into, something most Metroids can't do but luckily she's a humanoid protagonist and can't stay monstrous forever. Also gives a reason for her to replace her Fusion suit with a cooler classic Chozo suit!

(For real, would Nintendo even do that? Use their sex-sells tiddy out game section as the scene where Samus becomes the most un-fuckable monstrous body horror dragon alien in the game? Probably not but I can dream.)

Maybe the player can't really control this one, or there's a huge cost to doing so but when you do you become SICK AWESOME POWERFUL and take up half the screen and the final boss attack that should've one-shotted you just slides off your back. Maybe. Maybe I just think monster aliens are cool.

Ideally I would like to have maybe 4-5 unique abilities in the game. With drain as one and four others, it would be fairly similar to Aeion and could act as an off-SR388 Aeion replacement. The above ideas are by no means the limits of what could be done, but I can't think of any others at the moment. To work nicely with the game lore, ideally there would be some powers that Samus hasn't seen Metroids use before. Not only does she learn to use them herself, but the Metroids on this planet start using them too, making for some new and unique Metroid battles.

I would leave as much leeway as possible- there's a lot of ideas here, and while new abilities are fun to play with, I don't want it to be over-complicated or inaccessible. This is very much just a brainstorm! If this were a real game, the most important things would be letting the player have fun, feel badass, and tackle challenges their way so they can feel a sense of achievement from finding items or beating puzzles.

Plot

Okay I wasn't originally going to go into plot, but I got carried away. Because this is a sidescroller in particular, you don't have the advantage of Prime's scan system to pile on lore. I wouldn't do too much heavy plot and dialogue, at least not more than Fusion. If anything, LESS than Fusion to decrease dialogue time. But I might adopt Prime elements, specifically stealing the idea of scan downloads from Another Metroid 2 Remake. These would activate at key times, including new boss encounters, entering new regions, or when the player stumbles upon something interesting. In that regard, I'd hide secrets around the world; little rooms which may or may not contain items, but which add an optional lore entry to your logbook as you enter.

Some plot/gameplay stuff I would include:

So this post-Fusion game would probably be where you'd pick up the thread hinted at by Samus Returns' Chozo memories- there are evil Chozo, and either they still exist, or have left a dangerous legacy of bioweapons and robots. Perhaps there's only one or two commanders left alive, and they will stop at nothing to stay that way.

Adam exists, but his dialogue with Samus is limited. This is intended to create isolation, but also hope. When all feels down, you might stumble on a way to communicate with your ship and with Adam again, getting a bit of reassurance. Adam may be able to help direct you during these moments, but I wouldn't go to the same extent as Fusion itself (or Zero Mission's Chozo statues). He might not be able to point out direct target locations, at least not later in the game. Regardless, I don't want to totally sideline him in the title where, post-reveal in Fusion, his character really ought to be emerging properly.

Metroids have new, previously unforeseen abilities locked into their DNA. The planet this game is set on is a Chozo haven with a perfect atmosphere. It has been selected by the evil Chozo for Metroid breeding in order to bring out their full potential. As Samus arrives here, the environment starts affecting her DNA as well, and she begins unlocking her own hidden abilities, one by one.

She runs into evil Chozo, most of whom are hostile to her. If we permit some dialogue at designated points (otherwise implying that Adam and Samus's communications are largely disrupted, keeping the isolated feeling in place) she might confess to Adam that she feels horrible killing what might be the last of her kin. Though I wouldn't write a plot around pushing a theme, there may be an underlying theme of identity, with Samus's human vs. Chozo vs. Metroid identities coming into conflict. The conclusion of which might be "actually, who cares, I'm just Samus. And whatever Samus is, she's an awesome galactic saviour who won't ever be truly alone in the universe."

The main boss Chozo are not initially hostile- they may coax Samus in, pretending to be her ally until it becomes apparent that they want to use her as a pawn for their greater plans. Again, I'd minimize dialogue here. Instead, Samus's communications with these Chozo may be through things such as wall scrawlings or messages left on abandoned computers (readable through the logbook). When she actually meets them, the dialogue would be vague as to whether she read those lore snippets or not, but the players that did read them will have a deeper connection to these mysterious Chozo and greater understanding (though it may be a completely false one) of their motivations.

Adding to that, there may even be a good Chozo among the ranks, one whose wall scrawlings etc. are harder to find, implying they have to hide them. Maybe even taking the Axiom Verge route of having them in an untranslatable language, until Samus picks up a required cipher and can go back to her logbook and read them. But they give Samus reason not to trust the others. You may or may not ever meet the individual(s) leaving these messages, implying they have been taken care of since you arrived but before you met them.

This could actually give the players plot advantage- maybe at some point, Samus is offered a choice of direction. Evil!Chozo says "Meet me at the pool where we will perform the ritual to revive all the dead Chozo." but Good!Chozo's scrawlings said "If he tries to take you to the pool, you're gonna die and the Metroids will be unleashed again. Sneak in via the overhead pipe and drop some bombs on his machine, destroying it before he even gets a chance to start it up." (Something you could optionally do anyway, if you the player finds the pipe entrance and decides not to trust this Chozo. It gives you a bit of free reign to interpret the characterisation of Samus and what she would do.) In the latter case, it might prevent you from taking some initial surprise damage from the boss, or let you skip sections of the boss fight.

Evil Chozo are breeding Metroids, and forging parental bonds to them. This means the Metroids will defend them to the death just as the baby Metroid did for Samus, and also they have trained them to follow commands, mostly battle-related ones. Maybe they have figured out what SR388's Chozo could not- how to remain friends with Metroids after puberty. Thus allowing them to use matured Metroids. It would be lazy to include Alpha-Gamma-etc again because this isn't SR388, so I'd design new Metroid forms, which in-lore are supposed to be upgraded and more powerful according to the design of the Chozo that bred them here. They might superficially resemble Alphas etc. at first, but their developmental pathway ends up very different and unique.

The big ending twist is that the final boss Chozo is modified like yourself- you couldn't have guessed! Lore-wise, perhaps they were one of the ones who originally created the Metroids, not starting as one of the murderous Chozo seen in the Chozo memories. They knowingly turned on the other SR388 Chozo in order to side with the bad guys, and worked their way up the ranks once that trust was earned. Their Metroid DNA could then be explained by them having, like Samus, come off SR388 with an X infection that needed curing. Or maybe they just happened to be an expert in Metroids and thought it would be awesome to use Metroid DNA to get stronger.

Gameplay-wise, this means they can use powers like yours, but also a variety of others because they're a final boss. One of these might be a refined form of the shape-changing that I'm not convinced Samus could use. Metroids mature into new, bigger forms, and perhaps our villain has figured out how to do this in a controlled manner.

Remember the Chozo tech Samus might use to power up her Metroid abilities? Our villain upgraded theirs so all their abilities are powered up. But you're Samus Aran and you're still winning. In desperation, they use it to mutate into a giant monster, like some kind of weird bird-dragon-alien with hundreds of eyes and bioluminescence. Awesome! This is their final form, but it's not as brief as the mutant SA-X's appearance; maybe you defeat their normal Chozo form in the penultimate boss fight, then have to go up against this version of them at the very end.

Of course, they're still a Metroid-based monster. They have VERY potent draining abilities, which they will use more often on , so you have to use a combination of items you've picked up on your adventure, and your Metroid abilities, to prevent them from making the fatal strike, because if they hit you with that attack you're gonna lose between 1/2 to a full energy tank and they're gonna gain a chunk of health back. It's a mean boss design, but on lower difficulty settings it would be toned down.

Sequel potential

I’ll give this one it’s own section to break up the text walls a bit.

The idea behind having this SR388 traitor Chozo character in particular is that they are NOT the initial wave of evil Chozo. This means that whoever "turned them to the dark side" might STILL be out there. Thus, the plot is not over yet, and there's even more sequel opportunity to be had! It could essentially begin a new arc. I wonder how the next game's final boss could compare to "giant intelligent bird-alien-dragon-lamprey" though?

The game discussed so far might make no mention of the Federation at all, because that would overcomplicate things when the plot focus is on Samus, Chozo, and Metroids. A sequel could easily reunite Samus with the Federation, and let trust be regained on both sides as she saves them from the evil Chozo that are now trying to destroy and dominate everything for evil reasons.

Though we don’t want to sacrifice too much traditional fast-paced Metroid sidescroller gameplay time on plot stuff, maybe have a sideplot where the corrupt parts of the Federation are cut out? No doubt those who wanted to breed Metroids, no matter how pure or evil their intentions, are the most likely to accept help from a band of evil Chozo who have lots of Metroids and need help breeding and improving them. It could end up being a dialogue-heavy thing but it would be fun to see this subplot played out without any dialogue whatsoever; Samus just doing her thing behind-the-scenes to stop or expose these people, while they send threats after her.

One reason why I bring up sequel potential at all is because Samus is now part Metroid and the Federation know it- but they don’t know about her abilities. Now she’s saving their asses and they’re gonna have to learn about it. That might lead to a whole bunch of new conflict potential, which could either be explored in-canon or by fanfic writers afterward. Fun either way. May even lead to MORE sequels where the Feds are creating superhuman bioweapons because they learned it worked with Samus.

What happens with Samus's powers between the two games? Will she go into the next game being super OP? Probably not. So how will that be resolved? Theoretically this first game in the “arc” could be the only one, and could actually end the timeline, but it would be a bit of a shame to do that.

One possibility is that Samus has to suppress or lose her powers. Maybe they start getting out of hand, beyond her control, especially if the shape-changing thing comes into play. She may use a reverse form of the power-up technology to tone down her abilities to nothing for safety reasons. She may even use the final-boss-guy's DNA modification equipment to strip herself of her Metroid DNA. Perhaps she decides that it's not something she wants to be a part of herself any more, and takes it out.

Here's a fun tangent off the last one- what if the DNA mod goes wrong and she does something else... Like damage her Chozo DNA? What implications might that have for a future game, and for Samus's own perception of herself? What if we were left on a cliffhanger, where Samus knows she has to rush off to her next battle with the evil Chozo but when she steps into her own suit, her own second skin, it rejects her?

As an alternative, maybe something off-world- or even just the act of BEING off-world- means she loses her abilities because her body "settles down" and suppresses them outside of that world's environment. While this may seem like a cheap ending, it depends on how sequels go. Because in theory, Metroids adapt to their local environments, which means Samus might be able to unlock a plethora of brand-new and previously unseen abilities in the next game owing to her arrival in another new environment.

Conclusion? I have too much time on my hands. It's been an interesting one to think about. Aside from "Chozo will return as villains" I couldn't really speculate what will happen in Metroid 5 at this point, though I'm very tempted to say it will be made eventually. Unfortunately, word-of-god says that Metroid Fusion's ending rectified Samus's DNA and took out the Metroid stuff (hence her losing cold weakness at the very end) so it's unlikely that any of this kind of thing would make it to canon, unless they're happy for to retcon what was already a fairly unclear thing in game.

#Metroid #Game Design #Chozo #Metroids #Samus Aran

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 7 years ago

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Troll’s main problems with 4x01

Let’s start with „Kara’s show”. I get it, Mel was on Broadway, so her time was limited and it’s going to get better…. Is it? They introduced 4 new characters in this ep (two are main, two are so called cannon fodder). So, we will get at least 10 more I think plus Russians… wait, “Kazniacs”, my bad. This ep was PACKED with characters, storylines and action and still I feel like not a lot happened. Because instead of doing something, they talked. Kara talked with J’onn 4 times I think? And if you think about it, they could deal with it all in two? What brings us to Kara.

“I don’t appreciate you questioning my judgment, which has been forever sound and has never led to our situation getting catastrophically worse” – this is what Kara said to J’onn. And later, we learn he was right since the beginning. Because you know, a guy with hundreds of years of experience vs 4 year of being hero. What pains me here, it’s Kara ignored J’onn and his advice, because she felt everything was fine, the world was at peace and everything was cool. And she wanted it to stay like that. By stubbornly sticking to her opinion. What is super childish and immature and I don’t expect behavior like that from a main character in freaking season FOUR. We can argue if her sticking to her mirages fucked up and caused more shit that could have been prevented (aka president’s exposure, J’onn’s friend death etc). And again, Kara feels not developed again, when she is going to mature? AGAIN? With that many storylines and characters?

What leads us to Kara’s ego. Because her flowery and optimistic idea of world at peace sounds like self-stroking her ego. Superman is out, world is on her shoulders (suddenly it’s not too much weight?) and she is responsible for it. Hate crime against aliens means she is not that good, huh? So, let’s ignore it! Because for sure it will help… Once again, I don’t expect behavior like that from a hero on this part of the series. I kind of feel: Kara =tumblr/twitter, J’onn Mahatma Gandhi = common sense. Also, Kara, sweetheart, you are loved by peasants because you are slender, beautiful, superpowerful goddess, who kicks asses and saves the day. And well… you are white. Basically, you are a cast above a cast of the privileged. And in s3 you had to throw away your heritage, mother and Kryptonian life to become “happy” and “at easy”. What it says about American immigrant policy – I do not want to know. And this is totally off when we look at the mentorship storyline.

Aside of the fact Nia is basically Kara’s clone, that needs constant pep talks and transfers us to the good ol’ times of season 1 (sarcasm), I see two problems here. First, Kara is not Cat. Sorry not sorry, she is not even close of the level of maturity, experience and self-awareness. J’onn clearly showed that she still needs pep talks (it doesn’t matter it’s journalism or not). Also, in s2 she sucked as a reporter and Snapper was right. She had potential and the spirit but she lacked the most important thing aka objectiveness and the ability to keep your emotions at check. And in s4, suddenly, she slays as a reporter (this is the same off-screen shit they did to Mon-El between s2 and 3, it’s called sloppy writing). I simply don’t believe that Kara can ask important questions and listen to them and suddenly be a stubborn thick-head five minutes later. Secondly, writers want to “fix” her failure as Mon-El’s mentor. The problem is… that was not a complete failure. Being a mentor means you teach and help but you learn from your student too. You confront and you are confronted. Mon-El gave opportunity to face her flaws, her xenophobia, he kept her on her toes, he challenged her. Yes, she sucked as a mentor but she’s learnt so much from him (and he from her). From the first ep, I got an impression, Nia is going to be a sweet, adorable, Kara’s worshipper and well, does Kara really needs another person who is going to pat her ego? What she is going to learn from Nia? (btw, Nia is cool and I’m sure they are not going to screw her character). And the last thing, if we are going to get more “make a tsunami!” lines, I’m turning alcoholic.

The other obvious thing – Kara is still extremely easily outsmarted. She constantly forgets she’s faster than, for example, fucking BIKES. She can use her superhearing when she wants, but forgets it a disadvantage too. I know, it’s this kind of writing, but it pisses me off. I know fighting humans and fighting Reign is two different things but it still hurts, when you think about the battles from s3. And here we have, Kara screwed by two idiots. Yay.

Last thing about Kara – I’m not surprised she is happy, optimistic and moved on. It’s different than in s3, when she thought she had killed Mon-El. She knows where he is, she knows he is alive. Cool. Let her be happy (still, I am bitter as fuck that they could mention Sam or talked about Winn and the Legion, but Brainy misses his “friends”. Well, at least we are not baited, but the fact they erasure him like that is not nice).

Moving to the thing that pissed me off like nothing else. RUSSIA. Oh wait, not Russia, because they can’t piss Russians now, yes? Voting is coming, right? That’s why we got real Madrid (that was Budapest, in Hungary, but whatever, who cares about xenophobia, right?) and “fictional” Kaznia. The problem is, it’s Russia. Sorry not sorry. “Spasiba”? Old babushka wearing a COAT in the fucking summer? Fur hats aka ushatkas? Vodka? Friendly reminder, Red Daughter was “promoted” on twitter with hammer and sickle symbol. Smooth. Subtle. Etc. Basically, they are going to fucking swim in the worst Eastern European stereotypes. Usually, I ignore shit like that, I know American shows are made for American audience, but seeing this crap on Supergirl simply hurt. As a show that talks a lot about “beacon of light” and hope, it looks like it’s only for specific people, living in a specific country. The rest can get fucked.

What is funny (sad?), because this season focus on alien immigrants and their rights. I mean, do you see the shit? They are going to show us how hard life of aliens in America is, how they will fight for the rights - and it’s connected to modern American policy and situation - and in the same time they are shitting on Eastern Europe, using the most annoying stereotypes. And yes, I “believe” Russia-Kaznia is not going to be the big, communistic bad of the season :)

Other small things. James. Dude, stop being the macho, because you are not and let Lena do her shit. Lena. Honey. Stop doing shit behind people’s back. Also, are we again with the Lena is playing Lilian, who is played but in the end we realize Lilian played Lena, but Lena…. Should we also forget that Lena invited a device that can allow people searching for aliens? Also, TALKINGGGGG. Brainy. Dude, I know you are comic relief, but I feel your calculated comic-relief is going to start to annoy me in ep 2. This ep was not funny, btw. Villains. Smartass, dumbass and Darth Vader – call me excited and I will kick your ass.

I don’t know guys. Maybe I’m salty and bitter, because I have heard the reviews were nice and people enjoyed it, but here I am, smelling incoming bullshit.

Feel free to add more.

#my shit #anti sg #4x01 #salposting

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teenuviel1227 · 7 years ago

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Post-It Notes: We Were Sitting On That Sofa

Okay, so. I know that I had initially intended on this series being something that came out after each fic, but when you upload as frequently as I do (I’m not bragging, sometimes I wish I could kind of stop myself, exercise some control) sometimes it gets really hard to keep track. Recently, someone left the sweetest comment saying that my notes for I Was Me, You Were You helped them get out of their writing slump and I remembered all of these notes that i still had in reserve, figured that it might be something fun to do for myself as well between these writing marathons I’ve been going on for the Day6 Ship Weeks that I’ve been running (it’s currently Dopil week btw). So let’s get crackalaking.

(If you haven’t read this fic yet, you can access it here. Fair warning: I’d suggest you read the fic before the notes because there are definitely spoilers.)

The Main Idea

I was inspired by this documentary that I watched a couple of years ago about people who got through the 2008 recession by being camboys/camgirls/camcouples. I found it so interesting that in an era where housing and real estate and training and business development were industries that were being deemed unprofitable or superfluous, something like camming (read: amateur porn) was still selling like hotcakes. I was also interested in the fact that camming isn’t always an invasive thing--sometimes it’s a strip tease, sometimes it’s just people talking. And then I watched Zach & Miri Make A Porno which is a really funny film about best friends who start producing porn parodies and eventually are forced to film a flick together and it’s awkward and sweet and they both realize that they’re in love.

The Married-But-Not Dynamic

So I just thought: why not write an AU about that? Except turn it up: I wanted this AU to not just be about the phenomenon of amateur porn or the hilarity of porn parodies or two people realizing that they’re in love. I also wanted it to be about co-dependence and the things that people are often afraid to say or talk about.

In this AU, my main prompt for Jae and Brian’s relationship was “being married but being too afraid to admit it”--I thought of all of the concrete things that you could share with someone, how far I could push it before they eventually had to talk about it. My list was:

1. Loans (It doesn’t get more solid than co-signing a bank loan, under legal liability.)

2. Space (I also thought about how Jae and Brian are roomies which kind of made it easier--except I upped the ante and made the situation so that they both actually each had a room, they just preferred cuddling, not that they’d ever admit that to each other.)

3. Friends (In this sense, I was also inspired by the best show to ever be cancelled, Happy Endings. That show is basically about college buddies who are still very much involved in one another’s lives. And I wanted their friends to be close-knit--enough so that they would agree to the porn parodies and also enough so that they would be frustrated enough to force Jae and Brian to eventually talk about their feelings. Also, the more common friends you have, literally, the harder it is to run away from each other.)

Nuances of Writing Porn-y Scenes vs. Explicit Love Scenes

This is a question that people ask me a lot on Curious Cat (or used to? I feel like since I went off on that one anon who kept on asking me why I love Brian so much people have gotten a bit scared of leaving me CCs hahaha) was how to write love scenes that were explicit but tasteful, not cringey. The premise of this AU really forced me to deal with that and in the end, it kind of boiled down to a couple of factors.

1. Dialogue

I’ve noticed that playing with dialogue has more to do with the overall aura or outcome of an explicit scene than whether you outright say c*ck or balls or use euphemisms. I find that the subtler the dialogue, the more connective the scene comes off--and more heavy-handed it is (”oh yeah, give it to me”), the more porn-y it turns out. So if you’re writing a love scene with the former in mind, but you’re drawing from porn-as-research mostly, I’d say tinker with the dialogue. Take it down a notch. And if you’re going for the latter and “working from previous experience” then just up the ante, turn up the volume, make them say things that you would never be caught dead saying but which you feel like you’ve heard somewhere before.

2. Psychic Distance

For those of you guys who may not know what psychic distance is, it’s how attached the narrator is to the character. So in first person, obviously, that’s super close. In third person omniscient, it’s super detached. I find that for more parody-like, pornier scenes, using huge psychic distance is key: the more far-out you zoom, the more ridiculous a sex scene seems. The more highlighted things like awkward movements and ridiculous shapes, smells, sounds are, the funnier things seem. And if you’re going for something more romantic, then internal dialogue is always the way to go--that way you highlight emotional things more. Not just what happens but how the characters feel about it.

The Big Question

This won the Twitter poll of which of the notes you guys would want to see first and I feel like the big, burning question on everyone’s minds when they voted for this was did you watch a porn parody to be able to write about this? The answer to that is both yes and no. Have I watched a porn parody before? Yes, but it was in 2009 and it was a Pirates of the Carribean one and it was so bad. Did I watch one specifically for this? Nope but I guess that’s where the imagination bit kicks in too: basically I took everything I loved (Star Trek, LOTR) and just cut out all subtlety. This was definitely the most fun part of writing this AU. It was so cringey but in the best way.

My Only Regret

I loved writing this AU for the most part and was pretty content with it until someone commented that they were worried about what Jae and Bri would do for income since they decided not to air that last special they filmed together because it wasn’t porn, it was something more intimate, more private. And this insightful reader said that they were concerned about 1. how that would affect their standing with the people who pre-paid for the Christmas Special and 2. how Jae and Bri would make their living now following the implied subsequent backlsah. That is one of the most brilliant comments I’ve ever received on a fic and it freaking haunts me to this day. Like. Dude. I wish I’d fleshed that out but for the record--I think they eventually move onto other things like indie short films and they only delay the special until Pil and Dowoonie recover from the flu enough to film it again. xD

#fanfiction #day6 fanfic

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blenderbender1811 · 7 years ago

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A Song of Ice and Fire - Weddings Primer

Just a bunch of stuff put together about weddings in the ASOIAF universe for those looking to write them. Specifically, how weddings run in Westeros. This goes under a read more, for the post is long.

1) Nobody can be COMPELLED to marry. They need to say the words and if it’s done under sword point, it might be dissolved later. That said, it’s expected you’ll marry who your lord or his liege commands and if you don’t, you might be estranged from your family, and the ironborn can marry someone by proxy (with a seal in the place of a person, the iron born are weird.)

2) The Targaryens occasionally took more than one woman as a wife. The Ironborn also sometimes have more than one wife - an ironborn ‘rock wife’ and ‘salt wives’ taken on raids (because that’s not coercion at all). The children of salt wives are not considered bastards, but they come AFTER the children of rock wives status wise.

3) Marriage contracts take forever to negotiate and they address all sorts of possibilities - land, inheritance, dowries, etc. Once a betrothal is made, you better have a GOOD reason to break it (infidelity, inability to fulfill property or income agreements in the contract, somebody died and you must fulfill their betrothal, you found out they have another contract, an inability to seal the alliance with children (infertility), etc.). Breaking a betrothal is a BIG deal and you might cause a lot more than hurt feelings. You might cause very real political damage with the people you were trying to ally with.

4) So, how do you choose a partner? There’s several factors, some more important than others.

- Rank: This is one of, if not the most important thing to consider. If the parties are not of similar rank, this is going to get tricky. Marrying one rank up or down doesn’t seem to be scoffed at (for instance, nobody thinks, for example, that Mace Tyrell is weak because he married down to Alerie Hightower). More than one rank though and you’re going to need a very good reason for the marriage to happen. And marriages to lowborn people are vanishingly rare. That’s why Asha couldn’t marry Qarl even though she’d love to.

- Position in Family: Another super important factor. Is the person being married a ruling Lord or Lady? What about an heir? Are they the eldest daughter (who traditionally has choicest pick of gentlemen callers)? Are they true born or bastards? If they’re dynastically important, the family will be much pickier. Younger sons or daughters are much more likely to marry a household knight (or their daughter) or a minor bannerman than an older child, who is likelier to marry a major bannerman, if not marry up.

- Political Context: This just always needs to be in mind. Does the husband have another wife? Is their land in a dangerous or contested spot? What’s their influence in the capitol like, if any? If your marriage making plans don’t make sense, the marriage is going to look shabbier or hastier to everyone else in Westeros.

- Age: In Westeros, we all know their treatment of age with regards to marriage is absolutely gross. We don’t need to be told that. Age isn’t treated as a major factor and indeed, young women have been married off to gross old men as a punishment (see poor Sylva Santigar for details). That said, even in Westeros, it’s generally considered more comfortable if they’re close in age, like with Joffrey and Sansa being considered perfect because they were the same age. This also makes sense dynastically speaking because they wouldn’t have to wait long for children. Or, alternatively, if you’re an elderly person looking for companionship before you die, you’ll probably pick someone closer to your own age and experiences.

- Religion: Again, not the biggest deal for most of Westeros, but I can easily imagine someone super pious wanting a spouse of the same religion.

- Personal Well Being: Since we’re playing a feudal dynastic game, this is barely a concern. That said, a decently loving family will probably want to look out for their family’s well being. They’re probably not eager to give their child in marriage to someone actively dangerous for them after all. Plus, dynastically speaking, it would render any alliance gained moot. Also, an older person looking for a second or third marriage, or again, an elderly person looking for companionship, would likely consider how well they got along.

- Health: Somewhat important. If the point is to seal an alliance via babies, you want someone who can survive consummation, pregnancy, birth, and raising those children. One of the most important things Catelyn considered when looking for a bride for Robb was how good their hips were. IIRC, she didn’t want Robb to marry a Whent because their health tended to be delicate. Again, if you make an alliance only to immediately lose it when the person dies, what was the point of it in the first place? A good example of this is how nobody wanted to marry Shireen because she had greyscale.

- Wealth: Fairly important. You want an alliance partner to bring something to the table. It’s less about coinage and more about resources. Do they have lots of land, minerals, livestock, industry, etc.?

- Appearance: Not exactly a first concern, but it’s somewhat a factor, simply because a good looking person is more likely to get lots of offers.

- Region: Most marriages take place between houses of the same region. This isn’t a hard and fast law, but your alliances are more likely to be useful when they live next door and not five days away in a region you’ve never seen.

- Former marriages or children: This is important because if they already have children, YOUR children won’t get any inheritance from your spouse. If you’re going to marry, you have to be okay with that. Tends to work for marrying off younger children or when you look for step parents, but it might also be a deal breaker for someone looking for a first marriage. Never even mind in the Iron Islands, where wives might have to compete.

- Reputation: Important. You don’t want to marry your kid off to someone with a poor reputation. Knightly orders, people closely connected to important people, well reputed for honesty or honour are good things. An oathbreaker or drunkard will have a harder go than normal.

- Prestige: A more prestigous house will have more suitors. A house being of high rank doesn’t necessarily mean prestige. “New money” houses or houses in trade my have the wealth and militaryy might to be a major house, but still not be considered pretigious enough for many large houses. A house that were once kings will have more prestige than those who weren’t. A house who’s been around for thousands of years is likely lmore prestigious than a new one (hence why the Lannisters are more prestigious than Baratheons of Storm’s End before a Baratheon becomes king).

5) According to the Wedding Knight PDF from the Game of Thrones edition of the Green ronin RP game, weddings are traditionally hosted by the bride’s family.

6) Likewise, according to the same, wedding dresses are traditionally white. This gels with the books, where the wedding dresses I recall being described (Jeyne’s, Sansa’s, and Margaery’s are all white). Now, to be fair, Sansa is a Stark and Jeyne was disguised as Arya, so they would both be using Stark colours. It also fits with the Seven, where white is seen as a colour of innocence and thus might be more appropriate to a maiden. It’s also a colour Septons and Septas wear most of the time (along with rainbows) and on Maiden’s Day girls light white candles. While none of that would apply to the Old Gods (or offshoots of the Old Gods like the Drowned God), I can see white catching on as a wedding colour regardless. If nothing else, it shows wealth if you can keep white clean.

This isn’t like the real middle ages, btw. Blue was the traditional innocence and purity colour then. Women basically wore whatever colour they wanted, albeit with different cultural traditions surrounding omens and such.

Notes: For five and six, ‘traditional’ in this sense most likely does not mean ‘binding’. We see numerous examples of weddings that are not at the bride’s home and I’m sure plenty of Westerosi ladies wore other colours to their weddings. I wouldn’t be surprised if house colours were involved. Not that it matters overmuch - they change for the feast, and those colours can be whatever they want (though likely house colours).

7) Weddings in Westeros (or, at least highborn ones) involve a dowry, a dower (as per Tywin and Hoster discussing one for Lysa and Jaime) and a bride price (as per Barristan’s comments). These are three different things.

- A dowry: A dowry is property or income a woman is bringing into the marriage, a payment from her family to her husband’s. It’s meant to help build the new family and also for income security. In the rare (nearly non-existent in Westeros) circumstance of divorce, I believe she gets the dowry back, but if she dies, the money either goes to her children or returns to her family.

- A dower: A dower is a sum of property or income designed to protect a wife if she becomes widowed. Since men are the primary breadwinners in Westeros, this is done so as not to leave a widow destitute. This income or property comes from the groom’s family. If the couple divorces, she does not get the dower (although some societies allow her to keep it if she has just cause, I doubt Westeros works like that). This money is traditionally given to the bride by the groom on the morning of the wedding. This money is HER’S. Unlike the dowry, which is often used by both spouses, her husband cannot touch her dower. Usually this means her representative (usually a male relative) is in charge of executing it, but she can be bequeath it to whoever she wants.

- A bride price: A bride price is money paid by the groom’s family to the bride’s. This is meant as a sort of ‘thank you’ for raising her and also to compensate them for the loss of their daughter - physically, emotionally, and financially. Calculating these can be complex and depend on numerous factors. Appearance, skills, how smart she is, how healthy she is, etc. I’m fairly sure this is what Cersei refers to as ‘selling women off like livestock’. In the case of divorce, you can get the bride price back in many societies, and some also allow you to get it back if she dies (particularly if she’s childless). I imagine that’s much the same in Westeros.

8) There are at least two feasts traditionally thrown for the wedding - a welcoming one to welcome all the guests, and the actual wedding feast.

9) It’s traditional to throw a hunt just before the wedding. All the men in the wedding party and any ladies who wish to accompany them are allowed to go. This is done as a show of magnanimity by the lord who is supposed to open his land to his guests, and also to provide sport for the restless party. In return, anything caught on the hunt is supposed to go on the lord’s table for the wedding feast.

10) Different regions have different local traditions for a wedding day. Case in point, the Reach has a wedding breakfast where the bride and groom SEPARATELY receive their gifts.

11) Ceremonies vary by religion

- The Faith of the Seven: This one is LONG. It begins with the septon in a sept reciting several prayers and readings. The groom is between the alter of the Mother and Father but the bride is outside the room. Next, the bride is presented, being walked down the Isle by her father or a close male relative (or, sometimes, a liege lord if a close male relative isn’t there). The bride is on the left and the groom to the right. The father presents the bride to the groom, and the groom lifts her veil (if she’s wearing one). The groom removes his bride’s maiden’s cloak (or bride’s cloak if she’s a widow) and gives her one of his own house. The septon says they’re there to join them in a union, and ties their hands together in a ritual knot. They make their final vows, kiss, and the guests applaud. Guests stand in two columns in front of the couple to watch the wedding.

- The Old Gods of the Forest: The ceremony is performed by the head of the groom’s family. It’s at night, in the godswood, in front of a weirwood preferably. The guests carry torches to watch. The bride is led by her father (or again, a close relative). The person performing the ceremony asks who comes before the old gods and a few ritual lines are exchanged where the man gives the bride. The officiator asks the bride if she will take the groom, and when she says yes, the couple hold hands and kneel before the heart tree for a moment of silent prayer and then they’re done. The groom removes the maiden’s (or bride’s) cloak, give them a cloak of their husband’s house, and carries her to the feast in his arms.

- The Drowned God: They’re officiated by a priest of the Drowned God and tend to be very solemn. Salt wife weddings tend to be more fun, and that is all we know. Since Drowned God priests seem to do their ritual work on the shore, it seems probably iron born weddings are at the beach. I wonder if they have to drown for them? Maybe they wade into the water or get water dunked all over them. We’re not sure. We’ve never seen an iron born wedding. Since the Drowned God is an offshoot of the Old Gods, they likely also have some sort of bridal cloak custom, probably after whatever blessings and ritual immersion in water is done.

- R’hllor: The ceremony is conducted by a member of the clergy. The bride is escorted to the clergy person who asks the bride to identify herself and who comes to claim her. They ask the bride and groom if they will share their fire with their spouse to be to warm them when the night is dark and full of terrors. The bride and groom jump over a bonfire built in a ditch and by doing so, their souls become one to the Lord of Light. Then the groom removes the maiden’s (or bride’s) cloak and gives her the cloak representing his house.

12) After the wedding, there’s the reception. This has dancing, music, poems, basically whatever kind of entertainment you want (which is likely regional). This is all done along with the wedding feast. There might be tourney to celebrate, but melee’s aren’t traditional (I’m sure they occur but it’s not a custom). ALSO. IMPORTANT - It is considered bad luck to deny a knight your hospitality on your wedding day.

13) At the end of the feast, the highest ranking person in attendance calls for the bedding. Men carry the bride off, stripping her clothes and telling dirty jokes, women do the same with the groom, and sometimes they might be yelling encouragement or advice outside the door (or, god forbid, witnesses). This is done to ensure consummation. Not all weddings require a bedding ceremony, but Westeros does require consummation. This seems to be a custom for the Faith, the Old Gods, and the Drowned God, so it’s a universal across Westeros. After this the wedding is over. From this point on, they are married and if you don’t like it, well it just sucks to suck. And even if the wedding isn’t consummated for whatever reason, it’s bad luck for spouses to sleep apart on their wedding night. Brides are expected to be maidens (i.e. virgins), but if the couple gets married later, it’s not considered dishonouring (sex without a later betrothal was likely the dishonour Ashara experienced at Harrenhal, as it would have impacted her marriageability - not ruined it completely, you can marry somewhat decently even if you’re not a virgin, but definitely having an impact).

14) Women may or may NOT take their husband’s name. If they’re of the same rank, it’s pretty much up to her. If she outranks him, she very well might continue using her higher status maiden name. Plenty of women use their husband’s name and in fact most likely do, but it’s not a requirement in Westeros (at least, not among the same ranked or when the woman is higher).

15) Annulment is incredibly hard to get in the Faith of the Seven - you better hope the High Septon or the Council of Faith is inclined to give you one (this is easier if its not consummated, the marriage is bigamous, there was an unbroken prior betrothal, or if the vows were made under false pretences, but it’s possible even if you’ve consummated or had children - Renly didn’t think it was impossible for Cersei to be set aside in favour of Margaery, Tysha and Tyrion’s marriage was annulled, etc) and while you don’t need to be there for it, you need to make the request yourself. It’s easier to just move apart. Or, if you’re THAT committed to getting away, you could join the Faith or Night’s Watch.

Note: It’s much much easier to annul a marriage in the Old Gods religion (and, likely, the Drowned God as well) - all you need to do is tell your spouse that they’re no longer your spouse in front of public witnesses, at least according to Elio and Linda’s correspondence when discussing The World of Ice and Fire. R’hllor might require permission from the clergy in addition, but I find that unlikely for the Ironborn, since they seem fairly independent and in many ways closer to the Old Gods simplicity. I’m not sure if there are any special conditions to make this announcement but if they exist, they would likely be similar to grounds for annulment in the Faith of the Seven (with the exception of bigamy for the ironborn - they really really don’t care about that). Honestly, even if they don’t have conditions that doesn’t necessarily mean an unhappy marriage will be annulled since that requires spitting in the eye of the family you’re trying to make an alliance with. Breaking a betrothal is messy enough, breaking a marriage is just BEGGING for trouble.

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #meta #weddings #game of thrones #asoiaf meta

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cindyfelicia · 7 years ago

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Hi, I hope you’re doing well!! I was just wondering if you read comics? If so could you recommend some/ how to start getting into them? I want to start reading them, but it’s so stressful trying to figure out where to start. Also I love you blog!

Hi there! you’re all manners of sweet and kind thank u <3. You know, I’ve answered this question before but it was mostly to people I knew the interests of, which made it easier to give intro level recs, but I’m gonna try to give you some general info, mostly it’s gonna be about marvel bc that’s what I read most of and I don’t feel I would do dc justice because I’m not as familiar with itmy advice abt approaching comics is going for solo runs first, this is how I, personally, did it and it’s way easier than jumping in on team books, or worse events bc they tend to be messier and need more bg info and pre-existing knowledge than a comic that focus on just the one character; I also feel it’s good to start with current or at least recent comics, you can always read the old stuff when you’re better acquainted with how comics work and which characters, artists and writers you like (or can tolerate).

actual recs under the cut because this got so long

i was gonna do a whole list of mcu characters’ solos because most people entry point to comics rn is superhero movies, and hmu if you want that, but instead I think I’m gonna rec you some good comics that are either separated enough from main marvel continuity as to be intelligible without extensive info gathering, or I just think they’re great and worth a bit of confusion (part of starting out reading comics is not knowing fully wth is going on sometimes, but stiking with it for some good art or for characters you love -I’m not gonna go so far as to say for good writing bc that’s just not realistic):

if you like yourself some spider-people:- silk (2015) and vol 2 (2016) are my absolute favorites- I’m not very much into spiderman but I read renew your vows and it’s lovely, it’s just not a main universe comic it’s an au where things are as, imo, they should be with ye old web slinger, and it’s good for getting your feet wet in the huge pool of spider-man comics;- I love miss jessica drew (spider-woman) but her solo is……. questionable if someone has a good jess drew intro rec pls tell me so I can pass it on, - miles morales has been written badly in more ways than one but I love him so I suffer, I can direct you without scruples only to his novel tho, absolutely lovely and not written by brian michaelbendis lmao- anya corazon is a really good character that marvel loves to forget it has, let’s not make the same mistake;- black widow 2014 and 2016 and bw: the name of the rose are all good comics (I know technically nat isn’t a spider person but like nothing about spider-woman’s powers screams ‘spider’ either so..

for wakanda I’d say good recent start-ups would be: - black panther (2016), - black panther: world of wakanda (w/ a lesbian couple as protag), - and rise of the black panther (ongoing)

some non x-men team books that are easier to approach as a beginner imho:-young avengers vol 2 (vol 1 has its moments if you want to start from the beginning with them but a lot of it involves the civil war arc and stuff.. also some characters die, the art is less good and I want to protect people from 17’s yo cassie lang’s nipples poking through her shirt.. I wish someone had protected me tbh) -I want to rec some Runaways but besides the current run (which is alright) there’s a lot to be said against the writing in most of the rest of them maybe vol 1? to have the origins pinned down-I feel like after a small read through of what exactly the hell was going on with secret wars you could approach A-Force vol 1 and the first half of vol 2 (the second half ties in with civil war II and I’m not touching that mess) and that and avenger world and sometimes secret avengers to me are good avengers books-she hulk 2014 and totally awesome hulk are my greens of choice but if you want an intro to bruce banner idont actually know, sorry-for the asgardians: thor 2014 and it’s follow up mighty thor, thor: god of thunder, angela: asgard’s assassin and its sequel angela: queen of hel, and loki: agent of asgard are my pick of this crop-we also have Fun here at marvel comics on occasion and both patsy walker aka hellcat and squirrel girl are nice in their own way although the latter isn’t really my thing

some follow up on the young avengers:- hawkeye (2013) an absolute fan favorite, good to discover that actually clint barton was a good character it’s that the avengers movies are just bad and hate people with disabilities- a couple of follow-ups to that (x) (x) and the kate bishop solo all pretty nice- america chavez’s solo (I’m just here to suggest gay comics, that’s almost all I read really)

I want to rec Champions to people but frankly it’s just a long series of event interruptions and bullshit interspersed with a couple of nice moments so far, so I’m gonna rec you some kids that are in the champions and have solos I haven’t already mentioned:- kamala khan’s book is probably my favorite ongoing series at marvel right now about any non-mutant char, I cannot say enough good about it,- nova is nice,- miles morales (spider-man) and amadeuscho (totally awesome hulk) are also there but I’ve already mentioned themalso in this house we love and respect elektranatchiosand any other attitude just isn’t tolerated.

on to the x-men, gotta love those guys, you just gotta:- like I said I prefer to tell people to start from recent comics but with the xmen that’s so difficult? it’s been 10+ bad years for them because of the movie rights situation and just marvel being shit in general, so my one recent team book to approach the x-men is prob x-men ‘92? because its based off of the xm animated series so you don’t have to straightaway deal with some mutant plague, eugenics plots, and other catastrophic events, but you can still get to know more of the char we all love - I want to say generation x vol 2, it’s not a good starting point for anything really but I love it so so much I had to mention it even tho it was cancelled and I’m still angry as hell about it.

the solo situation is better. I’m gonna be able to breathe without tasting my own bile while I type this, hurray!-all new wolverine follows laura kinney as she takes up the mantle from logan-iceman, good solid comic abt coming out and ice puns, who doesn’t like bobby really-jean grey, yes she’s a teen girl in this, yes it’s weird and I hate de-aging characters but it’s nice to see her train with different mutants, struggling with the incoming phoenix force and her adult self’s shadow, not really great entry point to jean grey but id read it anyway-if you were into the 00’s xmen movies like me, or at least a normal person’s amount the phoenix recently returned and with her adult!jean grey, it was a good book for me and good if you want to later start reading the actual phoenix saga (which is a lot of material so starting small with this might help) -I love wandamaximoff and despite what they’ve done to the maximoffs in order to bring them into the mcu (was it worth it for that result btw? really?) her recent book was good and I genuinely loved it -storm’s solo is so good, you’re gonna fall in love with an het ship and you’re not gonna regret it either-rogue and gambit, is ongoing and it’s good to get a little acquainted with these characters but mostly it’s about explorign their relationship

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of good x-men content atm but I can’t stop thinking I need to mention that there are ongoing series you could pick up its just.. I hate them.. some started out promising (xmen gold, astonishing xmen), but they’ve not developed in good directions imo, but I still feel they should be mentioned, there’s also a weapon x comic if you want to go for a more bloody kind of book and xmen blue if you like time displaced teens or something? god its bad

jeez this is so so long and guess what? I haven’t even finished yet.. there’s some excellent indie comics out there and with those you really don’t need to worry abt knowing any 30 years old lore or anything you pick them up and they explain themselves like any other normal media out there, I know, be still my heart:

- lumberjanes is my absolute favorite, a little corny, but so much fun and cuteness and if I could go back in time I’d give it to my little bi self so she’d know she’s not alone and anything I feel that ways about has a special place i my heart js

- Motor crush, there really isn’t any other comic book with a black lesbian as protagonist out there that I can think of, good if you’re into motorcycles but if like in my case that threatens to put you to sleep, it also has a sci-fi streak and solid character work, you won’t regret giving it a try

- moonstruck, cute non-white gay werewolves and other mythological creatures are there, I feel this cathers to me specifically every time I open it?? bless

- Hi-Fi fight club or heavy vinyl (they changed the title) if you want a period piece that’s fun and cute and gay (I meant it about me reading only gay comics as you can tell)

- saga, for a space, well ya know.. saga I feel that I can describe it as romeo and juliet in space with added racial commentary except they don’t kill themselves, I have to say not my favorite but you might stick with it for the characters, I sure do

- the wicked + the divine, I feel very much the same about this as I do about saga, only this is mythology based so like.. I sold my soul to it, but please do tread with care there’s a lot of deaths in it and so many of these dead people are gays and/or poc.. I’m none too pleased about it and I’d understand anyone not wanting to pick it up, I mean the deaths are basically in the premises of the books but that doesn’t change the end result..

lastly like I said dc is not my area of expertise but I’ve been following with pleasure both batwoman and green lanterns, and mr miracle was an amazing comic so I thought I’d mention them

#this is so long I'm sorry #I do hope it's somewhat helpful #Anonymous

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spidypool · 8 years ago

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Sexism at Bed Bath & Beyond

I want to take a moment to talk with you guys about sexism. I know a lot of people view it as a dying problem or not as bad as it once was. And come on sexism at a retail store? Really? No exactly an important area. Well strap in I’m about to tell you a long slightly rambling story about the most badass woman of color I know.

So if you don’t mind taking a moment out of your busy days to read this post. Because I’m writing this about one fucking amazing woman and the shit she has to deal with. I know this won’t get reblogs or comments or whatever but I’d like some people out there to know about what’s happening because she deserves some sort of recognition.

Now first let me tell you a little background so you understand the settings and such. My store is called store 42. It is the largest Bed Bath and Beyond in the world and it is located in the busiest area Chelsea in New York City. On sixth avenue if you wanna get specific. It is also known as the flagship store. On a daily bases we get more foot traffic than quite a few stores have in a week. And I’m talking about our slow days here. We also get a lot of celebrities in here because of the location. So check out is a very busy area.

I work in what we call the Frontend. The Frontend is where you pay. It is also the broader term that refers to three departments; customer service, home delivery, and checkout. Though when we say Frontend we usually means checkout. I’m officially called a cashier though I haven’t been just a cashier in years. I am also trained in customer service, home delivery, and the office. Yes our store is so big we have a floor for all the offices and receptionists answer phones.

Now every store has a hierarchy and recently the titles of this hierarchy changed. But most of the time it is generally the same in. BBB it goes like this:

Store Manager – the boss

Seniors – these are like the top dogs of the store. They each supervise a section of the store such as Frontend, Hardside, Home Accents, Bedding, and Bath

LOD aka Leader on Deck – they are the person in charge of the whole store only during set periods of time really this person is who we call when a final decision needs to be made. These people are typically higher ranking Department Supervisors.

Department Supervisor (Previously called manager)

LEAD (Previously called supervisor why the name change? No clue! Also they are pretty much a department supervisor just without the pay)

Associate or Cashier

Now in the Frontend/Customer Service there must always be a LEAD or Department Supervisor (DS). During the day there are four people schedules to cover these departments. Two for each department, one in the morning and one in the evening. There is a little crossover to cover breaks and such. That is the minimum required to run the Frontend properly. The Frontend LEADs/DS are extremely busy. And there are a lot of jobs that need to be done. But the thing is none of the LEADs/DS do shit. Like seriously it’s ridiculous. They do the basics that’s it. Only Shelina does anything. She in fact does everything. And frankly that’s not fair to her.

She does:

The cashiers schedules

Writes the breakdowns (breakdowns tell the cashiers which register they are on and when their break is)

Orders products

Orders candy

Orders drinks

Orders change

Changes products (the Frontend unlike other departments changes what products are featured there based off the season for example we just had the summer season and then we changed it to back to college and now we’re changing it to the holidays/cooking)

Deals with incoming shipments

Product refills

There isn’t anything she doesn’t do. And no one helps her. She does it by herself. She works so hard she rarely takes breaks. She doesn’t have the time. She never complains when all the cashiers call out in the morning and not only does she have to do everything listed above but also be the cashier. She never complains when she is the only one closing or only has one person to help. She still gets everything done. Unlike very other LEADs/DS who bitch about it constantly.

This woman is a fucking superhero. She is the only Supervisor who is respectful and has your back. She won’t yell at you and in fact has never raised her voice. Mind you when she’s pissed you know it but she uses her words and makes it clear how she feels.

This woman spent the last two years teaching me everything she knows in order to have someone around to help her because she’s getting older. She a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 3 who helps out her daughter with her grandson by watching him every weekend. This woman is amazing.

Not a single Department Supervisor or LEAD helps her. When she orders drinks or candy and they come in instead of putting them where they belong everyone else puts signs on them saying for Shelina. Like seriously it is not hard to sort the candy by what department it is stored in. This job is not rocket science.

Every single cashier loves her because she is the only person we can rely on. In fact when she goes on vacation we all have to bare ourselves for the chaos that comes. Even callouts are higher because no one wants to deal. The other LEADs/DS can’t even write the breakdown themselves. They literally cannot survive without her. She inspires such loyalty in us when BBB fired 90% of the Managers all of us swore if she was one of them we’d walk out because no way where we going to deal with the shit storm of this job without her.

And BTW BBB fired most of their managers and when I mean most I mean about 90%. They fired so many that there was literally no one in charge and there still really isn’t in a lot of the departments. Plus they had no plan for what to do after they were gone. These people where with the company for at least 10 years a piece. It is disgusting they fired these long time employees with no warning just to save a few dollars. They made up the best of the company.

Now recently our Store Manager Christin left and we got a new store manager Anthony. Now like I said everyone knows Shelina is the one to run the Frontend which means she takes care of the most important department with little to no help. Frankly I don’t count. Only Anthony refuses to go talk to her rather going to Demascus I guess the next higher up after Shelina. Now Demascus does shit. He talks down to people and treats women like objects. If he can’t flirt/hit on/charm you well he doesn’t like you. He needs to have his little fan club. He’s been there the longest after Shelina and you’d think he’d know how to do the basics like order products, figure out what product should go up on the pillar, how to put the product on the pillar so it looks “filled and full” (Shelina taught me that the product wall must always look “filled and full” and there should never be an empty peg or be able to see the white of the wall). I recently watched him try to redo a pillar with the new season’s products and the results looked like a giant mess.

I gave Anthony the benefit of the doubt that he was new and didn’t know how this store worked. Though I felt like Christin wouldn’t have left without teaching him the ropes. But time goes by and Demascus still fails and Anthony still won’t talk to Shelina. He also gets confused when he sees me doing the physical aspect of my job. Now people like to joke that I’m Shelina’s assistant and in a way that’s true. She can’t do a lot of the physical aspects of the job anymore so I climb ladders, take down products, run back and forth getting stuff, ect. Did I mention I’m a girl? No yeah well I am. And I do more of the physical aspects of the job then most of the guys. I’m willing to do this for her. In exchange she teaches me.

Then Shelina said something to me. She said oh it’s because he’s sexist and thinks that Demascus (the man) should be in charge of all that. Great the guy who likes to do nothing is now in charge of everything. That’s going to work out great. So Shelina being Shelina saves him, again and again, because as I said before he knows shit. She does everything Anthony tells Demascus to do. Now she does this because she takes pride in her work and pride in how her department looks. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit to her.

But see she’s getting tired because no one is helping her. There is only so long someone can go without any help. Everyone they promote or higher none of them want to do shit or learn. She spent two years training me in the hopes that I would become a LEAD and she would finally get help. But I recently learned I will never be promoted. Not because I’m not good at my job but because I’m not liked this having to do with an incident where they scheduled no managers to work so the LODs had to cover the department. Now the LOD in question was Fei. Now everyone knows that Shelina trained me and I can literally run the department by myself at this point so guess what he did? He left me alone in the Frontend and never came back. So I did what I had to do and I ran the department. I made sure things didn’t fall apart. Because of the Fei helped to spread rumors about me and how I talked about the other LEADs/DS behind their backs in order to cover up the fact he left me alone. This cost me any chance at a future with the company. Shelina is still bitter about this fact while I have sadly accepted my fate. The only regret I have is I will never be able to help take off some of the pressure she has to deal with.

Back to the main point. There was an incident today. We keep the Dyson (expensive vacuum cleaners) up on high shelving in the Frontend. Not that this is in anyway remotely safe. These vacuums are heavy and located extremely high up and they over fill the shelves to the point the weight is literally bending the metal. Now usually if there isn’t any of a model on the shelf usually we don’t have it. Last week we learned that while we didn’t have any of a particular model on the shelf there was some located on what we call the Mez (a storage area located above the loading dock). But did anyone get them and bring them to the Frontend? Nope. And Shelina and I had no idea about them cause guess what? No one tells anyone anything. There is zero communication in this store.

We have a “Dyson lady” who is there for a few hours a day from the Dyson Company to talk about their product. We used to have a lovely woman there only recently this new lady (a fucking disrespectful and rude bitch) came to the store.

Now we have cards that the models on them and the customer brings them to the checkout gives them to us and we get the Dyson down. Only the customers kept bringing cards to vacuums we didn’t have. So she told me to go get the cards to the ones we didn’t have to prevent the mix up. And when I tried to do this the Dyson Lady yelled at me how we have the vacuums in the store like seriously how the fuck was I supposed to know. It was on the Mez no one fucking goes up there. I then tell her that unfortunately no one brought them down and I wasn’t able to get to them. Why you might ask? Because they are fucking large ass vacuum cleaners and the only way to bring them down was to lug them down the fucking stairs all the way from the back of the largest BBB in the world to the front of the store. I am not that strong.

So I go back to the front and go to tell Shelina but I don’t get the chance cause here comes Dyson Lady with Anthony. I don’t know what is said between them but it probably wasn’t good. What I do catch is what Anthony asks about “well which Dyson’s so we have up here?” and I answer because I’ve been the one going up and down the ladder all morning getting them for customers.

Shelina has me take him over to the Dyson’s only he then curses Shelina out like WTF you don’t say shit about your employees especially to those directly under them. He’s literally saying the nastiest shit about my superior to me and I’m at the bottom of the food chain. He is the goddamn store manager you’d think he’d have some respect. He then tells me “I don’t a fucking damn what Shelina tells you I’m your boss not her” and excuse fucking you. She’s never told me any sort of shit like that. She’s never told me to obey her over others. You know why I listen/chose her over the others? Because she treats me with respect and kindness something 98% of BBB Supervisors don’t do. In fact she’s never said a bad word about any of them other than that she’s disappointed in how they do their jobs because she knows they could do better. They just choose not to. Not only that Shelina is in fact my boss and you are her boss. He is so disgusting in what he says I am in literally shock and can’t manage to say a word in retort which I truly regret now though maybe it’s better I didn’t say what I wanted to because frankly he is fucking misogynistic sexist asshole and I would have said it right to his face. I have loyalty to those around me whether I like them or not we’re all here to do a job. Unlike him who apparently will say the nastiest fucking shit about his employees.

Now then he tells me he wants me to do the count (the count is when we count up the valuable products in the store to know how many we have this is done every morning) from now on and be in charge of the Dyson’s. I point out that I’m not a LEADs/DS and I don’t do the count. He then asks “why the fuck is he talking to me?” which frankly why is he? I tell him it’s because he wanted to know what Dyson we have. He then tells me to go get the missing Dyson’s from the Mez with “my buddy” Anthony (AJ is what he goes by thanks for remembering what name he uses). He tells me this with a wink and a nudge like we’re fucking high school girls talking about the guy I’m secretly dating. Now AJ is my best friend. My friend. We aren’t dating and I have no intention of ever dating him. It also isn’t a secret we’re close but everyone knows this and knows we aren’t together. People have assumed we’re dating before cause apparently a guy and girl can’t just be friends but what throws me is the fact my fucking boss my fucking elder boss like in his sixties made a insinuated sexual reference between me and a friend/coworker. That tell you what he thinks about men and women.

I shouldn’t be blown away by the sexism shown by my store manager. I’ve heard a lot of things. Two of my male LEADs/DS spoke horribly about a female LEADs/DS right in front of me. It was so disgusting in fact I avoided them for the rest of the day. People have the tendency to forget I’m there because I’m quiet and all over the place. They just say whatever in front of me. But still my store manager being a sexist pig to my DS caught me off guard. He’s only been with the company for a year Shelina has been with the company for over twenty. She knows more about BBB than anyone. And yet because she is a woman all her years of experience, all her hard work mean nothing.

If you’ve gotten this far thank you for reading. I know I went a little all over the place here but I hope you got my point. This amazing badass woman is treated like shit on a daily basis. I just wish there was something I could do other than writing this stupid blog post about it. Because she deserves the world.

#bed bath and beyond #sexism #feminism #woc #anti sexism #I hope I properly showed how awesome and badass of a woman she is for dealing with this shit on a daily basis #she is fucking incredible and I'm proud to know her #rambling

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Wyatt answers a question (Part1)

Telling me not to so something makes me want to do it even more, DJ. Why Israel? Because when I joined this movement, I notice everyone talks about every other country but no serious discussion on Israel. No one is safe from criticism imo. So how about we do that, DJ? Shall we? Let's have honest discussion, DJ. Because truth is coming. It is obvious that elite 1% hide behind good jewish people to commit atrocities and profit on top of them. Much like America. I have no problem admitting that. We are great, but we are also monsters to much of the world. The elite 1% have created the jewish vehicle and manipulate good Americans and good Israelis, they do not care about the Jews. At. All. They hide behind them. In fact, Honest Jews should be most vocal. This common knowledge outside the schizophrenic propaganda bubble in America. Oh trust me, DJ, they don't care if you Jewish or Moslem or Christian. They have plans for each of you. They will use you. Tarnish your name. They will ride you like vehicle, & when you crash, they will use other vehicle. HRC=vehicle. Jews=vehicle. Christian's are vehicles. It's all pretty simple if you put emotions aside and think from perspective of psychotic king. Tbh, all of this new to me, I've only started looking into this topic since 2018. How the good jewish people aren't outraged is beyond me. I really don't get it. It'll be hard, ofc. It's funny. Some Q people follow like no one's biz and have malfunction when Israel brought up even tho Q says "saving Israel last." People afraid to RT etc but my views way up, so obv ppl curious & reading. Massive redpills incoming. Bend over and say ah. One side note. I like Gorka, but he gets foolish and smeared low follower acct I follow not long ago because he asked legitimate Q about Holocaust. Q everything? Gorka called him "denier." That is what I mean. No hate ever, we want honest discussion & curious why the deflections Also I dont always have opinion on the stuff I write about, just sayin. So if you say anything to me like dumb cuck, I'll laugh. I'm just typing what I see. Even from multiple perspectives sometimes But the Q was about the Holocaust numbers. Fair question. So I looked into it. The outright denial is chidish imo and not serious person. People definitely died, and there were labor camps, but numbers get questionable. Yes, yes they do. You can find examples everywhere. There was a single witness who supposedly was in two concentration camps and is the primary source for about 1/3 of Holocaust deaths. It's a nasty rabbit hole, but you figure out that a lot is stack of exaggerations. One of the most obvious is the fact that the Nazi's crematoriums would have had to burn a body about 10x faster than a modern one and be running 24/7 for years with literal zero downtime. There's a reason why they specifically say "Historians agree that 6 million died" because it's just an agreement, not an actual number based on facts. Have you ever seen the Treblinka Holocaust Memorial? It looks pretty strange for a "memorial". Looks like they just Holocaust historians claim that during WW2 almost 900,000 people were killed and buried at Treblinka. And they claim that later the Germans dug up and burned the bodies in order to destroy the evidence. In 1999 a team of experts used an $80,000 Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) device to check for evidence that the soil had ever been disturbed as . They found no evidence of any soil disturbance. They covered the field with 17,000 boulders/stones and called it a memorial.Now you can't run any more Ground Penetration Radar tests - not without moving 17,000 boulders (which are set into concrete). Of course, doing this would be disturbing a sacred Holocaust "memorial" - which would land you in jail. Mission Accomplished. The whole Holocaust thing and the way the elite 1% use as a vehicle is very strange and fascinating at same time. Are you not at all curious as to why this is the only genocide event that needs legal protection by throwing "deniers" into jail? Or do you just happily overdose on the forced narratives? Surely the elite would never lie to you. They aren't psychopaths or anything. Trust us. Genuine Question. Why do we hear about the Holocaust over and over in movies, TV shows, documentaries, newspapers, books, etc. but almost never hear about the HUNDREDS of other historical genocides? It seems very weird until you figure out the real purpose of all this. Ask yourself one simple question, How in the world does Israel get away with their mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutal oppression - if we're going to be honest. I have criticism for both sides of that conflict, don't get me wrong. I'm staying on outside looking in though. Why are we very allowed to discuss the idea of white privilege, but forbidden from discussion of the hypothesis of Jewish privilege? Foolish if you don't think it applies the other way too. In three words... Guilt/elites/vehicles. Guilt over Holocaust. Sick, but brilliant, no? The ultimate Guilt trip enables the ultimate in psychological manipulation. You see, Holocaust means that they entitled to special rights - the right to forbid people from discussing their disproportionate wealth & political influence. THE PERFECT VEHICLE. How do you not see? A found that the number one reason Jewish Americans give as the source of their identity as Jews is not race or religion. Instead when asked "What does it mean to be Jewish?", the number one reason given (73%) was "Remembering the Holocaust". Hm. Some people think of it as a secular pseudo-religion called Holocaust-ianity or some shit (combining the words "holocaust" and "Christianity"). Laws in many U.S. states, known as , mandate teaching to all school children. Vedddy weird folks, no? This indoctrinates kids with the belief that the Jewish people are "unique" in their historical victim-hood. This puts Jews at the very top of the victim hierarchy. This was the goal from beginning, since widely believed victim narrative gives you political power, being top of victim hierarchy give you the most political power. That's why holocaust-ianity causes people to believe that Jews deserve special rights that no one else has. They mean well, but man are they slow. For example, holocaust-ianity means wealthy inbred morons can manipulate Israel and somehow hold ethical exemption to create type of racist country, whether citizens realize or not. Laughable. Israel is diverse. I know 4 that live in Haifa and they travel all over. Lefties, righties, buncha groups. If Mr.Trump just stomped out the major criminal networks we wouldn't even be dealing with any of this bullschiff. Regular citizens always the ones who suffer. It's pathetic. Normal chill citizens there can easily do what we are doing. What I'm saying is I condemn both sides of region but also support both sides for defending themselves. Innocent people always caught up in the middle. What I'm really saying is that Israel needs to flush their toilet. Not hard to separate elite agenda from normal people on planet. Some idiots will follow like lefties here. Man made systems. Can be infiltrated and can be used as vehicles to manipulate the masses of genuine good people out there. Also dont forget the horrific stuff Japanese did. And then you have them working with China and selling sensitive information and testing out traitorous surveillance tech. Like Hillary. Who is Rothschild pet. God forbid we should ever cut off their billions and cut aid entirely for now - they might really stab us in the back. Holocaust-ianity gives right to violate principle free speech, so people can be censored etc. Use Dan Cringeshaw, but never trust Dan Cringeshaw. He said it best. Said you're allowed to question everything and criticize every govt except for one lucky winner. Hint: not USA Currently no other vehicle at time has this special political right to protect the victim-hood narrative against people who might use their free speech rights to question the narrative. Also why Obama talked schmack but still agreed to send billions. Elites are manipulating you. The political power engendered by Holocaust-ianity is so powerful that it must be protected at all costs from the blasphemers, otherwise known as holocaust "deniers." Pathetic boring game by 1%. Make no mistake. Creating J victimhood and using as vehicle is nothing new at all. If you start seriously questioning the narratives, some will malfunction and start melting and end up blocking you or telling me "why they are going to block me now" lolol. It's so childish and weird. All we're doing is talking, asking questions, normal stuff. So scary ... ffs. Literally only thing I remember learning in Highschool was Holocaust and Rwandan genocide only because chill mf teacher put on movie Hotel Rwanda (really really good btw) about Rwandan genocide. We were taught as if Holocaust was the only genocide. Others not brought up. Why? I got indoctrinated by bs and became bored and 100% distanced from all this. When I saw a lot of the truth and became fascinated and interested in our history and cemented love of country and realized there are shit load of atrocities - feels clown like to treat anyone special. I wish more would sit down and look at things more honestly. Even if you dont know answer. I openly talk about all these topics with whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, my best friend Filipino (Dodi), or other best friend Sikh (Deepak), 99% understand none of this is our fault. That's why the state of Israel denies the Armenian Holocaust. That's also why the state of Israel denies the Polish Holocaust. And that's why the state of Israel agrees Ukrainian Holocaust must be downplayed. Even ADL on video bullied Ukraine into There can be only one **top** victim narrative. We can't even trade positions for like a day. Boring! And that position must belong to the "most oppressed people in history" - the "chosen people". *barf* The clip showing ADL's triggered bullying is from a documentary called "Defamation". Created by an Israeli Jew. Jews aren't a race, they are a religion Jewish supremacists in some top universities teach that Judaism is only a religion and that Jews are really just white people. Of course, it's not true and they know it. America's Most Famous Rabbi (as well as Israeli scientists) admitted that Jews are a Race, not a Religion. So why do they teach the "Judaism is only a religion" fallacy? They do this so that they can promote the idea of "White Supremacy" imo. If Judaism is nothing but a religion, that means the concept of ["White Supremacy" can be used as camouflage to cover up the fact that we actually live in a System of Jewish Supremacy. Also you do NOT have to be "Jewish." It's a game. Many people like myself are very new to breaking out of the mind control propaganda. They've had an almost total lock on the information for many decades. The internet is allowing a break out of the 'forbidden' information. The Jewish Supremacists are clearly freaking out and trying their best to bring censorship to the internet under the cover of "hate speech" laws. Hopefully enough people can be de-programmed in time to prevent the censoring of more internet. The axis of power in the world is doing tilts and Israel has to start wiggling itself into good position with China. As for the US, state of Israel doesn't give two schiffs about US or its people, you are tax farm and buncha fools who will jump to defense when they tell you to. It's going to be interesting to see how they will attempt to wiggle w Chinese, they are less easily manipulated than the Americans. If you step on toes once they will not forget. Not like US which has gaping whole for ass of the huge arse f'ng it has been getting for years now. You should really talk to some Israelis or read what they write online. A few good websites out there. Israel is more critical of Israel than the US is of Israel. It is hysterical to me. Some Americans think Israel is some hivemind and each person is connected with a string. US "ally" Israel routinely caught sending American troops in to do the fighting they should be doing themselves. Israel is not the home of the chosen people. There are no chosen people. What a strange ridiculous idea. Some conservatives get creepy about it. I see in my replies. Israelis have own interest in mind, always have. We may think they are our allies, but if somebody else gives them a better deal, they will sell us. That's just a fact. We have no real allies. Doesn't mean we end trade or anything. But we should know where everyone's coming from. It's just weird how the influence is all up in media. Hollywood. Basically 40% of all billionaires. Supreme court. Hell, 2% of population, but 80% of peach mints. Those witnesses were.... you'll never guess. Why would people not question this or at least have honest discussion. This was a brief duckduckgo search that took no more than 7 mins. I was reading article on how Tyler perry owns the movie studio in Atlanta, and how it’s bigger than paramount and dream works and other studios combined. So I started thinking about other influences in Hollyweird. Hollywood, I didn’t know this, made up of more than one movie studio. I’m ignoramus to this stuff. So I duckduck the owners of all the major studios in Hollywood. Boy oh boy, they’re all yeah you guessed it. To me, it's more interesting than anything. I'm just naturally curious. And it wasn’t till 2018 that I was exposed to this how Jewish Supremacists manipulate normal Israelis and normal Americans, and that would explain why America is Israel’s ho. Even that tho, the America is Israel’s biatch thing, I still don’t fully understand the foreign policy we have with them but I hear that phrase thrown out a lot by people who are known as "no bs" people. The inconsistency in the Jewish proportion of heavy hitter business people is fascinating. It really is. I’m still a shit and still learning when it comes to this and our ties with Israel. Over last few weeks I’ve been thinking about religions and how there’s really only three major ones, all with some things in common in their stories but with one major commonality, the holy land: I don’t think any of the religions got it right, something could have happened x amount of years ago in my opinion and the religions are essentially people’s versions of the story, most inconsistencies with a few similarities. How would we know. We wouldn't. Could very well be like a game of telephone. I could be wrong though, it could be something else but as I get older my belief in God grows, and idek how to pray to it or what to read about because I don’t think anyone’s got it right. And I'm a Catholic and believe in God. When your team runs the award-giving committee, you tend to win a lot of awards. That said, I have a lot of respect and admiration for the Jewish team. They've got an 'us-against'-the-world' thing going that encourages them work together and achieve some pretty cool things. Unfortunately, 'Us-against-the-world' also implies you can treat everyone who isn't on your team as an enemy combatant. It's this embattled attitude that generates a kind of ruthless, unsympathetic attitude toward players on the other team. And they are FIRST to call out any other group that adopts same strategy. It blows my mind how many people fail to understand this is a MACRO evolutionary strategy for them and they wish to slowly breed out and exile out races they don't like etc. Using Jewish label as a front. Yep, they even gave the White Helmets a Nobel Peace Prize. That shows the level of propaganda they are able to perpetuate against the American people through their mass media apparatus. Tons of Overwhelming Evidence That Israel Supports !slamic Terrorist Groups in Syria. You never hear about the regular, everyday Jews and it's shameful. I obviously know and talk to poor Jewish peeps, but it’s a thing, it’s such a thing to the point that it’s a stereotype. While stereotypes can be offensive or seem irrational because they cast a wide generalization on a large group of people, they exist for a reason and stick around for the same, so they must be true on some level. Not all catholic priests diddle. I went to 2 years of communion classes as boy at a catholic church with other kids and the priests were awesome. That doesn’t take away from the fact that a shitload of kids did get touched and molested by priests on such a large scale that the Vatican was aware. And I have no problem admitting Catholic Church one of most corrupt organizations in world and is used to manipulate masses. Not all Jews are bad or are out to take out America or care to gain influence through high ranking positions. It's all just a game. But we're the ones that suffer and get manipulated. Literally every Jewish person I've befriended, are normal, ethical people who care about living life through what their religion seems just. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Jewish people, both male and female hold lots of highly influential and esteem positions in America, a country mostly made up of Christians when it comes to religious demographic, and these positions are dominated by Jewish people at an alarming inconsistent rate. Try reversing role and doing that shite in Israel. They'll kick you out so fast your head will be spinning. I watched interview one time with David Ben Gurion and the interviewer asked the former prime minister about Israel's nuclear program. (Israel has never admitted to having nukes, though there's lot of anecdotal evidence saying they do have nukes...but no country has inspected Israel's program since JFK. JFK was very suspect of state of Israel. So interviewer asks DBG if Israel has nukes and he replies, "We have enemies". So that's the situation. If you see the rest of the world as an enemy, you can do anything, because, it's for your survival. The truth is simply pointing out facts made from observations in data causes lots of childish triggering and weird deflection on this subject because of the deep history. Pointing out the inconsistency in that blacks make up 13-15% of the US population but over 70% of the prison population shouldn’t cause uproar or anger but rather curiosity and request of answers. Most videos of police officers will have you believe most cops use excessive force and that there is war going on between inner city black people and white pool ice officers. Total nonsense. Obviously not all blacks are criminals, but something’s fishy there. For a fact a lot of black people in prison did something wrong that led directly to their incarceration but the numbers simply hint at some sort of fuckery afoot, that leads to people asking questions. Doesn’t take a five minute duckduckgo search to realize how many blacks are doing hard time for ridiculous non violent drug offenses. Same thing goes for the cops. One of most stressful jobs ever, all day people are lying to you, when you show up to a situation it typically doesn’t mean something great is happening, pulling people over to give them tickets must feel like a shitty thing to do when a quota is set by dept. most are good at their job. It’s the few who we see in videos that show a lack of training and or skill under stressful situations. And same goes for this except when these observations are made immediate malfunction cognitive dissonance ensues. The difference with the outrage is they have a decent influence on so many sectors of this country, you can literally be black balled for life from anything. The collective identity makes sure that you think in terms of Group first and prior to anything else. On top of this, Judaism actively teaches infiltration of positions of power, politics, msm, and so on simply in order to better their chances at survival by group based nepotism. Imo the narratives have been twisted by the winners. This where the whole “history is written by the winners” phrase comes in. You have a full understanding of just how powerful the influence is when it comes to people just simply speaking about, or asking genuine questions etc.

Wyatt @SayWhenLA

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#ethnicity #fiction #Group #Ideas #Lies #Minds #Propaganda #Social #Structure #Truth #victim

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dahcyst · 8 years ago

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A Flower for the Bee [Chapter 6]

[AO3 link : http://archiveofourown.org/works/9238850/chapters/21205610]

The next day, Yuri had waken up with some difficulties. He hadn't drunk last night for his birthday, as he was still underage for the two incoming years, but going home so late after the small party had just left him dead in his bed. Dealing with J.J. had been quite weird and totally impossible. Dark eyes had been looking down on him when he'd tried to get the man's cellphone, and the smirk on J.J.'s face was really pissing him off. Victor had soon stopped both them, claiming the phone as his -and it actually was true: J.J. hadn't been using his own cell the whole night and Yuri learned later that Victor had lent an old one of his to the Canadian. It seemed that his coming from so far wasn't that prepared as he hadn't made the advances for a journey phone credit.

He'd tried to ask Victor –more or less roughly, violently, even threatened the man, but the skater never returned the phone, and didn't even bother answer to Yuri's rude words.

"None of my business, boys," he'd said despite the protests.

After that, the party hadn't last for long, and Yakov had drove him back home; it appeared that J.J. was really sleeping at Victor's during his stay. At the end of the evening (or the early morning? He wasn't sure), the man looked pretty exhausted and Yuri had suddenly remembered the huge jet lag between Russia and Canada. It was already quite impressive that J.J. had survived that entire time –or maybe he'd taken a nap in the afternoon before taking him to Victor's place.

Speacking of J.J., Yuri hadn't seen any pictures of the small party on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr...He'd checked Victor's, J.J.'s, aven Yakov's account even though the old man wasn't one to take pictures and didn't quite understand how to upload a photograph, let alone make a publication alone. He used to ask Georgi or Mila when he needed some help.

J.J.'s accounts on social medias didn't have anything new published since...Days. Weeks. It had made Yuri frown a little since J.J. had always been someone who posted a lot of things –especially things that made others feel like they wanted to punch him right in the face, and especially Yuri. But the last thing Yuri saw in tCanadian's feed was that selfie Isabella and him had taken together at the end of their wedding. He was still wearing her white veil, her dark hair hair tied up in an amazing bun that Yuri was petty sure it had taken hours to make due to the lack of lenght.

"Wow, got new clothes?"

At Mila's words, Yuri raised his eyes up to her as he was lacing his skates and nodded silently. With that gaze of hers, he knew that she was aware of what had happened the night before –or at least about that gift. Did she knew about Otabek, the incoming duet and why she was training so much with him lately?

"You look a bit tired, is it gonna be ok today?" She asked sitting near on the same bench.

"I'll go easy for today," he sighed. "Yakov's been pretty irresponsable for once, taking me home soooo late..."

He knew for sure that Victor wouldn't be here in the morning : the man was a heavy sleeper and knowing that J.J. was at his place didn't help with that feeling. Before leaving his phone on the bench with his towel, Yuri gave an eye in his mailbox in case he would get a new message from Otabek. He actually hadn't been sleeping right away after getting home last night, sending some words to the Kazakh. The man had answered almost immediatly, putting his nerves to the edge. For God's sake, when was he even sleeping!?

Yura : "When are you coming in Moscow then?"

Ota-bee : "By the end of the week, I'll tell you"

Yura : "Ok then"

Oh man. It had kept him from sleeping for a good couple of hours more and he wasn't sure if he had even sleep a complete hour that night. His brain was feeling like dead, not running properly to his liking –he didn't have strenght enough to answer back Mila's bad jokes. His body was painful enough to make him grunt even more than usually. But the idea of skating with Otabek Altin was somehow worth it. Well, not somehow. The simple thought of being able to stand by his side on the ice made his heart jolt and beat so hard that he wasn't sure if it was due to the excitment or the tireness or anything.

Mila laughed gently, then patted his head with her thin hand. "You're a lot on your phone lately," she said. "Finally got a girlfriend?"

Before he could even think about his answer, Yuri gave her a dark death glare as he was leaving his phone screen for a few seconds. "What?"

"Wow, don't look at me like that, you're scary!"

"Your fault! What kind of nonsense are you saying!?" Yuri spit. He had tightened his grip on the frame of his phone, his thumb pushing pretty fast on the main button to darken the screen. But she grinned anyway; he hadn't been quick enough for it not to be noticed.

"Sooooo, what's her name?" She continued.

Yuri grit his teeth. "There's no 'her', stupid!"

She opened her eyes wild. "Oh! That's a 'he' then? I didn't know you were into guys!"

Yuri coughed pretty hard at her suggestion and the lace slip off his hands as he was giving her the most threatening gaze of his. Or at least he tried but the sudden heat all other his face wasn't helping and he wasn't sure if being red to the ears was something convincing enough against Mila.

"WHAT!?"

"What 'what'?" She shrugged. "Aren't you?"

"I'M NOT GAY OF COURSE YOU DUMBASS!"

The silence that fell between the two of them suddenly took him deep and he felt a heavy lump forming in his throat as Mila was staring at him. Her gaze was as curious as puzzled. The few people not so far around the rink had turned their attention toward them and it made him feel pretty bad. But the young woman soon sighed softly, standing slowly.

"Yeah," she simply said. "You're not, of course. Sorry if I've upset you, okay?"

Once again this week, Yuri felt the guilt taking him deep in his stomach. Mila's features had suddenly changed and if he didn't know why, he knew it was because of what he'd just said. That subject was something he'd never really thought about. A girlfriend, or even a boyfriend, weren't something that had their place in his life right now. He didn't have enough time or energy for such things –let alone nobody was interesting enough in his current daily life to even consider the idea.

"O-okay," he mumbled.

She quickly left, gone for a little warm-up on the ice and Yuri sighed, pushing again on the button of his cellphone to enlight the screen again. Otabek was online and he counted. It was something like lunch time for the Kazakh and he didn't even got surprised when the picture of a plate full of letuce and chicken suddenly appeared in their conversation.

Ota-bee : "Seriously I feel like a girl on a diet"

Yuri hardly held his laughter back.

Yura : "wtf why are you eating that?"

Ota-bee : "Coach said so?"

Yura : "don't tell me you're one to listen to your coach!"

Ota-bee : "why not, it worked pretty well till now"

Yuri stared at it for a few good seconds, trying to imagine Otabek purposely doing whatever his coach would be asking him to do. Was his body, his final frame, his strength, the result of what his coach had decided? Or did Otabek himself asked for this. Their was something that Yuri knew about Otabek: his skills on the ice were ones that had make Victor coming back in competition, and for this the Kazakh was a serious rival. He had't been the only one to be that reason, of course, just a part of the story, but still. Victor had taken an interest on the young man –or, more specifically, his body.

Yuri sighed.

Yura : "ok ok why not"

Ota-bee : "How is your training btw?"

Yura : "terrible"

Ota-bee : "?"

Yura : "wanna sleep"

Ota-bee : "Ahah same to be honest"

He caught himself smiling at the written laughter; he coud imagine the soft giggle from the man, the dimples at the corner of his mouth and his eyes, sweet and dark at the same time as he would be shaking his head a little.

Yura : "Take a nap dumbass"

Ota-bee : "I will"

Ota-bee : "but it's kind of crowded here now"

Yura : "Really?"

Ota-bee : "Yeah small demo this afternoon"

Ota-bee : "Hope I won's sleep on the ice lol"

Yuri huffed a little at the unusual 'lol' at the end of the message. It wasn't so...Not Otabek? The man wasn't one to use that type of shortcut –most of the time he typed full sentences, except sometimes when he was in a rush or something that kept him from being able to take his time to write properly on his cellphone.

Yura: "sleep now then?"

Ota-bee : "no way"

Yura : "man, you're stupid?"

Ota-bee : "We are chatting, i don't want to sleep now"

Yuri had suddenly been holding his breath and the only thing that made him inspire again was Mila's call for him. Oh dears. What could he honestly answer to this when he only wanted to be a few days ahead of now?

Yura : "I'm off see you"

Then he shove his phone between his folded towel layers to hide it at least a little and decided to finally join the young woman. What was that, seriously? Yuri didn't like what he'd just done, leaving Otabek so suddenly when the man had just said...Uh. Well, when he'd just said that. Had the Kazakh absolutly no pride to be able to say such a thing to a friend?

"Hey Yuuuuriiiii!" Mila called again.

With a deep sigh and a grimace at his painful articulations when he'd stand up, Yuri reached the young woman. Mila's hair was finally long enough to tie it up in a very small ponytail and it showed up her so little ears. With her pale skin and puckish blue eyes, let alone her deviish smile and than damn body of her, the boy was pretty sure she was incredibly attractive and might have tons of suitors. But he'd never seen her with someone until now.

She watched him coming, hands on her hips and tsk'ed a little at him, making the blond raise a eyebrow. "Boy, you look sooo down! Are you really tired?"

"I already fucking told you, Mila! They trapped me last night in Victor's apartment! I've barely slept, I'm DEAD, how can't you get something so simple?"

She laughed a little at his mad expression. "Right, riiiiight!"

Cheeks red from being suddenly annoyed, Yuri mumbled and started sliding on the ice to get used to the thing again during a few seconds. Here. Like that. He needed that. He wanted that soft feeling of air brushing his face, his body suddenly so light as it was heading straight on this line. His knees were still as fuck, the dull pain irradiating from his articulations to the muscles of his thights. Sometimes, it was unbearable and he wondered how he still hadn't given up on all that shit.

Georgi soon joined them in the training. The man wasn't preparing the new season. If he hadn't retired, his life had slightly changed since he met his new girlfriend and to be honest, his personnality was way smoother than when he was dating that superficial Anya.

"Hey, Yuri!" Georgi suddenly called.

The boy stopped strenching his body at the sound of his voice and turned his attention to him. The man was scratching his head and slid with curiosity near Yuri before suddenly grabbing his sides with both hands. He earned a surprised sound.

"GEOR--"

"Are you injured or something?" He simply asked.

Yuri blinked a little. "What?"

Georgi was frowning a little, visibly concerned. "Aren't you?" He continued. "I thought so, your skating is quite different lately."

The blond Russian froze a little at Georgi's words. Was it so obvious that something was happening? Had he been so freacking bad that even Georgi had noticed? Not hat Georgi was a bad skater, not at all, but he wasn't one to really care about others' way of skating.

Yuri swallowed the lump in his throat with some difficulties. "I...Might have some cramps," he lied. Or rather, it wasn't completly a lie. He was, at least, admitting that something wasn't really ok. Georgi raised an eyebrow.

"Aaahh, I was right then! Since when? Is it painful? You skate a little as if you had, uh, well..."

"As if I had what?"

"A tree up in your ass, actually."

Yuri stared at the man for a moment, not sure if he had really heard what he had just heard. But Georgi was still standing before him, intensively thinking about the situation.

"What the fuck did you say?"

"Oh, I mean, you still skate like a damn goddess –DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, you were the prima ballerina after all!"

"SPIT IT ALREADY POPOVITCH!"

"But that's a bit weird, I mean, you're stiff and all that, like, well, I mean, that's just why I'm asking? You look so uncomfortable with your body right now, that's the weirdest thing I've ever seen from you!"

"Shitty bast--"

But Mila's hand suddenly on the top of his head stopped Yurio in his incoming colorful cursing litany toward Georgi. Her fingers were cold and her looks concerned.

"What?" He growled.

But she only shrugged a little with a small odd smile –and for once he was prtty sure it wasn't made out of pity.

"Georgi, go train somewhere else," she said. "And leave us some room, ok?"

"What the...Yeah, ok, ok!"

The man mumbled when she scowled him a death glare, and Yuri could swear that he wouldn't have looked better himself at that 'dark eyes' game. Once Georgi was gone, or at least far away enough for her liking, she turned back to him.

"So..." She grinned at the boy, stretching a little on place, arms above her head. "What can't you do anymore?"

Yuri frowned deeply. "I didn't say I--"

"I said," she cut out. "What can't you do anymore?"

He clenched his jaw, almost painfully, silent for a few good seconds as she was staring at him. "Mila, I--"

"Don't you want to dance with Otabek?"

The question suddenly went out, lingering in the air for a moment as he froze. Before he knew it, she had put her arm around his neck, body close enough to his and wa whispering to hi ear. Her breath was hot, like damn, how could she be like that when the place was made of ice?

"I'm here to teach you, Yuri," she murmured. "So, don't you want it? Dancing with him? Do you really think that you're powerful enough to be paired with the guy?"

Powerful was the word. Yuri gulped despite himself at the memory of the srong body evoluating on the ice and Mila scoffed a little at his discreet reaction.

"Now, you'd only be a pain in the ass for him, ok? You don't fit his style at all, and as I'm the one who know the choreo, I can tell that you have a lot to do in such a few time, baby tiger..."

She laughed a little more openly at his decomposed expression, especially when his green eyes were looking for an escape on her face. She suddenly burst into a huge laughter this time, and gave a big hit in his back with her hand, making his cough so hard that he thought he was going to spit out his lungs.

"Don't make such a face, babe!" She said. From the distance, Georgi was giving them a curious look, full with his lack of understanding. She didn't give him any attention.

Yuri sighed, this time without holding hmself back. As tired as he was, Mila's words had made their way to his brain and he could feel the hint of excitment making his guts twitch with need.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked.

"Victor told me," she shrugged and he winced a little. "Plus, it's pretty funny to see you in this situation. And somehow..."

She leaned a little, back to his ear. Her nose brushed against his lob and he gulped softly at the feeling. Dears.

"...I wonder how Otabek would answer to such a strong and amazing danse with you, don't you?"

#fanfiction #yaoi #yurionice #otabek #altin #yurio #yuri #plisetsky #otayuri

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