#[i tend to overdose on tea to get me through the day]

[ramu-ego]

mind sharing your other fandom favs then? you have me sort of curious if ego is tots ur type LMFAOA .. omg aftwr u-20 win ego was such a proud dad the face he made was honestly sort of emotional ..!!

NEVVER APOLOGIZE 4 WRITING ANOTHER FIC IDEA HEL i think with my pussy half the time and i read ANYTHINGGG as long as it’s dom!reader (can you tell i’m desperate ORR WHATT?) ngl your “pussy dragging on the keyboard” comment made my ass giggle for a full minute LMFOAO i’ll be using that as well thanks!

personally 4 me i never was really into nikko ASSS MUCHH.. but i can see the hype .. cant stop thinking how sweaty and greasy his forehead must be after those thick ass bangs though.!.!?!

WOAH our timezones r so different HELLPP.. by the time you said it was 6:40 am, it was at least night for me, polar opposites in a way sorta! godd you’re a chronic coffee drinker?? i’m more of a tea person myself but coffee does power through most things with ur day anyways, don’t overdose on it or something!! (unless u alrdy do LOL)

i’ve been doing great as ever, taking my time to relax before i’ve got to get back to that tiring education life again.. 🥲 your blogs has been a good way to pass the time though so a win win for me!! for the blue lock anime last week, episode 10 was surprisingly good considering i was scared shitless of animation budgeting and if they would butcher it, sometimes the cgi makes me giggle but hell i’m such a blue lock supporter that i just move on from all of the questionable moments with the animation!

i’m a sub watcher for all animes (which, i haven’t touched a lot of animes .. if you’re an avid anime watcher, any recs?)

for me, u-20 match was an INSANE ride for me, def my fav and i always reread it in a way, i think everything leading up to it like the 3v3 or 4v4 matches were great too, but u-20 match was hype like no other !! whiichhh brings me to my next point, i need to see more of hiori as his design was just too cute for me to pass up, just the hair and the eyes were so ?!? eye catching imo..

oh jeez and there was this one panel with this blue lock player with the most nicest hair but he just. NEVER APPEARED LMFAOO? i haven’t seen him ever since — don’t even think we got a name

ah jeez i’m SOOOO SORRY if my messages get a bit too long, I HATE JUST RESPONDING INSTEAD OF. CONTINUING A CONVERSATION (if this makes sense?) .. so i tend to ramble ^^’ don’t feel pressured to mirror the length though!! i’d be heading off to bed as i send this message in, so this is sort of my goodnight :P - 💌

OH GOD THE OTHERS-

-this will be a dead give a way to some of my very very old followers who've accidentally re found me after I achieved my last blog and took a long hiatus. I have very specific...qualities...to a lot of them that overlap...

in order from top left to right; Kurono Yuichiro (Fire Force absolute love of my life and a near 1:1 character match to Ego honestly), Hanma Shuji (TokyoRev), Sir Nighteye (MHA), Asagiri Gen (Dr Stone), Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Ginoza Nobuchika (Psycho Pass) ...three out of the six are played by the same English VA so you could say I have a type 😂

To be fair my other categories for favs are literally all copy and print similar too. My "These are my babies I'm breastfeeding them and enabling them" favs are near identical copies in every anime I watch 😂 then the third less talked about group...the dreaded libra group 😒

SOMETIMES YOU JUST WRITE WITH YOUR PUSSY AND NOT YOUR BRAIN AND THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THIS STUPID NIKO FIC THAT'S GOING WELL OVER SIX PAGES FOR NO STUPID REASON BESIDES THE PUSSY DESERVES IT UGH

ok but to gush a moment before forgetting the Ego during the U-20 match...that panel!!! Oh god that panel!!! Of him telling Isagi that what happened to him and his career didn't matter, that he was fine to be blacklisted from the sport he loved bc he assured all 22 of them had a career in soccer after this game, win or loose, OH GOD THAT PART. I will literally fist fight anyone at this point who wants to shit talk Ego and say he "doesn't care" bc that man was ready to throw away his livelihood for them to succeed on a world stage in the sport they love. Man's got protective dilf energy and I'm giving him a child this uterus is open for business rn

Niko is....Ok I'm blaming it on his VA actually (sorry I watch dubbed I just literally can't focus on subbed) and his English VA is a well known one but did a creepy high pitched voice with it and I mean I'm willingly fucking Ego like I'm advertising I'll kiss that weird man's ankles but Niko- Niko is just too fucking weird for me. But apparently the pussy wants to challenge that bc fuck me with a six plus page story over god damn nipples! Niko is still....too ugly for me RIP

My time zone is fucked at the butt end of everything so I am WAY use to being the last one up and last one to go to bed in every fandom I've ever been in 🤣 Learned that as a teen when literally no one was ever awake when I was RIP. But yes I'm a chronic coffee drinker I've always have been the bean it calls to me I must have it (given I don't drink enough to like NEED it or get a headache I just enjoy the taste but love tea too) Drank it thru my pregnancy and drank it breastfeeding no one's pulling the beautiful bean from my mouth. Love me a good tea though I won't deny good green, black and other teas hit different. Just no herbal shit stuff makes me wretch istg

Glad to hear I started this blog in good timing then! Ain't nothing like relaxing with some good pegging when you're trying to forget that book bullshit 💅 And honestly even though I picked up the manga right after like episode two (needed Ego I wasn't waiting lololol) I've been very happy with the animation cuz like the manga is illegally beautiful. Holy shit is the manga just so well done and the drawings are top tier throughout the entire thing (coming from tokyorev and jujutsu god I miss manga artists that don't just scribble on things like a coke addict) Questionable animation or not they keep slut drawing Ego's hands so damn fine and that man's watch I'll forgive any animation doozie long as my weird looking stick man looks fine as hell

I don't watch sub (I just can't take in the actual show and read plus I got a mad voice kink so....dubbed it is for me) But I've watch a fair share of anime. Don't really watch it for like...the sake of just watching anime (prefer western cartoons a little more) but I've watched some really good ones though. First on the list, Fire Force. I've single handedly convinced like two dozen people to watch this. It's my favorite of all time and will be tattooing the weird looking man in the collage on my body at some point bc of how much I love that series. Mob Psycho 100 is amazing as always for so many reasons and it has a bit of everything for everyone. The Case Study of Vanitas was better than it was aloud to be and I hate vampires. Dr. Stone fucking nerdy funny and entertaining. Psycho Pass is a good like murder mystery book. Sonny Boy and Space Dandy done by the same studio and will make you question your existence. Kekkaishi is old but still one of my favorites ever. And Blue Exoricst I wrote a 60+ chapter fan fic on it for a reason and its still going strong and written by a woman! Don't know about any of their sub versions but their stories and characters are so good they're worth it.

That entire block from the five round selection to the U-20 game was just- Fucking illegally good for a sports anime?? A sports anime for crying out loud?? Even the way they introduce so many new characters is so smooth and not even clunky and you genuinely take an interest in everyone even if you only see them for one game?? Hiori is cute...a little more feral than I expected when we first saw him being cute with Isagi and Nanase. But Hiori, Otoya, Karasu and Kurona haven't like wowed me yet. I'm invested but I'm still going real fucking soft on Yukimiya right now like. God. The eye thing. LET ME BABY YOU AND HAVE THAT SAD MAN. God he's gonna be so fucking pretty when he's animated I'm screaming already

Was that the panel of the dude with Gagamaru and Raichi? The one that's shown on the blue lock screen but we never have an actual manga cap of him?

PLS DON'T APOLOGIZE I TALK TOO MUCH I WAS A HAIRDRESSER FOR FIVE YEARS I TALK WAY TOO MUCH PLS NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR TALKING TO MUCH AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL I'M SORRY I'M THE ONE RAMBLE. PLS HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY SINCE WE'RE OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SUNNY TIME. RAMBLE ALL YOU WANT I ADORE IT <3

[clandestineheart]

it’s been four weeks, thirty days, seven hundred and twenty hours, give or take, forty three thousand and two hundred minutes, and two million five hundred ninety-two thousand seconds.

it’s been four weeks, thirty days, seven hundred and twenty… can you hear the clock ticking?

it’s been four, long, excruciating weeks since i have had a full night’s sleep.

i don’t get it.

i open the internet app on my phone, and i type “insomnia”—the word that only makes my eyes roll out of their sockets at this point—into the search bar; as if reading about it some more could help me cure the problem. i tend to do that a lot.

it’s just that nothing seems to work anymore. i do what they tell me—i work out before bed, even though i hate working out. i stop eating three hours before i plan on going to bed. i drink all kinds of magic teas, stay off caffeine… and when that doesn’t work, i do the exact opposite, websites and internet are useless anyway, and you’re better self-medicating than reading and actually going through with what some wannabe-doctor-reporter writes you should do; but still, no effects whatsoever. and when none of the sleeping pills i get prescribed work… there come the sedatives.

see, i’m not the biggest fan of self-medicating. or medicating in general. i have some strawy bits of medical knowledge scattered around in my head, from hearing it here and there and remembering it; so, accidentally overdosing is not even a thing that crosses my mind when i take any pills anymore. and don’t get me wrong; it’s not that i don’t like the effect benzos have on me, it’s that i like it too much. and if i know one thing it’s that i don’t need to add a benzodiazepine addiction to my platter on top of everything else, especially since i have no one to get the pills prescribed by. they’re not a long-term solution. i know it, everyone knows it. i can’t live off off speed and xanax, no matter how hard i try to believe it.

so, i put “insomnia” into the search bar, pretending, almost, that i’ll find something new entirely, even if only twenty minutes have passed since the last time i searched it; but what else is there for me to do, when i can’t sleep, and can’t write, and can’t read.

“persistent problems falling and staying asleep,” says the top of the page in a font smaller than i’d normally think it’d be written in. “problems falling and staying asleep.” great. as if i couldn’t tell what the symptoms were already, after four weeks, thirty days, seven hundred and twenty hours… but i digress. “very common,” it says, right below that first sentence, “more than three million cases per year in the US, alone…”. i huff under my nose, because, however common it may be, no one i’ve ever known has had this kind of problem before… this, or they just drunk it away, and that won’t be the route i’ll take. i read along the page, line after line, and i think i probably have it all memorized by now, the whole page. i close my eyes, and out of sheer curiosity try and repeat all it says. “persistent problems falling asleep and staying asleep,” i say, and my voice sounds strange to my own ears, “very common, more than three million US cases per year, self-diagnosable,” i continue, feeling proud of myself for getting it right so far. sad, how when everything around you feels like a death sentence, you feel good about accomplishing things even as small, and as useless as this one. “treatment can help, but this condition can’t be cured.”

i open my eyes and am faced with these same words i just said out loud to no one but the empty space around me, staring me back in the eye. i quickly look at the upper left corner or my phone—twelve am, it reads, in fat, white numbers. another day has gone by, a new one has already started. one more to add to the no-sleep list; because two hours is nothing, if even a joke of a time to rest.

i blink. twelve o’one. another minute gone, and wait, there’s one more, and more, and i blink once more, and the minutes keep passing, time doesn’t stop for me. i don’t expect it to, yet i still feel like it should, when i think about it. i feel like it does, because i’ll blink once, twice, three times… and before i know it, it’ll be three in the morning and i’ll have spent yet another sleepless night, staring at the wall. with songs unwritten in my notebook, lines unsung onstage, ideas for new stories never seeing the light of day.

and how could i know? maybe they could be great? maybe they could change the world, cure cancer or end hunger. or maybe even just make a few people smile? they probably wouldn’t, but how could i know? i can’t. because they’ll never leave the stone cold walls of my head, never break free of the prison that’s my mind.

before i’ll know it, my whole life will have passed with me doing nothing but looking up ways to solve problems you know can’t be solved.

it’s been thirty one days, seven hundred and forty four hours, give or take, forty-four thousand, six hundred and forty seconds…

[elisaphoenix13]

Consequences Of Pitching Practice

"Bah!"

"That's all well and good but you still haven't given me the screwdriver."

"Nnmmmnnn." Lucy answers while slobbering all over said screwdriver.

Tony huffs fondly. "Don't let your mom see that. I don't need another lecture about how unsanitary that is." He takes the screwdriver and chuckles when the baby glares at him. "It's also unsafe. I kind of like you."

Lucy babbles at him angrily as Tony wipes the screwdriver free of drool and he offers her one of her actual toys. It's not that he didn't offer her her own toys in the first place, it's just that Lucy had an uncanny ability to get her hands on whatever she wanted. Even when she was confined to a highchair or something. It wasn't anything magical, Tony and Stephen made sure of that, Lucy was just a typical, curious baby.

Tony had a feeling he may have been the same way as a baby.

"If you keep back talking me like that, you won't have lab time with me anymore." Tony says as he tightens a screw.

"Mmmfffbbb!" Lucy retorts and the engineer looks over at her to find that she had somehow gotten her hands on a different screwdriver. Which she was currently drooling on the rubber end of.

"Maybe I should take that as a clue that it's lunchtime for you." Tony says. "How about a bottle?"

Some happy beeps and whirs grab Tony's attention and he looks over at the kitchenette to find DUM-E excitedly starting a bottle. The first ingredient? Grease of some sort. Tony wasn't even sure when the robot grabbed that.

"No, no, no. Lulu can't have grease. You finish that for yourself!" Tony reprimands as he walks over to make a proper bottle. He partially ignores the sad noises DUM-E makes and takes the bottle over to Lucy. "Here you go dolcezza. How about something sanitary to put in your mouth?"

Lucy eyes the bottle her father holds out for her and Tony's eyes widen when she actually throws her screwdriver across the room and takes the bottle. He looks over to where the tool had landed when he hears a crash and finds a separate project emitting sparks from where it had been hit. Six months old and she had quite the arm.

"Maybe we should make a baseball team." Tony says calmly. "You can be our pitcher. Diana was kind of like that too but Cassie corrupted her."

For once, Tony doesn't get an answer from Lucy, but she was too busy with her lunch. Something he should probably be thinking about at the very least.

"Think your mom would make me a sandwich if I asked him nicely?"

A pointed look from the infant makes him chuckle.

"Probably not, huh? Not when I'm down here with you and tinkering for f--"

A low hum distracts Tony and he swivels around when it gets louder by the second. The machine Lucy had damaged with the screwdriver was spitting sparks like an angry cat, and it was glowing brighter and brighter. Tony barely had the mind to turn back and grab and cover Lucy just before the thing exploded. The force of the explosion sent them to the ground, but Tony made sure to keep Lucy secure in his arms. When he recovers and sits up, he winces as his ears ring and the first thing he hears is Lucy crying. Her poor ears were probably ringing too and he knew that Stephen was going to have a fit when the sorcerer undoubtedly came to investigate. Both Friday and Victor tended to snitch on him, especially when one of the kids was in the lab with him.

"I'm sorry dolcezza." Tony says to Lucy in an attempt to soothe her. "Daddy should have checked to make sure you didn't do so much damage."

He carefully gets back to his feet as a window opens to ventilate the smoke, and checks Lucy over to make sure she's unharmed, glad to see she wasn't and was already calming down. Her cries had already turned into whimpers and she had grabbed one of his fingers to stick into her mouth to help soothe her further. Tony coughs and waves away the smoke in the air, noting that DUM-E was actually in the process of putting out a small fire by the machine. It wasn't the only thing Tony noticed either. There were two extra bodies standing by the burning remains of his project, and when the smoke finally cleared away, Tony froze.

The two people that were also waving away the smoke and coughing were his parents.

Howard and Maria were standing ten feet away from him and all Tony could do was stand and stare.

That project was in no way a time travel machine, but clearly that's what had happened. His parents were somehow pulled from the past with a half finished machine that Lucy broke with a screwdriver, and Tony was floored. The last time he saw his mother was the night she died, and his father during the time heist.

"Tony!" The engineer blinks and looks over at the door with wide eyes as Stephen rushes in and over to him. "Friday told me there was an explosion. Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah. We both are. Lulu was just a little spooked…"

"Tony?"

Howard's voice draws the attention of both men and Stephen's eyebrows fly up toward his hairline.

"What exactly were you working on?" Stephen asks Tony.

"Not a time machine."

=======

"She's so darling." Maria says as she takes Lucy from Tony. "What's her name?"

"Lucy." Tony mumbles and watches the interaction with fascination.

Once they had gotten over the initial shock, Tony managed to explain what happened before promising to find a way to send his parents back to where they belonged. For now though, they were stuck in the present time and Tony was already preparing for anything. Maria wasn't the problem...it was Howard. Tony had no idea how things would go when it came to his father.

"Who is her mother?" Howard asks.

There it is. That didn't take long, Tony thinks to himself. He then points to Stephen.

"Him. Meet my husband, Doctor Stephen Strange." Tony says.

"Did you adopt?" Maria asks.

"Yes...but not Lucy. Stephen is literally her mother. The girls were made with magic." Tony explains, and Maria brightens when he mentions the girls.

"There are more?" Maria asks while Howard simultaneously says, "Really, Anthony? Magic?"

Stephen was the one to answer Howard before Tony could open his mouth again. The doctor didn't even have to say anything. He simply displayed his magical abilities and Howard actually closed his mouth.

"How many children do you have?" Maria asks again.

Tony looks at her and genuinely smiles. "Seven."

"And a half." Stephen adds and Tony chuckles.

"That's a long story." Tony explains to his parents.

"Where are the others?" Howard asks.

"Somewhere." Tony says flippantly.

"Peter is out patrolling, Harley and Thomas are running an errand for me, Diana is downstairs with Cassie, and William is napping with Valerie." Stephen tells them. "Tea?"

"Yes, please." Maria says and Stephen walks into the kitchen.

Tony could only watch his mother play with Lucy. Even Howard seemed content to spend time with his granddaughter, so Tony joined Stephen in the kitchen and finally took a shuddering breath. Stephen looks over at him with concern and Tony waves him away.

"I'm alright."

"Wondering if it's all a dream?" Stephen asks.

"Maybe? It was nerve wracking just seeing my father during the time heist and now he's actually here. Sort of." Tony tries to explain.

"You have a chance to tell him what you want to." Stephen says. "And...I understand how you're feeling."

He reaches over and carefully grabs Tony's right arm, and looks at the scars traveling from the top of his hand and up his arm. They disappear briefly under his sleeve, but then reappear at the collar of his shirt and finally stop just below the right side of his jaw. Tony supposed Stephen had a point. Stephen probably felt that having Tony back was just a dream for a while. But Tony was here to stay.

Howard and Maria had to go back.

"You've made it very clear that I'm only allowed to die of old age or caffeine overdose." Tony chuckles and Stephen looks at him flatly.

"Preferably the former."

"That's the plan. Where's Athena?" Tony asks as Stephen gently drops his arm and turns back to the tea.

"Upstairs with William and Valerie. Tibbs is sleeping in his cat tower."

"The chaos will start up any second now regardless." Tony huffs and Stephen picks up the tea he finishes and takes it back into the living room.

Tony follows him, finding Lucy surprisingly with his father, and giving Maria a chance to drink the tea Stephen offers her. The chaos truly did erupt after that as he expected. Maria was only halfway through her tea when the kids that were out and about came home, Cassie and Diana came upstairs, and William and Valerie shuffled out of the little girl's room. Harley and Peter had expressions on their faces that made Tony think that they knew who exactly their visitors were, but they didn't say anything.

"Here's the rest of the brood." Tony announces. "Brood and a half." He says motioning to Cassie.

"I'm sure it's always exciting here." Maria says with a smile.

Stephen snorts. "If it's not the kids, it's our friends. Sometimes it's both."

"But it's our life. I don't think any of us would trade it for anything." Tony says.

Not even for one more day with his parents like he might have wished for once upon a time. He got his wish anyway, just not the way he thought he would. Because Lucy liked to throw things.

Tony told himself that he wanted to say things to his dad if he ever got the chance to, but just like the time heist, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to see his parents off with another bad memory, and he didn't want to do that to any of his kids. They deserved a good memory with their grandparents...and Howard was being pretty decent so far. He could be civil too.

=====

To Tony and Stephen's surprise, Howard and Maria enjoyed spending every moment with the kids. Stephen at first kept an eye on them to make sure they didn't force any of their beliefs on them (or try to parent them in their own way), but he was able to relax after a little while. The older couple were content to spend time with the kids as grandparents usually did. Watching movies, playing games, cooking, and sharing each kid's hobbies.

Tony unfortunately couldn't spend much time with his parents because he had to fix the project Lucy had thrown the screwdriver at. He had to find a way to return his parents to their own time since he knew they didn't belong here. No matter how much he might have wanted them to stay and see how his life turned out.

Maybe they would go back to his seventeen-year-old self and tell him everything would work out okay. Even back then, Tony probably wouldn't listen to them, so he could see their attempt to reassure him being ignored.

It only took Tony a couple of days to fix the machine so that he could send his parents home. He let them, Stephen, and the kids know...and spent the rest of the night and up until the next afternoon with his parents. When it came time to take them back downstairs, they all went to say their final goodbyes.

"Do they have to go?" Diana pouts and Maria smiles as she pats her head.

"I know dear. It's unfair, but I'm glad we got to see you and your brothers and sisters." She says softly. "You be good for your mom and dad."

"I will."

Maria and Howard were quick to accept Stephen's role as the kids' mother once they explained how it started. How it started as a bit of a joke but overtime became serious...and then true when Diana was born. Of course they weren't used to it since their time was almost forty years prior, but even they knew anything could happen that far in the future. That things and people were becoming more open-minded.

"Thanks for teaching us some more of your recipes." Harley says, making Maria smile.

"Of course. I'm glad to see you enjoy cooking."

He shrugs. "Sometimes."

"Make sure you surpass your father." Howard says and Peter grins.

"We will."

After the kids finish saying their goodbyes -- and of course Lucy throws her teething ring at them -- Howard pulls Tony aside. Stephen watches with a raised eyebrow, but Tony subtly waves away his concern and the sorcerer turns his attention back to Maria and the kids.

"I'm glad to see you've done well for yourself." Howard says.

"For the company?" Tony asks.

His father sighs. "No. I'm glad to see that you have a family. A good one. Your children are all amazing and I'm not even talking about their potential." Tony looks at him in surprise but doesn't interrupt as Howard continues. "Your spouse...I don't know how things are in this time...but he's good for you. I…" he sighs. "I'm not good at this…"

"It's okay. I think I know what you're trying to say." Tony reassures. "I love him. I love my kids...and I would do anything to keep them safe. I have and I always will."

"I'm proud of you." Howard says softly. "I know our relationship wasn't the greatest, but I wanted to make sure you knew that. I doubt you need to know that or if you care--"

"Thank you." Tony says. "It means a lot."

"I'm glad we got to see you happy."

Tony felt just a tiny bit lighter after that when they rejoined the others. He hugged both of his parents goodbye, watched as his kids and Stephen did the same, and then booted up the machine that would send his parents back. Tony made sure Lucy didn't have anything that she could throw and make a mess of the machine again, and then finally hit the button. He looked at his parents as the machine hummed loudly, and returned the smile they gave him before they disappeared from sight and the machine powered down.

Stephen walks over to Tony as the kids head back upstairs, and wraps his arms around his neck. "Any regrets?"

"No."

Not at all.

[lune-hime]

Garden of Tulips (Levi/Reader) Tea Time #6

~Click me for more chapters~

“What did it look like?”

“Hmm?” Levi looked up from his place next to your sleeping form. “The titan that tried to snack on my darling granddaughter.” “Ugly as fuck.” “Aren’t they all?”

Levi recounts memories of the reader and their shared life together while she recovers from a serious injury.

!!WARNINGS!! - Violence, gore, smut, wholesome content ;)

So these little Tea Times were written as little filler-memory chapters to place in between the main story line.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Short and Sweet

↞♞♘↠

“Hey shorty have you finished signing off on these release forms?” Hange asked as she tapped into Levi’s office. Her question garnered crickets as he remained focused on his menial duties.

“Shortyyyy~?” She sang with a spring in her step as she entered and shut the large door. Levi paid as much attention to her as he did a fly perched upon his windowsill. He flipped over the last document and signed it.

“Captain short-stacks?” She prodded with an intricate skill at pressing his buttons.

“Fuck off shitty glasses.” He finally piped up aridly, his exhale ruffling the corners of his papers.

“I see you responded to the second one. I now endow you with this title-” Hange declared with a booming voice when a pen was thrown directly at her forehead. She barely caught it before impact and cackled at their childish antics.

“Oh come on, Levi. It’s a cute nickname for such a cutie patootie captain~” She cooed in an insanely sweet voice that made Levi feel like he was overdosing on rotten corn syrup.

“Coming from you, using me and cute in the same sentence is revolting. It would be a shame if I were to vomit on these documents.” He gagged in unamusement as he flicked his wrist which held the folder towards her. She gladly accepted it with a shit-eating grin.

“Well that wouldn’t hurt anyone other than yourself would it, shortkins?” She countered playfully. With the swiftness of a veteran scout, Hange poked Levi in the head with his pen and dodged out of range of any punches he could have thrown.

“Thanks Levi Shortyman, see you at breakfast!” She yelled over her shoulder as she skipped out of the room. Levi released his broiling irritation like a simmering kettle with a deep breath and attempted to rub the pet names out of his temple.  

After a strenuous day of training the new batch of cadets that ran from the crack of dawn to a little over an hour ago, you found yourself in the kitchen babysitting a kettle of hot water. Leaning against the counter, you rested your head in your hands as the gentle humming of the stove sang you a lullaby.

“There you are.” A low voice dragged you out of your temporary humid home. Turning your head, you lazily smiled at Levi and gave him a languid wave.

“Tired?” He asked rhetorically as he approached. You nodded once and picked your head up out of your palms.

“Who knew training 30 inexperienced teenagers would be this taxing.” You exhaled. He tutted his tongue and came to lean against the counter next to you, his lower back resting against the cool surface. He regarded you as what little vigor you had left drained out of your body and into the wiggling kettle. A part of him desired to uncross his arms, scoop up your deflated form, and let his shoulder support your sleeping head. Much to his frustration, not even your exchange of fresh confessions could not fully decimate his wall of, dare he admit, awkwardness.

Of course he was experienced in fleeting romances; physical indulgences that ended with snips of threads. But he was a virgin to this type of love. Every touch to you was precious and he felt himself overcalculating his motions.

“Now you know how tiresome it was to train your group of brats.” The jest within his tone warmed his otherwise impassed features.

“I guess everyone is a brat until they capture your heart, Levi.” You pouted slyly and gave his arm a weak poke.

“No one has but you, idiot.” The casual nature of his tone even surprised him with how fluidly it slipped out of his mouth. The strangeness of dewdrops on a newly bloomed petal curdled between the two of you. Thankfully the shrill whistling of the kettle overpowered any bumbling reply you could have generated.

“What kind are you making?” Levi cleared his throat as you doused the stove and moved the kettle off of the flame to cool.

“A batch of chamomile for Hange and I. English breakfast for Erwin and Mike-they still need the caffeine tonight-and of course earl gray for you.” You struggled to suppress a yawn as you recited the flavors. Levi felt his bones soften to jelly at your thoughtfulness.

“None of your special tea this evening.” He mused with disappointment in his tone. You admired the scrunch of his nose that you knew he was oblivious to.

“Nah, I ran out a few nights ago.” You hummed as you began laying out five cups on the counter.

“You didn’t grab the tea bags yet.” Levi stated. With a spry push-off, he strode over to one of the many cabinets that overhung the counter. You smiled in appreciation and turned back to the hot water.

A clanking followed by a dull thump brought your attention back to him. The scene unfolding next to you caused you to inhale sharply and inflate your cheeks with your impending laughter.

Tiptoes propelled him upward just short of firmly grasping the tea tins. Two out of the 3 tins had been acquired in the lower cabinets but the remaining one was perched on the highest one on the shelf. Levi bounced on his heels once in an attempt to stretch his spine longer but he gained only enough height to allow his fingers to brush the bottom of the wooden chamber.

You silently observed him struggle with guilty amusement. In candid moments like these he was just so… adorable . When he stretched again, the hem of his crisply ironed shirt rode up and the downy smooth skin of his hip peeked out. His raven locks bounced with his body and just barely shielded his deeply furrowed brow.

“Which one of those lanky ass trees put them up so high?” He grumbled under his breath.

You really tried to spare his dignity. You really did. But you couldn't keep away any longer as he wiggled upward.

As you padded over to the little ball of anger you comically frowned deeply to continue to quell your impending giggle. Honestly you couldn't blame him for not being able to reach. That cabinet was placed so annoyingly high that even you were only barely able to grasp its contents.

Levi immediately halted his movements when he noticed your presence at his side. His head swiveled sideways and met your gaze with a childish frustration.

Holy fuck don't laugh.

Your gentle nudge pushed Levi to the side with a stiffness in his form. He eyed you as nabbed the tea tin in a single hop.

“Shorty.” You teased with a fond smile that was devoid of anything but kitten-like affection. Leaning down, you pecked him on the lips just before your giggle broke free from its imprisonment. Then you snatched the tins and returned to your brewing station.

Levi remained camped out on the other side of the kitchen. He felt a bubbling warmth swarm his cheeks as his mind replayed your honeyed voice saying the nickname he could care less for.

But when you said it, so sweetly and lovely... walls he felt whipped.

"Aww-why does she not get sass for calling you shorty?" Hange whined from the doorway. Her sudden appearance only fueled your laughter as you placed the tea leaves in their respective cups and began showering them in a hot bath.

Levi scowled at the woman and brought a hand to rub his jawline, masquerading his rosy cheeks from her pointed view.

“Your fucking off time has not expired yet, Hange.” His warning was muffled as you handed your old squad leader her tea.

Levi learned an important lesson that day: he didn't mind being teased if it was by you.

Honorifics

↞♞♘↠

“I’ll make sure he reads through these, Armin.” You smiled sweetly at the boy and he nodded with a grin of his own. Levi’s eyes flitted from you to Armin in a wordless manifestation of ~is that all~ from his desk.

“Thank you, sir.” Armin saluted and politely slipped out of the door to Levi’s office. You sighed peacefully as silence fell between you two.

“I’ll admit there tends to be interesting plans that come out of that coconut hair.” Levi commented and placed the papers aside.

“Thank you for giving his ideas an extra look, Captain.” You said, masking your fledgling slyness with nonchalant innocence.

Levi suddenly felt like he was being waterboarded when that single word left your lips. His eyes narrowed as you rounded the corner of his desk and idly began flipping through Armin's plans.

"What did you just call me?" He pressed, feeling frozen as an alluring blend of bewilderment and desire swam through the ice of his surprise.

“What do you mean, sir?" You responded with a shrug. Your thumb preoccupied itself with the smoothness of the paper while your mind indulged itself in your fantasized musings.  

“That.” He emphasized his speech with a crispness of a seasoned officer.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, captain. Maybe you misheard me.” You continued with an added layer of heated sultriness. Levi's initial shock had dulled to a buzzing hum as the atmosphere between you switched from feigned innocence to dripping in lust.

You hadn’t addressed him with honorifics since you had been promoted to a squad leader. The double entendre and impish aura had his head swirling with an exhilarating dizziness of lust and vigor. Levi bit the inside of his cheek as he watched you discreetly press your thighs together, trying to keep yourself from seeming just as needy as he was beginning to feel.

And walls the way your eyelashes fluttered like a doe’s to the bashfulness of your posture was all so very- submissive. It excited Levi’s nerves and stirred his legs to twitch in anticipation of contact.

“Then why don’t you come over here and repeat yourself so I can hear you clearly.”

He pushed off the desk and swiveled in his chair to leave his lap exposed to you. You greeted his invitation with a smirk and painstakingly slowly made your way over to him. You grasped the arms of his chair and swung your legs over his, hovering over his lap for a moment to deprive him of his much desired contact. He almost let out a noise of frustration when you finally settled into him, smugly rocking your hips forward as you scooched into his chest.

“Can you hear me now, sir?” You cooed at the shell of his ear and gently nibbled on the soft flesh of his earlobe. He exhaled as your mouth moved southward.

Levi gulped. Your syrupy words and steamy breath began heating his insides from the nape of his neck. He felt himself twitch upward as your plush thighs once again rubbed against his straining erection.

A wave of satisfaction rushed through you when you felt how hard he was already. He wasn’t always very vocal in his desires as a lover. But with each passing day you became more intimate with what made him tick and could instantly tell he was beginning to enjoy this power play. He had been powerless over many things in his life, and in the most primal yet nurturing way, the thought of lording over you with pleasure drove him wild.

Levi felt like his body was screaming with this invigorating rush of arousal. It was a sensation you had given him countless times before. But the feeling of power that you were inflating into him blanketed him in a new rush of exhilaration that had butterflies flitting against his chest.

Quickly catching onto your plan to tease him, he was not going to let you get away with it. He was your captain , after all. He suddenly clasped your hips with a force that made you whimper. He adjusted you so that your hot core was pressed intoxicatingly close to the taught muscles of his thigh.

He regarded you, pupils dilated, as his hands forced you along the expanse of his thigh. Your hips instantly responded to his actions, rolling yourself against him as sparks began flying through you.

“Hmm. Is this what you wanted your captain to do?” Levi hummed lowly, bouncing his leg upward as he ground your hips harder onto him. Your lips detached from his neck as your head fell to his shoulder, the sweet friction making it hard to focus on anything else.

“I-dammit Levi I was the one who was supposed to seduce you.” You moaned breathily; a mixture of defeat and excitement as his movements further ignited your bundle of nerves.

“I’d say you were pretty successful.” Levi praised, leaning in to capture your wanton lips with his own. The kiss deepened to match the fervedity that glued you to one another. The sinfulness of the way your body gave into his guidance and the lingering awareness that the two of you had forgotten to lock the damn office door only fueled his rough touches.

“I still haven’t gotten an answer to my question, brat.” He reluctantly broke away, humming with a hungry gravel as he squeezed your ass with passionate intent.

When you didn’t answer, Levi tightened his hold and rocked his hip so fluidly that you felt like you were caught in a current of bliss. Both of you were drowning in the heavy petting; you relishing in the pleasurable friction that his muscular thigh brought your clothed core and him feeling your wetness through his trousers as he brought you teetering over the edge with just a flick of his leg and a roll of his hips.

Your plan had instantly backfired, and although you were the antithesis of complaining, it felt lewd to express your desires aloud. But by the way his eyes bore into yours, dripping with metallic lust and silently commanding you to tell him made you whimper and grind against him with even more desperation.

“Tell me.” Levi huskily instructed, immediately halting his flow and keeping you agonizingly still. Your legs were softly shaking at the loss of contact, hands balling the fabric at his shoulders.

Electric tendrils bounced freely in the space between you as you looked down at him, your chest heaving and panting.

Wordlessly your hand reached for his. Your intertwined palms moved up your torso, brushed over your breasts, and stopped at your neck. Levi felt your rapid pulse point under his thumb and his own heartbeat became erratic. His eyes widened at your bold move.

His grip lay loose, hesitant against the sensitive area. Hurting you, especially accidentally, was the last thing he wanted to do. As a child he saw how his mother was mistreated, cast aside and abused by hungry men. But the way your teeth toyed with your plush lips and your eagerness to retake your spot on his thigh caused blood to rush from his head down to his cock. You gave him a willing smirk. If you wanted him like this he would gladly give it to you.

“Make me cum.” Your voice oozed with silken demand while your neck craned to expose the smooth flesh to his palm.

And just like that, the electricity crackled.

Levi slammed you back down onto him and guided you at a heavenly pace while his other hand applied pressure to your neck. He almost came himself as he watched you unfold on the precipice of your ecstasy; writhing in pleasure under his control and using him to chase your orgasm beneath his grip.

You didn’t need to vocalize with words that you were close for Levi to know. The nectarous moans of his name and the erratic nature of your thrusts were sensory overload for him as he unbuttoned your pants.

In exchange for slowing his pace a bit, he slipped his free hand into your underwear. He reveled in your high-pitched gasp when his coarse fingertips made contact with your clit. The combined warmth and pressure from Levi's hands on opposite ends of your body catapulted you into your orgasm as you rutted against his thigh. Your vocal cords vibrated in sensuous moans against his constraint.

As you recovered from being perched on your high, he brushed his thumb lightly up your neck and let it rest along your cheek. He peered at you dazed in the afterglow of want and appreciation. Teasingly, he wiggled his fingers over your over-sensitive clit and chuckled in amusement when you squirmed in place. With a delicate sweep that would put a painter to shame, he drew his hand out of your pants. The velvety knot recoiled in your stomach when Levi brought his slick fingers to his lips and sighed in contentment.

Oh you were so ready to wipe that beautiful smirk off of his face and reclaim what you rightfully started.

Your arms drew along the expanse of his arms, sliding you down and out of his lap until your knees pressed onto the chilled wood floor. Levi’s eyes trailed yours as you slithered downward, argent orbs darkening when you palmed his straining crotch.

You wasted no time in unbuttoning his pants and releasing his cock from its confines. His eagar member was glossy with precum, revealing just how much you had riled him up. Your tongue started at the base, licking a hot streak languidly up his shaft and swirling your strokes when you reached the tip.

Levi released a heavy breath when your mouth took him fully. As your head bobbed along his length, not once did he drop his head back as the pleasure began to build. Through his panting, lip-toying, nostril flaring, and eventual groan of euphoria, the molten silver within his eyes occupied your gaze. You watched as his brow knitted and features contorted in rhapsody all while his commanding focus lay unwavered. The forge fire raging in them held your head to him and made you flush under their intensity as you swallowed and released him from your mouth.

“I wish I had called you captain earlier.” You winked up at him, a blissful half smile forming on his features.

“Be careful what you wish for.” He chuckled and leant you his hand to help you up off of the ground.

[badwriting-baddesicions]

TO DO

masterlist

ATEEZ:

Altar Boys Altered Boys (We’re The Thing Love Destroys) - WooSan

Aurora - 2Ho

Baby Baby You’re A Carmel Macchiato - San

Because I Met You I Draw A Bigger Picture - ATEEZ

(Don’t You Know I’m A) Boss That Leads You - WooSanSang

But You Won’t Do The Same - San

Dancing Like Butterfly Wings - WooSanSang

Do You Wanna Run Away Too? (All I Really Want Is You) - Hongjoong

Forever Fight As One - Seonghwa

I Will Become The Spring To Your Smiles - Mingi

Lonely Hearts - Mingi

Maybe You’ll Love Yourself (Like I Love You) - Hongjoong

Moments Like This - SanGi

One Day at a Time - ATEEZ

Pirate King - SeongJoong

Soon May The Wellerman Come -Yeosang

Spare Me What You Think (Tell Me A Lie) - SeongJoong

Star 1117 - SeongJoong

Sunrise - WooSanHwa

THANXX - ATEEZ

Think You’re Ready For The Monster Monster - JongSan

This Is Our Fate, I’m Yours - SanGi

Twilight - WooSan

Wave - YunGi

We Will Make This Love Together - San

Where’d You Wanna Go? How Much You Wanna Risk? - WooSanHwa

Wonderland - SanGi

(Roger That) Yes Sir I’ll Protect Them - Jongho

Your Red Lipstick - Wooyoung

You’re Not A Constant Star - SeongJoong

BIGBANG:

Monster - G-Dragon

We’re Classic Together (Like Egyptian Gold) - G-Dragon

BTS:

Agust D - Suga

Angel or Devil (What Should I Choose?) - Jimin

Best Years - TaeGiKook

Blood, Sweat & Tears - TaeJin

Don’t Leave - TaeGi

Dynamite - VMinKook

Euphoria - Jungkook

Filter - Jimin

Get The Ink, Get The Pen (Let’s Sign It) - J-Hope

Home - RM

How Did We End Up Here? - TaeGi

I Just Wanna Give You Love - VKook

I Want To Write You A Song - YoonKook

It’s Where My Demons Hide - BTS

Just One Day - YoonKook

Lights - TaeJin

Magic Shop - NamJin

Mikrokosmos -KookMin

My Feet Don’t Dance Like They Did With You - JinKook

My Heart’s Already Breaking (Go On Twist The Knife) - TaeGi

Play Pretend - Suga

Plz Don’t Be Sad - Suga

Pretty Words (On The Tip Of My Tongue) - VMinKook

Save ME - VKook

Speed Demon - VKook

That Should Be Me (Holding Your Hand) - YoonKook

The Truth Untold - Taegi

They Say Love Is Pain (Let’s Hurt Tonight) - V

Too Bad (But It’s Too Sweet) - V

We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal - BTS

Welcome To The House of Fun - TaeJin

What Can I Do? - VMin

Yo Ho Ahoy and Avast - KookMin

You and I (We Don’t Wanna Be Like Me) - VMinKook

Zero O’Clock - HopeKook

EXO:

2nd Grade (Maths Problems) - Baekhyun

Baby Don’t Cry - Chanyeol

Be Combative or Be Sweet Cherry Pie - BaekYeol

Blooming Day - Chen

Don’t Go - Tao

Heaven Knows I’m Falling (I Can Never Be The Same) - Kai

I Can’t Stand The Rain - XiuBaek

I Just Hit The Lotto - Kai

It Will Wet Your Wings - KaiBaek

Lost In Reality -Tao

Lotto - Lay

Moonlight - LuChen

My Answer - XiuChen

Peter Pan - Tao

Ring-a-Ring O Rosie (Whoever Gets The Closest) - Kai

She’s In A Long Black Coat Tonight - Chen

The Moonlight Fills Your Eyes - ChanKai

The One - Xiumin

Twenty Four - ChanKai

Unfair - Baekhyun

Wolf - Lay

GOT7:

I Wish I Was (Beside You) - Jackson

Just Right - BamBam

Miracle - Jinyoung

School Life (Again Today) - BamBam

Take A Sip From My Secret Potion - JB

(Remember All The Memories) The Fireflies and Make Believe - BamBam

HIGHLIGHT:

Prince Charming (Ridicule Is Nothing To Be Scared Of) - Gikwang

iKON:

I Feel So Right Doing The Wrong Thing - Bobby Monsta X: I Will Borrow The Skies - Jooheon. This Way, That Way, Forwards, Backwards (Over The Irish Sea) - Wonho

NCT:

All My Moments Want You - MarkHyuck

And I Still Want You - LuMark

Assemble - Lucas

Baby Don’t Like It - MarkHyuck

Baby Don’t Stop - Tae Ten

Baby We Two Distant Strangers - Yuta

Born To Be Wild - Haechan

BOSS - LuWoo

But My Heart Goes - Lucas

Candle Light - MarkSung

Can’t Even Talk, Still Stuttering - LuWoo

Complete - LuWin

Daisy Daisy (Give Me Your Answer Do) - Jaemin

Dance Around The Living Room (Lose Me In The Sight Of You) - JohnTenKun

Dear DREAM - NCT DREAM

Dream A Little Dream Of Me - LuWoo

Dream Glow - Yangyang

Drifting, Drifting, Drifting - Jungwoo

Everything Has Changed - Ten

Everything I Didn’t Say - NCT

Fireflies - NoMin

Fly Away With Me - MarkHyuck

Fool’s Gold - YuWinIl

Goodnight Sweetheart - Jeno

Grow Up - TaeTen

Hakuna Matata - LuWin

Hello Future - Renjun

Hold Me In Your Arms Tonight - MarkYong

Home - WayV

Howling At The Moon - JohnTen

Hugs and Kisses - Johnny

I Can’t Stop My Hand From Shaking - Jungwoo

(I’m Waking Up) I Feel It In My Bones - Taeyong

I Hate This After Dark - Mark

I Have Loved You Since We Were 18 - JaeYong

I Hear Them Coming For You - Jaemin

I Tend To Glow When You Are By My Side - NCT

I Want To Write You A Song - RenLe

If I Ask You If You Love Me (Lie To Me) - Jaemin

If I Could Fly - TaeTen

I’ll Be Right Here Beside You For Life - ChenJi

I’ll Be Your Genie - NoMin

I’ll Make This Feel Like Home - Shotaro

I’m A Wolf and You’re A Beauty - Jaehyun

I’m Giving Up On You (Say Something) - NoRenMin

I’ve Never Seen You In The Daylight - Jungwoo

Kick It - Taeyong

Killing Me - Yuta

La La Love - RenHyuck

Long Way Home - MarkHyuckWoo

Lost - Yangyang

Love Talk - TenWin

Lover of Mine - Winwin

Make A Wish - Shotaro

Misfit - Sungchan

Most Nights I Hardly Sleep When I’m Alone - Haechan

Music, Dance - Sungchan

My First and Last - MarkNo

My Flower - Haechan

My Heart Is Blind (But I Don’t Care) - MinSung

New Heroes - Ten

No Longer - Taeil

Not Alone - JohnMark

Of Guns and Roses - Renjun

Perche Tu Stasera Sei Perfetta Per Me - Mark

Punch - JohnJae

Puzzle Piece - NCT DREAM

Remember When I Broke You Down To Tears - RenMarkHyuck

Requiem - Jisung

Ridin - NoMinSung

Smooth Like A, Like A Snake - Doyoung

SOMEONE’S SOMEONE - Kun

Stop. Rewind. Turn Back Time - Winwin

Superhuman - YuMark

Take Off - LuWin

The Internet Is Great - TenWin

The Sun Will Shine Through - Ten

This Is Halloween - Taeyong

Till The Love Runs Out - Shotaro

TOUCH - MarkYong

Touch Me When The Sun Goes Down - NoRenMin

Wait For Me To Come Home - LuWooMark

Waited For Your Reply (Here In The Pouring Rain) - SungTaro

We Almost Rolled The Dice - Winwin

We Got That (Power) - Jaehyun

What Can I Do? - Jisung

Whatever It Take - JaeYong

WHO DO U LOVE? - YuWin

Wildflower - Haechan

With Great Power - Winwin

With You - Mark

You and I Go Hard At Each Other (Like We Going To War) - Chenle

You Are My Soulmate(s) - MarkHyuckHei

(This Is Our Sanctuary) You Are Safe With Me - ChenJi

You Became My Crown - MarkYong

You’ll Find Me In The Region Of The Summer Stars - Jaehyun

You’re My Everything - Kun

You’re The One I Want For Christmas - Xiaojun

You’re Unfair - TenWin

ONEUS:

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Jingle All The Way - Hwanwoong

Princely Duties - Hwanwoong

Spooky Scary Skeletons - Ravn

Stay Oh (Baby Touch Me) - Hwanwoong

SEVENTEEN:

A Tiger Inside - SoonHoon

Call Call Call! - Hoshi

Extreme Musical Statues - JiGyu

Fallin Flower - JunHao

Fear - Meanie

Giving All My Secrets Away - MingSoon

Home - Dino

How Can I Love You? (If You Don’t Talk To Me) - SoonHoon

Hug - SoonHoon

I’m A Lost Boy - Woozi

Lay You Head On Me - Joshua

Love Letter - JiGyu

My My - Woozi

Smile Flower - Woozi

Snap Shoot - 2JiCheol

Splish Splash - Hoshi

Titanium - Meanie

SHINee:

Cafe Latte - Taemin

Good Evening - Onew

I Growl At You - Taemin

I Will Fight, I Will Fight For You - Taemin

Lucifer - JongTae

Our Page - Jonghyun

Witch - Taemin

SPEED:

Welcome To The Circus - Sungmin

Stray Kids:

A Sign of the Times - Felix

Astronaut - Bang Chan

Authorized Personnel Only (Back Door) - ChanLix

BEWARE - Bang Chan

Burger and Sandwich, Coffee and Tea - ChangLix

District 9 - Lee Know

Finders Keepers Losers Weepers - Bang Chan

I Need Someone - Seungmin

I Want To Breathe You In Like A Vapour - I.N

I’m Sorry (My Handwriting Isn’t Pretty) - ChangLix

Insomnia - ChanLix

I’ve Been To The Year 3000 - 2Chan

Levanter - Han

Little Steps - Han

My Side - Felix

Never Ending Story - JiLix

Please Baby Get Away From Me (I’m Poison) - Changbin

Spaces Between Us - Lee Know

The Story of My Life - 3RACHA

We’re Not Alright But I’ll Pretend - Felix

SuperM:

Better Days - KaiMark

Big Chance - TaemTen

(When I’m With You) Danger Seems Like A Good Thing - TaeKai

Even When I Lose I’m Winning - TaeKai

Please Excuse My Writing - TaemTen

The Only Heaven I’ll Be Sent To - KaiMark

Tiger Inside - SuperM

To You In The Distant Future - SuperM

Who Do You Love? (Is It Him or Me?) - KaiMark

Yeah Superhuman! - TaemTen

TXT:

0x1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You) - Yeonjun

Blue Hour - Yeonjun Dubaddu Wari Wari - Taehyun

Flip It On Me Say I Think Too Much - Huening Kai I Know I Could Lie (But I’m Telling The Truth) - Taehyun I Know I Love You - Yeonjun I Know You Don’t Give Two Fucks - Beomgyu (Sorry) I’m An Antiromantic - TaeGyu I’m A Loser - Soobin Loving You Is A Losing Game - Yeonjun

Magic - TXT

Oh My God (He’s A Really Bad Boy) - Yeonjun PUMA - TXT

Run Away - Huening Kai

Running Down To The Riptide - Huening Kai Small Town Boy (In A Big Arcade) - YeonBin

VIXX:

Fantasy - Neo

Hyde - LR

On and On - Leo

Thank You For My Love - Leo

Series:

The Power Within - Baekyeol

1-MAMA 2-POWER 3-OVERDOSE 4-LUCKY ONE 5-MONSTER FINALE-OBSESSION

[cass-watson]

⋆ ⠀⠀⠀࿐ྃ ▸ ; ⠀ [ crystal reed. human/feeder. 36. Bisexual. cisfemale. ] was that just CASSANDRA WATSON, I saw coming out of THE GYM? the SELF-DEFENSE INSTRUCTOR is best to be described as + INDEPENDENT, but pronouns could also be - RECKLESS and as well as being previously unmarked they can easily be noticed by RUNNING HEADFIRST TOWARDS THE DANGER, LIVING WITHIN HER MEANS, DENIM JACKETS, as well as THE HEAD OF MEDUSA, which has only just appeared. @lovebitestarter

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Alcoholism, Mentions of Infidelity, Mentions of drug use, Mentions of overdose, Mentions of Physical, Verbal, and Emotional Abuse (None of it is explicit or heavily touched upon beyond a sentence or two, but it is still there) [[If anyone cannot read this due to the triggers let me know and I will give you the short version! I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to force themselves to read something that’s potentially triggering.]]

About You

My name is Damian and I live in the cst timezone. I’m twenty-five, currently working from home, and have two dogs of my own. I am open to any kinds of plotting! Currently my discord is not setup so for now the best way to reach me via tumblr messenger. The biggest plot I am looking for is for a vampire who Cass is the personal feeder for! Other than that I enjoy drinking iced tea and knitting while listening to podcasts.

— *    ⟢ 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕤 !

full name: Cassandra Ann Watson

species: human

age: thirty-six

date of birth: april 19, 1987

hometown: everett, washington

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: bisexual

+ likes: working out, yoga, going for walks with her dog, autumn, cooking, gardening - dislikes: people who get into her business, the ocean, heights, coffee, mustard

positive traits: Independent, Courageous, Protective, Dependable

negative traits: Reckless, Impatient, Impulsive, Possessive

hobbies: Archery, Yoga, Cooking, Gardening, Trying various new foods

fears: The Ocean, Heights, Being Cheated On

Biography

You were born in a town in Washington. To two high school sweethearts who loved each other and they loved you. The apple of their eye. Doting on you, supporting you, you walked with them hand in hand. And when your family grew bigger that just meant more love and attention to go around. You loved your siblings, even if they did not resemble you or your father, your mother told you that meant god wished for your family to be as colorful as a rainbow.

You are a child no longer

Your childhood was a lie. A lie you would not see until you were finally old enough to understand. Your father is an alcoholic and when he’s not out on the job he’s at the bar, you rarely see him sober. Your mother got pregnant in high school and the year you were born was the year she dropped out, to raise you. She reminds you constantly that if it weren’t for you her life would be better. Your siblings, whom you love so dearly do not have the same father as you or each other. Your mother sleeps with other men a lot. Sometimes she’s doesn’t come home. On those nights it’s up to you to take care of the home, of your family. You are more of a parent than your own parents ever will be.

You cannot escape their claws

When you graduated high school it was with honors. You were almost valedictorian. You wanted to be more than your parents were and more than they thought you would be. You get accepted into the college of your dreams on full scholarship. There is nothing that is stopping you from finally achieving your goals. In your first year, only a few months in and you get a phone call. Your father beat up your mother and her current secret lover pretty bad. Both are in the hospital, your father in jail. Your mother begs you to come home. She needs you. You drop everything and move back home. To take care of your family again. Your mother tries to be better, do better now that your father isn’t around but she falls back into old habits. She tells you that with you back home where you belong and your father in jail she can do what she wants. You are left back at square one.

You love so much but who will love you

You are now turning twenty and working at the local diner, trying to make ends meet. Your brother picks up a job after school and your sister watches your two youngest siblings while you’re at work. There is a guy your age at the diner. His name is Derek and he washes the dishes, maybe even cooks if the diner is short staffed. He flirts with you often and you just roll your eyes with a smile. You have no time for dating or flings. But one night you both work late. You both talk as you work and for once you felt seen, all your issues, your baggage is accepted. You feel lighter than you have in years. You decide to go on one date with him. It turns into two that turns into more. You are in love, truly in love and you tell yourself that this is will last. Through the rose colored glasses you don’t see him breaking your heart until it is too late. Another woman is in his bed and you see red. You want to murder him, no you want to hurt him like he hurt you and it takes everything you are to not do it. Instead you break the nearest thing he owns, you slash his tires, you make sure he knows that you will kill him if you see him again. 

You don’t let yourself cry

Four years later and you set foot into Everwinter for the first time. You had to get away, you needed a fresh start. You needed to bring yourself happiness for once. And the first couple of years go by fine. Until, almost like deja vu you get another dreaded phone call. Your mother overdose on her pills. She’s in the hospital. She needs you. It is like you are back in college. Like your mother has you like a puppet on strings that she tugs when she thinks you’ve been happy for too long. This time is different. You are not returning home this time. You are not giving up the life you are finally building for yourself. You tell her in no uncertain terms that you will be sending money each month to your brother, he will use it to take care of the family as he sees fit. Your mother will not get direct access to it. Unless she once and for all gets better, does better, actions speak louder than words. When you hang up that phone you feel like a puppet who cut its strings. And you feel good.

You broke the water’s surface and finally draw breath

You spend a year with your feeder buddy before you become an official feeder. The first vampire who employs you is for the most part nice and that’s it. Neither of you try to become friends and that is fine for you. Few years with them then you are employed by a different vampire, your current employer. They’re different. They talk to you before they feed, sometimes even chat afterwards. At first you are guarded however they have a knack for wearing you down. You’re not the biggest fan of your job but the money is nothing to sneeze at and your employer doesn’t care that you send all your earnings back home. You don’t have a use for such luxury. Life is good, you are content.

Your mark appears and the water begins to ripple

———

Other Info

Has a 3 year old blue nose pitbull named Maggie that tends to be at her side at all hours of the day. Cassandra loves her and doesn’t think she would have gotten through the past couple of years without her. (image)

She is bisexual, leans towards men/masculine presenting people.

Is a Self Defense Instructor at a local gym. However due to also being a feeder she just gives verbal instructions while using her coworkers as visual aids.

Speaks English and German fluently. Does have a basic understanding of ASL. Currently learning Spanish.

Does not take cheating well at all. If she is in a relationship with someone or with two others then she expects it to be exclusive. She does not share.

———

Wanted Connections

Cassandra’s Current Vampire Employer: either gender or non-gender. She has been a feeder since turning twenty-six and they would be her current vampire employer, possibly only been feeding from her for at most five years or so. They have a not quite friend but not strictly business relationship. They would know that Cassandra sends all the money she earns to her parent and siblings.

Cassandra’s friends: either new or old friends though she has a difficult time keeping up with her friends and isn’t proud that she sometimes leaves them on read. Has been trying her darndest to do better and do right by her friends, hanging out a lot more. 

———

species

Cassandra is a human through and through, she can’t imagine being anything else. Living forever or being stronger does not hold much appeal to her.

The potential that she is bonded to a different species is terrifying. But the idea of her being bonded to anyone is terrifying to her.

Vampires: she feels neutral about vampires as a whole. Her vampire employer isn’t too bad. However she is often warned by other feeders that most rogue vampires, and those of the Malkavian Clan are practically evil incarnate while they consider the Menesis Clan heroes. Cass knows that like humans even vampires are not black and white.

Witches: she does not hold much opinion on witches. To her they seem the closest to humans, if you just think of it from a mortality perspective. Each witch is vastly different from each other so most of her opinions are based on individuals.

———

soulmarks

Cassandra is terrified of being bonded to someone or someones. She does not want it to become another string to control her like her mother did. Or another Derek situation. If she can avoid it she will and is somewhat grateful the mark is in an easy to hide spot.

Getting her mark only recently Cassandra knows, at least assumes the person she’s bound to is a vampire. At least one of them is. She feels pulled in more than one direction.

She does not plan to let her mark disrupt her life. Hopefully. She is trying her best. Cassandra focuses on her two jobs and her dog.

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

tagged by @brynnmck​ and @twelvemonkeyswere​, thank you!!

What is the colour of your hairbrush? just plain black

Name a food you never eat: Quite a few because I have weird tastebuds, but mushrooms for the texture, and any kind of peppers basically taste like poison to me, bleugh

Are you typically too warm or too cold? always too cold until it gets humid, and then I basically cease to function

What were you doing 45 minutes ago? Zoom yin yoga :) Although, admittedly I took ten minutes out halfway through because my sister did a video chat so we could see my niece dancing...

What’s your favourite candy bar? I don’t tend to buy candy bars as such any more, but probably Snickers or a Mars Bar? 

Have you ever been to a professional sports game? I’ve spent my entire life avoiding being dragged into any of my dad’s many sports obsessions, so nope. Although I’ve ended up at point to point racing a couple of times, does that count? And then there was a very fun rodeo when we were in Montana.. I mean, define sports?

What was the last thing you said out loud? Probably thank you to my yoga teacher over zoom (it always feels weird doing Ommmms and namaste when you’re in a room by yourself before that, but that’s yoga for ya)

What is your favourite ice cream? Haagen Dazs Pralines & Cream, but it’s never ever on sale so I always end up with their salted caramel instead.  I used to have an obsession with Ben & Jerry’s Totally Nuts but you can never find it anywhere these days...

What was the last thing you had to drink? Coke I think? Or tea? I forget to eat or drink a lot when I’m working from home

Do you like your wallet? I do! My mama bought it for me years ago and it’s got cute different coloured leather linings (except we call it a purse over here lol!)

What was the last thing you ate? Clam chowder soup and crackers I think? I was in a random soup buying phase in Waitrose last week apparently...

Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? I haven’t bought any clothes since March, because of the obvious.. I do keep finding bags of clothes I misplaced during the move last year, so honestly I don’t need anything. I just like buying stuff!

What’s the last sporting event you watched? Yesterday I sat through highlights of... four different 2015 F1 races but I kept falling asleep. I definitely saw Austen and Japan and then Sochi because I yelled at @ajoblotofjunk​ about the hats. And about Putin showing up...

What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? sweet and salt mixed!

Who is the last person you sent a text message to? an actual text message rather than what’s app... My dad, to tell him someone we knew had died...!

Ever go camping? Ha! So very many times. I HATE IT. I HATE IT SO MUCH. I am the worst camper in the history of the world and I have been forced to camp so many times and it’s always been an unmitigated disaster. The only way we could afford to do our six week road trip across the US in 2010 was to camp for a lot of it, and I basically drove 200 miles a day and didn’t sleep for weeks on end. Rednecks, stray dogs, bear country, hailstorms in Montana (when we ended up stranded in a laundry room for most of the night with more rednecks (they wore tshirts saying they were rednecks, so, whatever - they were very nice and very confused by us), sprinklers, noisy roads, food poisoning, impromptu hippy guitar parties at the next tent over, a weird dude who joined us at our campfire in Klamath and proceeded to tell really tall tales about 9/11 for so long we missed going orca spotting (oh and the fact the Klamath site was washed away by a tsunami in the 50s and I got paranoid about that happening again. Did I mention I was very tired?)

Do you take vitamins? All of them in great quantities... well, a general supplement with mega doses of B complex and iron and starflower oil and D3 (and then I top that up with a D3 mouthspray because it’s more easily absorbed and virtually impossible to overdose on, and I have barely seen the sun for weeks). The gelatin capsule also does wonders for your fingernails...

Do you go to church every Sunday? Nope, which isn’t really unusual for the UK to be fair. Having said that, I live in a town full of churches that’s also named after the 13th century church down the road from me, and has a lot of active church communities. Just not my thing.

Do you have a tan? I am the factor 30 every single day girl, I kinda hate the sun. Having said that, after we did six weeks driving California, NV, Utah, Arizona and NM... I was definitely looking very freckled and slightly less the colour of milk?

Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? Pizza. I need to go buy some pizza shortly (and eat it in the bath, which is my current lockdown friday night routine)

Do you drink your soda through a straw? I probably should do that more because my teeth are falling to bits and my dentist yells at me, but usually only if it’s served in a takeaway cup with a straw

What colour socks do you usually wear? Black as much as possible (although I have bed socks in all kinds of freaky colours)

Do you ever drive above the speed limit? I mean? I don’t drive so much these days, but I am terribly impatient and driving fast is more fun (if you can do it safely). I used to happily hit 100mph on the regular when I had a more powerful car and was commuting back to university twenty years ago. I’m not gonna jinx anything by saying I have always been lucky to drive safely, but I’ve only been stopped once for speeding in two decades, and I got out of that without a ticket (it was 5am on an empty dry road and I asked nicely).

What terrifies you? So very many things, I’d rather not dwell on them? Losing my job (and therefore everything propping up my life) in the current climate. Spiders. Tsunamis. Claustrophia is a BIG thing for me.

Look to your left. What do you see? The abstract painting one of my very talented friends did, and the very pretty pink fake orchid one of my other lovely friends gave me as a housewarming present.

What chore do you hate most? All of them? Washing dishes SO MUCH.

What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Depends on the context? The Aussie guys I work with (who are a nightmare to schedule meetings around because Sydney is So Far Away), whichever former Aussie soap star popped up recently (Jason Donovan is doing a new Cadbury’s advert and it’s super weird), my family in Perth my mum was talking about calling today...

What’s your favourite soda? it’s almost impossible to get decent soda in the UK any more since the sugar tax kicked in, so Cherry Coke, but I have to go to great efforts to hunt it down these days.

Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru?  I’m currently minus a car (but also minus any fast food places being open lol!). Mostly go in...

What’s your favourite number? 42 (and not for Douglas Adams related reasons, weirdly enough)

Who’s the last person you talked to? My sisters and my 18 month old niece, we did a videochat when I was supposed to be in my yoga class!

Favourite cut of beef? Filet, cooked properly (i.e, still mooing)... Having said that, I’ll happily eat steak tartare if it’s on offer

Last song you listened to? I’ve just listened to Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley on a loop for twenty minutes (mostly because I was checking my AO3 stats and I have a fic named for one of the lines in that). Also notable for being the first song played in the first ever ep of Gray’s Anatomy... 😂😂

Last book you read? Probably the very battered Tennyson poetry looking sad next to me on the couch

Favourite day of the week? Saturday

Can you say the alphabet backwards? I... probably? why you’d want to, I’m not entirely sure?

How do you like your coffee? I loathe coffee, weird tastebuds lol!!

Favourite pair of shoes? I have a pair of black jeweled embroidered mary janes with heels that I bought for a Christmas party when I was 19, and I still wear them now two decades later. It’s gonna break my heart when they finally die...

Time you normally get up? Ugh. I have not been sleeping well and it’s all over the place. I haven’t been in the office properly for six months now, so 7ish if it’s a good day. I used to set my alarm for 6am when I was commuting, but I also went through a phase of waking up at 5am every morning Just Because. I’ll still probably wake up by 7am if I got to bed at 3am, my body clock is not doing well these days.

Sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets! If I’m looking out at a sunrise, something is seriously wrong lol!!

How many blankets are on your bed? The duvet and... two blankets? And two blankets on the couch downstairs for when I end up sleeping there..!

Describe your kitchen plates. Still the crappy white Ikea plates I bought when I moved out to live on my own three years ago. Two of them are seriously starting to crack and at some point I have to be a goddamn adult and buy a dinner service.

Describe your kitchen at the moment. Stuff EVERYWHERE. Only one of the orchids is living there at the moment so I remember to mist it regularly. But my brain basically has no object permanence, so unless stuff lives on the kitchen counters, I tend to forget it exists (or to eat it)

Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? Innis & Gunn beer (brewed in whisky barrels) and First Cape Merlot (and god I love dessert wines and PX sherry but they make me so sick)

Do you play cards? Nope, I hate games of all descriptions :)

What colour is your car? Currently non-existent. Need to buy one when this current madness eases up...

Do you know how to change a tire? Nope, honestly, what’s the point when you pay so much for a breakdown service to do it for you.

Your favourite state? Oh god... Oregon? Maine? Bits of California? Vermont? Tennessee? North Carolina? I couldn’t live in the US in a million years but I’ve been there an awful lot.

Favourite job you’ve had? I don’t know that any of my jobs have been a favourite as such - I’ve worked with people I liked and done some interesting stuff. My current job pays enough I can afford rent and has some fantastic health cover (they have to, mostly because the work causes so many nervous breakdowns, idk?)

How did you get your biggest scar? I lost most of the skin on one knee after running for a train and tripping up, and then not getting it cleaned properly and basically I had gravel emerging for months on end.. it was not nice. I’ve got worse and more annoying scars from being bitten but they’re definitely not as big.

Tagging, if you want to do it: @beesreadbooks @djeli-beybi @serhumfreysbrokencollarbone @couragethecowardlygirl @unadulteratedkr @tawktomahawk and anyone else who feels like doing this! :)

[sl-walker]

Preview

The air was still a little chilly as the city shook off night and headed into daylight, but despite not being dressed for it, Tally didn't really feel it.

"Mountain medicine?" he asked, incredulously. "Surgeon trained in the best medical schools in the galaxy and you used mountain medicine?"

Dawn was breaking over Aldera in pastel blues and golds; somehow, they had ended up out in the Royal Gardens surrounding the palace, pacing the tended paths and surrounded by the late spring flowers.  Before the pre-dawn glow had even come into the sky, Zan had taken him to an early-opening caf-and-tea shop called Turn Another Leaf on the boulevard that led to said palace, and had bought him a cup of herbal tea (citing that caffeine was the last thing he needed after his stim-overdosing) and the conversation hadn't paused but for that.

Now, Zan wagged a finger, grinning sheepishly. "I didn't use mountain medicine, Frayus did.  I just had it two-day shipped from my family on Talus and explained it to him once he asked me what I would suggest; we keep a stock there, imported from Iridonia.  I figured that your lieutenant probably hadn't been exposed to it, and he wouldn't have built up any tolerance to it, so it might do what it was originally used for."

The first thing they had done was circle each other in conversation, revealing bits and pieces back and forth.  Zan had apparently been a surgeon on Drongar, assigned to an RMSU, a pilot program that was quickly discontinued when the cost of maintaining the mobile surgical units and provisioning them became higher than just letting clone medics do what they could in the hopes of them eventually making it to a medical center.

Because, in the cold calculus of war, it turned out it was cheaper to let badly wounded clones die and be replaced than maintain dedicated on-planet facilities to keeping them alive.

Before that had happened, though, he'd had his hands inside the bodies of hundreds of Tally's brothers, while the GAR tried to protect the very expensive 'medical miracle' called bota.  Tally remembered some talk about it; it had been a cure-all, until a retrovirus introduced by someone -- no one even knew which side or if it was an outside group, everyone disclaimed responsibility -- had altered its genetic structure, making it permanently unusable and nothing more than a prolific weed.  Having no monetary investment to protect anymore, both sides abandoned Drongar.

"Someone reported me for using it on patients, back when it still worked -- troops and natural born soldiers -- and it turned into a mess," had been Zan's explanation, when it was still dark and they'd only just gotten started, and while that wasn't enough to win Tally's trust fully, his estimation of the zabrak went up several fold anyway.  Because bota was so expensive and coveted that of course it was for the rich and powerful civilians and not the people dying and bleeding to protect it; that Zan went against that (and paid for it) definitely was enough to catch Tally's attention and tentative admiration.  "I come from a wealthy, powerful family; they would have made an example of me if I hadn't.  Still, I was disgraced; I escaped criminal charges of treason and theft, but I was thrown out of the army and stripped of my accreditation in the civilian sector.  I had to pay back my wages, lousy as those were."  He had shaken his head there, heaving out a heavy-sounding sigh. "I'm good enough with a quetarra to live well, but--"

"Do you miss it?" Tally had asked, pointedly.

"I didn't think I would, but yeah."  Zan had held out his hands, fingers splayed, looking down at them. "At first, I was just relieved to get away without a criminal record, and to get away from the blood and gore and misery of the front lines, but-- yeah, I miss it.  Not war, but being a doctor.  Medicine.  Surgery."

In between all but interrogating Zan, Tally revealed little bits and pieces of how he knew what he did; it wasn't until they had been talking for awhile that he realized Zan was letting him get away with not ponying up an equal amount of information, and while that made him wary, he was kind of grateful for it, too.

Now, most of Zan's history was out in the open and the talk had turned to current medicine; in this case, a mountain flower native to Iridonia called rasash.  Because it was the first time Tally had ever had a doctor and a zabrak to prod for information and there was only so far that medical texts could take him.

"How'd you know that it would work on a hybrid?" he asked, plunking himself down to sit on a bench and finishing the dregs of his herbal tea; he'd gotten rid of the headache, but he could still feel his own exhaustion.

"I didn't, but even if it didn't work, it wouldn't have hurt him any.  Humans occasionally gain a taste for it; it doesn't have any medicinal effect on them, though."  Zan shrugged and lowered himself down to sit at the other end of the bench. "It was known to work on inflammation in zabraks long before we kept records of those things, old clan remedies.  Over the past tens of thousands of years, it became a common thing in most family pantries; everyone stocks it, drinks it, and it doesn't really do anything for anyone these days because it's so commonplace everyone's built up a tolerance.  It's tradition, it tastes good and reminds them of home or family.  But since he was isolated, I thought he probably hadn't been exposed to it and that it was worth a try as the most gentle way to get his immune response under control."

Tally had stolen Zan's datapad, which was networked to the palace's medical wing, and had called up Maul's stats.  And they were improved; it wasn't a cure-all, he was still a mess, but he was a mess whose status was under control and who was actually resting properly for the time being.  Slow-wave sleep, something Maul desperately needed at this point.  "How'd you know he was isolated?" Tally asked, bluntly.

Zan's usual reaction to his prodding, especially when it was sharper, seemed to be either amusement or sheepishness.  Now, he sucked a breath in through his teeth and rolled his shoulders in the warm morning light. "That's another long story.  Are you sure you want it now?  You look like you should probably go back to bed for awhile."

"I'm sure."  Tally smiled, just a hint of sharpness in it. "Because I might just be a medic--" And there, Zan snorted at him. "--and you might just be a quetarra player now, but let's not pretend there's no deeper reason why you're here to 'consult' with."

"I can't go into that part," Zan answered, raising his brows again. "Not yet.  That, you'll have to take up with Viceroy Organa."

"I intend to."

"As to the rest--"  The zabrak took a deep breath and let it out, then leaned back against the bench and tipped his head back, sprawling there.  "He approached me after I was back on Talus for a little while, feeling wretched.  He invited me to meet with him.  Then he proceeded to grill me to within a centimeter of my life.  You've talked with him-- he's a gentleman, but he's certainly not lacking any speed.  He had apparently been vetting me before I even knew his name, and he asked me enough questions to make it clear that he knew a lot more about me than any public records might show.  Then, just as I was feeling like I was either being recruited as a spy or about to be buried in an unmarked grave, he offered me a place in Aldera here, and an audition with the Orchestra."

Tally chewed on that for a few moments.  Long enough to feel a little shiver in his spine; a thrill of fear.  Or maybe hope.  Or maybe some tangled up combination of the two, a hint of something much bigger than expected on the horizon.

"And just in case you ever need to know, I'm working on Maul's situation too."

Tally knew his brain wasn't up to speed right now, but he was starting to get the sense of just how far Organa had been going since he'd told Tally that on Corellia.  He had thought the man was trying to find some legal loophole, but now -- presented with a compassionate, principled, disgraced zabrak surgeon who had apparently been maneuvered into this, if kindly -- he was starting to suspect that it was a hell of a lot more direct action in nature.  "He wants to know if those cybernetics can be cracked without killing Maul in the process, doesn't he?"

Zan reached over and swatted him on a shoulder. "Come on, don't push.  I'm sure he'll bring it to you before long.  He made it incredibly clear how much he respects you and how nothing gets done without your involvement."

Tally's eyes wanted to close without his permission (again), but his eyebrows went all the way up at that. And completely outwith himself, he felt a sharp rush of affection for the Senator from Alderaan.  His crush had died on Corellia, but the respect he had for Organa hadn't, and now here was another reminder of why: For Bail's faith in him, for the fact the man was working on exactly what he had said he would, but--

But also, for loving Maul that much.

For the first time since before Felucia, Tally could almost feel hope again.  The loss of Rabbit still was digging a hole in his heart, but he felt a little like he could breathe past it easier than he had been.

[falloutdialogue]

Conversations in Sanctuary

A collection of short conversations the Concord group (Marcy and Jun Long, Mama Murphy, Sturges, Preston) have with one another; the player doesn’t participate... they just eavesdrop.

A Walk

Jun Long: Hey Marcy, I was thinking, if you have time later, that maybe you want to go take a walk along the river. Marcy Long: I can't, I have to much to do. Jun Long: Oh...well, maybe I can help. Marcy Long: No, you won't do it right. I have to do it myself. Jun Long: Oh...yeah, okay. Marcy Long: (Sigh.) Jun, I'm sorry. I'm just busy right now. Let me finish up, then we'll go for a walk.

Screaming Last Night

Jun Long: You were screaming again last night. Marcy Long: Oh. Sorry... Jun Long: Do you want to talk about it? Marcy Long: No, I'm fine. I just...I don't want to think about it anymore. Jun Long: It's okay. I still think about him too. Marcy Long: I said I'm fine. Leave me alone, Jun.

Don’t Double Cross a Raider

Marcy Long: Hey Mama, how are you getting along? Mama Murphy: Just fine. It's nice to finally settle down after spending so much time moving around. Marcy Long: Oh, yeah? You spent a little time on the run when you were younger? Mama Murphy: Oh yes, you have to when there's a bounty on your head. A little elderly advice, don't double cross a raider. They hold long grudges. Marcy Long: Yeah, that's good advice... Sounds like quite the adventure. Mama Murphy: It was. Some day I'll tell you all about it.

Checking In on Jun

Sturges: Hey Jun, you hanging in there? Jun Long: Oh, well, I guess so. Every day, I get up and tell myself, "You just have to get through today." Sturges: You've been through a rough time, man. The worst. Just, uh, let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Jun Long: Oh, okay... Hey, uh, I know I haven't been pulling my weight around here. And I'm really trying to do better. Sturges: Come on, there's nothing to apologize for. You worry about you, and everything will take care of itself. Jun Long: Okay. Thanks, Sturges. Thanks for checking in on me. Sturges: Of course. We look out for our own. Always.

Can’t Talk to the Dead

Jun Long: Mama Murphy, can we talk? Mama Murphy: I know what you're gonna ask me, Jun. I've seen it. And there's nothing I can do for ya. Jun Long: But... You have the Sight... It has to be able to... Mama Murphy: It can't talk to the dead, kid. Even the Sight has limits. I'm sorry.

Sturges Meets Codsworth

Sturges: So what do we have here? Codsworth: Good day, sir. I'm Codsworth. Sturges: Hmm. You seem to be in pretty good shape, all things considered. Codsworth: I get by, as best I can. Although I do apologize for the state of the garden. Please don't hold it against my master./missus. I take full responsibility. Sturges: So you've been here all these years? What... waiting for mom and pop to come home? Codsworth: Of course. Sturges: Robots... Well, you may as well make yourself useful. You can leave off tending your, uh... Codsworth: Posies, sir. At least, that's what they were. Sturges: Sure thing. Glad to meet you... Caldwell? Codsworth: Codsworth. Sturges: Right-o. Well, we're the new neighbors. Maybe you can have us over later, for a cup of tea or something. Codsworth: Oh, yes, that sounds lovely. I'll, uh, see what I can do. [to himself] Oh, dear. Where am I going to find tea?

Codsworth Follow Up

Sturges: Hey, Codsworth. Codsworth: Yes, sir? Sturges: You never invited me over for tea. You haven't forgotten about that, have you? Codsworth: Oh, no, of course not, sir. I'm, just... waiting to find a free day in my schedule! Sturges: Okay, then, buddy. You keep doing what you're doing. Seems to be working for you. Codsworth: Yes, sir.

Killed a Deathclaw with One Bullet

Sturges: That Deathclaw in Concord was bad news huh Mama? You ever seen one of those suckers before? Mama Murphy: Oh sure, plenty. One time I killed a Deathclaw all by myself, no power armor and fancy minigun, just a pipe pistol...and one bullet. Sturges: You're telling me you killed a Deathclaw? With one bullet? Come on, who do you take me for? Mama Murphy: It's true. I might not look it, but back in the day I had quite the shot. Sturges: Yeah or quite the imagination...

Mama Murphy Overdoses

Mama Murphy: Oh no... *chuckle* Should've seen this comin'... 

Marcy Long

Are you kidding me? What are we going to do without the Sight?

Everything always goes wrong. What are we even doing here?

Jun Long

This can't be happening... Not again...

She's not moving... Oh god...

Preston

Mama Murphy! Oh god, no...

I told her the chems would kill her... Dammit! I should've done something...

I let it go on. Should've told her no...

Look, just... give me a second here...

Sturges

She's... she's gone...

She's dead... I can't believe it.

I'm... I'm gonna need a moment...

Mama Murphy Overdosed (After a Few Days Pass)

Marcy Long: Can't believe you and Preston let Mama Murphy die like that. You should've stopped her.

Jun Long: I can't believe she's gone. Haven't we suffered enough?

Preston: I hope using the Sight was worth it. The cost has certainly been high enough...

Sturges:  Mama Murphy dying... I know she was old, and a chem user... but sometimes I really thought she was gonna outlive us all...

[thebritishblabbermouth]

Jungkook Fanfiction- BTS Mafia AU

Heyya :))

@atricksterwithwings requested a beautiful BTS mafia au, and I loved writing this for her. I’ve split it into three parts. Scroll down for the first and for the link to the latter. 

A/N: I’ve mentioned Zhang Yixing in this fanfiction aside from the other BTS members. Its totally okay if you dont know who he is...although you probably do, he’s like such a popular sheep ;) Find information about him here . 

Tell me your thoughts on this fanfic, Id love to receive any sort of feedback on my work and I totally think that likes and reblogs are recognition too :) Have fun reading, I know I really enjoyed writing this :) Its like 12 pages long on a word doc...idek anymore xP Jungkook is gorgeous. :) 

Also...there is cursing in this, mention of the mafia from different nationalities and part two and three are rated M (its smutty xP) Reader discretion is advised if any of these things bother you. 

Lots of love :) <3 - Enjoy :)  

PART 2

PART 3 (final)

1.

Jeon Jungkook stood at the 77th floor of Euphoria, the headquarters to the largest crime syndicate east of the Pacific Ocean. The height was dizzying for most, but not for him.

Jungkook had no fears; or so was assumed.

The man himself, was built at an impressive 6 feet and constituted of raw muscle, protein and a rather cynical approach towards life. Outwardly, the leader of the most legal crime syndicate was cold, intimidating and the type to burn you to ashes with a glare from his heated eyes.

Inwardly, he was exactly the same.

He was well aware of the effect he had on his employees, men and women who knew exactly of his affiliation with the Japanese Yazuka and the Italian Camorra yet pined to work under Jeon, the sheer power of his company bringing everyone to their knees with respect.

Euphoria was a giant.

It had dealings with government run telemarketing firms, banks, real estate agencies, alongside finance and technology markets. An easy way to convert money earned through extortion, gambling and trafficking to its pure and pristine form. The corrupt politicians whose elections he had funded didn’t complain. No one cared where the money came from and no one dared to ask otherwise. The cause of the founder’s formidable aura wasn’t a secret. Everyone knew how he had been tortured by his father, abandoned on the streets by a mother who seemed to love Heroin more than her own son. The story had been plastered all over the internet, and Jungkook would never deny reading through its many exaggerated versions. They were entertaining and did well to remind himself about how important money and power were, without those weapons, he too would be sitting in a room, writing about a life that belonged to someone else.

Materialism was reality and wealth- it’s currency.

~~~~~~~~~~~

‘’Sir, your coffee…’’ you said, walking through the office doors, a skip in your stride. There was no knock. No hint of awkwardness, no aspect of fear in the way she spoke. If anything there was the undertone of coercion, almost coaxing the man to leave his billion dollar thoughts in the gutter and focus solely on the warm drink.

Your playful extortion had worked, he was focused. Just not on the coffee.

Three months ago, Euphoria had issued an internal opportunity- PA to Jeon Jungkook. The post received 3 applications from his 20,000 employees. Min Yoongi, his chief of finance and operations took to appointing the least qualified of the bunch, a woman- aged a mere 22 years. The pitch to his ever frightening boss had been simple. ‘’You’ve let down 30 men in the last 6 months. I am done handling my job as well your shit. Those Harvard lunatics are too busy tending to their stupid resumes and I don’t have time for the garbage they throw at me when you fire their sorry arses. You’re settling with the woman, she’s got sick parents to feed- she won’t give a damn for ego as long as you pay her on time.’’

Jungkook could only snarl at the curses, the audacity of the man to speak in the way he did. Anyone else and they’d be lying in a pool of their own blood within seconds of the first word spoken against him. But Min Yoongi couldn’t be touched and this was a fact.

Jeon Jungkook was putty in the hands of his elder brother.

Today, he sent thanks to his sibling, for his aggressive outburst and daunting approach. You were priceless and the best decision ever- professionally of course.

He gave no reply to your request, not even a glance spared in your direction as your placed the drink onto his desk. There were just a series of footsteps, the man walking over to his maple work table, ready to do as he was told.

You had no idea of the prerogatives you held, and at that point, neither did him. The slight tease in your voice had mellowed down completely- replaced with the air of innocence and obeisance. Jungkook groaned at the sight. 

‘’So I was thinking…it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow…and well…’’ you said... Shuffling your buckled black heels.

‘’You aren’t leaving early.’’

His abrupt command had no thought behind it. Other than the fact he couldn’t let you out of his sight for more than a few hours, often paging you unnecessarily just to make you think of him.

He doubted you ever would if he didn’t.

‘’I am not…my parents are flying in tomorrow…it’s a small get together at my place with a few colleagues. I figured since you didn’t have anything planned…you could join us?’’  

Your apprehensive feet clicked across the hardwood with anticipation, the weightlessness behind your request holding the air in a trance.

‘’You’re my personal assistant, not event manager. You do not handle my private affairs so don’t think for a second that I care about your stupid Christmas dinner or the family I saved from crumbling.’’

It wasn’t what he had intended to say. Rather, his mind had flourished a thought he needed to keep locked away. He wanted to tell you that he’d love to join your family, share potato salad and amusing anecdotes across the table... All the while pressing his hand into your thigh- a subtle promise of sinful satisfaction later that night. But he wouldn’t dare to voice his feelings. You didn’t need to get involved with his shit, the scars that graced his back or the life full of gluttony and gambles he had chosen to lead. It was compulsion, to remind you every second of every day that the apartment which he bestowed upon you just 3 floors below his office- was a gracious boon, a gift given to improve your petty life. You had to be reminded of your father and how had been released from Jail after almost overdosing on the crack he had envisioned to peddle. Jeon Jungkook had to remind you of how ugly your tear stained face looked as you begged on your knees- begged for him to save your family.

There was simply no other way.

If you weren’t reminded, you’d crawl your way into his heart and sit there- encasing it completely.

He was just a damned moth to your flame.

‘’I know…and I am trying…I am trying to repay you. Please. Come over. I won’t waste your time.’’ You said. The words articulated with a purpose, were laced with meaningful sorrow but you couldn’t help the small smile that graced your lips.

He hadn’t declined.

Jungkook noticed how your full lips turned upwards, noticed how you had bent your head downwards, trying to hide your amusement. He knew he hadn’t said no, he knew inside the pits of his soul that was going to attend. Your reaction publicised his private notions completely.

It wasn’t hard to hate you.

Rather, it was the easiest thing in the world. His life had been built upon layers of lies, fear, judgement and mistrust. You tore everything apart with one look. He despised the hold you had over him, envied your purity and tried his best to tarnish it with his own two hands. Even if it meant burning your entire persona to ashes. He was well aware of the impact his audacious remarks on your large heart, knew just how much you wished to throw your small fists at his chest in rebuttal- he could see it in your eyes. But he knew you’d never break.

‘’Get out. I don’t have time for you.’’

Fuck.

Why couldn’t he just say no?

Probably because the thought of abjuration had never once crossed his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~

11 pm saw him standing at your door, a bouquet of Lilly’s in his hand. The flowers had almost wilted away. What the hell was he doing? Why was he even here? There was no noise from behind the oakwood and why would there be?

Your offer had been for dinner, not a midnight snack.

He wasn’t going to come, prove you wrong and act smug about the ordeal. However he had shown up, at 7 pm, flowers fresh and suit prim. Ready to tap onto the door and shimmy himself into you…your apartment. But his confidence dropped as he heard your laughter, it was beautiful, natural and something he had never experienced before.

Jeon Jungkook had never made you laugh, but had every thought of hearing you scream.

It wouldn’t have mattered to him if you were any other woman, but the lack of knowledge frightened him, made him think there would be another man who would have the pleasure of witnessing both sounds.

Every. Single. Day.

His heart beat erratically, edging him into a state of worry and insanity. What the fuck was wrong with him? It would be a complete lie if he said he hadn’t just stood in front of your door for 3 hours, praying he didn’t hear sounds of men. The silence at 11 pm provided comfort and he walked away, only after dropping the Lilly’s inside the vase at your desk.

You had been pleasantly surprised the next day, and you knew exactly who they were from. The flowers- drained from their pretty colour -were beautiful nonetheless and you couldn’t help but run your hands over their soft petals.

They were perfect- just like him.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

2.

‘’See that guy over there…he’s checking you out hon.’’ Lisa, the American-Chinese intern, stirred her tea at an exceedingly sluggish pace. Her eyes were glued onto the 27 year old accountant who stood in the corner of the room, photocopying his work and humming to himself. She’d been a temporary employee at Euphoria Inc. for a bare 3 weeks but had done well to pair 4 couples with her self-praised matchmaking skills.

3 of said relationships had broken up within 24 hours. And thus, It was only natural that her impeccable track record attracted many an employee to her small cubicle, ready for her to set them up with dates and one night stands.

It seemed that you were her next target.

You sighed and turned to look at Jamie. He was tall, considerably well-built and had this collegiate boyish charm to his appeal, his long-slightly raven locks sat faultlessly over his glasses.

The image was so immaculate it made you uncomfortable.

I

However in your opinion, the man on the 77th floor was nothing short of perfection. His ruffled hair didn’t need to be waxed and placed as it were; it fell naturally and it made you want to run your hands through it. His rugged and damaged personality sheltered his otherwise kind heart and you saw right through the vile facade. You didn’t hope for him to change. Didn’t hope for him to suddenly become a goofy cheeky soul; the kind who would sit and chat with his workers.

You loved the man as he was. A little broken but a hell of a lot confident.

‘’Lisa…I don’t really want to date him…’’ You mumbled, eagerly emptying coffee beans into the machine.

She laughed at your reply and peeled her eyes away from the man. ‘’Who said anything about dating love? I just said he was checking you out.’’

It was hard not to grimace at her words but as crude as they were you had to smile politely. Offices were run on brutal honesty and cut throat depositions. There was no room for pleasantries or hospitality and any that appeared were a courteous formality. You hurried in your steps and brewed the concoction with ease. It was 8 am and he required his morning fix, even though he never actually asked you to prepare it. You had just finished placing his black on the tray and had turned around to deliver it when a firm body crashed into yours, spilling the brew all over your clothes and the floor. The heat burned through your blouse and scorched your skin, it had been hard to not curse at the pain but you dealt through it, eyes shut tight in response.

‘’Oh my gosh! I am so sorry!’’ said the voice. It was a man, sharply handsome, his cheekbones were protruding and you were sure his skin glowed. It didn’t take long to recognise him.

Kim Taehyung.

He had been a prospective fiancé, from a year ago.

From a time when you had no viable job, no future and the money the Kim Family offered in exchange for your hand in matrimony, had been a welcome surprise to your household. They were staunchly against same sex marriages and Park Jimin had been banned from their home with immediate effect. The marijuana had inflected your otherwise gentle father and he had agreed in seconds to the proposal, not once considering your opinion. You had declined Taehyung in private, and he had hugged you in thanks. The man was humble and docile in more ways than one, and his heart had been taken years ago- by none other, than his childhood piano teacher. There was no way Taehyung would’ve agreed.  

‘’Tae!’’ You screamed, surprised yet elated at the discovery.

‘’Hey there fiancé. Glad to know you remember me…but really, why do we always meet in the worst of situations.’’ He walked over to the counter as he spoke, grabbing up as many napkins as he could find. His gentle hands took to patting at your chest, handing you the tissues while doing so and it didn’t take long for to dry up your blouse.

‘’I thought you’d be more respectful than that. Letting your fiancé walk into my building and displaying yourself open for the man. Tch Tch…I guess a lowlife is always a low life no matter what her circumstance.’’ Jeon Jungkook stood against the door, leaning onto it with a posture that screamed indifference. But in all reality, Jungkook was seething.

The small Glock tucked into his suit was ready to fire and destroy Kim Taehyung and maybe even leave a flesh wound inside Jamie the accountant.

However in that minute, his primal desire had been to destroy you. How dare you hide the news of your engagement? How dare you wear that damned pastel pink blouse to work, and let another man touch you so unabashedly? How dare you smile when you saw your betrothed? He hated you for everything.

And he hated himself for falling for you.

‘’And who the hell is this Joker?’’ Taehyung turned around to look at Jeon, the tissues in his hand soiled from the spillage. He had been invited to the corporation by Min Yoongi, a dear friend who had promised him help with TaeMin Designs, an upcoming entrepreneurial, founded by his beautiful husband. It didn’t occur to him that he’d meet you, but he was pleased that he had.

You were wonderful.

If it hadn’t been for your confidence, he would have never proposed to Jimin, never left his awful family and never been as happy as he was now. He owed you his life and his prosperity.

‘’Tae…he’s my boss. I’ll talk to you later. Please. I’ll call you hmm?’’ you tried your best to nip the fight in the bud. Taehyung was cool headed but an agitated version of the man could lead to the emergence of fists and blood. You were lucky he understood your pleas, and he grunted towards Jungkook while exiting the room, the daggers leaving his eyes were filled with venom and anger.

‘’I’d like you to pay attention to your job. Not to every single man out there. Why don’t you just do as you’re told? I don’t care what you do and who you do it with when you’re out of here.’’ Jungkook straightened himself against the wall and pocketed his hands. He told himself he enjoyed watching your eyes brim, told himself that his anger was justified. But god knows how much he wanted to cradle you and whisper apologies until you were forced to believe them.

‘’Let’s keep your sluttish acts away from the office hmm?’’

It was a harsh blow, enough to cause the first tear to slip from their confines. Why did he have to behave like that?

Why did you have to love him regardless of the way he did? 

~~~~~~~

3.  

‘’How long is it going to take you leave? It’s pretty simple. Take the bag to KM Constructions, drop it there and leave. What’s so hard? '' Jungkook’s anger had sky rocketed ever since the incidence in the cafeteria and he didn’t even understand why he was asking you to be a bag drop. Never once in a career spanning 6 years had he ever made a woman a part of a deal. But it seemed that you were an exception with everything.

‘’I am just leaving Sir.’’ You said, buttoning up the grey pea coat.

He noticed how inappropriately dressed you were, how feminine and vulnerable. He knew how lecherous men could be, knew it wasn’t safe. But annoyance clouded his senses and he threw the thoughts away. It was simple enough, no interactions. You’d be fine.

If only he knew.

Part 2

Part 3 

[indcliblee-blog]

hey there demons, it’s me...sam ( she / her, twenty one, est timezone ) and y’all are so talented. i am not worthy, but ANYWAYS. character info under the cut. lmk if you wanna plot!

*　charlie heaton, cis male, he/him, oc　━━　riverdale’s very own HARRISON IRVING is now twenty three years old. they have lived in town for twenty one years, and pop never forgot their regular ━ earl grey tea with milk and sugar. you’ll likely find the car thief/ghoulie around the house of the dead, probably pretending he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. their friends on the southside will tell you all about how they’re pensive, resourceful and charming, but others might describe them as aloof or sarcastic. oh well, no matter how you feel about irving, you can’t deny that they somehow manage to make that huge scar over their right eye look cool.　━━　

so, first thing’s first. irving is one of those people who goes by his last name and 99.9% of the entire population doesn’t even realize that irving...isn’t his first name. only Special People™ are allowed to call him harrison ( or harry as his mom called him ). anyone else does and he’ll Fite but...nobody knows his name is harrison so like. why would you randomly call him that.

anyways. irving was born to an english mother in leeds. who is his father? what happened to him? why has the man literally never been in his life? irving doesn’t know! he does know that his mom moved the two of them out to america when he was about a year old, and then finally settled in riverdale by the time he was two.

he does in fact have an accent. ur welcome. except it’s usually not very pronounced although the more pissed off he is, the british-er he gets lmao. also tends to use british slang words for No Good Reason considering everyone usually needs a minute to figure out what he’s referring to when he says: “trainers” “chips” “queue” “takeaway” “lift” u get it. s/o to his very british mum for all of that.

has lived in the southside since he was two years old and has always been familiar with the ghoulies because his mom has been buying drugs from them for as long as he can remember. she worked tons of jobs all across town over the years in order to support her habit during his childhood. and what did she do to support irving? not much tbh, BUT. irving has always loved her very very dearly.

of course, no one else in riverdale ever seemed to care for the woman at all, but hey. she was a teen mom ( later formerly ) with well - known drug addiction issues and a revolving door of shitty “boyfriends” so. being labelled one of the trashiest women in town was inevitable and there was nothing she could really do about it. people were gonna say whatever they wanted and that was that. she got along just fine anyhow, mostly by shamelessly taking on any jobs, dinners, coins, etc offered to her by townspeople who were honestly just giving her pity handouts. anything so she could afford her drugs, you know?

irving was often left fending for himself out on the streets and since it never killed him ig he did okay? fell in with the ghoulies pretty quickly as a teen attending southside high since he was already familiar with them. they welcomed him into The Squad and they quickly became the family he never had. aw. he’s incredibly loyal to the ghoulies but possible wc! he might’ve had a few serpent / future serpent friends who he left behind upon joining up with the ghoulies.

by then he was already good at breaking into cars, but the ghoulies taught him how to actually steal them and not to brag on him or anything, but these days he’s damn good at it & street racing too! 100% intending to brag on him now — irving here is a really good street racer and everyone knows it. if you’re driving against him then sorry but you’re probably gonna lose. that’s life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

isn’t a bad fighter either, but generally won’t be the ghoulie who’s starting shit. absolutely will back up his friends though, so...watch out for that

deals in the same drugs as all the other ghoulies and might indulge himself from time to time, mostly for recreational purposes. smokes way too many cigarettes and will light up indoors if he needs a fix. no fucks given.

NOW. TIME TO TALK ABOUT HIS SCAR. it’s located on the right side of his face and spans from forehead to cheek, cuts right through the delicate skin of his eyelid and even damages his actual eye rather severely. if you’re picturing anakin skywalker’s face scar in revenge of the sith then you’re right except irving’s is worse. he has about 40% vision left in his right eye ( probably...ofc he’s never actually had it looked at by a doctor ) which is both good and bad because obviously it’s a pretty blatant vulnerability, but most people tend to assume he’s completely blind in that eye and then they’re in for *seamus finnegan vc* a bit of a nasty shock. as for how he got the scar, it’s...not a v interesting story tbh. he was about 15 - 16, got into it with his mom’s latest boyfriend drunkard & all around garbage human being and the guy p much tried to carve his face off with a broken beer bottle. yikes

oh, about his mom. she’s dead now. overdosed to the surprise of absolutely no one. irving was eighteen at the time and actually was the one to find her on their living room couch. naturally he was Sad™ but in this house we absolutely do not properly express our emotions

and now we’re in the present. these days you’ll most likely irving hanging with the other ghoulies, boosting cars either for them or for cash, winning street races, possibly reading a book or two or fifty

this is already a novel but i have more so let’s do rapid fire fun facts!

most people’s first impression of him is probably that he’s aloof. doesn’t even talk much around other ghoulies, but won’t hesitate if he’s got something to say. something usually being a sarcastic remark.

been arrested plenty of times, in and out of juvie & jail his whole life.

acts like he doesn’t care about anyone but himself + like he has -4 morals but that’s such a LIE LMAO. catch him refusing to steal from anyone he knows to have less than him, being kind to animals, holding open the door for people, using common manners, bringing his favorite old librarian lady her beloved butterscotch candies and saying it’s because he’s just trying to avoid being fined for returning books late when it’s actually just because he loves that old lady and knows she loves those awful candies

about the library, btw. if he’s not hanging with the other ghoulies then he’s probably there, lowkey skulking around the shelves. his mom started taking him every once in a while as a kid, figuring that letting him check out a bunch of books would keep him occupied for a while and it did. he’s LOVED to read ever since & can often be found with his nose in a book. actually loves to talk about his favorite books, but rarely gets the chance. aw.

known for being a particularly vicious and resourceful fighter. good with knives and guns, but the main thing you’ve gotta watch out for with him is the fact that HE WILL FUCKING BITE YOU WTF. like. blood running down his chin & everything. horrifying, truly.

so like, lowkey soft for those he cares about but will attack if provoked

ANYWAY, i think we’re all tired of me by this point and that is completely valid so just message me if you wanna plot! i have nothing super specific in mind and want all the plots tbh. i’m super excited to write with you all!

[peculiarlylost]

Who really is Rachel Amber?

Read till the end. It will be worth it, I promise.

I think the whole point of Rachel Amber is for her to be a person who you see, but you actually never get to know. She looks like the "It" girl. Perfect parents, perfect grades, perfect house, beautiful, talented, intelligent. She is the perfect student, daughter, actress, model, psychologist, school secretary. She is a star which shines so bright she literally blinds everyone. She is fire, a passion, a dragon.... and to the pain of everyone involved she is, ultimately, a human being.

The problem with Rachel Amber is that it seems like she is used to people thinking she is flawless. She is used to getting her way and never having to face the consequences of what she does, because who she appears to be makes up for it. I think Rachel is so used to people projecting on her that they never truly see her and all her dark behaviours are usually done in the shadow... she has to live pretending. Is not only the drugs, party and sex... but the fact that she can be genuinely evil and manipulative in her ways and yet, the real world never seems to reach her.

Besides being a girl whose life has been so perfect she can barely tolerate a scratch in it before having an emotional breakdown (aka, her father having an affair). I am impressed at how she cheats, messes with different people, takes her rage issues out on others, gets involved in situation which can severely harm others (like drugging Victoria`s tea or getting Chloe skip school with her when Chloe has already enough problems with her records) she even starts a fucking forest fire... and yet people in Arcadia Bay, Chloe herself and plenty of the game players are STILL making excuses for this person. Rachel is a dark being, make no mistake, the problem is that nobody actually SEES her. When she banishes hardly anyone, besides Chloe, wants to find her... that's because she was a scapegoat in which the entire town projected it's light, she was never seen as a person. She was a ghost, a dream. When it became too much of a weight for Rachel to bear (all the expectations of people) she literally lit herself on fire.

Rachel does not care for Chloe. Does not matter what it seems to be... the girls have known each other for literally two days. Rachel is an actress. Rachel uses Chloe as a person with whom she can explore her dark side, and also somebody she can manipulate to do things she wouldn't do on her own (like run away). Chloe clings on Rachel because she is extremely alone, and puts her on a pedestal. Chloe is extremely lonely and has abandonment issues. The one difference is that Chloe and Rachel are not comparable characters. Chloe has lost her father, her best friend, is having to adapt to her step father, has problems at school, people treat her like shit and her economic situation isn't the best. Chloe is literally trapped in emotional angst and she escapes into self destruction, art and drugs. Besides her mother, Chloe has lost what she valued the most. Rachel Amber does not come from such context and can not be compared.

Rachel probably senses her father is having as affair... and all of a sudden Chloe would make a great friend... and also be an emotional punching bag? These two knew each other for a while and Rachel knows what spots to touch to get to Chloe. Chloe only idealizes Rachel, the same as the rest of Arcadia Bay, and Rachel prays on this. Chloe is a "what you see is what you get" type of girl, she is loyal and extremely reliable and Rachel uses this for her own means.

Ultimately destiny has its ways and Rachel meets Mark Jefferson. Having strong motives to have daddy and mommy issues is not a surprise Rachel would be attracted to a father figure (him). He is probably the one person she cant read and who is actually a better predator than her... she goes into his house and he eats her. Mark Jefferson is the monster Rachel Amber was looking to encounter, and she did, because her own inner demons were not too different. She was a beautiful predator, who just got eaten by a smarter one. Chloe is warned by William in before the storm "the fire is beautiful, but if you aren't careful you will get burned too".

In terms of Rachel's character and personality, we can see she is interested in astrology / psychology / certain aspects of spirituality. Usually, people who look deeply into astrology do so to understand themselves and those around them, a serious understanding of astrology gives you a bit of a advantage over other people, as you can know things about people they aren't even aware exist within themselves. You must not have a very defined sense of personality, if you need the stars to tell you the truth of who and what you are. This interest in the esoteric arts gave me the impression that maybe Rachel is more empty than she seems. When Max and Chloe find Rachel's body, there is a sign from a restaurant with a crab on it. Astrologically speaking, the crab is a sign of motherhood, probably meaning that in a fucked up way... Rachel is now finally back into her roots... into the Earth where we all come from.

Chloe speaks with her father in her dreams. Through symbols he warns her on what might actually be going on. Rachel is a beautiful star... but she is dead inside... she is a lie... just a bright light that you think is taking you somewhere, but there is a deadly emptiness to her. The point of astrology is that we protect into the stars whats is inside ourselves... all that beauty and goodness that Chloe saw in Rachel, truly was inside herself. But we also project our darkness... being a savior (and having her sun sign sitting into the sign of Piscis... the victim) Choe protected and saved Rachel... and did things for her that she probably wished somebody else would do for her. Lacking William and Max in her own life Chloe makes Rachel into this person she isn't, its all a projection. A starry dream.. and she lives that dream until Max comes back. To be someone who is "real" Chloe has a lot of problems listening to her own inner truth. For who is Rachel? "A destructive person. Someone who could never be satisfied by anyone or anything" (in the words of James) or " Fire is jealous Chloe, it wants all the beauty for itself, that's why you need to be careful" (in the words of William) In the end Rachel owes her life to both, Chloe and Frank... and what does she do? She fucks Frank, then she fucks Mark Jefferson... and thats it. She end's up dead in a dumpster. Which goes to probe she wasn't the untouchable light child she was raised to believe she was.

We are our roots, we do step into the same river twice and life does recycle back experiences, it isn't an irony that Rachel dies of an overdose. Every mother contains her daughter, and each daughter her mother. Nature works in mysterious, yet observable ways. We are our ancestors. The fact that Rachel seems to lack a free will and just walks into the destructive steps of her mother... just goes to show that you can run from your past, but you can't hide. Rachel probably never bonded with her mother, and her dismissal of the mother figure is shown when she only cares that "James lied" but doesn't really seem to take Rose into account... or even care for her.

I do not dismiss the idea that Rachel might have activated a course when she burned the tree. Rachel and Chloe are both essentially fatherless children, with the same ruthlessness that James would do anything to protect his daughter... does the storm destroy arcadia bay. The father (james) would literally kill the mother (sera) to protect the daughter (rachel) yet... in the turn of events it is mother nature who ends up bringing about order. I also think the game draws a big contrast in the topic "mother/father" there seems to be a big obsession with father (Chloe's father is dead, Rachel is the daughter of the DA, Nathan Prescott's dad is rich, Chloe's stepfather is an asshole.... etc) yet... what about mothers? What about Rose, Joyce, Sera... etc? I think the game characters are too centered on the father to even notice the role mothers are trying to play.

On Chloe: she will not be part of any club that accepts her as a member.... funny enough, some of the people in this game who are more blunt and outspoken we tend to think are assholes... yet we make exceptions for Chloe. Chloe constantly tells lies to her mother... maybe to protect her? and David, who also knows of lose (his best friend gets killed) so... is it really a coincidence that David end's up and Chloe's house... or do they have a similar energy that bind them together? There are people in this game who clearly care about Chloe: her mom, Elliot, even David. I was very saddened when I saw game players call Elliot a "psycho" and an "asshole" just because he tried to talk sense into Chloe... Chloe previously hooked up with Elliot, and even if forceful... I think Elliot did see Rachel for who she was. But what happens to the one's who do see the truth? they must walk away. Elliot SEES the truth and speaks it, so he can no longer stay in Arcadia Bay... therefore he exits the game. It was also funny to me that Rachel burns things, beats up Daemon with a piece of wood, smashes stuff...and in the other game Warren beats the shit out of Nathan Prescott and nobody says anything... yet Elliot pushes Chloe and breaks a snow globe and now he is a psycho.... right.

Everyone obsession to protect Rachel is almost sickening... yes, she might be sparkly and beautiful... but why wont anyone allow life to touch her? why is she so special she must be protected from everything? In the end, no matter if you tell her the truth or not, the result is the same... Rachel and Chloe stay in Arcadia Bay... which means that Rachel never truly meant to run away with her. They had 2 years to get away.

Chloe is with Rachel, the same way James was with Sera... protective, obsessive... never wanting to face the reality of the other person. Truth is painful as fuck... but it will only set you free if you allow it to do so. It takes a very strong soul to be real with someone... there is a difference between loving and relationships. Love is sacrificial, exciting, painful... even deadly. Relationship are a transaction. Sometimes they are based on truth, sometimes on lies. Everything has a currency and an explanation (if you want a perfect example on how to do relationships... look at Rose... the woman is perfectly put together, ready to negotiate, make excuses, be polite) make no mistake, there is a place in life for love, and there is also a place for relationships. The problem is when you confuse the two. The one difference here is that Chloe loves, and Rachel does relationships. Chloe sacrifices, Rachel manipulates. The currency here is that Rachel only care about having a father figure (which masculine Chloe would fulfill... until people like Frank and Jefferson come along) and Chloe wants a best friend and some real company (which Rachel would also fulfill.... but she'll never be Max or William).

The fact that somebody wants the truth does not mean they can handle it, the fact that you think you deserve love does not mean you have earned it. Like Sera said... after years of bad decisions... you just don't get to walk away into someone's life, you are going to live the consequences of your actions. I find that the honesty of Sera is very refreshing for a change.

I think game players would do good to stop making Rachel into this "entity" and see the game for what it is... a place in which (like real life) you can try your best, but it is nature and life's wisdom that has the upper hand.

and who really is the big bad wolf in this story? you tell me.

All credits to: Moon Seeea

I don’t agree with all he said, but it really opened my eyes.

I know that what he said is hella fucked up, but at some point mine amberprice heart brooke a little.

I love Rachel Amber, she’s probably the most developed character I have ever seen, and I know that she wasn’t just one thing, but this hitted me hard af, cause some part really made sense for me.

I’m hella sorry y’all.

[arplis]

Arplis - News: Telling Stories in the Dark

This is a guest post from Elizabeth Brooks. Elizabeth grew up in Chester, England, studied Classics at Cambridge, and now lives on the Isle of Man with her husband and two children. Her debut novel, The Orphan of Salt Winds, was described by BuzzFeed as “evocative, gothic and utterly transportive.” Her second novel, The Whispering House will be published in the U.S. by Tin House on March 16th, 2021. You can find her on Twitter @ManxWriter. Content Warning: Mental illness and suicide My sister knew how to tell a story, and she had an appreciative audience in me. I can picture us now: my 7-year-old self, sitting up in bed, hugging my knees, while 10-year-old Rachel delivered her latest installment in a loud whisper from the adjacent attic bedroom. Sometimes excitement got the better of her, the whisper rose to a babble, and Mum or Dad called up the stairs, “You two! Go to sleep! Now!” For a few wriggly, resentful minutes we were silent, but when the coast seemed clear Rachel would resume, with caution. When I think about those storytelling sessions now, the happiness and humour are still there, but they are complicated by the fact that Rachel died by suicide at the age of 28, having suffered years of mental illness. I wish I could remember one of Rachel’s stories from beginning to end, but I’m left with a muddle of impressions, scraps of detail. I know she relished telling stories about spoiled, bullying girls, of a similar age to us, whose crimes escalated until they got their comeuppance, and that she liked to end each episode on a cliff-hanger, leaving me begging for more. Rachel didn’t just make stories up, she also wrote them down. There were stacks of notebooks in her bedroom, crammed with novels at various stages of completion— children’s stories, family sagas, romances, diaries and poems. I was two and a half years younger than Rachel, and I began writing out of a desire — half deferential, half competitive — to emulate her. It was a struggle to keep up. I rarely seemed able to complete a chapter, let alone a book. I kept waiting for a tidal wave of words and images to sweep me away, but it never did. Whilst I was fussing about how to detach page one without ruining the aesthetics of my new notebook, Rachel’s pen would be flying. She would be biting down on the tip of her tongue, her shoulders rigid with concentration, a cup of tea cooling at her side. One day she’d be a published author; I was sure of that. In as far as we were Little Women, she was Jo. I wish there was a name for the condition that destroyed my sister, so that I could describe it in a single word and expect you to understand. It began in childhood and worsened through adolescence and adulthood. Depression was a part of it, but by no means the whole. Schizophrenia comes close, but isn’t quite right. Whatever it was, it made her hate and harm herself. It drove her to run away from home, cut her arms with razor blades and starve herself of food. Sometimes it had her in floods of tears, sometimes she could hardly move for the sheer, dragging weight of it. Medication was a matter of trial and error, and although there were pills that helped a little, others did more harm than good. Counselling was useful, but didn’t get to the heart of the problem. Nothing ever did. As far as writing was concerned, as far as anything was concerned, Rachel was at the mercy of her illness. One day she might be manically, exhaustingly creative; another day she might be too numbed to lift a pen. There were also times — and it’s important I don’t forget this — when the clouds lifted and she was allowed to be herself, for a while. One of Rachel’s less successful night-time stories strikes me as darkly comic, in retrospect. If that sounds heartless, it’s not meant to: mental illness has its absurdities, interwoven with its cruelties, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. I forget how old she was at the time, perhaps 11 or 12? Rachel began with her main character waking up one morning, but rather than launch him headfirst into his story, she proceeded to describe everything — everything — he did, from the moment he swung his legs out of bed. “He found his slippers under the chair, and he put his left foot in the left slipper, and his right foot in the right slipper, and then he went over to the door and took his dressing-gown off the hook and put his left arm in the left sleeve…” I managed to bite my tongue until our man finally made it downstairs, only to discover that his dishwasher needed emptying. “So he opened the dishwasher and took a mug out and put it away in the cupboard, and then he went back to the dishwasher and took another mug out and took it to the cupboard…” At this point I snapped, and Rachel got upset, which made me even angrier. I told her she was being weird, and that her story was boring. In my defense, I was little, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was not part of my vocabulary. We grew up together, but as my life unfurled, Rachel’s contracted. The stages I passed through — school, university, marriage, children — were typical enough, but set alongside what she was going through they seemed extraordinary, to the point of unfair. She ought to have been doing these things too, or something equally good, not wasting away in psychiatric wards, or overdosing on anti-depressants, or running away from home in a futile effort to escape herself. We both continued to write, but the further we got from childhood, the more difficult it became to show one another our work. I was too embarrassed to share my navel-gazing attempts at poetry, or bits and bobs of prose, and Rachel’s writings, too, grew ever more private. Whenever she was well enough to put pen to paper, she tended to write diaries rather than fiction, seeking relief from her distress by pouring everything onto the page. I believe that’s what she was doing, anyway: I didn’t read her notebooks then and I couldn’t bear to read them now. Rachel died of an overdose in 2005. It was around the same time, when my children were tiny, that I began to write more seriously. It took me a long time to work out what I wanted to write about, and longer still to find an agent and publisher, but I did in the end. The sense of achievement was real, yet it was tinged, as all those other “ordinary” life events had been tinged, with guilt. The logical part of my brain knew I’d done nothing wrong, but there was a sub-logical part, which wasn’t — still isn’t — so sure. How come I’d fulfilled the dream that was Rachel’s, long before it was mine? Had there only been room for one Jo March in the family? Could I, with my greater resilience, be said to have ‘won’ over my more fragile and sensitive sister? There’s no point getting hung up on such questions — and I don’t — but I’m conscious of them simmering away, out of sight. It’s because of Rachel that I became a writer in the first place, and it’s partly because of her that I settle on the subjects I do. All my novels concern the ways in which people, including ‘normal’ people, are essentially mysterious. I seem drawn to create characters whose vivid internal lives drive them to commit strange, often extreme, acts. Storytelling is, in part, an attempt to shed light on darkness. When something seems impossible to understand, it is instinctive to stare hard into the chaos and search for patterns and structures there. A narrative framework may do nothing to alter life’s harsh realities, but it’s comforting to have one, all the same. When Rachel died, I felt numb. I could come up with no adequate response in the immediate aftermath; what had happened seemed so pointless and cruel. Fifteen years on, it still seems pointless and cruel, but writing has helped me to face it. I have never fictionalised my sister’s story, as such, but I have explored mental illness, the impact of suicide, and the complexities of sibling relationships. Putting these things into words, and shaping the words into stories, is healing. Maybe Rachel’s stories — maybe mine, maybe everyone’s — are flashlights sweeping the darkness, making sense of a frightening world, albeit in brief, fragmentary glimpses. This makes me hope that my residual guilt really is misplaced. Perhaps becoming a writer was not, after all, a private ambition that divided us, but a joint quest that unites us still. !doctype> #OurReadingLives #GuestPost #Writing

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/telling-stories-in-the-dark

[flowerfan2]

Lonesome Road

Now that the big “reveal” has happened in the anonymous OMGCP Angst Fest, I can post my fic, Lonesome Road.  Note that although this story is full of angst, it does have happy moments, and a happy ending <3  Thank you so much to everyone who left such lovely comments on A03 - it was strange not feeling like I was thanking you personally, given the anon setup - but believe me, my thanks are quite heartfelt!

Thanks to @the_one_that_fell for the amazing prompt, and @perryavenue for being the world’s best beta.

Lonesome Road, zimbits, 16k, A03, M

After rehab, Jack leaves home, unable to face his parents and the legacy he failed to uphold. He gets work as a truck driver and enjoys the relative solitude of it for a few years, until the day he picks up a hitch-hiking runaway from Georgia.

Warnings for discussion of past overdose, past sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, past non-con, possible dub-con, implied depression, slurs, addiction, homelessness, homophobia

Chapter 1

There's a hockey game playing on the television screen over the bar.  Jack turns and leaves before the hostess even has a chance to ask how many there are in his party (one, of course, as always).  He doesn't watch hockey.

Jack walks down the street, wondering if he can get some good fried chicken somewhere.  This small southern town has a diner that serves up some pretty decent food, if he's remembering it correctly.  Although he might not be.  He's been through a lot of little towns in the past few years, and they tend to blend together after a while.

He finds a diner on the next corner, and slides into a seat at the counter between a middle aged couple and a gray haired man.  He orders the buttermilk chicken tender special, with a side salad and an iced tea.  As Jack sips the tea, enjoying the sugary sweetness, he listens to the couple banter fondly about whether to go to the movie as they had intended, or just go home for some alone time while the kids are with the grandparents.  The older man next to him is texting on his phone, smiling, and then he presses a number and proceeds to tell someone all about his day.

Jack tunes them out when his food comes and tries to concentrate on enjoying what he can. Even he's entitled to that, he thinks.  

Jack doesn't linger, and as soon as he gets his check he goes over to wait in line at the cashier.  There's a commotion at the end of the counter, and he looks up to see a slight figure in a dark blue hoodie apologizing and swiping paper napkins at a puddle of coffee.  The waitress looks annoyed and is mumbling about taking up space all night.  The boy stands abruptly, shoulders hunched, and scrambles in his pockets, pulling out a crumpled five dollar bill, which he thrusts at the waitress before high-tailing it out of the restaurant.

There's something troubling about the exchange, the hopeless look on the boy's face, but before Jack can think too hard about it, the cashier gets his attention and he focuses on paying his bill.

Read more on A03

[dxmedstudent]

Hey dx. It's the final year med student on a&e. I'm also the same anon who saw her first arrest. I saw another 2 yesterday (fortunately the 2nd pt survived!) Also clerked some really sad cases. How do you not take work home with you? I thought i was fine, but I had a day off today and I've just felt like there's too much suffering and I'm feeling heavy. Any advice on dealing with it while staying human with pts?

Hello, it’s good to hear from you again. I’m glad that you wrote back; if it helps at all, you’re free to keep messaging in. I don’t mind at all.Learning not to take work home is something we slowly develop. It’s not easy, and it’s not perfect. I find that I take things home a LOT less than when I started, so I think that it gets better with time, but the rare cases that are horrific are still going to throw us a bit. And it’s OK to take time to process it when it happens.I was just discussing this the other day with my friends, that we process grief and upset a bit differently. And I don’t think it’s just me; I suspect that many (if not all) of us learn to compartmentalise to a certain degree. We try to push on past our own feelings, and bury them that little bit deeper in order to focus on what we need to do right now. I find that it means you might not cry when you’re at work, facing the sad case, because you’re trying to be strong for them. Your patients and families need you to be their anchor; someone who is calm, steadfast and does their best. When you start working, and actual responsibility is palced upon you, it feels like something shifts compared to med school. It’s amazing how heavy a stethoscope and ID lanyard can feel, about your shoulders. That’s not to say that people never cry at work; there’s a lot of crying that goes on in treatment rooms or Drs/nurses rooms, usually followed by a cup of lukewarm tea and a hug from a colleague. If you need to cry, then that’s a perfectly valid way to express your emotions, and it can often make things feel better. 

When I was in med school, I was never ultimately responsible, just an observer who was helping out, and that was reassuring in many ways. But responsibility makes you focus, because you have to.  So you do your best.  And then you get home, and you find your mind going back to something from work. Or you watch a sad advert on TV or something, and you’re suddenly crying, and there’s no real reason why. But you realise that you’re emotionally so preoccupied from work that it doesn’t take much to tip you over the edge. Sometimes I’m a stressier, more anxious person than I was when I started working. And I think that’s true for many of us.We just do what we can to look after ourselves, process what’s gone on, and not ruminate too much.I tend to find distraction works well; don’t let yourself sit around fixating on work cases, instead, make time every day to do things you enjoy, which distract you. This has the added benefit of structuring in downtime. You need to have a social life, and maintain some hobbies; med school applications did not lie. It really does help keep you sane. Have hobbies that are relaxing, and don’t require too much effort (for when you are exhausted and can’t really do something that draining) but also pick stuff that truly consumes you a little, that distracts you enough. Perhaps going to a gym, or immersing yourself in games, or something else entirely. For when you need distraction more than relaxation. Self-care is important. If I start thinking about more mundane work things, I remind myself that there’s nothing I can do about them at 2am on a Saturday, so I’ll approach those problems when I’m actually at work. It’s an active process to remind yourself that you should only really focus on something when you’re in a position to do something about it.  I used to have nightmares about overdosing people or forgetting to do something at work, and I find these get a lot less frequent with time. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to try to keep things in perspective. I try to remember that more often than not, there’s something we can do to make things better. For example, one of the things that gets me through when personal life is difficult, like with recent bereavements, is knowing that at work I can make a difference sometimes. The world is a chaotic and unfair place. Illness and resultant suffering is a natural part of life; that’s the harsh reality. Yet we get to do something, every day, which decreases that suffering, restores a little order, and makes some people feel better. Most people might feel absolutely helpless in the face of that much illness, but we learn what to do so that we can make a difference. It’s a huge privilege to be able to do anything at all, and sometimes it helps to focus on what we can do, rathe than what we can’t.Ultimately, if something hurts, you’ll need to process it, and that can be upsetting, but it can also be freeing. And that’s where reflective practice comes in. You don’t need to log all reflection in your portfolio (though that’s great, sometimes), but when you’re more rested and less upset, it can help to think through and reflect on what you learned from a case. Things feel a LOT less horrific when you’re rested, not starved, and not buzzing from 2 arrest calls and the mountain of jobs you have to do.  Or if you can, even to discuss it with a colleague who knows about it.  Reflection is constructive, and doesn’t involve ruminating excessively on a case, or blaming ourselves. It’s all about recognising what went well, and what didn’t, and what we can learn clinically.  Personally I have medical friends I can rant to about the horrors of med life, and that really helps. Sometime you just need someone to say “Yeah, that’s horrible. Are you OK?”. And the act of saying “OMG, someone’s HEAD fell off today, and this person died of nec fasc, and then THIS happened” s what you need. Nonmedics can be great people to talk to, but I personally find that people who’ve been through the same kinds of bad shifts just know what it’s like to feel responsible for the lives of others, in a way others can’t. So I recommend having people you can speak to openly about how you feel.  That said, life sometimes really sucks. we’ve all had horrific cases; young people with untreatable cancer. Sudden deaths. Horrific things. Things we wish we could have changed. And they hurt. Some things will never feel fair.  . We keep some cases close to our heart, as if put away in a locket, but we can’t dwell on them all the time. I recommend reading up on mindfulness or CBT; there are definitely techniques out there that are good for taking control of our thought processes and learning to direct our thoughts when we fixate on things. I know people who have found it very useful. To be truly honest, I think you’ve also had a bit of bad luck with your shifts.  It’s not always so much, so fast; we’d all struggle if it was always that intense. A&E is a bit busier than most jobs, and I haven’t done a proper A&E job so I’m not going to comment on exactly how horrific it is, because I suspect it depends a lot.  But when you’re normally carrying a medical crash bleep, you can go entire shifts without any arrests; indeed I’ve had relatively few in recent times. Some of my friends were like you, and saw some more horrific things when they were on their A&E rotation; unfortunately what we experience is down to luck. I also want to say that most cases you clerk won’t be horrific. When I’m on call in adult medicine, it’s 90% pneumonia, UTIs and chest pain. Some people are sick, but I’ve only had 1 patient die on me when I’ve been on take. Most of the time, people are sick, but manageable. And most of the time you can make a difference, even if you can’t ‘fix’ everything. I hope this helps :)

[johnabradley]

HRH Prince William: BY ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

For years, Prince William found himself in a state of shock, unable to deal with the tragic death of his mother Princess Diana. As the nation wept that summer in 1997, in private William couldn’t allow himself to grieve. Quite simply, aged 15, he locked his emotions away, burying them beneath routine and a most dutiful, demanding public life. Until now. Recently, William has started talking about his loss, opening up and admitting his struggle and its effects - now he is passionately calling for all men to follow his example through his mental health campaign, Heads Together. In what is undoubtedly the most candid interview he has ever given, the 34-year-old future King talks exclusively to GQ about his mother’s death, his relationship with the media, his work, his family and how he is determined to lead by example. Oh, that my mother was alive to see me now, walking into Kensington Palace on a sunny spring day, to take tea with the future King William. Born in the same year as the Queen, 1926, and given the same Christian name, Elizabeth, my mother “Betty” was a fervent monarchist; indeed one of my earliest political memories is of the row provoked when, about half a century ago, I refused to listen to the Queen’s Christmas Day message. She and I also used to argue about Prince William’s parents as the disintegration of their marriage provoked a bitter propaganda war between them and their supporters. Once I got to know Princess Diana, in a series of extraordinary meetings (see my diaries, volume one) before Labour won power in 1997, despite the nasty columns I used to write about her as a journalist, I became something of a fan. I was smitten indeed, and so took her side in the Charles-Diana rows taking place in homes up and down the country. My mother was more for Charles, seeing as how he was going to be the next king. It is not a conversion from republicanism that has sparked this meeting with the Prince - though “President Trump” would challenge anyone’s faith in an elected head of state - but a common cause, namely the desire to eradicate the stigma and taboo surrounding mental illness. Prince William, his wife Catherine and his brother Harry, have chosen mental health as their main cause, and their Heads Together campaign has been successfully promoting the importance of being as open about our mental health as we are about our physical health. When they started off down this path, the republican in me was annoyed they could get so much traction for anything they did; but the Time To Change mental health campaigner was overjoyed. They have overseen the making of a series of short films showing the importance of talking about mental health problems rather than bottling them up. To my surprise, I was asked to take part in a film, talking with my partner Fiona about how my mental health troubles impact on us. Then, even more surprisingly, given how few extended interviews he gives, he agreed to be interviewed for GQ. I had met him a few times, on the British and Irish Lions rugby tour of New Zealand in 2005, for example, and more recently at a dinner where I asked him whether he would follow the lead of his grandmother when he became king, by never giving an interview as monarch. Here, I was keen to test two things in particular. One was whether his commitment to this cause was real and whether he had a proper understanding of the issues. You can make up your own mind on that, but after an hour and a half at the palace, mine was made up in his favour. Secondly, I wanted to see how close to the public persona the more private man in his own habitat might be. Would he speak with the same stilted style that seems to characterise his public speaking? He didn’t. Would he have a sense of humour? He did. Would he stand on ceremony? He didn’t. Was there any real passion behind the shy exterior? There was. Indeed, were she still here, I would have called my mum and told her, “Good news - I liked him.”

What son doesn’t miss his mother when she’s gone? As you shall see, almost 20 years on from that car crash in Paris, Prince William clearly misses Princess Diana intensely, saying it is only now he feels able properly to talk about her death, the extraordinary week that followed it, and the enormous impact it had on him and his brother. He doesn’t believe she had mental health problems, and nor does he think that he does. But the trauma he suffered losing her so young, and in such awful circumstances, partly explains why he is determined to get the nation talking more about our emotions, not least because, in life and death, his mother changed the way we express them.

AC: So what’s a nice future king like you doing with an old leftie republican like me?

PW: That’s a very good question Alastair [laughs]. To be honest, I really don’t care where people come from, I like meeting and talking to people from all backgrounds. And this is a good opportunity to talk about something that is very close to your heart, and very close to mine.

AC: And why is mental health so close to yours?

PW: Practically everything in my charitable life, in the end, is to do with mental health, whether it be homelessness, veterans’ welfare, my wife and the work she is doing on addiction; so much of what we do comes back to mental health. Also, if I think about my current job as a helicopter pilot with the air ambulance service in East Anglia, my first job there was a suicide and it really affected me. I have been to a number of suicides, self harms, overdoses.

AC: In what way did it affect you?

PW: Not just the person who lost their life, but the people they leave behind. One of the stats I was given was that, just in the area we cover in the east of England - my base is in Cambridge - there are five attempted suicides every day. Yet suicide is still not talked about. So people have the pain of loss, but also the stigma and taboo means they are sometimes ashamed even to talk about how a lover, a partner, a brother, a sister, a best friend, how they died. That stat - five attempted suicides in the East Anglia region alone - it blew my mind, I thought, “Oh my God, this is such a big issue.”

AC: I am a patron of the Maytree suicide sanctuary in north London, and you and your wife made a private visit there. What impact did that have?

PW: The thing that made an impression on me, it wasn’t just the feelings of the people, the pain they were going through and the care for them, it was that this is the only place of its kind in the UK. It may be the only one in the whole of Europe, and I thought, this is terrifying, it really is, there should be more places like this, where people can go when they’re desperate. I have spoken to suicide groups and having been through personal grief myself, I had an inkling of what to expect, but it was all so raw. When someone does end their own life, [there are] so many questions, people feeling guilty, why didn’t we see it, why didn’t we do more, and all surrounded by this massive taboo. I found it eye opening, so revealing as to what goes on in people’s minds.

AC: When you land in your air ambulance and you get out, what on earth do they say when they see you?

PW: We are only likely to be there if people are in deep trauma or unconscious.

AC: But the other people there?

PW: We are often the first on the scene. Also, I do hang back a little. We land, we secure the scene, I will be sorting the comms for the next flight, and then I might be running around helping with equipment and so on.

AC: Nobody ever has to explain, say, “Sorry, don’t worry about him”?

PW: Most people seem to guess, but I do keep as far back as I can and let the team do what they have to do. I maybe carry the stretcher, carry the kit, sort the comms for the next leg. It is all very fast paced.

AC: Why do the three of you work together on Heads Together?

PW: It is a bit of an experiment really. The Royal Family has not normally done this, three members of the family pulling together to focus on one thing. Normally things are quite disjointed, we follow our own interests and see where it goes, but we thought, well, if we tied it together and had a focused approach, how would that work? We wanted to see the impact we could have.

AC: You must get bombarded with approaches and requests? How do you decide what causes and events to support? Do you try to be strategic about it?

PW: Focused rather than strategic, I would say. When I settle on something, I want to dig deep, I want to understand what I am involved in, I want to understand the complexities of all the issues and, above all, I want to make an impact.

AC: Do you not get frustrated, though? Of course, there are advantages to your position but there are limitations too, because you cannot stray into politics. So you can’t do what I do and bang the drum for more resources and more action from government. Is that not really frustrating?

PW: It can be frustrating at times. I watch the political world, I am interested in it, at times I feel there are things going on I could really help with, but you have to understand where you sit and what the limits are; and with regard to what we do in our charity work, I like to think you can do just as much good but in a different direction.

AC: It’s great you guys are getting involved in mental health. Generally, my worry, though, is there is a danger that making improvements on stigma and taboos is seen as a substitute for services, not an accompaniment. Presumably you saying something like that goes beyond acceptable limits?

PW: No, not at all. I can say that. If I attack government policy, no, I can’t, but I can certainly make that kind of point. What we can do is convene, bring people together, organise private meetings, get experts in one room who might otherwise not always meet, they tend not to refuse an invitation, and we can thrash things out.

AC: Is it very much Harry on veterans, Kate on addiction and young women, you on men in general?

PW: A little bit. Harry has the Invictus Games and focuses a lot on veterans. But we are not stuck in our boxes. We are all three of us trying to understand the tentacles of mental health, which go everywhere. I do think if you are focused about general aims you can have a much greater impact. So we do try to stay focused, not splurge around.

AC: Are you in the mental health space for the long haul?

PW: Medium to long term, definitely. What we would love to do is smash the taboo. Getting the London Marathon as the mental health marathon, that was a big thing, and I hope we are reaching a tipping point. But it is a bit like wading through treacle. It is tough. We are now looking at a legacy programme. We are not going to rush, and the mental health sector has to believe in what we might propose, so we are getting expert opinion and then we will pick and choose and decide what we do.

AC: Why don’t you do the London Marathon yourself?

PW: I would love to, but from the policing point of view, they tested it and they were like, “What?” I am keen to do a marathon but it won’t be London.

AC: What about getting a treadmill in here and doing it while everyone else is pounding the streets?

PW: It would be so boring.

AC: Be great television.

PW: I think I would have mental health issues if I was just staring at that wall. I do want to do it though - and the training. In the military we did plenty of similar things to marathons, like yomping over the Brecon Beacons with a ton of kit on your back. I am just pleased we got London as the mental health marathon.

AC: Do you have specific goals and outcomes for the campaign?

PW: Smashing the taboo is our biggest aim. We can’t go anywhere much until that’s done. People can’t access services till they feel less ashamed, so we must tackle the taboo, the stigma, for goodness sake, this is the 21st century. I’ve been really shocked how many people live in fear and in silence because of mental illness. I just don’t understand it. I know I come across as quite reserved and shy, I don’t always have my emotions brewing, but behind closed doors I think about the issues, I get very passionate about things. I rely on people around me for opinions, and I am a great believer in communication on these issues. I cannot understand how families, even behind closed doors, still find it so hard to talk about it. I am shocked we are so worried about saying anything about the true feelings we have. Because mental illness is inside our heads, invisible, it means others tread so carefully, and people don’t know what to say, whereas if you have a broken leg in plaster, everyone knows what to say.

AC: This is my vested interest speaking here, but what with the marathon and the other things, do you think you might stay in this mental health space for good?

PW: We want to see what impact we can have.

AC: You are making an impact now.

PW: I feel we’re going in the right direction, but not making as much impact as we would like. You know what it is like, you want to get there, grapple with all the issues, get there quickly, make the change that is needed.

AC: But in your position, can you do that?

PW: You can, but you have to do it carefully. Maybe we do make change but the way we do it is slower. We get the benefits of more publicity for the things we do.

AC: I do remember when your father’s letters used to come into Number Ten. Will you go down that route, with his very frank letters to ministers?

PW: [Laughs.] Could you read them?

AC: It wasn’t the handwriting that was the problem.

PW: I have written to ministers but purely to point them towards people I think they should see. So a charity might ask me if I can help with someone and I can help get them access to the people in government.

AC: So you don’t lobby but you introduce?

PW: There are issues I am interested in and I am happy to connect people to ministers.

AC: But you’re perhaps not as robust as your father?

PW: My father has always come at this from a depth of knowledge and a desire to help. He only gets involved in anything when he has those two things: knowledge matched to a desire to help. He genuinely cares. We can argue till the cows come home about whether what he says is right or wrong, but he lives this stuff every day, goes into minute detail, wants to help inform opinion and provide knowledge. I would love to know what the public really think, whether they feel shocked or pleased he gets involved. He has done this for a long, long time, and I think he has used his role really well to raise a lot of questions that people need to ask.

AC: So what might this mental health legacy be?

PW: One idea is getting mental health first aiders in schools. Teachers are under such pressure, they face so many challenges every day. They cannot be expected to be mental health counsellors as well, so we thought there must be a way of having mental health first aiders who can be attached to one or two schools.

AC: Is that something you would promote or fund?

PW: That is what we need to work out. It is a bit of a challenge, but we have a whole range of ideas we are looking at.

AC: Now, tell me about the idea of the films - and thank you for asking me to do one.

PW: Thank for you doing it. I watched it this morning.

AC: What was the purpose of them?

PW: This was predominantly about the importance of the conversation. The point we wanted to get over was that, often, talking is the best thing you can do - it can start the whole process of recovery. For a lot of people things brew up, particularly men maybe, they don’t want to talk about problems.

AC: When you were growing up, when you were still at school, did you feel you were surrounded by people who couldn’t talk about feelings?

PW: Yes, I think so, but I do think a generational shift has gone on. If I look at my parents’ generation, there was a lot more stiff upper lip going on. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for the stiff upper lip, and, for those of us in public life, times when you have to maintain it, but behind closed doors, in normal everyday life, we have to be more open and upfront with our feelings and emotions. Mental health in the workplace is a huge issue, and a sensitive area, and leadership is important here. When you see people in high-powered jobs in the City and big corporations who got there despite their mental health problems, that is a huge success story and it shouldn’t be seen as anything else.

AC: Or maybe people get there because of their mental health problems too.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: I feel I owe mine quite a lot.

PW: Absolutely, but what is really important here is that we are normalising mental health, so if a CEO comes out and says, “I went through this, I got through these dark times,” that is amazing, it normalises, it has an impact then in that organisation and beyond. But without that kind of thing, people tend to make excuses, avoid talking about issues that may be affecting them, pretend everything is fine.

AC: So as an employer, if one of your staff came and saw you and said, “I am really struggling,” do you think you would deal with that properly?

PW: Definitely. I am not pretending I am an amazing counsellor, or a specialist, I’m not, but I would take it seriously and if they needed help I would find it for them.

AC: Now, on the stiff upper lip, I can see why there may be a place for that. But listen… my mother died when I was 56, she had a full life, died quickly, relatively painlessly, but it was very upsetting. I am not sure I could have walked behind her coffin with millions of people around the world looking at me, without crying.

PW: No.

AC: So how hard was that?

PW: It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But if I had been in floods of tears the entire way round how would that have looked?

AC: How can you not be in floods of tears if you feel like being in floods of tears?

PW: In the situation I was in, it was self-preservation. I didn’t feel comfortable anyway, having that massive outpouring of emotion around me. I am a very private person, and it was not easy. There was a lot of noise, a lot of crying, a lot of wailing, people were throwing stuff, people were fainting.

AC: As you were walking?

PW: Yes. It was a very unusual experience. It was something I don’t think anyone could have predicted. Looking back, the outpouring of grief and emotion was very touching but it was very odd to be in that situation.

AC: When you were up at Balmoral through the week, were you conscious of how big it all was down here in London?

PW: No, not at all. All I cared about was that I had lost my mum.

AC: So you were protected from everything happening on the Mall?

PW: Yes. I was 15, Harry almost 13, and the overwhelming thing was we had lost our mother.

AC: So when you came back, and you saw how big the reaction was?

PW: I didn’t take it in. I still didn’t realise what was going on, really.

AC: Did you grieve?

PW: That is a very good question. [Pause.] Probably not properly. I was in a state of shock for many years.

AC: Years?

PW: Yes, absolutely. People might find that weird, or think of shock as something that is there, it hits you, then in an hour or two, maybe a day or two, you are over it. Not when it is this big a deal; when you lose something so significant in your life, so central, I think the shock lasts for many years.

AC: My favourite soundbite of the Blair era was not from him, but your grandmother after 9/11, when she said, “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

PW: Yes, absolutely.

AC: But for you to say you felt you were in shock for years - how much harder is it when you are having to grieve or try to grieve with this extraordinary level of global scrutiny, and the endless ridiculous fascination in every detail of your and your mother’s lives.

PW: It does make it more difficult. It doesn’t make you less human. You’re the same person, it is a part of the job to have the interest. The thing is, you can’t bring all your baggage everywhere you go. You have to project the strength of the United Kingdom - that sounds ridiculous, but we have to do that. You can’t just be carrying baggage and throwing it out there and putting it on display everywhere you go. My mother did put herself right out there and that is why people were so touched by her. But I am determined to protect myself and the children, and that means preserving something for ourselves. I think I have a more developed sense of self-preservation.

AC: Yet the Heads Together campaign is all about saying we should talk, be more open about our emotions, out with the stiff upper lip, in with more talking.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: So is it different for you?

PW: Well, I am in the role I am in. But if I had mental health issues I would happily talk about them. I think the closest I got was the trauma I suffered when I lost my mother, the scale of the grief, and I still haven’t necessarily dealt with that grief as well as I could have done over the years.

AC: Who do you talk to?

PW: Family, friends, I talk to those around me who I trust.

AC: But it can’t be easy in your position to find people you can trust totally.

PW: It is hard. But I have always believed in being very open and honest. One of the few strengths I might have is I am good at reading people, and I can usually tell if someone is just being nice because of who I am, and saying stuff for the wrong reasons.

AC: Have you ever talked to people other than friends and family about your feelings?

PW: No I have not talked to a specialist or anyone clinical, but I have friends who are good listeners, and, on grief, I find talking about my mother and keeping her memory alive very important. I find it therapeutic to talk about her, and to talk about how I feel.

AC: So we are coming up to the 20th anniversary of her death. Are you looking forward to that? Or are you dreading it?

PW: I am not looking forward to it, no, but I am in a better place about it than I have been for a long time, where I can talk about her more openly, talk about her more honestly, and I can remember her better, and publicly talk about her better. It has taken me almost 20 years to get to that stage. I still find it difficult now because at the time it was so raw. And also it is not like most people’s grief, because everyone else knows about it, everyone knows the story, everyone knows her. It is a different situation for most people who lose someone they love, it can be hidden away or they can choose if they want to share their story. I don’t have that choice really. Everyone has seen it all.

AC: The first time I met your mother, in 1994, she said, “Why did you write those horrible things about me when you were a journalist?” I said, “My God, I can’t believe you read that stuff.” But she did. I was shocked that she had read it and also remembered it, it was years earlier. It made me think at the time that some people reach a certain level of fame at which media and public cease to see them as human beings. Do you think that is what happened to her, and do you think it has ever happened to you?

PW: Not with me, no. I think with her it was a unique case. The media issue with my mother was probably the worst any public figure has had to deal with.

AC: What? The intrusion, the harassment?

PW: Yes, but more the complete salacious appetite for anything, anything at all about her, even if there was no truth in it, none whatsoever.

AC: So you don’t have any sympathy with the argument that she cultivated her own friends in the media and fed the whole thing?

PW: I have been exploring this. Remember, I was young at the time. I didn’t know what was going on. I know some games and shenanigans were played, but she was isolated, she was lonely, things within her own life got very difficult and she found it very hard to get her side of the story across. I think she was possibly a bit naive and ended up playing into the hands of some very bad people.

AC: Media people?

PW: Yes. This was a young woman with a high profile position, very vulnerable, desperate to protect herself and her children and I feel strongly there was no responsibility taken by media executives who should have stepped in, and said, “Morally, what we are doing, is this right, is this fair, is this moral?” Harry and I were so young and I think if she had lived, when we were older we would have played that role, and I feel very sad and I still feel very angry that we were not old enough to be able to do more to protect her, not wise enough to step in and do something that could have made things better for her. I hold a lot of people to account that they did not do what they should have done, out of human decency.

AC: Were you not tempted to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry?

PW: We discussed it, but decided in the end not to. Remember, we were the first to expose the phone hacking.

AC: You seem to get a hard time from one or two papers these days. Do you think there is a bit of score-settling going on?

PW: I don’t know.

AC: Do you get followed and chased by paps on bikes?

PW: Not often. But there is a lot of quite sophisticated surveillance that goes on.

AC: So even if not phone hacking, which is far from guaranteed, the press have moved on to other things?

PW: I suppose the one glimmer of light is that because of what happened to my mother, we do not get it as bad as she did. We still have problems, for sure, but do have a little more protection because of the ridiculous levels it got to for my mother - the fact she was killed being followed, being chased, I think there are more boundaries to their actions.

AC: Really?

PW: It is a little better than it used to be.

AC: During the week of her death, Tony Blair spoke to your father and he said to me afterwards, “This is going to be a problem, those boys are going to need help, they are going to despise the media, blame them for her death, yet the media will be a part of their lives.”

PW: Yes, they are.

AC: When you were in Paris recently, posing for hundreds of photographers with President Hollande, did you look at them and wonder if any of them were among the ones who chased her that night?

PW: I’m afraid those are the kind of things I have just had to come to terms with. It is so hard to explain, using only words, what it was like for my mother. If I could only bring out what I saw and what happened in my mother’s life and death, and the role the media played in that, that is the only way people would ever understand it. I can try to explain it in words, but to live it, see it, breathe it, you can’t explain how horrendous it was for her.

AC: Do you think the reaction to her death was a big factor in diminishing the stiff upper lip approach, and changed the way we mourn? Do you think the kind of reaction we saw when, say, David Bowie died last year, would have been the same without that reaction for your mother?

PW: No it wouldn’t. The massive outpouring around her death has really changed the British psyche, for the better.

AC: You do think it is for the better?

PW: Yes, I do think it is for the better.

AC: How much did that week after your mother’s death bring you and Harry together?

PW: We are very close.

AC: And that feeling of shock, sadness, you never felt it strayed over to what I would know as an illness, depression?

PW: I have never felt depressed in the way I understand it, but I have felt incredibly sad. And I feel the trauma of that day has lived with me for 20 years, like a weight, but I would not say that has led me to depression. I still want to get up in the morning, I want to do stuff, I still feel I can function. Believe me, at times it has felt like it would break me, but I have felt I have learned to manage it and I’ve talked about it. On the days when it has got bad I have never shied away from talking about it and addressing how I feel. I have gone straight to people around me and said, “Listen I need to talk about this today.”

AC: Like when?

PW: Last week with the air ambulance, I flew to a really bad case, a small boy and a car accident. I have seen quite a lot of car injuries, and you have to deal with what you see, but every now and then one gets through the armour. This one penetrated the armour, not just me but the crew who have seen so much. It was the feelings of loss from a parent’s point of view, the parents of the boy. Anything to do with parent and child, and loss, it is very difficult, it has a big effect on me, it takes me straight back to my emotions back when my mother died, and I did go and talk to people at work about it. I felt so sad. I felt that one family’s pain and it took me right back to the experience I had. The more relatable pain is to your own life the harder it is to shake it off.

AC: How has the passing of time helped?

PW: They do say time is a healer, but I don’t think it heals fully. It helps you deal with it better. I don’t think it ever fully heals.

AC: Is there a part of you that doesn’t want it to heal fully because for that to happen might make her feel more distant? So you feel the need to stay strongly attached? If grief is the price we pay for love, maybe you want to keep the grief out of fear that loss of grief means you love her less?

PW: One thing I can always say about my mother is she smothered Harry and me in love. Twenty years on I still feel the love she gave us and that is testament to her massive heart and her amazing ability to be a great mother.

AC: How different do you think the country would be if she was still here?

PW: I have thought about that, but mainly from my own perspective. I would like to have had her advice. I would love her to have met Catherine and to have seen the children grow up. It makes me sad that she won’t, that they will never know her.

AC: What about the public Diana?

PW: I think she would have carried on, really getting stuck into various causes and making change. If you look at some of the issues she focused on, leprosy, Aids, landmines, she went for some tough areas. She would have carried on with that.

AC: She was an extraordinary woman.

PW: She was.

AC: How hard do you find the scrutiny? I mean you can’t even do a bit of bad dad dancing without someone taking a video?

PW: [Laughs.] Honestly, I can dance better than that. It’s true though, camera phones, Twitter, there’s not much privacy. I don’t think it was too bad. It wasn’t as if I was falling out of a nightclub, totally wasted. I think people realise everyone has to blow off a bit of energy and tension every now and then.

AC: So how did you feel when some of the papers said you don’t work hard enough?

PW: Criticism is part of the turf, I’m afraid. I think the public are much more nuanced. I have my air ambulance job, I carry out the duties the Queen asks me to, I have my charities and causes and I am raising a young family, so I can’t let that criticism get to me.

AC: A couple of the papers do seem to have turned against you, though?

PW: There is a certain element of Fleet Street getting fed up with nice stories about us. They want the past back again, soap, drama.

AC: Do you see it as part of your job to avoid giving them that? A bit of normality, stability.

PW: I couldn’t do my job without the stability of the family. Stability at home is so important to me. I want to bring up my children in a happy, stable, secure world, and that is so important to both of us as parents. I want George to grow up in a real, living environment, I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls, he has to be out there. The media make it harder but I will fight for them to have a normal life.

AC: But surely you must accept it is an abnormal life?

PW: Totally, but I can still try to protect them as children.

AC: The Queen, your father, you, now George. Four people on the planet who might one day be the head of state in the UK. It is fair to say republicanism has lost, not least thanks to your grandmother. The monarchy seems to have bucked the trend even though we live in a non-deferential, anti-establishment age. Do you feel that?

PW: I do feel the monarchy is in a good place and, like you say, my grandmother has done a remarkable job leading the country - her vision, her sense of duty, her loyalty, her steadfastness, it has been unwavering. We now have three generations of working royals, four altogether, and having that movement through the generations allows for the monarchy to stay relevant and keep up with modern times. You are only as good as your last gig and it is really important you look forward, plan, have a vision.

AC: Do you not look at the Queen, yet another garden party, yet another investiture, yet another state visit, and think how on earth can she keep going?

PW: Yes I do.

AC: Do you, your father and the Queen ever sit down, just the three of you, and just natter?

PW: [Laughs.] What, about Lady Gaga or something? [Prince William had recently recorded a Facetime chat with Lady Gaga for the campaign.]

AC: I was thinking more about being head of state. I mean, how do you learn?

PW: You learn on the job. There is no rulebook. I sometimes wonder if there should be, but in the end I think probably not. Having that difference in how we do things makes the Royal Family more interesting and more flexible. If we all followed the same line, it would all be quite stifled. Our characters are different and the different opinions are important to have.

AC: Your grandmother has always believed in there being a bit of mystique attached to it all as well.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: Never ever given an interview.

PW: No. Never. I seem to have sold the pass on that one.