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soul-controller · 1 month ago

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The Do-Over

This is one of my favorite stories that I've done, so much so that I've been considering bringing this idea back and turning it into a series for Patreon. I hope you enjoy!

As Arthur Saunders peered down towards his kitchen counter, the newly-minted 29-year-old scratched his head as he attempted to understand what he was looking at. It was earlier in the day when he first encountered the medium-sized box as he accidentally kicked it upon exiting his apartment. Despite his own curiosity about the box given the fact that there was no label or return address listed, the man had several birthday-related errands to run and was forced to quickly place the box inside before leaving for the majority of the day.

So despite his slight tiredness upon returning back to his apartment after a lively day of various celebrations with friends and family, Arthur’s mind began to continuously ponder not only what was inside the box but who had sent it. Based on the lack of postage or a shipping label, it was clear that someone had physically dropped the package off on his doorstep. But who would do that and not even knock on the door or attempt to speak with the man?

Although Arthur believed his curiosity was already at its peak, he soon realized that this was not true as he cut open the box and pulled back the cardboard flaps. Sitting in the box was a huge red button with the words “DO-OVER” painted white on the top, which instantly puzzled the young man. Although he assumed the button was all that was inside the box given the slew of packing peanuts that filled most of the box, Arthur gripped onto the button and found that a full contraption was unearthed upon lifting it up and out of the box.

As he set it down on the kitchen counter, Arthur spent a few minutes observing the bizarre item. Although the bright red button was a prominent feature, it was connected to a jet black base that was rounded and nearly double the size of the large button. On the base itself, Arthur discovered two large rectangular LED screens that sat both above and below the large button. Although he could tell that they were meant to display some sort of text or visual, the dull haze of the screen revealed that there was no power to the contraction… at least not yet.

Intrigued about what exactly the device did, Arthur found himself lifting it up and inspecting it in search of a power button. But alas, no such discovery was found by the man, which caused him to set the item down and direct his focus towards the huge box. In hopes of finding some sort of instructions, the man plunged his hand deep into the sea of packing peanuts and aimlessly felt around.

Eventually, the man was able to pick up on the slip of paper that was included in the box and fished it out. Upon grabbing it and holding it out in front of him, the curious man narrowed his eyes as he hoped the paper would provide some much needed explanations.

Dear User, Congratulations on being selected to test out the brand new Do-Over Program. Upon being submitted by an acquaintance of yours, our company has been slowly observing you and your actions for the past few months. Upon noticing your general feelings of stagnation and confusion over your life, we’ve deemed you to be a perfect fit for the program. The device you’ve been provided will allow you the opportunity to do-over your life, which will cause every aspect of your personality to be randomized in hopes of providing you an entirely new and positive outlook towards life. Although such a concept may seem scary, please know that none of these changes are permanent (as long as you don’t wish for them to be). With the perks of being chosen for this program though, our only ask is that for our own research that you wait at least 24 hours before attempting another do-over. In regards to completing the program, there are two possible options. Firstly, you can continue to explore and test out various different lives and identities until you find one that seems perfect to you. Upon doing so, you can then lock the new identity in, which will cause the device to be retrieved and sent to the next participant in the program. If you do not accept any of the new lives created by the program, there is also another option that will return you to your original life. With this option though, we only recommend it if you have discovered that the entire process has caused you to have a renewed interest and sense of determination of how to move forward. If you choose this option, please contact S-C Enterprises via the provided information and we will send an employee to retrieve the device. Regardless of the end result you choose, we hope you have an enjoyable experience as a part of our program. Sincerely, The Do-Over Team

Upon finishing reading the note and setting the piece of paper onto the kitchen countertop, Arthur found that he now had more questions than he had answers. Who had submitted him to this program, and what did the company mean by saying they’ve been observing him for months? Surely they weren’t actually watching him and observing his online behaviors, right?

Despite being significantly unnerved by the contents of the note, Arthur couldn’t deny that his curiosity was piqued by the reveal of what the contraption sitting on his counter was capable of. The premise sounded like something straight out of a science fiction 80s film, but it felt surprisingly pertinent to him.

Although he hated to give props to a group that was apparently stalking him both in person and virtually, it was true that Arthur wasn’t quite happy with the cards he had been dealt with in life. When he first decided to go to university, the concept of being a teacher and helping mold young minds seemed like a rewarding career path. But after several years of actually being a teacher in a posh all-male school, the dull monotony of lessons along with the disrespect from both his students and fellow faculty members left him feeling like a husk of himself. With the constant influx of assignments to mark along with having to create lesson plans, Arthur found that even his own free time in his flat was devoted to his career… which only made him loathe it further.

To make matters worse, the realization that he was now only one year from reaching his 30s left the teacher feeling quite depressed and anxious. Although he knew that he personally loathed his current career choice, the crushing reality of his ever-increasing age meant that it was becoming incredibly unlikely for a last minute career change. Even worse, he had so many other hobbies and dreams that he couldn’t even mentally envision what to do with his life. In his free time, the man loved to write short stories or play video games, but the likelihood of becoming a famous author or Twitch streamer seemed impossible. Overall, his life left him feeling trapped and utterly helpless.

As he realized just how correct the letter’s assumption of his unhappiness was, Arthur’s eyes soon found themselves peering down to the blocky white text of “DO OVER” plastered across the top of the red button. Although he remained significantly unnerved by the contents of the letter, the bold white letters on the button had an inversely calming effect. Closing his eyes, the text flashed through his mind like an opening night marquee and thus caused the man to envision the endless amount of possibilities that he could have taken with his life. Before he could even comprehend what he was doing, the man reached a hand out and quickly slammed it down onto the bright red button.

The loud noise suddenly emitting from the contraption caused Arthur to suddenly open his eyes and look down in slight fear. As a sound similar to gears whirling seemed to emit from the inner mechanism of the device, Arthur let out a soft scream and jumped in shock as the speed of the noise increased until a booming pop filled his flat.

Soundtracked by the noise, Arthur watched as a small knob suddenly popped out and revealed itself on the left side of the device. It was perfectly in line with the rectangular LED screen, which left the man curious about if the knob was somehow linked to the screen. Just as he began to reach out to mess with the knob though, both screens suddenly became active and lost their dim and dull display.

In awe, Arthur watched as the screens finally began to display text. At first, it was just the top screen that went into action, displaying a simple welcome message that addressed him by his full legal name. But upon displaying that message for a few seconds, the screen erased the text as a slew of text emerged. As Arthur watched each statistic display itself though, he quickly realized that it was somehow perfectly displaying accurate descriptions of himself.

Name: Arthur Saunders Age: 29 Height: 6’1” Weight: 95kg Physique: Average Ethnicity: Caucasian Nationality: British

Before Arthur could even attempt to formulate a reaction to what he was seeing, his eyes watched as the bottom screen suddenly roared to life. Looking down to see what was happening, he watched as letter by letter a word was forming. Although he soon figured out what it would say by the fifth letter, Arthur still watched with intense curiosity as the word Randomizing manifested. Just as the “g” finally appeared to finish the word though, Arthur gasped in shock as a loud and shrill whirring noise began to emit from the device.

Unlike the metallic whirring sound that was due to the gears inside the device changing, this whirling was undoubtedly electronic due to its frequency. Out of nowhere, the noise spiked to ear-numbing levels and forced Arthur to grit his teeth while lifting his arms up to shield his ears.

For a few moments the sharp noise maintained its maximum intensity, which continued to just assault Arthur’s eardrums to the point where the usually non-religion man was mentally begging for salvation. To his relief and utter shock, his prayers seemed to work as the noise suddenly halted and caused the entire room to go quiet (besides the intense ringing that was still rattling in Arthur’s ears).

Unfortunately though, this tranquility didn’t last for long as a bright white light suddenly erupted from the device and completely engulfed Arthur’s modest flat. Frantic to not be blinded by the intense assault on his vision, the man pulled his hands away from his ears expeditiously and used them to cover his eyes.

Although he had assumed that the assault on his senses had been utterly affected, it seemed this wasn’t the case as Arthur could feel a dull vibration ripple across his entire body. Upon gritting his teeth, the man was left with nothing to do but ride out this uncomfortable sensation that left him feeling as though he was viciously drifting through the ocean.

After what felt like hours, the bizarre sensations riddling Arthur’s body suddenly ceased. Although he was unsure of whether the blinding light that had filled his flat had finally stopped, the confusion and fear over what he had been feeling caused him to take a risk and slowly part his eyelids. Given the blinding light and the deep vibrations that had wrecked his body resembled that of a bomb, Arthur had assumed that his flat would be in some state of disarray. But as he looked around, everything appeared to be exactly like he had last seen it from the slight piling of dirty dishes in his sink to the device that remained on the kitchen counter.

Such a reveal was confusing to Arthur, which caused him to rub his temples and attempt to figure out what exactly he had just experienced. “What the hell wa-” he began, his words suddenly stopped dead in their tracks. As his eyes bulged out in shock, the man lifted a hand up and allowed his fingers to graze along his Adam’s apple. For 29 years of his life, Arthur had always had an average and very clearly British accent when he spoke. But as he talked now, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t the case. Instead, the words that came out of his mouth resembled a deep boom that echoed through his flat and unequivocally American. “Is, is that my voice?” he asked aloud to no one in particular, his body shivering as he realized he wasn’t insane in his first assumption. He truly did sound just like the men he had seen in countless American blockbuster films.

Just as he was on the verge of becoming incredibly panicked over the new voice in which he spoke with, a loud ding suddenly rang out from the device and caused Arthur to look down. Upon doing so, he watched as the bottom screen began to display text. As he watched each line of text display itself, Arthur quickly realized that it was the same stats as the top screen, although they were now being listed in reverse order and displaying very different information.

Nationality: American Ethnicity: Caucasian

Although Arthur felt proud of himself for assuming that his assumption of his new accent was correct, there was also a lingering sense of panic as he finally took a moment to realize that the device was truly randomizing his body and turning him into someone else. With the concept of having a new life to try out now validated, the man looked down with cautious excitement as the next few lines of text began to appear.

Physique: Muscular Weight: 163 lbs Height: 5’11”

Upon watching those three lines of text appear on the screen, a loud gasp instantly escaped from the man’s mouth as he couldn’t believe the concept of becoming incredibly muscular. Although he had a moderate amount of muscle in his arms and legs, it was often clear that he was an average man by the slightly pudgy stomach that was small yet still made itself present in any shirt he wore. It was always a place of insecurity for the man, so when he looked down at himself and noticed that his stomach was completely flat, a relieved smirk manifested onto his face. This smirk quickly turned into a cocky grin though as he reached his hand underneath his shirt and ended up discovering a well-defined six-pack that left his hands feeling as though they were traveling down a brick road.

Despite wanting so badly to explore more of his new physique, Arthur forced himself to stop as the final two lines of text revealed itself to him.

Age: 23 Name: Michael Chad Johnson

Upon learning of his new name and age, the realization that he was now someone entirely different from Arthur Saunders set in. In his mind, it was one thing to gain a muscular physique and another to become an entirely different person. As such, the concept was both incredibly exciting yet also undoubtedly nerve-wracking. In hopes of calming this anxiety though, the man took a moment to remind himself that this could all be temporary and that caused him to take a deep breath and ground himself once more.

With the last of the text now displayed, Arthur wasted no time rushing away from the kitchen counter in hopes of getting a better look at himself. The man made a direct bee-line towards his bathroom, quickly flipping on the light and shutting the door behind him. As the lights above the mirror flicked to life, Arthur felt butterflies in his stomach as he found himself looking at his new visage. He looked so hot!

The man couldn’t help but smile as he looked into the mirror and admired the new features that his face possessed. Not only was he in possession of a well-angled jawline, but his blue eyes were incredibly inviting and at odds with just how classically masculine and intimidating he looked. Although it was only 6 years of age regression, Arthur quickly picked up on some noticeable changes. Given the fact that his new age made it so he wasn’t up late every night planning class lessons and grading papers, there was no indication of the slight wrinkles that had recently begun adorning his face. On top of this, the man also picked up on how his complexion had completely altered, shifting away from a slightly pasty shade to something that was much more well-maintained and tanned.

Eager to see more of his new physique, the man wasted no time taking his shirt off and throwing it aside. Upon turning back to stare into the mirror, Arthur was greeted to the glorious sight of a ripped physique. Although he was momentarily upset by the loss of chest hair that adorned his chest and down his stomach, he quickly accepted the change as he traded it in for an impressive six pack and pair of pecs.

Not wanting the remaining clothes to hinder his exploration of his new physique, Arthur quickly dropped his pants until all that he was dressed in was a pair of underwear. For several minutes the man was transfixed as he tensed his leg muscles to admire his thick thigh and calf muscles. As he turned around and craned his neck back to the mirror, the man was also relieved to discover he had a prominent yet firm ass now.

But while all of those aspects were exciting, the sudden strain against the fabric of his underwear caused Arthur to take note of his manhood. While he was admiring himself, he had understandably gotten quite turned on to the point where a rock hard cock was struggling to remain concealed. Unlike his former 5-incher, the manhood he was now in possession of had to be at least 7 inches and twice as thick. As he gripped onto it and gave a slight squeeze, the man moaned as he began to leak pre-cum. This is a dream come true, he thought, allowing one hand to caress his cock while the other flexed and squeezed on his new physique.

So while Arthur was having a blast admiring his new jock body, the device that remained unattended on the kitchen counter was continuing to move onto the next stage as text appeared on the top screen.

Stage Two: Location Alteration Current Location: United Kingdom Residence Style: Flat

Given Arthur’s new identity as an American, the second screen suddenly began to rapidly scroll through all 50 states to settle on his new home along with a list of different housing styles. After a good 15 seconds of bouncing between countless options, the device finally settled on two choices for the new Michael Chad Johnson.

New Location: Virginia Residence Style: Mobile Home

So while Arthur remained in a euphoric state exploring his new body, the man was unaware of the fact that he and his residence had been teleported to a vacant lot in a rural Virginia trailer park. Given the larger plot of land that he now called his own, the man’s flat began to expand and rearrange itself into an expanded rectangular shape. While the magic began to connect all of his piping and electricity to the plot of land, the interior of his new home was being redecorated to give a cozy Americana feel. Although a lot of the man’s original décor remained (such as the few shelves of superhero memorabilia that he had), it was condensed to allow an entire row of shelving to display vintage Americana style décor and signage.

By the time Arthur had finally exited the bathroom to return to the device, the changes to his new residence had finished and immediately threw the now-younger man for a loop. It was so bizarre to discover the new layout of his home as he attempted to navigate his way back to the kitchen. Throughout his journey to return to the device, Arthur also noticed the slew of blank picture frames that now hung off of his walls. It was a bizarre sight for the man to behold, especially as he knew that they would soon be filled with random new images as more of this Michael character’s backstory was created…

Upon returning to the kitchen counter, Arthur Saunders’ return was perfectly timed with the text of the device erasing as the next step in the process began. To his immediate interest, the next stage was revealed to be the announcement of both Arthur’s and “Michael’s” hobbies. Rather than just a text reveal though, the top screen of the device became much more visual as it was divided into three individual sections. As soon as the lines were finished dividing up the spaces, Arthur watched as each individual section began moving up and down. Watching each section rapidly spin up and down, it quickly became clear that the visual was supposed to be reminiscent of a slot machine. After a few more rotations around, each section finally stopped to lock in three emojis.

|🖊️|💪|🕹️|

To Arthur’s amusement, he saw these and immediately realized that they perfectly described his hobbies. Whenever he wasn’t hard at work grading papers or creating lesson plans, the man loved nothing more than writing, working out, or playing video games. Although he shouldn’t have been surprised about how accurate the device was given the magical abilities of it, he still found himself impressed that he could be narrowed down so specifically.

Soon afterwards, the bottom screen adopted the same visual style and began to aimlessly spin. With intense curiosity, Arthur found himself bent over the counter and excitedly looking down to wonder what his new hobbies would be as Michael. One-by-one, the emojis that formed caused Arthur’s heart to flutter in a tizzy of intense joy.

|📱|💪|🎼|

Although he had no idea what the music emoji would entail, the visual of seeing a cell phone and a flexing emoji back to back left Arthur taking into account his hunky new physique and becoming excited about the concept of being a hunky influencer. While the magic quietly worked itself in the background for a few minutes though, the man began to ponder whether his educated guess was actually right as nothing seemed to be happening. But soon enough, his phone began to go absolutely haywire as a flood of notifications began to ring out and fill the room with an endless sea of dings.

Despite not being able to unlock the phone as it continued to ding and reveal endless notifications, the man’s lock screen was able to provide a decent amount of information as he saw these notifications coming from both Instagram and TikTok. With each like and comment notification flooding his phone, the man’s mind couldn’t help but wonder what his new social media content would be like.

Eventually Arthur was given the opportunity to explore his new social media as the notifications finally stopped after a few more minutes of notification spamming. To start things off he headed over to his Instagram to see what had become of his account. Upon doing so and heading to his account page, the man was flabbergasted to discover that his new account of michaelchad757 had nearly 100k followers. Given the fact that his former account only had 400 followers, the growth was monumental and left Arthur oddly feeling incredibly proud despite not actually being Michael.

Upon clicking on his most recent post, Arthur was immediately turned on by innate confidence that his new self displayed as he smirked for the camera and flexed his mighty biceps. Based on the comments underneath the post, it seemed that Arthur wasn’t in the minority in terms of how hot and bothered his flexing made people feel.

After quickly scrolling through the rest of his post history and finding tons of flexing videos or thirst trap photos that showcased his ripped torso, Arthur was buzzing with excitement to see what sort of visual delights awaited him on TikTok. As such, the man quickly exited out of Instagram and switched over to the other app that had become overloaded with notifications. Upon doing so and heading to his account, Arthur was shocked to discover that his account there was even bigger than his Instagram. With over 250,000 followers and over 2.6 million likes, he was an undeniable TikTok star!

For the most part, his TikTok account was exactly what he expected: an endless slew of thirst traps where he cockily smirked on the camera before removing his shirt and flexing his muscles as a random song or sound soundtracked the video. As he continued to scroll through videos, he found that Michael had a favorite move - popping his pecs to the beat of any song that he used in the video. It was incredibly hypnotizing to watch his plump chest ripple and bounce to the song, which made more sense as to why he was able to amass such a huge following despite being the most vanilla of thirst traps.

After scrolling through at least 20 videos of his new body doing the same sort of moves while stripping, Arthur found himself thrown for a loop when he came across a video of Michael doing something non-flexing related. Instead, he watched as his shirtless body stood in front of a mirror and instead began to freestyle rap rather than flex. Such a reveal was a huge shock to Arthur, especially as he himself wasn’t much of a rap guy. Pop and alternative were usually his favorite genres, so this new reveal was quite the 180 for the former teacher.

Yet as he exited out of the app to explore his Apple Music, he found that the device had deleted all of his favorite tunes from his library and replaced them with unknown rap songs that Michael seemingly adored. Upon hitting shuffle, the first song that popped up seemed like an instant no to Arthur as the instrumental was a far cry from his usual tastes. But as the beat continued and rapping began, the transformed man found himself absentmindedly perfectly replicating the words and the flow of the rapper.

Upon allowing the song to finish up, Arthur was somewhat amused by this new quirk. Although he loved his pop music more than anything, he found himself willing to embrace this new change as he viewed this new life as only temporary since he could just do another attempt with the device tomorrow. As soon as this thought crossed his mind, the device seemed to pick up on Arthur’s acceptance of his new situation as the screens lit up once more and began to move to the next stage.

The bright lights of the screen pulled Arthur away from his phone, which caused him to tuck it back into his pants pocket as he devoted his attention to the device once more. While doing so, Arthur quickly discovered that the next stage would be deemed the “mental changes”. As the text quickly deleted itself, the man watched as the screens evolved once more and became more visual. Instead of a slot machine graphic though, each screen revealed a large roulette wheel.

In a snap, each roulette slot suddenly became adored with various text. While the top screen had a slew of numbers ranging from 70 to 130, the bottom screen’s slots were filled with text that listed various things such as “heterosexual”, “asexual”, “homosexual”. As he read the bottom screen, he was able to quickly figure out that the roulette wheel there was meant to decide his new sexuality. Given his status already as a bisexual, the device had already grayed out that option to make it clear that he was intended to have a new experience with Michael’s life. The top screen remained a mystery for a few minutes before the term “IQ” was suddenly manifested in the middle of the roulette wheel.

Instantly, the concept of changing his IQ set off alarm bells in Arthur’s mind. The concept of gaining a new body was a dream come true, but the 50/50 chances of becoming either smarter or dumber than what he already was was a risk he was unwilling to take. As such, he tried his best to search for a way to skip the intended changes. But his entire search of the device revealed no skip button and he gulped in fear as the top wheel began to spin just as he set it back down on the counter.

For what felt like an eternity, the wheel continued to just aimlessly spin as if it was taunting Arthur for its impending choice. As such, Arthur’s entire body felt absolutely sluggish as the weight of the upcoming decision weighed on him. To both his relief and horror, the wheel finally decided to stop on the number 74. Given the fact that his IQ had seemingly been in the 100 range based on how that entire range had been grayed out, 74 was an extreme downgrade.

Instantly, Arthur could feel the intense ripple effect of the IQ choice as his mind was seemingly drained of his knowledge. In no time, it quickly became clear that he wouldn’t be a teacher anymore as all of his university knowledge was sapped away and left him with a high school education. To make matters worse though, Arthur’s knowledge was further impacted as his low IQ made him a piss-poor student with a bare minimum vocabulary. Rather than easily passing all of his classes and graduating near the top of his class, Michael was an obvious idiot who struggled to stay focused on boring class lessons. As more of Arthur’s high school experiences were erased, they were soon replaced with memories that fit a total slacker like Michael. Given his new low attention span and dislike of boring classes, Arthur’s thoughts of high school brought forth new memories of being a total nuisance in class as he loved to disrupt the teacher or sit in the back making small talk with his other jock friends.

This life path as a total himbo also led to an unintended side effect as new memories emerged where Michael opted to go by his middle name of Chad. This was mainly due to the fact that everyone in his friend loved to taunt him and jokingly call him a “total Chad”. Given the fact that his middle name was actually Chad, he opted to forgo his ill-fitting first name and become the complete Chad fantasy that his best bros had heralded him.

Speaking of jocks, Chad’s high school experience made it so the only place he really excelled was in sports. Throughout his 4 years, he had played football, wrestling, and baseball and been the star player on each team. If it wasn’t for his barely passing grades, he could have gotten full-ride scholarships to countless major schools. But alas, the man found himself utterly bored with school by the time the last sports season of the year was over. Rather than wasting his time and waking up early to spend 7 “dull ass” hours trapped in a classroom, Chad dropped out a month before graduation and began to just work out at the gym 24/7.

This decision had a serious impact on Chad’s life, causing him to get kicked out of his parents’ house and left to fend for himself. Given his jock physique, he ultimately found himself making money occasionally training some pudgy middle-aged loser who wanted to lose weight at his local gym. It was pathetic in Chad’s eyes to watch someone fail to do the bare minimum in terms of workouts, but he refused to make his thoughts known so he could continue making money. After nearly six months of crashing on the couch of his jockish best friends, the man had finally gained enough money to move into a mobile home in a nearby trailer park.

By the time the second wheel had begun spinning, the light behind Arthur’s vibrant blue eyes had faded, leaving behind simply the dull stare of an idiot himbo. As such, the only reason why the man’s attention was kept by the device was the bright vibrant colors of the wheel as it widely spun around. This transfixion that the device kept on him was maintained even as the wheel stopped spinning and landed on the heterosexual option, so much so that he didn’t even object to such a reveal.

“Fuck yeah bro, that’s lit!” Chad exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air as deep down Arthur finally submitted to become his ultimate straight jock fantasy. Upon closing his eyes and thinking about what it would be like to be a straight man, Arthur found himself envisioning a blonde bimbo on her knees and looking up with a lustful stare. While this fantasy was helping lead him into this new sexual orientation, the man’s cock was hardening as his memories of love and relationships were altering.

Rather than being attracted to jocks like his best bros or sweet and kind girls, Arthur’s mind found his memories altering to where he almost exclusively hooked up with members of his high school cheerleading team. There were countless memories where he would be approached after a game by a girl looking to congratulate him for a great performance, which would soon lead to erotic fucking in the locker rooms or baseball dugouts. Although Arthur was once a sensitive lover who was more interested in the emotional connection he had with someone, it was all physical for Chad. He didn’t give a fuck about personality or emotional connection, all that mattered to him was whether a girl had a “banging bod” or not.

Upon the wheel’s effects finally finishing up their changes to the new Chad’s mind, the screens went blank again before announcing that the final stage - career prospects - was about to begin. As Chad looked up towards the first screen, he was utterly confused to see that his career was listed as a “Professional Educator & Aspiring Writer”. He fucking loathed school, so he would never dare to become a loser that spent all of his time dressed up all nice and teaching dumb shit that didn’t matter in real life! The concept of becoming a writer was funny to Chad as well, because he was fully aware of the fact that he was a complete idiot. He loved that fact about himself, so the concept of becoming a writer with his elementary school level writing abilities was hilarious.

After finishing his laugh at the concept of having such loser jobs, Chad watched as the bottom screen lit up and began to display text. His mind was quite confused though as the screen displayed the same text as the top screen: “Professional Educator & Aspiring Writer”. To add more confusion to the mix, the words educator and writer were suddenly erased to leave two large blanks.

As soon as this was complete, Chad jumped in shock as a keyboard suddenly extended out of the device. At first the man had no idea what he was supposed to do, but as he looked at the screen and watched as a text cursor began to blink within the first blank. “Oh shit, it’s like a game huh?” Chad dimly exclaimed, chuckling as he thought about the concept of picking his own career. Although he had the opportunity to pick any possible career that could provide him with a more lavish lifestyle, Chad’s low IQ didn’t allow for such intense thinking. As such, the man’s id led the way as he opted to pursue his immediate impulsive thoughts and typed out his answers. Upon looking it over, the man gave a dopey smile before he pressed the enter button to lock in his answer.

With a loud yet cheerful ringing suddenly emerging upon hitting enter, Chad found himself staring intensely at the bottom screen as more text began to finally fill the screen.

Professional Thirst Trap & Aspiring Rapper * CHOICE ACCEPTED *

Instantly, Chad tilted his head back and gasped as an intense tingle began to massage his skull. Deep within his brain, the jock’s mind was undergoing one final transformation to complete his new life for the day. Although his memories of becoming a worker at his local gym were true, this altered slightly as he became TikTok famous to the point where brands were actively reaching out to do deals and endorsements with him. With such a steady amount of income coming in, the man ultimately quit his job and focused on creating thirst trap content. Now instead of the grueling chore of a 9 to 5, Chad simply spends all of his time now working out and filming vanity videos of himself flexing for the camera.

Given just how fast his brand had grown over the course of the past year, Chad knew that he had his audience in the palm of his hand. So, knowing just how much people thirsted for him (for obvious reasons in his opinion), Chad also found himself making even more money as he opted to open up an OnlyFans account. Despite his OnlyFans account name being Chad Johnson (which always made him chuckle as he was a total Chad and had one glorious Johnson), the young jock was willing to show practically everything besides his impressive manhood.��

Although this was partially due to wanting to keep the ladies guessing, the main factor was that he knew that a large portion of his fans were gay men who thirsted over him. He had always had an issue with queers ever since he caught some nerds checking him out during gym class, so there was always a boiling rage he felt whenever he saw a man thirst-commenting on any of his photos or videos. The concept of some pathetic losers jerking off to his glorious body was utterly disgusting in Chad’s eyes, but the man was smart enough not to make those thoughts known so he wouldn’t be canceled. As such, he ultimately opted to forget about it as they were paying customers who helped fund his lavish lifestyle of expensive fitness gear and sports cars despite still opting to live in his trailer.

Given the constant influx of money he received every month from brand deals and OnlyFans, Chad spent most of his free time pursuing his other passion - rapping. Ever since he was a little boy, he had been drawn to the genre and found himself writing raps for fun whenever he was bored (which was pretty often). Now that he had no worries given his healthy income, the man finally decided to fully invest into his career as an aspiring rapper. Thinking back caused Chad to recall the release of his most recent EP, which had done moderate numbers given the size of his fanbase.

Unfortunately, Chad’s cockiness made him unable to realize that he truly wasn’t the greatest rapper. Even when people commented under his posts to specifically pinpoint why he wasn’t good at the genre, he refused to believe such nonsense. Those losers were just jealous of his immense talent and trying anything they could to make him give up on his dreams!

As he continued to think about the intense criticism he got and considered making a diss track about those pathetic losers trying to hold him back, the changing of the text on the device’s screens caused him to forgo that thought and see what it said.

If you’d like to keep this life, please press in the knob to lock it in. If not, you can press the button again tomorrow to try again. Thanks for using The Do-Over!

Upon reading the text, Chad found himself struggling to comprehend everything that had just occurred to him. He knew deep down that he didn’t used to be like this, but the details were so vague and thinking about it too hard was just making his head hurt… and he hated that!

Luckily for him, a ding from his phone stole his attention and caused him to forget about the confusing transformation that had just befallen him. To his amusement, a text from Chad’s newest hookup had arrived. Although he had a feeling that he had never met the woman before, the memories that rushed into his mind upon thinking about her caused him to think otherwise. He could instantly recall countless nights of fucking where she eagerly worshipped his muscles and was utterly submissive as he fondled her perky breasts, teased her nipples, and slapped her soft peach-shaped ass. He was a total hunk, so it wasn’t a shock that girls like her would bow down to a total alpha!

Cockily smirking upon recalling just how great it was to fuck her, Chad took a moment to adjust the thick bulge that was straining against his underwear before unlocking his phone and entering the text messaging app. Upon doing so, his heart began to beat a little bit faster as he read the “omw” text and looked at the attached photo showcasing the raven-haired woman in her car.

Knowing that the woman only lived a few minutes away, Chad was quick to run around his trailer. Rather than cleaning up though, the man was simply moving items off of the couch and his bed to make sure they had no obstructions once they started messing around. Upon exiting his bedroom, the hunk took a detour into the bathroom where he quickly grabbed a box of condoms out of the medicine cabinet and returned to the kitchen.

After setting them on the counter next to the device that had transformed him, the sound of a knock on his door caused him to perk up and adopt his best machismo persona. With a swagger in his step, he strutted over to the door and pushed it open. As he flicked on the porch light and lifted his arms up to pose against the doorframe, he smirked as he saw Katie standing there dressed in a long trench coat.

“‘Sup babe?” He remarked, smirking as the woman looked up at him with “fuck me” eyes. To his surprise and pleasure though, Katie then suddenly moved towards him, but rather than stopping upon being face to face she just continued. Despite the man’s impressive physique, she was unfazed as she plowed right into his shoulder and caused him to move away and allow her entry. Such an action was an incredible turn on to Chad, as evident by the way he bit his lip and stifled a slight moan as he picked up on the scent of her flowery perfume.

By the time he returned into the living room upon shutting the front door, the woman had already pulled off the trench coat and revealed an expensive-looking pair of white lace lingerie. So clearly turned on, the jock couldn’t resist reaching down and gripping onto his bulge as he savored the sight of the woman’s D cup breasts struggling to remain trapped within the garment. To make matters even worse, Katie then began to tease the man by attempting a slight striptease.

“Oh, you want this don’t you?” she purred, guiding her fingers down to her panties which she began to slowly nudge down past the top of her curvy hips.

“Fuck yeah babe,” Chad exclaimed, making his way closer to her until their lips were mere centimeters away. Given the close proximity, the man was overcome by his lustful desires and leaned in to whisper that into her ear. “I wanna fuck that tight pussy of yours so bad…” As he pulled back away from Katie’s ear, the man noticed how the woman now had an equally cocky smirk on her face.

Upon waiting a second, she looked the man up and down and began to speak once more. “Then why are you still standing here doing nothing,” she matter of factly asked, which instantly sent Chad in a frenzy.

With incredible haste, the jock put his strength to use by wrapping his arms around Katie’s shoulders and the small of her back before lifting her up. Knowing exactly what to do, the girl pushed her feet off of the ground and used the momentum to wrap her legs around Chad’s waist. Now intimately intertwined, the duo pushed their heads forward and began to sloppily kiss each other.

As their tongues began to their partner’s mouths, Chad continued walking until he was in the kitchen. Eager to get to the main event as if it was the first time he’d fucked in years (even though he knew he had literally just fucked another girl the night prior), the jock set the woman down on his kitchen countertop while pulling away to begin peppering kisses up and down her chest.

In more attempts to display his alpha behavior, the man felt no remorse for gripping onto the front of Katie’s bra and ripping it off rather than just unfastening it. Based on the way the woman gasped and moaned as Chad pulled the material off and revealed her breasts, it was clear that she didn’t mind it either.

With Chad basically nude already, all he had to do by the time he peeled off Katie’s panties was to drop his underwear and kick them to the side. Now staring at each other’s nude forms for a moment, both of them felt an undeniable attraction to each other that made a deep fiery lust emerge within them. As such, Chad looked towards the box of condoms on the counter and quickly grabbed onto them. Upon opening it and tearing one of the packaged condoms open with his teeth, Chad smirked as he rolled it down his irresistible eight inches of manhood.

Upon giving a knowing glance at each other, Chad wasted no time penetrating the woman’s pussy and beginning to fuck her with impressive stamina. As he continued to use his whole body with each thrust, the slapping of skin was also soundtracked by the high-pitched moans of Katie as Chad immediately began to pleasure her. Due to this, the woman found herself losing control of her body as it caused her to flail around.

So while their passionate lovemaking was occurring, neither of them picked up on the fact that one of Katie’s frantic hands had accidentally bumped into a large circular object that was on the counter. As a result, none of them could see how the device with the large red “DO-OVER” button landed onto the floor perfectly so that the extended knob was pressed in and locked into place.

Given how preoccupied Chad would be for the rest of the night into the next morning, the jock would never discover the device again as the magic within would allow it to be transported back to the company’s headquarters so the next deserving candidate was given the chance for a do-over. As such, Chad would wake up the next morning and go about his daily routine with no memory of the life that he had accidentally given up. Although Arthur himself certainly wouldn’t be too pleased to discover that he had become an idiotic straight himbo, Chad loved that aspect of himself and thought that he was living the dream life!

Interested in reading more of my content? Head over to my Patreon to discover more than 140 hot transformation stories like this one! Additionally, I've also recently added a perk to the $15 tier where members can submit themselves to be the protagonist in future stories! If you'd love to be transformed by me, this is the only opportunity since I don't do commissions anymore.

#male transformation #nerd to jock #gay to straight #reality shift #mental changes

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jaewritesfic · 11 months ago

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Melon!AU

Actual writing now, based on this post:

“What,” Tim breathes out faintly, “the fuck is that?”

Language, Bruce thinks faintly, though he doesn't manage to get it past his lips.

He is a man who prides himself on being ready for anything, but he most certainly didn't expect something like this when responding to the Batsignal tonight.

“That is a Pit Demon,” Damian's voice asserts through comms, grave in a way that betrays his collected mask. He's unnerved. “There is nothing else that could be.”

Bruce is unnerved too, though he refuses to show it.

Gordon had half the block cordoned off so no civilians would come through by the time Bruce and Tim - the closest at the time - had arrived on scene. The alley itself is blocked in by police cruisers, though the officers are staying very firmly behind the line and not approaching.

It's no wonder why.

The…thing backed into a dead end alley looks like it's made of smoke and shadow, all long sinuous lines and dangerous angles.

It's vaguely Humanoid in the sense that it has a long torso, arms and a head. The arms are too long, the fingers curved and wickedly sharp. The face is a well of deep shadow, a smooth slate broken only when it opens its jagged mouth to show off a full arsenal of fangs.

The only other facial features are the solid, glowing Lazarus green eyes. Wide and lamp-like, they give the distinct feeling that the creature's sights will not miss anything.

There are no legs. Just the sinuous curves and overlaps of a long smokey tail. It whips about with agitation.

Floating like mist on the water is a head of white hair, edges fuzzy and undefined like it can't decide whether it's a solid or a gas.

The creature lays with its chest nearly flat to the ground, propped up only by those horrifically sharp hands and poised like a predator ready to push off into a sprint.

Glowing Lazarus water seems to pool slowly beneath it, streaked here and there as evidence of past movement.

Bruce finally finds his tongue to question Damian. He can see his youngest standing on the opposite roof of he and Tim, the two buildings that form the alley their perch.

“You've seen something like this before?”

Damian hesitates. “...no. But there are stories of things coming out of the Pits. I doubt I need to explain why this seems to be one of them.”

With that color green shining out of its face and streaked across the alley? No. No, he doesn't.

“Do your stories have any clues on what to do when one shows up?” Tim asks, unable to tear his eyes away from the creature.

Damian scoffs. “Close your eyes and hope your end is quick.”

“Lovely,” Tim bites out, voice a little higher pitched than normal.

“We won't be doing that,” Bruce responds dryly, two taps coming through the comms notifying them of Black Bat's arrival.

Bruce looks up and has to search for her for a few seconds before he can make her out in the shadows of Damian's rooftop.

“I'm still five minutes out,” Dick comms in. “What exactly are we looking at here? Can Oracle give a visual with any cams?”

“I wish,” Oracle chimes in. “Even through the mask footage I have no idea what they're seeing. The feed is corrupted to hell and back whenever it's in frame.”

“Really? In person it looks like-”

Tim is cut off when the officers below make some kind of movement the monster clearly takes issue with, the snarl that almost physically ricochets off the brick walls making everyone wince.

It's like TV static and the crackle of lightning striking a tree, like glaciers cracking and shifting underwater all rolled into one.

The hair on the back of Bruce's neck stands on end.

“Fuck. It's like a living shadow, but all sharp and wrong and angry-”

“No,” Cass cuts in quietly, silencing everyone.

“...Black Bat?” Bruce questions lowly.

“Not angry,” she responds, as sure as ever when assessing a target - no matter what kind of target.

“Scared, hurt. Guarding chest, trying to hide it. Wants to scare us away, but making no move to attack. Posturing.”

The thing about Cass is that they trust her reads implicitly - her reads of people.

She wouldn't speak up if she wasn't certain, and she wouldn't be certain if she didn't see something painfully human in the creature below.

“...what do you suggest?” Bruce asks after a moment of tense silence, trying to reassess the creature and see what she sees.

He at the very least wants her opinion, so they can weigh it in formulating a plan here.

Cass keeps looking for a long moment, before she looks across the gap at him. “Needs help. Reach out - at least try.”

Masterpost

#melon!au #dc x dp #jaewritesfic

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hargreeves-duncan · 10 months ago

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Hey! I saw that you’re taking tua requests and after season 4 I’m in desperate need of fluff fanfics. May I request a Five x Y/N where Y/N looks exactly like how Five envisions Delores but they haven’t met yet and right when Five and Lila were about to kiss in the greenhouse, Y/N appears with a gun because this two strangers invaded her greenhouse and Five would be utterly shocked and immediately let go of Lila and went to Y/N calling her Delores and she would say something like “I don’t know who Delores is but the two of you better start explaining what you’re doing in my greenhouse or I’ll bury a bullet in your skulls.” And after that it could be all fluff with a happy ending. Maybe Five takes her to meet his family when he finds a way back?

a/n: thank you for your lovely request! the idea of reader as a dolores variant is so sweet, i just had to write this! i hope you love it!!

summary: five mistakes you for dolores, you turn out to be quite the opposite

warnings: reader has a gun

word count: 2.4k

visual is for vibes only, reader’s appearance is nondescript!

Trying to traverse this damn subway was driving Five insane. If he had been keeping track accurately, he and Lila had been stuck down here for seven years. For someone that had made it through forty years alone at the end of the world, you’d think that he’d be able to hack it, but a couple of key factors had changed since his first time around.

1. This time he wasn’t alone.

When he’d brought Lila down to the station, the thought of getting stuck there hadn’t even crossed his mind. Every other time Five had visited the subway, he’d made it home with no problems whatsoever.

It was typical that when he was accompanied by the one woman he’d never want to be around for a prolonged amount of time, that the universe would screw him over and trap them there.

He did have to admit, the more time that they had spent together, and the less likely getting home seemed, Lila had become tolerable. He might even go as far as to say he liked her now.

She was smarter than he’d given her credit for and painfully determined in working out their way home. Lila had always kept them both going, insisting that if they’d gotten there in the first place that there had to be a way out. Five wasn’t so sure anymore.

2. Dolores wasn’t here.

Whilst Five could pretend that if he stopped looking for a way out and settled down with Lila in a new timeline he would be happy enough, he knew that in reality, he wouldn’t be. There was no way that his friendship with Lila would ever measure up to the company of Dolores and the love he had for her.

She had been his everything for more of his life than not and his connection with her had truly meant something to him. Unlike whatever circunstancial friendship he had built with Lila.

For a long time, Five’s daily routine had revolved entirely around making sure that Dolores was cared for and making sure that they were always one step closer to finding a better way of life. Because he would be damned if his girlfriend had to live a life with anything but the very best.

This time, without the motivation of holding Dolores in his arms at the end of a long day, Five had found little reason to keep searching for a way to get home. He was beginning to lose all hope entirely as he and Lila had got off the subway for the fiftieth time that day.

As they stepped out into the sun, it became clear that of all the timelines they’d been to, this one was, without a doubt, the most peaceful. They were surrounded by woodland that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Somewhere above their heads Five could hear birds twittering. That was a good sign, this timeline was still habitable, many of the last ones hadn’t been.

Five walked out into forest. The trees there shot up almost 70 feet into the sky. It was breathtaking.

Somewhere along his stroll, Lila, had ended up off course, discovering the new world around them, “Wow.” She whispered to herself.

Five chuckled and raised an eyebrow as he walked towards her, “If you’re done here, there’s something much more interesting that we ought to take a look at.”

He pointed to the bottom of the hill that they stood on, where a small cottage sat. It looked as if it came from a fairytale, with its thatched roof and adjacent greenhouse, that housed all sorts of plants and flowers.

A small seed of doubt planted itself in his head the more he looked it over. It looked too nice. What if it was some sort of trap?

Lila clearly didn’t have the same trepidations. She gasped with excitement, then turned back to him, saying, “What’re you waiting for? Let’s go.”

As suspicious as he now was, he wasn’t strong enough to crush Lila’s hopeful expression. He hadn’t seen her look this spritely in weeks and if this didn’t end up being what they wanted he needed her to be okay to keep going. So, he followed her down the hill.

By the time he’d reached the bottom, Lila was already waiting, hands on her hips as she laughed at him, “Come on, old man, what is taking you so long? I want to explore this cottage before someone comes and tells me that I’m imagining it.”

She reached out, pulling on his arm impatiently and he couldn’t help but smile back at her. He supposed he could entertain this fantasy of normality for a while.

Lila grinned as she led them up the steps, peering in through the glass at the throng of shrubbery packed into the building. With a tug on the door, Lila led them into the greenhouse.

Five had to appreciate the organisation of it. One corner of it hosted a mix of plants and herbs, another held flowers, another for vegetables as well and even one for- “Strawberries!” Lila gasped, dropping his arm and rushing over to them.

In that moment, there couldn’t have been a better sight in the world than home-grown fruit. It’d been a painfully long time since they’d last eaten real food and Five suddenly felt starving.

He watched as Lila picked a strawberry, taking a bite. She groaned in pleasure, closing her eyes. Mouth still full, she beckoned him closer, “Five, come here, you have got to try these.”

Five obeyed, walking over to her. Lila took another enthusiastic bite, as she declared, “I think these might be the best things that I’ve ever eaten.”

Tossing the hull of the strawberry behind her, Lila reached for another. She smirked at Five, waving the strawberry in front of his lips tauntingly, “Open up.”

Five rolled his eyes, trying to repress the smile that was creeping onto his lips as he relented, opening his mouth. Lila pressed the strawberry to his lips and as he bit down…

Click.

Five froze, eyes snapping open. Lila spun around and her lips parted in shock as she took you in. There, you stood, shotgun cocked and pointed at the pair of them.

You were a sight for sore eyes, with your tousled hair around your shoulders and polka dot dress that fell effortlessly around your hips. Five was completely mesmerised.

Your soft hair, the polka dots that covered your dress, it was all so familiar to him. Your presence felt like a greeting from an old friend and he smiled lovingly at you as he said, “Dolores.”

Lila’s presence was entirely forgotten as you stood in front of him, just as beautiful as he’d remembered. Lila raised an eyebrow, asking, “You know her?” at the same time as you asked, “Dolores?!”

You looked them both in the eye, stepping closer and aiming the barrel of the gun at their heads, “I don’t know who Dolores is but the two of you better start explaining before I shoot you both.”

You had to admit, you were slightly intrigued by the appearance of the two of them. More specifically, the man in front of you. Even more so when he audibly laughed at your words.

You raised an eyebrow at him, smirking with amusement as you said, “You do realise that you’re trespassing, right? That I’m well within my rights to pull this trigger and put a bullet through both of your skulls?”

Five was still looking at you as if you’d hung the moon and the stars and not just threatened to shoot him.

Lila shoved her elbow into his chest and he groaned, clutching it, “Jesus… Lila!” He said, glaring at her.

“What?” Lila groaned, looking over at him with a huff, “She asked you a question.”

“Yes, thank you.” You said with a small nod as you watched her. She nodded back with a pleased smile, holding her hands behind her back.

You look back at Five, expectantly, gun still raised, “Well?”

He smiled saccharinely at you, being sure to emphasise his words as he said, “Me and my friend here just got a little lost, that’s all.”

“Hm… getting lost is what we’re calling breaking and entering now?” You challenge and your combative demeanour only made Five want to get to know you more.

He grinned, shrugging his shoulders innocently, “It would appear that way.” He said, making it impossible for you to ignore the cockiness in his tone.

You simply laughed at him, lowering your weapon slightly, “And Dolores?”

“She’s…” He paused, thinking it through. He couldn’t exactly say who Dolores really was, you’d think he was crazy and that was the last thing he wanted.

If he ignored the fact that you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, he could also tell that you were exactly the kind of woman he wanted to know and he was not going to mess up any chance he might have with you, “…my ex-girlfriend.”

That wasn’t entirely untrue, he thought to himself. Lila’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Slowly, a look of realisation spread across her face and she stifled her laughter as she asked, “Hold on, you don’t mean that manne-“

“Please, excuse my friend.” He hastily cut Lila off with an infuriated glare thrown in her direction.

“She has terrible conversational etiquette.” Five offered, smiling politely at you as if he hadn’t just completely shut Lila down, “I’m Five, and that over there is Lila.”

You nodded in return. Lila smiled but made no more attempts to initiate a conversation as she wandered off deeper into the green house.

Five, happy to have the chance to speak you alone, stepped closer, “It’s a nice place.” He said, putting his hands in his pockets.

You lowered your gun, slinging it over your shoulder and offering him a warmer smile, “Thanks, I think so too.”

You were funny. He felt himself grow more smitten with every word you said. He brushed his hair out of his eyes, raising an eyebrow at you, “What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t.” You answer, brushing off your skirt. His eyes followed your fingers as you did.

You walked by him to pick up a bag of compost and dropped it onto the countertop beside you. Five walked after you, placing a hand on the table in your eyeline, practically begging you to keep the conversation going.

The last time he’d gotten so quickly attached to a girl, he’d been with her for forty years and he was already thinking about what that might look like with you, “Are you going to tell me it?” He pushed, tilting his head to the side as he smiled at you.

You stopped breaking up the soil, laughing softly as you looked over your shoulder at him, “You know, you’re very interested in knowing about me for someone I just caught breaking into my house.”

“I thought we’d agreed that we were just lost? I can confidently say that there was no ill intent on my part.” He replies, smirking at you.

“Maybe not.” You say, smacking your palms against each other to dust them off, “But there is intent of some kind.” You bend down, pulling out an empty plant pot from below the counter.

“True…” Five hummed, tapping his finger on the counter as he watched you place the pot onto the table and begin to fill it with compost.

He looks around the room some more - noticing the lone chair and table in the observatory by the back door, “You live here alone?”

He asked, watching your nimble fingers form a well in the centre of the pot. He looked over his shoulder to where Lila was prodding a venus flytrap and then back to you for your answer.

“I do.” You reply as your fingers continue to press deeper into the soil. Five nodded, rolling his sleeves up and leaning them on the countertop with a sly smile.

You dust off your hands again and go back to kneeling on the floor. Five watches with interest as you sift through pots and packets of different flowers.

“Okay and why is that?” He asks, bending down beside you as you consider which flower to pot.

You look over at him and notice how his eyes lingers on the bright, yellow marigolds tucked away to the left. You take them out.

“Because…” You say, hauling the smaller pot onto the counter again, “I’ve never been much of a people person.”

“Hence why you live in the middle of the woods.” Five nods along, smiling to himself. He was beginning to get an idea of what kind of girl you were and he liked it.

“Exactly.” You nod, gently prying the marigolds from their original pot and settling them into the divet in their new one.

You scooped some compost into your hands, sprinkling the marigold with an extra layer of dirt, “That’s me, but what about you? What makes a guy like you take a wander in the woods?”

A guy like him? Five glanced down at himself, suddenly feeling very self-conscious of his dirtied appearance. He hadn’t looked in a mirror in a while but he couldn’t imagine that seven years without a shower had done him any good.

Then again, your arms were buried elbow deep in dirt right now, so he figured he couldn’t look that awful, “It’s a long story but… simply put, my friend and I are looking for a place to stay.”

“I see.” You hum, touching up the marigolds. You pull open a drawer, taking out some pruners and making tiny adjustments to the flowers.

Five appreciated the precision with which you worked on them, he imagined that you treated all of your plants with the same amount of time and care. He was beginning to feel a little jealous of them.

You tilted your head to the side as you looked back at him, “So, you just thought that you’d crash here?”

Five looked slightly embarrassed as he stood up straighter, searching for the right answer. Lila smiled, yelling from the other side of the room, “Yeah, pretty much. It’s a really nice place.”

You laugh at her bluntness, placing down your pruners and dusting off your hands again, “Good to know.”

Five chuckles and looks back down at the counter. Taking in the sight of the finished marigolds, sitting plump and pretty in their new home, he smiles, “They’re beautiful.”

“Consider them a welcome gift for the two of you.” You say, pushing the pot towards him. Then, you wink, walking past him and back into the house.

Five is rendered speechless.

#fanfic #fanfiction #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader

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ultred · 3 months ago

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10 things i did that made me a better manifestor.

one. i let go of logic because life itself is not logical. even the physical world. (3d) we live on a flying rock stuffed with magma with an ocean we barely know anything of around a giant ball of plasma with other floating rocks in a galaxy within another galaxies within a universe and apparently we are the only living beings we know of so far in an infinite universe where time doesn’t really exist. oh, and our flying rock has another flying rock that orbits it and all of this is held together by gravity. does that sound logical to you ?

two. when i want something, i give it to myself in imagination as if it is already happening/already happened. i experience my desire in my imagination. i don’t care anymore about the 3d and i don’t wait for it to validate me. i validate myself.

three. i manifested small things first. i would put my awareness on things that i don’t really care about or stuff i’d like ‘cause why not and would instantly manifest them. i kept finding ways to prove to my “ego” that the law is real and now it shuts up more often.

four. i stopped listening to music, films, content, and tv shows that impact my mood negatively. this might not be the same for everyone but i noticed that the songs i continuously listen to heavily impact my mood and put my awareness on things i don’t want to manifest. same with the other media. however, i still acknowledge that i’m fully in control now. just when i started, i preferred to distance myself from them.

five. i listened to neville goddard’s books as i fell asleep. (i did it once and woke up feeling and thinking completely differently for some reason. even some of my manifestations happened while listening)

six. what worked, worked and i stopped overcomplicating it. so many manifestation “techniques” worked for me especially subliminals, affirmations, scripting, and visualization ! i didn’t keep searching for other techniques. these worked so i just continued doing them and that’s it.

seven. i used my stubbornness in my favor. i am a really stubborn person and i decided to use that in a way that benefits me instead of whining about being stubborn about stuff that aren’t in my favor.

eight. i fully acknowledged that everyone is me pushed out and tested it. eiypo is 100% real and it doesn’t matter what anyone says because no one has free will in your own reality and if you focus enough, you’ll see it.

nine. i stopped trying. i stopped being the person who puts too much effort into anything. my relationship, my friendships, my connection to others, finding a job, getting money, etc. etc. i just assume that i have what i want and that’s it. i don’t want to be the person who does everything and puts all the effort anymore.

ten. 3d and 4d are the same. practicing non-dualism has helped me a lot in manifesting. 3d and 4d are the same. there is no separation. everything is you and you are everything. that’s it.

#loa #law of assumption #neville goddard #manifesting #manifestation #3d #4d #reality #manifestor #non-dualism #affirmations #subliminals #visualization #scripting #techniques #manifestation techniques #loa community #states

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #ai #economics #business #hype #bubbles #bubblenomics #residue

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knightyoomyoui · 2 months ago

Text

Adore You

w/ Red Velvet's Bae Joohyun "Irene" x Male Reader

TYPE: Fluff, Light Angst

WORD COUNT: 6993

NOTE: First time writing a Red Velvet oneshot! Hope yall enjoyed it, especially you, Hijack! Thanks for ordering again! Also, giving a special credit as well to Hijack himself for providing some assistance on some of the dialogues here in Act 4 and 5. ORDERED BY: @hijack711

DONATE OR REQUEST FOR COMMISSION HERE: https://ko-fi.com/knightyoomyoui === START ===

In a small town of Gangwon Province, a car was seen crossing through the narrow road surrounded by green fields. It parked in front of a house, the driver stepped out to greet the surroundings of her new place to stay.

Draped in baggy gray sweatpants, simple white t-shirt and comfy matching rubber shoes, the driver which was revealed to be a woman with long straight hair and breathtaking beauty locked the door and stood in front of the said house. Observing her new personal space, a sigh of relief and contented smile formed in her lips.

The landlady, who previously owes the property, popped up from the other side to greet the young lady. “Good morning, maam! Welcome to Gangwon, glad that we finally met. I’m Jiwoo.”

“I’m Irene.”

“Shall i introduce you to your new house? It’s great that you came in time.”

“I guess I could say I’m excited to live here.” Irene formed a soft smile. “I’ve been longing for a fresh new start again, and today’s the day. Can’t let anything go to waste.”

“If that’s so then let’s proceed immediately and get the papers done. We both do have a lot more things to do after this.” Jiwoo searches from her keychain to pick the right key and inserted it on the gate to unlock.

She opened and initiated to welcome Irene. As she was brought to every area of the house to see it for herself along with its details, her mind is focused on what things she’s planning to do here now that she’s about to settle for good in this place that hopefully she could considered as the perfect destination for peace.

She wants to become comfortable and get used living here, that’s why she would do a lot of efforts just so it could help her get distracted and moved on from everything she left behind from where she came from. This is important for Irene, when she said that she’s going to live the life she always dreamt of, she meant that and now that she’s all alone away from everything she wants to avoid, nobody can stop her from finally build the bubble she wants to put herself in.

A slight amount of senses were spared to concentrate still on the landlady’s thoughtful assist to prevent disrespect on her part, she listened through everything she said. As of her mind was multitasking both regarding about her priorities currently.

“Doesn’t all you’ve seen makes you regret?” The landlady requested for assurance.

“Not at all. This is exactly what I wanted. All I ever care is to have myself a place to stay and be happy, you know what I mean.”

“That’s the spirit. I like your positive intuitions, Irene-ssi.” Jiwoo cheered on her. “About the papers, you can sign it here with your name to make ourselves a deal.”

Irene didn’t wasted no more time to sign the contract. She also handed a bag full of money to Jiwoo for payment. “Just being fair and true to my words.”

“Thank you much again, Irene-ssi. Hey, if you ever need anything to help you discover more about this place to make yourselves one of us, feel free to come onto me anytime.” Jiwoo said. “My house is just houses away from you!”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Jiwoo unnie.” Irene bowed along with her and they bid goodbyes from one another, leaving herself alone.

Giving another roaming sight around the interior, it motivates Irene more to visualize what she plans about any of these she wanted to happen here.

“Let’s do well in our new home, self. Fighting!” She raises her fist to support herself and boost her anticipation for upcoming success she wants to achieve in here.

The next few days, Irene had her house almost rearranged with the return of her belongings and furniture from her previous place thanks to the kind carriers who helped her set everything back up. She also started to greet some new neighbors and get introduced by Jiwoo.

The connection she had with the friendly landlady has what led her search for a vacant space to become easier. With just few discussions, she already claimed the space officially hers and when she was asked what business she has in mind that made her purchase this: “I always wanted to build my own flower shop.” Irene answered in which the respondents agreed to her decision as it does seem like a perfect fitting to their rural community that provides lots of plants.

Having new friends to speed up Irene’s establishing of her new flower shop, it didn’t became a bothersome to look for various flowers to choose and buy with the intention to sell it to others by her own. The deliveries would be out by no time, it’s up for Irene to give them the go signal of when it would be.

As for the empty space she already have, it would be unacceptable and plain if she won’t put decoration and other changes to transform a single room into a legit shop. To lessen the struggle of searching to the outer cities, thankfully Jiwoo and the other neighbors knew someone who can help Irene in her business’ concern.

While she was cleaning the house, she heard her doorbell rang and a few knocks on the door. Irene paused her task and went outside.

Opening the gate, she found a man standing in front of her wearing just simplest outfit in a cap on his head while carrying a tool box and extra pockets for other acessories. As she met his face, she found him smiling at her as brighter as the sun this morning and somehow it got her in awe just by looking at it.

“Hello, miss. May I ask if you are Bae Irene?” The man spoke.

“Yes, you’re talking to her right now. Perhaps you must be…”

“Ah yes, I learned that you were looking for a carpenter to help create your shop. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m YN LN, the carpenter who can help you with that.” He offered his hand to her and she accepted.

She felt his touch and the firmness of his grip as she stares at him with a welcoming grin. “Thanks for accepting my request, Mr. LN.”

“No worries, it’s my job anyway.” He shook it off sheepishly. “So uhm, I am ready to begin my service today, can you show me where your shop will be?”

“Yeah, sure. Just one moment.” She excused herself as she rest her house’s electricity to leave and guide YN on the way to their designated location.

ACT 2

They reached the area that Irene was mentioning. It’s scroll gate was closed and no more sign that says “FOR SALE” like the past few days.

“So uhm here’s where I want to open it.” Irene presented the soon-to-be flower shop to YN who looked at her before turning his attention to the sealed space. “Not too much, right?”

“Yeah but it won’t be a bothersome if I work on to larger ones. Handled some before.” YN said. “But hey, this is a nice spot to have it.”

“Really? That’s nice to know.” Irene calmly replied. “I was actually hoping that there’s people who will come by, I mean… selling plants not be that much entertaining to be a go-to place at when you go shopping but… I want to make it different, you know. Changing the ideology of that.” She added.

“Point taken, but you can leave it to me on that if that’s your goal. I’ll help you turn your shop become eye-capturing not just from your products but with its aesthetic as well.” You assured. “I suppose you have an idea on how to make this place look what it should be. Just say it and I can make it possible.”, he patted his toolbox to refer at.

“You do seem pretty convincing and confident with your skill, Mr. LN.” Irene said in her amazed tone. “Is that why you’re popular around here?”

“Ahh that, I don’t know, maybe?” his contagious chuckle affected Irene as well. “I would rather just say that I can rely on my 20+ years of my experience doing carpentry and from how my previous clients all through those times were satisfied at the outcome I provide them, not that I’m forcing you to expect too high on me but your trust would be enough.”

“Let’s see if the rumors are true then.” Irene bounced her eyelids with an anticipating smirk. “Hold on, let me show you inside. It’ll be empty obviously but yeah…”

“To visualize what I can do with it, I get it.” YN understood the point. They both looked at each other and Irene nodded with a smile before she hesitantly went away.

She rolled out the gate and opened the glass door, which allowed YN to roam his eyes around on the inside. Irene was doing the talking as she was given permission to speak about the plan she has in mind on how to transform such boring, small, lifeless room into a vibrant, captivating, and cozy atmosphere that compliments the flowers she will stock in here for selling soon.

YN was directed by Irene around and through his head he compliments how creative her imagination was to turn this place around, something he hasn’t encountered to a person for quite a long time. Most of the works he did was done mostly through his own idea just to construct something beautiful, but with Irene, it’s beginning to make him feel that he’s going to have fun and won’t dire out himself on finishing this new task in production.

“That’s all I can give for my dream shop. About your materials by the way, as part of my token of appreciation, you can tell me what materials you will need for designing this room and I’ll cover all of those.”

“Wait, seriously?” YN was dumbfounded. “A-ahh, you don;t n-need to if it’ll cost your money to be spent more, I don’t like that my service should demand much costly price in return. You can just focus on your stocks to fill up your shop, I’m good.”

“Are you sure, Mr. LN? I have no problem with it, like I said it’s a way of saying thank you for your help.” Irene tries to contemplate him.

“It’s fine, actually you helped me already. This is another income for me and I have something to do again with myself being a carpenter.” YN confirmed. “I already have my own source to grab some materials I’ll need to build every detail you’ve told me.”

“If that’s the case then, I don’t want to force myself too much.” Irene embarrassingly laughs. “Thank you again for this, Mr. LN.”

“You’re welcome.” He bowed after in respect.

They exit the shop and Irene closes its doors and gate again. Before they separate ways, YN announces that he’ll start going to that source he’s mentioning and most likely will begin the construction tomorrow. Irene took note of that and both were now looking forward to the progress of the ongoing project they’re both invested in.

The following days, each changes that were being applied to the walls through every corner was evident to both YN and Irene, and it makes them amused to notice how everything is going smooth. What makes these even more interesting for Irene is that she could only watch YN do these all by himself, remembering the first day of his visit to the shop with the materials he need that she thought there’s more men incoming to assist YN in the construction but to her surprise, YN said there’s no one and it’ll be him who will do all the work.

Sensing that it had the lady speechless due to concern, YN ease down Irene by trying to persuade her that he’s been doing this for a long time and not once he complained about it because he prefers to work alone. He knows what he’s doing and as much as he is willing to teach and instruct other men to help him, atleast he won’t be going around to multitask of observing their task when he could just completely finish it all off by his own.

The impressive skills and talent of YN has gotten into Irene slowly by slowly. Not only that, during his busy days of renovating her store, she also discovered more of YN’s down to earth personality. A positive, humble, and sociable person was all she can describe while having a conversation with him through the breaks, which probably what makes it more enjoyable other than how much she provides him snacks to recharge his energy.

In some of the topics they’ve had, love talk was part of those that slipped in to their curiosities. It wasn’t suspicious for them at first, that’s why they’re able to answer it straightforwardly, although YN’s has richer information. Both of them admitted they are currently single but what caught Irene’s interest more is his reason.

It wasn’t because he doesn’t want to be involved in relationship these days, it’s rather due to the feeling of having personal incapability to win a woman’s heart because of things that what makes about him. Despite his proudness of doing this occupation for decades, YN reinstates that at the same it makes him insecure that being like this may not be that attractive to women to consider a guy like him, as he is aware of the stereotypical truth that they include carpentry as one of the less-demand jobs and it makes him afraid that once the girls learned it about him, they’ll reject him with the possibility that he might not be able to support them financially. Sadly, he couldn’t deny that idea.

YN also mentioned that as of now he currently lives along with the mastermind that pushes him to accept that flower shop construction offer because of her love with flowers: his sister who is now married and have two kids at home.

Those along with his job are what gives him responsibility and purpose still in his personal life aside from being unsuccessful in love. As Irene listened through all of that, she couldn’t help but to feel sorry for YN and she hopes it didn’t destroyed his self-esteem about his appearance because it’s a shame that even through all he said, his looks were undeniable enough to attract someone else.

Furthermore, it frustrates Irene that there are women who thinks lowly immediately of his background which proves that they only care about the looks. She could only hope that he finds someone who will value him in everything, and if its her who can do that then she’ll do what must be done for a good guy like him.

Irene’s eyes widened, confusion formed in her forehead. She was weirded out how her thoughts ended up in that way. Imagining herself volunteering to be the perfect one for YN was out of nowhere, but unsure if she can call it unexpected. After all, she already find him cute in the first place the first time her eyes landed at YN.

Disregarding how random it was, she just focused on comforting YN with kind words that speaks out on behalf of her reactions and hearing all of that had YN boost his confidence within himself. He thanked Irene for being honest to him and added that he was touched.

Both of them weren’t aware with each other that the silence and the glances they stole from each other after that heartwarming moment was the emergence of something deeper between the bond they’ve shared everyday. Their respective emotions that they keep within themselves after listening to their sides is what perturbedly urges them to do the right thing with use of their heart and minds functioning solely for one another.

ACT 3

Irene kept on enjoying YN’s presence looming around her shops while proceedingly applying more furnitures that would aid her to organize the plants neatly for the visitors to see. It grew a relief on her tah both of them had the courage and the ability to interact well with one another because if the opportunity is wasted, Irene could only hope that the construction goes slow to keep him near.

That alone is what Irene begun to distinguish her expanding interest about him, that she could be willing to set aside her priority just to have more time with him. The more they talk together, Irene’s satisfaction goes to the top, although a bit challenging that she had to contain herself from bliss of sharing these types of simple moments with you.

She was now indeed falling in love with him, she confirmed silently while she gets on to watch him focusedly hammering a wood for another level on the shelf. Her eyes shimmers at the sight of his attractive looks, having her in amazement and confusion of how could you just do a simplest thing and effortlessly show your handsome features.

But then, her smile faltered when the thought of a chance to confess had her recalling some specific choice of words that he told a week ago. Something she has now been wondering to herself if she can be the one that he actually sees from her.

She could be honest about her true feelings for him, but what about everything about her once a miracle happened? Yes, she claim that YN receiving and returning her confession would feel surreal for her because that one darkest secret she has been hiding from is still a what-if to her on how he would react once he finds out the truth.

As much as she wanted to be loved back, she has suffered enough from her bitter past that manipulated her to only be concerned with the negative consequences of her personal decision. Now that she’s attracted to this one guy in the new town she moved in, it became a hindrance for her if she would truly tell someday about her admiration to him.

“Irene?” His voice snapped her out of trance, rapidly blinking then gets to contact with YN’s puzzled appearance. “You okay? You seem to be thinking deeply about something.”

“Ahh yeah, I’m fine don’t worry. Sorry, was I out of my senses that much?”

“Mmhmm, you were staring on the floor for like almost half a minute.” He nodded. “Care to share what’s disturbing you?”

Irene looked at his face and again, the mix of embarrassment, fear, and sadness crept up in her heart. She shook her head in denial, “It’s just nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, but if you need any help, I can offer some assistance if you want. Just come by and pour out everything you’ve been storing inside.” He reminded her.

“Nah, YN you’ve already helped too much. I don’t want you to include you as well to fix my life.”

“But I want to, and I think you need it.” YN replied. Irene stared at him as she felt the seriousness to his words. “To be honest, I don’t know but… you haven’t told me anything yet I just feel like there’s something wrong that you’ve been keeping to yourself, and that’s not good at all Irene.” She kept on listening.

“We can’t heal if we don’t speak it out loud. Don’t be afraid to share it to me, I’m willing to lessen the burden that you feel if I had to because I want to keep this friendship of us going and, you know… better.” He declared.

“I can see through people if they’ve gone through a lot. It’s either in their eyes, their smiles, and how they act.”

“Wow, when did you learn to become very observative?”

“It’s already in my nature.” He shrugged. “Maybe because I care too much.” A grin formed in his face which made Irene’s heart palpitate. His closer profile and the way of his words just made her forgot all her concerns and focus only to that one necessary thing that matters to her right now.

It was day off for YN which paused the ongoing progress of the shops reconstruction. Irene decided to treat him after she cooked her favorite meal.

She followed the address that YN gave him. Through every turns and straight driving across the roads of this small town, the direction led her to stop and reach this particular two storey pleasantly looking house that had a yard inside.

She knocked on the gate while holding the aluminum tray of food. The metal clang as the door opens, YN wasn’t the one who greeted but rather, a woman who looks almost identical to him but with feminine features.

“Hello, is YN there?”

“You must be what my brother is telling about, a girlfriend.” She teased.

“E-eh?”

“HAHAHAHA just kidding, she didn’t said that. But I won’t mind if you end up to be.” She winked and clicked her tongue. “Anyway, hello! What brought you here? Do you wanna see my brother that much huh?”

“A-ahh… n-no, I just… want to give him something.” She handed the tray. “It’s a food that I cooked, please be careful, it’s hot.”

“Ooohhh this smells delicious! But sadly, he wasn’t here yet, he went out for some errands to do.” She explained which made Irene shocked. “Would you want to wait for him? You can come inside if you wan!”

“It’s okay?”

“Yeah, we accept visitors always. And now that you’re our new neighbor and my brother’s… ahihihi” She giggled in fluster which had Irene heating up with her blushes. “You’re very welcome to come here often.”

YN’s sister gave a way to her, and she accepted the invitation. She stepped inside and viewed the appearance of their cozy home. “Come on, have your way!”

As she entered their house, two kids that are sitting in the living room greeted her eyes. These must be the children of his sister that YN referred to her.

“Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness of my brother. I’m sure he will love this food from you.”

“You can try it if you want, I made it more than one servings anyway.”

“Wait, you serious?”

“Yes. Please, have a taste if you want.” Irene kindly smiled.

“Who am I reject? Oh I’m going for a bit already.” She joked before grabbing a plate. “How about we go there in the couch and talk shortly while we wait for my brother to arrive?”

“Sure, I appreciate it.”

“By the way, I haven’t introduced myself yet, I’m Joy.” She offered her hand. Her name does compliment her bright personality.

“I’m Irene.”

They went to the couch and sat. Her kids instantly went beside her and begged to taste her food on the plate. “Can I just say something real quick, I’m so stunned at how pretty you are. I didn’t even know that my brother befriended such an original visual.”

Irene is getting fluttered with Joy’s sweet comments. “Thank you, I don’t mean to brag but I do hear it often from others.”

“Keep on bragging, come on! You are pretty, and it wasn’t a lie. If I have a face like yours, I would be a K-Pop idol right now or what, be popular and attack every ones hearts with my gorgeous visuals. Do you have any talent?”

“I can sing.”

“See! Perfect for you!” Joy was amused.

“I don’t see that you’ll be needing mine, unnie. You’re beautiful as well.”

“Aish, you! Oh. I haven’t heard anyone saying that other than my husband. You understand the assignment, babe!” She gestured a blowing kiss. “Thank God you and my brother are different, I can’t stand that idiot’s arrogance. Always making me a target of his antics, do you know he rather calls me a retard?”

“Uhh… I really don’t expect that he does that.”

“Hah! He got you fooled as well, isn’t he? My brother is a moron, that’s what he is. Now you know, and you’ll be thanking me much once you get to be closer with him a lot more and you started to notice how goofy he is.”

Both of them laughed with the repeated roasts about YN behind his back, until it lowered and Joy sighed in delight before looking back at Irene. “No, but seriously speaking. I love my brother so much. Was he the first person you get to be close with after you moved here?”

“Yes.”

“Great, you got to come across with a great person like YN. Believe me, with every help and sacrifice he gave for me, I wouldn’t be here right now living peacefully with my two kids here. He’s the reason why I’m so grateful to have this life right now despite of the problems I’ve been into, he’s always right there by my side.

And I know it’ll be the same for his friends like you. Do you know that out of all the people he meet around here, you were the only one that became successful to have him repeatedly mention you everytime he comes at home after working at your shop, that’s when I knew that you are a wonderful person and looking at you up close, I never doubted him.

I don’t want to be too emotional with this but… please know that you have to trust my brother. He has it all, I swear. Consider yourself lucky already that you meet a man like him, because he won’t hesitate to cheer you up, assist you when you need it, and most importantly… to accept you with open arms.”

Joy’s speech made Irene froze as every words struck into her, relatable and convincing it sounded. Her times with YN had her revisiting and not a single information that Joy used to describe her beloved brother was a lie. She saw it all and it seems that it wasn’t the entirety of it yet.

The desire to discover more of him is pushing her again to do it. Her thought were interrupted when they heard the gate close.

As she turned her head around and stood up, YN appeared on the door frame. Both of them saw each other, their mouth gaped slightly at the surprise of seeing themselves in a new place, before their reactions displayed an uplifted grin.

“I-Irene? What brings you here?”

“Just wanted to see you.” She answered shortly which made his chest heavy in overwhelm.

ACT 4

YN stayed up until night at Irene’s shop, eager to replenish the remaining sections of the shop in his last day of helping for the construction. It was bittersweet for Irene, she knew the outcome of what her shop is finally going to be would be exciting but the realization that it would be his final day of his daily stay in her property had her put into a gloomy mood as well.

She didn’t want to disrespect YN’s dedication in his work, she could only show and project his bright demeanor as he is just as thrilled as she is for the finishing touch of the flower shop’s design. Her mixed emotions would then return when he turns his back around and return on his work.

The words that came from this two siblings were now helping her to contemplate about the decision she’s going to make. How she received the message of their advice were battling for dominance to see what’s going to motivate Irene to conclude the heaviness of thoughts and feelings she’s carrying for this man.

She closed her eyes as she stepped out of the room to get some air, seething the calmness and serene environment to help her focus what is it going to be. There, she slow understood that to ensure that she’s going to pick the right thing, she had to be fully committed to it without any regrets, not even a sign of negativity.

Then she reflected back on her past, she had a lot of worst scenarios to encounter and endure because of the truth that she is gay and now transitioned into a transgender woman from her parents, neighbors, old friends, etc. It was hard for her to make them explain this new version of her and to rebuild that connection they once had, but to no avail, and it eats her up until now that it’s making her feel and think that her decision ruined her life when she thought it was for her sake of becoming free and better.

She felt selfish of what others may feel, inconsiderate of how they would take this information, and a traitor for betraying the perspective they had on her. If she has to make a decision that will never haunt her for its consequences, then her mind is now made up.

She won’t let history repeat itself again. This is about forgetting the past and focusing on her present situation. She’s going to confess at YN tonight.

“And it’s done!” YN exclaimed as he attached one last screw to wrap up his duty for Irene’s shop. “You can start your business anytime soon. How was it?”

“Just like what I wanted it to be.” Irene roamed her eyes around in awe, she couldn’t believe it that another dream of hers has came to life, thanks to YN. “Well done, YN. This is awesome.”

“You’re welcome.” YN nodded. “So uhm, I guess you’re going now for deliveries next.”

“Yeah.”

“Just tell me when are you gonna open, alright? I could help you set things up. It doesn’t mean that my job around here is done I’ll let things in control just by yourself. If… that’s okay for you.”

“Oh o-okay, I’ll remember that.” Irene smiled.

After she closed the shop and hide her newly polished place from the eyes of the public, YN and Irene looked at each other. Time is shrinking as Irene waits for the perfect opportunity to do it.

“So uhh, I’ll see you again if I can.” YN said. “Good night, Irene!”

“Wait, I want to say something to you also.” Irene stopped him from walking. “It’s not about the shop, it’s… another that has been filling up inside of me since then,”

“Well, look at you. There you go, finally opening up to me.” YN was exhilarated, stepping closer at her which made her flinch a bit in shyness. “I’m all ears.”

“Yeah, I thought about what you’ve told me last time about… sharing what’s bothering me and not letting it just bottled up within me.” Irene stated. “But it’s more of about you telling me that I was honest to you.” YN kept on listening.

“I did say that, why? Is there anything wrong to it?”

“Yeah but it’s more of me to be blamed with because… I felt like I was being honest enough to you yet.” Irene said. “I thought that if you could share your past struggles in your personal life, that means you trust me and… now that we’re friends, that’s what it’s all about right? Giving back the kind treatment that others were doing to make us feel.

:YN… I hope you won’t distance yourself from me when I tell you this.”

“About what?” YN asked. “This is getting suspense ain’t gonna lie, seems like you’re about to drop some biggest secret that you were hiding. I mean, it’s okay though it’s not actually that I;m forcing you-”

“No wait please, quiet for a second and let me be.” YN zips his mouth, feeling like he got scolded. “Sorry.” “No, I trust you, YN. Believe me, that’s why I’m ready to do this. It’s just that there’s something that makes me afraid when I finally say it to you… that I’m a transgender.”

YN’s hand covering his mouth dropped first before his jaw slowly slipped downwards after what he just heard. His eyes slightly largened in surprise.

“What I fear is that now you know, you’ll avoid me just like everybody else. I only got to tell you this because I was motivated by what you said to me and what your sister told me about you too, that I’m lucky to have a friend like you. That’s why I don’t want to secure myself from these walls I built around me through these years now that I find a person that is wholeheartedly nice to me and someone that I… am interested with.”

“Irene… you do?”

Irene lowered her head and lured her gaze away in embarrassment. “It’s been weeks now that I’ve begun to feel different whenever you’re near. Your presence, I feel so alive when you’re around me.”

“I didn’t want to be what I think I’ve became when everyone that is close to me rejected me because of my identity. I don’t want to betray, to be selfish, and doubtful of you. I’ve been through enough.” A tear flowed in her cheek brought by the overwhelming emotions urging her burden to affect her. “I just wanted to be seen as a good and a normal person.”

Not long after, shadow on the ground merged around his, and suddenly she felt his embrace wrap around her fragile self. “Come on, I thought it would be threatening or something for me to be aware. Irene, you don’t have to be scared either because you are transgender or you’re feeling more of me. I accept you for whatever makes this entirety of you. That’s what it matters, being real and true to yourself. Even me, I would rather be hated for something that I am than be loved for something that I’m not. I get you, it’s tiring to keep on fooling yourself just to please people.

And you don’t have to do that to me. For me, whatever I see through you and now what I’ve learned of you. It didn’t changed a single thing. You’re still attractive to my eyes.”

YN felt his hand shiver when Irene began sobbing on his gentle grasp. “I’m sorry for what they’ve done to you. They don’t deserve you. I’m glad that our fate led to us meeting, because now you got to meet someone who will accept you. And I will be here always to stay as long you’re still the one I like.”

They stayed there for a few more minutes before Irene thought his care is enough. She leaned away and YN helped her wipe off her tears. “Feels good doesn’t it? To pour everything that causes you pain and torment.”

“It does. Thank you so much, YN.”

“Can I ask a very random question, I just became curious. What’s your original name when you were… you know, like me.”

“Bae Joosung.”

“Oh, and now… I suppose it’s Bae Irene?”

“Irene is actually my English name. I did surgery back in Sweden and stayed there for a couple of years. My current name now is Bae Joohyun.”

“Oh, interesting. Well they both sounded cute.” They both laughed. “So, Bae Joosung or should I call you Irene. Let me repeat this again, I can clearly say that I was not gay, but I am willing to be now and I’m not scared anymore to discover what is love again. You maybe a trans but I am not ashamed telling you that for the past months I’ve loved you, now even more for learning who you really are. I’m not ashamed by that so why should you, haven’t you already decided who you are now then why are you having that negative feeling, aren’t you wanna be loved?”

“I… I want you to.” She whispered.

“Then let me adore you. I’ll do it like it’s the only thing I’ll ever do.”

“But I can’t give you … you know, kids.” Irene concerningly mentioned.

“I can work on that … my noona and her husband … which unfortunately have passed away from an airplane crash leaving their kids behind…” YN cautiously explained

“Sooyoung-ah? O oh my god, I-I’m so sorry for that, YN.” Irene was flabbergasted at the revelation of YN’s sister’s tragic backstory.

“You two were already close for a short span, it was lovely watching those two messing around back then but now they’re just remnants of the past. Their kids, my two nephews and a niece are under our care. Well, it’s just me who currently acts as their father-figure being an uncle. Sooyoung would definitely appreciate if… an auntie like you can somehow join me to take care of them.”

“Say no more, YN. You got me on that.” Irene could only nod in agreement as both of them grinned widely at each other. They hugged again, their newfound relationship has helped them to settle their inner conflicts manifested by their challenges and heartbreaking experiences as they bravely departed into their desired future being together.

ACT 5

Months later, the gossips about YN and Irene’s relationship spread across the neighborhood including the truth of her being a transgender. To add the happiness that she’s receiving, everybody welcomed her still, and YN proudly watched her girlfriend get along with new acquaintances.

Irene also lived up to her promise of standing as the aunt and guardians for Sooyoung or Joy’s children with YN. Sooyoung was very thankful that the weight of her responsibility became even lighter because of her kindness of assistance. The kids already had a great impression to the two, and it was not a day where all of them go play around their houses.

What had them both in complete shock was the moment when Irene requested YN that they go to her childhood home to visit her family, both for the aim to ask for their blessing on their relationship and to seek acceptance as well. After couple of asks from YN is Irene is sure about this, she replied that she is and she wanted to do this.

They arrived at her house in the city. The maids allowed them in and for the first time in years, Irene got to meet her family again. She admittedly was scared and nervous to face them again, but with YN’s support beside her she has the courage now to confront them. To her surprise though, her parents immediately rushed to hug her and emotions broke from the longing and a proper closure of their longtime conflict. They finally greeted and claimed her as their ‘daughter’ and even allowed YN on their relationship.

A year afterwards, YN and Irene got married outside of South Korea and also decided that they want to have their own children to raise. They adopted two a young boy named Jinwoo into their family.

“Hahaha, what is it, Jinwoo-ah?” Irene asked her son tugging her dress while she waters the plants.

“Eomma, go help YN appa make kimchi stew, please! I’m hungry!” Jinwoo pleaded. She sighed and chuckled, she knew that her husband must be struggling again on cooking this dish.

Meanwhile inside their house, YN was about to prepare in the kitchen when she heard the door bell rang. He opened the door and there, his sister Joy and her friends who visited their humble abode.

“Oh hey YN, how is it being a dad?” Wendy asked as she saw his apron and some of the toys scattered on the food. “HAHAHA, no hard feelings, just joking, shit I went too far with that, am I? Sorry about it.” Wendy noticed her mistake as she saw his deadpanned reaction.

“Hey, it’s okay and yes I’m fine raising kids unlike you with your single, no boyfriend since birth ass.” YN hissed and lets out a smug smile before turning around as he lets the girls in.

“Aish this brat, that hurts you know!” Wendy grumpily complained.

“Hahaha!” Joy laughed at how defeated Wendy looked after getting teased back.

“Good one, oppa! … ehh, is that your wife?” Yeri turned to the woman who is being pulled inside by their son from the yard.

“Woah, she’s gorgeous, why should I be surprised?” Seulgi

“Well, girls, I had Joy call you all here ‘cause I know my lady here will be more comfortable with that rather than a bunch of dudes to invite in the house.”

“How about you?” Irene asked him.

“Me? I got my boys here.” He said as he patted his son and his two nephews. “Who’s up for basketball?” They all shouted “Me!”

As they left the scene, they all laughed. “Aish, I was supposed to just help him cook kimbap and now he’s gone.” Irene shook her head. “Hi everyone, I’m Bae Joohyun or Irene and it’s nice to meet you girls.” she greeted at her lovely visitors.

“Hello! Wait, have we met before?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t know, maybe? You all seem familiar as well.” Irene chuckled sheepishly.

“Who knows? Maybe we know each other from our past lives.” Yeri winked.

“Yah, like what are we? Some sort of a girl group?” Joy humorously commented.

“That would be cool.” Seulgi shrugged. Irene could only laugh at them, they don’t know yet that they were actually her batchmates except Joy that she knew back when they were in college. Such coincidence had her both astonished and ecstatic to meet some few people who have been kind for her even just for a short time of knowing them before.

“Oh yeah, please take a seat. I’ll prepare us all a lunch.” Irene excused her guests and before she went to the kitchen, she stopped by to watch her beloved husband play with the kids. Seeing him made her feel very thankful of this new life that she chose… in which YN changed for the better. === END ===

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