#an order? no way. i only place up to 50 of those a day and track several and deal with several order queries too

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

customer who spoke to me exactly one time weeks ago: hey I think I spoke to you before, is that right? did you talk with me like a month ago?

me who takes phone calls from different people all day as a job: well, you know, that is definitely a possibility

[watchmegetobsessed]

THE USUAL

A/N: i fell down a rabbithole of AI pics and this was inspired by those👀

WORD COUNT: 2.2k

SUMMARY: It's a slow day at the diner, everyone is in a post-Christmas haze. However yours clears up when your favorite stranger shows up, smug as always but this time some nasty bruises are all over his handsome face.

MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

The days after Christmas feel like you’re just floating through the void. Nothing feels real, you have no sense of time and it’s all a blur.

This year you’re working on the 27th, most of your colleagues have families so you wanted them to have an extra day at home. All that’s waiting for you at home is your leftover takeout, unfolded laundry and reruns of Home Alone. Working at least gets you out of your cave.

It’s always a slow day, the diner is almost entirely empty, only a few of the regulars are occupying their usual spots by the counter or in their booth. It’s just you and Molly, the college girl waiting tables, she was keen on escaping her family as soon as possible after the holidays, and then Jeff is back in the kitchen probably playing on his phone, because it’s so dead here. 

You like to keep yourself busy even when there’s nothing to do. Wipe down the tables, rearrange the shelves, get rid of old receipts from behind the counter. In a weird way this place feels like a second home, you’ve spent most of your time here the past three years, working 50 hours a week usually. Of course you like to keep it clean and organized. 

You’re watering the plants when you near the booth in the corner and you can’t help but think of who usually occupies it. You can see his signature smile in front of you, the way his eyes follow your every move, his smooth voice is ringing in your ears as he greets you. You know so many tiny details about him, yet you know he is just a stranger. You know his name, his order, you know how you get butterflies in your stomach every time the bell rings above the door and you see him walk in, but nothing more.

He is a mystery. A very handsome one, might you add.

It’s been weeks since the last time he wandered into the diner, but still, every time a tall curly haired man walks inside, for a split second you think it’s him, as if you’re expecting him to show up. 

A family of four comes in around five so at least you have a table to tend, they order hamburgers and pancakes and you listen to the kids rave about the gifts they got from Santa. 

Once they leave you clean up after them and grab the trash to take out. You’re mindlessly humming the song that was playing inside as you drag the bags out to the back where the containers are. The lighting is not the best out here, you’re usually cautious when you step out after sunset, but somehow you’re too caught up in your thoughts to look around this time. So when you throw one of the bags into the container and a tall figure steps closer from somewhere next to it, you jump with a squeak.

“Not even a proper scream, Darling? What if it was someone else?”

Harry, your mysterious stranger walks over to you with a charming smirk, his hands hidden in the pockets of his leather jacket. 

“Shut up, why were you hiding there?!” you scold him with a hand on your chest as you wait for your pulse to slow down. 

“Was just having a cig, no hiding.”

“Why didn’t you come inside?”

“Mm, I think I need the cold air right now.”

It’s only now that you notice the nasty bruise on the side of his face. A curl is kind of covering it, but it’s noticeably there and very likely fresh. There’s a cut too, obviously bloody and it hasn’t been treated. 

“Harry…” you breathe out as you step closer and without hesitation, you reach up, brush his hair out of his face to see his wound. The pad of your finger touches the cut and his face flinches the tiniest bit before he moves his head away, the smug look back on his face.

“Nothing to worry about.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“And you’re worrying,” he cheekily replies.

“What happened?”

“Just a bit of a disagreement,” he shrugs his shoulders.

Your gaze moves down his arms subconsciously, because somehow, deep down you know that if someone did this to him, there’s no way he didn’t fight back. And if he did, then his hands…

He notices you staring at his hidden hands and with a defeated sigh he pulls them out, revealing his bruised knuckles. 

“Nothing to worry about?!” you snap as you take his right hand, running the pad of your thumb over the dark red, purple and almost black marks gently. 

“It’ll heal. Not my first rodeo.”

It was supposed to be a joke, you see the smirk on his face, but it just bubbles anxiety in the pit of your stomach, thinking of all the times he ended up beaten up before. You feel silly for caring so much, it shouldn’t matter, but you can’t help it. 

“Hey,” he says, seeing the look on your face, his voice now soft and tender as his bruised hand takes yours. “I’m fine, really. I didn’t mean to worry you, that’s why I didn’t go inside.”

“Then why did you come here?”

You look him in the eyes as he hesitates before answering.

“Wanted to see you. I saw you through the window and decided not to go inside. I was about to leave when you came out.”

He sounds honest and you’re not sure what to think of his words. He gets into a fight, comes here to see you but then doesn’t come inside so you don’t see his wounds. Why did he come here? Were you his first thought?

“Let me clean that cut up,” you then say, ignoring the butterflies in your stomach that are now very much awake. 

“No need, Darling. I’ll be fine–”

“I know you’re a big boy and you’ll be fine on your own, but let me do this one thing so I’ll worry less about you.”

His lips press together into a thin line before he finally nods. He lets go of your hand and grabs the other trash bag you dropped when he came out of the dark, he throws it into the container and gestures for you to go inside, he’ll be following you. 

It’s still just as dead inside as before, so no one notices when you bring him into the restroom that’s for the staff. He closes the toilet seat and sits on top, watching you snatch the first aid kit from under the sink. 

“How was Christmas?”

He asks while you grab everything you need from the kit and angle his head so you see the cut clearly. It looks worse in the light, but you swallow down your theories of how he got it and just start to clean it.

“Fine. Quiet.”

“No big family get together?”

“No family,” you correct him with a straight face and you see the surprise on his face. He stays quiet for a bit before speaking up again.

“You spent it alone?”

“Yeah.”

“What about friends?”

“Don’t have many. I’m usually working. I like my colleagues but we’re not close enough to spend Christmas together,” you explain with a shrug, gently tapping a cotton ball drenched in alcohol on the cut, earning a hiss from him. His hand comes up to your hip out of instinct and you stop at the feeling of his fingers digging into your skin. His grip is firm and warm and it makes you think of how it would feel if you weren’t wearing your uniform. 

Your eyes lock with his for a second before he removes his hand.

“Sorry.”

You just shake your head, almost disappointed at the lack of his touch, but force yourself to return to the cut.

“So then spend Christmas with me next year,” he speaks up after a while, the corners of his mouth curling up in a cheeky grin.

“Sure,” you chuckle.

“I’m serious. We can have a feast, watch Christmas movies, anything you want.”

“Don’t you have anyone to spend the holidays with?”

“I’m usually with friends, but I would trade that in a heartbeat to be with you.”

Oh fuck, he is so smooth!

He is definitely turning you into a giddy little girl, as if he knew what to say to make you melt, but you try your best to mask just how much his words affect you. Shaking your head with a smile you just continue tending to his wound without a word. 

“Ow, she is silent, not a good sign,” he teases you as you put on a few butterfly bandages on the cut to help it heal prettier. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Nope,” you shake your head avoiding looking at him. “And you’re all done.”

You turn back to the sink, busying yourself with packing up the kit, but you see him standing up in the mirror and stepping right behind you, so close that if you leaned just a tiny bit back, you’d bump against his chest. 

“Y/N, would you look at me with those pretty eyes, please?” he asks and you have to take a deep, shaky breath before forcing yourself to look up and meet his gaze in the mirror. He brings his face down a bit, so his cheek brushes against the side of your head and you finally give in. 

Moving your weight back you lean against him and his arms curl around your waist instantly, as if he’s been waiting for this all along. His embrace is welcoming, warm and you fit into his arms perfectly. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving yours in the mirror.

“It’s just a few bandages,” you whisper.

“No, not for that. Thank you for caring, Y/N.”

Your knees would probably give up if he wasn’t holding you up. His words sink into your mind and burn into your memory forever. Even if you never see him again, you’ll remember this moment for the rest of your life, how he just made you feel, how the connection felt unbreakable and irresistible.

Not able to speak, you just let yourself sink further in his hold, turning your head a bit so his lips meet with your forehead. You’re not sure if they just brush against your skin or he kisses you, you’re burning up way too much to decide but whichever it is, it’s just drawing you even closer to him.

His hands move to your hips and he gently turns your body until you’re facing him, wedged between him and the sink. His eyes find yours again and you imagine a thousand possible things that could happen right now. Yet, when he opens his mouth, the words still surprise you.

“I care about you too.”

Your lips part and you suck on your breath. Maybe it’s his charm, maybe it’s the force pulling you towards him or maybe it’s how long you’ve been on your own, but you feel so weak yet so courageous in this moment. His eyes flicker down to your lips and you know what’s about to come and you are so ready–

“Y/N? You in there?”

Molly’s voice is coming from outside with a knock on the door, completely shattering the moment.

“Yeah,” you call out. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just that woman, Jo, I think? She’s here and she only wants you to take her order.”

Jo is a regular and she always insists on having you as her waitress, because she thinks only you know how to put her order in right. You do nothing differently, but she doesn’t know that.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

You wait until you hear her footsteps go down the hallway. Harry moves back just enough so that he is not pressed up against you anymore and he runs his thumb over his bottom lip while you put the first aid kit away.

“I need to go back.”

“I know,” he smiles at you. “Is my booth free?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I’m feeling quite hungry.”

His eyes return to your lips and you know he is not talking about the food right now and you wish to have just a little more time with him right now, but you need to go out. 

“You can’t come out from here,” you simply tell him. So when you step out of the restroom you turn him towards the back door and give him a push. You hear his chuckle, but he doesn’t protest, just walks out.

When you return Molly is eyeing you with suspicion and you wonder if she heard Harry’s voice in the restroom before knocking, but you ignore her and start stacking the glasses.

The front door opens, the bell rings and you don’t have to look up to know that it’s Harry.

“Good evening, ladies,” he greets you and you finally glance at him only to see that smug smirk on his face as he walks over to his usual booth and slides in. 

“I assume you’re taking him, right?” Molly asks with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah,” you say, grabbing a menu even though you know what he’ll order and walking over to his booth with your notepad and pen you stop by the table and look at him, unable to hold back a smile. “What can I get you?”

“The usual, Darling.”

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

[narafeedee]

Top 10 weight gain hacks?

In no particular order:

1. Replace everything you can with the higher calorie version. This may seem obvious but also consider alternative ingredients and increasing quantity of ingredients, for example swapping milk or water with heavy cream, adding double the butter that’s called for, etc. I know that that’s a no-brainer but it really does make a difference if you’re cooking a lot at home.

2. Surround yourself with snacks. When I shop and get a bunch of snacks, I just leave the grocery bag next to where I sit on my couch. Cookies, chips, poptarts, pastries, hand pies, you name it. So any time I’m feeling peckish or I’m just bored and need something to do, I have something within arms reach. I can mindlessly pack away an extra couple thousand calories a day this way and not even notice.

3. Create smaller goals. This one can be a little challenging, of course we all want to hit our ultimate goal as quickly as possible. But it’s so easy to get discouraged when you’re looking at a number that seems so far away. Breaking your goals up into manageable chunks makes the process quicker and more successful than lamenting over not gaining “fast enough” and losing steam. It also gives you reason to celebrate more often than if you’re only looking forward to the next 50-100lbs. For example, say you’re starting on 01/01 at 300 and your ultimate goal is 350. For the month of January your goal is to hit 310, for February it’s 320, and so on and so forth. That way you’re only really “pushing” for the gain for a few days at a time, if you even need to push at all. I hope that makes sense lol

4. That belly tapping thing actually works, lightly tap above your navel and continue tapping as you move from center to left. It may take a couple rounds of this, but in less than a minute you should feel your stomach start feeling empty again. It really really works, it’s also great for when you’re stuffed to the point where another bite will make you sick - just do the tapping thing and the pain and nausea dissipates. I don’t know the science behind this but it’s something I use on a weekly basis and has been a lifesaver.

5. Diet soda. I’ve always been a Diet Coke addict but I’ve found in my gaining journey that the days I drink Diet Coke I am OBSESSED with sweets and sugary treats. Otherwise I’m not too into sweet things, but when I’m chugging aspartame? Oh god it’s game over, I’d eat straight sugar if I had to.

6. Buy the bigger clothes in advance and wear them. This one is hit or miss, cause I love feeling my clothes bursting at the seams, but on the other hand it takes a lot of effort to get super fat and maintain it, so being comfortable as possible is also a must. I do wear the super tight ones still too, but I alternate depending on the day. If you have clothes that are (temporarily) loose on you, not only will you be comfortable but you’ll also have the added benefit of feeling yourself outgrow those too, which to me is more impressive than outgrowing something that was already a little snug.

7. Preset meals; if you’re a fast food junkie like I am and eat every one of your meals out of a greasy brown bag, this is a game changer. Spend a little time making lists of what you like from fast food places and their respective calorie counts. Then come up with realistic 2000+ calorie meals from that. Not stuffings so much as just a casual everyday lunch. So if you know that you need to hit a minimum calories per day, it’s super quick to order exactly what you need and you don’t have to put any effort into it. A lot of apps let you save your favorites to a separate list anyhow.

8. Fast food apps. If you don’t have a rewards app for every fast food place in a 20 mile radius of your home, are you even a feedee? All jokes aside, the amount of free or deeply discounted food I get every day is insane and I am so proud of my points balances lol this is one of my top hacks, I eat so much fast food anyway why wouldn’t I reap the rewards from that?

9. Eat before bed. Most of my eating happens within 2 hours of me falling asleep at night. I would conservatively say half of my daily calorie intake happens in the evening. It works, do it.

10. I’ve been gatekeeping this website for the last 9.5 years, but this is the most accurate calorie calculator I’ve ever used. It tells you your estimated weight over the next few months based on your body metrics and estimated calorie intake (or rather your daily goal lol) and has been consistently accurate for me in my gaining. I use it to plan my gains/other feedees gains and our daily and weekly calorie goals 😉

[pedgito]

Hey! I'm very awkward when it comes to requesting stuff but I'm shooting my idea and if you decide to write it, awesome, if not, I'll still adore you and your work. Anyway, what about a reader that's always been kinda there and around but Eddie never noticed her. Maybe she lives in the trailer park as well and one day Wayne orders Eddie to help out neighbors with something and Eddie gets surprised by her existence or something...

I dunno, I just like the "falling for someone who was already there all the time" trope...

Thanks xx

author’s note: this has full fic potential and i love it, but enjoy what little drabble my brain could handle. <3

cw: sfw, neighbors/meet-cutes, set in 86, reader and eddie run in different circles, wayne is such a dad he can’t help it, this isn’t really fluffy exactly, but it’s very sweet

word count: 2k

Living near the Munson’s had always been, for a better lack of words, eventful. You move in six years prior, the world being ushered into a new era of the 80s, a quaint but rundown neighborhood that looked normal, and a new school to throw yourself into, again—your parents were also never really home.

So, as a result, you’d learn to care for yourself. It wasn’t their fault—things were tough, money needed to be made, and you were at the perfect age to manage keeping yourself alive and fed, regardless if it was done in a justifiable or acceptable manner. And the neighbors were nice—most of them, at least.

You’d learned pretty quickly that it was a place for the older residents of Hawkins, men and women in their late 50s alongside a couple small families—a young woman with a small toddler, another family of four, and right next door; an older gentleman and his son.

You never spoke to him, not once. Wayne, the older man in question, only finally spoke to you when he caught you outside on an early morning taking out the trash, parents having already left for the day.

He worked nights, so he had just come home from a very long shift, a cigarette perched upon his lips. He was nice, polite—but obviously exhausted.

“You alright, kid?” He asks suddenly, though his voice is calm.

He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that you were almost always on your own, driveway empty of cars or even a bike, leaving you chasing down the bus or walking to school most mornings.

You shrug honestly, offering a small smile.

“I’m managing.” You tell him, meaning it. “Thanks for asking.”

After that, it becomes a regular thing. Wayne checks up on you when he can, quick and fleeting conversations in the early mornings when the sun is just starting to come up.

You learn that his son isn’t actually his son, rather his nephew. He’s a couple years older then, trudging his way through the beginnings of a tumultuous freshman year—and you don’t see him often, only by coincidence in the halls where he doesn’t even glance your way.

He’s awkward, tall and lanky, hair in the weird stage of being too long and too short all at once—he’s probably growing it out, you think. It’s a wild next of curls that is nothing a brush couldn’t fix, but it didn’t seem like he owned one. Eddie, that is.

Wayne calls him Edward when he’s mad, coming home too late, being loud when he’s so desperately trying to sleep—you can hear all of it, the walls of your trailer are so thin that nothing is safe.

And life is busy; those six years pass in a breeze, but things are still the same. You’ve never spoken a word to Eddie, your parents are still gone most of the time, if not more now that you’re of age, and Wayne still looks as tired as before, though less buried under the weight of scourging for cash.

Eddie must have some type of job, or something—and he’s extremely loud, always playing with his guitar on the weekends when he’s home, amp placed under the bedroom window adjacent to yours. It’s not like you can really complain, it’s broad daylight, most people are out living their lives, but you’re stuck at home.

He can sing, you’ll give him that. So, it’s not all bad.

He drives too, a clunky piece of junk as Wayne calls it, but to Eddie, it’s his beloved. Wayne almost offers to ask Eddie if he’ll give you lifts to school, but you’re adamant in your refusal.

“I like walking, it’s fine.” You assure him. “I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

“Boy’s like my son, he’ll do it if I ask.” Wayne says, eyes flicking up toward Eddie’s bedroom, his shadow crossing the window. “You two would get along, you know.”

“I dunno,” You disagree, “we don’t exactly run in similar crowds.”

Wayne makes a noise, a small huff of acknowledgment.

“He’s struggling,” Wayne admits, “on his third try at graduating and I’m starting to think it’d be easier to pull him out and help him get his GED.”

You knew that much—Eddie should’ve graduated already, yet he was still stuck at the same lunch table for those following years, preaching to young minds of the susceptible D&D nerds.

“Maybe—“ You agree, but Wayne quickly cuts you off.

“Hey, you’re smart,” Wayne assumes, but he’s seen the textbooks you’ve brought home, levels above the classes Eddie takes, “got good grades?”

“Mostly A’s,” You admit, “m’trying to get into a good college and AP classes look good on paper.”

Wayne thinks for a moment, falling silent as he flicks the ashes away from his cigarette, “Think you can do me a solid?”

And Wayne’s never steered you wrong, even offering you dinner when your parents forget to buy groceries for the week, making sure your belly is just as full as his. He constantly grumbles about how careless you parents were, similar to Eddie’s—you never pried on that matter, feeling like it was none of your business.

“I can try.”

“How do you feel about tutoring Eddie?” He asks curiously, “He’s a good kid, I swear—he just can’t focus for shit.”

“I…don’t know.” You reply wearily, “I don’t think he wants to take that stuff seriously—“

“He does, he does,” Wayne insists, “it’s hard for him to learn in that type of setting, I think he needs the one on one. I understand if you don’t want to, I just think it might be worth tryin’.”

Wayne senses your hesitance.

“I’m sorry for asking, you don’t have to—“

“I will,” You respond quickly, not harping on it any longer, “I mean, I can.”

And maybe this was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made, but you wouldn’t know if you didn’t try.

You knock on the trailer door a couple days later, in the earlier hours on a Saturday morning, a book clutched to your chest and a tired smile on your face—but when the door opens, you’re not met with the same expression.

If anything, it’s surprise that’s riddling his face.

Wayne must not have said anything, which is just as mortifying.

“Who—“ Eddie stops himself, eyeing you carefully, “are you—don’t I have a class with you?”

You nod slowly, “Econ, yeah.”

“How do you know where I live?” Eddie asks, though he doesn’t sound offended, more amused if anything. “Did Dustin put you up to this?”

Henderson was a little shit, you knew that much—but you’d never spoken a word to him either.

“Eddie,” He’s just as shocked you know his name, eyes raking over your carefully, “I live next door.”

Eddie’s brows furrow, door cleaning open to peek at the trailer beside him, gaze quickly flicking back toward you. And suddenly it’s all clicking in his head, though slowly.

“You must be the reason I have to make an extra plate of dinner, right?” Eddie asks with a soft smile.

Whatever earlier assumptions you had about him dissipated into nothing, melted by the grin on his face and the subtle dimple in his cheek.

“It’s not my doing—Wayne worries about me.” You tell him, hoping he’ll understand. “Food’s good though, better than what I could make.”

Eddie widens the door silently, without question really, allowing you to step inside. It’s as barren as it is cluttered, random knick knacks on the shelves, counters, but devoid of trash.

“Wait, holy shit—you’re friend’s with Buckley, aren’t you?”

It’s startling, but you nod. You were—also in band with her, along with a long list of extracurriculars—why that one stood out the most to him, you’d never understand. You weren’t even aware Eddie knew you existed.

“Sort of,” You land on, “We’ve got a lot of classes together.”

And as if you weren’t already taken off-guard, Eddie speaks again.

“You play…trumpet?” He asks, snapping his fingers in celebration when you nod. “And piano?”

“How do you—no one knows that.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, genuinely confused, “I saw you playing a couple months ago—I was on the way to Hellfire and you were by yourself, I thought you were practicing for something—“

“You watched me play?” You ask curiously.

“Yeah, yeah—you’re really fuckin’ good.” Eddie admits, “It’s not really my style but I love music, so—“

And he’s mentally beating himself up over not recognizing you sooner, feeling like a complete ass.

“Well, I don’t know if Wayne told you, but he asked me to help tutor you.” You explain, “I get it you want to kick me out, I’m just trying to do good by your uncle, you know?”

Eddie shrugs carelessly, “We can try, but I’m not promising it’ll help.”

“Are you sure you have the time?” You ask, knowing his weekends were usually occupied by something a lot more distracting and loud. “No guitar practice today?”

Eddie snorts at that, “Shit, yeah—I’m sorry about that.”

“I’ve listened to it for six years, I’m used to it.”

Eddie gawks at that, feeling even worse.

“Hey, it’s fine—I wouldn’t notice me either.”

He smiles slightly, “It’s not that.”

You plead with him silently, following him to the small table tucked in the corner of his trailer, two chairs on either side.

“Kinda thought you were a ghost, honestly—“ Eddie admits, “or just like, figment of my imagination.”

You scrunch your nose in confusion, taking a seat across from him.

“I swear I’ve never seen you around here—that’s mostly my fault, I’m not home often.” Eddie tells you, “but I remembered your face when I’d see you at school, didn’t know your name—I mean, I still don’t but—“

You snort softly, offering him your name with a quiet interjection. He nods knowingly, grin growing wider.

“I feel like an asshole for not realizing you’ve been my neighbor for that long—Wayne always talked about you, kind of in passing, but I never thought anything of it.”

“I’m not offended, Eddie.” You tell him, hoping he’d understand.

And it’s not that Eddie didn’t remember your face, he just couldn’t believe it was real, that you were real. He could’ve sworn you didn’t exist at all, like he’s been making you up in his mind.

“Can we make a deal?” Eddie asks suddenly.

“Depends.” You counter, smile pulling at your face.

“If this works, will you teach me some stuff on the piano?”

Eddie was the definition of never judging someone at first glance, his interesting style contrasting his personality in the best ways. He’s always came off as dark, pensive, similar to his uncle in the way he always had a cigarette between his lips or a scowl on his face.

“If this works—sure.” You agree with ease.

“God, I feel like a total ass.” Eddie admits, slamming his fist against the table softly, “Six years, are you sure?”

“It’s not for lack of trying, Eddie.” You tell him, “If I wanted to be noticed you would’ve known. I’m really good at blending in, unfortunately.”

It still doesn’t change how he feels.

“Besides, you never realize how much people reveal about themselves when they don’t know you’re around.” You add shyly, eyes connecting with him briefly.

Eddie laughs slightly, leaning forward to flip the textbook open.

“We can circle back to that,” Eddie teases, “I won’t forget.”

There’s not a day that passes following where Eddie hasn’t wedged himself into your existence, determined to discover everything that he’s missed out on.

And it’s startling how much you like him, the fact of him being right out of reach for so long—it’s bittersweet.

Please consider a reblog if you enjoyed this fic! It’s makes a huge difference. ♡

[askmerriauthor]

I said the game demands microtransactions, not that it requires them. That's not just me being pedantic about wording, but rather a big indication of how the developers designed the game to work. Pokemon Sleep doesn't want you to play for free and is designed to make playing-without-paying a worse experience.

Like many free-to-play games out there, they operate on the idea of monetizing convenience and "fear of missing out" (FOMO). Such games will either create a problem in order to sell you a solution, or rely on a rotating/limited availability of enviable items to encourage impulse buying to avoid losing the chance to have the item. Pokemon Sleep does both of these.

Despite Pokemon Sleep being presented as a passive "something in the background while you sleep" kind of novelty, that's not the actual gameplay at all. The game actually wants you to be extremely active and paying a lot of attention to it non-stop, along with encouraging you to get others involved as well. Up to 500 potential invitations with a 50 individual approval list of contacts, specifically, and the system "helpfully" lets you link to your Google, Apple, or Facebook accounts in order to facilitate that and further scoop up lots of personal data for advertising.

The basic gameplay cycle of Pokemon Sleep is that you have a 7-day period in which you can power up your Snorlax as much as possible, with a higher power score equaling a greater variety of visiting Pokemon for you to catch. Visiting Pokemon will appear in a variety of sleeping types, of which there are at least 415 to collect (with individual Pokemon having multiple sleeping types). These Pokemon can also be "befriended" by giving them a sufficient number of items, which means they'll then join your team and help you boost Snorlax's power score over time. You can further boost Snorlax's score by feeding it, which the game encourages you to do three times per day within a given time window. Your Helper Pokemon will supply you with ingredients to make meals for Snorlax at different intervals, and the meals you make have different potencies based on the ingredients used.

So, to summarize, you have a limited period in which to get a number as big as it can be, with various randomized factors able to improve the rate of progression, before it all resets and you're back to square one.

Yes, you absolutely can play this game without spending any money. But the game itself is designed in a way that urges you to spend money at every turn. Every element of gameplay is improved if you spend money, and will actively degrade in effectiveness and quality if you don't. Remember how you can befriend Pokemon to help you out with getting Snorlax's score up? That's faster and easier if you spend money. Those same Helpers who gather ingredients for you? They lose Energy (an arbitrary limit put in place by the game system) the longer they're around, and become worse at gathering ingredients the less Energy they have. But, good for you! You can just buy more Energy for them! Rather, you have to make two purchases - the Energy-restoring item only gives back 50% of their Energy, so you need to buy two in order to max them out again. And you can just buy a box of random ingredients too! How convenient! And if you really want to get the most out of sleeping, you can buy the monthly auto-renewing (until you manually cancel it through Google or Apple, not the game app itself) Premium Membership! Which literally makes your sleep more valuable than the same - or even higher quality - sleep of people who aren't Premium members! But you better buy fast, because all of these items for sale are on a rotating schedule and will swap out of the shop at different 15 or 30-day intervals. You wouldn't want to miss your chance, would you?

A core facet of microtransaction pricing is that it's intentionally and carefully designed to never be enough. You'll always be in a position where you need to buy just a little more than the minimum, and it always comes out at odd numbers that never fit exactly where they need to in order to maximize your purchase, and are priced in unorthodox values specifically to trick the buyer's brain into thinking it's a better deal than it is. With that in mind, it pays to look at the minimum and maximum amounts the game wants to try and charge you since that gives a good idea of their intended range of interaction with your wallet, and how far a given amount of paid microtransactions will take you. Because, remember, such games are built around the idea of NEVER giving you enough. They ALWAYS want you to be in a state of wanting a little more and being tempted to dish over some more cash for it.

In Pokemon Sleep's case? The minimum buy-in for "Diamonds" - their premium microtransaction currency - is 60 Diamonds for $1.19. Their maximum? 7000 Diamonds for $97.99. So what this says outright is that the game is designed in such a way that it expects 7000 Diamonds to NOT BE ENOUGH to maintain a player's best experience. Because, again, such games will NEVER give you a value sufficient enough to deter the need for further purchases. This is a game that wants players to spend $100 multiple times over throughout the lifespan of their interest in the game. Will the majority of players do this? No. There's absolutely going to be a number of whales who will, especially among influencers and content creators on social media who make their own career off these sort of things. But what Pokemon Sleep is relying on is that there will be a far greater abundance of players who think "Oh, it's just a dollar..." or 'Oh, this item is going away... it's not even $5, so why not?" on a very regular basis.

And I haven't even touched on the overt security/privacy issues and the personal info scraping the app has potential for as well. So, yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and sleep on Pokemon Sleep.

[kisses-from-crows]

Random Campbell Bain Headcanons

(chapter 7 is currently a 5k word inconsistent mess but i can give you this so, ehhh? not sure if these make any sense but in my brain they make perfect sense)

-this mf LOVES halloween

-he will spend will weeks thinking up a bunch of overly complicated costumes

-he spends WAY too much money on halloween decorations (i want you to picture Campbell Bain with adult money….)

-he has gotten tangled in those cotton spiderweb things a million times

-he always gets really enthusiastic about carving pumpkins but doesn’t have the patience to do the super complicated designs. always manages to cut off bits he didn’t mean to cut off.

-has a tradition of smashing the pumpkins to bits in the first week of november. (he likes this part more than the carving)

-will literally beg to get his nails painted and then will IMMEDIATELY smudge them, everytime, without fail

-settles for coloring in his nails with sharpie

-scarily good at mario kart, like frighteningly good

-likes to watch the muppets when he has depressive episodes

-had an intense cowboy phase as a child, until he went to a petting zoo and discovered he’s deathly afraid of horses

-the type of person to go radio silent for weeks or spam you with 50 memes and 12 songs in a matter of an hour. (there is no in-between)

-will respond to an important text two days later with a link to song and nothing else

-has a MASSIVE sweet tooth

-and has absolutely ZERO self control with candy, will down an entire bag of marshmallows (he prefers the mini ones) in a single sitting.

-noticed that Eddie had started to sneakily take his candy so he started keeping secret stashes hidden in various places

-eddie will find a stash and throw it away, only to turn around and see Campbell munching on a king-sized snickers, just gloating

-is ace spec but constantly makes dirty jokes, partly for shock value partly because he finds it hilarious

-very touchy, doesn’t get the whole “personal space” thing

-insists that he loves scary movies and then will go to bed with all the lights on after

-finds a pair of shoes he likes and then wears them every single day until they fall apart, then refuses to throw them out

-his closet is full of converse held together by duct tape and a dream

-is the biggest baby about being sick. this mf will get a tummy ache and just start rolling on the ground whining about “this is the end, get my affairs in order, tell Eddie i love him”

-toes the line between being the dream/nightmare blunt rotation. he has the most entertaining monologues but he’s using the joint as a talking stick and accidentally ash’d in the water cups twice now

-not allowed to smoke anymore because it messed with his bipolar and he didn’t sleep for 4 days straight

-can’t cook for shit, regularly burns soup. is banned from using the oven after The Incident™️

-won’t explain to anyone what The Incident™️ is

-if you ask Eddie about it, he’ll just say “he knows what he did”

-rumor has it that it involved makeshift shrink-i-dinks

-visits Fergus’s grave at least once a month. sets up a blanket and just talks. tells him everything that happened since he came last. what the rest of the crew is up to

-always leaves some sort of bit or bauble for Fergus

-got very upset when they would go missing, until he realized the local crows were collecting them

-now he brings some food and an extra toy for the crows, they’re good friends now

-one of the crows always flies down and hangs out next to him, so Campbell is convinced it’s Fergus

okay that’s all i’ve got for now! (sorry had to make it just little sad at the end)

[dostoyevsky-official]

gorbachev’s funeral was a solemn affair kept purposefully small by an outsized police presence, ordered there by a regime that wants to distance itself as much as possible from his legacy but which cannot forsake something as momentous as the last general secretary of the ussr. at the same time, those in power hate the people who embrace gorbachev and what he stood for. therefore you have “elements of a state funeral,” a ridiculous amount of police, riot police, plainclothes police, military police, elaborate ways of making sure as few people show up as possible (gorbachev was supposed to lie in state until 2pm, but this was suddenly moved to noon; the burial was closed to the public, but it was actually open). one person was arrested for holding up an anti-war sign. surprisingly, many complained about putin snubbing the funeral due to “scheduling conflicts.” good riddance! who among those present really wanted to see him?

it was something of a quiet protest action against him and the war, even without posters. a pensioner at novodevichy cemetery told me as much: “this is the only way i can protest against what’s going on without getting arrested, and they know it. i couldn’t not take the opportunity.” but what is a protest if it’s sanctioned, quiet, and cordoned off?

at 9:30 am, crowds began to gather at the house of the unions in the city center, where all former soviet leaders were displayed in state. it was both larger than i’d expected and much smaller than i’d hoped for from moscow. from a city of 12 million, there were perhaps a few thousand people all together, many with red carnations. there were several gate systems to the memorial manned by cops who had orders not to let in more than 50 people at a time (i overheard one say so on his walkie-talkie). as with the the funeral procession later on, there was a good showing by the post-soviet generation and those who would’ve been too young to remember much of anything from the gorbachev years; there was also a fair amount of pensioners. the crowd moved fast—the cops didn’t want to let anyone linger for too long in any place—and after three security checkpoints and five gates, i was in the luxurious hall of pillars, though made austere for gorbachev. after seconds of looking at a man who embodied the twentieth century like few others, i was urged to move on as fast as possible. on the way out, a couple behind me, a man and a woman in their 50s, started crying. they were not the only ones.

across the street, a large “we will fulfill our mission” poster, written with the propaganda Zs and Vs, hangs on the scaffolding of the new bolshoi theatre, as if to put a period on what had already ended months, if not years ago. the crowds only became bigger when i left at half past ten. on my way to novodevichy cemetery, i ran into gennady zyuganov, head of russia’s communist party, and asked for a photo—why not. a smaller crowd of CPRF, left front, and other “left” parties gathered for some event near red square. later, i learned that he gave a speech celebrating the end of wwii with the victory over japan. zyuganov said that we must continue the fight and cleanse the earth of nazis, as russia is doing now. this, too, is part of gorby’s legacy, the shattered pieces of a massive, unfinished political project.

a few hours passed before gorbachev’s procession arrived to novodevichy, where the crowd was a bit thinner. i stood next to a young law student in his junior year who skipped his first day of classes to pay respects, chatting with him to pass the time. “how excellent that so many young people showed up,” he said. maybe a third of those gathered was under 30. “if we are here together, it means russia still has a future.” the police moved us around from time to time to “make space.” after finding my way to him again, i noticed he had two carnations instead of four: he gave two to a journalism student and exchanged numbers. a pensioner: “is she your sister? no? watch over her, keep each other safe.”

the procession was headed by a downcast dmitry muratov, a massive portrait of gorbachev in his hands: one nobel peace laureate parting with the other. among those present for the funeral service were ambassadors, including john sullivan from the US, the south korean, french, and german ambassadors, and suzanne massie, a historian who served as advisor to reagan and allegedly introduced him to the russian idiom “trust, but verify,” with pavel palazhchenko, gorbachev’s long-time translator. 

after the service, a 21-gun salute, the crowds thronging to the burial by raisa gorbachev’s grave. alexei venediktov (editor-in-chief of the now-dissolved echo of moscow, another glasnost creation) recently talked about how he went to novodevichy with gorbachev around 2010. gorbachev started crying, telling him that all he wanted now was to be buried with raisa. the love he had for her was immense. out of all the biographies and gorbachev/perestroika studies i’ve read, it’s only taubman’s that covers how profoundly he loved her with the space that such a deep, lasting relationship merited.

during the burial: “who do you think is next,” from one pensioner to another, two strangers. “well... you know.” “yes, let’s hope it happens soon.” 

a last opportunity to pay respects at a grave heaped, heaped, heaped on with roses and carnations, and then the throngs dissolved. it was the best of who and what you could see in moscow, or, russia’s conscience—what’s left of it—on public display. i have no doubt everyone at the memorial and the cemetery was anti-war. the palpable depression of this crowd was alleviated only by the reinforcing mutual presence of everyone there, a silent solidarity drawn from an organization that hasn’t been seen on the streets since march. you understand what people feel from what’s not said—the looks—the tears—the efforts of men and women in their 80s and 90s to stand for hours, so long as they could say farewell. 

the possibility of such organization, reluctantly allowed for the funeral and which was widely admissible in years passed, was the legacy with which we parted today. the defining feature of gorbachev’s rule was openness, glasnost, a gust of fresh air blowing through a hot, humid room, more than economic ideas that were a halfway house for the conditions the soviet state found itself in, and which he didn’t fully understand. yet he opened windows and doors. he returned memory to the people, he allowed memorial to form, he brought sakharov from exile, and yes, he then turned off his microphone during the congress of people’s deputies. gorbachev was a complicated, flawed individual who rose through the ranks of a bloody, ruthless bureaucracy to lead an imperial superpower whose continued survival was his overarching political imperative. he couldn’t have been gandhi. at one point, he nearly killed yeltsin with nothing more than a prolonged party criticism session; he was, directly or indirectly, responsible for the deaths of those on the imperial periphery. 

but what could have been instead? nothing is precisely inevitable. had andropov been healthier, the soviet union could’ve been held together to this day by sheer force, or perhaps by prolonged conflict in azerbaijan, or mass-scale repression in the baltics. set in this context, gorbachev leashed the security institutions of the ussr, but didn’t properly dispose of them. thirty years later, his failure is zyuganov’s gleeful speech on denazification, the descent into a fascist society waging genocidal war. his success was thirty years of lost opportunity.

where do we go from here? the feeling of helplessness predominates, resonating through the said and unsaid perception of what could have been and what we have had. the crowd goes home, the opposition stays in jail, the war continues. 

[blueepink07]

I decided to look at the calendars and the timetable in Muu's MVs and I think I found some interesting things!

Taking in chronological order, the first calendar should be this one, which has the cherry blossoms. In Japan, usually, the flowering cherry trees come into full bloom around the beginning of April. It is the month when the new year of school starts for students.

So it seems that the friend group started the bullying, since the beginning of the school year, Rei's clothes being wet and her items being splattered on the floor. (the calendar in this scene also shows the cherry blossoms)

Remember this is the moment when Rei decides to turn "upside down" Muu's reputation at school, when she considers that enough is enough.

So then it raises the question... How much time Muu was bullied at school?

Well to find out we have again to look at the calendar.

This one should be a month from autumn, more exactly early September.

To understand better my line of thoughts, I will explain how did I reached this conclusion!

Beginning with the timetable!

Considering that the murder takes place during sunset, I thought that it was important to find when Muu finishes her classes.

"In a typical high school in Japan, teachers gather each morning at 8:30 a.m. for a brief meeting. Students meet at 8:35 a.m. for a 5-minute homeroom period. Regular classes begin at 8:45 a.m. and there are four 50-minute classes before lunch. High school students eat in their homeroom. "

With this information, I figured out that the empty space between hours is for lunch, because there are already four classes before it.

"Two afternoon periods are followed by school clean-up and a 5-minute homeroom meeting, after which students are dismissed at 3:30 p.m."

Muu has, after lunch, one or two afternoon periods.

Also, interesting she also has four classes on Saturday, something that is pretty common in Japan. "On Saturday the day ends after four periods, at 1 p.m."

Getting back to the topic, the classes usually end at 3:30 pm or 4 pm most of the time. However, it's pretty clear that it's not the hour when Rei goes home and the murder happens. Not only the sunset will not start so early, but also Muu's phone gives us a hint of the time.

But why are they at such a late hour at school, if the classes should end at around 3:30 pm? Simple, club activities after classes, at which most students in Japan attend to!

"Club activities are held after school and run until 5 or 6 p.m. One hour per week is devoted to mandatory club activity. Other club activity is voluntary."

They last around 2 hours, so, if we take into consideration Muu's timetable, the clubs should end at around 5:30 - 6 pm. (might depend on the club)

Now, I want to point out this specific interrogation question:

"What kind of kid where you?"

The past tense it's very interesting to me: "I did many extracurricular activities". Yes, it might refer to her younger self, but, considering that, even in high school, clubs are heavily encouraged in Japan, it's rather odd that she doesn't say that she still attends them.

That's because, in reality, she probably stopped going to those once she started to be bullied, which explains why she is the only one in the classroom, waiting for the club activities to be finished, so she can go home.

"School club activities, commonly known as “bukatsu” in Japan, play a significant role in the lives of students. These extracurricular activities are an integral part of the Japanese school experience, providing a platform for personal growth, skill development, and fostering a sense of community."

Club activities are a good way to spend your time with your friends, while doing something that you like. Because Muu started to be bullied, she had no reason to attend to these anymore. Not only she would spend her time alone, but also risk being picked on again, preferring to stay in the classroom.

With the idea that the clubs from Muu's school should end around 5:30 pm, we can decide the month based on when the sun fully sets.

I will admit that it took me a while to notice the yellow dots, which should resemble the leaves, so, because of the warm colours, I thought that the calendar showed July. Not August, because, in most schools in Japan, there is a summer vacation which starts from July 20 to August 31.

However, considering that Muu lives in Minato Ward, Tokyo, as seen in this post, the sun should fully set at around 7 pm, during July. Which doesn't really makes sense, because Rei should be outside of school, after club activities and some time spent preparing her herself to go, at around 5:40 - 5:45 pm, when there is not a sunset.

What made me, at first, not consider autumn as an option, where the green leaves from this scenery. So I researched a little and found put that in Tokyo, the leaves don't start to fall until late November.

Which left me with two options: September and October.

October was easily out of the question, because, in the first day of October the sun fully sets at 5:26 pm, which is too early.

Which leaves us with September, when the sun sets at around 6 pm. Taking into account the minutes before Muu reaches Rei in that day, I think it's safe to assume that early September, should be the time when the murder took place.

I hope I gave a good explanation and found some interesting things about Muu! Thank you for reading!

Sources if anyone is interested!

[odyssean-flower]

The Winding Path of Fate Chapter 9 - The Honeymoon (Part 1)

Masterpost

Pairing: Neuvillette x Female Reader Summary: You and Neuvillette finally go on your honeymoon/first date (clickbait kinda sorta) Warnings: None except for the fact that this story is 50% written based on vibes Note: I update this story on AO3 first so please subscribe to the fic there if you’d like to read it faster Note 2: If you want to be on the taglist for this fic, please make a reply to this post, send a message or send a private ask

Have a pic of double neuvillette

Previous | Next

As it turned out, you and Neuvillette didn’t go on your honeymoon tomorrow. Apparently, there was some sort of sudden judicial matter that desperately needed his attention. You lost count of how many times he apologized to you.

Which was just as well, since going on a trip—even if it was only for a day—on such short notice was absurd and unrealistic. Perhaps it was a testament to just how unsettled Neuvillette was by whatever he talked about with Furina that he suggested it in the first place.

Your initial excitement had cooled down slightly, replaced with calm rationality.

To be honest, you were unsure why he cared so much. From what you could garner (Neuvillette still refused to tell you exactly what his argument with Furina was about), it wasn’t as though she had explicitly ordered him to go on a honeymoon. Besides, having a honeymoon wasn't a requirement for marriage. You knew plenty of couples back home who didn’t have one. Even your own parents simply went back to your father’s house and started living together after they got married.

You told Neuvillette about those things in an effort to take the pressure off him, but it backfired. He seemed even more determined to make this “honeymoon”-slash-“date” happen than before.

“But you looked so excited when I brought the subject up. You’ve rarely traveled before, have you?” he had said, and you couldn’t really argue with that.

It was times like these that made you wonder. From the time you got married—no, all the way back to when you first met—you had always assumed that he acted the way he did towards you out of a sense of gentlemanly conduct. It was something you admired. How many self-proclaimed gentlemen have you met until now? They should all model themselves after Neuvillette.

But it was all the things he did, like buying you the painting set even though you had never asked him for it or hanging up your painting in his office, that made you wonder something that was perhaps a little impertinent: was Neuvillette secretly very sentimental?

That makes sense, you thought, nodding to yourself as you inspected the sunflower plants. They had now reached the middle of your calf, and there were small, tender leaves growing from the stalks.

Neuvillette seemed like the type of person who enjoyed doting on something. No, you were sure he was. You had seen how he acted with the Melusines—he was like a proud father. But on the other hand, Melusines weren’t like pets you could take care of and leave at home. They were full-fledged citizens of Fontaine with their own lives.

But with humans, he was cordial but distant due to his strict personal morals. You sensed that, however, that it didn’t mean he actively disliked interacting with them. It didn’t help that his position and demeanor intimidated people and made them stay at a respectful distance. So, basically, it was a relationship where both parties mutually stayed away from each other, even though the desire was there to get closer.

“He should get a pet or something…” you muttered to yourself.

“Who should get a pet?” a voice asked from behind you. It was Neuvillette.

“I was just thinking that you should get a pet,” you stood up and turned around. “I think you would make a good pet owner.”

 Neuvillette raised an eyebrow. “What brought this on?”

“Oh, I was just thinking,” you said innocently. “Have you ever had a pet before? Or considered getting one?”

“No to both questions, I’m afraid,” Neuvillette said. “My job keeps me too busy to spend much time with them, and truthfully, I prefer observing animals in their natural habitats rather thuan transplanting them to an environment that might not suit them.”

“I see,” you nodded. It was just the answer you would expect from him. “But, I still think that you would be a great owner. You’re so caring and considerate, after all. I’m sure any pet of yours would be lucky to be yours.”

Neuvillette was silent for a moment, like he was thinking over your words. “Then, what would you suggest I should get as a pet, in the hypothetical scenario that I decide to get one?” he suddenly asked, turning to you.

You considered it for a moment. Your first thought was some kind of aquatic creature, like a fish, but you quickly eliminated that choice. Neuvillette wouldn’t like to have a pet that was trapped in confined spaces, and besides…you glanced at his hands, remembering all the times you saw him pat the Melusines’ heads. He would like something he could pet and cuddle. The mental image of Neuvillette cuddling with a fluffy creature made you smile. Yes, definitely something fluffy. A dog would be too high maintenance for him, perhaps a cat? Or a hamster, or a rabbit…

You told Neuvillette about your thoughts. “Think about how relaxing it would be to run your fingers through your cat’s soft fur after a long day at work,” you ended. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“It does sound pleasant,” Neuvillette said as he gazed at the sunflower shoots, then looked at you for a few moments as though considering something. “But I think I’ve already experienced something similar to that.”

“What are you implying, hm?” you glared up at him. Lately, Neuvillette seemed to have taken a liking to teasing you. Normally, you didn’t really tolerate being poked fun at by people outside your immediate friends and family (although, come to think of it, Neuvillette was technically your family now), but from him, you didn’t mind all that much. Maybe it was the novelty of it.

“Nothing, Madame. Nothing at all.”

For a few minutes, you two were silent. But it was the warm kind of silence where the people involved simply indulged in each other’s presence.

“So…” you cleared your throat. “Has the date for our honeymoon been set yet? You can at least tell me that, and where we’re going, can’t you?”

You gave him a meaningful look. His argument with Furina had been on your mind for the past few days. Now that you knew that you were involved, you had to know what it was about. You initially bugged him about it, but eventually stopped when he kept repeating, “It is better for you not to know.”

Of course, you had no intention to drop it completely. You simply had to wait for the right moment to bring it up again.

From where you were standing, Neuvillette’s bangs hid his face, but you could have sworn that you saw a small smile on his lips. “I’ll tell you after dinner.”

The two of you would be going on your one-day honeymoon this weekend. To be precise, it wasn’t even a whole day. You two would be returning home by evening.

The day’s itinerary consisted of two places. The first was the Erinnyes Forest region in the east, where you would spend the morning and early afternoon sightseeing and strolling. In the afternoon, you would be visiting Merusea Village, as Neuvillette wanted to introduce you to the Melusines living there.

Right now, the two of you were sitting in the parlor.

“What do you think?” Neuvillette looked at you beseechingly. You could hear the self-consciousness in his voice. “I am aware that they may not be the most exciting of locales, and that married couples tend to travel more exotic destinations and stay there for a longer period of time, but, considering our personal circumstances…”

He trailed off. He really is taking this too seriously, you thought. Like everything else.

But that was what you liked about him.

“Hmm,” you said. “I don’t think Lady Furina would be too impressed by this. You might get scolded again when she hears of this.”

“You do not like it?” Neuvillette said, looking crestfallen. “Yes, of course you wouldn’t. A lady like you should be taken on a pleasure cruise or a beachside resort. It is not too late to make the necessary arrangements—”

“I said Lady Furina wouldn’t be too impressed by this,” you interrupted him, leaning forward to look him in the eye. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

Neuvillette opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but then closed it. “I see,” was all he said.

You leaned back against the back of the couch. To be honest, you were not much of a romantic, so when you heard the words “honeymoon trip,” your first thought was if it was possible for the two of you to spend a weekend in Petrichor to explore the ruins there.

Still, you had diligently done your research on just where and what did people do on their honeymoons, if only for reference’s sake. You pored over society papers and magazines. The wealthy tended to travel abroad to countries like Liyue and Mondstadt, or head to the resorts or their mountain villas for weeklong getaways. Obviously, the two of you couldn’t do that. Not that you wanted to, of course.

As for exactly what people did on honeymoons—needless to say, you two carefully skirted around that topic.

Really, when you thought about it, this was more like a date than a honeymoon.

Date… For some reason, your heart beat faster at that word than it had ever done for “honeymoon.” Maybe because it felt closer to the truth of what this was.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you said, genuinely meaning it. “You know I’ve never travelled further than the opera house. And…we’ve never gone anywhere together before, have we? I think it’ll be fun.”

“Fun…?” Neuvillette repeated, like the concept was unfamiliar to him. “Do you truly think so? I am…aware…that it is not a quality often associated with me.”

For some reason (well, you could make a guess as to why), Neuvillette had become fixated on this point of being “boring.” The less kind side of you wondered why this only occurred to him now, but mostly you were just surprised it concerned him so much. Being boring or dull wasn’t a crime, no matter what the Archon would say.

It’s probably because I’m a new, unfamiliar addition to his life, you thought. That’s why he’s always so hesitant and unsure of himself when it comes to me.

You thought you somewhat understood him. Neuvillette was the type of person who placed more pressure on himself than on others. That was why he always apologized or asked for your approval. You didn’t know how he acted with others, so it was just a theory, though.

It made you sad to think that Neuvillette was stressed and doubting himself because of you. It was like watching mud contaminate a pristine pool of water. You felt guilty for being able to feel relaxed nowadays when it wasn’t the same with him.

Perhaps you should bug the license office more frequently. In any case, you weren’t staying here forever. Hopefully, Neuvillette would return to his usual self soon after you were gone.

Until then, you had to do your best to maintain an agreeable, pleasant atmosphere between you and him.

“I can’t speak for others, but I never feel bored with you,” you said firmly, as though, as though to shake off that melancholic feeling. “I assure you, if I ever get bored, I will tell you directly, and then we can figure out something else to do together.” To be honest, I’m more worried about me boring him.

Neuvillette looked unconvinced, so you added. “If you like, I could give you feedback at the end. So you could improve for, er, next time.”

The words made you cringe inwardly. It made this honeymoon sound like some sort of work evaluation. Then again, considering how Lady Furina pushed for it, I suppose that’s not so far off the mark. Also, why did I say next time? It’s not like I’m expecting anything after this…or am I?

As you were buried in your thoughts, you felt an intense gaze upon your face and looked up to find Neuvillette staring at you. He didn’t look away. You found that you couldn’t either.

“You always know what to say, don’t you?” he murmured. “The weekend cannot come soon enough.”

He then bid you goodnight and left the room, leaving you staring at the table.

The day had arrived.

Neuvillette had told you yesterday that you would have an early start today, so you tried to get in bed early, but ended up being too excited and nervous to sleep. More than the fact that you would be going to places you had never been before, you would be going to them with Neuvillette. It hadn’t set in before, but this was the first time you and him would be alone for such an extended period of time.

You had butterflies in your stomach just thinking about it. Luckily, your room was away from everyone else, or else you would have woken them up with your tossing and turning.

You had to remind yourself to stay calm. This is just an outing between two friends. Even if it’s called a “honeymoon” or “date,” if there’s no romantic feelings from either party, then in essence, it is not a date, right? Wait, why am I thinking about this so hard?

You didn’t know when you fell asleep, but it felt like you had only rested your eyes briefly before a gentle knock on your door woke you up.

“…Huh?”

You opened your eyes blearily and looked at the bedside clock. It was early in the morning, so much so that it was still dark outside.

You managed to drag yourself out of bed and walked over to the door.

“Who is it…?” you asked, stifling a yawn.

“It’s me.”

“Oh…” you opened the door without thinking. There, in front of your door, stood Neuvillette, fully dressed and perfectly coiffed. “Um, wait…” You pictured how you looked to him: messy hair, wearing an old and rumpled nightgown, squinty-eyed.

The two of you stared at each other for a moment. Your emotions were dulled, probably because you were still half-asleep. What a strangely familiar situation…at least I’m properly dressed this time, sort of.

Neuvillette cleared his throat and turned away. Maybe it was just the bad lighting, but his cheeks seemed to be tinged with red. But surely that couldn’t be the case. “My apologies, Madame. I wasn’t aware that you haven’t gotten ready yet.”

“No, no, I should have gotten dressed beforehand,” you said, slowly closing the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”

Now you were fully awake. You hurriedly went to the bathroom to freshen up, washing your face and swiping a comb through your hair. Then, you got dressed. It had been embarrassingly difficult to put together an outfit appropriate for the occasion. All your clothes were of the plain and functional variety. You desperately wished you had brought more clothes from back home.

Clearly, too many things had gone contrary to your expectations.

In the end, you had settled for a blouse, skirt, and a cardigan. Since you were going to be mostly outdoors today anyways, you should dress more practically. However, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of dissatisfaction as you stared at yourself in the mirror. You knew that Neuvillette would never say anything, but personally, you wished that you looked a little cuter. More like a girl going on a date. Even though this wasn’t a date.

Relax. Don’t overthink things. You thought to yourself in the mirror. For makeup, you decided to just put on lipstick.

Then, you took in a deep breath, put on your gloves, grabbed your purse and hat, and opened the door.

Neuvillette was still standing in the same position he was before, like a statue. It was kind of funny. In his long life, he had probably seen a lot more than a mere woman in a nightgown (or towel). He really was the perfect gentleman.

“Sorry for the wait,” you told him. “I really did mean to get ready earlier, but I was…too excited to sleep.”

“How coincidental,” Neuvillette said, smiling slightly. “So was I.”

Was he saying that he had also been tossing and turning like you, imagining what the day would be like and worrying over what to say and do? It was hard to imagine, but the idea of it lightened your heart.

The two of you went downstairs to the kitchen to get the picnic basket. Since your trip to Erinnyes was in the morning, it was decided that you would be having lunch there. You had helped Marie with the preparations. Speaking of Marie, she was even more excited than you when she heard that you and Neuvillette were going out for the day. “A honeymoon!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Madame, how wonderful!”

“It’s not really a honeymoon,” you corrected. It was so much more embarrassing to hear someone else saying that word. “It’s just an outing.”

“A date, then?”

“Um…sure.” Friends went on dates too, didn’t they? Yeah, they do!

“Whatever you call it, I’m so happy to see Monsieur Neuvillette finally taking some time for himself, even if it only a day. In all my years of working for him, I can only count on one hand the number of times he took a full day off.”

“How long have you been working for him?”

“Oh…” Marie looked up at the ceiling. “About ten years now?”

By the time you and Neuvillette left the house, the sun was already peeking over the horizon. The air was cool and crisp. You glanced over at the sunflowers. They looked like they had grown even taller overnight, and the buds had grown bigger as well.

“What will today’s weather be like, I wonder?” you said aloud, not looking at Neuvillette.

“Hm…” Neuvillette made a show of considering your question. “I dare say that it will be perfectly pleasant.”

“Pleasant by my standards, or by yours?”

“If you are asking if it will rain today, then I don’t believe it will. Of course, the weather can be unpredictable, so do not take my word for certain.”

“Don’t worry,” you said, patting your purse. “I brought an umbrella, just in case.”

You walked down the slope towards the city. The streets were still quiet, but you could see some shopkeepers preparing to open, and there were already Mekas patrolling the streets. Or were they never turned off? You had never seen the city in early morning before. It was a fascinating sight.

“Are we truly going to take the aquabus to Erinnyes?” you asked as you walked down the familiar path to the central station. There weren’t much people around right now, so you didn’t need to worry about anyone seeing you two together. “I assumed that we would be taking your personal craft, or…” Teleporting there, you said in your head.

“It has been a while since I’ve rode the aquabus, and I found myself missing the view. …Are you displeased with that idea?”

“No, not at all,” you shook your head. “I like riding it too.” Although now you understood why Neuvillette wanted you to wake up early.

Just as you approached the station, a woman with long dark hair called out to Neuvillette. “Good morning, Monsieur Neuvillette.”

“Ah, Clorinde,” Neuvillette greeted the woman. “I didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

“I’m just about to start my morning jog,” Clorinde said. The name sounded familiar to you, although you couldn’t place where you heard it before. She looked at you. “And who is this?”

“Ah, let me introduce you,” Neuvillette said. “This is Miss [Name], a friend of mine. Miss [Name], this is Clorinde, my subordinate.”

“Always a pleasure to meet a friend of Monsieur Neuvillette,” she said and extended her hand, which you shook. “Where are you two headed so early?”

“We’re going on an outing to Erinnyes Forest,” you said.

“I see,” Clorinde’s piercing violet eyes scanned the two of you and landed on the picnic basket carried by Neuvillette. “A fine way to spend a day off. I’m a bit jealous.”

“Jealous?” Neuvillette looked genuinely alarmed. “Do you not receive enough breaks? Perhaps I should—” Then he glanced at you and cleared his throat. “No, what I mean is—"

“Oh no, that wasn’t what I was referring to,” Clorinde shook her head. You thought you saw her smiling a bit. “Well, I won’t keep you two any longer. Enjoy your outing.”

She then jogged away. You and proceeded to enter the empty station building.

“Clorinde…” you muttered to yourself in the elevator, and then it came to you. “Oh, Clorinde! She’s the strongest Champion Duelist, right?”

You heard about her, but you had never watched her duels.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Wouldn’t it have been problematic for her to see us together?” Luckily, you had decided to wear gloves today, just in case. As far as you knew, nothing had come out of that impromptu run-in from last month, but one could never be too careful.

“I wouldn’t worry too much. Clorinde is a trustworthy person and not the type to spread gossip. I think the two of you would make good friends, actually.”

“Hmm…if you say so.” What would you even talk about with a Champion Duelist?

As the elevator ascended to the Navia Line platform, you couldn’t help but think back to spring, when you had similarly got into an elevator with Neuvillette. At that time, you two were near strangers. But now, you were friends. And married. And going on an Archon-mandated date/honeymoon.

Fate was truly a strange thing.

The elevator reached the second floor. The aquabus was already there, which you guessed was arranged by Neuvillette. The Melusine in charge of the Navia Line, Elphane, waved when she saw you two.

“Good morning, Monsieur and Madame Neuvillette!” she said. Her voice sounded unusually chipper. You had met Elphane a few times, and you found her to be the prickly type. But you supposed that like her sisters, she softened up considerably in Neuvillette’s presence.

“Good morning, Elphane,” Neuvillette said as he helped you onto the aquabus. “My apologies for asking you to get up so early.”

“Anything for you, Monsieur Neuvillette,” Elphane said, even as she let out a yawn. “Shall we be off, then?”

The two of you nodded, and the aquabus set off. The bird’s eye view of the city soon spread out before your eyes. You could see more people in the streets now. The sky was now a light blue. The wind blowing through your hair felt nice.

Perhaps it was the steady speed of the aquabus travelling along the rail or the quiet chatter between Elphane and Neuvillette, but you suddenly felt a wave of drowsiness sweep over you. Try as you might to keep your eyes open, they seemed determined to close.

I’ll just rest my eyes a little bit, you thought. I hope I don’t fall overboard.

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@just-simping-over-genshin, @xalphafox, @jqnehr, @favficdump, @thetwinkims, @cielclassy, @the-mxs-of-many, @mxyarylla, @lynettezz

[kwonkioz]

. . . brave and nerd | jeon wonwoo x reader (jo shin-yeol) x kim mingyu

part one

𐙚 I thanked my mom for putting the mixed toast in front of me, she smiled at me and then proceeded to put the dishes in the machine.

After taking a bite, I looked at her, "Mom, do you know anything about that Park twins' family?"

His brows furrowed, "I wouldn't say they're very nice people. I know their mother from the association, she is a woman with her nose in the air. Why did you ask?"

"The twins finished second and third. I found it strange when a friend of mine worked hard but came in fourth. It's not normal for them to get such high marks when even I was surprised that I got the first place."

"Mrs. Park must have paid a bribe, she doesn't want her children to be."

"Our school is not a place to accept bribes, Mom, that's why I couldn't be sure."

He turned to me, "Shin-yeol, there's nothing money can't buy. How do you think the twins ended up in your class?"

My eyebrows flew up in surprise, "Really?! O... I guessed it. People blame me, but almost everyone is torpedoed except us!"

"Is anyone still treating you the same?"

I shook my head, "They don't say it publicly anymore."

Except for one person...

He's doing it on purpose to break my heart.

After my toast was finished, I grabbed my bag and left the house. I arrived at the school in a short time by bicycle. Some people said I was a sucker for cycling to school even though we had a driver, and some of them would never shut up. But I was living my way. Yes, there are times when I use my mother's respect, but I do it without putting it in anyone's eye.

Here, everyone sees it as it suits them. I'm used to it.

After entering the classroom and taking my seat, I sighed deeply and watched the surroundings. Everyone had a group of friends or a friend. And the queue next to everyone else was full. The part of me was empty, funny...

A girl named Cho Miyeon used to sit next to me, but when she became close friends with another girl, she started to sit next to her, and this row was empty like this. Strangely enough, I didn't really have any friends. I don't have the number of anyone in this class in my phone book, except for Wonwoo. I had already bought it secretly.

Speaking of Wonwoo; He was back in the front row, quietly taking a test. It was the biggest void in my life. I don't know how my only goal was to win her love when she was so far away from me.

But every second I couldn't talk to him, something was building up inside me. If we get close one day, I want to chat for hours.

As the classroom slowly filled in, the twins arrived. I've looked at them with all my hatred, they're really annoying. They were among those who once treated me like a torpedo, and now they are doing the same thing themselves.

A little later, the teacher arrived and the lesson began. Mr. Kim had taken me to the blackboard to read aloud the quiz notes from a few days earlier. Since this quiz would only replace the oral grade, it would not be written on the list, the teacher would explain it himself or have one of the students read it.

I began to read the notes in order; "Kwon Soonyoung 90, Jeon Jungkook 95, Kim Namjoon 100, Hwang Ye-ji 70, Yoon Jeonghan 85, Xu Minghao 100, Jeon Wonwoo 100, Park Dae Gang 45, Park Dae Gun 50..."

Suddenly, the voice in the classroom went up. Some students began to react to the last two notes, and rightly so.

"How the hell do they come second or third in the exam and get so low in the quiz? It's all out there."

Dae Gun turned to the boy who said this and said, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm saying you're torpedoed, brother, it's pretty obvious. How did you get from middle place to third place with zero effort? Are you a genius?"

"Look at me!" when he stood up, Dae Gang sat him down, "Let him go."

A girl in the back row said, "What's happening is happening to us because of people like you! You're a coward... Do it with your own success. You are incapable."

Dae Gang said, "Isn't it impotent to take your pain out on others because you don't get a high grade?"

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"I'm saying you're torpedoed, brother, it's pretty obvious. How did you get from middle place to third place with zero effort? Are you a genius?"

"Look at me!" when he stood up, Dae Gang sat him down, "Let him go."

A girl in the back row said, "What's happening is happening to us because of people like you! You're a coward... Do it with your own success. You are incapable."

Dae Gang said, "Isn't it impotent to take your pain out on others because you don't get a high grade?"

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Never mind, Minnie, these things are unspeakable."

"Excuse me?"

As the argument spread throughout the class, the teacher yelled and silenced them. He told me to keep going.

"Park Jihyo 95, Wen Junhui 80, Roseanne Park 100, Jo Shin-yeol 100-"

"Like your first place, I hope this isn't a torpedo." I knew he was telling me when the fool interrupted me and looked at him angrily.

"No, it's my own success, as is my first place."

Some laughed, while others did not react. Another boy grinned nervously, "Sure! It's always been your own success."

Another girl asked, "You must have a connection with twins, not triplets?"

As half the class laughed, my body stiffened with nervousness, and I began to squeeze the paper between my hands. The teacher slammed his hand the table.

"Come to your senses! What kind of speech do you speak? There's no tampering with these notes, it's what you get. Know your words!"

"But sir, they're not just doing the same thing for this quiz, they're always doing the same thing."

"Yes, sir! Our families want us to get high grades, but we work and we get them, they are deserving."

I shouted angrily, "I didn't deserve it! Find another cover for your jealousy!"

One of them laughed, "What am I jealous of you? Your money?"

"Exactly, talk, talk, we're listening." after hearing another sarcastic sentence, I realized that I couldn't take it anymore.

"Off... You're really annoyed! It's so annoying, it's so repulsive!" I didn't care about the teacher who called out after me as I threw the paper on the floor and hurried out of the classroom. I barely threw myself into the fire escapes, waited until I got there, and as soon as I sat down on the step, I started crying.

Even if I cover my face with my hand so that I don't have a voice, I don't think it works. So much so that someone had already come to this sound.

"Well... Can I help?"

When I looked up, I saw a boy I didn't know. Who do I know in this school, though?

I quickly wiped away my tears as I don't like to cry in front of anyone as this boy with a cast on his hand looked at me anxiously.

"You can't be."

I thought he would leave, but he came and sat next to me. I looked at him in amazement, still worried and compassionate.

"I don't think I can turn around and leave after seeing you like this. Could you at least tell me what it is?"

My gaze went away. It hurt a lot.

"They say I'm torpedoed, so they think I'm first. They're all disgusting scum."

"Oh, you must be Jo Shin-yeol."

When he held out his hand, I turned to him, "I'm Kim Mingyu."

These were things so foreign to me that I couldn't even reach out and shake the child's hand. He had already withdrawn, "Well, you don't seem to like handshakes. I saw his name on the list, I know it from there. I finished fifth, but I'm laughing."

"Why? Is it so good to be fifth?"

"Are you a maniac, of course it's very good! Well, at least for me. You don't know how hard I tried to even get from ninth to fourth. It's against my constitution to work so hard."

I couldn't help but laugh and he laughed too. After wiping my moist cheeks, I corrected my posture.

"Thank you, I never thought I'd be able to laugh in this situation."

"You can laugh in any situation. Even rose; That's the best answer you can give them."

I sighed deeply. I don't want to be the interlocutor enough to respond to them, but they push the boundaries so much that I'm the one who ends up answering and coming out harmful.

I looked at my watch, and there were twenty minutes left in class. I stood up. I couldn't go to class now. I decided to go to the canteen to get a coffee and recuperate. When Mingyu stood up, I turned to him.

"Don't you have a lesson?"

"The class is the body, and I'm on leave," he said as he showed his plastered hand. I shook my head, "Get well soon."

"Thank you. Where do you plan to go?"

"Canteen. I'll go into the classroom for a second class, and it would be weird to go back now after I've left."

He laughed, "It is. Can I accompany you? My friends play football, I'm the only one left."

"It happens."

We had coffee together in the canteen and talked a little. I found out that he was in the 2/3 class. For now, he aimed to move to 2/2, he is normally a diligent student, but this year his grades dropped because the classes were a little empty. Now he was trying to regain his old order.

When the bell rang, we continued the conversation during the break and then said goodbye. I was back in class when he went out into the garden. I was doing my best to ignore them while the people in the class were looking at me in a type-by-type manner. Wonwoo didn't take his eyes off me until he got to my turn. When I sat down, he turned to me.

"Are you okay?"

"Does he care too much? You don't think differently from them."

He turned in front of him without an answer. Sighing, I leaned back and crossed my arms.

The gaze on me ended when the teacher arrived. Luckily, Mr. Kim didn't say anything about me throwing the notepaper and leaving. Of course, what I did wasn't right, so he told me that I had to wait in class after class. Well, I'm not surprised.

Since our next class was chemistry, we had to go to the lab. When everyone left, I waited in line. Mr. Kim left his glasses on the table and approached and sat on Wonwoo's empty bench in front of me.

"I know your mother didn't ask the principal for any torpedoes about your grades. He makes those donations of his own free will."

Such was the teacher Kim Junmyeon; He wouldn't judge you, he would trust you and support you. But no one knew its value.

"Still, that stigma sticks on him. Do you know why?"

"They're jealous of my grades."

"No," he laughed and added, "I mean, not really. Shin-yeol, it's your behavior that's the problem."

"My behavior?"

"You may not be torpedoed, but that doesn't mean you don't use your mother's power. You can leave the classroom according to your mind, you don't go to classes if you don't want to, you don't pay attention to the tone of your voice when you speak, so you often get into arguments. Just when you're walking, you have the vibe of owning the school. Yes, your grades are so good thanks to your own achievement, your own intelligence. But your behavior... You've got to get yourself in order about it."

Mr. Kim always spoke to me honestly, but the first time he smacked me in the face, I didn't want to admit it. I shook my head.

"How can I act like a model student when they are insulting me? That's what I do."

"You can't just say that's the production and get away with it, Shin-yeol, it's true for everyone! Look, I know you're not a bad person, that's why I'm having this conversation with you. If your actions were as appropriate as your grades, no one would treat you as a torpedo."

I leaned back, exhaling a troubled exhale. A few weeks ago, I was reminded of a sentence that Wonwoo said; "You can be a smart girl, but it doesn't matter because of your ego. Your arrogance has blocked your way!"

Mr. Kim was speaking for my sake. But Wonwoo's was pure hate. My interest in him made me do such ridiculous things that instead of getting to know each other, we were drifting further and further away. Because he's kind of disgusted with me.

"You live this life like a princess; But remember, princesses happen in fairy tales. We are struggling for life in the most painful way in the middle of reality."

I frowned, "I wish you were a philosophy teacher."

He laughed, "But think about what I said. You can get out."

I got up from my bench and made my way to the door. When I left the classroom, I took my cardigan from the hanger and threw it over my shoulder. When I entered the lab, not all of the students were inside because the class bell had not yet rung. So I moved on to the first vacant place I found. And I certainly didn't know Wonwoo was sitting in front of me. Of course, he didn't think so, so as soon as he saw me in the classroom, he rolled his eyes and came and started packing his things.

I pressed my hand on the pen holder he was about to pick up, "You probably wouldn't die if you sat across from me, you're already in front of me in class."

He tugged at his pencil holder hard, "Couldn't you find another place in the big class?"

I defended myself by saying, "I sat in the first place, I didn't know you were here," but he never believed it. He rolled his eyes and sat down on the stool and stopped to pack his things, "I'm sure it is."

Jeon Wonwoo is the embodiment of the word stubbornness!

Before the teacher rang the bell, the class was slowly filling up. I could feel Wonwoo's gaze on me as I took out my chemistry notebook and placed it in front of me. Already soon he began to speak.

"What did Mr. Kim say?" he averted his eyes when I looked up at him, "So if it's not special..."

I smiled slightly at her sweet shyness, and said, "He said I should be careful with my behavior." His brows furrowed as his eyes found me again, "Your behavior?"

"Hm. That I live like a princess, but that's wrong."

He laughed sarcastically, "She's not a princess; child."

This time it was my turn to frown, "Boy?"

"You don't act like a princess, you act like a spoiled child. How are you different from the little children who cry when their candy is taken from them, and who break all hell when they don't get what they want?"

No, I wasn't offended, offended, or angry.

Because he said these things willingly, even to hurt me, and he tried to distance me from him in this way. He's got a plan, he's going after it, but I'm not going to come to his game.

"Do you know what's the difference?" he shook his head with a frustrated look;

"Once children experience things that hurt, they always run away from it. I couldn't leave you."

I saw him swallow. His jaw dropped, but he couldn't give an answer. While we were just staring at each other, we both turned in front of us when the teacher arrived. I've never had any luck since Wonwoo saw me as a kid and himself as candy.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

For two days, Wonwoo had continued to run away from me, and the more he did, the more I chased him. Some things never change.

There was a basketball game today, and Wonwoo looked so cute with a bandana on his head that I couldn't take my gaze off him. While the other girls were screaming Soonyoung, Mingyu, or Seungcheol's name, my only focus was on Wonwoo. I don't care about anyone else.

The gym was filled with enthusiastic cheering, and by the time the first half was over, it had become a little quieter. When I looked at Wonwoo sitting on one of the chairs at the side of the field, I noticed that he was out of breath, but there was no water there. I made my way to the unopened packages, tore the nylon, and grabbed two bottles and went over to him. I sat down and handed one to him and placed the other next to him. He was really tired, he put the water on his head.

"Basketball doesn't work for cows."

Even though he didn't like being called a nerd, he didn't bother about it and grumbled about the coach, "I told the coach not to add me to the team so I can't do it! Who's listening?"

"Why do you say that, you got the first number."

"It is, but I don't have time for that kind of thing. I have to study for the second exams."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes, "You're really a nerd." she stared at me, "You're the one who likes a nerd, but?"

I pressed my lips together and smiled, and leaned slightly over him with the support of my hand, "I see you're getting used to it?"

She blinked in panic, she was incredibly cute!

"What's the point? Or stay away! You're getting on my nerves."

I pulled back, chuckling and laughing. By the start of the second half, he had clenched his neck and ran towards the field. It didn't matter if they won or didn't win because it was a friendly match for the upper classes. They were just playing for fun. With the comfort of this, I only watched Wonwoo.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

The other team won the match, but as I said, it was a friendly match, winning was not anyone's priority. As I drove to the car alone after school, I caught up with Wonwoo, who was a few steps ahead of me.

"I can let go."

"I'm not crazy enough to get into the car of someone who doesn't have a license, so keep it."

"I drove the car for only one day, today the driver is taking it. And even though I don't have a driver's license, I drive it just fine."

"Whatever."

He wasn't about to stop, and when I grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him, he let out a weary breath.

"Rest in peace, Shin-yeol."

"You too."

"I'm already-" he knew what I meant and paused, and I laughed lightly. But he still looked bored, and my brows furrowed when he continued, "I don't have the peace you're looking for, get it."

"How do you know? You didn't even make an effort to get to know me. You always make firm decisions without trying."

"Because I don't have time for that! I'm the nerd who can't think of anything but my grades, and you'd better find yourself a bum like yourself."

A bum like yourself...

He had gone again. The sweet bickering between us was gradually turning into painful arguments.

When I got home, my mom came home early from work, so we went to the kitchen to have a snack together. Although everyone treated us as if we were incapable people, my mother was a decent woman who knew the law very well. My interest in Wonwoo manifested itself for the first time and made me too crazy to study thinking about him, and I dropped to fifth place in the class. But even then, my mother didn't raise her voice to me one bit, believing that I would be able to succeed in the next exam. He even consoled himself by saying that fifth place wasn't bad.

People talk about a woman like that, and that's what I'm most mad about. Then why is Jo Shin-yeol acting like a bum, and they infuriate you!

"How was school today?"

"It sucks," I said quickly. I wouldn't hide anything from him. Well, except for Wonwoo, but he could already guess it, "Being in the same class as the people who treated me like a torpedo again two days ago will continue to ruin my every day."

"Let them go, girl! They say that a person knows his own business. They use the power of money for small things, so they think you do too. You are building your own successful future. Don't even hear them talking."

I was stuck on one sentence.

"Do you know who uses torpedoes?"

"So... I've witnessed it a few times at a parents' meeting, but I don't have any clear information."

I put my hands on the table and came to the front, "Mom, please tell me! Who are they? Look, everyone blames me."

He sighed as he placed the plate full of biscuits in front of me, brought a cup of coffee each, and sat down on the chair across from me.

"Park Yul Yeon, the mother of twins, is a bit of a perfectionist. He's so used to having the best of everything that he can't stomach his kids getting low grades, and he's ashamed. So he may have had some conversations with your assistant manager."

"Mom, don't talk about it! And what does it mean to be an assistant director? I think he met with the principal."

My mother shook her head, "Principal Rhee is a fair educator who does not accept bribes. He is a close friend of your grandfather, I know from there. But he's Vice Principal Woon, he's really to be feared."

"Well, he couldn't have done such a thing without Principal Rhee knowing. Besides, if you know that, why didn't you tell the principal at all?"

"I don't have any evidence. Not only me, but also many other parents are aware of the situation and they remain silent with the mindset that the mother will get bread for us."

I clenched my hands into fists in anger, "What happens happens to me happens as long as they stay silent. To this day, I have always received those grades on my own, but I am being treated like a torpedo because you donated to the school."

"It doesn't make any sense, what kind of mindset do your friends have? I donate not only to your school, but also to many other schools and institutions. It's a common thing for your father and me, but people are so used to thinking badly!"

"Their hearts are ugly, their way of thinking is ugly, their character is ugly... I don't know what to do anymore."

He smiled and took my hand.

"You have your family behind you, you don't have to be bullied by anyone. Don't worry, I'll figure it out."

"How?"

"You leave it to me, come on, your coffee has gone cold."

I was trying to understand what was going through my mother's mind as I drank my warm coffee, but it was impossible. He thought so fast and made sound decisions that it was impossible to keep up with him. Still, I was sure that he would do something to get me out of this trouble. At least, I hope so.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

[melisusthewee]

In my ongoing attempt to convince people to watch this movie (because it is so fucking good you have no idea), I put together this list of reasons why you need to watch this film. Sorry, but I can't be normal about this:

None of the backgrounds or environments are CGI! Those mountains? Those are the Andes! That's the real Valley of Tears! While filming with the actors was done in a different location (I believed they filmed in the Sierra Nevadas?), location photography and filming was done in the Andes and then spliced accordingly into the film.

It's an ensemble piece! Until now, most movies/docs/books have (understandably) focused almost exclusively on Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa because of their 10 day trek through the mountains. But the group was more than just the two of them and this film shows that by emphasizing everyone's importance and roles in their survival.

Having said that, NANDO PARRADO IS THE FUCKING GOAT. This guy fractured his skull during the crash which caused his brain to swell. Everyone thought he was dead at first and only brought him back inside the plane when someone noticed he was still breathing. Even then, he wasn't expected to survive for very long so the others placed him where it was coldest which ended up saving his life as the cold temperature along with dehydration helped bring the swelling in his brain down. He was in a coma for three days, woke up to learn his mother was dead and his sister was dying, and decided, "Fuck this, I am getting off this mountain and you're all doing it with me." AND THEN HE DID, part of which involved hiking for 10 days across the Andes with NO GEAR.

The decision to make Numa Turcatti the narrator was brilliant. I cannot say more due to spoilers but iykyk.

Speaking of other films (looking at you, 1993's "Alive"), this movie cast exclusively Uruguayan (and some Argentinian) actors in order to give it proper authenticity.

This movie does not fuck around, with the crash happening within the first 15 minutes of the movie. And it is horrible in that it is probably one of the most accurate portrayals of a plane crash? I don't like flying, and I was incredibly anxious watching it to the point where I thought initially I might have to turn it off. But despite this, it never feels exploitive or anything. Just... real.

The entire movie was shot chronologically in order to give the make-up team an easier time with getting the actors to look increasingly gaunt and disheveled as well as adding a tighter consistency between shots and scenes. Many of the actors lost upwards of 50 lbs by the time filming was concluded.

For the avalanche scene, the actors were buried under nearly 8 inches of real snow. Because of this, the redness of their skin isn't the work of make-up or special effects but is very real.

Michael Giacchino's score. But even more importantly, his use of silence.

Honestly, this movie feels genuinely cold in a way that most movies and tv shows never quite capture. The sound of frozen clothing crunching, the frost that covers them, the clear impact of cold and frost on hair and skin, the shaking and shivering. It's really hard to describe, but like... it didn't feel like these were just actors on a set walking around. It felt genuinely cold.

The payada (rhyming/rap battle) was entirely improvised by the actors.

Enzo Vogrincic (Numa) looks like a young Adam Driver. You know you want to watch him stare soulfully into the camera for two hours. (But really, the acting in this movie is phenomenal.)

For Cold Boy fanciers, Gustavo Zerbino is basically the group's Goodsir - a cinnamon roll doing his best.

Fito Strauch's homemade sunglasses!

I could write an essay about the way the film confronts and portrays the cannibalism. Since I've rambled on long enough, let me just say here that it feels authentic in the way it's handled and not like you typically expect to see in stories like the Franklin Expedition, the Essex, or the Donner Party. (My only criticism is that it looks like they used raw chicken as the meat? And I unfortunately happen to know that human meat very much does not look like chicken.)

MOST IMPORTANTLY, this movie gives voices to those who didn't survive the mountains. And yes, it is a story about survival (and is a wonderful portrayal of positive masculinity) but it is really a story about love. Love for one's friends. Love for each other. And how love is the only way we survive.

[ninadove]

If the woman next to Nathalie is indeed Amelie and Emilie is still dead, how do you imagine Amelie and Felix will redecorate The Agreste Mansion? (Assuming that they move there since Amelie is now Adrien’s only adult relative left.)

Oh my gosh Anon. That is SUCH a cute ask, but let me tell you, you have opened Pandora’s box and unleashed 50 levels of overanalysis upon the world. Time for me to turn into an architecture and interior design major for the sake of this post.

In order to get a good sense of Amelie’s taste and of the massive work that needs to be done, let’s compare the shared spaces in the Agreste mansion to those in the Graham de Vanily penthouse.

The first thing that strikes me is that the palettes are exactly the same: white and black are the dominant hues, with a pop of colour coming from earthy tones. And yet, the two atmospheres could not be more different! In my opinion, this boils down to a few key elements: lighting, shapes, space, and purpose.

1. Lighting

The most obvious one. Just look how miserable the Agrestes’ living (?) room looks in comparison to the Graham de Vanily’s. There’s an interesting subversion here when it comes to lighting sources.

The Agrestes’ mansion relies mostly on natural lighting, which gives it a greyish, depressing look. Windows are everywhere, and they’re big, but they aren’t meant to let the sun filter through; instead, they ressemble a cage keeping Adrien in.

Sunlight represents the outside world, which Gabriel "No one matters except us" hates. In his mind, whatever looms outside of the mansion is dangerous. Hawkmoth’s attacks always start with letting the light in, the same way he welcomes his victims’ negative emotions; while he keeps Emilie safe in the crypt, as far away from the sun as possible (even when we do see it fully illuminated, it has to come from an artificial source).

Emilie’s cosy little basement, Gabriel’s office and Nathalie’s room — the adults’ world — are the only spaces that get the courtesy of significant artificial lightning. In other words, there is not enough light and joy coming in from the outside, and definitely not enough coming from the inside to compensate. Which is super sad if you ask me.

Now onto the Graham de Vanily penthouse. We do not get many shots of it, and most of them are taken at night time, which I (want to) believe is a very conscious choice on the writing team’s part.

While Gabriel refuses to let sunlight, and everything good it symbolises, into his son’s life, Amelie welcomes the night and the potential dangers it carries with it. The windows make up two entire walls, offering a full view of the outside world.

Notice how the moon and stars are nowhere to be seen in this shot, yet the penthouse remains significantly brighter than the mansion on the sunniest day. The abundance of artificial light in the Graham de Vanily home, light that comes from within, is a symbol of the love they share as a family.

So obviously, we need to get Adrien some lamps, urgently.

2. Shapes

The thing about the Agreste mansion is, it has potential.

No really. Hear me out.

The use of straight lines (vertical in the overall architecture, expanding like sun rays in the minimalistic decor) is reminiscent of Art Déco, which is a very fun style. For instance, it gave us the Chrysler building:

But here, it’s just… Not working. In fact, these same lines are what makes the entire building look like a cage — not just the windows I mentioned above, but the entire structure of the place, trapped between vertical lines like behind prison bars.

On the other hand, the Graham de Vanily penthouse is ruled primarily by horizontal lines, which expand the space instead of compressing it. It’s smaller, but it feels bigger and more breathable.

This difference in structure directly contributes to my third point:

3. Space

More precisely, how it is organised to make the mansion look threatening, and the penthouse cosy.

And by that I specifically mean this AWFUL NO GOOD TERRIBLE STAIRCASE.

It’s the first thing we think about when picturing the mansion; how it towers over the characters and crushes them. There’s a reason Marinette’s act of defiance in Pretension was to rush up those despicable horrifying very very bad stairs to find Adrien; they are a symbol of Gabriel’s power over his world, his fans, his son, his victims.

Interestingly enough, the penthouse is also built on several levels — which we can infer by the presence of a very discreet mezzanine. This implies the existence of stairs, right??? Where are they???

It’s very blink-and-you-miss it — the exact opposite of the Agreste staircase. To the Graham de Vanilys, stairs are just stairs: a necessity for their comings-and-goings, a useful infrastructure in their day-to-day life as a family. Not a display of power and control.

Oh? Is that a transition I sense? Absolutely, for it is time to move on to the last part of our analysis:

4. Purpose

Just like the staircase, every single piece of furniture in the Agreste household serves a purpose. Adrien’s room is the best example of this phenomenon.

On top of the essentials (bed + desk & computer combo), we immediately notice:

- A plethora of trophies, reinforcing the message that Adrien has to be the best at everything he does, always;

- An impressive bookshelf, illustrating the top-notch (and somewhat elitist) education Adrien has been receiving at home.

"But Nina!" you might ask, "What about the fun stuff? What about the arcade games and the basketball hoop and the climbing wall?"

I hear you. Those things look pretty cool, don’t they? Until you remember that Adrien has spent his entire life in isolation. These are all appliances that would normally be found outside of the house, giving him an opportunity to socialise. In other words, they are meant to deter him from seeking enjoyment in the “real” world. If, like me, you were obsessed with N Harmonia as a pre-teen, you might notice some striking similarities to his cage room:

Still not convinced? Say hi to our friend the foosball table!

Meanwhile, on the actually loving side of the family, you get an entire piano and AN ACTUAL ABSTRACT PAINTING:

It’s not even figurative — unlike the portraits of the Agreste family members or the statue in the garden, constantly reminding us of Emilie’s absence. It’s art for the sake of art, which makes a massive difference. Things are allowed to be there for no reason other than Amelie and Felix like them.

So now that we’ve established that

How would they redecorate the mansion if given the chance?

1. Lean into the Art Déco aesthetic for a much needed dose of actual (yet elegant) fun. There are so many lines and curves to play with to get rid of this feeling of imprisonment we get from the pillars!

2. BLOW UP THOSE FUCKING STAIRS. No, really. We can find a much cuter, less pretentious alternative to whatever kind of power trip that was.

3. Get rid of the stupid bars on all those windows. Replace them with literally any other option that doesn’t make you want to choke on a pancake.

4. Also, get some lamps. Lamps EVERYWHERE, on the walls, on the ceiling, on the furniture. The resident vampire is GONE, we can have some goddamn light in this goddamn place.

5. Indulge in the pleasure of buying things just because they’re pretty. Trash the paintings and put up some actual art (abstract or not) instead. Exorcise Emilie’s ghost and Gabriel’s tacky tastes out of this place. This process has already begun, given that the statue in the garden is now gone!

6. Let Adrien decorate his own room, and have fun with it. This part may be tricky because our boy doesn’t know what he wants, but you know what, it’s part of the process! Giving him total creative control over his own space is a first step towards his making bigger decisions for himself, like choosing what he wants to be when he grows up. As requested by my ✨ awesome girlfriend ✨ @paracosmicfawn, he can also redecorate the entryway, which carries sooo much trauma for him. Maybe he can put up some cute cat statuettes along the new staircase, or something equally cheesy.

7. Build a pool, apparently

8. Last but not least, block all accesses to the basement and the attic. Hide them behind these new Kandinsky paintings they just bought. Pray to Gimmi Adrien never finds out (he will).

And that, my friend, is how you take a prison and turn it into a home full of secrets!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

No Time This Time 9

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon and other elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You prize order and practicality but your past, and newest client, throw your life into chaos. (older [~50s] reader)

Character: Tony Stark

Notes: Alright. Tony is growing on me but only because he’s a shit stirrer.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you like Tony loves his own voice. Take care. 💖

"Please clear the week. Reschedule my meetings," you toss a pair of unworn sandals into your suitcase, your phone on the bed next to it.

"Yes, ma'am," Halton answers from the speaker.

"I did a quick sweep, there shouldn't be anything urgent. As it were, we will not be accepting any new clients until the end of the month."

He acquiesces again as you open a drawer and sift through, searching for a swimsuit. You can barely recall the last time you needed one.

"You can file it as paid vacation," you inform him.

"Thank you," he says, the smile obvious in his tone.

"Well, off you go. I don't want to hear from you again unless it's an emergency," you find a black bikini with the tags still on.

"Got it."

"Great, have a good day," you drop the suit in the bag and tap the screen, ending the call.

Almost as soon as the line is dead, another incoming call pops up. Your morning has been effectively avoiding the series of attempts from both Samia and your mother. You've set your voicemail and your automatic replies, you are out of office and soon to be out of the country.

It's as spontaneous as you've ever been. You're a planner. You don't just hop on the next plane out but that's exactly what you're doing. 

Your father was the same way. When he was practicing, he never took a vacation. And what did that get him? A heart attack. Several, actually. There will never be a better time to get away or a better reason.

No, you won't give Stark that much credit. It's not just him, it's you. You're old enough, you need to start doing things just for you.

Another call. Your mother has never been known as subtle. Or to take a hint. Sometimes even when you spell it out, she refuses to understand.

So be it. You need a moment to breathe before you relent. You need a second wind before you face the task that is your family and your past. More so, you need to be far from New York.

👜

You cannot claim to be unfamiliar with decadence. It is a privilege you treasure but never one you place as requisite. You can still admire luxury and you would define the resort as nothing less than.

Your room has a broad balcony that overlooks the Italian coast, the sun beats down on the sparkling sea, and illuminates the space, shadowing intricate patterns carved in wood. The decor speaks of an old world drawn into the present. Refined and elegant.

You wear a caftan down to the shore and claim your reserved seat among the row of vacationers. You strip off the sheer layer and rub in suncreen before reclining beneath the shade of a broad umbrella. You open your book and dive into the plot, forgetting the hot sands and the stolid air.

You're still not used to it. It's as if you're on a whole new planet. The first day saw you fighting not to check your phone or delve into your work email. You fought the urge to cling to routine and won. Your determination has ever been a talent.

After twelve, you have your first cocktail. A simple gin drink with lime. You let it seep in and ease you back into your fictional escape. An attendant brings you a fruit cocktail and some pastries not long after.

It's paradise and you value it dearly. You hadn't realised how sorely you need this. 

As you pack up, balmy and slightly sleepy from the sun, a speck flits across the sky. You look up but cannot place the phenomenon before it disappears. Your imagination must've been sparked by the mixture of heat and alcohol.

You return to your room and enjoy a dinner of handmade gnocchi and wine sauce. The more you indulge, the harder you know it will be to go back to the city. Your peace is underlined by a strand of wistfulness.

Several days trickle by in the same vein of lethargy. You have no appointments, no calls, no obligations besides the beach, a cocktail, and a book. It’s as if you are an entirely different person, as if you’ve taken on someone else’s life entirely. The stuffy overworked lawyer is still trapped in New York with her leeching family and arrogant clients.

A few too many mojitos have you sprawled on the sofa. The open balcony lets in the warm dusk breeze and lulls you deeper into drowsiness. The weight of the alcohol shrouds your body, sweeping you up in a swirling slumber that makes you dizzy.

The soft whisk of metal doors shut and you look over as a button clicks beneath the push of a finger. You follow the arm, the dark fabric of a tailored jacket, to the familiar face. You sneer and take a step back, the elevator tipping with your movement. You stumble and fall against the wall.

He laughs. A menacing laugh that echoes all around you and adds to the disorienting skew of your subconscious. You brace the metal rail against the wall and suddenly, you’re falling back, plummeting through open air.

Bright flashes of white appear above you as you flail helplessly. The laughter is muffled but deep. You’re scooped up in a hard metal embrace, the red and gold mask taunting you as you’re carried through the open sky.

The metal retracts and reveals your saviour. Not who you expect. It isn’t Tony but Carlisle, mocking you with that slanted grin you once thought was charming. He winks and lets you go, letting you fall like a stone through water.

You spin and face the looming ground, hurtling faster and faster towards you. You let out a shrill scream and jolt awake as it cuts through to reality. You’re out of breath as you sit up, nearly rolling off the couch as the sharp noise continues. It isn’t you, but your phone, shrieking at you.

You stagger to get to your feet. You shiver, still in only your bikini, and the phone goes silent. You search around the dim room, the sounds of the ocean crashing through the open doors.

Your cell lights up again and you snatch it from the wooden tabletop. You drag your finger across the screen, only vaguely reading the name on the display; Samia. You answer with a croak, holding back a hiccup.

“About time!” She sounds like your mother with her abrupt greeting, “I’ve been calling you all day. Don’t you understand it’s a fucking emergency?”

“Samia,” you say dully, bracing your forehead, “shhhhh,” you amble around and sit on the sofa, “why are you yelling?”

“Are you drunk?” She accuses.

“I’m on vacation–”

“Yes, we know, but not all of us just run away from our problems–”

You snort. Loud. You devolve into sardonic laughter and click your tongue loudly.

“Don’t lecture me on running away from responsibility, Sam, don’t,” you warn, “tell me what it is. Let’s cut out the rest.”

She gives a dramatic heave, “mom’s in the hospital.”

“What?” You sit forward.

“She fell. This morning. I… I was looking at venues, I couldn’t be there.”

“Fuck!” You exclaim without filter, “Samia… have you seen her?”

“Mmm, I really wanted to but Carlisle–”

“Oh,” you snarl, “Carlisle!” You growl as you ball your hand to a tight fist, “I’ll get a flight.”

“I’m going in the morning, I prom–”

You hang up and throw your phone onto the narrow table before you. You hang your head, cradling it as you fear it might split in two. Were you really stupid enough to think you could ever catch a break?

👜

The redeye has you back in the city by noon. You fall into the rush of the city naturally, hailing a cab and collecting yourself in the back seat. You tip the driver as he idles outside the hospital and you hop out, rolling suitcase in tow as you march through the front doors.

It takes another hour to be admitted to your mother’s room. You don’t expect a warm welcome. You’re not entirely sure what to expect as you enter her private room. The nurse informs you before she lets you in that your mother is awake. That must be good.

The entire space is decorated in bouquets of flowers. You didn’t know your mother would have that many wellwishers. You leave your bag by the door as you give a long consideration to the red roses nearest you.

“Finally, you decide to show up,” she yaps at you.

“Flights from Italy are not quick,” you reproach, “I came as quickly as I could.”

“You wouldn’t pick up the phone.”

You repress your frustration, “I left it in my room. I’m sorry, mother.”

“Selfish, as always.”

You swallow tightly. Selfish. You cut short your first vacation since your honeymoon to come make sure she was alright. Even after calling and being assured by the staff that it was luckily only a fall. She hadn’t even broken her hip.

“Lovely flowers,” you remark as you walk along the row of vases.

“Oh, isn’t it so pretty? Mr. Stark is so generous–”

“Stark?” You spin on your heel, “what do you mean?”

“Well, of course, he heard that my daughters were both absent and he had to be here. Samia is so busy so she called him just to be sure that I wasn’t alone.”

“She called him. Why would she do that?”

“Oh, he’s been most helpful with the wedding. He’s let her have his Tower for her party and he’s been helping with all sorts of details. He referred her to a wonderful designer for her dress, too. Ah, and he’s invited Carlisle to some tournament? I think, golf or the like–”

“That makes no sense,” you sniff, “why is Tony Stark… doing all that?”

“Perhaps he sees a lonely old woman who’s been neglected by her only children,” she bemoans.

You know you won’t get the answer from her. She’s drunk the fresh-ade. She is entirely swindled by the overpaid crook.

“So, where’s Samia, then? She told me she was coming this morning.”

“She’s on her way, I’m sure. The city, traffic.”

You could scream. You could break her hip yourself. She would excuse Samia for not making it across the city but would remand you for not magically teleporting from across the globe.

“Well, I’m not waiting on her. I think we have something to discuss.”

“Is it lunch? I am rather hungry and this hospital food, it does not agree with me,” she touches her stomach, “Mr. Stark was kind enough to come for dinner last night but I hate to trouble him further.”

“That can wait. Mother, we are hiring you a caregiver.”

“A caregiver? I am not helpless.”

“That isn’t what I’m saying. But it would bring peace of mind if you had someone around when me and Samia are not. It wouldn’t be forever but given your fall, you will need supervision.”

“Oh, so you can take time to go traipsing across the world but you can’t take any for me?”

You cross your arms and sigh. You stare at her blankly.

“It’s not an argument, it’s not a negotiation. It is how it will be. You are getting a nurse, at least until the physiotherapist clears you. That’s that.”

She scoffs, “ugh, you always did have the makings of a lawyer, you know that?”

“Thank you,” you retort harshly, “that’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Oh, lord, what is up your behind? You’ve always been trite but you’ve never like this.”

“Mother, realise that you are not the only one with hardships, yes? I have to make sure you are well, which is what I am doing. I have attend the wedding of the husband who cheated on me, and I have to deal with the that is—” You stop yourself before you can say his name, “I have work. I have responsibilities and I hold to them. And it will never be enough.”

You wave her off and go back to the door, “I will order you lunch, we will eat it together, and we will hope that Samia for once comes through and shows up.”

You leave the room before you can combust. You stand in the hall, searching through your phone for somewhere nearby, or somewhere to order from. You fight to keep from shaking as you read the screen; get yourself together.

👜

Your vacation is a quickly fading memory as you fall back into the city life. You make several calls around in search of an appropriate homecare worker for your mother. Amid that, you return to office and work on your own to catch up. Halton is away but you’ll let him enjoy the last of his days off.

Between all that, you are faced with the daunting sight of an unexpected delivery. The clear glass box with the bouquet of pure white roses. It’s all very elaborate and exhausting. You flick back the silver clasp and lift the lid. Inside is a crystal rose on a golden stem, a date etched into the metal.

It’s an invite to your sister’s wedding and you are unsurprised by the tackiness of the overdone gesture. Beneath the ornament you would rather smash to bits, is a triarch that folds out to reveal the details and how to RSVP. You roll your eyes and blow out a breath.

A vineyard. Suiting. You replace the pieces in the box and leave the bouquet where it is. You type in the venue to Google. You nearly choke. Brick and Blossom Vino recently acquired by Stark Industries. How convenient.

It’s no coincidence. Stark has no business in wine or vineyard or event planning. It is not an advantageous deal, it is a direct statement. He may not be there in your face but he is haunting you nonetheless. Taunting you.

Let him waste his efforts. You will not be affected.

A knock comes at your office door. Another delivery. You sign and accepted the second bouquet. This one small and admittedly aesthetically pleasing. The small wooden box holds a cluster of pink tulips and baby’s breath. There’s a ribbon around it, attached to a simple card. It doesn’t really suggest Stark handiwork.

You take the envelope and unfold it. You smile as you see only the embossed bumps of braille within. Oh.

You take the card to your desk and grab your phone. You pull up Matt’s number and put him on speaker as you wait for an answer.

“Hey,” his voice comes amidst the honking of traffic and shuffle of the street.

“So, uh, how exactly am I supposed to read this card?”

“Ha, well, I could show you,” he offers, “if you’re free for dinner.”

“Hmm, well, I suppose I could clear my schedule,” you hum.

“Wow, really?”

“Sure,” you chew your lip and catch the unusual pinch, unclenching your teeth and clearing your throat, “I could use a drink.”

“Hopefully, this one doesn’t end up in some jerk’s face,” he chortles, “I’ll pick you up.”

[outerspacebisexual]

Heartbeat was a masterpiece loved it really ! Could you do a Robin x femreader with prompt 41 and 50 where maybe they are close friends but naturally act as a couple but reader is very pretty and Robin thinks she likes steve ? thanks love !

Lost in Translation - Robin Buckley

Summary: Robin Buckley had been your co-worker and friend for over a year. Too bad you wanted her as so much more.

Pairing: Robin Buckley x Reader

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, mentions of blood and injury

a/n: i am god and thus i’m changing the timeline to suit my own selfish needs. this takes place while working at scoops ahoy and steve knows robin is gay and events happen in this order because i said so

check out my prompt celebration!

Masterlist

If someone had told you a year ago that you would be hopelessly in love with your beautiful, strawberry blonde co-worker who you spent most of your time with?

Yeah, you’d probably believe them.

There was just something about Robin that made your heart do somersaults whenever she looked at you for a split second too long. It was the way that you felt when she held your hand when she was excited or scared, and no matter how much you pretended that it didn’t matter, you heart broke every time she let go. The way she threw her head back when she laughed at something you said, making you wish you could be the one to make her laugh for the rest of your life.

You supposed you could, but not in the way you wanted. Not in the way your heart ached for.

“I don’t get it,” Steve said, restocking the candy on the counter. “You both so clearly like each other.”

“Steve,” you said, placing the last of the cones on the shelf. “You know that I appreciate your well-meaning, but often wrong insights. This just so happens to be one of these times.”

Steve scoffed. “I’m never wrong.”

You raised a brow.

“OK, fine. But I’m not wrong about this.”

You sighed and walked back to the counter, dipping your hand into one of the candy jars. “It doesn’t matter, Steve. I’ve been trying to ask her out for months and every single time, something goes wrong. Plus, she very clearly likes Vickie.”

“Oh, come on. She’s only trying to be into Vickie because she doesn’t think you’ll give her the time of day.”

“Whatever you think, Steve.” You grabbed another piece of candy, but Steve grabbed your hand before you could.

“Stop eating the candy.”

“I can do what I want,” you said, reaching into the jar with your other hand.

Steve grabbed it as well and said, “I’m serious.”

“I actually don’t care.”

“You will when you get fired. And who’s losing out then, huh? You won’t be able to sit around and ogle Robin all day. ‘Oh, Robin, can you help me with this? Oh, Robin, you’re so amazing,’” he teased, his voice rising to imitate yours.

Your face scrunched up in disgust. “I don’t sound like that. And I—”

You were cut off when Robin breezed into the store. “Hey guys, what are you—” She stopped short when she spotted you, staring at the two of you. You quickly realized that Steve still had your hands and you pulled them away fast, heat rising to your cheeks.

Robin looked just as great as she normally did, her oversized jacket practically swallowing her. Your heart did one of those somersaults when you noticed that she had tacked the pin you had gotten her for her birthday to the pocket on the front.

You had brought it for her when the two of you had gone to the market one Sunday morning. She had admired it from afar as you two walked, but you made sure to note the stall, and after a well-timed bathroom break excuse, you circled back and bought it.

It was simple, not much, but she had squealed when you gifted it to her a few weeks ago. You’d had no idea what she would use it for, but now you did, and something in your chest warmed at the sight of it.

“Hey, Robin,” you said.

She glanced between the two of you for another second before shaking her head and saying, “Hey, I was going to ask what you were doing tonight?”

You tried to keep your smile casual. “Uh, I’m not busy. Steve?” You shot him a look that said, You’re busy tonight, but he didn’t catch it.

“Yeah, I’m free.”

You wanted to slam your head through the wall.

+

“How can you speak all these languages again?” you asked from where you were leaning on the wall, watching her try and decode the Russian transmission that Dustin had brought to Steve.

“I’m just so incredibly amazing,” she replied, writing another letter on the whiteboard.

She wasn’t wrong. You were in awe as she translated an entire message from a language that she didn’t even speak. She was amazing.

“You’re not wrong,” you said, the corners of your mouth turning up when you noticed the slight flush to her cheeks.

It was hot outside, you tried to rationalize. It was the middle of summer, of course she’d be flushed. It didn’t stop the joy that sparked at the thought that you might have caused it.

A sudden bout of confidence rushed through you, and your leg bounced. “What are you doing this weekend?” You tried to stay casual. You were casual. So casual.

She paused, just for a split second. “I don’t think I’m doing anything,” she said, not turning to you.

You nodded, even though she couldn’t see you. “Cool.”

Now, you thought. Now was the perfect time to ask her. And if she said no, then there were no one there to witness the murder of your heart at point blank range.

You couldn’t take your eyes off her back as you chewed your lip. You were really about to do this.

You could do this.

“Did you want to—”

The doors swung open. “How are we going with the super-secret Russian code?” Steve said as he and Dustin strutted into the room like you hadn’t been just about to ask out the girl of your dreams.

“It’s a transmission, Steve,” Dustin corrected with his usual distain for Steve’s idiocy.

“Oh well, sorry.”

“I can’t believe that you’re still getting it wrong after we were just talking about it. It’s like the lights are on, but there’s nobody home. Seriously, I’m—”

You stopped listening and envisioned a bulldozer crashing straight through the store.

+

Everything hurt.

Your face, your ribs, your stomach. Everything.

You could feel the warm blood rushing down the side of your face from the split in your eyebrow; courtesy of one of the guard’s rings.

You hadn’t seen Robin or Steve since you and him were carted away from Robin into separate rooms for interrogation.

They had tied you down and tried to beat the answers out of you, but you could only tell them the truth, which apparently wasn’t true.

It wasn’t until a few hard punches to your stomach and ribs and a few choicely places ones to your face that they decided they’d had enough. They practically dragged you out of the room and back to where you’d come from.

You tried to hold your head up and searched for Robin and Steve, finally seeing them as the final door was pushed open.

She was leaning over Steve and shouting at the guards. If you weren’t half out of your mind, you would have been grateful that she looked relatively unharmed.

But when she saw you as you were thrown on the ground beside Steve, she practically jumped onto you.

“Oh my god, Y/N. Are you OK?”

The room was spinning, and you couldn’t seem to work out how to move your mouth.

Her hands ran over your head and the side of your body as she dropped to her knees. She turned you over more to see your face, her breath hitching when she saw the blood.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed at the guards, who didn’t seem to care as they spoke amongst themselves in Russian. She turned back to you. “Hey, can you hear me? I need you to say something, Y/N, please.”

Your brain was pounding in your skull, and your eyelids began to droop closed to try and block out the light.

“No, please. You’re going to be OK,” she told you. “I’m not doing this without you. Please, stay awake for me, baby. Please.”

She was crying, you realized through your haze. You hated when she cried.

You used every bit of strength in your body to open your eyes wider.

“That’s it, stay with me,” she said. But before you could even try and say anything, she was torn away from you. “Hey, let me go.”

You could only watch as she was tied to a chair, kicking at the guards. Then, Steve was dragged over to the other chair that was placed back-to-back with Robin’s. It wasn’t until guards hoisted you up onto another chair at the side of the room that you even realized you were moving. You didn’t even feel the straps that were wound around you until it pulled tight over your ribs and you groaned in pain.

You were trying your best to stay conscious, and that was the only reason you could think of as to why you weren’t in the middle of the room with your two friends. From where you were, you had a clear view of Robin and half of Steve.

That was when the Russians decided to inject the three of you with something that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie.

Nothing happened at first, but as the minutes dragged by—and an unfortunate escape attempt from Robin and Steve—you started to feel giddy. The pain was dulled to a pulsing, and you lifted your head enough to rest it against the wall behind you.

When the Russians came back into the room, you couldn’t help but notice the doctor in his sinister looking apron and white coat.

“Would now be a good time to tell you that I don’t like doctors?” Robin said, eyes not leaving the doctor as he pulled out a bunch of tools that looked like torture devices.

“Let’s try this again, yes?” the commander said. “Who do you work for?”

Steve huffed. “Scoops. Scoops Ahoy.” He and Robin started laughing, and you found yourself starting to giggle. It was little more than air, but it felt like you were laughing just as loud as them.

“How did you find us?”

“Totally by accident,” Steve laughed.

The commander spoke in Russian, and your eyes widened as the doctor picked up a pair of plyers. He moved towards Steve, but the commander cut him off.

“Her,” he said, pointing at you. His eyes went between you and Robin, and a sinking feeling opened up in your gut as he approached you.

The commander’s eyes didn’t leave Robin as the doctor grabbed your hand and began to tug at your fingernail despite you trying your best to wriggle out of the way.

“Wait! Wait!” Robin shouted. “There was a code! We heard a code!”

She visibly relaxed just a fraction as the doctor stepped away from you. You let your head drop forward as you listened to her repeat the code and then her and Steve berate the commander.

You would have been impressed by their composure and confidence if it weren’t for the fact that the three of you were drugged out of your mind.

Then, alarms went off and the pulsing in your head got louder.

And then, Dustin Henderson and Erica Sinclair were bursting through the doors and telling you to run. He undid Robin and Steve first, Erica coming over and untying you. “Hey little Sinclair,” you said. “You know, I think I like you more than your brother right now.”

“Normally, that kind of flattery would be much appreciated, but right now, we have to go,” she said to you, and called for Robin, who immediately started to help you up and through the tunnels to the weird cart-truck thing. The further you got, the steadier you were on your feet.

Whatever this drug was, it was giving you a seriously wicked high.

The time between getting in the elevator and getting to the cinema bathroom was a blur. You vaguely remembered Marty McFly and then drinking a shitload of water until you needed to vomit.

And now, you were curled against the tiled wall after throwing your guts up.

“OK,” Steve said. “We need to know if it’s still in our system. I’ll ask you guys a question.”

You could feel the full effects of your injuries coming back to you, and you tried to stay as still as possible, ignoring Steve and Robin as they started asking dumb questions to each other.

“Hey, Y/N. Are you good?” Robin called from across the bathroom.

“Yeah,” you managed, starting to rub your ribs to try and ease the pain. “I’m good.”

“Do you still feel loopy?”

“I’m not sure.” You weren’t sure of anything other than you would be so fucking sore in the morning.

“Answer the question I just asked.”

“What question?”

She sighed like it was the biggest deal that you hadn’t heard. “Have you ever been in love?”

You froze, stopping your motions as you just stared at the side of the stall, as if you could see all the way through it straight to her.

“Y/N?” Steve called.

You cleared your throat. “Uh, yeah, I have.” You wanted to stop. You wanted to stop your mouth moving, but it was like you had no control over the words spilling from your mouth. “I’ve been in love with the same person for over a year now. I don’t think I realized it was love at first, because we always spend so much time together. We work together and hang out outside of work, too. So, we’re always glued to each other. I’ve tried to get the courage to ask for a date, but something happens every time and I don’t get to.”

There was silence from the other stalls.

“He sounds really special,” Robin said, her voice softer, more dejected.

You swallowed. “Yeah, she is.”

It was like the room became electric as soon as the words left your mouth. There was no way to take them back, not even if you wanted to.

The silence was deafening. Your ears rang as you sat in your confession, trying desperately to keep it together.

But then there was shuffling, and Robin appeared in the doorway of your stall. She was on her knees, holding each side of the door frame to keep herself upright. And she was looking at you like you were a new person.

You didn’t say anything. She just stared at you, until a small smile broke out across her face.

Her eyes softened in a way that you hadn’t seen before as she shuffled closer to you and said, “You love me?”

“Yes,” you breathed as she got even closer.

And then she was kissing you. You froze for a second, but when her hand came up to rest on your face, you shook out of your stupor. Your own hands flew to the sides of her neck, pulling her closer until she was practically in your lap.

She accidentally leaned into your chest and you pulled away, groaning.

“I’m sorry!” she squeaked, leaning back and assessing you.

“It’s fine,” you said, letting out a sigh of relief as the pain subsided again. “I’m fine. Are you fine?”

She nodded. “I’m better than fine.” She trailed her fingers along the side of your head where you knew that the blood had left a stain on your skin. It would most likely need stitches.

“I thought you liked Steve,” she admitted shyly after a long moment of searching your face.

“Steve?” you said incredulously. “Why would I like Steve?” You heard him cough and you cringed. “No offence, Steve.”

“I don’t know! I just thought you did,” she replied, swinging her arms around.

“Robin, I spend every second I can with you because I love you. I’ve been trying to ask you out for months.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For not realizing. I just never thought that you would ever feel the way I did. What kind of best friend am I?”

“One that I am hopelessly in love with.” You brushed her nose with yours as you whispered, “Baby, you’re the one for me.”

“I love you, too,” she said.

You breathed in. “Say it again.”

She grinned. “I love you.”

“Again?”

She kissed you, brushing her thumb over your chin. “I’ll be saying it for the rest of my life.”

[just-someone-who-likes-to-write]

Delayed Fate

(A/N): Hello everyone this is my first fic where I don't take requests ((And first Namor Fic!))but get ideas by spinning three wheels in an app. One wheel has characters that I like, Second sentences that I will be using, the third is the AUs it would be set in. The third Wheel has only Soulmates AUs, but if I got inspired I might add another AU to future stories, just to make them more interesting. Without further or do, I hope you enjoy this one.

Character: Namor / Ku'ku'lkán

Alphabet AU: A...Aging stops at 18 until you find your soulmate so the two of you can grow old together.

Sentence number: 40 - "Anywhere with you is everywhere I want to be."

Warnings: black panther forever spoilers, angst, mentions of injuries, fluff at the end, grammatic error. (If i missed any warnings please tell me.)

Word count: 9,724

Aging can be a terrifying process for most.

Growing older, becoming weaker, your body changing in ways you didn't expect or understand, and having to depend on others for the smallest of things. It is indeed terrifying. That is why some people would try and stay young as long as possible, and it's not by doing the usual thing where they would use pharmaceutical products or do surgeries. But they would be going as far as doing everything in their power to not meet their soulmate, the one person who they are meant to grow old with, to finally start their life together.

In this world, people stopped aging after their 18th birthday, when they are meant to go out and explore the world and meet people in hopes that one of them is their destined partner. But meeting a soulmate is like a cruel game of guessing because you would have to spend significant time with this person in order to see if you aged or not. When realizing that none of them aged the partners would either break up immediately or stay together for the sake of not being alone, but as said before, others would do everything in their power to disconnect themselves from people for the sake of an immortal life, which is foolish since there is no true immortality, everyone dies in the end, either by fate or beside the one they love.

That's why after (Y/n)'s 18th birthday she did not waste time and ventured into the world to meet people and have new experiences in hopes that one day she would meet the one who is meant for her and her for them. Now, the longest a person stayed 18 before meeting their soulmate was less than 50 years, so imagine her surprise, disappointment, and sadness when she spent almost 300 years alone.

In the first 100 years (Y/n) was crying, not only because she still haven't found the one, but also because she saw how the world around her was going by fast, her family was dying, her close friends who already found their soulmates were growing older, forcing her to be left behind as everyone around her was living their lives. She realized that she doesn't have a place around in her hometown so she decided to leave and find a home somewhere else. During her 200 years, she explored everything she could, the different cultures, learned different languages, and learned how to fight to protect herself from those who found out about her "Situation" and wanted to use her. Shield reached out to her and asked to help them build their organization with the promise of tending to her every need as long as she lived and she took it.

(Y/n) even came across magic users, which lead her to meet the ancient one who helped her accept this long life of hers, she stayed with them a good 40 years, learning what she could about magic since she did not have the talent for mystic arts. During that time (Y/n) has already several homes around the world, thanks to the money that she was investing and the money that Shield would provide her with, she owned several weapons, mechanics, firearms, and even traditional weapons. One day she heard of an artifact in the corners of Nigeria that might hold some magical power, she didn't know what it was but she knew that if it was dangerous she needed to keep it with her or at least deliver it to the ancient one.

That's how she met King T'Chanda and found out about Wakanda.

She remembered the look of pity he gave her when she told him her story, maybe that pity is the reason why he extended a hand of friendship, and to maintain this friendship she swore that she would never speak of his country's existence. Every few years she would go there and visit him, for a while he was the same as her. He lived as a young man for a long time, which made her understand the look of pity he gave her because he understood what she was going through. So her jealousy was also understandable when she came to visit one day and found him aged a few years with his hand wrapped around a beautiful woman who was pregnant. (Y/n) held no romantic feelings for the king, but she hoped selfishly that he would remain without a soulmate like herself, that she would at least have a friend like herself. But again, she forced herself to accept the reality that she would be alone for a very long time until something came to end her life, but up until that happens she would live her life the best she could.

Now, the great thing about the Wakandan Royal family is that they accepted her as she is, they did not give her weird looks nor did they attempt to experiment on her, like how most of the world acted. She remembered how annoyed she was when T'Chanda made his son T'Chaka call her "Great Aunt" and from then on she was called as such despite her very youthful look. But she accepted in the end and even enjoyed it a bit.

Then (Y/n) entered the 20th century and everything started to go crazy. She could handle the super soldier project because it was kind of expected after seeing in what way humanity's technology was taking, especially in the name of winning a war. Then there was the time when she found out that aliens existed, which means that alien invasion was inevitable so she took the right measures and that was staying away from it, because what can she do? Immortal or not she was still a human with no power, yes she has magical items that can be used as weapons but that would be risking exposing the existence of sorcerers so she decided to just stay back, after all, Fury assured her that he has a plan and that is by assembling a team of heroes.

Where was (Y/n) during all that? Having a very long vacation in Wakanda, where she was helping Shuri test her new inventions and helping her prank her brother. She would train with T'Challa and give him bits of advice that he might need as a future king. And, Of course, she would chat with T'Chaka and Ramonda and even lecture them, which was a funny scene for their children to see them being lectured by an 18-year-old girl. Yes, she had a really close connection to the Wakandan royal family, which was understandable when she helped T'Challa try and catch his father's assassin. (Y/n) got a lot of backlash because of it from Fury when he found out the truth. It caused her to be kicked out of shield, but she didn't care because she knew that if she stopped T'Challa from seeking revenge his anger would have blinded him further, and would have probably rebelled and caused further harm not only to himself and his family, so she allowed him to let out everything from his system knowing, in the end, he would be able to find his own way back.

So it was understandable how happy she felt when T'Challa came back with the said assassin wanting to help him recover after learning why he did what he did.

Then after that in a few years, the snap happened, and (Y/n) did not disappear like half of the universe. Because of Fury's disappearance, Shield contacted her begging her to come back and help them control the chaos, which she reluctantly did. She did not want to go but Queen Ramonda assured her that they will keep in touch and that Wakanda was probably more prepared than the rest of the world, which was engulfed in chaos.

(Y/n) might have lived centuries, but those 5 years felt longer and emptier. Jumping from country to country to help assert order, calling what is left of the Avengers to see if they had anything they could use, and when she has time she would contact Shuri and Ramonda. At the start of her, "immortality" (Y/n) would have depressive episodes that she struggled greatly with but thanks to the ancient one who helped her learn how to cope with it, she thought she got over it but there she was crying in her apartment wishing that all of it would just end, the loneliness is getting to her again and she was afraid that this time she won't be able to escape it.

Thankfully, Scott Lang showed up and gave them the hope to fix all of this. When they finally built the time machine (Y/n) told them that she was going back to Wakanda to tell them the good news, coincidentally, shortly after the time of her arrival the people who had disappeared in the middle of the battlefield materialized back. (Y/n) cried with joy as she saw T'Challa reunite with his family.

After the war was over (Y/n) resigned despite Fury's attempts to persuade her to stay, but she refused because she did not want to be alone anymore. She moved permanently to Wakanda, who welcomed her with open arms. She became an unofficial consultant to King T'Challa, whether it was concerning his people or his love life she was there to aid him, same with Shuri who always told her about different types of shields and weapons that she could create for (Y/n) to protect herself with since she was still just a human, she would keep Ramonda company when her children were too occupied with their work to be with her.

They were her family, her people, but she knew that one day she would have to say goodbye to them as she continued living, but she didn't expect that goodbye would come much too soon with T'Challa.

(Y/n) was with Shuri in the lab trying to help her think of how to bring the plant back to save him, if they could turn back time to save half the universe then why not bring back an extinct plant to save their king. But when T'Challa asked to see them, (Y/n) went while Shuri stayed back saying that she was so close and can't waste time.

"I… I have a request to make-" His words were cut off by a harsh cough, which caused (Y/n) to hurry to his side in an attempt to soothe him.

"Don't strain yourself." She lectured but T'Challa shook his head and waved his hand to those who were in the same room extracting them to leave them alone, before turning back to her.

"My great aunt…" He murmured with a tired smile, which caused (Y/n)'s heart to ache as she fought back tears.

"I know that I might be asking too much of you…" he uttered between gasps as he struggled to breathe. "Take it … as a dying man's … final wish…"

"Don't say that, Shuri and I will find a way to bring back the plant and you will be good again." she assured. "Just … please hang on a little bit longer."

He just smiled at her, which caused (Y/n) to break into tears, T'Challa squeezed her hand as a way to comfort her but it only made her cry more as his hold was also weak.

"I'm sorry to have caused you more pain…I know you had gone through enough loss… but…my time is coming soon, I can feel it." He tried to reason but (Y/n) only shook her head, refusing to acknowledge such truth. T'Challa decided to continue.

"Please look after them…" He finally confessed. "Not my mother and sister only…"

(Y/n) immediately understood the implication and looked at him and nodded as she wiped her tears.

"And don't tell Shuri…she is not ready… at least not now."

Throughout her life (Y/n) saw many different reactions to loss. Some cried and screamed until they had nothing else to let out. Others raged out, breaking everything in front of them and even fighting others. There are those few who ignored it and continue with life as if nothing had happened, very few accept it. but the reaction that she saw the most of, was acting hastily and irrationally. Whether it was by saying something they don't mean or doing something that they might regret later thinking it was the best decision while they were high on emotions. Both (Y/n) and the queen understood that things weren't safe enough to bring T'Challa's son, not only the world but also Wakanda, and if Shuri found out she would probably demand that the boy be brought back or she would go to him, which would risk his safety because they still don't know how she would act when she does meet him. So after the King's death, Ramonda and (Y/n) grieved with Shuri and did their best to help her cope with her emotions.

After a year of isolating herself in her lab, Ramonda decided to take Shuri out one night so she might connect with her daughter again, which (Y/n) encouraged. She expected many reactions after their return.

Anger, more sadness, neutral as if nothing happened, and the reaction she hoped for was happiness and acceptance, but what she did not expect was both of them to return with a look of pure fear and worry.

"There was this kid- well he looked like a kid but he isn't, he has wings on his ankles!... he just comes out from the water and started making demands-" Shuri was trying to explain to (Y/n) who was lost and trying to understand her.

"Shuri, breath dear, who are you speaking about?" (Y/n) Asked with great concern.

"He said his name was Namor."

When they explained her situation more clearly, (Y/n) to try and help them come up with a plan on what they should do, she told Ramonda how some will agree to just give him the American scientist to do whatever he wants with them and that others will demand a fight. She must be the neutral ground so that they won't dare judge any decision she makes. So she decided to just bring the scientist, to at least be protected by them, and then on they would negotiate with this "Namor" person.

"What if we took great aunt with us?" piped in Shuri and her mother and Okoye's not so whispered conversation. "Maybe even call in my favorite colonizer."

Ramonda was hesitant when she thought it was only Okoye and Shuri but having the great aunt with them reassured her a bit, that's why (Y/n) can't imagine how she must be as she stared up at the walls of the cave around her. She was the first to wake up after she, Shuri, and Riri were taken by the blue soldiers whom she assumed were Namor's. The women that were assigned to them, who were also blue, motioned for her to come with them, giving sleeping Shuri one last look (Y/n) hesitantly followed her to a room covered in murals, and in the middle of it He stood.

"I assumed you are Namor?" She questioned, earning his attention.

When their eyes met (Y/n)'s heart thumped heavily against her rib cage, her body felt as if something washed over her as if something was lifted, and looking at him she could tell he probably felt it too because he gave her a look of bewilderment. Before any of them could say anything another woman came and told him something and he replied to her an order before she bowed and left.

"It looks like the princessa is awake." He stated, his voice causing a shiver to go down her spine.

"If you dared to harm her, I swear to-"

"All of you surface dwellers are the same, always marching to fight without thinking." He replied.

"Says the guy whose people ambushed us on the bridge and then kidnapped us."

"If I remember correctly it was you who came to me willingly."

"And allow you to kill an innocent soul?"

"I will kill thousands if it meant the safety of my people!"

Before she could reply to him Shuri came in and stood between him and (Y/n), in an attempt to protect her after hearing his last statement.

"And if you dared to harm my great aunt it would be you who dies next!" She threatened while glaring at him.

"Great aunt?" Repeated Namor with a puzzled look as his eyes darted between Shuri and her. then it clicked, and he focused on (Y/n). "How old are you?"

"You know … up there it's rude to ask for a woman's age." (Y/n) jested as she deflected the question, not trusting him enough to tell him anything about herself.

Having a closer look at the boy in front of her she realized that he was also around her age, he had a lean yet fit body, and his face was bare from facial hair, the thing that is giving him some sense of maturity was the accessories that he wore but from the way that he was acting he must be like her, stuck in this young body until they met their significant other, she didn't know if he was older or younger than her but what she does now is that this long life can have different effects on people, and since he was so determined to protect his people to the level of taking innocent lives she can tell he was unbalanced.

He asked to talk to Shuri privately since she was only true royalty of Wakanda, but (Y/n) still insisted to keep a safe distance so she can see them, and every now and then her eyes met his when Shuri wasn't paying attention, it's as if he was examining her and she couldn't blame him because she was doing the same thing to him. (Y/n) protested when he offered for Shuri to see his home but the princess assured her that she was going to be safe, when she did come back after what felt like forever she was met with a tight hug.

"I'm fine." Shuri assured as she hugged her back.

"I'm just glad that you're back safe." (Y/n) pulled away enough to examine the princess, then glared at Namor who chuckled at your actions.

"Great aunt I'm fine… it… it was beautiful!" Shuri exclaimed excitedly.

Shuri started chattering away to (Y/n) about the city that she saw, the Talokan, its people, and the "sun" that he had built for them, Namor was right beside them listening in, probably to make sure she doesn't tell too much.

"She is the first from the surface to come to Talokan." He confined before pulling out a bracelet to give it to Shuri. "Please take this as a token of our gratitude."

Before Shuri could accept his gift (Y/n) stopped him, being suspicious.

"What is it?" Shuri was about to lecture her about being too paranoid, but Namor's answer confirmed her suspicions.

"It was made with the plant that saved Talokan." He informed as he continued to give the bracelet to Shuri and tight on her wrist, he was staring at (Y/n) as if silently challenging her to stop him again before turning back to Shuri.

"You are young, Princess." He Stated. "When you age as I do, you realize we all lose everyone we love."

"But when I lost my brother, it just felt different." Shuri said with grief in her voice. "He suffered in silence. When he finally asked me to help him I couldn't"

(Y/n) hugged her in an attempt to comfort her and the princess leaned into it as she fought tears.

"How does it make sense that the ancestors would give me gifts and skills to help me save my brother, and I couldn't?... Why?"

"I don't have an answer for that question." Replied Namor.

"But I do…" (Y/n) chimed in earning both their attention. "My dear, I won't go into a long rant about what the ancestors were planning for you. I have lived long enough and have come across many religions, but most of them if not all believed in similar things and that life challenges us to become better. It can be a very painful journey, but what I know for sure is that you can never come out as the defeated if you knew how to harvest those talents and skills along with those emotions you can be better, not only for yourself but for everyone around you."

Shuri sat there as if she was not convinced by what (Y/n) just said, even pulling herself away from her hold, which saddened her. Seeing the woman's frown Namor felt the need to comfort her, but he didn't know how until he finally said.

"My ancestors would often say, "Only the most broken people can be great leaders"." Those words earned him the two women's attention again.

"I admire what you have built here." Started Shuri. "And you've protected your people.  But as a princess of Wakanda, I will not stand for you killing that young woman."

They tried reasoning with the king but their efforts were in vain as every time they tried to reason with him, promising him that they will do everything to protect not only his people but also the secrecy of their existence, he refused. Their conversation was cut short when one of his people came and told him that the queen was there to speak with him.

"You said you wanted to burn the world." He said to Shuri. "Let's burn it together."

And before he left completely he gave a glance to (Y/n), which she returned. When they went back to Riri to tell her of the possible upcoming war, Shuri and (Y/n) tried to discuss their next move, not noticing when Nakia came shooting one of the women warriors, then the poor terrified girl who was tending to them.

"We need to go." Nakia urged but both Shuri and (Y/n) refused to.

"Give me the beads I can save her." the princess ordered.

"Shuri, I don't know who this lady is, but we need to listen to her." Riri pleaded, fear clear on her face.

"Listen, I hit her with a sonic round, it is lethal from this distance. There is no chance." Nakia informed.

"You don't understand this will mean war." Shuri argued back.

(Y/n), sick of their banter, pulled Shuri's hands away from the injured girl before pulling her own beads and started aiding her herself.

"Shuri, go." (Y/n) ordered.

"Great aunt-"

"I said GO!"

With that said Nakia pulled Shuri away knowing that there is no time to also convince (Y/n) to come with them, the princess was a priority and both of them knew that. The immortal woman refused to pull away from the injured girl until she was sure that the bleeding stopped, she was so focused that she did not notice when Namor came behind her, and upon seeing the blood he pulled (Y/n) away harshly to kneel beside the girl and hold her head in his hands.

"What happened my child?" He spoke in his language, which (Y/n) did not understand, she was about to say something but stopped when another warrior came and slammed her to the ground pinning her.

"The Wakandans….they came for her." she struggled to speak, before pointing to (Y/n). "She stayed…"

Namor looked to the pinned surface dweller who did not struggle against his warrior's hold, as if to show her submission.

"K'uk'ulkan…." The girl called, grasping his attention again. "Can you save me?"

At her question, Namor looked down at her wound and found it mostly closed and the bleeding has stopped thankfully.

"You are going to be safe my child." He said before turning to one of the warriors and giving him an order, the warrior knelt to pick up the girl and hurried out of the cave.

He stood up and walked to (Y/n), who could only see his feet, but she assumed that he was staring down at her, and he was. Another woman came dressed in red to speak with him.

"They came… while you spoke to the queen?" She questions. "We should not have trusted her, the queen has seen our home, what is stopping them from coming for Talokan?"

"I will…" He replied. "With her here."

Namor order the warriors to bring her to his hut, and even though they did it harshly by pulling her up and dragging her around like a rag doll (Y/n) still did not fight back and kept calm. She was forced to stand in front of him as they were left alone and Namor knew it was a struggle for the woman for he can see how her figure was shaking slightly, yet her face held a stern look.

"You attempted to kill my people." He started.

"You kidnapped their princess, what did you expect them to do? To set back and wait?" (Y/n) shot back, which earned her a scowl from the king.

"If that child have died it would be your head on a spike right now."

"But she didn't."

Namor was in front of her in an instant and grabbed her by the neck and squeezed, not giving her any chance to breathe, and just watched as (Y/n) struggled.

"I could snap your neck like a twig right now and they won't care. The Wakandans have proven to be just as worst as the rest of the surface dwellers after I have shown my home and people to her and you dare to still defend them in front of me."

"B..Because…" (Y/n) struggled to take breaths as she spoke. "You…are a rash … brat!"

With those words Namor let her go, causing her to fall to the ground as she took quick breaths.

"A brat?" He repeated. "I may look young but I assure you I am older than your great great grandfather."

"And I can be your great great GREAT grandmother." She retorted mockingly. "You are not special just because you lived long, because you are not acting it."

"How dare you insult me!" He seethed.

"No." (Y/n) stopped him from talking more as she stood on her feet. "You are the one who came out of nowhere demanded an innocent life delivered to you, and even when you had her you still wanted more. you didn't want peace from the start you just want the war to quench your own rage against humanity."

"They are the ones who threatened my people's existence by exposing their resources, causing them to hunger for it."

"Maybe they shouldn't have done that, but to be fair Wakanda did not know of your people's existence when they revealed themselves they were ready to fight the world by themselves, they didn't know of Talokan, or else it would have been a different story." (Y/n) continued. "Listen, what happened has happened and we cannot change it, but what we can change is what will happen next. Both the Wakandans and I have ways to assure Talokan's safety, we can-"

"I don't need your help!" He bawled. "I gave Wakanda their chance to yield and they threw it away."

"See! There you go again and you say why I call you a child."

Namor reached out to her and (Y/n) closed her eyes and held her hands up ready for pain but it didn't come, and when she opened her eyes slowly she could see that he had stepped back and given her his back as he faced the murals of his people.

"The only reasons you are still alive are two." He said as he turned back to face her, his face suspiciously calm. "The first is because you stayed to save one of my people, which I would be lying if I said I wasn't grateful for."

He started taking a few steps toward her making her take a few steps back until her back touched the door, he stopped in front of her and leaned forward, his face inches from her own. (Y/n) wasn't the same teenage girl who would get flustered over the smallest things, like a charming smile, or a wink but she doesn't understand why was her heart beating fast she was face to face with a man in an isolated cave that she can never escape from, who can kill her at any desired moment. She would have marked it as fear if she didn't feel her face heating up.

"You are welcome." She replied, trying to make light of her emotions. "And what is the second reason?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He asked rhetorically, before looking to the door behind her. "Llévala!"

Suddenly, the door opened almost making her fall but was caught by the same warriors who brought her here, instead of being as compliant as she was previously, she was struggling and demanding to be let go.

"The second reason is for you to stay here as my captive, that if the princess decided to do anything stupid it would be you who will pay for it."

He promised and motioned for his hand for them to take her away, but before she was out of earshot (Y/n) said one last thing.

"Don't do anything rash you brat! It's not only the Wakandans who will suffer!"

Namor believed that those words were a threat, which fueled his determination to go and give Wakanda a taste of who they are going against.

---

(Y/n) was pacing back and forth in her cell, anxiety eating her alive as she was biting her lip until it bleed and nail until it was gone. Looking outside her cell she saw the guards who didn't move an inch since they threw her there, she tried talking to them but they either didn't understand her or just ignored her. Searching for an escape was useless, she did try to use the beads to communicate with Shuri and warn her about Namor but a cave under the sea is hardly the perfect place to find a signal to the surface let alone to Wakanda. (Y/n) made a note to herself to tell Shuri about a possible new upgrade.

She was pulled out of her train of thought when she heard the sound of splashing. She wasted no time and pressed herself against the bars and started to call.

"NAMOR!" She shouted. "Namor! Is that you!?"

Saying nothing the king came from the corner, and looked at her and when her eyes met his own she could feel a chill of fear go down her spine. (Y/n) lived long enough to know what that look meant, but she hoped to any god that is hearing her that what she was thinking was not the truth.

"What did you do?" The question slipped out unconsciously. Namor averted his eyes with an angry huff at being confronted, but in his eyes, she could see a hint of shame, and that filled her with rage. "If you hurt Shuri in any way I promise I will kill you myself!"

(Y/n) saw many people die in her long life, most of them were really dear to her, but no matter how many times she goes through the heartache doesn't become easier, especially if she was there since their birth. The only reason she was able to go through T'Chaka and T'Challa's death was that she had someone to support her and people to look after to distract herself. But here she was alone, in a cave under the sea, facing the man who probably hurt Shuri and not being able to do anything.

"No harm came to the queen." He replied simply, and that fueled her rage.

"I was talking about the princess! Not the queen!"

"She is queen now."

Namor said nothing more as he started walking away leaving (Y/n) to realize what he had meant. Before he could close the door to his chamber he can hear a distant scream of distress and a series of curses of his name. He just groaned as he isolated himself in his room trying to block her voice as he thought about his next step before the week is up. However, he couldn't do any of that for the entire time he was fighting the urge to walk to that cell and stop her from crying, not by yelling at her but by trying to reason with her, to try and justify his actions, how it was the only way. Or maybe it was just to let her let out her anger against him, give her the satisfaction to curse at him, and probably even hit him, which he know will not do any real harm to him.

It drove him crazy, but what drove him even crazier is WHY was he feeling these urges towards a surface dweller. Was it because he understood her pain? To live for so long and see everyone around you die and not be able to do anything to stop it? to not being able to say goodbye to someone you knew since their birth?

He couldn't dwell on those questions more as he realized that it became quiet again, taking the chance that her screams will not distract him Namor went immediately to planning. Determined to bring Wakanda to submit to him.

---

"There is another machine in our waters"

Namor said from outside of the cell as he stared at the back of his immortal prisoner who decided to set in the corner with her back to the exit, completely ignoring the king, which annoyed him. but he couldn't find it in himself to voice this annoyance.

"We will go and destroy it." He informed. "But there will still be a guard over you and a maid to make sure you are fed and looked after."

When he said those words his eyes landed on the bowl of fruit that was untouched and it bothered him greatly. He knew she was immortal and cannot die so easily like himself, but he knew that they were still affected by physical pains, including hunger, and (Y/n) didn't have anything for almost a week now. The only thing he was sure of to keep her functioning was the few sips of water she would take now and then. He did try to trick her once into drinking juice but when he did that she still refused to take it. Whether it was out of grief or she was just being rebellious either way, it saddened him and angered him at the same time.

He didn't even know why was he trying to talk to her now. He tried talking to her since the day he told her of what happened, but she kept ignoring him, making him feel stupid as he had a one-sided conversation, trying to justify what he did and lecturing her on how what she was doing to herself was stupid but she didn't care.

Feeling that he had wasted enough time Namor huffed in anger before turning around to leave, then he finally heard her.

"You are going to regret it."

"What?" He questioned as he turned back to her, but she went back to being quiet. "What did you just say?"

"….You are going to regret it."

(Y/n) finally looked at him from over her shoulder. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy from crying, her hair disheveled and her skin pale from lack of nutrition. He didn't say another as she turned again and gave him her back.

Namor would have probably lashed out at her, confronting her on the threat she threw at him, but she said nothing as he turned back and walked away. it was probably because her voice did not sound threatening or taunting, but rather a statement.

---

(Y/n) eyes tiredly opened as someone was shaking her awake and calling her name in a panic. When the fog cleared up she saw that standing above and holding her in their arm is none other than Shuri, whose eyes were full of tears yet still had a relieved smile on her face. She said something that she couldn't grasp before the young princess pulled her into a hug, and mustering any strength she had left (Y/n) hugged her back as a few tears escaped her eyes.

Looking up she noticed that Namor was standing there the entire time, observing the reunion in silence, but that wasn't what drew her attention, but rather a scratch mark on his face, and one of his ankles was wrapped in bandages, he was wearing a poncho that covered his upped body but she swears she could see more, and deeper scratches littering his body. Their eyes met and looking at him (Y/n) almost didn't recognize him, she didn't know how long she was out for, but she could swear that Namor looked more mature.

"What did you do to her?!" Shuri shouted at the King, snapping him out of whatever trance he was lost in, and turned to her.

"I did not lay a finger on her or mistreated her." He clarified. "She is the one who refused to eat or drink after… the news."

He said the last part quietly as he looked away in shame. When he said that more tears showed on (Y/n) at the memory and pulled Shuri back into a hug, squeezing her as hard as she can, which wasn't a lot but it was enough for the princess who hugged her back crying silently.

"I'm so sorry my dear." (Y/n) said her voice horse from not talking or consuming anything. "I…I wish I was there… I should have…"

"You have nothing to apologize for." Shuri assured as she cut her off. "Let's just go back home."

(Y/n) let out a sound of surprise as Shuri hooked her left arm under her legs and the right one on her back before lifting her up, which shocked the weak woman.

"Are you wearing some type of a new upgrade?.. Because I'm sure that I haven't lost THAT much weight for you to just lift me like I weigh nothing."

Her question made Shuri laugh as she carried her outside the cave, passing by Namor who stayed out of their way and just followed them silently. When they reached the edge of the pool Shuri was moving around (Y/n) to give her the latest update that would help her swim easily even in her weak state. During that, she would steal glances at Namor and each time his eyes never left her. She wanted to say something but couldn't or didn't know what to say, and from his few glances at Shuri, she can tell that he was also hesitant to speak. The sound of reeving power pulled her out of her thoughts as she saw the machine wrapped around her glitter with pulsed energy indicating that it was ready.

"We can go now, just make sure you stay close to me."

She instructed before reaching around her neck to activate the mask but (Y/n) stopped her, which earned her a confused look, but her great-aunt simply turned to the king who was still standing there. Namor's face showed no emotion but he was preparing himself for her to lecture him, insult him, curse him, let out her pent-up anger, and maybe even express her disappointment since she did warn him that his rash actions would cause him to lose in more ways than one. but he didn't count on her to give him a kind smile as if they were close friends.

"I will see you again."

Not a question, but a promise. If the feeling of surprise was obvious on his face then none of the women mentioned it as they dived into the water and left. When he broke out of his surprised state he just scuffed and went back to his chamber where he will paint a mural of the battle that took place against the black panther for his people's history. But in a different part of the room, one where it was mostly for himself he painted the immortal woman, when she interacted with him, when she saved the maid, and when she was his prisoner.

"I will see you again."

The promise echoed in his head, which made him unconsciously smile while he painted her smile, secretly excited and hoping for the next meeting to come soon.

---

(Y/n) sat on her private beach under the umbrella with a book in hand, trying to relax but her eyes kept scanning over the same paragraph without absorbing any of the words as she kept recalling what happened on her last visit to Wakanda which was last week.

"I'm sorry, what??" (Y/n) exclaimed as she stared at the screen that the A.I presented for both her and Shuri, who also was in disbelief.

"Your body aged 2 years." Griot repeated as he held up 2 pictures of (Y/n) on the glass screen and started noting the slight differences. "There are discreet changes, for example, Your muscles and bones have grown stronger, your weight changed, which brings up your metabolism lowering very slightly, but it is still noticeable like the start of wrinkles showing around the eyes and acne surfacing-"

"That's enough, Griot." Shuri cuts him off as she stares at (Y/n) who was in shock.

She always knew that she was still a mortal despite her long life but for it to finally start to come close to an end without her being aware of it was overwhelming. Shuri did not leave (Y/n)'s side since they found out, she did her best to comfort her great aunt, even starting teasing her and listing to all the possible people that she had met that could be her soulmate, but (Y/n) shot every possibility down for she already had someone in mind and instead of explaining it to the now queen of Wakanda she excused herself to have alone time.

Shuri thought that when she said she wanted to be alone was to be left in her room until (Y/n) was ready to talk, she didn't expect to talk to her great aunt via call scolding her on when and how she left Wakanda without saying anything. But they worked it out. And here she was now, convincing herself that she just needed time to think about what to do next and how to approach the situation when she was in fact too afraid to actually face it.

"So this is where you have been hiding?"

A familiar voice asked making her jump away and take a fighting stance, an instinct she has from years of fighting and being ambushed, but she stopped when she saw that standing in front of her was none other than Namor, but he looked different.

"Did you grow a beard?" Was the first thing that came out of her mouth, which made him chuckle.

"Yes, it is nice to meet you again too." He replied sarcastically.

Namor still looked young except for the small amount of facial hair that looked well taken care of, and he felt her staring because he subconsciously reached his hand to his face and started scratching his beard as he averted his eyes.

"I always wanted to grow one but never got the chance with my body stuck at a certain age." He started explaining. "You could imagine my surprise when a few months after my battle with Wakanda that hair started to grow on my face."

His eyes then met hears again, none of them saying anything but the silence was loud enough for (Y/n) to understand what he was trying to say. Saying nothing the woman sat back down at her spot but this time made space beside her and patted it encouraging the king to set beside her, which he hesitantly did. They stayed quiet for a long time before he finally spoke.

"You have your own part of the sea?" it was more of a statement than a question.

"It's called a private beach." (Y/n) explained. "You can imagine how crowded and dirty public beaches are, and since I have a lot of money I bought my own, not even fishing boats are allowed around here."

"This part of the water did look cleaner as I came closer and the creatures beneath are thriving from the lack of fishermen and filth."

"I do my best to have my own little piece of heaven in this world." She shrugged, trying to hide some of the happiness she felt from his comment.

It was silence again between them, only the sound of the crashing waves can be heard, which eased any anxiety the two might have felt.

"How are your people?  Since … well, you know…" She asked awkwardly just wanting to break the silence.

"They are well." He answered. "The black panther kept her promise on protecting my people's safety, although some of them are still unsure of the treaty."

"You say it as if you were ok with it." He tried to say something but she stopped him. "Don't even try to say you aren't, I know it was hard for you to submit."

She could practically see him tense for a moment as he clenched his jaws, probably angry but forced himself to calm down as he took a few breaths and closed his eyes.

"I will do anything for my people's safety… even if it means yielding to a worthy opponent."

"what wise words, I see you have grown more than just a beard and a mustache I see." (Y/n) teased him with a smile.

"A person grows in many ways throughout life…" He said before averting his eyes to the sea. "… Especially after meeting their soulmate."

(Y/n) eyes widened slightly as she too averted her eyes to the sea thinking about what to say next. She knew she can't escape the topic, but it didn't make it any easier to face it.

"When did you find out?"

"I wasn't sure at first." He started to explain. "When I noticed the changes in my body years ago I suspected that it could be either you or the panther."

"Then why didn't you say anything?" She asked annoyance clear in her voice. "It must have been nice having all that time to accept what is happening, but I only found out about my aging a couple of days ago."

"After the battle and everything that I have done, I wasn't sure if either of you wanted to see me again, let alone accept me as a soulmate." He explained as he turned fully to face her. "You must understand my hesitation to come up to the person I imprisoned or killed their mother and ask them to be with me."

 Of course (Y/n) understood, but it is still frustrated her that he knew and she didn't, that he had the time to get in terms with this new reality, then come to her and confront her…

"Wait… how did you know it was me?" She questioned. "You keep saying that you suspected that it was either me or Shuri."

"She called me." He answered. "She used the shell I gave her to call me and she told me it was about you and how to reach you."

"So much for a private beach." (Y/n) muttered to herself.

"Are you…. Are you disappointed?" He stuttered out the question causing (Y/n) to almost snap her neck with how fast she turned to him in shock.

"What?"

There was a look of concern and uncertainty, dare she say even fear in his face as he tried repeating the question.

"Are you disappointed?" He asked again this time more firmly.

"About what?" She asked not because she was confused but rather because she was unsure if he was indeed asking her that.

"About me being your soulmate." He continued. "I know it must be how you feel given the brief past we had. But that was in different situations, we can start anew as you humans put it, to know each other more before deciding hastily to not see each other again and then-"

"Wait! Wait wait wait WAIT!"

(Y/n) interrupted him quickly catching the king by surprise at her sudden outburst, her hands were up wanting him to halt any more words but her face was facing down, so he was not able to see her expression. He started panicking a little when her shoulders were shaking slightly, thinking the reality of their bond upset her, but his confusion grew when she started giggling before letting out a bark of laughter. Her sudden change of behavior was alarming to the king, dare he say he was offended.

"Can I ask why are you laughing at my confession?" He asked calmly yet the silent anger behind it was very clear.

It didn't intimidate (Y/n), but she forced herself to calm down for her soulmate seems to have a very short temper, which she noted to herself to work on with him. She stopped her laughter but her smile was still showing.

"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, but at what you said." When gave a confused look she started explaining. "You came here confessing to me how you thought your soulmate could be either the warrior queen of Wakanda who also happens to be the new Black Panther or some woman with no title nor magic power of some kind and you ask me if I was disappointed with having the king of an underwater city, who is worshiped as a god, for a soulmate."

He seems to understand her view on the matter, but he still shook his head as if disappointed. He reached forward slowly for her hand as if expecting her to pull away but when she didn't he was confident enough to grasp her hand. His rough fingers were tracing the lines in the palm of her hand.

"You are… a woman, a human woman who  doesn't have the power of the panther nor that of a god." He stated making her narrow her eyes at him.

"Buuut?" (Y/n) asked calmly yet that was this small hint of irritation, which made him chuckle. Seeing his smile made her show a smile of her own.

"But...You still walked this earth as one."

"As one you mean?" she trailed off confused.

"As a creature who pushes beyond the limitation they were given." He continued before looking up at her, his eyes holding softness towards her. "The panther told me of your past, or at least what she knows of it."

If he felt her hand tense in his hold he said nothing and just continued to rub the palm of her hand with his thump, it helped soothe her nerves but she still felt uneasy about what he had to say next.

"I don't know what you exactly did, but I know enough to tell from our short time together… that you didn't set back and watched as the world passed by around you. Learning everything the world has to give and returning it by helping those around you. You had a great part in building this world, even when they don't deserve it."

(Y/n) didn't know whether to roll her eyes or laugh at his last statement. They have to work on that attitude of his if they are going to act on what is happening between them.

"I understand how you feel." She finally said, getting the king's full attention. "But I decide who deserves me or my labors, whether they would misuse it or not I will be the judge of that and will take responsibility for it."

Namor said nothing and just nodded and looked away toward the crashing waves whether he respected her ideas or not he didn't show it. for a while, neither of them said anything, both of them collecting their thoughts on what to say next, and the sea king seems to beat her to it.

"What do you want to do?" He asked giving her a side glance of curiosity before looking back to the sea. His question was simple yet the real meaning behind it was real. Do you want to have anything to do with me?

"First, I want to know you more." She answered in all honesty. "I don't want to rush anything between us only to be hurt later on."

"We are soulmates." He said in an almost hurried manner probably from the fear of rejection, she gave him a reassuring smile.

"I know, I just wish to understand why did fate bind 2 different souls from 2 different worlds together."

(Y/n) explained genuinely while extending her hand to his face she stopped inches away from his face, silently asking for permission, which he gave by resting his cheek in the palm of her hand and closing his eyes as if relishing in the feeling of her hand caressing his face. She brought her other hand up to hold the other side of his face and stroked his checks while her other fingers were gently scratching his beard. She can tell Namor was enjoying her attention towards him but she had to break the moment by pulling away and causing a frown and confused look to show on his face.

"Second…" She said, reminding him of the unfinished conversation. "I need to contact some… special people I know."

"Do you mean the panther?" He asked, thinking she needed to tell her of their decision.

"Well, I will have to speak to her too, but no. I need to talk to some people who might help with our…. situation."

"Situation?" He repeated confused. (Y/n) bit her lip finding it hard to explain.

"You age very slowly… I don't." She said gently,  his eyes widened slightly as if he had just realized it himself, she didn't like the sadness that started showing on his face so she explained. "I will just ask them if they have a way to extend my life."

He just nodded and gave a small smile, but the sadness was still clear in his eyes. (Y/n) knows the pain of watching the people you love grow old and disappear with time and not being able to do anything about it, but from what Shuri told her, Namor experienced this since his eyes opened to the world around him. Like her, he probably also hoped that his soulmate would show up soon to escape the loneliness. But she turned out to be a mortal, and with the time-freezing spell being lifted after their meeting, she will age in human speed while he will return to watching silently as the world kept moving fast around him, seeing people come and go into their world… including herself…

"Hey…" (Y/n) called catching the king's attention, he was met with her attempt at a comforting smile, which eased some of the grief he was feeling. "Those people live far away from any body of water but maybe I can contact one of them to come here, or maybe you can join me? You Can see some of the world and maybe even meet new people? I can understand if you don't want to, but if you did then I promise you there will be a lot of traveling to strange places. Fair warning seas king your soulmate here loves to travel a lot."

She teased him at that last part still smiling. (Y/n) she was asking him too much, not that she expected him to come with her considering not only his responsibility to his people but also his hatred for humanity, but she still wanted him to know that he is always welcome to be with her whenever he wishes to. Namor looked her in the eyes, his piercing dark eyes that 2 years ago looked at her with such loathing, now held nothing but softness towards her.

"Anywhere with you is everywhere I want to be."

Those words were spoken with such sincerity before he leaned forward and placed a kiss on top of her forehead, leaving her shocked as she stared at him with wide eyes, but the shock melted off her face and was replaced with a playful grin as she hit his shoulder.

"Don't get all sentimental on me, I thought you were a relentless sea king, not a softy lover."

"I am your lover now?" Namor asked as he scooted closer to her.

"You focused on that and not the relentless part?" (Y/n) questioned back with a raised brow.

"If it means I'm yours in the end, then yes." He had such a happy grin on his face that made her blush with how handsome he looked.

"You are so arrogant." She stated with a small chuckle as she tried to hide her face.

"But I'm yours." He replied confidently as he tried to make her look at him again.

"You're hot-tempered."

"I prefer fiery."

"God, you're obnoxious."

"Still yours."

(Y/n) was trying to push him away with every word she threw at him while fighting back laughter, but Namor kept leaning forward to her, enjoying this little game between them and wanting to enjoy her expression longer.

"Don't tell me you're going to be this clingy all the time?"

"More like affectionate and protective."

"Yeah, I have seen you being "protective" before, I know what that really means."

"Good, that means I don't have to hide it."

"what? Wait-"

(Y/n) let out a small screech as the Talokan king throw himself over her, just to lock his arms around her so she cannot escape his hold. She struggled and even hit his arms playfully, ordering him to let her go, but he wouldn't budge and just buried his face in the top of her head and closed his eyes, having a look of pure satisfaction. Seeing that, caused (Y/n) to show a smile of her own and decided to just give up the playful struggle, closed her eyes, and just relished the feeling of finally being complete.

---

I hope you guys enjoyed my first Namor fic!

[fabiansociety]

i started playing yakuza 0 in August last year, and I've been playing my way through the entire series ever since. it's been a wild ride — a lot of nonsense plot has flowed through and out of my brain, a lot of janky combat, a massive amount of characters i've come to love, and hundreds of warmly empathetic substories that have pressed themselves into my brain. it feels like i've crammed an entire found family into my life, speedrunning through decades of character growth, major triumphs and minor failures. what it all means, in retrospect, i couldn't quite say. the series hasn't had a consistent point of view, except for an increasing melancholy of how life's narrative opportunities narrow with age and poor decisions, of the ways that childhood trauma lives with us forever, the ways that young men are brutalized into something useful for the powerful men at the top—but that's all a shadow passing over the true landscapes of the games, the long period hanging out in arcades or pool halls or drinking in a favorite bar, or singing karaoke alone or with someone. of watching kamurocho and sotenbori shift with the years, of the new cities we've visited and the food we've eaten. i remember the takoyaki place on the corner that got replaced with a gelateria much more than i remember any of the yakuza heavies that have driven the plots of these games, and that may actually be the point?

it's so weird to not have another yakuza game to immediately start playing. i've gotten so used to opening the next game as soon as i finish the previous one that it feels wrong to just be… done, for now? like, what am i to do with myself now? these games have been such a major part of my leisure time this last year. i've still got Ishin, but that's not really the same thing. the faces will be familiar, but the people will be strangers.

it feels right that the man who erased his name was the only one of these that i've actually 100% completed, from achievements to in-game trackers. they've lowered the bar for completion substantially with this latest game, and frankly it feels like an act of grace for people who have played through the entire series. i'm never going to get good at virtua fighter 2, no matter how many times it shows up, so it's nice to not have to get good at everything in order to round everything out. i've already taught myself mahjong for this series, is that not enough? LADG says, yes, it's okay, you've done enough, and i appreciate that tremendously, here at the end of this loooong road.

i spent *50 solid days* this last year doing nothing except playing yakuza games, that's ridiculous. i read every single nero wolfe book in significantly less time than that! this is the problem with doing this sort of run-the-board project for a video game series, it just takes so long to get even a basically thorough experience. running through the entire MCU, including all the D+, Netflix, Hulu, Freeform, and ABC shows, only takes 424 hours, by comparison. you could watch all of it in less time than in took me to get from Y0 to Y4. i read all the nero wolfe books a couple of years back, and i was ripping through those at a book a night. video games are massively more decompressed as a medium, which makes them much harder to approach. i've loved doing this, and really valued the experience, but how do i even begin to recommend someone approach this, when so much of the specific pleasure i get is from seeing these characters and locations grow and change over time? how do you even begin to read a work of that scope? what is even meaningful out of that time to convey to another person? and yet it is meaningful, having lived through it, in the way living in another city is meaningful. i can tell you what i did there, and the important things that happened to me, but the only way to really get it is to move there yourself, and that's a lot to ask of someone.

stats under the cut, if you're curious about just how much time i've spent on each individual game

yakuza 0: 115:45 started 8/10/22, completed 9/7/22

yakuza kiwami: 66:24 started 9/9/22, completed 10/10/22

yakuza kiwami 2: 73:20 started 10/10/22, completed 10/30/22

the majima saga: 2:49 started 10/18/22, completed 10/26/22

yakuza 3: 103:20 started 10/31/22, completed 2/20/23 (with a break from november to february)

yakuza 4: 124:14 started 2/20/23, completed 3/17/23

yakuza 5: 168:17 started 3/18/23, completed 4/27/23

yakuza 6: 76:05 started 4/30/23, completed 5/20/23

judgment: 114:29 started 5/22/23, completed 7/16/23

yakuza like a dragon: 131:31 started 7/16/23, completed 9/2/23

lost judgment: 131:10 (shocking how close this is to YLAD) started 9/17/23, completed 11/4/23

the kaito files: 12:59 started 11/5/23, completed 11/10/23

the man who erased his name: 75:17 started 11/11/23, completed 11/27/23

total time, across the entire series: 1195:40

i benchmarked these against the completionist starts on HowLongToBeat, and i was actually under par that way until about yakuza 4, when my times suddenly got much longer than estimated. what changed? mahjong. i learned how to play mahjong, and that was great (mahjong rules), but it's added dozens of hours to my games, easily, and even with that LADG is the only one of the games where i managed to complete the in-game mahjong objectives. y4 has four separate tournaments you can climb your way to the top of, one for each main character, and i never even got close, but i spent a lot of time trying!