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darlacore · 1 year

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[ maia reficco, cis woman, she / her ] - was that DARLA DUEÑAS i saw by the lighthouse today? i heard that the TWENTY FOUR year old who has been in nightrest for FIVE YEARS and works as a cashier at poppies has a reputation of being ENERGETIC, but also INSECURE. they reside in LOW POINT & people in town usually associate them with BREAKING FREE OF THE CAGE YOU'VE LIVED IN, MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME, TRYING TO LIVE LIFE IN THE BARBIE DREAMHOUSE. let’s hope the killer doesn’t go after them next.

tw for neglect ( stage parent vibes ) , death , drugs / overdose ( light mentions / implied ) .

to understand darla , you must get the bigger picture. born to maria dueñas and maria alone , as she likes to put it.

maria herself was a short-lived actress. the movie she was in was big for the time and people were certain she was going to be someone big - it didn’t happen. roles were hard to come by that weren’t the cutesy sidekick or best friend, and maria’s agent wanted more for her than that. most of her younger years were spent attempting to break out , to get into the mainstream , but she was just that girl that was casted aside.

by the time she was 20 , maria’s career had fizzled out - not even background roles or non speaking parts were being offered , and she was all but dropped from her agent.

darla has never met her father, as it felt very … forbidden to speak about him or ask questions. anytime she dared, it was shut down. she knows very little about him from the small discoveries over the years.

falling pregnant at 26 , alone and scared , maria did the one thing that she knew : pushed darla into acting. if she couldn’t have a blossoming career , the reason for her failures would carry on her dreams whether they liked it or not.

her father was never informed of her existence , though i’m sure by now he has something of an idea.

since she was small, her mother wanted to have more for her daughter. by the time she was 6 months old, darla already had been in commercials + television roles. because she was such an easy baby, it wasn’t hard to work with her.

in my mind she got her start a - la mary kate + ashley , as the youngest sibling of a sitcom. was mostly there to look cute, but as she got older, it became something she had actual part in. in ended when she was only 6, but by then, maria was used to the checks continuing to come in - so the search was on for the next best thing. the search never stopped , actually. it became her life goal to make darla a fucking star.

mom was definitely stage mom. never knew when to ask her daughter what she wanted, and darla never learned to speak up for herself. this is a trait that’s stuck with her ever since , the meek girl never speaking up when she’s uncomfortable , too afraid to loose everything she has and to be at the end of her mother’s wrath once more. everything was about maria , never about darla. her own feelings were set aside and taken over by what she thought her mom wanted. mother knows best.

her career grew over time. she never had major success , such as a lead role , but she definitely has had notable roles in different movies and television shows. never achieved mary kate & ashley duo-star, although that’s what her mother wanted.

think of her as a girl no one really knows , but she’s everywhere : very much mckenna grace or young bailee madison. if they needed a young girl to cry her eyes out , darla was there first thing.

NEGLECT TW / by the time darla was 10, her mom was going out and using darla’s money to party - to experience the ‘teenage’ years in hollywood she never got but always wanted. darla would have to be at a set early in the morning and her mother would just barely be coming out of clubs and bars, leaving young darla to fend for herself. oftentimes , she’d find a ‘sit in’ babysitter so she didn’t have to spend hours on set with her daughter , instead fully exploring the dark side of what hollywood had to offer.

she had a long running show from ages 10 to 18 --- some hbo show that she doesn't know if she can bare to think about anymore. her coworkers on that show became her pseudo family and essentially watched her grow up -- think shameless and it's young cast. they taught her how to drive, embarrassing first kiss stories, the whole nine yards.

after the show ended, she fired her own mother as her manager and tried to cut ties with her as best she could. it was for the best, though the outcomes of it all were not what she was expecting.

DEATH TW , OVERDOSE TW / old habits die hard and with her mother using her money , still keeping hold of her bank account and dumping as much from into her own , maria accidentally overdosed inside of their shared apartment from the drugs she’d bought while her daughter was on set. darla's new manager had found her, and relayed the news to darla.

that was it. 19 and packed all her things up --- looking for a place to get out of dodge.

all roads led to nightrest, after investigation into finding her father ... or any other kind of family. little did darla know her own mother was from the area, though not nightrest itself. she arrived 4 years ago and has stayed ever since. living off her residual checks from her childhood works and trying to solve her family mystery.

.......

can be snarky as hell, a little bit of an airhead, but she means well. witty, sarcastic, all the nine yards.

decided to be more social than she had been in a while and got a job at poppies about two years ago. she's not the best and frankly lacks quite a lot of social awareness that should've been taught to her growing up, but she tries!!

honestly just trying to have a fun time now. parties more than she should, is a bit immature but usually means well

the murders freak her out yet she doesn't leave despite having the abilities to. she thinks it'll be like she's abandoning those she's become close to in the town.

she yet to process her mother's grief relatively healthy. she's all about ignoring it instead, and will skirt any question about family / siblings / etc because she .. essentially has none, at least biologically.

love love love pink. is so excited for the barbie movie she's going to explode. calls her house the dream house because it's decorated like a girls dormroom.

trained in dance from ages 3 to 13, and sometimes competed competitively. her mom was unfortunately booted from a competition and thus they were not allowed back, meaning darla would no longer be training because her mom got mad.

drives a cute little subaru. do not ask her anything else because she nor i have any idea

loves pop culture. loves the 2000s.

yes she WILL buy ur love! cash, food, clothes! pls love her.

is an angel all around

wanted connections ....

older sibling / parental figure ( 25+ ) ; these people have darla’s best interest at heart. they could know about her mother and not agree with her pressure , instead taking the girl under their wing one way or another.

bad influence ( 25+ ) ; these people want to see darla burn , essentially. not in a way that means like. bad, but they want to rile her up - see what she does , get her into trouble even unintentionally.

ex ( 23 - 26 ) ; they broke up for whatever reason, but can still be on good / bad terms , most likely more than a year ago.

ex friends ; these people are no longer friends with darla for whatever reason. could be on good or bad terms.

flirtationships ( 23 - 26 ) ; she sucks at flirting n being subtle but it could be so cute.

friends ; they’re friends. that’s it.

family friend ; their parents knew darla’s mom. could be friendly or not really care about each other.

people from los angeles ; they may know her ? or of her?

people who can help her process everything w her mother

people who can help her find her father....?

#nightrest:intro #hi:3 #neglect tw #death tw #drugs tw #overdose tw

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uomo-accattivante · 3 years

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Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:

There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.

The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.

On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.

“It was just a lot,” he said.

Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.

Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)

“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)

The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.

“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.

“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.

The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)

So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.

But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.

Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.

So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.

Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.

Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.

In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)

In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.

It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”

Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.

That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”

Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.

“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”

Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.

“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”

The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.

Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”

But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.

“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.

She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”

“It felt so dangerous,” she said.

I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.

Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”

The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.

“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”

By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.

Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.

“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”

###

#oscar isaac #jessica chastain #scenes from a marriage #hagai levi #michelle williams #elvira lind #behind the scenes #article

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bonvoyagenoona · 2 years

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About Me 14 | When Fanfic Dating Comes to Life (or, I Met AMOMK Yoongi... for Real)

(TW: some discussion of a death in my family)

Where the hell have I been??

I don’t know! I don’t know where I am! But... I kinda like it here.

I actually really like it here.

It’s light, and happy, and rewarding, and fulfilling. And still very full of BTS.

For one thing, I put up all my BTS posters that I was saving for when I finally have my own home office. But I figured... why wait?

(you can buy these at ichoism.com! and it’s where my pfp comes from!)

I feel like that unlocked a lot of things for me.

Why wait?

And I think, to take a bit of a somber turn, that’s what hit me the most after my grandmother passed away about a month ago.

I’ve written about this in my fics quite a bit, and I think a lot of Millennials (certainly all of my Millennial friends) have been continuously grappling with unlearning of the toxic parts of the hustle, achiever mentality that defines us. The constant comparisons. The feeling like we’re not “doing enough”. The brass ring that we keep reaching for. The disheartening realization that there was never a brass ring to begin with.

I kept delaying any sort of non-career gratification until I reached some arbitrary level of success. I kept telling myself that I’d get to family, and friends, and dating once I established my 401k. Eventually, it got to the point where I told myself I didn’t want any family, friends, or partners at all. And some of that is still true. I still don’t want kids or marriage. But I do want more life experience. More time with loved ones. More moments to breathe.

My grandmother was the one person in my very “success”-oriented, driven family who sort of disapproved of me going to grad school. She would, in her way, tell me that there were other things in life. To make room for them. To enjoy them.

One of the last things she told me was that she hoped that she’d live long enough to see me get married. Very Bongseon of her lol. Even with all of the confidence that I have in my life and independence, part of me feels like I failed her in some way by not getting married before she died. Part of me also feels like I’m failing my parents by choosing not to give them grandchildren.

And part of me is questioning all of that after having met AMOMK Yoongi in real life.

Let me stress that this is all brand new. Like, one week new. I am not in love. I am not in a relationship. But I am dating again. I’m exploring what it is to share time and space with possibilities.

This exploration is not the only thing that’s taken some time away from this blog. I recently got a promotion at work, and I am now the youngest person on the senior management team. And my team of direct reports has grown by four people in the past month alone, with more growth coming in the rest of the year. Along with that has come more responsibility and latitude, which has allowed me to start making moves that I’ve been dreaming of making since I first started this job five years ago.

But, as with all things, it balances out. It comes with costs. I’ve been having more meetings. Lots more show-and-tell at work. I’ve definitely been writing, but I haven’t been posting. And I’ve missed you.

Have I said that yet? I’ve missed you.

Yes, You.

You, with your beautiful brain and gorgeous smile and melodious laugh. I’ve missed reading your stories, seeing your art, reblogging your posts, and joining you in the comments. I’ve missed the inside jokes. I’ve missed the memes. I can’t imagine what brilliant things await me when things settle back down a bit.

And I keep thinking of what I was processing when BTS announced their hiatus. Specifically, what Yoongi and Namjoon said about regarding living more life in order to have something to say. And though I already had a lot to say, and was smack-dab in the middle of saying it, a dear friend told me last night, “If you spend a lot of time reading and writing about sex, it might be nice to have more opportunities to actually have it irl?”

It’s funny how this fanfiction thing has opened up my world. In addition to falling even deeper for our boys, I’ve gotten to meet You. All these wonderful people in our community. I’ve jumped into cars and onto planes to see you. To share ideas with you. To laugh with you. To learn and change with you. To be inspired by you. Hopefully you’ve had some fun, too.

But now, I’m changing in a different way. I’ve always written a lot, but I don’t say much. I’ve been told that I can be a lot (read: Kittenfishing, Hideaway, pretty much any one of my Y/Ns lol). But now, I’m talking more. Sharing more of myself.

Not through Y/N. But as me.

I’m pleasantly surprised that people actually want to hear what I have to say... not just on the page, but nestled in the soft walla of forks scraping against plates and wine being poured and regulars seething about where the hell all these new people came from.

And I’m breaking out of that achiever cycle. That delayed gratification loop. There is an addictive thrill to staying up until 4 AM because I was on a writer’s high -- and PLEASE believe I will absolutely still do that lol. But I’m balancing that out with not waiting until I finish my next chapter before checking in with my friends or hanging with my family.

So a week after my grandmother passed away, two things happened.

I got a promotion.

And I got on Hinge.

We all know the steps. I’m admittedly a master at the first part. The resume-building part. Achiever Me has it down to a science. Literally. If you’ve read my fic Matchmaker, then you know, lol.

I know my style. And I know the typical rules. I posted the necessary pics. Selfie, so you see my face. Wide shot, so you see my body. One cute. One flirty. Casual. Formal. With my family and friends, so you know my values. With emoji, so I protect their privacy. Blah blah blah.

I know the type of people who will gravitate toward me. Years of 20% wanted and 80% of unwanted advances have taught me a lot.

But I had fun with it, too.

Dearest Roomie / @mochilatae gave me 3 sets of numbers, and those determined what prompts I’d answer. When I got the prompt to do my best celebrity impression, I did one of Popeye.

Apart from all the fuckbois who liked my pics, only 3 responded to my impression in the first few days.

The Dad.

The Grad Student.

And The Teacher.

The Dad

The Dad was the first to reach out. In our BTS shorthand, he’s bboy Yoongi. Sneakers. Backwards fitted. Maybe a bit of Jungkook, what with his tattoos and a camera in hand. I shouldn’t have engaged, seeing that he has a kid. But he responded to my Popeye clip with, “ 🤔 Hmm, needs work. Jk.”

I’m an Asian, Millennial woman. I’m used to negging. And I love enemies to lovers tropes. So maybe I kinda like it, if done a certain way. The Dad is actually a sweet guy. So I Matched.

We’ve talked about a lot since then. Life’s funny turns. How tired we’re starting to feel at the end of the day. The best places to get Chinese food.

Had it not been for this conversation, I would’ve deleted the app altogether.

The Grad Student

The Grad Student was the next to reach out. He isn’t actually a grad student, but he’s a carbon copy of an old labmate. Same cloth, mere threads apart. It’s very, very odd. Even his voice is the same as my labmate’s. I could hear it when he responded to my Popeye clip with, “My God that was perfect! Can you do Olive Oil as well? 😊”

He asked me out first, and he very interestingly suggested one of my usual hangouts from -- you guessed it -- when I was in grad school. It all seemed comfortable, and familiar. But almost too familiar. I told friends that it felt like I’d done all this before. I’m fluent in his language. I could tell his interests just by looking at him. I was feeling very Celeste in Celeste + Jesse Forever. But I also felt the cultural gulf that I sometimes feel in this situation -- most concerning, the fear of being fetishized as an Asian, Millenninal woman.

There’s an episode of the podcast Reply All called The Fever, which shares some stories about a creepy white dude who essentially socially collected Asian women. (Incidentally, this podcast episode was shown to me a few years ago by a white dude, but he did not collect me or any other Asian women.) Tbh, after listening to this episode, I kinda shut down the idea of dating at all.

Needless to say, being presented with The Grad Student made me a little nervous.

We got drinks last Thursday, and... it turned out to be a good time. He’s so... nice? But not braggadociously so. He’s not suave, like the dude from The Fever, or West Elm Caleb. He bumbles, which is funny, given that we’re on Hinge. The night started with him sincerely apologizing for getting a beer before I had arrived, and it ended with him texting me a sincere apology for not walking me to my car in the middle of the night in the middle of the city. Not that those things ultimately mattered to me though. I guess it’s a good sign that he thought of those things at all.

I’m not letting my guard down, but it’s starting to counter that fear of being fetishized. His genuineness has a charm. And we connected on a lot, most importantly the desire to lead a nontraditional kind of life. He doesn’t want kids either. He values his independence. And he’s tired of the expectations (and then mocking of those expectations) that have been foisted upon our generation. I left feeling confused... but optimistic that maybe I wasn’t too late to the scene... that I had something to offer... and that maybe I wouldn’t get fake-collected and real-murdered while out here trying to connect with people.

That maybe people had something to offer me back.

He asked me out again for dinner on Wednesday.

That was last night.

The Teacher

After things went well with the Grad Student, I wondered if I should set something up with the other two guys who had reached out. I was already hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend Saturday night and Sunday morning, so I decided I’d jam-pack the rest of that weekend with social activity. Like my 4am writer’s highs, I figured I’d just get it all done in one go. Ride the bit of extroverted energy that was propelling me forward.

Why wait?

I asked The Dad, with whom I had been talking the longest, if he wanted to get coffee on Saturday afternoon. He said yes, and we picked a place.

I then asked The Teacher if he wanted to hang on Sunday. we had been talking a lot, ever since he said of my Popeye impression, “Pretty good lol”. He also said yes, and we picked a place.

On Saturday, I posted up at one of my favorite coffee shops and wrote for a little bit.

20 mins before we were set to meet, I got a message from The Dad. He wasn’t going to be able to make it. Family stuff. Understandable.

When I got home from hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend, I checked in with The Teacher. He said he was definitely down to hang.

The Teacher scares me a little bit.

He’s 100% AMOMK Yoongi. Not just in personality, look, or style (and, trust me, eerily so, especially to Soundcheck Yoongi). But because of the connection that we seem to have regarding the core details from my life that I’ve injected into AMOMK.

See, the Teacher really is a teacher. Specifically, he’s a middle school teacher. And he teaches at the middle school that I went to here in town. The middle school that is the basis for the school that AMOMK Namjoon and Yoongi teach at. Drive past it, and you’ll see the baseball diamond bleachers that AMOMK Jin gets ogled at in the beginning of Chapter 01, and the parking lot leading to the entrance to the band hall in the beginning of Chapter 03. You know what’s really scary? You might even see a red sedan. Like the one that AMOMK Yoongi and Namjoon share donuts on the hood of... and the one that The Teacher just happens to drive.

Have you seen the movie Ruby Sparks? (Another appearance of Chris Messina. Hmm. Interesting.) I certainly don’t advocate for the toxic aspects of control and will, but that awed feeling of seeming manifestation... I was starting to feel that awe when we were texting about these hometown details. And it was starting to solidify into a genuine feeling of bewilderment when we realized we also lived within 15 minutes of each other when we were younger, and that we went to the same high school at around same time.

The Teacher showed up.

He showed up early, actually.

We originally planned for 4, but he said that he’d gotten done with his errands and would now be free at 3:30.

We met for sushi, and I had one of the best conversations I’ve ever had in my entire life.

The content. Music, books, life, family, being Asian, being an immigrant, being first gen, being oldest siblings, being first gen oldest siblings, dating, movies, music, fashion, TV shows, comedy, writing, music, work, oh, and music. He said he listens to everything. I said I listen to everything. We both highly doubted that the other listened to everything. We both learned that we both listen to everything.

The little moments. Me accidentally dropping my phone, and then my chopsticks, and saying sorry or looking worried, and him just smiling and tilting his head and saying, “For what?” Or us talking about the disdain for how short songs are now to encourage streaming, Harry Styles’ use of a melody reminiscent of A-ha’s “Take on Me”, and the bright smile we’d flash each other as we stopped talking each one of the seven times the song played on the speakers during our-- 4-hour conversation?

When did 4 hours pass??

Did I want to go somewhere to get drinks?

Yes.

And the big moments. Us sitting down at another one of my old hangouts from grad school, which just happened to be 5 mins away, and us talking about our motivations. Passions. PDA.

The Teacher: I’m not really one for PDA.

Me: Me either. (remembering something) Ugggghh! OK, so my brother and his girlfriend do this thing when they’re hanging out where one of them will go, "Uh-oh! My love meter is empty!” And the other one will go, “Oh no!” And they’ll scurry over to them and hug them and kinda squeeze and jostle them while going, “boop-boOP-BOOP-BOOP-BOOP!” And then they’ll go, “All full!” and smile at each other.

The Teacher: Gross.

Me: I know! Remember how you said you wanted to emulate the relationship your parents have? I’m the same way, and I think I’ve only seen my parents kiss a handful of times. I think the most recent of them was in the Philippines during New Year’s Eve 1999.

The Teacher: Hey. Y2K. They had to. They could’ve died.

Me: (laughs) What specifically about PDA makes it uncomfortable for you, do you think? Is it like what you said about how you hate when people play their music super loud when they go to the gas station or are just out and about in public?

(The Teacher is also a grumbling grandpa, btw.)

The Teacher: Yeah, and it’s like... too showy. I like the sense that it’s saved for behind closed doors. It’s just for the other person.

Me: True. And... like... if you’re doing it all the time, it doesn’t seem as special. Not to be a huge cornball, but it loses some of its... I don’t know, it loses some of its---

Together: Magic.

I swear to you. I know I write romcom fanfiction. But this happened.

Which is why The Teacher scares me.

When it was time to go, not as an afterthought, before we even got up from our seats, he said, “It’s late. I’ll walk you to your car.”

He was wearing black, pointy boots. I could see them in my periphery because I was kinda looking down as we walked. He walked to my left, and just behind me. Kind of letting me lead. But still next to me. Like a cat.

We lingered in the hug. I thought he might be interested in a kiss. I got shy. He respected it.

Me: This was really fun. Thanks for hanging out.

The Teacher: Yeah. It was a blast.

Me: Would you want to... maybe... hang out... again?

The Teacher: Absolutely not.

(When I tell you that I cannot stop thinking about this and laughing... ugh.)

The Teacher: No, seriously though. We could hang out this weekend... or we could do mid-week, even. How about...

Me: (internally) Don’t say Wednesday. Don’t say Wednesday. Don’t say---

The Teacher: ...Thursday?

(Why wait?)

Me: Yes. Thursday.

We have texted nearly nonstop everyday since.

And I’m going out with him again in about 5 hours.

Because it is Thursday.

And that’s when the AMOMK boys go on their dates.

#about me #how i write #writing #personal #y'all i am spiraling #amomk #a map of mrs. kims #i think i'm going to hurl #a map of mrs. mins #I GUESS #cheryl feels unhinged

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thornedrose44 · 3 years

Note

Supercorp prompt-

Lena takes an art class to de-stress and Kara is the nude model. Awkward semi- naked flirting ensues.

(A/N: So, I put my own twist on this (hope that’s okay), I made Lena a teacher just because I liked the idea of Lena having to keep her lack of chill under control and be professional in front of a class funny - though this fic went down just a really light, fluffy route which I hadn’t expected when I started it.)

Read on AO3

It had been going well, the first term had passed with only a few missteps and one trip to the emergency room - though, the Dean had told her that Zach had yet to make it through a single class without some sort of accident and had been preemptively banned from taking Chemistry classes for fear of taking out an entire graduation class.

Lena had never expected to return to her alma mater as a lecturer but the stars had aligned at just the right time. The youngest Luthor had reached a stage in her career where she had finally proven her adoptive mother wrong about not finding success as an artist and had made enough money that she need never paint another picture in her life again. The lack of necessity and the return to a more Luthor-esque lifestyle - galas, fancy balls and paid talks - had subsequently impacted her inspiration. She needed a change. A return to her roots and some sort of stability without losing her ability to make a personal impact with her work.

Her mentor - J’onn - was stepping down from the art department and had recommended her as his replacement; National City University had jumped at the chance of the world renowned Lena Luthor taking up a teaching position there.

She was now a third of the way through the school year, settled comfortably into her new role, and absolutely loving it. Her spark was back, and she was enjoying being in one place surrounded by her old friends. She was reconnecting with skills and techniques she hadn’t touched in years whilst simultaneously giving advice and encouragement to students that reminded her of herself when Lillian had cut her off to force her into attending business school and abandoning her dreams. She was finally able to return the kindness J’onn had given her all those years ago to the next generation of artists.

It was the second term that Lena experienced her first set of real nerves.

Lena had an artistic weak spot, an achilles heel that she had been able to keep out of her signature artistic style but she would now be forced to confront.

Life drawing.

It had been her lowest scoring class by a mile and she had avoided the advanced elective classes like the plague. Lena knew practice made perfect but she’d never had enough interest to develop her skills. Her interest had always lied more in natural landscape beauty - J’onn had said her true inspiration lied with trying to recreate her childhood memories of Ireland: emerald rolling hills, rocky cliffs, dense forests ensconced by a mystical fog that lended her artwork a fantastical element that she was now known for.

The problem lied in Lena’s lack of interest in people.

She had never really seen the ‘art’ in them.

Kelly, Sam and Andrea had spent hours over evening drinks psycho-analysing just why that might be, their two favourite theories were Lena’s family (the loss of her mother and the general unpleasantness of the Luthors) or Lena’s truly terrible dating history (their favourite topic of conversation due to the sheer number of embarrassing stories it elicited).

Lena refused to acknowledge the accuracy of both theories.

It was therefore with a sense of dread that Lena prepared for the first Life Model Drawing class that Tuesday afternoon. The one small silver lining was that she didn’t need to arrange a model - she had vague memories of J’onn trying to entice volunteers and grumbling under his breath about some of the less than pleasant eager volunteers. J’onn had a list of regular volunteers that he had accrued over the years that were reliable and just liked to help out - most of them older with an appreciation for the arts and more time on their hands than they knew what to do with. The University admin team had organised everything and simply told her to expect a Kara Danvers at the studio some time before the class.

Lena had finished prepping the studio well in advance, reviewed the relevant techniques for most of the morning and even phoned J’onn for a much needed pep talk over lunch. She had just convinced herself that everything might be okay, that she just might be able to do this, when the most beautiful woman Lena had ever laid eyes on burst into the studio.

A toned body that glinted with a light sheen of sweat barely covered by a white v-neck tucked in at the front of a pair of dark jeans that merely brought all of Lena’s attention to the bronze belt buckle that locked away a thousand dirty thoughts. Glorious golden ringlet curls bounced up and down as the woman stumbled to a sudden stop as the most piercing blue eyes imaginable behind thick glasses locked with Lena’s green ones.

“Hi, I’m Kara!” The goddess announced, swallowing thickly and stumbling forward in her hefty black boots as she extended out a hand for Lena to take.

Lena only reached out due to years of Luthor training that had ingrained politeness into her muscle memory - her brain still not firing on all cylinders at the sight of the woman in front of her. Kara’s warm palm connected with Lena’s, long fingers curling gently yet firmly around the edge of her hand and sending arcs of lightning through Lena’s body and causing her breath to stutter.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting for me for too long.” Kara continued, a bright apologetic smile lighting up her entire face and grinding whatever gears were still turning Lena’s mind to a dead - permanent - halt. “I try to always get here early to help set-up but the interview I was conducting overran - I’m a journalist, by the way - and then my bike - motorbike that is -” Lena’s mind caught on the motorbike and turned it round over and over and over again, “didn’t start and… I’m rambling. Oh, golly! I mean heck, I mean sorry.” Kara huffed, cheeks filling with air before releasing into an adorable pout. “Sorry.”

It was then that Lena realised two things.

One, it was her turn to say something and there had now been at least ten prolonged seconds of silence as they stared into each other’s eyes.

And two, they were still holding hands because that’s what it was now, it most definitely could not be considered a handshake.

“Umm… hi…” Lena choked out whilst simultaneously jerking her hand back to her side, hoping the somewhat stifling heat of the studio would hide the red blush perfusing her cheeks. “Lena. I’m Lena, that is…”

“Hi.” Kara murmured, smiling soft and sweet at her causing Lena’s heart to flip and melt and dance and do a million impossible things all at once.

“Hi.” Lena repeated dumbly - so dumbly.

“I should…” Kara chuckled, hands miming grabbing the edge of her t-shirt and lifting it up, “You know?”

Oh, god the goddess is going to undress, Lena’s brain screamed in gay at herself.

“Yeah, definitely do that.” Lena encouraged with a flap of her hand towards the centre of the studio where a solitary illuminated stool awaited. “Do you need anything? Is the lighting okay? Stool… umm… sturdy?”

Kara grinned at her, blue eyes barely sparing a glance at the studio’s set-up, “Looks perfect.”

“Great.” Lena cheered, jerking her thumb over at her desk in the corner where she had prepped her teaching materials, “I’ll… uh… be over there.”

“And I’ll be right here.” Kara shot back with a cheeky wink as she walked over to the stool, a towel awaiting her to provide suitable covering until the class had settled, shucking her white shirt over her head and revealing back muscles that would star in Lena’s fantasies for the foreseeable future.

“Yep.” Lena popped, taking a deep breath and trying to work out if she should be murmuring a thank you to God or screaming a desperate why me.

***

The class had gone well - except for the long periods where her brain shutdown whenever she studied the play of shadows across Kara’s defined musculature. She managed to cover it quite well by making it seem like she was just assessing her students’ work closely, analysing their line work and shading rather than going through an extended gay crisis that eclipsed seeing boobs for the first time in college.

Kara, on the other hand, was a consummate professional, holding a steady pose throughout and utterly unfazed by the concentrated gazes on her - though, Lena could have sworn that she caught deep blue eyes tracking her movements round the half-circle every now and again.

“So, you’re experienced doing this?” Lena asked, once the last student had departed and Kara was finishing re-tying her sturdy boots back up.

“Taking my clothes off?” Kara chuckled, shooting the teacher an amused smirk, getting to her feet and strolling easily over to where Lena was examining the product of her class’ efforts.

Lena faltered, “I meant-”

“I’m just teasing.” Kara reassured, reaching out to squeeze Lena’s forearm in a half-apology that Lena could have sworn burnt Kara’s hand print into her skin, “I’ve done this for a while now. I did an interview with J’onn a few years ago and his model bailed at the last minute and I was here already and…” Kara shrugged casually like stepping in was the obvious thing to do, like kindness was the only option - which Lena didn’t doubt for a second was something Kara genuinely believed. “I like helping out where I can. And I just kept coming back…” Kara explained, clasping her hands behind her back as she took a tentative step closer to Lena, “I was never really sure why until-”

“Hey, babe, you ready to go?”

Lena’s head snapped round to see Andrea strolling through the doorway, eyes fixed on her phone utterly oblivious to the moment she had just trampled all over. Lena wasn’t sure whether Andrea was naturally such a good cockblock or if she practiced at it - regardless of either option Lena’s sexlife had vanished into thin air since she’d returned to living in the same city as Andrea. (Not that Lena thought that her and Kara were heading that way but Lena had been enjoying the hope of it at least).

“Andrea, you’re early for the first time in.... well, ever…” Lena snarked, rolling her eyes before glancing over to Kara, only to find the blonde had taken a large step away from her and her expression was far more neutral and guarded than it had been only moments before.

“Wait, we weren’t meeting at 4?” Andrea frowned, still not bothering to look up.

“Ah, so you’re not early, you’re over an hour late.” Lena remarked.

“God, you’re such a drama queen…” Andrea sighed, finally lifting her gaze from her phone, her eyes immediately alighting on Kara with undisguised interest. “And who is this?”

“Andrea, this is Kara the model for our life drawing classes.” Lena introduced taking a protective step in front of the blonde, an action that did not go unnoticed by the other two occupants in the room. “Kara, this is my supposed best friend who is regularly trying to lose that title.”

“Oh, best friend?” Kara repeated; the familiar brightness from before returning to her expression as she looked excitedly between the two friends.

“Yes.” Lena answered, smiling shyly at Kara and immediately forgetting Andrea’s existence, let alone presence in the room.

“That’s great.” Kara grinned, blushing a light pink a second later as her hands fidgeted with her keys, “I mean… ummm…. That you have a best friend. My sister is my best friend, though I have other friends. I just mean that… friends are cool.”

Lena laughed lightly at Kara’s ramble, leaning closer towards the blonde without realising until Andrea appeared at her shoulder looking far too pleased with herself.

“Kara,” Andrea greeted, holding out a hand for the blonde to shake (Lena was comforted to see their handshake was quick, almost professional in comparison to the lingering touch Kara and Lena had shared earlier). “The pleasure is all mine.” Andrea declared, winking surreptitiously at the teacher - Lena instantly dreaded the upcoming girl’s night.

“Nice to meet you.” Kara replied friendly and sincere, before smiling softly at Lena and muttering a hopeful, “I’ll see you next week?”

“I’ll be here.” Lena reassured, watching as Kara nodded farewell to Andrea and departed, waving on her way out.

“Well…” Andrea murmured mischievously.

“Don’t.” Lena said sharply, holding up a finger to deter whatever torment Andrea had brewing. “Not a word. Not a single word.”

“Ooookay.” Andrea lied.

***

“You okay?” Lena asked tentatively, watching as Kara sluggishly slung her bag over her shoulder the pep to her step nowhere near as present as it had been last week.

They hadn’t had a chance to talk before the class even though Kara arrived much earlier to help set-up - Lena had been helping a student struggling with deadlines and a sudden crisis of confidence which prevented them from interacting. Despite being occupied, Lena had seen the fatigue weighing heavily on the reporter, saw how her impeccable posture dropped and how her students added weary lines to her expression in their artwork.

“I think you fell asleep on that stool for ten minutes at some point.” Lena murmured, brow creasing in concern.

“Pfft… what?” Kara reassured with a light-hearted wave of her hand. “Impossible.”

Lena arched an unimpressed eyebrow, “You snore. Quite loudly.”

“Oh…” Kara pouted guiltily, rubbing at the back of her neck, “My sister is going through a rough patch and I stayed up late with her last night.”

Lena’s amusement drained away to be replaced with soft, supportive care, “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s doing better.” Kara replied, blue eyes twinkling at Lena’s inquiry that had them both ducking their heads coyly and sharing furtive glances. “I should get going.” Kara coughed out, though she made no move to leave.

“Or…” Lena began hesitantly, heart fluttering in her chest, “we could go for coffee? You should probably have a coffee before driving,” Lena rationalised, nervously stepping back from the blatant romantic line she was toeing, “you know for safety…”

“For safety.” Kara repeated carefully, blue eyes glowing with warmth, “That sounds wonderful.”

***

It didn’t take them long at all to settle into a comfortable routine.

Kara came early to the life model classes, helping set-up the room as they talked about the students' progress and what Lena was going to make the focus of the class. During the class itself, Lena no longer needed to flit as regularly between her students, they had learned the basic techniques enough to practise for themselves, now only requiring light guidance which allowed Lena time to either do some marking or her own art. Kara posed perfectly throughout, though Lena was becoming more and more aware of Kara’s still gaze on her as the weeks passed by.

After class, it was now custom for them to grab a coffee and go for a long walk around the university campus as they talked about everything and nothing. They would have been building towards a strong friendship if it wasn’t for the lingering touches, blatant flirts, blushes and wandering gazes.

Lena wasn’t overly sure why they hadn’t crossed that line, made that final move, but she found she didn’t particularly mind the wait. She was convinced that they had both decided that the journey was making the destination all the more desirable.

It became abundantly apparent, though, that Kara thought differently if their conversation after the class midway through the term was anything to go by.

“So do you not like my body?” Kara asked, quick and fearful, eyes looking down at the sketch Lena had done during class of a vase of flowers in the corner rather than of the readily available model.

“What?” Lena muttered in disbelief looking up sharply from her desk to see Kara paling considerably having clearly not intended to ask the question that she had blurted out.

“I… uh…” Kara squeaked, mouth opening and closing rapidly, before lifting her bare wrist up with a jerky motion and whistling in exaggerated surprise, “Wow, look at the time. I’m late for… uh… this thing. Work thing. Interview! That’s a work thing.”

And just like that she was gone - Lena wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a Kara shaped hole in the studio wall with how fast she disappeared - leaving Lena with a sinking, twisty feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her she might have lost more than her regular coffee with Kara over that one interaction.

***

Lena had Kara’s phone number and they had taken to texting throughout the day; however, since Kara’s panicked question - which probably revealed some deep vulnerability in the blonde - there had been complete and total radio silence. No memes, no cute animal pics, no sweet check ins… Lena’s phone remained silent when it once vibrated with life.

Lena wanted to text or call Kara the second she had left the studio but Lena didn’t feel like this was a conversation they could have over text, so she waited impatiently for them to be face to face again, counting down the days until the next class.

Lena even took to repeatedly checking in with the admin office to confirm that Kara hadn’t pulled out of modelling; reaching the stage where Jess, the most senior admin in the team, had taken to emailing her every couple of hours to reassure her that Kara still hadn’t cancelled.

When Kara appeared, nervously stepping into the art room, fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, it was like Lena could finally breathe easy again. The fear and loss eeking away in an instant, giving Lena the necessary courage to stride forward and bare herself in a way that Kara had been doing every week without Lena fully realising.

“I don’t like drawing people.” Lena announced, shoving her hands into her pockets to resist the temptation to reach out to the other woman as the blonde blinked at her in surprise, listening intently. “It’s kind of a thing with me.” Lena winced, pushing down all the reasons for why that is. “When I draw something I… kind of let whatever it is into me, let it consume me and it… stays with me for a long time after that. It’s why I draw what I draw. I draw my home because it's a part of me already. Drawing someone means carrying them with me and… that’s scary for me.” Lena breathed, glancing at the blonde to see soft understanding in blue eyes. “I just wanted you to know it’s not you.”

Kara nodded, shuffling closer and dipping her head so that she could whisper into the still space between them, “Thank you.”

“Right,” Lena murmured, swallowing thickly before jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “I should-”

“Do you want to get dinner?” Kara inquired earnestly causing Lena to freeze in hopeful surprise. “After class, that is?”

“Um… Yes.” Lena replied, nodding her head eagerly.

“Awesome.” Kara grinned brightly.

***

Kara took her to a tucked away italian restaurant that was one of National City’s hidden gems. The food was outstanding and the company was even better.

It wasn’t a date, but it wasn’t just friends going out for dinner either.

Lena would call it a test-run but that would imply that Lena wasn't already one hundred percent certain that she wanted an actual date with Kara. It was more of a date-appetiser if Lena was going to call it anything, a taste to build interest before the real thing.

Once they had finished their food, Kara didn’t hesitate to interlace their fingers as they went for an evening stroll around a nearby park, both wishing to prolong their time together.

“Can I see your art?” Kara requested; they had been sitting on a bench in front of a lit-up fountain for the last twenty minutes or so in comfortable silence. Lena had expressed an interest in sketching the fountain and Kara hadn’t hesitated to find them a seat and encourage Lena’s desire without complaint, occupying herself with people-watching in the meantime.

“I’m pretty sure the images are all over the internet.” Lena replied drolly.

“Yeah, I know it’s just…” Lena’s pencil froze in it’s movements finally noticing how hard Kara was trying to act casual, “what you said about it being a part of you, I thought-”

“You want me to show it to you…” Lena inferred, setting her pencil down and closing her handy sketchbook in an instant.

“It’s stupid, I’ll-” Kara laughed awkwardly, shaking her head in an attempt to brush over the request like it wasn’t a big deal

“I don’t have many pieces here in National City,” Lena said thoughtfully, getting to her feet and holding out a hand for Kara, “but I have some works in progress that I can show you… if you want that is?”

“I would love that.” Kara beamed, jumping to her feet as Lena tugged her back towards her campus studio, already picking out her favourite pieces in her mind that she wanted to share with the blonde.

***

Lena and Kara’s ‘friendship’ continued to blossom into something neither could have anticipated that day Kara sprinted into the studio all those weeks ago. The weekly class they shared was now always followed by dinner, taking it in turns to share their favourite cuisines and restaurants. They had also grown beyond only seeing each other on their allotted class day, sharing lunches and movie nights and spontaneous coffees as they learned each other's schedule and needs.

Lena read all of Kara’s articles and spent many an evening asking countless questions about the background to each of them. Likewise, Kara would appear for coffee with one of Lena’s artworks saved in her phone, burning with curiosity about what had inspired it.

Time spent with Kara flew by and, before Lena knew it, it was the final class prior to spring break. Her last class with Kara until the next school year and Lena was finally ready.

She had finally figured it out.

Why she had waited.

Why she had yet to seize the numerous opportunities to transition her relationship with Kara into a romantic one.

It was because she knew.

She knew from the second that she had taken Kara’s hand in hers when they first met that this was it. That Kara was it.

And that was, and still is, terrifying.

When they had first met, Lena hadn’t been ready for Kara. Hadn’t been ready for everything that Kara represented and would come to mean. She had needed the time, the time to lower her guard, to trust and hope.

And now, she was ready and she knew exactly how to let Kara know.

The class came to an end with Lena giving her students a quick speech on how proud of their progress she was and wishing them a good spring break. Kara lingered behind as was now custom, helping Lena tidy up the area before they headed out together.

“Kara?” Lena called out nervously, sweaty palms rubbing against her black denim covered thighs as her heart beat thunderously in her chest. “I was wondering…” Lena began, clearing her throat as Kara stopped what she was doing to give Lena her undivided attention. “Can I… can I draw you?”

Kara’s brow instantly furrowed in confusion, “I thought-”

“Yeah…” Lena laughed shyly, staring into deep blue eyes, practically begging for Kara to understand what she was really saying. “Can I?” Lena repeated.

Kara pursed her lips thoughtfully as she studied Lena’s expression - it was then Lena realised that Kara understood exactly why they had been waiting. Kara wasn’t replying because she wanted to check that Lena was sure, was giving Lena a chance to delay, was saying - without really saying it - that she could wait longer.

Lena didn’t take the escape Kara offered, instead she lifted her head higher and arched an eyebrow at the blonde.

A thousand-watt smile of excitement took up residence on Kara’s face as she nodded eagerly, “Of course.”

“Clothes on.” Lena clarified - she had promised herself that the first time she truly studied Kara’s body it would be in a setting where touching would not break any professional standards.

***

Lena had Kara sit opposite her in her private studio, their knees pressed tightly against one another providing a warm point of contact to keep them grounded. Lena’s gaze flickered from her sketchpad to Kara’s features; occasionally, she would reach out to adjust a lock of golden hair so it caught the light. Kara, meanwhile, had an ever constant soft smile that didn’t diminish for the entirety of the session even as she was forced to rein in her boundless curiosity to stop herself from sneaking a peek at Lena’s sketch until it was ready to be revealed.

Lena only drew Kara’s head because, though, she had spent countless hours in the presence of Kara’s naked body over the course of the last few weeks - when Lena thought of Kara (really thought about her in the way that made her heart skip), it wasn’t her abs or her biceps that Lena pictured (though she did think about them regularly when she was in her bed alone at night).

It was Kara’s eyes that Lena thought about most.

How they were so bright and hopeful whilst simultaneously melancholic and lost.

There were whole galaxies in those blue eyes and Lena knew that she could spend the rest of her life drawing them and never get bored, nor get them exactly right.

“What do you think?” Lena asked, slowly turning her sketchbook round for Kara to see.

It wasn’t finished. It was mere line work that would require further detailing but it was a good start and she hoped Kara could see its potential like she did with everything else in the world - like she did with Lena.

“It’s…” Kara began, licking her lips as she pulled the sketchbook closer to her chest like it was something treasured and infinitely rare. “It's incredible.” Kara breathed, the sincerity of her words undeniable due to how they were accompanied by a watery film to her blue eyes.

“I like your body.” Lena whispered, shattering the companionable silence they had drifted into as Kara admired Lena’s artistry.

“W-w-what?” Kara stammered, head jerking up at the out-of-the-blue declaration.

Lena reached out for the sketchbook, lifting it out of Kara’s hand and placing it on the nearby table so that she could take Kara’s hands in hers.

“You asked if I liked your body a while ago,” Lena reminded the blonde, “and I just thought you should know that I do. I really, really do. I mean really.” Lena emphasised, glancing appreciatively down at Kara’s body prompting the blonde to blush a pleased pink. “But it's more than just that. It’s become more than that. Talking after class, getting coffee, going for dinner… it's the best part of my week. You’re the best part of my week.”

“Lena-” Kara began, her mouth suddenly snapping shut as her jaw clenched and her chin lifted in determination. Blue eyes studied Lena for a long moment and all Lena could do was hold her breath and wait.

Lena made Kara wait weeks, she could therefore wait the stretched seconds that Kara needed in return without complaint

Kara got confidently to her feet, tugging Lena up with her, squeezing their hands once before releasing her so that she could reach up to tenderly cup Lena’s face. “I’m going to kiss you now.” Kara declared, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Thank fu-” Lena sighed gratefully, cut off from offering up her thanks by Kara’s perfect lips sliding over hers.

#supercorp #supercorp fic #supercorp prompt

511 notes · View notes

itsallyscorner · 4 years

Note

just like magic with marvel cast, the vibe is----- a perfect song for a lil b*tch with a good heart and a sarcastic mouth

just like magic is the song we ALL need for 2020😌 Start manifesting ya’ll🖤 Also thank you sm for the request I am so so sorry this took so freakin’ long😭 Love u, happy reading🖤🖤 Tried to add my own lil twist to your request:)

(A lil different from the request, but I tried to make the reader have a bit sas.)

💌.

just like magic

Growing up within the Marvel Cinematic Universe was probably one of things you were most grateful for. When you first started out you weren’t that social. You were new to the business, you didn’t know anybody and you were intimidated by every single actor you crossed paths with.

At first you didn’t feel like you fit in. You felt as if you were a burden to everyone else. You barely talked to anyone which made the others approach you out of force by the Russos. Everyone around you was talented while you were just some newcomer who had jack shit as experience. The first few years you were insecure of yourself mentally and physically. You weren’t as pretty or fit as the other women in the MCU nor did your skills live up to theirs. Which led to some unhealthy habits. Plus there were haters and movie critics who would say horrible things about you and your acting.

You had a rocky start unlike Tom Holland and even Lexi Rabe. Until one day when you realized that you had to change how you were thinking. It took you a while but all that negative thinking you were doing was only bringing you negative energy. So when you had a break from filming movies, your number one goal was to improve yourself.

Wake up in my bed, I just wanna have a good day (Mmm, ah)

Think it in my head, then it happens how it should, ayy

Twelve o'clock, I got a team meeting, then a meditation at like 1:30

Then I ride to the studio listening to some shit I wrote (Oh)

You woke up with smile on your face in a sense of calmness. The sun shined bright hues into your room as you got up from your bed. Today was the first day back on set. You guys were finally filming Civil War and you were honestly so excited. As you did your morning routine, you went over how the day would go in your head. You’re genuinely excited to see the entire cast. It has been almost half a year since you’ve seen everyone and you couldn’t wait to be back.

You took one last look at yourself in the mirror. Compared to the previous year, you looked and felt healthy. Your eyes shined and you looked well relaxed. You know like one of those face cleanser commercials? That’s how you felt. You felt like a breath of fresh air.

The ride to the studio took a good 30 minutes but it felt like seconds. You entered the set with a new sense of confidence and pride. The energy was practically radiating off you.

“(Y/n)?” You hear someone call from behind you. You turn around and see Scarlett looking at you.

“Hey!” You greet her as you approach her. You pulled her into a hug, startling her.

“Oh! Hello to you too, honey.” She laughed as she wrapped her arms around you. “How are you?”

“I’m doing great! Life’s been good.” You answer as a toothy grin graces itself on your face. Scarlett’s eyes are filled with shocked. From the previous times she’s talked to you she’s never seen you so loud or open. You were always shy and closed off from everyone on set.

Good karma, my aesthetic (Aesthetic)

Keep my conscience clear, that's why I'm so magnetic

Manifest it (Yeah), I finessed it (I finessed it)

Take my pen and write some love letters to Heaven

Eventually everyone on set caught on to your new attitude. Though they tried to be discreet about their reactions and shocked expressions, you could still see how they were caught off guard by your sudden change of nature.

Anthony watched as you conversed with Elizabeth and Scarlett on the couch in Robert’s “village” . You were probably the most smiliest person in the room beating Evans, who was eating his lunch.

“She’s like different. But in a good way. It’s like she’s bloomed.” Anthony thought out loud to the men beside him. Chris (E) and Sebastian look in your direction.

“Bloomed?” Chris snorted as he swallowed his food.

“Yeah, like she’s growing into a woman.” Anthony hummed proudly as he went back to his own lunch. Sebastian smiled at you, “I think she’s gained some confidence in herself and finally realized how good of a person she is.”

“If she’s finally realized that, I’m glad she did. She’s like a ball of sunshine, it’s adorable.” Chris smiled proudly at you as your hands move around animatedly while explaining some story to the two women in front of you.

“Y’all think it’s a boy?” Anthony wondered. Sebastian rolled his eyes at his friend. Before he can even respond Anthony is calling you over. You approach the men with a smile and take a seat beside Sebastian.

“What’s up?” You greet them. Chris nods at you as he chews on his sandwich. Sebastian greeting you with a quiet “hey”.

“So who’s the lucky man?” Anthony asks teasingly. Your brows knit together head tilting to the side.

“Man?”

“Yes man, or boy, whatever. Who’s got you feelin’ yourself, (y/n).” Anthony wiggles his brows as he shimmies closer to you. Sebastian, who’s in between you two, cringes at the man to his left.

You didn’t take any offense to the question, knowing that everyone was curious as to why you were so unlike yourself.

You chuckled before smirking at the older man, “Anthony, honey. I don’t need a man to be feelin’ myself. I did this on my own.”

Chris and Sebastian’s mouth drop at your answer. Chris laughed as he pointed out Anthony’s face. Sebastian slung an arm around your shoulder bringing you into a side hug as he laughed with Chris.

“To be fair” Chris began to say but started to laugh, “To be fair, you deserved that.” Anthony’s face went flushed as he nodded to himself. You suddenly felt bad that you put him on the spot.

“Alright, stop laughing at him.” You playfully glare at Chris and Seb. You poke Anthony’s arm, “To answer your question, I’ve just been working on myself. Thinking more positively, I even tried manifestation.”

“You know what, that’s good. You’re taking care of yourself mentally and physically. I’m proud of you for doing this for yourself, we all are.” Anthony tells you as he motions to the two other men.

You look at all three of them, all of them looking at you with pride, “Thanks guys.”

Just like magic (Baby), just like magic (Oh yeah)

Middle finger to my thumb and then I snap it

Just like magic (Yeah), I'm attractive (Oh yeah)

I get everything I want 'cause I attract it (Oh)

As the months passed, the more you evolved into another version of you. You walked with determination, carried yourself with such grace and you’ve gained confidence in your career. You didn’t let your insecurities get to you, instead you faced them and overcame them. You were tired of letting them control you.

Your change in attitude and perspective on life has definitely affected your life in many ways. Manifestation was one of the things that have helped you the most. Writing about your goals and putting that energy out to the world has helped you persevere in your job. You’ve only faced good karma; sending out positive energy and receiving it back from the universe.

So far you’ve been casted in two new projects and have a campaign lined up with Gucci. If you were told a year ago that you’d be working with big time directors and freakin’ Gucci, you wouldn’t have believe them. Life has been unreal ever since you decided to change your life around. But of course you had to thank your Marvel family, without them and their support you probably wouldn’t haven gotten to where you were today.

Looking at my phone, but I'm tryna disconnect it (Oh yeah)

Read a fuckin' book, I be tryna stay connected (Yeah)

Say it's tricky at the top, gotta keep a slim ego for a thick wallet

Losing friends left and right, but I just send 'em love and light (Oh)

As many people recognized your success many people still tried to pull you down. Some fans on social media have noticed your change in behavior and have even praised you for practicing self care. While others still tried to push you off the mountain of success you were currently on and drag you across the ground.

These were the reasons as to why you were barely on your phone anymore. You used to be invested in your phone but after realizing how much negativity it brought you, you’ve decided to slowly disconnect from it. Which led you to becoming more interested into books.

Chris (E) had even brought some of his favorite arts of literature for you to borrow. You were currently on your third book of his, Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. You were sitting outside your trailer in a fold up chair under the shade. Your peacefulness was interrupted by Tom (Holland) who had a worried expression on his face.

“Have you not seen it yet?” He asked you as soon as he was in front of you. Being the two most youngest actors on the current set, you guys were closer to each other than with the adults.

“Seen what, Tommy?” You put a finger in between the pages you were reading to save your spot. Tom pulls his phone out and began to type. He tapped on his screen and turned the screen to you.

“She’s been talking crap about you for days.” You read the article and saw that one of your “friends”, Sabrina has been speaking out about your success and how it’s changed you as a person.

“She’s going off about how the more money you get in your wallet, the more bratty and arrogant you become.” He grumbled as he turned his phone off.

“I could care less, honestly. I know I haven’t done anything to her and if I did I was unaware of it. Plus, she stopped talking to me after I said I couldn’t get her a part in a movie.” You shrugged as you placed a proper bookmark in the book.

“You’re not upset?”

“I mean it’s sad that she’s acting so two faced. But if that’s how she wants to roll, then be my guest. It’s her loss, not everyone has great taste.” You flicked a piece of hair away from your face with your hand.

“You’re not gonna release a statement against her?”

“No, probably just wish her well with her life and move on with my own.” You answered much to Tom’s dismay.

Redesign your brain, we gon' make some new habits

Just like magic (Just like magic), just like magic

Filming has officially ended a few months ago and now you guys were doing press tour for Civil War. Before you were the new and improved version of yourself, you dreaded press tours. Some interviewers were nice and respectful, but there were those who would ask inappropriate questions and were just rude in general. All you could remember during those past tours was wanting to leave those rooms as soon as possible.

The q&a panel at New York had a packed room. There were many journalist crowded in the room shoulder to shoulder. You were sat in between Elizabeth and Scarlett, two of the women who have been guiding you and teaching you about life as a woman in the business. They were also like your older sisters.

The panel had been going smoothly for the first half hour until a man with a snobby face and cocky demeanor approached the mic.

“Hello, I’m Keith and my question’s for (y/n).” He began. You nodded in his direction, motioning for him to continue.

“I think everyone’s noticed how you’ve changed and developed as a person. Obviously something’s changed in your life. So I want to know if you’ve had any intimate relationships with any of the men in the cast?” You were surprised at the man’s question. First it was bold of him to ask such a question and second it was just disrespectful to you and the others on the cast.

“I mean someone’s gotta be fucking you good to make you crawl out your shell.” The man finished shrugging nonchalantly. Robert was about to interject but your mouth was quicker than his. The men of the cast were disgusted at the man while they sat at the edge of their seats.

“Well last time I checked my contract, my job was to act, not sleep around with the men who are part of these movies.” You spoke into the mic. All the attention was on you while the room was at a standstill.

“It’s also very upsetting that you think a girl needs to be fucked in order to be confident in herself. I hate to break it to you but women are completely capable of turning their lives around without the help of men and that says a lot about you, sir. So if I were you, I’d take myself back to my seat and rethink my life because if one of us has to redesign our brains it’s you.” You finished as you placed your mic on your lap. The room was silent until the cast began to clap. This was your first time standing up for yourself, usually Robert or Scarlett would swoop in and save you but this time, you were saving yourself.

You shook your head as you blushed, shoving your head in your hands. You felt some pats on the backs and cheers from your dysfunctional family. You look up and see Scarlett and Elizabeth smiling at you proudly.

“Isn’t she amazing?” Robert asked the crowd as he hugged you. The crowd cheering you on.

Just like magic, your life felt like a dream come true, knowing that you were worth it and enough for the people around you and for yourself.

#marvel #mcu #avengers #chris evans #chris evans x reader #Sebastian Stan #sebastian stan x reader #anthony mackie x reader #Anthony Mackie #Scarlett Johansson #Scarlett Johansson x reader #marvel cast x teen!reader #marvel cast x reader #ally’s 700 celebration #ally’s requests

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stephspurs · 3 years

Text

A Family Affair | Euro 2020 Football Fanfiction

Life is beautiful and life is cruel. This is a window into the souls of the victorious and the vanquished. In a way, football did come home during the summer of 2021. Follow along Amelia’s journey, navigating the football world as a tactical analyst for the Italian football team, with a brother and father part of the three lions. Will Amelia leave Italy and come back to England? Will she leave the Serie A for the Prem? Will she set aside the bianconeri stripes for new colours, leaving behind friendship for love? Maybe she can have both...

Wow - the response i received in a little under 24 hours since i posted the first taste of part 1 has truly bowled me over! I wasn't expecting that reaction & tbh i would have been happy if 2 people wanted to read this story hahaha! So, i've been writing in the background & the first few parts have already been proofed and are ready to go. HOWEVER! I am open to your suggestions so please please let me know what you think and how you want to see Amelia's story play out. As far as i'm concerned, this fic is as much yours as it is mine! So please enjoy this first part, in its entirety, and let me know your thoughts! Love always,

Steph xx

UPDATE as of 31/07: I've made some additional editing changes due to some feedback about the confusion between ben white (her brother) and ben chilwell (not her brother LOL). Nothing has been added to the story, just the addition of either surname has been added where i think it could be more straightforward - for future readers!

Part 1 | prima parte

warnings; none - maybe a bit of angst? (what sibling rivalry doesn't have a bit of angst)

word count; 1978 words

writing tools; third person until dashed line, first person thereafter.

next update; Sunday 25/07 5pm AEST. Updates will be twice weekly at this stage. Probably Wednesday’s and Sundays from next week!!

link to fic masterlist here

The world of football, no matter how big it may seem, is as tight as a close-knit family. Whether its management staff, senior players, scouts, academy players, business developers, medical team, groundskeeper - everyone knows someone who knows someone else involved in the sport. For Amelia White, it was a family affair.

Having grown up with her father as a senior tactical analyst for many different clubs throughout his career, and an older brother currently playing for Brighton in the Premier League, there was no opportunity for her to escape the fanaticism of the sport. It was what her household lived and breathed, football. Most would think that, with her brother being as successful as he is now, her childhood was shadowed by her brother's success but that's not the case. She capitalised on her ability to think both logically and creatively, and absorbed all of the information her father could give her as if she was a sponge, to establish a name of her own in the sport and advance her career in the sport. At the age of 21 she upped and left the comforts of her home in West London, accepted a position at Juventus within their graduate program & worked her way up the ranks to be their youngest tactical analyst by the age of 24.

So far in her career, the support of her mother, father & brother were unmatched by any. They were all so proud of her for making her own name, proving herself and succeeding in one of the most competitive football leagues in the world. She was smart, tactful, both meticulous and ruthless in her approach to her career and the success of her players. Because after all, they were her players. She worked day in and day out, studying them and their opponents, drafting performance plans and set pieces for every possible outcome of the play, so that they could perform at their best. They had her trust and faith, and she had theirs. This is probably what her family was most proud of, and wished her every success, until she was appointed as a tactical analyst for the Italian National Team for the upcoming Euro 2020 tournament. Which happened to be the same tournament that her brother had received his call up to the Three Lions. Which was the current level at which her father was a senior tactical analyst for the English National Team. The Euro 2020 Tournament was about to be a real family affair...

10 July 2021

It had been 2 months since she last had any contact with her family. 3 months ago, Amelia signed a contract with the Federcalcio, the governing body of football in Italy, to become the Azzurri’s tactical analyst for the foreseeable European Football Championship. In turn, her silky signature at the bottom of the agreement, also constituted a digital and physical contact ban with members of her family that were also involved with the tournament...her father and her brother.

At the time of the contract, and against her better judgement, Amelia hadn’t told her family of her opportunity. She knew her father would be proud, but her brother would be bitter. Her mother was switzerland, completely neutral and rooting for both of her children - but that's not how football works. No matter your role you have a job to do, and you do everything you can to make sure it is your team that lifts the trophy at the end of the tournament. So, on May 23rd her family congratulated her for another successful season at Juventus, and unbeknownst to them, said goodbye for the next 2 months. Until the day before the final match of the tournament, Italy v. England.

Her heart dropped when England won their semi final match against Denmark. She wanted nothing more than for her brother to be happy and for her father to succeed, but she didn’t want to have to go up against them in the final. Ultimately, she knew they were good, but she also knew that she could hold her own and compete with the best. Having a close relationship with her brother, up until this period, meant that she often paid attention to the premier league. This was a major benefit to her as she had already started analysing the azzurri’s opponents. It was her job to know what foot Raheem Sterling preferred to pass with, what direction Declan Rice preferred to take the ball up the field, what direction of receiving the ball did Harry Maguire struggle the most with. So that's how she spent the three days between matches, solidifying her knowledge of her opponents & predicting the plays her dad would be instructing the English team to complete, to attempt to outperform the Italians. However nothing would prepare her for the knock on her suite door, or for what was on the other side…

_____________________________________________________________

“Ciao Amelia, vieni con me per favore. abbiamo organizzato una visita supervisionata con tuo fratello prima della finale di domani sera. sorpresa!” (hi amelia, come with me please. we have arranged a supervised visit with your brother prior to the final tomorrow night. surprise!). I stood there in shock staring at one of my players & closest friends, Federico Bernardeschi. I was a person who didn't enjoy spontaneity, who thrived off of preparation and organisation. I needed the opportunity to overthink every situation so that I could prepare for every possible outcome. This was not my idea of a good time. Of course I missed my brother, but I know just how volatile he can be. Nevertheless, I grabbed my jacket and shoved my sneakers on before following Fede down the hall and into a blacked out van that was waiting to take me to St. George’s Park for my family reunion.

Upon arriving, and after a stern pep talk from Fede (who was my appointed supervisor for the visit - not sure I would say he was the most responsible choice but he did talk some sense into me) I walked into the main entrance and saw my father leaning against the reception desk waiting for me.

“Papa!!” I called as I walked over to him, ready to smother him with my love and affection. My father, Dean White, and I had as good of a relationship as possible, being that he was always heavily involved with my brother Ben’s footballing career as well as his own. I think when I came along, my father didn't know how to be a girl dad, so he took my mothers advice and just involved me like he would Ben. I was glad that I would be seeing him first, and he would be taking me to see my no-doubt pissed off brother.

“Dad, this is Fede, one of my players”

“Ciao Dean, it’s very nice to meet you but i am also her bodyguard for this evening” Fede introduced himself to my father and they exchanged pleasantries. I had a look around the foyer of the facility until I heard my name brought up in conversation.

“Amelia, come on. The boys are just over here. I don’t think you have long before heading back to your camp” My dad called to me. Boys? As in...more than just my brother?

“Hahaha that's funny dad, just show me to his room and we can have our screaming match there. Should only be about 20 or so minutes”

“Ben’s not in his room, we have a recreation room for the players and staff to lounge about and relax in. Pretty sure he’ll be in there. Come on, you’ve never been scared of your brother before. Why start now?” Before I knew it, Dad was leading us through some doors and into a large common area with bean bags, pool tables and couches - all occupied by current first team members of the English National Football team.

“Dean mate, don’t normally see you down here after 7pm. Oh look at that, someone let the trash in.” A loud mouthed player, that I used to adore as if he was my own brother, calls out as he notices us enter the room. And just like that, I shake off my nerves, stand in front of my taller & more argumentative bodyguard, relax my shoulders and stare into the eyes of Kyle Walker - daring him to challenge me and push me further.

“Relax Kyle, Benjamin White - your sister is here to see you.” Dad cut Kyle off. I didn’t need him to defend me against Kyle’s harsh comments, I could defend myself.

“Wow, I thought hell would freeze over before I got the opportunity to speak to you. Of course, I didn't realise hell would look quite like seeing you in that shade of blue.” My brother, Ben, spoke bitterly at me as he approached me from the other side of the room. This, coupled with Walker’s exclamation earlier, got the attention of the majority of the players scattered about.

“Ben, if you let me explain in private I'm sure you will be able to understand why things had to be this way” I tried to reason with him. Letting go of my always-defensive guard and pleading with my big brother to open his mind to see my side of the story.

“As if I would even talk to you right now, the night before the final, you’re probably here to try and get some insider information. Boys make sure you don’t say anything to her, she’s as sly as they come” Ben’s words were as sharp as a knife - but I knew what I had to say would cut him deeper.

“Ok that's enough! You are ridiculous! What did you expect me to do? Not take the job because you’re my brother? This is my career we are talking about here” I challenged him. “If you think for one second i stopped supporting you then you must be even more stupid than i thought. Of course this isn't the ideal situation, I'm proud of you for reaching a final but I'm just as proud of myself for doing the same thing.” I got progressively closer to my brother, who stood there with his hands beside himself, unable to get a word in.

“I came tonight to wish you good luck, to tell you I loved you, to give you a hug and tell you to stay safe and play smart. Whilst I still wish all of this for you, I now want you to know that I want you to play your best so I can be better than you. I can show you exactly how good at my job I am. I want you to know that no matter what way you play the ball, I'll be right there waiting for you. I am prepared for this, I hope you are too - so that it will feel that much more sweet when we beat you” I sneered at my older brother, who at this point, is quite visibly feeling a mixture of shock and embarrassment.

I take a step back, let out a breath and shake the tension from my shoulders. Breaking eye contact with my brother, I look briefly - yet confidently - at the other players in the room and take a step back. I turned to my dad, who was looking at me solemnly, as though he wasn’t happy with my outburst but understood it came from a place of frustration with my sibling. Walking up, giving him a kiss on the cheek and wishing him luck, I turned to look at Fede and began to walk to the door. This interaction with my brother, although supposed to be a nice moment shared between siblings, has only gone and motivated me to be at my best tomorrow, to prepare my players to go to war and to come out the other side victorious.

Part 2 | seconda parte

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blissfulparker · 4 years

Text

Sugar and Spice Pt.1→Dad!Mob!Tom

Parings: single!dad!tom x baker!reader

Warnings: none yet! Mafia!Au so future mention of guns, death, drinking, sex, smoking

Summary: Tom is one of the youngest Mobsters known to London, youngest and most successful he seems perfect to people, feared by people. But his deepest secret is that he’s been raising a son all by himself. No one to be with since the birth of his son until he walks into the small bakery last minute for his sons birthday and meets you.

A/n; so obviously this is more of a part one to a series(I know I always start series and then get really distracted with life) but I wanted a fresh idea and a fresh fic to start off the new year. I love mob!tom and I love dad!tom and I was hoping I could mix the two💗💗(also I have no idea how to do read more on mobile I’m so sorry😭)

Secrets. Everyone had secrets. Tom Holland, one of London’s richest, youngest, most successful mobsters, Had a son.

He had a beautiful boy named Riley, he raised him with only the help of his best friend and brothers. He was the smartest little boy he knew, charming and innocent. A little boy who didn’t know any of the dangers of the world just yet.

That was his secret. At age 20 he was rushed into life with the beautiful boy and one of the most stressful and dangerous jobs to manage. He did everything he could for the boy, it was always his boy before his work. Stressful days where he could put a bullet into anyone who walked in on him turned better when his son came home from school with stories.

It had been six years since his little secret was born and it was his best and hardest secret to keep.

And now he had forgotten his sons birthday cake. He was turning six years old today and Tom promised the best Spider-Man cake with iron man, hulk, all of the avengers in the flavor chocolate. Now he had to find a baker that could do all of that in the time span of six hours.

After endless calls, endless hunting, he found a small bakery in the smallest corner of London that was willing to make his son's wild fantasy come true on his special day.

Suit and all, rushed from work, Tom had walked into the small bakery. Ready to pick up the birthday cake and make his sons birthday the best one.

He was greeted with the smell of sugary frosting and warm baked goods. A career so diffrent from his as he was a man with blood on his hands and the people working here were the ones with the flour.

“Can I help you?” Your voice is soft and takes him by surprise. Not the voice of the older women he spoke with on the phone.

You’re covered in flour, chocolate frosting wiped on your apron and you rinse your hands in the sink. But you have a soft face, one that calms him just by looking at. As if you never saw a day of anger, of pain, of anything. You were simply a poem he wanted to read.

It takes him a minute to come back. He hadn’t gotten with anyone seriously since the birth of his son. Overwhelmed with his work and his son, he also had feared the idea of no women being good enough for his son.

Although his son longed for a mother, he could tell. He could tell the stories at bedtime weren’t as good as if it were a mother’s, every Mother’s Day was missed and he knows deep down that every nightmare would be better if he was cuddled up in a mother’s arms. Tom could give him everything except a mother.

“I’m here to pick up a cake.” He clears his throat. You notice the watch, the expensive suit and his scent, a deep wood, an expensive scent. He had money yet of all the bakeries he chose it was the nearly dying one. “It’s Uh, it’s my sons birthday and I’m here to pick up the cake. My name is Tom. I spoke on the phone earlier...with someone…” he stuttered nervously as if you might not have it ready. Laughing softly you find his order on the computer. Even your laugh was angelic.

“Sophie? The older women?” You ask and he nods.

“Yes, yes!” He didn’t know why he was nervous, awkward even. He shoved his hands in his pocket to keep calm.

“Avengers cake…” you look up at the man and he has a red tint to his cheek.

“My son, he’s turning six.” He didn’t spark you to have a dad look, you had seen fathers come in and out of this bakery. Most of the men in their 40s and stressed over possibly a my little pony cake or cookies for a last minute club meeting to make their kid smile. Most fathers had the same look though, tired and worn out in possibly old sneakers and a wrinkled shirt. This man had a different look.

“Ahh,” you search for a ring but don’t see one. A single, young dad who looks to have everything together. A book. He looked like a character from a book. “I’ll be right back with that.” You smiled before turning to the back. Leaving the man alone, in the lobby of the bakery.

“Quite the last minute cake.” You came out with the large cake done beautifully. Done with red and blue frosting and on top was all the small figurines that you had to search for. But nonetheless, it was gorgeous.

“Your wife must be lucky to have a man willing to run out and surprise their kid so last minute.” You sparked the conversation in hopes that you would see if the man is single or not.

“Oh, no, just myself.” He pulls out his card ready to swipe and you press down on your lips. Maybe he didn’t want a girlfriend, he was young but he looked to have his hands full with a six year old and a clearly good job.

“Well, then he’s lucky to have such a great father.” You tell. He tries to hide his red tinted cheeks again but you notice.

“Your boyfriend must be lucky to have someone who must always smell like cakes.” He flirted back.

For the first time in years, Tom had flirted back with a girl without the intentions of sex. He flirted back without needing a drink in his hands and to be at a bar. He flirted back not hiding that he had a son at home that could potentially turn away a girl looking for fun.He flirted back as just himself. And so far you had seemed to like that.

“No boy.” You laugh softly.

Your eyes flicker and stare into his. They are light brown, light brown laced with a sort of mystery. A light brown laced with charm, lust and a secret.

“Well then,” was all he could think of. His game was off, he’s realized that. The dangerous mobster got nervous around you.

“Well then.” You repeated.

It’s a mistake. He will be making a mistake if he falls for you. The mistake of ruining your life as he doesn’t know how far he could go protecting the ones he loves. Riley’s life was in danger every day and he hated that, he hated the women he once loved for leaving him all alone but was also given the best gift of a son.

Although the nappies and endless nights of screaming were hard, he would do anything to protect his son. And if he were to find the future mother of his son, he would do anything to protect her but her life would be just as risk as his.

Maybe it would be you making the mistake. He would be selfish to go after you.

“I hope your Riley has a happy birthday.” You say and he’s taken aback. He doesn’t know how you know it until he looks down and written in black frosting in cursive is ‘Happy birthday Riley’.

“Well, with the best decorated cake i think I have ever seen in my life, I’m sure he will not forget this birthday. I might not either.” He smiles at you one last time and you look down trying to hide the burning smile that wanted to spread across your face.

Once he leaves the building you turn and rub your hands over your face, finally letting yourself grow a smile that has been hiding the entire time.

For the first time in awhile, a man has made you smile.

“Happy birthday to you.”

Smoke from the candles filled the room. Six years, Tom had offically spent six years of his life raising his son. Being a single father as well as the youngest Mobster, Tom had his struggles.

“A girl at the bakery?” Harrison, Toms best friend, smirked as the two of them washed up dishes while the kids played in the backyard after eating their cake.

“It’s nothing Haz. I’m busy, remember?” He scrubbed too hard at the plate as he placed in into the dishwasher.

For a man who had maids most days, he wanted it to just be family and friends in the house on his sons birthday.

“Yeah. But Riley isn’t.” He commented looking over to the boy who laughed with his friends from school he had invited to celebrate the special day.

With a silent sigh and a stubborn mindset, Harrison was right. Tom was busy but Riley was a child who needed a mother.

“See? I’m right. Once again. Why don’t you go back and get your number so you can get your dick-“ his best friend started but Tom didn’t want to hear the rest of it. Rolling his eyes and turning off the water, he walks over the ruined cake and places it on the counter.

No words leave Toms mouth and Harrison lets out a sigh. Coming over to his best friend, his best friend who seemed to have the world on his shoulders only at the age of 25.

“Tom, this isn’t just about Riley. This is about you as well. This is about you finding someone and finally having some peace because your life right now is simply just working and at the end of the day being a father. Sooner or later, Riley will realize his dad is always locked up in his office and maybe a women can change some things.” Harrison placed his hand on his shoulder before walking off.

“Daddy!” He hears the excitement of his sons voice come into the room.

“Hey Bubs!” He lifts up the boy. He plants a kiss on his cheek and he holds his new Spider-Man toy in hand.

“Can Jasper sleep over? He says he has a Spider-Man too and that we can play together. Can he please?” He pleads. For Riley, Harrison’s words echo in his head about the women.

Tom sighs, if he had a mother who wasn’t apart of a mafia like him. He would simply not have to deny his boy sleepovers and simple things.

“Sure.” He sighs thinking of how he will have to move his 8am meeting to the afternoon.

His best friend was right. He needed someone and maybe that someone would be you. Maybe he should for once take the leap and go for you.

Please leave feedback it helps me out and let’s me know if you want another part!

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scotianostra · 2 years

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Happy 82nd Birthday Scottish yachtsman, rower and soldier Sir Chay Blyth.

Born Charles Blyth on May 14th, 1940 in Hawick, in the Scottish Borders, the youngest of a family of five girls and two boys. At the age of 15, he left school and went to work for a local knitwear factory as an apprentice frame worker. This career was short-lived as, proudly Scottish, Chay signed at age 18, for the Parachute Regiment where he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming sergeant at the age of 21 – the regiment’s youngest ever Sergeant at that time. In 1966, Blyth teamed up with Captain John Ridgeway to row across the Atlantic from Cape Cod to the Aran Islands in a 20ft dory. They completed this in 92 days.

In 1971, having left the Army three years previously, aboard the 59ft ketch British Steel, he became the first person to sail non-stop westwards around the world against the prevailing winds and currents. Before the attempt, Sir Francis Chichester commented that he thought the voyage was impossible, and on completion it became known as ‘The Impossible Voyage.” The Times newspaper described it as, ‘The most outstanding passage ever made by one man alone’.It is still considered the toughest challenge in sailing; only five people have ever managed it, a number which becomes more significant when compared to the 12 people who have walked on the moon.

The plan began in earnest to sail the ‘wrong way’ round the world in 1969, but it wasn't until 18th October 1970 that Chay Blyth departed from Southampton on board the 59ft ketch, British Steel.

His voyage had never been done before: to sail single-handed, non-stop, westwards around the world. Blyth returned to a hero’s welcome 292 days later.

Since that year, he has accumulated a staggering list of racing successes: 1973/4: skippered Great Britain II in the first Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race with a crew from the Parachute Regiment. They won the elapsed time prize and nine out of the 12 trophies. 1978 he won the Two-handed Round Britain race with Rob James. In 1981 the Two-handed Transatlantic race with Rob James breaking the record

It wasn’t all plain sailing though, pardon the pun, in 1984 Chay capsized in Beefeater II off Cape Horn and spent 19 hours in the water before being rescued; A year later he had to be rescued in the Atlantic from Virgin Atlantic Challenger, which sank. But in 198 Blyth co-skippered ,with Richard Branson, the successful Blue Riband transatlantic attempt on Virgin Atlantic Challenger.

In 1989 Chay founded Challenge Business, a market leader in creating, managing and promoting World Class events, as part of his work with the company he e mentored fDee Caffari on her successful bid to be the first woman to sail around the world against the prevailing winds and currents in 2005–2006.

In 1997, Sir Chay was Knighted for his services to sailing, am not keen on the honours system, but in some cases recognition like this is merited, Chay is a very brave guy who succeeded against all the odds at times in a prusuit of goals that almost cost him his life. The second pic show the pair celebrating her return.

In 2013 aged 73 Chay was still involved in his first love of sailing, in his yacht Wullie Waught he sailed round the world taking part in events worldwide. The yacht’s name was inspired by the great Robert Burns poem.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere! And gie's a hand o' thine! And we'll tak a right guid willy waught, For auld lang syne.

At the time Chay commented “ My trouble is that I still think I’m a 26 year old Paratrooper instead of a 75 year old with a gammy leg! My mind wanders back now and again”

#Scotland #scottish #soldier #parattrooper #akebi's sailor uniform #rower #history #happy birhtday

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Amphibia Season 1 Reviews!: Anne Or Beast?/Best Fronds: Spriganne Begins (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! So if you’ll endulge me, it’s time for a bit of a story: Back in 2020, I started covering animation on this blog with some simple reviews of Ducktales Season 3 that quickly snowballed into a career with three patrons, a regular schedule and a much more fufilled me. And since covering Ducktales regularly got me going and was a runaway success, I decided to cover another Disney show as it came out that i’d happily binged the previous year while watching my youngest nephew: Amphibia. So I covered ALL of season 2 as it came out (still need to put that in one post), and have worked my way through season 3. While regular coverage CAN be exausting I do love the conversations it leads to, how many of you found this blog through it and just getting to cover a whole show.

But as a result of starting in the middle of the show, and having not started this blog when season one aired in one large mishapen pile, that leaves season 1 as a large gap. So I put it up as a patreon stretch goal figuring it wouldn’t take long for just ONE more person to join, as my goals are on a per person basis: everytime someone joins, a new project is added to the to do list and I get to it as soon as possible. Long story short.. took about a year. Still better late than never as i’m finally jumping into the first season of Amphibia. If you want the same treatment for the owl house, hop on over to my patreon, apt choice of words, and sign up. Just a buck a month (though more is appreicated) gets you a review of a half hour tv episode of your choice (a little over is fine), a seat at the table when selecting things for my monthly polls, and hits my next stretch goal. Owl House season 1, just like this , once a month, come rain, shine or swamp snake. To sweeten the pot i’ll also review that spider-man two parter where a homeless doctor octopus was haunted by hammerhead’s atomic ghost. I’m not making any of that up.

PATREON IS HERE

So now here we are, back at the starting line with the finish line looming in the distance. It is fun to go back, and not the first time I have either as I helped @jess-the-vampire binge the show months ago. But it’s a great time to go back: see what’s changed, reflect on how far everyone’s come etc. I won’t be doing JUST one episode a month, i’ll be doubling up after this, but you’ll still get the same amount of content, wit and shenanigans from me.

For now though we’re back at the start and it’s a weird sort of whiplash. By season 3 the show is gearing up for it’s end, with the arcs having a very crisp pace and a nice ballance between character based slice of life eps and plot advancement.

Season 1 though? While it’s not bad by any means the larger arc is on the back burner: The Calamity Box is only adressed in three episodes, and the arc involving Toad Tower only factors into about 4 episodes. There’s a strong continuity, including a smaller arc about Hop Pop loosing the stand, as always, but it’s really more about the journey than the destination. Season 1 is more about Anne’s growth as a person and slow acceptance by the town as she adapts to this brave new world, than it is about the larger picture. And honestly whie it could be mildly frustrating when watching season 1 as it came out, even if season 1 again came out in one big ole pile, in hindsight.. it works. Anne’s growth as a person is VITAL to the show as it goes as is the town’s utter love and loyalty to her that’s carefully grown over the season. Seeing her go from selfish, reckless lazy teen to a mildly responsible town protector is wonderful to see and nicely contrasts how Sasha outright refuses to change for most of the series and Marcy SEEMINGLY has changed.. but at her core is still the same person. It also provides a lot of the thrust for Season 3 as seeing how much Amphibia changed her for the better helps her parents accept the whole experince faster. So while Season 1 dosent, for the most part, reach the highs of it’s followups, it’s got tons of charm, character, and worldbuilding to make up for it so let’s hop right to it under the cut!

Anne or Beast? Our series begins in Wartood as we quickly get a sense of things: populated by frogs, swampy townscape, rural area. All neat stuff that’s set up by visual alone. We also meet our boy Wally who wonders home from Stumpy’s, a nice bit of establishing the place now for when it has an ep later in the season.. and finds a hideous creature in the darkness! Another nice touch I really like I didn’t notice the first two times I watched this one: the fact Anne is absent for the first act. By doing this we’re put in the frog’s perspective and thus eased into the world more gently than anne, getting a sense of the kind of place wartwood is, what amphibia is like and why they’d be so afraid of her

And the answers are just as cleverly laid out the next day: we see a bustling small close knit town that’s charming and clearly still at most fantasy rpg levels of technlogy, but happy and close knit. And we also see a guy casually taken away from his wife or girlfriend by a bug, highlighting this world is dangerous as hell, anything can and will kill you so of course they’d be suspcious of a human. To us we’re just another monster and the town reaction to Wally’s story is to form up a mob. It’s not RIGHT they treat Anne like this, but it’s understandable given how isolated they are and how everything ELSE that’s out in the unknown of the forests and swamps tries to muder them on a daily basis.

We also meet the rest of the main cast.. and an adorable slug we never see again.

Yeah for some reason despite Bessie being established as a long time part of the family and their only snail not long after this, we have this slug they changed their mind abouts. I call him jeremy

No not you Jeremy, my hellish source of entertainment. He gets shockingly good bandwith on streaming i’ll tell you. My best guess canon wise is Bessie was sick and one of the neighbors let them borrow their slug. I’m going with Chuck. He grows tulips.

Anyways we get a good sense of the Plantars from the get go: Hop Pop is strict , protective and responsible, Sprig is a little scamp, and Polly is agressive especially for a baby. Hop Pop also dosen’t find Sprig responsible after a string of incidents that not only set up the worlds danger even more but SPrig’s impulsivness. The punchilne is also great “So yesterday was a bad day”.

Sprig decides to prove he’s responsible by hunting the monster himself and bribes Polly with candy to keep her tiny mouth shut (”Bribe accepted!”). He goes out into the woods, finds himself caught in a snare and meets the most fearsome creature of all: A Teen-Ager!

And so we’re finally properly introduced to Anne, who just wants Sprig to leave her alone and wasn’t trying to eat Wally so much as get some help. She plans to just leave the child dangling in the woods, but an oncoming giant mantis gets her to change her mind kid and she saves him, leading to one of my faviorite lines of the ep. Seriously as always for the show the jokes are on point “Your a hero, an ugly ugly ugly hero!” this also shows Sprig ALWAYS lacked Tact, he’s just gotten worse with time. Then better: So far he hasn’t brought up any underlying emotoinal issues casually and made everything worse. So far.

Anyways the two then Bond, with Anne explaning she’s trapped in a world she never made, she has no idea how to get home or where she is and she’s been living in this cave. So that’s pretty neat. Sprig offers to get her something to eat after she turns down bugs, which creates a nice runner: Anne absolutely refuses to eat them at first and is horrified when she does, but slowly grows to like them the longer she’s there. It’s really neat.

The Angry Mob heads to get her, with hop Pop and polly tagging along and once they catch Anne she thinks Sprig set her up. But this misunderstanding gets cleared like most too: by an even bigger mantis showing up and trying ot eat her. Sprig saves her, a friendship is properly forged and the two fight the mantis off together using the ropes anne was bound with.

Mayor Toadstool decides to get rid of Anne anyway because safety. Honestly it’s shit like this why all the frog mutants packed up and left for an island I tell ya. Damn shame that giant tortise ate it in this timeline. Damn shame. Anyways Sprig stands up for Anne and while that dosen’t move him because when has an honest heartflet plea ever moved the cold mechanical heart of a politican, Hop Pop taking responsiblity for her does. He also expresses pride in his grand son for doing the right thing.

Anne is greatful but understandbly plans to ease on down the road since you know, trapped in another world. But conviently for the plot Anne can’t leave the Valley for 2 months, as it’s blocked and has to just roll with it, though HOp Pop kindly offers her home and the basement and Sprig sweetly offers his plushies and kind words, forging a friendship that crosses dimensonal barriers and some emotional boundry lines. Once alone Anne tries simply opening the box in private.. but it dosen’t work. As we know now it needs a fresh charge. But she promises to find her friends and a way home.

Anne Or Beast? is a stellar start to the series setting up the tone , the plot and the main cast beautifully. It’s truly great stuff and shows why the series got a fanbase so quick. WHile Disney has a lot of issues as a company.. a lot a lot.. like way more than they resonably should, they know how to make a first episode truly spectacular.

Best Fronds:

So first up is some backstory: We see Anne stealing the music box and being peer pressured into it, but neatly we don’t get a sense of who Sasha and Marcy are just yet, instead just getting the short version so we see them open it and wind up here. Anne thinks it was all just a dream only to find out nope, she really is stuck with a bunch of frogs in a death world for two months. Sprig is jealous, Polly wants to kill her before she can eat them, and Hop Pop is worried she sprays acid. Which to be fair when encountering a creture I dont’ know tha’ts my go too. Anne confirms she’s not going to eat a creature that clearly dosen’t bathe (Hop Pop: Fair point) I’d also like to point out some early bumps in the voice acting from these eps: Brenda dosen’t quite pitch her voice up as much in the first ep to sound younger like she does later and Justin is still sorting out his delivery. Though the real noticable ones are Bill and Amanda: Hop Pop sounds MUCH older and croakier, heh, and Polly sounds more nasly. Both things wouldn’t LEAVE, old man and baby respectively, but they’d be more ballanced as the show went on, with hop pop sounding more like a person and polly sounding less like she’s showing the first signs of having been bit by a were urkel.

Anne is bummed though missing her friends, so Sprig offers to be her friend and while most of the things she lists just have him go

With his face, the mention of a beach has him decide to take her to the lake. Hop Pop vetos this as he wants them safe and her to ease into the town.. despite the flaw in that that if the town dosen’t see her often they won’t get used to her. Anne simply opts to steal the key rather than try some of hop pop’s plot convience peppers like Sprig does. Thankfully turns out Hop Pop sleeps with both eyes open and as much as a regular old man: 86 years, often while yelling at a cloud or writing about hearing the word bra on tv.

So our heroes go out, though Sprig notices a forboding sign of doom and wants to bounce. We then get our first taste that Anne’s friendships.. are not healthy, though this mostly sounds like Sasha. One weird quirk of season one is I ge tthe feelign they didn’t know QUITE what they were doing with marcy, so most of the bad elements in Anne’s relationship clearly come from Sasha in hindsight, but are directed at both. It’s weird. Anyways Sprig leaves but comes back , the two have a fun montage. But then a dripping wet giant snake rams itself into their day

Our heroes try not to get eaten by the snake, I try not to have to use the Goodnight Everybody gag twice, and Anne apologizes, realizing she was selfish. It’s a nice bit of character shwoing sh’es starting ot realize Sasha really is a terrible role model.. she just hasn’t realized Sasha herslef is terrible. Which agian comes off weird given Marcy ISN’T expotiative or anything, but whatever. Sprig nearly dies but uses the peppers to queel the girthy thing, our heroes head home and succesfully duck hop pop and confirm their bond and Polly is bummed she dosen’t get to put anne in a chokehold for trying to eat them. I mean she coudln’t with those arms but let her dream. Let. Her. Dream.

But we get another Sprig of plot, sans the actual sprig as we meet grime being all intimdating as he found anne’s shoe and knows Sasha was lying about others, confriming to us that Anne wasn’t the only one stranded here. I also find this endlessly hilarous now he’s basically her dad and now I have images like this

Of who I rightfully assumed was going to be the big bad of the entire series. Time makes fools of us all.

Next Month: A two fer as we go striaght from a menacing teaser of what’s to come to sitcom hyjinks: Anne breaks a cane, we get your standard feud episode, Sprig gets sold into marriage and Anne and Hop Pop trip balls together like any good grandaughter and grandpa. See ya real soon.

#amphibia #anne boonchuy #sprig plantar #sasha waybright #hopidiah plantar #polly plantar #disney+

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onlyswan · 2 years

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TW!!

Hey art!!!

(feel free to ignore it)

I hope you're all good. Today my eldest and my most favourite cousin graduated in medicine. She also won loyalty award . I'm extremely proud of her and also very happy. Everyone in the family is celebrating her success.

Since I was a kid, I've always been compared with her. She is religious, intelligent, pretty, listens to her parents, kind, empathetic and every beautiful adjective to exist. Me on the other hand. Youngest, playful, always teasing others, doesn't listen to her parents if feels that it doesn't make any sense, is non religious, fat, an arts student, lone wolf and what not.

It's not like i hate her or something. I love her more than anything. She is one of the most precious person to me. i can never hate her or even dislike her because of how amazing person she is. But. I feel stuck in inferiority complex. She is the perfect girl my family wants. Career oriented, hardworker, successful. I am moving in the garden called ambiguity. I understand that they want me to be inspired by her. And to a lot of extent I am but i feel like they will never be satisfied. I've participated and won in many competition but my dad doesn't seem to feel good on it. I feel like I'm just not the person my family wants. I argue with them if they talk reason about something completely nonsense. I take stand for myself. But i feel like I do wrong. I feel like I'm too centres to even consider their pov. I don't know art how to feel. 8 called her to confess how guilty i feel for feeling such way towards her but she was sick and it was a special day for her so I couldn't muster up the courage to say it to her.

At this point i doubt if I'll even be successful or not. I fear everything. I don't know how am I gonna face the world . I'm afraid fail my parents who have sacrificed so much for me and they still do. I feel like a burden. I don't know if I can be truly happy or not..

Anyways sorry for my rant. I just felt that i needed to get all this out of my chest and i don't have anyone to whom o can say and who would listen to me. i absolutely love her but how everybody yk i just don't know how to explain. I wish I could apologize her and that she would forgive me. When parents gave me a lecture to be like her, i wasn't the one crying but she did. She felt how even after years of being compared how she still is my fav person. But i don't know how i feel now. She surely still is really precious to me but..... I still love her but.....

feel free to ignore it. Ig i need to come to be comfortable in being everybody's last choice.

You are really precious to me art. Your words always bring me comfort. You're like the best friend i don't have. I don't know what i would do or to who i would say all this but I really love you ❤️❤️❤️.

Sending lots of hugs and kisses your way!!!

~🐻

warm hugs for my bear anonie 🫂 i’m glad u got this off your chest and thank u for trusting me!

sometimes the reason we feel stuck in our journey is because instead of moving forward, we spend so much of our time looking around observing other people in their own paths or listening to their opinions on how you’re supposed to navigate yours. but this journey called life is yours entirely, and while many factors influence you, you still get to make the choice at the end of the day. you have control way more than you think, and that’s what probably makes it so scary. it’s may be easier to try and become the person your family wants you to be because there are already standards set, almost like a manual you just have to follow. but i promise that putting the work in getting to know yourself and figuring out who you want yourself to be is going to be a beautiful and fulfilling process. the one and only person you are going to spend the rest of your life with is yourself :) so please make yourself your first choice. i don’t know what being happy truly means, but i’ve been finding peace in putting what i need and want above everything else for the first time in my life. it comes with sacrifices, but it’s healing my inner child and that’s priceless ^^

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tobinheath · 4 years

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Leah Williamson and Keira Walsh have shared enough “written in the stars” moments in their 23 years to make them feel that they were fated to be best friends. Since meeting on an England Under-15s camp, their football careers have played out with a striking, almost eerie, similarity. They each play for their childhood clubs — Williamson for Arsenal, Walsh for Manchester City — and have a knack of picking up the same injuries at the same time.

They both received their first senior call-up on the same day in 2017. The 2019 World Cup was their first senior England tournament: they called each other to celebrate even before they called their parents, which resulted in Williamson shrieking “bloody hell — what have we done here?” in tears outside a London branch of Nando’s.

Most memorably, Williamson made her England debut coming on for Walsh, in the final six minutes of a World Cup qualifier against Russia in 2018. “My mum’s just framing my shirt, pestering me for that picture,” Williamson says.

Walsh interrupts, giddily. “I think that’s the only time I’ve actually done a full-teeth smile. I was so buzzing.”

“Yeah,” remembers Williamson, “because I was game faced, and you proper smiled at me and I went…” before jerking her mouth into a tight-lipped, nervous smile, chuckling.

“If it was anyone else,” Walsh picks up, “I’d have been, like: ‘I don’t want to come off’. But as soon as I saw it was Leah, I was buzzing.”

This is life at the top for two of England’s most talented young players: phenomenal success and too many good memories to count.

Today, best friends will turn opponent and they will face each other in the Women’s Super League (WSL) for the first time this season — hosts Manchester City are fourth, four points behind second-placed Arsenal — with Williamson pointing out that in a pre-COVID-19 world, she would have stayed after the match with Walsh’s family in Rochdale, where Walsh’s mother Tracy is “just like my mum”.

Over the hour they spent together on Zoom, they are gloriously good fun: warm, ebullient and habitually careering into laughter. They balance each other out, Walsh says: she is “shy and awkward” — though you would not know it here — and Williamson is the “buffer” in certain situations, and the more “logical” one of the two. Williamson views Walsh as the honest one, sometimes brutally so. “I have to step in sometimes and give it a smile and keep it balanced,” she says. “If I play a game and I’m not actually sure how it went, I would text Keira, because I know I’d get the most honest answer from anybody, even if that means it’s not what I want to hear. I think that is where the respect comes from.”

To track the pair’s football careers has been to often forget how young they are. Walsh made her City debut a few months after her 17th birthday and in November this year, Williamson played her 150th game for Arsenal. It is common for those in women’s football to grow up fast but in conversation, one is reminded of the duo’s gleeful, wonderful youth. There was the time, for instance, they rented electric scooters one afternoon at the World Cup in France to explore with Walsh’s Manchester City team-mate Georgia Stanway. The room-mates — Stanway with Williamson, Walsh with Lucy Bronze — had a group chat titled “The three best friends and Lucy”. Stanway, the youngest England player at the tournament, sped ahead on her scooter and they had to “rein her back in”, Williamson says.

“You were being a bit of a Cautious Claire, weren’t you?” teases Walsh, turning to Williamson, “probably as you should do at a World Cup. I think we were just enjoying being kids, weren’t we? Obviously, we were playing, and the reason we were there was to win, but we have so much free time that we were just enjoying being the younger ones.”

“All the older ones… that’s what they kept saying to us,” says Williamson. “Kaz Carney was like: ‘Make sure you enjoy your time now, because hopefully one day you will be the senior ones and there’ll be a lot more pressure on you. Just have the best time ever, make as many memories as possible. Jill Scott — I mean, she was a bit more wild than we are — said she’s got some of the best memories ever from those early tournaments and she wished she could do it again. I don’t think we wanted to waste a second.”

Do not presume, though, that the pair are anything other than serious competitors. By 20, Walsh had won every domestic title going: the WSL, FA Cup and League Cup. Williamson has won the league once, the FA Cup twice and the League Cup twice, finishing as runner-up in the latter to Walsh’s City in 2019. Walsh, an artful holding midfielder in the mould of Sergio Busquets — she grew up watching clips of him and David Silva with her father — will be among the most important players in the England squad moving forward and Williamson, capped 17 times, is touted as a future England captain.

It has not always been easy, though. An early test came in the form of Williamson’s ankle injury, sustained playing for Arsenal against Walsh’s Blackburn Rovers in the FA Youth Cup final. It was so traumatic Walsh admits there are still occasions she will search for Williamson’s results, see her friend has come off and think, “Please tell me it’s not her ankles again. My mum mentions it to me. She’ll say: ‘Did you see Leah came off?’” She addresses Williamson. “Because I’ve seen you in person do it, I feel like I automatically panic. When I see you at camp two weeks later, you’re like: ‘Maybe I was being a bit soft when I came off — it’s nothing to do with my ankles’. But I know what you’ve been through with them, so it is the first thing I think about.”

Williamson, in her own words, “basically just snapped my ankle and everything in it” after misplanting her foot. Stretcher, gas and air, a wheelchair, a doctor advising her to go straight to hospital. “I’m trying to fight back the tears and she’s nearly crying looking at me as well,” Williamson remembers. She stayed at the game because Arsenal had lost the season prior and she wanted to collect her winner’s medal.

“I think I played most of the game thinking, ‘I just hope she’s OK’,” says Walsh. “The only thing I actually remember from that game — not the goals or anything — was afterwards, I saw Leah on the side in a wheelchair with an Arsenal bobble hat on, having to wheel herself on to get her winner’s medal.”

A few months on from Williamson’s injury, Walsh damaged her ankle ligaments — it was an impact injury, and on her laptop, Williamson has pictures of her and Walsh “in wheelchairs at different times”. Walsh collected her second ankle injury at a training camp in La Manga, by which point Williamson’s ankles had betrayed her again. “We were both sat on the bench laughing because it was just crazy luck that we’d both done it again,” Walsh smiles. “I knew I couldn’t sit there feeling sorry for myself next to you.”

During their separate rehabilitation processes, they maintained the habit of visiting each other as often as they could. Their close friendship meant they were never allowed to share a room on international duty to ensure they didn’t isolate themselves from the rest of the group. Walsh was the class clown and Williamson the captain, meaning that “Leah would always get told off for me. They’d always be like: ‘Leah! You need to tell Keira she needs to be a bit more professional!’”

What it all meant was they had lost time to make up elsewhere. Each Christmas, Walsh would come to London from Rochdale and Williamson’s mother Amanda “would treat us to something from Jack Wills. That was like an annual little thing that we did, because I don’t think that I’d ever heard of Jack Wills, being from the north, until I met all these southerners at camp that used to wear it. I think I actually used to go down to see Amanda more than you, to be honest.”

What did they think of each other when they first met?

“You first,” says Williamson.

“No — you go,” Walsh replies.

“I’m going to big you up here,” Williamson begins. “Keira’s always been… she was always one of the best there, and you always want to be mates with the good ones.”

Walsh returns the favour: “I think I was quite jealous of you when you first came because everyone was like: ‘She’s amazing. I was thinking, I want to be amazing, as well, so I want to be friends with her.”

“That’s good, that we both thought the same thing.”

“There you go, then. That’s why we’re friends.”

“I’d say I’m your fangirl, Keira. I’m your hype man.”

Walsh has always been Williamson’s biggest supporter — “when you scored your first goal for England, I think I was happier for you than I would have been if I’d scored” — but probably has good reason to worry about Williamson calling herself a hype man. Before the World Cup, Williamson visited Cex, the second-hand goods chain, and spent £50 on some DJ decks to master during downtime at the tournament.

“I just looked across the corridor and I was like, ‘What is that noise? I’m sure that’s Leah’s room’,” Walsh recalls. “I opened the door and you had these big headphones on, mixing the decks. I saw Georgia just lying on the bed and I was like, ‘What is going on in here?’ They had the balcony door open and you were like: ‘Wait for the drop. Wait for the drop’. I was like: ‘OK – I’ll wait for the drop. You like your music, you are good with music and you actually might be very good. I trust you’. And the drop just never came.”

Williamson hoots with laughter. “Never came. I thought it would be so much easier than it was. It was so hard.” She shakes her head, jokingly rueful. “Massive flop. Massive flop.”

“I feel like you just try your hand at loads of random stuff,” continues Walsh. “I see you on camp and you’re like: ‘I’m doing the harmonica now’.”

Williamson says she has “found her calling” playing the piano in lockdown, but Walsh is unimpressed. “It’s just you try to give off this cool vibe and I feel like people don’t really know you. It just makes me laugh. What have you got — a lightsaber pen? And Star Wars pyjamas? People would just not think that. When you see the exterior of Leah, you would just think, ‘No – not Star Wars’. She’s done all these photoshoots, she’s dead cool, and then she just whacks out the craziest stuff and just makes me laugh.”

Williamson holds up her hands. “It’s true. I can’t deny it.”

The World Cup was particularly testing for Walsh, for whom fierce social media criticism left her questioning whether she wanted to continue to play football. Walsh has spoken numerous times about the impact on her confidence, but what was it like for Williamson, who did not feature as much as Walsh, to witness? She pauses. “I think it’s hard,” she begins, “because you just feel so powerless when you’re not playing. It’s not even like I can go on the pitch and have a shocker to save her from the criticism,” she laughs. “If I tell Keira she’s great, there’s a slight bit of her that’s… I’m her best mate, so I’m going to try and pick her up as much as possible.

“The main thing, especially from a squad perspective, is that we all know how valuable Keira is to us and how — I’m bigging you up here — she’s the centre of what we’re doing as a team. It just annoys me. I wish I could eradicate all those other people because we, as a team, appreciate her so much. That’s all I ever said to Keira – if anybody was picking a team, you’d be the first name on the teamsheet. But it’s hard to get… like I say, I’m her best mate, so I’m honest with her, but at the same time, she probably needed to hear that a little bit more.”

They didn’t talk about it so much, Walsh says. “Because you weren’t playing, I didn’t want to put that on you because I felt like it would be selfish,” she adds. “I thought, at the time: you know what? We’ll just make the best of it off the pitch, and I think that’s why we had such a good time.” Williamson’s first appearance, from the bench in the round-of-16 match against Cameroon, changed Walsh’s perspective “because I was just so happy for you that I didn’t care what people would say about me at that moment. People could say whatever they wanted because I’ve just played in a World Cup with my best friend. Not many people can say that.”

To be best friends, as professional athletes, is a balancing act: in any other walk of life, they would — could — rage at each other, moan, weep, get angry. As professional footballers, they are wary of distracting the other. “I know what you want to achieve, so my problems taking a back seat is fine with me if I know you’re going on to achieve what you want to achieve,” Walsh tells Williamson.

To Sunday, then, and what will happen when two best friends turn competitors for 90 minutes. Walsh smirks. “I feel like you try and keep a really focused head, and then I’ll just be like…” she cups her hands for a high-pitched whisper and springs up like a Jack in a box. “’Leah!’” Williamson rollicks back with laughter. “Then she’ll turn around and she’ll start laughing, but I do it because I know she’s going to laugh and I know that she’s trying to focus. I feel like I’m a lot more relaxed than you. You’re like, ‘Game face, game head, here we go’, and you just have that annoying friend in the background.”

Stanway is the worst, apparently, to the point where Walsh and Williamson will intervene — Williamson with a stern “we’re not having that today” when Stanway inevitably flattens her early doors. “We always text each other a couple of days, speak to each other earlier on in the week before we play each other,” says Williamson of her and Walsh.

“In the game and stuff, we have our little tiffs, and if I say something and she doesn’t agree with it, we’re both playing for the win, and we both understand that,” Walsh concludes, “but then afterwards, we’re straight over to each other.”

She starts to sign off, but Williamson beats her to it. “See you Sunday,” they chorus, in unison.

#leah williamson #keira walsh #lionesses #arsenal wfc #mcwfc

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krreader · 4 years

Text

BTS scenario → falling for you, their newest make-up artist.

pairing: bts x make-up artist!reader fandom: bts warnings: mentions of sex ; language genre: fluff ; smut ; hints of angst word count: 2.4k+

a/n: heeeey @yuu95line, I really hope this is how you had imagined it to be and I hope you like it ♥

kim seokjin

The first thing that Jin noticed about you was how hardworking you were, desperately trying to prove to everyone that you were here for a reason and that you were serious about this. An attribute that he appreciated greatly.

However, there was also this other side to you that he loved even more. He loved how bubbly and cheerful you always were, even if they didn't have a good day, you always tried to keep the mood up and make everyone happy (again), something that he could relate with.

But it was also your kindness and that youthfulness that made him fall for you.

“What's that?” he asked with a chuckle as you had handed him a drink.

“They call this the 'volcano of flavors'. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure what's in it, but it looks freaking cool and so I thought of you and wanted to know what you think.”

“You value my opinion that much?”

“Are you kidding me? You're the only opinion I can trust when it comes to something to eat or drink. You're the master of that.”

He was flattered. More than that, he loved compliments such as this one. And he wasn't sure whether you were just really good at making someone feel good about themselves, or if you genuinely meant it. Whatever it was, he was just really glad that BigHit had decided to hire you.

Life would be extremely dull for him these days otherwise.

You waited to apply his base so he could try it first, beaming happily when he obviously liked it.

“Yes! Mission successful!”

My god.. he really found his soulmate, huh?

min yoongi

Sometimes the artists liked to pretend as if the make-up artists were invisible when they did their make-up.

They never hid what they were doing on their phones when you guys were around, because most knew not to say anything.

But you were new and you couldn't keep your mouth shut when you saw him play a mobile game and fail at it, again and again and again.

“Shit, you're bad at this,” you muttered, mostly to yourself.

But he heard.

Yoongi was so perplexed, looking at you from under his eyelashes through the mirror, “Excuse me?”

“I said you're bad at this. Wasn't tongue technology one of your verses in a song? Guess 'finger technology' isn't in your skill book.”

Yoongi wasn't used to this anymore. Someone talking like this, so straight forward and brutally honest, without holding back. He was used to being pampered and people lying to him to make him feel good, people treating him like he was special, so instead of taking offense to it, he actually decided to play this game with you.

“So you want to talk plainly, yes? Alright then,” he straightened his back, looking directly into your eyes when you applied some blush, “How about I show you my finger technology? There's a really quiet room next door we could go into. I’m sure I could convince you how good I actually am.”

“Oh yeah? Sure,” you shrugged, “I'll be nice to show you the ropes and how it’s done these days. My generation has a lot up their sleeves, you know?”

He loved this. Oh, he loved this more than he could say.

“I don't think you'll show me anything. It'll be the other way around. Experience comes with age, you know?”

“You'd wish,” you snorted.

That was probably the moment that Yoongi had found his favorite make-up artist ever. And... fell in love a little. It’s been too long since he’s had a relationship like this and he immediately never wanted to lose it.

“Where's Yoongi and (Y/N)? They should be done by now,” a make-up artist asked into the room at one point.

“Don’t know. They walked out fifteen minutes ago and haven’t come back. Maybe gone to eat something.”

“Hm, must be.”

Yeah.. must be.

jung hoseok

It was the annual BigHit party that every staff member and artist was invited to.

It was spread out over every floor, the party was in full motion, with people playing games on some floors and just talking on others.

And then there were those few on the rooftop, that including you and Hoseok as you were sitting on a bench next to each other, watching the stars with the music faintly being audible.

Suddenly, you could feel his hand on yours, you whispering, “Not here.”

“Why? Let them see.”

This wasn’t the first time the discussion had come up and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last.

However, your answer hadn’t changed since the last time you talked about this.

“And then what? They will make up rumors, how I only got to the point where I am because I'm sleeping with you.”

Hoseok sighed heavily and turned his body to really look at you, “Or maybe they will be happy for us. Have you ever considered that?”

“I can't. Not when there is so much on the line for me and so little for you,” you sighed just like he had, “I know you mean well, Hoseok, but right now, at this time, I can't risk my career, not even for you. You know how much you mean to me and I know how much I mean to you, it is not something I take lightly. So just.. leave it like it is for now. Because I don’t want to lose what we have. Career and relationship wise.”

He loved you. Not just a little, but very much.

And he wanted to tell the world just that.

But that was selfish, especially when what you had said was true. It would probably cost you your career, but it would cost him absolutely nothing but – at worst – a scolding.

If he really loved you as much as he thought and you said, then he'd accept that and do what you asked.

"I promise you, my love.. one day,” you smiled at him.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he smiled back.

kim namjoon

Out of all the members, Namjoon would have been the last person you had suspected to do this. Not that you had suspected any of them to pull a stunt like this, but him? The most responsible one out of all of them?

No way.

“I.. don't know what to say,” you were holding the strap of your bag tightly, staring at him with wide eyes as he was standing in front of you with a bouquet of flowers after just having come clean about his feelings for you.

Feelings, that he had developed over the last couple of months and the many deep and heartfelt conversations that you two have had. After he had opened up to you and you to him, he started to realize that this wasn't merely a friendship anymore. He wanted.. more.

“You don't have to say anything if you don't feel the same.”

“No, that's not what this is about. I just don't know.. how you think this is going to work out. I'm your make-up artist and probably not even that yet. I'm just someone who helps out when one of the others is busy. I'm a nobody that worked really hard for this position, even if it sucks sometimes. If we were to date and they'd find out.. I'd be fired immediately.”

Namjoon nodded, immediately understanding your concerns, placing the flowers on a table nearby and then approaching you slowly, gently taking your hands into his and looking at them, “I've spent the last few years hiding my relationships and my feelings for people. I've become quite good at it and so has everyone else in this company. It is.. one of the skills that you’ll have to develop once you start working in this industry,” he finally looked up into your eyes, “I wish it weren’t like that, but that’s the truth.”

“I’m scared, Namjoon.”

“You don’t have to decide right now. I just wanted to be honest with you about my feelings,” he hesitated for a second, but then he settled for a small kiss on your cheek, “Think on what I said. I will wait for you.”

He didn’t pressure you that night. He gave you the choice on what would happen next. And you couldn’t thank him more for that.

park jimin

This was extremely unprofessional in any situation, with you working for him and not just that, but having only started working for him four months ago. You were the rookie that still had to prove herself. And to top it all off, you were seriously doing this on concert day.

“Don't!” you stopped him when he wanted to kiss you, “I just applied your make-up, don't ruin it.”

Jimin chuckled darkly, “You'll need to re-apply it anyways,” he turned you around, pushing you against the stall in the bathroom, “I don’t intend to go slow.”

You wished you could resist him, but you simply couldn't.

This attraction between you two had started out the moment you walked into the room and introduced yourself as the new make-up artist and had only grown within the last few months.

Now, it had come to the point where you couldn't keep your hands off of each other anymore, not even on concert day.

And so here you were, having sex in a bathroom stall with Jimin for ten minutes, because he had to go up on stage soon and if you turned up any later, people would be angry at both of you.

“Where the hell were you two?!” one of the make-up artists asked, inspecting Jimin's make-up and being.. rather impressed.

“He needed some.. touch-ups. I finished it real quick, so that you wouldn’t have to.”

“Hm.. not bad, rookie. You were good.”

And as she walked away, Jimin whispered into your ear, “So fucking good, baby girl.”

And you got chills all over your body.

kim taehyung

You looked absolutely gorgeous.

That was the first thing that he noticed when you walked into the room, bowing to every single person in the room, because you were the youngest and wanted to be respectful.

Taehyung beamed happily when it was his time, “It's nice to see you.”

“It's nice to see you too. Did you have a good weekend?” you smiled as brightly as he did, taking off your sunglasses and brushing your hair out of your face to get ready for applying his base make-up, so that the older and more experienced artists could do wonders to his eyes.

“I did. Very relaxing.”

“Ah, that's good to hear that you actually didn't work for once,” you chuckled.

Taehyung watched you silently as you gathered everything that you needed, but that smile never faltered. He just let out a dreamy sigh, like a teenager that was in love.

Which was exactly the case, minus the teenager part. He had fallen hopelessly in love with you, or maybe just with the idea of you. He made up scenarios in his head of what the future might look like and even more of ways of telling you what he felt for you.

But as of right now, they were only imaginary scenarios.

“Okay, here we go,” but even as you continued applying the base, he never looked anywhere other than your eyes, until you eventually asked, “Do I have something on my face? Is it.. mascara?”

“No, just.. I really like your eyes.”

“Oh..- well, uhm. Thank you,” you could feel your cheeks heat up and quickly turned around so he wouldn't see the effects his words had on you.

As the newest and youngest member, you had to prove yourself to everyone. That you weren't just here to get with one of them. Them letting you do Taehyung's make-up, the one that everyone yearned for, meant they trusted you a lot. You didn't want to break their trust.

However, you've noticed that this had become harder and harder in the last few weeks. He'd make you compliments, he'd stare at you and what you thought was simple niceness at first, had made you wonder nowadays, if maybe, he had something else in mind.

“You're welcome,” he smiled once again when you turned back around to look at him.

Maybe one day, when your position would be more secure, then he could figure out how to make this work. Until then, he’d just keep showering you with compliments to see your beautiful smile that brightened his day.

jeon jeongguk

Normally, Bangtan would get their make-up done at the BigHit building if they had a mere video conference, but one of the staff members had shown symptoms of the virus and now no one was allowed into the building for the next week, until everything and everyone was cleared.

But because Bangtan hadn’t been to BigHit in a while and they had a video conference scheduled today, some of the make-up artists had to go to their dorm to do their make-up there, you being one of them.

And as the youngest, you were assigned to do Jeongguk's make-up.

In his room.

Alone.

While the door was closed.

And he could feel how nervous you were.

“It's this room, isn't it?” he asked with a cocky smile, “Gives you flashbacks.”

“Don't,” you just continued applying his base with a slightly trembling hand.

“What furniture is it that makes you most nervous? The bed? The chair? The rug?”

“I said stop.”

Jeongguk let out a chuckle and leaned back when you walked over to his desk to grab something else, cocking his head to the side, his eyes on your butt.

“I bet it's the rug. It's still ripped by the way. And you haven't paid me back for it.”

“I tried giving you money, you didn't want it, what else do you want me to do?”

He was quiet for a moment and when you could feel his arms around you from behind and his mouth right next to your ear, he whispered, “I want you to stop lying to yourself and admit that you loved it as much as I did.”

You had started out as colleagues, then friends, then you blurted out that you liked him and the next thing you remembered was being in his bed. That had continued on for weeks, with you two not really dating, but not being nothing either. Until you had called it quits because you just couldn't focus on your work anymore whenever he was around.

Not that it was any easier now.. actually just harder. But you tried telling yourself that it was better this way.

“I still like you. A lot,” he whispered when you hadn't answered him, “And that won't suddenly go away. And I know you feel the same way.”

You turned around in his arms, his eyes had become a little sadder, hoping you'd say what he wanted you to say.

But just as you tried to, a knock on your door from one of the other make-up artists interrupted you, both of you jumping away from each other.

One day, you'd talk to him about this. But today was clearly not the day, even if he wished it were.

#bts imagine #bts reactions #bts x reader #bts #bangtan #bangtan reaction #bangtan boys #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop reactions #bangtan sonyeondan #reader #bangtan x reader #bangtan boys x reader #requests

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fallenfurther · 3 years

Text

Homecoming - Together

Chapter 4 - The boys visit their father

Chapters 1 , 2 and 3.

A short one from Jeff's point of view. Enjoy!

*******

His whole family was relaxing in his private garden. Scott and Virgil sat beside him at the table, a pack of old playing cards between them with a game of rummy pretty much abandoned. It was a good thing they weren't keeping score as almost all their attention was on Alan. It was Alan's turn to share what had happened over the past eight years and he was currently standing before them, full of enthusiasm, as he recounted his mission to Europa. Gordon was perched on a cushion with his legs crossed, occasionally butting in with his own comments. His youngest still radiated energy, just as he’d done as a child, and Jeff could see the joy in Gordon's eyes when talking about the Pendergasts. He was going to have to look them up later to see what all the fuss was about, just as he'd done with Cavern Quest. Alan started to build up as he reached the climax of the rescue. Jeff had yet read the report for this rescue so wasn’t sure how much was being exaggerated, and although he knew they would be okay, his heart still raced at the drama. The sense of relief that washed over him when Alan informed them of their safe landing was immense. Alan really did remind him of himself, and brought back the memories and thrill of his own first trips into space. It hadn’t helped that Alan threw his arm into the air to show off their trajectory as they’d burst through the ice, face full of excitement. He'd hoped the young man would go to college, but with his eyes set on space and with access to a rocket, it might be hard to convince the boy otherwise. There was a round of applause and a bow at the end of the story, before Alan settled into the floor next to Gordon.

"So, Gordon, did you ever get to join WASP or did you go straight into the family business?"

Gordon had once had his eyes set on WASP after finishing his Olympic career. Jeff regretted that he wasn't there to see Gordon take gold, but they had shown him the footage. Gordon had been pulled into a hug as tears of pride fell from Jeff’s eyes. He'd re-watched the footage multiple times since, as well as the other home footage they had supplied over and over when he felt alone in his room. The boys had been his motivation to survive and they were still his biggest motivation now. They had all turned into respectable men despite his disappearance and he was so proud of them all.

"Actually, I did. Only for the training year though. They did say they would welcome me back if I ever got bored of International Rescue. It was definitely the right thing to do. WASP taught me so much when it came to the sea, currents and challenges of being in an underwater craft. That training set me right up for piloting Thunderbird Four, helping me work as a team and focus on learning the best ways to rescue people. They're a really cool bunch of people and I'm still in contact with them."

"That's good to hear, son."

Jeff wanted to place a hand on Gordon's shoulder, but he was on the wrong side of the table. He'd always worried about Gordon, who'd struggled with paying attention at school. Jeff had spent hours trying to convince him to study and do homework. If it didn't line up with his interests, Gordon never wanted to do it. The school teachers always compared him to his brothers, who had all been good studiers and never needed prompting, yet Gordon would always surprise them when given free rein on the topic. If he could make it about the sea, he would, and that was when Gordon would shine. The diorama of the coral reef and pollution levels had surprised his teachers, especially when Jeff had confirmed that Virgil had only helped by giving Gordon verbal painting suggestions. Knowing Gordon had still pursued WASP meant everything to Jeff. He'd only wanted the boys involved with International Rescue out of their own desire, and not pressured by a feeling of duty. Gordon had joined WASP, seen what it would have been like to work for the organisation and decided he wanted to be part of the family business. The man had still stayed true to his own hopes and dreams.

"Hey, Dad, I was…" Scott started before a beep came from John's wrist, who was sitting quietly on the bench in the shade next to their grandmother. The familiar voice of EOS filled the garden.

"Sorry to interrupt, John, but there is an emergency that requires International Rescue for the greatest chance of success."

"What's the situation?"

"A building site explosion has caused some steel framework to collapse against the skyscraper across the road. There is a high probability people are trapped and there is a risk of further explosions as the cause of the first is currently unknown. Further explosions could lead to more damage to the surrounding buildings. I believe Thunderbird One and Two are both required."

"FAB, EOS." John turned to the group, determination on his face. "Ready to go?"

"What are we waiting for?" Alan jumped to his feet, fist in the air. "Thunderbirds are go!"

The scraping of chair legs filled the air and Scott placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Duty calls, Dad. See you soon."

Jeff’s boys were running back into the facility with a wave goodbye over their shoulders. The pounding of their feet slipped away leaving the air still and the garden eerily quiet. Neither occupant spoke, waiting for the rumble that they knew would follow. It did just that. The roar of those great engines had faded in Jeff’s memory over the years, just as various other sounds of Earth had slipped from his mind. They were things he was experiencing again. This was Jeff’s chance to live again. Yet his boys couldn't stand down International Rescue when they visited as a family, so they always landed the craft in the field beside the facility. The downdrafts created by Thunderbird Two swept over the facility and his wind chimes clattered as the ship came into view. The quieter Thunderbird One was beside the green giant. Thunderbird Two picked up speed while Thunderbird One turned and sped away with a bang in the opposite direction. The green craft was soon out of sight, her roar fading away to nothing, and the slowing chimes and empty chairs the only evidence that they had ever been there. The rough scratching of a chair moving closer to him made him turn away from the sky before the space elevator came into view.

"They'll be back, don't you worry."

The smile on his mother's face was warm, familiar and filled him with comfort, even if it didn't chase away his worries. His boys were gone again, barely recovered from their last rescue. They had all been here. It still felt like such a rare treat, just as it had ever since Scott had left for the Air Force.

"It was never meant to be this way." Jeff sighed. His mother placed her hand on his and her cool blue eyes met his.

"This is your dream. Your boys are flying the Thunderbirds and saving people."

"Not like this though. I never planned for International Rescue to be needed as much as it is."

"Well, you couldn't have predicted just how successful and necessary International Rescue would be. They've risen to the challenge amazingly, Jeff."

"I know, Mum, but at what cost?"

Jeff ran his hand through his hair as he leant back and gazed at the sky. There was a small black dot that he believed was the elevator whisking John away. That's what the world did now. They called on International Rescue and snatched his boys away. Before, the rescues had been a few a month, leaving them plenty of time for relaxing and being together, especially when Alan and Gordon were home from school. He could see the exhaustion in his sons, the fact that there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for them to sleep. Alan seemed the least affected and appeared to have the most spare time, but Jeff had heard the yawns when they played Cavern Quest together.

"A cost they are willing to pay. Now, let's see if you've still got it in you to beat the master at Blackjack."

A bag of tokens landed on the table as his mother slid the discarded cards into a pile up and started to shuffle. Jeff smiled, though not entirely happy at the obvious distraction tactics, as he tipped the familiar coloured tokens on the table.

"If I remember correctly, you're in my debt at the moment, sure you want to deepen it further?"

There was a glint in his mother's eye as she met his own and her lip curled up.

"Just put the usual million on the table and we'll end the day with you owing me."

Jeff started stacking the counters into the required piles, happy to accept the challenge though he did wish his mother would let him listen in on the rescue. Hearing their voices would settle him a little, though Mum probably thought their daredevil antics would be too much for his old ticker. His heart worked fine. He'd just wanted his boys.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #homecoming #jeff tracy #alan tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #john tracy #gordon tracy #grandma tracy #playing cards #visiting

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sageybear · 4 years

Text

Sooo I made my own sims challenge 😳 I'm not sure if it's been done before or not but I wanted to try my best,

Its my first challenge so please be nice!

Also, sorry if some of these aren't that accurate to the aesthetic.. I tried-

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Basic rules:

-no cheating, especially for money, unless the rules give you permission.

-feel free to edit some things to fit around the packs you have! For example if you wanna live in an apartment, or if you want to have pets! Pets are allowed in any generation, just be wary of how many people will be in your household!

-feel free to start with no money/restart your money, house etc every generation! You don't have to, but if you want to you can :)

-enjoy! Feedback is super appreciated!

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Aesthetics Challenge

Gen 1 - Cottagecore

Your parents were humble, sweet people with no mean bones in their body. They taught you to be kind and to follow your dreams, no matter what. As a young adult, you adventure into the world and see what's out there for you.

Traits: loves the outdoors, creative, clumsy.

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire.

Career: Freelance Painter/selling paintings.

Rules:

-live in a small, cottage-like house (tiny living: live in one of the tiers).

-max painting skill.

-make 10 sculptures via woodworking bench.

-complete aspiration.

-marry a creative/ambitious sim.

-have at least 2 kids.

Gen 2 - Naturecore

Taking after your parents, you enjoy the peaceful life surrounded by nature. They taught you that nature was a valuable thing, never to be taken for granted.

Traits: Cheerful, Good, Bookworm.

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist.

Career: Selling plants, flowers, etc.

Rules:

-continue living in a small home.

-have a garden, you like to grow your own food.

-complete aspiration.

-max gardening and fitness skills.

-[seasons: sell flower bouquets and honey].

-have a reading nook in your garden.

-have a small circle of friends.

-have a secret relationship with one of your friends, have a child together and then "ask to just be friends".

-own a pool.

-Adopt a child/children.

-3 kids max.

-complete the plants/flowers collection.

-never marry.

Gen 3 - Alternative

As a child you always craved more excitement, the easygoing, nature filled life was never for you. You rebelled a lot as a child, and was troublesome, as well as a bit of a player.

Traits: Kleptomaniac, Romantic, Non Committal.

Aspiration: Serial Romantic.

Career: Entertainer, Musician Branch.

Rules:

-live in your parent's basement.

-have a bad relationship with your grandparents.

-complete aspiration.

-reach level 5 career.

-no long term relationships until adult.

-after completing the aspiration, you meet your polar opposite and fall in love.

-elope and have 3 kids with them (may cheat for triplets if you want to).

-max career.

Gen 4 - Clowncore

When you heard your parent's story, you made fun of them a lot. You soon found you had a good sense of humour, and would annoy people with pranks to the point of hatred towards you. All apart from one person, of course.

Traits: Goofball, Hot-Headed, Erratic.

Aspiration: Public Enemy.

Career: Entertainer, Comedian Branch.

Rules:

-Own the sad clown painting.

-Master the comedy and charisma skills.

-Optional: collect aliens.

-Have lots of friends as a child, but slowly lose touch with all but one.

-Max career and complete aspiration.

-Date someone, but have a bad friendship meter with them. Leave them at the alter.

-After reaching the top of your career, realise your love for your friend and marry them.

-Have one child.

Gen 5 - Chaoscore

Due to a mediocre relationship with your parents, you became.. A little chaotic. You couldn't decide what you really wanted, and followed in the footsteps of a crazy household.

Traits: Kleptomaniac, Glutton, Lazy.

Aspiration: Master Chef.

Career: Your choice, have 3 different jobs through your life.

Rules:

-After the chaos of your parents' life and living in a crazy house, you follow those footsteps.

-Hook up with as many colleagues as possible, and get pregnant with two of them.

-Have a bad relationship with your children.

-Complete the frog collection, and display them around the house.

-Quit your job as soon as your oldest child is a teen. Let the kids bring the income.

-2 children only.

-Complete aspiration.

-Never marry.

Gen 6 - Dark Academia

After being used by your parent for money, you became a lonely, quiet person. You simply wished for a normal childhood, and so, at first you don't realise, but you'd like to have a family of your own.. Though, you don't know the dynamics of one very well.

Traits: Gloomy, Loner, Childish.

Aspiration: Best-Selling Author.

Career: Writer.

Rules:

-Only befriend the people you meet at the welcome wagon, or your neighbours if you don't move house. (you may find a spouse by going to their house if they don't turn up).

-Live with your sibling(s).

-Have a 50% relationship with your children. You're not good with kids as you never had a great childhood yourself, and spend most of your time alone.

-Have an office attached to your bedroom and lock the door for everyone but yourself.

-Focus on your career for the first half of your life. Only explore love as an adult.

-Marry as an elder.

-Have 3 children.

-Complete aspiration.

-Complete Elements collection.

Gen 7 - Angelcore

Thanks to a bad relationship with your parents, you spent a lot of time at a friends house and saw how a real family functioned. You fell in love with the idea, and wanted to be the best parent around!

Traits: Family-Oriented, Outgoing, Perfectionist.

Aspiration: Big Happy Family [Alternatively, Parenthood: Super Parent].

Career: Stay-At-Home Parent.

Rules:

-Max the cooking, charisma and have your partner max the handiness skills. [also for both, Parenthood: max the parenting skill].

-Marry your highschool sweetheart as soon as you're young adults.

-Have 4 children, the youngest being twins. (You may cheat for this).

-Have a family meal each weekend. [seasons: have a grand meal every weekend].

-Spoil your children.

-Have them age up with the happy toddler trait and graduate high school with As. [Parenthood: age up with one positive trait]

-Complete the postcard collection.

-Spouse must be an astronaut. (Can change to astronaut when they move in, it doesn't have to be their default).

Gen 8 - Gadgetpunk

Although you had an ideal childhood, you always felt yourself competing with your siblings for attention. You soon got bored of that, and your interest moved to videogaming, before your life began to revolve around it. Thanks to being spoiled, you had the best gaming setup around.

Traits: Geek, Foodie, Mean.

Aspiration: Computer Whiz.

Career: Tech Guru, E-Sports Gamer Branch.

Rules:

-Live in your parent's attic (or treehouse/garage/etc).

-Have a 'man cave' - fill it with gaming consoles, devices, and posters.

-Complete the MySim Trophies collection.

-Date your twin's best friend.

-Have as many kids as you want, and have a better relationship with one than the others. (The heir).

-Complete aspiration and max career.

-Elope.

Gen 9 - Light Academia

You had a better relationship with your parents than your siblings, and seeing how passionate your parent was about their career, it made you aspire to be just as successful. You srill make plenty of time for your family though, as youe grandparents were so loving.

Traits: Ambitious, Materialistic, Genius.

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim.

Career: Business/any to complete the aspiration.

Rules:

-Date and eventually marry an unemployed with the Mansion Baron/Fabulously Wealthy aspiration and help them achieve it.

-Complete aspiration.

-Have 5 children, you love family thanks to your grandparents.

-Leave your job as an elder after gaining a good, stable amount of money.

-Take up an instrument as an elder and max the skill/get it as high as possible.

Gen 10 - Your Aesthetic

Rules:

-Play how you like! This is the final generation, and you're free to do as you like!

#sims4 #sims 4 challenge #this is my first one please be nice #ts4 challenge #ts4 #the sims 4 #sims 4 challenges #new challenge

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