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dante-vergil64 · 4 years

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Playing with Fire

It is an unhealthy obsession, a dark desire conjured from the deepest, most carnal recesses of her traitorous mind.

The ardent feeling of his soft lips meeting roughly against her own as his strong hands grasp her firmly by the hips before drawing her to him and pushing her onto the wall leaving no chances of escape.

The heavy wetness of his tongue as it descends so ever slowly down the muscles of her neck, wallowing in the torture he provokes that makes her body shudder in delight.

The electric pressure of his fingers gently traveling up her body mapping over it as if yearning for a reward that only comes with the sweet melody of her moans.

The heat radiating off his skin wholly consuming her like a furnace in their intimate embrace as she struggles to take breath into her heaving lungs. His hard flesh unbending as her nails explore unabashedly.

It’s a drug, so powerful and addicting it frightens her how much she craves it. The indecency of her relationship with this boy corrupting her with a desire and ecstasy she had no idea existed.

His eyelids open to reveal black pearls, and as they gaze directly at her, so beautiful and so intense colored with nothing but hunger and lust for everything that she is, all that manages to grace her thoughts is how this situation came to be about. How she, the shy ‘innocent wallflower' fell to this pit of fire and pleasure she had long since surrendered herself to.

It all had started with a little play they had been asked to perform at their school festival about six months before, funnily enough.

A quite cliched romantic story adapted from a work of literature they had been given for assignment that same year, the tale of two young star-crossed lovers bearing the fates of their families amidst the chaos of war.

It was a selfish desire to share the stage with the only boy she had ever loved that led to her audition for the role of protagonist. She had managed overcome her timid personality with the hope that his beautiful blue eyes would finally see her.

He, she would later find out, only auditioned for a request from the play organizer who was a friend of his guardian to help out with collecting funds for the school.

No one but her had been surprised when she had ultimately been chosen for the role. Her friend Shino had explained that in the eyes of the student body she was seen as a graceful girl with delicate pristine skin and a pair of pale violet eyes that radiated kindness and demure. The results had been unanimous.

Despite how flattering it was to hear such complements her insecurities always managed to remind her of how plain and uninteresting she was to her own eyes.

Even as she struggled to become courageous and overcome her timidity, she was not able to hide her nervousness or fright when she learned He had been chosen as her lead partner.

A boy who seemed to have everything and nothing all at once.

Blessed in looks, smarts, and physical aptitude the boy had managed to grasp everyone’s attention and regard almost effortlessly.

Yet for as many skills and the magnetic presence he possessed, he had a quiet, somewhat anti-social personality that vexed everyone around him.

He was a beautiful boy in every sense of the word, unbelievably sharp and talented but he had no friends to speak of, his eyes did not brighten with joy and his lips never formed a smile. It occurred to her one morning as she witnessed a starry-eyed girl’s confession be rejected with the most gelid dismissal that she could never possibly come to love someone like him.

Thus, having to share rehearsals with the boy only brought uncomfortable feelings and anxiety.

Not surprisingly, he turned out to be a very amazing actor. Their scenes followed smoothly and naturally as they immersed themselves in the roles they’d been given.

It wasn’t until they arrived at the final scene that they truly found complications. “A kiss that should look believable, enjoyable, natural.”

Her shyness managed to halt their progress and they weren’t able to continue the rehearsals in public.

Her embarrassment alluded to her inexperience and she pleaded for him to let the rehearsals for this scene be private. He, as tranquil as ever, agreed quite easily.

Their first kiss had been but a mere brush of the lips, soft and hesitant while they absorbed the experience of being so close to one another.

Her skin had turned a tinted pink as she retracted slowly, his warmth and breathing still reaching her own.

It had been chaste, and it managed to hasten her heartbeat beyond control but very different to what she had imagined before. The fact that she had done it with someone other than the one treasured within heart submerged her with guilt, and a sad corner her mind had to say goodbye to the innocent dream of the little girl she had once been. After a brief moment of pause, she managed to brush aside the feeling in favor of directing her gaze to his.

His dark eyes held her as if waiting for her to follow along.

Her palms fell softly onto his jacket as she held his shoulders before she closed the distance so her lips brushed once more with his.

The second time was less hesitant yet she was surprised as the palm of his hand softly caressed her cheek, her eyes that had previously shut unexpectedly opened to question for his intentions.

A look she was not fully able to understand crossed with hers and she felt the skin on her neck and face start warming up again.

Her heart increased in rhythm as it palpitated erratically against her ribcage, the breath on her lungs sequestered momentarily.

It was a look she did not recognize, full of intensity and pitch-black fire so fervent it threatened to consume her.

His upper lip softly brushed against hers before capturing it in a tender embrace, suckling lightly on her flesh with unforeseen delicacy.

Her eyes shut as shivers traveled warmly down her spine, a breathless gasp leaving her lips in the surprise of that new feeling of heat and restlessness willing her to pursue it, willing for her body to comply.

Her grip tightened in his jacket before she parted with his lips resting her head against his chest, yearning with all her might to calm herself.

It was but a touch of their lips, a brush of their skin, not something that should be even remotely significant.

And yet, it felt like her entire body was in flames, indecent, sinful thoughts crossing through her mind unimpeded. Of his lips, pressing against places she had never even entertained.

She was interrupted when his hands once more grasped her by the cheeks and turned her to face him. That gaze centered on her now, they only thing she could describe it as, was a deep primal hunger.

His lips descended upon hers anew and before her mind fully processed her actions her lithe arms had slid eagerly around his neck.

This kiss was not chaste, his lips demanding, pressing roughly against hers as if intending to devour her.

Her self-control vanished and her body moved on its own accord, her lips responding just as enthusiastically to his, suckling on his flesh and trying to fill herself with all that was him.

His tongue entering her mouth left her shuddering with a feeling that completely muddled her mind, her knees trembling in desire as an uncomfortable warmth filled her loins forcing her to rub herself against his form, searching, yearning for something she could not name.

His large frame seemed suddenly so sturdy, her fingers sliding down his pectorals unable to stop her digits from feeling the hardened flesh hiding beneath his clothes.

A moan involuntarily left her lips and she was roughly shoved against the wall of the room, his hands trembling as they held her waist as if trying to hold back.

It was a frenzied, amalgam of warmth and skin and flesh and tongues that filled her with pleasure to her core.

All too suddenly his hands left her hips and slammed on the wall behind her, their lips parting as he straightened himself and regained his breath.

A moment passed. Reason finally returned to her and she lifted her hand to her lips hastily covering them, her breathing harsh and heart pumping erratically as she realized what she had done.

Filled with embarrassment and dread, she quickly escaped from beneath his arms and left the empty classroom in which they’d been rehearsing in, too mortified to even look at the boy she had left alone inside.

Once she had arrived to her home that day, she surrendered herself to sleep with tears running down her eyes, a mix of confusion, shame and embarrassment haunting her as the entire experience repeated itself in her thoughts.

She had no idea what had possessed her body to react in such a way, to abandon sanity and reason in favor of that blissful sensation that left her gasping for more. How terrible of her, to kiss so hungrily and obscenely with someone who was not her boyfriend, with someone she did not love.

To have such filthy thoughts about a boy she had barely just met. It scared her. It scared her so profoundly to know how much she craved them, how much she immersed herself in them.

Because the truth that was hidden deep within herself was that she had wanted to prolong that last kiss, she had wanted to keep feeling his strong arms holding her hips, to taste his tongue as it hungrily explored her mouth. She had wanted it so badly she was not sure she would have stopped if he hadn’t.

These feelings were supposed to be reserved for the boy with the blue eyes and wild golden locks, the one she had loved her entire life and not this man who had just suddenly arrived into it.

Their rehearsals ended that day, the play organizer having acquiesced after she assured him they weren’t necessary any longer.

The weeks passed and she opted in favor of ignoring him completely, determined to forget the entire ordeal.

The day of the play finally arrived and despite her nervousness and mortification, she managed to seamlessly fall into the role that was given to her. Their kiss at the end of the play was barely a touch of the lips, a prolonged instance of time filled with the innocent love that the prince and the princess held for each other.

They received a standing ovation and she truly believed that would be their conclusion, the disappointment hiding in the corners of her heart aggressively dismissed.

She should’ve known what kind of man was hiding beneath that porcelain exterior.

The day had not even ended when he, as she sat wiping the tinted cream off her face in their designated make-up room, entered inside before closing the door behind him with a soft click.

His figure remained standing against the door when she finally met his eyes, the same emotionless mask adorning his features unable to hide the fire pulsing within his gaze.

It was not love, those indecent sinful feelings that compelled her to stand and approach his form, to lose herself in fantasies of flesh, to welcome his lips as they reunited in hunger, this scorching fire consuming all of her thoughts and her body could not possibly relate to that pure, innocent sentiment.

It was not love, but as their tongues danced in utter pleasure, their lips yearning to embrace, her hands roaming over his back, his hands grasping her butt beneath her skirt and his hardness grinding against her center, she had to wonder to herself if it mattered any longer.

She knew was playing with fire, but as his fingers gently brushed against her center she admitted to herself, she wouldn’t mind it if she burned.

#SasuHina #Sasuke Uchiha #Hinata Hyuga #sasuke x hinata #sasuke #hinata

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saywhatjessie · 4 years

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TRC Exchange

This is my gift for @richardcampbells who requested so primo Gansey content! 3.7k [Ao3]

Gansey did not remember being this twitchy in high school.

It was difficult to remember ‘high school’ as this thing that had happened to him only a short year ago and not something in his distant past. He’d experienced so many things in the years of high school and also in the gap year since, it was hard to hold the memory of Aglionby as something associated with himself. He had felt quite different then.

Quite less twitchy.

Blue would probably take offense to the word twitchy. He didn’t think it was a slur of any kind, but it still felt like a word she would not-so-gently correct. Fidgety, she might say. Hyper.

Not that he was hyper, he just couldn’t seem to stop picking at the corner of his folder. Or playing with the zipper tag on his schoolbag. He had to admit, he did feel rather high-strung.

To be so far away from her – Blue – when they’d so recently been so close. Closer than close. It was mildly unbearable.

And not only her, but Henry who had been with them on their gap year road trip around the world. Adam, who was following his own academic pursuits but had been a real grounding presence in his Aglionby days. Ronan, who he missed like a limb and who’d worried him while he’d been away and potentially worried him more now that he was close but still extremely far.

Georgetown was not so far. Ronan came to the area every week for mass with his brothers.

It was enough distance for Gansey to feel it in the marrow of his bones.

He tapped his pen distractedly against his laptop, waiting for class to start and contemplating if he should send Ronan another text. Just to make sure he was coping. He couldn’t remember ever tapping his pen at Aglionby.

“Okay, class, welcome to BBH 251, colloquially known as ‘Straight Talks.’”

Gansey sat up straighter, taking a firmer grip on his pen to sublimate the urge to fidget.

“You can all put your laptops away, this isn’t that type of class.”

Gansey startled, blinking for a good few seconds before shutting his laptop and sliding it back into his bag. He wasn’t sure what kind of class didn’t require taking notes. His pulse jumped a bit in his neck, some predecessor to an inappropriate sense of dread.

“This class is about exploring intersectional identity, putting focus on privilege and invisible identities.”

And now the dread made more sense. Gansey was always far too aware of his privilege.

It would be absolutely heinous to have to get up in the front of this room and list out all the ways society valued him more than them. Looking around the room there were women, there were people of color. Students with pride flags on their bags and their hair dyed outrageous colors. There were students who looked like Adam had when he’d first come to Aglionby: hollow cheeked and broken down in a way that could only be reached by withstanding poverty. How was he supposed to come out to this class as a straight, white, wealthy son of a Republican career politician?

“The class is called straight talks because what we learn in this class, we carry over into other classes. We reach out to other classes and introduce ourselves with our full intersectional identities.”

The horrors continued abound. Gansey would have to do this around the entire university.

“I’ll start.”

Their instructor introduced herself as a white, cis woman. She was a lesbian athlete in her mid-fifties. She talked about the difficulties of being a lesbian athlete, how she suffered ageism in the gay community, and the stereotypes that come with it.

Braver souls than Gansey came forward and asked what cis meant. The teacher calmly explained that it simply meant “not trans”. Gansey hadn’t known there was a word for that. He hadn’t thought about the need for one. And that made him feel worse than anything. Because anything that wasn’t “other” was “normal”. What a terribly privileged thing he was.

“And now, to present more examples from your peers, I’ve asked some of my students from last semester to show you what a straight talk might look like. Ryann, do you want to start?”

Ryann didn’t look particularly bothered either way, but started on what was obviously a well rehearsed speech.

He was genderfluid, which meant he changed his pronouns regularly, but he told them all that at this moment he was a he so please refer to him as such. He was of Māori descent. He talked about what it was like to be underrepresented and constantly likened to Taika Waititi just because he was the only Māori person anyone ever heard of, if they’d heard of it at all. He suffered from EDS, which meant he had what was usually referred to as an invisible disability. In other words: people assumed he was abled when they looked at him since he didn’t need a wheelchair. At least not yet.

This wasn’t at all about Gansey, but he still found himself sinking slightly in his seat, the shame he felt by the simple fact that he had none of these additional social obstacles to deal with making him feel absolutely wretched and helpless.

The next speaker helped some. She was white and cis and able-bodied. But she spoke of growing up in poverty in the American south, constantly living in fear because she was bisexual and a woman. She discussed how she’d known more girls who’d experienced sexual violence than she could fit on two hands.

Gansey felt a little like crying. Actually, a lot like crying. But he was a Gansey and he would never show such unmeasured behaviour in company. And this was not about him. He would not make it about him.

The last person was agender. They were mixed race: what races, they weren’t even sure because they were adopted. They grew up in a wealthy family but lived in a community where they didn’t feel deserving of that station. Feeling undeserving was something, at least, Gansey understood.

They were also demisexual.

“So, demisexuality is on the spectrum of asexuality,” the person – Storm – explained, in a practiced-sounding way, but not like Gansey thought they were tired of explaining: they still sounded as if they cared deeply about this label. “Everyone’s heard of the Kinsey scale?” Most everyone nodded, Gansey maybe too enthusiastically. He’d read a lot of history when he’d realized Adam was bisexual. “Asexuality has that same kind of scale, ranging from sex-repulsed asexual to sex-positive gray-asexual. Asexuality is differentiated by the lack of feeling of sexual attraction. sex-repulsed asexuals don’t feel sexual attraction and don’t want sex in any way. People can still be asexual but have sex anyway for stress relief or for their partner: they don’t feel the attraction but don’t mind the act itself. Gray-asexual people can feel sexual attraction but only sometimes. It’s all very relative and, obviously, I don’t speak for everyone blah blah blah. Following?”

There were grumbles of assent from the assembled class and Gansey nodded distractedly.

What Storm (and that was another thing: Ronan would absolutely love the names nonbinary people chose for themselves when Gansey told him) what Storm was talking about with gray-asexuality sounded just like normal people. Not everyone experiences sexual attraction ALL the time. Then wouldn’t everyone want to have sex with everyone else all the time? That sounded extremely distracting, who would have the time?

And not everyone was in the mood all the time either. He was working to be really open-minded, but this didn’t sound real.

“Demisexuality,” Storm continued, “Is on that spectrum. The important qualifier is that demisexual people can feel sexual attraction but only if they establish an emotional bond with someone first.”

And just like that, something in Gansey’s head snapped.

He shot his hand up.

Their professor waved him off. “We’re not doing questions right now,”

“That’s okay.” Storm said, smiling at him. Something in their eyes glinted in what Gansey thought might be recognition, even though they’d never met. “What’s up?” They asked, nodding at Gansey.

Gansey had no idea what was up. He hadn’t raised his hand with any kind of plan.

“Hello. My name is Gansey,” he introduced himself, because his mother always said that was a good jumping off point. “Demi is from the Latin word dimidius meaning partially or half.”

That probably wasn’t the right direction to start with, judging by the muttering and eye rolling from his classmates. Gansey felt his neck heat up but Storm looked amused.

“Are you calling me half-sexual?”

“No,” Gansey shook his head, trying to come off better. “I guess I just wondered how the leap was made from demi meaning half to demi meaning… what you said.”

“Mr. Gansey–” the teacher started again, looking a little put-out. Gansey guessed he’d probably said something wrong. Something offensive. Something condescending. He was good at that.

But Storm waved her off again. “I don’t know, man, I didn’t invent the word. I just learned it, same as you’re learning it now.” Their eyes flashed again on the words ‘same as you’. “I learned the word and I remembered every teacher I’d had a crush on growing up after they’d established a connection with me. I remembered the weird sex dreams I’d had about literally every one of my friends. I remembered how any time someone talked about having sex with a stranger I thought they were kidding because how could you feel that way about someone you didn’t know?”

Gansey’s hand gripped the seat of his chair, each statement from Storm triggering his own memories. How he’d never had a crush on a girl – a serious, Want To Do Anything About It crush – until Blue. How confused he’d been when Adam said he had more experience with girls, because he hadn’t, really. How Helen’s advances on poor unsuspecting men felt false, because how could she want to sleep with all of them? She’d just met them.

And he remembered the weird sex dreams he’d had about Adam and Ronan, even though he was straight.

At least… he’d thought he was straight?

Storm smiled at him in a soft, almost pitying way. “Any other questions?”

Gansey shook his head. “No, thank you. Please continue.”

It seemed this class may teach him more than he’d counted on.

His first order of business was to call Blue.

Both because he needed to speak with her about this new word he’d just learned and also because he had a scheduled call with her and also because he missed her fiercely.

“Have you heard this word ‘demisexuality’?” Gansey asked by way of hello.

He could almost hear Blue blink in surprise. “No. Where have you heard the word demisexuality?”

“I’m taking this Bio-Behavioral Health class. It’s usually reserved for at the very earliest second semester students but I spoke to my advisor about my apprehension regarding achieving the required credits for gen eds and she suggested combining requirements through some classes that might cover both. This class counts for gym and science.”

“So you’re not taking a gym class?” Blue hummed, mournfully. “No pictures of sunkissed Gansey rowing in the early morning?”

Gansey’s ears heated up and he cleared his throat. “Any photos you’d like I’ll take for you, Jane.”

Blue hummed again, self-satisfied.

Gansey cleared his throat again. “So this class explores identity and marginalization–”

Blue cut him off with a barked laugh. “Oh, man, I would love to watch this class react to you .”

“Yes, Jane, it was not very comfortable for me, aware as I am of my privilege.” He tried not to sound petulant but he was and it did. “But there was a student named Storm who introduced me to this new word. Demisexuality, I mean.”

“Okay,” Blue said. There was rustling on the other side and Gansey pictured her getting comfortable, sitting in the chair next to the table in the phone/sewing/cat room. She had her own cell phone by now – a fight that spanned weeks and several countries of their road trip – but she refused to use it to speak to Gansey himself, only saving it for calling her mother while she was away or to speak to Adam on the phone his own boyfriend had bullied him into accepting. He assumed she’d cave and use it to speak to him when she was away at school herself (her semester didn’t start until October) but for now they were relying on old habits. “So tell me about demisexuality.”

He began to talk through it with her, repeating some of what Storm said and drawing new conclusions and going so far as to pull a webpage on the subject up on his phone as he spoke, switching between reading off of it and putting the phone to his ear to hear her reply. He knew she could have looked this up herself, but he appreciated she was letting him tell her about it. Teaching her was the easiest way for him to learn himself.

She cut to it pretty quick. “Is that what you think you are?”

Gansey blinked, expecting the question, he supposed, but not expecting how it would make him feel.

“I thought I was straight,” he answered. Because it was true. Even if it was becoming less true by the moment.

There was a rustling that Gansey recognized as a shrug. “Everyone thinks they’re straight until they don’t.”

Gansey blinked again.

“Thank you, Jane.”

Blue hummed. “I’m gonna let you sit with this. Call me back with any updates?”

Gansey hummed back. They hung up.

Gansey appreciated she wanted to let him sit with this – it was a kindness and potentially a necessity. He didn’t know how to do this, he’d never had a sexual identity crisis before.

So he called Ronan.

Who didn’t answer, of course, so he was forced to sit with his sexual identity crisis.

He sat with it for two hours until Ronan sent him a text. “Dick.”

Gansey called him.

Ronan answered. “Jesus Mary, Gansey, what ?”

“I think I had a crush on you when we first met.”

Ronan choked and immediately hung up.

Gansey swore, growling, before hitting redial.

“Gansey, I swear to Christ,” Ronan pleaded.

“Shut up!” Gansey swore. “Please shut up. I am so stressed out right now, Ronan.”

Ronan, for his part, shut up. It was an angry and embarrassed silence, but considering what Gansey had just confronted him with that was understandable.

“I learned something in one of my classes today and Jane thinks it might apply to me.” Blue had said no such thing, but something told Gansey that Ronan would take information like this more seriously if it came from sensible Blue. “There is apparently a sexual orientation previously unbeknownst to me that describes feelings of attraction only when there’s an established emotional connection.”

Ronan was silent for a few breaths before he said “Okay?”

“So we were very close when he first met and I felt an immediate connection to you and I didn’t know how to process that outside of friendship because I’d never felt it before but now with this new term sort of recontualizing things, I think it may have been a crush.”

Ronan made a sort of squawk in his throat, reacting similarly to the first time Gansey had said the word “crush” but, thankfully, not hanging up the phone.

“Gansey… I don’t know what you want me to do with this.”

Gansey opened his mouth then shut it again. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Ronan either. He didn’t know how to ask “Do you think I had a crush?” or “Do you think I’m not straight?” or “How do I restructure myself, how do I think of myself, if I’m not straight like I always thought?”

But that was an emotional burden he had no business troubling Ronan with. Gansey’s feelings weren’t Ronan’s responsibility. He had other things going on.

“Nothing,” he answered, quickly, attempting to brush off the entire conversation. “Just a thought to mull over. I thought I’d share. But, you’re right, you have other things to do–”

Ronan sighed so loud and dramatically, he cut off Gansey’s prepared polite change of topic right in its tracks.

“Gansey, it’s okay if you’re not straight. It would be fucking cool, actually. That means none of us are straight. High five for a perfect queer score or whatever the shit.”

Gansey’s mouth twitched.

“And if you had a crush on me that’s cool too.” He cleared his throat, his next statement coming out as a growl to cover embarrassment. “I had a crush on you in the beginning, too. So it’s whatever.”

Gansey grinned. “Oh, you did?”

“We are never bringing this up again,” Ronan told him firmly. “But yeah, man, you’re like the portrait of well tended youth. But you drove a fast and shitty car and smiled like a dork. I was sixteen, what do you want?”

Gansey’s grin softened. “Well, now I feel indecorous. You’ve had time to think about this. I have nothing prepared to tell you why you were crushworthy.”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Ronan said, quickly. “Tell me about the crush you had on Parrish, instead.”

Gansey sat up straight, very much feeling like he’d received a rowing oar to the face. “Did I have a crush on Parrish?”

Ronan snorted, cruel yet fond. “Of fucking course you had a crush on Parrish. Everyone with eyes and a brain has had a crush on Parrish.”

Gansey frowned but remembered again the inappropriate sex dreams. Then he blushed. Then he conceded. “I suppose you make valid points.”

Ronan laughed. “Did you get butterflies the first time he helped you fix the Pig?”

Gansey hummed, getting a little lost in the memory, before jerking back. “Oh. Have I been a little stupid about this?”

Ronan snorted again, the sound 100% joy this time. “Yeah, man. But that’s okay. No one can know everything.”

When Gansey was slated to present his own “straight talk” to the class weeks later, he was prepared. Not ready. Not comfortable. But prepared.

“Hello,” Gansey started, his politician’s-son smile on. “My name is Richard Campbell Gansey III, but I go by Gansey. The legacy in my family, so aptly captured by my name, has never been something I was comfortable with.”

Gansey watched a few faces around the room nod. Expressing that they saw him, they understood what he was saying, and they accepted it.

It gave him the strength to continue. He smiled a bit more easily this time.

“It feels overly boastful to list the ways for which I have privilege in this world – it was something I was never brought up to put a name to for fear of coming off ungracious or pompous. But putting a name to something is the first step to breaking down the social structures that put people like me so far ahead simply by the state in which I was born. So just because it makes me uncomfortable, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t say it. I only ask that as I go down my list, you all don’t hate me too much.”

That got a few laughs. Gansey sighed a bit in relief before steeling himself.

“I’m white. White Anglo Saxon Protestant, which is rather ironic as I’m deathly allergic to wasps.” Another laugh. Gansey took another breath. “I come from a wealthy family: what some call old Virginia money. I’ve never wanted for anything. I am cis, I am male, I am able-bodied – save my poor eyesight and previously mentioned bee and wasp allergy. Access to care for eyes and allergy has never been a problem, though, because of the aforementioned wealth. I’ve been able to go through my life relatively normally because of the wealth and despite what otherwise might be debilitating conditions.”

The bee allergy had killed him, once, but Gansey wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to get into that in this setting.

“I have a girlfriend, so I am straight passing,” Gansey continued, swallowing. “And, until very recently, I thought I was straight.”

He lifted his eyes to the class, hoping some of them were remembering his questions to Storm on the first day. Storm themself wasn’t there but Gansey pictured them in his mind as he continued.

“Learning about demisexuality has opened some things up for me,” he confessed. “I spoke to my girlfriend and to some friends from high school who are queer themselves and who I only recently realized I had had crushes on. They all think it’s extremely funny, telling me I was terrible at hiding it. And they’re all very excited to realize this gives us a perfect record of queerness in the friend group.”

More laughs. Students’ faces were very open and friendly. Some were still a bit disdainful – there would be some fights he couldn’t win, some people he would never be able to win over because they had suffered too much by people just like him – but there were people in this class who didn’t visibly hate him. Gansey grinned fully.

“I expect this discovery of identity will continue: probably until I die.” (Again) “And it was challenging to have to restructure my self-perception, but a bit thrilling, too. I thank you all for sharing so much of yourselves with me. I hope I can go forward in this life and take advantage of my outrageous privilege to do right by you.”

He glanced over at the professor, who looked rather stoic, but nodded once, eyes shining in something that looked a little like surprise and a little more like pride.

Gansey looked back to the class and nodded. “Thank you.”

He hoped he could answer questions – from the class and from himself – whenever they came.

#userjenna #oops I wrote a thing #The Raven Cycle #Gansey #sexuality #demisexuality #trc exchange #hope you like it!

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yudibonita · 4 years

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Coronavirus And Your Career: How To Effectively Network During A Quarantine

For those scanning for work or building a customer base, organizing is the best quality level for finding openings. Be that as it may, with huge gathering social events, day by day exercises and in any event, eating in eateries being required to be postponed for a long time to come, a few regular systems administration conditions have dissipated.

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Put forth the attempt

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Maybe you were accustomed to getting out and about at the workplace, making up for lost time over party time, or idly chattering with your running gathering. Or on the other hand possibly you're a devoted speaker, meeting member, business explorer or cooperating space part who met new contacts consistently through every day communications.

Whenever these open doors are closed down, it's anything but difficult to let multi week, at that point two, at that point a month pass by without associating. Since we don't yet have the foggiest idea how much time will be expected to effectively level the bend, don't pause.

Be proactive in finding better approaches to organize day by day, for example, messages, web-based social networking, online classes, online gathering talks or whichever innovation feels generally great to you. Along these lines you'll remain top of mind and be presented to new data all the more promptly.

Think long haul

Regardless of whether you're not in a critical quest for new employment or your business isn't compelled to reduce exercises because of isolate limitations, what you do now can majorly affect what openings stream your way not far off.

In the event that you have a business, associate with clients to share refreshes and ask how you can bolster them regardless of whether they aren't in a situation to draw in your paid administrations.

Give free devices in case you're capable, either through your association or others that may profit them. On the off chance that your present business circumstance hasn't been affected past an expansion in working remotely, perceive that it might be if this isolate keeps going longer than half a month.

This isn't intended to impart dread, but instead intended to ingrain activity. Remaining associated with your system, helping other people where conceivable and assembling positive attitude can just work well for you later on.

Grasp the feeling of network

Government and corporate help is developing as associations make sense of better approaches to help those who've been affected, yet since we can't recognize what every one of our individual fates hold, standing by to perceive what happens is certifiably not a judicious decision.

It very well may be difficult to make a move without clear heading, yet some of the time it's that activity — regardless of whether it doesn't appear to be legitimately valuable at the time — that makes you fully aware of another point of view or thought (see Managing Your Career During The Coronavirus Crisis).

In case you're in a situation to help other people presently, do it. Connect, contribute, support, interface, or energize. In case you're in a position where you could utilize help, don't disconnect.

Tell individuals explicitly what you need. Not every person will have the option to help you in the manner that is generally useful, yet they likely know about an asset or contact who can, and if not, they can do some exploration inside their systems.

Predicament can draw out the best in networks to energize support, and most everybody I've collaborated with needs to help and are searching for approaches to do this. Give them the chance and you might be astonished how it extends the relationship on the two sides.

Be the paste individual

This 2-minute digital broadcast from Dan Pink offers a supportive tip about how you can stand apart to your current (or next) business that is imperative at the present time.

We have to cooperate to comprehend what our associates, clients, merchants and providers are managing so we can settle on savvy choices about how to continue in helpful manners.

On the off chance that you've not had motivation to reach across offices previously, this might be the ideal time to discover joint effort focuses across practical lines.

You'll both stand apart to your chief and clients as a proactive issue solver and fabricate perceivability and new connections that will be advantageous as long as possible.

Join an online discussion

Regardless of whether you tend not to take part in online conversations or gatherings, increasingly more are progressively springing up to share assets, offer help, or give recommendations on everything from critical employment opportunities to exercises to keep your home bound kids engaged.

Discover one that lines up with an intrigue and participate in the conversation. This is a novel method to open your system to another circle, which could likewise mean introduction to various chances.

Simply keep an eye out for falsehood or getting sucked down the bunny opening of media emotionalism. For the entirety of the supportive assets accessible, there's likewise lamentably a great deal of babble that can sap your vitality.

Return in time

One zone that is frequently ignored when systems administration is lethargic contacts, or those people with whom you've built up a relationship, yet have put some distance between throughout the years.

Previous associates, old colleagues, and past neighbors can for the most part be handily found via web-based networking media and restoring an association can be simpler than making a totally new one. Communicate something specific and ask how they are. Ask what's going on where they live.

The pandemic is a mutual worldwide encounter so we're all inclination the worry somehow or another regardless of whether the effect on our every day lives contrasts. Basic encounters are an extraordinary method to rapidly set up or quicken connections and this is one that cuts across industry, level, topography, and everything else.

Think about the unique circumstance

While a few people may have additional time on all fours excited to associate with another human during this season of separation, others are clinical experts on the cutting edges, guardians attempting to shuffle both working and thinking about youngsters who are not in school, or individuals who are lamentably sick or thinking about sick relatives.

On the off chance that you don't get a reaction, don't think about it literally. Every individual is making sense of the most ideal approach to deal with these phenomenal occasions, so they may not be promptly accessible to help or react. Proceed onward to another person on your rundown and perceive that those in a situation to answer will, maybe not as fast of course.

A note of alert: As everything is moving on the web, it's important that con artists are increasing their game, particularly with regards to affected occupation searchers who are critically searching for work.

Do your examination, search for warnings and ensure yourself. It's terrible that others try to utilize troublesome circumstances furthering their potential benefit, so be tireless, hear a target point of view if things appear to be scrappy and trust your gut.

#CoronaVirus #Effectively Network #Quarantine

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awfully-sadistic · 5 years

Text

Random Prompt #2

Writing prompt: “Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea.”

Here’s your girl, back at it again. With another attempt at writing. I’ve been feeling the itch lately but I have no idea where it’s coming from. Not from reading. I can’t find to pick up a book this week. So, I’ll take it. I’m just glad I want to write again at all.

Edgeworth blinked. He looked taken aback, the expression was clear on his face. So much so that Dot couldn’t help but notice he looked the equivalent of the infamous “white guy blinking” gif that circulates around the Family. And when he finally spoke, she noted the not-quite-sure-but-there-is-definitely-some-sort-of-accent-there way in which he did it.

“Come again?”

And so, Dot repeated herself. “Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea,” she stated almost as matter-of-fact as the first time around.

“No. No, no, no.” Edgeworth’s finger came up and he wagged it at her as if she were a child. Of course, he knew better than to treat her that way because after all, she was being tried as an adult. “That’s not the defense. I cannot go with that.”

“I’m just saying, you were the one who told me to be honest.”

“Not that honest!” he argued but then he sighed in deeply before Dot had a chance to interrupt and started again, “This is why I can’t do the whole defense attorney thing. This is Wright’s expertise.” When Dot moved to open her mouth to protest, again, he held up a gloved hand and put it on her face. “Anyway, I have a script. You’re going to memorize and read from that. Okay?”

“Isn’t this… kind of dishonest?” Dot said as she spoke through his hand and squinted as she took the script from Edgeworth. He finally removed his hand and while he was adjusting his gloves, his gaze fell on Dot again as she continued, “I mean, I have no problem with lying to the judge. Or the jury. Just not the executioner because I hope I’m not going to make it that far—”

“You’re not going to make it—you’re not lying. We’re just conveniently leaving things out. Unless the defense specifically asks you, just follow this script.”

“Oooh, that’s smart!” Dot smiled as her eyes lit up with realization. Then she said, “I’m sorry you got stuck with me. I could have gone to Tom but he’s actually out of town, defending another client from the ClubHaus. Phoenix—”

“Is a complete buffoon and I couldn’t trust to leave your case in his hands. So, I’m making this exception for you.” Edgeworth finished for her.

Dot’s mouth opened and then closed. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she was entirely unsure on how to respond to Edgeworth’s admission since he was staring at her expecting a reaction. It made her nervous, that much more aware of the man she’s come to know as Miles Edgeworth. He was a no-nonsense type and, in his youth, had been the sort of man who would have done anything to get his verdict. Despite the few times he’s lost to Phoenix Wright in court, he was still a terribly terrific prosecutor with the reputation to boast. However, nowadays, time and age seemed to have molded Edgeworth into a man much surer of his determination and role that he didn’t need to resort to dirty tactics as often but anyone looking at Edgeworth now could see that same glint in his eyes; he was determined on getting Dot scot-free of this trial as squeaky clean as if Mother Teresa had been on the stand. There was a certain devotional degree of manic on the gleam of his eye, the look of a crazed man burning intensely behind the calmest of storms on a face that never broke façade. Or perhaps Dot was just imagining that since this very situation was mad itself.

She cleared her throat and reached over to give his hand a gentle pat in a motherly gesture; he was still very much new to her. She didn’t want to assume anything yet. But she was thankful for the help, that much she was certain of. “All I have to do is memorize what is on this script and read from it, got it. It shouldn’t be that hard, I’m sure even a monkey could do it. Maybe even Kong if he could sit on the stand, hey, I wonder if they make very big stands for very huge—”

Edgeworth’s hand, having turned under Dot’s patting gesture, reached to clutch now that it threw Dot off her rambling and her gaze switched down, the words of her very big king ape dying on her lips.

“Sorry, I’m rambling. I guess I’m more nervous than I thought,” Dot laughed a little unsure on whether she had disturbed him with it. She tried to tug back her hand, an unconscious effort which became conscious the moment Edgeworth’s grip tightened.

“Don’t be nervous, it’s going to be okay.” He finally said much to Dot’s relief—or disbelief.

“It’s not as easy as telling someone not to be nervous,” she pointed out. “It’s like telling someone not to be depressed. All you need to do is smile and you’ll feel better. Or go outside, you’ll feel better. Go exercise, you’ll feel better. Do—”

When Dot felt Edgeworth’s gloved hand on her mouth again, she knew she was rambling. It was the nerves! Or, sure, she could keep telling herself that, but she hadn’t been nervous about the trial before. The fact that she had to go on trial in the first place was entirely stupid but—oh no, even her thoughts were rambling!

“I assume the hand-holding isn’t reassurance enough,” Edgeworth muttered as if he were talking to himself. He was still muttering something along the lines of doing it wrong when Dot snapped her gaze up at his face, staring.

“W-What? You were holding my hand to comfort me?”

“Well, yes.” He stated matter-of-factly. As if it would have “cured” everything. Then his head turned to the side and Dot was presented with a rather nice profile if not a little pouty. “That idiot told me it would help. It seemed to have done the opposite. You seem more nervous than you had been when we started.”

There was continuous disbelief in Dot’s gaze as she observed him. Edgeworth was closer to forty now since he had made his debut around the Haushold. He’s been a member for a very long time, but it was the first time she had any face time with him. There had just never been a need to consult or utilize any of the Family’s lawyers on a serious basis. But how was he still this awkward…? Then it came to her as she remembered the interactions she observed from his end after all this time. He was quite reserved except when he was showing bouts of irritation. Even in his thankful expressions, his smile was quite muted. He seemed at his most relaxed when he was staring at someone with a blank expression on his face. The fact that he reached for her hand to hold it seemed to be a huge step for someone as emotionally stunted as Edgeworth.

“Is… the idiot, Phoenix?” she asked, holding in a smile. The hand in hers twitched in response and Dot knew she got it right. “I thought you said he was an idiot. Are you taking advice from him?” she asked again.

This time Edgeworth moved to pull his hand away, perhaps out of embarrassment, before Dot gripped it in a clutch all her own. “Oh, no. We don’t pull out in this Family.” she cracked with earned her a beautiful flustered expression in taking Edgeworth off-guard. Now that was interesting.

“Ms. Dreadful, please!” Edgeworth protested with some sort of effort to keep propriety in check. Once he realized that she wasn’t letting go of his hand, it stilled, and he straightened his back and turned his head to her in order to save face. Or perhaps put them back on track. “Your trial is in three hours, you must memorize—”

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” Dot dismissed in an airy tone while she laced her fingers through his. She could tell that Edgeworth was stiff and unsure of how to react by how quiet he had gotten. It was fun. Incredibly so.

“Edgeworth,” she started.

“…Miles. Call me Miles.” He resigned.

Dot’s smile widened and Edgeworth couldn’t tell if that was bad or worse. He swallowed dryly and tried his best to keep his façade in check.

“Miles, when you hold someone’s hand, you don’t… grip it so hard, it’s going to fall off.” She corrected, showing him their linked hands. “See?”

Edgeworth nodded. “I do.”

“We’re not there yet, but I’m not opposed to this proposal—”

Edgeworth’s stuttering and sputtering through Dot’s joke cut her off that she had to laugh and reassure him that she was just teasing him since evidently it was an easy thing to do. And three hours down the line, she was still doing it despite Edgeworth having to sit down with her to rehearse the script since they were getting nothing done that by the time the trial came by, they were still holding hands in court.

#{{ original drabbles: on the spot #{{ note: i've been wanting to write something phoenix wright for a while now #{{ note: i'm just sorry it's this lmao

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kateinvogue · 6 years

Text

Against All Odds || Dani + Kate

TAGGING: @kateinvogue and @acupdaniharper

DATE: Thursday July 26th, 2018

PLACE: ACup

NOTES: Kate runs into an emotional Dani in the ACup bathroom just hours before Battle of the Bands.

DANI

The last twenty four hours had been hell for Dani. She couldn't believe that she got into another fight with Sam, and during it let out the insecurities she had been holding onto for weeks. Yet again she was about to perform while fighting with her girlfriend, and it sucked. She had no idea if Sam would show or not. Honestly, she had no idea if they would stay together or not. Those fears were what had the typically bubbly and carefree Dani crying in one of the A CUP bathrooms. April had been so worried about her, that she told her to finish her shift early and try to pull it together before her show that night. She had also offered the singer a shot of something, but she turned it down. She was scared that if she started drinking then, she wouldn't stop which would not be conducive. Rachel and Kate would probably murder her if she was drunk right before a show.

KATE

"Excuse me," Kate politely stated as she eased her way past the line of people waiting at the counter. It was late Thursday afternoon and she was surprised by the sheer number of people milling around Acup. Surely they weren't already waiting for Battle of the Bands? Regardless, Kate was on a mission. Vogue was currently swamped in preparation for the September issue and she had worked right through her lunch in order to meet an editing deadline. The rest of the band would be furious if she showed up hungry and unprepared to rehearsal, so Kate had stepped out of work a half hour early with the intention of picking up a quick meal for her trip home. She pushed her way into the bathroom with the intention of washing her hands and paused at the sight of Dani leaned up against the sink crying. "Dani?" Kate moved slowly over to where her bandmate stood and put a reassuring hand on the other girl's shoulder. "What's going on?"

DANI

When Dani heard Kate's voice, she wanted to ask the universe what kind of sick humor it had. Having the woman who inadvertently is the cause behind all the drama her relationship be the one to comfort her was not ideal. She was hoping she could pull herself together before she saw Kate, so her friend didn't have to feel bad about it all. Apparently, there was no way of that happening. "Hey," she said meekly after trying to get her emotions under control. She wiped a bit of the tears from her eyes and took in a deep breath. "Oh, it's probably nothing. Just got into another fight with Sam yesterday."

KATE

Kate reigned in the cringe that was fighting its way onto her face. Just last week she had talked to both Sam and Dani about the impact her mistakes had made on their relationship. It wasn't hard to guess that she might have played a part in their fight today. Blair's words from a couple of nights ago echoed in her head and Kate swallowed down the feeling of shame quickly rising up her throat. "Oh, Dani- I'm sorry. That's not nothing- you love her so of course it's going to affect you. Is there anything I can do?"

DANI

"I don't know about love yet, but I'm falling for her. She just can't see that," she said with a shake of her head. Dani straightened herself up as she ran a hand through her hair. She was exhausted. Not just from the fighting, but from the fact that she had picked up an extra shift at the bar last night to avoid staying alone with her feelings. Once she said them, it was like a dam opened that was overflowing her mind with hurt. She needed to keep busy. "I said something that I can't take back, and now, I all the hurt I've been feeling about it won't go away. Before I could shove it to the side and just think that it was going to get better. Now, I just don't know, Kate."

KATE

"Have you ever considered that maybe saying it was the best thing to do?" Kate knew the question was a huge wager, especially not knowing exactly what Dani had said. "Because if you're thinking it and have been thinking it perhaps having it out in the open is better for both of you. So if you do regret saying it you can have that conversation about why it was a thought in the first place?" She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear nervously. "Or, you know, you could talk to me about it. Because maybe some of that hurt is directed my way. I wouldn't blame you."

DANI

"It wasn't though because now it's like the flood gates have opened, and I can't push it back anymore," she said after sniffling. When she heard Kate offer herself to essentially be a punching back, Dani's head snapped to look at the woman. Sure, Kate had complicated her situation unknowingly, but the other woman was her friend. She could never blame her for something that honestly isn't her fault. "None of this is your fault. I fought with Sam about how carefree, happy, and trusting she was when she was with you. She rooted for PL, she didn't fight with you about people in your life, and she was all in. I don't have that, and living in your shadow is a little hard, but that's not your fault," she said with a sad smile. "How Sam is dealing or acting with me isn't your fault. Sam has to see it and make it better."

KATE

Dani's renewed focus on her made Kate's stomach drop. She was certain this was the moment that her friend would confirm that all of her worst fears were true; that she was indeed a terrible friend who played games and broke hearts to her own benefit. The feeling of dread was so overwhelming that it took Kate a few seconds to process what her bandmate was saying. "Before I say anything else can I just say how sorry I am for the part I continue to play in this?" She asked, leveling her gaze to meet Dani's own. "You can say it's not my fault, but I did create a reason for Sam to be so cautious. I'd like to own that. Past experience has shown me that she's willing to try and see the other side of an argument. Call me naïve, but I think you'll find that pointing those changes in behavior out to her will allow her to see it and make it better Perhaps in the meantime I can do my best to clear the air between her and I."

DANI

"You can apologize," she said softly after trying to clean up her eyeliner as much as possible. Luckily she wore waterproof makeup because she expected her hormones to be crazy so the damage was minimal. "And I accept your apology even though I don't feel like any of this is directly your fault. But yeah, Sam does attribute the way she is right now to you. She thinks she's broken when really she's just scared. It's frustrating." Dani had tried pointing out how different Sam was when it came to her, and well, all she could do was hope that when the woman calmed down that she would listen to it. Last night she was far too stubborn to actually hear what Dani was saying. "I pointed that out to her yesterday, and now all I can do is hope that she listened when she cooled off. I think you two clearing the air would be good though. Not for me or our relationship, but for both of you. It doesn't do anyone any good to hold on to all that pain and regret."

KATE

"Can I tell you something?" Kate asked, her hand flitting to grab another tissue in case Dani needed it. The conversation she had had with Sam last night was still fresh in her mind. She hesitated a moment before continuing, aware that revealing the details of a private discussion had already landed her in hot water once this week. All things considered she figured Sam would be okay with it in this instance. "Sam and I actually had a great conversation last night after my blow-up with Blair. I'm not sure what will come from it, but I'm hoping it will be good. I think we were able to sort out some misunderstandings and, at least from my perspective, I think I might have gotten through to her." Kate hoped that her words would prove to be true. The last thing she wanted to do was give Dani false hope about the situation. Pushing the worry aside for now, Kate moved in to give her friend a hug. "Have I ever mentioned what an incredible person you are? Neither of us should be carrying this weight during the performance. Think April's got something in her stash to shake it off?"

DANI

Some people might have gotten upset at the idea of their girlfriend talking with their ex girlfriend, but Dani wasn’t one of them. She was genuinely happy they were trying to talk and work things out. The two of them needed the closure for themselves more than anything else. “I’m really happy you two are talking. Thank you, Kate. I know you root for us.” Dani smiled and happily returned the hug from her band mate and friend. “You have, but I think you’re being too kind. I just try to spread love and sunshine honestly. As for that, amazing idea. I’m sure she does. Let’s go get a shot of something.”

#para: against all odds #acup: botb11 #acup: botb #dash: dani #paras

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defenestrata · 6 years

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erich + ALL (too bad suffer w me)

stares into camera like i’m in the office. thanks realm. i lov having friends on the internets. i’m still figuring out erich’s character bc he was ( and likely still is ) a little bland but what’s under the cut is long so enjoy djhsjhfs

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR OCS

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

about half an hour at best, to be honest. and he’s the most patient person in his family.

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

not easy, not at all. erich isn’t no-nonsense, he just doesn’t have a tendency to open his mouth and laugh. sharp exhales and repressed smirks all around.

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?

sleeping pills. due to a couple of past incidents, erich has a crippling discomfort in the dark. and he’s also not rich enough to keep the lights on all night. about 1/3 of the time, he doesn’t need artificial medication, but sometimes he does.

How easy is it to earn their trust?

full and complete ‘i’d die for you and i know you’d die for me’ trust ? near impossible ! erich’s trusted like five people in his life, one of which went missing, two of which were separated from him and the other two that betrayed him.

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

his idea of mistrust is pretty black and white. which means that he only decides to lose faith when you do something that stabs him in the back. that’s probably why two people have already stabbed him in the back. maybe one more will.

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

laws are only good for making sure everyone stays out of everyone else’s way. otherwise, miscellaneous laws like piracy and intellectual property aren’t that important to him.

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

the one particular thing that triggers nostalgia for him is snow. erich’s memory of snow is not separate from his memory of old friends and family. until the point that he didn’t reunite with his fam, he felt nothing but a hollow bitterness. now, seeing snow is a little more calming.

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

alright, so for one, for the longest time he was supposed to be an important role model for his sister, younger than him by five years. so he was pushed to start being responsible from a pretty young age. after that he had to be pushed to participate in things at school, which he hated doing because it was all silly and he was bad at arts and crafts.

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

oh yeah, sure. he has no sanctity when it comes to that kind of stuff. his first swear word has to be shit. but in german, so scheiße. mama was absolutely shooked.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

unfort, erich has told and continues to tell a lot of lies, some little and white, others less so. the most significant lie he’s told is hiding what really happened while he was on his own from his family. okay, this needs some insight on his backstory jhsjfds but uh to summarise: he was separated from his family, under the guardianship of a stranger for a little while, but got involved in deep web conspiracies and eventually got himself kidnapped and psychologically tortured for a bit but he hasn’t told his fam about it after they reunited.

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

his pride, damn it. he will never admit he hasn’t understood anything ever, he’ll just nod and try to fill in the gaps himself and i hate him.

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

try his best to reach it. his parents didn’t raise a quitter. probably just duck into a quiet place if there are too many people around.

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

he thinks he looks really good in this grey jacket he has, which he’s especially partial to. it’s pretty shit. what he really looks good in are stark colours, especially black and white.

What animal do they fear most?

dogs. he has allergies. other than that, maybe raccoons.

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

he rehearses absolutely nothing and dies like a man. however, to be honest, speaking isn’t really his thing, it’s kind of a last resort. he’s much, much more of a listener. that being said, he has the tendency to say things that aren’t socially tactful, but not frequently.

What makes their stomach turn?

later in his arc he’s forced to be a decent protagonist and blackmail the antagonist with what the antagonist loves the most. he doesn’t like being in a position where there’s absolutely no doubt he’s doing something bad. basically if he knows he’s breaking the golden rule, he’s going to be uncomfortable.

Are they easily embarrassed?

yes. yes. and his friend jamie, another oc, will use this to her advantage until she dies.

What embarrasses them?

compliments. insults. mentions of his past. just anything that’s about him, being said by another people. he talks about himself, others talk about themselves

What is their favorite number?

what’s the point ?? he has no favourites.

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

noah fence but he’s a terrible person to ask about this. he’d literally say “familial love is like platonic love but for family” and “romantic love is platonic love but when you kiss”.

Why do they get up in the morning?

fuck if he knows. first it was because he’d get dragged out of bed by his physical therapist if he didn’t show up. now it’s because he’s being hunted down by an organised crime cult thing.

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?

erich has difficulty making personal attachments to anything, so he isn’t frequently overwhelmed by strong feelings of jealousy. if he is, he has difficulty making anything of it beyond “i am mad. why am i mad. what”.

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

for the first week erich does try to take some kind of moral high ground and ignore it, but second week leads to bitterness and snideness. although envy is not really a big deal for him. he has a fairly healthy family dynamic once he reunites with them, finances aren’t terrible etc. if i had to attribute a fatal flaw to them it’d be either pride or wrath.

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?

i mean, in theory he’s comfortable because he doesn’t think of it as some super taboo subject. sure, sex. but because he’s been socially constrained for much of his life he’s just kind of bleh about it.

What are their thoughts on marriage?

marriage is marriage. woop. does he want to get married ? heck no, he’s got shit to do.

What is their preferred mode of transportation?

the london tube (he lives in london). the organisation of so many lines with all the crossover points is so, so satisfying.

What causes them to feel dread?

forgetting. names, places, faces, details. especially when he can’t remember if it was important or not. he hates being surprised by events.

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

yes. yes. absolutely yes. truth is way overrated in society in his opinion. nothing is really true because everything is subjective. in which case, people can just pick the reality that suits them. if it doesn’t hurt anybody, why bother.

Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

no. his ideal isn’t as much an image of himself as it is the goal of taking down aforementioned organised crime ring. he hasn’t done that yet.

Who do they most regret meeting?

i’m so very glad you asked. albert michael strauss, a colleague of erich’s father, who took him in after he was separated from his family, and took splendid care of him — for the first year. after that, he realised that erich was involved in shady business and gave him out to the police without a blink which later led to the kidnapping. yeah, erich wants him dead.

Who are they the most glad to have met?

kisha and jamie, his physical therapist and her mentee respectively. they were pretty successful in bringing him out of his shell after the torture, giving him support, asking about his family, helping out with finances, and finally even letting him stay with them when he gets evicted later in the story.

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke?

if erich’s super comfortable with you he may tell you stories of his younger sister being dumb. of which he has quite a few. otherwise, if he’s feeling a little prideful, he’ll tell you the story of how he got onto a plane and got off it scot free without a boarding pass or a passport. yes, that did actually happen, and he’s so proud.

Could they be considered lazy?

no. he knows what he wants and he’s proactive enough to get it.

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

oh boy, okay so erich rarely does things that make him feel a super genuine sense of guilt. he tends to justify it with ‘it was necessary’. but if something does indeed make him feel guilty he will he haunted by it for days and days.

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

he listens and nods and maybe even quips. if its someone very close he’ll agree to help if needed. he’s got a very impersonal kind of supportive system that i’m still figuring out.

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap?

i mean provided that a) he trusts someone, and b) cares about them to the extent that he has such strong platonic love that he begins to be confused about his feelings, he’d be in love. but that’s a huge process. so no thanks.

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

not really sksksk he forgets things like a cool person.

What memory do they revisit the most often?

memories of being locked in a tiny dark room, memories of being kept in a blindingly white, noiseless room. memories of being bombarded with loud and overlapping speeches and music till he can’t even hear his own thoughts. that kind of memory.

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

difficult. his natural cynicism of people emphasizes on their flaws and may even ignore their good points. even with his best friends, he can’t ignore flaws when they pop up. it doesn’t diminish his appreciation of them, however.

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

facts: erich’s sense of self is awful. he is pretty much playing a video game character of himself in the real world, interacting with objects and making observations with little attention on himself. if someone did call them out for being apathetic, cold and/or straight up duplicitous and condescending he’ll go “yes but what’s your point”

How do they feel about children?

okay, kids are a bit of a weak spot with erich, mostly because he has a baby sister. he likes how silly and unbothered about the world they are, it’s very amusing to him. also, objectively, he’s relatively decent at calming kids down and taking care of basic needs. once the mess that is his plot is over he wouldn’t mind having a kid.

How badly do they want to reach their end goal?

he wants to take down mettugi pretty badly but he’s not passionately blindsided enough to do something stupid. he’s willing to kill but he’s not willing to die. if he plays his cards right it won’t be necessary.

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

shrug emoji. it all depends on who he can connect with.

QUESTIONS FOR CREATORS

A) Why are you excited about this character?

i’m excited mainly because i want to break a really gross trope in writing him. there’s this trope of tall, dark, handsome boys with dark pasts that are abusive to their friends and generally flat characters with no real meaning to them. i want a surface level tall, dark and handsome with genuine wit, capacity for sympathy and a moral code skskks

B) What inspired you to create them?

oh boy long story short i doodled a person on the back of a test paper in ninth grade which gave me an idea for a detached character who hacks in solitude and he’s sort of developed over the years into what he is today. no single thing inspired him.

C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

no, because they’re the protagonist for the first segment of this story.

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

absolutely not ! draft one erich was much older, and ethnically german. this erich is younger and the son of turkish immigrants to germany.

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

i think we’re both too detached and awkward to get along and get close, but we certainly wouldn’t have arguments.

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

frustration because ARGH i’m having trouble getting a hold of him and fleshing him out

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

erich is meant to be a little volatile, but i’m having difficulty defining it very well. also it gets everyone around them to pull away just when they were getting close and that’s frustrating as an author too.

H) What trait do you admire most?

casual sympathy ! erich won’t hold your hand and tell you it’s alright but he will try to cook for you. he also tends to be generous to buskers and the like just because.

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

yes but i do that with all my ocs because they’re so defined by their context and canon.

J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?

uh i’m not 100% sure what this question is asking tbh but the way this story is proceeding it’s very much driven by the characters — the story doesn’t make the muses, it’s the other way around.

#LONG POST FUCK #realmzenith #oc talk.

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medicalangels · 4 years

Text

Understanding Anticipatory Grief | Salus Homecare

Grief is often something we think of as happening after we lose someone we love. However, there are multiple types of grief, and grief can occur at any time. It might occur in the earliest stage of an illness, after a loss, in the weeks or months leading up to a loss, or even when a loss isn’t guaranteed.

One common and oftentimes misunderstood form of grief is anticipatory grief.

Anticipatory grief occurs before a person passes away. This type of grief is often confusing or uncomfortable. It’s especially common when a friend or family member is suffering from a long-term or incurable illness. Anticipatory grief is somewhat misunderstood and frequently mistaken for some of its symptoms – sadness, anxiety or depression. It is often experienced when you know that a loss is coming but don’t yet know exactly when that loss will occur or what that loss will look or feel like.

Conventional Grief vs. Anticipatory Grief

Grief before and after a loss is similar, but there are also some distinct differences between these types of grief. Anticipatory grief typically involves more anger and a greater loss of emotional control. Think of it as an in between place. Your body and mind don’t quite know how to react, and therefore, might react in a way that’s considered atypical.

With this type of grief, there is often increased concern for the person who is dying. You might visualize your loved one’s death and feel a strong, almost uncontrollable need to prepare for life after the loss. Some people experience an urgent need to attend to unfinished business, both financial and personal.

What Does Anticipatory Grief Mean and Look Like?

Grief is a process, and while it sometimes looks different from person to person, most people will experience certain stages.

Something that complicates anticipatory grief is that, in addition to worrying about the impending loss of this person, you might worry about things that are impacting you right now such as:

These things can all feel tragic, hopeless and as if you’ve completely lost control.

Coping with anticipatory grief is challenging, but it is made easier when a person seeks help as soon as possible. Recognizing the symptoms of anticipatory grief is the first step.

What Are Symptoms of Anticipatory Grief?

Frequently Feeling On Edge

There’s a sense of dread that might almost consume you; a feeling as if something terrible is right around the corner and you have no control over it and don’t yet completely understand it. You might be hyper aware of certain things (perhaps your loved one’s breathing patterns, a more frequent cough, or even the slightest changes in their skin color) and hypervigilant about having someone else recognize, address or even “fix” these issues.

Difficulty Making Decisions

Even what you once considered simple day-to-day decisions feel impossible. It’s almost as if you freeze up just by being presented with them. You worry that one wrong move might change the course of your loved one’s condition for the worse, speed up the progression of their illness or bring about more pain or discomfort.

Guilt

Guilt involves finding yourself constantly internalizing and asking questions like “is this my fault,” or “could I have done something different?” even though your logical self knows that the blame doesn’t belong to you. A lot of things that you logically know you can’t control might bring about feelings of anger, doubt, frustration and guilt.

You find yourself feeling alone even in a room full of people. Loneliness is even self-initiated because it’s easier to withdraw from others, avoid well-meaning phone calls from people who are checking in or offering help, or somehow retreat into a perceived “protective” state. It is also sometimes the result of unrealistically thinking that if you avoid the problem, it will go away.

Physical Side Effects

Sleep difficulties, a lessened desire to eat or drink appropriately, stomach pains, heart palpitations, muscle aches, and headaches are all common symptoms of anticipatory grief. Some individuals also experience memory loss or forgetfulness. While these are normal symptoms, it is important to discuss them with your doctor, especially if they are impacting your livelihood and day-to-day life.

Preparation for the Worst

This involves mentally preparing for the “worst”. You might rehearse the death in your mind. What will it look or feel like? Where will you be when your loved one passes? By pretending that the worst is inevitable and actively seeking out a state of emotional numbness, you perceive it as easier to deal with shock and pain. Instead, this often creates a state of hopelessness that can prevent you from enjoying the remaining time with a loved one, accomplishing the things you hope to accomplish, and continuing to make new memories that can live on and create a more positive end of life experience.

Grieving for Someone Who is Still Alive Our Response to Trauma

So much about anticipatory grief is simply our body’s trauma response and natural inclination to enter “fight, flight, or freeze” mode when someone we love is still alive but in what we perceive as a perilous situation. Our body is flooded with stress hormones which elicits a chemical response in anticipation of having to quickly react to some kind of perceived threat. However, when we choose to continue to expect, seek out, or even on some level welcome the negative symptoms of anticipatory grief without engaging our healthier coping mechanisms, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and exhausted and to feel as if we’ve lost control.

Tools for Understanding and Working Through Grief

When experiencing anticipatory grief, it’s common to believe it is socially unacceptable to express your pain or seek out support. Remember that grief is normal (even anticipatory grief). Acknowledging this and working through your feelings can help you to build coping skills and react to anticipatory grief in a more positive way. In fact, research shows that there is great value in using the tools that are at your disposal to, in a healthy way, process the idea that your loved one will die and progress through the bereavement process, both before and after the death occurs.

Isolation in grief can cause pain to linger and in time escalate. Even if it’s difficult to do so, reach out and talk to someone. Conversations with family and friends are helpful, but nothing replaces professional counseling. If your loved one is in hospice care, counseling is available to you. Trained hospice social workers, grief counselors, and chaplains are there for patients and family caregivers. They are trained to help you better understand anticipatory grief and develop or refine your own coping skills and survival mechanisms.

In addition to offering patient and family counseling support, Salus Hospice social workers have access to a network of resources including reading materials, support groups, community programs and other helpful tools. They often refer family caregivers to in person or virtual grief support groups as a compliment to professional counseling. Grief support groups provide a level of comfort and belonging that is only found when connecting with others who are experiencing what you’re experiencing.

Information and Understanding

Open communication with your loved one’s primary physician or hospice doctor offers many benefits and can help in overcoming anticipatory grief. These professionals have a professional understanding of the symptoms of your loved one’s illness and the potential side effects of any medications administered for pain and discomfort. They can provide information on the course of the illness, help you to better understand what to expect during each stage, and offer valuable, expert support when you’re feeling uncertain or anxious about symptoms or side effects.

Gaining awareness about your loved one’s life limiting illness provides some sense of control, and it gives you a greater ability to empathize with all that your loved one is going through. If you’re not quite comfortable having direct conversations with your loved one’s doctor, a hospice nurse or social worker is an excellent resource to use. These professionals act as your advocate and a knowledgeable go-between. They ensure that your questions and concerns are addressed quickly and information is delivered in a way that you understand.

Expressing Yourself

Some people find comfort in using art or journaling to express their grief and channel their feelings. Prayer is another resource often used by people who are suffering. All of these are examples of positive ways to release feelings of anger, sadness, frustration or guilt as you work toward normalizing the anticipatory grief process.

Expressing Forgiveness

In some cases, anticipatory grief is brought about when a person has experienced a strained relationship with the person they are losing. They might feel regret, anger, or an urgency to complete unfinished business. This is sometimes accompanied by a belief that there is no time to address matters. While it is often difficult to navigate through these emotions, there is proven benefit. So, take a moment to say “I love you,” “I forgive you,” or “I’m sorry.” This is an opportunity to make amends. Let go and move toward finding the space to enjoy your final time together in a healthy way. A hospice social worker or chaplain can help to facilitate these sometimes delicate or difficult conversations and keep everyone feeling safe.

Spending Quality Time Together

Making the most of your time together is vital in maintaining a healthier outlook. While it’s important to discuss final affairs, also make time for activities that are meaningful to both of you.

Overcoming Guilt

It’s easy to put your life on hold when a loved one is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness. However, it’s also important to make time for you. Maintain your own health and well being. If it feels right, make some preparations for a life without your loved one. Try to occasionally take time away from your loved one’s bedside. Use this time to see friends, rest, exercise, attend to your own medical appointments. You might also attend church, or manage work and other family matters.

Take advantage of respite care offered by your hospice provider in order to have someone at your loved one’s bedside. This helps most people to feel more comfortable while focusing on their own needs. Respite helps you to reconnect with yourself. It makes it easier to clear your head. Time alone also improves your physical and mental outlook. By taking advantage of some respite, you’ll feel prepared to be present for your loved one when they need you the most.

Can Anticipatory Grief Be Beneficial?

Anticipating a loss won’t necessarily prevent you from experiencing grief after the loss or even shorten conventional grief. However, it does serve a purpose. Anticipatory grief often prompts discussions about and action on important end of life planning tasks. It also provides you with opportunities to grieve incremental losses along the way. This can make adjusting to an eventual loss easier. You might also discover the importance of and opportunities for closure, reconciliation and forgiveness. Some studies confirm that anticipatory grief helps individuals to find meaning in their situation prior to the loss and closure.

The most important thing to remember is to make your anticipatory grief experience a healthy one. Recognize this as the normal part of the process that it is. Take care of yourself. Utilize the tools at your disposal. Welcome the family support that Salus Hospice offers. Taking these steps will make this challenging time and your grieving period a little easier. Remember, if you need us, we’re here to help.

This content was originally published here.

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tsaritsa · 7 years

Text

the cables burnt and lines flare

this fic can also be found on ff.net and ao3.

An undercover mission to stop a child trafficker goes horribly wrong for Team Mustang.

inspired by the new plot points coming out of the live action! i’m a slut for the tropes involved and i’m looking forward to the movie when it premieres in dec!!!!! it looks to be a fun romp and this fic is just one of those too – i just took a few creative liberties ahah. riza’s dress is based upon the wonderful drawing done by abstractmouse, which you can find here.

my thanks to the four gin and tonics that helped me write this. ur contribution to terrible spelling and grammar was invaluable. (and to @the-flame-and-hawks-eye, who yelled at me in a very positive way to write this).

It wasn’t meant to go this way – they had spent weeks going over every eventuality, planning out exactly how this operation was supposed to go down. Their perp – Francis Buchannan-Kenly – had been involved in multiple cases of child trafficking into the northern Aerugean region, and this gala was their best chance to ensure that he wouldn’t slip beyond their jurisdiction once more. It had been an operation months in the making, and the entire team had spent many long nights rehearsing their roles – Jean and Kain as ‘intoxicated’ guests; Heymans and Vato ensuring that both the staff and guest list didn’t allow for any of Francis’ associates to slip in undetected; and herself posing as a ditzy socialite. Roy was technically there as himself: as a young and arrogant colonel with money to throw around, and one of Madame Christmas’ girls if Riza didn’t take as bait.

Of all eventualities, they weren’t expecting a loaded and cocked pistol, and Riza certainly wasn’t expecting to be on the receiving end of it.

The night had started off so well: she had been given a dark cocktail dress by Roy that by all accounts she would have never worn under any other circumstances, but after trying it on and seeing his, well, reaction, she had bit her smirk down and agreed that this would certainly do the job of getting Francis’ attention. It was a beautiful dress, made from dark satin and gold thread embellishing that glinted in the warm light of the ballroom. Surprisingly, it did a good job of covering up the majority of her tattoo; but what Riza loved most of all about the dress was how short it was. Even without the heels that made Roy stare for a bit longer than strictly – and that she would admit gave her more pleasure than she really should have – the dress was a real piece of art. Short styles like these, even with the gauzy peplum that framed her calves, would be seen as practically scandalous for the annual Blackburn Charity Gala – and it was this hope that Francis wouldn’t be able to resist a – what had Jean called her?

A hot piece of sin.

It had certainly worked. Francis had made a beeline for her as soon as she had entered the ballroom, already reeking of brandy and general sleaziness. He had swept her up in at least four dances – and Riza would hand it to him, the man knew how to dance. What was less enjoyable were the daggers she knew were being stared into Francis’ back: every time she glanced over to where Roy was with Carla, he had an ugly expression marring the usually confident smirk he relied on for these kinds of events. It was wholly unprofessional; but then, both their behaviours’ leading up to this event had certainly been left wanting. Roy had been in a foul mood in the weeks before the operation was set to take place, and Riza couldn’t put her finger on why.

She had managed to extract herself from the man’s clammy grip long enough to signal to Fuery that somebody needed to check in on their superior before he had grabbed her once again, his hand drifting low on her dress and skimming the skin just under the hemline. She had swallowed her bile and disgust and smiled instead, girlishly laughing and swatting teasingly at his hands. It was surprisingly easy to compartmentalise her revulsion as he led her into another dance – this time a slow waltz that Riza knew would bring more wandering fingers and stale breath down her neck. She ducked her head as best she could against his sweating body – he no longer smelled like overpowering aftershave, it instead had mellowed into something far more sickly and saccharine.

“What’s a naughty girl like you doing in a respectable place like this?” he had asked, gripping her fingers tightly within her own.

She laughed lightly, a well-practiced smile gracing her lips that bared her teeth just so. “Oh, you know,” she began, making sure to inflect enough breathiness into her tone. “I just adore seeing all the wives’ reactions.”

He laughed loudly, twirling her out before pulling her back in even closer than before. “And do you always tart up like this, or did you know I was coming?”

Riza looked up at him through her eyelashes and swallowed. “Call it a happy coincidence Mr. Buchannan-Kenly.” She inclined her head towards the bar. “Would you care for a drink?”

It had happened so quickly – one moment she was laughing prettily with a flute of sparkling wine and batting her heavily made up eyes at Francis – the next she was facing the familiar barrel of a pistol and the screams of the gala attendees around them. Riza was a little ashamed to admit that she paused for longer than necessary – not out of fear, but rather shock that this had slipped by them – how could they have been so stupid? – before she felt herself being tackled to the ground as a shot rang out in the ballroom, followed by shattering glass and even more screams.

Francis had fled in the confusion, and she saw Jean and Kain immediately take off towards the back of the ballroom, shouting for the other undercover officers to follow them. The gunshot was still ringing in her ears as she tried to shift underneath the man who had tackled her – and with growing dread Riza realised just who that man was, the blood already beginning to pool on the varnished wood beneath them.

“You fucking idiot,” she breathed, sitting up as quickly as she could manage without moving him. She couldn’t tell where the wound was yet – why did he have to wear a black tuxedo? Why couldn’t he be his ostentatious self for once? – only that the pool was growing steadily bigger and he was thankfully still breathing. First aid training began to filter through her jumbled thoughts. Find the wound. Stanch the bleeding. Elevate. Get to a doctor.

“Sir,” she said softly, ducking her head down to his, brushing away his hair that had fallen out of its slicked-back hairstyle. His forehead felt unnaturally warm and clammy. “Where’s the wound?”

“Leg,” he groaned back, rolling over onto his back with some difficulty and hissing as his head hit the floor. “Didn’t realise getting shot would hurt this much,” he managed as she carefully parted the tear in his fabric and sucked in her breath harshly. The wound was not as terrible as she had imagined – the bleeding wasn’t constant enough to have hit a vein, but the sluggish rate that it was managing was worrying her.

“I need a tourniquet,” Riza murmured, her hands hovering over the injury, only trembling slightly. Her heart was racing and she knew she had minutes at best before his blood loss would become critical, but she was finding it hard to concentrate between the ringing in her ears and his laboured breaths. How had this gone so fucking wrong?

“My jacket-” he began, but she cut him off, shaking her head.

“Too thick, won’t be able to apply enough pressure.” She looked wildly around the now deserted ballroom, vaguely aware of the screams from outside and the familiar wail of police sirens in the distance. The gauze of her peplum brushed against her legs as she sat up properly and she felt near to sobbing as she gripped the thin fabric and pulled harshly against the stitching.

“You’re an impossible man, I hope you know,” she managed as she continued to rip at the peplum harshly, rolling it up into a single length of fabric. She tested its strength, before nodding and shifting to sit directly in front on the wound, his blood uncomfortably warm and sticky against her bare legs.

He coughed, and then groaned. “And you’re the rudest nurse I’ve ever had. Has anybody told you off about your bedside manner?”

“Plenty of times, sir. Are you able to lift your leg, or should I?”

He shook his head slightly, rubbing at his eyes with his hands. “You better do it. I’ll just injure myself further and – FUCKING HELL RIZA!”

She ignored him, adjusting the position of the makeshift tourniquet before tying it as tightly as she could on his upper thigh. She lifted his leg against to secure the tautness of the knot and he hissed once more, muttering darkly under his breath. She glanced back to where his wound was on his lower thigh – it looked like the blood was stemming, but she couldn’t be sure. The sirens of the military police were growing louder. She had to get them out of here – their involvement in this operation had been extremely under the table and any time spent explaining why the Flame Alchemist had been shot in the leg was time that could otherwise be used getting him to a doctor. The military police were fine men and woman, but Riza didn’t have time to hold their hand and patiently explain everything to them. She bit her lip, thinking. The others would already be reconvening at the safe house, hopefully finding a doctor along the way – at the very least Jean would be watching for their exit.

She had to act fast. In a matter of minutes this place would be crawling with well-to-do but meddling officers. The closest entrance that would arouse the least suspicion was a small exit used by the staff – all the way across the room. The screams and cacophony outside was growing louder. They had to leave now.

“You won’t be able to walk, will you?” she asked quickly, shifting behind him to help him sit up. He shook his head.

“Not as fast as we’ll need to be. Let’s hope one of the boys is close by.”

“We’ll manage,” she replied shortly, moving to squat down in front of him, breathing deeply as he wound his arms tightly around her neck. They had one chance to get this lift right – otherwise it would be a disaster.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I trust you Riza,” he murmured and she snorted.

“That’s Lieutenant Hawkeye to you, sir. You’re not dying on me yet.”

He had grumbled and groused the entire time she carried him out of the building, whining that she was jostling him too harshly, but Riza didn’t care. So long as he kept talking – and talking like himself, the big baby – she could let herself relax a little. They were going to make it out of this. Roy would survive to live (and complain) another day.

It had been less fun ducking from the police. The block where the gala had been held had almost been completely cordoned off by the time she had made it outside, and it was only through sheer determination that she was never going to be asked why she was piggy-backing a full grown man through the alleyways of East City covered in blood that she was able to powerwalk onto the lesser known roads. Fuery’s safe house was only a couple more blocks away – the district they were in wasn’t the worst that East City had to offer, but it certainly wasn’t the cleanest either. Riza supposed she might actually fit in here, what with her torn and ruined dress, and blood congealing and flaking on her calves.

“We’re a right sight, sir,” she said as she waited for a lone car to pass them by before stepping out onto the street.

“Are we?” he murmured, his breath warm on her neck. “I thought you looked rather pretty tonight.”

“You did pick out the dress sir,” she replied dryly, looking down to make sure to see where the curb was. “I thought the peplum was a bit much, to be honest.”

“And yet it saved my life. I’m always thinking ahead Lieutenant.”

“Were you intending to get shot?” she reproached, ducking down another dark alleyway. There was a crash from a rubbish bin further up and Riza stopped in her tracks, fingers unconsciously reaching for a gun that wasn’t there.

“Probably just a stray cat,” Roy said quietly after a moment of tense silence, tightening his hold around her neck as she swayed slightly under their combined weight. “The only people who will be looking for us are the ones we want to find us.”

“What about Francis?” she spat out, slowly starting to move once more. “We’ve got no idea if the officers we stationed outside did their fucking jobs-”

“I’m sure they did,” he soothed, pressing his lips against the taut muscles of her neck softly. “Just as you did your job brilliantly as well.”

She laughed bitterly. “You got shot. I think I’ve failed as your bodyguard if I can’t even protect you from a greasy old man with an even older revolver.”

Roy sighed in frustration. “You know as well as I do that that was not your fault in the slightest-”

She rounded the corner and stumbled slightly as she saw the familiar entrance to Fuery’s safe house. Jean was waiting by the entrance, smoking a cigarette and watching the smoke drift above him in lazy patterns.

“Hello Jacqueline,” she called out.

He jerked his head to where she stood, and quickly stubbed the cigarette out. “Old Frankie got caught out by the police that Heymans had stationed out by the kitchen entrance – you were right, he had a car waiting for him to take him over the border.” He smiled brightly at the two of them. “You guys get out okay?”

Riza nodded wearily, adjusting her arms slightly. Roy huffed in annoyance. “They’ve got the documents?” he asked.

Jean nodded, grinning broadly. “Every fuckin’ incriminating one. He’s going away for a long time Chief.”

Roy nodded, resting his chin on her shoulder, awkwardly trying to manoeuvre around the ruffled fabric adornment that jutted out from her right shoulder. “You got a doctor for me Havoc?” he asked grumpily. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get this bullet out of me.”

Jean nodded hastily, quickly running down the steps to meet them at the bottom. “My car is just down the road, you’re okay to keep carrying him?”

Riza sighed and shook her head. “What’s a few more metres?”

The ride to the clinic had been quick – Jean drove like a madman at the best of times, and with the streets practically deserted at the late hour meant that Roy was quickly passed along to a doctor who muttered darkly about kids these days while accepting a thick sealed envelope from Riza.

“You did a good job,” the doctor said to Riza, not even blinking at the sight she must have made in the harsh light of the clinic. “If you hadn’t made a tourniquet for him I’m not sure I could’ve helped you.”

Riza nodded, her shoulders sagging slightly as she felt the exhaustion from the night’s events start to kick in. “Thank you, doctor. Please don’t take his whining to heart.”

The doctor gave a toothy grin.

Jean paused. “I just realised. You carried him to Fuery’s in heels from the hotel. In heels?”

Riza opened her mouth to respond, and shut it, shaking her head in bewilderment. “Would adrenaline be a good enough excuse?” she asked, running a hand through what remained of the small braids Roy had done earlier that afternoon. “I honestly wasn’t thinking about anything other than getting us away from the police.”

Jean let out a low whistle. “We’re getting married after this Elizabeth,” he said as they watched the doctor begin to cut up Roy’s trousers. “We’ll get a little shack out in the country where I can watch you running after sheep in your magnificent heels for the rest of our lives.” His arm slung around her shoulders loosely and she felt his hand squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

Roy snorted.

She let out a watery chuckle, and suddenly she found herself being pulled properly into the taller man’s chest, vaguely aware of Roy protesting behind her. “She’s fine, chief,” she heard Jean say, his hands warm on her back, careful not to shift her hair. “You worry about yourself – we’ll go get some fresh air and clean ourselves up.”

He guided her firmly out of the small clinic, forcing her to sit down on the wooden bench outside. His face looked tired in the light bleeding in from the clinic, highlighting the deep lines of worry. He kneeled in front of her, his hands resting on her bloodied knees. “Don’t go blaming yourself for this, Riza – none of us-”

“We should’ve-” she began, but he shook his head.

“Nobody could anticipate a gun. It’s certainly not his M.O.” Jean sighed, grasping her bloodied hands in his own. “We’ll debrief tomorrow, look at where we went wrong, and learn from our mistakes. You’re in shock right now, and I need to get you clean. Is it just his blood?”

Riza bit her lip and nodded.

Jean sighed deeply. “I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t move.”

She felt the warmth from his body wash over him as he walked back into the clinic. No matter how Jean tried to frame it, this wasn’t a victory. Roy had been needlessly shot – she had allowed herself to be put in danger and it had nearly jeopardised the entire operation. Months had been sunk into catching this monster and it had almost unravelled for reasons she couldn’t yet understand. Why had Francis pulled the gun on her? She thought she had played her part well of the stumbling, ditzy socialite – where had she failed? It didn’t make sense.

It was hard to breathe. Hard to see – when the door to the clinic opened again she could only see blurred shapes through her tears. Jean’s hands were soft on her face as he tried to calm her down, thumbs rubbing at her cheekbones. She hated feeling weak like this – feeling useless. She could have died in that ballroom, brain matter and blood splattered around her head like some kind of unholy crown. He could have died.

Jean slowly went about cleaning her palms of the sticky, congealing blood, the small towel quickly turning an awful salmon colour. Her legs came next, Jean scrubbing them down as best he could. She sat there, and tried her best not to sob.

Jean sat down next to her on the bench and grasped her hands tightly in his own, murmuring about how none of this was any of their faults, and Francis had been caught with the evidence they needed to lock him up. She didn’t know how long they sat there, Jean rubbing her hands and continually talking in low tones. She focused on the faint sounds of traffic in the distance, trained her eyes to the haze that was the East City CBD. She focused on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out

The doctor poked his head out the door. “Your man is all finished. He has some medication for pain but otherwise will heal fine. Bring him back in a week so I can check on the stitches, but so long as he doesn’t do any exercise he’ll be okay.”

“Thank you doctor,” Jean replied, standing up and shaking the doctor’s hand. “We’re very grateful to you.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure you are. Now bugger off, I’ve got a warm bed I want to return to.”

They helped Roy back into the car, and Jean quickly made his way through the deserted city to Roy’s apartment. The street was deserted as they helped him up the steps, and Riza mouthed a ‘thank you’ to the blond man as Roy unlocked his front door, extending a hand for Riza to grasp.

It was quiet in his apartment as they shuffled around in the dark, trying their best not to wake Hayate who was asleep on the couch. It didn’t matter – the dog immediately perked his head up when they walked past but instead remained on the couch, watching the two of them slowly divest their clothes. Roy disappeared down the hall to his bedroom and Riza made herself a cup of tea, curling up on the couch and absently rubbing Hayate’s head. She was about ready to drop dead on her feet – quite literally, she wasn’t looking forward to the blisters that would undoubtedly appear on her feet tomorrow. Tomorrow would present its own challenges: finding out exactly what went wrong in their reconnaissance to grossly miscalculate a fucking gun. Riza sighed, and placed the still-warm mug on the coffee table, careful not to topple any of the paperwork piled up on the small table. Dropping a soft kiss on her dog’s head, she padded her way down to Roy’s bedroom, and began to undo the zip on what remained of the dress – most of it was certainly beyond repair now. She draped it over the chair next to the dresser, and quickly threw her bra onto the ground.

“Don’t bother with a shower,” Roy said lowly, already hogging most of the blankets on the bed. “I already smell like a hospital. We’ll even each other out.”

Riza snorted, taking off her earrings and placing them on the overcrowded dresser. “And the girls say you’re nothing but charm,” she teased, grabbing an old t-shirt from his laundry pile and putting it on. She sat next to him on the bed and started to undo what was left of the intricate hairstyle she had begun with that evening: her fringe was already beginning to kink in the worst ways as she took out the pins and untangled the knots left behind.

“I don’t care about what the girls say,” he replied, pulling at the edge of her shirt. She slid into bed next to him and she nestled her head in the crook of his neck, breathing deeply as his hands drew lazy patterns over her hips. “I have you,” he murmured quietly, kissing her head softly.

fin

#fma fanfiction #royai #roy mustang #riza hawkeye #jean havoc #fullmetal alchemist #my fanfic #riza does it all in heels #bc she can and will #roy is an idiot but it's ok bc we love him

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another-chorus-girl · 7 years

Text

“Love Always Knows” Chapter 2

Well it seems a few people are interested in this story, so I’ll keep the ball rolling for now.

The remainder of the service was just as sombre as mourners left the service.

"That was beautiful Christine," Meg praised. "I know mother heard it."

"Thank you Meg, it was my pleasure." Christine said as they walked out of the cemetery and into the city's bustling street. "It's very beautiful here, Angelique couldn't stop watching all of the boats as we passed. Is that why you and Madame came here?"

"It is very pretty here but not exactly why we came here. After the Opera Populaire shut its doors we needed work elsewhere." Meg seemed to be calculating her word choice. "There was an opera house on the verge of closing up here as well. But they had gotten new management and needed a dance instructor, maman was hired immediately!"

"That's wonderful news Meg!"

"Yes, he even let me perform with the other ballet girls, and now I'm getting to do my own acts!"

"The new owner you mean?"

Meg paused, "Yes, you um...Well that is to say you wouldn't know him, almost no one knows who he is."

"How odd," Christine said confused, "Not even his name?"

"He goes by Mister Y, no one knows much else. At any rate I hate to seem rude but I should be getting home, I have rehearsals tomorrow morning that I need to prepare for."

"Of course, I'm sorry to keep you." Christine paused, "Meg, would you mind terribly if we came by tomorrow? I miss the opera so, and it would be so nice to catch up more on the lost time."

Meg was hesitant, "You're sure?"

"Yes! You're my best friend and I feel terrible that it's been so long. And I know it would be a treat for Angelique to see before our voyage home. "

"Well...alright then. We'll be rehearsing at eight thirty tomorrow, the Sandalphon opera house."

"Sounds wonderful!" Christine smiled absolutely delighted.

Parting ways, Christine hailed a driver to take her to the inn the trio would be staying at. Raoul having already gone ahead with Angelique after the service, Christine entered the carriage alone.

Arriving at the inn, she opened the door to their room, seeing Raoul seated in the sitting area.

"Hello dear," Christine smiled at her husband.

Raoul returned the smile, "Christine,"

"Where's Angelique?"

"She was dozing off so I put her to bed early."

Christine nodded, "It was an awfully long journey here wasn't it?"

"Yes,"

"Well I do have some news Raoul."

His hazel eyes glanced up at her, "Yes?"

"Meg told me she's performing for the Sandalphon opera house here in Mersaile and said we could come see their rehearsal tomorrow. Won't that be fun darling?" Christine beamed.

"That's sounds splendid Christine." Raoul nodded

"And I'm sure Angelique will love it as well, perhaps we can go to their performance if we're still here. It's been so long since I've been to the opera." The brunette said longingly.

"I know, I'm sorry for that."

Christine frowned, sitting beside her husband.

"Raoul, what's wrong?"

He heaved a heavy sigh, "I've denied you so much since we've been married

Christine. I just feel like I've been a terrible husband to you."

Christine grasped his hands in hers, "Raoul stop talking like that. I love you and have never regretted our marriage. Dear, where is all of this coming from?"

"I don't know, I suppose seeing Meg and the thought of setting foot in another opera house just brings back some unpleasant memories."

She frowned, "That was a long time ago Raoul. It's all over now."

Christine loved her husband to no end. But sometimes he would get into these moods. These episodes of depression weren't constant, but when they resurfaced it broke her heart to hear him sound so low.

"If this bothers you so much we don't have to go tomorrow."

Raoul shook his head, "No. Please Christine. I'm sorry, I'd be selfish to refuse you. I know how much you miss the opera. I need to stop dwelling in the past."

Placing her hand along his face, Christine leaned in to kiss him.

"I love you," She mumbled against his lips.

"And I love you Christine," Raoul said truthfully.

The De Chagny's walked through the doors of the opera house, once inside it could only be described as a feeling of wonder. The foyer was absolutely stunning, from the pristine spiral staircase to the finely painted murals that graced the walls.

Angelique's mouth was agape, "Maman! It's so beautiful!"

"Indeed it is darling!" Christine was just as memorised. It was as if they had just entered a palace, and music was the ruler of this kingdom. Even while Raoul was not as musically inclined as his wife, the Vicomte was also bedazzled by the fine architecture.

Aside from the odd worker passing through, the trio were the only ones in the main hall, the opera empty save for those warming up for the next night's performance.

The opera house was like a maze, incredibly spacious as though the rooms kept multiplying. Eventually the faint sounds of voices and music could be heard down a winding hallway. The double doors revealed an enormous concert hall, hundreds of seats lined in red velvet lined the aisles. There were several private boxes in the wings of the hall, the exteriors hand carved with luscious designs depicting the Greek god Apollo.

On stage, the dancers twirled and gracefully danced. Unexpectedly one of the ballerinas lost her footing, toppling over taking two of the other girls with her.

"Girls! Girls please!" A surprisingly stern toned Meg called, coming on stage. Christine was stunned, aside from the youthful pulled up blonde hair, it was as if she were looking down at Madame Giry.

"Now try again, and this time Josephine please be more careful and less clumsy!" The blonde commanded, the younger meek girls complying reforming their previous dance step.

"Meg!" Christine called, coming down the aisle, her voice echoing throughout the empty hall.

The blonde turned her attention to see the family standing by the double doors.

"Christine! So nice that you came!" She said

"Thank you for inviting us, I didn't know you would be instructing the ballet."

"I use to dance when mother and I first came here. But there was an accident, the opera house has been remodelled but a lot of the original foundation is old and a part of the stage buckled when we were performing one night. I can still walk but my leg suffered too much damage for me to dance again." Meg explained with a frown.

"Oh Meg I'm so sorry."

"But I can still sing, Mister Y has even given me leading arias to perform. I have one tomorrow night actually."

Christine smiled, "That's so nice. Honestly, seeing the ballerinas take me back to when we were them years ago."

To both women they were fond warm memories, the two rehearsing with the other girls of the corps du ballet, the giggling gossip they would get into together, the nights the two best friends would sneak sweets whilst Madame Giry was unaware.

"What aria are you performing tomorrow?" Christine asked.

As the girls chattered away, Raoul and Angelique sat in one of the many empty aisles as the ballet rehearsal continued.

"They look so amazing papa, don't they?" The girl asked, her mismatch eyes beaming at every leap and twirl.

"Yes they do," Raoul nodded, "I remember when your mother use to dance." Angelique smiled wide, "Papa did she really?"

The Vicomte felt a warm feeling come over him remembering the night he saw Christine first perform, "Oh yes, she also sang beautifully. We met when we were just a little older than you are now, but years later when we met again it was during an opera and she was the leading lady."

"Wow..." Angelique breathed, many nights she had heard her mother sing either to help her sleep or to no one in particular. But not once did the child think she had once sung for hundreds on stage.

"I want to be just like her one day."

Raoul glanced down at her. She was still so young but Angelique was already showing signs of musical talent. When Christine would sing to her to sleep, often through the ajar door Raoul could hear them singing together, the sound absolutely breathtaking. When she had gotten her tiny hands on the sheet music by their piano, questioning what the music notes meant. Raoul agreed to hire for her a private tutor, but the rate that the child was learning was remarkable, even her tutor was taken back after just a few weeks into their lessons.

She was a budding prodigy. It was something any parent would be proud of, but for Raoul it filled him with a feeling of familiar dread. He wanted to be a proud father, but part of him felt terrified and uncertain.

So caught up and distracted in his troubled mind, the Vicomte failed to notice the child at his side slink down the aisle.

The twirling ballerinas were beautiful to watch, but Angelique wanted to see more, explore this place further.

Her tiny feet clattered on the marble floor. Angelique hummed aloud, spinning around as she'd seen the dancers do. The day felt like a dream, Christine had shown her daughter the beauty of music growing up, and Angelique happily embraced it. She had recounted with her a story that Angelique's grandfather told Christine when she was a little girl too. It was about an angel that would descend from the heavens to guide and show others the way through the angel's gift of music.

The child's humming echoed through the spacious halls. The sound rousing a curious listener.

#phantom #love never dies #au #erik #christine daae #raoul de chagny

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taiwanpuppetryproudthunderbolt · 5 years

Photo

interview 18

(1971)

Dr. Kildare Plays Hamlet

Richard Chamberlain, actor's actor, has finally shaken off the ghost of Dr. Kildare. But now he has another ghost to contend with -Hamlet's daddy. And you know, Richard couldn't be happier.

Birmingham is a grimy British industrial town, famous as the producer of most of the world's bicycles and most of Britain's cars. But famous for culture it isn't. However, it does support one repertory theater, and two years ago they put on a production of Hamlet. And who should be playing the role of Hamlet but an American, and not a Shakespearean actor either, but Richard Chamberlain, the young, blond heartthrob of TV's Dr. Kildare. And he was so good in the part that NBC is putting on a special two-hour Hamlet this winter starring the former M.D.

"Hamlet is the part I wanted almost more than any part I have ever read," Richard said in London, where he now lives most of the year. "When I started rehearsing I was in a state of shock. If the other actors had been beastly, I'd have understood. They'd a right to be upset if someone without their experience came in and played such a role. But amazingly, the company didn't resent me -they were marvelously kind and helpful. By the end, I think I was giving a reasonably straightforward reading. Maybe it's good to come fresh to Shakespeare." This modesty is amazing when you consider that, as Dr. Kildare, Richard was fabulously successful, earned a huge salary and had a fan mail intake which broke all previous studio records.

"I enjoyed that," Richard admitted, "because all actors love to be adored. That's why they do it."

Yet in Birmingham his salary was only $100 a week, and at present, instead of living in his beautiful house high in the hills of Los Angeles, he has a tiny apartment in the middle of London.

"I do miss the sun and I miss my house, which I'm very fond of. It isn't a large house, just two bedrooms, but it's all quite beautiful, with wood beams. And I miss my friends," he admits. But then he adds, "I love England and I love its people. I think the people here live more inside themselves than we do. They're a bit gentler, a bit more vulnerable. But I haven't given up America. My ideal would be to spend half a year in each country."

And how did Richard manage the radical transformation from Dr. Kildare to Hamlet, from being considered a teenage heartthrob to being taken seriously as an actor? "The image of Dr. Kildare is exactly how I was when I began the series," he says. "I was young in years and younger still in personality, and conscious of a certain responsibility to the image -you know, trying to give the picture of a clean-cut, clean-living, rather innocent young American fellow."

"Dr. Kildare was a prig, and it was agony speaking to the press because I always had to say everything was lovely and beautiful and true. As I grew up, he didn't, so I couldn't either, properly, until the series was over."

But after the series was over he really started to take stock of himself and what he wanted from his career. "I had very little experience before Kildare, so I had to do some of my basic training after. Kildare was hard work and marvelous training, but after five years I thought I’d rather exhausted its possibilities for learning."

He began to look around for ways to expand his range as an actor, and not just go on doing television, although he was offered other series and admits that "it would have been very easy to continue on in television." Instead Richard took the difficult step of doing summer stock in the East and Middle West, playing in The Philadelphia Story, Private Lives and West Side Story. He also made his first movie, Petulia, with Julie Christie and George C. Scott. "Petulia was sort of the first step out in a new direction," he recalls. "All relationships in Petulia went wrong because the people weren't able to feel deeply enough to make them work."

But he also recalls that Julie Christie, personally, was a warm and giving person to act with. Richard played her impotent and sadistic husband, a far cry from the priggish Dr. Kildare! After Petulia he made the move to England.

"There were opportunities in other series," Richard admits, "but I felt the need of expanding my experience as an actor and I thought that theater and films were the places to do it. Also, I had heard about England and its repertory companies and that it's easier to get training as an actor there."

So he flew to England. "I seemed to fit in from the start," Richard says. "I’d been here before, staying with friends, and was flattered when one of them told someone, 'We like him because he's a Quiet American.' Well, the first time I came on business I got the part of Ralph in Portrait Of A Lady, and this was a great turning point for me." His taking this part surprised most people since Ralph was not the leading character in the 5-part television serial but the charming, frail cousin of the heroine, who dies before the end of the story. Richard was a great success in it, and he declares, "People saw it and I got offered other things. Before, a lot of people thought I couldn't act."

That television serial started up a whole new romantic image of Richard; no longer as the blond, outdoorsy Dr. Kildare, but as a fragile, sensitive aristocrat. And soon he was being offered the role of Hamlet. "I have had the experience of being very disappointed in relationships, which is inevitably one's own fault -and Hamlet is a disappointed man," he says. "And at times I've felt very vengeful in my life, too, though not to the point of murder. One of my problems in the part is that I'm not actually used to expressing myself in anger. I usually let it pile up and seethe rather than flash out with it as Hamlet does. Mine would come out in some terrible underhanded way."

His success in the repertory version of Hamlet led to the NBC special, which will be the first time Hamlet has ever been played to an audience of around fifty million! And since making that, Richard has also played another Shakespearean role, that of Octavius in the movie Julius Caesar, with Charlton Heston and Sir John Gielgud. He also made the movie The Madwoman Of Chaillot with Katharine Hepburn.

But when I saw Richard in London he had just finished making the movie Tchaikovsky, with the brilliant director Ken Russell, who made Women In Love and several very controversial television dramas.

"To be asked to play Tchaikovsky was easily the biggest challenge of my career," Richard asserts. "He was a man totally involved with himself, a brilliant talent and an unhappy creature."

"Because Tchaikovsky is such an unusual film, one doesn't know the effect it's going to have," Richard continues. "I wonder how it will turn out. I just don't know if I'm any good. It's fascinating -and terrifying- because Ken Russell is so brilliant and you worry about not matching up to his standards. It might be a great, great success and if it is ..."

Does Richard enjoy the thought of becoming a top box-office star all over again, or does he dread the renewed publicity and pressure that that would bring? After all he did say after Kildare, "I had to break loose. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the series or the publicity attached. I'm rather a shy person, but I liked the fame and being noticed. What I'm doing now, though, is much nearer my dreams when I was in college."

College for Richard was Pomona College in California, the state where he was born. His father is a successful manufacturer of furniture, and his elder brother works in the family firm. While Richard was in college he played Blanchley in Shaw's Arms And The Man, and that led to his going to drama school after a two-year hitch in the army. "I was only pursuing acting as a hobby at that time," he confesses. But when he became Dr. Kildare, he began to take the acting profession seriously, particularly as he secretly felt he was not really qualified enough for a leading role.

"Doing Kildare was in fact rather difficult," he smiles. "I think playing a leading man is probably the most difficult for an actor because of making the role interesting. It's easier to play a neurotic or a character role."

Raymond Massey, who also played in the series, has said, "The last two years it began to feel as if it had bogged down -we ran out of diseases." Richard goes on, "It's a waste of time acting in anything but close-ups on TV because that's all TV cares about. Which is a pity because you end up acting from the neck up. In Portrait Of A Lady and Hamlet and Tchaikovsky I have learned much more than I ever learned in school about acting -it couldn't be otherwise. Now I think I have much more freedom as an actor, but I have a long way to go before I am satisfied."

Everybody else who's seen Richard acting lately is more than satisfied however, and Ken Russell, in particular, is known only to work with powerful actors. Richard says the Tchaikovsky role has been one of the hardest for him. "I never worked so hard in my life, weekends and the lot. I was nearly dead with fatigue when we finished. I had no time off at all. But I learned an enormous amount about the making of films."

Obviously, Richard is a very sensitive and introspective actor these days, not at all like the Dr. Kildare image. "I used to do the fresh all-American boy routine because it was easy in America," he laughs. "Here it isn't enough. No one is impressed by the 'Big Star' routine -you have to get down to honest relationships. I like England very much and it always is a great help to get out of context, to uproot yourself and live for a while in a different environment. I found out about myself. We Americans tend to be a bit conformist. In England people are very tolerant of eccentricities and have more respect for personal individuality."

Finding himself seems to have involved living a much less luxurious life, but Richard likes that. "In Los Angeles, especially, there is such opulence of material wealth. It distracts. Encumbered by giant freezers and huge cars, too many things can clutter up your life."

But there is one thing he feels is missing and that is a wife! "Now that I'm past thirty," he confesses, "I am very conscious of time running out. I'd like to get married. I've got a super home in California, but it never looks lived in. It needs a woman. Still, astrologers say it won't happen until I'm thirty-eight or thirty-nine."

And until that time? Well, with this Hamlet, as with every other Hamlet, the play's the thing.

http://www.richard-chamberlain.co.uk/online.htm

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mystic-messenger-writing · 7 years

Note

What about rfa discovering they got a terminal illness and having to tell MC and they rest of the group? Would it differ if MC isn't their S/O but just a close friend instead?

Oh my gosh anonny you hit me right in the feels! I kind of realized that I didn’t make MC their friend but their partner, I’m so sorry about that but hey that just means more angst right? But seriously if you want me to change it, let me know! I almost cried like five times when writing this that’s why they’re so long oops. But I hope that you enjoy!! ^^

Yoosung

For the past couple of days, Yoosung had a persistent pain in his chest and a terrible cough

He didn’t think much of it, just assuming it was a cold and continued his work at the vet clinic

One day when you went for a surprise visit to give Yoosung his lunch, he greeted you with a huge smile

As the two of you went to the break room, Yoosung felt dizzy and started coughing up blood, passing out in the process

You screamed for anyone to help as you held Yoosung unconscious body, both of you covered in his crimson blood

After being rushed to the hospital, you held Yoosung’s hand tightly as he laid in the hospital bed, the doctor then entered the room

He gave the two of you a sympathetic look and told you both that Yoosung had a form of incurable lung cancer and that he had three months left to live

You burst into tears at the doctor’s words but felt a warm hand wipe your tears away

Yoosung smiled sadly at you, tears of his own forming, as he reassured you that everything would be okay

The two of you immediately told the RFA members, all whom were stunned and saddened by the news

But you were determined to make Yoosung’s final months the happiest because you knew that your boyfriend deserved it

You brought Yoosung his laptop and played LOLOL with him at the hospital, cooked some homemade meals that made his eyes light up with happiness, and even brought Lisa to help comfort him

The day of dreading came at last, you desperately gripped onto Yoosung’s bony hand as you stared at his pale face, the tears never ceasing their flow

Yoosung still smiled at you, giving your hand one last squeeze as he told you his final words

“You’ve given my life so much happiness MC, thank you. Please live a long and healthy life for me. I love you so, so much MC.”

And with that, Yoosung’s breathing and what felt like your entire world stopped

Zen

Since claiming another lead role, Zen was practicing his butt off for his upcoming musical

He had recently been garnering more attention to his superb acting skills meaning more lead roles

Even though he tried to ignore it, Zen could feel the strain on his body, specifically his chest area

You came to pick up Zen from rehearsals one night only to find your fiancé passed out with his co-actors panicking as they called an ambulance

Zen was hooked up to countless medical machines as you gripped his fingers, brushing back his silver hair to try and ease his nerves

But when the doctor came in and told the two of you that Zen had an incurable heart disease, you both felt your worlds shatter

Tears streamed down your face as the doctor said that Zen only had two months to live, making the pain in Zen’s chest even greater

Once the doctor left you roughly wiped away your tears as you promised Zen to give him the happiest two months imaginable

Within the next few weeks, you and Zen held your wedding in the hospital room, with the RFA members being there as witnesses and supportive friends

Zen cried the moment he saw you in your wedding dress as he did his best to sit up on the awkward hospital bed

The ceremony was short but heart-felt, all who were present in the room crying, especially when Zen sealed your vows with a kiss as he started crying harder at the realization that he didn’t have much longer to see his new wife

After the wedding, you visited Zen everyday to cuddle close to him in the hospital bed as the two of you enjoyed each other’s presence, knowing that it would last for much longer

Once the day arrived, you looked down at Zen’s weak body, wrapping your arms around him as you cried into the crook of his neck

He weakly put his arms around you, kissing you for one final time as he bid his farewell

“You’ve truly made me the happiest man alive MC, I’m so honored to be your husband. I’m going to watch you so you be happy okay? I love you now and forever MC.”

And with that, Zen breathed his last as he touched your wedding ring one more time before you realized that you became a widow

Jaehee

The amount of work that Jaehee had recently was becoming ridiculous

Many employees quit due to their tyrannical boss so Jaehee had to pick up their slack

Jaehee ended up staying at the office for incredibly long hours at a time

Knowing she needed a rest, one day you marched into the office building to tell Jumin off only to see medics inside

You saw the medics carrying Jaehee away, who wore a look of sheer pain, to the ambulance truck

Going with them, you and Jaehee arrived at the hospital as the nurses called for the doctor

You felt sick with nerves but you smiled at Jaehee as you told her that the two of you would be home soon enough

Except when the doctor came in, he delivered the horrific news that Jaehee had developed Leukemia and that her body would shut down in three months

The two of you stared at each other, shocked by the news but you decided to make Jaehee’s life memorable in the best way

You and Zen put on small performances for her, you brought her a variety of coffees to try, and calmed her down with sweet kisses

Seeing her health slowly demolish broke your heart, especially when her final day arrived

Tears stained your cheeks as you used both of your hands to hold her one hand, kissing her cheek as you told her how much you loved her

Jaehee shakily gave you a final kiss on the cheek, saying her final word to you

“Thank you so much for everything MC, you’ve filled my life with so much happiness. Please never forget that I will always love you no matter what.”

You smiled through tears at the now lifeless Jaehee, knowing that you would always be loved even if she wasn’t physically with you

Jumin

Even if his employees saw him as a tyrannical boss, Jumin worked them and himself to become the best members of society

He always wanted to push those around himself to help reach their abilities, which meant working long and tireless hours

You knew just how hard Jumin worked so you visited him at lunch one day as you each told each other about your day

Jumin suddenly stopped, blinked a few times, and looked into your eyes and with confusion in his own asked who you were

You didn’t even have enough time to respond since Jumin put a hand to his head and fell to the ground, wincing at the pain

After going to the hospital, Jumin seemed somewhat normal again except when the doctor entered the room, he had terrible news

He said that Jumin developed an incurable form of Alzheimer’s disease and that he had around two months until he forgot everything, including how to breathe

You clutched onto Jumin’s hand, pulling him in for a hug as you cried into his shoulder as he softly comforted you

Even with Jumin’s wealth, no doctor could cure his disease so you declared that you would make sure to always be there for Jumin until the end

Everyday you’d visit Jumin the hospital, most of the time having to introduce yourself since he had forgotten who you were

The RFA members would come by to visit as well, most of them being sympathetic towards the two of you

You bring him some wine to taste, photos of past RFA parties, and even introduced him to Elizabeth the third every time you visited

Jumin would always comment on how lucky he was to have you as a girlfriend and would listen with a smile on his face as you recalled past dates and times that the two of you spent together

The last day that Jumin would be alive was a day full of tears and heartbreak

You kept telling him how much you love him and that you always would

Jumin smiled sadly at you as he pulled out a tiny box with a ring inside as he slipped it onto your finger as he told you his final farewell

“From what I can remember, I love you so much MC. You’re kindness knows no bounds and I was lucky to have you in my life. Take care of yourself and Elizabeth for me my love.”

Jumin closed his eyes for an eternal slumber while your heart would be in its own eternal sadness

Seven

For the first time in his life, Seven was truly happy

He had you, the love of his life, his brother saved, and you and Seven were expecting your first child

The darkness in Seven’s life had finally faded away and was replaced with light that he never thought he could possibly have

One day you and Seven went out to go for a walk in the park, chatting happily

You saw a beautiful little flower in the ground and went to pick it but Seven didn’t want you to strain yourself so he bent down to get it for you

But Seven suddenly collapsed, you panicked and screamed for help as you cradled your husband in your arms

Once at the hospital, you squeezed Seven’s hand as the doctor came in to tell you two the news

Seven’s internal organs were failing, resulting in a terminal illness that left him three months to live

You couldn’t stop the tears from falling as you held onto Seven’s hand, but he smiled at you and kissed your tears away

It seemed like the darkness was returning, this time permanently, but you wanted to still be his light

You brought Seven tons of bags of Honey Buddha Chips, brought Saeran along to visit and eat ice cream together, and most importantly, took Seven with you to your ultrasound appointments

Seven was only able to go to one of your ultrasound appointments, but you would bring him pictures of your tiny child growing inside you

He wept when you handed him the photos, clutching your belly as he apologized for not being able to help you raise their child

But you reassured him that everything would be okay since you knew he would always watch over them

When the time came, you held Seven in your arms as he rested his feeble hands on your belly, saying his final words to his wife and unborn child

“Please live a happy life for me MC. And I finally decided what we should call our little boy, Sae-yoon. I love you both so much, never forget that.“

After he passed away, you and Sae-yoon would visit Seven’s grave, both of you smiling because you knew that crazy man would always be watching over the two of you

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger headcanon #mystic messenger imagines #mystic messenger Yoosung #mystic messenger Zen #mystic messenger Jaehee #mystic messenger Jumin #mystic messenger Seven #Such a feels headcanon omg #I never want to imagine the Mystic Messenger peeps dying aww

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yesdanielblisslove · 5 years

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Learn Self Defense - It May Spare Your Life!

Self Defense can arrive in an assortment of ways. Numerous people take up a military workmanship in order to learn to guard themselves while others decide on a "self defense class". Be that as it may, are combative techniques self-defense situated and are self-defense classes worth your time and exertion. Numerous dojos over the world are arranged toward the brandishing perspectives: competitions, customized organization exhibitions, board breaking and outrageous exhibitions that are essentially centered around looking great and doing some entirely flawless gymnastic accomplishments. Competition matches don't reflect great self-defense or even great battling. A few specialists express that "free competing" is the most exceedingly awful thing you can accomplish for getting ready for self defense or battling. I will in general concur. A battle is commonly over with like a flash and the victor is the person who has the most body parts in judgment. Self-defense systems by and large reflect those found in a battle. Individuals get bloodied and tend to lose body parts, especially teeth. A battle may result from a showdown that could be esteemed self-defense. It could be from a robbing or an ambush. You could be the casualty of a trap type attack since you resemble an obvious objective. You might be sucked into an encounter since you saw somebody wrong or are wearing an inappropriate shading garments in an inappropriate neighborhood. Numerous showdowns start with the "monkey move". This is the place one or the two gatherings show animosity without truly accomplishing more than posing. They endeavor to threaten the other party either by words or activities. A few showdowns begin with a sucker punch and go from that point. Typically the individual that grounds the principal blow wins. Self-defense preparing can spare your life, whenever done appropriately. In the event that you have had inappropriate preparing it could push you into genuine difficulty. Taking a six-week self-defense class, as I would see it is very useless. So as to have the option to play out the systems you have to do them many, ordinarily. You should see how you will respond when assaulted and get an abrupt adrenalin dump into your framework. That system learned in the self-defense class that was so natural to perform on an agreeable preparing accomplice all of a sudden simply does not show up on the grounds that your engine reactions strife with your psychological procedures at simply an inappropriate time. Aptitudes must be figured out how to the degree that your "reptilian cerebrum", that piece of your mind held for survival impulses, kicks in and you can perform without deduction. You should probably hit all openings gave and do it adequate goal and power to be viable. You should be eager to take the necessary steps to endure the encounter. In the combative techniques we are encouraged that our whole body is a weapon. The best weapon in our ownership is our mind. We should have an arrangement for our defense. Comprehend that the arrangement is brilliant until the stinky material hits the fast revolving gadget. What you should get ready for is 1) how to get away from the district you are in, 2) how to keep from getting your head busted. Possibly arranging where you are going is a superior initial step then you may not need stages one and two. Continuously consider the "Imagine a scenario in which" in making your arrangements. Continuously plan for an exit plan. Abilities for guarding yourself must be "gross engine aptitudes". When you get under a pressure circumstance and the adrenalin starts siphoning you will lose the vast majority of your fine engine aptitudes and you may create limited focus and passage hearing. Your arms and legs may not fill in as you might suspect they should. Your points of view are additionally reduced. A couple of years back I had the chance to instruct a self-defense class for my little girl and a portion of her partners. I disclosed to them what I thought of transient classes and what they needed to do to make the systems reasonable (steady practice after class). Fundamental punching, front kicks, knee strikes and palm heels were the main things instructed. At that point we rehearsed them for three days doing several redundancies. Do you think any about those ladies will recall the procedures introduced? Likely they won't. In any case, at any rate they were presented to the ideas of guarding their individual. Ideally they will never need to discover the most difficult way possible. In our general public today we have the tragic circumstance where there are packs. It doesn't make a difference who or where they are or what they call themselves. They are hazardous, rough and fierce. They convey firearms, blades, screwdrivers and an assortment of different weapons. They have a penchant for taking medications, for example, cocaine, split and meth. An experience with a few of these thoughtless downers could be lethal. On the off chance that you hit them they may not feel torment as a calm individual would. Their quality might be expanded exponentially on account of the medications. How might you guard yourself against somebody or a gathering under those conditions? A companion of dig used to work for the California Roadway Watch. He has identified with me an account of a meth fanatic that was brought into the booking room in custody. At the point when the sleeves were expelled he assaulted the booking official. The downer dove his thumbs into the eyes of the booking official for all time blinding him. It took four or five officials to pull this moron off the booking official and afterward simply after they had rendered him oblivious. Envision experiencing somebody like that in a self-defense circumstance. Better have your self-defense procedures under control and comprehend what you are doing. A knee to the crotch and a palm heel strike to the jawline presumably would not have the ideal impact. Point scoring systems are totally not feasible. Extraordinary compared to other self-defense methods I at any point scholarly was running. In a long time ago on the off chance that you could run twenty miles you may almost certainly get me. Presently I am fortunate to have the option to keep running over the road. Better to flee and live to run one more day than to play macho-man and get the second place trophy. That is the one with the zipper up the center and is built in order to not let body liquids break out. Tightening influences (stifles and strangulations) are a feasible alternative against a liquor or medication impeded rival yet on the off chance that you treat it terribly you should be prepared to confront the court framework. Perhaps in your self-defense classes they should show restoration strategies, eh? A few people supporter conveying a weapon. I am one of those people. Anyway in light of the fact that you have a Glock taken care of your belt does not mean you can adequately and wisely (or legitimately) use it. You should require the push to get the preparation and practice, practice, practice. In the event that lawful, you might need to convey a blade. It shouldn't be a huge "Rambo" blade. Simply think what a specialist can do with a one-inch sharp edge! I for one would prefer to confront a weapon than a blade. Blades can deliver some extremely ghastly harm in an exceptionally short measure of time and they are consistently very close. They never come up short on ammunition, there is no wellbeing to miss and they are constantly prepared to utilize. Your selection of weapons is up to you. You may wish to not convey a weapon. That is up to you however recall an individual with a weapon has an unmistakable bit of leeway over any of any size and expertise that does not have a weapon. Be careful about any self-defense courses that guarantee their procedures as undefeatable or that you can take on anybody of any size, quality, or ability and win inevitably. Each system has a counter method; each counter strategy has a counter, endlessly, ceaselessly. These cases can push you into genuine difficulty in the event that you attempt to utilize the methods instructed and you keep running toward somebody that knows the counters. Road warriors realize the counters to a ton of hand to hand fighting systems and they practice them. Pre-emptive strikes may give a sound self-defense. In the event that you realize you are going to be assaulted as a result of verbal dangers and non-verbal communication and you can express why you dreaded for your life or wellbeing a first strike is passable. It is likewise suggested. What did that Common War General say? Arrive the firstus with the mostus. In a self-defense circumstance that starts with the monkey move, consistently watch the other person's hands. On the off chance that you can't see them, at that point almost certainly, the person in question is going to send a weapon. That changes things essentially. At the point when a weapon is introduced you currently have support for deadly power. No one destroys a blade just to panic you. Their expectation is to hurt you, forever. A gun is extremely scary and in the event that they are more than arm's good ways from you overlook any clever self-defense incapacitates. Comparable to you might be you can't cover the separation quicker than Smith and Wesson. Somebody setting successful adjusts on objective is another subject. [Author's note: when I went to the police institute we were recounted a circumstance where a cop and a miscreant got into a gunfight at a scope of six feet. Both discharged each of the six rounds from their guns. At the point when the smoke cleared both were remaining there unscratched. Both reloaded and terminated another six adjusts each. Same outcome. Astonishing what adrenalin can accomplish for you!] A decent book to have and to study is: The Endowment of Dread by Gavin De Becker. It discusses tuning in to your premonitions, as your gut is generally right. In the event that you end up in a circumstance that simply does not feel right tune in to that feeling and get the hell out of there. Furthermore, it is alright to be impolite. Better to think about what may have occurred than to encounter it direct. I tell my understudies that all preparation is great regardless of whether it shows you what not to do. So in the event that you are wanting to take self-defense with the possibility that it might spare your life please take a gander at the preparation with a basic eye. Adrenalin based reaction preparing is likely your first best decision. I additionally comprehend that Gunsite Preparing Center has a few openings. Business Name: Tokon Martial Arts Street Address: 1920 Terracina Drive Suite 200 City: Sacramento State: CA Zip Code: 95834 Phone Number: 916 835 7717 Website: www.TokonSacramento.com Business Email: [email protected] Business Hours: Mo - Fr 5PM - 8PM Saturday: 8:30AM to 11AM

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joroanblog · 5 years

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Learn Self Defense - It May Spare Your Life!

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beulahdelee411-blog · 7 years

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Just how Social media site Has Altered Us.

Update: Check the newly-added final video game on our checklist for a video game you can easily play behind-the-scenes at work! Nintendo's positioning of Switch over as its next home console has actually rather masqueraded the fact that it is actually the best competent portable activities machine ever before made. Properly, that time has come, through an additional activity called Robo Remember-- the most effective and very most polished online reality games take in I have actually seen to time. Our team've obtained no suggestion that Sheeran will definitely be actually playing, but showrunners David Benioff and also Dan Weiss showed that they had been actually attempting to book him for a while. Often times when you produce a video game in Stencyl, you'll desire to start with a Package. Clean blueberries will probably be actually a far better option, so I will definitely attempt that in the summer months when they are in period. That was among those full weeks on Game from Thrones, when whatever that could fail did go wrong - unless, that is actually, you were actually the one commanding the fire-breathing lizards. He teaches Celia to manipulate the planet in the same way so that she can contend in a high-stakes activity from Marco, an orphan in a similar way trained by her dad's nemesis. Our experts're heading to add up up to leading over the upcoming handful of days, so maintain checking out back as our team unveil our options for the 25 finest activities of 2016. After that she'll understand exactly what a fuck up I am, if I tell her why I participate in the activity. She'll see through me. She'll find whatever. When the activity initially visited, that made a lot of feeling to place your funds in to Ammu-Nation immediately. There was an opportunity when activities like rowing, swimming, wrestling as well as searching were actually well-known activities. Every video game I make, I head out and acquire a retail duplicate as well as play this. At least the first handful of amounts. This is precisely viewed in her wonderful artwork for the 2008 National Publication Festival, in which birds and also pets from lots of states are exemplified. Oh the author excellents, as well efficient at obtaining the audience therefore entailed that also you challenge what's genuine and just what is actually just component of the activity. I have a 7.1 klipsch unity III along with pair of sub12's off from an Onkyo TX-NR905 receiver. There are training courses as well as associations looking into video games as social background, while the well-known video set, History Respawned has scholars evaluating just how video games such as Assassin's Creed IV and Results 4 present record to players, and also how those players respond. When they were younger required me so much, nothing slits through my soul even more than to be actually reminded the girls I abandoned. Built through Steal Cage Gamings, Maintain Speaking as well as No one Blows up needs careful interest from a suggested 2 to 6 players. It was whatever I truly got out of this second book in the set as well as even more. That yet another game can be found in the box that is far better than Infinite Combat in nearly every way is very damning. No, I highly recommend XOne S cause that can easily trendy resolution when linked to a 4K TELEVISION, on XONE Slim you possess even more features and also the best online company as well ... additional apps, Backwards compatibilty, EA access as well as an align of games delivered as vowed. As such, the writers dread that these games could serve as virtual rehearsals for genuine violence. In a sense, Superhot blends elements of each popular FPS activities along with turn-based method mechanics for a special browser-based encounter. The other thing that injured my head regarding this publication was the relatively obsessive quantity of date diving. Each big square includes a tablespoon of flax and a teaspoon of chia seeds and also 7 grams from fiber and also 6 grams from healthy protein. Off the writer: The timetable for this tale runs alongside the one in The Strategy. Notable: A lot of beneficial addition to Griffins males's hockey in 2015-16, where he led the staff in triumphes and minutes. Additionally participated in basketball in secondary school at St. Francis Xavier where his grades earned him the Rutherford Scholarship. Bet the AJHL's Drumheller Dragons. In the event you liked this informative article and you want to acquire details with regards to http://braintesters.info/βότανα-και-one-two-slim-μπαχαρικά-που i implore you to stop by the site. Bro Daniel is actually additionally on the Lions. When created residences in Africa, he. Made an ACAC gamer from the full week award during the course of the 2015-16 period. That has actually been actually a lot of years due to the fact that designers are actually performing this for COMPUTER (multy platform activities). I presume this is brilliantly received Holden's expressed long for wanting to being actually the Catcher in the Rye." Quick side details: I possessed no idea exactly what the name to the book pertained to until I simply read through the book. I do not know just how a book created many years back might say specifically just what i will mention. Much from the study on terrible computer game use relies upon procedures to analyze hostility that do not associate along with real-world physical violence. This book was a bit odd for me. Both Bric and Quin seemed like completely different folks. It is actually also pleasingly reminiscent of various other board games - particularly the wonderfully stepped T.I.M.E Stories. What each edges of the controversy settle on is that it is possible for moms and dads to have steps that limit the possible bad impacts of video games. Tomb Raider 2013 Walkthrough continues on Webpage 2 with Phase 7: A Road Less Traveled and also 2 secret burial places. Additional vegetation, plants & tree's were hand placed as well as handcrafted amongst the various other locations/objects within the activity. I spent New Years Eve along with your weblog as well as Stone 'n New Years on TELEVISION (yes our company are an unsatisfactory few w/ young children) in any case love your stories as well as dishes.

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