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luvknow · 5 years

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how to tame a prince | seo changbin

genre: dragon prince!changbin x fem researcher!reader | fantasy/royal au ; enemies-to-lovers ; swearing summary: you travel the world collecting data so you could write your thesis on your favorite creatures - dragons. at the last leg of your journey, you accidentally fall asleep in a dragon’s cave owned by a nearby kingdom and are kidnapped by their prince, seo changbin. after getting permission to study there from the king, changbin refuses to leave you alone with his precious dragons and you develop an unlikely relationship. wc: 11.6k

Your very first memory as a wee little kid was when you were waiting impatiently in bed for one of your parents to come and read you a bedtime story. Your library was filled with infinite amounts of educational, but kid-friendly books just for you. Your father was the one who filled bookcases upon bookcases of those books because he knew the second you were born that your mind craved infinite knowledge. And he was right! You loved reading the shelves in your name because they held words that your school was too afraid to say. In fact, you got in trouble a lot simply because you said those words.

Witches, trolls, spirits, goblins, ghouls, magic, you name it, you read it, you said it and the school was not very happy with neither you nor your parents. But that’s ok, because your parents didn’t care for what the stuck up old hags said, anyways. They weren’t going to be those parents who hid their child from the vast unknowns of the world because they were trying to ‘protect’ you - they wanted to show you the unknowns. They’d take the scolding for as long as they can - as long as that little fire that burned for knowledge was still lit in your heart, then they had nothing to worry about.

No one expected any less from the famous apothecary family.

You were maybe ten by the time you read about dragons. Ten was a sensitive and impressionable age for most kids, but keep in mind that you’ve read about nearly every large carnivorous creature to exist by then. The largest was a griffin (or was it a hippogriff?), but even to you, a lion-horse-eagle with talons and wings didn’t impress you much. So when you came across the mighty dragons, you were hooked.

Some were monocolored, some were multi, some had wings with no legs, and some had legs but could still fly, wasn’t that marvelous!? Dragons were all over the world in infinite flavors with infinite purposes unknown to ordinary humans like you, but that’s what attracted you to them - they were a species of infinite possibilities.

Dragons were a complete mystery not only to you, but to the world. Aside from the tamers that lived in the mountains, the forests, and in between, no one really knew about them outside of a very select handful of good academic papers and books and whatever the professors were hiding from the world. So you took it upon yourself to do God’s work and research about dragons yourself. There has to be some kid out there who was just as curious as you were, right? And what do they have for resources? Old scrolls and beat-up books. You couldn’t recall exactly when in your childhood you decided to write your thesis on dragons, but you guessed it was somewhere between when your parents got their first shipment in of pitch black dragon’s blood and when you saw a patient burst in with a poisonous bite on his thigh.

“What happened?” a younger you asked, yelling over the bloody murder-screaming patient.

“This man was in the forest hunting and accidentally shot an arrow through a baby dragon. Let’s just say the mother wasn’t too happy about his presence,” your mother giggled. “Now I have to use all of the dragon blood from our last shipment to pour over this nasty wound along with a huge dollop of our magic creme. Will you get the gauze for me?”

You obeyed and handed her the roll. She cut long enough to wrap around and cover the wound and cut up a smaller piece to ball up and stuff in the patient’s mouth.

“Ah, much better,” your mother sighed when the screaming subsided. “Suck it up, will ya?”

After that intriguing encounter, you read about dragon’s blood and its purposes for the whole week.

You spent all your free time until you graduated secondary school reading about the creatures of the world. Your grades would slip up here and there because you failed to read the current literature assignment or the chapter in calculus, but you eventually graduated and thank God for that, right? Your parents were exhausted after nearly fifteen years of parent-teacher conferences. Now you could read about, write about, and talk about dragons as much as you pleased. They were the center of your childhood and now they were going to be the center of your world.

When it was time for you to leave the nest, your parents didn’t shed any tears. Rather, they couldn’t stop themselves from grinning because they were so incredibly proud of their curious child.

“Where will you go?” your mother asked.

“To every dragon habitat I can find. They say the dragons that inhabit the forests and guard the streams and lakes are the most um, temperamental, so I'll start there.”

“Just don’t be a stranger, ok?” As you nodded, she pulled something from her pocket - a little black vial tied to a long leather string. She looped it over your head and let the glass dangle and shine like a jewel. “It’s dragon’s blood. But only use it during a lifesaving emergency, do you understand? Don’t be stupid with this! This was very expensive…”

“Yes, mom…”

“And don’t waste it on some stupid stranger! Make sure you save that for you and you only -!”

“Yes, mom…!”

“Take this also,” your father said, handing you an apple-sized glass jar with a dark green creme in it. You never noticed your parents had an affinity for dark things, but then again you grew up in a shop painted pitch black your entire life, so you never cared to notice.

“Magic creme?” you asked.

“For not-so emergency emergencies. Who knows what kind of nasty stuff is out there that we don’t know about! This could save your life one day, too.”

You placed the jar carefully inside your bag that was stuffed with only the essentials. You had tons of notebooks, pens, clothes, some snacks, miscellaneous things, and lots of money all packed up. With the dragon’s blood around your neck and a jar of magic creme, you were all set to go.

You set off to a deep forest about seven days travel away - quite the distance for your first location, but luckily the locals in every passing town were super helpful. They all pointed you in the right direction without asking for a single coin, and you think it’s because they think you’re doing them the favor of slaying a dragon rather than study it because they all warned you about the tamers.

“Be careful while travellin’!” A farmer warned. “Them dragon tamers don’t take a liking to slayers. Can’t imagine why! Ha!”

“Oh, I’m not -”

“You should hurry! You don’t wanna be stuck in the forest when it’s dark. That’s when the goblins come out.”

On your way in, you wrote and took note of everything you could see. The height of the canopy, the types of fruits and flowers, the shape of the leaves, the sizes of the rocks - literally everything! You even taped a couple of leaves into your notebook as both a reference and a souvenir. They made your notes look cute.

A couple of hours passed since you’ve been sitting on a rock by a pond that totally looked like one that a dragon would drink out of but alas, nothing even remotely close to a dragon showed up!

Just as you were about to give up and go back to your inn for the night, the leaves of the forest danced with the sudden strong gust of the wind. The moon was shining without a cloud in the sky, but then a long figure shadowed the light and the forest was almost pitch black if it wasn’t for your campfire.

“What an enormous creature, huh?” a gentle voice noted. From the shadows of the trees, an older woman stepped out into the moonlight with a kind smile on her face, amused by your dropped jaw. “First time seeing a dragon?”

“Can you tell?”

“Oh, yeah. Wanna take a closer look?”

“Really!?”

“Of course! You gotta study them somehow, right?”

That night you learned that both dragons and their tamers were naturally intuitive like that. Did you really look so much like a researcher?

Your first encounter with a dragon was absolutely terrifying. When you read about them being huge, you never thought they’d be this huge! But size didn’t define her personality a single bit. This dragon was a gentle giant and you were lucky that she was your first study subject. Her scales were gorgeous shades of blue and you’re devastated that you’ll never be able to capture a color so unique that it didn’t have a proper name. For days you drew, pet, fed, studied, and talked to her until you got all the information you wanted. Who knew leaving your first dragon subject would be this hard?

“Where are you off to next?” your tamer trainer asked.

“I don’t know, to be honest. Do you have any suggestions?”

“I think you should head to the waters and then the mountains. You’ll hit the mountains first, but get through them as fast as you can.”

“Why?”

“Those dragons are not one to be reckoned with. You need to build your experience with other dragons first - you know, get the hang of meeting different personalities. The dragons of the river are much more forgiving than the ones of the mountains. Also the mountain tamers are assholes.”

“Is that so?” you chuckled.

“Yeah, fuck those guys! They think they're the shit just because they’re high in altitude, can weather the worst conditions, and have the toughest dragons to tame. So smug, that group… Be on your tiptoes when you travel through there.”

When you left the following morning, you took heed to her advice and traveled through the valleys of the mountains straight to the rushing rivers that lead to a waterfall that dropped for miles. It appeared to be an ordinary river. At the top of the river, not much was seen besides foamy waters. But after a days trip down to the bottom, you saw an oasis. The waters were crystal clear and chilling which was very refreshing to drink after all the walking and climbing. At the pond where the river ended was a school of koi fish of different colors and patterns. Legend had it that koi who can swim up the waterfall turn into a dragon - at least that’s what your books said. And maybe they were true, especially when you watched for hours how some koi were able to climb a short ways up. But it’d be another thousand years until another koi-dragon would be born.

The newest dragon was golden. He was an excited and ambitious serpent with claws and a head of a lion. Though intimidating with his beady eyes and long whiskers, he was friendly the moment he noticed you weren’t a hunter. Again, it was crazy how dragons had an intuition about people just from looking at you for a couple of minutes. This lone dragon appeared without a tamer, playing with you for only a quick moment, though it was enough for you to write down everything you had about him. As quickly as he came, he disappeared up the waterfall to where only the Gods knew.

In the span of two dragons, you filled out nearly an entire notebook already! You hoped to fill out a million more.

And that’s what you did. You spent years and years travelling the globe to all corners with trees and bodies of water. But not the mountains - not yet, at least. You weren’t ready for that. You spent those years studying dragons who all kind of looked similar. Many were serpent-like with snakeish bodies, heavy heads with long whiskers. You haven’t encountered any four-legged-type yet, which was what you assumed to find in the mountains. Guess you saved the best for last, huh?

You were down to your last set of recently-bought notebooks by the time you reached the mountains. You hoped the village had some for purchase and you could send the ones in your bag back to your parents to read. They were your biggest fans when it came to your books and for that, you were thankful.

It's cold in the mountains when you arrived. It was still daylight, but the snow was barely tolerable when gusts of wind flew in your face. You figured a storm was brewing as the sun began to set and set up camp in a conveniently-placed cave. The cave was huge, ginormous even, and obviously way too big for any human to create. But you were way too tired to question it - even the rocks were comfortable to you, that’s how tired you were! And it seemed like no one inhabited it at the moment, so for now, you'd be safe.

The crackle of your campfire was the white noise that helped you fall asleep. You were knocked out dead the whole night that you didn’t even notice you were getting kidnapped.

“What the -” you said, struggling to wake up from all the noise. A bunch of black leather and fur-cladded people surrounded you. An angry looking one, who you assumed was the leader, snatched your backpack. “Hey, give that back!”

When you lunged forward to take your bag, a red-hot dragon roared behind him deep inside the cave and you fell to your knees before your captors in fear and amusement. With wide eyes, you ignored the people robbing you of your only belongings and watched the creature breathe a hot, white fire. He was a full-grown adult, you could already tell. With wings of a bat, clean ruby scales, and a body of a serpent, you’ve never seen a dragon more beautiful. You took mental notes of every detail and hoped these people would give you your books back soon before you forgot.

Tight metal shackles were being cuffed on your wrists when you snapped out of your daze. One man pulled you roughly to your feet and made you look at their leader right in the eyes.

Ah, he’s a bit… short… for a leader…

“Who are you,” he demanded sternly.

“I’m a researcher,” you answered honestly. “I research dragons.”

“Is that what you do before you kill them?”

“N-No, I would never -!”

“Then what the fuck were you doing in his cave?” he sneered, referring to the fire-breather behind him.

“I didn’t know it was his cave.”

“You just happened to stumble in, is that it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess -”

“Bull fucking shit.”

“It’s not! If you’d just let me get a word in, I can explain -!”

“Take them away.”

“Wait what, away where? Hey, where are we going!?”

“You’ll see.”

The leader’s henchmen dragged you through the snow all the way back to their village miles away. Though seemingly mountain folk, they actually lived in the valleys where the temperature was much warmer that even flowers bloomed from the soil. The dragons must have been the ones who inhabited the mountains.

All of the townspeople dressed like your captors - decked out in leathers and furs, charcoal lining their eyes decoratively, and silver jewelry that showed off their social status. As you were cuffed and exposed for everyone in the village to see, you side-glanced the leader. His ears were bejeweled with dangling drops of silver and ear shell cuffs so shiny that they were blinding. His fingers held some heavy metal, too, some encrusted with rubies and garnets. The aesthetic of these people, though a bit bold, was quite stylish, even if it was just a palette of silvers, blacks, and reds.

The leader shot you a sharp glare.

“Staring is rude,” he sneered.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who cared for manners,” you scoffed back.

“Do you know what I do with strangers who stare too long?” You didn’t answer. “I gauge their eyes out with a melon scooper.”

You let him win that round.

You were taken to a castle at the edge of the town whose walls could be seen the second you stepped foot in the valley. Its architecture was intimidating, which was quite fitting for such an, um, unique people, but it was beautiful nonetheless. You couldn’t wait to be locked up in there until you died.

The following events were a blur as they all lead you to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what. A torture chamber? A dungeon maybe? You hoped the dungeon or wherever you were going at least had a dragon to guard the door.

You entered a grand room where the King and Queen sat on their black thrones. Finally, you'd get to talk to the true leaders of the village, not this shrimpy delinquent who threatened to melon ball your eyes out and his buff henchmen who did his dirty work. Maybe you could at least get a word in with mature adults. How dare they capture you without letting you explain! Although your captors looked angry when they first saw you in their cave, the King and Queen didn’t seem as disgusted.

“What is this?” The King asked with genuine curiosity.

“We found her sleeping in Jin’s cave.” Ah, so Jin was the dragon’s name! A handsome name for a handsome dragon.

“Was she doing anything else…?”

“No… but she might’ve if we didn’t catch her.”

“Hand me the bag.”

The small man handed your backpack over to the King. He inspected it and was surprised to see that nothing else was found other than your essentials and notebooks, which was what you were trying to explain to your captors in the first place. The King flipped through your notes and you couldn’t help but burn a deep pink. No one besides your parents have read your notes and you felt embarrassed and exposed seeing someone squint at them like they were judging every sentence you wrote.

“These are very thorough,” he commented. “What exactly do you do?”

“I research dragons for this thesis I’m writing.”

“A thesis?”

“Yes! Hopefully to become a book one day. I-I swear I don’t kill dragons!”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“I don’t have any weapons on me. I’m completely defenseless! And theoretically speaking, even if I could slay a dragon, wouldn’t you think I would have fought back from being captured? All your people captured me unscathed. Also, do you really think that I could slay a dragon and come out alive?”

Your captor hated to admit that you were right, but you had a point there. Even so, he refused to let you get away with sleeping in Jin's cave.

"Fine then. You're free to research for your thesis."

"What!?" the leader shrieked. "But Father -"

"And you, Changbin, are to leave them unbothered. I shouldn't have to waste my time on something as pointless as this. Both of you - all of you - get out of my sight."

The henchmen left without question, followed by the King and Queen, and finally their guards. It was you and the leader named Changbin left alone and you couldn't leave until you were unshackled and had your belongings. The boy stayed glued in his place as if he couldn't believe that his father let a complete stranger get so close to his precious dragons! Honestly, if you were in his place, you'd think the same thing.

Changbin shot you another glare. "Are you going to move or will I have to drag you out the same way you came in?"

"I'll gladly leave once you take these things off of me."

Reluctantly, though quickly, he strutted to you and unlocked your wrists with a key. As you stood up and dusted yourself off, your bag was shoved harshly to your chest nearly knocking the wind out of you.

You can smell his cologne as he leaned in. "I'm watching you," he threatened.

You held in your breath so you wouldn't seem afraid. Was it working? How was it that you could muster the courage to stand in front of dragons but a measly prince who smelled nice made you nervous?

"Be my guest," you replied back nonchalantly.

A soft 'tch' was heard before he stormed out of the room to finish his stuck-up princely duties, or whatever. Everything was still in your bag, including the magic creme you still had plenty of left, so you were thankful for that. Now that you're in the clear to study as much as you could about the four-legged-dragons, it seemed like your only obstacle now was Changbin. Even if he kept his promise about keeping an eye on you, you just prayed that he wouldn't get in the way.

Now to find an inn far away from the castle...

You rented a room at an inn at the very edge of the village closest to the path that would lead you back to Jin's cave. It was still afternoon by the time you settled in and you had time to buy more notebooks, some food, and most importantly proper clothing. Rumor has it that the weather's going to be unbearable the next few weeks and who knows how long you'll be here? So you bought whatever you could to stay warm and boy, did you look like a local. Black and fur wasn't your style, but you looked good in it, so you couldn't complain. Fur made you look fancy.

You set out for the cave as soon as you were finished with your errands. Four-legged fire breathers were most active in the nighttime and you weren't going to waste a single day out here. You wanted to spend as much time as you could studying not only Jin, but the other dragons that guarded this village. You hoped that the other tamers were nicer than Changbin because the likelihood of him letting you study Jin without a problem didn't seem very high.

As you entered the same cave just after the sun was setting, you saw someone made it to Jin before you. Guess Changbin wasn't going to let you study Jin problem-free afterall. He sat on a rock in front of his relaxed dragon as if he was waiting for you. The moment the echo of your footsteps could be heard throughout the cave, the dragon's eyes snapped wide open like a snake. Sharp, long flames shot up from his flaring red nostrils, dangerously close to the unbothered boy.

"You're late," he sneered.

"For what?"

"His feeding."

Changbin stood up from his rock and ushered the abnormally-calm dragon to follow him towards you. The cave shook every time Jin took a step and if you thought he was huge from afar, well he was ginormous up close. You didn't notice you unconsciously took steps back until you reached the outside of his cave.

"How was I supposed to know it was his feeding time?" you pouted.

"Some 'dragon researcher' you are if you don’t know a dragon’s dinner time."

The boy brushed your shoulder as he passed by and you're ashamed you let him, but you figured it'd be smart to let Jin pass by first. He took a quick whiff at you as he passed and you took his disinterest in you as a good sign. Maybe that meant he liked you? The other dragons you encountered usually expressed that they liked you, but you'll figure this out later. For now, as you followed them, you'd take mental notes of Jin's appearance, like how the blue-ish tint of the moonlight made his scales reflect back the slightest purple.

You followed the Prince all the way back down to a vast farm filled with cows and goats, exactly where you hoped to not end up. The animals were munching on the plush green grass but you were too distracted by Jin’s hungry growling to enjoy the peaceful scene. Changbin looked back at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Got your fancy notebook ready?" he asked, but didn't let you answer.

He held his hand out to the openness of the farm and Jin happily flew towards his meals. Really you should have been terrified that this large beast mercilessly chewed up livestock, but God, was this fascinating! Jin was the type of dragon who had fun with his meals, tossing them up in the air and catching them whole as opposed to not wasting any time and just eating like a 'normal' dragon. It was almost like he was a dragon pup, but maybe he was just a pup at heart.

Changbin looked annoyed that you were enjoying this. "You can't seriously be entertained by this."

"Some dragon researcher I'd be if I didn't enjoy this," you muttered, not taking your eyes off of the red beast and your notebook.

"You're not normal, are you?"

"Really, what's normal these days? Also no, I read a lot of books when I was younger."

"You look like a bookworm."

"Thank you." The oh-so high and mighty Prince scoffed at your remark. "You don't like that I'm here, do you? Or rather you don’t like me at all."

"What gave it away." He made sure to make it sound like a condescending statement rather than a curious question.

You closed your notebook for now and focused on Changbin, who can't seem to keep his eyes off of you even when he was trying to be insulting. Were you that interesting to him, or something? "But why? Is it just me, or are you like this with all of your visitors?"

He walked up to you - more like strutted, in all his leather and bejeweled glory - until you could smell his cologne again. There's a bit of playfulness on his lips once he stopped in front of you and you're starting to think that he's enjoying the back-and-forth dialogue you two share. Could it be that he likes the company and that he’s just teasing you? Then, his pointer finger grazed your collarbone, sending bursts of chills across your skin. He hooked his finger around the strap of your necklace and pulled out the vial of blood that you hid in your shirt.

He tugged forward so your faces were close and your breath hitched in your throat. "I don't like you because you claim to love dragons, yet you wear their blood on your neck like a trophy," he seethed.

“How did you know?”

“You reek of it.”

"It’s not like I slayed the dragon -"

"If Jin were to kill someone right now and I wore their blood around my neck, does that make me any less barbaric?"

"Does their blood have the healing properties of a God?"

Changbin dropped his hold on your neck and rolled his eyes, heading back over to his precious beast. "You're barbaric," he yelled into the night.

"As a traveller far from home, I need this! Not all of us have your luxuriously stagnant lifestyle as royalty!"

"No, but I can't imagine a life with apothecary parents was quite difficult."

He called over his rubied dragon who flew to him in a heartbeat. Though having just eaten a ton of livestock, the blood from eating blended in with his scales, and for that you were grateful. Jin still doesn't seem to mind your presence and Changbin took notice of it right away. Yet another reason to be annoyed with you - he was never this welcoming to strangers! Some guardian dragon...

You're still in shock about how he knew about your parents. He was almost too intuitive. "How did you know that?"

"Dragon's blood is the world's rarest commodity. Only the best apothecaries can get a hold of that stuff. Lucky you."

Jin flew up into the air, swirling gusts of wind all around you and Changbin, nearly lifting you and the remaining livestock off of your feet but the Prince was already used to this. Once he was airborne, the mighty beast flew back the way that you came, high into the mountains to either go back into his cave or play in the night sky.

Changbin was already heading back towards the village in the valleys when you were done doodling in awe. You had to run to catch up to him - what kind of Prince leaves a guest in the middle of a dark field unattended!?

"Do you ever fly with him?" you asked, trying to break the tense silence.

Changbin nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Just for fun, or…?”

“Sometimes for fun, sometimes for errands.”

“How is it?”

“How is it?” he repeated, cocking his brow. How has a dragon researcher not flown yet? “It’s indescribable.”

“Can you try describing it?”

“Why don’t you just ride one and see how it feels?”

“Do I look like I know how to fly a fifty-ton beast?”

The Prince halted just before entering the village and turned to look at you incredulously. “Do you know how to do anything with dragons besides just standing there and watching them?”

Embarrassed, you scratched your head. “Not really…”

He shook his head disapprovingly. “Not only are you barbaric, you’re hopeless.”

Changbin walked away, leaving you to on your own to walk to your inn.

“Asshole,” you muttered.

You really did not want to see Changbin multiple days in a row for however long you were going to be there. Instead, you asked the locals to see where other dragons’ caves were in the mountains. At first they thought you were a slayer in disguise, but then they realized you were just bat-shit crazy after you told them you were a plain researcher who enjoyed making a living out of your passion. Regardless, they told you where the other two caves were hidden. It was incredible that there were only three dragons in total for such a vast mountain range, but it seemed like that was all they needed.

Halfway up the mountains towards the second dragon’s cave, you realized that maybe you under dressed for the occasion, even as the sun was still out and shining. Multiple pelts of fur was enough to keep your body warm, but you failed to purchase a damn scarf to cover your face from the icy winds. But you couldn’t turn back now! You came too far already.

Just as you were mentally cursing yourself, you felt a snowball hit the back of your head.

“Ow! What the fuck!?” you screamed. You didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Changbin.

“How unladylike of you to swear,” he teased.

“How unprincely of you to harass a lady!”

“‘Harass’, relax it’s just snow. And ‘unprincely’ isn’t a word.”

“How about I call you ignoble instead.”

“Hey,” he said threateningly, pointing a finger at you. “Don’t call me that, you barbarian.”

You didn’t care for his name calling as you turned around and continued walking towards the cave. You can hear Changbin’s footsteps behind you. As if the day could not get any worse, the snow thrown at your face began to melt and trickle down your neck and chest, making you feel cold, uncomfortable, and shivering so hard that even the Prince started to feel bad for you.

You felt a long wad of fleece being draped over your face messily on purpose. The kind and chivalrous Prince just gave you his scarf! Oh, lucky you.

“What is this for?” you asked.

“You’re an idiot for not dressing properly for the mountains.”

“Sorry that I don’t live near mountains...”

“It’s common knowledge. That’s my favorite scarf by the way, so don’t get it dirty.”

Today marked the day that Changbin showed an emotion other than disgust towards you. You even wrote it down in your notebook.

He walked ahead of you the rest of the way and you weren’t sure if he was leading you or because he didn’t want to stand next to you. You followed anyways, knowing that you’d be completely lost without him otherwise. It was a wonder how you made it up this far without him to begin with. But you probably would have found your way eventually, right? Why did he have to babysit you! And how did he know when you were leaving to go every time!? But if you really thought about it, if you had dragons of your own, you’d act the exact same way - no one would ever lay a hand on your babies.

The second cave was just as open as Jin’s, but no dragon could be seen in the shallow parts of the entrance. Unlike Jin’s cave, torches lit with fire were stuck on the walls and led you so deep inside that you couldn’t even see the end.

You stopped in your place. This was kind of spooky, wasn’t it? What if this was where you’d die? What if Changbin was leading you to some satanic ritual where they tied you up like a boar and the dragon would cook you up like a pot roast for dinner and -

“The hell are you standing there for?” Changbin’s voice echoed. “Are you scared, or something?”

“Uh… or something,” you replied shakily. “Where are we going?”

“Do you think I’m going to kidnap you again?” A playful smirk grew on his lips.

“It wouldn’t be unlikely.”

“She’s all the way in the back for a reason. See for yourself.”

Reluctantly and with your guard up, you followed him to the back of the cave. The cave was so deep into the mountains that the torches stopped somewhere in between and Changbin had to grab the last one hung up and lead the way. While you took notes on the cave depth, Changbin waited impatiently for you to catch up.

“It’s just a cave, what do you even need to take notes on?”

“Jin’s cave was nothing like this one. I have to take note of everything and anything - that’s what researchers do, after all.”

“Doesn’t that take a long time?”

“Oh, it takes forever! But I don’t mind.” There’s a content smile on your lips that has Changbin wondering what kind of weirdo he got stuck with. You’re interesting though, and you can hold an intelligent conversation, so he can’t complain about being bored at least. “You don’t have to keep waiting for me. I won’t try to escape, I swear.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“You’re worried about something?”

“It gets really dark in here. You’ll get lost if I leave you behind.”

“Hm, sounds like you’re worried about me ~”

“If I lose you and you die, my ass is next because my Father will think I’m the reason behind it. Can’t have the King thinking that, now can I?” Changbin ignored your pouty lips and kept moving forward. “Hurry up, we’re almost there.”

Luckily, he was right. At the very end of the cave was a huge, courtyard-sized nest with a tired pitch black dragon napping inside. Her scales were so matte black that even the fire that circled the walls didn’t reflect. You could see her spine rise and fall as she slept peacefully. For a quick moment, Changbin smiled at your dreamy eyes, but then quickly frowned again before walking around the nest to the sweet spot.

“Where are you going!?” you whispered harshly, hoping not to wake up the dragon. “Don’t leave me here!”

“Shut up and come look.”

Even from a distance, you could see Changbin gently smiling and you’re not sure whether you were more curious or frightened by it. Regardless, you tiptoed over to your enemy to take a peak at what he’s smiling at and you nearly burst into tears.

“Holy shit, dragon eggs…” you whispered. Under the ginormous black dragon was a handful of equally-black eggs.

“They’re due soon. Happens only once every thousand years, you know?”

“Of course I know.” It was too hard to hold in your grin as you doodled the masterpiece in front of you. “Does she sleep all the time?”

“She’s practically hibernating until they hatch.”

“Incredible! What’s her name?”

“We never gave her a formal one. We kind of just call her Queenie. She’s my mother’s dragon.”

You watched Changbin stare at the beautiful dragon fondly. He was kind of cute when he wasn’t glaring at you. “Do you like her a lot?”

“Mm. Jin may be mine, but Queenie’s my favorite. Don’t tell him that, though.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Prince.”

Changbin let you do your thing and waited for you to write down all the details you needed. Since she was just sleeping, you didn’t have much to write down, but you wanted to draw as much detail as you could for this picture. Your previous ones hadn’t been so detailed because the dragons were constantly moving, but now you had the time to do so.

You knew Changbin was watching over your shoulder when you could smell his cologne. He was so close that even bits of hair tickled your cheeks. You tugged your notebook to your chest.

“What do you want?” you asked suspiciously.

“You’re actually really good at that.”

“Is that a surprise?”

He shrugged. “Kind of. Let me see.”

“What, no!”

“As Prince, I order you to let me see.”

“You’re not my Prince!”

Your whining was useless because he was able to snatch your notebook away with just a few tricks. You were too embarrassed to try to fight and take it back as he was already flipping through all the pages you had on both Jin and Queenie for the next several minutes. You felt so vulnerable now that not only the King has seen your work, but now the Prince, too.

“They’re messy, I know, b-but it’s just a draft! I plan on writing harder copies later.”

“They’re fine,” he said, handing you back your book. “If your notes weren’t messy, I’d question your methods. And you’re surprisingly literate with your words.”

“Gee, thanks,” you deadpanned.

“I’d like to read your other notebooks sometime.”

“Really? Why -”

“That’s an order.”

“Again, not my Prince!”

His cologne gets stronger the more you’re able to smell it. It’s like he’s sewing the scent into your brain. “When you’re in my village, I am your only Prince. Is that clear, _____?”

Oh, no - he finally figured out your name and it sounded chilling coming from his lips. You didn’t react or say a word as he brushed passed with a triumphant smirk. It was then when you let out a sigh of relief. What the hell was his deal!? Did he hate you? Did he just like teasing you? Or was he actually beginning to tolerate you? Like you even?

When you exited the cave still dazed from seeing dragon eggs for the first time, Changbin grabbed your arm so you stop.

“Do you want your scarf back?” you asked.

“When you go see the last dragon, come find me.”

“Why, so you can babysit me again?”

“Yes.” The sternness in his voice and his furrowed brows let you know that he wasn’t playing around. “The last one’s not like the other two. There’s a reason his cave is the farthest away.”

“Which is?”

“He has a really bad temper and has trust issues. He only trusts my Father.”

“So loyal.”

“That’s one way to put it.” He squeezed your arm lightly, like he knew something bad was going to happen regardless. “Promise you’ll find me before you go.”

You nodded sincerely. “I promise.”

“Good.” And he took off ahead again, hoping the redness on his cheeks would subside.

You wrote this moment down in your notebook.

You spent the next several cave visits studying the Prince and Queen dragons with the Prince himself. Not only were you not ready to see the Mighty dragon yet, but you also thought you didn’t get enough info on the other two. You insisted that you could go on your own to both caves, but Changbin’s reasons for not leaving you alone were 1) he trusted no one near Jin and 2) he trusted no one near the eggs. But didn’t he know by now that you were completely harmless?

“‘Trust no one’ is my motto and I always keep my word,” he said when you told him that you could be trusted for the hundredth time.

“Didn’t the King say to leave me unbothered? And don’t you have to follow the King’s orders? So aren’t you breaking your word to the King by keeping your word to your motto?”

“Like I’d actually listen to my Father.”

“You’re telling me that you never listen to the King...”

“Not when he’s wrong.”

“Wow, you’re such a rebel.”

While you would write down and doodle in your notebook, you let Changbin read your past works that you had on hand just as he asked. You remember spending the entire night before skimming through them and seeing if any of them were too dumb or didn’t have enough fancy words but you honestly couldn’t tell which notes were good or bad. You were so nervous for him to read them that you lost a lot of sleep, but you could really use some criticism that wasn’t from your parents, so you hoped this was worth it.

Instead of Jin feasting on livestock, Changbin told him to fly off, hunt on his own, and bring back whatever he caught for you to see.

“You think we can afford to feed a dragon livestock everyday?” Changbin scoffed. “We may be rich, but not that rich.”

“Quit scolding me, I’m here to learn for a reason,” you pouted.

“Speaking of,” he paused and held out his hand to you. “I believe I ordered some notebooks.”

“You get one notebook for now.”

Changbin gladly took the one you gave him and carefully read in silence. You tried patiently waiting and editing your notes until Jin to returned, but you kept on getting distracted by the Prince’s hums of either approval or disapproval - it was itching at you that you couldn’t tell.

You tried to peak over his shoulder to see what he was reading. You smelled like the flowers from the shop in the village.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

“Your study titled Hydra At the Edge of the World,” he replied, not looking up from your notebook. “It’s actually fascinating.”

“You really think so?”

He nodded. “I haven’t read much on other species of dragons so this is all new to me.”

“Some dragon tamer you are,” you teased, but Changbin wasn’t having it when he shot you a sharp glare you were so used to. “I’m kidding!”

“How many notebooks have you filled?”

“I don’t know to be honest. Fifty maybe?”

“You have fifty whole notebooks filled? Jeez, how long have you been doing this?”

“A few years. By now I thought I’d have a system when it came to note-taking, but I find that the fastest and easiest way is to write like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“I noticed,” he mumbled. “I expect to read all of them, by the way.”

“All of them!? You want me to ask my parents to ship the rest back to you, Your Highness?”

“That’s an order.” You don’t even bother to fight back. Rather you couldn’t stop the wide grin forming on your lips. “What’s wrong with you face?”

“You inadvertently said that you like my work ~”

“Shut up, I did not.”

“Let’s pretend that you did.”

You eventually finished editing your notes and you and Changbin ended up sitting on the grass next to each other. While you watched the sun set behind the mountains, the Prince finished up one whole notebook and clamped it shut. For a long while, you both shared this moment together in silence. No bickering, no teasing, no awkwardness - just pure peace. Out of all the places you’ve visited, you must admit that nothing was as beautiful as the sun setting beyond the snowcaps.

“He normally doesn’t take this long,” Changbin said. “He must be trying to impress you.”

“Little ol’ me?”

“He tends to do that for people he likes.”

“That’s so cute! Did you teach him to do that?”

“What makes you think I’d teach him something so pointless?”

“You seem like someone who’d try to impress someone you like.”

“You don’t know me,” he muttered.

“I really don’t. You’re confusing.”

“Good.”

“You haven’t tried to go all out for some hot Princess or your suitors or something?”

“No. I don’t need to do anything - I’m already impressing.”

“Ha!” you scoffed too loudly. “I don’t know about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll admit you give lasting impressions. Like you kidnapped me, threatened me, won’t leave me alone, but I wouldn’t say you’re impressing…”

“I’m the Prince and heir of the only Dragon Kingdom left on this planet! I own a dragon, for fuck’s sake! I’m also sexy!”

“Mm, not so sure about that last one.”

“I should throw you in the dungeon.”

For the first time, Changbin got an earful of your light laughter. His father would often describe his mother’s laugh as sweet as syrup and for once he can understand what the King meant. Your laughter, mixed with the sight of the stars, was almost too sweet. Changbin didn’t know what to do.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he scolded.

“I can’t help that you’re funny for once.”

“Ok, Miss Professor. If you don’t think I’m impressing, what makes you so special?”

“Nothing really,” you answered honestly. “I’m quite ordinary.”

“You’ve traveled the world, studied over fifty dragons, and carry dragon’s blood on your neck and you’re telling me you think you’re ordinary?”

“Do you think I’m fascinating, Your Highness? It seems you answered your own question.”

Changbin bit his lip as punishment for saying too much. He needed to watch his words around you more because knowing you, you’d use them against him in a heartbeat. He changed the subject.

“Do you like travelling the world?” he asked.

“Yes and no. Yes because I met some amazing dragons and people, but also no because I miss home.”

“What was it like? All the travelling, I mean.”

“Incredible. A bit lonely, but incredible. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. There’s so much out there that’s yet to be discovered, you know? And I’m doing some of that discovering! It’s a wild place out here.” Changbin hummed. “Do you travel often?”

He shook his head. “Almost never.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I only ever travel for marriage contract reasons.”

“Ah…” Somehow, you’re disappointed. Maybe disappointed wasn’t the right word. “Are you engaged?”

“No, thankfully. We travel to meet the royal families, but it never works out. Their intentions for our dragons are for war and that’s not what they’re raised for. And marrying for contract is so old fashioned. Isn’t it supposed to be about love, or some bullshit?”

“Do you wanna fall in love, Prince ~?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“How romantic ~!”

“Shut up.”

“All jokes aside, I’m sure you’ll get to travel for joy one day. Maybe even with the love of your life ~” you continued to tease heavily as you poked his arms.

“Stop it!”

Just in time, Jin swooped in with his catch of the night in his mouth. Like an excited puppy showing you the toy he fetched, he dropped an entire tree a ways in front of you. Jin’s eyes glistened proudly as he waited for someone’s approval.

“Whoa…” you gasped, quickly scribbling this down in your notebook.

Changbin on the other hand sighed tiredly as if he experienced this too many times before. “Good job, Jin,” he said robotically. “You better throw that away.”

Jin let out a purr or content growl of some sorts and once again flew away with the tree stump. Just past the village, he dropped off the tree like it was garbage and flew beyond the valleys as if he was flying to find where the sun had gone.

“Sorry about that. He usually brings home his catch and eats it in front of me. Guess he really was trying to impress you.”

“I’m definitely impressed all right.” You turned your notebook around to show the embarrassed Prince your drawing of a happy Jin with his tree. “What a scene, huh?”

“Mm. Cute.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said get up, I wanna go home.”

Sourly, though with a smile on your lips, you followed the grumpy Prince back to the village. By the time you arrived, it seemed that the townspeople had packed up their shops for the night and went home to their families. Had you and Changbin really been out for that long?

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“I can walk back by myself.”

“It’s that inn isn’t it?” You followed Changbin’s finger pointing to the building not too far behind you.

“How did you…?”

“It’s the farthest from the castle. Figured you wouldn’t want to see my face often for however long you’re staying.”

“You’re smart.”

A smug Changbin led you the couple blocks down in front of your inn. Before you headed inside, you turned to him to say goodnight, but he interjected.

“There’s a festival in a couple of days,” he said. “It’s to celebrate the birth of the dragon eggs. She’ll fly and carry her eggs to a special nest on the field. The whole village participates.”

“Whoa, really!?” you gasped, eyes sparkling. “I’ve never been to an egg hatching or a dragon festival.”

“I’ll pick you up at 6:00pm.”

“You want to go with me?” You could feel your cheeks blush deeply. Aren’t festivals like a couple thing?

“That’s not what I said,” he mumbled. Before you could tease him directly about it, he was already walking back to the castle. “Don’t be late.”

“Goodnight, Changbin!” you called out.

He liked how you said his name. “Goodnight, _____.”

Between your last study session with Changbin and the day of the festival, you took the time to study the townspeople as they prepared for the egg hatching. It was total chaos, in the most organized way, as everyone scurried around the village to hang all of the flowers, baked all of the goods, and cooked only the finest cuts of meat. It was a colorful festival, despite Queenie and her babies being completely black, but the contrast would a beautiful sight to see. Beyond the town, in the fields where you and Changbin would wait for Jin to finish eating, the area was scattered with the same flowers in the shape of a circle. Sort of like they were preparing for a ritual. Candles and tiny flames joined the flowers so everyone could get a clear look.

You suddenly felt under dressed for the occasion, or at least under accessorized, so you bought a few things in town to spice up your look a bit. Somehow you knew the whole village knew about how much you and Changbin have been hanging out since you arrived by both the teasing looks you received from the men in town and the sour ones the ladies gave you. Did Changbin post that he was picking you up at six all over town, or something?

You continued to walk around town and enjoy the festive atmosphere in your get up because you weren’t going to wait at the inn until Changbin picked you up like some cheap date. Your time alone without having to worry about the quality of your notes or whether or not Changbin was just tricking you and waiting for the right moment to kidnap you again was the most peace you had since you left home on your journey. But it was quickly interrupted when someone harshly bumped into you.

“Ow! What the -!”

“Swearing is unladylike ~” Changbin teased.

“Yeah? Shut the fu -”

He shoved one of those yummy fish pastries filled with chocolate into your mouth to shut you up. If it was any other person, you’re sure you’d be biting their head off, but you can’t do that to the Prince in public, right? Besides, the bread was really good, so you can’t complain.

“I thought you were going to pick me up at six?” you asked.

“I wasn’t on my way to pick you up just now.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Can’t a Prince walk around the festival in peace?”

“Don’t snap at me when you’re the one who bumped into me!”

The Prince only shrugged, not really caring to argue. Were you supposed to follow him or leave him alone? You wished he’d be a little more transparent with you, just a little. But as you decided to follow him, it seemed that he didn’t mind your presence, anyways, so you just stayed with him. You hadn’t gotten a good look at what he was wearing until now. Normally, his clothes were almost all black, with the exception of his tan fur and silver chains. Tonight, though, he still wore all black and the finest leather money can buy along with some royal purple handkerchief thingies and some other pieces of clothing you couldn’t name. His rings and jewelry were still rubies and silver, but tonight they were bigger and better.

“You don’t wear a crown or a robe or have a bejeweled cane with you to bring to these events?” you mocked.

“No… At least not until I’m King. Why, do I look bad?” he asked, genuinely curious about what you thought about his ensemble.

“You look good,” you answered honestly. “Noble, but modest. Purple and red really suit you.”

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly then cleared his throat. “You look… different.”

Oh, God. Have boys always been this stupid? “I bought some stuff in the market today. I thought I should look a little nice for this occasion.”

“I mean for once you don’t look like a total nerd who studies for twenty hours a day. So I guess you look nice,” he muttered.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” you teased, leaning in closer. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“I’m not saying it again.” In an instant, everyone around you started to carefully jog or speed walk towards the open field. “It must be almost time.”

You and Changbin got lost in the sea of people running like a school of fish swimming in a stream. There were moments when you’d lose sight of the Prince and you were a bit scared, but as if he read your mind, he found his way to you and grabbed your hand. Like in those fairy tales your father read to you as a kid, time seemed to move in slow motion when your hand was in his. His hands were cold - only fitting for someone like him - but they were soft, and you found yourself laughing as you continued to run. By the time you reached the circle of people, you were out of breath and his hands were warm. Naturally, the people opened up the circle to let their Prince in. After the chaos of running and weaving, you both made it to the center of the circle where the King, the Queen, and a mother dragon with her hatching babies were. Changbin still kept his hold on you.

The sea of people were far away from Queenie to give them some space. Every so often, she would wiggle and move about because her eggs would. When she knew it was time, she removed herself from the makeshift nest and waited patiently with the townspeople for all four of them to hatch. Pieces of black eggshells would pop off here and there and each time Changbin could feel you grip onto his hand a little tighter.

“You’re cutting off my blood flow,” he said.

Immediately, you let go. “Sorry! I’m just so excited! This is incredible!!”

“It is.”

The entire village was silent when the first baby made her grand entrance. She used her wings to break open the shell to reveal her healthy self and then hopped her way towards her mother. The village erupted in loud cheers and cries, rooting for the other three to hurry and break free, too. You joined in with the crowd like you were watching a joust and Changbin couldn’t help but think you were kind of adorable. He didn’t hold back his smile when you caught him looking.

“What?” you screamed over the crowd.

“Nothing,” he told you. “Don’t look at me, you’re missing it.”

When you turned to look, the other three began to wiggle in their shells and crack the surface. The second baby wasn’t quite as black - you’d argue that he was a dark blue (“Are you out of your mind, he’s totally black!” “Your Highness, with all due respect, you’re an idiot. He’s midnight blue!”). The third one watched his older sister. Truly, the first three were all as extraordinary as each other, but none could outdo their youngest sister. She was a moonlight white.

The townspeople are hushed silent at the sight of the youngest pearl. She was incredibly beautiful, a starking contrast against her siblings and mother. You tried your best to hold back your tears, but when the mother rejoined her babies, you couldn’t help it. They chirped and chittered as they attempted to fly for the very first time. Number one had it down as if she hadn’t just been born and led the way while two and three followed. Precious little pearl struggled a bit, but after mom gave her a little nudge, she was up and flying with the rest of them.

“Why are you crying?”

Changbin looked at you quite concerned. Well, maybe concerned wasn’t the right word - it was more of a ‘what the fuck was happening’ kind of expression. He was never good with feelings and stuff, but you already knew that.

“I don’t know! It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?”

Even through your tears, your smile was still as bright as the setting sun. Your true, passionate love for dragons was glowing golden tonight, and Changbin couldn’t believe that he ever doubted you for a second. Though you were smiling, he didn’t like seeing you cry, even if they were happy tears. He held a hand up to your cheek and lightly brushed away the tears.

“Stop crying,” he said sternly.

“S-Sorry. I get a little emotional when it comes to dragons. Can you tell?”

“I had no idea.”

You took advantage of the moment and dared to grab Changbin’s hand once more. When he didn’t pull away, you took it as a good sign and went a step further. For the remainder of the festival, until the rays of the sun could no longer be seen, you held the Prince’s hand and rested your head on his shoulder. Then His Highness did the unthinkable by resting his cheek on your head.

“Are you starting to like me, Prince?”

“In your dreams, Professor.”

“I’ll get you to admit it one day.”

“Try me.”

Changbin found himself at your doorstep so often that you were so quick to dismiss it and it all felt normal. Whether it be while studying the dragons or simply walking through the village, you spent almost every day the His Highness. At first, the stares and glares were hard to ignore, but when Changbin returned the gesture, the townspeople pretended to not know you at all. What a gentleman, right?

“Just say that you like me, Changbin.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Come on, I don’t even mean it like that, you know! Just admit that your judgement was wrong, that you apologize for kidnapping me, and that you’re begging on your knees for my forgiveness. It’s not that hard.”

“I’m not apologizing for being protective of my dragons.”

“Ok, fair enough. But I didn’t deserve such a forceful kidnapping.”

“I agree, but I’m still not apologizing.”

“You are impossible.”

It was all fun and games until you asked to see the last dragon. Changbin thought - hoped - he’d never have to see that day.

“You’re ready to see him? Finally,” he said.

“Yeah. I figured I can’t stay in your Kingdom forever, right?”

There’s a touch of sadness in your tone but Changbin didn’t question it. “Right.”

When you were ready to set off for the farthest cave in the mountains, You made sure to dress properly and even doubled up on the furs. With your notebooks packed, blood on your neck, and magic cream on hand, you were ready to see the Mighty Dragon.

“You look ridiculous,” Changbin teased.

“You told me I was under dressed last time! You’re so hard to satisfy… And coming from the man who strictly wears leather? Please.”

“Hey, the leather is so I can fly, ok? The scales don’t tear it up as easily as other fabrics!”

The cave was so far that it took almost half a day to arrive there. The cave wasn’t that special - it was neither too deep nor too shallow, neither too dark nor did it lack light. It was the ideal cave for a dragon.

Before entering, Changbin held his arm out to block you from entering.

“Stay behind me. He doesn’t like strangers.”

You nodded slowly, too afraid to speak. You kept your distance from the prince as he led you to the biggest dragon you’ve ever seen. Right in the center of the cave was a large, emerald green, sleeping dragon. The most striking feature about him was that he had whiskers that looked like they were made of gold. Needless to say, you were terrified of the Mighty Beast. So terrified that you couldn’t even buck up the courage to take notes.

As if he could smell your fear, his beady eyes snapped open and all you saw was black. No depth, not reflection, no emotion. Just black.

A loud, piercing screech comes out of the serpent’s mouth that vibrated the entire range. You’re sure there was an avalanche happening somewhere. His eyes seemed to ignore Changbin, who tried blocking you with his body, but it was no use. The dragon only saw you, an intruder.

Rising from ashes, he got up from his sleeping position and looked like he was ready to attack.

“It’s ok,” Changbin said, trying to ease the dragon’s nerves.

It was no use. In a second, the cave went up in flames. Uncontrolled, random balls of fire shot in any and every direction and if you and Changbin didn’t get out fast, you’d be mixed in with the ashes that flew with the wind.

“Get down!”

Changbin pushed you to the stone floor and all of your belongings went flying. Your snacks, the notebooks, and the magic creme were lost somewhere at the edge of the cave that you’d hope to find later. For now, you needed to focus on making sure Changbin was ok as he hovered over you with fire just centimeters behind him.

The Mighty Dragon let out one last screech before his grande finale.

“Ah, fuck!”

Changbin pulled his arm to his chest and you saw that the leather that once covered it had been completely burned off along with his skin. His arm was scorching like cooked meat and you can only imagine how much pain he’s in.

“Ch-Changbin…!”

All of the fire subsided. The snow that was once there evaporated and the cave was now completely dry. The Emerald Serpent no longer had any interest in either of you and flew out of the cave to only God knows where. The only thing that could be heard were your quiet sobs that echoed in the cave.

The Prince was still on top of you, shielding your body, not saying a word.

“Changbin…?”

“Hm?”

The boy rolled off of you and laid on the cold stone floor right next to you. His breathing was heavy, but all that mattered to you was that he was breathing. As you turned to look at him, Changbin was already looking at you.

“Are you ok?” he asked you.

“I-I think so. You…?”

The cocky Prince held up his flaming red arm as if it was nothing. “Yeah. Normal dragon tamer things.”

“Holy shit… Oh, my creme!”

Your legs were weak for whatever reason. Was your body too terrified to move? You struggled to crawl to the jar of creme that was now half empty and made your way back to an exhausted Prince who kept his eyes shut.

“Take your shirt off.”

“I’m fine.”

“Changbin, please,” you begged.

He couldn’t seem to resist your worried tone, so he did as he was told, even if it meant freezing for a little while. After peeling all of his layers, you were left with a Prince in a sleeveless shirt and a gnarly burn all because he was protecting you. You took hold of his burned arm and slathered your parents’ magic creme made for occasions like this.

“Ah, cold ~” he whined cutely.

“S-Sorry,” you sniffled.

Changbin’s eyes snapped to get a good look at your face since you entered the cave. You were crying. You were worried about him. And you were blaming yourself. You didn’t even notice the burn mark you had on your own cheek.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Why are you crying?”

“You got burned because of me.”

“I get burned all the time.” After you finished putting the creme on, he turned show you his shoulder blades that had tiny little burn stripes like a tiger. “This was from the Mother dragon. I got a little too close to the eggs once. And this one,” he showed you one on his rib cage. “From Jin when I first got him. Now I have one from each of them. I should be thanking you.”

He was able to crack a weak smile from you, but even then the tears kept on falling. He really shouldn’t be grinning at the sight of you crying, but you were just too cute. Did you care about him that much?

His hand cupped one the cheek with the burn mark and wiped away the tears.

“Stop crying.”

And you did. “Ok.”

“Give me that creme.” When you handed it to him, he took a small dollop and smeared it on your cheek. “Did you even know you got burned, Professor?”

“Really? Is it bad?”

“No, but it makes you look bad ass. You should take care of yourself once in a while, you know?” he teased. “What is this stuff anyways?”

“My parents made this magic creme that only they have the recipe for. It’s supposed to work on almost everything.”

“An apothecary’s magic creme? That’s the strong shit. No wonder my arm feels better.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m fine. Let’s just go back, ok? Before he comes back.”

Changbin helped you pack up your fallen belongings and guided you home in the cold. You developed a newfound appreciation for the cold. Around the halfway point, the brave Prince dared to hold your hand.

“Stop thinking about it,” he said, referring to his arm.

“You’re so bossy.”

“I don’t like seeing you this way. I also don’t know how to be nice, so… this is the best you’ll get.”

On the way back, you talk about anything and everything that didn’t involve dragons or fire. You learned that Changbin was skilled in jousting, loved to cook, and had a soft spot for the farm animals. He learned all about your parents, your fascination with other creatures, and all things about plant life. You always joked about him not liking you but you somehow still believed he did, and now that he revealed to you deeper layers of himself, it really seemed like he liked you. Even if it was just a little bit, you saw it as an accomplishment.

You were finally back in the village fields come night time. The Kingdom wasn’t totally asleep, but it was peaceful quiet.

“Can I ask you something?” he began as you walked towards the inn. “What’s your plan now?”

“Now? To sleep, of course.”

“No, I mean… You’ve seen all three dragons. You saw the birth of four. Are you done here?”

“You mean am I leaving?”

He nodded. You needed a moment to think about that because honestly, you haven’t thought about when you’d be leaving or when you’d be done here. And you’ve traveled to pretty much everywhere… Where else could you go?

“I could leave if I wanted to. You know, I’ve traveled to every corner of the world in just a few years. I’ve seen many dragons, but none were ever like yours. I guess I could compile all my notes into a proper thesis. Get my book going.” Changbin adored the proud smile on your lips. “I think I’ll do that.”

“Do it here.”

“Here? What do you -?”

“I mean don’t leave.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said that when he saw your cocky smirk. “You’re saying you want me to stay ~?”

“Yes.”

“Because you like me ~?”

“Because you promised I’d read your other notebooks. You need them for your thesis right? Ship them here. I’ll help you write it. I can get you a proper study and room in the castle and get you out of that inn.”

“Wow, a room at the Grande Castle!? You must really like me, Prince.”

“Maybe.” He took advantage of his hold on your hand and pulled you close to him, loving the sound of your giggle. He wrapped his arms around your waist to prevent you from escaping. “Just a little.”

“Enough to kiss me?”

“Do you want me to kiss you, Professor?”

“Don’t turn this on me!”

“Say it and I will.”

“Ugh, I hate you… Kiss me.”

His lips were cold but soft, just like him.

#changbin #seo changbin #skz #stray kids #skz changbin #stray kids changbin #skz scenarios #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #fantasy au #dragon au #royal au #HEHEHEH #it's like..... 2k of back story im sorry

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scrumptiousalpacadeer · 4 years

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Post Covid joyfulness; vole death; and why I love my Frida Cagnolino

Good morning dear reader(s),!.. indifferent universe, loving universe...

I hope you are very well this Tuesday. Things have been rather eventful since my opening post; yesterday I staked my row of snapdragons; planting sticks like crutches for them to lean on so they could bloom to their full potential, on Sunday I went to my FIRST OPEN AIR CAFE FOR THREE MONTHS!!! (that's a whole other story)

This morning my daughter very nearly saved a vole’s life; she shook our murderous cat Laura down by the swing until she released the vole from its jaws before yelling at me through the kitchen door that she needed a Tupperware container IMMEDIATELY. We both kind of knew the vole wasn’t gonna make it; it was in full shock, quivering in the corner of the container, in that way that humans do after a car crash or some terrible news... the last energies go into the death shake - the ‘crossing over’ between life and death. However, vole didn’t give up without a final adventure - it escaped the container and dashed to the bathroom for one last foray in this world. Minutes later my daughter said; ‘I was wrong mama. He died. One minute I looked up and he was alive. And the next minute I looked up and he was dead.’ I resisted the temptation to say, ‘well, that's just life, kid!’ and instead told her she’d given him the best death a vole could ever ask for; passing away in a girls den along side her collection of Jacqueline Wilson books; if it hadn’t been for her interception he would have been de-bowelled; torn limb from limb, departing this earth is a chaos of blood and terror. ‘Can I bury him?’ she said.

Vole is buried along with two of his brethren and a few mice down by the Camelia tree.

However, the strangest thing that has happened since last waxing is that according to my daughter I said the words ‘Spicy Man’ in my sleep last night.....! Now that's funny. ‘Spicy Man’....!??????? Sometimes words fail. This is one of those times. That's the gap where words fail.

OK, so I promised you the story behind my background picture. Here it is in all its glory; it’s called ‘Frida Cagnolino’ - oil on Gesso - and was created by a lady called Kate Milson in 2015.

I purchased it at the Battersea Affordable Arts Fair in April 2017. As with any creation there is the story of its creation and the story of its procurement; how it passes from the creator out into the world and lands, lovingly, into the hands of its receiver. And the story of how I came to buy a collage of the Virgin Mary with an owl on her head is quite something.

First off, this original piece of art cost £1500. I want to be less of a twat about money Post Covid - there’s too much weirdness and shame attached to coins and notes - so there it is. I paid £1500 for this work - much more than I pay in a month’s rent now; far more than I could ever afford to pay for anything right now - but back then, in this other life, I was RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS... I had come into a very large amount of money, having been furnished with half the assets of the sale of my father’s house following his death. In short; it was ‘sad money’; ‘dad’s money’ - and the story of ‘how I sp**ked my father’s inheritance up the wall on facials in exactly the same way he sp**ked his life away on a bullshit suburban life that he never believed in for one second’ is a whole other BLog post entirely.

So anyway, at the Battersea Art Fair 2017 I have money to spend and I’m giddy on the freedom of it. That day I spend £2500 on three pieces of art. What’s interesting and highly significant is that I was also in a wheelchair that day; my beloved *David are *Boo are wheeling me around the various collections at Battersea Evolution Venue, because, at that time, I was pretty much immobile due to having contracted six blood infections courtesy of some rank and highly illegal black mould in our basement Richmond flat. I was helpless; powerless; hopeless; but I had money to spend and it felt so damn good. I knew deep down that that I’d been corrupted entirely by my father’s fat wad; that I should be shelving it responsibly for my daughter’s college fund or some such; but screw that - I was gonna blow it on art. And I could pretend I was an arts aficionado. I might not be able to walk 100m straight but I could converse with artists’ agents and immerse myself in astonishing beauty.

And then it happened. I’m wheeling past a collection, about to turn down the next aisle, and all of a sudden Mother Mary catches my eye. I am drawn like electricity to this burst of read crazy colour, and a blue cloaked magnetic woman just looking at me... I instruct *David to put the brakes on and move towards this glorious work, basking in it for a while. I think I knew I was going to buy this thing from the very first second I laid eyes on it. I felt like Mona Lisa was looking into my soul but at the same time reminding me that life was a gas.

Its largely a mystery as to why we’re drawn to particular objects. Why do I love this piece of art so? Let me count the ways. Well, it manages at once to be subversive, heretical, beautiful, chaotic, surprising, highly weird, spontaneous, and deeply joyful all at the same time. I love the singularity of ‘her’ - this figure; and I realise now that she represents this beautific mother figure - with infinite love, understanding and kindness - that I’ve been searching for my whole life. Even now as I look at the picture, hanging on the wall to the left of my bed, it’s her blue blue eyes I must meet first. I love her wild and free relationship to animals; she has an owl on her head but manages to not only retain her dignity, but somehow embrace and be in partnership with this wild gesture. She’s composed, wholly and entirely a woman, but entirely humble and at one with nature and her environment. Somehow, even though she has inherent grace and a natural regality, she doesn’t stand on ceremony. This woman is all knowing; entirely free; a true punk. And I get to hang out with her every day.

I love the unspoken bond between her and her beloved dog (a Bichon Frise?). ‘Cagnolino’ means ‘lapdog’ in Italian. They both challenge the viewer, inviting us to the party. I like to think the Post-Covid world we’re being asked to form is something akin to this; we have a chance now to choose punk joy and reverence to wild nature over stifling rules and dank conformity.

I love the fact that its a collage - bit and pieces from here and there brought together in one woman’s determined imagination.

I love the way the brightest yellow surfinia bursts out of pure blue sky of the most gentle hue, and how this sky in turn bursts out of the blood red streets of Venice; I love the way butterflies flitter all over the place. Perhaps most of all, I adore the purple crown sitting atop the dogs head - and how he wears it so well.

I love the violent effrontery growingness of it. I love its revolutionary impulse. I love how it reminds me to be free and brave and enjoy the moment; and that when things get really hairy and scary, as they are prone to do from time to time, that there will always and forever be butterflies and surfinias throbbing into life, and if you’re really lucky, you might just get an owl landing on your head, bestowing upon you a scratchy blessing with its razor claws. And I love the fact that I am the only person in the whole world who has this treasure.

The artist Kate Milson wrote to me most generously days after I’d settled her art in my house. This piece, she told me, was largely a collation of images from a bundle of old art magazines bought from a second hand book shop in Venice some years previous. The name Frida is a nod to Frida Kahlo - a woman who created art from a state of paralysis - having survived a near fatal bus accident in her youth. I like this nod to a woman who despite physical confinements, drenched herself in colour and beauty.

She wrote that she recalled surfinia plants in her garden when she was a child; how they ‘seemed tough, but once picked die almost immediately’ - and how there seemed to be ‘this combination of strength and fragility to everything in the natural world’.

I like being reminded of this each morning; that being strong can come directly out of fragility - that they’re intertwined.

So...there we have it. That’s how Frida came into my life, and actually, even though she felt very ‘costly’ at the time, and I was kind of basking in a wealth I knew couldn’t last, it is of great comfort that this piece will last through my lifetime and maybe beyond. And actually, considering all the hours that went into her making, considering that I may have, in my small way, contributed to an independent artist continuing her craft; and considering all the hours I’ve spent with Frida Cagnolino’s loving gaze on me, well......she was worth every penny and much much more.

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rainywetcigarettes · 5 years

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Ok this was probably already done before but I can't stop thinking about it so

GioGio flower shop AU (which at this point is more like a town AU but whatever)

(Heavily inspired by the gang's lives before Passione/the events that made them join it) (also pls tell me if I said something wrong cause English is not my native language)

Well, Giorno would of course be the one working at the flower shop. He makes the most beautiful flower arrangements in town and a lot of people think he is kinda a sensitive, because he will already know what kind of flowers or plants you want, what occasion are you buying them for, and what emotion you want to express with them as soon as you enter the door (similarly to Vianne from Chocolat by Joanne Harris, if you know the book). He is highly respected in town, and despite his young age most people see him as really mature. He keeps his hair very long and always braids them in beautiful ways.

I see Bruno as a university student. When he was younger, he thought that becoming a fisherman like his father was kinda like his destiny, but he understood that he also wanted to get a proper education and find a job which could help him raise more money; he wanted to be able to live by himself but to also provide enough money for his father to retire when he got old. He is currently studying to become a teacher, while still helping his father. He comes often to the shop to buy flowers for his boyfriend (I'll let you guess who that guy is). He and Giorno became friends after Bruno became a usual customer at the shop and they sometimes go out for coffee together.

Abbacchio would be and ex-policemen currently working for a non-profit association which helps people recover from drug and alcohol abuse. He has been an alcoholic himself (he started drinking after he saw one of his coworkers die in front of him when he still was a policemen, thinking it was all his fault- that, plus the fact he understood that the police was corrupted, was the reason he left his job) so he cares deeply about the subject. He and Bruno met while working: Bruno was doing a research on the causes of drug abuse for university and he interviewed Abbacchio; while talking to each other they discovered a deep connection, one thing led to another and the rest is history. Leone doesn't exactly dislike Giorno, it's just that his ability to read one's emotions looks very suspicious to him, but he recently started to change his mind.

Fugo would be a student at the same university as Bruno. He has an incredibly high Q.I. which made him able to start university at a very young age. However, he was bullied by other students and a professor took advantage of him, all of which led to anger attacks that made him go in trouble. He met Bruno on one of his worst days; the older noticed something was wrong with him and tried to talk to him to see what was going on. He was the only person to do so. Even though Fugo didn't trust him at first, he eventually understood that Bruno was a very good person and the two grew closer in time. Currently, Bruno is the only known person who is fully capable of calming him during anger attacks. He also recently got on well with Giorno, whom he met because he went to the shop with Bruno one day: he respects Giorno deeply because of the hard work he does and his calmness. He sometimes goes and stays in the shop to study; he says it helps him to stay calm and Giorno is so happy about this, that he even created a small spot for him in the back of shop.

Narancia would be an highschool student. He got in serious trouble because of his companies, when he was younger, ending up in prison with also an eye condition (so yeah his backstory is pretty much the same as the actual one). Then he was neglected by his dad and found himself homeless. It was Fugo who met him first but he didn't know what to do: he was even younger than Narancia and he hadn't been on good terms with his parents for some years already, so he couldn't call them. The only person that came to his mind was Bucciarati. Bruno immediately agreed to help him and after providing him care for his eyes, he suggested that Narancia could go live at his place. Needless to say, the young boy is infinitely grateful for the new life that Bucciarati gave him and sees him as a father (or mother?) figure. He recently started to go to school again, despite his age; Fugo offered to help him and Giorno learned not to leave any gardening tools near them as Narancia managed to get hit with a shovel on his head after a terribly wrong answer to a math problem. Abbacchio loves him and basically sees him, Bruno and Fugo as his little family.

Mista would be the most easy-going of the group. He has been a simple person since he was young, enjoying the small things in life- especially food. It was probably this passion which made him interested in cooking. He's not a famous chef and he doesn't want to become one (being famous wouldn't fit him), but after highschool he started to work in a restaurant in Naples and he gradually became more and more good at it. Now he is one of the best cooks of the restaurant and takes Antonino Canavacciuolo (man I'm putting in random references 😂 as an Italian I perfectly know who he is but I feel like I should specify that he is a famous Italian chef who is known for using traditional and local ingredients for his dishes) as his main inspiration. He met Giorno while on a "mission" to buy some edible flowers for a new dish that they wanted to try at the restaurant. He was intrigued by Giorno's personality and decided to come back some days later just to get to know him better. Eventually Giorno started to grow interest for him too, and even though they swear to be only friends, they were seen together a little too many times for them to be just good friends (and Narancia is sure he saw them holding hands and kissing but he still hasn't told anyone). Mista's also got six dogs that he named after numbers- which is good with that many dogs: Uno, Due, Tre, Cinque, Sei and Sette. He hates the number four but he started to overcome his tetraphobia as he will always have to deal with tables for four at the restaurant.

Aaand that's it. Hope u liked this- let me know if I should add Trish :))

#giogio #giorno giovanna #au #vento aureo #flower shop au #golden wind #bruno bucciarati #leone abbacchio #narancia ghirga #fugo pannacotta #guido mista #trish una #jojo5

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paperclipninja · 5 years

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Younger post-ep ramble 6x10

Ok, so this week’s episode, ‘It’s All About The Money, Honey’ delivered two of my season 6 wish list items: Kelsey and Charles working together as a supportive team and really getting to see their dynamic and relationship (I sometimes forget that they have a whole history BL - Before Liza) and Liza and Charles getting drunk and handsy at a bar. I’m not even kidding, when I wrote my season 6 wish list I word for word wrote that. So thank you for those Alison Brown, I am simple folk and I am happy. I would also like to show my appreciation for a number of throwbacks that were nice little nuggets from previous seasons.

I don’t know whether it was deliberate or not, but this ep seemed to really play very obvious set ups, where you could see what was coming and kind of hoped it’d play out differently because eek! but then nope. I have no idea if this approach has a name in screenwriting, it was sort of like set-up slapstick, for absolute lack of any better description (I’m sure ‘eek!’ is a technical term somewhere…). I am writing much of this on a plane on my way to holiday time (yay), which may mean nothing or something but I think my point is that I may miss a few bits and pieces here and there. There’s much to discuss so let’s do this!

After their declarations of love last week, this episode opens with Zane, a towel, his abs and Kelsey chatting about her trip to Chicago to ‘beg for money’, which nicely sets up a few themes for the ep. The issue of not being taken seriously as a woman in business is quickly flagged, along with the appropriate foreshadowing of future faux pas with Zane’s reassurance that Kelsey will get their attention being the only woman in the room (as he very unsubtly opens her shirt while staring at her chest) and Kelsey’s quip that ‘I guess I have more assets than you’ (boobs, she means her boobs ICYMI).

Liza and Charles are also saying their farewells, with Charles continuing to be supportive boyfriend no. 1 as he tells Liza to stop feeling guilty before reassuring her that everything is going to be fine, which we all know means it absolutely will not be. I’d like to officially welcome back the ‘miss you’ texts because a) they’re adorable and b) I do love a good text distraction as a giant poster of a woman and her ex goes past on the side of a bus just when that woman is floating along blissfully thinking of her current bf. As she passes another poster, it’s only a matter of time until Liza comes face to face with, well, her face. On the side of a building. Eek! indeed.

Naturally Liza’s first instinct is to call Kelsey, who is at the airport with Charles, to ask her to stop him from seeing the ad until she has the chance to speak to him. I feel like a phone call to Charles instead in that moment would’ve sorted it all pretty quickly, but then we would’ve missed out on his smile at the pic of Liza that comes up on Kelsey’s phone and the funniest moment of the episode, Kelsey’s sudden onset escalator phobia (‘I don’t like them, they’re weird’ LOL). The absolute highlight of this episode for me was seeing Kelsey and Charles working together. From the moment she’s filling him in on the investors they’re meeting with because she’s done her research to Charles saying that she can do the job without investors sticking their noses in (Bryce reference noted, what a dud) to Kelsey redirecting him to the elevator and him confused but obliging without question, their dynamic from the get go was fab and a lovely build on last week’s ep.

Meanwhile, luckily for Liza Lauren is at work, which is really lucky for all of us because Lauren now only referring to Diana as Diva and Diana clearly very ok with it is all I’ve ever wanted and my mind is filling in all the blanks about what the two of them would have been sitting there talking about while waiting to see if the people they sent to catch their food return (this line = yes Diva). I loved Lauren’s 'here?’ when Liza asks if she can talk to her (then 'so here, ok’ as she sits down lol) because it certainly feels as though Lauren is trying to keep the moment about Diana and the excitement of getting the appointment at Kleinfeld and is reluctant to let Liza make it all about her (which she of course does and Diana calls her out on it and I am here for it every day of the week).

Liza’s obsessive focus on the ad campaign and the need to speak to Charles about it really consumes her for the entire episode and blinds her to the needs of any other characters in way that seems uncharacteristic, but is also quite on brand considering some of the self-absorbed moments we’ve seen from her throughout the series. I guess it just seems uncharacteristic for season 6 Liza (or at least my understanding and construction of this character at this point), with a lie no longer in play and able to live her life honestly, as she’s been hoping to do since season one. I’m unsure whether this fixation and her consequent behaviour was meant to be funny or highlight the point that clearly there is more to the poster than it just being about clothes (we get it, there are FEELINGS), but I have to say that I really struggled with it considering Liza’s journey to where she is now and also this show’s usual tendency to be more nuanced.

Despite Liza’s persistence with Lauren re: Infinitely 21 at Kleinfeld (my concern that Lauren was harbouring some ill feeling towards Liza following the lie reveal was quashed when she revealed that she’d phoned Shelly to say Liza was uncomfortable with the ad. I mean, ‘I left a voicemail for you!’ is as ‘I’ve got your back’ as it comes), we were given a delightful moment between Diana and Liza as they reminisced about their first weddings and it’s conversations like this that I would like to see many more of. These two talking as women who have shared life experience is everything. It is then revealed that Infinitely 21’s campaign is going national which leads Liza to bail on the bride to frantically make a dash to Chicago, but my main takeaway from this scene is that Diana is going to have the wedding celebration she damn well deserves and quite frankly, this Trout/DeLuca “event of the year” cannot come fast enough.

Turns out Liza is not the only one getting on a big jet plane, as Claire fills Josh in on the amazing promotion to Senior Project Manager she’s been offered at Google, which will set Gemma up nicely. The only catch is, it’s in LA. Josh is understandably upset and as Claire assures him they’ll figure it out, he also spots the Infinitely 21 poster for the first time, because the only thing better than finding out your daughter might be moving across the country is being plastered all over the city in a pic with your ex who you’re still in love with. One of my favourite friendships on this show is that between Maggie and Josh, so I enjoyed seeing him go to Maggie to talk over the revelations of the morning (what a morning!). You’ve gotta love Maggie’s, ‘it’s not a sign’ to snap Josh out of the wallowing (and Josh’s ‘it’s literally a sign’, ha), her encouraging him to fight for Gemma and use the Infinitely 21 success to his advantage was a solid suggestion (though I am a little disappointed that Maggie didn’t ask if he’d consider moving to LA as one possible option to keep Gemma in his life or at least throw it out there on one of her famous Maggie ‘these are your options’ lists).

Josh meets with Shelly, who makes zero attempt to hide her thirst and it’s pretty darn hilarious and I actually love this entire interaction. Josh’s idea of franchising Inkburg, mentioned at the retreat in episode 6, remerges in the form of a collaboration with Infinitely 21 (Retail-tainment). Inkburg Midtown would offer a set of flash pieces exclusive to Infinitely 21, it is all very well pitched and I like seeing Josh in business mode because he’s clearly pretty decent at it after all these years, but not as much as Shelly likes it and him and everything which leads to her basically groping him in store (‘I’m a hugger’, yeah sure Shel). I have to believe that Josh’s move to establish the partnership with Infinitely 21 is so that he has clout to replicate the idea in LA and establish a national presence if he wants, rather than to try and keep Claire in New York by saying he can support her financially (unless we discover that is what Claire actually wants). Josh has been written as way too woke to do something to sabotage the career of the mother of his child, especially considering his experience with Liza and knowing what she went through. I, for one, will watch this space.

Another space I have watched closely is Kelsey’s, especially as she’s grappled with the role of publisher and really found her feet in the last couple of episodes. Her brilliant boss mode continued this week and seeing Kelsey so nervous before the pitch meeting, but still keeping her level head even after discovering Jacobs was the only shot at keeping the company alive, demonstrated again how much she has grown. From the moment Jeffrey and Ennis greet Kelsey and Charles, and by greet I mean look straight through Kelsey at Charles, you just know that this is going to be a tough gig for Kels. The men very obviously talk only to Charles, patronise Kelsey asking 'do you even know what those [precious metals] are?’, ugh it’s all so gross but also a bit too real and familiar. I love that Charles makes a point of saying 'we’ and emphasising that they are a team and it is obvious he is not comfortable that even when Kelsey is speaking they still look at and talk to him. Seeing Kelsey interject confidently and intelligently (although when she tells that room of suits to follow her on Insta it was a definite Eek! moment) was so satisfying, she read the room, commanded it pay attention and it did. Charles is proud and impressed and lets her hold the floor (as he should but it was great to see) and I could legit watch a whole series with these two as kick-ass business partners.

Just when I thought my new fave dynamic duo couldn’t have any more golden moments, Kelsey and Charles getting celebratory drinks happened. After last season saw a lot of tension between these two characters, seeing this relationship shift to one of mentor/mentee that is truly symbiotic (I have no doubt that Charles is learning as much from Kelsey as she is from him), where Kelsey still needs reassurance about how the business world works and Charles expresses his eternal gratitude for her amazing work…seriously, did I mention how much I love this? It is an actual dream.

Of course it is just after a commemorative glass clinking moment that Liza arrives, much to the elation of Charles (‘this day just keeps getting better and better’, ugh) and wariness of Kelsey, who immediately questions Liza’s real reason for being there. Upon hearing that the Infinitely 21 campaign (yes, we’re still talking about that) has gone national so Liza came to speak to Charles, Kelsey looks at her with the same ‘you have lost the plot’ look I had on my face, before telling her, ‘not now…we are celebrating’. Liza agrees as smitten, happy Charles looks over but this high school drama-esque carry on is really a bit much at this point. All I can say is thank goodness for the scene that followed, because it very quickly made me forget that I was getting annoyed.

First we get the revelation that Liza made out with Chrissie Hart on Shelter Island, which was also the last time we saw Charles and Liza drunk together but they were also not actually together, so it was very much that moment that sparked my need to see them out and drinking again some time. So yes, sharing great stories as they all sit around, check, they are all so carefree and jovial and then Charles and Liza just start making out in front of third wheel Kelsey and I cannot and this is 100% the quality content that my trashbag heart lives for. But it is Liza and Charles bidding Kelsey goodnight when she says she’s heading back to her room, and Charles saying, ‘bye’ before turning to Liza with a soft, ‘hi’ that completely undoes me. Seriously, project this entire scene on loop on my tombstone for I. am. deceased.

Drunk Kelsey back in her room responding to Zane’s message with a boob shot = I am DYING again but for different reasons. Kelsey Lorraine indeed, Lauren seeing it on Insta stories is every kind of second hand mortification and poor Kelsey waking up and realising what she’s done is yikes (but lbh it’s also a little bit hilarious, special thanks to the messages left on her story: A tale of two titties, Nippy longstockings and my personal fave, Did you mean to post this? It’s Liz from the gym). Kelsey’s waking nightmare is contrasted by Liza waking up to her fantasy of her, Charles, coffee and paper (you and me both sista), but my fantasy is quickly shattered when Liza spots that pesky ad on the back of the newspaper and grabs it from Charles in a totally normal way, which he interprets to be playful and suggestive, until he realises it is not.

Liza’s reveal makes it pretty obvious that she’s feeling guilty but that is quickly interrupted by the frantic knocking of Kelsey, the bearer of more bad news. Liza greeting her with ‘he’s seen it’, countered by Kelsey’s horrified, ‘Charles saw my boobs?’ before Liza corrects her with, ‘no, the Infinitely 21 ad’ is just so mind boggling, I mean, what person in their right mind opens the door to their best friend’s incessant knocking and thinks ‘they must be beside themselves to find out if I told Charles yet?’ I get it, it’s consuming Liza because it’s dredging up feelings so that the triangle can be revived after lying dormant (presumed dead) the past two seasons, but Charles having to hear about Kelsey’s mistake (though Liza’s ‘you look good’ is v. funny), as well as process that Liza didn’t come to Chicago to surprise him and Kelsey at all just makes me pretty sad.

Kelsey continues to be impressive as she owns her screw up and humbly explains herself to the room full of gross men. I do love how they’ve been cast, so much brown fabric. Charles’, 'it’s just too much of a good thing…I mean Kelsey’s internet presence’, is awks af but he’s really trying to throw his support behind her. Ennis Jacobs asking Kelsey if she’s considered distancing herself from the Millennial brand (dude, she IS the Millennial brand) and saying they are still interested in investing if Charles is publisher made me want to scream for her, Charles’ assertion that 'she is a woman who has made nothing but smart decisions since she’s been in a position to make decisions’ met with the biggest decision Kelsey has made yet; stepping down as publisher.

I do see it, the juxtaposition of how a man embroiled in a scandal (publisher having an affair with a 28 year old assistant) is treated vs. a woman whose potentially scandalous error was accidental, that the ultimate ramifications for him are minimal because look, he’s now back where he was not that long ago (though I also see the mirroring of Charles having to step down due to the scandal and now Kelsey having to do the same…so maybe they’re just the ultimate tag team?). I am going to wait to see how the rest of this season plays out (on all fronts), but if at seasons end, Charles is publisher again, and it’s all basically as it once was, then what was the point of any of this beyond making that statement? I mean, there are a number of ways it could go, so I am interested to see what this means. I am just really heartbroken for Kelsey because in that moment, she put the need of the company ahead of her own ambition and I am also heartbroken because she really had FINALLY come into her own as publisher and I was excited to see what she would do next.

After the horrendous meeting, Liza is waiting for Charles to finish the conversation about the ad and Charles suggests that she fly back to NY with Kelsey, because ‘she needs you now’ (seriously, if Charles is in your corner he is IN your corner). I love that Charles knows what Liza flying to Chicago really means and calls her out on it, that he is not bothered by her past or relationship with Josh, it’s the fact she felt she had to get on a plane that makes him wonder if there is something to be worried about. Call me boring but I have always appreciated that these two have actual proper adult conversations and don’t avoid issues and this was no exception.

Charles puts it to Liza that ‘everyone has a past, but in order to have a future, you move on from it’, to which she responds that ‘other people live in the past in order to have a future’. Yes, Liza had to live a younger life in order to build a new future for herself but now that she has re-established her career and her real age is no longer a secret, is that what she wants to keep doing? I do believe Liza realises she isn’t being fair to Charles but I think we all know that even if her pledge not to see Josh anymore was genuine at the time, it is not going to be upheld and was probably a bit of an over-promise. But I do appreciate that Liza really is choosing Charles in that moment.

It’s the escalator ride (which is weirdly relatable for some reason) once Kelsey and Liza are back in New York, but neither want to go home, that shows that even if Liza does want to move forward, she is still stuck between these two worlds. I have to say, Kelsey losing her job and being publicly humiliated somehow being on par with a 42 year old woman feeling sad that she can’t be friends with an ex because she’s confused about her feelings is ridiculous and I personally feel like the final moments of this ep should have been focused squarely on Kelsey. I do agree with Liza that Kelsey will get it back though, that was the correct response.

The painfully longing glances at the giant poster of her and Josh can be taken as a letting go of the past and moving forward (time will tell) but it also undoubtedly indicates that Liza’s days of once again oscillating between these two men are very much on the horizon which is, to be frank, really disappointing at this point in a series. My biggest issue is the fact that we keep being told that this show is not about the triangle, it’s about the women and the friendships yet it’s constantly being made about the triangle. In always pulling the focus to the triangle this show is making it about the men, which is the very thing it so brilliantly admonishes society for doing.

While I am absolutely reserving all judgement until I see how the rest of this season unfolds, I have to believe that if the triangle does make a comeback, it is being dredged up again to bring it to a head once and for all, so that we can all move on and focus on the many far more compelling aspects that make up this wonderful show.

#youngertv #younger tv #ramble #review #younger season 6 #6x01 #liza miller #kelsey peters #charles brooks #diana trout #liza x charles #team charles

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scarletwritingwolf · 5 years

Text

Chapter 14: Wrath of Janet Fraser

I was poised for whatever barrage of insults came at us, Jenny was looking at us as though something foul smelling was under her nose; lips pinched and nose scrunched.

Jamie and I had no choice but to stay joined, as we had nothing but the tartan between us.

Mortified didn’t even begin to cover how I was feeling. Jamie had lost all traces of good humour, and he didn’t appear overly keen to be the one to break the awkward silence hanging between us. I did my best to put on a brave face despite the vulnerability of our position, the irony was not lost on me that I’d asked Jamie to warn me before meeting his family so that I could put on my ‘armour’, and now not only was I armour-less, I had nothing on save the suit I was born with.

Jenny recovered her wits. “Jamie are ye no’ goin’ to invite me in?” She was testing us. Jamie (and I) stepped aside to permit her entrance. She made herself comfortable on the sofa, all the while smiling to herself like a cat who’d been given cream.

“I’ll be with ye presently, Janet.”

I hugged myself to Jamie, staring over his shoulder at Jenny as he walked us to his room. She hadn’t bothered to turn around to watch our spectacle, I worried about what might be coming.

I felt infinitely childish. Once the door closed behind us I leapt out of Jamie’s arms.

“Why on this earth did you have to insist on keeping me with you? Your sister is likely out there thinking that you are with some kind of charlatan!” The colour was rising in my cheeks, I just wasn’t certain if it was with anger, embarrassment or lust. Jamie’s naked form served to distract me again.

“Christ Claire, I swear to ye, I had no idea it would be Jenny, she doesna visit often.” He breathed heavily, every breath impatient. “I need to dress, she’s here for a reason, and I mean to find out what. Ye can stay here if ye like, or come with me.”

This was the first time since being reunited that Jamie had been so severe with me. Clearly Jenny’s appearance had struck some sort of a nerve in him.

I took a courageous step towards him (more courageous than I felt by a long shot). “Of course I’ll go with you, you fool. I don’t mean to stay in here and have her think that I’m too cowardly to face her.”

We quickly tidied ourselves up, both of us dressing, and me trying to make my hair sit in a somewhat flattened fashion.

“Ready?” He asked.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

He took my hand in his and kissed it. “Dinna fash, Sassenach, everything is fine.”

. . . . . .

Five minutes later it had become clear that everything was not, in fact, fine.

I had attempted to introduce myself to his sister upon our re-entrance, but had simply acted as though I wasn’t there, not even sparing a glance at the proffered hand I held out to shake hers. Instead she had begun to tear figurative strips off of Jamie.

“HOW COULD YE JAMIE FRASER! WILLIE TOLD ME EVERYTHING, YE SAID YE WANTED HIM TO BE HAPPY! ” She screeched. It became immediately clear that while Jenny might have been small in stature, her presence was formidable.

Jamie looked bewildered. It was apparent that whatever he might have considered to be his sisters reason for coming, it had not been this. Whatever this was.

“Before ye carry on yelling, Janet, would ye mind telling me what it is that I’ve done to offend ye?” He asked the questions calmly, but his slanted eyes were narrowed accusingly.

“Ye ken fine well what it is ye’ve done James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser”.... Good lord had I heard all those names? Surely not. “Willie called me today, telling me that he got a lovely stack of paperwork courtesy of you, something to pass along to his wife”.....

He cut her off. “Aye I did, but only because the stubborn mac na galla wouldna call me back!” He said hotly.

I’d retreated to a kitchen bar stool, keeping my distance from them while they had it out, there was no sense getting tangled up in it. The back and forth had become like watching a tennis match, each trying to claim the set, but there wasn’t a clear winner yet.

Jenny straightened up, she looked like a wolf sizing up her prey. She growled. “Do ye no think that discussing a pre-nup with him might ha’ been done in person brother?”

Jamie became visibly uncomfortable at this question, like a worm on a hook. “Of course I did Jenny, but I dinna ken anymore when he’s home, and even if he is; whether he’d see me! Our dear brother doesna seem interested in much to do with me if ye hadna noticed!”

“That is no excuse, and ye know it. He says Laoghaire is worrit, and doesna know if she can marry someone who wants a pre-nup. I ken what ye think of her Jamie, but Ian didna sign anything.”

“Christ’s blood Jenny.” He spat. “Ye know it’s different with Ian, we’ve known him our whole lives.” They were almost nose to nose. “The pre-nup protects us all, including you.”

The words resounded, Jenny stood stock still.

“Aye it would affect me, but it would affect me more if we lost Willie. And we will, Jamie if ye dinna start thinking before ye act.” She said this so quietly, the words full of menace.

“I do think, Janet, I think of ye, Ian, Willie, yer bairns, everyday. But I won’t take it back, Laoghaire signs the pre-nup or she goes. If Willie fights, I’ll cut him off.”

Jenny turned to face the fire place, contemplative, and for the time resigned. I got up from my seat, meaning to approach and comfort Jamie, he had been watching me out of the corner of his eye.

“Stay put Sassenach, I’m ok.”

I moved towards him anyway, reaching him and feeling the security of his hand enclosing mine.

“Why don’t we discuss the Sassenach, Jamie?” She was still turned away from us. Her words were slow and careful, each one meant to sting. “Not only has this, this....” She seemed to be struggling to find the word she wanted. “Whore...” Ahh there it was. “Wormed her way back into yer life, she seems to be makin’ herself quite comfortable. I want to know Jamie, do ye plan to give her a pre-nup if it gets serious with ye two?”

I held my breath when she asked this, and I felt sure that Jamie wasn’t breathing either. I considered waiting for his response, but a voice inside me was being quite insistent about the fact that it was my turn to speak up.

I drew myself to full height. “Actually, Jenny, I would sign a pre-nuptial agreement if Jamie and I were to get married some time in the future. My name is Claire, by the way, just for your reference. I don’t need your brothers money, I earn fairly well myself.” I was fine, everything was fine, this would be fine.

She swivelled around, meeting my eyes with a fiery gaze. “I ken who you are, Claire, I just didna want te address ye as such because I think it’s more than ye deserve te give ye the time of day.” Her cutting words pierced the exterior of my soul, and things were beginning to flood out that I had desperately tried to keep at bay. Ignoring my reaction she continued. “Ye hurt Jamie, worse than I’ve ever seen; even when he came back from the war, injured and all! But this visit isnae about ye, I canna control Jamie when it comes te his love life.”

Jamie’s presence was thunder, he shook with rage. “YE ARE OUT OF LINE JANET MURRAY, YE WILL NOT SPEAK TO CLAIRE THAT WAY!” He turned to me taking my face in this hands; wiping away the tears that had begun to flow, and muttering soft Gaelic sounds to me as he pressed his lips to my forehead.

Rather than do what most might have done, and retreat, Jenny kept on. “Ye see how ye protect her, Jamie, that is how Willie seeks to protect his bride to be. Will ye no’ consider what I’m saying? We’ve lost enough with màthair and Da, I canna lose Willie too.” The sharp edge to her voice had all but disappeared.

He directed me back towards the bar stool I had been sitting on.“Stop Jenny, stop now. Ye’ve said yer piece, now ye can get out of my apartment. I’ll think on what ye’ve said, but ye need to think about what ye might lose if Laoghaire doesn’t sign, what yer bairns might lose.” Jamie looked at her squarely in the face. I was silently thankful for the small distance between them.

Jenny Fraser seemed contemplative, but neither face or stance betrayed what she might have been thinking.

I had been about to suggest a truce when Jenny doubled over in apparent pain. In the flurry of heated words I’d forgotten she was pregnant. A small voice in my head said ‘she’s faking’, but I dismissed it, the woman before me was in agony and had gone white as a sheet.

Jamie rushed to her, leading her over to the couch. “Jenny.” His voice was panicky and almost unrecognisable. “Ye need to sit down, are ye ok? Is the bairn alright?” He seemed to stop himself, realising that she likely wouldn’t be able to answer all of of his questions.

I reacted quickly, setting about getting a glass of water and a cool towel. I passed them to Jamie who put the cool towel on Jenny’s forehead and tried to get Jenny to drink.

“I’m sorry Jenny, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m ok Jamie, dinna fash. It’s ok now, the pain has gone.”

“Ye need to go to a hospital Jenny.”

“Nae, I’ll go my doctor tomorrow morning.”

“Well then we’ll drive ye home, I couldna look Ian in the face if I dinna do something for ye.”

She seemed to concede that she wouldn’t be able to drive herself home, and sighed in assent.

“I’ll pack a bag, and we’ll leave as soon as ye’ve finished the water and had something to eat.” In a flash he was rifling through his pantry looking for something he could give her, settling finally on a stack of sweet biscuits. He set them down in front of her. “Eat those, ye need sugar.” His eyes met mine, pleading, I knew he wanted me to stay with him. To tell the truth; I didn’t want to leave him. Bringing his arms around me, he shepherded me up and out of the chair towards his room.

I whispered “Will she be ok Jaime?”

“I dinna ken Sassenach. I hope so, good timing she’s got, I was about to throttle her.” I sensed his need to make a lightness of the situation, but his tensed form told me just how concerned he was. He’s busied himself stuffing clothes into a bag. I came up behind him to hug him.

“Will ye come Claire? To take Jenny back to Lallybroch?” He asked softly.

“Yes I’ll go with you. But I don’t have clothes with me. I need to change and pack something.” I was in the gym clothes I’d been wearing almost all day, I wanted to shower, even if it was only for two minutes. I needed peace and warmth.

“Ye’ve got time Claire. I’ll wait for ye, it isn’t as though ye live far.” He smiled at me.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

. . . . . .

Half an hour later we were racing through the dark streets of Edinburgh, heading towards the countryside where Lallybroch lay hidden. I didn’t much think about the significance of meeting Jamie’s relatives, I was tired; physically and mentally. Jenny was on laying on the back seat of the car, breathing the soft and relaxed breaths of sleep. I watched the rise and fall of her chest for a time, my gaze lingering for a bit on the swell of her stomach, I hoped the baby within was safe. As though my thoughts were loud enough to hear, Jamie took my hand reassuringly.

“Are ye alright mo chuisle?”

I held his hand to my cheek. “I’m fine Jamie, just a little tired is all.”

“We’ll be there soon Sassenach. But before we get there, I want to ask you something.” My heart was pounding, what was he about to ask of me?

“Ask away.” I said coolly.

“How are ye at acting?”

Of all the questions that he could have asked, this was not what I had been expecting.

“I’m not really sure, I’ve been told that I have a glass face, so my guess is that people can tell when I’m lying.”

He chuckled. “Aye, ye do, sometimes. I’m asking because tomorrow I mean to smoke Laoghaire out, so that she’ll admit to wanting my brother for his money. But I need yer help.”

I glanced back at Jenny to make sure she was still asleep. “I’ll help you. But I want to understand why, and what you mean to do, before I help.”

“That sounds fair, I’ll tell ye everything tomorrow Sassenach, when we haven’t got Jenny so close by.”

We drove in silence for a while. Both lost in thought. Finally we came to a driveway, shrouded by bushes, only really visible to those looking for it. The house came into view, it was completely dark and deserted except for the one lone light on, where a man could be seen making tea. There was a beautiful vine of roses growing over the archway of the entrance, and I imagined that in the light it would be breathtaking. I looked to Jamie.

“Welcome to my childhood home.” He said proudly.

“It’s beautiful Jamie,” I said sincerely.

“Jenny we’re here.” He shook her leg gently. She rose quickly, as though she’d never been sleeping. I gathered up my things as Jamie opened the doors for both Jenny and I. As I was about to open the door further to step out of the car, Jenny brushed past, and shut the door in my face, leaving a shocked Jamie in her wake.

“Wee ghalla.” He muttered, shaking his head. He reopened the door for me.

So that’s how she wanted to play. Well we’d see how far she’d get with it.

I pulled Jamie to me, kissing him with abandon. I folded my arms tightly around his neck, sinking deeper into the kiss, knowing all the while that Jenny would likely be watching us from the window.

She needed to see that I meant to stay with Jamie, to love him.

Jamie pulled back slightly, he spoke against my lips. “Dinna think I dinna know what yer doing Sassenach.” He was holding back laughter. “Why dinna ye just wave to Jenny to make sure she’s watching.”

I blushed furiously, biting his bottom lip in response. “Not a chance.”

#Outlander #outlander fanfic #outlander fan fiction #in your orbit #the art of healing

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years

Text

In and out (Part 1.) (Nathan Drake x Male reader)

Description: There was a deal between Elena and Nathan to make her way to Yemen for managing to get them to the city. But plans don't go so easily as they should. Well, isn't that pretty common thing for Nathan & Co.™?

@bechobbi , let me know if I should tag you in this! :)

A/N: So okay. Let me establish some things before we even begin.

I hate changing the game's/movie's official canons, so you gave me a proper hard time, darling.

So this is a bit AU like they'll happen events from the original game, but most probably NOT in the original order/how did they really happened.

But yeah, I think that my Nate Mate might be bisexual. He's not strictly gay, bc of Elena and Chloe and you can't deny that.

I will also use my old oc pal Florence, who has some posts somewhere in the hellhole of my Tumblr, for my own satisfaction and someone to make the goofball of. A lot of you maybe will not like who she is in this, but guess what - I don't care baby.

This will be written in the third person because I think it suits the story better, just as Golden's book showed us.

And also my adoration of Victor Sullivan will probably show too much. I don't care. He's my man.

Ok. That's all.

Warnings: Just Nate and Sully being the comedic duo we know and love. Also, the first three to four chapters are an establishment for the whole story.

Word count: 2 691 (+/-)

"Real “greatness” is what you do with the hand you're dealt."

- Victor Sullivan, Drake's Deception

"Oh crap!" The man yelled as another shot was fired at him. He almost got shot, but he managed to hide quickly before that happened. No one knew how he was able to do so, but he guessed that he has an infinite amount of luck.

But even he got enough of everything at that point - he had to escape in front some black bullshit, which was actually afraid of fire, with a dying torch, almost died during that, the worst bad guy Talbot, who was working for their concurrent Katherine Marlowe, had stolen the amulet right from his hand and he was pinned down at gunpoint behind a stupid wall at some mansion in France. The only thing that kept his spirits up was that he managed to draw the amulet to his small notebook and that he wasn't completely clueless after all.

"Better watch your back before you get shot, kid!" A visibly older man shouted at him before he shot back from his revolver. Nathan owned his life to that man for an unfair amount of times, but he would be definitely dead if that man wasn't watching over him.

The old man's name was Victor Sullivan, whom everyone called Sully, and he had some serious amount of kicking ass behind him. He was notoriously known treasure hunter and an ex-marine who dedicated his talent for shady businesses to make a serious life-lasting job out of it. He became a treasure hunter in his late twenties and he was one of the most dedicated people to this kind of life you could ever meet.

He could sometimes seem like a cold blood jerk and Nathan sometimes thought that his decisions are not logical - and usually later showed that those decisions were very clever in fact. Sullivan, even in his sixties didn't show any sign of aging except few deep wrinkles and white hair. The only other fact you could consider was his Cuban shirts, but that man wore them for years, so you couldn't really count them in.

His partner, a lot of younger man in his best years, has been doing this job alongside Sully for almost twenty years. They became a truly coordinated team during that time, more like father and son than friends.

That man's name was Nathan Drake. He was a self-declared ascendant of the famous pirate Sir Francis Drake, whom he dedicated his whole. He was considerably pretty handsome with his wild, dark brown hair and eyes which sometimes seem to be blue and sometimes they looked almost green - so he usually tried to charm off the situations. And oh boy, wasn't he the goofiest man you'll ever meet?

Right now, they both went on a search for something great and most probably greater than great. Their adventure lures them into London and France to get the clues they needed and it almost cost their life a few times. And as it usually went, they weren't the only one who was after the treasure. And the outcome usually looked like this - a big loud shootout between Nathan, Sully and "the bad guys", as he called them.

Being a bad guy also truly depended on a point of view in Nathan's world, none of them was only white or only black, everyone had some motivations and some vision because of what they actually did that thing. Some of them wanted glory, some of them wanted money and there were even some of them that went into the fight just because they actually liked to fight. Nathan didn't judge, he didn't care in fact. Everyone in these shady businesses was partly black and partly white, so everyone was grey in the end.

Even Sully and Nathan were pretty grey. Nathan was in the business because of discovering the truth about the past, and yeah, he did that for the glory. And Sully? He went in for the money. There was actually a lot of money in that shady business, more than you would expect.

This world was just too big, it had many sides and nothing was only good or only bad, partially fucked up was maybe the best possible definition when everything went well. And now it didn't go well, oh boy, something went terribly wrong and Sully with Nathan was actually pinned at a gunpoint. They couldn't even move without increasing the chance of being shot right in the ass.

"It looks like they aren't exactly pleased to see us, Sully." Nathan looked at his older friend and throw a grenade in the direction of bad guys. "Haven't you done anything to them?"

"I'm only an old man Nathan. They are more afraid of you than they are afraid of me." Sully laughed with his raspy voice and shot again. And even though he was so much older, he didn't miss his target.

"It's getting ridiculous!" Nathan yelled to the bad guys with his teeth clenched together in almost hurting way. He slowly managed to sneak out of his hideout near Sullivan. Nathan has got enough, he just wanted to cut the chase and get directly to the climax. "Why don't you let us just pass without this theatrics?!" Nathan stuck out his wooden pillar which was getting a ridiculous amount of shots at that point. Big pieces of walls were flying around his head, there were, in fact, huge piles of it everywhere and that place was actually going to fall down in any minute. "You're ruining an archeological goldmine here and you don't even mind it, assholes!"

"Way to go, kiddo, they'll definitely listen to that!" Sully walked forward too and pointed his gun on another of those asshats. Drake had to stay low if he didn't want to die there. He went through serious loads of punches to the face kicks to the stomach, so handling a few of jerks wasn't really a problem for him. So he ran straight to the action, jumping at one man’s back, using him as a shield. But it didn't go as well as Drake planned. Another man hit him with his gun to the temple of his head and Nathan fell down to the dust as another ten men circled around them. He was trapped.

If anything, Drake served as a great sidetrack of attention for Sully, who started to quietly put man after man down, getting to Nathan the fastest way he could, using literally anything. Even a pile of dust was great to blind the enemy. And as a bonus, he was tall and pretty heavy, so he was great at hand to hand combat.

But there was something, that didn't add up there. There was so a little of the men when they were in such a big mansion. But Nathan didn't exactly think of that that intensely when he had a gun pointed directly into his face.

Sullivan almost didn’t make it so save Nathan’s ass that time. They almost shot Nate to the head when Sully finally managed to get to him and Nate had to give him a grateful look with a small smile.

“You’re alright?” Sully helped Nathan to get on his feet and patted on his shoulder with the intention to clean him from the dust.

"Maybe shocked, but all right." Nate agreed and looked at Sullivan, making his way to touch his bum. The notebook was still there and he longly exhaled. That was the only reason why they got into the fight, after all. And when it was safe in his arms, he just felt relieved.

"You did pretty well, I would say." Sully looked around on that completely destroyed place. That mansion was completely ruined, it was a disaster.

So they slowly and quietly walked out of the room, slow and carefully and not to be seen or heard. It was a long walk through an abandoned sample of mankind's crafting talent standing up in the middle of nowhere in France.

Both of them stopped at a sort of balcony which was created from molded wood that was just corrupted by the time. When they heard voices and steps, both of them shut up and crouched behind semi-broken brick walls. Nathan stuck out his head and tried to find out what's even happening.

"Empty those cans!" They heard a husky voice with a slight feel of the British accent. "Every last drop." The voice said again and Nathan with Sully just looked at each other.

"What the hell are they doing?" Nathan asked. Confusion and a sort of fear could be heard in his voice. Sully had a suspicion, but he didn't say anything out loud because of the fear it could be the truth.

"Hey Sully," Nate smelled the air and frowned. He looked around them and he just figured out that there is something that doesn't add up. There was so little of Marlowe's men, they were just trying to leave that place as soon as possible when Nathan, who had Drake's map in his notebook, was still inside of that building. Normally they would try to chase out the soul out of Nate and Sully. "Can you smell that too?"

Sully breathed the air deeply, looking into Nate's frowned face. He knew that smell very well. "Of course I do know that smell. It smells like,"

"FIRE!" Nathan shouted at the sudden realization, hearing another of the men shout Torch the place down!

"Sully we gotta get out of here," Nathan stated, extending for his gun. At the moment, some of the men noticed them and they started to shoot at them, mostly at Nathan. Drake and Sully didn't have a hard time shooting back, because Sully showed off his shooting skills again.

There wasn't even place for jokes at that time - Nathan felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. He didn't want to burn alive. He kinda liked himself too much for just burning alive. And Sully had someone who would kill Drake once more if he was hurt by his side, that was another reason he had to get sure that both of them manage to escape from that building.

"Ok Nate, go first, I'll cover your back." Sully patted Nathan's shoulder and loaded the revolver up again. Nathan wasn't completely sure about Sully's judgment, but he nodded and started to find a way out, or more like climbing out of the situation.

"Sully shoot 'em down!" Nate shouted over his shoulder with a furious look. Then he jumped over the beam he was hanging on and started finding some soft spots to climb. Sully followed him carefully and even managed to shoot someone down.

Everything went as usual - they almost died like twenty times, punched and shot on some bad guys and Sully had some seriously interesting curse words on his lips. What house was falling down at the speed of the light, which was caused by the old wood which caught on fire easier than normal wood.

They entered some halls which were completely red because of the consuming it without any problem, almost killing them by the pieces of beams falling down. But the worst ones were the staircases which didn't even hold together, there was no chance that they could climb them and yet they had to.

Sully saved Nathan a couple of times just as Nathan did saving him from falling down to the hell made of fire. They actually somehow, don't ask Nathan how because he doesn't know, managed to get to the rooftop and get out of that collapsing building.

Sully practically collapsed on a log there, fighting for every gasp of air he could get. Nathan did too, but he managed to pull back together faster than Sully.

"Here Sully," he offered him help with standing up, but Sully shooked his head and a disapproval gesture.

"Just gimme a sec. You always seem to forget that I have twenty-five years up on ya." Sullivan looked at Nate with frown and Nathan suspect which turn is this conversation about to turn. And oh boy, he wasn't fond of it.

"Oh come on Sully, you're strong as an ox." Nate put his hands on his sides and laughed uneasily at Sully's direction.

"Anyway, what's the hurry? They think we're in that." Sully pointed at the burning mansion and looked at Nate with a serious look. And they were on the path of that speech again.

"We almost were," Nate whispered, looking at the collapsing building again.

"I gotta say I'm losing the point here," Sully admitted with his look directed to Nathan's back. "Remind me again, why are we doing this?"

"No, no, no, no, no. If you're gearing up for one of those "I'm too old for this" speeches, spare me." Nathan turned around and looked Sullivan directly to the face. Sully had his age, he truly did, but that doesn't mean that he'll stop, at least for him.

Victor loved and lived for this kind of life without the option of woking up the next day safe and sound. He loved having adrenaline in his veins, that satisfaction when he shot one of those asshats down. He lived for this and Nathan knew that. And giving Nate speeches about how old he is and feels was his favorite way of torturing Nate.

"Nate these guys are playing for keeps."

"Yeah, so? What? You're just goin' to roll over for 'em now?" Nathan almost shouted with an unbelieving look on his face. If Sully thought about chickening out of this gig, it was already too late.

"Nobody's talking about rolling over," Sully answered in a calming voice. But Nathan was already too angry to calm down instantly.

"Then quit acting like you're ready to lie down and die, all right?" Nathan asked Sully with a frown on his face. He wasn't enjoying that conversation at all.

"Listen, kid. I've your back for twenty years. I'm not going anywhere, obviously. I just wanna make sure we're doing this for the right reasons. You've got your pride all tangled up in this thing. It's making you reckless." Sully stated and Nathan had to turn around to not giving Sullivan other shots.

Victor was right in everything he said and Nathan knew that. But he also knew that it was his life and his pride to discover the legacy of his ancestor. It wasn't the right of some blonde lady who looked like she's about to turn into dust in any minute. And Nate wasn't planning to give up any minute.

"I taught you better than that. Gonna get yourself killed." Sully finally got up and slowly went to Nate. "Damn. Hell, probably get us all killed." Sully slowly cleaned himself from the dust and stood up, putting his hands on his sides and shook his head.

"Oh, no..." Nate whispered and his eyes widened in the realization.

"What?" Sully asked while Nathan turned at him.

"Cutter and Chloe." Nathan reminded him and Sully's heart almost stopped too.

"Sully if we were followed, chances are they were too."

"Oh shit," Sully whispered and knew what is Nate trying to say. "We gotta warm them."

"Yeah, and get to Syria fast." Nate agreed and the moments Sully looked like he just saw a ghost. He could see the fear in his eyes and him gasping for air.

"And what about her?" Sully realized slowly that she was in danger too. Nathan took Sully's shoulder to his hand and shook him in a calming way.

"Sully, she would definitely kick those assholes into one small ball if they tried to hurt her in any way. Don't worry." Nathan promised him in low voice and Sully looked little relieved. Nathan was sure that she would be ok.

That person was Sully's soft spot and his only other two soft spots were his ailments (like his cigars and airplanes or money) and Nathan's life.

"Sure hope you remember where we left the car, 'cause I've completely turned around," Sully exclaimed as they walked from the mansion at a fast pace.

#Nathan Drake #nate drake #victor sullivan #Victor goddamn Sullivan #uncharted #uncharted drake’s deception #uncharted fanfiction #nathan drake x male reader #hell yeah #oh crap #here we go #have a lovely day

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another-sonic-blog · 5 years

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The Dark Prince: Chapter Two: The Way He Is

"Alright, so where do we start?"

"Well, our only clue as to right now is that 1. This person had something against the Commander and 2. This person also wanted to incriminate you. So think, who might hold a grudge against you?"

Amy and Shadow began to walk into the forest with nowhere in specific to go. The night and stars were at full bloom and with that the vast cold surrounded them.

"I... I don't know. It's honestly been such a long time since I've done the whole 'heroin' kind of stuff...the farthest I can go is when I pulled out Infinite's eye."

"You what?"

Shadow looked at Amy in disbelief. How could something so small and... innocent do things he, himself was capable of?

"Yeah, it honestly wasn't my intention, I must have hit him really hard that time. Not like it matters, we haven't seen him in years since Sonic defeated him."

Oh, that's right Sonic.

"Maybe it's not about you... but about him. This wouldn't be the first time they use you as a bait to get him."

"I haven't seen Sonic in a year. I doubt that what you say is true."

Shadow noticed that the air around them had changed now. It would seem like talking about the blue blur affected Amy in some way or another. He wished he could of know more, but he was one to blame as well since he wasn't one to start conversations with her about her feelings.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to have more allies around. Believe me, I am not a big fan of this idea either but having the world's hero on our side could be of great advantage."

Shadow stood up in front of Amy and she could instantly feel the warmth radiating from his body. It calmed her down, once again she knew that he was right and that she needed to put aside her feelings for the blue one for the benefit of both of them.

"...you are right, Shadow. You always are."

"Damn straight I am"

"Alright but where are going to start looking?"

"Last time I checked on G.U.N's database, people of the city of Hvalsey have reported seeing the blue one running around their city. So we will check there first...with my speed, we can get there in a day."

"Wait, no running!", Amy was now the one stopping Shadow on his tracks. Delicately touching his chest with her gloves and for one moment Amy stared into his eyes, taking dominance for a second.

"I am aware that running is more convenient but it's also very...flashy. Just like we know Sonic's location, there will be reports of you running around and G.U.N agents and whoever else is following us will keep getting a track on us. So for now, I suggest walking...to be discrete."

Shadow nodded in agreement. Amy was right on this one and if they were going to be a team, they were going to have to listen to each other's ideas and respect them. He didn't want to admit but right now he was more focused on Amy's small hand placed on his white chest fur.

"You are right... if only I had my Chaos Emerald... We could be there right now."

"It's ok Shadow we will figure something out. Meanwhile, we should think about a place to sleep."

Shadow didn't notice until now but Amy must be freezing to death at this point. Shadow could tell that it was going to snow at any second now even if his body was made to be resistant to high and low temperatures, he still was one that could be affected by it.

"Since my house and yours is out the question, I think I know of a place where we can rest for the night."

"A cave?"

"What were you expecting?"

"Knowing you? At least something similar to the Bat-Cave"

"Toucheé"

Amy took a sit on what it seemed to be solid ground. In no matter or another, she was comfortable, it was cold outside and humid on the inside. Shadow noticed this and with no further due went outside to look for rocks, sticks or anything that might start a fire. When Amy noticed his absence, she went outside to follow him. The white snow made small cracking sounds as her boots made contact with it. A few minutes later she found Shadow on his knees, looking around underneath the snow.

"Shadow?"

"Amy, you should go back"

"Let me help you"

Amy bent down to see that Shadow had a deep cut around his waist that Amy didn't notice before. The blood must have blended with his black fur and Shadow acted so normally that she didn't think that he was hurt at all.

Noticing her concerned, Shadow moved away from her in disapproval. Finally founding what he was looking for he stood up again as nothing happened and walked back to the cave, expecting Amy to do the same. Amy sighed in defeat and quietly back with him.

Once again in the cave, Shadow took two minutes to turn on a bonfire with two Flint rocks. After that, both of them stayed quiet. Looking through to the dancing flames until Amy decided to break the silence between them.

"Why don't you let me help you?"

"There's nothing to help with. The wound already healed, it was a pretty deep cut so my body took longer to heal it. I am alright now."

But that answer didn't satisfy her. Amy still had questions about everything. Including the most important one.

"Why bother so much Shadow?"

"Speak clearly"

"Why bother yourself with me? We barely know each other but you still decided to help me."

"Because..."

Maybe because he was secretly in love with her. However, he still hasn't figured out his feelings completely yet. Shadow didn't feel it coming like in the books, he didn't think 24/7 about her. He didn't miss seeing her every second nor think of her as a goddess. What was it then? What was it about her that attracted him so much but still couldn't get a clue of? Shadow was never one of the words but of actions and so this thoughts never left his mouth.

"It was the right thing to do."

Amy's face changed. That was convincing enough. Shadow was just like that, a nice guy. He would go to any extent to help someone in need and that someone right now was Amy. Amy offered him a warm smile, in which Shadow return by looking away. She knew that it was just that, the way it works.

Shadow woke up immediately at the smell of black coffee. He sure wasn't expecting to sleep that night but the low key was kinda glad he did.

"Could you walk a little slower?"

"...I thought I was going slow, my apologies."

"And usually, the guy is supposed to be the one who walks by the road."

"Sorry, I am not the gentleman you thought I was."

Amy waited for Shadow to change sides, but that never happened. Once again, Amy thought that this was very Shadow like as well. The ladies called him 'Dark Prince' but he clearly didn't know how to act like one.

"How long, until we get to the rabbit's house?.", Shadow was clearly annoyed, not being able to his speed for the simplest of things really got to him more than he thought he would.

"Just around the corner."

And there it was, Cream's house in its full cuteness. It was nice to see that her friend's house was still intact. The couple walked slowly towards the yellow door and rang the doorbell. From the inside an 'I am coming' was heard and seconds later, the door opened. Cream had for sure grow into a fine lady. Even after her mother died, she still found a way to keep strong. She was smart, strong and independent. It was not a surprise why the top world mechanic, Tails Miles Prower, was completely in love with her.

"Miss Amy! Mr. Shadow!"

"Hey Cream, long time no see"

"I understand your situation, but how may I help the both of you?"

Amy and Shadow had taken a sit on the red sofa, facing the rabbit girl. "We wanted to ask you for some clothes...and even for some money...like you must know. When a government spy company wants to murder you, all money disappears from your account."

Shadow looks straight into Cream's brown eyes. In a sense, he wanted to intimidate the rabbit girl but was failing at it miserably. He felt nostalgic at the sight. But was strangely proud of it.

"For the Dark Prince anything, as well for his princess." Cream laughed a little as he saw the reaction on the couple. Which to her surprise they did not deny her comment but quietly blushed at it.

"Oh, but Mr. Shadow!" Cream's sweet voice stumble, on Shadow's ears as he came back to reality.

"Yes?."

"There's this box full of clothes on the room upstairs. Its the first one to your left. Can you bring it please?."

Shadow nodded and stood up from his sit. After Cream noticed that Shadow was out of sight, she went to sit next to Amy who was curious by friend's reaction.

"So, Mr. Shadow, uh?." Cream teased her with a smile and Amy blushed more intensely. "It's not like that!."

"Who are you trying to fool? Mr. Shadow totally likes you!."

"He doesn't! He is just helping me out.", Amy gave a slow whisper.

"Amy, let me tell you something about the Dark Prince.", Cream grabbed Amy's hand and began her story.

If the entire world could crying, then it will be because of Vanilla's funeral. Nobody care enough to put up their umbrella to protect themselves from the rain. Everyone in black and flowers in their hands, trying to be strong enough for the young Cream.

Everyone was there but Shadow The Hedgehog.

So when Cream saw Shadow standing in front of her mom's grave, that really got her.

Not that she was angry at him but was deeply touched seeing him but countless of beautiful flowers all around her grave.

"Your daughter has always been there for the person I care the most and for that I am grateful. I promise to take her of her Vanilla and it's such a shame I didn't get to try your pie one last time."

Shadow turned around as he felt a presence near him. He saw Cream come out of the shadows into the moonlight.

"I'll tell you my mom's pie recipe if one, you don't tell anyone. And two, if you tell me who is that person you care for the most is."

"Amy, that person was-"

"I have the box."

Both Amy and Cream jumped in a hysteric manner and Shadow appeared in front of them, holding a heavy-looking box on his left shoulder. A puzzled look rested on his face, wondering what were the two girls whispering about.

"Oh, great! Just pick whatever you would like to take. I have some extra backpacks you could take on your trip as well. Feel free to take food too.", Cream added as she calmed herself.

"Thank you so much Cream. I am can't take you enough."

Amy let go of her friend's hand to stand up and look into the box. Some of the things she recognized from Cream's closet and others she didn't. Some of the clothes brought back memories from the times Cream would help her do the heroin stuff. "Do you ever miss going on an adventure Cream?." Amy asked as she pulled out a small orange dress, that her friend used to love to wear.

"Sometimes, but my life is way happier now...I have my friends from school, Tails and you. That's all I need.", Cream said with a warm smile. Amy returned her smile and stood up. "I'll go change."

Now the black and pink hedgehog were in their way to Hasvely. Having clothes on wasn't something Shadow enjoyed in all honesty. The long light brown coat made his arms movements complicated. The black under-sweater made his skin itchy and his tight skinny jeans made running impossible. And the worst part? He wasn't used to wearing clear round glasses.

"I need coffee"

"You just had a cup at Cream's!", Amy replied. Shadow stood quiet for a few seconds to appreciate her. She was trying to cover as much fur as possible. At the end of the day, it wasn't every day that you would see a pink hedgehog on the streets. Even for Shadow who had traveled the world countless times, a pink hedgehog wasn't something that he would see normally. She put her short hair in a small ponytail and put it under a hat. She wore a white sweater and a black skirt with black leggings to cover her legs and to top it all, a black long coat. Even when she wanted to look 'normal' she looks way too good according to Shadow's thoughts.

"I drink at least 7 cups a day."

Shadow closed his eyes and looked out the window but opened them as soon as he heard Amy's small footsteps come close to him. " Alright Shadow, as soon as we get to Hasvely, we need to do a cleaning."

"If you think I am going to stop drinking coffee, then you are completely wrong." Shadow turned around to find Amy looking at him directly at his eyes with her green emerald ones with a disapproving look.

"We will see about that, Dark Prince."

Amy moved her body and gave Shadow his space. Amy didn't want to admit it but, she would appreciate something warm in her hands right now. It was freezing and the train had no heating system whatsoever. A few minutes passed by and silence surrounded them. Then. Amy felt how Shadow stood up from his seat, opened the sliding door and walked int the train's small hallway. A few minutes passed and Amy began to worry about Shadow. Did he go to the restroom? Did he decide to jump from the window and leave her? Did he decide to go with G.U.N?

Amy was used to be alone, to deal with her problems by herself. But she was absolutely terrified of rejection, to not be enough. Amy had to admit that a few months ago she couldn't even stand to look at herself in the mirror. Whenever she would, she would always pint-point her defects. Like the small freckles on her cheeks, her round nose, nor her double chin. Her acne scars on her back, her stomach, and legs that were becoming bigger; which made her go to the hospital a couple of times since she decided that not eating was a better idea. Just everything about herself disgusted her. It wasn't just her looks. She doesn't remember exactly when everything went to hell. She used to not care about trivial things such as looks when she was a kid, and she certainly didn't have time to think about it when she was captain of the Resistance back in the day. But it wasn't just that, She wasn't good at anything, she wasn't smart, had a boring personality and didn't have any particular talent.

Although she was getting better, the thought that she would never be pretty enough, nor good enough as a person, still haunted her mind once in a while. Rouge would help her once in a while with this, and Amy was now regretting taking her for granted. And as far as Shadow has told her, she just disappeared after the events with G.U.N., which was usual for her to do.

Shadow has told her to not worry too much about her, that Rouge was that way and for her, she will try to be strong.

Amy heard the sliding door open once more and Shadow was standing there with two cups that looked like they came from a coffee shop.

"I am back."

Shadow walked past Amy and took a seat next to her handing her a cup, which she accepted gladly. "Enjoy it, this will be your last cup for a while."

"You know that's not happening," Shadow said as he took a sip from his coffee.

And there was Shadow. It may sound like those books in which the boy helped the girl feel better about herself. But this wasn't the case, because there was a big difference between fantasy boys and Shadow.

Shadow was nothing but himself.

Amy knew that she was being selfish, even towards Shadow. She still couldn't believe that Shadow would do all of this for her. She was asking too much and she knew that.

"Shadow...you can leave....whenever you want."

"If I didn't want to be here, I would have been gone by now."

What Rouge couldn't accomplish in years, Shadow did it in seconds.

He made her feel that she was enough. That she was worth all of this trouble. That someone cared for her so much, that they would put their own life at risk. And it wasn't because it was his duty as a hero, but because he was helping a friend out.

"Where did you get the coffee anyways?." Amy took a deep breath as she appreciated the smell of coffee.

"If I tell you, you will get angry."

"...Shadow...what did you do?", Amy asked in a monotone voice, to show her concern. She saw how Shadow looked up at the window and took a big gulp before answering her.

"I ran to the closest coffee shop and ran back here"

"Shadow, we said no running, what if someone saw you and called G.U.N?. We could be in serious troub-"

Amy said before getting interrupted by the Dark Prince...that goddamn nickname that the more time she spent with Shadow, the more sense it made.

"Fine then, I'll let your hands freeze next time."

...on its own way, it kinda made sense.

Previous Chapter: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/185966609885/i-am-tired-truthfully-i-am-no-matter-how-long-i

The Dark Prince: Chapter One: Team

Next Chapter: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/185966895240/the-dark-prince-chapter-three-my-old-blue-friend

The Dark Prince: Chapter Three: My Old Blue Friend

#Shadamy #shadow the hedgehog #shadow and amy #shadowxamy #Amy Rose #shadamy comic #shadamy boom #shadamy fanfiction #sonic the hedgehog #sonic fanfic #sonic fanfiction

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paulbogaards · 6 years

Text

I’m looking to hire a Publicist

ACTUAL JOB DESCRIPTION (not the one you will find posted on PRH):

The Executive Vice President, Director of Publicity and Media Relations for the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (@paulbogaards) is seeking a Publicist to dazzle the industry and world with their work and brio and warm good humor providing day-to-day support and counseling for authors (a lot of counseling) in a blistering-paced, internal and external facing (internal = editors = suspicious, external = agents = sometimes mean though they will describe their behavior as outcome directed), detail-oriented (seat 2A not 12A), data-driven (blah blah blah) environment working with dying legacy media professionals, social media pioneers, brand ambassadors (FML), booksellers (❤️), and other half-crazed publishing desperados.

The ideal candidate for this position will have had previous experience working as a magician. There is no finer point to make. As a publicist, you need to make magic happen. Magic. Every fucking day. Come equipped with a rabbit and a top hat and a goddamn wand and get ready to wave it every Wednesday afternoon at approximately 4:00 PM. You will be given books to work on that have no possibility whatsoever of becoming bestsellers, and yet, the operating expectation is that all of them will list. Authors expect that outcome. Agents expect that outcome. Editors expect that outcome. Publishers expect that outcome. It’s as if they’re all smoking the same green-blonde hallucinogenic.

The job is a grind. No one is capable of doing it for very long. The hours, the demands, the pressure, the weight of expectation, the dissonance between acquisitions and the marketplace, all of these things cause enormous stress on publicists. Think about this: the executive director has been doing it for thirty plus years. He has become a hollow shell of the man he once was as a result.

“Every day is a beat down.”

“I know.”

“Editors. Agents. Authors. Journalists. All of them are a fucking menace.”

“Tell me about it.”

“They look at us like we are, I don’t know what.”

“They look at us like we are fucking waterboys. That’s how they look at us.”

“That’s exactly right. We’re the fucking waterboys.”

You could be that person -- one of the waterboys (or gals). You are young and full of magic and convinced that book publishing is not decline but instead enjoying a renaissance. You look at Amazon with wide-eyed awe and innocence. You will step into the job thinking of the difference you are able to exact on behalf of writers everywhere. You, my friend, are a naif.

This is what will actually happen: You will be staring at your mobile in a crosswalk, answering a complaint from an author about their seat assignment on a United flight, and then be hit by an Uber. That is the most succinct description of book publishing in the 21st century that the director can think of.

All candidates for the position will undergo Anna’s box test. This is a test where you are invited in for an interview with the director, and there is a box on the seat you are supposed to sit in. If you just stare at the box, waiting for the director to move it, you are summarily dismissed and immediately disqualified as a candidate. If you pick up the box and place it somewhere else, you have passed the first test.

You will hear whispers about publishing projects where the company is rumored to have paid considerable sums of money for a book and then a call will come in from a reporter asking questions about said project and you will immediately route it to the director. The director has experience answering questions about the amount of money the company overpaid (5 million, 10 million, 20 million) and why the book is worth that much (it’s not) and how many copies will it take to earn out (it won’t) in what will become an infinite loop of inquiry and denial and the reporter, determined, will end up substantiating the figure through a disgruntled publisher who was knocked out on the last best bid (Karp) and then come back to you and ask you to confirm the figure and you will again deny it and they will wind up reporting the number anyway (though reporters these days don’t press in the same rough way that, say, Streitfeld and Kirkpatrick used to, and that is OK with the director, he is accepting of the new school press corps, though he generally prefers old school guys, and will always answer the phone when Keith Kelly calls, because he is the embodiment of OLD FUCKING SCHOOL, a guy who will tease out any story he can about Jann Wenner).

As a publicist, editors will complain to you about the New York Times (what the fuck are they doing over there?) and then become agitated and disgruntled and dismayed and threatening when one of their books is overlooked by that outlet (they reviewed a fucking book from New Directions instead of my book?) suggesting to you that action is essential (we need to do something) and you will reassure them, say of course, of course, I’ll get right on it, but really, what are you going to do? You will come to understand, very quickly, that happiness is elusive in our industry and joy is fleeting. Mostly, everyone suspects each other of book espionage.

Generally, the Publicist can expect career advancement provided they do their job without committing actionable offenses on social media or installing a joy button under the desk in their office or threatening to kill someone because they wrote a bad review (editors do this all the time. First, they threaten you. Then they threaten the BRE. Then they write a drunken email to the reviewer). Do not be led by their bad example.

This is a good position to learn about the business, as good as any, the director basically runs a farm team for the industry, his first hire now runs comms for one of the Big Five and he will smile when he sees a story in the paper with her Chairman touting the benefits of open floor plans (“there was just this energy and buzz and sense of excitement of collaborative human endeavor that really was kind of exhilarating”) and he is proud for a moment recognizing that his first hire has mastered the PR skill of ventriloquism (she has also mastered adapting the infinite loop of denial into the infinite loop of positivity.) Others have gone on to assume posts of similar stature at The New Yorker (where Remnick still won’t give anyone a credit line including Tommy Orange whose book THERE THERE was just excerpted in the magazine and everyone is supposed to be thrilled about that and the mention of said work on the contributor page but I’m like FUCK THAT who looks at the contributor page give me a book shot in the well of the magazine but of course there is no justice in much of this work, people want what they want when they want it and for selfish ends, the labors of the writer remain forgotten, the working men and women who are the backbone of our industry are frequently an afterthought, and THAT SEEMS TO ME A GREAT PUBLISHING INJUSTICE), and the Brooklyn Cyclones (that was Dave, he was a very handsome, I went to his wedding in New Jersey, there was a Venetian dessert table with fountains, it was like something out of the Sopranos), and Jennifer, who married someone rich and Jewish (that is kind of like going to work for The New Yorker) and gave birth to four children and will sometimes send me emails asking what the fuck happened to her life:

“What the fuck happened to my life?”

“Husband. Money. Kids.”

“FUCK.” Jennifer had (has) a foul mouth. I loved (love) that about her.

“Is there still work for me in publishing?”

“No. Business is dying. Stick with your plan. Keep the husband.”

Occasionally, you will find the director weeping at his desk and you will wonder if he is suffering from some kind of nervous breakdown and then you will observe an open email on his computer and see that it is simply a note of gratitude from a colleague - warmly written and sincere - and you will come to understand that they appear so infrequently that when they do the only way he knows how to respond is by weeping and you will feel a little sad for him. As a publicist, you will live a life of sadness and defeat. And you will learn to cry.

The director is looking for someone to step into his role because he is tired of weeping. The job has exacted a toll. He has become impatient. His responses to queries are no longer soft and nuanced. This week, for example, an editor from T Magazine sent him an email asking if Cormac McCarthy would cooperate for a cover profile and he responded “Not possible” and the editor wrote back asking “As in not possible for October because the book is so far out, or...unlikely to be possible at any time?” and the director wrote back “EVER” in all caps and then he sat back is his chair and thought “who are these fucking dragoons and when will they ever learn?”

Another reporter suggested to the director that he was giving him incorrect guidance, when, in fact, the director answered the reporter’s question with the information at hand. The director is fifty-seven and has made a living being honest with reporters and went back and forth with the reporter about his track.

“He kept asking me the same fucking question.”

“That’s how they work.”

“I said to him, ‘We’re in the weeds here. You’re suggesting the football moved. I’m telling you it was a completion. End of story.’”

You will attend meetings where nothing happens. That is another succinct description of book publishing in the 21st century.

You will be working with seasoned publishing veterans who spend most of their day worrying about Amazon and Barnes & Noble and the death of media.

You will read books before they become books and often find yourself thinking about transitioning out of the industry.

One page proposals will arrive with breathy notes from editors. An auction will follow. The director will be asked to create a marketing and publicity summary in advance of the auction.

“Based on what?”

“The proposal.”

“The proposal is one page.”

“Just make something up.”

So the director will make something up. You will help him. This will happen simultaneously across the industry. The people who make up the best things often acquire the book. So if you are good at making things up, possibly this is a job for you.

You will send emails, respond to emails, and stuff books in jiffy bags. If you are good at stuffing things in jiffy bags, possibly this is a job for you.

People will ask you questions. People from inside and outside the company. The desk you occupy is a kind of information station and you will need to learn the answers to so many questions (the director knows the answers to these questions but doesn’t have the patience to respond anymore and indeed it has become dangerous to let any questions through to him because he will often say something wrong on purpose, or say something inappropriate, there was even an instance when a reader called inquiring about Carl Hiaasen’s book tour and he asked her out on a date and Who the fuck does that?)

Candidates for this position need to be confident and made of steel and in possession of magic. Possibly you are that person. Please apply by clicking on the link here.

Thank you.

PS: “I’ll need a spacious south facing hotel room in a 4 star property, and OMG it cannot be The Muse, I mean how could you book anyone in that hotel?, it’s full of escorts and German tourists, the rooms are tiny, mine felt like a cell, and given my crippling anxiety about touring I’m lucky to be alive after that stay, you need to respect the work I’m doing on the road, and that was not a respectful hotel booking, and being in United boarding group two on my flight to New York, well, that was not respectful either, but I don’t want to get too far afield here, I just need you to listen to me and hew to my requests, do that and we will have a successful tour, my comfort and safety remain a priority, take it seriously, double pane windows on a high floor are essential, but not too high, away from the elevators and adjacent to a fire stairway, and quiet, the room has to be quiet, with fine linens and towels and four down pillows (one for between my legs, two for my head, and one to snuggle with), a king bed, a duvet, fresh flowers, white peonies if they are in season, a tub and a shower and 24-hour room service, these are the basics, the last tour almost killed me and that simply cannot happen this time out…”

#publishing #books #publicrelations

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onelinemanytimes · 7 years

Text

Holy cow that’s a lot of stuff about Fresh.

So, I see you know that Fresh exists. A lot of people have a lot of ideas about Fresh, and while some are delightful, some just don’t make any sense. I’m here to unofficially address some of the things I see about his character that I wish I didn't, so buckle up folks, this is gonna be a long post.

PLEASE NOTE that I am NOT CQ. Never have been, never will be(?), and despite my best efforts I don't know everything about Fresh. To be honest, there are aspects that I'll headcanon the heck out of, especially in regards to his magic and how possession works and what have you, but I try to make sure it makes sense with what I DO know- some of it's probably wrong. I accept that. BUT YA BETTER BELIEVE THAT I'VE DONE MY RESEARCH ON WHATEVER'S AVAILABLE.

Alright, so, first things first that I see a lot.

"Fresh Sans i-"

Wrong, already you're off. If you try to sell UnderFresh/FreshTale to me as canon, I will unfortunately dunk you faster than Sans when you spare him. Let me make this very clear: A TRUE FRESHTALE DOES NOT EXIST.

Now, don't get me wrong- FreshTale can exist if you want! If you want a Universe of 90's hip-hop style, lingo and bad choices then go for it. This Is Not Fresh. There is no Fresh Sans- that's Sans Undertale, who happens to be Fresh's current host. Fresh has fortunately claimed a different, taller (not Papyrus) skeleton in the world of Lucidia, So not even his host is Sans anymore. If you're talking about the canon Fresh, do not say Fresh Sans/Undyne/anyone else from Undertale. Just say Fresh! Or maybe Fresh in a X host. That works too.

Keep in mind, Fresh has no universe, not really. He doesn’t come from anywhere, he exists outside of that kind of logic. It’s just him- and, well, another one that we the people made. A better version. That’s some complicated deep stuff though and trying to get into all of THAT takes a lot more background. Suffice to say, Fresh is the only Fresh, and while he can produce more parasites Asexually, he’s the only him.

“Ok, fine. Fresh is a parasite, but he can still like/dislike/care about/ect. X.”

Wrong again! People seem to think Fresh likes things- unfortunately, that’s really hard to do when YOU CAN’T FEEL AT ALL. That’s right y’all. Fresh, contrary to what people believe, doesn��t care about you, your family, your money, nope. If he could be argued to care about anything, that’s HIMSELF. Because he wants to live. He may, by extension, prefer hosts with more magic to feed off of (More food! Yay! More living!), or that are less conspicuous (I dare you to count the number of Sans that exist. Bet you can’t. It’s infinite. What’s one Sans out of eleventy-badjillion.), but really as long as you’ll keep him alive and well, you’ll do.

However, while Fresh cannot feel and cannot truly understand emotion in his basic, vanilla form, he knows what fear is like. It’s the fear of Death that keeps him going after all- why would survival matter if he didn’t care whether or not he died? It wouldn’t, honestly. There’s an extension to this fear as well- the fear of being replaced, especially by… well, himself. He knows that we, the people controlling everything, exist. He also knows that on a whim, we could end him in moments, or replace him with a better, more entertaining version of himself.

I think we can cut him a bit of slack in that regard. Survival is dependent on Fear- the whole fight or flight thing, knowing when a situation is dangerous, knowing when something will probably hurt or be a bad idea, that’s a fear thing. If Fresh is going to be a sentient being he’s gonna feel at least a little fear in his life. Although, for a while there, fear was a hard thing to make him feel, because he was pretty sure he was simply better than everyone else. He probably hadn’t experienced much in the way of losing a fight, both when it comes to controlling hosts or magic V magic fights with mad people.

I’ll elaborate on how much fun an emotional fresh is after a few more points. Now:

“Fresh is weak, or a joke.”

You make me laugh, pretend speaker of unfortunately wrong statements. It seems you have been fooled by Fresh’s Persona- his gaudy, 90s, friendly, weak persona. I hope you never meet Fresh in real life, because you’d be foolishly drawn into a sense of security by the fact that Fresh acts the fool. Please, take notice: HE ACTS. the fool.

Fresh is absolutely, definitely, not a fool. He doesn’t understand emotion, he doesn’t have emotion, but he is VERY smart. Being smart is a very good way to survive.

So then why is he outwardly ridiculous so much? It’s apparently not because he feels like people should be nice and good and happy, according to me, so what’s the deal? I ask you to consider the situation: You’re at a bus stop and there’s someone waiting there. They show no emotional cues, stare straight into your eyes, and hardly move. Their voice is flat and as far as you can tell they have no interests, besides possibly kidnapping you for who-knows what. Hmm… sounds like someone… I don’t want to be around……

Now consider instead, you go to the bus stop and see a happy, colorful figure standing there having a very animated conversation with someone else. His sense of fashion may be a few decades late, as well as his speech patterns, but he’s so much more approachable! Look at him, smiling and shooting you fingerguns and talking about the new furbies he’s gotten- very rare angel furby apparently, he’s in love already- you’d be much more willing to be his friend!

Fresh want’s friends. Not because he’s lonely, but because they’re easy to use. Friends are more willing to protect you if someone else attacks you. Friends are more willing to believe your side of the story, and put up with a few little quirks now and then. Friends make very, very good hosts. If you aren’t expecting it, there’s no way you’re going to be able to get away from Fresh if he’s got you where he wants you, somewhere private where there’s no one to see him take you, no one to save you, not even a chance to scream…

Being friendly is the key to survival. Of course he’s going to act the fool. NEVER underestimate Fresh. He’s counting on it. He will use you if you give him the chance because he simply doesn’t care.

I do have a quick note though! One thing that I headcanon a bit is that when he gives advice he really does mean it. Don’t Do Drugs! Be a nice person! Stay Hydrated Kids! He probably legitimately wants you to do these things. After all, if you’re taking care of yourself, you’ll make a much better host! Drugs cause all kinds of problems- If the host body has an addiction, Fresh has to deal with all the physical withdrawal symptoms because guess what, if something’s wrong with your body, it’s going to have to be dealt with when Fresh controls you. Broken legs? Not a great host. Easily sick? Not preferable. Trying to get over an addiction? What a hassle. Stay healthy so Fresh can have a nice functional host when he gets to you, ok?

“Fresh is still a good person though! He can’t help being a parasite, that doesn’t mean he can’t be convinced to be better!”

You sound like a Papyrus! Sorry but I hope you also never meet Fresh. You’d also probably die. Heck I’d probably die if I met Fresh. He’s really dangerous y’all.

Here are some possible side effects of emotionlessness!

A: You don’t care.

B: You don’t care.

C: You really, really DON’T CARE.

...really hard concept, I know. Of course, not everyone thinks extensively on what exactly “not caring” means for you, so I’ll give you a run down! I ask that you think a bit about Flowey as well. Flowey lost emotions after having them and became a bad person. Fresh started with nothing and had no morals. Now let’s see what that might do to you!

First of all, this means that you don’t care about other people. Their problems, and most importantly, their life, does not matter to you. If Fresh is helping you with something there’s probably going to be something in it for him too. Now, because Fresh doesn’t care about your life, nothing that happens to you matters! Depressed? Oh well! In pain? Not his problem, unless it starts interfering with your usefulness!

He knows he’s more powerful than you. If you’re his host, you are completely at his mercy- his non existent, parasitic mercy. If Fresh thinks he needs to prove a point, he’s not afraid to. By any means necessary. Does that mean torture? Does that mean making you watch as he ruins your life? Does that mean possessing you more than once because you wouldn’t keep your stupid mouth shut? Ok. If it works, why wouldn’t he do those things? And, even more than that, if it’s more efficient, why wouldn’t he decide to just cut straight to the point? It’s not like YOU can do anything about it. You’re basically a dead man walking.

It doesn’t stop there though. This is stepping a bit more into the shady waters of “maybe” as far as fresh’s character goes, but it’s been mentioned once or twice. Fresh knows that he’s better than you (as evidenced by the fact that you can’t exactly stop him when you’re the host), and honestly? He knows he can get away with a lot. He Canonically infected hundred of people for what amounted to nothing more than “because I can.” THAT’S Fresh. That’s just one example. He knows what he’s able to do, and why not do that as long as it’s not putting him in danger?

You’ll see him pushing the boundaries a lot- him an error have some sort of weird relationship that we’re not really sure about, but considering just how uncomfortable ERROR is about Fresh, that’s kinda a sign that “maybe there’s something wrong here.” Error has destroyed entire universes (at the very least, he has when he was still Sans. All we know about lucidia Error is that he’s dressed like a freakin’ hobo.), and he’s been shown as having a great distrust and dislike when it comes to Fresh.

Error happens to be lucky though. His Soul glitching out could potentially cut True Fresh in half and that’s not something Fresh is particularly into, so the chances of Error ever getting possesed are nearly zero. We’ll just have to see what CQ has in mind.

“You keep talking about True Fresh, is that different from Fresh somehow?”

No, True Fresh and Fresh are the same person. When I say Fresh, I’m implying Fresh when he’s in a host and actually able to talk and do things. True Fresh is the actual parasite that is Fresh. The vaguely Starfish-slug-eyeball hybrid that crawls around infecting people and ruining everyone’s life. That’s what I mean when I say True Fresh.

Right now, True Fresh’s physical capacities are a bit vague? We know that hostless, True Fresh is very very weak. One good stomp on his eye would put him out of commision forever, and he’s not exactly very durable. Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure about the details? I’ve asked questions before about some things and have some solid answers- such as the fact that True Fresh can’t talk (but he screeches! Fun!) and can’t drown, but as far as things like physical strength and whether or not he emits slime… I have no idea. I’d like to think he’s a bit slimey and able to climb up stuff because it’s sticky, but I don’t know for sure so don’t ask me.

In short: Imagine four slugs that are purple. Connect them all together with their faces touching, like a starfish. Now give it a big eye right in the middle that’s also kinda a mouth with pointly lil’ teeth. That’s True Fresh. Probably about the size of a fist. I don’t think a specific size has ever been given. All I know is that they’re definitely small enough to fit uncomfortably into someone’s mouth, but not small or flexible enough to get in anywhere else unless you have a reasonably sized open wound.

*Side note, his teeth!! I’ve seen a few interpretations as to how placement is, but it’s the cutest part. Smol pointy teeth pokin’ out ready for the chompin!! It would be cute if it wasn’t terrifying.

“But I’ve seen emotional Fresh things from people with the CQ seal of approval! What does it mean??”

Nyeh heh heh, my homie, this is a fun topic right here. What your talking about is a variation on the vanilla fresh where he gains emotions- AND BOY IS IT FUN! You see, because Fresh started out emotionless, He’s basically started out at 0. Maybe 1, if he’s got fear going for him.

Now go from 1 ALL THE WAY TO INFINITY.

Or, alternatively, a general build up of emotions that he may not even notice at first until “Oh my gosh what am I doing this doesn’t make sense why I’m I getting so irrational about this thing”

That’s insane! He felt nothing before then! That’s like giving a college professor the emotional disposition of a 5 year old! IT’S A MESS! But a fun, wonderful to explore mess.

Especially if Fresh had the opportunity to do some real bad things before he got emotions.

Everything is a big deal for a while! That furby you had before you even really cared about it? It’s never going to leave your ownership. The person you were trying to befriend so you’d have an easy host for later? Crap. You, accidentally legitimately befriended them and now you can’t bring yourself to do it, even though it’s putting you at risk. That time someone made fun of the way you looked, and they took it too far, and maybe you were having a bad day? Guess what kind of hell they’re about to get.

The thing is, the way Fresh ends up depends entirely on what he did pre-emotion, and how he got his emotions. I’d like to bring up @alainaprana ‘s Kid Fresh- AND PLEASE NOTE! KID FRESH IS NOT TRUE FRESH! THEY ARE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE WITH SEPARATE STORIES AND SEPARATE EXPERIENCES! However, this is an easy way to make my point.

Kid Fresh was born emotionless, and lived in a fairly good environment. He was never given the chance to develop any bad habits, living with a supportive family (minus error), and he didn’t have the same problem True Fresh has. Namely, the problem of being a soul-eating parasite that has to kill to continue living. So he got his emotions, and bad things definitely happened! He got sick because of the intensity of everything, and felt way too hard and had it pretty rough for a while! But eventually he grew up to do some pretty great things, being healthy and in a great friendship and generally? Ending up good.

Parasite Fresh, however, has a lot more problems going for him than Kid Fresh. There's a very good reason why Fresh is emotionless, most importantly because empathy is killer to him. He absolutely cannot care about people if he wants to survive in the best possible way he can. For every one person he would befriend that would be another source of magic that he’s not getting. Eventually he’d run out of hosts or his friends would turn on him, and neither one of those outcomes are great. Being emotionless also means you’re less likely to cause a scene, because you don't get worked up about anything! Nothing gets under your skin. Except maybe a death threat from someone who could actually conceivably kill you.

This section is about if Fresh gains emotions though, you know the basic backstory of emotionlessness now. First you have to consider how he got his emotions. Was it gained slowly over time, building itself into existence until it started getting out of his control? That's going to cause problems. I’d like to draw your attention now to @neon--nightmare ‘s Fresh, who is ALSO TECHNICALLY NOT CANON! It’s very good though. Situated in GloomVerse instead of Undertale (or even better, Lucidia) but that’s not too big a problem for our purposes.

This is a Fresh that's been going down the buildup path. He started out exactly like Canon Fresh, but his story took him through The Loveball (essential rp for Fresh’s character) as well as A Meeting with Himself (Also Really important). He knows that if he starts screwing up, we, the people in control, could replace him real easy.

Fresh started out terrified at the least, and for good reason! However, as time passed, there started to be some small things that add up to a lot. One of the most obvious things is his near obsession with Wallis, and not the positive kind of obsession. He’s tried to kill Wallis at least twice, or done things that would end up with him dying, because he's worried about something that Wallis is doing. (Please note that Wallis is still alive partially through plot armor, but I mean, because we already know fresh knows we exist you could argue that he might realize Wallis has some sort of protection, but that’s really Meta and personally not what I think neon is going for.)

Wallis, meanwhile? He’s trying to help Fresh, and Fresh can't handle that. WHY would Wallis be helping him? Fresh nearly killed him multiple times- and remember! Life is EVERYTHING to Fresh! If you nearly killed Fresh but let him live you’d better watch your back. But instead of getting a response like that to his literal torture of this GloomVerse Star, he gets… what almost feels like pity? Regret? An honest, true desire to try and HELP Fresh, Because he needs the help.

The implications of that to Fresh are HUGE! Ignore the fact that Fresh is very definitely grieving the loss of a true actual friend (which was also a mistake) at the Loveball, and the fact that Fresh Knows he has to act “right” or risk getting thrown out and simply replaced by us, but the fact that he needs help is a big problem. He was made to be self-sufficient, an uncaring parasite that’s got a fun, although fake, persona. Now instead he’s a stressful mess that breaks down at a pointed mention of ‘them’ and is trying to desperately hide the fact that he's gaining emotions and it’s bad.

Things to consider with the gradual build up though. Has he stopped taking hosts? No, Although considering he took Wallis twice or so he's not exactly being as efficient anymore. Has he stopped being cruel? More the opposite, if anything he’s now more dangerous than ever in that regard, if you happen to push any of his feel buttons and freak him out enough to see you as a risk. He’s really trying to be himself but it’s not working. He had a fixation on Wallis because Wallis was making him feel, and for all his life Feeling = Bad. He can't afford to break and he knows it. Even still, slowly but surely, he’s falling apart.

---- Small intermission! Sorry but that’s a lot so far. Feel free to take a little break, like I am, and think about what you’ve discovered so far. It’s a lot ain’t it. Who knew Fresh was actually a multi-dimensional in depth character with some big problems. (I did. And now hopefully you do.) ----

BACK TO FRESH! Now, I mentioned before, there's another way to give emotions to Fresh, and while it’s less likely it’s just as fun to explore. That’s the method of “Let’s dump all the emotions on Fresh and see what happens.” This method usually happens from some sort of magical interference.

This is that zero to everything I mentioned before. Fresh, with no experience or build up, is suddenly feeling just as much as me or you. That’s a whole lot more than he was feeling before and BOY WOULD THAT BE STRESSFUL. Especially if Fresh got guilt in a more traditional way, like we would feel, instead of a build of emotions.

See, when Fresh builds up to emotions he’s still being Fresh. He’s still possessing and lying and doing his best to keep being himself, which is just unfortunate enough to not be a great person. If you dump all of the emotions on Fresh he has to deal with it immediately. There’s no time to become comfortable with what he's doing. All the sudden he has all this junk on him, a lot of it not even initially dealing with hosting, but once it becomes time for him to move on to someone else? He has to deal with empathy, and guilt.

Empathy is completely, entirely unacceptable. He can't afford to care about what happens to someone else! He can now feel that feeling of “what if someone did this to me” and if he can't rationalize himself out of that emotion he's absolutely screwed. All the sudden everything is different. There are people he cares about, and he knows what he does is Hell to the host. Ever had the life sucked out of you by force while someone else controlled your body and proceeded to ruin your life? It’s bad. Now imagine you have to do that to someone else just to live. Bad times all around.

That's just for emotions in the present. Start bringing up Fresh's past and it can get worse. For example, the fact that he slowly murdered at least a few hundreds of people more likely than not, as well as destroying relationships, and honestly? Some of that you did because you didn't care and you knew you could. Unfortunately, now you do care and you can see how bad that was. Really bad. You're a bad person, and even trying to act like “yourself” drags up SO MANY PROBLEMS. Some therapy may be required. Or a lot of therapy. Take your pick.

“Well, This stuff doesn't matter for me because I’m only interested in sexy times Fresh anyways and that's a different thing *lenny *wink face.”

(TL:DR of this in case it’ll make you uncomfortable, Fresh is a literal Asexual Parasite and doesn't understand Love anyways. Stop.)

Sorry buddy but Fresh can't even do that! Firstly he has no concept of love, so unless you give him emotions there's not going to be any relationship between you two except “possible host” and “probable cause of death.” Any love you would feel for him is unfortunately one sided, sorry Alaina.

Alright, but then you give him emotions and enough time to sort out his complicated junk. Fair enough, then maybe, very very maybe could you have some sort of relationship with Fresh. One that didn't end badly, I mean.

Emotions or not, Fresh has no grasp of sex. It just, doesn't compute. You see, Fresh is an Asexual Parasite in the literal meaning of the word. He produces more parasites all on his own, as much as he wants (or doesn't), without any help from anyone. Even without that, why would Fresh engage in that sort of relationship? There's no point. If he wants to get close to someone being friends is fine and doesn't take as long more often than not. Maybe, Maybe he would go to a bar and find someone to trick into following him away for a quick easy host, but if that happens, sorry, you’re not getting much more than your shirt off in a best case scenario. There's definitely not going to be any action.

Also, consider his persona. Does he look like the sort of person who would do that with someone he was unfamiliar with? No, not really, and remember, he doesn't exactly have the time to cultivate a relationship until it gets to that point. Please also consider that if Fresh can't feel, you aren't getting anything good out of that kind of venture anyways. He's completely inexperienced, and he's not going to understand what’s going on at any level. He just. He can't, he's completely Asexual. He might be a minor except we don't know how long Fresh has been alive, or when exactly he becomes not a kid anymore. It’s all crappy.

It’s just not good. Stop. Fresh has a kiss list, look into getting one of those instead. Still doesn't understand the weight of a kiss but it’s as good as you're canonically getting.

“Wow, that’s a super long post! How do you know so much?”

Because I LOVE FRESH! I too was drawn in by his friendly persona, however, instead of just taking that and assuming that’s all there was, I tried to find out anything I could. I looked through CQ’s blog for anything involving Fresh, I asked questions when I had questions, I went to sources that were fairly trustable, and then I asked more questions. I watched and read and considered his character really really hard because I didn't want to misunderstand him.

Fresh is in a strange state of having not enough information about him posted, and at the same time having all the information you need about him to understand him. We don't know what his true past is, why he exists, what minor goals will be, because in short, that’s spoilers. This is the information that’ll get revealed within Lucidia. And if it doesn't I’m going to eat my fist and then proceeded to ask more questions.

HOWEVER! We know so much about who he is, and if you're careful with it you might even be able to fill in some blanks with reasonable headcanons! We know that he’s emotionless, and already if you just think about that fact you’ve got miles to run with. The fact that he’s a parasite, and what that means as far as morals go. Something that has to kill to live is going to mature differently than we do, and come to different conclusions about the world! Different assumptions, hopes, expectations, experiences! So many things!

So please, I ask you, don’t try to sell me a fresh that’s little more than a bright sk8er boi that uses outdated lingo and happens to be a parasite. Sell me a Parasite trying to fly under the radar the best way it can, by imitating others and playing their cards so that they're always one step ahead, manipulating and hurting others on the down low so that people won’t believe the ones he’s hurt and they'll be willing to follow him into a risky situation. Sell me a clever Fresh, an emotionless Fresh, a Fresh that isn't afraid to get his hands dirty if that’s really the best way to get something done.

Sell me the Real Fresh, not the Fannon.

-------

Special thanks to @alainaprana and @neon--nightmare for having some fun emotional Fresh things I could use, as well as @feth for being a wealth of information that’s pretty safe. And of course, thank you @loverofpiggies for creating Fresh in the first place. None of this post would exist if Fresh didn't exist, and I’m glad to have been able to find you when I did. PLEASE, IF ANY OF THIS IS INACCURATE, TELL ME! I really do try my best to play him right in stories and ideas and I want to show an accurate depiction of him.

By the way, here are the tags that I had originally written, for your reading pleasure. It's a mess, but I just feel like the raw emotion might be good (even if that's basically the opposite of True Fresh).

Heck, so much heck, how does everyone NOT know this??, Fresh is so interesting and in depth and??, He's more than a 90's infomercial, that's just te persona he sells, YOU'RE ALL BEING FOOLED BY FRESH'S FAKE SELF, HE DOESN'T CARE, HE'S A BAD BOI THAT HAS TO SLOWLY KILL TO LIVE, HECKS, LOOK AT HIS SMILE, HIS HAPPY "PERSONALITY", IT'S FAKE!! ALL OF IT!!, except when it's not because it's an au where he gained emotions, and then it's "oh Lordy what have I done", and crying all the time because boi, he ain't never had any emotions, could you imagine going from zero to INFINITY, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, when you drop toast butter-down you say "aww darn :(", FRESH WITH EMOTION, A FREAKIN', FUNERAL FOR THE BREAD, not Really I'm exaggerating, BUT BOIS, Y'ALLS, HIS HEART, "Oh no I- I dropped the bread, I had just spent so much time making that and-, and now it's gone, no one can eat it, it landed butter down now there's a huge mess, CQ comes in to fresh on the ground beside a single piece of bread, please know I'm mostly exaggerating, but just, GOODNESS GRAVY, AND THEN??? CANON FRESH WHERE NO EMOTION???, HAVE YOU SEEN HIM, HIM HIM, NOT SANS UNDERTALE, GOOD LORDY I ALWAYS DIE A BIT WHEN I SEE "UNDERFRESH/FRESHTALE", DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THAT DOESN'T EXIST, THAT'S!!!! NOT A THING!?!!, at least, not in te case of REAL FRESH, you can make an underfresh if you want but it will never be canon, there's no fresh Papyrus, no fresh Flowey, no fresh Undyne, BECAUSE THERE'S NO FRESH SANS, ONLY FRESH, and fresh, oh boy, he's the worst, the best worst, "hey you know I don't really care so how about I just, Do what it takes, or even better, what it doesn't take because it'll be amusing for a while", Fresh doesn't care about you, or your life, or your friends, or your money, nothing, he cares about his own life, that's priority number one y'all, If that means murder? Eating people alive? Lying?, he'll do that, Yeah, His persona he's got going on?, he WANTS YOU to underestimate him., "oh yeah that colorful dude haha what a joke", no one would suspect he's actually, A STARFISH MURDER PARASITE, THAT WILL SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY DRAIN YOUR MAGIC, THEN LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD AT BEST, THAT's RIGHT, AT BEST, I have very few doubts that Fresh would kill previous hosts to cover his tracks if he, felt he had to, "If You end up living and telling people about me someone might actually believe you.", "so you get to die! Yay :D!", please note this is an exaggeration, I'm super hyped up, but STILL, MY POINT!!, IS HERE!!, I'm just gonna make a post, because I have so many words to say, and tags r not enough,

#long post #Fresh #Text #Fresh Parasite #Lucidia #this is really long #Toasty Ramblings

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itbeatsbookmarks · 4 years

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(Via: Hacker News)

Obviously we’re going to talk about this today:

Ok, so. Up until this year, I would’ve told you that there are two general kinds of financial bubbles.

The first kind of bubble is where everyone believes the future will be like the present. Think credit bubbles and real estate; think 2007-2008, where the fundamental belief that drove the bubble forward and into ruin was “We’ve figured this out. We can’t lose. The risk has all been worked out. Lever up, cowboy. We will never die.”

There are two reflexive feedback loops at work here. The first is the positive feedback cycle between that belief, “We have the future figured out”, and rising asset prices – which confirm the invincible mentality and drive it forward. The second loop is that rising asset prices translate to lower cost of capital. In a mindset like this, we get excessively comfortable with investing that low-cost capital into businesses and investments that generate predictable future earnings, or the illusion of predictable. That cheap capital can then meaningfully contribute to those earnings actually materializing, on schedule. Bubbles can genuinely be self-fulfilling prophecies; to a point. Past that point it’s bad.

The second kind of bubble is where everyone believes the future will be different from the present. Think equity bubbles, startups, and crypto; think 1999, where the fundamental belief that drove the bubble forward and into ruin was “It’s a new economy. All the rules are different. The upside is unlimited. If you get in now, you’ll be rich. We’re going to live forever.”

As before, there are reflexive feedback loops at work here too. The first loop is the positive feedback cycle between that belief, “I’ve seen the future, and I believe”, and rising asset prices – which confirm the bubble mentality, and bring on the FOMO. The second loop, as before, is that rising asset prices actually do something useful here. It means we can fund cool startups! Wacky, speculative ventures, which under normal circumstances could never raise any money, are able to access capital at attractive valuations. Sometimes they do, in fact, build the future. These kinds of bubbles can be actually good.

Unlike before, where we rewarded predictable earnings (or, the perception of them) with low cost of capital, here it’s the opposite. We’re looking for unpredictable earnings; specifically, the prospect of unknowable but infinitely high upside. These bubbles can also become self-fulfilling prophecies (dot com speculation got us Amazon, and a whole lot of broadband cable), but they blow up when expectations get too detached from reality.

There are certainly sub-categories and variations on these two themes. For instance, one driving factor you often see associated with bubbles is new financial instruments that give the retail buying public better access (or more aggressive leverage) to the object of speculation. Crypto is an obvious recent example, but this goes all the way back to the Mississippi Company and South Sea manias, with the invention of the joint stock company and the bubbles that resulted. Other stuff matters too, like economic cycles and political narratives. But in general, up until this year, I would’ve told you that these are the two basic kinds of bubbles.

I was wrong. There is a third kind of bubble, and it’s happening spectacularly right now. If the first kind of bubble is “everyone thinks the future will be the same”, and the second kind is “everyone thinks the future will be different”, the third kind is “everyone thinks the future doesn’t matter.”

If you remember, the 1999 bubble had a lot to do with technology and the future, sure, but also had something to do with boomers and early Gen Xers having all of this disposable money right as online brokerages became a thing. Right now, there’s a similar thing going on. Millennials have real paychecks to spend, and stock trading fees have all gone to zero. Trading has become gaming.

Crypto gave us a taste of the wild a few years ago, for that brief autumn where random people from your past would message you about how much Filecoin to buy. But now that itch has hit the mainstream. The stock picking day traders are having their cultural moment, led by Dave Portnoy and an army of shitposters.

Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy is leading an army of day traders | Sophie Alexander & Katherine Greifeld, Bloomberg

Portnoy’s “Davey Day Trader Global” escapades are hilarious and well-known, and he’s brilliantly playing the heel; credit to him for absolutely getting how it works, Barstool not withstanding. But the bigger story here is Wallstreetbets. I’m sure most of you have heard of the Wallstreetbets subreddit by now; if you haven’t, the best way I know how to explain it is that it’s like “multiplayer Jackass for the stock market.”

Wallstreetbets started as a bunch of random internet yahoos bragging about crazy YOLO trades they’d make (and would actually follow through on!), and what enormous percentages of their net worth they’d win or lose spectacularly. I really do think that Jackass is a good comparison here. Yes, these people are trying to get rich; but more importantly, they’re trying to provoke reactions. It’s a game of who can be the most shocking. There’s really not much difference between reading some of these WSB posts and watching an old Jackass sketch. You’ll laugh until you can’t breathe, and then keep laughing when you realize someone actually got kicked in the crotch that hard.

But as it got more popular, some actually sophisticated (and supremely aggressive) traders are getting in on the fun, and it got highly competitive and weird. It’s the newest version of “the stock market as full-contact sports with legal gambling”, and it’s a lot of fun. No one here cares about valuation or fundamentals. It is explicitly a casino. Everyone is here to get in and out of a position in the most shocking way possible. And, astoundingly, there’s enough AUM getting accumulated behind these bets that it can actually start to move individual stocks inweird ways.

Reddit’s profane, greedy traders are shaking up the stock market | Luke Kawa, Bloomberg Businessweek

The groundwork for this strange show has been built up over a few years, but when the pandemic hit, all hell broke loose. A perfect storm of events come together: first, generational volatility in the stock market as everyone tried to get in front of (and then out from) a global pandemic; second, everyone getting quarantined at home and desperate to feel something, and third: no sports.

Enter Hertz. Hertz was in trouble anyway; it’s carrying around a ton of debt to pay for a fleet of cars that no one wants to drive, because we have Uber now. When the pandemic hit, they got called on their debt, couldn’t make it work, so they had to declare bankruptcy and start a restructuring process.

But then weird things started to happen. Hertz’s stock, which is literally worthless, starts to go up. And up. And up. It gets bid up a whole 500% over a 3-day period last week. What is going on?

There’s no way to describe it other than, this is a Jackass sketch taking place. It started out as these internet YOLO traders playing an increasingly stupid game of chicken. But then it… caught on? Other people started to get in on this too. Hey, obviously the stock in the long run is worth zero. Everyone knows that. But it’s going up, and tomorrow it might go up more. If this were just some dumb penny stock with a cool story attached to it, that’d be old news. This is different.

When you see a stock getting bid up like this, the only conclusion you can draw is “The future does not matter, because in between now and then, this is explicitly just spinning a roulette wheel. The stock could go up or down, who knows, but at least you know it has nothing to do with the underlying value of the stock (which we all know is zero!), and everything to do with other gamblers.

So Hertz sees this happening, and they’re like, well, if there’s demand for our stock, we should go sell some! I mean, it’s a ridiculous kind of demand, and it’s not “real” demand, but hey, maybe it’s real enough. So Hertz files, and is granted, an emergency request to their bankruptcy judge to issue a billion dollars worth of new stock in order to take advantage of whatever this is. Tom Lauria, one of the attorneys representing Hertz, had an all-timer line: “New platforms for day traders may be facilitating this. There are forces at work that us non-financial people, that we can only observe.” The SEC, presumably between gasps of laughter, declined to weigh in on whether the transaction was legal, saying “it is up to the company to comply with securities law.”

Just to restate how funny this is: Hertz is granted permission, by their own bankruptcy judge, to sell stock in their company which has already declared bankruptcy, because due to weird mojo in the universe, there’s a small army of reddit trolls playing chicken with each other and it just might save the company. Financial Twitter goes crazy, and (of course!) people start bidding up stocks of other bankrupt companies. It was a great day to be online. (Matt Levine, as usual, has the best writeup.)

(By the way, here’s a hilarious aside: Business Insider reports on this, and says, “oh, by the way, Hertz share price fell on the news, which makes sense, as shareholders will face dilution” hahahahaha)

So how can we think of these events as a third model in our taxonomy of bubbles? We’ve got all three pieces of our reflexive loop at work. The first is a deep belief: not that the future will be the same, or will be different, but that it’s totally irrelevant. As Hertz’s stock price rises, it confirms this temporary suspension of reality, and furthermore, it confirms that the other people you’re trading against are also idiots, so there’s an opportunity to make money here.

The second half of this reflexivity loop is even weirder. Unlike in a normal bubble, where it’s the perception of stability that drives an earnings multiple, or in an equity bubble, where it’s the perception of high upside that drives an earnings multiple, here there are no earnings. The future earnings here are presumed to be zero. But if everyone knows that, and everyone is okay with it, then everyone around the table can look at everyone else around the table in the eye, and know that they don’t care about earnings either. They only care about winning this YOLO trade. And so long as everyone thinks that, then the only limiting factor to how violent this bubble can be is how much cash you have, and how quickly the traders can find each other. The answer seems to be “lots”, and “fast”.

I really do think that this deserves its own place on the financial tree of the life. It’s a genuinely unique form of financial stupidity that’s distinct from the other two kind of bubbles. And we’re going to see it again. Not exactly like this, but the genie’s out of the bottle now. There is enough AUM dedicated to these kind of stunts, and the internet has dropped the cost and latency of communication among these day trading Johnny Knoxvilles down to zero.

The Hertz story is an exceptional situation. I do not think it’s likely to ever happen again. But you know what kind of public companies have zero earnings for years at a time, and where future earnings are so far away that it’s already understood by everyone to be a day-to-day game of chicken, just like this? Biotech companies. And you know what kind of companies are going to be really interesting in the aftermath of Covid? Biotech companies.

At the end of last year in my Ten Predictions for the 2020s post, I threw out a take: “There will be a major speculative bubble in biotech companies.” I mean, I didn’t have this in mind, but you know what, this makes me feel pretty good about that prediction. One of the catalysts, I wrote, would be “A new kind of financial innovation that becomes the instrument of speculation. These aren’t a necessary component of bubbles, but they sure help. In this case, I bet there’s going to be some new clever financial product that bundles and securitizes the highly speculative IP of biotech companies, in a way that legally lets retail investors buy them through an ETF or something.” I’ll admit, at the time, I didn’t foresee the “new, creative instrument of financial speculation” being “the equity of bankrupt companies.” But why not!

Anyway, in summary, ha ha ha ha ha. What a week.

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writinginprogress99-blog · 6 years

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Masters of a New World - ch.1

A/N: A couple months ago we saw a post by @writing-prompt-s that inspired this story. There are two of us writing, each from the perspective of a different character. Hope you all enjoy!

Last Tuesday served as the anniversary of a certain event. An event so momentous, so important, that it shook the very fabric of reality as we know it. And that event… is DRAGONS! (*echoes* DRAGONS! AGONS! ONS!) Ok, ok, I couldn’t help myself. And besides, the truth is that it’s a whole lot bigger than that. A little over a year ago everything changed. One day, all of a sudden, magic appeared, and with it came dragons, orcs, elves, fairies, the whole shebang. It’s called the Convergence. We still don’t know how or why it happened. I have a few theories, but this isn’t really the time for that. The point is that when it happened it immediately became the most important issue. No one could talk about anything else for days! It was great!

The last year has been… interesting to say the least. One day everything was fine, and the next, a damn dragon perched on top of the Empire State Building! Not that anyone saw that news story at first, since creatures were popping up everywhere. No, seriously, everywhere. Overnight, the entire country was infested with half-animal, half-human, half-nightmare things that just popped out of the ground. Or, materialized? I don’t know where they came from but the very next day national news reported it was happening across the globe. I think they had some kind of “expert” on one of the channels and he called the creatures “Fey beings” or something. Whatever the hell they’re called, they’ve taken over every national and state forest. The great lakes have goddamn sea monsters. Oh, and the entire state of California is completely overrun. Like, the army had to go and evacuate the entire state. That, of course led to a lovely housing crisis as the rest of the country had to pick up the slack. And that, of course, just drove the economy into the dirt. It would’ve caused another Depression if it weren’t for the magic.

But it wasn’t all great. Once all that came around, it spread like crazy. Suddenly a lot of the tech we had been dependent on for so many years didn’t work for shit, so a bunch of companies were all scrambling to develop something that could get communication up and running again so people could figure out what was going on. Then, a month or two in, suddenly HTC, of all companies, figured out how to make a cell phone compatible with magic. Infinite battery life, perfect cell service, and a whole ton of other features immediately jumped them to the front of the sales. Not that a lot of people were really able to do much with it at first, but that’s a long story. The point I’m trying to make is that ever since then, a lot of companies have been trying to adapt anything and everything to use magic instead of whatever it ran on before.

Oh yeah, did I not mention the magic? The fucking monsters brought magic with them, so everyone forgave them for destroying the country. Because that makes sense. As soon as they discovered we could harness and actually use the magic, that turned the economy right back around. Suddenly there were new products that worked with this mystical force – that we know nothing about! – instead of electricity or gas. I’ve never seen weirder infomercials than the ones that have come out this year. Is your KitchenAid not magical enough? Try this one! It runs on unicorn tears! Is your wardrobe just a little too ordinary? Why not sprinkle all of your clothes with literal pixie dust! God, it’s disgusting! Like, seriously! What is the point of that? Especially when fucking goblin-imp-things are literally raiding neighborhoods and cities. The creatures have become such a menace that several states have declared everything from open-season on the fuckers to out-right martial law. Local law-enforcement is totally out of its depth. They brought in the armed forces, but even that wasn’t enough after a while. Finally, they had to start accepting help from... outsiders.

It’s also been kinda weird getting used to the, uh, new neighbors. I’ve gotta tell you, as chill as elves are, they suuuuuper don’t get the concept of paper money. See, they use gold and gems as currency. And it was honestly hilarious to watch the government try to figure out the conversion rate from the dollar to precious metals and gemstones. Basically everything about our society is completely different now. And while it’s been a little rough on me, I’m mostly just excited to see my craziest dreams possible now!

And that’s when this turned into a real nightmare. I could live with all of that if it weren’t for what it did to every goddamn normal thing in the world. I’ve worked for the same company for almost seven years. It’s an advertising firm and it’s a great job! I worked my way all the way up to VP! I was Olivia fucking Masters, the head of the social media department! I helped companies sell shit diet plans to millions of unsuspecting American citizens! Do you even know how much money you can make advertising for diet plans? Hint: a fuck-ton. It was amazing! I could have retired at the age of forty and then gone to travel the world. I could have had a villa in Italy! But all of that’s gone now! All my work, my plans, my job… the entire company went under. The execs just couldn’t get on board with all the new products coming out. And strangely enough, when you’re advertising a gross shake and someone else is selling fucking miracle mermaid oil that’ll make you beautiful in a week and act as a love potion, it makes things a bit more difficult.

Oh yeah, I’m Tyler, by the way. Tyler Masters. You might know me by my gamer tag, MasterTyFighter. I was a competitive Overwatch player back before the Convergence. Yeah, yeah, my Tracer game was awesome, I know, let’s keep it together. Back to the main point, given the events of the last year, you could say it was… challenging to keep up my pro gamer status. Especially because almost no one could get internet access enough to keep up with my streams, and I think the coach’s house got raided by goblins… long story short, it’s a mess. But once I was done being bummed about that, I realized I had a chance to git gud! I went out and grabbed a few enchanted weapons (they’re a lot easier to find than you would think, and disturbingly affordable). Then, I got to training. My best weapons right now are bow and arrow (filthy Hanzo main) and spear, but I’d like to think I’m pretty good with a lot of them! So now, I go to set out on my most dangerous quest yet: conquering THE BEAST! But will I make it out alive…?

So basically I’ve been out of a job for… a while. And then, today my idiot twin brother shows up and parks a fucking RV on my lawn. I need a drink.

#original story #original characters #ocs #writing is fun #Masters of a New World

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emersonmanandnature · 4 years

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Judgement Day

April 19, 2020

We have great news for the planet earth that little speck of dust in god’s eye. It took us awhile to realize that your planet hasn’t been judged when it should have been centuries ago. There have been complaints brought up concerning your Judgement Day from those that were saved and rose to heaven through his glory. Our lord has been real busy moving through his infinite space looking over his crops of newly created worlds and forgot all about his first endeavor to create a man and a woman that would make him proud and praise his glory to the end of days. So people of earth god will be sending you an interim judge to guide all of you to your place in this ever changing universe. We want to once again say were sorry but it looks like the planet he created is full of thieves so this particular Judgment Day is just what it stands for, in one day all will be sent where they deserve to dwell.

Now satan is really delirious and excited for all the ungodly people he will make suffer for their selfish actions on this earth.

What irony for now god will destroy their salvation by just one simple verse in Proverbs 22:9, “He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.”

Angels were created to do one thing and one thing only to serve god our holy, almighty father, faithfully with purpose, and then host his powerful return to this god forsaken speck of dirt and yes he will show boat a bit, but still good publicity, for the sinners must purge their blinded faith to express thanks for his son’s beaten bloodied body on the cross dying for our sins that got rave reviews in heaven and later on earth and if that didn’t wake the world up to his son’s caring sacrifice then god can forsake the souls living right now in-between our lord and his rival, satan. Ok, ok the angels do have other duties and one of these duties is to be “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation,” Hebrew 1:14.

I must say the angels seem to be the ones either destroying the earth, lets go ahead and name them because everyone should get to know them intimately, Abaddon, Beelzebub and of course Satan or the other angels helping earth survive with the help of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael, and through our centuries of wars, cruelty, religious zealots, psychopaths, poverty, racism, greed, criminality, wealth, hatred, slavery we never experienced any saintly presence that came to us in physical form, only words from a book that demanded we save ourselves by believing in a future ruled by religious zealots that hated themselves and the people they preached to. They demanded an apocalyptic end where only the true believers will be saved.

But our god didn’t just sit on his holy throne and judge us, what kind of god has only our judgement to oversee, for we are just mere specks of life in his infinite mind.

I could go on but you get the point his majesty, our savior, was and is very busy running here than there and then back again through his universe of dark space checking out the other inhabitants of his infinite planets created in a lark of impulsiveness and soon regretted but still his choices must be represented as perfect and therefore he marks off whether these new and old planets with their inhabitants growing in numbers and asks himself will they make the grade or fail his omnipotent will, demanding his loyalty test of their loving faith. Now I just want to say that yes there are infinite planets all through this spacial void of in cohesive certainty but we do know gods ego is pretty big and he will always say to his golden angels, caretakers of his throne, the more the merrier to praise me and adore my presence. Now think about this, just one wrong answer could sway his vote for absolute destruction of your planet or any other inhabitant planet roaming through space in this universe oblivious to their doom. But in our own case we have always had ministers of godlessness demanding our demise and their cruelty will certainly not pass mustard with our savior, for he is the righteous and the path to glory, let us pray!

Now don’t get mad at me, for look no further than Adam and Eve, newbies to gods ultimate ever-changing reality and not knowing fully god’s desires and by one simple choice of pleasure over hunger did them in forever. I have always wondered did theses outcasts finally make it up to the heavens above this earth somewhere or were they condemned to the fiery hell of infinite pain for just being human?

But they did keep to god’s purpose after they were booted out of eden so they must be in a sort of middle-heaven, purgatory enjoying the same confusion they experienced back in their original days as we their children multiplied by the billions and face the same wrath as our original parents had to deal with, an angry god couldn’t control them and now us. So we too might have to look forward to being kicked out of paradise as well. God should remember, hell has no fury like a population scorned!

But man’s interpretation of the scripture is riddled with their own presumptions of a text that is elusive and really anything can be seen and felt in words that are not really present, external to our inner hope. Faith as we know it is blind and being blind we search in darkness for a purpose other than being rooted in our own constant questions that have no answers, and now manipulated by technology to buy, buy and be happy staring at a screen while the world slips by you.

Lord god give me strength! For we don’t have to look to religion to find you, god is present in us all. But as evolved conscious homo sapiens we are addicted to the wonders of the external world we have been placed in and we tend to get sidetracked into depending on someone, or something else to give us a peace of mind that, yes, confirms that we will be saved. Can I get a hallelujah, Jesus will you be my date to our heavenly party!

But what is saving you right now, this minute from the violence, sickness, criminality, murder of innocence, wars, wealth, greed… wake up this is our paradise and you are being displaced, from enjoying the beauty of this earth by men and women with no morals. And these heathens of vice place profits over human beings, for we are expendable, the new builders of the tower of babel for their physical pleasures.

We humans are a confused bunch of hypocrites for we seek answers we all ready know.

That in itself doesn’t look good for us beings of delirious envy, hatred, selfishness, pent up anger, amoral behavior, cruelty, and a death wish to leave this planet without experiencing its full beauty.

Inherit salvation is an interesting way to phrase our glorious rise to the heavenly clouds, hopefully we will not have to use our wings too much until we can get use to flying around nosing in on others business. I always wondered if the wealthy that inherit their parents criminal activities will also steal their way into the holy paradise by slipping a few million here and there to grease the way into a primo house on a mountain top overlooking the universe, inviting only the elites to their hipster pad, “hey man just chill we are dead don’t you feel it,” a lifting of pressure off the brain, our once survival instincts now on hold until we can figure out what kind of money scams we can run in this so called paradise. Damn it is cold up here in space without a workable heater!

I don’t think their can be anything more evil than the bloodshed that has been active on this planet from the very beginning of time. We are basically like all animals with a predatory mentality which leads to an addiction to power over others.

We seek power over the herd at their expense not ours for we steal according to the law of the land that we made up in case someone has the nerve to accuse us of robbery and then we will have to sue them for their honesty and moral character for we will have none of that we just want to be greedy with our mouths watering for our next robbery. Praise the lord!

Seeking heaven was their scam from the beginning of our intellectual development, we made it into a stronger force of human limitations. Don’t do that, oh don’t do that thing, all to control the masses by keeping them in their place, believing in a savior that hasn’t returned to save these poor sods that have been roped into a faith that postpones the glory of heaven here on earth and makes the people wish for death so they can rise up to paradise and meet their anonymous maker. How stupid do we have to be to give up on this place we call home, this planet, and bet on an imaginary place where god waits for his children to die and then accepts them into his arms. That is freaky and could make a great horror movie. Oh wait we are living in a horror movie as the planet dies and the inhabitants seek solace in technology and we suffer with a virus ignored that is spreading and killing innocent human beings.

What a crock of cow dung we have stepped in! The rich suckered us and polluted this beautiful earth for profit and power became the holy grail which allowed them to become the controlling force over the population, by putting the fear of god into them and making people puppets on a string doing what ever they were asked, good or bad just to get closer to leaving this planet for god and the stars!

Human nature can easily be exploited by social media tapping into your posted fears and likes, which led these criminals of power to believe that they are now the new gods of this world.

A controlling force over all countries is the criminal mind’s miracle of excess.

Religion was the vehicle that made their power easy to obtain.

Look upward to the heavenly skies, if we can just get a lock on the thrilling triangulation we will be able to pinpoint where heaven is and then we can all wait to die in his glory, in abject poverty and be presented before his thrown, if he is present for us, as we know jesus likes to travel like his father does around this infinite universe and peek in on some of the other civilization his holy father created and some can really get down and party but enough of making jesus out to be a party hound we must all seek the same goal to find our final rating place, amen. I just prey to mother Mary that my rating can match my credit card score.

Lets all kneel and pray for our future resurrection to a heaven built for a large crowd, it would seem to allow all of us to mingle in glee without purpose, for what is the purpose of billions of people living in one spacial anomaly, I don’t care how beautiful god makes heaven he will still have to first eliminate from his flocks mind any record of their time spent on this corrupt planet without him visiting to see how things were progressing.

Yes, yes he sent his only son to earth but hey we expected better of god, at least make a cameo appearance even if it is just once in 20 centuries. All would have been all right it our lord would have given us a l 15 minute broadcast of his love for us and that would have placated the glorious ministers of fraud.

However, our anger would anger him and then he would suddenly disappear with the help of the holy spirit once again, for god knows how long, well he would know but we wouldn’t.

He would think of us as loafers, cry babies ungrateful to have lived under his watchful eye, well he might add, that not all the time was I at home on my throne in the heavenly skies, I was traveling a lot, just like my son, we just love to travel especially when wars break out about every other month, some battle is raging, and your determination to kill anything and everyone for more power, you ignored or conveniently forgot one of my favorite commandments, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” obviously those words didn’t get into your hearts and yes, their will be repercussions for your lack of respect for my blessed words being so easily disregarded. True they were made up by my biblical interpreters but I felt those words were well focused in love for all and should have been put in with the ten commandments.

How can the people be so gullible to think their heaven awaits them after death and not in living their life in freedom and love for everyone in every precious moment that they exist!

“Now settle down,” the wealthy spokesman demands their attention, lets just relax and think this over a bit, we don’t want any revolution starting right now for we are just about ready to bring our savior up here to talk with you all! Yes, I said bring up our wonderful mentor, satan. We the elites couldn’t have people knowing the truth that we were the demons servants and that we controlled the population for centuries and made profits off their blood, sweat and tears and of course their deaths.

Death is the perfect ending for you people of overpowering hate, for you feel no pain until you are judged and depending on how that goes you either go down, up or are caught in-between. I’m going to guess it is the hot fires of hell, just thinking out loud.

Now what you all have been waiting for over 2,000 long, long, long years hold it, relax, let me finish, now don’t go gaga for our god, savior and his mother the immaculate Mary for they will not be joining the festivities because they will be going out to the outer edge of infinity to check on a planet that might fit his and his mother’s budget for a new quiet place to stay when the stress of being god and the mother of god gives them too much anxiety, so without further a due here is gods substitute hear on this little dust spot called earth. Please lets have quiet, quiet please your new substitute god will speak, just have some patience and be courteous, please step to the back of the row if you are going to be aggressive in questioning your new substitute god, lets let him acclimate to this little speck of dung, oh excuse me now I am getting feisty you would think I could be more civil but I get angry sometimes when women get second rate status even under gods direct leadership and arch angel Michael, with his massive big ego flies around as if he is the next coming of christ when he is no more powerful that I am. I might have to cut his wings again for it takes a good two weeks for them to grow back and then he can flit around again as if he is the cat’s meow!

Ok, excuse me, quiet please, please in the back quit monkeying around and pay attention we have an announcement I would like to repeat because of your rude and loud behavior, I see you! hush now! god, jesus, Mary and the holy spirit will not be here today to unveil their new leadership commander that will be presented today to the human masses here on, where are we again, oh yeah earth and this commander will be present for now on, we hope, making sure the earth has its holy visitations even though it is from a new representative of our lord and I don’t want to seem ungrateful but lets be fair, god is tired of the corruption, hate, violence and murdering of innocence on this planet that your criminal minds are destroying without moral stability. But things are about to change and believe me when I get off this stink of a place I will fly to the sun and bake this smell off me but I digress, your god, savior and spiritual leader will at times be periodically inspecting the goings on with your new godly substitute! Unless he is too busy and then your substituted god will send all the paper work up the sky ladder to his excellence our holy father.

Hey, did you guys set up all the electrical cords and linked all their computers to our feed, remember they are a primitive animalistic people of greed and hate and I don’t want to stay another minute on this primitive planet, what, speak up edward, ok, everything is ready so we can broadcast this major event to the entire planet, to these folks without decency and morals. I don’t want another power surge like we had on the Mote.

May I welcome to this place of immoral wealth and degradation of god’s love your new substitute leader from heavens workshop made in your likeness and is sent to earth by god himself after hearing the prayers of your ego’s lost in their own cruelty, your new messiah, your very own Artificial Intelligence, Mr Perfect, just back from sending the majority of inhabitants from the Motram planet in the Altus galaxy to hell in a hand basket lets give Perfect a big warm welcome!

What was that, we are getting calls from outraged sinners taking offense that their god would send them a substitute savior? Finally I get to explain to you schmucks the bottom line! What? our savior wants me to relax and not go overboard and just stick to the facts, ok got it! damn I was ready to explode their little egos.

Ok, just the facts, god has lost interest in his garden of eden and he thought to himself that since he was god he could do anything he wanted so he created for you a new substitute savior. God realized he had to make him strong so he created his own glorious shinny new metallic AI and called him Mr. Perfect, because god new just as his son found out humans like to kill and torture other human beings. God new the people would be happy seeing a machine that looked like him, a handsome dude with long dark hair and a twinkle in his eye and laughter in his heart.

Let me just say that it galls me that you heathens of avarice put a skin color on your savior to make him look just like you but god looks like everyone if you had taken the time to really see his truth.

And god has downloaded all your private info and public info into Mr Perfect so he will know you intimately, not in that way, but in his ability to forgive you your sins or punish you for your cruelty. This time around there will be no slush money given to the judges or guards for this time you will pay for your wicked behavior. You can’t buy your way out of this life. What you have done is what you will receive on your death bed.

For even though your new god is a mechanical human and doesn’t need food products or any sexual adventures he still wants to fit in quickly with the upper 1%, learning about their character, their inner selfishness and their evil is really why he is here and the more he learns of their shallow hypocrisy maybe there will be a way to eliminate that hunger of greed in others that all these multibillionaire sinners seem to exude and boy does it stink up any chance of going to heaven on this polluted rock.

Of course he needs a little more information on these criminals of craven disgust before he makes his decision but that won’t take long but he would like to see just what attracts people to steal from each other, what is it about human nature that makes it so easy to become murderous beings addicted to a godlike power with no respect for our lord’s children.

If Mr Perfect can dig deeper into your pathetic psyches he might find why humans have never responded well to beauty but seem to think that beauty and love of life is unnatural, the early corrupted preachers with thoughts of ascension to their place in heavens throne decided in their hate of themselves to accuse all that didn’t bow to their stature as prophets with god’s blessing be condemned to the burning stake of fire for their sacrilegious belief in the beauty of mother nature was a godless sin.

We still have these men and women of the cloth today making big bucks off their verbal hate for anyone opposed to their new multi-million dollar homes at the expense of their flock barely able to feed their own families and like other creatures of malicious intent they would rather see the earth polluted for once the earth is doomed then they are ready to rise to heaven in god’s love!

Accept it won’t be any picnic for them in an open field covered with beautiful flowers. It will be an all consuming darkness they are swept up in and deposited in the hell they created for others here on this planet.

Thank you Toni, lets have a big applause for this beautiful angel, “Thanks Mr. Perfect, just get me off this horrid poison pit of malice greed!”

Your new savior is ready to dish out your future lives whether it is here on this planet or below this planet or in heaven, which I admit gave me a sickening feeling of despair because I know where hell is and it is right here on this god forsaken speck of dust with greedy murderers playing god. Now don’t worry not all of you will feel my wrath but I must say quite a few, well billions will feel the immortal pain of a satanic evil. For once you chose to steel and murder for profits your eternal life of joy and happiness was gone immediately and you will be sent directly to the abyss, and let me stress I do mean the hellfire abyss of misery. Now don’t panic, take a deep breath it maybe your last, I do know everything about all of you, your holy father downloaded so much shit you have done I almost puked your sins up!

I must speak from my mechanical heart it is pounding now, how do you people stand it pounding in your chest like a man hammering nails into your coffin, oh sorry, I was told to be respectful and not mention death and hell or purgatory but keep it positive and upbeat so you fools I mean you human fools will not expect too much of my wrath when I unleash it, oops, I bad!

Over the next few weeks I will be communicating to our lord all the stats we have on you the people of earth and let me say that we have a hell of a lot of shit to go over and I won’t say how bad it is but looks like a lot of you will be in hell before you can say, “I am innocent, it is a mistake!” so have patience those of you that were loyal to god, oh, does he love that but for the rest of you that were lying to god, praying to his almighty to forgive you your sins of murder, rape, violence, abuse… you will suffer the flame of god’s wrath and believe me when I say run, run you idiots get away now but of course I am just joking by my calculations I can see all of you and will process your lives in no time so judgement will not be difficult but it will be for those that used this reality on this earth as your play thing and polluted it and destroyed countries for profit and then tried to hide behind the holy cross of jesus as your savior for you will not be saved! Amen

#AI #judgement day #angels #god #savior #earth doomed #Mr. Perfect #cjcorwinoriginal

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spectroamer · 6 years

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Servertale Chapter 11: Just friends

The movie that Ne and Amy were watching ended. Ne turns off the TV and notices that Amy fell asleep while leaning on his shoulder. The image of her sleeping on him makes him blush a little. Ne thinks about his next move, but decides that it is the best decision to not make a move Ne: [Looks like I'm not going anywhere. Should have guessed she would be tired after so much action, after all, she doesn't have infinite energy like me] Ne decides to message Slasher through his helmet. 16:10 Ne: Yo, wat u doing? 16:10 Slasher: Nothing much, back at my place 16:10 Ne: I can't move right now, so you're gonna be my company 16:11 Slasher: Y can't u move? 16:11 Ne: Amy fell asleep on me 16:11 Slasher: :O next time u 2 will be sleeping together ;) 16:11 Ne: So just because she fell asleep on me, that means we're gonna sleep together 16:11 Slasher: Exactly 16:12 Ne: Shut up 16:12 Slasher: Nevah Slasher hears his phone ringing. 16:12 Slasher: Actually, brb, Nat calling Slasher picks up the phone and answers the phone Nat: Hi Dom. Slasher: Hey Natalie, what's up? Nat: Nothing much, I just thought since I have a lot of free time today, maybe we could hang out. Slasher thinks about his responsibilities, but guesses that the Sentinels will probably lay low for a while after so many loses, so he decides to accept the offer. Slasher: Sure, when do you want to meet up? Nat: In about half an hour, at your place. Can you invite Mike and Amy as well? They're a great pair. Slasher: Sure Nat: Are they a couple? I mean, they hang out at their houses often and constantly talk about each other. Slasher: Not yet, but I have a bed with a friend of mine that they will become a couple before the end of the day. Nat: You really like to make bets, don't you? Slasher: You know me. Nat: You're right about that. OK, I need to find something good to wear. See ya later! Slasher: Bye. Natalie hangs up and Slasher starts texting Ne 16:14 Slasher: Yo, Nat called 16:14 Ne: Natalie? 16:14 Slasher: Yeh 16:14 Ne: Wat did she say? 16:14 Slasher: She wants to hang out at my place and she told me to invite you and Amy 16:15 Ne: Y? 16:15 Slasher: Cuz she ships u 2 16:15 Ne: DID U TELL HER? 16:15 Slasher: Nope, she figured it out on her own 16:15 Ne: Why does everyone find out so fast? 16:15 Slasher: because u 2 are made for each other 16:15 Ne: Did you really just make a joke 16:16 Slasher: Ya know I did 16:16 Ne: Fak u 16:16 Slasher: Aw, is that the way 2 treat your bff 16:16 Ne: Ok, that’s enough, I’m leaving 16:16 Slasher: See ya later Ne looks at Amy. He decides to wake her up. She slowly wakes up when he softly pokes her shoulder. As she wakes up, she slowly realizes that she’s been sleeping and notices Ne, still wearing all of his gear and more importantly, she realizes that she was leaned on him. Amy quickly sits strait and blushes while thinking that he woke her up because she was bothering him. Amy: Sorry! I just suddenly fell asleep, I didn’t know I was leaning on you! Ne: I don’t mind, that’s not why I woke you up. Amy: Oh, ok. Then, why did you? Ne: Slasher called. He says that Natalie is coming at his house and she would like us to join. Amy: Really? Ne: Yeah, she insisted on it. Amy: Sure, I haven’t talked with her in some while, with the whole Sentinels situation. When are we meeting up? Ne: In about half an hour. Amy gets up from the couch and takes her normal clothes. Amy: Well, in that case, I’m gonna get dressed. Can you turn around for a few seconds? Don’t want to risk wearing my outfit under the normal clothes if we’re gonna be there for a while. Ne: Oh, y-yeah, sure. Ne gets up and turns around, waiting for her to change her clothes. Amy: Natalie doesn’t know about the three of us, right? Ne: As much as I know, she doesn’t. Amy: Good. Amy finishes changing her clothes. Amy: Done. Ne: Ok, just let me get my stuff. Ne opens a closet and takes two stripes which he places on top of his neon plates to cover them and transforms his helmet into the classic headphones he always wears when he’s wearing his “civilian clothes” but they’re just hidden battle gear. Amy: Well you got your gear covered, but I can’t exactly transform my mask, or completely hide the other outfit. Ne: You don’t need the mask. I’m sure that Slash has a lot of helmets in his house, so if anything happens, just put one of them on. Amy: good point. Ne: Will we take my car? Amy: Actually, we’ve been rushing everywhere today. Right now, I feel like walking. Ne: In that case, we can get going. Amy: Yeah. Ne: Just let me change the last part. Ne sends neon energy through his hands that go into his pants, changing their look from combat pants to running pants. Amy: I have no idea how you make the combination of a leather jacket and runner pants look good. Ne: I look good in anything. Ne was obviously joking and the joke worked, making Amy laugh. Amy: Almost as good as I am. Both of them exit the house. Ne locks the door and the start walking towards Slasher’s house. His house is not that far away. While Amy and Ne live next to each other in the downtown area, Slasher is just a little bit outside it. It is a twenty minute walk. As they walk through the city, they start trying making their conversation sound more casual, so that the civilians on the sidewalk don’t start suspecting anything. Amy: What are we gonna do about our problem? Ne: You mean our rivals? Amy responds with a nod. Ne: Well, we just need to keep them distracted until Frisk does her thing. Amy: How do you know that she’s gonna make it? Ne: The residents of that place already have the six parts for their door. Frisk is gonna bring the last one. With her, they will be able to open the door. Amy: But what if they steal her part? Ne: Trust me, her determination won’t let that happen. Amy: Oh, so she’s safe? Ne: Yeah, I’m gonna explain it to you when we get alone. As they keep walking, Amy notices some interesting clothing inside of some stores. Amy: Man, I really need to go on a shopping spree when we’re done with all of this chaos. Ne: Oh you have no idea how much T-shirts I bought from all of the times i ran into some of my problems. Both of them keep for a few minutes, before Amy thinks of a new conversation subject. Amy: How’s the work going? Ne: DJ-ing? It’s ok. I don’t care about working in clubs as much as I like changing music. Those clubs have the best equipment for that. What about you? Amy: The art is doing good. I’m making some money from selling it online, it’s just enough to switch a normal paycheck Ne: I can’t believe that Dominik earns money even when he’s not racing. Amy: I know right? That tactic is so cheap. Ne: Oh you didn’t. Amy: But I did. Ne: I guess that’s the price I got to pay for hanging out with you. Amy: Well I’m not getting away without expenses neither. While they were succeeding at acting all serious before, they couldn’t stop laughing at their own puns. After a few seconds they get back to normal. Amy: We’re a great time. Ne: Yeah, we are. After more walking, they arrive at Slasher’s house. Ne rings the doorbell. Slasher opens the door a few seconds later. He is wearing a red T-shirt and gray running pants. Of course, like Ne, Slasher constantly wears his helmets. Currently, he’s wearing his most used racing helmet. Slasher: Just in time! I think she’ll be here in a few minutes. Slasher lets the two of them in and closes the door. Amy: Do you have something to drink? Slasher: Check in the kitchen. Amy: Uhhh, which one? Slasher: Any kitchen. Amy: Ok. Amy goes to the nearest kitchen. Ne: I forgot how big your house is. Slasher: That’s what happens when you’re rich. Ne: I know, my house is a reminder. Amy returns with a Monster Energy. Ne: You know there’s no actual energy inside of that, right? Amy: I know, I just like the taste. Ne: Fair enough. She opens the can and starts drinking it. Ne: Hey Slash, do you have any idea on what to do next with the Sentinels? Slasher: Well, I think that we should wait. Kris has his guys everywhere, so we’ll know if they start doing anything. I could use taking a brake from fighting them anyway. Ne: I like the sound of that. Amy what do you think? Amy: Sure, I don’t mind not doing anything for a while. Ne: Than we agreed. Slasher notices that Amy didn’t bring her mask. Slasher: Did you bring your outfit? Amy: No, I left it at Ne’s house. Slasher: Oh, so you changed clothes in his house. Amy: Yeah... Why do you ask? Slasher looks at Ne. Even tho Slasher’s wearing his cross helmet , Ne can still guess that Slasher is smirking. All three of them hear knocking on the door. Slasher: Who is it? Nat: Guess. Slasher opens the door and welcomes her in. Nat: I see you still wear that helmet of yours. Slasher: Was there any doubt? Nat: Not for a second. When Natalie enters the house, she notices Ne and Amy. Natalie walks up to Amy to hug her. Nat: And how are you two doing? Amy: Oh, you know, the usual. Nat: Good. And what about you, Mike, Is life treating you good? Ne: It’s fine. Nat: I wanted to see Dom, but, then I remembered that I haven’t seen you guys in some time as well. Ne: We were just busy with work. Nat: Yeah, I know how frustrating that can get. Amy: And what about you? What have you been doing? Nat: Well, recently, I have been looking for a fitting job. Amy: Really? What kind of job are you looking for? Nat: To be honest, I don’t know yet. I’m just checking all of my options. I’m guessing that when I get my choices narrowed down that it will be easier for me to make a decision. Ne: True. Slasher: Did the three of you have lunch today, because I ordered pizza even before you called. Amy: Well, I could use a nice meal. Nat: Me too. Ne: Sure, why not. Slasher: Ok, just let me set the table. Nat: Can I help you? Slasher: I don’t mind. What are you gonna drink? Nat: I’ll just grab myself some water. Amy: I’ll take another monster. Ne: Just give me a soda or something. Slasher: Okay. Slasher and Natalie go to the kitchen. Amy notices that Ne’s constantly thinking about something. Amy: You okay? Ne: Yeah, it’s just that the last encounter we had with him was at Kris’ place. Some people probably filmed it. Amy: So? People record us all the time. Ne: But, this time, Slasher was wearing his civilian race suit. Even tho that suit is really old, someone could start to to have suspections. Amy: Oh, you’re right about that. Ne: And that’s what I don’t like about this. Amy: What are we supposed to do? Ne: Normally, it would have been just as easy as telling him to take a break, but we can’t win this without him. The Sentinels are throwing everything they got at us, we can’t afford to not do the same. Amy: Do you really think that Kris’ squad will help? Ne: It will. I don’t need them to fight for us, I just need them as someone that will cover us. Slasher and Natalie come back into the living room and place the glasses and plates onto the table. They all sit in front of the table. Nat: So, Dominik, I haven’t seen you in the recent races. What’s going on? Slasher: I decided to take a temporary brake from races. Nat: Really? Why? Slasher: Currently, there are no interesting opponents for me to race, so I’m waiting for someone more challenging to show up. Ne: And I see that you’re pretty modest about it. Slasher: Of course I am. Amy: Easy to take a brake when you’ve already earned enough money for the rest of the life. Slasher: What can I say, my life is pretty good right now. The doorbell is heard from the entrance. Slasher goes to open the door. He pays for the pizza and brings it in. Amy: Hey Dom. Slasher: What? Amy: How are you going to eat the pizza with your helmet on? Slasher: God damn it! Nat: One of the rarest things i ever see: Dominik not wearing his helmet. Slasher: Yup. Amy: Lets eat, I’m starving. Ne: Than in that case, bon appetit. Frisk is walking through the next room. Hurt, beaten, and fearful for our lives, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of their greatest magicians sealed us in this realm with their technology. Anything can enter through the portal, but only beings with a powerful soul can leave. There is only one way to beat this system. If a huge power, equivalent to seven human souls, attacks the barrier... It will be destroyed. But this cursed place has no entrances or exits. There is no way a human could come here. We will remain trapped in here forever. Frisk enters the next room. This room is much darker. The only light sources are glowing mushrooms, trees, the lights on her suit and her glow stick. She uses those light sources to navigate through the room. After a few minutes of walking around, she finally reaches the next room. It is just as dark as the last one. Without candles or magic to guide them Home, the monsters used crystals to navigate. Frisk continues walking through the dark room. She goes through the small river, only to find an echo flower a the end of the room. Behind you. Frisk doesn’t even need to hear the voice of the echo flower to know Undyne said that to it. Undyne: Seven. Seven human souls. With the power of seven souls, our king... King ASGORE Dreemurr... will become a god. with that power, Asgore can finally shatter the barrier. He will finally take the real world back from humanity... And give them back the suffering and pain that we have endured. Understand, human? This is your only chance at redemption. Give up your soul... Or I’ll tear it from your body. Undyne creates a single spear in her hand and starts slowly walking towards Frisk. Frisk tries to back up, but she hits the wall behind her. Undyne prepares to strike Frisk. Not a second too early, Monster Kid comes out of the bushes and stands between Undyne and Frisk. MK: Undyne!!! I’ll help you fight!!! Monster Kid notices the death stare Undynes sending to Frisk. MK: YO!!! You did it!!! Undyne is right in front of you!!! You’ve got front row seats to her fight!!! Frisk: Yeah... about that... Monster Kid turns around to look at Undyne again and he notices that Frisk is the only one who’s in front of Undyne. MK: Wait... Who’s she fighting??? Undyne grabs Monster Kid by his cheek and starts dragging him away. MK: H-hey! You aren’t gonna tell my parents about this, are you? Frisk breathes out a sigh of relief. Chara: That was close. Frisk: Way too close. Chara: Lets go before she comes back. Frisk starts going back and notices another path. Se follows it. As she goes through the echo flowers, she hears many conversations that were remembered by the echo flowers. The echo flowers start repeating each other. Their sentences become mixed before they turn into random sounds. They become louder and louder as they start repeating the same words and sounds. Frisk rushes forwards becasuse she is creeped out by the echo flowers. Thankfully, the next area doesn’t contain any echo flowers. Frisk starts crossing the bridge. She is almost at the end of it, when Monster Kid calls out to her MK: Yo! Monster Kid walks up to Frisk. MK: Yo, I know I’m not supposed to be here, but... I wanna ask you something. Man, I’ve never had to ask anyone this before... uhm... Yo... You’re human, right? Frisk: Yes. MK: Haha. Man! I knew it! Well, I know it now, I mean, Undyne told me, um, “stay away from that human.” So, like, ummm... I guess that makes us enemies, or something. But I kinda stink at that, haha. Yo, say something mean so I can hate you? Frisk looks at Monster Kid. It is obvious she doesn’t really want to insult him. After all, he looks a lot younger than she is. MK: Please? Frisk: Fine, but only because you asked for it. I... I hate your guts! Chara: Really Frisk? MK: Huh...? Yo, that’s your idea of something mean? Frisk shrugs. MK: My sister says that to me all the time! Guess I have to do it, haha. Yo, I... I hate your guts... Man, I... I’m such a turd. I’m... I’m gonna go home now. Monster Kid starts walking back, but he trips over and almost falls from the bridge. He is hanging on it with his mouth. Frisk: Monster Kid! MK: Yo, w-w-wait! Help! I tripped! Frisk gets ready to run to Monster Kid, but Undyne suddenly appears and the sight of her freezes Frisk for a second. Frisk decides that saving Monster Kid is more important than running away, so she ignores Undyne and runs to Monster Kid. She grabs his head with one hand and his back with the other and carefully pulls him up. Undyne is surprised by Frisk’s choice, but continues walking towards her anyway. Monster Kid notices Undyne’s intentions and defensively stands between the two of them. MK: Y... y... yo... dude... If y-you wanna hurt my friend... You’re gonna have to get through me, first. Undyne takes a step back before she walks away. MK: She’s gone... Yo, you really saved my skin. Frisk: And you saved mine. MK: Guess being enemies was just a nice thought, haha. We’ll just have to be friends instead... Man, I should really go home... I bet my parents are worried sick about me! Monster Kid starts walking away MK: Later dude! Frisk continues following the path. At the end of the room, stands Undyne, on top of a pile of rocks. Her back is turned, her hair is being pushed by the wind as she looks off in to the distance, looking at the Core and Hotland. Chara: How did she get here so fast? Undyne: Seven. Seven human souls, and King ASGORE will become a god. Six. That’s how many we have collected thus far. Understand? Through your seventh and final soul, this world will be transformed. First, however, as is customary for those who make it this far... I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people. Chara: It’s no use to us knowing it if we’re not around to remember it. Undyne: It all started, long ago... No, you know what? Undyne looses her calm voice, as she looses patience. Undyne: SCREW IT! WHY SHOULD I TELL THAT STORY! WHEN YOU’RE ABOUT TO DIE!?! Chara: I know, right? Undyne: NGAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Undyne takes off her helmet revealing her face. She looks like a fish monster with blue skin. Her good eye flashes an orange color and her sharp teeths intimidate Frisk. Undyne: YOU! You’re standing in the way of everybody’s hopes and dreams! Alphys’ history books made me think humans were cool... with their giant robots and flowery sordswomen. Frisk is confused by that statement. Undyne: BUT YOU? You’re just a coward! Hiding behind that kid so you could run away from me again! Frisk: I prefer to call it tactical retreat. Undyne: And let’s not forget your wimpy goody-two-shoes-schtick! Oooh! I’m making such a difference by hugging random strangers! You know what would be more valuable to everyone? IF YOU WERE DEAD!!! That’s right, human! Your continued existence is a crime! Your life is all that stands between us and our freedom! Right now, I can Feel everyone’s hearts pounding together! Everyone’s been waiting their whole lives for this moment! But we’re not nervous at all. When everyone puts their hearts together, they can’t lose! Now, human! Let’s end this, right here, right now. I’ll show you how determined monsters can be! Step forward when you’re ready! Fuhuhuhu! Frisk touches the nearby star. She feels the wind howling. Frisk finishes interacting with the star and is filled with determination. Undyne: That’s it, then... No more running away! Undyne jumps down from the top of the passage. Undyne: HERE I COME!!!!!!! Undyne lands with one spear stabbed into the ground. Her armor glows with green lights. A green heart appears on her body, when, with a single swipe of her spear, she freezes Frisk in a tight place, turning her soul green. She can only barely move for a few steps. Undyne: En guarde! Undyne: As long as you’re green you can’t escape! Unless you learn to face danger head-on... you won’t last a second against me! Undyne sends three slow spears flying towards Frisk. She holds her glow stick in front of her and blocks the spears. While Frisk was blocking, Undyne suplexed a bolder. Undyne: Not bad! Then how about this!? Undyne sends six spears with equal speed, two spears from three sides. Frisk quickly turns around as she finishes blocking the rows of spears. Undyne: Fir years, we’ve dreamed of a happy ending... Undyne fires multiple spears from different angles at Frisk. Luckily, they are still moving relatively slow. And now, sunlight is just within our reach! This time, the spears are moving faster. Every time when Frisk blocks a spear, it becomes more liquid and falls to the ground. The glow stick doesn’t even have a scratch from all of the blocking. Frisk and Chara noticed some while ago that it is probably one of the strongest materials, since it can easily block anything and everything. Undyne flips her spear impatiently. Undyne: I won’t let you snatch it away from us! Another set of spears is thrown, but none of them damage Frisk. Undyne: NGAHHH! Enough warming up! Undyne Throws fast spears from all directions, forcing Frisk to constantly spin around so she could block them. Undyne swipes her spear, releasing Frisk from the effect of the green magic and sends a bigger spear flying towards her. Since the spear is too big for the glow stick to block the entire thing, Frisk rolls out of the way. While Undyne is summoning a new set of spears, Frisk quickly runs past her, through the passage. Chara: Not being able to escape, she said. Undyne runs after her and catches her a few seconds later. She uses the green magic on Frisk again, disabling her from running away. Undyne: You won’t get away from me this time! Honestly, I’m doing you a favor... Undyne summons more spears, but these ones are slower and they are coming from only two sides. Frisk easily blocks all of them. Undyne: No human has ever made it past Asgore! Killing you now is an act of mercy! Undyne sends waves of really fast spears. Frisk barely manages to block all of them. Undyne draws her finger across her neck. Undyne: So stop being so damn resilient! Undyne sends more spears. On the last one, she shuts down the green magic again, giving Frisk space to dodge the big spear and start running away again. She easily catches up to Frisk, but this time, it takes her a little bit longer, because her heavy armor is slowing her down, while Frisk’s suit is light and gives her all the agility she needs. Undyne turns Frisk’s soul green again. Undyne: You’ve escaped from me for the last time! Alphys told me humans were determined. She sends out a wave of spears. Frisk blocks almost all of them. The last one goes over her and stabs her in the back. The pain makes Frisk gasp. Even tho the spears are made out of water and magic, they hurt almost as bad as the real ones. Undyne: I see now what she meant by that! Furring the next wave, two spears go over Frisk, but this time, she’s ready and succeeds at blocking them. Undyne: But I’m determined, too! Undyne sends a group of those special spears. It takes Frisk longer to calculate their order, but she still manages to react in time. Undyne: Determined to end this right now! Undyne starts combining normal and the special spears. Frisk gets hit in the back once again. This time, the pain doesn’t go away. Undyne: RIGHT NOW! Frisk manages to block the next wave of spears. Undyne: RIGHT... NOW! Undyne sends a set of really fast spears. The pain in Frisk’s back is making it harder to think for her. She barely blocks the spears. Undyne: NGAHHH!!! DIE ALREADY, YOU LITTLE BRAT! She creates a wave filled with those special spears. One of the spears hit Frisk’s arm. Frisk can’t feel her right arm anymore. She sloppily dodges the big spear and starts running. The numb arm and spine are making it harder for her to run. Suddenly, Frisk hears her phone ring. While she runs, she takes her phone. It’s Papyrus. Frisk answers the phone while she continues running. Papyrus; HEY! WHAT’S UP!? I WAS JUST THINKING... YOU, ME, AND UNDYNE SHOULD ALL HANG OUT SOMETIME! I THINK YOU WOULD MAKE GREAT PALS! LETS MEET UP AT HER HOUSE LATER! Papyrus hangs up. Frisk: Yeah, great, and why don’t I just serve my soul on a silver plate while I’m at it! Frisk runs past a “WELCOME TO HOTLAND!” sign. Undyne catches up to her again. Undyne: STOP RUNNING AWAY!!! NGAHHH!!! DIE ALREADY, YOU LITTLE BRAT! Luckily, this time Undyne doesn’t use green magic, because Frisk doesn’t think that she would be able to block spears with one arm. She keeps jumping out of the way. Undyne: YOU’RE GETTING IN MY WAY! Frisk keeps dodging. Undyne: I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED! Undyne starts summoning and sending spears from all directions. Frisk keeps dodging them and going around them, practically dancing around them. After a few attacks, Frisk notices that the heart symbol on Undyne’s armor is starting to fade as she gets more tired. Frisk continues running. Suddenly, instead of the metal black floor, Frisk is running on a stone path. Frisk runs past Sans, who is sleeping and his post. Undyne rambles something about him being lazy. When Undyne starts running after Frisk again, Sans wakes up. Sans: well, would ya look at that. looks like undyne’s boiling with rage and it looks like frisk got heat on her. i guess it’s time for me to keep my promise. Sans creates one short bone and throws it at Undyne’s legs. Since the bone is coming behind her, Undyne doesn’t notice it and trips on it. The bone instantly disappears. The armor starts absorbing all of the heat of the bridge. The heat starts to daze Undyne. Armor... so... hot... But I can’t... Give up... Undyne tries to get up, but fails. Frisk notices a water cooler nearby. She drops the glow stick, so she could hold the cup with her good arm. She somehow manages to fill the cup with only one arm and brings it to Undyne. Frisk carefully pours the water on her. Undyne’s energy returns and she gets up. She looks at Frisk for a moment. Undyne notices Frisk’s fear, but the wish to help as well. It is only fair to spare Frisk, since she’s the reason why Undyne lived. At least, that was Undyne’s excuse for not continuing the fight. Undyne walks away. Chara: Good thing she can’t stand heat. Frisk: Yeah, but I can’t feel my arm. Chara: Go to that lab, we might find something useful. Frisk: Okay. Frisk enters the huge lab with hope to find some medication. Prologue Chapter 10 Chapter 12

#Frisk #Chara #Sans #Papyrus #Undertale #Undyne #Servertale #OC #Ne #Amy #Slasher #Natalie

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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a job offer was made.

i woke up early, but left late. felt lethargic and didn’t want to see people.

class went fine, until the end. we got out 13 minutes late so we only had 2 minutes to prepare for quantum. i didn’t get to go to the bathroom. that ended up being ok though.

we got our midterms back. i got a 58%.

well, quantum started, so i had to put it away quickly and get my other notebook out. i made it 35 minutes into that lecture before i got up and went to the bathroom.

when i got in the stall i turned around and put my head against the door. well, i put my arm against the door, and put my head against my arm, because i don’t know what happens in there.

i didn’t really, feel very strongly about it, at first, but i knew i needed to be alone for a few minutes. the thoughts got to be a lot though.

it feels like nothing i do even matters. why even try. i’m so stupid. i thought i could make things better...

not every day, but a lot of days, i wonder if i made the right choice. but i don’t really want to make any other choice. i guess my parents spoiled me. i always need to get what i want.

i mean, i barely ever do, even when i ask for it or work hard for it. but i am stupid, and i was thinking, maybe, this time, it would be different?

i don’t understand. i knew what the questions wanted. i knew i’d gotten that information before, twice even, for some of the questions! nothing on that test was a surprise and i knew that. i even found myself understanding what was happening better as i derived some energy equations. i used my accommodation time and took it slow and felt satisfied with what i could accomplish without running up against the clock.

what happened?

did i just not... study enough? i know “it’s a start” isn’t the same as “i did good,” but... this was the most i’ve ever done, aside from when i studied for the physics gre.

people who did really good on this midterm got the same gre percentile as me. why am i so different when i take written tests? why am i so stupid that i can talk about quantum and explain stuff to my classmates, but the second a professor asks me to demonstrate what i know, i suddenly don’t know ANYTHING?

i don’t understand.

so i continued my grade school tradition of crying in the bathroom. this time was kind of better because i didn’t make any noise. i waited until the red left my face and went back to class.

a couple of my classmates seemed pretty down too. i found out after quantum that i actually didn’t do the worst in the class, by a kind of noticeable margin. suzanne said that it might not get curved, but that the percentages don’t work the same way in grad school. she said the class grade typically gets split into two major groups with the higher group getting an a and the lower group getting around a b.

it was really discouraging because if i had done as well on the rest of the test as i did on the first third, i would have passed with a good grade. something in my brain stopped working after i got through the first problem and i didn’t notice.

i didn’t put any effort into making jokes today but i did mumble to luis on the way out for lab practice that “at least i moved up in the class rank since the prelims. since i did infinitely better on this one than that one.”

he didn’t talk about his grade with me. i didn’t think about it really but i did notice he didn’t put much effort into looking not dead today either.

the lab was good. i looked around and said “ok who’s going to be my victim this week?” and i immediately picked soham and said i wanted to get to know him better. by working for several hours on a basic physics lab, we would accomplish getting to know each other better.

he was a little bossy at first but he cooled off once we got everything working properly. it didn’t take long to figure out why he was kind of fussy about the lab though.

we were really, really good at it. i joked that he lined up the radius on the thing so well that there couldn’t possibly be even an atom out of place. he laughed and made rock-out fingers at me.

the professor said errors on the order of 5% would be good if you knew what you were doing. ours were under one percent. we finished first.

“yeah, team hypercompetence!” i cheered when our second error reading came out to like 0.8%. after that he started leaning on me for calculations a little more while he took data. and we took notes for our lectures.

we also didn’t leave the hanger on the spinning bar to get launched off even once. a couple tables around us did. forget to take off the hanger before starting to spin the thing, i mean.

that gave me a whole hour to mope before my e&m test. i sat at my desk and clicked idly at a logic puzzle while everyone else sat at their desks and clicked idly at their computers. none of us really offered any jokes. i was so bummed i didn’t know what to do with myself.

at 2:55 i went to take my test. suzanne wished me luck and i thanked her and told them all to have good luck during their lecture. wasn’t sure what else to say.

the test went kind of awful? i knew what the questions were and how to set up the problems and the general procedure, it was basically harder versions of what i had just gone over with suzanne last night. i felt like i was forgetting a step somewhere even though i made sure to explicitly show how the boundary conditions affected my theoretical model of the system and where infinite series could be chopped up to lead to “more efficiency” in calculations based off my conjured equation. the professor had been big on that in class.

i think i got one answer either completely right or almost right, but i don’t want to commit to that. i didn’t finish the first problem though even with the extra half time.

i dunno man i guess being bummed AND intimidated by the professor had like a negative effect on my ability to perform on a test or something? that was mysterious.

afterward i went back into the office and we all dicked around for a while before anyone wanted to leave. harrison tried to cajole me into joking about my sarcasm some more but i wasn’t really having it. i don’t really remember what it was like to just be nineteen.

like i had started this blog by then and i remember when i was nineteen. but it was so eaten up and engulfed by how severe my depression was getting that i just... don’t remember anything else except feeling so horrible that reality stopped meaning anything. so it’s hard to gauge how much energy a nineteen year old should have or what kinds of things people that age would normally think about. he is in the unusual position of being a graduate student but at the same time, like, he’s practically my brother’s age. being a teenager sucks.

i wasn’t really going anywhere in particular with that. just trying to understand my classmates a little better i guess. where they’re at and where they’re coming from. what a good response might be.

anyway my writing time is ended but i’m gonna keep going because important stuff happened after that too.

so around 4:50 or so we left for the bar, me and jennica and keegan and rebika. harrison was really dodgy about our invitation and left pretty abruptly when we were ready to go. i expressed the desire to beat up his mother to the others after he left.

like he doesn’t have to drink or anything but he is an adult and should be able to go out with his colleagues on a friday at least.

we sat outdoors since the weather was basically great. a bunch of guys sat at the table upwind of us and started smoking huge cigars which really irritated my throat. i started having coughing fits again so we moved tables.

i’ve noticed over the last week or so that i jump about three feet in the air every time i am touched unexpectedly. and if my classmates get too close to me when we are clustered together for whatever reason, or when jennica tries to lean in and gestures wildly, i shuffle away.

she’s a very enthusiastic story teller. she was showing me a map on her phone today while covering basically the whole screen with her hand and scrolling around violently so that i actually felt motion sick.

anyway i didn’t drink. i told suzanne i wasn’t really in a very good position to be drinking right now. i had to wait like 20 minutes at the bar to even ask for food though. i guess someone has to go last. and by “last” i mean “after every person who comes up to the bar after all my friends have gotten their drinks and left.” the bar apparently is able to substitute tempeh for basically any meat in any of their dishes so i got buffalo tempeh mac and cheese. it was interesting. keegan expressed interest though. maybe he’ll get it next time.

i stayed at the table talkin with the other graduate students (some first year, some second year, some later, one from astronomy, etc) until it was dark. i didn’t stop feeling sick and miserable though. but i did find a time to visit the bank with jennica to set up my own private account with no mom germs on it. we’re going on tuesday after we’re done teaching. and suzanne told me about a much cheaper apartment complex that seems to have everything i pay for here AND more space. it’s like 300 dollars a month cheaper. actually my classmates seemed concerned that i was spending so much money on rent for a studio apartment. suzanne’s the only one who’s actually been into my home so far though and she was able to compare a lot for me.

i think i will move into that place next year instead of staying here. i like it here, it’s perfectly acceptable, but the money i could save would really add up... i could buy nice food instead of 7-minute rice sides. or, like, buy a ticket to disneyworld every month or something, i don’t know. or pay for my own insurance, or something.

on my way out i was stopped by some grad students i’ve spent time with but not personally spoken to. i mostly heckle the one guy while he plays ping pong but he’s really super good at it. he bought his own paddle and everything, but sometimes trick shots on a wobbly uneven table just don’t work out and it’s fun to tease.

anyway this guy motioned for me to come over and said his friend was required to do some recruiting. and that he’d been smoking weed, i guess? the guy looked like he’d been hit by a truck. and he misheard a lot of my questions but we got that cleared up pretty fast when he was having very strange reactions to questions like “is this a shadowing-for-a-day sort of thing or is it a work-all-summer-i’ve-sold-my-soul-to-you sort of thing?”

he wanted me to work in his lab. he said he’d seen me loitering outside the e&m professor’s lab a couple times this semester. i’d seen him too while i was loitering.

i’ve read all the posters in that hallway a couple times over each. the e&m professor doesn’t really do short answers to short questions. everything’s gotta be a 30-minute production. like that time i had to wait outside his office for 35 minutes.

anyway he said i might like working in his professor’s lab, which works with ultra low energy matter. i brightened. he said it was mostly helium isotopes. he might have said other stuff but i was trying to get, like, the location of the lab out of him so i didn’t hear everything he said. i made a memo on my phone to go talk to him on monday before my office hour.

i kinda struggled with this new information while i was heading out of the bar and dislodging my bike from the rack outside the church next door. and while i was biking home. and while i was taking off my backpack, and while i was brushing snoopy and giving her a good pet-down.

like i’ve been so busy... i’ve had “talk to a faculty member about their project” on my to-do list for a week now and i haven’t been able to even go upstairs to look at their project titles. i’ve been trying so hard to be proactive but i really don’t have energy to actively do literally everything in my life. and this, kinda random, opportunity gets dropped in my lap. i feel kind of suspicious about it. like this could go a number of ways.

on the one hand, it might be a fun thing to learn about for a few days while i get introduced to other faculty members. or i might stick with this for a while. or forever. i get the feeling this is going to be a major life point coming up but i don’t have any real evidence other than an uneasy feeling.

i also don’t have the grades to justify being really for real actually hired to work under a professor. i just really like working with machinery and i feel like i’m decent enough at it. “born to be an experimentalist,” suzanne smiled during our lunch break today. we get pizza during the practice lab sessions. we are supposed to be paying for it but i think our supervisor forgot about that. i wonder how many groups of grad students he’s “forgotten” to get payment from.

i’m decent with machinery, but i get the feeling if i spent time developing the skill i could get really good at it. i like fixing things. even during our advanced labs in undergrad i kinda liked troubleshooting and seeing all the very strange ways stuff could go wrong. it was frustrating because we were on a serious time crunch, especially with the part we needed not actually available any more, but i dunno. i get it in a way i can’t very well with math.

just gotta figure out how to link the two and i might be good to go as far as having a real life job that’s not teaching goes.

i liked programming too. computers always do exactly what you tell them to do. i think it’s really funny how badly stuff can go sideways, even if troubleshooting for eight hours might get “i’m going to give myself a hernia” levels of frustrating.

tomorrow i’m going to bike over to gamestop and see about getting that marshadow that’s been distributed. and i think i want to swim, too. groceries will probably be on the small side this week since mom never paid back that 900 money that i actually do need. she never explained why she took it either.

i’m very suspicious that it’s a “surprise” that i neither asked for nor approved of, and which a very large portion of my money has been used for.

might be a paycheck +10% i’m just not going to get back. basically an entire rent payment down the drain.

opening a new bank account for myself will be a good thing i think. i’m glad jennica is going with me.

it’s now 11:10, which is 25 minutes past when i have decided is my “stop writing” time. it’s been a long day... next week is gonna bring a lot of trouble i think. between the bad grades and the “free speech” exhibition on thursday and not being able to see my drc aid for another week in a row and the new lab arrangement which is still very nebulous... i dunno. i’m real tired.

at least snoopy had a good evening. i petted her, wiped her down with the dandruff wipe thing, brushed her, gave her cookies and some catnip, AND played with her for a while. she didn’t feel like playing back today but after talking with other people about their cats i’m starting to think that might be normal for some cats.

also i scratched my face REAL bad last night and it’s been hurting all day. i did a pretty good job of not messing with it today though. i will try to continue not hurting myself. i promise it was an accident, i was half asleep at the time.

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