#i'm reading at least 6 books at the same time right now also

[dat-town]

abcdlove

Characters: school radio club leader!Taesan & class president!female reader

Setting & genre: high school au, coming of age, first love, fluff, a hint of enemies to lovers but it’s only in the girl’s head

Summary: You convinced yourself that you hated Han Taesan after what he had done in sophomore year but now you have to work together on a senior project and maybe he isn’t that bad. Or maybe just for your heartbeat.

Warnings: stage names are used, OC has negative opinion about Taesan and Leehan in the beginning, mentions of social and parental pressure, the amount of banana milk consumed might not be healthy, hopefully not too ooc even though i wrote it within like 2 weeks after @restlessmaknae started sending me bonedo content

Words: 9.6k

Author’s note: this is the product of the amount of Ann Liang books i binge read recently, the instagram algorithm and @restlessmaknae’s marketing for Zico’s kids. this really pulled me out of my writing slump, so thank you for that! honestly my first impression of Taesan was that he looks like a tsundere, so that’s pretty much how it all started.

i'm pretty sure you guessed it; happy name day @restlessmaknae <3

read Leehan’s companion piece here

You had been following your well-planned route to success for years. You had already taken advanced courses at a prestigious hagwon, a private after-school academy for the subjects you totally needed to ace at CSAT. You also offered tutoring services to underclassmen, volunteered at the local library during summer and carefully chose your extracurriculars to align with the ideal student vision SKY universities had. You only needed to follow through the plan in your senior year too and you would be fine. You would finally make it.

Needless to say Han Taesan wasn’t part of your plans.

Yet, there he was standing right in front of the principal’s office where you were heading in all his 6 feet tall glory, his school uniform’s tie neatly done for once.

“What are you doing here?” You blurted out with no greeting when your steps slowly halted next to him, your jaw set and muscles tense.

Taesan turned his head slowly and looked at you impassively from under his dark fringe before speaking up in his raspy voice that made your classmates swoon whenever they heard him make a radio announcement.

“What does it look like?” He raised a brow as if he was telling you not to ask stupid things.

There could only be two kinds of reasons why somebody was called into the principal’s room: either very good or very bad. You had never gotten into trouble, so you were hoping for something positive but seeing the boy there wasn’t really promising. Not because he was a troublemaker or a bad student. He might not have been a straight A student like yourself but he was the leader of the school radio club and he was also generally liked among his peers as far as you knew. Your wariness was more so because you didn’t want to be associated with him in any way.

“Oh, both of you are already here. Wonderful! Come in, come in,” the office door opened and Principal Im rushed you inside with a welcoming smile.

At least, you could be sure by then that the news wasn't anything too bad.

You took a step to follow the man inside at the same time Taesan moved next to you as well which made you momentarily falter. However the boy merely reached out and put a hand onto the door’s edge to keep it from closing. You had to force yourself not to scoff at the fake gentleman-ish action and instead just duck under his arm to go inside the office.

You just sat down in one of the cushy chairs and smoothed out the lines of your school uniform skirt when you heard the door close and soon enough Taesan took the chair next to you.

“Alright, I won’t even waste your precious time since I know both of you are busy. I called the two of you here because as representatives of the senior classes, I would like the two of you to conduct interviews with your classmates and prepare a pre-recorded radio segment that can be broadcasted on graduation day. It can be about anything you want: what the students’ aspirations are or what they liked the best in high school. I trust you will do a great job,” the principal smiled at you hopefully but you could feel your own polite smile freeze onto your face. This was not how you imagined yourself spending the first term of senior year.

“But…”

“Yes, Y/N?” The principal looked at you expectantly and you could feel Taesan’s dark eyes on you as well which snapped you out of your confused stupor.

“Why the two of us?”

“Of course, you can get others to help too if you want but you have exceptional organizing skills as I heard and Taesan already has experience with our recording system and editing softwares. You two were the first ones we could think of, but of course I can’t force you…”

“It would be an honor, Principal Im,” you hurried to stop him there because there was no way you would have said no to a task like this. Not only because you could hardly say no anyways but also because it would look good on your resume. The only thing that bothered you was having to do it with a boy you could not stand. If you had that much time and you could do so, you would have gladly done it alone without his help but no matter how much you hated it, Principal Im was right: he had the skills to perfect a radio segment.

“Great! If you don’t have further questions, then good luck!”

“Okay, what about we meet after school to discuss the plans?” You asked immediately once you left the principal office because you had less than 5 minutes until first period and since you didn’t share a class with Taesan, you rarely ran into each other unplanned (thank god) and you would need your color-coded planner from your bag to plan any further than the afternoon.

“I have a radio club thing until 6,” Taesan simply said, not offering any alternatives, so you let out a sigh. Of course. What did you expect?

“And I have academy classes every other day,” you pointed out because he wasn’t the only one busy. “Then I can just email you your parts and we don’t need to–”

“So you can complain later that I’m freeloading off your hard work? No thanks,” the boy interrupted you and your gaze sharpened at him. He leaned casually against the corridor’s wall, a hand reaching up to loosen his tie and tilted his head at you as if to challenge you to protest. “We can make do during lunch hour.”

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him that you had plans already but going over your History notes, when it was just the first week of the term and you were ahead of the course work anyway, wasn’t that necessary even though you hated giving in to his idea.

“Okay, let’s meet outside at the benches then,” you agreed, telling yourself to be the bigger person, and turned your back on the boy before he could see the frustration bubbling up in you.

You and Han Taesan had the kind of history that you didn’t really like to revisit. That’s why your initial reaction was to roll your eyes whenever you heard his voice on the school radio or to puke your guts out when girls gushed about his ‘tsundere charm’. Their words, not yours.

Actually you would have probably not cared about the guy if it wasn’t for your model student campaign which he had ruined. Last year the school had run an event to choose a student representative by voting and every candidate could have a pre-recorded segment on the radio. You had your own carefully recorded and edited audio file with the best convincing speech you could prepare and emailed them the sharing link on time just to hear yourself sing your go-to karaoke song through the radio on the big day. In panic, you ran to the school radio broadcasting station only to find Taesan sitting there by the control panel with headphones over his ears, calmly letting the audio play well past the two minutes mark, seemingly not finding it weird at all that somebody tried to win the campaign with a karaoke rendition of a love song instead of saying a few words. As it turned out, you managed to share your entire recordings folder with the radio team but the club president, instead of playing the file titled campaign_speech_final.mp3, decided that AUD_20230326_192251.mp3 was the right track for your model student image. That week you not only lost that title to the grade’s pretty boy, but you lost your pride as well and it was all Taesan’s fault. Not that he ever thought to apologize or right his wrongdoings. So no, you weren’t looking forward to working with him at all.

He was late.

You had already dotted down six different questions and a rough program outline with your half-finished, now cold rosé pasta lunch menu  on the side by the time Taesan put his tray down on the outdoor table.

“You are late,” you picked at him right away which earned you a rather confused look.

“It’s still lunch hour,” he pointed out and dug into his own kimchi jjigae like he had all the time in the world. His behavior was seriously dancing on your nerves.

“Whatever. Let’s get into it,” you prompted because you didn’t have time to argue about semantics or his attitude. “We should divide the related tasks this week, finalize the questions and gather people for the interviews, then we can start on those next week.”

“What’s the rush? We have months until graduation,” Taesan questioned and while he was right (or because), you had the sudden urge to strangle him right there. You forced yourself to stay calm.

“Well, I don’t like to leave things to the last minute. Closer to graduation, we will be busy with the exams and college applications anyway.”

“As if you don’t already have everything prepared,” he muttered absentmindedly, scooping more kimchi on his spoon, eating without a care.

You pursed your lips, annoyed. You needed to remind yourself again that you had no time nor the energy to argue with him if you wanted to get this discussion done before your upcoming English class.

“Khm… so we can agree on splitting the interviews between us, right? You interview your classmates and I will do mine. We just need a common question sheet,” you said, tapping the end of your pen on the table.

Whether it was the repetitive sound or your words, it managed to get Taesan’s attention. He looked up from his food and leaned forward on his elbows, his dark eyes sharpening their focus on you.

“How would you record the interviews?” He asked, simply yet you had a feeling it was a tricky question.

“On my phone?” You furrowed your brows. Wasn’t it obvious? How else did he expect you to do it?

“That won’t be good. We would have a huge difference in audio quality. So unless you are fine with that, you need proper equipment. I can borrow a portable mic from the radio club, but I’m not trusting you with that.”

“Excuse me?” Your eyes widened in disbelief but Taesan didn’t elaborate on his reason. Ridiculous. He was just looking for faults in your ideas.

You let out a huff of frustration.

“Are you that desperate that we work together?”

“It’s called professionalism, miss class president,” he taunted you, looking completely serious. “I don’t want to broadcast anything under my name that’s just ‘good enough’.”

“Do you now?” You snorted and rolled your eyes. As if it wasn’t him who played your singing for the entire school. Where was his professionalism then? Who was he to lecture you about it? But okay, you could be the bigger person if he was so freaking stubborn. “Fine. We can do the interviews together with your fancy mic. These are the initial questions I thought of.”

You slid your open notebook towards him with questions about what they used to dream of becoming as a kid, what they want to be now, what colleges and majors they considered as well as their most memorable moment at the school and what they would tell their younger selves or their underclassmen. Taesan furrowed his brows as he was reading through the draft, probably dissecting each of your questions like a poor lab rat but eventually didn’t say anything. You raised a brow at him when your eyes met and he just shrugged.

“Sounds good to me,” he said which didn’t really added value but at least he didn’t find something to pick on in everything you did.

The rest of the discussion went easier as it was obvious that he would be the editor and you would organize the interviews. You were already mentally preparing a survey to send out to the students via the group chats you usually used for class president duties to see when they would be free to conduct the interview among the slots you offered. Taesan wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the hectic and busy scheduling in the upcoming weeks but eventually agreed to get it over with within two months tops. He must have realized too that the earlier you finished with this project, the sooner the two of you could part ways.

You had the first batch of interviews at the end of next week. After ruling out inconvenient locations, you ended up with the obvious option: doing the recordings in the school radio clubroom. You were against it at first because the last time you had been there you faced public humiliation, whispers behind your back for weeks about your singing and messed up campaign, but objectively speaking you knew it was the most reasonable choice, so you bit the bullet.

You arrived ahead of time, of course, but you were quite surprised that Taesan was already there too, setting up who-knows-what on the professional equipment. He looked up when the door opened, the sun hitting the side of his face, giving it a natural warm glow, a stark contrast to the coldness he often radiated. He acknowledged your presence with a nod then went back to his work, so you just put your stuff down next to the round table in the middle of the room and got ready with your nicely printed questionnaire.

For the most part, the interviews went well, the students showed up more or less on time for their own slot, Taesan let you do the talking, merely letting you know when a recording started or ended. It all started going down when the last interviewee for the day didn’t show up. After five minutes passed, you texted Wonyoung asking politely whether she forgot the interview but she didn’t answer. Ten more minutes of awkward silence while Taesan was playing (or texting, you couldn’t tell) on his phone, you tried calling her but with no success. You started getting restless and frustrated.

“She could have at least told us if she wasn’t going to come,” you muttered more to yourself than anything when your next call went to the voicemail as well. It was such a waste of time just waiting.

“Why do you always assume the worst of people? Maybe something happened and she can’t make it. She could be too sick to care about you blowing up her KakaoTalk,” Taesan looked up from his phone and there was something in his eyes that made you feel like you were in the wrong, like you were a sulky child because generally it wasn't like you were always this pessimistic about people, but before you could have argued, Taesan sighed. “You can go. I can interview her if she shows up until 6.”

Well, you could have taken his word and left. Wonyoung was his classmate and he probably didn’t have anything better to do anyways. There was a set list of questions and not much to mess up. But just as he didn’t want you to handle his beloved mic alone, you didn’t want to leave it to him alone. So you just stubbornly held his gaze, trying to come up with a more profound reason when the clubroom’s door opened and Wonyoung stepped inside in the cheerleading squad’s PE clothes.

“Sorry. Practice got delayed. Thanks for waiting for me,” she panted and Taesan sent you a ‘told you so’ look which made you want to commit atrocities. You hated not being right and even more to be reminded of it.

“It’s okay. Catch your breath,” you turned to the girl with a reassuring smile but you were undeniably relieved when you could finally bid goodbye to her and pack up. It was getting late.

However, when you saw that Taesan was still saving the audio files and uploading them to your shared cloud folder, then putting away the recording device and the mic, you stalled around the door, feeling inconsiderate to leave earlier.

“Just go,” the boy muttered gently when he noticed your hesitation and you didn’t need to be told twice.

On your way to the bus stop, you stopped by at your favorite corner convenience store for some banana milk and almost missed your bus but luckily the driver saw you running and stopped.

“Thank you,” you bowed to the middle aged man who just mumbled something about youngsters these days, then tapped your transportation card against the sensor before looking for a place to sit.

Since it was past the rush hour, there were quite a few empty seats but there was one next to a familiar face close to the door. He had put on a hoodie over his uniform and had his head against the window, eyes closed but you would have easily recognized his long ass limbs everywhere. With the taste of your hurt pride still fresh on your tongue you walked past him, sitting down in the very back, only checking on Taesan a few times to see if he managed to wake up in time to get off at his stop.

Even without the interview project, senior year was busy. You felt like your days were piles of classes, homework, mock tests, real tests, tutoring and studying. Sometimes you memorized English vocabulary or dates for History class even during your lunch breaks or on bus rides because that way you could make the most out of your time. Some might have argued that you took it too seriously but if you wanted to get into the top universities of the country, you had to.

No wonder you spent the two hours you had between classes and tutoring on Friday in the library too, working on your Literature essay. It was kind of boring and you had a long week; you justified your frequent yawns and slow blinking. You didn’t even notice when you slipped into a dreamless sleep, not until you woke up with your head over your folded arms on the table.

As you were still in the haze, instead of panicking that you might have missed your tutoring class, you slowly blinked yourself back into consciousness and the first thing you saw was a pair of eyes.

The boy sitting at the table next to yours was looking at you with something akin to the mix of concern and amusement but you were too busy committing the lovely almond shape and chocolate brown shade of his eyes to your memory to be bothered by it.

Then the realization hit you like a truck because it was no other than Han freaking Taesan.

Oh, did he always have such pretty eyes?

Realizing that you were staring, you quickly turned your gaze away, sat up properly and fixed your messy hair while mentally reprimanding yourself for letting your sleepiness take too much control over you.

You hastily checked the time on your watch, sighing in relief that you only napped for about 15 minutes, so you still had time to finish what you were doing. Which was…? Ah, right, your essay.

You cleared your throat as you focused back on your homework, pretending not to be hyper aware of every chair creaking or pen against paper scribbling sound coming from the table on your left.

The next batch of interviews were scheduled a week later and you did everything in your power to avoid Taesan, hoping that he would forget that embarrassing little encounter you had in the library. Not like he was looking for you either but now that you have become more aware of his presence, you suddenly noticed him everywhere. He wasn’t just the subject of your classmates’ talks and an annoying voice from the radio anymore, he was in the canteen, on your regular bus, on the corridor between classes. Really, you wondered if it was your mind’s self-sabotaging doing or you just managed to ignore him previously. Since you tended to be laser focused on what to do, often walking by people you know without recognizing them, it wouldn’t have surprised you that much.

Still whenever you saw him, he was usually alone if not with juniors from the radio club, so you were a bit taken aback (and you weren’t sure you were hiding it well) when a bunch of his friends from his class were already in the clubroom by the time you got there. The door was left ajar, so you could hear Jungwon’s bubbly laughter and Gyuvin teasing Taesan for ‘working oh so diligently’. They all fell silent when you pushed the door open wider and suddenly their attention was on you. Leehan patted Taesan’s upper back with a grin and muttered something about ‘boss lady is here’ which earned him a glare.

“We will be on our best behavior,” Jungwon saluted with a promise when it turned out they booked the first three slots of the session on purpose, so they could sit through each other’s interviews. While you interviewed people by themselves, since the entire school would hear the edited version anyways, you supposed it couldn’t be a problem if they really did behave. They were friends after all, if they wanted to share them why not?

Them chuckling at some parts of each other’s answers or whisper-shouted hollering about future ambitions was a bit distracting but nothing seriously annoying. You could only hide your laugh with burying your face in your hands when Gyuvin recited a freshmen memory as his most memorable with a prank that ended with the four of them becoming friends. Apparently the day before the first term’s end, right on the edge of the summer holiday, Taesan had brought soap dispenser-shaped water guns into the PE changing rooms, so whenever somebody just tried to wash their hand, they got wet. It shouldn’t have been funny since it was rather childish, but glancing at the always stern and intimidating Taesan and seeing him smile at the memory turned it into something lovely even if it ended with the four of them arguing about whose was the best prank out of all the ones they did over the years.

It was truly one of a kind to see Taesan interact with his friends, people he felt comfortable around. He suddenly became talkative and loud yet warm and gentle when he scolded Gyuvin like an Asian mom for falling asleep at Miss Lee’s class again but promised to send him his notes once he got home.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you shrugged when he caught you red-handed watching him still after he literally pushed his friends out of the door.

Despite witnessing this side of him, if you wanted to be honest, it didn’t quite sit right with you that he was friends with Kim Leehan. The popular boy might not have ever rubbed salt into your wounds by reminding you that he was chosen as the model student representative of the school instead of you who was the grade’s academically best student, the defeat still hurt. You didn’t like to lose in general. So while you knew it was a far-stretched idea, your mind couldn’t stop coming up with scenarios to prove that Taesan sabotaged your campaign speech on purpose to help his friend and it made you irritable and restless during the rest of the interview sessions.

When you were finally alone, it made you blurt out:

“Was it a prank too?”

Taesan froze mid-movement when you spoke up. He was doing the finishing touches, getting ready to leave as it was just the two of you. He slid the headphones, which he used to make sure the recording quality was good, down around his neck.

“What?” He furrowed his brows, visibly confused and you weren’t surprised, he had probably long forgotten how he had humiliated you.

“My model student speech last year,” you said, your nails digging into your palms, bitterness sweeping into your features.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy claimed, firm in his standpoint which made you snort.

“Of course, you don’t,” you muttered, then grabbed your bag and walked out of the door before you would say something you would regret.

A part of you thought that Taesan would ignore you the way you ignored him, especially after your callout (or whatever he wanted to call it), so it took you aback when the opposite happened.

As a class president you often had to help the homeroom teacher. It was nothing out of the ordinary when he called you into the teachers’ room and gave you a box of university application help books to hand out in class. It wasn’t really heavy but there was no proper handle on the box, so you had to hold it against your chest and it made it hard to see the stairs in front of your feet as you walked up to the classroom.

Students came and went both ways around you, nobody really paying attention to you struggling not to fall and you let out a little sigh of relief when you reached the first landing of the staircase without tripping. You adjusted your grip on the big brown box and was about to go on when the box crashed into somebody’s chest… or more like, stomach.

“Sorry, I…”

You were about to apologize automatically when you saw Taesan standing in front of you, very clearly on purpose. However, before you could have told him to move out of your way, he did the unthinkable: he easily took the box out of your hands, his knuckles brushing against your open palms as he did so.

“Hey! Give it back!” You reached out for the box again once you snapped out of your stupor but the boy’s hold on it was too strong.

“Stop being so stubborn for once,” he said, his quiet, deep voice washing over you in waves and then you could barely do anything but watch him turn around and walk up the stairs with ease, the box in his hands and his bag thrown over one of his shoulders.

You shuffled after him a bit awkwardly, halfway torn between being grateful because out of all people in the school only him was considerate enough to offer help and being offended and angry because what if he only did so because he pitied you now that he knew that you still held grudges over what happened last year.

That became a smaller worry though as you realized he was heading straight towards your classroom and you didn’t even want to guess the rumors starting if even just one gossipy girl saw him help you. You grew more anxious the closer you got but Taesan’s steps halted right before he got to the door. You almost bumped into his back at the sudden pause.

“Here,” he turned to you with the box that you took gingerly, making sure you didn’t touch this time.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, actually meaning it but you couldn’t tell with Taesan’s low hum and light on his feet disappearance if he believed you or not.

The third week of interviews went without a glitch. You were almost done which also added to your good mood. One less thing to worry about, one less to-do during your already busy weeks.

Taesan stayed behind in the clubroom this time too, hunching over the computer setup with the headphones on like always but for the first time you said bye. Or well your version of it.

“Don’t stay too late,” you told him loud enough, so he could hear you through the headphones but turned on your heels before you could have seen his reaction.

It was a good day, you decided. You got praised by your Literature teacher for your essay on the themes of social class and Confucian values in your recent obligatory read. The interviews went smoothly and the corner CU had a 1+1 promotion for your favorite banana milk. You even caught the bus just in time, getting on the vehicle after two giggling students. It was busier now than usual because lots of students had to stay longer in preparation for the Freshmen Open Day.

Apologies falling from your lips, you made your way through the crowd in the front of the bus and looked for a seat in the back. That’s where you caught sight of Taesan with his bag on the seat next to him and when your eyes met, he pulled his stuff into his lap. You hesitated for a moment but that was pretty much the only place left and it would have been more awkward if you didn’t take it. So you dropped the ignoring act, swung your bag to your front and sat down, drumming with your fingers on your knees. The bus departed from the stop and took a turn, the silence between the two of you becoming louder than the chatter around you.

You unzipped your bag and pulled out the banana milk bottles you just bought and held one out towards Taesan. The boy turned his head towards you, his dark eyes unsure and… was that blush on his cheeks? Your hands touched when he took the bottle from you, sending little tingles over your skin.

“Wanna listen?” He held out one of the earbuds of his wired earphone that he always seemed to have with him. So old-fashioned, so cool.

You felt shy as you looked him in the eye because it was like sharing something intimate. Still, you took the audio device and put it inside your right ear, smiling as the unfamiliar beats of a slower western song played. You pierced through the lid of the banana milk with your straw and hid your smile behind your drink when you saw Taesan do the same.

Maybe you were just warming up to each other after weeks of working together but it gave you the push you needed to ask about what you were listening to and it started a whole monologue about the kind of music Taesan liked and how his father introduced it to him. Honestly, he listened to a lot of bands you heard of but couldn’t really associate songs with and quite a few you hadn’t even heard about. You didn’t mind though, you liked listening to him talk about it, watching him gesture and slur his words when he got excited. It was a lovely side of him.

The bus ride never felt so short.

That one conversation and shared banana milk somehow led to daily song recommendations from the boy. He was always curious about your opinion even if you didn’t like it. Soon enough he could guess pretty accurately if you would like a song or not, so he even created a Spotify playlist just for you that he updated frequently. This turn of events was surely unexpected but not at all bad.

You also got to know that he would have liked to study sound engineering in university and you told him about your own ambitions and why it was so important for you to have near perfect grades and all those achievements. Belatedly you realized that you had never told anybody how much impact it had on you that you were constantly compared to your cousins.

It was a new side of Taesan you got to know, a side he didn’t show to just anybody and you realized it was the same with you. You hated showing weakness in front of others, yet it wasn’t too bad to admit to him that you tended to be judgemental with people because nobody had really been patient with you either before labeling you this or that.

But texting over the phone was one thing, you weren’t sure it would change anything in person. Sure, you had been seen together due to the interview project but that would be over soon. Not to mention you really didn’t want to deal with high school gossip in your last school year. And yet, you couldn’t help but look for Taesan whenever you were in the school canteen or near his clubroom. You caught yourself anticipating the radio announcements just to hear his voice. It was pathetic really, how fast you went from finding it annoying and purposefully ignoring him to waiting to see him.

Your heart did a little somersault when you actually saw him in the library one afternoon and only when you walked closer did you notice that he wasn’t just leaning over his papers but he was sleeping soundly, his pencil still in his hand, his textbook getting wrinkled under his weight. Briefly you wondered whether you should have looked for another place since Taesan must have chosen this corner table far in the back to have some peace but you would have liked to believe that he wouldn’t have minded you joining. After all, he waved to you casually like you were friends when you ran into each other on the corridors earlier that day.

Eventually, you pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and quietly put your study material down. You squinted at the books and printed papers around Taesan recognizing them as advanced Maths exercises on trigonometry. While you were trying to see if it was a sheet you had already done, something else caught your eyes instead. The light reflected on the silver bands around Taesan’s index and ring fingers down to the similar thin, metal bracelet he wore. You had never noticed that he wore accessories but you had never really paid attention to what he was wearing either (except his unmade tie). Or maybe due to the long sleeved uniform you couldn’t even notice it but now that he had his sleeves rolled up and arms outstretched, you couldn’t help but notice how long and elegant fingers he had, unfairly nice for a guy.

Taesan suddenly exhaled sharply which made you act on impulse. You leaned back in your chair and looked down at your randomly opened book just in case he woke up. However, his quiet sleeping noises soon returned to normal, so you deemed it safe to look up. You let out a relieved sigh when you saw his eyes still closed, his eyelashes casting a light shadow over his cheekbones. Dark strands of hair fell softly over his eyes and you weren’t sure what came over you but maybe all those silly romance dramas were right when they thought girls couldn’t stop themselves from brushing a boy’s fringe out of his eyes just once in their life. But just as you reached out, Taesan straightened his back and yawned like a cat, stretching his arms towards the sky. He blinked himself awake slowly but he froze the moment he noticed you right in front of him.

To make the situation less awkward for both of you, you smiled at him as casually as you could (which wasn’t much thanks to your racing heartbeat but still, you tried) and turned to your book, flipping to the correct page you wanted to review. From the corner of your eyes, you saw Taesan fix his clothes and sit up properly before arranging his rumpled papers to continue the Maths exercises. He must have been stuck on a problem though because he kept sighing and going back to the same page in the workbook. After his sixth or so frustrated sound, you couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help,” you spoke up, closing your own book, so he would see your focus was on him.

“It’s fine,” he dismissed your offer so fast that you could tell he didn’t even think about it. You were sure because that was what you tended to do too: claiming you could handle everything on your own. But still, sometimes wasn’t it nice to receive help? Like how he had helped you with that box?

“Okay, then what about explaining it to me?” You changed your strategy because sometimes even that much could help: offering a listening ear. Maybe he could realize the mistake he was making in the equation while telling you about it.

You didn’t even think about it, you just stood up and walked to Taesan’s side of the table, sitting down next to him, leaning closer to see his scratchy handwriting and the calculations he had been doing. You might have blushed when you realized just how close you were but you refused to show it. You took studying seriously after all. So you looked the boy in the eye with a challenge in yours until he gave in.

Four minutes later he found the trigonometric identity he used incorrectly.

After sharing songs through texts and studying together at the library, the next thing that became a routine for the two of you was visiting the corner convenience store whenever you left the school together. When it first happened, Taesan claimed he needed to buy something too but he was looking around in the snack aisle suspiciously long (you missed your usual bus that day), so the next time you told him that you would catch up to him at the bus stop, he didn’t need to come with you. But more often than not, he went along with you anyways and ended up buying candies or chocolate bars. When you told Taesan about your go-to emotional support banana milk reminding you of your childhood, he told you that he wasn’t really into sweet things, so he bought all these snacks for his younger siblings. One time he bought a pack of four cream milk breads just for the freebie Pokémon toy that came with it because his little sister liked that character. It made you coo internally.

It wasn’t always just the two of you though. One day you were going over the English vocabulary with Jihan from your class in the library when Taesan and Jungwon walked in and took the desk next to you, eventually joining the English quiz. Another time Leehan needed to stay after school too because of his model student representative duties (a photoshoot for the Freshmen Open Day brochures apparently and suddenly you weren’t so sulky that you didn’t get the title) and he decided to tag along when he saw Taesan and you head over to the nearby CU.

“Ah, senior year is really hell. Everyone’s so busy we barely have time to hangout after school anymore,” he justified himself while throwing an arm around Taesan’s shoulder. “Jungwon told me you went to the library to study the other day. Since when do you do that? I thought you said being around so many people is distracting.”

You still heard Leehan’s voice as they disappeared into the snack aisle with the purpose of getting jellies and you walked forward to the refrigerated section, trying not to think too much into it. Maybe senior year changed Taesan’s mind, maybe he found the presence of others motivating now. Or maybe he just wanted to spend more time with you. The thought alone made you shy.

You were on schedule with the interviews and soon only the intro and outro as well as your own parts were missing. You wrote a script for the introduction and ending which Taesan improved with his experience of radio shows at school. You argued about whether your version with the ‘high school memories forever staying with you’ sentiment was too cringy or his ‘it’s only the beginning’ version was too vague but this time there was no harshness in your voice, there were no grudges held, it was only friendly banter as you went back and forth with arguments supporting your own ideas.

Eventually you managed to find a common ground, mentioning both the importance of keeping one’s high school memories as a reminder of their formative years and youth as well as being ready for what was coming. It was not even a question that it would be recorded by Taesan because he really had a nice voice and while you tried to stay professional and pay attention to his pronunciation and the flow of the speech rather than him, you failed miserably. Luckily, Taesan had enough radio experience to know exactly what to do. He introduced the segment with ease and charm, captivating the audience (you, for now) and you had to clear your throat to focus when he finished reading.

“We can start the interview with me,” you said, eager to get on with the tasks before Taesan could call you out on your behavior. He must have known your reason for the sudden change of attitude though because he smiled to himself, quiet but obvious about it, as he held the microphone out for you and hit record.

You knew all the questions by heart but still you waited for the boy to ask before you answered.

“When I was young, I wanted to have my own karaoke room. There was one on the basement floor in the building where I used to live and the owner auntie always gave me homemade honey biscuits. She seemed to be so joyful humming songs happily,” you said at the first question, glancing in Taesan’s direction briefly.

He must have been surprised – you were too –, because it wasn’t the model student-like answer everybody was expecting of you like saying your dream had always been to become a doctor or lawyer. Honestly, you had your own answers prepared and memorized ever since the questions for the student interviews were finalized and approved by your teachers. But looking back at it now, you felt embarrassed because even though it was just an interview, it wasn’t graded or judged, yet you had felt obligated to answer according to what other people would think of you. However, in the recent weeks as you got to know Taesan better, you realized that people would judge others without reason, without knowing them, even you. So you shouldn’t have changed your whole personality just so you would fit into this image they had of you. Even if it was about your parents’ or teachers’ expectation or your classmates calling you the teacher’s pet behind your back. You had been okay with the prejudices since high school was just one step in your foolproof plan to lead a successful life, you had been okay without building deep connections with other students because you had known that you would drift away after graduation anyways but only lately you realized that you could have had fun while also working hard. You could be yourself and let people closer. The world wasn’t going to crumble, it wouldn’t ruin your plans. You could be honest, both with yourself and others, because what was the worst thing that could happen? That they would judge you? They are doing it anyway, so it didn't matter.

“And now? Now I’m applying for business majors. I’ m not sure what exactly I would like to do with my life but I will get there. Who knows, maybe one day I will open a karaoke room, too,” you chuckled even though your ambitions were to build a bigger company, something creative and useful. You still had time to figure out the details.

In the beginning of the term you would have felt vulnerable sharing these about yourself in front of Taesan or the entire school because everybody expected you to know what you want to do with your life but now, it felt okay. You actually felt lighter, relieved. Especially because there was nothing akin to judging in Taesan’s eyes as he smiled at you from the other side of the table.

“Please tell us about your most memorable high school memory,” he recited the last question after you went over all the others.

Previously, you would have said it was being chosen as a class president because it was an honor and a proof of hard work but now, your academic achievements didn’t seem that important. What will you really remember when you will be older and think back on high school?

“Honestly, senior year so far has had some unexpected surprises, it’s hard to choose just one but maybe this one. Now,” you and me, just the two of us in the radio club room, being vulnerable yet not being judged. “I like the person I have been becoming ever since this senior interview project started and I think it's going to be a great memory one day.”

Silence embraced you as you finished talking, a bit nervous but without regrets. Taesan pressed a button and the recording stopped, ready to be saved.

“So karaoke room, huh?” He asked and you kicked his shin under the table for that teasing grin on his face.

“Your turn,” you reminded him as you passed the mic and adjusted the headphones around your ears. By then, over so many interviews you were sure Taesan knew what was coming too but just for the show you asked him about his dream job as a child versus now as well as his higher education plans.

“Becoming a musician was my childhood dream. My entire family loves music, many of us play an instrument, so it felt natural,” Taesan said and even though you didn’t know this, it wasn’t hard to imagine given his love for music and all that knowledge about genres and classics. “After I joined the radio club, I realized that I like it a lot despite the fact that here we don’t usually play music. So it would be cool to be a radio DJ on a music show one day but I’m interested in the technology behind it all, that’s why I will study sound engineering.”

You smiled to yourself because you had already known that latter part and it felt nice knowing you had come so far. After a few more answers, you got to the last question about his most memorable moment and Taesan’s feline eyes turned mischievous.

“Hm, a fierce girl yelling my head off during a live school radio radio–”

“Yah, be serious!” You interrupted him when you realized he was talking about what happened last year but your voice was more amused than scolding.

“I am serious,” Taesan claimed but there was a teasing tilt in his mouth. “It’s pretty memorable.”

“So you’re saying I was the only girl interrupting you during a broadcast? Shocking,” you raised a brow at him, a small part of you feeling triumphant about the fact that in a way you were special even if your first actual meeting didn’t have the best circumstances. Thank god that his microphone wasn’t on when you showed up and straight up started questioning him. “Also, just to clarify I wasn't yelling. I just expressed my bewilderment about why you were playing that audio.”

“That was the only one under your name.”

“What?” You blinked, confused at Taesan’s quick response. He sounded like he meant it but you knew that couldn’t have been true, they got access to your entire recording folder accidentally. So if he didn’t see that, it meant he wasn’t the one checking their emails.

“To make sure things are running smoothly, we always have a script about our broadcasts and all the audio files are organized in linear order in a folder for that day. I just played what was prepared for me,” he explained and gosh, you felt so stupid.

All this time you thought he had been the one who chose the wrong file on purpose maybe to help his friend, maybe to just have a good laugh but it made sense that his juniors were more likely the ones doing such preparatory work.

“But still, you could have stopped it instead of just letting it play,” you muttered, trying to justify your reaction.

“Well, at first I thought it was actually a pretty unique tactic and then…” Taesan scratched his nape and looked away, then shrugged as if he just convinced himself to tell you something that might be embarrassing. “To be honest, I just liked your singing.”

At his words you felt the tip of your ears burn and heat spreading all over your cheeks. You were glad that the lighting in the room hid it well.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You found yourself asking quietly because thinking back you weren’t exactly nice to him.

Taesan gave you a look. Okay, true, you didn’t really give him a chance to explain before antagonizing him. And then it must have been weird to just bring it up.

“Right. Um, sorry,” you mumbled, embarrassed due to your too quick judgment but the boy just shook his head as if he had never been mad at the injustice in the first place. “About your answer though, you have to cut it out.” 

Obviously with 60 people answering 6 questions, not everything would make it into the final cut, it would be more of a montage of answers, a glimpse of the seniors’ lives and you didn’t want to be reminded of that incident in front of the entire school. Not again.

“Nope,” Taesan protested, popping the ‘p’ sound, teasing just to be difficult.

“I’m deleting it,” you warned him but you seriously miscalculated several things: there was no way you could have reached the computer before him and with him standing in front of the monitor and keyboard you didn’t see anything. You tried to get hold of the mouse at the same time as looking over the boy’s shoulder but he made sure that he was always in the way which somehow turned into a one sided (struggle) wrestle match and honestly at that point you weren’t even trying to achieve anything and both of you just laughed at your poor attempts.

“Am I interrupting something?” Spoke up a newcomer you didn’t even notice. Sullyoon, another radio club member from the year, stood by the door visibly surprised to see you or well the current situation you were in: Taesan leaning against the desk in front of the computer and you pretty much plastered over him, trying to reach something behind his back.

“No!” You objected vehemently and took two steps back, stumbling a bit. Taesan reached out to steady you by the forearm and only after he made sure you wouldn’t fall did he turn to the girl from his club.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just forgot my buju here,” Sullyoon got over her surprise too and quickly retrieved the prettily decorated journal from one of the shelves. You watched her go and then buried your face in your hands because of embarrassment.

“Emotional support banana milk?” Taesan prompted after he saved the files and turned the computer off.

You smiled at him and followed him out closely. If you were any better off, you would have teased him about his flushed face but instead you just made him race you to the convenience store, so both of you would have an excuse if anyone asked about your red cheeks.

Now that all interviews were done, only the editing was left from the project and while you could have left it all to Taesan since he did the actual editing, you were there keeping him company all through it. First of all, you listened to all the raw material and decided which answers to include from each interviewee in the final cut and then you could help out when he needed a second opinion on the order or cut parts or whether the transition was smooth or not. When he was deep in the concentration mode, you just did homework or studied for upcoming tests. It took three sessions to finish it (you had to force Taesan to get his ass out of school during the second one because he was determined to finish it which past you would have appreciated but not even this project was worth losing proper meal schedule or sleep over it) and when you listened to the final version you were proud of what you had done, together.

“Should we celebrate?” You suggested once the file was sent to the principal and his secretary. You finished it pretty much on schedule and yet, you weren't as relieved as you thought you would be when you had first started it. But still, it was an achievement and you liked to celebrate small wins like this because if you didn't, who else would?

You meant it as in going out to eat something good. For example, in the tent restaurant two streets down the auntie was selling the best tteokbokki you had ever tried. But Taesan had his own idea.

“What about karaoke?”

“Yah! Stop teasing!” You glared at him but you weren't actually mad, it started to turn into a private joke between the two of you.

“I’m not!” The boy insisted and all it took was his almost pout to convince you.

There were karaoke rooms on pretty much every other street in this neighborhood, so it wasn't hard to find one where you booked a room for an hour and bought snacks and drinks at the counter from the girl who looked like a bored university student.

You usually went to sing with a small group of girls from your class, so it was the first time that it was just you and a boy. And not just any boy but Han Taesan. Somehow it felt more special. Sure, he might have already heard you sing and said that he liked it, but you were shy, so you insisted that he would pick a song first. He chose Dean's 21 and totally nailed it, the karaoke machine's high score proving that you weren't just biased when you told him that. You had already liked his speaking voice but when he sang, oh boy! You could have listened to him for hours.

You went with a girl group song you were confident in and it was fun. Song after song you both hyped each other up and the one hour passed by quickly. A part of you wished you could just pay for one more and sing until your voice became hoarse but the rational part knew that you shouldn't have stayed out too late. You still had homework to do and Taesan needed to memorize those English words for tomorrow's test.

It was the same T side of you that went a bit ahead of you and started thinking about the midterms and then how busy you would get once summer ended and the last term rolled around. It was still months away and yet, you wondered if it took that much for you to drift apart or the end of this interview project would be enough. You were a bit scared to know the answer, just how you were scared to answer Jihan's question the other day when she saw you walk to class together with Taesan. Admitting out loud that you liked him would have made it real and it would have made you vulnerable. You weren't sure you were ready to do that but it was certain that you didn't want to lose him.

“Taesan…” You spoke up quietly, swinging your feet back and forth on the bench in the bus stop after you spent the walk from the karaoke room to the stop in silence, lost in thought. The boy turned his head towards you, his fringe getting into his eyes, messy and beautiful. Your heart ached with the certainty only first love could. “Now that the radio segment is ready, will we go back to how we were?” You asked barely in a whisper as if speaking louder would have had its consequences. That was also why you had to rush to clarify. “Because I don’t want that. I… I would miss you too much.”

You didn’t mean to say it like that and it was a scary thing to admit but it was worth all the extra beats of your heart to see Taesan smile, a shy little thing stretching slowly from one side to another, his eyes sparkling under the moonlight and street lamps’ glow.

“Me too,” he said and you reciprocated his smile. There was a short pause, an inhale of the universe waiting, then Taesan called your name and you looked up immediately.

“Hm?”

He looked you in the eyes with those dark oceans of his. Once you associated them with the cold depth of the sea but since then you realized that you were wrong. You knew only a few people who had warmer souls than this boy.

“You are my most memorable high school memory for a reason,” he whispered like it was a secret and a promise at the same time.

It left you speechless a moment too long and the bubble around you burst when the bus pulled up in front of you with a loud screeching sound. Taesan was quick on his feet but instead of getting on the bus right away, he looked back at you and held a hand out for you. You blamed it on not having time to think about it with the bus driver yelling at you impatiently and took it, following the boy onto the vehicle and to your usual place in the back with a smile on your face and a new rhythm in your heart.

Taesan didn't let go of your hand during the entire ride. As you closed your eyes and listened to the music he put on, you hoped he wouldn’t let go for a long time.

[roguestorm]

How To Start Reading Marvel Comics

Okay, so let's say you're a fan of the Marvel movies or games or you just saw Spider-Verse and you want to know how to start reading comics. Hi, welcome! This is one method of getting into comics; it is not the only one. We're going to be heavily relying on digital comics for this one, so if you prefer reading on paper, this might not be for you.

Step One: Pick a Character

This should be easy! Pick a character whose comics you want to read. It doesn't have to be your favorite character of all time; it just needs to be a character you're interested in getting to know a little better. A character is going to work better for this particular method than a team will, although there are plenty of team reading guides if you really want them.

Let's say, for the sake of example, that you just watched the Moon Knight Disney+ series and you want to read some stuff about Moon Knight.

Step Two: Find a Reading List

The very technically advanced way to do this is to Google "[Character] Reading List" or "[Character] Recommended Reading." For Moon Knight, Marvel has an official one that pops up right away.

The official ones are good places to start, but IMO, the best ones are usually from tumblr or Reddit. Comic fans can be very intense, but we also know more about the material than anyone, including Marvel. :) Here's one for Moon Knight.)

Step Three: Understanding the Reading List

Comic names are formatted one of two ways. You might see someone say Moon Knight (vol 7) or Moon Knight (2014). These refer to the same series of comics. They mean that the title of the series is Moon Knight, that it is the 7th series published under that title, and that it started publication in 2014. Moon Knight (vol 1) is Moon Knight (1980), because it's the first run of comics called Moon Knight and it started publication in 1980.

So, how do you know? That's where the wiki comes in. marvel.fandom.com is my best friend. So, when you type "Moon Knight vol 7" into the search bar, it brings up this page. See how it says (2014-2015) at the top? That's how you know that Moon Knight (vol 7) is Moon Knight (2014).

Step Four: Accessing Comics

Now we have to get the comics. We have a number of options:

For digital comics:

Buying digital comics. You can do this on Amazon or Marvel.com. However, this gets expensive real fast - for example, Moon Knight (1980) has 38 issues, and each of those costs $1.99. That's almost $80, just for volume 1.

Marvel Unlimited subscription. This is not a bad deal TBH. It's $10 a month, and they have quite an extensive catalogue. The only problem is that the site takes forever to load and is not easily searchable. Usually, I'll type into Google the name of the exact comic I want to access (e.g. "Moon Knight (1980) #1") and then click on the marvel.com link that comes up.

Piracy. This is the easiest and cheapest option, and thus the most popular. I'm not going to link any sites, but ask a friend or Google and you'll find one easily enough.

Physical comics are also an option, but they are more complicated. Groups of issues are collected in trade paperback collections, but finding which collections contain which issues can be a bit more of a hassle. And then buying those collections can get pricey very quickly.

If you like physical comics and have a public library card, I'd recommend checking out what they have on their shelves. On a Marvel comic, you want to look at the back cover, usually in the lower right-hand corner, and it will tell you which issues are in the comic (e.g. "Collects Moon Knight (2014) #1-6"). You might find some things that were on your reading list, or you might find some comics you'd never have read otherwise. A lot of public libraries (at least in the US) have a larger comic book collection than you'd expect.

Step Five: Have Fun and Be Yourself!

The most important thing to remember is that you are supposed to be having fun. There might be some frustration if you're not used to reading visual media (I know I wasn't), but it should overall be fun. If a comic feels like a slog, you don't have to read it! Maybe you and the person who made the reading list just have different taste. Try a different comic. Try a different character.

Also, remember that it's okay to be confused. You might be jumping around a little bit and so you might not know everything that's going on. This is kind of the perpetual state of reading comics. If you want to double-check the wiki or ask your friendly neighborhood comics blogger, that's totally fine.

[study-with-aura]

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

So much reading today! That is one thing about my curriculum that I love yet despise at the same time. It is heavily focused on reading and discussion of the reading. It also gives us questions that our readings don't always answer because we're supposed to research sources. I use Khan Academy for a lot of that to get more information, and usually, that gives me the answer I'm looking for.

But this is even more than 9th grade! I suppose that makes sense since it's now my second year in high school and more is expected at this grade level than before. But sometimes, my brain just wants the right answer to be in front of me and for there to be a right or wrong. But I know the way my curriculum works will prepare me better for university, at least according to my brother today when I was making faces at him because my eyes got tired. I have blue light glasses that I should wear more often, but sometimes, words start to blur either way.

However, I got everything done. I did decide to keep reading a fun book, so I am reading that during the long drive to dance since my brother, who is currently taking me, needs to focus on rush hour traffic anyway. People drive horrendously here!

Tasks Completed:

Algebra 2 - Reviewed linear inequalities

American Literature - copied vocabulary terms + read about the Puritans + read about William Bradford + watched video and read about the Mayflower Compact + read an article with excerpts from Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation" + took notes and answered questions + read about 7 critical reading strategies + read Chapters 5-6 of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne + read chapter notes

Spanish 3 - Reviewed numbers 1-100 + completed number spelling practice

Bible 2 - Read 2 Samuel 4-5

Early American History - Read about commerce and technological factors that influenced more voyage into the New World + answered study guide questions + read second part of “Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal”

Earth Science with Lab - Read “How Old is the Earth?”

Music Appreciation - Watched a video about the violin + watched a video about the flute + copied major necessary terms from the A section of the music dictionary

Khan Academy - Completed US History Unit 1: Lesson 4 (parts 1-2)

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 30 minutes (Spanish + French + Chinese) + completed daily quests

Piano - Practiced for two hours in one hour split sessions

Reading - Read pages 1-30 of Stateless by Elizabeth Wein

Chores -  None today

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (1 Corinthians 9)

Ballet

Variations

Journal/Mindfulness

[intairnwetrust]

Round three in defence of Violet Sorrengail

because apperently she is still the bad guy regarding Xaden's and her relationship problems and this take irritates the fuck out of me more and more the more I reread Iron Flame because have we read the same book?

Buckle up my dragon riders (who if we're honest half of us would end up like Dylan) this will be a bit long.

So what can you expect from this post:

I'm going to copy some paragraphs from my post "Round two in defense of Violet Sorrengail". On the one hand because I still stand by what I said and on the other hand so that you have a more chronological progression. Round three is basically an extension and supplement to round two (and other small posts i made on that topic)

Also i will absolutly call out Xaden on his bullshit but i won't paint him here as the devil. I still love Xaden it's just my annoyance with him is compounded by the fact that he 100% deserves it looking at his behaivor and how he handled things and the fact that certain parts of the fandom hate Violet for their relationship problems and won't look at Xaden at all.

Also some words to their relationship overall

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First, I want to address the lack of empathy for Violet

People are usually like "I know Violet is in a tough spot and she is only 23 but still..."

No honey it's so much fucking more then that.

I would love to see your reaction when you find out that your whole life, everything you believed in, was a lie. Then on top of that, you didn't even have time to process the whole thing properly.

After the revelation, Violet went straight into battle, in which she almost died! Then she finds out that her brother is still alive and then overall her being involved in the whole revolution. Violet didn't even got a break to process the whole thing properly and on top on that, in the first half of the time she didn't even have anyone to turn to. Her two dragons betrayed her and so did the man she loved and who wants to discuss relationship problem with a brother who played dead for 6 years? Plus she couldn't really talk to her friends either because then she would be forced to explain the context to them so they could develop an understanding, which obviously wasn't possible.

I completly agree that all this running in circles between the two of them was annoying as hell and you really only saw improvements almost at the end but Xaden is sooo much more to blame for the two of them not making progress than Violet.

Moreover it doesn't hinder the plot at all. We are shown their problems at the beginning and when she is with Xaden. I know shocking that we have come across problems that a couple is having when that said couple comes into the picture. She didn't cry about her problems to anyone accessible. Whenever we learned about her relationship problems it was in her inner monologue. It is completly normal, it is realistic, for someone in Violet's situation to thing about her whole relationship. If she wouldn't think about her issues with Xaden then it would means she wouldn't care.

You know you see this mindset in many areas of life where you think you would act better than the person in question, but how can I believe them when so many people can't put themselves in Violet's position? I admire Violet for being able to keep up with Xaden's bullshit for so long. I don't think I could.

The bullshit I will adress now

Like Ufff Xaden I love you but do better.

Let's start with empty promisses:

“You are going to tell me everything once I can properly shield, right?” It’s all I can do not to grab onto him and start shaking. Hard. “That’s what you promised in your bedroom.” He is not doing this to me. “‘Anything you want to know and everything you don’t.’ Those were your words.”

I so seriously wish he had never said that he would give her complete disclosure then at least I and Violet in this matter, would not have right to be mad about it that he wouldn't keep It

And another promise or rather let's say he didn't live up to his words

“I’ll earn your trust as soon as you realize you don’t need full disclosure. You only have to have the guts to start asking the questions you actually want answers to."

This statement annoys me on so many levels. First of all, let me quote Violet for some variety: "Trust is earned, and he isn’t even trying." He is indeed not trying or better tried not enough throughout the book. He didn't prove to Violet that she doesn't need full disclosure. We are here in chapter 3, unfortunately looks like this was forshadowing. Now to the second part of the Statement. *Talking a deep breath* Exuse me the audacity??? When you have the guts??? He did not just put the responsibilty on Violet here. Sirrrr you are the one who fucked up.

Which brings us to the next point (Hard work and this stupid 'Ask me a question'-game)

"I’m not afraid of hard work, especially not when I know just how sweet the rewards are."

Hmmm sureeee. You whole behaivor in IF says otherwise aka the whole question game .

Xaden is the one who broke Violet trust but for him waiting for a question from Violet basically means he expects from Violet to make the first step when he actually should do it! He broke her trust not the other way around. He makes it so easy for himself when he himself said he don't mind hard work to get what he wants. Yes, then act like that.

Also let's add another one:

“Both ways, but you’re shutting me out while I’m trying my damnedest to open up to you.”Says the man who’s never so much as told me he loves me. If he does. Gods, I’m so sick of having to make the first move when it comes to this man.

This! This! This! Yeah Violet I was also sick of it while reading the book.

today isn’t the day to open myself up to that rejection, too.“Sure, as long as you can keep your secrets. Has it ever occurred to you that this”—I gesture between us—“is all because you don’t trust me?” I take a step backward. “You expect complete, blind faith without giving it. It. Goes. Both. Ways.”

First of all This! This! This! and Yeah Xaden where is your hard work?

Also sorry but no this boy had the nerve to look disappointed when Violet didn't ask her question. Honey you could have simply start the conversation!

Like even Garrik is calling him out "Just doing my part to help your communication skills thrive in a stable relationship."

Now ladies and Gentleman let's jump to the prime of I want to struggle Xaden - Chapter 55

*Talking a deeep breath*

"You let me stew in it for months?"

"You didn't ask me!" He pushes off the wall but stops himself from taking more than a step. "I've been begging you for months to ask me what you want to know, to break down that last insurmountable wall you're keeping between us, but you didn't. Why?"

He has the nerve to put this on me?

Yeah seriously the audacity. He has the nerve to put it on her???

"You're the one who said you'd never be entirely truthful with me. How am I supposed to know what you will and will not answer? How am I supposed to know what there is to ask?"

Yes exactly

"I'm not mad about the deal." How does he not understand? "I'm pissed that you kept it from me, that you insist on making me ask for things you should openly share

And this is a principle Xaden and the hater don’t understand.

Because you were too pissed about my refusal to answer the superficial questions about the revolution to ask the real ones about us.

Let's talk about this quote in detail because it shows the two main issues I have with people calling Violet stupid and whiny for wanting full disclosure (or let's say two and half reasons because Xaden literally promised her that!)

First it's not (only) about the revolution it's about the simple fact that Xaden, subconsciously, shows Violet that he doesn't trust her when he doesn't speak up on his own about things that should be mentioned regarding their relationship; them and on top makes her work for it with expecting her to ask the right question.

He can tell me or he can choose not to, but I’m done having to guess which questions to ask.

This speaks for itself

Second, now let's look at Information about the actual revolution because Violet is not as stupid as the hater makes her out to be because let me quote this again "You are going to tell me everything once I can properly shield, right?"

Violet is not just like that standing here demanding crucial information that could put everyone in danger if it becomes public. She explicitly said once she can shield. Again Violet is not stupid. Moreover once she can shield it's her fucking right to know. Violet is such an important part of the revolution starting with her signet being such a powerful weapon. But wait there's more. She got important information about the Venin and worked out the plan on how to get information to restore the wards and also actively translate that information. She has a right to know what is going on.

Another point is how he handled Cat, or rather how he did NOOTT handle her.

Excuse me it was his ex who was vindictive and hateful to Violet for literally existing and he did nothing. Why did we get 'I will throw you off a cliff myself' from Dain and not Xaden? What annoys me even more and also confuses me is the fact that he even suspected that Cat would cause problems, hence the runes in her dagger like then why not talk to her??? Or the fact that Cat was literally his betrothed.

He basically just go with the flow and let Violet Deal with it (Although it has to be mentioned Cat just being a bitch, Xaden can't help it either)

Now after all this bullshit the light at the end of the tunnel - Chapter 58

“We don’t keep secrets. No more ask me. No more tests to see who’s in and who’s out of this relationship. It’s full disclosure between us…” I take a steadying breath and map out the golden flecks in his eyes just in case it’s the last time. “Or it’s nothing.”

“Done.”

OMG it was that easy?

"I understand that there will be times you can’t tell me everything—that’s the nature of what we do as riders—but I need you to stop setting me up for failure by insisting I figure out what there is to ask."

"Done."

Omg it was that easyyy??

Okay In the end, their whole problem was reflected on again by Violet and yes Violet even blamed herself partially, she was scared to ask because she feared the truth, but considering what the question was about (talking about the scars on his back) who can blame her? Xaden should have been much more accommodating all the way there. Violet's world was turned upside down, not his. Xaden shouldn't have waited for Violet to ask a question, but simply should have started the conversation.

Also I know it wouldn't have been actually that easy considering their circumstances. They're leading a freaking revolution and at the beginning of the book they were geographically separated so realistically there wasn't that much time to simply talk but the point still stands when you really want to be annoyed with someone because of these constant, repetitive and therefore annoying problems that the two of them had in their communication then please look at Xaden first.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now some words to their relationship overall.

They fucking love each other.

They are unhinged for each other. They would die for each other.

It's the fact how happy Violet was that Xaden wrote her a letter. It's the fact how obssesed Xaden is with Violet's hair. It's the fact how both crush for the other. How both long for the other.

“You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.”

“Gravity,” he whispers, a slow, beautiful smile curving his mouth.

I wish everyone who says Violet doesn't deserve Xaden (and vice versa) wet socks for the rest of their lives 😛

If you have read this far, take some cookies 🍪🍪🍪

[nausikaaa]

Six Sentence Sunday

thanks for tagging me @run-for-chamo-miles @that-disabled-princess and @orange-peony!

classicstober 2024's prompts have been announced and i'm super excited because it's historical figures! my obsession with Roman non-fiction and biographies has finally paid off!

i thought it would be a good opportunity to jumpstart my writing brain by writing lots of short and snappy things. and so today, i've written 1000 or so words for Regina of South Shields, who i've had the pleasure of visiting!

i'm about to ramble, so i'm putting it under a cut. also warning, i've included photos of a tombstone and a human skeleton. if you just want to read the six sentences and not see them, scroll fast right to the bottom.

so, this is Regina. or rather, her tombstone, discovered by builders in 1878, and a reconstruction of how it might have looked when it was erected. if you haven't heard of her, which is understandable, she was a British woman from modern day St Albans (near London) during the Roman occupation of Britain. she was sold as a slave (did her family need money? was she born a slave? we don't know) and bought by a man named Barates, from Palmyra, a city in modern day Syria, who was either a soldier or at least travelling with the Roman army. they moved to a garrison close to Hadrian's Wall in what is now South Shields in the north east, and Barates fell in love with Regina. he freed her and they got married.

her tombstone is mostly important because it tells us that a Syrian man was in Britain during this time, and since her tombstone has Palmyrene script on it, and the chances he engraved his own wife's tombstone are slim, there was likely at least one other Syrian person who could engrave headstones around. which suggests that there was a whole group! the name of the Roman fort in South Shields was Arbeia, which could even mean "the place of the arabs."

it's estimated that a third of people in Britain during the Roman occupation were long distance migrants, and most were not slaves, as is often assumed. Ivory Bangle Lady, who I have also visited in York Museum and who lived around the same time, is believed to have come from Africa. and she was a wealthy free woman!

but what about Regina? well, we know she was from the Catuvellauni tribe, and that she died aged 30. we can assume she spun wool as she's depicted doing so on the tombstone, which was a respectable pastime for Roman women, and she's shown wearing lots of jewellery, so she probably led a comfortable life.

but we don't know how she felt about her marriage, as her tombstone is in Barates' words. did she love him back, or was she under duress to marry him to improve her own prospects? did they have children? did she have friends in Arbeia? did she have to learn Aramaic or Latin to communicate with Barates, or did he know Celtic? we simply don't know. so much of her personality has been lost to time.

so my challenge was to write something that pieces together various possibilities to create what could be an approximation of who Regina was. to give her some life, a voice, and at least a bit of agency.

okay. enough preamble. here's six lines:

I had grown and reached my twentieth year, and as the dark circles beneath my eyes disappeared and the warmer months led me to abandon my woollen cloak, I noticed men's behaviour towards me change. I am not the type to play at being coy- I knew they found me attractive. With my white skin, red hair, and pale blue eyes, I was exotic to them. I stood out.

I noticed Barates' behaviour change too. I realised I had a choice to make.

if you want to know more about Regina, my main source is this podcast by Mary Beard, but i also took inspiration from the book Roman Woman by Lindsay Allason-Jones.

tags: @forabeatofadrum @j-nipper-95 @artsyunderstudy @prettygoododds @confused-bi-queer @imagineacoolusername @ic3-que3n @aristocratic-otter @larkral @hushed-chorus @ivelovedhimthroughworse @shemakesmeforget @fatalfangirl @ebbpettier @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @cutestkilla @youarenevertooold @alexalexinii @shrekgogurt @bookish-bogwitch @thewholelemon @supercutedinosaurs @shutup-andletme-go @theearlgreymage @ileadacharmedlife @alleycat0306 @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @comesitintheclover @noblecorgi @roomwithanopenfire and @blackberrysummerblog

[missmielyhoran]

Tired eyes are the death of me

Little freak part 2

in which Autumn likes her twin brother's best friend, and maybe he likes her too...

[Warning- Angst (are we even surprised at this point?), Smut🤭, Making out, dry humping, thigh riding, handjob, asshole Harry as always, insecurities, depression]

Masterlist // Series Masterlist

*****

Schools have the most depressing hallways after hospitals. The bright walls and lines and lines of lockers with kids roaming around talking, pretending to be happy but inside everyone was dealing with some shit.

The bright lights and walls did nothing but give you headaches.

You walked down the hallway, your locker being the last one in the corner. At least your locker didn't look depressing. It had a bunch of marvel and Harry Potter stickers, giving you the typical image of "the nerd."

You took out the books for your class when you heard that distinct laugh. His laugh specifically. Peeking from the corner, you saw Harry with his friends except your brother standing in a group talking.

"What about Autumn?" You hear a boy ask. Your ears perk up hearing your name. You saw the boy smirk while Harry's face contorted into something borderline disgust.

"Ohh, she got nice ass." Another boy said who you didn't recognize. Your face mimicked Harry's and contorted into disgust. You wanted to puke your guts out.

"She's Asher's annoying little sister," Harry says before anyone can add anything to it, making your heart sink.

"I heard my name." Your brother sing songs walking towards the group.

"Eric was saying your sister has a nice ass." The first boy spoke, "You wanted to take her to the dance! You brought her up!" The second guy who you know now as Eric said.

Your brother's face changed colors so fast it would put chameleon to shame. He went from shocked to disgust to angry. Looking at his face, you could tell he was about to lurch onto both of them.

"Asher!" You walked towards the group of boys ignoring Harry. Asher's attention was brought to you, and he walked towards you but not without glaring at both boys and giving their shoulders intentional shove.

Asher wrapped his arm around your shoulder and started walking towards your class, "How many times I have told you to just text me, and I will come to you. I don't want you around them, and it's last time I'm telling you this, " Asher said sternly.

"Yeah Yeah, macho man always there to save me. They're not going to eat me alive" You said stopping in front of your class.

Asher turned and looked at you, his eyes hard, "Yes they will. Just do as I say, Autty. I will buy you ice cream on way back home." He sighed.

"I'm not a child." You rolled your eyes at him, "I want chocolate one, though." Asher laughed and walked towards his own class. Harry was behind him, walking towards the same class as yours. He gave Asher a wave and looked at you, and smiled.

You ignored him and walked inside.

*****

Turns out Harry is a very hard person to ignore, especially when you're consciously trying to ignore him.

It also doesn't help that he was sitting in the line of your vision. Every time you looked up towards the teacher, the back of his beautiful curly hair would be in your way.

The whole day went by like this. You never realized how many classes you two had together, mostly cause you were just happy that you got more time to stare at him, but it was torture.

It was English AP class, his seat was right next to you, and you wanted to die. He was far yet so close for you to smell his cologne, the musky earthy smell, like soil after rain.

He was green afterall.

You sat through the whole class like Edward in Twilight movie when he first smelled Bella. But the end was the worst.

"I'm passing out the assignments, and whoever is sitting beside will be your partner," Mrs. Willson said to the whole class. Everyone started mingling reading their respective assignments.

You looked at your other side where some blonde was sitting, but she had already mingled with someone else. Sighing, you turned to Harry on your other side. He was looking at you with monotone expression. You looked him in the eyes, and he sighed and stood up. "We will do this over the weekend," He said.

You thought he would leave after that, but he extended his hand toward you. You went stiff like a statue, looking up at him with wide eyes, then he took out a small piece of paper from your hair and left.

He will be the death of you.

*****

Research says lonely people take hot showers to replicate the warmth of the body they miss, and to some extent, you thought it was true considering the water you just took shower from fogged up the whole bathroom.

You went on with your usual routine, trying not to think about the day at school or that there is a mirror behind. The temptation to look was real, but you were not giving in. Not today.

You put on a tank top and loose shorts forgoing bra cause it was hot as Satan's ass and you just took a hot shower on top of that.

You walked outside calmly, taking your hair out of the towel. Just as you look up after removing the towel from your head, you see a figure sitting near your window and almost scream before they shush you.

They stood up and walked towards you, the moonlight hit his face and you saw Harry smirking cockily.

"What the fuck? What is this some kind of new prank you and Asher are pulling on me now?" You whisper yell at him cause it was late and quiet, and you didn't want to wake up your mum.

"Asher doesn't know I'm here." He shrugs and stands a step away from you. The moonlight was hitting his back, making his face glow in soft light, his hard features looking soft and playful. The green in his eyes was yet so visible in your darkened room that it knocked out all the breath in you.

Asher's annoying little sister

You took a small step back, keeping your guards up. "Then why are you here?" You turned around towards the shelf, holding all your creams and stuff. You took out body moisturizer and started putting it all over your hands, waiting for him to reply.

"We have project together," He said, making you laugh.

"And you think" You looked at the clock, "11 in the night is the right time to do it?" You turned around and raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"No, I just wanted to remind you," He said, moving closer. You took a step back, looking up at him in the eyes, your heart beating out of your chest, "You ignored me whole day." He spoke again with his eyes flicking between your then staying at your left one.

"Yeah well who cares?" you whispered, annoyed by his hot and cold behavior, "I'm just Asher's annoying little sister." You threw his own words back at him. For a second, he looked taken back, but it was gone in a moment and was replaced with a glint, like he was enjoying all of this.

He took a step towards you again, and you took a step back. Your back met the wal, and you breathed out a shaky breath. He was so close to you, the closest he has ever been. His chest was almost touching yours. You could feel his breath on your face and smell the same cologne that haunts you.

Harry brought his hand up to cup the left side of your face, and you melted in it like an ice. The warmth of his hand and the way it was almost swallowing your whole face made you whimper.

"You're annoying" He whispered, "Very fucking annoying" He dipped his head down so it was same level as you, "So fucking annoying you won't leave my head" He exhaled shakily like you.

You were looking him straight in the eye. The shock was drowned by the look of hunger in his eyes and the way your thighs were sticking together from your arousal.

You dared to remove your eyes from his face and look down on his lips. You looked back up quickly, feeling embarrassed, but you didn't have time to think cause soon his lips were on yours and you were trying to breathe properly.

His lips were soft, what started as a frantic mess of lips turned into soft, slow dance of tongues. His grip tightened on your jaw as the time went by while yours gripped his shoulders in need.

He pulled back, resting his head on your. Both of you were out of breath, panting with eyes closed. Harry opened his eyes first looking at you, and as soon as you opened your eyes too, his was picking you up and walking towards your bed. He sat at the edge of bed, and you, in his lap, you could feel the hardness near your thigh, which made you more needy than before.

You pushed your every thought and insecurities deep in and did what your heart (pussy) said.

His lips met yours again, much needier than before. You didn't even realize you were grinding on him before he let out a groan. You stopped for a second, realizing what you had done, so you did it again. The hard fabric of his jeans felt amazing over your covered clit.

Both of you were sweating and panting but not daring to break the kiss. Your head started feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen and the shivers running up from the core.

His lips went south to my neck, and I titled it sideways to give him more excess. His hands were now on my hips, guiding me as I rolled them.

He stops abruptly and pulls back, looking at me with swollen parted lips wet with saliva. You could see his pupils blown black even in dark, and it made you shiver in excitement.

You looked down at him with the same expression, your bottom lip caught under your teeth in anticipation. There, he was sitting in your room on your bed with you on his lap, making out. You were making out with your childhood crush! It felt like a fever dream.

"Fuck" He curses, his hand sliding up from your hips to straps of your top. You freezed at that. Although the thought was very arousing, it was scary. You haven't been with anyone ever. Hell, you even had your first kiss with Harry when you kissed him out of nowhere the other day.

Harry caught onto your inner turmoil, and his face softened a bit. You tried to relax your muscles so you won't feel so exposed in front of him but you couldn't do anything.

"Hey, you alright?" He asked, his voice not going anywhere above a soft whisper. You gave him a nod, your fingers playing with his t-shirt's neck.

"Can we leave the top on?" You asked shyly. Here you were sitting in front of the coolest boy in the whole school feeling shy to take off your clothes. Maybe that was why you never told him he was your first everything but somehwere he knew.

He smiled and pulled you closer, "Jesus christ I thought I did something wrong" He shook his head and pecked your dip of throat, "Ofcourse we can" he said and went back to kissing your neck and collarbones. He didn't leave any marks knowing you had school and then your brother, but he couldn't stop himself from sucking particularly hard at the spot on the curve of your neck when you rolled your hips again.

He pulled back his lips after some time and feathered a few in front of your throat while you kept rolling your hips. He was going crazy and the clothing between was driving him mad. He gripped your hips to stop you, which made yoh whine, and he almost came in his pants.

"Get up for a sec, Autty." He panted out, seeming to never be able to catch his breath.

You scarmbled back with confused and scared expression, "Omg, did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry, Har I-" He cut you off by pulling you against his lips again.

"You talk a lot" He rolled his eyes with a small smile on his face. Harry, while keeping his eyes on you scooted and pulled down his sweatpants. Your eyes nearly bulged out of your sockets when you saw his toned thighs with a tiger tattooed on it. You knew he had tattoos after seeing him in tanktops and shirtless if you were lucky.

Now he was here on your bed only left in his boxers with a very noticeable buldge. Life is wild.

You licked your lips and looked up at Harry through your lashes. He had a cocky smirk on his face, obviously feeling flattered by your staring.

"C'mere" He motioned with his fingers, you took shy steps forward not really knowing what he had in mind but you couldn't complain about it. When you were close enough he hooked his fingers around the waistband of your shorts.

"Can I?" He asked. You bit down on your lips as your eyes flicked between his thighs and then towards yours. The room was dark, so there was no way he would be able to see you properly unless he fixates on it.

You gave him a nod and a breathy 'yes'. He pulled your shorts down along with your granny panties softly and threw them somewhere in the room. His fingers running up your leg caused goosebumps to arise, and you shuddered.

He pulled you down, so you were straddling him again, but then he shifted, so you were straddling only one of his thighs.

"Go on baby, move those hips, take what you want," he said near your ear. You moaned, hearing his crude words, his teeth biting your ear lope, then small nips down the side of your neck. You started rolling your hips again. The lack of clothing made the sensation ten times better.

"Fuck you're so wet" Harry graoned at the feeling of your slick wet centre against his thigh. His hand went from your arm to your lower back, pulling you more towards him. You kept rolling your hips the pressure against your clit feeling euphoric.

Your head fell on his collarbone, panting against his chest while he kept his lips on your neck or anywhere he could. You opened your eyes and saw the uncomfortable bludge in his pants. The snug boxers did nothing to hide the small wet mark that was growing.

You chewed on your lips, thinking if you should go for it or not. You didn't know what to do and how to do anything, but you had watched porn and read smut. It had to help somehow. How much bad it can be?

You pulled back a bit and looked at Harry. Sitting on his thigh made both of you at the same level. You kept your eyes on his when you slid your right hand from his shoulder downwards. Harry's eyes widened when he realized what you were doing, but he didn't stop you, so you kept going.

You felt unsure, and surely your inexperienced touch was showing that. You felt his abdomen twitch a bit on your touch. You always wanted to feel his abs all the workout and basketball practice he does shows on his body. You cupped your hand against his clothed cock and applied good pressure with heel of your palm.

Harry bit down on his lower lip to mute down the moan, leaving his lips. Your brother was just next door, and neither of you want to take any risk. You kept your hand there applying pressure from time to time.

"Fuck-" He breaths out, his hand holding your wrist and removing it from his crotch. You look at him confused until he picks you up with your thighs a bit and says, "Slide it down a bit, babe."

Your hands are immediately on his waist. You still feeling unsure pulled his pants down. His length bobbed up and slapped on his lower tummy. When the pants were down to his knees, he groaned and put you back down on his thigh harshly, causing you to whimper.

He brings back his lips to yours, and you start rolling your hips again. The warmth in your core increased as the time went by, and so did your breathy moans and whimpers. Harry took this opportunity and slid his tongue inside, tasting every corner of your mouth.

You in the moment of bravery took his cock in your hand and start moving up and down and now it was his turn to moan. You were still very scared of hurting him, so you kept your touch light, but apparently, it wasn't enough.

Harry pulled back and looked down to where you were getting off on his thigh, covering it in your arousal and then to where your hand was moving up and down on his dick. "Stop torturing me, babe," He whines, throwing his head back.

You look at him confused, not knowing what he was talking about. Were you taking too long to get off? were you not doing it properly? Did he not want it now? Before you could question yourself more, he looked back at you and put his hand around yours on his length, applying more pressure.

The moan he let out was the most pornographic one you have heard. Scared someone will hear him your hand flew to his mouth covering it but that only made him moan louder.

"Har, you're going to get us caught," you whisper yelled, your own orgasm was approaching quickly, and the way Harry was twitching in your hand indicated that maybe he was close too.

"Shit- Sorry" He said against your hand. You removed his when he calmed a bit. His eyes were heavy and droopy, and so were yours, you were sure.

"Go on baby, cum for me," Harry said against your ear sensually. He started leaving kisses down your neck again, moaning against them as his own orgasm overcame him. One more roll of your hip and warmth spread all throughout your body. Harry kissed your lips to swallow all your noises.

Your hand went limp on his length, but he didn't care. When he pulled back a bit and saw you still rolling your hips to prolonging your orgasm while your eyes were closed your head tilted all the way back and a warm glow on your face he came all over his tshirt without any assistance.

Harry's release covered your whole hand and ruined his shirt while you covered his thigh with yours. Your head fell on his chest while Harry fell back on your bed. Both of you didn't have the energy to do anything.

After some time, Harry looked down at you, hoping you didn't fall asleep on his chest covered in mess. You looked up with big tired eyes shining in moonlight.

"C'mon, let's get cleaned up," He said. You sat up and he tired on to think too much about how you were almost straddling his cock and how slick your core felt or how your tits were almost slipping out of your thin strapped top but it was too late. You gasped when you felt him harden against your inner thigh.

His face was flushed with embarrassment when you realized yours went too. You carefully got off from above him. Your legs were feeling wobbly, so you held the end of the bed frame to balance.

"God you will be the death of me" He groaned and you looked at him confused until you looked down and saw him half hard again and then you saw yourself and how he could fully see your boobs from the top.

You giggled feeling sudden confidence from having so much power over him by just being there. You always thought of your body negatively and treated it negatively but now seeing him like this gave you sense of confidence and power.

"Want to take a shower?" You suggested, and Harry didn't need to be told twice as he picked you up and led to the bathroom.

*****

Next part is also smut no need to thank me🫣

Taglist- @tenaciousperfectionunknown @that-daydream-look @harryspirate @tiaamberxx

Please Like, Comment and Reblog!

You can talk to me here♡ I love it when you guys talk to me about it. Requests are unfortunately closed :(

[pistatsia]

I also wasn’t a fan of ness backstory but would love to hear your personal opinions on why you didn’t like it as much?

I HAVE SO FUCKING MUCH TO SAY-

T/w for excessive amount of hate and oversharing lmao

Well, in the beginning I'd like to say that I grown up in some shitty circumstances which resulted in me having some, uhhh, Ness-classical problems so I may be biased here 😭 Rather not "may" but "will". How can I continue to relate to him when he's like that. Like that's not a representation I wanted. Where's emotional deprivation? Where's emotional abuse? Where's his unsuccessful attempts to get his parents and siblings love because no, lol, no 7 yo child will just accept that he's outcast and be ok with that. He should have tried to adjust to them, he should have tried to reach them, satisfy, do at least something for them to care about him BECAUSE THAT'S HOW CHILD PSYCHE WORKS. And where else would he get this people pleasing towards Kaiser if not from the family? Kids need love for survival, it's not optional. It's a need. They can't just say "oh yes my parents and siblings are stupid I'm going to be alone from now on!".

Okay, now in the order.

First of all, we get the scene of Ness mother saying him he should cure his finger himself, even comforting him while saying that with her "chance of you dying from it is incredibly low". Bad words, bad phrasing, bad everything, it's like to say "dentist just gonna use this drill to take your rotting teeth off" to a kid but still - it's not direct scolding or hate. It's bad, but care. And like, yes?? It was quite a normal parental behavior, even if not really sensitive? You can't be near your kid all the time, they should know how to help themselves because one day you WON'T be there for them. It's a normal way of raising a kid if you don't want for him to grow up weak-willed and helpless. Bad way to approach that, but still. She even mentions that he shouldn't bother her with every LITTLE cut - she'd care for him instantly with something serious. Since we get this flashback from Ness from his following age, we can conclude that he still cherishes that memory as something which hurt him deeply and which was incredibly cruel from his mother to say, forming his personality. And that's… At least strange.

I mean, I also have a story when I cut my finger really deep as a 5 yo and my dad said smth like "go and spit on it and don't bother me" but I won't say it was turning point in our relationship lol But it was valuable in addition to all of other fucked up shit. Otherwise I wouldn't have remembered it at all.

I'm not saying that my experience is the only relevant but child's psyche, especially with some predisposing towards anxiety and personality disorders, has basically the same algorithms. Because till the transitional age child is like a clay, not having it's own form yet. He just adjusts to his family and surroundings.

Memories like that are the ones which CAN be turning points but ONLY in addition to other. They can't be, like. Definition of how your relationship were. It's one small insignificant episode.

Reaching the next scene - Ness reading his book and asking his brother and sister AGAIN about some magical something. Do I need to say that any kid would be irritated if their younger sibling will go and whine around about something you don't like, and again again and again when you have not once said that "that's nonsense I don't like"? It's a normal reaction for kids. They're not grown adults to control their each and every action understanding Ness fragile psychology.

Also, I mean- he got that fantasy book from somewhere, right? He is little kid ~6 or 7 yo, I believe there's few ways for kid to get one. Even if it was gifted by his grandparents or family's friends, or taken from the school library, it's not that his parents have teared the pages from this book. He reads it quite calmly, not hiding - and even demonstrates it to his siblings. His parents allowed him to read such books. No one was REALLY against him reading about something he liked. Not understanding, yes, being bad emotionally repressed family, yes, offending him in some way, probably not really caring, but… It's not that bad as Ness tries to show, at least from the side of his mother and siblings.

Secondly - snowman 💀. Lol, Ness, sorry but have you heard about Rin + Sae drama? About Barou and his little sisters because of which he probably has this obsessive compulsive thing with cleanliness? I love my little brother deeply, but for god's sake he was awful as a kid, the type that will put the hand in the fire and in socket just because I said "you can't do it it's dangerous". Even if we really got along despite the different attitude towards us from our parents, we still fought, and screamed, and got scandals over the laptop. It's a normal part of growing up with siblings.

Not just normal, but obligatory.

And… Ness' brother and sister actually tried to get along with him till some point, even if in their own way. They tried to make him fit into their world because somehow, but they loved him, and wanted him to be more or less happy and near them. They couldn't understand his passion for magic, they couldn't realize - but they had their parents as example, and they knew that while two of them fit into their parents world, Ness doesn't. And thus both magic book scenes and snowman one were a normal reaction from young kids - Ness irritated them, being too loud, and speaking some nonsense because of which they couldn't play and research together, all three of them. That wouldn't be a normal reaction from grown ups, but once again - they're kids. Siblings. Destined to ruin each other's things lol

Thirdly - no one with dirty hands should enter the house, go and wash them. ????? How is that even??? Maybe they'll also ask him to take his shoes off in the wardrobe? The cruelty of parents.

His mother even explains him why he should wash the hands before coming in. Like- I don't want to dig into psychology of two-frames character, but she looks incredibly emotionless and deathly tired. She has three kids and work at home for god's sake. And she STILL finds time to explain Ness how sounds and snow works, probably trying to comfort him somehow. She loves him, just as she loves her other kids - she tries to comfort him in her own way.

Should she have had three children if she didn't feel the need to take care of their every issue, including emotional? No. Does she cut down her children and husband when they offend Ness? Also no. Is it possible to understand her? Absolutely yes.

Through his dad indeed is a jerk lol but I feel that he's not really present in the family? It's usually her and Ness and his siblings. Imagine having a full ass house, in which she works full-time, three 5-9 yo one of whom is constantly injuring himself, and with two others probably fucking up their experiments and her work as well without her husband around. Like…

And the fact that Ness doesn't analyze anything at all, placing himself in a victim position not trying to understand that world doesn't revolve around him and other people don't understand him by default and act the way they think is right and good for him, is, uhhh. Note that "understand" doesn't mean "forgive". It's just about a critical view to the world.

Aaand regarding the kainess flashbacks… I can't say anything because it was just bland and stupid.

Overall I got a feeling that this was just lazy writing with cute kids fanservice so we'd be more invested in the last game with PXG. I mean, those scenes with milk, shower and oversleeping? I can imagine there any other pairing in blue lock - nagireo, bachisagi, kunigiri, etc etc etc. There's nothing special, nothing unique for us to actual feel something towards kainess. It's just a template into which familiar faces have been substituted - and totally OOC.

No toxic dynamic, especially the codependent one kainess have, works like THAT at the start. Even at the sugary period when one non-self-aware manipulator instinctively tries to bend other to himself being nice and everything. Ness behavior towards Kaiser also makes no sense - those things are ALWAYS growing from experience. From the need to please your parents, to try to track your every word, walking on a thin ice.

But Ness never shown such things in his flashbacks, never taking back from telling each and everyone about magic and him being a football player. Then where did this attitude got from? Just from loneliness? It still doesn't work like that THIS HIGH like to the level of enduring physical pain and alcohol in the face.

I low-key hope that Ness is unreliable narrator, so we actually DO NOT see the way his real relationship with Kaiser were at this time. We see only memories and impressions, and his memory saving only good from them - thus it may (PLEASE) happen that from Kaiser's POV it will be totally different.

The last thing about kainess I SOMEHOW liked (because I'm sure it wasn't intentional writing from Kaneshiro) is the way Ness reacts to Kaiser choking. Because he pays no reaction to it - and no real friend/lover would react like that for the sight of your dear person suffering. He doesn't care about Kaiser as of Kaiser - the thing I suspected from the beginning but didn't really liked because that's so predictable and dull. He doesn't even know about Kaiser's habit of choking himself. He doesn't really worry about Kaiser - he worries only about his idol, which he doesn't see a human behind. This was a fun thing to think about prior to this chapter because of the potential of angst from Kaiser's side who'd feel how this "love" is synthetic to the core, but I'm not sure I'd love to see this in the manga. But at least this would be yes, realistic, logical and painful, especially in that "Yoichi's magic" and naked king theme.

The only thing I really 100% liked without any whining from my side was that "undescribable feelings/undescribable sadness" frame because lmao 🤝🤝🤝 At least here you get it Ness. This frame is engraved in my memory.

At this point I feel that I dislike backstory not because it was necessary bad or stupid, but because I hate the thought of Ness turning out being so… Flat. So ridiculously touchy, so stubborn for no reason like a ram since a very childhood, so lacking critical thinking skills. So limited, so self-centered (which is visible even in that Kaiser choking himself scene).

Such a completely uninteresting character, predictable and causing only indifference towards himself.

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @a-canceled-stamp

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Uhhhh... 99, I think. AO3 shows 100, but one is a translated work.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Minus the translated work, 570,446

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Batman, primarily. I also have just a couple Marvel fics, because Endgame made me mad.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Emergency Contact

The Return

If the Sky Comes Falling Down (For You)

A Child of the Manor

Nature and Nurture

That is a wild list with a wild order, to me.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to respond to every comment, religiously. Less so now because it feels spammy to just paste variations on "Thanks!" But if there's a specific piece of a comment I think I can reply to, I try to. And I do read them all.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

lol. Um. Maybe The morning and what came after?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think most of my fics end happily, so I throw this question back to those reading. What's my happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not as bad as a lot of people, but yeah. I also maintain my boundaries pretty aggressively, so it doesn't stay for long.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nah. I've only written one non-Gen fic, and all they do is kiss once.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Only once. They don't interest me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once. If it has happened again, I don't know about it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah! Super cool. Here it is.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I would love to collab sometime :3

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

In fic? I don't really read for ships, if I'm honest. @audreycritter's Jimmy and Talia is the only exception I can think of.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Ghost. Poor, poor Ghost.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmm. From my point of view, I'm good at:

Putting words in the right order. This sounds like a cop-out, but truly. The same words in a slightly different order can change the entire implication of a phrase. It can also wildly disrupt the rhythm of a sentence or paragraph. I think I'm at least cognizant of those two things and do my best to put the right words in the right order.

Realism. Or as realistic as fictional superheroes doing things can be? Maybe practical is a better word. Or sensible. I want my fics and the things people do in them to make sense.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plots. I don't want to write a book, I want to write a fic. I'm here for the emotions and the dynamics.

Logistics. Because of how much I like realism, that means I have also have to deal in logistics, but I am horribly bad at picturing anything spatial. And there are so many DANG PEOPLE in this family that I've chosen to write. It's a struggle.

Keeping it brief. I like words. My sentences are so friggin complex.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't know what this question means.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

BatFam. :) My first fic on AO3 was my first fic.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

I have different favorites for different reasons. If I had to close my eyes and point, right now I'd say White Lighters/Afterglow.

I'll give a no-pressure tag to @frownyalfred @audreycritter @imbecamiel

[batsplat]

can’t ask via side blog so this is matchvedev 🫡 you mentioned catalunya in that reblog of vale celebrating his 100 wins… 👀 what’s the story behind that and are there any other fun anecdotes that come to your mind looking at that poster? only if you wanna talk about it ofc but super lowkey, just anything you might wanna talk about

(x) oh yeah sure! I'm gonna leave the other bits of the poster for another time because this post is already long enough and tbh I need to find a version where I can make out a little more of the poster. but I will at some point!!

so, assen 2009 was the race directly after catalunya - a race that valentino also of course just happened to win. it's actually super convenient that these were consecutive wins, because can you imagine if they'd had to lug that massive poster everywhere they went until valentino finally got his 100th? anyway, catalunya was very much the turning point of the 2009 season. going into that race, valentino was in a little bit of trouble... actually, y'know what I do have a post about this race already so I'm just gonna plagiarise from that:

so, long story short, obviously that race was a banger. if anyone reading this hasn't watched it, please go and do that. valentino won it with a final corner overtake on jorge at a bit of the track you're not supposed to be able to overtake at. every time this race comes up, I'm legally obligated to remind people jorge was going around telling pundits that as long as you're ahead going into the final two corners of the last lap, you're safe. which, obviously don't do that! casey did take a break from almost fainting so that he could rag on jorge for not preventing the overtake - not least since valentino had employed that overtake on casey two years earlier, which jorge was also aware of and was later kicking himself over (here, here and here, but don't click on that first link right now). so there's plenty of fun lore with that overtake... anyway, valentino goes full ham with his celebrations. he's now tied in the championship standings with casey and jorge. more importantly, he's shown that he's still got it AND he's beaten his annoying young teammate at home. he breaks out of parc fermé to accept the adulation of jorge's home fans and also interrupts jorge's interview to shake his opponent's hand... just in case jorge is less than generous after his brutal defeat, this interaction will be nicely caught on cameras and mics

there's one more thing he does in his celebrations - but we're going to need a bit more context here. let's go back a few years, to the early noughties. (I promise this is relevant.) now, fun story, did you know that casey was talent-spotted by dani's long-time manager alberto puig and that's where he knew dani from? (stick with me here.) also, did you know that this is actually the reason why dani and casey run consecutive numbers, 26 and 27 respectively? from casey's autobiography:

I'd wanted to use the number 66 when I raced, but another rider had taken it. Number 66, or 166 if there had to be three digits, had always been my number in dirt-track because Dad had used number 6. I had run 66 in the Aprilia Superteens but it had been taken in the British Championships so I'd used 48, which is what I was given. For the Spanish series Alberto had block-booked all the twenties for his riders and I was given the number 27. It was the number I would keep from then on.

and here's another bit later on:

Unfortunately my favourite number, 66, was again already taken, this time by the German rider Alex Hofmann, so we decided to stick with my number from the Spanish Championship, 27. That same year in the 125cc class Joan Olivé would be running number 25 and Dani Pedrosa number 26, so having the number 27 on the front of my bike was a subtle but nice way to maintain my association with Alberto and his team of riders and show my respect for him.

something nice about how those two numbers always remained linked, isn't there! now, back to jorge: for most of his career, he'd been running the number 48 (yes, coincidentally, the number casey had used in the british championships), in honour of his manager dani amatriain who he met when he was ten years old. more on their relationship here, but the most relevant bit is this:

so, until the start of the 2009 season, he'd had the number 48 on his bike (minus the one year where he ran the number one plate). he then had this massive and pretty traumatic falling out with his manager, and he went so far as to change his number to distance himself from the man:

which, good - it was obviously meaningful to him. he later chose to use the number one plate after his first premier class title but stuck to the 99 for the following two... in the end, he really made that number his own

except, one more thing. why 99? so apparently, he ran a fan poll at the end of 2008, and he chose the number that won. here, from an article after the 2015 season:

unfortunately, this doesn't give you a lot of detail about the fan poll... but if you get creative with the wayback machine, you can find an article from the motogp website from 2008 that gives you a little more to work with:

so he didn't really use a fan poll, he got the fans to just... slightly narrow down his preexisting choices. which is important context! fan poll this or that, he did basically choose the number himself

now, regrettably the next bit basically just urban legend. I have found no good source confirming this, it's just something you see on forum posts, it might just be conjecture. but... well, let's just take a second to consider who his three major rivals were at this point: dani, casey and valentino. and if we do some basic arithmetic...

26 + 27 + 46 = 99

look. I have zero evidence that this was actually the reasoning behind jorge's choice. but you have to admit it's one hell of a coincidence, and quite a funny one at that. there's something kind of charming about the idea that all four of those numbers ended up being connected in some way, first through the dani and casey thing and then by jorge linking all four of them together... and of course, it'd also be hilarious if this is how jorge approached choosing his number. 'actually, I'm all three of my rivals combined' - sorry, but I buy young jorge doing this. apart from anything else, that is a man who was canonically obsessed with his rivals, especially vale and dani. is this a dig at them or a tribute? both? neither? what's going on here? who's to say

maybe this isn't actually the explanation! either way, in 2009 jorge rocked up with his new number, having distanced himself from his manager and determined to be his own man now. he might have pretended like he didn't have big title ambitions for that season, but obviously he wanted this to be his year. at latest by the time he got to catalunya, he believed he could win this title and really wanted to beat valentino... he would have loved nothing more than to beat his teammate in a close and dramatic duel at home. except valentino gets the better of him, in pretty much the cruellest way imaginable

remember how we've established that assen was valentino's 100th victory? well, in an extremely annoying coincidence, catalunya of course just had to be valentino's 99th victory. because of course it was. and of course, because it's valentino, he does actually remember this while he's celebrating

funnily enough, the dorna commentators have no clue why he's doing this and are a little confused by valentino pointing at the 99 on jorge's bike. but I got it, valentino, don't worry! which is just... wonderfully irritating, isn't it. during his extremely extensive celebrations where he's really rubbing it in, taking control of the season and all that... he's also remembered exactly what number of wins he was on and decided to be an arsehole about it. think about all the things that had to play out the right way for this celebration to hit the way it did. even if you don't believe jorge's number was directly inspired by [valentino plus his other rivals], it was still a number he'd only gotten THAT year, just in time for this duel. of all the wins that could've given him 99, it had to be one of the very finest of valentino's career. it's just. so annoying

which brings us to assen 2009, victory number 100. they had two weeks to complete their lovely poster and choose the photo they'd take for victory number 99. of course, there's really only one way you can go here:

now, some scholars may recognise this photo as the 'knee retraction shot', where they got very close to making contact. this is headed down the main straight on the penultimate lap, where jorge has overtaken valentino on the straight but valentino has taken the outside line to out-brake jorge in order to reovertake him... and he's so close he actually has to briefly retract his knee to get past (see here for a little more detail). on the final lap, jorge does flirt with running valentino off the track to prevent this, so he did learn his lesson! still, it's the perfect shot: you've got the two numbers clearly displayed and they couldn't be closer together (actually *checks motegi 2010 notes* I suppose you can get them a little tighter still). yes, it's the obvious choice for the 99th victory photo - but again, incredibly annoying behaviour from valentino

one more fun thing: there was actually a second dramatic duel between jorge and valentino in 2009 that unfortunately has gotten forgotten about a little bit. this one was at the sachsenring, and again valentino emerged on top... another decisive blow against his young teammate's morale in a title fight he was increasingly in control of. let's just quickly check in on the painfully slim winning margin

now, I have zero proof for this, but in my heart I truly 100% believe that valentino both noticed and appreciated the coincidence. this whole thing is just very him, isn't it? jorge changes his number for deeply personal reasons, goes through some extensive introspection and an overly convoluted public process to choose his new number which may or may not have been directly inspired by his closest rivals... and then valentino (with an assist from the whole bloody universe, apparently) spent the next half year making this into another new fun part of valentino's story. it's valentino's super special 99th career win! it's part of the 100 career wins poster now! what a lovely coincidence, isn't valentino lucky! doesn't everything just somehow work out perfectly for him! wouldn't he fucking infuriate you! god

[bluebird-in-a-cagedrawing]

Hi! It's time for another fanfiction... And if you love crimes/solving crimes and a little hard detective Work this is the perfect one.🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♀️

...

Also, to see how Helen Hope B and mister detective Void meet for the first time click on this fanfiction as well:

This is set 6 months before detective Void got his mask, so he is an ordinary detective here.

...

Warning:If you hate/dislike snakes you better not read this!

This is actually the third part, the second i didn't wrote it yet 😅

I plan to make at least 10 fanfictions, they are not conan to the real detective Void lore, but for me they are because itis set in the same Universe...

The fourth part name is: The other side of the mirror

This fiction is set a month and 4 days later after the actually lore.

P. S:This fanfiction took the life out of me, lmao 🤣🤣🤣😅 Thank you for your support, you are the best sweet slice of cake!

Hope you like it!

...

Title number: A box full of snakes-619

Fanfiction class:Euclid

Summary: 🐍🐍🐍👀Helen Hope B finds herself in a very strange case with none other than our favorite detective Void... 👀🐍🐍🐍

...

Disclaimer:I don't own detective Void, he is not my original character!! Find this cute original character on Youtube!!

...

The event was better than he hoped it It was the 15th anniversary of the company, a world-famous company, every guest had a good time, he was an old man at 62 years old with lots of responsibilities, one if his important guest madame Rossiya with her fiance mr Berliini, she was a lovely lady of about 47 years and he was the new director of a major Austrian bank just invited him at their table, they wanted to make a generous donation for the greenhouse where the exotic plants were keept, she was impressed by their colors and beauty, something worth conserve for the future.

Mr Greenmark also had been looking for him for sometime by now, the new reporters arrived and they wanted an exclusive report,it Was the moment everybody celebrate with a bath of confetti but in the moment the ceiling opened a male body not older than 49 years dropped, the wires nearly behead it...lt was a scene noone was gonna forget about too soon.

...

Three days later after the incident Mr Williard decided to open the tourist resort, 514 guests were invited all over the world, they have just received an operating permit from the emergency authorities, so all he had left to do Was to check the food, the lights if they were in the right position and of course the great speech which he wrote and rewritte all over again.

"Why so nervous old friend?"

Mr Greenmark was the second after Mr Williard in the great business, they have known each other since they were in their 30th.

Later that day the guests arrived, everyone were so excited, the good music, the lights, the atmosphere, some of them decided they will return again, the other already made up their mind to spend their honeymoon there, everything went well then it was time for the great speach however Mr Williard couldn't find his business partner Mr Greenmark anywhere and he made a gesture toward some staff to make a little search while he made his way to the microphone.

"Welcome to the Hazel willow tourist resort and also one of the largest laboratory where the anti-venom is prepared, we have a large range of anti-venom from at least 1471 species... The laboratory name is Lady-in-white such a beauty, and i am your host Mr Williard W. Monarch, my grandfather was a butterfly specialist, did his research on them all his life, clearly i choose something more dangerous. Enjoy your stay! I am ready to answer all your questions!"

"Sir, mister Greenmark is dead, sir in the west wing of the greenhouse...It's too horrible!"

Everybody turned their heads at the maiden that just come in while some of them gasped or returned a shocked gaze upon mr Williard, some of them even started to gossh, it was something neither of them would forget too soon.

"Poor fellow, being buried in a pile of venomous snakes... Now that is what we call a venomous karma death... All the bad blood between in and out you see...Well, till the police arrives we better check out our rooms for snakes and lock ourselves in them..."

"I agree, who knows who will become the next victim, poor mr Greenmark, rest in peace!"

People talked and gave opinions, that was everything you could heard in the next three hours, it was getting late and the luxury event waan't luxurious anymore after the macabre incident, yes, that is how they put it...Mr Williard was affected the most, two murders in the same place in such a short time, the police still investigated the other one, what a bad luck.

"Is everybody ready, well i would like to say a few words, now i know some of you are concern about all those snakes bites but we guarantee we are trying our best to control the situation, no snake can enter the resort, please don't panic. Now lot's of you asked me why this is happening well my opinion is that because of the hot sunny weather, the climate change, the rainy and dryness, snakes are active pradatory if they find food much easier they build their muscular mass, they shade more often and that creates a need for reproduction, with optimal conditions.The female snake can lay 20 to 60 eggs, in the wild the eggs don't usually survive so that is one of the reason of such many eggs, some of the eggs are infertile those are named slugs... Now it's time to identify some types of snakes like the coral snake, we have the picture in the left corner as you can see, the king Cobra on the right, you can see the beautiful head, magrove snake in the middle. "

"Mr Williard, may we have a moment... Your snake presentation was fascinating but i would like to know more about those snake accident..."

"Such a shame indeed, me and my good friends put a lot of efforts in this company, to be attacked by those creatures... What on Earth is going on?Imagine being bitten by a snake and then ended up hung, who would do such a thing and why?"

"Do you have a greenhouse, sir?"

"Oh yes, is where we keep some of the most rare flower species, my mother loved them, we are trying to protect them by giving them what they need, i am afraid that the ground quality had dropped in the past years. We need to be prepared for anything as humans. "

Helen was in her light blue dress, she looked for any sign of a potential anomaly on the guests that were coming, the heels was killing her, even if it was an elegant event she wish to have brought a pair of sneakers. It was some few moments later that she felt a hand on her shoulder, turning around Hope had found an interesting familiar face, this time he Was wearing a dark light mask which made her was sad a little, Hope considered the color of detective eyes very beautiful and unique, she couldn't understand why would detective Void choose to hide it.

"And what are you doing here? With another SCPs bussiness? This place is the last place i would expected to see SCP foundation members. "

Hope was taken back a little, the detective voice was a little cold and dark, that was strange for her, it was like he was there with her but still he was not.

She didn't wanted to make a scene, yes Hope was a little hurt, but it's not like she would actually admit it, It had to be diplomatic, the diplomacy was always the key to success.

"Look, i don't know why you are acting like a jerk, but not really...Well, yes, sort off... We intercepted some strange calls from this center being attacked by snakes..."

"Is that all? Is there something more about it and you won't tell me just because it is a foundation thing to do, who is the jerk now?"

"Why are you acting like this? You know very well if some objects are involve in this, how dangerous it can get... Clearly, you mister detective can't keep away from these anomalies..."

"It's nice to see how much you care!"

"I don't like it when people are getting hurt, i am trying to change something for the better..."

"You don't make such a good job..."

"Look forward mister detective, what do you see, those people are afraid, to think this all started two months ago when first Mr Williard found a strange gift box on his desk and when he opened it, it had sheded snake skin along with an actual dead venomous snake in it. Of course you don't have to believe me you can ask him in person. "

"Well, it's the moment we all have been looking for, before we end this i want to thank you all for all of your support even in those hard dark moments, on your seat you will find a box that is a gift from our company to you, dear guests, together we made a better year. I felt honored to be here with you today."

As everybody was preparing to open their gifts, looking at the box detective Void had a feeling about that, something told him to stay away from ot and his reflections kicked in.

"Wait a second, do not open the box! Hope the boxes now! "

Hope throw her gift box as well, the others were confused and some people started to scream, they could hear some kind of hiss coming and the first thing they thought was it might be a bomb.

"Those are taipan snakes, they are native from Australia."

"You know those snakes well, maybe we can work together, can i see the Laboratory where they recolt the venom from the snakes?"

The next day even When everybody took their breakfast the tension remain thick, the police told the Witnesses to remain in the building as if one or more of them could be the culprit behind all of those acts, they woldn't have been surprised even if they found a snake in their pot of tea.

"Chef inspector Daniel Sunrise and this is my young sergeant Jaxon, we are here to investigate the strange case of the snakes, we need your statement as well as your fingerprints, in this case everybody is a suspect, we are just doing our duty if you may follow us."

"Great, just great, please mister detective Void tell me you had worked with the police in the past... Now we have them on our tail too, great so freaky great. I am so tempted to use amnestics on them after all this is over, they could put us in the jail for something we didn't do...Oh, fuckk my life double it! "

"Hope don't be so drastic the police is not the problem here, we just need to be careful not to arouse suspicions, as far as they know we are cousins and that is all."

Detective Void and Hope could see that it was more to this story so they put aside the whatever Was going on and tried to work as a team, they both were mature enough, plus Hope felt much better with a familiar face, since she wasn't used to work alone, that and too many strangers.

"If you may take a seat, this should be quick, we still have 303 suspects to check them so first question is where were you at 8:21 pm this Tuesday?"

"I was with mister Gorenje talking about the big event that night unfortunately that was postponed because of the discovery and my cousin was waiting his turn for the karaoke number, you can ask our host, Mr Williard."

"Seems fine till now, let us see some ID cards, huh interesting seems like we have a private detective here, I swear that all detectives have this nature that anywhere they go, they will find a mysterious case."

"I would like to offer my assistance in this delicate situation."

"Fine by me, just don't mess up the scene, let us handle it and if you find anything let us know after all this is an official police department business not some detective work.Come on, send the next ones on the list, you two are free to go for now!"

"Ok, i am gonna put myself together! We have to work together to end this nightmare, like i said before those people are afraid, mr Williard is one of the nice people i have meet, always making sure others get their anti-venom if their life are in danger even if they can not afford it."

"Seems like I will take this case, with 4 murders in such a short time and 3 more victims, the police sure are not enough."

"Ahem, you won't be alone mister detective Void, i will help too, i always wanted to work with a detective in secret that is... I sincerely would love to."

"Fine by me, but no SCP foundation business...Also are you saying this only to make yourself feel a little better and find courage? "

"Is not like i can call them, if it's not an anomaly they don't care speaking between you and me and to answer your second question, it is an yes, snakes scares me."

"Great... Now lets find mr Williard office, somethong tells me that he is there, did he mentioned anything about the office?"

"Mr Williard i will take the case, along side with Ms Bright here, we will try to make everything in our power to find the culprit and help the police catch them."

"First thing first this has security cameras, right? I will go and see what the cameras caught and you Hope, i have a list of question s you may address of guests and stuff around here, maybe they saw something."

Thry have been searching and asking question for about an hour and 45 minutes till they finally meet again.

"Well, what did you find out, mister detective Void? Had any luck?"

"Well, not so much, it made me think that whoever is behind this knows well this place, but i found something interesting in mr Greenmark death. You see, mr Greenmark was all alone at the moment when it happened, noone was around but somehow he stumble upon a wire, i suppose it was a bit dark maybe he did not see it and the venomous snakes falls upon him."

"That is crazy indeed, maybe we did not find anything else because the police took the rest already, anyway i also found something interesting."

"I doubt chef inspector Sunrise would leave such an important evidence behind, so what have you found?"

"First Mr Williard and Mr Grinschmoire, the man who was the second death, had an argument two days before, a maid named Sylvia heard them and told the receptionist about it. Unfortunately, Sylvia has been missing for some time, everybody thinks she is sick or that she has left after the second murder..."

"That is strange, maybe Mr Williard hides something from us, he told us there was no trouble at all... And for this maid i wonder why nobody thought she could be dead as well till now?"

"Maybe we should call off today, mister detective Void, i'm tired from all this detective work...Hope you don't mind it but with so many snakes around here i'm feeling much safer with you."

"You can stay, it's not like i can make you leave in the first place, i will read all the answers and organize notes about everything we know so far."

"Goodnight and thank you!"

Even so, the truth was that Helen forgot to take a room, she though that she didn't need it in the first place, nearly almost 3 days without sleep, she just tried to be busy as a bee just to forget about something, anyway if she knows something about men Was that they have big egos.

"Good morning, ready for a new day? I woke up with this feeling which tells me that we are gonna find the last piece of clue to end it today, can not wait. "

"I just spoke with mr Williard, we have a new clue where we can search, i added to my agenda, are you ready for a trip Hope?"

while they were going detective Void saw a white-yellow substancs powder on a top of a rock, it was the same one found in the laboratory were some snakes were held captive, it was indeed odd to find it there since those snakes were caught in the opposite direction away from the place they were.

The door to the cottage was unlocked, but it was more like someone forcing entry, Scratch marks were present on the wooden door. So entering the cottage the two of them begone to search for anything usefull that may had lead them closer to the truth.

While searching detective Void tripped over a ditch almost would have fallen too if he didn't grab the first thing he could get his hands on, slowly revealing a nice nest full of eggs.

"Those eggs are tall, big and heavy, wonder which bird lays them?"

But he did not have time to find the answer When Hope started to speak, by the sound of her voice the detective notice she Was afraid of something.

"Mister detective, there is an anaconda... A 15 feet long life anaconda...Ahh!"

Her heart skip a beat, Hope was paralyzed by fear, the sharp snake tongue hissing at her and the huge opening mouth revealing its sharp fangs was a nightmare before her, she felt like a mouse.

Mister detective Void could see only the half of the body of the giant anaconda, the anaconda was in the position to strike probably it compare Hope with a heavy meal.

Before she knew it, Hope felt on a pile of something, the anaconda head look at her from above but the window Was too small for such a large body shape.

Helen couldn't open her eyes she still Was afraid, of course dealing with anomalies Was much easier for Hope, they have the technology and there were people she could count on, plus an anaconda that long could eat you in a second and you should know better than to provoke such a large snake.

"Am i dead? Am i in a belly of an anaconda?"

She did not dared to open her eyes yet till she felt a hand on her check, the detective wanted to make sure Hope was still alive and to assure her that there were no snakes near her, he sigh as for someone who was kissing the danger almost everyday Hope sure Was more pale than usual.

"No silly, you just passed out, come on, that anaconda won't bother anyone ever again!"

Hope slowly opened her eyes, finally he thought, they could move on, still she wanted to know What was hiding behind the pile on which she had landed.

A mountain of boxes beautifully arranged they were in front of them, and the detective knew, the only question remain Who brought them there?

"Well, at least we know what happened to the gifts that were suppose to be given, are you alright?"

Hope yawned, Who would have known that the cases were so energy-consuming, she looked at detective Void, clearly something was with him but she couldn't figure it out and it's not like they spoke about it. The poor detective must have been shocked too, that snake had been something she was sure they won't forget soon.

"Just a little dizzy, probably from that snake..."

"Put your hand around my shoulder mister detective, let me carry you, we come together, we leave together...ok?Just try to relax, you are too tense."

They reached the resort, mr Williard was waiting together with Karina also there was another police car near, they have been waiting for them.

"Do you need anything, water, are you hungry? I will speak with Mr Williard myself, promise me you will stay here."

"Incredible, an anaconda this tall takes some years and if they have enough food, what happened to the eggs? We can not let such a gene pass, having more anaconda like this it will destroy the eco-sistem."

"Yes, i know, we also found the gift boxes discarded and covered with an old blanket, we didn't found much i'm afraid.

Helen was in one of the dead point, if the detective was right this was the moment they finally catch the one responsable for the unfortunately incidents. It wasn't long before a shadow appear, it was fast, Hope had begun the chase...for her it Was now or never.

She had both of her guns with her, the suspect would have no escape from her, she was determined When she heard a bottle break, and initially thought it was detective Void.

"Well, what do we have here, i will take that... Do you recognize this remainder of broken shard, miss? I will only ask you once, judging by your face, I know you do so let's hear it! "

"I recognize it because i was in the kitchen before, but only because my detective cousin haven't a proper meal and i was worried for him! I told the Head chef if he could make some dumplings for detective Void, it was there when i saw the package with sealed champagne bottles to be given to Mr Williard guests in that evening. "

"How convenient that you just see these bottles, the same bottle with which my sergeant was hit in the head. What i am saying is that you both are liars, do you even know your so called detective cousin name, miss?"

"My name is Simon Angelo Smith, and my cousin Helen Hope Bright doesn't use my name when i do the whole detective work, please stop with this, you are on the wrong track here if you think she has anything to do with this attack!"

"That would make a cute story for children but i'm afraid the facts prove otherwise, hands behind your back miss, you are arrested!"

"Let her go, you have more important things like your sergeant laying bleeding on the floor."

"Hands up you, in the corner right now!I am the one who gives the order here, back in the corner."

"This situation is geting out of control, mister detective..."

They watched for more few seconds, there was when Hope used the B class amnestics on the inspector and his Sergeant, after they left the sergeant on the Infirmary, they put the inspector on a chair somewhere else for when he was going to wake up and left him there.

"There is nothing amnestics can't resolve, now the 24 hours are gone. So glad i have them with me."

Hope and detective Void decided to tell everything they know to Mr Williard, the poor old man was waiting for news like hot bread, the mam understood them and give them the keys.

As they split up again later that night Helen saw something moving, it was big and looked heavy, plus some pleople in uniform but trying to get closer another trap net full of snakes falls on her, lucky Hope knew exactly about it but the sound it made caught unwanted attention which forced her to flee from there.

"Mister detective Void, i saw something... Ah...Ugh, also i think one of the snakes bite me, i can not feel my leg anymore..."

The detective caught her, leaving Hope gently to the ground, then he took the out station he had at hand while trying to make sure the venom wouldn't spread any faster, mister Williard and a team of medics soon arrived after, Hope attempted to make some jokes, she didn't wanted to put more salt on the wound.

"Obviously for someone who got bitten by a venomous snake you are pretty chilling and vibing... Glad to see you are not the type who would scream their lungs out!" One of the paramedics said as a joke, it was nice to see someone agreeing with her, slowly turning her head in detective Void direction.

"See mister detective Void, i told you i am a tough cookie, not made of sugar...And why should i scream when i know everything will be fine, after all i have the best detective i could ever ask for right next to me and a dedicated rescue team!"

After a while only detective Void and mr Williard remain, the detective carefully planned the next move, he was very focus looking straight at the door, maybe it was time to put an end to this whole saga.

Mister Williard looked at the detective, him and the girl risked so much for the sake of his business and for the lives of the others, he had to encourage the young man somehow but didn't know how.

"It's lovely to see how much faith she has in you, as a young couple I assume...Don't worry we will keep an eye close to her, Hope is in good hand, now you can go and finish what you want to do."

Those words took him back, he slowly took two steps back, couldn't believe what he was hearing... Sure, he and Hope Were a little closer after all they have been through but a couple, the answer was simple: no.

"Am I that obvious?"

"It's just an old man thought, i used to be very protective of my sweetheart as well when i was young.When we, men, find the right person for us we don't know where is left and where is right anymore!"

"Alright, i am going to work on some paper, you know hospital related, don't move around too much, let the anti-venom do it's job and drink lots of liquid..." The nurse slowly put her hand on Hope left shoulder, encouraging Hope, while she left, Helen moved her head to the window, knowing the detective she couldn't stop being worried at what he might do all alone with the" vipers".

"Please be careful mister detective Void, don't get hurt!"

Detective Void enters the room, somehow he knows exactly what to expect, he didn't know how, he just did, the room colors gave him a headache and the smell of perfume, it wasn't like an ordinary criminal case where the walls were old and smelly with some visible mold.

"l must say i have found our marriage boring at one point, he was always looking at young women, do you know how boring that was? Even when it was our anniversary he couldn't take off his eyes of some maid ass or chest, made me sick...Tell me detective what would have been the point if we got divorced? why shouldn't i have all his money and even have more money from those sales? Elegance lies in snakeskin, shoes, coats, hats, purses, Wallets, i could have rule the world, me a woman, a fresh widow which doesn't give a penny for that weak pig cheater!"

"You bribe your husband and Mr Williard economic agent to do your dirty work just so you could eliminate him later. After you got what you wanted you left those papers in one of Mr Williard books as a clue for the police to find it later, so that they would thought he is the one responsable. Two birds with one stones!"

"Exactly detective and if you were smart enough, you would have left things just the way they are."

"Well, it turns out there's nothing more to say then..."

"Exactly. Goodbye detective!"

"What a wonderful terrifying experience we had, right mister detective? Also thank you for saving me again, i just can't keep my little tail out of trouble, don't I? So, um...would you like to meet more? It's not like you keep yourself out of the whole anomaly situations anyway..."

It's been a week since the police arrested Mrs Grinschmoire and the whole operation shut down, Hope felt better and she just finished her entire report of course without mention the detective, she knows Matei and Vivienne would not let her go that easy especially after she was bitten but Helen could live with that.

Chef inspector Sunrise and some other police fellow found the suspect in the middle of the room, her gun was five meters thrown away from Mrs Grinschmoire as she was on her knee looking like a crazy old lady, nobody could find an explanation, they also found a confesion voice recording type along side with money and a large snakeskin clothing range, soon after they found the rest of accomplices, unfortunately Sylvia was found dead.

"Speak for yourself, Hope i am busy..."

"Well, i tried, what can i say more? Just, try not to get yourself killed, alright? Hope we meet again, i can't wait for it, so much fun when you are around..."

"Before we take a different path again I feel like there is something else you want to say to me, your expression gives you away, so what is it?"

"I...Mister detective would you like to go and see... The next time we meet each other maybe we could go together and...Damn, it's much harder to say what i want to say... Look ok, since you like so much to... All those SCPs thing, maybe one day we could make a visit to this lovely place which is a SCP, it has an incredible view..."

"I have one question first:why me?"

"Because just don't ask, i don't have an aswer, i just want to show you the good part of the scps not only the bad one..."

"I will think about it and don't worry if i accept i will let you know after all i am a detective and i always have my ways."

"I would never thought the other way anyway, mister detective Void, till then take care, hope i will see you soon!"

They shook hands and then the door closed behind the detective, he had done well for now, sure never doubt himself ever again maybe after all this detective Void will find the right path to find what he has lost.

The end!

The simple drawing without text:

🙂

[the-inkwell-variable]

Writeblr Interview Tag!

Thanks so much for the tag, @sableglass!

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Novels all the way. I've tried my hand at short stories, and they always end up being novellas or straight up novels by the time I'm done with them. May as well stick with what my little brain clearly desires!

What genre do you prefer reading?

Mysteries (cozy or otherwise), horror (especially zombie fiction or apocalypse fiction, yes please), fantasy (especially cozy, I love cozy fantasy so much, have you read Legends and Lattes?), and romance.

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

I'm a little of both! I'll generally have a plan in my head at the very least, if not a brief outline written down somewhere, but when I actually sit down to write, my writing tends to veer off wherever it wants and do its own thing (for example, FUCKING CHUCK). As long as it makes sense, I tend to just let it go wherever it wants lol

What music do you listen to while writing?

Surprisingly, I don't listen to much music while writing. I'll daydream to it, absolutely, but I mostly just throw on some Markiplier or an old debate that I've heard ten thousand times and write to that. It's more about the background noise than the actual content, y'know?

But when I DO listen to music, I drift toward lofi or mood music compilations on youtube. The kind that DMs play during their DnD sessions. Love those so much, they really help keep me locked in a single mood, which I absolutely need when I'm writing a scene.

Favorite books/movies?

Oh god. Lord of the Rings (including the Hobbit don't @ me). Train to Busan (or any Korean zombie movies/shows, really). Some Disney and Pixar - Big Hero 6, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Emperor's New Groove, etc. The Strain is one of my favorite TV shows - I also love Cutthroat Kitchen above all else, a bunch of different anime, and Dance Moms (yes I know it's toxic and yes I am ashamed of myself for enjoying it. I pity the kids but I rage at the moms.)

As for books, my favorites are the Beechwood Harbor Mystery series, The Luminous Dead, Thief Liar Lady, All Systems Red, Legends and Lattes, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, anything Holly Black, Suffer the Children, Contagion, Luck in the Shadows, Assistant to the Villain, Dead of Night, and Surviving the Evacuation!

Any current WIPs?

Oh gosh. I'm bopping between From Carnival to Chamomile, a prequel to a cozy mystery series, and Dauntless, a zombie apocalypse trilogy, right now. Sometimes I'll work on Priestess Without Honor, a paranormal low-fantasy romance, and Chosen Against My Will, a dark mafia romance. I also have zer0 ALPHA, a lit-rpg isekai zombie apocalypse novel, but I haven't touched that in years and have only recently rediscovered my notes for it.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you what would your standard outfit be?

I wear the same thing every day, surprisingly. That's the autism for ya. I love jeans and a T-shirt, especially if that T-shirt has a picture from an anime or show or something like that. Printed shirts, I think they're called. Oh, and mismatched socks. That's me.

Create a character description of yourself: 

Too tall for her own good and unwanted curves for days. Bobbed dark-blue hair with steel gray eyes. Too busy writing or gaming to really notice what's going on. Expect a text back within seconds of receiving it - she reads faster than most people expect and tends to read every text twice just to give it that safety buffer. If there isn't a snack and a drink nearby, call the police.

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Hehehehe maybe. But not exactly in a good way. I'm very much the kind of person who will put someone I dislike into my book just so they can get the justice they won't get in the real world, even over something as minor as pronouncing my name wrong on purpose (I'm looking at you, Keiara).

Are you kill happy with your characters?

I want to say yes because I kill off characters constantly, but when it comes to my main OCs, no. I can't bring myself to kill them at all. I go out of my way to create characters for death (like FUCKING CHUCK) rather than put my favorites in the line of fire. I think that's a problem I need to work on.

Coffee or Tea while writing?

coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee

but I do love tea, especially in the fall. In the fall, I tend to drift toward tea and apple cider rather than coffee.

But otherwise? Coffeeeeeee

Slow or fast writer?

Fast writer when I actually sit down to write! Slow writer when I'm procrastinating. I've been working on Dauntless for...thirteen years? Twelve?

Where/who/what do you draw inspiration from?

I get inspiration from EVERYTHING. Dreams. Books. Movies. Something dumb my partner says offhandedly.

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

I absolutely want to be something cool, like a shadow mage. But I'm probably a little gremlin that hides in the edges of the woods and steals your socks. Mmmm socks.

Most fav book cliche:

Enemies to lovers! Especially when one person is smitten at firstt sight and doesn't realize it.

Least favorite cliche:

Friendship is magic. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with powerful friendships being front and center, but when the big bad is literally destroyed because fRiEnDsHiP I gag a little bit. I also hate undeserved happy endings - make the ending make sense. If it's a sad or horror book, sometimes the ending needs to be bad. And finally, forced romance. No. No thank you. Some stories don't need romance.

Favorite scene to write?

Descriptions! Am I good at them? No. Will I spend three pages describing a tree? Maybe.

Also conversations. I tend to do a lot of conversations and monologues in my writing. Need to work on that.

Reason for writing?

If I don't write down the ideas in my head, I will explode.

TAGLIST: @falconfate - @space-writes - @leahnardo-da-veggie - @i-can-even-burn-salad - anyone who wants to take part!

[greypetrel]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @melisusthewee, and at least another person. I'm sorry if I ignored the tag, I was away and it's a busy period, let me know ;_;

Tagging forward: @ndostairlyrium @shivunin @inquisimer and YOU who are reading and would like to do it!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 12, right now.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 497,183 ... I'm chatty.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Dragon Age, and a crossover with LOTR/The Silmarillion.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Home Was Never on the Ground (long fic, concluded, it's anthological and mainly me filling blanks in DAI as inspiration stroke)

She of Many Names (ongoing, a LOTR/Dragon Age crossover. A follower on Instagram asked me if Aisling was Sauron, the idea made me laugh so much that my mind took fire.)

Saturday Prompts (a collection of prompts I posted here. I never uploaded every one of them, oops)

Death and All of Its Friends (ongoing, a DA2 collection)

The Night Before First Day (Two chapters, concluded. One it's in rhyme and illustrated. Aisling taught her daughter that the Dreadwolf is Santa out of spite. Solas tries to disapprove.)

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, always!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I do love angst, but I don't like angsty endings all that much ahahahahah. I think the one that gets closer, in a bitter-sweet way, is One for the Road. Call me a sucker for rare-pairs, this was also prompted here and my brain took fire (LavellanxFenris)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The Night Before First Day. Listen I'm not a Christmas person, I turn into a seasonal depressed Grinch at Christmas, living in a catholic country doesn't help, and that is my way of giving myself some joy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not that I know of.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Not any that I publish.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes I do. She of Many Names is a Dragon Age and LOTR crossover. I love it dearly, I'm slow to update it because I have the greatest love for Tolkien (with all his flaws, but my brain rewired when I saw the first movie, and the book has been my entire personality for two years. I wouldn't be the same person without it) and I do care of rendering it as I want.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? ... Not that I know of? I hope not, ahahahah :"D

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? If you consider that English is not my first language, all my fics are translated? xD Other than that, no.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but I'd love to.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? EowynxFaramir, hands down. Out of pure lenght. Maybe LeiaxHan Solo (my parents are both nerds, I think my mom made me watch Star Wars the first time... I don't remember, the vhs were always around in the house. I was very, very little.)(we don't talk about the sequel trilogy.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I tried to write a third chapter for the aforementioned One for the Road... But it ends up in a love triangle and I don't like love triangles that aren't a poly relationship. So, it's sitting in my folder and I'll never finish it. I was considering ditching the second chapter and rewrite it as a "Aisling as a companion in DA2" fic... But MEH.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think dialogue. I am trained as a comic artist, which means that the writing parts that get polished are dialogue. I have much more experience with that. ... I am also terrible at judging my own work in a positive way, tho, so you tell me.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? English not being my first language and leading to mis-spellings. Other than that... I started writing fanfiction after YEARS of not writing anything in prose that wasn't screenplays for comics (which follows different rules). Since I stopped because of being hurt by it, I went on to it by not planning stuff.

I'm rusty with prose, and my retelling -the first thing I tackled- clearly had little planning ahead.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It's a no, for me, unless you specifically wants your audience not to understand what's being said and create a sense of isolation and of not knowing what's going on. A sentence here and there with a translation is fine. But if it's something long... You want the reader to understand well. Italicized text it is.

19. First fandom you wrote for? I wouldn't call it a fandom, but: Greek Mythology. I drew a parody comic of the Iliad in my first high school year, alongside friends. It had been so fun. I also wrote, still in high school, something heavily inspired by Eragon, which only my friends had the pleasure of reading. (I'm only saying it involved my now most hated trope: THE SECRET TWIN.)

20. Favorite fic you've written? The next one.

I'm very invested in Ashes and Sparks, aka the Dreadwolf AU. I'm putting ideas in it and going fully canon divergent and writing it as I would like Inquisition to have gone. No Corypheus, more crazy tevinters, and the focus ON FUCKING TIME TRAVEL.

In a modern setting because yes.

It's also tackling something I absolutely hate in fiction when it's done wrongly, which is time travel, and I'm sweating and hoping I'll do it with logic. It's something niche and not so focused on a single ship, so probably it'll interest only me, but I'm happily writing and trying to contain myself from posting chapters of more than 10k.

Blank Form Under the Cut

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

[magicalyaku]

Ok ok, let's get back on track. Work was draining these past weeks, but I'm on vacation now, so time to catch up! June was the month of the library books. I put a bunch on hold in April and May and they all came in at the same time. And after up to 10 weeks of waiting I was not about to push a single one back further, so I had to work a bit there. 8D Also, according to my list I've read 51 books in the first 6 months of the year. I seem to remember wanting to read less this year? Yeah. Not going well.

Gwen & Art are Not in Love (Lex Croucher): I read it in the very first days of June, which was basically an eternity ago, so my memory is a bit wonky. I do remember I had lots of fun! It was funny and sweet with a solid story and serious times when needed, nice characters, good adventure. The female lead did not get on my nerves! There was a cat! And a girl with a (legendary) sword! I think, though, it's a bit unfair that both boys ended up with permanent bodily harm while the girls got away scratchfree … Go read it!!

Thief in the Night (KJ Charles): I didn't know anything about this other than the summary when I put it on my waitlist in the library. After 10 weeks it finally came in and my first thought was "Is it broken?!" because it's only about 100 pages! It is a full story, mind you, I was just so suprised by it (and because I waited for so long!). It's a companion story to The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, featuring the brother of the protagonists of that one. It's pretty cute. Super short, but just the right length for a simple story. We can have a simple story once in a while. I had a good time reading this.

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting (KJ Charles): I borrowed this right after Thief in the Night. This is a full-length novel, so it has a lot more time to dive into characters and intricacies. It's nice. Like not groundbreaking, but very enjoyable. There's this thing about (pseudo-historic) British aristocracy that just calls for mocking them. I liked a lot how the climax and ending played out!

Flowerheart (Catherine Bakewell): Now this was another difficult book for me. I thought with time I'd get a little more chill with YA fantasy heroines. Seems I'm not there yet. The heroine here has these whiny self-pitying phases that really annoyed me. She's like "Oh maybe he never liked me in the first place" just because the guy didn't want her help at one thing. But: 1) He was her very close childhood friend, that was not a lie. 2) She has like one day of training in and can't control her magic, so her help would be … probably no help at all. And 3) when he told her before that he needs her on the weekends she said no, she can't … So why is she getting upset?! I hate characters like this. /D But thankfully, this is only half of the time, the other half she's pretty ok (the guy as well) and I actually found myself liking the book. The romance is acceptable and it does have some nice imagery going on with all the flower magic and stuff.

Sounds Fake But Okay (Sarah Costello & Kayla Kaszyca): My one non-fiction book of the year. :D It's about seeing the world from the perspectives of a_spec people. Like taking apart all that amatonormativity and all these ideas about romance and family and stuff that most of our world sees as right and normal. So it's not just a "let me tell you what aromanticism and asexuality are"-book but dives a bit deeper. I found it insightful. I think, both a_spec and allo people can take something away from reading this. Challenging our social constructs in thought at least can't hurt after all. Regarding the ebook library edition I read I didn't quite like the layout as the incorporated community quotes where not well marked and I stumbled over them a few times before realising it's another quote. That's probably no issue in the paper version though. I also struggled to tell the authors Sarah and Kayla apart. They introduce themselves and their stories in the beginning but I immediately jumbled them up ...

Captive Prince Trilogy (C.S. Pacat): I borrowed the English edition from the library … and didn't want to return it! Which is stupid because I own the German version in paper. But that kinda sums up how I feel about these books. Captive Prince was not the very first gay fantasy book I read almost two years ago but the first one I liked. (The actual first was Rowan & Ash by Christian Händel which had a terribly selfish love interest and shied away from all the important conflict. (And yeah, long before that I did read The Raven Cycle but I picked that one up for the Ley lines and the no-kiss-promise. The gay was just a pleasant surprise, so I don't count it.)) Which is funny, because especially the beginning is so filthy! I remember being quite put off by this the first time around, but apparently it was intriguing enough to continue reading. I like the incredible slow-burn of Damen's and Laurent's relationship. The slow building of trust in a surrounding where trust is so rare. How shit happens between them and they have to sort it out on page before progressing. How you only catch glimpes of Laurent's true self for a long time. I like it when authors feel smart through their writing and writing Laurent's and the Regent's intrigues and all the different settings with war strategies etc. sure does feel smart to me. I like the slow-burn in stories as well when things start at some point and only get important much later and all weaves together beautifully. It's so rewarding. Look, where we started - look, how far we've come! Hah. u3u

Riley Weaver Needs a Date for the Gaybutante Society (Jason June): For the end of the month I went for something light and funny. Of all the authors I read last year F.T. Lukens and Jason June stuck with me the most. Lukens for the cozy charming fantasy and June for the slightly silly noisy onea. Riley Weaver is no exception to that. It does have a serious undertone and message, though, but due to the framework of the story it manages to never feel dull or preachy.

I also tried to read Dragonfall by L.R. Lam, but gave up after just 50 pages. I can't even say if it's good or bad, because I don't know. I couldn't stand the viewpoints. Like, there's three people. The first one is a 1st person narrator, who refers to the second person as You, but in the narration, not dialogue! That put me off so much. It was so … icky! The second person narrates 1st person as well. If there's another "you" I don't know because I didn't make it to the point where they meet for real. And then the third person comes along and … it's 3rd person?! And I screamed! God, I hate that. I mean, it can work and I have read books that I like with inconsistent viewpoints but there was nothing here for which I was willing to endure. To be fair, I don't like dragons in the first place, so maybe we never were a good match from the start. :'D

That's it for June!

[vindieselsfacebook-blog]

Ranking 7 photos algorithmically served to me attempting to aesthetically stage a Gilmore Girls rewatch

7. Coming in dead last is this disgustingly tragic and confusing combination of frozen mini pizzas and what appears to be a stemless wine glass full of orange juice??? positively hanging on for dear life to a thin, cracked cutting board that looks like it started its life in the Target dollar spot. I can't imagine a more nightmarish stain on my bland white sheets or frustrating debris to try and drain from my laptop keyboard than the pukey combination of marinara sauce and sticky juice, nor can I imagine a more depressing excuse for a comfort meal. Praying this person is a 12 year old trying to feel fancy by stealing a stemless wine glass from their mom while they were distracted by an episode of The Bachelor. Also, can we not find a single vibey Ikea lamp to turn on? Not cropping out the cable in the top right corner is an extra ominous choice. Bonus point for the gay sounding caption caught on screen though. 1/10

6. All I can think of looking at this cursed image is innocently uncrossing my legs and flipping the entire set-up over, spilling sugary milky foamy pumpkin coffee all over my twee cotton sheets, crushing burnt cookie crumbs all up in my grill, poopy melted chocolate chip stains everywhere, and setting my fluffy synthetic pillows ablaze. Making sure the food items are resting unwisely on your laptop but straight up nestling two Glade clearance candles right on your bed is extremely unwell behavior. 2/10

5. These cookies look like hamburger buns with jam and I hate thinking of the texture of them in my mouth but at least the hearts are trying and the waffle knit of the blanket looks cozy. The plate looks like it's resting on crossed legs rather than an actual bed this time. Good job with no open flames!!! 3/10

4. This looks like a second attempt from #6 - these cookies look like an upgrade, even down to the cutesy plate. They're livin' on the wild side with black coffee directly on the bed this time, but I guess that's less insane than multiple lit candles. I'm imagining this poor girl applying lipstick to kiss her list of things she loves which include "2000's movies", "stars/moon", and "pretty clothe" and I realize I am mocking a very lonely little girl and now I feel bad. Keep on binging GG, friend, you need it!!! 4/10

3. First off, trying to post ~aesthetic GG content with tea instead of coffee? Who are you, Luke Danes??? Points subtracted immediately. You're expecting me to think you're just casually whipping up a batch of cinnamon rolls, watching GG AND reading a novel? You're either watching or reading, doll, I simply refuse to accept both. That book is stressing me out. Get a bookmark! 4/10

2. I had to really study this one and decide if it was the same person as the previous photo. It may be, but this one features some important upgrades - that mug may possibly be coffee, the gray sweater looks fuzzy and comforting, cute manicure, and the cinnamon rolls are positively drowning in icing which I respect. I am once again judging your casually open book you fucking liar, but I enjoy the natural lighting and practical desktop surface. I refuse to entertain the thought that a GG rewatch can hit even a little bit on a tiny propped up iPad though. Give me a big TV and a couch/bed or nothing. 5/10

Now this is what I'm fucking talking about!!! Commit to the bit, people. This person put their whole pussy into making that delightful looking drink and stuck to the pumpkin theme. There's some pleasant mood lighting going on and I buy that this could be a tablescape rather than a crowded obstacle course on a twin bed. I am actually curious to try one of those cookies and the sweater weather candle is no doubt contributing positive vibes to the room. All precarious items are safely crowded onto a tray. Still hate the iPad but whatever. 8/10

[sahhr-studiesmed]

I am supposed to study all of this, but I can't seem to plan or quantify anything for a while now.

May 21, 2023

8:56 Pm

Reading through my old posts and realising that I'm struggling with executive function and task paralysis.

That no matter how much I actually want to, I can't bring myself to start the task?

So in this picture I have my entire first year med school syllabus that I have to cover for my upcoming two months of exams. It's not even the whole syllabus. Just headings of things. The syllabus that I have to mug up/ cover— whatever you want to call it— is atleast ten times more than what I have written up there.

So coming back to the executive dysfunction. I can't seem to figure out how to study, what to study, what to do and what time limits/divisions to do.

The difficult part is the time blindness, I am having a difficult time figuring out the timeline. I can't seem to see time in a way where I can organise accordingly and I know when the exams will near my brain will start working because of the rush and curse me at the same time for not starting earlier.

In one of my earlier posts I have talked about how I used to manage things by dividing time before but that's what I have been struggling with.

What to divide exactly?

The variables keep shifting and I can't have one plan that is gonna stick for a while. Let alone a plan— I am having difficulty with drawing even a broad outline of what my plan is supposed to be really.

The thing is I can work without a plan— and of course it is going to be downright difficult but I can do it to a certain degree. Of course it would be better with an organised plan and my results would be better.

So let's break it down— okay.

I have been passing my anatomy and biochemistry — barely but yes I have been passing.

I've failed all my physiology major exams. Falling short of marks 4-5-6 marks.

Leaving that out of the way —

Let's start with anatomy —

I had initially thought that I should cover the unit abdomen this month but I have really come to realise that felt very overwhelming to the point that I couldn't even look at the book.

And another error is that I forgot to add one unit on the list— that is thorax.

So now I have a total of 6 gross units.

So for anatomy I'll cover thorax along with upper limb.

Then comes physiology — I'll revise the units I have already studied once before at least :

I'll cover Respiratory and cardiovascular.

For biochemistry—

I'll have to cover all the molecules of life or whole of metabolism. What should I do? Molecules of life it is then.

This is a very fucking ambitious task list to keep.

Simply because, we haven't even finished our syllabus in classes right now. Classes are still being taken.

The way my schedule is set up— I have classes from 8 am to 4 pm.

So the bigger question is— how do I divide the time again?

Where I can cover what is being taught in class, complete assignments and also study the previous stuff.

I'll figure it out. I have to figure it out. There is no other choice I have. It's expensive to fail. It very much fucking sucks and I can't curse the system any less than what it deserves.

Oh yes, the first year was only 10 months long. Fuck them.

[the-autistic-cat-queen]

My thoughts and feelings. 11/09/2024

I've never really been one for writing a journal or a diary. In fact I find it extremely difficult to get my thoughts and feelings out. I did used to make long Facebook posts, so I guess that's kind of the same thing. The only difference being is, they were for just people I knew and they were normally just updates on my life rather than updates on my actual feelings.

For what ever reason I've always struggled to get out my words, I mean to be fair I've always struggled with words in general because I'm dyslexic. But more recently since getting diagnosed with a neurological condition, it's made expressing myself so much harder.

No doubt as I'm typing this I'll mess up my words and say the wrong things. Growing up was never easy for me, my dad always wanted me to read things out loud, in fact he specifically wanted me and my siblings to read words from the bible. Problem was the book never made much sense, if at all. It would go on about this person was the son of this person, and it would be a list of names that most people would struggle with, let alone the 6 year old that I was at the time.

My brother and sister always seemed to manage just fine, but me, I would get stuck on each and every word before bursting into tears.

My dad would then shout at me and call me backwards. He would then make my brother and sister read my parts which would then make them feel annoyed or maybe resentful towards me. (Or at least that's how it felt at the time). It's was so long ago now that I can barely remember. But for whatever reason it's always stuck in my head that my dad thought I was stupid, that I was slow, and that I was backwards as he would word it.

I now know that it was because I'm dyslexic / autistic.

In fact it wasn't until after I left school that I learnt to read probably. My teachers at the time used to say I was lazy.

So between being called lazy and being called backwards, I honestly had low self esteem. There was many other factors to why I didn't think highly of myself, but I'll not go into them today.

I'm now almost 45 and in that time I've only ever been able to hold down one real job which only lasted just over a year from the age of 16 to 17.

I don't know what it is but I find it extremely difficult to work in social situations / environments.

Anyway for whatever reason I always seemed to struggle to get how I'm feeling across to others, as I often explain things completely different to how I want people to understand.

I don't know, sometimes I wonder if my dad was right, maybe I am backwards.

But then, just as I think these feelings, or in this case type them, I know deep down that not true, I'm actually quite an intelligent person, I just really struggle with how to articulate myself, how to get my ideas and thoughts out.

I don't know what it is, but the more I try and explain myself to people the more it seems I make the situation worse.

Take tonight for example, I have this most amazing friend in the world, she is so caring, so loving, and she always tries her best to see her friends happy, well tonight I tired to explain something to her but instead of making her understand, I think I just made her more confused / frustrated, which then lead to her feeling overwhelmed.

You see she is autistic too, in fact like myself she has also been finding things increasingly difficult. If you happen to be reading this, you know who you are and I love you with all my heart. You are amazing and I'm incredibly proud of you. I probably don't tell you that enough, but I am, I'm really proud of you.

See I'm trying to be brave by posting my feelings. It's only because of you that I'm even able to do this. You inspire me.

Anyway back to where I was, I really struggle with communication, I always have done, and I likey always will. Who knows maybe that's just something I'll need to learn to accept.

I just wish I knew what to say to make everyone happy, to make people realise they deserve happiness, that they deserve to be loved.

It was my mum's birthday the other day, yet I wasn't able to wish her happy birthday. You see long story short my parents disowned me many years ago. They did this because they were extremely religious, and, well I'm not religious at all anymore.

Anyway we can cover that some other time, I guess I'm just really struggling at the moment and I guess I wish I was able to express my feelings better.

I guess you could say in not so many words.

Being autistic is like trying to baptise a cat, you know it's never going to be easy. - NH

Edit: After reading over this about 10 times and also getting my partner (who is also dyslexic) to read it too, I think I've managed to remove / edit most of the typos out. 💜