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Feliciano and the King of Hearts

Chosen by the gods as the Queen of Hearts from the moment of birth, we follow Feliciano’s story as he grows into royal life, learns to rule, go against age old customs, and his relationship with his husband to be, the King of Hearts.

Chapter 1 I Chapter 2 I Chapter 3 I Chapter 4 I Chapter 5 I Chapter 6I Chapter 7 I Chapter 8 IChapter 9I Chapter 10I Chapter 11I Chapter 12 I Chapter 13 I Chapter 14 I Chapter 15 I Chapter 16 I Chapter 17 I Chapter 18 I Chapter 19I Chapter 20 I Chapter 21 I Chapter 22 I Chapter 23 I Chapter 24 I Chapter 25 I Chapter 26 I Chapter 27 I Chapter 28I Chapter 29 I Chapter 30 I Chapter 31 I Chapter 32 I Chapter 33 I Chapter 34 I Chapter 35 I Chapter 36 I Chapter 37I chapter 38 I Chapter 39 I Chapter 40 I Chapter 41 I Chapter 42 I Chapter 43 I Chapter 44 I Chapter 45 I Chapter 46I Chapter 47 I Chapter 48 I Chapter 49 I Chapter 50 I Chapter 51 I Chapter 52 I Chapter 53 I Chapter 54 I Chapter 55 I Chapter 56 I Chapter 57 I Chapter 58 I Chapter 59 I Chapter 60I Chapter 61 I Chapter 62 I Chapter 63 I Chapter 64 I Chapter 65 I Chapter 66 I Chapter 67 I Chapter 68 I Chapter 69 I Chapter 70 I Chapter 71 I Chapter 72 I Chapter 73 I Chapter 74 I Chapter 75 I Chapter 76 I Chapter 77 I Chapter 78 I Chapter 79 I Chapter 80

Look! A chapter! HOOZA! SO DARN CLOSE OMG! Yes, like always, I apologize for taking so long, tons of things, as usual. I hope the chapter makes do for it...I guess. Enjoy!

Chapter 81

And celebration rang, with shouts and applauses, the swing of flags and surviving weapons decorating the field in wonderful splendor. Some jumped, danced, complete strangers embraced one another or even kissed in the passion of lovers. Roderich and Francis couldn’t help but to cry, Elizabeta, Lili and Vash embracing them…not long before they joined in the same tears. Alfred took as many as he could in for the largest group hug he intended to make, much to Arthur’s distaste of being squeezed between many of his people. As Yao was trying to find his escape, he bumped into Ivan, who proceeded to take him into a large embrace, the very one the Spadian Jack was trying to avoid. Yet as Ivan took his lip…he didn’t find himself minding any longer. He wrapped his arms around the Clubian King’s neck and let himself that beautiful bliss.

The three Heartian royals stood alone in this sudden feast. Feliciano had already commanded that none were to come close, and so they yet remained in their field were Khaos’s last traces had been, still in the same silence that had welcomed them when Khaos was at last officially defeated.

“What are we waiting for?” Kiku asked, because indeed that was what it felt like they were doing, especially with Feliciano looking on as if…expecting someone to come.

“Is this about that one thing you asked us to protect? That Khaos had?” Feliciano nodded to Ludwig, taking steps forward, right towards this sun rise. Ludwig and Kiku stayed behind and watched, giving Feliciano some space to breathe and focus.

“…he’s here,” he whispered after the silence he wanted was reached.

It wasn’t a message for Ludwig, for Kiku, for anybody there.

“…he’s here…I know he’s here…” he whispered on, a hand reaching so it could focus on one spot.

The wind that blew now was different, the energy that came ancient, along with the magic and form that even to Ludwig and Kiku, felt as the arise of a person. And there, in a sudden flash, there was a red ball of fire, fitting along with the sun, potent and shinning to them like another burning star.

Feliciano sighed, smiled…and even began to cry. “He’s here…He’s here…” he still repeated.

Something suddenly changed in the air, like an earthquake…but nothing shook, nothing trembled, magic and energy just rained, at first, invisible, like a force that brought everyone to silence as their eyes came to the Heartian royals, to the center of what was occurring. Then there was flashes of light, golden and glittering, blowing and seeming to scream into the skies. Feliciano was engulfed in it, in fact, from him it turned larger, a calming fire blazing, arising into the skies, taking the whole field, in beautiful reds and golds that the Heartian Queen helped to make tall, letting his halo, his marks, his wings, shine on up. It was a storm that reminded them of when Khaos had first turned, but this…although powerful and indeed fearsome at first, it was gentle, caring, a beauty that instead of turning away all, it brought and made them aw in a combine admiration. A form became evident, gigantic and towering, with flowers, jewels and silk to cover…her…in grace. From the rains of this colorful and royal feast, she came, showing herself in all her pure form. She was as high as Khaos had been, looking down to all her people with deep fondness in large ruby eyes. Ah, she was gorgeous. Her curled hair fell down to her knees, crowned with a large golden pillar halo that matched well with the specks of gold in her long red dress, tainted like stars, like constellations. Her skin was marked in long lines of vines and symbols, identical to the ones Feliciano held. They also shared a set of wings, although hers were with a hint of rose, much larger, surely to extend to the next mountains if she spread them open. And then the structure of her face, her smile…Feliciano, Lovino, Renata and all the rest of the Valenti knew she was family. For a moment, they were reminded of Augusto and understood then why he had the perfect namesake. Even as she stood gigantically over them, especially when she kneeled, her reach to the ground soft like wind, none were intimidated, all smiled and welcomed the presence of an Ace.

“…Nonna Augusta,” Feliciano greeted her so meekly once the release was completed.

She looked to him with deep fondness, kneeling and bringing her head much closer to his. Ludwig and Kiku were startled slightly back at being right before a large face like this, if even so beautiful.

“Feliciano…” and she smiled with a ring that surely brought music to the whole valley, “l’hai fatto.” He shook at the realization once again…completed and fulfilled. “A mission that I set upon a thousand years ago, one in which the state of your world and mine was held at a delicate balance. I harbored power through my family, generation by generation, until it was with you that the next alignment found itself with. It was much to put that responsibility on only you, so young and still so new to a ruling of a kingdom. Yet, it was by your hand that it was done. With a belief and effort that I was proud to witness, see it grow and now…I watch as it shines.” Feliciano blushed, so intense that he wanted to hide it, not being able to continue his stare with his great grandmother.

“Of course, I also owe congratulations and compliments to the King and Jack.” Ludwig and Kiku startled, more so when this great Ace bowed to them. “Your own growth, I paid attention to, and it is worthy of your position.” And they couldn’t answer, as nervous and blushing as Feliciano. “And the others…” she turned to meet their gazes in the crowd, their knees shaking and eyes widened as if taking blame. She couldn’t help the chuckle. “Brave you have been, courageous and a great loyalty shown to your kingdom. Your respective Ace I know is just as proud.” They wanted to faint from the honor. Even Alfred was left speechless and without a high comment to say.

“And your people, who without every piece of help they could give…we would not stand victorious here now. I thank you all. You have brought to this world a peace that has never been, new and promising. Darkness has disappeared and now light will always be prominent.” Shy cheers and applauses spread, part of the crowds wanted to remain respectful, as presentable as possible for an Ace. Augusta partly rolled her eyes at it, Feliciano giggled at such a human presentation. It was just the ring that brought her giant gaze back to him again.

“You have freed me from your vessel. No doubt you learned it in the Eternal Reserved.” Feliciano nodded sheepishly, worried that perhaps it was something she had not wished. “Why so?” She asked and for a moment Feliciano forgot every single language he knew. He needed a moment to bring his words back, leaving a silence that left everyone else with tension.

“I know…you would want to meet him again in person…” was all he could utter.

Ah…of course.

Her expression suddenly changed to something so unsure and weak, a pain that had been there for thousands of years presented. She then turned to the small ball of fire that Feliciano had brought only minutes ago. It looked so insignificant and small to all, yet for her, who reached and engulfed it in the palm of her hand with care, love deep in her eyes, making her flourish the more, it was a worth higher than any gold. She smiled, with a hint of a lake forming in her eyes, standing once again to bring this light closer to her heart. There, between folds of satin, lay the most prominent and beautiful of all the designs on her body. Feliciano could recognize it as the most ancient Heart symbol and the light fitted perfectly to its art.

“Romulus…Romulus…” she prayed his name in relief, caressing it as if he was fully there.

He was…he was truly there.

Ludwig and Kiku exchanged glances with wide eyes and mouths.

“You have to thank Ludwig and the Beilschmidts,” and he turned to his husband with such pride, like he was the one that did the magic. Ludwig startled and for a moment didn’t understand his part in it. “They carried his soul along, for just the time that you passed through my lineage. It was corrupted…and you saw how Khaos used it for his own purpose.” A dark memory that brought gruesome shivers to Ludwig. He turned his attention to Augusta’s light and suddenly it was gone. “But he learned to control it, to fight against it…and together we purified it…united it with another part Khaos still held and he is now…with you.” Feliciano was joyous, and he knew his great grandmother more so, letting the light bounce and letting herself laugh. Truly a wonder.

“Oh, Feliciano. I could give you the whole world for doing all of this…and in fact.” There was indeed a reward that was to be given, and released or not, she would make do Feliciano received it. She extended her large arm long, closed her eyes, and called forward a strong magic, potent and surely meant to break apart the very line that divided their world from others. It was the kind of power that not even Feliciano knew or didn’t think he would ever reach enough to master. This was portal opening, Augusta with an ease creating a large window enough to give her enormous frame passage. Other than just an opening, the edges were decorated and strengthened with beautifully carved pillars, pots and statues that rained on magic and light, with flowers vines of red and gold that bloomed before their eyes and seemed to dance at the welcome of their Ace. Inside its frame was just light, reflecting and glimmering in pinks wonderfully. What was on the other side, they couldn’t see, but it awaited them patiently, yet the three royals were hesitant, as if a bar was still being held in front of them.

Augusta smiled at them, “come.” A barefoot went easily in, just as the waters and dives Feliciano remembered from the Interludes. She let her whole body go in its taking, with her dress, hair, wings and halo. A single hand gave a final wave to all her people and she was gone, only leaving behind the light of the portal. Kiku, Ludwig and Feliciano were yet frozen…but Feliciano was the one to take a deep breath and dared to be the first to take a step. It was just like the interludes…there was nothing to fear. It was the example and leadership Ludwig and Kiku followed, matching along together to be granted passage as a single force.

Feliciano recognized this feeling of going between, the feel as if water purifying you into a new world, while Kiku and Ludwig were startled at this wonderment, almost tripping in their welcome. With the change of the portal, Ludwig and Kiku were granted their very own form. Both with reddish and golden marks, wings, Ludwig’s a darker red while Kiku’s were almost orange. They shone with strong halos, of fire, heavy surely if it was back in their own world…but here it was as light as another strand in their hair. Their clothes turned into richness and beauty as the very ones Augusta had shown herself in, to the style of their province, making clear their origins, the three making quite a trio as they stood above a stage that put them to look below to what this world was.

They were left breathless, almost fainting at the colors, the sound of the creatures that roamed freely and confident, palaces and palaces, piling up, shinning with the rarest of crystals and forms, with water, routes, trees and flowers cascading down to different floating islands. Clouds and mist seemed to grant them this flight, this place in between the folds of the universe, perfect like heaven.

“What…what…” Kiku tried to word but was still too taken to really continue what he meant to ask.

“What is this place?” Ludwig somehow managed to reach.

“The heavens,” And Augusta appeared beside them, not gigantic, but matching with their own statures, yet still decorated as beautifully. She placed comforting and welcoming hands on their shoulders, leading them, with the way she practically flew forward, telling them to follow her. She easily went over the precipice, with each step creating a path of golden bricks, shaped with clouds and shine, a hint of pink to them that the three royals couldn’t resist their own step towards.

They passed well-turned spirits and souls, riding happily on the backs of dragons, phoenixes or St. Marks, each animal decorated just as gorgeously as their human counterparts. They spotted trees and flowers that they had never seen before, overflowing from roofs, some even floating, in the control of those who wanted to make them fly or make them sprinkle the air.

Feliciano had to try and remember every detail, every portrait, every scene painted on walls, the capture of statues, or nature in vases, bricks, sidewalks, glasses and crystals reflecting more whatever shine decided to present itself as they walked on.

The deeper they went, the more came to gather, shouting, congratulating, in an array of different languages, some their own but as it was spoken two hundred years ago. From their wear, their marks, their wings or halos, they saw people from a span of many years, Feliciano recognizing many of their clothes from old paintings.

Augusta continued to lead them through this celebration, floating them through the streets, the golds, between arches of sapphire, pillars in diamonds and green vines coming alive through every wall. Even as the songs and shouts were directed at them, the three royals, taken still by what they saw, couldn’t raise their hands, couldn’t utter a word, their eyes still occupied taking every detail, every movement, every color. Augusta kept leading them through crevices and wondrous corners, until she could expose them to surely the four largest palaces in the realm.

Nothing in their world could compare to their tallness, their majesty, shine and as Augusta laid them back on the ground, right before the road that could lead to her red and golden one, the three royals felt unworthy to step on such a pavement. They were left no other choice as Augusta blew away with ease the road for them she had created, bringing them to the center of this feast, to the loudest of all the cheers, and also the very center of their universe. They noticed then three beings come, one in blue, the other green, and one in yellow. Even as they stood in their same stature, the Heartians could feel nothing but power and magic from them, almighty and way above whatever reaches they could reach even when they were right there. They knew they were the other Aces. Artem, Maiara and Jabbar. They came to meet their fellow sister…who they hadn’t seen like this in surely centuries. In an act that was utterly human, they all came into an embrace, together, in an union that Feliciano swore he could see their entire world shine in. Augusta let herself go to introduce forward the royals chosen for her own kingdom, the three surely shaking and with eyes of enchantment…but also panic. They bowed, as low to the ground, kneeled and hands extended as they were taught in the very rare case they were in front of all four Aces.

“No need, stand.” Artem commanded, and quick, like they had been scolded, they stood, precise and orderly. “No such greetings are needed.”

“It is us that should bow,” Maiara reminded as she started, the rest of the three following in her lead, their thanks large as their knees reached the ground and their hands came to them in reverence.

They wanted to say something…wanted to tell them that it was not necessary…they didn’t deserve this, shown as if Aces themselves. Despite everything, they were still only human, not beings that created this entirety. Yet…it was an honor…one that strained their words and their actions, embarrassingly only standing there agape…it was only Feliciano who began to cry, having to put his arms to himself to try and keep his feelings under some kind of control. “Oh, please, please stop! Stand!” He in the end had to shout at them. And all four rose up with smiles and laughter.

“You have saved your world,” Jabbar continued.

“And through it, our own, here in the Heavens,” Augusta spread her arms to show it, even to the souls that celebrated and cheered from their heights, in their celestial homes and days. Truly beauty, a jewel, shinning eternally in colors that now Feliciano really hoped he could remember to sketch it all to his memory.

“As well as the Interludes, the very passage and line that balances all our worlds. If it wasn’t for your actions…all of it could have been gone,” Artem continued. “It still stands, by your efforts.”

Maiara then chuckled, “with the use of wisdom, your power, the trust you placed not only on one another, but your people had on you.”

“And above all, love being the driving force that stood against all. Ludwig, Feliciano, your love truly defeated Khaos,” Augusta resonated some words Augusto had said himself. Ludwig and Feliciano blushed, turning towards one another wanting more than ever to kiss and hug each other in that very love that won this war. Oh, if Augusto…that reminded Feliciano. He turned and looked towards whatever floating islands, to whatever rush of people…hoping to find those familiar curls he himself inherited.

“Feliciano!” Came that known shout.

Just like that, Feliciano was almost on the ground from the force his grandfather greeted him in, his embrace just the same, with celebration and pride that just had to be showcased even before the Aces. Of course, Kiku and Ludwig couldn’t be left out from it. Once Augusto made the space, he took both the King and Jack to the same embrace, laughing and practically dancing in circles.

How they have missed these joyous little feasts between themselves, loud and happiness glowing for all to witness.

“I’m so proud, so proud for all of you. You have done amazing!” He shouted, going as far as to even kiss Ludwig and Kiku, both left dumbfounded at such an action, but they smiled at it and took it as but another way to shout celebration. Feliciano hanged himself over him, laughing and letting himself be that child that long ago used to do just that. In heaven, before the Aces, it didn’t matter. He would let everyone know how much he loved and how dear was his grandfather to him.

But his grandfather wasn’t alone, with him came tailing a whole group, wearing all similar wears of reds and golds, a symbol that they all shared, proof of being Heartian, Italian, and more specifically, Valenti.

“Oh! Vieni! Vieni! You have to meet your family!” He pulled Feliciano and the rest to this large crowd, all with the famous Valenti curls, from blondes to brunettes, even an occasional red-head. From distinct and strong facial features, to the simple ones like his own. Some were very tall, others beautifully plum, some, whether men or women, had short hair above their ears, others had none, or some had it falling down their back. It was all to the styles of the times they were born into. Feliciano was shy to meet them, even if indeed they were all family, but it was unexpected, it was too much…yet he didn’t mind giving his greetings, hugging even some he had heard much about, going on with random chats as if they had known each other all their lives. The Aces didn’t mind this, they let Feliciano this reunion with his family…it would be good persuasion with what they were about to offer.

“Feliciano,” Augusta called him forward, open arms, and Feliciano rushed to it, not at all hesitating in the hold he took of her hands. Warm, comforting and like home. Augusta shook them and suddenly she found herself nervous to say what she wanted. But a turn to the Aces, a nod, an approval, and of course, a hurry and excitement, and Augusta turned to her great grandson determined.

“Feliciano, what you have done, is deserving of an award.”

“Nonna, really, you don’t-”

“Amore, please let me…I promised this and it is something you must come along and take.” A deep breath, a silence suddenly coming, no one daring to disturb the words of an Ace. It was quite eerie how the entire heavens just fell silent for this. “As I have told, as I prophesied and the other Aces and I have made ready for centuries…in the hopes that Khaos was indeed defeated…” she breathed, she prepared, “Feliciano…you must come to live with me in the heavens now and become…” she turned, pulling him them closer to the road that will lead to her palace, all of a sudden presenting itself with more shine. “The new Ace of Hearts.”

Suddenly, angels came, marching like an army, only to decorate the road, raising flags upon flags to decorate in welcome, surely for a pathway they wanted the Heartian Queen to take. Some played drums and trumpets, added then with the cheer of the crowds, already celebrating as if Feliciano had already passed the palace gates…making it officially his new home. Then, a creature, a St. Mark walked towards him, having journeyed from the Heartian Ace palace. This one was large, majestic, decorated with more jewels, with armors that could go against meteors and surely with a roar that could cause earthquakes in his world. It was Fabius, Augusta’s own St. Mark like Pookie was to Feliciano. The lion, now small, cowered on Feliciano’s shoulder, intimidated by this one…even if it was his father. The St. Mark bowed to Feliciano and the Queen did so back, the creature seeming to smile and shine along with the celebration, moving aside for when Feliciano came forward. Augusta cuddled herself towards him and the Lion, no matter how godly, leaned towards her in the same devotion.

Ludwig and Kiku on the other hand, stilled, the news only downcasting them, not even the feast around them enough to bring them back into light. Ludwig…tried hard to hide how already he was breaking apart inside, defeated…like he had already lost Feliciano over a precipice he would never reach for him again.

He knew…he knew this would happen…he knew this would come…if what they wanted occurred…this was to be the next step, the finality that settled everything and made an ending to this story. It’s one of the reasons he had tried to keep him apart after the eight year gap, why he refused to accept his feelings as well as Feliciano’s, refusing any kind of advance so Feliciano could accept it all as he deserved.

He had wanted this not to hurt, he sometimes liked to daydream that he would applaud and only wave Feliciano some sort of goodbye that will settle well for an eternity. He would turn and march on with a smile on his face. But here now…he couldn’t move, couldn’t say a word but shake and try to hold down the tears that surely wanted to burst and reveal the moment of weakness this was. Kiku must have noticed…he must be feeling the same way, and they gazed between one another in a moment of understanding and trying to reach some comfort.

“Should we…?” Kiku surely questioned if there was a way to stop this, to place themselves as a hold to what this future could be. Ludwig, with a deep breath, looked away, ready as if to leave that instant away from the heavens. Suddenly it didn’t hold the same charm anymore.

“No…this is…this is…the greatest award that could be given. Glory that Hearts, our world, neither we can ever match with,” he sighed, still trying to make himself believe those words. “We will congratulate him…and leave.” And Ludwig, without even looking at Kiku, could just feel his utter refusal, but in part he did have to agree with those words, instead, hiding to himself whatever he meant to say, what he meant to act.

“He’ll…he’ll make a great Ace…at least we’ll know were under right guidance…and the balance of the universe is in good hands.” This was goodbye and there was not more to be done.

As Ludwig tried to take a last grasp of his husband between the still celebrating multitudes…he only wished he could properly say goodbye…hold him and kiss him one last time before anything…but by the looks of it…it didn’t seem likely. He sighed and accepted that whatever glimpses he could get would be the last he would have of him.

Yes…to Feliciano…this was all glorious. The floating islands, the wonderful colors, the magic, the richness of these palaces and castles, of the roars of the people around him. Yes…it was an eternal celebration that would keep him mighty for eons. He thought about how he still possessed the hand of creation, looking down to his hands as if already he could see everything he could bring alive…whole new worlds, cosmos and universes extending far beyond this one. Yet in that expanse…he spotted clearly the bearing gems. Two identical ones on each side of his hands…both shinning like their own sun, lighting and bringing life to a world…he had promised someone he would help create. It was in that moment he turned to Ludwig…who refused to meet his eyes, yet he saw sorrow in them that Feliciano shared in, suddenly the colors and music greying and lifeless to him. Those around him easily saw how his smile disappeared, and the shine in his eyes was gone. They silenced at such display, giving him space, thought, and the Aces could show their question as to why he know saddened when he was at the center of such an opportunity. Feliciano was scared to utter these words, here at the mercy of the Aces…but he had to insist, had to make them understand.

“And…if I don’t want to?” He placed the idea, one that surprised all, not thinking that it would be something that Feliciano would dare consider when what they would give they thought would be above whatever Hearts had.

“Feliciano, these are the heavens, a position as an Ace, with riches and everything you want at your fingertips. Why would there be a reason to deny?” Augusta tried to persuade.

“Who’s going to take care of my children?”

Augusta widened as if she was just finding out…when in reality…she had completely forgotten about that detail, having to reconsider, organize, with a glance to the other Aces and they quickly came to another decision.

“They shall be born here and stay with you.”

“Away from their father? From their grandparents…their family…their home. Leave everything behind as if it was all nothing…”

A long silence before Jabbar dared speak, “Are you truly only speaking about the children? Or is this about yourself?” With how Feliciano widened, it made sure that Jabbar hit straight to what the Queen felt.

“Yes…it’s also what I feel.” Here he turned to his Jack and King, a large smile that showed true to a promise. “This…this place is beautiful. A dream, a wonder, this chance…rare…perhaps I would be the only one for centuries to come that will be granted something like this…yet…” he began to walk towards his friend, his husband, no one around him daring to intrude his sure and set path. “Hearts…the world…mean so much to me. Enough it is my heaven, my place. It is home.” Now he stood right in front of them, his words now for them to hear. “When I was born…you saw someone in me that could save the world…but you also gave me a position, you gave me a duty as the Queen of Hearts.” Close yet to his Jack and King, he turned to face the Aces again. “Many times…I doubted it…I had wished and prayed that it wouldn’t be my destiny…I even tried to run away from it once…but now I see that it is my place, it is my calling…it will be wrong of me to turn away from it now…” He grasped one hand of Kiku, another of Ludwig’s. “My reign is still so young…there is still so much I can do in Hearts, so much I can help the whole world with, so much I should be there for. Nonna Augusta…you’re back again…the position is for you as the universe intends.” He hoped they understood, he hoped he wasn’t creating an offence, wasn’t disrespecting. But as Kiku and Ludwig grasped their own hold on their Queen’s hand…Feliciano smiled and suddenly stood higher, understanding then…there was no need to worry for any spite of gods. He knew then that they were in no position to react such a way against them, especially after saving their worlds.

His next words had a confidence as tough as the pillars and gold the buildings here were made of. “I want to stay in Hearts. I want to stay with my people. I want to stay with my Jack…and I want to stay with my husband.” The devotion, the utter love these two exchanged, made all the four Aces realize that they were naïve to think that Feliciano would chose a life away from this man. “I know my place…and it is with my family.”

To his surprise, the Aces smiled between one another, a new energy spread…and it wasn’t bad or punishing. Augusto began to chuckle, the rest of the Valenti there joining him, with laughs that shared joy across all the souls present.

“Very well then…you will stay to finish your reign in Hearts,” Artem spoke in decision.

“When it is done, and you have lived your life as any Queen, you will be welcomed here,” Maiara continued.

“The same shall await you then, and Ludwig, Kiku and every important member in your life shall all have a safe assurance of an afterlife here,” Jabbar said.

“Till then, we will await you. Now, we wish you farewell, a wondrous life to give to the world and to your family,” Augusta wished, coming over to give an embrace that to Feliciano was just like those of his family. He enjoyed from this warmth, wrapping his own arms around her as echoes of new celebration began to ring. In this hold, Feliciano released magic that had been weighted on him since birth…the hand of creation. In a wonderful swirl of platinum and gold, it was transferred back to Augusta. She splendored more in its shine as it placed her back as creator and superior goddess. When it was finished, she welcomed in the rest of the Valenti, and Feliciano enjoyed the most from his grandfather, surely to be the last for a long time. He had his chance to give his own to his grandmother, Helena, who he had never had the chance to meet in his world…he saw a lot of her in Lovino…and suddenly he already missed him and his nephew.

“Go and live,” his grandfather wished, and with those words, Feliciano had to tearfully let go of them, turning to then place them with Ludwig, who grasped Feliciano…relieved beyond however he had felt before. Without a care on who stared, where he was…he spun Feliciano to have him in front, hands adjusted on his waist, to pull him into a kiss, strong, magical, these forms giving it a touch that made sparks surely glow all around them. When they released and looked into their eyes…Feliciano truly saw that he had made the right decision. Ludwig raised his hands and let his fingers caress on the jewels…excited and hoping for a bright future with a new family just for them.

Any threats were away…Ludwig could now celebrate the coming of his own children…and that he was to return to Berlin with Feliciano.

Augusta smiled and opened her arms to create a portal, this one small, just the space for all three of the Hearts royals to make their passing back home. Kiku waved his goodbye before he rushed through. Ludwig and Feliciano refused to let go of their hands, determined to pass together. Ludwig had begun his engulfing, but Feliciano spared a last glance back…

The last he saw was celebration still ringing, chorus surely sang and orchestras played, the Aces watching them leave dutifully and then beside Augusta…the light, the one Feliciano had saved from the cage of Khaos, as well as with power from Ludwig…it began to grow, large enough until it was a figure as Augusta. It began to clear, it began to come alive…and for the first time Feliciano had seen what his great grandfather Romulus actually looked like.

Dark hair in silk waves, the same that was on his beard, but despite it, Feliciano could see a long and strong face, handsome, it slightly reminded him of Lovino. Green eyes, likes leaves and grass, a stature, a smile, a last gratitude to his own grandson before he turned to his long missed wife. They held to each other with all the strength needed for centuries. What more they would do, Feliciano didn’t see, he had passed through, everything beginning to erase in bright light.

He left behind the heavens to return home.

- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o

Next chapter is the very last...oh boy.

#Feliciano and the King of Hearts #fatkoh #f&tkoh #gerita #gerita fanfiction #gerita fanfic #gerita fic

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just-otter-thoughts · 3 years

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#completely not a a professional and also don't have as much gramatical knowledge of the english language as i do of the portuguese language

My Top Posts in 2021

@dopaminerjic here <3

40 notes • Posted 2021-10-31 20:54:39 GMT

Everyone that says "omg I wish my parents had forced me to become a child star" gets 10 minutes in the time-out corner.

You do not want the life of a child star. Do they make money? Yes, but that becomes their doom. These child stars are overworked to all hell and engage in activities (especially "in character") that are very much unhealthy for them both physically and mentally. Most big children's studios are borderline with child labor laws and some outright break them.

Trigger Warning here for rape, child abuse, eating disorders, violence/gore and substance abuse.

The Toddler-to-Trainwreck pipeline is something very real that happens to most if not all child stars because they sacrifice their childhood to support their family in trying times, or simply because their parents want to make money out of them. In one scene, they're playing and singing and dancing. In the other scene? Their characters are being severely abused, raped, and saying unspeakable things for naturally "shocking" projects. An example is Jennette McCurdy, who before doing her playful iCarly character, was playing one of the most complex (and accurately portrayed) child abuse cases in SVU History: Holly Purcell in S6 E11 "Contagious".

That episode was severely gut-wrenching. She was crying, saying "he touched me!" testifying in court, and you're telling me a child was involved in the creation of that monstrousness? And then only two years later, she'd portray Sam Puckett? What the hell?!

If children are advised against consuming that type of content, do you really think it's any better for them to be involved in its creation? To cry like that and say horrible things take after take after take? It can't be healthy for a child to portray all those things. A child's brain can't separate the real from the fake, and even though there are techniques or whatever, they're still saying those things. And kids know, you might not think they do but they know. Jennette knew what it meant to "have been touched" and she didn't have to.

And don't get me started on the evil kid characters. According to the producers of "Orphan", Isabelle Fuhrman was "playing around" on set, but outright stabbing people? Breaking her own arm? Setting the treehouse on fire? Wearing those clothes as a nine year old? Yeah, I don't think that was "playing".

And the music ones, oh God. Demi Lovato had serious cocaine issues and multiple ODs. All of One Direction had serious mental health issues and two of them had serious (I mean serious) eating disorders. Jennette McCurdy also had an eating disorder. The cast of all DanWarp shows from the early 2010s was abused by Dan himself, either by "showing their feet" on camera or just creepy actions by Dan.

It's a reality that is dangerous and not worth losing your childhood for. So please, be thankful that your parents didn't force you to work like a mid-20s adult when you were 7. Because you may not even make it to your 20s.

89 notes • Posted 2021-05-19 11:11:23 GMT

😳

285 notes • Posted 2021-11-08 10:25:45 GMT

Portal 2 was released 10 years ago today!

510 notes • Posted 2021-04-18 17:34:11 GMT

i am physically unable to stop watching the montero music video. just... the sexualization, it's something I've wanted to see for men for so god damn long. in that music video lil nas isn't being "a hot guy", he isn't just posing to the camera. he's activelly being sexy and dancing and doing sexy things and talking about those sexy things, just like women have been doing for so long. oh AND it's gay which makes it 10x better.

802 notes • Posted 2021-03-31 01:32:21 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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turtle-paced · 4 years

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GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

This post is also available on my wordpress.

All right. We know what this episode is. We know what we’re digging into here. Only one more recap to go after this one…

8.05 – The Bells

(1:59) We open the episode with a bit of mild treason. Someone (Varys) is spilling the beans about Jon’s parentage.

(2:35) This isn’t spelled out in so many words, but the strong implication here is that Varys sent this little kid to go poison Dany. This didn’t come out of nowhere, but boy did it ever escalate quickly. Make one decision Varys disagrees with, even when he’s got no good alternatives, and bam you’re up for assassination.

Note how Varys’ actions here aren’t given much scrutiny. This is because it would reveal the hypocrisy in a second flat. When Varys says the ends justify the means, the narrative is silent. When Dany says the ends justify the means, the narrative goes out of its way to demonise her. I don’t believe the ends justify the means, but there is a fundamental lack of consistency here.

(3:52) Not to mention the goddamned fucking nerve of portraying Dany’s refusal to accept food as evidence that her mental state is deteriorating, when the show not one minute ago established that her food was poisoned. It’s the famous question – is it paranoia when they really are out to get you?

This is not a case of Dany harbouring the irrational and unfounded belief that her breakfast will coagulate into the Dread Brunchmonster and devour her. Given that Dany’s soldiers are watching the poisoner, this appears to be a case of Dany forming the belief that someone is trying to poison her and being justified in her belief. I gotta say, looking at the evidence and coming up with an accurate conclusion based on that evidence does not support narrative contentions of irrationality.

Unfortunately for Dany, the narrative’s out to get her as well. She cannot win. Eat the poisoned food and die, refuse the poisoned food and have Varys imply damaging things about her mental state.

(4:37) Varys is committing all the treason in his last scenes. This is the worst of the lot, in the sense that he’s soliciting Dany’s #1 fan for a coup on an open beach in plain view of her Hand, who knows that Varys can now be counted a political enemy. Square character pegs, round plot holes. Was Varys ever established to be this incompetent? But we’re getting close to the end here and he needs to die, so bye!

Notice also the competence flip. Varys is trying to do “the right thing,” so he sucks at it. Much like Jon’s ineffectual when he tries to do the right thing. Hell, pick a Stark, any Stark, and they were probably ineffectual when they tried to do the right thing. Compare Euron, who’s only out to kick shit down, and succeeds when he’s got no right to because he’s doing a shitty, plot-convenient thing. Now Dany’s in that Euron zone. She’s effortlessly detecting Varys’ treason because the narrative has decided she’s a bad guy now. We’ll get back to this when the fighting starts.

(5:19) If I was tempted to count one thing this season, one thing, it would be how many times Jon says “she’s my queen” or variation.

(6:03) We track Tyrion into this scene. It becomes quite noticeable at this point that we aren’t seeing much from Dany’s PoV, but approach her actions from the viewpoint of the men around her. We don’t get insight into why Dany thinks someone’s betrayed her or her emotional reaction to coming to this conclusion, we only get the scenes of Varys (absolutely positively 100% justifiably, for certain) betraying her, and Tyrion approaching her with the news. Keep that in mind for later.

It’s also worth mentioning the weather flip. Last season Dragonstone was perpetually sunny. Now it’s gone back to Stannis-in-charge weather.

(6:11) Oh my god! She’s not perfectly groomed! Flee for your lives, people, if she can leave her hair unbrushed she’s capable of anything!

Now, not taking care of your appearance and hygiene can be an indicator that someone’s got some mental issues going on. Depression, pretty commonly. But to understate the issue just a bit, depression does not automatically translate into mass murder. Not all mental disorders are the same. And sure as shit not all people with mental disorders are violent. Most aren’t. Nor is this a careful depiction of a character struggling with mental illness that does result in violent tendencies. This is just flat out crazy = violent, “madness” striking out of a clear blue sky because the writers said so.

(6:57) So, basically, this game of telephone worked exactly like Dany thought it would, for the exactly reasons she thought it would. Dany’s relationship with reality is still going strong.

Dany’s “madness,” right now, is basically the fact that she’s upset over being betrayed, and grieving and angry after recently witnessing the violent deaths of two close friends. The emotional reaction to this doesn’t even look disproportionate. The narrative is Very Concerned that Dany is crazy…but all they’ve shown us is a woman going through a real rough time.

Equating a woman experiencing turbulent emotions with insanity is sexist as fuck and does no favours for people experiencing mental illness, either. Hysterical women! They cannot be trusted to lead.

Mind you, it’s not an improvement when the writers apparently drop the insanity angle just as abruptly as they introduced it. Problems for later!

(7:44) “She trusted you to spread secrets that could destroy your own queen.” Now this, this isn’t so well-supported. Sansa hasn’t spent much time with Tyrion in season eight, and as far as we can tell, never observed his relationship with Varys. She’s been in the same scenes with them, but I think she’s only heard them exchange one line of dialogue, in a group setting. Why would Sansa think that Tyrion would immediately tell Varys without clearing it with Dany? Why would Dany think that Sansa would do this? (Undermine her in a general sense, yes, Dany’s got good reasons for suspecting that. Undermining her in this specific way…not so much.)

This, I think, is a case of the writers not keeping track of which characters have seen which interactions. Resulting in all characters knowing all the same things about their relationships.

If you’re going to hinge plot developments on this sort of thing, you have to set it up. If Sansa’s machinations are the starting point of the rumours about Jon’s parentage, leading to actual betrayals of Dany, you have to show how that plan worked. (See also: Littlefinger’s downfall.)

(9:25) It may have come about for stupid reasons, but Varys’ arrest is, I think, nicely understated. No dialogue, just Gray Worm entering Varys’ room with shackles.

(10:31) Varys nods his acceptance that Tyrion told on him to Dany. Seriously, though, what even was Varys’ plotting this episode? Show!Ned could have given him a few pointers.

Then he gets a few lines about how he hopes that he’s wrong about Dany, because Varys enlisting a small child into his assassination plot was only for the best. His desire for a better world was right and noble, despite the fact he was willing to use violence and treachery to achieve his ends. (Don’t think about it too much, okay?) Jon and Tyrion are clearly in denial over Dany’s mental decline.

(12:12) And that’s the end of Varys. Didn’t take long. Varys had to lose a lot of competence very quickly to enable that loose end to be wrapped up so quickly.

(12:58) This is a scene from Dany’s PoV, inviting the viewer to share her grief over Missandei’s death. I think this might actually be the last scene we get from Dany’s PoV.

(14:24) “This was a victory for [Sansa].” What’s also apparent at the end of the series is that we’re now at a point where we’ve got reasonable men trying to work together, and women pit against each other at every side. The surviving male protagonists have cordial relationships with each other, by and large – and the surviving female progatonists hate each other, by and large. The surviving female protagonists identify the other female protagonists as threats. The exception here is Sansa and Arya, but remember season seven? Oh boy, I sure do.

Forget the question of who’s more at fault for the Dany-Sansa conflict, because the answer is “the writers.” They’re the ones who can’t imagine that Dany and Sansa might be able to talk out their problems honestly, even if they don’t like each other, distinguishing each from Cersei’s inability to collaborate.

Again, for clarity – the problem isn’t that female characters are in conflict, the problem is that the majority of the female characters are in conflict, almost exclusively with other female characters, where the men are talking about their problems reasonably.

(15:56) Doubling down on completely awful ideas (yes, the bad ideas are increasing exponentially), we’re back to the idea that Dany is sad/insane over the fact that nobody loves her, and Jon’s romantic rejection furthers her mental decline and determination to kill her way to the top.

This is just…completely awful.

First, there’s the fact that Dany’s inability to win love in Westeros is a massive plot contrivance. Why hasn’t this character been able to gain affection? Because the writers haven’t been allowing the consequences of Cersei’s actions to play out (you know, the ones from the time she blew up the Sept of Baelor and murdered a lot of very popular political figures), making Dany look worse in comparison. Also because xenophobia, which for some reason the narrative is now actively supporting.

Second, after all the traumatic bullshit this character’s been through, it’s romantic rejection that sends her over the edge? Seriously? Rejection sucks, but come the fuck on. Is Dany going literally insane over rejection remotely in character, from what we’ve seen of her over the course of the seven previous seasons?

Thus far the dragon queen has needed a man like a fish needs a bicycle. This is flippin’ insulting.

Oh and it’s bad writing for Jon because we still don’t have the info that he’s squicked out by Dany being his aunt. No insight into his identity crisis whatsoever.

(16:07) We’re having the same argument yet again. We’ve been having this argument off and on for two seasons. Yes, Dany assaulting the city will cause a lot of casualties. This is bad. In-universe, however, the people who’ve been advocating for not assaulting the city directly have had their chance, and they failed. Dany gave their ideas a shot and they didn’t work. So what’s the greater evil here? Assaulting the city directly, or leaving Cersei in charge?

Note that the showrunners have ceased to talk about or show what makes Cersei in charge such a colossally bad idea in general. We’ve seen her actions against Dany, and they were bad, but we haven’t seen her going out and oppressing the population for a few seasons now. We get a line about the consequences of resisting Cersei, but when we’re told and not shown, this doesn’t have the same impact. We cannot even establish that this happened. Could’ve used a scene of that, instead of that garbage with Euron. Plus, over the course of the series, Tyrion has been quite consistently wrong about how willing his sister is to use violence and when she’s willing to use it.

Furthermore, we’ve got some double standards here! I know, I’m as surprised as you are. Dany is proposing a plan that will cause a lot of casualties, and this is used as justification for the men around her thinking she’s unfit to rule. When the series’ male leaders proposed and enacted plans that would kill a lot of people – including Tyrion, defending King’s Landing against Stannis! – that was not used to determine their fitness. Fitness for leadership was judged on other qualities.

(16:17) “You can’t expect them to be heroes, they’re hostages,” says Tyrion, apparently forgetting that his earlier advice to Dany relied on the people of King’s Landing rising up against Cersei.

(16:47) Now we’re turning a long-term argument, i.e. leaving Cersei in charge will cause more deaths over the long run than assaulting King’s Landing will in the short term (keeping in mind just who blew up the Sept of Baelor), into further evidence of Dany’s insanity and/or evil. You can think what you like about this argument, but it’s not an unreasonable argument to explore.

The showrunners have posed us a nasty ethical and moral problem in this plot. As wars tend to throw up. The only thing they seem to have to say about solutions, though, is “not this way.” Worse, they’re not actually addressing the counter-arguments, and basically going for the ad hom “but Dany is crazy and/or evil” instead.

(16:58) “If the city surrenders, they will ring the bells and raise the gates.” Continuity alert: back in S2, it was said outright that bells =/= surrender.

(18:04) Just establishing Jaime’s offscreen teleportation.

(18:14) Another undeniably crazy and/or evil moment from Dany: she puts Tyrion on a performance improvement plan. The madwoman. It’s not like he’s failed her before!

Oh, wait. He’s barely done anything but fail her.

(18:31) Scenes of overwhelmingly white civilians (over the course of the episode, I did spot a few people of colour amongst the King’s Landing extras), complete with vulnerable young children, continue pouring through the gates of King’s Landing. And yes, I do have to mention that they’re overwhelmingly white, given the subsequent depiction of Dany’s loyalist armies, who are overwhelmingly people of colour. We’ll talk about that then, when we’re fully dealing with Dany as a villain.

(19:54) Exhibit…what are we up to? I lost count…in “the writers kinda forgot Tyrion’s orders directly led to the death of Davos’ son, and they both know this.” Davos is fucking committing treason for Tyrion now.

(20:11) Oh, god, it’s Arya and Sandor encountering a nameless guard. This is going to be “witty,” isn’t it? Much like the writers have no way for Tyrion to elicit character-sensitive information but drinking games, they’ve got no way for Arya and Sandor to prove their likeability except random encounters with guards.

(21:15) Show!Tyrion’s shithouse Valyrian is basically Bella Swan’s clumsiness. It’s an endearing flaw that’s meant to show they aren’t perfect – but in its shallowness only shows that as conceived, this character was not given enough real flaws.

(22:24) Just confirming that Jaime’s here for Cersei, even believing her cause to be utterly futile. I really hope nobody was invested in Jaime/Brienne, because that’s just fucking brutal.

(22:36) Convince Cersei to change her course of action? To recap, Cersei’s lied about sending people north to help fight the zombie army, hired someone to kill the pair of these dunces, and rejected Dany’s most recent offer of peaceful surrender by murdering her BFF in front of her. Given the slightest opportunity to screw Team Let’s Not Get Turned Into Zombies over, she has screwed them over. What grounds do any of these characters have to think they’ve got even half a chance to convince her that this time, this time, she should really not screw them over? Fourthtime lucky?

At least Jaime’s got the excuse of a self-destructive co-dependent relationship. Tyrion’s just throwing Jaime’s life away here.

(22:49) “To be honest, I never really cared much for [the civilians of King’s Landing].” If it weren’t for, you know, the other thing, this might have been the worst characterisation thing this season and this series. This blatantly does not accord with the Jaime we saw develop over the course of season three. The reveal that Jaime gave up whatever good name he had in order to protect five hundred thousand people from burning to death calls for a substantial reevaluation of his character. It puts a lot of his actions and reactions into a very different context.

And now, in his last episode, the penultimate episode of the series, we get “lol no never mattered to me! All incest, all the time, baby!”

Flippin’ insulting. To any viewer who was remotely invested in Jaime’s storyline or character.

(23:02) Continuing to use Cersei’s pregnancy to humanise her. This just – I’m not sure if I can fully articulate how much this bugs me, and on how many levels. I’ll come back to the issue as the episode progresses, especially in her death scene, but for now…

Cersei’s pregnancy is not going to automatically radically change who she is as a person. I mean, it hypothetically could, it’s not outside the realms of possibility, but it’s by no means a given. She’s a grown-ass woman who’s already given birth to three children (possibly four, depending on retcons). She’s got a bunch of other strong life experiences and strongly-held beliefs. This pregnancy does not define her life. If she’s been saying “no, fuck off, I think I can win this and that will be best for my unborn child,” perhaps that’s worth paying attention to? Perhaps it’s her argument that needs to be addressed, rather than simply saying “but the baby”?

Note to characters: the issue you’re having with Cersei is that she mistakenly believes she can win the war, not that she’s hanging on to her position out of self-destructive spite. She might be deluding herself, but if anyone’s trying to convince her, they have to deal with that delusion. Not rely on appeals to emotion alone.

(23:50) Now it’s Tyrion committing some mild treason. To save Cersei. Who hired someone to kill him and Jaime both, in the last couple of episodes. Remember when Tyrion had actually complicated feelings about Cersei, back in the day? When he hated her for the shit she pulled and the way she treated him, but couldn’t totally give up on caring about her because she was his sister?

Yeah, I can’t help but notice that the more the show wants to demonise Daenerys for her actions in removing Cersei’s regime, the less complex Tyrion’s feelings about Cersei become.

(24:12) “Sail right past the Iron Fleet and into a new life?” Jaime asks, and Tyrion responds, “There isn’t going to be an Iron Fleet much longer.” And, what, Tyrion thinks that Jaime can sail right past Dany’s own forces, dragon included? Like finding Cersei won’t be real high up on Dany’s to-do list following gaining control of King’s Landing? Granted, if last episode is anything to go by, Dany’s field of vision while riding on Drogon is severely limited, but even so.

(25:39) So the brothers Lannister share their final farewell. Speaking of relationships that became less complex. This hits basically the same notes as their parting at the end of season four did. How has this relationship changed? How have the people involved changed? Where’s the progress? Where’s the journey? What is the story?

(25:54) The omissions from Tyrion’s book arc are rubbed in as he thanks Jaime for not treating him like a monster.

(26:37) Now here we have a shot of a bell tower, and I think I might be done with most of my substantive commentary for this episode. I’ll do a bit of narration so people can keep track of who’s going where and the like. We’ll try to keep the teleportation to the show and not the recap. There’ll be a few things of substance, and we’ll get to them, but most of the rest of this 77-minute episode is noisy destruction.

At least it’ll be well-lit noisy destruction. Ugh, and to think I asked for a daytime fight scene in my pre-S8 wishlist.

(27:03) Establishing the Iron Fleet with their ballistae, and Euron’s presence aboard.

(27:15) Establishing more Lannister forces on the walls, also with ballistae. The amount of hustling and bustling and locking and loading going on, this is shaping up to be a real fair fight.

(28:16) Arya and Sandor have made it inside the city.

(28:44) Jaime is also trying to make it inside the city. He took his glove off especially for this purpose. Meanwhile, the Golden Company march out.

(29:15) Here’s a nice detail – the Golden Company’s shields all have golden skulls painted on them.

(30:31) Cersei heads out onto the balcony, because that’s what she does these days, watch things from her balcony. She’s wearing a nice shade of red today, and it couldn’t possibly be coincidental that Cersei swaps back to the red outfits as Dany moves into all black outfits, could it? Huh, so weird. And extraordinarily subtle.

(31:30) We’ve got a bit of a subplot with this mother and daughter trying to enter the city. I sense heartstring-tugging…

(33:03) And now, establishing Daenerys’ location. On a dragon. In the sky. The music kicks in with her arrival.

(33:31) Daenerys starts doing what she should have done well over a season ago, and starts torching the Iron Fleet. Note that all aimbot tendencies have been turned off, today. Diabolus ex machina is no longer affecting Dany because she is the diabolus ex machina now, and nobody will be able to stop her. The forces of evil (as defined by the show, not me) will now be delivering an almighty curbstomping to the forces of also evil, and the innocent bystanders. It’s gritty. It’s real.

(33:58) It’s not too late for Euron to make his final miraculous escape from a ship just torched by Drogon, though. See you in half an hour, Euron! I’m sure you’ll make things worse when you show up.

(34:07) So that’s the Iron Fleet dealt with! Man, why didn’t Dany just do this back in 7.02 or 7.03? This is super easy! Could have saved a lot of lives amongst Dany’s Ironborn allies, Dornish allies, and Reach allies, too. Were their lives not worth preserving? Shortened the war, saved a lot of lives there. Increased resources available to deal with the ice zombies, possibly spread out the impact of those losses…

(34:47) So that’s the Lannister forces on the walls dealt with! Man, why didn’t Dany just do this back in 7.03 or 7.04? This is super easy!

I note that Dany’s attack on the Red Keep, while causing a lot of fatalities amongst the men on the walls, hasn’t caused any destruction in the city as yet. You wouldn’t want to rely on a fire not spreading, and anyone worried about the risks would be fucking right to do so, but it would seem to indicate that a bit of targeting can go on here. It’s not a case of “use fire in city = fwoosh!” Almost like risks can be managed, chances taken…

(36:20) So that’s the Golden Company dealt with! I’m glad they were in the story! They sure had an impact!

You know I’m looking at all this fire and destruction and thinking, wow, a character sure was set up to fail in multiple ways these past two seasons…and not very well, either.

(38:22) Dialogue! What a novelty! Anyhow, Qyburn tells us that all Cersei’s anti-dragon weapons have been destroyed.

(41:15) The Lannister soldiers defending the streets start to throw down their swords. Here is where the episode gets…nasty. Also the situation with Daenerys and her cause becomes narratively irretrievable. The fight is over.

We’ve got a lot of close up shots of Dany, but she hasn’t had any dialogue since…lemme check…about the seventeen-minute mark of the episode. We have not been tracking what she thinks of the city’s fall. The story decided she was a bad guy now at the end of the last episode, and we’re just cementing it now.

(43:07) The bells start ringing here, officially signifying surrender.

(43:31) But wait! Dany is listening to the bells and breathing heavily! She sobs, takes off towards the Red Keep –

(44:33) And starts randomly spraying fire on civilians. That’s right! No dialogue! No nothing! Dany hears bells and fucking snaps. Goes from liberator to mass murderer in a second. Starts killing thousands of people without a word. Because after everything, it’s the surrender she can’t handle.

This just doesn’t track. I’m sorry. It doesn’t. We spent all that time debating how much force Dany should use against legitimate military targets, even when the possibility of severe collateral damage was involved, and in this moment Dany starts going after civilians directly. Clearly a different sort of thing. Where is the connection? The logic? “Dany is willing to accept the risks of high collateral damage, therefore she’s just a bell ring away from murdering civilians deliberately and personally.” “Dany is willing to use extreme force against active military targets, therefore she’s willing to use extreme force against surrendered enemies and civilians.” What?

There are ways you can bridge those gaps. There’s the way I think the books may well go down in TWoW – Dany misjudges the risks out of aggression (and ignorance of the magical explosives in town), and her actions end up causing far more destruction than she was okay with. There’s the way where Dany believes that the civilians are a threat to her, out of paranoia or delusion (note: this requires more set-up than Dany not enjoying herself at a party and failing to brush her hair after her spymaster tried to poison her). The show’s done neither, leaving us no explanation for why Dany has crossed what’s a pretty clear moral and ethical line, above and beyond any moral ambiguity in using her dragon against a military target.

If we’re going for “her logic is twisted because she’s ~crazy~”, the viewer still needs that explanation. Why did she think this made sense? This is a huge, radical action in the story, whether Dany’s insane or whether she drank evil juice with her non-poisoned breakfast, so where’s the scaffolding around this decision? She couldn’t even shout down to Jon that it wasn’t over until Cersei is dead?

Also note that the close-ups on Dany’s face and the heavy breathing would indicate that this is an emotional decision for Dany. These close-ups have been used thus far this season to indicate her growing insanity/“insanity”. Another issue to discuss next episode.

Mostly, I think the showrunners have subbed Dany in for JonCon – who, unlike Dany, does have bell-related surrender trauma. Here’s the thing though, and I know this is a minor point easily missed in these thousand-page apiece books: JonCon isn’t Dany. Find/replace is not a good way to adapt cool storylines from the books.

In addition to this, it’s real fucking irksome that after all the song and dance a few seasons back about the strong female characters taking charge, we get this. Female characters in charge, yes, but female characters who are both crazy and/or evil, which we can see because they keep blowing up the same damn city. I hate that this is the final conflict of the series. What’s more dangerous than the humanity-obliterating ice zombies? Women being in charge of Westeros, because they keep blowing up the same damn city. I hate that this is how they decided to treat arguably the series’ most prominent female character, let’s make her Cersei at her evilest, but even eviller and more fiery. Isn’t it cool that we went back on what was thus far a pretty straightforwardly heroic narrative, blowing all her moments of moral ambiguity and ruthlessness far out of proportion to her arc as a whole to that point? I bet this will subvert everyone’s expectations!

I just – I just want to know why. Really I do. Why was this decision made? What did the writers think the connotations of their decisions were? How did the writers think this would play? Honestly, now.

This also marks the point where the episode starts to just fucking suck to watch, because it’s another half hour of previously sympathetic characters mass murdering civilians. Half a fucking hour. Mass slaughter of extras. It’s destruction porn, nothing more. It’s not designed to make the audience think about the moral hazards of war and power, it’s meant to hurt the audience.

Asshole storytelling – the story gave the audience something to want, in Daenerys, won over several seasons of seeing her overcome internal and external obstacles. It gave the audience Daenerys’ success. And then the story abruptly yanked it away by having Dany mass murder thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, and told the audience they were stupid for not seeing it coming earlier.

*sigh* Let’s get the rest of this over with.

(45:05) Jon is mildly bemused by Grey Worm murdering a Lannister soldier unprovoked. Can we buy a reaction? Nor does he do anything you might expect a leader to do, such as exert authority over the situation on the ground.

I mean, I know that they’re going for Jon being shocked into numbness, and as a member of the audience I can relate to the emotion. But when everyone’s reaction to things is Dull Surprise, nobody’s reaction stands out.

(45:23) Okay. Crucial seconds after the fact, Jon starts reacting. What this scene also does is establish that the Northern armies are getting well into the sacking and slaughtering (as does the extended sequence of wanton slaughter afterwards). That’s yet another thing I’m going to be keeping in mind for next episode.

(46:42) Speaking of Dull Surprise. The problem’s not Peter Dinklage (nor Kit Harrington, actually), the problem’s the lack of variety in response.

(47:03) Davos here starts ushering civilians out of the line of fire and proves himself far more effective a leader in the moment than…well. Just about anyone else present, actually.

(47:43) Oh no! The Dull Surprise has taken over the extras, too!

(48:10) Jon Snow, still wandering around scenes of carnage as they just sort of occur around him.

(49:03) Lena Headey’s doing her best with this “keep the emoting minimal” instruction, but yeah, nobody thus far has been allowed to have a reaction to Dany burning a city down for funsies beyond maybe a slightly dropped jaw.

(49:29) Meanwhile, Jaime has made it all the way around the Red Keep.

(49:35) …where, quite coincidentally, Euron is hanging out. So I was wrong, it was twenty minutes until he showed up for his last diabolus ex machina.

(50:17) So this isn’t so much a climactic duel against an epic backdrop as a misplaced ego fight. Euron’s revolting and basically a plot device for bad things to happen to other people, Jaime’s burned all sympathy anyone may have ever had for him, they’re fighting over Cersei of all people, Euron’s only doing this to be fucking obnoxious one last time…what’s the audience supposed to hope for here, beyond “I hope you both die”?

(50:33) While Jaime and Euron fight, the Red Keep’s getting absolutely torched.

(51:51) Two minutes of Jaime and Euron flailing at each other, concluding with Jaime getting stabbed, nobody cares…

(52:08) Qyburn continues to give Cersei notifications on how fucked her situation is, and he convinces her to leave. Strange, he never once mentioned the fact that she’s pregnant to do so.

(52:48) Green fire is visible in the city, another thing which makes me think that the showrunners were lifting from the books. Badly, with key things out of context (like the order of events), but grabbing from planned book events nevertheless.

(53:33) Back at the Euron-Jaime dick-fighting contest, Jaime stabs Euron. Still don’t care.

(54:09) Euron dies insisting how awesome he is for stabbing Jaime. How nice for him.

(54:35) Arya and Sandor make it into the map room. They’re not even dusty.

(54:43) We get a close-up of Sandor, Arya fuzzy in the background, as Sandor tells Arya to go home. This, much like the scene they shared last episode, puts Sandor in the protagonist role. Not Arya.

For a while now, Arya has felt like an afterthought. Her skills built up to killing the Night’s King through the magic of hasty retcons, but as far as an internal character journey goes, she’s been a side character in other people’s development. First Sansa, now Sandor. Again, this is something I anticipate talking about in a bit more detail in the next episode’s recap, but I think the showrunners lost sight of Arya Stark as a character in the last few season, and started bouncing her between plot points they wanted her involved in.

(55:04) Sandor stops here to tell Arya the point of their respective stories. Somewhat belatedly, I might add, given that she’s already slaughtered most of House Frey. Just in case it wasn’t coming across, or was somehow undermined by the events that are about to transpire.

(55:32) After being informed of the futility of her quest, Arya remembers, “Oh hey! I have a few things to live for! Thanks for pointing that out!” She doesn’t come to this on her own, she has to be told this.

(56:53) Sandor appears on the stairs, ready for Cleganebowl.

(57:36) Gregor rather abruptly kills Qyburn (bye!) and Cersei excuses herself from a scene she clearly has no business in. Seriously, it’s like she alked onto the wrong set.

(57:59) So here we are for a far more hyped up duel, another fight to the death against an epic backdrop. And again: why should I, the viewer, care? Sandor just said that this was absolutely pointless, that they’re both going to die anyway. The stakes of this fight…aren’t real high. The emotional torque relies on people wanting Sandor to get revenge at the direct expense of finding some way to move on with his life – the very path he just told Arya was a better one.

(59:20) Ah, the true love of the series: Cersei and Jaime. Reunited at last. What even are the choices here. Never mind, let’s just enjoy Lena Headey’s Cersei.

(1:00:46) More Cleganebowl. It’s a fight. With a zombie.

(1:02:00) Arya heads out into a rapidly crumbling and burning King’s Landing.

(1:03:31) Swapping between Cleganebowl (still a fight with a zombie) and Arya (still in a city in the process of being destroyed).

(1:04:12) The woman who was trying to get through the gates earlier with her daughter helps Arya to her feet. Oh yeah, there’s definitely going to be some heartstring-yanking here. Back to Cleganebowl.

(1:06:05) Which ends when Sandor tackles Gregor out the collapsing walkway into the flames below. Again, I got nothing. This fight meant nothing. It did nothing. Except help contribute to the undermining of Arya’s story, such as it became (do as I say, not as I do!) and kill off some useless characters, uh, provide fanservice, uh, wrap up loose ends.

(1:06:20) Back to Jon, still just kinda existing in the devastation, now with greener fire. Clearly he needs a dragon to scream at.

(1:06:44) Fucking finally! Jon does something useful and effective, in starting to arrange for his own forces to leave the burning city. About twenty minutes after he should have, but he got there in the end.

(1:07:10) Back to Arya, who’s most definitely dusty now. Writers seem to be trying to fake out her death an awful lot this episode. How many buildings can fall on the poor woman?

(1:10:17) Sure enough, the woman who tried to help Arya, and her daughter, are tragically incinerated in front of Arya’s very eyes. Didn’t see that coming, did you?

(1:10:25) Back to Jaime and Cersei in the collapsing tunnels of the Red Keep.

(1:10:49) Only their escape route is blocked.

(1:11:15) Ramin Djawadi doing his best as per usual brings in an echo from “Light of the Seven,” aka the music that played when Cersei blasted the Sept of Baelor. She did that! Just in case people and/or characters can’t recall as far back as season six.

(1:11:28) Unfortunately, we get this bullshit for Cersei and Jaime’s respective deaths, which is all about how she wants to live because she’s got a wanted pregnancy. I’m not averse to showing that Cersei is human with human frailties, but the viewer is fundamentally being asked to feel bad for this woman because she is pregnant. Ignore the woman (and the entirety of her life), focus on the pregnancy. We also have some goddamned icky creator comments contextualising this scene as Cersei being just a girl seeking comfort from a man, or some such bullshit that infantilises Cersei and reduces Jaime’s range of appropriate emotions in this situation.

It also continues to be extremely gross that the writers are treating Cersei’s romantic relationship, and her motherhood and potential motherhood as her foremost humanising, sympathetic characteristic – while out there unloved, infertile, human-childless Dany has snapped and started murdering thousands of people because nobody loves her.

I’ll have more to say about gendered character death next episode. Yes, I’m keeping a list. It’s getting pretty long.

(1:12:42) The music switches back to “The Rains of Castamere” for the actual Lannister deaths. Rocks fall. Jaime and Cersei die in each other’s arms.

(1:13:15) Ash falls in King’s Landing, and Arya wakes up yet again. This is like the third time in the past twenty minutes. Would you believe she’s still in a burning city?

(1:14:59) A random blood-spattered white horse appears on the set for Arya to ride. The symbolism here would be anvilicious, if not for a) the next episode and b) the fact that this goes nowhere. In case you didn’t get the point, though, there’s been a lot of death this episode!

#anti got #fine toothed comb edition #cw: violence #season eight #now to crack open a bottle of red wine

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taexual · 5 years

Text

HOLIC - 44 | jb x reader

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: it’s just raw angst

words: 7.2k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

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It only took you a few days to finish editing all of the pictures you’d taken of Jaebum that night. You ran them by him first – and smacked him when he tried to make you swear he’d always be your only model – and then emailed them to his agency. You still needed their approval so, even though Jaebum had insisted you take these pictures, it was possible that his employers were going to end up hiring someone else, after all.

Except, as you learned on your way to work that Friday, they didn’t. As it turned out, the only problem Jaebum’s producer had with the pictures you’ve taken was that he couldn’t choose one. It felt like the biggest compliment you’ve ever been told.

The entire day would have been wonderful – Fridays already carried a certain aura of just being plain great – had it not been for a text Jiho sent you right when you were wrapping up, ready to head home. Apparently, his old friend was holding an exhibition at one of the out-of-town galleries he’d worked with before so you needed to keep your Saturday free.

Grateful that he’d warned you—sort of—in advance this time, you texted back in confirmation and were surprised to learn that Jiho actually expected you to bring your camera to the exhibition. For a moment, you thought he’d found out you’d taken Jaebum up to the balcony and had completely stolen Jiho’s photoshoot spot, so he was now going to get back at you by taking your camera and locking it away or something equally as unrealistic. But then you realized that made no sense – even if he had learned about your impromptu photoshoot, why would he try to get back at you? You’d done nothing wrong. Quite the opposite, actually.

Getting the approval of Jaebum’s agency provided you with a huge boost of confidence that you obviously needed. They liked your pictures so much, they didn’t know which ones to use – that had to mean you were, at least, somewhat better than average at what you did. What was more, that had to mean that, perhaps, you’d been too pessimistic about the number of opportunities you would get to make yourself known. Maybe you wouldn’t have to completely rely on Jiho to get your name out there, after all.

In the time leading up to the exhibition you had to attend with Jiho that Saturday night, you couldn’t get the memory of the photoshoot with Jaebum out of your head. Taking pictures of him had been nothing short of wonderful. You both had fun – although you did nearly freeze your hands off – and just seeing him through the lens of your camera inspired you so much, you had come up with three new ideas for a photoshoot if this one didn’t work out. But it did work out. Not only did you thoroughly enjoy the photoshoot itself, but the end result was also splendid. You couldn’t have been happier.

However, ruining the utter bliss of your routine with Jaebum as the two of you munched on pizza in his bed that Friday night, you got a call from Hyojin who was demanding to see you immediately. Normally, you’d have turned any offer to go out down – there was simply nothing you’d have rather done that what you’d already been doing – but because she was one of your best friends and, frankly, she sounded absolutely terrifying on the phone, you forced yourself out of bed.

“Are you seriously leaving right when Johnny Depp discovers the—”

“Oh, no,” you stopped Jaebum by extending your hand in front of his face. “Just because you’ve seen Sleepy Hollow before doesn’t mean you get to spoil the ending for me. Or watch it without me. Pause it, I won’t be long.”

“That’s not the ending, it’s barely even the middle,” he mumbled, pausing the movie nevertheless. “And are you saying I’m going to have to stare at the ceiling while I wait for you?”

“It’s just fifteen minutes,” you said. “Jacob’s dropping her off in front of our building. There’s no way Hyojin will make him wait for very long.”

“Why is she coming all this way over here, anyway?” he asked, already knowing all about your friends and their boyfriends. “And, at this hour, nonetheless?”

“It’s nine on a Friday night,” you said matter-of-factly. “She was probably out drinking like normal people do. It’s just you and I who get drunk on a Monday night instead.”

Jaebum grinned at the jab. “Fair point. I’ve paused the movie for you – consider that when you’re out and don’t keep me waiting for too long.”

“I will keep your sacrifices in mind,” you leaned over to kiss him and then stumbled out of his bedroom, your jeans still only halfway on.

Hyojin hadn’t been to your neighborhood before and it showed – she had her boyfriend drive around the block three times before she called and got you to come to the building they’d eventually parked outside of. But even despite getting lost, she looked like she thought that coming all the way over here was worth it.

“It’s great to see you,” you told her after the two of you hugged hello. “But, seriously, what’s up? You’ve never driven this far for me before, usually we just—”

“No, I know,” she cut you off, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “But you need to see this. I couldn’t text you the link because, well, yelling at you over text is not the same as yelling at you in real life. So, here. Look.”

She pressed something on her phone and then passed it on to you.

From the looks of it, Hyojin had opened up a tabloid site – with some very bad formatting that warped the text in every second paragraph – but you didn’t get to check what kind of site because your eyes immediately caught Jiho’s name in the headline. And then your name following right after.

“Oh, shit,” you muttered under your breath, reading on.

The article seemed to be a quick recap of the dinner you’d attended with Jiho earlier this week. It was accompanied by some high-quality pictures of the people who were there – and thus, you realized that this wasn’t actually a tabloid site at all, this must have been a blog-like website by one of the dinner guests – but its’ main focus, without a doubt, was the “budding relationship between the most promising young photographer” – Jiho – “and his muse” – you.

“I’m not—this wasn’t supposed to—oh, fuck,” you tossed around helplessly, handing Hyojin her phone back. “How did you even find this?”

“I didn’t. Jacob showed it to me,” she replied, her face executing every sign that she was about to scold you good. “One of his friends from publishing was at that dinner, so he was showing Jacob the pictures and Jake thought he’d recognized you. Turns out, his friend was actually looking forward to meeting you. He’d referred to you as “Jiho’s girlfriend.”

“God, no, it’s not—”

“Yeah, I sure hope it’s not,” Hyojin continued, too fired up to let you finish, “because this implies that you’re still in touch with that asshat and, not just that, but you’re also dating him.”

You momentarily recalled your last conversation with May at Mark’s bar. Evidently, she’d kept quiet about the revelation that your entire future depended on Jiho, so Hyojin was completely in the dark about it all.

“I’m not. I swear, I’m not. I would never! Jaebum—he’s right upstairs, waiting—God, this is messed up,” you brought your hands over your face in an attempt to collect your thoughts so you’d finally form a coherent sentence. “Listen, you can’t tell anyone because I’m not sure if I’m allowed to speak about this – at least not to the press – but—”

“Well, go right ahead,” she urged, “I’m not the press.”

“Yeah, but Jacob is,” you nodded your head towards the car Hyojin had just stepped out of – or, perhaps, sprinted out of would have put it more accurately since she hopped right out, slamming the door shut before you even got a glimpse of her boyfriend.

“He’s not that kind of press,” Hyojin rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t care about some photographer that’s fresh out of the womb. No one does. No offense.”

You didn’t take offense – she was right. As Mark had pointed out in his bar the other day, the only people who cared about photographers were other photographers.

“Right,” you swallowed. “Well, this was Jiho’s idea. He thought I should get some exposure before my exhibition.”

Hyojin frowned. “Why does he get to decide that?”

God, you thought you appreciated May for not telling the rest of your friends about this – she must have thought you should have been the one to do that – but now you wished she had, just like she revealed the truth about who your roommate was. You’d planned to keep Jaebum’s identity a secret but ended up spilling it all to her while wine-drunk and, in turn, May had told the rest of your friends. If she’d done the same thing now, perhaps you wouldn’t have had to face Hyojin’s judgemental eyes.

“Because,” you closed your eyes, “it’s his gallery.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” you groaned, your fingers suddenly very drawn to your scalp and, particularly, ripping your hair out of it. “God, it’s a long story.”

“Honey,” your friend put her hand on your shoulders, a very determined expression on her face, “I’ve got all night.”

Jacob pulled his window down, having overheard her say this. “You really don’t, love. We have a movie to catch in half an hour. Hello, by the way.”

“Hey, Jake,” you gave him an awkward wave which he acknowledged with a nod and then slid his window back up, giving you and Hyojin some privacy – even though he could, clearly, hear everything from inside of the car anyway. “You should go, Jin. I swear nothing’s happening. His gallery reached out to me and offered me… something. It’s not just an exhibition, it’s a whole ton of other stuff, too. It’s a great contract, really. But before I get to lay claim to any of those perks, I have to become more well-known so that my first exhibition isn’t a complete bust. That dinner is a part of a-a PR stunt, you know? Like, we were supposed to appear together as two photographers, having dinner—”

“Is that not what you did?” she asked, interrupting you.

“It is, but—well, they’re calling me his muse,” you replied. “Not his colleague. So, that’s not exactly what was supposed to happen but, I guess, it’s still exposure.”

“Are you going to do something about this, then?” she continued.

“I don’t know what I can—”

“And what does Jaebum think about this wonderful stunt?”

Her questions already made it difficult to catch your breath but this last one seemed to punch you right in the lungs.

“He doesn’t know,” you wheezed out, not raising your eyes from the pavement.

For the second time that night, Hyojin’s jaw opened and froze in that position. “What?”

“N-no, I mean, he knows I’m doing these events for publicity,” you tried to explain, guilt flashing all over your face. “He just doesn’t know—”

“That they’re with Jiho?” she raised her eyebrows in an oddly accusing manner. “Babe, what are you doing?”

“I’m—”

She shook her head, choosing not to listen to another excuse. “You have to tell him.”

“I will!” you said, sounding far too exasperated. You’d already told everyone but Jaebum and the constant promises you made about telling him were starting to weigh down on your consciousness. “He’s just been so happy, getting that contract with an agency, and all. Everything’s going so well, it just doesn’t feel right to piss on his parade. He wanted this for so long.”

That sounded like an excuse and both of you knew it.

“Don’t think you’re doing him a favor by not telling him,” Hyojin reprimanded immediately.

“I know I’m not,” you said. “And I will tell him. Just not right this moment.”

“Well, if he sees the article, it will be too late, won’t it?”

“He won’t see it,” you said and then, after a moment of panic, added a fearful, “will he?”

Hyojin sighed. “Honestly, no, he probably won’t. The only reason Jake even saw that was because of that co-worker who showed it to him. There are probably, like, six people who read that website and I don’t think Jaebum is one of them. I hope that isn’t the kind of publicity Jiho meant.”

“I hope not,” you echoed. “Although it makes sense that no one cares about this. We’re irrelevant.”

“No, he had one thing right – people don’t care about these dinners but they do care about who’s dating whom, even if the people in question aren’t too famous,” she said. “Sex sells—”

Your eyes widened. “Sex?”

“You know what I mean,” she waved your surprise off. “People care about that shit. They want to know who’s sleeping with—”

“It’s just—just a few events,” you cut her off, just the mere mention of anyone assuming you and Jiho were having sex enough to send your stomach into a panicked frenzy. “Any publicity is good publicity, right?”

“Well, Jake would disagree but he’s not trying to become a celebrity. He just writes about them.”

“Right,” you nodded, allowing the looming awkward silence to finally engulf you both.

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Hyojin asked another uncomfortably long moment later.

“No. I’m not sure about anything,” you replied honestly. “But I want that exhibition and if that’s the only way—”

“You know it’s not,” she disagreed right away. “And, frankly, faking a relationship with someone doesn’t seem worth it.”

You continued to count the tiles on the pavement, feeling – and looking – like a scolded kindergartner. Any other time, you’d have felt like she just didn’t understand your situation. Merely a few days ago, you were convinced you weren’t good enough to find a place to host your exhibition some other way, but now you’d achieved a huge breakthrough with the pictures you’d taken for Jaebum. Now you believed in yourself a little – oh, alright, a lot – more.

“This isn’t long-term,” you decided to say. “It’s just a few weeks tops. That’s two or three more events and I’ve got another one tomorrow night. It’ll all be over before long: I’ll have my exhibition and then I can forget all about Jiho.”

“Hmm,” Hyojin had crossed her arms and was now looking decidedly skeptical. “And, I suppose, you’ll tell Jaebum about this another decade later, yeah? I don’t really understand why you—”

“I’m afraid,” you cut her off. She didn’t seem to understand why you sounded so agitated so, after sighing so deep, your whole chest began to ache, you explained, “I don’t want to lose him. I’ve already fucked up before and it lead to some hefty arguments. But that was before we were together, so they weren’t as significant.”

“When are arguments ever not significant?”

“Fine, they were significant,” you said. “But they never posed a threat to our relationship because there wasn’t one. And now that there is, I’m afraid that if we fight, it will break us up.”

“So, what, you’ll spend the rest of your life walking on your tip-toes, avoiding arguments with him because you’re afraid?” Hyojin asked. The more she talked, the less your words made sense to you. Suddenly, you couldn’t understand why you kept talking at all.

“No,” you said awkwardly. “No, that’s just stupid, I can’t avoid arguments with him for the rest of my life, but it’s so soon. We’ve only been together for, what, a few weeks, a month—”

“When did you move in with him?”

“I-I don’t know, a few months ago,” you blinked, not sure how this question was relevant. “Maybe three, three and a half—”

“Alright, so you’ve been with him for three and a half months, then,” Hyojin concluded.

“No, but we weren’t together before—”

“No,” she declared louder so she could talk over you – just like she seemed to do the whole night tonight. “No, babe. Every argument you’ve had with him since the day you moved in was equally as significant, and yet, not a single one posed any threats to your relationship. Not-a-single-one, you hear me? Because, from what you’ve told me, you and him have gotten pretty intense with each other before and yet, neither of you moved out. Not even when you didn’t think you were going to end up together. You have some real stuff between you, you know what I mean? The kind of stuff that can’t be broken by arguments… but might get irrevocably stained by secrets.”

You didn’t have a response to give her and sighed instead but Hyojin understood everything you couldn’t say just from your breath.

“You don’t want to do this with Jiho, either,” she said gently. “So, don’t put yourself through something you don’t want to do. Do it your way. So what if it takes longer?”

It wasn’t the first time someone had said that to you and it certainly wasn’t the first time that you considered the weight of these words. They were heavy but that was the case with the truth – it weighed you down until you could barely move.

“We said we were going to do this together,” you whispered under your breath, the engine of Jacob’s car nearly drowning your words out. “So, if I don’t do this, I’ll just have to watch him walk away from me.”

“Walk away from—honey, no,” Hyojin sighed, wrapping her arms around you, her sweet perfume so familiar, you almost started to cry. “He wouldn’t.”

“He wouldn’t have a choice,” you insisted. “That’s how life works sometimes. I don’t want it to. I don’t want him to—I just want us to do this together.”

“And you will,” she promised, pulling away slightly so she could look at you. “But maybe at different speeds. But who the hell cares? You were together before fame and you’ll be together after. You’ll wipe your stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together and then walk into the sunshine, hand-in-hand. Who cares if you’ll host your exhibition a month, or a year after he releases his album?”

You cared, sniffling as you refused to meet her eyes. “A lot can happen in a year.”

“And a lot will,” she nodded. “But you two had already gone through so much, you might as well go through a little bit more.”

“What if that’s where the breaking point is? What if we don’t have a year—”

“Sweetheart,” she stopped you, suddenly grave serious. “What if I reach down inside of you, grab that paranoia of yours, and strangle it so it no longer bothers you, hmm? That would save us all a lot of time.”

You couldn’t control the snicker that passed your lips and got Hyojin to smile as well.

“Go back,” she told you then. “And don’t forget where you’re going, okay?”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? Where am I going?”

Hyojin smile meaningfully. “You’re going home.”

Hyojin’s last words helped you more than you’d realized at first, and you woke up the next morning with a decision – tonight was going to be the last event you’d attend with Jiho. Once it was over, you would sit him down and tell him that you had to find another way because you simply couldn’t approve of this one. He’d have to agree to let you host your exhibition right now and not “when you were more popular.” You’d tell him about the pictures you’d taken of Jaebum and how much his agency liked them if he refused to listen to you.

And then, if he’d agree, you’d go home, talk to Jaebum, host your exhibition, and live happily ever after. And if he wouldn’t, you’d still go home, talk to Jaebum, and find a way to live out your happily ever after without getting your exhibition.

You hoped for the former but, as you applied your make-up for the night, you braced yourself for the latter. You knew that the chances of Jiho agreeing to just cut straight to your exhibition were slim – you and him were only seen together twice; surely, that wasn’t going to be enough in his eyes – but you trusted your ability to sound convincing. He’d insisted the gallery wanted you for your potential, so, maybe he’d fight harder to hold on to you and agree to your terms, after all.

In the end, whatever happened tonight, this was going to be the last time you were out with Jiho for publicity.

You nearly blacked out when, after leaving a note to let Jaebum know you were off to a photography event, you walked out of your building and saw Jiho step out of a limousine. A sleek black limousine – as if you two were headed to your wedding or something.

“W-what is—” you began but didn’t get to finish before Jiho’s bright laughter cut you off.

“I thought we’d arrive in style! What do you think?” he asked. You thought he was a lunatic. “Attract some more attention, hmm? Come on, get inside – got your camera? Good! – there’s champagne.”

You felt like you’d just skipped through, at least, three chapters of your life when you climbed into his limousine. Who were you, exactly, to have this expensive ride with undoubtedly equally as expensive glass of champagne thrust into your hand as soon as you sat down?

It was impossible to understand what was happening – although, from the laid-back way Jiho was acting, you’d have thought he took the limo to go to work and do his grocery shopping, so this wasn’t weird to him in the slightest – and, what’s more, it was impossible to figure out what would happen next.

As it turned out, what happened next was silence. Jiho was texting someone on his phone, so the only sound in the car was the rapid click-clacking of his fingers against his screen and the ever-so-often sip of champagne. You, on the other hand, refused to drink and remained completely quiet and overly alert the entire ride. When thrust into a situation you’ve never experienced before, it was probably best to stay sober and aware of your surroundings.

Once the limousine stopped – tossing your heart from your chest to your heels – about fifty minutes later, Jiho finally put his phone away and turned to look at you.

“Here’s the plan,” he declared in a way that made it seem as though you two were about to rob a bank Bonnie-and-Clyde style. “I didn’t tell you to bring your camera just so people would know you’re a photographer. That will come up anyway. I asked—”

“Will it?” you cut him off reflexively.

“What?”

“Will it come up?” you repeated, deliberately this time. You had decided to tell him you didn’t want to do this – even though he had to know that himself already – and you were going to stick with that decision. “Because, judging from the article written about us after the dinner, I’m not actually a photographer at all. I’m just a girl on your arm.”

Jiho, for some reason, hadn’t expected you to have read the article. Once the initial surprise wore off, however, he looked pleased that you’ve seen it and was almost inclined to ask who’d shown it to you. Clearly, you had your own sources and he was all the more curious to know who they were.

“Right, but that’s where it starts,” he insisted. “Slowly, more and more people will stop focusing on the fact that we’re together and, instead, will start to focus on us as individuals. I mean, come on, there are only so many speculations that can be made about the relationship of two people. Sooner or later, people are bound to get bored.”

“If they’re bored, they’ll ignore me and focus on you,” you said, “and I will still be the girl—”

“Quit thinking I’ll be quiet through it all,” he cut you off, showing you, for the first time since you’ve met him, that he also had the ability to get annoyed. “I’m doing this for you—for the gallery. Obviously, I will do everything in my power to make it clear that we are both photographers. Hence your camera here, tonight. I want you to capture this event from your own point of view. I will use one of your pictures in my review of tonight’s exhibition – with proper credit, of course – and that’s how everything will kick off.”

You bit your lip, looking down. If he’d told you of this plan earlier, perhaps you’d have felt less revolted riding this limousine with him. Still, though – was the expensive car so necessary?

“Fine,” you said, choosing to leave the conversation about how you wanted to finish doing these events until after the night was over. You were sort of an expert at postponing potentially complicated conversations. “Let’s just get this over and done with.”

Jiho smiled in response – the smile, that was most likely fake, looked so real that you started to wonder if he’d been faking this nice exterior the whole night tonight – and, opening the door of the limo with one hand, extended his other one to you.

“What do you want me to—”

Not waiting for you to start questioning his motives again, he took your hand against your wishes, and helped you get out of the car. There were three people taking pictures of the guests arriving at the exhibition and all three of them suddenly had their cameras on you and Jiho, eager to capture you two stepping out of the car, hand-in-hand. It was almost blinding and most surreal.

“Good to see you, Jiho!” one of the photographers hollered, his flash going off every two seconds. You were sure you had your eyes closed in every single picture he took. “Is that the missus?”

You cringed – but hoped it wasn’t too noticeable – and tried to pull your hand out of Jiho’s grip now that you were out of the car, but he didn’t let you.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Jiho replied sneakily, shooting a wink in the direction of the camera. “I’m here to have a grand night, admiring the artwork of a dear friend with a dear friend.”

“Is she just a friend, then?” another one asked. You felt yourself clutch the camera in your hands tighter in hopes of drawing more attention to it. “A close friend, perhaps?”

“She’s all of that and a lot more,” Jiho replied and you felt a cold wave wash over your entire body at his words. “And she’s one of the most talented young acts I know. Careful, boys, her pictures tonight might just overshadow yours.”

“We’re looking forward to it, Jiho!” the photographer said as Jiho lead you inside. Your feet were nearly frozen solid. “Have a great night!”

“You, too!” Jiho wished with a gentle wave of his hand and the two of you finally escaped the cameras by entering the building.

As soon as the photographers were behind you, you pulled your hand out of Jiho’s a little more forcibly than you’d intended and gave him a horrified look.

“What the hell are you saying to them?!” you demanded, not even trying to keep your voice down. “You told me you’d leave our relationship up for speculation and then you went ahead and—”

“And what?” he snapped, your sudden outrage frustrating him much more than your persistent doubts in the limo did. “What was it that I said to them that wasn’t precisely that? I’m planting the seeds of doubt—”

“You’re planting rumors!” you disagreed vehemently. “Do you really think they’ll care about my photographs now that you’d made it seem as if we’re together? As if we’re in love?”

“Of course, they will—”

“They couldn’t care less about that shit!” you continued, noticing how each swear word out of your lips made Jiho cringe and look around to see if anyone heard. “All that their cameras focused on was you holding my hand. I’m nothing to them—”

Jiho cut you off by taking a threatening step towards you, his face dangerously close to yours as he whisper-yelled through clenched teeth, “how do you expected to be something when you haven’t done anything? Popularity is earned. I’m earning it for you so show more gratitude and stop making a fucking scene.”

He stepped away a second later and, if you hadn’t been there, listening to him curse and put you down, you probably wouldn’t have believed it. Jiho was a fantastic actor, truly – the way he kept his composure around you all of this time was admirable. But there had to be a reason why you were so adamant to get away from him at all times; clearly, it wasn’t just because you’d misunderstood his intentions the first time you met him. It was also because somewhere deep in your subconscious, you figured he was just playing a role of Jiho, the sweet and eager-to-help photographer, while his real personality was buried deep underneath.

Well, you’d caught glimpses of his real face just now and, when he told you to straighten up and proceeded to wrap one hand around your waist to enter the exhibition hall, smiling as if you hadn’t just argued, you knew that the decision to drop everything, cancel the contract, and find another way to get your name out there was the right one.

“Jiho, I—”

“Shh,” he hushed sharply. “I need you to stay quiet right now. I’m looking for the host, I’m going to introduce you and then off you go, taking your pictures. Got it? I’m not in the mood to talk to you right now.”

“Me neither. I was just—”

His grip on your waist tightened. “What did I just tell you?”

His voice sounded like it came straight from hell and yet, instead of feeling intimidated, you felt incredibly relieved. You weren’t wrong, Jiho may have just been the devil incarnate with some very well-trained – albeit pretend – manners.

You stayed quiet, allowing him to search for the host of the night because you figured that if you had to end the night without a contract – you didn’t think it was possible that Jiho would agree to cut short to your exhibition instead of just dropping you right away – then it’d be great if you would get to meet a few more influential people beforehand. They probably weren’t going to help you out, knowing their relationship with Jiho, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them learn your name.

As soon as you shook the hand of the photographer whose pictures hung on the walls of the hall around you – your face hurt from all the fake smiles already, even though you’d only been here for less than twenty minutes – something happened that made you regret leaving your house tonight even more. You should have bolted in the opposite direction as soon as you saw the limousine approach, really.

“Hello,” an awfully familiar voice sounded next to you. You thought you experienced what falling from the twentieth story of a skyscraper must have felt like when you turned around to meet Jackson’s eyes. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh. H-hey,” you choked out, painfully aware of Jiho’s hand still on your waist. “I’m here with—”

“Hello,” Jiho turned around as soon as the host of the exhibition walked away. You may have feared Jaebum meeting Jiho but you couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going to happen when one of Jaebum’s best friends met him instead. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m—”

“Could you excuse us for a moment?” Jackson asked, his hand coming to rest on your waist instead.

Taking advantage of Jiho’s confused features, Jackson pulled you away from him and – before you could protest – walked you to the closest bathroom he could find, closing the door behind you.

“I’m sorry for cutting it straight to the chase,” he spoke as calmly as he could given the situation, “but, shit, who the hell is that?”

“T-that’s Jiho. He’s—”

“A scumbag that’s about to get his ass kicked, I hope?” Jackson finished for you. “What are you doing here with him?”

“I’m—God, it’s a long story,” you said, the exhaustion you’ve felt since you signed the contract showing in your voice. “I’ve signed a deal with his gallery, so I have to—”

“Does Jaebum know you’re here?”

“Jackson—”

“Because, I swear to God, I have no idea what you’re doing but I—”

“Jackson!” you said louder, suddenly afraid of the fire behind his eyes. He looked frantic. He looked like he was going to knock Jiho out right after he left the bathroom and his hand was already reaching for the door handle. “Please listen, I’m just—I came to the exhibition. I’ve signed a contract with a gallery Jiho represents and I need some exposure—”

“Some exposure?” he frowned, the look on his face depicting every frustration you were feeling inside. You were afraid to look him in the eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can’t host my exhibition while no one knows who I am,” you answered. “I need to—”

“That’s bullshit!” Jackson snapped. “How are you supposed to get exposure without hosting any exhibitions? Did he convince you this was a good idea?”

“No, I don’t think this is a good idea, I—”

Jackson threw his hands in the air, startling you. “Well, then what the fuck are you doing here?!”

“I’m trying to get my name out there!” you replied in agitation. Jackon’s accusing tone and the questions he was firing at you confirmed that your raised voices in this bathroom were going to be nothing in comparison to the storm this would cause with Jaebum. “Fuck! I’m just—I’m trying to get some publicity. That was part of the contract.”

Jackson scoffed. “That guy has you pressed against his side like you’re his trophy wife. I don’t know what kind of publicity you’re seeking but I can assure you, this isn’t it. Jaebum—fuck, is he on board with this?”

You almost flinched when he mentioned Jaebum again.

“Of course he’s not—actually, uh, he doesn’t know the—”

“He doesn’t know?!”

To say that Jackson was appalled would have been an understatement.

“He doesn’t know the details!” you tried to explain, feeling yourself tear up but desperately trying to remain calm – or, well, as calm as you could with Jackson looking at you like you’d just killed your way through the West Coast. “He knows I have to attend these events for a little while, he just—I didn’t tell him about Jiho. The three of us go way back, he hates the guy.”

“Oh,” Jackson said in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice. It was scary to hear his deep, somber tone take such a sarcastic chirp turn. “So, that makes all of this better!”

“It doesn’t,” you tried. “And I’ll tell him—”

“Like hell, you will.”

“W-what?”

“If you hadn’t told him yet, clearly, you’re not that eager to tell him at all,” he stated.

“No, I want him to know,” you insisted but you weren’t sure if you meant it. Hearing Jackson voice your real intentions was the ultimate turning point and every single ounce of guilt came pouring out of your eyes in tears. You really didn’t want Jaebum to know. “I-I just don’t want to fight with him about this—”

“Then maybe don’t do this!” Jackson continued, still as loud as before but gentler now that you started to cry, “if you’re doing something that’s going to start a fight with your boyfriend when he finds out, then you’re probably stepping out of line in a major way, don’t you think?” he paused as soon as he realized how riled up he was. He brought his hands through his hair to calm himself down. “God, I’m sorry, I can’t—I seriously have a hard time understanding this. W-why did you think this was a good idea? How the hell did you think faking a relationship with someone was going to go under your own boyfriend’s radar?”

You sniffled, trying to focus on your breathing so you wouldn’t sob out loud, “I’m not faking a relationship—”

“Oh, okay, well, don’t worry about that – that guy out there is doing it for you,” Jackson countered.

“No, I—this,” you felt yourself hiccup, “it w-wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Fuck, what was it supposed to be like?” Jackson asked. “Because last time I was on the phone with Jaebum, he was in my studio, writing a fucking song about you. I definitely didn’t think I’d hang up the phone, turn around, and see his girl walk right past me with another guy.”

You barely had enough time to process what he had just said when a knock came on the bathroom door.

“Is everything alright?” Jiho’s voice called out. “I hate to bother you but we should probably get back out here. We’re here for your benefit, after all.”

“In a moment!” you replied through a stuffed nose. Jackson sighed, his hands on his hips and his eyes focused on the floor. The fact that he couldn’t even look at you felt like a whole new stab of pain. “Look, this is the last event I’m doing. I’m ending it tonight. If they won’t let me host an exhibition, I’ll find another solution. I won’t do this anymore.”

You wiped the tears from your cheeks and tried to steady your breathing.

“How many events like this have you done already?” Jackson asked another moment later. He may have been angry with you but he hated to have been the reason why you started to cry.

“Just a few, it hasn’t been that long—”

“And how long were you planning on doing this for?”

“N-not long,” you said, your breath hitching again. You exhaled slowly before finishing, “ideally, I want to end this tonight.”

“But you’ll still work with him – with a guy who’s obviously very interested in making the public think he’s dating you – and Jaebum will still not know about it, is that what you’re planning?” Jackson continued, watching your eyes fill with tears again but not being able to stop himself. He’d have put his life on the line for his best friend and it was starting to feel like that was exactly what he was doing right now because he knew he was going to wish he was dead as soon as this blew over. The sight of you crying because of the things he’d said was too awful to bear. “Jaebum will come to your exhibition, not having the slightest clue that there’s a guy who’s—”

“I’ll tell him!” you shouted desperately, pain spilling from your eyes without the slightest intention of stopping. “God, I will! I’ll tell him everything.”

“Will you? Will you, really? Because he’s my best friend. I can’t just stand here after I learned about the shit that he doesn’t know but should know. Fuck. I think you’re great, I really do. And, God knows, I’m so sorry I’ve made you cry tonight,” he added and then, even despite all that he’d just said, stepped closer to provide you with some comfort by carefully wrapping his arms around you, “I think the two of you are perfect for each other but, fuck…” he sighed after hearing you sob against his shoulder, “you know his heart better than I do, but even I can tell that you’re walking dangerously close to breaking it.”

“I wouldn’t,” you whispered, pulling away from him to look him in the eyes. “I couldn’t. I would never, I-I—”

“I know you probably don’t mean it,” he said softly, releasing you. “But he’s going to hate the fact that you’re keeping this a secret.”

“I know he is,” you nodded, stepping away from him and sniffling before slowly bringing your index fingers under your eyelids. Your make-up was most definitely destroyed but that was the least of your worries right now. “That’s w-why, the longer I stay quiet, the harder it gets to find a way to tell him.”

He sighed again. “You know someone has to.”

“J-Jackson, I—”

“Just go, okay?” he asked, turning away from you and resting his hands on the sink, his head hanging low. It was you who felt beyond ashamed and yet he looked like he was the one making the biggest mistake of his life. “That guy’s waiting for you out there.”

“Please, I’ll tell Jaebum about this, I just—”

“Go,” Jackson repeated. “Please.”

You reached the door but turned around as soon as the last tears slid down your cheeks. You waited for him to turn around to look at you but he wouldn’t.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” you said slowly, the ball in your throat from the tears and the pain and the guilt suffocating you. “I love him.”

Jackson whipped his head to face you. “Does he know?”

Looking down again, you didn’t even dare to shake your head – and you didn’t have to, Jackson knew the answer already. This was another thing you’d never gathered the courage to tell to Jaebum.

Jackson looked away again and, after another torturous moment, you dared to exit the bathroom, closing the door behind you and feeling yourself tear up yet again as soon as you saw Jiho’s polished shoes.

“What was that about?” he asked you right away.

“Jiho,” you said sternly, your vision clouded with tears. You thought you saw him take a small step back in shock once he saw your puffy red eyes. “I won’t do this anymore. I need an answer right now – can I host my exhibition at your gallery or not? Because if not, I’m ending the contract right this moment.”

“Well, of course, you can,” Jiho replied, surprised. His fake face was back on and you wished nothing more than to claw it off. “You just need a little bit more exposure and—”

“No,” you shook your head. “I don’t like this. I didn’t like the article written about us, I didn’t like what you told those photographers out there, and I don’t like the fact that we’re, essentially, pretending to be in a relationship. I’m not—I don’t want to do that. Either, I host the exhibition now or I’m leaving.”

“Well—that’s—where is all this coming from? I thought we’d reached an agreement. You’re so close to—”

“The only thing I’m close to is ruining the only thing that makes sense in my life,” you were the one who kept cutting him off this time. It was nice to have the upper hand for a change even if you had a feeling it would backfire. “So, tell me right now: will I have the exhibition at your gallery or not?”

“I-I can’t give you an answer immediately,” he replied. “I need to check in with the gallery and we need some time to consider this.”

“Okay. Consider it, then,” you said, exhaling shakily as you turned around towards the front door of the hall. “And give me an answer as soon as possible.”

“Wh—right, but where are you going?”

You didn’t stop as you answered curtly, “I’m going home.”

chapter directory

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rainbowgoddd99 · 3 years

Text

♡︎Even at any moment You are always the sh*t ♥︎

Read it over and over every minute as much as you need just keep going you can it’s okay if you think you can’t you can you can you can you CAN!!!! Take it easy one by one you definitely can. If you can’t focus on your own life then try to make another’s bright even if it’s just one word you can you can be that light until you find your own. You are strong you matter.

1. We would miss you.

2. It’s not worth the regret. Either by yourself if you failed or just simply left scars, or the regret everyone else feels by not doing enough to help you.

3. It does get better. Believe it or not it will eventually get better. Sometimes you have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow.

4. There’s so much you would miss out on doing.

5. There is always a reason to live. It might not be clear right now, but it is always there.

6. So many people care, and it would hurt them if you hurt yourself.

7. You ARE worth it. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you otherwise.

8. You are amazing.

9. A time will come, once you’ve battled the toughest times of your life and are in ease once again, where you will be so glad that you decided to keep on living. You will emerge stronger from this all, and won’t regret your choice to carry on with life. Because things always get better.

10. What about all the things you’ve always wanted to do? What about the things you’ve planned, but never got around to doing? You can’t do them when you’re dead.

11. I love you. Even if only one person loves you, that’s still a reason to stay alive.

12. You won’t be able to listen to music if you die.

13. Killing yourself is never worth it. You’ll hurt both yourself and all the people you care about.

14. There are so many people that would miss you, including me.

15. You’re preventing a future generation, YOUR KIDS, from even being born.

16. How do you think your family would feel? Would it improve their lives if you died?

17. You’re gorgeous, amazing, and to someone you are perfect.

18. Think about your favourite music artist, you’ll never hear their voice again...

19. You’ll never have the feeling of walking into a warm building on a cold day

20. Listening to incredibly loud music

21. Being alive is just really good.

22. Not being alive is really bad.

23. Finding your soulmate.

24. Red pandas

25. Going to diners at three in the morning.

26. Really soft pillows.

27. Eating pizza in New York City.

28. Proving people wrong with your success.

29. Watching the jerks that doubted you fail at life.

30. Seeing someone trip over a garbage can.

31. Being able to help other people.

32. Bonfires.

33. Sitting on rooftops.

34. Seeing every single country in the world.

35. Going on roadtrips.

36. You might win the lottery someday.

37. Listening to music on a record player.

38. Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

39. Taking really cool pictures.

40. Literally meeting thousands of new people.

41. Hearing crazy stories.

42. Telling crazy stories.

43. Eating ice cream on a hot day.

44. More Harry Potter books could come out, you never know.

45. Travelling to another planet someday.

46. Having an underwater house.

47. Randomly running into your hero on the street.

48. Having your own room at a fancy hotel.

49. Trampolines.

50. Think about your favourite movie, you’ll never watch it again.

51. Think about the feeling of laughing out loud in a public place because your best friend has just sent you an inside joke,

52. Your survival will make the world better, even if it’s for just one person or 20 or 100 or more.

53. People do care.

54. Treehouses

55. Hanging out with your soul mate in a treehouse

55. Snorting when you laugh and not caring who sees

56. I don’t even know you and I love you.

57. I don’t even know you and I care about you.

58. Because nobody is going to be like you ever, so embrace your uniqueness!

59. You won’t be here to experience the first cat world emperor.

60. WHAT ABOUT FOOD?! YOU’LL MISS CHOCOLATE AND ALL THE OTHER NOM THINGS!

61. Starbucks.

62. Hugs.

63. Stargazing.

64. You have a purpose, and it’s up to you to find out what it is.

65. You’ve changed somebody’s life.

66. Now you could change the world.

67. You will meet the person that’s perfect for you.

68. No matter how much or how little, you have your life ahead of you.

69. You have the chance to save somebody’s life.

70. If you end your life, you’re stopping yourself from achieving great things.

71. Making snow angels.

72. Making snowmen.

73. Snowball fights.

74. Life is what you make of it.

75. Everybody has a talent.

76. Laughing until you cry.

77. Having the ability to be sad means you have the ability to be happy.

78. The world would not be the same if you didn’t exist.

79. Its possible to turn frowns, upside down .

80. Be yourself, don’t take anyone’s shit, and never let them take you alive.

81. Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. Be your own hero.

82. Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.

83. One day your smile will be real.

84. Having a really hot, relaxing bath after a stressful day.

85. Lying on grass and laughing at the clouds.

86. Getting completely smashed with your best friends.

87. Eating crazy food.

88. Staying up all night watching your favourite films with a loved one.

89. Sleeping in all day.

90. Creating something you’re proud of.

91. You can look back on yourself 70 years later and being proud you didn’t commit.

92. Being able to meet your Internet friends.

93. Tea / Coffee / Hot Chocolate.

94. The new season of Sherlock.

95. Cuddling under the stars.

96. Being stupid in public because you just can.

97. If you are reading this then you are alive! Is there any more reason to smile?

98. Being able to hug that one person you havent seen in years.

99. People care enough about you and your future to come up with 100 reasons for you not to do this.

100. But, the final and most important one is, just, being able to experience life. Because even if your life doesn’t seem so great right now, literally anything could happen at any moment, make the most out of your life, life seems so long but short, enjoy it, do whatever you want, break a bunch of laws, travel the world, change your style, help others, do things that make you happy. Who gives. FUCK what people say or judge you about just bark at them. Have a good mindset and you’ll be ok. I love you <333333

You got this yeah that seems shallow to say but hell YOU GOT THIS you do look at you I mean you’re amazing it’s okay to not feel it from time to time but you’re important yes the hell you are fuck those voices you are important you are you matter you mean something on this world you exist the world know it you have helped so many so let them help you back now yes pain hurtsss so much it really hurts and it feels like it’s never ending it makes you not have a thing to look forward to but you know what it’s not forever it’s not I know that’s not the best to hear when you are in such pain but you can do this you can do it even if you can’t see light pretend there is one if you can’t then just laugh an laugh an laugh because one day that laugh will be real and you’ll look back an just amazing wonder just how you did it and that’s because you’re strong you are also remember these thing you are valid you are you matter and you are godam awesome you learn with everything it makes you stronger it molds you so when you find your destiny you’ll be really it just sucks with uncertainty there’s so many versions of you and each is amazing each can do this each an every one you will definitely see light again it’s coming just taking time on your path because it’s so amazed by the greatness it’s seeing and soon you’ll see just want it did you got a life you really do you got one dangg you do! It’s amazing it really is it can be tiring definitely it wears you down just know you won’t be tired forever

You will look up one day and breath and that air will be so clear

You will see just what life really is and that’s

Wonderful

Full of different experience

There’s pain

There’s regret

But there’s discovering new things

Obsessing over dumb things

Life is not horrible it’s not amazing either at then end of the day life is life it’s random an definitely unexplainable but it’s for you an only you emotions will get to you but some things need you to some things you’re there destiny and you yourself have a great destiny you got this I mean it I know you do now cry scream get mad regret do it all!!!!!!!! But know you really do got this you are strong and you YOU CAN LIVEEEE!!!!!!

Not today not tomorrow either not ever okay

You got this you have so many rolls left

You can smile

Fuck it lol if any one ever is over it just say fuck it

I made this for people that in every bodies eyes is amazing and make them feel better and people suffering with mental issues I made this for people who don’t go out enough that they are losing vitamins in there body and are causing physical damage to there body because you can’t get up in time to do normal things like pee I want you to know I know it’s not a joke I know it hurts and I know half of you suffer alone or try to do masking techniques you have been taught. Others are out there and sure there are some that try to understand and relate and that’s very nice that they try but I get that in them doing that it makes you feel more and more bad they mean no harm tho remember that they aren’t you so they have no clue what they do. There is some there just like you it’s true. You just have to find them.

It's your life fuck anyone who tries to have a say in it you all are your own main mother freaking character you all are.

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alicedoessurveys · 4 years

Text

Doctor Who Tag

yes im a nerd...

CHILDHOOD

1. Did you like DW as a child?

I was 10 when it came back on telly with Eccleston and the first episode with the autons scared me so much my mom wouldn't let me watch it again until a couple years later, but yeah my teens I was obsessed with DW... still am at age 25

2. Your age at the time of the revival?

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

‘Rose’

4. Did you have any of the toys?

I still have the eleventh doctor’s screwdriver... I used to have some of the figures but there in storage now somewhere

5. Which DW character did you play on the playground?

didn't play it on the playground

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?

all of them! the ones that still scare me now are the Cybermen and the Autons... genuinely cant walk past a shop mannequin without being suspicious

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?

as a kid, any of the innuendo type jokes

8. DW opinion that has changed since you were a kid?

idk I think I still have the same opinions

9. Who introduced you to DW?

parents

10. Did you like Sarah Jane Adventures as a child?

I LOVED SJA!! I miss that show, and Elizabeth Slade :(

DOCTOR

11. Who is your Doctor?

Ten was the doctor that made me fall in love with Doctor Who

12. Your favourite Doctor?

omg why not just ask me who my favourite child is... (I don't have kids but you know what I mean) if I had to chose my top three are ten, eleven and thirteen

13. Least favourite Doctor?

purely just because he doesn't have enough episodes... nine...

14. Best regeneration?

none of them I hate regenerations :( they make me sad, im too emotionally invested in every single one

15. Do you like “Doctor-Lite” episodes?

they're not my faves

16. Who is the most human Doctor?

I think nine maybe? or twelve?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

the 50th anniversary special

18. Best Doctor monologue?

“Hello Stonehenge! who takes the pandorica, takes the universe. but bad news everyone, cause guess who? HA! You lot you're all whizzing about- its really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING. Question of the hour is, who's got the pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? Come on, look at me! No plan. No backup. No weapons worth a damn. oh and something else, I don't have anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the pandorica tonight... just remember who's standing in your way. remember ever black day I ever stopped you and then- AND THEN- do the smart thing... let somebody else try first.”

not copied and pasted, remember that from the top of my head... its always there waiting in my mind incase I ever need an epic monologue :’)

19, What do you think TenToo/MetaCrisis Doctor is doing now?

hopefully living his best life with Rose

20. Best Doctor/companion pairing?

ten and donna

COMPANIONS

21. Favourite companion?

Donna, Clara, Amy

22. Favourite secondary companion?

is Mickey classed as secondary? idk

23. Least favourite companion?

Ryan

24. Best TARDIS Team?

Doctor, Amy and Rory

25. Most underrated companion?

Graham, but that may just be cause I love Bradders

26. Most overrated companion?

Rose... I like her but idk, I think she gets more hype than she deserves.. don't @ me

27. Favourite companion’s family?

Rose’s mom

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?

idk I cant think of anyone

29. Favourite (canon or non-canon) DW universe relationship?

Amy and Rory

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?

wasn't keen on Bill at first but by the end I really liked her, same with Rory

EPISODES

31. Favourite episode ever?

girl in the fireplace

32. Least favourite episode?

most of Chibnall’s episodes tbh sorry not sorry

33. Which episodes do you skip?

the regeneration episodes

34. Best two-parter?

Human Nature - Family of Blood

35. Historical, present day or futuristic episodes?

I like them all in there own way but I think present is fave, then historical, then future

36. Episode that will always make you smile?

all of them

37. Episode that will always make you cry?

Rory and Amy’s last episode :’(

38. Best run of episodes?

ugh I cant answer this theres too many

39. Best cliffhanger?

the end of Spyfall part one when the Master reveals who he is... I was SHOOK

40. Favourite Christmas special?

Voyage of the Damned

SERIES

41. Classic Who or New Who?

new who

42. Favourite series?

four or five

43. Least favourite series?

eleven, I just cant with the writing

44. Which series do you skip?

none

45. Favourite series opening?

eleventh hour

46. Favourite series finale?

Doomsday

47. Best series arc?

Bad Wolf

48. Thoughts on series 11/12?

I adore Jodie Whittaker and her doctor, and although I think 3 companions is too many I do love Yaz and Graham (Ryan is hit & miss). I just think theyve been massively let down by the stories/writing... they’ve tried to hard to tick certain boxes and completely missed what Doctor Who is about for a lot of people.. an escape from the real world into these outrageous unbelievable but lovable fun alien adventures

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?

not a lot

50. Who should have had another series?

NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE

MONSTERS

51. Favourite monster/villain?

the master

52. Most creative monster?

Weeping Angels, whoever came up with monsters that look like statues and only move when you're not looking at them is genius

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Autons, Cybermen, the creepy dolls from Night Terrors, the ones from Waters of Mars, Weeping Angels

54. Monster you think is too easy to defeat?

idk

55. Least favourite monster/villain?

absorbaloff

56. Monster you want to return?

The Master, I really hope that isn't the last we see of Dhawan

57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?

being genuinely scary,

58. Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels?

Weeping Angels

59. Best Dalek story?

Daleks in Manhatten

60. Best one time villain/monster?

my brain has gone blank I cant think of an answer right now

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?

SJA

62. Favourite Torchwood Team member?

I haven't watched it all so I couldn't say

63. Which Torchwood death made you saddest?

again, not watched it all

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

huh

65. Favourite SJA Team member?

Sarah Jane

66. Mr Smith or K-9?

K-9

67. Maria or Rani?

Rani

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

Nope

69. If you do, your favourite additional stories?

n/a

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?

yes

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

71. Favourite piece of alien tech?

the sonic, I love how it is so multipurpose except for when it comes to wood

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?

I am the Doctor - gets me pumped every time

73. Favourite TARDIS design?

Ten’s Tardis

74. Has the 2005 era CGI aged well?

actually yeah, I was rewatching the ‘are you my mummy’ episodes the other day and my God when the gas masks emerged from the faces... ooooooof I was like omg how

75. Favourite Doctor outfit?

eleven or thirteen

76. Monster with the best design?

not really a design more of a costume.. I live Dhawan master’s costume. that shade of purple, oof he so stylish

77. Best show runner?

idk

78. Best writer?

Gatiss

79. Best opening titles?

eleven’s titles where the Tardis is flying and being zapped is cool but thirteens music hits different

80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?

I hope so, I feel like its lasted this long surely it can last forever.. if the writers don't fuck it up...

IF YOU WERE IN THE SHOW

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

whatever time means Id get to wear the most beautiful costumes

82. Planet/place you’d want to go with the Doctor?

Galifrey, pre-desctruction

83. Doctor you’d most like to travel with?

any of them, please and thank you

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?

donna, sceso a good laugh but also I feel like she’d look after me

85. Monster you’d like to defeat/fight?

The Master

86. If you could go back on your own history (like Father’s Day), where would you go?

back to when I was a toddler, I wanna see what I was like

87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?

theres too many to ask

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

Shakespeare

89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?

id probably be rescued from doing something stupid and then the doc would be like you know what the bitch clearly needs supervision she's coming with me

90. Would you travel forwards or backwards in time first?

backwards

IF YOU MADE THE SHOW

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

Hamilton

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

idk

93. Who would you completely erase from the DW universe?

Ruth

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?

where is Clara now?

95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?

Phoebe Waller Bridge (or Lin Manuel Miranda)

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

Andrew Scott (yes I did just basically recast fleabag and hot priest)

97. Is DW “too political”?

series 11 got a bit like that

98. Which characters fate would you changed?

Danny Pink

99. What about DW could be improved?

I think ive made my options about Chibnall pretty clear...

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do

bring back Jenny, the Doctor / Daughter adventures they would have. I’m actually writing a fic about it if you wanna read.... here

#doctor who #tag #doctor who tag #doctor who questions #survey

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violet-knox · 5 years

Text

Hiding Spots

Year 6 - Chapter 44

Summary: Students are asked to evacuate the castle in preparation for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, but you and Severus have other plans in mind.

Word count: 3200

A/N: I just want to remind you all that feedback is always welcome, including constructive criticism. I want to evolve and improve my writing, so if there’s anything you think I can work on, please do feel free to reach out 🙂

Previous Chapter - Chapter 1

“Severus?” you whispered into your surroundings, searching for him as you rounded the corner around Gryffindor Tower. “Severus?” you tried again, squinting your eyes as you narrowed down on the trees ahead in the hopes that it would help you spot him. You hadn’t exactly talked about where you’d meet, hence why you assumed it would be near the same tree where you’d met last time. But as you’d already waited there ten minutes, you thought it prudent to search elsewhere, fearing that he had a different meeting spot in mind.

The area around the tower was quite wide, which had you worried about getting caught if you didn’t find Severus soon. You frantically continued searching, doing your best to stay hidden yourself when suddenly, you felt a hand placed on your shoulder. You quickly spun round in shock, praying you’d be met with the person you’d been hoping to find. Please let it be Severus, please let it be Severus.

“Professor McGonagall!” you said wide eyed, mentally cursing at your bad luck.

“Miss.(Y/L/N). Students are to gather outside the Entrance Hall, so what, may I ask, do you think you are doing heading in the opposite direction?” you looked into her stern eyes, a little frightened of what she would do if she found out what you were planning on doing before she caught you.

“I-I just thought… of perhaps umm, grabbing a jumper.” What a stupid excuse. You’d be lucky if she believed that, and judging by the irritation written across her face, she surely didn’t. Though in all honesty, you were banking on the fact that she had to sweep the tower behind you for straggling students rather than deal with your insolence as you didn’t think any excuse would let you off this time.

McGonagall sighed as she shook her head in disapproval. “I’d love to see how you’d manage to retrieve said jumper when you were walking away from the entrance of Gryffindor tower,” her stern voice echoed through your head as your face flushed red. You really had come up with the worst excuse imaginable. “Not to mention that we are nearing spring and it’s far too warm for a jumper .” That’s it, you’re dead. She’d caught you and was no doubt about to give you a lifetime worth of detentions for disobeying a direct order from the Headmaster himself. You only hoped you’d serve it with her and not Flinch again. The way that man spoke sometimes, about how they used to punish students, scared you more than you’d care to admit. “Five points from Gryffindor Miss.(Y/L/N).” Wait, only five? “And count yourself lucky I’m too busy clearing the castle, otherwise I’d be sure to find out where exactly you were planning on going.” Well at least the inconvenience of this second task for the Triwizard Tournament had proven to benefit you in some manner. “Make your way to the Entrance Hall like you were asked, and don’t let me catch you wandering off again. This second task is no time for foolishness, do you understand?”

Your eyes brightened, thankful she’d spared you a sentencing as she seemed rather worried about the events that were to take place this afternoon.

“Yes Professor, thank you,” you quickly backed away and sprinted towards the Entrance Hall until you were out of sight. Looking back, you watched as McGonagall made her way into the Tower, leaving you unsure of what to do next. You’d planned to meet Severus outside of Gryffindor Tower, but that seemed to be out of the question now. Hesitantly, you began making your way back, thinking that perhaps, if McGonagall was busy clearing the tower, you could resume your search for Severus.

“(Y/N)!” You heard your name shouted across the yard, coming from some bushes off near the side of the castle. You picked up speed as a smile made its way to your face when you saw a familiar blur of black and green running towards you. “I saw you with McGonagall and waited for you to lose her,” he said as you both slowed down and hugged one another.

“I’m just glad you found me,” you whispered as you buried your face in his hair, tightening your hold around his neck. Though you’d gone back to hugging a while ago, the feeling still felt estranged as you still felt your heart flutter each time his hands wrapped around your waist, gently placing themselves across your lower back. It felt as though you were some long-lost lovers that hadn’t seen one another in decades. With a bit of reluctancy, Severus broke off and gestured for you to follow him as you made your way back to the castle.

Heading towards Gryffindor tower, you struggled to keep up with him as you followed him around the side of the school. You’d never done much adventuring yourself as the moving staircase were already hard enough for you to deal with. And though Severus wasn’t one for wandering the halls, you knew that he had become quite familiar with certain parts of the castle, specifically the ones leading to and from the dungeons.

As you approach the concrete building, you could see a door in the distance, smaller than the other entrances you’d seen and shaped like a rectangle, lacking an archway. Looking at Severus, you easily deduced that this was the entrance that he’d been used to using and it seemed today was no different. Distracted by your curiosity, you’d completely forgotten the fact that you were breaking rules and averting Professors when you suddenly heard a voice coming from the other side of the door as Severus pulled your arm forward, quickly hurdling you both to the side. You placed your hands on his chest as he pulled you close by your waist, both of you turning your head as you heard the door swing open.

Hiding behind a pillar, pressed against one another, you both listened, recognizing Slughorn’s voice as he asked a group of students to make their own way to the Entrance Hall, despite the fact that they looked as though they were first years who’d never exited the castle from this side before. You both waited for the entrance to the door to clear before sprinting towards it, making your way back inside the castle.

“Where should we go?” you whispered to Severus as he peeked around a corner, deeming it clear to head down.

“I thought perhaps the Slytherin common room?” he whispered back as you continued making your way deeper inside the castle the staff was so determined to evacuate. When you’d suggested ditching the viewing of the second task, he couldn’t help but remember what a lovely evening you’d both had last time when you brought him to the Gryffindor common room. Looking back, he hadn’t fully appreciated what you’d done and was a little heartbroken that you hadn’t offered to do the same this time, so he took it upon himself to try and recreate the night best he could. If you weren’t comfortable taking him to your common room, then he’d invite you to his. “I thought perhaps it would be the safest place away from whatever they’re doing for the Tournament?” you nodded your head in agreement as you followed Severus, making your way to the dungeons.

Though you agreed with his suspicions, you still felt a small sliver of worry trickily inside your chest. You hadn’t been told much this morning when the Headmaster announced the prerequisites to the second task, but you definitely overheard people talking throughout the rest of the day and what they said had you worried. You’d been informed that the castle was to be the arena for the second task and that it wouldn’t be safe for students to wander around as the Champions fought to complete their assignment. Hence why you were all asked to evacuate the school as soon as lunch was over and be escorted to the Quidditch pitch by the staff who weren’t surveilling the Tournament.

Of course, Dumbledore couldn’t give any more information than that as the task was supposed to remain a secret up until the Champions were to accomplish it, but that didn’t keep others from hypothesizing. From what you’ve managed to piece together, various obstacles were to be placed in the castle, testing the Champions in a range of different skills, which did explain why Peeves seemed extra riled up these last few days. You found the idea behind this task a little unfair as the Hogwarts Champion seemed to have a clear advantage over the others; having years of experience roaming around the castle. Then again, you didn’t really know the scope of the task, so you had to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“This way, this way, follow me.” Flitwick. Severus suddenly took your hand and turned a corner just as the Charms Professor lead his Ravenclaws down the hall. Realizing the path he was taking was going to be littered with students and professors, Severus pulled you deeper into the unknown corridor in the hopes of avoiding any more unwanted company.

“Where are we?” you asked as soon as he stopped sprinting down the hall, stopping to look at his surroundings.

“I’ve.. been here before,” he said as he seemingly began searching for something. Whatever it was, it looked like he found it as he confidently walked towards another corner, gesturing for you to follow as he turned down another corridor. You sprinted forward, catching up with him and took his hand, feeling a bit worried about how dark it seemed to be getting the further down you went. “Strange,” you heard him say as you’d suddenly come to a stop.

“What is it?” you asked as you spun your head back around, staring at an old wooden door that clearly needed renovation. It was a lot smaller than all the other doors in the castle. In fact, it looked as though it was the perfect size for two people to step through. You’d certainly never seen it before and though you didn’t think there would be anything in the castle too dangerous for students to suddenly wander upon, this particular door seemed a bit shady if you had to be honest.

Severus immediately grabbed the doorknob as soon as he heard some rapid sounding footsteps approaching. Before you knew it, you were being pulled into the mysterious room, the door disappearing behind you as soon as it closed. Your heart raced as you went to intertwine your fingers with his, squeezing his hand, feeling a rise of panic in your chest.

“Severus-” you stopped as soon as you turned around and joined the boy beside you in gazing around the strange room you’d just accidently confined yourself to. It was like someone had looked into your mind, extracting your ideal sitting room and combined it with Severus’. The room was cozy, warmed by the fireplace to your right, facing a loveseat and an antique looking table. On the left wall was a mostly empty bookcase, only lined by a few books and from what you could tell, they were Transfiguration books. The decor of the room was quite strange. You swore that if you looked at it from a certain angle, the design covering the wall shifted from green and gold to red and silver. It was like what you’d imagined the Slytherin common room to look like mashed together with the Gryffindor common room. “What is this place?”

“I’m not sure,” he said as he led you to the fireplace. “I thought perhaps this was the same corridor I’d told you about before. The one I found those old candles in. But clearly I was wrong.” He looked back at you, making sure you were okay with staying here, before seating himself on the sofa, gesturing for you to join him.

You felt unsettled at this strange room, but if the door had disappeared, then perhaps it was safe enough to spend the day in. Your major concern was how you were to leave. Would the door reappear when you were ready to head out, or was there a spell you needed to know for this? Either way, you were glad you were with Severus. He’d always been so crafty, you knew he’d figure out a way to leave if you couldn’t.

Looking down at him, you smiled in content, settling yourself down beside him as you snuggled into his chest. He wrapped an arm around you as you snaked your own around his waist.

“Talk about close call,” you said as you closed your eyes feeling your heart rate settle down to a regular pace. You could feel Severus’ own heart thumping against his chest as well, telling you his adrenaline was probably running just as high as yours.

You felt him peck the top of your head before reaching over to grab his bag. You buried your face further into his chest, feeling that bubble of guilt forming in your stomach again. Severus had been so affectionate towards you, slowly going back to treating you like his girlfriend, but you were still so reluctant to return those feelings.

You saw Severus place the Potions book you’d been making your way through the last few weeks on his lap and quickly sat up, allowing him to open the book, holding it up for you to read. Though you were glad that Severus was enjoying himself, taking his time with the book, you were growing quite bored with it which is probably why you were currently fighting the urge to walk to the back of the room and pick up one of those Transfiguration books.

But Severus seemed to really love reading it with you, occasionally showing you the enthusiastic side you never knew he had. You always found yourself smiling every time his eyes shined with joy as he went to grab a quill to make notes. Though the fact that he was scribbling in the book made you feel as though you should have bought him a notebook as well to spare him the pain of contaminating a new book. Perhaps that could be your next gift, just dozens and dozens of notebooks for him to take notes in. That should last him quite a while and help keep his poor textbooks from a certain inky fate.

As you two silently read together, you instinctively tugged on the chain around your neck, feeling a bit bored of the long time intervals between each page flip and revealed the locket Severus gave you from under your shirt. Severus did a sort of double take when he saw the light of the fireplace bounce off the metal trinket in your hand. He paused and slowly put the book down as he watched you fiddling with it, keeping it so close to your heart.

“You-you still have that on?” he said in surprise. You’d been so zoned out, you hadn’t even realized he’d put the book down. But when he spoke, you turned your head to look at him and sat up as soon as you saw the shook across his face.

“I-I never took it off,” you said softly as you gave him a sheepish smile, “and, I don’t think I ever will,” you added nervously waiting for his reaction. Severus looked back down at the locket, seeing his name peeking through your fingers as you continued to play with it.

“You-you really like it?” he said, feeling his heart swell with joy. He felt so flustered at the sight of you cherishing the little locket so much.

You looked into his softened eyes and leaned in closer, placing your hand back around his waist as you let the locket dangle from your neck. “I really like… you,” you said flirtatiously, his heart fluttering in response. He searched your face before slowly leaning in, stopping inches from your parted lips. He wanted so badly to kiss you, but knew that he shouldn’t press your boundaries, the fear of pushing you away lingering in the back of his mind. He pulled back, staring down at his lap before looking back at you.

His cheeks had gotten so rosy, you just wanted to reach up and pinch them. You knew he was holding back, that he’d just resisted the urge to kiss you. And despite the lingering memory of the hurt you felt after the Yule Ball, you could still feel your heart swell as you looked into his lovestruck eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered softly, gently sweeping hair away from your face, hoping he hadn’t overstepped tonight.

“I love you too,” you replied softly. That was the second time you’d ever spoken those three words to him, to anyone really. And right now, in this moment, it felt so right. Even more so than at the Yule Ball because now, now you knew that when he said it, he truly meant it.

You propped yourself up, allowing you to lean in a little further. Half open, your eyes flickered between his eyes and his lips as you wondered if you were ready to push your luck further than you already had today. Feeling confident enough in your choices, you closed the distance and gently pressed your lips to his, feeling a rush of pleasure course through your veins.

He was quick to kiss back as he snaked a hand in your hair, tilting your head back to deepen the kiss. His eagerness came off as confidence compared to the nerves that were causing your hands to shake ever so slightly. You wrapped an arm around his neck, pressing yourself closer to him, missing his touch.

You’d come so far and though you couldn’t help but feel anxious about the kiss, it just all felt so right. Like fate had brought you to this room, helping you take another step further into your relationship.

Once the need for air was too great, you parted the kiss and leaned back, smiling as you both lightly panted. Nervously, you tucked your hair behind your ear before leaning back down. Looking back at Severus, you couldn’t help but notice the smile on his face had grown wider. You’d never seen him so happy before and it really warmed your heart.

“Shall-shall we continue reading?” you asked, gesturing at the book in his lap, hoping the distraction would help calm your nerves. It’s just a kiss. You’d kissed a million times before this, so why did this feel so… so special.

Severus kept his eyes on you as he reached up to cup your face, stroking his thumb over your cheek and searched your eyes as you waited for an answer. He slowly nodded his head as the enchantment he seemed to be under broke and reached over to open the book, finding the page where he’d stopped. You settled yourself back against his chest as he gently stroked your hair and you both continued reading as the love circled around the room, just like the first time you’d both cuddled up to a book together.

Next Chapter

@hoppingsnape @dusk-realm @a-slytherin-sin @trashandshook @gbatesx @sneezy-s @emsdroid @leah-halliwell92 @dellightfullydeceitful @xxaamzxx @sparklingkeylimepie @nameless-sovereign @living-in-margins @justanobodyinthisbigworld @soft-slytherin-sweetie @youtube4life10

122 notes · View notes

sabine-leo · 5 years

Text

A smile to remember-Chapter44

Author: @sabine-leo

Chapter: 44/?

Genre: Fluff, Romance,

Note: Hey there sweet humans!!! THANK YOU for having the patience to wait unusually long for an update. I have had the most stressfull weeks and they don´t seem to be willing to end. Some more bad, bad news regarding my family dropped like a hammer on wednesday and occupied my thoughts. Tonight I decided to take a timeout and do something that makes me feel better. Write. I do hope you like the new chapter and are not mad at me for waiting that long.

HUGS to you all!!

Later that night, when everybody had gone home again and the house and garden were tidied up Tom sat in bed and waited for you to join him. Through the open bathroom door, you could hear his voice. “That was a wonderful day. I had so much fun.” Smiling to yourself you said loud enough for him to hear. “Me too, Thomas. You do have a wonderful family.”

“Did you see how much fun Dylan had?” He asked and looked up when you emerged in only one of his shirts, ready for bed.

“I did. And there was another boy having a lot of fun with those water guns…”

Tom grinned and held out a hand for you to take. “I bet he looked adorable.”

When you took Toms hand and he tugged you into bed and into his embrace you laughed softly.

“Oh yes! He absolutely did. Especially when his shirt was wet and stuck to his chest.”

Chuckling Tom made you lay on your back and hovered above you.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and I´d admit it again without shame.”

Tom grinned and stole a soft kiss with a sigh.

“I missed you infinitely all those weeks.”

You wrapped your arms around his naked back and hugged him close.

“I might have listened to your recorded sonnets every night in bed…”

Tom lifted his head and grinned so adorably sweet that you had to pepper him with kisses.

In between those kisses he said. “I…really…should…have…recorded…that…striptease….that…day.”

The both of you laughed and cuddled up after Tom killed the light.

“Oh, how do I love thee…” he whispered after a while into your ear and kissed the spot under it that made you shudder in pleasure.

“So….sooo much…” You answered drowsily and closed your eyes.

Tom did not fall asleep as fast as you. His mind still occupied with some things he needed to address sooner rather than later. He just needed a good plan and a little bit of help from Luke and his friends to get everything done the way he had it all played out several times in his head. He quietly got up after he made sure you were fast asleep. Inside the bath he closed the door almost completely before he went to the shelf where you had put the necklace and ring you wore all the time.

Tom smiled as he looked at the well-worn vintage ring you loved so much. He picked it up and looked at it more closely before he tried to get it onto his fingers. A slow grin spread on his face as it fit perfectly onto his pinkie. After he had put it back, he slipped back into bed and closed his eyes with a smile.

Three weeks of pure bliss later Tom smiled after he kissed you goodbye and watched you walk into the entrance of your workplace. The weeks with you had been absolutely wonderful. He had recharged his batteries after the lengthy, exhausting time away for work with your help and some long, heavenly hours upon hours of just the two of you together. Talking, cuddling and well…inaugurating some other rooms in the house. Tom sighed a little. Now that you had to be back at work after your holiday, he had to occupy himself until you got back home.

Good thing that he knew exactly how he would use his time.

Tom started his car and dialled a number before switching it onto the hands-free speakerphone. When he weaved into traffic a cheery voice greeted him.

“Ingle & Rhode how can I help you?”

“Good morning. Thomas Hiddleston here.”

“Ah. Good morning Mr. Hiddleston. I take it you are on your way to the workshop?”

“Yes, I should be there in about 30 minutes if I don´t get stuck in traffic.”

“I will open the gate for you at the back entrance.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Tom said his goodbyes and bit his lip. He was more than ready to see what he had commissioned some weeks ago. It had taken up a good part of his free time during the promotional tour but he knew that the sacrifice of sleep would be worth it in the end.

Somewhere around 4 you opened the front door, closed it from the inside and leaned against it for a second. Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath was very much needed after the day at work. The kids had been rambunctious to say the least. Taking another deep breath, you smelled fire and a hint of food. Soft music was playing. With a smile on your face you hung up your light coat. Autumn was finally on its way and begun to tint the trees in wonderful colours. Your shoes were gone the next second and you started to walk through the double doors. Your breath caught when you saw Tom lighting a candle and looking up at you with a soft but very handsome smile…wearing a freakin apron above a tight white dress-shirt and dark blue pants.

“Welcome home darling.”

He walked around the little table he had prepared and placed near the crackling fireplace.

His hand stretched outwards in an inviting manor.

“Come here…” His voice was another deep-murmured offer to come closer.

You reached out for his hand and with a soft but deliberately firm tug he had you in his arms the next instant. God, he smelled divine. His big hand weaved itself into your hair, tilting your head upwards to meet his eyes.

“Thomas…” you whispered and he started to smile.

“Mhmm, that´s my name…”

Tom tilted his head and bend downwards to greet your lips with his. But the soft kiss he gifted you at first got deeper pretty quickly. Tom groaned still attached to your sweet lips. He distanced his head just a little bit. “There is a bath waiting for you…” He stole a quick one before continuing.

“Dinner will be ready in about 45 minutes…” His hand squeezed your buttocks. “…you better leave now and lock the door or I assuredly will forget myself and let our food burn.”

A soft laugh escaped you when Tom wrung with himself to let go of you. Finally, he did put both his hands behind his back and stood up straight. “Better go….NOW!”

Before you turned the corner to get upstairs into the tub you stopped and looked at him.

“Love you…”

Tom grinned and tilted his head a little.

“And I you….45 minutes darling!”

The tub was steaming and full of bubbles. You sank in with a sigh and closed your eyes for a blissful moment. This man, this humble and loving man could take the weight of a stressful day off your shoulders with a simple smile. But he had gone full out and prepped what seemed to be a romantic dinner in your livingroom …and had drawn you a bath to relax in first. A laugh escaped you suddenly. The first time he had let you take a bath and wanted to cook dinner for the both of you he had ended up in the tub with you…and you had met his mother for the first time when she dropped by unannounced later that evening. So his advice to lock the door was a sound one.

Some 40 minutes later you had dried your hair, applied a little make up and dressed in his favourite combination of tight, figure-hugging pants and a deep blue, playful blouse. The further down the stairs you got the better it smelled. Soft music came out of the speakers and Tom smiled when he saw you coming into the livingroom. “You look ravishing, darling.” The apron was gone and the tight white dress-shirt clung to his lean, muscular form in the best of ways. It was not only due to the smell that your mouth watered.

Tom hugged you to him for a second and kissed your neck. “Take a seat, love. I will get the plates for the both of us.” He offered you a place to sit and filled 2 glasses with a deep red wine, then disappeared into the kitchen for a minute.

“Hiddleston special for you milady.” He grinned and sat down your plate first. You chuckled when you saw the big white plate. “Your famous Spaghetti…” The dinner looked delicious and smelled even more so. On the side of the plate he had drawn a heart with some sauce. Tom dropped a kiss onto your hair before he sat down himself. “Bon Appetite my love.” His gaze got intense for a moment.

“Hears to an unforgettable evening.” He lifted his glass and looked deeply into your eyes.

TAGLIST: @theoneanna @shegatsby @wabisabigrl @everything-is-awesomesauce @lokislilslut @drakesfiance @spoopyfoxxtropical @yokaimoon @kjjazzy23 @confessionsofastrugglingteen @shinebrightlikeafanbase @adefectivedetective @coniumalces @lisastandford95 @imjustlonelyanddepressed @anchored-in-high-tide @clarakainda @karnita-mexicana @nonsensicalobsessions @raining-litter@archy3001 @itscalledfandomsweetielookitup @faeriedelalune-blog @lil-mewlingquim07 @amazinggraces-world @tanishahka @emomemelordess @devilbat @usedtobegoodfriend96 @cest-le-temps-de-lamour @adefectivedetective @stressedoutsteph @maggiefollows @raining-litter @littleredstarfish @bi-spider-noir @klbates22 @my-fuckin-problem @marvelc00kie35 @stressedoutsteph @maggiefollows @bi-spider-noir @klbates22 @my-fuckin-problem @deathofmissjackson @vesper-lou @bluefrenchfries604 @maybell88 @moonstar86 @lokilvrr @karnita-mexicana

#a smile to remember #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x you #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston fluff #Thomas William Hiddleston #tom hiddelston/reader #british actor rpf #real person fiction #you / tom hiddleston #Reader / tom hiddleston #hiddleston daily #HIDDLESTONERS #dammit hiddleston #hot hiddleston #writer of tumblr #fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfiction

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thehoodsweetheart · 5 years

Text

Sandcastles | Part III.

A/N: Sandcastles is officially a series! I really hope this is up to par. Please excuse the mistakes.

Warnings: Fuckboy!Erik (?), Angst!, Use of the N-word (I’m Black. I have that right).

Summary: If you have not read Sandcastles Part 1 and Part 2, please do so before reading this. Although, it may not be totally necessary to do so but it helps. The reader is a Black Woman, always has been always will be.

Word Count: 2.4K

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Fear. Erik didn’t possess the concept of fear. He’d overcome that emotion in his early years. Somewhere between finding his father dead and his first mission as a secret operative, that feeling had been wiped from him. At least that’s what Erik believed. Who could possibly still possess that emotion after witnessing and partaking in such horrendous acts? Fear equated weakness and he prided himself of not being weak, never letting anyone in close enough to expose a weakness. That was until he did. He let you in.

When Erik realized that he let you in, he tried to push you away but you didn’t tolerate it. This was before you and Erik were even in a “real” relationship. Erik thoughthe was able to give people the cold shoulder, but yours could get colder. Erik had grown accustomed to stringing women along, fucking them, leaving them, and popping back up whenever he felt like it. When he attempted to ghost you, you completely ghosted him. You did not go for the ‘I’ll pop up in a few months to see if I can still hit’ game. When he saw you on what he thought was a date, he lost it. He wasn’t going for that shit. He knew that he had to make y’all relationship real. Erik fearedlosing you. This was something he would have to come to terms with quite a few times. He actually feared losing and loving you.

This kind of fear was one that perplexed him. He wasn’t like he was afraid you could get him killed or kill him. He’d done his research after meeting you the first time. This fear was childish in Erik’s mind. It was the fear parents provoke when they threaten to take away something after you misbehave. One where you know you could live without it but you still feel like you need that thing or just really want to keep it. Or possibly it was the fear of what became his new normal being stripped from him? It wracked his brain until he’d have a lapse in judgment. The fear of loving you led to him doing things that would risk you leaving. It was a cycle.

The birth of Iman only added to his paranoia. He never put much thought into having children because he simply never thought he would live long enough to have them. When Iman was born, he questioned everything he’d ever did wrong. Was he even good enough to have a love so pure? What if his past came for him and he lost you and Iman? He feared walking into a repeat of his childhood. His father’s death haunted him. Death was something he could accept. It was second nature but not with you two. Erik would give his life to spare you both.

These thoughts invaded his brain as he sat in a long drawn out meeting. Queen Mother Ramonda came to Los Angeles for the benefit and there was quite a bit of business to handle since she was in town. Erik was the first to present her updates with his social outreach work at the center, along with some technological advances he worked on with Shuri. But once he was done presenting, his thoughts began to invade him. Erik constantly checked his watch and peered out of the closest window spacing out. For the start of the day, Erik felt normal coming back to work, confident even. There was a shift. He could feel it in his stomach as if something wasn’t right. It could have been paranoia.

Erik received a notification to his phone that only heightened his paranoia. Iman’s Kimoyo beads dropped offline. It wouldn’t have been odd but this was the third time he’d gotten this notification that day. Iman’s Kimoyo beads never went off more than once, two times max. Why would Y/N take off Iman’s kimoyo beads so many times in only a few hours? His leg bounced as he slouched into his seat bringing his hand that now formed a tight fist to his mouth. It didn’t help that Y/N’s kimoyo beads had been offline since the night of the benefit. They were the final item Y/N threw at him before leaving.

Erik’s eyes scanned the room as if he was searching for an answer that was obviously not in that conference room. Shuri shot him a quizzical look. He could only assume she had received the notifications for Iman. By the time the meeting wrapped up, Erik had not received a new notification signaling that they were back online. It had been 32 minutes since the last alert. He didn’t need his iPhone to tell him that. He had counted. He brushed past everyone being the first to exit the conference. He needed to figure out what was going on. He knew he could easily check once he was in the privacy of his own office. Before he could reach his office, he felt a small hand grab his shoulder. Erik spun around with annoyance only to see Shuri with a concerned look on her face.

“Hey cuz…Is everything cool? Have you talked to Y/N? Iman is still showing offline.” Shuri asked with her eyebrows furrowed together.

“Don’t even worry about it lil cuz. I’m about to give her a call now.” He tried to wave her off and continue his walk to his office. Shuri stopped him again.

“You know, I know right? I’m young but I’m smarter than you, American.” Shuri teased. Erik scoffed. “I’ll do an override to tap into the beads. See if Y/N left your sorry ass...again” She whispered her disapproval.

“Nah, I don’t need you doin all that. Y’all all up in my business bad enough as it is. Iman probably had an accident and needed to take an extra bath.” Erik stared down Shuri with cut eyes.

“We wouldn’t be in your business, if you didn’t mix business with pleasure in your office…and if that scenario makes you feel better, believe what you want. WHEN you need an actual answer I’ll be in my lab.” Shuri waved her hand turning to leave him.

“Yeaaa…please focus on something important kid. I know you have some new developments that you haven’t completed yet. Maybe a new toy?”

Shuri rolled her eyes raising her hand holding a middle finger high, unaware of her mother sauntering through the hallway.

“Shuriiii”, Ramonda scolded. Shuri groaned stomping away. Erik chuckled only to earn a side-eye from his aunt. She mumbled a ‘mmhmm’ before walking away.

Erik entered his office immediately dialing Y/N’s number. He listened to it ring for a while before going to voicemail. He tried not to think much of it. That was his first time calling her. Erik hung up dialing her number again only to get the same result. He took in an uneasy breath trying to calm his heartbeat. He took a seat at his desk, his leg bouncing as he debated if he should call her for a third time back to back. You normally answered his calls if he called twice in a row, even if you answered just to tell him you’d call him back. He decided against calling again. Erik knew he should give you some time and not let his paranoia overtake him. Maybe he was too used to you being available? Or maybe Shuri was right?

He couldn’t fight the urge anymore. Erik swiveled around in his chair, his fingers moving with no hesitation as he logged into his work computer. It had been 44 minutes since Iman’s kimoyo beads sent the last notification with no indication that they were back online. He doubled clicked the icon for the program that allowed him to view the activities in his home via the cameras he installed throughout the house. Each room assigned to its appropriate label.

The first room to come into view was the living room showing no sign of disturbance. Erik could feel his adrenaline spike as he double clicked the label for Iman’s room. Her nursery appeared but he could see her crib was empty but the kimoyo beads lay in the center of it. Did she bounce and take the baby? What if she just left to run errands and the Kimoyo beads fell off by accident? Or she could be giving Iman a bath. Erik hoped it was one of the later scenerios. His chest tightened as he scrolled through the current activity of the various rooms seeing that Y/N and Iman were not at home. But where could they be? He gave Y/N a call once more. This time it went straight to voicemail.

He picked up his office phone about to dial his assistant’s phone number when it hit him. He no longer had an assistant. The intern, Arya, was taking on the role as his assistant. In the past six months she had full access to his schedule, followed him around everywhere, and managed to keep up with him without getting in his way. That was until they crossed that professional friendly line and began an affair two months ago. For Erik the affair was a physical thing, no real emotion lived there. Nonetheless, Arya was not worth losing his family over. When T’Challa made the decision to let her go during Erik’s one-week leave of absence, he didn’t care. That was one step towards fixing world that crumbled before him.

Erik opted to call Shuri instead. He knew Y/N formed a close bond with Shuri and Nakia over the past few years. It was strong possibility that Shuri could get an answer from Y/N faster. He wasn’t going to lie to himself and say she had forgiven him completely. Shuri answered in a knowing tone.

“Did Y/N mention her next doctor’s appointment?” Erik’s voice rushed almost sounding as if his question was one word.

“Whoaa, slow down. It’s not until next week or something but I don’t keep your wife’s schedule. You should know that.”

“Tell him to stop trying to spy on his family from his computer.” T’Challa interjected only for Erik to smack his teeth.

“Nigga nobody’s spying. I’m trying to make sure they’re okay.” Erik countered.

“Ah, is that what we’re calling it now? Okay. Well maybe you should head home? You probably won’t stop checking the cameras until you see them come back anyway.”

“Shit nigga, wouldn’t you?! I knew I shouldn’t have come into work today. I could’ve did that damn presentation from my home office.” Erik ranted as he snatched his blazer from the couch in his office. He scrambled to put it on while looking for his keys.

Erik quickly ended the call rushing out to his Acura NSX. He sped the entire way home. Despite trying to be optimistic and think they were running errands, something just didn’t feel right. It was nagging at him since the meeting. Maybe it was his conscious reminding him that he still fucked up and needed to right his wrongs with his wife? But after last night and this morning, the way she screamed his name and clung to him, just as she always had, he thought he still had time to fix things.

He arrived to the house in record time. He walked in calling Y/N’s name only to be met with silence. He checked the garage seeing that your car was in fact gone. Erik clenched and unclenched his fist while beginning to count backwards from ten. The pressure he was feeling in his chest was beginning to weigh him down. He couldn’t explain why he was anxious about walking upstairs in his own house to his own room. Nevertheless, his feet carried him there.

He reached their taking in his surroundings. The gleam from your 7-karat pear shaped diamond ring caught his attention. Approached the nightstand noticing the handwritten note under your ring. He read and reread the note three times trying to internalize what you wrote. His nostrils flared as his eyes began to burn. He balled up the note with hast throwing it across the room. He screamed ‘fuck’ storming out of the master bedroom. You really left him and you took his heart with you, Iman. To top it off, you didn’t want to be apart of this new pregnancy. His chest heaved just thinking about it.

Erik made his way to Iman’s nursery seeing the closet was open. For whatever reason, he hadn’t noticed her closet while checking the cameras earlier. His mind was centered on the Kimoyo beads then. Iman’s closet was practically empty. There were only a couple of onesies and dresses left. He counted five. Erik walked over to Iman’s crib grabbing the plush pink elephant that Iman loved. He leaned over the crib’s railing clutching the stuffed animal inhaling its scent. Y/N really took his baby. His family was gone.

The sound of slamming doors followed by the doorbell ringing snapped him out of his thoughts. Using the back of his hand, he wiped his tears. He rushed downstairs hoping it was his wife, but why would she show up after writing that note. He opened the door without even checking to see whom it was, only to reveal two men in khaki colored uniforms. He squared his shoulders feeling his internal rage grow.

“Who the fuck are y’all?” Erik barked. The men blinked a couple times looking taken aback.

“Uhh…Umm…We’re from Enterprise Moving company. We were sent to get Mrs. Udaku-Steven’s belongings.” The shortest one stuttered. Erik’s frown deepened.

“Y’ALL NOT TAKIN’ SHIT! GET THE FUCK OFF MY PROPERTY!” Erik slammed the door in their faces and immediately went to call you.

He got your voicemail once again. It took his entire strength not to throw his phone. There were knocks at the door followed by the doorbell once again. He clenched his jaw as he heard the moving men asking his to open the door. Erik decided to text you.

You better call that moving company and tell them to leave before I body ALL these mothafuckas!

Erik knew you were screening your calls. It was confirmed when his text appeared as read a minute later. The gray bubbled with three dots popped up, then went away, and popped up again before going away. His phone began to ring as you picture appeared. He pressed the green button answering. Before he could even say hello, your voice blared through the speaker.

“ERIK! PLEASE DON’T!”

Tag list:

@purple-apricots @chaneajoyyy @toniilaney @wakanda-inspired @almeda-344 @desireatatyana

@wakandalivesforever @yoyolovesbucky @beaut1fulone-blog @sarcastic-sunshines

@elaindeereads @soufcakmistress @bujotellsyourstory @scott-mccall-could-lift-mjolnir

#erik killmonger x reader #erik killmonger x oc #erik killmonger imagine #sandcastles #sandcastles part 3 #black panther imagine #black panther rec #erik killmonger x black!reader #erik killmonger rec

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purplesurveys · 4 years

Text

745

Do you support freedom of speech? Of course, as long as that freedom is not used to advocate homophobia, racism, or sexism, or any form of oppression towards marginalized groups.

Are you ever told you are too opinionated? Yeah. My family loooves to use this word as their main adjective for me as I’ve always been the most vocal, unapologetic and rather radical one in my stances. All my relatives are more conservative and traditional so when it comes to like talking to their peers about me, my being opinionated is always the main thing they take pride in, as in “Robyn isn’t afraid to say her thoughts” or “Robyn has always been very honest” lmao.

There’ll be times I will have an opinion that vastly clashes from theirs, usually politics, and they’ll do something I’ve always found hilarious in that they’ll talk about me behind my back to my mom and tell my mom to monitor my posts more. So ok, I guess it’s nice to have a niece who’s unafraid to speak her mind but when it’s different from how they think, they’ll do whatever it takes to silence me haha.

Do you hold grudges for long? I hold grudges for life.

What's in your garden/backyard? We don’t really have a garden. We just have a couple of large trees and several potted plants to decorate the front of the house but that’s it. For the backyard, I dunno the name for this particular type of flooring but ours is basically composed of stones embedded onto the ground so it’s not very child-friendly. We do have a portion with more plants there and a basketball hoop for my dad to play/exercise with every morning.

Do you own a purple pillow? I don’t think so. My sister probably does as she loves pillows and stuffed toys and loves collecting either.

Do you have a brown blanket? I don’t.

Do you think diamonds, stars or hearts are prettier? I don’t really like any of these as designs.

Is Pink attractive on a man? This conversation died a long time ago lol. Anything can be attractive on anyone as long as they’re comfortable with it lol.

Do you watch political shows? We don’t have those here as politics here are mostly emotionally-charged and regular debates won’t work, coupled with the fact that we have a number of politicians who are merely celebrities or athletes and will be absolutely useless on such shows. News programs are enough politics for us.

When was the last time you visited the bathroom? I dropped off my dog at the shower five minutes ago as my mom had plans to give him a bath.

Do you like flying? When was the last time you were on a plane? Yepppp I really like riding planes. For me it’s always been the biggest indicator that I’m travelling and it gets me all excited. The last time was March last year when we went to Bicol for a short vacation.

Have you ever overflown a bath? No.

Do you appreciate brutal honesty? I know it’s always best to hear it but sometimes it’ll still sting.

Do you know what Runes are? No, I’ve never heard of it.

Do you play any Fantasy/Roleslaying Games? What? No. Fantasy is my least favorite genre of anything.

Do you like salami? Not really. Processed meats have never really sat well with me. < Oh my goodness same. I never liked how they taste or feel like. If someone ordered a pepperoni pizza I’ll always have to put some extra effort to remove the pepperoni on mine, usually to the horror of my friends lmao.

When was the last time you ate meat? We had binagoongan for dinner an hour ago and that mainly consists of pork.

What was the last hot drink you drank? I heated water to make coffee but I usually leave it untouched for half an hour or so for it to cool down, as I hate drinking hot coffee in the summer.

Have your parents met your boyfriend/exes? They have met my girlfriend, but not as my girlfriend.

How about your boyfriend’s parents? Met them? Yes, I’ve met my girlfriend’s parents. They’re a delight, and they’ve been very nice to me from the very beginning.

Do you feel uncomfortable easily? Not really. There are just particular scenarios I don’t like being in, like if I’m running late or if I’m in a class with a prof notorious for screaming at or embarrassing their students.

Is there a girls/boys name you can't stand? Why? Name all you dislike: I don’t actively hate any names but I do have a predisposition to chuckle when I hear names like Karen, Becky, Susan, and Chad because they’re now memes on the Internet hahahaha.

Do you know how to say I love you in at least 4 languages? Sure. I know how to say it in Spanish, English, Filipino, Korean, and French.

What age will you be when you times your current age by two? 44.

Do you find the sound of a cats purr relaxing? It’s cute but I don’t find it relaxing for the most part. I just get the sensation of being scratched or hissed at because cats don’t seem to like me.

Are you in a simple or complex mood? Right now it’s a bit complex. There’s a lot of things going on in my head right now and only surveys can calm me down for the meantime.

Do you know your Mum's first pets name? I’m not sure if it was their first but my mom occasionally talks about their family dog Collar.

Do you like car racing? No, but I have a number of friends who do. JM in particular is super passionate about it and has a lot of F1 stories to tell, and even though I don’t understand most of it or don’t recognize most of the people he talks about, it’s always nice to have someone spill their interests onto you so I listen anyway. :) He once gave each of us a piece of tire that he got from the racetracks when he watched the Singapore Grand Prix last year, it was adorable.

Do you fall asleep with the TV/radio on? I put Netflix on. I used to put YouTube on but its autoplay will go on until I wake up and is a huge battery drainer. Netflix will only play a couple of episodes and stops the show completely when you fail to respond haha.

What is your closest uncle/aunt called? My mom’s cousins. They’re all several years younger than her so they’re a lot hipper than my mom, were actually cool in their youth lmao, and are more understanding and accepting and open-minded about current issues. They’re the first relatives (that aren’t my sister or closest cousin) I came out to, and I appreciate them keeping the secret to this day.

Do you wear underwear to bed? Yep.

Who hugs you the most often? It’s a tie between Gab and Laurice.

Who was the last person you led astray? Uhhhh this sounds awful lol. I’d hate to have this kind of impact on someone.

Who was the last person who led you astray? No one’s done this to me as far as I know.

Would you ever want to be famous? If so, for what? Sure but I wouldn’t exert so much effort just to be famous, like joining a million auditions or contests. It’d be nice if, say, I just had a vlog and it was one of the lucky ones to hit the jackpot and end up having a decent following. I’ve always liked journaling my life and I feel like vlogging is the only method I haven’t dabbled with yet.

Is your phone a pay as go/talk or contract? It’s prepaid, which sounds like pay-as-go anyway. I put in a certain amount of money on my sim card to use for call and text, not the other way around.

What colour is your bedroom carpet? I don’t have one in my room cause my dog would much likely pee on it.

Do you get angry, depressed or nervous more? Nervous.

What is something obvious about you that everyone notices? Probably my teeth, and that my front ones aren’t straight.

Would you ever get a heart tattoo or your back? No.

Do you like Sapphires? The gemstones? Not really. They’re fine, but I wouldn’t go looking for them.

Do you own a torch? I don’t.

Marshmellow - Yum or Yuck? Yuck, in any way they’re incorporated into food. I really dislike the chewy texture and I find them too sweet as well.

What fruit can't you stand? All of them, but the ones I’ve tasted and particularly hated are mango and pineapple.

Is there any smell that turns you on? What? Not really. My girlfriend’s scent sometimes would, but it wouldn’t turn me on every single time I have a whiff of it lmao.

Do you wear more white or black? Black, but I’ve tried to lessen it recently because I feel like I wore black throughout college. I’m glad I at least got to experiment with yellow, olive green, maroon, pink, etc before they cut off the school year.

What age are most your friends? They were mostly born within the years 1997 through 1999.

Do you know anyone autistic? No, not personally.

How about someone bi-polar? Yes.

Are you judgmental? I definitely try not to be, but I’m sure I am. I try to at least check myself when I have judgmental thoughts. < This. I can also be unapologetically judgmental but this is reserved for people who have behaved shittily in public, like if a white person yells at and/or mocks an Asian person on public transport, or if a Karen-type mistreats fast food workers.

What was the last thing you borrowed from someone? My sister’s eyeglasses cleaner.

I give you a kitty - what do you name it? Cinnamon was the first name that came to mind.

Why do you think your enemies don't like you? I don’t have any enemies.

What about you do you think your friends dislike? I get super cranky about other people sometimes and complain excessively about them if they’re not doing their job right.

What do you consider private to you? I’m not private about anything as long as someone asks but I will be most reserved if I have to talk about my depression from Grade 6. Partly because I’ve forgotten a lot of it, partly because it’s simply not worth it to go retracing the bits that I do remember.

#survey #surveys

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dalnim96 · 5 years

Text

200 Questions: Get to Know Me

Second version of Get To Know Me questions. Enjoy!

1. What shows are you into?

2. What’s your claim to fame?

3. How often do you play sports?

4. Are you usually early or late?

5. What quirks do you have?

6. How often do you people watch?

7. What’s your favorite drink?

8. What do you hope never changes?

9. What’s your dream car?

10. Where would you rather be from?

11. What songs have you completely memorized?

12. What would you rate 10 / 10?

13. What job would you be terrible at?

14. What are you absolutely determined to do?

15. What skill would you like to master?

16. What website do you visit most often?

17. What would your perfect room look like?

18. What movie title best describes your life?

19. What age do you want to live to?

20. What kind of art do you enjoy most?

21. What takes up too much of your time?

22. What do you wish you knew more about?

23. What’s the best way to start the day?

24. What do you wish you knew more about?

25. How different was your life one year ago?

26. What’s the best single day on the calendar?

27. What are some things you’ve had to unlearn?

28. What’s your favorite genre of book or movie?

29. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

30. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?

31. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been?

32. What fad or trend do you hope comes back?

33. What city would you most like to live in?

34. When was the last time you climbed a tree?

35. What do you consider to be your best find?

36. What is special about the place you grew up?

37. What age do you wish you could permanently be?

38. What’s worth spending more on to get the best?

39. What are you most likely to become famous for?

40. What fictional place would you most like to go?

41. Where is the most relaxing place you’ve ever been?

42. What have you only recently formed an opinion about?

43. What is the most heartwarming thing you’ve ever seen?

44. What’s the most interesting piece of art you’ve seen? 45. What’s something you like to do the old-fashioned way?

46. Would you rather go hang gliding or whitewater rafting?

47. Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?

48. How do you relax after a hard day of work?

49. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?

50. What job do you think you’d be really good at?

51. What pets did you have while you were growing up?

52. Where would you spend all your time if you could?

53. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?

54. What would be your ideal way to spend the weekend?

55. What’s the best way a person can spend their time?

56. What one thing do you really want but can’t afford?

57. What is the luckiest thing that has happened to you?

58. What are some small things that make your day better?

59. What’s the best thing that happened to you last week?

60. What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

61. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you own / owned?

62. What is the most annoying habit that other people have?

63. What is the most annoying question that people ask you?

64. What is the most impressive thing you know how to do?

65. What was the best book or series that you’ve ever read?

66. What question would you most like to know the answer to?

67. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

68. Why did you decide to do the work you are doing now?

69. What state or country do you never want to go back to?

70. Where do you usually go when you when you have time off?

71. What are you most looking forward to in the next 10 years?

72. What game or movie universe would you most like to live in? 73. If you suddenly became a master at woodworking, what would you make?

74. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?

75. What amazing thing did you do that no one was around to see?

76. What hobby would you get into if time and money weren’t an issue?

77. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

78. When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

79. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

80. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t gotten around to it?

81. If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?

82. Who’s your go to band or artist when you can’t decide on something to listen to?

83. If you were dictator of a small island nation, what crazy dictator stuff would you do?

84. What is something that is considered a luxury, but you don’t think you could live without?

85. What would be your first question after waking up from being cryogenically frozen for 100 years?

86. What is something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

87. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance at winning medal for?

88. What piece of entertainment do you wish you could erase from your mind so that you could experience for the first time again?

89. If you had unlimited funds to build a house that you would live in for the rest of your life, what would the finished house be like? 90. What gets you fired up?

91. What makes a good life?

92. What risks are worth taking?

93. What do you take for granted?

94. Who inspires you to be better?

95. What do you have doubts about?

96. When do you feel truly “alive”?

97. What fact are your resigned to? 98. What book impacted you the most?

99. What’s the best thing about you?

100. What are you addicted to?

101. What irrational fear do you have?

102. What would be your spirit animal?

103. Have you ever saved someone’s life?

104. What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned?

105. What’s something you are self-conscious about?

106. What is one of your favorite smells?

107. Have you ever given to any charities?

108. What’s the last adventure you went on?

109. What are three interesting facts about you?

110. What was the best compliment you’ve received?

111. What chance encounter changed your life forever?

112. What do you want your epitaph to be?

113. What do you want to be remembered for?

114. What is the “holy grail” of your life?

115. What do you like most about your family?

116. What do people think is weird about you?

117. What is something you will NEVER do again?

118. Who is / was your most interesting friend?

119. What are you most likely very wrong about?

120. What’s the most immature thing that you do?

121. What stereotype do you completely live up to?

122. What is the biggest lesson you never learned?

123. What dumb accomplishment are you most proud of?

124. What was the most memorable gift you’ve received?

125. What chapters would you separate your autobiography into?

126. What do you hope your last words will be?

127. What do you spend the most time thinking about?

128. What is something you can never seem to finish?

129. What mistake do you keep making again and again?

130. What’s the best thing you got from your parents?

131. What is the strangest thing you have come across?

132. What would a mirror opposite of yourself be like?

133. What’s the best and worst thing about getting older?

134. What would be the scariest monster you could imagine?

135. What is something you are certain you’ll never experience?

136. What challenging thing are you working through these days?

137. What’s one responsibility you really wish you didn’t have? 138. What do you wish your brain was better at doing?

139. If your childhood had a smell, what would it be?

140. In your group of friends, what role do you play?

141. Which of your scars has the best story behind it?

142. What have you created that you are most proud of?

143. What do you strongly suspect but have no proof of?

144. What were some of the turning points in your life?

145. What bends your mind every time you think about it?

146. What’s the title of the current chapter of your life?

147. Among your friends or family, what are you famous for?

148. What is something that your friends would consider “so you”?

149. What’s something horrible that everyone should try at least once?

150. If you had a personal flag, what would be on it? 151. If your life was a book, what would its title be?

152. As the only human left on Earth, what would you do?

153. What stat for your life would you most like to see?

154. What did you think you would grow out of but haven’t?

155. What are three of the most significant numbers in your life?

156. What are some of your personal “rules” that you never break?

157. What’s the best and worst piece of advice you’ve ever received?

158. What song or artist do you like but rarely admit to liking?

159. What annoys you most about the in-groups you are a part of?

160. What small gesture from a stranger made a big impact on you?

161. What do you regret not doing or starting when you were younger?

162. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done that actually turned out pretty well?

163. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?

164. When people look at you, what do you think they see / think?

165. What can you not get right, no matter how many times you try?

166. What question can you ask to find out the most about a person?

167. As you get older, what are you becoming more and more afraid of?

168. What lifestyle change have you been meaning to make for a while now?

169. In what situation or place would you feel the most out of place in?

170. There are two types of people in this world. What are the two types?

171. What personality trait do you value most and which do you dislike the most?

172. When was the last time you changed your opinion / belief about something major?

173. What would you do if you knew you were going to die in one hour?

174. What are some of the events in your life that made you who you are?

175. If life is a game, like some people say, what are some of the rules?

176. They say that everyone has a book in them. What would your book be about?

177. What could you do with two million dollars to impact the most amount of people?

178. What would be some of the most annoying things about having yourself as a roommate?

179. What are you really good at, but kind of embarrassed that you are good at it?

180. If you could make one rule that everyone had to follow, what rule would you make?

181. What’s something that happened or something that someone said that changed how you view the world?

182. If you were put into solitary confinement for six months, what would you do to stay sane?

183. If you could have a video of any one event in your life, what event would you choose?

184. What incredibly strong opinion or belief do you have that is completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things?

185. What are the top three things you want to accomplish before you die? How close are you to accomplishing them?

186. If you could have a never-ending candle that smelled like anything you wanted, what fragrance would you want it to be?

187. If you could convince everyone in the world to do one thing at one point in time, what would that thing be?

188. If you had a clock that would countdown to any one event of your choosing, what event would you want it to countdown to?

189. What do you wish you could tell yourself 10 years ago? What do you think you’ll want to tell your current self 10 years from now?

190. If you were forced to relive one 10-minute block of your life again and again for all eternity, what 10 minutes of your life would you choose?

191. If you could make a 20 second phone call to yourself at any point in your life present or future, when would you call and what would you say? 192. What keeps you up at night?

193. What lie do you tell most often?

194. What do you regret not doing?

195. What gives your life meaning?

196. What are you most insecure about?

197. What bridges do you not regret burning?

198. What’s the most illegal thing you’ve done?

199. How do you get in the way of your own success?

200. What are you afraid people see when they look at you?

#boring beauty #100 Questions #get to know me #extreme

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