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vanmccannonlyfans · 3 years

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Cocoon

part ii.

But that was all the Before. You were now in the After.

The crepitating silence of time resonated in the streets like 200 year old floorboards under heavy boots. All of the joy you once felt evaporated; your memories floating around like specters, tokens of a life now past. Some days it felt like a hallucination, your life now so foreign it was as if you were watching it from the outside, hovering above yourself with the rest of your happy memories sulking around town like wraiths. Haunting yourself. It seemed as though everything you once knew had evacuated; disappeared without a trace. What remained wandered around like a lost dog, homeless and hopeless. When you got the overwhelming feeling that this was just a dream, and you would wake up next to Van, you flicked the inside of your wrist to bring you back to reality. This was real. This was happening. You were here. Van was not.

Not even a year ago you were chasing each other about, skipping over broken glass and laughing at everything.

Days passed the way the trees shed their leaves in autumn: slowly, then suddenly. You started to get out of bed more; even getting a job doing freelance copywriting and editing online. It took your mind out of the guest house, out of Llandudno, and gave you something tangible to do while putting money in your pocket that would all eventually go to the baby. You started shopping for baby stuff at thrift stores and online exchange groups, still avoiding social media for any other reason. You dressed modestly and kept your head low. You shopped off peak times to avoid running in to anyone you knew. Sometimes you felt like people were watching you, but you avoided eye contact to prevent any awkward encounters and dressed in baggy clothes to avoid suspicion.

But when you were in private, you couldn’t help pull up your blouse and admire your swollen abdomen, and would often massage it for hours. It was something that was yours, something you made. No one could take this away from you.

Your body had rapidly expanded; ripe with the promise of new life. You thought you would hate pregnancy and in some ways you did, but you had never felt so powerful and beautiful. How strange and wonderful it was to be able to create life. It felt like you held the keys to the universe between your thighs. Men had to construct power out of arcane figments and through oppressing others; women were born with it, naturally.

Motherhood was never something you thought much about outside of eventually having children with Van someday. It wasn’t something you were desperate for or avoiding; just a thing that would happen in life like death and taxes. You liked kids well enough, but the idea of being a mum the way some people elevated the title didn’t appeal to you. You had always pitied the girls who got pregnant right away, pushing their babies in prams around town as if it were an expensive car. They were so simple and happy, having nothing in life but purpose. Their baby’s fathers were deadbeats or on and off again, some leftover boyfriend from high school, some anonymous and truant.

Having a child with someone you loved seemed natural. Single motherhood had never seemed like a desirable option, you never imagined yourself wanting a child so badly you were willing to do it alone. But here you were, pregnant and unwed.

What changed, you weren’t sure. You and Van had never talked about what would happen if you unexpectedly fell pregnant. He was very confident in his purpose to be a father, talking about having children as if it was coming up on the calendar like Christmas. However, he never reconciled how children would factor into his career, especially his desire to be a career band. If he was constantly touring, how often would he be able to see them? Surely he wouldn’t expect them to go on tour with him, depriving them of a normal childhood. Then again, having a rockstar as a father voids your life from any semblance of normalcy. Everything would be a compromise or a sacrifice.

It was always you and your children who would have to take the fall. You couldn’t build a life or career of your own if you were following him around everywhere. Then when you fell pregnant, having to hang back and raise babies by yourself while your love was off touring. Van would get to have a career and a dutiful partner to carry and raise his children, even if he didn’t get to see them as much as he liked. No sacrifices.

You had always thought in some part of your mind you would terminate if you found yourself where you were now. Especially in high school, before you had left to follow him, and you could have finished school and gone to uni. You’d heard of other girls having terminations, you surely wouldn’t be the first or the last. Van would have only been a short part of your life, surely you would go on to accomplish bigger things and have greater loves. When you looked back, your relationship with Van would be a series of blurs, as if it never occurred. A dream long past.

But that was all the Before. You were now in the After. Van had evenly divided your life into Before and After when he savagely dumped you. Before, you were Van’s. After, you were not. You had never considered After as a real possibility, too drunk in love to weigh the viable consequences of your present decision making. If Van were to leave you, you would have nothing, but the kind of nothing you could mold like clay into a makeshift home. Perhaps not a castle, but a viable shelter one could habit. You could finish school, go to uni, find a job, and never return.

But Van did not merely leave you. Van left you with a child. With nothing in your wallet but a ticket home. Even though he had broken up with you, it was still a child born out of love. You couldn’t force yourself to hate him. Instead, when you thought of him, your heart just sank, leaving in its wake a grief so raw it felt primal. Even though Van had shattered your heart, you still loved him. A child made from love is still born of love, no matter what happens between those two events. Terminating the child of the man you loved felt wrong, despite how thoroughly he discarded you. Especially when you had nothing else to show for it. By having this child, you were giving your love new life.

The first time you and Van made love was in his bedroom. He had played you some new songs he had written, and you gushed over his talent like you always did. He could play you new songs every day and it would thrill you just as much as it had the day before. This, of course, led to making out. To your hands down the front of each other’s pants, to pulling off your clothes like they were on fire. Being naked together was still a novelty, fresh and exciting as the day you kissed at that party. The feeling of bare skin pressed together made your whole body tingle, echoing the hunger you felt in your most sacred spaces. You wrapped your legs around his back to maximize the area your skin was in contact. Your bodies rocked together and the earth stood still, as if you were the first couple to discover how to become a part of each other.

You thought your world would change upon your sexual debut, that you would gain some worldly knowledge or unleash a host of curses like pandora’s box. But you largely felt the same. There was no rapture. You had experienced something new, but it hadn’t changed anything for you. You remained yourself. The world spun madly on.

Van stopped inhabiting your mind as he once had. Every once and a while you would see something that reminded you of him, like jaffa cakes in the store or Austin Powers playing on TV. Or you would hear someone mention the band, which wasn’t often when you hardly spoke to anyone outside of your family. It didn’t hurt any less when you were reminded of him, but the pain didn’t visit quite so often. The band released a new album, which you only learned about by a poster near the bus stop. You didn’t listen to it.

When it came time to pick a name, you weren’t sure what you wanted. For so long, it had just been the baby, nameless but present. Giving it a name was making it real. It would be here soon, earthside. No longer just a concept growing inside of you. Out of your body, and into your arms. Yours.

Your brother would never admit it, but he was secretly ecstatic to be an uncle. He built furniture for the nursery and identified every nook and cranny of the guest house that would need to be baby-proofed. Your parents warmed to the idea of being grandparents, checking up on you daily; making sure you ate and took prenatal vitamins. Your mother started bringing home baby clothes and asking to accompany you to your appointments. But the appointments felt too private, you were doing this alone and wanted to meet your baby alone for the first time. You didn’t even want anyone in the delivery room with you. Except Van. You used to think nothing could be more pathetic than having to be alone in the delivery room, but you were excited to have your child all to yourself for their first moments of life.

The OB/GYN who helped you make a birth plan gave you a quizzical look when you said you would be alone in the delivery room. Surely she had noticed the lack of ring on your finger and the fact that you always arrived to appointments alone. Very rarely did the judgement of others truly bother you, but it hurt to be reminded that you were an unwanted fool, hungover on love. That this all could have been avoided had you terminated. But who is scorning all the men who knock women up and leave them to give birth alone? Why is there shame in being the one that stayed?

Soon you were so pregnant you could hardly hide it, and had to hide yourself in order to avoid the attention. You asked your family to pick up groceries for you, afraid of being recognized. The last thing you needed was more external stress when you were due any day now.

However, it was late one night and no one in your family was nearby, and you were desperately craving some yoghurt. You checked the clock anxiously, figuring no one would be at Tesco on a Friday night. Everyone but you would be at the pub or at home with loved ones. You put on your baggiest outfit just in case, but even that couldn’t disguise that you were with child.

The shops were a brief walk away, and the cover of night was suitable camouflage. You thought about how fucking pathetic you looked, a pregnant girl trying to hide it while walking alone in the dark on a Friday. The night sky was the same shade as when Van had walked you home from that party, inky and rich. Only now the breeze felt that much more bitter.

Tesco was predictably empty, and you exhaled a sigh of relief at the lack of customers. Being out in public gave you the same adrenaline rush as when you would sneak out through your window at night to meet Van, except this time the stakes were much higher. The only sound was the low thrum of the freezers and fluorescent lights. You shuffled to the dairy case at the back of the store, trying to make as little noise as possible, studying the brown and beige pattern of the floor tiles. Your abdomen was now too large for you to zip up your coat over it, so you held it together with your spare hand, a basket in the other.

It seemed that every section in the store had been rearranged since your previous visit, and you felt disoriented wandering around the aisles. The yoghurt section seemed to have doubled since the last time you were there. There were all sorts of flavors and various milk bases, like goat and coconut. You absentmindedly threw several in your basket, unsure of what you wanted now and later.

Suddenly, you felt the unmistakable feeling of eyes glazing over you, a petite form hovering in your peripheral. You could tell from the intensity this wasn’t a stranger--you were being recognized. That realization alone spawned sheer panic, your heart rate quickening. That panic amplified when you looked down, realizing that you had let go of the edges of your coat to stock your basket, your bump on full display.

You turned to the opposite side of the body, hoping to avoid an awkward confrontation. In the corner hung a convex security mirror. In it’s distorted reflection, you recognized the body that had been watching you.

It was Mary McCann.

You practically sprinted towards the self checkout, hands fumbling with every scan. You walked faster on the way home than you ever had in your non-pregnant life. By the time you made it in the guest house, you were out of breath and exhausted. Your face was wet--you hadn’t realized you’d been crying. You threw the yoghurt in the fridge, still in the plastic Tesco bag.

Leaning against the wall, you struggled to catch your breath. Fuck. On a night you didn’t think anyone would be out except losers like yourself. The cruel irony of it all.

Anyone adjacent to Van, including Van himself, was exactly who you wanted to avoid. You had no idea what he had told his parents about you. What if they thought you had broken up with him and had gotten pregnant by someone else? Surely they didn’t still think you were together.

Seeing Mary also meant confronting another painful reality for your child: that their life would be half. They would have half the parents, half the family, half the resources, half the attention. Half of the visitors, half of the birthday cards, half of the gifts on Christmas. Half of the support. Half of the love.

This realization turned your stomach, grief bubbling up through your esophagus in dry heaves and sobs. How could you be so fucking selfish? The child was yours, but at what cost to them? At least if you had terminated, you could have eventually moved on and pretended it had never happened. Now you had an eternal scarlet letter to show for it because you were a glutton for punishment.

You knew Mary and Bernie would adore any child of Van’s, whether he was with their mother or not. But the shame held onto you like an anchor; dragging you away from others. I mean, how do you tell someone you’re carrying their grandchild but their own child wants nothing to do with them? At the same time, how could you keep them from their own blood? It would be less painful if they had rejected you the way their son had. Who knows, maybe they would take his side. It wasn’t worth the potential hurt and embarrassment if they did. If Van didn’t believe in the existence of his own child, then it was best not to disturb his reality.

It was a crisp weekday morning when your water broke. Your brother drove you to the hospital, vowing to stay in the waiting room as long as it took so you wouldn’t be entirely alone. After several of the most transformative hours of your life, you felt the most immense, profound relief as you heard her cry for the first time. Her. Your baby girl.

Your brother wept when he got to hold her for the first time. Your whole family cried, in fact. You could hardly give her up, wanting to do skin to skin for hours while she slept in your arms. You were mesmerized, she was so delicate and fragile and you made her yourself. You had never known a love this natural and profound. The way you loved her father was different, he was someone you had found. But she was something you made, something more than yourself.

Single motherhood with a newborn was hard. There was no one to lean on for midnight feedings, helping with laundry, taking turns with diapers. Of course you enjoyed having her to yourself, and your family helped out as much as they could. But the exhaustion was omnipresent, as you rarely slept for more than two hours at a time on top of doing all the housework and caretaking yourself.

You tried to work whenever you could get someone to watch her or when she would go down for a nap, which happened out of the blue on one overcast afternoon. She had been fussing all morning but had refusing every feeding and pacifier, finally wearing herself out in the early afternoon so you could get some work done.

After just having settled into your desk with a warm mug of coffee, you heard a knock at the door. You didn’t know anyone to knock--your family simply barged right in, and the guest house was at the back of the property so it was out of the way of deliveries and salesmen. Throwing a sweater on over your nightgown, you softly stepped to the door, careful not to make too much noise and wake up your baby.

Nothing could have prepared you for what you saw on the other side of the door. You were sure it was a ghost--no way this could be real. The apparition was a long, thin body outfitted with black jeans and a well cut jacket; sat under a head of piecey blonde hair framing once-sharp cheekbones that had filled out with age. Most haunting of all were the piercing blue eyes--eyes you would recognize in a thousand lifetimes over. Your vision began to shift as if you were tripping, the air evaporated from your lungs as if you were underwater. The figure lifted it’s head as if to speak, but no sound was made.

Van was home.

tagging: @sweetperfume

srs I can’t believe someone asked me to tag them 😭thank you bb 💕

#cringe and fail 2: electric boogaloo #im so mad at myself for finally posting this piece of shit it's insane #catfish and the bottlemen #catfish and the bottlemen fic #catb #van mccann #catb fic #vanfic #van mccann fic #van mccann fanfiction

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Last of the Clan McDuck! Review “It Was Worth THE Dime”

This is one of my faviorite comic book stories of all time. Given i’m a massive comics nerd, for both books and strips, that is the highest praise I can give this wonderful, epic, beautifully drawn and deeply emotoinal story. I first discovered it in the local library that had the second volume, and found the rest online at a now long dead fan site. And while it took me longer than I care to admit to really dig into Duck Comics, and even now i’ve only scratched the surface, I can say without a doubt this story is the reason I’m so deeply attached to Scrooge as a character, and that I was excited as I was for Ducktales 2017. This comic showed me just what Scrooge McDuck should be at his core as a character, and showed me what a wonderful character that is. So with all that glowing praise as you can guess i’ve been wanting to cover this for years, and even considered though back when I was more primarily a comic book reviewer last year. Any time i’ve reviewed stuff before now, i’ve considered it, and with Scrooge’s Sisters Hortense and Matilda presumably and definitely debuting on Ducktales soon, and it’s about damn time, the timing could not be better or clearer to dig into this utter triumph. But before we can take a look at the story itself we naturally have to take a look at the man behind it: Writer and Artist Don Rosa. Don Rosa is easily one of the best Duck Comics writer out there, seen by many as only second to his own faviorite duck comics writer and God of Ducks, Carl Barks. For those 1 of you who do not know, Barks was the man who created pretty much everything in the duck universe comics wise and a bit in animation too: He created Daisy, Scrooge, Gladstone, Magica, The Beagle Boys, The Junior Woodchucks, Gyro, Little Bulb, Glomgold, Rockerduck, and the list goes on. While he didn’t make EVERY duck, he made so many that it’d be impossible to imagine either version of Ducktales being possible without him. So of course Rosa was a fan and while he took up the family buisness, he was also an artist and duck comics fanboy on the side. So when, even if it meant a paycut, the opportunity to actually write and draw them came up, he lept at it and thus became one of their publishers go to guys, even if said publisher published the stories overseas where the Duck Comics are far more popular and still going to this day, and ironically where most duck comics printed nowadays get their stories from. Rosa was known for his meticous historical research and gorgeous art that he took his time drawing to get just perfect and showed on the page. The man has easily some of hte best and most detailed duck art around and I still haven’t found a duck artist that can match him.. and if you have or found one close i’d genuinely love to see that. He is a genuinely talented, spirited guy who was sadly mistreated by disney and that, coupled with tragically failing eyesight, eventually ended his career. He’s still around and I genuinely hope to meet him some day as he still does conventions. The man is not without fault: I don’t get his hatred of superhero comics, as while I get them overshadowing funnybooks and that around the time of his career they were in decline, but it’s just as unfair to write off Superhero comics as mindless. garbage as it is for people to write off the Duck Comics as “only for kids” and I genuinely wish he’d see that and see how the medium has evolved so much since then. I also grumble a bit as his refusal to allow anything besides barks into his bubble, and having to be forced to include fethry on the family tree, but that’s more personal preference. I like using as much material as you got. IT’s why i’ve wanted to, and hopefully will eventually get around to, write a sonic fanfic using bits of all the various universes that for legal, ken penders being an absolute waste of a human being, and sega being stupid reasons can’t be used anymore. I like taking everything in a franchise and putting it in a blender and it’s why I love the reboot. But there’s nothing wrong with taking things as is, not stepping on toes canon wise, but still being awesome. We’re just diffrent people and that’s okay. And a lot of his fanboy showing actually lead to REALLY good things: Goldie O’Gilt was a one off character, and while used ocasoinally overseas, didn’t really pick up as a character again until a combination of Ducktales 87 and Rosa’s work with her, as he always loved the character, and fleshing her out lead to her being used more, and gaining a sizeable fandom. He also gained the Cablleros an even bigger fandom by giving them two stories of their own, and fleshing them out a bit more. And this very comic is the peak of that, taking EVERY mention of scrooge’s past from various backstories to set up adventures, every tiny scrap, and to his credit going to both Barks Himself and various other Barks Experts Rosa was friends with to check his work, especially difficult given he likey had to find these stories in issue or pullt hem from disney archives, and complied it into one long epic that not only uses all this info effortlessly, but spins a compelling story that gives us a clear vision of what Scrooge should be, how he became the man he is, and how he lost himself only to find himself again with the help of three precocious boys and a cynical 30 something duck. So taint all bad is what i’m saying. As for how this got started, thankfully rosa himself provided the origin story for this project in the back of the volume of his works that contained the first 7 chapters of life and times, as well as detailed notes for every chapter. At the time Rosa was working for Egmont, the big european publisher who handles Disney’s much larger european comics market, hence why most of his stories appeared years earlier in Europe before debuting here. The american publisher at the time , and an old friend of his, called Rosa with an idea: A 12 issue Maxi-Series focusing on Scrooge’s history, since at the time they were all the rage.. and really even today mini series are still a viable market and many indie titles just have several minis instead of an ongoing. So it wasn’t a bad idea, Rosa just simply offered a tweak: He’d tell his publisher at Egmont about the idea, and let her get a crack team of writers and artists to do this proper, and thus Disney could publish it for free once it was done and for no extra cost. Rosa gave his publisher a fax detaling both the idea and the fact that it needed to be done right, given to the best person possible, and done with the greatest care. She agreed.. and naturally handed it to him, as he admits he hoped. She made the right call, a legend was born and here we are. One last bit before the read more and before I get to the first story itself at last: Since barks wrote a lot of side stories that fit into the canon, I COULD slot them in between chapters, but have instead chosen to review the original 12 part story as was, and do the various side stories and two epilogues, the utterly fantastic “Dream of a Life Time”, easiliy one of my faviorite comics ever, and the also really great “Letter From Home”, which will likely on some level be the basis for the upcoming at the time of this review “Battle for Castle McDuck!”, after completing the story. In other words i’m probably going to be at this for years. so join me under the read more won’t you as I begin the journey of a thousand miles with a single step as we look at the humble start of a legend.

We begin, after a fun short teaser with present Day scrooge saying his past is no one’s buisness only to get hit with an oh yeah?, with a scrap book title for the issue, something I want to bring up since while I got that’s what it was what I never got, and must’ve glanced over when I first read rosa’s notes when I got this copy, was that it isn’t SCROOGE’S scrap book, but his sister Matilda’s who dutifully and happily catologued her brother’s adventures. It’s a really sweet moment.. and something that will hit VERY hard when we reach Chapter 11. If you haven’t read this story or heard of it.. .that’s this story’s equilvent of “Last Crash of the Sunchaser” and clearly Frank and Matt drew from that story a bit for it, but we can get more into the parallels when we get there. A smaller but fun note is that Rosa had specific coin drawing templates, for different indentions and what not he used, and used them for the coins in these intro bits. Yes he admitted he has a problem and yes that’s damn impressive anyway.

It’s Scrooge’s 10th birthday, and his father Fergus has taken him up to see the family land, Dismal Downs to tell him of the mighty Clan McDuck and show him the ancestral lands, graveyards and Castle. He admits to having taken this long because the Clan McDuck currently lives in Glasgow so it’s kind of a long trip just to show your son “Hey look at the decay and rot that’s our ancestral homeland”. The Clan is on hard times, as a bad shipping deal, the backbone of a rather good barks story and I wont’ be interjecting for every barks reference as it’d get rather tiring though for what it’s worth Rosa provided tons of detailed footnotes in the back of each Fantagraphics collection, so good on him. Speaking of which though they do include 10 pages of Mc Duck family history that was supposed to open this story.. until Rosa’s editor wisely pointed out the story isn’t about them but scrooge and having read his roug draft, yeah.. there’s a good gag here and there, as well as “Dirty” Dingus McDuck, scrooge’s Grandpa and the reason Dewey is cursed with that middle name. Why anyone thought Dingus was a good name is beyond me, nor why Donald thought that was a good middle name back in 2009 is again, beyond me. Good on Don though for getting that past the censors. But yeah with no money they can’t buy the land back and they were scared off it years ago by a mystical ghost dog, the hound of the whiskervilles. There is treasure in the castle, Sir Quackly’s gold, but he accidently sealed himself into a wall while sealing his treasure in there. Their interrupted by the town assholes, the Whiskervilles who have been grazing sheep on the land and are naturally behind the hound, using the sound of it to scare off Fergus once they realize he’s a McDuck. Because apparently you can keep a Scooby Doo style hoax up for Centuries if you don’t have meddling kids around. Who knew. Back in Glasgow, we meet the rest of Scrooge’s family: His Uncle Jake, his sisters Matilda and Hortense, and his mother Downy. Jake hasn’t really been mentioned at all in Ducktales and I know next to nothing about him, which given I share a name with the guy you’d THINK I would. I mean I know a decent amount about this Jake.

But nothing about who the hell Jake McDuck is or why he lives with his brother and his family. Here, you guys watch the dancing Jake, i’m going to probably do that for hours after this review is done, i’m going to go sort this out. Okay one google and finding the Scrooge Mcduck wiki page on him, Jake shows up here likely because he was referenced in the story “A Christmas For Shacktown” and apparently borrowed from Scrooge and never paid it back. Otherwise.. there’s not a lot about him and unlike the rest of Scrooge’s family he really dosen’t do much that I can remember. Except like 2017 Scrooge, he apparently has become extremely long lived, as Scrooge and Donald STILL think he’s alive in the 1950′s.. and likely is STILL alive in some form in the Don Rosa stories, given his take place after Barks and thus in the 40′s and 50′s where Barks stories were set. Hence why unlike the Reboot, Scrooge isn’t inexpecilbly over 210. But Jake McDuck sure as heck is. Maybe this highlander is a highlander.. you know the movie and tv show type. Maybe someone cut off his head. That’s what i’m going with.

This does bring me to another point about this story: While Barks gave all of scrooge’s family their names, it’s where Rosa got them after all, it’s Rosa who really made them into characters. Fergus as a loving father ashamed his family legacy has fallen and wanting his son to do better than him, Downy as an equally loving wife and mother, Matilda as his sweet and caring sister and later her brother’s moral center, and Hortense.. well here she’s just a babbling baby but her character will become clear and glorious as we go. She is adorable here though and we do get some great bits with her. Getting back to the plot now i’ve made my points, Jake is riled up wanting to understandably kick the Whiskerville’s asses with Scrooge, who even as a sweet innocent ten year old still has the family temper already, agreeing.. but Downy gently shoots them out pointing that two middle aged-ish men and a 10-year old just aren’t enough to fight an army of them and while she doesn’t mention it the fight would just tire them out for work and accomplish nothing as while it is the McDuck’s land the combination of the hound and the lack of money to move back means it’s pointless. She also mentions their younger brother Pothole, who went to America. This will be important later.

Scrooge storms off and Fergus laments, in a scene that’s more painful the more I think about it, how his clan has fallen, with he and his brother lamenting their chances at glory are long gone.. but Fergus has hope his son can do better, and for his son’s birthday makes him a shoeshine kit in the hopes of inspiring him to greatness. This scene still resonates since many of us are poor, struggling and not doing so good money wise. I’m sure many parents have doubts and regrets about not being able to do more for their kid.

Not only that but the story carefully avoids the trap of Fergus accidently being abusive by you know, pinning his family’s future on one 10 year old. While yes he is asking a lot of Scrooge, to restore their family name.. it’s very clear he mostly just wants his son to do better than him. Even if Scrooge was just slightly more successful, Fergus would likely be happy with that. He’s not using the legacy as a “This what you must be” like say the Gems in steven universe did for Steven with Rose’s Legacy, the kind where it sort of suffocates you till youc an make it your own. He’s just saying “this is what you can be” He believes his child can be great and simply once him to reach his full potetial and is simply giving him a means to hopefully do so, a simple home made shoe shine kit. While Jake scoffs, the narration notes the idea isn’t worth a dime.. it’s worth THE dime. The dime that would set Scrooge’s destiny in motion.

The next morning, Fergus goes to check up on his son and his new buisness but Scroogey’s having no luck and about ready to just quit, the poor child. Also Matilda is dragging her baby sister around like a doll and it’s entirely precious as it is funny.

But as for those Dorty Boots, Matilda wonders why her dad dosen’t just tell Scrooge that Burt the Ditch Digger is coming. Fergus tells her to quite and then explains his plan: he’s sending Burt to scrooge, with an American dime Fergus and Matilda found, to teach his son a lesson: By giving him a hard days work, he’ll teach him what hard work truly means.. and by having Burt “cheat” him with the American dime, it’ll give him the motivation to keep going and to nto be as wide eyed and trusting. It’s a well meaning if harsh lesson, and the kind you’d expect from 1900′s parenting and fits the origin well: Scrooge still earned his first money square, as he still did work.. but his getting cheated being a lesson dosen’t diminish what it taught scrooge, and helps flesh out what I talked about above, Fergus knowing his son has great potential he just needs inspiration to reach it. And instead of just telling him that he does a con job but it’s the 1900′s. This orign, and Fergus’ part in it would be entirely untouched in Ducktales 2017, the first scrooge based adaptation since this comic came out, and I bless them for it. Frank even said this comic was used as a bible by the writers and while theirs clear deviations, and we’ll get to that, they were mainly done for good reason, and it’s very clear that while scrooge’s history is very VERY diffrent in the reboot, the core of his past is still there.

So the plan is on and young scrooge spends half an hour killing himself to get Burt’s shoes clean before getting his dime.. and realizing he’s been had, makes this proud decleration that will be the bedrock of his entire life and character.

Scrooge being naturally stubborn as you can see takes his cheats a leson: There will always be hard honest work, and he will be there to do it and he’ll be tougher and sharper than anyone trying to cheat him out of his pay. Fergus’ plan has the intended effect, and Scrooge having learned a hard lesson now has the drive and determination we know him for. As for why it gives it to him.. I had to think on it a bit but it makes sense: For some a setback like this would make them quit.. for Scrooge it’s just proof he CAN find customers, he CAN do this job, or any at his hardest and instead takes this as a lesson to be prepared ot out think and outfight anyone who dares cheat him again, and to not earn his money by being the kind of guy who cheats a kid out of an honest days pay, but as a good honest duck like his father and his father before him. =He will make his money square so he can be the kind of person this seeming stranger SHOULD have been. Granted we’ll see Scrooge doesn’t end up as the best person at times but .. we’ll get there. So with the fire inside turned from a spark into the flame Scrooge soon got to work, and by the next panel we see he’s eventually worked his stand up from a small box given to him by his dad, to a three seater shoeshining bench, who he wipes all at once by stretching one of his mother’s girldes over a light pole, a detail I didn’t get the first time around but now love. Naturally being a good kind boy much like his Nephews, Scrooge always gave his proud father a portion of his earnings, if with a full receipt for tax purposes. Because he’s still scrooge after all. His dad wonders he did too good a job while Hortense glxbit’s in agreement.

As the years go on, a now tween Scrooge is eventually able to save up for a horse cart, and starts selling Fire Wood up in the city. He eventually realizes Peat, an earthy subtance found in bogs I only know about because I had to look it up for this review, is more profitable and with some snappy marketing moves into selling Peat for the rich instead, also showing the young lad already has a grasp of how to sell to obnoxious rich people.

But while his business is booming, our young hero can’t resist visiting his family’s ancestral home and longing for it, hoping one day to have it for himself and in a nice show of how despite his temper and tenacity forged over the last few years he’s still at hear the kind, sweet optimistic lad he was just a few pages ago, he decides to tidy up the Clan’s Cemetary while he’s here.

Unfortunately as proof that Donald and Della’s terrible luck comes from both sides of the family the Whiskervilles are sub-glomgold levels of human beings.. or Dogfaces in this case, and are digging up the McDuck Clan’s graves to hunt for treasure. Scrooge tries to simply do the smart thing and flee, but the asshole brigade catch sight of him and mistkaing him for a peat burgalar chase after him.. and spend WAY too much time and energy chasing a teenage boy over some fucking bog grass you clearly aren’t selling yourselves. I mean spare a thought for how dumb this is: They could easily sell of of that peat to put up a fence or chop down some trees to get the material if their really that concerned about someone getting in the bog. Then again this isn the 1800 and 1900′s where the child death toll was simply “Yes”, so they likely thought whose gonna notice one more dead child on our property?

Scrooge heads toward the castle and is gestured in by a friendly mystery duck who gladly shows him around and can tell he’s a McDuck just by look, showing the castle is still in glorious condition as the whiskervilles are too spooked to go in, hence why they didn’t chase Scrooge inside. I’d say being afraid of ghosts but not murdering a child is weird but these are the same guys who thought murdering a child was plan A. We’re not dealing with a brain trust is what i’m saying. So the mystery duck shows Scroogey around, showing off some colorful stories about his ancestors recycled from that scrapped prologue I mentioned. THe mystery man, who brushes off Scrooge thinking he’s a McDuck asks Scrooge what he’s doing to restore the family glory and while Scrooge points out he’s already working on it, Mystery Duck points out he’s still missing something: He has the drive and the dream, but peat and shoeshining, while getting him good money for his family, aren’t the thing you can build a fortune or a future off of. He then points out where Scrooge’s dime comes from: America.. and that gives the boy the idea to head to the states. As for what he could possibly DO there to start, the mystery guy mentions his uncle pothole. So Scrooge has the dream, the drive.. and now a plan: Go to america, work for his uncle on the riverboats, and work his way up from there till he finds his fortune and restores his family name. But while his future is settled, the present is still an issue and Scrooge wants to teach the child murder club a lesson and thus borrows, though MM wisely points out it’s all his property a horse and some armor, and stuffs the armor with peat. As for what his plan is.. welllll

That.. is fucking awesome. And far from the last fucking awesome moment in this thing. It also shows off even as not quite a teen yet, Scrooge is still a badass already, and while he doesn’t have his trademark strength or fighting skills quite yet, his ingenuity is already there.. and that will always trump both. The Whiskervilles run away and into some quicksand and Scrooge vows to return one day as laird and reclaim his family land. But that’s a story for a few chapters down the line. As for who the mystery duck is, he’s naturally Sir Quackely himself, or rather his ghost, who was simply guiding Scrooge and didn’t give him the treasure as simply handing him the money wouldnn’t restore their family’s good name or continue their bloodline now would it?

For now Scrooge returns to work for a bit before finding his way to America: A cattleboat to New Orleans looking for a Cabin Boy. And so Scrooge bids farewell to his family. His Dad, feeling bad he can’t even give his boy shilling, gives him the family pocketwatch with jake pitching in with the family gold dentures. While Scrooge naturally refuses to sell the watch, he does plan to sell the teeth as soon as possible for good reason. We then get some sweet goodbyes with him, his sisters (With hortense uttering her first words to everyone’s astonishment) and loving mother as he wonders just what awaits him in America.

And there he stands on the bow of a ship, heading for a new land, in New Orleans he can be a new man. And we’ll see just what kind of man he becomes as this series continues. For now this is the end of a chapter but the beginning of a lifetime.

Final Thoughts on Last of the Clan McDuck:

This story is excellent. While there are even better chapters to come, this one is still one of the most memorable and most joyous, showing just how Scrooge became what he is, where some of his values come from, others will be instilled along the way , and beginning to flesh out his family. We see Scrooge’s love of wealth comes from starting from the bottom, growing up with a family that barely had anything and badly needed everything, but was loving and instilled fine morals in him. We also see a Scrooge far removed from the bitter old man he is in present day, an optimistic naïve young lad who only wants best for his family. It’s a nice stark contrast to who he’ll become, good and bad, and a nice way to both compare him to Huey Dewey and Louie and break your heart as his own hardens before briefly turning black later on. The art, as is standard for this series and Rosa, is breathtaking, and the story isn’t lacking in good jokes, their just downplayed so the story itself can take center stage. There’s nothing really more to say: it’s an excellent start to an even more excellent tale and stands proud among an already stellar story as one of it’s finest outings.

NEXT RAINBOW: Scrooge goes down to the mighty Missipi to work on the riverboats and meets one of his signature Rogue’s for the first time in their first form, as well as Gyro’s dad.. or grandpa.. or possibly both I don’t know his family tree. Point is, tune in next time for some riverboat hyjinks. Until then if you’d like to comission an episode of any animated show, especially ducktales and the various other duck related disney shows, or another Duck Comics story you really like from Rosa, Barks or whoever you want really, I take commissions for 5 dollars a review, with 5 dollars off your full order when you put in for more than one episode or issue. You can also follow me on patreon.com/popculturebuffet and for just two bucks a month get access to polls (which i’ll start once we have at least three patreons), and my exclusive discord server. And if you liked this review be sure to reblog it to show off. My self promotion done until next time: There’s always another rainbow.

#scrooge mcduck #don rosa #ducktales #the life and times of scrooge mcduck #fergus mcduck #downy mcduck #hortense mcduck #hortense duck #matilda mcduck #jake mcduck #uncle scrooge #duck comics #disney duck comics #carl barks

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foolgobi65 · 4 years

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Ram/Sita + spy au+ friends to lovers + “you know i’ll do anything for you”

lol this...AGAIN....spun out of my control.....and is apparently 6020 words while still having massive massive holes in characterization and plot and ...general stuff..lol. anyways hope u like it? it ended up being way less Spy Spy and more ....arranged marriage au...... because everything i’ve written has basically been that now lol and raazi is the only spy movie i could think of that works bc rama and sita dont have mr and mrs smith vibes to me. love u!!!!!!

----

“Are you serious?”

The face on the screen is somehow almost as familiar as Sita’s own -- she’s never been one for the gossip rags, but at some point, it’s almost harder not to know the features of someone who’s been famous since his parents announced his conception.

“You know him, then.” Sita’s handler Kaikeyi seems remarkably even-tempered for a woman charging Sita, her top recruit, to attach herself to the arm of Kaikey’s stepson -- a boy that the papers seem to believe Kaikeyi prefers even to her own Bharata. Sita raises an incredulous eyebrow before realizing that Kaikeyi does actually expect Sita to recite what she knows about her newest target.

“Ramachandra Raghav,” Sita recites from memory, “but the papers call him Ram. Only son of Dasaratha and his first wife Kausalya, sole presumptive inheritor to the Kosala industries fortune. Dasaratha Raghav and his wife publicly struggled to conceive and adopted a daughter, Shanta, nine years before they had Ram whose birth coincided with the release of Dasartha’s final film and his entry into politics.” Sita purses her lips, unsure if she should continue, but Kaikeyi remains impassive. “Dasaratha and Kausalya divorced when Ram was five, and three months later Dasaratha married you.” Judiciously Sita chooses not to include the fact that Kaikeyi, who during her acting days had only been paired with the already greying movie star, reportedly delivered her eight-pound son Bharata three months early.

Kaikeyi rolls her eyes, still the same striking green that had made her first film such a hit. “Of course I was pregnant when we got married. What else.”

Sita racks her mind. “The custody case was unusual -- Kausalya shifted to America with her children, but Dasaratha petitioned for them to stay with him in India. Shanta was 16 and decided to finish school abroad with Kausalya, but the courts decided that Ram would spend alternate years with each parent until he reached his majority.” It was the oddity of the arrangement that kept the Indian public so desperate for news about what otherwise might have been just another star-turned-politician’s son: pictures of Bharata, who was constantly being presented at building openings, movie premiers and other assorted Party functions went for nearly a quarter of the price as those of Ram whose arrival at the Delhi airport became more and more of a national event in sync with his father’s increasing political power. The exoticism of his American English was viewed with as much pride as his unaccented Hindi which the Party often used to great effect, having him canvass his father’s constituents on camera the year Dasaratha was put forward as the party’s candidate for Chief Minister and releasing them online.

But it has been a few years since Ram was last in India for more than a month or so’s vacation -- at 16 he graduated from school and sent the Indian media into near paralytic shock when he decided to attend university in Delhi. Not even three years dimmed the public’s fascination, which quickly turned into genuine discontent when it was announced that Ram had accepted an offer to do his doctorate in California and had barely been seen in India since.

“You want me to investigate a Chief Minister’s son?” Again, Sita leaves unsaid the rumors that swirl even in headquarters -- that Dasaratha’s relative competency at state-wide management has made him a viable candidate for even higher office. That after the last election’s dismal results, it is apparent that Dasaratha might be the only remaining Party figure popular enough to lead a coalition that would bring them to power in the Centre after nearly a decade at the periphery.

Kaikeyi laughs. “Not quite,” she says, still perfect red lips twisting in a faint smile, “Ram is in New York now working for the UN, and it seems that he will have a long and illustrious career in diplomacy which will bring him into contact with all sorts of people of interest to our national security agencies. We need someone at his side to make sure that those contacts are being utilized to their full potential.”

Sita frowns. “He’s too young to need a trusted aide or a secretary.”

“Correct. That’s why we’re sending you to New York as his wife.”

When Sita is 18, a woman comes up to her on the street asking if she’d like to be a model. As a laugh Sita shows up at what the woman’s business card says is the head-hunting agency’s main office only to be quickly moved to a backroom, divested of her backpack, phone and shoes and investing her with a new lifelong wariness of strangers with offers too good to be true. Her father is the aging yet venerable University President -- they don’t have the money for ransom, but Sita just as quickly rules out potential trafficking since her father has one or two connections that would raise quite the fuss if he informed them that his daughter was missing. But before she can think of another reason behind her apparent kidnapping, the door opens, and Sita’s life changes with the incoming rush of bright light into the dark room.

“You’re..” she splutters, eyes raking up and down the perfect figure of the woman in front of her.

“Yes,” Kaikeyi Raghav says, sunglasses perched delicately at the top of her head as she adjusts the pallu of her elegant chiffon sari. “I’m sorry for all the confusion, but we really needed to get you alone before we could try and talk to you.”

“Talk,” Sita rasps, suddenly hyper aware of her own dry throat. Kaikeyi sighs, clapping her hands once before taking a bottle of water that appeared almost instantly at the door’s threshold, opening the cap and offering it to Sita who gulps it down. “Talk about what?” Sita asks.

“One of our associates brought you to our attention about a year ago thinking that with some work you could be turned into something quite extraordinary.” Kaikeyi brings up her right hand to pull down her hair from its updo, the cascades only making her more breathtaking to Sita, whose father always had a soft spot for the old Dasaratha-Kaikeyi films. “I’ve been observing you ever since, and recently came to the same conclusion.”

Sita can’t help but glow at the praise, even as she tries to keep her sense of rationality -- she’s been kidnapped after all, even if by one of the nation’s most illustrious figures. First: “Are you trying to traffick me into sex work?”

Kaikeyi laughs, and the sound is clear and captivating like a bell. The more Sita watches, the smaller details begin to stand out -- a mole just slightly to the right of Kaikeyi’s collarbone, the green of the embroidery that brings out those colors in her eyes, the red fingernails that perfectly match Kaikeyi’s lips.

“Do I look like a pimp?” Kaikeyi’s tone is one that does not truly seek a response, though Sita is not sure she even has one. The proclivities of the rich and powerful are rumored to skew to the truly scandalous, and there is no reason that an elegant woman could not be the front for the procurement of such services.

“Then is this supposed to be recruitment for politics?” Sita has never thought herself particularly gifted at deception, which seems to be the first requirement for a fruitful career of public service.

“No,” Kaikeyi laughs again, “but I find it interesting that you didn’t consider that I might be signing you on as a heroine.”

“I don’t have a face for film,” Sita says, “and I have no intention of leaving Delhi.”

“You have exactly the face for film,” Kaikeyi counters, “but I agree -- your mind would be as wasted as mine in Bombay.”

“Then politics?” Sita, who was born and brought up in Calcutta before her father was given a position in Delhi had never given much thought to the Raghav’s stronghold Ayodhya -- she can’t imagine what Kaikeyi could possibly see in her.

Kaikeyi shakes her head. “What do you know about this country’s intelligence services?”

Sita blinks. “You want me to be a spy?”

Five years after their first meeting, Sita has learned how to handle all sorts of weapons including her own body, how to speak a dozen languages, how to scope out a room. In some strange way, Kaikeyi seems to have filled the gaping hole left behind by Sita’s long-dead mother Sunaina, who Sita is not entirely sure would approve of what her daughter decided to make of her life. There isn’t quite a bond of affection, but there is loyalty beyond even what Sita would have given her own mother -- no better proof than the fact that here Sita is agreeing to marry Kaikeyi’s stepson entirely because Kaikeyi demanded it, where Sunaina would have had quite the shock if she had tried to suggest a man for Sita to wed. Sita had dreamed of marrying for love, but loyalty she reasons is close enough.

Ostensibly, Sita has finished her MA with high honors and works at an NGO that enjoys Kaikeyi’s patronage -- this, they decide, is how the papers will be told Kaikeyi knows Sita. There are a few strategically leaked photos of Kaikeyi first paying the NGO a visit, then taking Sita out for a series of lunches. Sita finally travels to the ancestral Raghav mansion in Ayodhya for Diwali, bringing along her father to meet and pay his respects to his favorite screen star.

“You must be Sita’s father,” Dasaratha booms when they approach, somehow brimming with the same vitality and presence that drew such crowds to the theater in his youth. He grins, left arm wound around Kaikeyi’s waist at his side as he turns to speak to Sita. “My wife has grown old and taken up matchmaking to pass the time, but from what I have seen you would be a fine choice for my Ram.”

Janaka stiffens at Sita’s side, hearing about such an arrangement for the first time, but Dasaratha’s charisma pulls him into its orbit as Dasaratha reaches out his hands. “I confess that I was never well educated myself, but I believe it would only bring me and my family honor to be able to call someone as learned as yourself ‘Brother.’”

Janaka is sold. Sita, who has never been quite sure about the real dynamic between Kaikeyi and her husband, realizes with some relief that there is genuine fondness, even love, in the smile she flashes her husband. Perhaps there might be hope for Sita herself.

Dasaratha insists that the informal engagement is enough to justify Sita and her father’s extended stay at the mansion. After one day, he calls Ram himself informing his son that Dasaratha has found him a wife. Within a week, the news reports that Dasaratha’s eldest son has found himself back on Indian soil.

Sita finally leaves the mansion two weeks after Diwali with the instruction that she must treat the property as her own home whenever she returns to India -- after all, Dasaratha booms, she is his beloved Ram’s wife now, and Dasaratha’s daughter now as much as Janaka’s.

“So,” Sita says on their first night, sitting on what's supposed to be their marital bed, “what name should I call you?”

Her husband raises an eyebrow, silent just as he has been for almost the entire week since he was called home. Kaikeyi, when Sita asked for details, had not elaborated on the character of her stepson nor had she offered details about how Sita might best seduce him.

“Follow your instincts,” Kaikeyi had said, smiling at Sita’s frustration. “You’ll know what I mean when you spend time with him.”

Well, Sita thinks perversely, her instincts are telling her to confess everything to the man she has promised herself to in front of her father, and God almighty. Somehow, she is meant to maintain a lifelong relationship with a man she is only now speaking to, and to mine his contacts for information to send back to her handler, his stepmother.

“The papers call you Ram,” Sita says, only a little sullen at the thought of the task ahead of her, “as does your family. Is that what you prefer to go by?”

“My father’s family,” he corrects mildly, and Sita immediately flushes at the mistake. Kaushalya and Shanta had of course come, but arrived only the night before the wedding -- Sita had met them both the morning of, but only enough to touch their feet and have Kaushalya cluck, teary-eyed, over the beauty of Sita in her wedding sari.

“Of course,” Kaushalya had said off-handedly to Shanta standing at her side, “Kaikeyi has always had excellent taste.” Sita had not trusted herself to answer.

“Will we live with your mother in America?” Sita has been provided with what she considers shockingly little information regarding her future living situation -- Kaikeyi insists that, largely, this assignment requires Sita to effectively live her own life and as such being more information than provided a new wife would only detract from her performance.

He shakes his head. “My mother and Shanta live in New York too, but Shanta needed to be closer to Columbia and...” he looks away, suddenly just slightly awkward. “Things changed so much for Mother throughout my life that I think she was finally able to find some type of stability when I was away at university. When it turned out that I was moving back, I didn’t want to be the one to throw her life back into flux.”

Sita nods. “Are you close?”

Her husband hums, fingers of one hand slightly worrying at the hem of a blanket. “As much as I can be, having spent every other year away.”

Sita can’t imagine -- for years, the story of the boy caught so explicitly between two worlds has always been interesting or amusing, but now that she’s confronted with him in the flesh she knows that it must have been sad, too. She tries to imagine a mother committing to the notion that the child she waves off at the airport gate would not be the one who returned, and finds that it’s impossible.

“It must have been difficult,” she offers, not elaborating on whether she is speaking of her husband’s family, or himself.

He nods. “Father and Mother Kaikeyi always had Bharata, and the Party. I was glad when Mother found Sumitra and the boys.”

Sita’s eyes widen. “A friend?”

He turns his body to look at her for the first time head-on. “No,” he says, eyes boring into Sita’s, exuding the same gravitational force as his father. “Her wife. The boys are my Father’s during a...period of disagreement with Mother Kaikeyi, and when Sumitra decided to keep them Mother brought her to New York to have the children. They fell in love.”

This is a test, Sita realizes, and for the first time, she realizes the wisdom of Kaikeyi’s lack of preparatory material even as she curses Kaikeyi in equal measure. She would have liked to have not been blindsided, but there is a truth to her reaction she could never have mimicked so effectively. Her mind roils with the amount of information relayed in such few sentences -- Dasaratha, already so old, still fathering sons. Kaikeyi and her husband having a disagreement so strident it sent him into another’s arms. Kausalya, raising more of Dasaratha’s children as her own. Kausalya, in love with a woman.

Her silence has drawn on too long during her contemplation, and her husband’s eyes have gone cold as he leans away from her.

“You call her Sumitra,” she decides on, “but if she’s your mother’s wife, should I call her mother in law as well?”

Her husband is wide-eyed himself for a moment, but then his face cracks into a smile just dripping with sudden, unexpected delight. Sita’s heart skips a beat at the sight.

“It would make her very happy if you did,” he says. “And as for me, my mother has always insisted on calling me Ramachandra and none of my siblings use my name at all. You can call me whatever you’d like.”

---

“Rama!” Sita exclaims, trying to rise from the chair behind her desk and managing to trip on the hanging sleeve of the sweater she had been sitting on. She laughs, picking herself up off the ground. “Oh, and you brought the boys too!”

It’s been a year since Sita moved to New York, a year in which she’s found fulfilling work at a South Asian women’s shelter, learned how to navigate herself via subway to find the best of ten different cuisines in New York, read three books related to Shanta’s new area of interest, featured in the boys’ Instagram Lives over 20 different times, and found herself a best friend in the form of her husband.

Ram, she had decided, was how the public knew him even if his father’s family chose the same. Ramachandra was much too long. Rama was short, sweet, vowels easy in Sita’s mouth.

“No one calls me that,” he’d said when she’d first used the name, his tone again one of unexpected delight. “I’ve always thought it was strange that they never did.”

Sita’s due a lunch break, but she’s always been prone to eating at her desk unless she’s eating out -- a budgeted, once weekly expense she keeps track of after the humiliating exorbitancy of her first month’s bill.

“We have money,” Rama had said, bemused at Sita’s profuse apologies. “I’ve got a trust fund, but my salary certainly pays well enough for this.” He’d glanced at the bill Sita had handed him as she had wrung her hands in front of him, so unsure of how she’d managed to spend so much. “It looks like this is mostly just restaurant charges anyway, and,” he’d looked up at Sita with a smile, rising to hold her hands before she could twist them again, “you live in New York now. I’m glad that you’ve spent the last month trying all sorts of the things the city has to offer. It’s exactly what I did when I moved back, except I probably spent twice as much.”

Sita had felt the first of many twin pangs at his kindness -- one pang of joy, at being with someone so well suited to herself, and another of sorrow when she thought of how their relationship was founded on a lie. Kaikeyi had told Sita that there was no need to actively seek out contacts for at least the first year, and so the extent of her real work was having regular conversations with Kaikeyi that easily blurred the line between professional and personal relationships.

“Is he any good at sex,” Kaikeyi had asked one day after asking for a report about Rama’s “family situation” which Sita found distressingly similar to the inquiries of a second wife wondering about her husband’s former paramours. Sita had hung up.

“Sita?” Sita starts, bringing herself out of her reverie and smiling.

“Sorry,” she says, grabbing her coat. “I was just thinking about something.”

“Something interesting?” He takes the coat and holds it out for Sita to slip her arms into, smoothing down the lapels when she turns around. “I spent the whole morning stuck in the single least productive set of meetings, and knowing them they’re probably arguing about what appetizers to get for lunch. I’ve never felt as lucky as I did when I told them all that, unfortunately, I’d already logged that I was taking a half-day to take care of my brothers.”

The boys scowl. “We’re thirteen years old,” Lakshmana says. Shatrughana nods in agreement. “We could have gone home by ourselves!”

Sita flashes Rama a smile, leaning down with an expression as if in deep thought. “That’s true enough -- if you’d like we can send you home and just join you after I finish work, but aren’t your moms on a health kick right now?”

Lakshmana, always the more suspicious of the pair, crosses his arms. “And?”

“Well,” Sita drawls, hearing Rama snort softly next to her, “your brother and I were thinking of taking you to the greasiest joint we can find in walking distance, and then to 7/11 after to find you both snacks for when you spend the weekend at our apartment. But if you’d rather not, that’s totally ok too!”

The boys fall for the line, hook and sinker.

“Oh,” Lakshmana says, voice suddenly a pitch lower than usual as he squares his shoulders in what Sita doesn’t think any of the three recognize is his best imitation of Rama, “that’s ok.” He looks over at Shatrughana, who nods. “Family is important. Let’s go eat!”

“Thank you,” Rama says softly after they’ve finally decided where to eat and are walking in the correct direction. Sita raises an eyebrow. “You’re good with the boys,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders. “I was expecting to have to take them out on my own, and stay at my mother’s when I wanted to spend time with them but --”

Sita interrupts him before he says something truly embarrassing about what she only sees as a pleasure. “It’s easy when they’re such good kids,” she says, “and I would have done it even if it was harder. It’s the least I could have done for you, after everything.”

Everything being the credit cards he’d given her when they landed, his insistence that he wouldn’t monitor her spending and would set up a bank account for her that he would periodically transfer money into but not be able to access. Everything being the books he shared with her and the books he read on her recommendation, in turn, the concerts they’d attended together, the plays and musicals and movies and street festivals. Everything being the conversations they’d had on the couch until late at night, the meals he learned to cook because they reminded her of home.

The one similarity underlying all others between them, Sita realized one day, was that they had both grown up lonely, without anyone person, they could claim truly, entirely understood them. Neither of them had had a best friend until they met the other. By unspoken agreement, they had not consummated their marriage that first night, nor during the first few hectic months of Sita’s acclimation to New York. Eventually, it became easier to simply maintain things as they were and to enjoy the novelty of a companion before things became ... complicated.

If a part of Sita insisted that she hold off from sex so as to not build even more on an inherently unstable foundation -- if that same part screamed that her husband had given her trust beyond all else and she squandered the gift every day she didn’t tell him who she really was -- then that was something for Sita, and only Sita, to think about.

---

“Oh,” Sita hears from the bathroom threshold, glancing through the mirror at the figure Rama cuts in his tailored tuxedo. It’s been nearly a year and six months since their marriage, and what Sita thought of as friendship has since bloomed into a wild, uncontrollable love. Yet, she keeps her love to herself, knowing that it would be cruel to offer him fruit with a rotted core.

He cares too, she knows -- only a fool could willingly ignore the little signs of it he offers so freely, long and lingering looks, kisses to her cheek, forehead, the corner of her lips and the edges of her knuckles. She knows that her resistance to further intimacy must confuse him, perhaps even hurt him, but still, she can’t help but think that things would be worse if she gave in only for him to find out later. Sometimes, she wonders if Dasaratha knows about Kaikeyi -- if Lakshmana and Shatrughana owe their existence to a revelation of the truth which so discomfited their sire that he sought another woman to drown in.

Sita is selfish, far too much so, to allow the truth to poison what she now has, half-life as it is. So she smiles over meals Rama cooks for her, meets the contacts Kaikeyi has started sending her way during lunch breaks she takes less frequently at her desk and begins preparing her heart for when things will inevitably fall apart. Today, she and Rama will attend a gala meant to raise funds for refugees which will double as a drop-point for some dissident’s data collection from the last five years on the inside of their regime’s surveillance operation.

“You look beautiful,” Rama says, walking in. Sita’s hands, haphazardly smoothing down the last wisps of hair that refuse to curve to her skull in their updo, pause when he places his own over them. “Is that my mother’s sari?”

Sita nods. “The style has come back,” she says, reaching out to the counter for the strand of jasmine Sumitra had sent to their apartment to be paired with Kausalya’s sari. “Even Kaikeyi approved, which means that this outfit technically has the approval of all three of your mothers, and your sister as well.”

Rama smiles softly, taking the jasmine and pinning it up with a deft hand that speaks of experience. “I’ve never been one to keep up with fashion trends, but I think you wear it very well.”

“Kaikeyi says it makes me look like a movie star.” In order for the drop to be successful, Kaikeyi had demanded Sita pull out all the stops possible within the relatively demure confines of charity-wear. Sita’s blouse plunges at the back, skin unobstructed by a pallu or bra, and she shivers slightly when Rama’s left-hand traces lines.

“I suppose she would know,” he says absently, eyes raking up and down at Sita’s reflection in the mirror they both face, passing over her eyes rimmed with kohl and her dark red lips. His right-hand falls to his pocket, searching for a moment before he finds what he needs, pulling out a pair of beautiful earrings Sita hadn’t known he had.

“Mother Kaikeyi had me get these from storage a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t sure if they would suit what you were planning on wearing.” They look at the pieces in his hands, realizing together how well the earrings will look with Sita’s sari.

“Will you put them on me,” Sita asks, voice thin and breathy despite herself. His hands are gentle, just slightly cool to the touch as they gently thread the earrings into her lobes, tightening the screws and caressing her ear before moving to ghost over Sita’s hips. If Sita moved into his touch, allowed him to grasp her body so hard that she bruised if she turned her face just slightly and brushed her lips against his -- her entire body is one flame, but even now she is attending this gala with her own motive, even has a small gun she plans on holstering to her left leg as insurance. She can’t.

She can’t. Sita takes one step forward, Rama’s hands falling back to his own sides.

“We’ll be late,” Sita says, moving them back into purgatory instead of choosing heaven or hell.

Rama shakes his head slightly, taking a breath. “Yes,” he replies, tone never betraying a sense of the frustration he must feel. He smiles again, holding out a hand. Sita will tell him one day, she tells herself. He deserves that much.

“Let’s go.”

One day, it seems, will be sooner rather than later. Sita’s very first drop of this assignment, after nearly two years of prep, and it seems like she’s going to end up just another statistic, shot in the head for all her efforts.

Worse, she thinks, she’s going to break Rama’s heart. The dissident was less careful than they’d thought, trusted someone they shouldn’t have, and now they’re both being held up against a wall and being told to recite any final prayers for their souls. Sita’s single measly gun at her hip wouldn’t change the odds of 10 against 2, especially since no amount of physical training will significantly change the realities of her smaller physique going up against larger numbers of even better-trained muscle.

She only wishes that she’d thrown caution to the wind once, had told Rama the truth and let the cards fall where they may. She wishes she could see him one more time and apologize, reassure him that her love was true even if her initial motives weren’t.

“Hey,” she hears from somewhere in the distance, away from their cluster of a firing squad. Her heart simultaneously sinks and soars to realize that the voice is Rama. “That’s my wife!”

The leader laughs, just as the dissident sobs. Sita clutches their hand tighter. “Then I’m sorry to say that she hasn’t been much of a wife,” the leader sneers, “just another one of Kaikeyi’s little rats meddling where they’re unwanted.”

“Run!” Sita screams, deciding that she’d rather Rama be alive than hear her confessions before he too is killed. “For my sake run, before they decide to kill you too!” In the back of her mind, she knows that it’s already too late -- people are executed for far less than what Rama is doing, which is continuing to walk forward.

He sighs audibly, not even pausing his forward momentum. “I’m sorry,” he says, and for some reason, Sita genuinely believes that he is. “You know I’d do anything for you, but there’s something I haven’t told you yet about me.”

Shouldn’t that be Sita’s line? “What,” she croaks, captivated by how he’s somehow holding the group hostage, each of them curiously watching as he walks right up to wear Sita and her companion stand against the wall. “Please,” she sobs, breaking her own vow to face death with dignity, “if you’ve ever cared about me, you would leave.”

Rama’s fingers come up to trace Sita’s bruised eye, her puffy lip, the cut at her cheekbone. “Concussion?” he asks, completely ignoring Sita’s plea.

“It hardly matters,” she says, “when I’m going to die in about five minutes. Just like you will if you don’t leave right now.”

Rama hums, right hand shifting down to her thigh, where her gun is strapped. Sita’s eyes widen as though the fabric he seems to be easing the gun out and up to where the fabric wraps around her waist. Left hand still caressing her cheek as the right holds the gun in place against her stomach, he leans in to gently kiss Sita’s forehead.

“All three of us are going to live tonight,” he says, so confident that it seems as if it would be absurd for Sita to think anything else as if even three against 10 the odds are stacked firmly in their favor. “Hold this for me?”

Sita’s hand shifts down to the gun still hidden in the fabric as Rama steps away and turns, his hands now busy divesting himself of his tuxedo jacket and the bowtie Sita had so painstakingly learned how to tie for him earlier.

“Now,” he says casually, as everyone watches him worry at his cufflinks, dropping them in the pile now at Sita’s feet, later followed by his wedding ring. “Unfortunately for you all this means that you will not be surviving this encounter. Do you have any last words?”

The leader laughs. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Rama’s left-hand reaches out behind him. Sita, as if in a trance, dutifully fishes out the gun and places it in his hand before realizing that she has something she needs to say before it's too late. His own confidence gives her some of her own, but still how could he possibly win? How will they possibly survive -- and if, against all odds they do, what on earth is she going to say? So: “I love you,” she blurts out, smiling slightly when Rama’s head twists to look at her, incredulous, but before he can respond the first bullet fires and he explodes into action.

For the first two minutes, the fight is 10 against 1 and still, Rama makes it look like child play. Weaving in and out, every shot he fires taking down at least one if not more of the men against him. At some point, he grabs another gun and tosses it in Sita’s direction, whose entrance into the melee serves to turn the tide even further. At least she’s always been a good shot, she thinks to herself, taking a man out even when her head rings with what she knows her husband accurately diagnosed as the beginning of a concussion. Part of her can’t do anything but watch as her studious, gentle husband breaks someone’s nose before shooting them through the heart.

Within five minutes, it’s over. Just like Rama said, all ten men are dead at their feet. The gun drops out of his hand, slippery now with other people’s blood. Sita’s kill count is 2. He’s just killed eight men.

“I...” Sita starts, realizing she doesn’t know what to say. She swallows, looking at the carnage around her and tries again to reconcile the sight with Rama’s soft sweaters, old fashioned glasses, and aversion of horror films. “How?”

Rama purses his lips. “Same as you,” he says, wiping his hands on his pants with a grimace. “Mother Kaikeyi trained me, and while I was in India I was sent on assignment.”

Sita pauses. “You’re a spy?” Even as she says it, she knows that she’s in no position to speak with such scandal in her voice -- yet, she thinks, she had thought she knew him, that he had trusted her.

Rama laughs as he never has: short, hollow, bitter. “No,” he says, “not anymore. And even when I was, I was more of a hitman than anything else. I quit and moved away, and I assume that’s why Mother Kaikeyi sent someone to make sure I didn’t step too far out of line as a rogue element.”

Somehow, Sita thinks, this is worse than she imagined. “No,” she says, rushing forward, hands wringing as if he’s looking again at her first credit card bill. “I asked at the beginning. It was never about you.”

Rama is silent for a moment that seems to stretch endlessly as the adrenaline wears off for Sita, and her aches start to make themselves known. Her face throbs, her head spins, and there’s something in the vicinity of her ribs that twinges while she stands still -- not broken, she doesn’t think, but maybe bruised? Rama’s hands, almost as if it were against his mind’s will, come to stop her hands and tangle his fingers in his own as they do nothing but stare into the darkness over the other’s shoulder. “I’m glad that that’s what you were told,” he says eventually, and Sita suddenly realizes that there is an entire lifetime’s worth of complication she hadn’t known existed.

“I wasn’t told anything,” she says, sure now that Dasaratha knows at least part of Kaikeyi’s truth, because why else would Kaikeyi have made sure that Sita walked into her relationship as transparent as possible. “Everything we shared was real.” She pauses, uncertain. “At least from my end.”

Rama’s hands are like vices, clutching Sita’s fingers so hard it feels like he’s cut her circulation. “From mine as well. So when you just said--”

“Yes,” Sita says, unable to say now what fear of imminent death had so successfully inspired. “Before, I was afraid of you finding out about me, but yes of course.”

Rama exhales. “I’d hoped that’s what was stopping you, but I was never entirely sure that you really were one of Mother Kaikeyi’s recruits,” he smiles with a hint of self-deprecation. “You’re a good actor, you know.”

“No,” Sita says, bringing her hands up to cup his face, finally deciding to be brave. “I’m really not.” She leans in.

Their first kiss is gentle, tastes just slightly like blood, and ends quickly when Sita’s lip is irritated and makes itself known. It’s perfect.

“I love you,” Rama breathes into the sliver of space when they part, one hand drifting to hold her at the waist, another rubbing small circles into the nape of her neck. Sita’s head spins, and not only from the concussion.

“Hey,” she hears from somewhere behind. “I’m glad you two seem to have made up...and also .... that we’re all alive. But can we go now?”

Sita laughs, and then immediately regrets doing so. “Yes,” she says as Rama holds her still, “let's go.”

#ramayana #maya writes #avani008

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musicprincess655 · 4 years

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For a place with such advanced security that even the firewall around their data is almost impossible to break through, the Correctional Facility is boring as fuck.

Dazai stares up at the ceiling from the top bunk he hasn’t managed to escape from yet. He’s been laying here with his thoughts for hours, and it’s not a fun position to be in. He almost wishes they’d throw him into an experiment, just for some variety.

It’s a thought Chuuya would beat him up for if he voiced it.

Maybe he should say it.

In spite of everything, Chuuya is the most interesting thing about this place. He’s not much to look at until he lifts his eyes, blueish grey like distant storm clouds breaking over a calm sky. He’s easy to bait, but he’s also intelligent, not nearly as much as Dazai but enough that he’s not boring.

Dazai sighs and discards another half-hearted escape plan. Pretty much all of them start with getting Chuuya out of his chains. Several of them involve taking the chains with them, because seriously, what are those things made of? Chuuya barely has any slack and he can throw Dazai as easily as Dazai used to throw balls of paper at Yosano. Dazai’s seen him accidentally put dents in the metal frame of their bunk beds. What material doesn’t even budge no matter how hard Chuuya pulls at it?

Not that it matters. Some of the escape plans are viable, but Dazai isn’t going to use any of them. He’s probably going to die here in the Correctional Facility, but he’s not going to do anything about it just yet. He won’t desire escape. If life has taught him anything, it’s that as soon as he truly wants something, he’s going to lose it.

“Oi.” Dazai turns his head to see a plate of food being slid under the door. “You better not try anything again.”

“Oh, you didn’t like my gift last time?” Dazai asks, fixing a smile on his face he knows pisses people off. “I worked so hard on it too.”

“Next time you try something like that, I’ll make you clean it with your tongue.”

“No one appreciates art,” Dazai sighs.

How was he supposed to resist the fact that whatever mush they tried to pass off as food is so easy to fling with a spoon? Really, they were just asking for it. Dazai thinks the guard’s face was much improved when the Unidentifiable Sludge was dripping off it.

“They’ll kill you soon, and good riddance,” the guard growls. “Useless piece of shit.”

“See you later!” Dazai calls after him.

Chuuya is gone, or he’d probably bitch at Dazai about being annoying. He leaves for most of the day, either for the experiments they’re conducting or to eat. They let Chuuya eat in a common cafeteria with the rest of the experiments and staff. They don’t allow the same of Dazai.

Even here, they’re trying to keep him hidden. It speaks to how much deference they have to his parents. He always knew his parents were high-ranking officials, but this is the first time he’s bothered to consider how far-reaching the consequences of that are. Even the slight chance that someone here will recognize him, will spread the word, that it will reflect badly on them, is dealt with.

So it begs the question, really. Are they actually going to kill him? It’s a solid possibility, probably the most likely outcome. But what if they don’t? What if they can’t? Try as he might, Dazai can’t actually come up with a viable alternative. If they can’t kill him, they certainly can’t let the scientists use him for their experiments. So what else can they do? House him here for the rest of his life? Some other option he doesn’t have the creativity to come up with?

Dazai has always had the unfortunate habit of picking at things he should really leave alone. His curiosity about the world is one of the only things left that makes life worth living. Even though it would be smarter to escape now, circumvent whatever they’re planning, he can’t help but wonder what they’re going to do. He can’t help waiting around to see what happens.

The door opening draws Dazai out of his spiraling thoughts. Chuuya is back, casting a mutinous glare over his shoulder at the guard escorting him. He looks none the worse for wear, so he probably was just eating, not going through some new test.

If Dazai looks close enough, he can see faint scars around Chuuya’s neck. Burn scars from the shock collar, maybe? They might be burns, but they’re faded so faintly against his skin that Dazai can’t tell for sure.

“What do you want?” Chuuya demands. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“I’m allowed to look,” Dazai says. “Maybe I see something I like.”

“Don’t be gross,” Chuuya complains. “We both know you’re not attracted to me.”

Dazai shrugs, because it’s true. It’s only fair. Chuuya isn’t interested in him, either. There might not be two people less attracted to each other in the world than the two of them.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” Chuuya asks, pointing to Dazai’s tray of Unidentifiable Sludge.

“Chuuya, if you want something, you should just ask,” Dazai says, already sliding the tray towards Chuuya.

“That’s not what I meant, you dick,” Chuuya snaps. “You have to eat something. You’ll get sick if you don’t eat.”

“Are you worried about me?” Dazai asks. He makes his tone mocking, but he sees that, in his way, Chuuya is worried.

“Maybe I just don’t want to be stuck in here with your body for days!” Chuuya snarls. “Anyway, you really want to starve to death? That’ll take forever. At least kill yourself quickly if you’re gonna kill yourself.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be stuck in here with my body?”

“I also don’t want to sit here and listen to you bitch the whole time it takes you to starve!” Chuuya gripes. “All you ever do is complain, you’re so fucking annoying!”

“Don’t worry,” Dazai says. “In a few days, I’ll either be dead or gone, so it doesn’t really matter if I eat this shit or not.”

Chuuya gives him a strange look.

“That doesn’t bother you?” he asks. “That they’re probably gonna kill you?”

“They might as well,” Dazai says, nonchalant. Just because he thinks there’s a chance there’s something else interesting in the works doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the most likely way this ends is in his death. “It’s not like my life is worth much to me, anyway.”

“But you could get out, right?” Chuuya presses. “You said you’re in here because you were hacking their data, so you could hack the security system, right? If you do, I can do the rest. We could both get out of here.”

“Mmm. Too much work,” Dazai says. “Why go through the effort when they’ll just kill me if I stay put?”

“You think they’ll be nice about it?” Chuuya asks. “You think they’ll just put you to sleep and you’ll never wake up? You’re some kind of traitor to No. 6. They’ll make sure you go painfully. They’ll probably even enjoy it. Maybe they’ll take notes on whatever new torture they’ve tested out on you.”

“So?” Dazai scoffs. The thought does turn his stomach, though. He has no doubt they have several new deadly torture methods they can try on him.

“You hate pain,” Chuuya says. “You bitch about every little thing that hurts. You want to go like that?”

“I guess not,” Dazai says. “I’d rather have a clean suicide, with no pain and no burden to anyone else. But who says, if I do decide to run, that I’ll take you with me?”

“You think you could get out on your own?” Chuuya snorts. “Please. You’d go down the first time someone threw a punch at you, rich boy.”

“I think you’re underestimating me because you’ve only seen me against you,” Dazai says. “Maybe I could talk my way out of everything.”

“I would actively love to see you talk your way out of an automated machine gun.”

The argument is interrupted by the door opening yet again. Dazai and Chuuya whirl from where they’d been slowly getting in each other’s faces.

This is a new person, not one Dazai recognizes, but he has to be important with the deference everyone else in the room shows him.

“Dazai Osamu,” the man says. “Your parents have been informed of your position.”

Dazai’s shoulders relax. Moment of truth. Will this be some new adventure, something else to hold his interest, or will he just die?

“And?” he asks, voice carefully bland, as if he really couldn’t care either way what happens.

“They were given the option to rescue you from this facility, at the cost of significant demotions for both of them to take them away from the public eye,” the man continues. “They chose to keep their careers. You will be executed tomorrow.”

Dazai blinks. He can’t quite make his mind process the words. In all his plans, he’d never considered that his parents might get a choice to save him. He assumed they’d hear about his fate from one of their sources, and either rescue him or leave him. But they’d been offered him, and they chose their careers over him?

There’s a part of him, tiny but lingering, naïve, that for all these years drove him to needle at the things his parents controlled, childishly driving forward for their attention. That part of him really believed they would save him. It believed that, as long as they knew of his fate, they’d come for him.

Deep inside him, that tiny part silently, irrevocably, shatters.

How freeing it is, to feel nothing! No attachment, no emotion. The tears Dazai should be shedding at his fated death, at the abandonment of his parents, never come. He doesn’t even feel the urge to cry. He feels nothing.

“We will come for you at dawn,” the man continues, oblivious to the cataclysmic change that just went on inside Dazai. “You have that long to make your peace.”

And with that, he leaves.

“Dazai…” Chuuya says softly. Dazai turns to see his hands outstretched as far as his chains will allow, an aborted offer of comfort, for all that Chuuya is not built for it.

Dazai reaches into his pocket. They didn’t search him thoroughly when he arrived, mistaking his age for idiocy, and because Dazai thought quickly enough on the way over here, he was able to save a few things he had on him. The first is some money, which he subtly shoved down his pants while the officers who drove him here weren’t looking. The second, which he’d much more carefully tucked into his hair, is a set of lockpicks.

See, the trickiest part of getting Chuuya out of his chains is the lock. It would be impossible to open them just by stealing a key. They have both a lock with a conventional key and an electromagnetic lock. Even if Chuuya managed to knock down a guard and steal a key, he’d still be stuck. Trying to find both keys would slow him down enough to stop him.

But Dazai’s lockpicks aren’t just for conventional locks. They have a little knob at the end that functions as an electromagnetic field disrupter. They can be used on both conventional locks and higher tech ones. They weren’t easy to get ahold of, but he was always happy to spend his parents’ money.

He wishes he’d spent more of it before he got cut off from it.

But at least he can make sure he doesn’t die to their benefit. They can continue to live with his existence as a thorn in their sides.

“Hey, Chuuya,” Dazai says, drawling on Chuuya’s name and holding up the lockpicks. “Wanna get out of here?”

#soukoku #skk #bungou stray dogs #bsd #my writing #spectres #no. 6 au

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sqewed0722 · 4 years

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I have a confession to make: I was one of those who gladly anticipated the drama “Crash Landing On You” and looked forward to seeing Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin in the series. I liked the premise and thought it would be interesting to watch the romance unfolding between a loyal, North Korean soldier and a pampered South Korean heiress.

I tried to watch it as it aired but things got in the way and I ended up watching it in spurts after the drama had already ended. I liked it well enough, but not enough for it to actually make a lasting impression on me. I loved the gorgeous location and cinematography was top-notch. Hyun Bin was both funny and charismatic as Captain Ri Jeong Hyeok, his comrades as equally funny in their attempts to understand Son Ye Jin’s Yoon Se Ri, this strange creature from the other side of the border who spoke in a strange accent and acted so differently from the women of the North. Son Ye Jin was beautiful and the epitome of style as the heiress from Seoul who fell in love not just with Captain Ri but with his comrades as well, and learned to somehow appreciate the beauty in the simplicity of their lives.

Yet despite the fact that CLOY had all the factors of the kind of drama that I would love, and Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin had the chemistry for it, it wasn’t their story that made a deep impression on me. Rather, it was the secondary female character, Seo Dan, played by Seo Ji Hye, an actress I’ve never heard of.

Seo Dan is the fiancée of Captain Ri, and they were betrothed by their parents when they were still in high school. Seo Dan has always been in love with Jeong Hyeok, but he doesn’t care for her and only sees her as an obligation to his family. Seo Dan is a cellist and loves classical music, like Jeong Hyeok, but somehow it never brought them closer.

At first glance, Dan comes off as cold, aloof and arrogant, and so she is. She is, after all, an heiress of the largest department store in Pyongyang, wealthy in a nation where most of the people do not own much in terms of personal wealth. Yet her cold exterior hides a vulnerable and insecure side. Seo Dan longs to be loved and accepted by Jyeong Hyeok and she has spent half of her life trying her best to win his heart.

In the course of the story, she meets Gu Seung Jun (alias Alberto Gu), a con man who had once been engaged to Yoon Se Ri until Se Ri found out his real motives behind his desire to marry her and she terminated the engagement. Seung Jun had used money he had stolen to flee and hide in North Korea. His life gets entangled with Seo Dan because of their connection to Se Ri and Captain Ri. In the process, Seung Jun falls in love with Dan and, though reluctantly at first, she learns to love him too. But fate isn’t on their side, and just when Dan realizes her feelings for Seung Jun, he gets killed trying to save her.

In the end, Dan decides to end her engagement to Captain Ri and live her life alone as an independent woman since she had lost the man she loved, who loved her in return.

Unlike most CLOY viewers and fans, I really didn’t care much for Gu Seung Jun’s character. He was funny and could be charming, annoying at times, but to me, his importance lay in the fact that he awakened a side of Seo Dan that would have lain dormant if he hadn’t come into her life. He made her realize how it felt to actually be loved by someone for herself and not for what she could give (money) or what she represented (power and influence). He made her feel wanted and appreciated for who she was. I wasn’t so much into their relationship, but I appreciated it for what it did for her. Seung Jun was a catalyst for Seo Dan’s character growth. I think, more than anything, he taught her how to love and appreciate a person in spite of them. After all, Gu Seung Jun was everything that would have gone against Seo Dan’s values and upbringing.

Seo Ji Hye actually made Seo Dan a very sympathetic character. In the hands of lesser actresses, Seo Dan would have just been another villainess, a second lead competing for the affections of the male lead with the female lead. She would have been deemed evil and inferior in all aspects by the viewers, no matter how beautiful or accomplished she may be. But with Seo Ji Hye, Seo Dan wasn’t a caricature. She was human.

I think that was a major factor that made Seo Dan and Gu Seung Jun’s romance almost as compelling and interesting to the CLOY viewers. Its tragedy was juxtaposed with the happy-ever-after of Captain Ri and Yoon Se Ri, and to them it was just as unforgettable. (Of course, this being Kdrama, there has to be the token tragedy inserted into all the romcom sweetness and since that can’t come from the main leads, it was supplied by the secondary leads.)

In “Dinner Mate”, though, we see a totally different Seo Ji Hye as mobile content producer Woo Do-hee. She’s still beautiful and statuesque, but where Seo Dan was all cold elegance and grace, Woo Do-hee is a bundle of energetic quirkiness and warmth. Gone are the fashionable trench coats, scarves and distinctly styled and colorful dresses of Seo Dan. What we see now are jeans, slacks, and peasant blouses under vests, topped by coats and blazers. And her hair is no longer immaculately combed and held back by jeweled barrettes and her makeup is no longer strong. Do-hee’s naturally made-up face is framed by soft bangs and slightly wavy long hair that’s either held in a half-pony or full-ponytail. There are no barrettes to be seen anywhere.

And Woo Do-hee smiles and laughs more readily than Seo Dan. And she tends to make faces or pouts when she’s displeased. Dan would never do that. She’s very much in control of her emotions, down to the way they’re expressed on her face. At most, she would have made a small moue of displeasure if annoyed or a close-lipped smile when pleased. Do-hee, on the other hand, would either screech in indignation or smile up to her eyes.

But one thing that I’ve liked about how Seo Ji Hye portrays her roles is that she does them with such genuineness. Regardless if she’s Seo Dan or Woo Do-hee, the sincerity of her character always comes across. I especially notice this when she cries in her dramas. Unlike other actresses who, even when they cry, still give off a feeling of detachment (as if their tears are merely superficial), Seo Ji Hye weeps with such deep-felt emotion. Her pain and sorrow are just so palpable. Her face literally crumples into tears. (Well, she still looks gorgeous even after weeping but then, she’s just one of the lucky ones who couldn’t ugly-cry even if they tried.)

I remember feeling so bad for her as Seo Dan when she screamed and cried after Seung Jun died, and I felt just as bad for her when she wept when she was talking to Ah-young about the futility of pursuing her feelings for her dinner-mate, Kim Hae-kyung. Something in the way she looks and the expression in her eyes make me feel that she’s no longer acting. She seems to totally inhabit her character.

Another thing that I found wonderful about her is that, because she has this natural presence and charisma, she is able to establish chemistry with her co-stars, whether they be her love interest in the drama or just another character that her own character acts with. I think that was the reason a lot of viewers got sold on the idea of the romance between Seo Dan and Gu Seung Jun. She and Kim Jung Hyun made them a viable pairing. And now with “Dinner Mate’, she looks wonderful with Song Seung Heon and they work so well together. Yet amazingly enough, she also looks great with Lee Ji Hoon. (Some viewers even jokingly said that since she also has great onscreen chemistry with APink member Son Na-eun who plays Song Seung Heon’s former lover, maybe there will be a plot twist and their characters end up together instead. Ha-ha.)

That’s why I find it strange that she doesn’t seem to be well-known as a lead actress, although she seems to have done her share of lead drama roles early in her career. But then I’m not surprised. She probably prefers doing character roles to lead female roles and that’s probably to her advantage artistically. Supporting character roles would allow her to stretch her acting chops and give her greater flexibility and range. And although she’s physically gorgeous, she does give this air of aloofness and strength, as well as cool elegance and grace. Coupled with her low, husky voice, what comes across is the image of an independent woman who lives life on her own terms and can easily tell anyone to f*** off. Not quite typical KDrama female heroine material.

In any case, I think she’s now one of my favorite Korean actresses and I do look forward to her next projects. I hope she gets to do film projects or dramas at the level of my KDrama standard, “My Ahjussi”. But I will always keep my fingers crossed that she reunites with Song Seung Heon. They’re just magical together on and offscreen and I’d love to see them again in the future.

#seo ji hye #will you have dinner with me #dinner mate #Crash Landing On You #CLOY #seo dan #woo do hee

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jumpingflyingsidekick · 4 years

Text

At What Cost : Part 2

Kia ora, this took so long. I’m not even sure if it’s what I wanted but it’s what I have. I’m deeply invested in this one.

A Kageyama fanfic with thought provoking one-shots about his rise through his volleyball career with a partner. Second one-shot kind of thing. Remember to picture YOUR OC as Shurui.

I don’t own, just a fanfic.

Name: At what cost

Part one: What do you love more

Walking along side

Volleyball was the center of his attention and she knew that.

Leaving Miyagi district was hard for them. But in the grand scheme of things it was necessary, they needed to move. And although Kageyama didn’t make a lot of money, he made enough to provide for them both and a beautiful tidy home.

It is small but a modest house they shared. Shurui had been careful in the selection. In the summer it warmed her skin the sun, it peaked through the kitchen window in the morning onto the table. And disappeared in the afternoon behind the large apartment block set three levels high, blocking the sun. However, it was winter, she poured Kageyama another tea, he responded by picking it up instantly with eyes focused on his laptop.

He pushed his chair in and gathered his gear, “we’ll be finished late afternoon, want me to pick something up?”

“No, I have everything.”

He kissed her forehead sweetly and left for the day. The National Team practiced religiously six days a week three times a day. It was a struggle, but they spent time where possible.

She smiled as the envelope fluttered away when it sent. She often sent him sweet text messages throughout the day, and he would reply when able which was usually during water breaks.

A puff of hot air escaped when he smiled, ‘I love you.’ He shivered, the morning frost was cold, he tugged the scarf higher to stop the snowflakes hitting. Another smile as he tucked the phone away and remembered a time when they’d been shy to express their feelings.

He thought back to the moment he blurted his confession.

Kageyama high from a win jumped the barrier and ran straight to her. He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her passionately, and the crowd roared. “I love you,” he screamed, a grin spread wide. So, he said it first.

And during winter, for her, time moved slowly. The days were long when she spent them alone. On many occasions they argued about her reasoning for getting a job. Kageyama would scoff each time because the thought of it offended him. He was stubborn. Every time the subject would be raised, he would revert to a child and she would smile sweetly and nod agreeing with him once more. Though a job would fill in the time she would tell herself constantly.

So, Shurui would turn her attention to books in the quiet mornings. It would not do her mind well if left to nothing, she had been accepted into one of the most prestigious law schools. She paused briefly. The thought of the letter caused a stir in her heart, as quickly as it came it left. Contempt, with the decision she made. She had to be.

This caused a sudden urge of need to be useful. She could at least use the background knowledge of accounting and business from high school even if it wasn’t paid work. A lovely thought struck her, maybe charity would be a viable option she placed the book down. Rejuvenated with possibilities she obtained the laptop and accessed the files from the cloud.

‘Revision,’ she thought and smiled widely.

She eyed the sliver card puzzled, “What is this?”

“It’s a start and not much,” he flushed, embarrassed maybe, “but what’s mine is yours. It’s a credit card, you have access to my account.”

“Oh, how thoughtful,” she paused, her moment for freedom perhaps, “Kageyama I am capable of paying my own way and if...”

Brows pressed into a frown he retorted, “Don’t do that.” Eyes stern with resolve, they stopped her. She took a small breath, again smiled, and nodded.

The restaurant was noisy and bustling with activity a rating of 5 stars on google review from most. A small but intimate set up, tables literally one metre from each other and the waiters moved through the patrons as they lifted the plates and beverages above their heads, smiling.

The big hand on the clock hit six. An hour had past and every 15 minutes she would get a refill of water. ‘No messages,’ her inbox glowed. When the waiter approached this time she politely motioned no and collected her things.

Once outside she dialled a number only to be met with the engaged sound. A nice night for a walk, she thought. She fixed the buttons on the beige jacket to the top and made her way home only a couple blocks away. She almost pressed in the second earpiece when a shout caught her attention.

“Shurui!”

Confused at first, her eyes scanned the area until she heard the heavy pants behind her, Kageyama.

Out of breath he stood tall and placed his hands on his hip exhausted, “Sorry….” A couple more pants, “did some extra sets and lost track of the time, are you still hungry?”

Again, she smiled politely and nodded.

It surprised her when her mother came to visit. Shurui ran to the nearest store to purchase the exact tea her mother loved, blackberry. Not a favourite in the household but for her mother she would go the exact mile.

The tea set used was bought from a dainty opportunity shop, a collectable the teller said. It wasn’t the fact it was a collectable that caught attention it was the amazing tale of two lovers etched in a beautiful blue design that did it. She poured their third tea.

“Where is he?” her mother questioned.

Shurui took a short sip, “training. He is an Olympian, mother. Volleyball is the centre of his attention.”

“I know.”

The tone used didn’t sit well with Shurui, it made her flitch at the implication, but not enough to show. She placed her tea down, gathered her thoughts and smiled at her mother. Who dressed in all her glory, hair pinned high, lips red as a red delicious apple and eyes judgemental. She sipped her tea.

“Mother,” Shurui breathed, “Tobio Kageyama works hard for this family…” her mother cocked a brow, taken by her daughter’s sudden boldness. “And if that means he needs to spend most of his time at the arena…”

“Is that where he is, and you know for sure?”

The question caught Shurui off guard, but she understood the meaning. Her fingernails dug into her knees and briefly she her eyes closed thinking of a response, but none came.

“My love, I know the life of an absent partner. Your father, though I loved him dearly was just like Kageyama. It starts out with late replies and missed calls but eventually.”

“Mother, please,” Shurui motioned with her hand she’d had enough, dismissing her mother’s words. “I have been with him every step of the way. I know him.”

Noting the difference in the younger persons demeanour a change of topic of sorts was in order, “I see and after his performance at the Olympics he will be head hunted. I don’t doubt or pretend to not know that he is an amazing player but at what cost my dear?” The older woman waited for a response or even an inkling of a retort, but it didn’t come, “you are a smart, intelligent woman and what have you done with it? Except follow this boy around for the better half of almost four years.”

Usually Shurui would be able to hold her emotions not often did she feel anger or resentment or express them for that matter. However, the constant belittlement of their relation started to affect her naturally calm nature. A swell gripped hold of her chest, but the smile she gave hid her true feelings of growing anger. An emotion she hadn’t felt in a long time not since early high school.

“I am not following, mother. I am walking along side him there is a difference. I know in doing so that I have placed certain things out of sight and out of mind,” a scowl formed, attention turned to the woman sat opposite. “And I will continue wherever that may lead us because I, mother. Think about others.”

The tea was cold neither of the two drank during the seemingly innocent altercation and neither looked to back down.

“I haven’t seen this side of you for some time. Independent, determined, and stubborn. My qualities I thought you lost.” And with that she conceded, looked to her daughter, and smiled dryly. “I wasn’t always there for matters I shouldn’t bore you with, but you don’t know what your father was genuinely like. Nights alone with a baby wondering when he’d be back or if he’d come back. Constant lies. I hadn’t wanted to leave but at the time I thought it was best.”

“For, who.”

“You.”

A side to the story she hadn’t heard to their divorce, her parents. All other times an excuse or fabrication. This time felt true, honest. It pained her to look at her mother. A proud woman for sure but in this moment, her whole being changed, it felt like regret.

Months after the Olympics their lives changed considerably. It almost hurt to know her mother was right about Kageyama. The young aspiring player was indeed head hunted by multiple teams. Time was mostly spent answering demanding phones calls from managers, declining offers from no-name teams or out-right snorting at offers from companies who would pay copious amounts of money to have him. But it wasn’t about the money for him, he needed the best deal to help him stay on the court the longest. And Shurui tried best to keep her head above the water. She knew this would come.

In in a rare moment, they managed a night together away from outside influence. The house dimly lit helped by romantic candlelight spread carefully through the dining area. All electronic devices turned off, especially his.

Tonight, was a special night he told her. Dawned in a magnificent black dress that spaced and separated her breast evenly. The cup line hung low to reveal a tasteful and respectable amount of cleavage and flared down beautifully from under that point and sat above the knees. She would be lying if she did not say she was embarrassed. But Kageyama bought the dress, especially.

The look of bewilderment he gave every time their eyes met was worth it. He appeared shocked by her beauty and would avert his gaze somewhere else for a second only to find their way back.

“You look, breath taking.”

She smiled sweetly and blushed. She cooked the meals in all her magnificence. Kageyama’s heart skipped watching her. A kind woman that thought of others before herself who made sure everyone else was cared for. Kami knew, he was blessed with this creature, gods he knew he was blessed.

After dessert which was a homemade sharp lemon tart pie and vanilla ice cream, they talked about everything but volleyball which surprised her because it was a known fact that her partner loved to talk about it, always. He was being polite and courteous wanting to know the ins and out of the day she had, and she deeply appreciated it. But it was late, he had meetings in the morning. Meetings about their future.

“I should get this all cleaned up.”

Before she could rise Kageyama gripped her hand, “Wait.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled a black box. Kageyama’s hand shook as he rested in on top of the table. An overwhelming nervousness, the thought of a decline had him sweating profusely. He gulped to help moisten the dryness in his mouth. With two hands he opened the box and eyed her with anxiety.

“Will you… Will you marry me?” Forgetting he had to be on a knee he quickly fell to the ground almost losing the grip on the box. He stared up and fidgeted with his tie and nervously smoothed his tuxedo.

She giggled at his abruptness and beamed a smile, “yes, Tobio. I will.”

On his knee Kageyama, ‘yes,’ himself just like he would after an epic score. The ring a simple thing with a gorgeous opal gem slipped perfectly into place. They both stood and enjoyed a deep passionate kiss. He pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “thank kami. I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”

“You already have.”

They stayed in each other’s company not wanting the moment to end.

#kageyama #kageyama tobio #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyu #haikyu x reader

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purplepersnicketywrites · 5 years

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In Pursuit of Butterflies

TSUMINA for @a-hopeless-optimist

Prompt: 33. An unexpected kiss that shocks the one receiving it.

you awakened something in me and this is just. a fic now. ;o T-rated as all my stuff is! i’ma go stick it on ao3 now

There’s a healthy dose of krbk in here too because I can’t help myself, but that’s mostly a Bonus Scene at the end of the Tsumina content!

___

Mina grinned around at her classmates. Not everyone was here - Jirou had gone to bed early, Shinsou was out at a late-night internship, and Aoyama was bust crafting something out of cheese in the kitchen - but most of class 3A were sat in a circle in the common room, ready to play.

She liked this game, a strange mashup of Truth or Dare, Seven Minutes in Heaven, and Spin the Bottle. It was fun to see the way everyone reacted to the match-ups, what they chose to do. As the current Mistress of the Bottle, it was Mina’s job to spin for everyone.

If the Bottle landed on you, you were given two options - you told a truth or performed a dare picked by the last person the Bottle landed on. If you wanted to forfeit, the Bottle was spun again and you had to play Seven Minutes in Heaven with whoever it landed on. The other person could pass, of course, and the Bottle would keep spinning until someone agreed.

There had been some very interesting events sparked by the Bottle so far. Mina had gotten very good at both feigning surprise and spinning the Bottle itself to land wherever she wanted it to land. It wasn’t really meddling, but, well, Mina was a romantic at heart. So what if she wanted to give some of her friends a little nudge in the right direction?

Mina had managed to work out from her reactions in second year that Ochako’s crush was on Midoriya rather than Iida - the two had both been viable candidates in Mina’s eyes. Unfortunately she hadn’t managed to wrangle them into playing Seven Minutes together yet, somehow, and no one in this circle seemed like they wanted to instigate anything today, either.

It wasn’t like Mina could fix anything for herself while she was the one spinning- as the Mistress of the Bottle she was exempt from it landing on her (or being able to issue truths or dares, which was a fair swap in power). That and, well, it wasn’t like she had a crush on anyone yet anyway. Unfortunately.

She could tell that a lot of the boys in the class were handsome, but none of them had ever given her the butterflies she’d read about. It was kind of annoying, actually, that she’d gone almost her whole high-school career without even a whiff of romance. She wanted to be in love already!

Anyway, the universe had just given her a brilliant opportunity: dearest, darling Eijirou had just refused to answer a question about whether his quirk affected certain parts of his anatomy - crass, Kaminari, but effective - which meant he was in the line-up for Seven Minutes.

Mina grinned and spun the bottle. It landed, as Mina had planned, on Bakugou.

Eijirou turned almost as red as his hair, while Bakugou seemed to have been able to keep a lid on his own reaction. Damn, Mina would have paid money to see Blasty get flustered.

Bakugou stood, dragging Kirishima up with him. “Come on then, idiot. Let’s get this over with.”

“Wh- Really?” Kirishima asked, eyes too wide and voice filled with too much hope. Mina sighed. These boys were so bad at subtlety. Everyone knew that they’d been into each other for years now, other than themselves, apparently. “You don’t have to, man!”

“I said I would! Shut up,” Bakugou snapped. Interesting, he hadn’t let go of Kirishima’s arm. Would today be the day? Bakugou glared at the circle of classmates. “I’m not getting locked in that fucking box, though, so none of you fuckers need to follow us.”

Kaminari waved his phone in the air. “You need a timer or something? I’ll come and get you when the time’s up.”

Kirishima shot him a thumbs up before Bakugou began to drag them away to the closet the class had chosen for the game, one around the corner and near the stairs.

“A hundred yen says they don’t come back,” Sero said once they were out of earshot, and Mina laughed. That was the plan, wasn’t it?

“Why wouldn’t they come back?” Todoroki asked.

Midoriya flushed. “Ah, they might want to extend the game?”

“But the game is seven minutes,” Todoroki said. Ah, poor, poor sheltered boy.

“I meant that I think they’ll stop playing,” Sero said. “And disappear somewhere to make out for real.”

Todoroki’s eyes widened. “Oh! I see. I didn’t know they were dating.”

“They’re not,” Ochako said. “But we’re all hoping that they will be soon.”

Todoroki nodded slowly, absorbing the information. “That’d be good for them, I think.”

“Hey, Ashido,” Kaminari said, and Mina turned her head to look at him. “Wanna swap Bottle duties?”

“Yeah, okay!” Mina said. She thought that she’d probably made enough of an impact today - best to quit while she was ahead. Ooh, now she could truth-or-dare people!

“Well, we’re not gonna wait for Bakugou and Kirishima to get back, so you can call the next thing, Ashido,” Kaminari said, giving the Bottle a whirl. “Satou! It’s you.”

“Uh, truth?”

Mina thought about it. “Hmm, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever tried baking?”

---

Momo called for a quick break for everyone around twenty minutes later, and as most of the class moved off to go to the bathroom or grab a drink of water Mina saw Kaminari take the opportunity to go see if the closet was free. As Sero had predicted, Kirishima and Bakugou hadn’t come back to the group.

“Empty,” Kaminari said with glee in his voice as he scurried back over to the Bottle. “But! There is evidence they were there.”

Sero leaned towards him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah! So like, there are like, scorch marks, right,” Kaminari said.

“Oh?” Mina tilted her head and Kaminari nodded with enthusiasm.

“Yeah! About, like, either side of where I think Kirishima’s shoulders would’ve been, so damn, Bakugou must’ve been feeling intense,” Kaminari said. “And that’s not all! There are scratches in the wood some ways below them? Like Kirishima’s hands were just dangling at his sides and his quirk activated and he had to grip onto something.”

“Whoa. You don’t think that they...?” Sero let his voice drop into a whisper. “You know?”

“I dunno, I’m just sayin’ what I saw,” Kaminari said, lifting his hands into the air.

Mina whistled low. “That’s what they get for letting all that tension build up between them.”

Their classmates began to trickle back into the circle, so they let the topic drop. A few more truths were given and dares completed - Tokoyami revealed that his parents owned several cats, Tooru said that she had used her quirk to pinch extra goodies at her parents’ bakery a few times, and Shouji had shown them a glimpse of the mouth he kept hidden under his mask.

Then Tsuyu declined to say if she had a crush on anyone or not. Interesting, because that was pretty much code for ‘yeah but don’t pry about it’ and Tsuyu had never mentioned a crush on anyone during their girls’ nights. Mina still planned to ask later - maybe when it was just the girls? She loved to know what her classmates were doing romantically. At the very least she could live vicariously through them.

The room went silent as Kaminari spun the Bottle. Who was gonna join Tsuyu for Seven Minutes? The Bottle turned, and turned, and then-

Mina blinked. It was her. Huh.

“Are you okay with that, Mina?” Tsuyu asked, getting to her feet.

“Uh, totally,” Mina said, standing up. Her heart began to beat a little faster. It had been a long while since she’d been picked for this by the Bottle, and that had been with Aoyama a couple of months ago. They’d spent the whole Seven Minutes time gossiping about their other classmates.

Somehow, Mina didn’t think that Tsuyu would be one for gossip about the others. Would she want to talk about other stuff, though? Like her crush? Or would she just stand in vaguely embarrassed silence? Or-

“Right, let’s go shut you girls in,” Kaminari said, bounding up and grabbing for the key to the closet on one of the counters. Tsuyu stepped into the closet first, and Mina followed behind her. Kaminari shot them both a grin. “You good? I’ll let you out once the time is up!”

The door closed, covering Kaminari’s face, and the lock clicked. Well. Huh. Mina really was here in the closet with Tsuyu, huh? Mina leant back against the wall. She hadn’t had the opportunity to check out Kaminari’s claims for herself - which side were the scorch marks on? She reached a hand down and ran it over the wood. Ah, yeah, those were some deep-feeling grooves, four of them in the shape of finger scratches. There was a matching set on the other side that she traced with her other hand.

Tsuyu’s hand on her arm brought Mina’s attention back to the present, and the situation they were in. Locked in a closet together. Mina supposed that Tsuyu would probably be okay standing just a little too close for a few minutes? It might be the perfect opportunity to pry a little about Tsuyu’s crush, but she’d probably have to work up to that one instead of just blurting out a question.

“So, what did you want to-” Mina found herself interrupted by a soft press of lips on her own.

Oh.

Mina couldn’t help but suck in a gasp as Tsuyu pulled back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have asked first,” Tsuyu said. “I got a little nervous and just- Are you okay, kero?”

“Uh,” Mina said, robbed of words. “Yeah! I’m fine, I just, I didn’t think that you’d want to do it? The kissing thing, I mean.”

“I don’t mind, really,” Tsuyu said. Huh. Even with a crush on someone, Tsuyu was still willing to play. “But I don’t have that much experience with kissing, kero, so it might not be that enjoyable.”

Mina snorted. Her own experiences were drawn from playground and party games like this - never anything other than brief contact with boys and a sense of everything being kind of ridiculous. “I haven’t kissed many people much either, so, that’s fine?”

“Did you want to keep going, then?” Tsuyu asked.

Did she? Mina hadn’t really had the opportunity to kiss any girls before. Hey, why not? “Sure.”

Tsuyu kissed her again, and this time Mina was ready to kiss back. It was nice, Mina decided, hands moving to Tsuyu’s waist in something that might have been an instinct.

It occurred to Mina that Tsuyu was a good nine inches shorter than her, so she must be leaning up in order to kiss her. Tsuyu was likely on the tips of her toes to make up for the difference in their heights. That was... Something warm and tingly made its way through Mina’s gut, and she leant down to even them out a little more.

She had always sort of assumed that she would be the one stretching upwards for a kiss. That she would find some magical Prince Charming who would sweep her off her feet. He’d be tall, because that was what girls were supposed to like. She’d have to have her arms around his neck as he lifted her a little. Maybe she would even be carried?

This was different. It was different, and it was good. Leaning down felt more right than expected. Mina found that she liked kissing Tsuyu, she liked the way their lips moved together, she liked the way Tsuyu’s long fingers had found their way into her hair. Mina really liked that Tsuyu was a girl, actually, as she circled her thumbs over the frog-girl’s hipbones, and that was some kind of revelation.

Maybe Mina had never had a crush before because she’d been looking in the wrong place.

Mina had to break the kiss to really think about that. Whoa. Girls. Mina liked girls? It... Made a lot of sense? But then again, surely she’d have had those damned elusive butterflies looking at a girl at some point? Wasn’t that how people usually figured out they liked certain people? Ugh, this was so frustrating.

“Mina?” Tsuyu’s voice was soft, and her hands dropped to Mina’s shoulders as she moved back a little - though not all that far given the limited space they were dealing with. “Are you-”

“Still fine,” Mina said, finding herself to be a little breathless. “S-sorry for just stopping like that, uh, I think I might be gay?”

“Oh.”

“I’ve never kissed a girl before,” Mina confessed. “But it’s better with you than any boys I’ve ever kissed.”

“I’ve only ever kissed girls,” Tsuyu said, and Mina found herself oddly surprised.

She swallowed. “Really?”

“Not many,” Tsuyu said. “But yes, kero, only girls.”

“And how do I shape up?” Mina asked. Gosh, hanging around with Bakugou, the embodiment of competitive spirit, must have rubbed off on her a little. Did she really want to know?

“It’s the best so far,” Tsuyu said, moving closer again. “Can I kiss you again?”

Mina nodded before she remembered they were kind of in the dark here. “Yes.”

Tsuyu’s mouth was just as gentle and soft as before. Mina wondered if Tsuyu would mind if their mouths opened a little more, or if that would push things too far. Mina wasn’t sure if what they were doing could strictly be called a friends thing, but at the same time... The closet was like a liminal space. Once they were out, the feel of Tsuyu’s lips on hers would only really be a memory, hazy like a half-remembered dream.

Something in Mina’s gut curled unpleasantly at the thought. If it was all going to be forgotten anyway, then maybe going a little further wouldn’t be too amiss. Mina had never tried French-kisses before, but maybe- Oh. Tsuyu’s tongue was like a frog’s, wasn’t it? How would that feel? Slippery? Sticky? Would they even be able to kiss that way or was Tsuyu’s tongue a little too big?

It was weird, but, Mina was kind of excited to see for herself, or feel, rather. Seeing wasn’t currently an option for them.

Mina let her own tongue flick out, just a little, over the seam of Tsuyu’s lips. Tsuyu’s grip on her shoulders tightened, and the girl with the frog quirk hummed. Mina lurched forwards, pressing Tsuyu back against the wall of the closet, and licked again. Mina moved one of her hands to cradle Tsuyu’s jaw as Tsuyu opened her mouth.

Tsuyu’s tongue was kinda... Slimy? But not in a terrible way. Mina’s thoughts were a jumble, but somewhere in there the idea that she’d be happy to get used to it flickered through her brain. There couldn’t be all that much time left out of Seven Minutes, though, surely?

“Fuck,” Mina hissed, as one of Tsuyu’s hands made its way under her t-shirt to splay over her waist. Tsuyu’s fingers were warm, almost burning, and Mina bit back a sound building in her throat. “Tsu.”

Tsuyu hesitated. “Are you still okay with this?”

“Touch,” Mina panted. “Please.”

Mina felt like she was on fire. Nothing had ever been like this before, and she leant her face down into the crook of Tsuyu’s shoulder as the frog girl’s fingers traced the muscles of her stomach. No one had ever tried to... Explore Mina like this, to trace patterns her skin like Tsuyu was doing. She wanted more, which was strange and new and exciting.

Somehow, Mina didn’t think she’d be able to forget what was happening right now in the closet any time soon

“Mina,” Tsuyu said, pulling her hand back and Mina’s shirt down. Mina almost groaned at the loss of contact. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah, of course you can,” Mina said, face still pressed against Tsuyu’s collar as she tried to collect herself.

“It’s about the question I was asked earlier, kero,” Tsuyu said.

Mina took a moment to wrack her brains. Question? Oh, right, about Tsuyu’s crush. Mina had been planning to ask about it, but now the idea of it sat like a cold stone in her stomach, heavy and uncomfortable. Still, if Tsuyu wanted to use what was probably the last of their time here to say it, Mina was willing to listen.

“Mm?”

“I do have someone that I like,” Tsuyu said.

“A girl?” Mina asked, biting her lip. She was glad that Tsuyu wasn’t trying to move her away.

Mina felt Tsuyu nod. “A girl. Ah, you, actually.”

What? Mina blinked. “Me?”

“I didn’t want to say anything in the circle because I didn’t want to put you on the spot, kero. I didn’t know if you even liked girls,” Tsuyu said. “But now that I do, I wanted to say that. Even if you don’t like me back, I wanted to let you know.”

Mina found herself lost for words again. How on earth was she supposed to respond to this? To all of this? Mina pulled herself away, leaning back against her side of the closet. She liked girls, apparently, and here was a girl who liked her, who had kissed her, who Mina had enjoyed kissing back. Tsuyu was a friend, someone Mina knew, and pretty much the opposite of all of Mina’s half-formed fantasy partners. Was that a bad thing? A good thing?

“Tsu... I-”

There was clicking sound, and then the door opened. Kaminari’s face popped into view as light streamed into the small space from around him.

“Yo! Time’s up!” Kaminari said, moving back to give them space to get out. Mina went first, Tsuyu stepping out behind her. Mina saw Kaminari scrutinising the two of them before his expression drew up into a vicious smirk. “Did you two have fun?”

Mina’s flush was out in the open, this time, but she still made herself stand as tall as possible and eye her friend down. “More than you ever will.”

“Ouch,” Kaminari said, with a wince. “You coming back to the game?”

“I think I’m gonna head up to bed,” Mina said, and something made her glance at Tsuyu. The frog girl looked... A little disappointed, maybe? It was hard to tell, and Tsuyu was pretty good at disguising her expressions. “Uh, so about some of the stuff we spoke about...”

Tsuyu looked at her. “I’ll keep it a secret.”

“What? No, I mean, for now I guess?” Mina hadn’t even thought about that. She didn’t think she’d have a problem being out, really, but first she probably needed to figure out exactly what she’d be out as, at least to begin with. “I meant- I don’t really have- I need to think about some stuff for myself first, I think.”

“I understand,” Tsuyu said, and then she smiled.

Oh. Mina thought, watching as Kaminari and Tsuyu headed back to the gathering of their classmates.

So this is what getting the butterflies feels like.

---

Bonus! Kiribaku scene

Eijirou watched Bakugou glaring at the closet. He didn’t say anything - Bakugou needed to consider this for himself, and if he was offered what he saw as cowardly escape or a challenge to his bravery he would tend to push himself into situations he wasn’t actually comfortable with.

If Bakugou himself deemed this as too much, he’d mutter something like ‘this is fucking stupid’ and that was when Eijirou would suggest that they fuck off to his room and watch something on his laptop.

“Let’s get this over with,” Bakugou said instead.

Well. That was it. They were gonna spend the whole seven minutes in this closet together no matter what. Eijirou felt a little thrill run through him at the thought. Bakugou was comfortable enough with him that he didn’t mind being confined to such close quarters for seven whole minutes, and that was amazing.

Eijirou wasn’t expecting anything to happen, really. He knew enough about Bakugou to know that he was a - heh - closet romantic at heart, and he wasn’t likely to spend both of what he knew would be their first kisses in a glorified cupboard.

If he was gonna kiss Eijirou, it’d be somewhere memorable. Like at the top of a ferris wheel at a festival, at the top of a mountain after hiking toether, or- Well. Somewhere up high where they could look out over the world. Bakugou would probably have planned it out meticulously, never one to half-ass anything he cared about. And Eijirou was pretty sure that Bakugou cared about him.

Bakugou walked into the closet and Eijirou practically jumped to follow him.

“Okay, you wanna put a timer on one of our phones?” Eijirou asked.

Bakugou scowled around at the (lack of) space and grunted an affirmation.

“Cool, I’ll set it to go,” Eijirou said, pulling his phone out. “Can you shut the door and I’ll start it from there?”

“Yeah,” Bakugou said, and reached out for the doors as Eijirou’s thumbs hovered over the screen of his phone. Eijirou thought that his friend was strangely subdued.

Eijirou pressed play on the countdown as the door shut, and put his phone back in his pocket. It would let out an alarm when they were done, so he didn’t need to watch it. The darkness was kinda comforting, Eijirou thought. It was warm and it felt like the sharing of a secret, and maybe that’s why this game was played in small, dimly-lit spaces.

“Cozy, huh?” Eijirou chirped after a few moments thinking about it, trying to squint at his friend through the darkness. No reply. “Man, I can’t believe Kaminari would ask me something like that. You know I think maybe he wanted me to forfeit, ha.”

Eijirou waited for Bakugou to scoff, to make some quip at Kaminari’s expense like he usually did at the slightest provocation. But there was nothing. Eijiroi frowned, straining his ears. Was- Was that Bakugou’s breathing? It sounded fast. Too fast.

“Hey man, you good?” Eijirou asked, eyebrow raised and head tilted even if he couldn’t be seen.

“Fuck,” Bakugou said, but his voice was all wrong. Kinda... Wispy? Nothing like Eijirou had ever heard from him before.

“Bakugou?”

“Shit, I, it’s the fucking,” Bakugou said, and he was definitely breathing heavier than normal. “I can’t fucking breathe, fucking hell.”

Eijirou leaned forwards, concern blooming in his gut. He reached out. “You can’t breathe? What’s-”

The moment Eijirou’s hands brushed against the fabric of Bakugou’s t-shirt, Eijirou found himself being slammed backwards into the wall of the closet by a pair of heated hands on his shoulders. Eijirou’s skin had hardened under the contact, but he could smell the smokiness in the air that told him Bakugou had detonated.

Bakugou kept him pinned like that, breaths sounding ragged.

“Bakugou?” Eijirou tried again, lifting one arm.

“Don’t touch me!” Bakugou hissed, and Eijirou dropped both of his hands to press them to the wood either side of him. “Don’t- Fuck, just- Fucking hell!”

Bakugou slid his hands to the sides, palms against the wood, too, and in the brief flashes of light that his quirk produced either side of him, Eijirou caught glimpses of his face. Bakugou’s eyes were clamped shut, his mouth open and teeth bared in a snarl. Something was wrong, somehow.

“Hey,” Eijirou said, trying to make his voice gentle. “Talk to me, man. What’s going on?”

“It’s so fucking stupid,” Bakugou said, voice hitching on the last word.

“Whatever this is isn’t stupid,” Eijirou said. “And I’m here for you if you need anything.”

“I know,” Bakugou said, and he let his head fall forwards onto Eijirou’s chest. “Fuck, just. Stay right there. I need to get over this shit already.”

“Okay.”

Fuck, Eijirou thought, hardened fingers curling into the wall and probably gouging it as he tried to think of what to say. He wanted to pull Bakugou into a hug or something, but Bakugou didn’t want that right now and Eijirou knew better than to try that again until he gave the all-clear.

Bakugou knocked his fist against Eijirou’s shoulder. “Talk, damn it. I need- Distract me.”

“Oh, yeah! Sure,” Eijirou said, mind immediately going blank. “Uhh, so, um, I... Hm. I got absolutely nothing in my brain, bro.”

“Idiot, everyone knows that already,” Bakugou mumbled.

Eijirou laughed. “Nothing but hair and rocks, yeah! I guess I could sing a song or something? But all the songs I know are like, ones you have to really yell along to and someone might think we got stuck in here or s-”

Bakugou shook his head. “Fuck, change the topic.”

“Oh, sorry, uh,” Eijirou had gone blank again. So... What was it that Bakugou hadn’t wanted to- Oh. Oh. Oh fuck. No wonder Bakugou was freaking out so badly, of course, he had fucking claustrophobia. Eijirou was an idiot for forgetting - it was something Bakugou had mentioned before, in an offhand way so as not to make it a big deal, but he’d still mentioned it.

‘Oh yeah, I hate small spaces.’

And what was this if not being a small space?

“So, uh, did I ever tell you about how I got the scar on my eye?” Eijirou asked. Man, he really needed to like, come up with a selection of topics he could talk about for this sort of situation.

“Yeah,” Bakugou said.

“I did? Aw man, I thought I’d managed to go without you hearing how embarrassing it was,” Eijirou said. He heard Bakugou snort, which was a good thing, right? “How about the first time I dyed my hair?”

“Mmhm.”

Eijirou pouted at the top of Bakugou’s head. “Man, I should really learn how to stop exposing my own secrets! Okay, so. Hey, how about something for the future! Pretty sure I haven’t talked about much of that.”

Bakugou grunted.

“Well, I think once our agency gets properly established and things are like, stable, I want a cat,” Eijirou said, finding that his heart was pounding. He’d not actually shared this idea with anyone. Not even Bakugou, and they were planning to rent a place together.

“Yeah?” Bakugou asked.

“Yeah. I love cats, man. I mean, I like dogs, too! They’re great! But it’d be a cat or two for me,” Eijirou said. “I don’t know if I really care about the breed, but I guess I’d actually like something that’s like, kinda pushy and loud? I think those kinda cats have real personality. You can’t ignore them when they want something.”

Bakugou’s hands had stopped popping with tiny explosions, which was good.

“It’d be an indoor cat. I don’t want it to be like, hit by a car or targeted by a villain or anything,” Eijirou said. “As long as you make the time to play with a cat and stuff they don’t actually need to go out - especially if you have more than one and they can play with each other. I was also thinking that maybe I could like, harness train it? Take it on like, walks and stuff.”

Bakugou said something, but it was muffled by Eijirou’s shirt.

“Huh?”

“Names,” Bakugou said, voice rough but sounding stronger. “Got any?”

“Oh, for the cats?” Eijirou pursed his lips. “Not really! I figure I’ll know what to call a cat when I look at it.”

Bakugou made a small humming noise, and Eijirou hoped that he was maybe warming to the idea. Eijirou kind of needed him to be on board, after all.

“Uh, what else... I kinda want, like, a real house? I know the sort of money for that probably won’t start coming in for a while ‘cause of all the security concerns, but like, long-term goals and all that stuff,” Eijirou said. He wanted Bakugou to live there with him, but, well, they weren’t officially together yet and Eijirou didn’t wanna just spring that on him while he was having a panic attack. “It doesn’t have to be a big house, just like, enough. A decent kitchen, space to park outside, maybe a small garden.”

“With flowers?” Bakugou asked.

Huh, that wasn’t something Eijirou had expected Bakugou to ask, and he grinned. “Yeah. We can plant flowers. Roses, maybe. Red ones? Maybe white? Maybe both?”

“Both,” Bakugou said.

Eijirou felt fondness ripple through him, and he opened his mouth to say something that was probably too sappy, but then his pocket began to buzz and Bakugou was jumping out of the closet. He moved almost too fast for Eijirou to follow with his eyes, but he didn’t go too far. Eijirou stepped out of the closet and closed its doors behing him, before making his way over to his best friend.

“Wanna go upstairs and watch something?” Eijirou asked, turning off the alarm still jangling from his phone.

“Fuck yes,” Bakugou said, turning to head towards the stairs. As he was facing away from Eijirou, he couldn’t be totally sure that Bakugou had spoken again as he stomped away, but it kinda sounded like Bakugou had muttered a ‘thank-you’. Kinda like that time at I-Island all the way back in first year, huh?

Eijirou grinned, catching up to Bakugou and throwing an arm over his shoulders.

#tsumina #kiribaku #bakushima #fanfiction #my fanfiction #this was EXTREMELY FUN actually #Gorl Time #the characters theorise about some implied spicy but they're way off the mark lmao

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heroacademiaimagines · 5 years

Text

Angst Alphabet: All Might/Yagi Toshinori

(I didn’t V + W for reasons don’t look at me)

A – Adjourn: How would they handle a break-up?

Toshinori has a tendency to just… ignore it. It means he never deals with the unresolved feelings, he never full confronts what happens and why it happened, and it also means it haunts him for a long time. He doesn’t just let anyone into his life, you have to be special to have stolen his heart in the first place, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t act foolish. With how famous he is, and how much he throws himself into his hero work, it means it’s not difficult for him to find ways to distract himself, though the feelings always catch up with him when he’s trying to sleep at night.

B – Blunders: If they could redo a moment of their past, would they?

He would likely choose to redo a lot of things, but the thing he wished he did the most was spend more time with you. He was so busy being the number one hero that he’d put you on a backburner, almost treated you like an afterthought, and used the excuse of ‘That’s just how a hero’s life is!’. With how fleeting his career seemed to be with his injury now, it seemed foolish to have treated you so poorly, when you would still be around while he was no longer a hero. He realizes how selfish that sounds, but it’s not as though his feelings for you hadn’t been genuine, he just didn’t have a chance to think until the whirlwind of the Symbol of Peace was over.

C – Calamity: If you happened to die in an accident would they blame themselves?

Even if there was no viable way for him to save you, for him to help you, he would only ever be able to think of the what-ifs. What if he had been with you that day? What if he had spent more time with you? The guilt alone could send him into an early grave, and these feelings are amplified if it’s after his injury has stopped him from changing into All Might; he knew he couldn’t do anything in this state, and that made it worse. If he was there he would’ve had to helplessly watch you die, because there was truly nothing he could do anymore.

D – Demise: How would they deal with death?

There’s nothing on this planet that would make him feel more useless than you dying, whether it be because of a disease or a villain. He shoulders the responsibility of your well-being despite your insistence that he shouldn’t; you know he’s protective and it’s natural instinct to want to keep you safe, but there were things in life that happened that he couldn’t control. This is a fact he’s aware of, but hates accepting, as he always defied the expectations of those around him.

E – Evaluation: What if someone were to expose their past?

Toshinori is well-aware that there are people always sniffing into his past, but there’s not much to find there relationship wise. He’d had a few flings here and there, but most of those people were tight-lipped enough to never mention it. It’s not like the world would be likely to believe them anyway, but he found most were willing to keep any secret they knew about him; he would be more worried about the secret for One For All coming out than his dating history.

F – Force: What would burden them to the crux of a breakdown?

Your kidnapping at the hands of All For One would likely be a huge stressor for him, knowing that you would be shown no mercy, especially due to being connected by him. There’s not a moment of sleep, of any type of rest, until you’re safely out of his hands and back in All Might’s. You can confidently say you’d never seen him cry, but he might if you return unharmed, or at least alive, from his greatest enemy.

G – Ground: Which part of themselves do they see as dangerous?

His ambition, especially when he was younger, was a dangerous thing, but more to himself than others. He wanted to be a great hero, he was almost a natural at it, but it easily put him into potentially fatal positions where only pure luck helped him get out alive (while also saving the people he’d set out to help). He can remember a handful of moments where he truly thought it might be the end for him, wondering if he’d still dive in against all odds knowing he might die (he would).

H – Hatred: Who or what do they truly despise?

All For One is likely the only thing that pops into Toshinori’s mind when he’s asked about the word hatred. He knows he dislikes villainy, which is why he became a hero in the first place, but to hold actual contempt for the villains he fights… he mostly feels sorry for them, and sees locking them away as for their own good, but there’s moments where he wonders about what truly drives them to hurt people the way they do (it’s not something he could ever wrap his head around).

I – Insulted: What would irk them the most?

People being disrespectful to the people he loves, villains hurting his innocent students, there are a surprisingly numerous amount of things that can get on his nerves. He doesn’t often show this irritation unless he’s been pushed far enough, but he’s been blessed with great patience and the ability to brush most insulting things off, so it’s unlikely the side of him that would bare his teeth would appear.

J – Justice: Would they ever murder for revenge?

Considering it’s been something he’s avoided his whole career, no matter how tough the villain, he likely would never take another life. Even if he did so accidentally, no matter how much that person deserved it, it would mark itself as a huge regret on his part and he would never be able to look at himself again.

K – Kidnapped: What if you were abducted? What courses of action would they take?

Toshinori tries to keep your identity as secret as possible along with his own, because he knows the great amount of danger that you’re in just by being with him. He feels guilty when he learns of your kidnapping, and full of fear, but he’s still a hero and he’ll do anything he can to get you back. There’s no way that All Might allows them to save you without him there to personally grab you, to personally see that you’re okay the minute you’re found, as he was never the type to sit back and wait for others to handle things. After you’re rescued, there’s no chance of you being out of his sight for at least the next 48 hours.

L – Longing: How much time would it take their hearts to mend after you died? Would they still long for you?

He’d already longed, pined, for you for so long, even while you were still alive, that it’s almost natural those feelings continue after your death; it’s like some form of torture, something he thinks he deserves, especially if your death was a premature one. His heart never truly mends, there was a piece of it that always belonged to you and it felt almost sacrilegious to let another in where you once were. No other romantic relationship seems to fit just right, none make him feel the same way you did, and unfortunately, he knows that he likely won’t feel like he did for you for another person again. He’s okay with it, of course, as there are other things in life he has to focus on, but it is still a great loss.

M – Money: Would you two have financial problems?

Being the number one hero in the world, for a long time, with his own agency, meant it was very unlikely you’d have any money problems. You yourself probably didn’t have to work at all, as most people who knew that you were involved with All Might in some way, shape, or form, would give you things for free, otherwise, he’d attempt to pay for it himself (like if you wanted to go back to school).

N – Naught: How would they react knowing they have lost everything?

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s felt that way, and it wouldn’t be the last, but there’s nothing that can stop him from marching forward. There was always something more to reach for, something more to aspire to, and even if it felt like the world was crashing down around him, he knew it wasn’t in his nature to simply give in and let things be.

O – Overwrought: What memories of their past causes them to be anxious?

Asking you out for the first time was quite an event, he knew you wouldn’t say no but at the same time, you’d never bowed down or acted especially enthused to have him around like his fans did (it’s why he fell for you in the first place). He can remember a handful of times where you’d gotten injured and needed to go to a hospital, and since he wasn’t physically there, he had been anxiously waiting a phone call to see if you were alright. The one that fills him with the most anxiety is probably when he had to confess the condition he was in, and he put it off for so long, he only made himself more anxious as he realized he’s lying to your face and you’d be even angrier when you finally did know.

P – Pessimistic: Do they rub salt in wounds?

Not generally. Toshinori is very forgiving, and he doesn’t like to continue fights longer than they need to be. He’s not the type to make snippy or petty comments if you say/do something that reminds him of what you were arguing about, more willing to let bygones be bygones and move on. He doesn’t forget what was said, or what the fight was about, but he’s not the argumentative type.

Q – Quake: What could frighten them so terribly they couldn’t recuperate?

Seeing you mangled, beyond repair, knowing you were tortured every moment until your very last breath… The image would be ingrained in his brain, every time he closed his eyes he’d see your dead ones staring back, cold, dead lips moving and asking why he couldn’t save you, why he wasn’t the hero he always swore to you he was. It haunts him, the rest of his life, and though he continues with his work, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever have a peaceful nights sleep again.

R – Rogue: What if they were evil?

If All Might were evil, it would likely be game over for most of the world. He would be able to do as he pleased, but of course, it’s no fun if it’s all that easy; he’ll be sure to play as many games as he can with the pro-heroes, leading them into a false sense of security, letting them think that he can be cornered when it’s simply a trap to kill them all at once.

S – Shaft: How do they vent?

Toshinori used to think screaming into a pillow was an effective way to vent out his feelings, or just ignoring them and hoping they faded away with time, but he quickly realizes that it’s inefficient. Having someone like you to confide in makes his chest feel warm, having someone he can truly trust, who sees him as a human being and not just a hero, is exactly what he needs. He would also need someone willing to offer him advice, or be willing to tell him he’s acting like a fool.

T – Tenderness: What emotion do they want to hide?

Toshinori tends to hide most negative emotions that he feels. He doesn’t want to let you know that he’s sad, that he’s heartbroken, that he’s feeling guilty, so he bundles them all inside into a tightly woven ball and tosses it away. He doesn’t think it’s right for you to worry about him the same way he worries about you, since he’s a hero and all, and this line of thinking can easily put a damper on the relationship (or even ruin it altogether, as you’re giving all parts of yourself and he’s hand selecting what he gives to you).

U – Untrustworthy: What could you do to make them lose their trust in you?

Leaking sensitive information about him to the media, cheating on him while you were together, betraying the heroes and becoming a villain… there’s only a few things that could truly push him to the point of no return, where he feels like he no longer knows you at all. For certain things, there might be a way for you to earn back his trust, but if you were to ever turn evil or hurt other innocent human beings, he would never be able to look at you the same way again.

X – X-Ray: Can they tell if you’re lying?

Toshinori trusts you greatly, so he wouldn’t be looking for signs of lying, though if he’s with you in the first place it’s likely because you’re an honest person to begin with. If you were a really bad liar he would be able to tell, and if it was simply a white lie or something he deemed harmless, he would just pretend he believed you or moved on.

Y – You: What memory of you hurts them every time they recall it?

Toshinori can remember the first time he broke your heart very well. He’d gotten caught up in criminal work on an important anniversary, and he’d had every intention of making it there he just… forgot. The next morning when he checked your phone, there were no texts to be seen, and he immediately realized why that was; when he sees you in person you tell him it was fine, but you’re teary-eyed and can’t look at him, and he hates it more than anything. If he’s going to miss a date, he lets you know ahead of time, and always has a good plan for the next day to make it up to you.

Z – Zigzag: Are they often pulled in different directions by their heart and brain?

Every day of his life, he feels like. Though his heart and soul is always put into his hero work, there are parts of his heart that want nothing more than to be with you. He wants to be home with you, cuddled together on the couch or in bed, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, there were so many domestic things that he craved to do that he just didn’t have time for.

#Yagi Toshinori #Toshinori Yagi #BNHA #BNHA Headcanons #My Hero Academia #Angst Alphabet #there'll probably be more

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comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

March 28th-April 3rd, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 28th, 2020 to April 3rd, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

How many hours do you work on your comic per week, and how do you manager to balance that with other responsibilities?

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

heheh So we are.. cheating a bit Both me and my coworker are unemployed, and is working on hour comic, like was it a full time job. It is our passion project, and dream that we can work and live of makeing comics. In Denmark you can apply for grants from the government, but you need to have releashed a book before that is possible. We are useing the comic, to show potentional clients in the future what we can do. For now we are working on it from 09:00-17:00 ish (with a long lunch break) while applying for other kinds of grants, and also does all the things we are supposed to to get our unemplyment money, and searching for jobs, and freelance gigs, gathering the courage to start our own small company (not right now though) and yeaah time will tell

carcarchu

@Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS that doesn't sound like cheating to me? more like using the tools at your disposal to turn your passion into a viable career

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

hehe it feels a little like cheating! there are some debates about if it is okay or not, but we think that strengthening our skills is a good use of our time

eli [a winged tale]

Haha also not cheating! It’s great you’re using the time to chase the dream I’m curious what’s your breakdown for those time working on the comic? As for me, usually 1-2 hours a day with a bit more on the weekend if time permits. These days with the quarantine it’s about 2-3 h a day

DanitheCarutor

Since I'm unemployed until who knows when I've been working on my comic between 40-50 hours a week about 6 to 7 days a week... most weeks. Some days, like update day or chore day, I hardly work on the comic or don't work on it at all. Admittedly I'm not the best at balancing drawing with other responsibilities, sometimes I get so into it that I forget about daily house chores, other weeks I do the opposite and only do house chores which makes me totally behind of comic stuff. I can't seem to find a good middle ground, it always turns into completely focusing on one or the other.

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah when I get in the zone, time flies and life gets put to the wayside

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

So I have no school or work, so the webcomic has become almost a fulltime project for me

I average about 10 hours per day working on it, not counting on chores and exercise

Another thing I worry about is the possibility of carpal tunnel syndrome, which is why I've been relentless with exercise, too

I guess it's just a combination of relentless reminders and also sheer willpower that gets me to do other responsibilities haha

@eli [a winged tale] also I know that feeling

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

So since my school had to cancel, I have to be more responsible for my online course. Sometimes I give myself 2 days off each week to work more into my upcoming webcomic but I have to switch my mind for school work, online classes. Also extra time for food. I need to get back into exercise or I feel exhausted more easily. I keep a wall schedule so that I make it a routine to write what I'll do every 3 or 5 days, to keep my active brain reminded(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I spent the majority of last year (fun)employed (partially by choice, partially not! my previous job let me go rather unceremoniously... and I needed a hiatus anyway... so it worked out) so I poured a lot more hours into that chapter of Phantomarine than I usually did. I worked on it almost every day - at least for a couple of hours, but sometimes up to a full eight-hour day. That number has dipped tremendously since I’ve gone back to work, but I’m spreading the same amount of time out in a broader way. I’m trying to get a good buffer during my hiatus, so I can work and draw in a healthy balance. I don’t have crazy overtime at my current job like I did at my last one, so that’s already a comfort. I’m confident I’ll be able to hit a good stride once the comic returns in June (edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Can’t wait Lady!!

Feather J. Fern

Two part time jobs, and school killed my comic, but I been working on getting one panel done a day, which is around 30minutes to an hour if possible.

eli [a winged tale]

My routine used to be rendering on the commute but now just once in am and once pm until this limbo time is clarified

That’s awesome Feather! It’s so rewarding when everything comes together after putting effort everyday

Feather J. Fern

Once school is done in two more weeks I will be more free to do things so I hope to get maybe two panels done in a day XD

Online school, stupid quarantine

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Due to the pandemic im mostly off school and my part time job so i spend like 4-5 hours on my comic per day. Still would like try to get a page done per day but lmao digital painting is slowwww

eli [a winged tale]

What’s everyone’s tips for breaks/stretches/balance? I feel like I certainly need to revisit these to avoid burnout and continue feeling motivated!

Feather J. Fern

Actually there was a cool manga artist who's tip was literally he only worked working hours. His mornings are free and since manga was his job, he worked form 12-6, giving him 2 hours to do other work he needs to get done, and takes morning walks and stuff.

Another person I know had "No working weekends" as a thing becuase they are a freelancer.

I personally have try to make sure I ahve a routine, and actually, stretch before drawing.

Streetch before, during a break, and then after, to keep that body nice and warmed up

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Health-wise there's this hing for your : every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. I'm not good at following this, but when I do it, it helps a lot.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Despite the current pandemic, my work-life hasn't changed much (unless you count stress getting in the way). I am currently "unemployed," but I do consider comicking my full-time job. I am also not very good at balancing work and life. Something's always gotta give. Last year, I worked at a job that basically ruined my ability to work on my comic. I worked 30-40 hours typically, ruined my sleep schedule, took work home sometimes, and was constantly exhausted. This is what resulted in my year and a half long hiatus, and it's what drove me to work like hell on my comic when I quit. Now (when I'm in the groove and not suffering from art block), I typically spend 60-70 hours on my comic and get 2-3 pages done: - 30 hours sketching (I know, ridiculous) - 5 hours filling in base colors - 20-25 hours painting - 5 hours adding text, speech bubbles, sfx, and finishing touches - 1-2 hours formatting for Webtoon I also spend some time throughout the week typing up the script, doing concept art for things coming in the future of the comic, and preparing for conventions, but I can't tell you exactly how much time.

eli [a winged tale]

Thanks for the breakdown! I’m always keen to learn from everyone and seeing how the workflow is like for different people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh don't forget to do wrist stretches!

eli [a winged tale]

Ahh formatting time is always so tedious for me!

Yes wrist exercises! Any recommendations?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

hmmm well the easiest one is literally just shaking it out

like every hour

and I also like to hold my arm out parallel, point my fingers up and using my other hand to pull the fingers back so i'm stretching the wrist

then I point the fingers down and pull on the fingers until my wrist is stretching

eli [a winged tale]

Awesome. Will be adopting those!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm pretty fast. 2-6 hours per page, depending on how detailed it is. Average of 3-4. I could probably do 2 pages/ week easily enough, but don't want to do more than that. I'm the kind of person who always needs to be doing a million different things. I need to leave time for my other hobbies and my paintings and my academics and extracurriculars. Otherwise I'd get burnt out doing one thing only

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

@eli [a winged tale] So since it is both me and @Q (Wayfinders: Off Course) working, we start with working on a rough each, our goal is one step (so rough, ink, color) for two pages pr day, pr person. So in a weak the goal is four finished pages a week, and then we upload 3 pages per week. So it is divided that in the morning we start at 09:00 in the morning, maybe checking mail, being practical or whatever. Then we work until 12:00 were we eat lunch, go for a long nice walk and then we go back to work between 13:00 and 14:00 ish and then work until 17:00 when we begin to prepare dinner. Then of course breaks inbetween

Q (Wayfinders: Off Course)

It’s pretty wild to be able to dedicate your entire day to comics like that

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

damn you all work fast

do you guys have any tips on how to work on a webcomic faster?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol, I wish!

Still looking for those magical secrets

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@shadowhood (SunnyxRain) You know the 80-20 rule? You can get 80% of the result with 20% of the effort? My comic is very messy if you zoom in. I don't spend time making sure the linework or the coloring is perfectly clean. Also, I'm pretty fast at drawing figures. I used to practice figure drawing a lot by rushing to draw strangers irl before they moved, or by drawing a bunch of fast figures from the free figure drawing model websites online. I've also taken a figure drawing course (didn't even have to pay because it was part of my university! Even if you don't have that option you can probably find free life drawing sessions on Meetup or similar!) which really helped me streamline my process for drawing people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Oh I see! Yes, I used to take life drawing classes too! And your response makes me feel a lot better

I tend to be a bit messy with inking, and since i'm a perfectionist a lot of my time is wasted on editing/clean up

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've seen cronaj draw, and while I think the results look excellent, I think her method is a kind of inefficient. She draws like a printer, nearly finishing one detailed body part before moving on the the next. I think maybe if she drew in a more classical way, going from a gesture drawing to progressively more detailed, it might help her be faster and her poses more cohesive and dynamic. Maybe working on 1 or 5 min figures would help? Practicing things like this?

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I try to do figure practices for efficiency

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I heard that there are some online life drawing vids you can follow too

but what are your experiences with online life drawing vids versus the real thing

like is there a real difference?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

found some of my old 1 minutes

To me there's not too much difference

I've heard some people say that life drawing is either way easier or way harder though. Because of your depth perception when looking at a real person

But the bruises on my legs can attest to my horrid depth perception haha. That might be why I don't notice a difference

Actually those previous sketches might be 30 seconds? I don't remember

I would recommend you try both but right now we pretty much only have the online option haha

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I’ve done both and I think irl creates complexity with depth and the interactions with others etc is helpful but online is my go to for flexibility

I think having a process streamlined will make things more efficient. The downside is that it might feel tedious and I do switch it up from time to time for variety

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Might feel uncomfortable but that's how you know you're improving

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There is a TON of difference for me. I HAVE to look at a physical model in front of me.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Can't get better if you always do the same things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is what my brain does.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I wonder- could drawing yourself in a mirror be a decent substitute?

If youre lucky you might also be able to ask an SO or roommate to model for you. Should probably pay them back by cooking for them or something though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Brain: sees a real model in front of me Brain: translates 3D to 2D, result: drawing Brain: sees a photo/video of a model Brain: SHIT. That's supposed to be 3D, isn't it? Brain: Translates 2D to 3D (basically re-constructing it in my head, or attempting to re-construct) so that it can translate it back to 2D Brain: BSOD

There's some online resources out there that have "3D" photos... you know, two near-identical images side by side, so if you look at it cross-eyed, it becomes 3D?

But I can't do those because I get a headache X'D

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just thinking about drawing from that makes me dizzy

eli [a winged tale]

Oh interesting!

Yeah maybe looking out the window to draw people would be the way to go...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But maybe figure drawing in VR exists?

eli [a winged tale]

Balcony figure drawings

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I live on the top floor so those are going to be some very small figures

eli [a winged tale]

For ants

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Once this coronavirus thing is over, there's lots of ways you can do gesture drawings from just random people -- bus stops, cafes, museums (I have not done this, but people who have done this report this is really good because others assume you're drawing the artworks. XD)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've done this a lot

Sometimes I've even shown people drawing of themselves if they've turned out particularly nice

They've always taken it well

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I like drawing my professors because they use hand gestures a lot when they talk

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Airport was REALLY good for finding people stuck in one pose indefinitely

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

they alwayas laugh when I show them

eli [a winged tale]

Shadow omg I do that too

Draws classmates

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah the only issue i have with drawing classmates

is that they're always doing the "i'm using my phone" pose

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Become the master of drawing people on their phones

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Maybe try drawing children on the playground?

This works better if you're a woman

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh thank jesus

I also like going to the zoo or the museum

or the aquarium if i'm feeling adventurous

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I am a University student so I also have some pretty interestng drawings of people asleep in weird poses

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I really need to start going to weekly figure drawing sessions once this is over (there's one here... 20 min drive... 8AM Saturdays )

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

ditto or just go to the park and draw

and @Eightfish (Puppeteer) I've had some.....weird poses from all my profs

one guy was incredibly hard to draw; he was VERY enthusiastic about showing us knife skills

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The parks here are too spacious, to a degree where it's weird to get close enough to people

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Bring binoculars

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Don't worry ma'am I'm an artist

nothing sketchy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

(except my sketch)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

A+ pun right there

another place to go for figure drawing

theaters

like.....opera/plays

I once tried drawing the men dancing in the Newsies musical

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Tried that once, but it took me out of the performance

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

same i was dazzled by dancing men

aaaaand then i abandoned sketching at all when they started throwing newspaper strips into the audience

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But they were giving you free paper!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

THEY WERE

i'll take what i can get

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) While I agree that my method of drawing is "inefficient," I do not draw like a printer. There are videos of people drawing like a printer and it's not what I'm doing. I have done gesture drawing before, but it always looked incredibly abstract, and not quite like people, which is fine, but not what I'm going for. I treat gesture drawing like a warm-up exercise. It doesn't really do anything for my end result, but gets my drawing muscles stretched out.(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Gesture drawings are definitely a good warmup!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Perhaps it was an inappropriate analogy. What works for me I guess wouldn't work for everyone. I was trying to offer advice because whenever you talk about how much time you spend on art and you work life balance it's commendable but also dismaying. I hope you find something that works for you in the future

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oh god.. I sometimes work 6 hours a day. I guess thats like 30 hours a week? Crazy to think about, it's like a full job

Oooh you guys are sharing figure drawings... I swant to show some of mine

Behold

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My figure drawing usually breaks down into like, medical anatomy study. I feel like I understand body shapes better by including the muscles & bones

carcarchu

ABS the most important figure study

Deo101 [Millennium]

ah figure drawing? I love figure drawing ^^

I do like a lot but this kinda thing is most of it

anyways as for the question at hand, I do a lot of different things for my comics weekly. My millennium pages take me 2-6 hours i would say, but I also have patreon things I need to do so I'd say i spend 10-15 hours on it a week. for my other comic, I spend about 6 hours an update, and it updates every other week. but honestly, all of my free time goes to assorted comics. If i'm not working on school work or chatting with people, I'm working on things for patreon, potential merch, or other comics I want to start sometime.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oooh nice poses!!’

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks!! I have a ton of gesture/figure drawings but these ones are my most recent that I have saved to my computer i think

10 minutes im pretty sure. very good for speeding up

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Those look really nice, good values

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks ^^ I really hate working in charcoal honestly, it kinda always winds up hurting my body somehow, but its very quick sooooooo

kayotics

My answer for the prompt question has changed a lot since I started quarantine lmao... I used to do about 10 hours of work throughout the week on my comic page (usually after work, I have an office job) but ironically it’s gotten harder while I work from home. I’ve been struggling to find time since I don’t have a separation between work and home now, and putting the boundaries up of “I’m not always available” to coworkers is difficult.

Also on figure studies: they’re a great way to practice speed. I use the concepts of figure drawings all the time.

RebelVampire

@kayotics As someone who always works from home doing remote contract work, I have to say I think this is something a lot of people underestimate about work at home life. In that it's sometimes really difficult to establish boundaries with ppl and make them understand you aren't always available and also aren't gonna work billions of hours of overtime. So I'm sorry to hear that's affecting your comic work.

Shadowmark Productions

I work anywhere from 6-8 hours a day on comic stuff. That’s an average though. Sometimes I slack and need to pull all nighters to make up for it. Yes, I am terrible at time management. They say entrepreneurs are the only people willing to work 80 hours a week for themselves so they do not have to work 40 hours a week for someone else. I guess webcomic creators are the only people willing to work 80+ hours a week so that they can... go to work for someone else afterwards

AntiBunny

4 days of procrastinating, 1 of procrastinating and hating myself, and 2 of actual comic drawing seems to make up my weekly comic making schedule. :p

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I can only imagine how stressed I would be if I forced myself to update weekly

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

This is a hard question to answer because it varies a lot depending on my energy levels. Ideally I’d spend several hours a day on comics, but realistically I draw as much as possible when I have the energy (5+ hours a day for as many days in a row as I can handle it) and then go weeks or months too tired to do comics. On average, barring any long periods of exhaustion or other interruptions from RL, I spend about 20+ hours a week making pages for my comics.

sagaholmgaard

I prefer to work on my comic for about an hour ever morning and maybe 2-3 hours in the evening, that's the ideal routine for me. Right now I sadly have a lot of schoolwork to do (writing my thesis) so i might get less than 30 minutes in the morning and then feel rlly tired in the evening so I dont get as much time then either. but oh well!

I can still work for 4-5 hours on the weekends so I manage ^^(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

The whole stay-indoors order's currently completely wrecked my pattern, but before that I did between 3-4 hours a day.

Shadowmark Productions

Can’t imagine the stress of a daily or even weekly posting schedule. Hats off.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator babble #creator interview #comic creator interview #comic tea party #ctp

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monstersdownthepath · 5 years

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Spiritual Spotlight: Teshallas, the Primordial Poison

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Aging, Poison, and Venomous Creatures

Domains: Healing, Magic, Repose, Scalykind Subdomains*: Restoration, Alchemy, Psychopomp, Venom

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 18

Obedience: Drink a diluted preparation of poison; a single dose of poison is sufficient to prepare five such draughts, and the dilution grants you a +5 circumstance bonus on your saving throw. Alternately, allow a venomous creature to bite you. Benefit: You gain the ability to sense toxins within 20ft of you, as if surrounded by a constant Detect Poison.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals.)

Drink up!

This Obedience is similar in many ways to Charon’s own alternate Obedience in which he demands you imbibe drugs to damage your mental ability scores, in that it absolutely sucks to perform day after day. The +5 bonus you get to resist the effects of the poison is often enough to keep you from suffering its effects, but there’s always a chance that you get crunched and are forced to hobble around with broken stats for a day or so. This isn’t even mentioning that poisons are expensive, and even though you can get five uses from a single dose, the cost will still be a deep mark in your pocket every week.

... Unless, of course, you have access to the books Ultimate Equipment and/or Potions & Poisons, which gives us access to the safer and, most importantly, cheaper options with which to poison yourselves in the form of the Gelidburn Oil (2~6 damage a round for up to 4 rounds; 75 gp a dose), Drow Poison (unconsciousness for 2d4 hours; 75gp a dose), Oil of Restfulness (unconsciousness for 1d3 hours; 90gp), and finally, the ULTIMATE thrifty poison: Pupil’s Friend, at a whopping 30gp a dose and causing naught but a bout of sickness for up to 15 minutes. Pupil’s Friend is also harvested from a mold that’s easily cultivated in any dark, moist space, such as a terrarium kept inside a Bag of Holding, potentially eliminating its cost altogether!

Drow Poison and Oil of Restfulness are also both pathetically easy to create, should you not want to go through the rigamarole of waiting for your mold to grow. “Wait a second though,” you may ask, “those poisons knock you out for hours! Isn’t that worse than stat damage?” And you’d be right! It’s a terrible way to start your day! But a perfect way to end one. Remember that your Obediences can just be done whenever you want, not just at the crack of dawn. Take a sip of Drow Poison or Oil of Restfulness just before you lay down to sleep each night and meditate on the sensations it causes you in the brief time you’re allowed before slipping into dreamland, waking up 8 hours later with 16 more hours of your power boost left before you need to do it again. It’s also one of the best ways to hide your Obedience from prying eyes, because who’d get suspicious about someone taking a sleep aid every night? They may be concerned for your health, but not suspicious.

Or you could skip all of that and just have a venomous familiar (or party member) bite your arm. Harder to hide or to justify, but notice that the Obedience doesn’t say that they have to inject their poison! It’s probably scummy to really take this one to the letter so hard, especially because the implication is that they inject you, but you know how I operate; I like loopholes!

As for that benefit, boy it’s been a while since we’ve seen a benefit that wasn’t a +4 to one stat or another, huh? And it’s a decent benefit, to boot! Not good, mind, but decent, especially since Detect Poison is a cantrip with a range of Close, so you can just scan over every 5ft cube you come across from a safe distance away. This ability does little more than save you a few actions to do so, since its 20ft range practically puts you on top of the toxin anyway. That being said, the fact it can sniff through walls (provided they aren’t too thick) will let you detect some hidden traps, stealthy enemies, and even invisible, poisonous attackers, which keeps it from actually being lumped into the Bad Benefit category. Plus you can detect poisoned food and drink without offending your host, which may be important. The niche uses for its ability to narrow down what poisons you’re encountering can also come in handy!

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Serpent's Kiss. Gain Polypurpose Panacea 3/day, Touch Injection 2/day, or Sands of Time 1/day.

Polypurpose Panacea is an adorable little spell with a variety of small, flavorful effects and very little use in the average storyline, especially in combat. I would take it during downtime or a lighter session but wouldn’t use it for much anything else.

Touch Injection lets you store an extract, an elixir, a potion, or a poison within a harmless pocket space in your hand, letting you instantaneously jam it into someone you make a successful touch attack against. With a duration of 1 hour per level it’s fully possible to keep a valuable potion hidden from prying eyes only to unveil it when it’s needed, or to keep a lethal poison tucked away for a specific target... But, ironically, it’s actually more useful in combat than for covert operations, because any poison contained inside has its onset changed to immediate, so whoever you slap with it gets to feel the effects instantaneously.

Also it changes the poison’s delivery method to ‘touch someone,’ eliminating the need to shank your victim, trick them into eating it, or making them breath it in, which has its value. Though I’m not a fan of getting close to my enemies (being primarily a squishy caster player), I’m always for making poisons more viable, even if they do get expensive and impractical later on (unless you’re an Eldritch Poisoner Alchemist). I also still enjoy the idea of holding a particularly powerful extract or potion in there to be unleashed at the right moment.

I’ve discussed the uses of Sands of Time before in Charon’s article, so go refresh your mind with that. Long story short: it’s a bad spell to have most of the time since some creatures have hard-to-guess or completely nonexistent age categories. The flexibility of Touch Injection and the general cute usefulness of Polypurpose Panacea make them more useful than Sands.

Boon 2: Breath of Life. You may cast Restoration 1/day as a spell-like ability.

Perhaps even more boring than stat increases, we have the technically-healing spell Restoration.

That being said, having a FREE Restoration, even at 1/day, is incredibly valuable despite how dull it is. Restoration cures ALL ability score damage, all drain to a single score, all fatigue and exhaustion, AND all temporary negative levels. It’s best used at the end of the day just before you all go to bed to clear off everything someone has suffered in one go, but whatever you do don’t try and use it in combat unless it’s needed to desperately save someone’s life, because it takes 3 rounds to cast.

I say it’s so valuable, by the way, because of how much money this ability will save in the long-term. Restoration normally costs 100gp to cast, but if you pour 1000gp into it instead you can also scrape one permanent negative level off the target. Note that this is described on the actual spell card as “(diamond dust worth 100 gp OR 1,000 gp, see text).” The ‘or’ is the operative conjunction here, because with some spell-likes (such as Gate and Planar Ally) you still have to provide the monetary cost because it’s not listed as a material component. The 1000gp Restoration requires is explicitly a material component, and thus as a spell-like you don’t have to pay it.

Given how often higher-level monsters use ability score damage/drain and negative levels, this ability will save you thousands of gp and other resources over the course of your career. I just wish it were Greater Restoration instead, because..

Boon 3: Wonders of Age: You no longer take ability score penalties from aging and cannot be magically aged. Any penalties you may have already incurred remain in place, however. Mental ability score bonuses still accrue, and you still die of old age when you reach the end of your natural lifespan.

... Teshallas’ final Boon is unbelievably bad.

For reference, a great many other deities grant you eternal youth as a side-effect of their Boon’s true benefit, and still others who grant you eternal youth do so while also giving you eternal life. Teshallas does neither of these things, and doesn’t even have the decency to reward your service by undoing any age penalties you may already have (which would be against their whole domain, but y’know).

This is just a huge slap in the face for anyone wishing to work with the Primordial Poison and hoping for a potent blessing once you’ve reached level 16. Hell, in most sessions? This won’t even matter since you’re not likely to be roleplaying long enough for your characters to age to the point they take penalties. This is basically a blank Boon. This is a third Boon that’s worse than the second Boon, which should NEVER happen.

If I were DM, I’d just scrap this whole thing and replace it with something more befitting a god that claims to be responsible for the mortal aging process in the first place. Or, at the very least, I’d slap on a secondary benefit to make it more attractive. I dunno--maybe a boost to mental ability scores, or forcibly (and permanently) aging someone, or something. Bleh.

You can read more about them here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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mimik-u · 6 years

Text

Flower Child, Chapter 11: Texts (II)

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day, friends! I'm so very appreciative of you guys. Slowly, but surely, we're edging to the heart of "Flower Child." (If I can stop being distracted by the inner workings of characters' minds long enough to focus on plot, we might just get there soon, lol.)

AO3

Sunday, 11:32 AM:

Blue: Oh, Steven.

Blue: I’m so sorry to hear that

Her slender fingers hovering just above the touchscreen, Blue Diamond hit send prematurely and realized that she had forgotten to punctuate her text just seconds after she did. Of course, an unfinished sentence wasn’t the end of the world—not in this era of instant communication where proper grammar had been relegated to stuffy scholarly types (such as herself) and punctilious mothers over forty (such as herself).

But.

The mistake shattered her anyway.

Because it wasn’t about the sentence, nor was it about the grammar. It was about all of the other unfinished things that she had been intimately acquainted with over the course of her lifetime.

It was the fact that she had never finished Les Misérables in grad school, though she had written a beautiful essay on it all the same. It was unfinished diary entries and unfinished diet attempts, her unfinished career and the singularly unfinished look about her these days. In the mirror, she was a ghost’s approximation of a human, tall and smudged and broken. In the part of the world she once ruled with a sure fist, she was very well a ghost to all of the people who had once known her name.

It was her relationship with her mother that ended on the very day she started dating Yellow all those many years ago.

You should be ashamed of yourself, was paradoxically both a complete sentence and an incomplete one, drawing lines in sands and tearing her asunder at the same time.

And it was Pink Diamond—unfinished at twenty-one years old.

But then again, it was always Pink Diamond, everything about her—her high, lilting laugh and her freckled smile, the way she wrapped her thin arms around Blue’s waist and called her home.

It was that last unfinished fight that never ended in I’m sorry or I love you.

You’ll never let me grow up, will you?

And now, it was Steven Universe, the boy from the cemetery, the flower child, the first smile she had worn on her face in years.

Blue buried her long face in her hands and prayed to the God that she did not believe in anymore, that this child would not become another unfinished thing.

Sunday, 11:47 AM:

With a sigh that reached into her bones and hollowed them out for good measure, Pearl finished texting everyone who needed to be texted—all of their friends and family, and sometimes, the friends and family of their friends and family. The list of reassurances, blending into one another after awhile, went a little something like this:

Pearl: Thanks for checking in! I’ll keep you updated.

Pearl: He’s stable! Just resting now.

Pearl: Oh, sure! A casserole would be lovely. Thanks, Barb. Lapis and Peridot are house-sitting, so you can drop it off with them.

Pearl: Please don’t kill our cats. <3

Pearl: Thank you for the kind words.

And for the thoughts.

Prayers.

But not quite condolences.

(Thankfully, not condolences.)

Pearl: No, my apologies. Now wouldn’t be a great time to visit. Maybe later?

But at the same time:

Pearl: He’s fine! :)

Pearl: He’s stable!

Pearl: Don’t worry!

Pearl: He’s fine!

She was a broken turn table, all scratched up, repeating the same few lines over and over again until she forgot that there was such a thing as the rest of the song.

Stability was not a given for Steven Universe anymore, and fine was such a relative word.

He was fine yesterday, laughing and cutting up and inflating balloons on the beach.

He was fine a week ago, bruised and weary for sure, but on his own feet and independent of machines, giving flowers to random ladies in cemeteries.

And he was fine eight months ago, on the verge of becoming an eighth grader at the local middle school—and then he woke Pearl up in the middle of the night to tell her that it hurt to pee. There had been tears in his dark eyes.

Blood in the toilet.

A diagnosis three weeks later.

Pearl: Hello, I’m so sorry for the late notice, but Steven is in the hospital again. I won’t be able to make my shift tonight.

The three dots appeared almost instantly, much to her clammy chagrin.

Her manager replied: so sorry to hear that! i’ll take you off the schedule. do you need tomorrow night off as well?

Pearl: No! In fact, I can pick up a double tomorrow. Two to closing?

Manager: great!

Pearl needed to be with Steven, needed to hold his hand and press kisses into his forehead, needed to weather every tube and test, every hell and high water, but because life was perverse and they all had horrible health insurance, she needed the money to take care of Steven more.

Trying to ensure that someone didn’t die wasn’t cheap, they had learned fourteen years ago with Rose. But, of course, even that ample forewarning didn’t soften the blow of their current financial situation, which was… dire.

For a couple of months now, they’d been toying with selling with the beach house.

It was prime real estate, secluded on the far side of the beach as it was.

(It was home. How could they even dare?)

“You look like you’ve been kicked, Pearl.”

Pearl looked up from her phone to find Garnet staring at her from Steven’s bed, where she was still curled around their boy though he’d long been passed out from his latest puking spell. (Yogurt. He couldn’t hold down yogurt.) Her bicolored gaze had always been intense, for Garnet was an intense person, but now, it pierced through Pearl like an x-ray and found her wanting.

Her sadness was seen.

Keenly.

Summed up in seven quiet words.

“I’m working a double tomorrow,” she murmured, looking away, anywhere but those eyes where she was known. “You’ll have to call me as soon as he’s done with testing.”

Earlier, Dr. Maheswaran had told her that UNOS would require Steven to have nigh daily blood work done in order to ensure that he was still viable for a kidney transplant. More testing would also ensure that he remained relatively high on the list should a kidney ever become available.

Garnet nodded, meticulous to move only her chin so as not to disturb Steven and all of his tubing. One of his wire infested hands was curled tightly into her shirt.

“You know I will.” But then, with a wry smile hinting at her disdain for phones: “Or Greg will. Or Amethyst—if Amethyst will ever leave the room.”

It was both a joke and not a joke, a joke and a light admonition in that subtle way only Garnet could accomplish.

Shame was a hot trickle of dread in Pearl’s stomach, a pink blush across her cheeks.

“I went overboard last night, didn’t I?”

Another nod. The various machinery currently keeping Steven alive whirred around them in place of a reply.

“I hurt her feelings,” Pearl whispered as the night came rushing back to her—Steven pale and cold beneath her hands, the rage that snarled through her teeth as she locked eyes with Amethyst, who could only stand there and sob and apologize, and oh, how that had irritated her in the moment. “I said some awful things.”

The admission was a horrible creature, condemning her where she sat, twisting all her insides up until she felt like a monster.

“I should apologize,” she said, and then immediately added, “Right?”

Garnet—she could all but see herself in the other’s dual toned eyes, how her face was contorted in a desperate plea—shouldn’t I apologize? It feels like I should apologize, but I just don’t know anymore, and all of these decisions and words and empty texts are all getting to be so heavy.

Please.

Please tell me what to do.

I’m so lost.

Garnet studied her in silence for a longer moment still, her expression as impenetrable as ever, until her dark brow suddenly relaxed, unfurling across her eyes in a softness that was meant to be a tiny kindness for Pearl.

“You should apologize, Pearl.”

All of the puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place.

She should apologize.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

“And Pearl?”

“Yes, Garnet?”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

Sunday, 12:09 PM:

Pearl: Hi, Amethyst. It’s Pearl.

Pearl: But you knew that, of course, because I’m programmed in your phone, and goodness, I’m already making a mess of this, aren’t I?

Pearl: -_-

Pearl: At any rate, I’m just texting to say… I’m sorry.

Pearl: I’m so sorry for how I acted last night, what I said to you and what I did. It was uncalled for in the highest order, which is to say that I unfairly blamed you for something that you absolutely could not control.

Pearl: Steven’s sick—really sick—and I’ve been trying to ignore that reality for as long as it’s been /our/ reality. When you opened that window last night, I presume you were trying to correct my mistakes when it comes to Steven. You tried to show him the truth, and that is such an incredibly brave thing to do.

Pearl: I’m proud of you, Amethyst, and I miss you, and I love you, and I’m sorry.

Sunlight leaned against her face, and exhaustion leaned against her entire body. Pearl closed her dark eyes in defiance of both of these heavy things and let her templed hands fall into her lap, her long fingers still curled around her phone.

“You did it,” Garnet murmured quietly from the bed.

“I did,” Pearl replied.

Oxygen hissed into Steven.

Wires measured the beat of his heart.

Pearl’s phone buzzed once and then twice.

Sunday, 12:11 PM:

Amethyst: love you p

Amethyst: b there in a minute?

A smile quivered across the thin line of Pearl’s mouth.

She was so happy, and she was so sad—all at the same time.

Sometimes, these two feelings felt like they were one in the same.

Pearl: See you then.

Sunday, 1:40 PM:

Connie: Hi, Mom, can I come visit Steven?

Priyanka: Mmm, for a little while if your dad will bring you up here. Don’t wake him up if he’s still napping, though. He has an early shift tomorrow.

Connie: Okay! :) We’re in the parking lot.

Priyanka: You’re in the WHAT now?

Connie: Well, I wanted to see Steven, and Dad wanted to check out that new wax museum between 2nd and 4th, so it worked out!

Sunday, 1:43 PM:

Priyanka: Doug.

Doug: Our daughter is a singularly persuasive human being.

Priyanka: Doug.

Doug: … Wax Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Sunday, 1:45 PM:

Priyanka: 4th floor. Truman Ward. I’ll meet you at the doors to let you in.

Connie: Thanks, Mom!

Sunday, 1:45 PM:

Steven: Hey, don’t be sorry!

Steven: It’s just a fact of my life, you know? I’m going to fight, Blue.

Steven: I promise.

Sunday, 1:54 PM:

Connie: Steven, I’m on my way up!

Steven: WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Steven: Give me the play by play. I’m bored

Connie: Okay! First floor, passing the gift shop.

Connie: Now boarding the elevator.

Connie: Contrary to everything “Under the Knife” has ever told me, there are no meet-cutes between superfluously handsome doctors in this dingy little vessel. :(

Steven: You watch Under the Knife too?!?!?!?!

Connie: Yes! It’s one of my favorite shows! (On the fourth floor.)

Steven: Who’s your favorite doctor?

Connie: Oh, probably Stebbins.

Steven: :o

Steven: Stebbins is so mean, though!!

Connie: But he’s efficient! That has to count for something.

The three dots cropped up in a hilariously quick instant, but Connie was faster, shooting off a reply as her red converses squeaked to a stop at the double doors guarding Truman Ward from the rest of the floor. A plain, if abrasive, sign next to the doors instructed her to RING THE BELL FOR ENTRY, but the plexiglas windows in the center of the doors revealed that her mom was just on the other side, chatting with a nurse.

Connie lightly rapped on one of the windows with her knuckles to snag her mother’s attention. Attention promptly snagged, and with a visible sigh that could only be described as fond, her mother nodded and reached past the nurse to hit a button on the wall.

The doors spread outwards.

Connie barreled into her mom’s lab coated arms.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hello, Connie.”

And then they quickly disentangled themselves, so they could study each other like the scientists they both were. In a sweeping glance, she could tell that her mom had had a rough night. Exhibit A: Her hair was in a ponytail. (It was never in a ponytail.) Exhibit B: She looked positively wispy with fatigue, all of the lines in her face frayed and fraying. It made sense. She’d been called out of bed a little after ten last night, and she’d just gotten off of a day shift a few hours before that.

Exhaustion was scrawled all over her like a prescription.

“I presume your father went to go ogle wax people?” Priyanka asked with a wry tilt of her head.

“Yup,” Connie replied, proffering a wry smile of her own. The nurse her mom had been talking to waved a polite goodbye to them both before heading out through the double doors.

“And I also presume that you’re not even remotely sorry for driving up here without asking my permission first, correct?” It was both a harsh question, and it was not, wrangled into something softer by the resignation in her brow.

Connie at least had the decency to feign shame.

“Something like that,” she said sheepishly, studying the floor and then her mother’s impenetrable eyes and then the floor again.

Priyanka sighed, but to her daughter’s surprise, hooked an arm around her shoulder.

“Well then, let’s go see Steven.”

The harsh overheads smiled coldly upon their heads as they began to walk. They passed a nurse’s station, a small girl whimpering on a gurney, swarming scrubs and lab coats. The air tasted like hand sanitizer, and the weight of where she was at, and why she was here, slowly began to dawn on Connie for the first time since she had conceived of this visit.

“Is it bad?” The question stumbled out of her mouth like an accident. Room 11030. Room 11031. They were getting close. Her palms were beginning to feel slippery. “I mean, is he bad?”

Her mother thought on it between Rooms 11032 and 11034, her frown deep, her grip on Connie tight.

“Yes,” she finally conceded, “but also no. He’s certainly in the most dire condition I’ve ever seen him, but I also think we might be close to securing him a kidney. He’s high on the list now. There’s no way that…” She trailed off suddenly, frayed and fraying, unable to complete what seemed like a consolation to Connie’s ears.

Her palm was carving itself into her shoulder.

Room 11037’s door was half-open, laughter and machinery spilling from the crack, an unlikely symphony, an oxymoron—just like him.

Him.

The disease.

His unwavering smile.

The machine.

Connie tilted her chin and found a confusion in her mother’s eyes that matched her own.

They were both problem solvers.

Mathematicians.

Logicians.

Scientists.

And here was a problem. Here was a boy who did not deserve what he had gotten.

And there was no easy solution in sight.

Connie leaned her head against her mother’s knuckles to show her that she knew, and her mother closed her tired eyes—just for a moment—to revel in the fact that she was known.

“You’re such a dork, Stevo,” Amethyst riffed from the other side of the door.

“Always,” Steven laughed—warm and bright, here and leaving.

Priyanka rapped smartly on the door.

Sunday, 1:54 PM:

Blue: You’re incredibly brave, Steven.

Steven: Aw, shucks. You’re flattering me!

Blue: Oh, I suppose I so.

Blue: Could I come visit you soon?

Steven: YES!!

Blue: Would tomorrow be a good time?

Steven: Yeah, I think so! I have a few tests in the morning, but my afternoon should be free. 2ish maybe?

Blue: That sounds perfect.

The living room was cavernous and lonely; sunlight streamed in from the floor to ceiling windows and contrarily had the effect of making everything it touched look all the more abandoned. The ornately embroidered sofa. The glass coffee table. Blue Diamond herself, sitting in her recliner, looking down at her phone. Her skin was so pale that it was stained blue by the light wash emitting from the screen.

So she was getting out tomorrow, it seemed.

To a place that wasn’t her doctor’s office.

Or the cemetery.

Or her doctor’s office.

Or the cemetery.

The action wouldn’t feel real to her until it happened, but the ache she felt for the boy on the other end of the line was raw and visceral, and it was so reminiscent of another time that was raw and visceral, that she began to think of it and her and that night and all of the empty time since and—

An involuntary cry escaped her.

She covered her mouth.

And closed her eyes.

And did nothing as a single tear spilled over her knuckles and into the dark folds of her robe.

But crying itself was just as untenable as not crying—old-hat and tiring and destructive—so she got up as swiftly as she could manage with her hip, and with her cane clanking ahead of her, traced a familiar pathway across the wooden floor. Past the kitchen and into the hallway. Past Yellow’s study, where typing noises and intermittent swearing could be heard from within. Past ghosts of little ballerina feet scampering down the foyer.

And Blue Diamond stopped at the door between the study and the master bedroom.

And she placed her hand on the knob, her shaking fingers disturbing the brass.

And she turned it, just a little, just enough to hear the door groan in compliance with her wishes.

And then she stopped.

She let go of the knob.

And slowly clanked back to the study and knocked lightly on the door. The typing on the other side stopped abruptly.

“Poppy?” Yellow asked.

“No,” Blue whispered, and that was all that was needed.

There was a soft oh of recognition and the creaking of a well-worn chair. The stumbling of feet. A handle pulled. Yellow Diamond was stark and brilliant, surprised and tender, in the golden light flooding from behind her. It was a Sunday, so she wasn’t in a three-piece suit, but her button-down shirt was meticulously ironed, the collar popped up around the sinewy muscles of her neck.

“Blue,” she said, quite unnecessarily, and she must have realized it because pink popped across her sharp cheekbones. She must have realized this, too, because she began talking and began talking fast. “Do you need something? Are you ill? Should I fetch Livia?”

It’d been a long time since Blue had intentionally sought her out.

Had come to her.

Had wanted her.

It was usually the other way around with them.

Blue slowly shook her head, her long braid swishing in time with the motion. Her right hand trembled on the head of her cane.

“I was thinking about Pink,” she said quietly, and Yellow’s instinctive rebuttal was clear in her amber eyes.

You’re always thinking about Pink.

But instead, because she was trying hard not to offend, simply whispered, “Okay.”

It was a vulnerable word, or she was vulnerable today one; the distinction was lost in the small space between them.

Yellow’s entire body was taut, a rubber band that had been stretched too far.

“And I was about to find myself in her room again,” Blue continued on, but then, seeing the stricken expression on her wife’s face, tilted her head to the side. “But I didn’t, Yellow… I didn’t chase her ghost today.”

If it’d been up to Yellow, the whole room would have been razed down. (Damn the logistics of destroying a room within a home.)

But because it was up to Blue, the room was a monument to their dead daughter. There were still pink sticky notes on her nightstand that reminded the twenty-one year old to study for an upcoming Calculus exam, books on the floor, clothes in the hamper.

Everything coated in a fine layer of dust.

Yellow swallowed thickly and looked away; even still, Blue could see every line in her face, the strain in them, how they convulsed against her will.

She wanted to reach out to her.

She did not.

“Ask me what I’m going to do tomorrow, Yellow.”

This certainly caught her attention, a command from a woman who had not done much commanding as of late.

Her gaze flickered to Blue’s and stayed there, searching and lost.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m going to visit a friend in the hospital.” She said it very simply, like it was just another part of her routine, but it wasn’t, and they both knew it.

It was momentous, and Yellow’s plump lips parted in quiet shock.

“You’re… you’re,” she struggled, the words seemingly strangled in her mouth, “you’re getting out?”

“I’m going to try to,” Blue replied evenly, and then she thought on it, clarified herself. “For him at least… his name is Steven.”

“The boy you had cakes with?”

“Yes.”

“The boy who… who made you smile,” she murmured this to herself as though she didn’t believe Blue could hear her.

But she did.

Obviously.

And it surprised her.

She studied the sharp planes of Yellow’s face and found quiet anguish, tucked in the way she pursed her lips, creased in the shadows beneath her striking eyes.

Unspoken: He made you smile. I could not.

“Yes,” Blue repeated because it was also the truth, even if it was a painful one to admit.

But to be fair, all of their truths were painful these days. Their daughter was dead, and her room was empty, and Blue Diamond half-wanted to be dead, and for four years, she had scarcely cared that she was living. And Yellow Diamond liked to pretend that none of this had scarred her in lasting ways, but there were lines in her face that had never been there before, and sometimes, just sometimes, she sat her in study and cried when she thought no one was listening. And they were approaching their twilight years, and there was no turning back. The bell was rung, and their daughter was dead, and they might never be happy again, and—

That was the truth.

Yellow closed her eyes and then unclosed them, obviously trying to master her emotions into locations that weren’t words.

“Will he… be okay?” But she was only human, despite what she'd have the common person believe, so strain leaked out into the innocuous question anyway.

“I don’t know,” Blue murmured, and this truth stung with all the others.

She could be caring for this boy only to end up shattered if he died.

And the possibility of this was not lost on Yellow Diamond. Cynical. Skeptical. Practical.

It shone in her eyes, in the firm set of her jaw.

What came next, however, was not an admonition, but a small gesture. And because it was a small gesture, and because small gestures were rare between them, it was felt: Yellow reached out, slowly, almost cautiously, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind Blue’s ear. Her lined palm lingered against her cheek for an infinitesimal second before falling into a clenched fist by her side.

“Well, at least he’s got a chance.”

Unspoken: Pink didn’t.

Blue Diamond found that she missed her wife’s touch.

The weight of it.

The warmth.

“Yes,” she concurred. “At least he has a chance.”

Sunday, 2:25 PM:

Pearl: I absolutely love her!!

Amethyst: we’re literally sitting next 2 each other lol

Pearl: Yes, but I don’t want to embarrass them… I’m just so happy that Steven has a new friend! She’s so nice and smart!

Amethyst: to b fair he’s also friends w/ an old lady in a bathrobe now

Pearl: Ugh, don’t remind me.

Amethyst looked up from her phone at the very same time that Pearl looked up from her phone, and then they studiously tried to not look at each other as they trembled in silent laughter. But because they were both assholes, they failed at this monumentally simple task, and locked eyes just long enough to break them both.

“Stop,” Pearl moaned, clutching her stomach in a feeble attempt of getting herself back under control.

“You first,” Amethyst shot back, laughing too hard to punctuate the threat with a shit-eating grin.

The entire room turned to look at them. Dr. M drew herself away from her chart long enough to raise an eyebrow. Garnet and Greg stared, one quite subtly and one quite openly. On the bed, Steven and Connie extracted themselves from the book they were reading.

“Whatcha laughing about?” Steven asked cutely. He tilted his head with a conspiratorial smile, and his entire oxygen getup slid sideways with him.

“Nothing,” Pearl said.

“Cats,” Amethyst said at the very same time.

And they dissolved all over again.

Pearl placed a steadying hand on Amethyst’s shoulder, and Amethyst leaned into the touch as their bodies shook with laughter.

Nothing was right with their world, but just for a moment, they pretended like it could be.

Priyanka Maheswaran’s frown deepened the longer she stared at her clipboard.

And it positively turned into a scowl when she read Steven’s heart monitor.

Sunday, 3:18 PM:

Steven: Thanks for coming to visit me today!

Connie: Of course! I had so much fun meeting everyone!

Steven: They liked meeting you too!!!

Connie: Score!!!

Weariness was like a second skin on her mother as they walked down Truman Ward again. She said nothing, only deigning to nod at various colleagues who greeted her as they walked by.

Connie wanted to talk about Steven, wanted to talk about Garnet, Amethyst, and especially Pearl, whom she had a lot in common with—but she bit her lip against a torrent of questions and studied the way her shoes scraped against the clinically clean floor instead.

Because she knew.

She’d seen the way Steven’s whole body was manifested with tubes and the bags under his guardians’ eyes and the fear in his eyes that he tried so hard to hide with a smile.

When they had first arrived, she had hugged him as tenderly as his machinery would allow and asked him if he was okay.

And he only shook his head and laughed like he was.

Because he knew.

And she knew.

And everyone in that room knew.

(He was dying. It was happening fast.)

As they exited the double doors, Connie reached up and tentatively took her mother’s hand.

Her mother did not let go in response.

#blue diamond #steven universe #yellow diamond #bellow diamond #connie maheswaran #priyanka maheswaran #garnet #pearl #amethyst #s: steven universe #flower child #mimik-u

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chrono-logy-blog · 6 years

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Ativision/Blizzard layoffs and community DoomSaying

There have been a lot of discussions and emotions in the world of Activision and Blizzard Entertainment in recent days, and events have sparked a lot of thought and responses from the business world and the gaming community. For those who are unaware, on Tuesday, February 12th, Activision/Blizzard laid off approximately 8% of their workforce, around 800 workers, this coming after the company reported their quarterly profit analysis for the 4th quarter of 2018, as well as the yearly report for 2018 as a whole. There were a lot of layers to the report and the decision to lay off so many workers, so it is understandable that people may be unable or unwilling to process all the information provided to them. Like many others, I myself had a very emotional and passionate reaction to the whirlpool of information and misinformation that surrounded Tuesday. While pondering my own feelings and how to best express them, it became clear that there was a lot to say, and that a blog post would be the only appropriate and efficient way to get out both information and my reactions. So I am going to take a brief moment to introduce myself, give you a little background, and then we will get to breaking down the profit reports, the layoffs, and what all of this information means for Blizzard in the future. If you wish to know more about me, I am an open book in DMs or comments, as well as available on multiple other social media platforms. This introduction, however, is focused on the information you need to know about me for the relevance of the topic at hand. My name is Michael, and I am known over gaming social media outlets as "Chrono." I have been playing World of Warcraft since 2009, specifically near the release of Patch 3.2.0, otherwise known as "Call of the Crusade" during Wrath of the Lich King. After playing WoW for a few months, I fell in love with Blizzard storytelling and began expanding my interests in the company. 10 years later I have played every game produced since then, fallen in love with countless other Blizzard stories, specifically Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void and the original story of Diablo III. I am something of a staunch defender of Blizzard and the decisions they make, and it that will probably become more clear as the article goes on. In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I love Blizzard Entertainment and I always will, and I think they do a much better job than their community gives them credit for.

That being said, let's dive right into the information that probably had the most emotion attached to it on Tuesday, which was the layoff of about 8% of employees at Activision/Blizzard. There is nothing one person can say to ease the pain of so many lost opportunities. I have read several tweets and statements from former employees, expressing their sadness about what happened to them. Nothing I write here is meant to diminish the struggle those people and their families now face. Every single person who lost their job as a result of these layoffs has my sincerest and most heartfelt sympathies. I wish every single one of them the very best, because they deserve it. I don't know anyone personally affected, but I can imagine none of them will ever be able to replace their work at Blizzard. I know I wouldn't be able to if I was in their shoes. With that in mind, it's a struggle to witness. I know companies have to make hard decisions like these, but at the same time, I personally cannot help but believe there is always a better path. I would never presume to know better than the leaders of the company, but it is frustrating that in 2019, we still cannot find a better way to restructure a company aside from scrapping such a large portion of the workforce. At the same time, it is important to remember that these lost jobs were not overly about money and profits. Granted, its big business, everything ultimately comes down to money and profits. We'll get to the profit analysis in a moment, but suffice it to say that 2018 overall was a very good year for the company, profit-wise. So these layoffs are about the structure of the company and bringing in fresh blood and new ideas on how to grow into the future. This is not to say that there is a viable excuse for huge cuts to jobs, especially when these people worked day and night to get the company where it is now, but Blizzard seems to understand this, and is doing some small gestures to try and ease the pain of their decisions. After the layoffs happened on Tuesday, Blizzard President, J. Allen Brack, had this to say:

"This was an extremely difficult decision, and we want to acknowledge the effort of everyone who has contributed to Blizzard. To assist with the transition, we are offering each impacted employee a severance package that includes additional pay, benefits continuation, and career and recruiting support to help them find their next opportunity. These people are members of the Blizzard family—they’ve cared deeply and contributed greatly to our work here and we are extremely grateful for all they’ve done."

This does not, of course, instantly absolve the company of the layoff of about 800 workers, but at least there is an acknowledgment of the struggle of their former employees. It is also important to note that quarter 1 of 2019 is the first real business quarter of the Presidency of J. Allen Brack, who took over for Mike Morhaime towards the end of 2018. This is important because historically, when you have a change of hands like that at such a high level in a big company, the change flows down the corporate ladder and positions will change. Again, this is not an excuse or a justification, but before the intolerable Blizzard fan base starts screaming about their world being on fire, it's important to take a breath and look at the facts.

Speaking of those facts, these layoffs came at the heels of the company's earnings report for quarter 4 of 2018 and the year overall. This is the part where a lot of the misinformation occurs. There is a lot to this report, and admittedly, I am not business savvy enough to understand every aspect of it, but there are some clear defining points, and plans by Blizzard for 2019. First and foremost, so that no one misunderstands this one simple, indisputable fact: Blizzard made more money in 2018 than any year in their history. This seems on the surface to conflict with the layoffs that occured at the same time. If the company is on strong foundations, why would they layoff so many people? There are a couple answers that seem to make the most sense and likely a combination of them is the truth. First, even though 2018 was an amazing year for Activision/Blizzard, the fourth quarter of 2018 did fall short of expectations. The reasons for this are entirely speculation, unless someone has some insight into the minds of the corporate board and CEOs. Likely, however, everyone speculating on why the fourth quarter was a strugglebus experience is simply speculating based on their own broken experiences. Another firm reason for the layoffs despite record profits is, as previously mentioned, the change of hands at the highest level of the company is often met with countless changes flowing down the ranks. The third reason, and the one the company is putting forward the most, is the simple fact that they are reimagining every team and all their development and marketing tactics. Put simply, Blizzard wants new people involved, and cannot or will not hire waves and waves of people without first cutting jobs. Again, none of this is supposed to make anyone feel better about the layoffs, but it is meant to state one thing very clearly: The company is not falling apart. Their PR struggles with Diablo: Immortal or Battle for Azeroth are not tanking the company. There's no impending doom for Blizzard games, and there's certainly no reason for "fans" to abandon ship or throw around their usual doomsaying attitude. The community responses to just about everything since the release of Battle for Azeroth has been atrocious, and if by some miracle this article catches the eye of any Blizzard game developer, I appreciate the fact that you are too nice to lash back at the community, so I am going to do it for you. The sheer disrespect towards people who spend their entire lives making games for us to enjoy, almost entirely over senseless and trivial matters, is ridiculous and unacceptable, especially in the wake of serious matters like 800 people at the company being out of work. One of the Warcraft content creators I have the most respect for, The Lost Codex said it best with a Twitter post aimed at inspiring positive feedback for the developers, mere days before the layoffs occurred:

"The vitriol from the Community has been heartbreaking to witness. Passionate & beautifully creative people have been demonized & instead of spiting at every tweet, let’s cheer them on. Remind them why they started their career path & acknowledge their passion that we all share."

So what does this mean for the company going forward? Well, according to their statements, Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Diablo will all see an increase of around 20% to their development teams. This means more hires and supports the idea that Blizzard is looking for new people and new ideas, rather than hitting the big red button over money problems. It also means that at a minimum, these 4 franchises are continuing into the foreseeable future. As for the other Blizzard IPs, its likely they will conversely take a seat on the back burner, with Starcraft II's WCS the highlight of the other IPs, which is unlikely to die given its massive global following. It's also important to note that World of Warcraft has a set content timeline that cannot and will not be affected by the massive employment changes. Warcraft and Overwatch are clearly set to be the highlights of 2019, with the 3 major Warcraft projects still in motion, and the emphasis on eSports in 2019, which Overwatch has become a pillar of in the Blizzard community. This is about all we know beyond the layoffs at the moment. As a huge Starcraft fan, I'm disappointed that the prospect of the franchise dying after falling in love with the characters and plot lines. I also, however, believe that Blizzard will continue to develop into the future if we the community just give them a chance. They are not evil, they are not out to spite anyone.

Finally, a special message to the Diablo community. Now is the time to quit the whining. Diablo is getting so much future attention. Regardless of what people may think of Diablo: Immortal, there have been no cancellation announcements. Neither have there been any such disappointing news on the subject of Diablo 4, which we know is in the works. The Diablo community is getting everything they want from Blizzard, despite the selfish reactions to Diablo: Immortal and the wait for Diablo 4. (Obviously people have already forgotten how long the wait was for Diablo 3) So, in short, now is the time to be optimistic and give the Devs a chance to please your inflated egos.

To sum up, it was a sad day for the company and the community on Tuesday. I cannot stress enough how much my heart goes out to the 800 workers who lost their jobs. I would be lost in their position, but I know they are stronger people than I, and they will bounce back. It's going to be an off year, a disappointing year to some, but no one should simply be a fan of Blizzard when everything is going well. If we want to call ourselves part of the Blizzard family, now is when the company needs our understanding the most. You can be against the layoffs, you can have constructive criticism of game mechanics, marketing plans, and IP franchises. But I ask... I implore everyone reading this to stay positive and not lash out. Be the Blizzard family everyone deserves. No matter how bleak things seem at the time, I can hold my head high with tears in my eyes, and be proud to be a fan that knows Blizzard will grow from these sad times and create even more amazing gaming experiences in the future. I hope you will join me. Thank you for reading. En Taro Adun, Lok-tar Ogar, and Cheers, Luv.

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ronaldsmcrae86 · 3 years

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How to Make Money Writing: 5 Ways to Get Paid to Write in 2021

Listen:

Most writers never get rich.

You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that.

But is it possible to make a nice little side hustle income? Get paid to write from time to time?

Absolutely.

Free Training: A Cheat Sheet for Becoming a Freelance Writer, Starting from Scratch

In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to make money writing – different strategies, how to do it – basically, everything you need.

Let’s start by talking about what’s possible (and what’s not).

Table of Contents:

The Truth About How to Make Money Writing

The 5 Most Realistic Ways to Make Money Writing

Write Articles for Popular Blogs, Magazines and Journals

Create Collateral for Content-Hungry Businesses

Become a Best-Selling Kindle Author

Sell Yourself as a Conversion-Focused Copywriter

Build a Niche Blog and Promote Third Party Products

It’s Time to Choose Your Path and Finally Make Money Writing

The Truth about How to Make Money Writing

Writing for a living offers a ton of advantages – you get to choose when and where you work, and with whom.

No wonder this promise of creative and personal freedom attracts so many people.

But the truth is that most of them don’t want to think about the practicalities of becoming a full-time freelance writer.

They don’t want to think about the uncertainty, the rejection, the self-doubt.

They don’t want to think about all the small, unglamorous tasks that make a writer’s life possible.

Deep down they fear their perfect dream will tarnish if they drag it down to earth. So it just hangs there in a shiny bubble, waiting for the day it miraculously comes true.

But let’s be honest — it just won’t happen. Or do you really think someone will approach you one day and say:

“Hey there. I heard from someone that you were thinking of writing something, someday, and I’ve love to pay you to see where that someday could lead.”

Of course not, but without a concrete strategy, that is what it would take to make your distant dream of having a writing career a reality.

Experience shows that vague plans fail. Grounding your dreams in reality is what makes them happen. Even if it means thinking about the things you’d rather not consider.

It’s not enough to say you want to make a living as a writer; you need to know how. You need a concrete plan to bridge the gap from where you are now to where you want to be.

And the more realistic your plan, the better. Don’t bet the farm on a path that only a small handful of super talented (or incredibly lucky) outliers have followed. Choose one that’s worked for lots of people.

The 5 Most Realistic Ways to Make Money Writing

Get Paid to Write Articles for Blogs, Magazines, and Journals

Make Money by Creating Collateral for Content-Hungry Businesses

Get Paid to Write by Becoming a Best-Selling Kindle Author

Make Money Writing as a Conversion-Focused Copywriter

Build a Niche Blog and Promote Third Party Products

1. Get Paid to Write Articles for Blogs, Magazines, and Journals

Despite talk of global “content fatigue,” major publications — both on- and offline — must keep publishing content or die. Just look at the plentiful opportunities for writing gigs on any job board.

That means popular WordPress blogs, magazines, and journals remain hungry for quality content writing — and many are willing to pay good money for it too. You’ll need to hustle to find the best paid writing jobs, understanding that success won’t happen overnight. But freelancing for these publications is still a smart way to make money online as a writer.

Let’s start with the blogs.

Although writing articles for popular blogs (a.k.a. guest blogging) is still typically unpaid, with most new writers trading their content for exposure (via a byline or author bio), numerous exceptions still exist.

Editor’s Note: Guest blogging opportunities can be found with search engines (Google and Bing) and social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) if you know where to look. If you need a one-stop shop, check out Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing for a comprehensive list of sites that pay for guest articles.

A well-written guest post can lead to freelance writing gigs and other paid work. Take this blog as an example: we’ve approached several guest writers to create content for our paid courses, and paid them several thousand dollars for their work.

And what about the world of print? Is that still a viable way to make a living as a writer in this day and age of online everything?

Traditional publishing has had a rough ride, but many consumer magazines are still going strong, and many of these publications still pay well for a feature article. Of course, you can’t expect to land a lucrative opportunity right away — you’ll need to climb the ladder via smaller, local publications, building your credibility as you go.

Likewise, trade journals crave quality articles within their narrow topic area and many are waking up to the more conversational, engaging writing style that writing for the web demands. Also, talented bloggers with proven specialist knowledge can often skip the ladder-climbing and break in with the right pitch.

In general, the secret to making this model work is being tenacious about chasing down opportunities — whether it’s ghostwriting or regular freelance writing work — and being efficient with your writing once you land them.

The people who follow this model successfully are like writing machines — they crank out quality content quickly and don’t allow themselves to get bogged down in any one project.

Editor’s Note: The Medium Partner Program is worth considering too. The more you publish, the greater your chances of building consistent, passive income over time.

2. Make Money by Creating Collateral for Content-Hungry Businesses

In the last five years, content marketing — this concept of creating valuable content to attract customers and build credibility and trust — has undoubtedly gone mainstream.

The result? More and more businesses are getting into the content game. Some have a clear strategy, while others are just jumping on the bandwagon and hoping it pays off down the line.

This has created a market for smart writers who can write for a specific audience. These content-hungry businesses need articles, white papers, case studies — the list goes on. And they fully expect to pay for them.

Breaking into this market can be tough without a few contacts to get you started, but it’s not impossible.

Initially, you may need to jostle for attention with thousands of other eager freelancers vying for online jobs on marketplaces like Upwork.com.

But with patience and hard work you can establish a track record of successful projects and break away from the low-earning masses.

However, this route requires a writing portfolio of content-related skills — not just an understanding of the target niche, but of marketing fundamentals and SEO too. In other words, you’ll need more than a laptop and a passion for writing to impress this crowd — you’ll need to persuade clients that you understand the bigger picture.

One smart way to differentiate yourself as a professional writer is to build your own platform, using blogging and guest blogging to demonstrate the expertise you hope to harness for others.

3. Get Paid to Write by Becoming a Best-Selling Kindle Author

What about making it big as an author? Could that be your best route to a life of freedom as a full-time writer?

Well, it’s certainly more realistic than it used to be. Ten years ago, writing a best-selling book was a distant dream for most writers and self-publishing on Kindle was often dismissed as a vanity exercise.

But today, thanks largely to Amazon and Kindle, the self-published book market is gigantic and making money from writing books is far more achievable.

Enter, the authorpreneur — the author with an entrepreneurial brain.

Of course, more achievable doesn’t mean easy. If you have visions of publishing one book and retiring on the profits, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

To succeed, you need to be commercially minded and target an established market with proven demand from readers. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow your passion but be prepared to validate it first.

You’ll need to be persistent and prolific too — chances are you’ll publish several books before gaining any traction, and you’ll need sales from multiple titles to approach anything resembling a full-time income.

However, according to a report earlier this year from Author Earnings, 1,600 indie authors are earning $25K or above from Amazon book sales, and 1,000 published their first book three years ago or less.

But should you be writing fiction or nonfiction? Nonfiction is the most natural fit for the average blogger, and if you’re blogging in a popular niche, the chances are that books covering similar topics will also be popular.

If you want to find success as a self-nonfiction author, check out Steve Scott. Even though he’s recently switched his attentions to a regular podcast on self-publishing, his old site still has a ton of useful information.

Fiction writing is arguably tougher (and requires a rather different set of creative writing skills), but there’s no denying that your earning potential if you do hit it big, is much larger. And it’s no coincidence that the most famous self-publishing successes are all fiction titles.

For inspiration and direction visit The Creative Penn. Joanna Penn is a prolific fiction (and nonfiction) author and her site is rich with information about making it as a creative writer.

But in either case, you need to be led by the market for topic (or genre) selection. And you need to be prepared to write multiple books before seeing any real results.

One major advantage of this route is that you continue to earn money from your back catalog, sometimes far into the future. Once you start to make a basic living from your writing, additional titles only build your income further.

The secret to making authorpreneurship work for you? Build an email list. Your existing fans are the perfect audience for your next book.

4. Make Money Writing as a Conversion-Focused Copywriter

Copywriting, in a nutshell, is writing that’s designed to make readers take a specific action.

Sales letters, video scripts, even product descriptions — these all need writing by someone, and they live or die on the results they produce.

Copywriting may not seem fundamentally different to other forms of writing skill, but in practice, it’s a discipline all of its own.

While there’s a trend towards more conversational, empathetic copywriting — moving away from the hype-fuelled “hard sell” — you still need a solid understanding of the principles of persuasion.

So unless you have a copywriting background be prepared to invest a lot of time (and possibly money) in learning the fundamentals. There are some excellent books on the topic — CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone (affiliate link) is a good place to start. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark shares his favorite titles here.

The most famous training course on copywriting is probably AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting.

Notwithstanding the steep learning curve, the rewards of copywriting can be significant. A high-converting sales page might earn you $2,000, plus a slice of the revenues too.

As a bonus, a foundation in copywriting will also be valuable should you ever decide to sell your own products.

5. Build a Niche Blog and Promote Third Party Products

I’ll be honest — building a popular blog is tough. Really tough.

And once you’ve scaled your blog beyond a certain point, you might be surprised how little time you actually spend doing the thing you love — writing.

So if your dream is to build a six-figure blog, you’d better be as excited about the prospect of running a business as you are about writing your next blog article. (In fact, if you’re making six figures, writing is one of the things you should probably outsource.)

But there is a path to making money from a blog where you still spend a good proportion of your time writing. And it starts with picking a writing niche where a large, passionate audience already exists and — this is crucial — where you can find successful products from trusted names to sell.

Promoting affiliate products (affiliate marketing) is a much smarter way to start earning money from a blog than creating your own product. With an affiliate product, someone else has already done the hard work of validating the market, building the product, and enhancing it based on customer feedback. Someone else gets to handle the pre-sales inquiries, payments, refunds, and product support.

Many affiliate products pay high commissions too — 50% or even more — because the incremental production cost of digital products is essentially nothing.

The secret is finding the right products — ones that you can stake your reputation on. Pat Flynn is the undisputed king of passive income, earned (mostly) from sales of affiliate products — check out his video on Choosing Affiliates Products to Promote and How to Sell Them.

Ideally, you’ll know what products you’ll sell even before starting your blog because then you’re growing an audience that perfectly matches your offer.

Of course, you still have to do all the stuff that makes a blog successful — publishing great content, building your email list, reaching out to influencers, etc. — but writing remains a big part of the equation, i.e., creating the stellar content that brings people to your site.

Once you’re in a groove, you can think about adding your own products to the mix, using your writing skills and topic knowledge to deliver a specific result that readers are willing to pay for.

But when you’re starting a blog, promoting affiliate products is the most realistic, and least risky, way to make a living from writing.

It’s Time to Choose Your Path and Finally Make Money Writing

Just stop for a moment and ask yourself:

“Am I sabotaging my writing dream by refusing to get real about the how?”

Because you know what… I’m tired of seeing talented writers stuck in lives they don’t love.

So the dreaming stops here — it’s time to decide once and for all.

Are you truly serious about writing for a living, or is it just an idle fantasy to cheer you up when your regular, full-time job gets you down?

If you are serious, then decide: which of these five paths above will you follow? Writing articles for money as a content writer? Content marketing? Becoming an authorpreneur? Copywriting? Or starting a niche blog?

If none of them feels like an exact fit, don’t worry, that’s normal. Pick whichever one’s the closest and try it on for size. Any discomfort is just the price of getting real.

Got one? Excellent.

Let’s turn your perfect dream into an imperfect reality — one where you’re making enough money as a writer to support yourself, and then some…

Just picture the faces of your family and friends when they find out.

The post How to Make Money Writing: 5 Ways to Get Paid to Write in 2021 appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/make-money-writing/

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life-of-khanoor · 3 years

Text

July 6, 2021

I never ended up posting my April draft because I had more to say and think about but I just forgot about it because during such a traumatic moment in my life I decided the smart thing to do would be to add more stress to my life even though I never even dealt with the first stress.

It all came crumbling down. All of it.

Moral of the story: Take care of your mental health because if your mental health isn’t in order then no matter how much time and energy you pour into everything else - it won’t matter. You need to be okay internally for your external to be okay.

I don’t know where to start. But I’m going to be more consistent with these journal entries, because I have decided to start therapy. I started therapy that was offered at my school in November of last year, but the therapist was only available every 3 weeks and she agreed my problems needed more consistent time to be dealt with. So in December I stopped any form of therapy. In late March to early April, all the truth came out. All the ugly, hideous truth about my past came out to my significant other at the time. I told him that the person he was feeling so insecure about for the 1st year of our relationship, was not my best friend but actually my ex-boyfriend and someone I had been hooking up with while we were together. This ugly truth only came out after his truth came out which was that he also was indulging in some form of cheating not physical, but through the exchange of pictures. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it at all. Which made me realize, he’s actually a really good liar. This made me start thinking about how I could trust him as he goes into dental school with so many females around him. It was driving me insane. Still does from time to time but I just remember that whatever happens, well, God willed it.

Anyways, instead of dealing with the issue, I had a more pressuring matter at hand. The MCAT. The bane of my existence came knocking on my door when I could least handle it. But I had to go in head first because if I didn’t take it now, I would not be able to apply to medical school this cycle, and if that didn’t happen I would be wasting another year of my life and I would be a bigger pile of uselessness. My family already thought of me as useless and wasting their money and if I didn’t take the MCAT, apply to medical school, and get in - I would be proving them right. Well, from May to the end of June I began my grind, I was putting in 8-10 hours a day of studying. I was trying by absolute darn hardest to get it all but 2 weeks before my MCAT, the anxiety hit me in the face. I was waking up every morning with anxiety attacks, the day before my MCAT I woke up and had a panic attack and was crying and was not okay. I honestly still don't think I am. I started therapy but I’ve only gone to 1 session and I unloaded so much past grief and trauma like it’s all so much that’s happened. And I’m trying to get back into it but honestly I’m not ready like clearly I’m not I feel so manic. Through this depressive period in my life (which is still happening but to a lesser extent now that I know I’m holding onto something I need to let go of), I can say for a fact that my “boyfriend” has not in been supportive. If anything, he's made it worse. But thankfully, I met this amazing girl who’s been so supportive even though she has her own issues. I really feel like God send her to me. So if you’re reading this god, thanks for that.

The MCAT didn’t happen. Day before my MCAT I realized I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t ready - not in terms of my prep and not at all in terms of my mental health. That night the boyfriend that I cheated on, who decided to stay with me because of the “goodness” in his heart, unloaded all his hatred, resentment, and angst toward me. This mixed with my own feelings of failure and uncertainty ended it for me. I could not handle it. I could not do it, I could not. I had all this hate for myself pent up. I tried killing myself. This wasn’t the first time I tried or thought about killing myself in the past month and a half. I wanted to end my life, I can’t handle it anymore. It all hurts so much I feel so lost all the time. I feel so empty. Like the shell of a person. I feel alone. And this person man, this guy just isn’t worth it. You know you spend 2 years of your life with someone, they become so ingrained in you, so intertwined with you and you think this is meant to be because you can’t see it working any other way right? But it’s nothing but pain anymore. It’s just a constant reminder of everything bad. Even if now I’m not that person anymore like it’s not possible to live it down. And he thinks it’s possible. God I fucking feel so suffocated with him. I feel locked up. The whole time he stayed with me during my MCAT prep, he made it feel like he was doing me such a huge favor, and indeed he really was but it was because he wanted to be there, I didn’t ask him to be there for me. I was ready to leave, that was the only option that even seemed in any way viable. It’s not like I do better with him around, if anything this whole relationship has been my lowest productivity. But he insisted on staying, and I regret letting him. For fucks sake I cheated on you not once, not twice but probably 5 times, what makes you think we’re meant for each other. We’re not. We had something good. But I ruined it. We keep trying to hold onto our past relationship, what WAS good. But what’s good right now? What? Is there any good right now? You might think it because I’m pasting this smile onto my face because you’re starting dental school and moving to NYC and I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy. But nothing is good. God fucking nothing. I don’t even ENJOY talking to you anymore. I get anxious because I think you’ll judge me for this or that. I’m walking on eggshells with you. I talk to you and I feel the weight on my shoulders getting heavier and my heart feeling weaker. Just because YOU think you’re there for me, doesn’t mean you’re what I need. I can’t even talk to you honestly. I can’t talk to you and feel like I can’t be 100% myself. I feel so scared to even say things anymore so I don’t say them. God you’re not my boyfriend, I don’t even think I’d consider you a friend. There’s no love here. There was. But there isn’t anymore. I listen to our songs and feel nothing. I look at our pictures and I feel sad. There’s nothing between us anymore. You're just hurting me more and more and more. And now I’m here every other day contemplating suicide, like what do you want from me damnit what do you want? It feels like you just wanna suck me dry until there's nothing left. Something with such a bad bad history, could never be something good. Not now anyways. Not after such a fresh deep wound. I need to heal and he does too. We're not together because we love each other lol, we’re together because we’re comfortable here. It’s familiar. But he's about to start the rest of his career in a different city and I need to start the rest of my life without my past weighing me down. So it’s over.

Ending this relationship is probably going to be the best thing I’ve done for myself in a really really really long time. I can already feel the weight being lifted off my shoulders. Maybe all the praying in the middle of the night, waking up with panic attacks, imagining myself dead, maybe this is what it all came down to. Maybe I needed to rid myself of this before I could move onto greater things. God really is the greatest of planners.

I feel so light after getting all this off my chest. I genuinely cannot go another day with this in my life anymore. I think that all this time, all this mental hurt and anguish has been an inner fight with myself. The struggle because I was ready to grow but I wasn’t willing to let go.

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flickwatches · 3 years

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Off Week Takes

We won't be diving too often into APAC (even though its a great region for overwatch). But when I have time I want to talk a little bit about what's happening in APAC OWL, also the Dallas Fuel and Sp9rk1e, and the overall derailment of the French super team Rogue.

APAC

So lets get started by talking about the Guangzhou Charge. A team some "experts" (Custa) are calling possibly the worst team in APAC. At first I thought this was the worst take possble but than I remembered that APAC has less teams than NA and that the Valiant aren't looking that bad (will get into that more later). Mandu and Kariv are still good. Jihun/Rio and Crong are still good. If I had to pick a point of struggle I would pick Coaching and the DPS. Even though Choisehwan is playing out of his mind on Tracer he is not the best Tracer on the team. Eileen is godly on Tracer and I can only assume he is benched because of hero pool and scrim results. Charge are starting the most inexperienced DPS duo in APAC. Technically Krystal for Valiant isn't a rookie and NYXL hasn't played yet but they can still play Ivy (a veteran). This is becoming long and drawn out but the coaching decisions on the Charge and lack of DPS experience seems to be hurting them a lot this meta.

Another reason I would say the Charge are being rated so low is because the Valiant are being rated so high. High as in people are pulling them out of the trash and readding them to there power rankings. While the Charge are slightly underperforming the Valiant are overperforming at a large scale in comparison to there expectations. I personally left the Valiant out of my power rankings altogether. So I feel like the views of these teams are slanted a little based on expectations and results. Even though both teams haven't won a game yet.

The Chengdu Zone. You Chengdu it. Etc etc etc. Everyone is raving about the former one trick team 3-0ing the Shanghai Dragons. I want to talk about the one thing slightly overlooked about the Hunters hot start. The support line, Mmonk and Nisha. This team has never looked more stable (or stable altogether) than they have now. And its very apparent the support line has a lot to do about it. They provide a pillar of strength for a team known for making extreme decisions. Stable backline, good ult economy. I feel like there allowing to the Hunters to point the "use everything kill everything" gun not just accurately but efficiently. I don't mean this as an insult to Ga9a but I feel like the support line is so strong right now that they could be getting the same value with Ameng starting at Main Tank. And Ameng is real downgrade in comparison to Ga9a. Watch out for the Hunters as the season continues. These supports mite actually guide players like Leave, Jinmu, and Elsa to the promise land.

Dallas Fuel

I believe the general opinion of Sp9rk1e has not been very accurate since last season. He does excel on heroes like Doomfist and Genji but he also players heroes like Pharah, Tracer, and Echo. A lot of problems the Paris Eternal had toward the end of the season revolved around Sp9rk1e being the Tracer and the Echo player during a Tracer and Echo meta which meant Xzi had to fill next to him and it didn't go very well for that meta. Now that the meta has changed slightly and the coachings are adjusting around Doha next to him it looks like Sp9k1e has more room to express his dominance as a DPS. Any value and positives the Fuel are gaining so far this season are from Sp9k1e playing the DPS role at a disadvantage vs other teams. Last season the Eternal tried to have Sp9k1e mirror warpath Zarya god Decay on an elimination map to no prevail. But this season I don't believe Sp9k1e will let another match get that far out of his grasp while he's alive on a DPS hero.

Being Old and A Pro Overwatch Player

What happens when you've played a few years of OWL and your worth has naturally gone up? What happens when at the same time teams are trying to cut cost and sign cheaper players? You sit at home, lie about do the streamer grind, and watch minimum rookies underperform at the highest level of Overwatch. Agilies took a pay cut to go back to the Valiant only for the Valiant to move to China. No way Linkzr took more than league minimum to play on Vancouver. China mite be paying out more then NA but players like Kai and Shax had to have taken no other offers available discounts. Only team that made any kind of splash for veterans was the Shock by signing Nero, Glister, and FDgod. They also signed Twilight last year. The difference is they sign at the minimum with the expectations of higher payouts from tournament winnings. Soon was cut from Boston for Visa issues instead of being held onto until he was ready. Players are in desperate need of more protection. Many players are moving over to Riot owned Valorant for strictly the career safety net it provides. CSGO and League careers have traditionally been much longer on average than Overwatch careers. Valorant is a CSGO like game owned by the makers of League of Legends. A combination of 2 of the longest running esports. One of the biggest things holding OWL back is the backhanded business model of spending less money to make more instead of winning to make more. If you know anything about IRL sports basically the majority of OWL are just the Florida Marlins, or Philadelphia 76ers, or Jacksonville Jaguars. Purposely putting out poor rosters and making money off of existing in there leagues.

Rogue Going Rogue

One of the greatest overall career disappointments in pre OWL Overwatch history. This team was one of the dominate teams of the pre OWL era. Korea had Lunatic-Hai and Runaway. NA had Envyus (a famously EU team). And EU had Rogue. Runaway was the underdog, Lunatic-Hai was the king, Envyus was the king slayer, but Rogue was the triple DPS ego maniacs of what Overwatch could of been. OWL gave us goats. Rogue tried to give us Tracer, Genji, and Soldier 76 at the same time. Winz (the Lucio player for Rogue) would famously screenshot and tweet from the payload during official matches. Nicogdh (gdh stands for god hand) would swap between Genji and Dva. AKM player Soldier 76, Pharah, and Dva up until he refused to play Dva and forced Nicogdh to play Dva. Soon played the Tracer, the Tracer, and sometimes the Tracer. This team also had Unkoe on Zen.

Unkoe

Winz

Nicogdh

I can't believe and OWL org didn't want this group of players to represent them....

Nicogdh has famously just talked, talked too honestly, and too much. I personally like Nicogdh as a person but he does talk, a lot. Or the fact someone added gdh to end of there player name and well Nicogdh and people around him went a little crazy about it in a negative way. Honestly that has to be one most respectful things you can do. His gdh is the godliness standard for mechanics. People have harassed him in the past, he has been knocked for that, but the dude also harasses others and assumes its equivalent. This man is extremely hard to attach to a brand with sponsors. Or just to a team altogether and still have his teammates trust him.

Unkue is honestly known to be a little trolly and toxic in match making. He had some "strong" opinions in OWL and toward the end of his OWL career but he wasn't too problematic. He always seemed like he had a negative mindset.

Winz was just aggressive in a good way at first but it started to become negative when Rogue started losing and stopped being able to play pro. The payload tweets became attacks on teams and other players. One could say these players cared about each other so much they refused to let others talk badly about them. But they have notoriously been negative publicly and showed there ass a majority of the time in many situations.

Which brings me to Soon and AKM. The founders of the "no talk can't be problematic" club. They paved the way for future generations of DPS talents to have viable career options because they learned to never talk shit, never get involved in drama, and separate there private life from there careers. Its very easy to sign players like Soon and AKM and not have problems. Honestly the only problem is the baggage of ex teammates.

Conclusion

Sorry this is kind of off the wall, not very concise, and not in a format I prefer. I need to start proof reading things and building easier to read article like stuff. I just got inspired with teams topics tonight and wanted to kick them out in my limited free time. Sorry I couldn't bring up more research for the Rogue stuff. but Nicogdh does have a long list of just random statements and comments. I do understand right now that the French community is being harassed right now and I do want to stress a bit of self defense of those players who speak publicly about it. Not everything comes out right all the time there just trying to express how they feel during this trying time for them and there fellow community members. They just want people to stop harassing them in game, online, and in life.

#overwatch leauge #overwatch #rogue #Chengdu Hunters #Guangzhou Charge #Beijing Blast #Dallas Fuel #Sp9k1e #esports

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