#she said she would do this one part of the data analysis and then i would do the 2nd part. like she’s prev said she would do this one thing

[vettelsvee]

CLIFFORD AND EMILY | Sebastian Vettel

f1 masterlist | ao3 | ask me anything or let's talk!

ferrari sebastian vettel x race engineer wife!reader

word count: 3195

summary: y/n tells seb that it would be a great present for his birthday to adopt a puppy, and they find the perfect one

warnings: fluff, fluff and more fluff. dad ferrari!seb as i can't get rid of him. based on 2018 season and narrated on seb's pov

a/n: once again, this is part of history series (coming soon as is being heavily edited) and translated by cele! changed my layout to my comfort people so are you like it? also, as always, i'll be waiting for your feedback, as well as comments and chats on that anon button please! and also, don't forget reblogs are truly appreciated guys! tysm <3

© VETTELSVEE (2024). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!

Normally, I didn't have trouble getting up in the mornings, especially during Grand Prix weekends, but today it had been incredibly hard to leave Y/N and Emily sleeping.

Maybe the problem was that today was my birthday, and, in part, we couldn't spend it like a normal family. I didn't mind working on such a special day, but it did bother me when I thought it was my first birthday with Emily.

Very reluctantly, I decided to start my day, trying not to let my bad mood consume me. As soon as I set foot on the floor, I adjusted the sheets to cover my girlfriend, taking the utmost care not to wake her. Nights with our daughter were exasperating, and I didn't know how Y/N managed to be at one hundred percent during team meetings, press conferences, free practice sessions, qualifying and the race, and especially the briefings and all the data analysis her job entailed.

I trained with Eddie for just an hour and a half. According to him, my birthday present was a less strict training session; even so, we ran a lap around the block where the hotel was located, and then we went straight to the gym.

At half-past seven in the morning, to my good fortune, he told me I could go back to my room to get ready for that Friday.

I entered as quickly as I could, being very careful because it was still quite early, and I assumed my girls would be resting. Deep down, I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I wasn't surprised to see Y/N, still in her pyjamas, walking back and forth while breastfeeding Emily and trying to eat a piece of toast.

“God!” She quickly swallowed the bite and pretended she hadn't been eating. I couldn't help but laugh at how cute the scene seemed to me. “I'm so sorry, Seb. I had ordered breakfast to be brought up and ready for when you came, but I was so hungry and wasn't sure when Eddie would let you go today…”

I shook my head and approached her. I left a short kiss on her lips and then placed another on my daughter's forehead.

“Happy birthday, sunshine,” she said, wrapping her free arm around me. “How many birthdays have we spent together now? Eight?”

“Seven,” I corrected her, remembering we didn’t get to spend the 2008 one together. “And I hope there will be more because I'm not going to let you get rid of me anytime soon.”

“Do you really think I'm going to get rid of you so soon? In case you don't remember, we not only work together: we also share a house, a cat, a daughter, and we're going to have a dog…”

After that last part, Y/N let out a small scream and covered her mouth with her hand.

If I was the one who could keep secrets perfectly, Y/N Y/L/N was the complete opposite.

“What do you mean by a dog, Y/N?”

“Oh, well, I don't know… I must have mixed up some conversation I had with Aristella about Cherry,” her nerves were quite noticeable. “I got confused, and…”

“Y/N, I know you perfectly, and I know when you're lying to me. What did you mean by we’re going to have a dog?”

Given my insistence and, why not say it, the poker face I probably had, my girlfriend sighed. She placed Emily in the crib next to our bed and, while asking me to sit down and start having breakfast, took her mobile phone and immersed herself in it.

“Well, you see…” she began, sitting in front of me and taking a strawberry in her hands. “Since you adopted Vanilla as a surprise for me, I've been thinking that I would like to do the same for you, but between the chaotic 2013 we had and Emily's birth, I found it a bit impossible. It's also true that it's something I would like to discuss before doing it because it's a matter that depends not only on me but also on you,” she clarified.

“And that means…?”

“Forget it, Seb. It doesn't matter. I haven't told you anything, okay? Forget it.”

It bothered me to see her so indecisive, though it didn’t stop me from finding her idea quite endearing deep down. I knew she was nervous; the constant fiddling with the napkin and her flushed cheeks were proof of that.

“Do you want to adopt a dog?” I asked her, loud and clear.

“It’s not that I want to adopt a dog. Well, I do, but…” she sighed, stopped eating breakfast, and looked at me directly. “The thing is, I know you’d like to have a dog, and you’ve had that idea in your head for quite some time, so I thought that, only if you want, we could adopt one,” she finally explained.

“Do you want to wait until we get back home? If you want, we can talk to Michael and have him recommend…”

“No, no, not at all! I’ve already talked to Lewis about it, and he’s informed me,” she hastened to clarify. “Since I wanted to do all this, if possible, today, I asked him where he adopted Roscoe and Coco. I thought today was the perfect day for the adoption because it’s your birthday,” she repeated.

I nodded as I got up and headed towards Emily’s crib, who had started crying once more.

“I mean, all this is only if you want, of course,” Y/N spoke again. Before I could respond, she interrupted me once more. “But if you want, we can do it when we get back home. I don’t mind, except I wouldn’t have another birthday present to give you…”

Still holding the baby in my arms, I approached her and silenced her with a long, slow kiss, one I took my time with but received no complaints about, quite the opposite.

Y/N always went out of her way with gifts, even during times when her finances weren't the best. I much preferred her giving me something symbolic over an expensive whim.

So, the fact that she wanted to adopt a dog today, as my birthday present, made this thing I had wanted for so long even more special. Plus, thinking that Emily would grow up with the new member of the family made it a thousand times better.

“If my girl says it’s happening today, then we should follow her lead,” I finished saying. “What time do you think we’ll be done with everything we have to do today?”

[...]

“I hope there aren’t too many people, because if Britta finds out we’re doing all this without telling her…”

“Y/N, relax. If there’s any problem or anything, I’ll handle the press. Besides, it’s not like they don’t know me: remember I adopted Roscoe and Coco there, so they know me quite well.”

Lewis had decided to come with us to, according to him, ensure his friends received proper treatment. Deep down, I knew it was because he didn’t want to see Aristella, Britta’s niece and Y/N's best friend, hanging around Rosberg even while they were in the middle of their divorce process.

Hamilton’s concern for the girl wasn’t just something a friend would have, and I knew he was fully aware of that.

“Do you have something in mind, Seb?”

Lewis’s voice snapped me out of my trance.

“Sorry, what?”

“If you’ve thought of a name for the dog,” the dark-haired man spoke again. “I hope it’s something different from the usual. You know, the world has too many Tobys and all those common dog name variants.”

“If we’re talking about giving common names to pets, Seb is your guy,” Y/N spoke now, almost shouting. “When he adopted Vanilla just to get me to move in with him, he told me Garfield was a better name. Garfield, like the cartoon cat! If that’s not common…”

“What do you want to call an orange cat, Y/N? Vanilla? I remind you that you wanted to name her Cheeto…”

“Because she looked like a Cheeto and I thought it was a male!” she retorted. “Later, when I realised she was female and not so orange, I named her Vanilla.”

“Vanilla, I like it. It’s an… interesting name,” Lewis intervened. “Can I ask why you named her like that?”

“Y/N's favourite ice cream flavour is vanilla. That, and if you add the fact that cats are her favourite animal…” I answered in her place.

I saw Y/N's lips curve slightly in the rear-view mirror.

Then, she turned around and put a hand on my leg, stroking it.

“I hope you find the perfect name for the new family member, love. Even if it’s the same as every other dog in the world,” she said ironically.

After those words, I realised we had arrived at the shelter Lewis Hamilton seemed to admire so much.

The Brit, as he guided us towards what appeared to be the entrance, commented that we should be careful with Emily, not because the furry ones were aggressive, but because they got very excited when they had visitors, especially if they were children.

A dark-skinned woman with completely dark hair was at the door, as if she had been waiting for us for a while. Lewis gave her a hug and immediately introduced us.

“These are Sebastian Vettel, his girlfriend Y/N, and their daughter, Emily.”

She gave us a smile, and I saw she intended to shake our hands until she saw our little one. She approached to dote on her as soon as Y/N gave her permission with a glance. Emily’s laughter began to fill the room, and she started to move cheerfully in Y/N's arms.

“I’m so sorry for my lack of manners, but when I see such a beautiful baby like this little one…” the woman began to say, still playing with the child. Then, she cleared her throat and looked at both of us. “Nice to meet you, couple,” she finally shook our hands. “I’m Jade, and well, I’ve been a volunteer at this shelter since time immemorial, back in the prehistoric times.”

“Don’t say that, Jade! You look wonderful,” Lewis told her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be so flattering, young man,” she chided him. “I appreciate all kinds of compliments for my age, but that’s not why we’re here. Well, tell me: if I’m not mistaken, and as your friend here has told me, you want to expand your family, right?”

Now she was looking intently at both of us. I nodded in response; at the same time, and by inertia, my right arm wrapped around my girlfriend’s waist, which made Emily start reaching out her little arms to come to me.

“Today is Seb’s birthday, and he’s been wanting to adopt a dog for quite some time,” my girlfriend explained.

“Oh, the adoption is a birthday gift!” Jade exclaimed, beginning to clap and approaching me quickly to give me a hug that I gladly accepted. “Happy birthday, dear! How old are you now?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Oh, dear. If I could be that age again…”

I smiled at her response as Y/N handed me Emily, who had started babbling to come to me.

“A daddy’s girl, I see, huh?” Jade chimed in. Y/N was about to answer, but before she could even do so, the woman was already speaking again. “Well, since it’s your birthday, I think I have the perfect gift for you.”

Without saying anything more, the woman gestured for us to follow her, and we did. We passed through several areas with dogs of different ages roaming freely, who approached us to sniff and perhaps convince us to adopt them.

Lewis mentioned that some of them were related to Coco. I laughed at the supposed joke, which stopped being a joke when Jade confirmed it. Y/N lagged behind a few times because she stopped to play with the dogs that approached her, which were quite a few. Emily and I, however, kept a brisk pace, possibly eager to find out what the woman was talking about and why she was being so mysterious.

Finally, we arrived at a kind of room with less light than I expected and, to my surprise, full of what seemed to be soft little beds. On top of them, not only was there a dog lying down that seemed quite tired, but there were also several puppies nursing from her.

Jade indicated before we entered that we should remain silent.

“One of our dogs gave birth last night,” she told us. “I don’t want to give all her puppies up for adoption since I’d like at least one to stay with her, but considering that the puppies and you share a birthday, I’d be delighted if you adopted one of them.”

I opened my eyes wide and couldn’t say anything. Next to me, Y/N seemed to have reacted the same way I did.

Saying we were surprised would be an understatement.

“But… are you serious?” my girlfriend commented, still in surprise.

“Of course, dears!” the woman responded cheerfully. “The only issue, so to speak, though it’s not really a problem, is that it’ll take about a month and a half before you can take him home. You know, the separation process from the mother is crucial.”

“No problem, really. We’ll wait as long as it takes,” I finally spoke. “Besides, I think we have a break around that time, right?”

“Yes, about a month,” Lewis replied.

“We’ve already got our vacation destination, sunshine,” Y/N said to me, apparently much more excited than I was.

“Now, I need you to tell me something important: which one of them do you want to be your little girl’s new brother?”

Still holding Emily, Y/N and I carefully approached the puppies.

To our eyes, they all looked exactly the same. We couldn’t see their eyes, but I was almost convinced they would be similar to the colour of their fur, a light brown skin similar to beach sand. They were huddled together and didn’t seem to be doing anything other than trying to nurse for as long as possible.

“Do you know what breed or mix they are?” Y/N asked the lady with that characteristic curiosity of hers.

“If I remember correctly, their mother is a golden retriever and their father, a big labrador.”

My girlfriend thanked her, turning towards her and leaving Emily by herself for a moment. At that point, seemingly unaware that her mother wasn't watching her every move, the little one began to crawl towards the puppies. Instinctively, I quickly scooped her up in my arms to prevent her from doing so. However, she didn't seem to give up: she started kicking until, just like that, I brought her a little closer to the furry animals.

While Y/N and Lewis chatted with Jade, I remained seated on the floor next to my daughter, who seemed to have settled on a particular puppy. I tried shifting her gaze from side to side, attempting to get her to notice the rest of them, but it seemed the one farthest from its mother had caught her attention the most.

“I think Emily has chosen who’s going to be her adopted sibling, hasn’t she?” I remarked.

As soon as I said that, the three of them turned towards me, crouching down to my level. Emily was still engrossed with that little one and seemed to continue being so until we left.

“Have you chosen for Daddy, Emi?” Y/N asked, almost lying on the floor to join the game that Emily was playing with the one who seemed to be our new child. “Do you want this to be your new little brother? Or sister, of course.”

“He's a boy, actually,” Jade intervened. “And, if I’m honest and don't recall incorrectly, he’s the oldest of the whole litter.”

“Do you want to adopt this little one then, sunshine? Honestly, if you’re not convinced we can wait a bit…” Y/N whispered as if wanting it to be a secret between us.

“Clifford,” I suddenly blurted out.

They looked at me as if they had seen a ghost. Of course, I would act the same if someone dropped a name out of nowhere in a situation like this.

“I want to name him Clifford,” I clarified. “Remember the series about that big red dog you told me you watched with your sisters when they were little?” I asked my girlfriend, who nodded. “Well, if I remember correctly, you told me that the main character of the series, who was also the owner of the dog, was named Emily.”

“What’s that got to do with it, love?” she asked, curious. Did she really not know why I had suggested that name?

“Well, it just so happens that your daughter is named Emily and she seems to have chosen for us.”

Y/N’s eyes lit up and widened exaggeratedly. I swear I saw them get a little misty when she finally seemed to understand what I meant. Immediately, she stood up, took the baby in her arms, and began to talk to her while they played as if they were the only ones in the room.

“I guess I already have a birthday present, right?” I asked the redhead, standing beside her and giving her a kiss on the forehead and another to our daughter.

“Emily and Clifford…” she murmured. “I like it. I love it, actually.”

“Well, I hope that when we have the next baby, I can nail it in the same way.”

Jade, after the last sentence that I had just said, was left dumbfounded. Lewis, for his part, tried to turn a deaf ear and, instead, told me that they would be waiting for us at the entrance to do all the necessary paperwork, not without whispering to me in the least blatant way possible that he hoped that this would be my other birthday present.

Obviously, he deserved a well-deserved punch from Y/N.

“Are you already thinking about the next baby, love? Emily hasn’t even turned one yet!”

“I always think about the second baby, to be honest,” I replied. I was convinced, and I knew as well as she did that we had barely laid the foundations of our family. “A puppy brother for Emily is fine, but a human one would be a thousand times better. Don’t you think so?”

Y/N rolled her eyes and turned away, heading towards the shelter entrance. I quickly caught up with her, and her laughter filled my ears.

“If you're already thinking about our second baby, then we'll have to listen to Lewis and start practising tonight before dinner with my parents,” she suggested.

Her mischievous look infected me, and I couldn’t help but return it.

“As the birthday boy, I vote for squeezing in a free practice session before dinner with my parents tonight. How does that sound?”

“Whatever you wish, birthday boy,” she replied. “But I hope you come up with a good enough excuse for them not to suspect anything when we arrive late, and also when you ask if they can keep Emily overnight.”

[thecircularlibrary]

graylyra one shot?

Location Services

Grayson x Lyra

words: 734 words

warnings: n/a

A/N: my first ever one-shot/fic. sorry if it's a little short.

Dunkin Donuts was not an ideal meeting location for Grayson Hawthorne. He couldn’t even recall the last time that he’d had a donut, much less one from a chain restaurant. However, long distance made him desperate and he would do anything short of murder to see his girlfriend while he was in her college town. So there he was, sitting in a Dunkin Donuts in jeans and a crew neck—also out of character for him—waiting for Lyra Kane to get out of class.

Relationships were weird for Grayson, and Lyra knew that. They’d talked about it an abundance of times. Especially when it came to the dreaded long-distance conversation. Obviously, there wasn’t much that Lyra could do about it. She was, first-and-foremost, a college student. That has always been true. It just never felt real until The Game was over and she actually had to go back. 

Winning the game was a big deal for her, as she was able to save her family’s home and pay off her tuition debt. However, they didn’t see eachother often. Over the summers she was working internships and he was working the foundation. She never came to Texas, because when she was free to go anywhere, she went home to her family. Not his family.

She graduated at the end of the semester and the thought of What happens after? was constantly running through Grayson’s head. What happens when she’s truly free to go anywhere? What happens when she has a choice between going somewhere else and coming closer to him—coming closer to home? 

His stream of consciousness was interrupted when she walked in. She was radiant. Her tan skin practically glowed and she was dressed casually. She was smiling. After everything that had happened, it was amazing for Grayson to see her smile. He thought about how many times she’d said the same about him.

“Hey, Hawthorne,” Lyra said grinning as she set her backpack down in the chair across from him.

They went to the counter to order their drinks. As they talked about life, school, and the mundane parts of life, Lyra looked as if she was about to explode.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” Grayson asked expectantly, once they were safely seated at the table with their drinks. He was silently wishing it was news that would, hopefully, segue naturally into a conversation about, for lack of a better term, living situations.

“Do you remember that internship I was working at last summer?” Lyra asked through a grin.

He did remember. Her local internship. Not in Texas.

“I do remember. The data analysis one, right?”

“Yes! Well, guess what?”

“What?”

“They offered me a permanent position. At a satellite branch. In Texas!”

Grayson’s mind blanked, the sentence ‘In Texas!’ the only thing in his head. He hadn’t expected his wish to work.

“Grayson! Don’t you know what this means?”

“Hmm?”

“I can get an apartment with the salary they’re paying me so I can be clo–”

“Do you want to move into my penthouse?”

Lyra’s eyes widened, and Grayson looked down as he realized that she hadn’t even said whether she was in Austin, or Dallas, or San Antonio, or Houston. Or maybe, since it was a satellite branch, they were looking for smaller cities: San Marcos, Corpus Christi, Waco, New Braunfels. She might even be going to Nacogdoches. He sounded inconsiderate interrupting her when she could’ve been giving important context that saved him from embarrassment. Grayson wished that spoken word had an unsend button.

“I’d love to, Grayson.”

Grayson looked up at her, and in that moment he had never loved her more. Moments of their future flashed through his head. The two of them waking up together, making dinner, watching movies, and even seeing each other off to work. Her voice brought him back to the present.

“My job is in the city and your penthouse is actually really close to the office. It’d be nice to not have to commute. Even nicer if it means I get to be with you while I do it.”

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll come up here to help pack your apartment and then move you down to Texas when your lease is up.”

She held her drink up in the air to mimic a champagne glass. “To new beginnings?”

He smiled and picked up his cup.

“To new beginnings.”

[runariya]

Drive to Survive (JJK) • Chapter 1 "Can't slow me down"

pairing: F1driver!Jungkook x female race engineer!reader genre: colleagues2L, formula1!AU, racing!AU, drama, kind of fantasy/cyborg!AU story rating: 18+, MDNI warnings: none word count: ~ 3.410

a/n: This work is purely fictional. All characters and events are entirely imaginary and do not reflect reality. Content errors related to the sport of Formula 1 are not excluded. Please do not use this story as your own. No translations are allowed without permission. Thank you for understanding! 💕

🎵 MIRANI, lilBoI, GroovyRoom, VALORANT - Can't slow me down 🎵

series masterlist • 02

Standing alone at the deserted pit stop of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, two days before the start of training for the eighteenth race out of twenty-four this weekend at the Hockenheimring in Germany, you can't help but exhale deeply. This moment marks the culmination of your ambitions, a goal you've pursued tirelessly since childhood.

Growing up in a motorsport family, you were immersed in the world of high-stakes automotive and racing enterprises equally surrounded by their high-ups thanks to your father. You admired everything about cars, particularly Formula 1. Every training session, qualifying round, and race became your passion and study material. Often, you found yourself in VIP lounges, observing the action alongside your father.

Your teenage years were a series of hard work and academic excellence, especially in STEM subjects like Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science. These achievements earned you prestigious positions in robotics and engineering clubs. While others spent their free time socialising and partying like every normal and healthy teenager would, you dedicated yours to assisting smaller racing clubs with car setups, data analysis, and strategy planning.

In your late teenage years, you had the opportunity to accompany your father to a race once more, this time with the goal of making your own connections. You were on the brink of completing your bachelor’s degree as one of the youngest graduates in the world, with additional majors in automotive and aeronautical engineering. This combination was designed to secure your future and fulfil your aspiration of becoming a race engineer. Despite facing constant belittlement and pushback for being a woman—a feminine woman at that—and having few friends besides a handful of aspiring F1 drivers and some girlfriends of family friends, your social skills remained intact, thanks largely to your mother’s unwavering support and guidance. Her words were engraved into every cell of your being: „It’s okay to have your own passion.“ she said one day after you were again bullied at school for being the only girl at the robotics club, „There’s nothing inherently feminine or masculine about it. Wanting something in a male-dominated field doesn’t mean you have to shut off your feminine side or stop embracing who you are. It’s all part of you, so be proud of it—so am I.“

Meeting Toto Wolff, the team principal of Mercedes, and Mattia Binotto, team principal of Ferrari, was a dream come true. Their genuine interest in your future within their teams was a validation of your hard work. That day also marked your first encounter with Jeon Jungkook, a prodigious new talent under the Mercedes team and son of a former, now retired F1 driver. After enduring his lingering gaze for several uncomfortable seconds, the lame flirting that followed ade you turn away silently in mild disgust. You had no desire to entertain such behaviour, something you had grown accustomed to dismissing as one of the few—and even fewer attractive—women in the field.

Years flew by as you completed both your bachelor's and master's degrees with flying colours, nothing able to slow you down. Your relentless pursuit of your dream resulted in an offer from the Haas team for a race engineer position for the upcoming season. Although not your first choice due to reservations about their team principal, you saw it as a stepping stone in your career.

A week ago, you received a call from an unknown number late at night. You frowned, debating whether to send it straight to voicemail, as you were never a fan of calls, especially from someone not in your contact list. But something—a deep feeling in your gut—made you pick it up at the last second. Your heart rate spiked and stopped several times during the call when Toto himself offered you the position of race engineer for their first driver starting next week even though the season was in full swing. You tried hard to keep your tears of happiness from being heard through the receiver as you accepted and thanked him. The next day, you signed the contract sent via email, and after consulting with your father and lawyers, you sent it back. Then, you called to decline Haas' offer, which had yet to be formalised with a contract or any other written confirmation.

Now, here you stand at the starting line of a new chapter in your life, ready to embrace the challenges and triumphs that await. As a reminder pings on your phone, alerting you that it’s time to head to the Mercedes-Benz headquarters in Stuttgart for your first in-person briefing and introduction to the team and driver, you leave the premises of the ring with a smile on your face that illuminates the way to your car. A gentle breeze captures your hair, and the sunny day is filled with the sound of birds chirping—a symphony soon to be drowned out by the roar of engines.

As you arrive at the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz, you're granted access to the premises with an access card sent to you by post. Your own smiling face greets you from the card as you hang it around your neck. You drive towards the imposing glass building, its sheer size both awe-inspiring and commanding. Turning into the designated section of the underground garage, you park your car and make your way to the escalators. The ascent is smooth and swift, leading you up to the floor where the meeting room awaits. 

You are dressed in a modest, yet professional dress that strikes the perfect balance between formality and approachability. From the outset, you made it clear that you would not conform to the typical attire of the men—dress shirts and pants. This choice has been met without objection, thanks to the variety of coats and accessories available from the merchandise shop for the team while on track. Your attire, though different, fits seamlessly into the polished, modern and dynamic environment of Mercedes.

As you make your way to the meeting room, you pass several acquaintances of your father, exchanging quick greetings in the process. The building exudes an air of opulence and cutting-edge modernity, a testament to Mercedes-Benz's commitment to excellence. The walls are adorned with intricate technical drawings and striking photographs of every car model the company has produced, each piece telling a story of innovation and precision. 

In various corners, you notice miniature sculptures, meticulously crafted to capture the essence of the brand, alongside occasional pieces of abstract artwork that add a touch of artistic flair to the high-tech environment. These thoughtful touches elevate the space, creating a perfect blend of functionality and aesthetics. The glass front of the building provides a breathtaking view of the training grounds of the local football club, a team that competes in the national first league. You take a moment to appreciate the seamless integration of sports and engineering excellence, both striving for peak performance. 

Turning the last corner, the meeting room comes into view where you see Toto, the technical director James Allison, George Russell's race engineer Song Joongki, George Russell himself, and Jeon Jungkook waiting for you. Walking confidently towards them, Jungkook is the first to notice you, his expression shifting from surprise to confusion, then realisation, and finally settling on repulsion within seconds. Internally, you sigh; professionalism, it seems, might be a stretch for him today.

You softly knock on the open door with a friendly smile, making eye contact with everyone as you greet them. Toto is the first to stand and quickly walks over to you, prompting everyone else to rise except for Jungkook, who only stands after George nudges him and whispers, "Don't be a dick."

You shake hands with Toto, a moment you had long dreamed of in this setting. "Good morning, __. Thank you for being here."

As Toto turns around and introductions follow, the room reveals a spectrum of reception, from warmth to evident boredom, particularly palpable in Jungkook's demeanour.

„Please have a seat.“ He motions to the empty chair beside him and Joongki. To your right, at the head of the table, are Toto and James, with Jungkook directly in front of you and George beside him.

Undeterred by Jungkook's thinly veiled hostility, which is a familiar challenge throughout your career, you settle in, extracting your tablet from your purse as Toto initiates the proceedings.

„Today, we’re introducing our new race engineer for Jungkook, ___. ___, welcome to the team.“ 

„Thank you, it’s great to be here.“

The encouraging voice of the James catches your attention. „We’re glad to have you onboard. You’ll be working closely with Jungkook, and I know you bring a wealth of knowledge that’ll compensate for your lack of experience.“

„Yeah, welcome to the team. And if you need any help settling in or understanding our processes, feel free to ask.“ Joongki smiles kindly your way, toying with his pencil.

„Thank you, I appreciate that.“

Toto continues, ignoring Jungkook’s scoff beside him. „As you know, our team philosophy revolves around meticulous preparation and strategic execution. Let’s discuss what you’ve been focusing on since joining us a week ago and how we’ll integrate your approach into our existing strategies.“

Now it's your time to shine. Every previous conversation in this field has been off-track and informal. Now is your chance to prove you are worth their trust and the right choice for the job. „Certainly. I’ve been reviewing the recent race data and simulations, especially focusing on Jungkook’s driving style and preferences. I’ve also been familiarising myself with our car’s setup and the team’s historical performance at this circuit.“ 

As you mention Jungkook's name, you glance briefly at him. He stares back at you without blinking or moving, his reaction unclear—whether positive or negative that you mentioned his name. 

„Good to hear. Jungkook has specific preferences regarding car balance and feedback. Have you had a chance to discuss these details with them?“ James asks further.

„Not yet, but I’ve prepared a setup proposal based on our simulations and historical data. I plan to discuss it with Jungkook later today, if he’s free.“

Jungkook's eye twitches at that, his face showing clear signs of displeasure. Nonetheless, he nods his head once.

Sensing the awkward atmosphere, George interjects casually with a warm laugh to ease the tension, „Jungkook prefers a more stable rear end through the high-speed corners, just a heads-up. He’s very particular about it.“

„Understood. I’ll make sure to incorporate that into our setup options.“ you note it down immediately.

„Our drivers rely heavily on trust and communication with their engineers. Building that rapport is crucial for success on the track. How do you plan to approach this relationship?“ Toto challenges you, making it clear everyone in the room senses Jungkook's hostility.

You are certain that the job requirements themselves will not be the most challenging aspect; rather, it will be establishing a stable relationship with Jungkook. His approval and cooperation will ultimately determine whether you can secure your position and succeed in this role or face immediate dismissal.

You met Jungkook's gaze directly, intent on conveying your sincerity. “I believe in open communication and transparency. I aim to build a strong working relationship with Jungkook based on mutual trust and respect. I’ll be proactive in seeking their feedback and ensuring they feel fully supported.”

Your words seem to have struck a nerve, evidenced by Jungkook's growing irritation. There’s a short silence until George discreetly kicks Jungkook under the table. Jungkook coughs, masking a wince from the kick, and replies with a forced smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “I appreciate that approach. Communication is key during the race weekend, especially with strategy adjustments and car performance updates.”

You are slightly startled by James' clap. “Perfect. Let’s ensure our focus remains on optimising our performance for the upcoming race. ___, if you need any additional resources or support, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re all here to ensure both drivers have the best possible setup and strategy.”

“Thank you. I’m excited to contribute to our team’s success.”

“Excellent. Let’s continue our preparations. We have a packed schedule ahead of us. ___, welcome once again. Let’s make this a successful weekend.” Toto's words do little to soothe the burn of Jungkook's scrutinising stare.

After one and a half hours of intense briefing, Toto finally adjourns the meeting. The next session is set for Friday morning at the track, with every staff member involved in the training scheduled for that day.

As the room begins to empty, George turns to you with a warm smile. “Okay, let me properly welcome you to the team. I’m super excited to have you on board.”

“I’m very honoured, thank you, Mr. Russell.”

“Oh, please, call me George.” Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Jungkook rolling his eyes and throwing his head back while George approaches and embraces you in a short, welcoming hug.

“Oh wow, you’re taller than I thought,” you say to George after pulling away, Jungkook faking gag sounds. 

“And you’re so tiny.” George ruffles your hair which earns him a playful glare. “Anyways, I’ll leave you both to it. See you tomorrow.” He winks and heads out. After a moment, his head pops back in. “You,” he points to Jungkook, “behave.” And with that, he's gone.

A silence stretches between you and Jungkook, both of you locking gazes in a challenge you didn’t realise was happening until you blink and Jungkook bursts out, “Ha! You lost.”

You blink again, slower this time, perplexed by the absurdity of it all. “Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s get down to business, shall we? So, the Hockenheimring was dropped from the calendar for the last few years, so it’ll be not only new to me but also to…”

Jungkook interrupts, “Why are you so obsessed with me?”

You slowly turn your gaze from your tablet to him, blinking as you compose yourself. “We should obviously review the track. I’m sure you’re aware of its tight hairpins and long straights. Also, I’d like to know your preferred tires so the technical sectors don’t…”

Jungkook scoffs, clearly not having listened to a word you said. His arms are crossed, his look equal parts challenging and condescending. “It all makes sense now. You’ve been obsessed with me since the first time you saw me. Doing everything in your power to work with me. Even graduating ridiculously young and declining the offer from Haas.”

Your irritation reaches a boiling point. “I think it’s funny you’ve kept tabs on me for all those years.”

“No, I haven’t. It’s common knowledge. You’ve always wanted a piece of me. It’s flattering, really.”

“I can assure you, my interest has always been in the job, not in you. And it’s flattering to know that my vitae seems to be common knowledge to you.”

“Sure, sure. You don’t have to play coy. It’s perfectly natural to be drawn to someone as experienced as I am. But let’s keep things professional, alright?”

“Fine by me.” You smile at him, relieved that he seems to be cooperating. “So, yes. The tires you’d prefer to…”

Jungkook interrupts again, and you slump defeatedly into your seat, looking at the ceiling. “It’s just that your enthusiasm to work with me comes off as a bit… personal. But don’t worry, I can handle it.”

Having had enough of this kindergarten behaviour, you counter with a flat tone. “If anyone’s having trouble handling things, it seems to be you. Your comments suggest you’re projecting your own feelings onto me.”

“Projecting? That’s a bit of a reach. I’m just stating what I’ve observed.” Jungkook acts surprised, an exaggerated hand on his chest.

After spending the first hours with Jungkook in this room, you knew you’d have to set boundaries and make your intentions clear. It’s well known in the media that he’s a flirt, and sometimes his success goes to his head. But you’re trained and prepared for this kind of behaviour. It’s not your first nor will it be your last rodeo.

“What you’ve observed is likely coloured by your own assumptions. I’m here to work. If you feel uncomfortable with my presence, perhaps it’s your own obsession that’s the issue.”

Jungkook’s ears tint red. “My obsession? That’s absurd. I’m perfectly professional.”

And for good measure, you push further. “Yet you seem fixated on making this about something other than work. It’s almost as if you’re trying to convince yourself of something.” You can’t suppress the twitch of your lip.

“I… No, that’s not it at all. I’m just pointing out what I’ve noticed.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the red tint slowly spreading from his ears to his cheeks.

And because you’re a little bit petty because of his behaviour in the hours prior, you make him squirm a little bit more. “What you’ve noticed is a fabrication of your own making. Let’s stay focused on the race. If you can’t handle working with me professionally, that says more about you than it does about me.”

“I’m completely professional! It’s just… Look, let’s just get this done.” Jungkook is clearly embarrassed.

“Exactly. Let’s focus on the tires for now and leave personal assumptions out of it, hm?” The smile you send him is plastic.

The atmosphere in the room is thick with tension. Jungkook's eyes dart away, his earlier bravado crumbling. He clears his throat and finally sits straight up, pulling his own tablet in front of him.

"Fine, let's talk about the tires," he says, his tone grudgingly compliant.

You take a deep breath, trying to reignite the professional spirit that this meeting was supposed to uphold. "The Hockenheimring has a mix of high-speed straights and tight hairpins, so we'll need a tire that offers a balance between grip and durability. What’s your preference?"

Jungkook’s expression becomes more focused, the professionalism shown for the first time. Something you only heard about. “Mediums for the practice sessions, hards for the race. We can test softs during qualifying.”

You nod, noting down his preferences. “Good choice. The mediums should give us the flexibility we need for adjustments. Now, about the strategy for turn six. It's notorious for causing understeer. We need to adjust the front wing angle…”

As you delve into the technical details, you notice Jungkook finally paying attention. His eyes are on the data, and he’s engaging with the information. The earlier hostility seems to fade, replaced by a shared focus on the task at hand. 

“This setup should help mitigate the understeer,” you continue, showing him the adjustments on the screen. “It’ll also improve stability through the Parabolika.”

Jungkook nods, his demeanour much more serious now. “That makes sense. I’ve had issues with that turn in the simulation. If we can nail the setup, it’ll give us a significant advantage.”

“Exactly,” you say with a genuine smile in your face, feeling a small sense of accomplishment. “And for the long straights, we’ll need to optimise the downforce. It’s a tricky balance, but I believe we can find the sweet spot.”

The conversation flows more smoothly, the professional exchange slowly bridging the gap that had earlier felt insurmountable. By the time you wrap up the discussion, there’s a mutual respect in the air.

“Alright, I think we’re set for now,” you say, shutting off your tablet. A smile now permanently on your face, you notice Jungkook's motions falter a bit as he packs up, his gaze meeting yours. He seems taken aback by your joyful demeanour, having not noticed the shift in your expression since the conversation turned serious some time ago. “I’ll finalise these settings and we’ll review them again on Friday.”

Jungkook stands, looking somewhat still not fully convinced of you but also more cooperative. “Thanks for the detailed rundown. I appreciate it.”

Still, you offer him a genuine smile, hoping this marks the beginning of a more collaborative relationship. “No problem. Let’s make sure we’re both on the same page from here on out.”

He nods, and with a final, respectful glance, he leaves the room. You watch him go, feeling a mix of relief and cautious optimism. It’s been a challenging start, but you’re determined to make this partnership work.

As the door closes behind him, you take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts. The road ahead is long, but with focus and determination, you’re confident that you’ll both rise to the challenge.

series masterlist • 02

a/n 2: lmk what you think in any way you like! please send me a message, ask or comment if you would like to be tagged for upcoming chapters 💕 also - character asks and drabble requests are open

Like what you read? Check out my other work here!

All Rights Reserved © @runariya 2024

[chaoticstrata]

In Harmonious Song: THE FEELS (WiP)

Who wants some Aketho feels? Because I have the Aketho feels right here.

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, both working on their own analysis for the meeting the next day. It was broken only when they had to share some of the bits of information they gathered on the planet and enemy before the silence took over once again. After a while, Aketho noticed the older man shooting him glances. A small smile crossed his lips as he caught Theron’s eye when the SIS agent went to glance again.

“Something on your mind, Agent Shan?” the Chiss teased.

 Theron blushed and sputtered a moment before clearing his throat.

“Sort of,” the SIS Agent replied. “Something I overheard the Grandmaster mention to another Jedi earlier crossed my mind again…I’m wondering if you were the reason behind it.”

“Oh?” the former Cipher asked, both curious and amused. “And what is that?”

“She mentioned something about someone looking for a Chiss Jedi,” Theron replied after some hesitation.

Aketho froze for a moment before going back to his data. From the corner of his eye he saw Theron rub the back of his neck and shift from foot to foot.

“Aketho…I-”

“Are we alone?” Aketho asked quietly, gambling that the older man had set up sensors or tapped into the camp's security feed. When he didn’t get a response he glanced over and saw Theron looking back at the terminal but appeared to be looking at something other than what was on the screen. After another long moment the Human replied.

“Yeah, we’re alone,” he said, looking back at Aketho with confusion and concern.

Aketho couldn’t keep the small grin at that. He set down his datapad and crossed his arms, staring ahead.

“Yes, I had asked Master Satele if she knew any Chiss Jedi…considering how rare they would most likely be,” the Agent said.

“Are you looking for someone in particular?”

“How much do you know about the Ascendancy?” Aketho asked instead of replying.

A brunette eyebrow shot up, but Theron did not comment at the dodge of his question.

“I know what would probably be considered the basics--social structure, what language is spoken, basic policies,” he replied.

Aketho nodded, that seemed to be standard for most Republic agents. “What about their view of Force sensitives?”

That got him a head tilt--which absolutely didn’t remind him of an inquisitive akk pup.

“I’m aware they’re not fond of them…”

“That’s an understatement,” Aketho snorted, a frown creasing his lips. As much as he loved his home and people, this was the one of the few things he hated about them. “They see Force sensitivity as a disease that needs to be…purged from our people.”

“...when you say purged…” Theron asked cautiously.

“Exiled into Unknown Space, for the most part,” Aketho replied, “Although I’m sure there have been worse fates for some who are found out.”

“I see,” the SIS agent said softly, hazel eyes searching Aketho’s, “And the person you’re asking after…”

“My older brother…Kthira'orm'omi…Raormo, although I don’t know if he’s going by that name still,” he said quietly, eyes falling to the ground. Aketho could still vividly remember the day his brother’s abilities were discovered by those outside of their House. While House Kthira kept several Force sensitives in their ranks--seeing them as useful…assets--with Raormo’s abilities out in the open, there’d be no hiding him. 

The authorities had come to their home quickly, however unlike most, Raormo was not pulled away by force. Instead, the official from the Ascendancy sat down and respectfully spoke with their parents on the options they had--all would end up with his brother being sent away. Aketho remembered crying into his brother’s arms--still too young to have control over his emotions--apologizing for his mistake. His brother had smiled and soothed him, saying it wasn’t his fault over and over until the tears finally dried up. Even now he could feel those calming words keep those feelings at bay.

Aketho glanced over at Theron, who had taken a step closer to him, hand hovering near his elbow. “When it was discovered that Raormo was Force sensitive, my parents used their pull with the Greater Houses to get him smuggled out to the Jedi. Perks of being a House of assassins, I suppose--you have several favors you can call in.”

Theron was silent for a few minutes before his hand finally touched Aketho’s elbow, squeezing lightly. Aketho smiled softly at that, appreciating the comfort offered.

“Are you trying to find him to reconnect?” Theron asked.

“Something like that,” the former Cipher replied with a wry smile. “I suppose I’m just looking to apologize again…and…to make sure he’s been doing well with the Jedi.”

“Apologize?” the SIS agent asked in bemusement.

“I…” Aketho hesitated a moment, before closing his eyes and letting out a soft breath. “I’m the reason he was discovered. I was playing somewhere I shouldn’t have and he used the Force to stop debris from crushing me…”

“Aketho...” The hand on his elbow tightened, causing him to look back up. “You were a kid…I’m sure he doesn’t blame you.”

The younger man let out a soft laugh. “I know…he said as much before being taken away…I just…”

“Continue to blame yourself,” Theron finished.

“Yeah…I…just miss him…I looked up to him. Wanted to be just like him…”

“If I didn’t think it’d get us in trouble, I’d hold you right now,” the brunette murmured.

Aketho let out a chuckle. “I appreciate that.”

[tapejob]

hockeyblr linguistics - a preliminary analysis

hey all! as some of you know, i sent out a hockeyblr lingo survey a few days/weeks/something ago. as of today i finally have the free time to tackle it. big thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey, and without further ado: a kind of hasty, barely technical, preliminary analyses of hockeyblr lingo!

this dataset features around 21 main questions, with a sample size of around 673 respondents. partial responses were also combined in the final dataset because i got tired of waiting. obligatory disclaimer on response bias due to the nature of an online survey, etc etc.

i'm dividing this analysis mainly question-by-question, but also organized somewhat by themes/section. while we're mainly covering vocab + pronunciations, there's also sections looking at connotations/sentiment associated with words, and hockeyblr behavior patterns. it is very late at night, please bear with me if i get anything wrong.

section i: vocab + pronounciation demographics

Q1: vocabulary associated with the hat trick*

*as anon and multiple respondents have mentioned, this specific question contains a typo that may have affected data collection. the original question posed was 'what do you call three goals in a period?', which caused some confusion. though i think this data is enough to get the gist of it, this is something to keep in mind. i spent some time cleaning the 'other' responses and incorporating any '3 goals in a GAME is a hatty' responses into the other points, but i apologize for the confusion, haha

'hatty' as a casual reference seems to dominate the preferences. the other two spellings of hat trick seem to be less popular, but still present in the sample. in addition, 2 respondents brought up using 'HT' and/or 'H-T' as shorthand.

it is curious to note: in 'other' responses, at least 12 separate people brought up that they would use 'hatty' and 'hat trick' interchangeably (while only 1 person brought up they would use 'hatty' and 'hattrick', and no one mentioned 'hatty' and 'hat-trick' as pairs).

Q2: What is the title of the player that guards the team's net?

'goalie' seems heavily favored, while 'goaltender' and 'tendie' come after. given that these three terms are most likely to be derived from each other (goalie from goal, tendie from tender), it's understandable: goaltender is the official position name in ice hockey. yet it's curious how 'goalie' is so much more preferred, compared to say the hatty vs hat trick.

i bring this up anecdotally because i remember talking with a friend of mine not in hockey (but into other sports), and she laughed a bit incredulously when i said 'goaltender', like i was making a joke. 'what a weird name, tender, haha,' she'd said, and i got. extremely confused for a moment because i had been so used to it being common vocab.

Q3: What is the term you use to reference who calls the game?

as also mentioned in the other section, there are a lot of people on the ice with a lot of different titles (ref vs linesmen) - how much of this data captures the people who care and specify (mentioned in the others responses) vs those who just call everyone ref (also mentioned in the others responses)? something to consider in the future. in addition, 'zebra' surprised me as a somewhat common term, given that i rarely see it used on my dash.

a big oversight on my part was forgetting to put 'refs' as an option - that's why the 'other' chunk seems so large here. below is an expansion on the 'other' responses:

Q4: How do you pronounce the term for the period played following a tie at the end of the 3rd period?

this question sort of combines pronunciation and vocab in one. once again, shorthand seems to be favored (specifically the 'OT (oh-tee)' pronunciation, though there were still respondents for the other pronunciation). interestingly, more fun terms were also reflected among a decent couple people in the 'other' section, shown below in the figure.

shoutout, also, to the respondent who called an instance of overtime 'instant victory'.

Q5: How do you pronounce the term that references when your team gets to play with an extra man on the ice due to a penalty from the other team?

interestingly, this is one of the questions where the shorthand wasn't favored (powerplay over pp). also, as @bisexualingmaliciously brought up: terms like man advantage, commonly favored during announcing, aren't as widely favored, while pee-pee (wouldn't be caught dead on air if they can help it) is considerably larger of a chunk. shoutout, also, to the respondent who pronounces pp as 'puh'.

in other responses, 'poplay' was also brought up as a term. another respondent made a specific distinction that powerplay was used for speaking, but PP for typing - this gap might be something to consider in the future.

Q6: How do you pronounce the term that references when a player gets a goal into a net that a goaltender has been pulled from?

'empty netter' as a term falls into a somewhat shorthand purgatory (with the full term as empty net goal, and true shorthand as ENG). it's similar vibe i assume as calling hat trick -> hatty -> HT. also, unlike PP and OT, ENG pronunciation is slightly more varied (not by a lot, but a little).

within 'other', 5 respondents also cited 'empty net' as their term. obviously this might not be favored due to the confusion (empty net as the event of not having the goalie in the net, vs empty net as the goal on that specific empty net). yet in the sentence 'crosby got the ___', why do the majority of us prefer empty netter over empty net (which, i do recall instances of announcers using as well)? does the 'er' ending roll off the tongue better? expansion on other response data below:

another note: a respondent made a specific distinction that empty netter was for speaking, while ENG is for typing.

Q7: "The other team is coming to our __"

i do think it's interesting that the sort of stadium/localization for the playing field is built off the materials surrounding the sport. 'turf' and 'field' are pretty widely used for field sports, and we have a similar reflection when put into the context of hockey: arena, rink, ice.

'other' distributions also reflect sentiments on 'house/home' -- rather than home turf, our home ice -- or calling out the specific territories. however, there were also a couple responses stating that they would never phrase or say anything along these lines.

Q8: How do you describe a situation where one team is playing 5 players on the ice, and the other team is playing 3 players?

There's a huge preference for '5-on-3' rather than '5v3' as a term. However, something interesting to note: from the 'other' responses, there was one respondent who used '3-on-5', and one who uses '2 man advantage' and '2 adder' interchangeably.

Q9: How do you describe a situation where both teams have 5 players on the ice?

Here, though the number-on-number format is still a large chunk, 'even strength' gains a closer ground (despite '2 man advantage' not having a similar effect on the previous set, even if both terms seem to be contextually linked). in the 'other' responses, there was one respondent who simply cut the term into simply 'even', and also 2 respondents who called this 'normal'/'a normal situation'.

Q10: vocabulary associated with dick trick

*this specific question contains a typo that may have affected data collection. the original question posed was 'what do you call four goals in a period?', which caused some confusion. i went through the same data cleaning procedures, but given this is a 'lesser known' sort of term, it's harder to guarantee that confusion is accurate or reflective.

The majority seemed to have 'dick trick' down - an interesting term, considering that it's not technically an official hockey term, but was popularized from thornton's quote and definitely isn't said on-air.

'other' responses vary: there is a great amount who expressed confusion over the term or called it simply '4 goals' (may be influenced by the question wording, as mentioned). others seemed aware of the reference ('joe thornton special'), or had a different term ('gettysburg hat trick', 'poker', spin on the word hatty).

Q11: What do you call the area that players sit in during their penalty?

more variation in this response - it seems roughly equally divided between 'the box', 'penalty box', and 'sin bin'. within 'other' responses, the sentiment surrounding the box revolved around either playful/childish terms, or those that involve connotations of punishment or crime.

some respondents also remarked that their language around the ox will change based on the situation: for example, 'Time out or prison depending on severity' and 'juvie (if it’s a rookie) crimes corral'.

Q12: What do you call a player whose role is often aggressive and expected to fight in defense of their teammates?

'enforcer' and 'goon' seem to be the heavily favored terms -- however, commentary from 'other' respondents also mentioned that a few believe the terms to be dated, corresponding to historical roles that no longer have a place in the game.

a few responses also called this role 'rat' adjacent, 'bad/big boy', or a similar term referring to the size of the player ('the tank', 'the muscle').

Q13: What do you call a player whose role is primarily situated on defense?

'd-man' as a shorthand holds a large portion of responses (once again, a similar middle ground shorthand format). however, of the 'other' responses, there was a group who also referred to this position as 'defender' and 'defense', as well as one respondent who specified a 'dman' without the hyphen from the multiple choice.

Q14: What do you call a player who often seeks to agitate opponents and draw penalties?

'pest' and 'rat' seem to be the big terms here, with very little surprise. there is however, a plethora of other nicknames available in the 'other' responses

the sentiment towards this player role also seems much friendlier in comparison to other role questions (multiple references to positive endearments, nicknames, or players).

Q15: Which of these terms do you (commonly) use?

this particular question was multiple-response for a reason - i want to take a deeper dive on these associations later. for now, it's interesting to note that specific shot terms, often finisher acts (e.g. 'slapshot', 'one-timer') are somewhat more used than those involved with skills (e.g. 'toe drag').

section ii: connotations/sentiment association

Q16: Oldest age of a baby ___ ?

here are some violin plots on that specific question (which i loved). though this stat has somewhat been alluded to in literature before (the so-called primes/development curves of each position), it's nice to see it in numbers.

a 'baby goaltender' can essentially be older than that of the other 'baby' positions (however, with greater spread - indicating that there was potentially a range of responses in terms of goaltender age). an old baby prospect is the youngest of them all, with the smallest spread.

Q17: Your "national broadcast" refers to:

evidently, regionally based associations come into play here. within the 'other' distribution, there is a range of responses, from those who have never heard/used the term 'national broadcast' before, those not in the US/Canada, to those who define it as anything outside of their local broadcast (no association with any particular brand). there is also a healthy amount of illegal stream usage.

Q18: What do you call it?

this question was deliberately a bit vague, relying on respondents to know the context through the answer choices. even so, 'narrative' won out overwhelmingly. how did this term come about, and why do we all specifically associate so much with it -- choosing it over other terms such as sports magic or story?

on the flip side, 'other' spouted multiple responses who were unfamiliar with the term. so how did that 77.56% suddenly and undeniably understand the term and its connotations? what part of the hockeyblr bubble has assimilated this particular figure of speech for us?

Q19: What does the above term mean to you?

this question was a free response, aiming to look at the sentiments and connotations associated with the term, and received around 342 responses. responses varied from snippets of poetry, objective definitions, confusion from those who aren't familiar with the term, and also a few associations with rpf.

i did a sentiment analysis on the dataset per response, and graphed the positive, negative, and neutral sentiments on a 3d scatterplot.

though a majority of responses featured generally positive-neutral sentiments, there was variation and the addition of negative sentiments in the set as well. looking at a violin plot of the compounded sentiment (combining the positive, neutral, and negative)

though the majority falls neutral in sentiment, and an average skews towards positive, narrative sentiment continues to vary.

in addition, topic modeling was done on the dataset, split into both negative and positive topic models. 10 topics were each generated from the lda models. from the positive topic model, the following topics were generated (terms, with their corresponding weights)

'0.033*"dreams" + 0.033*"perseverance" + 0.033*"strength" + 0.033*"maths" + ' '0.033*"hopes" + 0.033*"finesse" + 0.033*"feats" + 0.033*"essence" + ' '0.033*"peoples" + 0.022*"interactions"'

'0.054*"fun" + 0.053*"used" + 0.051*"happen" + 0.034*"talent" + ' '0.033*"family" + 0.026*"numerology" + 0.026*"moments" + 0.026*"improbable" ' '+ 0.026*"golden" + 0.026*"sids"

'0.167*"story" + 0.054*"win" + 0.048*"season" + 0.040*"team" + ' '0.025*"beyond" + 0.022*"g" + 0.019*"adds" + 0.019*"case" + 0.016*"underdog" ' '+ 0.016*"neatly"'

'0.099*"hockey" + 0.081*"way" + 0.056*"magic" + 0.052*"it" + ' '0.046*"definitely" + 0.040*"fan" + 0.037*"terms" + 0.026*"thing" + ' '0.025*"much" + 0.023*"special"

'0.067*"cup" + 0.059*"team" + 0.039*"whats" + 0.034*"uplifting" + ' '0.034*"bonding" + 0.027*"us" + 0.026*"dynamics" + 0.024*"theme" + ' '0.016*"intricate" + 0.015*"overarching"

'0.059*"storyline" + 0.058*"player" + 0.056*"lore" + 0.048*"career" + ' '0.047*"emotional" + 0.034*"satisfying" + 0.032*"team" + 0.026*"goal" + ' '0.024*"beloved" + 0.023*"important"

'0.100*"tale" + 0.055*"one" + 0.050*"thats" + 0.043*"on" + 0.039*"sport" + ' '0.036*"reason" + 0.024*"cant" + 0.024*"supreme" + 0.024*"pornography" + ' '0.024*"define"

'0.056*"luck" + 0.040*"friendships" + 0.036*"the" + 0.034*"put" + ' '0.025*"words" + 0.025*"stoned" + 0.025*"research" + 0.025*"figure" + ' '0.025*"ur" + 0.025*"playoffs"

'0.059*"current" + 0.037*"trying" + 0.033*"theyre" + 0.030*"creates" + ' '0.030*"cohesive" + 0.030*"life" + 0.029*"guy" + 0.021*"urban" + 0.021*"ppl" ' '+ 0.021*"gay"

'0.047*"pekka" + 0.023*"kisses" + 0.023*"nashville" + 0.023*"must" + ' '0.023*"mika" + 0.023*"juuse" + 0.023*"letang" + 0.023*"hugs" + 0.023*"kane" ' '+ 0.023*"chis"

read through them. i think i cried when i did. it's like.... that's the narrative, huh.

section iii: hockeyblr behavior patterns

Q20: How would you tag a post about Mitch Marner?

this question aimed to look at how users tagged players -- though i tried to pick a player that could be looked on mostly ambivalently, i obviously failed badly. for that i apologize.

though the #[first name] [last name] format that most player tags use seem to be the most common, there are an evidently varied amount of responses regarding the player in question. people either hate mitch or love him, 'other' responses included responses from 'i would not post about him/i have his tag blocked' to variations of 'minch/affectionate nicknames', to a response who didn't know who he was.

other tagging styles mentioned included specific player tags for only players on user's followed teams, or exceptions for specific players. also used was the #p:[name] format for players.

Q21: How would you tag a post about the Toronto Maple Leafs?

as opposed to the full name variation for player marner, 'leafs' as the shorthand name wins out over 'toronto maple leafs' as the full team name.

however, this is also dependent on cultural context - the leafs have always been referred to as the leafs. does this tagging etiquette extend to teams such as columbus (would you tag it cbj, jackets, etc)?

conclusions/future considerations: i hate writing this part in real academic papers so i get the choice to half-ass it on my fake no effort one. hockeyblr is fascinating, and you know - why do we tend to say the things we do? there were a few questions i posed in this dataset that would be interesting to pursue if i or anyone else had the time or the time (good god). and considering how unique we are as a niche, how does hockeyblr compare to a different dataset with similar questions? something to consider.

anyway, i hope you guys learned something from this huge post. if you read through all that, you're the greatest. thanks again for reading, hope you enjoyed this not-at-all-academic study.

[awkward-tension-art]

Puppet on a String Chp.7 (Fives x Reader)

Chapter 6. Chapter 8.

Stuck

CW: Fives x Reader, Reader is a medical practitioner, angst, swearing, Death mention, Running from authorities, Mentions of dead characters, Inhibitor chip arc, self-blame, Nala Se being cruel,

Tag list (Thank you!): @spicydonut25 @amazonian-bae @notgonnaedit @tentakelspektakel @bimboshaggy

You didn’t have time to mourn before Nala Se was demanding your arrest. The both of you were  thrown into a quarantine room under droid observation while Shaak Ti discussed with the Chancellor what to do with the tumor.  

“I’m sorry, Fives.” your voice was barely a whisper, “I’m sorry.” 

He sighed, interlocking his fingers with yours, “It's not your fault, mesh’la.”

You swallowed, raising your free hand to stroke his cheek. Gently, you turned his head to face you so you could give him a tender kiss.

Just as the two of you broke away, the door to the quarantine chamber hissed open. Shaak Ti stepped inside with Nala Se behind her. In the Jedi’s hand was the tumor. She didn’t comment on your closeness with the ARC trooper.

Your lover perked up, “General, what did the Chancellor say?”

“Supreme Chancellor Palpatine wants the tumor and all of the intel gathered sent to the Grand Republic Medical Facility on Coruscant.” She answered calmly, walking passed the examination table to an open case behind the both of you.

The clone nodded, “So then I'll be going to Coruscant as well?”

She placed the tumor in the case gently before turning, “You were not a part of the Chancellor's request,” Her lavender eyes settled on you, “You, Doctor, were, however. He’d like for you to go through all the data collected. He admitted he is no scientist, and would like you to break the information down for him.”

Your eyes widened, the Chancellor requested you? Immediately, you were anxious, “I…oh..yes! I’d be honored to.” Truthfully, you’d really hate looking like a moron in front of him.

“Thank you, doctor.” She nodded in appreciation, “We must discuss everything before we part, as there is still so much we do not know.

“Perhaps we would know more if these two had not taken matters into their own hands.” Nala Se snarked with as much emotion as she could put into her cold voice. 

Your hackles were raised, but Fives snapped first, “Listen! We were trying to save our friend!”

The Kaminoan whirled her small head to meet the ARC troopers eye, “And yet perhaps by removing this tumor, it was you who killed him.”

“False,” You broke into the argument, “The tumor’s necrosis had spread to healthy brain tissue. If I had been allowed to perform the necessary treatments sooner, Tup would still be alive.” 

The Jedi frowned, “So you blame us for your friend's death?” She sounded surprised by such a revelation. Maybe even a little hurt. 

Your silence was your answer and you looked away from her. 

She sighed, “We will know more soon. I want this specimen and all the data prepared for transit to the Jedi Temple. Doctor, you will speak with the Jedi council about your findings and diagnosis.”

Your eyes went wide and before you could speak, Nala Se cut in, “The Chancellor said the tumor and data was to be sent directly to the Medical Facility on Coruscant, not the Jedi Temple.”

“And it will get there, but after the Jedi have run an analysis on it first.” Shaak Ti’s steady voice was unwavering. She was finally on your side. 

Too late, you thought bitterly.

“I protest. I must personally deliver the tumor to the Chancellor as ordered.” The Kaminoan scientist argued. 

“You can protest all you want. My word is final.” The Jedi shot her down quickly. 

The doors hissed open again and another Kaminoan stood in the doorway with two armed guards.

Kindly, The togruta put a hand on your lover's shoulder and gave him a small smile, “You have one more physical to pass. If you are cleared, you will be sent back to the 501st.” She reassured him, “As for you, Doctor, we need to discuss what to say to the Jedi Council.”

You looked to Fives and he nodded with a small smile, “I’ll be back.” He squeezed your hand and let go to follow the other scientist. However, before he left, he looked back at you. 

You returned his smile but stopped, noticing his eyes narrowed at something behind you. You were about to speak before he stepped towards you and gave you a rather…passionate kiss, taking you off guard. 

“My my…” Shaak Ti sounded like she had a smirk on her face.

Nala Se let out an exasperated huff.

Once he pulled back, he had a proud smirk, “I’ll see you later, mesh’la.” 

The door closed behind him and you cleared your throat, “Uh…um…shall we…discuss things, General?”

The both of you left the quarantine room, and began to walk through the sterile, white halls of Kamino. Nala Se was behind you as you walked.

After a few moments of silence, Shaak Ti spoke up, “I apologize for my inaction,” She said as she stared ahead, “I trusted Nala Se’s judgment. But I should have been open to yours as well.” The calm General put a hand on your shoulder, “However, I find your tenacity and determination over your patients admirable.” 

Oh…Jedi were rather humble. 

“I don’t mean to blame you,” You mumbled quietly, “I’ve just…so many clones don't have an advocate for their health. Tup needed a voice, and I just wish my voice had been enough to save him.”

“Your voice was enough.” She answered, continuing to walk, “As a Jedi, I am supposed to look at the different possibilities in any given situation. Find a solution that doesn’t cost lives. This time, I had gotten too complacent in Kamino’s protocol. And for that, I am sorry.”

How the hell are you supposed to stay mad at her?

“I…” You sighed, unsure if you should speak to her about your worries. 

She seemed to read you easily, “There is still something on your mind.”

That wasn’t a question. She clocked you.

Should you…tell her?

Fives trusted her. Enough to kiss you in front of her, it seemed. And you trusted Fives…

One glance back at Nala Se and you shook your head, “Nothing. Just…thinking of Dr.Mila.” you lied, “She could have saved Tup…”

The togruta didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded, “She was a talented doctor. One who was taken from us far too-.”

Her words were cut off by an alarm triggering. The hallways were flooded in nothing but crimson light as Kamino went on lockdown. Shaak Ti grabbed your wrist, “Stay close.” She commanded you, and you did so. 

Nala Se turned to the droid and spoke something, though it was too low to hear properly. The droid gave her the case and floated down the hall where you had just come from. The little robot was shoved to the side by two guards running towards Shaak Ti. 

“General, the ARC trooper had attacked his escort and run with a surgical droid.” The one on the left stated, “We think he's trying to escape Kamino.” He wore a kama, most likely an officer. 

“What? Why!?” You asked before the Jedi could, “Fives wouldn’t do that without reason.”

“It doesn’t matter. We need to find him.” Nala Se snapped. 

Shaak Ti agreed with a nod, “He’d most likely go to the main hangar. Come on!”

You ran with the group, following them to the best of your ability. The Jedi and her officer were taking the lead, making several sharp turns and going through too many doors to get to the hangar.

The last door opened to the main hangar and you were instantly smacked with the smell of the stormy ocean outside. You paused to take in the surroundings when the officer shouted and pointed, “There they are!”

Without thinking, you ran forward, followed by Shaak Ti, Nala Se and the other guards. 

“Fives!” You called to him as he ran up the ramp into one of the Kamino transport ships. 

He paused to look at you, brown eyes wide and worried. Before he disappeared onto the ship, he mouthed something to you. 

The tumor.

Your steps slowed as the engines booted up and the spheric ship kicked to life. It lifted quickly and burst forward, flying out of the hanagar. You didn’t watch, instead, your eyes were on the case that was still in Nala Se’s hands. 

Shaak Ti and the others ran past you, getting outside to watch the aircraft leave the compound. “I want him brought in alive.” She commanded her guards, “Have that ship tracked.” 

Without thinking, you dashed forward, “I’ll protect this!” You ripped the case out of the Kaminoans hands. She instantly tried to argue with you, but you opened it before she could say anything.

Empty.

“Where's the tumor, Nala Se!?” You slammed the case closed and whirled to glare at her, “You were in charge of the case! You’ve had it since we left the exam room!”

Fives must have seen her take it. That’s why he ran.

Your outburst got the General's attention, “The specimen is gone?” 

“The clone must have stolen it!” The Kaminoan tried to reason. 

“That’s impossible, we had eyes on him the entire time!” you shouted back, “The only way the tumor is missing is if you purposely switch the cases!”

“I did no such thing!” The Kaminoan huffed, “You must’ve taken it! I demand this Doctor be searched!” 

“These petty arguments need to stop!” Shaak Ti snapped, finally losing her patience, “I want these two separated. I will question them myself.”

Your hands were behind your back and you were thrown into another quarantine room without another word.  You paced, angry, impatient and uncomfortable once you were alone.

Fives was out there. The man you loved was out there, on the run. 

Your lover needed you. He needed support. You had to help him! But you were stuck in this room, waiting to be questioned like a criminal.

What the hell were you supposed to do!?

As you paced back and forth, it became clear that you were trapped. You knew the guard at the door was standing steadfast and unwavering. His rifle was most likely in hand, poised to kill if needed.

You were stuck, unable to help the one you love.

All because of fucking Nala Se!

You were about to give up when you heard a shifting noise above you. You looked up, tense and ready when the vent cover jerked and moved. From the inner workings of Kamino, Fives leapt down followed by AZ-3.

“Fives!” You barely repressed your shout into a whisper. Your arms were around him in a tight embrace before he even blinked. His clothes were soaked and you could smell the ocean on him. But right now, you didn’t care.

His warm lips peppered your face in greeting, “Mesh’la! I’m so glad you're ok.” He pulled back to hold your face, “You're not hurt, are you?” The ARC trooper let out a relieved breath when you shook your head. 

“What the fuck happened, Fives?” You finally asked him, “I know Nala Se switched the cases, but why'd you run? If you spoke to Shaak Ti-”

“I think she’s being manipulated,” Fives responded, “Nala Se is hiding something. I think you’re right. She's responsible for the deaths of your colleagues. She’s responsible for your attack.” Your lover sounded so certain of his words, “No, we need to investigate ourselves.”

You nodded, grabbing his hands in your own, “I’m with you, love.” 

The ARC trooper gave you his signature grin before kissing you again. Once he pulled back, his eyes were on the door, “First, I need a change of clothes.” 

You smirked, “I have an idea.”

[pumpkinsy0]

the outsiders early 2000s au hcs

for some character analysis i did check here

•IK I SAID IT BEFORE BUT CURLY WOULDVE BEEN THOSE GUYS WHO MADE HORROR FLASH ANIMATIONS (for example like salad fingers) AND LIKE YEARS LATER HE BECOMES PART OF INTERNET LORE

•he would add pony and angela somehow into most of his projects

•angela and her friends had ds’ and used pictochat to communicate when one of em

•mcbling angelaaaaa hellllloooooo

•OK LOOK ik this isnt ONLY in the 2000s but i still wanna include it, so yknow how friend groups made up names for their groups that EVERYONE just knew them by and so that was just their clique??? yea angela and curlys friend groups have their own name

•angelas friend group called themselves “the bratz” and curlys friend group called themselves idk “cyber bytes” or somethin, mostly bc they rlly play video games together

•unlikely for them to b one but lets all imagine johnny, pony, and angela as scene kids

•i say let pony and anglea be popular on myspace, they deserves it

•if ponys not famous on myspace at LEAST hes popular livejournal

•johnny posts on flickr sm??? like my god he loves taking pics and videos, he always carries around a camera

•u can usually find curky and his fuck ass friends

in the back if a taco bell parking lot

•johnny and pony were those kids watching sonic/teen titan tribute vids on youtube

•they all either had a flip phone OR thise phones where if u slid them up the keyboard was right behind them, yknow what i mean???

•NONE of them had unlimited data LMFAOOOOO

•and if i told u all their pastimes was being in omegle what would u do🤨🤨

•two bit loves kaomoji’s lol

•darry bought pony a sony walkman and he just NEVER put it the fuck down like EVER

•darry still has his gameboy!!

•curly has a ps vita he just lets pony take home for whatever reason and pony lets the gang play around w it a bit but not for long

•cherry and marcia r lps collectors and they trade a LOT

•two bit fucking loves silly bands in the shape of dinosaurs, his sister gives him a shit ton and he wears em

•sylvia was that girl to get tans and she had that playboy bunny sticker print left on her hip

•curly got pony into portal (like the game)

•soda and steve r BIG beyblade and hot wheels fans

•twobit LOVES pokemon, dally thinks its fucking stupid but he does like watching ppl get riled up over it

•PONY WAS A BREAKING BAD FAN SINCE DAY FUCKING ONE AND WHEN PPL STARTED REALIZING HIW GOOD OF A SHOW IT WAS DURING THE LATER SEASONS HE WAS PISSED LMAOOO BC THE GANG USED TO SHIT ON HIM SO HARD FOR TRYING TO CATCH THE EPISODES

[absolutebl]

BL & Critical Analysis

Pop culture critique & a how to do it... or something

This meaty question came from the lovely @huachengeye Thank you!

Codicil: I do not get paid for pop culture critique (although I once wrote book reviews professionally, long story). So I’m entirely a dilettante. 

The Question!

Q1: Can you can shed some light on your process (of critical analysis)

This is a little like training your eye to edit a document (I bet you can tell that's not one my strong points). Or training your mind to look at data and data collection in terms of the results it may yield and what the initial survey says about the questioner's bias (or can bias results).

First, I have to ask... 

Do you really want to train your eye to critique?

Because it will become a lot harder to immerse yourself in a piece of media if you constantly feel obligated to step back mentally and think about it from various perspectives. 

In other words, you may enjoy BL, or all live action dramas, LESS if you try to think about them critically.

I have an intimate who is a pretty well known writer. She mostly writes humorous fiction. She's open about the fact that this means every time she laughs, she stops and thinks about why that happened and whether is could be used in her prose. She never gets to be fully absorbed by narrative ever anymore because her critical eye is always turned on, especially for the written word.

What you may sacrifice for critique, is a certain level of childish wonder. 

I’m not sure i would necessarily advise doing this. 

My Process 

My process is essentially now visible in this blog. As I watch a show I take a few notes on it (which show up in the weeklies) and then at the end I go through those notes, consolidate, try to be witty about it, and write up a review.

The review usually has something about:

characters, tropes, plot 

narrative & story structure & pace

how this BL fits in with the greater BL genre & history

any thoughts I have on the quality of the production, acting, and/or directing 

my own personal feelings about the show

Thus my reviews tend to take into account several criteria.

For #1-2 I have a background in lit crit as an undergrad (and, like I said, I did once review books for a living) so these are kinda ingrained in me. I’m working on seeing the influence of soap operas, fan fic, and non-western story structures as critically valid, so these are the things I’m actively learning more about the most these days. 

For #3: How does this fit into the history of BL? Since I’ve made it point to watch pretty much all BLs, I feel like I’m set up to think and talk about this. AKA the spreadsheet made me do it. But since I also have anthropology in my academic history, I’m very interested in how a BL represents for its country’s BL oeuvre. I try to judge KBLs against other KBLs (and Kdramas) and look for patterns and trends in how that country’s interpretation of what it “means to be BL” shift over time. 

For #4: my IRL job is tangential to the entertainment industry so that’s accidentally trained my eye for film. I don’t know that I like this part about myself, but it’s happened whether I like it or not. And I don’t have a proper background in film critique. 

Final #5: will discuss further in a bit.

Suggestion? Establish A Rating System 

Come up with your own personal 10 star (or 5 star) rating system.

Write it down. Don’t be afraid to modify or adjust it. It’s yours, your tastes change, nothing is set in stone. 

Pick one ideal example BL for each category that you’re very familiar with for your reference point. Then you can ask yourself, after you’ve watched a new one, whether you liked it more, less, or about the same as that show. (relative rating, similar to grading on a curve) 

I change my examples regularly as my taste changes and as new BLs are added. The bar gets shifted, so to speak. 

My Rating System 

Your reasoning for rating a BL will be different from mine, but here’s mine as an example. 

(Also I never feel bound by this, sometimes I give a show a 8/10 just because it feels like that’s what it deserves.) 

10/10 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - my favorite precious squee!, faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential, makes me happy, examples: Semantic Error, Until We Meet Again 

9/10 ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED - loved it and good rewatch potential but probably a few pacing issues or one big flaw, still made me feel good/comforted, examples: Cherry Magic, Bad Buddy

8/10 - RECOMMENDED - some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure/filming but still satisfies as BL, moved me emotionally, rewatchable in parts or not rewatchable but important, examples: Love By Chance, Between Us

7/10 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS - i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, and/or chemistry issues, may have impact on other BL fans but not me (or on me but not others) examples: Make it Right, KinnPorsche

6/10 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED - probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship, disappointed expectations, unlikely to rewatch, examples: My Gear and Your Gown, Love Mechanics

5/10 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO - but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess interesting only because it's BL and I'm probubly pretty conflicted about it, examples: Advance Bravely, Even Sun

4/10 - FATALLY FLAWED - but still basically BL, however... do we want to support this kind of behaviour? examples: Precise Shot, Work from Heart

3/10 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT, just seriously why did this get made? examples: Blue of Winter, Physical Therapy 

2/10 - IT'S DEPRESSING - they killed/tortured/etc the gay, save yourself, examples: The Effect, HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

1/10 - IT'S AWFUL, I WATCHED IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, has all the flaws of 4-3 plus something even more egregious, personally triggering, example: My Bromance series, Round Trip to Love

dnf - self explanatory, but usually I drop because I feel like the narrative is already a #3 and/or headed for a #2 or #1 and then I’m told later that is went there, example: My Tempo

I hand out the fewest 1s & 10s. The most 8s and 7s. Everything else is pretty much on the bell curve you’d expect. 

Q2: What resources do you use to build your reviews?

I listen to a lot of pop culture review critiques in podcast form, often about stuff I'd never watch. But I like the way professionals talk about these things, even if they aren't MY things or don't jive with my personal opinions.

Mark Kermode is my favorite film critic and we like the opposite stuff, but the way he talks about film is very interesting to me. His podcast mini series on the "business of film" is probably one of my must listens. For his main podcast (Kermode & May’s Take), I always skip over all the interviews, people talking about their own films bore me to death (especially if they are actors on the promo junket, save me please). His rants are some of my favorites of all time (try Pirates 3 or Iron Man 2). Someone else’s list. 

I also like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR because it brings in multiple perspectives and varied cast of critics who often disagree and the "things making me happy" is a grab bag of fun.

The Bechdel Cast is a feminist critique podcast from Hollywood insiders and they do recaps as well as critique, and it's always fascinating to me to hear what people latch onto in a narrative. However, I only listen if I am already familiar with the film they are discussing.

My background is in anthropology and I've lived all over the world so that helps train me to think in terms on culture's impact on narrative as well as linguistics and so forth. As a personality I’m also quite reserved and deadpan, grumpy, stiff, strict, and kinda cold. I think I gravitate to being an observer and an outsider which helps if you want to analysis stuff. Which is not a claim to objectivity, I don't think there can be objective analysis of pop culture.

But it does make me pause to think, "that made me FEEEL something" why? What am I feeling? How did the actor do that? The script? The direction?

These shows are meant to entertain, whether they are successful or not, for me (and what "successful entertainment" means to me) and how they are doing it is the first question I always ask myself.

Q3: What are the things you look out for when watching a BL?

I ask myself a lot of things I would when looking at any piece of art. Or even when shopping for clothing or a new car or reading a book.

Did I like it? Why did I like it?

Did it move me? Why did it move me? 

Did I react? How did I react? To which bits? Why? 

What tropes and narrative beats was it using to manipulate me and my expectations? Did it meet those expectations? The promises it set up at the start? Did it fulfill the watcher-contract during the course of the narrative? 

Did the filming successfully telegraphy the journey I was meant to take? Did the actors? 

But also... would I rewatch it? Am I tempted to do so the moment it ends? For which bits?

The statistician in me wants to point out that these questions say a lot more about me and my relationship to art than it does about the art itself.

For example

Did I like it? Means... I'm motivated by pure taste and personal preference and complete subjectivity. This is in part formed by a person's background, life state, whole experience with culture and pop culture and society, family, friends. Taste is also just "that" bit. You know, that bit? Likes lemon deserts over chocolate ones, gravities to spicy food, favorite color is green, decorates with potted plants. Just my taste is my taste. I like what I like. 

Yes I have some criteria that subconsciously come into play: I look for clever story structure, subversion or manipulation of tropes, parody, not hitting any of my dislikes (like dub con). But also I have other biases impacting whether I like it (like physical appearance) which I can try to check but usually can't fix. (For example GMMTV's Gawin/Fluke looks so much like an ex of mine I really struggle with his screen presence.)

Did I like it?

The fact that this is the first question I ask myself also should tell you I'm motivated by the emotion these narratives engender. I want them to transport me and move me. I my case I want to feel comforted and satisfied and happy. The ones the make me feel discomfort, especially for too long in the narrative, I am simply going to like less. Sometimes less than I feel like I should (see my struggles with masterworks like ITSAY, YNEH, or The 8th Sense). The very BLs that most professional critics would tout as the best examples of the genre for a wider audience often turn out to be the ones I struggle with the most. (They are also, fortunately for me, the least representative of the bulk of the genre.)

In other words there is ALSO a part of me that genuinely likes and enjoys the trashy stuff. Even the trash I trash watch.

So I would advise you to come up with your own questions. Ask yourself what you want from these shows when you watch them. 

What motivates you? 

Why are you watching them at all? 

What brings you joy from an art or entertainment experience? 

What do you want them to do for you? To you?

You are going to experience them (and therefore analyze them) from this perspective whether you like it or not. So understand yourself is paramount. It's about your relationship to the art, not the art itself.

If I were to give you an assignment I would say start with one BL you really enjoyed, perhaps not your favorite but one level down. And then do one you really did not enjoy. And think about why... 

Happy analyzing! 

(source)

[kookie-doughs]

Maybe Hero

Hawks / Keigo Takami X Reader

-Y/N L/N a UA’s 1st year Department of Support was mistaken by the No. 2 hero as a hero.

Chapter 1: Robots and Swords

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Your quirk is Technokinesis

There's a lot to unpack in this quirk, you'll just learn more about it through out the story or you can look it up online I'm probably goinf to follow what it says there to keep the character from being too OP

You can have the ability to create a machine if you have the blueprint in your mind and the materials in front of you. Mei doesn't want you to try the suit because your quirk optimises to you and prevents any malfunction thus the blue print would be altered without knowing what went wrong.

The optimise only works if youre in contact with the said machine. When contact is lost, the machine would revert back to it unoptimised version.

Example you connected the wrong wires, it could cause an explosion when touched the wires correct themselves, when untouched it unconnects. Even if in battle when youre firing left and right it will explode when contact is lost.

You can manipulate any data and equipment with a look but only to some degree, your power works best if you hold it, which triggers the "fix everything when touched" part of your quirk so its difficult to adjust in between. You can also analyse any equipment or such but it only gives off surface level information, once again deep analysis work when in contact. Your analysis only gives about the machine, such as function, who, when, where it was made and whether its faulty. Deep analysis gives all the materials used and their function, if you inspect a faulty one it shows those despite the machine working fine as is.

Only minor altercations can be done by sight. Changing the street light from red to green or changing your scores in arcades or make the claw hold the toy tighter. In fight lets say Katsuki is supposed to explode using this gauntlet, you can prevent that one click once because you do have a cool down so if he barrages you with it you can stop about 25% of his attacks.

A big altercation you can do is when holding the equipment you can disable it. Lets say youre playing in the arcade, you hold the claw machine you can shut down the entire mall as theyre all connected. You can also stop anything motor powered.

You can feel every equipment around 30 meters when you focus. If something is faulty to the point of danger you are alerted and you have to figure out whats wrong. It doesn't say what's wrong.

When you have the blueprint and the function in mind you can restore, repair and return any broken or damaged non-living object to its optimal state no matter how long it has been broken or how damaged it was.

Most importantly, you can move your consciousness to an equipment, machine or any of sort when your body fails(passive) or on command as long as your body is within 20 meters. Your body would be locked in a cylinder shield to prevent damage. You can stay in another body for 5 minutes max. You can not possess the equipment causing you danger(unless it was passively activated and its the only thing around). You can move your consciousness every 12 hours.

I almost forgot to say this you can not mess with someone else's quirk. You cant turn off the charger if its plugged on Denki. But if Overhaul or Tomura breaks a computer you can bring it back if you know the necessary information about it, you can not deep analyse a computer that broken down but you can still surface analyse it.

Mei and you work together a lot she's often the one making blue prints and you create the blueprints so she can adjust them. It gives her more time to hone her creations. She may be better at making them but you're not that far behind.

Shinsou has been your friend since a child as you were the only one unafraid of him, because he cant penetrate your mind easily, because you always move your consciousness passively when he tries.

Im sorry if the explanation is bad or its too overpowered but yeah thats your quirk for this story. I'll try to adjust the quirk to be less overpowered.

-kookiedoughs

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @applepie-macaroon @nykie-love-anime @qardasngan

[thoughtsandbones]

A not so forgotten history

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!MedicDoc ( codename: Blue)

WARNINGS: Mention of death, war, angst, mental health mention, drug mention, fluff, just getting the POV of our friendly neighbourhood masked menace..

Song inspo: Terra Firma - Delerium ft Aude and 1973 - James Blunt

(lol lowkey wanted to know what Ghost thought of Soap taking photos of Blue)

https://open.spotify.com/track/0fuQ65fX8W94q6QwTFyqgI?si=4fc4c93f25394143 (because you should all here this song.. :) )

I grew up with the OG MW2 game, so there are some references to the old one, so kind of a mix of both the OG and the new timeline... (Also I'm ignoring the OG Shepherd betrayal and keeping in line the one with the new timeline..)

All rights reserved to the rightful owners of Call of Duty Modern Warfare.

spelling and some grammar mistakes as I am bad at times... :/

(FYI: bold sentences... that are like this... are supposed to describe redacted data/info to the plot... ;] .. )

Please do let me know how you all are finding this fanfic!c :D

PART 1, PART 2 and PART 3

Part 4

Once Soap came back from the bathroom, he was on his way to meet up with Ghost in the mess hall.

He began humming to himself

She seems like an interesting one Soap had thought to himself. Ghost had mentioned that you had a practically useless file which was mostly redacted.

Soap grew further suspicious once you handed over that piece of shite form to Ghost.

He's hoping Price knows what he is doing... Of course Price knows what he's doing... But that whole mix-up with you being charged for malpractice? That's a pretty big deal

Although he could say the same for their previous Doctor who was too much of a fan of glue in the field.

His thought process engulfed him has he nearly hit the door to the mess hall.

Has he entered the mess hall, he saw Ghost, facing the window watching the remains of the sunset. It was an odd sight... Usually he doesn't keep his back to the door.. Soap pondered

Ghost had his arms crossed, he was leaning against the table nearest to the window.

"Alright L.t?" Soap says once he got near him.. Ghost still had not turned to give him usual glare of this nickname that he would grunt at.

"Notice' you took photos of her" Ghost finally said, turning to face Soap, his arms still across his chest, letting out a sigh.

Oh yeah Soap thought

"I figured we needed intel L.t" Soap said, grabbing his phone out from his pocket and getting the photo he took. "Her forms, and file, like you said were redacted. Heavily"

"Yeah, well that was the usual with Shepherd back then" Ghost said, unfolding his arms and coming over to Soap to view the photo he took of you.

"Even you raised your suspicions sir" Soap said, handing over his phone to Ghost.

Ghost took the phone and held the photo of you in his gloved hands. You were looking at the sunset. He zoomed in, without even thinking about it.

Your face was still lit from the sun setting in the horizon, the orange and pink bleeding across the sky.

The way your eyes lit up from the light of the sunset, that change in colour. There was a softer 'ping' in his chest again, not as sharp as the first.

Not even Johnny's camera could capture a view like that Ghost thought.

'Hmmm'' Ghost says, the gears in his head grinding. He handed the phone back to Soap and crossed his arms again.

Is it really you after all these years? Ghost pondered There was a sense of familiarity with those eyes

Trauma does heavy damage to the brain, so many soldiers have come and gone, and most of them have blurred into one face. The name rang a bell, but he still couldn't picture you from all those years ago.

"Price said she worked here before" Soap said, trying to fill the silence whilst Ghost did his usual quiet analysis.

"Yeah, long time ago" Ghost responded

"Did you know her then?" Soap said puzzlingly. How could he keep this from him Soap thought

"Only from when I dug up some info in the archives" Ghost said

"What archives?!" Soap shrieked

"Restricted access kind" Ghost said back to him "She was a rookie under my ol' Captain"

'What Captain?" Soap asked. Just has felt like he fit into this place and was getting to know Ghost, something new had to ambush him.

Ghost noted the continued level of shock rising in Soap, so much so that his arms started to flap a bit.

"That's classified I believe" Ghost said, he noted a bigger wave and and even shocked expression expanding across Soap "I'll talk to Price 'nd see if we can tell ya Johnny" Ghost added, giving a brief tap on his arms and started to walk to the door.

"Is she dangerous?" Soap asked "After Graves.." Soap started

Ghost whipped around

"No. She's nothin' like that" Ghost quipped back.

Nothing like that bastard Ghost thought

"Sorry sir, didn't mean.." Soap said

"It's fine, you have questions, c'mon let's find Price" Ghost says, heading out of the door.

The both of them headed down the corridor to Price's office

Explainin' this mess to Johnny is going to be... interestin' Ghost thought to himself.

As they reached Price's office, Ghost knocked on the door

"Come in" Price yelled

As they entered they saw Price at his desk, soft jazz playing in the background whilst he typed away on his computer. As Ghost and Soap entered he looked up.

"Ah lads, you read my mind!" Price exclaimed

"Yeah, we needed to talk about some things.." Soap started again. He wanted to get right down to it, and was hoping Price wasn't going to send them to do some menial task when there was a juicy part of history to lap up.

"Yes, I gathered as much." Price said, finishing off typing on his computer, he gestured to the both of them to have a seat on his sofa in his office.

Ghost and Soap took a seat and waited for Price to join them on the small armchair opposite the sofa with a small table in between.

"Guessing you have questions about the new doctor?" Price says smiling at both of them leaning forward as he sat down.

"That and this old Captain?" Soap said suddenly

Price's head looked up from Soap to Ghost, Ghost's eyes darted from Price to Soap's who was still looking at Price.

"What'd you know?" Price says curiously leaning back in the chair.

"That our new medic - well doctor worked under him and that Ghost knows and I don't" Soap responded

"I know a lotta things that you don't Johnny" Ghost said, suppressing a small laugh

Soap turned to Ghost, frowning at him and turned back to Price

"The Captain, was Captain David MacAlasdair, a friend and colleague" Price started

"A fellow Scotsman?" Soap chirped

"Yeah, from Glasgow" Price added "He took under a few cadets and trained them up through the army and most them signed up and passed into the the early beginnings of the 141, before it was called the 141." Price reminisced.

"Codenamed Blue, our new doctor, was one of the cadets that the Captain trained. On a mission to obtain intel at a Russian base in Siberia, the Captain was captured and executed." Price says

"Jesus" Soap whispered a lot of shit went down here in the past that he had no idea about he thought Bad things have happened to too many good soldiers. Too many good men have lost their lives

"The Captain took Blue with him, she wanted to progress further in her career here so she went on this mission" Price continues.

Ghost's eyes widened. He didn't realise that one mission that you went on was that one.

"After the mission went south, contact was lost and we thought she was either KIA or MIA. She made contact with our Russian friend, Nik, and then came home."

"Why did the mission go bad?" Soap asked

"We do not know. The file Shepherd gave was redacted" Price huffed

"Yeh, a two pager turned into 7 words" Ghost gruffed

"Seen the file then?" Price asked Ghost

Ghost nodded back, wanting to hear more of the story.

"Why did she leave?" Soap asks, he felt like he was pestering Price, but he couldn't help it. He needed answers.

"Her choice." Price said, sighing deeply bringing his left hand to scratch his beard.

"She left, and went to medical school. Always knew that one had some top tier brains." Price resumed

"What about this malpractice issue" Soap asked without even thinking.

"That's a whole misunderstanding, and I believe she should be the one to tell you" Price stated

"What's her name?" Soap blurted

"Jeez Johnny, what is this? 21 questions?" Ghost sighed

"Lt, you saw her file, nothing on there." Soap replied rolling his eyes.

"Ghost, you don't remember her?" Price asked

"Vaguely" Ghost responded.

Price got up from his chair, and went to a standing cabinet near his desk, he went through the files and papers until he picked a small white envelope up. He then walked back over to the sofa where Ghost and Soap sat.

Soap perked up at the sight of the envelope.

He opened the envelope, which revealed a small collection of photographs, and flicking through, he found the right one.

"Hope this jogs the brain" Price said handing a photo to Ghost smiling slightly

Ghost took ahold of the photo. All of a sudden a switch triggered in his head when he laid eyes on that photo.

Soap moved towards Ghost to get a better look.

The Captain and you. You had the goofiest face; crossed eyes and your mouth, baring your teeth and the Captain, facing you, was there laughing. Both of you dressed in combat gear, ready for a mission or training? The Captain wearing his beret and you... had shorter hair. A pixie cut with the left hand side shaved.

That 'ping' in his chest flickered again. Deep within his brain the memory of you resurfaced. You were one of the five cadets trained by the Captain and before he was the Ghost...

"This was before the Captain's last mission" Price said, eyeing Soap's curious face.

"She looks completely different now" Soap said, noting your short hair and slimmer build.

"That tends to happen as people age Soap" Price chuckled, sitting back down in his chair.

Ghost continued to look at the photo. He could faintly hear your laugh from all those years ago.

"She thinks I'm dead" Ghost finally says, giving the photo back to Price

"How?" Soap asks

"She knew Ghost as Simon Riley" Price answered.

Ghost nodded

Of course Soap thought, all these revelations about her had made him forget that Ghost was a ghost...

"That's your decision of when you want to tell her Simon" Price said, using his name this time.

Ghost looked up at Price.

"Gonna be a bit difficult" Ghost says

"Would you rather she found out if you're injured or from someone else?" Price explained, slightly nudging his head towards Soap, unbeknownst to Soap himself.

Ghost sighed. Of course I need to tell her he thought

"Where is she now?" Price asked This will be interesting to see how Simon deals with this

"Infirmary" Ghost replied

"Right, guess I better go see her before she starts wondering the base" Price said, getting up.

Ghost and Soap also got up from the sofa and then walked to the door of Price's office.

"Johnny, go ahead, I need to have a word alone with Price" Ghost said

Soap looked at Ghost curiously, and then walked out, Ghost made sure the door was closed before turning to Price.

"What is it Simon?" Price asked

"I err.." Ghost started, he looked at the ground and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Price looked Ghost cautiously.

"Ruhari, I called her that name" Ghost said finally

Price chuckled, shaking his head

"Of course you did" Price said "So you did remember her?" Price asked

Ghost grunted. He dug himself a hole and now he's ready to be buried.

"She is going to ask how you knew her name" Price stated, crossing his arms. "I'm not going to tell her Simon, but you need to tell her, she deserves that at least" Price said unfolding his arms and raising his right arm to pat Ghost on the shoulder.

"Yes sir" Ghost replied

Ghost edged towards the door, opening it and they walked out.

"I'll cover you this time" Price said, as they both stood in the hallway as he locked his office.

Ghost nodded and watched Price walk off to the infirmary.

Taking a deep breathe, Ghost put his hand in his front pocket to retrieve the key for your room. He walked down the hallway and found himself outside her soon-to-be room. A thin gold plaque was on the door that had a red cross on it. He unlocked the door and looked inside.

It was barren. Soon to be occupied by her.

The image of her trembling legs flickered in his mind. Her demeanour has changed. She wasn't the same person from before he thought.

Ghost left the room, not locking it, but made his way to an airing cupboard nearby that had spare towels, bedsheets and blankets in it. Pulling out two warm towels, he walked back to the room he was just in and placed the towels on the end of the bed.

He walked over to the window, staring outside. The sun had disappeared, the sky a mixture of dark and light blue. He sighed and then walked towards the door.

He turned around and looked at the towels he brought her, laying on the bed.

How am I going to get out of this one he thought.

Ghost opened the door and left the room, locking the door and made his way to the infirmary. Back to see you again.

[banemmanan]

U.N.C.L E. statistics graphs

Part 1 of 3

[part 2] * [part 3]

All Man from U.N.C.L.E. was data compiled by @commander-kiranerys :

Series 1 * Series 2 * Series 3 * Series 4

Girl from U.N.C.L.E. data was compiled by myself and my sister:

* GFU *

Original graphs created by commander-kiranerys:

* :1: * :2: * :3: * :4: *

(more info and analysis under the cut)

Disclaimer:

As you can see from the data attributes, the mfu and gfu stats have been compiled by two different people. As such, results should be taken with a grain of salt as our views on what exactly constitutes 'torture' or a 'failed escape' may vary.

A word on graphs:

I felt that compiling the separate info in one place, in the form of bar charts, was ideal for visually comparing the data, rather than jumping between posts. However, I cannot recommend enough commander-kiranerys's original graphs due to them being in the form of line graphs, thus giving a good view of change over time for the individual results of her statistics. This was not possible here due to gfu being part of a separate show.

Analysis:

Captured: here is where I think that April and Mark get a bad rep in terms of their competency as spies. They actually get captured less frequently than Napoleon and Illya do not only in Season 3, but Season 2 as well. And April's statistics are comparatively very even to Illya in both of these cases too, and not even bad when compared to Napoleon's Season 4 average.

Successful escapes: as pointed out before re: competency, April actually has one of the highest rates of escaping by herself. Equal first with Season 1 Napoleon, I believe. This does of course rely on being captured in the first place, though. It would probably be more accurate to make individual pie charts of escape vs rescue ratios (not a bad idea actually... excuse me while I make a part 3)

Successful rescues: if we are going to call April a damsel in distress for needing to be rescued so many times, then we must also acknowledge that Season 2 & 4 Napoleon and Season 3 Illya are also damsels in distress. That's it; that's my analysis. Just something to think about there.

Unsuccessful escapes: okay, nevermind, I retract everything I said about April and Mark being more competent than they seem. April especially. Big yikes that she can equal Napoleon and Illya's combined failed attempts all on her own. To be fair to Mark, he actually does very well for himself. Still not quite the 100% successful escape attempts of MFU Season 4.

Unsuccessful rescues: this graph may, on the surface of things, look worse than the previous one in terms of GFU. But to be fair to them, a rescue doesn't necessarily have to be launched by one or the other of the main characters, so it wasn't just them failing here.

I will freely admit that the analysis here is strongly skewed towards comparing the GFU results with the MFU results. Mainly due to commander-kiranerys having already created a set of graphs and gone over the MFU data there. I didn't want these posts to replace those in any way and instead to add to them. Please check out those posts (linked above) for a more MFU-oriented approach!

I hope you found this data useful or at least interesting! I would love to have discussions about these!

[echoedcrosshairs]

Those Who Fight Together - part 9

Summary: Undescribed Jedi female nicknamed Reaper in 3rd person makes up with the Batch and gets a little more then she asked for 🖤Smut with a Plot🖤

Warning: NSFW, Crude Language, PiV, creampies, emotional burst, implied breeding kink, momentarily soft Crosshair, over stimulated Hunter.

Word Count: 7.9k

part 8 part 10

Masterlist

The ship was silent almost for an hour before Wrecker opened his mouth "Crink are they loud."

"Very loud" Hunter said his voice a little huskier, her pheromones still overloading his senses and his cock felt like it was about to burst.

"You good, Hunter?" Crosshair smirked noticing the tone change.

"Not in the slightest," Hunter's core was tight enough he thought he was going to cave inward, "and we still have at least four more hours," he groaned, "Is everyone else just as-" Hunter looked at Echo, his pupils were just as dilated and his breathing as staggered as his own with a death grip on his chair then looked back at Crosshair who had already taken off his cod piece not caring about hiding how hard he was and saw Wrecker squirming in his seat.

"I'm going to regret this but," he could smell the excitement off of all them, "Wrecker gets the refresher, I'll go to the bunks, Echo gets to stay here and Crosshair can be in the hall. Understood?"

"Wha-OHHH, gotcha" Wrecker said standing up

The rest of them got up and went to their respective places to take care of business. Hunter walked into the bunks and quickly grabbed Echo's box and tossed it to him, "Don't know if you need it," quickly turning back and heading into the bunk room so Crosshair would stop glaring.

"You are all very very loud,"  you said sleepily using Tech's com, feeling how heavy and lustful the ship was.

"Working on it," Crosshair hissed.

"I think you two broke Serge," Wrecker paused to laugh.

"Not our fault," Echo said quickly attaching the piece to him, thankful for the modifications Tech made to make it easier and faster.

"Just stay in your room," Hunter gridded out not bothering to stop his hand but quickly cutting off.

"I am going to need a bit," Tech said looking down at himself looking at how covered in our half dried cum he was, "and maybe a shower. What if they came in here to relieve themselves?" He whispered hoping quiet enough Hunter wouldn't hear.

"All of them? At one time," your eyes widen.

"Or two by two or one by one I know at least Echo and Crosshair wouldn't mind."

"I can hear you," Crosshair growled.

"Are you sure?" You asked Tech.

"Given our compatibility? I'm not in the slightest worried," he smirked It took Crosshair all night to do what I did in three hours, he mentally added, "So logically I'm not jealous either, it would give me more data to analysis when it comes to bedroom affairs given it's now relevant," getting up not bother to on his pants on and opening the door to a very preoccupied Crosshair.

Crosshair stopped and glared at him, his mouth biting the tooth pick in half, "Can I help you?"

"You heard, get in here," you called from the bed.

Crosshair looked down his dick then scowled, putting it back in his blacks temporary, "Don't you think this is a horrible idea."

"Theoretically I should have enough Bacta," Tech said looking back at you, "And Echo or?"

Crosshair pushed Tech out of the entry way, Tech angrily glared at him but waited patiently for an answer.

"Get Echo, I need to talk to her for a minute or two," Crosshair said crossing his arms standing at the end of the bed.

Tech looked at you for confirmation before leaving, you gave him a nod. Crosshair turned and looked at the sight infront of him, his eyebrows raised at the sight before him. He made a small tsk sound.

"Are you staying?" he said breaking the ice.

You looked at him and thought about the other men on this ship but then wondering what was going to happen with Wolffe, your mouth went dry, "I am."

"You knew what I meant that day," he growled, "and... I'm sorry," the facade slipping for a moment.

"It still hurt... and I didn't understand why."

Tech and Echo peaked in, sharing an understanding that it would be best if she handled that herself. They headed back to to the pilot chairs to talk about what had transpired.

Crosshair unfolded his arms quickly undoing his armor and took off his top. He got in between your legs and pressed his mouth into yours roughly kissing you. You pushed him up and made him lay down, biting his neck roughly. His fingers dug into your legs and you felt his body tighten under you. You pulled backs, defined teeth marks and felt a certain something twitch under you.

Crosshair pulled you down by the back of your neck, "You better get on my dick right now or I'm using your ass," he was doing his hold back and fighting the potent urge to be both in control and on top

You looked at his cock, painfully erect with precum coating the tip whole tip and slightly running down the side, "Yes, Sir," you smiled moving your hips up so he could slam into you.

"Kair'ta..." he moaned as he pressed his tip into the top of you.

You leaned back putting your hands back by your knees, smirking letting the sensation take over. You moved your hips up and down taking him in stride, but also bucked your hips forward so not only did he get strokes but it let you tighten as you moved up him. His moans pleading for you to take the load from him. The orgasm crashed into Crosshair like ship, he plunge himself up as far into you as he go letting his cum shoot against the top of you, his nails digging into you. You clenched cause your walls to vice gripped his cock making it empty out everything.

"Feeling better an'edee?" you said looking down, smiling at calling him all bark, all bite, he's definitely a feisty one.

"You better hope Echo decides to join," he smirked, "I can feel your heart beat in that pretty pussy," he whispered.

Echo and Tech popped their heads in upon hear his name. Crosshair slide himself out and most of it landing back on him and smirked. He slide himself out from under you wiping off the excess with a towel his cock still as hard as plastoid, "Hands and knees," he whispered, "You better hurry and take her mouth or hands. Or I'm starting again without you," he smiled running his nails down across your back, leaving prominent red lines down it. He was happy to be back in control both giving and taking of pleasure.

You spread your legs a little more letting Echo get under you, "This is what I was talking about," Echo said looking at Crosshair before returning his attention back to you. His hands going to your chin, pulling you in for a kiss. You let your fingers go back to Echo's implant between taking his lip between your teeth sucking hard on his bottom lip which caused him to moan.

Crosshair started pounding relentless and hard causing you to bounce, your hips squirmed and you opened your legs wider for him. "Good girl," he said his hand trailing to the front of your throat, "I'm borrowing her for a second," he said pulling you up, your back pressed into his chest and he was still pounding, "Show him the pretty faces you make for me," he whispered in your ear, gripping you harder.

"Fark..." your face started burning, once Crosshair was satisfied with your hushed moans signaling you came he let you go back down.

Echo's hand went to your breast letting his fingers squeeze the pebbling he caused, "I know your being quiet because I'm here but you can moan his name if you need too," his big amber eyes boring into you, "I liked that face," he added.

Crosshair forcibly pushed your back down making your chest flesh against Echo's, "Reaper..." Crosshair let out his eyes closing feeling you tense against him, his thighs started fighting against the urge to cum.

"You're so beautiful when being pleasured," Echo said holding your face while you felt him start squirming under you.

Your fingers traced around the ports faster, "I happen to be between some two devilishly hot men," you said bringing your mouth to his jaw bone, kissing down it.

Crosshair stared down, watching you bounce against him for extra momentum like he wasn't being rough enough. He grabbed one of Echos hand and placed it on your clit. Echo got the hint taking your clit between his finger stroking it and occasional light tugs. Crosshairs hands gripped into your hips, "How about you be a good girl and cum for us," he said pulling out and slamming back in each word.

Your hips hitched into him and stopped moving, your hips started shaking and they speeded up their strokes. Echo's mouth moved to your neck to where his mark originally was. He pulled back to rub his forehead against yours, "Cum beautiful," he whispered.

Crosshair both noticed the expression on both your faces that you both were close to the tipping point. The warmth against his cock tried to make him empty again, but he fought against it until he heard you moaning into Echo's mouth and your cunt pulsating violently against his cock. Echo removed his fingers for a moment tapping two fingers against Crosshair's leg letting him know that that it was his turn. Your hands clung onto the back of Echo's head, kissing him as you felt Crosshair unload in you, slamming and holding your hips against his. Crosshair was finally starting to soften in you, gently pulling his still sensitive cock out.

"You feel amazing" Crosshair said leaving a trail of kisses down your spine, "I'll be thinking about that for a while," he whispered getting up, wiping up his mess and kissing the side of your head while putting his armor back into alignment. He rolled his eyes leaving watching Tech taking notes on his data pad, "Compliment her for taking it or just fuck her till she breaks," he whispered heading back up to the pilot chair.

Echo was still twitching but you brought your mouth to where you originally had him marked, "You're mine Echo," you whispered seductively in his ear before switching to teeth, "but I don't share."

Echo slipped a finger into you, automatically finding the spongey spot, "Wolffe made me jealous. Me of all people," he said slightly annoyed but stroked the spot harder while also pressing into it, "I want to you stay."

"I'm- stay-ing," you panted, embarrassed that some of Crosshair's cum fell on him but he didn't seem to care anyway. Echo slipped in another finger, "this one is just for me," he said resting his other arm against your face, "that's it," he said said watching your face get sleepy looking. He heart was racing, he moved his thumb to your lips stroking more he felt start swelling. He carefully slide him down and put his mouth on your engorged lips. He stroked faster while letting his tongue having fun stroking the walls of your lips before sucking on the wild spot, "Echo- farkkk-" you inhaled. You came your head went numb, your face relaxed with your eyes closed.

He pulled him back up and rubbed both of his cheek on yours, giving you one more kiss before slowly pulling his fingers out, "No one will ever compare to you," he said bumping his forehead into yours, "You never have to worry about sharing me." Echo looked at how soaked the towel was and grabbed a new one wiping off his abs and mouth before cupping the towel around your sensitive bottom helping you lay on the bed. Both of you laughed still trying to catch your breath, Echo sat on the edge of the bed combing your hair out of your face behind your ear, "You're really staying?" he asked.

You grabbed Echo's hand and kissed it, "You boys are part of my song, I'll be here until we die," you kissed his hand deeper.

His data port traced the tattoos down your side, "Are you going to darken the one on your spine?"

"I would also like put in my vote that I would prefer them darkened," Tech butted in on the private moment.

Echo scowled at him before returning his attention back to you, "Please?"

"When we get back," you smiled up at him, "assuming we head straight back or to the nearest med station," you said eyeing Tech, "We'll need to stock up on Bacta anyway."

Echo kissed your forehead, "Sooo, Wrecker or Hunter?" he smiled.

Hunter was against the door way of the bunks with his arms crossed trying to get a hold of himself, the smell and sounds driving him absolutely crazy. He knew he looked absolutely as feral as he felt, wondering if this is how Crosshair felt the first time. Hunter pressed his forehead into the door frame wondering if he could do it with out hurting her or if he should take care of it a couple more times before trying. He heard her say his name knowing he didn't have time. He walked over but felt Tech's hand on his shoulder, felt his gaze warning him if we lost it, "I would expect nothing less if it got out of hand."

Tech walked in before him, covering his view of you, "I'll get the gel ready," he said kissing your knee before stepping out of the way.

You looked up to see how dilated Hunters eye were, the black half engulfed his dark brown eyes. The fact he was already panting and thin sweat was already broken over him.

"Someone looks like he's in his reproduction cycle interval" you joked realizing it might have not been a joke given his very enhanced instincts and tracking abilities might have made him more animal than man sometimes, "Why don't you come give me some of that genetic material? You look so miserable keeping it for yourself."

Hunters jaw clamped and his fist balled, he tried hold it together but that sentence broke what was left of his self restraint. He tossed the armor to the ground and his blacks came off already lightly soaked with precum, cum and sweat. Hunter gripped the head board not trusting himself to touch her. He inserted himself, feeling the ridges inside her, the warmth and the new wave of pheromones coming off of her but this time even more intense. He looked at her the glint in her said she was beyond serious about doing this the state he was in which caused his hand gripped the head board tighter. He thrusted once to see if she could handle it, her finger dug into his back.

"Are you sure..." he whispered.

You moved one of your hands to the tattoo side of his face bringing his ear down to your mouth, "Am I going to have to take that material from you myself?" You whispered seductively.

"No," he said his body shaking, he brought one hand to the bottom your stomach pressing it where he could feel his cock inside you, "You're to perfect," he said taking his hand off and putting it on your ankle, "You're lucky your implanted or I wouldn't leave until I implant you," he groaned, more precum squirting out taking his other hand off the head board and wrapping it around your other ankle. He brought your ankles up letting your knees bend and spread them which caused your opening to move directly down the perfect position for what he wanted to do to you.

You saw the animal appetite in Hunter, "I'm sorry I didn't take you first, I didn't know it could get this bad," you said rubbing his cheek.

"Me either," His carnal desire for her took over, each thrust stretched her canal out to more room for him. He felt every soft ridge stroking him as he pounded at her, making her take his whole cock. He knew he should have came a couple more times before this but she smelled so deliciously strong. He wanted to be soft and tender to tell he how felt but every inch of him was screaming at him to keep emptying himself in her until nothing came out.

You started crying out with how rough his was being, but you didn't want him to stop. With how rough he was being you were already starting to feel sore inside. He grabbed your shoulder with his teeth and roared as the first load spilled out.

"Hunter-" you said grabbing a clump of his hair.

You watched a slice of animal fade, but he didn't stop he continued fucking it into you. He moved his hands your hips so he bounce you against his cock as he thrusted, another load slipped out of him. He held you still for a moment as a tremor went through him. He grabbed your ankles again putting them on his shoulders like he did the first time.

"Reaper," he panted staring down at you, the painful bliss across your face as you were taking him at his roughest, "Fark, you're so- so-".

Techs leg was trembling and his hands were clasp over his lap, trying to hold it together. He looked at Echo who was fighting the moral dilemma to go in there and break it up.

"Are we just gonna let that happen?" Wrecker said finally joining them.

"She asked him to give it to her," Crosshair sneered.

"I do not think she is aware of how-"

"Hunter-" they all heard they loud moan from her room.

"she effects him." Tech finished, "I'll  need to make a filter for her room or the whole ship," he added his head already spinning but he tried making it spin with ideas instead

"I blame you," Crosshair mumbled looking at Tech.

"Excuse me?" He said.

"Hunter should have gone first after you, you should have saw that looked and tranqed him right there."

"I obviously know that now," Tech said annoyed standing up, "I'll go tranq him, should at least take the edge off for now because it doesn't sound like it's getting better."

Tech grabbed the dart from his belt, priming it and walking there. He stared at the mating press position he had you in, impressed. Tech quickly shoved it into his neck and injected it into him. He looked down to see you enjoying it, the painful bliss and watched you spread your legs a little further for him but confused you start laughing when you him pulling the dart out.

"What's funny?" He asked ignoring Hunter putting her legs down but still in her.

"How worried you all most be," you paused, "Thank you though."

"Maybe she is built to withstand anything," Tech mumbled leaving remembering what Wolffe said the. wondering he was a rough lover.

"So?" Crosshair asked.

"He's relaxing."

Your fingers found Hunter's cheek again, his pupils started retracting and it no longer felt like he was trying to break you apart. You saw Hunter come back to his senses again and his arm started shaking.

"Hunter..?" You asked.

"I didn't mean too-" he said pulling himself out cum still coming out dripping on you.

"I wasn't complaining," you smiled.

"I know that had to hurt," he said gently resting his hand on your hip, "Are you okay?" he asked concerned.

"Nothing dislocated if that's what you mean. I'm okay Hunter."

He sat back putting his bandana back on, "All of you go shower," he said after reaching down for his com device. He pulled you towards him gently, massaging your hips and inner thighs trying to work out the knots he caused, "I didn't know how overpowering it could be," he admitted feeling how sore he was himself. He felt like the muscles in his core and thighs were going to rip apart. He made himself looked down the the purple showing up on your ankles, the erection that had started again quickly faded at the sight, he kissed them apologetically. He took the towel and wiped off everything he got on you and tried to get out what was in you. The smell was still strong but whatever Tech gave him definitely dulled everything, I wonder if this is how the rest of them sense things.

Tech grabbed everyone's laundry and the thoroughly soaked towels, "Everyone is done, I'd prefer both you go shower so I can take that too"pointing at the bed coverings. Tech eyed caught your ankles and the bruises on your shoulders and how purple they were, rage flashed for a moment and then it was gone.

"I'm okay Tech, just bruised." You said trying to get up. Tech didn't look convinced but did his best to stay indifferent about it. Hunter put an arm under you and helped you limp your way to the refresher.

Hunter saw the homicidal look on Crosshair's face, when he got you out of the hallway. Crosshair arm collided with Hunter's throat and shoved him against the wall while the other wrapped around you. Red speckled his vision.

"Crosshair," Tech said grabbing the arm against Hunters throat, "It is his nature, you can not change that and he can not change that. You know that. I will work on something so it doesn't happen again," Tech paused to stepped closer, "She's okay," he tried reassuring but also putting himself between them but also priming another tranquilizer.

Crosshair looked down at you, his eyes still slitted but he kissed your temple roughly, "Do it again, you won't see it coming," he threatened. He carefully let you go and gave you back to Hunter stilling glaring.

"Didn't he try to kill her?" Wrecker asked confused watching Hunter close the refresher door not that it made a difference, "why's he so upset?"

"It's his nature. He is not accustom to love. Hunter is lucky that is all that happened. Now I am busy," Tech said imputing data into his pad.

"You too!" Wrecker said smacking him.

"Shut up, Wrecker," he said going back to the seats.

Hunter helped you into the shower making it lightly warm. He looked at all of the bruises he caused feeling horrible, "I'm not sure if you should stay after that," he whispered.

"Hunter, I am okay. So what if it happens again, I'll probably enjoy it again."

"You enjoyed that?"

"Yes or I would have knocked you out myself."

He put his face in your neck looking down as he washed off your stomach, "I knew what I was in for the moment Tech stepped aside. It's nothing some Bacta gel can't fix and maybe a safe word can't fix," you laughed trying to lighten the mood, "And I know if I ever want to 'Procreate' as Tech put it, I know who would enjoy it the most," after you said it you felt something press into your butt.

"Not helping," he mumbled moving the washcloth to your legs.

"I mean it"

Hunter cautiously put himself back in you with a groan, his cock twitched content with being where it was. He moved himself back and pressed himself into the wall giving you the control if you wanted him again. You were gently gliding yourself up and down him, before picking up the pace realizing the rendered control. You bounced him in stride almost taking him all the way before plunging him all the way back in. A small rush came over you, your body exhausted but still enjoyable. You felt him squeeze your hips again as you felt his cock twinkle in you knowing he  came but this time just as weakly, "I wouldn't mind," he finally answered, pulling himself out listening to splat against the floor. He pulled you against him hugging you, "I love you," he whispered, it wasn't the best time to say it but it felt needed

"Explains why it overloaded you," you giggled, "I love you too and I'm staying, okay?"

"Okay," he folded, kissing the purple teeth marks.

He took the wash cloth kneeling washing your in between your legs and down careful of the bruises. He turned off the water and grabbed your towel, you took it and dried off your hair and he took an extra towel and patting drying you off then himself. Neither of you apparently notice someone slip in and leave Hunter a set of blacks and a robe the counter for you. You slipped it on to find Crosshair leaning against the wall waiting for you to get out with a few tubes of Bacta gel sticking out of his pocket. He glared at Hunter but said nothing towards him.

"Kair'ta," Crosshair said picking you up, "Hunter go help Tech and apologize to Echo," he added sourly, picking you up and carrying you back to your room.

He carefully laid you on the fresh bedding, he revealed about 8 tubes of Bacta he had in various pockets. He squeezed it some on your ankle gentle massaging it one then moving to the other one. Crosshair was silent waiting to see if it started healing or if he needed to apply more. The discoloration started lifting, he applied a little more any way just to be safe. He gently spread your legs using a whole tube just to make sure he didn't miss any thing. His fingers worked in the gel the he could into every inch of your sensitive area, even lightly lining the inside and hips.

You felt how completely tender his touches were, you untied your robe and sat up for him exposing your shoulders. He let out a small growl at the still didn't say anything. Crosshair tapped your neck in question, you nodded. He leaned down and kissed the marks on your throat before putting more gel on his fingers rubbing it in gently.

"You're being awfully quiet," you stated looking him, not able to make out the expression on his face.

"Nothing to say," he said putting more gel on massaging your neck with his thumbs.

You brought your hand to his, cupping it around your neck know that wasn't the full story. You gently sat up staring at him waiting. You tried leaning forward but he leaned backwards. He pulled away his hands.

"Anywhere else?"

"My back if you want too or I can get it."

He waited so you turned about and laid down with your back exposed. Crosshair squeezed the rest of the tube on your back, massaging it deeply in the tissue all over. You made a little happy mmm sound and he still remained quiet.

"You want me to leave again over Hunter losing it don't you?"

His silence was loud enough.

"It didn't hurt as bad as it looked."

He pulled his hands back and helped you put your robe on. You ran your fingers through his smokey white, down his chest and down his arm to his fingers and put your other hand on his shoulder. Crosshair's blood began to boil, Don't you get it, you could get hurt by one of us, but he complied with the silent request to dance. It was one of his fondest memories with a red stain across it. He placed his hand on your hip and guided you to the silent music of the chess game between you too. You watch his face soft but then hard back into stone, his brown eyes peering into yours.

"How long does applying Bacta take?" Wrecker asked.

"Given it's Crosshair, a while" Tech said curtly working on the filter system.

"It's his turn to try to apologize," Hunter eavesdropped, "in normal Crosshair be an ass fashion."

"Maybe you should go hit him back" Wrecker suggested.

"He has to decide this for himself such as each of us have had to do on this subject. Crosshair is aware of how miserable he was before giving in and how insufferable and riddled with misplaced malice he was when she... was temporarily apart from us to due our poor decision. Like I, he has to decide if he can trust himself not to change his mind and make that decision again. He is similar to Hunter, not as obviously enhanced or refined instincts but he does have strong instincts such as needed to be a sniper and he is aware those instincts could conflict with what he needs to do. He also has to learn to share, which we all know he is poor at," Tech said indifferently, "If I am correct, which I normally am, Crosshair will give in again. He is well aware of how running from how he feels worked so well the first time," Tech added dryly.

"You got a point."

"Of course I do."

They heard the bedroom door close, "Like I said, he'd give in."

"She is actually in there scolding him," Hunter chuckled.

"And he's letting her?" Echo said wide eyed.

"That's never happened before," Tech said blinking at the comment before going back to his work.

"I like having her around!" Wrecker laugh.

Tech rolled his eyes, he looked at the mask filter system prototype he designed and put away his tools. He grabbed it and put it in Hunter's helmet, "Wear that. One moment."

Tech overwrited the door to open in, "Apologies this can not wait. Can I barrow some of your-" he said looking down at her covered bits.

"That could have waited," Crosshair barked out.

"It's the filter for Hunter, so no it could not especially if you two are going to have... relations. Given the shower and bacta this is the best time for pure sample."

Crosshair groaned but waited knowing he wasn't going to win. Both of them watched her face flushed but nodded. Tech took off his working gloves and slowly undid the bow and watched the robe slip open. He trailed his finger down her curves before plunging a finger into her softness hoping it elicited enough an reactions. He smirked at the little bit of priming slick that started coating her wall, he rubbed the tiny ridge causing more. Tech heard a tiny whispered moan escape and pulled his fingers out. A nice coat covered his fingers and he removed them.

"Thank you, should be plenty," he paused to look at the how clear but stretchy it was, he was entranced staring at it, "You are obviously in need of relief, let me test this first and if it works Crosshair can provide some," Tech said leaving the room, he could feel his groin attempting to have a reaction.

He watched Wrecker and Echo turn and stare directly at the two fingers he was holding, "Is that?" Echo asked.

"Yes."

"I can smell it, but it's more tolerable," Hunter tried taking the helmet off but Tech stopped him with the other hand and shook his head.

"I'd advise keeping that on for this part of the test," he pressed the button on his com, "You may proceed." Tech stared at the coating, he was well aware of the biological cause of it and wanted his taste buds to analyze it. Reluctantly he wiped it off on his work rag noticing they were still looking at him. He took out his data pad and typed in the notes that the first test was satisfactory, "Maybe walk pass the room in a couple minutes to see if it's still tolerable."

"Are you really performing a live experiment right now?" Echo stared.

"I'm simply collecting scientific data through the means of-"

"Tech's definitely back to normal," Echo scowled cutting him off.

Hunter shook his head but was more then happy keeping it on, "and hopefully Crosshair."

"Someone's aroused," Crosshair chuckled, tying the robe closed at your waist showing off the curve of it.

"Someone's turning it down," you laughed going to your trunk of clothing.

Crosshair put his arm around your waist and pulled you back, grabbing the panties you dug out and tossed them back in, "Twirl for me, Kair'ta," he whispered in your ear.

Crosshair wasn't a man of many words but he know how to make each word count, he let go and took a couple steps back waiting. You threw your head over your shoulder examining him, the hungry expression coating his features. You smiled and obeyed, twirled into him letting your ass press against him, "Like that?" You smiled wrapping one hand around the back of his head. He let out a small growl, undoing the ribbon, ripping the robe off and bending you over the end of the bed.

"I almost took you like this in front of all of them," he paused massaging your breast with one hand and doing his armor with the other, "maybe I should have so Wolffe would have gotten the point," He added bitterly takingone foot and horribly shoved your legs apart, quickly inserting himself, "Your ours."

You felt yourself coat his cock gliding in without any trouble. I should have known that was what this was about. You spread your self more and put your hands at your sides, submitting to him. He grabbed your wrist and pulled them behind your back holding them together with one hand and the other was on the back of your neck pressing you to the bed. There was no kindness or gentleness in his thrust, this was unbridled passion and anger at the betrayal. Crosshair enjoys the sounds escaping your throat and the way your walls squeeze him. His head threatens to go back and he can feel how you were starting to shake so he stops without warning until the sensation dulls.

"Don't worry, I'm not done with you" he purred catching his breath.

Crosshair knew besides Wrecker he was the thickest on the ship and it definitely came with it's benefits. He could fell your walls pull against him every time he tried to pull out so he could slam about into you. Teasing you like this he knew you were going to be tighter against him and he was corrected.

"Crosshair," you let your legs started feeling weak after he stopped again.

"Do you finally understand you are ours?" He asked his breathing ragged.

"Yes," he lightly started thrusting at the answer.

"Good girl, now that pretty little pussy is going to drink every drop," he said smirking at his dirty mouth.

Your legs felt like jello and you could fell yourself leaking your excitement down your thighs. His cock stretching out how tight you were getting around him. Your core was aching for him to bring both of you to release so you could feel his warmth in you. His thrusting picked up.

"Crosshair... Kriff.... Harder," you begged.

He released your wrist and grabbed both of your hips firmly, "Mine," he growled giving it too you.

He pulled you against him with every thrust, you call feel his balls smack against your clit and you shuttered at the sensation. It caused him to suck in slightly, his toes to groin screaming. His body released without warning and pushed it all the way into you, every inch of his body shaking but the euphoria making the pain of it ease away.

"Cross-" you screamed at how hard you came against his cock, you could fell every squirt of it filling you and how warm his balls were against your pulsating clit, "kriffff," you said shakily.

He very gently twisted you not pulling himself out, he stared down at the union of parts still shaking. You saw the satisfaction on him relax and the relaxation taking over, the droop of his shoulder and his abs stop convulsing. He carefully thumbed your clit causing you to tense around him again he let out a low groan at the sensation. He removed his thumb putting his hands on your hips again, staring down debating if he wanted you again but the dull ache in his balls warned him against it. He gently pulled himself out your pussy milking him all the way out. He quickly grabbed the fresh towels and put one under you to catch everything coming out and used another to dry him and the little bit of his seed that escaped. He gently pulled you the bed and laid down beside you, unaccustomed to this staying afterwards but he pulled you close to him. He pressed his head into the side of yours, "kair'ta".

"My heart is desperate for yours too," you whispered, "I didn't understand what true physical pain was until I was separated from all of you."

"Stay," the word came from Crosshair's mouth begging which caught him by surprise. He pulled you tighter against him, "Please."

That's as intimate as he's ever been, "You don't have to say it back but I love you, Crosshair. I am staying. No one can my mind not the Sith or the Jedi nor the Tome themselves."

Crosshair's breathing finally started leveling out he tried to open his mouth to say it but you brought your hand to his jaw and closed it, "I know," you mean smiled at him watching his expression soften even more and you removed your hand.

"Even Wolffe?" He asked, regretting it.

"I love Wolffe and we both know duty has and always will come first. My Duty is to Clone Force 99."

"I'm sorry..." he murmured.

You pushed him flat against the bad and laid yourself on top of him. You stared at his face tattoo wondering if you just had a type beyond just being a clone. You put your hands into his his hair, "I know," you did your best to wipe the seldom expression off your face, "Why don't we go shower handsome."

"How's the smell?" Tech asked when Hunter came back the third round.

"Strong but my skull doesn't feel like it's splitting."

"Noted. I'll need take another sample at a later date to see about increasing the effectiveness."

You popped your head in completely naked in the door way, "How's the filter?" you asked ignoring every ones stare.

"It makes your scent within reasonable parameters of tolerable, however I will need another sample to see. How is it with her being this close?" Tech asked.

"Tolerable."

"Come take it when ever you want," you said with a little wink, hoping he would understand the double entendre.

"She's built like a goddess," Wrecker said mouth agape.

"Thanks, big boy."

"And this ship is her temple," Tech mumbled.

"Isn't this YOUR ship" Echo deadpanned.

"My ship is her temple."

You let your finger trail Tech's ear, "Hmmm. I rather like the sound of that."

"Reaper," Crosshair growled.

"Coming," you said trailing after him.

"What?" Tech said the three of them still staring at him, "It's not like it is a false statement."

"We so much as dent your ship-" Echo started.

Tech glared, "Do you like feeling pleasure."

"I think I like this new Tech" Hunter chuckled, "who knew all it took was a woman to make us believe Tech is actually human."

"I will take out the filter and make you watch," he gritted out, not understanding where any of it was coming from, "Excuse me," he said getting up abruptly dropping everything he was touching.

The three of them looked at each other for a couple minutes before decided to Echo follow after him. Echo found him sitting on his bunk list leg drumming and his head in his hands.

"Tech...?" Echo sat next to him cautiously.

"I... can not describe it, but I believe I am experiencing... jealousy?" The word was so foreign on his tongue as was the emotion. He was angry in a way he never experienced and sexually angry on top of it, "I did not think it was something I could experience."

Crosshair was surprisingly a gentleman except for the hickey he placed on your shoulder, "Just as a reminder," and offered his neck back in turn.

You took a section of his neck that would be covered by his armor. Crosshair grabbed you by your ass and pulled you closer to him. He took a few deep breaths and his erection died down and he moved his hand up to your side.

You pulled off him admiring the self restraint, "Done?" you asked your hand on the water button.

"Yes."

You grabbed the towels and went to town drying off putting the robes back on. You stared watching Crosshair put his armor arm and stick a tooth pick in his mouth.

"Some men smoke, some men choose tooth picks," you giggled walking out.

"Some men are aware of the side effects of the first," he said putting his hand on his hip, taking out the tooth pick and tapping the end of it on your nose before returning it to his mouth.

Both of you had a crashing noise and headed towards the bunks with Wrecker and Hunter coming up behind you. You found Echo sitting on Techs bunk and Tech standing over a mini broken fold out wood table, fist shaking.

"Feel better?" Echo asked.

"Actually, slightly, maybe one more-" he started feeling better before noticing every one against against the door peering in, "Can I help you?" He said annoyed, picking up the broken table and putting his foot through it letting it crash back to the floor.

Crosshair's eyebrow shot up, "What did my table every do to you."

You walked up and grabbed both sides of his face roughly, "I'll just take that from you before you break anything else."

Hunter took off the helmet and stared at Echo waiting for an answer, "So what happened?" He finally asked given Echo's silence.

"Jealousy."

Tech removed your hands from his face, the feelings gone but watching your hands turn black, "Reaper," he said panicked.

"Bacta," you called.

Crosshair tossed a tube to Tech who in one swift motion broke open and covered your hands in it. The burning sensation dying down but it still felt like someone landed a ship on your hands, thrusters first. You closed your eyes trying to mediate alleviate the feeling. Everyone watched the black fade to a shade of grey.

"What was that?" Wrecker asked.

"Transference, it's an old art," you said letting out a long breath, "Taking an emotion with in yourself, either to feel it or cause a temporary physical pain instead."

"Explain with more words," Crosshair hissed still staring at her hands.

"Hunter and Tech... share a common bedroom instinct, unknowing something that said that set him off and then the test made it worse" Echo tried to explain as vaguely as possible.

"Doesn't make sense but okay," Wrecker said confused but content that it's wasn't something worse.

"That's what set him off," Crosshair said glaring in understanding.

"Yes, is that so hard to wrap your mind around," Tech said in one breath stilling holding your hands before pulling away realizing it probably hurt.

Echo helped you up, "You okay?" He whispered.

"Rather have fought Rancor armorless," you answered looking at your hands watching the color finally return and the pain subside. You stretched your fingers and your knuckles made an audible pop. You sigh in relief at noise.

"She's tough," Wrecker said surprised both of you putting both of you up with one arm, "We're lucky," he kissed the side of your head, "You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay." 

"Good," he said putting Echo down, and spinning you again putting you back down, "I'd put you on my shoulder and walk ya around," he said touching the ceiling, "but it's a little short."

"You can pick me up and parade me like a princess when we land."

"I can do that" he smiled.

The rage in Crosshair and the concern in Hunter  made you turn around to the stare down going on. You took one step to the side blocking Crosshair from Tech, feeling the snake about to uncoil. You saw Hunter nod his head towards the door, Crosshair huffed and followed him back to the pilots chair. Wrecker surprisingly took to the que leave with too.

"Thank you," Tech said adjusting his goggles, "you didn't need to do that however I would have figured out how to deal with them."

"Breaking things in general is not how you deal with with feelings. You should have told one of us."

"I am.. sorry. Again."

"And you let him break this?" You asked Echo pulling pointing at the broken table.

"In Echo's defense it was that or Hunter and Crosshair," he admitted, "I'll replace it."

"Tech that's not the point."

"Again, I am sorry. I am not accustom to such feelings."

"I thought you said you weren't going to get jealous because of compatibility," said lowly.

"I was incorrect, I can not factor in things I could not account for.”

“I’ll let you two have this out,” Echo said kissing your cheek, “I’ll be on your bedroom floor,” he added.

“You didn’t seem interested in that?”

“Just because something does not lead to something else does not mean one can not be interested in the thing,” Tech rambled until she pressed her mouth to his ear whispering abhorrently obscene invigorating things about she’d do with him after the mission before placing her hand on his cheek absolving him of the returning feelings, “Better?” She asked softly. Tech covered her hand with her own, “Was that really necessary?” He asked smiling.

“No but it was fun,” you admitted, “Want to join me and Echo for some quality time?”

“No I need to start repairing my… mess,” Tech scolded himself looking at it, “but you shouldn’t keep him waiting,” he added removing his hand and kissing yours before he started gathering up the pieces.

You left him to clean it up, although you wondered where he was going to put it because his bunk was a mess with random wires and parts. You walked in and found Echo on his back on the floor with his eyes closed. You taped lightly and walked in. As uncomfortable as it was you joined him him on the floor, his cyber arm wrapped around you.

“How’s Tech?” He asked.

“He’ll be fine, he’ll probably spend the rest of the time reading up emotions while he works.”

“I loved reading manuals as a reg,” Echo sighed.

“Echo, your still a reg,” you laughed.

Wrecker walked in and found both of you on the floor, “Why are you both on the floor?”

“Echo is just living his best Loth-cat life” you laughed even harder.

“Weird. Anyway get changed, we’re on. ‘Mer” Wrecker said picking up Echo and removed both of them from the room.

You were stifling your giggles but you walked over to your trunk and dug through it for your robes and clothing. You pulled out your mask and your set of sabers. You noticed Tech still had the red one, you smiled. Putting your emotions aside, you got dressed and met the boys on the ramp.

“You boys ready to enter the most dangerous place in the galaxy?” you watched them put their helmets on as an answer and Wrecker tossed the mini chest with your master saber over his shoulder, “and try not to get killed,” you added stepping off the ramp, “I’d hate to have to turn this galaxy to dust.”

[dreamy-baku]

Squares Research: Unused Data

With the help of @puyo-puyo-for-real-justice, I’ve gotten some unused dialogue and concept art for Squares. So now it’s time for the research post about all of it, I’ll start with the concept art.

Concept Art

So, Squares has 2 files of concept art on Puyo Nexus, that I’ll assume is all the concept art he and Marle both have.

His first Concept Art and second one look pretty similar. It seems originally that he was to have long hair by default and it not change. And then the second one has him with shorter hair. (It seems propeller hair was always part of his design here)

His third concept art here, seems to have the concept that his hair would grow longer and the cowlick change shape when he activates his powers. Bearing high resemblance to his “Cosmic Rectangle” spell art.

But, he seems to have even older concept art with Marle.

This is likely much older judging my how different his design is here. In this art, he has long hair, no cowlick, some fluffy tuft of furr(?) around his head, floating cubes around him, and his clothes are vastly different. Although heeled shoes seem to still have been part of his design all the way back here.

And it seems like judging by the other art in this image for this design of Squares, his powers apparently hurt him? Due to his face here he looks pained, which technically was kept in the final version of him. (He gains agonizing pain due to going to explode)

Dialogue

Next, we have the unused dialogue to discuss. Which is honestly super interesting, because it gives a whole new perspective of Marle & Squares character, it’s a shame they weren’t kept in the final game.

Tee

You can open up to us. Everyone here is willing to listen. You don't have to carry this burden alone.

Squares

confusion You all stand in the face of destruction. Yet… You're not afraid. You're not angry. I don't understand… Why…?

Marle

Listen, Squares. They're not afraid because that's just who they are. Please… Let's stop this.

Squares

…Never.

Marle

frustration intensifies You're so obtuse, Squares!

Squares

What?

Marle

I said you're obtuse! Stubborn! Hard-headed! Inflexible!

Ringo

Hey, Marle…?

Tee

She finally lost it…

Marle

Everyone here is trying their hardest for YOU! So why do you have to act like this!? I admit, it was my fault all of this started in the first place. But you're taking it WAY too far! And besides, I know what you're up to. You never planned to actually harm anyone here. You were never serious about any of this! Tch… You know what must be done. But you refuse to accept it! And for that… I have to teach you a lesson!

With these bits of unused dialogue, we have a whole new perspective of the story. Here, unlike in the final game, Marle admits to being in the fault, and states that Squares hadn’t truly intended on doing anything he had claimed he would.

But, now, it’s time for a more in-depth analysis of this conversation, and Squares characterization!

For starters, this unused bit of dialogue actually makes Squares seem much younger than what he seems, seeing as he wondered how the heroes weren’t scared, and how his plan wasn’t true. He basically, according to this, lied to the heroes about erasing them. Most likely because he wanted them to listen to him, and, to fix the worlds how they where,

But, unlike in the final game, Marle admits that it was her fault. Meaning despite what he had done, the reason was because Marle didn’t teach him enough, she didn’t let him learn. She could have stopped it by telling him more about her obsession with the Puyo and Tetris worlds after their merge.

But, how do these unused dialogue lines compare and contrast with the final story? Well, I think they are all still true. There are multiple signs in the game that Squares likely didn’t actually plan to hurt them, read here for my explanation. And, it’s still Marle’s fault in the finished game, she just never admits that it is.

But, Tee in the unused dialogue mentions that Squares is burdened with something, likely his feelings and duty. Would that mean that Squares has issues that needs sorted out? Like, why would he just keep how he feels bottled up, sure he was saying he was gonna erase them, but why keep his burdens hidden? Maybe he didn’t or doesn’t want to trouble them - especially Marle?

I find the unused dialogue very interesting, especially how we see Marle take responsibility for what happened. I think in the final game she just let’s people assume it was Squares fault, but in the unused dialogue - she takes responsibility, she created Squares so he is her responsibility to care for. I wish these where kept in, they completely could’ve changed how Marle & Squares are. Especially since they say that Squares basically was just bluffing, cause he wasn’t gonna do anything to them.

But, these basically confirm my theory that Squares was innocent with the events as they aren’t exactly his fault, and that he didn’t intend to hurt anyone. So, I’m happy about that.

Hmm… how would have Puyo Puyo Tetris 2’s ending have gone if the heroes didn’t rescue Squares from his powers making him explode? What if there was a bad ending where the heroes fail and they and Marle watch helplessly as Squares explodes? How would Marle react? How would the music sound? Would have Squares cried right before his demise? So many questions, so little answers…

[risingchaos]

HEAD TO HEART

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Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Rating: Teen and Up

Relationship: Geordi La Forge & William Riker

Characters: Geordi La Forge, William Riker

Additional Tags: Coming Out, Late Night Conversations, Gay Geordi La Forge, Pansexual William Riker, Implied/Referenced Sex, It’s just briefly mentioned

Language: English

Words: 1,174

Chapters/ 1/1

Summary: Riker finds it strange that Geordi never enjoys women’s advances on him. He’s determined to find out why.

—

It shouldn’t have surprised Riker when he saw Geordi hadn’t put in for their upcoming shore leave on Risa. Honestly he never did, and while that was fine, truly, he was just.. curious. Most of the senior officers were planning on a little R&R, they’d even managed to convince Data to join in this time for some new human experiences, which he definitely hoped would get Geordi’s attention.

Riker also had a little theory he was working on, but first he needed to ask something.

See, every time they went to a pleasure planet of any kind, Geordi almost never participated. If he had to go down as part of his duties, he was the strictest professional you’d ever seen. Rejecting advances like a pro, swerving any woman that tried to proposition him or even get too close. If they convinced him to come down recreationally, honestly he just looked uncomfortable. Not enough for most people to notice, and he was sure Geordi’s eyes being covered helped conceal whatever emotion he was feeling, but enough for Riker to pick up on. The tensed shoulders, set jaw, and once again, turning down the women who tried to help him relax a little.

If the man was just asexual or something similar, Riker would’ve dropped it a long time ago. But he knew he wasn’t. Because he’d asked. All he got in return was a rueful smile and a light chuckle, a simple “nope” and a change of topic. Plus, he knows Geordi’s.. gotten busy before, for lack of a better term. He’s seen him disappear for a good couple hours or even a night, coming back with a different spring in his step and rumpled clothing, and if he was teased, he always returned a smile and said he’d never kiss and tell. Which was fine, really, it all was fine, but something about it irked Riker.

Geordi was amongst friends here, and it felt like he was covering up something. They just wanted what was best for him. Riker wanted what was best for him. And that was why he was on his way down to Engineering where he knew there’d be almost no one at this time, so he could talk to Geordi alone, and maybe ask some questions.

—

“Mr. La Forge!” Riker called out as he walked into the, as predicted, pretty empty Engineering floor. He could see two people off in the far corner crowded together behind some screen, and he was pretty sure an analysis was being run by the warp core, but he knew he’d get Geordi alone with no one around to hear. Good.

“Commander!” Geordi popped up from the floor by the center console, smiling lightly at his friend. “What can I do you for?”

Start small. “How are things running down here?”

“Fit as a fiddle, Commander. I’ve sent most of the crew to go rest, I’ve got a couple working some diagnostics and here just in case, but she’s running smoothly.” He patted the console twice, leaning against it to look at Riker properly. “We should get to Risa with no issues.”

“Good, good.” He moved to stand across from Geordi, mirroring the other’s lean against the console there. “If everything’s great down here, why didn’t you put in for shore leave?”

A pause. “I’m sorry?”

“Why didn’t you put in for shore leave? I’m sure you could use the break.”

He chuckled, a little nervous, and moved to input something next to Riker at the console. “To be honest, I’m just not all that interested in Risa, Sir.”

“Data’s coming. We convinced him that it would be a good human experience. I’m sure he’d feel more comfortable with you there.” He knew it was low, but, hopefully, it would work. Just to get Geordi out of here for a minute.

Geordi straightened, fixing Riker with a stare. “Please tell me you’re not trying to get Data laid.”

That earned a laugh. “No! No, I know he can’t get, y’know, pent up like everyone else.” Geordi had already turned away and missed the pointed look Riker sent him. “Okay good, just making sure. I never know.”

Riker couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Don’t worry. Plenty of beautiful women down there for the rest of us, I think we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Geordi nodded once, not looking up from the screen. “Sure.”

That gave Riker a little pause. He had to approach this carefully, he knew that, if he wanted Geordi to open up just a little to him.

“Plenty of beautiful men too.” Riker shrugged, making sure to not look at how Geordi tensed next to him. “I know I’ve had a good time or two.”

Oh.

Riker watched out of the corner of his eye as Geordi did what could only be described as glitching. He paused, head tilting in a way that seemed to mimic Data, before jerkily turning his head up to Riker.

So, Riker continued.

“The last time I was there,” he let out a low whistle, smiling, “I met this human guy. Gorgeous, just sculpted- I mean, you don’t need all the details, but you get the idea. He was there on vacation too. Fantastic night.”

Finally, he looked down at Geordi. “Commander?” Then continued when he got no response. “Geordi?”

“Sorry, I just- um, I didn’t, realize you’re- you were..?”

“Pan. Pansexual.”

“Pansexual.”

“Mhm.”

“And they’re..?”

Riker’s heart broke in realization that Geordi was afraid of his friends being bigoted about this. Geez, what had happened to him to make him think that?

“No one cares. I mean, some lower staff were rude about it, but none of our friends or anyone on the bridge gives a shit.” He made sure to make his best eye contact with Geordi for this next part. “And if someone did, they’d have to report to the Captain, who is not very nice about discrimination. Which is why those lower staff aren’t on board anymore.”

Geordi nodded, slow and small, like he was letting Riker’s words settle in his chest. Riker let him take all the time he needed.

“I..” He straightened, clearing his throat and shifting his weight. His hands still held on to the end of the console, leaning on it for mild support. “I’m uh, I’m gay, Will.”

Riker nodded, slow and steady, just for his friend. “Okay. I won’t bother you about women anymore, huh?”

That got the exact response he was going for, a small chuckle as tension bled out of the man in front of him. Riker smiled something warm and clapped the other on the shoulder, starting to walk out before pausing and turning to him.

“Submit for shore leave. I think you’d like Risa.” His smile turned mischievous as he added on. “I could be your wingman.”

Riker left to the tune of Geordi’s loud laugh, waving once before leaving. He didn’t see the sigh Geordi let out right after, looking down at the console.

Deanna took note of a weight getting lifted.

[the---hermit]

How We Read Now by Naomi S. Baron

I don't know where this book review will go, but to be honest I can predict it will kinda look like a rant at some point, because me and this book got beef. The worse 25 euros I have ever had to spend for uni. This is one of the books I have to study for my history of libraries and reading class, and if it weren't for that I would have dnf-ed this pretty quickly.

This is a non-fiction book that focuses on the differences between physical, digital and audiobooks. Its aim is to analize data to conclude on which is the best option for learning. It is said that the audience it is aimed at is made of teachers, educators and parents. I don't know if it was reading it from a student perspective, but the tone of the author felt so patronizing. It was incredibly annoying, and the worse thing is that I agree with a good amount of what the author is writing about, but the tone was so annoying it made it difficult to read and to agree with. There's so many things I didn't like about this book, I don't even know if I'll remember all of them. The general critique I have read about this book is that it's pretty dry, because there's a lot of statistics, and technical stuff about researches and analysis they did. It's true, but it's not the worse part of the book in my oprion. Firstly this book is so repetitive it hurts. If you could eliminate all the times the author adds unnecessary lines to say "as we have said in chapter x" or "as we will see in chapter y" the book would miss a good 50 pages at least, it was so overdone it made it difficult to focus on what the author was trying to say (and to be honest at a certain point it looked like it was simply a way to make the book longer). And then as if that wasn't enough the chapters in which she tries to give advices on how to have the best results from different types of reading the tips are always more or less the same for all three kinds of books, so again repetitive like crazy. While we are on the topic of these tips let's just say that they are beyond the line of being banal. I spent all that money and time to have someone tell me that to have a productive reading session I have to focus on what I read and minimize the potential distractions. As I mentioned reading it from a student perspective made the tone of the author feel incredibly patronizing, anytime she talks about students it feels like she comes from the point of view that all young people are drowned by technology and social media to the point of being stupid. I am not saying this is the opinion of the author, but it's the feeling I got while reading the entire book, and it was so annoying. Another thing I personally didn't like at all is how this person is trying to find the way™ to get people to read productively, almost without considering that not only everyone has their preferences but depending on what and how you study and who you are things might change drastically. The general idea given by the author is that at the end of the day you should mix mediums but physical books are the best for learning/studying. I do agree, because I prefer physical book, but the way this opinion is carried in the book made me want to disagree just to go against the author. Not the most mature way of dealing with this but that was my natural reaction. Overall the writing annoyed me so much to the point I struggled to focus, and against the author's advices I did way more skimming than close reading because of how repetitive this thing was. I do not recommend at all this book, it's not worth it. Read articles online if you are interested on the topic, this was a waste of money, ans if you couldn't tell I am still very much pissed at this book.

I read this for the non fiction prompt of the 2023 genre bingo.

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

The Sounds of Justice (3)

Warnings: canon typical violence, cursing, non-consensual drugging, descriptions of character death, car crashes, lying, manipulation, mentions and descriptions of jail, guns, yandere themes, mafia AU, mafia Rafael Barba (trust me, he needs the warning), mentions of rape (not to the reader), and unwanted advances (nothing happens to the reader).

Chapter 3

“Is Abby usually that…” Sonny struggled to find the right word.  “Excitable?”

“How do you mean?”  Bishop asked with protectiveness barely concealed in her voice.

“When I showed her the analysis machines that we use, she linked her fingers, stretched out her arms, stared at the machines, and then said, “You are my babies and I am your benevolent ruler!”

Tony chuckled, “That’s our Abby.”

“Speaking of tours, we give you the tour.  We’ll break into groups or pairs.”

You ended up paired with Fin and he escorted you around the precinct, pointing out the important places and most notably, the break room.

“What did you do before you worked here?”  He asked.

“I worked for the Behavioural Analysis Unit as a profiler.  You?”

“Narcotics.  Worked there for over ten years.”

You let out a low whistle, “That would’ve been rough.”

“No rougher than working sex crimes.”

You leaned against the island in the break room, “Have you ever had a case where you realise that your case is actually part of a bigger one?”

“I hate those.  It means more people have suffered.  Usually there’s politics at play as well which makes it more complicated than it needs to be.”

The two of you lapsed into silence.

“What do you think about this one?” Fin asked.

You rubbed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose with your fingers, “I can already tell that it’s a bad one.  Not only has your guy become our guy but Abby has located three other cases with a few similarities in the tri-state area.”

“She works fast.”  Fin remarked approvingly.  “We only recorded the third case a couple of days ago.  Seeing as you guys are the feds, I’m guessing you have access to that data base.”

“She does.”  You agreed “She’s a sleuth in the truest sense of the word.  And yes, we do.  If it helps, we don’t spend our time trawling through your data bases just because we can.”

“I’m not sure whether to be relieved or insulted by that.  Do you think this case is part of something bigger?”

“The murders appear random.  So far there’s nothing that connects them which means there’s nothing to tie them to our unsub.”

“Unsub?”

“Old habit.  It means ‘unknown subject.’ Since there’s no connection yet, I only have a vague idea of a profile.”

“How does that work?  The profiling?”

“Basically I gather all the information in my head, piece together bits of information that seem like they belong to the same group and create a portrait based on that.  With the right amount of information, I can determine ethnicity, age, height and build and behavioural patterns.  But I’ll only do it once I’m one hundred percent sure and I’ve collaborated with my team.  Otherwise I risk getting it wrong and starting a witch hunt.”

“In all my years in narcotics, I’ve never seen anything like this.”  Fin revealed, “The amount of sophistication that an operation like this would take speaks to me of a professional touch.”

“Do you think a gang could be behind this?”

Fin shook his head as he leaned against the cupboards and rested his hands on the bench behind him, “While I’ve seen some sophisticated gangs with the technology to pull something like this off and the ability to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, I feel like we’re missing something crucial.”

“What if it’s more than one gang?  United under a particular person?”

Fin nodded slowly as he thought it over, “Smaller gangs can slip under the radar and they’d be more inclined to work for someone bigger in exchange for protection.  Especially if they’re working with rival gangs under the leadership of our mystery guy.  Question is: who?  Who would have that kind of power to unite them?”

You let out a moan, “Which brings us back to our original problem?”

“Not only that.  We’re no closer to figuring out why and how your boy was involved.”

“Well, how did you find out about your guy?”

“Witness called in a failed rape.  Said that the intruder burst into his home and shot straight towards him.  Grabbed his clothes and tore them.  Just before things could get worse, the intruder keels over and dies.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Fin confirmed.  “Victim was pretty shaken.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Footsteps reached yours and Fin’s ears at the same time and Tony appeared in the doorway to the break room.  You knew it was serious when he didn’t make a quip about you finding the break room first like he normally would have.

“Anonymous caller just phoned in that there is another victim.”

“Same MO?” Fin questioned.

“Looks like it,”  Tony replied heavily.