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veliseraptor · 4 years

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a kindness you can’t afford

[READ ON AO3]

Written for the anon prompt above, originally tried to post it as a response to an ask, then Tumblr fucked up all my formatting and I deleted the post, forgetting that I cannot just recreate an anon ask. Anyway! It’s a fic! It’s for an idea that I’ve been meaning to write eventually and ended up doing for this!

I wrote more rambly notes the first time I made this post but it’s probably for the best they’re gone. Thanks to @ameliarating for edits, as always, and to the Tumblr user who kindly indulged my request for “Chinese obscenities that could pass for a name.” The one Xue Yang uses here is literally “chrysanthemum” but also “anus.” This may be anachronistic, but I’m going with it.

content warnings: none, actually?? I don’t think??? other than, you know, the knowledge that this ain’t going anywhere good

What Xue Yang thought when the first sword went in was motherfucker finally did it.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d known for a while that sooner or later Jin Guangyao would decide he’d outlived his usefulness and try to get rid of him, or else Xue Yang would decide he was done playing Jin Guangyao’s game and cut out his tongue to feed it to him. And then kill him.

Until then he’d just figured he’d enjoy the luxury of Lianfang-zun’s boundless resources, access to the Yiling Laozu’s notes, and willingness to provide Xue Yang with the opportunity to experiment.

But with the old man dead, and Chifeng-zun in pieces, he’d figured that probably sooner rather than later Jin Guangyao would decide he was too much of a security risk and not enough of an asset to keep alive. Jin Guangyao still beat him to the punch. And he didn’t even have the courtesy to do it himself.

Bastard.

The Jin assholes cut him up pretty bad before he managed to get away; least he managed to make sure at least three of them wouldn’t walk away, and a fourth was going to be down a hand. So that was something, even if he was bleeding pretty badly, feeling it in the cold heaviness of his limbs and the spinning of his head. The wound in his leg was the worst, cutting deep into the thigh.

There was a distinct possibility that he was well and truly fucked.

Well, he thought when his body finally gave out and all he could do was slither into the grass on the side of the road so he wasn’t quite so exposed, it’d been a pretty good run, all things considered. Still sucked, and he would’ve really liked to show Jin Guangyao the color of his own intestines right about now, but you couldn’t get everything you wanted.

It wasn’t the death he’d imagined for himself. But it was better than some he could’ve anticipated. Hopefully he’d make a nasty fierce ghost and could go torment Lianfang-fucking-zun for backstabbing him.

Even if that was exactly what he’d expected him to do.

Xue Yang fought losing consciousness for a while, but there was only so long he could hold out before his body surrendered for him.

He didn’t expect to wake up alive.

When he did, still fucking hurting and with someone touching his face, at first he was just too tired and sore to try to move like he should, still feeling wrung out and half-dead and figuring maybe playing helpless would be better than trying something when he didn’t have the strength to back it up. Then his vision cleared a little and he recognized who he was looking at.

You, he thought, eyes widening in alarm, and tried immediately to scramble back regardless of the fact that his body screamed furiously at him, because some random stranger who was either trying to help or trying to loot his body was one thing, but Xiao Xingchen-

Who was assuring him that he wasn’t going to hurt him. That he didn’t mean him any harm, and was just trying to tend his wounds.

There was a white bandage over his eyes.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know.

Well, Xue Yang thought, staring at him. Well, well, well.

We’re fated to meet again, he’d said, years ago, but he hadn’t figured for it being like this.

You aren’t going to ask me my name? he asked warily, and Xiao Xingchen smiled at him, utterly clueless, and said I have my own things I’d rather not talk about.

Fucking shit. Unbelievable. The blind idiot, just taking in someone he’d found on the side of the road who he knew nothing about, not asking any questions, tending his wounds…

Xue Yang had never believed much in good fortune. Not for himself, anyway. But this opportunity just getting dropped in his lap, and when he needed it most-

It certainly seemed to qualify.

Good. Fucking fantastic.

He could work with this.

There was something funny about the girl with Xiao Xingchen - a-Qing, or whatever her name was. At first he’d thought she was just pretending to be blind, which would’ve been a problem, but she seemed to really not be able to see. She certainly wasn’t a threat of any other kind. A nuisance, it was becoming clear, and for whatever reason she didn’t like him, but she wasn’t actually dangerous.

And Xiao Xingchen... Xiao Xingchen would be dangerous, was dangerous, but he was also blind, and nice, and didn’t ask questions. Xue Yang had worked out a whole story, an elaborate lie he’d use, but Xiao Xingchen hadn’t asked. He nursed Xue Yang, helpless and useless, like he was a friend.

Motherfucking idiot.

At least it was serving him well. Xiao Xingchen took good care of him. Perfectly solicitous. Admonishing him when he tried to get up and walk too soon. You’ll make it worse, he said, with that sugar-sweet smile. Be careful with yourself. If you want to heal cleanly you need to rest.

It was all working great, absolutely perfect, he couldn’t’ve asked for better.

It wasn’t going to last.

It couldn’t, obviously. Xiao Xingchen would get sick of this magnanimous act and kick him out, or he’d figure out who Xue Yang was somehow and one of them would have to die. There was always a flip side, a catch, a trap, and that it hadn’t shown itself here yet just meant it hadn’t shown itself yet.

It would, sooner or later, and Xue Yang just had to be ready for it.

It’d be easier to feel ready for it if he could stand for longer than half a joss stick without feeling like he was going to collapse. His leg hurt like hell all the time and while he was clawing his way back to his usual strength, as far as he was concerned it couldn’t happen fast enough. It was fine, though. For now, he was safe. For now.

If he kept telling himself that maybe he’d stop feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin.

At least it gave him plenty of uninterrupted time to watch Xiao Xingchen. He was nice. He was patient. He didn’t raise his voice or lose his temper, as far as Xue Yang could tell. He was so impossibly, infuriatingly good and it couldn’t possibly be real.

“What is it?” Xiao Xingchen asked, and Xue Yang realized he’d been staring at him for a while, congee forgotten and getting cold.

“Nothing,” Xue Yang said quickly, and then narrowed his eyes and said, “you’ve got something on your face, by your nose. Big smudge of dirt.”

“Oh,” Xiao Xingchen said, and laughed a little. “Thank you for telling me. I can’t exactly check in a mirror.”

That was something Xue Yang found very interesting. It wasn’t Xiao Xingchen he’d blinded, and yet here he was. He hadn’t asked any questions about it, but he did wonder what he’d missed while he’d been working on rediscovering the secrets of demonic cultivation and creating a fierce corpse for Jin Guangyao.

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said, and then on a whim, “here, let me help you get it off.”

A-Qing scowled at him. “Xiao-daozhang can clean his own face, asshole.”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then smiled at Xue Yang. “She is right, though. I don’t need the help.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang said. “Whatever. Come on, it’s bugging me.” He got up and limped over, dropping down next to him and reaching out, using his sleeve to scrub at an imaginary smudge. Xiao Xingchen reached up and caught his arm, but he didn’t knock him away, and he didn’t seem angry. His grip was firm but not hard; Xue Yang just kept himself from yanking violently away or lashing out.

“Stranger,” Xiao Xingchen said, “Please. I can attend my own appearance.”

Xue Yang pulled back slowly. He glanced at a-Qing, who seemed smug, and then back at Xiao Xingchen, and held up his hands.

“All right,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended,” Xiao Xingchen said. He smiled, the expression warm and fuck, he really was intolerable. “But it should be clear that even though I am blind, I’m not helpless.”

“Guess that’s obvious,” Xue Yang said after a brief pause. “If anyone’s helpless here it’s me. I’m the one you had to scrape up off the side of the road, huh?”

That made Xiao Xingchen laugh. For some reason Xue Yang found that sort of satisfying; for some reason a-Qing glared at him.

“You’re not funny,” a-Qing said.

“Daozhang thinks I’m funny,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen shook his head, but he was smiling again.

Too easy. Blind - literally - fool. It suddenly seemed sort of amazing that he’d stayed alive this long.

At least it was working in Xue Yang’s favor. He’d be ready for when that changed, but for now-

He could enjoy it, for now.

The smart thing to do would be to kill Xiao Xingchen before he put two and two together and came up with Xue Yang.

He’d do the girl too, obviously, but Xiao Xingchen was the one who could really hurt him. He might be playing nice now but Xue Yang had fought him before. He knew what he could do. He wasn’t going to assume that his being blind had changed that much. The way he moved mostly hadn’t. He didn’t use a stick like a-Qing, anyway.

So, yeah. The smart thing to do.

He still hadn’t done it. Mostly because the smart thing to do was sometimes also the boring thing to do, and Xue Yang would take not boring over stupid most of the time.

“So when are you gonna leave, anyway,” a-Qing asked loudly.

“Dunno,” Xue Yang said. “Every time you ask me that it gets further away.”

A-Qing scowled at him. “Why are you even still here? Do you like living in a coffin home?”

“Maybe I do,” Xue Yang said. “Maybe I’m not even alive. Maybe I’m a really animate fierce corpse. Like the Ghost General.” He thought of Wen Ning, briefly, chained up with nails in his head. Absolutely useless. Completely uncontrollable, which had really been just the most disappointing. “You wouldn’t know, would you?”

For a moment a-Qing looked a little uncertain. Then she scowled harder. “Daozhang would know. Obviously.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” a-Qing said firmly. “Besides, fierce corpses don’t bleed.”

“How do you know,” Xue Yang said. “Met a lot of fierce corpses?”

“Have you?”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “I killed one once.” Its name was Nie Mingjue and its head is probably still in Lianfang-zun’s treasure room. He leaned back on his hands, flexing his leg and wincing at the pain that shot up into his hip. Fuck Lianfang-zun and his entire fucking life.

A-Qing shook her head. “You’re lying.”

Xue Yang shrugged one shoulder. “Believe what you want,” he said. “Doesn’t make any difference to me.”

He heard Xiao Xingchen’s footsteps a moment before he appeared and turned toward him, tensing reflexively and then scowling when that hurt, too. “What are you talking about?”

“Daozhang, do fierce corpses bleed?” a-Qing asked. Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows rose a little.

“No. Not like living people do, anyway.”

“I knew you were lying,” a-Qing said to Xue Yang. “This asshole says he killed a fierce corpse, but he didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know. I said you wouldn’t.” Xue Yang grinned at her. “If you’re going to call me names you could at least be more creative, Little Blind.”

Xiao Xingchen shook his head. “Why would you lie about such a thing, Stranger?” he asked.

“Came up when I was telling Little Blind how I’m a fierce corpse myself,” Xue Yang said.

“Don’t call me that,” a-Qing said. Xiao Xingchen seemed startled for a moment, and then smiled a little.

“I see,” he said.

“Well,” Xue Yang said. “You don’t, actually.”

A-Qing looked furious, but Xiao Xingchen let out a bright and full-throated laugh, like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Xue Yang blinked. He hadn’t really thought about saying it, and if he had he’d’ve thought Xiao Xingchen would be touchy about it. But he was smiling, and still chuckling a little, when he said, “no, I suppose not. Perhaps you have us both fooled, though I suspect my sword would know.”

Xue Yang’s ears pricked. “What do you mean?”

Xiao Xingchen set down the basket of groceries he was holding and paused, seeming to be thinking. “My sword, Shuanghua,” he said. “It is able to sense resentful energy, and thus direct me toward beings like ghosts or demons. Or, presumably, fierce corpses. It is how I can still go night hunting.”

“Huh,” Xue Yang said. That was interesting. And he had sort of wondered. He hadn’t heard of anything like that before.

He wondered suddenly how discriminating Xiao Xingchen’s sword was. Did it detect any amount of resentful energy? Or type, or concentration?

Xue Yang tucked that question away for later. It wasn’t important right now.

“How is your leg today, Stranger?”

“Fine,” Xue Yang said. Lied. “Are you just going to keep calling me ‘Stranger’? You could just pick a name and go with it. Or guess. Or use a different name every time you talk to me.”

Xiao Xingchen smiled again, obviously amused. “Or,” a-Qing said, “you could just say what you’re called. Why won’t you, anyway?”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Sometimes a man’s history is his own business.”

Wasn’t that a nice idea, Xue Yang thought. He doubted Xiao Xingchen would still say that if he knew who he was harboring.

“Yeah, all right,” Xue Yang said. “I’ll tell you my name.”

A-Qing looked suspicious. “What is it?”

“Ju Hua,” he said. Xiao Xingchen let out a strangled sound, like a laugh disguised by a fake cough. A-Qing recoiled, her face crinkling up in disgust.

“You’re disgusting,” she said.

“Hey,” Xue Yang said. “It’s rude to make fun of peoples’ names,” but he started cackling a second later, hard enough it hurt his cracked ribs. A-Qing got to her feet and flounced off, taking a swing at his head with her stick he was sure was deliberate.

Xue Yang grinned at Xiao Xingchen, who still looked like he was trying not to laugh. “You shouldn’t tease her,” he said.

“She can take it,” Xue Yang said easily. The turn of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth and the set of his eyebrows was reproachful, though both offset by the amusement that was still there.

“You still shouldn’t.”

“Ah, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, dragging out the second syllable. “Ruining all my fun.”

Xiao Xingchen’s expression faltered for a moment, eyebrows furrowing, and Xue Yang realized that his voice had slipped, a little. He held his breath, tensing, waiting, something almost eager jumping in his stomach.

Here it comes.

Then Xiao Xingchen shook himself and let out a faint laugh, though it sounded a little weak. “I know,” he said. “I’m merciless.”

Xue Yang pictured Xiao Xingchen as he’d seen him first, almost glowing in white, a pinched expression of displeasure on his face. He would’ve seen Xue Yang executed. Not done it himself - couldn’t get those pure robes dirty - but still. He thought merciless wasn’t as far off the mark as Xiao Xingchen probably believed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Absolutely. Those vegetables you bought don’t stand a chance.”

Xiao Xingchen laughed again, and smiled, and Xue Yang blinked at him, something funny twisting in his chest under his heart.

You know I’m going to kill you someday, he thought. Not yet, but I’m gonna do it. And I’ll make sure you’ll know how I tricked you, how stupid you were, when I do.

Xue Yang usually slept pretty well, if lightly. He’d learned the trick of it - a need to wring rest out of the hours he got when it was safe, but the ability to wake up fast when he needed to. Usually he could get through the night without waking up, and if he dreamed, he never remembered them.

At first he wasn’t sure what had woken him up this time, just that between one moment and the next he was awake, wide awake with his senses shrilling an alarm, something wrong. His heartbeat picked up and he started to reach for Jiangzai only to stop himself.

Then he heard it: quiet but still audible through thin walls. A soft, distressed sound from Xiao Xingchen’s room.

He held very still, waiting until he heard another. A whimper, almost. Quiet and pathetic, wounded animal. He rose, slowly, on quiet feet, and walked as silently as he could while still limping, out of his room and into Xiao Xingchen’s.

He was lying there on the bed, under a thin blanket that was now tangled around his body. One of his arms was flung outwards, his head turned to the side, face crumpled in a frown. There were red stains on the white bandages over his missing eyes. His chest rose and fell unevenly and too quickly.

As he stood there, watching, Xiao Xingchen made another sound, one of pain, and Xue Yang almost felt it in his chest, in his gut. He took a step forward, and another, and another, until he was standing right next to the bed and looking down at Xiao Xingchen, lips parted, in the grip of a nightmare, so vulnerable, so beautiful in his suffering.

What was he dreaming about? Losing his eyes?

Maybe he’s dreaming about me, Xue Yang thought, and had to bite down on a laugh.

He could see the big vein in Xiao Xingchen’s throat throbbing with his rapid pulse. It’d be so easy. He could draw his knife and plunge it in in less than a second. He could slide it between his ribs and up into his heart. He could slice him open like a pig and pull his guts out through the gash. It’d be quick. Or it wouldn’t, and he’d make Xiao Xingchen scream before he died.

Xue Yang cocked his head to the side and thought about it. What it’d look like. How it’d feel.

He pressed his tongue to his teeth and thought about licking Xiao Xingchen’s blood off his fingers.

His body snapped taut at a sleepy, “Daozhang?” and he moved immediately, dropping down into a crouch next to the bed and reaching out to give Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder a gentle shake.

“Daozhang,” he said, pitching his voice low but gentle. “Xiao Xingchen, wake up.”

Xiao Xingchen was a cultivator. He woke up quickly too, with a sharp inhale. “What,” he said, and Xue Yang let go of him quickly in case he lashed out.

“What’s going on?” a-Qing asked behind him, voice clearer. “I heard noises.”

“Your Daozhang was having a bad dream,” Xue Yang said. “I was just waking him up.”

Xiao Xingchen’s lips pressed together. “I’m sorry for waking both of you,” he said, and his voice sounded - not shaky, exactly, but shaken, and subdued. “I’m all right. You can go back to sleep now.”

“Thanks for the permission,” Xue Yang said. “But I’m good.”

“A-Qing…”

“I’m good, too,” she said stubbornly, but Xue Yang heard her yawn.

“You’re young,” Xiao Xingchen said. He sounded exhausted. It was so - human. Which of course he was, flesh and blood just like the rest of them, but there was still something sort of weird about hearing it. “You need your rest.”

“But-”

“You heard him, Little Blind,” Xue Yang said. “Go to bed. Your coffin’s going to get cold.”

“But-”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, and after a moment she made a disgruntled, frustrated noise and shuffled out. There was a brief silence, and then Xiao Xingchen said, “you, too.”

“Nah,” Xue Yang said. “Like I said, I’m good.”

Xiao Xingchen reached up to his face and touched the bandage, then stiffened with a sharp breath in and turned his face away. “Oh,” he said. “I-”

Shame, Xue Yang thought, with a little thrill. He was ashamed. Of the blood, or what it meant? How it revealed what he so carefully covered up?

“Looks like you need a fresh bandage,” he said, carefully matter-of-fact. Xiao Xingchen turned his face further away.

“I’ll - take care of it.”

“Want help?”

“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, his voice sharp, and then quickly added, softer, “thank you. And...thank you for waking me.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

Which it was. He hadn’t done anything. Wasn’t doing anything. Wasn’t going to kill him. It’d be too easy, he decided, doing it when he was sleeping. He wouldn’t know. Xue Yang wanted him to know.

Xiao Xingchen took a long, deep breath. “I’m all right. Really.”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “I know. Want to go for a walk?”

If Xiao Xingchen had eyes, Xue Yang thought he’d be staring at him. “What?”

“A walk,” Xue Yang said. “You know. That thing you do outside sometimes.”

Xiao Xingchen didn’t laugh. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Not like it makes a difference to you, does it?” Xue Yang said. “I do it sometimes. Helps clear my head.” He stood up and stretched. “Up to you. But I think I’ll go regardless. And who knows what’ll happen if I’m out there on my own.”

“Your injuries-”

“Doesn’t have to be a long walk.”

Xiao Xingchen was quiet for a while. Then he said, “all right. I need to get dressed.”

“Great,” Xue Yang said with a grin. “See you outside.”

He put on his robe and went out, stretching his arms overhead and looking up at the sky, the stars. The moon.

Now why, he thought, had he done that? Xiao Xingchen’s nightmares were none of his concern.

It was sort of funny, though, wasn’t it? Comforting him. Helping him. It’d twist the knife harder when he eventually found out. Make it cut deeper. Maybe he’d cry, blood tears running down his cheeks, and Xue Yang would trace them with his finger, lick it clean. Xiao Xingchen, he’d say. Looks like you need a fresh bandage.

“You know your roof is leaking,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen sighed.

“I’m aware,” he said.

“Just making sure,” Xue Yang said.

“I keep meaning to fix it,” Xiao Xingchen said.

“Daozhang,” Xue Yang said with exaggerated patience, “meaning to fix it doesn’t mean fuck if you don’t just do it. That’s like saying-”

He cut off before he said that’s like saying you’re going to kill someone and not following through.

“Like saying what?”

“Like saying you’re going to go night hunting and then sitting at home on your ass,” Xue Yang said.

“Are you calling Daozhang lazy?” a-Qing said. “You’re the lazy one here. Useless.” Xue Yang’s face dropped into a scowl.

“You’ve really got a talent for interrupting conversations that don’t involve you,” he said. Xiao Xingchen frowned in his direction.

“Our guest is just pointing out that I should have done something about the roof leak before now,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And he is right.”

“Course I am,” Xue Yang said. “I’m right about a lot of things.”

A-Qing snorted. “Yeah,” she said. “Name one.”

You’re an ugly little brat who ought to get slapped. “Xiao-daozhang is the most beautiful cultivator in the world,” he said. Xiao Xingchen’s face went red. A-Qing scowled.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “So I’d just have to take your word for it.”

“It’s not true,” Xiao Xingchen protested. “Our guest is just teasing.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “One against one, Daozhang. Too bad we don’t have a tie breaker.”

Xiao Xingchen’s face was still flushed bright. Like he’d been slapped, all the blood right under the skin, and Xue Yang wondered if his skin would feel hot if he touched it. If he’d bleed faster if he cut into his cheek.

He’d started to think maybe he shouldn’t kill Xiao Xingchen after all. It might actually be better to leave him alive. Dead people couldn’t suffer like living ones.

He leaned back on his hands. His leg was feeling better these days. His other wounds were well on the way to healing. He could probably leave, if he wanted to. Slip out in the middle of the night.

Maybe he’d cut a-Qing’s throat to leave a message. That’d probably hurt Xiao Xingchen worse than anything Xue Yang could do to him.

It was an idea. He tucked it away for consideration.

“Anyway,” he said. “You should definitely do it before winter or Little Blind will freeze to death.”

“Why don’t you do it,” a-Qing said loudly.

“What’ll you pay me for it? I don’t do that kind of work for free.”

A-Qing scowled harder. “You’re eating our food and sleeping in our house,” she said. “Ugh. You’re the worst.”

“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, “our guest is still injured. You wouldn’t want him to aggravate his injuries further.”

“Says who,” a-Qing muttered under her breath. Xiao Xingchen seemed to pretend not to hear.

“I’ll get some supplies tomorrow,” he said. “It is starting to get colder. But don’t worry about helping, Stranger. I can manage.” He gave Xue Yang a horribly gentle smile. Why are you like this, Xue Yang thought angrily.

Yeah. He wouldn’t kill Xiao Xingchen at all. Just cut up his face so he couldn’t smile like that anymore. He wouldn’t even know how awful he looked until people started recoiling from him in horror, exclaiming with disgust.

Yeah. That was an idea. Kill a-Qing and ruin that pretty face.

He’d get around to it before winter, once he was fully healed, and find someplace nice and warm to set up in for the cold months. No reason to stay in this miserable dead city when there was a whole world to explore.

Xiao Xingchen did not have any idea how to patch a roof.

Xue Yang ended up mostly doing it for him.

There was an itch under Xue Yang’s skin, in his bones. He didn’t know why, exactly. He just got like this sometimes, tense and restless and jumpy and he didn’t like it. Usually he dealt with it in one of two ways: killing someone or fucking someone. Or both.

He hadn’t killed anyone yet today, but he was thinking about it. It’d probably be a-Qing. She was getting on his last nerve, and he kept thinking if he killed her quick and quiet and dumped her body in the river Xiao Xingchen would never need to know.

Though why it’d matter if Xiao Xingchen knew was another matter.

He didn’t think he’d really kill a-Qing either, though. Maybe one of the merchants in the market. The one who’d tried to sell them half-rotted turnips. He’d deserve it. Yeah. Him. He’d make a good target.

Itch, itch, itch. Fuck. He was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t-

“Stranger?”

Xue Yang whirled around, knife in hand, and just checked the movement before he put it through Xiao Xingchen’s neck. Or, he would’ve checked it, but Xiao Xingchen caught his arm first.

Xue Yang froze. His body coiled tight, ready for the retaliation. Briefly, he wanted to laugh. The first time he really got close to stabbing Xiao Xingchen since waking up here and it hadn’t even been on purpose.

Xiao Xingchen felt down Xue Yang’s arm to his hand, his fingers wrapped around the knife. Least it wasn’t his left. He paused for a moment, then let go and stepped back.

“I startled you,” he said.

Xue Yang blinked. “I was thinking about something else,” he said cautiously.

“Apparently so,” Xiao Xingchen said. He smiled, barely, and bowed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re - for what?”

“Startling you,” Xiao Xingchen said. Xue Yang stared at him.

“I almost stabbed you,” he blurted out, and then grimaced.

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. “But you didn’t. I suppose this might be a different conversation if you had.” His voice was still even, calm. Xue Yang stared at him harder, hating the confusion that was starting to overtake the itch for violence.

“Probably wouldn’t be a conversation,” he said, before he meant to. Xiao Xingchen smiled a little.

“I suppose not,” Xiao Xingchen said. “A good thing I have quick reflexes.” He paused, the smile fading. “Stranger...I know that you have...a history. That there are shadows in it you don’t want to discuss. For all your good humor, you are tense, and watchful, and wary. A man - a cultivator - does not end up on the side of a road in your condition without having made dangerous enemies.”

Xue Yang opened his mouth, then closed it, getting tenser by the second. He still had his knife in hand, but Xiao Xingchen had shown he could catch him, and while Shuanghua wouldn’t be able to sense him the way it did ghosts and the like-

“Whatever you might have done,” Xiao Xingchen said, his voice quiet and serious, “it doesn’t matter now.”

Xue Yang’s voice was locked in his throat. Speechless. He wasn’t speechless very often. There was a laugh in there, too, thinking wildly really, is that really true, Xiao Xingchen, would you still say that if I told you my name-

“Pretty generous of you, Daozhang,” he said. “I might’ve done anything.”

“Perhaps,” Xiao Xingchen said. “But you have not done anything to me, or to a-Qing, or to the people here.”

Not yet, anyway, was his first thought, and then oh. Oh, that was rich, that was hilarious, that was-

He felt sort of weird, suddenly. Not sick, and nothing was hurting, just - weird. Off-balance. The itch was completely gone now, leaving something else in its wake that he couldn’t quite pin down.

“Xiao-daozhang,” he started to say, and then stopped. Xiao Xingchen gave him a small smile.

“Most people, I think, have shadows in their pasts,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I am not a magistrate. I would rather not act as one.”

Xue Yang thought of Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan’s eagerness to deliver him to justice, and wanted to laugh. But only for a moment.

He sucked on his teeth. Cocked his head to the side.

“Call me Chengmei,” he said. And waited. Waited to see any sign of recognition, of memory, of understanding.

Xiao Xingchen smiled, slightly. “Chengmei,” he said. “Thank you.”

Xue Yang huffed a laugh. “For what?”

“For telling me your name.”

Huh. Xue Yang wanted to laugh, would’ve laughed, did laugh, a little. “That’s not telling you much, Xiao-daozhang. It’s just a name. It might not even be my real one.”

“I know,” Xiao Xingchen said. He didn’t reach out, just smiled that warm smile that Xue Yang hated, that set off that strange and twisting feeling like a worm winding through his insides. Nobody had made that face at him before. Not like that. “But at least now I don’t have to call you ‘Stranger.’”

“You still could, if you wanted,” Xue Yang said, which made Xiao Xingchen laugh. Everything made him laugh. He had a stupid sense of humor, Xue Yang was starting to realize.

Such an idiot.

Xiao Xingchen gave him one last smile and went back inside. Xue Yang looked after him, eyes narrowed.

He should’ve gone by now, probably. He was getting comfortable, and comfortable was dangerous.

But he had a good thing going, here. And he could end it whenever he wanted. The second he got sick of this game, he could finish it, and Xiao Xingchen, too.

There was no reason to hurry, though. No rush.

And he had some ideas for how to keep things fun.

He had time.

#anonymous #xue yang #xiao xingchen #xuexiao #(you know it's going there)#the untamed #the sad queer cultivators show #a wild fic appeared

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heartslogos · 3 years

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newfragile yellows [934]

"I cannot be in that house for even an hour longer, I will go insane. You've got to put me on assignment. Somewhere not here. Fuck, anywhere not here. I’ll take an entire month’s worth of mission oversight duty in Sahrnia. I’ll take research assistance in the Arbor Wilds. I’ll take anything at this point. You could put me on fucking clean up crew duty, I do not care. I cannot stress enough how much I do not care. Put me in data entry if you want. Or fucking answering phone lines. Anything.”

Evelyn looks at Bull, looks very pointedly at the cast on his arm, and then turns back to her computer. “You would make a very poor data entry person with only one arm to work with and only three fingers capable of performing keystrokes on that hand.”

“Are you saying people with only one arm and three fingers can’t do data entry? How narrow minded of you.”

“Bull. What part of mandatory bed rest aren’t you understanding here?” Evelyn sighs. “I’m not going to circumvent your doctor’s orders just because you’re getting cabin fever.”

“You don’t understand, Trevelyan,” Bull growls, “The Lavellens are going nuts.”

“Oh, they’re the Lavellans now are they? I don’t know why you think they’re going nuts, they’re mostly already there. They’re just very good at harnessing their…whatever it’s called for productive means.” Evelyn hums. “So, what’s wrong? What’s got you all desperate?”

“They won’t stop baking,” Bull says. “Which was fine at first. But now the pace at which they are baking is rapidly outpacing the pace at which the end product can be consumed. And frankly? I love those two. I’m usually fond of whatever they make, food wise. Some of the things that are coming out of that oven aren’t edible. Or they shouldn’t be. They’re getting creative in the wrong ways with their baked goods. This morning Mahanon baked a grapefruit.”

Evelyn squints at him, as if she’s trying to find a lie. But there’s no reason for Bull to lie about this.

“You can do that?”

“It’s not about if you can or can’t do something, Trevelyan. It’s about whether you should or shouldn’t. The answer is you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be baking grapefruit. It doesn’t matter what you put in it, around it, on it, under it, over it. You shouldn’t be baking grapefruit period. End of sentence. And do you know who has to eat said baked grapefruit? Me. Fuck. I got to get out of here before they try something like baking grapes or kiwis or whatever the fuck.”

“Why are they baking grapefruit?”

“No, not they. Mahanon. And they’re not currently baking grapefruit. The grapefruit is done. It was done this morning. He’s onto the next thing now and I’m not scared to find out, I’m living in dread of finding out. I need to get out of here. And what does it matter why? I’m suffering. As my boss and as someone I like to consider my friend, if not my ally, with some sort of working sympathy and empathy center, I’d think you don’t need to know more than that.”

“Sadly for you, yes I do,” Evelyn says, “Because I am deeply intrigued by what’s going on now. Give me all the details.”

“Apparently one of their distant relations, grandmother, grand aunt, great-grand-something, isn’t able to make cookies this year. But she hasn’t told anybody else the recipe. So now every single Lavellan in possession of an oven is attempting to recreate her cookies.”

“What does grapefruit have to do with it?”

“They’re trying to figure out one of the secret ingredients. I guess someone suggested baking different fruits to see if the juice had a similar taste or if the smell was similar. I don’t know. I can’t tell you how much I don’t know. You know that family couldn’t think along a linear path of thought if someone gave them an outline and a step by step guide.”

“Bull. You are part of that family. Stop talking about them like you aren’t involved.”

“In this very specific endeavor I’m not. I’m really not. They figured out some things on real quick, like the ratio of ingredients. Now they’re working on the secret ingredients. It’s like if a bunch of chaotic oriented scientists gathered and they broke every single law along the way in pursuit of their discoveries. It’s like a hive mind of them. I wake up and they’re in the kitchen in the middle of either a video call or a conference call discussing plans of attack for the day, the oven is in the middle of a preheat. I leave, I come back and they’re still at it. By the end of the day they’ve got an entire table of baked goods right outside our door and giant sign telling people to just grab things and go. And they’re in another call, working on another bake.”

“How come this is the first I’ve heard of this? I want some baked goods,” Evelyn scowls. “I want something sweet. Why do I always hear about these things last? I never get good news with everyone else. The only time I’m first to know about something is if it’s gone wrong.”

“Are you not listening to me? These aren’t baked goods you want. These are experiments on things that should never be baked. You do not want these things. I’d call them finished products but I don’t think they’re finished or products. Are you going to get me assigned somewhere or not?”

“I’m not. And you know I’m not. And you know that I’m curious now so I’m going to go with you back to your house and I’m going to ask them a million questions,” Evelyn replies, standing up and pulling her coat off of the back of her chair. “I’m due for a break anyway. Come on. You can fill me in on what they’ve run through already. I am intrigued.”

#heartsfic #gather your party and venture forth

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euphoriacrossing · 4 years

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The closer we get the more my anxiety plays up...

What if I can't keep up with my journal that I worked so hard on?

What if I mess up something I can't change on my island? (I don't WANT to have to reset, but if it's the first day i will... i don't want to have to reset two or three days in because i change my mind about something...)

And the bigger ones.... I've been so tired I can barely stay awake two or three hours at a time. I can't do a whole lot of recreational things because I'm asleep. Right now I'm attributing it to depression, but I am going to ask my oncologist if maybe the meds could cause it (the meds I DID stop, but thay messed with my hormones anyway) or if the slight bit of anemia I have could cause it maybe? What if I am not awake enough to fully enjoy the game?

I go to the oral surgeon I think for a consultation to get some teeth pulled, what if he wants to do it anytime soon after the game is out? Will it mess with my enjoybility to have that kind of procedure? (Last time I had teeth out... my wisdom teeth I did very poorly, I got two dry sockets and was in some of the worst pain... I was LUCKY to be able to sleep as much as I did, because the pain was awful. And I followed instructions, so I don't know if I am more prone to those kinds of things or if it was the fact he didn't tell me to stop my birth control or what... but it was bad. And now I have a much higher tolerance to pain meds and will have to use the ones I'm ON so they'll be less effective probably. I'll die if I get a dry socket. Pain tolerance, mine is high until you get to my mouth and then I'm an absolute crybaby.) So say he wants to do it the Monday after... will I be out of commission to play for two weeks or more while I recover? I know this sounds more important, but to me the game is important, too. I want to be able to put in at least some work daily for quite a while so I can create a beautiful island at the same time others who start on the 20th are. So it may not seem like a huge deal, but it is to me okay? Enough of a huge deal for my anxiety to use it against me.

Those are just examples though. I have an anxiety disorder which in past years has become more generalized and entwined with my bipolar symptoms. So I am in no short supply of things related to the 20th to be anxious about.

I wish I could just be happy. And I mean, I am. We have less than a week and I'll be playing a game that is 7 years in the making for those of us that play Animal Crossing. I've been waiting with baited breath probably more than a year, to the point where when Pokemon Sw/Shld came out it was just a distraction instead of the main event, at that point I was already craving New Horizons desperately. And here we are nearly at the end of our waiting, I am happy, don't get me wrong.

But my mind never just let's me be happy.

What if I am too late to make friends in the first few days like I've planned? Everyone else seems to already have their friendships, but I knew I couldn't keep up with a friendship that long. So here is the week to make friends, and I don't feel I know how, or I feel like most people already have their friends. I have maybe two people besides my sister to play with. And I'm excited for that. But I'd love to be included in a larger group of friends or something, you know, that sort of thing is nice. If I only have a few close friends though, that'd be nice too. And i think the first few days it seems people might just be playing on their own, i don't always NEED someone to play with, I'll probably prefer to play alone, or maybe with my sister mostly, or just my close friend when I play. But it's just i guess i expected to use this opportunity to make more friends and now i feel i am wasting it. I don't often have such an "easy way" to make friends because I am disinterested in most things and just don't have a lot to talk about. This common interest is an amazing thing to talk about and should make things easier, but it doesn't as much as I hoped I guess.

What if I don't finish my journal? I worked so hard on it, but i need my dad's help with the label maker and need to finalize the decisions about what I'm going to record in it before I do make the labels. It can still be changed later because I am using labels on plastic tabs and a discbound journal but what if I don't have time once i'm playing?

Ugh. Just all the "what ifs". And I know some people will think "why'd she bother making this post?" Well random person, it does help to get them out in the open. Since most everything I have been thinking has been AC related lately, this has turned into a bit of a personal blog. Sorry for that. I do plan to make it a New Horizons blog and post as much original content as I can once ACNH is out.

Oh another one. What if posting original content is too hard?

Like, I want this blog to have original content and all that, but if you have to remove your memory card and get on a computer to do it, that's a lot of trouble and extra energy I don't have these days. And you had to do that for New Leaf and everyone did including myself, but I had more energy and it seemed easier. And it seems like it was less effort those days because people DID THINGS on the computer including myself. Now I use my phone and ipad as computers, you can do almost all the same things on them, and my laptop sits idle which might be the reason it doesn't run as well these days. Or it may just be that it's old as crap for a laptop. I mean, I guess it's moderately old for what it is, it's a very nice laptop, but I think it's the same one I had for New Leaf so it's been with me a while. Anyway, it SEEMED like less trouble because you were on the computer doing stuff anyway, so just pop your memory card in there and go while you're checking your stuff. It's not that easy on a phone, BUT I am hoping you can post photos and screenshots to SOMETHING through the Nooklink app. We don't know everything about the app yet as it isnt out yet, and I doubt you can post straight to tumblr (though that'd make things easy, huh?) because this is not the most used platform anymore, but if I can post them to anywhere (like facebook or twitter... I'd probably post them privately to facebook because I am less versed in twitter stuff, but then I did recently become an AC twitter on my personal twitter because I never used my personal twitter anyway, so... yeah...) I can grab them on my phone once they are uploaded and reupload them here. But I also plan to make my "diary like" text posts here. I am not recording a diary in my journal having to do with NH, I only want like... data and information I can use, etc. But that doesn't mean I won't want to write diary like entries, and I am less likely to lose my blog that a physical journal anyway it feels. (I say less likely... I lost my New Leaf blog for a few years there, but with effort I did recently find it.) So it could be very easy to post original content here, or if the app doesn't do things it really totally should, then it might be a bit more effort and I don't know if I have that to give right now, so I'm nervous about that. Everything I post here about my game experience is going to be more for me to look back on than anything, so I WANT to be able to post about that stuff here. But I guess we'll have to wait to see, along with waiting for the game.

And everyone knows how well waiting and anxiety get along. They are two peas in a pod, they play off each other like it's no one's business.

But I hope everything in the end will just be okay. I am "lucky" in a way. Since I'm chronically ill, disabled, and have cancer, I don't have work or school to worry about and while being sick is a big bummer, that does take a lot of stress off of me. I don't know how I would handle a job or school even just mentally these days, I don't see how it could go well and I guess that is because I am so sick, even just mentally... but I know a lot of disabled people DO still do those things anyway, sometimes because they HAVE to, so I am glad I am in a position at my age where I am still largely take care of. My disability money doesn't cover a fraction of my necessities, so I feel blessed everyday for my parents, even though my mom and I fight like cats and dogs. Annnndddd now I am getting to be anxious about what happens to me when my parents are gone and that's a WHOLE different type of anxiety... yikes... I need to stop letting my anxiety run rampant now I guess, it's gone too far.

But I am very "lucky" to be in a position where once the game comes out it can be my main focus for a while. Partially because i don't have the energy to focus on many different things, so it's good Animal Crossing can take up that main spot in my life for now.

Come on now, back to AC anxieties. Ya stupid general anxiety...

And I guess I am anxious about the typical things people are anxious about... what fruit will I get, will I like my first Islanders, etc. but to me those things arent as major. All the fruits are so pretty I could really get on with any of them I think, and hopefully my first villagers will be great, but I'll make myself a net if they're not, and I do have amiibo cards for moving in some of my favorite villagers later on, so I can deal with a dud or two.

I'm a little anxious about map layouts too, just picking the right one seems a little difficult to me since there are some things you cannot change. But I think I can make a good choice, I'm more worried if I'll be able to draw it in for my journal or not. I should draw the general layout for the map, but I don't even know if I can do that right.

Oh I also have a package to finish working on and get in the mail before Friday, BUT I finished the hardest parts (writing a bunch of postcards, basically a latter's worth of text but on postcards) last night, so I just have to do finishing touches and get it out. I maybe want to type another letter to send out, too, but if I don't get it done I'll try not to beat myself up. I got really burnt out on mail stuff lately and as much as I still get, which is about one or two things in the mail daily, I can't reply to all the things I should. I'm stressed about it, but I won't let that ruin my New Horizons time. Especially since mail was supposed to be a fun hobby for me and just... stopped. But that's a whole different thing, that has less to do with New Horizons than the other stuff.

Now I genuinely do feel less stressed since I rambled on for a while. Thanks for reading this, if you read any of it. I don't expect anyone to read all this anxiety inducing, depressing junk.

But anyway, now I am going to try and think about the Nooklink app and what kind of features I think it should have. Like I said, it really should have a way to post screenshots/pictures to social media, and I bet it's got something like that since we have the camera in game. I bet we maybe even can post pictures to social media from the switch. I mean, well, I know we can technically, but I mean I bet we can without having to leave the game. Because you can do that in New Leaf now. Gosh would that have been handy YEARS ago. I guess it came with the "welcome amiibo" update?

But at least we know we can scan in QR codes. I dunno if you've noticed but I have been collecting some and tagging them (you can find them under the "QR" tag on my blog, or by type of QR code, likes dresses I just tagged "dress") so I have them once we are able to use them in game. I am going to check my @playtimewithmadi blog to see if I have QR codes saved that I used in New Leaf, too, so I can reblog any good ones here. All of that gives me something to do, I suppose.

I could also work on my journal, or my mail. Both need to get done before Friday and need work.

But honestly, I am probably gonna play Happy Home Designer right now. I'll design at least one house, and then maybe I'll work on my mail and journal stuff. We'll see.

Anyway, thanks again for sticking with me, I love everyone who stays subbed to this blog even though the BS posts like this. Sorry for rambling on, but I needed this, so thank you for letting me have it.

Off to more distraction then...

#Animal Crossing anxiety #Animal Crossing #anxiety #mental illness #Animal Crossing New Horizons #personal #mine

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marquiswrites · 5 years

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Silk and Steel Ch 17

Summary:

AO3 Link

Master List

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Characters: Reader/MC, Kostya/Original Male Character, Nikolai/Original Male character, James “Bucky” Barnes, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson

Relationship: James “Bucky” Barnes/Reader

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 1148

Warnings: Hydra Lab, Father issues, Coercion, Manipulation

Author’s Notes: In case you can't tell, I have been binging Agents of SHIELD in order to get more information to use for this story, hopefully my research helps to make it more enjoyable for everyone! I intend to keep bringing in pieces of the show, but the main focus will be our team.Yay for Bucky finally getting back to his girl's side! This should definitely help speed up the pace just a touch on our slow burn romance, as much as I love their light flirting and everyone else seems to as well.

Summary:

Your team comes up with a plan to make sure that you're safe, and you learn the truth about Hydra's plans for you.

Chapter 17: The Experiment

Steve let out a slow breath, glancing around the park beyond him. Gaze resting for just a moment on where each of his team was spread out. Trying to weigh solutions. “We give her twenty four hours before our next attempt at a check in. If she doesn’t respond, we start the extraction.”

“What?!” Tony baulked. Sitting up in his lounger. “We have her alive and safe now, the same might not be said for tomorrow. Who’s to say that they don’t start tearing her into atomic sized pieces the moment we pull back?” “They haven’t had enough time for a proper brainwash, but the same doesn’t go for that brother of hers.” Natasha turned, heading for Tony’s boat.

“I’ll keep an eye on her.” Sam hummed softly. “Might need to tag team it though.” “I’d feel better about this if there was someone there with her on the inside.” Bucky growled the words, pulling away from the flower shop and walking towards the path that would lead him towards the lab. “Whoa now tiger, your face is probably the one thing that all of Hydra knows, and that’s to say nothing of your arm.” Tony wiped a hand over his face. “Let me go, Mister Stark, I can keep an eye on her!” Peter finally piped up. “Underoos, even if you didn’t look like a toddler, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near an undercover op.” Tony snorted. “You’re wrong Stark. Most of Hydra didn’t know about me. I can’t say the same for Nikolai, considering they were his experiments, but so long as I stay out of the way, I should be able to keep from his radar.” Bucky glanced over the walkway. Passing Steve as he went. “If nothing else that arm of yours is a dead giveaway, Barnes.” Natasha tilted her head slightly. “But you’ve got the best chance of all of us. Can Vision alter any scans to keep them from picking up his arm, Tony?” “It’s possible, but it would require constant monitoring.” Tony started to pace, ignoring that he was supposed to be undercover. “Do it. Sam, keep a visual on her at all times. Rest when you can. I’ll be up to give you relief in a few hours. Natasha, come up with a failsafe.” Steve fell easily into his Captain America mode. Nodding to Bucky as he passed. “You have twenty four hours before you have to check in, same rules. We can reassess at that point.”

You ran off as soon as you heard the page over the intercoms. Calling you to the exam room that you had first been brought to. As much as you hated the idea, you knew that you couldn’t blow Kostya’s cover. Not after he had just agreed to work with him until you got answers.

There was something he wasn’t telling you and you needed to know.

The hallways weren’t quite so confusing as you remembered, finding your way to the medical room rather easily, though wary of the men in lab coats surrounding the cot that you had been laid in.

“How good of you to join us, Katarina.” Nikolai chuckled from where he was reading a monitor in the corner. “It’s time that you come to know what it is we’re doing here, and your place in all this. I know that it must be difficult to trust me, given my absence in your life, but you have to understand, I have only ever done what was right for the cause.”

“Hail Hydra.” The words came to your lips as easily as breathing. Dipping your head to the man who had helped create you.

“Hail Hydra.” He chuckled almost brightly, something akin to pride shining in his eyes. “You see, I have been testing your brother’s abilities. When you both were created, we had been so hopeful. You both were born healthy, your aptitude tests were off the charts. We needed to know if you would inherit the serum running through your mother’s veins, as well as my intelligence.”

You felt your mouth begin to dry, and then hands clasping tightly to your arms, holding you in place. Heart racing in your chest as you glanced back, Kostya nodding to you as he pushed you further into the room.

“You can only imagine my disappointment at finding that Kostya could not fully manifest his abilities. Only one aspect of the serum at a time. Healing. Strength. Stamina. Agility. Perception. All those things that had been successful when we had the Stark formula, diluted down.” Nikolai clicked his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head disapprovingly. “For all our attempts, we’ve never been able to recreate the original formula. Not with Garrett’s Centipede or Deathlok program, nor with Rucker’s twins. Of course Whitehall was more interested in his Inhumans, and Malick with his ancient god. Each of the heads of Hydra, falling to SHIELD. None of them entirely successful.”

You took a steadying breath, lifting your chin as you faced his gaze. The color of them so like your own it was uncanny. “Then I’m afraid that you’re only in for more disappointment, father. I have none of the abilities of a super soldier, not even what Kostya has.”

Nikolai chuckled with that, coming up to hook a finger beneath your chin. Nose nearly touching yours. “No, but from what your brother has said, you have the ability to create hundreds of super soldiers. Your ability, as passive as it is, may yet be the most useful thing that Hydra has ever created, my sunshine. We just have to test it’s limits, and see if we cannot replicate it.”

Feeling yourself blanch with that, you sagged into Kostya’s arms. Feeling as he caught you. Hearing his whisper in your ear. “Trust me sis, everything is going to be okay. Just comply, the way that Father has always taught us to.”

“And what happens if you are able to?” You managed to ignore your brother’s warning, speaking up once more.

“Well, then we shall have to find a way to make use of it, won’t we?” Nikolai stepped back, flicking his fingers towards the cot. “Lay her down and strap her in. We have many tests to run, and these are only the first. Later, I wish to see her ability up close in the training room.”

You felt your head begin to swim as Kostya lifted you onto the cot, strapping you in and working to place the monitor nodules as directed by the scientists and doctors around him. Not allowing any other to lay hand on you.

The realization slowing coming to you as you laid there, the first of the beeping registering your heart beat falling into an uneasy rhythm.

Kostya might have been their original target, but soon after he had only become the bait.

Hydra had wanted you.

#Silk and Steel #Bucky x Reader #Bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #Steve Rogers #Tony Stark #enhanced!reader #Peter Parker #sam wilson #Natasha Romanov #Nikolai #Kostya #Hydra #hydra lab #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d.#Experiment

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bohemian-socialite · 4 years

Text

Why I NEEDED the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Quarantine... 8 Ways the Pandemic put Life into Perspective...

"If you don't come out of this with a new skill..." blah Blah..BLAH! Whatever. Look, Here's the thing. Some of us have been running ourselves into the deep end since birth. I exaggerate but NO!

..and DON'T COME FOR those of us who used this inconvenience to pause reset and re-align our lives. So before anyone asks what "new skill" you "learned" during the quarantine... Don't feel bad for saying these 8 things.. because i surely do not feel bad about.

1.Quality Time with my S/O-

My husband and I have been married for nearly 6 years.. and because we were in the middle of our life grind when we tied the knot, naturally, we did not go on a "honeymoon," and have yet to do so to this day. (Yes we've gone on trips but not an actual honeymoon.) We were more focused on my husband getting settled in his career, me finishing school, getting rid of debt and buying a home. Needless to say, the COVID-19 quarantine was an opportunity for us to really spend some quality time together, without the hustle and bustle of airports or family gatherings, etc. and this type of quality time was so much more intimate than a "vacation would be. Plus, might i add, that we are both very hard working people! So sometimes, a vacation for us would be just taking a day or two off and staying home to play a new video game for him, and for me to just to take care of things that you need to take care of.

2. An Opportunity to Relax, Rest, Be Lazy AF and to have my PEACE HUNTY!

I'm not exactly the nicest morning person, but I am an early riser, thus, a morning person. On most days, I'm up by 4AM, at the gym by 4:30AM and headed out the door by 6:40AM to take my butt to work. But ya'll... not having anywhere to go, or a damn thing to do, for once in my life, brings a sense of refreshment that no ice cold drink, on a desert summer day, could give you. CHIIIILE... let me tell you about how good I slept in! I don't even really do this on the weekends!! But man quarantine has a way of your body making a schedule for you. I followed my body's schedule for the entire time, and BABAY.. IT FELT GOOD! We're always running and pressed for time, or punching someone else's time clock and the beauty of sleeping until my brain woke me up was glorious!

3. Patience puts $#!t into perspective.

This is so simple... but it stuck with me and helped me see things from a different point of view. I posted about this on my IG and tumblr. (Check me out on social media! =====>) But I'll put it into context.... at one point, EVERYTHING and EVERYONE got on my everlasting nerve... OKAY?! I had to ask myself.. "Is this really annoying me, or am I that irritable?" 9 times out of 10 it was the latter of the two. So these 3 things helped me to calm TF down before I popped off!

Be Patient with Myself.

Be Patient With Others.

Be Patient with Time.

...and this kind of became my daily mantra. It helped open my mind, heart and ears to those around me and myself.

4. Re-Connecting- with old friends, family and making new friends .

I'm a very social person and in recent years, ironically, I've picked up on some introverted tendencies. Nevertheless, this is something that we were all able to do. I saw and spoke to family member and friends, that some of which, I hadn't seen or spoken to in nearly 10 years (Judge Yourself!). I'm kind of embarrassed about it BUT you know... LIFE HAPPENS bruh... You turn around and blink and its been a decade. Next think you know, your friends's kids are getting driver's licenses and tattoos. LIKE WTF?! Either way, I was happy to link back up and talk about some of the fun and stupid things we did, and even making plans to see each other again soon. It was nice to have something to look forward to and something that would add value to those relationships.

5. I was actually productive....

...with the $#!t I wanted to be productive with...Let's get that part straight! I'd always dreamed of a job where I could work from home, with my laptop, and video conference calls and whatnot. And when I got that wish... my productivity SKYROCKETED... for about 2 weeks. (I'd exhausted all of my work by then and was waiting for new things to do.) After the 2 weeks, I started working on home projects that I'd left unfinished or never even started. In the evenings, I would work on my personal projects, which I would never have the energy for after a long day of work.

No, it wasn't a new skill, but I figured out where I wanted to go with everything I was doing. I was able to redevelop, recreate, and repurpose my vision... Thus, "The Bohemian Socialite," Blog . :)

6. Self-Care became a "thing"... for me at least

Now don't get me wrong, I love a trip to the nail or hair salon. I'm a sucker for facials and masssages. BUT.. where was I gona go to do that... if everything in the free first world was closed?!

Oh... but there is a place.... YOUTUBE hunnty! I started watching other people's 67-step morning-care routines. Never in my life would i EVER do a 67 step routine. However, in watching these videos, I realized that my skin and face could use some extra care. And because I'm on this new sustainable beauty journey, I figured, WHY TF NOT?! And I did... And it was good. I'm sure my body will reward me when I'm older for this.

I applaud everyone who does anything of this nature consistently. Quaratine taught me to incorporate some sort of self care or you will surely lose yourself. Not gona lie, TBH for a few days the struggle was real But i bounced back even better baby. :)

Not only did i revamp y skin care routine, but I also revisited some of my favorite past-times and hobbies, like roller skating, painting, yoga and meditation. It felt good and I needed it. It made me feel beautiful and sexy again, just spending the time to take care of myself internally and externally.

7. Supporting Local Businesses and being an Advocate for other Small Business Owners

I'm not even going to go into extensive detail... but my community needed my support and I was able to do it proudly. Not just local businesses, but my friends' and families' businesses as well. And it was in easy, simple and mostly FREE ways.

8. Regained my appreciation for life, nature, silence, the things I have and creativity.

I needed the hard reset. In fact, I think we all needed a hard reset or re-calibration of our lives. The entire world was literally just grounded by mother nature herself. We were doing too much.. and she said we need to sit TF down and shut TF up. Some people embraced it for what it was. Others, did stupid $#!t. like...protest. <insert BIGGEST eye roll>

Either way, we were reflective of what nature and life was telling us.

The whole Quarantine, Covid-19, Coronavirus debauchery, was what I needed to recenter myself and re-evaluate my goals and plans for the future.

Have you looked into how the pandemic has changed your life?

I want to know if your experience was similar to mine, or if you want to add something, leave me a comment. :)

#covid 19 #covidquarantine #quarantine life #black girl blog #bohovibes #blogger #inspiration #motivation #self care #reconnect

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iamcinema · 4 years

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IAC Reviews #012: Traces of Death (1993)

Warning: Traces of Death is NSFW/NSFL and this review will go into topics about graphic violence, death media, and other issues that might be upsetting to some readers/viewers. However, this review won’t contain any such imagrey and is marked as safe. If you do want to check it out, then proceed with caution and take the opening [EXTREME WARNING] as your notice if you should leave or not. ________________________________________

In a recent post I made, I mentioned being stumped on what to do next since, as of writing this, I have close to 330 titles on my list to explore and cross off from a wide range of styles and categories; from relatively obscure found footage movies to the most utterly disappointing and abysmal trash that SOV has to offer. Given the explicit or just completely rare nature of some of these, I don’t expect all of these to stay around long. So, it’s probably wise to start from there and branch out to titles that are more accessible to come across in the wild. This means we’re taking another trip back to the world of mondo death media, which I don’t think we’ll be seeing for a while after this one - or at least I can only hope so.

Today, we’re taking a look into one of the most notorious shockumentary films out there, that being the first Traces of Death film; a brutal start in a five part series that marked a turning point within the already niche and controversial subgenre with the birth of the Internet and the dawning of the new millenium.

With the opening, we’re met with a text crawl notice stating that the makers planned on having a series of beeps before the start of the most explicit clips to act as a warning for viewers to look away in the event they see something they’d rather not have. However, this changed and the tones were omitted altogether because this would have meant having tones and beeps before every sequence. That’s a weird flex, but okay. The cold opening also tells us that because of the shocking nature of the film (and soon to be series) containing 100% authentic footage, this would make it the first “true” shockumentary.

I mean...

Yeah, I guess, you aren’t exactly wrong. It’s more authentic than Faces of Death by a landslide for sure and other questionable films around the same time like True Gore. That's something I won’t argue Damon Fox or Darrin Ramage on. However, to call it the first “true” shockumentary is a stretch because Death Scenes came out four years prior to this in 1989, and those photos were authentic. However, if we’re talking about just non-stop death media and imagrey one after the other, then that’s still a really questionable hot take.

It’s been a damn long time since I’ve seen this 13 some odd years ago, so let’s see where this takes us yet again. And yes, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop when the mods decide that me talking about this is not safe for work and it inevitably gets shadowbanned. ________________________________________

Traces of Death in One Gif:

I probably should have saved this gif for when I reviewed Extreme Life & Death, but even now I don’t know if I’m impressed by it or not. But, even here I’m not too sure how I completely feel.

As I said in before, there’s a saying that once you’ve seen one shockumentary, then you’ve seen all of them with their rinse, lather, repeat method of punching you back-to-back with random acts of violence caught on film. Just like its decrepit brothers and sisters before it, this is no different, even if it likes to beat it’s chest about being the new alpha of the pack to lead us into the next generation of shocking content. So, what is it about Traces of Death that has made it have the lasting impact or brutish reputation that it has if everything is at the end of the day “all the same”.

Well, let’s go into that. ________________________________________

The disclaimer and marketing for it helped for sure, solidifying everything that made some people feel cheated by Faces of Death with - that being the authenticity factor.

At this moment in time, Faces of Death IV had come out barely three years ago and the series was taking a bit of a nosedive with what was being pushed out. While there was still a fair amount of authentic footage, there was still a pitiful amount of staged and recreated material that looked very amaturish compared to the series’ hayday back in the late 1970s. It was clear what the gorehounds wanted and it was not only more death, but truly real death that could only be matched by the more obscure shockumentaries that either had yet to come out; like Death File, Death Press, Banned! in America, and MDPOPE, or had been spoken of in whispers and have faded into obscurity to the point of becoming rare and non-existent to the sands of time.

With the Internet being in its young infancy, you now had the power to be connected to others across the world in an instant and the need to seek out the taboo and forbidden was much closer to your fingertips than ever before. This new, booming demand to see and experience death wouldn’t truly be met until the birth of Rotten.com in 1996, oddly enough with the departure of Faces of Death the same year - a sort of sad way of the old days dying with a whimper, rather than the bang it had such high expectations for. If you weren’t able to find the raw carnage you anticipated with the Internet, then you had Traces of Death to curb your appetite until you could - no matter what the topic was.

For me, shockumentaries have at least two schools of thought with their presentation; a narrative style where everything is presented in an organized manner to designate different chapters, such as plane crashes, autopsies, animal death, and so on, or it’s more chaotic and disorganized in nature and you get hit left to right with whatever they can find. Traces of Death follows the more chaotic line of thinking. While it does make an attempt at some kind to figure out what it wants to do, a lot of it jumps around from one subject matter to the next, so you never really know what’s going to happen next. It’s pretty easy to go from a trucking accident one moment to a graphic surgery the next, if that makes sense.

This, in question, is where I sort of have a conflicting problem with whether or not this is the first “true” shockumentary or not. _______________________________________

As I stated previously, there have been other shockumentaries before this one that hone in on death in all its various forms, and is just as authentic as Traces of Death with the media presented. Once again, Death Scenes comes to mind. If the qualifications for it to be a true shockumentary is having an emphasis on death and dying, this helps Death Scenes and it’s case of being the one of, if not the first, genuinely true shockumentary with 100% unaltered media. So, what lead to Traces of Death taking the crown instead is purely anyone’s guess. I’d assume it was because of the in-name connection to Faces of Death and sheer bizarre access they had to so much footage with little to no money tied to the budget, which IMDb says was estimated to be $18 (at least $32.13USD as of March 2020 with an inflation rate of 2.5%).

That’s still absolute chump change compared to the unused news footage the Faces of Death team had access to back in the day, particularly with smuggled footage from overseas that wouldn’t really be seen anywhere else until other shockumentaries like Executions and the Banned! films would be unleashed. Speaking of which, what can we expect with this one in particular? Just like with the films before it, you can expect to see much of the same; graphic animal cruelty, animal attacks, road and sporting accidents, plane crashes, crime scene photos, autopsies, and surgery footage. The Wikipedia page for the series goes into greater detail about other sequences that been traced to other mondo films like True Gore and Ultime grida dalla savana, which makes one of the final sequences showing the death of tourist Pit Dernitz all the more interesting, as there’s been conflicting information about whether or not it was staged. While there’s sources out there that say it was authentic, if it turned out that this was in fake, then it completely damages the film’s reputation of being 100% real.

One thing the series does deviate from, at least as far as this one goes, is the narration as a storytelling tool. While we do get quips here and there from our edgy narrator, Damon Fox, it doesn’t completely guide us in the same manner as Faces of Death, Death Scenes, Executions, and many others would. The scenes mostly speak for themselves, something which Extreme Life & Death couldn’t make up it’s mind on given how it used a copy-and-paste method with stringing stuff along. This may have been to the series’ advantage though, as Damon said later on in an interview that he was told viewers hated the narration and accompanying instrumental soundtrack, and would just watch the movie(s) on mute while blasting their brutal death metal albums. This, in turn, lead to the series taking a big change with Traces of Death II (1994), as the soundtrack switched to showcase and promote metal and grindcore artists - and bands could have wrote in to have their own music featured if they wanted. This lead to artists like Gorefest, Macabre, End of Green, Grave, Dreadful Shadows, Hypocrasy, Meshuggah, and Sinister to be added to the impressive disography list for something with next to no budget, forever helping to change the voice of the series to help it stand out among the big dogs of its ilk. ________________________________________

If I had to name something that seriously hurts this, it’s that some scenes drag out for way too long and the shock and horror behind what’s in front of you begins to lose it’s luster after a while. In one way, it’s definetly tied into the saying where once you’ve seen say, one cranial examination, you’ve seen them all. In another, it’s also becoming somewhat unfazed after lingering on a certain image a bit too long - even if it’s bleak beyond words. One scene in particular goes on for over ten minutes, and while it’s heavy for sure, it does subside a bit after some time...unless that’s just more telling about what kind of person I am. If you’re particuarly sensitive to gruesome content and it makes you uncomfortable, then this will have an entirely different affect on you. However, if you’re like me and you’ve seen, for example, a lot of medical and crime related violence, this won’t exactly be uncharted waters for you. It’s interesting to note though that Japan had a different edit of the film, removing some sequence and adding their own - but the more finer details on what kind of adjustments they made with photo or video evidence is alien to me.

There’s also the issue of the narration, which I feel detracts from the material and can feel annoying and cringy in the same ways that Faces of Gore does with the tasteless jokes and edgelord humor. When I re-examined this, I absolutely get why some viewers tuned out whenever any form of narration came up, since it didn’t do much of anything to push things along from a storytelling standpoint like Faces of Death did. I would have done the same thing as well, and it almost felt unnessary with how sparse it was in general because in the scenes where some form of backstory could have helped make sense of what was going on, nothing happened. It’s nothing particularly special, so whether or not you choose to press mute is up to you since you won’t be missing much if you don’t really care for such pressing matters. ________________________________________ So, what’s there left to say about Traces of Death, at least as far as the first one goes?

Well, I feel like I need to give credit where it’s due in that it was one of the earliest entries in the shockumentary/mondo/exploitation genre to do what it set out to accomplish fairly well. It’s bite was as strong as it’s bark when it came to wanting to stand out in a sea of death and destruction in an era full of pretenders and cash-ins, which this technically is, no doubt. I’m also thoroughly impressed by what it was able to do for an actual shoestring budget that likely helped to pave the way for Banned! from Television and mixtapes like Fist Pig and MDPOPE for being a bizarre collection of violence, sadism, and hardcore NSFW material that could only be found in the grimiest corners of the web or someone’s crawlspace. It’s an impressive collection, I’ll give it that much.

But, when you strip all that away and you take it all at face value, does it hold up? Ehh...sort of, at least to me.

The quality isn’t too great in some areas, but given that this had next to no budget, I shouldn’t expect miracles with scans and film stock transfers. When it comes to being held to the ranks of it’s elder siblings, I feel that it showed what it can do and that it has the staying power that it has. If it didn’t, I don’t think it would have had earned the same amount of controversy it did over the years, going as far as to get banned from Australian Customs and being rejected by the BBFC in 2005 where it still sits today in March 2020 alongside other films like Mikey, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, Hate Crime, Murder-Set-Pieces, and Bumfights to name a few.

If you’re new to death related media, this one might be a tough pill to swallow, and all the more jarring and annoying with the narration. If you choose to embark on this one, you won’t really be missing much at all if you choose to mute it and add your own music and go off the Wikipedia descriptions to keep up with what’s going on. However, if death related media is your cup of tea and you think this is a total waste of time, then you also won’t be missing much of anything either. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of these sequences can be found online if you look hard enough, even if it means cycling through other shockumentaries and mondo films that this sampled from or sample from this.

At the end of the day, it’s almost all the same, right?

RATING: 4.9/10

#traces of death #tod #film #horror #exploitation #shockumentary #extreme horror #mondo #mondo film #iac reviews #90s horror #90's horror #horror review #movie review #death film #damon fox #extreme cinema

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carcair · 5 years

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♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long?

To this day I don’t know if Carcair is able to feel genuine love. His affection for people is mostly based on what they can provide for him (though I guess most people are like this). It’s possible that he has been in love for most of his life, but it might just be friendship. I guess it feels the same to him :B

♥ (02) Does another OC love your OC? If so, whom, and does your OC know?

As far as I know there are some OCs who love Carcair. He knows about all of them (if he doesn’t, I don’t, too :’D ), although he always underestimates the depth of other people’s feelings for him.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves?

Carcair appreciates almost every romantic gesture as long as it is not overly possessive. He hasn’t received many grand gestures, but out of them he liked for example:

compliments (by far the easiest way to make him like you)

gifts (practical or pretty)

invitations (to an adventure, to a fancy restaurant, to fun activities)

cooking for him (because he’s lazy)

There is one gesture which is a definite shortcut to his heart:

carrying him around.

I honestly don’t know why he loves it so much. Probably because he’s a diva. It happened more than once that he went from ‘I guess this person is ok’ to ‘I need to marry them!’ just because they carried him around.

(In German there is the idiom “jemanden auf Händen tragen” which is exactly what Carcair wants, literally and metaphorically.)

Carcair, in general, loves to be treated like a lady. This does not necessarily mean spending money on him (but he knows that money = value and appreciates it therefore), but all gestures that treat him like a ‘treasure’: carrying him, protecting him (as long as one does not implicate he needed protection), fighting for him, defending his honor, bringing him beverages, kissing his hand, bowing before him. Ok, maybe it’s less treating him like a treasure and more treating him like a god :I

♥ (04) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC hates?

I guess Carcair doesn’t appreciate flowers much, though he doesn’t hate them. For a sylvari a gift of bloodily ripped out dying plant genitals just isn’t convincing. In addition, he has zero interest in songs and poems.

He hates everything that…

A) forces something onto him he does not want (like food or emotions or work)

B) implies he is weak.

In addition, he doesn’t know how to react if someone confesses their love to him. He doesn’t hate it, its’s just… awkward!

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else?

Few people notice Carcair’s most romantic gestures. Carcair will invest time and wit in many things like organizing dates at special locations, buying pretty gifts or saving somebody’s life.

Those do not mean nothing, but he will do this for almost everyone if they at least are somewhat amusing (see Carcair’s classification of people’s worth). There are gestures which do mean so much more to him and are an honest token of affection. Luckily no one ever notices.

If I had to choose from Carcair’s perspective, it would be Carcair staying with someone injured or dying. Staying with someone who is in a really bad place has a strong meaning for Carcair based on his past experiences. There is sacrifice involved as Carcair finds it extremely boring and even depressing to stay in one place for hours or days, but if he does stay, even if it’s cold, silent and awkward, this is a most powerful sign of affection.

It is probably a bad example though, because this is not reserved for romantic interests. So, for something specifically romantic: Carcair once witnessed the dream of someone else and recreated it for them. He did not know it was a nightmare, so it still counts as romantic!

♥ (06) What is the most romantic thing that has been done for your OC?

They carried him. Uh… I’ll try to be more serious… and it’s not working. Carcair considers bloody encounters extremely romantic, though the other parties did not try to kill him to do him a favor.

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others?

I dare say that almost every flirtation attempt by Carcair is successful, though that might be filtered through his perspective. There have been some men who shouted, panicking, ‚no homo!‘ but that’s about the worst reaction Carcair has ever gotten. It’s more common for women to fall for him even though his friendly compliments weren’t even flirting.

(There are even women who fall for him when he’s tired and lazy and indifferent, I do not fully understand this phenomenon.)

♥ (08) What is your OC’s dream marriage proposal?

It’s unlikely Carcair ever thought about that. If you asked him it’d probably be someone writing “Will you marry me?” by shooting with a sniper rifle at a wall right next to his head.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love?

These would be touches. Carcair is, at heart, a very sensual creature. Small gestures like playing with another’s hands however are much more a sign of affection like big gestures like kissing.

♥ (10) What is your OC’s favorite big way to show their love?

Respecting somebody’s wishes. I really can’t think of anything better! Grand gestures usually don’t mean that much if they come from Carcair.

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC?

I… have… honestly no idea. Carcair too. That’s why he from time to time asks people what they like about him, but he rarely gets a (nice) answer. Most fall for his charming nature, I guess, but that includes many attributes. His wit, his generosity with compliments and fun, his helpfulness… I honestly have to ask them. I’m just speculating here.

I can tell you what Tiarnan loves most about him: his will to survive; what Shay loves most: his looks; what Fiarach loves most: his good/at least somewhat not-evil heart; what Cathair loves most: absolutely nothing.

♥ (12) What do you love most about your OC?

What a cruel question. In truth, it might be nothing about his actual character, but very selfish reasons: First, he is my most developed OC and this is why he is just superior to all the others. He has much more depth, story and thoughts inside his salad brain than any other OC of mine.

Secondly, he is just so agreeable to play. Carcair can be used for almost any kind of RP, any sort of encounter. He is outgoing, talkative and laid-back, meaning that he can talk to almost anyone in any place and any crowd, he is extremely flexible and can adapt to every situation, and he has enough baggage and flaws for emotionally charged scenes. Also, he is a dumbass and I can laugh at him.

Personality-wise I’ll guess I’d pick his strong personality. Carcair is Carcair. Even though he is adaptive, his opinions and experiences are so clearly defined that one would recognize him anywhere… or at least I would… I guess?

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)?

By saving their lives, mostly. This is not a joke :P

Though I might confuse ‘love’ with ‘responsibility’ here.

♥ (14) Does your OC have any romantic traditions?

I think I mentioned most of those: being carried around, bringing gifts, killing each other, staying with the wounded and exchanging weapons.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy?

Carcair does not know what Valentine’s Day is.

♥ (16) What is your OC’s ideal first date?

Carcair is open to all kinds of date, from an adventure to a romantic dinner. If he had to decide it would likely include a duel.

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person?

I find this question hard to answer, since in Tyria you could only communicate indirectly via letters. I guess there are holo recordings and radio devices…

If Carcair saw recordings of someone really, really impressive, he could probably fall in love. I feel like he would not fall in love via letters, since for him it’s the charisma of the whole package that counts (Also, I think for him it’s more important how a person says something than what they say).

♥ (18) Does your OC have a “type”?

Carcair has types, but they are so diverse that I could not describe ‘the’ type. If there was one it would probably be ‘deadly and witty about it’. For women I probably have to add ‘muscles’.

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)?

This is, as stated above, a difficult question. Carcair does not believe in true selfless love (though he does believe in the selfish desires of people which are usually meant with love). Carcair values those kinds of relationships most which are solely based on respect, understanding and loyalty – and those tend to be platonic. In his mind romantic relationships are tainted by desire and mating instinct, and therefore immanently selfish and ‘false’.

Carcair values a ‘pure’ connection of two minds, based on esteem instead of desires, almost as much as prowess and… his rifle.

♥ (20) How does your OC feel about public displays of affection?

Carcair does not care, as far as I know. He will either ignore it or watch people while making out, commenting on their performance and technique. Hugging him out in the open is another thing entirely, though.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight?

Carcair has the strange idea that he can judge people after only seeing and hearing them for mere minutes. He does not think he knows everything about them – only their most important attribute: of how much interest they are to him.

That is, in Carcair’s mind, as close to love on first sight as it gets. So yes. In his way, he does.

(In his opinion he has always been right in those cases of ‘love at first sight’ and his ability to judge people.)

♥ (22) How often does your OC read romantic literature?

Carcair does not read. Though I think he would have a good laugh when reading romance…

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves?

… Everything he does Carcair he does as a nice thing to himself. I’ll just list some examples in no particular order: dressing up, coloring his leaves, getting admiration from other people, killing people, consuming psychedelic drugs, loafing a whole day, watching people dueling, listening to the newest gossip, getting a promotion, saving the world.

♥ (24) How does your OC determine that they’re attracted to someone?

This question is so easily answered for Carcair himself that I have difficulties answering it for him. Whenever Carcair meets someone new (or someone old whose reevaluation is due) he will use much of his brain’s capacity to evaluate their level of attractiveness in appearance and behavior as well as their availability (this is not primarily referred to their romantic relationship status – things like age, faction and emotional state are usually much more important to him).

Carcair evaluates every moment of his life in terms of attraction (like… weapons, for example…) and is very quick about it. If someone scores high on his attraction scale Carcair’s brain focuses most of his attention on them, although he won’t show it too much of course, and starts analyzing in detail. Nothing special about it, though Carcair is very diligent about this.

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates?

He does and he does not at the same time. He thinks something like souls that fit together and belong together exist, but they will still end up separated, usually by hating each other.

♥ (26) Is your OC ever the first to say “I love you”?

Carcair does not say ‘I love you’. If he still does, you can be almost certain that he’s lying.

If he says it as a joke though there tends to be much more truth to it.

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day?

Pointless question for a Tyrian.

♥ (28) What is something unconventional that your OC thinks is romantic?

People fighting each other because of him. Though… is that unconventional? For a sylvari? I think not.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song?

Carcair cannot ‘hear’ music. It is just some rhythmic noise to him. I reckon he’d find 95% of all love song lyrics extremely ridiculous.

♥ (30) What is your OC’s favorite romantic movie?

Even though Carcair watches no movies and reads no books but really for a Tyrian, there is only one answer: “Destiny’s Pledge” by Snargle Goldclaw.

#maybe I should have skipped these :B #if a character doesn not know how love feels is there any point to answering questions about it?#but it wasn't solely focused on romantic love and I liked that :>#oc prompt #oc questions #oc asks #about carcair

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devilishlyoperatic · 5 years

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dear, heavenly, heart

Done!!

dear: if you could choose anything in the world what would it be?

I read this question in two ways–if I could acquire any singular thing, or if I could have the choice of something that generally is not a choice. For the former, obviously just like a ton of money would be great, not just for me but for redistribution purchases. The latter, however, is tricky. I’d love to be able to choose the people I fall in love with, I think, that’d be handy. Or the ability to opt out of physical laws like gravity, that sounds great

heavenly: name your three memories that you cherish the most.

1. One of my first memories (second I can for sure put a date on), is when my brother first came home from the hospital after he was born. He tossed and turned quite a lot in the womb, so his face was red and scratched up, which led me to compare him to a strawberry in appearance–a solid metaphor for a three year old to make, I think.

2. This one’s a more generalized one, but the shower in the house I grew up in is a really great memory. The shower itself is so-so, but we had this heat light in the ceiling (I believe it’s still there) that glowed an incredibly bright orange and put off a concerning amount of heat for a wooden house built in 1911. It also had this electric hum to it, possibly from a fan behind the lights, that was loud and full of interesting overtones to harmonize with. That particular light, sound, and shower combination is a sensory experience I have never seen matched anywhere else and I find it stressful to even think that I won’t be able to recreate it, which is saying a lot for someone as generally cool and collected as me.

3. There is a particular memory of me hanging out with the first woman I ever fell in love with, and we listened to Shostakovich, and it was transcendent.

heart: if you’re sad or upset how would you like someone take care of you?

Food and opera. I’m a simple man.

#ask #personal #allegro-and-old-lace

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xoruffitup · 5 years

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2 Years On

Here comes one of those sentimental, reflective posts I make now and then. My life is a whole lot different than it was 2 years ago, and this past month I had the most wonderful opportunities to reflect on exactly just how.

I always tell people the best years of my life were when I lived in London for grad school. Beyond my Human Rights master’s studies being the most engaging and fascinating academic work I’ve ever done, I took to London like I never have anywhere else. I had a part-time job, I had an internship, I had friends from all over the world, I traveled regularly and easily, I saw world-class theater on the regular, I went to movie premieres and red carpets, and not a boring day went by. I did a determined job search there as my grad program ended, and afterwards also in Germany where I have family and other ties, but in March 2017, I finally accepted that I needed to move back to the US.

2 years on, I’ve passed the one-year job landmark at an international development organization whose goals and people I absolutely love. And 2 years on, I was able to get myself back to the UK, Germany, and Italy on my own dime to revisit the friends and family scattered between them.

I missed London like a physical ache. It’s hard to put to words what the period of my life spent there meant to me - How much I felt I grew, and how convinced I am that it’s where I belong. Just getting to visit meant the world to me, as did seeing my 10-year long best friend there @threatepidemic, after our paths miraculously converged with us both moving there the same year to study at different Universities. I was nervous beforehand that being back in London when my life is now elsewhere would make me depressed, but fortunately the opposite happened.

Last month I visited London, Hannover Germany where my family lives, and then Rome and Florence with a good friend studying in Italy. Instead of depressing, every day and minute of the trip was completely joyful and fulfilling. It didn’t feel like trying to grasp at or recreate a period of my life gone to the past - It all just reminded me that that period is ongoing. All these places are still there, and all these people are still in my life. Yes, I’ve changed a bit since then and started down a US-based career path for now, but nothing has changed so irreversibly that I can’t tap right back into that treasured part of my life, when the time is right.

Although my long-term dream is eventually to move back to London or even somewhere in Germany, the trip also prompted me to take appreciation for the progress I’ve made since leaving London. At the most basic level - I’m earning a paycheck that lets me take the trips I want. At the deeper level of walking past the London cafes where I used to spend whole afternoons working on my dissertation, I can appreciate that all that work was worth it, and I followed it through to a relevant job I hope will lead me to engaging with those same issues I discovered and became so passionate about during my studies. Although following my career goals led me back to the US for now, my favorite London museums and cafes are still there for me to slip into, Cursed Child is still playing at the Palace Theatre (yes, I went to see it again and grinned through every moment!), and just as before - I still felt that same implacable excitement walking through the streets.

Blessedly, I came back from this whirlwind trip feeling fulfilled and at peace with practically everything in my life. My favorite cities abroad are waiting for me when the time and the job is right; I got to see my family and little cousins in Germany and see how they’re growing up; I got to spend quality time with my best friends in London and Rome, and those friendships are the kind that help the whole world make sense, when you spend time together in person. So - Instead of making me feel like I’d lost anything, this trip just reminded me of all the richness in my life to be grateful for. <3

It happened to be my birthday week when I got back, so to counter any post-trip sadness that might have come, I returned to the warmest flood of reminders of how lovely my life, friends, and coworkers are here in DC. This weekend I’m still working my way through cake and chocolates (People who know me cater to my sweet tooth :’)) and still trying to process that my friends colluded to get me Adam Driver throw pillows I’m definitely not obsessed with or anything...

From here on, there’s only more to be massively excited for! I’m going to the first Burn This preview performance in LESS THAN 2 WEEKS and I’ll be meeting up with amazing fandom friends in NYC! Next month, I’m lucky enough to be going to the Opening Night as well! @umkylo and I are thinking of a December trip to London for the Episode IX European premiere! So many landmark awesome things; and they’re all on top of the day-to-day life I can now say - 2 years on - I’m so much happier with than I could have imagined. :)

And of course.... My new ridiculous/amazing Adam pillows! (Probably the best birthday gift ever lolol)

PS: I’m maybe a bit more self-conscious making these posts now than I used to be, considering that I have a few more followers it’s not like I’m exactly talking to myself anymore. (Still not a ton by any means, but just cracking 200 was crazy) Posts like this might seem like “Wow great for you, cool story bro” but it’s really not supposed to be social media bragging or posturing. Now and then, I always try to pause and take stock of everything in my life - Especially after certain landmarks like this recent trip. It’s far too easy to let everything rush by without taking time to think about where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. It’s therapeutic, really, to type out something like this and take the time to put into words all the positive emotions and experiences in life. Of course, not every day is great or perfect, and it’s far too easy to focus on the frustrating or negative aspects of life. That’s why I take the time now and then to revel in the positives - To choose to focus my outlook on these aspects of life, and commit them to words and posterity while the feelings are fresh.

#Personal blabbing #Traveling truly brings out the best in me #I just like journaling now and then so I can look back in my blog and remember what was happening in my life at certain points :)

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thatsamoireh · 5 years

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Moncton show and meet & greet recap! I put together my thoughts about the show, my meet & greet experience, photos of the things I made them, and their reactions. It got wordy.

Here’s a preview in the form of some bald skater babies pre-hair styling.

Thoughts about the Moncton show:

We were in the third row but I was behind/between two incredibly tall women. I could see if I moved my head a lot and I still ultimately had a fantastic view but it made photos and videos pretty impossible. A couple sort of came out so I’ll post those later.

I knew I couldn’t keep myself entirely unspoiled but I wanted to enjoy the show in the moment as much as possible. I’d let myself watch videos of VM’s solo things as much as I wanted, the group numbers fully exactly once each, and no one else’s solos at all though I knew what the songs were.

Tessa and Scott skating live in person was still a thing I wasn’t prepared for because can you ever be? They are so in tune with each other. They have to be able to do programs like MR in their sleep at this point but there were little moments and touches and looks that made it seem like a brand new unique experience at both shows I went to. MR was so intense, 4 Minutes was so playful, and Diamonds was so... elegant? Graceful? Regal? Tessa is a queen. Scott knows it, we all know it, and that dance showcases her so breathtakingly. The gasps when she skated out in her diamond bodysuit. I’ll never forget that.

I can’t get over how much FUN Scott was having, particularly during group performances and the moments that he could interact with the audience. That boy is having the time of his life and he deserves it.

I was particularly blown away by two non-VM things that took me by surprise: First, Patrick is unreal on the ice in person. Wow. WOW. Videos don’t do him justice. W O W. Second, I loved Weapo’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody so much. It’s my favorite thing they’ve ever done. More of this from them, please.

One of the best parts was my friend’s reactions during the show since she had no idea at all what was going to happen and was mostly there to humor me. After Moulin Rouge: “...Um. Okay, yeah. I ship it.” After Phantom: “Has Patrick Chan ever fallen once in his life? It feels like he was born ice skating.” After I Weapo’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody: “Okay, so now I’m crying.” After Sweet Dreams: “That was cool. Scott definitely had the best sunglasses.” She was so concerned for Meagan’s safety whenever Eric spun her around that she kept making these little alarmed noises.

After the dance off as Elvis was talking to the crowd, Scott skated up behind him in the way that I could just tell was going to be a last show prank situation. For a hot second I thought he might pants him which would have been a terrible idea but he either poked his sides or pulled UP on the back Elvis’ pants instead. Elvis startled and turned and shot him a look that meant Scott might pay for that later. I am SO sad that Scott’s back was to me because I would have loved to have seen his face during all that.

The cheering was pretty equal so Meagan said Elvis should break the tie since it was his last show which got Elvis a big cheer too. He couldn’t/wouldn’t declare a winner so Meagan went into Dancing Queen.

Elvis got standing ovations after his skates and he was clearly getting emotional and taking it all in as his last show on the tour. I’m not sure if the crowd even really knew it was his last show after his Dragon skate yet (Meagan said it during the dance off and the crowd reaction kind of implied they maybe didn’t know), which means they all just really appreciated him that much. MR, Patrick’s Phantom, and Eric/Patrick’s Storm all also got standing o’s to my recollection. Plus the finale of course.

During the encore after a moment when they were all grouped together at center ice, Elvis started skating out like they’re supposed to but everyone else stayed put and did some ta-da arms to give him a special little last show send off. He put his hand on his heart and knelt down and it was all so sweet.

There are more things that I’m forgetting right now probably. Oops?

My Moncton meet & greet experience:

Okay. So. I make and sell amigurumi crochet dolls. Here are my Hamilton and Hocus Pocus dolls, to give you an idea of the kinds of things I make.

I decided before the tour that I’d make the nine of them to give the cast at my meet & greet in Moncton. (Thanks to @peacefulboo for the cheerleading along the way!) Here they are done but still hairless, which in my opinion is peak cuteness honestly. Please, please don’t repost any of my doll or m&g photos anywhere, thanks!

And fully done. Photos never do my dolls’ hair justice, I swear. They’re better in real life I promise. (I’ll put more close ups at the end of the post in case anyone is interested.)

I’d decided to do everyone’s Pyeongchang free skate/free dance costumes but wasn’t sure which to make for Elvis until I saw he was doing Dragon for the tour. So I did his Olympic Dragon costume, complete with his 1994 hairstyle. He was so nice and as he was putting the doll down on the table he noticed the hair and pointed it out, laughing. When he got home, he regrammed his wife’s Instagram post featuring my doll (!!!) and their dog’s reaction made my LIFE. (Screencaps near the end of this post.)

Kaitlyn and Andrew got so excited about the dolls. I told Kaitlyn that her dress ended up being the hardest by far to recreate in doll form and she slapped her hands on the table, leaned in toward me, and said, so earnestly, “IT WAS SO HARD TO MAKE IN REAL LIFE TOO!” Meanwhile Andrew was smiling hugely and moving his doll’s legs to make him dance. I love them both so much.

Meagan wondered at me about how I make things like this (which like, it’s all relative I guess because I wonder at how she can do the things she does on the ice) and Eric got a little grin and told me that he loved that I did his sheer sleeves. (I think Eric’s doll might have secretly been my favorite, or at least tied with Tessa. The stubble really made it.)

Just as we were about to get in Patrick and Kaetlyn’s line Tessa went hurrying past us out of the room with someone in a tour jacket. She was smiling, so my guess is that nature called and she couldn’t wait anymore to answer. (No idea if that’s true, just a guess.) I looked over at Scott and he didn’t look concerned, was just wandering around, joking with Patrick, drinking a smoothie.

As the cast members near the start of the lineup finished up with fans they were leaving. The m&g music was excellent (my friend got confirmation from Scott that it was Andrew’s playlist that night) and Kaitlyn was dancing as she headed for the door just as Tessa was coming back in a few minutes later. They had a little dance party (the song was Hey Ya I’m 98% sure) as they danced toward each other, danced together for few seconds laughing, and then Tessa danced all the way back to her signing table. Scott loudly announced, “MS. VIRTUE HAS RETURNED!”

Before he sat down again, Scott crept silently up behind Patrick and poked him in both of his sides, making him jump mid-sentence while talking to the fan at his table. Scott grinned, so proud of himself, and it was pretty amazing.

I stayed with my friend L in Fredericton during this trip. We’ve known each other for 18 years and she’s in the States a lot so I’ve seen her in real life several times over the years but this is the first time I’ve been able to go visit her. Due to a last minute emergency my other friend that was going to drive up from NY for the shows with me couldn’t come, so L humored me and came along since I had the extra tickets. She remembered Elvis from her childhood skating phase and she knew who VM were in the casual way many Canadians do. So she wanted photos with those three but otherwise was perfectly happy to volunteer to be my mom friend and hold the little gift bags with the dolls and the Orlando postcards I’d made up for them.

I mention this because there was someone working for the venue/tour at the head of each line to use our phones/cameras to take our one photo per person for us in order to keep the lines moving along relatively quickly (note: I never felt the slightest bit rushed and everyone was lovely). When we got to the front of Patrick and Kaetlyn’s line the woman there had apparently seen me give the others their dolls and sort of wink-wink said that if my friend wasn’t getting a photo with Patrick and Kaetlyn she could “donate” it and that I should definitely take a second photo with the two of them and their dolls, too. It was so sweet of her to suggest and the photo came out so cute that I’m gonna share it.

Most of the designated camera people actually did take multiple photos, which was nice. Before my first photo with Patrick and Kaetlyn (before I gave them the dolls) Patrick had looked over at Scott and started laughing at something he must have said that I couldn’t hear. In my couple photos, Patrick went from laughing-at-Scott smiling to normal smiling and it’s quite an adorable progression.

My friend L went up to Tessa and Scott before me. Go Your Own Way was the song currently playing and we had been dancing to it in line. As L went up for her photo she joked to Scott that she should probably stop dancing now. He got this shocked look on his face and said, “NO! Never stop dancing!” She joked that she’d be blurry for the photo if she didn’t and he admitted that she had a point.

Can I just say that Tessa Virtue is radiant in person? Like, I expected it and they are all strikingly attractive humans, but Tessa just… glows or something. And Scott’s eyes are so kind. I can get very awkward turtle meeting people I admire but Scott and Tessa have this warmth that just puts you at ease right away.

(Please, please don’t repost any of my doll or m&g photos anywhere, thanks!)

While Tessa and Scott were signing my flag I told them I’d come up from Florida to see them and how it was the first time I’d been able to visit L in our 18 years of friendship. L and I thanked them for putting together the tour so I had the excuse. Scott perked up and said, “Oh yeah? Where in Florida?” (I’m guessing he was curious if it was near where he’d recently visited so he’d have a frame of reference? Idk.)

I gave them the dolls and they both smiled so big while examining them intensely. I was a little overwhelmed so I can’t remember what Scott said to me exactly but part of it was, “You made this?” Tessa said something about how amazing it was that I could make them and I told her I had a little business, which I thought she would appreciate in a girl power kind of way. I told her that I’d made her doll first since I suspected it would be the most complicated (little did I know how Kaitlyn’s dress would prove me so, so wrong there) and it would make or break if I was going to be able to make the rest. She said she loved the details on the dress a lot and was going to show Mathieu and that he’d love it too. (!!!)

In conclusion they are all lovely, talented angels. I had such an amazing time and the show alone was 110% worth my trip to Canada, plus I still had another show in Saint John on Tuesday and all the adventures/hangouts with L over the long weekend too.

Okay, some closeups of the dolls and progress shots. I didn’t get every angle I’d have liked and photos don’t ever do their hair justice, but in case anyone is curious. Also, pardon my crafting mess in the backgrounds.

Seventeen little ice skates starched (so the blades stay semi-firm) and drying. The eighteenth was already dry and had a leg crocheted to it as a proof of concept that it would work. It would eventually become Tessa’s leg and skate, which seemed fitting.

Details on still-headless Tessa. I used sheer organza ribbon for parts of Tessa, Scott, Eric, and Kaitlyn’s costumes.

Details on still-headless Scott.

Tessa and Scott. Tessa has a bun like Kaetlyn’s but low on the back of her head.

Some screencaps from Elvis’ regram of his wife’s Instagram post. His dog’s reaction made my LIFE.

Kaitlyn and Andrew. Andrew was the easiest doll to make, while Kaitlyn was the hardest. Oh, Weapo.

Kaitlyn’s hair, which I think was my favorite hair.

Meagan and Eric. Meagan’s back was entirely covered in those jewels and I didn’t realize I never got a photo of it.

Kaetlyn. Her dress was fun to do but the embroidery thread stitching took forever.

Kaetlyn from the back. (Her bun looks lopsided from the angle of the photo.)

Patrick. I tried my best to recreate the swoopy neckline from his free skate costume and... sort of succeeded?

If you made it this far, honestly I’m impressed. Possibly some show photos to coming soon, along with my recap/photos from Saint John. (I already posted two videos from that show in case you missed them.)

#ttyct #the thank you canada tour #ttyct 18 #ttyct18 #moncton 2018 #moncton 18 #moncton18 #ttyct recap #vm #patrick #kaetlyn #elvis #meagan #eric #kaitlyn #andrew #tessa #scott

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hopeymchope · 6 years

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Random thoughts about bad/dumb/good things that happen in the back nine episodes of ‘Darling in the Franxx’

This post is long, and it’s mostly me griping about how Darling in the Franxx failed to stick its landing. I’ve got a lot of bullet points about what annoyed me, as well as some points about what I still liked in the back half, and eventually I’m just like “yeah, fuck this.”

That’s the short version: You had a lot going for you but ultimately blew it really bad for me, so like... fuck this.

Damn right Mitsu-WAIT, I forgot when Mitsuru had this much emotion! WHO DIS?!

The long version is more complicated, though, and I feel like rambling/ranting on, so here it goes.

There is no way to stress enough that Zero-Two literally transforms into a giant part-human part-mech creature that Hiro literally rides inside of. She becomes a skyscraper-sized girl that you can climb inside the skull of, and EVERYBODY IS OKAY WITH THIS AND DELIGHTED BY IT. There is NOT a moment where Zorome cries “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUUUUUUUUCK?!?” when she appears, flying in space, at a mass so large she could easily swallow the whole team in one gulp. Nothing like that.

This is not adequately set up, but it IS understandable with some thought: I mean, we are told in a previous ep that the franxx are essentially just recreated, retrofitted klaxosaurs. We also have seen how klaxosaurs are part-organic, part-mechanical beings, and we are told by the Klaxo Princess they are, in fact, the new version of the organic klaxosapiens, now retrofitted for war. In addition, we know that Zero-Two is part Klaxosaur - a clone of the last klaxosapien. So you see how the idea that Zero-Two could somehow “retrofit” or “transition” into a giant cybernetic war mode similar to how the klaxosapiens somehow did the same thing... you could justify that! Once I thought it all through, it kinda worked. But none of this is laid out for you, and it comes off as laugh-out-loud ridiculous in the moment that it happens. Only later, when my brain was piecing the evidence together, did I get somewhere that made sense out of it.

The Nines remained bitterly loyal to Papa when we last see them in Episode 20, snapping at Squad 13 for not showing due respect. When they return in Episode 23, Nine Alpha is suddenly on the side of Squad 13. Because Papa turned out to be an alien, you see. But like... you’ve been fighting klaxosaurs and feeling extreme loyalty to Papa your entire lives up until like, yesterday, so seeing you suddenly join the pro-klaxo side of the war is perhaps too hard a turn. Granted, a lot of time passes off-screen during this period, but still it’s sort of “Hey it’s me, Alpha. Remember how I was never anything but a total asshole to you guys? Remember how I hated emotions and shit? Yeah I wanna help Hiro reunite with Zero Two now.” Um. Okay?

Mitsuru’s speech to Kokoro about how “I want to be with you not because I love you, but because I believe that I did love you once, and I don’t remember that feeling anymore, but I still believe it existed, and I want to respect it!” is literally the worst, least-romantic declaration of non-love I’ve ever heard in my life. The music swells romantically and Kokoro seemingly weeps out of joy over it. I prefer to think she’s crying because it’s so fucking awful. It is actively offensive to real emotions and logic

Remember when Mitsuru talked about he always wished he and Hiro could co-pilot a franxx together? Remember his debilitating rage at Hiro for forgetting their promise to become soldiers together? It really feels like we had a gay or bi character here, and that maybe we were setting something up for his character. but the entire fixation on Hiro is utterly ignored once he gets reduced to “Kokoro’s sperm donor.” I mean, jeez, “my homosexual fixation on Hiro has filled me with an incoherent rage” just gave me flashbacks to Juzo from Danganronpa 3, and that’s not good, but at least it was more personality than he ultimately got.

WHY are we left with the strong sense that Ikuno is dying of the accelerated aging (she is the only one who loses ALL color in her hair and the only one we last see in a hospital bed on an IV drip, so it’s pretty blatant) even though literally no one else in the squad is suffering from it anymore, supposedly thanks to HER research?!... I assume because she’s gay. After all, the extremely gay Nines were all killed off by a mysterious ailment due to a lack of “maintenance” so we might as well kill off Ikuno too, right?! BURY YOUR GAYS. And FUCK YOU.

Goro somehow gets together with Ichigo. We do not get to see how/whether he won he over. Given that the final episode includes multiple scenes of her really missing Hiro along with a scene of her not caring much that Goro is going to travel the world without her (repeatedly), it comes off as though Itchy settled for Goro because he was the best available penis. I AM NOT ENDEARED.

We are also told that Goro has “really changed’ since the beginning of the series. There is no evidence to back this statement up. In fact, he is acting exactly the same in this scene as he always has. Granted, he had a moment in the previous episode where he got pissed and punched Hiro, and that was a big change... but he apologized and it’s not discussed again, so um. Huh. The thing that seems to be a sign of his “change” is his desire to go out alone into the world in an act of self-sacrifice for the good of everyone. Which is LITERALLY THE GORO WE’VE ALWAYS KNOWN. File his change under “informed attributes.”

By the end of the series, Hiro is full-on turning more into a Klaxosapien than a human because... honestly, I’m not sure. It’s possible it’s because he’s been “plugged into” Zero-Two, but it seems like the process is mostly done by then, because he’s immediately able to live without food or water or sleep once he plugs in, and he already had his horns glow with rage in the ep previous to this. So I think he transformed due to the fact that one time, as a kid, he licked Zero-Two’s blood, and as a teen, he’s kissed her a bunch of times. Which is... pretty goddamn extreme. I mean, I know fluid transfer can be a powerful experience — just ask Sandra Bullock — but this is some real next-level shit.

We waited all series for shit to “get real” and someone in Squad 13 to die. It takes until the very last episode for it to happen, and — in a desperate bid to make us care about what’s happening — it’s the two characters who got the most development and who most people care about. The two leads. Which comes off as too little, too late for me to even feel it, seeing as how they’re only vaguely human or relatable by this point. But I AM weirdly bitter that they kept alive everyone else, even the many people we didn’t give much of a shit about (Zorome? Miku?), so that none of the battles in the series EVER had to have real consequences for our heroes. I hate to sound bloodthirsty, and yet....

Hey, speaking of Zorome, remember how him being exposed to the “adult” in the first half of the show made her get sick? Remember how she was also immediately fascinated by and kind to him and it made you wonder how that would affect the other adults? None of this goes anywhere, because the adults all get spirited away as souls to be part of the VIRM hive-mind, so whatever, they’re gone now.

Why are these people all standing around a statue and screaming at the sky and praying? Most of them don’t even know who this girl was. This doesn’t come off as “moving” so much as a terrifying parable about religious fanaticism in cult groups. You see a group of people screaming and praying at idols you don’t understand, and gradually, more and more people just copy the behavior without understanding it. *shiver*

Was there EVER a hint that the adults watching over the squad were friggin’ IMMORTAL?! Because I don’t think there was. I’d need to go way back into earlier episodes to be sure, though.

It’s not that the ENTIRE back half of the show is awful, really. There are some legitimately excellent moments.

Good Stuff

Right when we first come back after episode 15′s big midway point in the story, the subtle way that Zero-Two discovering the gray hair on Miku’s head was handled - during a warm, lighthearted scene to boot - really made it hit home.

The overt anger and defiance of Hiro in the face of “Papa” and APE really made me like him even more. He had some great moments there, including possibly the greatest episode-ending dialogue when he declared just how fucking DONE they all are with their so-called “Papa.”

Zorome’s inability to fully embrace the idea that “Papa” could be so wrong and bad was another good touch.

The big “backstory” episode served to make me really care for Dr. Franxx in a surprise late-game twist. He goes from being a shadowy sinister presence to becoming one of the more sympathetic characters... right before getting killed shortly thereafter.

The big promise scene between Zero-Two and Hiro, where they swear to always come for each other... that one really pulled at my heart.

Also, Hiro’s dedication to caring for the ailing, zombie-like Zero-Two was both devastating and touching. It’s one of the final bits that actually hits any kind of emotion for me in the series.

I actually didn’t mind the alien twist with the VIRM very much like so damn many people did. APE was long portrayed as this unknowable higher power that was clearly hiding something while simultaneously enforcing a 1984-esque obedience and loyalty... and there’s only so many places to go with such a setup, honestly. Much more shocking, to me, is how little is done to build up to/justify the true origin of the klaxosaurs.

But, well, yeah. Like most, I wound up feeling like DitF had a couple of really excellent characters in the lead, and then proceeded to go nowhere worthwhile once it got them to finally be together. Ultimately, they didn’t even get to grow up or have real sex or face the new world. They just get shuffled off into weirdness and death so we can have a bigger cycle of disappointment.

This one has a lot of themes that feel unexplored, and maybe further analysis would make it all gel together more comprehensibly. There is definitely a lot of effort put into thematic hints and worldbuilding in the first half, some of it done in a subtle background way that recalls my favorite aspects of The Future Diary — a favorite anime of mine that ALSO admittedly fails to adequately explain some parts of the world it builds, but it keeps most of its logic intact and is so emotionally engaging that I ultimately went along for the ride and was willing to explore the background justifications and themes later in order to fully grasp that world.

In comparison, I don’t really want to put in the effort to glean the underlying details of DitF. It didn’t leave me feeling like the writers put in the work to keep me invested, so why would I?

#ditf spoilers #darling in the franxx #darling in the franxx spoilers #ditf #griping

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

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Have you cuddled with someone today? Nope.

Can you smell anything right now? My bowl of ramen.

Have you spoken to a relative on the phone today? No, not as of now anyway.

Do you use the toilet paper with the colourful designs on it? No. It’s toilet paper; the design really isn’t important.

Do you wear your hair up or down most often? My hair is always just up in a messy bun because I don’t have the energy or motivation to do anything else with it.

How does alcohol affect you? I was a lightweight, so it didn’t take much or long for it to hit. I feel like it made me really chatty and annoying. Then there was typically the crash where I started to feel sad and lonely.

When was the last time you had a cold or flu? I had a cold last year around this time. About 3 years ago I was hit hard with the flu and bronchitis. It messed me up for months.

What was the first thing you ate today? My late night bowl of ramen at 1AM.

Do you have anything more important you should be doing right now? Nah, I want to be doing my nighttime routine. I look forward to it.

Do you still buy the paper or do you get your news elsewhere? I’ve never bought the newspaper. I get most of my news online or through the news app on my phone, but I catch some of the news on TV here and there.

Have you ever eaten tofu and if so, did you enjoy it? I’ve never tried it. It doesn’t look or sound appealing to me.

Have you worn make-up today? No. I haven’t worn makeup in over 3 years now.

Do you ever get dizzy and nauseous when you’re extremely tired? Yeah, I’ll sometimes feel a little dizzy.

Have you ever tried lemon brownies? No, but I’d be down to try ‘em.

Can you hear anything right now? The ASMR video I’m listening to and my aunt playing some game on her phone.

What was the last type of meat you ate? Chicken.

What colour is your toothpaste? White.

Have you taken any medication today? Yes.

Have you ever been suspended from school? Nope.

Have you ever inhaled helium? No, I’ve always been too afraid to try.

Have you bought something that was on sale today? I haven’t bought anything today as of yet and I don’t plan to.

Are you a fan of Adam Sandler? I don’t not like him. I mean, I like some movies he’s been in, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan of his.

What was the last fruit you ate? Most likely a banana. I’ll admit it’s been quite awhile since I’ve had any fruit, so I don’t know for sure.

Off the top of your head how many aisles are in the supermarket you shop at? *shrug* It’s Walmart, there’s a ton of aisles.

Have you ever watched Parks and Recreation? I’ve seen some episodes here and there.

Have you watched a movie this week? I watched The Invisible Man the other night with my mom and aunt.

How far away is the closest McDonald’s from your house? Like a 5 minute drive.

Have you ever been to a wedding? Yeah, I’ve been to 3.

What is your favourite kind of pasta? *finishing this the next day* Spaghetti and meatballs.

Have you set an alarm today? I set one to make sure I was up when my brother got off work so I could ask him to get Starbucks on his way home.

When was the last time you visited relatives? My aunt has been here visiting and staying with us for the past week.

Have you asked someone for advice today? No.

What was the last website you were on, other than this one? One to pay a bill.

Did you ever play Habbo Hotel? Nope. I’ve never even heard of it.

Do you speak any languages other than English? I only know some Spanish.

Have you ever been to Hawaii? No, but I’d love to someday.

Have you watched more than an hour of TV today? Yes.

What's your best talent? I don’t have any.

Do you know anyone named Nicole? Nope.

Have you ever had a true FML moment? Uh, I’ve had countless FML moments.

Are you considering having children right now? Absolutely not. I don’t want children.

Do you enjoy the darkness? No.

Are you afraid of being single? I’ve been single for almost 10 years, sooo.

Do you have a new boy-/girlfriend every week? ^^^ Also, I’ve only technically had one boyfriend and there were two guys I was talking to/really interested in that I had something going on with, but never actually dated. So, I really don’t have much dating experience at all.

How much memory does your computer have? *shrug* I don’t feel like checking.

Do you play video games? Sometimes. I was playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons regularly for several months, but then I stopped back in like January. I’ve been wanting to play, but just haven’t for whatever reason.

What color are your eyes? Brown.

Is your hair layered? Not as much anymore since I’ve over a year due for a haircut.

What's the closest yellow thing to you? I have Winnie the Pooh on my socks.

Have you ever shot an animal? Nooo.

Do you exercise daily? I don’t exercise at all.

Can you do cool things with your hair? I’ve never been good at styling my hair and always did basic stuff with it like ponytails and buns. Especially now since I have zero energy or motivation to attempt anything else.

Do you have a couch in your house? Yeah, we have 3.

Would you like to have a soda machine in your room? No. I’d love to have a coffee machine in my room, though.

Are you impatient? Very.

Would you pay someone to drive you around everywhere? No, but it’d be neat to have some go get me food or Starbucks whenever I wanted, ha. I don’t need to go, just need someone to get it for me.

Do you think soap operas are too good to be true? Soap operas are suuuper cringe.

Are you conscious of your weight? Yes. I’m underweight and don’t like how my body looks.

Have you ever jumped out of a window? No.

What kind of mood are you usually in? Moody mood.

Do you have a webcam? Yeah, there’s one built into the laptop.

Do you finish other people's sentences? Sometimes.

How many pairs of shoes do you own? Like 5 or 6.

When's your birthday? July 28th.

Do you feel important where you're at right now? I don’t feel like I’m important at all.

Are you short-tempered? I get irritated and frustrated very easily.

Have you ever been homeless? No.

How many online accounts do you have? Countless amount of accounts. I’ve had an online presence since the late 90s, so while there’s a ton of inactive accounts now out there, likely a lot of non-existent ones as well, I’m still counting them.

Do you drive through red lights? I don’t drive, but uh no I would not drive through a red light. I’m not trying to cause an accident or kill/get killed. Please don’t do that.

What sound puts you to sleep? ASMR often helps.

Are you a fast or slow reader? Fast.

Are you a good speller? I think so.

Do you have a TV in your bedroom? Yes.

How long can you go without sleeping? I’ve gone like 36 hours or so before. I couldn’t do that now, though, or anywhere close.

How long can you go without talking? Somedays most of the day depending on if I’m feeling extra moody and sad, or if I’m really sick. Somedays hours. I never go a full day without talking at all, though. There’s just days where I talk more than others.

Do you currently have a job? Nope.

Do you tend to always be in some sort of drama? No. I have my own issues that just involve myself.

Do you collect quarters from every state? No. I remember when I was a kid my parents used to have a quarters map to collect quarters from every state, though. Hm, I wonder what happened to that.

Would you rather sleep all night or sleep all day? My days are mixed up, I sleep all day and stay up all night.

Do you hate getting up early? Well, I’m generally up until like 7AM, sometimes a little later. Once I go to sleep, though, it’s hard for me to get up. That’s why if I have a doctor appointment or something early in the morning then I’ll definitely just stay up until then. Could you see yourself being a bartender? No, I don’t have any interest in that.

Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? No.

Are you currently tired? Always. And as if my sleeping schedule wasn’t already a total mess, it’s been even worse this past week having my aunt here. My schedules and routines have been thrown off and for some reason I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Or staying asleep, rather. I’ll fall asleep and then wake up like every couple hours. Or I’ll get up at an early hour and just end up staying up. So, I’ve been sleeping even less than I was before and yeah I’m definitely feeling it.

What was the last thing you had to drink? Water.

Do you like to take walks? No.

Have you ever had deja vu? Yeah, a few times.

Are you a fan of anime? No.

Do you draw a lot? I don’t draw at all.

Do you plan on going to college? I did and graduated back in 2015.

Do you feel at home in your own home? Yes.

Do you pay for your own cell phone bill? No. I’m on a family plan and thankfully my parents and brother are able to pay for it.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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seriouslyhooked · 7 years

Text

Wedded Bliss and Asterisks (A Modern CS AU) Part 16/?

Emma Swan is an enemy of love who just happens to be an up and coming wedding dress designer. She’s convinced that a fairytale kind of romance is nowhere in her future but when she meets Killian Jones, whose magazine is covering the opening of her new boutique, things change. Suddenly Emma finds herself drawing up new plans for her life, ones that seem to all be leading towards her own form of wedded bliss. Rated M.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven.Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen. Also on FF Here.

A/N: Alright all, leave your worries, troubles, and angst at the door because this chapter is going to be nothing but light and airy. While I am planning to have the proposal be next chapter, I thought this week it might be fun to include the whole group of meddling friends and make the central activity a group date. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

“Still with me, Swan?” Killian asked as they strolled hand in hand through the north corner of Central Park.

Emma had no choice but to smile at his earnest question. Killian had been checking in with her every two minutes since he announced his desire for a slight change in their once anticipated route and Emma feigned a tiny bit of resistance, but the truth was there was nowhere else she would rather be than right here. Wherever he was intent on leading her she’d follow, trusting it would prove worth while in the end.

“Yes Captain, I’m still with you.”

The sound of Killian’s chuckle at Emma’s teasing endearment, which she used from time to time in his bossier moments, filled her with warmth that rivaled the lingering sun on this warm day. She had spent much of her Saturday cooped up inside at Bliss, and all the flurry of work-related issues and extra time in the office had been draining, but right now Emma wasn’t tired and any ideas she might have had of fatigue earlier were easily done away with when she heard Killian’s laugh. She just thanked her foresight in wearing flats when she’d changed for their evening plans, because this would have been slightly torturous in hells.

“I’m thrilled to hear it, love. You know I’ve no interest in being anywhere without you.”

Emma did know that, and instead of professing a similar statement with her words, she pressed a kiss to Killian’s cheek as they walked, bringing a bit of red to his complexion and another wide grin. Okay, so maybe they were still in that sappy honeymoon stage, but Emma didn’t care. This felt too good to shy away from, and even if they were totally obvious in their mutual infatuation as they strolled by all the other passing people on their walk, Emma was fine with that. This was what people in love did, and after years of never having that, Emma didn’t want to deny herself anything when it came to her and Killian.

Finally Emma had discovered exactly what it was people were constantly searching for, and what it meant to really find the one person you wanted to spend your life with. The movies made it seem like all hearts and rainbows, and there was a fair amount of that to be honest, especially in their cheesier, more romantic moments. But the most important thing for Emma was that her relationship with Killian was honest and equal. Both of them were so giving of themselves and ready to take on the other’s troubles however they could. That made for a system of support Emma had always imagined love would bring but that she never quite managed to have.

Her friends of course were always there for her, but there was something different about having Killian in her circle now too. He was this rock that Emma could always count on to pull her from the depths of stress at work or frustrations with a client or employee. He knew when to listen and when she genuinely wanted advice, and even in the moments when the tension was between the two of them, Killian’s natural responses worked for Emma because they were truthful, and because he never let a moment come, even if they were arguing or temperamental, where she doubted that he loved her. In good and in bad he was there. He wasn’t a runner, and his faith had made it possible for Emma not to run either.

Truth was it was impossible for Emma to linger in any kind of bad feelings when she had Killian, and eventually every ugly sentiment gave way to hope at the end of the day. Tonight was a living embodiment of that. Emma had had a strenuous week, one where she was working nonstop and had felt crankier than usual. She knew she was a lot to handle, and she’d been testy at certain moments, but he’d spent all week trying to find ways to be there for her, and tonight he’d insisted on something special – dinner at her favorite place and now a walk through the park on the way to the rest of their plans for the evening.

“If I ever make the mistake of questioning your route choices again, remind of this moment,” Emma said, leaning against him as they meandered through the pretty greens that were somehow less congested and hectic than they often felt whenever Emma made her way over here.

“A healthy dose of skepticism is a solid thing to have Swan, but I hope you know I’d never willingly choose any path that caused you harm.”

God he was so sweet, and Emma felt this pang in her chest of raw appreciation. These were totally common place words for Killian, and though she’d grown a little more used to them as time went by, it was still amazing how sure he felt and how unafraid he was to express himself to her. Emma doubted he could ever really understand just how much that vulnerability meant to her, but she loved him so much for it and she did know he was aware of that at least.

“I know. It’s just someone says ‘let’s take a walk through Central Park’ and my thoughts fly to old Law and Order episodes and the sketchy people who sometimes hang out here.”

“Really? I worried a little too, but the object of my hesitations was slightly different,” Killian confessed. When he didn’t immediately elaborate Emma elbowed him a bit and asked him what could have given him pause. “Hipsters, love. They flock to this park like seagulls to the shore.”

The delivery of his censure and the way he gave this tiny shudder of disdain made Emma laugh unabashedly. It wasn’t something she could contain, and eventually Killian gave into it too, laughing at his own joke. Emma didn’t for one second think that Killian was walking around New York avoiding people with hacky sacks and non-prescription glasses. He just wanted a way to lighten an already great moment and he’d succeeded without a doubt.

“Well luckily they all seem to have gone into hiding,” Emma said when they were both finally able to talk again. “It’s too bad for them though. Who knew sunset in the park was even possible?”

Even as she said the words, Emma wasn’t all that surprised by the new discovery. When it came to unexpected slices of perfection in this city, Killian was uniquely in the know. Sometimes his expertise came from his work at the magazine, and other times from shameless research and searching for events and sights that might make her happy. Whatever his sources though, Emma always enjoyed getting to experience these moments with Killian, and she knew he was weaving this intricate tapestry of memories she’d keep close for years to come.

“It takes a special kind of day,” Killian agreed, as they came to stop over one of the bridges that was tourist bait to the extreme, but still quaint and picturesque. “If there are totally clear skies you miss so much, while too many clouds dampens the effect.”

Emma could imagine that that would be the case, but as it was, they had front row seats to a sky painted in glowing shades that weren’t of everyday make in a city like New York. Killian managed to stake out a perfect spot for them looking over the railing, and though the ambient hum of the park around them was still prevalent, it felt like Killian was largely shielding Emma from the hustle and bustle around them. She leaned into him and sighed happily, taking in every single detail that she could so she could recreate this moment at a later time.

The cityscape around them was colored spectacularly, cast in hues and shades that were undeniable in their attractiveness. Emma knew it was a simple slice of time and that this window of beauty wouldn’t last forever. Five minutes from now the scene would be totally different. It would appear darker with blues and violets prevalent in the twilight hour, and then the muted almost gray that came from all the light in the city battling against the night sky would appear for the rest of the evening. But for now there was that vivid splash of orange and pink and the last burning flecks of yellow. The buildings kept them from seeing the sun itself, but the light remained at least for now glistening in windows and washing down around them while the puffy white clouds that had been swimming past the city all day were done up in striking colors that took her breath away.

“I don’t know how you keep doing this,” Emma said, after enjoying a few minutes in the gentle quiet of Killian’s arms, admiring the way the water reflected some of the colors from above.

“Doing what, Swan?”

Emma peered from the gorgeous view before her to Killian once more. As she expected, his eyes weren’t trained on the scene in front of them, but squarely on her. If she had to guess, she would assume they’d been focused her way nearly the whole time, and the thought brought a blush to her cheeks that did not go unnoticed by Killian.

“How you keep finding these moments. It’s been months. Shouldn’t the other shoe be dropping at some point?”

“Not if I have any say in it,” Killian said, pulling Emma just the tiniest bit closer so she was fully in his arms. Then he reached up to push a strand of hair behind her ear before cupping her cheek and meeting her eyes in that totally endearing way. “Actually my hope is to spend the rest of my days proving to you that there’s nothing stopping us from being just as happily situated as we are right now forever more.”

The mention of forever, and the hint that they would be in each other’s lives for the rest of their days sparked something in Emma. Suddenly it occurred to her that this was a really romantic setting, with the sunset and the bridge. Maybe Killian was thinking of taking the next step. Maybe tonight would be the night when he got down on one knee and -

“Calm down love, I’m not proposing,” Killian whispered to her and Emma didn’t know how she reacted, but Killian grinned and ran his thumb across her lips ever so slightly. Only then did she realize her lips had pouted in a way that spoke to disappointment. “Not quite yet anyway. I merely wanted you to know where I stand.”

“And where exactly is that?” Emma asked, her voice breathy but her need to know sincere and intense.

“Right at your side, for as long as you’ll have me.”

There were so many things swirling around in Emma’s heart and in her mind. She was still coming off that rush of potential proposal, and the sweetness of this little adventure he’d taken her on, but mostly she just felt this tug of the love in her soul for this man. He might not be perfect, but he was pretty damn perfect for her, and when she brought him down for a kiss out there in the open, Emma’s opinions on that fact were only confirmed.

The kiss was exactly what they could have in that moment, bordering on searing passion and incredible want with both of them holding each other close and their hands seeking some kind of purchase. Yet they held off from crossing any lines thanks to their public surroundings and the night they had waiting for them ahead. Emma might have forgotten about both those elements, however, had it not been for Killian. He was the one who pulled back from the kiss, and even when her lips tried to follow, he remained steadfast.

“As much as I want to steal away with you Emma and whisk you back home… we did promise your friends to meet up with them tonight,” Killian said, his forehead resting against hers. Emma bit her lip to keep from smiling, and then let out another sigh, this time in resignation. He was right after all. They had plans and neither of them were the kind of people to back out on their commitments.

“Trust me, if I didn’t think they’d come banging down the door to drag us out, I’d go with that plan too. But later…”

Emma trailed off, not feeling like she needed to even say the words aloud. It was a given that they’d be going home together and that once they managed to find some privacy again they’d make good on the promises that kiss held. Emma fully anticipated a night spent in his arms and all the satisfaction and gratification that came when she trusted Killian with herself. From the way Killian smiled at her, she knew he understood that and that he was on the exact same page.

“Later you’re all mine, love. Just as I’m yours.”

With that, Emma and Killian departed from the park, weaving through the paths Killian had already anticipated and making their way to Graham’s where they’d agreed to meet up with Emma’s friends. It didn’t take very long to get there, and they weren’t overwhelmingly late or anything like that, but they were the last of the group to show and were thrown into the thick of the festivities right from the get go.

There was barely any window for greeting everyone or catching their breath. One second Emma and Killian were spotted, and the next they were being dragged over to the designated table for the friends and given very little context for an already underway conversation. Emma and Killian managed to hold their own though, and after a while this all felt more than natural and like they’d all been doing it for years.

To be fair, some of them actually had been doing just that. For a long time Graham’s had been a staple for Emma and her friends. It wasn’t at all unusual for them to find themselves here on a Saturday night like this, unwinding from their weeks and enjoying the surprisingly comfortable and almost homey atmosphere of their favorite bar. This had been their local haunt for a while now, but Emma knew tonight would be different than so many of those nights from their past.

For one thing Ruby was dating the owner and had managed to get a whole lot of perks thanks to that attachment, and for another their usual group had doubled in size. Everyone was here and with their guys, in what was the first group date Emma had been on since college where all four of them were paired up together like this. She only hoped that the end result would be better. Back then she’d usually gotten stuck with the duds in the party, but tonight, as she sat beside Killian, feeling cozy and complete, Emma hardly thought that would be a problem.

“You don’t think Graham minds that we chose his place of business for his night off, do you?” Killian asked Emma a while later as she sat beside him in the booth and she shook her head no, even as she admired Killian’s concern for his new friend.

“Not at all. If anything he’s probably thrilled to show Ruby off some more. He’s waited a long time for something to happen, and after years of getting teased by us and the other regulars, I think he could spend the next fifty years just like this.”

They looked over to the bar where Graham was personally getting their drinks together and Ruby had finagled her way behind the counter to join him. Technically having a non-employee back there was violating codes five, nine, and eleven according to Graham, but the infractions were forgotten as soon as Ruby pleaded nicely. Now she was a natural back there, walking the perfect line between flirting with her man and getting them their much-needed alcohol.

“I’m hesitant to think what they’ll bring back,” Liam said from across the table where he had Elsa’s hand in his. “Graham seemed rather convincing, but if he comes back with a white wine spritzer, well then I’m sorry love, we’re leaving.”

Everyone laughed at that and Emma could see Killian’s grin was wider than all the others. Emma knew he was truly thrilled to see his brother this way. Apparently they’d gone their whole lives without Liam having any opportunities to really let loose, but Elsa had brought that out in him more and more, and it turned out that Killian’s stuffy, driven older brother was made of far more than met the eye.

“Give us a little credit,” Emma said, leveraging a look at Liam in a playful kind of defiance. “You really think we’d be coming here every week if that was all they offered?”

“Surely my brother knows you’d never sink to such a level, love,” Killian assured her. “But it’s clear Ruby is rather taken with Graham, and I fully believe the three of you capable of a great many sacrifices to bring the two of them together as often as you could.”

“So you’re saying we’re meddlers?” Mary Margaret countered and Emma knew Killian could very well walk into a trap with this one, but he played it perfectly.

“I’m saying you’re a loyal bunch and that you all would do anything to see each other happy,” Killian placated kindly. Then his eyes shifted over to Emma again and his smile heated to something warmer and more intimate.

“That’s true enough,” Ruby said as she arrived at the table with half the drinks in her possession. “Just look at all the work we’ve done with you two. You don’t think Emma hopped aboard the love train without some prodding do you?”

Emma groaned at the commentary and the tittering of her other two friends as they laughed and agreed. But could she actually be mad at them? Honestly no. The truth was that they had been a force for good in her getting to this point. They’d always supported her and cheered her on, but they’d also asked her to be brave and promised to help pick up the pieces if things hadn’t gone as lovely as they had with Killian.

“I think Emma capable of doing anything her heart truly desired… but I don’t doubt any of your powers of persuasion.”

“To following our hearts!” Mary Margaret said as she raised her glass in a toast. Everyone else followed suit.

“God that’s cheesy,” Emma said but then put her hand up in a sign of defeat when Mary Margaret looked liable to scold her. “But cheesy works.”

“Yes it does,” Elsa confirmed with a loving look sent Liam’s way and everyone agreed, taking a sip of the drinks that were, as Emma expected, sublime.

“And speaking of persuasion…” Ruby said with a sly smile. “We were thinking that any good group date requires a little competition.”

“Oh here we go,” David said, pulling everyone’s attention his way, but despite his protesting he was smiling and seemed game for whatever Ruby would be proposing. “Sorry, it’s just if memory serves the four of you make the term competitive seem too tame.”

“What’s wrong, Nolan? Can’t take the heat?” Mary Margaret asked and David shook his head, clearly smitten with her.

“Now I didn’t say that. What did you all have in mind?”

From there Ruby laid out the plan with Mary Margaret and Elsa filling in every now and then but the thought on the evening’s activities was simple: a competition would be had between the guys and the girls here at the bar with pool, darts, and (thanks to Ruby’s insistence) quarters. It was all planned out, and Ruby had insisted all week long that this would make for the best night for all of them, but Emma was slightly hesitant if only because she knew her friends and she knew that David was right. They were all super competitive, and she was no exception. Could everyone handle that? Or were they walking into a potential pit of trouble that didn’t need to be stepped into?

“And what are your thoughts, love?” Killian asked her when all was said and done and her friends had laid it all out there. Emma had stayed mostly quiet during the outlining because she found it kind of silly, but the look in Killian’s eyes was one of challenge and determination, and suddenly she was rallying with a want to match her friends and actually lay down the gauntlet.

“I think that if you guys accept you should all be very afraid. We will not hesitate to kick your asses,” Emma replied saucily.

“Is that right?” Killian asked, leaning into her and using their proximity to his advantage. Emma couldn’t avoid the loud thumping of her heart or the way he filled her senses so completely when this close, but she would not admit defeat, not when they could have so much more fun by dragging out this pseudo rivalry.

“Yes sir,” Emma quipped, watching his eyes heat more at the title she’d given him.

“Well we’ll just see about that, Swan. I’m in.”

With Killian’s agreement, everyone else’s was quickly obtained, and the table set about to settling the particulars. There was all kinds of strategy involved and planning to be had, but before she could be involved in that, Killian took Emma’s hand and whispered low so only she could hear.

“What do you say we make the stakes a bit more interesting than mere bragging rights?” Killian proposed and Emma felt a flush of heat coursing through her at the sensual hint in his voice.

“What did you have in mind?” Emma asked, her eyes meeting Killian’s dark blue ones and giving away her interest the second she did.

“Winner’s choice. Whoever reigns victorious at the end of the night gets one wish answered, no questions asked.”

Emma liked the sound of that for multiple reasons, not the least of which was that every wish Killian ever seemed to have resulted in her being either incredibly happy or totally satisfied. Usually she got both when all was said and done, and since all of her wants would mirror that in mutual gratification, she found this to be a very desirable bet indeed.

“Deal,” Emma said, pressing a tauntingly quick kiss to Killian’s lips and then smiling when she heard his low growl as she pulled away and joined her friends across the table.

From there the night shifted from the quiet coziness they’d had before to something fun but definitely charged with competitive energy. There had been no exaggeration on the part of Emma or her friends’ intensity. They played to win, and they were sure of themselves in every arena, though it didn’t hurt to hedge their bets a bit, as Emma did by not so subtly flirting with Killian during their round of pool and Elsa did by taking a similar tactic of distraction with Liam at darts.

By the end of the games in the bar, however, the rankings were dead even. That had largely been thanks to Graham’s ability to weather all of Ruby’s advances (after years of flirting with her every weekend), and a rally from Killian and from David that marked wins in the guys’ tallies. Liam was mostly useless, but it turned out Elsa was just as prone to being dazedly distracted by him so they evened each other out. Faced with a need for a tiebreaker though, the group was at a loss until a solution was presented.

“I think there’s really only one answer to this problem…” Elsa said, flashing a smile at Emma and the others before filling in. “Air hockey.”

Emma bit back a laugh at Elsa’s insistence. It was one of her friend’s most interesting quirks: Elsa wasn’t a particularly sporty person, and her favorite hobby had always been baking, but back when she was younger Elsa was a big fan of arcades, and she’d actually loved them so much that a few years back she splurged on a fancy (and some would say unnecessary) air hockey machine for her apartment. Emma did have to give her credit though, the game did see a lot of action since her sister Anna and the rest of them were all predisposed to humoring Elsa and playing whenever they came over.

“Last I checked we don’t have an air hockey table here,” Graham said before looking to Ruby with some actual concern on his face. “Unless you charmed my staff into buying one.”

“Ha ha, no. I think Elsa is proposing a change of venue,” Ruby said before looking to Elsa for clarification. “Your place?”

“If we want. I can even offer cookies since I made some this afternoon and -,” Elsa was interrupted by Liam pulling her to him immediately and almost sweeping her feet off the floor.

“Say no more. We’re going,” Liam said definitively as Elsa laughed and the others grabbed their things, following Liam and Elsa out the door and towards the short walk to Elsa’s apartment.

“Any objections to our new destination?” Emma asked, as she took Killian’s hand in hers and looked up at him.

“Not a one,” he said easily, running his thumb across her knuckles in a soothing, familiar way. “Besides, Elsa’s flat is closer to mine than where we are now, making our eventual exit that much easier.”

“Good point,” Emma said with a smile, and with one final kiss to his lips she pulled Killian from the bar and to their next stop, hoping time would speed up a bit and get them on the path to home sooner rather than later.

………….

“And that, my friends, is how you win a battle of the sexes,” Ruby said when the final totals were tallied a while later and all was said and done.

Killian couldn’t help but laugh at her and the rest of the girls’ continued bragging, for he found it charming despite his team’s having lost, especially when Emma was the one of the people moving about with confidence and a self-assured manner that was particularly attractive. Any man claimed he wanted a docile, complacent woman was a fool. Half the thrill of being in love with Emma was that she was full of surprises and that in every situation she was more than capable. She didn’t need anyone saving her or holding back. She was a force of nature all on her own, and she’d surrounded herself with similar forces in the form of her dearest friends.

“Well it was hardly a fair fight,” Liam countered, though Killian knew it was all in good fun. “The lot of you was rather prone to distracting the enemy.”

“Aw Liam, I wouldn’t say you were the enemy,” Elsa said, putting her hand on his arm. “You guys were just our temporary nemeses.”

Killian watched as his brother whispered something in Elsa’s ear that made the woman bite her lip and give a nod. He had no doubt it was some sort of promise or other of their making nice again later, but while he was happy for his brother, Killian was more consumed with his own good fortune, and the woman who had just taken a seat beside him on the couch and curled into him.

“I have to admit I’m glad that’s over,” Emma whispered. “I don’t like not being on your team.”

Emma’s words packed a mighty wallop on his chest, but in the best possible way. Killian loved the fact that though she’d had fun, Emma was glad to be back with him, for there was nothing that Killian wanted more than to be on Emma’s team. Honestly his hope was to make that a permanent element of their lives and to do it soon at that.

“Oh no you don’t!” Ruby said, coming over to pull Emma back up. “Elsa promised those monster cookies of hers to the winning team and we won. Cookies first, men later.”

Emma shot Killian a glance over her shoulder that said the nonverbal equivalent of ‘sorry, what can you do?’ as Ruby led her away, and Killian found himself shaking his head even as he grinned. He didn’t like the look of Emma walking away from him, but she’d be back, and if he knew his Swan she’d be smuggling him some of those contraband cookies as a more tangible apology.

“I’m gonna marry that woman someday.”

The announcement from David was a random one, and for a split second Killian didn’t know what he was on about until he gave himself sometime to let it sink in. David was speaking of Mary Margaret, and the thought that Emma’s friend would soon be getting married was a good one for Killian. Surely Mary Margaret would be happy if she were wed to David and that would make Emma happy too. Killian did have to admit he was slightly selfish in his thinking, however, hoping that he and Emma would be the first one’s down the aisle. He didn’t fancy the idea of waiting for anyone else at all. As it was he felt like he’d waited long enough for his forever with Emma to begin.

“Come again, mate?” Liam asked gruffly, clearly a little distracted by his own thoughts of Elsa. He was defensive, and Killian sprung in to clarify on David’s behalf.

“He means Mary Margaret, brother. Not Elsa.”

“Oh right. You think it’s time for that now, despite it all being so new still?” Liam asked and David nodded.

“Maybe it sounds crazy but even if on paper it’s only been a few weeks, I’ve been in love with Mary Margaret for years. I’m ready for all of it, and I don’t care what it takes to get there,” David admitted.

Killian didn’t have any form of judgment for David, despite the man’s offered justifications for the short time frame. Killian could only imagine what it must be like to find the person you wanted always and have them slip away in the manner that Mary Margaret had. Just the thought of going through something like that with Emma was enough to righteously unsettle him, but then he remembered how vastly different their situation was and he was calmed substantially. No, Emma wasn’t going anywhere and neither was he. They were both on the same page, and Killian was just hoping to get to the moment where they could turn to the next one already. Until then though, he’d humor David and try and make the man feel more comfortable and to show him he was in good company when it came to grand gestures and assured love in this group.

“That’s nothing compared to Liam. He was on the phone with a realtor to put his place on the market before so much as asking Elsa out merely because he had a hint that she might not find wealth attractive,” Killian said and David laughed as Liam glared at Killian only to break into a smile.

“And I suppose popping the question after only a few months is somehow more evolved? If you had your way she’d be Emma Jones tomorrow and the two of you would have five kids, a dog, and a white picket fence,” Liam countered. Killian shrugged at his brother’s cavalier repeating of the intentions Killian had shared with him some time ago, but David and Graham weren’t so easily put off.

“You’re going to propose?” Graham asked, his grin more than evident as he did. “Ruby’s gonna have a field day with that.”

“Aye she will,” Killian replied knowingly. “At least that’s what she tells me.”

“Good man – you passed the first test,” Graham said, slapping Killian on the arm in a congratulatory way. “The rookie mistake would have been thinking you could ask just Emma. The four of them are a package deal.”

“They’re more than that,” Killian asserted. “They’re a family.”

The others agreed with that label for the four of them, but Killian knew that they might struggle to see the intensity of the bond between the women as clearly as he did. The other members of this circle of friends had at least some relatives in their life who one might believe would be closer with them, but Emma hadn’t anybody but her friends and perhaps Mrs. Hubbard. As such she’d devoted all corners of her heart to these women, and she’d invested in them in a way that most people couldn’t relate to. Her love and care for her friends superseded almost all things, and all of her friends had dedicated themselves just as strongly to her too. She’d become a fixture in their lives too, and there was nothing that could happen that would sever those ties now or ever.

It had been important then to Killian that Emma’s friends not only give him a sort of blessing, but that they also share with him their expertise about Emma and her wishes so that he could give her the best possible proposal. Though he knew his love better than he knew himself, Killian believed it would be unwise to overlook the intimacy between Emma and her friends. These women were her family and that meant that if he was lucky and she did in fact say yes to his most important question, they would become his as well.

That wasn’t to say that it had been easy to speak to each woman face to face without drawing the suspicions of Emma (who was always so aware and on top of everything), but Killian had succeeded over the past week, and the end results were ones he felt he could work with. He was grateful for the bits of information he’d gleamed from Elsa, Mary Margaret, and Ruby, and he intended to use each woman’s words of wisdom when he finally made his move.

“Whatever you do make sure it’s beautiful. Emma is an artist, so follow colors and flowers and… you know what totally go all in on the flowers. I’ve never met anyone who loves flowers more than Emma. Oh and chocolate. One time she told us if a man doesn’t supply dessert at a proposal, it never really happened.”

Elsa’s insistence left Killian laughing heartily, but when he was done she listed all sorts of details about what desserts and blossoms Emma liked best. Much of that information Killian was well aware of, having explored many a park with Emma more than once and being acquainted with her sweet tooth, but he also knew Elsa had a very good point, and he’d secured a way to make sure that the setting of their proposal would be truly singular and would transcend the normal into something completely out of the ordinary.

“Emma’s a romantic at heart,” Mary Margaret had professed a few days later. “She sometimes likes to think of herself as unflappable and above all that, but if you remind her of the parts of your story that make you two unique, or give her a picture of where you want to go, she’ll absolutely love it. Thoughtfulness goes a very long way with Emma.”

That was something Killian felt in his heart too, and adequately sharing that vision and those remembrances would be especially important to this proposal because he wasn’t planning to have this special moment in a place they were familiar with. Instead of being in the city where they’d both found love or at any of the bright spots that held memories of them within the limits of New York, Killian had settled on a place that required a little adventuring. Their intended destination wasn’t terribly far from home, but it would require a full weekend away with his Swan that he hoped they’d both truly enjoy. She’d already agreed to it too, confirming that next weekend would work for her, but Killian was withholding most of the details and particulars and Emma was good enough to allow him some elements of surprise despite her not usually loving them.

Killian knew many people might see it as unexpected for him to choose a new place that neither he nor Emma had ever been to build this moment on, but then he rationalized that everything with Emma was new. She made every experience so extraordinary that even the most mundane of activities felt vibrant and fresh, and when he’d said that to her friends, explaining why it might not be ideal for the three of them to be there in the flesh (as they’d all expressed desire to be at first), they relented and agreed that this would be best. Whatever Killian dreamed up was what Emma would want most, they reasoned, but that didn’t stop them from procuring a few ‘I owe yous’ from Killian or making him promise that they could throw a huge engagement party that he’d have to attend without complaint.

Yet after speaking with Elsa and Mary Margaret, who were both so wrapped up in the details and future wedding planning, it was Ruby’s words of wisdom and advice that stuck with Killian most. She’d gone a little deeper than the others, and though her counsel wasn’t something he could tangibly procure for the hopefully happy day, it was something he was certain of granting Emma.

“What matters most to Emma isn’t the ring, or the place, or the story she’ll have to tell everyone else. What matters most to her is you. So as long as you stay – as long as you fight for her and choose her day in and day out without question - you could drop to one knee in front of a hot dog vendor and she’d be thrilled.”

Despite the humor she’d wrapped up her sentiment in, Ruby had been resolute in that fact, and of all the friends she was the only one who exhibited the most protectiveness over Emma. Killian knew all three friends would do anything for the woman he loved, but Ruby was extremely blunt about it. It had been said, in no uncertain terms, that they were all thrilled Emma had found him, but if they got even one whiff of his hurting her, he’d be facing a world of pain he couldn’t even comprehend.

“So how are you going to do it?” Graham asked and Killian shook his head, clearing his mind of his internal musings and taking another sip of his drink before refuting the request for information.

“That’s classified intel, mate.” Even Emma’s friends didn’t know the nitty gritty of his plan, and Killian had no intention of telling anyone so as to preserve the surprise.

“Don’t bother trying lads,” Liam chastised sitting back in his chair. “He won’t even tell his own brother, paranoid as he is.”

“You say paranoid, I say wise and merciful. If I told you, you’d have to keep a secret from the woman you love, and something tells me that would not be an appealing prospect to any of you.”

Liam, David, and Graham all shook their heads and Killian smiled, knowing he was right. They might be curious, but he was doing more than ensuring that Emma wouldn’t find out the plan before it was time; he was also protecting the rest of them from an awkward situation with women they’d sworn to be open with. It was a public service really, and only partially having to do with his bit of ‘paranoia’ as Liam called it.

“Have you got a ring already?” David asked and Killian nodded, listening carefully and hearing that the women were all still busy in the kitchen handling what he did not know, but he utalized the chance to take the ring he’d taken to carrying with him at all times out of his jacket pocket and opening the box to show the others.

“Wow,” Graham said after a low whistle. “That’s some rock.”

That was one way to describe the ring. Killian knew it was extravagant, and there had been a moment or two when he debated how Emma would react to it. She would have been more than happy with a smaller stone and more classic band, but Killian had taken one look at the clear-cut yellow diamond and knew it belonged to Emma. The circular stone was wreathed in white diamonds, and reminded Killian of sunshine, just as she did, and once the shock wore off, he was confident Emma would love it. All he needed to do was assure her that the cost was more than worth it, and that she needn’t have any guilt in accepting a gift that would never even come close to expressing his levels of love and devotion to her.

“You were carrying that on you all night?” David asked in shock.

“Aye, and before you ask, tonight isn’t the night. I’ve no intention of proposing over an air hockey rematch,” Killian said and the others laughed. “I just want to be prepared. Should an unanticipated opportunity present itself, I want to be ready. Emma deserves at least that.”

There had been a flicker of possibility earlier tonight, and a moment out on that bridge where Killian considered asking Emma for forever, but that thought had faded away as swiftly as it came. For despite the beauty of the moment, it wasn’t the right place or time. When he asked Emma to be his wife and for the privilege of being her husband he wanted time to celebrate a potential yes and a bit more privacy than Central Park afforded. Yet he had been appeased by Emma’s disappointment earlier when he said he wouldn’t be asking tonight, and now his once healthy level of confidence was secured. He would still be taking a risk in asking Emma for her hand, but he was almost completely assured that she’d respond favorably and say yes when the right time did come.

“Ah shit,” Graham said shaking his head. “You’re gonna set the bar impossibly high aren’t you? The rest of us will be totally screwed when our time comes.”

“That’s the plan.” The others groaned at his admission and Killian slid the ring back in his pocket with a grin. His timing in hiding the precious gem was fortunate too, for right at that moment Emma appeared in the doorway, looking at them with a curious gaze and a hand on her hip.

“What’s going on with them?” She asked Killian and he stood, moving towards her immediately.

“They’re merely disappointed. I mentioned my hope that we’d be leaving on the early side,” Killian replied.

It was a little white lie, but not totally false. After all, Killian knew his presence was appreciated and it would change the dynamics of the night once he and Emma left. Killian actually wouldn’t be surprised if the others took a hint and made themselves scarce too, wandering back to their corners of the city and enjoying the remaining hours of this evening in the privacy of their own homes.

“Funny, I just said the same thing to Ruby, Elsa, and Mary Margaret, but they had a slightly different reaction.”

Killian didn’t have to ask Emma what that feedback from her friends might have looked like. He’d been on the receiving end of enough catcalls and cheers for their sake, and had sat through enough inquisitions of the personal variety to know Emma’s friends had rather dirty thought processes. It always made him laugh, however, and it was a solid plus on days when Emma went a little pink at their continued taunting as she did right now.

“Great minds think alike,” he whispered and Emma smiled before calling over her shoulder to say one last goodbye to everyone and grabbing their things so they could leave. Once they were outside, however, and safely squared away in a cab set for home, Killian asked her the question he’d been curious of for most of the night. “So you won the bet, love. What is your wish?”

“My wish?... My wish is for you and me to be together. Nothing fancy – just us, all weekend long.”

“God I love the sound of that,” Killian said, and he did. In fact, it was the closest thing to perfect he’d heard all day and he intended to make that wish come true for Emma no matter what it took.

Post-Note: So I realize that this chapter was a bit delayed from my usual weekly update. However, I am anticipating another delay for the next chapter. This is for two reasons. One, I am in the midst of developing exactly how I want this proposal to go, and two, I have so many lovely readers who have asked for chapters of my oneshot collection, that I want to get some of those banged out next week. No worries though, there will be more of this story and it will be coming as soon as I can get it out (roughly two weeks from now). Anyway, thank you all so much for reading and reviewing or reaching out to me. I love to hear your feedback and I truly appreciate you all taking the time. Hope you all have a great week and thanks again!

#captain swan #captain swan au #captain swan fic #cs fic #cs ff #cs fluff #cs au #cs mc #emma swan #killian jones #captain swan ff #the meddling friends and all their cuteness #ouat au #wedded bliss and asterisks #wedded bliss au #wedded bliss 16

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