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kittyball23 · 9 months

Text

Memory (a Trolls fanfic)

Summary: JD, Spruce, and Clay come to terms with their Grandmother Rosiepuff’s fate

A/N: Requested by JoltJackalope on Wattpad :)

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“I can’t believe she’s… gone.”

Spruce said the words slowly, like he was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that his Grandma had died. John Dory and Clay peered at him with similar looks of disbelief.

“I mean, I guess I can believe it,” Clay spoke up in response, “but just… not the way Branch said it happened…” He thought about how their youngest brother had described it, picturing a Bergen swiping her away to a terrible fate. His stomach churned in an unpleasant manner.

John Dory’s imagination wasn’t too different, and it made him feel guilty. Being the oldest, he had the most memories of their Grandmother. How she’d supported the five of them, encouraged them to follow their dreams and cheered them on as they did so. One particular moment stuck out to John Dory. And, unbeknownst to him, the moment he was thinking of was a significant one in Spruce and Clay’s memories too…

“Let me take you to a better plaaaace,

I’m gonna make you kiss the sky tonight

Yeah if you let me show the waaay,

I’m so excited, to see you excited!”

John Dory just couldn’t seem to quit singing. He was proud of their song - it was catchy, and a hit among everybody in the crowd who’d come to see their band. Singing it twice didn’t seem to be cutting it, but the show had to come to an end. Thankfully, he could rest at ease knowing that he and his brothers would perform again.

While JD was more focused on the performance part of it, Spruce couldn’t help but recall how many girls he’d made faint after they’d caught a glimpse of his exquisitely toned body. Clay on the other hand was a bit sore, having given it his all when it came to the dancing, but he knew it was completely worth the grand applause the audience had given afterwards.

“They loved us!” their younger brother Floyd exclaimed, looking absolutely touched by the prospect of so many Trolls supporting their music as he made his way backstage with the others.

“Of course they loved you, sweetie,” a gentle voice responded. The boys grinned a tad wider when their Grandma approached them, with Baby Branch inside of a little carrier at her front. The youngest BroZone brother was only a couple months old, still not able to join his older bros up on the stage to dance and sing just yet, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t cheer them on. He clapped his hands enthusiastically and blurbled happily.

“You were ALL wonderful,” Grandma Rosiepuff continued, gently leaning over to caress Floyd’s cheek. He blushed a little and she chuckled fondly. “Do you know why?”

The magenta Trolling looked up at her. “Why?” he asked in a small, curious voice.

“Because each of you is special,” she responded. She looked over at JD first and smiled.

“John Dory, you had a dream and you made it come true. You created an amazing band that you love being a part of. Just remember that with the right determination, and with your brothers by your side, you CAN achieve anything that your heart desires.”

JD beamed. He liked the sound of that! Grandma was right. His brothers believed in him. And he believed in his brothers. They could accomplish TONS of things if they just continued to work together as a team!

Their Grandma addressed Spruce next. “Spruce, you have a passion burning inside of you unlike anybody else I’ve seen. You'll succeed on what you set your mind to, so long as you never let it burn out."

Spruce smiled at her. “I won’t, Grandma,” he promised.

“Ooo, ooo, me next!” Clay called out, jumping up and down, and raising his hand up in a playful manner.

Rosiepuff giggled. “Clay, being able to make anybody laugh is a fantastic gift. You’re a fun little guy, and I don’t think you’ll have a problem knowing how to keep things real when they matter.”

“Nope, I don’t think so either!” Clay chimed back in reply, living up to his jokey personality and doing a goofy little dance.

Rosiepuff had to laugh again, and then spoke to Floyd. “Floyd. Your talent to write songs is beyond incredible. You don’t have to be afraid to sing or dance in front of a lot of people - you have great friends by your side.” She gestured behind him at John Dory, Spruce, and Clay. “If you ever feel like you’re in trouble, just know that they’ll be there for you. Always.”

Floyd responded by giving his Grandma a hug.

In the baby carrier, Branch giggled.

“And I can’t forget about you, Branch!” Rosiepuff said, nuzzling the top of his rich blue hair. “You, my little boy, are so lucky. You have the best big brothers in the world!”

Branch babbled something babyish that they knew meant he was so grateful for it.

Rosepuff smiled down at him, and then opened up her arms to the others. “Come here, boys!”

John Dory, Spruce, and Clay crowded around to join their Grandma, Floyd, and Branch, all warm and happy in her embrace...

... And feeling nothing like that now.

John Dory sure wished his Grandma could hug him right there and then and provide the comfort he needed. Her hugs always felt like they could cure anything, including the guilt he felt for not upholding to her words.

Just remember that with the right determination, and with your brothers by your side, you CAN achieve anything that your heart desires.

Well, he hadn’t had his brothers by his side, and he hadn’t achieved his goal of having BroZone be together forever.

Spruce hadn’t let his passion die down… in some respects. Of those did not include performing though, which he felt bad for. His Grandmother would’ve perhaps been happy that he was able to start and raise his very own family, but a little sad to see that he didn’t have that desire to get up on a stage and sing anymore like he’d used to. He had tried to bury his boyband days behind him, going as far as to even change his name.

For Clay, it was very rare for a joke to slip past his lips nowadays. Grandma had told him to keep things real when they mattered, though he’d taken it to a much farther level. In fact, his humorous side had almost gone away completely. He no longer chuckled or snickered as often as he used to, and he'd believed that being serious was the way he should continue about his life. But, if he was being truthful, he really did miss that side of him that Grandma said could make anybody laugh. Snubbing it felt like snubbing his Grandmother.

Regardless of their individual reasonings, all three brothers felt as though they'd let her down.

John Dory hadn't realized that the one person he might've wanted to speak to again - aside from the brothers he'd silently hoped he'd make up with one day - was his Grandma. There was so much he wanted to tell her about his adventures out with his caterbus Rhonda, seeing the world.

Spruce would've liked to have told her much about his newfound understanding about relationships, and the true love he'd found with his wife that was so much better than any meaningless fling he'd previously had in his youth.

Clay ached to hear her sweet little laugh again, seeing the smile spread on her face that was because of a joke he'd cracked, and wanting to show her the cool tuck-and-roll trick he'd learned in Putt Putt Village.

A simultaneous sigh heaved from the three brothers.

"I mean, we could see her again one day... right?" Spruce asked.

John Dory didn't understand. "Bro, Branch said she died, though!"

"No, dude, he meant, like, somewhere else," Clay clarified, gesturing an arm up and out, the direction towards the sky.

JD cocked his head, not sure what exactly he was supposed to be looking at, until it came to him. His brothers were talking about a better place, one that was not their world full of troubles and regrets. One where Grandma Rosiepuff was free of her suffering, and where they may go one day when they grew old themselves and passed on.

"Ohhh," he said, nodding once and answering honestly.

"Yes. I think so."

__________________________________________ A/N: I guess this could take place when the brothers are waiting for Branch to return after my oneshot "By Your Side"? (and for that matter, before the oneshot "Reconciled")

#trolls #trolls 3 #trolls band together #branch trolls #john dory #spruce trolls #clay trolls #floyd trolls #brozone #grandma rosiepuff #dreamworks #fanfiction #kittyball writes

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seneon · 1 year

Note

alexis ness and the tropes

“he fell first, she fell harder.”

“i hate your bestfriend” (kaiser)

reflection | alexis ness.

featuring. alexis ness x fem! reader — oneshot.

genre. romantic and fluff and kaiser hating.

synopsis. in which, he fell first, but you fell harder.

notes. 0.8k words | inspired by reflection by the neighbourhood. ness is actually cute ngl..

it all started during the time where alexis ness had been injured on the field. he was immediately brought to the infirmary and the game paused momentarily with the replacement of another player.

you were a nurse that was tending to his injuries and damn, ness couldn't keep his eyes off of yours the entire time. even though he was in aching pain, he felt like your eyes eased the pain slowly by slowly, with the magic of your soft hands.

he felt like he couldn't breathe in that few moments of you carefully massaging certain sports of his legs to ease the swell. his legs does not feel any pain when you did it. he couldn't feel any pain. all ness was feeling was how calm and gentle you were with him.

there were many accidents that he had gotten into in his whole life of being a football player. no doctors or nurses or whoever was that gentle and soft with him.

but you treated him.

and he fell in love immediately.

when you finished tending to him and started recording his temperature and other physical records of his body, ness spoke with you. he asked for your name and all the simple biography about you.

and of course, ness thanked you for giving him such a gentle treatment that his pain was immediately eased. he said your hands worked like magic and he would like for you to be his personal nurse.

you knew he was joking so you decided to joke around with agreeing to his nurse plans too.

it all went silent after a few moments. the only sounds that were echoing throughout the room is the sound from your pen and paperboard. you stole a glance up at the football player and instantly looked back at your paper, a slight blush covering your face.

alexis ness of bastard münchen is so damn beautiful.

you never noticed his features that much and up close ever since you've been watching the team's games for a long time and this was the first time you've ever get to be so close with him. honestly, it's quite the blessing of a chance that was given to you.

at the end of the day, ness asked for a pen and a paper then scribbled his phone number on it — returning it to you afterwards with regards of tending to his injury.

a few months has passed ever since that fateful day and so much has happened that you believed it was all in accordance to what fate has in mind for you.

you started hanging out with ness, being invited to his football trainings under his name, meeting his friends and so much more fun stuff.

but there was someone that disliked the fact that ness was bringing a random woman to their trainings.

michael kaiser.

he thinks it's merely a nuisance that the other members were often distracted. especially the who he deems one of his most loyal follower.

the same goes for you, you didn't really like kaiser that much. he has tried to flirt with you many times while attempting to break your mentality with his words alone. in fact, it's safe to say you extremely hated kaiser.

with pure passion.

the magenta-haired male took notice of both of your tensions every you meet and tries to avoid putting you two close together.

kaiser might be someone that ness looks up to, but you are someone he fell in love with. you are more important to ness than kaiser is.

alexis ness made that clear.

he made sure you were treated better than everyone else. he made sure to buy you many things that you've always wanted and needed in every day life. he made sure to make some time for you. but most importantly, ness made sure to keep your smile on your face.

that in which made you fell in love with him. twice as harder than he did.

you couldn't do much for him since you have your own job as a nurse too. but when you did have time and so much to do for him, you'll be there to accompany him during his free times and just create some moments that'll never end.

you love it when he tells you stories about his football career and loved listening to him talk in general. his beautiful magenta eyes that would occasionally shine with excitement. eyes that you could see your reflection in it. along with his jovial smile that would genuinely smile just as much as he sees you everytime.

it was not only did you fell in love with alexis ness, but you felt like you wanted to protect him just like the day where you first tended to his injuries, saving his legs from anymore major casualties.

ness too, felt the need to keep making you happy as you've once and many more times saved him from injuries on the field. so much that he was his life is practically indebted to you.

he'd love to repay it with his love for you.

#🎥 senreqs #🗝️ senber #alexis ness #alexis ness x reader #blue lock #blue lock x reader #blue lock imagines #michael kaiser #ness x reader #bllk #bllk x reader

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hockeyforthefirsttime · 3 years

Text

Speechless- Nolan Patrick

AN: Is the ending literal trash? yes, do i care at this point? also yes, but not enough

Word count: just over 3k

TW: none that I can think of, but let me know if i need to tag something:)

Nolan is definitely bored at the bar. He is out and supposed to be celebrating a win, but third wheeling with Tavis and Karly, simply is not fun. Not that it ever has been, but as he watches them laugh at each other on the dance floor.. well he takes a deep sigh and an even deeper swig of his beer. Some of the team is gathered around the bar ordering another round of drinks, and as he is scanning the crowd a woman walks in front of him, making him look up at her.

And stop dead in his thoughts.

She is wearing jeans that cling to her curves just right, a deep magenta top that seems to wrap around her stomach, before it reveals a little more than he can handle, and he looks up at her and sees the ghost of a smile on her lips. She isn’t looking at him though. She seems to be looking into the crowded dance floor, and Nolan desperately wants to know who she is looking for.

In any other situation like this, he would have swept her off of her feet and wouldn’t have put her down until they’d reach his bed. But her obliviousness to him has knocked him off balance it seems.

“Hey Patty, me and Karly are gonna head home. Want a ride?”

Travis comes up to Nolan, Karly in tow and the mysterious girl moves with a quiet sorry and a fleeting smile. Nolan can feel his eyes drift after her before he meets Travis’ eyes, which are brimming with amusement.

“Nah, I’m good.”

He answers, and Travis bursts out laughing.

“What, so you can sit here and stare like some kind of creep the rest of the night?”

Nolan sees Karly gently shoving on Travis, also having noticed Nolans lingering gaze.

“As opposed to going home in the same car as you two rabbits? No thank you.”

Travis and Karly bid their goodbyes as the rest of the team and their significant others appear back at the table. Nobody seems to take notice of the Nolans distantness though, pinning it down as just his Philly personality. Nobody really sees him staring at this girl dancing in vans and a pink top.

As the song ends he watches her go up to the bar, so in normal Nolan fashion he gets up and heads in that direction. He takes a look down at his watch and in a second, a split fucking second, she is gone.

He’s so fucking tired. The game last night had been decent. They’d won in overtime and Nolan had the assist, yet he keeps going over the chances he had and the chances he missed making in his head. Driving to the rink is dreary but even more so than usual. It’s not until he stops at a red light that he wakes up. He’s supporting his head on his left arm and looking out the passenger seat window. His eyes widen when he sees who is in the beaten up truck next to him.

The girl from the bar three weeks ago. She has her hair down her shoulders and is looking at him through her own window. When she catches his eyes, she gives him a wink. As if she recognizes him. And if this was anyone else he might have given her a half smile, or even a wink back. But no. He can feel his cheeks heating up and getting rosy. God how he wishes he could be as confident as he usually is. The girl in the other car seems to be laughing a little, a smile on her lips. Nolan swears she starts slipping away from view, and in that second he remembers. He’s at a fucking red light. Except it isn’t red anymore, made obvious by the boisterous truck behind him, basically laying on his horn.

Quickly he presses his foot down on the gas pedal and looks for the beaten up truck, which is nowhere to be seen.

iii

It’s still winter and Nolan for some reason unknown to him decides to take a walk in the park not far from his apartment. He blames it on his restlessness, which stems from sitting inside the entire weekend. It’s nearing Christmas time and the main section of the park is covered in fairy lights and christmas decorations. There’s even a stand that sells hot chocolate.

He buys a cup, puts in his earbuds and starts walking. It is nice out, he decides, with all the people out enjoying the snow on the ground. There are even some kids out rolling big snowballs, which turn into snow men and women. He feels a sudden wave of content roll over him. And a smile subconsciously finds its way onto his lips.

Nolan walks a little further, and doesn’t really stop, until a ball of golden fur is at his feet, almost making him trip. The wagging tail is making the entire body of the dog move and he catches himself smiling and taking out one of the earbuds. Immediately he hears the voice of a girl shouting.

“Akira!”

The dog at his feet, looks around eagerly as her owner sprints up to him. And Nolan can hardly believe his luck. It is the bar girl.

“I’m so sorry, she usually doesn’t run off like that.”

And judging by her attire she is out for a jog, which would explain how out of breath she is. Quickly she pulls a leash out of her pocket and hooks it onto Akira’s harness.

“Oh there’s no worries.”

Nolan manages to stutter out. He sees a little smirk on her lips and curses his reddening cheeks for being so obvious. He bends his head a little and scratches Akira behind her ears. The golden retriever leans into his touch and a soft chuckle escapes the girl standing in front of him.

He is just about to ask the girl her name when a phone starts ringing. It’s hers. Quickly, from another pocket, she pulls out a phone and answers it. He watches with steady eyes as a frown starts to grow on her face.

“Fuck, okay yeah, I’ll be home in a few.”

She hangs up the phone and pockets it, before she turns to look at him again. With a wink she turns around and Akira follows.

“See you around Shy Guy!”

And just like that she’s gone. His chocolate is no longer hot, so he tracks back to his apartment, with discouragement sitting in his chest like a rock.

iiii

The Starbucks is so full, the line goes through the door and that’s the reason why Nolan doesn’t even consider entering it. He turns and treks back a block until he sees this quaint little cafe he’s never really noticed. Which is no surprise, because it seems to be mostly inhabited by students. With the amount of computers and books up at the cafe tables and its location closer to UPenn it should come as no surprise.

And maybe he gets a little hopeful that the bar girl will be there, so despite his logical mind, he enters through the glass doors and goes straight to the counter. The boy has to be around his own age, but a fair bit skinnier and with glasses on. It makes him look a bit too young in Nolan's eyes, but it doesn’t really matter.

“Hey, what can I get you today?”

The young boy asks as he wipes down the counter.

“Ehh, just a large black coffee, please.”

Nolan says and pulls out his wallet. He doesn’t completely register the bell over the door ringing, not until the gust of cold air washes over him. Instinctively he turns and spots a smaller frame entering the cafe. A hoodie over their head and a black jacket, lightly dusted with quickly melting snow. And a pair of beaten up, black vans on their feet. His hopes rise, and yet again he is rewarded with the presence of the bar girl. She shakes out her hair a little as she pulls the hood off of her head. Nolan could swear his heart stopped right there. The evening sun shines through the window, making her hair appear as a halo around her.

She hasn’t noticed him yet. So he turns and tries to calm his blush. The guy behind the counter has begun making his coffee so he doesn’t really know what to do. The bar girl comes up behind him. He can tell by the way the barista nods at her with a smile.

“Hey Dylan, how are you today?”

And Nolan is instantly a bit jealous of this Dylan, who gets to hear his name falling from her lips.

“I’m good Rory, thanks, how are you?”

Dylan answers, and it feels like his heart is in his throat. Her name is Rory? It suits her.

“Could be better to be honest, this paper on existence due next week is really kicking my ass.”

She answers as she comes closer, and Nolan moves further up the counter to give them room.

“Tell me about it, you want the usual?”

She nods and slings her backpack off one shoulder to unzip a pocket, and pulls out a card. Dylan finishes Nolan's order and places it on the corner of the counter. Nolan can feel his chance slip through his fingers and begins to panic a little.

Until he spots a pen on the counter near his cup. Quickly he grabs it and scribbles his name and number on the cup. And he couldn’t have cued it better for AV to call him. He puts the cup down again and picks up the call.

“Nolan, have you looked over the videos yet?”

Alain, straight to the point as usual.

“Yeah, saw them yesterday, and I have some ideas in mind for me to improve.”

He speaks into the phone, while he puts a hand on the back of his neck.

“Good good, I will see you tomorrow then?”

“Yes, sir. Bright and early.”

And then they hang up. He sees that another cup has appeared beside his. He throws a quick glance at Rory, who is still talking to the barista, and turns his cup the other way so the writing isn’t visible and grabs her cup. Then, he nods a goodbye to Dylan and exits the door.

He’s almost half a block away when his phone rings. He hasn’t drunk out of the cup, but it smells a little sweet and enticing. He looks at the phone and sees an unknown number. He lets it ring twice more before answering.

“Hey, this is Nolan?”

He tries to sound nonchalant.

“Hey, Shy guy. This is Rory. You didn’t by any chance grab my coffee on the way out?”

Despite the fact that he doesn’t actually know her, he swears he can hear a smile over the phone. And he is a little bit shocked by the nickname.

“Oh, so this is who it belongs to?”

She lets out a little chuckle, before she answers.

“Yeah, mind returning it?”

He smiles at the laugh.

Nolan is different, not that he will admit it, but the team can tell. He seems to be more patient, more focused on practicing drills and getting them right, and also for some reason, more ready for practice to be over. At first it’s a subtle change, but after a while and two games where he plays over all very well, it seems to be more than just determination. It seems like he wants to impress someone.

At first they shake it as him wanting to prove himself to.. well everyone. But one day when Oskar asks him who he is texting so frequently, Nolan can feel his cheeks and ears tint even more than usual. Damn her and the effect she has on him. He tries to play it cool with a casual shrug, but half the locker room seems to burst out laughing. Quickly he puts his phone in his pocket and heads for the door.

“Have a good weekend guys!”

He calls out behind him out of habit, as it is a weekend without games and he is taking a short trip home. Various chirps get called out behind him, but Teeks seems to be the loudest one.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

And all hell breaks loose as they all start on chirping Travis about how he can do anything then. With a fond smile, Nolan heads for his car, where he has a pre- packed bag as well as his passport and a carryon.

He parks his car in the airport parking lot and he swears, there is something familiar about the truck beside his car. He shoves it to the back of his mind and starts crossing to the terminal. He’s late tho, and only half an hour to get on his flight, so as he anxiously stands in line for check in he pulls up his phone and sees a new text from Rory.

Hey, I’ll be gone for a couple of hours, text when I can:)

It was sent five minutes ago, and he groans a little at the fact that he has to wait faster, very bored. Finally he has checked in his bag and been cleared to enter the airport all the way to his flight.

In a half jog, half sprint he manages to make it just shy of ten minutes before the gate closes. He pulls his cap further down on his head and puts his ticket and passport on the desk. The hostess scowls at him but lets him enter the already boarded plane.

The smell of too many people and bad flight food smacks him in the face as he enters the plane with another nod to a different flight hostess.

34B seems too far away, but he bites his tongue and keeps walking. He looks at the bald man in 34C and the hooded figure in 34A. He swears, there is something familiar about this too but his mind is a little fuzzy and he can’t quite place it.

“Scuse me.”

He mumbles to the man and he politely moves so Nolan can find his seat. The girl in the seat next to the window turns and looks at him, and finally it seems that he has steady ground under his feet.

“Well, seems like I won’t text you in a couple of hours then.”

Rory smiles at him. And he smiles back.

“Nope you’re stuck with me for the next five and a half hours.”

He teases and plops down in his seat.

“What the fuck are you going to Winnipeg for though?”

Nolan asks as he fastens his seatbelt and ignores the security instructions completely.

“Oh I haven’t told you? My family lives there.”

He feels flabbergasted, how in the living hell has he forgotten to ask? He always assumed she was from Philly.

“Why are you going there anyway?”

Rory asks, but he sees the twinkle in her eyes, she’s just joking with him.

“I’m visiting my girlfriend.”

He decides to reply dead serious. And the twinkle in her eyes disappears, a frown begins to form between her eyebrows and he instantly feels a little bad.

“I’m- sorry, that was a really bad joke.”

This time it seems, it’s her turn to get embarrassed. Neither of them get time to think it over though, because the plane starts accelerating and her hand immediately lands on his. He sees her jaw tense and feels her hand tighten around his knuckles. Nolan doesn’t want to comment on it though, and just lets her hold on.

As they lift off the tarmac her hand slowly starts easing up and when they level out in the air, she seems to have realised that she’s holding his hand. Quickly she lets go, and Nolan already misses it.

“Sorry about that, I get a little nervous about the take off.”

She seems a little nervous to admit it, but he asks anyway.

“How come?”

“Oh, ever heard of the irresistible force paradox?”

He shakes his head no, and that launches her into an explanation of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It’s obvious she loves theories like this, with the way she talks and moves her hands.

“- which stems from both a chinese and a roman legend. The roman is about Zeus and how he fixed the Teumessian fox, who can never be caught, and the hound Laelaps who never misses what he hunts to the sky in constellations.”

She stops, and Nolan really wishes she wouldn’t. Her voice is so calming yet enchanting at the same time, he could listen and learn every day for forever.

“But wouldn’t that mean that the fox wins? because it never gets caught?”

He questiones.

“Exactly! I’ve been thinking about it for days now.”

And the plane ride goes on like that, until Rory has heard of most of the flyers and Nolan knows the name of almost all her professors. It’s closer to night time when she starts to slur her words, because of tiredness. She ends up with her head on his shoulder and his hair a little bit in her face. But the weight of his head leaning against hers is priceless.

Nolan wakes up a little bit before her and sees that they’re landing soon. So he shakes Rory awake with a promise of a date in the morning. Since they don’t live too far away from each other. And she agrees.

They step off the plane together, collect their luggage together, Nolan’s arm slung around Rory’s shoulder, and hug each other so long, before departing to their own separate families.

“Hey, see you tomorrow shy guy!”

She winks at him, rendering him speechless in front of his family. His sister glances at him with a questioning look as she watches the other girl walk away. Usually few people render Nolan at a loss for words.

#nolan patrick #nolan patrick imagine #nolan patrick fluff #nolan patrick fic #philadelphia flyers #flyers imagine #flyers fluff #flyers fic #flyers 19

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heliosthegriffin · 3 years

Text

A blade should be sharp at all times

Marrows up to the group, his tail wagging ecstatically behind him: You guys want to play a prank on Juan?

Ren and Nora’s eyes narrow, but they say nothing.

Flynt, Cobalt, Ivory, Neon, Yang and Elm all look at him with obvious interest.

Harriet snorts dismissively: Why would I want to bother the new meat? He’s got enough problems as it is.

Winter nods her head in agreement.

Marrow’s tail stops wagging, as he looks offended: Because it would be funny!

Harriet rolls her eyes and walks away.

Marrow: Fine, be that way!

He turns back to the more interested members of the room: So, what about you guys? Wanna hear it?

Ren says nothing and Nora motions for him to continue: Depends on what the prank is?

Yang nods along: Yeah, Xiao-Long as it’s nothing too mean to Milf-Magnet.

The rest of the room groans; while Yang absorbs the life-force they’ve lost to her pun.

Marrow smiles and continues: It’s nothing too out there, it’s just an old Atlas military tradition, to see how prepared a recruit is for field work.

Ren rubs his chin: I don’t know, Jaune and the rest of us have spent pretty of time in the field, he hardly ever leaves his armor, or his weapons besides when he cleans himself.

Marrows smile widens: That’s the idea!

Ren’s eyes widen in disbelief: You’re going to prank him in the showers?

Marrow doesn’t say a thing but his tail wags faster.

Ren groans and hold his face.

Nora though...

Her face splits into a manic grin as she starts cackling wildly, falling onto her back as she laughs so hard.

Ren shakes his head in leaves.

Marrow points his hand at Ren: STAY!

Ren freezes in place.

Marrow a little sheepishly: Uh, can’t have you spoiling the surpise, sorry.

Nora still keeps on laughing.

Ren’s pink eyes sparkle briefly, then a magenta pulse of aura breaks Marrows hold on him.

Marrows eyes widen in disbelief.

Ren rolls his neck and scowls at Marrow: Believe it or not, having strong aura control is just as important as a strong semblance.

Marrow falls to his knees, his tail desperately waving behind him: Please, please, don’t tell Joanna!

Ren shakes his head and leaves.

Nora: Don’t worry, he won’t say a thing or do anything, in fact, neither will I. Have fun kids.

Nora then follows Ren out.

The room goes silent.

Yang: Well, that’s ominous.

She then notices Winter is still in the room.

Yang: Why are you still here?

Winter huffs: To make sure you all don’t go too far with your ‘Prank’. I will observe and intervene should you all go to far.

Marrow cheers: Yay! Alright, everyone here is how it’ll work. Flynt, Ivory, and Cobalt, you three will being most of the legwork. Cobalt and Ivory, find Jaune and tell him he’s got special permission to use the Specialist private bathrooms, Flynt I want you to hide in the bathroom and use your semblance to make it seem like we’re under attack to scare him out.

Marrow takes a breath and turns to Neon, Yang and Elm: Here’s you girls is part, to really sell it I want you all to make sound noises and make it seem like you’re fighting, then when Joe runs out from the showers I’ll make his freeze, then you girls can throw cold water on him! He’ll be so embarrassed!

Ivory and Cobalt shrug, though Flynt, Neon and Yang seem a little put off.

Neon: I don’t know, seem a little mean spirited.

Flynt: Yeah, we’re not best friends and all, but I don’t want to embarrest the guy.

Yang scratches her chin: It doesn’t seem very, cool thing to do to a friend.

Elm though looked excited: Don’t worry! This is nothing, what’s a little nudity between comrades! If you’re out in the field and not prepared to fight at anytime, even naked, or if you get embarrassed by your comrades seeming you nude, you’re not cut out for being a Hunter. Hell, all of the Ace-Ops have done it. Even Winter!

The sound of a sword leaving it’s sheath rang out.

Winter says says menacingly. I made you promise to never speak of it again, all of you.

Elm: Oops.

Marrow waves them off: Whatever! Anyway this is just a rite of passage in Atlas, come on guys it’ll be a laugh.

The group thinks it over and eventually complies.

Marrow: Alright! Lets get this show on the road!

--------

Ivory and Cobalt escort Jaune through the halls.

Jaune: Wow, Gen. Ironwood really said I could use the Specialist Showers? That’s really kind of him!

Ivory nods and smiles: Gen. Ironwood always takes care of his own.

Cobalt taps Jaune’s shoulder and gives him a approving look.

Cobalt: Deserve it, hard training and self-improvement are their own reward. But, Top Brass notice.

Jaune’s cheek glow slightly, a slight smile forming: Thanks, It really hard sometime, you know, to be able to see that I’ve improved, heh, no matter how much I feel like i’ve grown, I still feel like a waste of space and a burden on my team.

The group comes to a stop, Ivory and Cobalt looking slightly uncomfortable now.

Jaune turns around flashing them a pleasant grin, “Well, thanks guys. I’ll make sure to tell the General thanks, and that I won’t disappoint his trust for giving me a chance to be Huntsman.

Ivory and Cobalt say nothing and nod.

Jaune then enters the private bathroom.

Cobalt and Ivory look at each other.

Ivory: Are we the baddies?

Cobolt: Yes, but better him, than us.

Ivory sighs and taps his wrist, a small ringing occurs.

Ivory: The target is in position.

-------

Jaune walks through the state of the art bathroom humming a pleasent tune, completely unaware of the watching eyes on him.

He goes into a stall and undresses, the prying eyes losing sight of him.

Jaune then leaves the stall a towel wrapped around his waist and goes the hi-tech showers, another towel bundled in his arms.

Flynt watches Jaune enter the shower stall and sighs deeply, he liked Jaune, he really did, a decent guy all-around. But, if it kept others from seeing’s Flynt’s birthmark for another day, he would do what must be done.

He used his semblance, dividing himself into four copies of himself and then took off running inbetween the stalls.

Flynt x4: We’re under attack!

As Flynt came to the end of the room, he was not prepared for what happened next.

--------

Neon and Yang sparred with Elm in the changing room, where Jaune would have to enter to get dressed, trying to create as authenity as possible combat sounds.

Elm grabbed Yangs right hook and swung her into Neon.

Elm smiles: Got to be quicker than that.

Yang and Neon got off of each other and squared up for round two.

Marrow whispered yelled at them: It’s time! Get into postion, I just heard Flynt.

The girls and Elm nodded picking up bucket of ice-water while Marrow got ready to freeze Jaune. With Marrow having to stop himself from cracking up at the thought of Jaun’s expression.

Yang looked slightly recluntant, but the idea of a good prank won out.

Winter sighed in the corner ready to stop the prank if it goes to far, and hopefully preserve some decency.

The wall to the showers exploded out towards them, a spray of dust and stone and metal sharpnel covering the room, as heavy wet foot steps ran towards them as bellowing war howl echoed out from the destroyed room.

A figure running through the cloud of dust glowing a faint golden white, carrying a mechashifted sword in two hands over his head, the blade glowing blue from the hardlight dust along with gravity dust purple in the middle.

Jaune then leaps out of the dust howling: Just try and take them from me again you bastards! I’ll split you in twain, I’ll break you over my knees and slay you! I won’t let you take them from me again!

The group stands dazed as Jaune runs straight through them and through a wall, completely naked, his towel being shredding into binding that tied his meaty tube of a cock to his lower-thigh, while holding his sword overhead before slashing in front of him creating a hole for him to jump out into the campus.

A blush creeps up the faces of those present.

Marrow burst out laughing: That was amazing! Did anyone, get a picture?

Elm falls to her knees: I think I’m in love?

Neon shake her head sadly: No, I was too... Mesmerized.

Yang: So that’s why he wears two belts.

Winter...

Winter has disappeered.

------

Later that evening....

Atlas Reporter: A well-known Huntsman known as Jaune Arc has gone on a murderous Grimm-Hunting rampage all while streaking! What will those crazy kids think of next! Next on the block, pregnancy rates in Mantle having been climbing by over 750% over the last six hours, is this related to the previous new? The Answer may surprise you.

Ren flicks the Scroll-Box closed.

He then rests his head on Nora’s shoulder.

Ren: Yep, it happened again.

Nora: We did nothign to stop it.

Ren: We could have warned them... But, better they learn first hand.

Nora: You did it because you thought it was funny, don’t you dare lie to me.

Ren smiles as he opens the scroll so that Nora can see, the Scroll showing a madly blushing Winter chasing after Jaune in a Bullhead, providing both aerial support, and firing t-shirt and boxer shorts at him, while he rampages through a horde of Grimm.

Ren smirking and pulling Nora close: You know me too well.

#Jaune Arc

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docholligay · 5 years

Text

Silverleaf 15--Hidden Futures

We’re getting down to the final entries in this story! Please thank Benjamin for sponsoring it! Yu can see all of Silverleaf here. This entry is a little over 2000 words.

Michiru looked through her little black book with a sense of intense disinterest.

This feeling was hardly new to her, as she had spent the greater part of her life with a unique and specific sense of boredom. Once she had discovered what it was that she was meant to be, and the line was laid out clearly for her, there was no need to have any sort of curiosity over the matter. She took violin and art classes and learned languages and English riding, pruned herself into every classic social grace and became an elegant hostess and clever conversationalist. She grew and she learned and she turned off the place in her mind that imagined there might be anything else.

When one is reared with the idea that nothing is beyond one’s reach, the specific idleness of the very rich sets in, something Michiru had long abhorred and found unavoidable. She was impossibly wealthy, terribly beautiful, and endlessly talented. The only fun that could be had was to see how far one could take all of that power.

And she had taken it masterfully far, until she had flown too close to the sun and slept with the wives of the Chinese ambassador, the head of Singapore Airlines, and the conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Though, not all at once, she was quick to correct otherwise. She was a lady, after all.

Her parents had pulled her home after that, still being woefully alive and thus in charge of her trust, no longer feeling secure with her being across the sea bearing their name.

And so, the boredom persisted.

But whatever shadowy darkness--and it was too interesting and dramatic to even call it darkness, when it was clearly more of a pale shade of flat and very fashionable grey--lay within her, that sad unlit room where she waited for something that might be release, she still had a sense of duty, and a sense of propriety.

Which led her to consider her options for the ball. Her dress would be lovely and couture, as it always was, though the ball hardly called for it, and it would be perfectly acceptable for her to wear something from an earlier occasion, or, in truly dire moments, something off the rack. But there was something to be said for being an example to these girls of what they could be, what they were expected to be in future. Silverleaf had long been the garden soil that grew the blooms of society. Michiru had been educated there herself.

She was a prize rose, decorated and celebrated, whatever she might have gotten up to a world away.

Her mind turned to Haruka, the same as one touches a burn to see if it still stings, and her foolishness in ever entertaining the idea that Haruka could be even a casual affair. Her hair could bounce and shine as she walked down the hall, and her bright ties might be charming, and her smile might radiate all the way to her eyes, but that did not make her an appropriate mate for Michiru.

She had learned nothing from the affair with the English teacher, it seemed. Wildflowers grew in bunches, daisies and dandelions and Queen Anne’s lace all tangled together, but roses like her grew in lines, one next to the other.

But while she was required to pay whatever sacrifice of fantasy her station demanded, she was not required to make a monk of herself. And so, the book. She would find in it a girl of great family and intelligence and breeding, and she would be dressed neatly in fine suiting, and Haruka would see then that her rejection of Michiru -- which had been a kindness to them both, really, for Michiru had been so very silly to ask her in the first place-- was more foolishness on Haruka’s part than anything else. That she could have had the golden key, but lacked the strength to hold it. That Michiru was a prize.

She opened the book, but the door to her secret garden would remain locked.

___

“Okay, so I might be wrong, but were you on the national track team? Back about seven years ago?”

“Oh my god,” Haruka put her head on the table, “It’s been seven years. How did it get to be seven years?”

Elsa laughed. “Sorry to say, but we’re all adults now. Hurdles, right? I even remember you from middle school, I dropped to regular distance running because no one had a hope in hell of catching you.” She laughed again, the first rolling into the second, her dark hair that seemed almost magenta in its red curling around her face.

“Yeah,” Haruka took a wing and snacked on it thoughtfully, “never did make it to the Olympics. Got hurt.”

Elsa seemed chided for a moment, and this made Haruka feel worse, her tragic backstory once more bringing down the general mood.

“Fucked it up pretty bad, huh?”

Haruka nodded.

“Well,” Elsa picked up another chicken wing, “Guess I should have stayed in hurdles,” she grinned at Haruka, “played the long game.”

Haruka let out a peal of deep and appreciative laughter. Elsa was fun. She was charming and calm and Haruka felt at ease around her, and if she was not quite Haruka’s type, all messy hair and polo shirt, it could be forgiven for the way her laugh came easy, and made Haruka’s come the same.

They both had crashed and burned in their former romantic lives, though Elsa so much sooner, and Haruka could tell it bothered her simply by the way she never spoke of it at all, the kind of girl who put on a cartoon bandaid and carried on. Haruka wished she were a bit more like that, that she did not take the world so much to heart, but she could only be herself. The experience of life had taught her enough about what it did to her to hold it in ike she used to, and so she managed to vent the steam of it all, but still, there we times she wished she were more like the sunny and slightly goofy girl next to her.

“Home run!” Elsa hooted and held up her hand for a high five.

Haruka had, in many ways, learned to adapt and to compromise. If there was no initial spark, why not see if she could make one? Wasn’t friendship the better beginning to love? She did want to be friends with Elsa, very much, and that could become something else.

Love at first sight only happened in stories.

“Hey Elsa,” she fiddled with the label of her beer bottle, “you doing anything two weeks from now?”

___

Hotaru Tomoe thought she’d used up her life’s worth of disasters, and then she went to high school.

She was very used to the idea that she would die, and what thinking about that felt like, but it was more of a surprise to her the feeling of desperately wishing she would die on the spot. It didn’t even have to be a medical emergency, a well-timed bus could give her all the peace she greatly longed for as she stood in front of the house where Cere lived, larger than Chibiusa’s and even more grand, a monument to whatever things her parents had done to get here, which Hotaru was sure were underhanded at best and maniacally evil at worst, if she trusted the things said about Cere.

“Oh, you...you worry too much.” Sakiko said, but she sounded as if she hardly believed herself, “I’m sure she’ll have us do some stupid chore for her or something to give us back the letter. We’ll feature her in the yearbook, she loves the look of her own face.”

Hotaru listened to Sakiko’s chuckle, even as the wind carried it away into the night, wishing it was closer at her side and not slipping away as if it had been hardly heard at all.

“I guess,” she shrugged, as if unsure of what else to say. She had her doubts that Cere would be so reasonable. She had her own ideas that Cere might also have feelings for Chibiusa. That would at least explain her need to torment Hotaru in a way that didn’t have to involve Hotaru’s ability to be bullied.

Interrupting them both, the door swung open, a young women in a neatly pressed outfit before them standing tall, with keen eyes and a natural bearing that suggested this amount of ceremony was in her blood.

“We’re, uh,” Hotaru suddenly forgot why she had come at all, for a moment, “We’re, we’re--” her brain caught the hook again and remembered why she’d come, “We’re here to see Cere!”

It came out too excited for the eggshell and black formality of the entrance behind the woman, and she looked at Hotaru curiously.

“It’s for school,” Sakiko quickly interrupted, “we have a piece of homework we have to get from her.”

“I’m sure she could email--”

“It’s for a diorama.”

Hotaru envied Sakiko’s ability to confidently lie to adults, though she reminded herself that they were fifteen, and this should be normal. They were supposed to be stealing lip gloss and getting into scrapes and it was only Hotaru who was awkward and outside of the world instead of living in it.

The woman stepped to the side neatly and ushered them inside, and yet she had such an air of authority that Hotaru could hardly stop watching her as she removed her shoes, slipping her feet into one of the pairs of slippers that stood at the door in vast array. She took their coats and nodded to them, offering up an understood command that they were meant to follow.

Cere’s house not only looked rich but it had the smell of wealth, as well, that unique quality that is somewhere between aspirational and suffocating, the call of a siren and all the same promise of drowning.

She knocked at the door to a large bedroom where Cere sat on her phone, ankles crossed one over the other on the bed, her back straight against the pillows, and for a moment she very much reminded Hotaru of Ms. Kaioh. She waved away her the woman who greeted them and set down her phone, smiling.

The door clicked behind her, and Cere leaned forward.

“What can I do for the two of you?”

Hotaru toyed with the end of her sweater, unable to look Cere in the eye and all the more angry at herself for that fact.

“I’d like my letter back.”

It was a small mew of a request, barely audible on the air.

But Cere heard it, and Cere simply flipped her and shook her head. “I have no idea what you could be talking about.”

“Oh come on!” Sakiko popped, years of being in the same grade and school as Cere finally coming to a head, “Hotaru never did anything to you, Cere.”

But Cere did not react, simply grabbed a brush from the edge of her nighttable and began to brush her hair.

“What sort of a letter was it?”

Hotaru’s blush bloomed on the pale of her skin. Don’t make me say it. Please.

Hotaru did not know Cere, not really, and as she looked at her, she saw a strange look in her eye, something that she would not understand until many years later, long after Cere had matured and apologized for the whole affair, long after Cere had moved to more adult manipulations.

This was fun for her.

“I--it was personal.”

Sakiko looked at her, with a mix of pity and confusion. Hotaru was a bird caught in a net, and there was little either of them could do now. What was she meant to do? To tell Cere it was about Chibiusa, to hear her laugh over those secret and awkward pinings?

Cere nodded. “Well, I’ll be certain to let you know if I come across it.”

Hotaru looked out the window, where the great grey clouds had come and stolen any of the light of the night, and felt an overwhelming sense of despair.

The weakness of human beings is that we sometimes see only what is in front of us. The gate of the walled garden, the darkness of the night, or not yet realizing you are only at the middle of your story. We accept what is nw, not knowing that walls often crumble, the wind blows the clouds, and all stories come to their ends.

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mouser26 · 3 years

Text

An oldie but a goodie

So in light of realizing I really don’t have a lot of Mags stories on here I decided to go dig through my old DA account and see if anything survived since I wasn’t the best at cross posting from Y!...and now I feel old cause Y! went down in 2016 and now is back apparently....so yeah ANYWAYS!!!! Enjoy a gently edited (oh god this was posted how long with those errors?!) first time I and Foxy ever collabed from Nov 2008 aka the First time Mags and Cassius met The Barcrawl ( and to any new readers.....yeah Cassius just talks like that

Cassius hated Canadian pubs. They insisted on calling them bars, and they never had the right food. How was a guy supposed to enjoy his beer without a proper accompaniment? And why had the yellow insisted on meeting here?

“Oy! You in the purple!” a strident woman’s voice rang out. “Your people tried to blow up my brother!”

“Dat’s righ’,” Cassius rumbled, sipping his beer, “but not me pers’nally. I doan do good wit splosives.”

“Well, I don’t see anyone else here,” she retorted. “Maybe I ought to take a down payment in lumps out of you!”

“I warns yer, lady,” Cassius growled. “I’s tougher dan I looks.”

“You don’t look so tough to me!” Magenta challenged.

“Wow, mouffy AN’ blind,” Cassius rumbled. “You got it bad, sister.”

Magenta’s face grew rosy to where it matched her hat and vest. Without another word, she picked up an unoccupied barstool and brought it down on Cassius’s head.

Cassius didn’t flinch; he took his beer bottle and smashed Magenta across the face, sending her soaring towards the leisure section of the bar.

She landed in the midst of a game of eight ball, and, cursing, picked up the cue stick underneath her. She stood up in the middle of the table and kicked the three and the fifteen balls at Cassius’s chest. With one fluid move, she jumped from the billiard table to the bar and pivoted, breaking the cue across Cassius’s face.

Cassius picked himself up off of the floor. Seeing Magenta aim a kick at his face, he seized the leg she was standing on and hurled her bodily into the plate glass window at the bar’s façade.

He grabbed another bottle and waited; she’d be back. One of the patrons with more alcohol than brains approached Cassius, who was picking shards of glass out of his knuckles.

“How dare you hit that lady!” He accused. “That’s not very nice at all.”

“Neither is she,” Cassius growled, “an she hit ferst. I jes hit ‘er back.”

He saw Magenta coming, and he braced for the impact. Outside, she’d landed next to a ‘Valet Parking’ sign for the restaurant next door, and she brought it with her. It caught him squarely in the side, breaking three ribs.

He grunted, and snapped the sign in half.

The patron turned to Magenta who said, “Don’t interfere!” and punched him.

Cassius grabbed the patron’s leg, Magenta grabbed his arm, and together they threw him bodily over the bar. He took out the shelf of high-end liquor and the mirror, and lay groaning behind the bar. Most of the patrons had fled; the bartender was nowhere to be seen.

“What a waste,” Cassius mumbled. “Lookit all dat good booze fallin’ on der floor.”

Magenta straightened her neck with an audible crack. “Not bad, Twinkle-toes. You ARE tougher than you look!”

“An’ yer no sloch eider,” Cassius conceded, drinking rum from a bottle with the top broken off. He offered her the bottle, and she took a long drink.

Idly, Cassius took a long splinter out from her violet hair. “Dat woulda hurt when you put yer hat back on.”

Cassius dusted the glass shards off of his purple vest. “Okay, yer smashed der stool on me head, n' I walloped yer wit der beer bottle, den you broke der poolcue 'cros m' teef, n' I sent you troo der window,” he counted out on his fingers. “Split der damage downna middle?"

“You forgot the cracked ribs, the pool table, and the guy we both sent into the bar display,” she corrected, “Otherwise it all sounds fair.”

Cassius nodded and took out his wallet. He counted several large bills and placed them under the bar counter, weighing them down with the bartender’s shotgun. “He wuz askin' fer it, callin yer a lady 'n sayin I ourtn't smack yer,”

“An’ doan worry 'bout der ribs. I've broke dese tings more times'n I cn count. He should have ter pay fer der mirror doh, on accoun' o' his head doin' der breakin'." Cassius spat out a gob of blood. “Can’ stann innerlopers.”

Magenta snorted. “I smacked you first, you were fair ta shmack me back.” She felt her mouth, where her lower lip was already starting to match her hair. “Shon ova bish! I'm shwelling!” She clapped Cassius on the back. “Good job! Thas shom right hook ya got there.”

“I’d box, but der’s no one big enough to fight,” Cassius said, apologetically. “I'd buy yer a roun', but der bar appears to be desert'd. I know 'n all night biker bar. No place fer a lady, but yer orter be okay. I wanna see 'f yer cn drink's well as yer fight. Say, do yer like karaoke?”

“Did weh not jusht a'tablish I aint no god damn lady?” Magenta demanded. “And fer crooning a tune even if i did like it the lishener ushlly don't. LESH GO! Wait a minute, thish biker bar doesh karaoke?”

“Not yet,” Cassius rumbled. “But dey will.”

*~*~*

Hours and many many MANY drinks later Cassius and Magenta staggered tipsily down the street. “I can' bleev dat guy hekkled us berfore we got troo der first vers,” Cassius growled. “Good ting I hit him inna head wif dat hurled bottle.”

Magenta glared at him. “YOU hit him with a thrown bottle? I beg to differ. I threw that bottle, shir.”

“I hit ‘im inna head,” Cassius corrected. “YOU hit ‘im inna crosh.”

“Good point,” Magenta conceded. “ But I WARNED you I don't shing! And can you believe that whore that shaid my hair was shtupid? I mean what the fuck! She had a fucking hole in her ear the shize of a 28 gauge shell with a fucking ANKER in her lip! I have violet hair an I'm weird?!”

Cassius smirked. “I like yer hair. Mash's m' suit. An, I don' sing eider, but we got's der harm'ny down pat. Don' worry 'bout dat chick. When she wakes up wid der stishes inner forhed she'll know who's shtupid lookin'.”

Magenta howled with laugher. “DAMN SHTRAIGHT! By the by thanksh for docking her boy toy. Elsh I wouldn't have been able to shlash her sho good.”

Cassius shrugged. “Is no problem. Yer good wit dat swishblade!”

Magenta smiled. “Shtill, you are a-shom.” She tried to pat Cassius on the back, but missed the mark by a few feet.

Cassius grinned an evil smile. “He made it easy. Whenever I sees a guy wif nipple clamps anna chain froo 'em, I finks 'Dat's jes beggin t' be yanked.' I din' know he hadda Prince Albert hooked to it too, but dat's his prerorg...perogga..”

“Prerogative?” Magenta supplied

“Dat’s der bunny!” Cassius agreed.

Mags giggled. “Bunny...Shtupid fashin shatement sho was ashkin' for it! Even I don't shcream that fucking girly.”

“Der’s lotsa ways a guy cn look tough,” Cassius rumbled thoughtfully. “Dat’s gotta be one o’ der dumbest I seen, an’ dat’s sayin’ sumtin’.”

“You know,” she mused. “For a Purple, you’re not half bad.”

“An’ you’re pretty decent fer a Red girl, too,” Cassius said.

Magenta bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean? Just because I’m a girl means I can’t pull my weight? Or do you have something against Reds?”

“Nuttin’ gainst eider,” Cassius amended. “I jes tink I’m bedder at some a’ dis dan you.”

“Put your money where your mouth ish,” Mags retorted. “I’ve got a hundred bucksh that says I can do anything you can.”

“Alrigh’,” Cassius said, smirking. “Der blacks ‘ave a buildin’ roun’ here, righ’?”

“They do,” Magenta agreed, slowly. “It’s an office they ush when they’re trying to get at the White HQ, which is kinda all the time anymore.”

“Righ’,” Cassius said. He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “We gots a wager. Whoever gess der potted plant outta Black’s office is der better spy. Yer caught, ya lose. Deal?” He held out his enormous hand.

“Deal!” Mags agreed, shaking his hand.

“In der innerests of fairness,” Cassius rumbled, “We go dere inna same cab.”

“One question: what happensh if we Both get caught?”

“Den we bofe lose,” Cassius replied. “An’ we’re ebenly mashed as Spies. We calls it a draw.”

*~*~*

Rusty raised an eyebrow as he looked at the unknown number flashing on his phone. It was a sealed number though so it has to be someone familiar he reasoned as he answered, "Resident robo speaking."

“Rusty?” Mags asked. “It’s me. I need a pick-up at…WHAT PRECINCT IS THIS?...precinct 18, downtown… wait, WHICH DOWNTOWN? ….I’M FROM GATINEAU THAT’S WHY!…Ottawa. Can you bring bail money for…I see ten, but only four of them are ours.”

“Remin’ me,” Cassius groaned, “How did we end up here?”

“Well after we caught you two bickering over the theft of a potted plant,” Seventy-two started, “Brother and I convinced you two that dancing would be as much fun as Karaoke. So, we went downtown to the hippest club and somehow managed to get in.”

“I think the big guy bribed the bouncer,” Twenty-seven mused. “But regardless of how, we got in. The hottest dance crew in town was on the floor, they danced in front of us,”

“We got challenged,” Seventy-two continued. “I told the big guy and the woman. They looked at each other,”

“And together, they punched out the front man,” finished Twenty-seven. “Then, they proceeded to mop the floor with the rest of the crew.”

“Hey,” Mags retorted, “if they didn’t want to get beat up, they shouldn’t have thrown down in the first place. Besides it was a fair fight: two of us, eight of them.”

“That was bad enough,” Seventy-two said, “but did you two have to take on the whole SWAT team?”

“Dey said her hair was funny,” Cassius mumbled. “I had to knock dose tree out, odderwise we’d be in for longer. Smackin’ a cop is a shorter sen’ance dan rippin’ ‘is goolies off via his nosdril.”

“I would have done nothing of the sort,” sniffed Magenta.

“Then why did you threaten to do just that?” Seventy-two countered. “Every man in the club winced in sympathy pain.”

“Sides, der cops asked us nicely to come along,” Cassius said. “If dey’s willin’ to be polite abou’ it, I figger we might as well come ‘long peaceably.”

“They hit you with three tear gas grenades and tazered you at least six times,” protested Twenty-seven. “That’s what you call polite?”

“Dey dint use der guns or battans,” Cassius said. “Dose tazers were nice; dey tickled. Once Rusty gets ‘ere, I tink I need breakfast. Who wants homme, ommer..”

“Omelets?” Magenta suggested

“Dat’s der bunny!” Cassius agreed.

“I don’t know where you’ll put them,” Mags said. “Over the course of the night, you drank eight beers, fourteen assorted shots, a bottle of rum and a coke, and a centerpiece bud vase with a rose in it.”

“Tought dat one tasted a bit torny,” Cassius rumbled. “An’ yer one ter talk. You matched me on alla dat.”

“Couldn’t have you show me up, could I!” she countered. “And you’re right, it DID taste thorny!”

“MAGS!” Rusty finally yelled, interupting the four-way recounting of what sounded like a wild night.

He could picture Magenta staring at the receiver in her hand a moment before remembering who was on the line, “Hey Rusty.”

"... You do know I record all my calls, right?"

"...Fuck."

Rusty managed to hold in a chuckle, “Do we need an armored car or can I just pick you up?"

"Uh... I got two blacks and a purple...what do you think?

"... Fuck, I'm just going to get the nice company car to do this kind of crap. Google maps says I'll be there in about Forty-five minutes. Are you armed? Wait, don't answer that. ... WHAT are you armed with?"

"I left my babies at home. I HAD A SWITCHBLADE BUT THEY TOOK IT!"

“Actually you lost it when that one dancer kicked your hand,” Twenty-seven chirped.

“And his girlfriend tried to bite your ear off,” Seventy-two added

“Oh yeah…”

“Probably for the best...” Rusty muttered quietly. "Well, I'll get your spare from your desk as a security blanket of death. How's that? Anything else I should know about? What are the sobriety levels?"

"Hang on let me check… How sober are you bitches?!"

"Hung-over and hungry!”

“Dat depends,” Cassius mumbled. “Did I jes step on m’own fingers?”

“No sir,” an unknown voice, Rust assumed another prisoner cried. “You’re standing on mine.”

“Den nuttin’ a Bloody Mary woan fix,” Cassius said. “Or are yer a scewdriver woman?”

“I’m a Sonic Screwdriver woman, thanks to my darling partner. Electrolytes over acid. There’s your answer,” she said into the phone.

"... I'll have Laurie call me en route to see what's open. On my way."

“Thanks Rusty!”

“Den les’ get outta here,” Cassius picked up the groaning twins by the back of their belts. “I got der lightweights. C’n you get der door?”

“Yep. Hey Rust, we’ll be outside. Trust me, you can’t miss us.” She hung up the jail cell’s pay phone.

“Let’s go”

“Damn!” Cassius smacked his forehead with the heel of his right hand, eliciting a groan from twenty-seven.

“What’s wrong?” Magenta asked, picking the jail cell lock.

“I wuz gonna meet a Yellow at der bar we net at.”

“Really?” Magenta looked up from the lock. “I was supposed to meet a Yellow there too. Think the bastard set us up?”

“Hell of a coinkydink,” Cassius growled, shifting his hold so he had the twins under each arm safe and sound.

“Next time I’m thank the bitch before I shoot him,” Mags soothed as she finally devoted her attention to the lock, earning a laugh from the purple agent.

#Agent Magenta #Mags #My writing #old writing #Agent Cassius

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liloelsagranger · 7 years

Text

New Rocketshipping-oneshot (still SFW - I hope)

Hello my friends :) Excuse my absence for such a long time. Things have been busy, plus I was on holidays and not really active. Anyways, I wrote a new oneshot and let me tell you this: It cost me so much overcoming to write this. As some of you may now, I do have problems with NSFW-fanfictions and oneshots, because on the one hand I’m a true Rocketshipper and I believe that Jessie and James belong together, but on the other hand, I don’t want to read that they’re doing IT. So, while writing this oneshot, I felt strange and insecure, because I wasn’t sure if it’s too much for my standards. My diligent readers know that I like to write innocent stories, kissing and making out is okay, but NOT more. This time, there are some hints that might make you wonder. I hope you won’t hate me for this and are still able to enjoy “Despacito”. Attention: Since English is not my mothertongue you might find some spelling mistakes or syntax errors. I apologize in advance. My mothertongue is Swiss-German so I normally imagine a sentence in German and try to translate it as well as possible into English, sometimes there is a lack of vocabulary or I don't find a match or the appropriate idiom but I want to improve my English and become a better writer. Another thing I want to make clear is that I use „..." to introduce direct speech! „ are not commas but the German quotation marks, just to avoid confusion. Note from the author: During my holidays in Italy, I gathered a lot of impressions that led to this oneshot. One of my hobbies, you may also call it a tic, is to observe people of all ages, enjoying their days off, happy-go-lucky, no worries, no sorrows. My boyfriend and I used to play a game called „Truth or truth“, because adding the dare-factor would have been too complicated to ply in public. We had so much fun learning about secrets of the other person, but also about wishes, dreams and plans for the future. The title of this oneshot „Despacito“ is a tribute to this Latin-American song that was played in each and every single bar, at the mall and at the beach. It’s been long ago since I last published something. This story demands much will-power, I wanted to write something that evokes certain emotions but at the same time I wanted to feel comfortable when committing my ideas to paper. Have fun. Despacito It was the time of the year, when Team Rocket was allowed to take a few days off from work. The laborious and vain hunt for Pikachu could wait. Meowth had informed his team mates long ago, that he would turn back to his former pack and try to pour oil on troubled water. Jessie and James had agreed and decided to take the next flight to a destination far away from their usual whereabouts: Italy. Back at their base, the lavender-haired man rummaged around the attic where they used to store battered suitcases and carpetbags. It didn’t take the agents long to pack in their belongings, some very small summer dresses for Jessie and a couple of shorts with a palm print for her best friend and travel companion. They booked two tickets to the east coast of the boot, a tiny, but inviting hotel and made sure that it provided meals on a full-board basis, since they wanted to fill their bellies and gorge on opulent meals and creamy desserts. Only two days later, Jessie and James arrived in Rimini. It was a typical tourist city. People from all over the world snatched their deckchairs and parasols, trying to get a nice suntan. Their room was rather small and needily equipped. There was a double bed with dark brown pillows and an orange coverlet, fitting curtains and a tiny bureau with only one chair. Jessie entered the bathroom. „James, we don’t have a shower,“ she exclaimed, starting to feel uneasy. How would she be able to spend a few days in a minute bedroom without the possibility to wash off the tickling and itching sand? Her friend joined her and examined the wet cell. „Well, there it is,“ he pointed at a shower head. „It seems that the water drains directly off the floor,“ he explained. Jessie sighed with relief. She didn’t want her immaculate skin to suffer. James unpacked his shirts and pants, satisfied to get himself out of uniform for the upcoming week. The magenta-haired woman slipped into a light blue sundress, applied some lipstick and mascara and was ready to have a feast. They walked downstairs, meeting other guests on their way to the dining room. Each of them greeted them welcomingly, but Jessie noticed the inquisitive looks in their eyes. ‚Do they assume that James and I are a couple?’ she asked herself while fetching a salad bowl. She took a peek at her team mate. He was fully concentrated on the wide range of vegetables presented on silver trays. The owners of the hotel, a young man and his aunt, were hurrying from one table to the other, busy reading every wish from their sojourners lips. Some people had allergic reactions to certain food ingredients, so they always needed a further ace up their sleeves in order to provide the guests with tidbits. Jessie piled up eggplants, carrots and tomatoes, snatching the salad tongs from under an elderly man’s nose. She had to admit that she was starving. Being a Team Rocket-member meant to live in poverty. Sometimes, she, James and Meowth had to share one single cookie. They always endeavoured to share it equally, but conflicts couldn’t be precluded. James called her to their assigned table. „It’s nice here, isn’t it?“ he said, observing Giovanna who approached them with an oversized dish filled with Pastina. „Oh, my little darlings. Look at you, nothing but skin and bones,“ she tweaked James’ arm. He blushed sheepishly. „We’ll feed you up, don’t worry,“ Giovanna poured hot broth into their soup plates. Jessie and James thanked her and began to spoon out the peas and noodles. They were slurping and smacking without regard to others. Some of the guests turned around, shaking their heads and not showing any understanding for Jessie’s and James’ table manners. The second course consisted of a pork cutlet alla Valdostana. Team Rocket’s eyes radiated stronger than the sun. It made their mouths water. „Delicious,“ Jessie munched. „I’m going to move to Italy and pursue a career as holiday entertainer, spending the rest of my life gormandizing in style,“ she laughed. James was glad to see his partner smile. After a couple of forfeited showcase performances, Jessie seemed to have lost her motivation and steadfast self-confidence. He wanted her to forget about the loss and provide an opportunity for different thoughts. The dessert was not long in coming. The cooks had surpassed themselves. Giovanna and Francesco served their guests chocolate pudding with Amaretto-crumbles on it. The pudding was literarily melting on their tongues. Jessie scraped the remains off her small plate, licking the teaspoon. James picked up the crumbles from the tablecloth, he had never eaten something more scrumptious before. „Meowth would definitely love it here,“ he supposed. „That sweet tooth wouldn’t get enough of these delicacies, he’s such a glutton!“ Jessie wiped off the chocolate from the rims of her mouth. „Would you like to take a walk?“ James asked her. She nodded and they stood up, greeting their neighbours, before leaving the dining room direction shopping street. „Are you going to watch the spectacular fireworks? You’re adorable,“ Giovanna shouted from behind the counter. Jessie looked at James. Both felt a little bit overstrained with the owners cordiality and care. Never had the Team Rocket-agents experienced such benevolence before. Giovanna and Francesco saw about their customers with great welfare, making them feel sheltered and in good hands. Jessie and James made a turn to the left. James was visibly nervous. Could these few days off finally lead him to a long-awaited desire? He couldn’t tell Jessie the truth. How would she react? Would she rebuff him or did she feel the same? Meowth wasn’t here to interrupt him a second time. James tried to focus on the countless minimarkets, gelaterias and bars. They squeezed themselves through a crowd of people until they spotted a cafe bathed in cool purple colors. They sat down on two seat cushions asking the waitress for the drinks menu. „Ugh!“ Jessie had a disgusted expression on her face. „What’s wrong, Jess?“ James asked, observing the waitress how she tried to clean the filthy toilet with her bare hands. „The list of beverages is sticky as if someone had spilled his drink on it,“ she dropped the card and stood up. „Come’on, that was a huge mistake. Let’s find a better place to get wasted,“ she took James by the hand and they tiptoed out of the bar, Jessie pursing candies into her small bag, some kind of reparation. Her friend followed her silently, pleasantly surprised by her gesture. They walked straightaway until they reached another bar called „The Pirate’s eye patch“. It was a rather dark place with a few tables and chairs along the street. The waitress yawned widely, obviously tired and exhausted after a never-ending working day. She approached Jessie and James, presenting them with a new and unused drinks menu. „I’ll go for a Mojito. What would you fancy?“ James wondered, wistfully watching his team mate. „Sex on the beach“, Jessie replied. James jumped up. „Okay, let’s go“, he kidded.

Her jaw dropped. „James!“ she nudged him with her elbow. „What’s going on with you?“ I haven’t seen you so serene and happy-go-lucky in months,“ luckily he couldn’t see her blushing to the roots of her hair. James chuckled and sat back down. „I was just joking, Jess Jess“, he caressed her thigh. „Take things easy. I think it’s just the weather, the sea and the fact that we don’t need to care about Ash and his yellow rat for a change. It’s the two of us, relaxing, sunbathing and glutting ourselves till the doctor comes,“ he answered. Jessie cocked an eyebrow. James used to be the restrained and fearful pathetic guy who enjoyed nothing more than spending time with his beloved Pokémon and who was afraid of committing himself to a relationship or even think about it. Even if it was just a joke, an insignificance, it made her wonder. Was he hiding something? Did he feel the same? She let the matter rest. The waitress took their order and disappeared behind the counter, urging the barista to prepare the drinks. James slumped into his chair, finally realizing that he didn’t need to work on a new mecha, nor fearing a phone call from their boss. The drinks were served and the agents clinked glasses. „To us, to an unforgettable holiday,“ he winked at Jessie. They took a sip of their cocktails, puffed and blew. „It’s so strong,“ Jessie had tears in her eyes. „Hey, you wanted to get wasted, right?“, James took another sip of his Mojito, fishing out a slice of lime and sucking it. The sourness made his hair stood on end. „Let’s play truth or dare,“ Jessie suggested, slowly but surely feeling the alcohol. „Oh no, please give me a break!“ James yammered, he was crushing ice with a straw. „Okay, then let’s play truth or truth,“ she said, hoping that he would join in. „For all I care.“ „Here are the rules: You’re only allowed to ask one question at a time. You’re not allowed to answer your own question and the questions have to be terribly personal. Don’t ask me about my favourite ice cream flavours. No one cares about it. Get it?“ „Got it!“ „Good. Question number one,“ Jessie turned the chair to her friend. „Which Pokémon that accompanied us on our journeys did you like the most? Choose,“ she asked him. „That’s unfair. You know exactly that I love all my little babies and that they’re of great importance to me. Think about Koffing and his sad eyes, or Chimecho that I had to leave at my grandaparent’s home, or Mime Jr., man that’s hard,“ Jessie noticed how James struggled with this question and she already knew the answer. He would never favour one of his Pokémon, they were his children. „I can’t decide, Jess. Love them all,“ he admitted. „Well, that’s really going to be fun playing truth or truth with you,“ she took another sip of her drink, watching a group of young men walking past their table. They were muscly and well-conditioned, giving her the eye. James harrumphed loudly. „Jessie, if you have had the opportunity to become a nurse, would you be happier by now?“ She briefly considered that thought. „No,“ she answered. „Why not?“ he wanted to know. „Because I would have never met you and Meowth. Although we like to go for each other’s throat from time to time, I’d miss you guys. We’re family, right?“ she gazed into his emerald-green eyes and smiled. „To the best trio,“ they clinked their glasses one more time, their foreheads touching. James was so close to her ruby lips. He could feel her breath on his face. He wanted to do it, but backed down. After a moment of silence, Jessie pulled away. „Next question. Would you ever turn back to Jessiebelle?“ she asked. James who was taking a big sip from his Mojito, chocked and blanched. „Never,“ he yelled.

„Not even for a large sum of money that would release us from our debts?“ she wondered.

„No, Jess, no!“ he was close to tears. „She’s a maniac! If I were so stupid to turn back and accept the marriage, she would probably torture me to the bones, like she used to do it when we were teenagers,“ his voice cracked. Thinking back to his ruined childhood made him shiver. He wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible. „I’m going to ask you: is there a person in your life that you would like to kiss?“ he inquired. Jessie nodded. „Yes, there is,“ she had a mischievous grin on her face and giggled. James loosened his collar, he felt tipsy. Jessie tied up her long hair. „James, have you gained experiences with women yet?“ she asked, clearly strucking a nerve. He hung his head in shame, remembering the time he dated Jessiebelle. „Yes, I have,“ he admitted whispering, not proud to call that southern battleaxe his ex-girlfriend. „How was it?“ Jessie dug deeper. „Unfortunately, terrible. I would like to forget about that relationship and move on“, he confessed. „Do you think you could ever fall in love again?“ she wondered. James looked at her. „Hey, only one question at a time. Your rules,“ he tried to make the atmosphere more relaxed. „Please, tell me, because I always thought that you were...“ what seemed an irrelevant question turned into deadly seriousness. He had to distract his team mate, the questions were way to personal for his taste. Even drunk and hardly able to conceive a thought, James had an uncomfortable feeling when talking about relationships and love. „It’s half past ten. Shall we go to the beach and watch the fireworks?“ he proposed.

„Sure. Shall we just stand up and take off or do you want to pay the drinks?“ Jessie was already leaving the bar. James picked out some coins from his shorts and laid them on the table. He stumbled upon the curb and Jessie had to catch him in her arms.

„Watch out, James,“ a car sped past them. He looked at her with a dreamy expression, tired and completely out of sorts. „You saved my life, blue-eye“, they were still standing in this tight embrace, until Jessie shoved him away in a playful manner. Sure, it was a romantic mood, they had both drunk enough to forget complying with formalities, but was she really ready to take the next step? Jessie tended to be reserved and cautious. Men had often disappointed her and had dropped her like a hot potato. It was difficult for her to trust anybody and even though James was her eternal partner and best friend, she wasn’t sure if this holiday could turn into a hot summer-romance. They walked down to the beach and took a seat on a deckchair. James laid his arm around her shoulder and pulled Jessie towards him. She leaned back into his chest, reaching out for his hand. It felt so unreal, they had undergone untold adventures, faced dangers and had to make sacrifices, but this was new. Jessie felt safe in his warm embrace. Both looked up to the sky where the firecrackers exploded, covering the beach in gold and silver colors. The people applauded and clapped their hands. It was wonderful, it was calm, it was far away from trouble. Jessie turned around to face her team mate. „That’s what I needed,“ she spoke under her breath. James kept silent, he was simply staring into her sapphire-blue eyes. They drew closer to each other, James’ pulse raced. He cupped her face, leaned in and kissed her long and intensively. Jessie, who was taken by surprise, let it happen. She relished the moment, feeling his soft lips on hers. He was a gifted kisser. Their lips parted. „Yes, I think I could fall in love again,“ James said, tenderly stroking her face. She looked down embarrassedly. He lifted her chin, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. „And I thought you were...“, Jessie held her peace. „What?“ he asked. „Not interested at all,“ she admitted. James laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist. „I’ve been waiting so long for this moment,“ he crushed his lips on hers, kissing her passionately. She returned the gesture, tilting her head slightly to the right. „Let’s go back to our hotel,“ Jessie stood up and grasped at his hand. They walked back to the busy street where people were still shopping for souvenirs and postcards. Jessie and James squeezed once more through the mob, turning off to the right into an unlit byroad. She wrapped her arms around his neck. He pushed her against a wall, pressing his body against hers. They couldn’t stop kissing. Finally, after so many years, they had dared to open up. „Blame it on the Mojito, Jess, but urgh, you’re so hot,“ James kissed her neck. Jessie had never expected James to say something like that. He had called her hot. He liked her and he liked her body. She was a queen – his queen. James fetched the keys of their room, saluted the night watchman before disappearing into the elevator, where he and Jessie continued their make-out-session, ending up in a fervent French Kissing. They could hear the bell ring, the doors opened with a ‚plop’ and the Team Rocket-members stumbled into their bedroom. James threw his travel bag from the bed, Jessie locked the doors behind her. „Why did it take us so long, James?“ She began to unbutton his chemise, took it off and dropped it on the floor. James closed his eyes to heighten the intimacy. They tried getting a little more adventurous when suddenly, they could hear a rustling next to them. Jessie switched on the lights to see what was causing this disturbance and to their surprise they spotted Meowth sitting on the bureau-chair, observing his team-mates with the widest grin on his face. „Ha! I knew it! Told ya that yous are acting love-love all da time“ he said, smiling roguishly. I’m planning two new fanfictions: “Maria’s Butler II: Saving Al Capell’“ and “Broken Halos” (based on the episode “We’re no angels”)

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asseret-sarim · 7 years

Text

You can leave now.

Requested by @melconnor2007

Summary: You and Bucky have been dating for a few months. But when the Russian spy Natasha Romanoff comes into the picture, everything changes. She is ready to do anything, anything, to get him. You’ve been warned: she is not scared of playing dirty.

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Y/N: Your name

Warnings: Angst… But lots of fluff, fluff for everyone!!! There may be some cursing…

Word count: 2,616

About the SHIELD Archives: When we carried out some research about James Buchanan Barnes, we found out he was the Casanova of Brooking. We submit some of his adventures. Security Level: Classified.

A/N: I’m taking a break from “The Past, the present… The future” to write this request. I was in serious need of writing some fluff! But don’t worry, the next chapter from the series will be up soon. Enjoy reading!

“Do we really have to go?”

“The answer remains the same it has been for the last hundred times you’ve asked me”

I put my best puppy face “Please?”

“Ughh… No, don’t do that. Don’t do that. We have to go.” Bucky turns around to face the window but I go around him.

“Please?”

He clearly intends to say “No” again, but he makes the mistake of looking inside my eyes. In a second, he is out of combat, looking at me with a heartbroken expression. I intensify my puppy look. “We could stay here and have some fun” I whisper, stepping closer to him. He is still too mesmerize to answer. “Please. I’m begging you.”

He leans closer, his gaze never leaving mine…

Buzzzz… Buzzz

I curse internally at whoever had the great idea of calling him at this exact moment. He still holds my gaze for a few seconds, indecisive. But the phone call has broken the atmosphere.

Bucky leans in towards me “Go get changed, Doll. We will have as much fun as you want when we get back” He whispers, dangerously close to my ear. A shiver runs down my spine and I leave the room before I melt in the very center of the carpet.

I take a cold shower as slowly as I can possibly withstand. Maybe we don’t have to go if it gets really late. I usually love to hang out with the Avengers, but today is different. Today we are celebrating that Natasha Romanoff has comed back from a six-month mission in Russia. I’m really happy she is back and alive, I only have one thing against her: I’ve heard too many rumors about Bucky and her. And I don’t want to test if they are true.

“Doll, you OK there?” Bucky asks from the other side of the door “You’ve been in there forever. We are going to be late and I know that’s exactly what you want”

“Then why do you ask?” I reply him “I still have a lot left”

“Y/N. If you don’t get out of the shower this exact moment I’m going in and dragging you out myself” He threatens.

“You wouldn’t dare.” I put the shower temperature a bit lower.

“I think I would” and I hear the sound of the lock giving up under pressure…

“OK, fine! I’ll hurry up! Stop whatever you’re doing!”

His cristal laugh fills the corridor. “Shame. Ok, be fast”

My dress is waiting for me when I turn the water off. It’s magenta, hugging my body down to my knees and then falling delicately, like a waterfall, to the ground. It hangs from my left shoulder and the back is made with translucent fabric. But the most beautiful part are the silver needlework emulating flowers that starts in my left shoulder and wraps around my back and my right hip, fall down to the ground. I add golden earrings, that are thin chains that fall down to my neck, and a simple bracelet matching them. I let my hair fall freely and do some quick makeup, before meeting Bucky in the living room.

He is looking out the window-wall, astonishing in his perfectly cut suit. The image is beyond words. When he turns around I feel a like insecure. Should I have worn another hairstyle? More makeup? a different dress? Yes, I’m sure I should have chosen the short blue one. He walks up to me, his expression unreadable.

“You shouldn’t have worn this dress” he whispers. I knew it! “It’s going be really difficult to pay attention to anything else tonight. It’s not fair.” I look up at him and he is smiling with admiration. I feel my breath finally back in my lungs, but his eyes chase it out again. A long moment passes, allowing us to enjoy the simplicity of the utter feeling that we are in love. My insecurities vanish and a wicked smile fights its way to my face. I’m unable to stop it.

“You look beautiful when you smile like that” Bucky says, mirroring my expression. “Well m’lady. If I have the honor of showing you our ride tonight.” He offers me his arm and I take it, barely able to keep a straight face.

The drive to the restaurant is relaxing and fun, but as soon as we meet everyone in the private room the restaurant has arranged for us, I feel all my fears weighing me down again.

There she is, looking flawless. Her fiery red hair is pull back in an elegant bun resting on her neck, just the right amount of hair out of place to look casual without being informal, like she was born with that bun. Her green eyes, framed with extra-long, extra-dark eyelashes are beautiful, nothing to do with mines. Her china skin is perfect and the dress… A long black dress that falls down to the floor. It’s tight around her upper body but from her waist down it turns into a sea of light, flowing, translucent fabric, with an opening in the front that goes up to no-one-knows-were, showing off her model legs completely. The cleavage of the dress is brushing the limits of too-much, but not crossing them, and over it there is a strap of jewelry. Everything about her looks amazingly tempting for a guy. And when she shoot a malicious smile at me, I suddenly have no doubt who’s going to win tonight.

Tony, astonishing in his dark blue suit, sits me down next to the Russian spy and sets Bucky in front of her. He doesn’t mean any harm with that, but I feel betrayed by my own friends as I sit down. Natasha offers me a warm smile of welcome, more fake than plastic, but doesn’t waste any other smile in my direction. as soon as Bucky sits down, I discover that the rumors about her flirting skills were founded. Her smiles are breathtaking, her conversation is interesting, yet suggestive in the bad way, and she breaks the touch barrier just enough to transmit attraction without being creepy. There’s no way Bucky wont be at her feet at the end of the night.

I eat in silence, wishing this night would end immediately so I could finally hear Bucky’s decision to leave me from his own lips and the wall of tension building up inside me could finally collapse. At one point, I realize Natasha is talking to me.

“Y/N, we were just wondering how much experience you had in night combat” She smiled. I tried to calm down, it was just an innocent question about my abilities fighting in low-visibility conditions… Then why the hell did it sound so dirty?

“I-I have some e-experience, but I’m not great a-at it.” I answer nervously. Only when I see Natasha’s look of victory, hidden under her understanding expression, do I realize the question meant just what I thought it meant.

I feel my cheeks hot, but they are not the only thing… My upper left leg feels strangely warm and when I look down, a dark red stain is forming in the fabric. It’s not possible! Out of shock, I stand up and everyone can see the blood stain. Stammering, I excuse myself and slide towards the bathroom. Behind me, the uncomfortable silence is broken by Natasha’s voice.

“If you excuse me, I’m going to help her. Must be lady problems” she says, her voice soft and calmed.

In the bathroom, I try to clean the stain, that smells mysteriously similar to chemical products. I’m not on my period and, though I don’t know how, I know exactly who is behind this. The stain just won’t clean off, so I breathe deeply to calm down and, with my hands still shaking, turn to the door.

The cause of all my problems is standing right there, smirking. She looks me up and down, judging me, and then nods with despise.

“I’ve heard you’ve been entertaining my boyfriend during the months I’ve been away. I just came to tell you that your services are not longer needed, you can go away.” She informs me.

I can’t believe my ears “Beg your pardon?”

She gives me a hard look “You are not longer needed to keep Bucky entertained. Understood? You are not welcome. Yes, I’m sure you’ve had fun this few months (Who wouldn’t, really? It was the perfect chance for someone like you), but now Bucky has me and he doesn’t need your “services” any more. You didn’t actually believe he was falling for you, right? He is in love with me.You were just a little distraction he needed while I was away and he obviously doesn’t need you anymore. So go away little girl, and let adults make things properly… if you get what I mean.” that sounded terribly bad “I don’t want to see you near Bucky ever again. You’ve annoyed him enough and now that you don’t have any way of making it up to him, you better leave his life. And look at you, you have definitely proved the team that you are a fool. Nice memory they’ll have of you.” She smiles darkly and looks at the stain on my dress. I turn to leave, but she is not done yet. “Oh!” she whispers menacingly “And this is nothing. If I ever see you around him again, trust me, you wont forget the face of my friends. I will destroy you. You don’t know how far I can go… How much I can make you suffer.”

And she’s gone, leaving me shaking. I drop myself against the wall, my back slamming hard against the cold surface, and slide to the ground. I can’t breathe, I can’t stop shaking and I can barely contain the noise my tears are making. She’s right, I’m a fool for believing he was ever interested on me, having someone like Natasha. I’m weak. I have nothing to do with his life.

I leave the restaurant and walk around the streets. I can’t go back to the tower, because everyone will be there. I’ll call a friend tomorrow and see if they can collect my personal items from there. Now I have to find a place to spend the night and my subconscious takes me to a decadent section of the city. It wouldn’t be the safest place for someone normal, but I’m a highly trained spy. As long as I can see them, I can fight them. And I feel much more confident now that I know where I’m going. It’s an abandoned construction that looks like an sport hall. I discovered it while doing parkour with my friends one day and I kept coming back after that. It is big and the celling has loads of iron beams that are rather easy to get to and more confutable that you’ll think. Something about empty places makes me feel free and calmed, just what I need now.

I rip the lower section of my dress to be able to climb better (I wasn’t planing on wearing it again anyways) and sit on one of the beams closer to the window. Its dark and cold and I get goose bumps, but I feel safe. I slowly lose conscience…

Boom! The sound of doors opening rips me violently from my sleep. I kneel on the beam, my senses already working at full speed. Crap! With this darkness I’m not going to be able to fight anyone. The footsteps stop and I hear a metal screech, meaning someone is climbing the beams. As silently as I can, I change of platform, but whoever’s following me hears me and changes directions as well. We carry on this way for a while, nearly dancing, until I realize I have nowhere else to jump to. I’m cornered. I try to take a step back but my feet slip on the edge and I fall back, my heart stopping…

And a set of strong arms cut my fall. My heart is racing. Who is this man? What does he want? A million terrifying thoughts cross my mind but then the man speaks.

“Y/N. Oh, thank Heavens you are here. We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Steve sets me down and wraps an arm around me.

I smile in relief. “Sorry. I didn’t want to bother you. I was going to send someone to collect my things in the morning”

Steve freezes “What do you mean? You are moving out?”

“Yes… I’m a fool and so annoying to the team. And now that Bucky has Natasha, no one needs me anymore. So I’m going to move out.”

“Y/N, what do you mean? Bucky’s been sick worried since you went missing. All the team has! You’re not annoying, you’re part of our family. Who told you we didn’t like you?” He frowns “Wait… It was Natasha, wasn’t it?” My silence is his answer “I’m going to kill her. Don’t listen to her, she’s just jealous. You’re amazing, just don’t leave us again.” He presses me to his side. “You’re freezing! We need to get you to the tower now.”

The tower… The last place I want to be in. I enter the common room wrapped in a blanket, still with my destroyed dress and ruined makeup, Steve walking at my side. Bucky is sitting in the couch, his head on his hands, and Natasha next to him in a comforting position. When he hears the door, he looks up and his eyes shine. His expression changes from worry to relief automatically, like a weight has been taken from him. He runs towards me and wraps me in his arms. They feel like home, their embrace forming an unbreakable barrier between me and the world. They warm me up better than any hot bath would.

He kisses the top of my head and then rest his forehead on my hair. “Y/N… Don’t ever do that again. I thought I’d lost you.” he sounds so heartbroken that a shiver runs down my spine. “What happened?”

“Natasha happened.” Answers Steve for me. Bucky turns around, never letting go of me, and his grip tightens.

“What did you do?” Bucky everything but roars towards the Russian spy.

“Nothing! She’s lying! She’s in shock, probably delirious.”

“Really? Because I can really see you threatening someone I love just to get your way, Natasha.”

“No! I just…”

“You just didn’t like the idea that I had found my soulmate and it wasn’t you.”

“I’m your soulmate, Bucky. I don’t get why you don’t see it!”

“I think I can judge that myself.”

“So you choose her, then? Are you sure? Because that little, insecure brat won’t give you what you want.”

I wait for his arms to leave me as he realizes Natasha is right. But they don’t. His voice is deep and husky when he answers “She is everything I want.”

Tears fall down my cheeks as I hear the door closing after Natasha. Steve also leaves the room. Bucky looses a little his embrace so that he can look at my face and smiles, registering every single little detail until his eyes stop on my lips. “I thought I lost you” He murmurs softly. “You nearly drive me crazy”

“I—I don’t understand.” I whisper back. “Why have you chosen me? Natasha is right, I can’t give you what you want.”

He leans in closer, our lips almost touching “You still don’t understand it? You can’t give me anything, because you’ve already have. You are everything I want. Just tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours, Bucky”

“And I’m yours.”

He closes the distance between our lips, sealing like that the promise.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky fluff #natasha romanoff #the winter solider imagine #the winter soldier #winter soldier x reader

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1232andthinkingofyou · 7 years

Text

Truck Bed Love

“Well, this is the first date I’ve ever had in a corn field, so I’ll give you that.” Michelle said as we pulled to a stop in the dark field. The sky was a deep magenta as the sun sunk beneath the horizon, and through the hazy cover of dust the stars were beginning to shine. I laughed and walked to the back of her truck. “I’m broke as hell, and you have a truck, so I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Besides, it’s a Pinterest-cute idea, right? I would have brought the mason jars, but they’re full of homemade organic rutabaga jam.” Michelle rolled her eyes as she brought around the cooler from the cab and slung it into the bed of the truck. “Please. No offense April; I don’t think you’re the homey jam-making type. But, I’m impressed that you managed to keep your plan a secret despite using my truck for your shenanigans. You have my attention, Miss ‘Susie-Homemaker’.” She joked with me, avoiding looking at the truck bed at my urging. Finally, I walked over and turned her around with a grand “Tah-Dah!”. She let out an impressed sound, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was mildly proud of my $10 date—a blow up pool full of blankets and pillows under the stars. String up some glow sticks and toss a couple beers in the cooler, and we had a damn-near cute date. “You’ve outdone yourself, Hinkler, and you’re right—” she hopped into the pool and extended a hand to me, “this is uncharacteristically Insta-famous of you. Who knew?” I settled into the blankets next to her and pulled open the cooler. “Well here’s to surprising you!” I laughed as I handed her a beer can. “And me surprising you.” Michelle added, and the undertones of her toast spoke volumes. Michelle and I had been friends for years, and for all of those years, she had been straight and I was definitely not. So, a joke over lunch had bastardized into a shrugged “Why not?” and now here we were on an experimental date. We drank quietly for a few minutes, staring off toward the town lights burning brighter as the sky grew darker. I ran my hand nervously through my hair, and leaned back into the pool. “You know, it’s a lot better view of the stars if we look at them.” She shot an amused glance my way, then squeaked down next to me. “This is surprisingly comfortable.” She commented as she wriggled to get settled. I leaned up on one elbow to look at her with mock swagger. “Well, if there’s one thing I excel at, its making nests. I have wooed many a woman with my nest-making skills.” She laughed and shook her head. “I see. Let’s see how your track record is after tonight.” I grinned and laid back again. I stared up at the stars and mentally laughed at the situation. Never had I been on a “straight-girl date” where it was more of a joking challenge than a desperate attempt for a team switch. It almost made it easier to relax knowing that the chance for failure was high. If the night didn’t end in a miraculous change of heart, it was a fun time drinking with a good friend, and no love was lost. I was jolted from my thoughts by a wordless noise from Michelle, and was suddenly aware that she was scooting closer. Out of habit, I extended my arm around her shoulders to settle into a comfortable position. We laid quietly a bit longer. “You smell really good.” Michelle said suddenly before descending into a fit of giggles. “Jesus, no wonder you get more action than I do… I need a handicap sticker for my flirting techniques.” “I mean, it’s a compliment!” I offered, laughing along with her. Our eyes met, and she gave me a half smile. We settled back into a casual conversation, cuddled up against the rapidly chilling evening. A couple beers and several hours later, it was now bitingly cold, and all the blankets in the world couldn’t warm us up. I turned to her once more, and took a shaky breath. “Do you want to…head back to my place?” There was no way she could drive, the logical step was my house down the road, so it made my sudden nervousness unnecessary and surprising to me. She nodded, and I threw the empty cooler through the back window. We were about to climb out when she grabbed my arm. I looked at her, expecting a humorous comment about the glow sticks that had made their way around my neck, but instead was met with a short, sweet kiss. I could feel my eyes go wide as she pulled away, and in a true moment of chivalry whispered “And I didn’t even need the mason jars.” The quiet night erupted with our laughter again. A short drive later and we arrived back at my house, quickly unloading the blankets and pillows and sprinting against the cold towards the house. Once we made it in and our eyes adjusted, I couldn’t help but chuckle again. “If my hair looks anything like yours, we are a hell of a pair.” She turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror by the door. “Oh god…it almost looks like we drank half a case of beer in the back of a truck or something.” She teased, then shot off towards the bathroom with a couple mumbled words about pajamas. She had the layout of the place down pat, she had been here before for pizza and wine nights. She always crashed in my bed at the end of the night and I took the couch, so I slung a pillow and blanket on the sofa as I walked by it to change clothes myself. When I emerged from the bedroom, she was shoving her bag by the door. She turned back around and tossed a bottle of water my way. “I see you raided the fridge.” I laughed as I took a welcomed drink of the water. “I know you keep it stocked, and also I think a burglar stole a slice of that leftover pizza you had in there.” She shrugged nonchalantly. I laughed and drug more pillows into the bedroom, her following behind. I made the bed as we chatted about how much I hated beer, and how much she hated Hawaiian pizza. She jumped in and plugged her phone up. “All comfy?” I asked, and she nodded slowly, looking around the room. “Awesome. Well, I’ll let you settle in. I’ll be on the couch if you—” “Why don’t you just stay in here tonight?” She said quickly, avoiding any kind of prolonged eye contact. “I mean, if you want. It just seems silly for you to sleep out there…this is your bed, after all.” She said, smoothing the comforter next to her. I wasn’t about to argue with her offer, so I nodded and ran off to shut up the house. By the time I returned, she had snuggled down with the covers up to her neck. I could see her toes wiggling back and forth under the bedspread like a kid, and I laughed. I hung the glow sticks from my neck over the broken ceiling fan before shutting off the light. The room had a faint neon purple aura as I slid into bed next to her and smiled. “See? It’s not so bad.” She teased, then a look that I had long ago learned spread across her face, sending my heart straight into my throat. In what seemed like an instant, our lips connected again, not so much heated as tentative. I pulled back after a moment and stupidly asked “So is this the alcohol, or have I won you over with my lesbian trance?” She rolled her eyes but stayed dangerously close. “Is that your way of asking consent?” “And figuring out if this is a fluke, too…it’s a two-fer.” I added, hoping she didn’t think I was too awkward and kick me out of the bed. She squinted for a minute, mulling over the question in her mind. Without saying another word, she wrapped her arms around me and eliminated any empty space between us. “Well, it’s definitely not the alcohol, but I’m really hesitant to use the words ‘Lesbian Trance’…” She paused as I blushed and giggled. “I think I’m just going to chalk it up to you being a good person and giving me a good time.” I felt a goofy smile spread wide across my face. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but I wasn’t going to jinx it. Instead, I closed the distance between us completely, and we were back to exchanging short, curious kisses.

#love #writing #country #humor #lesbian #lesbian trance #romance

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that-is-so-gay-okay · 6 years

Note

Answer them all

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most

Right now I listen to “Sober” by Demi Lovato, “What I Need” by Hayley Kiyoko, “PlayinWitMe” by Kyle, “Krippy Kush” by Bad Bunny, “Red Roses” by Lil Skies, and “Everybody Hates Me” by The Chainsmokers

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

I would meet the person I am meant to be with the rest of my life, the person I am meant to love

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“I’m with them because, despite everything, I still love them.”

4: What do you think about most?

I think about how in the hell I am going to pay for my student loans and if it is even worth living

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“For real and she makes me so happy I dont want to be mad at her”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

I sleep with boxers but otherwise no clothes

7: What’s your strangest talent?

I can put my pinkies behind ring fingers without touching them

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

Girls just want to have fun. Boys will be boys.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

No, not that I am aware of

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Like yesterday

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

I dont think so. I have your average everyday phobias like arachnophobia and acrophobia

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

No, I can’t say I have

13: What’s your religion?

Christian of the ELCA Lutheran denomination

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Mowing the lawn or swimming

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind the camera

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Of Mice and Men

17: What was the last lie you told?

That I filled out a job application

18: Do you believe in karma?

Yes I do

19: What does your URL mean?

It’s ironic, it states that I am a little queer but really I am very queer

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

My greatest weakness is that I care too much for people, my greatest strength is also just that

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Hailee Steinfeld or Dove Cameron

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Yes, it is called joining the swim team at my college

23: How do you vent your anger?

It depends, if I am taking my medication I might yell, but if I am not on my medication I will break things and throw things and punch things

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Yes snow globes, and coins I love collecting money

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

I rather not do either

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

I am but I think I can still be better

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

I hate the sound of people eating corn and cereal. I love the sound of thunder

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

What if I never cut myseld

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

Yes and yes

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

An endtable and my hat

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

My house

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

An Econolodge in South Dakota, I do not recommend

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

I haven’t been to either, but I think they have their own great qualities I cannot choose unless I visit

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

I don’t know....Luke Bryan??

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

I can’t answer this question

36: Define Art.

Who the fuck knows these days?

37: Do you believe in luck?

Yes

38: What’s the weather like right now?

HOT HOT HOT

39: What time is it?

14:41

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

Yes and yes

41: What was the last book you read?

“Confessions of a Murder Suspect”

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Love it

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Ry, Ry-Ry, and Ryles

44: What was the last film you saw?

TAG

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

I was cut up by three men when I was 17. Needed many stitches

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

Many times

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

Nah, not really

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

I’m a lesbian but I use the term gay

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Many

50: Do you believe in magic?

I believe in the idea

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Depends how wrong they’ve done me. There are two people I will never be in contact again with because of things they have done to me

52: What is your astrological sign?

Virgo

53: Do you save money or spend it?

I need to save it but I spend it

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

Shaving Razors

55: Love or lust?

Love

56: In a relationship?

LMAO HAHAHA......no.

57: How many relationships have you had?

7, 2 were serious

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

Yes

59: Where were you yesterday?

Work

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

My shirt, my hat, my blanket (pink is my second favorite color)

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

No, which is strange because I always have socks on

62: What’s your favourite animal?

Monkey

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

My romantic side, but I am also freaking hilarious

64: Where is your best friend?

I have two. One is in Lincoln, NE the other in Scottsbluff, NE

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

According to Tumblr, in order they are 1) totallylesbians, 2)xxmmxx, 3)pizduedne, 4)l-e-s-b-o-t, and 5)pinkmakesmehappy21

66: What is your heritage?

I am part Czech, Irish, and German, and I am sure many others but these are the three largest and my family celebrates all of the Czech and Irish holidays

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Sleeping

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

I think it’s Satan, Lucifer Satan

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

.....

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Yes

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

I get fired

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

A)I would B)Travel C)No

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

Trust

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

“This One’s for the Girls” by Martina McBride

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

9614

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Trust, romance, and humor

77: How can I win your heart?

Talk to me, be kind

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

hehehe yes

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

To not end my life

80: What size shoes do you wear?

10 in men’s and 11 in women’s

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

Literally have an entire funeral planned out for me except that

82: What is your favourite word?

Lit or Fam

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Love

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

“Lit fam”

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

“XO TOUR Llif3″ by Lil Uzi Vert

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

All shades of blue except indigo and all shades of pink except magenta

87: What is your current desktop picture?

My three nieces and nephew

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

I want to say Trump but I rather have Trump as president than Pence, so I have to say this girl named Taylor

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

“Have you ever tried to kill yourself?”

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Go back to bed

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Read minds

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

I have no idea, honestly

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Dating her.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

I’m taking this as I get to sleep in pajamas next to any music-celebrity no sexual activity because I don’t want that, so if that is the case I have to say Demi Lovato

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

California

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

Yes

98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Something witty. Nothing clever just funny.

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ianhiggs527969-blog · 6 years

Text

Evaluation Of Dining establishment Sat Bains Along with Rooms, Nottingham.

Occupation as a Gourmet chef: An Appealing Choice for Young people in Australia - through JRM hospitality some of the most ideal leading company. So I 100% would certainly The Witness a couple of times earlier, obtained that a pair full weeks ago after going through the interview where he aspires to make something like GR, I in fact set up windows only to play this. I am actually not a huge problem guy and also this is actually truly the initial brand-new activity I have actually played in approximately 2 years. He was on opportunity for his visit, however was actually kept waiting for 2 hours in a little hanging around area with older magazines till he was actually called in. The initial step in conquering your pretentious designer inclinations is actually to pinpoint them as well as admit to all of them. Take note that in this particular scenario, Pretentious.spec _ for/minitest _ for is not required in the example report as the aim at courses are actually defined in the intendeds segment. Our team spend folks for their phrases, our company allow them to share the way they experience onto some canvass and we're willing to pay for millions because of some regarded intensity or even emotional state. Another phrase that is actually used in the Amount F System 2 vocabulary shop answers is words balance. To make a decision to attempt making a game that copes with deeper thoughtful concerns in a globe loaded with shooters as well as brainless video gaming is really a brave decision in my viewpoint. The ache pain connected with gout reaches in the evening, turning the skin layer red-hot and leaving the ostentatious joints swollen and tender for 5 - 10 times each time. After entering into the bistro, Leo spied a long line from folks he presumed were waiting on their dining tables. Banksy was actually alright when he started yet he has actually gotten to an aspect where he regurgitates saying would certainly political statements that folks already know. Many people along with bipolar II perform not experience hypersexuality, however this was becoming a complication for Wendy. Practically, whether a specific thing can be thought about pretentious is dependent on the onlooker. Several guys locate seductive Asian gals appealing nevertheless Eastern girls can easily commonly feel intimidated or even frightened by males off other cultures and as a result can come across as pompous or seem to be 'held up'. When David Bowie clothed like an intergalactic peacock as Ziggy Stardust (envisioned), several believed he was beyond ostentatious. Gout arthritis is a significantly painful type of joint inflammation - therefore uncomfortable that most individuals may certainly not bear the weight of a feather on the tender joint. The 4th game in the series focuses on the domestic connection in between Magenta's little girl and also kid. Saying concerning guidelines, requirements and also wrong or even ideal ways from performing factors is one way of speaking about the amateur as well as the expert; social classifications that create pretentiousness an even knottier issue. The staff gave them the most extensive laminated as well as most sophisticated food selection Leo had actually ever viewed and then poured 2 large glasses from fresh produced iced tea. You can pass the stem by means of the fire or even leave this in boiled water for 30 few seconds, after you cut the stem 2 ins listed below completion. Yet some folks do not like that. everything things regarding infants and davinci is guesswork on your component. Yes, I assume we may all of concede they are among the absolute most ostentatious factors in the world. When that's point is actually to remove as a lot of pretenses off art as possible, I think it is actually amusing just how contemporary craft is frequently found as pompous. The thugs from the lily possess their other opening phase, that the bloom stays in water over 1, possibly 2 weeks. Makes it simple to incorporate activities like Park My Cars and truck as well as 4 Tire Madness to your Weblog, MySpace or even Facebook web page, and beyond so you can play on your very own site or page! If you cherished this write-up and you would like to acquire far more details about mountains of mourne song (actuarcomoesnormal.info) kindly pay a visit to our own web-page. Fine art utilizing photographs frequently attempts to prompt a feeling/emotion coming from the viewer, which candidly claimed is actually over half-a-millenia outdated paintings from some dudes or even 3 apples and also a banana. This publication is actually a revisionist past history, hitting back at the narrative that modern rock music was actually puffed up as well as ostentatious. Like all variations as well as products of the lexicon workshop solutions, the Device 2 of Degree F receives considerably more difficult. The 4th game finishes along with Magenta winding up in the medical center for not known explanations. The accuser of allegation - normally assuming themselves to become the genuine offer, in belongings of an educated and critical thoughts - feels that elsewhere worldwide there is actually a real short article that the ostentatious factor or individual aspires to be, but is actually falling short of or overemphasizing this. These are all quite noticeable and tired opening strategies that a lot of smart leads understand. It might function sometimes and gain you some advantages, but usually it's a foolish, apparent video game and also as our experts both know, this doesn't operate! But cases to ordinariness and also salt-of-the-earth virtue are on their own pretentious. Occasionally wealthy people produce fine art for other rich folks, but that has actually held true for a very long time. That's still only a paint of pair of people with second best regarding it which your ordinary halfway decent knowledgeable painter nowadays (which our team have plenty in this particular day as well as grow older) could create as well as create better. Yet beyond the job titles, a considerable amount of developers come across as pretentious with all of their language. Nowadays trying to oblige individuals to accept disruption is actually merely visiting turn all of them off more. I really feel that with numerous terrific characters throughout guide that everybody will certainly have the ability to find somebody they can easily connect to. I additionally feel this will be the case as the handful from individuals who have read that until now all have had different characters for whom they have actually associated with directly or adored and even detested. I don't possess a disagreement for The Diamond Sutra make use of or delivery, I merely adore it a lot, you can never ever know exactly what is actually visiting reach your heartstrings, some films are hrs of fresh unhappiness and never shake a singular tear from me, the end of this particular challenge activity performed and that's all I may say. My estimate is you were merely possessing a stab due to the fact that some individuals speak in different ways to you. The pretentious jewel will definitely after that analyze exactly what procedures are called, just how it is created and generate exam situations for this. However virtually any individual could see the further significance behind this story which's what stops it off being actually ostentatious. The result is to combine the techniques of programmed understanding and activity having fun to take care of the advertising message in customers' minds. The pompous imperfections of others affirm your own intellectual or even aesthetic competence. When that's point is actually to get rid of as numerous pretenses coming from craft as feasible, I assume it is actually funny exactly how modern craft is actually usually seen as pretentious. The criminals from the lily possess their different opening stage, that the floral resides in water over 1, maybe 2 weeks. Creates it easy to incorporate games like Park My Car and also 4 Wheel Madness to your Blog, MySpace or Facebook page, and also beyond thus you can easily play on your own site or even web page! To advise a person is actually pompous is actually to state they're behaving in methods they are actually certainly not applied for through encounter or even economic status". As the greatest treatment, reduced the stem till the eco-friendly component, put this in high flower holder, filled up just for 3 quarts along with water and also include a decrease of bleaching material.

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ulrichharman62-blog · 7 years

Text

Organic Solutions For Gout.

Many individuals have turned to even more ordinary techniques from healing as well as discomfort alleviation in present years, specifically those that are actually dissatisfied along with the typical Western medications for several causes. This appeared that a number of these people may possess clothed differently to me and also perhaps led a different lifestyle to me but they were thus attractive and enjoyable! What appears is actually a soaking up story informed in a design that's antiquity without being dated, prosperous yet certainly never pompous. What certainly appears is a soaking up tale informed in a style that's vintage without being dated, wealthy however never pretentious. It's a way from claiming that modern fine art is actually a drawback" which subtitled films are actually hard" - that they perform certainly not attract every person as well as consequently needs to be aimed at the form of folks which assume they are actually much better than everyone else. Have, for example, the picture on p. 2 with the inscription The full photo of the carbon pattern. The accuser from allegation - normally thinking themselves to be the actual deal, in possession from a taught as well as discerning mind - thinks that in another place worldwide there is actually a genuine short article that the pompous point or individual desires be, but is actually falling short of or even overemphasizing this. These are all incredibly noticeable and weary opening methods that a lot of smart customers understand. That may operate periodically and get you some benefits, however commonly that is actually a silly, evident game and as we each understand, this doesn't work! But cases to ordinariness and salt-of-the-earth merit are themselves pretentious. I was entirely expecting to merely unlock a tunnel in the hill that led back to the beginning chamber and I failed to actually care, since artificial narrative presentation is not just what the activity was actually ever approximately. And also individuals in that community recognized this and also weren't totally certain what to earn of me. They thought I was now some crazy Mancunian Mobster - as well as I mean at the very least in their minds I was actually anyhow. He watched lines from folks waiting on an easy burger, french fries as well as a shake. Pompous Activity 3 concentrates on Mango's, Magenta's, as well as Gray's edges from the story. A flavorful culture sustained through individuals which dedicate their lifestyles to that, typically along with little bit of perks or even recognition, is actually a pompous one. Sales will certainly end up being a lot more like a chess game where you possess strategic, properly considered moves rather than blind guy's ruse. In the event you beloved this short article and you want to obtain more info concerning mountains in england to visit (related webpage) generously pay a visit to our own webpage. I needed to drive 3 hours in visitor traffic in order to get to his office and when I arrived I offered him the planet's greatest discussion on Excelsior's Gizmo series that you ever listened to. The paradox is actually that knowning as somebody pretentious usually shows even more concerning the accuser than the implicated. Along with the classic meaning, the only means a style may be called ostentatious is actually if that's meant to state one thing specific regarding the individual that remains in reality incorrect. Say to a person that their passion in speculative literature, avant-garde songs, modernist style, or even fashion design is pompous (as well as only for the middle lessons) is to reject the opportunity that mental interest may translate right into social flexibility. I don't actually have the amount of time to specify, yet I believe the activity, overall, is a cautious and also meticulous item of work, done with care as well as affection for the activity it self as well as for the possible gamers. You view Leo, folks love to team up with a champion as well as don't truly appreciate a loss or even endure. The standards from which credibility and also pretentiousness are actually adjusted vary hugely. This's a way from stating that present-day art is actually a downside" and also subtitled movies are actually tough" - that they carry out certainly not interest everybody and consequently has to be intended for the form of folks that think they are better compared to everyone else. Have, as an example, the picture on p. 2 with the imprint The complete photo of the carbon cycle. Due to the opportunity you're to borrowed, which is actually a verb which implies to breach or disturb, like legal guidelines are actually infringed after through those that don't note their regulations and ingratiated, which is a verb which means to provide yourself to someones else favor, and could be actually displayed by political leaders ingratiating on their own to their areas individuals by offering money to charities in the area, you're well on your means to comprehending Degree F Device 2 lexicon workshop responses. Tender Apology: The very first two games poke fun at the meetings of pompous puzzle-platform activities like Braid and Left field Due to the third game, where the tale begins to receive even more complex, that's feasible that the collection floats in to Inconclusive Apology area. At that point you recognize just what sousho resembles in Japanese: Certain, the article writer or even other experienced individual could (perhaps) read that, yet no person else possesses a hint what it points out! As well as others appear to take themselves completely seriously, and are seemingly unfamiliar of their pretentious attributes. Only a basic chat between the 2 of us inspired me enough to create a post located around this, as well as I am actually just one from countless folks that he speaks with per day. Due to the fact that from what that exposes about exactly how your identity associates to everyone else's, pretentiousness issues. Most people start from scratch, job really hard along with the greatest of goals and inevitably end up being disappointed or even obsequious along with their absence of development. The fifth game pays attention to Magenta's sensations towards Gray, both prior to as well as after the tournaments from the previous games. But hello - as I feel I need to keep saying and also advising you people, the past is recent - I haven't been part of that planet for an extremely, long time currently as well as never in a million years ever before plan on going back to it. Yet the truth is the honest truth as well as I understand that it is going to certainly not just open several eyes - but also for a considerable amount of people they are going to have the ability to relate to a lot of what happens that it will certainly make this an intriguing read for everybody. Fine art utilizing pictures often tries to prompt a feeling/emotion from the audience, which bluntly pointed out is actually more than half-a-millenia aged paints of some dudes or even 3 apples and a fruit. This manual is a revisionist record, countering at the narrative that modern rock-and-roll was ostentatious as well as puffed up. Like all arrays as well as items from the lexicon workshop answers, the Device 2 from Level F obtains steadily more difficult. The 4th activity finishes with Magenta winding up in the hospital for unfamiliar factors. It appeared that a few of these folks may possess suited up differently to me as well as perhaps led an other life to me however they were so beautiful and also fun! What turns up is actually a soaking up tale told in a design that is actually antique without being dated, never pompous but affluent. What undoubtedly shows up is a taking in story told in a type that is actually vintage without being actually dated, wealthy yet never pompous. However our experts presently possess sufficient overall, versatile put-downs, and our team don't need to switch pretentious right into yet one more one, especially when this presently possesses such a great certain significance. . Leo Silver, the northeast territory salesman has been participating in the very same pointless rah rah treatments for 3 years as well as the appointments are actually regularly the same. I adore the closing of the video game exceptionally despite the fact that essentially that's simply a bonus.

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julianledet4439-blog · 7 years

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Pompous Video game 3.

Listed here, however, is a fully subjective listing of the motion pictures which actually take the prize - no matter whether they gained the awards. I went through this whole entire article as well as I was ready to create a full action half method by means of the 1st paragraph however then an increasing number of understood that you are actually very set on a various opinion compared to I believed you would certainly have and also I intend to make a discuss points that rely upon various gamer experience and expectations, two points that I may not as well as would not would like to modify in anybody that presumes that this activity is actually pretentious or even trying also hard. From there certainly, people can easily either read them or even really use them in their online publications. In case you have virtually any queries concerning exactly where along with the way to employ mountains in scotland to climb; http://elderechodergimendsalud.info/eracto,, you possibly can call us in our webpage. When you started reviewing this, this is actually the very most significant video recording activity given that the beginning from. Often Wendy seemed like talking at the center of the evening as well as would call her best friend, Phillip, at 2 a.m. This actions seemed intrusive as well as disrespectful to him, yet when he attempted to talk with her regarding the problem, she was actually difficult to disrupt as well as failed to seem to be paying attention. Individuals need to let alone wearing fashion trend that inspect blood stream flow as well as those that scrape the pretentious place. Art utilizing pictures usually attempts to produce a feeling/emotion off the customer, which candidly mentioned is much more than half-a-millenia old paintings from some guys or even 3 apples as well as a fruit. This manual is a revisionist record, hitting back at the story that dynamic rock music was puffed up and also pretentious. Like all variations and things from the vocabulary sessions solutions, the Device 2 of Degree F acquires progressively more difficult. The 4th video game finishes along with Magenta finding yourself in the healthcare facility for unfamiliar factors. Absolutely accountable, completely effective, completely quantifiable, and absolutely doing not have any of the pompous interactions nonsense therefore beloved by ad agency globe it carried out handle, and also will have grown, into the ideal service for everybody within the marketing mix. Originally this was actually visiting be actually a 12-step program, however this's not that complicated, so obliging 12 intervene itself appeared incredibly pretentious. Pretentiousness show complexity a lingering feeling from unnaturalness"; something fabricated, claiming falsely, changed. Right here is actually an explanation of the game Keep in mind, though, that the hyperlink could be a bit biased versus the activity and its producers. And also challenging though this may be to accept, being pretentious is a part from what our team carry out everyday. Unhappy to differ therefore absolutely however it eliminates me that this tainted a game that is typically so wonderful that this prepares a completely new requirement. I hope that you'll adore me adequate to perform 1, 2, 3 and 4 when my pride avoids command. When he began out yet he has actually acquired to an aspect where he spits up motto will political declarations that people currently know, Banksy was alright. Lots of people along with bipolar II do certainly not experience hypersexuality, yet this was actually ending up being a concern for Wendy. Basically, whether a particular point might be thought about ostentatious hinges on the viewer. I ended up being thus mesmerized around the world plus all of violence that was associated with it that it type of reached a phase where I simply believed that that was actually the typical planet people lived in. While this set really isn't necessarily something you need to carry out, realizing that you could possess pissed individuals off or even frustrated all of them is actually a beneficial action. The scary that lesson migration rouses in people is nearly tribe, as if this is actually a disavowal from your family and friends. I underwent this whole entire message and I was ready to create a full response half means via the first paragraph but after that much more understood that you are actually fairly bented on an other point of view in comparison to I presumed you will possess and I want to create a discuss points that count on different player experience as well as assumptions, pair of things that I can certainly not and would certainly not intend to change in anyone that thinks that this game is ostentatious or even making an effort as well hard. I was actually entirely counting on to simply unlock a tunnel in the mountain that led back to the beginning enclosure and also I failed to definitely care, given that contrived narrative presentation is actually certainly not exactly what the video game was ever before around. And the people in that city understood this and just weren't totally sure what to make from me. They thought I was actually right now some insane Mancunian Mobster - and I mean a minimum of in their minds I was anyhow. He observed lines of people expecting an easy hamburger, french fries and also a shake. Pretentious Video game 3 concentrates on Mango's, Magenta's, and also Gray's sides from the tale. If a publication on pretentiousness is viewed as pompous, no instance from a plain-speaking, salt-of-the-earth study from the subject will be actually offered. The ostentatious are actually likewise those that brave being other, whether that's fighting innovative consensus or running the gauntlet from recording the final bus house on a Sunday evening suited up differently to everyone else. It was a purposeless amounts activity that any person might carry out, however handful of can easily tolerate on a lasting basis. You may be actually pondering, How performs this affect me?" I believe that all of us may discover a really useful session off people like Mike Smiarowski. Therefore you'll follow this technique: reduce the stalk at a very pointy angle 2 inches beneath the end, compared to pass it with the fire or even leave that for some time in warm water, for the pest substance to become dealt with. Through prudently sending news release as well as coming to be recognized to the press, you far better your chances of being just one of people they depend on. Talking about job interviews, you could additionally create yourself on call to various other specialists who are actually writing their own manuals or articles and also require opinions as well as private views. Transforming exactly how all those folks refine their emotional states is actually outlandish, yet possessing the video game present itself in different ways is actually realistic. We indict somebody from pretentiousness to call out misleading authorization as well as decrease misconceptions of magnificence. Have a good consider the designers you appear and also admire as much as. You'll perhaps find that many of the greatest designers available don't use pompous titles, but as an alternative make use of titles that efficiently illustrate what they do. Even those who perform utilize fun labels typically do this in a very jokingly way and do so in limited amounts. Individuals think that if something is not feasibly intricate in keeping along with the ability of their adult mind or even simple, unique and also promptly mind streaming in keeping along with the smashing thoughts from youth then that isn't pointing out anything deep-seated" (which like pretentious is yet another term I have actually never possessed an use for). I intend to show that when you work in this business that when this related to service you functioned more challenging compared to a lot of legit people available. I adored this activity so much that I had been playing it since the first week the video game showed up as well as deliberately took my opportunity with each place. Star-Crossed Enthusiasts: In Ostentatious Video game 3 as well as 5, Magenta defines her gathering with the wedded Gray as something that society disapproves of. A skinny 22-year outdated with a mustache that he cannot pretty pull off doesn't have an ostentatious mustache." That exact same 22-year aged might effortlessly be pretentious, but this will must be actually for his words, requirements and actions, certainly not the effectiveness or even failure of his flavor-saver. I prefer to believe that most of us have a certain amount of excellent moral trustworthiness, however folks typically are quite prone to moral imperfections. I talked to everyone off the past and also I reached the crack-pipe over a 4 month period in a way that will have gotten rid of most people after a day's session along with the sort of abuse I was actually personal inflicting. The buyer, which had spent the last 4 hrs with Leo appeared him in the eye and also announced what does it cost? he adored the product and told Leo that he was actually the greatest salesperson he had viewed in a very long time.

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ericspedding-blog · 7 years

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Make a reservation for Reviews Contents.

That would certainly be good, if it's any sort of probability, to become conserved in a chilly spot, also the refrigerator, yet not near the different products, for a handful of hrs, after purchased them. Which was actually obtained for a two year time period with me regarding HALF basics of the activity concurrently (you can easily certainly never really avoid that) and also which functioned exceptionally (sort of) till the day her mother as well as I split. Many individuals have actually established a steadfast dog eat pet dog" attitude regarding the globe, throwing honesty to the wind for enhanced individual increase. Nevertheless, people along with bipolar II typically possess chronic clinical depressions which can easily make dealing quite daunting. Our team possess possessed some wonderful specific document purchases thanks to Nolan Smith, but our experts fizzled on our allocation considering that a few folks around listed below aren't having their sales quite seriously. They seem to be to scuff some metaphysical adventure" off this artsy manure completely as a result of that people have the humility to believe that it is actually deep" and sensible even if they don't know this. Because there is actually nothing to understand, as well as that's. I went through this entire post and I prepared to write a full reaction half means via the initial paragraph however at that point much more realized that you are fairly set on a different viewpoint than I presumed you would certainly have and I desire to create a talk about points that rely on various player experience and expectations, two points that I can easily certainly not and would certainly not intend to change in anyone that assumes that this video game is pretentious or attempting too hard. It's a method from saying that modern fine art is a downside" and that subtitled movies are actually tough" - that they do not attract everyone as well as consequently has to be actually focused on the sorts of people which presume they are actually better compared to every person else. Take, for instance, the picture on p. 2 with the engraving The comprehensive picture of the carbon dioxide pattern. A scrawny 22-year aged along with a mustache that he can not quite manage doesn't have a pretentious mustache." That exact same 22-year outdated could easily be actually ostentatious, but this would certainly need to be for his words, actions and requirements, certainly not the excellence or even failure of his flavor-saver. I want to feel that most of us possess a particular level of good ethical trustworthiness, but folks generally are very prone to moral disadvantages. He believed to themselves that there appeared to become no limit to this male's riches, yet he never ever gave a clue of being actually ostentatious about his results. When you label somebody ostentatious you are claiming that they are attempting to be actually one thing other than on their own; you are testing their extremely identity. A person with grandiosity could seem to be insanely self-aggrandising, pompous, or ostentatious. Have a great look at the professionals you appear and appreciate up to. You'll perhaps discover that most of the greatest professionals around don't use pompous headlines, however instead use headlines that precisely explain just what they carry out. Also those which do utilize exciting titles normally accomplish this in a very jokingly technique and do this in restricted quantities. For one the pompous" review raises it is actually head listed below too, however yet another one is the ______- tier ideology" comment, you understand the ones, this is simply college-tier/ higher school-tier/grade school-tier/baby-tier philosophy" so folks are actually pointing out not merely is that not as intelligent is this believes however is really really beginning. Coming from there certainly, individuals can either read them or really use them in their internet magazines. This is actually the absolute most vital computer game because the starting point from when you began reading this. Often Wendy seemed like chatting during the evening and also will call her best friend, Phillip, at 2 a.m. This actions appeared impolite as well as invasive to him, yet when he aimed to consult with her regarding the complication, she was hard to interrupt and failed to appear to be paying attention. People must not to mention putting on manner that check blood stream movement and those that scratch the pompous area. That's a way from pointing out that present-day art is actually a drawback" which subtitled movies are actually difficult" - that they carry out certainly not entice every person as well as as a result needs to be focused on the form of people who believe they are actually far better than everybody else. Have, for instance, the picture on p. 2 with the inscription The total image of the carbon dioxide pattern. Since some individuals talk differently to you, my guess is you were actually just having a stab. The ostentatious jewel is going to then assess just what strategies are actually called, exactly how it is actually generated as well as produce examination instances for it. Yet nearly anybody can view the much deeper meaning behind this tale which's just what ceases that coming from being ostentatious. The result is actually to combine the strategies of programmed learning and video game having fun to repair the advertising notification in buyers' minds. The pretentious problems from others affirm your own intellectual or even visual skills. To recommend a person is pretentious is to say they are actually acting in ways they are actually not obtained via encounter or economic status". As the greatest care, reduced the stalk till the eco-friendly component, placed that in high flower holder, filled just for 3 quarts with water and add a decline of whitening material. Fine art utilizing pictures typically tries to prompt a feeling/emotion from the visitor, which candidly pointed out is actually much more than half-a-millenia old paints from some dudes or 3 apples and a banana. This manual is a revisionist past history, hitting back at the narrative that dynamic rock-and-roll was pompous as well as puffed up. Like all assortments as well as items of the lexicon workshop responses, the Device 2 from Amount F receives gradually more difficult. The 4th video game finishes along with Magenta ending up in the healthcare facility for unknown main reasons. Second of all, the same pep talk all day to individuals who agree to periodically pay attention, yet have certainly not been actually trained, is actually a waste of time. The majority of people explore their whole entire life for economic liberty as well as never discover that they have everything they actually require right in front of them. It's certainly not tough to see that it has extra skill to bring out feelings in folks along with simply the colour orange vs a photo of a tree. Entrepreneurs recognize concerns as well as start focusing on their option faster compared to people. Allegation prepares the amateur from the specialist in a game trumped up through practice, qualifications and also institutional approval. If you loved this information and you would certainly like to obtain more information pertaining to mountains in england to visit (http://dateprisapraretos.info/kankusta-duo-forte) kindly browse through the web site. When points are left behind debatable and those which carry out possess challenge finding their very own story during the process of participating in the game, this is actually not a game for anybody that dislikes this. At some point youll begin facing key phrases like overblown, a qualifier that explains someone being actually ostentatious or using foreign language thats boastful, like authorities in authorities or wrestling extremely stars during their shows. I do not presume it's as large of a package as it appears that people are actually duping rich individuals into acquiring crappy craft that scams concepts of much more intriguing performers. It is actually since he doesn't view herself as some hoity-toity, snooty, ostentatious writer.

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gustavowilh · 7 years

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Silly Things Smart Product Managers Do

Mobile product managers have some of the toughest jobs in an organization. Markets change so fast and there is often no rule book to guide us for the kinds of situations we encounter, resulting in mistakes made and valuable lessons learned along the way.

We were thrilled to host a panel of expert PMs at our Customer Love Summit, including Erika Englesby, Sr. Product Manager at Providence Health & Services; Josh Lipe, Head of Mobile Product Development at Smartsheet; Vasantha Kostojohn, Sr. Director of Product Management at Allrecipes; and Darren Austin, Partner Director of Product Management at Microsoft; to share silly things that smart product managers do.

In the video below, our panelists share their experiences as veteran product managers. As they reflect on some of the less-flattering moments in their career and what lessons they took away from the experience, our hope is that you can learn from their mistakes.

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If you’d rather read than listen, you can check out the full transcript below. Enjoy!

Transcription

Darren: Thanks everybody. All right thanks everybody it’s great to be here. We’re gonna have a little fun with the panel today. I thought I’d start this out with a little bit of a quote. There’s a famous basketball coach from UCLA whose name’s John Wooden and he’s quoted as saying, “If you’re not making mistakes then you probably aren’t really doing anything.” And I kind of thought that was relevant for our world as mobile product managers because there’s no roadmap to suggest what we’re supposed to do next, right? There’s no examples for all of the various scenarios we come into, right? I mean Apple updates iOS and then something that we have breaks, Android probably happens more frequently, we have to deal with that situation. So the best we can do is to do and we learn by doing and learn by making mistakes, we take them in stride and we laugh at them in hindsight and hopefully we don’t repeat the same things again.

But I think we’re at our best when we’re sharing experiences with one another and we’re learning from one another and that’s what we’re gonna do today. So this group of folks up here is gonna share with you some of the more or rather less flattering moments that we’ve had in our career. And we’re gonna kind of laugh out of it little bit, talk about them and we’re gonna engage the audience at the end for a question and answer so that we can actually hear from you and ideas that you have about things that you’ve experienced and insights that you might wanna hear from us.

So with, that I told Vee that I was gonna put her on the spot, she was gonna be the one that was gonna hit up first. And so I thought I’d started out by asking Vee, like tell us about a situation, a lesson you learned in a difficult way, that you took away an insight, that you could share with the team.

Vasantha: Okay, you all hear me? Not used to a mic. Okay. So I think one of the big lessons is there’s really no substitute for customer feedback. A few years ago we added into our app the ability to scan grocery items in the scenarios that had we imagined were as a user throw something away they could just sort of scan it and add it to their shopping list or they could search for things just by scanning. And what we found in real life is, well the things that people actually search for generally aren’t scannable, you know, chicken, fruit and the scenario of scanning right before you throw something away sounds really cool. But, you know, thumbing it out with your, you know, finger is actually a lot faster. And so it didn’t actually ever, you know, live up to the promise that we were hoping for. So a while later we ended up cutting it and not one user complained. Yeah.

Darren: Yeah that’s cool. Yeah, I think I’ve experienced that as well where we’ve launched product features and we thought, “Oh, this is exactly what people are gonna want.” Right? “Oh, of course, this is what they want.” And then you get it out there and it just sort of, you know, like nothing. You don’t hear anything positive, negative about it. And it shows up in the user data. I had an interesting experience where earlier in my career I was working for AOL Instant Messenger, right? AIM if anybody remembers the running man? Rest in peace, rest in peace.

We had this interesting phenomenon going on in AIM where we had a status message, right? Status message was, you know, I’m out of the office, I’m on vacation whatever. We started seeing people update these things like 20 times a day, right? And we’re thinking, “What in the hell are people updating status messages 20 times a day?” And we didn’t read what they were updating because that’s way too obvious. So but we were seeing this in the data and I kinda called BS on the data. I was like, “No way, like this is ridiculous, right? I don’t understand why people do this, I would never do this.” At the same time, there was this other company coming up called Twitter.

And Twitter was…we were talking to Twitter and Twitter was like, “This is the new thing, we’re gonna do this thing and people are gonna love it and it everybody’s gonna get a text message anytime somebody, you know, makes a trip to the restroom.” And I’m thinking, “This is insane, there’s no way.” And then Twitter started growing and our team got back and we’re looking at the data and we’re saying, “This makes no sense.” We actually didn’t believe the data and so I called Twitter a fluke. We passed on a partnership opportunity with Twitter to host their back-end and if anybody remembers the whale-fail, we could have solved that but we ignored Twitter. And so that was my embarrassing moment in hindsight as I looked and I look back and I say, “Oh my God I had no idea the data is staring me in the face.” And I completely called Twitter a fluke and now we’ve got, you know, the president tweeting all the time.

Erika: So the biggest question is, do you use Twitter now?

Darren: Kind of. I kind of do I. Yeah, I do tend to. Okay, so true confessions, right? I have it set up to where it’ll post simultaneously to Twitter and LinkedIn and I don’t do Facebook for some reason, I think maybe that’s more personal. But yeah I’m using it a little bit.

Erika: It doesn’t make you like cringe every time?

Darren: Yeah. I kinda feel like I really screwed that one up because I was like, “Oh, man the data was right there.” I can’t believe it. Yeah. So lesson learned was, you know, trust the data. I don’t know if you guys ever run into a situation where you’ve had data staring you in the face and you just say, “I can’t imagine that anybody would wanna do this. It must be a fluke.”

Erika: I mean I think we’re…At Providence, we’re currently going through the opposite where we don’t have any data. So we’re part of an innovation team and we have built our product from a beta that sort of launched as a real full-fledged product but without any of the analytics that you truly want to understand what your users are doing. So we’re currently going through a period of understanding what do we wanna learn from our users and then going back in and actually adding that all those key pieces back in. And so right now we’re kind of, we have account managers that are selling to other hospital systems signer apps or white labeling to other hospital systems and they want all this data and they wanna understand it and so they’ve been going into Google Analytics and pulling out the pieces they think they want and we’re like, “No, do not look at it.” We don’t know if it’s right. So we’re actually releasing it on Friday. A new release hopefully that includes a lot more of the analytical data that we need to understand.

Darren: Nice.

Erika: So hopefully we’ll be able to make some better decisions because we’ve been kind of running blind for a while and it feels a little scary. So…

Darren: We did that too, I mean, when I first joined Microsoft to on the team a couple of years ago. When I first joined we didn’t have any analytics, I mean, we knew…I think we knew monthly active users but we had really low visibility into our retention and our churn information. And it was seat of the pants kind of decisions like, “Okay the best we can do is talk to customers and get a sense for what they’re telling us.” And even though we don’t have, you know, volumes of data that was sort of the best we can do and most of the time we guess right, I think there were a few times we guessed wrong. I think there was one time we run an alert, we wanted to promote collaboration. So we found out, “Oh yeah if people are collaborating with their notes, you know, retention will be better.” So he said, “Oh well, what if we gave an alert every time somebody updated a shared notebook?” Yeah, that’s what happened.

Erika: That sounds noisy.

Darren: Yeah it was real noisy. We ended up sort of… We tested it which sort of makes the end result even more embarrassing but we end up spamming our users for a period of time and then we had to roll that back and we’re like, “Oh yes, that’s actually gonna be kind of caddy.” We don’t want that. But we heard about it in loud voices. So, you know.

Josh: One of the screw ups embarrassed is, there’s too many that I can name here in the time we have, but it worked for a local carrier Magenta and was launching a new, I won’t name names. But it was launching a new device.

Audience: T-Mobile.

Josh: Fair. It was T-Mobile. Was launching a new device and there was a lot of new and a lot of old in this device. What I mean by that is the operating system was kind of a dinosaur at the time, I think Windows 6.5, and it did a lot but it didn’t do a lot really well. And we had a partner HTC that had this really awesome four-inch diagonal screen with, this is way back when [inaudible 00:08:39] dating myself, but Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. And so my colleagues and I looked at this device and we looked at what we had and we thought, “Well we could launch this device pretty plain and boring.” But what we wanted to do is try to turn that thing into an entertainment portal for our users and it hadn’t really been done before that way at T-Mobile.

So we partnered with a number of media app companies so Blockbuster, Netflix was doing something else with Apple at the time they said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” We ultimately got them to be on the next device preloaded. But anyway so we had Windows 6.5, coupled with this brand new device which was really powerful and we did a lot of deals with different media companies, MobiTV and Blockbuster and we rolled our own Amazon mp3 app, the T-Mobile team did and we partner with Amazon to do that. So all those apps on this device with an older operating system that wasn’t getting any love from Redmond, kind of really just came together and we thought, “Okay we have this tight timeline, are gonna make it or not?” So we ended up, we launched the device. But it had one of the higher return rates in T-Mobile’s history so we under market pressure we delayed a few times and ultimately said we just had to go. That was a big failure I think in the many millions of dollars. But more importantly the customer trust in the sales teams and the retail and then, of course, our partnership deals.

Darren: I think that’s a common thing though, right? Like there’s always pressure to ship. You’re working on something for such a long time. I feel like that’s a universal thing where you’ve got so much invested in this. And yes, we know that there are problems, it’s not perfect but if we wait on perfection we’re never gonna get it right. That seems like a common thread. Is that something that…I feel like I’ve certainly experienced that multiple times.

Josh: Yeah. Market pressure, you know, there’s plans to go and you have to make hard calls near the end and you sometimes it’s a leap of faith, other times you try to be like, “All right, can we stub in the app?” This is before the [inaudible 00:10:41], we stub it in to where they fire the app up and then it downloads so you kind of safeguard that process a little bit and update the app as it’s launching and so that the user gets the new one, you know, but now that’s all moot. But yeah you have to make the calls to either pull stuff off or say we’re gonna launch and there’s gonna be some impact here and really let the users know.

Darren: Yeah I’d be curious to hear from you guys about how you balance that pressure too. You know, because there is a…it’s a fine line and there’s no cut and dry answer like, “Do we ship or do we delay and get it a little bit better?” How do you guys handle that type of thing and what’s your decision tree look like and what are some examples of when you had to make a tough call one way or the other?

Erika: So I think from my perspective what I tend to do is I lean on my team a lot. I think that they are the ones that are really in the code, in the QA process day-to-day and they really understand all the pitfalls that are hiding behind the scenes. I do remember a time, Darren knows the story, so I’d been working at Starbucks we had re-launched the iOS and Android apps with the new design and totally rewrote them from scratch with an in-house team and the launch went off pretty great. It was delayed a few times but ultimately we got there and it was a situation where leadership kept saying, “Oh but we’d love to have this in.” I said, “Great you can have it, it’s gonna be another month.”

And so we finally got there, got over the finish line and then a couple months later we were just doing like a routine bug-fix release. But it was one of those times where we’re like, “Okay we got to get it out.” because I can’t remember what it was for but we had to get this one fix in and so we kind of rushed it. And this was when the apps were very high profile at the time because they had just released, everything was going great. So I get a call very early in the morning and it’s Howard Schultz on the other end and he was at…

Darren: Not a good thing. Usually not a good thing.

Erika: No. The update had come out the night before. He was trying to use the pay functionality at his local [inaudible 00:12:50] Park store and scan his bar code and the app kept crashing. So what we had found out is that we had an upgrade crasher that hadn’t been tested, maybe had been tested but not fully.

Darren: Not on Howard’s phone.

Erika: Not on Howard’s phone. He was the best keyway. He really was, he always had that one phone with that one problem. That’s crazy. But anyway so I get the call and it’s literally like the store had just opened like the man never sleeps. And so I was like, “How did you even get my phone number?” Number one. I found out later it was another person on the senior leadership team, who will remain nameless. But we got the call that it was crashing on the pay screen. Can you imagine? Like this is before we had launched mobile pay.

So the biggest benefit of the app was the pay screen like scanning a bar-code and so quickly I like, rally the troops. We get into work, we figure out what the issue is, we worked like day and night for like 24 hours straight trying to get the release out and really make sure it’s tested this time which was key. And then I actually had to go to Howard’s office and prove to him that the upgrade bug was fixed. Like imagine a tail between your legs like, “Oh yeah, we fixed it, I promise this time.” Anyway, we got it fixed but it was crazy because on…Like talk about customer feedback, this was like before we had implemented this was before we had done a lot of like any customer feedback. Twitter was on fire. People were pissed. It was like just grab your credit card.

Darren: Twitter ended up being a thing, didn’t it?

Erika: It did. It did yeah. Big surprise.

Darren: Big surprise.

Erika: So if we had actually looked at Twitter the night before we’ve probably would have realized then that the crashing bug was in there. But anyway long story short we got it fixed but it was definitely one of those moments where it was like, “Can I just hide under a rock right now?” Because even though like I’m not the one queuing it, I’m not the one developing it, like you are the face of the product. And so it’s really important to like understand all those pieces and really get your hands dirty too. Because I guarantee you I am such a proponent of like forced-upgrade now. Like, put that in your code because then you can flip a switch and be like guess what users you have to go on this new version.

Darren: I like that insight, the forced-upgrade is what you took away from it, while I was sitting here thinking the lesson learned for me was like, “don’t give your number to Howard Schultz.” Right? Whatever you do. But I like that better, that’s actually useful.

Erika: So now like every time I come to a new company I’m like, “Do you have forced-upgrade?” If not we’re adding that first.

Darren: Nice.

Erika: So we’ve added it at Providence. It has saved us a couple of times where we’ve been like, “Oh shoot, we really have like a bug or a version we wanted to switch over our whole back-end and so everyone really did need to update.”

Darren: Is the forced-upgrade happening every single upgrade or you just flip the switch and say, “This is the forced-upgrade?”

Erika: No, there’s a server side you can…Yeah. Switch and then we have language in there that can turn on. It’s really, really useful and we’ve actually use the upgrade tools as well to sort of softly do that. And then we usually do a forced-upgrade after that.

Darren: Yeah, I think that’s good advice. We’ve had to do that before at a previous role in it helped. Yeah. For sure. One of the things that I think is interesting too is we’ve sort of all been around before mobile, B.M., bad acronym. So before mobile but now we’ve been living in this sort of mobile-centric world and it’s different, right? I mean mobile is fundamentally different than when we were building for web and desktop apps and everything. I’m curious to get perspective from you guys on what you learned from mobile, like what are the things now in a mobile-centric mobile first world that are different, what’s more important about our job as product managers, product designers in a mobile first world?

Josh: Move very very fast.

Darren: Yeah

Josh: Because that’s what customers are expecting. And so when I go into any sort of new role I assess, you know, how often are we pushing a new app out to market. And if that cadence is, you know, two months or three months that’s just way too long in my view.

Vasantha: Okay, I would add to that. With less screen realisty the sort of harder, you have to look at your priorities and get really crisp around that. There’s a quote that I’ve heard that I love. It goes, “Your strategies fall on the battlefield of you x.” And I think that’s especially true as it relates to mobile. Were you really kind of have to get really crisp about what’s important, what’s not important. You know, and how much of this tiny space is it worth, you know, for every given thing you’re trying to do?

Darren: I think we’ve probably all tried to fit the desktop experience into mobile screen at some point. Show of hands anybody do that and made that mistake? Right? Like, don’t do that if you’ve not done that. Don’t do that. That’s yes. Definitely, a new UI is required and more focus, right? Yeah.

Erika: I think for us it’s really important like when we first re-launch the Starbucks apps we had really done an iOS-centric design. And so we basically, and I see this happen everywhere is iOS gets slammed into Android, the user experience is very different, users use their phones very differently on the two platforms. And we heard from customers immediately like, “What are you doing?” And people started just dropping the app, to be honest, ou

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