#every one of these pixels irritates my soul | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

Text

Novel subheading: Friendship has conquered death

Maria, Cept, Miranda, and Nestle all made eye contact simultaneously, then all turned away with a sheepish look.

"Uh," said Miranda.

The four friends were grouped together in front of a fireplace in the city's most esteemed and revered teahouse, Wick. Tossing scented briquettes onto the blaze, proprietress Balis growled, "You four get up there every evening around six to talk nonsense. You and your ugly old computers."

The friends laughed. "We were just having a little chat," said Nestle, the least irritable and most even-tempered of the group. "No need to begrudge us a place."

"But you're using it as a headquarters. Of sorts."

"That is true," said Cept. Maria was next to him, Miranda to his left. Nestle was relegated to the far side of the room, sitting alone against the wall with her boring old tea cup in her lap. She'd been at this tea shop, or one like it, for over ten years now, and the other three had never quite gotten the hang of it. They didn't like it so much, but sometimes it was nice to be able to do a little thinking away from an electric glow.

Balis nodded. "Fine, fine, but you four stay away from my teacups. We're nice and full, but I don't want to be running off to have them washed all the time."

"Our apologies," said Nestle. "We'll try not to."

"'Tis only, you three keep bringing in, and it's, you have it, the bane of teacup existence. Too many cake crumbs, or --"

"Or watching my hands quiver in the heat of the mug before me," said Miranda.

Balis threw another scented briquette onto the coals. "What are we talking about?"

Maria said, "Go on, Miranda, it's your floor."

Miranda took a drink of her tea -- she liked it sweet -- and put down her cup and saucer with practiced care. She was a clumsy soul, and the teacups here were all either hand-painted or expensive, one or both.

"I'm no great shakes at explaining it," she said.

"Just try," Maria said. "We're friends."

Miranda sighed. "So. It's about the green box. That's what our friends call it, sometimes. To take a name from one of the earlier groups that went into it. But we've had it for a long time. Bought it from . . . from" -- she stopped, as though she'd said something extremely sensitive.

Cept took up the narration. He was a kind man, but with a slightly pedantic streak. Some sort of old culture had left its marks on him, and unbeknownst to him he tended to tend to whichever of these marks was most appropriate to the given situation. It had gotten him beaten up once.

"We have been using it for about ten years now. It's a machine capable of containing many large numbers of discrete images. When used in its standard configuration, it can store only one image at a time, but it is capable of inputting and outputting many images quickly. It's a bit like a camera, in that way."

Nestle said, "Oh, we all know about the green box."

Miranda said, "Right. It's been a pretty standard part of our house for a decade now. As I said, it's gotten sort of cramped. We've got room for 376500 images on it right now. But --"

"Bumped up against the wall!" Cept interjected.

"That's the point," Miranda said. "It's bumped up against the wall. We can store one more image, but that's all. We're hitting that barrier we always hit -- our cell sizes are getting too large. You can't do much at the level of individual cell size, and you can't make much progress. At least I can't. Miranda has her ways. But what can we do when we can only hold one more image, and you can't even usefully work at the level of individual pixels anymore?"

Maria said, "What could we do?"

Miranda drank some of her tea, and stared into the fire. "Maria and I are going to try something new. That's why we brought the box here. We brought it here because we knew it would freak Balis out. We wanted to know that it was our choice, our real choice, that we were making. To keep us honest."

Cept looked around. The walls of the shop were covered in the dazzling murals, the stained glass windows filled with dazzling rainbows. The pictures were all Balis's own creations, done with an eye for the beautiful and the sublime. The shop could not be called "subdued."

"We thought, what if we . . . made the box into a person?"

"A person?" Maria said. "A person?"

"But you were going to talk to it, too, right?"

"Well, yes, we were going to communicate. The box and us. Be a person. And a machine. No, you know, that's not quite it. It was supposed to be . . . the interface would make us more human, more real to it, to each other, to ourselves."

Miranda looked around again. "I'm always saying that I can't remember my mother's face, really. And she wasn't even there, at the moment of my birth, to impress a visual record in my brain. Miranda can remember her mother's voice, sort of, but not as well as she wants. She needs something more than words. A picture. To bring her mother back. Or" -- she put a hand on the back of her neck -- "her father. She's missing her father more than me, lately. In their last conversation, he called her 'the clever one' and he praised her . . . intelligence. It wasn't anything new to either of us, but it was" --

Cept began to speak.

"It was too late by then. Nothing could have done any good. We could have done anything. No, we could have done things. Woken up earlier, asked them, begged them, to choose differently. There are always choices. If we'd known the choice that would make him stay. But he was gone. We still had the box."

"The box," Miranda was saying. "The box that could see and hear."

Maria said, "But it's --"

"The box that can do more. Didn't Cept and I go over this? Didn't we talk about this, about the sheer power of the box, about how it's only limited by our imaginations?"

Cept said, "The box is always only limited by our imaginations. But what are we if not creatures of imagination?"

Miranda said, "We are, I guess, that."

Maria said, "I guess."

"And I'm not a machine," Miranda said.

"And I'm not," said Maria.

"And Miranda isn't," said Cept.

"And we're here, in our friend Balis's teahouse, about to make a great leap into a new frontier," Miranda said.

"About to," Maria agreed.

Cept cleared his throat. "What can you do, for an audience, Balis?"

Miranda spoke into the sudden silence. "I can paint. I can paint stuff you can't believe."

"It's all very interesting, but --"

Maria put her hand on Balis's arm.

Maria said, "I can sing. I can sing all kinds of things. Songs from the before-times, ballads and ditties. That's where we got the one we used to meet each other. You heard our first song, remember? 'The Moonsailors.'"

"I remember it well," Balis said. "I don't know where you learned it."

"We didn't just learn it from each other," Miranda said.

"We learned it from a tape. A cassette. One we found in the teapot, upstairs, on the top shelf."

Maria said, "It's a long story. You can't just flip a record on, or press a button. It's a whole . . . song. There are . . . ~songs~ in between. That

#original fiction

7 notes · View notes

monsoonblooms12 · 3 years

Text

Eumoiriety (Ethan x f!MC)

Summary: Four Years of Pooja Sharma's Birthday, from her first year as an Intern to her first year as an Attending.

Eumoiriety: Happiness due to state of innocence and purity💕

A/N: It's my baby's birthday and I went overboard. This is purely self indulgent and since I have zero to negative self control, this turned out way longer than I expected it to. Anyway, I hope you still like it💙

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)

Word Count: around 3.7K (I am sorry!)

Rating: General

Category: A bit angst, A bit fluff

Warnings: None that I saw.

Prompts: @choicesaugustchallenge Day 29 - Birthday

READ ON AO3

Intern Year:

She walks barefoot on the green floor as the dews clinging to grass tips, soothe her like the cold breeze on a summer day.

A few golden rays filter through the canopy that acts as a barrier to the shining sun overhead. When they fall on the grass, the view looks like gold intermixed with emerald.

She wears a white gown, which flutters behind her, as her heart dances with the bees going flower to flower to get their prize of nectar in return for their favour of pollinating them.

There is a calm spreading through her soul, an ease, a slow infusion of tranquillity with her heart beats.

A swish makes her turn. Her eyes capture a silhouette, drifting farther and farther, as if taking her calm along with it.

It's replaced by restlessness.

There is a cajole, a whispered cajole, that urges her feet to run, her mind to think, her heart to wonder.

She follows. One step, and another.

The scene changes.

There are no more trees, no more green with the sun's shine.

At a distance, the waves crash on the sandy shore, their meet with their shore echoing in the silent surroundings.

She looks around and sees it.

The silhouette, now apparent that it was a man, standing with his back to her. He looks unbothered. As if he stole her peace and gave her his unrest in return.

She tries to walk slowly towards, footsteps imprinting on the sand, but the distance never seems to lessen or end.

She tries running, but to no avail.

The waves continue crashing, the footprints continue to get imprinted and the man continues to remain still and silent.

The only change has been in the sky, which is now leaden, dark with humongous clouds.

The thunder begins to cackle.

Once, Twice, Thrice.

She closes her ears with her hands, eyes shut to reduce the impact of the thunderous noise reverberating through every single one of her bones. But the roar keeps getting louder and louder until...

Her eyes snap open, but the echo from her sweven doesn't leave her. She turns around to find her phone ringing, straining her eyes with incredulous bright light (that she forgot to dim). The caller ID is barely registered, but the voice gives away the identity.

It's her sister.

With a flash, all the haze from the peculiar dream gets lost and bubbly happiness takes up the emptied space.

It's their birthday.

The first one since she came here. She had been so busy unknotting the twisted knots of circumstances in which she found herself tangled, that she had forgotten about the once unforgettable occasion of her life.

Maybe she has really lost that childhood she held on so tightly to, she thinks.

But not without a hope. Of a chance to get it back.

Maybe differently.

But the want to relive those carefree days, where the colour of pens you get as gifts, and the decision of who gets the piece of cake with the chocolate masterpiece on it were the only things that held importance. All other worldly, societal woes were secondary, trivial, uncared for.

She wishes her sister and she wishes her back.

3..2..1.. Happy Birthday! To Us!

They scream-whisper together, carrying on the years' long tradition.

The only thing different? They were on their cellulars, ecospheres apart, instead of snuggling and shouting together, and annoying their brother for an entire day.

Subconsciously, a tee-hee escapes her. Thinking about her brother, she takes a look at the clock. Correct 12:03 am on 12th August. If she knows him, he is probably counting the seconds.

At 12:05 am to the dot, another shrill echoes through the silent apartment. Her guess is correct.

On the other side of the screen, sits Idhayan arranging the cake so that Pooja can see the eloquent buttercream designs he has hand made on it.

In the background, there is a blurry motion. It turns out to be Alekhya.

She jumps onto the couch beside their brother, putting an end to his steady concentration.

He makes an irritated face, while she laughs.

And Pooja just watches, giggling alone.

The pang in her chest reminds her, once & once more, about just how much she misses them.

How empty, monochromatic her life is, with all these miles between them.

For the past year, every time any event took a turn for the worse, broke her, or hurt her, she wanted to go back to her safe haven.

The place where the chronicles of her life begun.

Many times, she had found herself convinced (by others as well as her self doubting mind) that she didn't belong here. That she didn't have the calibre, the skills to strive in this fight of dogs, in this race of horses where she felt like a donkey.

Or maybe a snail.

She dreamed of sleeping in her mother's lap when she first found herself in the crossroads of feelings and reason. Making her muddled head clear with words that never crossed the barrier between dream and reality.

When Mrs Martinez died, she imagined herself sitting on the swing, her brother's comfort brownies reduced to messy crumbs, as she let the mountain winds take away the burden of dread that pressed upon her heart.

And the day when Landry's backstab became eminent? She visualized her sister ripping him down, shredding him with knives of words because that's what he deserved.

She knew her father would have made them both coffee like he always did when he came home during breaks from piloting. He would have said a mere few words, which would have been enough for her to see the path ahead.

The mini virtual celebration ends, and the silence settles again. Tendrils of sleep come and go, but never stay.

She is left alone with her thoughts and worries, and a fear of the unknown which is hidden by the curtains of the future.

--------

The day passes like a swift blowing wind in a desert.

It's quiet, too quiet.

And probably for the first time in her life, she adores it. To be away from the hustle of a celebration, which would have been a noise in the cacophony, given the situation.

To get a period of silence for her thoughts to drift away, to think about the unknown, to predict a make or break.

The pages are turned swiftly by her fingers, one of which is clad with a minimal gold ring, another old ritual of hers.

The library harbours the overworked interns, who are now pushing the boundaries of time to find a way to help their friend out.

Their tired eyes pain with the lack of sleep, coffee fuelling through their veins, and mind engrossed in picking up any clue, any line, any tip that could be supportive for them.

Hours pass, no-one utters a word. Pens run on empty notebooks, hands managing to create only messy scribbles. Black and Blue fill the white as if it never existed.

The clock strikes the end hour.

They all get up.

They go home together, for discussions and relaxation.

At the doorstep, everyone enters before her, while she stands still, too engulfed in worries to notice the happenings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Confetti pops, her reverie is broken.

The smile shines like a jewel in a priceless necklace.

The arrangements are minimal, just champagne, cake and friends, but that's more than enough for her. To make her forget the dark fog of pessimism.

Maybe there is hope left.

-------

Second Year:

12th August.

The day that is drifting closer by the minute.

It has always been Alekhya's birthday for her.

On her phone, In her diary, In her mind.

People might regard it as a beautiful flaw of her nature, the flaw of always placing others before herself.

But to her, the instinct seemed natural, obvious. She had never delved into the whys, and she doesn't want to begin now.

For Alekhya, the circumstances became vice-versa.

And this was the beauty of their bond.

Strong, Pure and Selfless.

They never seem to realize that, though.

They hold onto the strings of simplicity, of sweet uncomplexity. And that is what helps them to bridge the gap between siblings and best friends.

After the tumultuous year, that very much resembled the completion of a voyage through the rough Indian Ocean, where storms ravage through days and endless nights, thunders crack, and waves that scale the heights between the ocean and sky to become mountains of water, crash on the feeble pieces of wood barely held together in the form of a boat, coming back to her origin, her hometown is a necessity.

Especially for her to find that normalcy again.

She survived.

Even though she fell, almost drowned, gasped for a breath more times she could count and nearly accepted her fate.

Until that is, the pale faces of the ones she holds close, the endless stream of tears that scale their cheeks, their breaking hearts, came to haunt her in her reverie and prevented her from closing her eyes & from letting that almost undetectable beat of heart stop.

The wishes from last year come back to her. This time, it wasn't virtual anymore. This time, it wasn't just painted in pixels, but written in buttercream letters, one which she could taste.

This time, the hugs weren't just virtual. They were very real, and very needed.

As she sits amidst the bushes of phenomenal florals, she lets her mind project in vivid colours, the extremities of the last year.

Her heart, breaking into tiny glass pieces, not perceived by the eye but sharp enough to draw blood.

The fear of losing and letting so many others lose along.

The coming close and going away, almost kisses and slide of unassuming hands, those which could easily be perceived as a mistake, but were anything but.

Competing in a nameless competition and almost dying in the process.

Getting the lost love back. Slowly, Gradually. (even if it felt too early to call it that)

And then... Her mind stops as the playful tunes start emanating out along with florescent light from the cellular, and the face of the one who has been a regular image of the thoughts that lull her to sleep.

On the other side, his voice is soft.

She can visualize him in the Diagnostics Office, leaning back on his chair.

Most probably on a break.

The new day hasn't even started for him, yet he remembers that it has, for her.

Their talks are interspersed with comfortable silence. For them, just the knowledge that the person on the other side is still there with them is enough.

All through the conversation, she waits.

In a hope that the irrelevant and unimportant date is written in faded letters somewhere in that brilliant mind of his.

As the line approaches its end, talks slowly halt, she feels a faint pang of sadness.

Maybe he doesn't remember it after all.

She bids her farewell, and as his finger hovers close to the end call button, she hears it.

Crystal Clear but still seeming unreal.

Happy Birthday, Pooja.

Her thanks are intermixed with a light giggle, unable to hold back the pleasure that erupts within her, along with the flutter called butterflies in her stomach.

Maybe there is always hope left, after all.

-------

Last year of Residence:

There have been countless moments when she has asked the time to wait, to slow its rushing footsteps that leave no mark behind.

Sometimes it's a beg, while in other vespertine hours, it's a mindless murmur.

This moment is one of them.

When a handful of sand is slowly released on a windy day, the swooshes and swishes carry them away, farther and farther, leave them with no choice but to fly along.

The minutes were being carried away by the same current, where they had no choice but to pass.

No one had the power to hold it, not even the mighties, the richest, the most supreme.

The conditions now extensively mimic the conditions during her first year.

Just this time, it was textbooks on internal medicine and medical procedure instead of ethics.

The wishes that day are hushed, the minimal party comprising of cupcakes and mug cakes and the gang, christened "The Invincibles" after they successfully tackle one hurdle and another but remain strong and together, in their PJs.

It must be one of the first nights since who knows how long when they spent their time doing an activity that doesn't involve colour coded tabs and complicated biological drawings.

And even though some of them make faux complaints about the wasted time, they all needed this break more than they could express.

The morning sun rays filter through the white curtains guarding the windows way too fast, making them unable to pinpoint the exact moment when the black of the night ceased to exist, when the sky became melanocrysus and when the golden took over the entire stretch.

A single text message pushes her to drop the blanket of laziness, the cocoon she inhabited. Getting up and placing a smile has never been as easy as it was now.

Come Over

------

The condo is inhabited by a stark silence when she reaches there.

She knocks. The click of the doorknob on the other side is almost instantaneous.

His hand wraps around her waist like a reflex deeply etched in his encephalon. For the first time in forever, their kisses are not chaste. Or momentary.

When he whispers a happy birthday wish against her forehead, that's what she would call intimacy.

The purity of the action touches her heart and makes it swell, with an emotion that she predicts will not remain unnamed any longer.

-------

First-year as an attending:

The celebratory vibes are in the air today.

Her stride is confident, heels playing a mellow harmony on the shining floors.

No one doesn't recognize her.

The intern who nearly lost her license to the Head of Diagnostics team, it was a journey that had thrown her off-road a million times.

Sometimes the barriers were pinpricks leaving no marks, and sometimes they were boulders crushing her.

And sometimes, one of these on-lookers would tear down her faith by stabbing her from the back, the cowardice of their soul, being mirrored in the blades of those knives of betrayal.

And yet she stands strong, her resolve unperturbed, as she faces the demons, those of others and those of her own.

It's a fight she has been learning to fight since she was eleven.

To curtain her tears with a glow in eyes, to hide the broken heart behind pretty lies. And just like practice makes one perfect, she has almost perfected the art of having to hide the real her inside.

As she passes the numerous congregations, amalgamations of patients and staff, she is greeted by wishes from old acquaintances whose kindness is apparent in their smile and by wishes of employed enemies, whose disinterest or sometimes blatant hate is too, completely apparent in their voice.

But they are not the ones she is worried about.

Interspersed between these two extremities are people who speak kind and in flattery lines with a sword behind their back.

Those who know how to hide their true intentions in the modulations of voice.

Every time she hears a wish where nothing is apparent, her heart stops for a while.

Strings of thought muddle her head and she tries to figure out the reality behind their words.

Sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she fails.

And sometimes she faces vehement opposition of her tired nerves who ask her to stop caring about those who are passing by.

But she never stops.

Her legs carry her to the Diagnostics office.

Her Office.

The swell of pride, of a fulfilment she last felt when she got into Edenbrook, make her head light.

She tries to stop but gives up the efforts soon.

If she has realized something through the twists of lawsuits and turns of almost dying, it is that if you keep waiting for the turns of the clock to approach a "right moment" for a chance to celebrate, you will probably keep waiting your entire life until your breath is being taken away and all that is left are regrets and missed opportunities of happiness.

So she twirls like a princess in her imaginary ball gown, beaming with satisfaction, and taking pride in giving herself the give of success.

Of making her loved ones and herself proud.

She gets so carried away in the train of thoughts, in which one bougie is connected by another, and one more, that she doesn't notice the person who preoccupies the room.

The halt is so sudden, that she almost tumbles upon the man. Almost.

She manages to get hold of herself, her hand on his back.

He turns, eyes meet.

If someone would have asked her what is cosmic, she would have said "The melt of glowing ambers into ice blue." Sure, she has looked into them more times than she can count or recollect. But every time their orbs meet, the reactions the action produces, she can only give the word seraphic to it.

When Ethan left for Amazon, she would often wonder why is she still keeping the lamp of hope alive. His absquatulation broke her, acted like a spark to her over-thinking mind. She would lie on her bed, eyes tracing the same lines on the ceiling above her over and over again, thinking just what she did wrong. She never reached the end of the path though, never really achieved the answer, even after meandering through a hundred courses of thoughts.

But now, she thanks her old self for living through it all. For not letting that lamp extinguish. For keeping it safe in a little corner of the labyrinths of her heart. Wordlessly, she hugs him, the plethora of emotions becoming quite too much to be expressed in minute syllables.

His whisper next to her ears, the innocently simplistic words induce a shiver in her spine.

But the last word.

4 letters, 1 word.

It hangs in the air like a diamond necklace around a maiden's neck. Like a tiny pendant that shines brighter than all elaborate jewels, all lengthy anecdotes.

It's enough, more than enough for her.

And as their smiles slowly spread like the slow rise of the golden sun, gently letting the rays spread through the humble earth. And those smiles, they shine together, brighter than the Sirius.

Happy Birthday, Love.

-------

Her casual gown, bearing floral patterns, flutters along with the soft grass, she feels a sense of wonder. Whether at the shimmering moon, the stardust spread through the stretch in the woods, or at the simplicity of her surroundings, she does not know.

Her unassuming footsteps walk slow, observant of her surroundings. After walking down the trail, she stops at the clearance.

At a distance, something shines under the silver moonbeams. Her mind beckons her to return back, but her intuition asks her to move on. She listens to the latter's plea.

A small cuboidal box and a bunch of white tulips lay peacefully out of place. She usually would have left it, just in case it was a trap.

But this time curiosity overtook reason and she picks the bouquet up. A small note amidst her favourite flowers.

I love you

No name. No initials. But she knew exactly who had written it. Not because he was the one who asked her to come here, in the heaven hidden amidst the chaos, but because those flourishes of his fanciful lettering would never escape her notice. Even if the only source of luminance was distant fairy lights on trees and the faint moonbeams.

Her eyes travel away from the articles. At a distance, the silhouette stands. The same silhouette from her sweven. But this time, there is no restlessness, no rush, no tension in the air. No thunder cackles and no waves crash. This time the silhouette waits for her, unlike the last time when it was her waiting for him.

He turns, only the shine of his orbs visible. And the shadow of the gorgeous smile that dances on his lips. The last time, his stone mask was too heavy, too powerful for any of them to break or move.

But this time? This time, the mask has fallen off, it has met the end of its existence.

He comes closer, the shadow now a clear image. He goes and picks up the cuboid and hands it to her.

"Open it" He whispers in a soft voice, that disappears as soon as it appears.

She takes it and opens it, as per his words. Everything is perfect and normal.

Except for the space in the middle.

Something sparkles, in silver lustre. Her first instinct is, Diamond? She decided to pick it up

It's a key.

She looks up to him, bewildered. Is it what she thinks it is?

Move-in with me?

She places the box of chocolates down, the key held tight in her fist.

And then she kisses him.

She doesn't have to speak a word, but he understands. After all, why would two intertwined hearts need verbal responses to know what the other one feels?

Only his home, can fill the brick walls of his house with love, and make it a home.

------

They both lay side by side on the lush grass, hands intertwined, hearts beating in unison, silence filling their souls like air fills their lungs.

They look at the stars and the moon. Or more appropriately, the gaze at the starry screen, but the mind plays significant moments from their time together.

Pooja's mind however thinks about the four of her birthdays since she set foot in Boston. The mundane softness of them, contrasting all the birthdays she has had in the rest of her years.

The photo frame of the interns from the first year. The group video call, her life from the second year. The PJ party from the third year. And the key from the fourth.

They are puzzle pieces of the saga of her life, the absence of friends from early years, the gap, the void now filled.

And after years of searching, she thinks she has finally found it. Hidden in the normality, the simplicity, the mundanity of life.

Happiness.

PS: If you are reading this, I am very grateful for you. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day🤎

Tags🤎 (Please let me know if you want to be added or removed or if I forgot you):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @izzyourresidentlawyer @phoenixrising308 @adiehardfan @quixoticdreamer16 @a-crepusculo

Open Heart (All fics and edit): @lucy-268 @maurine07 @bellcat2010 @headoverheelsforramsey @estellaelysian @shanzay44

Ethan x Pooja: @aleynareads @choicesaddict5 @stygianflood @mysticaurathings @jamespotterthefirst @ilikemenbutonlyethanramsey @takemyopenheart @mm2305

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

45 notes · View notes

akemiiiii · 3 years

Text

Like waves crashing.

[before anything else, i know i only put my art here, but I do write from time to time hehe, so I'm sharing this one with you all, much love! I hope you enjoy it!]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

“What the fuck?”

The first thing that Iwaizumi registers in his sleep-addled mind is that the bed is too soft. It did not feel like the firm mattress he always sleeps on in his apartment.

The second thing he registers is the soft scent of bergamot and pine which reminds him of Oikawa.

Which was definitely weird because Oikawa isn’t anywhere remotely near him at the moment, in fact, he clearly remembers he was 6 thousand miles away.

His eyes open to see a white ceiling, a grey duvet cover, and the king-sized bed he was currently on.

”What the fuck?”

Iwaizumi was thoroughly confused. He doesn’t remember anything that would sufficiently explain where he was.

The last thing he does remember was his sleep-deprived thoughts of missing Tooru because they’d yet to see each other for a year now and a pixelated face on a screen does not count.

And now here he is on a soft mattress that does wonders for his body, a room he does not recognize, and a scent that reminds him so much of his best friend.

“Did I die from missing Tooru so much?” Iwa anxiously gets up from the bed and heads to what he assumes is the cabinet. Right now, the idea of lying half-naked on a stranger’s bed did not seem appealing.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth for reasons unknown to him. But as Iwaizumi scrambles to open the cabinet, his sight lands on two very conspicuous shirts.

Hanging isolated on the right end of the closet was a black shirt that housed a small Japanese flag right above where a heart would be when worn. Besides the black shirt is a blue jersey, a huge ‘13’ smack right in the middle with an Argentine flag on the corner.

For the 3rd time that day, Iwaizumi curses.

Was Tooru already 1st string on his team? Was he already playing for Argentina? Wait, no, that’d be impossible Tooru would have to be an Argentine citizen for that ti happen.

Thoughts beeline in his brain, too fast for him to process. While Iwa was trying to understand what he was seeing, voices past the door of the room catch his attention.

Iwa stands still, eyes wide, fearing he’d be caught. Any hopes of these people leaving burn to dust as the knob turns slightly.

Then his eyes meet the soft brown burned and buried into his heart.

“Tooru?” Iwaizumi doesn’t take notice of the fact that Oikawa’s taller, bulkier, and more tanned. He was too happy to finally see his best friend after a year of not having him near that he barrels past the unfamiliar room to crush said man into a fierce hug.

“...Iwa-chan?” Oikawa squeaks out

“Tooru! Gods, I missed your stupid face, how are you here? Why are you here?” at this Iwa moves back to glare at the man “You better not have skipped out on your practices dumbass, you know better than to…”

“What the fuck?” The fourth curse surprisingly does not come from Iwaizumi. Well, not from the one who just bear-hugged Oikawa.

Iwa’s eyes move from Oikawa’s wide-blown eyes, past his shoulder, to see his own face staring back at him. A more muscled, more robust, maybe slightly taller version of himself.

Iwa curses for the fifth time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wait, wait, wait, you mean to say it is currently 2024?” Iwaizumi asks this supposedly adult Tooru.

“Yeah! We’re like, 30 now, Iwa-chan!” For the most part, Tooru looks extremely amused at what was happening that he couldn’t stop looking back and forth between the younger Iwa and the older.

“Damn, Iwa-chan, look at all the wrinkles you’ve accumulated, I told you all that scowling was gonna stay.” Oikawa chatters on excitedly

“Shut up ‘kawa” On the other hand, Iwa’s older counterpart now looks on calmly, as if this mind-blowing event was a normal part of his everyday life.

“Wait, you said we’re in Japan? And we’re...living together?? What about Argentina? Did you come back to Japan after all? But that wouldn’t explain the jersey…” There was so much Iwa wanted to ask about, but these were his topmost concerns.

“Hmmm, how much am I allowed to say? Will this affect the past? How did you even get here?” Oikawa directs the first 2 questions to the Iwaizumi closer to him (the adult one) and directs the last one to the Iwa sitting in front of them.

“I suppose you can say the condition we’re in now. But not the major ones.” The adult Iwaizumi offers

“But Iwa-chan! How am I supposed to know which ones are ‘major’ ones?!” Oikawa whines out, dramatically air quoting his statement.

The older Iwa heaves a sigh and faces his counterpart, “Yeah, we’re living together, we’re in Japan, as for Argentina, you’ll know in time.”

“...Huh.” Younger Iwa just huffs at that, but living together wasn’t really a big issue, in the back of his mind, Iwa thinks he knew all along that they would end up like that anyway.

Living with your best friend doesn’t really pose any much problem for him, plus he’d get to spend the days with Oikawa at his side and take care of his dumbass, so it’d be a win-win.

Younger Iwa still doesn’t realize why exactly he was very much pleased with the information that he and Oikawa living together was a great thing.

“Wait, I wanna know how old you are though Iwa-chan, you look almost the same as I remember when we were high school, but with major eye-bags.” Oikawa shifts closer, and younger Iwa stares at the freckles prominent on his face, the wide smile, and something in him clicks.

The one difference that he couldn’t pin, the one thing that made him believe that this Tooru really wasn’t his Tooru. This Tooru exuded happiness. Exuded contentedness.

He must’ve stared too long because Oikawa’s clearing of the throat makes snaps him out of whatever he was trying to comprehend.

“..Ah. well you aren’t exactly wrong, its been a year or so after we graduated as seniors. I’m at the end of the 2nd sem of college,” Iwa explains

“Holy fuck, that’d make you 19, ah youth! You’re so young let me pinch your cheeks!” Oikawa doesn’t wait for the go before both hands grab at younger Iwa’s chubby cheeks.

“Ha-ji-me~~ your baby fats are all still here! How wonderful!”

The sudden use of first name leaves Iwa blushing in Oikawa’s hands, panicked eyes seek help from the man beside Oikawa but adult him just laughed at his plight.

“Oi, ‘Kawa stop, he’ll combust.”

“You mean, you’ll combust?” Oikawa turns his head to face his Iwaizumi and wiggles his eyebrows. Younger Iwa doesn’t miss the gleam of affection that passes his eyes, and suddenly he is very aware of the lack of insults these two were trading.

If they were them, in the future, surely they’d have the same amount of banter he and Oikawa have, right? the roughhousing and all that, right?

But the only thing Iwa sees are casual touches here and there.

Like a switch, Iwa realizes a lot of things.

The apartment seemed to only have one master bedroom. In that room was a king-sized bed. With two pillows. The closet seems to house both of their clothes.

Oikawa was leaning into adult Iwa’s space more than the usual Oikawa would have been to younger Iwa.

There was a lot of gentle and almost, Iwa daresay, loving affectionate stares the two in front of him kept having in this hour alone.

And the most glaring, most shocking, most unbelievable thing Iwa has finally, finally noticed: The shining, demanding gleam of two matching rings.

“Are you married?” Iwa blurts out, the need to know suddenly engulfing him in ways he can’t fathom. How? Why? Since when?

The two in front of him exchange glances. And as an answer, both lace their fingers together. It is the older him that speaks softly, “Yeah.”

The word silences him. Once again, thoughts swim in his mind furiously crashing back and forth like waves.

How? Did he actually love Tooru all this time or did he come to fall in love with him? Was it when they were separated??

Why? Was this a need or a want or a what? What exactly could be the reason that they’d end up married???

Since when? When did they fall in love, when did they decide on marriage, when did they realize that the other was the one person they wanted to spend their entire lives with?

Iwa’s mind was a mess, but honestly, he knew every answer. He was probably in love with his best friend. No, not probably. Definitely. He started the moment they met and never stopped.

He loved Tooru. Loved his stupid collection of alien merch, loved the way his eyes lit up when they were on call, loved the way he took the spot next to Iwa as if that was where he was always supposed to be.

Iwaizumi loved and hated the way he was separated from Tooru, because of the space it left and because of the growth it pushed in them.

In the back of his mind, Iwaizumi hoped, wished, and knew that whatever their future may be, he’d always be beside Tooru, even if they were physically apart.

He’d known for years now that his future would have been with Tooru because the only future he pictured himself happy was with Tooru.

Fuck, he was in love with his best friend.

“Holy shit.” Iwa breathes out.

“Yep. Hard to swallow that you’re in love with this ass right?” Older him chuckles out, nudging Oikawa’s shoulder

“Hey! I’m a fine piece of ass. You’re lucky enough you got me!” Oikawa shoves back, the smile evident behind his pouting face.

“I really am.” The casual confidence in which his adult self replies to this is another blow to Iwa.

He fell in love with his best friend.

He gets to live with his best friend.

He gets to marry his best friend.

He gets to spend the rest of his life loving the person who has always made his soul feel alive.

“I love that I’m getting to see firsthand your reaction to realizing you’re in love with me.” Oikawa pinches the younger Iwa’s cheek with his free hand, and all pleasant thoughts of Tooru fly away, getting replaced with irritation at his smug smile.

“Well, knowing me, you have no other option but to fall in love with me Iwa-chan. I mean really, did you really think you’d get rid of me that easily?? My bi realization happened in junior high, you shit!”

Oikawa’s hold on his cheek strengthens, as he forcefully wiggles Iwa’s face right and left. Adult Iwa was apparently finding it amusing.

“Like what the hell! You were up in my room all shirtless in summer when it’s hot! And sweat!! And you had the fucking gall to play wrestle me without even knowing the internal turmoil I was having!”

Oikawa finally lets go of his abused cheeks, it was probably beet red from the amount of force he used to pinch, but also because of the words Oikawa was spewing.

“To be fair, ‘kawa, you liked the play wrestles because you said it gave you a reason to touch the developing muscles I had.” adult Iwa smooths over.

“It was still unfair because up until we were seniors I was literally dropping hints left and right and the entire fuckin’ team knew, and you were still there being the slowest idiot I have ever encountered in my life. Even your parents knew, how slow can you be Iwa-chan?”

Oikawa’s glare was directed at older Iwa, but it could have also been aimed at him from the amount of mortification he had. So that was why Oikawa loved holding hands when going home back then.

“Ah, the sweet taste of knowing the exact moment you realized you love me. Can’t believe it took for you to meet the future us to fucken know. Iwa-chan, you a rare breed.” Oikawa winks at him.

Older Iwa snorts, “Oh my god, never use that phrase again Tooru, what the fuck” He shoves him playfully, while Oikawa just wiggles his eyebrow back at him, prompting older Iwa’s fuller laugh.

And seeing this domestic scene in front of him somehow calms Iwaizumi enough to the point that everything in the world rearranges itself because he has found the answer that settles his very core.

“Ah. Times up.” Older Iwa says, looking straight at him. He dons a secretive smile, and for some reason, Iwa understands that he’s probably going to go back to the past now.

“Wait, last thing, are we happy? together?” Iwa frantically asks. Because no matter how he wants what this future paints, he wants what makes Oikawa happiest the most.

Adult Oikawa moves closer to him, leaving a lingering kiss on his forehead. “Ah, my Iwa-chan, I was never, will never be not happy when I’m with you. Now off you go! Don’t make things too hard for me, ‘kay?”

A last caress is what Iwa feels before he wakes up back in his shitty apartment with clustered notes and dirty laundry. It was currently afternoon, which means Tooru would be lounging in his own bed, probably reading.

Iwaizumi picks up his phone to ring him immediately. It’s answered in less than a minute, and the fluffy cocoon blanket of Tooru is what greets him first, before the scrunched-up nose of his best friend.

“You’re late Iwa-chan! Did you forget about lil’ ol’ me?” He pouts, and even though he was just with Tooru a second ago, he missed this Tooru still.

“Never. Hey Tooru.” The first name surprises Tooru, a blush rising, and before he would’ve just waved that off, but now that Iwa knows what he knows, he can easily see the pleased and happy gleam Tooru feels.

“Hey Hajime. So, how was your day?”

Iwa opens his mouth to tell him what he had just experienced, but adult Oikawa’s last words ring in his mind. It wouldn’t be fun at all if Hajime makes it known that he knows Tooru likes him, and him vice versa would it?

He closes his mouth and hides a grin. Nope. Not fun at all. Guess he’ll let things flow for now and keep Tooru at his feet. Someones gotta have to, right?

“Nothing much, I just woke up late, anyways tell me that gossip you had with your Abuela.”

“Oh yeah!! Iwa-chan you won’t believe what's happened, Juan’s partner got…”

Really, Iwaizumi muses that he should have realized long ago that he can’t imagine anybody else’s voice filling up his days in the future.

[Ok omg, tell me what you think, I know there're probably a lot of errors in grammar, hshshs, i'm still trying to get a hang of writing :D, I really hope you enjoyed reading this !!]

#iwaoi #iwaoi fanfiction #iwaoi drabble #iwaoi headcanon #hajime iwaizumi #tooru oikawa #iwaizumi fluff #oikawa fluff

62 notes · View notes

ask-the-riders · 3 years

Text

War learns the truth about Death's partner

But under way less than desirable circumstances

So uhhh,, yeah. This scenario got stuck in my head and I needed to write it. It kinda got left off at a weird spot, but eh

Trigger warnings for violence, since there's fighting in the beginning (War Vs. Error), and War sustains some injuries. Also a bit of a warning for some of the stuff she remembers at one point, since it involves the abuse she went through as a child

War winced, lying on the ground. She rolled onto her side, pressing a hand to her ribs; everything hurt. Every single movement caused her body to pulse with pain. So much pain that she wanted to scream and cry. As her opponent began to approach her though, she scowled instead, very slowly forcing herself to rise to her feet again. Her chest heaved as she practically gasped for air, touching her fingertips to the rims of her sockets and producing her threads.

The other skeleton tilted his head, scoffing as he stopped walking and watched her, his own body glitching as he spoke, seemingly more to himself than to her, "You can barely move and you're getting low on magic, yet you still think you stand a chance of beating me. How pathetic." War trembled, her threads beginning to shift from blue to red.

With a simple twitch of her fingers, the scarlet threads sailed toward him, already searing hot as they captured his arm. They burned through the sleeve of his jacket with ease, and he yelped as they began burning into his bare bone. Narrowing his deep red sockets, he hissed, stubbornly deciding to push through the pain. War's sockets widened as a large black blaster appeared beside him, it's mouth opening as it began preparing to fire.

She wasn't sure she could dodge it in her current condition, but she knew she needed to try. As the blaster finally fired at her, she threw herself to the side in her best effort to save her magic. She could've teleported, sure, but that would burn through more magic, and she wouldn't have any time to let more build up. Though she moved quickly, part of the blast grazed her arm, immediately burning through her coat. She felt the heat from it on her arm, and in that moment of distraction, she failed to see the blue threads coming toward her and wrapping around one of her legs. With a rough pull and a scream, War toppled to the ground, her leg having been ripped off of her. The other glitch dropped her leg nearby and she panicked. Without both of her legs, she'd never be able to keep up with him.

As she began trying to make her way toward the leg she'd lost, Error began to stalk toward her, causing her to freeze in fear. She watched him with wide, fearful eyes, images flickering in her mind. She remembered being a child, and making the mistake of accidentally touching him. For that, her arm was broken. She remembered asking him for something, not knowing he'd had a bad day. For that, he'd snapped and yelled at her, calling her every horrible name in the book. She also remembered being caught in his threads, in her previous life. The way she fought to get away was all for nothing, as his threads captured her soul, and without an ounce of hesitation, shattered it.

She was terrified of him, and he knew.

A secondary set of blue threads that came from somewhere behind her suddenly emerged, catching Error by surprise. They caught both of his arms and gave a sharp tug, both limbs coming off of the glitch and earning a pained shout. Another black skeleton was suddenly standing in front of her, his back to her as she stared up at him in a mix of fear and confusion.

The clothes he wore, those blue threads, those darkened bones... it was Error. There were two of him now, and War's soul dropped. Finally cracking, she attempted to curl in on herself, letting out a muffled sob as she hid her face. The second Error stole a quick glance back at her and narrowed his sockets in irritation, more of his threads capturing the other before he had the chance to run away, "Hey, stop that. I don't wanna hear your pathetic sniffling, you hear me?!"

War trembled, peeking up at him and trying to hold in another sob. The second Error opened a portal, carelessly tossing both his counterpart and his detached arms through it. As it closed, he turned to fully face her, taking a step closer. In response, she attempted to scoot back away from him, her glitching visibly growing worse. This new Error snagged her lost leg, holding it by a wadded up handful of the fabric of her pants. Unphased, he tossed it to her, "Here. Hurry up and reattach it so we can head back." Back? Back where?

She snatched up her leg, getting it lined up and letting out a muted string of obscenities as she forced it back into place, fresh tears pricking at her sockets. Error, much to her surprise and confusion, offered her a hand, and she stared at it for a moment, her sockets widening even further as she finally took notice of the bracelet he was wearing under the sleeve of his jacket.

That... That bracelet... It couldn't be...

Despite her fear, she furrowed her brow bones, "That bracelet. Where'd you get it?" The other glitch seemed taken aback at her question, his own brow bones becoming knit, "What's it matter to you?" The female rider frowned, "It matters because I made it. I only made one, and I gave it to someone else, not you."

The other was silent, before he hesitantly spoke, "You gave it to Geno. I know." War very slowly rose to her feet, her frown becoming a scowl, "Yeah, I did. What'd you do to him? Dust him like the other poor souls that faced you?" Error seemed hesitant again, and War's scowl immediately dropped as she watched the black color of his bones begin to melt away, revealing white. His scarlet sockets darkened until they were as black as night, and the glitching over his right eye worsened, gradually solidifying into a blocky pixel shape. His still visible ringed eye light shrunk, its colors fading to white as the rings began to lighten, until they'd completely vanished.

Looking back at her was Geno, who offered her an awkward smile, "He did nothing of the sort, actually, because... well... because we're one in the same. If he killed me, he'd also be killing himself."

War was frozen, relief and more confusion flooding her senses as she murmured, "Uncle Geno?... That's really you? Not an alternate?" Geno nodded, "Yeah, it's me, kiddo... The same guy who went through photo albums with ya at my place and the same guy who chased off your other uncle so he'd leave you be for a while. You came to my place a handful of times after having some pretty bad nightmares, and we talked about them until you crashed on the couch."

A blue tinted tear ran down War's cheek as she continued staring at him, rapidly shifting into a thread, "H...How long have you...?" He sighed, "How long have Error and I shared a body like this?... It's been too long, honestly. I'm afraid I can't give you an exact number, but it's been long enough for me to say that the house I've been calling mine?... It's Error's, too. The couch you've slept on there? He's napped on it, too."

She staggered backward, suddenly feeling dizzy and lightheaded. In the blink of an eye, Geno was at her side, gently guiding her back toward a tree so that she could lean against the trunk. For a moment, she was lost for words. All she could think of to say was, "So... this whole time. Even way back then... Error was there too? You and Death just kept that hidden from everyone? Kept it hidden from ME?"

The other skeleton glanced away from her, feeling guilty, "...Your dad and Zerif knew, but that was it. We didn't tell you or let you ever see Error because we had a feeling you'd react poorly. I never told you because of your trauma. You weren't done healing from everything that other Error put you through, and I didn't wanna ruin the progress you'd made." War slowly slid down the tree trunk until she was sitting on the ground, holding her head in her hands as she struggled to process everything she'd just learned. Kneeling beside her, Geno began trying to heal some of her smaller injuries, and she all but begged him, "Geno, please... Don't do that. You don't have enough magic, you'll end up hurting yourself."

Geno shrugged off her words and pressed on, still attempting to heal her, "I'll be fine, kiddo, promise." War sighed softly, silent for a moment before a realization clicked in her mind and she frowned, her brow bones knit in concern, "Wait a second, my aura- Geno, how are you feeling right now?" The skeleton in question arched a brow bone in confusion, "I'm feeling fine. Normal, I guess. Why?" She let out a breath that she hadn't even been aware she was holding, "My aura causes the people outside the group of riders to feel angry and lash out. It's because of my position... my aura creates aggression and violence. It makes people get mad and hurt each other, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't affecting you."

He hummed, offering her a tiny smile in hopes of providing some reassurance, "Ah, I gotcha. It's alright, Mal. I'm ok." Upon hearing her old name, War nearly lunged forward, capturing the other skeleton in a tight hug, burying her face in his shoulder and murmuring, her voice muffled, "It effects everyone, so I dunno why it's not getting to you... whatever the reason though, that's good. I'm really glad."

#four horsemen of the apocalypse #riders of the apocalypse #undertale #undertale au #war.exe #error sans #geno sans #death.exe #reaper sans #writing

25 notes · View notes

ajokeformur-ray · 4 years

Text

Somewhere alone in my bitterness // Arthur x Reader // comfort.

Summary: With everything building up within you and making you ready to explode in a fiery wave of emotions you loathe to experience, there is one thing you need, just one, which will make you remember all of the reasons why you don’t give in. The one thing which keeps you calm, keeps you full of love, keeps you soft and yet simultaneously does it fill you with strength. Your Arthur Fleck.

This is a piece inspired by a conversation I’ve been having with @daincrediblegg, alluding to the duality of human emotions. Here’s to you, you brilliant Egg!🥰🥰🥰 I hope you like this, darling.

Word count: 1, 119.

“Arthur?”

Arthur makes a small noise to let you know that he’s listening to you, though he doesn’t look away from the small, old television which Penny won in a radio competition several long, cruel years ago. His face is illuminated with the harsh blue light given off by the large pixels on the screen and those sea green eyes, which hold all the sadness of the world within them, reflect the old war film he is watching. Interested is he by how the gentlemen in the film interact with the ladies and members of the upper classes and you know that he is simply itching to take notes in his government issued brown journal. Why he does not, you know not.

In any case, it works out well for you. You leave the kitchen, two cups of coffee in your hands, and you walk through the small, cramped space, concentrating only on not spilling your drinks until you reach the coffee table. Upon putting them down do you turn so that you can face Arthur. Oh, but you’re so irritated, not with him but with yourself. There were things which had happened and indeed, are still happening in your life and you had little to no control over the situations at hand or even your own emotions; so hurt had you been in the past and so scared are you currently for more bad blood, and the rising anger over all of this only bred more of the same. Sometimes your own capacity to feel anger and other such emotions scares you. You are a gentle and kind soul, one of the purest Arthur has ever known, and this is not the kind of person you want to be.

Despite your anger and your fear, your anxiety and your sadness, you are still so completely yourself and that is a strength which few people, most especially those who reside within Gotham, possess. All of your reasons why, all of the things you cling to, all of your love and all of your passion, desire, all of your pure emotions, heavy though they are in their intensity, are because of the man who is sat before you, his green eyes shifting now from the television screen to you, his one and only person.

“What is it, Y/N? Talk to me.”

You move so that your knees are touching Arthur’s and he leans forward, his arms coming up to encircle your waist as he nuzzles his face into your belly. Love blooms hotly in your heart and spreads strongly through your veins and you bend down, down, to nuzzle your nose into his dark curls, your nose taking him all in. He smells like home and you make a small noise of contentment, feeling Arthur purse his lips to feather a kiss to your t-shirt; any excuse to love on you will he rightly take, for you deserve nothing less. You feel your resentment and other negative emotions alleviate some of their crushing pressure on your chest and what feels like the first time all day do you take a deep breath and feel yourself relaxing.

This is what you have been wanting.

“I’m okay, Artie, I’m just... feeling like I’m stuck in a cage of my own making with all of these bad emotions.”

Arthur leans back at your words and his arms, still around your waist, tighten and he pulls you forward and down. You come to sit with your thighs either side of his slender waist, your knees locked around him, your arms around his shoulders. You lean forward and rest your face into the crook of Arthur’s neck, your reverent lips leaving worship upon your temple, your daily religion is he. Arthur hums and presses kisses to your clothed shoulder, one of his hands moving to hook into the collar so that he can move the material aside and reach you with greater ease. For every affectionate gesture do you afford him does he grant you one of his own; equal in every way are you.

“I know what that’s like, Y/N. To want to werewolf and go wild,” Arthur giggles at his own articulation and you smile, not knowing that you would be hearing those words again soon, spoken in a more ominous, foreboding tone, and Arthur’s lips linger against your bare flesh, his blood already beginning to travel south as he wonders how else he can help you to vent your frustrations. “But you’re so strong, angel, to feel the way that you do and to still be so full of love. You’re better than those things making you feel angry, and it hurts, it does...” Arthur shrugs with one shoulder. You can’t see but he has a self-deprecating smile on his face. You would kiss it away if you saw it. “But you have me, something those people don’t have. You’re special. Y/N. You’re my one and only.”

“Thank you, darling,” You rise your face up from his neck, somewhat reluctantly for never can you have enough of your clown, nor he of you, and you claim his thin lips with your own. His flesh is cool but quickly does it match your temperature and Arthur pulls you tighter against him. His kiss is slow and the intensity within is matched only by the fire which burns within you. Your heart is the key for the cage which has so imprisoned your soul, and it resides firmly in Arthur’s hands. He had set you free long ago but you had yet to turn around to see things for yourself, and so with a gentle touch, a loving embrace and encouraging words as his weapon does Arthur this day once more save you from yourself, turning you around and showing you that, with him by your side and with you by his, you were the wealthiest couple in all of Gotham.

Thomas Wayne could eat his heart out.

You are still angry and you still hold resentment and sadness and you are not wholly free from the injustices you have suffered just yet, but you have your Arthur and he has you and you know that you are in the best hands. Arthur will never think of you any less, be any less proud of you or love you any less, and he understands what it’s like, more than anyone ever should. Remain do you in his embrace as you set foot from one cage and settle into another, but this is the safest one and you don’t ever want to leave it, for better or for worse, for you are not imprisoned in this one.

No, dearheart, in this one are you free.

AF/J @impulsiveclown @astheworlddturns @fluffedstar @jokersqueenofchaos @germansarechill @tsukiakarinobara @lynnesm @sagyunaro @docsportello @flowerglitterwoman @ben-solos-writing-avenger @jokers-doll @jokerslilhyena @arthurjokersgirl @antonija89 @lilliryth @hotpacino @obsessedandthirsty @call-me-harley-quinn @anais-angel

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck imagine #arthur fleck x you #arthur fleck x y/n #joker #joker x reader #joker imagine #joker x you #joker x y/n #joker 2019 #joker 2019 x reader #joker 2019 imagine #phoenix!joker #joaquin phoenix #phoenix!joker x reader #phoenix!joker imagine #Joaquin phoenix joker

54 notes · View notes

inkribbon796 · 3 years

Text

Like a House of Cards Ch. 1: Showtime

Summary: Four heroes have been replaced and their intentions are less than pure. The city is dangling on a knife’s edge over a precipice. Dominoes knocked over as the city tumbles like a house of cards.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

It was a long time coming. A long time coming.

It was early, almost sunrise when Logan and Ethan walked into the base. The door opening like the curtains of a show for them. It was early, the only people who saw them walking in who weren’t already gone on the early patrol were Chase and J.J.

So needless to say, they weren’t in danger of getting caught.

Because the four of them weren’t who they were pretending to be. They were the Suits, sent to replace and impersonate certain heroes they were similar to.

Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs. Disguised as heroes meant to protect and save people.

Logan and Ethan walked in, Logan casting a glance to the hidden camera he knew for a certainty was in the entry hall, his pupils displaying with robotic precision and aura tapping against the barriers Marvin and Nate had long since set up as a defense, but since Mare and Lunky had passed by the sensors so many times it didn’t trip an alarm.

Chase and J.J watched them from the communications room, not altering the cameras so that Bing wasn’t tipped off. He’d been conducting his private investigations recently and none of them wanted to tip him off while he was so suspicious of all of them. Since talking to Joan, the android had cleared those in Dark’s family, and Jackie but that was it.

Ethan went into the kitchen to make some coffee as Logan relieved Chase and J.J from the watch and slid into the seat where he performed the duties that the real Logan was supposed to do. This close to their mission point precision was crucial, and any time wasted fighting Bing was a detrimental loss.

Logan was sitting in the communications room, working at one of the computers, when Ethan brought him a coffee. The room was empty except for him.

Ethan walked in, sipping on his coffee, smiling as he set one down for Logan, “So, how’s it going?”

“Without incident,” Logan answered. “You should get to bed, get ready for the next mission?”

“Geez, Sargent Frowns, it’ll all be taken care of,” Ethan took another sip. “Bastards won’t know what hit them.”

Ethan chuckled as he took a couple sips of his coffee, “Well if you don’t mind me I’ll just “go to bed” or whatever.”

Logan nodded and as Ethan was leaving the room, Joan was coming up the hallway.

“You seen any of the Sides recently?” Joan asked Ethan, looking worried.

“Yeah,” Ethan pointed to the door, “Logan’s in the comms room.”

“Is Patton in there with him?” Joan looked a little bit relieved.

“I saw him while I was out on patrol,” Ethan lied to them. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“Get everyone in the base together, we’ve got a security problem,” Joan explained.

“Got it,” Ethan hurried away as Joan walked into the comma room.

“Fucker’s gonna get us caught,” Ethan muttered angrily under his breath, tipping back the rest of his coffee.

Bing and Jackie joined Joan in the comms room with “Logan” and they started talking about another sighting of Spade in downtown Brighton and they wanted to compile information.

Something that was eyebrow raising to Spade because he’d been making his way from Janus and Remus’s house to the heroes’ base. But the real Logan wouldn’t be privy to that information so Spade, pretending to be Logan, did a pretty good impression of being surprised as he exchanged places with Bing so the android could take a seat in front of the computer.

“An’[1] that’s the report,” Jackie concluded.

“It certainly is good information to have if they’re becoming more active again,” Logan told them.

“My thoughts exactly,” Bing pointed some finger guns at Logan. “Here, I’ll get some images I got of the guy.”

“Hey Logan,” Joan smiled at him as Bing was integrating himself with the computer to look for something. “How have things been?”

“They could certainly be improved upon,” Logan commented, turning towards Joan and letting out a long, tired sigh.

“Yeah, I bet they could,” Joan agreed before a blast of magic hit Logan square in the back. Pain rocketed up the Suit’s body and his nanites glitched as Joan and Jackie threw down a disc on either side and Bing’s nanites came up and wrapped around Logan so that when the Suit stopped feeling like he was being used as a live wire, he was trapped.

When Logan turned his head he saw that Marvin was standing at the door, magic at his fingertips. The Suit was literally and figuratively surrounded. His eyes and glasses glitched, “Something always gets in the way.”

“He’s covered in nanites,” Bing warned.

“My spell should have ripped his illusion off,” Marvin told them. “I can hit him again.”

Logan looked down at the nanite constructed wires and cords trapping him and rolled his eyes, then he looked up at Joan, “Do you mind telling me what gave me away, for data correlation’s sake?”

Joan held up their phone, “Morality doesn’t use punctuation when he types, he barely uses words at all.”

“Ahh,” Logan commented cooly, smiling. “My mistake. I always tend to forget his atrocious insistence against punctuation is the only awful part of him.”

“Where’s Logic?” Jackie demanded. “Why are yeh here? Are yeh Spade or some demon? ‘Cause this is a shite time ta do this.”[2]

“Now why would I tell any of you,” Logan threatened.

“Yeh can tell us or we’ll beat the shite outta yah,”[3] Jackie threatened right back. “Logic’s been through enough shite lately ta e’en tolerate this.”[4]

“Oh trust me,” “Logan” frowned. “He hasn’t even begun to suffer.”

“An’[1] why should we trust yeh[5]?” Jackie demanded. “What’d yah do ta the real Logic?”[6]

The false Logan let out an amused chuckle, “You all have never even met the real Logan. I’m doing all of you a favor.”

“It’s Spade, fry ‘em[7],” Joan decided.

The snare lit up and electricity began coursing through the Suit’s nanite body, frying his nanite shell by inches.

Locket Payload: Critical Failure Imminent!

In a panic, that was visible on his face, Logan let out a scream as he curled around his chest and an EMP blast came from him that fried almost every electronic in the room, Bing only managing to not have to reset himself. By the time Bing was recovering, he was able to watch with the other three organic beings in the room as “Logan” burst into pixels and a cloud of nanites and shot into the light switch to hide. The young glitch demon curled around a central point of aura protectively in case Bing came after him.

Those precious seconds of hiding let Bing force the controls back on line and initiate a complete physical and electrical lockdown of the base. People, texts, calls, all unable to leave the base.

“Emergency lockdown engaged,” Bing’s voice rang out through the base just as an explosion rocked the building.

It was a small explosive charge that had been placed by Hearts, not enough to blow a hole in the side of the base but enough for the contents of the bomb to set the room on fire.

To set Marvin’s library on fire.

To Marvin’s good luck, Wade was close by and saw the fire starting up as magical tomes and spell ingredients, turning a normal fire into a popping magical one that was threatening to burn the entire base down.

The fire alarm and the sprinkles kicked up, causing further damage to the books.

Wade swore as he tried putting out the magical fire.

At the sound of the explosion, Marvin and Jackie raced over and Marvin screamed in agony as he helped put out the fire. Nate racing in to help. J.J, Chase, and Ethan came over to help but were pushed back by the others.

It took another minute to get the fire contained and Marvin was kneeling in front of the doorway to his library and looking at the ash and burnt books in horror.

“Sorry, Marv,” Jackie sat down next to his friend.

“They burned my library down,” Marvin said in grief.

“What is going on?” Wade demanded. “Last I heard there was some kind of meeting but when met with Crank, Nate, Average, and J.J the fire alarm went off. Who called the meeting?”

“We did,” Jackie told him, standing up. “It was just bad fookin’ timin’. Spade’s in the base, he got in. It must’a been him who caused the explosions.”[8]

“It’s not Spade,” Bing shouted as he ran down the halls, his nanites still fixing up the patches of metal and wires that had died in the EMP blast. “Or if it is the situation just got much worse ‘cause[9] that’s Logic.”

“What do you mean that’s Logic?” Joan demanded in a panic.

“Either Logic’s been Spade the whole time or Spade infected him with somethin’ ‘cause he’s been actin’ weird for a while,”[10] Bing said. “Lo’s still in the base. I’ve got him cornered in the sprinkler system, but he won’t stay there.”

“How could it possibly be Logan?” Joan demanded in irritated frustration. “He would never.”

“We might not be dealing with the actual Logan,” Nate spoke up, his mind already racing with possibilities. “We might be dealing with the same guy who attack me outside of a bar over a camera of all fucking things.”

“That was his suit right, Logic’s fine,” Joan defended.

Then Nate thought about that, it had been a question that Logan had always been dodgy and evasive on how the logical and scientific hero had wound up with a cursed soul splitter that didn’t work . . .

“Either way he’s got my nanites,” Bing interrupted. “Which explains how Spade got them in the first place. His suit is laced with them.”

“Are yeh[5] sure?” Jackie demanded.

“I’d recognize them anywhere, my Bluetooth was even tryin’[11] ta[12] connect with them,” Bing asserted.

. . . That didn’t . . . Nate was still trying to reason in his head.

“Which is weird because humans can’t use nanites raw,” Bing replied. “Only the Googles an’[1] Anti have the ability ta[12] use my nanites like that.”

“Shit, he’s a glitch!” Mare warned internally. “A damn smart one since he was covering his tracks as he was turning. I knew something smelt off about him. He always smelt like burnt wires and electricity.”

You tell me this now? Nate cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. While Nate was thinking the rest of the heroes were talking.

Nate felt the eye roll, “I always forget you sacks of meat can’t smell aura. I just figured, since he was supposed to be a null, that some other demon or one of the other Sides had their claws in him. The rest of them are dripping with aura.”

“Joan,” Nate spoke up, his voice soft and almost scared.

“Yeah?” Joan sat up.

“How long has Logic been Logic?” Nate asked desperately.

“Always, what kind of question is that?” They asked in return.

“I just have to rule it out, does Logic come from a family of mages? Is anyone else in his family magical.”

Joan paused for an abnormally long amount of time. “No.”

“Okay, that makes sense, being null is recessive,” Nate reasoned. You needed and aura and magic for a soul to become a demon. Logic didn’t have that, ergo he wasn’t a demon.

“Nate,” Mare tried to urge.

“He only targeted Marvin, nothing was stolen, nothing was taken from the computers, he just impersonated him and took off,” Wade reminded.

“The Sides are still gone, what are we gonna do?” Jackie demanded.

“Well when we find him, we’ll ask,” Joan reassured. “Logic’s a level-headed guy, I wish I knew where Morality was, or Princey. They’re able to calm him down.”

“Nate, let me go, and I can scent Logic out, if I don’t find him, then I’m wrong and he’s clear,” Mare tried to bargain.

“Fine,” Nate agreed and Mare broke free and looked around.

“Great,” Marvin growled.

“I’ll be back soon,” Mare didn’t spare Marvin a glance, “sorry about your cache.”

Then Mare stopped and looked at a corner of the wall and floated up to tap at it. “Hey there, don’t think I don’t see you.”

Then he ripped a camera out of the wall.

“Mine are visible,” Bing told him as the demon tossed the camera to the android.

Mare stood next to Nate, “I know, bet you that there are more, and there’s a glitch in the walls. Probably has been for a while now.”

“Is it Anti?” Jackie asked.

“Nah, Anti smells like a thunderstorm that was cooked in the oven too long,” Mare reported. “Young, likes to identify as a male; so King’s kid is out. It’s Logic, I’ve picked up that scent on him before. Maybe it’s a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing, or Logic’s always been a spy. Can’t say.”

“Maybe that soul splitter did work after all,” Nate reasoned. “Which means that he’s not wanting to come out ‘cause[9] he’s scared, so I can’t blame him. Just where’d he find the camera? That probably turned him, which makes sense why he likes to hover around the thing, he probably wants the fragments of his soul back.”

“First off, morbid,” Joan held up one of their hands. “And second, I found it at an estate sale. I gave it to Thomas, who—”

Joan trailed off, already knowing they’d made a mistake.

Nate stared at him, “Logic’s name is Logan, who’s Thomas? Is that Princey or Anxiety?”

“Not exactly,” Joan tried to evade.

“What does that mean? Is Logan like a middle name or a name he just prefers more?” Mare asked. “Or was Thomas, Logic’s name before he was split?”

Joan really didn’t want to have this discussion without any of the Sides, but Logan was apparently hiding in the walls and the other Sides were all missing. So maybe this was as good a time as any. “Look, if you’re right and Lo is some kind of demon, which he’s not because Logic is a harmless sweetheart, then we didn’t know because a soul splitter is only supposed to make one demon right?”

The room descended into chilling silence.

“The fook yeh mean one, Logic got like a twin or somethin’?”[13] Marvin demanded.

“More like septuplets,” Joan admitted, holding up seven fingers.

“Oh shit,” Mare realized.

“They all came from the same person?” Nate gasped. Logic. Morality. Creativity. Deceit. Anxiety . . . A glitch. Two showmen. Two empaths. A deal maker. And whatever the hell Orange is.

“I’ve never seen a spilt this clean, or create so many, usually a splitter just makes one and it can’t even do that right,” Nate commented. “But they’re all so lifelike. How powerful of a mage was Thomas?”

“He wasn’t,” Joan tried to explain. “Or at least, I never saw him do anything.”

“Well, at least we know where the other Sides went,” Mare spat through clenched teeth.

“No, no,” Nate cut him off. “That’s not a fight a glitch can win, not on their own. We should just focus on finding Logic and containing him before we accuse him of anything.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Joan agreed.

The heroes and Mare began completely cleaning the room of any cameras or listening devices, whether they were Bing’s or not. Then they made a plan to ensnare Logan. They started by taking out the cameras and bugs in the major room before Bing began actively trying to catch Logan.

It was an endeavor that Bing was not successful in. But the Suit saw an opening and went for the unlocked front door.

When he did, Logan slammed into an invisible barrier, sparks and magic arcing everywhere.

Nate quickly moved in to seal off the containment circle with more salt as Logan was picking himself up.

“Hey, Lo,” Nate knelt down, “rough week?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations

1. And

2. Why are you here? Are you Spade or some demon? Because this is a shit time to do this.

3. You can tell us or we’ll beat the shit out of you

4. Logic’s been through enough shit lately to even tolerate this.

5. you

6. What did you do to the real Logic?

7. them

8. It was just bad fucking timing. Spade’s in the base, he got in. It must have been him who caused the explosion.

9. because

10. Either Logic’s been Spade the whole time or Spade infected him with something because he’s been acting weird for a while

11. trying

12. to

13. The fuck you mean one, does Logic have like a twin or something?

#Superhero AU #Masks and Maladies #Thomas Sanders #Jacksepticeye #Crankgameplays #Markiplier #Natewantstobattle #footnotes #kidnapping mention #Jackieboy Man #Bingiplier #Natemare #Logan Sanders #Joan Stokes #Chase Brody #J.J

6 notes · View notes

omgjasminesimone · 4 years

Text

Oceans

Colt x MC

Word Count: ~1,000

A/N: For @rodappreciationweek Colt day. Set about 3 years pre RoD.

Colt’s grandmother pinches his arm, hard, shooting him a look that clearly says ‘put the phone away now.’

Colt sighs, pocketing his cell phone. He slouches in the pew, listening to the priest drone on and on. Man, as much as Salt Lake City, Utah sucks compared to Los Angeles, at least his mom doesn’t force him to go to church.

Colt’s grandmother is very religious. Her family converted to Catholicism during the WWII Japanese American internment. She shows up to mass every Sunday without fail. Sometimes, she goes Wednesday morning too. She always used to drag Colt’s grandfather along when he was alive. The irony of a career criminal attending every Sunday mass seems to be beyond his loving wife.

Her only child, Teppei, is much more hard headed than his father. He refused to go to church after turning 18, but he still lets his mother drag his own progeny along. Teppei has told Colt when he turns 18, he can politely refuse as well.

Colt pulls at his tie uncomfortably. His grandmother also insists one must dress up for church, lest they be disrespectful to God.

Colt mostly checks out, tuning out the sermon. He’s almost dozed off when his grandmother nudges him, once again, as hard as she can.

“Ow obaasan!” Colt complains with an irritated whisper, rubbing his rib.

“Help me up. It’s time for the choir.” Mrs. Kaneko demands.

Colt gets to his feet, and gently pulls his grandmother up to her feet. “Thank you. Here, have some candy.” His grandmother digs into her purse, passing him several peppermint candies as a reward. Colt pops one in his mouth, looking up towards the stage.

“This week, our own Ms. Eleanor Wheeler will be performing a solo.” The priest announces. “As you know, Mrs. Margaret Wheeler has been in and out of the hospital. We ask that you keep her in your prayers.”

Grandma Kaneko crosses herself, murmuring a prayer for the girl’s mother that echoes as other members of the congregation pray aloud.

The priest raises his bowed head after completing his own prayer, gesturing towards the front row. “Ellie, the stage is your’s.”

A girl who looks to be around his age walks up to the stage, lowering the microphone at the altar to her mouth. She’s pretty, Colt notes. Long brown hair, tan skin, and beautiful brown eyes. She’s dressed modestly in a blue dress and white sweater, but he can tell she has a nice figure. But she’s not his type. Colt doesn’t tend to go for the good Catholic girls, much to his grandmother’s dismay.

Ellie clears her throat. She’s clearly nervous, maybe she’s a little shy. She closes her eyes for a moment, seemingly steeling her nerves. After a deep, calming breath, she opens her eyes again and nods resolutely at the pianist.

A slow melody begins to play, and then Ellie begins to sing. Colt isn’t sure what he was expecting her to sound like, but it definitely wasn’t the strong, soulful, and frankly beautiful voice that comes out.

“You call me out upon the waters. The great unknown where feet may fail. And there I find you in the mystery. In oceans deep my faith will stand. I will call upon your name. And keep my eyes above the waves. When oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace. For I am yours and you are mine.”

The pianist takes over for a little, and Ellie smiles softly as she sways slightly to the music, clearly more comfortable now. Colt is entranced. He feels like this is the closest he’s ever come to a religious experience.

“Your grace abounds in deepest waters. Your sovereign hand will be my guide. Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me, you’ve never failed and you won’t start right now.”

Ellie continues to sing, the choir adding in some backing harmonies now.

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger, in the presence of my savior.”

She starts to tear up as she continues to repeat that stanza, the choir going silent so just her angelic voice fills the church. She’s probably thinking about her sick mother. Colt suddenly has the urge to hug his own mother.

He wants to hug Ellie Wheeler too.

The songs ends, and the congregation applauds heartily. Ellie smiles weakly, wiping away a tear. She rejoins her father at that front pew, and he engulfs her in a warm hug.

Colt spends the rest of church staring at the back of Ellie Wheeler’s head. When church ends, he considers approaching her. He wants to tell her that everything will be alright. He wants to promise to pray for her mother. But she’s bombarded by well wishers, and Colt fights down his urge to join the large crowd gathered around her.

He thinks about Ellie, her mother, and that song all day. He ends up downloading it to his iPod. He heads back to Utah when Spring Break ends a week later, and tries to put his strange obsession with Ellie Wheeler out of his mind.

But when he returns to Los Angeles for the summer, he can’t help but casually ask his grandmother what happened to Mrs. Wheeler. The rush of pain he feels when she informs him Ellie’s mother died is unexpected.

He doesn’t see Ellie in church that summer. Or any other time he’s visiting Los Angeles until he turns 18 and very politely tells obaasan he won’t be attending any more Sunday masses.

...

He immediately recognizes Ellie Wheeler at the sideshow. He still listens to Oceans occasionally, and he always thinks of her when he does. He prefers Ellie’s voice over the actual singer.

She looks insanely out of place, with her Langston College sweatshirt and all. What’s a good Catholic girl like her doing in a place like this?

“You look like you’re in the wrong place, sweetheart.” She turns to look at him, and he’s immediately lost in her brown eyes.

...

A/N: the song Ellie sings is Oceans by Hillsong United. And I’m not even religious but I listen to it all the time because it slaps.

Tags: @brightpinkpeppercorn @choicesarehard @lovehugsandcandy@desireepow-1986 @regina-and-happiness @iplaydrake @choicesgremlin @maxwellsquidsuit @eileendannie @liamzigmichael4ever @ohsnapitzlovehacker @client-327 @cora-nova @umiumichan @angrypainterfarmopera @badchoicesposts @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @sparklinglilac @pixel-thirsty @mskaneko @lovemychoices @akrenich @crispycrunchyleaves

#colt x mc #colt kaneko #rodaw #ride or die #choices fanfiction

58 notes · View notes

anothers-trash-my-treasure · 5 years

Text

Bittersweet ~ Chapter Eight

If I was naming chapters, this one would be titled “Near or Far” and that’s all I’m gonna say.

Last official chapter, an epilogue will be on its way and honestly, I might write a few side chapters sometime too because I just love this story so much. Enjoy!

Pairing: Merriell Shelton/Reader (femme)

Warning: swearing, some angst and long-distance troubles but mostly just fluff

Word count: 4000

Tag List: @ahkmenrami1205 @itsme690 @xoa-lex @ramibaby @r-ahh-mi @xmxisxforxmaybe @sherlollydramoine @txml @moon-stars-soul @ramimedley @sassystrawberryk

*he’s so pretty i wanna cry*

Long-distance is hard.

God, it’s the fucking worst.

In some ways, it was very much the same from normal. I wake up, eat breakfast, go to my classes. I spend all day on campus, reading and studying only to leave for my job. I’d waitress all night, grab something to eat at the end of a shift, go home, watch a few episodes of Friends (even though I’ve seen it a thousand times) and head off to bed before repeating it all over again.

But then, on the other hand, it was so different.

Because I’d wake up to the standard Mornin’ Beautiful, have a good day. I’d spend all day looking at my phone and laughing at the constant stream of goofy snapchats, annoying everyone around me in the otherwise silent part of the library. I’d get a phone call at 10 o’clock sharp every night as I made way back to my apartment that would switch over to a facetime as soon as I was settled on the couch, Netflix on the TV and the love of my life’s face stretched across my computer screen, pixelated and laggy due to crappy wifi.

And every minute spent communicating in any way possible was simultaneously wonderful and heartbreaking. The technology of the present day made it so easy to hear his voice and to see him. But it was the worst thing in the world when I couldn’t come home from a long day and cuddle up with him on the couch or wake up with his arms around me. Technology couldn’t replicate touch. And it fucking sucked.

Someday’s we were both too busy to even get more than a few texts out to each other throughout the week. He was so busy at work and University kept me on my toes at all times. I was constantly writing essays, studying content or writing notes for 40-page readings that half the time the professor didn’t even attempt to cover.

We tried to be patient with each other. I knew he was working double shifts, they were short-staffed at the lumber yard and he was always talking about taking a week off to come visit me once he had enough saved up. He knew I was just as busy. But sometimes we just got agitated, so fed up with how hard it was to be away from each other that we had to lash if we wanted to keep our rule of total and utter honesty.

But we always worked things out in the end. Even if presently things were a little tense.

“Hey baby,” his voice rang through my headphones as I made my way to my next class.

“Hi Mer,” I replied, no doubt looking like an idiot as I smiled to no one.

“Whatcha doin?” He asked, his voice resembling that of a bored child. I knew he had the day off today, they were few and far between. Usually, they landed on a weekend, when we could spend the whole day on facetime, syncing up movies to watch together and enjoying what company we could get out of a computer screen.

“I am currently rushing to my Marketing class,” I say smiling politely at someone who holds the door for me, “which I am currently late for because I lost track of time in the library trying to finish an essay for my next class.”

He whistles lowly, “Busy girl.” he comments and I can hear a familiar tone in his voice. It’s lower than usual, huskier and warm around the edges. Any other time it’d send a rush of heat through me and I’d be finding the nearest private bathroom to indulge in a bit of phone sex but today I was simply too busy.

“Merriell-” I start to warn but he barrels through, completely ignoring me.

“So what'dya say? Wanna be a few more minutes late an’ be a little bad with me?” his tone is teasing, breathy and light.

“You know I can’t.” I huff at him, “The midterm for this class is next week, I really don’t have time to get you off right now.” I wince a little at the tone of my voice, but as I near my class I can’t find it in myself to feel guilty about being short with him.

“Babe,” he whines, “C’mon we haven’t done anything in like a week, I’m dyin’.”

“You’re not.” I deadpan, “Mer, I’m really sorry. I’ll try to make some time this weekend but midterms are coming up and-”

“I know, I know.” he sighs, “You gotta study.”

It’s silent as I stand outside my classroom, not wanting to leave things with this kind of tension but knowing if I don’t head into lecture I will surely pay the consequences.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly, “I gotta go, I love you.”

“Near or far baby.” he replies and despite the tension I know he’s got a smile on his face

The rest of the week carries out more or less the same way. He calls and I’m busy, we hang up and I’m left feeling guilty. But University is demanding and it won’t let me stray away long enough to talk to him for more than ten minutes at a time. I try to compromise, face timing him while I study at home, thinking that just having his presence, even if he sits there silently while I do my thing, will be enough to tie him over until midterms are over. But that doesn’t prove to work well either.

“-Gene and I went out the other day and I swear to god, the poor kid got rejected by every girl in the bar. Not that I’m surprised, y’know Gene, he neva’ did have much game an-”

“Mer,” I sigh exasperated, putting my pen down on the table with an audible thump, “Y’know I love to hear these stories but it’s really distracting and I need to run through this chapter again.” My eyes linger on the pixelated version of his face on my screen, it doesn’t do him any justice. The shitty camera quality of our laptops do nothing to catch the true colour of his eyes or the texture of his hair and Jesus christ I miss him.

“So ya jus’ want me to sit here silently?” he asks, a twinge of annoyance to his voice.

“I mean it’s what you’d be doing if you were here,” I point out, “Look, I just thought that doing this could at least try to mimic us being together since I don’t really have time to do the usual talkative shit.” I rub my temples, feeling a strain just behind my eyes that comes with studying for ongoing seven hours.

“Baby, I know you’re busy. I get it, but Jesus Christ I feel like-” he breaks off with a sigh, looking away from the screen for a second, “This is the most I’ve talked to you in the past two weeks.”

I shake my head lightly, looking around at the mess of papers, textbooks and cue cards that litter my kitchen table, “I don’t know what you want from me right now, Merriell, I’m trying my best.” I insist, running my hands through my greasy, tangled hair.

“I know ya are,” he says, voice rising slightly as his frustrations surface, “I know you’re trying, it’s just I fucking hate this.”

“Hate what Mer?” I question, feeling irritation bubble up inside of me, “Hate that I can’t devote all my time and energy to talking to you?” I’m about to go on, having a list of things to say but he’s having none of my shit tonight.

“Don’t start with that shit,” he glares at me through the screen, “You know I don’t expect that.”

“Well then stop fucking acting like it,” I exclaim, laughing a bit but there’s no humour in it.

“Y/n,” he sighs, running a hand over his face tiredly, “Fuck, why’s this gotta be so fucking hard.” he groans, eyes running over his screen, no doubt taking in my appearance.

My finger lifts from the table, running over the projection of his face on my screen. My heart longs to feel the warmth of his skin under my fingertips, I can hardly remember the feeling of his strong jaw, of the light stubble that builds there after a few days of not shaving. My hands itch to run through his hair, to feel the texture of the curls that are somehow soft and coarse all at once. The worst part of long-distance, I conclude, is not being able to touch.

“I just miss ya so much,” He says softly, and even through the pixels, I can see his eyes soften with sadness.

“I know Mer,” I say compassionately, “I miss you too.”

We sit silently for another few moments, I push away the nagging at the back of my head that screams at me to study, not wanting to risk upsetting him more.

“Maybe I can come visit soon,” he wonders out loud, clicking and typing loudly at his laptop and I know he’s checking his bank statements, “It’s a little tight right now but I wouldn’t starve by any means an’ ‘Gene owes me money anyway I could use for rent-”

“Merriell, no.” I say sadly because as much as I want him to come up, I don’t want him going broke because of it, “We talked about this, you only come up if you can afford to do it without putting yourself in debt.” He opens his mouth to argue so I speak to cut him off, “You’d tell me the same thing.”

He sighs, burying his head in hands. I can see his shoulders are tense, frustration running through every muscle of his body. He takes another minute or two before he looks back up at the screen.

“Yeah, okay.” he says quietly, “I’ll let ya study.”

“You don’t have to go,” I point out weakly, “I know it’s hard for you to be quiet but I’m sure if you made an effort...” it’s a poor attempt at a joke but it gets his lips twitching into a weak smile nonetheless.

“Nah, can’t have my smart girl failing her classes,” He pauses, “Then I couldn’t tease ‘Gene about how fuckin’ stupid he is.”

I huff out a laugh, “Go easy on the poor guy.”

“Never” he replies easily with a cheeky smirk.

I shake my head in amusement, the humour replacing the tension that crossed over us if only for a few moments, it’s welcomed.

“I love you, Mer,” I say softly, “You know that right?”

It feels important that he knows it, that he believes it. Lately, every conversation we’ve had has ended in apologies and I hate that. I hate that we fight so often, I hate that I have to be so far away from him all the time and I fucking hate, even the possibility, that he could think that I don’t love him.

He smiles softly, sadly, “I know baby,” he assures me, “I love you too.”

I sigh, returning my attention back to the textbooks spread across my table. They seem so unimportant right now. The sight of them only reminds me of how terrible of a girlfriend I’ve been lately and the thought of choosing studying over him again makes me sick to my stomach.

“I’ll let ya go.” he says, snapping me out of my trance.

I don’t want him to go. I want to keep talking to him, I want to listen to his stupid stories about Eugene striking out with the ladies and his day at work and I want him to hit on me like he doesn’t already have me wrapped around his finger. I’m so unbelievably exhausted, school draining every last ounce of energy from me and yet still demanding more. I can feel tears pricking behind my eyes at the thought of being alone in my quiet apartment.

“Okay.” I croak, taking a shaky breath and looking away from his image before I really lose it.

“Hey,” he says softly, “You got this baby girl. Just a few more days an’ you’re in the clear.” I nod, chewing a hole in my lip, “we’re gonna get through this, I promise. Near or far, right?”

I nod again, taking a steadying breath before saying our final goodbyes for the night. I know I’m being stupid, he’ll text me within the hour but that doesn’t the aching in my chest when his face disappears from my screen, replaced with the home screen.

Midterms could not end fast enough.

“Cheers,” Chloe says loudly over the noise of the bar surrounding us, holding a shot high above her head, “to what seems like the longest two weeks of our lives. We did it. Through our blood, sweat, and for some of us,” she sends me a pointed look, “a whole lot of tears. But midterms,” she pauses for dramatic effect, keeping us all in a form of amused suspense, “are over!”

The group hoots and hollers and we drown our shots, barely wincing at the harshness of the alcohol against our throats. It’s early, but a lot of us are already well on our way to being drunk. Spring break has officially begun and that means a whole week of binge drinking and ignoring all our upcoming academic responsibilities.

“I didn’t cry that much.” I insist for seemingly the thousandth time.

Chloe laughs loudly, “Oh come on, Y/N.” she pushes my shoulder playfully, “There was hardly a day you didn’t call me in tears because you were behind on studying.”

I pout dramatically, “I was only behind because my idiot boyfriend kept distracting me.”

“He is an idiot,” she agrees, earning herself a slightly too hard punch to the shoulder on my behalf, “Speaking of,” she continues, “How are things with you guys?”

I shrug, rubbing at the condensation on my glass, “We’re fine.” I answer, “He keeps insisting we’re fine anyways. Even though all we’ve done lately is fight about how hard this whole long-distance thing is.” I meet her concerned gaze and shrug again, “It’ll be better now that midterms are over I just...miss him. It’s hard.”

She nods, understanding, “You think you’ll be able to see him soon?”

“I don’t think so.” I say sadly, “All the money I save goes right back into paying for school. He’s trying to save but I think it’ll be a little while yet.”

Midterms kept me busy enough, that it hadn’t really occurred to me how much longer it could be before I could see my boy again. I was so focused on vocabulary, theories and information that will soon be next to useless, I always had something else to contemplate. But now that it’s all over I’m hit with the unfortunate reality that it could be months before I see him again. And the mere thought of that makes my heartache.

“God Chloe, I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” I whine, pouting dramatically.

A small, kind of sly smile creeps over her lips and her eyes glimmer with mischief, “Is that so?”

Her voice sounds teasing and I’m left feeling like I’m the last one in on a joke. I take in the table around me and notice that all my friends are staring at me, giddy with excitement. My brow crumples in confusion and I look back at Chloe, who is practically bursting at the seams, phone pointed and aimed towards me.

“What are you doing?” I question, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Turn around,” she says simply.

I do what she says, turning around in my seat to address the scene behind me and I can’t believe my eyes. Standing in the middle of the bar is an all too familiar figure with unruly curls and sea-green eyes.

The next thing I know, I’ve thrown myself out of the chair and across the bar floor, all but tackling him. His arms wrap tightly around me, we spin and my senses are enveloped in everything that is so undeniably Merriell. I can hear him laughing in my ear, deep and throaty, can feel his arm around my waist, his hand in my hair and his lips on my forehead, mumbling soft words that I can’t hear over the cheering of my friends and drunk bystanders. My fingers clench in his loose-fitting t-shirt desperately, as if I were to let him go he’d disappear. I’m not aware of the tears running down my cheeks until he tilts my head up to gently wipe them away.

“Baby, why you cryin’?” he teases, kissing the tip of my nose softly.

I let out a wet laugh and shake my head, unable to do anything other than stare up at him admiringly for a moment. I take in a shaky breath, “You’re such an asshole.” it’s said without heat and he beams down at me, placing soft kisses on my lips.

He maneuvers us back to our table, where he greets Chloe and introduces himself to my friends. I’m faintly aware of everything around me that isn’t him, not quite grasping the fact that this is real, he’s here and not hundreds of miles away in a whole other state.

“What are you doing here?” I finally ask, my thoughts having settled in my head much in the same way I have settled sideways on his lap, arms wrapped around his neck.

He looks at me with a smile, eyes soft, “Honestly, I jus’ couldn’t wait any longer.”

The group ‘aw’s and I am helpless to do anything but lean in to kiss him.

The rest of the night we drink, dance and for the first time months, I feel light and happy. Hardly a moment goes by where we’re not touching each other in some way. It had been too long since we’ve felt the warmth of each other’s bodies against one another, his hands on my hips, mine on his chest. It felt so surreal to have him near again. He was just as obnoxious and loud as I remembered him being and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We had pissed off the rest of the bar while dancing. A familiar jazz tune came on and Merriell had tugged me to the dance floor, attempting to teach me a form of swing dancing that I was 99% certain wasn’t even a thing. Chloe had finally managed to get us to leave, but not after he had managed to nearly get us thrown out for public indecency. Totally his fault, he can’t expect to kiss me like that and not expect me to want to jump his bones.

The memories of last night come filtering back to me, much like the sunlight that finds its way into the room through my curtains. My eyes flutter open and my senses slowly come back to me. The feeling of soft blankets around my body, the warm skin of his chest beneath my cheek, a hand resting limply on my waist and our legs tangled with each other. His chest rises and falls slowly, mouth parted ever so slightly as he sleeps deeply. I shift on my stomach to watch him, taking in every detail I had forgotten over time. The way his fingers twitch restlessly in his sleep, how his muscles clench ever so slightly as I run my fingers across his abdomen. I missed waking up to him like this. He looks at peace and I can’t help but wonder if he sleeps this good when we’re apart.

He breathes in deeply suddenly, face scrunching against the offending sunlight. His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer as his other hand rubs the sleep away from his face. He hums softly, a sleepy smile spreading across his features as his eyes flutter open and meet mine.

“Mornin’” he murmurs.

I feel a grin split across my face as I admire his handsome features in the morning light, “Good morning.”

“I missed this.” He sighs, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

I hum in agreement, leaning into his touch, “me too.”

We stay like that for a while. His arms around me, my fingers dancing across his skin, the room just slightly too warm to be pressed so close but neither of us willing to move away from the other just yet. I don’t know how long he’s staying, how long it’ll be before we see each other again after this and yet I find myself reluctant to bring up the conversation, afraid to shatter the perfect moment we’ve created.

“Could stay like this forever,” I say instead, softly, a tinge of sadness and longing to my voice.

He hums softly, a hand coming up to run through my hair, gently brushing away any knots with his fingers, “About that...”

I pull away, pushing myself up and away from his body to look at him. I feel anxiety begin to bubble in the pit of my stomach at the uncharacteristic bashfulness on his face.

“What?” I ask softly, searching his face for any clues.

His eyes run over my features silently, lip drawn between his teeth as he debates how to bring up the mysterious subject.

“I may have done somethin..” he hesitates, “kind of stupid.”

My mind runs to a million and ten different possibilities, every one worse than the last. My entire body runs tight. But it seems to focus on one possibility in particular and just the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve heard too many long-distance relationships gone wrong because of drunken loneliness and one night stands and ‘she’ll never have to know’s and I can practically hear him say it in my haze of overthinking.

I cheated on you.

“I sold my apartment.”

I blink. My mouth opens and shuts and I’m at a loss for words because I don’t know what this conversation is going to be. I silently chastise myself for jumping to a conclusion so drastic. Confusion swarms me as I take in how absolutely nervous he is.

“Okay,” I say slowly, trying desperately to grasp what the underlying meaning is, “Why?” I ask eventually.

His lips twitch into a bashful smile, looking out the window briefly before crossing his legs and sitting closer to me, taking my hand in his.

“Well,” he starts, looking back up at me with soft eyes, “Because lately New Orleans’ hasn’t really felt like home.” Something clicks in my brain and I have to force myself to contain my excitement, just in case I’m wrong, “So the stupid thing was selling my place before comin’ here and askin’ you this but..” he trails off and he looks so nervous and absolutely adorable that I have to restrain myself from kissing him silly.

“What would ya think about us movin’ in togetha’? Here?”

A small laugh escapes my lips and I can’t hold myself back anymore, practically tackling him back onto the mattress, kissing him passionately. A grin on my part breaks our kiss.

“I would fucking love that.”

A slow smile spreads across his lips like he truly can’t believe that I agreed and I’m helpless to do anything other than kiss him again.

“Thank God,” he sighs into my mouth, “‘Cause I got ‘Gene on standby ready to ship all my shit over here,” he says in between kisses.

My heart sores. Never again will we have to resort to weekly facetime calls just to see each other’s face. Never again will I forget the warmth of his body against mine and never again will I have to face heartbreaking longing that I feel when he’s not with me.

My hand cups his jaw and rubs my thumb over his cheekbone, “I love you so damn much, Merriell Shelton.” I say hopelessly.

He beams at me, rubbing our noses together softly and muttering the phrase that, to us, means unconditional love.

“Near or far.”

A/N: AND THAT IT!!! Feedback is welcome or seriously if y’all ever wanna just spam my inbox with Snafu love I am totally here for it.

#Merriell Shelton #Merriell Snafu Shelton #merriell shelton x reader #merriell shelton/reader #snafu #Snafu Shelton #snafu x reader #snafu shelton x reader #the pacific #fluff

70 notes · View notes

nyxabird · 5 years

Text

What I want from Pokemon Sword/Shield

What I hope for in Pokemon Sword/Shield. I thought about making this a video, and I might still, but it’s so long that I thought a list here would be better to start with at least.

I know a lot of people are doing videos like this, where they're saying "this is what I'd love to see or not see in Pokemon Sword/Shield", but I'd honestly like to throw my opinion out there, too. There's so much we're hoping from in these games, and some of the points I think of I haven't seen other people address at all. And of course, I just have my own things that would make the games more fun for me, so. In no real order, here's what I hope for in Pokemon Sword and Shield.

1. No Fire/Fighting Starter.

Don't make Scorbunny fighting. Don't make Scorbunny fighting. For the love of god, DON'T MAKE SCORBUNNY FIGHTING.

Look. I like most of the starters overall, and both Chimchar and Torchic are some I think are really good, personally. But unlike the other two, Fire has just gotten this habit of dropping into fighting as its sub-type, and quite frankly that's just boring at this point. Blaziken, Infernape, and Emboar, all one after another, were just too much. They did REALLY good subverting this with the Fire/Psychic starter of Delphox, and while I don't personally care for it, I like the fact that Incineroar was Fire/Dark, even though its theme could have so easily been dropped into fighting.

Make it anything else. Literally anything else. No one cares what its other type is, or if it'll even have another type, as long as it ISN'T. FIGHTING. The little bandage on its face is making us worried, but with Inceniroar you proved you could have a fighting-styled theme without actually being fighting type. Please, do that again.

I, too, will accept literally any type match but Fire/Fighting. Though if I could personally choose, I'd ask for Fairy or Dark again. It'd be nice to have a Fire/Dark I actually really like.

2. No shiny locking.

Nintendo has picked up this habit of making legendaries, especially the cover Pokemon, impossible to roll as shiny. Basically, they're hard-coded so that when you encounter them, they cannot be shiny. That needs to stop. Just... yeah. Don't do that. Stop doing that. That's really all there is to it. It's a bad thing you're doing and you need to quit. It's literally MORE work to do for no reason. Just stop it.

3. Keep easier ways to find shinies.

Easy is a bit of a misnomer, because there's no way to easily get a shiny, no matter what anyone says. But there are ways to make it easIER, and I think that needs to be kept. Whether it's chain-catching like in Pokemon Let's Go or something else, give us a way that's actually possible to do to get shinies. Do not bring back that stupid "pick the right shaking grass when all of them are two pixels different" minigame. That's a BAD WAY to do it. Give us a way, and give us a way that actually can work, not make us lose our progress because we don't have eyes like eagles.

4. No motion controls.

Now, I don't think Pokemon Let's Go had a bad catching mechanic... IF the game was in handheld mode. The idea of being able to catch Pokemon without wearing down my team was actually really good, and it was something I liked a lot. I did miss being able to battle wild Pokemon and make them easier to catch, but if the Let's Go catching mechanic comes back I won't mind...

IF it works like it does in handheld mode. Docked mode was AWFUL. There's no ifs, ands, or buts, it was just badly. Programmed. No one liked it. No one enjoyed it. It was never consistent and often times was completely opposite to whatever you wanted to do.

5. Pokemon that follow you.

Like in the Johto remakes or Pokemon Let's Go, let your Pokemon follow you. We know you can do it. You actually DID do it in the Alola games, because there's data of every single Pokemon model with walk and run cycles on the cartritage that you just never actually let us access, so don't try to claim this isn't something you can't do. On top of that, the Switch is way bigger than the 3DS' carts. You have room. You have the skill. Give it to us.

6. New Eeveelutions.

Please, please, PLEASE. Give us new 'eons. It's been way too long without getting new Eevee forms, and you have so many types you can still make it from. Give us SOMETHING. ANYTHING. You're creative, you can come up with various ways to do stuff. What about a Steel-type that evolves when you level it up holding a Metal Coat? Or a Fighting-type that evolves if you get it to a certain level? Just give us SOMETHING.

Me, personally, I'd love to see a Dragon-type, Poison-type, or Ground-type Eeveelution, because I'm always short on those types and I think they'd be awesome.

7. Bring back Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves.

They're cool, they're fun, and they make things more interesting. I've heard people complain about how it ruins competitive battling because it's unpredictable, to which I say "Why is your competitive battling completely predictable? That sounds boring and not actually competitive if you can plug in a formula and have it work." Some people say that it makes the game too easy, to which I say "Then stop using them." It's the same as people complaining there's difficulty levels in games; you think the easy mode is too easy for you, then just don't play on the easy mode. If you think Z-Moves or Mega Evolution make the game too easy for you, then just don't use them. No one's forcing you to, and taking away something other people enjoy because you have no self-control over not using them is just really rude. I mean, no one says the magic system in Dark Souls makes the game too easy, so that needs to be removed!

...actually, there probably are people who say that, depressingly enough.

Anyway. For me, I love that I can make my Pokemon feel super powerful for a moment, or just use Z-Move to skip over a specific trainer or specific Pokemon that I just don't want to deal with. It gives you options on how to handle your own game and lets you balance your own difficulty for it, which is what all the best games do. And let's not forget the core, most basic reason: they're just FUN.

8. Skippable cutscenes.

It's 2019. How do you not have this yet? Some people want to replay the game. Some people don't care about the story. Some people just want to get to a certain part. It doesn't matter. What matters is that every single cutscene in your game that doesn't require a vital decision -- and don't try to be dishonest, nothing but the opening cutscene has any actual decisions, they're all fake ones to make you feel like you're actually having an effect -- should be skippable. Straight out, out of the box. No ifs, ands, or buts.

9. No forced tutorial.

I've played Pokemon since Red and Blue. I know how Pokemon works. I know how to catch Pokemon. You're trying to teach a fish to swim.

I'm not against these tutorials. There are plenty of new people getting into Pokemon games every release, and they need it. No one doubts that. But there is absolutely no reason that these tutorials are MANDATORY. If the new people skip the tutorials, that's their own fault, not yours, and they can't complain about the bed they made for themselves. So please, for the love of god, don't torture the rest of us because some idiot might skip the tutorial and then get mad.

10. The Regional Pokedex is what matters.

Sun and Moon did this fantastically. Basically, this means that for things that require you to complete the Pokedex, like the Shiny Charm? Only the Pokemon that can be caught in the actual region count. You can still catch and register Pokemon that aren't in your Regional Pokedex, but you aren't required to in order to "complete" the Pokedex. That was something that was amazing in Sun/Moon and made the game NOT a painful, daunting slog to actually get things like the Shiny Charm in. Please do that again.

11. No HMs.

I sincerely doubt this'll be a problem, since none of the latest generation games had HMs, but this is still something that bears repeating. HMs are not fun. No one likes HMs. They're just irritating, pointless moves that get in your way and force you to either devote a slot or two in your party to a Pokemon you don't care for or trash the combat ability of the Pokemon you actually have. Whether it's Ride Pokemon or Secret Techniques or whatever... make it happen.

I, and I'm sure many other people, literally do not care if you just put a piece of plastic tape over a plot hole. If it means that we don't have to use HMs, every single one of us will ignore the giant gaping hole in space with nary a single comment.

12. Wild Pokemon that walk in the overworld.

This was, to me, the absolute best part of Pokemon Let's Go. Being able to see the Pokemon in the overworld not only makes it feel far more alive, but it makes actually hunting around a lot more enjoyable, too. This mechanic made caves FUN AGAIN. I literally HAD FUN in Mt. Moon and Rock Tunnel because of this. Those weren't fun when they were first released and every other cave after that has never been fun unless you packed hundreds of repels. Now? Caves are enjoyable because you can fight or dodge however you want, because you can SEE where things are.

13. Human Rivals.

Now I know this is a very controversial opinion, and if you don’t like that’s perfectly fine, but don’t try to insult me over it.

I hate rivals with nasty personalities that treat you like shit.

I want a rival that is actually tolerable and acts like a real person, not some entitled whiny manbaby bitch who's high on his own ego.

I will never understand how people seriously enjoyed people like Blue, who were just complete insufferable pricks. They often made me roll my eyes and ruined the experience because they were just so unrepentantly rude and assholeish, no matter what you did, and they never changed. Some people "love to hate" insufferable, intolerable assholes, I guess, and love to beat them down over and over. And if you do? Awesome! I’m glad to hear it.

But for me, they just detract from a game because they constantly have to go "Oh hey, you're that useless shitwad no one likes, hahaha let me treat you like piss on my shoe". Beating them gives you satisfaction, sure, but no matter what you do or how you win, all your interactions with them are negative. That satisfaction comes from "Hah hah, I beat up the dude who's rude to me", and that's just... to me, that doesn't stay satisfying. Eventually I just start getting angry that this shitheel won’t go away and leave me alone, because them being around isn’t fun anymore.

I don't necessarily want the rival to be your best friend or the nicest person in the world. I really liked people like Silver and Gladion, but that was because while they were assholes at the start, you saw them grow and change and become better and happier people as the game went on. Was Silver ever super chummy with you? Pft, hell no! Not even close! But that was okay, because you still saw him change into a dude who was actually tolerable and not stay as the prick with his head so far up his ass he was tasting breakfast. And that was awesome!

My favorite rivals, honestly? Are ones like Hau, who were your rivals but also your friends, so your interactions with them were positive and fun. My mood always skyrocketing whenever I talked to Hau because he was just so friendly and cute, and that’s what I found far, far more satisfying than some prick who’d come around to call me a worthless shithead.

Pokemon Rivals aren't like the big bad in games like Final Fantasy. You're stuck with them, you can't get away from them, and you're not solving some big super evil by getting rid of them and making yourself feel satisfied. You’re just having this asshole who’s being rude to you for literally no reason stalk you and refuse to let you get away.

That’s insanely creepy and nasty. You're just being BULLIED with rivals like that, and I genuinely cannot understand why people seem to love being bullied in their own game by an insufferable prick who's so drunk on their own ego they think they're Arceus' gift to the world. The satisfaction of beating them feels outweighed by the negative feelings you have of them constantly berating and putting you down.

Maybe it's just because I'm from a home life where I was constantly bullied and ridiculed by all of my cousins, but I just can't find that sort of thing enjoyable. It's part of why I don't replay the Kanto games anywhere near as much as I replay the other ones, despite Kanto being my home region. (I honestly thought PLG was better than the original because Blue wasn’t there to be an insufferable, entitled manbaby egotist)

If it were up to me, honestly, I'd let you pick your rival like you could pick your gender. One rival's the Hau-type, one rival's the Blue-type, and the one you don't pick doesn't show up in game. That way, everyone could have what they want. Barring that, I really, really don't want to see another rival that's completely inhuman because all they are is an entitled prick there to bully you. I don't care if it's like Silver or Gladion, where they're rude at first but become genuinely likeable later, or if it's like Hau where they're always nice. Just... give me an actual rival, not some guy's fragile and inflated ego wrapped in a human suit.

I genuinely have no idea how so many people think having a person who doesn’t treat you like you’re a piece of shit unworthy of life is so bad it can be considered a plague and something that needs rectifying.

14. Side games! But make them optional.

Give us more side stuff to do! Pokemon Contests, Pokeathelon, the Festival Plaza... The Battle Tower. These were all fun things to do. When they were OPTIONAL. I think we need stuff like the casino and Voltorb Flip, or an area like the Festival Plaza we can design, because those are actually fun things to do. But I also think they need to be completely skippable for people who don't want them. Forcing people into doing side-games is a sure-fire way to get that side-game hated, but making it available gives us so much more we can do. It'd sure make the post game more fun.

15. Character Customization.

Hair, eyes, skin. These should all be default customization options, either able to change very early on or able to pick at the start. Alola was pretty good at this. Do it again.

16. CLOTHES.

Clothes, clothes, clothes. For the love of god, give us clothes again. Not your shitty Pokemon Let's Go no-effort recolors your artist did while on his way home from work. Not the "two shirt models, two skirt models, and a pants model with recolors" thing you did Alola. Actual clothing. Dresses, different skirts, different pants. What about that big black coat-dress I got from Kalos? Or the boots? The hose? We know you can make these designs. Actually make them.

17. Pokeball Conversion.

Let us put caught Pokemon in a Pokeball different from what we caught in it. If we want to put our starter in a Luxury Ball, just let us spend one Luxury Ball and bam, do it! Overwrite the ball it's in now. It shouldn't really be that hard since you can outright edit IVs.

18. Secret Bases or the Underground!

Give us Secret Bases back! They were amazing and fun, and being able to make your own base -- especially a base your friend could download so they could fight you on your own time! Being able to buy and decorate, or place it randomly, was also amazing. Failing Secret Bases, give us back the Underground from Sinnoh where we could dig and find items and... well, yeah, make a base down there too.

Just give us some way to make our mark on the game world. Even better if we can set a fly-point there and put our own heal station in. That way, if there's a place we want to grind, well. We can just grind there, or if we needed a break because our Pokemon were getting battered. You don't have the make the furniture easy to get, but give us some way to make our own little spot we can get cozy in, rather than the house we'll never revisit because there's no reason to ever go back there.

19. A final area where the game doesn't cheat.

I breed Pokemon competitively. I breed until a Pokemon has the extact right IVs, the exact right nature, the exact right ability. I breed Egg Moves and everything else that would cover their types. And still, things like the Battle Tree are just an unfun, messy slogy for me. The main issue I have with it is that so many times, it seems like the game outright cheats. I can't tell you how many different teams I went in, only to find that a trainer early on had hard counters for every single member of my team. Once is circumstance, twice is happenstance, but three times is a pattern... and I had no less than ten. Different Pokemon, different team comps, different days, and still, I very regularly got hard-countered.

I don't care that these options are hard. By all means, keep them hard! They're meant to be. But stop cheating and making the AI pick out a hard-counter team to yours just because you're "doing too well". I've seen it in so many post-game Pokemons, and it really needs to stop.

#pokemon sword and shield #what I want from pokemon sword and shield #rivals #I don't care if you like the egotistical rude rivals #more power to you if you do #but I do not and will not like them no matter what #and I will never accept they're better #because characters like that just RUIN my experience #so you can keep your asshole rivals #hau best rival #forever and ever

9 notes · View notes

jefferyryanlong · 5 years

Photo

Fresh Listen - Buckethead, Electric Tears (Metastation, 2002)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not so recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

I often wonder what I might have accomplished in music had I any kind of true talent. And not just talent--but also a passion to work toward pure musical expression, so that every note I might press or blow had intention, was consciously connected to an idea that could only be represented musically, in the context of melody and harmony and rhythm. Would I rip an aggressive and demonic trombone solo as part of a nine-piece New Orleans collective? Would I deliriously hammer angular chords alongside an avant-garde symphony? Would I, if I could, milk singing wails from an electric guitar, an capture within that singing and wailing all of the worldʻs disaffection, riding lead in a rock band, counterbalancing moronic lyrics with a frantic supplication to the heavenly throb? If only I had the talent, and the work ethic. With this power to transmit the universal message, to tap into the frequency between heart and brain, I might lead the lost soul of a listener one step closer to Enlightenment. Given this ability, I probably wouldnʻt place an expressionless white mask over my face, along with a KFC bucket on top of my head.

Buckethead, the solo guitar magician whoʻs commercially branded himself thus, is the kind of prodigious virtuoso to whom music is less a mystery, a puzzle to be solved, than a natural state of being. He made his name not in lesser able rock bands of his time, but in the wonky pages of Guitar World, to which he submitted award winning compositions and tablature. The kind of guitarist who can hang with Guns Nʻ Roses (he was member from 2000 to 2005), but prefers making records alone, creating the space his fingers require for the musical chaos that seeps from his bucket-topped head to take shape. Unlike Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, Buckethead eschews traditional rock/prog rock backing (except for convoluted side projects like Praxis) for guitar instrumentals that are subtler, more facile, less bombastic.

Had I the gifts of Buckethead, Iʻm also certain that 2002ʻs Electric Tears wouldnʻt have been the artistic statement representative of my musical values. One can only wonder what the musical values of Buckethead are while listening to these New Age-y songs, surmising that there must be a deeper personal agenda here (as there was in 1998ʻs Colma), some overarching reason for the artist to defang these songs, most of which are played with two guitars (a rhythm/loop and solo) with a demanding gentleness. The music of Electric Tears emerges from speakers like errant thoughts you havenʻt had time to reinforce through conscious reflection. They articulate, and sometimes even humanize, the messy by-product of too much thinking about other things, less important things. Listening to Buckethead is both familiar and unsettling--even before the notes of these songs are imprinted on your brain, itʻs like they were there all along. They are soothing as they linger on the verges of awareness, but maddening if you pay too close attention.

Despite the obvious technical ability in “All in the Waiting,” a repetitive, electric finger-picking accompanied by a fluid acoustic solo, there is not much to the song that elevates it beyond what one might hear while watching a montage of horse keeping and pained, parted lovers on a one-hour Christian television network drama. Oddly, Buckethead starts “Sketches of Spain (For Miles)” with electric laughing as processed through his guitar noodling. Then the song unspools in three distinct segments, each backed by the artistʻs reverent finger-picking: the melody played high on the neck of an acoustic guitar; the melody played with a wah-drenched electric; the melody played by the acoustic and electric guitars in harmony. Here Buckethead reimagines Davisʻs version of "Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)." Where Miles is self-conscious and cautiously perfunctory when playing a melody on trumpet, and often internally deconstructs it while exploring its tonal potentialities in real time, Buckethead wrenches every shred of sentiment from the song through his deliberative solo. In effect, he constrains a tune that Miles Davis and Gil Evans liberated many years ago.

The drone of “Padmasana” effectively conjures the ceaseless void atop which Buckethead constructs his lead guitar. The song is meditative enough to drive one to drink, and after a few listens I was begging to be released from its circular labyrinth of eleven minutes. The heavily processed rumble of “Mustang,” captured presumably by hammer-ons and the occasional effects-laden squelch, add a more frenetic energy to the record, and the song, more or less a captured anxiety, is absorbing in its loose and improvisatory structure. Buckethead goes full Eighties guitar on “The Way to Heaven.” Given a more dramatic framework, the song could fit easy as the coda to a Cinderella record.

Just when Bucketheadʻs songs seem to be taking on more diverse shapes, he revisits “All in the Waiting” with “Baptism of Solitude,” a spiritual sequel that best accompanies a wandering mind, not one paying attention to the music, trying to divine an inner resonance. It may even be too repetitive to be considered meandering. But then he lays out “Kansas Storm,” a riff-oriented rocker devoid of percussion, with irritated electric guitar growls stalking over a stiff street groove, low-ended by the bass strings.

There is little to say about “Datura” except that the middle part echoes some prog rock number I canʻt even remember. Just three or so notes. It would be a great backing track for the pixellated animations of a screen saver. “Witches on the Heath” recalls the bluesy vibe of “The Way to Heaven,” though less sentimentally so--for some reason, I couldnʻt help but to assemble scenes of New Orleans as portrayed by John Woo in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target. Try listen and let me know if you see the same things in your mind.

“Angel Monster”: see “All in the Waiting” and “Baptism of Solitude.” Yes, its got that same thing going on--delicately picked acoustic guitar, depressive guitar moping through. Buckethead brushes against Angelo Badalamenti/David Lynch weirdness in the title track “Electric Tears” likewise suggesting the bottomless madness that informs the most pedestrian sentiment. All I can really propose as a comparable experience to “Spell of the Gypsies” is the Hallmark store on the second floor of Windward Mall. Granted, there are some blue notes lurking in the song, but nothing that would turn away a dedicated shopper.

Perhaps most telling about Electric Tears is not what is in the music, but what is on the albumʻs cover: the artist unmasked, un-bucketed. I wonder. Is this what he felt when he stepped out of costume? Did he imagine that these songs, most of them lighter than air, would simply float away, or would they lead him to something deeper? Electric Tears seems almost an exercise for Buckethead, a means for him to disengage from his ego and allow his fingers to unconsciously explore the complex underpinnings of his feelings, though he doesnʻt seem able to articulate the feelings themselves. For that, we have a piece of music hovering just beyond our grasp.

#freshlisten #buckethead #electrictears

1 note · View note

sayonaralullaby-a · 7 years

Note

Who's Eddie?

Well, oof, okay, so Eddie is a character of mine for my personal story, Komorebi, but he is also an embodiment of my nightmares, negative emotions, memories, thoughts, and mental disorders, as in the story, he’s a “clone” to the main character, Caleb and he represents his negativity and such, like he is with mine. Basically, Eddie is my dark coping mechanism ( as life has definitely fucked me up big time, unfortunately, lmfao ) I transfer him over to the story.

I wrote a bunch of notes about him that I don’t mind sharing under the cut in case anyone would be interested in getting to learn more about him ( regardless I need to flesh him out a bit, so there’s that ). Though please heed the tags for trigger warnings first before reading further. Eddie is not a pleasant person.

To start it off, his name, Eddie, is his short name because his real name is usually unable to be pronounced for one’s tongue, which is Eidottnawi ( pronounced “eye-dot-naw-we” ), meaning, “I want to die” in Rorrim’s language, and his surname is Doowron, meaning, “Norwood,” coping Caleb’s surname as he is his “clone”. Though the reason why he chose his first name is unknown.

Though who is Eddie? Or should I ask who is he to Caleb? Is he also known to be the Caleb Norwood, but for some reason, he wasn’t him anymore and became his own self — perhaps Caleb made a deal to someone divine who would take part of his soul that contains his negativity and pessimism as an exchange for him having the capability to be resilient, and Eddie managed to come into his life to teach him how everyone can’t ever be happy and optimistic? Is he the future Caleb and he goes back in time to when Caleb doesn’t have extreme flaws upon his mortals and personality, to remind him that he will eventually change to how he is and show him how would his future self be like because of how cruel and dark the world can make a person? Or is he just a vivid imagination of himself, made intendedly and subconsciously made by Caleb himself, to put himself into traumatizing situations and scenarios he would believe he so deserve, being told by himself, or so Eddie, of the things he refuses to acknowledge of, but as a result in the end, he would with a better reason other than him giving up on himself? Nobody really knows if Eddie is actually a clone of Caleb or he is a separate individual from him, but somehow looks like Caleb and have drastic opposite morals, beliefs, and traits that Caleb doesn’t have.

He is the physical embodiment of the Void, one who isn’t created or born, but just is, as a similar existence approach of Death itself. He isn’t just nothing, but he is quite literally everything that holds us as people together to the point there is nothing else, a something, a place where there is everything to the point that there is nothing else, and wherever you go, no matter how far, you are always in the area of the void where it is infinite, and it is everywhere and everything, and all of these shadows around you, they can lead you through the dimension to the void.

Carrying no vessels and becoming his true/void form, it’ll be extremely overwhelming and intense feelings for him to grasp such tremendous powers into his inner self without having his own flesh to carry them, and becomes the destruction and chaos with his core being unstable. He doesn’t see the reality when he’s in that form, but instead, he would see is death, despairs and destruction. He have antimatters and black holes properties that during his void form, he would suck and absorb every bits of existing sounds and lights in the areas he’s standing in, and his form acts more as a vacuum to everything that surrounds him, to the point that he sucks everything in and makes it non-existential, while at the same time, as a result, it fuels his own existence because as the void, he is made up of everything that exists It simply sucks up everything, and therefore, people think that it’s technically nothing because it takes up anything and everything.

Everything ceases to exist when he reaches to his void form, one really won’t be able to see anything when he absorbs the lights, same along with sounds, he will take away the white silence and the static of radioactive decays, and many more from the universe around us, therefore everything is literally silent when they’re being sucked by the space vacuum, Eddie himself in this case…

He is not just the physical embodiment of the Void, but strangely, he is also part DG-V1rus ( details are found here ), Rorrim ( there are no details about it yet, but it’s pronounced as “ro-reem” and Rorrim is basically an original specie of mine that have to do with mirror-like creatures/“opposite clones” ), and Dream Demon ( hybrid specie of a Dreamwalker and a Demon ). The backstory to how he is part any of them is currently unknown.

As a Dream Demon, he is the Ruler of the Nightmare Realm. He gives out orders to his minions on sending nightmares to those in need as messages and how it affects their current life.

His body skin colour is monochromatic. There are two possible reasons why it’s like that, while no one knows why does his skin colour shows that way, but the first reason is how much emotionally damaged and depressed he is, having his colours fades away to express his misery, and secondly, while he may be the “future” of Caleb, he always thinks about his past and compares whatever appears around him in the present to it, as he can’t ever let go of it, and you know hundreds of years ago, the photos were still in black and white, and it says how really far parts of Eddie’s consciousness is away from the present.

Though when he glitches, the outline of his body, with parts of them becoming into pixels, are red and cyan, to make people’s eyes strains, and you do not want him to experience high emotions, such as anger mainly, because when his voice becomes distorted from the glitching, it brings pain and discomfort to their ears.

He sees most of the world in black and white, being close to colourblind. The things he can see, though in a rather intense white colour, are the eyes, because of how the eyes behind a body holds the soul. Except if a person or an animal doesn’t have a soul inside anymore, their eyes are then also a dull grayscale colour as the rest of their body parts and everything around them as Eddie. He also sees the colours of the auras, belonging to the deities, radiating in. Their auras are much more clearer and almost glowing halo-like air surrounding their presence, and even glancing at them under a minute would irritate his eyes before it creates statics to envelop his visions, while it causes him to easily get migraines as well, as his mortal body are unable to take it well. But when he is in his true/void form, everything around him becomes in complete vivid colours, as the saturation and chroma of the world gets shot up to 100%, and not even the Mortal’s eyes can handle them without ending up getting their eyes permanently strained to a worse degree from the overwhelming and intense colours, if lucky to not be blinded.

He sees many different planets and dimensions at once, but he generally only focus on the dimension he is currently in, which is with the planet, Eanmerthas. The other dimensions are seen in different colours, but this is most likely never going to be delved into deeper.

He actually can’t hear anything, working on the same level as his inability to talk due to the vacuum surrounding him. As a result, he is able to sense the waves that others speaks and can imagine a simulation of how it sounds as to where it is coming from.

Going over to his personality now, the most important thing one should always remember when encountering him is do not be friends with him. He will abuse your strengths and manipulate you for his own advantages. He doesn’t see himself having friends or even at least having a partner for businesses and ever will. Friendships means nothing but destruction to him, and dare would anyone suggest being friends with him, they will face the consequence.

He usually kills people if only they ask for their death to come or they get in his way. He honestly can’t be bothered with killing people “for fun” and all of that ridiculous stuff as he finds it a huge waste of time and energy.

You see, Eddie, like Caleb, wants to help the world, to be the hero, because of their creation of the world, to Eddie, he doesn’t want to see it end with a split between beauty and chaos, and unfortunately, it seems impossible because there’s need to a balance with everything to nothing, but rather than attempting to influence people’s negative actions and beliefs, as obvious as it is, he kills them, while this is the general list of his morals:

HE WILL LIE in order to make people feel reassured and happy.

HE WILL KILL “BEAUTIFUL-LOOKING” PEOPLE as he doesn’t want them to experience a moment of them “becoming” ugly.

HE WILL KILL CHILDREN so they could die without having to experience what’s the world really like to them as they grow up.

HE WILL BE RUDE AND OBNOXIOUS TO OTHERS in order for people to get away from him and prevent them from befriending him as he wants best for both him and them to not grow attach each other, otherwise their feelings for each other would rip apart from their chest in the end.

HE WILL KILL THE POOR as to help end their suffering of hunger in desperation and be free and welcomed to heaven or anywhere as a paradise.

HE WILL HARM PEOPLE as to help them have more attention, love and care from their friends, families and loved ones.

HE WILL BULLY PEOPLE to help them improve their ability to stand up for themselves.

HE WILL GIVE DRUGS, ONE NIGHT STANDS, OR ALCOHOL TO PEOPLE to make them feel entertained and satisfied, if only they would ask for it,

HE IS WILLING TO KILL PEOPLE IF THEY ARE SUICIDAL so it would look like a murder case rather than them committing suicides to make their friends and loved ones more dreadful and pity them, much to their dislike.

HE WILL COMMIT CANNIBALISM OF EATING “HIS OWN KIND,” HUMANS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO DO IT SO to help decrease the overpopulation of the world and there would be food available with human parts if any other isn’t available.

Does he have lack of remorse from doing them just as killing the bad people? Yes, he would lack any sympathy in committing such crimes like that, because, again, he wants to help and he does think what’s listed above is the best way to do them, but to most people, it’s clearly wrong, but at the same time… His beliefs makes it up their reason that makes his crimes more “appropriate” to him committing them. He never thinks of his targets’ friends and families because it’s about them only, and that’s it, as he’s helping them for their own sake only. Plus if anyone wishes to join being with their deceased loved ones, Eddie wouldn’t mind killing them to be with their deceased loved ones once again.

What is even the biggest belief that sticks to his mindset the most of them all is how in the end, everyone will die, so he doesn’t think anything matters, but the people who he kills, are given a ticket to be truly happy and free earlier.

With moral number nine, that’s what his real name, Eidottnawi, comes to play. It is either a gift or a curse, and either someone says what is the backword of his name as a beg or a realization of what his name actually meant, it’s like a kick to his instinct to kill them.

Overall, Eddie is a dangerous being one should never interact with. So if one encounters him, run.

#great now I'm itching to make an aesthetic moodboards for the damned bastard #mhm #( Ask Cae )#anonymous #( Komorebi )#( Notes )#( Ch: Eidottnawi Doowron )#murder mention //#child abuse //#abuse //#drugs mention //#alcohol mention //#cannibalism //#suicide mention //#death mention //#they're all like mentioned once or twice but yeah #what the fuck Eddie

1 note · View note

dominodebt · 7 years

Text

Flush Theory

Reaper won’t stop staring at her.

Sombra can feel his eyes—fuck that mask, it doesn’t hide anything, not from her—like a pair of live coals, or cursed gems. Hot and bright and radiating a kind of intensity she’s not accustomed to receiving. She’s the shadow. She lives under the radar—off the grid. She doesn’t like being caught in the crosshairs like this.

Still, she maintains her air of arrogance and sardonic self-assurance. Her spine is straight as she stands at the computer, typing in commands, gaze darting between the various holo-maps she calls up and dismisses.

“Sombra.”

“Little busy, jefe,” she returns, not even sparing him a glance. “Go find another house to haunt.”

He’s not deterred by her temper.

He’s dead. He’s not really deterred by a whole lot.

“Sombra, what’s the matter with you?” Reaper’s voice is a kind of rough smoke—coarse and fleeting. It swirls around her head, chafes against her thoughts.

“Nothing,” she snaps back, because yes Sombra, defensiveness has always been such a successful deterrent. She punches in the next round of codes a little more forcefully than strictly necessary, and one of her clawed fingers actually passes through the hologram at her imbalance.

She grits her teeth, glaring at the pixels that float unbound around her hand—screen fractured at her imprecise touch—before flicking her fingers out swiftly reassembling the setup.

Reaper’s gaze is heavy across her shoulders—any closer to her throat and she thinks she might choke under his stare.

“Sombra—”

“Vete a la chingada,” she bites out, dully cheered that there’s no language barrier to keep the wraith from knowing the exact wording of her dissent. “If you want my help—and trust me, you do—then keep your thoughts to yourself.”

Silence.

Sombra considers risking a glance over her shoulder to see what sort of body language Reaper’s oozing this time, but decides against it.

“Most of the alarms are offline,” she announces after a moment, still not sparing him a look.

“Most?” Reaper drawls back.

Sombra waves a hand impatiently. “Yes, most,” she returns irritably. “If you want me to dismantle every alarm in the Overwatch Museum we’ll be here for hours. Just don’t break a damn window or anything and we’ll be fine.”

Reaper grunts noncommittally at that, but Sombra ignores him, dismissing her holographic setup with a sharp gesture.

The screens fade, and so does the artificial glow that’d illuminated Sombra’s face. She almost misses the face tattoo she’d sported when she ran with Los Muertos. Anything to give her more cover.

Reaper gives her another long look that she ignores, busing herself with her translocater until he finally drops his physical form and vanishes into the night.

Sombra steadies herself with a breath.

Go in. Get the gauntlet. Leave.

Her thermoptic camo descends upon her form like rain, swallowing up all signs of her being as she gives chase to Overwatch’s ghost.

The museum is eerie in its emptiness, but Sombra has been alone too long to dislike the feeling of foreboding that comes with it. She trails behind Reaper as he approaches the case containing Doomfist’s gauntlet, glancing around—

“Open the case,” Reaper hisses at her from across the museum floor, and Sombra snaps her gaze to his, blinking as she realizes she must have lost concentration.

She makes to stride over to where he is—more than happy to open the damn fucking case if that’s all that’s keeping them here—when her motion triggers one of the pedestals to her right, and Sombra gasps as the dark room is suddenly lit up—

“It’s just a projection,” Reaper mutters.

“Brilliant,” Sombra deadpans, trying to pull snark over the shaking of her voice. “Really. Why even bring me? A projection. How advanced—”

“Shut up,” Reaper hisses at her, and she can feel the flash of his eyes beneath his mask.

Sombra gives him a dark look before turning to face the projection head-on.

The hologram of Strike Commander Jack Morrison stares down at her.

It isn’t until she tastes the rust she realizes she’s bitten her tongue hard enough to bleed.

“Sombra,” Reaper growls. “What are you—?”

Something dies in the young woman’s gaze—a supernova swallows the stars in her eyes—and she reaches for her sidearm—

Reaper’s shotguns are out in the time it takes to blink, but Sombra didn’t fuse herself with technology—didn’t become her craft itself—to be outdrawn by anyone. Her aim settles on the head of the hologram, Jack Morrison’s projection—a ghost drifting out of Sombra’s nightmares to haunt her waking hours—speaks earnestly to her, programmed hand extending out, entreating her—

“Commander.” Carolina’s ears had perked up at the sound, barely heard over the pounding of her heart. Soldiers. They aren’t alone, someone’s here, they can get help—

“The town is gone. Should we search the perimeter?”

Gone? An unsteady gasp rattled its way out of Carolina’s chest, and she’d clutched one hand—darkened with ash and soot and blood—to her chest, leaving a handprint behind as she gribbed the fabric tightly, eyes widening with fear.

The town isn’t gone. It can’t be gone. She’s still here—

She’d scrambled to her feet then—kicking confetti and shrapnel out of the way as she’d thrown herself forward towards the voice, determined to prove to them that her town—Dorado—was not gone.

She was not gone.

She’d caught the pillar that had once supported a great mansion—she and Mama had often played pretend, acting as though they were the ones who lived in such a house—but was now broken and jagged, supporting nothing but the sky and one exhausted girl choking on her own breath as she’d tried to yell for help—

A man eased into her line of sight—tall and broad and blonde. Her heart had swelled from within her fractured ribs.

Jack Morrison.

He’ll save her. He’ll save her town. She’s seen the posters, she knows he can do it, all she has to do is make him look at her and everything will be—

“No.”

Carolina’s heartbeat had tripped over itself as all of her blood drained from her face. Her legs couldn’t hold her up anymore. She’d fallen, sinking down slowly beside the pillar, gripping the ruined stonework like she’d been lost at sea, the bodies of her friends and families and neighbors trying to wash her away—

“We’re moving out.”

“Sombra!” Reaper reaches out with a clawed hand, but she’s elsewhere entirely when she pulls the trigger and empties a round into the hologram’s head.

They pass through soundlessly, not even disrupting the perfectly constructed projection. Her bullets shatter the window across the room, and Reaper lets out a hiss of profanity as a new set of alarms start to wail.

“Sombra, we have to go!” Reaper shouts, but the hacker is rooted to the spot, staring up at the projection with a hate so unbearable it makes her bones shake—

“You let it burn!” Sombra shouts. “My city—Dorado, mi hogar—we needed you and you just left!”

Tears sting at her eyes—the flaring red light of the alarms catches the shine. She throws out a hand towards the base of the hologram, preparing to bestow a crippling virus when something takes hold of her arm and she gasps as she’s yanked away—

“You think you’re the only one with unfinished business?”

Sombra always wondered what Reaper’s voice might have sounded like before he was dead. People with beating hearts and whole souls don’t sound like hunger and rage.

She drops her hand, gazing up into the mask of Reaper—both of them still awash in the glow of Morrison’s hologram.

A moment ticks by. Then another.

Sombra grits her teeth before throwing a hand down to vanish with the aid of her thermoptic camo. Reaper is gone in a swirl of smoke and shadow, shooting ahead towards the exit while she sprints after him.

Strike Commander Jack Morrison stays behind, hand extended to an empty room.

Hey kids! I got invited to an event back home last-minute so I won’t be able to write this weekend like I was planning to, but here’s a little something to hopefully tide you over!

A lot of people were requesting Sombra for the character studies, and I’ve had this very cool comic by @nikanono on the brain for a while, so I whipped up something about it! I gave her a real name just for fun (past Sombra wouldn’t call herself as such, right?) and Carolina is nice and is the name of her voice actress, so I just grabbed it. It’s not canon at all lmao.

I feel like I’m always writing clever, conniving, scheming Sombra which is fun and great because she is all of those things, but I wanted to shake things up and try writing a different side of her. Hope I did okay!

You can still keep sending me Overwatch prompts if you want! Here’s my thread about them if you missed any!

I was trying to do something stupid and clever with the title but it didn’t work out just add it to the pile of dumb fucking titles I slap onto my works and let’s all move on please and thank you

Like this piece? Here’s my billboard!

MORE OVERWATCH WRITING

MAIN/PERSONAL BLOG

AO3 ACCOUNT

TWITTER

Have a great weekend kids!

#Overwatch #Sombra #Reaper #Gabriel Reyes #Not My Circus Not My Monkeys

44 notes · View notes

twinflameshardcore · 7 years

Text

Waiting for the solar eclipse and playing with gemstones

I’m back and I’m sorry for not writing earlier (and responding your Qs) but there was nothing to share, I also didn’t sign in and yet I was busy with work here. I was also notified by my higher self that I’ve ‘arrived’ on Earth and I know everything what I should know to calm down, and that I should quit analyzing emotions and bizarre events but focus on my inner integrity, 'feel’ & accept everything what happens on the spiritual level between me and the TF, receive ‘messages’ from the heart to heart just like they happen, and boy, they have been very direct, beautiful and open!

The merging process continues and it’s more and more pleasant. I already can sense my twin in various parts of my body - the chest, kidneys, feet (when I put my toes together it feels as if we kissed!), knees, and specifically the right side of my head (the right brain hemisphere - masculine), the top and the forehead. My remote viewing skill improves, though I still feel like a rookie about it. I’ve experienced the most blissful merging so far when our hearts and brains/minds and chakras glued together. It lasted around 2hrs and felt as if somebody drugged me for a good reason ;) Our connection becomes more physical yet remains on a distance. The brain can’t understand it but it’s like the two distant spaces (and bodies) become one so we exist as if in the same space simultaneously. There’s just more joy of feeling each other lighter and deeper. There’s no more worrying that we have to stay apart, or that we have to communicate in spirit only, yet we have no plans to meet in person again anytime soon. The Universe will push us when it’s our time, and I surrendered to this and been living my life without a former distress. We just continue texting and calling from time to time, but there’s no demand or control issues anymore from my side. This period of time is about ‘who you want to be once you’re re-born, recall what the future version of you prepared for your present self for this timeline’. I’m an amateur artist who loves making practical things so I’m pretty sure this is the right path, but it also needs to pay off.

Recent updates briefly:

- Twin’s still struggling with money so he’s moving to a safer place and looking for a new job which will definitely help him focus on our love finally and figure out what he wants to do next, to give his natural skills some new, useful purpose. Old jobs, old systems don’t work anymore when your vibration increases. If we don’t resonate with something, we send a clear signal - ‘I do not want this, or that person to be a part of me’ and the Universe shifts things to make space in your life for something/somebody better just as you’ve requested. Monitor your thoughts then ;)

- I had two meaningful dreams/ astral experiences: I saw 2 planets overlapping each other in the East/North night sky (static but in the last phase) and a translucent plasma hanging out in the sky at the front of them, frequently pumped with some energy impulses sent from above. A day later I came across a very similar dream/experience shared by Carla Fox on her blog which shocked yet pleased me as it was a pure confirmation that certain people receive it just as it is. Read it here. Then the other dream was about seeing disturbances on a TV screen (like missing pixels) then coming outdoor and seeing a big UFO spaceship with blue lights surrounding its edge and claw-like decorations. It hanged above the roof of a house and made a sound as if of an air conditioner (no such sounds in my house, thus no influence). It covered the entire sky above me, just like in ‘The Independence Day’ movie which I’ve watched over 10 years ago, again no recent influences. They were friendly (I saw no beings, just sensed the entire spaceship) and the overall message was something like: Hello, you’ve done well, we let you see us for a moment so to assure you that we’re real, including things you’ve channeled and galactic races. We’ll’ be back’. I was so happy in the dream, so relieved, that I began clapping while other people ran outdoor to see the spaceship too. It was as if on a parallel Earth because the house was not mine but was placed in my garden, and it has been the 3rd or 4th dream about UFO in all my so far life.

So basically every day brings something new, but sleeping lately is not fun at all. I wake up at night (around 5 am, in recent years I was waking up around 2-3 am) and I’m full awake, not even knowing if I should do anything in spirit or if something is ‘repairing’ me or maybe I already act but in another dimension but I must remain awake and connected with my other ‘version’. There’s certainly some higher purpose for that sleep deprivation, specifically when the mind is not distracted by daily activities, noises etc. yet I can function during the day as if I slept really well.

I’ve been waiting patiently for things to develop on their own because the incoming solar eclipse (02/26) will be in my zodiac (Pisces/Aries, just like, I believe, in 2015) opposing the Moon in Virgo (this position also in my birth chart). The first eclipse this month was in Leo a fire sign and was related to a self-esteem. The next one will be related to becoming one with everything, empathetic, understanding an invisible, just as Pisces naturally do. This passage has a theme of ‘born in fire (masculine), reborn in water (masculine aligned with feminine)’. Leo is “I”. Pisces are ‘AM’ - ascended masters because we’ve an open connection to the Universe, (which is not fun in the 3D world at all, but becomes a major navigational skill in 5D). Thus it’s possible that we may feel as ‘I AM’ this month, ‘I am who I am, and I radiate my being outside’. This month will also mark my angel’s awakening 1st anniversary (that was on 02/29/2016, the leap day). It’s all leading to something but it’s a mystery again - the Universe likes surprising us when we quit expecting! :)

There’s said to be some big event to happen in April, effecting TFs too. My guess: 4/4, or 4/22 as I’ve been seeing a crazy number of 44s during the last few months. There will be a peak of Lyrid meteors shower on 04/22 - if you’ve studied the galactic races, then you know Lyrans are said to be the oldest in our galaxy (while Draconians are oldest in another galaxy thus we fought). The old war may come to an end finally and we’ll perhaps unite in love ;) My twin may be a feline from Lyra (that would be also a cherub angel, not a guarantee however but I sense him that way) or a Sirian as he’s a highly telepathic & empathetic techie. However, the entire distant past issues interest me less and less as I’ve received what I had to know and it’s only up to the human to accept that knowledge because the brain is a permanent naysayer. I’ve accepted what is my ‘lineage’ and stopped verifying further.

Ascension symptoms: there’s a very strong polarization between energies which Gaia releases and those incoming from the Universe - we transmute these through our bodies. Thighs feel tense, knees may hurt, the back too. Solar plexus and back react to past slavery issues (’I decide who I am and what I want to do, not you’), to all those limitations, blockages imposed by those who didn’t want us evolve and become who we came here to be. US president is a perfect example of a catalyst as he represents the old, hated masculine energy: rude, arrogant, unfair, pushy, unempathetic, selfish etc. Trump’s like a compressor and we’re like ballons in a box, can’t squeeze anymore so we’ll burst, and he’ll and him alike suffer ;) The dying evil energy is looking for ‘donors’, manifesting itself through various events, news, strangers etc. - see a bigger picture, the source of an event, then detach, ignore, or destroy it in spirit. I lately had to spiritually cut some new ‘arm/hose’ which I found attached to my mind delivering some untruth and harmful illusions about my TF (again triggering the ego which was already taught to shut up) - I’ve felt better & fresher in the head since the ‘surgery’.

(Source)

Finally, I returned to one of my old hobbies - collecting gemstones. This time however with a fully conscious purpose as I’ve discovered they ‘speak to me’. I never thought a piece of rock could be that interactive, but I’d denied the awakening, ascension, and many more related things before I experienced them on my own ;) Some have a very direct vibration which I feel, I can read into a stone while touching it (rubbing, scratching, pressing) and 'seeing through’. This may also belong to my newly awakened skills. I mean, I don’t hear any gemstone’s talk ;) It’s more subtle. Like I’ve got a new gemstone, jasper kambaba (tumbled) and my first impression was that this stone scared me, because it was too direct, probing into my soul once touched. Kambaba has traces of algae in them so their surface looks like having a face with eyes often. Then I spent some time holding it, trusting and opening for. A knowing I received was that these stones have a consciousness of, let’s say an Earth djinn, who literately scanned me with its vibration then was willing to be given commands. It’s a protective gemstone, grounding nicely and soothing. It ‘senses’ if I’ve any blockages, weakness in my chakras at the time of scanning, then it ‘seals’ and balances these leakages.

I’ve a few favorite gemstones which I find very useful these days as evil energies try to attach to people to find donors and we need to protect ourselves. These energies are being removed from Gaia one by one but if you allow them to attach, you risk being dragged down into the low vibration and feel really bad, sick, worried, fearful, irritated, disillusional, as they distort the reality. These evil energies will try to separate you from the TF using your brain & logic, so once you’re torn and disintegrated within, you’ll be more available to be a host for such energies. Thus, a black tourmaline (rough, tumbled, or with quartz) is a must-have as it grounds strongly and aligns all chakras, a turquoise (watch for fake, painted gemstones and howlites), galena, jaspers, gypsum (selenite), black onyx (centering emotions), black/snow obsidian (grounding), jet (=gagate) and surely many more which I hadn’t tested yet. I’ve also one favourite which strongly resonates with my crown chakra and that other chakra above - a rough dumortierite gemstone which since the beginning has given me an impression that it’s not originally from Earth but maybe was brought here during some collision, billions of years ago. Very direct vibration opening my head like an arrow! Then sodalite works perfectly with my higher heart chakra. It’s a beautiful blue stone which (when polished) resembles the Earth as seen from above, with its oceans, white surf, clouds and continents. It makes a connection with the twin’s higher heart much easier, just like black/pink rodonite. Carnelian increases my blood pressure which is OK because it’s usually low, but it can be also annoying for the stomach sometime. I also love bloodstones and hematites, tiger’s/hawk’s eyes and citrines. My favourite green gemstone is rough zoisite (especially when watched and felt in a direct sunshine), they usually include rubies too.

I mean every gemstone works differently for individual people. Tumbled/polished gemstones usually generate a softer vibration than rough minerals, and sometime a rough gemstone looks and feels stronger or better than tumbled (crystals should stay rough & sharp, but gemstones for massages should be tumbled). I got an unpolished red jasper but I feel a tumbled one would let me communicate with its energy much deeper so I’m going to get one soon. If some of your chakras are already healthy, balanced and open, then you won’t benefit or even feel a vibration of a highly recommended gemstones, like amethysts. For instance, I’ve no problems with a verbal self-expression, honesty & assertiveness, thus a lapis lazuli or other blue stones don’t resonate with me at all (not every blue stone is for the throat chakra). Amethyst doesn’t do for me either because I’ve the crown chakra open and channeling well. But all other gemstones recommended for bottom chakras (yellow, orange and red), for self-esteem, digestion, root & sacral chakras, the solar plexus, those helping ground my angel here on Earth do their job perfectly :) I’ll be visiting an annual gemstones show next month and I hope to buy a few more, still missing a topaz, sapphire, kyanite, astrophilite, moldavite and a few more to work with but these are sadly expensive. Watch out for charoite though. If you want to but a charoite bead, make sure it looks like a tumbled charoite, because it’s a rare gemstone (only found in Siberia) and there are many fakes on sale.

If you decide to work with gemstones and find your favourite there are a few useful tips: - get that one which calls you, which looks to you more attractive than others, - bigger doesn’t mean better, as little single bead can resonate with you very well. Bigger gemstones are obviously more expensive and are used if you need to clear/protect a large space, the entire house, garden with many energies/people living there etc. - wear it there, where it should be according to how it resonates within your body. Wear a black tourmaline, onyx, obsidian, any other grounding stones around the lower body (in a pocket) but gemstones healing/expending the heart, 3rd eye, crown chakras etc. should be worn or placed on the upper part of the body, - left side is assigned to the feminine energy, right to the masculine, so it also makes sense to hold a gemstone in the proper hand once you feel one of your energies is imbalanced, - try to rub a stone with the edge of your finger (a part/line of skin along the nail and both sides of the top of a finger), it feels much more joyful as most of nerves are collected there.

The most fun comes when you gather a little collection, understood gemstones meanings and feel their resonance, so then you can group some of them and sense how such a selection makes you feel, if gemstones are happy being together, or not.

One must have a hobby to survive the TF separation, then coming together, merging, alignment, own and his/her energetic imbalances, and all kinds of mysteries involved too ;) My favourite website about gemstones are this and this and this one too.

I’ll look into your Qs soon, patience pls, thanks. Enjoy the eclipse!

This post is copyrighted by the author of this blog who prefers to remain anonymous. My posts must not be used for commercial purposes of any kind. Respect my work - ask first before you copy, always include a link back to my site when you quote a part of my writing!

#gemstones #twinflames #twoplanets #dreaming

8 notes · View notes

azurehyn · 7 years

Text

Soul Window

Part 3

Honest to goodness, Harry’s chapters are so light it makes me want to sing...until I actually do and hear my mosquito-voice quietly screeching into the silence of my room.

no trigger warnings here.

Likes, reblogs, and comments are invited! it would be nice to know if anyone’s actually seeing this...

In which Harry attempts to get the mysterious girl out of his head thanks to guitar/life-ending threats from ‘friendly’ manager Jake...

Harry got into the studio disgustingly late the morning after what happened, which was his first big hint that he needed to take a break.

Of course, 'late’ was just by his standards. For everyone else his late was their on-time.

It didn’t escape anyone’s notice that when they came in to work instead of finding Harry in the recording room, crumpled notebook and too-sharp pencil in hand, it was to find him standing outside the locked doors waiting for the janitor to get his three million keys out and find which one fit the lock, just like everyone else did every day. That in itself wasn’t abnormal; the janitor took a year for every key he possessed to find the right one.

The fact that Harry was waiting with them, steaming styrofoam cup of coffee in hand and deep shadows nestled under his usually sparkling green eyes, was the thing they all spent practically the entire day trying to figure out.

Harry, for his part, didn’t notice any of their hushed whispers and sidelong glances. Or at least, he tried not to. He knew he looked like crap -sleepless nights tended to wreak that kind of havoc on the human body. Still, he was used to this kind of attention outside the studio, when paparazzi or fans noticed him. Not from his own coworkers.

Harry decided to take the next day off, more or less. He’d been working himself hard the past several weeks, and he could feel himself approaching the mental burn-out he always experienced whenever he drained himself like this. The album was coming along great, no doubt about that, but he was still putting himself under more strain than was strictly necessary to make sure everything was perfect. He couldn’t afford to let there be any mistakes.

His brain, however, disagreed with his need to drive onward endlessly. When he woke up the morning of his first day off in...ever?...he could tell that though the rest was welcomed, he wouldn’t be able to stay idling around for long before he went back to the studio.

As he lay in bed the second day after the strange mirror incident in his bathroom, he tried to reassure himself that that was why he’d stayed home and chosen to finish working on the songs for the album from the studio he had installed here, even though everyone thought he was ‘resting’. He needed peace and normalcy when he worked, and having people stare at him was the furthest he could get from either goal.

He tried to ignore the little voice in his head that cackled manically every time he walked into the bathroom and attempted to avoid looking at the mirror, only to end up briefly glancing at it on his way out anyways.

No one ever looked back.

No one was ever there for him to notice.

He sighed heavily as he stared at the ceiling, aimlessly tracing the minute groves and little lines that ran along its surface.

“What the fuck is wrong with me? Must be hallucinating or something’,” he grumbled irritably.

Going round and round in circles in his head, something he’d been doing that resulted in aforementioned sleepless night, was getting him nowhere. He came no closer to understanding what happened in his bathroom. In all honesty he’d have pushed all memory of it to the back of his mind, deeming it to be some sort of figment of his imagination, if not for how real everything was.

Because it hadn’t felt like some dream or hallucination. It had felt like if he could just stretch his arm out, reached for her, he could have touched her hair, her cheek, pulled the razor out of her hands, if only he’d tried.

He trawled through the internet most of the day instead of working or properly resting, trying to figure out if maybe he’d had some sort of waking dream that featured a social media personality he’d come across, or maybe a face he’d seen in some celebrity event he’d had to attend. He even contemplated asking Kendall or Cara, or even reaching out to Louis or Niall, to see if any of them had seen anyone like the girl he could still describe with picture-perfect clarity, before deciding against it. If he did that, even if he actually wanted to get some rest today, he never would if they knew anything about his seemingly newfound obsession with a certain curly-haired, brown-eyed girl.

No luck from the internet alone, though. Some faces came close, a little, but there was always something completely off about the faces he saw on the screen of his phone. It was the eyes set too far apart or even a completely different colour, skin that was a few shades too dark or light, cheekbones that didn’t jut out quite so skeletally.

He sighed again as he sat up on the bed, staring at the bedpost for a full minute before picking up his phone. He’d been ignoring practically everyone text and phone call that came through the whole day in his wild search of a face he was desperately trying to reassure himself wasn’t real. Jake, his manager, got real tetchy when Harry didn’t answer calls and messages for more than eight hours.

It had been nine.

If he didn’t want his arse whooped by his own guitar wielded by an infuriated manager, he’d better at least send a sort-of update to reassure Jake that he was fine. Even a simple, “no worries, just chilling,” text would be enough to placate Jake. For a while, at least.

Which is exactly what he did.

Jake replied instantaneously, making Harry wonder if he’d been sitting by the phone, waiting for some form of pixelated communication to come through.

Jake: You sure you all right? You were a bit out of it the other day

Harry let out a short, humourless laugh at that. ‘A bit’ was being kind.

Harry: It’s OK, I’m fine. Head’s not in the right place is all

That was mostly true. He tapped an unknown beat with his fingernails against the back of his phone as he waited for the response he knew would be coming in T-minus four, three, two

His phone dinged.

One.

Jake: Best get your head screwed on right laddie. I’m finalizing dates for your tour and that guitar of yours is going to be put to damn good use if you delay with actually finishing the album and pushing the tour dates behind.

This time a full-hearted grin broke out over his face. He hadn’t been exaggerating at all with the thought of Jake using his guitar for creative new ventures that didn’t include strumming the strings. Jake had once chased Harry around the studio, much to the amusement and laughter of everyone present, when Harry pretended to have lost the page he’d written the lyrics for the last song of his previous album.

It was as the smile was still fresh on his upturned lips that he almost dropped his phone when the darkened screen of his locking phone showed not his face reflecting back at him, but her.

The girl.

The girl from the bathroom.

And this time she wasn’t oblivious to him watching her.

This time her incredible light brown eyes widened to astonished saucers were fixed right on his.

She could see him.

Part 4

0 notes

thingsininternettk-blog · 7 years

Text

Motorola just made the best phone you can buy for under $300

For as far back as four years, Lenovo-possessed Motorola's Moto G line has been something like the non-romantic perfect of an Android telephone: shabby and sufficient.

It can never contend with an iPhone all over, but since it offers for a small amount of the cost of a "leader" gadget, it's constantly sufficiently simple to bypass its blemishes. It has reliably been the most well known Moto telephone thus.

So it runs with the Moto G5 Plus, the most recent variation to hit the US. It's up for pre-arrange on Friday, with a full discharge going ahead March 31. At the end of the day, it fastidiously finds the point where great however not-extraordinary equipment can wind up noticeably solid incentive at the correct cost.

Here, that cost is either $229 for a model with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of capacity, or $299 for a model that pairs both of those. I've been utilizing the last for as long as week, and I don't think there is a superior pound-for-pound an incentive for not exactly than $300. Still, it compels you to acknowledge a couple clear bargains.

The Moto G5 Plus' outline is best portrayed as "a telephone." It's a dark and silver section with adjusted corners and a commonplace blend of brushed aluminum and smooth glass. It's exhausting, yet it's fine. It's likewise a major stride up from the plastic of its antecedents.

The Moto G5 Plus' plan is best depicted as "a telephone." It's a dark and silver chunk with adjusted corners and a natural blend of brushed aluminum and smooth glass. It's exhausting, yet it's fine. It's likewise a major stride up from the plastic of its antecedents.

Take note of that lone the Moto G5 Plus is accessible in America, where it'll be sold opened in any case, eminently, will deal with every one of the four noteworthy transporters. That is an irregularity for telephones this way. There's an Amazon Prime rendition, as well, yet since that comes pre-stacked with Amazon bloatware I wouldn't suggest it. Europe and different markets will likewise get the less expensive and in fact weaker Moto G5.Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

My partner Rob Price has discussed the apathy evoked by this sort of outline some time recently. This is a Toyota Corolla in telephone shape: neither fun nor showy, yet difficult to whine about once it's in your grasp. The metal back is cool and strong, the adjusted sides make it simple to hold, the solitary speaker is adequate, and the entire thing is neither too substantial, too thick, nor too overwhelming.

Some more soul would be decent, and some won't care for the huge camera bump on the back, yet "agreeable and harmless" isn't the most noticeably bad thing at a telephone at this cost.

All things considered, Lenovo has compromised to hold the cost down. There's no NFC in the US show, which means you can't make tap-and-go versatile installments, and you're saddled with a miniaturized scale USB port rather than the speedier and progressively well known USB-C. And keeping in mind that Lenovo says the telephone can survive light rain and sprinkles, it doesn't have an official water-resistance rating, so you can't be excessively indiscreet.

So, Lenovo has compromised to hold the cost down. There's no NFC in the US display, which means you can't make tap-and-go versatile installments, and you're saddled with a smaller scale USB port rather than the speedier and progressively mainstream USB-C. And keeping in mind that Lenovo says the telephone can survive light rain and sprinkles, it doesn't have an official water-resistance rating, so you can't be excessively indiscreet.

The Moto G5 Plus utilizations a more established small scale USB port rather than USB-C. It's additionally important that the sides here are made of plastic, which isn't as significant, yet isn't hostile, is still simple to grip.Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

These are not dealbreakers, but rather they are apparently preventable irritations. That is the way things are with a cheap telephone. I'll take the solace of a solid, aluminum outline each day if these must be the exchange offs. I uncertainty that is the situation, however.

Quality presentations are just about table stakes for cell phones today, and the Moto G5 Plus' screen goes with the same pattern. It's a 5.2-inch IPS board with a sufficiently sharp 1080p determination. It could be brighter, and its hues don't "pop" the way they would on an OLED screen like that of the Samsung Galaxy S7, however it'll be sufficiently wonderful for most. It doesn't wash out at a point, either.

Quality showcases are just about table stakes for cell phones today, and the Moto G5 Plus' screen sticks to this same pattern. It's a 5.2-inch IPS board with a sufficiently sharp 1080p determination. It could be brighter, and its hues don't "pop" the way they would on an OLED screen like that of the Samsung Galaxy S7, yet it'll be sufficiently charming for most. It doesn't wash out at a point, either.

Underneath that show is a unique mark sensor. I'm not the greatest fanatic of this situation — laying your finger on the back of a telephone feels more normal than coming to the base — however for what it will be, it's quick.

All the more fundamentally, it can likewise be utilized as a part of place of the back, home, and late applications catches that Android for the most part plants onscreen. In the event that you turn on Lenovo's "one catch nav" highlight, tapping the unique finger impression sensor fills in as the home catch, swiping left winds up plainly back, and swiping right raises your open applications.

I cherish this current: It's shockingly simple to get used to, for one, and it gives you a chance to utilize the sum of the show for really taking a gander at things. In the event that the sensor must be underneath the show, highlights like this are a decent approach to legitimize it.

Like past Moto telephones, the Moto G5 Plus runs a close untouched adaptation of Android. This is something worth being thankful for: It makes the product quick, appealing, and free of redundancies. Lenovo includes a modest bunch of natural additional items, however they are not constrained upon you, and about every one of them are really helpful. It's practically similar to having a Nexus gadget.

Like past Moto telephones, the Moto G5 Plus runs a close untouched form of Android. This is something to be thankful for: It makes the product quick, appealing, and free of redundancies. Lenovo includes a modest bunch of well-known additional items, however they are not constrained upon you, and about every one of them are really helpful. It's practically similar to having a Nexus gadget.

Practically. The immense guarantee of Nexus (and now Pixel) gadgets is that they are refreshed with Android's most up to date highlights as quickly as time permits. At the point when Motorola was claimed by Google, the enormous Moto telephones were raised to date with comparable speed. Now that it's possessed by Lenovo, it's simply one more organization, despite the fact that its product still has few customizations to act as a burden.

Until further notice, it's difficult to state if the Moto G will be refreshed any snappier. For what it's justified regardless of, it's beginning with Android 7.0, which is great, yet actually not the most recent adaptation of the OS. Then, the most recent security fix on my survey unit is from January; that, as well, is behind.

By and by, the way that Moto's product is tidy surrenders it one leg over its associates, and Lenovo's additional items are clever. The "Moto Display" mode that flashes your notices without turning on the show is still here, similar to the bunch motion controls. Having the capacity to dispatch the camera just by winding the telephone twice is never not incredible.

Additionally, there's a FM radio application. Did you realize that most telephones in America have the capacity to play FM radio over the air, yet that most telephone producers deliberately incapacitate it, at times with an end goal to inspire you to pay for gushing applications? Presently you do! This is a hostile to customer hone, so more telephones ought to take after Lenovo's lead here.

The Moto G5 Plus is no coat, and doesn't urge most benchmark tests. Be that as it may, for most intentions, it's consummately satisfactory. The light programming helps, yet the mid-go Snapdragon 625 chip at its center can stack up applications and peruse the web without significant inconveniences. Traveling through Android is sufficiently smart, and the entire thing doesn't get excessively hot.

The Moto G5 Plus is no overcoat, and doesn't urge most benchmark tests. In any case, for most reasons for existing, it's flawlessly satisfactory. The light programming helps, however the mid-extend Snapdragon 625 chip at its center can stack up applications and peruse the web without significant irritations. Traveling through Android is sufficiently smart, and the entire thing doesn't get excessively hot.

The Moto G5 Plus isn't especially thin, however it's not distractingly thick either.Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

It's sufficient to run numerous applications onscreen on the double, as well. Simply don't expect a powerhouse: You can play higher-end amusements like "Lara Croft Go" fine and dandy, however it's never as smooth as it'd be with a more grounded chip and GPU. Regardless you'll see the incidental stammer when things get substantial.

Also, once more, this is all with 4 GB of memory sponsorship it up. I'd be somewhat more reluctant to slice the RAM down the middle, yet since I couldn't test the $229 display, I can't state on the off chance that it'll be justified, despite all the trouble.

In any case, storage room shouldn't be an issue. You get a more-than-serviceable 64GB on the higher-end model, and you can include another 128 GB through a microSD card. That is extraordinary. Call quality is fine also.

Where the Moto G5 Plus inspires the most is battery life. The Snapdragon 625 isn't the quickest, yet it is proficient. Joined with a 3,000mAh battery and the not-immense, not-excessively sharp show, it permits the gadget to last significantly over a day with customary utilize. In case you're traditionalist, it's not impossible to receive two work days in return. This is the absolute best motivation to purchase the telephone.

Where the Moto G5 Plus awes the most is battery life. The Snapdragon 625 isn't the quickest, however it is proficient. Consolidated with a 3,000mAh battery and the not-immense, not-excessively sharp show, it permits the gadget to last much over a day with standard utilize. In case you're moderate, it's not impossible to receive two work days in return. This is the absolute best motivation to purchase the telephone.

However, as noted above, you need to revive with microUSB, not the fresher USB-C. Motorola has a "quick" charger in the case, however, which gets no less than a couple of hours of juice once more into the gadget in a 15 minutes or somewhere in the vicinity.

0 notes