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hopeshoodie · 3 years

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Ok so in light of the Independent article (see my tag #fusebox layoffs for more info), I’ve been trying to piece together the sequence of events that lead to FB Going to Shit™.

All of the below is based on articles, tweets from the staff, and dates from screenshots. Especially with the Matchmaker stuff, I’m using the dates I personally accessed the stories- that might not be accurate to when they were actually released to an international audience, just when my phone updated the app. In hindsight, I’m not a great person to do this because I have a shit memory and don’t keep receipts, so if you have any corrections PLEASE lmk either in the dms or replies.

In sum, the timeline appears to be:

1. Key players left Fusebox in early 2020.

The one that people are probably most familiar with is David Gallopim, one of the artists who helped define the S2’s distinct style, leaving sometime before March 2020. He seemed to indicate that there was conflict over the new art style of S3, and released assets he’d designed of Harry in his own style (notably way prettier than Harry looks in-game).

But probably more important to the direction of the company, Michael Othen, one of the co-founders and former CEO, left in July of 2020 (I had thought it was earlier in the year but according to LinkedIn it was July). It’s much more unclear why he left, but it’s notable because he was a huge force in making the game inclusive of LGBTQ characters.

So all in all, not a great sign when employees who had a huge hand in creating the content and direction of a game that defined its success jump ship. Especially after the game was seemingly hitting its stride, with the host of Love Island (the TV show) doing a sponsored Let’s Play of S3 and projects in the works like Boat Party and CMM.

2. It seems like Fusebox‘s CEO/executives hired new management, either in 2020 or early 2021. Employees complain that the executives don’t understand what it takes to make a game and are pulling the studio in the wrong direction. It’s unclear if the newly hired execs had experience.

Wil Stephens, the CEO/founder, has been with FB since its inception but also appears to have only founded game distribution ventures and not worked in any development or employment capacity. If that’s the case, maybe the complaints about lack of experience/knowledge about the mechanics of making games work are about him. If not, then some of the newly hired execs would likely be to blame.

Paul Virapen, COO, was brought on in November of 2020. He’s worked with Disney’s gaming division, Big Pixel studios, Wooga. The quality of that experience is dubious since he headed up the ‘let’s make apps for Apple watches, it’ll be the next big thing’ department… Lol. Notably also, all of his roles had been in the executive/managerial realm, not the development teams, so the complains might have been about him. THIS IS SPECULATION, but I’m willing to bet that Virapen was a if not THE driving force in switching Fusebox’s focus entirely to matchmaker. All the studios he’s worked with have primarily produced and promoted Match 3 games, and he has a background working with big studios that produce games for large international audiences, not small studios making narrative games for limited audiences.

A new Manager of Finances, Ruth Erskine, was brought on in December of 2020

Rob Goddard, a new producer, was brought in January of 2021

Several key operations positions were filled by existing employees being promoted to management- 2 as far as I can tell. But as a whole it seems like December 2020 was a huge shift in leadership for the upper management while a lot of the other teams expanded but kept their old players as well.

3. At some point in late 2020- mid 2021, the executive team made the decision to switch LITG’s focus from a narrative pass-based game to a Match 3 incorporating romance narrative cut scenes. In early 2021, Fusebox teased more content to come while releasing S3 (seemingly referring to Matchmaker and not S4). In the interim between S3 endings and Boat Party’s release they put out an interview confirming the new game will be Match 3 but did seem to indicate that the plan at that time was for Matchmaker to be a side project with a different development team and not replace the main game. Notably, the LITG writers and artists were reassured that their roles will continue to exist (according to the independent article) as they’re working on S4.

3. In September of 2020, Matchmaker became briefly available in the US. That’s when I first downloaded it, at least. It would be added/removed from the google play store multiple times before having a unilateral release in July of 2021.

Throughout 2020, Matchmaker is available to Asian audiences solely with LITG S1 getting rolled out in incremental updates.

Eventually, Beanie Quinn is released (March 2021)

LA Noir is released (May 2021)

Seduction Games is released (late May or June 2021- I got the update and played it June 3rd, but hadn’t opened the app for a month or so. It might have come out before then, which is unfortunate for this timeline since it’s so inextricably linked to the open letter and layoff dates)

LITG S2 is released (only like 20 levels of it) the same month- June 19th for me. Notably, all of these stories are only released to an international audience, with the UK and USA still not having access to the app.

4. At the same time, Fusebox’s internal affairs are pretty quiet from 2020-2021, at least on social media.

S3 comes out in 2020, Boat Party comes out later in the year and finishes in 2021. Post S3 in October of 2021, a survey goes out gauging player interest in new art styles and representation, which was pretty in keeping with past actions and seemed promising for S4.

Boat Party features a promising cross promotion implementing irl brands into the game. It’s unclear if enough money was made from this on FB or the sponsor’s end to make that strategy viable, but that might’ve impacted management’s outlook for the profitability of LITG.

Fusebox teases more content for the summer on Instagram, and then follows up and confirms it’ll be a proper season.

5. More key players leave in early 2021

Ed Sibley is still listed as Narrative Direction on LinkedIn, but he’s not credited as a writer on Season 4 (he was on 3,2,and 1) and started work with NetSpeak games in May of 2021, so we can assume he left around then or at least transitioned away from Fusebox then.

Fred Francis, another writer who had been on the team since S1, turns in his resignation ‘weeks’ before the layoffs were announced in late June. So we can assume he made his exit sometime early June or late May.

6. Prior to the release of Seduction games in May/June, staff expressed concern about the biphobia in Seduction Games. No sources have given a specific time when this took place. They were reassured that the problem would be corrected prior to release, but then the story was released as is to an international audience in June. The article released by the Independent is unclear- there might have been discussion prior to the open letter where staff expressed concerns and then were reassured before the game going live. OR the open letter might have been the first expression of concern by the staff. I tend to think the former, and the open letter was a response to Matchmaker going live with Seduction Games anyways, but I have no proof for that. On May 24th, 31 employees sent an open letter of concern regarding the problematic content in Matchmaker. This letter isn’t public, so we don’t know the scope of the employees' concerns or who the employees were.

7. To resolve the situation, a meeting between the staff and at least the COO (likely more than just him though) was held sometime after May 24th. Allegedly, Virapen was disrespectful to the employees who had questions, refused to answer, and ended the meeting early before any resolution was had by closing his laptop and leaving the room. At least 4 HR complaints were made in the wake of that meeting, we do not know the nature of those complaints.

8. Some time mid-July (maybe July 26th? A writer tweeted about their job ending soon on that date), employees were made aware that the LITG app would move into ‘sunset mode’. It’s unclear what was communicated, but it seems as though S4 will be heavily delayed or cancelled altogether and no future seasons would be made. Writers begin to post about looking for work on Twitter

9. June 30th- The majority of Fusebox writing staff announce on twitter they’re out of work. In addition to the entire writing staff, unity engineers and producers are also let go.

10. July 5th - Fusebox executives respond to an article by MCVUK with a statement asserting they were “consulting with [their] employees on a proposed change to its business model” that would focus on producing Matchmaker content. They also expounded that the move was to secure “cash injections and and continued support from respected investors across the media and gaming industry”

11. July 6th- Fusebox announces that S4 will be delayed from the summer release date and that there is no fixed release date.

12. August 2nd- three jobs are posted to Fusebox’s careers page on their website, one being Head of Narrative Content. In the job listing, it specifies that they’ll be maintaining existing properties as well as new ones, and that because of the co-development model (re:fusebox outsourcing Matchmaker to another studio) the new Narrative Lead must collaborate with external content creators.

Hopefully posting this timeline gives players a better understanding of how radically Fusebox has changed in the course of 2021 (and how royally they screwed over the people who made LITG what it is). Again, please let me know if you have receipts showing dates are different or things to add.

#fusebox layoffs #fusebox games

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andromedasstarship · 3 years

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in the stars - chapter 3

photo credit - unknown

pairing - aaron hotchner x reader

warnings - canon-typical criminal minds violence, stalking, depictions of murder/violence, angst, verbal fighting, drinking, unhealthy coping mechanisms, smoking (cigarettes)

summary - “If you’re upset over how I ended our relationship, that is completely separate from the dealings of the case and I expect you to be able to conduct yourself appropriately.” Aaron said and you thought this was what ‘seeing red’ meant

a/n - hi besties! im so sorry this update took so long! i really wanted to make it perfect and was struggling with putting this together. to make it up this chapter is a whopping 5.9k words so uh enjoy lol!

masterlist // series masterlist // read it on ao3

chapter 2 // chapter 4

-----

You had to physically stop yourself- gripping the desk chair beside you so hard your knuckles turned white- from following Aaron out the office door and demanding he make sense of the whole good cop- ha!- bad cop show he’d been putting on since the two of you had been horribly reunited outside of the police station.

This had been the second instance of him implying or accusing you of somehow worsening the case. And he hadn’t even been in LA for over 24hrs. It wasn’t fair, you thought, angrily grumbling to yourself about all the different ways you’d love to give him a piece of your mind. If he’d been a regular man, that you’d never met before, you probably wouldn’t consider his current behavior to be so- out of pocket? disgraceful? insulting?- offensive. You knew he had a reputation for being...,a hardass on the job, but that didn’t mean he had to go overboard in his treatment towards you. Maybe he wasn’t going overboard, maybe this was just how he treated every- you weren’t sure exactly how to define yourself in the case- witness? Maybe this is just what his team expected in terms of his behavior towards people he didn’t know.

But he did know you, he knew you quite well. He knew you well enough to know you’d never purposely attempt to slow the case down. Even without his fancy profiler skills, you were certain Aaron Hotchner knew every little thing about you. Or at least he used to.

And while Aaron may know everything there was to know about you, you were beginning to doubt if you actually knew anything about him. As expected, over the past two months the case had been taking an extreme toll on you; constantly looking over your shoulder and worrying that someone was lurking behind every corner. What made it worse, was that it was yet another situation that required you to keep a secret. You ‘had’ the officers at the station and your agent, but besides them you were dealing with this completely on your own. Making the situation about yourself felt wrong, but you couldn’t even begin to explain how hurt you felt at Aaron's accusations that you were somehow more part of the problem than you were a victim. Yes, you hadn’t gone up to him and explicitly told him how badly you were hurting, but it’s not like it took a genius- or a profiler- to reach that conclusion themselves.

It hurt, to have someone whose validation you had once- still did- crave so much, suddenly act as if you were a ‘bad guy’. Maybe you were being dramatic, you thought. Maybe you were overreacting and reading far too deep into such short interactions. On the other hand, you reasoned that it was perfectly acceptable to have feelings. Before you could delve deeper into that mental tirade, a sharp knock on the doorframe grabbed your attention. Looking up, you saw JJ leaning halfway into the room.

“Sorry,” you said, awkwardly letting go of the chair, “I uh, got caught up with uh, just you know, thoughts about the case!” Smooth. You tried to put a cheery tone in your voice. You tried to subtly study her reaction as you walked over to her and it was clear she wasn’t exactly buying into your sudden happy attitude. She didn’t press you though, something you were grateful for. Instead she just moved out of the doorframe, letting you join her in the hallway.

“The rest of the team has split up already, would you like to start in the basement?” JJ asked. You had only spoken to her a couple times, briefly at that, but you already found great comfort in her presence; you could see why she held the position, her ability to comfort and connect with others was unbeatable. Definitely need to send JJ a case of wine as a gift.

You nodded dumbly, joining her in the hallway and taking her down towards your basement. Internally, you guessed the little ‘tour’ would only take an hour tops, considering all the little spiels you’d have to give about each room.

You felt a bit like when you went through airport security or when a police car was on a road you were driving on. That sinking feeling that somehow you were going to get in trouble even though you knew you didn’t have anything to hide. Damn Aaron. His apparent lowly opinion of you was definitely messing with your head. Oh well.

As you lead JJ towards the basement, you could vaguely hear the other agents throughout the house. A door opening here or the sound of papers rustling over there. You hadn’t exactly asked how they would be able to tell if something was missing or out of place. But honestly? You didn’t really care what the team did in your house, as long as they figured out how the unsub had gotten in there.

You’d already come to terms with the fact that the unsub had managed to steal your clothes and jewelry, but you just couldn’t shake the fact that he had gotten into your house. Part of you secretly wished he had pick-pocketed you on a busy street or was stealing stuff off a film set instead. It would’ve been equally as bad and creepy and horrifying, but it would’ve been worth still feeling safe in your own house.

Smacking the lightswitch on the wall behind you, the entire basement became illuminated. “So,” you started, really drawing out the word, “this is the basement. It’s technically one big open floor, but well,” you gestured lazily with your hand, “you can see it’s kinda still split up. There’s a movie room behind those doors right there.”

JJ stepped ahead of you, walking towards the high windows in the basement. You watched as she ran her fingers along the window edges, carefully going over each one. “Do these open?” She asked, turning back to look at you.

You quickly shook your head. “They’re mostly just for, like, decoration purposes.” You responded, giving a slight shrug. “I um, I’m not down here much unless I’m having people over. And those stairs we came down are the only way to get in here.” You added, thinking that’d probably be helpful.

JJ gave you that nice smile again and started towards the movie room. “I’m just gonna look in here real quick and then we can go back upstairs, okay?”

You stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs, rolling back and forth from your heels to your tippy toes, awkwardly playing with your hands in front of yourself. You knew her movie room scan wouldn’t take wrong, there were zero windows in there and no other point of entry besides the door she had walked through.

Just as you expected, JJ came back out no longer than five minutes later. Once she got closer to you, you turned slowly on your heel and started back up the stairs. “We can start upstairs and then meet the rest of your team on the main level?” You offered.

“Lead the way.”

“There’s um, two ways to get upstairs. There’s that main staircase you saw in the foyer and also there’s a ‘servants stair’ in the back,” you said, making air quotes with your fingers at the ‘servants stair’ part, “I have people that work in the house sometimes, but it’s not an actual designated staircase for anyone.” You explained, unsure of why you were feeling so anxious.

“Why don’t we go up using the second set of stairs? Since I’ve already seen the main set.” JJ said.

You nodded dumbly again, and walked in the direction of the back stairs. Once upstairs, you gave the same room spiel to JJ about six times. This is ‘x’ room, yep those windows can open, nope no one regularly comes into this room, yes the balcony doors do lock from the inside.

Just as you thought earlier, the little tour took just a couple minutes under an hour. You and JJ were standing in your kitchen, both of you leaning against opposite countertops. According to JJ the whole team had agreed to meet up in your kitchen once they were done with their scans, so it seemed that you two were the first to finish. Also expected.

You were lucky you hadn’t run into Aaron the entire time. At times you could vaguely hear his voice coming from another room and all that did was pull on your heartstrings and remind you of when the two of you were together. Aside from the sadness factor, you still weren’t sure you could trust yourself to not yell at him as soon as you saw him again.

“That’s funny.” JJ said amusedly-more to herself than to you-, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“What is?” You asked. She had moved from her spot by the countertops, to standing in front of your liquor wall, staring up at a bottle you couldn’t quite recognize from your position.

“Oh, just Agent Hotchner? Out there,” she said, gesturing broadly out to where the rest of the team might be, “he loves this brand of scotch. We joke sometimes that he’d pick it over us if he was given the choice. But apparently it’s super difficult to get. He started getting lucky a few years ago and found a way to buy it, but recently I guess that luck ran out and he hasn’t been able to find it anymore.”

Your eyes went wide at that. Yes. That scotch was super difficult to get and it was ridiculously expensive. And yes, Aaron loved the stuff. The two of you used to constantly argue over money. He hated that you were always the one paying for everything and had created a ‘rule’ that you weren’t allowed to buy him any gifts. Of course, you managed to find a way around that rule and found that this specific scotch was his gift achilles heel. So, you used to send him a steady supply while also keeping a bottle at your place for the rare occasions he was over.

“Oh?” You squeaked.

“Yeah, it’s super rare or something. They only make so many batches a year don’t they?” JJ asked, turning back to look at you.

You quickly pulled your emotions in when she turned towards you, just giving her your third dumb nod of the day. “Yep, super hard to get. Super super hard. I uh, got as a gift once, I don’t even like the stuff.”

“You should tell Hotch. I bet he’d pay pretty well for it.” She said with a laugh, shaking her head. Definitely will not be doing that.

----

Upstairs, Rossi and Hotch were looking through your upstairs office. While your downstairs office was more work based- you stored scripts and had meetings down there, etc.-, your upstairs office was used for your more ‘personal’ work tasks.

“If the unsub is taking her clothes, we might have better success scoping out her closet. See the potential entry and exit points from her room that the unsub must be taking.” Rossi proposed.

Hotch nodded at that, putting down the stack of fan mail he’d been flipping through, trying to find any repeats or ‘creepy’ letters. He made a mental note to have Reid come and read through the piles of other mail you had neatly stacked around the room.

Your attention to fanmail had been one of the things that had quickened the process of him falling in love with you. He had had his doubts in the beginning of you relationship- he had stereotyped you for sure-, your age and status giving him somewhat valid concerns that you’d be insanely disconnected from the normal world. You’d proved him wrong in many ways since the beginning, but one of those ways had been the many days you’d call him from this room, reading through every single letter you were sent and always making sure to send a small note back.

“Good idea, let’s go.” Hotch said. He walked out of office and didn’t think twice, his body automatically walking towards the room a few doors down from your bedroom. You didn’t keep your closet in your bedroom, you had actually put a little couch and sitting room in your bedroom closet space. Instead you’d taken an entire guest room and converted it into a full dressing room/closet that was a better fit for your needs.

As Hotch went straight into the room, he missed the narrow look Rossi was giving him from the doorframe. It only took a couple minutes, but eventually Hotch looked up, cocking an eyebrow at Rossi. “Are you going to come in?” He questioned.

“You knew her closet wasn’t in her room.” Rossi noted, amusement clear in his voice.

Hotch’s face paled, before he steeled his emotions back over. “I saw the clothes while walking past earlier and made the deduction.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she Aaron?” Rossi teased, clearly finding a lot of enjoyment in this conversation.

“Dave,” Hotch groaned, running a hand over his face, “just, not now okay?” He asked, the desperation clear in his voice.

Rossi certainly didn’t have the entire story figured out, but he wasn’t dumb either, he could piece things together. As much as he’d love to keep busting Hotch over this, there was something about how gentle he had been with you in the conference room and his current clear discomfort that persuaded Rossi otherwise. Rossi grinned at Hotch and raised his hands in mock surrender.

“So, we know the unsub doesn’t have to necessarily be quiet, her room is at least what, 3-”

“Four and across the hall.” Hotch huffed out, not looking up to meet Rossi’s eyes.

“Four and across the hall away. So he doesn’t need to sneak past her if he’s coming in at night...”

----

Back in the kitchen, you turned your head at the sound of the back patio doors opening, showing Morgan and Spencer. Guess they’d be the second pair done with their house tour.

Just as you were about to open your mouth and offer the two of them something to drink, you noticed the rather grim expressions on both their faces. Upon better inspection, you saw Spencer was tightly gripping on to a dirty journal.

“What’s that?” You asked curiously, trying to get a better look at it.

“I found this uh, journal out by the edge of your property line. I think it may belong to the unsub.” Reid responded, giving you a tight lipped look.

It was terribly cliche, but you couldn’t help but gasp at that. Your eyes going wide and your mouth hanging open.

“I flipped through it, there’s nothing that clearly identifies him, but it seems like he was keeping track of your comings and goings. As well as keeping a list of the things he took from your house, we can cross check that list with-”

“Can I look at it?” You interjected, a morbid curiosity consuming your mind.

Reid gave an unsure glance at the two other agents in the room. “I think it’d be better for the rest of the team and I to look through the journal first, and make sure there’s nothing uh...upsetting in it.”

----

With the new revelations that the unsub had managed to break into your home multiple times, the team decided it would be best for at least one of them to be with you at the house at all times; during the day they would assign a plainclothes officer to discreetly sit watch. It was comical, the way they decided on the watch and then promptly assigned Aaron the first shift of the night.

You wondered why he agreed to it, knowing he could’ve easily pulled a seniority boss card and taken himself out of any and all future watch shifts as well. He probably didn’t want you to get closer with any of his agents, should you accidentally say something a bit too personal. He also probably assumed that with the late hour of the night, you’d immediately be going to bed or at least locking yourself away in your room for the rest of the night.

The team had stayed hours after their first walkthroughs of the house, the new list and notes from the unsub giving you all a better idea of what to look for. You had gone through the list of clothes and jewelry in front of the team, giving them a base description of what you assumed the unsub had meant, whether or not you had considered it missing and where you thought you’d last seen it in the house.

Unfortunately, whatever Aaron had been banking on wouldn’t be happening. You hadn’t been able to shake the sinking feeling that your house was no longer a home anymore. It was painfully cheesy, but you knew that trying to sleep would be futile. Nor did you really feel like being ‘alone’ in your room. That didn’t mean you were going to strike up a conversation with Aaron or ask him to play a board game or something, but you wouldn’t be shutting away from the rest of the night.

After the team left, you had gone upstairs and changed into a more comfortable outfit for the evening; just your trusty sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt. You were now walking back down the stairs and towards your kitchen; you grasped a lighter and your emergency cigarette pack in one hand. As you made your way into the kitchen, you could feel Aarons eyes on you from wherever he was seated in the living room. You pointedly ignored him, instead setting the pack and lighter down, freeing your hands so you could mix yourself your favorite drink.

Once your drink was prepped, you balanced all your things in your hands and made your way back through the living room and out the grand French doors that lead to your backyard. You walked over to one of your lounge chairs that overlooked the pool and had a beautiful view of the sky and bright lights of the city. You turned on one of your favorite playlists and made yourself comfy in the chair, lighting up one of the cigarettes.

With the first inhale, you felt your body relax. It was a horrible habit- you knew that-, but if there was ever a time to stress smoke, you reasoned it was probably now. Over the sound of your music, you faintly heard one of the doors open again, but you didn’t bother turning around.

“I thought you quit.” Aaron said, quite literally coming out of the shadows. Even though you didn’t turn to look at him, you could perfectly imagine him in your mind; probably leaning up against one of the legs of the cabana, arms tightly crossed and a deep scowl on his face.

“I did.” You replied plainly, blowing a steady stream of smoke out of your mouth. Using your free hand you picked your glass back off the chair side table, twirling it slowly. As you took a long sip, you could hear Aaron walk closer, not quite coming into view yet.

“Drinking and abusing substances in response to a traumatic situation is widely frowned upon.

“Thank you Surgeon General,” you said, rolling your eyes before adding, “no offense Agent, but right now, I don’t really think it matters.” You didn’t even bother attempting to argue that you were on your first drink and first smoke.

“It matters, when my team will be counting on you tomorrow. The expectation is that you’ll be a useful and legitimate resource.” Aaron said, voice tight.

“Do you really think I’m dumb enough to actually believe, that you believe that a single drink is going to render me useless?” You asked, finally turning your head so you could give him a pointed look. When he didn’t answer you rolled your eyes again, turning back away from him. “It doesn’t matter, Agent, I’m unavailable to be a resource tomorrow.”

“What do you mean, unavailable?” Aaron asked. He finally walked into view, sitting down on the chair next to you. He positioned his legs over the edge facing you, resting his elbows off his knees.

“What do you mean unavailable?” You said mockingly- the alcohol in your system and stress of the day emboldening your behavior. You paused for a moment to take another drag from your cigarette; Aaron didn’t miss the way you turned your head further from him during your exhale. “You have your job Agent, I have mine.”

“There is a dangerous free man out there with a special interest in you. He’s not only managed to break into your house but is also murdering surrogate women in place of you,” he said, voice growing louder as he went, “and you think you should go to a film set? How immature and irresponsible are-”

“Stop doing that!” You cut him off, snapping your head to face him. For a brief moment, you were taken aback by how close he’d been sitting. “Stop painting me to be some dumb self centered girl. This is the fourth time today.” You said, staring him hard in the face, neither of your breaking eye contact. He always looked so good with a beard- stop that.

“I’m trying to do my job and protect you,” he paused, eyes scanning your face, “I couldn’t handle anything happening to you.” In that moment, his voice was so painfully honest and it almost made you want to agree to do whatever dumb rules he had for you.

Almost.

Instead, you swung your legs to the side of the chair opposite to him, standing up in a quick blur of motion. “Stop doing that too!” You exclaimed, running your free hand over your face. You took a long drag from your cigarette, placing one hand on your hip. Aaron was giving you a genuinely confused look and you just wanted to wipe it off in one big swipe. “Stop doing some weird little bait and switch between acting like I’m a diva and then trying to end it with some vaguely little sweet comment.”

“You actually think I don’t care about your safety?” Aaron asked, the faintest bit of hurt in his voice. He stood up as well before continuing. “You think this isn’t a difficult case for me?”

“You do not get to do that!” You said angrily, pointing a free finger out at him. “You are not allowed to try and make yourself a victim in this story while you simultaneously make me part of the problem. How the hell can you see yourself as even remotely ‘good’ when you left the way you did?” There it was. Maybe it was immature, dragging the breakup into the argument, but the days’ tension- not to mention the months of bottled up emotions- was finally snapping inside of you.

“If you’re upset over how I ended our relationship, that is completely separate from the dealings of the case and I expect you to be able to conduct yourself appropriately.” Aaron said and you thought that this must be what ‘seeing red’ meant.

“Do you treat all your witnesses like this?” You were full on yelling now, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. “Is this your version of appropriate conduct, Agent Hotchner? You’ve proven to be nothing but incompetent! You can’t even see two inches past your own fucking face to consider this from my perspective!”

Your words had their intended effect. Aaron’s face fell for the briefs of moments before years of bottling his own emotions took back over. You had to give him some credit for keeping it, outwardly, more together than you were. “I won't fight with you over something as trivial as this. You’ll report to the station in the morning with the rest of the team.” He ordered, voice dangerously low.

“I have to work!” You exclaimed, putting heavy emphasis on each word.

“Going to work isn’t safe. Do you understand that? Your stalker is well acquainted with your schedule, you need to step away from what’s expected of you. It’s dangerous-”

“Oh my god,” you groaned, shaking your head, “are you even listening to yourself? Your job is dangerous every single day, hell you didn’t even step away when the job was dangerous specifically to you! How am I supposed to take advice you can’t even follow?” At the end of your sentence, you angrily stubbed out your cigarette in the ashtray, leaving the butt in the tray.

“This isn’t about me.” Aaron snapped, voice loudest it’d been all night. “I’m trying to keep you safe. What part of that don’t you understand?” He asked, giving you a tough look. You found yourself at a loss for words and he took your silence as an opening to continue. “I can’t stand to see you get hurt.”

“Are you finally understanding how exhausting it was to love you!” You blurted out, the words catching even you by surprise. You forcibly blinked back the tears forming your eyes. “That this, is how I felt each time you were called away on a case?”

Aaron was equally as shocked, his mouth opening in vain a few times as he searched for the proper response. “I made sure you were properly aware of the risks and demands of my job before we started our relationship.” Bad answer.

“And I never complained,” you replied, a defeated tone creeping into your voice, “not once, did I?”

“If you’re going to accuse me of hypocrisy, you should recognize it in yourself. You were equally if not more in demand than I was.”

“I thought you liked that I was so ‘in demand’!” You said, the frustration growing again. “What was it you always said? You liked not having to worry about me alone at home, waiting up for you.”

“You’re coming to the station tomorrow Y/N. Final order.” Aaron repeated, completely ignoring your last statement.

“You know what,” you said, the fight in your voice gone, “I don’t have to put up with this and your lame attempts at trying to be a good guy. I’m not having this conversation anymore.” You quickly leaned over to swipe your cigarette pack and glass of the little table.

“Are you actually going to run away from this?” He asked, almost as if he was trying to bait you back into the argument.

You scoffed loudly, staring him dead in the eyes. “You did.”

You angrily walked around him, nearly stomping the entire way to the door. As you were halfway into the house you paused for a moment, not even slightly turning your head back towards him. “Blankets are still in the same spot in the living room.” You said, slamming the door behind you as soon the sentence left your lips.

-----

The next morning, promptly at 8am, an email from your agent was sent to Aaron. It was incredibly petty and inherently personal, but to an outsider it was nothing out of the ordinary for someone of your status. Aaron was near furious, as expected, but even in his stubbornness he could see you had the high ground. Long story short, the email plainly stated vaguely threatened that if your work schedule were to become an issue for the team, you could easily send a ‘spokesperson’ from your team to deal with any and all future communications. Y/N 2, Aaron Hotchner 0.

Back at your house, you were having a lovely morning. The victory tasted sweet in your mouth as you got yourself ready for the long day. Sometime around 4:00AM Reid had switched out with Aaron and the two of you were currently in your kitchen; Reid sitting at one of your countertop stools while you stood over the stove. After being angrily informed by Aaron that you wouldn’t be required to come into the station with Reid, you decided to make a simple breakfast for the two of you. Reid had wanted to leave sooner, but he was also under orders to not leave you alone until you were safely in your own car and on your way.

You weren’t sure how he felt, but you thought you and Reid got along quite well. He was the closest in age to you and even though he didn’t really seem to understand any of the little jokes or references you made, there was still some level of mutual understanding there. It didn’t hurt that he was quite easy on the eyes as well, of course he wasn’t Aaron by any means- stop that!

Over breakfast, you spent the entire time answering Reid’s many questions about various actors and actresses he was a fan of. Lucky boy, you thought; as all the people he mentioned were quite nice even when the camera was off. What was it that people said about never meeting your hero?

He graciously offered to do all the clean up, as you had cooked, which gave you a bit of extra time to make sure you were ready to go. When you both were ready and Reid had confirmed the plainclothes officer was positioned on your street, he helped you to your car.

With one hand on the top of your car, just as you were about to sit down, you stopped and turned to Reid. “I enjoyed breakfast, would you please tell Agent Hotchner how sorry I am that my schedule’s gotten in the way?” You asked, giving him your sweetest smile. It was another petty move and Aaron was sure to see right through it; the team had amazing skills at reading people, you knew that, but you were an equally talented actress. “I’ll make sure to let you guys know when I’ll be back at home tonight.” You added, before sliding into your car. Reid closed the door gently behind you, waving from the outside of your garage as you pulled out and drove off.

-----

Case wise, the next two days were quiet. You had won the ‘going to work battle’ by a longshot and happily went about your scheduled days. Aaron hadn’t taken another watch shift since the argument, something you were grateful for. It wasn’t until the fourth day, that the case started to pick up again.

“Agent Hotchner?” A young officer stepped into the conference room, holding out a thick manila envelope. “This was just dropped off at the front desk, addressed to you.” That certainly captured the entire team’s attention; every head turning, as if off on a swivel, to face the officer.

“Who dropped it off?” Hotch demanded. ‘Who dropped it off?” He repeated, an added aggression in his voice.

“Some kid! Some kid dropped it at the front and left before anyone could get a word out!” The officer said hurriedly, raising one of his hands up in a meek surrender.

Hotch stepped up to the officer, easily snatching the envelope out of his hands. “Assure that my technical analyst has access to your entire security feed. Now.” He ordered, not giving the officer as a second glance. “Morgan, call Garcia and make sure she accesses those tapes and identifies the kid immediately.”

Hotch went back to standing in front of the long table in the middle of the room, setting the envelope down in front of him. “Gloves, I need-” A pair were placed in his outstretched hand by Reid before he could finish. “I don’t want anyone touching anything that comes out of here without gloves, understood?” He said, not looking at anyone in particular. His focus, completely drawn to the angry penmanship that spelled out his name. After quickly pulling his gloves all the way on, Hotch grabbed the envelope again, internally shoving down his emotions before ripping off the top edge in one clean pull. Nothing could have prepared him for the way the envelope was overflowing with hundreds of photos of you. He tilted the envelope and they all came falling out, covering the table in front of him. Reid mentally estimated there were over five hundred photos of you- some seemed to be cut, some looked to have writing and designs on them- and there were even a few slips of paper thrown in the mix.

“Hotch, Garcia managed to grab the plate from what the kid drove off in. She's running it-” Morgan said, his sentence running off as he took in the table full of photos. “Holy shit.” He said quietly, making his way closer to the table as well.

Hotch reached down, picking up the closest photo to him. There you were, standing on a boardwalk with your hand blocking the sun from your eyes. You looked beautiful- stop that. As Hotch further studied the photo, he picked up a second one, taking another good look. It struck Hotch and the team then, the majority of the photos were grossly intimate; as if the unsub had taken them by himself. Hotch’s stomach twisted when his eyes fell on a photo that looked like you were posing for it, throwing a big smile and peace sign up at the camera.

“Did Garcia get any hits on any scorned lovers?” Emily asked, holding up a photo of you and a man. The face and body of the man had been aggressively scratched over and cut up, but Aaron had a sinking feeling it was of him.

“Yea, I got another potential ex photo right here.” Reid said, holding up another picture. In this one you had clearly been looking up at someone, but the photo had been crudely cut up to exclude whoever it was.

Morgan held up one of the slips of papers, giving it a confused look. “You lost Aaron?” He said, reading off the paper. “What’s the reasoning for singling out Hotch rather than someone closer to her age like Reid” He questioned, not expecting anyone to answer.

“I got one of Hotch’s face scribbled over. He must’ve gotten the photo online.” Emily added, holding up a professional headshot of Hotch. “Is anyone seeing photos of the rest of us? The unsub could see all of us as interfering with his connection to Y/N.”

Hotch’s stomach was twisted in all different directions. He knew the moment of truth was coming and was internally cursing himself for not coming clean sooner. But that paled in comparison to the sickness he felt over the unsub clearly being someone who had such personal access to you. He was certain that some of these photos dates back years. The idea that whoever was doing this had been so close to you, for so long, could’ve brought him to his knees.

“Hotch…” JJ said, her voice accusatory. She looked up at him, face a mix of confusion and a hint of betrayal. She held up another photo and the entire team went quiet. This photo was clearly taken at a distance, but there you were looking lovingly up at a man who was certainly Hotch.

Hotch had one hand clenched tightly on the edge of the table, taking a deep breath before he looked up at his agents staring expectantly at him.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you all,” Hotch started, running his free hand over his face, “I met Y/N five years ago and we were together for three, until I ended things.” He was sure someone had audibly gasped at that. “I know you all may have various concerns over my proximity to the case and are valid in any anger you may feel towards me. But right now, I need to go call Y/N and make sure she’s safe.”

Hotch didn’t give anyone a chance to reply, instead whipping out his phone and near running out the door. Leaving a team of confused and shocked agents in his wake.

-----

a/n - of course, thank you all for reading. it means the world to me! also just the quickest of shoutouts to @kylorendrip and @ssahoodrathotchner who both constantly put up with my writing complaints and all the random ideas i bounce around their dms on the daily.

taglist - @mac99martin @iwaizumiee @kylorendrip @hqtchner @lieswithoutfairytales @ssahoodrathotchner @midsummernightdream @weasleylovers @evans-dejong @itsmytimetoodream @yoshigguk @28cnn @cuddlyklaus @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @yallgotkik @sunflowersandotherthings @alexrodriguez1269

no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own criminal minds or any of the character involved in it.

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #hotchner #aaron hotchner x you #hotchner x reader #hotchner x you #hotch #aaron hotchner/you #aaron hotcher/reader #'stori writes #in the stars #aaron hotchner fanfiction

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asterocky · 3 years

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Hi, I actually had some more questions, lol. Thank you for answering the last one about Eunwoo and his relationship with the boys.

What happened to Moonbin, he took some time off and it seems like people don’t think it was a shoulder injury, but rather that he needed some time off for his mental health?

I was also wondering what happened to their last management or team? I saw Eunwoo speaking out again about how they were treated? What did their last team do or not do? I don’t remember his exact words but it was something to do with their company.

hello there again!! ^^ it was my pleasure, feel free to shoot any other questions you might have. sorry i'm a bit late with this answer, i was thinking through what to say.

regarding moonbin's hiatus.

i believe that fantagio never said anything concrete - they just said moonbin went to a check up and the doctors advised him to rest and get treatment. so no particular health concern was mentioned, so i can't give you a concrete answer. the mental health narrative might have come from some vlives moonbin did, since he was very vulnerable and obviously not in a good place mentally before blue flame era (like this one or the general conversations they had during their gateway era win vlive). i wish i could give you a more concrete answer, but unfortunately i was not too active since i work full time, so there might have been something concrete said by moonbin about his mental health after blue flame era once he came back. since the fantagio issues happened, astro developed a habit of going to aroha whenever something is bothering them. hopefully someone else can give a more concrete answer.

fantagio issues.

there's a lot to discuss here. i will try to shorten the entire situation the best to my ability but i did follow the subject closely and if you want to read into it more, feel free to go into eliot's fantagio update tag (i suggest starting from this post if you want to get into details). meanwhile i roughly summarized the situation below.

so fantagio music is a subsidiary of fantagio entertainment. and fantagio entertainment a few years back was owned by this chinese corporation jc group (they were the majority shareholders, which means that they had the majority vote during shareholder meetings). one day allegations came out in news portals that:

the board of fantagio dismissed the co-ceo and founder of fantagio na byeongjun. wei jie, who was the ceo of jc group, was instated as the new ceo;

the corporation credit cards were taken away from the staffs, so most of the activities fantagio's actors and idols had were funded out of the pocket of the staffs and idols. rumors circulated that astro and weki meki ended up paying for their fans' meals during isac out of pocket, too;

jc group was pooling the money fantagio made to an unrelated hong kong company also owned by the group;

fantagio organized a crisis meeting and settled with 9 demands for jc group, which included reinstatement of the former ceo amongst other things, as most worried that since jc group is pooling whatever fantagio makes into a hong kong company, that jc group will start selling their artists for profit.

(this is why moonbin always says he's the oldest standing fantagio member, idols and staffs included - the ceo was not reinstated and many staff, including astro's manager, left the company)

so staffs were fired and replaced by jc group (they have nothing to de with entertainment btw) staff. it should be noted that wei jie became ceo of fantagio entertainment, but not fantagio music. at the time, fantagio music's ceo was woo youngseung, so aside from the company card limitations, the artists weren't affected that much. however, all hell broke loose when jc group fired woo youngseun and wei jie (i believe) became the ceo. that was the exact moment fantagio music started operating illegally, as based on south koren laws, the ceo of an operating entertainment company has to have a certain entertainment license and ceratin experience. the new ceo was not registered in the korean entertainment management association, which was also a problem. at this point there was no choice but to stop all idols' and actors' activities because everyone that was under contract with fantagio entertainment, which did not have the required licence, would also be considered to be operating illegally. basically everyone under fantagio was forced into a hiatus because of all of the shit jc group caused because of their incompetence.

then the korean entertainment management association reached out to an illegally operating fantagio and gave them 45 days to appoint a new ceo with the relative registration and experience or fantagio will be removed from the association entirely. with all that happening, actors started going through court to terminate their contracts with fantagio. in general there were many uncertainties with the artists under the company, some news portals going so far as to say that "fantagio has no future".

for a while, fantagio (jc group) threatened their actors who went against them (terminating contracts) with court and ignored any korean entertainment association complaints and lied to press that they WERE operating legally. however, many contradicting articles came our and entertainment associations publicly announced that memebers of the associations (which is basically most of the korean entertainment industry) are banning fantagio and basically no one within the association will be working with them.

but then karma came to bite in the ass and the main vilan wei jie who was the ceo was arrested for illegal funding activities (which probably includes the before-mentioned cash pool in an unrelated hong kong company situation). also, the former kbs ceo was appointed as a new fantagio music ceo. a bit later the second main vilan of this story - jc group - sold their ownership of fantagio back to this other shareholder l&a holdings (i believe, don't quote me on this)! which was highly celebrated because fantagio became it's own company again. later fantagio did have a dispute with l&a holdings, but it was nothing too major.

as of today the company is fairly stable and doing well, the largest sources of income being ong seongwoo, astro and cha eunwoo. recently, there has been a dismissal of the management once more and a new management for fantagio music was instated. everyone had war flashbacks for a moment got scared. but it turns out the new management seems eager to put their people out there, as right after the announcement of the new management, astro announced their astro x aroha festival, comeback and all members finally had their own schedules to attend to. and right now all of astro seem to be working on something as the management cleared their schedules, also we got astro zone - to put it simply, we had not seen so much activity from astro for a while so this new management brings hope. also, fantagio was said to be getting more funding and expanding more into acting industries (i think they released more shares, too, which usually means expansion of the company), the financials of fantagio for 2020 have been the best in comparison to the last three years. so as of right now, we can be happy it's in the past and look forward to what fantagio can bring in the future.

also, it's worth mentioning that astro stayed really strong throughout the period and whenever we expressed worry about them, they always tried to calm us down and say that everything is okay and they're doing well. however, once the whole thing was over astro came out with always you, lyrics of which express just how NOT OKAY astro were throughout the fantagio issues and how hard it was behind closed doors, the song dedicated to the fandom. they were very emotional and open about what happened, a lot of fans left throughout the period (as they were on hiatus for a year basically) and astro ended up thanking the ones that stayed with them. there's also this video from astro star light where each member shares a little bit about what went through their minds, from uncertanties, fright and feeling thrown out.

#fantagio #fantagio crisis #moonbin #astro

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syubub · 3 years

Text

Yoongi birthday reading/energy check!!

It's sweet sweet tangerine bois birthday!!

I wanted to do a cute little energy check up to see what's up and ask some fun little questions!!

I'm excited so let's just do this shit!!

Disclaimer: this is for entertainment purposes and not to be taken as fact!!

---

I want to apologize for the absolute shit pictures but what's new lol

So, let's start with the platform. First thing I noticed was the blue was brighter but the platform was darker? It was like someone cranked up the contrast to 100. Ngl it looked pretty cool. Yoongis platform doesn't typically have a barrier like some of the others do so I just kinda walked in and did the whole, "happy birthday, I have questions" His energy seemed a lot more... vibrant? And playful I guess? It was really nice. Now. The actual connection was intresting because the cord was blue again and like, real thick. (I don't think my perceived thickness of the cord has and real correlation with how strong the connection is. It was just thicc) this time though, the cord was connected at the chest instead of the third eye. So i was like, ??? But my guide didn't give my any sort of helpful input (my guide likes to watch me suffer in my confusion. I'm sure of it)

Anyway, cord like that and then yoobi gave me a headbutt to connect at the third eye. Idk why he gotta be like that :( istg next time he's gonna flick my forehead or something.

I was like "cool cool cool. I want to do the reading now pls" and idk how to explain the energy other than sassy. You know? Blah blah blah I'm thinking, "I don't remember him being so cheeky but maybe I've been gone long enough for him to level up into his final sass monster form"

Anywho, this was intresting because after the little strings were connected and stuff, we plopped down on the floor. And it was like everything I was doing irl was being mimicked infront of yoons energy? So we were sitting facing eachother and I was putting the cards down between us?? Usually that doesn't happen but it was kinda fun!!

Moving right along. I first asked if there was anything he wanted to say or needed to get across and it was 11. Now, 11 has come up before and I'm still not to sure what it's in reference to? My best guess is possibly he's been seeing 11:11 or that it's 2? Idk let me know if you have any clues lol. Other stuff was just kinda banter and stuff.

So so so.

The reading. First thing I asked was how he was doing. And I shuffled his preticular way (when I ask a question I always ask for the energy to tell me how much to shuffle or when to stop. For yoongi it's always 2-2-2. So 2 bridge shuffles, 2 hand shuffles and then split the pile in 2. That's why I think 11 might be 2 to him?)

The cards we got are ace of swords rev, justice,the heirophant rev, the empress.

So based off this I was like okay. I want to pull clarity cards for the two rev cards to get a better picture so I pulled the emperor rev for ace or swords rev and strength rev and wheel of fortune rev for the heirophant rev.

Starting with the ace of swords rev, and the emperor reverse. It seems like yoongi has been re thinking his relationship to control in his life. That's he's possibly noticing any unhealthy needs to control his life and the situation around him. It could also refer to his judgment being clouded by a rigid approach.

With the justice card it makes me think that he's possibly considering a big choice in his life or that he's really doing some deconstructing of his own views. This second idea fits in well with him getting clarity on some possibly unhealthy control issues in his life.

Now. The heirophant rev, strength rev and wheel of fortune reverse. This was intresting to me bc they are all major arcana. The heirophant rev can really talk about no longer needing outside approval and making your own way in your own time bc you are your own teacher. Strength in rev I kinda read as self doubt and feeling down in this case. Like a lack of confidence in himself and his abilities. And the wheel of fortune in reverse I took to mean as his breaking cycles. All together these cards kinda paint a picture about wanting and trying to break a cycle of self doubt and self limiting beliefs and learning more about himself and why he think what he does about himself and searching through everything for truth. It's really good!! In short he's doing some nice soul searching and trusting himself to guide his own way through this self discovery!

The empress! This card seems to pop up for yoobi a lot and I think it really speaks to the abundance that surrounds him! Not just money but the abundance of creativity, love, friends ect.

Now now now. I asked him if there was anything that he wanted to tell us about himself or bts or what's happening in the near future. For that I got 2 of cups, king of wands and 3 of coins.

So the 2 of cups is partnership. Usually romantic. Could be pertaining to the may 13th thing that is ever present lol but I'll get to that later. With the 3 of coins talking about teamwork, this could definitely hint at collaborations coming up!! That's the vibe I get. No one crush my dreams. And for the king of wands it could be talking about taking the reigns on a new project and starting to get it done. Like a new opportunity. This could be a new bts project like starting a new campaign or new venture or maybe personal like the a mixtape or doing more songs for other groups ect.

I had to ask him how he was feeling about the grammys. I had to. Had to. The cards were ace of wands, 2 of wands and death reverse. When these came flying out I could help but smile. Yoongis energy was almost giddy too!

Witht he ace of wands

It's that spark of creativity and inspiration. It's that feeling when you get super excited over some new thing. I think this is the perfect example for feeling reinvigorated. The 2 of wands takes that spark from the ace and tries to funnel that excitement and newness into something directional. Using that burst of creativity to start planning for future progress!! Its so nice to see that! If they don't win (IF) you bet we're gonna get some bangers about a corrupt system. If (WHEN) they do win we'll get bangers about how thankful they are to have gotten where they are in spite of a corrupt system. I just want to hear an uncensored version of yoongi being like, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT, WE DID IT BITCHES. FUCK ALL YOU BASTARDS THAT SAID WE COULDN'T."

I can dream....

What a nice dream.

Now I asked if there was anything yoobi wanted to say to us as in advice or comfort or anything like that and I got, Clearing negativity, make time for self care, when I'm tuned into the energy of abundance I become abundant. when I'm in a state of appreciation im in vibrational alignment with my true love nature. The world rev, 2 of swords rev and that project, that person, that idea is waiting.

Awe. Take care of yourselves!! Make sure to take time to enjoy what you like and try not to let any negativity get in the way of you enjoying your days. The world rev to me seems to be talking about seeking closure on the things in your life that have been impacting you. Tie up those loose ends so you can move foward without triping over yourself and 2 of swords rev I think talks about information overload and being kinda indecisive bc of that. Take a sep back to evaluate the situation at hand because sometimes it's so close you can't see what you're looking for. Those of you who are studying and getting frustrated because you just can't seem to get it, try taking a step back and doing something to take care of yourself and come back to it so you can approach with a clearer mind. Try not to get stuck or paralyzed by choice but if you do get stuck, take some time to detach yourself from the situation and come back later!

A fair few people wanted an update on yoobis soulmate as well. If you need a refresher here's the run down. Yoongis soulmate is impossible for me to read, yoongi is a smug ass and I'm nosy and probably a little dumb.

Now that that's cleared up

I asked, "am I missing something?" (As to why I can't connect and why yoongi won't give me answers.)

I got queen of cups, magician and the high priestess. I read this as him being like, "yeah dude, you aren't woke enough"

YOONGI just give me answers pls. The high priestess is intuition and sacred knowledge, the magician is manifestation and the queen of cups is also intuition.

At this point I was like, okay you little shit, can you at least tell me how your soulmate is doing? Can you do that for me?

2 of cups, 2 of pentacles, 9 of wands and knight of wands. 2 of cups is partnership usually romantic, 2 of pentacles is priorities and managing them, 9 of wands persistence, knight of wands motivation for a new thing. His soulmate last time was in the process of going through some shit and figuring it out and it seems like now they've got a better clue of how to move foward and are currently heading towards good things/ important things in their life (possibly like working towards dream career or had an idea for a business the want to start or field they want to go in.)

I was thinking about the next question when this popped into my head, "if you know about your akashic book, do you know about your soulmates? Have you read it?" I used my pendulum. No movement at all. What so ever. "Are you listening to me?" Yes. "So answer my question please" No. "Do you like to watch me suffer?" Maybe. "Do you know the answer to the question" yes.

YOONGI WHY

This cheeky son of a bitch.

Now I was like, fuck it. Imma ask him the big boi question.

"Is your soulmate present when I do these readings?" Yes.

WHY THE FUCK CAN I NIT PICK UP ON IT???

I had to take a deep breath dude. Yoobi is testing my nerves.

"Are they hiding their energy?" No.

I was actually gonna combust. This makes no sense.

I asked yoongi if he would tell me what I'm not getting. Silence. So i ask my guide.

"lol ur dumb"

Watch me Google "how to fire your spirit guide"

Istg this feels like some dumb prank. Maybe I'm just genuinely oblivious to his soulmates energy or maybe I'm just doing something.

What do you want to bet that his soulmate is just hiding under the platform and I'm too stupid to notice or some dumb thing like that.

yoobi, sir, why must you do this?

I decided to continue.

"What message or thing have you learned from your soulmate recently that could be valuable to us?" I got healthy communication in relationships and deep replenishment.

Good to know you can have a nice communicative relationship with your soulmate bc I CAN'T.

I'm petty about it, sue me.

The message does stand though. Good communication and taking proper rest to replenish yourself.

Now I had to ask yoongi directly what he thought of may 13th.

I got the lovers, 7 of swords, the magician and judgement. The seven of swords was intresting and it makes me think there's some extra stuff at play here too. 7 of swords is about getting away with something and deceit. The clarifier was the magician.... this could mean a lot honestly. It could be that maybe yoongi will have his relationship exposed or possibly that maybe him and his soulmate meet but yoongi is disguised? Idk how that would work at all but I'm stumped. There's a lot of variations that this could be. The magician is about manifesting and having everything you need to create what you want. This could possibly mean that maybe he gets a sudden idea that's like, "oh I have to go here right now. Its super important" eventhough he has practice scheduled. So that would let down his team but he would be following his path and it might lead to him meeting his soulmate? Maybe vice versa? Idk let me know what you think??

With the judgement its about inner calling and kinda like the peak. Like shit has been leading up to this moment. With the lovers too it does seem like a union?

I asked him, "but like what's gonna happen on the 13th thought and I got the 10 of cups. Divine love, bliss, alignment, happy mushy gushy shit. This is why I'm so inclined to think that they'll meet on the 13th or things will get serious or their paths finally cross. The cards seem to heavily suggest that.

My dude. Yoongi is really sappy, pass it on.

For the last question I asked yoomgi if there was messages/ advice he had given to his soulmate that we might benefit from.

First step, open your third eye, open your heart, sign from heaven, open your arms to receiving.

A lot of opening lol.

It's good advice though learning to be open and receptive and taking that first step in tackling life or any situation.

Oki. Now for the disconnecting. It was not nearly as strange as it has been in the past. I was just like thanks dude. Again, happy birthday blah blah and I got up to leave. I noticed it looked like we were in sitting in one of those old plastic hoola hoops? Like the pink and yellow ones lol. As I was looking at and and like??? Off to the side the numbers 13, 28, 54. Obvi 54 isn't a date and then I the last yoongi check up there was book pages and I feel like 54 and 28 were the pages?? I'm not actually sure as I'm writing this so I'm gonna check.

Yep I checked. They are the page #s.

So that's intresting.

Other than that though I just kinda left and he was like, "bye" and that's all.

Not as cool as other yoongi adventures but equally as frustrating.

TLDR

Yoongis doing pretty okay and he's a cheeky little shit. My guide like to watch me suffer and yoobi is mushy gushy squishy.

Happy day of birth Syub!!

#bts #bts tarot #yoongi #bts reactions #bts imagines #yoongi imagine #bts rm #seokjin #bts suga #min suga #park jimin #hoseok #taehyung #jungkook

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woozisnoots · 4 years

Text

modest jeon wonwoo

° pairing: wonwoo x reader ° genre: university!au, host club!au, fluff ° word count: ~1.7k ° warnings: none! ° a/n: this had no business being this long and idek if i like it lol but I want to specifically dedicate this piece to @wonwoosimp bc she’s literally the sweetest, best bean in the world [insert uwu meme here] thank you for gifting me my very first photocard, I literally cried opening it! I love you so much, I hope you enjoy!

welcome to the svt host club!

masterlist!

you entered university with a certain goal, a purpose. eventually, you were going to be the pediatric surgeon that the 13 year old you ushered you to be.

…let's just hope the knowledge of your brain was enough to get you through the first four years of pre-med. with your 3.7 high school GPA, you were lucky to get into your first choice college, let alone your current major

from the start of the semester, you dedicated yourself to studying the anatomy and physiology of the body until you knew every nook and cranny there was to know. and the library was the perfect sanctuary to get your shit together

as much as you loved your roommates, their constant fights over closet space and boy toys gave you no peace of mind what-so-ever

bless the library for being opened 24/7. If your roommates found you sleeping on their only working desk, you would find yourself waking up to the sound of tripping freshmen trying to get to their first 8am class right in the middle of the hallway

but the lone table in the corner of the library just on the third floor did you good at staying focused. even provided some good naps in between every now and then

the day before your first anatomy test, you LOCKED yourself in the library. no one was going in OR OUT of the premise just to sit across from you on YOUR table until you fully memorized the different layers of epithelial tissue >:(

gosh, you even scattered all your notes across the table just so people got the memo that this seat was: [OFF LIMITS]

yes, off limits to everyone except a certain jeon wonwoo.

the way you met was abrupt to say the least

besides your table, you had a pretty good view of the entire campus — from the main health science building all the way to the student parking lot

and just below you, an astonishing sight of a mob of screaming girls chasing after a mouse guy in glasses. not to be inconsiderate and heartless, but unless you heard someone scream bloody murder, diving back into your flashcard you go

tissue after tissue, you start to get delusional because at this point, everything is starting to look the same

slumping down into your chair, you take a second to mentally recharge, drinking the water you’ve neglected for the past three hours

you time yourself for a five minute break, going through the notifications on your phone

before you could read your roommate’s ongoing ramble on the latest update of the “crazy good looking, god-like, elite host club that the university has to offer”

a ‘club’ that you didn’t even know anything about nor cared for

you hear a loud ‘thud’ coming from the bookcase in front of you

from the side the tall, lean guy with glasses that you saw earlier emerged with his hands gripping his tricep

you try not to draw too much attention to him. half the reason being you didn’t want to embarrass him by laughing at the fact he ran into a 10 feet tall bookcase

and you did not need this man distracting you. it’s your eight week streak being this productive, a new record for anything you’ve done in your entire life and your pride wouldn’t let you have it if you lost it just because you saw an attractive man on sight

you scribble down a decent guess to the tissue identification question that you’ve been stuck on for the past few minutes, not bothering to look up

“that’s actually dense connective tissue, not smooth”

jolting up from your seat, you look up realizing the guy 5 feet away is now right in front of your face looking down at all your papers

“you can tell because they’re striated”

you stare at him in disbelief wondering how he could have gotten so fast with just looking at it for a few seconds. eyeing him up and down, he definitely looked around the same age as you but he wasn’t someone you’ve seen around the science buildings. and you would know since you took the liberty of familiarizing almost everyone within the department

“do you mind if i sit here?” his hands already on the edge of the chair ready to pull it out from underneath him

“...yeah sure”

“oh i’m wonwoo by the way,” he says as you both exchange awkward stares and knowledgeable nods

okay well since he’s proven that he might be of help to you, you might as let him stay. from what you’ve gathered, he didn’t have any stuff on him aside from his phone that you watch him get out of his front pocket, getting ready to play pacman

forget how attractive he is, this guy has some brains.

for the rest of the day, as you guys sat across from each other, wonwoo would occasionally bounce back and forth between giving you study tips and playing whatever game he decides to play at that moment in time

he was surprisingly really good at this? he knew more things about the subject than your professors did, and that’s saying a lot. like you’ve been looking at cells for WEEKS and you were lucky to get at least half of them. which begs the question:

“how do you magically know all this?”

the blank expression on his face tells you he wasn’t expecting that question but he quickly shrugs it off. “i just know a few things from my parents that’s all”

you would have questioned him further but the time on your phone read “22:57” and you already broke your number rule about sleeping early before a big test

as you pack up all your stuff, wonwoo pushes his chair in, bidding you farewell

“good luck on your test tomorrow!”

you appreciate the gesture, mentally thanking him for his help and proceed to go back to your dorms, preparing yourself to tell your roommate all about the exciting? day you had

“YOU MORON. JEON WONWOO?”

laying flat on your back on your bed, you cover the bottom half of your face, quivering under your sheets as you stare at your roommate’s outrageous outburst

you explain what happened and who you met today at the library. when your roommate asked to describe him in more detail, all you said was that he was pretty smart for someone who wasn’t particularly in your major

your roommate lets out a loud scream into their pillow, gripping the bed sheets before giving you the earful of the century

“he’s just being modest. he’s a korean lit major but he’s one of the uni’s top students since both his parents are the head of the science department.

…AND he’s one of the most requested host club members. so you caught yourself one big fish today bud.”

top student? science department? HOST CLUB? none of that was processing in your brain. the one club that you wanted nothing to do with and you just happened to meet their top money maker

grand.

the thought didn’t keep you up at night only because you thought that today’s encounter was just coincidence and you probably would never have to see him again.

(sad though, your roommate was right. he is rather good looking.)

the time that it took for you to take your test the next day flew by so fast that you questioned if it even happened. the first step you took out the classroom, you start to second guess all your answers, regretting that you didn’t check a third or even fourth time before submitting

your train of thought halts when you see jeon wonwoo standing in the empty hallway

“i’m sure you aced it”

and just like in a netflix original romance movie, he reveals a bouquet of pink begonias from behind his back while shyly adjusting his glasses

“these are for you. to congratulate you”

weird way to phrase it but you were still gonna take the flowers. “host club tendencies?”

“so you found out?”

from a distance, you can hear the rushing footsteps from downstairs followed by a sense of purpose. “i think i was bound to” :/

you didn’t know how you felt about the current situation. you had no idea what host club was until you got here and you still don’t know what they even do. for all you knew, this could just be a gesture to get them more clients

but if his actions were genuine… you wouldn’t mind seeing him again

“i have to start learning muscles for our next exam. heard it was one of the hardest ones. i’m not sure if you have more studying tricks up your sleeve?”

“i might.” a cocking little grin now appearing on his face

“good. same place at the library tomorrow then. and this time? try not to bring your dedicated fans wherever you go”

so these study sessions continued. you guys occasionally had to change spots - from cafe to an empty bio lab - if the mob ever saw a single hair follicle that might be his

but each time, wonwoo brought something more just himself. one day it would be coffee, others days it would be food. things to keep you motivated.

for a korean lit major, he was taking a lot of time out of his day to help you, being attentive to all the strategies that help you study and such

possibly making your assumption from months back, true.

by the time finals rolled around, aside from the spursts of review here and there, study sessions became more casual. you didn’t feel the need to overwork our brain since you already knew all the information (something you actually learned from wonwoo himself)

possibly the last meeting you’d have with him was similar to your first: just you two together but him playing on his phone. and yet before the night ended

“i have a proposal.”

“i’m not giving you money for your dumb club.” bold of him to assume you would-

“no but i really appreciate the thought :)

why don’t we turn these study sessions into… study dates instead?”

your assumption after 6 months later: finally confirmed

“but that’s only IF you ace your finals.”

well let’s just say at the very end, you had a successful first semester and are now one step closer towards being the surgeon of your dreams.

plus, you even landed yourself a pretty cool boyfriend in the process

let’s hope his parents put in a good word for you when you apply to med school!

#seventeen #wonwoo #caratwritersclub #seventeen imagine #wonwoo imagine #seventeen scenario #wonwoo scenario #seventeen au #wonwoo au #seventeen fanfic #wonwoo fanfic #seventeen series #jeon wonwoo #wonwoo x reader

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the-darklings · 4 years

Text

—𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒆 [01];

—PART I. | GASOLINE GIRL

pairing: santino d’antonio x f!reader

word count: 6.2k+

summary: “Carry that ice in your heart, always.”

warnings: mentions of: child abuse, drug abuse, death/torture; swearing, typical mafia-related situations/discussions so take heed because this is a mature read for sure. But we gotta be realistic, this life ain’t pretty.

notes: so this can be read as a standalone though I do consider it a sort of mini sister series to COA. This will be short (no more than 5 parts) and only updated when I have free time. That being said, I do hope you enjoy. I even flexed my none existent photoshop skills to make the header pic lol. Get ready this one is going to be a ride.

You don’t become a part of Camorra by choice.

No one sane enough would.

Your parents simply got involved with people who would have had you killed if they stepped out of the line. You know because that was a threat made with you in the room and a cold, merciless barrel of a gun pressed to your head.

Giovanni D’Antonio’s men came at night, dragging you and your parents out of bed in nothing but your nightclothes. They made you kneel on the dusty floor, your knees aching against the hardness of the wood.

The man himself is as awful as you heard people on the streets whisper. Everyone fears him. Fears him and Camorra and the terrors they unleash onto anyone who doesn’t fall in line.

“Such pity you didn’t have a son,” the head of Camorra notes dispassionately as he scrutinises you, his fingers digging painfully into the flesh of your cheeks. “What am I suppose to do with a girl?”

The man tsks as if some grave crime has been committed against him and takes a long drag of his cigar, turning your head from side to side. Your squirm, knees knocking, your lips trembling, but don’t let him see fear. You can’t afford to let this vile, cruel man who asked his men to beat your father to a bloody heap on the floor to see you weak. You can’t show predator fear if you want to live. Not when your mother is already a sobbing mess on the floor, clutching onto your father in despair.

You wonder if he’s alive. A part of you—

A part of you doesn’t care to know because the man before you stares at you with such finely veiled disgust, you can’t help but know that he will kill you all regardless. He might even enjoy giving the order. And your father is to blame for that.

“Are you at least smart, girl?” he demands and slaps you lightly on the cheek when you don’t respond. “Answer me. Or I will cut your tongue out, and then you will know what it’s like not having the gift of speech. Or maybe I will start with your parents instead.”

Your mother cries harder, practically hysterical and you feel a sting of bitterness, of anger, deep in your chest. She should be strong.

She should be defending you.

But she isn’t. She’s just crying. As if that’s going to save you, protect you, keep these men away.

“You will kill us all anyway,” you whisper knowingly, your words hollow as you stare into those dark, cold eyes that have no end. “They stole from you and you hate thieves.”

The man exhales smoke directly into your face but you don’t flinch—not even as your eyes water from the sting of tobacco, not even when he leans his malign, handsome face closer.

“But I reward loyalty,” he tells you, now almost pleasant, and his thick fingers tilt your chin up as he regards you critically. “Do you understand what I’m saying, hm?”

You nod once.

Giovanni is quiet and thoughtful but then a slight smile creeps across his face.

It’s the most awful sight you have ever seen.

“Then we are done here,” he announces and his hand drops away from your face, his dark gaze lifting over your slight frame and towards the men hovering in the shadows, awaiting orders.

Two shots follow.

You don’t flinch.

The sobs cease.

Giovanni’s grim smile widens, pleased.

“Come along, girl. You no longer have family here.”

. . .

Camorra is a pit.

A pit of betrayal and blood and drugs and more blood.

The first four months are near unbearable.

You’re younger than what they usually recruit and it shows. You don’t know how to navigate this world. You’ve been dropped off at a “care home” that operates more like a drug house but has to keep up a front for the public. Which, in itself, is hilarious because you doubt there is anyone in the nearby province who doesn’t know what this place is.

But it’s survival of the fittest here.

And it’s not a game you know how to play well.

Each person is given a task, a job, and you must do it or you will be punished. Severely.

Giovanni left you here, in this hellhole, with a dismissive hum and a harsh pat on the head, “Let’s see what you make of yourself, gasoline girl.”

Gasoline girl.

Because he didn’t bother asking for your real name. Because he gave you a canister of gasoline and told you to pour it through your house, onto your dead parents, and gave you the remains of his cigar, his order clear.

You watched your home go up in smoke, your parents’ bodies still inside, with gnawing detachment eating away at your heart, your soul.

The flame was hot and bright and Giovanni made you watch till there was nothing left but ash and ruin.

“Little gasoline girl,” he had said then, even more pleased. “Carry that ice in your heart, always. It will take you far in my family.”

The care home, however, is a desolate place that lacks warmth your home had—that lacks anything resembling anything humane, in fact. The only reason why you’re not drugged that very first night is because Giovanni told his men that you are too young for such a thing. Because he wants to see if you can be useful, your mind as sharp as he hopes it is.

But if you disobey…

It doesn’t frighten you, not at first, not until you see them. Those with sunken eyes and pale skin. Lips cracked and limbs trembling. They no longer have wills or dreams or aspirations. They are tools, shells, empty of everything that once made them human. Riddled with pain and despair that plagues them till their next fix or death.

They frighten you so much you hide away in the attic. You’re not sure how you find your way up there but you curl on the floor—in the darkest, deepest hole you can find—and sob and sob and sob into the dust and the dirt. Sob till your eyes are swollen and your throat is raw.

You rip and tear the girl you once were to shreds that night. Because even then, you know, that you will not survive long like this. That this dark pit will consume you unless you find a way to survive, to fight back.

Carry that ice in your heart, always.

You intend to.

You will.

. . .

Next four months are consistent of a few things: death, blood, drugs and violence.

It’s everywhere you look, all you hear at all times of day and night, and you can’t escape it.

There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide—not when Camorra owns this city. Not when Giovanni knows you by face, if not by name—something that’s a rare honour, you learn later, seeing the Boss in person. Being handpicked by him.

Money laundering, sex, drug distribution, torture; the care home cycles through it all on a daily basis.

Hunger becomes part of the routine, the attic your new home.

You exist in the shadows out of fear, at first. Then, you realize how much power comes from being unseen. If you are unseen, then you can never be hurt, never be abused.

Not like so many—young, so young—always are.

There is nothing glorious about this life. It’s just survival.

Ugly and filthy and dangerous.

So you listen and hide and learn.

The staff—mostly men who are loud and rowdy but follow the rules because they fear the Boss too much, and few older women—start calling you a ghost.

You don’t mind. Not even at all.

It’s better than being actually dead.

. . .

The first time you meet him, you’ve been at the care home for little over a year.

The sounds of pain, pleasure, and death no longer scare you at night.

They have become your reality. Your own twisted, lewd lullaby in a way.

Violence and hate. Pleasure and pain. Greed and death.

They have become levers and cornerstones upon which you have built stability and routine.

Giovanni is coming tonight, the people in the hallways whisper in hushed breaths that morning though, and if anything is out of place blood will be shed.

You haven’t seen him in a year.

You’ve grown and hardened, killed as many soft parts of yourself as you could since the last time you saw him.

You have also become useful.

So normal, so sweet-looking, so unassuming.

Like a ghost the staff compares you to, you haunt the streets and collect information for Camorra; the perfect little spy.

You nurture that ice in your heart and project it outward, and when Giovanni comes and calls forth everyone at the care home, you hold your chin up; unmoving, stiff-backed, and defiant.

Much to your surprise, his dark gaze snags on you and he pauses in his step, recognition reflecting back at you.

The leader of the care home pauses too, hesitating, clearly unsure if he should comment until Giovanni speaks.

“So you lived.”

He sounds surprised, pleasantly so.

You don’t so much as blink.

“Santino.”

It is then, from the folds of Giovanni’s guard, that a boy steps through. He’s barely taller than you and clearly you are close in age, if not the same, you conclude as he steps beside his father.

His hair is dark and finely combed, his clothes neat and expensive, and he reeks of privilege even more so than his father.

He’s also terrible at hiding his thoughts. He’s repulsed to be here, he thinks it beneath him and being faced with this—grim, hungry faces and grime—he’s balking under the stark contrast to his no doubt princely life at home.

He is the prince of Camorra—every bit as spoiled and arrogant as you expected him to be.

You hate him on sight.

“What do you see?” Giovanni asks his son as the two stand before you.

Santino’s dark brows furrow and he blinks slowly, looking you up and down. There isn’t much to you. Your clothes are dirty and worn, your features no doubt hostile and your gaze even worse. It’s how you keep yourself safe. Snarl and bite first. Some men like to mutter “rabid dog” under their breaths as you pass in the hallways, but you’re fine with that, too. Even when they make offhand comments that only one thing happens to rabid dogs eventually.

“A nobody, father.”

Oh?

Giovanni sighs, disappointed, and Santino sees this, scrambling for something else to add, “She’s—she’s a girl.”

“Obviously,” the man says, his voice bored, dismissive, and Santino’s expression falls, his eyes lowering. But the older man is still staring at you. “Keep that ice in your heart, gasoline girl,” he reminds you, mild but stern.

He walks away without another word, going back to business in a blink.

His son lingers for a breath, his eyes jumping up and finally meeting yours.

He looks resentful. He’s blaming you for his father’s disappointment in him. He thinks that you are to blame for the failed test.

He looks at you like you are beneath him, like you are less, a nobody he accused you of being.

His eyes are vivid green.

Green as your mother’s garden. Green as the oak that used to sway outside your window.

Green as the grass you used to roll around in when spring flowers bloomed behind your house.

You hate him even more, then.

For the reminder.

Santino D’Antonio stares at you for another long, hateful moment until his father calls him.

He surprises you by hesitating, still staring, but you only glare at him. Openly, without fear and with clear contempt.

I hate you. I hate you and everything you stand for—everything that you are. You will never know what it’s like to be hungry or cold or scared. What it is to kill and survive.

You dismiss him. A simple sweep of your eyes over his shoulder.

He exhales sharply at your defiance.

You wonder if anyone has ever defied him before and not been severely punished for it.

It makes you feel alive, for a moment, that spark of disobedience.

It’s perhaps the most real you have felt since that night with your knees in the dirt.

The weight of his stare is suffocating and you feel seen, beheld in a way that strips you down to your core.

“Santino.”

Giovanni’s voice is a subtle, cutting blade and his son jerks after him like dog on a leash.

You hope you will never see him again.

. . .

Days turn into weeks, into months, and then years.

With each new day at Camorra, your heart ices over and over.

You meet people, and you lose even more of them.

It teaches you a lesson of not getting attached, of not caring, of things outside of yourself being fragile and breakable.

First there’s Nari. Too sweet, too kind, and with circumstances that are a bit too similar to your own. Is it any wonder he seeks you out? Any wonder that you let him close? Becoming his friend seems inevitable when you’ve been lonely for so long.

He gets shot on a drug run gone wrong six months after meeting you. There is nothing left of him for you to remember him by. There’s only memories of dark, midnight hair and his wheezy, shrill laugh that you always told him was annoying.

Then, a few years later comes Lucie. You’re a part of the home by then. There is a place for you here; a strength and a steadily rising reputation attached to your person. The pain-soaked hallways are familiar and your own now because you claimed them as such. Attic is no longer a hole to hide in but your home, your sanctuary, your dark throne.

She’s too beautiful and too gentle to survive this place. You know it from the moment you see her. It takes one look to know that this place will gobble her up and spit her back out, crushed and broken.

But there is something about her. Something about the ring of her laughter and the spark in her eyes. The shade of her long hair that reminds you of your mother. Something about the way she trusts you, relies on you, and believes in you. Looks at you as a friend, as a companion, salvation. How during the cold, bleak nights she seeks your warmth and dreams out loud of the life you will have once you both break free of Camorra. Once you find a way to make an honest living. She dreams of a world far bigger and grander than you’ve ever had.

Your dreams are simple: survive, become a nightmare that sweeps through the ranks of Camorra.

Lucie dreams of a home by the sea with three chickens, a cow, and a loving family.

“I want a big one,” she reveals one night, turning to face you with a serious frown. “At least four kids.”

You suppress a shiver. Seeing what you have seen, living through what you have, you can’t imagine having a family. Not one that big, at least. But perhaps it’s because you haven’t felt safe in so very long that any extension of yourself will always feel like a weakness opposed to strength.

“Sounds painful.”

She laughs; a soft, soothing sound as she rests her cheek against your shoulder with a faint smile. “They will have an amazing, scary aunt to look after them. I’m not worried.”

It’s quiet for a moment before she speaks again. “What about you?”

Noting your blank stare, she adds, “Don’t you want a family? Or at least someone to call your own?”

“No,” you shoot back stiffly, and take another deliberate bite of your soggy bread. “People you love can be used against you. Hurt because of you, or by you. If I love them,” you pause, the word foreign on your tongue. “I won’t want them to suffer because of me. If I’m hurting them, then it’s not love at all.”

It’s silent for a long time.

“Sometimes,” Lucie whispers eventually with a sad, quiet sigh. “I can’t help but think that they’re one and the same.”

You think about that for a while.

Think about how her father used to beat her mother but they still stayed. Think about how that takes a special kind of bravery and strength. How despite that, he was a loving father to Lucie. How sometimes humans can be ugly and awful but have some semblance of good in them, too. How good can be done by bad and bad can be done by good.

“I suppose.”

She blinks up at you. “Well if I have a family, then you have to have one as well.”

Your lips curve and it feels strange on your face. “Is that so?”

She nods but her eyes are full of mirth. “We’re both going to be fat and pregnant with swollen ankles and awful cravings. Promise?”

Her eyes are full of dreams, full of light you have never seen before.

You try to protect that light, try to hide her away from the men who would hurt her, from the women who would drug her and bargain her away.

It’s foolish and reckless of you but you are almost frenzied with the need to keep something good alive. For once, you just need—

She gets taken.

It’s planned in advance, you learn later.

They had to get you out of the house first. They lied—a job straight from the high tier of Camorra, from the elite itself, no refusals—and used that time you were away to take her.

What they did—

They pay for it.

Everyone in the care home that had anything to do with it, anyone who knew.

You tear ten people apart. Slowly; piece by piece, muscle by muscle, sinew by sinew. Over the years you have found new talents, new hobbies. Ghost is an old name they called you around the house.

But you have others you prefer now.

When it’s done, you stalk through the too silent house, covered in cooling blood and—

You’re not sure how much of it is from the people you just killed and how much is from—

Lucie is where you found her.

Your eyes sting as you gaze at the sight in front of you. You gather her in your arms gently and even if it’s a slog, slow and painful, you take her to the tiny bathroom down the hall.

You wash her hair of dirt and blood and—

Tears fall heavy and hot the entire time you work and you have to pause in-between, choking down your sobs.

Her body is next. Wetting a cloth in your hand, you clean her skin, fold her hands over her chest, ignoring the broken bones and broken skin.

You’re glad it’s late spring.

The ground is softer, more pliable.

Despite that, it still takes you four hours to dig a grave deep enough. Your hands are numb, bloodied and blistered by the time you’re done. The stench of sweat and death mixes with the blood but you ignore it.

Lowering her takes time—time and care and self-control. Because she’s so cold, so stiff, and it’s awful knowing that you will never see her again after this.

You bury dreams and hopes and aspirations with her—both hers and yours. A handful of dirt at the time. Your hands are raw but you force yourself to keep going.

And when it’s done, you collapse beside the grave and stay there for hours, days, maybe weeks.

It starts raining and you let the freezing spring rain wash over you. The smell of wet earth and grass drags you into hazy dreams. They transform into feverish nightmares eventually, haunting you and killing you over and over again. You failed. Failed to protect something good. Maybe saving Lucie was only partially about saving her—an innocent—from this awful fate, and more about…

More about some vague, distant belief—hope—that you could be saved, too.

Grief splits you apart and suffocates you with every breath as you lay beside the fresh grave.

Grief. You’re not sure if you even grieved your parents. Not really. Because they were dead and you still had an uncertain future ahead of you. You grieved a life you could have had. But it’s been so long. So very long now.

Time is not a concept you can understand any longer.

By the time they find you, a part of you wishes they would just let you die and bury you beside your friends. Let you rest at long last.

But there are voices.

A foot nudges you as you roll over onto your back with a heavy thud. Dark sky stretches out above you.

Then, through a haze, a face appears, peering down at your with mild disinterest.

Recognition; it comes fierce and sharp and you know it’s the same for him.

Urgent, angry voices blur together as everything fades away into nothing.

You fucking hate those green eyes.

. . .

When you wake up, the Devil is standing over you.

Giovanni D’Antonio lifts a single eyebrow, not bothering to mask his cool distaste at your wheezing, delirious state.

You scramble upwards anyway, wincing at the ringing in your head and the popping in your ears.

You feel heavy and fuzzy in the worst way possible—the way that makes one slow and vulnerable. Nausea rolls your stomach, mixing with the instinctual fear of seeing who is standing above you.

“What a mess,” Giovanni drawls and hitches his trousers up as he sits down on a creaky chair beside your cot. “What a mess, gasoline girl.”

You’re sweating but feel so cold your body trembles and you can’t hide it. This man should never see you vulnerable but he is right now and you hate your own weakness.

“Who knew you had such a gift for death,” he continues and you swallow, your throat raw—from crying, from screaming and howling at the sky, you recall through your delirium—and you tremble again. “Ten dead. So easy, too. And such…brutality.”

If you didn’t know any better you would say he’s paying you a compliment—that he’s impressed.

The man reaches into his pocket and your bandaged hands—why are they bandaged, what—constrict around the fresh, cotton sheets covering you.

Cotton. You haven’t touched something as soft, as luxurious, as cotton since that last night you slept in your own bed years ago.

But Giovanni pulls out a cigar holder from his pocket instead of a gun, offering it to you. You don’t move, hardly breathe, as you stare at him through your watery eyes. Your ears are still ringing.

“I asked others about what happened,” he begins after lighting his cigar. He rolls it between his thick fingers, his golden rings gleaming and you shudder. “What justified ten of my own slaughtered like barn animals. So rethink lying to me, if that was your intention, girl. Let me start with something easy, though: was the girl your lover?”

Your eyes find his and perhaps it’s the fever, or the hole in your soul, but you don’t look away even when his eyes narrow on you.

He doesn’t understand. Of course, he doesn’t. As if a man like him could ever understand what it’s like to be so lost and raw with loneliness your heart is ready to crumble away at the gentlest of touches. As if everything in this world has to be about physicality and desire. As if care and loyalty can’t come from a place of love that has nothing to do with gratification of the body.

“No.”

“Then why did you kill them?”

“Because they deserved it,” you croak out, and your voice cracks as you pant for breath. Your head spins and you drop back against the wall even as your chest rattles with a loud, wet cough. Giovanni waits, expectant, and your eyes narrow. Let him kill you after. But he will hear this, if he wants truth so badly. “They deserved it for what they d-did to her. It—those m-monsters. She was sixteen. And they did it on purpose. Because they enjoyed it. I would—I would do it again gladly. Over and over again till there is nothing left of them to bury. Till—till only pieces remain and even then it would be too kind.”

The bloodlust is surging through you like a river after the fresh spring rain, untamed and wild, and you struggle for breath. The regret that you didn’t take longer, hurt them more—

And perhaps that makes you a monster. No—you know it does. But you can’t find it in yourself to care.

Better to be a monster than a coward. Better to be alive and hated than loved but dead.

Giovanni exhales, his lips pressing into a displeased line. “So naive,” he mutters and takes another drag. “I figured the home would have eroded that away by now. Shame.”

You gape at him, shivering but silent. It’s like he’s reached down your throat and robbed you of speech.

“What do you think happens to people like that girl, hm?” he wonders out loud, slanting his head just so. Even with his hair starting to grey, he’s still handsome, still electric to look at. It’s the coldness of that dark, bottomless stare that sets him apart from others you have met. “She was no better than your parents. Weak. And weak do not survive in this world, they are used and that’s how we live. You could have been like her, but you fought back. That’s why I told you to keep that ice in your heart, yes? There are thousands like that girl and there will be a thousand more, and a thousand more after that. It is the way of the world. I am simply…reaping.”

His cigar flares at the tip again as Giovanni takes a steady drag, savouring the burn of it against the back of his throat.

You want to cry and scream and tear at him. This world—his world—is wrong and twisted and—

But you have chosen it, haven’t you?

Better than being dead.

And you’ve killed and stolen and lied and cheated for years now. You’ve gotten good at it. Better than most. Better than anyone in the home had been.

“Did it break you?”

Your eyes drag back to him, and you realise that you’ve been silent for so long, you’ve started to doze off. Laying in the rain for god knows how long didn’t do you much good. You feel worse and worse with every second that stretches by.

His emotionless question clatters through you though, settling in the pit of your stomach.

Lucie.

Her happy smile flashes through your weary mind and you try to draw breath into your wrecked lungs.

“No.”

It has only made you colder and emptier, you realise. You had laid next to Lucie’s grave because you had hoped for a quick end. But—

But no.

For the second time in your life, you lift your head and look the Devil in the eyes as you choose life.

Whatever form it comes in.

Regardless of what else it will demand of you.

Perhaps, you should be thankful for this lesson.

The head of Camorra nods once, considering you, and then asks a serious, “Do you remember what I told you about loyalty, gasoline girl?”

I reward loyalty.

“Yes.”

It’s an effort to keep your eyes on him. His features are blurring, and you can’t even smell the thick cloud of smoke in the air anymore.

“Who were you loyal to when you killed my people? Your people?”

You don’t hesitate, spitting out a vicious, “To myself. Just as you wanted me to be.”

For a moment, you think that Giovanni D’Antonio will smile at you again. But he doesn’t. Instead, he turns towards the shadows of the room.

“What do you see, Santino?”

You still. You’ve been so preoccupied with keeping yourself awake and lucid, with keeping your whole attention on this man without scruples normal people have that—

It comes rushing back.

The grave, the smell of dirt beneath your cheek, rain, the coldness sinking deep into your bones, green eyes—

He was the one who found you. You have no idea how; a part of you doesn’t want to know, either.

He’s changed as well. His frame stretches taller, leaner, than the last time you saw him. His hair is slightly longer but still curly and neatly combed. That boyish roundness still holds his features, giving him an appearance of a youth instead of a young man and you stare at him with open, dazed animosity.

But there is something about the way he watches you from the shadows.

His pupils are blown wide open when he steps closer into the light, his shoulders coiled with tension that you have no name for.

He gazes at you like he is looking at something beautiful, something terrible, something—

Something he admires and hates and doesn’t understand.

No one has ever looked at you like that. Like they’re seeing right into you, through you, pulling apart every weakness and every strength.

That anger in your chest ignites at the sight of him, washing away the emptiness and the loss.

“A monster.”

It seizes a part of you. Cracks it to pieces.

You hate him, you hate him, you hate the fact that he—

That he sees you. Just like last time, just like now.

Giovanni’s eyebrows rise slowly at his son’s blunt assessment. He peers at Santino for a pensive moment before the boy finally drags his eyes towards his father, almost reluctantly so.

“Loyalty to yourself, was it, girl?” the man wonders calmly and takes another drag of his cigar. It’s almost gone now and black spots dance in your vision as you watch him tilt his chin upwards and exhale another lazy puff of smoke. “Give me your hand.”

You stare at him blankly, uncomprehending, almost nauseous now.

Giovanni turns his stern face back towards you and holds out his own large hand. “Your hand.”

His voice is eerily serene but it locks your muscles with fear. Like an animal being hunted down, even with your hazy, sluggish mind you still recognise the danger crowding in.

But what’s the alternative?

Your hand shakes but you hold it out, setting your jaw taut.

“I reward loyalty,” Giovanni reminds evenly, grasping your hand in his. His hold feels so cold you shiver. “But you still killed ten able bodies. Bodies I will now have to replace.”

“Father—”

Giovanni jerks your hand, palm up, and sinks his cigar right into the skin of your palm, burning right through the thin bandage.

Agony.

Splitting, sickening agony—

A sound that tears out of your throat is hardly human but the man has your arm in an iron-like grip; unmoving, bruising. You collapse face-first onto the cot, your scream growing silent and choked as you jerk weakly, unable to swallow your own spit.

Your hand is numb from a piercing, acute sort of pain.

Giovanni hums under his breath, and you feel him turn the cigar into your skin, making you yelp and twitch. “I hope you live,” he states coldly and pushes the cigar deeper into your palm, just once, before he drops your hand back onto the sheets. “There are a great many things I can do with that ice in your heart, gasoline girl.”

You don’t hear him rise over the sound of your pain. Your hand is spasming but you can’t look at it, can’t focus—

The door slams shut with a deafening bang and then—

Someone is speaking; hushed and soft, their hands on you, almost—

You barely manage to pull yourself over the edge of the cot and throw up before everything goes dark.

. . .

You’re burning.

There is a raging fire in your lungs and veins.

Your head is being held under a liquid flame, and you inhale it as it slithers down your throat, suffocating you.

You want to drag your nails down your body to get rid of the burn but you can’t. Someone—

Someone is holding you down and your lips part, a wounded sound slipping free. Why can’t you just be free?

A heavy weight pushes down on you and you try to fight it off, try to—

“Stop moving,” a voice urges, breathless but annoyed. “Stop—”

You think that you might be crying or screaming or both.

You’re burning.

There is no relief.

Not for a long time.

. . .

“Will she live?”

“It’s hard to say right now. The infection—”

An inpatient exhale. “I know what her condition is,” an irritated voice snaps. “I want to know if she will live.”

“I will try my hardest to save her.”

A lengthy pause follows. “No,” the voice speaks again, but this time with such soft malice that you shiver again. “My father wants her alive and so she will live. Or you will find yourself without a head, dear doctor. As will your family.”

. . .

Cool fingers brush against your hair.

“Lucie?” you rasp weakly and try to open your eyes.

Everything blurs around you so you let them close again.

Sickness cramps your stomach and you shiver for what seems like the hundredth time.

Still, the sensation of a glass pressing against your lips registers. Urgent, insistent. “Drink.”

It’s an order. Spoken by someone who is used to being listened to, obeyed, heeded.

You don’t want to but you’re so thirsty. There’s a painful itch in your lungs and you inhale again, deafened by the crackling in your lungs. Whatever it is that you’re wearing clings to your body in a sweaty, uncomfortable mess and you almost sigh when those cool fingers return. They press against your cheek, turning your head and the glass returns.

This time, you force your cracked lips to part and refreshing wetness slides down your throat seconds later. Flinching, you force yourself to swallow. The sensation is like a knife being forced down your chest but you bear it.

The fingers tilt your chin. “Slowly.”

You manage another few, shaky mouthfuls before your strength escapes you.

“Are you—”

The fragility of your own cracking voice might have disgusted you once. There had been plenty of times in the past when you had seen and heard Fredricko peeling back peoples’ fingernails to get the information he needed. That often resulted in such weakness—such fragility. Now though—

“Are you…”

Something freezing cold and wet comes to rest against your forehead and you sigh, gasping slightly. A wet cloth. A miracle, perhaps. It soothes the burning and the itch. It trails down your forehead and jaw and neck. Brushes over your dry lips, too. You almost sob in relief, making a miserable little whine at the back of your throat.

“Are…”

A quiet hum. “Am I what?”

“An angel?”

The cloth disappears for a few moments and you curl into a ball, silently willing it to come back.

A few moments later, mercifully, it does. As does the voice. “No.”

You lean into the refreshing cold again. Try to hide your disappointment, too.

The cloth presses against your forehead and stays there. A beat. Then, fingers ghost over your tightly clenched hand. Your other hand—

There is only numbness there.

An odd sense of fear follows that foggy observation. Like you’re forgetting something you shouldn’t—something important.

The fingers are delicate and careful but they help. They pacify that nameless, gnawing dread.

“Would you like me to be?”

There is a long moment in which you have no idea what the voice is asking. But your muddy mind finally manages to claw back a recollection of your earlier question.

An angel.

You think that the owner of this voice is an idiot.

He no doubt thinks that you mean a guardian angel. Something holy, fierce, and divine.

But you had meant the Angel of Death. Finally here to take you. Finally here to reunite you with those you have lost.

But is there any difference anymore?

You’ve been half-dead and half-alive for years now.

A foot on the doorway to death ever since that fateful night. You have embraced it though. Bargained and stolen and killed. What you did for Lucie was just a fraction, you think through the delirium, just a fraction of what you can do.

You will turn that ice in your heart into a blade, and that blade you will use to cut down anyone in your path.

No half-measures, no mercy. You will be as terrible as they want you to be.

You will be the most terrible thing they have ever seen.

And when it’s done.

Oh, when it’s done.

You will set it all on fire and watch it burn.

“Yes.”

The fingers pause, hovering. Then they wrap around your still clenched hand. Slow but purposeful.

And the tightness of that grip makes you think that your hand will never be your own again.

. . .

an: wellllllllllllll, here’s that! Warning you all now that, yes, this story will get even more twisty and Santino/V will be hate-to...uh...love? We’ll see, I guess lol. Some familiar faces will appear in the future, too. And, uh, maybe some smuttiness is on the cards as well but you know how I roll - nothing too wild or explicit because this clown sucks at nsfw.

Also because I have no idea when or how often this mini-series will be updated, I will be opening up a tag list for this series ONLY (I rarely do them because they’re often more work than they’re worth). So please feel free to comment or send me a message and I’ll add you. Thank you so much for reading!! Any feedback would be swell. <33

#santino d'antonio x reader #santino d'antonio #john wick fic #john wick #john wick imagine #riccardo scamarcio #fic: flowing in me #s: i can wait

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joa-quin-phoe-nix-fan · 3 years

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I AM ALIVE Charlie Sisters FF/imagine

I AM ALIVE

You had begun to worry. Charlie had been gone for 6 months, with only 7 letters even giving you any proof that he was still alive. You sat near your window, in the open prairie, worrying away like you did every day, thinking about how he could be dead, he could be lost, he could be kidnapped by one of his targets, he might not see his baby be born. You rubbed your belly sadly, the time was drawing close, and you really wanted your baby to see its daddy. More than anything you wanted Charlie to see his baby. You couldn’t imagine life without Charlie, who would take you hunting every Sunday that he was home? Who would make you the best baked beans in the entire west coast? Who would make funny, rhyming names for things like a Mean-Bean or a Dorsie-Horsie? Who would help you with the baby? Who would love you like Charlie did? You sat there silently, wracking your mind of reasons why he hadn’t written in 2 months. All of them more worrying than the last, when you heard a knock at the door.

You jumped up as fast as you could in your condition, rushing to the door, hoping and praying to see Charlie’s smug face looking back at you, holding the money he earned from the Commodore, ready to sweep you off your feet, covering your face with kisses. Sadly, it wasn’t him. It was Rex, a colleague of Charlie’s that you knew to avoid most of the time, Charlie said he was a sleaze who took married women away from their husbands while they were away. Normally, when he came over, you could almost smell the desire coming from him, but this time he looked genuinely concerned, his eyebrows furrowed close together. “Hey there, um...Missus Y/N. Hav-have ya heard from Charlie recently?” you moved closer to the doorframe, hoping it was one of his womanizing schemes “Uh...no Rex, I haven’t.” You started to panic, “Why do ya ask? Did somethin’ happen to Charlie? Oh Lord please tell me this is just another plot of yers!” Rex waved his hands in front of him, defensively, “Woah, woah YN, please don’t get ya bloomers in a bunch! The commodore has just been askin’ ‘cus he ain’t heard from him in a while...and the last thing we recieved from him was this...” he handed you a leaf, and your heart jumped you knew that even if he ran out of paper, he was known to send leaves with letters written on them. You turned it over and gasped. On the other side of the leaf was written, in now dried blood; ‘I AM ALIVE” Rex sighed and held your shoulder gently, “and I promise ya darlin’ this ain’t no plot...we’re all worried about him, and by association, you.” Your stomach dropped. This was the worst situation you could’ve imagined for Charlie, him MIA in the dangerous wilderness, after some bloodthirsty criminal, with the last message from him being vague and written in blood. You breathed in sharply to hold in the tears, “I-I ain’t heard nothin’ from him, Rex...I’m sorry.” Rex sighed sadly and shook his head, “I’m the one who should be sayin’ that to you, Missus...I’m real sorry...” he bowed slightly, tipped his hat, and left. Looking sadder than a dog left out in the rain.

You closed the door, putting your back against it when it had shut. Tears filling up your eyes as you held you hand up to your mouth in shock and slid down slowly to the floor, the weight of that news hitting you like a ton of bricks. It was one thing for him to not update you on what was happening, but he never forgot to message the Commodore. Where was he? Maybe he was too far to send letters...yeah maybe that was it. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.

You woke up much later, still by the door, your eyes still stinging from crying yourself to sleep. It was dark out already. You grabbed the nearby stairwell railing to pull yourself up. You knew that the cows sure as hell were not gonna be pleased with how late you were but it’d be better if you milked them tonight, rather than have a cow-riot tomorrow morning. After you heaved yourself up again, you grabbed your gun, your bucket and a lantern, you walked outside, ready to vent to the cows about your day. It was a rather silly habit, but a habit that was strangely therapeutic and one that despite you being rather upset, seemed to calm the cows down...maybe they just liked hearing you talk.

As you walked to the cows, you saw what you assumed was a figure riding a couple acres away. You took no notice, thinking it was a lonesome hunter going back home after a long hunt. It was only after the first three cows that you realized that the sound of hooves hitting the dusty ground had gotten much closer. ‘It’s someone looking for Charlie!’ you thought as you jumped behind a bunch of hay bales, cocking your gun before they got close enough to hear you do it. You had no idea how much time had passed by the time you heard the hooves stop by the stables, the rider jump down, and hitch up his horse. ‘Why would a killer or a robber do that?’ you wondered to yourself, with your finger drifting off of the trigger as an impossible thought passed through your head, ‘is that Charlie?’

You heard him walk slowly and tiredly up on the porch, shuffling his feet as if removing them from the porch would mean that he would instantly tumble over. If this was Charlie, you had never seen him this tired and sad before. Then you suddenly heard the man drop to his knees, at this point you thought it wouldn’t hurt to just peek at the man, you looked up, seeing a man with significantly longer hair and a smaller build than Charlie, kissing your porch! At this point you knew for a fact that it wasn’t your husband so you jumped up, grabbing your gun and aimed it at the man as you quickly walked towards him. “You best be getting off ma porch! My husband’s a bounty hunter and if he were here, he’d kill you quicker than I gaddamned will!” You knew it was a bad idea to tell this stranger that you were home alone but because he looked so small and sickly, you knew you could hold your own in a fight against him. The man crawled back, his hands in front of his head, shaking like a leaf in a tornado. “please...listen to me. I ain’t who ya think i am...” he whispered, hoarsely. Even with the hoarseness, you knew that voice as if it was your own. You dropped the gun, running close to him and cupping your hands around his angular face, “Charlie? Oh my god, is that really you, honey?” Charlie nodded weakly, tears now running down his face like a waterfall. “yeah, it’s me darlin’...”

After a long moment of hugging each other and crying, you brought Charlie into the house, sure that he was cold and hungry. As he sat in his armchair, you truly saw the difference, the crease where the top of his head usually ended was miles above the small, unshaven man sitting in the chair. He looed like a tiny scared puppy in a doghouse built for a doberman. It would almost be hilarious if the situation wasn’t so serious. After giving him some bread, butter and chicken, that he scarfed down, almost choking as he did it, you started talking with him.

“W-where have ya been? I was worried sick...” you asked, hugging yourself and barely being able to even look at him in this situation, suddenly you remembered, reached into your pocket and pulled out the leaf letter and handed it to him, sitting down next to the chair, “and what...what is this?” he held the leaf weakly and sighed, defeated “I...was robbed...” he sighed, his voice only slightly less hoarse now, “My horse, my gun, my money, my paper and pens, my food, everything.” He stared off to space as he told his tale. “I barely begged hard enough to keep my clothes and the tiny shreds of my dignity that I had left. So I had to walk or crawl my way home. I ate wild animals and random leaves and berries I found. I got myself poisoned that way twice. I never took you out of my mind. When a man on a horse came past me and offered his help in exchange for my shoes, I didn’t ask for his horse, I simply asked him to send a letter to Oregon for me. That was the leaf. After he left me I realized my mistake and i kicked myself right there, but much further on I saw a horse lying on the ground, it honest to god looked dead. But it weren’t. I fed it half of the food I had scavenged and somehow it survived the last month of the journey. That’s the horse that’s outside, could ya maybe feed him? I named him Savior. He really helped me when I was at my worst.” This story was terribly sad, it rocked you to your core that he had gone through this all this time while you were at home, moping about how lonely you were. “I’m so sorry...if I had known I-” Charlie shushed you gently, stroking your hair, “You had no way of knowin’...I’m just glad you’re safe and alive, and that the baby hasn’t been born yet.” You giggled. Despite how sad the situation was, you were incredibly grateful that he was home and you loved how he could easily make a morbid situation even slightly humorous.

He stood up slowly, pulling you up at the same time. Once you were both standing fully (which took a while) he held you close to his chest. Despite him being much skinnier, he still stood quite a bit taller than you, he held your head up to his heart, it sounded much stronger and healthier than you expected. “It’s so loud...” you whispered to him, he chuckled lightly “It’s singing to you, ‘cause it knows you’re here...”

sorry if the ending is kind of short XD I still have no idea how to end stories correctly lol

#charlie sisters #charlie sisters x reader #joaquin phoenix imagine #joaquin phoenix #joaquin phoenix charlie sisters

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shinahbee · 3 years

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Premonition of future events

Hello!

so I wasn’t going to post anything this week since i’m currently working on something for next week, but this has something to do with what I’m planning to post next week so i thought I would share my thoughts.

so as you may be aware if you have read my monthly favorites posts for a while that I have been delving into BL- yaoi manhwa/manga and have been recommending some in those favorites. one of which I have not discussed yet, mainly because I have been saving it for Feb favorites so look forward to that when it comes out!

and I have been following some of the manhwa creators twitter just to see upcoming projects and updates on the current manhwa I am reading, I follow the creator of this manhwa called “ pearl boy” on twitter and she drew something today that really interested me and I decided to break down the symbolism within the art piece. If you have not read this manhwa, none of this will make any sense to you, but i’ll explain it in detail next week when I finish my art.

I love symbolism and foreshadowing within a story and this picture she drew is just that, given the events leading up to this point and I really wanted to take this apart and see what I can come up with.

if you have read this than please bare with me, these are my thoughts only and how i interpret the art from the creator and has nothing to do with how she portrayed her art work, so just a disclaimer. I'm just doing this for fun.

i’ll link her twitter post here:

https://twitter.com/inking_zoy/status/1363278273476579329

and i’ll post the picture here, this is from her twitter so all rights belong to inking_zoy, the author/ artist of pearl boy

like i mentioned above, if you have not read the story then this will not make sense to any of you,but basically the guy in the left is named doshik, the guy in the middle is thier boss...i forgot his name..they both call him boss so we will keep it a that, the guy on the right is named Juha, so i’ll refer to them with these names. It is a little hard interpret this picture without knowing details about the story which is still not revealed yet, we see glimpses of the events through juha’s flash backs, so before that, the story starts off with doshik apparently running away from people looking for him cause he stole someones money and fled to the country side, he ended up having spent all his money and didn't even have any to buy food, he then stumbled across a seafood hot pot place and wanted to try eating and running, there in the shop was the owner “ boss” and juha who is working as a server and cook. the boss noticed him being weird and told juha to keep an eye on doshik cause he might bail from paying for his food, and that honestly was going to happen until juha confronted him and asked to payback with labor, it wasn't addressed as to what doshik did as a living before fleding to the country side but he did work at pub so i believe he was a host / sex worker or just a host that does sexual favors, so when juha told him to pay back the money he owed with his “ body” he thought he meant sex. There was a series of events both very terrible and unfortunate to serendipitous that happened between juha and dooshik in their entanglement with each other and with the “ boss “ as well.

so it goes Boss ----> sexual abuse juha by making him work as a sex toy for old ugly bastards -----> juha has ability to produce pearls from his body...guess how. lol. i’m sorry this seems so absurd, but it is how the story goes, which the boss monopolizes him -----> juha can’t run away because he is scared and owes boss money ----> juha was about to be assaulted by the ugly bastards ---> doshik shows up and saves him a couple times and ends up working at the shop as a co worker----> juha and doshik get to know each other after doshik saves him a couple times -----> juha asks doshik to have sex with him ( in order to produce pearls for debt payment) ----> doshik discovers juha’s ability but thought it was beads coming out of his body...LOL. he actually thought he had kidney stones and was genuinely concerned -----> doshik had a pearl that he found at the beach earlier on and used it to compare to the bead that came out of juha and found out it as an actual pearl after getting it appraised by the bank person ----> juha met up with doshik and wanted to tell him he wanted to be sex partners cause he liked doing it with him ----> juha and boss confront each other and boss is angry he didn't show up meet his business partners that night that juha and doshik were together -----> juha says that he’s only going to pay it off by himself with his one partner, he didn't tell boss it was doshik, but i think he found out later.

alright that seems good enough as to where we are right now, i hope my summary made sense for the most part. Now getting back to the drawing let’s take it apart, so there is a body of water that divides juha and doshik, with the boss being in the middle. The boss is holding juha tight and some people may interpret this as him having feelings for juha. I don’t think that is the case, the reason why i believe he is holding him and not letting go is because he wants to monopolize him for his self gain, not for the sake of feelings, but to make sure that he is the only person he will be able to turn to. juha can produce pearls and he owes him money and he is using that to gain profit, that’s honestly all i see since his interactions with people strictly revolves around business deals, so once he found out that doshik might know of juha’s ability he began to come up with ways to remove them from each other, because he thinks if doshik knows the money that can come from the pearls he will use it to profit himself.

of course us as readers knows doshik is not like that and that he genuinely cares for juha. so Juha is separated by the boss holding on to him and it is symbolic to the events of his past being forced into a situation he can’t get out of. if you have watched any anime or drama , there is usually a scene where a person drowns, what do you think happens then when you drown? the obvious, you can’t breathe, you get light headed, your consciousnesses slips away, you feel cold, your surrounded by nothing but silence and darkness the deeper you sink. The boss is like a rock pushing juha further down the abyss and drowning him essentially, he made a comment in the newest chapter saying that “ you can never get away from me no matter how hard you try”. which says a lot about his obsession towards juha. This probably made juha feel like he will always be alone and everything he did will always be hopeless. 🤬

But as we all know there’s always a person who comes and rescues a drowning person at the last second before they become unconscious, which is why in the drawing juha is not completely submerged in water and his face is still on the surface of the water. And as we see doshik is on the other side of that division and is symbolic of life and living, where as when you drown only death awaits you. Doshik is also affectionately kissing and holding juha’s hand as if to say “ i’m here for you, we will get through this together” and is the only thing that is keeping juha from letting everything go and drown in his situation. This can also be interpreted as doshik giving air to juha as well which makes sense in the context of drowning. You can also use light and darkness as symbolism to this piece as well, the light being the surface and doshik who appears on the other side and in contrast the boss being in darkness beneath the water. Need less to say there’s so much symbolism in this one picture and it made me want write how i interpret this from what i’ve read so far and how it relates to how this is portrayed. I also find it ironic that in the early chapters doshik did actually almost drown and it was juha that chased after him and got him out when he fell unconscious in the water...and this picture here makes me believe that doshik will in turn save juha from drowning in his sorrows in the upcoming continuation of the story.

well that’s all that I wanted to say, I hope what I wrote made sense and that you understood for the most part why i believe this is a premonition of whats to come. Most people who don’t know this story will just think its a picture of three dudes having a threesome and that is not it.lol. I’m curious as to how other people interpret this, i’ve read one so far and she had a similar analogy to how i interpreted the art, so i guess i’m not too far off.

hopefully you all enjoyed reading this, it was fun for me, since I’m currently bleeding out of my ass and procrastinating doing other things and a little pissy from having certain stupid memes flooding my Instagram. I hope you all are interested in reading pearl boy after this if you have not...obviously be over the age of 18 since it does deal with mature themes!

hope you enjoyed reading! give this a like if you want to see my fan art for this series next week!

see you all then.

sheena

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social media:

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Deviantart: she-be.deviantart.com

Instagram: shinb_art

Tumblr: shinahbee

#shounen ai #manhwa review #pearl boy #yaoi manhwa #bl manhwa #boys love #symbolism #korean manhwa

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spitandfroth · 3 years

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What’s Going On

Going to do my update in sections i think. Been a while since i posted. I don’t think any bugger reads them but it helps me clear my head. If you do read this then drop it a like so i know someone listened to my rambling <3

Christmas & New Year

I spent Christmas day with my dad at his house. I got spoilt by my dad and he genuinely looked happy seeing my face as i opened them. Think it took him back to me being a kid. He got me some massive cups, a set of sparkly cutlery, a little santa pot with a plant in, a puzzle book, candle & a coca cola puzzle (mainly liked for the tin). Plus he is paying for my cooker to be installed. He made me a delicious dinner and made enough so my partner had a dinner when he arrived later that day. I love my dad so much. He puts so much effort into making sure i am happy. I have had a hard time last couple of weeks and he has rang regularly to check up on me. I am thankful that my dad and i have become close again. I needed my dad in my life.

My partner arrived later that day and again he had spoilt me rotten! I got everything i wanted and more :) I enjoyed watching him open his presents too. One of them was a complete surprise. It was a massive Vosper ship model for him to make. He genuinely looked chuffed to bits with it. He posted to his facebook model group (think it's called mediocre modellers) and it got nearly 200 likes and a fair few comments saying i am a keeper lol He is so lucky to have me haha We had a nice xmas day night together.

Boxing Day i made a delicious roast gammon dinner and filled our tummies to bursting! Tyson got a dinner too of course! My partner was here for 3 nights and went home monday in the morning. I miss him madly and it'll be a couple of weeks till i see him again. I feel tremendous guilt that i couldn't afford to buy the grandkids their presents, i will explain why later but i feel fucking useless. I will have to spoil them on their birthdays.

Overall Christmas was a lovely time and the best Christmas i have had in quite some time.

New Year was spent with my sister, her boyfriend & their cat, Faerie. We took 5g of cubes each and got a bit of a buzz but nothing major. Was just a nice night in with my best friends. I smoked a blunt and now have a sore throat lol We laughed lots and that’s one thing i am so grateful for, they never fail to make me chortle. We take the piss and we’ve all got a dark sense of humour. My sister’s boyfriend is only 19 but the age gap doesn't matter 99% of the time, occasionally i might not get a reference but they always explain to the old granny if i don’t get it lol I love them to pieces <3

That’s the good stuff now for the bad....

A few days before Christmas DWP took my PIP & my ESA Disability premium away from me. Apparently i am not disabled any more despite claiming for over 10 years.

This has obviously affected my mood significantly and through Xmas i tried to put it on the back burner so i didn’t ruin Christmas with my bad mood. I cried a lot, i mean even now i have tears in my eyes cause i am now on money that is literally covering my bills. My partner has kindly said he will top up my money with £100 a month so i can afford to eat and my dad and sister said they will help where they can. As a result of this dramatic loss of money i have got to give up vaping and weed. I simply can’t afford it. I am reducing my nicotine through my last 4 bottles and by the end of this week i will have stopped all together. I have vaped my last bit of weed and from now on it'll just be what my sister can spare when she is here. To give up both in one week is going to be testing but alas i have no choice.

I will be appealing the decision made by DWP as from the decision letter it is very clear they have only taken on board my physical health and not my mental health which is what i require the most care for. I rely on my sister and my partner to do so much for me. I literally can’t afford to go to appointments on the money i am now on. I try and give my sister money each month to pay for the fuel she uses fetching things for me. That’s got to stop. My partner needs money now and again for fuel to come and see me and be able to do my care too. I am really going to struggle. My bills are higher cause i am home all day, i have to buy microwave meals and quick food as i don’t cook for myself and that's mental and physical reasons. i forget to eat, no motivation to cook, even putting a meal in a microwave is too much some days. I require so much care, might not be physically being there but they have to remind me to just fucking breathe some days.

But i am not disabled, apparently and no longer require care. DWP are cocks for putting me in this situation and it could be months before i get the mandatory reconsideration decision and if i fail at that hurdle i then have to go to tribunal for a proper appeal. They are ruining my life.

If for any reason someone who deals with DWP claims is reading this then please get in touch as i could do with some help. Thank you x

I will be ok. I always am but i know i am going to go through a lot of shit before it gets better. I am not looking forward to that. I have lots of support and love around me so i am not alone in my fight. It will get better :) x

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psychicprincesscreation · 4 years

Text

NUANCE

Edit 7 (7/12): I didn't realize I kept breaking the link when I was trying to come up with a good title lol my bad.

Last two titles: "I'm not your bass-slut anymore." (That didn't exactly fit the narrative.)

"Don't fuck your idols. :)"

Since everyone is talking about accountability, let me put it succinctly: I was 22, this was consensual for me, I was a "groupie" who knowingly emotionally cheated on my then-bf with Bassnectar for months, I broke it off & moved out because I expected more from the relationship than I ever got.

As one person on IG stated: I was just a groupie whose fantasy didn't go the way I wanted it to. Lol it's true, but that isn't the whole story.

I know it's easy to focus on how I was "old enough to know better" and the harmful choices that I made, but don't forget that Bassnectar actively pursued me even after finding out about my boyfriend -- I'm sure he wouldn't have had any problem finding a single girl to talk to instead, given his stature.

He offered me concert tickets, plane tickets, money to buy an apartment, he told me to email him as often as possible, he told me to keep everything a secret and to lie to my boyfriend over and over.

He tried to "save" me with controlling advice about eating, sleeping, not partying (ironic, considering that he is a DJ) not pursuing music journalism, not hanging out with any male friends whatsoever, where I "should" work. This was all before we ever met in person.

People don't realize how hard it is to say no to your idols, especially when they are CONSTANTLY offering gifts that I considered very extravagant at my age.

This wasn't a normal affair; I had absolutely nothing to offer Bassnectar but myself, yet he spoke to me like I was a star. He told me we could "go deep" and that he wanted to "mate" with me.

Of course my dumbass young-adult drug-addled mind is going to fall in love with the idea of him.

CONSENT IS NOT DEFINITIVE. I didn't consent to a relationship as two normal people sneaking around. I became a cheating asshole who was misled by a rich & famous liar. I never said what I did was right -- in fact, I made it very clear that I did something wrong, too.

I also said that my story is NOT as bad as the other accusers'. I absolutely do NOT think that I had it worse than anyone else. I think my story is important because it shows that his behavior wasn't limited to people underage.

Hopefully my candor denotes honesty and by admitting my faults in this situation, people can see that Bassnectar's emotional manipulation was real and calculated, and most certainly did not start or end with me.

Side note: Apparently Bassnectar DOES cuddle... I guess he just didn't want to cuddle me that night. Ouch! :)

Edit 6 (7/12): Too many typos to fix so I'm just leaving them now lol. Added detail.

Edit 5 (7/12): Just because I say I'm slutty and I like sluts, doesn't mean every girl/women who was involved with Bassnectar is a slut. I'm just owning that label to change MY narrative for MYSELF. I really don't think there's anything wrong with being slutty -- it's always the rest of the world that has a problem.

I wrote this stream-of-consciousness, so I wanted to mention that sometimes my statements that involve other women may seem brusque, but I'm on the women's side. I mean to convey disdain for the way Bassnectar treated us (as a secret "harem",) rather than jealousy or annoyance toward the women. I hope it comes off that way, but I don't know who is reading this and how some might interpret my words.

Edit 4 (7/10):

Removed names. A story mentioned in this post wasn’t true. Either just a lie (to make someone look bad,) or I don’t remember it properly ‘cause it’s been so long. If it was my fault: my bad.

Edit 3 (7/7):

FIXED SOME TYPOS!

Edit 2 (7/7):

I like sluts. Stop making us feel bad for wanting love *and sex, too.

Another thought: Bassnectar probably pursued a relationship with me because I had a boyfriend. Therefore, I would be more secretive and would have to take some of the responsibility and guilt in this situation, too. And that is true. I do feel guilty about the lying and sneaking. I think that it was inevitable that I would break up with my then-boyfriend, but it really wasn’t Bassnectar’s place to accelerate the break-up by giving me the impression that Bassnectar would be my boyfriend instead. This wasn’t friendly advice given to me by someone older, this was tactical. It makes me wonder if a lot of girls/women don’t want to come forward because they are afraid that the truth will come out about their own affairs?

Don’t be afraid to tell your story because women-hating assholes try to dissect and expose your secrets in an attempt to discredit you! Bassnectar is the one who needs to be exposed for HIS indiscretions -- this is about what HE did wrong. Edit 1 (7/7):

- Bassnectar told me that he was coming to NYC and because we had an online relationship, I thought that he was coming to see me. My friend told me today that Gov Ball 2013 was the same weekend, so I think he may have actually been in NYC for that reason (I don’t think he was scheduled to play on the flyer,) but I was delusional about it. - I removed the screenshot of his phone number from the post because I don’t want to violate any doxx rules. I am still willing to compare this phone number with other women/accusers to corroborate our stories. :) - This is my story told from my perspective. I was an adult and I’m not posting this with the intent of legal action, or revenge (although I do admit that this relationship was devastating and heartbreaking for me.) I just want people to know what kind of person he is. - My story is not as harrowing as some of the other accusers’, but that doesn’t make it invalid. - Even now, reliving everything hurts me and I wish I could say that it was real, but now that I’m older I am wise enough to know that it was all lies. - I stand with the women who Bassnectar has hurt in similar, or worse, ways.

----

My relationship was short-lived, but it was so eventful for me that I remember it clearly. I'm mentioning many minuscule details because I think that could help prove the validity of other victims' stories.

Writing in bullet points because it's easier for me to sort through the memories. I'm calling him Bassnectar because the "Lorin" I was talking to is someone that I feel hurt and appalled by now.

• I don't have social media/email screenshots because I deactivated my Facebook and Twitter years ago. Bassnectar asked me specifically to delete our emails because his "girlfriend had caught him" and asked me to get rid of the evidence because she was "demolished." (I will go into a bit more detail about that later on.) • I don’t have a “smoking gun” that skeptics are looking for, but that’s what happens when someone asks you to keep everything a secret and delete everything that shows you were communicating.

----

• This happened in 2013 over many months, plus Bassnectar texted me a few times about once a year after our "relationship" ended. • I was 22 at the time. I'm from NYC and frequently went to clubs, shows, events, and festivals with my then-boyfriend (who I lived with) & the same group of friends. • Bassnectar was one of our favorite artists and we'd seen him perform several times in several states. • My friends had a private Facebook group where we'd tell each other about shows and make arrangements to travel/meet up/stay over each other's places. • I was very interested in music journalism at the time and occasionally wrote show reviews for my friend's online music magazine. • I actively used Twitter. I basically tweeted at every DJ we liked, and always posted reply screenshots in our private Facebook group to share with my friends. • Things became complicated with my then-boyfriend, but we still lived together. We had recently gotten back together around the first time Bassnectar DM'd me on Twitter.

• Bassnectar responded to a Twitter pic I posted of our mini-fridge with a Bassnectar logo sticker and said that he "liked my fridge" or something. • I screenshotted this and posted it in my group because he was the biggest artist who had responded to me at that point. • I thought I could use this as an opportunity to interview him for my friend's mag. • After I already posted the screenshot in my group and had responded to his DM, he sent another message asking me not to screenshot him because he "hates that." • I deleted the screenshot from the friend Facebook group. I stopped screenshotting and sharing our conversations with my FB group immediately after he asked. • I continued to chat with Bassnectar via Twitter and said that I was a big fan of his merch and that I bought several things at all the shows I've attended. • I asked to interview him at some point in the conversation, and he skirted over the request. • Instead, he gave me his email (bassnectar2012) and asked me to send him merchandise ideas. • I slapped together a few simple, quick ideas on Photoshop or something and sent them to him.

(I don’t know how to embed a picture on Tumblr lol -- will update.) • You can see that the image I sent is no big deal, and all the files were similar, but he responded as if they were the greatest things he had ever seen. He definitely made me feel special and talented. • We emailed regularly and relatively frequently for days. • Emails are exchanged back-and-forth and eventually I asked to interview him again and he agreed. • I gave him my number and he called me. My then-boyfriend was aware that I was in contact with Bassnectar, with my original intention of interviewing him. • My then-bf was in the room when Bassnectar called me for the first time. • Bassnectar didn't want to be interviewed; he wanted to get to know me. I agreed to just chat at first. • He told me not to call him Bassnectar because that was his "band" and that I should call him Lorin. • At some point he asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him no, even though things were complicated with my then-bf and we were technically together. > I know I'm going to be chastised for doing this, but I've learned years ago that I made a bad choice. Honestly, I still wanted an interview, and I am well-known for leading with my sexuality. This is when I started becoming deceitful with my then-partner. Simply put, I was just more enticed by the idea of advancing my career, and eventually the allure of potentially being Bassnectar's girlfriend, so lying seemed best. Just because I’m flawed, too, doesn’t mean Bassnectar did nothing wrong.

• My then-bf confronted me about not saying that we were together. I felt guilty and the next time I spoke to Bassnectar, I confessed that I was back together with my then-boyfriend and I wasn't single. (I don't remember if it was via text or voice call.) • Bassnectar was upset that I lied, but continued to talk to me nonetheless through text and email.

• He made me feel like my writing was profound and touching, and that we were falling in love. • He would tell me that he wanted to "bring me the sun," or "get me a puppy." He said things that were romantic and poetic and I felt heartened to respond to what I thought was love. • He said he had $10,000 in his mattress and he wanted to get me an apartment in NYC, so I didn't have to live with my then-bf anymore. • He would text me before and sometimes immediately after he played shows then say he was going to sleep by like 12am (typically.) It was easy to keep up with where he was playing via social media. • He offered to fly me to his show in Red Rocks so I could attend. (I didn't accept.)

• He called me from time-to-time and told me not to tell my then-bf who I was speaking to. • One day he had me call a different phone number, which he said was his "home phone." • He told me a story about a beautiful girl named (removed)? Who he had a falling out with because she mentioned that Bassnectar told her that he didn't like Steve Aoki. (I don't remember that story in detail -- I think he was telling me so I wouldn't tell other people when he talked about other artists.) > Edit (7/10): This person messaged me to say that’s not what actually what happened between them. • One day I was speaking to Bassnectar on the phone and didn't answer when my then-bf called on his way home from college classes (I always answered right away.) He asked who I was speaking to and I admitted "Lorin."

• When I called Bassnectar back, he became annoyed that I told the truth and said that I should tell my then-bf that I meant my girlfriend Lauren instead. • I began to sneak around more, lie more often about who I was speaking to on the phone, and texted or emailed Bassnectar almost every single day. • He said we should skip Camp Bisco 2013 and just spend time together. (Obviously anyone who attended Camp Bisco knows that didn't actually happen lol.) • He was flirtatious, charming, and always offered me tickets to events, or sometimes to fly me to where he was. I didn't accept any of this then.

• He told me that I shouldn't do any drugs, not even smoke weed. All of my friends were casually experimenting back then, and I was equally as candid as I am now about everything I did. He told me not to do drugs at his shows, or any shows, and especially not around guy friends. • Me and my friends traveled to see a show in Philly and stayed with friends. When I texted saying I was mostly with guys (my friend group was mostly guys at the time,) he asked if I "felt safe" and offered to get me a hotel. I thought it was unusual because I always felt very protected by my male friends. • He told me that I shouldn't hang out with guy friends, or have guy friends at all. • He told me that guy friends all wanted to sleep with me and I didn't realize it. • He told me I should eat healthier and exercise regularly -- it was very weird and controlling. He just didn’t want me to be myself. • He told me that he had a girlfriend who had two abortions. I think because we were talking about relationships? • He told me that he grew up in a hippie commune and was Christian and he questioned his priest and that his mom was a poet laureate. It just seemed like he wanted me to get to know him at the time. • He told me I was co-dependent with my boyfriend and that I needed to become independent and move out. • He told me I should make lists of my life goals as an independent person and email it to him. • He told me not to tell anyone about us talking. I told all of my girl friends, but it was a "girl code" situation and none of the guys or my then-bf knew what was going on. • We talked A LOT and often, but all of this only happened in a matter of months.

• Time passes and our emotional affair eventually becomes physically intimate when he says that he is going to fly to NYC. This is JUNE 2013! He played at Electric Zoo 2013, but that wasn't until Labor Day, so I'm not sure why he really needed to go to NYC, but it definitely wasn't for a show because me and my friends would have been there. > NOTE (7/7): My friend read this and mentioned that Gov Ball 2013 was the weekend before, so there is a good chance that Bassnectar was already in NYC for some reason and didn't actually come to see me personally like I was led to believe. lol.

• He alleged that he would see me again around Labor Day when he came back for EZoo, too.

• I am from Staten Island, and wasn't totally familiar with Manhattan's layout at the time, but I think that the hotel he was staying at was in Midtown. It's been 7 years since this happened, but I tried my damnedest today to figure out exactly which hotel it was -- there are soo many in that area alone. • If Bassnectar says any of this isn't true, then he's lying because there will definitely be a plane ticket or something with his name on it to NYC in JUNE 2013. > NOTE (7/7): I thought he was there to see me specifically, so the dates he told me was staying in NYC are probably not 100% accurate, but there is definitely some proof somewhere on his end that he came to NYC for whatever reason. The lies he told me are just coverup to make me lose credibility if this ever came out.

• He said he had a hotel for three days. I think it was a Mon-Wed? I took off work those days so I could see him everyday that he said he would be in NYC. If he has no record of checking into a hotel around the time I'm citing, then his manager probably did it for him. I believe his name is Carlos. (I'm going by the memory of what Bassnectar told me.)

• Bassnectar met me in person at the Staten Island Ferry (Manhattan side) and we walked to Battery Park and sat on a bench and talked. • I felt extremely shy and awkward because I knew that by meeting up in-person, I had given up with my now-ex. The whole thing was conflicting and unfair to so many people, but it was too late now. • Bassnectar frequently complimented me in person. He said things like, he was dying to smell my neck, that he loved my wrists because they were delicate like a bird's frame. • He said that he felt self-conscious that he would be recognized because he's used to being recognized in crowds. • He would pet and caress me, but didn't try to kiss me in public. • He told me that he got his hair washed at a hair salon and he gave the hair dresser a ($50 or $100?) tip and looked in the window to see her reaction and she was crying because she was so happy. • He convinced me to go back to his hotel. We took a cab there. It didn't take that long, which is why I'm convinced it was Midtown. He never told me which hotel it was, but I didn't realize it was actually because he didn't want a trail back to him. I guess it worked.

(I'm about to get very detailed about my memories, so trigger warning for making people feel uncomfortable.)

• When we got to his hotel, he became physical with me very quickly, but he said he wouldn't kiss me first. That I had to do it first. So I did. • It progressed into kissing, cuddling, him touching me all over in bed with our clothes on. He dirty-talked a lot. I also remember that he moaned and grunted a lot, and I wasn't used to any of that. • At one point, I untied his hair and let it down and he joked that I was making sure he was really Bassnectar and not his assistant that I was meeting. • He told me about his go-go dancer friend who had fake boobs. I can't remember why. • I remember him kissing me against the wall, and he said something like, I want to fuck you against the wall and hold you up with only my dick. It was way too specific to forget. (It didn't happen, though.) • We inevitably had full-on sex after the on/off touching/kissing/talking. • He said he didn't want to wear a condom at first, but he thought he should. We did, but it felt like a test to see what I would say. • I remember that he wanted me to have an orgasm, and I instructed him which position worked best for me. • He orgasmed by having sex with me from behind and asked me to look back at him. I remember him draping his long hair over my back. How could I forget that? -_- • One of my girl friends texted me ("How are you plants doing?" was our code phrase) to check in and make sure I was okay because she knew where I was. It was monumental for me, so I told her it was great. • I sat on his lap while he looked at his laptop. • We had these deep conversations about life, and love, and the future and it seemed so real to me at the time. • I remember that I told him I was unsure if we could be boyfriend/girlfriend because he was so much older than me (I think he was 35 at the time?) • He told me about about a girl he loved named X who was also around my age. I didn't think it was that weird because I was convinced he still really liked me best, but he probably had so many "Xs" and I was just another one. • At some point, he commented on Facebook (or Twitter?) in response to someone saying he was Illuminati. Honestly, it was like we were two people hanging out because of how normal everything felt after the sexual tension was gone.

• I remember having dinner with him at the restaurant across the street and talking about wanting to be a writer and he said I CAN'T WRITE ABOUT HIM EVER. (So it wasn't normal after all.)

• I remember, back at the hotel, he asked me perverted questions like, can you show me how you make yourself orgasm? He asked me to just demonstrate on his hand so he knew what to do next time. • I don't remember much more because I wasn't planning to stay. • My other girl friend had a job interview that day and we decided to meet at the ferry to take it home together. • On my way out, he walked me to the elevator and he gave me $50 to take a cab to the ferry and to use for a cab when I came back to see him tomorrow. (For my fellow New Yorkers who doubt this story, no, that wasn't enough fare for both trips, so the amount is definitely the truth lol.)

• I went to see Bassnectar again the next day. When I asked him for the hotel address or name, he wouldn't give it to me directly. He said it was because of people stalking him or something. I don't fucking know but it was obvious confusing bullshit and I think he gave me an address that was about a block away. I think he even said he would tell the cab driver the address over the phone. There was a lot of runaround to avoid saying the exact address. (Now the reason why seems obvious.) • My details are a bit fuzzy at this point because I remember meeting him outside the hotel and going up together, but I forget why we met outside and why we were both confused about which street the other person was standing on. • We went up to the hotel room, he worked on music on his laptop, while I sat on his lap and read Trainspotting on my Kindle. • He let me listen to what he was working on, but I don't remember it. I just remember that he was working with female vocals. • He told me he had to meet his guy friend in Williamsburg because his friend was making him lobster. Looking back, it was probably another girl.

• I asked to stay because I wanted to spend more time with him. I texted my now-ex-bf (who I still lived with) that I was staying with my friend. • Bassnectar said that normally he would say no, but for some reason he agreed and left me in the room with the room key and all his stuff. He either really trusted me, or really trusted how much control he had over me to leave me with his laptop. • I left at one point to get pizza, and came back. I watched TV, but couldn't sleep. He got back some hours later and he was drunk off wine, but I just wanted to cuddle and sleep. • He jokingly thanked me for not stealing his things. • Apparently Bassnectar DOESN'T cuddle and made that a point, but he did sleep in bed with me for a bit, before moving to the other bed in the middle of the night. (There were two beds in this hotel room.) • For anyone else who had sleepovers with Bassnectar, you know that he sleeps with his own fans for the white noise. So we slept in separate beds with his own personal fans on. It was all very bizarre. • We didn't have sex this day at all.

• The next morning I went to Duane Reade while he was still sleeping so I could get toiletries and shower since the sleepover was impromptu. • He had a meeting with someone (manager?) who was supposedly coming to stay in the room later that evening? (It was probably another girl though? idk)

• When he got back, he made me go over the list of accomplishments and goals he asked me to email to him. • He told me that I shouldn't be worried about finding someone to be in love with and it should be a lower priority on my list. • He told me that I should get a job at a restaurant or American Apparel or something and get a shitty starter apartment with only girls. • He said that finding an apartment that was pet-friendly shouldn't be a priority at all. I had a pet cat so if I moved out, that meant I would have to leave my cat behind, but that didn't matter to him. • He told me that if I wanted a serious boyfriend, I shouldn't let him see my legs or have sex with him for a long time. • When he finished life-coaching me, we watched a movie together. • He chose Spring Breakers because he was supposedly asked to do the musical score for it and turned it down (that's what he told me.) • At one point in the movie, Vanessa Hudgens jokingly gestures to her friends that she's giving a blowjob, and Bassnectar said he "didn't understand why girls sucked dick." • We had sex once more, more quickly than the first time and with much less romance. I can't remember much because I just remember feeling sad about leaving soon and like he was blowing me off suddenly. • We took a shower together after.

• I packed up my stuff and before I left he gave me $1000 in cash without warning and told me I could use it to help put a down payment for an apartment or something, but I should pay him back because it would be "good for me." > Looking back, when he left for a short while that morning, it was probably to take out cash to give me when I left. • He didn't walk me to the elevator this time and he sat on his laptop while I left feeling very cheap, stupid, and crushed.

• Time passes and we talk less and less. I'm heartbroken, but still make moves to find a job and move out of my ex's ASAP. • I email Bassnectar a diatribe saying I'm feeling hurt and abandoned. I say that I felt betrayed that he made me think we were essentially going to be together after I left my boyfriend and it turned out to be all lies. • I'm having lunch with friends when he calls me and is angry saying that he told me what I should do to make my life better and that he can't just give me a job or do anything for me and that I need to do things for myself. • My friends walk over to the car where I'm on the phone and when I say I'm ready to go, he asks who I'm speaking to and I say, "my friends." • He yells at me and asks why I'm talking to him on the phone when my friends are around (he asked if he could call and I said it was okay, I didn't know we were supposed to be alone.) I tell him I will call him back. • I text him and ask to call back and his mood flipped and he's suddenly super kind and apologetic and tells me he just wants me to be independent. He reminds me that I'M the one who told HIM that he was too old for me and we can't be boyfriend and girlfriend. • I am heartbroken all over again, but I move on with my life and move out within the next month or so.

> I actually did get a waitressing job as per his suggestion and saved money from that + the grocery store I already worked at and moved to BK by August 2013. I didn't use the money he gave me at first because I thought it was a reason for us to see each other again, and I was afraid to spend it in case I couldn't earn enough to pay him back by the time I saw him. (I never saw him again, though.) > In case you're wondering, I did spend it eventually when I started to resent him for blowing me off.

• I speak to Bassnectar very rarely, and only via text. He doesn't call anymore, even when I ask. • One day while I'm at work, he sends me a video of a beach he's supposedly vacationing at. • When we DO speak, he asks for nudes, usually. • When I send them, he says he feels guilty since “he has a girlfriend” and that we should stop. • Contact is so infrequent, when we catch up about my life, he gets annoyed if I mention I'm seeing any guys, but I never think he really cares because he stopped caring about me a long time ago. (If he ever did at all.)

• I still tried for months to maintain any kind of relationship with him because I truly thought we had something special, but he was always too busy for me. It fucking sucked because he was always in the back of my mind now that I was *~independent~* like he said he wanted me to be so many times.

• One random day when I was too busy to chat with him, I remember he actually DID call me because he said he lost a sound file and wanted me to record myself saying "I really like it." A few times to use on a track. I guess I took too long to get back bc 15 mins later, he texted to say he got it from someone else. I couldn't do it anyway because I was dealing with some other personal stuff. I forgot about it soon after. • I didn't listen to the album NSVB for a long time after it came out bc I was still hurt, but when I did.... I heard that fucking sound bite in whatever song it's on (I really don't care to know) and it fucked me up. • I was conflicted thinking, shit, did I blow my last chance for "us" ? I was still hung up on this asshole as if he were just some ex because of that emotional manipulation. • Would that have solidified what we supposedly had? Or would that have just been another way he used me? I began to resent him.

• Fast forward a few months and I'm drunk with my girl friend at home and text Bassnectar for the lols. I say that I should ask him for tickets to BASSLIGHTS 2013 in VA to make up for him being such an asshole. • Surprisingly he agrees on the condition that I only go with girl friends, don't do any drugs, and say that the Tix are left for me because I interviewed him. (Don't forget that no interview ever happened!)

• Before Basslights, he texts me and even asks me what songs he should play and I don't realize he's just stringing me along. Presumably it was just another plot to hook up. • Before we leave for VA, my friend who is driving admits that one of her OTHER friends secretly knows Bassnectar so we might be able to get into some party or backstage. Sooooo I guess she was another one of his "harem" that he was having a secret relationship with. (I don't mean anything negative towards that girl/woman, just that Bassnectar probably saw us this way and was playing *at least* the two of us at this time.) • My friends and I drive from NYC to VA and miss Bassnectar's set the first night because we arrived late, but the Tix were waiting for me at the box office. • If you get Bassnectar's guest list for Basslights 2013, my real name is on there. I'm sure a lot of other girls he manipulated are on there, too. • Bassnectar texts me and asks what I think of the show and I say I missed it. • He says he was thinking of me a lot during the show. • He texts me saying I should let him "vroom vroom in my girl power." Obviously he's alluding to sex, and I show the text to the friend who was at my place when I asked him for the Tix. He won't send a cab to get me at my hotel when I say sure, though, because he "has a girlfriend" again and he would feel bad. Maybe he was annoyed that I missed his set, maybe he picked someone else, maybe he actually was with his gf? Whatever. • I told him I didn't feel comfortable texting like that anymore because he said he had a gf. • He tells me I'm a good person.

• I am so hurt that I don't answer his texts at all anymore. • We go to Basslights night 2 and I get suuuuper fucked up with my friends (because fuck him) and have an awesome time and disassociate Bassnectar from his controlling bullshit. • I ignore him all the way back to NYC and just text to say I'm home. • He sends me an URGENT text saying that his gf suddenly found out about his gross infidelity and begs me to please delete all of our emails and texts. • I'm stupid and kind and fucking over him so I do it. He knew I would because he knew I was too nice of a person not to. • Bye bye evidence, though. :( I regret deleting those emails even now because I knew this misconduct shit would come out eventually with him.

• LOTS OF TIME PASSES. Now and again, Bassnectar would text me just to say what's up and I'd barely respond. This only happened approximately once a year. • I'm pretty sure this was just to make sure he was on my good side and there wasn't a chance that I was going to expose him. • I think the last time he texted me first was all the way back in 2016.

• The last few times we spoke were when he had a cancer scare and I texted to say sorry. • When I went to Moonrise Festival, I asked if we could meet and he blew me off. It's been so long, I didn't really expect him to say yes, but it was worth a try. • When me and my friends went to Electric Zoo and he closed, I texted him saying that we couldn't hear well from where we stood and left early. I think he was offended because he replied saying that no one else complained. • The last time I spoke to him, I knew he was playing at an event near me and asked for tickets again so I could see him and he said he would be with his girlfriend. It was a one-off thing and I thought it was worth the try. •There were no cordial conversations in-between the times I contacted him at all. Just me being lonely and single and still hanging on to this idyllic version of him that never fucking existed in the first place.

• I'm much older now and I know that a lot of this happened because of choices I made, but I was 22, starstruck, in a confusing relationship, partying, and desperate for an ethereal love that I sought in that music scene.

• I bet Bassnectar specifically targeted girls like me because (at least in my case) I was depressed, pumped full of mind-altering chemicals, pretty, and lonely. He acted like I was a unique, artistic, lost soul and he made me believe that he was the only one who could save me.

• At 22, you don't realize that a man 13+ years older than you shouldn't be asking you to keep your conversations a secret from everyone, asking you for nudes, asking you to lie to/break up with your boyfriend, inviting you to hotels, offering you gifts, and straight up giving you cash that you didn't ask for.

• But that man DEFINITELY knows he's doing something wrong, otherwise he wouldn't be sharing that hush money with you, or asking you to hide and delete everything.

• Because he would text me once in a while saying something like, "You cross my mind all the time," it would be enough for me to hang on to this hope that *maybe* there was still a chance. I couldn't see that it was just another manipulation tactic that worked well on me because I was still feeling the effect of the emotional annihilation from so long ago. :(

• I loathe how he made me feel for so long and it breaks my heart to know that there are so many other girls who were taken advantage of in worse ways by this egotistical LIAR in his position of power. Seriously, Bassnectar, fuck you.

ALSO: not sure if this was his burner phone or what, but here are the last two digits of the # he always contacted me with (sent in the DM). If any other victims want to corroborate by comparing numbers... Let me know.

(I REMOVED THE SCREENSHOT OF THE PHONE NUMBER IN CASE IT VIOLATES ANY DOX RULES, BUT I CAN SEND IT TO YOU DIRECTLY IF YOU ARE CONTACT WITH ME!) :)

---

#eab #bassnectar #metoo

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neshabeingchildish · 4 years

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Thunderstruck Birthday Girl

This is basically just self indulgent Charlotte love showering. I generally write Charlotte as an April Taurus, because of when her birthday episode aired, so I figured this is around the time that I can just do a little cute, fun, show of love and stuff, and also give her a chance to get some nice things. It is mostly just filler, but does have at least one important piece of story and I’ll get back to the crucial parts with the next installment. Tagging, so I don’t get fussed at lol @kiddangers @adorkable-blackgirl @chenoahchantel @famousflowermagazine I THINK that’s it? Sorry if there was someone else.

Share-a-Lair 16

Charlotte liked a lowkey birthday. Usually, she had brunch and cake with her parents and spent it with the guys in the evening. This year, Max made a bunch of plans for her, and she was curious to see how well he would do with this, so she planned to have brunch with her parents and told the guys that she would touch base with them later in the night. At some point during making plans, the boys got competitive via casual conversation and so she was told that they were going to have a bake off and that as the birthday girl, she would be able to determine who baked the best cake. “So, you’re gonna have like four cakes?” Max asked.

“Knowing the guys, not a single one of the cakes that they plan on making will make it, whether due to calamity or them just eating all of the cake.” But, if there was cake, she was definitely having some of each.

After brunch, Max picked her up from the bistro, not really being that concerned that she wasn’t introducing him to her parents yet. He got a glimpse of them hugging her before leaving and they seemed extremely intimidating. He already didn’t like parents and hers were both successful in their own right and high maintenance from what he understood. Even the bistro that they were at was an exclusive place. Each guest had a personal server, and whenever the Pages came through, their Jamaican chef was given access to the kitchen to prepare their meals for special occasions. This morning, Charlotte had been presented with an authentic Jamaican breakfast and bottomless brunch drinks. Max couldn’t recall ever having had a brunch, much less one in an exclusive bistro, with a personal chef, personal server, and access to all of the bar.

Superhero life paid extremely well, but it was more of a trade off, since one’s body and health was on the line with each mission. Charlotte’s father was a physicist and spent more time working than he did at home. Her mother was a college chancellor and was home just as much as her husband, even though her job was only about an hour away. They tried to make up for the blank spaces with extravagant gifts and expensive celebrations, but Charlotte was simply always happy just to be able to see both of them at once for a little bit of time, even though half of it was generally spent with her having to update them on exactly how her educational career was going and have enough accolades and credentials to account for the time she couldn’t tell them about as a hero’s tech specialist. Learning that made Max understand her overachiever complex a little bit better, but he wanted the rest of her birthday to be as relaxing and rewarding as possible.

He took the scenic route back to the lair and she leaned her seat back and rested, watching everything and listening to a playlist that he made for her. He had several. One for when she goes to sleep, one for her workday, one for when she studied, etc. This one was one that he made for car trips with her. One of his favorite things about doing stuff for her was that she always noticed. The first time he’d made her a playlist, she’d said, “You had to have made this thing specifically for me, right?” He wanted to deny it, but noticed how excited that made her and confessed. It was an amazing feeling to do something for someone special and have them not only not take it for granted, but to really appreciate it. Max didn’t always receive that from his loved ones, but he usually did from Charlotte. He was confident that she was going to LOVE her birthday time with him.

She liked being around a lot of people less than he did. So, where he might be down for a party with his friends and loved ones, she was more like her family was over here for this amount of time, and her friends over there, for that amount of time. Everything and everybody had their time and place.

But, she told him not too long ago, “I never get tired of being around you though. It’s like… you’re practically a part of me.” She said it all casually, matter of factly. He couldn’t even hear her emotion in it, but he definitely started crying. Then there was this whole thing where she thought that maybe she said the wrong thing and tried to comfort him and apologize and explain better, “I’m not saying that you aren’t your own person or anything, just that like… my life is comfortable no matter how much of you is in it…” He had to compose himself to let her know that he was happy to hear it, not upset. He also apologized for crying, because damn… that couldn’t be sexy. Turns out, it was… as long as it’s warranted and not over every little thing! So, that was bonus scores for him.

Max made Henry “be scarce” from the lair for today, which was fine by him, because he had to “Serve these fools in the cakes department, anyway!” And Max just… Didn’t even WANT to know what that meant, but was relieved to later find out that it was about baking cakes and not the booty shaking contest that his brain automatically convinced him it would be. So, whenever Charlotte walked in and the place was set up like a spa, she gasped. “What’s happening?”

“You always want to grab a spa day, but you’ve cancelled like a dozen times because of work demands. So, I set up a home spa day for you… I did get funding from Dr. Page and Dr. Page, but they knew that you deserved it and since Henry asked, they just wired it to your birthday fund.”

“You and Henry got money from my parents for a birthday spa day for me?”

“I sent Henry to get money, yes. Is that alright?”

She covered her face, “That is SO SWEET! They could have eaten him alive. They’re very inquisitive people.”

“I sent him with an outline of all of the plans,” he said, with a shrug.

“You know me so well that you know how my parents are, even though I haven’t introduced you yet!” She was thunderstruck. He took her bags and handed her a robe and slippers…

After her spa treatment day, complete with Max playing guitar and singing her some songs during interludes while she waited for something to dry or settle, or whatever, she felt brand new. She hadn’t realized how stressed she’d been, even though Max does stuff for her whenever he can, she obviously had still been hella stressed out - probably because of Russia, graduation, Jasper and Henry, spa days being cancelled… But, she NEEDED this and Max giving her what she needed, right on time? She would miss that when he was gone. Now, she was sad for a moment.

“Time for gift presentation!” He said, distracting her from missing him before he was gone. She perked up, skin radiant, silky smooth curls popping, and her smile beaming. She was still in her robe and had her spa day swag bag next to her, which were packages of the products used today in her spa day treatment and also products from the spa that supplied the materials. “First of all, we have…” he spun his finger around and the kitchen island rotated to reveal where he had hidden all of her gifts, apparently (and she had forgotten that this lair had many secret areas, but he obviously hadn’t). He reached for a huge bag and beckoned it to her. “From the Hart household, warmth and comfort in the form of new silk sheets and pillowcases, plus fuzzy blankets and bamboo pillows!”

“YES!” She had been saying she needed these forever, but not getting around to ordering any because other stuff seemed more important everything she thought about it. She LIVED for luxury, though, she often talked herself out of it.

“From Henry, himself, an assortment of fine chocolates, a wine drinking accessories set, and a collection of gourmet cheeses.”

“Ooooh… He must’ve gone into his hero funds for this!” She said, pulling things out of Henry’s gift bag.

“He did!” Max cheered. “Jasper got you…” He gave her the bucket, wrapped kind of like an Easter basket, “A stationary pail.” There was something weird in his voice. He probably had asked Jasper to get something else and Jasper was having none of it.

She opened it to see a personal planner, a personalized pen and journal set, scented stickers, sticky pads, etc and she squealed. “He got them to match the scheme of my home office whenever I set up my new place after college!” Max furrowed his eyebrows and she explained, “You see, Max… You are very smart and pay attention to detail, but Jasper has known me for a really long time and sometimes has even the most menial of my lifestyle choices down pat.”

“Your work dads got you tickets to the Graduation Concert Festival,” he said, handing her an envelope and ignoring the declaration about Jasper. “My parents got you a kitchen set for your post graduation apartment… Well… actually, my Cousin Blobbin did, but it was my mom’s idea. Cookware and appliances!”

“That’s… nice!” She said. She had just realized that she hadn’t gotten anything for that, yet. Just an electric kettle, a spice rack, and whatever she was going to cop from her parents’ kitchen. This was a much better situation! She had a few more pretty great gifts that she appreciated, then they were down to the last few, which were all from Max. He sat down next to her and she set aside everything that she had and let him hold both of her hands, wondering why it got so serious all of a sudden.

“Charlotte… The past months that I’ve known you have been amazing to me. Even before we got together, just looking forward to experiencing and learning you everyday has been everything that I’ve ever wanted from another person. : Hesighed and looked at their hands, “I’m officially scheduled to go to Russia for three years.” His shoulders sank. “And I know that you plan to visit and that we plan to continue long distance, but that’s still so tentative for me and scary - the thought of you being tasked with waiting on me to come back. But…” He looked over at the counter and floated something to himself, “If you want, you can stay in my comeback home.” He handed her a set of keys with a SuperMax keychain attached to it. “I know that you’ve been looking for apartments and this is actually a house, but…”

“You are asking me to move in with you for 3 years from now?” She asked.

“No! I’m asking you to move in now and get comfortable and make it your own, then whenever I’m back… we can get used to living together again, and you’ll already be set.” Her eyes widened, “But, if you don’t want to, I understand! We haven’t even been together for a year and who knows how Russia will change us.” He pressed a button on the remote on her keys and a holographic image of the house projected from it, “But, if you want to, I’m welcoming you to.” It was an elevated house on top of pillars, a garden with stair rails on either side and a carport. “And you’ll have full access to my underground lab and lair.”

“This is a super cute house,” she said, in a tiny voice. “And a very sweet notion. I’ll… think about it…” Sensibly, she and Max had not been together long enough for this move, but also, their circumstances were special. They lived together already, basically, and their timeline was rushed for a number of reasons… But, just living with him alone, and actually moving in and keeping it while he was on tour was… a lot that she had to rationally comb through. He understood, and was grateful that she didn’t flat out say no and tell him that he was crazy for thinking she’d even want to.

“On a lighter note!” He changed the subject, “I present to you, some of my most inspired works of art…” He gave her a portfolio of several portraits that he had done of her, some very casual and cool, some extremely detailed and graphic, some as herself, some reimagined in other forms and styles. “They’re mostly from the pining days,” he said, bashfully. “But, I’m working on a big piece to hang in the comeback house.” She flipped through pages of her face, beautifully rendered and covered her heart.

“These are really good, Max.”

“I usually just draw project schematics and costumes, but I was having a phase where every time I tried, I had to draw you first, or I’d be distracted the whole time.

“I love it.”

“I figured that I did need to get you a REAL gift, though, so…” He reached for a jewelry box and opened it. It looked elegant, like fine jewelry - a set with a necklace, earrings, bracelet and a ring. “Shapeshifting jewelry!”

“I’m sorry, what kind?”

He put the ring onto his pinky, because it would not fit anywhere else and it lit up, then it reformed itself, unbuilding and then rebuilding to look like a skull and crossbones ring. She gasped. “It scans your body and gets a record of your outfit and accommodates it. Very fun technology to have.” He took it off and handed it back. She put it on her ring finger and once again, it reformed and became a cute, thin band with a tiny pink jewel.

“This is amazing! I’ve never seen it before.”

“Experimental tech being used for facial imagery reconstruction whenever supers get unmasked. I took the principles and put them in your jewelry!” He said, proud of himself. She was proud, too. She honestly had THEE BEST BOYFRIEND. “And, in case you felt like that was a little too much, or whatever, I have backup gifts of a simpler nature. There’s this coupon book of treats and services, yes several of them are sexual, because I made it and I can,” (she laughed) “There is this HUGE concentration candle, I mean… LOOK at this thing! Oh, and this.” He handed her some folded paper. “It’s a handwritten love letter, basically me being kind of a loser and telling you all of my feelings, but on paper, like a madman…”

“Yes,” she said, snatching it.

“Yes, I’m a madman?”

“No… Well… yes, but… yes, I’ll move into your comeback home after college graduation.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“To clarify… Was it the letter?”

“It was the... Max. You’re perfect, Dude. I just…” she shrugged and rested her head on him.

Whenever Charlotte made her way to the Man Cave, she heard the hijinks as soon as she stepped off of the elevator, and what she saw was four grown men and a young girl all fussing and covered in cake. “Did any of you save any cake?” She called from the elevator. They didn’t stop fussing or even seem to hear or notice her, so she looked around and saw a plate wrapped in saran wrap with assorted slices of cake, “I’m gonna presume that this is mine and leave with it if nobody notices that I’m here!” she called out. They were still fussing at each other and then Ray slapped Jasper in the face with a glob of icing, to which, Jasper growled and charged him and Schwoz, Henry and Piper, began to try to break it up, but all that could be seen was cake and icing flying everywhere. Charlotte left and whenever she did, she heard as the elevator door was closing, “Did any of you hear Charlotte’s voice?”

“Nice try, Henry! You don’t get away from this that easily!” Piper screamed.

“I honestly don’t want to know,” Charlotte told herself. But, she honestly did, too.

Shortly before Midnight, whenever she came back, everything was cleaned up and she announced, “Bringing back the plate!”

“SURPRISE!” Everyone jumped out and screamed, making her scream and drop the plate which shattered on the floor.

They ignored it and began to sing the happy birthday song to her, gathered around a cake platter that Schwoz was holding, only it had an amorphous cake on it, and could hardly hold the candles. It looked like a disaster from a cartoon. She blew out the candles and looked at them, suspiciously, “So, is this the only cake? What happened to the bake off?”

“Bake off?” Ray repeated. “We don’t have to prove that any of us are any better than the others. Besides, it’s YOUR birthday! Today was about you.”

“Did you all fight the entire time, have a huge cake fight, then gather up which pieces of cake that you could and cover it in icing to present as my birthday cake?” Everyone’s face showed that they were caught! That was EXACTLY what had happened. But Ray scoffed and said, “No! And quite frankly Charlotte, it is insulting that you would accuse us of such…”

“I saw you earlier. I took that plate of cake,” she pointed to the broken plate on the floor.

Henry began to fuss about how HE KNEW he’d heard her voice earlier, while Ray was fussing about the broken plate and Jasper was asking which cake was the best. Upon hearing that question, they all became more interested in that, “Yeah, which one? Which? Huh? Bet it was mine…”

“Ummm… they were all actually delicious, but I preferred the lemon one…”

“YES!” Jasper cheered and began to gloat in everybody’s face. “Max liked the chocolate one that tasted like a 5 year old just threw all their favorite things into a cake.”

“I TOLD ALL OF YOU THAT I AM THE CAKE COMMANDO!” Ray yelled. She figured that was his, because it was just a bunch of different chocolate things in a cake - chocolate cookie crumbles, chocolate chips, chocolate candy - she felt sick after one bite of that.

“Yeah, well, he’s probably gonna order one for his dad’s birthday.”

“Thunder Man? He’s still alive?” Ray asked.

Piper asked, “So… you didn’t like the pineapple right side up cake?”

“I did.”

“The chocolate covered strawberry cake was a delicious masterpiece!” Henry fussed.

“It was.”

Schwoz offered, “I think that you may have misjudged the dreamsicle and pickle cake.”

“I did not misjudge it, because I didn’t know what it was and refused to try it. Max said that he didn’t know how it worked, but it somehow did.”

SHe held out her hands, “I enjoyed everybody’s cake…” She pointed at Schwoz,’ “Except for yours.”

“Awwww,” he said, crestfallen.

“But, Jasper asked which one I thought was best and…”

“And she said it without much of a thought that she preferred the lemon icebox layered sponge cake with whipped white chocolate cream cheese icing. TOLD. YOU. GUYS!” He fist bumped her and she just laughed a little bit.

Henry commented, “I got beat with an egg beater for nothing.

“Not for nothing!” Charlotte said. “I completely want that chocolate covered strawberries cake programmed into the auto snacker for my next monthly.”

“My dreamsicle and pickle cake was the only one that used organic ingredients,” Schwoz pouted.

“I will NEVER try it. You won’t EVER tell me anything to make me try a Dreamsicle and pickle cake, Schwoz!” Charlotte said.

Jasper said, “Well… I’m gonna have some of this birthday cake,” and grabbed a plate and the cake cutter.

“Cut me a piece, too!” Henry asked. They all sat down and had a plate with fallen pieces of their various cakes on it and turned on a movie to watch.

“This was actually my best birthday in a while,” Charlotte noted. She didn’t need to go into detail about Max and how perfect he was. Her friends were all happy and full of cake and even that, in it’s own way, was equally as perfect.

#Share a Lair #henry danger #the thundermans #crossover #crossover fanfic #Nesha Crossover #Thundanger #Thunderbolt

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fuzzydazebouquet · 4 years

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Brit Shocked Everyone By Revealing The App Which Makes Him £23K Every Month

"It all came as a surprise to me! I just wanted to make some extra cash aside. I discovered this new money making app by accident while surfing the Internet. Life's crazy! I was going to school and now I'm making money from home, can you believe that?"

Jamie Glaze

UPDATED: THURSDAY, OCTOBER, 8, 2020

Appearing on the 'This Morning' show, Akshay Phillips expressed his gratitude and thanked Trading Platform creators for dramatically changing his life and financial situation. Akshay said he never understood exactly how their algorithm works but that it has been making him profits consistently, from the very first day.

The official website of claims it can generate high profits for any user by executing a unique trading algorithm. This algorithm enables the user to automatically trade currencies.

In order to start the fully automated process, user needs to deposit an initial amount of £250. The algorithm would then automatically choose the perfect time to buy coins low and sell it high - and vice versa. This way the user profits would always be maximized without any risk.

Akshay said that any credit card can be used for the initial deposit.

Live on the air, Akshay asked Holly Willoughby to register and deposit £250 on Trading Platform.

Holly was hesitating at first but then decided to try it. (Image: Mirror News)

"Yes! I've heard about many coins success stories over the past few years but it was always too complicated for me to understand. Your story moved me Akshay and because of that, I will give it a try!" Holly said.

After she deposited the inital £250, the algorithm started to buy coins and other currencies for cheap and selling them for higher price very quickly. Within only 7 minutes, Holly made £60.24 in profit and had a total balance of £260.24 in her account.

Akshay explaining to Holly how she can track her profits. (Image: Mirror News)

Everyone in the audience, including the production staff, were shocked. Akshay tried to calm down everyone and explicitly said that is not a magic platform.

"When you take a closer look, you can see around 70-80% of won trades. However, the amount of won trades is higher than the lost ones. So the bottom line: You win more trades with higher profits than you lose." Akshay added.

Before Akshay even had a chance to answer Phillip Schofields question, Holly jumped and said with a smile on her face: "Now I have £177.51 in profit, how is this possible? Can I withdraw it right away?"

At this point, "This Morning" producers decided to step in and stop the program, before we could find out what happened next.

WE DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE TRADING PLATFORM

If Trading Platform is constantly making money for its users, how does the company earn any money?

We found out that the answer is simple but genius: keeps exactly 8% of the users' profits. In other words, only when the user makes money, they makes money. This explains why they are so 'motivated' to generate as much profits for their users as possible.

It says on their website that in order to activate the account and start making money, the user would have to deposit a minimum of £250 GBP ($250 dollars).

Currently there are no exchange fees or reductions from the deposit. As soon as the deposit is made, the account and trading algorithm are activated.

We've seen a lot of websites promising similar results over the past year. In order for us to be sure and to give our readers actual results, whether they were going to be good or bad, we had to test Trading Platform ourselves.

OUR RESULTS WITH TRADING PLATFORM:

To verify Akshay's story, we decided to try Trading Platform ourselves to see if it was really possible for an average person to make any money with it.

Our reporter Anthony Hawkins went through full process:

Step 1: Registration on Trading Platform (Image: Mirror News - Anthony Hawkins)

Registration on was quick indeed, it took me only 2 minutes to complete the signup process.

I couldn't do anything because the account was not activated. In order to activate it I had to make a deposit. I decided to grab quick coffee with my colleagues and then to continue.

Step 2: Deposit and Activation (Image: Mirror News - Anthony Hawkins)

To activate the account, I've made the initial deposit of £250 pounds using my credit card. My account was activated immediately after the deposit so I decided to turn on the auto trading option and browse around to see if they have any other options available.

By accident, I refreshed the profits page and I couldn't believe what I was seeing!

It really worked! Trading Platform made me £39.84 in profit, after only 3 minutes of making the deposit!

Step 3: My first profit on Trading Platform (Image: Mirror News - Anthony Hawkins)

It's not a lot, but it took almost no effort! Not to mention that I have no experience in trading orcurrencies. I've never made a trade in my life before, yet here I was actually making money.

To make £39.84 within 3 minutes is a tremendous performance for any trading algorithm out there.

I kept my initial deposit on Trading Platform account and continued to use the trading software in order to see what was going to happen next. It could have just been a very lucky start.

To my surprise, profitable trades were coming in, slowly but consistently, every day of every week. Akshay was correct, not all trades were successful, 7-8 trades out of 10 were profitable.

I decided to monitor it closely and see what is going to happen in the next 28 days.

Either it will continue to make profits consistently or I'm going to lose my £250 investment. One of these two will most likely end up happening.

I WAS IN FOR A BIG SURPRISE!

After only 4 weeks, Trading Platform displayed a total of £11,394.28 in profit, and I started only with the initial deposit of £250 pounds, this is unbelievable!

At this point, any colleague I would show my account to, would rush to register immediately on .

£11,394.28 profit in only 4 weeks! (Image: Mirror News - Anthony Hawkins)

I decided to withdraw most of my profits, so I had Trading Platform pay out £11,000 to my PayPal account. The remaining amount I decided to keep on Trading Platform to generate more money.

7 hours later, I've received an email from Paypal saying that I've received £11,000 from Trading Platform, I checked my Paypal right away to confirm it and the money was there!

£11,000.00 arrived from Trading Platform to my Paypal account. (Image: Mirror News - Anthony Hawkins)

Akshay from London was not lying, indeed works and it will definitely change a lot of lives!

Unfortunately, today they've sent an email to everyone explaining that soon they will have to close down the registrations for new members as they can't keep up with the demand.

If you haven't by now, I urge you and everyone reading this to register right away, in order to secure your spot because they might close registrations at any given point.

Account registration is free and it only takes 2 minutes, you can click here to register.

However, it's necessary to deposit a minimum of £250 GBP (or $300 USD) in order to fully activate the account and the trading algorithm.

IMPORTANT: You will most likely receive a call after signing up, just like I have. Don't ignore it because their managers were very helpful when I was starting out and I highly recommend building a good relationship with them.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ON TRADING PLATFORM »

For those interested, here's my full 4 week journey with Trading Platform:

4 WEEKS BREAKDOWN:

First Week: £2,838.38 I spent around 5 minutes a day checking results. After three days I already had a profit of £835 in my account. This is a 334% return on my initial investment of £200. On my seventh day I had total profit of £2,838.38 in the account.

Second Week: £5,659.48 In the second week everything happened very quickly. My balance grew faster and faster. After 14 days I had £5,659.48 in my trading account.

Third Week: £8,948.35 The third week went very smoothly too. I even started checking my account only every other day or so because it was working like a clockwork. has increased my profits consistantly to an amount of £8,948.35 in total.

Fourth Week: £11,394.28 At the end of the test I had a breathtaking profit of £11,394.28. My colleagues and I could still not believe how this app made this much money in just 4 weeks with a £200 investment.

Official website:

Also post on Facebook

Kjetil Vandenbulcke

So guys it's my first week on Trading Platform. I got an invite to the system launch! So far it works great for me. In the first 5 days I've earned £3,200 and slowly growing :)

Like · Reply · 98k · 23 hrs

Vivianne Chan ·

Tauranga

Thanks for sharing your results, looks like it's worth giving it a go! :D

Like · Reply · 252 · 1 min

Chris Tang

wow sound good bro

Like · Reply · 226 · 3 min

Axel Guilloux ·

None

easy money on the internet could be finally possible with this, right? :D

Like · Reply · 189 · 4 min

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Piter Jefferson ·

Oh boy, it's my 9th day and I have £4340 in my account. I love Trading Platform!!!!

Like · Reply · 387 · 3 hrs

Marcus Pullido ·

How does it work? How can you make trades?

Like · Reply · 258 · 7 min

Piter Jefferson ·

Richard, it's autopilot. All you need to do is start autotrader. After that you can chill and watch money rolling in. Can't believe it, but it's that simple!

Like · Reply · 227 · 9 min

Marcus Pullido ·

wow, sounds good! Count me in!

Like · Reply · 102 · 11 min

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