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m-feline · 1 year

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To adapt, to survive, to live - Ch 16

Silco x Freader

Tags: talk of relationships, trauma, mention of rape, new clothes, fluff;

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Soon I went with Silco to visit Signed, so I would get a full check-up. Signed had time to read my journal and he had some ideas as to what new "quirks” I might have gotten. So he began to make some tests, despite Silco's displeasure. So we figured out some of the effects. Turns out that I do "taste the air” but only if the scent is fresh enough. Besides that, I can build immunity against any kind of poison. Silco didn't like it, especially when suddenly Signed made me drink poison without a word. Yes, it made me feel bad and sick but after several minutes it went away. And after getting Silco from threatening Signed, we figured out that I also heal faster than normal. Not superhumanly, more like my cells began the healing sooner than normal. Again, Silco almost attacked Signed when he made a cut to my hand. It bled but only for a couple of minutes, but for a wound of that size I thought it would take more time to stop the bleeding. Signed explained that despite my faster healing if the wound is too deep or serious it will still kill me. There were other tests but not so… drastic as the other two. Some blood tests, eye tests, reflexes, and so on. All and all Signed said that I'm alright. And if something does happen I should sleep it over.

So some days went by, and soon we would return to the Last Drop. During that time I spent my time either with Jinx and her new projects or taking over the kitchen of the inn and cooking up something delicious. But most of the time Silco was one way or another always keeping an eye on me. When he had work to do, it was Sevika keeping an eye. Others were acting the same. They said they wanted to see my signia but Silco always gave them a menacing look and they would drop the topic. I managed to show them my signia when I moved it to my face or hands but to show it on my back required me to remove clothes. And that is when Silco would butt in.

His act recently reminded me of jealous boyfriends I have heard coming to Babette’s and causing trouble. That always ended with Vander visiting the guy and "convincing” him to talk it over with his girlfriend, instead of busting the place and making a scene. I tried asking Sevika about what's his problem, but she simply said that I should figure it out myself. But I wasn't ready for that, at least in my opinion.

One day, I was outside with Jinx testing her newest creation. It blew up nicely but not as big as the question she popped at me.

“Are you and Silco an item?”

“Wha-what?”, I asked in shock when I picked up the remains of the blown-up project, and almost dropped it again.

“You and Silco, are you two together?” Jinx asked innocently.

“We… no… not that I… where did that come from?” I asked trying at the same time to collect my thoughts.

“Others talk about it,” Jinx said.

“Others who exactly?”, I insisted.

“Dustin, Matt, Ran, that new guy, Thieram, Sevika,” Jinx said as she counted her fingers.

“Seriously? Practically all the regs,” I sighed.

“So, are you?”

“We… aren't. I mean… not like that. Do you even know what being an item is?” I asked.

“That you and Silco are together and that-sort-of-stuff,” Jinx said.

“That-sort-of-stuff?” I repeated her words.

“You know, that-sort-of-stuff,” Jinx with a bit of emphasis as she moved her hands. I didn't know what she meant with her hands but the way she spoke and changed her face, told me enough.

“What? No! No, we haven't… I didn't mean... He doesn't… We haven't slept together!” I shouted as all the blood rushed to my head.

“I didn't say anything about sleeping together, although if we’re honest you have slept in his bed. With him,” Jinx reminded me. My hands came to cover my face and I could feel the heat on my cheeks and forehead from all the blushing. This was so not okay.

“I think it would be great if you two are together,” Jinx said innocently and picked up one of the pieces of her blown-up project.

“You do?” I asked peeking through my fingers.

“M-hm, I like Silco. And I like you too. You two together would be fantastic,” She said. I know she likes Silco. In fact, I think she sees him as a father figure. Maybe even more than Vander. When I was sick Silco spent many days with Jinx and always made time for her. He encouraged her to try things and to improve her skills. When I was healthy, I saw many times Jinx sneaking into Silco's room and asking his opinion on things. I could tell, he liked her too. Whenever she came to ask something, or simply wanted to hang out, Silco dropped all his work or found a way to continue his work and still keep company for Jinx. When I saw those moments it warmed my chest and I felt happy.

“It's at your neck now?” Jinx said and brought me back to reality. She had come very close to peek at the snake that was indeed coiled around my neck, its head almost at my chin. "So it goes to your neck when you are blushing.”

“Blushing? Me?” I asked stepping a bit away from her.

“Yup, you're as red as a tomato now,” Jinx said smiling.

“I'm not!” I shouted embarrassingly.

“Are too, are too,” Jinx sang happily. "So, I'm right. You like Silco, don't ya?”

“I-I… I don't h-hate him,” I said looking away.

“Come on! What's so hard about it?” Jinx asked. "Even I think you guys are so good together, and I'm a kid. How come it's so hard for you?”

“I… I have never been with anyone. In any… way,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jinx sighed. "All you ever did was look after us, clean the bar, and cook for us, and blaa blaa blaa.”

I scoffed at her dramatics but she got the point at least. She was soon a teen so it shouldn't come as a surprise that she may sometimes be the "adult” of the two of us. Despite her trauma that causes her to sometimes revert to a kid again.

“But still, I would love it if you guys could be together,” She said kicking some dust with her feet.

“M-hmm,” I hummed looking at her. I get what she meant but I was still a little… not sure. As I said to her I don't hate Silco, I don't dislike Silco. But… I was not sure of him. Jinx cut my thought again as she rushed behind me and pulled up my shirt.

“It's back to your back again,” She said happily as if the awkward conversation never happened.

“Do you have to check it every time?” I asked pulling my shirt back down.

“I wanna know where it is. It also tells me your mood,” She said happily.

“Really now?” I asked. "Alright, when the snake is at my back what is it?”

"You are happy, calm, or bored,” Jinx said mimicking the emotions she mentioned. "When it's at your stomach, you're all giddy and excited.”

"When did you check that?" I asked.

“When you were changing before going out on your own for the first time,” Jinx said.

“You saw me change?” I asked in shock.

“Yeah,” Jinx admitted. "I was bored and there was room at the ceiling at the support poles so…”

"We have to talk about giving others some privacy, missy,” I told her. "But if you're going to keep peaking at my signia, I need new clothes.”

"What are you thinking of wearing?" Jinx asked curiously.

“I thought I’d switch to a backless look,” I said pondering.

“You? Showing your whole back? Oh, Janna, what did you do to (Y/n)?” Jinx said all dramatically.

“Hey, manners,” I chided her.

“Come on, all the time I've known you, you have never shown more than your wrists or your arms on the best day,” Jinx said. "And now you're going backless?”

"Okay, I admit, I have been hiding for a long time but I had good reasons,” I defended myself. "One, the mark before looked like I took a beating, and I couldn't let people see me as a punching bag. Two, since I don't need to worry about being pure for the ritual, I don't need to worry about getting too much unwanted attention.”

"I think Silco is doing that for you, Jinx said. "Haven't you seen how he looks at others when they want to approach you?”

"No, how does he look at others?” I asked.

“Like he will kill them if they say the wrong thing in the wrong way,” Jinx said. "One time he almost had one guy thrown out for looking at you the wrong way.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“You were cleaning the tables, it was the late shift, not so many people around, and this creep really ate you with his eyes,” Jinx explained.

“Really?”

“Yup, and I saw Silco walk past him and make him fall back to his seat when he tried to get up to stand. Silco said something to him, couldn't hear what, but the guy remained still in his seat, finished his drink in a rush, and went out through the door.”

“You’re sure you didn't imagine that?” I asked raising one eyebrow.

“Absolutely,” Jinx said. "Because I heard Silco ask Lock to go after him and 'remind’ him.”

“It could have been business,” I said.

“I'll quote what he said,” Jinx said clearing her throat and making her best impression of Silco. "Lock, go after our little friend and remind him what happens to those who disrespect my people.”

“Aha, he said my 'people’, not necessarily me,” I said holding down a grin from the acting Jinx did as Silco.

“Oh, come on~,” Jinx groaned. "He did it for you. Why don't you get it?”

“The people who did things 'for’ me are dead,” I said with a hint of seriousness in my voice.

“My point exactly,” Jinx said almost losing her patience. "Why make yourself a hermit when a nice guy is willing to care for you?”

“Silco? A nice guy?” I asked chuckling.

“You know what I mean,” Jinx said.

“Alright, alright,” I sighed and rubbed my neck. "I'll talk with him. I will also ask permission to go visit Lottie for new clothes. And if you can come along.”

“Okay,” Jinx said happily and pulled out from her bag another bomb. "Now let's blow up this one.”

I was nervous as I walked to the room that was now Silco’s bedroom and his office alike. It's like an unspoken rule, not to go in unless you were called, or you had important news. Asking permission to go shopping didn't fit either category. At least, Sevika wasn't here. I understood she had a job to do. Though maybe her presence would have meant that I could ask her and avoid facing Silco altogether. But I had said that I would talk with him, and that is what I must do. I came to the door and knocked a couple of times. If I'm lucky he will be too busy to see me.

“Enter.”

Guess not. I opened the door and stepped in. Silco’s room was bigger than mine yet it felt smaller with all the papers at the table and him behind it all. To fit an office and bedroom into one space did make it look a bit… chaotic.

“What is it?”

I set my eyes on Silco who sat behind the table facing the door yet his eyes were glued to the papers in front of him. He must have not seen it was me coming in.

“I…” I began and I stopped when his eyes raised to look at me. I swallowed and continued. "I c-can come back later when you aren't busy.”

"Nonsense,” Silco said and pushed the paper to the side of the table. "I have always time for Jinx when she comes to me. It's only fair that I give you the same privilege.” Why? Why give me that privilege? I felt small pressure in my chest. Why was I so nervous?

“I… wanted to ask if it's okay for me and Jinx to go to Lottie’s? I want to get new clothes and at the same time see if there is something new that Jinx might like,” I said.

"That's all?” Silco asked. Why do I have a feeling he was expecting something else from me?

“Were you expecting something else?” I asked. Silco sighed and got up from his seat. When he began to walk around the table towards me, I felt my chest tighten again as I turned to face him.

“I thought, you might now address the situation between us,” Silco said as he came to stand right in front of me.

“Do we have a situation?” I asked. I either missed the point completely or Jinx was right for many things than just what others were talking about.

“You tell me, do we?” Silco asked.

“I… don't know,” I said defeat.

“You don't know?” Silco asked in confirmation. "Is this because you really don't know… or you are playing coy with me?”

"I don't know,” I sighed. "I don't even know how to play coy.” The look Silco gave me could have been of surprise but I thought it was of shock. Of all the people in the Lanes, I was truly oblivious to all-that-Jazz that people considered normal in relationships. I simply ignored it as I tried to find a way to survive and remain pure. Now that there was no need for it… I had no idea how to even approach that topic. And with who.

“To be honest I know enough as to where it leads in the end,” I said trying to save at least some of my pride. "And I… I'm not eager to do it.”

"By that you mean…?” Silco invited to continue.

“I know it leads to fucking, okay,” I said, feeling annoyed that I had to spell it out. "I'm not completely an idiot.”

“M-hmm, and you know that, how?” Silco asked.

“Milo, one of the kids I had to watch after, managed to get his hands on a book which wasn't exactly child-friendly shall we say,” I explained. "I confiscated it quite fast from him. But…”

"You took a look at it, didn’t you?”

“I was curious and… Yes, it was very explicit,” I admitted. "However, the reason why I'm not eager to do it is because… of what happened to my mother.”

"Right,” Silco sighed. "Your mother was violated. I'm sorry.”

"No need to apologize,” I said and leaned against the desk. "That sort of thing is both hard to forget and the first thing you try to ignore.”

“You witnessed it happen?” Silco asked.

“I didn’t see it happen. My mother hid me in a cupboard so I wouldn't be hurt. But those bastards did it to her in the next room,” I said. "I wanted to cover my ears but my hands were occupied silencing my cries so I wouldn't be found. So yeah, that left me with an ever-lasting impression on… you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Silco said softly and leaned to rest his forehead against mine. It made me a bit tense but it didn't feel bad. "I also understand that it was hard to tell me that.”

"I just... I don't know what to do,” I said. "And I'm sorry for what I did… back then. I didn't know I was… arousing you.”

“No need to apologize, dear,” Silco chuckled. "I'm glad you didn't do it to anyone else. Unlike me, they may not have understood that you were… not quite yourself.”

“So… we have now addressed the situation?” I asked.

“Most of it,” Silco said. What did he mean by most of it? "As for your visit to get new clothes, I'm coming too. I believe I should have a say about what you are going wear.”

Silco had much to say at Lottie’s. At first, he just came along quietly and watched in silence as I explained to Lottie why I had come. She was over the moon when I told her I was now willing to try new types of clothes. Before she could begin to gush over any particular style I told her it had to be backless. After that, she made me try many tops, tunics, and dresses. And to most of them, Silco said no the moment he saw them on me, either for real or inside his head. Some he didn’t even let me try on.

“Your man is pretty possessive, isn't he?” Lottie whispered to me as she helped me with another tunic. I didn’t care to correct her this time unlike before. Though we weren't together for real, it looked like that to many. For some reason, I wasn't too eager to correct them.

“Absolutely not,” Silco said the moment he saw the tunic on me. I should have expected that. If he didn't like the top with a low neckline in the front he wouldn't like this tunic with the front open right in the middle showing my chest.

“It isn't that bad,” Lottie said. "This shows even less skin than the other one.”

“It shows the wrong kind of skin,” Silco said ending the conversation there.

“How about this one?” Jinx asked as she showed another top.

“No,” Silco said when he took a look at it.

“Because the only thing it does cover is the front?” I asked.

"Precisely,” Silco said. Figures. I did ask for backless but if it showed beside the back too much of my neck, my sides, my chest, my stomach, my shoulders, Silco said no to it. That was almost everything Lottie brought up. Except for that one shirt but I didn’t like the color.

“But I like it,” Jinx whined.

“Maybe you can have it once you are big enough to fit it. Or I could customize it for you,” I said. Jinx was beaming when she went to set the top on the counter despite the sour look on Silco’s face. "What? She likes it.”

“Really?” Silco asked sarcastically.

“Hey, she is growing if she wants to wear something who am I to stop her?” I said.

“Careful what you say, sweety. I had to raise you and three others, and this is the first time I hear you want to wear something this nice. You shall regret that in the future when this girl wants to wear a new look,” Lottie said as she set the last piece of clothing to the pile of rejected clothes. "But thanks to your man, I believe you can't even wear these. The only thing approved was those two shirts and the corset with matching pants.”

I gave a tired glance at Silco. Despite our little chat, I still don't get why he doesn't want me to appear wearing the clothes I have tried on. Why was he fixated on what I wear? He wasn't going to allow me to were my old boring clothes, but the new choices were also off-limits. But I had decided to boast about my signia and I will do just that.

“Do you have any fabrics to see? Maybe I could order a custom job,” I asked Lottie.

“Well, in that case. I got some very nice choices,” Lottie said. And she didn’t lie. I bet some people at Piltover would kill someone to get their hands on the fabrics Lottie had. How did she get them was beyond me? Many were gorgeous but one particular caught my eye.

“I should have known you would choose it,” Lottie said.

"How did you get this? And don't tell me you found it behind the boutique,” I inquired.

“Even better I was given that in exchange for a piece of dark velvet,” Lottie said with pride. "See the little scorch mark here? Some sewer in the boutique made a mistake and the whole fabric was thrown away.”

"You're kidding me,” I said.

“No. Apparently some high noble had ordered a long fancy dress and this fabric had to be used in all its length. With this mark it became useless to them,” Lottie said. "What do you say? A nice suit of this to highlight your snake?”

"What did you have in mind?" I asked.

“Well,” Lottie said as she walked behind the counter and pulled out the design catalog she had made as her employer made clothes. She set out an empty page, took a pencil, and began to draw the design. "Since you want it backless, and he doesn't want you to show much skin, I thought something about figure hugging design for the top and a frock design for the bottom.”

"Sounds good,” I said as I watched her sketch. “How long the hem?”

“Depends, do you want sleeves, short or long?” Lottie asked.

“Long, she has a habit of pulling the sleeves over her hand,” Silco said as he too came to watch the sketch. Jinx also came to see it. She climbed over the counter to get an extra close look at the design.

“Cool! Does it have any pockets?” Jinx asked.

“For what?” I asked.

“For treats, for me,” Jinx said innocently.

“We could put a pocket here and here,” Lottie said as she drew. "Collar will be low turtle neck. And I could ask another girl to make you some dark leather pants to go nicely with the suit. For a special occasion, a long skirt with an open seam.”

"Again, how long the hem of the suit?” I asked.

"About this long,” Lottie said as she drew the line to show the hemline. It looked great. Maybe even a bit fancy. I don't think would wear it during the bar shifts. But on special occasions, maybe.

“Put your best workers for this one,” Silco said and placed a pouch of coins on the counter. "We shall take the clothes that were tried with us now. I'll pay more when we come for the finished product.”

And soon we were out of the boutique and heading back to the inn. Silco had work to do in his room. While Jinx and I began to play with my new clothes. Later in the evening I went to the kitchen and made dinner for everyone.

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#silco #silco league of legends #arcane #silco x reader #silco fanfic #jinx powder #Jinx

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anonquack · 3 years

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| His Merch |

Alex Quackity x Reader, Oneshot!

Word Count: 4256

Warnings: None, just some curse words. Fluff :]

Summary: Being such good friends with Quackity leads to the inevitable; catching feelings. In fear of ruining your friendship with him, you kept quiet about your feelings. Although usually good at that, after a merch drop and a slip-up on stream, you prepare yourself for the worst. Queue the incoming call from Quackity himself.

Today had been a productive day, in your opinion. You'd woken up earlier than usual, ate breakfast, cleaned around your apartment, and managed to get started on editing a video you'd recently filmed.

That's why you considered yourself very deserving of sitting down and enjoying your friend's stream as you ate some snacks.

Quackity had a fun stream planned, and had hyped up a 'big announcement' on Twitter, and the whole timeline was already speculating what it could be as they awaited for Quackity to start stream.

Being his friend had some perks though, contrary to popular belief. He'd discussed with you what the big announcement was as you sat on call with him a few nights prior to the big day. It was merch, and according to your past experience with Planet Duck products, it was sure to be soft and super comfy. You were very much looking forward to getting your hands on some of his new merch.

He'd brought up sending some to you, one of the previously mentioned perks of being his friend, but you politely declined. Much to his surprise. He'd asked why and you'd simply stated that "It was fine," and perhaps it came off as a bit rude. A 'no thanks' to his merch that you hadn't even seen.

But you had plans of your own, you wanted to acquire said merch on your own, and support him financially in the process. He didn't have to know that though, so with a small 'Oh' from him as his response, you swiftly changed topic of conversation.

Now here you sat, watching the stream as Quackity explained what he'd be doing with his friend John Smith. Riding go-karts around what looked like a storage unit. You couldn't help but worry as you watched them zoom around, occasionally getting close to crashing, and eventually doing just that.

The stream itself was rather fun to watch, but you kept your debit card beside you. This was in case he decided to drop the merch announcement out of nowhere. And that was exactly what he did. Another perk of being his friend was you grew a 6th sense for these type of things. Always had a feeling for what was about to happen when it came to Quackity.

You watched as the chat freaked out, watched as the notification from Planet Duck went out, notifying everybody that the merch had been released. You quickly typed into your computer, and the internet seemed to be taking its time to redirect you to Quackity's merch site.

After some time, it finally loaded and you began to look at all the options. The merch was wonderful, Quackity had been hyping it up to you (you'd asked for no reveals, wanting to wait like everyone else) and he had been absolutely right.

Most of the designs were new, except for the iconic Planet Duck logo, and were all very cute. You had Quackity's stream playing in the background as you maneuvered your way around the site, finally deciding on which merch you'd be buying.

As you went to purchase, a red sign alerted you that there was no shipping to your location. To which you quickly raised an eyebrow, panic starting to rush through you. Maybe you should've accepted his offer.

After refreshing multiple times and watching the Twitter timeline freak out as well over the inability to ship to several locations, it finally seemed to work, and the payment finally went through. A big "Thank you for your purchase" appearing onto the screen.

You let out a sigh of relief, clicking back onto the tab where the stream was, a small smile on your face. You'd actually managed to get it on your own. It was nerve-racking, when it seemed like you wouldn't be able to get the shipping to work, when it seemed like it'd sell out before you had the chance to buy some.

Now you finally understood what it felt like, the stress of getting your hands on merch before it sold out. It'd been an exhilerating experience.

You relaxed into your seat as Quackity's laugh filled the room. He was recreating bits from Fast and Furious, and zooming all over the place. You watched with a fond smile as he drove around, throwing random Spanish profanities at John Smith here and there.

The funky heart glasses he had on did nothing to ease the warmth that was spreading through your chest at the sight of him. You were suffering due to your confusing feelings towards your close friend, but nobody knew, or at least that is what you told yourself.

You tried to focus on something else, something that wasn't solely him. The go-karts were going pretty fast, and you remembered the scene they were recreating from the movie. Whichever random thought came to mind, you'd focus on it instead, too scared to let your thoughts wander elsewhere.

When it came to and end, you were conflicted. You were glad your heart would be able to catch a break, but you also missed him almost immediately. Sickening, really.

You took some time to reflect on what you'd done so far. Cleaned, ate your meals, worked on some editing, got some Quackity merch, and enjoyed a fun stream. It was rather productive, to say the least.

But there was still some time left in the day, and you figured you'd put the energy coursing through your body to use.

Taking a seat at your desk, you turned your monitor on before opening the twitch app. An alt stream would be perfect right now. After going live and sending out a tweet letting your followers know you were live, you patiently waited for the viewers to start coming in.

Considering this was an alt stream, you figured you'd play some random game and just chat for a bit before heading to bed. As the viewers came in, you gave your greetings before opening a tab for roblox, getting on a random server to play an obby game as you talked to chat.

There was a content smile on your face as you asked chat how their day had been, how they were feeling, your little character jumping around and passing through the beginner levels on the obby game.

"I'm actually in a really good mood, chat. My day has been going so well." You began, glancing at chat here and there, smile growing at the memory of the adventures acquiring Quackity merch.

After the chat was flooded with questions asking about what had happened, you indulged. "I was watching Quackity's stream earlier today, and it was so much fun!" The smile grew before softening as you focused on the obby. "I was also able to get some of his new merch."

The chat erupted into bits of 'friends supporting friends' to 'y/n in quackity merch???' and people yelling that they had been or weren't able to get merch.

Seeing the chat made you laugh, nodding your head a bit. "No because I was so nervous I wouldn't be able to get some-" you admitted, attention now focused solely on telling the viewers about your own experience.

"I was trying to purchase, and there was a line, and then it said it wouldn't ship to my location?? I was so worried I wouldn't be able to get some. But it finally worked. I'm excited for it to get here." You finished your small rant, a content smile on your lips.

Chat consisted of people agreeing with the technical difficulties occurring at the time of the merch drop, others saying they were too broke to buy anything. It felt nice, to see something from their perspective and also have shared an experience like this.

"Big Q actually offered to send me some, but I told him no because I wanted to get it myself.. Wanted to get it fair and square." You said as you refocused on the obby in front of you, fond smile on your face as you thought about how nice he was. He was willing to send all of his friends some of his merch, free of cost.

"Also wanted to give him my support by actually purchasing it, you know?" You added, resting your chin on the palm of your hand as it leaned against your desk. You took this time to read chat, which was exploding with what you thought was a combination of Quackity's username with yours, and 'bffs ur honor!!'.

You smiled at that, hands finally moving your character around. "Really, he has been such an amazing friend, extremely welcoming, always fun to be around. And just.. life is never dull when he's around. He's always been there for me when I needed it and well‐" A pause. "I'm glad I was able to support him in some way." You hummed softly as you finished up yet another small rant about Quackity.

At the realization that you'd been talking about him for far too long, and that he was not meant to be the focus of your alt stream, you cleared your throat and began focusing on the obby game once again.

You shifted the topic of conversation to the video you'd also been editing today, and that quickly took everyone's attention away from how affectionately and fondly you'd been speaking of your dear friend. Everyone was now excited about the new video.

Seeing how easily the chat's focus changed made you ease up a bit, and you were able to enjoy the rest of your stream playing random roblox games and discussing some stuff with chat. It lasted for a bit longer before you finally decided to end stream.

Some goodbyes and after stream officially ended, you found yourself on Twitter. Everything seemed pretty peaceful on the timeline, up until the trending page came up.

Your name was trending, along with 'QUACKITY IN CHAT' and the infamous combination of usernames. A monstrosity, really.

You heard yourself audibly gulp as you clicked on the trending topic 'quackity in chat'. Much to your dismay it was true. There was screenshots that showed Quackity was watching your stream. That meant that he'd heard you talking about him in that sickening tone. That tone that was unnecessarily sweet and fond.

You didn't know who was freaking out more, the so-called shippers, the timeline, or yourself. You gently bit at the inside of your cheek, scrolling and reading all the tweets of people trying to guess how Quackity must've felt while hearing all that. Others raising an eyebrow at how long you'd gone on about Quackity and how 'perfect' he was.

You'd fucked up, that was for sure, and it wasn't even intentional or fan service of any kind. It was an alt stream, it wasn't planned in any way, shape, or form. He'd been brought up, and you'd accidentally spilled all fond thoughts you held of him.

Your cursor hovered over a specific tweet that read, 'want someone to talk about me the way y/n talks about big q'. It was sweet, and perhaps made you smile just a little bit.

As you read it over in your head, a notification popped up on your screen, the discord notification ringing in your ears as you read who the message was from. Quackity.

You messed around with your mouse for a bit before finally closing the Twitter tab, and instead opting to open the unread message.

Quackity

hey (:

You stared at it for a bit, blinking in disbelief at how normal the message came across. Perhaps he'd tuned in during the last half of the stream. Perhaps he hadn't been able to watch while you rambled about him, and perhaps he hadn't been on Twitter either. One could hope.

y/n hi (:

It showed that he was typing almost immediately after, and you tried your best to calm your nerves.

Quackity call?

You felt yourself tense at the message. Maybe he wanted to let you down kindly. 'Hey! Saw your stream, and I just wanted to ask if you could chill the fuck out. That was kind of creepy. Maybe never speak of me ever again. Do not perceive me any longer, thanks!'

Something along those lines for sure. That's what probably awaited you if you said yes to this. But what exactly were you supposed to do instead?

y/n ofc

It only took a few seconds for the call to come through. Stalling wouldn't help, so you answered by the third ring.

He greeted you, and everything seemed normal. The calls were normal between you two, but you were just on edge due to twitter trending and the stream that took place less than an hour ago.

"How are you feeling, Quackity?" You asked with a small smile, today was a big day for him, and you were sure he'd enjoy talking about how fast the merch sold.

"I'm doing great. Really happy that the fans liked the designs and just.. we sold a lot. I'm happy." He restated the last bit, the smile was obvious in his voice. You didn't have to be seeing it to know. Another perk of being so close to him. You had a clear visual image of what he probably looked like right now. Cute smile plastered onto his equally cute face.

"I'm really happy for you, Big Q. You deserve all the success that is coming your way and more." You hummed softly. Everything you were saying, you meant wholeheartedly. There was silence for a bit before he finally spoke again.

"I watched your stream."

Fuck. There it was. You should've expected it but it still hit like a ton of bricks. You felt your mouth turn dry, could barely manage to get out the word, "Yeah?"

"Mhm." Straight to the point. There was a bit of silence, you were unsure of what to say. Why had he brought it up? It was bound to happen, but what was the reason behind bringing it up? To tease you, let you know he wasn't interested, or because roblox obbies are just so much fun?

"You didn't have to buy it, you know?" He finally said, breaking the silence.

"I wanted to." You reassured, "the merch is really pretty. Worth every penny."

"I could've sent you whichever you wanted." He stated bluntly. As if it was weird of you to have gone and bought it on your own.

"Thank you, but I wanted to buy it myself. Let me? Please?" Let me show my support this way, is what you meant to say. It came out softer than intended, and you could feel your heart beating against your ribs. You really needed to watch your tone around him.

"Of course." He responded, just as softly. He'd drive you crazy one of these days. They'd have to lock you up, and you'd never see the light of day again.

"Did you have fun riding the go-karts?" You asked, a small smile on your lips as you wandered back onto the Twitter tab, a clip of his stream now on display on the timeline.

He let out a small laugh, "I did. Did you enjoy watching it?" You nodded before responding, "Of course. Was concerning watching you crash into walls though."

He hummed softly in response, possibly contemplating what to say with how long he took before he spoke again.

"Did you really mean all the things you said on stream?"

Somehow, even with your own attempts to change topic, the focus was back on your stream and the things that had been said. You wouldn't be able to dig yourself out of the hole you'd dug.

It was entirely your fault, for even allowing yourself to consider him as anything but a great friend. It was your fault for taking the late night calls, the sweet tones, and messages the wrong way. Your interpretations were all wrong and now you'd have to sit here and apologize for practically outing yourself on stream. For letting the whole world know that you had romantic feelings for a good friend of yours. You'd probably made him so uncomfortable.

You felt yourself cringe slightly at his words, already gone quiet for far too long. You had to speak up, even if it lead to a good friendship ending a few minutes from now.

"Of course I did. You're great, Alex." The use of his name was meant to assure him you meant it wholeheartedly. It made the moment feel more intimate, too. Much to your own dismay, yet again. You couldn't help it.

The possibility that your friendship with him could come to an end real soon made you act on your feelings. It left you unhinged. If it was all going to end here, maybe you'd allow yourself to act on impulse. End it with a bang.

"Thank you, really. I know I probably wasn't meant to hear all that, but it was really nice. Made me feel nice as well. And just, seeing that you didn't accept the merch from me because you wanted to support me directly.. thank you."

His voice was soft, felt like warm honey to your taste buds. You could almost hear your heart melting inside your chest, could feel it dripping down and touching your diaphragm, oozing into every single crevice in your body. You'd never understand how he had such effects on you. How he was able to make you so fond of him.

"I meant every single word. You deserve that and so much more." You reassured yet again, a small smile on your lips. You heard him let out a small chuckle, which made you laugh as well.

Moments later, he had turned his camera on, wanting to show you all the merch. You'd asked for him to put it on, since you were a 'visual learner' and had to see it on him in order to fully understand what it looked like. He had playfully rolled his eyes, but hadn't really argued against it.

So there you were, watching as he changed from hoodie to hoodie, moving out of frame to change into the shirts. You could feel your heart thumping harshly against your rib cage at the sight of him. Some looked bigger on him, some looked just right. They all looked wonderful, and super comfy. Perhaps that was simply because they were on him, and he looked so comfy.

He looked like he could give the best hugs.

"You really think so?" His voice came out a bit sheepish, and the light pink that dusted his cheeks was becoming more and more evident. Huh?

"What?" You said, a dumb look on your face as you tried connecting the dots.

"That I could give the best hugs." He stated slowly, as if he was testing how it sounded before adding, "Do you really think that?"

Had you really said that out loud? Fuck. It took acting on impulse to a whole other level. This wasn't something you two usually did, but I guess it was okay since everything might be ending soon. Ballsy moves.

"Yeah. You make the merch look so cozy." Your throat felt dry, eyes glued to his face, wanting to catch every single second of his reaction. Wanting to see each movement of his facial muscles, to find out what it could possibly entail. "Makes me wonder what your hugs feel like." You admitted.

Your eyes scanned the entirety of his face, perking up slightly at the sight of his face flushing, leaving him with the softest tint of pink to spread across his cheeks, almost matching his pretty lips. What the hell did that even mean?

"Maybe you won't have to wonder for too long. With guidelines being lifted and all." The line. Blurred at that very moment, for sure. His eyes were glued to you as well, which only made you hesitate every single movement you could think of doing at that moment.

"And in the meantime? What am I supposed to do?" Risky. Crossing lines, jumping over hurdles. This all had to be against friend rules or something. You could feel your sanity decreasing each second this call went on. But he wasn't stopping any of this either.

"I could send you a hoodie." The sentence brought you out of your Quackity-induced haze, making you quickly shake your head. What? Before you could protest or ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, he explained.

"My hoodie. Y'know. Mine. One I wear. You can give it back when we meet up, perhaps."

Your mouth went dry again, shocked at the domestic feeling it gave. He was suggesting he send one of his hoodies. It would smell like him. It was the closest thing to giving him an actual hug. It would be paradise.

"You'd really do that?" You asked, still in disbelief, but he quickly nodded his head. "Oh." You said softly, before a smile appeared on your face. "I would like that, then."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I'll send it then." He hummed, smile spreading on his lips as well. Everything going on was making you feel dizzy. It felt so surreal.

You'd mentally prepared yourself for the worst, but instead were met with a flirtatious Quackity. He'd said sweet things to you before, but you never allowed yourself to take it seriously, not wanting to get your hopes up. And it never went to this extent.

It seemed he realized what just went down, a loud laugh escaping his lips. "Holy shit. You're gonna have one of my hoodies soon."

"I am." You chimed in, smile on your lips as well.

"And you'll wear it around." He added.

"I will."

"You'll look good, as always."

You could feel the heat rush to your face. What was going on? Was this real, or just a very cruel dream? Alex Quackity was fucking flirting with you.

"Are you flirting with me?" Bewildered tone, raised eyebrows. Your brain couldn't even begin to progress what was being said.

"What the fuck does it look like I've been doing?"

"Have you really?" Warmth spread across your chest at how blunt he was being. The line was gone. It'd been erased, never to be seen again. There was no shame in him. Admitting he was flirting with his whole chest.

"I have. Why are you so surprised though? I've subtly flirted with you before.. and I mean, were you not confessing your undying love to me on stream?" He raised a brow, feigned confusion on his face. He was teasing. You let out a groan, covering your face with your hands as he let out a laugh.

Surreal. He confessed to having flirted with you in the past. So you weren't delusional, nice to know. "Are you done?" You asked, face still covered by your hand in shame.

"I saw a tweet that was saying they felt like third wheels since I was in chat, and you were just going on about everything you liked about me." You kept your face covered. He was not stopping. Now he was the unhinged one.

He was visibly scrolling through the timeline at this point. "Oh, and one saying they want what we have. What do we have?"

You finally uncovered your face. "I don't know. Whatever the fuck this is, I guess?"

"Well, what is this?"

"Mm... whatever you want it to be." You finally answered, and there was a surprised look plastered on his face at that.

"Whatever I want?"

"Yeah." You paused. Would he regret this after he got out of this haze? What if it had just been flirting for fun? But he wouldn't play with your feelings like this, would he?

Alex Quackity was perfect though, and perhaps he had a sixth sense about when stuff was wrong with you, because he caught on to your hesitation.

"Hey." He called out softly. The teasing, flirtatious tone was gone, now replaced by the softer tone reserved for late night calls, or when everybody else in the vc had left and it was just you two.

You look at where his face was on your monitor, relaxing a bit simply by his tone and the soft gaze he held on you.

"I know everything sort of progressed pretty fast tonight.. but your stream really helped me realize a few things. I do like you, y/n. Not fucking around or anything." He said it in a firm tone, one that told you he wasn't messing around, but still felt oh so intimate.

Everything he was saying was exactly what you wanted and needed to hear. Reassurance that your feelings weren't unrequited. You couldn't believe your rambling on stream had lead you guys here.

"I like you, too. If that wasn't obvious already." You mumbled out, eyes averting before glancing to see his reaction. He had the biggest, cutest, grin on his face. Charming, and extremely contagious. You couldn't help but smile back.

Holy shit.

"Is this real?" You asked out loud, smile never leaving your face.

"It is. All thanks to your ranting on stream. How cool is that?"

You couldn't help but still feel rather embarrassed that he'd heard all of it, but it had brought you two here. All embarrassment was worth it. Especially if it meant it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for you two.

"Very cool." You mumbled, before a smile appeared on your lips. Today really couldn't have gone any better.

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jjheejz · 3 years

Text

About Internet Water Army in the case

This is an ongoing update about the case from start to development. List of all related posts can be found on this blog's pinned post (link provided at bottom of each post as well).

19 August 2021 update: Added the scale of his success for reference, before bonus below

18 August 2021 update: Added timeline of events, orange title in post, found out the official English term for Immoral Media = Internet Water Army)

Major updates since first draft: Added bonus, added disclaimer, certain info details

Originally posted on 16 August 2021

[The purpose of this post is to provide a perspective as to why the Media is raised/blamed regarding the issue. Especially for international fans, as all the encounters happened on Weibo. Also, those who were on weibo, do read through if you will. So although it's lengthy, do try to read all, at least if not the last two parts].

The Media referred by most, is not the common perception of the Entertainment Industry (celebrities, directors, shows, channels, staff etc), but the dark side of the Entertainment industry: Antis, toxic fans, toxic marketing accounts. They are called Internet Water Army💧.

Toxic Marketing Accounts is one of the things they do, these accounts on Weibo has millions of followers, each of their post likes are in the hundred thousands (buyable) to give credibility to passer-bys. Some use similar names to Official accounts, some use similar logos. Their posts are usually subjective or aims to steer view points of a certain celebrity/movie/show. Before the latest update of this post (18.08.21), I just group them all together and term them as Immoral Media*.

*Below is my original post using my original term because at point of first draft, I did not know the official term (so have changed/added the term from Immoral Media to Internet Water Army in content below but retain the content based off first draft).

If you have chased before celebrities, or just simply passed by an article about certain celebrities, recall how some title that caught your attentions were like. Clickbaits is one of the many things they do. If GZ is your first and you do not have Weibo, then this read(link) is good enough.

Just as the term Immoral Media (Internet Water Army), it’s immoral and unethical, but they exists because they are paid to do so. Who pays them? Entertainment Companies, and maybe other Organisations

Normal Media/Marketing vs Immoral Media/Toxic Marketing/Internet Water Army

When a show or movie comes out, the normal Marketing department will generate outreach and buzz so that people know a show is airing soon/know the show exists etc. Official announcements are not enough, because there isn’t much context (limited content to put up as well) so having some other Marketing accounts do the buzz in a planned period to gain awareness through posts, some articles about the casts, the plot summary, the production details etc is normal. This is Marketing, bigger companies will probably have stronger Marketing departments (aka influence) and can hire more Marketing accounts to generate buzz. Celebrities (aka casts) themselves, are also Marketing point.

Then we have the Internet Water Army/Immoral Media, these are what they mainly do:

Create Fanfiction-rumors: Creating rumors about celebrities to shift audience perception of them. [eg. XX was seen with XX leaving a hotel, XX was drunk on Event Y and did ZZZ to AA, XX is dating BB and has been in a relationship for N years etc]

Honing their brain degrading skills: Come up with titled clickbait headings/ trending topics with negative written contents. For articles, exceptionally out of heading content related to the celebrity. [Refer to Baidu, it’s a winner of these, feel free to Google Translate]

Regressing their common sense and understanding skills: Take everything a celebrity does completely out of context in a negative way and create a topic out of it [eg. XX said AA is a ---, “XX raised his finger, a sign of ---?”, XX pushed BB aggressively on Variety Show Y - A competition variety show, XX is in beef with CC because XX was caught giving CC the eye]

Using their fingers to stir shit and bathe each other in it: Escalate all smallest form of possible tension created by fans/themselves into a huge thing by acting as the fandom's fans/lurk in fandom chat groups, and voicing their disguised opinion to spread tension/exaggerate severity of the issue [eg. XX fans mocked AA - in groupchats: tbh I've never liked AA before, AA just gives off a vibe that I dont like and now this? It just disgusts me even more > Yea, i feel this way too. AA has problems / XX Lurkers expressing views on XX about NN, slowly to NNMHFXW - XX did NNMHGT - I cannot accept NNmHfHw, I'm leaving = multiply by 1000++]

Epitome of a self-deteriorate: Creating something out of nothing and react to that something negatively to gain massive attention/reaction [eg. “XX raised his hand on show Y” - dk what XX fans are thinking, are they literally blind? XX fans are tasteless just like XX hahaha / “XX did community service” - they are acting / “XX breathed” - From the start, i thought XX was NN, but I am so ZZZ that XX breathed. Goodbye fandom, i’m leaving. Those who still want to stay I urge you to rethink your life choices] - if I may add, Xiao Zhan’s fanfiction case as well.

Metaphor - Ability to use bare hands to collect paychecks from the urinal/toilet bowl where their boss/client peed in: Doing all of the above.

Apologies for any term offense, but not apologetic of the term context. This is what they do for a living. Any normal human being who do not like anything, will generally not be interested at anything about it in the first place, so to have some antis/toxic fans knowing certain things and inside jokes/references in their posts questions their goal.

On involved in Internet Water Army/Immoral Media 💧

Fans on weibo during these few months witnessed many of the above on GZ. From rumored girlfriend (spammed with articles) to mean and nasty comments on trending topics, to bouts of insults and fake emotional cryouts by certain fan accounts that GZ's office has to release a number of Lawyer’s letter to them.

Aside from WOH there were also a few other BL adaptation films that were actually released this year but they did not reach exponential success like WOH. BL adaptations are so highly followed by because this is the key to wealth. Literally. Successful BLs like The Untamed and Dao Mu Bi Ji saw the amount of wealth fans are willing to spend on the celebrity as compared to say BG or idols (younger fan groups). This is why when WOH shot up exponentially, Immoral Media start to sweat.

Major anticipated adaptations were supposed to air this year eg. Hao Yi Xing(HYX), Sha Po Lang(SPL) etc but was severely held back due to the stricter change in BL adaptations submitting their scripts for approval regulations (WOH manage to submit earlier before the change). Because of this, most final films were rejected and they have to keep re-editing, by then WOH was already months into reaping tonnes of major brand endorsements, shows/movie casting, variety show appearances etc, something that is seen as too successful in the Immoral Media’s eyes, because they have to create buzz for other celebrities, some are specific celebrity oriented and thus circulate rumors about having endorsement opportunities shifted from celebrity X to GZ (think fanfiction-rumors and shit stirrer) causes tension in celebrity fandoms. - A real event just in July:

The Untamed’s cp fandom is called BJYX which had always been in the Top 1 of Cps for 2 years dropped for awhile to Top 2, over taken by LLD. Both of them had a war and hated each fandom, one fandom is somehow not allowed to like the other fandom even casually after everything broke out because it started out with some BJYX toxics photoshopped GZ on of portraits .

Also another case of which he wore the same costume as WYB did in a previous photoshoot and it became a useless comparison of who wore better, who looks better, degrading the other. (Finger stirring shit).

Now apply all of the above things the Internet Water Army do and we have them earning money, while both fandom reacts and hate each other.

In LLD, our own fans started suspecting each other on who is a spy from BJYX and what not.

The first few months of Internet Water Army saw LLDs mostly mocking them because the average age is 30-40s, they know and see through all of their intentions so nothing was big. They were trumpeting and LLDs didn’t even care, what with all the doing tedious stats was not even important to them.

Over time, as the issues they create became more and more serious LLDs did start to care, reporting Toxic Marketing accounts/toxic fans became a daily task, go vote for GZ at certain polls etc, solo fans, and LLD fans also split apart. Solo fans think cp fans use GZ to furnish their fantasies, and cp fans thinks they are the ones furnishing their dreaming-girls fantasy with (aka my boyfriend).

There was also a period where LLD had a habit of continuously mentioning “we are in the 30-40s so we can see through everything about the media, we are all fans for the first time, we are good at spending money (because of purchase power compared to other fandoms)” it was prevalent for so long it felt odd, ‘chasing celebrities the first time’ in particular sounds more vulnerable as a weakness than a strength / sth to be proud of.

Gradually, more secretive/insider confirmed ‘sweets’ were flying around. Fans advised each other to not circulate, and the mindset of “if you know, you know, dont tell.” (This is a problematic mentality, of which fans will still be curious to know and search for it themselves, but this secretive hook is unhealthy. Over the long term, it becomes hard for existing fans to know a lot of things properly to judge for themselves, especially those who knew and publicly reacted, but blasting those who ask and telling those who know to keep quiet, this did not help some to understand why on certain things, even so for international fans, dont know and dont understand, causing misunderstandings. Yes, certain information should not be shared, so why should you react about it publicly in the first place? - Internet Water Army effect)

The last few months (for example the July fan war) created a tonne of seriousness and anger. A period even broke out with a tonne of ‘insider confirmed sweets’ (which is LLD’s daily dose of happiness), it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake. Trending topics became negative and everyone warned each other not to enter because it will give the trends ‘views’ and trend statistics, in reality entering there is to enter an exhibition by the self-deteriorates, collecting the fandom's traffic data (it's a sure lose for fans each time they enter the topic). Everyone even starts thinking that the trend’s popularity was caused by each other (it's true but it can be bought daily and not caused by fans). There was a raise in the number of fans who were getting emotional because they want to protect but Internet Water Army kept coming and got worse, because fans, tbh, not just GZ fans, every other celebrity’s fans are always fighting with an Army, getting played and plotted in that Army's calendar.

Even so, despite all of these, LLD is actually a fandom Internet Water Army may find the hardest to break because they understand GZ so much, they could tell what are fake news regarding GZ, because among everything above, there are still plenty of logical fans to stop many fans from drifting too far and debunking them. Why? 30-40s are grown up adults.

Why 13.8.21 and the Japan issue is plotted?

First of all, in the political climate of China, there are many political dates in a month that is NO-Entertainment news. Because it’s the honoring of certain important political events. It’s like Remembrance Day, thus the sensitivity is higher. On these days, there are usually no news and even the Internet Water Army zip their pants. This year also marks the 100th year of the Chinese Communist Party(link)

Secondly, he had no work schedule on 13 August 2021. A great full day to focus on any other news (because if he had schedules, everyone will turn their attention to his events, what trumpeting outside is just bird chirps).

Thirdly, when the news broke out, especially about the shrine, the reception was actually quite serious within the fandom so the scale of this might be big but to what extent in reality?

Lastly, 15.8.21 marks the 76th anniversary of the announcement of surrender of Japanese in World War 2(link). Also a day of NO-Entertainment news.

Timeline of events:

13.8.21 - [His rest day, Eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, Japan News broke out] His rest day, no schedules = increased attention about him online. Lowered guard among fans because they are getting ready for tomorrow's Chinese Valentine's sweets = Caught off guard = Huge break out of fans' reactions

14.8.21 - [Chinese Valentine's Day, Eve of the 75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender] Keep a wishful and happy demenaor to not destroy the mood, suppressed thoughts about ZZH's Japan news

15.8.21 - [75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender, Official announcement of ZZH's boycott and all China social media account ban] NO-Entertainment news day, Solemn day, not allowed to voice anything so the fandom can only wait for tomorrow to start voicing out/debunking but before they can wait out, the boycott and social media ban happened, every official accounts about him was gone overnight, fans had no time to react

17.8.21 - [All official fandom accounts related to ZZH and JunZhe were locked/removed]

Forced to be silent since the day his matter broke out, over the course of official news release with everything taken down in a day because of the Japan correspondence, his accounts banned overnight across the Chinese media and the overnight cancellation, fans could not speak anything about it. Overnight cancellation like this scale happened for the first time in China, leaving no time to react by the fandom, by the time they can, they are silenced.

When the period of events occured within a set of special dates, it’s not coincidence.

Conclusion

Because he was too successful and had many actually honorable past things, and a hard to influence fandom, Internet Water Army view him as a huge threat enough to want to destroy him, because it’s hard to defeat. With a chance they have, they will hold it till the end, bringing up this issue to the Government during this period also shows a sign of how scared they were of him and perhaps his fandom to plot something like this.

Updated on 19 August: Here's a screenshot of assumed calculation on the scale of GZ success for reference while chatting with a fellow fan, assuming GJ also has 27 brands, and there are 1000 brands. Rationale of numbers used: Only big brands can hire big celebrities.

Bonus

Mentioned in the first post, will mention again in case. After the news broke out within 2 days, there was a drop on his weibo followers from 18.9mil to 18.7mil. 200k+ drops, if the politics was such a big national issue, there should at least be a huge drop, even at least a million right? Because weibo is a China-Chinese majority right? Nope, we get a puny 200k drop.

What's funny? The self-deteroriates:

Translation: "Are his fans bought? Why didnt he drop fans? Those people got brainwashed to this point?" / "I've never entered his weibo and today i feel like having a look yet it showed I've followed him. All his fans were bought right? It disgusts me, i immediately unfollowed. This kind of process is worse than WYF..." / "i dropped fans because of him...no...I just reposted 2 posts and I've dropped 4 fans?"

Isn't the tone and regressing brain cells, all too familiar and same?

Added above, will remind again to read this link. It has an even more in-depth knowledge on who are paying them.

So what should we do? Link here

Related posts 🛏️:

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 3 years

Text

Touch it for Real, Part 9

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Angst / (Eventual) Smut 18+

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers / unresolved sexual tension

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

A/N: DO NOT YELL AT ME! It is going to be okay.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

You had a secret.

For such an abstract and shapeless thing you could sure feel it sitting in there.

It was pulsing.

Your secret felt like a splinter lodged just under a single taste bud that sat in the center of your tongue. You could feel your white blood cells attacking it, trying their best to push it up and push it out, but still it clung tight with its sharp barbs lodged within your cell walls. You brushed your tongue against your teeth.

The secret did not budge.

What you knew about them though, was that secrets did not like to stay hidden forever.

Your fork slipped and clanked noisily against the ceramic plate and the bright orange carrot ball rolled across the smooth white surface nearly sliding over the edge onto the white linen. Whoever decided that your steamed vegetables needed to be shaped into spheres simply for aesthetics should be forced to come out here and explain how you were supposed to spear one of these things while also avoiding the risk of it shooting across the table and hitting your date in the face.

Ben turned out to be very nice. If you were into tall, handsome, clean-looking, and responsible guys who drove their own cars and also had things like health insurance and retirement plans. When you first saw him, you were struck by the firmness you felt when he shook your hand and smiled brightly at you. He had all of his teeth and a head full of hair. He was definitely walking around on his real legs too. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t let the clean laundry sit in the dryer for longer than a day and changed out his toothbrush every three months. You couldn't see a single fault.

You were trying your best to make a good first impression.

Really, you were.

Well, while also keeping an eye on Baekhyun who sat beside you with his focus down on his plate as he sliced his food into bite sized bits. His control of the fork and knife felt so careful and so exacting, it neared obsession. He had not ordered the steamed vegetables. None of his food rolled.

Across from him, looking just as cute in person as her online dating profile pictures conveyed, was Mia.

Mia was fine.

She was fine.

You didn't want to get into it.

Her clothes were fine. They were exactly the kinds of clothes you had expected she would wear.

Her hair was fine.

She actually had a hairstyle that reminded you of one of the characters in an anime you watched with Baekhyun once and you wondered about the upkeep costs of that particular shade of blue that streaked through her hair. You wondered if she had to switch to blue towels and blue pillow cases or if everything in her house was just stained forever.

Baekhyun’s cheeks blushed when he shook her hand and his smile was bashful, if not a bit tight when she complimented his glasses. Your mind briefly considered the plush, expensive white towels you both owned at home and a flash of horror overcame you for a split second when you imagined those towels streaked with a blue stain from the shower.

He bought those glasses at a store. Anyone can go to the store and buy glasses. Did such a superficial compliment really warrant such a deep shade of pink on his cheeks?

You took a sip of your glass of wine and the sweet, cool liquid had a tart aftertaste that lingered on your taste buds long after you swallowed and you stabbed roughly at the runaway carrot again, impaling it with the prongs of your fork.

Finally.

“I got it,” you said out loud to yourself with a wide smile and you held your prize up in front of your face for a second. Long enough for your eyes to drift across your table to meet Ben’s and you caught the soft amused chuckle that puffed from his nose.

You’d already gotten through the backstory. Starting with the curious question from Mia about how you and Baekhyun got to know each other and you took a quick glance toward Ben as Baekhyun explained that you and he had been roommates for a couple of years. You caught the slight smile on Ben’s lips as he looked down into his water glass and you wondered if he was pleased that he already knew the answer to this question as you had been quick to tell him this important detail about your life as you chatted with him during the last week or so.

Mia on the other hand simply let her eyes drift over from Baekhyun’s face to land on yours for a moment and you offered a disarming smile by way of explanation. Not that either of you had any explaining to do. You could live with whoever you wanted to live with. It took her ten seconds to return your smile, although you didn't quite believe it, or believe that she was done with her curiosities about this topic.

You couldn't really blame her although you’d given her nothing to be suspicious about. Not in the last 20 minutes since you’d all arrived and nibbled on shared appetizers, at least.

Hell, you hadn’t even touched him all day. From before you both arrived at this fancy restaurant and just relinquished your coats to some stranger simply because she held a hand out and sported a severe enough hairdo and manic look in her eyes that was too frightening to question. From the morning when you woke up and wandered into your kitchen to make toast for one and you ignored the sound of his feet shuffling in, half-asleep to grab a yogurt from the fridge. You hadn’t even helped him style his hair; which looked stunning, by the way, with the waves and the faded brown color that absolutely looked like something the perfect boyfriend would let you play with as he laid on your lap. He hadn’t even asked for your help picking out his outfit. He’d simply done it all on his own and waited for you by the front door wearing those jeans and smelling like that familiar scent that he bought for your date with him weeks back.

When had this all become so awkward? You’d never been afraid to touch Baekhyun before but now, well, the touches hadn’t ever concealed quite so much meaning before.

By the time the entrees arrived the conversations had moved on to hobbies and interests.

Ben was a movie buff, and his favorites were mostly mainstream blockbusters of the Marvel Superhero variety. He enjoyed many of the genres of films you’d mostly seen just the previews of. His top ten contained a bit more horror than you were comfortable with. One in particular, a prolific film based on a Steven King novel, had been the kind of psychologically terrifying film that made your chest rattle and you had spent most of the second half of that movie with your face buried in Baekhyun’s arm begging him to just describe to you what was happening and to tell you when the scary parts were over.

When he asked you what your favorite movie was you hesitated for a moment before pulling the movie Forrest Gump out of basically thin air. Yes you had enjoyed the movie. Yes it was something you’d seen more than once and if it was on television right now you would sit down and watch it from start to finish and you would enjoy it. It was a respectable favorite to have. It was the kind of favorite movie you would not be embarrassed to show to your grandmother.

But it wasn’t actually your favorite and you could feel the burden of Baekhyun’s eyes as he turned his head to look at your face when you said it.

Something about naming, out loud with your own lips — the light and fun, mindless guilty pleasure of the film that was actually your favorite movie that you’d watched hundreds of times and returned to watch again and again every time you felt even a little bit upset; something about saying it out loud to this table of people with countless of hours of media consumption under their belts and opinions about things like prolific directors, production companies, hefty CGI budgets, and overused, tired tropes that absolutely should be dropped in 2021, well it just felt too vulnerable for you to say out loud.

You swallowed a sip of your wine and refused to turn your head to look at Baekhyun until you heard the sound of his throat swallowing the ice water he sipped.

When Mia changed the topic to Anime you felt Baekhyun come alive beside you and Ben slinked back in his seat a little as the two of them got to talking about something that was highly anticipated and was slated to be released next year. Rumors about artists and directors with names you could not know flew easily from their lips and Mia mentioned the name of one previous work that you recognized.

In fact you had watched the entire thing last year with Baekhyun and you remembered talking excitedly about it with Mia during one of your early text conversations.

Your face lit up and you happily joined in, excited to finally know what in the world they were talking about when you accidentally let something slip when you reminded her of what she had said about the anime before. Luckily you stopped yourself before you could admit that you had actually been the one she had been chatting with at the time.

Still, she caught it. She was very quick and sharp and you watched her face as she registered that you’d referenced something that only Baekhyun should know about. Had you just fucked up?

“Ahh, we,” you raised your index finger and waved it lightly toward where Baekhyun had stiffened up in his seat beside you, “he told me about what you said.”

There was a moment when her eyes widened and she looked at Baekhyun briefly before returning her focus to you.

“He...told you about me?” She lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, straightened her back and leaned forward with her forearms rested in front of her plate on the table. Her off-the-shoulders number dipped when she leaned in and you caught a bit of black lace and the bunch up of her impressive bosom.

She smiled a coy smile aimed across the table.

You followed the smile and your eyes reached Baekhyun. He’d been hit with the smile and had been too stunned to return it. Instead, he lifted a hand and rubbed it over the back of his neck twice before reaching the same hand forward to grab the ice water he’d been sipping all night as he pulled in a mouthful and puffed his cheeks before covering his lips with his flattened palm and swallowing noisily.

“I also mentioned you to my friend,” Mia said not quietly enough for it to be just for him and you dropped your eyes down to the half finished chicken on your plate.

She was fine. Mia was fine. She’d done absolutely nothing wrong. She was nice and she was probably a good person, but you kind of wanted her to die.

“So,” Ben interjected suddenly and you looked across the table at him as you tried to conceal the surprise on your face to find him sitting there.

You noticed he was done with his food and his plate had already been cleared away by the super attentive waitstaff.

The negligence of your own date weighed heavily on you and you angled your chest forward to face him directly for whatever questions he had for you.

He was pointing toward Baekhyun and Mia with his extended finger and raised eyebrows.

“You two work in computers?” It was a work question. He’d gathered this much from the brief introductions everyone had given and while you had failed to offer any insight as to what you did for a living, Baekhyun and Mia had both mentioned computers.

“He’s a software engineer, and I’m a programmer. Similar but not the same,” Mia explained. You weren't sure of any of the details or of how they were different. You hadn’t really put much thought into it. You knew Baekhyun worked the magic with the keyboard and could fix anything that you happened to break.

“I’m in advertising. Just got scouted by Comma Entertainment and I’ve accepted.” Ben had a hand raised to his chest and his eyebrows were up. This seemed important to him and you let your lips form into an impressed O shape as you raised your eyebrows. His tone and the way he said the name of his new employer seemed to warrant the excited reaction.

You weren't familiar at all with his industry but you knew how to react like you knew what he was talking about. He certainly seemed impressed by himself. Who were you to discourage his enthusiasm.

“You’ve heard of it?” You sold it too well. Baekhyun had leaned close to you and whispered an aside question and you shot him a tense look with your eyes as a warning, but you quickly pushed your smile wide for Ben who was, deservedly, very excited about his new position.

“Of course, who doesn’t know Comma for advertising. That’s a very big deal. Is that why you were so busy last week? We hardly got to talk.”

Your subject change was so slick. If you hadn’t been the one to do it, you’d have been impressed by it. The disappointed pout on your face sold it well.

“Actually I was at the bank a lot last week. It was so weird. I had a few accounts that seemed to be hacked but then it turned out to be nothing. Had to change all my passwords though, so that was annoying.”

“That sucks. They didn't take anything did they?” Mia spoke up from beside Ben; concern written all over her face.

“No. Whoever did it just seemed to access purchase histories mostly. Some loser of a hacker. Didn't even get any money.” Ben’s lips pulled wide and he was laughing with his head thrown back at his perceived victory over the hacker that had been messing around in his bank records.

“You can learn a remarkable amount of information about a person’s bad habits from their bank history, Ben. Sure utilities and rent; that’s boring. You can find out how often someone gets hammered at bars. How many of those bars are also strip clubs. How many maxed out credit cards they make minimum payments on each month just to keep their head above water. Their gambling losses and the motel rooms they book in the bad part of town…”

Baekhyun was speaking up beside you. You turned and you looked at his profile as he spoke so candidly and with what you could only describe as a certain smugness on his voice.

The only reason he’d stopped talking was to catch his breath. It was the most he had spoken all night and you honestly felt taken aback by the suddenness of his words and more, the topic he spoke on. It felt weirdly pointed. It just felt so detailed; almost accusatory.

“What?” You hissed the question; focused it hard and as under your breath as possible to the man seated beside you.

His lips closed up before his eyes turned to look at you and you caught a quick blink of his eyes that preceded a softening of his features that had no business looking that confrontational in the first place.

“I’m not saying any of that stuff applies to Ben.” Baekhyun lifted a slim dismissive hand to wave toward your date. “It’s just an example. For all we know Ben’s only weakness is eating fried chicken every day.”

Ben’s lips were pulled into a thin line on his face and his jaw unclenched when you looked back at him. Then he was smiling at you and it was bright and convincing. You smiled back at him and shook your head at your wacky roommate’s antics.

“Actually it’s pizza. You caught me buddy, I’m a hardcore pizza addict. Every night.”

“Well, not tonight.” Baekhyun shrugged with an odd smile landing on his lips.

Ben’s tight smile flattened and the two men seemed to be staring at each other for longer than you thought was polite for a shared first double-date.

“So what is it that you do?” It was Mia who ultimately broke the tension and you looked across the table into her eyes. She had a pleasant smile on her face and was still chewing on a piece of bread, clearly unbothered by the strange standoff that had just been going on between the two men at this table.

Surely you weren't the only one to notice how odd it had been. Had you just imagined the tightness in Baekhyun’s fist that laid over his thigh and the hard glare in Ben’s eyes?

With Mia’s question though, you felt your own lips pull closed and your eyes danced around the table to the other curious parties who also were now looking at you to answer the question.

You’d prepared well for this date. You’d made sure Baekhyun had the detailed first date topics, questions and answers for perfect small talk, even the section on table etiquette. You’d made sure he knew you’d be here to steer the conversations toward topics he was comfortable discussing and you’d even set up a safety signal he would use if he wanted to bail and just go home.

You’d planned it all out, down to the detailed progression of the evening and how at the end someone might even suggest going together for drinks. And should one of the dates wish to split off, it would be completely okay as long as the corresponding person felt comfortable. You’d even promised that under no circumstances would you abandon Baekhyun to do this on his own if he didn't want to. Not even at the behest of Ben, your date.

They were looking at you and you'd gone quiet. You’d been so busy preparing for this date that it never occurred to you that you were also actively involved and that someone might possibly ask a question about you and your work.

Your work. Well…

“Uhh...I don't really do anything worth mentioning.”

You felt it. It was a warmth that had pooled in the skin around your nose. Your cheeks felt warm and you felt just insignificant enough for it to take your undeserved confidence and throw it out the window.

Ben and Mia were watching you. You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth and bit down on the dry chapped skin on the surface.

“Nothing?” Ben said and his eyes were wide with a look of confusion on his face.

“Well, not nothing.” You were not completely unemployed. You had been quite impressive before. You’d been working with the best publicists of an entertainment company and had been in charge of crafting and perfecting the asset sheets of many of your company's highest profile artists. You’d been the best at it and at one time had been highly sought out for your expertise. You had a way with it. You could work some real magic. You could make a dud of a raw potato sound like a five star course in a Michelin star restaurant. Losing your position in the spring of 2020 had really been a huge blow to your confidence. You looked back at how far you had fallen. Boring data entry jobs to make ends meet. Taking on weird side gigs so you could afford tiny luxuries like your favorite scented lotion or the name brand tampons instead of the store brand.

“I do have a job.” You added lamely. “It’s just not at all interesting.”

Ben dropped his eyes from yours and Mia shrugged her shoulders and stabbed a carrot ball expertly on the first try.

“Yeah but what is it?” Mia said as she chewed daintily. The heat in your cheeks spread and you let your eyes wander away from hers over the various dinner items that covered this table.

Beside you, Baekhyun’s movement caught your eye and you turned to see him place an elbow on the table in front of him and he leaned forward.

“She’s a dating coach. She’s really good at it, but much too modest when she talks about herself.”

Oh no. He wasn't about to spill the beans was he? This was definitely not something in the approved list of first date dinner topics. Wasn't this topic too incriminating? Wouldn't Mia put two and two together and figure out that you had been coaching Baekhyun all along? Also, wasn't this new profession of yours too brand new to start talking about so freely like this? What the hell was he doing?

“A dating coach? What’s that?”

Strangely, Mia didn't seem to be looking at Baekhyun with wheels turning and sirens blaring. She was looking at you with her mouth empty and hung open with a look of genuine interest in her eyes.

“Do you like, feed them what to say in an earpiece?” Ben was speaking up from the other side of Mia and you laughed at the absurdity of such a silly rom-com movie cliche.

“Well no. I’m not a pickup artist. I am a dating coach. Think about it like a sports coach. I am teaching my clients the skills to play the game. Skills to overcome dating anxiety, or I’m teaching them to identity and move away from self-sabotaging behaviors, limiting beliefs, or preconceptions that are detrimental to a healthy relationship.

I have clients that don't even know where to begin. My goal is to strategize with them and place them effectively within the dating scene so they stand the best chance. It’s incredibly hard to be objective about your own love life, but I provide an outside viewpoint. I step in and intervene when I see something that isn't in line with their relationship goals or the vision they have for dating.

I’m not teaching manipulation or just telling them what to say. There are no love spells to make someone fall in love with you. I’m changing the way they believe in themselves so they can present themselves to someone else in the absolute best way to begin a real relationship with someone.”

You’d been leaning in as you spoke animatedly with your hands. You felt the genuine excitement building with your words. You were surprised at how much of your previous profession’s language applied to this new exciting endeavor you were embarking on, but there really were tons of overlapping similarities between the two fields. The explanations just poured out of you.

You hadn’t said any of this out loud before to anyone but the more you talked about it, the more elated you felt about what you were doing with your life. With how much you had been helping Baekhyun and how much progress you had seen in just one day of helping your clients — Baekhyun’s friends Minseok and Sehun. Sehun had finally, finally sent you his first selfie that wasn’t taken from his lap after you’d sent him many examples of good selfies taken from different angles. Minseok was already halfway through the materials you’d sent him to study and had been working hard on identifying and changing the self-defeating language he’d used in his rough draft dating profile.

“She has an app.” Baekhyun piped up from beside you. He’d leaned back in his chair as you spoke.

Both Ben and Mia’s faces mirrored each other’s. Their eyes were wide and their mouths hung in amazement and you quickly closed up your own mouth and grabbed anxiously at your wine glass, feeling a little bit embarrassed about having talked so much. You couldn't resist the chance to smash their misconceptions about what your goals actually were with helping your clients. None of these people were unlovable. They were all worthy of finding someone and you were going to give it your all to help them see their own value.

“Not at all interesting?” Mia spoke up, “that’s super interesting. That’s really, really cool. Can—Can I have your contact info? I have a friend that would be interested in your services.”

“You have an app too? This is something we could advertise online. It would do extremely well on certain kinds of reddit forums and definitely in most online gaming communities.” Even Ben sounded excited, if not a bit overly judgmental, and you heard a quiet, but hostile scoff next to you.

You ticked your head toward the sound but did not turn to look at him. You knew that scoff well enough to hear the annoyance in his voice at whatever he thought Ben might be insinuating about online gamers and the connection to the incels that haunted the forums of reddit.

“I think it’s a bit premature to think about online advertising. I’m still only one person.”

Ben smiled and shrugged off your quick dismissal of his idea to partner up and advertise your business to the desperately lonely and pathetic gamers of the world. Hell, the more you thought about it, the less inappropriate Baekhyun’s annoyance was. Ben could use some coaching on choosing less insulting words.

Thankfully the dinner was over and the check had been taken care of. You looked away from the palpable awkwardness that slapped you across the face when Baekhyun waved away Ben’s card and paid for the entire bill with his own.

“You can get me next time, buddy.” He definitely said this word sarcastically. It was out of line and you simply could not find the right moment to pinch his leg under the table to get him to behave himself in a discrete enough way that would not get you caught by the other two people at this table.

You let it slide simply because you had no way to stop it. He was ignoring the way you waved your finger frantically at him down by your calf. You knew he could see you in his peripherals.

No, Baekhyun. Stop that. Be nice. Your hand was saying. He wouldn't even look at it.

The dinner was over and the movie was starting soon. You’d picked a restaurant that was close enough to the theatre that you could walk.

You paired off. It was far from natural. You actually caught Baekhyun’s eyes as you stepped quickly and walked ahead of him, falling into step beside Ben and you left behind Baekhyun and Mia to bring up the rear. It took every ounce of self control not to turn around and look behind you to see how closely they walked to each other. To see if Baekhyun kept his hands shoved securely in his pockets or if he swung his arms at his side as he walked, inching a hand closer and closer to Mia’s swinging hand in the hopes of a back of the hand brush of his warm skin against hers.

Your steps must have stalled. You’d reached the theatre and you looked up to locate Ben, only to find him at the box office purchasing four tickets for the movie you’d all agreed to watch days ago. For the life of you, you couldn't remember what you were seeing. You merely followed where you were led and found yourself seated in a center row of a movie house sandwiched between Ben and Baekhyun. You noticed the center armrests had been lifted when you arrived and simply did not bother to lower them since everyone was too full from dinner for any movie snacks or drinks.

The house was mostly empty and then lights dimmed as the movie began. You searched your brain and nearly pulled out your phone to check your chat logs for the name of the film but decided against shining a tiny bright light in a dark room.

The movie began and you were quickly drawn into the narrative. It was a dark film and as the soundtrack began to take on more sinister sounding tones you recognized that your heart was racing and you were feeling the tension all over your body. It was not a gorey horror film, but it was leaning more toward the psychological suspense thriller genre. Not really something you watched much of.

To your left, Ben sat completely still; focused only on the movie screen. He looked so calm and nearly unaffected by the terrifying things happening on the screen. He occasionally shifted in his seat but did not react to the jump scare that flashed before your eyes and made you flinch hard in your seat. You’d reached the point in the film when the main characters were in genuine danger and you began to wonder if anyone would make it out of this movie alive. Was this one of those films where everyone was doomed?

It happened again, another jump, another loud shocking sound and another noise startled you and you dove to your right, hiding your face in the warm shoulder of the man sitting beside you.

The realization was instantaneous. The second you felt the warmth of his arm, and the smell of him hit your nose, you pulled your head up and you straightened out your spine, mumbling a quiet apology to Baekhyun for using his arm to hide behind as you removed any and all contact points you had with his body. You angled your hips and your knees away from him and even went so far as to stick your hands well under your own thighs and keep them there so you didn't grab for him again. You had been doing so well by not touching him at all today. Why did it have to be a scary movie?

Things grew more frantic on the screen. You held your breath and tried your best to keep from reacting as much as you could. How long was this movie? How much longer did you have to endure this? You should have paid more attention to the details of this part of the date. This was your own fault. You were acting like a big baby because you couldn't handle a little frightening scenes in a movie.

It was coming again. You could feel it building. You closed your eyes and terrible sounds were erupting all over. You would just not look. You could make it through if you just didn't look. With your eyes closed the sounds felt louder than ever and when you thought you couldn't take it anymore you considered committing the enormous sin of getting up during the climax of the movie to use the bathroom just so you didn't have to sit through this anymore.

There was a shift beside you then. You felt warm fingers inching down your forearm, traveling the path your hand took that led below your thigh and someone was reaching for your hand and pulling it out from where you’d been sitting on it. Someone to your right was gripping your hand with his own warm hand and you opened your eyes to look down between the hidden space between your hip and Baekhyun’s hip. There, you saw the grip of his hand that wrapped securely around yours.

He squeezed down once and you followed the length of him up to catch a glimpse of the side of his face. He was looking up at the screen. His eyes were open and he did not flinch at all. He was so still aside from the occasional movement of his lips when he moistened them with his tongue.

You could handle this if he lent you a little bit of his strength like this. Your eyes returned to the screen but your mind wandered back down to the secure comfort you felt in his hand.

You felt your own secret throb.

It made you flinch just a little bit and Baekhyun’s hand shifted then. He moved, lifting the tight grip for a moment and you wondered if he was done, would he take his hand back and leave you cold and afraid again? The lift was for the shift of his fingers and you felt the push of each digit between yours. He pushed his fingers between yours; interlocking your hands together with his and his thumb moved lightly over your own thumb, brushing comforting strokes again and again through the loud and scary and shocking scenes that played over that screen.

This time the racing you felt in your chest had nothing to do with the scary movie. He was touching you. He was holding your hand in secret. It felt forbidden with his date sitting right beside him like she was and with your date seated right beside you like he was. All of your attention was down on the slow pressure you felt from his thumb as it traced the shape of your own thumb down from the very bottom up to the tip, around again. The simple up and down had a slow and sensual rhythm to it. When he lifted his hand his thumb moved and you held your breath to feel that same very slow touching trace the outline of the palm of your hand again and again. He drew absentminded shapes into your skin with the pointed tip of his thumb and your eyes drifted closed as the longing grew within you. He followed the paths of the creases in your skin like a palm reader. He did not even need light to see them, he simply felt them and traced along the paths.

You let him.

You felt bewitched.

You loved him.

The credits rolled on the screen and the lights switched on. The change was abrupt. You were taken by surprise and shocked by it like you were from the jump scares in the film.

His warmth left you. His wandering light touch, his deliberate and careful exploration of the lines that made up the palm of your hand vanished.

Everyone was standing and everyone was walking out of the theatre house and your mind felt clouded and dazed but you followed where their steps led and you found yourself standing outside of the exit doors with the three other people who you entered with.

Baekhyun stood beside Mia and Ben occupied the space of the sidewalk square that you also stood inside.

It was the end of a night. You felt an overwhelming urge for this evening to be done so you could go home and shower and maybe eat something sweet and distracting and maybe made out of chocolate.

“Well this was fun,” it was your own voice that ultimately called it.

Mia had been looking at Baekhyun who had been looking down at his own feet as he lightly tapped his foot on the concrete below. Three taps.

Tap, tap, tap.

You felt a jolt of realization. Baekhyun had just tapped his foot thrice on the floor below him well within your sight and you recognized what that meant. He was feeling done. He was done with all of this exhausting socializing and being out in public with so many people around and he wanted to go home now. This was him asking you for help now as he wasn't sure how to end the date but wanted it to be over.

“What about...grabbing some drinks, maybe...” Mia was talking only to Baekhyun as she looked at him, “if you aren't too tired.”

“Hey Baek, isn’t your grandmother coming over early tomorrow? Do you still have to get ready for that?” You interjected suddenly and Baekhyun looked up into your face with his mouth open and you watched his eyes move slowly over your face as he recognized what you were doing. You were giving him an out. Mia had asked him to go for drinks and you were giving him an excuse, should he need it.

You both knew his grandma came every other Sunday. You both vividly remembered the wonderful visit you had at the beginning of the week with her and she wasn’t due to arrive again until next Sunday.

He could simply correct you if he really did want to go with her. He could call you a dummy and tell you that you had the wrong week again and playfully tap you on the head to jog your brain back into functioning the right way as he often did when you got something mixed up.

“Oh, yeah she is,” Baekhyun grabbed your convenient reminder from the air and smiled a rueful smile directed at Mia. His smile widened with the wince on his face, “that’s too bad.” He added and Mia took it well.

She smiled and nodded her head and there were well wishes for a safe trip home all around as you all parted ways.

Ben said he would text you later. Baekhyun told Mia the same and you waited until they both walked away to follow Baekhyun back to his car for the quiet ride home.

The silence was heavy, but it was comfortable.

Baekhyun didn't speak at all and you could tell by the way he carried himself that he was tired. He wasn’t normally an extroverted person and found it very draining to carry on a full conversation with friends he knew well. Strangers like he had been with tonight, well, you could see the fatigue in his movements and you knew he needed something warm to drink and maybe some comfort with a familiar favorite tv show to zone out in front of.

You handled it better. You were used to having to go out of your home occasionally and you even enjoyed socializing with your coworkers on the few days you went in to the office for work. You felt a bit drained but mostly you were preoccupied with watching how he was handling it and you were also burning with curiosity to know how Baekhyun felt about the whole thing.

He’d wandered into the living room and he found the sofa. You followed him close behind and grabbed the remote, flipping to a familiar and funny cartoon that you often saw him playing in the background as he worked on things. He didn't usually watch it that closely but it was comforting enough to stay on and keep his mind occupied for a while.

You didn't speak. Everything you had to ask him could wait. Even the scolding you had for him about how he acted toward Ben could also wait. You’d let the man breathe a little first.

You busied yourself in the kitchen making two cups of hot tea and when you returned you found his head leaning against the back of the couch with his eyes still glued to the screen. He had a passive smile on his face and he reacted positively to the wacky scenarios the characters found themselves in. He would occasionally speak out loud, speaking along with a funny line he knew by heart and you found it impossible to resist saying the follow up joke. You knew this show as well as he did.

He accepted the tea with a smile and had a few sips and you set your mug on the coffee table in favorable of the comfortable side of the sofa, the side with the pillows that allowed you to rest your head comfortably as you watched the big tv.

You were feeling pretty good. Baekhyun had now officially gone on his first date with a real girl who wasn’t you and he’d had a nice time. You could see from where you laid your head down how relaxed his face was as he giggled at the show.

You stretched and you felt his warm thigh with your foot. This sofa was long enough for you to stretch out completely and you only barely reached where he sat at the other side. You wiggled your toes, unable to resist the light messing with him that you often gave in to and his hand reached down to grab ahold of your foot, which he held in place as he paid attention to the tv.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket and you sat up a little bit to pull it out.

You saw a text message from Ben.

From the preview you got the idea of what kind of text message the man would be sending you an hour after your first, and apparently your last date with him.

-Hey you seem like a super cool girl, but...

The preview showed you enough to know that he was dumping you before you’d even gotten anything started with him.

You opened the text. Your curiosity outweighed your sense of self preservation.

-...but whatever’s going on between you and your roommate, well it doesn’t really seem like there’s much room for me. I just don't think I can start something knowing I’ve already lost. Thanks for inviting me tonight. The movie was fun. Good luck with everything. - Ben

You felt the sting.

You couldn't help it. You’d spent all evening watching Baekhyun interact with Mia with every ounce of your self control devoted to not letting your jealousy show at all. At one point you’d been so damn engrossed in them that you forgot Ben was even there. What an unfair and shitty situation to have put him in. You quickly keyed out an apology for your crappy date etiquette and thanked him for going out with you tonight.

You couldn't even blame him for anything. He had been sweet and he had tried his best to be the perfect gentleman. What had you expected?

You sent the last message you would ever send to Ben and tossed your phone roughly toward the coffee table. It bounced but landed in the middle.

The racket called Baekhyun’s attention and he turned to look at you with his eyebrows raised in question.

“Ben just rejected me.”

Somehow saying this out loud to Baekhyun felt better than hiding it from him. It felt less miserable than keeping it inside of yourself and letting yourself suffer the sting of the rejection alone.

Baekhyun’s lips pulled into a small frown and he took out his cell phone from his pocket and tossed it roughly on the coffee table beside yours. It took a similar bounce and your eyes widened in surprise at the sudden gesture.

“No way, not Mia too,” you said in genuine fear and Baekhyun shook his head with his shrug still well in place.

“Nah, I just can't lay down with my phone in my pocket,” he said as he wiggled on the sofa trying to get comfortable, “though in hindsight I can see how you would think that, sorry. Mia hasn’t texted yet.”

He was wiggling, finding no comfort in all the positions he tried and you caught his wandering eyes for a second as you lightly tapped a hand over your belly.

This…

This would be fine. This was something you both did sometimes. Baekhyun said your belly was warm and comfy and made the best noises and he liked to use you as a pillow when he was just too tired to go to his own bed.

He moved right away at your invitation and you let your legs part around his chest as he laid his head down right on top of you. He turned his head to face the tv and didn't even squirm too much before he sighed out loud. His arms laid on either side of your waist and you felt the constriction as he lightly squeezed around you.

You really hadn’t gotten to touch him all day. Your fingers found their way into his hair and you felt a low moan from the back of his throat travel though your body as you raked your nails down the back of his head to his nape.

“Peanut,” you said softly, feeling every little bit of the annoying little tickle of that stupid secret sitting inside of you.

You could feel the heaviness of his body as he gave in and relaxed his muscles on you. You felt every breath he took and they seemed to be changing as you played with his hair and he gave in to the relaxing comfort you offered him.

“Hmm?” He replied after a long while. You angled your face and could see that his eyes were closed.

“How was the date? Was it nice?”

You had so many hopes for him. You were trying your best to ignore the pangs of your own selfish jealousy and get past it all to get to something good for him. Something that would make him understand how incredible he was. How beautiful he was inside and out and how precious of a human being he was.

“Mhmm, I liked it.” He said softly and he shifted and you felt him tighten his hold around your waist briefly before he relaxed again.

“Did you really? Do you think you liked Mia?” You kept your voice strong. You did not allow your fears to overcome your voice. You were okay with this if he was okay.

He did not answer right away. You’d stopped playing with his hair and you kept your hand rested over his head. He was so warm. He was so lovely.

“Do you want me to like Mia?”

No.

Mia would be so good to him.

You did not answer. Your answer would have been no. It would have been selfish. You’d just been dumped by your date, how dare his date have gone so well. You’d both been on the same date. You could still see the way she looked at him. She found him just as lovely as you did.

You felt a thickness at the back of your throat and you swallowed it down.

“I’m trying, Bug. She’s very nice to talk to. Do you think I should like her?”

Was this because of his mistrust of people? Was this his shyness about letting someone he didn't know very well in close?

You couldn't respond. You did not trust yourself to do the right thing.

“You should go rest if you’re sleepy,” you said, you know, like a coward.

It took him a few minutes of laying on top of you before he realized that you were right and he would be much more comfortable in his own bed. He nodded and pushed up with his arms, and his eyes stayed closed and his head stayed hung down as his feet shuffled and he made his way into his bedroom, leaving his door open you merely heard the loud sound of him plopping down on his bed.

You were stuck where he left you.

Stuck in about as crappy a mood as you’d ever found yourself.

You hated everything about this. You hated how much you loved him and you hated how receptive he was to the idea of dating Mia. You hated how she looked at him and giggled at his small jokes and you hated HATED the way his cheeks blushed and the shy smiles he gave her when she talked to him.

You laid there and you stewed in your mood for longer than was good for you and the only thing that made your it up was the simultaneous buzzing that brought both of your cell phones to life on the coffee table.

You reached for yours. It’s as your dating coach app. Baekhyun had received a new message from Mia. The feelings that surged through you were taking over your sense of what was good and what was right and what was proper behavior for someone like you to participate in.

You swiped to read the message.

-Hi Baekhyun. Sorry I couldn't wait until tomorrow to text you. I had an amazing time tonight and I was wondering if you would like to meet up tomorrow after your Grandmother’s visit for coffee? I have something I’d like to ask you.

You felt as if your body was on fire.

You could feel it deep inside your chest, deeper still inside your belly where his head had been resting moments before. You felt it in the palm of your hand where his thumb had traced the patterns of lines there. You felt it in your lips that he had kissed and in your tongue ached inside of your mouth from your stupid secret.

You reached for your phone. You opened the app for the power he’d given only to you and you responded to her message as if you were Baekhyun.

-Hi, Yeah, that sounds fine. I’ll meet you at 1pm.

Your hands moved on their own. You moved to the internal commands of your app and you deleted both of the messages from the chat history. When you picked up his phone you saw the notification for Mia’s message vanish before your eyes and when you unlocked it and accessed his chat log, there was no sign of the unimaginable and unforgivable sin you had just committed against him.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

Tag list: @j-pping @blahblahblah-boo @his-mochi-cheeks @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13 @baekinmylife @insta1010 @nana-banana @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth @totallynerdstuff @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven @kingkushdealer @uhobob @baekswifey @punchmebaekhyun @xlxbaekhyuneex

#baekhyun #baekhyun fanfic #exo #exo fanfic #exo fic #baekhyun fic #baekhyun ff #exo ff #baekhyun scenario #baekhyun chaptered #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun angst #baekhyun smut

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pointnumbersixteen · 3 years

Note

How do you see The Captain's coming out, and growth in confidence and self acceptance thereafter taking place?

I like this question! …and I’m probably going to elaborate on it a bit more than many people will want to read (I noticed back when I was regularly writing essay length posts that they did not get a lot of love) and it’s probably going to get even more ramble-y than usual (brain has not been braining as cooperatively as it should recently and the decision to drink half a bottle of wine right before answering this- sorry- probably does not help), but here we are.

About coming out scenarios, none of mine are particularly elaborate. While I do think he needs to come out for his story line to progress, I can’t imagine him making a big thing out of it (long or elaborate announcements, heart-to-hearts, emotional displays of bearing his authentic self or any of the like), either with the group, or person-by-person, for several reasons:

First off, that sort of a coming-out to-do is a more modern notion, and I doubt he was a particularly modern person even when he was alive, seventy-five years ago. His notions of privacy and propriety are probably much more conservative than ours, and I feel like that makes it unlikely that he’d go into any sort of detail, at least at early in this process, about his feelings/emotions or the specificities of his attractions. We’re talking about a man who doesn’t even use his own name. It’s difficult to picture him going into depth about his desires and love life.

Secondly, he’s a bit of a social coward. (He’s not a physical coward, of course, he jumped on that bomb in the garden without hesitation, and acknowledged after the fact that he gotten caught up in the moment, and therefore hadn’t really thought about how a bomb couldn’t hurt him.) And I get it, I’m a bit of a social coward, too, so no judgement. He probably faced a lot of ridicule in his life. Being a social coward is totally fair. But he doesn’t put himself into situations that might involve awkward interpersonal interactions if he can help it, and legs it whenever interactions he’s already in become to awkward for him. I feel like he’s probably quite desperate (although he’d never admit to it) to save face and protect what bits of his ego remain unscathed.

Think about it: he could have spoken to Fanny on his own about her nightly screaming disturbing him in s1e1, they have a clear association established at the outset of the show, they leave Heather’s room together at the end of the very first scene, but he doesn’t do so until he has the weight of the whole group to back him up about the screaming at their meeting. He had to buck up his courage and give himself his little ‘over the top we go’ pep talk before going to speak to Alison in Gorilla War. Also, if there was actually something wrong with his soldiers’ horseplay after hours in Reddy Weddy- if it was breaking regulations or even his own orders for quiet hours- and he heard it, he could have gone down directly when he heard it, confronted whoever was involved and order them to stop or put them on report. But no, instead he addressed the entire group of soldiers in a sixteen point morning brief. He even dispatched Pat to confront Alison about the party in s2e2, instead doing it himself… and spit out his apology/reconciliation with Pat at the end as fast as possible. And as for legging it when things get awkward, see his retreats following the group confronting him in Getting Out and after Alison telling him he wasn’t needed in the Grey Lady- and on a more figurative than literal level, but most relevantly, his quick turn from ‘I’ll miss you’ to ‘we’ll miss you’ with Havers in Reddy Weddy.

This is not a man who wants to be in awkward or embarrassing situations. And I think that coming out, at least at first, will probably be a bit embarrassing for him- it was scandalous in his time, and I think it will take him longer to get over that feeling and come to terms with himself than it will to finally acknowledge that he’s gay. So I doubt he’d make more of it than he utterly feels he has to, at least at first. And of course, he’d have to be a bit afraid that people would judge him or stop associating with him over it, as sadly, in his own time many people would have done, and most of the ghosts are from even earlier times than he was. So that might add more hesitation…

And thirdly, he doesn’t like and/or respect many of his house mates. The other twentieth century ghosts are the only ones he spends much time with. I doubt he’d go out of his way to communicate much of anything to the rest if it wasn’t “mission related” much less discuss his sexuality with them. He mostly disregards Humphrey. See his, “Oh, it’s you.” Mary obviously doesn’t like him and he only associates with her when it might be useful for his ‘missions.’ He clearly doesn’t think much of Thomas and doesn’t really even bother including him in his plans. These aren’t people he’s going to have heart-to-hearts with.

With those constraints in place, here’s a non-exhaustive list of possibilities by which I might see his coming out finally happening. They’re really just scenarios I made for myself on how I might see him coming out and I like to keep my options open (the first three are strategies he might go for, the last is an alternate scenario, presented in decreasing levels of directness on his part):

1) The ‘pull the bandage off quickly and hope it doesn’t sting too much’ strategy.

The Captain waits for the end of one of their various group activities or meetings, where all announcements seem to be made, gets up, clears his throat, stammers a bit, announces it tersely, using the most proper popular word for homosexuality that existed in his time (think: “Heh-hem. Er. Um. Well. It has recently come to my attention that I am- er- well- as it happens- gay. I, uh, thought it should be noted. That is all.”), and then beats a hasty retreat, so he doesn’t have to try to cope with the potentially negative aftermath. Of course, there isn’t a negative aftermath, because many of the ghosts already have guessed and the rest don’t really care. Someone, probably Pat, because he does the bulk of the emotional labor in the group, and more importantly, he’s Cap’s closest friend, would have to go after him. He would of course be initially defensive, and Pat would have to sooth his feathers a bit- or maybe just spit it out over his defensiveness- that he guessed a long time ago and so had plenty of other people, and they were just waiting for him to be ready, and really, it’s fine, and no one’s going to disown him for it.

2) The ‘well maybe I should tell my friends with the hope they support me’ strategy.

He gets together with a small group, the people whose company he actually values, definitely Fanny and Pat, maybe Julian, probably Alison either at the same time or after he finishes with his ghosts pals, and says it in much the same way as the previous scenario, but waiting for their reactions rather than retreating straight away. Pat and Alison, I expect, would answer with something like ‘yeah, we figured that one out a long time ago, actually, and it’s completely fine’ and Julian’s reaction would probably be something like, ‘well, obviously.’ Fanny’s had a lot of character growth since season one, when I expect her reaction would have been very shrill and judgmental, probably still would be a touch less warm and/or nonchalant, but I picture it as something like a sigh, followed by a pat on the arm and something like, ‘well, I still like you better than everyone else here, anyway.’ Word would eventually trickle to everyone else by way of social osmosis. Or not. No one seems to care if Humphrey or the plague ghosts are well informed.

3) The ‘I’m not brave enough to actually go through the process of actually telling anyone anything about me so let’s just drop hints and hope everyone figures it out without making a big deal about it’ strategy.

The indirect approach (I’m rather fond of this one, but mostly because it was my own primary coming out approach)… he first sends out feelers to certain people on the topic of homosexuality, probably Alison, since she’s modern, hosted a lesbian wedding, and very much implied that she’d be ready to keep scandalous secrets for him in Reddy Weddy, and possibly maybe also Julian, as he’s the most sexually experienced/knowledgeable, and after Alison spent a while inundating him with ‘it’s okay to be gay’ messages (along with a sudden and entirely unexplained influx of LGBT media) as she’s socially clever enough to see that’s what he’s looking for and after Julian spent a while telling him probably far more than he ever actually wanted to know about the potentialities of gay sex, that might boost the Captain’s confidence enough to let him start dropping hints to people, instead of telling them outright (consciously commenting on the attractiveness of men they see rather than occasionally accidentally blurting it out- see ‘the handsome one’- occasionally putting forth an opinion or stance on the LGBT world ‘it would have been nice if gay marriage was acceptable when I was alive,’ maybe occasionally mentioning how certain men would make cute couple), expecting them to meet him in the middle and figure out the point on their own… of course, many of them have already realized, so this isn’t a problem. It’s entirely possible, though, that Mary (world view not terribly grounded in reality) and Kitty (lack of life experience and/or instruction about life, see the how are babies made subplot) never pick up the hints on their own and someone else eventually has to tell them.

4) The ‘someone puts him out of his misery’ scenario.

Cap acknowledges to himself that he’s gay first and then, wishing to avoid embarrassment or lack of acceptance, obviously, awkwardly, painfully tries to disguise it and in doing so draws attention to it, until a third party decides to put him out of his misery and tell him that many of them figured it out ages ago and that everyone is fine with it. Maybe Pat. Maybe Alison. I kind of like the idea of it being Fanny (with her lovely character growth and her couple of suspicious glances his way in the Perfect Day), actually, by way of something like ‘You know, I was entirely prepared to continue on living with my husband, George, keeping his secrets, about the, uh, sort of person he was, and you’re at least one better than him, given that you at least never murdered me- or, for that matter, never married some poor woman you had no interest in to shield yourself from scrutiny… and so, what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t turn my back on you for being the, uh, sort of person you are, either, and maybe things have progressed enough that you don’t actually have to keep secrets at all.’ Cap would take all of this in with a mixture of mortification and relief. I’m rather fond of this scenario, too.

As for the second bit of the question, once his sexuality is out there, though, and no one judges him or hates him for it- and some are quite supportive- I do see him becoming more self-accepting. If no one’s judging him, does he need to judge himself so harshly? And also more confident. Because some of those things that he’s always felt different about and in the past has probably been ridiculed about in the past (even if he’s in denial about being gay, he and quite a few other people had to at the very least note that he’s not particularly interested in women), are, apparently just fine now. So he’s a bit more just fine now himself. And that weight of always trying to be someone else, someone who’s just right, can lift and he can relax a bit more. And that would probably help him a lot, too. I see it as a slow sort of thawing process. No matter what way he comes out, I still see Alison as very helpfully providing a variety of LGBT media to help this process along. And maybe he’d eventually get to the point where he processed enough and warmed up enough to be able to talk more in depth, at least with his friends, about what it was like being him in repressed pre-war Britain, and what sort of men he’s attracted to (I enjoy the idea of him and Fanny- gradually overcoming her own repression- scoping out hot men together). Maybe he’ll even luck out one of his male housemates will decide (or has already decided) that bisexuality is a valid option and he’ll get a date (insert whichever ghost y’all ship him with here). I bet Alison would totally help him set up a nice date, too, with her convenient still-functional-in-the-mortal-realm hands. And it would be nice to maybe see him get a taste of actual happiness.

#bbc ghosts #the captain #coming out #sorry for the giant block of text friends #i find it difficult to help myself

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bcbdrums · 3 years

Text

Melon Misfortunes

A/N: A little foray back into the world of watermelon... Thanks to @split-n-splice for some clever lines and the great title.

Happy birthday, @jennaanneg!

Read on: FFn AO3

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

Drakken rubbed the back of his neck and straightened up in front of the watermelon crate at the grocer's. He had been bending over the sea of green, bulbous fruit for at least ten minutes, trying to find the very best ones. After the long day, he was finally feeling the exhaustion and pain in his spine.

Drakken glanced to his right to be sure the empty cart was still there, and then turned back to the melons.

"Hello, Drew."

"Gah!"

Drakken recoiled, banging his forearm on the metal cart at the sound of his former college friend's voice and nearly losing his balance as his recovery from that had him bumping into the crate.

"Just as light on your feet as you were in college, I see."

Drakken straightened up and adjusted his shirt, taking in the single quirked eyebrow of James Possible with loathing.

"Just as rude as you always were, I see," Drakken retorted as he gave the man a once-over with wariness and frustration.

Possible was exactly the same as he remembered him from college, except for some wrinkles, gray hair, and extra padding around the waist, all such as comes naturally with age. Drakken bit the inside of his cheek knowing he had aged at least the same, if not worse for his other problems and stresses on his life.

The man didn't seem one bit perturbed by his insult, and to Drakken's dismay he leaned up against the side of the watermelon crate and continued what he apparently thought was a welcome conversation.

"We haven't heard anything about you really since the invasion."

Drakken rolled his eyes and looked back to the watermelons, hoping the man would take the hint and leave. Unfortunately, Possible continued.

"Although my Kimmy-cub did mention running into you at this very store once, after stopping some crooks with Ronald."

Drakken's frown deepened as he considered that in all the stores in all the world, Kim Possible just had to have been busting some small-time criminal while he was buying watermelon. But his brow suddenly rose in the realization that there was no real reason for James Possible to be there.

"You know, she mentioned something about watermelon that time too... You branching out from flowers into mutant fruit, now?" Possible asked with an amused chuckle.

"None of your business," Drakken replied through a grunt, bending low over the melons to get Possible out of his line of sight.

A blessed silence fell for several seconds that made him hope the man had taken the hint and left, but then...

"Finally left the blue lab coat behind, I see."

"Don't you have someplace else to be?" Drakken snapped, feeling another twinge in his neck as he turned too quickly to give his former friend a venomous look.

Possible chuckled. "My wife and I are on a couple's cruise. St. Lucia is one of the stops," the man explained.

Drakken grumbled under his breath about the unfortunate reality of living so near various tourist locations. Perhaps it was time to consider online shopping for groceries...

"Getting a few grays there, Drew."

"Oh like you're one to talk," Drakken said, grabbing the closest watermelon and hefting it into the cart.

As Drakken's irritation rose he wondered if Shego would settle for watermelon-flavored gum. He could grab some off the rack near the check stand and run, and no one would be the wiser.

"All this time and you're getting that one?" Possible said with a concerned frown.

Drakken hesitated, narrowing his eyes on the man.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, those oblong ones aren't very sweet. They were over-watered."

Drakken blinked again, a myriad of new annoying thoughts running through his mind. He moved to set the melon in the cart, but Possible was giving him an all-too familiar, knowing and painfully smug grin.

Drakken frowned.

"Fine, which melons should I buy?" he asked through a scowl, shifting his weight as somehow holding the large melon was putting undue pressure on his spine.

"Well, what are you using them for?" Possible asked, raising that single annoying eyebrow higher as his smirk grew.

"For eating, you— Ngh!"

Drakken cut himself off as he nearly dropped the slippery melon. He grit his teeth as he carefully placed it back in the bin, not making eye contact with Possible who was surely grinning in his perceived pompous superiority that had only added to Drakken's disdain for the man.

"Fine! Which one should I get, then?" Drakken asked as he straightened again, crossing his arms.

His brow rose in curiosity as James Possible's face adopted a thoughtful, critical expression as he bent over the crate.

"For starters, you need something uniform in size and shape. That's how you know it developed properly," the man said. Drakken watched as Possible started sorting the watermelons before he continued. "And if it's dark and dull, you know it's ripe. Avoid the pale and shiny ones."

"Don't you have something better to do on your...so-called couple's cruise?"

"My wife is clothes shopping," Possible stated simply and with a slight cringe as he lifted a melon and examined it.

Despite himself, after nearly a minute of watching Possible sorting watermelons Drakken joined in, moving only the large oblong ones as he didn't know much else. He abhorred the idea of getting advice from the man who was partially responsible for his becoming a villain... But, if it meant getting the best melons for Shego...

"And there, those ones will be very flavorful," Possible said, pointing to a melon with a massive orange discoloration on it.

"It looks like it spent too much time in the sun," Drakken said skeptically.

"It spent a long time ripening on the vine," Possible explained, as if the topic were an everyday one. "But avoid the white spots. And here," he gestured to the ugliest of melons, covered in brown scars that spread over the rind in a webbed appearance that interrupted the green stripes, "is another sign that they're sweet and flavorful."

Drakken leaned away again and frowned. "Do you take me for a fool?"

Possible straightened as well, looking ever-confident. "The brown spots indicate numerous pollination attempts by bees, thus the melon is sweeter."

Drakken stared the man down for several seconds and detected no lie in his words. His brow furrowed.

"How do you know this?"

"I've done some research into various botanical fields."

"You're a rocket scientist. Unless something has changed in the past—" Drakken stopped as realization struck. His brow rose, and suddenly Possible looked uncomfortable. "Are you...trying to move in on my research?"

Possible cleared his throat. "Anyway, those are the tastiest melons...if eating is in fact what you need them for."

"You're trying to move in on my territory! You're...you're jealous!"

Possible turned on his heel and departed rapidly with a stiff wave.

"Pleasure catching up!"

Drakken stared in astonishment until the man vanished through the automatic doors of the store, and then a grin slowly broadened his face. James Possible was jealous...of him!

"About time," Drakken muttered as he turned back to the melons. His grin quickly faded into uncertainty.

What if Possible had been lying about the melons?

He tried to recall in the past which ones had tasted the best. Not that he ate much of them, but he had sampled more than his fair share.

It was true, the enormous long ones never held much flavor and seemed watery. Perhaps it was true that the ugliest were the best? He had never bought those before, so...he supposed it was worth a try.

Drakken shrugged to himself and started loading up the shopping cart. Possible had no idea after all what the melons were really for. There would be no reason for the man to lie...except malice. And yet...something told Drakken, that that hadn't been the man's motive...much to Drakken's confusion.

Shego was still in bed when Drakken returned to the lair with the watermelons, and he had checked on her while the henchmen unloaded them from the hover-car. She wasn't feeling as ill that day, but still didn't want to get up. Thankfully, the promise of watermelon seemed to calm her ire, so it was only with limited anxiety that Drakken portioned up one of the hideous looking melons and prepared her a simple bowl to start with.

The flesh of the watermelon itself did indeed look redder and was definitely juicier than what he was used to buying, but even if he thought it was good—which he wouldn't, having lost his taste for the fruit—it was Shego's opinion that mattered. And so he held his breath as he walked back to the bedroom to present the bowl to his wife.

Shego sat up slowly in bed and Drakken's brow twisted in sympathy at her grimace of pain. Once the bowl was in her hands he tossed off his polo shirt and pushed his feet out of his shoes, grateful to be home where he could shake off the displeasure of interacting with James Possible and focus on the important things. Namely, his wife and their unborn child.

Shego had one hand on the small swell of her belly as she adjusted pillows with the other so she could lean against the headboard while she ate. Drakken quickly moved to her side to assist her which earned him a look of annoyance, as if he should have already been helping her, but also a look of gratitude.

Drakken sat on the bed and un-tucked his tank top as Shego tossed the blankets down to her knees and then brought the dish of watermelon up to chest height with one palm supporting the bowl from beneath as she stabbed one of the succulent cubes with her fork. He held his breath again as she brought the bite to her lips, and after only a moment of chewing her eyes widened.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, the bite going into her cheek as she spoke. She put another cube in her mouth as she continued chewing the first.

"Sanchez's place, like always," he said with a slightly nervous shrug.

"Better than any he's ever had before," she commented through her full mouth.

Drakken watched as her eyes brightened through the enjoyment of her biggest pregnancy craving. He felt the irritation of the shopping trip melt away at the pleased look on her face, and he hoped the treat would also go some way toward easing the pain of the never-ending morning sickness.

He got his answer very suddenly when Shego set the bowl down, grinning at him as she pushed the bed-covers even farther away. He didn't even get to speak before he was knocked back slightly by her arms wrapping around him and her lips pressing against his. He responded with a startled hum as he caught himself from falling with one palm on the mattress, his other hand instantly finding her waist.

Shego pulled away just enough so she could smile into his eyes, and Drakken blinked at her dumbly in confusion as she shifted nearer, her pregnant belly pressing against his.

"Thanks, Dr. D.," she said simply, and kissed him again, the distinct flavor of watermelon on her lips.

For once, it was very, very sweet.

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ranmanjuu · 3 years

Note

YIEEE PLATONIC MATCHUPS. Anyone who has had the misfortune to hear me mention that word, will know that I’m the biggest hoe for friendships and family stuff. So this makes me so happy 🥺🥺🥺 I can’t. Thank you sm for doing this, and remember to take care of yourself!

Personality: ENTP-T/Aquarius. I tend to be very stubborn, argumentative, and blunt, but I try to tone it down around my loved ones. I’m open minded, hardworking and passionate about the things I love, and I never shy away from a challenge. In true ENTP fashion, I’m arrogant, but aware of my own faults. I’m quite clever, but I start doubting my abilities pretty quickly.

How I act around friends: If you’re a person I like and I’ve known you for long enough to be comfortable around you, I’m a high-calibre crackhead, and a bit overbearing with my mother hen attitude. My nickname for you, depending on your comfort levels, is either an insult or some tooth-rottingly sweet name. If I haven’t known you for too long, I’m bound to be a bit more careful with my words as I’m afraid I’ll fuck smth up and make you feel uncomfortable. It takes me a long long time to be certain that you won’t drop your bags and run away after I’ve made one tiny mistake. If you’re someone that I don’t like, I’ll be the epitome of sass and smartass, but that’s only if you’re amusing enough (god I sound like a dick). Strangely enough, I’ve often come to like people like that—even becoming close friends with them—who aren’t afraid to retaliate. I like some mental spar here and there. If you don’t get upset or smth, I’ll just ignore you and be civil (unless you’re scum).

Hobbies/Interests: Dancing, baking, English literature (but really any literature), debate, history, sports.... I have too many interests and hobbies to the point of losing sight of all of them. Due to that, I have a lot of surface knowledge, so I’m pretty much a jack of all traits master on none. I’m eager to learn more things, so I don’t mind if a friend doesn’t share too many hobbies with me. Me and my best friends pretty much share none.

Pet Peeves/Things I need in a relationship: I just mentioned that me and my best friend don’t really have a common interest, but we’re able to comfortable talk about everything. It doesn’t always have to be deep talk/intellectual stuff (tho I really really really like some intellectual convos), but I need to be able to talk with you if we’re friends.

Beyond that, I’ll also need you to tell me your honest opinions, and whether anything that I do makes you uncomfortable. Communication is vv important to me.

I hope that’s enough info for you to work with. You know where to find me if you’ve got any questions 💜💜💜 take care sweets!

FUCKING SAME i’m not saying that i would rather be in a found family with everyone rather than date a, or several, warlords,, but i would rather be in a found family with everyone. it is literally my favorite shit ever

(sorry if this doesn’t fit your liking!)

i match you with. . .

— nobunaga!

you were extremely snippy with nobunaga when you first met. the moment he stepped out of the burning temple was where he, one of the great unifiers of japan, was free game to you.

you did not take kindly to him practically kidnapping you (although you had no place to stay, but hey, consent was important) which, may have led a blade to your throat in courtesy of hideyoshi, but (un)fortunately, nobunaga told him to stand down. which he did, but not without glueing a dirty look on you the entire way back.

and such continues. you were completely blunt with your feelings of him dragging you to the battlefield (it being absolute refusal). yet here you are, in front of the burning castle as its occupants spilled out.

the words you said to him, you’ve forgotten, but it was enough to render him silent. something about the distant, detached, perhaps even melancholic look in his eyes made you flinch.

and as the days progressed, it continued to haunt you. not only that, but also the news that nobunaga’s shoulder was injured from protecting you.

. . .well, maybe you went too far—

even if your respect was low enough that you didn’t care how he felt—it was still good to keep him in good terms. you didn’t want the guy in control of like the biggest clan to be iffed with you.

so you came to him in his tenshu that night. both to thank him, and apologize to him if you said something wrong.

in response, he. . .laughed?? seeing your face, equal parts irritated and confused, he bared a fiery grin, “you’ve been prudent and called me names this entire time, yet you’re apologizing if you made me uncomfortable?”

“yeah, what about it?”

your expression was now full on irritated, and he laughed again, a booming voice that echoed through the night, “no one’s ever treated me as such. you’re an interesting one, fireball.”

“can’t say the same to you. you remind me of a middle school boy who has a ‘holier than thou’ complex, except this time you’d be arrested for committing warcrimes.”

honestly you stayed not by the classic definition of “he was interesting”, but more so “the AUDACITY of this bastard. tf is he up to nexti Have to see”

on the nickname scale, definitely jabbing him in the guts deal! ofc, he’d prefer you to not use such burning nicknames in the presence of important figures, but you’ve managed your way through... backhanded and subtle ones. it’s something he picks up, and silently view as a challenge.

he’d enjoy talking about any and all interests, no matter how experted you are at those. cause even if you’re average at it, it’s all to widen his views and he enjoys hearing about things like that, even if some times he might not understand, so the fact that you know so much is definitely a topic fuel for weeks on end.

he’d also enjoy having deep convos/debating with you. not many people talk back to him, so to have someone who does and can give him new perspectives is refreshing indeed, no matter how stubborn he is.

i feel like nobunaga, as outspoken with his thoughts he may be, is... emotionally stunted, so to say. he isn’t at all going to hold back on his feelings and opinions on if you’re crossing a line or making him uncomfortable, but with more trivial matters, he might not pick up on the cues to atcually speak up his mind, so you might have to ask him first (which then would go smooth sailing i feel, cause again, he is very outspoken)

honestly? all in all, you know those friendships where you constantly but heads with each other and you seem like you cannot stand each other (you can’t), but if worst comes to it, you’ve got each others’ backs? an “i’ll kill you and i’d kill For you” type deal. sort of more rivalry siblings in a way? yeah, that.

#*matchups #ikesen nobunaga #ikemen sengoku #cyikemen #anyways i am severely sorry if i'm. mischaracterizing you??#it sounds so weird to say but it's the closest i can get #me mischaracterizing fictional characters i'm more fine with cause it's a matter of my moral compass and how much i'm fine with it but #matchups are very different cause it feels like ur giving yourself to me on a platter #and i have to be Very On Point with your. real life personality #this has to be canon compliant and SO in character or else the author will strike me down #type deal #anyways!! paranoia aside hope you enjoyed this #asshole best friends is literally my most favorite friendship dynamics

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la5t-res0rt · 4 years

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Wanted to ask about beetlelyds, sorry, I thought it was technically cannon? Like in the old comics after the show ended she grew up and married him. Sorry I’m an old school fan and have no idea why this whole thing is such a big deal. Wasn’t the actor like 20 too? I’m sorry if I sound very dumb. I’m not used to this new tumblr.

youre fine you are one hundred percent allowed to especially when you do it civilly as you have done here

first of all the biggest issue faced in the whole what is and is not canon debate is the fact that there are three (four if you count the limited comics run) publicized iterations of my media

i will go over each very briefly just kidding this is going to a long answer so i will spare the dashboard with a readmore

there is the movie which im sure you dont need me to explain the plot since youre an old school fan but basically the climax is that yes beetlejuice does go for the marriage angle in exchange for stopping the exorcism of adam and barbara and his motive for this is so that he can cause as much chaos as he wants on the mortal coil but his plan is thwarted when barbara rides a sandworm into the house which promptly eats beetlejuice sending him to bureaucratic death limbo

the end of the movie features the deetz and the maitlands happily living together with lydia havign a new appreciation for her situation and beetlejuice gets his head made real small which is very funny haha

so no in the movie they are not canon editors note the actress who played lydia winona ryder was a teenager while filming the movie she turned 17 the year it released

the next is the cartoon which i will admit has the most grounds for being considered canon but in the end the show is about a middle schooler and her best friend who is a ghost which in itself is a pretty iffy gray area sort of thing but for a childrens cartoon to work a friendship is better than the obvious enemy status they held in the movie

anyway in the cartoon they are potrayed to be very close friends with lydia being the person beetlejuice cares about the most and honestly if you were to watch it with no prior knowledge of the media and if you ignored their massive and obvious age difference than yeah you probably would read it as a romantic relationship

however lydia is a middle schooler and that is simply immoral

there have been writers for the cartoon who have been credited to say that a relationship is what they were trying to invoke but for obvious reasons they couldnt exactly move forward with that angle with them establishing that lydia is a child in middle school and a fully grown adult man dating a child who is in middle school is immoral and also illegal in the united states and in canada

this isnt a good argument for whether or not something is canon and i will tell you why with one simple name and that is luke weber

if you dont know who luke weber is he was a storyboard artist on the cartoon steven universe he is known for making a lot of self ship artwork of him and the character pearl

he worked on the show isnt his material canon no of course it isnt it wasnt put in the actual publication and also if memory serves he was eventually asked to leave the project after he drew art of the shows creator giving him permission to date pearl and calling them her otp and a lot of fans hated this because the most generally accepted interpretation of pearls character is that she is sapphic so a lot of people took issue however that again is just a widely perceived headcanon it is never stated what her actual sexuality is no one in that show is because it isnt a show about that its about wait im getting off topic sorry

what im saying is what can truly be considered canon is what you see on the screen and with the cartoon they are definitely the most friendly with each other and that is why so many people in the beetlebabe shipping community take so much stock in the cartoon because it is the easiest to read the relationship between the mas romantic although that is not what the show actually provides in black and white terms

interpretation does not equal canon and in this case no matter what anyone says the fact remains that in the cartoon itself they are friends good friends yes but friends all the same

it is definitely not a show about a grown man grooming an adult and if it were you definitely shouldn’t be stanning it the extreme because grooming a minor is wrong and it is apparently a problem in the fandom

anyway if the cartoon and the movie are both products of their time and there was more leniency on content bear in mind this was the same era as notorious animation powerhouse and known predator john k who was a showrunner on ren and stimpy and he maintained a relationship with a teenager which was an open secret that nobody really took issue with because in that time being a woman in the animation industry was tricky business and your career could be ended easily if you rejected advances luckily time has moved forward and the animation industry although still full of problems of a similar nature at least people are getting called out and punished for it

you can look more into that yourself its really upsetting though

as for comics i havent been able to find good scans of them and im not willing to purchase them but in my search i never found anything about the two of them ever being married in the cartoon again because she is a child i did find a cover where he appears to be getting married and hes asking lydia to get him out of it but im not sure where the comic actually goes all i know is she is standing off to the side shrugging and looking like she doesnt really care

anyway that brings us to the musical which is set in the modern day

in the original libretto lydia is described as thirteen but since they got an actress who was older in the updated librettos she is listed as 15 and the story is pretty similar to the movie the young girl befriends ghosts and they try to scare her family out etc etc

the major difference between the film and the musical are that lydia and beetlejuice are more like friends like in the cartoon

she summons him to help scare after the maitlands attempt doesnt really work so he shows up and they have fun terrorizing people together however she drops him for the opportunity to perhaps get her mom back but when no one will help she goes back to beetlejuice who tricks her into almost exorcising barbara

she agrees to marry him in order to stop the exorcism and he only wants to get married so he can be alive again and cause problems on the mortal coil like in the movie in the musical he states several times its a green card thing whihc obviously doesnt make it okay but still

anyway lydia tricks him and runs off into the underworld before the wedding can happen blah blah blah she goes back blah blah and she agrees to go through with the wedding to save her friends and family with a plan to make him go away for good

theres a very tongue and cheek song called creepy old guy which points out how wrong the whole thing is but everyone is going along with it in a very comedic matter and it includes the line

i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright

basically saying yeah this is very very wrong anyway they do get married and beeltjeuice is alive for like 6 seconds before lydia stabs him to death with bad art and he dies thus nullifying the marriage because death do you part etc

so in the musical no at the end of the show they are not canon because he is dead their marriage is nullified and they go their separate ways

anyway sorry about that i just need to make it very clear that these three properties are all very distinct from each other and basically all three are indeed canon since they are publicized material and arguing the validity of which one is pointless editors note all actresses who played with the exception of dana steingold were minors for the majority of their runs as lydia with sophia ann caruso the originator of the role turning 18 during the run and dana being in her late twenties presley ryan however was a minor the whole time and still is one

tldr no they aren’t canon but to the credit of some people in this fandom their interpretation isnt too far of a stretch thanks to the era and some of the writers wishing to imply a relationship between an adult and a child

i also need to address how this is all a big deal and i suggest you take a peak through my discourse tag and check out @leedia‘s blog to see some of the more harmful things done by beetlebabe shippers

the beetlejuice fandom is home to many minors after the musical came out since musical fandom is vast and the ages of its members varies and normalizing pedophilia is harmful to them not to mention the people who have been effected by sexual harassment at the hands of adults

both sides have victims of csa but one side continues to perpetuate the cycle by showing time and time again that this behavior is normal and easily romanticized in the name of coping and literally anyone who has ever been to a good and credible therapist could tell you that posting cp even if it is simulated cp isnt a really good way to cope and you can get mad at me for saying that its totally fine but and im going to remove my character veil here for just a second as a csa survivor myself i think its harmful to not only myself but many others ok the veil is back down

tldr again there is a lot of bullying and harassment going on with both sides having their own issues but there is one side whos issues run a bit deeper in my humble opinion

thank you for your question it allowed me to talk a lot you are welcome to discuss further with me in dms if you wish i honestly recommend giving the musical a listen because it is very fun and despite what some people say its very clever and if you get a chance to see a boot of it its visually stunning

one last note that i couldnt really fit in here but a large portion of the beetlebabes shipping community ignore the musical because it openly condemns the idea of beeltejuice and lydia having a relationship and a lot of the antis take issue with much of the writing and characterizations of the cartoon just a note that i think is important since were talking about canon

#discourse #long ask #i am so tired #Anonymous

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mad-madam-m · 5 years

Note

Can you please, please write a full length fic of the extended tags you did for the ‘you didn’t have a trial’ Aziraphale/Crowley piece?

I have enough other stuff to write, so I was going to say no, but 1) this is the second request I’ve gotten for a full(er) fic based on these tags and 2) let’s be real, the amount of prompting I need right now to write a Good Omens fic is approximately zero. So here you go!

“You know, I’ve been meaning toask, what was my trial like?” Aziraphale asked out of the blue after threebottles of wine.

Crowley fumbled his glass and nearlydropped it, and only a minor demonic miracle kept the wine from splattering allover the sofa. “Er, what?”

“My trial. You know.”Aziraphale pointed upward at the bookshop ceiling and then poured them bothsome more wine. “Up there. I mean, you did say they won’t leave us aloneforever, and much as I want you to be wrong about that, I don’tthink you are. If Gabriel or one of the others mentions something to me, Ishouldn’t like to give the game away if I don’t know what they’re talkingabout.”

Crowley’s throat went suddenly dry,and he drank most of his wine in one swallow. “I mean, I could bewrong. It’s been a few weeks. They may be leaving us alone forgood.”

“Crowley, I know you don’tactually believe that,” Aziraphale said in a manner that meant he wouldn’tbe budged on this topic, and then his face softened into concern. “Mydear, what is it? Was it really that awful?”

There was no way to hide it. And he shouldn’t behiding it, but the instinct he had to protect Aziraphale was strong. Theyboth knew how awful the angels could be, but Aziraphale seemed to cling stubbornlyto the idea that there was still good up there, somehow. And Crowleyhated being put in the position to remind him otherwise.

He sighed and pulled off hissunglasses. The least he could do was do this without any barriers betweenthem. “You didn’t have a trial, angel.”

Aziraphale stared at him, eyes goingever-so-slightly wider than normal. “What?”

Crowley rubbed the bridge of hisnose and looked down at his wine glass. “There wasn’t a trial. They justtied me up in a chair until the demon got there with the hellfire. And thenthey only untied me to tell me to walk into it. No prosecution, no defense, nonothing.” He cleared his throat and finished off the last of his wine.“It was just an execution.”

He looked back up from the glass toAziraphale, who had gone uncharacteristically still. The disbelief on his facefaded as the words sank in, and he looked…

Shattered. Shattered and hollow andmore than a little betrayed.

Crowley hated himself for puttingthat look on his angel’s face, even if he was only the messenger.

Aziraphale blinked quickly andsmiled, but it was only a faint echo of his usual one. “Oh. Well. I reallyshouldn’t be surprised, all things considered. Gabriel isn’t one to let thingslike facts get in the way of his decisions. And it does make thingsa bit easier on me, I suppose. Not much at all to remember, is there?” Hegestured with his glass. “Thank you for telling me, my dear.”

No, Crowley didn’t hate himself. Hehated Gabriel, and if that bastard of an archangel came within a hundredfeet of Aziraphale, Crowley was going to burn him where he stood. He’d do it now ifhe thought it would wipe the broken look off Aziraphale’s face. He’d yank themall out of Heaven in a heartbeat.

But he’d known Aziraphale too long.Revenge wouldn’t fix anything, and Aziraphale would probably be upset with himfor even trying it.

Crowley cast about for an idea,something that would help. “Why don’t we go see a movie? It’sFriday. There’s loads of new ones.”

Aziraphale laughed, although itwasn’t so much of a laugh as a sharp exhale through a smile that was breakingapart. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling much for a movie.”

“Concert?” Crowley suggested.“I think there’s one you’d really love.”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“Opera? They’re doing Carmentonight.” Somebody somewhere would be doing Carmen tonight; Crowleycould find a way to get them there. “Or Hamlet?”

Fuck, he would sit through a hundred performancesof Hamlet if it just meant Aziraphale would smile like normal again.

Aziraphale’s smile trembled, and hestood up from his chair and joined Crowley on the couch. “I think,”he said very softly, “I would just like you to sit with me for abit.”

It was both the simplest thing to doand the hardest thing to do. Crowley switched his glass to his other hand so hecould put his arm on the back of the couch, behind Aziraphale. “Of course,angel.”

Aziraphale shifted closer, andCrowley took the invitation to drop his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. Hisangel let out a shuddering sigh and leaned fully against him, resting his headon Crowley’s shoulder.

Crowley held him close and pretendedhe didn’t hear it when Aziraphale sniffled. He did, however, mentally catalogall the ways he knew to kill an angel because he would only get the chance touse one of them on Gabriel and he had to pick the best one. Mightas well get started on deciding now, so when the time came, he would be ready.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat together,quiet but for Aziraphale’s shaky breaths. It had to have been awhile, becauseCrowley had finished going through every way he knew of to completely andutterly destroy Gabriel, and had moved on through Uriel and Sandalphon and was workingon Michael just for the hell of it (Michael hadn’t been there, but Michael wasa wanker of the highest order and Crowley would dearly love toshove them into a pillar of fire) when Aziraphale sat up and patted Crowley’sshoulder.

“I’m afraid I’ve made quite amess of your shirt,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Crowley saidquickly. He could not give less of a shit about his shirt. “It’llclean.”

The smile Aziraphale gave him wasstill small, but much closer to his usual one, and the knot of anxiety inCrowley’s chest finally began to loosen. “Well, thank you very much, mydear.”

“Of course.” Crowleyrubbed his thumb along Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Whatever you need.”

It scared him sometimes, the depthwith which he meant that. He wasn’t sure if Aziraphale evenunderstood the true lengths to which he’d go.

Then again, Aziraphale had threatenednever to talk to him again and Crowley’s immediate response had been to stoptime, so maybe he did.

Aziraphale stared at the floor ofthe bookshop, looking not quite as shattered as he had before but stillimpossibly sad. Crowley was torn between wrapping him in a blanket andgetting a head start on his revenge plans.

He compromised on attempting morecomfort. “You’re better than all of them, you know. Bunch ofself-righteous, hypocritical—”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley.”

“What? I’m not wrong. I’ma demon, I can spot self-righteous hypocrisy from several miles away. They’reawful, angel. You aren’t. You’re what they should be.”

Aziraphale did not look at him, butCrowley saw the corner of his lips turn up. “Will you be irritated if Isay that’s very kind of you?”

“Only if you say it loudly,”Crowley muttered. He still had something of a reputation to uphold.

“Hm. Then I shall say this nextpart very quietly.” Aziraphale sat up a little straighter and linked hishands in his lap. “You are my oldest and dearest friend, and your opinionmatters more to me than anyone else’s. It always has, even when I was toofrightened to admit it.”

Crowley gaped at him and scrambledto find a coherent thought, as his entire conscious mind was hung up on oldestand dearest friend. “Hang on, I’m supposed to be the one saying thingsto make you feel better.”

Aziraphale turned to him, and nowhis smile was much closer to normal. “Interesting. It seems like saying nicethings to you helps immensely. I’ll have to do it some more.”

The very air in the bookshop had tobe consecrated. That was the only explanation for why his cheeks were suddenly burning.“You do not.”

“Oh, I really think I do.”Aziraphale patted his knee. “In fact, I think I need to doit.”

The sly look in his eyes told Crowleythat the word choice had absolutely been deliberate. He groaned and dropped hishead back on the couch. “Just keep it quiet, will you?”

“As a mouse,” Aziraphalepromised, but he was practically glowing with the prospect.

The sight of it loosened the knot inCrowley’s chest the rest of the way.

He groaned again, but it was onlyfor effect. He had meant what he’d said, after all.

Whatever his angel needed.

#numenoreanrockopera #M answers #Good Omens #Aziraphale x Crowley #ineffable husbands #M writes fic #M writes Good Omens #angst with a happy ending #emotional hurt comfort #okay back to the Camp NaNo word mines

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vonvestra · 4 years

Text

More Modern HCs

// Continued from this post. I spent 4 hours of my drive today thinking about if modern!Hubert would listen to Living Dead Girl.

(answer below the cut)

Hubert before age 10 was pretty normal. Still spooky-looking. He’s always had sunken eyes and a sickly complexion, but as far as interests go, he wasn’t too outlandish. He liked whatever Edelgard liked, even if that happened to be dolls.

After Edelgard moved away (or was kidnapped, however Kisa wants to frame Edelgard’s past in a modern AU), Hubert had a major falling out with his father like in canon and lost his sense of identity. He rebelled hard and did whatever he could to sever his connection to his family. By 13, he was sporting emo bangs, metal band T-shirts, raccoon eyes, and the most vitriolic opinions about his dad (and Ferdinand + Daddy Aegir, wherever they are in this AU).

That Hot Topic cashier with the weird eyes, face full of metal, and fang extensions that your parents were terrified of? That’s Hubert. except what hot topic employee has a name like hubert

He was super hostile toward others around this time, and really embraced being terrifying (and leaning into the spooky vampire vibes that his name evokes). He never actually got piercings or tattoos though, and dropped wearing makeup pretty early on because he realized that he was scarier without it. But he was mean and overly defensive. And smoked clove cigarettes.

The one good thing that came out of this turbulent time for Hubert was that he eventually, a few months before Edelgard returned, began to find his own identity and his own hobbies. And then Edelgard came back and suddenly his entire life was hers again.

This dark phase carried on until he was 18 though, when he realized that his behavior and appearance reflected on Edelgard. So he cleaned himself up and began to look more “professional,” although he still preferred wearing black.

Survives on coffee and cigarettes, both of which prevent him from ever getting a proper night’s rest.

As mentioned in my previous modern AU post, Hubert was a good student. Partly because he was a loner with no other hobbies.

He eventually calmed down enough to work under his father again, but really hates his ideas and wants to make him retire so that he can claim COO of the Hresvelg company (because patricide is frowned upon in modern society).

Yes, he’d listen to Rob Zombie. (and Marilyn Manson, for the shock factor)

#out of character #headcanons #v : modern #// these are mostly kind of silly

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heartfeltheart · 4 years

Text

Alchemy: Magic Vs. Science

Chapters: 14/25 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Series: Part 1 of 9. Summary: Magic and Science, are they the same or are they completely different? It just takes one person to point out all up and downs. Along with breaking the stereotypes that come up with being a wizard, alchemist and most of all being human. Thank you, @amynchan! D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

“English and Edward’s accented voice.” “Amestrian or another foreign language.” “Written notes.” ‘Thoughts.’ First Name: Informal Last Name: Formal (Or used to annoy others)

"I will give you that, Alchemy does have a mystical force behind it. Alchemy is an art of manipulating and altering matter by using natural energy. This act is known as "Transmutation". There is a sequence that comes along with that, comprehension, deconstruction, and reconstruction."

"I understand that, Mr. Elric. However..." A sixth year, a Ravenclaw by the name of Wallace Cross, said in an opinionated voice, he read out of a familiar looking book. "Alchemy is a branch of magic and an ancient science concerned with the study of four basic elements, as well as the study of the transmutation of substances, thus it is intimately connected with potion-making, transformation magic, and chemistry...."

Edward leaned against his desk, arms crossed over his chest and his expression showed he wanted nothing more than to hear what was being said to him. What was being said to him was nothing new to him, the Golden Blonde had read it in one of the many books back in that bookstore in Diagon Alley. Thinking back, the book the brat has is one of the books that were in the 'hell no' pile. The book was geared towards far too much in the magical sense of Alchemy. He wasn't going deny that Alchemy has some sort of mystical force behind it. However, to fully understand Alchemy, you must understand the science behind it. If you do not understand the smaller details, then everything will blow up in your face. Severally.

How did Wallace get into his class again?

Oh, right, he did well in the chemistry problems, everything else... not so much.

'Do I kick him out? Nah, that will be too easy.' Edward pushed away from his desk, he walked over towards the Ravenclaw who was nose deep into his book and reading aloud from it. The Alchemy Teacher reached over and yanked the book out of the sixth year's hands. "Look... Alchemy with the way I was taught is like this..."

-.-

A first-year Hufflepuff scurried along the main floor of the school to head over to the Great Hall. It was almost lunchtime and he wanted to get there before the rush. He slowed down his pace when he got closer to the Alchemy classroom, the last thing he needed is the Alchemy teacher to chew him out for making too much noise.

The Hufflepuff heard rumors that the Alchemy Teacher will snap at the smallest of things. From people mentioning anything about milk, heights, and will...very random things. Right, when it felt like the first year was home free, the doors of the Alchemy classroom burst open and a sixth year Ravenclaw stormed with a look of complete humiliation and anger.

"Class is not over yet!"

"I do not care! I quit this wretched class!"

"Ah.... did I hurt your ego?"

"Ugh!"

The first year Hufflepuff stood there completely terrified at what was happening in front of him. Terrified went to petrified when he saw Mr. Elric stuck his head out of the classroom. Mr. Elric turned his line of sight towards him and raised an eyebrow at him. "Cedric Diggory, right?"

Cedric nodded slowly, not trusting his voice at that moment.

"Could you do me a favor?"

Another slow nod.

"Could you go look for Professor Flitwick, tell him I need to talk to him."

"Yes, sir..."

-.-

"You want all of them? All of them?"

"Look... I know a lot of people do not understand me due to the accent... I need every book you have here that is even remotely linked to Alchemy. All of it, if the books are checked out then check them back in."

Madam Irma Pince gave the Alchemy Teacher a look of complete befuddlement. Why in the world would he want with all those books? It is understandable if he wanted to borrow one here and there but all of them? It didn't help that the young man that was standing in front of her had explained how there is a huge possibility that the information the books are untrue. Complete blasphemy. And... The mere thought of it just made her blood curl. "I will have all the books ready by the end of the day."

"Good. Good."

-.-

Inside a small London café, sitting in the back of the shop a group of 'college' friends and their loyal canine companion, sat around enjoying a nice of hot cup tea or coffee. To anyone from the outside, it appeared that the group was catching up from a long break from seeing each other. Talking about the weather, their hobbies, family or anything that was relevant to the topic. That was what it appeared on the outside, in the inside...

"So...How are we going to do this?" Jean asked over his cup of hot cup of coffee.

"We could always make a ruckus..." Vato stated as he munched on a muffin. "We don't have Edward's owl to help us or the kid himself."

"How about w-" Alex attempted to say but was shot down when everyone gave him a look to remain quiet. The sparkles around him dulled greatly and even his mustache dropped to match his mood.

"Ideas are needed, but not to put us in jail for disturbing the peace and public nudity." Roy laughed when a group of individuals entered the café. His eyes were deadpan that did not match his laughing smile. If anything, they showed how much he wanted to cringe at what Alex is thinking.

"...That could be the only way..." Riza stated, she took a small bite out of a lemon scone. "Get their attention, however, ensure we keep it at a bare minimum. Allow that bare minimum to whisper and allow them to come to us..."

Alex quickly cried tears of joy at the fact his plan was taken into consideration. Although by the looks of it, the plan is going to be downgraded massively. There goes making a statue...

"What exactly should we do?" Kain gulped down nervously, it was going to be one cold day in hell since...Riza... is going along with Alex idea.

"Well... They do magic, might as well do a magic show..." Vato stated with a shrug, he lifted up his own cup of coffee up towards his lips. His eyes wondered over towards Roy to see a familiar sparkle in his eyes. The same type of sparkle that only happened when he came up with a plan that involved chaos, chaos, and more chaos. "I was kidding..."

"What a glorious idea!"

"I was kidding!"

"I like that idea."

"It could work."

"Let's give it a go."

"Sounds like fun."

"...I was being sarcastic..."

-.-

Alarms went off in a certain area in the Ministry of Magic people scurried around in a panic. People whispered of muggle performers doing actual magic and the rumors flew around the building.

"What...? What IS that?"

"Is this magic? What are they doing?"

"WHATDEPARTMENTDOESTHISGOTO?"

-.-

Laughter filled the area, people of all ages watched on with wonder in their eyes. No one wondered this magic is done. Flames licked their faces as the main performer snapped his fingers and flames erupted from his fingertips. The flickering fire got close to the spectators, but never touched them. All the crowd could feel was the heat. It was entertaining to see and many could only watch in awe. Certain individuals pushed their way into the crowd, completely unaware that they were being watched themselves.

"The man isn't using magic."

"Then explain what he is doing."

"Muggle magic?"

"This isn't Muggle Magic..."

"Then what is it?"

The Flame performer snapped his fingers one last time, causing a loud bang to reverberate throughout the area and a lightning-quick burst of flame to momentarily blind all in attendance. Once everyone regained their eyesight, it was then everyone took note the performer had mysteriously vanished.

An Auror stood, flabbergasted, staring at the spot where the small group had just been.

"He... they... what... WHAT?" he stuttered, confused beyond reason. He looked around to his fellow Aurors. They were all just as confused as he. One of them finally shook himself free of the trance, though a bit late, and muttered a Point Me spell, drawing the rest of the small group back to reality. They were led to a newly built wall.

"Is it working?"

"It's a simple Point Me spell. Of course, it's working!"

"But it says...."

"I KNOW what it SAYS! But they aren't right in front of us, are they? And they're not Magic, so they should be close. You two," he said, pointing to his fastest comrades, "go around to the other side of this wall, see what's there. You two spread out. They've GOT to be close..."

-.-

Behind the newly constructed wall, Alex Louis Armstrong and Roy Mustang grinned silently, listening to the Auror's conversation while they waited for Riza to choose the best route for them from her vantage point. They were, after all, a well-functioning military group, left alone, unsupervised and bored in a new country, only told to "get the official's attention". To hell if Roy wasn't going to enjoy this game.

-.-

"And which of those elements that you listed is a gas?" Edward quizzed a student from his Monday class.

"That would be th-"

The door slammed open, interrupting the student's answer and drawing an irritated sigh from Edward.

"Edward Elric?" A Ministry official asked desperately, staring a hole into Edwards's head. Edward ignored him and signaled to the young Ravenclaw to continue.

"Colonel Elric!"

Edward growled but otherwise continued to ignore him.

"And what are the properties of that element... Rachel?" He called on another student, turning his back to the official.

As Edward attempted to keep his class going for the last ten minutes, the Ministry man continued trying to gain his attention. Finally, Edward snapped.

"COLONEL ELRI-"

"VHAT?! I HAFFE TEN MINUTES LEFT IN ZIS CLASS! TEN MINUDES! TEN MINUDES IN VHICH ZEZE STUTENTS COULD PE FINISHING ZEIR LEZON, LEARNING UZEFUL DINGS INSTEAD OF MY NAME AND RANK! NOV YOU GET TO VAIT VITH ZEM—ZILENTLY!- UNDIL I ZAY DAT CLASS IS FINISHED!"

"But sir!"

"ZIT! DOVN! UNLESS YOU CAN LIST THE BERIODIC TABLE ELEMENTS LIKE MY STUDENTS CAN, SHUT UP!"

The stunned man sat down, speechless, in the back of the classroom for the next ten minutes, trying to ignore the snickering from the students that "Mr. Elric ROCKS."

-.-

Edward silently fumed as he followed the Ministry Official up towards Dumbledore's office. The class had just ended and lunch had just begun for everyone else but himself. He might as well see what the crazy government officials want with him. Seeing as they only brought one guy to bring him in, it would either be a small issue or they assumed that they only need one idiot to force him to do whatever they want him to do.

The former Alchemist inwardly snorted at that last thought, they will be sorely mistaken. Even if he can use alchemy, Edward has other skills to pull through whatever gets thrown his way. Especially dealing with Idiot Number 1, the idiot is maintaining his space away from him and would only occasionally glance back to ensure of his own safety.

The only time the Ministry Official spoke was when he said the password to Dumbledore's office. The Gargoyle moved away to reveal the spiral staircase to them and they both walked through to get into the office. The moment that they both passed through the entrance, it closed behind, tension filled the air and it wasn't coming off Edward this time around.

"Vat is it dat you vant vith me?" Edward asked the Ministry Official, inwardly he grinned at how the man flinched away from him. "Vill?"

"Earlier this day, several individuals arrived in London and uh..." The older man took out a piece of parchment and started to read from it. "A male with unkempt black hair, dark eyes, and is wearing a three-piece muggle suit, performing some sort of fire magic in front of a group of muggles."

"Vat the hell does this supposed to mean to me?" Edward bluntly asked, inwardly when he heard the description of the individual, he couldn't help but be reminded of someone from back home. Someone that should remain there and not be here in this country. His mood soured at the thought of that, it didn't help that once officially entered Dumbledore's office to see the old man pacing sitting behind his desk. Hogwarts' headmaster ran his hand through a red feathered bird's feathers while the creature cooed at the affection. "Old man, do you know vat is happening? This is not part of any deal we had and goes along with them knowing about my rank."

"My apologies, Mr.-pardon me, Colonel Elric-"

"Just Mr. Elric will suffice."

"When we had the complication with helping gather your belongings in Xing, I had to reveal your information to the Ministry of Magic. They rather took it into stride at the fact you are a Military Officer, a high-ranking officer, especially now..." Dumbledore trailed off at a familiar looking contract on his desk. Edward mind went back momentarily before he groaned inwardly. Before officially signing the contracting to work at the school, he had created a resume and he only briefly mentioned his military career. Of course.

"We would like you to help us with this..."

"Is that an order?"

"I have orders to bring you back to Muggle London to help us..."

Edward raised an eyebrow at the man in front of him, any emotion of uneasiness and freight gone. Dare he say, the guy had the gall to act like he had an upper hand when he reached towards his person. To reach for his wand perhaps, not like that's going to help him. The Golden Blonde mentally calculated how fast the wizard could take out his wand and the amount of time he could grab hold of the coat rack that was next to him to use as a weapon. As tempting as it sounds to beat the guy go into a bloody pulp, there is an animal in the room and would not want such a creature to see such a sight.

Dumbledore had a similar train of thought when he quickly stood up and clapped his hands together to dissipate the tension in his office. "Would you help us at our time of need, Mr. Elric? Perhaps this person is doing alchemy?"

Edward snorted, he leaned toward the coat rack just in case he would need it and gave the Ministry official a deadpan expression. "I'll help... Not because you lot are threatening me; I am curious what has all of you on edge...I want to shake hands with the main cause for the disturbance for causing you guys to ask a simple muggle for help."

"Why you little..."

Bang!

Silence...

"...In my defense... He wanted to use dat stick against me..."

"...Is he alive?"

"Let me check..."

Poke. Poke. Poke. Groan.

"Yes."

-.-

"They are running around the area, Sir."

"Are they close to finding us?"

"Not even close."

"Keep me informed of their movements."

"Yes, sir."

Mustang clicked a button on a two-way radio, he grinned at the device in his hand. Fuery had come upon an electronics store before their big plan had begun. One of the main items he got was a couple of two-way radios, something that is far more useful to the radios they have back at Amestris. "Everything is in the clear, those idiots are several blocks away from us. Havoc has them in his sights."

Armstrong response is a pose that was in no doubt passed down the Armstrong Family for several generations. The Alchemist were in a different alleyway and are hiding behind a seemingly wrongly placed stone wall. Nothing in suspicious at all... Unless you are a local and know for fact this wall should not be there at all.

"Should we put on another sho-" Mustang went on to say but was interrupted when Havoc's voice came out of the two-way radio.

"We have a problem."

"What's the problem, Havoc?"

"I just spotted Colonel Elric."

"... Come again?"

"Colonel Elric is with the idiots."

Mustang and Armstrong glanced at each other with blank expressions. For the former, this wasn't part of the game plan, Elric chess piece was not supposed to come into play until much later. Even if the brat could no longer do alchemy, he could recognize Armstrong's work and the game had just barely started.

Mustang pulled out his two-way radio and promptly pressed a button. "Where are they right now? What is their current locat-"

"OI! COLONEL BASTARD!"

Tag List Below:

Permanent Tag List: @runestarchild @princesskitomi @fanfictionpromptsblog @souleateralicestein @vixen-uchiha @okami-knight @legendaryneckjudgestudent @weird-homosapien @justafanwarrior @vivilakitty @ravennightingaleandavatempus @if-you-give-a-chat-a-cookie @moonwatcher04 @darkshadowguardian @two-faced-biatch @kris-pines04 @mewwitch @edwardhatori @kuroko26 @tall-and-angry @bloody-no-kissu @crazylittlemunchkin @tbehartoo @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @melicmusicmagic

#Alchemy Series #Magic vs Science #FMA #HP #HP/FMA #Crossover #au #Chapter 14 #fanfic

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thesupernaturaluniversity · 4 years

Text

Just Don’t Call Them UFOs

The U.S. military wants pilots to report strange sightings in the sky, but doesn’t want any of the stigma that comes with it.

Pilots are about to receive a new memo from management: If you encounter an unidentified flying object while on the job, please tell us.

The U.S. Navy is drafting new rules for reporting such sightings, according to a recent story from Politico. Apparently, enough incidents have occurred in “various military-controlled ranges and designated airspace” in recent years to prompt military officials to establish a formal system to collect and analyze the unexplained phenomena. Members of Congress and their staffs have even started asking about the claims, and Navy officials and pilots have responded with formal briefings.

The Washington Post provided more details in its own story:

In some cases, pilots—many of whom are engineers and academy graduates—claimed to observe small spherical objects flying in formation. Others say they’ve seen white, Tic Tac–shaped vehicles. Aside from drones, all engines rely on burning fuel to generate power, but these vehicles all had no air intake, no wind and no exhaust.

The Navy knows how this sounds. It knows what you must be thinking. But the fact stands that some pilots are saying they’ve seen strange things in the sky, and that’s concerning. So the Navy is trying to assure pilots that they won’t be laughed out of the cockpit or deemed unhinged if they bring it up. “For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report,” the Navy said in a statement to Politico.

Yet even as the Navy indicates it’s willing to discuss the taboo topic, it’s also shying away from three notorious little letters. UFO carries an airport’s worth of baggage, bursting with urban legends, government secrecy, and over-the-top Hollywood movies. The statements and quotes that the Navy provided to news outlets are devoid of any reference to UFOs. Instead, they’re called “unexplained aerial phenomena,” “unidentified aircraft,” “unauthorized aircraft,” and, perhaps most intriguing, “suspected incursions.”

Read: When a Harvard professor talks about aliens

The message is, if you see something, say something, but for God’s sake, lower your voice. Don’t call it a UFO. Which is funny, since the military came up with the name in the first place.

The earliest government programs dedicated to investigating UFO sightings in the late 1940s treated the claims, unsurprisingly, as a big joke. As a rule, officials dismissed and debunked any reports as hoaxes and hallucinations, according to UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry, a textbook-style deep dive published in 2012. This apparently didn’t sit well with some of the higher-ups.

In some ways, the Navy’s modern-day attempt to take seriously reports of UFO sightings is a rerun of what happened next. “I want an open mind,” Major General Charles Cabell, then the head of Air Force intelligence at the Pentagon, reportedly demanded at a meeting with subordinates in 1951. “Anyone who doesn’t keep an open mind can get out now.”

A new, secretive program, dubbed Project Blue Book, was quickly organized to investigate claims of strange visions in the sky without ridiculing them. Its director, Edward Ruppelt, introduced the term unidentified flying object sometime around 1953. The definition carried no hint of extraterrestrial life; in a national-security official’s scariest daydreams, the objects were probably Russian spycraft. For the military, a UFO was simply “any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.”

By then, there had already been several high-profile reports of objects flying through or falling from the sky. For the public, these sightings didn’t just seem unfamiliar—they seemed not of this world. A civilian pilot had seen nine somethings flying in formation near Mount Rainier in Washington State. A rancher found mysterious wreckage on his property outside Roswell, New Mexico. Multiple people spotted a series of lights hovering over Washington, D.C., and moving toward the White House. The military even mobilized jets to intercept them, but found nothing.

In the meantime, UFOs further infiltrated the public consciousness. They sailed into Hollywood, which to this day remains obsessed with stories about aliens, from friendly creatures to nightmarish monsters. The fourth Men in Black movie is coming out this summer, and it’s probably not the last.

Elsewhere, the lines between fiction and reality blurred. People told harrowing stories of nighttime abductions. UFOs became the focus of conspiracy theories about government secrecy. A disheveled, wild-haired man on the History Channel suggested that extraterrestrial beings helped build Stonehenge. Over time, a collective opinion emerged about those who truly believed UFOs proved the existence of aliens, and it wasn’t a flattering one. “Let’s face it—believing in the paranormal has become shorthand for crazy,” wrote Alexandra Ossola in Futurism in 2017, on the lasting stigma surrounding UFO truthers.

Military pilots are well aware of the taboo. Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and Bush administrations and an advocate for UFO study, has said service members worry that reporting UFOs puts their careers at risk. They also worry that staying silent could threaten national security, in case one of those mysterious objects turns out to be a new form of aircraft from a rival country.

“Nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national-security bureaucracy,” Mellon wrote in a Post op-ed last year. “Nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.”

After two decades in operation, Project Blue Book eventually concluded there was “no evidence that [UFOs] are intelligently guided spacecraft from beyond the Earth.” They attributed most sightings to, among other things, clouds, weather balloons, and even birds. “The report brushes aside the demands of some scientists and laymen for a large-scale effort to determine the nature of such ‘flying saucers,’’ The New York Times wrote in 1969. “Such a project, the report says in effect, would be a waste of time and money.”

Read: But, seriously, where are the aliens?

Future generations at the Pentagon thought differently. From 2007 to 2012, the Department of Defense operated a top-secret, $22 million program dedicated to investigating UFO reports, known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The New York Times revealed its existence in a jaw-dropping story in 2017. “The program produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift,” the Times reported.

Although the funding eventually ran out, officials say Defense officers continue to investigate claims reported by service members.

Edward Ruppelt probably didn’t imagine the journey his three-letter abbreviation would take over the years. In 1955, five years before he died, he dumped everything he had learned about UFOs into a nearly 300-page report. “People want to know the facts,” he wrote. “But more often than not, these facts have been obscured by secrecy and confusion, a situation that has led to wild speculation on one end of the scale and an almost dangerously blasé attitude on the other.”

As his successors in the U.S. military draft their reports and memos and guidelines, carefully avoiding any mention of that word, they will no doubt run into the same trouble he did. “The report has been difficult to write,” Ruppelt wrote in 1955, his frustration hovering above the page like the air over pavement on a hot day, “because it involves something that doesn’t officially exist.”

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ashtonsunshine · 5 years

Note

Search for : 5 Seconds of Summer Ashton: 'chicks don't judge my drumming' it's from an interview for Rhythm magazine. You can also watch the interview : Ashton Irwin at NAMM 2016 . My intention is not to hate on him , but he does sound a bit condescending in those, and i hope as of now he appreciates his female audience, because we do support them with love for their music.

The first one you talk about, I could only find this very low quality pic of the article from Ashton’s twitter, and then I found these articles about it: PressPlay and AltPress. The PressPlay article just transcripts what he says and gives no other insight on the matter. The Altpress one is more important and I’ll get to it in a bit.

The picture isn’t easy to read so I’m gonna transcript what’s said:

“Rhythm: Ashton, are you comfortable in the spotlight?

Ashton: Chicks don’t judge your drumming., let’s be honest. Fourteen-year-olds aren’t going to be like, “Man, that guy sucks!”. They just like to see a drummer. My stepdad drums, my uncle is a drummer, I’m surrounded by a drumming family and I just want to learn to be the best drummer I can be.

Karl: That’s a great thing you just said that chicks don’t judge your drumming. There’s a song in that. I would say you’ve probably influenced a lot of girls to be drummers.

Ashton: I hope we get some people playing guitar and drums again, I thinks that’s a great thing our band could do for people.”

This interview is from August 2015, but since Karl talks about a rehearsal in Portugal and that after it they’ll go straight into the shows, this interview was held in May 2015, right before the ROWYSO tour, so Ashton as 20 years old then.

From a first read, yeah, it doesn’t sound good, but, just for the sake of it, let’s put ourselves in his shoes for a sec.

A 20-year-old man who wants to be a great drummer and appreciated for his drumming skills being reduced to daddy material by young teenage girls isn’t exactly ideal. The sexualization of band members isn’t news to anyone and we all know that teenagers can be over the top and very vocal about it to the artist’s face (and by face I both mean live in concert and on the artist’s social media), so, and although not exactly politically correct of Ashton, he’s not wrong in his words, in my opinion.

Being sexually attracted to a drummer and appreciating their skill isn’t something that’s mutually exclusive, that’s a fact. However, young teenagers, and I’m including myself in here because I’m not imune to this phenomenon, can and will focus on the sex appeal of their idols before being able to appreciate their skills. I did that. I was one of those people who “just like to see the drummer”, so I can see where Ashton is coming from when he said that. Should he have said it, probably not. Did he say it and meant it the evil way people try to portray it, most likely not.

As the Altpress article reads “What they are is good dudes, and good dudes sometimes say bullshit.” because nobody is born perfect. Then the article goes on saying:

“It became something of a hot topic on 5SOSFam internet, girls attempting to dissect what the drummer meant. Some thought it was indirect commentary on their young, female fanbase’s obsession with their personal life over music. Others were offended, tweeting at the musician that though they might not be able to label the anatomy of a drum kit, they still appreciate his musicianship. Whatever the reasoning, the use of “chicks” here is concerning as is the statement. Why don’t they judge your drumming? Is “judge” here used more like “criticizing”? Because a girl isn’t going to scream “You suck” at a 5 Seconds Of Summer gig, she doesn’t know about the mechanics of drumming? It might be misguided language in the way their recent single, “Good Girls,” was, with a chorus of “Good girls are bad girls that haven’t been caught” meant to symbolize independence and an exploration in identity that, to the unknowing person (aka someone who doesn’t worship at the altar of this band) kind of reads like sexual objectification.”

I’d like to bring your focus to that last part about misguided language, because that’s important. Sometimes people say things without meaning harm that end up being harmful. We can try to dissect it all we want, but we’ll never know for sure. I would say he didn’t mean to be sexist, but I also agree that it did come out a bit condescending.

The second one you mention is this interview for Altpress at NAMM 2016 when he was 21 years old:

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They are talking about the event and how there are a lot of people there who are older and more experienced music people and the interviewer says that he thought it would be easier to get a hold of Ashton because there were more important musicians there than him, to which Ashton responds that he’s just chilling and that there isn’t anyone in the 5SOS’s fanbase demographics there and finishes it off with “I don’t think any of the chicks or anything would come to check out some gear or some moog boards or anything like that so”.

I wasn’t sure about it so I had to check it on a dictionary, that many women find “chick” an offensive term, so we can ask: why is he using it? Maybe he is just as unaware as I am and was using it simply to refer to young teenage girls; maybe he isn’t and was being rude, which is, in all honesty, not likely. Ashton is known for spitting out words without giving two thoughts about them and we all know that, but I also think he has grown out of it, at least a bit, by now. But, back to the full statement.

“I don’t think any of the chicks would come to check out some gear...” can be interpreted as sexist and condescending, and I’m not going to deny that, but you have to look at the full conversation to understand what he meant. Context is important. They’re talking about the people who are attending the event, who are, as I understood it, experienced music people who’ve been in the field for a while and their fans, who, by extension, are also older people who have an interest in the drumming world. So, Ashton saying that can’t, in my view, be shoved into a corner and interpreted as it is being interpreted by so many people.

Firstly, I, personally, don’t believe he’s using “chicks” as a derogatory term and is simply using it to refer to the majority of the 5SOS fanbase demographic, which was (and still is) young girls and young women. But you guys can think that all I’m saying is a bunch of bullshit and say that it doesn’t matter what he meant and how he meant it, what matters is what he said, and I’m sorry but I disagree. He’s human and human beings often say shit without meaning it in a certain way that then other people come along and twist their words to paint them as the incarnation of Satan itself. I have said things that come off rude and not politically or morally correct in my life without meaning them that way, and I’m absolutely certain that so have you.

Then, there’s the possible interpretation that young girls, being only interested in seeing the drummer, aren’t judging the drumming skills and don’t know or aren’t interested about drumming gear hence not being there at the event, which is, in a way, true. Is it a bold and somewhat sexist generalisation? Yes. Is he wrong, though? No. Many teenagers aren’t interested in the gear band members use.

I remember when that interview with Ashton talking about his drum kit came out and I was fascinated. I wasn’t fascinated about the gear or fascinated about how many things he had on his kit or what they did; I was fascinated about his love for it. I didn’t understand shit of what he was talking about but he was speaking with such passion that I didn’t care. Same thing happened when Michael’s video with Gibson talking about his guitar dropped. I don’t know anything about guitars or how they work, but I know Michael was happy as hell to have that guitar out and I’m here for it.

I think what Ashton missed when he said those things was that we may not understand anything about how to make music or how good of a drummer he is or about drumming gear but we do know he worked hard to get where he is right now and we value and respect that, and I think that’s why people went crazy about this. They felt betrayed in a way and that’s completely understandable. They felt like their respect was disregarded. That their love was minimised.

But he does know how important a female audience is. The band has mentioned it several times. Here’s one from Billboard last year when talking about Youngblood:

“Being a band of all guys, what have you learned over the years from having a fanbase that’s largely female?

Irwin: A couple of delicate things, but most of it is just sensitivity. Lyrics are important to younger women who are trying to understand relationships, or just feelings in general. I grew up without a dad. I just have a mom. A lot of my lyrical process is based on seeing my mom suffer, which makes me quite sensitive towards how younger women feel. I think that’s an important thing. That took me a long time to realize as to why I feel almost asexual at times towards… I don’t really get along with men that well. It’s all because of my upbringing. In lyrics I wrote when I was younger, there’s a lot deeper meaning than I actually thought. I didn’t understand it when I was younger. When I was writing with you guys [I'd think], why do women like these lyrics? Then you get older and look at your lyrics and go, “This makes a lot of sense, why people would have liked that.”

I think where a lot of young male bands go wrong is they get caught up in women liking their band. There’s a bunch of women hanging around who might sexually desire you. That can be confusing to a young man, but it’s all just about respect.

Hood: You never want to [be patronizing towards] younger fans, in particular female, because that’s what our demographic was, and still is in large part. So in lyrics, we always overestimate our fans. The lyrics on this album are very deep.

Irwin: We don’t actually focus on who likes us that much… I really enjoy meeting male fans as well. To all my favorite bands, the Rolling Stones and stuff, the younger female fans always come first because they know what's good.”

They know how important we, the female fanbase, are. They know we put them where they are now, that we gave them the platform to thrive in the music industry. They know we love their work and support them in whatever music path they choose to take. They see us like people with brains and not sex objects. They write lyrics for our brains and our hearts.

Ashton has grown so much as a person and I think we shouldn’t keep him back on a sentence he said four years ago without looking at ourselves first and thinking about all the dodgy things we did and said when we were four years younger. I have a few I’m not proud of, and I would like people not to use them to define who I am today because I am a completely different person than I was in 2015 and nobody is judging me harder than myself.

#ask #5sos #ashton irwin

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gammafish · 5 years

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Public image of diabetes

‘Diabetes’.

Now quick - what was the first thing that you thought of? What was the mental image that you had?

I suppose that at least some of you thought of something of an overweight/obese person, unhealthy fatty foods like pizza or burgers, people sitting in front of their TV all day long, or maybe about the ‘great financial burden on the healthcare budget’. I wouldn’t be surprised; in fact, I’ve just been to a scientific conference where a symbol for diabetes during one of the talks was an icon of a burger and sugar cubes - which was the final thing that drove me to writing this rather long (sorry) post.

(image sources; wikipedia)

This is destructive. In a society obsessed with appearance, weight, and diet, this is destructive, and not helping anyone.

Let me say first of all that I’m not opposed to jokes and having a bit of a laugh. I use humour as a coping mechanism in crappy situations myself, so I’m not all that serious and uptight as I might come across here. But when it’s the same joke, all the time, from different people, and about something that after all is quite a sensitive subject, it tends to get to you.

It’s all those burgers, innit? No more McDonald’s for you. Just living on veggies then? You can’t ever have sweets again, can you? You’ve just had too much cake. You should have exercised more.

Let me reiterate why this is wrong. I got diabetes (type 1) at the age of 7 when I was on antibiotics every other week for a long time that damaged my pancreas. I never ate a burger before that, I never went to McDonald’s and I spent a lot of time outside playing and running around with other kids. Nowadays, in the research center where I work, I regularly see type 2 diabetics who are of normal weight, who still keep active despite their age, and who have always been active and had a good diet. On the other hand, we all know people who don’t lead healthy lifestyles for one reason or another and yet they don’t get diabetes. The truth is that we don’t understand enough about the onset of the disease and what exactly causes it. Genes and genetic predispositions surely play a role, and things like fatty diet, lack of exercise, smoking, excess alcohol consumption are all risk factors that increase the likelihood of insulin resistance and development of diabetes, but it’s not as easy and clear-cut as it seems to be.

To make things worse, depression and diabetes are closely linked. In fact, depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in people with diabetes. Why am I saying this? First, think about what you see diabetes as. Do you know what the treatment entails? Or do you only know about the daily finger prick tests and insulin injections/insulin pumps or tablets? Do you think diabetes can just be controlled by eating less cake and jogging more? Surely, these are all parts of our lives and management, but unless you yourself have the disease or someone you see daily does, then you probably don’t know about the constant fear of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) that can drive us into a coma (and death) as well as hyperglycamia (high blood glucose) that makes us feel sick short term, and leads to deadly complications long term. You don’t know the effort that goes into trying to keep our inner environment in that very tight range between those two states. The constant awareness of diabetic complications doesn’t make it easier. For some, the knowledge that after 20 years of disease over 95% of type 1 diabetics will start developing eye disease, for example, is a motivation to work as best as they can on their glucose control. For others, it’s a debilitating fear causing anger, resentment, rebelling against their disease (and possibly depression). And to get to what I wanted to point out - you also probably don’t know how difficult it is to keep a correct weight when you suffer from this disease.

For a healthy person, weight control is mainly about more exercise and less processed/fatty/high-calorie foods. The case is similar in diabetics, but the process is much more difficult. Our bodies obviously cannot self-regulate insulin and glucose levels, so it takes a lot of practice to balance the two, especially since exercise generally causes blood glucose to drop. The effect is varied based on the duration, the intensity of the work out, but other factors come into play such as the time of the last meal or even menstrual cycle in women. As a result, the general guideline for diabetics is to typically have food before and after exercising. This obviously makes any kind of weight loss much slower, since you have to take in calories to facilitate the process through which you were trying to burn those calories in the first place. But weight gain is also about other issues such as hypoglycemia in the middle of the night. If that happens, whether you want it or not (given that you want to live until morning) you might have to take an equivalent of 2-3 teaspoons of sugar (maybe more, maybe less) at night. And of course, literally every process in the body is impaired in diabetes - it’s a disruption to homeostasis, like having an increased body temperature all the time - so things like metabolism are going to be affected. Meaning, more weight gain, or at least slower weight loss.

Let me add very quickly to the diabetic complications besides the retinopathy that I mentioned earlier, in case you’re not aware of how diabetes damages the body. Diabetic kidney disease, neuropathy (nerve damage -> amputations), kidney damage (eventually leading to dialysis), cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and more), stroke, Alzheimer��s disease, dementia, skin disorders, hair loss, even tooth cavities - the likelihood of these (and of more) is increased. Essentially anything that has a blood supply is affected.

(source) (Severe diabetic retinopathy; back of the eye after laser treatment)

(Source; diabetic foot ulcers; not going to show any real-life photos as some might find them disturbing, but google ‘diabetic foot’ if you want to know what this looks like in reality)

There is no escape, there is no treatment - there is only delaying the inevitable. There is only the knowledge that if you’re (un?)fortunate enough to survive several years with the disease, you’re not likely to die fully functional and/or in one piece, and that it’s going to be those complications that kill you in the end. It’s not funny, is it?

Now in the light of all that - of the effort of glucose and weight management, the fear of going blind and losing a limb - bring back your jokes and comments about cake and burgers. Do they still feel appropriate? Not to be overly dramatic, but do you see my point now about you essentially making fun of our accelerated death? It wasn’t a choice. It is never a choice. Is autism a choice? Is cystic fibrosis, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease a choice? Is having a family history or being born with a higher predisposition to diabetes a choice? What ridiculous questions.

How demanding, but I don’t want to die - not like this, not by falling apart when I’ll reach my 30′s or 40′s if I get lucky. We don’t want to die like this. And we don’t want to hear your ‘jokes’ and comments. We don’t want you to judge us when we have the occasional treat of something sweet. We don’t want you to judge and make fun of our weight if we happen to be above the normal range, to tell us how easy it is to lose a few kilograms if we just ate less - because we’re clearly not enlightened enough to figure that out ourselves and need a bit of guidance in the form of such unpleasant comments. We don’t need your reminders and we don’t need you to make us feel guilty - we’re all hyperaware of how much and what we eat. We don’t need you to increase our risk of depression because chances are we’re either already there, have been there, or possibly might be there in the future anyway.

Of course, we don’t need your pity either. All we would like is a bit of understanding. All I want is to not have to explain to people that I didn’t get my diabetes from eating too much sweets. I won’t dare ask for support, although even understanding and just leaving us be is a form of support in itself. Enough to make us feel like we don’t have to hide our disease from you from fear of being judged or ridiculed or thought less of.

I know I use a lot of ‘we’ and ‘us’ here and of course I can’t speak for the entire diabetic community, but I’m just using the 17 years’ experience of living with the disease and hearing fellow diabetics’ opinions.

And I know I won’t change everyone’s views - not when we hear about the link between unhealthy lifestyle and diabetes every day in the media. And rightfully so, because like I mentioned, it is a significant risk factor. All I ask and wish for is for people to be just a little bit less judgemental, more aware of and sensitive in what they’re saying, and for them to see diabetes for what it really is - a serious, chronic, incurable disease that destroys the entire body, and not a light-hearted topic for teasing and jokes, or a just punishment for people who eat too many burgers and sweets.

#diabetes #diabetes mellitus #diabetic complications #weight management #personal #sorry i know this is long and not what i usually post #and i know no one cares #but i had to get this out #it was a professional goddamn conference and seeing someone do that just made me really sad

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