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#these are subject to change because this is just what i'm focused on today
grahamcarmen · 7 months
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What in your opinion are the best RC scenes.
DON'T LET GO HAS A THROUGH LINE LITERALLY A BACKBONE AND DRAMATICALLY DONE EACH TIME!
so yes the fall through the sky and the kiwi and the final hold
-the last time she thinks she can trust him she trust him with her life
-and then she asks for the trust back and omg its! hard! for gray! but he does it and she looks so...happy for that second before they fall, -and then he ASKS HER TO COME BACK IN THE QUIETESTSOFTEST VOICE FOR SUCH A VIOLENT SCENARIO I CRY.
like what the push and pull and together is how they can survive to the next step of their story
carmen admitting that the reason he tracked her down at all was because it was him and she wanted to see him. its such a show off way to do it [oh you think you can bait me PSYCH I'M 3 STEPS AHEAD] but the real emotion that she wanted to see him one last time literally !!!! shines thru still imo. and basically makes me go...omg you let him track you cause its him as the story keeps going
the way that the maybe date has matching faces frames of them looking at the other from across the street
i think that the fight at the jail scene is underrated angst because once again the framing is that gray is disappearing from her sight and SHE CAN'T STAND IT. THE FADE FROM THE CLEANERS! THE ROBOT GRABBED HIM AND TOOK HIM AWAY! HE SHOUTED HER NAME!
i honestly love how in opera actually that gray can't help slipping out that he doesn't have a good memory and she follows up on that and he answers sincerely, like their conversations have this earnest tinge to them even at their weirdest points. grays openess is met with her compassion and her sadness gives way to their light jokes and his reaching out
and carmen obviously doesn't like that he's forgotten his year with her
and then in kiwi where they flirt "you're late, fashionably i hope" and it leads into a sincere apology that she couldn't be there
him recognizing she needs help in kiwi and going for it
the forest scene where she decides the safest place to be if she's worried about his sticky fingered ways is with either hands next to his sides
every single time that carmen interrupts at the himalayas [kiwi memory/ the psychological test/the window breaking]
GRAY PUTTING DOWN THE CRACKLE ROD. [she's in ur head boy let the light win let-]
Gray explaining that he knows carmen is good and true and needs their help and no strings attached they can lock him up if needs be just. PLEASE.
SO BASICALLY
1] don't let go scenes never miss and not just because of the repetition [please come back is haunting me tho especially because gray went from separating her into a league of her own into someone who needs to BE BACK and he's gonna be the one to help do it .]
1.5 the hug is my header for a reason omg she looks so ! happy going to hold him.
2] carmen admitting gray on the train is there because she wants him there (and basically anytime its from carmens pov that yes gray actually does have enough real estate in her heart to deserve this) it has the added bonus of a gray so grumpy he "lost "
3] gray's himalaya episode chipping him down to his truest regret is so visually pleasing to me and the way it ends with the current carmen breaking the window...yes...
[tied with explaining to ACME why carmen deserves mercy and they can deny it to him if that helps]
4] the forest pic. you know.
5] gonna placeholder the opera convo in particular here but
the earnest streak that is in their conversations that happens all the time even when something is a bit off. even tense as enemies they talk about the past and have investment in it, the casual opera date set up is light but also sad at what was lost while hoping for new, the flirtation of kiwi has a real apology in there, carmens open worries are met with him fighting his prickly nature to be there on that mission, carmen answering his questions/concern as dark!carmen with smiles, like...they're always so fond of each other and it breaks thru all the time and creates a softness in the atmosphere because someone ...bends
6] the framing of the date spot and that it never gets dropped really. gray looks at her and she looks at him in the frames. looking forward to each other even when not directly at each other...nice
7] lol yeah i'm gonna add anytime player tries to go :/ but he - I KNOW PLAYER I WAS THERE
8] i just. needed to know she was alright.... i wanna cry.
angst edition
1] the petty spagetti nature of them throwing their codenames in each others faces omg
2]gray not letting carmen get away with rose colored vile endorsed dreams so she has to confront that...she just cares for an imperfect person. thats all. thats true. [and the way he does it is pretty blunt but ends with him offering her his own truth back i wanna-
2.5] and him denying again that he cares is the worst thing he could ever do so he puts the rod down [even if he's still not in a place to pick something else up and still needs more internal work]
3] carmen always getting the big oof and saying his name sosososo sadly [and he say carmen ? so :( is she safe?]
4] THE JAIL SCENE SHE WENT FOR HIM AND IT WAS SO RUDE D;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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whatsk-poppinhomies · 4 months
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Pairing : Dad!Bangchan x F!Reader TW : Chans daughter is not readers child ; Chans ex wife and daughter are shit starters ; drama of course ; angsty ; honestly, poor Chan ; fluffy ending though ; slightly suggestive at the end as well ; Word Count : 6.5k Request : Anonny : Please write an angsty / fluffy fic about Dad!chan who, after years of not dating, finally decides to get back into dating & when he finally finds someone he doesn't tell reader he has a teenage daughter because he doesn't know how reader would feel about it but when reader finds out they're really upset and avoid him and his daughter reaches out to reader and convinces reader to talk to Chan and make up because she hates seeing her dad upset. A/N : This request is so cute and I'm so happy I get to write it. Of course, it will be super drama because I love when it happens, and with Chans recent bbl messages we know this man loves this kind of shit, so... This is for Chan and Chan stans and we love Chan!
“I got a call from your teacher today, Ella.” Chan said as his daughter walked through the front door. “They said your grades haven’t been the best lately, that you haven’t been focusing in class. Is something wrong? Do you have something going on?” He didn’t want to be the kind of father that always got on his child when their grades were below average, but he also didn’t want his daughter to flunk out. He wanted to see her be successful and happy in life, that’s all he ever wanted. 
“I’ve just been going through some stuff, dad.” Ella mumbled as she kicked her shoes into the corner near the front door and dropped her bags onto the floor. “Mom said she’s been trying to get in touch with you lately. I guess she saw that you’ve been posting about going out on your facebook.” She pulled out the chair across the table from Chan. “Why don’t I get to meet your new girlfriend?” 
Chan rolled his eyes, finally looking up from his phone to look at his daughter. “You’re changing the subject. What I do in my spare time isn’t important. Your grades are. So tell me, what kind of stuff have you been going through that’s been keeping you from being able to focus. Maybe I can help.” 
She huffed loudly, the attitude that he was warned would come along with a teenage daughter was in full force now. “It’s not even important anyway… Don’t you have a date to go on tonight? That’s all you ever talk about anymore. It’s like you don’t even care that mom left…” It was finally making sense to him, but it hurt that she felt that way. He had been kind enough to keep his ex wife’s dirty secrets just that, a secret, so that Ellas view of her mother wouldn’t be warped. He was trying to do the right thing, but it was becoming harder and harder. 
“I do care that your mother left… I was hurt by it for a long time, El. It’s been 8 years, and I think that it’s time that I’ve finally moved on because she isn’t coming back. Your mother has gotten remarried, divorced, and married again in those 8 years and I haven’t been with anyone until just a few months ago. I don’t think you’re being very fair right now.” He tried to explain, but he could tell, he could just see it in her face that she wasn’t ready to hear about it. “And, just so you know, I don’t have a date to go on tonight. I was planning on being here to help you with your homework and studying so that I don’t get another call like I had today.” 
///
“Had a late night in the studio, huh?” You said as you walked up behind Chan, your arms draping over his shoulders as he sat in front of his computer in his office. You could tell he was tired, he could barely sit up straight and his eyes wouldn’t stay open for longer than a few seconds. “It’s okay to take a break, bubs. It’s 3racha, not ChrisRacha.” 
He snickered at the little name, finally swiveling his chair around to face you and pulling you down onto his lap. “You sound like everyone else. I don’t like taking breaks, it gives me too much time to think about the time that I’m wasting.” He explained, his voice was groggy and not even laced, but completely filled with exhaustion. “I’ll be fine once I go over your place tonight, we can cuddle up and watch a movie.” He nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck, his hot breath against your skin sending a wave of goosebumps all over. 
“They’re repainting all of the apartments, I can’t even go into my own house right now. I’ve been staying with my parents.” You reminded him, although you were sure you had texted him about it and told him about it in the days leading up to the renovation. “We can go over to your place. We’ve been dating for 4 months now and you haven’t even invited me over.” 
There was a reason for that, a reason that you didn’t know of, but he felt it was just better if you didn’t find out. The last thing he wanted was for you to run off because he had a daughter, not just any daughter though, a teenage daughter who was still hung up on the divorce of her parents. She wasn’t the easiest to get along with, and although Chan had tried to butter her up to the prospect of one day meeting you, she didn’t take too kindly to the fact that he was dating again. “My place is a mess…” He lied, trying to muffle his words in the fabric of your shirt so you wouldn’t pick up on it. “We can go to a hotel if you’d like.” 
“That seems sleezy…” You mumbled, and he felt awful, he truly did. It felt like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He absolutely loves his daughter with every ounce of his heart, his entire being, he loved being her father. He loved you too though, you had been the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. He didn’t want to have to choose between the two of you, it just didn’t seem fair. “I guess we’ll just wait for my apartment to be ready…” He could feel you trying to pull away, he could tell that you were upset, he didn’t want you to leave like that, so he tightened his arms around you, holding you close to him. 
“You’re not sleezy! I’m sorry I even recommended that, you’re better than that.” He quickly tried to get himself out of the hole that he had dug, it felt like he was clawing his way to the top, and everytime he got halfway out, he’d slip and he’d fall right back to the bottom. “I’ll clean my place, I just want it to be perfect for when you come over. Okay? You deserve the best.” 
The tension slowly left your body, he felt you soften up against him, and for a moment, it felt like he could breathe again. “Okay… Fine. I’ll wait… I just really miss sleeping next to you.” You whispered, and those words made his stomach feel warm and fuzzy. He missed sleeping next to you too. “I have to get back to work though… I’ll see you later. Try taking a break though, take a nap or something, that’s what the couch is for.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek before getting up, his arms reluctantly loosening around you until you were free to go. “Seriously, get some sleep.” 
///
“Where are you going?” Ella asked from the couch, watching Chan storm to the front door and yank his coat off the hook. “Did you and your girlfriend get into a little fight? Do you have to go kiss and make up now?” The mocking tone in her voice would usually only slightly irritate him, but he was already beyond irritated at the reason he had to leave in the first place. 
“No, it’s your damn mother.” He snapped, pulling his shoes on before grabbing his keys. “I don’t know how long she’ll hold me up, there’s food in the freezer, or you can grab my wallet out of my bag and order yourself something. Try to do some studying while I’m gone, please?” And without another word he was out the front door, slamming it behind him. 
What Chan didn’t know was that he had left his wallet at work on his studio desk, and you had gone into his studio before leaving to see if he was there but only found his wallet. He must have left the building without saying anything to you, and you wondered if maybe he was sick or something had happened back at his place. You were doing the right thing, at least that’s what you felt you were doing. You were just going to take his wallet home to him and check up on him. You didn’t mind that his house might be a little dirty, you completely understood that he was busy, you didn’t expect his house to be immaculate. 
You weren’t sure why you were so nervous to stand in front of his front door, but a chill ran through your body and you had to take a few breaths before even lifting your hand to knock. Once you did, you took a step back, listening to the locks being undone before the door opened. It wasn’t who you expected to see, it wasn’t Chan, it was a girl, she looked younger, at least 15 or 16. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have read the address wrong.” You quickly apologized, bowing your head to the girl before turning away. 
“Who are you looking for?” The girl asked, and what you weren’t aware of was that she had seen Chans wallet in your hand, she knew that you had come to the right address, she was just playing a game that you didn’t know about. You quickly said his name, and she let out a soft hum. “He’s out right now. It’s date night for him and my mom.” You felt your stomach sink, deeper and deeper until it couldn’t go any further. “Is that his wallet? Thank you so much for bringing it, I’m sure he’ll be happy to know that you brought it back. Hopefully he’ll answer his phone so he can pick it up and pay the bill, you know?” 
You nodded slowly, the bile from your stomach rising into your throat. “Y-Yeah… Of course… H-Here you go.” You stammered, your hand shaking as you handed the wallet over to the girl. You knew she wasn’t lying, she looked so much like Chan it was uncanny. Why hadn’t he told you? What was he even doing with you? He had a wife, or at least a girlfriend or fiancee… He had a child… But he was going around with you? It was beginning to add up though… Why he always wanted to go over your house. Why he’d rather go to a hotel than to bring you to his own place. You felt absolutely sick. 
“Have a good night!” The girl chimed cheerfully as you made your way back to your car, the light from inside the house that had illuminated the front yard faded until you were covered in darkness. You were devastated, you were heartbroken… You had never felt more humiliated in your life and all you wanted to do was go crawl underneath a rock and hide there. 
///
The meeting with his ex wife the night before had stressed Chan out beyond belief. He couldn’t believe that after 8 years she wanted to fight for custody of Ella now. Her reasoning behind it would have been laughable if they hadn’t been so damn ridiculous. By the time he had gotten home though, Ella was already in bed and he was so tired from dealing with his ex that he had gone right to bed as well. By morning, Ella had already left for school, so he’d have to wait until he got off work and she got home from school to even talk to her about what her mother had said. 
Now, he was only looking forward to seeing you. You were the only person at this point who could calm him down and bring him some semblance of peace, at least for the short amount of time that he got to be with you. “Hey, lovely.” He called to you when he caught you walking down the hall. Usually you’d smile and wave, you’d even run over to him sometimes if the hall was empty. This time you just shook your head before lowering it and walking right by him. 
It was a shock to say the least, and his mind immediately jumped to the worst, although he couldn’t be 100% sure of what had happened that would cause you to be acting like this. Was it because of the hotel comment the day before? Was it because he wouldn’t let you come over to his house? It couldn’t be that though, he had talked to you about it. It had to be something more, but he couldn’t figure it out. You looked absolutely pissed, like you didn’t want anything to do with him. 
“Y/N!” He called out your name now, jogging down the hall to catch up with you, but you didn’t even look up at him, and you sure as hell didn’t slow down. In fact, it seemed like you sped up, like you were trying to get away from him. “Hey… What… What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?” He lowered his voice but quickened his steps to keep up with you, trying to duck down just enough to get a view of your face, but every time he got close enough you’d look away. 
“I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you. Whatever it was that you made me think we had, it’s over. I’d like it if you left me alone now.” You stated flatly, your arms tightening around the multitude of folders that you clutched to your chest. “I’m changing groups, I won’t be one of your staff anymore as well, so please, don’t bother me anymore.” 
Something had happened, and it wasn’t something that could easily be fixed like Chan thought. It was worse, way worse. You had basically fired yourself from being his group's staff because of whatever happened. “Hold on!” His fingers wrapped around your upper arm, stopping you from going any further. “So you’re just… Breaking up with me? You’re not even going to tell me why!?” His voice cracked as it rose in pitch, his chest rising and falling heavily as the panic fully set in. “I fucking love you, Y/N… You can’t just do this to me and not tell me why.” 
When you finally looked up, he could see your eyes were glistening, your bottom lashes bedazzled with twinkling tears that clung onto them. You were just as upset as he was. “Stop pretending, Christopher!” You croaked out, sniffling loudly once the words left your chapped lips. “I refuse to be the rebound chick that you think you can run to when your marriage is on the rocks. I won’t be strung along by you, not anymore.” You took a few deep, shaky breaths to compose yourself before you pulled your arm free of Chans hold. “Now, if you don’t mind… I have another group to meet. I have work to do. I do believe that you have some work to do as well.” You bowed your head to him before turning and walking away, leaving him more confused than he was before. 
His marriage… It had fallen apart years ago when he had come home to find his wife in bed with another man while his daughter was fast asleep in the room across the hall. It had been disgusting, heartbreaking, it would have been his downfall if not for his daughter and the moral, mental, and emotional support of the guys. He wasn’t sure why it was being brought up, he didn’t even know how you had found out, but that same feeling of devastation that he had felt 8 years ago was flooding him once again. 
The guys… They were the only ones who would be able to talk to you, they were the only ones who knew about the secret past that Chan was trying so hard to hide from you. Would they do something like that though? Would they hurt him like that? “Yo! What’s up?” Changbin said as he came up behind Chan, his arm draping over his shoulder. “You’re… crying? What happened?” The cheerful tone was immediately dropped, and even though Changbin was younger, he was in full protection mode. 
“Y/N… She… She broke up with me…. She knows about Sana…” He gasped out the words, each of them getting caught in his throat, it felt like he was choking. “Somebody told her… Someone… They had to have told her! Who!?” He was shouting now, his sadness turning to anger in a matter of seconds. The look of confusion of Changbins face was enough for Chan to know that he had no idea what Chan was talking about, and that in itself proved his innocence. That left 6 more guys to question. 
“Y-You know that none of us would do that to you… Why would we do that? You were happy!” Changbin quickly defended the others as well, seeing in Chans eyes that he was on the warpath and he wasn’t going to stop until he found out who had told you. “I… I do know she went to the studio last night after you left… She… She said something about your wallet but… Maybe she went to your house to drop it off and… and…-” 
“Ella…” Chan muttered out the name, a loud groan leaving him as his head fell back. “I have to go… Will you be okay? Can you run practice for me?” Now he was in a hurry, a hurry to get home, to talk to you… He had so many things he had to do, he didn’t even know where to begin. Changbin nodded his head, patting Chans shoulder before taking a step back. Truthfully, Chan didn’t know what the hell he was going to do… But he knew he had to do something. He wasn’t going to lose you… He couldn’t. 
///
“Sit. Now.” Chan said, not even giving his daughter time to fully come through the door before the words left his mouth. He had been sitting at the table, thinking over and over about how he’d go about bringing it up to her, but now that she was finally home, all of his thoughts had gone out the window and all he could feel was irritation. She rolled her eyes, dropping off her bag and kicking her shoes off like she did every day, heading in the direction of her bedroom. “Did you not hear me? I want to talk to you.” 
“About what?” She snapped, whipping around to face him. “About the lady that showed up on our front porch last night?” Chans eyes widened, he didn’t even have to drag it out of her, she wasn’t a liar… and for that, he was proud, he had at least taught her one good thing. “Did she dump you? Well good… You don’t deserve to be happy. Not after what you did to mom…” After… what he did…? He was stunned into silence, his head cocked to the side as he tried to think about what he could have possibly done to make him the bad guy in all of this. “She told me all about it, don’t try to act like you’re so innocent.” 
Those weren’t Ellas words, those were her mothers words and she was speaking them for her. “I tried so hard to protect your mother for some reason… So that you wouldn’t think badly of her… And this is what she does.” He mumbled, running his hand through his hair and sighing heavily. “Can you please sit? I really need to talk to you…” He stretched his legs under the table, pushing out the chair across from him and motioning to it with his head. He could see the reluctance, but she finally made her way over, dropping down into the chair, but not without an eye roll and a look of disgust. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth… I didn’t want you to see your mother as anything less than what she is… But I wasn’t the one who did anything. Your mother is the reason we’re divorced…” 
“You’re a liar… She said that you’d lie…” Ella mumbled, her arms crossing over her chest as she glared at her father. “Just like you lied to that lady. She didn’t even know I existed! You kept me a secret from her… Why? Are you embarrassed of me? Are you ashamed of me?” The sulky teenage attitude subsided, and he could see that she wasn’t just angry, she was upset. He never meant for it to be like this, he didn’t even think that something like this would happen. It’s not like he planned on keeping his daughter hidden forever… He just didn’t want to spring it all on you at the beginning of the relationship. 
“No! God, no… El… You are an amazing daughter, you’re smart and you’re funny… You’re the most wonderful thing I’ve ever created. I’m so proud of you…” He whispered, and he could see the tears beginning to form in her eyes. He should have told her these things a long time ago, maybe she wouldn’t be acting out, but it was too late, and now all he could do was try to fix things piece by piece. “I didn’t want to bring someone into your life unless I knew that it was serious… It’s one thing for me to be hurt… But I didn’t want you to potentially get close to her just for her to leave and hurt you too.” He swallowed thickly, taking a deep breath to prepare himself before continuing. “I divorced your mother… Because she cheated on me, Ella. Do you really think I would have gotten custody of you if it were the other way around? The man she married… That’s… That’s the guy… And they’re already divorced… And she’s already married again. She’s been married twice since the divorce, and I… I haven’t been with anyone until a couple months ago. Do you think that would be the case if I was the one who had screwed up?” He could see the gears turning in her mind as she thought about everything that he was saying, and he could see that it was all adding up. “Your mother wanted to meet up with me yesterday because she’s trying to get custody of you…” 
Ellas eyes widened and her head shook fast. “No… I don’t… I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to live with her, dad.” The words were rushed out, full fledged panic written across her features. “Don’t let her take me… I want to stay with you… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I told the lady that you were having date night with mom. I’m sorry that I ruined it… I’m sorry… Please don’t let her take me.” She was crying now, absolutely bawling, and it broke his heart to see his daughter so upset. 
He jumped out of his chair, running around to her side of the table and pulling her up into his arms. Right now, she wasn’t just a teenager with a bit of an attitude problem… She was his little girl, and he was going to protect her and he was going to keep her safe. He was going to fix everything, no matter what it took. “She’s not going to get you, she won’t win. You’re staying here with me… I promise.” 
///
“Have you gotten a hold of her?” Ella asked, dropping down onto the couch beside her father. It had been weeks since the last time he had spoken to you, but he had seen you in the halls at the building every single day. No matter how many times he tried to stop you and explain everything, you’d just keep walking like you didn’t know him at all. Ella could see that it was breaking him, and she knew that it was her fault. “I’m really sorry, dad…” She mumbled. 
Your picture was still his lockscreen, and every time a notification would pop up on his phone he would jump up, a single second of excitement and wishful thinking, only to be let down once he realized it was someone, anyone but you. “It’s okay… I’m gonna try to get some work done. Let me know when you get hungry, I’ll make us some dinner, yeah?” And she nodded slowly, waiting for Chan to get up and go into his little office before running to the front door and pulling on her shoes. If he wasn’t able to fix it, maybe she could. 
The walk to the building wasn’t too far, and she knew that, for the most part, whenever her father went into his office it was so he could cry in private. That usually lasted a couple hours, and she was sure that she wouldn’t need too much time. 
Everyone in the building knew her, they had heard so much about Chans daughter that she was looked at as an idol herself. They all welcomed her warmly, but she was on a mission. “Hi! Would you happen to know where an Y/L/N Y/N is? My dad sent me to make sure she got something.” She came up with it quickly, and no one seemed to question it either. They gave her the information just as fast and sent her on her way… It was far too easy… She’d have to talk to her dad about that. 
The ride up the elevator gave her enough time to think about what she would say, or at least a little bit of what she’d say. Truth be told, she was nervous. She wanted things to go well for her fathers sake, but she knew that the trouble she had caused and what she did could have irreversible damage. 
When the doors slid open, it was like fate had brought her here at this exact moment, because you were standing right outside the doors. “Oh… Uhm… I-I remember you…” You murmured, bowing your head to her before taking a step back. “I think you’re on the wrong floor though… Your father is a couple floors down.” 
Ella shook her head, stepping out of the elevator, trying to look like she wasn’t a nervous wreck standing in front of you. “I’m here to talk to you.” She said, her head held high just to exemplify the false feeling of confidence that she was trying to give off. “Are you busy?” 
“I’m very sorry if me being with your father created any problems. I’m not with him anymore though… And, with all due respect… I’m just trying to move on.” 
“That’s the problem though!” Ella blurted out as you moved past her and stepped into the elevator, turning around quickly on her heel to face you, her hand pressed against the elevator door to keep it from closing. “Him and my mother aren’t together… They haven’t been together for 8 years. I… I was upset because… I didn’t understand what happened… I didn’t know why my parents weren’t together and… My mom lied and… And I’m sorry. My dad really loves you… And he wanted me to meet you… And he’s been crying every night because I ruined your relationship because I lied just like my mom and I’m… I’m really sorry, ma’am…” 
She was once again crying, and you didn’t really know what to do, but it felt wrong to just stand there and watch her cry, so you hesitantly stepped out of the elevator and gave her the most awkward one armed hug. “It’s… It’s okay…” You murmured, and much to your surprise, she turned her body completely toward you and wrapped her arms around you. Whether there was a maternal bone in your body at all before this moment or not, you immediately felt the urge to comfort her, to make sure she was okay, to wipe her tears and tell her that everything would be fine. “Hey… Hey, let’s go to my office. We can get a drink and some tissues and then… I’ll take you home. Is that okay?” 
Ella nodded slowly, her face scrunched up and her bottom lip pushed out. She really did look like her father. “Will you talk to him?” She asked weakly, and as much as you hated him… Now that you knew the truth… It felt like the right thing to do, so you hummed in agreement to her question, leading her down the hall to your little office and pushing the door open for her. “Y-You know… You’re still his main picture on his phone. He’s waiting for you to text him or call him or something… He misses you so much.” 
You were sure that she didn’t mean to tell you so much, and you were very sure that Chan would be incredibly embarrassed if he found out that his daughter was telling you so much. “I’ll talk to him, I promise… Pinky promise.” You held out your hand, your pinky extended to her, and she quickly latched her finger around yours, a bittersweet smile tugging at her lips. 
“You are really pretty… He wasn’t lying… And you’re really nice too. I would be really mad at me if I were you…” She lowered her head, her entire body slouching forward as she sat in the chair across your desk. “Why aren’t you mad at me?” Her voice was below a whisper, her question genuine, and you didn’t really know how to answer it. 
“Well…” You began, your fingers drumming against your lap as you leaned back in your chair. “I don’t blame you for what you did… You’re a child and… And your parents divorced. I’m sure that any child would be upset if they found out either of their parents was dating someone else, especially if the kid doesn’t understand why their parents divorced in the first place. You were protected from the truth… But it made you do something that you regret. It’s still not your fault though, it’s no one's fault.” You reached across your desk, your hand faced up for her, and she slowly placed her hand in yours, the smile from earlier returning to her face, but this time it was just a little bigger and it reached her eyes. “Let’s go see your dad, yeah?” 
///
Chan had at some point cried himself to sleep while sitting in front of his computer, but the sound of a soft knock on the door had him jolting awake. “Dad?” Ellas voice came between the small crack in the door as she peeked inside, and he quickly wiped the sleep from his eyes as he got up from his chair, almost bringing his entire laptop with him since he forgot to take the headphones off. “I ordered dinner for us… It’s here.” She said between little giggles at the way he stumbled. It was nice to hear her laugh, he hadn’t heard it in a bit, not from anyone in the house. He wondered what had changed. 
“You didn’t have to do that, I would have cooked for us…” He said somberly, but he knew that she was doing it as a favor for him. He was a wreck, it was visibly noticeable that he hadn’t had more than a few hours of sleep in the past two weeks, he had bags under his eyes and his hair was a mess. He was a shell of the man that he once was when he had you, but he knew he had to get better, he wasn’t sure how he would do that, but it wasn’t fair to Ella to constantly be like this, it would only make her feel more guilty. “I’ll be right out… Thank you.” He said when she hovered in the doorway, and he watched her walk away. There was a bounce in her step, she hadn’t been this peppy in a while. He was genuinely curious and now he was rushing out of the little studio room so that he’d be able to sit down and talk to her, maybe he could find out what was going on. 
“I hope you don’t mind, I brought a friend over.” She said from the kitchen. He was adamant that he had never heard her bring up a friend, especially not one that would come over and visit. Was it a boy? She never mentioned liking anyone at school… Was she too scared to talk to him about those kinds of things? He made a mental note to sit down and talk to her about it one day this week. “Are you coming?” She called out and he hummed in agreement, trudging out of the little room with his head hung just a little. 
This wasn’t the first impression that he wanted one of his daughter's friends to have of him as her father. He wanted to look more respectable for the sake of Ellas reputation. It seemed like he didn’t really have a choice though, she was rushing him to come out, and he didn’t want to keep her and whoever she had over waiting. “I apologize, I wasn’t really told that you’d be coming over.” Chan began as he walked down the hall, and he completely froze when he saw just who his daughter had brought over. 
“I don’t think anyone really knew I was coming over.” You said lightly, the warmest smile spreading across your face as you looked at him. He couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t find words, all he could manage to do was open his mouth and croak out sounds as salty tears pricked his eyes. “Is it… okay… that I’m here?” You asked when the silence lasted longer than you thought it would, and he nodded his head fervently, wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his hoodie. 
“It’s… It’s more than okay… I just… I don’t know why… I don’t mind it though.” He rambled, looking between you and Ella who was currently setting the table for three people instead of the usual two. “You’re… staying for dinner?” He questioned, and you gave him that adorable, heart stopping smile that had stopped him in the halls of the building all of those months ago, the smile that had pushed him over the edge and made him fall for you in the beginning. 
“Yes she is.” Ella spoke up, clapping her hands together to get both of your attention. “Do you want me to eat in my room… So the two of you can talk? I’m sure you have a lot to talk about… I can leave you alone if you’d like.” But you shook your head, walking over to the table and playfully ruffling her hair before opening the takeout bag and pulling out the contents. 
“I’d like it a whole lot if you stayed and ate with us… But if you want to eat in your room… If your dad says it’s okay… Then you can.” You sounded so… sweet, the way a mother would talk to her own daughter, and the craziest part was that Ella smiled at you before taking a seat at the table, she actually listened to you… There was no attitude that came alone with it. “Are you just going to stand there and look at the food, or are you going to join us in eating it?” You asked, bringing Chan out of his own thoughts and back into the room. 
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m coming…” Chan whispered, walking into the dining room and taking his usual seat, but the aura at the table was a lot different now. It’s like the whole room had gotten 10 times brighter, and no matter which way he looked he was met with a warm smile. He had so many questions, but he knew that he had all the time in the world to ask them, and regardless of the answer… He knew that things would be better now, all of the pieces were falling back into place, and the picture was more beautiful than he had ever imagined it to be. 
~6 Months Later~
“You’re gonna absolutely crush this test, I know you will.” You stood at the stove, preparing breakfast as Ella sat at the table, her face buried in her text book to get as much last minute studying in before she had to go to school. “No matter what, I want you to remember that your dad and I are so proud of you and how hard you work. Okay? We love you.” Ella hummed softly, not even looking up from her book, but you could see that she was smiling, and that was enough of a response for you to know that she had heard you, that she was listening. You carefully placed her plate down beside her, lightly tapping the table to get her attention. “Please eat. Okay?” 
Chan ran out of the bedroom, his eyes barely even opened, his shirt wrinkled and twisted and his hair sticking up in all different directions. “Did she leave yet?!” He asked rather loudly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and blinking a few times before focusing in on his daughter who was looking up at him, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Don’t laugh, it’s not funny. I wanted to give you a hug before you left.” He pouted, and she quickly got up out of her chair, rushing over to Chan and wrapping her arms around him. “You’ll do great. I-” 
“No more speeches! You guys are going to make me cry!” Ella dramatically whined, pulling away from Chan and running back to the table to pack her things into her bag and then shoveling as much food into her mouth as she could before going to the front door. “Love you! I’ll see you later!” She mumbled with her mouth full of food, and before the two of you could say it back she was out the door. 
Once the door was shut, Chan walked over to you, his arms wrapping around your from behind as he rested his chin against your shoulder. “Hey…” He murmured, pressing a kiss to your cheek that was dampened by tears that you hadn’t even realized had begun to fall. “What’s wrong, lovey?” He cooed, gently turning you around to face him, his head cocked to the side. 
“I don’t know… I just… I’ve only been here for six months and… We’ve gotten so close and… She’ll be going off to college soon if that’s what she wants to do… But… I’m gonna miss her and the house is gonna be so empty and…” You pouted up at Chan who couldn’t help but find it adorable the way you were right now. It was the most heartwarming thing, to know that you loved his daughter so much already that you were crying at the thought of her leaving. 
“Well… We have the house to ourselves for a couple of hours… We could watch a movie or something to take your mind off of being sad… Or… We could go have some fun… Surprise Ella with a brother or a sister when she comes home from college…” Your eyes widened at the suggestion, but your feet were already moving in the direction of the bedroom, that all too familiar tingly feeling building in your stomach. “We can watch a movie when we’re done… If you’re not too tired.” 
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libraford · 5 months
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Here's what's going on in Ohio right now. Heavy stuff ahead.
First, I want to apologize for the misinformation in my original post. I am still learning about legislative processes. To correct: the changes to ODH and OMHAS in regards to gender therapy are not a bill, they are changes in regulations.
This is important because citizens CAN affect rule changes. There is an open commentary period where your submissions get counted and can affect how they write new regulations.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, legal advocate, or medical professional. I'm just a dude who had to have it all explained to me.
The first one is Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services. The rules proposed would make the already prohibitive process of gender transition even harder. In order to diagnose and treat gender dysphoria, a hospital needs to have a board certified psychologist per patient, a board certified endocrinologist familiar with the age group being diagnosed per patient, and a medical ethicist overseeing the hospital's plan for transition. 'Board certified' does not guarantee that the specialist is trans-friendly. It must include a detransition plan. Hospitals would have to report compliance annually. The professionals must have a contractual relationship with the patient, but do not need to offer in-person care. (In this instance, I'll get to that in the next rule change.)
This rule also deems it impermissible to prescribe gender transition care (this includes hormones, puberty blockers, or drugs) for anyone under the age of 21 without the approval of the professionals mentioned and 6 months of therapy.
There is an exception for intersex people, who may have their sex assigned to them without their consent.
The open comment period for this ends January 19 at 5pm.
Send an email to [email protected] with the subject title: "Comments on Gender Transition Care Rules."
The second one is Ohio Department of Health and it repeats a lot of the same as the first one. However, the focus is more on the regulation of doctors and paperwork. Anyone seeking transition will be put into a registry with their name redacted, but demographics like age, agab, specific diagnosis (difficult to achieve with the new regulations mentioned above), and any medications (not just related to gender transition, but any medications at all). Any cessation of care must be reported within 30 days.
This is a lot of paperwork and can overburden hospitals.
That 30 days cessation is important because if a person transfers doctors or if a clinic closes and the paperwork isn't filed, it may count as a 'detransition' when tallying demographics, even if that is not the case.
But what's curious is that the ODH regulations DO require in-person care. The rules are contradictory and vague.
The comment period for this ends Feb 5th.
Send a comment through the ODH website
Here are some important things that were mentioned at the meeting:
This is a good time to be personal with your statements. If this would disrupt your life in any way, please say so. "I fear that" "I believe this" "I worry that"- these are great ways to start your comment. An example one person gave is "I worry that this change in regulations would force me and my daughter to move out of state.'
With that being said, anything that you send to these sites will be public record, so be cautious about what you reveal about yourself in your comment.
If you are in need of help, please reach out to one of these resources:
Trans Ohio Emergency Fund Resource Page
Kaleidoscope Youth Center
If you are in need of legal advice on how to navigate all this, please call
888-LGBT-LAW
This is not everything. There is unfortunately more because Ohio decided to break a record this month with anti-trans motions. But today I'm focusing on things that we can take action on.
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girlbossagenda · 4 months
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How to recover after failure
ʚ‎‏ ͜ ̩͙ ︵ ̩͙ ୨ ♡ ୧ ̩͙ ‏︵ ̩͙ ͜ ɞ
It's said failure it's part of life, and it's true, but it's also true that it weights and can pretty much hurt you and make you question your own abilities. It happened to me a couple of time to fail that test that I studied for or that subject that I'm good at, it can cause unecessary worry and a lower your self esteem. So today I'm here to share with you what I do to recover from a failure and what I do to lower the impact of it.
୨୧aknowledge that it happened୨୧
Just because it makes you feel uncoftable doesn't mean that you have to ignore it, it's better to express those feelings of disappointment. You can cry or expressout loud how much it sucked to fail. If it happens in a public setting find a place where you can experience that emotional out bust. You have all the rights to feel disappointed or sad, it just means that you cared.
୨୧stop focusing on others and comparison୨୧
This is crucial especially if you are in a competitive envirioment, you ultimately start comparing you progression with the others, you need to detach and focus only on what you have done and change you perspective from "My failure it's gonna advantage them"-> to -> "This failure it's all about me so how it affects ME and my progression".
୨୧try a way to relief yourself୨୧
Some people prefer to stay around their friends or to find external support, others prefer to stay in isolation, I suggest you to mix these two options. Try to avoid staying around people who also failed( You don't want to depend on other people's failures in the future or trigger procrastination), but also avoid staying around who did better than you, try to talk it out with someone who will undestand the frustration of failure and that it's right in the middle. Before approaching someone I highly suggest you to let it out, so you don't lash out on the listener.
୨୧programm your next plan୨୧
This is when you make ammend and learn from your mistakes, you need to figure out why you failed and what you can change to succede. Maybe your problem was the lack of consistency or you didn't read carefully what the exercise asked you to do, point out all the mistakes and make a plan according to them.
୨୧grant yourself some type of leisure୨୧
Just because you failed it doesn't mean that you have to treat youself harshly, do a face mask, make up, crochet etc..try to get involved with your hobbies and don't jump immediatly to work midlessly without a plan and exausted from the emotional wuond you carry, it will eventually lead you to burn out(or worsen it). So try to give yourself some type of consolation reward.
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Hey hunns, heres today's tips and advices, I hope I helped you, if you want to ask me more questions of advices you can send me a massed by using the "advice" button on my profile, this is the second part of my advices miniseries, I truly hope you enjoyed it, all of these advices come from personal experienc, I hope you have a great day stay pretty and educated xoxo gourgeous!
-𝓐
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heavenlymorals · 13 days
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Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2: Realism Vs Romantacism
(Warning: Spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1 and that this is a long post.)
But first, let's get a better idea on what these genres and philosophies actually entailed.
During 19th century America, there were two famous genres of literature that became wildly popular- Romantacism and Realism. These genres shaped many philosophies and are interwoven into so many famous stories that it is kinda insane, but today, for this retrospective, I want to speak on how these two genres shaped both RDR1 and RDR2.
Romantacism came as a sort of critique of the Enlightment Era. The Enlightment Era was a period of reason and rejection of spirituality. It focused a lot on what was real and in front of a person rather than the experience and interpretation of an event or thing. Dutch represents this idea in this line to John where he says:
"Real. Oh how I detest that word. So devoid of imagination."
And to Arthur:
"We are dreamers in an ever duller world of fact, I'll give you that."
Romantacism is such a broad subject but there were generally three aspects of it that was generally consistent- the relationship between man and himself, man and nature, man and god, and how those experiences create the essence of life. The idea of the oversoul in Romantacism is a deep understanding of nature and spirituality that makes someone as equal to God himself, or that's the simplest way that I can explain it. Romantacism is also about the experience between man and man and ideas of hope, dreams, new beginnings, friendships, life, and love. (Dark Romanticism is way more gloomy, but many of the characteristics are still the same. For this post, though, we'll focus on just Romantacism.)
But what romantacism is about overall is the authentic experience of life and the personal interpretation of it- no matter how imaginative it is. This is where romanticisation occurs. Of war, of historical periods, of certain types of living, etc. etc.
Since that is romantacism, what is realism? Well, I'm sure you already know, but realism is supposed to be a representation of what life actually is and usually in a negative way. Realism isn't concerned with the imagination of an event as it is more concerned with what life is actually like and how it affects people. There really isn't much more to say then that. Realism is about real life and usually in a negative way. For context, realism became popular in the US after the Civil War as for the first time, a lot of people saw such intense pain and death and debauchery.
Like, If "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen is a romantacised story of a woman's love life during a historical time period, then Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a story soaked in the constructs of realism. This is just one comparison of the two genres.
So what does this have to do with Red Dead Redemption? Simple. Each game represents one of the genres as its main focal point for story telling.
RDR2 is a game that is all about romantacism, especially if you play it as it should be played as high honor Arthur Morgan.
Arthur's main storyline is about finding redemption, sure, but he finds that redemption through the authentic experience of life and his interpretation of it. Prior to his tuberculosis, Arthur saw himself as only a cog in the bad machine that was their life. He robbed, intimidated, and killed without much thought to what it actually meant for him because well, this is the way it is and how it always has been.
However, when he gets tuberculosis, his attitude changes. With the limited time he has left, he brings himself to ponder life itself and interprets it in a way that contrasts his previous thought process that the world is dark and gloomy and that he's just another part of it. In his limited time, he begins to see good. If not in him, than in others. In the love people have for others, in the strength that people have for others, in the passion that people have for others.
Arthur begins to appreciate life itself and that's also why the stranger missions in chapter 6 are so much more personal as a whole- Arthur's interpretation of life becoming better in the short time he has left makes him much more heartfelt and sentimental- a key component of romantacism. He helps a widow who could've died out there for no reason other than wanting her to live and live well. He becomes friends with a veteran and helps him out even though he knows that death is around the corner for him and his time with the man would be short. And of course, the debt missions and the helping of Edith. Arthur forgives the debts, gives money, and sees human life as far more valuable than the debt.
And in the end? Arthur saves John and dies knowing that he tried his best to not just survive but to live. That's his experience and his interpretation of it- becoming a better man and valuing people more than things. And then there is the epilogue- there is hope and happiness and a sense of accomplishment. All the pain feels over and a new light has been cast onto life.
In fact, this archetype in Romanticism, which is about finding redemption through the larger human experience, is quite famous overall. It's not unique to just Arthur Morgan. One of the most famous romantic stories of the era was Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and Victor Frankenstein undergoes a similar journey, albeit more subdued than Arthur's.
In the beginning of the book, Victor starts out as a representation of realism. He's obsessed with science and doesn't really care about his family and friends. He goes on for long periods of time just thinking about science because of his own hubris and desire to become famous and accomplished. He rejects art, love, and all the things that constitute the human experience for the sake of science, which represents realism. As he begins to see the faults in his actions and the mistake of creating his monster, things begin to change. He becomes more interested in his friends, his fiancée, and life itself as a concept rather than what it is in front of him.
Yes, Mary Shelley wrote the book as a criticism of the unregulated pursuit of science, but if you dig deeper, it's not just about that. It's about keeping romance, ideals, and the human experience in your heart, because without them, things will be worse than they already are. Many ideas and philosophies aren't realistic, but we keep them to enrich the human experience. That is what Romanticism is about, and that is what Arthur Morgan's story is about. Like Victor, his story could be boiled down to a rejection of realism and an embrace of Romanticism.
And besides just the story being a love letter to Romantacism, there is the scenery too. As stated, one big part of Romantacism is nature and RDR2's nature is just gorgeous. It's bright and scenic and beautiful like a lot of romantic paintings. Arthur connects to nature by living in it and drawing it and experiencing it. Even the ambiance of the landscape is calm and relaxing, adding to the beautiful experience of the American wilderness.
So what about Red Dead Redemption 1? Red Dead Redemption 1 is all about realism. It doesn't care about ideals or hopes. Its story is one of realism, portraying the realistic end of an outlaw. Where Red Dead Redemption 2 ends with John and his family finally getting the life they've always wanted and possibly starting over again, Red Dead Redemption 1 rejects that. The Pinkertons find John, and he is set out to kill his brothers-in-arms. He can't escape his old life, even if he wants to—it will always come back to haunt him. John has killed and robbed and done so many terrible things that the dream of him being able to settle down and just be a farmer in the end is just that, a dream. Even when John does what Edgar Ross wants him to do, he gets shot down like a dog in the end anyway. He has to pay for his sins, and in a sick way, this is justice for all the men he has killed before in his outlaw life. There is no other end for John realistically than to be put down like a dog. It is his tragedy, his fate, and a realistic fate for an outlaw.
John's path is lonely. Most of the people he meets are people that he does not want to be associated with. Seth is a creepy grave robber, Irish is a drunk bastard, and West Dickens is just a scamming piece of s*** who doesn't scam the rich and people who already have too much, but he scams the poor, the working man, the person who is uneducated. They are all very realistic criminals, and John has to deal with it because all he wants is his family and the men that the Pinkertons sent him to capture. The people that he does respect, like Leigh Johnson and Bonnie McFarland, are professional relationships at best. John has to rely on himself and only himself, which is a very popular theme in realism. Unlike in Red Dead 2, he has no one to turn to, no one to watch his back. He has no family and no friends. He is alone, and he has to deal with his sins because the world will not forget, as he mentions time and time again.
Romanticism is dead. Ideals are dead. A young woman's pursuit of God leaves her dead in the desert, and John can do nothing to help her. The idea of the noble West is torn apart by violent gangs that do nothing but rape, kill, and steal. Men come to exploit the pain of colonialism. Eugenics is a thriving science. The most apparent example that ideals are dead is the Mexican revolution. Abraham Reyes makes the people believe that he will be better, that he will be the Messiah for these peasants, but the reality is that he turns out to be just as bad or even worse than the already established dictatorship in the country. And John doesn't care. He's not there to be a hero for the people; he's simply there to grab Javier and Bill and then go. That's why he is just as comfortable working for the dictatorship as he is working with the rebels. He does not care. All he cares about is his family, and anything bad that happens to others pains him, but it is not his problem. That is what realism is about. It's not the interpretation of life, but what life actually is, and a lot of times, life is cruel and bitter and terrible. Things are unfair, and sometimes people have to pay with their life and identity.
John dies in the end, and like a lot of children and wives of these outlaws and criminals, Abigail and Jack suffer. Abigail does not last long, as she dies just a couple of years later, and Jack has to bear the sins of his father on his back, like many children of outlaws and criminals did. Even when Jack kills Ross, there is no sense of triumph, no happiness or joy; it's just an empty feeling of "what now?" Where revenge in Red Dead Redemption 2 is idealized and romantic, even beautiful in a sense, revenge in Red Dead Redemption is empty and grotesque, leaving the player with nothing but emptiness. There's nothing left; everything is gone.
And just look at the scenery of Red Dead Redemption. Yes, it's beautiful, sure, but it's dull and dark. There isn't a lot of color, there aren't a lot of people or animals; it's drab. If RDR2 is a field with a pretty Instagram filter on it, then RDR1 is the field without the filter. The ambience of the game is also dark and weary, putting the player on edge as John cannot relax like Arthur can. John needs to find his family as he has to pay for the sins of his outlaw life.
Although Romantacism isn't a very popular genre today, often overshadowed by realism, both genres of literature and philosophy are paraded in these games.
Arthur is the romantic hero- someone who finds his own meaning of life and turns hopeful and idealistic because of it. RDR2 is a romantic game.
John is the realistic hero- someone who deals with the cards that life gives him and is exhausted from it as he knows his singular efforts won't cause an end to his pain. RDR1 is a realistic game.
And I just think that's very cool. Understanding those two genres of American literature allows the player to understand the games on a deeper level.
(I ain't reading allat)
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weirdkpopgirl · 3 months
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In My Dreams | Renjun Imagine #5
Title: In My Dreams
Genre: College AU, a little angsty with a little fluff
Warnings: mentions of reader feeling insecure (what else is new 🙄)
Word Counts: 911
Author's Note: I seriously apologize for posting such depressing content lately. Honestly writing this type of stuff just makes me realize how much I hate myself. But I'm fine lol, using the Dreamies to distract me is more than enough. I really shouldn't be complaining. Anyway, hope you guys like this little imagine for Renjun ^ ^
𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪
The sigh that escaped your lips came out louder than intended, echoing slightly in the back corner of the lecture. As usual, your mind was subjected to its daily attack of self-conscious thoughts, though today they seemed particularly annoying. 
Absentmindedly you fidgeted with the hem of the black two-piece dress you had carefully chosen to wear. Was revealing your shoulders too much? Too bold? Did it make you look desperate for attention?  It was the only thing in your closet that you had yet to wear, mainly because you wanted to wait for the right time. However, you should’ve known you’d have doubts the minute you put on the dress. 
Your reflection stared back at you from the mirror-like surface of your phone screen, its intensity making your stomach churn. This morning, your wake-up routine had been prolonged by the meticulous effort you put into perfecting your makeup today and undoing the braids you’d done the night before so your hair would be wavy. 
Honestly, you weren’t entirely sure what drove you to put in the extra effort with your appearance today. Initially, you believed you were dressing up for yourself. Yet, as you navigated through a day packed with classes, a tiny glimmer of hope lingered that perhaps someone would notice, though the idea of attention drawn to you was intimidating.
However, as you glanced around the room, everyone seemed to be engrossed in their conversations about the upcoming essay that was due. Sometimes, a part of you wished you could muster up the courage to join one of those groups. But socializing never came naturally to you, and the lack of invitation to contribute only served to dishearten you.
As the professor began the afternoon’s lecture, you temporarily forced those thoughts to go away and focused on taking notes. Though it worked for the most part, your mind occasionally drifted back to the same imposter feeling you consistently experienced. Feeling as though everyone had their lives figured out, while you couldn’t be more out of place.
You were mentally ready to retreat into the confines of your apartment and change into sweats, by the time class was over. By now, your makeup was most likely smudged and the waves in your hair had gone down. Any semblance of confidence you donned that morning had diminished completely.
But just as you gathered your belongings and rose from your seat, a small folded piece of yellow paper fluttered to the table in front of you. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you glanced around, expecting to see someone retrieve their misplaced note. Yet, people were already disappearing, leaving you alone with the mysterious paper.
Trying not to dwell on it too much, you hesitantly unfolded the paper. Your breath caught in your throat as you read the words neatly written across the page. While they sounded simple, they held a sincerity that you didn’t receive often.
 ~ Hi there, sorry if this is a little forward. But I just wanted to say that I think you look really pretty in that dress today (not that you don’t look pretty every day!). Also, you should curl your hair like that more often, it suits you ^ ^  - Huang Renjun
As you reached the end of the short message, your heart was pounding in your chest. You had to reread it a few times, to make sure you weren’t just hallucinating. Of all people, Huang Renjun noticed you? The cute boy who sat a few rows ahead of yours?
A shy smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you shifted your gaze upward to the doorway where he was nervously watching for your reaction. A light shade of pink tinged Renjun’s cheeks as he offered a tentative smile when the two of you locked eyes. Still trying to comprehend was just happened, you cautiously made your way over to him. 
“Um, hi,” you managed to stammer, your voice barely audible.
Renjun stepped closer, his expression softening with genuine warmth. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I just couldn’t leave without saying at least something.”
His words only made you blush more, but the smile on your lips grew with each passing moment.
“No, I should thank you…for the note. I feel a lot better now than I was earlier,” you said, with a half-hearted laugh. 
Renjun’s ears perked up at your response. “Really? Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
A hesitant silence stretched between the two of you, filled with unspoken possibilities. But before you could gather the courage to find something else to say, Renjun reached into his pocket and brought out his phone.
“Would you maybe want to have a meal sometime?” he asked, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. He extended his phone toward you, displaying a new contact pulled up on the screen.
“I’d love to,” you replied a little too eagerly, feeling your heart skip a beat.
Your hand trembled slightly as you took his phone to quickly type in your number. Renjun thanked you with a shy smile and shared he couldn’t wait to get to know you more before leaving for his next class. You had to take a moment to process everything. Did you seriously just get complimented and asked out by Renjun?
Shaking your head with a laugh, “Yeah, right. In my dreams.”
However, that belief couldn’t wipe the foolish smile off your face as you walked out of the lecture hall.
𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪
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harfanfare · 2 years
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Unique Kisses: Scarabia!
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Heartslabyul || Savanaclaw || Octavinelle || Scarabia || Pomefiore || Ignihyde || Diasomnia || Rollo, Che'nya, Neige || Honest Fellow
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Kalim A. A. (shut-up kisses)
You lost the thread ten minutes ago.
You are on the decorative veranda of the Scarabia. You occupy large pillows with hand-embroidered floral embroidery. In front of you is a tray with refreshing, sour drinks and plates of sliced fruit prepared by Jamil. Kalim scarcely touched them, for his story takes all his attention.
There is a chessboard with pawns on it. You were supposed to play another game with Kalim, but he had made his last move a good ten minutes ago. You want to finish this round. You are winning, but to beat your boyfriend again in this game you need his attention. And return his focus to very, very good placement of your pawns.
It is hard to stop him from talking. Kalim is too excited about today's event for you to easily shift the conversation to your board game.
You love listening to him chatter. He has an emphatic and effusive voice and describes everyday life with a happy, optimistic perspective.
Aside from his stubbornly focused attention on the conversation, the problem is that Kalim keeps changing the subject. His sentences are clusters of basic slogans, quotes, and exclamations, and that's...
Well, you'd like to learn how to read minds just to be more involved in his story.
When you try to get his attention, he apologizes and paraphrases the last part of his speech in no better form. After two sentences, he forgets about your note. The beam on his face makes you only nod at him as he gloats about the next part of his story.
“Kalim…”
“I didn't know what he was going to say then. But then he surprised me. Because, you know, they say that Octavinelle students are very hard to deal with, but that one seemed nice! I met him... when? Oh, I remember! Because the day before, Jamil and I went to get a cake on their new menu! It was wonderful! We can go there tonight so you can try it too. It tasted very much like the shortcake Jamil had prepared... like, two weeks ago, maybe?”
“Kalim.”
“Oh, I'm sorry! Back to the topic. After that meeting, I mean, the next day, when I asked Mr Crewell for help on this project, we went to the library to learn about this effect... what was the name...? De... De... Dea...? I don't remember! Ah! And on the way to the library, we met Rook, who-”
“Kalim.”
“Yes? Just listen to what he told me! He-”
You bite your cheek to keep yourself from sighing. If you want to finish your game, you must get his attention the other way.
You reached him, needing to come closer on two pillows. You touch his shoulder, and he pauses for one second. It takes two more before you press your lips to his. You can almost feel the words die on his tongue as he gasps softly.
He wants to say something. He opens his mouth, but you are the one in control. You silence him again by moving closer to him to occupy him with a kiss.
It only lasts three seconds.
Kalim lost the thread.
You drift away from him. And just before you is a rare sight of a wordless Kalim. A cheery smile slowly spreads across his face.
You tap the chessboard, and for the first time in an hour, you're sure that Kalim's attention is solely on you.
“Let's finish this round first, okay?”
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Jamil V. (movie-like kisses)
“It's a truly beautiful sunset…”
The sky is already orange, with shades of red - and finally warm navy blue – that are beginning to appear in the further stripes of clouds. The colourful ombre of the sky pleased not only artists but also passers-by…
“There's no one here but us…”
…Two passers-by. Jamil tried to create such an atmosphere by putting Kalim in the hands of his family. As expected, he immediately suggested that Jamil should take a vacation, because the next party was being held in his large house and created for Al-Asim's closest family.
When Jamil knew he will be free for at least one night, he decided to go somewhere with you. One of the choices was the beach you are currently on, which you have strolled around for almost all day.
Time flies when talking to a loved one.
“The sea is heaving in the wind...” you add, squeezing his hand a little more. You feel Jamil's grip on your fingers tighten in response. You take a deep breath, taking in a lot of sea air in your lungs. "It seems too good to be true. Should we suspect that Floyd is about to jump out of the water or...?”
Jamil shakes his head. His other hand touches your cheek, and the tips of his fingers draw subtle, invisible marks on your skin. "Don't think about it. Focus on me. On us.”
He doesn't need to use hypnosis, and his wish gets granted anyway.
It was hard to think about that when his gaze and the way he covers your mouth are filled with attention and greed.
The purpose of this whole spectacle of emotions, which rage even more as his hand slowly trails down your back, is to make you want to take another step. And to make sure that he is in control and that he doesn't even need to use his magic on you. If you were hypnotized, you wouldn't know what command he uttered, but now you are fully aware of his every move. You don't even have the willpower to prevent it.
So you give in to it, even though you tell yourself that next time you will be the one in control of that kiss. You don't like the wicked smile on Jamil's face as you gas for air.
The Prince Charming's spell breaks as the corners of his mouth twist mischievously, though, in a few minutes, Jamil will still be playing nice guy when you will walk across the beach again... No, he won't be playing—he will put into the moment everything that he can give himself.
“Ach, weren't going to take pictures of the horizon?” Jamil asks and you wonder how he could change his tone of voice to this... normal tone, in seconds. You narrow your eyes at him. "Why are you looking at me like that? Should I help you take it? Your hands seem a little shaky... Ah, or would you rather admit that I've thrown you off balance, hm?”
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arialityy · 3 months
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Honkai pt.2 first impressions (as of completing pt.2 ch.1 phase 1) (don't come at me)
I'm gonna be focusing mostly on the characters in this post, but I'll briefly go over the ui and open world
So... I really miss the old ui already lmao. Even if it did look old and outdated, I think it was pretty unique for a sci-fi game and personally easier on my eyes (I think I just need to get used to it, but everything looks to similar in the new ui and I can't focus as easily on it 😭 That's probably just me though) I also think it looks kind of out of place if you go back to play older chapters, but it's not horrible. Personally, I feel like I'll always prefer the old ui. However, it looks great in the new open world chapter! Usually, I don't really like the ow chapters, but this one actually runs well, and I've been enjoying it quite a lot, even the side missions. (Also, it's just really nice to look at) It definitely reminds me of hsr and apho, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As for the new gameplay, it's... ok. The new battlesuits don't feel much funner or nicer than the old battlesuits. If anything, I like them less. With Helia and Coralie, the effects are fine since they're A-ranks, and the gameplay is also nice for an A-rank. Senadina's actual gameplay is fine. But her animations are so boring 😭 I like that it lights up the area around her but that's about it. I get that sometimes the animations could get too flashy, but Senadina's are just boring for what's presumably meant to be the fancy new S-rank. I'll cut her some slack, though, since it's still the beginning of pt.2.
Finally, I'll be talking about the characters themselves! Remember, these opinions are very subject to change, as it's only the beginning of pt.2's story. (I'll ommit my opinions on the designs for today)
Starting with the Dreamseeker!
I really appreciate how they didn't make them just another self insert who barely talks. Though I don't see why they didn't fully commit and give them a name. They could even keep the genderswapping thing by giving them an androgynous name. (Speaking of that, I didn't think I'd like that, but y'know what, it's cool that it's actual genderfluid rep!) However, the DS's personality so far has been kind of boring in my opinion. I think they're a very intriguing character. I mean, they were born out of the Sea of Quanta and hilariously chill over dreaming about dancing with a goddess who tells them they're gonna save the world, waking up in the SoQ with an amnesiac version of that goddess, and being thrust into a whole new bubble universe. I know they want to get home, but damn, I feel like I would freak out more. I really hope we get to learn more about them, and their personality shines through more!
Senadina- Ok. I'm pretty sure this is a controversial opinion already, but I don't really like Senadina. I want to because her selective memories and connection to a goddess are interesting, and she has cute moments, but she kind of just... annoys me. I mean, we've seen this kind of amnesiac but bubbly character before (*cough cough* March 7th *cough cough*), and something about her personality just annoys me. I can't pinpoint what it is about her, but like... I just don't really like her. She starts growing on me, and then she'll say something that annoys me. Right now, she feels like a character just designed to sell toys to me. I'm sure that will change, as she's one of the main main characters, but right now, she just isn't it for me. I hope she gets more interesting, and I grow to like her more.
Coralie- She's very much the Bronya of the group, but she's not just a Bronya clone, and I can appreciate her for that. I don't think I like her as much as I liked Bronya right off the bat, but of the main four, she has the most personality to me so far. She's also just kind of weird, which I like lmao. I have less to say about her and Helia, so just know that while I do like her, she's far from being an instant favorite.
Helia- She exists. That's almost all I have to say. Her bridge voicelines did make me like her a bit more, though. I think she's kind of cute, but nothing about her interests me. I also don't really like that she's yet another Durandal fan. I get that we only have like - 2 Dudu fans other than her, but it's not really an original character trait. Why couldn't she have been a Kiana fan or something? Even a Theresa fan would be cool. Teri needs more fans. I think she's fine, but boring.
Songque- She's definitely my favorite so far! There's definitely enough intrigue surrounding her for me to want to know more about her. What was that "dream" sequence with the DS before they actually met about? She's a shu, but what does she really know? I also like her personality. It's not like my favorite personality or anything, but she definitely has one, and it adds to the intrigue surrounding her. I hope she doesn't just go away after this story arc is finished.
So, that's most of my opinions about pt.2 so far! I left out some stuff, but this is really all you need to know about how I feel about the characters, gameplay, and ui so far.
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power-handmaiden · 4 months
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Day 35: Angry Man Pounded By The Fear Of His Latent Gayness Over A Dinosaur Transitioning Into A Unicorn
I love how much contempt for its characters this tingler starts off with. We have the iconic man/woman couple who are always the subject of conservative boomer humor about relationships, the emotionally unavailable man and his overbearing shrill wife, who don't even like each other, let alone love or show any attraction to each other. It feels like a caricature but it actually makes more sense when the man turns out to not actually be attracted to women, honestly.
This tingler aged... interestingly. The protagonist's crisis of sexuality is brought on by his attraction to Bort Jenkins, a unicorn athlete and reality TV star who was born as a dinosaur and recently transitioned to a unicorn. Clearly a stand-in for Caitlyn Jenner. (If my rudimentary research is correct, Bort's resemblance to her deadname is because this was written in that specific time period where she had come out as trans, but not publicly revealed her name yet.) She's a controversial figure for many reasons that I'm not going to get into now, but this comes from a time when people were pretty much just laser-focused on the trans thing. Bort isn't really a character who does anything in this story anyway, more of a news item for characters to discuss.
Another present day context that really changes how I read this story is the conservative furry panic of the past few years. Yes, the "if people can identify as other genders, what if they start identifying as ANIMALS?" dumbfuck made-up problem is much older, but it's really having a moment now. This story was an absurd concept when it was written but now we have real elected officials in the USA freaking out over the idea of people "identifying as" different species, bringing this story a whole lot closer to realism than anyone would've expected in 2015. To me, the message of this one feels closer to the conservative furry strawman than it does to real trans issues, especially with the whole "you're gay regardless of whether you're into human, unicorn or dinosaur men" thing; we're dealing with an issue of species transition where gender is static. (Truth be told, I don't think it was the best move to make a comparison to a real-life trans woman and make this point in association because I've seen how people misinterpret such things... but I'm sure Tingler readers in particular understand the abstraction and that this isn't applicable directly to the real person) I feel like a version of this story could be written today with the message of "what if the conservative strawman version of the furry fandom was real and not just a way of targeting queer people without saying you're targeting queer people? Would it really be that bad or even different of a world to live in?"
I'm interested to see how Dr. Tingle tackles trans issues in the future. Despite a couple things that read as dated to me I see a good foundation here from someone who is still working through his own feelings about gender identity. I know that future tinglers will have explicitly trans characters and the perspective of a trans author who has explored and introspected on his own gender identity more thoroughly.
(Also there's a tingleverse connection in this one: mention of the "first human player in the UFL" refers to the events of "Pounded By The Gay Unicorn Football Squad")
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crisiscutie · 4 months
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C.C's Rebirth Check/Wishlist for Sephiroth
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Given that Sephiroth's increased screen time has been confirmed for Rebirth, I'm hoping for answers/exploration on the listed subjects below: However, it would be unrealistic to expect that the majority or even half of the items on this list will be addressed. There's also Ever Crisis and 7R3, so there may be opportunities for further exploration.
Sephiroth's mindset changing from thinking himself as a Cetra to the inheritor of JENOVA's will: This is something that could be easily expanded on in Rebirth. Perhaps some cut scenes showing Sephiroth in the Lifestream with JENOVA. It'd be interesting to witness him absorb the planet's memories and watch his madness intensify. This exploration could also be a legit way to woobify Sephiroth without trivializing or undermining the gravity of his horrific actions, since it's something that we already know about, just that there is more explanation on it this time.
2. JENOVA's origins and sapience: Just what exactly is it? Can it still think with Sephiroth in control? Is it an Omega Weapon from a different planet or simply another parasitic virus within its own species? Please, I just want to know what the hell is it exactly. Also, how was it exactly defeated?
3. Confirmation that Sephiroth is in control of JENOVA at the start of FF7: It's been confirmed by AC, the FF7 Ultimania, and the writers themselves several times. Not sure why there's still debates about it in today's time. So maybe this game will be the final nail in the coffin for this debate.
4. Expansion/confirmation if JENOVA was controlling and/or influencing Sephiroth during the Nibelheim Incident: This is a legit debate. My opinion is that it was influencing Sephiroth, judging by the reactions he had the closer he got to its body, both in CC and also possibly at a time in FS. But I do think Sephiroth was acting of his own volition when he committed the horrific crimes at Nibelheim. Even if JENOVA was controlling him, he showed no remorse or acknowledgement of his atrocities once he had full control of it and even committed/planned to do more atrocities.
5. How Sephiroth plans on beating fate with his knowledge of the future? I'm certain that the game will partly address this. But I wonder why he doesn't just kill Aerith and Tifa, break Cloud, and beeline the Black Materia. My theory is that Sephiroth is in a similar predicament to Aerith, where he is limited in what he can do because of the Whispers. He must wait for the right moments to manipulate events to his liking. So he understands he needs to play the waiting game. Why not have some fun with Cloud in the meantime?
6. Sephiroth's Parentage: Does he know Hojo is his father? A certain scene from CC calls to mind. But I think even if he doesn't know, he must have had some inkling or recognized him as the closest person to a father figure in his life. It's also interesting to note that he consistently focuses on a mother figure throughout his entire life, without ever mentioning a "father". I theorized why here.
As for Lucrecia, does he know about her too? We know Sephiroth absorbed the memories of the planet during his four-year Lifestream dive with JENOVA. Will those memories include any hint of his true parentage?
7. Just how much does Sephiroth really know? Yes, he possesses future knowledge, but where does that knowledge begin and end? At one point, he's going to have to start improvising somewhere down the line. I don't expect this to be answered in Rebirth. 7R Sephiroth is trolling us almost as much as he is trolling Cloud. Man is self-aware.
8. The fates of his squad members: Matt, Glenn and Lucia. And here I thought First Soldier would update because of Rebirth, but they seem to holding back on it for now. I wonder if this is because Rebirth would spoil their fates?
9. More characterization of Sephy: We need to see that cold, professional SOLDIER mask cracking more. And it looks like this will be delivered. Such a puppy 😍
10. This is for Rebirth in general: Please don't end on a fucking cliffhanger... It'd just make the nonstop theorizing from the fanbase for the next four years even more painful to endure. I also hate cliffhangers in general.
Again, I'm not even expecting half of these to be answered, especially the point about JENOVA's origins since that'd probably be saved for the 3rd 7R game. The questions about his knowledge of his parentage probably won't be answered either. But I'm hoping for a few at least. Once I have more info on the game, I'll swing back to this list and mentally check off what's confirmed or at least mentioned/addressed.
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Anatomy Lesson
This fic is brought to you by my conversation with @echoes-in-the-forest when we were laughing over the misreading of my previous Isaac fics title. It just stuck in my head and I was inspired for this, it is also the fic that got 0% of the votes for my badly described WIP poll awhile back which me knowing what it was made me laugh because I think it'll be popular, it was also finished awhile ago but it got pushed back for other stuff. This fic is definitely NSFW so minors do not interact. Isaac decides to learn more about anatomy and enlists your help while studying. WC approx 1796.
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Isaac sat in his chair reading, his desk was covered in books, some closed while others were laid open to various pages. He barely registered the knock on his door or the sweet voice that followed it.
“Isaac it's me, I brought you something to eat and some rogue.”
“Huh? Oh!”
Isaac had finally lifted his head out from his book at your voice and when he did he noticed it had gotten very dark.
“I must have read through dinner.”
“That's why I brought you up something.”
Isaac felt you place a soft kiss on the top of his head and he smiled up at you.
“Thank you and I am sorry I didn't come down to eat.”
“It's alright Isaac I know you get lost in your research though, this doesn't look like your normal research.”
“You're right it's not.”
Isaac followed your gaze down to one of the open pages that had a diagram of a skull on it.
“I didn't think you were interested in biology.”
“That's a bit generalized but you're right I never really cared much about it.”
“So what brought this on then?”
“Earlier today Le Recteur ‘asked’ me to take over Professor Belanger’s anatomy class for him as he was called away for an emergency and I was free. I told him I wasn't familiar with anatomy but he said I would be fine, the students had just started an examination and only needed someone there to supervise them.”
Isaac heard the giggle you tried to hide and he frowned.
“Getting back to the point as the students began to hand in their examinations I decided to look over them and realized just how little I knew about the subject. I always had a generalized knowledge of it but nothing in depth. Honestly I never really cared to study it, I was too focused on other more serious subjects. I found myself quite curious reading through the exam papers and just like other scientific fields it's changed so much over the intervening years and I found myself wanting to learn more.”
Isaac reached for his sandwich and took a big bite out of it.
“Well I'm glad you found something new and interesting. I'll let you get back to your books, just promise me you won't forget to eat again.”
As you turned to leave Isaac had an idea and he hurriedly swallowed his bite of sandwich.
“Actually, would you mind helping me?”
“Of course not but I don't think I can be of much help, biology wasn't my best class.”
Isaac stood up from his chair gently grabbing your upper arms and guiding you to stand in the center of his room.
“Umm Isaac how is this helping you?”
Isaac walked back over to his desk and picked up a thick book before returning to you.
“This book talks about the different bones and muscle structures. The drawings are good but I think it will be easier to understand by following along on an actual body. That is, if it's alright with you?”
“I already said I didn't mind helping you and I'm done with work for the day so why not.”
“Excellent! Thank you.”
Isaac gave you a quick peck on the cheek before he started flipping through the thick book. As he combed through the text he would reach out and poke, prod or twist you around in different places feeling for muscle groupings or seeing how they worked together while your body was in motion.
Isaac was mildly aware of you moving occasionally, like when he ran his fingers from your side across your stomach and you squirmed as you let out a giggle, but for the most part he was completely absorbed in his new fascination. He started to become more focused blocking out all possible distractions as well as becoming more thorough with his touch.
“Isaac.”
His hands had slowly and methodically moved their way upwards caressing over your stomach and sides, along your arms and shoulders and now moved slowly along your neck.
“Isaac.”
Isaac didn't stop, he brushed your hair aside to get a better look at the back of your neck leaning in close to examine you better with his lips almost grazing the side of your neck.
“Isaac!”
He was pulled back to the present suddenly by your loud and desperate sounding cry of his name.
“Did, did I hurt you? I'm sorry I should have been more careful poking and-”
Isaac had moved to stand in front of you concerned he had hurt you somehow with his examination but what he found was not a look of pain or distress on your face but one of longing and desire.
“You didn't hurt me Isaac it's just…”
Your words trailed off and Isaac could see your cheeks and ears were flushed.
“The way you were touching me felt so good and…my body started getting other ideas.”
“It, it did?”
“Yes.”
Now it was Isaac whose cheeks were turning red as he thought about the way he had been touching her. He felt that familiar heat stirring inside him. Encouraged by the look in your eyes he stepped closer to you running his fingers along your cheek.
“You know I…I think it would be more helpful to me if we removed your clothes. That way I could get a better feel of everything. Of course you don't have to if you don't want to-”
“No! I mean, no it's fine Isaac. I don't mind taking them off.”
Isaac swallowed hard as he watched you slowly unbutton and remove your blouse, followed by your skirt. He stood there in awe of your perfect body, your perfect heart that loved him despite how awkward he was. Once you were completely bare in front of him he stepped closer and began his study of your body again.
Isaac started where he had stopped when you had called out to him. His fingers glided along your neck followed by his lips. Each time his lips touched your bare skin he could feel you shiver and detect a change in your body temperature. Slowly, methodically he kissed his way across your neck and over your shoulder. He heard the small sigh you let escape your lips and he smiled to himself.
He kissed down from your shoulder across the top of each breast while his finger caressed down your sides and hips. He could hear how fast your heart was beating and he rained kisses down right where it should be. He continued his exploration of you running his tongue over one nipple before capturing it in his mouth and sucking hard.
“Mmm Isaac.”
“Shhh, I like quiet when I study.”
Isaac was surprised that he voiced his request aloud and he looks up to see your eyes briefly wide with shock before you nod at him, a sheepish smile on your lips. Of course he knew he could be demanding but right now he wanted to explore your body fully and just the sound of your sweet voice alone was enough to undo him.
He brought his lips to your other breast tenderly kissing along it. As his lips closed around your nipple he moved one hand from your hip down along your stomach and in between your legs. His fingers caressed your inner thigh as he methodically studied every little twitch of your muscles brought on by his actions.
Slowly he moves his fingers further inward towards your most sensitive spot. He makes sure his touch is feather light as he lets his fingers glide over your wetness, wanting to draw out more reactions from your body.
“Do you know how many different muscles and parts of the body are used to perform something as simple as a kiss?”
Isaac's question was rhetorical of course as he closed his lips over yours before you could even begin to think of an answer. As he deepens the kiss and twines his tongue with yours he hears the muffled moans of pleasure that try to escape your captured lips. He wanted to take his time studying your body but now his own desire is too far gone.
“I'm sorry, I can't wait any longer.”
“Don't apologize, I want y-”
Isaac runs his thumb along your lips to cut you off.
“Shhh.”
He kisses you again as you both move towards his bed, your hands working furiously at the buttons on his shirt while his own undo his belt. Isaac wastes no time once you've reached the bed and has you pinned beneath him without breaking your kiss. He doesn't even bother to finish removing his pants instead just pulling them down just enough to free his hard cock so that he can take you.
“I wanted to be gentle with you but I can't.”
Isaac's lips find yours again as he briefly brushes up against your wetness before guiding himself deep inside you. His thrusts are quick and deep and he can feel your body reacting to his. The way your skin is flushed and warm, the way your panting into his kiss, the movement of your hips and the increasing wetness as he pleasures you. He grips one of your hands in his and laces your fingers together.
“Your body is amazing, the way you react to my touch, the way I fit inside you perfectly and how you tighten around me. It's like your body was designed to compliment mine in every way, created for me alone.”
Isaac kissed you once more before sinking his fangs into your neck. He feels your body arch as your core tightens around him and he knows you're desperately trying not to cry out in pleasure. He thrusts even faster and harder now, his heat reaching farther into you then it has before. His free hand moves to knead your breast as he licks the blood from your neck. He lifts himself to look at you and finds you biting down on your hand to stop your cries.
Seeing you trying so hard to fulfill his desires only makes him want you more and he thrusts even faster. He moves your hand from your mouth nipping at your lower lip before piercing it with his fangs. As your body writhes beneath him from the new wave of heat his release hits and he fills you up with it. Normally he would be satiated with this much for now but not tonight.
“It's not enough, I'm going to love you all night long.”
Isaac waits only long enough to catch your nod before he starts thrusting again while sinking his fangs deep into the crook of your neck and keeping true to his word.
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amaretigris · 1 month
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Knock-down, Drag-out
Taglist: @hopeisrising @mylittlemermaid221 @luna2034 @daydreamerwithnohobbies @freyagallileaevans @notagreekgal28 @justagirlthatlovedtoread
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Ch. 10 | 1.3k words | Angst
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The next week was the best week you'd had in a long time. Your mood seemed to have greatly improved since you began spending time with Jonah. You texted him in the mornings, at lunch, and at night. Of course work was just as chaotic as usual, but you looked forward to his texts during your down time.
On Friday, you drove over to Jonah's house after your shift. The whole mood seemed off. It was a little odd, considering that Eleanor answered the door.
"Come in, dear," she ushered you inside.
"Jonah's a little stressed right now. Hopefully you can cheer him up," she whispered as she led you to the kitchen.
Jonah sat at the kitchen table with a letter in his hand. He glanced up when you entered the room with Eleanor.
"Oh, hi sweetheart. I didn't hear you knock, I apologize," he muttered before his eyes reverted to scanning the letter.
"It's okay," you replied as you pulled out the chair next to Jonah.
"What's that?"
"It's a letter from the insurance company about mom's application. It says she doesn't meet the criteria, and was denied."
Jonah's face seemed vexed. Your stomach dropped.
"I'm so sorry, I really thought she would get approved," you brought your hands to your lap to begin fidgeting.
Recognizing your nervous habit, Jonah promptly dropped the letter to the table, and turned his full attention to you.
"It's okay, love. We tried our best," Eric put his hand over yours.
"Mom and I were discussing ordering takeout. Are you interested?"
You were grateful for the subject change, but you vowed to look into Eleanor's insurance application. Of course you couldn't solely determine whether or not she was approved for insurance, but you knew how much it must hurt Jonah to read that rejection letter.
Quelling your feelings about that, you tried to enjoy the night with Jonah and Eleanor, and take his mind off of things. The three of you did, in fact, order takeout. You also played a round of cards at the kitchen table. Eleanor seems to have a knack for blackjack.
Kissing Jonah goodbye at the end of the night, you hugged him tight to your chest.
"I know you're stressed. Don't worry, things will work out," you cooed in his ear.
You felt Jonah's smile against your cheek.
"I know it will, darling. I have you," he whispered as he kissed your temple.
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The next morning, you sent Jonah your usual good morning text.
Good morning handsome. I hope you have a great day 🌞☺️
You got ready for work, checking your phone for a reply before you got in your car. Nothing. Ah well. Maybe he's busy.
By the time you got to work, there was still not a response from Jonah. You wondered if perhaps he slept late. Starting the day with a weird feeling in your gut, you went through the motions. You typically had no problem focusing, but today was different. You were distracted; worried even. You focused on other things throughout the day, like heading down to the insurance office on the bottom floor of the hospital on your lunch break.
You sat at the desk, strumming your fingers. A woman with a bored expression and a name tag that said 'Denise' typed away on her computer.
"It's looks like Eleanor Prince was denied because of her dependent," Denise plainly stated.
You shook your head.
"She has a son, but he is not her dependent. He is over eighteen, has his own income, and files his own taxes," you explained.
Denise looked at you blankly, and typed more into her computer.
"There. Approved," she turned her computer screen toward you.
Smiling with a sense of accomplishment, it quickly dissipated as you remembered the current situation with Jonah. You were a little miffed at him, but you wanted to surprise him with the news that his mother got approved. It was only a silly clerical error. You decided that you would tell him the next time you saw him.
Jonah had still not answered your text by the time you left Denise's office. You sent another message in hopes that he simply forgot, or didn't actually hit send for his reply.
I hope your day's going well so far
A few hours passed, and still nothing. You were nearing the end of your shift, and you were checking your phone constantly. Biting your nails, another nervous habit of yours, you wondered what would happen at the arena tonight. The two of you had had a wonderful week up until now. You understood being busy, but seven hours had passed without a peep. Why would Jonah suddenly be giving you the cold shoulder?
Climbing into your car at the end of your day, you sped to the arena. Would Jonah even show up? Had something bad happened? You didn't know what was going on, and your anxiety was through the roof.
Pulling into the parking lot at the arena, you waited in your car instead of walking in early like you usually did. You wanted to see if Jonah's car showed up. After about thirty minutes, you saw him roll into the parking lot. Your heart hammered in your chest. You watched Jonah park his car, and you grabbed your medical bag before exiting yours.
You walked up to his car just as Jonah stepped out. He met your eyes, and grimaced. You felt a stabbing pain in your chest at the expression.
"Is everything okay? You've been ignoring me all day."
Jonah reluctantly climbed out of his car, opening his back door to grab his gym bag. He didn't immediately answer your question.
"Hey," you waved to get his attention.
"I'm right here. I know you can see and hear me. What's going on?"
Jonah still didn't look directly at you. Instead, he slammed his back door closed, and raised his chin to look at the sky.
"My mom collapsed at home last night."
Your stomach dropped.
"What? Why didn't I hear about it?"
"It was last night around 2 a.m. It was before your shift started this morning," Jonah answered dryly.
"I meant why didn't I hear about it from you," you stated matter-of-factly.
"Is she okay? Why did she collapse?"
"She's fine now. It was because I forgot to pick up her refill from the pharmacy yesterday. She hadn't had her medication in over twenty-four hours, so when she got up to go to the bathroom last night, she got dizzy, and fell."
Your tongue darted out to wet your lips. You were imagining the scenario in your head, mapping out how you would have responded.
"Was she admitted to the hospital? I would think I would've known-"
"No," Jonah interrupted.
"No, she wasn't. She didn't hurt herself too bad from the fall, but she did bruise her hip. Once the paramedics found out she hadn't received her medication, they just recommended bed rest until she got her next dose."
You studied Jonah's profile with the sting of tears at the corners of your eyes.
"I'm sorry, Jonah. I'm sure it scared you."
Jonah fixed his gaze back ahead of him at the roof of his car; in other words, still not at you.
"Yes, it did scare me. I didn't go to work today, and I tried to get out of this fucking fight tonight, but Sebastian said I needed to be here since it's another championship fight."
Jonah's grip visibly tightened on the straps of his gym bag.
"This is what happens when I let myself get distracted," Jonah breathed.
The words cut you deep. You took a shuddering breath.
"I don't want to do this here and now. Can we finish this discussion later?"
You nodded with tears spilling over. You turned away from Jonah, walking to the front doors of the arena. You didn't look back.
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arlecchno · 2 years
Text
mission accomplished [ scaramouche x reader ]
nineteen | forelsket
prev masterlist next
things didn't turn out so well when scaramouche got a flat tire whilst heading for the hotel, yet maybe, it turned out for the better.
warnings: swearing, just a blurb of scaramouche's lore (if you could even say that it's lore), me and my love for the only one bed trope, reverse comfort at the end i think, a lot of unnecessary scenes but probably still important to the plot
a/n: sorry for the late update... i keep procrastinating on this chapter lmao. this is pretty long since i'm posting once a week now, like around 4.5k words of complete garbage, but whatever, just think of this as a filler chapter i guess. happy reading!
grammatical errors may occur so please let me know if i've made any mistakes!
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“you have got to be kidding me.”
“i'm sorry, there's really only one room left that is available, all of the other rooms are fully occupied by the students of snezhnaya university.”
scaramouche scoffed. “we are students of snezhnaya university.”
the hotel receptionist stopped typing on the keyboard and looked at him confusedly. “oh... you guys are um, students?” the woman scratched her head in confusion. “i had a thought that you two were in your late 20's... seems like i was wrong.”
she wasn't wrong. at all.
“are there seriously no rooms left except for that one?” you asked frustratingly, cutting off the previous subject.
the receptionist sighed. “i'm sure of it, though, i'd be more than happy to inform you if there were any changes.” she averted her gaze back to the computer screen.
“...fine. we'll take the room.” scaramouche said shortly after, making you quickly snap your head to him.
“you cannot be serious right now. no way in hell am i gonna share a room with you!” you whisper-shouted, tugging his shirt slightly.
the ravenette rolled his eyes. “it won't be that bad.”
the young woman gave the key card to scaramouche, and he mumbled out a thanks before heading for the elevator, along with his bag. you grumbled out a few curse words, but reluctantly followed suit.
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oh it was that bad.
“everyone's fucking with me today.” was all you said at the moment as you and scaramouche stood in the entrance of the hotel room, baffled at what you're witnessing right now.
one. stupid. bed.
things were already going bad when you two were held off from arriving to the hotel early because scaramouche got a flat tire on the way here. you never expected to actually share a bed with the guy you've always hated, multiple times at that, but here you were, once again.
scaramouche groaned, bringing up a hand to rub his face in annoyance. “i can't believe this is happening.”
“you're taking the floor.” you flatly announced, brushing past him to land yourself on the only bed in the room.
the ravenette stopped from his actions to glare at you. “w— why do i have to sleep on the floor?! i drove us here! what did you even contribute to this trip for you to get the bed?!” he argued, stomping to you.
“simple. i exist. i think that's enough contribution, to teyvat even.” you simpy replied, relishing in the comfort of the soft sheets.
“you–!” scaramouche tried arguing further, but no words fell out of his mouth. he only sighed as he walked off and started unpacking his stuff.
you stared at the ceiling. “you know, we can share the bed if you want.”
“and why should i do that?” he asked, stopping from his actions to look over at you.
you fixated your eyes on his indigo ones in return. “well, the bed's pretty big, and we can make a barrier like last time, it kinda worked.” you explained from your lying position on the bed.
scaramouche widened his eyes the moment you mentioned about the pillow barrier. the stupid makeshift barrier that absolutely did not work last week. you only think it worked because you were too busy sleeping like a log to even realize you were tangled up with the ravenette in bed, instead of the makeshift barrier separating you two.
he averted his eyes from you, focusing back on unpacking. “no thank you.”
“guess you're on the floor then.”
“sure, whatever.”
he'd rather sleep on the most uncomfortable place than to even have the same events possibly repeating again.
and he's afraid you might wake up this time.
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you groaned for the hundredth time.
“why the hell is he not picking up...” you stared at your phone screen as your friend, once again, left you on voicemail.
childe hasn't been in contact with you for over two weeks now. ever since the trial, you've never heard of childe updating you on any upcoming leads. if anything, childe was always the one who'd share the details to you first before anyone else, yet things left you dumbfounded as he never returns your calls now.
you've asked your other colleagues about it, well, signora to be specific. she only told you that childe's been going through a rough patch lately and that you should leave him be for some time, though he's still always present at the precint, which makes you even more clueless.
i'll try again later, you thought to yourself. he's fine, i'm sure he is.
“you wanna check out the hotel before it gets crowded?” scaramouche asked out of the blue, making you fixate your eyes on him from the bed.
you pondered on it for a moment before answering. “yeah, sure, who knows we might get new leads.”
standing up, you sauntered over with your phone in hand, scaramouche already waiting for you by the opened door.
“do you know what room yun jin and viktor are in?” he asked, holding the door for you.
“not sure, i haven't really asked her about it.” you said, eyeing the number on the door of your hotel room, 515, it read. “viktor's been kind of acting strange lately, so i don't really want to bother him.”
scaramouche hummed, taking the key card with him before closing the door. “what do you mean by that?” he asked, walking with you to the lift lobby.
“by what? viktor?”
“obviously i'm talking about him.”
you and scaramouche halted to a stop in the lobby.
“he's kind of been ignoring me for the past week, have no idea why.” you paused, pushing the down button beside the elevator. “i asked yun jin about it, but she told me it was normal of him to be like that sometimes, which is pretty weird.” you said, focusing your eyes on the number at the top of the elevator that's slowly coming to your floor.
the male beside you raised a brow. “you haven't confronted him about it?”
“of course i have, silly. um, tried at least. he's been avoiding me all the time, doesn't even sit with me in class now.”
the chiming sound of a ding can be heard, and the elevator door slowly opens.
“you don't even see him out of class?”
“see who?”
both you and scaramouche snapped your heads to the familiar voice. viktor and yun jin were in the elevator together, hands interlaced.
calling what you were witnessing right now weird would be an understatement. for the past few days, viktor has done nothing but avoid and ignore yun jin, yet here he was acting normal again, with his hand in hers. the tall man even had the slight audacity to speak up those two words in front of you, the other person he's been avoiding all week.
“oh, it's luna and ivan! where are you guys headed to?” yun jin beamed, walking out the elevator with viktor trailing behind.
you rubbed the nape of your neck, not expecting for them to appear right in front of you. “um, we were just gonna go to the car and get some stuff that we didn't manage to bring along.” you lied. “are you guys on this floor?”
yun jin smiled and nodded. “yup, room 516!”
“516?” scaramouche inquired. that's just right beside yours.
“yeah, it was one of the only rooms left, glad that we even managed to get one considering that we were kind of late.” yun jin said awkwardly, fidgeting her clothes.
you tugged scaramouche's sleeve lightly, making him look at you. the ravenette raised his brow, and you gestured your eyes to the elevator, a signal that you two should get going.
scaramouche nodded at you, looking back at the couple in front of him. “we really need to go, luna left her plush and didn't want it to be left alone in the car for far too long.” he made up an excuse, a dumb one at that, making you glare at him.
“a plushie? that's cute.” viktor said, chuckling along with yun jin.
you faked a smile, gritting your teeth. “well, ivan, we should go, now.” you said furiously, grabbing scaramouche's arm to drag him to the elevator.
“see you two soon!” yun jin grinned, waving at you two until the elevator doors closed.
letting out a scoff, you folded your arms and sent a death glare to scaramouche, in which he paid no mind to. “seriously? a plushie? i'm not a child.”
“it's fun seeing you get all embarrassed, sort of like entertainment for me.” the ravenette said, slightly smirking at the thought.
“it's not funny.”
“it– it kinda is.”
scaramouche was laughing now, much to your dismay. you tried suppressing the urge to not join him on this, but failed miserably when the male beside you snorted, completely falling into a fit of giggles at his actions.
“oh come on! you need to stop putting me in embarrassing situations!” you said while giggling, slapping his arm playfully while doing so.
“or what?” he teased, finally looking at you and leaning closer.
you stared into his indigo eyes in return. “well, i'll...” the words you intended to say died down momentarily as you both look into each others eyes, seemingly like time has stopped.
the distance between you two was long abandoned, face just inches away from each other. looking at scaramouche's flawless face in awe, your breath hitched just for a moment.
you can't remember the last time you were this close to scaramouche. was it when you were sick? was it the time when you both hid in a closet to not get caught? or was it during trial day when you fixed up scaramouche's tie? you really can't tell.
looks like this just adds to the many list of times you've ever been this close with the man you hated the most.
the elevator doors suddenly opens and out of instinct, you both jolt in shock and immediately turned away from each other, flustered by what just happened.
a small group of people, snezhnaya uni students you assumed, walked in the elevator, ignoring the way that you and scaramouche were standing awkwardly at the back. you rubbed the jawline of your face nervously and stared at the mirror beside you.
the elevator had mirrors on all sides except for the doors, so you could basically see what everyone is doing at the moment.
and, if you look a little more closely, you could see the faint crimson that's creeping up onto scaramouche's neck and ears, as much as he tries hiding it with his hands.
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“i'm not gonna lie, this venue is ginormous.” you said in awe, looking at the huge place that will hold the grad ball. presumably, you had thought that it'd be a bit smaller, but it seems like you were wrong in so many ways.
the venue was almost fully decorated— with lots of round tables, a big space in the middle (for the classic dance, you assumed), and buffet tables were already set up. some bits of other decorations like lightings, drapes, and a disco ball even, were being decorated by the organizers. though still on the works, the ballroom already looked dazzling.
“don't think we're even allowed to go here yet.” scaramouche commented, eyeing the red tape across the ballroom.
“how are we gonna know every corner of the ballroom then?”
the male beside you did not answer, making you glance at him. he had his signature smirk, and a very knowing look that only you could ever read.
“no, you're joking.”
his smirk only grew bigger at your sentence, and at this point, you might think he was smiling like an idiot instead.
and that's how you two ended up decorating the ballroom, disguised as the many other workers in the area.
“how the hell are you so sure we won't get caught?”
scaramouche looked at you, stopping himself from decorating the round table. he tilted his head to a direction, as if gesturing for you to look over at what he's pointing at. “see that dude?”
averting your gaze to a male a few feet away from you two, you nodded. “yeah, why?” you asked, looking at him warily. the man was sitting on one of the chairs, legs propped up on the table while he scrolled on his phone lazily.
“that's the head organizer.”
“why is he just... lazing around? shouldn't he be the one going back and forth to make everything look as perfect as possible?”
scaramouche hummed. “exactly. seeing how stupid that guy is, he probably couldn't care less if there were people sneaking around as 'workers', much less if there were more additional workers, probably makes him more at ease.”
“do you think we could sneak around and possibly get the files for the plans of the event?”
“what?”
“he looks kind of clumsy to be honest.” you said, and as if to prove your sentence, the man suddenly fell to his butt on the floor, and quickly regained his composure to sit back on the chair embarrassingly. “it's gonna be easy getting those files, i assume.”
scaramouche shrugged, continuing on fixing up the round table to avoid suspicions. “sure, we'll try later.”
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and again, that's how you two ended up sneaking in the back of the ballroom, where you assumed the organisation's office is.
“isn't this kind of silly?”
“what is?” scaramouche asked, walking along the halls, careful not to make much noise.
“sneaking around, kind of feels like we're kids trying to avoid getting caught stealing cookies by our parents.”
the ravenette snorted. “that's a very specific description.” he said, scanning his eyes at a closed door of a room, reading the text on it to see if it was the office you two were looking for.
“isn't that basically what being a detective is? sneaking around to get evidence, secretly go on many undercover duties and disappear to months end?”
you looked at him. “well, yeah, but it's pretty funny if you think about it. two grown adults, sneaking around people, going all out just to get some promising leads, it really just reminds me of my childhood days. isn't it the same for you?”
scaramouche was surprisingly silent upon hearing your question, not even taking his eyes off the door he was inspecting just now. you looked at him, puzzled, and nudged his shoulder.
“dude, you okay?”
it took a moment for scaramouche to finally move. “i'm fine.” he mumbled, already heading off to the next location, leaving you behind.
you stared at his figure, confused as to why he's suddenly changed his demeanor and did a whole 180. did you say something that bugged him?
“found it.” scaramouche said, pointing at a closed room ahead of you. he looked at you across the hall, one hand shoved in the pocket of his pants.
you smiled and nodded in acknowledgement, walking over to him.
you've already reminded yourself to ask him about it later on. for now though, you'll have to focus on your plan.
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“for a klutzy guy, he sure is pretty organised with the files.” you said, flipping through the files in one of the steel cabinets.
you two have been in the room for about ten minutes now, and much to your displease, you have yet to find the file you were looking for.
scaramouche rummaged through the files on the desk, letting out another curse when the files on there were pretty much useless.
“i don't think we'll find anything here.”
“this is stupid, we should just head back.” scaramouche muttered, heading over to the door. he stopped abruptly when he heard footsteps from outside, quickly turning around to face you. “someone's coming.”
you widened your eyes, and frantically searched for a place to hide. the room wasn't that big, with only a small number of cabinets filled with files, so there were technically zero spots to hide.
out of nowhere, scaramouche took your hand in his and dragged you under an old desk at the corner of the room, secluded from the open space. if someone were to stumble inside the office, they won't be able to notice the two of you hiding under the old desk, lest they went further in the room, in which you silently prayed it won't be the latter.
it's pretty tight space, but it was still able to fit in the two of you, even though you were squished up with scaramouche. you looked at the ravenette, but he avoided your gaze, opting to look out on the person coming inside instead.
the door opened, and a voice popped up. “is the ball really going to go smoothly, boss? i feel like we're still missing a few things for the event.”
“don't worry, everything's perfectly fine. it's not like we haven't done this a hundred of times before, and who cares if we miss out on a few stuff? it's not gonna affect the event.” another voice said, footsteps walking in the room.
the other cleared their throat. “what about that spotlight? i heard there were a few screws loose, and the workers didn't manage to find them.”
the sound of a file being landed harshly on the desk echoed throughout the room. “who the hell cares?! we already don't get paid enough for this shit, i couldn't care less about some stupid screws being loose or a backdrop being slightly off, as long as you get the job done we are out of the responsibility.”
“hurry up and go home, i don't want to be here any longer.”
soon after, the footsteps slowly fade out, and the door closed once more.
you let out a breath of relief the second they left, and looked at scaramouche again. he still had his eyes on the door, not even budging to move from the uncomfortable space.
“scara?”
“hm?”
“they're gone. we can go now.”
scaramouche finally looked at you after what felt like decades. “oh.”
getting out from under the old desk, you stretched out your limbs, the ravenette awkwardly followed you after.
“don't think that file was there before.” he said after a moment of scanning through the room, sauntering over to the desk in the middle of the room. “y/n.”
you glanced at him, bringing down your hands from the stretch you were doing. “what?”
“it's the file we're looking for.”
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it was well past 9, you and scaramouche were back in your hotel room sitting on the provided chairs, with your laptop propped up on the small round table showing the pictures you took of the event planning from the file.
“it just looks like any other planning i've seen before.” you said while slurping on the instant noodle cup you made a few minutes ago. given how you and scaramouche were too busy sneaking around the hotel until late evening, you two didn't even manage to get proper dinner by the time you were done.
“there's no use in wasting our time on this if it's useless then.”
you squinted your eyes to look at the planning details better, reading on and on about backdrops, lighting timings, and whatnot. it was all useless, just like what scaramouche had said just now.
letting out a huff, you leaned back on the chair. “let's just wait until tomorrow. we still have time before the grad ball starts.” you glanced at scaramouche. he has been zoning out a lot recently, and it was no doubt that he was doing the exact same thing right now.
“are you tired?” you nudged his shoulder.
scaramouche slowly looked at you, face blank. “huh? why? are you?”
“stop twisting the question around, i'm asking about you.” you pressed, a frown plastered on your face. “you look tired.”
“i'm fine.”
“no you're not.”
now scaramouche was the one frowning instead, glaring at you furiously. “if i say that i'm fine, then i am fine.” he slammed his hands on the table as he stood up, walking away, making you more puzzled than you already were.
sighing, you closed the laptop on the table. guess there's no use in pushing him on the subject, you thought as you continued on finishing your food.
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“you sure you don't want to sleep on the bed? there's still plenty of space here.” you asked, looking at him lying on the carpeted floor from the bed you were sitting on. “i feel bad.”
scaramouche had his back to you, so you weren't able to see what expression he was making as of now. “it's fine. hog the bed all you want, i'm not going up there.”
you raised a brow, but didn't question any further. “okay, just tell me if you wanna get up here. i don't mind sharing.”
the ravenette only replied with a hum as you got under the covers, getting ready to finally sleep after a long day of sneaking around.
except that you couldn't sleep at all.
it's around midnight— you think. it had been a few hours since you got into bed, but you haven't even managed to get a wink of sleep. scaramouche was sound asleep now, his soft snores can be heard if you listen close enough.
groaning, you turned to the other side of the bed in hopes of the new sleeping position helping you enter dreamland faster, but to no avail. you groaned in frustration once more.
“you should really stop doing that.” scaramouche said from the floor, voice husky from just waking up.
you propped yourself up with your elbow, and turned to look at scaramouche. “'m sorry, did i wake you?”
scaramouche slowly sat up, raking a hand through his bed hair. “it's fine.” he said, rubbing his eyes. “why're you still awake?”
“couldn't sleep.” you mumbled through the dark room, laying back on the bed as you stared at the ceiling. “been like that for the last couple of weeks.”
the ravenette raised his brow, but it went unnoticed by you. hearing the sound of rustling, you turned your head to the side, just to see that scaramouche had placed his pillow on the bed.
he sat at the edge of the bed, looking at you. “you okay?”
you scoffed. how ironic, you thought. he was the one who's been odd the whole day, yet he was asking you if you were okay, when he should be asking himself that.
“i could ask you the same question.”
at that, scaramouche fell silent. you turned your head back to continue on staring at the ceiling, again, in hopes that it'd bore you out to the point that you're asleep. unfortunately, the archons above really, really hates you.
you heard the sound of rustling sheets once again, and you turned to look at scaramouche, who was now suddenly under the covers, his back to you. “thought you said you didn't want to be up here.”
“you look like you needed company.”
you looked at him confusedly. at the lack of an answer from you, scaramouche huffed and turned to you. it was dark, you could barely make up most of the view in the room, but it was still enough to see the male beside you up close.
“i can sleep just well without you here.”
“sure you can.”
“wh– of course i can!”
scaramouche only shrugged, continuing on staring at you with a fond expression on his face. “what's on your mind?”
“...what d'ya mean?”
rolling his eyes, he brought up a finger to poke at your temple a couple of times, as if to further prove his question. “what's stopping this mind from resting?”
“ugh, stop that.” you swatted his hand away, though not harsh enough like you always do. “was just thinking about you.” you blurted out, making the ravenette widened his eyes.
scaramouche barely believes in the archons, yet he fervently thanks celestial above for the dark room, for you wouldn't get to see how red he's getting from just a single sentence.
eyes wide, you quickly fumbled for an excuse. “n–not in that way! i was just thinking about how you were kind of quiet the whole evening.” you said awkwardly, fidgeting the hem of your shirt. “did i say or do anything?”
“...no, you didn't do anything.”
“then why have you been acting weird today?”
scaramouche looked away from you, sighing. “it's just... when you mentioned about childhood, it just reminded me of mine.” he muttered.
from the years you've known scaramouche, he has never, ever, talked about his family background. you never questioned why, afraid that you were crossing boundaries. now that he's willing to even mention about it, you were shocked to say the least, but stayed quiet nonetheless.
“i didn't respond to your question because i... never experienced any of those stuff.” he paused, glancing at you. “my mother, she, abandoned me when i was little.”
“oh archons, i'm really sorry. i shouldn't have asked that.” you said, scratching your head.
“it's fine. it's been decades now, i rarely care that much anymore.” he let out a breath of a chuckle, somehow amused. “it just hit home when you talked about childhood.”
you stared at him for a long while, and he did the same to you. sighing, you went closer to him and pulled him into an embrace, leaving the ravenette in complete shock.
“you're a strong guy, i'm sorry all those shit happened to you.” you mumbled, wrapping your arms tightly around his middle. scaramouche hovered his hand over your hip for a moment, before reluctantly wrapping an arm around your waist, relishing in the comfort you're willingly giving him.
scaramouche is anything but strong. he had always thought that he was the most weakest among all, yet you make it seem like he was far from fragile, which is ironic, truly. you've always made him feel like a different person, you always never fail to make him feel alive, make him feel like his emotions matter, make him feel important.
it was one of your greatest qualities. you always bring out the best out of someone, and never ask for anything in return. you've made him feel things he never even thought he had, and you've made him feel like he was a perfect human being, despite the many flaws and imperfections of his.
for the last couple of months, your efforts for him only grew bigger. in spite of you two not being able to stand each other, you never stopped making him feel like human. and for the past few weeks, his views of you have changed very differently.
he never thought of himself being in love, just the thought of those four letters make him gag. but with you, he thinks, anything is possible. and after many sleepless nights of being in thought, he has now come to terms at this moment that maybe, just maybe, he has the slightest feelings for you.
it's not something he'd ever tell you of course, and he has never planned on doing so in the future, afraid that he might ruin what you two currently have. he has come a long way with you, from not able to stand being in the same room together, all the way to you being in his arms right now. he does not think it's worth the risk of ruining whatever the hell you two are at the moment.
he sighed after what felt like forever, and hugged you more tightly. “thank you, y/n.”
no response.
he looked down, just to see that you were sound asleep, in his arms. he smiled fondly after a few seconds, brushing your hair just a bit. you looked so peaceful right now, and he slightly missed this view of you.
he wishes he could see you like this every day, every morning, and every single night, but then again, he does not feel like you'd reciprocate his feelings anyways.
he sighed again, bringing you more closer than before.
looks like you do need company to sleep better.
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forelsket. from: norwegian. means: that overwhelming gut-rush euphoria exclusive to the beginnings of falling in love. (please correct me if i'm wrong lmao i got this from google)
taglist; @beriiov @hopesandlegacy @cloudsandrenoswife @salamiwrites @thenightsflower @bleedingwhiteroses222 @lisiastak021 @yuuki4646 @lez-zuha @ryhie @sleepy-waffle @yoursockstinks @shizunxie @moonxma @kunikuzushiit @anonwhocried @vqqrii @luminesuprrmacy @calxb-do @sixscara @xooya @mobiussdarling @mafukissu @antri13
(unfortunately i am unable to tag those that are in bold, i'm sorry!)
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Text
Okay, I haven’t actually made a post in a heck of a long while. I’ve just been reblogging stuff, some of it being writeblr but most of it being off-topic. So it’s time to change that! I’m gonna rant about my writing progress for the next few paragraphs and subject you, my poor followers, to my rambles.
I'm taking a break from APS because working on it for two years straight with little to no off-time is giving me serious brainrot. Besides, I want to write more dystopian stories that touch upon important problems today. While APS does touch on some societal issues, it's not as emphatic or relevant to what I really want to talk about. I'm still going to be continuing it (and doing another slight overhaul on the book soon, because the first two times just weren't enough to satisfy my gremlinized brain) but I think it belongs on the backburner for a while.
In the meantime, I decided to expand on a new WIP idea that was intended to be a short story, but never got written and would work better as a series anyway. I feel like it focuses on issues that I really want to talk about and implement into my storywriting, and while I might not be the most advanced at using the dystopian genre to make nuanced, subtle critiques, this is definitely a step in the right direction. I'm going to talk more about this new (and untitled) WIP later, once I develop it further.
I've also been thinking about either self-publishing or traditionally publishing (probably traditional, because I'm broke as shit for self). Of course, this is definitely a bit of a stretch, so I'm still keeping online writing platforms in my pocket if needed (and it probably will be). Plus, taking a big leap like that is pretty scary, so I'd rather work my way up by submitting short pieces to, say, literary journals first; that way I can get a feel for what it's like.
That about wraps up everything I have to say. I'm gonna be more active on writeblr (hopefully, fingers crossed) because I feel like I've missed out on a ton.
So brace yourselves. Once I get my shit together on this blog, it's over for you all. (/j)
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talesofesther · 1 year
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is there any chance you could spare us a sneak peek into chapter 4 I'm literally dying here
Don't die just yet love, I'm feeling kind today. This is unedited and subject to change;
She found you under what once was a dense tree, your shoulder was leaning against its trunk; there was a boy next to you, tall and lanky and doing a poor job of being subtle with the way he leaned closer to you. Wednesday's face scrunched slightly, as if she tasted something sour; she needed your attention much more urgently than him, surely you'd ditch him as soon as she makes her presence known right?
You were engrossed in meaningless conversation when Wednesday reached you, so much so that she had to tap your shoulder; causing you to turn toward her mid sentence, your lips hanging half open.
The raven haired girl did nothing but raise a brow, and after a beat of looking into her eyes, you turned your back to her again. Such a bold move of yours.
"Um, so Andrew," you clasped your hands together, smiling at him, "I'll meet up with you later, okay?"
"Sure thing," the boy raised a hand to your shoulder, squeezing softly, "see you then."
His gaze met with Wednesday's as he walked past her, and truthfully, he should be grateful that her eyes don't have the power to kill.
"Good morning, Addams." Your voice urged her dark orbs back to you, who was grinning, watching her intently. "You're quite early today," you told her then.
Wednesday breathed out through her nose, focusing on you with a blink; "you and I need to-" but her words faded, because her mind caught up with the fact that she wasn't feeling anything.
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kingdomoftyto · 1 year
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It's taken 15 years, but it was worth the wait...
All right, I've put it off long enough (and had a very busy/distracting couple of weeks) so it's finally time for my review of TAAAM Act 2
For those who missed it, the second half of Turnabout: an Ace Attorney Musical dropped at the end of last month [here's a link to Act 1 for good measure], and to say I've been listening to it a lot since then would be a gross understatement. My partner and I have literally been greeting each other after work each day with, "Today's biggest earworm was [insert TAAAM song], how about you?" Even if I listen to any other music on my morning commute, by lunchtime I'll inevitably still catch myself mouthing the words to "Lotta Things" or "Tomorrow at Last" or whatever else.
What I'm getting at is that this is not just a cool piece of collaborative fanart. This is a legitimately fantastic musical. Period.
The music is wildly catchy, but remains cohesive with every other song. There are repeated leitmotifs and about a dozen reprises and incredibly satisfying references to music from the games (I was waiting for "Cornered" the entire time and was NOT disappointed when it finally showed up late in Act 2). It feels well-structured, like a real Broadway production. All of the songs from Act 1 that I would have considered the weakest--they now stand fully redeemed by their absolutely phenomenal reprises and callbacks in the second half. Every song in this musical, every line, is there for a reason.
And this careful planning serves to accentuate the stated primary goal of the entire musical: maintaining the character-driven narrative of the games and emphasizing the pathos of the story. On both counts, this team absolutely delivered.
Because not only is this a really cool musical, it's also a fantastic piece of collaborative Ace Attorney fanart. (See what I did there?) I know I already said it in my Act 1 post, but these folks understand these characters and what makes the story so memorable even 20 years later. The emotional beats, the character growth, the relationships between them all, are impeccable. Every character gets their time to shine, and in particular I want to praise their handling of Maya and Gumshoe, who feel like fully realized people and each go through their own personal arcs throughout the course of the story that are just as satisfying and heartwarming as Phoenix's own.
And that's a good segue into the subject of what creative liberties the team DID take with the story, because there honestly aren't that many, but what they did change is so good. I replayed Turnabout Goodbyes a few nights ago and was surprised at how much dialogue in the musical is taken line-for-line, sometimes even verbatim, from the source material. But, aside from the changes you might expect from condensing an entire mystery game's worth of story into a few hours of runtime--such as simplifying the cases to require fewer clues to solve--they really only altered the plot in ways that gave more chances to develop the characters, and to create rewarding arcs for each and every one.
They added a whole damn scene of just Gumshoe and Maya having a heart-to-heart. It is easily one of my favorite scenes in the entire play. These writers drank their respecting-Dick-Gumshoe juice that morning, and that single scene gives a better emotional payoff to his loyalty to Miles than I think we ever got in canon, while remaining utterly in-character for everyone involved. Meanwhile, the scene doubles as one of many stepping stones* for Maya's own character arc (which is also much more focused and consistent than in canon, imo!), in which she struggles with her feelings of helplessness and inadequacy as she tries to live up to Mia's legacy.
(It goes without saying that this scene also serves the practical purpose of getting characters in place to further simplify the details of the case, as mentioned before, because the writing is unparalleled and I will keep emphasizing that as many times as it needs to be said.)
In truth, there are only two things I would qualify as "major" changes to the story (in that they're different from canon, not that they actually change the plot itself), and I'm hesitant to spoil them here because both of them are SO good and both of them hit me like a truck when they happened. One has to do with emotional depth getting added to a certain character's arc, and the other has to do with relationships between characters. (Maybe I'll add them as a self-reblog to this post because I still need to scream about them lol.)
In any case, I'm not kidding when I say that the musical's version of events, big changes and small, is so compelling to me that it has now superseded the canon version in my mind.** It manages to tell the exact same story while not only giving some of the "side" characters much more credit, but also tying the cases themselves together into a single narrative. The specter of Redd White and his chokehold on the justice system is present in the back half of the original game, but the musical tweaks things to really make you feel how all of these pieces fit together to direct the characters' actions and growth. It's just... ugh, so brilliant. [chef kiss]
I would be remiss if I didn't also take a moment to directly praise the performance of the actors. As obsessed as I am with the music itself, my single favorite moments in both Acts are actually short lines of spoken dialogue.*** The delivery just struck a chord in me and I still lose it a little every time I hear those parts. (And other parts, but. Shush.) Everyone did a great job, but the three leads (Ren, MJ, and Gavaroc, who played Phoenix, Maya, and Miles respectively) absolutely knocked it out of the park in both their sung and spoken performances. Is it weird to say I'm obsessed with how convincing the screams are in "600,000 Volts"? It is, a little? Okay, well. [cough] Regardless. The whole cast really knew what they were doing throughout this entire production; the emotion is extremely powerful when the moment calls for it**** and they elevate the dialogue--again, a lot of which is taken DIRECTLY from canon!--from something good to something amazing. The delivery of these lines has literally changed how I look at the first game, now. They're that good.
Quick shout-out to some of the other voices that have invaded my brain and instantly become my headcanon voices for the characters. Just off the top of my head: Larry, Payne, Sahwit, Redd, Grossberg, Lotta, Lana... seriously. This cast is absolutely star-studded. Even the ensemble freakin' killed it, absolutely transforming every song they were in. The soprano that hit that high note at the end of "Justice for All (Reprise)"????? MAGNIFICENT. GOOSEBUMPS EVERY TIME.
Good grief, this is already so long and I still have so much more I could say. This is why it's taken me so long to write all this out, by the way. This musical is transcendently good, both from a musical perspective and a fandom one, and I simply have not stopped rotating it around in my head since I first heard it.
It's NOT without flaws. Of course it's not. The sound quality on a handful of spoken lines is noticeably lower. The word choices in a few verses feel just slightly clumsy, or forced to fit the meter. The visuals for the Youtube release are a little goofy at times because of the limitations of the game assets used. The plot of the second act, even simplified, would probably be a little too dense to easily follow for someone unfamiliar with the source material.
But if there's anything to be learned from Ace Attorney, it's that perfection shouldn't be the most important goal. Sometimes a few rough edges are necessary to allow room for truth. And the truth is, in this case, a story. A story about a lawyer named Phoenix Wright, who loses a mentor, gains a best friend, and saves a man who'd lost himself.
It's a story worth hearing, and what better way than in song?
--
*- For the record, my favorite song in Act 1 was "I'll Be There", so among all the MANY times the end of Act 2 punched me directly in the heart, the moment that hits me the hardest is probably still the part of the finale that reprises it. That last stanza (I hope you know I'm glad we met...) makes me want to cry every single time. Maya Fey Protection Squad, indeed.....
**- Except for ONE thing at the very end, but that's a story for the self-reblog where I scream about the spoilery stuff LOL
***- My fav line in Act 1 is Miles' real-time epiphany that Redd White is a murderer. ("The only people in that office at that time were the victim and the- ...killer.") You can HEAR his eyes widen as he falters, and the choice to have that as his turning point in place of Turnabout Samurai is so brilliant in so many ways I can't even handle it. I love Miles Edgeworth so much. Anyway, THEN, my fav line in Act 2 is Phoenix's heartrendingly soft, "I've got you, Edgeworth. I've got you." It's so tender and yet so sure. It's Phoenix catching Miles as he falls, looking him directly in the eye, and telling him it's over, I won't let you suffer for one more day.
****- Another of my many favorite lines is Phoenix's "Did you DO it!?" underneath Miles' singing in "Alone". The desperation. The ANGUISH. During my replay of Turnabout Goodbyes I literally had to stop and take a second when the button prompt labeled "Did you do it?" popped up on my screen. That hurted.
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