#what better work of art than to combine the two
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Choking Safety
I've been seeing some kind of scare-mongering type posts going around about choking during sex, so I wanted to address how to approach choking in a safe way.
Choking is not a 0 risk activity, but it is also not so dangerous that you will just randomly die either. Anyone who does martial arts will confirm that thousands of teenagers are being successfully trained to choke each other safely (for self defense) every day! There's no reason you can't learn to do it too.
First you should be familiar with some basic anatomy of the neck and throat:
The carotid veins on both sides of the neck and the trachea/windpipe in the center are the most important things to be aware of.
If you want to enjoy the psychological element of having someone's hands around your neck with relatively little risk, you can do "choking" play that avoids putting any pressure on those arteries or the trachea. As with all choking play, safety is highest when both parties are fully sober.
I'm not actually sure if there are people out there who are into having the windpipe or trachea blocked. This tends to hurt like fuck and cause an autonomic choking response. You'll know if you went too far center because generally the bottom will be like "WTH". I don't know if there is a way to do this play safely or not as I don't have experience with it. It probably carries some risk of the trachea collapsing which would be a hospital trip for sure.
Most choking play is done with the intention of cutting off the blood supply to the brain by applying pressure to both the left and right carotid arteries. This type of choking is not really "breath play" because of the way it works (though many people refer to it that way.) This creates a pleasant light headed feeling, but is also where the higher risk comes in. It often doesn't take long for a person to lose consciousness once these arteries are blocked, often less than 10 seconds.
Sometimes getting completely choked out is the goal, sometimes not. Either way, the top has to pay very very careful attention to every aspect of their bottom's body language. Once you realize that a person has lost consciousness, the choking must stop immediately. Because of this: the most dangerous way to do this kind of play is alone. (hence all the auto-erotic asphyxiation deaths you hear about)
It goes without saying that intoxication also dramatically increases the risks. It's not recommended to lose consciousness this way on a regular basis. It's just not good for your brain to repeatedly go through, especially in rapid succession. Generally, the more time spaced out between this type of play: the better.
Though some people may have medical conditions that make the risk higher, as long as you stop choking when you reach the desired headspace, this play is approachable. Anyone who's REALLY into the idea but feels unsure or scared, I highly recommend taking a few martial arts classes. MMA guys do this to each other all the time! For sports! The key is just stopping at the right time.
There are two main ways to go about blocking the carotid arteries. The main one used in martial arts and self defense is the rear naked choke.
This type of choke is incredible effective at choking someone out quickly and easily. The forearm and the bicep are squeezing each artery until the desired effect is achieved. The risk here is how quickly it works in combination with not being able to have a visual on your bottom's facial response.
When someone loses consciousness they will go limp and begin twitching somewhat. This is normal, and you should stop immediately if you notice those signs.
The more common method of choking play during sex is what looks more like typical choking. Facing your partner, using both hands.
You want to find the arteries with both hands, and use the meat at the base of your thumbs to apply gradually increasing pressure upwards towards your partner's head. You can keep the thumbs tucked to avoid accidental pressure on the windpipe. (Though this is not required so long as you remember not to apply pressure to the windpipe.)
This type of play has a few safety benefits. First, you can see your partner's face so it's more obvious when you can see they've hit a headspace that is desirable.
Additionally, it's just a little more difficult to find the arteries and push up on them correctly. If your goal is to get a little light headed without losing consciousness, this is more easily accomplished with this type of choke. However, losing consciousness is still a risk and both partners being fully alert will ensure the lowest risk environment.
I know choking play is incredibly popular, even 'vanilla' people participate in this type of play on a regular basis without really knowing the technical details. Most of them don't get seriously hurt...but knowing what you're actually doing with risky play is a base component of risk aware consensual kink.
Anyway I hope people find this helpful! Happy choking!!
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okay but durgetastarion with evil-end durge taking over faerune with gortash and astarion and at first he and astarion just hate each other. like so so much. there's jealousy. there's bitchy little sniping comments over the breakfast table. there's secret battles for durge's attention, affection. and one day one of them is taunting the other like "ho ho, i just went down on durge, maybe if you beg i'll let you lick the taste of them out of my mouth" and then they're just. kissing. violent, bloody hatefucking. and durge is just watching this going down like, "yeah i could fap to that"
#nevvy speaks#durgetash#durgestarion#durgetastarion#look. i love durgetash and i love durgestarion#what better work of art than to combine the two#nevvy plays bg3
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Hazbin Hotel Has Better Theology Than Most Modern "Christian" Stories
As a Christian who was raised in a fundie cult and escaped to now have a far healthier and vital faith, I genuinely really like this show. The songs are bops. The characters are well crafted and interesting, and likable too. The art design is bizarre but appealing.
And, as a theology nerd who studied theology as part leaving said cult and also has since gotten papers published in theology, I'm actually fairly impressed by the show's handling of theology.
No, I'm not expecting the story to preach or even like, be explicitly Christian in a lot of ways. But it's taking a lot of the really beautiful aspects of Christian theology and re-contextualizing them in a way designed to provoke thought: by juxtaposing them with the antithesis of what you would think, by making demons heroes. In my opinion, this makes the beauty shine brighter.
Yeah, yeah, it's designed to be offensive and obscene in a lot of ways. Yet, it's never (thus far) mean-spirited. On the contrary, it seems to have a big, beating heart at its core that is perhaps best embodied by Charlie Morningstar, its protagonist and the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith.
Critique of the Church, with Caveats
The story works best with an interpretation that heaven isn't actually heaven or God (who has been conspicuously absent), but instead as a critique of the church. Specifically, the evangelical American church, and specifically, white evangelicals. (Same as She-Ra's premise, actually).
God's absence therefore makes sense, because while Christians do believe God is present as a living reality among us, we also can't like, see him physically now. So, God being not even mentioned in HH makes it seem more like a mortal reality rather than an immortal one. Honestly I kinda hope God doesn't appear in the story, not only because I think it could cross some lines (which is admittedly personal), but also because I don't see that the story really needs it.
Adam in particular reminds me of every "theobro" on Twitter (I'm not calling it what you want me to, El*n). Basically a dudebro coopting his supposed salvation to flex in an often misogynistic way, who doesn't realize that he has absolutely no love in him and therefore is actually a worse human being than everyone he condemns on the regular.
(Which is kind of why I'm expecting Adam to wake up in hell next season...)
Think red hats. And Mark Driscoll. And, I have a list of pastors. Sigh. They advocate for how "simple" Christianity is, except they themselves make it ridiculously complicated and don't even examine what they suppose is "simple" if it requires them to take the planks out of their own eyes. "Shallow" is a better description of what they actually preach.
But what sends people to hell or heaven anyways?
Eschatology and Atonement Theory
Hazbin Hotel combines a lot of theories, throwing not only the idea of a physical hell (albeit mixed with Dante's idea of what hell is the Inferno, but to be fair a lot of the church has adopted that idea too) but the idea of annihilation, which HH calls "extermination."
See, in Christianity, there's a lot of debate about hell. Like, since 2000 years ago. The reason is because a lot of Bible verses seem to indicate hell, but others indicate the eventual redemption and salvation of absolutely everything in the universe, so you have Christian universalism tracing itself back just as long. But, setting aside universalism, people who do believe in hell tend to fall into one of two camps:
Physical hell, aka suffering for eternity, or annihilation: the idea that souls that aren't saved end up annihilated, or snuffed from existence. HH combines both of them, wherein everyone lives in hell but then every so often heaven "exterminates" a certain number of sinners.
And then you also have Catholic purgatory, which is also adapted in HH in that... for most Christians, physical hell doesn't offer the ability to redeem yourself. Chance over, you're dead. But, Catholic Christianity, which draws on ideas of praying for the dead, has the idea that people can improve themselves or be prayed out of it and into heaven. This seems to be somewhat similar to the idea of Charlie's hotel, in that sinners can improve, redeem themselves, and rise to heaven.
And, I mean, it's already kinda worked. Sir Pentious acted out Jesus' words: Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
But anyways, the branch of theology that deals with the afterlife is eschatology. And Hazbin Hotel takes on a related form of theology as well, a type of theology I've only seen covered in stories once before (The House in Fata Morgana): atonement theory.
Atonement theory is something I remember well from my theology 101 class, as in I remember sitting with a friend and her turning to me and being like, "okay, so we know Jesus' death and resurrection give us eternal life, but we have no idea how or why?" To which the answer was "basically, yeah."
Most of the white, American evangelical church is very "penal substitutionary atonement," but the reality is that this theory has only been popular for the past few hundred years. It's also, imo, somewhat scripturally unsound. But there are a lot of other theories, and sometimes the theories overlap. Here's a fairly decent summary. (I'm in general a believer in Christus Victor.)
So how does atonement theory tie into Hazbin Hotel? Well, essentially the scene where Charlie and Vaggie are debating with Emily, Sera, Adam, Lute, and others in heaven is them going over various atonement theories and realizing that they actually know nothing at all. How does one get to heaven? How is one saved? They don't know.
Sera criticizing Emily for asking questions was also very relatable, and I feel for Sera. She's genuinely scared but the truth will set you free, Sera. John 8:32. Anyways, the point is like... the angels are an organized religion, an evangelical church, that preaches about simplicity but mistakes shallowness for simplicity and discourages depth and discovery.
Anyways, the whole crux of theological study and atonement theories is that they should promote humility. We don't know for certain on this side of the curtain. That's okay. So what do we have to guide us?
Love. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8).
Charlie is Jesus
"Why would you endanger your immortal life for these sinners?"
Adam, the absolute worst, says the above to Charlie in the finale.
I mean... look. That's literally the premise of Christianity. That the immortal son of God comes down to earth, lives with sinners, loves us, and dies to save us. However that happens. Charlie even responds:
"They're my family!"
In other words, she loves them. Yeah, sure, they're destined for extermination, but they are going to be exterminated over her dead body.
In a lot of branches of Christianity, and even in some creeds--though I'm going to give into my pet peeves here and state that it is NOT Scriptural and relies on the faulty assumption that God is bound by time, when I think God exists outside of it--state that Jesus descended into hell after his death and took all the souls of people who were saved prior to his coming to earth to heaven. Again, I think that's small-minded at best. But, the idea that Charlie is working among them to bring them to heaven is pretty reminiscent of this idea. And I don't hate it lol.
Charlie sees worth inherent in everyone, and no matter what they've done, thinks there's a future for them. Honestly we need people like her on this earth.
Angel Dust
Angel Dust is clearly my favorite character. Bite back your shock, I know (I have a type). But his name is also a fascinating multi-layered pun.
Angel is clearly foreshadowing his endgame. Let's be real, we all know Angel is ending up as an angel. And "angeldust" is of course a name for PCP, and considering Angel's drug habits, yeah.
But, dust also has another meaning to it. See, when Adam was created in Genesis 2:7, the words in Hebrew are "apar min ha'adamah," which is translated literally as "dust of the ground." So the dust is what creates Adam, literally "ground."
In other words, I very much expect Angel Dust to end up being foiled with Adam even more so. Adam might be the first man, but Angel is the first sinner working towards redemption. And let's be real, for all Angel's flaws, he's already a better person than Adam. And if there's any hope for Adam (not that I particularly care if there is but) it'd be through realizing that he and Angel aren't actually different after all. Conversely (and not necessarily mutually exclusively), Angel might serve as a more symbolic "adam" in that he becomes the person all sinners look to for hope. Which, y'know, since "the last Adam" is also a Scriptural term for Jesus...
And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45).
I fully expect Angel's arc, alongside Charlie's, to bring life and redemption for everyone around them. Maybe, maybe even the dramatic "all" of Colossians 1:20 (which means, literally, all, everything, everywhere, in the entire universe).
Closing Thoughts
But honestly, regardless of how the story ends--besides that it will presumably end happily because HH is at its core feel-good despite being profane--season one at least has got good theology. Why? Because it's digging into the questions that theology is concerned with. It's digging into the ideas of human nature, of what it means to be a good person, of what it means to redeem oneself, of affirming how precious each individual human soul is.
It doesn't offer cheap answers, and it specifically calls out the white American evangelical church for how it purports to be simple but actually just confuses people and punishes them for things they can't help, that creates more stumbling blocks than it does shine a light. And it does it in a way that is scandalous. Offensive to many religious people.
But, y'know, Jesus was pretty scandalous too.
So I really love the story so far because it emphasizes what I find so beautiful about my religion, and criticizes the parts that have also hurt me. I don't think it's remotely aiming to be a Christian allegory or anything like that, and I don't at all think anyone has to be religious to enjoy it or gain the core message of it, but I do think that it's doing a hell of a lot more good in the world message-wise than most evangelical movies of the past 30 years.
#hazbin hotel#hamliet reviews#theology#christianity#charlie morningstar#jesus#angel dust#angel hazbin hotel
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The Quest for a Second Life - Part 5 - 50 Shades of Audacity (1)
KAKASHI X ALPHA!READER
Summary: If suddenly waking up in an uncanny office had been bad, this time was worse, because you had a job interview, and the guy before you had just stormed out in tears. Why did you pick this world again? And why is your boss an asshole? And sexy? And with a nice voice? Fuck, this wasn't going to be good. GN!Dom!Alpha!Reader x Multiple
Word Count: 10.8k
Warnings: Alcohol consumption, sex while both parties are a little tipsy, workplace violations, questions about someone not eating lunch due to being a workaholic, and overuse of the world asshole as an adjective. All alphas have dicks, fyi.
A/N: Happy Holidays everyone! And a special happy holidays to those who guessed that our next omega was going to be Kakashi!!! December is well underway and I'm working hard to get all these chapters finished in time for the epilogue to be released on Christmas! The dynamic is different with this one, but I hope everyone enjoys nonetheless <333 I hope you enjoy the choice for the second character, @omeganronpa I'm honoured to call you my friend <333
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Epilogue
In the span of one blink, you went from standing in the library with James, to sitting on an uncomfortable chair in some kind of office waiting room. No matter how many times you jumped between realities, you swore you would never get used to the complete sensory change that happened in milliseconds. You had changed positions, clothes, company and scenery just like that.
Trying to gain your bearings, you tried to take in your new surroundings. Your first thought was that you had some serious déjà vu, as James’ uncanny valley of an office sprung to mind. Seriously, how many times were you going to suddenly gain consciousness in a soulless office?
At least this one was a lot less creepy, you admitted. It had doors and windows for starters, but the cavernous size of the room also helped diminish the claustrophobic feeling. Rather than beige, the room was decorated in a tasteful, modern, monochrome, boring but inoffensive, and better than too much beige in your opinion.
The copious amounts of soulless corporate art on every surface were the final touches that convinced you this was a real office and not set dressing for purgatory.
The waiting room was full of people though. You hadn’t seen this many people in one place since Itachi took you into town, and the general air of anxiety coming off them all was putting you on edge.
You fidgeted, uncomfortable at suddenly wearing formal business wear. The blue folder that was sitting on your lap shifted slightly, but you paid it no mind as you straightened everything out and readjusted yourself into a more comfortable position. To your left, what you could only describe as the combination of a modern water feature and grandfather clock chimed, signalling it as 09:00 AM.
‘James? Can you hear me?’
‘I can, human alpha.’
‘Great. Can you give me a run down of this pocket dimension please? It’s been like, two weeks since I read the blurb.’
‘Of course. ’50 Shades of Audacity’ follows MC, an alpha graduate student who lands the role of personal assistant to one of the most famous CEOs of the time, omega, Kakashi Hatake. MC discovers that Kakashi is hiding a submissive streak, and together, they explore their relationship while preparing for the yearly Autumn Company Party.’
You nodded idly as James explained it, vague memories coming back to you. The man next to you shot you a weird look, and you realised you were nodding at seemingly nothing. You cleared your throat and shifted awkwardly. Whoops.
Regardless, the blurb put your current situation into perspective. When you had chosen the book, you had expected to enter the world already working as a personal assistant, but you had a sneaking suspicion that this was the job interview and all the people sat with you were competition.
To confirm your suspicion, you opened the folder on your lap, and yep, it was filled with important documents, including your CV, degree certificate, and several references. Damn, for someone decently young, you seemed to be the perfect candidate. That did relieve some of the tension. The world was literally set up to push you into the role, and you were the perfect candidate, surely there was nothing to worry about. For now, you decided to try and relax. Job interviews were a pain in the ass, but this one hopefully wouldn’t be too bad. And you could always talk to James to pass the time.
‘James, I know you must be thinking something along the lines of, ‘what kind of human picks a life where they have a job, when they could choose to not have a job?’’
‘I have never had such a thought.’
‘But I’m playing the long game, James,’ you continued, ignoring her response. ‘This Hatake guy must be rolling in it, and so once we’re serious, there would be no reason for me to work anymore! And it’s not like we’d get divorced in an erotica novel, that wouldn’t make sense, so I just need this job to meet him, make him fall in love with me, and then, if I stay here, I’ll have a fancy CEO husband, and everything will work out great.’
‘I see. I believe humans term that strategy, ‘gold digging’.’
You were planning to argue back, but your outrage died on your lips when you realised that she was kind of right. You were only going to choose this omega if you actually loved him, of course, but you couldn’t deny that the main reason you had chosen this book in the first place was the money and possibility of a cushy life. And being able to retain access to the internet which was something you’d have to give up for a life with Itachi.
‘What backstory elements are set in stone here?’ you asked, realising that the amnesia trick wasn’t going to work a second time.
‘Primarily your qualifications and educational history. You also own both a flat and a car, although how you obtained those is up to you.’
Nice, that gave you a lot of freedom to work with. Also… was your flat nice? And what about your car? You hoped so, but even if they weren’t, you could get Hatake to pay for a nice upgrade.
A man with a clipboard walked out of the office door to your left and everyone in your vicinity snapped to attention. He had brown hair and intense, dark eyes that were a little unnerving. “The interviews for the personal assistant job have now begun. You will be called up one at a time. Ren Shimomura.”
The man who had given you a strange look earlier got up and walked into the office with a confident smile, his briefcase swinging gently by his side. When the door closed behind him, everyone relaxed a little and went back to their pointless busy tasks.
‘So, James, what can I expect from this job interview?’ you asked. You figured it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared, even if the universe was going to intervene for your success.
‘That question is more difficult to answer than you might think, human. Despite this pocket dimension being one of the most popular in the erotica category, no one has ever successfully passed the interview and obtained the personal assistant job.’
Your stomach dropped. What? That couldn’t be right, could it?
You laughed nervously, sure that you had misheard. ‘What? Surely the universe needs the person to get the job.’
‘Yes, it has been causing quite the issue. This world has been scheduled for removal for being too difficult to follow. You will be the last person from your realm to ever enter this one, whether you decide to stay or not.’
‘Thanks for warning me before I picked it,’ you ‘said’, your mental voice taking on a tinge of bitterness. So, you were pretty much doomed to failure here? Great.
‘I didn’t warn you, human.’
‘I know.’
Your mental conversation ended as the door to the office opened and the man, Ren, stormed out, looking like he was holding back angry tears. He exited the room swiftly, without so much of a glance back.
That certainly didn’t make you feel any better about your chances.
Neither did your name being called seconds later.
The man with the clipboard smiled at you as you stood, folder in hand. “Just in there, Mr. Hatake is waiting for you.”
You nodded and approached the door. Right, this was fine. You took a deep breath and reminded yourself of your situation. You didn’t need this job. You wouldn’t run out of money without it, you wouldn’t get blacklisted or arrested if something went wrong, you couldn’t die if something went very wrong. The very worst-case scenario was that you bungled this, spent the next two weeks enjoying some alone time in this world, and then returned to your beautiful witch.
So, really, what reason did you have to be nervous?
With that in mind, you took a fortifying breath and walked into the office with your head held high. This CEO couldn’t scare you.
The design of the office was much the same as the waiting room, with a monochrome colour scheme and minimal furniture. The entire back wall was glass, which bathed the office in natural light, but cast shadows around the impressive desk in the middle of the room. Behind the desk was an imposing desk chair that was currently faced away from you. The back of the chair was so high that you couldn’t technically tell if Hatake was sitting in it or not. In front of the desk was a much less impressive desk chair; presumably that chair was for you.
You walked towards your chair, marvelling at how cliché the whole ‘tall chair spin reveal’ thing was. What was he, a Bond villain? The main question though, was if he’d also be accidentally flashing his nipples at you. You stifled a laugh imagining a scary CEO turning around in his chair only for the buttons on his shirt to come flying off.
“Did I say that you could sit down?” The voice came from the highbacked chair, which was still facing away from you.
The CEO’s voice was hot, you couldn’t deny that, but his attitude was already ugly. What kind of high and mighty asshole spoke to people like that? Were you supposed to just stay standing until he offered the seat when he couldn’t even be bothered to face you? Fuck that.
Suddenly, what was remaining of your nervousness bled out of you, replaced by annoyance. Honestly, you had already accepted that you weren’t going to get this job or this omega as soon as James had explained the situation, but maybe you could still get something out of this. Like catharsis. You could berate Hatake on behalf of every shitty boss you couldn’t berate in the past and then this world would still be worth it.
“Unless you’re suffering from short term memory loss, there’s no need for me to answer that question.”
Finally, that seems to goad him into turning around. The chair swivelled, revealing Kakashi Hatake in all his glory. He was dressed in the exact kind of suit you expected for someone like him, expertly tailored, incredibly expensive, and in a tasteful blue colour. Just peeking out from his collar you noticed some clear scent patches, and you imagined you’d find the same ones on his wrists. He had grey-silver hair styled in a way that must have required a significant amount of hair wax, and equally grey eyes, one of which had a vertical scar running through it. He even had a frankly adorable beauty mark, what the fuck.
Fine. He was hot. That didn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole.
The look he was giving you was somehow both disparaging and uninterested, like he was looking at a badly painted wall.
“Why do you want this job?” he asked, voice bored and condescending. “You don’t seem like you’d be particularly good at it.”
You grit your teeth at his blatant disrespect, “Jobs provide the money which can be exchanged for goods and services required to facilitate survival, you see. Perhaps the silver spoon in your mouth prevented you from learning that dichotomy.” You missed your witch.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. He held out a hand, and you wordlessly passed him your folder of documents. You were honestly surprised that he hadn’t just kicked you out already. His motivations became clear however, when he picked out your CV, ripped it in half, and then tossed it in the bin.
This asshole! You were furious.
Hatake pressed a button on a raised box on his desk and began to speak into it, presumably to dismiss you and ask for the next person to be sent in.
You didn’t need this job, you couldn’t get into any meaningful trouble, and this man was royally pissing you off. Something in you just snapped.
“Tenzou, send—”
You grabbed him by his boring, blue tie and stood, pulling him partially over the desk and towards you. He gasped in surprise, letting go of the button as both hands flew up to grab your wrist. You expected him to immediately pull you off him, but he didn’t. He was still, staring at you with wide eyes. For the first time since you’d walked into his office, it felt like he was properly looking at you.
“I am the best fucking personal assistant out of any of those people out there, and I will not have some bratty CEO talk down to me, understood?”
“I’ll call security,” he said quietly, voice strangely hoarse.
“Don’t bother.” You let him go and he fell back heavily into his ridiculous chair.
“Senpai?” The clipboard man’s voice floated through the speaker on the black box. “Is everything okay? You cut out.”
The man didn’t reply to the message, he only stared at you. His face was blank, but you had the feeling that there was a lot going on inside his head.
‘Remember the story, human.’
For a moment, you thought James was encouraging you to play nice for the sake of the story, but then you realised that she meant. Fuck, that’s right, Kakashi Hatake was a secret submissive. He was probably very turned on and very confused right now. You sent him a cocky grin.
“The job starts Monday, yes?” He nodded, dumbly. “I’ll see you then, 08:00 sharp. All my documents are in the folder.” You walked to the door confidently, and just as you reached it, you turned. “Have a good day, sir.”
You opened the door just as the clipboard man tried to do the same on the other side. You paid neither him nor any of the other candidates any mind, you just strode towards the exit, adrenaline rushing through your veins.
The fresh air and sun hit you as you stepped outside into the office’s car park.
‘James, oh my god, I grabbed him by his tie.’
‘I saw, human, it was very unexpected. No other human has attempted such a method.’
‘I would so be blacklisted if this were real, James. Did… Did I do a good job? It felt like I did at the time, playing up to his submissive side, but now I just feel like I was crazy and there’s no way he’d give me the job.’
‘Only time will tell, human, I do not have the answers.’
‘Time… I can do that.’ You gazed out over the sea of cars, all shimmering in the sun. ‘Now, James, which car is mine?’
…
Once you had successfully found your nicer than expected car, you headed to your mysterious flat. It took longer than you thought, but at least you’d learnt some more about James; she was terrible at giving directions and did not know what a roundabout was.
Your flat, much like your car, was nicer than you expected for a recent graduate that worked as a personal assistant. It was stylish and cosy, with lots of wood tones and warm, textured fabrics. It could have fallen out of an interior design magazine, right down to the perfectly placed bowls of fruit. The flat even had a guest room and a home office.
You were going to put this one down to porn logic again and figure out some sort of explanation for why you had the money for this in your backstory.
After doing some snooping around the flat, you flopped down on your bed, feeling strangely exhausted. You pulled out your phone (and how strange it was to have modern technology back!) and checked the date. It was Friday lunch time, and you didn’t have to go to the job, presuming you even got it, until Monday. That meant you had an entire weekend to do what you wanted. That was the best news you’d heard all day.
‘James, is the entire world, I guess, loaded, for want of a better word? Like, theoretically, if I travelled across the world to a random village, would the people there be real? Does the world function outside of the story?’
‘Once you choose to remain in a world, it functions exactly like the one you came from, yes, complete with up to billions of people who each have their own lives. Not everything is ah, loaded, in this demo though. I would recommend staying firmly within this city for the time being.”
‘Amazing! That’s so exciting, James!’
‘If you say so.’
Alongside modern technology, staying in this world would also give you more chance to travel. With Itachi, you would be mostly going on foot, perhaps on a horse if you were lucky, but here you could be on the other side of the world in a day.
That was for future you to weigh up though, right now you needed to find a bank statement of some kind, because you wanted to spend this weekend pampering yourself and you needed to know your budget. You could think about Kakashi Hatake and this world later, once you had your thoughts in order.
The weekend passed in a blur of bubble baths, food delivery apps, and films. You’d even gone for a dip in your complex’s pool. It had been nice to recharge. You had enjoyed spending time with Itachi immensely, but you’d had almost no proper alone time for over half a month, and it was sorely needed.
The only other thing of note happened on Saturday, when you received an email from Hatake’s company, which contained your new company account and login details.
…
Walking into work on Monday was a surreal feeling that you couldn’t put into words. No one acted like anything strange had happened. You were treated like a normal new hire, which you suspected meant Hatake had kept the details of your interview to himself.
Speaking of Hatake, he was apparently in meetings all morning and so you wouldn’t see him for a few hours. You didn’t know if you were irritated or relieved that your likely awkward reunion would be postponed.
“So, here is Kakashi’s calendar, which kind of functions like the core of your job,” Iruka, the man who was training you, said. “You’ll be in charge of organising his appointments and commitments and reminding him to attend them.” The last part was added with a tone that suggested Hatake had not always been the best at either being on time or showing up at all.
“Got it. No double bookings, and smack Hatake with a ruler if he tries to escape.”
Iruka snorted, but quickly smothered the laugh with a hand. “Pretty much. For today, I’ve gone through your inbox and marked the emails that require appointments as urgent. You just need to schedule them and add them to his calendar. It’s pretty busy at the moment because of the Autumn Company Party at the end of the month, so don’t worry if everything’s a bit much. My desk is over there, so you can ask for help at any time, okay?”
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.” You grinned at him, and he smiled back.
“Good luck!” With that he was gone. That wasn’t the first time the Autumn Company Party had come up, but you still weren’t sure what that had to do with the plot of his pocket dimension. It certainly wasn’t as straight forward as ‘collect the potion ingredients’.
‘James, what’s the deal with this party? What’s going to happen at it?’
‘There are many, many ways the event can play out, human. Seeing that you are the first to make it past the interview, I cannot even tell you which outcomes are most likely.’
‘Damn. Well, thanks anyway.’
You ended up whizzing through your work. It was incredibly simple, which could have been because they were taking it easy on you for your first day, or because work in general was easier in porn universes. You finished before Hatake was freed from his morning meetings, so you decided to do a little googling on your new boss. As such a high-profile CEO, you were sure you could find some information on him.
You put his name into the search bar and scrolled through the top results.
There were mostly news articles and links to the company websites, but eventually his Wikipedia page popped up and you clicked on it, skimming down the paragraphs immediately. Your eyebrows kept rising up as you read. His father, the original founder of the company had committed suicide when Kakashi was four years old, leaving him an orphan. He had been immediately added to the company’s board of directors (at four years old?!), and when he’d turned eighteen and those overseeing the company didn’t seem keen to pass it back to him, Kakashi had staged a business coup and seized control by force.
Jeez, what a life story.
Closing the Wikipedia page, you opened a couple of articles instead. One was a gossip magazine speculating on his famous bachelorhood and why he hadn’t settled down yet. Another was talking about the large donations he had made to several dog and animal welfare charities. The third was just a listicle of pictures of him from various point throughout his life. Ha. He looked like he was such a cute, grumpy kid.
You had to admit that his character was perfectly set up to redeem him for being an asshole at your first meeting. Dead parents, a tragic backstory, betrayal from those supposed to look after him, an animal lover… You bet that he had been forced to supress his emotions to avoid being manipulated as a child, too. That was about as stereotypical as you could get. Were he a fictional character, his fans would easily excuse any rudeness and ruthlessly defend him online. And that was fine, but they weren’t the ones who had to be on the receiving end of his rudeness.
Ugh, you didn’t know what to do with him. On one hand, you were happy ignoring him for being mean to you in your interview, but on the other, you kind of wanted to get to know him to see what the story was about. Maybe you’d put in a bit of effort as a show of good faith, but if he insisted on rebuffing you, you’d give up and find some other way to enjoy yourself. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.
Dog lovers were your weakness, so you couldn’t give up on him completely, not just yet.
You closed the tabs and, checking the time, you realised you still had some leeway before Hatake was free. You needed to come up with your backstory sharpish, because you didn’t have amnesia this time, and people would likely start asking questions about you once lunch hit. Best get your story straight first.
You grabbed a post-it note and jotted down your favourite acronym, MLHH (Money, Love, Health, Happiness), to keep you on target.
Loving parents, you definitely wanted those. Were they the ones you wanted funding your lifestyle? Hmm, no, how about a rich, eccentric aunt that sent money all the time? Yes, you’d always wanted a fun, rich uncle or aunt to spoil you. Perhaps she had been the one to buy you the house and car. You jotted it all down. You also crafted yourself two best friends and a couple of hobbies, just to enrich your life. As per James’ instructions, you left the academic stuff alone.
“Am I paying you to write details about your own life on post it notes?” A sudden voice from behind made you jump, smacking your knees on the underside of the desk with a bang.
You laughed awkwardly as you came face to face with the man of the hour, Kakashi Hatake, who had chosen a charcoal grey suit for today, giving him an overall monochrome vibe that matched the office building. He was staring at your post it note, unimpressed.
You snatched the note and put it in your pocket. Quick, find some way to change the subject!
“I’ve updated your calendar with more meetings and commitments. This afternoon you only have a phone call with a representative from a company that sells… custom dog bandanas?” You decided not to question it. “The rest of the afternoon is business as usual.”
He watched you for a moment before he nodded, and turned to enter his office door, which was only a few feet from your desk.
“Just so you know,” he said, turning to look at you over his shoulder, “more work is periodically added to your task list, you just need to refresh the page.”
The door slammed shut behind him. You made a frustrated noise. He was so rude, with his annoyingly hot face and perfect voice. God, he got on your nerves like no one else. Ugh, you already regretted deciding to give him a chance.
You refreshed the task list and watched it fill up with new tasks.
Why did you pick a world where you had a job again? Oh yeah, you were playing the long game. The long game sucked.
You spent the rest of the workday completing tasks and flip flopping on whether it was worth trying to chase the plot and romance Hatake. Instinctually you led towards no, but when you remembered how he’d responded to you in the interview, you wavered. Ultimately, your curiosity was too much to resist, so you hatched a plan to spend some time with him.
…
“Did you have someone sneak you lunch through the window, or have you not eaten yet today?” you asked, waltzing into Hatake’s office at exactly 17:05, coat and bag ready to leave.
Hatake finished whatever he was writing before putting down the pen and giving you a flat look. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, and I’m certain I told you to knock before coming in.”
“Firstly, the workday ended five minutes ago so you’re not the boss of me anymore. Secondly, that was the clearest no I’ve ever heard. You should make time to eat lunch, you know, it’s good for you.”
“If you don’t have anything of use to say, then leave.” Ugh, why were you dealing with this asshole again?
“Actually, I do.” He raised an eyebrow at you, like he was already dismissing your message. “Get dinner with me.”
That actually seemed to catch him off guard, if only for a moment. You had honestly been wondering if the side of him you glimpsed in your interview was some kind of hallucination, but there was a flicker of that same man now. Unfortunately, although you could see that, you could also see the moment he shut down the reaction and returned to his flat, impassive stare.
“I’m busy this evening—”
“I already moved your appointment to tomorrow morning.”
He narrowed his eyes at you. You didn’t know if it was irritation at your messing with his schedule or at interrupting him, but you did know that you were getting on his nerves. Good.
“And I suppose, if you’re inviting me, then you’re paying?” he challenged. “Fair warning, I have expensive taste.”
‘James, quick, what’s the best restaurant in the area?’
‘Kakashi Hatake often visits a restaurant about two miles from here, called La Liaison. It’s French, and incredibly pricy.’
Right, you tried to remember what you’d seen you your bank details. You could definitely afford one fancy meal; it was affording everything else after that that was the problem.
Hatake’s smug face at your hesitation spurred you on. You wracked your brain for some kind of solution.
‘James, if I decide that my rich aunt sends me large lump sums of money every month, will my bank account automatically replenish by the end of this demo?’
‘Technically, yes, although it will only happen if you choose this dimension permanently, as your rich aunt does not yet exist. You must also remember to speak or write any information you want to be true for it to take effect.’
Perfect. You could wipe that smug look off Hatake’s face, live a bit more frugally for the rest of the demo, and if for some unknown reason you chose to stay here, you’d have your money automatically replenished. You just had to remember to write the details down after dinner tonight.
“Of course, it’ll be my treat,” you smiled, tips tight. “Do you like French food? I heard La Liaison is lovely.”
Kakashi studied you for a moment, like he was trying to figure out what game you were playing. Just as you thought you’d won the little verbal exchange, Hatake sent you a mocking eye smile. “And how are you planning on gaining a reservation at such short notice? The next available evening bookings are for two months from now.”
You tensed up like you’d been dealt a physical blow. Fuck, you forgot about bookings. There was no way you could allow him to win just like that, though. You took a deep breath, porn logic, I believe in you, please help me out, I’m trying to woo him, just as you wanted. Kind of.
“I’m sure it will all work out!” You voice was artificially chipper, and you could tell that Hatake was picking up on your anxiety. “Come on, what’s the harm? Let’s go!”
He watched you evenly. That was one thing you’d noticed about Hatake; he always thought before he spoke, choosing each action and word carefully. It made sense once you considered his childhood and was equal parts sad and irritating.
Just when you thought he was about to refuse and dismiss you, Hatake chuckled and stood, closing his computer and grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his ridiculously dramatic desk chair.
“I’ll have my chauffeur drop us off,” he said, walking to the door. You followed, kind of stunned that he had agreed at all. He locked the office door behind him. “There’s no parking available at this time of day in the town centre.”
You walked through the office side by side, watching your coworkers pack up or work late.
Everyone noticed you two, armed with bags and coats that made it obvious you were leaving together. There were gasps, there was gossiping, there were whispers. The man with the clipboard, who had introduced himself to you as Yamato, looked like he had seen a ghost. Was it really that strange to see this CEO leave work on time, or was it because he was with you?
Hatake paid them no mind, and you tried to do the same.
It was strange that he agreed to join you, but you didn’t get your hopes up that this meant he suddenly liked you. It was more likely that he was coming in order to force your hand. If you were humiliated by there being no tables, or not being able to afford the food you said you could, it would likely stop you from bothering him outside of work again.
You just really, really hoped there would somehow be a table.
Once you arrived at the car park, there was a sleek, black car waiting for you. You weren’t sure if Hatake had somehow called ahead without you noticing, or if his car was already ready for him, but it was very convenient. If the chauffeur was surprised that Hatake had a guest, he didn’t mention it.
The car was so obviously expensive that you felt a little uncomfortable sitting in it. You had never been so conscious of your hand placement in your life. The brat of a CEO didn’t seem to have the same problem, relaxing easily against the leather, looking right at home. He gave the driver the name of the restaurant, and you were off.
You took a moment to beg the pocket dimension that somehow you would be able to get a seat. ‘Porn logic, I’ve always loved and respected you, please pull through for me, just this once! I won’t be able to handle Hatake’s smug grin without punching him in the face.’
‘My name is James, human, and I cannot control these pocket dimensions.’
You snorted, ‘I wasn’t speaking to you James, sorry.’
“What’s so funny?” Hatake asked, breaking the silence. Oh, you had laughed out loud; you had to stop doing that. Were you also doing it when you were with Itachi, but there were just fewer people around to comment on it? Itachi seemed like the sort who would take a lot of weirdness in stride.
“Your face.”
Hatake let out an amused breath, “Are you always so childish?”
“What can I say? You bring out the worst in me.”
“Approximately five minutes until arrival, sir,” the chauffeur said, speaking through a speaker that connected the front and back sections of the car.
“Just Kakashi is fine,” he sighed. “I’ve told you that a hundred times.”
“If you say so, sir.” Hatake rolled his eyes but dropped the issue.
The final five minutes passed it silence.
…
La Liaison was a small modern building nestled at the very end of the high street, decorated in pastel blue and covered in artificial ivy. The whole building exuded a timeless elegance that made you glad your work dress code was formal. Stepping through the doors, you were welcomed by warm lighting, live piano music, and an impeccably dressed host. This was the exact kind of place you could see Hatake fitting right in.
“Good afternoon, and welcome to La Liaison. Can I take the name on your reservation, please?”
You could practically feel the amusement radiating off the smug asshole behind you as you were faced with the exact situation he had predicted. You just had to go for it. You believed in the porn logic!
(And if it didn’t work you were going to return to your flat with your tail between your legs, make James pull you out of this dimension early, and then ask Itachi for a potion that could remove memories instead of bringing them back.)
“Ah, well, we don’t technically have a reservation, but an acquaintance of mine mentioned that they just had to cancel theirs, so we were hoping there’d be a free table.”
Please work, please work, please work.
The two seconds between your request and the host’s response felt like an agonising eternity. Failure wasn’t an option; you couldn’t lose to your awful boss.
The relief you felt when the host’s face melted into a smile almost knocked you to your knees.
“Is that so? Yes, I just got off the phone with them, you’re lucky no one else has claimed the table yet. If you’ll pass my college your coats, I’ll take you to your table.”
Yes, yes, yes!! You loved porn logic so much. It seemed like anything was fair game as long as it pushed you and Mr. Smug together. Speaking of Mr. Smug, you mouthed ‘I told you so’, as you walked to your table. He did not respond.
The table was, unsurprisingly, very romantic. It was secluded away in the corner, pressed up against a window and yet sectioned from the rest of the restaurant by a divider. The table sat two people, and its white tablecloth was covered in candles and rose petals. Of course, the cancelled reservation was for a romantic date. You weren’t going to complain though; a table was a table.
You both sat down. You briefly debated pulling out the chair for Hatake, but you decided against it at the last minute. You were both handed menus and informed of the soup of the day before the waiter left you in peace. The illusion of privacy helped you relax, despite the stuffy atmosphere.
“An acquaintance, huh?” Kakashi asked, unfolding his napkin and laying it over his lap. He obviously didn’t believe your lie.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly annoying?” you said, instead of answering his question.
“Once or twice.”
“Well then,” you shot him a sarcastic smile, “I’m glad you have such honest people in your life.”
“As am I.” The eye smile he sent you this time seemed more genuine, and you had to hold back your laugh.
The conversation faded for a moment as the background chatter from the rest of the restaurant filled the space. It was weird to be here with him, and maybe you were still riding the high of getting a table, but you were already enjoying yourself.
“So… you come here often?” you asked, picking up the menu. You supressed a wince at the prices. “It seems like you’re right at home.”
“It makes for a convenient location to dazzle those who demand such treatment before they’ll sign anything.”
“Ugh, so this is where you take people to schmooze them? Gross.” You flipped over the menu to find the drinks section, only to belatedly realise that the drinks had their own menu already on the table. “I can’t imagine you doing that successfully; you’re so rude.”
“Maybe you just bring out the worst in me.”
The way he reused your words from earlier reluctantly brought a smile to your face. Okay fine. Fine! You’d admit that he was witty, and you had some good chemistry. And he was hot. But that was it! That didn’t mean you were going to fall in love with someone so annoying!
‘I believe you were also interested in his love for dogs, human alpha.’
‘James, I’m trying to live in denial here, and you’re ruining it.’
‘My apologies. Does that mean that I should also refrain from mentioning your obvious obsession with his beauty mark?’
Sometimes, you weren’t sure that James wasn’t an elaborate troll.
Scanning the menu, you decided the vegetarian pasta looked nice. And if it was also the cheapest thing on the menu, well that was just a coincidence. This better be one of the best meals of your life.
Kakashi left his menu completely untouched. Right, he’d been here countless of times to charm people into signing away their money. He was probably treating this dinner as something similar, but with you wanting something from him instead. You doubted he’d believe you if you said you were doing this out of curiosity. But the questioned remained, how could you make this feel different for him?
Suddenly, it hit you; he liked when other people took control. You had an idea.
‘James, can you tell me what Kakashi normally orders from here?’
‘He always orders one of the seafood dishes, accompanied by a white wine.’
Right. Perfect. What you were about to do would be so out of order in real life, but you had plot armour, and honestly you wanted to see what would happen.
When the waiter returned, he directed his, “Are you ready to order?”, towards Kakashi. He probably recognised him if he was a regular, and figured he was schmoozing another hapless soul.
That didn’t fit what you had in mind though.
“Yes, we are,” you said confidently, before Kakashi could speak. “We’ll have a bottle of the Chateau Sixtine Blanc and some still water for the table. For food, I’ll have the vegetarian pasta, and he’ll have the Coquilles Saint-Jacques.”
Kakashi’s stare was intense, but he didn’t intervene. The waiter seemed taken aback that you were ordering for the table, but when Kakashi made no move to dispute what you’d said, he nodded, collected your menus, and left. You expected to be admonished in some way, but Kakashi remained silent.
Drinks arrived quickly. The waiter poured you both a glass of the wine and some water before he was gone again. Kakashi picked up the wine glasses and swirled it dramatically before taking a sip.
When he spoke, you had expected a question about how you found out his usual order, or perhaps a comment on the wine, but no, instead, he was his usual blunt self.
“I wonder what it is you’re hoping to gain from this.”
“That’s fine, you can wonder all you like.”
He sent you a measured look, “Has anyone ever told you you’re incredibly annoying?”
You grinned, “Nope!”
“I see. Well, I hope you’ll be blessed with some honest people in your life soon, I’ve found having them around to be extraordinarily helpful.”
You snorted mid sip of wine, which probably didn’t look attractive. Coughing, you looked up, expecting a judgemental look for behaving such a way in a fancy restaurant, but Kakashi just looked amused.
“Can I ask you a question?” You dabbed your lips with your napkin to soak up any stray wine drops. “What was the deal with that interview? It didn’t seem like you even wanted any applicants there. Was it just some weird form of employment hazing?”
“Simple. I didn’t want an assistant; I work better alone.”
“Then why hold the interview at all?”
“The board of directors were very… persistent. I knew they’d only shut up if I scared off every personal assistant in the city.”
You sent him a searching look, “But you hired me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, “You had comedy value.”
Comedy value!? This dick.
“Liar,” you shot back. “You just think I’m hot, admit it.”
You got another one of his infuriating eye smiles. “If you say so.” God, you wanted to punch him, and maybe kiss him. Fuck.
“Whatever, just know that it’s your turn to pay for dinner next time, an I’m ordering the most expensive thing I can find.”
“If we go out for dinner too often, people will talk.”
“As if they aren’t already,” you said, referencing the sate of the office you’d left behind. You’d bet that they’d all stayed late to swap theories. “Yamato looked at us like a child who’d just walked in on his parents having sex.”
Kakashi seemed amused, “He would not appreciate that description.”
“That doesn’t make it any less true.”
As the conversation flowed, so did the wine. You were surprised by how much fun you were having. Hatake was a great conversationalist and the rapid-fire banter had you laughing out loud more than once. The food was just as good as you’d hoped as well.
To your utter delight, Hatake’s face turned pink as he drank. So cute. You couldn’t stop yourself from reaching out to feel the warm skin. Kakashi leaned into the hand in an almost nuzzle. You did not expect him to reciprocate. Shocked, you froze, hand still on his cheek.
Hatake seemed surprised too because he suddenly wrenched himself away from you. You pulled your hand back like it’d been burnt.
You’d bet anything that he was touch starved.
“Sorry, Hatake, I don’t know why I—”
“Kakashi,” he muttered, “you can call me Kakashi. Everyone does.”
“Kakashi,” you repeated, sending him a small smile. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. You kind of wanted to lick his face.
Kakashi’s phone buzzed in his pocket, shattering the moment. Disappointingly, he immediately slipped it out of his pocket and checked the message. You weren’t exactly surprised that he put checking his phone over your conversation, but it was still rude, whether you expected it or not.
Kakashi made an amused noise as he saw the expression on your face. “I only have audible notifications on for important people; I’m just checking to make sure nothing is wrong, there’s no need to look so offended.”
You sputtered, face heating up, “I’m not offended! I was just thinking it was rude to check your phone at dinner.”
“Ruder than ordering for someone else without their permission?”
“Whatever,” you mumbled, crossing your arms. “You liked it.”
Kakashi didn’t acknowledge you as he checked his messaged. You watched his eyes move from side to side as he read, before he eventually barked out a laugh and put the phone away.
“What’s funny?”
“One of my friends evidently found out that I was out to dinner. He has wished us luck on our youthful endeavours.”
You pulled a face at the weird phrasing. “He sounds… interesting.”
“You have no idea,” Kakashi said before emptying his wine glass.
“People seem so surprised about this. You don’t get out much then?”
Kakashi barked a laugh that sounded surprisingly bitter, and then didn’t elaborate. In true erotica love interest fashion, there was something brewing below the surface. Touch starved, orphaned, rich, but lonely, he was about as stereotypical as it got. You wondered if he’d also killed someone like Itachi? Hmm, probably not. This was a modern universe, and there were normally more severe consequences for things like that. It would have at least been mentioned on his wiki page.
By the time you had finished eating, the city outside the window had lit up in the darkness. The traffic had died down once rush hour ended, but the occasional car still passed by. You checked your phone and realised you’d been having dinner with Kakashi for almost two hours.
Your pride didn’t stop you from admitting that the time was flying because you were having fun.
Still, it was getting late, so you waved down a waiter and requested the bill. You were hoping that, seeing as you’d taken charge with ordering, that he would… yes! The waiter put the bill down in front of you instead of Kakashi.
You grinned at him smugly; you’d been assigned dom by wait staff.
He rolled his eyes at you, but you could see the smile on his face.
The bill wasn’t great, but it could have been worse. Clearly you hadn’t managed to keep your grimace supressed completely though because Kakashi noticed.
“Having second thoughts?” He was annoyingly observant.
You had never pulled out your card faster, grateful that you’d found your pin number written down in some old documents in your flat. Kakashi watched you pay, a strange glint in his eyes.
Did he assume you were going to dine and dash and make him pay or something? No… that wasn’t it. His ears had gone red too, and not from the alcohol.
He liked it, you realised gleefully. He liked that you ordered for him. He liked that you paid for him. He liked that you had decided on the place and time and dragged him along. It fit his reaction and it fit his character.
You were certain that most of his acquaintances either saw Kakashi as some kind of aloof, ‘didn’t believe in love’ character, or as a hard dom. And on the surface, sure, you could understand why they thought that, but how could anyone continue to think so once they spoke to him properly, when he was practically crying out for someone to take care of him?
Exhilaration ran through you. Maybe you were in this for more than just curiosity now.
“Come on,” you said, standing. “It’s getting late, and I still need to get my car—Shoot, I’m probably over the limit. I guess it’s a taxi for me then.”
“I can drop you home.” Kakashi stood as well, and you both walked to collect your coats. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Thanks,” you said relieved. You needed to at least try to budget after the amount you just spent on dinner.
Just as you were putting on your coats, Kakashi’s phone ran in his pocket. Remembering what he said about only having important people on vibrate, you remained silent as he took the call. You couldn’t quite make out the murmurs on the other side of the call, but Kakashi didn’t look pleased.
“Right… Okay… And there’s no alternate route? Of course… It can’t be helped, just meet me at the office.”
Did he have a last-minute work obligation perhaps?
“Yes, okay, I’ll see you soon.” He hung up the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Bad news, there’s been a minor accident on the road and my driver can’t get to us. We can get through on the pedestrian pathways just fine, so we’ll have to go back to the office on foot.”
“Oh, that’s not a big deal, it’s only about twenty minutes, right?” You didn’t understand why he seemed so serious about a minor hold up. Did he think you were going to be mad at him or something? Kakashi relaxed imperceptibly as it became clear that you didn’t mind.
It only occurred to you later, once you were well into the walk, that Kakashi was used to schmoozing a bunch of hoity toity rich people at La Liaison who probably would throw a fit at such a minor inconvenience. Those kinds of people were the worst.
“Why did you ask me to dinner tonight?” Kakashi asked. He spoke casually, but in a way that suggested the casualness was being used to disguise a more serious question.
You knew that he wouldn’t stop until he got an answer that satisfied him, and you didn’t want your relationship to be stained by doubts as to your intentions, so you decided to give him an answer as close to the truth as possible. If you started talking about erotic fiction, he’d probably call some kind of doctor.
“Because you seemed miserable, and I was curious about you. Figured this would kill two birds with one stone. Also, you piss me off, I won’t lie.”
“You took me to dinner because I piss you off?” Kakashi asked, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Is that some kind of fetish or is it a psychological defect?”
You squawked indignantly and tried to hit him on the arm. He dodged it, laughing.
“You’re one to talk! You hired me after I grabbed you by the tie in a job interview. That’s got to be a fetish and a psychological defect!” You shoved him on the shoulder, and he immediately shoved you back, and before you knew it, you were having a children’s battle on the street.
A random woman from across the street gave you a dirty look, you stuck your tongue out at her. Kakashi giggled, like, actually giggled, and that sent you into hysterics.
Maybe you’d had more to drink than you thought.
“You know,” you said, throwing your arm over his shoulder, “next time I take you out, we’re going to McDonald’s. It’s cheaper, and I think it’ll be funny to watch you sit there in your suit. Wait, have you ever been to a McDonald’s before?”
“I’m wealthy, I’m not an alien.” He rolled his eyes at you. He seemed to do that a lot. You couldn’t imagine him sitting in a McDonald’s. “I go every other week because my dogs like the carrot sticks from there.”
“You feed your dogs carrot sticks from McDonald’s?”
“Yep.”
“Have you ever considered, I don’t know, buying a pack of carrots?”
“No, because they like the ones from McDonald’s.”
You shook your head in disbelief. Rich people were crazy. “How many dogs do you have anyway?”
“Eight.”
“EIGHT?!”
…
Car parks at night, familiar or not, were unnerving in the way that liminal spaces always were. At least you were almost at the office doors, where Kakashi’s chauffeur was going to pick you both up. You were glad to finally get there, because as fun as the walk had been, the Autumn night was surprisingly chilly, and it was taking genuine effort to remember all of Kakashi’s dogs’ names. You were honestly surprised that the porn logic didn’t add any strange occurrences on the walk.
Naturally, the second that thought formed in your head, something happened.
As you passed round the side of a tall fence, your shirt got caught on a stray piece of metal. What would have been a minor inconvenience, barely a rip, in your old reality, was a complete pornographic disaster in this one, as every button on your shirt somehow ripped off, leaving your shirt hanging open.
The cold air hit your skin and goosebumps erupted all over your chest. Yelping, you dragged the pieces of shirt back together and held them firmly closed. Obviously, you weren’t fast enough to stop Kakashi from getting a look. The way he was pointedly looking away from you, rosy cheeked, said it all.
“Stupid fence,” you grumbled, giving it a dirty look. This wasn’t exactly the first time, or even the coldest time, that porn logic had decided to spontaneously strip someone, but it always managed to catch you off guard. Did the people who lived in erotica worlds always carry spare changes of clothes just in case?
“Are you hurt?” Kakashi asked. He sounded a little awkward, but ultimately sincere. It was nice that he’d decided to go for genuine concern over sarcasm, and you decided to do the same.
“I’m fine, it just caught me by surprise. At least it’s dark so no one caught an eye full.”
Kakashi coughed. Okay, no one apart from him.
“I’ll send a message to maintenance in the morning, but for now, I have a spare shirt in my office that you’re welcome to borrow for the evening.”
Huh, what do you know, people did keep spare clothes around. You were about to decline, citing the late hour and the fact that you were wearing a coat that you could do up, when you realised what was happening. You’d bet anything that something sexy would happen if you followed him up to his office.
“That would be great, thanks.” You weren’t going to let this slide from your grip when he was so pretty. And honestly, he was starting to seem like less of an asshole in general. He was fun, traumatised, and had eight dogs, if that wasn’t your type, you didn’t know what was.
…
Flickering the lights on in his office, Kakashi went into one of the cupboards to look for the shirt while you snooped at the ornaments he had on his shelves. Notably, there were no pictures. You picked up a weird ceramic circle statue and turned it over to see if it did anything cool.
You had passed a security guard on the way up to Kakashi’s office, that looked very intrigued as to why you two were together so late, and why your shirt was ripped open, so you resigned yourself to the rumour mill only getting worse by tomorrow.
“Are you nosy by nature or just interested in my office in particular?”
“Shut up.” You put back the ornament and turned to face him. He was holding the spare shirt in his hand. “You want to fuck me so bad, don’t deny it.”
You expected another eye roll.
“Oh, you have no idea,” he growled, watching you intensely. Oh, that wasn’t an eye roll.
One moment you were staring at him, unsure of what to say, and the next, you were crashing together, lips, tongue, and teeth, in a horny and aggressive kiss. You didn’t know which one of you moved first, you didn’t really care, you only knew that Kakashi was hot and infuriating, and you wanted to kiss him until he couldn’t make that smug face anymore.
Kissing Kakashi was giving you whiplash. He was different to Itachi in every way you could think of. He was confident, aggressive, he fought with you, clashed with you, and he seemed to determined to kiss you twice as hard as you kissed him.
It was obvious that Kakashi’s submission wouldn’t be freely given like Itachi’s, no, you would have to earn it. The challenge scratched at your instincts, and suddenly you wanted to prove to this omega that he could trust you. A good orgasm should lay the groundwork for that.
Both coats were quickly discarded as you kissed, and your ruined shirt fell off moments later.
You had been consciously avoiding his hair in fear of the amount of wax you figured he used to keep that hair style, but one weak moment, as Kakashi’s hips jolted forwards towards yours, you forgot, and ran you fingers through it.
To your surprise, your fingers glided through the soft strands easily. You were so shocked that you broke the kiss. You furrowed your eyebrows as you examined his hair.
“What are you doing?” he panted, confused.
“How the fuck does your hair stay up like that without any hairspray or wax?”
“What?” He sounded baffled. “This is just what my hair looks like. Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
The kiss resumed, somehow more desperate and aggressive than before. Kakashi grabbed your waist so hard that you could feel the pin pricks from his nails digging into your skin. In return, you made use of your new found knowledge and grabbed a handful of Kakashi’s hair.
You pushed him backwards, never once breaking the rhythm of your kiss, until his upper thighs made contact with the front of his desk. His pot of pens fell as the desk jolted, scattering the expensive pens all over the ground. Neither of you paid it any mind.
When you finally pulled away for air, Kakashi wasted no time, immediately latching onto your neck with reckless abandon. There was something feral about him that was making you hot. He didn’t hold back. You could tell that he was experienced, and he was using every drop of that experience to his advantage.
While he was distracted, you worked on undoing his buttons. It was harder than it looked to remain focused while Kakashi was doing his best impression of a vampire on your neck.
“You have way too many fucking buttons on this shirt.”
“It’s a normal number of buttons,” he murmured against your skin.
“There is literally nothing normal about you.”
“And you say I’m the rude one.”
“That’s because you fucking are.”
Eventually, you managed to undo the last button. Your noise of triumph morphed into a moan as Kakashi nipped around your collar bone. You used his hair to tug him back before loosening his tie and pushing the shirt off his shoulders.
The way his torso looked, bare but with a loose tie hanging over it, unlocked a kink you didn’t know you had. In fact, everything about him was hot. As you dragged the shirt down his arms, you could feel his muscles flexing. Kakashi was strong and broad, and he wore it so well.
You didn’t bother pulling the shirt off all the way, instead letting it bunch at his wrists, acting as a semi-restraint. He tugged at it experimentally, and when he found it restricting his movement, his pupils dilated.
You cooed as you ran your hands all over his naked torse. That’s right, he was a forceful person, certainly, but any shows of dominance were likely performative or learnt behaviours, because this man was a giant sub at heart.
You grabbed his bottom lip between your teeth and pulled it lightly. Kakashi growled at you, but you knew what he was doing; he wasn’t telling you to stop, he was challenging you. You growled back, stronger, louder, and just as you thought, his growling stopped, and his scent took on a delicious hint of submission.
“God, you really are annoyingly hot,” you growled, biting along his jaw. “Emphasis on annoying.”
“Takes one to know one,” he fired back, squeezing your waits.
“Mutual handjob?” you whispered against his skin, already undoing his trousers, before doing the same with yours.
“That the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”
“Fuck you.”
You grabbed Kakashi’s muscular thighs and lifted him slightly until he was perched on his desk. A stack of papers tipped over and fluttered to the ground, but that wasn’t a problem for present you, so you happily ignored the chaos in favour of the panting omega in front of you.
You took your dick out from your pants and did the same for Kakashi. They bumped up against each other, searingly hot and unflinchingly hard. You let out a whistle of appreciation at his cock. It was big, bigger than most alphas you’d met, and certainly bigger than any omega’s cock you’d ever seen. In fact, just eyeballing it, he was roughly the same size as you. His shaft was as pale as the rest of him, but the head was an angry red. It was girthy too, and it felt hot and solid in your palm.
Purposefully, you thrust your hips forward, guiding your cock against his with both of your hands. Kakashi moaned, thrusting up to meet you. He could only watch, his hands restrained as they were.
You kept your hands around the dicks, keeping them aligned as you both started to rut against each other. Beads of pre cum quickly made their appearance, which only made everything else feel that much better.
There was something deeply satisfying about what you were doing, especially because you were both still half-dressed. It made it feel desperate, like you couldn’t wait long enough to get your clothes off, too desperately attracted to each other, and had instead chosen to rub off on each other like horny teenagers.
You made out messily while you grinded against each other. Maintaining a consistent pace was a little difficult, especially as things got wetter and wetter, but you managed. There was something sexy about the chaos. The increased sensitivity from being in the erotica world didn’t hurt either.
Your moans and groans increased in frequency as you got closer. If felt like every nerve ending you had was on fire, and Kakashi looked much like you felt, covered in a thin sheen of sweat that was obvious under the hard corporate lighting.
Technically, with it being so bright inside and so dark outside, anyone who happened to glance up would have got a glimpse of you, but you were both too far gone to care.
“You love having someone take control of you, don’t you Kakashi,” you moaned, pressing your lips against his. “You’re tired of always being in control, aren’t you? The big CEO, everyone’s relying on you, but who do you get to rely on? Who looks after you? You want someone to do that, don’t you? You’re a walking, talking CEO stereotype.”
“Who says I’m going to give control to you?” he panted, licking his lips. “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”
“Hmm, nope, I think I’m right on track,” you teased. Already picking up on his proclivity for biting, you gave a bite in return, just shy of where a mating mark might theoretically go. Kakashi gasped, his hands straining at the shirt that restrained them. “I’ll get you to submit to me properly, one day.”
“We’ll see.”
The alcohol and the increased sensitivity were mixing together to make this tryst shorter than expected, but Kakashi seemed to be in the same boat, so you couldn’t bring yourself to care. The banter ceased as the final stretch towards your orgasms started.
As your ending approached, you bent down and sealed your lips with Kakashi’s once more. Suddenly, everything crested, and pleasure flowed over you in waves. Your thrusts got sloppy, but neither of you cared. Kakashi came with a guttural moan. His stomach muscles flexing in a hypnotic dance.
The extra cum afforded by the porn logic soaked both your dicks and your hands, staining both pairs of trousers too. It dripped onto the carpet, and if the security guard didn’t spread a rumour about you and Kakashi hooking up, one of the cleaners probably would.
Some of Kakashi’s cum had even landed on the spare shirt, so you now had a choice between a torn shirt, or one covered in cum to match your stained trousers. Great. Why did horny you always make such bad decisions?
You and Kakashi remained leaning against each other for a while, just catching your breaths and marvelling at how fast your relationship had move. You wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told you during your interview that you’d end up grinding on that asshole’s desk a few days later.
‘I would have believed it.’
‘Thanks, James.’
Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, but the door to his office suddenly opened, cutting him off. You both stiffened, snapping up to face the intruder like a pair of deer in headlights.
There, standing in the doorway with the expression of a man who was entirely done with life, was Kakashi’s chauffeur. Instead of an apology of any kind, the man just sighed.
“The car is downstairs when you are ready. Please try and clean up before getting in, the leather won’t forget these kinds of smells easily.” With that, he left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
You and Kakashi looked at each other, then to the door, and then to each other, before you both burst out laughing.
What a way to end the night.
Next Chapter
#the quest for a second life#kakashi#kakashi hatake#kakashi x reader#alpha!reader#alpha reader#omega!kakashi#omega kakashi#a/b/o#omegaverse#alpha x omega#gn reader#sub kakashi#sub!kakashi#dom!reader#dom reader#n-sfw#reader insert
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(This was originally an ask received through Twitter)
"Hello! Can you please elaborate on the time loop theory in book 2 that you mentioned in the tweet where you talked about your favourite theories?"
I am wary about discussing this theory as there are many others who have put much more thought into it than I have, but I can certainly try with what I was able to find :>
(The information in this thread was combined from here, here, here, and here)
The basic theory is that everything we know is repeating in a loop in an attempt to either stop something from happening or to make something happen.
The game’s tagline of “I will show you a true happy ending” (EN: “Let us show you the real happily-ever-after”) could be insinuating that there have already been less than happy endings, and we may have already seen one: while some theorize that the events of the prologue are showing us what is going to happen in the future, others say that it is both that and something that has already happened.
The theory goes that the battle with the chimera (who may or may not be an overblotted Grim) was lost and everyone (or just the prefect) is sent back to try again, thus the opening lines of the game narrated in Crowley’s voice.
(Note: I would have translated this as “I—they—you—only have a little time left. Whatever you do, don’t let go”, but the situation is so vague that anything is possible.)
(Here is a short comic insinuating that this time loop is Crowley’s unique magic (warning: blood, death, a Yuu design))
This theory seems to be largely inspired by Mickey’s comment that he has seen the same dream three times but he also says “your voice gets clearer and clearer every time.”
Since Mickey also shows up in Books 2 and 3 but we were not able to speak with him, it is possible that this is not actually hinting at two earlier loops, just earlier events within the same timeline. This does not dismiss the time loop theory and might mean that this is Mickey’s first time interacting with the loop, but there have been far more than just two or three timelines.
(This account pretends that Book 7 does not exist yet, so that is about as specific as I can get.)
The theory gets kind of wild with references to STYX’s simulation system, supposed inconsistencies with Ace and Epel, Crowley’s potential connection to STYX, etc, but one thing that everyone seems to agree on is: Leona knows.
Leona is extremely powerful and extremely private.
He has had a number of contracts with Azul who is also a powerful mage, and according to Idia he seems like “the kind of guy who always knows he’s dreaming.”
Yana has confirmed that Idia has a part in Book 7 and, with both him and Leona halfway out of their coffins in promotional art, people are wondering if Leona will be stepping up as well.
We know that Riddle’s current personality is a 180 degree change from original plans and that this change was made pretty far into development, after everything had already been approved.
There are also rumors that Leona’s Book 2 was the original Book 6, looking at older promotional information (Book 2 was originally listed between Ignihyde and Diasomnia on the official website).
It is possible that—much like Riddle’s situation—Yana came up with a better idea than what had originally been decided, and it required shoehorning Leona’s drama into an earlier Book in order to make it work.
This would mean that Book 7 used to have significant space for Leona (there is a pattern of the previous Overblotter having a role in the next Book).
That space may have been rewritten for Idia, but it is also possible that Idia’s role was added separately and a role for Leona remains to some extent, which is why they went out of their way to say that Leona knows when he is in a dream.
Theories vary from “Leona is 100% aware of what is going on, broke free from the loop and he is the only one getting older as he tries to save the world” to “Leona knows something isn’t right but not exactly what.”
The proof that people usually point to is his comment where he is unsurprised by Grim “always” eating black stones (which he shouldn’t know anything about), but the phrasing is so vague that he could just be making the connection between the stones and a potential blot-risk.
Another scene that is often referenced in the “Leona knows” conversation is an interaction with Jamil where he accurately predicts Jamil’s attack on Kalim despite how rarely they interact before Book 6.
There are also the three white chess pieces on the chessboard in Leona’s bedroom that seem to correspond to the only three characters in the game with light cosmic magic: a white rook for Rook, a white knight for Silver and a white pawn for Kalim, whom Leona literally refers to as a pawn piece in chess during Tamashima-Mina (these three chess pieces are also displayed prominently in Leona's first Birthday groovy).
Leona also seems suspicious of Crowley, suspects what really happened in Book 5 and is able to literally sniff out magic, which we have seen no other character capable of doing.
Leona is very perceptive in general: he is suspicious of Lilia in Spectral Soiree, calls him an old man when no other character outside of Diasomnia knows his true age, is the first to figure out that Malleus is pretending to be possessed and is able to tell when someone becomes injured and is trying to hide it in both Book 6 and an event.
This is not proof that Leona knows what is happening, but it may be an argument for why it is likely that he knows more than he is willing to let on.
Some versions of the time loop theory say that the same prefect is being sent back over and over again to try and save everyone (which ties into the game’s opening), while other versions say that this is the prefect’s first time being summoned into a loop that has been going on for a long time without them, in an effort by someone (Crowley?) to change the ending of the story.
While not technically part of the game, the Twst novelization supports the first pattern while the manga series supports the second, with new prefects showing up after the previous prefect presumably fails.
Knowing Yana it is possible that the game is actually a third, entirely different pattern with the novel and manga exploring alternatives that were considered for the game but not used.
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Some at the team knew he was the man for the job, but Charles Leclerc's procurement of a seat relied on a neat bit of manoeuvring in order for their boss to agree to a deal.
We're not talking here about the delay that followed Sergio Marchionne's death before Leclerc gained a 2019 Ferrari Formula 1 drive, rather his maiden season of car racing in the '14 Formula Renault ALPS series.
Fortec Motorsport engineer Martin Young knew all about the talents of the 16-year-old Monegasque driver.
"My background is in karting," he explains. "I used to work for the factory teams in Italy. I knew the drivers to watch from karting would be Max Verstappen, Ben Barnicoat and Charles Leclerc, and Fortec wanted to run teams in Eurocup, NEC and ALPS."
It's worth explaining here that in those days Formula Renault 2.0 operated as a pyramid structure, with the Eurocup at the top, and the Dutch-promoted Northern European Cup and Italian-run ALPS series as the base. Fortec was already established in Eurocup and NEC, but was venturing into ALPS for the first time.
"At the time it looked like Verstappen would be doing Eurocup, and we had Ben signed for NEC," continues Young. "I spoke to Jamie Dye [Fortec managing director] and said that if we wanted to move forward in ALPS we needed to get Leclerc.
"We did a test day at Motorland [Aragon] and we sort of lied about his times - we'd put Charles up against a lot of experienced drivers, so he was 1.2-1.3 seconds off - so that Richard [Dutton, team principal] would stay interested in giving him a bit of a deal. Richard was asking, 'Is he really good?', and we said, 'Yeah, we know he's really good.'"
Barnicoat, now a factory McLaren GT racer, was already familiar with Leclerc - as a Racing Steps Foundation protege, he was part of the ART Grand Prix line-up in international karting in 2012 and '13, while Leclerc belonged (and still does) to the All Road Management stable of ART shareholder Nicolas Todt.
"I had two years as team-mate to him in karting," says Barnicoat. "The first year I was directly racing with him, and in the second he went into gearbox [KZ] karts. He was one of the best team-mates I ever had, if not the best. A great guy.
"That first year, Charles won the WSK series and I won the European championship - that was up against the likes of Verstappen, so the competition was extremely high. I feel sort of left out!
"He had a bit more track knowledge so in the first half of the year he was beating me, but then we pushed each other really hard and that worked for the team - we got a lot from that.
"Looking at how good he is, it's nice to know I beat him on occasions, to know that I had the talent and ability to do that."
Fortec was one of the teams that tested Verstappen, and was also eyeing a deal with another talented karter: George Russell, whose plan was to combine Renault ALPS with what was then BRDC Formula 4.
Russell, who now is on course to succeed Leclerc as Formula 2 champion, eventually joined Prema Powerteam for ALPS, but that deal fell over on the eve of the season and he secured a last-minute berth at Koiranen GP.
"We wanted George; we tried to sign him," says Dutton of what could have been a mighty line-up had Russell joined Leclerc. "But he signed for Prema and then [Lawrence] Stroll [who had taken a majority shareholding in Prema] stopped him from going there."
"Me and Charles were testing for Fortec," says Russell, "and at the same time Verstappen was there with Josef Kaufmann Racing, I think. We were in talks with Fortec, but we decided to sign with Prema."
When it's pointed out what a mega line-up that would have been alongside Leclerc, Russell laughs: "In hindsight that could have worked out better for me than Koiranen. That [the late Prema split] put us in the shit a little bit, and three weeks before the first race I didn't have a deal. We took the gamble on Koiranen."
Autosport reminds Dutton of an awards evening over the 2013-14 winter when, asked about Russell, he said: "We've got someone even better - a lad from Monaco..."
"It was really quite a late deal," recalls Dutton. "He missed most of the winter-test programme. But you just knew he was the real deal. In and out of the car he knew what he wanted. In lots of ways he reminded us of Verstappen when we tested him."
Young confirms that the sum total of Leclerc's pre-season mileage was four days at Aragon, and two at Barcelona, before going straight into the pre-weekend test for the Imola opener.
"The first three race weekends his experience was a bit low," says Young, "but as soon as he got on the podium he was there every weekend.
Leclerc went on to finish runner-up to the flying - and experienced - Nyck de Vries in the ALPS points, with two race wins at Monza under his belt, but perhaps the more impressive performances came in his three 'wildcard' outings in the Eurocup. The first was at Spa, one week before the Belgian track's ALPS round.
"He was 30th in qualifying at the Eurocup," says Dutton. "We changed everything - we couldn't understand what the hell was going on. One week later he qualified third for ALPS. That was really, really special."
In his next Eurocup outing, Leclerc took a fifth and a second at the Nurburgring, and in his final one he took a brace of seconds at the Hungaroring.
"I was looking after Matt Parry and Jack Aitken in Eurocup," says long-time Fortec driver coach Matt Howson. "I'd heard [Leclerc] was something maybe a bit special, but you hear that all the time, and wait until you see it yourself.
"Usually you understand the driving style straight away - what's good, what's bad - and the thing with Charles is it didn't matter whether there was understeer or oversteer, he seemed to deliver a lap time."
The cerebral approach of Leclerc and engineer Young frustrated Howson at the Nurburgring.
"He'd never seen the place, and there were only two 45-minute [test] sessions, and furthermore Martin was determined to try things on the car," says Howson.
"I said, 'Don't do it, leave him out'. He was last in the second session, and then he was P3 on the grid for the second race - that's unheard of in Eurocup [for a newcomer]. Renault is a very finicky formula, and it all has to come together to deliver results, but Charles seemed impervious to everything.
"Based on that first year, I knew he was a little bit special. Whenever he was tested in Eurocup, he defied his experience. That's a marker - that you can break all the accepted rules."
Talking about that Nurburgring episode, Young says: "That literally sums up Charles Leclerc. That year we were struggling in Eurocup, and I said I'd come in with Charles and we'd do some testing. Going into qualifying he'd never run new tyres, but he went from last to the front. Nothing ever fazed him."
In Young's view, he also compared favourably to Lando Norris, who tested FRenault cars with Fortec in 2014 before his first steps into single-seaters: "I worked with Lando towards the end of the year, and Lando eventually got to the same point [as Leclerc] but needed a lot of testing, but Charles could just get in and drive. It was second nature to him."
Russell took a distant fourth in the ALPS standings, although he did claim the 2014 BRDC F4 title.
"With Nyck winning the championship it didn't make any sense to me, but I think at the time there were a few dodgy chassis around," he says. "When I tested Nyck's car it was extremely different in terms of characteristics. I wasted a season there, but it was character-building."
He also suffered from chicken pox that caused him to miss the Monza round, where Leclerc took his two wins.
"I didn't think it affected me at the time, but I struggled a bit for no reason in the following few F4 races," says Russell. "It was quite severe - I've still got some bad scars. I put my family off their dinner a few times!"
But Russell trumped Leclerc by joining Tech 1 Racing for the final Eurocup round at Jerez as a wildcard - and winning: "I got my self-confidence back a bit, jumped in that car and won."
Both Russell and Leclerc had initially targeted a full season in Eurocup in 2015, but such were their reputations by the end of '14 that each went to the Formula 3 European Championship, Russell with Carlin, and Leclerc with Van Amersfoort Racing.
Fortec tried to hang on to Leclerc for F3. "We tried so hard to get him for F3, but we lost him to VAR," says Dutton. "We did some tests with him in the F3 car and he was straight on the pace. At Silverstone he was quickest of everybody there, and then we went to Valencia with him and we had a nightmare with mechanical issues. I think that didn't do us any good."
All who worked or raced with Leclerc agree about his qualities as a man.
"Of all the drivers in F1 who've come through us, Charles is the one who gets [guest] passes for the British Grand Prix," says Dutton. "He had Martin [Young] and Jamie [Dye] there this year the whole weekend, in Sauber hospitality. He's a proper guy."
"I still speak to Charles every week or so on various topics," adds Young, who attended Leclerc's initial grand prix free practice outings in 2016. "He's still exactly the same person."
Barnicoat, who is one of the drivers for the McLaren hot laps at F1 events, bumps into Leclerc regularly.
"When we raced against each other in Renault there was quite a lot of rivalry from what we'd had in karting," says the Briton, who added three 'wildcard' ALPS outings as direct team-mate to Leclerc to his title-winning NEC campaign.
"But it would have been nice to get more direct comparisons. In 2013, when we were in karting, I went to the grand prix with him in Monaco and stayed on his uncle's boat, and had a really good time. We spent a lot of time together, and although we were rivals we helped each other out. He was a good friend of mine and still is."
Leclerc is also resilient. "Jules Bianchi came to the Hungaroring Eurocup round to mentor him," says Howson, "and I understood then how close they were. After that incident [for Bianchi] and his father [who died in mid-2017], he's probably been tested off track more than anyone else, but it's not bled over into anything on track.
"He's incredibly mature. He's relatively introverted - he doesn't come in and make lots of noise, but he's polite, considerate and always looks you in the eye when he talks to you. It doesn't matter whether he's got loads of cameras on him, he'll always come over for a chat."
Russell, meanwhile, is "100%" sure that Leclerc will flourish at Ferrari.
"Charles is one of a handful of others I put in the best-of-the-best group," he says. "In my opinion he absolutely deserves his chance at Ferrari. He's got the speed and the talent, and I'm excited to see how he fares next year. I've no doubt that he will be competitive."
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The Far Roofs: Systems
Hi!
Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about my forthcoming RPG, the Far Roofs. More specifically, I want to give a general overview of its game mechanics!
So the idea that first started the Far Roofs on the road to being its own game came out of me thinking a lot about what large projects feel like.
I was in one of those moods where I felt like the important thing in an RPG system was the parallel between that system and real-world experience. Where I felt like the key to art was always thinking about the end goal, or at least a local goal, as one did the work; and, the key to design was symmetry between the goals and methods, the means and ends.
I don't always feel that way, but it's how I work when I'm feeling both ambitious and technical.
So what I wanted to do was come up with an RPG mechanic that was really like the thing it was simulating:
Finding answers. Solving problems. Doing big things.
And it struck me that what that felt like, really, was a bit like ...
You get pieces over time. You wiggle them around. You try to fit them together. Sometimes, they fit together into larger pieces and then eventually a whole. Sometimes you just collect them and wiggle them around until suddenly there's an insight, an oh!, and you now know everything works.
The ideal thing to do here would probably be having a bag of widgets that can fit together in different ways---not as universally as Legos or whatever, but, like, gears and connectors and springs and motors and whatever. If I were going to be building a computer game I would probably think along those lines, anyway. You'd go to your screen of bits and bobs and move them around with your mouse until it hooked together into something that you liked.
... that's not really feasible for a tabletop RPG, though, at least, not with my typical financial resources. I could probably swing making that kind of thing, finding a 3d printing or woodworking partner or something to make the pieces, for the final kickstarter, but I don't have the resources to make a bunch of different physical object sets over time while I'm playtesting.
So the way I decided that I could implement this was by drawing letter tiles.
That I could do a system where you'd draw letter tiles ... not constantly, not specifically when you were working, but over time; in the moments, most of all, that could give you insight or progress.
Then, at some point, you'd have enough of them.
You'd see a word.
That word'd be your answer.
... not necessarily the word itself, but, like, what the word means to you and what the answer means to you, those would be the same.
The word would be a symbol for the answer that you've found, as a player and a character.
(The leftover letters would then stick around in your hand, bits of thought and experience that didn't directly lead to a solution there, but might help with something else later on.)
Anyway, I figured that this basic idea was feasible because, like, lots of people own Scrabble sets. Even if you don't, they're easier to find than sets of dice!
For a short indie game focused on just that this would probably have been enough of a mechanic all on its own. For a large release, though, the game needed more.
After thinking about it I decided that what it wanted was two more core resolution systems:
One, for stuff like, say ... kickstarter results ... where you're more interested in "how well did this do?" or "how good of an answer is this?" than in whether those results better fit AXLOTL or TEXTUAL. For this, I added cards, which you draw like letter tiles and combine into poker hands. A face card is probably enough for a baseline success, a pair of Kings would make the results rather exciting, and a royal flush result would smash records.
The other core system was for like ... everyday stuff. For starting a campfire or jumping a gap. That, by established RPG tradition, would use dice.
...
I guess technically it didn't have to; I mean, like, most of my games have been diceless, and in fact we've gotten to a point in the hobby where that's just "sort of unusual" instead of actually rare.
But, like, I like dice. I do. If I don't use them often, it's because I don't like the empty page of where to start in the first place building a bespoke diced system when I have so many good diceless systems right there.
... this time, though, I decided to just go for it.
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The Dice System
So a long, long time ago I was working on a game called the Weapons of the Gods RPG. Eos Press had brought me in to do the setting, and somewhere in the middle of that endeavor, the game lost its system.
I only ever heard Eos' side of this, and these days I tend to take Eos' claims with a grain of salt ... but, my best guess is that all this stuff did happen, just, with a little more context that I don't and might not ever know?
Anyway, as best as I remember, the first writer they had doing their system quit midway through development. So they brought in a newer team to do the system, and halfway through that the team decided they'd have more fun using the system for their own game, and instead wrote up a quick alternate system for Weapons of the Gods to use.
This would have been fine if the alternate system were any good, but it was ... pretty obviously a quick kludge. It was ...
I think the best word for it would be "bad."
I don't even like the system they took away to be their own game, but at least I could believe that it was constructed with love. It was janky but like in a heartfelt way.
The replacement system was more the kind of thing where if you stepped in it you'd need a new pair of shoes.
It upset me.
It upset me, and so, full wroth, I decided to write a system to use for the game.
Now, I'd never done a diced system before at that point. My only solo game had been Nobilis. So I took a bunch of dice and started rolling them, to see ... like ... what the most fun way of reading them was.
Where I landed, ultimately, was looking for matches.
The core system for Weapons of the Gods was basically, roll some number of d10s, and if you got 3 4s, that was a 34. If you got 2 9s, that was a 29. If your best die was a 7 and you had no pairs at all, you got 1 7. 17.
It didn't have any really amazing statistical properties, but the act of rolling was fun. It was rhythmic, you know, you'd see 3 4s and putting them together into 34 was a tiny tiny dopamine shot at the cost of basically zero brain effort. It was pattern recognition, which the brain tends to enjoy.
I mean, obviously, it would pall in a few minutes if you just sat there rolling the dice for no reason ... but, as far as dice rolling goes, it was fun.
So when I went to do an optional diced system for the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG, years later, to post here on tumblr ... I already knew what would make that roll fun. That is, rolling a handful of dice and looking for matches.
What about making it even more fun?
... well, critical results are fun, so what about adding them and aiming to have a lot of them, though still like rare enough to surprise?
It made sense to me to call no matches at all a critical failure, and a triple a critical success. So I started fiddling with dice pool size to get the numbers where I wanted them.
I'm reconstructing a bit at this point, but I imagine that I hit 6d10 and was like: "these are roughly the right odds, but this is one too many dice to look at quickly on the table, and I don't like that critical failure would be a bit more common than crit success."
So after some wrestling with things I wound up with a dice pool of 5d6, which is the dice pool I'm still using today.
If you roll 5d6, you'll probably get a pair. But now and then, you'll get a triple (or more!) My combinatorics is rusty, so I might have missed a case, but, like ... 17% of the time, triples, quadruples, or quintuples? And around 9% chance, for no matches at all?
I think I was probably looking for 15% and 10%, that those were likely my optimum, but ... well, 5d6 comes pretty close. Roughly 25% total was about as far as I thought I could push critical results while still having them feel kind or rare. Like ...
If I'm rolling a d20 in a D&D-like system, and if I'm going to succeed on an 18+, that's around when success is exciting, right? Maybe 17+, though that's pushing it? So we want to fall in the 15-20% range for a "special good roll." And people have been playing for a very long time now with the 5% chance of a "1" as a "special bad roll," and that seemed fine, so, like, 20-25% chance total is good.
And like ...
People talk a lot about Rolemaster crit fail tables in my vicinity, and complain about the whiff fests you see in some games where you keep rolling and rolling and nothing good or bad actually happens, and so I was naturally drawn to pushing crit failure odds a bit higher than you see in a d20-type game.
Now, one way people in indie circles tend to address "whiff fests" is by rethinking the whole dice-rolling ... paradigm ... so you never whiff; setting things up, in short, so that every roll means something, and every success and failure mean something too.
It's a leaner, richer way of doing things than you see in, say, D&D.
... I just didn't feel like it, here, because the whole point of things was to make dice rolling fun. I wanted people coming out of traditional games to be able to just pick up the dice and say "I'm rolling for this!" because the roll would be fun. Because consulting the dice oracle here, would be fun.
So in the end, that was the heart of it:
A 5d6 roll, focusing on the ease of counting matches and the high but not exorbitant frequency of special results.
But at the same time ...
I'm indie enough that I do really like rolls where, you know, every outcome is meaningful. Where you roll, and there's never a "whiff," just a set of possible meaningful outcomes.
A lot of the time, where I'm leaning into "rolls are fun, go ahead and roll," what it means to succeed, to fail, to crit, all that's up to the group, and sometimes it'll be unsatisfying. Other times, you'll crit succeed or crit fail and the GM will give you basically the exact same result as you'd have gotten on a regular success or failure, just, you know, jazzing up the description a bit with more narrative weight.
But I did manage to pull out about a third of the rolls you'll wind up actually making and assign strong mechanical and narrative weight to each outcome. Where what you were doing was well enough defined in the system that I could add some real meat to those crits, and even regular success and regular failure.
... though that's a story, I think, to be told some other time. ^_^
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Hobie with a friend or s/o that feels safe drawing and practicing instruments (just overall being creative) around him 🥺?
Thank u op for feeding us so we’ll with all the hobie content btw !!!! MWAH ❤️❤️
THE CREATIVE MIND !
— hobie brown x creative!gn!reader
— fluff, creative reader, pet-names, hobie being a menace, hcs and then a blurb for artist reader at the end
— hobie and his encouragement with his s/o, who loves expressing their creativity with him
— SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS TOOK but here it is anon muwah
— Hobie first noticed how much you kept to yourself
— Of course you talked with people around you, but you weren’t very open about what you liked to do
— He loved playing his guitar, Gwen loved playing the drums, Miles loved drawing and sketching, but what did you enjoy?
— Turns out it was a combination of all those things
— When Hobie starts to get closer to you, he notices the little things that you don’t hide around him anymore
— Splatters of paint, marker markings, blistered fingers, all signs of the creativity you hold behind closed doors
— Just as friends, Hobie may ask about what you do, but will never push if you don’t want to say
— He’ll lead into some conversations about it if you do
— Loves listening to you talk and talk about what you do once you get comfortable around him
— Then his friends try to beg to know what you do, what’s the secret hobby you hold so dear?
— And to that he keeps quiet
— Because he loves the fact that you trust him so much to let him know about how well you can do what you do
— If the two of you are dating, god he’s your biggest supporter
— He loves motivating people to go against their limits and rules to achieve their greatness, and he does the same with you
— Every-time you show him a new project, he praises it like the Mona Lisa
— “‘s amazin’, swee’heart. got myself such a talen’ed par’ner.”
— “Belongs on display, ‘s for sure.”
— if you’re an artist, he commissions you all the time
— Stickers for his guitar, art on his walls, even doodles on his hands
— He wants to proudly sport your work wherever he can
— If you play an instrument, he’ll constantly ask to practice and play with you
— Even if you play something like the trumpet, he’ll find a way to jam out with you
— It means a lot to him to share music with who he loves
— If you are a writer, he’ll always ask to see what you’re typing up
— Hobie’s everyone’s biggest supporter, and that’s never an exception for you
— He adores everything you create, no exceptions
Your legs dangled off the edge of the couch as you take your pencil to your sketchbook. On the opposite chair, Hobie was strumming guitar, scribbling and marking his music. It was like a peaceful creative time you shared.
You take a peak up at your boyfriend before looking back down, sketching the features of his nose onto your paper. For the past hour you had been sketching him, multiple poses of him lying there, with his guitar, and him just smiling (which was a closed smirk but better than nothing). You were finishing a sketch of him messing with his guitar, drawing up his hair and piercings.
“Mm..” Hobie sighs before making that focused face he does, bringing out the crease on his forehead.
You smile and draw that out onto the sketch, enjoying how blissfully unaware Hobie seemed. You had numerous sketches of him, but he didn’t need to know.
As you stare down and take glances up, Hobie finishes with the current song he was messing with. He looks over at you, noticing how focused you seemed on your sketch. It was mesmerizing watching you work so passionately.
Quietly, he got up, sneaking over to your seat on the couch. He wraps his arms around you, peaking over your shoulder. “Whatcha workin’ on?”
You slam the book shut. “Nothing!”
“Oh? But I wanna see..” Hobie responds, reaching to grab your sketchbook.
“No no! It’s nothing!”
You shoot up to run to your shared bedroom, holding the book away from Hobie. He chases after you and shoots a web to grab the book. As much as you try to pull it back, he ultimately wins, taking the sketchbook in his hands.
“Le’s see..” He speaks, turning to the page you were working on. “Oh.”
You groan, throwing your head into a pillow. “Hobie..”
He’s quiet for a while, admiring your work. You make him look so.. incredible. All the pencil strokes bring out a different feature of him, and he’s never thought he looked this great.
"These are incred'ble, swee'heart." He says after a while, glancing up at you. “C’mon, don’ be shy. ‘s good stuff.” He assures you as he takes a seat next to you.
You snatch the book from Hobie, swatting him with it. “Ever heard of privacy?!”
“Mm.. ‘s good t’ know ‘s how ya see me.”
“Well.. it’s not even done.” You say with a sigh. Then, you get an idea. “Wait! I’ve got an idea.”
Hobie’s eyes raise. “Hmm?”
You turn back to open the page you were working on, grabbing a pencil and a red marker from the nightstand next to your bed. You look up at Hobie before looking back down, sketching something.
“Just stay still..” You request, sketching out some new features you can now notice from up close. “I wanna finish..”
Hobie chuckles, crossing a knee over his leg. “Mm.. ‘right, ‘ll be ‘ur muse.”
In turn, you give a smile, gently kissing his cheek before continuing to work on his profile. You sketch every little crease, freckle, blister he has on his face. Any scar or bruise he has from his hero ventures, you include. You start to get lost in your book as time moves on.
Your boyfriend just sits there, admiring the way you look so focused. He’s grateful you feel comfortable around him, to where you can allow yourself to indulge in your creativity. He loves how people express themselves, you especially.
When you start adding some colour, you see Hobie scoot next to you. “So talen’ed, ya know that?”
You smile gently, leaning into his shoulder. “I appreciate that, Hobie.” You respond as you continue putting in some highlights.
Once it’s done, Hobie sits back and praises your work like there’s no tomorrow. Many compliments, pet-names, and red blushing messes later, he’s pulling your leg to convince you to let him take them, hang them up.
Once you do agree, he also asks you to make him some stickers for his guitar. “Need some good stuff f’ my gui’ar. Make it flashy t’ fight facis’s.”
Once you do make them, trust, he’s going to brag to everyone he knows and is friends with who made the beautiful artwork displayed on his guitar.
#NEW ARTICLE || OUT NOW !!#hobie brown x reader#hobie x reader#hobie brown#across the spiderverse#spider man: across the spider verse#atsv x reader#atsv#atsv hobie
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Hi, I was wondering what sort of leg prosthetic would work well in a fight? I'm designing a magical girl OC with a prosthetic leg and want to incorporate a rather more pink and sparkly one into her magical girl form. I know you can get blades for running, but would those be better than a normal prosthetic for running and leaping around while bonking monsters with a magic stick?
Hey there, I think I remember seeing your question on my old account right? I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you!
So a blade probably wouldn't be ideal, but a hybrid might.
Blade prosthetics are very good for running, but are absolutely terrible for literally everything else, including standing or walking. Essentially, blade prosthetics are modeled off of digitigrade legs. For the non-furries on my page, digitigrade legs are what cats and dogs have on their back legs where it bends at the knee, then bends back the other way at a second joint before their feet.
[ID 1: A pair of black running blade prosthetics with yellow edges. Their wearer is out of frame but we can see they are running along a track. /end ID]
[ID 2: A photo of a cheetah from the side. In the photo we can clearly see the structure of its legs, as described above. /End ID]
This is actually their ankle, and their "foot" is their toes. This arrangement makes these animals really fast and nimble, but it comes at the cost of lower balance. That's not an issue when you have another two legs to help keep you steady, but when you put that onto a human we start having issues. This is why if you watch any races where the competitors are using these prosthetics, they almost always fall over, especially the double leg amputees. Essentially, the shape and springiness of a blade gives you a massive speed advantage (so much so that amputee runner Oscar Pistorius had to be given disadvantages in order to compete in the Olympics with able-bodied runners) but it essentially moves the ankle joint and heel - the one our brains automatically know to weight bare through - up off the ground. The closest an able bodied person could get to the feeling of running on a blade would be to wear a pair of stilleto heels with the heal removed, and a spring on the bottom.
Hybrid feet though are a combination of blade feet and the regular feet amputees usually get. They are like tiny blades, but they usually have a foot-shell on the outside so you don't see it. These hybrid feet give you some of the extra padding and suspension you'd get from a running blade (which makes running/jumping etc more comfortable) as well as a bit of a speed boost, though not as much as the big ones, and they don't come at the cost of your balance, which you'r character will need when fighting.
Ossur's Flex foot range are a good one to look at for refeance, I used them when I was doing martial arts, as do a few friends of mine who are still doing it. This is a link to their website, it's got pictures of what they look like both internally and when people are using them, and I beleive theirs a booklet you can download on the page as well if you want to read into them a bit more. This isn't the only one of course, but it's the one I've used before:
I'm planning to do a breakdown in a little bit more detail about the different types of prosthetic feet and what they're good for eventually, but for what you described, I think this is what would work best.
#disability#disabled#writing#writeblr#writing disability#designing disabled characters#amputee#amputees#leg amputees#prosthetics
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hi! not exactly a request but i do wanna ask, whats your process when you're rendering more paint like art? (if that makes sense, English isnt my first language so apologies hdskhsjdbd) i really love how you use the colors and im curious how you do it :0
i’ve been meaning to answer this one for a while so here’s how i painted miku in today’s post (put under the read more because yeah prepare for a long post
i’d also like to preface this by saying that i never follow a set way of doing things, so in terms of what my personal process is like, these are only broad strokes of what i do! sometimes i’ll combine or skip parts entirely, depending on how i feel. also, this is not a tutorial, just how i do things, so please don’t treat it like one :’D this will read like the ‘how to draw an owl’ picture if you do
first, like every artist, i sketch. more specifically, i’m getting an idea of what i want to paint later on. this could be how a scene is set up or in this case, how a character is posed. here i’m not concerned about details or getting everything perfectly, i’m only planning how the thing will be composed. maybe a lot of canvas size changing, or adjusting what miku’s doing (note how busted miku’s right hand looks from all the transforming!) however, i still have to be concerned with how clear the sketch will be to future me, because the sketch won’t be any good if i can’t read what miku’s doing
after that, i lay down a flat gray under the sketch, mainly focusing on giving miku a clear silhouette. this is also a good time to make adjustments to the composition on the fly if i suddenly feel like something can be improved upon, like shortening miku’s left arm from the sketch!
after painting a flat silhouette, i start shading in grayscale, focusing only on lighting. i usually do it in two passes, one for the lightest and darkest tones i’ll use (not black and white) and then a second for midtones to blend them better with the base gray but i forgot to screenshot the result of the first pass 🗿 nevertheless, here is where i can start adding some amount of details. i’m not including any extra accessories yet, just focusing on the base design of the outfit and the character herself (for anyone wanting to draw characters from That Gacha Game, this is how i personally make the process more bearable for myself.) i still use the dark gray to separate where certain details (like the facial features and fingers) begin and end, mainly to make colouring more bearable later.
now here’s where i get the Good Colours. it’s a cheat lol. i put a gradient map layer over the grayscale painting so that there’s a little bit of color to start. some gradient maps can be applied as is, some need the layer settings adjusted to make it look good. this one, for example, is a (free) gradient map set from the csp assets store that needs you to set the layer opacity to 20% and to set the blending mode to color to achieve this result. in general, i tend to pick which gradient map i want to use based on vibes, or basically whether i want the work to be warmer or cooler, colour-wise. but this does do quite a bit of lifting for the colors in my stuff.
and then, finally, i add the colours. i add flat base colours in an overlay layer. at this stage, i’ve made the character silhouette clear enough that i don’t need to refer to the sketch anymore for what miku looks like. also, the gradient map layer does its magic by making the shading a bit more vibrant than it would’ve been without it. after that i paint over with a new layer to add details like the lace.
and then i put some extra shading on top. basically this is where the ‘better lighting’ happens. again, this isn’t a tutorial, so i’m not here to say what each part of the lighting is, but i’ve labeled which layers do which job. in other works where the lighting within a scene is more defined (from a window, from a small crack in the walls, etc) the glow dodge layer may be more opaque and sharper, but since this isn’t a work with that, the lighting was applied using an airbrush. the linear burn layer is also there to make the whole thing darker so the glow dodge doesn’t end up oversaturating miku. i also usually match the lights to the vibe i want, and use a complementary color for the shadows. so here you can see i have warm colors on the glow dodge layer, but light purple on both the linear burn and multiply layer.
and that’s it for the character—here’s a gif showing how each layer adds to miku! (sorry it’s so toasty)
as for the background, depending on the complexity, it may go through a similar process, or if i can settle with flat image backgrounds, i just go for that. it’s ok to use external image materials. i didn’t have a background in mind for this miku in specific, so i got some default csp materials and threw together something
and that’s about a rough overview of what my process for more finished works looks like! again, art is a fluid process so i never specifically stick to certain steps all the time, and you shouldn’t either. i can probably answer why i’d pick this colour over another in one particular work, but it’s something that kinda has to be learned on a grander scale. i think everyone can already feel what colors work with what atmosphere or what setting, even if they can’t immediately explain why. colors and composition do take some level of experimentation to find what works best!
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Hi!!! Can you please do 141+ Alejandro with a black widow s/o who’s a super bamf 💗
All Bark, All Bite | 141 (+Ale)
Warning(s): canon-typical violence, strong language, established relationship, fem!reader, mil!reader, no use of y/n
Word Count: 1.9k
A/N: I combined this w/ a similar request. they requested that reader is part of an all-female squad called "The Widows" so creds to that anon for a partial part in this request! Not proofread.
꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ 141 MASTERLIST
// have a request? 𓆩♡𓆪 ask box
SYNOPSIS; if there were a side-by-side of you at work vs. at ease; the difference would be striking. You were with the best of the best, hand-picked to join The Widows five years ago, based solely on your battle smarts and physical durability.
You've retained dialects and languages after spending years doing covert ops around the world, as well as an array of fighting skills. The most significant thing you've accumulated? Your partner.
Dating in the same line of work, paths were bound to cross. Yet, seeing each other was both a blessing and a curse.
Price
When you limped up to the porch, the sight of the lights illuminating the inside made you both cringe and cheer at once. Time was precious when you both were home at the same time; though you were dreading the questions surrounding your appearance. You didn’t have time to wash off and instead went straight home after filling out your after-action reports.
John was in the sunroom with only a dim lamp on—forgetting once again to shut off the rest of the house lights. You weren’t in any mood to scold him, though, nor did you want to. In the least arrogant way possible; you were jaded from keeping the world safe. His gaze ascended from the paperwork resting on his lap, then scanning your striking appearance; in uniform and stained with crimson.
❝It’s not my blood, John.❞ You sighed, a look of both defeat and nonchalance—it was a conversation you two had many times before. This time, it really wasn’t your blood, except for a few measly scrapes and scratches.
He blinked a few times, as stunned as he was the first time he saw you after a daunting mission. ❝Is that supposed to make me feel better, sweetheart? Go shower off.❞ You couldn’t be aggrieved, it’s precisely what you would’ve told him to do. Besides, the last exchange you wanted to have right now was one about work.
John and you did that enough, probably to a fault—being that the two amplest workaholics found each other.
Simon
The work was daunting, sometimes downright depressing considering the things you’ve witnessed, and lived through firsthand. It wasn’t easy to get back out there, put on your bravest face, and work with skilled swiftness. Though your other half had conquered the art of appearing half-hearted—his mind was constantly buzzing with feelings, especially after getting involved with you.
Simon hated your guts, purely for making him fall in love with you. His co-workers either die in front of him, die apart from him, or go missing so long they might as well be dead. He couldn’t handle it, the prospect of getting a sit-rep declaring you had been KIA.
❝What’s on your mind?❞ The weight on the thin barrack mattress shifts as he sits beside you, eyes trained on your failed attempt at masking your gnawing thoughts. God, his observance was irritating at times—how you couldn’t conceal the slightest hitch in your persona.
In truth, it wasn’t any specific memory that was chipping at your psyche. It was… everything all at once. The constant reminder that you had to be a soldier—hardened, snappy, and with little emotion plaguing your every tactical decision. And your decisions? The pressure of choosing the option with the least amount of casualties—never was it a zero.
Unbeknownst to you, you were silently preaching to the choir. ❝It doesn’t matter. Can’t sit here and let feelings stop my day.❞
Simon reached across the cot, cupping each side of your face with a headstrong glare—one somehow sterner than his default frown. ❝With you, love, feelings do matter.❞ He shook you ever so slightly as if he was literally jerking some sense into you. Normally, he would agree and order the softie to keep going.
But you weren’t weak-kneed, nor did you let emotions affect your work.
You were the strongest soldier he knew, second to no one, not even himself. Your ability to feel so openly off the field was something Simon could only voicelessly yearn for. Something he didn’t want you to renounce, as he had years ago. What kind of relationship would it be, if you were both stoic robots trained to kill? It wouldn’t be one at all.
Soap
The two of you separate was enough to make any superior cringe, but together? It had them white-knuckling, all while assured that you two could get the job done clean. He was called Soap for a reason, and you—well, your squad had been picked for a reason. No one was privy to your relationship, and that’s how you both wanted to keep it, purely to not let a conflict of interest affect future ops.
Johnny had to bite the bullet and fight the urge to show you off, gush about you, telling very long and detail-heavy tales about how you two met, and how it was a rocky start. He was starstruck by your skills, and you were adamant about remaining tactical, nothing more.
Clearly, the stubbornness had budged, given the rule-bending involvement you two were in. ❝Ye sure you can handle the boom, lass?❞ Soap smirked, finger hovering over the button of the detonator. He was grasping at straws to rile you up because he knew you were both forced to work with him—and would come home to him that night.
For him, it was a win. For you? It was a persistent thorn in your side.
❝Press the damn button before I hurt you, Soldier.❞ You hissed, covering your ears to shield them from the explosion… or his pestering, it could be a mix of both. Soap grimaced as he signaled the boom, a deafening rumble in the distance, loud and close enough to make the building shake.
Once it passed, you scowled at the sight of his faux-dramatics. ❝It’s ‘soldier’ now, eh? Why not just shoot me, it would hurt less.❞ Soap retorted, taking one more glance at the ash falling in the distance—the result of his own pyro-artfulness.
Oh, how badly you wanted to tussle with him, then apologize to him with a kiss simultaneously. And he knew it too. Your toughness was an attractive quality, one that aroused him, even when you pressed a blade against his throat the first time you were stationed together.
Gaz
Your work with the 141 had gone off and on for some time now. You were glad to interact with Kyle but dreaded every mission together on the off-chance that something went horribly wrong. But that was the cost of your line of work—a sentiment you reminded yourself of nearly every day. The only thing you could do was do your job and find limited time to cherish with him.
It was your lucky day; you had time to visit.
Though you had told Price it was to visit with all of them, you only wanted to see Gaz. The others were great company, sure, but out of the field? They could be… both a complete mess, while being the most tightly-wound group you had worked with.
You made brief conversation with each member, a polite nod or greeting until the small talk became agonizing to get through. When you reached the end of the line, finding Kyle, your expression of professionalism became one of relief. After months of only communicating through comms or phone calls—you were finally face-to-face.
❝Shit, I should get going. Duty calls.❞ Your gaze diverted from Kyle to your phone, a precisely-timed interrupt you needed to tend to right that second. He understood entirely, and it only gave him an excuse to snake you into his bunk that night.
Without realizing it, you intertwined fingers with him for a few seconds, whispering a romantic farewell before parting ways with him. One of his entire Task Force witnessed with a slightly dumbfounded expression on their faces. You, high in the Widows’ chain of command, gone soft and holding hands with Gaz. Frankly, they were slightly intimidated by your skill, the way you always presented yourself in action.
To be flirting with Gaz, it was uncanny. And the headstrong Sergeant Garrick now plagued with an unavoidable flush? The snarky jokes wrote themselves.
Kyle’s eyes widened slightly as you walked away, a slow turn towards his co-workers, interrupting the inevitable comment slipping through their lips. ❝Not a word.❞
Alejandro
Your comms’ static was a constant reminder of the inevitable crisis arriving. Until an update finally came through after several minutes of pausing. Your allies were in need of sniper recon; not just any ally, either—Colonel Vargas was in need of sniper recon. Though you always made your best effort to remain tactical and move with purpose, this one was your purpose—the reason you fight to come home during each deployment.
You radioed back, signaling for the neighboring Widows to follow in your path. If something were to go wrong, Alejandro wouldn’t be left empty-handed, he would have your remaining soldiers to assist. Your squad moved swiftly, some sporting pistols, while the other half had their precision rifles at the ready. The rifle in your hands typically held little weight in your trained arms, but right now it only seemed to be restricting your snappy advancement towards the compound.
Perhaps it was the figurative weight of not getting there in time to relieve them. There was no time to interject personal affairs, however. It wasn’t just Alejandro that needed your assistance—it was his men, the allied soldiers, and most importantly, the innocents caught in the mix of this active warzone.
Your soldiers began to clean the house, allowing execute authority to eliminate any hostile forces. An order that was both the toughest yet quickest one you ever had made, given the circumstances you were plunged into. Behind the thick metal door, there was a blend of bellows in both English and Spanish—the Vaqueros deep in cover when you seized access.
By the time you got close enough, few enemies were left, thankfully. As you poked out of cover from your overwatch position on the skywalk, ready to make your presence known to them, an enemy had come into view.
One that is about to get the upper hand on Alejandro. It was moments like these where your heart stopped, as cliche as it sounded. All the years of training, fighting, hardship, death—it all needed to matter right now, or nothing would again.
You aimed down your sights, watching as the man you loved struggled against the hold. Your watchful eye observed the scuffle until Alejandro had moved out of the danger zone enough for you to get a disabling shot. Once you knew the bullet would be tactical and on the book, there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation.
The trigger was squeezed, a suppressed pop of the high-caliber bullet, then the limp splat of the man grappling Alejandro. His gaze skipped around the room, an instinctive point in the direction of the shot. You stored the precision rifle, jogging down the steps that led to the catwalk, until you approached the life you had just saved.
He let out an impressed chuckle at the sight of you, his savior. ❝Why am I not surprised, Cariño?❞ His eyes danced from you to the enemy that had him staring death in the face. Though he masked it with humor, his verbal gratitude would never make the cut. In the field and in his heart, you had yet to let him down.
#mw2#mw2 fanfic#call of duty#task force 141#task force 141 x reader#mw2 x reader#ghost mw2 x reader#cod x female reader#cod x y/n#cod x you#cod x reader#simon riley#soap mactavish#gaz x reader#kyle gaz garrick#captain john price#john price#cod headcanons#cod mw2#alejandro vargas
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SSR Cater Diamond - Platinum Jacket Vignette
"Happy 100th Anniversary"
[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]
Cater: This museum's real neat～ There's a ton of real picturesque paintings here!
Cater: I should study these as much as I can, 'cause I might be able to learn a thing or two about snagging awesome pics from the way these are composed ♪
Cater: ―Hey, look at that painting…
???: Woah, it's the card soldiers. Cool, I can really see their brisk little walk in the paintin'.
Cater: I totes agree, Ruggie-kun. I was just thinking the same thing.
Ruggie: Oh, Cater-san. Guess ya can't pass by this painting without checking it out, 'cause you're one of 'em Heartslabyul Card Soldiers, eh?
Cater: Sooo true～ 'Specially 'cause this painting's got the diamond-suited card soldiers, too ☆
Ruggie: Riight, you got the diamond marking. How do y'all decide who gets what suit?
Cater: Fantastic question. This little mark, y'see…
Cater: Gets decided by the Housewarden's whim ♪
Ruggie: A whim!? That's actually a pretty random way of pickin' 'em…
Cater: Oh, no, it's more like the Housewarden draws on the suit they feel will "suit" the new student from their looks.
Cater: Although, there is rule that the suits need to be doled out as evenly as possible, so…
Cater: Could be that the last few assignments might be more like… whatever works, or something like that～
Ruggie: So basically, it all comes down to the Housewarden's intuition and discretion, huh. You happy with the suit you got given, Cater-san?
Cater: Obvi. I was really hoping for the heart or diamond mark, so I really did get just what I wanted.
Cater: 'Sides, if I had gotten the spade or club, I'd've had to buy all new cosmetics, too.
Ruggie: Gah. You tellin' me that you guys in Heartslabyul gotta shell out your own cash to buy makeup depending on the suit!?
Cater: Oh, no, no, it's not like we absolutely have to do that or anything.
Cater: But I felt like the cosmetics I already had wouldn't have really gone well with one of the black suits, sooo～
Cater: And so, don'tcha think it'd be better for me to have some makeup that'll suit both me and the given suit?
Cater: That's why when I knew I got the diamond painted on, I started thinking of the cosmetics I had with me.
Cater: I got to thinkin' like how I could use a brown multi-makeup palette with it, or how it could match with my orange eye shadow…
Cater: I started trying to put together combinations of all my favorite makeups and it got me really excited～
Ruggie: Ah, I get that.
Ruggie: It's a great feelin' whenever you can use whatcha got on hand and not have to buy new stuff, huh! 'N I'm not just talkin' 'bout cosmetics.
Cater: Yeah, yeah. Also, we sometimes end up painting the suit some color other than red whenever we have events or special outfits, right?
Cater: I do borrow stuff from my other dormmates when I need it, but before I know it I find I've bought all sorts of cosmetics, y'know～
Cater: But hey, I get to play around with some cute and cool styles of makeup, so it's all worth it in the end…
Cater: Chattin' about it like this makes me realize just how happy I truly was to get the diamond suit picked for me.
Cater: And 'cause of how I have to always paint the suit on my face, I also got real good at applying eye makeup, too ♪
Cater: So when I think of it that way, I guess Heartslabyul was the best dorm to improve my cosmetic skills.
Ruggie: I'm someone who just throws things together based on whatever hand-me-downs and random stuff I get from others, so I don't really get it, but…
Ruggie: I definitely get the feel that you're enjoyin' yourself, so.
Cater: Ahaha. That prolly just means that Heartslabyul is the dorm that suits ya boi Cay-kun the best, I guess～
[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]
Cater: Oh hey, this is… a painting of a princess and price from a certain country riding a magical carpet on a date.
Ruggie: Uhh, right, and the prince invited the princess out, right?
Cater: Yep, yep. They say that these two weren't actually officially dating yet, either.
Cater: But, man… Don'tcha think it's a little embarrassing for them to have their dating life passed down in stories like this?
Ruggie: Y-yeah, now that you put it that way, I guess it could be a little… or maybe very embarrassing.
Cater: Riiiight～!? And on top of that, their backdrop is the night sky. Looks to me like just another generic date plan.
Ruggie: Oho, if you're gonna say it like that… You mean you'd have done things differently, Cater-san?
Cater: I mean, a nighttime view of the sky's not a bad choice… But if it was me, I prolly woulda chosen a super popular touristy attraction. What about you, Ruggie-kun?
Ruggie: Hmm, probably any park that I can get in for free. Though, if they're payin', then I'll go anywhere. I'd always be down for an all-you-can-eat buffet!
Cater: YOU'RE DEFINITELY JUST THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF THERE, HUH!? Not romantic at all…
Cater: …Oh hey! Look, Ruggie-kun. Lookin' at the painting closer, you can see the magical carpet handing him a flower. What a cute scamp～
Cater: Oh, that reminds me. I once received a flower from someone in the crowd after the Pop Music Club finished a set at the school's culture festival.
Ruggie: Eh, you're kidding!?
Ruggie: If we're talkin' about a Pop Music Club performance, that includes all the chaotic stuff like Lilia-san's screamo and stage divin', right…?
Ruggie: You tellin' me after all that, you actually have fans, and one of them even gave you a flower?
Ruggie: …Heh. Cater-san, even if ya wanna try to rewrite your bad experiences, ya shouldn't lie like that.
Cater: Hey, wait, Ruggie-kun, don't look at me with pity in your eyes! It really happened!
Ruggie: Suuure, so did they ask for your deets?
Cater: Nah, they ran off as soon as they handed me the flower.
Ruggie: Seeee～ No way they just ran off without gettin' a phone number off ya, that'd be a waste of givin' you the flower.
Cater: But why would I even give them my… Ah! Ruggie-kun, I think you're misunderstanding something.
Cater: The kid who gave me the flower was about 4 or 5 years old. And it was just some cute flowers they picked in the wild, too ♪
Ruggie: Eh… 4 or 5 years old?
Ruggie: ―Pfft, ahahahaha! S-Seriously? Man, suddenly, now that's just way too cute of a story…
Cater: Oh come on, you don't need to laugh about it that much. You're the one who misinterpreted it in the first place.
Ruggie: It's your fault I got confused, Cater-san. Like, we were literally just talkin' about dates 'n stuff right before.
Ruggie: But I think I get someone at that age enjoyin' themselves regardless of the actual music goin' on.
Ruggie: Or maybe it was love at first sight? That's the kinda age where ya might see cases of puppy love. You stunner, you～
Cater: Who knows? Whatever it was that they thought or felt…
Cater: I'm just happy to know there are people out there that think I'm pretty swell ☆
[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]
Cater: Oooh, I really like this painting of the King of Beasts～ He's so relaxed, it looks like we get to see him truly in his element.
Ruggie: Is he lounging on a rock? Amazin' that he can still look regal even when lazin' around.
Cater: Someone striking a cool pose makes a good painting, sure, but sometimes the natural look is pretty fresh, too.
Cater: It's got a pretty good style, without being too pretentious, if that makes sense…
Cater: And it super feels like if I snagged a pic of this moment and uploaded it to Magicam, it'd end up the top trending photo ever ☆
Ruggie: Oh yeah, speaking of, I saw that photo you uploaded just the other day got a ton of likes.
Ruggie: It just happened to come across my dash, so I don't really remember the context, but it was you with a cat in a pretty chic place.
Cater: Yay, you saw that!? Pretty sure that was when I snapped a pic with this one café's pet cat.
Cater: I like to visit café's, right. So on days off, I usually go and get lunch or drinks at places that catch my eye.
Ruggie: You go to a café whenever you get a day off!? That's gotta cost a ton!
Cater: Oh, no, it's not every day off! I'm just sayin' that I do it often, but there's days I just chill in my room, too.
Ruggie: Kinda feels like it'd be hard to pry you off your phone even on those kinda days, huh.
Cater: Ah, that obvious? Even if I'm just lounging in bed, you know I gotta check the 'cam ♪
Cater: I guess I also sometimes read whatever comic is currently popular, or play some games.
Ruggie: I wasn't expecting you to say you play games. Oh, is it like you have online friends you play with, or something?
Ruggie: There's a ton of co-op and pvp games out there, so.
Cater: Uhh, I don't really play those sorts of games.
Cater: Sometimes whenever I need to clear my head, I'll just play a puzzle game, or something that just has simple tasks.
Cater: One game that I've recently got into is one of those puzzles where objects fall down the screen…
Cater: And this one always has a lot of new characters, all cute and round and plush-lookin'.
Cater: I get a nice and fuzzy feeling just watching 'em go, so I don't really do good with the whole collecting items or raising my score, though.
Cater: Most of the time I'll end up falling asleep if I'm playing it while laying down and just wake up to terrible scores.
Ruggie: The fact that you're not houndin' for a high score, and just play for fun like that definitely sounds more like your speed.
Ruggie: Alllright, well, I've checked out all the art in this gallery, so I'm thinkin' of headin' to the next one. See ya, Cater-san. I'm off.
Cater: Okay, bye-bye, Ruggie-kun. Maybe I'll go check out the shop～ …Oh hey―
Cater: It's a painting showing that one story of the girl who fell adrift into the ocean, huh.
Cater: If I remember right, this girl drank some mystery drink and her whole body shrunk. Poor little thing.
Cater: She'd open her mouth before thinking and stick her neck into whatever she could… Seriously, what a meddling little girl～
Requested by @farfalla049.
#twisted wonderland#twst#cater diamond#ruggie diamond#twst cater#twst ruggie#twst translation#twst birthday#mention: lilia
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My track by track first impressions for Unreal Unearth (with some contextualized thoughts of the singles)
De Selby Part 1 - straight into the lullabies playlist. Just perfect.
De Selby Part 2 - perfect fade in from Part 1. I couldn't have dreamt up a better, more subtle transition. Still my current creature comfort.
First Time - oh, ffs, it's bluesy and sad. Lethal combination. This might be another one on repeat later. Ow. Ouch, ow. THE FINAL TIME YOU CALLED ME "BABY". Wtf. I see why some of y'all were cussing him out on here.
Francesca - my beloved. Brutal to have this follow First Time, though. Mentally two-stepping through the tears. The bellowing at the outro still has the power to ascend me despite my replaying.
I,Carrion - another certified heartbreaker for the lullabies playlist. She's Greek, she's cosmic, she's pure love.
Eat Your Young - I am once again solidified in my conviction to refuse having children in this fucked up world. Y'all be safe.
Damage Gets Done (feat. Brandi Carlile) - Okay guitar lick! Oh the voices belting together in harmony is hitting me. I'm getting really 2010s feelings I haven't felt in forever. I feel the sudden urge to forgive myself. He's back at it again with the choral work, CAN I LIVE??
Who We Are - and just like that, I'm back on my emo shit. He really went for emotional whiplash in terms of song ordering, huh? Not me literally listening to this while engulfed in a dark room as well. Another one I'll have to repeat, I fear.
Son of Nyx - oh fuck. Oh no. Not the piano dragging along. And no words. THE CUTOFF. THE STRINGS. THE VOCALIZATIONS. It's definitely a warning. Shit's about to start hurting for real. It's so haunting and gorgeous.
All Things End - Hello, old friend, my first favorite. I'm terrified of what follows you. It was bad enough watching the man "die" on the table (my hands are in the air to receive the gospel).
To Someone From A Warm Climate (Uiscefhuarithe) - fucking hell. Just devastating. Idk how much more I can take.
Butchered Tongue - this hits like crazy if you have any connection to a diaspora that was nearly erased or just have ancestry DEEPLY rooted oppression and the like. Ffs, I'm gonna need stitches for a cut that deep.
Anything But - and then this happy shit. Back at it again with the whiplash, the bastard. I love it though! This is going on the light and bright playlist. I'm a sucker for sad lyrics dressed in bright colors. And the vocals?? Come on, now.
Abstract (Psychopomp) - I was right. Everything following Son of Nyx just hurts differently. Dare I say worse than the first half of the album. I really shouldn't get into how I relate OFTEN to the poor roadkill creatures in my area.
Unknown/Nth - a nice and plentiful helping of stake through the heart, as usual. The briiidge. I drown in it every time.
First Light - I'm gonna say it's an instant classic. The imagery. The love on love on love. The catharsis. The drumsss. Oh! The acoustic fade out.
Overall, he didn't bother not once to lift his heel on this album. He's outdone himself. No skips. I am foaming at the mouth, waiting for my vinyl to come in. All get 10s across the board from me. 16 works of art. I really wish I could lock myself in a room for three days to really digest this album.
#unreal unearth#my stereo could not have come at a better time i swear#hozier#andrew hozier byrne#the ONLY white man that can have a little bit of my paycheck#here you go bookie 💰#de selby part 1#de selby part 2#first time#francesca#i carrion#eat your young#damage gets done#who we are#son of nyx#all things end#to someone from a warm climate (uiscefhuarithe)#butchered tongue#anything but#abstract (psychopomp)#unknown nth#first light
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ideas for the simplest things that lead to the filthiest acts: Cass hearing John being protective over their kids like if another kid is bullying/meaning mean to one of their kids and she heard him taking care of it
Also his hands in general…..
*PROTECTIVE JOHN BLURB NIGHT! KEEP THEM COMING!*
We have met Gale & Penelope Egan. I think it's time we meet Lillian Egan.
Cass knows something is causing her daughter discomfort from the moment she is born. Sure she has all ten fingers and all ten toes and she is crying louder than the twins did combined. And John notices that his wife is holding the bundle a little closer and a little tighter.
"Spook, you want to fill me in?" Cass didn't let the nurses take Lillian for the night. Has refused to let anyone near their daughter besides John. And John can't fix the ache in her chest if she won't tell him the cause of it.
"Something feels off. I don't know what it is but I feel it, John, I feel it." She's crying and kissing their daughter's forehead and it takes just over a year but Cass was right. Little Lillian Egan had been born nearly deaf in her right ear.
Once she's old enough, she gets a wired hearing aid that connects to a little pouch that she wears and she tells John one morning before school she doesn't want to wear it.
"Pumpkin, you know you have to wear it to school. You can take it off as soon as I pick you up later." He's already thinking he can be talked into stopping for ice cream if it will make her feel better.
"Daddy, no. No one wants to play with me when I wear it."
And you can BET his heart sinks right onto the floor. His precious angel is so devastated and he wants to yell at anyone who has made her feel less than. Even if they are only kindergarteners.
He settles for surprising her during her lunch time. He brings her pancakes from the diner downtown and a little bunch of flowers and he sits with her, noticing the way she tugs on her ear uncomfortably when a couple of kids look her way.
And that night as him and Cass recap their days to each other, he tells her he may have shared a few words with some five year olds. That he may have scared a couple of them. But that he also saw another little girl sitting by herself and encouraged Lillian to say hello. That when he left the two of them were already giggling on the swing set like they'd been friends forever.
And John being a dad turns her on in a way that words can't even express. Being the BEST dad? Well he is not allowed to leave their bed until she says so.
and the hands of John Egan are carved from marble. Michelangel couldn't have even held a candle to those works of art.
#masters of the air#john egan#mota#masters of the air fanfiction#john egan fanfiction#john egan x oc#john egan x reader#answered#cass and bucky
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Whatever it takes
Contents: implied violence, unforgivables. Corruption. Gender neutral reader
Synopsis: how readers from houses other than Slytherin rise to the dark side.
A/N: Based on this ask. (I FUCKED UP AND ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IT I AM SO SORRY. Basically they had a thought about what readers outside of slytherin would be like if they were really into the dark arts/got the mark). I’ve decided to split them into two parts, next will be how the guys react to the mark.
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Hufflepuff:
Your life at hogwarts was fine, but that’s all there had been to it. Fine.
Yet sometimes you’d be in class, in the halls, or even at parties, and you felt so overlooked, so helpless.
You were just “a little Hufflepuff”, always expected to be kind and sweet, and a bloody doormat.
People would walk all over you and you couldn’t do a thing about it. You had tried standing your ground, but that only got you pushed around even more into submission.
You were tired, and you were angry. Oh, so fucking angry, you couldn’t stand biting your tongue over and over again.
You wanted strength, you wanted respect, you wanted for people… to be scared of you.
Yeah, that would do it. Then no one would bother you again.
You set to the library and got to studying, looking for a way. But nothing worked, not those mind tricks, not those body language stuff, not even verbal intimidation. (‘Cause, of course, you’d need to pose as a threat, first.)
No, you needed something better, something more drastic.
You looked at the dark magic book you stole from the restricted section on a whim, and pondered. Would it be worth the sacrifice? Don’t people lose their soul or something?
But as words of mockery swam around in your head, you reached for the damned book.
The transformation wasn’t instant, but people could feel your aura change. Once one of your tormentors had the misfortune of trying something on you while you were alone, it was you who finally got to try your new skills.
The guy came back to his own house, shook and unresponsive, never daring to speak up about what you may have done. But rumors spread like wildfire, and your reputation was sealed.
Other accidents like this one started peppering Hogwarts, but no one could prove anything against you.
Eventually you had received an invitation, or maybe someone had intercepted you while you were heading to Gringotts, but one way or another you and your new Lord (who shared similar passions) were finally united.
Ravenclaw:
You had always been into learning, being a Ravenclaw and all, but especially into learning more and more about magic. (Lucky for you, you turned out a mage)
You had gathered as much as you could during the years, looking for a new breakthrough, but there was only so much to discover.
Especially when you considered your moral limits.
You tapped your pen anxiously on your desk and you thought, hard, about where to turn to next.
It was driving you insane, you knew there was something you were missing that could give you the right push to get out of your slump. And it was right there on your grandmother’s shelf.
Apparently she had had a similar drive, but never actually took things beyond theoretics.
But if you could just experiment a little… you just knew the research would be worth it.
You ran a hand through your hair harshly, the ticking pen transforming into fist against wood briefly, before you shot up towards the book.
You finally sighed in relief, giving yourself the go to read.
For the next few months you held your experiments: at first it was just a matter of plants, small insects, nothing to worry about.
But no one talks about how addictive learning and dark magic are, especially when you combine them. Nothing was enough anymore, you needed to upgrade.
So, you decided to fall back on things no one would miss. And apparently nobody did, as suspicions never arose.
But another group of people took notice of your newfound ‘talents’, and who could teach you better stuff than the strongest wizard of all time?
Gryffindor:
You were a lousy Gryffindor, some would say. You had all your good qualities, but when it came to put them into action, you were always held back by what people could think of you.
Oftentimes you had felt powerless, against others, but mostly against yourself.
You wanted to be strong, like you were supposed to be. No, you needed to be strong.
As you were lost in thought in your room, an idea came into your head.
You scrambled to the floor and pulled out a book from under your bed. You smoothed the dust off the book you had stolen from Nocturn Alley on a dare a couple summers back.
This was crazy, but strength is what you needed, and what magic was there that was more potent than this?
Maybe this could be the answer. Maybe having this knowledge would finally give you the confidence you were looking for.
But as you learned more and more, the need for strength easily turned into one of power.
And so you set out to find your new idol, emblem of confidence and power. Who cared what you would have to give up in return.
#fanfiction#writing#x reader#fanfic#slytherin x reader#gender neutral reader#gryffindor reader#hufflepuff reader#ravenclaw reader#slytherin boys#slytherin boys x reader#theodore nott x reader#draco malfoy x reader#mattheo riddle x reader#enzo berkshire x reader#blaise zabini x reader
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An example of why LGBTQ+ representation in media matters, especially children's media.
As a child I didn't know LGBTQ+ people existed. There were no queer people in my family, or in family friends. (At least, that I was aware of) I remember one time we went to the library and there was an educational table set up outside with information about pride. I asked my mom what all the rainbows were for. I don't remember what she said, other than I remember her mentioning one of my older brother's friends who apparently had two moms. I was very little. I forgot about that conversation and was no more aware of queer people.
I don't remember seeing queer characters in media. The first time I can remember seeing LGBTQ+ people depicted in anything was in the music video for Avichii's "Addicted to You" the plot of the music video follows a pair of female robbers who are explicitly in a romantic relationship. I was absolutely fascinated by this music video when I saw my brother watching it. I was eleven. This music video follows a lot of the common queer TV tropes. The women are criminals, the "bad guys" and they die in the end. But this was the first time I can remember seeing lesbians.
Even as a teenager, I don't remember seeing much LGBTQ+ characters in media. I was intrigued when the token gay side character would show up in a TV show, but that wasn't really representation. I still knew nothing about queer people. A boy in my art class came out to me as trans. The exact words he used were "I'm a trans guy." and I legitimately didn't know if that meant ftm or mtf. I accidentally misgendered him once because of it.
In my early teens, I said some pretty ignorant things. Luckily just to my family, but still. It wasn't until I started questioning my sexuality in my late teens that I actually started to learn anything about the LGBTQ+ community. I did a lot of research, not all related to figuring out my sexuality, just about LGBTQ+ experiences and identities. I watched videos by LGBTQ+ YouTubers, listened to podcasts, read articles, all by queer creators.
I especially made a point of understanding transgender people, because that was something at the time that greatly confused me. So I looked for videos, podcasts, articles etc, made by transgender people themselves where they talked about their feelings and experiences. It made a huge difference. I wasn't confused anymore, I couldn't relate to how they felt, but I had understanding and empathy. I went from confused and unaware, to understanding and supportive. Just from a bit of research.
But even at this point, there was still little to no LGBTQ+ media representation. When I came out at 18 and felt comfortable picking movies focused on queer characters, I had a heck of a time finding any. I did find some, and while a lot of them weren't great, I did find a few really good ones. (Saving Face and Late Bloomers are two of my favourites)
Things are getting better, slowly. We're starting to see more media focused around LGBTQ+ characters, and children's media including the topic. It's long overdue and we're still not quite there yet. You're gonna have a hard time finding media focused on LGBTQ+ characters that aren't white, able bodied gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters. Representation for trans, non binary, asexual and aromantic identifies, queer people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, religious queer people, and disabled queer people, and any combination of the above, is still lacking. We still have more work to do.
Having these kinds of shows and movies would have made a big difference for me growing up, and it will make a big difference for thousands of other kids who are growing up right now.
This isn't a negative post to complain about the lack of media, it's an example of it's importance and optimism for the future. I do believe this will continue to get better, however slow that may be. This is just my little reminder of why it needs to.
I hope anyone who reads this is having a good day. You're valid and loved, no matter who you are. Stay safe.
#lgbt#lgbtq#queer#lesbian#nonbinary#transgender#gay#pansexual#asexual#aromantic#queer media#queer representation#lgbt media#lgbt representation#lgntq#lgbtq representation#lgbtq media#genderfluid#agender#genderqueer#lgbtq movies#lgbt movies#queer movies#queer tv#lgbt tv#lgbtq tv#queer kids#lgbt kids#queer youth#lgbt youth
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