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malewife-overlord · 3 months

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Six Cycles Later -- Part II

no one asked for this. i wrote it anyways. for anyone who has not seen the fucking big as chunk of writing that was the part I, you can find it here. for anyone actually invested, welcome to part II! it picks up right where part I left off :)

if youre new here, six cycles later is a tf oc fic im writing about a seeker left behind on earth after the attack on autobot city, and a certain autobot who arrived on earth after going missing at the very start of the war-- both of whom are linked by the same desire to escape, and more alike than they'd think.

i consider this chapter to be a bit of a "transition" chapter, because it's a chapter where you kinda move from point a to b to get to c, lol. promise action and some delicious goodies are coming up in Part III :3 but we've gotta get there first.

word count: 7471

fic below cut! as usual, any nice comments or likes are appreciated u///u sorry it took so long to post this, im balancing writing with commissions and a full time job, so. idie a little but its okay

summary: invert goes to bali. she hates it. luster goes to the clinic. he hates it.

“Victory, cmon!” Invert stood before the double doors of the weapons vault, a frown etched on her faceplate. “Open the weapons vault! It’s an emergency!”

Emergency protocol not engaged. Clearance level 3 required to access weapons vault. Present clearance level: 1. Weapons vault cannot be accessed.

“Victory!” She pouted, shaking a fist. “Come on! It’s me! I’m the only ‘con on this ship, I should have maximum clearance!”

Clearance level: 1. Weapons vault cannot be accessed.

“Victory!”

The ship gave her no response. Invert growled and tried the keypad again, then the scanner, then the keycard. Nothing. As if in warning, a loud buzzer sounded at the end, a illuminating a red light above the vault.

“How am I going to rescue my fellow Decepticons if I don’t have a weapon?” She asked aloud, glaring up, as if Victory would answer her. “I don’t even have proper blasters anymore!”

Silence. Maddening, maddening silence.

“Fine! Fine. I’ll make due. I’ll just run headlong into the Autobots and die, and no one will be left to maintain you! Then what?”

Nothing.

A groan escaped her. “Really? …really. Fine.”

She turned on her heel and stomped for her room, where she knew at least one weapon was waiting. It was dangerous, and could possibly blow up in her face again, and hadn’t seen actual use since the first test, but…well, it was better than nothing! And sure, she could access the weapons collection Starscream had in his habsuit, or the rare crafts Megatron had in his, but…

The punishment for even touching any of those would be far worse than anything the Autobots could do to her. She shivered and pushed the idea aside. Nope, not risking that. If she touched anything in their rooms, when they returned, they’d kill her.

Then again, if she died on this mission, she wouldn’t have to worry about them killing her.

Her personal pet project was in her habsuit, resting on the tiny desk she’d dragged into it. Her habsuit was at the very end of all the others–the Constructicons had had no desire to build it, so they’d shoved her in what had been the previous broom closet. The fact that she fit at all was a miracle, as was that they let her get away with stealing a desk for it.

Perhaps after seeing what she’d started to make, they’d decided against reclaiming it. After all, not many bots could say they got to personally observe Shockwave working in his lab, and even fewer could mimic his proficiency with crafting weapons.

She was not one of those fewer, but she had watched him work in the past. Being his personal lab assistant/slave had been eye opening in that way. And furthermore, it had led to her accumulating a few parts that would otherwise be impossible to acquire on Earth.

All of those factors combined to let her craft her own weapon. The intention was for it to be a sniper class with a greatly extended range starting at ten miles. That was to start. If everything went according to her dreams, it would be able to fire more than twice that on both planets and the cold void of space.

Dreams, however, didn’t guarantee results. The prototype she kept in her habsuit had been her pride and joy until its original test fire had caused the damnable thing to blow up in her face, right in front of her fellow Decepticons. If anything had wounded her ego, that was it.

And since then, she hadn’t bothered to fire it once.

She stepped into her habsuit and observed her experimental weapon for only a moment before picking it up. This would be the second time it’d be in the field. She’d tweaked it over and over since that embarrassing day, changing the scope, the trigger, the barrel, the energon pump, and even provided ii the ability to transform. The latter wasn’t anything particularly impressive–the scope and barrel disengaged anyways to permit carrying it, and without the barrel the rifle was the same size as a blaster. Furthermore, despite its simplicity, the rifle had to be manually transformed, something that even simple blasters could pull off otherwise.

But it was her first attempt, her first real, genuine attempt, at making a weapon, and she felt she’d done a decent job for someone who’d never previously handled tools.

It took a few seconds to convert the rifle, which was almost as long as she was tall, to its smaller, spike shaped form, which she then attached to her forearm via its magnetic underside. Utilizing it in jet mode would be impossible like this, but it was better to know she had a weapon than be a sitting quasiduck on her mission.

Her blasters had been sacrificed to make the rifle. She sincerely hoped that the investment would pay off.

“Alright!” She yelled, throwing her arms out. “That’s all I get, Victory! Just one experimental weapon! No blasters! No grenades! No fusion cannons! No null rays or swords or electric staves! All of which I could use if you’d just open the weapons vault! Are you really going to send me off with only this?”

Judging from the lack of response, it seemed that yes, it was.

Frag this. She kicked the doorframe and stormed Skywarp’s habsuit. He was bigger than her and would make her life a living hell for two chords, but he’d get over it. Besides. She could punch him back without anyone giving her trouble for it. What occurred between Skywarp and whoever punched him stayed there.

His habsuit was sparsely decorated, and what existed in it was usually so filthy no one else would touch it. Today she lowered her standards and grabbed one of the blasters she knew he kept under his berth in the hopes that no one would find them; considering how often he had his own revoked, and how much the others hated him, Skywarp had found it necessary to maintain some form of private collection, if only for self-defense from revenge that was absolutely earned.

And now his constant need to misbehave was paying off: she wouldn’t be entirely unarmed for this flight, and having a sidearm was better than gauging her hopes on an experimental rifle.

Attaching the blaster to her other forearm, she made for the hangar. Her tank felt like it was fluttering with each step. A quick diagnostic scan revealed nothing unusual–nothing besides her own wiring. For this first time ever, she was going to visit the hangar and take off from it.

The idea that she was flightless was, in truth, only partially correct. Invert, like all Seekers, had been forged with wings on her back. Yes, they were upside down, and yes, when she transformed, they pointed the wrong way, with the delicate trailing edge leading as opposed to the leading edge itself. This caused the angle her wings made to work against her, and normally kept her out of the air. But a messed up angle alone was not enough to keep her grounded forever.

An Earth plane would struggle and stay put, never to dream of the sky. A Cybertronian would reason that with enough Energon and determination, anything could be done. And that was exactly how she intended to fly to Bali.

She could fly. The force from her thrusters alone, once in the air, could keep her going upwards, though they would consume Energon at a rapid rate. For this reason she visited the Energon vault and procured five additional cubes–her present fuel levels were adequate enough she felt no need to recharge. As long as she kept her thrusters engaged and made sure to ride the wind currents of Earth perfectly, she calculated a likely path to Bali that only had a 32.6% chance of her crashing and dying in the process.

Odds of 67.4 percent seemed favorable enough to her. She paused before the double doors of the hangar, vented, and opened them, stepping in.

“Victory, elevate the hangar.” The entire structure rumbled as it rose, the whoosh of water outside indicating they’d broken the surface of the ocean. She could hear waves beating against the metal. “Open. When I leave, return to the bottom of the ocean. I’ll be back. Even if you don’t seem to want me to.”

She grumbled that last part.

The hangar doors opened. Bright sunlight poured in, causing her optics to readjust. She blinked a few times and took several steps forward, gazing out at the outside world.

The ocean seemed to go on for eternity. Its color was a deep blue. White peaks formed and faded away as they crashed over and over against on the hangar.

Above, the sky was cloudless. The winds were strong, rushing past her and howling in the enclosed metal environment. It was a good day for a flight.

Invert returned to the back of the hangar and pulled up the coordinates in her hub. Approximately 8,502 miles. She’d cross it in a few earth hours if everything went well.

If.

The Energon cubes felt heavy in her chassis as she transformed, lowering to the ground. The movement of her wings, shifting to her sides, becoming the things she’d have to rely on, felt wrong. It always did–like going from standing on two steady pedes to posing on one’s servos. One was natural, normal, comfortable, done without even thinking. The other required precise balance, intense focus, and a constant consumption of energy to maintain.

She’d be more used to it if they let her practice more or gave her some lessons, perhaps. Perhaps they would do just that when they came back. And when they came back, they’d be proud, perhaps, of what she pulled off while they were gone.

Giving her fuel supply one final check over, she engaged her thrusters and charged forward.

Just like what you’ve seen Starscream do. Engage, shoot forward—

And she plummeted, shooting right into the ocean instead of the air. Spluttering, Invert turned back and barely managed to regain her balance before smashing into the seabed. A school of fish shot away from her, followed by some of the many legged organics and one of the squishy, color changing ones.

She groaned, knocked a fist against her helm, and turned back to Victory, determined to try again. She’d get this right. She had to.

She wouldn’t stop until she did.

—

Eight hours was all it took to reach Bali with the speed she maintained once airborne. High above the cruising altitude any human plane would comfortably fly at, she watched the unbroken ocean, speckled ever so slightly by the white peaks of breaking waves, and read over the logs on Insecticons. According to the writer of the Decepticon database, Insecticons were about as useful as unrefined Energon and equally likely to explode. Good to know.

They were also incredibly disloyal. Of the three, Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell, none had any kind of investment in the Decepticon cause. Their adaptations had given them the ability to consume organic matter and drastically increased their hunger. All they cared about was food.

That would be troublesome, if she took them back to Victory immediately. With how low the Energon supply was getting, even one of them deciding to stuff himself could mean that the Decepticon cause on Earth died, permanently.

She’d have to approach them cautiously, without the same hospitality she’d extend to her fellow ‘cons (a good punch to the face, usually). What approach she’d provide, she’d have to decide, soon, since the coastline of the island nation had just manifested on the horizon–

When a warning suddenly appeared on her hub, covering almost her entire vision in red:

LOW POWER. ENERGON LEVEL: 10%. SEEK IMMEDIATE FUEL SOURCE.

She cursed, but before the word could even escape her, her body convulsed, forcibly transforming back into its robot mode. Her nose cone dipped before turning back to her chassis and head, leaving her plummeting head over pedes. Her balance modulator began to scream in its efforts to right her, only to immediately disable as the rest of her forcibly entered power saving mode.

The ocean was coming up fast. The wind whistled past, blocking out her audials. Tumbling over herself, Invert tried to use the boosters in her struts in an effort to slow her descent–and their force promptly made her tumble even faster. The world became a blur of blue as her systems flashed every warning under the sun.

Then she hit the ocean, and the impact was so painful she momentarily offlined. Something cracked. Pain shot all throughout her frame, a damage report automatically pulling up in her hub as she sank below the greenish water, straight to the bottom below.

It wasn’t a long drop, but just the act of hitting the sandy bottom exacerbated the pains shooting through her frame. She may as well have hit a wall at full speed. Blinking her optics several times, her damage report finally came into proper view.

It wasn’t particularly savage, but neither was it promising. As she moved her arms to pull herself from her prone position on the seafloor they creaked ominously, the sound accompanied by broken glass spilling from her cockpit onto the sandy bottom. Glowing Energon joined it.

That got her up. She practically leaped to her pedes, grabbing the cubes and stuffing them back into her chassis, cursing a storm as two of them began to leak. Cracks were apparent in both, and the delicate energy they provided bled out into the ocean currents. Two would be an entire recharge for her–she couldn’t let them go to waste.

Pressing her servos against the cracks and praying that would be enough, she swiveled her helm, searching for the shore. The water was shallow–only about fifty feet, if her depth meter was to be trusted–but the open area she’d found herself in was still miles from shore.

Miles she would not make without more Energon. Grimacing, already aware of just how poorly this would fare for her tanks, she brought the first of the cubes to her dermas and forcibly gulped it down, taking in far too much seawater in the process. Warnings popped up about contaminated fuel, followed by analysis of the contents: 96.5% water, 2.5% salts, .2% inorganic particulates, .8% organic particulates.

The latter part almost made her purge what she’d consumed, but she kept it down. It was energy enough, she wouldn’t have to do it again and once she was back on land she’d purge anyways and forget that this ever happened. Tossing the empty cube aside and pocketing the second, she checked her map again for which way was land.

North. She took off in that direction, the sandy floor gradually turning into some kind of living rock formation. Slimy looking organics of odd shapes populated the colorful stones, darting away as she stepped on and crunched them with ease. They left slime on her plating, which did not help her growing desire to purge. Stepping over what seemed to be an entire shelf of the organics, her helm finally broke water.

Ahead of her was a beach densely populated with humans. Around her, gasping and shrieking as they swam away, were more humans, all of whom had been previously enjoying themselves, somehow, in the ocean.

She gave a dirty look to the closest ones and stomped forward, gradually rising out of the water as she approached the beach. The humans occupying it screamed and scattered, abandoning their little colorful fabrics and strange striped pole structures. A few foolish ones froze in place, staring at her in awe.

Dripping with saltwater, covered in slime, and with a broken, gaping cockpit on display, Invert didn’t have the time nor patience to put up with any of them. Decepticons hardly had any concern for humans anyways, but it was generally discouraged to avoid stepping on them–it ruined your paint.

Considering the damage her beautiful lime green had already attained, she didn’t think she could care less now.

“Hey!”

With her map pulled up in her main hub, she hadn’t noticed the one human that, as opposed to running in fear, had frozen up and stood their ground. She glanced down, spotting a tanned one just by her pedes.

“Are you one of those Autobots?”

The question actually made her pause for a moment, considering the Decepticon brand on her wings. If she were feeling a bit more patient or playful, she might tell him yes, she was, and he and all his friends should absolutely be fine with her holding a few of them for potential hostage situations later. Perhaps she could convince them to take her to her quarry without even an ounce of concern that they might call for help. It was an action that would make strategic sense, that any intellectual Decepticon would leap at.

Invert, however, was tired, cranky, and not particularly fond of anything made of metal at the moment.

She bent and flicked the human aside, not paying any attention as to just where the hell it might have landed. Humans. Worthless, bold, idiotic creatures. So tiny and delicate. And yet they still thought they could talk to beings like her.

“How much longer till I get there?” She asked her systems as she headed off the beach, crunching a few human structures along the way. It responded with a calculation of the remaining distance to her quarry: halfway across the island, nestled in a ‘mangrove swamp’. Another thirty minutes of walking.

Her pedes crushed plants and bent concrete as she followed the straightest path, ignoring whatever might have been built upon it. Humans panicked and ran in all directions to avoid her, their tiny screams grating on her audials. They were turned down in response, muting any potential crunching that may have occurred as she kicked aside a wooden structure marked with the image of a cone. The humans and their worthless, useless, delicate structures, were left behind in no time.

And foolishly, she did not once consider that one of those screaming, fleeing humans might have called for help.

—---------------------

The coordinates lead her to a swamp. After a good ten minutes of walking, Invert found that the island gave way to less populated areas, rife only with animal and plant based organics. They were no more pleasant to deal with, but they didn’t scream nearly as much, and their movement patterns were relatively predictable. They fled to the undergrowth and hid there, as if they were praying she’d leave them alone.

Good organics. They knew where they belonged.

As she neared the swamp the dirt moistened, sticking to her pedes, and the water made its damnable return, flooding the land and forming pools that ran up her cadulens. The trees lifted themselves upon their roots as if they intended to walk away, forming cages which entrapped more organics within them. It seemed to her like a great prison, formed by the rejects of the Earth itself.

Her map suddenly lit up, providing her with a name for the place she’d stepped into–the “Demon Swamp”. An informational packet came along with it, indicating that the Insecticon ship was nearby and that her Decepticon brethren had visited this place prior. She ignored everything except the part about the Insecticons.

Invert was hasty, but not stupid. She done her research on the three of them during her flight–it had been difficult with the amount of focus she’d had to maintain at all times, but she’d pulled it off, because unlike some other one trick mechaponies in the cause, she could be taught how to do more than one thing.

Of the three Insecticons, her greatest interest was in Shrapnel. They all seemed like frankly awful comrades, but the ability to produce clones was undeniably powerful. It wouldn’t matter if she was the last Decepticon on Earth. It wouldn’t matter if she only found him. It wouldn’t even matter if he could only make a few clones–a clone was still another robot, and numbers were what they needed more than anything.

Silently, she hoped that he was the one who had created the distress signal, and that maybe, because of his electricity powers, he’d caused that infernal buzzing. It made sense. What else could have?

She made her way through the Demon Swamp cautiously.. For all she knew, Autobot soldiers were waiting around every corner. But more than that, the environment itself was actively hostile to her kind.

The water was brackish, and sediment easily gathered between plating. The air was humid, which could clog vents. Organics constantly chirped in the background, distracting audials. The foliage from the mangrove trees moved constantly in the wind, requiring constant optic adjustments for lighting. And the water she waded through gave her position away to anything with ears in the general vicinity.

There was no approaching stealthily, not with the twisting roots that threatened to constantly trip her or the water that sloshed and bubbled like it was boiling. There was so much noise, even with her audials turned down, it was almost difficult to think.

And that didn’t even begin to cover the constant buzzing that had risen into the air, one that she recognized. She was approaching the ship, she could feel it. Her map was pinging wildly, her coordinate numbers were rapidly growing smaller, and the buzzing of the signal, audible to everyone in a mile radius at minimum, was practically screaming.

Actually…she paused, disabling her coordinates and turning her map off. The buzzing was still audible. Raising a hand to her helm, she disabled her comms as well.

The buzzing was still audible.

It wasn’t a signal, then.

She took in a sharp ex-vent and continued forward, the mangrove trees overhead beginning to close together, blocking out the sunlight from above. The route she was following had taken on the qualities of a tunnel with mangrove roots forming its walls. They twisted and crawled over one another like tentacles. It made her plating crawl.

The path curved sharply. She was met with a curtain of organic filth, gray and twisting. The buzzing had turned to almost shrieking now, and her scanners indicated that Cybertronian technology was very close now. Grimacing to herself, Invert grit her dentae and shoved the curtain aside, convulsing only slightly as it draped over her plating. It worsened her desire to purge–but that wasn’t the only contributor to the growing feeling.

Before her, nestled in a massive grotto, was an old, crashed ship of Cybertronian origin. The doors to it had long been blown off and water had pooled over its floors. Organic filth grew over its top and mangrove roots had looped over its wings, trapping it in place. Its interior was pitch black, but she could detect some kind of movement from within.

From the heart of that dark void the buzzing originated, sounding like the shriek of static. And just below it, she could hear a voice.

“LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!”

—---------------------------------------------------

Seek alternate fuel source.

By the time Uptick’s data package sent him the notification to end recharge, Luster still hadn’t managed to offline for even a moment. Throughout the entirety of Earth’s night he’d laid still, listening to the endless humming that droned in his processor while watching the light of the moon creep across the floor. Earth’s moon was a small satellite structure about fifty times smaller than the planet it orbited. From the safety of the organic’s home it appeared as a particularly large orb in the sky and went through eight different phases: full, waxing gibbous, first quarter, waxing crescent

He vented harshly at the image and promptly sat up, the constant pinging in his helm only now properly registering. Uptick had so graciously set an alarm for him that was thirty Earth minutes prior to when he was expected at the clinic. As if on cue, he heard a knock at his door, and a quick check of the electrical field coming from outside told him all he needed to know of who was waiting for him.

A comm arrived in his link before he could disable it. Despite the alarm literally ringing in his processor and telling him to get up, which Uptick would know he was presently experiencing, another notification from the same mech now waited patiently in his inbox, politely and firmly reiterating what had been told to him the night prior.

It would soon be time to go to the clinic. He was not permitted to avoid or skip this appointment. He was on his second strike, and a third would mean that he would go into lockdown. They did not want to make him a prisoner. This was for his own good.

Tank capacity at 50%. Fuel uptake at 15%. Seek alternate fuel source.

He didn’t manage to close the notification in time and it promptly opened a dozen more. Groaning to himself, Luster slammed his helm into the nearest wall, the damage report temporarily clearing his hub.

Another comm and knock arrived only a second after he completed the action. If his optics could roll into his helm, they would have.

‘I’m up,’ he sent back. ‘Out in a klik.’

His comms were promptly disabled, blocking out Uptick’s response. Then, the damnable alarm that hadn’t once stopped ringing was seized, taken to the back of his processor, and disabled in the least humane way he could imagine. Lastly, every last notification was closed and its accompanying pop-ups blocked.

Finally, a moment of quiet. He swung his legs off his berth and took in a few ex-vents, mentally preparing himself for just what he was going to experience at the clinic today. During his last visit, they’d given up on trying to get him to manually recall the details of his trip. Whispers between the medics had agreed upon bringing in “the big guns”.

Whatever “the big guns” meant, he couldn’t say he was eager to find out.

There were guesses he’d had towards just what such a term might be referring to–a psychic patch in, perhaps, or maybe the complete removal of his processor for dissection. Maybe they’d do a deep scan and recreate him in a digital space, just so they could pick him apart like a particularly interesting puzzle.

That was all he was to them. A puzzle. Something to be solved, categorized, put together, pulled apart, and put away once solved.

He couldn’t even solve himself. What made them think they could do it?

Uptick pinged him again. It had been exactly 16 kliks of blissful silence. Luster vented and stood. Despite his tanks remaining half full, he could feel the aggressive pangs of hunger nipping at him, ever on the edge of his mind. They were pushed aside as he tapped the keypad to his habsuit, opening the door.

Uptick stood just beyond it, taking up the entire frame and more with his bulk. He stepped back when the door opened, a mandatory smile crossing his faceplate.

“There you are! That’s the fastest you’ve ever arisen!” He beamed at the prospect of his work bearing fruit, which Luster found annoying. “I’ll keep this in mind for next time. Now, are you ready to go? If we’re early, they might be able to admit you faster, which means a shorter session, eh?”

“Sure. Shorter.” He grumbled and slinked past Uptick, who closed the door he’d left open and followed along.

The clinic he visited on a weekly basis was located on the opposite side of Metroplex, towards the back of his city form. During the war, there had been dozens of buildings just like it, designed to hold the wounded and dying. After the assault on Autobot city and the incident with the Chaos Bringer on Cybertron, many of the clinics on Earth had closed down as the medics and doctors returned home. There were, after all, far more injuries and casualties on Cybertron, even without the war raging.

The peace of Earth had seen all but two clinics close, which were kept open out of necessity. Rare as it was, on occasion an Autobot might return from sparring with half his arm blasted off, or from a drive amongst humans with his front completely ruined. Humans, as Luster had quickly come to learn, were awful navigators and drivers. They ran into everything from still trees to moving cars to thin pedestrians on the side of the road.

And sometimes they ran into Autobots, and what was merely an inconvenience for them was a fatality for the fragile organics.

He didn’t feel quite strongly about the humans. They were alright. They were small, and weak, but surprisingly intelligent. They thought he was fascinating and scary. Some thought he was a friend. Many had grown accustomed to his kind, and would look at him with expectant eyes.

He couldn’t offer them anything. He didn’t know why he intrigued them. The less interactions he had with the small things, the better, he supposed. The only slightly less maddening thing about their company was that the beat of their ‘sparks’ didn’t drive his processor crazy.

Which was reason more why he despised the clinic. If there were weak in Autobot City, they were here. And the weak…the weak made easy prey.

The streets were full of Autobots this early in the morning. Most everyone was up at this point, stretching their legs, tires, and waking up their engines. With every Autobot that dashed past them, racing along eagerly in alt mode, Luster felt his solvents building. The clinic was within sight, and he could see a black and yellow mech lingering by it, chatting up one of the nurses.

Their sparks were so bright he could almost see them through their plating.

Seek alternate fuel source.

Luster staggered to a halt in the middle of the street, venting harshly as he slammed a fist to his helm.

Uptick startled behind him, instantly raising a hand. “Luster? What’s the matter? Are you alright?”

He gagged, hissing through his dentae. “I…I need to leave. Now. I need–”

“Now is no time for cold pedes.” Uptick said firmly, crossing his arms. “I know you’ve been opposed to these sessions, but the medics have assured me–”

Seek alternate fuel source.

The notifications were building nonstop. He couldn’t focus on moving, ignoring the sparkbeats, tuning out Uptick, resisting his aching tank, and closing the pop ups, all at once. He needed just a moment of calm, anything to temporarily turn it all off.

“I need Energon,” he spat, ignoring whatever else Uptick had said. “Now.”

“Luster–!”

Jerking away, Luster staggered in the direction he knew the bar to be in. Three streets over, seven blocks down, take a left at the lamp post, follow the street until you see a lit up sign–

“Luster!” Uptick yelled, catching up with him in a moment and grabbing him by his shoulders. Luster growled and tried to shake him off, but he held on, turning him around like he was only an indignant sparkling. “You are absolutely not visiting the bar again. I tolerate this habit of yours on your best days, when it is appropriate to do so. Believe me when I say this, I understand how… appealing it can be to try and drown yourself in energy when you’re faced with the horrors of the past. But you…you’re taking it to dangerous levels.” His faceplate was more stony than the diamonds in Luster’s helm. “And I know for a fact that your tank does not empty at a rate so rapid that you’d need to refuel after only six hours of recharge.”

“I didn’t recharge,” Luster snapped back, reaching up to grab one of Uptick’s servo’s. “I couldn’t offline for even a second last night. I’m starving, I need Energon, Uptick!”

“You need to stop acting like this!” His grip only tightened as Luster scratched at it, some of the white paint chipping away. “Avoiding your appointments to drink at the bar won’t change anything for the better, Luster! If you keep resisting change, you’ll end up trapped in the past!”

The street had been sparsely populated only moments ago. Now, Luster was aware of other Autobots pausing in their going-ons. Several helms poked out from buildings, curious to see exactly what one of their enforcers had caught.

He didn’t want to make a scene. The last thing he needed was more Autobots in the area around him. The quiet pounding sounds rapidly surrounding him were like drums on a quiet evening. But before he could even try to look around another notification popped up.

Feed.

“It’s not about being stuck, idiot!” He screamed back, a snarl twisting his faceplate. He could feel the metal threatening to crack and break apart at the seams, right where his jaws would hinge. “I NEED this, or I’ll offline! I’ve got a fuel deficiency!”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!” Metal creaked as Uptick’s grip suddenly tightened, earning him a hiss. “I’ve have personal access to your file! There’s nothing wrong with your physical health!”

Nothing wrong? NOTHING WRONG?!

The file was already so wrong by claiming that, and none of them even knew it.

Seek alternate fuel source.

There are many sources nearby.

“Is that so?” He grit out, feeling something on his back shifting. “Is that what they told you?”

Was it so, Uptick? Would it always be so? Would it be so when he broke his faceplate, snapped his servos, and–

And what was he thinking?

He froze in the middle of forming his next sentence, voice dying before it could make any words. There was something shifting on his back, beneath his drill, and it replaced all the anger he felt with instant fear. There were witnesses. There were Autobots he knew around. If he let any more of himself slip, he would never speak to any of them again.

The fight left him as quickly as it had entered, uselessly bleeding out like the Energon in his tank. Uptick seemed to sense this, his own rage subsiding, loosening along with his servos. Their impression had been left behind in Luster’s shoulderpads. He’d barely felt them bend, hissing only out of reflex.

It was supposed to have hurt. He hadn’t even felt it.

The noise was coming back now. It was accompanied by the voices of other Autobots. He was suddenly so aware of the gazes upon him. Standing in the middle of the street by the clinic, he’d made himself the spectacle of the sector. And Uptick…

“We’re here early,” he muttered, venting quietly. “If you attend, and give them no issue, then…perhaps after your appointment…I…” He trailed off. “Your favorite refuge, it’s the Lead Pigeon, right?”

Luster did not look at him, or anyone, for that matter. Numbly he headed for the doors of the clinic, the red and orange nurse from before waiting for him. Uptick said something, following him halfway to his destination before stopping in the street. The medic cast him a glance before focusing back on her patient.

“Luster! It’s good to see you.” The nurse held out her arm and spoke like she hadn’t watched him almost assault an enforcer in the street. “We’re almost ready for you, if you’ll just follow me. Got to take vitals.”

“Right,” he muttered, the noise of his notifications starting to drown out the street he’d left behind. Amongst it all, a ping came in from Uptick. He lingered over it for a few seconds as his body trudged along, leaving his mind stuck at the doors of the clinic.

“Luster?” The nurse stopped by a machine. “Please step on the scanner.”

He dismissed Uptick’s ping and obeyed.

After the initial scans, he was led to the back of the clinic. The nurse took him to a small room with an examination table and a monitor. He moved to the table while she retrieved her datapad and tapped him in, the door sealing shut behind them.

He’d been to the clinic a dozen times before, but it was the first time they’d taken him to this individual room. It was smaller than he’d thought they’d put a mech of his size in. With both their frames crowded in alongside the monitor and table, the place felt almost stifling. He shifted uncomfortably, dismissing more pings and notifications as she finally looked up from her datapad.

“Alright, you’re all checked in. I’ve sent a comm to the surgeon you’ll be working with today.” She smiled, again. It was starting to bug him. “Have you been made aware of the treatment you’ll be undergoing today?”

“No,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his legs. “What is it?”

Ignoring his tone, she kept smiling and continued. “Are you familiar with mnemosurgery? Following your last encounter at the clinic, the doctor felt it would be best if an alternate approach was used to help you regain your memories. A specialist was called in from Cybertron, just for you.”

Luster cringed at that. All the way from Cybertron. Someone from home, or what home was supposed to be. Someone who’d remind him of how much he’d changed, how much home had changed. Was it anything like he remembered?

Mnemosurgery. It meant nothing to him. He frowned.

“So he’s come all the way from Cybertron to do…something weird to me?” He vented. The drill on his back felt all the heavier. “Wonderful.”

The nurse was still smiling. Did she ever stop? Did she think it was reassuring? He felt like he was going to purge.

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry. Mnemosurgery has been used plenty of times to help mechs struggling with trauma. The doctor wouldn’t have prescribed this if he thought it would be harmful to your health. And–”

A knock on the door interrupted her. Turning, she flipped the lock and it slid open, revealing a lavender mech with teal and yellow accents. He was wearing a silver visor and carrying a datapad, and gave the nurse a nod as he stepped in. “Luster of Cybertron, I take it?” He asked, silver gaze taking in the form of the pathetic creature sitting on the examination table. Upon receiving a nod, he grinned and held out a hand. “Good to meet you! I’m Redactor, and I’ll be serving as your mnemosurgeon.”

His greeting was not returned. Unperturbed, Redactor dismissed the nurse, though he didn’t bother to sit where she had. Raising his datapad, he stood by the door as it closed, reviewing whatever information was on it.

“So tell me about yourself, Luster!”

His voice was annoyingly cheerful. From the looks of his shoulderpads, tires, and the gaudy paint job, Luster guessed he was a race car. There were even rear wings on his back, split for each arm. His Autobot insignia was proudly displayed on his helm.

“What’s there to tell? Everything you need to know is on that datapad.”

Redactor shrugged. “Sure, but as your mnemosurgeon, I’d like to potentially learn a bit more about you before I go digging around in your memories. It’s never pleasant to have a stranger in your thinker, is it?” He tapped his helm and let out a light chuckle.

Luster arched an optical ridge. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you know what mnemosurgery is?” Redactor tilted his helm slightly, and when Luster shook his own, continued. “Mnemosurgery is the process of entering another Cybertronians mind. We…it doesn’t have a great reputation, I’ll be entirely realistic with you.”

Despite the seriousness of the topic, he let out an awkward laugh.

“You see it has a bit of a…connection, with the concepts of shadowplay and…well, during the war, it was frequently used to pry secrets from the processors of soldiers.”

“But! Time marches on.” He gave Luster a smile that was supposed to be reassuring and failed to do just that. “You have my promise, I am not here to control you or alter your memories—I’m here to help you regain them. I heard you’ve been having memory problems?”

“That’s…one way of saying it.” He sat up, his back strut cracking as he did so. “I can’t remember anything, which I’m sure that datapad has already told you. So how are you going to fix that?”

Redactor raised one hand, needles suddenly springing from his fingers. Luster’s optics widened. Beneath his drill, something stirred, preparing to spring out defensively.

“Relax! The process is painless!” The needles retracted and Redactor waved his hand placatingly. “According to your file, your memories are damaged, but it’s likely that they still exist, buried deep within your processor. You just can’t access them. That’s where I come in!”

He gave his horrifying servos a wiggle. “With these, I can delve into your processor and potentially guide you back into those areas you can’t access. Now…granted, it may take several tries, and the process is quite dangerous to me. But…well, I can’t just turn down someone in need.”

“In need?” He was in need, all right, in need of not having needles jammed into his processor. He’d had the thing literally poked and prodded before, but this? Another ‘bot, literally inside of his head, accessing his memories?

“Yes. Whatever happened to you out there, it’s destroyed quite a bit of your processor, hasn’t it? Don’t you want to remember any of it?”

When he didn’t answer, Redactor leaned forward, pressing even further. “Don’t you want to remember Cybertron? Your ship? Whatever you found out there? Solace?”

Solace.

Don’t you want to remember Solace?

Solace.

He felt like the ground was dropping from beneath his feet, flipping his tank out of his intake. Coughing, Luster felt warm Energon spill into his mouth, dripping out from his dermas. Redactor cringed at the sight.

“Are you alright?” He asked worriedly, though his words fell on deafening audials.

Solace.

Who’s Solace?

“If you’re not feeling well, I’ll call the nurse, we can do this another day–”

“Don’t.” The words spilled out of him along with the pearls of Energon, his optics focusing on the silver of Redactor’s visor. “Solace. You can help me remember Solace?.”

There was an edge to his voice, a desperation that made Redactor flinch.

“I–yes, that’s the hope. I–have you eaten this morning? The nurse said there was an incident–”

“I’m fine. Tell me. What are you going to do?” He leaned forward, almost losing his balance on the table. “What do those needles do? Are you going through my helm?”

“Oh, heavens no. They, ah, enter through the back of your neck, where I’ll connect with–”

“Don’t care. You said it doesn’t hurt?”

“No, absolutely not. Completely painless, I assure you. Um, are you sure you’re feeling alright, you seem…well, friend, you’ve done a bit of an about face, haven’t you?”

He balled a fist and wiped Energon from his dermas. “Haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about. How long is this going to take?”

“The mnemosurgery? Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I try to keep sessions short–the longer I’m in your mind, the greater the danger to me.”

Just a few hours at max. He could hold out for that long. With how slowly his tank drained anyways, he wouldn’t be anywhere close to empty even by the end of the earth day. A few hours. That was all.

Solace. He had to find out what happened to Solace. This would let him find out what had happened to Solace.

What happened to Solace?

“Alright. Poke me. Stab me. Whatever you’ve got to do. Let’s do this.”

Redactor winced. “It’s…good to see that you’re so…cooperative! Al-alright, please lie down.”

He did as instructed. Redactor loomed over him, needles poking out of his servos as he moved to his helm.

“Now, please try to relax. Disable your optics if need be. The more stressed you are, the more difficult it can become for me to enter, and…”

Redactor was going on and on about the process. Luster did not care. He was too busy attempting to close every notification currently crowding his hub.

Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.

A few hours. Just a few hours. That was all he had to hold on for.

He could do this.

#my ocs #my writing #six cycles later #PART II BABEY #tf ocs #absolutely not putting this in tags i Fear for my life #me and my 5 note flop post for my 25 followers ONLY #hi everyone how're you doing

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owtenen · 2 years

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LIMITED LIFE EPISODE 1: The Basics

Where I put all the info we know about the mechanics, team-ups, base locations, etc into one location

(below cut is spoilers to LIMITED LIFE, which is series 4 of the life series. Pls don’t get mad if you read it and don’t want spoilers)

I. Participants

No ren :( I'm sad :(

Skizz is back :D

Nothing really big about this part, just that all of the soul pairs except Box Boys are here for potential refs and angst (there has already been a lot)

NOTE: I have only fully watched 6 out of the 14 possible POVs, so info regarding people I haven't watched might be limited to what the comments tell me when I make a mistake This info comes from watching these POVs and snippets of the other ones.

POVs I watched (in this order): Joel, Tango, Jimmy, Etho, Skizz, Cleo

POVs I skimmed (in this order): Martyn, Impulse, Scar

^ I will be consistently watching these POVs + Bdubs every week, however I'll probably watch others when I'm bored or if something big happens lol.

II. Teams/Alliances (from what I can gather from Episode 1)

EDIT: I originally said that Martyn and Scott were individual teams when that was wrong, it looks like they are teamed together and are called the Coral Kids. This change has been made below

Team T.I.E.S: Tango, Impulse, Etho, Skizz

Bad Boys: Grian, Jimmy, Joel

Coral Kids LBGSeas BadBouies : Martyn and Scott

Nosy Neighbors: Pearl and BigB ( + Froggy the Jellie cat)

Cwackers Cockers Clockers: Cleo, Scar, Bdubs

NOTE: Not all of these are NOW official names WAHOO

It seems like everyone is teaming with pretty much their usual crowd (ie, Jimmy/Joel/Grian , Cleo/Bdubs , Skizz/Imp/Tango/Etho) except for the notable exception of BigB and Pearl, which I don't think have teamed up together in a series before?

I could totally see Etho and Martyn teaming up after this episode, especially later in the season when TIES eventually break up.

III. Base Locations (based off of limited info from episode 1)

Team T.I.E.S seems to be basing on the edge of the main land mass underground. I can't tell if they have cows after Martyn's TNT but they have wheat and chickens, as well as sugarcane. NOTE: Etho seems to be basing close to but not WITH Tango, Impulse, and Skizz. Idk what this means but it's interesting to see what happens

Scott and Martyn are basing right next to TIES on a floating island in the ocean. I didn't watch their episodes but from Etho's it looks like they have both sugarcane and a zombie villager in a boat.

Bad Boys are basing .... *checks notes*.... on top of the woodland mansion .... made of wood .... wait? so Jimmy "our Ranch is burning down!" Solidarity and Joel "If the ship burns everything burns!" Smallishbeans are going to base on the top of the most flammable structure known to Minecraft? Okay cool.... this won't go horribly wro- oh and Cleo’s already burned the whole thing down great that lasted about 2 seconds

Cockers Clockers are based literally just at spawn. There entire thing is going to be building a stadium so they can laugh at people when they die.... I hate them (/lie)

Pearl and BigB are based between spawn and the woodland mansion on the edge of the stone cliff. I hope they slay and thrive there

IV. Mechanics

Okay so, there seems to be a lot more rules to this one than the other ones, so here's what I've gathered.

Everyone has a timer that counts down from 24 hours, this timer started when the series started

When the clock reaches 0 for the player, they are eliminated

There seems to be 2 ways to lose time: Being killed or dying. If you are killed by the boogeyman, it subtracts two hours from your time. If you are killed by natural gameplay (ie creeper, fall damage, etc.) you only lose 1 hour of time. (NOTE: it's not said how many hours are taken away if you're killed from non-boogeyman PVP, but I'm assuming it will still be 2 hours)

There is only 1 way to ADD time to your clock: kill players. When you are the boogeyman, you can kill whoever you want, and when you do you are given 30 minutes to your timer. EDIT: thanks to a comment I now have this info: If you are the boogeyman and you fail to kill a player within the 3 hours (that's how long they record for), you are dropped down to the next color life. For example, if you are a green name boogeyman and fail to kill, your time will go down to 16 hours and you will become yellow. This is the same for the yellow to red drop. (NOTE: Some ccs have said in their videos that it's + 1 hour, however Grian's intro says + 30 minutes which is what i'm going off of. Not sure if the + 30 minutes applies to non-boogeyman PVP kills, however I suspect it does)

Everyone starts as a green name, and the players turns yellow when they have less than 16 hours left on their timer. A player turns red when they have less than 8 hour on the clock

Most of the same rules apply to PVP as before: greens cannot kill anyone, yellow names can now kill green names even if they aren't provoked , and red names can kill everyone. Boogeyman kills can happen to anyone regardless of color. I suspect these rules will not be strictly followed like they have been for every season but yaknow we'll see.

V. Episode 1 Specifically

This series seems actually super cool! Here's some of the thoughts as a writer of traffic series fics and just a general enjoyer of episode 1. I like writing my opinions and these were written in real time while I was watching each POV.

🚧 NOTE: Some (like 4) of these points talk about shipping in fics.. I'll label the bullets with the caution tape emoji but I'd just recommend skipping this entire section if you get really pissed or triggered about it. Reminder that I do not ship real people, just the characters.

the Bad Boys are literally just that one (1) 100 hours hardcore episode.

Joel and Jimmy being idiots and dying is so funny, what a couple of idiots (I love them)

🚧 Boat Boys and Ranchers broke up to be with each others soulmates

it didn’t take even 20 minutes for Team Rancher and Boat Boys to break up. A real love loses moment.

I'm convinced Tango decides his friend groups based only on if there names make good acronyms. Like for sure he didn't invite Martyn to join TIES because it would have ruined the name.

Passive boogeyman Scott has left the chat. Man’s a beast.

^ Bdubs boogey first episode once again, this man can't escape the betrayer narrative

The mechanic has so much angst potential. I’m thinking a curse that slowly eats away at your body until you die. As the timer counts down, people will become more desperate to survive and that’s where alliances will fall. This season has probably the best potential for angst out of all of them, especially when people started running out of time.

just imagine with me: Tango and Etho are in a cave, Tango realizes he only has a minute left on his clock while Etho has maybe an hour and a half. Tango can't kill Etho cause it will just kill his friend immediately, so they both have to just... sit there while Tango's timer ticks by and he eventually gets eliminated by the mechanics of the game. HOW HORRIFYING IS THAT PEOPLE !!!!! I love it >:)

BEST? nah it’s team TIES now (rip Bdubs I guess)

Jimmy might escape the narrative just because of Skizz dying so much lol

I actually hate Grian for this. The fic that could be written about it is…. so much

okay but if Clockers dynamic this season is gonna be single mom with two annoying ass twins i’m all for it. I love them for this

🚧 ETHO TURNING DOWN THE ROLL OF DAD FOR BDUBS AND SCAR THANK GOD !!!! While I would love a Clethubs teamup, a nice straight happy family is not the way I wanted it to be done

Poor Skizz man. Dude was so excited to be back just to be killed twice by boogey and then die again by creeper death. Maybe HE can't escape the narrative

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this series, and my opinion with probably change as more episodes come out, but I feel like it will be much easier to predict who will win this season than others because of the timer. like there is already a very strong likelihood that skizz will die first, just because if every kill only gives you 30 minutes, he would have to kill 10 people to even get back to normal, where as Bdubs and Scott have already killed 1 person and hasn’t died once, which means they are ahead. Basically, I think we’ll be able to see who will die first/not win very easily, which maybe will take away some of the suspense? I hope not, but that’s my thought rn.

🚧 we were SO CLOSE to a Martyn and Etho team up…. imagine the sus activity that could have happened here. I was so prepared to start writing Martho fics

SKIZZ'S COMPLIMENT TO ETHO WAS LITERALLY SO SWEET? Like it was 100% true and props to Etho for taking it like a champ. Etho really is the most likable guy in the Minecraft space, and he shines like a diamond in these kinds of thing with his friends. I'm glad Skizz took the time to recognize it and say it to his face. He deserves all the love.

🚧 if Bdubs is (maybe canonically) related to both his team members, there is little opportunities for sus mlm activity from him, and he will have to find bitches elsewhere, which might be difficult

TIES are four grown ass men and have three of the BEST redstoners minecraft has to offer and they still can't keep cows alive for more than like 5 minutes. What a bunch of losers

Okay now that I’m thinking about it, Etho might not be completely committed to TIES as it seems. I mean why would he make a base close BUT completely seperate from them? I sense some uh….. drama in the future mayhaps

I love Martyn's editing style it's great

VI. My Bingo Card (🚧)

Uh... so I did a bingo card before the series started and it's already got some good ticks off so here it is after episode 1

🚧 this bingo card contains some shipping/romance spaces, please plan your viewing accordingly

NOTE: I could have probably argued for a lot more of these, but it's no fun to check them all of in ep 1. Also, I didn't watch all the POVS (I think I watched 6/14) so there could have been some of these that happened in the other videos but I'm not watching all the POVS today so there's no point.

Wow sure glad I didn't put any Ren stuff in here (Fr I was originally gonna put a "Ren Win" space on here but thank god I didn't)

that skizz one better happen especially after today

play along if you wish! an unmarked one of these can be found if you stalk my Tumblr page far enough

VII. Conclusion

Um.... this was a really long post.... I'm sorry? I just wanted to make it because I had all this info in my head and it was spinning around in there and it needed to get it out. And maybe someone will find the first part useful! Who knows.

In real conclusion, Etho deserves the win. I don't care what you think should happen, this is what the universe wants. Yes, this is coming from an Ethogirl, and yes, I know I'm also the self proclaimed #1 smallishbeans enjoyer, but i just feel like Etho should be this seasons champ.

Even if I'm looking at it from a completely objective POV, Etho IS one of the top candidates for this specific mechanic/season. He barely dies in these games and he's generally good at boogeykills/PVP so I could see him losing very little time in terms of deaths but gaining a lot with kills. Also, no one really dares to kill him with the boogey (if we can take anything away from last life) so that too is a bonus.

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organised-disaster · 3 months

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Sorry for the delay, but it's finished!!

I'm just going to tag @baxieblur-turnip and @randosfandos because they're the only interaction I get lol

SNOWBIRD: CHAPTER III

"You'll be fine, Rumes. Your name's only in once this year," says Yumi. She wraps a hairband around my braid, keeping it in place.

I rub my nose.

"Yeah, but you're in a bunch of times," I say. Yumi sighs.

"That's okay. It's my last year, remember? And so many other people have the same odds as me. We'll both be safe."

Yumi awkwardly stumbles out from behind me. I remain seated on the floor, staring at a scuff mark on Yumi's floorboards. Yumi crouches down slightly. She squeezes my shoulders.

"It's going to be okay, Rumi." I nod. Yumi gently tugs me to my feet. "Come on, then, Junco. We'll be in trouble if we're late."

Yumi had all sorts of cute little nicknames for me. Sometimes, I wished she'd just say my name, although it usually wasn't positive if she did. It was mainly "Rumes." I don't let anyone call me any of Yumi's nicknames anymore.

She called me "Junco" a lot, too. It was my favourite bird. Yumi said she started calling me that because her earliest memory of me is me pointing at one during winter. Yumi loved to tell me that story, too.

I was sick. Nothing that would hurt me now, but I wasn't a strong child, and such a mild illness hit me hard. I never really knew what I had. It never occurred to me to ask.

Yumi said that she came to check on me, alongside my mother. I was apparently standing up in my cot and watching the window.

I pointed at it and said, "Bird." I was talking about a fat little dark-eyed junco I had spotted. Yumi used to say how she was convinced it had cured me. She said she figured out that it was medicine and care, but she was young.

She found out what it was called and started using it as if it was my name instead of the bird's. She called me that less as I got older, but she almost never called me by my real name when I was younger.

I hug my knees closer to my chest.

"Junco, you should dig a -" A wave crashes over my cubic sandcastle, obliterating it and reducing it to naught but a pile of dampened grains of sand.

I frown.

"A moat. You should dig a moat. That way, the waves can't hit it that hard," Yumi finishes. I start to rebuild the sandcastle. Yumi walks over, her footprints shifting the waterlogged sand around them.

"You can't just rebuild it and expect it to be okay, you know," Yumi states. I halt my construction, watching as the waves once again take it from me.

"Why not?" I ask, resuming.

"You can't control the ocean, Junco. It'll break your blocks down over and over again, no matter how high you build it up," she tells me. I look up at her. She smiles.

"You can do so much else in situations like these," she chuckles. "You change what you can control. Like a moat! You could dig a moat. Or build a wall."

Yumi does both of these as I watch, fascinated. She uses her body to block the waves as she digs and uses the sand to build a wall.

She gets up. The waves once again crash around my sandcastle, but it remains unharmed.

"See? It can't do anything now."

I was only eight, I think, which would have made Yumi fourteen. She made it her business to ensure I learned something from all our interactions. Even if that something was simply that she loved me.

Yumi felt it was important. I didn't realise until just last year that she did it out of a fear of early death. A completely justified fear. Yumi was never paranoid, not even when she was literally surrounded by people who wanted her dead.

"Happy birthday, Junco!" Yumi says cheerfully.

"Yumes, aren't you supposed to be at the Reaping?" I ask her as I yawn. Yumi shrugs and hugs me.

"Ah, well, I have a few hours. A few hours for your birthday!" Yumi does a stupid dance that involves flicking her hands around and jumping a little. I giggle.

"I'm pretty old now," I state once I'm done screeching with laughter after Yumi unintentionally falls and lands flat on her face.

"Ten!" says Yumi excitedly. "It's your first milestone!" Yumi's cheerfulness seems slightly strange.

"Are you okay?" I ask. Yumi sighs. She smiles, albeit slightly forced.

"I'm just a bit worried, Junco," she says.

"Oh, but it's nothing major! Just silly little anxieties," she says, backtracking desperately as she sees my frown.

"Okay..." I say slowly. I don't believe her. I hope that's evident. Yumi hugs me again.

"It's fine, okay, Junco? You're fine. It's your birthday," she says. I don't know why she's hugging me so tight or why she's shaking so much.

"I think I'm a little old to be called 'Junco' now, Yumes," I say, changing the subject.

"Oh. Okay," says Yumi vaguely. "What do you want to be called?" she asks. I ponder her question for a moment.

"I like Rumes. Call me Rumes," I say. Yumi nods and smiles again.

"Well, Rumes," says Yumi, placing some extra emphasis on my name. "The Kaishurrs caught some nice salmon. Mother's cooking it for breakfast today!"

I smile. I do like salmon. Yumi relaxes at the expression on my face.

"I'll let you get your good clothes on, Rumes," she says. Yumi turns and leaves.

Mr Kaishurr is a fisher, as he was at the time, working in his big teams on their haulers. They'd sometimes go over quota, meaning they got to choose what to do with the excess.

Well, not really. They weren't truly allowed to, but the Peacekeepers turned a blind eye to it. Some even bought fish from them. District Four has never been a poor district, but if you were doing that physical labour, if you were being tossed about on the open ocean, at the mercy of the elements...

Well, would another bowl of soup truly hurt anyone? Another, more filling topping for your bread? Just a little more food at dinner? And the Capitol wouldn't even suffer without the extra. The Peacekeepers understand that. That's why the Capitol remains unknowing of District Four ever going over quota by more than would be noted.

The Kaishurrs often chose to share their excess with us. It's what we'd cook on special occasions. My mother was the reason we knew them, being incredibly good friends with Mrs Kaishurr. With their wives occupied with talking and laughing and cooking together, my father and Mr Kaishurr really only had the option to talk to each other.

Their conversations were stilted and awkward. They coexisted because it was easier than hating each other. Mr Kaishurr always rubbed my father the wrong way. He irritated me slightly, too, always talking and knocking people about or putting his arms around people's shoulders or talking far closer than he really needed to.

Neither of my parents fished - when they still worked - and worked much higher-paying jobs than the Kaishurrs did. My mother ran a glass-blowing business, as well as just making small-scale glass panes and such.

Most of the glass in Panem is sourced from here, although One is responsible for making most of the gorgeous things out of it.

My mother used to say how she loved the shapes and colours the glass made. That was why she did it, she said, and not because it paid well. It did, though. Fine glasswork such as Mother made was expensive.

My father worked on the mayoral council. Still works. He must be disappearing there all day to still be bringing in an income. He's fairly close to the mayor in his position, and he used to be good friends with him. Maybe he still is. I don't know when he'd find the time, though. He's buried himself in work and alcohol, even more so lately.

Sometimes, the mayor would come over for dinner with us. When Yumi was still alive, when Mother was still here, when Father still smiled, when the Kaishurrs were in the early stages of their fight.

Yumi would dress nicely, as would I. Our mother would start preparing food early while our father would clean the house. Mayor Esthel was his friend, but he was the type of friend that Father had to be cautious around.

Yumi gently kicks my leg under the table. I look at her. She pulls a strange face, tugging the skin under her eyes down with her pinkie fingers while she stretches the corners of her mouth with her other fingers. She sticks her tongue out.

I laugh quietly. Our mother smacks the side of Yumi's head, stifling a laugh of her own. Yumi stops tugging her face, her mouth snapping back to her normal smile.

We're silent again as we eat our dinner. I messily eat the bread I've been soaking in my soup, getting the hot liquid all over my chin. Yumi hands me a napkin.

I look up at her again. She's balancing her spoon on her nose. It falls off and clatters on the table. She quickly slaps it back onto her face like it never fell in the first place.

I laugh much louder this time, mainly at how goofy Yumi looks with her large grin and nose obscured by silver metal. Yumi seems satisfied.

Our father clears his throat, briefly distracted from his conversation by Yumi's antics. He's glaring rather pointedly at her. Mayor Esthel chuckles and waves a hand good-naturedly.

"Please, Sesten, it's fine. Your daughters act like my little girls. It's nothing I'm not well-versed in."

Mayor Esthel has two daughters, Tyra and Mechi. Completely identical to the point where they're sure they were confused with each other as babies. Both have straw-coloured, collar length hair cut in neat bobs. Each about my height.

They're both my age. We talk occasionally. Nobody can tell them apart by face alone, but Mechi has taken to embroidering her name onto all her clothing for that exact reason.

The day they swap clothing is the end of whatever we have together, I suspect. Tyra completely believes that she is more attractive than her sister and that they shouldn't be indistinguishable from each other.

They're both good-looking, with their fair complexions, sharp noses, and keen, narrow features, but Mechi is far nicer to be around. That doesn't stop both of them from being equally popular and equally desired. Tyra loves the attention while Mechi merely tolerates it.

I wouldn't say we're friends. Friends are too dangerous.

I hear quiet, muffled crying. I wander out of my bedroom, searching for its source. It's coming from Yumi's room.

I open the door. Yumi's face is buried in her hands, and her shoulders are shaking. She's sitting on her bed in a weak slouch. I walk over to her.

"Yumi?"

Yumi snaps up to look at me. She sniffles loudly and wipes her nose.

"Are you okay?" Yumi looks like she tries to smile. Instead, she bursts into sobs again.

I sit down next to her and wrap my arms around her. Yumi continues to cry. After a long time, she takes a deep breath. I hand her a handkerchief.

She wipes her eyes, then loudly blows her nose. She folds the handkerchief up.

"I'm sorry, Junco, I... It's not your problem, really," she says damply.

She pats my head. She smiles as more tears pool in her eyes. She pulls me into a hug.

"I love you, Junco. Don't ever forget that."

"Do you miss Otto?" I ask.

"Yes," Yumi chokes out.

"I miss Otto, too," I say feebly.

"I don't think there's anyone who doesn't," Yumi responds, equally quiet.

"I think she did a good job," I try. Yumi is quiet.

"She fought pretty hard," is all she says after a while.

Otto was a sweet enough girl. She was Yumi's closest friend, right up until her death eight years ago. She went down roaring. Yumi said she didn't like seeing Otto like that, but what did she expect?

Otovia Ossa, the best student in her grade and the most lethal fighter. She killed three other tributes before... Gloss, was it? Something like that, anyway. Before what's-her-name from District One took her down and won.

"Why?"

It was a stupid question, really. It had an obvious answer. But hearing it out of Yumi's mouth made it stick with me.

"Because she wanted to go home. In the end, the winner isn't the most vicious. They're not the best at killing. They're just the one who fights the hardest to get home."

I'll never forget that. It's burned into my brain. And I know. I know exactly how she meant it. I know what she was doing when she did it.

Yumi squeezes my hand reassuringly. I look at her. She smiles warmly. I smile back.

"The female tribute is..." Yumi doesn't let go of my hand. "Rumi Erudite!"

Yumi almost crushes my hand before she releases it. I stiffly walk forward. Yumi sputters from behind me. I get halfway to the stage before she shouts.

"I volunteer as tribute!" Yumi shoves me back into where I was. Our eyes meet in passing. She's angry. Her expression softens as she looks at me, but then she turns back to the crowd. Her eyes harden and smoulder again, the brown suddenly appearing black as she glares at them.

I didn't misunderstand the meaning. Yumi was always clear with me.

There's a close-up of Yumi's disgusted expression as she turns away, then the camera switches back to the Careers finishing the District Eleven tributes off. Yumi's district partner created a net trap. District Eleven was their first set of victims.

"Man up, Erudite," scoffs District One. "This is the 'fight each other to the death like animals for a chance to go home' games. Being a pacifist gets you killed." Yumi glares at him.

"It's barbaric," she spits. "Trapping them like fish."

"The barbarity is the whole point," shoots the other District One tribute in retaliation. Yumi still looks appalled.

"I won't have a part in it," she mutters. The other District Four tribute quickly comes to her aid as the other Careers growl and mutter as they turn toward her, faces twisted into snarls.

"So you're just dead weight, then?"

"You're using our supplies, but you won't contribute?"

"We don't need to keep you, you realise..."

"She doesn't mean it like that, guys. She'll help us, obviously, and she'll kill someone if she needs to. She just means she doesn't want to for the moment," says her district partner, pointedly turning and glaring at Yumi.

"She's not good at getting things across," he lies.

"That's believable," sneers District Two. District Four huffs.

"She is worth more alive than she is dead right now," says the other District Two tribute.

There's various mutters of agreement.

"Fine. We're eating you the minute we run out of food, though, Yumi," says District One. She's met with awkward silence. "It's called a joke. It's called a bloody joke, guys, relax."

So why? Why would she tell me that and do what she did?

District Four stomps after Yumi, his trident in his hands. He could throw it.

"Fight me, you idiot! It's just us! Why are you still running?!"

Yumi doesn't respond to him, losing her footing in the mud and slipping but not entirely falling. She continues fleeing. Her district partner finally decides to try, shifting easily into a sprint. He gains on Yumi immediately.

He yanks on her jacket, throwing her to the ground by her hood. Yumi makes no visible attempt to resist. He raises his trident in front of her face, and his whole body tensed as if to throw it. He holds himself there for a while.

"Yumi..." he says quietly, his trident falling from his hands. "...please fight. This is getting depressing."

Yumi looks up at him and smiles, although slightly sad.

"No."

I couldn't put the pieces together. I can now, of course, but I was twelve, and she was eighteen, and I firmly believed she was amazing. I couldn't see her flaws.

And I couldn't see why she would let him kill her without even resisting. I realise now, though, that Yumi saw it as a way out.

As her escape. Yumi never liked the idea of the Games. She never liked being trapped under the Capitol. If she had been around when it happened, she would have wholeheartedly supported the rebellion that started this whole mess.

She kept quiet. She loved me. She protected me. And then when the moment came, the time when she could help our family...

She didn't take her opportunity.

She loved human life in general more than she loved me.

That's fair, I suppose.

Finnick Odair yanks his trident free of Yumi's body. As he is declared the winner, he throws the trident far away from him. It buries itself in a tree trunk. Finnick drops to his knees and begins to sob.

For a brief moment, there is only the babbling of the commentators on the screen. Something shatters.

What do I remember, I wonder? What do I remember of my mother's screams, of my father's mournful fury? I remember the sound of my mother screaming until her throat was raw. I remember how she sounded as if her heart had been ripped from her chest.

I remember my father's bleeding, shredded knuckles as he continued to punch the walls until they gave way. I remember his face. I remember my mother's. I remember...

I don't even remember what I felt. I loved my big sister more than anything.

There was a funeral. Yumi's friends attended. Yumi's parents attended. The girl who had practically become Yumi's younger sister attended. Finnick attended. Did I attend? Did I attend the gathering meant to mourn, if I had never once mourned? I don't know.

I left dandelions on her grave. She liked dandelions.

My father gave the eulogy. My mother couldn't. She was forgiven fairly easily, so wrought with grief that she wasn't really present in the first place. District Four talked about me. They thought I didn't hear them.

Everyone loved Yumi. Most cried when she died. They expressed their sympathy to my family. My parents were inconsolable. Some people tried to talk to me.

I'm told I showed nothing. That I was completely and utterly blank with no sign of mourning or sadness or anger or anything that would be brought about by the death of a sister.

I'm told I unsettled people. Because a child's eyes should never be so dull or emotionless, I'm told. So they started avoiding me. They still do.

I receive sideways looks. I receive double takes. I receive second glances. People walk faster when I am behind them. People do not show me their backs if they can help it.

I loved my mother, too. Although the last time we ever spoke was the hour before Yumi's death.

Mrs Kaishurr, of course, attempted to console her. My mother's other friends, my uncles, my father, they all made efforts to help her. I think the last time I ever saw her was when we passed in the hallway.

She didn't look at me. She hadn't looked better than she'd been before, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes still seemed flat and hollow. The circles under her eyes were much darker than they had been.

Her hand was briefly on my shoulder. She gently squeezed it. And then she walked into the study.

She was a lovely woman. Brown curls down to her upper back and brown eyes to match. She was patient. Perhaps too loving. She had her hobbies. She didn't even leave a note. She loved her friends. She was a loving mother and wife.

It was my father that I looked most like. Yumi's distinction from me came from our mother's eyes and curls, but our narrow faces and black hair came from our father. Yumi was a combination of both our parents. I clearly only took after our father.

My parents used to joke about how I was exclusively my father's daughter and that my mother had no part in me. My father would then say that this was a blessing, because I was already such a pretty girl and that if I looked like my mother he would have to start nailing boards to our doors so people couldn't break into our house and propose to me on the spot.

My mother would laugh and smack him with whatever was in her hand at the time, often a spatula.

I wasn't the only victim of my father's jokes. He would occasionally ask Yumi how many boys she'd turned down that day, to which she would respond with a random number. My mother would sigh and shake her head, smiling.

There wasn't any sign of a struggle. Most of her things were missing, along with some bags. The door was unlocked. It's reasonable to assume she left of her own accord. She didn't even look at me. She couldn't, apparently. If the conversations overheard through doors are any clue.

We still don't know where she went. We had no guesses, no indication. We just assumed she went to another district. I wonder how well that went for her. I used to despise her for it, for abandoning her family when they needed her. I don't blame her for leaving anymore, though.

She left because she just couldn't face it anymore. Because she couldn't look at her home and know that one of her daughters would never return to it. Because she couldn't look at her surviving daughter without seeing the other one. Because she couldn't look at her daughter, knowing why she'd never see the other one again.

I can't blame her. I'd leave, too, if I knew that I would be forced to live in a home that could never feel full again.

Some good leaving would do now, though. Now that the damage has already been done. There wouldn't be a point. And besides, who would miss me?

Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl good at nothing but violence? Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl who only knows how to hurt? Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl that everyone would be correct to hate?

No one. I know that if I vanished, no one would look for me. My father already refuses to acknowledge my existence, as if pretending he only ever had one daughter would prevent him from losing the second. There is occasionally food on the table when I get home, but beyond that, I am dead to him. I doubt he's even doing it to save himself anymore. He ignores me out of habit and hate.

People would hear that I had disappeared. They'd remark that it was odd, perhaps, if I didn't leave a note. That would be the end of it, and no one would speak of Rumi Erudite again.

Maybe I should. I should just leave in the middle of the night, quietly and without making a spectacle of it. Since nobody would care.

I kick the wall across from me, hoping to put a hole in it. The wall does not give, but when I bring my leg down, something makes a crinkling noise. I look up to see what it was. A small, rectangular parcel sitting under my foot. I pick it up. It fits nicely across both my hands. It says my name on it in a neat, very deliberate script, as if the person writing it had to spend a lot of time and effort forming each letter. Sera's handwriting.

I tear the paper off it. A photo frame, thicker than most that I've seen. I run my fingers over the patterns dug into the dark wooden border. Framed is Yumi.

A greyscale drawing of her, done with graphite pencils. It's incredibly detailed. Yumi is facing the artist and smiling warmly. A few of her dark curls are caught up around her ears. She looks a little windblown, her hair preferring the left side of her head to sit.

I turn it over to find that it has a stand. Pinned underneath the stand is a note in Sera's slow handwriting.

Happy birthday, Rumes. Love ya.

I run my fingers gently down the glass panel in the front, tracing the outline of Yumi's face. The surface is uneven and rippled. I pull my thumb down the frame again and am pricked by a sliver of wood. This is Sera's handiwork.

It's not really a surprise that she made this. She's quite adept with things like these, a skill developed by years of gutting fish. Her hands tremble, but she can hold them still when she concentrates. A smudge on the side of Yumi's right eye tells me that Sera probably drew this, too.

Of course. Of course she did. Because that stupid girl just won't give up on me and move on.

My knuckles whiten as I grip the portrait of Yumi. Sera. I want to strangle her. I want to shout at her. I want to call her an idiot and slap her until she regains her senses. I want to hold her close and never let her go. I want to beg on my knees at her feet for her to forgive me. I want her to leave my life entirely.

She's an idiot. She'll never learn. She'll be the one who gets lost looking for me. She'll be the one who gets hurt defending me. She'll be the one who wastes her life on me. She'll be the one who stands too close when I lash out.

She's the only one who stayed in my life. She was the only one who comforted me after Yumi died. She was the only one who came to my aid when everyone was correct to say those things to me.

I grab Sera's arm and pull her away. She resists, ignoring my statements that she's done enough. The boy, covering his bleeding nose and what will turn into a black eye, cusses and runs off.

I use my thumb to wipe the blood away from Sera's cheek. She draws the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the blood from her busted lip.

"Tetra shouldn't be allowed to talk to you like that," she mutters.

"And you shouldn't be allowed to get into fistfights with people who insult me," I snap back angrily.

Sera folds her arms across her chest.

"It's not fair. He w-w-went after Yumi." I let go of her face.

"He went after me, not Yumi," I tell her. Sera frowns harder.

"He said that -"

"It doesn't matter what he said. He was going after me." Sera's expression changes from a confused frown to near tears.

"Rumi, it isn't your fault."

It makes me angry, so angry, when Sera lies to me. She thinks I can't tell that she lies to me. But we've known each other for fifteen years. I recognise cues that basically don't exist. I can identify her mood based on how quickly she blinks.

I see all her little tells, her painfully obvious tells. And they infuriate me.

I am not a thinker. That is not what I do. I act before I ask, as I've been told by my many frustrated primary school teachers. And by plenty of others, to remove the needlessly complicated words.

I act on anger. I act on sadness. I act on hate. I do not act on happiness or love or anything that Sera does. That is why she does them, to make up for every horrible thing I do.

I regret acting in that moment. It would have been better if I had done nothing, nothing at all. It made me want to cut off my hands. She didn't deserve it. She hadn't earned it. She had already taken so many hits for my sake. And then I administered one more, and it was the one that made her cry.

Sera places her hand on her cheek, rubbing where I hit her. She looks rattled. I clench my fists tightly, backing away from her. Tears spring into her eyes.

"I'm... I'm sorry..." I mumble. Sera starts to tremble. Her tears drip down her cheeks. She looks utterly betrayed. I walk away faster, shaking my head. Sera's shoulders start to shake as she sobs. I turn and run entirely.

I ran all the way home and locked myself in my room. Rumi Erudite doesn't cry. She gets close, yes, but she doesn't ever cry. She's not capable of it. She's not capable of empathy.

She is capable of violence. She is capable of smashing photo frames and shattering mirrors and punching walls and hurting everyone around her.

She is capable of sitting in a ring of broken glass, her knuckles bleeding and cut by the shards stabbed into them that she couldn't be bothered to remove. She is capable of being discovered by the friend that she punched in the face.

That friend is capable of wrapping her arms around Rumi Erudite and brushing the hair out of her face. That friend is capable of telling Rumi Erudite that it is all alright as she gently pulls the mirror fragments from her awful hands. That friend is capable of bandaging Rumi Erudite's self-inflicted wounds.

That friend is capable of listening and nodding while Rumi Erudite gives the most worthless apology anyone has ever heard.

"I... I didn't mean it, Sera. Please. I didn't mean it."

"I know. It's okay. Did I push too hard?"

"..."

"Rumes?"

"Why do you always blame yourself?"

"Haha. You're exaggerating a little there, Rumi."

"I'm serious. What part of this was your fault?"

"I... Uhm... You... Tetra w-w-was being an ass! He -"

"You didn't deserve that. I'm... I'm sorry. I got angry and you were close."

"It's okay, Rumi, it really is."

Sera bounces back. She brushes things off. She ignores, she overlooks, she turns a blind eye. To everything I do wrong. She thinks I don't notice what she discards of her morals for me. She knows I'm not a good person.

I don't know why she's stayed by my side all these years. She's had six to leave, six to work out how to phrase it without hurting me. Sera is kind. She lets people down gently.

I don't deserve that, though. I deserve to be dropped from a great height, in the metaphorical sense. Perhaps in the literal, too. Maybe I would walk off myself...

I cut off that train of thought as quickly as I can, shoving it back to the dark corner of my mind where it resides. It's much worse than simply fantasising about leaving, and I'd rather not touch it now.

Sera tends to hold it out of my reach, though. Even if it hurts her, she stays by me. For fifteen years, I've been a thorn in her side. For twelve, I've hurt her. For six, I've been...

Awful. I am awful. I am a monster. And Sera is an angel, an angel, and she will always hold out her hand to me so that one day I may stand in her light. That hand...

That hand that is calloused and scarred from years of work. That hand that is wonderful to know and to love. That hand that is safe to be near.

That hand that is always gentle even when it is undeserved. That hand that is never raised against me, not even when it would be considered self-defence, not even when it is necessary, not even when it is right. That hand that is often wrong, that persists nonetheless.

That hand that is always outstretched, always waiting for me to take. No matter how many times it gets bitten and clawed and stabbed, it will never retreat. That hand whose owner always smiles, be it happily or sadly or with worry. I hate that smile.

I hate Sera. I hate her rough hands that feel so warm wiping the blood off my face. I hate her gentle tracing of the scars on my knuckles and abdomen and face and arms. I hate the way she holds my hands, acting as if they have a purpose that isn't pain. I hate the way she cups my cheek in her palm, and I especially hate the way I lean into it.

I hate the way I stain her hands with the rust-coloured aftermath of my training to die fighting. I hate the way I worry her with my cuts and bruises. I hate the way I resist when she tries to use me for comfort. I hate the way I abuse her.

I hate the way I dare use up air. I hate the way I dare waste her time. I hate the way I dare take up space. I hate the way my eyes are hooded. I hate the scar on my cheek. I hate the sight of my face. I hate how I love winning fights. I hate how I love the sensation of flesh under my fists.

And, oh, how I hate that all I know to do is hate.

I hate.

Sera hugs me desperately, hiccuping and sobbing. Yumi gently pries her off me. She sniffles loudly, and her face screwed up. Yumi hugs Sera, clearly feeling sorry for her. This proves to be a mistake, as Sera instantly latches onto Yumi with the approximate force of a vice.

"Sera, sweetheart, let me go," says Yumi kindly. Sera responds by burying her face in Yumi's stomach. Yumi pats Sera's head. "We'll be late, Sera. We'll get in a lot of trouble with the Peacekeepers if we're late."

Sera releases Yumi, desperately trying to contain another ocean's worth of tears.

"It's only her first year. She'll be alright, Sera. You guys can go to the beach again afterwards, like you normally do!"

Sera nods. She looks at me, then hugs me again.

"It's a beautiful day for the beach, Sera."

"Okay."

"Come on, Rumi. I wasn't joking."

"Come home, Rumes..."

"...please."

And hate.

Sera wipes her eyes. Then she wipes them again. And again. I hand her a tissue, which is instantly soaked by all the water pouring from her eyes.

"I'm so happy you're still here, Rumi," she manages, voice choked by emotion."And Yumi's going to be okay, right?"

"Of course she will. She wouldn't leave us. She'll fight."

"Y- Yeah... Yeah, I bet she w-w-will! Yumi's amazing! She'll be okay. I bet she'll w-w-win and not have to hurt anyone, either! She's smart enough to figure it out." Sera inhales unsteadily, her usual smile brought to her lips.

I hug her.

And hate.

I do not let go. I cannot ever let go. The world will fall to pieces if I let go. She is dead, so she is holding me together. And I am holding her together also, because Yumi is not here to do it for us.

She weeps. I cannot.

But it won't change the fact that my mother left.

My father barks a laugh. It's angry and mirthless.

"Of course she would. Because she just can't take anything, can she?! She just -" My father abruptly smashes his empty bottle of drink into the wall. It does not break.

"- can't -" Again, he forces the bottle into the wall. " - take -" I hear the bottle crack, but it remains sturdy. The wall is dented now.

"- anything!" The bottle explodes into a shower of shattered glass and alcohol dregs. It's almost pretty, with the way the light hits it.

But it won't change the fact that my father does not accept that I exist.

I gently open the door to my father's study. He is sitting at his desk, head down, and glass in hand. It's mostly empty. Paperwork litters the floor. I read one. It's about a request for a new Peacekeeper division.

I make no attempt to wake my father. He will not like it if I wake him from whatever heavy, dreamless sleep he has deliberately drowned himself in.

But it won't change the fact that Sera was injured.

I clutch the hem of my mother's dress, peering around her in an attempt to see into Cod's home. They talk at the door.

A little girl with blonde hair wanders into my field of view. She turns to look at me. Her face is badly scraped, stitches running from her chin to her nose and her eyebrow to her hair parting. Her nose is mostly obscured by a bandage.

She studies me for a long time, attempting to place me in whatever memories that have not bled out of her. She beams, her grin crooked, and waves.

She calls my name, and I call hers.

But it won't change the fact that Yumi is dead.

"Finnick?"

"Yes?"

"When you get home, can you please do something for me?"

"Of course, Yumi. Anything."

"Tell my family I love them. And there's a girl named Sera Kaishurr. Tell her I love her, too."

"I will, Yumi. I promise."

"My baby sister, most of all. Don't let her forget."

Yumi's slight smile does not ever fade.

And it will never change the fact that I killed her.

#snowbird #snowbird chapter 3 #the hunger games #sera kaishurr #sesten erudite #rumi erudite #finnick odair #yumi erudite #mella erudite #tyra esthel #mechi esthel #its here!!!! at long last!!!#we had some technical issues moving it across but HERE IT IS!!#proofread!#im kinda warming up to this chapter #already started on chapter 4 before i remembered i needed to post this lol #the action starts back up again in 4 but i like the exposition dump regardless #woo! rumi hates herself! and also they are so so so gay!#a friend of mine read chapter one and started resentfully muttering about a homophobic hill #yay snowbird #sure hope there are no mistakes because i spent TOO LONG fixing this and it would be really really REALLY annoying if -#anyway we know how yumi died now so thats awesom #having one canon character makes it qualified to be fanfiction

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thisis-elijah · 1 year

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[ mulberry ]

[ mulberry ] what tips would you give someone with writer's block?

🌿 / oh, i love that! welcome to my (*drumroll*):

step I: do something else first! for me personally i always consume a shitload of different media. no matter if it's books, movies, music or video games. i usually just tend to watch one of the gazillion fantastic movies out there (if you ever need a recommendation just hmu, i'm your friendly walking movie encyclopedia) and that alone helps me overcome any writers block. documentaries help, too! just anything that broadens your horizon really, that make you deal with situations you don't have to deal with. it doesn't neccessarily have to match the mood of your texts, but it helps.

step II: plotting & planning. before i start writing any text i plot it beforehand. that doesn't mean that i know every little thing that's gonna happen, but i loosely build my structure beforehand. some scenes live very vividly in my head before writing them down, other ones just start to form on the go and sometimes i don't even know how i'm going to connect scene a) and scene b). when i hear anything that inspires me i write it down somewhere. even if it's just a couple of words. for me personally, thinking about how the scene's going to look also helps me massively. i often work with the senses in my texts. for example: you have that eerie basement waiting for you, there are shadows hidden in the corners, looking like people. the dust particles are reflecting the warmtoned light of the flashlight in your hands, barely shedding enough light to see anything properly. your palms are sweaty, it's the tension and the fear you feel rushing through your veins. the silence is almost deafening, sometimes you don't really realize it's there until you feel it weighing heavily on you. and then the smell: that god-forsaken smell of decay. the smell no one actually ever gets used to. and now you have a setting for your character to interact with. things your character can react to. it's just like in the movies, where you're constantly in awe because of the magnificent set design. from there it's easy peasy lemon squeezy.

step III: the right music. sounds like the most obvious thing out there, i know. i make playlists for every text i write and just listen to them over and over and over again to get myself in that kind of emotional level. for example: i've recently been listening to the soundtracks of se7en, haunting of hill house, far cry 5 and doctor sleep when writing elizabeths latest text, and then changed to kristofferson 2 (fantastic mr. fox), stuff we did (up), in another life (eeaao), mia & sebastian's theme – celesta (la la land) and magic tree and i let myself go (great gatsby) when writing another (very sad, haha) text from elijah's past. i usually just stick to instrumental music but sometimes other tunes with words can help to put you in the right mood, too.

step IV: practice makes perfect (and the dullness of perfectionism). you're now getting advice from someone who's (partly) paid for their creativity so it's somewhat professional lol. creativity is something you have to nourish and take care of just as your body, your mental health, your habits and whatnot. the more routine you get in being creative the easier it gets. that doesn't neccessarily mean that everything you create, write or think about will be damn good. sometimes you have really really really shitty ideas. sometimes you gonna reread your texts and have this "i started walking and my legs were walking"-typa shit going on. but that's okay. it's all a process. you just gotta start. that's why i start with trying to grasp the atmosphere my character's navigating through, because it gives me a head start. your stuff doesn't have to be perfect. it will never be. and the sooner you're accepting that perfectionism is a construct that's more of an utopia than anything else, you start to feel less pressured in many ways. perfection is boring, that's why perfect characters with barely any flaws at all are boring.

step V: the little things. we gonna get a little sappy here and this might not work for every person, but it sure as hell helped me. inspiration is everywhere. just as joy and beauty and moments we deem as perfection is everywhere. i noticed my texts got way better when i described very "simple" scenes that happened and filled them with fragments of memories like smells or little details. thus i started to pay attention to my surroundings more: started to look up when taking a walk, how friends of mine act around each other with their little quirks and habits, found beauty in the smallest little moments, like when the person you hug just tightens their grip halfway through. or when you cook dinner and this ray of sunshine's hitting your hands in just the right angle. or you listen to that one song that makes you remember this stupid thing that happened seven years ago. find beauty in the little things because there really is beauty in everything. even in our darkest moments, even in sadness, even in grief. i think we all have a gift with our creativity, because we can put the emotions we have into words and share them with people.

⸻ (original post here)

#thank you pavelinooooo #chapter ix ⸻ »all hope abandon ye who enter here.« / * 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 & 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 #chapter vii ⸻ »you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.« / * 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 #sunt superis sua iura ⸻ »this is someone else speaking to you.« / * 𝐨𝐨𝐜

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ambreiiigns · 2 years

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tell me about ghost?? :0

thank you SO much for asking 😭😭😭 sorry it took me a while to answer but i am finally home so Let's Go

so first off . ghost is. a band. but it's actually a front for a satanic church who's trying to spread their message thru rock music. as you do ! it's really silly actually you're not supposed to take them seriously :^) if you follow me for the wrestling think of danhausen they do the same concept :^)

church And band are lead by the pope officially but also this one girlboss queen named sister emperor is the one who actually kinda pulls the strings in the back. besides the pope a handful of liddle demons are summoned to help w the instruments. they're called nameless ghouls but they are divided by element (usually it seems that fire=main guitar, water=bass, air=keys, earth=drums, quintessence=rhythm guitar + some bonus occasional non-elemental ghouls who do Whatever) and somewhere around era 3?? started getting nicknames from the crowd

now. the papas.

this was revealed later in the timeline but Technically Chronologically the /ghost ptoject/ started in the ? 60s or 80s before being discarded for a while and the first papa from back then is someone we know now as papa emeritus 0 aka papa nihil. he's the father of all the following papas. he made the cursed mary on a cross song that's on tiktok these days. but also this is just lore and obviously ghost did Not exist back then irl

in reality the first frontman for ghost was papa emeritus i aka primo (which just means first in italian. this is the pattern for what seem to be the papas' proper first names) there's not much to know abt him as ghost was pretty unknown back then but to me! he seems like a nice old man! who was doing his job more seriously and normally than anyone else! i like him. he made the BANGER that is ritual i feel like everyone knows ritual right like. if you're into the genre even if you're not a big ghost fan we all know ritual don't we.

unfort primo didn't Spread The Word Of Satan far enough so he got booted off the role and got replaced 😔🤙🏻 by the nastiest slightly less old horny man you've ever seen. papa emeritus ii aka secondo he's maybe the coolest looking in some ways i feel like he might be the most iconic. every day he grows on me more and more. he's so fuckin bald. spoke full italian. liked to Party and Fuck. so much so that even tho he did pretty well w the band and the spreading the word and won gold for his album he completely gave up on doing his work as papa !!! he was having too much fun. no work all play. church not happy. booo so he also gets kicked out the band lol

he's replaced by 💜terzo💜 the man of my dreams papa emeritus iii thee icon thee legend thee blueprint for all that is to come. i love his guts. he's the youngest emeritus and everyone has big hopes for him and he delivers! wins a grammy! ghost is at an all time high thanks to his lead! he's doing everything right and perfectly and great :) maybe too great. i have a bit of a theory on what happens to him but what is factual is that this is when the ghouls gain Rights. he starts acknowledging the ghouls by name and it's sweet! his album meliora is like kinda smarter than the others. talks abt Doubts in a way. doubts in the church and what the point of it all is. how church makes you feel worthless and helpless without it. wonders if it's possible or worth it to try to break free. encourages you to take the leap out of heaven and even if now you have to build yourself back up from the ground at least you're free to be yourself. in short to me this is the closest to like real life laveyan satanism where you're your own god and ! the idea that i get is. that terzo was learning to find worth in the individuals (himself, his ghouls) outside of their role in the church and he was maybe on his way to rising above it. so what happens is terzo also gets removed from the band allegedly for becoming too self absorbed. which is bullshit! if anything he's the most selfless! but the THING about terzo is THE WAY that they remove him. before that everytime the papa changed they'd just hand their microphone to their brother during the show and that's it. but with terzo. they lichrally dragged him off the stage during a live show. which like. if they never did that to secondo who actually kinda deserved it there is NO WAY that terzo earned that kind of treatment. so this is just sus to me

anyway after they drag him away nihil walks in, introduces himself, says the party's Over and then we have a period of sede vacante where there's no one filling that role like nihil is Kinda doing it but not really and he's all out of kids so who's gonna be next papa!?!?!

i should say now. this band is very Fake and all about Lore in many ways it's like wrestling storylines. all the papas besides nihil are just The Same Guy in /realistic/ masks and it's all a big show. i forgot to mention this detail to emi last night and she got so confused 😭😭😭

so around this time ghost starts doing a little youtube series to show what's going on in the church in these confusing times and pretty much it's just. sister emperor tells nihil he's too old to do the job and since he doesn't have any more kids (🤔🤔🤔) she suggests they bring forward one of their best cardinals aka copia. nihil isn't feeling it mostly bc he doesn't like the idea of interrupting the bloodline but they come to the conclusion that this is the only way. so sister decides that. since they're interrupting the bloodline. they simply Need to kill primo secondo & terzo (😭😭😭😭) but it's so bullshit bc it's SO OBVIOUS that copia is sister and nihil's bastard secret son that no one seems to know about besides her so why would you do that 😭😭😭 to my old men 😭😭😭😭 ma'am pls that was so unnecessary 😭😭😭

anyway copia becomes front man and drops an album which doesn't do as well as terzo's 😌😌 but before they can doubt copia's place too much nihil fucking Dies so copia needs to be made papa Immediately. so he's papa emetitus iv now. whatever. he might have also figured out he's nihil and sister's kid around this time but it's unclear. regardless he gets plastic surgery w his mom. makes another album which is WEIRD! bc so far every papa has only made one (1) album before getting booted off! but i personally chuck this off to copia being cardinal for his first one and now that he made an album as papa he's not gonna last much longer. which is basically confirmed lol and i hate to say this but i can't wait for him to fuckin GO!!!!! I HOPE HE DIES!!! i cannot forgive him for replacing my man but also he's just sus he might have been more involved than he looks He Took A Picture With Terzo's Decapitated Head which. didn't happen to primo & secondo. they only decapitated terzo. doesn't it feel weird to you. doesn't it feel sus to you. doesn't it feel like adding insult to injury or whatever. why was he done so especially dirty. weird.

so copia's time is about to run out everyone's wondering who'll be next some say nihil (who's been sticking around as a proper ghost) might do it some say terzo's coming back from the DEAD i have no idea but i'm excited to learn! i've been casually listening to ghost since high school but all this lore always intimidated me so much so i'm soooo happy that i finally caved in. ghost fits me really well i think. it's really fun all their songs slap and fuck i cannot recommend them enough. i'm happy to be here for copia's downfall. i'm literally in love with you for asking even if you don't read this i'm thanking you from the bottom of my heart mwah 💜💜

#emi was the sweetest and let me infodump on her last night. still not enough for me #like i'm at a point where i could talk about this FOREVER i am never getting tired of talking abt this rn!!!!!!#ask #🥰🥰🥰🥰#<3

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fukurodanni · 3 years

Text

love for the rich and emotionally stunted: a comprehensive guide

ch. 2/7 -- prev. -- next. pairing: jumin han x f!reader warnings: n/a series summary: in the months following the incident with his father's most recent paramour, glam choi, the corporate heir of C&R finds himself discovering exactly what it is that makes a person in love so blind. ao3 link

note: sticking a read more right at the beginning. u kno how it is. thank you for sticking around i'll try my best to keep updates within a week or so!

(weeks prior.)

Jumin Han has entered the chatroom.

Jumin Han

She talked to me today.

ZEN

Who?

707

She??

There’s a she?!

Jumin Han

Oh.

I must have neglected to mention it.

ZEN

????

Last time there was a “she”...

Jumin Han

… No.

There’s a woman at my office.

Jaehee Kang

Does she work for you?

Jumin Han

Yes

707

That took an awfully long time for you to type lolol

Are you sure~~

Jumin Han

Yes. She wears a lanyard.

Jaehee Kang

Do you not know her name??

Jumin Han

I should think it would seem impolite after… all that.

Jaehee Kang

???

ZEN

?????

All that WHAT?

Jumin Han

I only caught a glimpse of her lanyard. I don’t know.

ZEN

Dodged my question… T_T

Jaehee Kang

Is this that woman you see in the mornings?

Jumin Han

How did you ....

ZEN

?!?!

707

Is our Jumin finally getting some?!

I’m so proud. Haha T_T

Jumin Han

Getting some… what?

Jaehee Kang

I can look into her.

For research purposes. Of course^^

Jumin Han

;;;

I only just started seeing her this month.

At the door. Seeing her at the door.

707

Seeing her OTL

Maybe she’s your future lover come to save you^^

Jumin Han

I doubt that.

ZEN

Yeah lolol

I doubt it too

And right after the Choi thing?? No way.

707

T_T

Ur right

There’s no way...

“Do you play video games, Mr Han?”

That’s a new one. “Where would I find the time?” He asks, thinking of Yoosung. “It’s a useless hobby.”

“That was a quick answer,” you reply. “Who hurt you?”

Jumin raises a brow, inquisitive. “No one.”

“Okay,” you say, the beginnings of a grin playing on your lips. “Who ruined video games for you?”

He thinks of the dark smudges under Yoosung’s eyes, the awful typos and the messages at 3am. It’s only a little funny. The door closes behind them. “No one in particular.”

“You’re smiling, Mr Han. Just a little.” You smile too at this, tilting your head in that curious way of yours. When you reach the lobby and then your separate ways, Jumin spares a glance at you.

He wants to say something more, something lodged very deep in his throat that comes out dry breath. He’s never been too good at small-talk, not with colleagues, not with business outside of work. He wants to be, just a little.

He’s not quite sure how that came to be.

It’s beyond embarrassing the way he comes up to you in the cafeteria. “You work here,” he says, a very belated realization.

You blink a few times, as if processing. “Yes,” you say slowly. “I have a lanyard.” You wave the offending item around and Jumin finally, finally catches a glimpse of your name.

“I see,” Jumin says, because that’s all he really can say. “Work hard.”

He consults his phone right away, willing the heat from his face and opening the messenger app. It goes as well as expected when he mentions it so vaguely-- Hyun rags on him for his lack of conversational skills and Yoosung drops a line or two about his own miserable love life. In any case, Assistant Kang’s information on you had only reached him earlier today and in a way he’s still coping. It had been baffling to say the least, finally having everything in front of him rather than scattered in the bits and pieces of your dialogue.

You work, technically, in the same position Assistant Kang does. Only in the fashion department, of which Jumin had strategically ignored after Echo Girl and the Chois. It really isn’t his fault he hadn’t noticed you-- not since before this month when you began arriving so consistently.

“Something on your mind?” Assistant Kang asks, looking up from where she’s shuffling through a stack of papers. It isn’t unusual for her to break the silence with a quip-- she’s always been good at easing into a mode of conversation that takes the edge off. As a good assistant and employee should, of course. Jumin wonders if he should relay this to her.

“Nothing,” he says instead, because surely she already knows. “Is it polite to bring gifts for someone you’re sure you will be seeing every morning?”

She raises a thin brow. “Who-- that woman at the fashion department?”

Jumin deigns not to answer right away, looking down at the state of his nails and the tick of his wristwatch. “Surely there must be some etiquette about that.”

Jaehee Kang

Buy her coffee.

ZEN

Get her a promotion lol

707

A new car!!!

Yoosung★

Maybr a nicce pen

“Any favorite TV shows?” You ask one morning. “Personally, I’m fond of office romances.”

Jumin lags for a moment, waiting to catch up. It isn’t an unusual occurrence. “Is that an innuendo?”

You smile, a little flushed-looking, and wave a hand. “Nope. Not at all.” When you look at the second coffee in his hand, though, it seems you need a second to catch up yourself. You’d mentioned offhandedly how you take your coffee the day before, and today something had stopped him at the threshold of the coffee shop he stops at every morning. Funny how things work like that.

“This is for you,” he says determinedly, and you smile a little but there’s still an edge.

“You dodged my question.” You state simply. Jumin does not know what to say.

He thinks about it for a moment, really thinks about it. The only thing that really comes to mind are the Sunday morning programs, and he doesn’t really know them off the top of his head. Maybe the morning news. “No TV shows. Next question.”

“Okay then,” you say, “Any pet peeves?”

Jumin smiles a little. It isn’t really conscious, but he’s finally figured out a way to respond and he just hopes it takes well. “Women who stop me at the door in the morning.”

“Oh,” you say, taking a sip of your coffee. You hum appreciatively. He feels strangely, indirectly accomplished. “Shame. Mine’s men who give me three word responses when I ask them things.”

He scoffs, although it isn’t as hard as it usually comes out. “I answered that in a sentence.” He says, very assuredly. When he looks back at you there’s a softer smile at your lips, rounded at the corners and not quite so mischievous as he’s seen it look before. It looks fond.

“I know,” you reply. He feels a little warmer now, turning the corner where you two part ways. You offer him a two-fingered salute, a “See you in the morning!” and a final turn.

And then you’re gone.

The next time the conversation lingers long past the lobby it’s because you’ve coaxed him into talking about Elizabeth III. There’s a point where you’ve reached the elevator and he’s talking to you about her care routine and the minutiae of what it takes to keep her fur so soft and pristine (much of it is her own work and her natural beauty-- of course) and he’s only barely aware of how long he’s been going on, but he pauses to look at you. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, between Jaehee’s hesitancy and Luciel’s rabid praise and Hyun’s outright disgust--

But there’s something about the way you’re looking at him when he’s finished, curiouser and half-curved into a smile. And he’s been on the receiving end of that before-- his father’s lovers, interviewers and subordinates-- but none of them have ever seemed so affectionate.

He’s seen the same look before when it’s Jaehee with a new photocard, the way Yoosung danced around Rika. It’s the glint in Luciel’s glasses when he gets to working and it’s something, something.

You look like you’ve seen something beautiful.

Which is understandable to him, really, having just shown you pictures of his Elizabeth III. What he understands less is the way you’re looking at him and not the open phone, caught up in a silence that seems way too heavy for a conversation about his cat. Even when the elevator dings it’s with some trepidation that you leave first, a memory, a discovery pulled taut between you two.

“I hope I get to meet her sometime,” you say.

Jumin nods, wordless. The delight on your face at such a simple gesture fixates itself in the forefront of his mind until he returns home to Elizabeth, flickering like hell and unbidden and unexpected but not exactly unwelcome. It’s just as confusing to him as it sounds on paper.

Somehow Jaehee gets to you first.

For all the time he’s spent working with Jaehee, working around her and in her general proximity, he doesn’t actually know what time she gets into the building. She seems like an inevitability, something constant and fixed and always there.

So when he holds the door open for two women, Jumin is feeling like he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to. Especially since the two of you seem to be chatting so jovially, shaking her hand with both of yours when you go to part.

There’s another something clogging his throat, a cloying want and a halfhearted desire to draw that same laugh from you, that same open brightness. He hasn’t let himself feel so much about one person-- one particular and fixed point in his life. Jumin feels like he’s chasing-- some feeling, some unnamed ball of fire-- a meteor, blazing and brilliant and too much to be real.

It’s too much to be compared to anything else, not when Sarah Choi was an unlit match next to what a beaming bonfire you are. Suddenly Jumin feels more tightly wound than he usually does.

And really, truly, it feels like a lot to handle, so he turns on his heel after silently handing you the coffee and begins to march. It feels like karmic debt for not having experienced these things as a schoolboy, and then only once as an adult. He doesn’t even know if the one time counted.

“Mr Han--” you say, and it happens at the same time he holds his breath to turn again. Just to look, to see if you appeared as off kilter as he felt. Maybe the world had rotated wrong today.

You stop there in your tracks and he really does believe for a moment that the world has gone astray-- because then it would explain the way air isn’t getting to his lungs right. He inhales just to make sure and before any other dialogue comes from your lips he asks, “Walk with me?”

You both take the elevator then.

Jaehee Kang

She’s a very nice woman.

Yoosung★

Huh?

707

U met her?!?!!

Tell me everything

It makes your mornings longer, the introduction of the elevator route. He isn’t sure how it became mutual agreement and routine, the same way the cup of coffee steams in your hands and the way you ask after Elizabeth III. The way the door gets held open.

Jumin isn’t sure how many mornings go by, how many of them are spent dreading the chime of the elevator, but one of them brings a much quieter you. And you’re usually such a whirlwind of life, pulling him toward and towards you-- he’d be lying to himself more than usual if he said he wasn’t worried.

You look like you’re steeling yourself too, and you’ve never done that-- there isn’t a thing you’ve said to him that was measured or prepared. You’re kind of like an overexcited puppy, and he’s never been too fond of dogs.

He feels something slide out of place, something like a realization that’s far grander than he knows, hovering at the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know what it is yet, not really. He’s barely out of his head, ready to ask if you’re alright--

And you cut him off. Like you did that first morning, knocking the breath from his lungs and everything else out of place. Jumin likes things neat and tidy, likes things where they should be, where he’s used to seeing them. You aren’t too good for him, he thinks.

Then you ask, “Would you want to go out sometime?” And he has no reference materials and no forewarning and no prepared response. The odds are against him.

So against all odds and every simmering nerve in his body he says, “Yes.”

tags: @vandysgf @mrs-han

#jumin han x reader #jumin x reader #mystic messenger x reader #mysme x reader #mystic messenger fluff #jumin han x mc #jumin x mc #my writing #emu writes #lftr&ems #WC: 2.0K

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yolkyeomie · 4 years

Text

Humanity of the Inhuman | Kim Sunwoo

summary — legends are meant for the wild fantasies of the dream world, but when one myth suddenly comes true, you find yourself tangled within its webs of reality.

word count — 7.2k words

pairing — sunwoo x female!reader (ft. x juyeon in a sense?)

genre — college au, gumiho au

disclaimer — !! light mentions of death, blood, and injury !! this is an wip of fic that I did not have the energy to complete, so it leaves off at a pretty big cliff hanger :( but if enough people enjoy it it I’ll make a part 2 or sumn lol (update: it does in fact have a part 2 now, go enjoy it!)

part I | part II | part III | part IV?

“Nine tailed foxes,” the instructor stated, pointing their finger towards the pictures that were projected upon the board. There were three different depictions of the creature from other cultures posted up together, expressing how each of the cultures viewed the mythical being. Mindlessly you began to draw on the notebook set in front of you, taking in each picture and messing different aspects that you liked together.

“Known as the Kitsune in Japan, the Huli Jing in China, and the Gumiho here,” they continued, switching to the next slide that only displayed more old pictures of the fox, “they are a well known part of our folklore today that even western countries have begun to adopt their own version of this creature into their literature.”

“If it’s so popular, why are we learning about it now,” you mumbled, the lead of your pencil snapping as soon as the words had been spoken into existence. You let out a deep sigh at the inconvenience, letting an angry curse come out of your mouth as you leaned over to grab something new to write with.

Though you stopped mid turn as a black pen was placed into your vision. Curiously you glanced up to catch the smiling sight of Juyeon above you, waving around his pen and urging you to take it from his hand. “We’re learning about the Gumiho because it’s an important part of our folklore, just because it’s well known doesn’t mean you shouldn’t teach it.”

He was an acquaintance, nothing more than that, a “school friend” if that made more sense. You had met him the first day you attended the mythology class after picking up the course for fun, seeing as the only available seat in the room was by him. Having no friends who attended the class at the same time as you, he had offered to become one and you gladly took up his request in order to feel a little less only in the room full of strangers.

It was a little odd to see a class so minor like this be jam packed with students, but you did notice the recent influx of people who were interested in the mythologies of their and others cultures.

Plus, you didn’t do very well on your own and were a little more socially dependent than you’d like to admit, so Juyeon’s willingness to befriend you was greatly appreciated.

“Well, I guess you’re right,” you shrug, gratefully taking the pen out of his hands. “But still, what person doesn’t know the wild tales of the nine tailed foxes? They’re like… everywhere now. If I meet someone who didn’t even have a clue what I was talking about, I’d be surprised.”

“You never know,” Juyeon continued, urging you to take a look at the board. Being presented was the Korean version of the nine tailed fox, a few notes typed beside the art describing the details and depictions of what was generally believed about the fox demon. “Maybe one day you’ll need that information to save yourself from a Gumiho one day?”

You snorted at his words, pointing out one of the bullet points to him and quietly reading them to him. “First of all, this is a mythology class. That means everything we learn here is a myth, not real? Secondly, it clearly says that they seduce men and last time I checked, I’m not a man.”

“Well, I guess you’ve got a point there,” he nodded, laying his head in his hands as he half heartedly listened to the teacher speak. “I guess I’m the one who should be paying more attention to the lecture since I’m the man, but I don’t think a Gumiho would ever find interest in me.”

“Why?” You questioned, a teasing smile appearing on your face and you poked the pin cap into his side. “It’s said that gumihos eat human livers, do you have bad livers or something? Do you have some sort of liver disease that would make you undesirable to a fox?”

“If I say yes will you stop poking me?” He innocently asked.

“I’d know you’re lying if you said yes, you’re rather healthy despite some… odd habits you have,” you clarify, giving the boy a skeptical look before turning back towards the board. You were only acquaintances with Juyeon, but there were times you’d catch him in the hallways of the building or dorms when you were looking for Kevin doing skeptical activities. Most of the time he was just smuggling snacks that his roommate would steal out of the room but man did he look crazy while he did so.

“Hey, those aren’t odd habits, it’s me protecting what I paid for,” Juyeon argued, a pout developing on his face as he tried to explain himself, “if you don’t pay for it, you don’t get a bite of it! That’s the rules and you have to respect the rules.”

You only spared Juyeon a quick glance, your eyes full of skepticism for him. He was a nice guy, a decent person to hang around, but awkwardly catching him in the hallways like a criminal running from a crime scene was all you had to see from him to determine whether or not you wanted to hang around him often. “Y/N, seriously! I'm not some freak I promise, my roommates and I just do this often and—“

“Sure, Juyeon,” you nodded, softly patting his back in only slight comfort. “I completely understand what you mean.”

“Y/N!” He complained a little louder this time, earning some sneaking looks from the rest of your peers. The two of you weren’t the biggest troublemakers but you did have a volume problem more often than you’d like to admit. Though, that was mainly because Juyeon doesn’t understand when to keep his mouth shut. “Come on, Y/N, I know you don’t believe what I’m saying but you gotta! I can even show you what we—“

“I really don’t want to walk into that room,” you decline almost immediately, “something tells me I’ll regret it if I do.”

A small chuckle left Juyeon’s mouth at your harsh words, finally taking the response as an end to the conversation. It seemed as though the two of you had stopped just in time though, as a deep sigh left your instructor’s lips. The entire class turned their head towards him in confusion, unsure on what sort of gloom had possessed their mythology teacher.

“I think… I’ll end class early today,” he declared, turning off the board that had projected the day’s lesson. In a flash, your reference for your very own nine tailed fox disappeared in front of your eyes as the instructor continued to speak. “The rain just… throws me off the mood for today.”

Instinctively you turned your head toward the window and lo and behold, the rain was pouring down outdoors. Many students groaned at the sudden change in forecast, not having brought umbrellas to shield them from such weather since the day had called from sunny skies. “Ah… that’s gonna suck going home,” you tell yourself, noting how even you hadn’t brought an umbrella.

“Excuse me!” A student called out, drawing attention to the front of the class where they had seated themselves. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you superstitious? Usually rain is considered a good thing especially on wedding days. It’s supposed to be a good omen for the future of their marriage.”

“Superstitious?” He hummed in response, thinking to himself for a few moments before answering. “Well, in a sense? Not for the reasons you think I am though.”

“Does it have something to do with gumihos?” You couldn’t help but ask, curiosity getting the best of you as you blurted out in front of everyone. The class turned back to look at you expectantly, exchanging confused and bewildered glances with each other. Even Juyeon looked at you as though you were beginning to lose your mind. You don’t really blame them, rain didn’t really have anything to do with gumihos after all.

However, your teacher smiled at you. His eyes crinkled at their sides and his wrinkles from age becoming more prominent as his smile continuously grew larger as he thought about his answer again. “Something my grandparents used to tell me when I was younger,” he began, each student getting left on the edge of their seats as he turned back towards the rainfall, “that when it rained, it meant a gumiho had entered the premise.”

II.

“You don’t actually believe him, do you?” Juyeon asked, holding the borrowed umbrella over your heads. The boy had offered to walk you home in the disastrous, knowing you lived off campus instead of in the dorms. The dorms were a lot closer to the apartment you had rented out, so the two of you had scrambled over to his room first in order to grab an umbrella and begin the trek to your home.

He was only walking you towards the closest bus stop to the campus, not wanting to intrude on your privacy any further than he already was. Juyeon was just your acquaintance from mythology after all, he was just a little too nice to let you go out into the rain and get soaking wet.

“What, about the whole rain and gumiho thing?” You responded, remembering your teacher's statement he had ended the class with. You shrugged after a moment to yourself, “honestly, not really. I mean, come on, gumihos being related to the rain? It doesn’t even make that much sense the more you think about it.”

“I guess you’re right,” he agreed, “but don’t you think it’s a little weird how he seemed to believe it? Whole heartedly too, he ended the whole class over some superstition his grandparents told him!”

“It’s probably an old saying in his family or something,” you ultimately decide, nodding your head to yourself as you come to a conclusion. “Lots of people have things like heirlooms and stories that get passed down from generation to generation, maybe that’s what that was. Maybe his family is really big on nine tailed foxes and rain.”

He shook his head in disagreement, stopping in place and nearly causing you to get soaked by the downpour. “I don’t think so, why would they pass down a saying like that when gumihos aren’t real?”

“How do you know that they aren’t real?” You challenged him.

“Because if they were real, then we wouldn’t be learning about it in a mythology class and calling it folklore,” Juyeon stretched his arm out so that the umbrella was covering the both of you as he kept talking, “Humans are like… cockroaches. We force ourselves into the lives of other beings, I think we would have done something about gumihos by now don’t you think?”

You grinned at him as you rocked back and forth on your feet absentmindedly, nugging his shoulder soft as you teased, “wow, I know the lesson wasn’t long today but did you already forget that we were taught? Once a fox has lived for a thousand years, it becomes a gumiho and can shapeshift! How will you know your face to face with a fearsome nine tailed fox when they look exactly like any normal stranger on the street?”

You didn’t even give the boy a chance to speak as you stood in front of him, your back getting pelted with the rain droplets as you continued to jeer, “anyone could be a gumiho. I could be a gumiho, your roommate could be a gumiho, our teacher could be a gumiho, even you could be a gumiho and we’d never know a thing!”

“I think you're forgetting something,” Juyeon countered, pulling out his phone from his pocket and waving it in your face. “Humans have technology, we’ll just develop more technology to find them if we need to.”

“Gosh, you’re no fun,” you pout.

“And your bus stop is right there,” he pointed behind you, taking note of the metal structure built on the side of the road.

You struggle to decide whether or not you want to steal his umbrella as payback for being the way he was but ultimately ditched the idea. “Fine, I’ll see next week then? That is, if you don’t get eaten by a gumiho that is.” You teased.

You watched as annoyance contorted on his face, wanting to find a reason to be mad at you but unable to keep the grin off his face. “I’m not going to be eaten by a gumiho, Y/N. Did we not just have the conversation that they aren’t real?”

“Gumihos seduce men to absorb their energy!” You argued once more. “You’re a physically fit guy whose kept his livers healthy and you’ve got the looks to draw attention to you, you’re the perfect meal for a nine tailed fox to catch!”

“Go home, Y/N,” he urged, pushing you out from under his umbrella. You whined at his audacity and quickly covered your head with your hands in an attempt to shield yourself from the rain. The boy only laughed at your reaction before waving you off, giving you a small farewell as you rushed over towards the bus stop.

When you glanced back to find him again, Juyeon was gone, turned around the corner with his umbrella in tow and forcing you to sit and wait for the bus stop to come if you didn’t want to be soaked by the time you got home.

“Sheesh he could have waited until the bus actually came,” you complained, sitting back on the bench with a somewhat annoyed frown donning your face once again. Juyeon always seemed like he was in a hurry at times, whether he was sneaking around the dorms on your campus or rushing through the hallways to get to his next destination, he always had somewhere to be. There were times where he’d completely ignore your existence in and outside of your mythology class because of his need for action, too busy with his daily life to even spare you a glance.

You wondered where he so urgently needed to go at times, but ultimately knew that was none of your business. The two of you were nothing but classmates, school friends who helped each other out every so often whenever you got the chance. You had no right to dig into Juyeon’s business, so you never tried to cross the line the two of you set up for each other. You don’t really know if you wanted to cross it in the first place.

Besides, he never even said hello to whenever he was in a rush! Why bother trying to discover something where he has to completely ignore your existence to do it? That wasn’t exactly your type of information and gossip you wanted to gather and indulge in.

You sat at the bus stop for around three or four minutes, unwillingly listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the bus stop glass. Like your superstitious instructor, you weren’t very fond of the rain but not for the same reasons. The weather would always ruin plans you had been looking forward to for weeks and the days that came after it always felt humid and musty, you didn’t enjoy the aftermath of rain like other people did.

Don’t even get you started on the days where a thunderstorm would roll over the city, those were the worst days of your life.

You snap out of your daze for a moment, however, completely forgetting your hatred for the raining weather at the sound of barking floating through the air. You tried to ignore it at first, comfortably leaning against the side of the structure and scrolling across your phone to distract yourself, but you couldn’t help it. The more you tried to pretend like the sound didn’t exist the louder it seemed to become, which was a lot seeing as the downpour was a little louder than normal.

Begrudgingly, you stood up out of your seat and shoved your phone deep into your pockets. “Is the universe trying to tell me something today?” You mumbled, covering your head with your hands and stepping out into the rain. You peered across the street where the barking was coming, checking the side of the road for any oncoming cars before rushing to the other side.

The closer you got to the other sidewalk, the louder and more distinct the barking became, resembling more of a young dog than a fully grown one. The barks were more closely related to squeaky toes than anything if you had to be honest; light, annoying, and young. But there was no one else on the street beside you, and your morals were telling you to involve yourself instead of run away.

“Puppy...or puppies?” You called, not exactly having a name to call out for the animals. You don’t even know if they could hear you over the rainfall, but it was worth a shot. If they didn’t come running to you soon you were going to run right back to the bus stop for shelter and go home. You didn’t want to fall ill from standing out in the rain for too long and you didn’t want to miss your bus stop either. “Come here, boy! Or girl…? Whatever you are, come here! I’ll get you some place warm and out of the rain.”

There was no response, which was to be expected. They were animals, not humans, so they couldn’t exactly reply back even if they really wanted to. The barking was still echoing across the area but there was no sign of the animal making all the commotion, not to mention the fact that the rain was beginning to fall harder with each passing second. You might have to give up early if you didn’t want to get caught in a potential thunderstorm, it hurt your heart but you had to take care of yourself as well.

“Ah, I better hurry up before I miss the bus home… walking is going to be a pain if I do,” you mumble to yourself, turning to sprint across the street.

Though you stopped yourself from moving when you heard the sound of bells echoing against your ears, ringing loud and clear within your head as if it was right in front of you. You cautiously look around you for the source of the bells, the jingling rippling out to the rest of the world like a droplet of water falling into a lake. The bells chimed again in your head, yet this time pulling in a certain direction and urging you to continue on that way.

Glancing between the bus stop and the direction you were being pulled toward, you followed the jingling of the bells. Everything in your body was telling you that chasing after the ringing was a bad idea but nevertheless you pushed forward. The dog barking had completely gone silent and the loudest thing in the area was no longer the rain, but the bells in your ears.

You scurried across the sidewalk like a cat, trying your best to stay dry in the unfortunate weather but ultimately failing as you began to feel your clothes stick to your skin. “Ah, there’s no way I’m not going to be sick after this.” You mumbled, turning the corner to peer down an alleyway where the bell chiming was the strongest.

“I’m wet and cold and I’ve been out here for way too— oh my god!” A scream fell out your mouth as you tumbled to the ground petrified by the sight before you. Slumped up against the wall was a boy, barely clinging onto his life as he took slow ragged breaths to keep himself stable. On his arms was the familiar crimson red creeping down his forehead and splattering to the ground, creating a mixture of water and blood pooling underneath him.

Did you just find the end results of a bloody fight? In the middle of the city and close to your college’s campus no less?

“Excuse me, are you alright?” You called out to him, mentally smacking yourself for asking such a question. Clearly the boy wasn’t okay, he was bleeding out in the middle of the rain!

Despite the stupidity of the question, he slowly turned his head toward you. A majority of his face was covered by his hair being plastered against his head thanks to the rain so you couldn’t exactly see if he was looking directly at you, but the mere fact that he was responsive was enough for you.

You hurry over to him as fast as you could, though careful not to slip and fall on the slippery ground, before crouching down next to him. “Can you move at all? It’s not good to sit out here in the rain and waste away, you need to go to a hospital or something—“

“No,” he declined, forcing himself to sit up against the wall and make an attempt to stand up. The boy struggled to himself up right, leaning against the wall for support and the severity of his wounds being put on display. It didn’t look like he got into a fight, per se, more like he had been attacked by an animal. He had large gashes that covered his body and his clothes were tattered and stained with the red hue they leaked down his arm. He needed any sort of medical attention, right away or he might actually bleed out in the middle of the alleyway.

“Can you not see that you’re hurt?” You hissed, grabbing a hold of his wrist and tugging him down to your height. The boy grimaced at your toughness as you rolled up his sleeve, catching sight of an ugly yet fresh scar that needed to be addressed immediately. “You need to go to a hospital, or you’ll die out here in the rain.”

“No,” he challenged you, his face somewhat akin to an animal’s snarl as he tried to snatch his arm away from you. In that instance you heard the soft of the bells that had led you down the alleyway, much louder than they had been before and nearly drowning at the words that the boy had spoken. It sounded like… the ringing was coming directly from him. “I can’t go there, I won’t go there. They won’t be able to help anyway.”

“Are you an idiot?” You couldn’t help but ask, almost scoffing at his persistence to stay away from medically trained professionals. His lips formed into a pout, appalled by the fact that you had the audacity to call him an idiot. “I’m trying to help you man. It’s raining, you’re bleeding out, and I’ve probably missed my ride to go home. Please don't take my kindness for granted and let me help you.”

III.

You laid down in the middle of your bed, staring at your ceiling as you struggled to recall the events from the day before. It’s not like you to forget things easily or anything, in fact you had a rather decent memory when it came to remembering events that had taken place beforehand. You didn’t have a photographic memory, you just had a habit of remembering little details that have happened throughout your day.

But right now? You couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened yesterday.

Most of what you could remember was leaving your mythology early because your teacher had ended the class early. He didn’t like the rain and it had shifted his mood and everyone was grateful for the extra time off. Juyeon had generously offered to walk you to your bus stop with his umbrella so that you could get home without getting rained on and…. that’s where it ends. You can’t recall anything that happened after that. You don’t even remember ever walking into your house the more that you think about it.

“Alright, this is weird,” you declare, forcing yourself to sit up off of the bed. At least you had no classes to attend, you don’t know how you could pay attention to anything you were being taught if you had to deal with your sudden memory loss. “Why can’t I remember anything? Why does it feel like what u forgot was something really important too…?”

Just when you felt as though you were on the verge of pulling your hair out, your phone began to ring. It was a lot louder than you originally set the volume on and was practically screaming at you to pick it up instead of ignoring it like normal. Frustrated, you snatched the device from underneath the sheets and answered the call with a much more aggressive “hello?” than you had meant to start with.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Juyeon’s voice registered through the speaker.

Juyeon. Why was Juyeon calling you right now? The two of you don’t usually call each other unless it was something class related because you weren’t close enough to each other to hold conversations like that. So the mere fact that he had called you out of the blue like this was…. weird to say the least. “Of course,” you replied, giving your voice a lighter tone than when you had answered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You called me a couple of times yesterday but I didn’t answer because I was busy,” he clarified, giving you a little peek as to what had happened the day before.

You called Juyeon first, why would you do that? You didn’t even call him once, but multiple times given the way he had worded his sentence. You’re not even close to Juyeon, why would you even dare to call him several times yesterday? If you were in trouble you should have just called Kevin like normal! “Are you saying you don’t remember?”

“Yes, actually, I don’t remember anything that happened yesterday.” Maybe you had gone to go get a drink or something before coming home and that’s why your thoughts from yesterday were blurry. But you’re not the type of person to drink that much, at least not alone you wouldn’t. “Listen, Juyeon, I’m sorry about all of this. I didn’t mean to call you, I was just… out of it or something. I don’t know I just can’t remember right now.”

“It’s fine, Y/N, don’t worry I’m just glad you’re alright. I got worried something might have happened to you but hearing you now makes me relieved.” You smiled at his words, letting his caring words for you twirl around in your head like ribbons. Juyeon was just too nice to you, honestly, but he was probably like this with everyone he knew. It made sense if he was, he was kind to almost everyone he met.

Before you could answer, the jingling of bells echoing through your ears, distracting you from any other words that might have come out of the boy’s mouth. You glanced around the room for shunting that could have made the noise, but you don't exactly have anything that could chime like the whimsical clicking of a wind chime. “Do you hear that?” You asked him, cutting off the boy mid sentence as you stood up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he answered, “what am I supposed to be hearing? All I hear is you.”

In a flash all of the memories from the day before flooding back to you. The barking, the bell ringing, and the injured boy who refused to go to the hospital to treat his wounds. It all came back to you now, but why had it gone away in the first place. “I’ll… I’ll call you back, Juyeon.”

“Y/N? Y/N, what's wrong? Is something—“ you hung up before he could finish his sentence, cautiously following the ever growing sounds of the bells you had heard earlier. The closer you got to your door, the louder the chiming became, probably signifying the fact that you were going in the right direction.The last time you had followed the bells, they led you straight to the wounded boy. So if your hunch was right, it was most likely leading you straight back to him.

You carefully opened the door to your room, peering through the crack in the door frame to see what was going on. It was eerily silent and for the most the entirety of your apartment showed no signs of inhabiting a second person. “That’s odd…,” you noted, fully stepping out of your room to look around the room for the boy from yesterday. It seemed as though he hadn’t even lived in your house for an hour. “I don’t think he ever left… and I still can hear those bells so he can’t be far.”

Goosebumps ran down your spine as a cold wind blew through your living room. Something was off, you’ve never felt uneasy in your own home before. You had picked this apartment to live in because it felt comfortable and warm like home, but the only thing you were getting from it now was the feeling of being watched. As if a pair of eyes were carefully taking in your every move to determine how you’d react next.

“I know, you’re here,” you stated, rolling your eyes as you began to turn around. “You couldn’t have left in the middle of the night, you were bleeding out and collapsed as soon as you—“

You stopped mid sentence when you stopped the boy in the hallway to your bathroom, frazzled and confused by his surroundings yet still keeping a close eye on you. Now that he wasn’t soaking wet and bleeding (thanks to your amateur bandaging skills) you couldn’t help but notice how much more innocent without the dramatic effect of everything that had happened yesterday. “You really are still here, nice to see you didn’t die while I was asleep.”

“Where am I?” He demanded, not as aggressive as he was the day before but still in a rather rude tone you weren’t expecting from him. “How did I get here and… who are you?”

You slumped onto the small couch of your living room, glancing around the room for a moment before turning back to him with a cheeky smile on your face. “Heaven. You died in your sleep and now you’re in heaven. In the goddess that's going to accompany you through the afterlife.”

“Lies, you just said I didn’t die while I was sleeping,” he quickly pointed out, catching your lie as soon as it came out your mouth.

“Woah, despite all those injuries and passing out in the way here you still have a working brain, that’s good to know,” you tease him, watching as the boy rolled his eyes at your tiny jabs. “I’m Y/N but i guess you can just call me your savior really. Oh, and this is my house. You slept on the couch last night and I appreciate the fact that there is no blood on my cushions. Thanks.”

He nodded his head in understanding, though it seemed like the movements weren't actually correlating to what his mind was thinking. “Wait, you’re my… savior? No that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?” You questioned, “I saw you bleeding out in an alleyway yesterday and I tried to take you to hospital but you kept refusing to go, so I just… took you home. I address your wounds and everything and just hoped that when I woke up there wouldn’t be a corpse in my living room. Luckily, as we see now, there isn’t. I saved your life.”

“No!” He yelled, rolling up his tattered clothes to find messily wrapped bandages all over his body. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you were dying?” You blurted, confused to the boy’s sudden panic. “What would you rather have bled out in public for all to see?”

“Yes, actually, that would have been the better option of the two.” How ungrateful was this boy? You saved his life and all he has to say is that he wished you didn’t? Maybe you should have strayed away from your morals for a second because all that had gotten you so far was a boy with no manners. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve done.”

“I have realized what I’ve done,” you responded, “I’ve saved your life because I’m a good person. Why are we arguing about this, there are no downsides to getting your lives saved. Wait, are you embarrassed because you got attacked by some feral cat and nearly died? Not gonna lie, I’d be embarrassed about something like that too.”

“I wasn’t… attacked by a cat,” he explained, a scoff threatening to spill out of his mouth at your bizarre accusation. “I don’t think a cat could make those types of scars.”

“If it wasn’t a cat…” you began, thinking aloud as you tried to member the wounds that covered the boy’s body. The more you pictured them in your head. The more you realize those weren’t… cat scars. They still seemed as though they were animal scars but a cat didn’t make that big a gash on a person’s body. You should have known, you’ve gone to cat cafes enough to have learned the hard way. “Then what…?”

“Gumihos,” the boy replied, tearing off the bandages you had wrapped around him the night before. You winced as you watched your handwork tumble to the ground, but were more concerned over the fact that the gashes on his arm were healed almost completely overnight. “I was attacked by gumihos.”

“Nine tailed foxes?” You blurted, more for yourself than the boy. Seeing you bewilderment made a smile begin to etch across his lips, childish yet mischievous as you tried to break down what you had learned in your head. “But… those are just folklore, they aren’t real. If they were, one would have been caught by humans at this point.

“Why? Don’t you know that a gumiho can shapeshift? They live among humans as if they were any other mortal in order to get what they want in life,” the boy explained, reminding you of the words you had thrown at Juyeon for making the same excuse. “You really think that they’d let a human catch sight of their existence and get away with it?”

“Okay then answer me this,” you ask, sitting up attentive to the stranger you had brought into your home. “If gumihos are real… then why did one attack you and leave you out to die? Don’t they usually kill humans for their livers and hearts? You should have been devoured by now.”

A hearty laugh left the boy’s mouth, much stronger and louder than the small giggle from earlier. His smile couldn’t stop growing on his face as he blinked his eyes at you, the dark browns of his iris swapping out to a bold amber yellow color. His pupils slowly began to dilate into the familiar small slits of a cat’s as your own eyes widened in pure fright. The boy you had saved had now become your greatest mistake. “What makes you think I’m human?”

IV.

“Juyeon!” You hissed at the boy, urging him to come to you once you had finally caught sight of him. He was walking with a group of his friends, people who hadn’t mingled with and didn’t know whether or not you wanted to in the first place. When the boy had turned his head to you, the entirety of his friend group did as well, displaying their bright and eager smiles as they waved their hands in greeting. Awkwardly you greeted them back, unsure of what to do next as they also whispered and muttered to themselves as they let Juyeon break from their group.

Hopefully it was something nice and not anything that could hurt your feelings. They were still grinning and jeering with each other despite whatever comments they were making, so maybe it was a conversation of their approval. Or at least… you hoped it was, you couldn’t really tell the difference. You acted like you had a tough shell but in reality you were way too soft when it came to a stranger’s perspective of you.

“What’s up Y/N?” He greeted, a fond smile plastered across his face as he stood in front of you with his hands shoved in his pockets. “It’s a rare sight to see you interact with me when we don’t have a class together. It must be serious.”

“Well…” you trailed off, unsure of how to explain to him. “I guess it’s serious? But nothing too serious… I need some advice really, that’s all.”

“Advise?” Juyeon questioned, intrigued by the topic you had brought him. “Wow… of all the people could have chosen, you need my advice! I can’t help but say I’m honored. But what happened to your other friend… Kevin was his name, right? He would come to walk you home after class sometimes, why aren’t you asking him?”

You grimace at the thought of the boy before quickly waving the thought away. “Kevin will just think I’m crazy and make fun of me. Plus, I think you’re probably most equipped to help me out here since we take mythology together and all.”

“Ah… still keeping this as a school oriented friendship right?” He teased, getting a small laugh to leave your mouth. “Alright, what is it? What mythological help do you need this time? I’m all ears.”

You hesitated for a moment, unsure on how to word your sentences without sounding insane. The whole reason you had gone to Juyeon instead of Chanhee was because he would understand you a little better than your friend could. “Gumihos… you know how we’re learning about them currently, right? Is there something that people should know about them in order to protect themselves from one?”

Juyeon raised a brow at your question, staying silent as he thought to himself. “Gumihos? I thought you didn’t want to learn about gumihos because it was pop culture and everyone knows about them?”

“Well, what can I say!” You exclaimed, hoping to cover up your nervousness as much as possible. “I decided to take up a personal essay of sorts on those nine tailed foxes. I got intrigued a few days ago about them and I wanted to get as much information as I could about them, but we don’t go back to our mythology class until I… really can’t wait to get started.”

In reality, you actually had that gumiho boy holed up in your apartment still. In fear of the boy actually attempting to devour your liver you had locked him up in your bathroom and placed a talisman on the door so that he couldn’t escape. You had absolutely no clue on how to deal with a gumiho and you had only recently started your lesson on the fox spirits a few days ago. So needless to say, you wanted to be prepared for whatever might come next while housing him.

“That’s fair,” Juyeon agreed, taking your lie like candy and smiling brightly back at you. “I mean, the concept of nine tailed foxes are pretty cool, so I can’t blame you for looking into them a little further than everyone else.”

“So?” You asked, eagerly awaiting his answer, “Do you have any information I should know?”

“Well… there's this one thing I’ve been told before by my grandparents,” he explained, trying his best to recall past memories that had no use up until now. “Yeah, they would use old myths as stories to tell me before bed when I was a kid. They told me that no matter what fork a gumiho comes in, never let them kiss you.”

“Kiss?” You blurted out, shocked that that was the one thing he decided to share. “What’s kissing got to do with fox spirits?”

“It’s how they take your energy,” Juyeon told you, putting his pointer fingers together as if mimicking a kiss between two people. “When a gumiho kisses you, they absorb your energy. The more energy they absorb the weaker you become until you eventually die! Kinda scary, right? Not only do they feed off of human livers, but our mere life essence.”

“What type of bedtime story is that,” you mumbled, skeptically glancing over Juyeon. If that was the type of stories he was being told as a child, how was he not a little messed up in the head? If you were him, you would be absolutely terrified of everything even approaching you. Who knew when someone would randomly come up and kiss you? Your first and last kiss would be from a fox trying to steal your life away!

“I was very easy to tease as a child,” he shrugged, his smile turning sheepish as he softly scratched the back of his neck. “My grandparents loved telling me stories like that because I was an emotional little kid, ease to scare and quick to try and stuff like that.”

“That makes a little more sense,” you nodded, “no sane person would tell that as a bedtime story, it’s always got to be told to a child that’s easily scared.”

“Yeah, yeah, say what you want. If they hadn’t told them those stories of gumihos, I probably wouldn’t be taking mythology now,” Juyeon explained, glancing back toward the direction your shared class was. “And if I didn’t take mythology, you wouldn’t have any friends in that class.”

You shrug in response, he was right. If Juyeon had decided that he didn’t want to take the mythology course you probably wouldn’t have ever met him in the first place. So that was one good thing that had come out of his grandparents scaring him into the folklore of nine tailed foxes. “If you don’t mind me asking by the way,” the boy continued, switching topics while he still had your attention. “Whatever happened that day? You said you’d call me back but you never did. I can’t lie, I was a little worried for you again.”

“Ah, that,” you stall, struggling to make up a lie off the time of your head. You felt bad for lying to Juyeon more than you already were, you heard what he said! He’s worried about you and you didn’t want to put any more of load onto his back with your supernatural problems. “Well, I think I’ve got spirits in my house. I’ve been hearing weird noises sometimes and I thought you could hear it too, that’s why I asked.”

“Funny how things like this happen to a mythology student, huh? I wonder what kind of spirit has skipped their way into your house then.” Juyeon laughed, shaking his head at the ironic situation you had got yourself in, “well if you ever find yourself needing a home away from home, my dorm room is always open? We’d have to clean up a little bit before you arrive and sneak you in but anything to get away from spirits, right?”

#kpop imagines #kpop #kpop au #kpop scenarios #the boyz x reader #the boyz sunwoo #sunwoo x reader #kim sunwoo #sunwoo imagines #tbz sunwoo #sunwoo au #tbz au #juyeon x reader #lee juyeon #juyeon imagines #the boyz juyeon #juyeon au

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css1992 · 3 years

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Guilty Pleasure

Summary: Peter and Beck used to be a power couple in the porn industry, but after Beck dumps him, Peter is forced to start over. With no money, no family and nowhere to go, he doesn’t have much choice other than to keep doing porn, so he joins Just4Fans to get back on his feet and then one day he gets a very generous tip from someone under the username of YKWIM. All the warnings listed on Part I apply.

Read on AO3

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V / Part VI / Part VII / Part VIII / Part IX / Part X / Part XI / Epilogue

-x-

Living with Ned and MJ was both a dream come true and a bit of a nightmare.

A dream, because when they were kids, they always talked about how they would all go the same college and live together one day, and Peter would finally have a real home – and a real family, he used to think to himself, in secret.

A nightmare, because he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of his friends, and that was the worst kind of feeling to have for the people who opened their arms and their home for him when he needed the most. Still, he couldn’t avoid it and he felt awful for that. They were both attending NYU; Ned was majoring in Computer Science and MJ in Journalism. All according to the plans they made in high school.

When Peter was younger, he made plans, too. He wanted to study Biochemistry, his teachers used to say he could probably get a scholarship to a good college, he was smart enough. Mr. Harrington, his science teacher, even offered to write letters of recommendation for him. Instead, Peter’s life choices led him to his current predicament: a 20 year-old porn actor, selling dirty pictures for a living, crashing on his friends’ couch, not a single dollar in his wallet.

He was definitely not getting any awards for good decision making, that was for sure.

He had been staying with Ned and MJ for a week when he was finally able to set up his Just4Fans account. He knew that had to be a temporary thing, it couldn’t last, even if he wanted it to. He wouldn’t be young forever, let alone a “pretty twink”, as his subscribers loved to call him. He had maybe three or four years left of that hype, at most, then he would be too old for that, and/or people would start getting bored of him. So he had to be smart, the plan was to save up as much as he could while he thought about what he was going to do once the fountain of youth dried up, and the clock was ticking fast.

But for the time being, porn.

Good thing he had his own Instagram account with a few thousand followers. All the other social media accounts were under Beck’s name, and those had hundreds of thousands of followers, but Peter no longer had access to them – he checked. He also checked and noticed that Beck hadn’t announced that they had split up yet, his last post dated from five days earlier, when he released their last video together – two days after kicking him out of the house, the asshole.

So Peter posted a few Instagram stories explaining to his followers that he and Beck weren’t a thing anymore – he didn’t give many details, he didn’t want any drama, specially not with Beck – and that he had set up a Just4Fans account for the time being. In minutes, his Instagram blew up. Apparently, people were either heartbroken over their breakup; relieved he “got rid of that perv!”; or devastated they wouldn’t get to see them doing porn together anymore.

He got a hundred subscribers in just a few hours, which was incredible. The subscription fee was ten dollars a month, so even after the website’s cut plus tax deduction, it still was a good start. He wondered what kind of money Beck made with their videos, because they had thousands of subscribers on their channel.

Once he got the hang of the site, he tried to post at least two sets of pictures a day – which was challenging at that moment, because the apartment was tiny and he didn’t have any outfits or toys with him, they were all at Beck’s. He made plans that as soon as he got the subscription money in around fifteen days, he would try to buy a few things and take tons of pictures to last a few weeks.

He also made sure to answer people’s messages every single day, which often earned him a little more money in tips. It was shocking how many people were willing to tip him just because he answered them. Some other people asked for extra content, like specific pictures, videos or even voice notes, which he sent via “pay-per-view messages”.

In the end, he felt like he was prostituting himself. Again.

He would never judge a person for earning their living in any way necessary, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone, he just never thought that would be him. Never ever. As a kid, he thought he’d be an astronaut. Growing up, he wanted to be a physicist. As a teen, he made plans to study Biochemistry. And somehow he ended up selling his body online, one way or another.

He didn’t dwell on that for long, he focused on the fact that it was temporary. If he managed to retain at least some of the people that had subscribed to his account for two or three years, then he would be able to start a small business of some kind in the future. Maybe he could go back to school. Twenty-three wasn’t too old for college, right?

Right.

It was two weeks later when he got a weird message. Not a weird message, actually, a weird tip. Someone under the username of YKWIM had sent him ten thousand dollars for no reason, there was no prior conversation, nor did the person ask for anything in return. Peter was sure there must have been a mistake, maybe they had typed in some extra zeros or maybe they had sent it to the wrong person, so he decided to reach out.

“Hey. I think there must’ve been some sort of mistake with your last tip. Lol.”

He left his phone on the counter and got started on dinner. He was a terrible cook, but to be fair, they all were, so it was fine. Ned and MJ were both at work, but they would be home soon and they were having a quiet night in. Those few weeks at their place had been good for Peter, it felt nice not to be alone after what happened, but at the same time, he was starting to feel like he really needed his own space. He was already looking for an apartment to move into as soon as he got the money. He was hoping to get one in the same building or at least close by, so that they could still see each other often.

His cell phone beeped as he sliced some onions and he stopped to check.

“Hey, gorgeous. There’s been no mistake, it’s correct.” Peter was taken aback by the answer, so he checked again to see how much the person had tipped him, and sure enough, there it was. Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand. American dollars.

“Oh. Wow, that was very, very generous of you. Is there any particular content that you’d like to see from me as a thank you? I could send you exclusive pics and videos, whatever you want.” Inwardly, he was thinking that no amount of pictures or videos from him would ever be worth ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars, holy fuck.

“That would be excellent.”

“Great. What would you like to see?”

Please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird… Usually, Peter’s subscribers liked to see him in cute outfits or with cute toys, but some people liked very messed up stuff. He usually said no, but that person had just sent him ten thousand dollars. Fuck, that was so much money, it would cover rent for at least a few months.

“I’ve enjoyed everything you’ve put out so far, baby, so surprise me. I’m sure I’m gonna like whatever you send.”

God, generous and reasonable? Had Peter died and gone to porn heaven?

“You flatter me.” He typed in quickly, leaving the sauce unattended for a few seconds. “Give me a few hours to work on it, I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Take your time, but I don’t think you could disappoint me if you tried.”

Peter felt so stupid when he blushed and giggled to himself, because that was exactly how Beck lured him in when he was seventeen, with charming, easy words. He was an adult now, for Christ’s sake, and he didn’t even know who he was talking to. To be fair, it was probably a woman. For some weird reason, according to his Just4Fans statistics, a surprisingly large percentage of his subscribers were middle-aged, cisgender, heterosexual women. Peter supposed those were the ones who used to follow his “love story” with Beck – most of them hadn’t got over them yet, apparently they were “the perfect couple! So cute!”.

He couldn’t blame them, they sold them the perfect love story. And for a time, it was true. Peter really thought Beck was it for him, the love of his life, his soulmate. He didn’t know at which point it all became an act to Beck – or if maybe it had always been an act.

He sighed, shaking his head, he couldn’t afford to waste time thinking about him, so he focused on what he should send YKWIM.

As he finished making dinner, he tried to come up with ideas. They said they loved everything Peter had posted so far – he had posted thirty pictures and five short clips over the past two weeks. The pictures were all in MJ’s bedroom – she offered –, most of them in her bed. There were only a few pictures in which he was completely naked, in the others he had some sort of underwear on – lingerie or tight briefs.

So, he decided he should do something similar, but different enough that YKWIM would feel somewhat special. He had a few good ideas, but they would have to wait for the next morning, he would need good lighting and privacy.

“Hey, nerd, what’s up,” He almost burned his fingers when he heard MJ’s voice, and realized he had spaced out for a minute there. He shook his head quickly and smiled at her.

“Nothing, how was you day?”

The next morning, once Ned went to visit his family and MJ left for work, Peter started working on the pictures. For some reason, he didn’t want to tell his friends about YKWIM, just like he didn’t want to tell them about Beck when they first met, three years earlier. And if he really was as smart as his teachers used to say, he would have seen the pattern. But as it was, he just focused on the fact that YKWIM was probably a woman living on the other side of the world, who just liked to get off to pictures of pretty boys in lingerie.

But.

For the sake of getting in the mood for the pictures, he imagined YKWIM was a guy. Not too tall, but taller than him. He imagined he had a beard, but not a full one, like Beck’s, no, perfectly trimmed, scratchy, in a good way. He’d have dark, warm eyes, not blue and cold. He’d be older, older than Beck, more mature than him. A real man. Maybe he’d have a few streaks of gray amidst his otherwise dark hair.

He’d be gentle, despite Peter’s past. He’d treat him like he was the first one to ever touch him, even if he knew that was far from the truth. He would be careful, mindful of his pleasure. He’d start off slowly, kissing along his collarbones, fingers brushing the sensitive skin on the inside of his thighs, just shy of where Peter wanted him to touch, as his mouth traveled down his chest; hot, moist breath leaving a trail of kisses down his stomach.

He sighed. Yeah, that would do to put him in the mood.

He put on a white t-shirt that was just long enough to graze the tops of his thighs, and a simple, plain black thong. He decided to take the pictures in the shower – the classic wet, white t-shirt, he couldn’t really go wrong with that. He positioned the camera on top of the bathroom sink, set the timer, and started posing.

First, he rested his back against the wall, one hand pulling the t-shirt down to cover the front his underwear, eyes staring directly at the camera lens as water ran down his face, neck and chest, making his nipples stiffen, becoming visible under the wet shirt.

Next, he pressed his chest to the wall, looking at the camera from over his shoulder, lips parted, just a peek of his exposed ass cheeks showing where the t-shirt ended, but by then it was so wet it was mostly see-through.

Then he turned so his side was facing the camera and stuck his head directly under the stream of water, running his hands through his hair, back arched obscenely, eyes closed. He let his hands travel all the way down his neck, chest, and stomach, hearing the familiar “click” as the camera took several pictures.

He turned around again, placed his hands on the wall and lifted his t-shirt just over his lower back, sticking his ass out, showing off his provocative underwear.

He got out of the shower and turned the camera into filming mode, then got back under the water and also shot a short clip of he sensually and slowly taking the thong off, but in a way that the viewer couldn’t really see the skin that was revealed. He pulled the wet t-shirt down so it covered everything, but by then it was so see-through that it left nothing to the imagination. Peter twirled a little, then threw an innocent, shy smile at the camera.

That should do it.

He finished his shower, put the wet clothes in the washer, then went to edit the pictures. He didn’t do much, just adjusted the light and contrast, then cut them into squares, because he though it looked classier or whatever. He chuckled to himself at the absurdity of that thought, as he attached the photos and the video to a direct message to YKWIM.

“Hey, gorgeous! Hopefully these won’t disappoint. Let me know if you’d like something different.”

He cringed re-reading the message, he thought he sounded desperate and insecure about himself and he supposed that wasn’t very attractive, so he decided to change it just a little.

“Hey, gorgeous! Hopefully these won’t disappoint.” And he finished off with a hot face emoji, because why not.

He sent the message and went on with his day. Ned and MJ were both back for lunch and since none of them felt like cooking – and they all sucked at it anyway –, they ordered something to eat in front of the TV, as they binge-watched the first seasons of The Office.

“Oh, hey, Pete, I almost forgot, I talked to our landlord earlier and he said there’s an apartment on the fifth floor that should be vacated by the end of the month, if you’re interested,” Ned told him around a mouthful of pizza and Peter’s head snapped up.

“I’m definitely interested!”

“Cool, I’ll talk to him for you, I’m sure I can get you a good deal on rent.” He winked, and Peter smiled, feeling hopeful.

Things were getting better. Slowly, yes, but they were. He was spending time with his friends – who he had neglected for the past two years–; he had a good amount of money to withdraw in the next few days, that could get him going for a while; he was still doing porn, yes, but at least he was in control of the whole thing, including his own body, which was nice; and he only cried for Beck every other night instead of every single night, so he had that going for him.

All in all, things were looking up.

Ned and MJ convinced him to go out for a bit in the afternoon, they said he had been cooped up in the apartment for three weeks and should breathe in some fresh air, and since it was the first somewhat warm day of March, they decided to go jog at Central Park in the afternoon. They didn’t really jog, but they walked around some and Peter must admit that it felt good to stretch his legs and feel the sun on his skin for a change.

They were lying on the grass, resting for a bit, when they saw a blur of red and gold fly overhead. People started cheering and clapping and Peter smiled when MJ groaned, because he knew exactly what she was going to say.

“How can people cheer for that guy, he’s an egocentric, misogynistic, elitist, disgusting asshole.” He laughed to himself, because he knew what came next.

“He’s a genius, he changed the world multiple times and he even saved it at least twice. I think he’s pretty cool,” Ned argued without any heat and Peter could hear MJ rolling her eyes.

Peter didn’t love or hate Tony Stark or Iron Man, like most people, he just – didn’t pay him any mind. Sure, when he was a kid, he was obsessed with him, he was New York’s first superhero after Captain America, who was still in the ice when Stark announced he was Iron Man. But as he grew older, he had other concerns in mind other than who was the coolest Avenger, so he kind of forgot they existed, except for when there was some crazy alien threat looming over New York City – which was, like, a biannual thing since they found out aliens existed back in 2012.

The fact that Iron Man was flying over Central Park on a Saturday afternoon was a little alarming though. From what Peter knew, Stark was mostly retired since around 2016, he only ever “avenged” when there was a big threat, like the near-end-of-the-world they had back in 2018.

“Do you think we’re under attack?” Peter asked and Ned shook his head calmly.

“Nah, I think he must be late for something. I read an interview recently and he said he uses the suit sometimes when he needs to get some place fast.”

Seemed like overkill, but who was Peter to judge, he would probably do the same if had a suit like that.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the park and then headed home for the night. MJ turned in early, she said she was beat from a busy week, and Peter and Ned stayed up until a little later, re-watching Star Wars movies. It was close to 2AM when Ned said his goodnight and Peter went to check his Just4Fans, because he hadn’t answered any messages all day long.

There were quite a few, but he did notice there was one missing. YKWIM hadn’t answered him yet and Peter immediately felt like a failure. They probably hated the pictures, they must have thought “ugh, ten thousand dollars for that?”. Peter should have photoshopped them. He could have made himself look at least a little bit better, if only–

Before he could hate on himself too much, YKWIM messaged him, like they could read minds. Peter quickly opened their chat, still a little worried about their reaction to the pictures.

“Damn, baby! You have no fucking idea what those did to me. Fuck! Can I show you? Please?”

Peter was oddly relieved to read that, and was endeared by the fact that they actually asked before sending a dick pic. Or a clit pic? Was that a thing?

“Of course, gorgeous, I’d love to see it.”

Within seconds, they sent a video in the chat. Peter was a little surprised by that, but pressed play anyway, and almost fell off the couch when he did.

It was a thirteen seconds video. He could see the man’s midriff, all the way down to the tops of his thighs. His belly was toned and spattered with dark hair that led down to perfectly trimmed pubes that framed the most beautiful cock Peter had ever seen. There was no other way to put it.

It was long and thick, but not so much so that it would hurt – Peter knew better –, it stood proudly between his thighs, attached to a heavy set of balls that made his mouth water. He was jacking it mercilessly, Peter could only hear him grunting quietly before his balls recoiled and he came, covering his stomach in thick, pearly white come. Peter whimpered, pressing down on his hard-on, and almost cried when the video was over.

“Fuck, daddy, that was so fucking hot.” It was probably the first time ever that he actually meant that answering a DM from a subscriber.

“That was the third time today, baby, I have been thinking about those pics from the minute you sent them. Spent the whole day with blue balls, even after coming twice.”

Fuck.

“Wish I could have helped you with that.”

“Who knows, honey, maybe someday.”

Yeah, Peter thought, biting his pillow on the couch so he wouldn’t be heard when he came embarrassingly hard in his pajamas pants, face burning with shame. Maybe someday.

#starker #peter parker x tony stark

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bloededhoine · 4 years

Text

world building cause twn doesn't pt. 1: the northern realms

okay i'm making this because 1 witcher netflix is the most convoluted and confusing thing i've ever seen and does literally no world building and 2 special interest make autism brain go brr.

basic info

this is gonna be a multi part series about the witcher universe but this is all about the northern realms!

ciri's timeline in twn encompasses the entirety of the first northern war, beginning with the attack on cintra and ending with the battle at sodden

this is just covering the human portions of the north. i'll talk about vergen, brokilon, and dol blathanna later

colour code cause i fucking love colour codes - already happened/introduced, probably s2, important background info, stuff that might be in the prequel, extras

general

so the entire witcher takes place on the continent

it's divided into multiple kingdoms, vassal states, and territories

now borders change a lot but this is the general idea before the first northern war (started 1263 with the invasion of cintra but we'll get more into that later)

also important to note that the show ends in 1264 with geralt meeting ciri in sodden

i'm sorry, i don't have quite enough spoons for an image discription for that map, but if someone wants to take over i'll link it here!

maps not mine, reddit link here

the continent is mainly divided between south and north, with nilfgaard and its dependencies and vassal states (including toussaint, mettina, vicovaro, nazair) in the south and the northern realms (redania, temeria, kaedwen, aedirn, lyria and rivia, cidaris, kovir and poviss, and creyden) in the north

aedirn

this is where yennefer is from! more specifically, it's capital vengerberg. as of twn, its king is virfuril. he's briefly name dropped in blood of elves and assassins of kings, you might remember him dancing with yennefer in the ball.

[I.D: picture of white man with a light brown beard and moustache. he is wearing a gold shirt and a gold crown. he is smiling slightly and has blue eyes. end I.D.]

that's him right there. for some extra trivia he's the 15th king of aedirn, his son is demavend III and his grandson is stennis

aedirn is mainly manufacturing. in the north (upper aedirn), dwarves control the continent's best mines. the south produces more finished goods like textiles, weapons, and dyes

for some notable aedirnians we have yennefer, saskia/saesenthessis (borch three jackdaws/villentretenmirth's daughter), letho, aplegatt, and seltkirk

aedirnian cities include vengerberg, gulet, and hagge

next up - redania!

as of the first northern war, redania's king was vizimir II. i don't think we saw him in twn, but i could be wrong. redania is known for having the best intelligence network on the continent, along with control of the best farmland

redania is a super important kingdom, and we've already met quite a few important redanians and will probably meet a lot more.

dandelion/jaskier, chireadan, shani, philippa eilhart, sigi dijkstra are all redanian

redanian cities - novigrad, oxenfurt (home of oxenfurt academy, dandelion's alma mater), tretogor (the capital), blaviken, and rinde

for temeria!

we briefly visited temeria in the episode with the striga (adda the white). as of the first northern war, the king is foltest. he lives in the capital vizima (controlled by nilfgaard in wild hunt). that's him right there

[I.D: photo of an older, overweight white man. he is wearing gold armour and a gold crown. he has a grey beard and is scowling. end I.D]

temeria (especially foltest) is notoriously xenophobic and racist. but, it is one of the best places for sorceresses as its home to thanedd isle and aretuza.

temeria controls the mahakaman mountains, and therefore some of the most prosperous mines in the continent. these mines, along with highly developed agricultural and trade systems, make temeria mad rich

a lot of my favourites are temerian we have keira metz, vernon roche, thaler, *barf* triss merigold, codringher and fenn, jan natalis, and ves

temeria has a lot of important cities like gors velen, vizima (also spelled wyzim or wyzima), and maribor. there's also some territories/provinces like brugge, ellander, maribor, sodden, and velen

kaedwen

kaedwen is in the far north west, and is where the witcher fortress of kaer morhen is located. kaedwen is always feuding with aedirn over control of the pontar valley, a profitable area on the kaedweni-aedirnian border. as of the first northern war, kaedwen is ruled by king henselt, who might have been name dropped once or twice in twn i dont really remember.

kaedwen is very cold, a large portion of it is the blue, kestrel, and fiery mountains. it's also home to ban aard, which is basically the aretuza for boys and where stregobor taught istredd

the only really notable kaedwenis are sabrina glevissig (that's her in twn) and cregennan of lod

[I.D: photo of a young white woman with blonde hair tied back. she is wearing a low cut blue dress and has a blank expression. end I.D]

some kaedweni cities are ban aard, ard carraigh, lod, and ban gleán

kaedwen, temeria, aedirn, and redania make up the four kingdoms, a group of human-majority states that nilfgaard really likes attacking. the northern wars are pretty much all nilfgaard vs the northern kingdoms, since most smaller realms are usually absorbed into either the north or south, but that doesn't mean they're not important!

cintra

twn gave us a solid introduction to cintra, which as you know was ruled by queen calanthe. her suicide after the nilfgaardian invasion was basically the first major casualty of the first northern war. cintra then became a nilfgaardian dependency, ruled by emperor emhyr var emreis

notable cintrians - princesses cirilla fiona elen rhiannon and pavetta fiona elen, angoulême, and the house of attre

cintra isn't very big, but does have the provence attre and cities like erlenwald and cintra (the capital)

cidaris

ruled by king ethain, one of the many people calanthe betrothed to ciri and then was like lol nevermind. also includes the province bremervoord, which is ruled by duke agloval and supported by the harvesting and trade of pearls

notable cidarians - dorregary, valdo marx, and vilgefortz (thats him there)

[ID: photo of a young south-asian man with black slicked back hair and a moustache. he is wearing medieval armour and i can't quite tell what his expression is. end ID]

cidarian cities include vole, roggeveen, and cidaris (the capital)

hengfors league

a group of 4 city states (caingorn, malleore, barefield, and cinfrid) that are ruled by king niedamir from the capital hengfors

notable residents include queen hedwig, boholt and the reavers, and deidre ademeyn

from what i've found all the city states have a capital of the same name

lyria and rivia

these are a little complicated, but basically lyria and rivia are the two main kingdoms of the confederation of realms in the dol angra valley. as of twn, queen meve of lyria and king reginald of rivia are married, therefore uniting the two realms

in the summer, the capital is lyria and in the winter it's rivia. lyria is also primarily agricultural while rivia is more industrial

queen meve is really the only important one here

kovir and poviss

kingdom in the far north that is responsible for the most exporting of minerals on the continent. as of the first northern war it is ruled by esterad thyssen

notable residents include stregobor, renfri, sheala de tancarville, coën, and istredd

important cities - creyden, tancarville, lan exeter, aedd gynvael, and thwyth

skellige

skellige is different from the other northern kingdoms in a few ways. one, it's not really a kingdom but a collection of 7 clans each led by a specific jarl. a clan is based on kinship, and the jarl rules them. what's confusing here is that there's also a jarl of skellige, who is in charge of the entire archipelago's armed forces. the king or queen of skellige is chosen by all of the jarls to help unify the clans against nilfgaard

skellige is also the only island kingdom. its an archipelago to the west of cintra, but is almost always allied to the north

the clans are brokvar, an craite, dimun, drummond, heymaey, tordarroch, and tuirseach, and they generally each occupy a specific island

the main islands are ard skellig (an craite and drummond), an skellig (tuirseach), faroe (dimun), hindarsfjall (heymaey), spikeroog (brokvar), and undvik (tordarroch)

some skelligers - crach an craite, eist tuirseach (that's him there), mousesack/ermion, draig bon-dhu, cerys and hjalmar an craite, and birna bran

[ID: photo of a middle-aged white man with dark brown hair and light stubble. he is wearing a gold doublet and has some sweat on his forehead. he appears slightly drunk. end ID]

tldr: as of the first northern war, the main northern kingdoms are virfuril's aedirn, vizimir's redania, foltest's temeria, and henselt's kaedwen

thank you so much for reading this! i'm definitely gonna make more parts and will link them here when i do!

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vikingqueer · 3 years

Text

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

#music stuff #amalie.txt #music recommendations #mika #the mechanisms #the amazing devil #dodie #claudia boleyn #hozier #oh land #oysterband #ben platt

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hornime · 4 years

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hq as my discovery weekly | part one

warnings: this is completely sfw, combo of fluff and angst

characters included: kenma, akaashi, oikawa, suna, koganegawa, ushijima, bokuto, kuroo, hinata, kita, terushima, iwaizumi, osamu, kageyama, sakusa

a/n: this was a random idea i thought of but i think it’ll be really cute haha. maybe you guys’ll find some new songs in the process! totally encourage anyone to use this idea if they want cus this was super fun to write!

playing... one through fifteen / sixteen through thirty

↪ “cotton candy lemonade" by blu detiger: kenma kozume

i've been up too long, something's wrong / watch the rising sun / turning all my nights to days

i've been on my own, come find me now / i'm lonely to the bone / but I don't feel so low when you're around / let's run away from home

you'll bе my kaleidoscope, my color in this life / watching thе world fade away

kenma is not the most extroverted and he’s in his head a lot, so he’s someone that might not always see the ‘color’ in things that exist around him. but when it comes to you, well, you’re someone that makes him look up from his screen a little longer than usual.

↪ “love affair” by umi: akaashi keiji

don't overthink this is love / maybe it's just a crush

i hope what I feel is enough / maybe this is just lies

i wanna know how to feel, what to feel, what's right / i never know / 'cause when it gets real, I just run away / and hide from you

akaashi gets anxiety. he used to be certain about a lot of things—his intelligence, his skill, his happiness, but most important to him was his feelings for you. he’s overthinking again, he knows it, but he’s getting an uncontrollable itch that maybe this is all in his head; he doesn’t love you, he just think he does. but when you’re in his arms, breathing even and eyes fluttered shut, he remembers what you always told him: it doesn’t matter what he knows, it matters what he feels. and he feels like the luckiest man alive.

↪ “coke” by iii addicts, danice: oikawa tooru

come closer, i been eyeing you from way over / so it's time i come for some closure

had to let her know that you could lick this / shake it up, it's gonna probably gon' bust

why, tell me why / why am i not satisfied / every time i cross that line / i feel it, i feel it

oikawa feels like tantalus: a man constantly reaching for a goal just out of reach, straining his muscles and screaming his voice hoarse just for a glimpse of an unattainable destiny. he’s desperate to get ahead, and while he may be running at top speed at all times, the finish line doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. his worst fear is that, some time he’ll slow his pace and look back and realize he hasn’t gotten very far at all.

↪ “baby powder” by jenevieve: suna rintaro

i'll put up with you babe / there's somethings I won't take / baby don't feel me false / yeah that turns me off

you're making me so high now / you're everything I'd ever want / you're keeping me so dry now / you're everything I'd never want uh

plastic on the floor but it ain't for me / ima go up to the place that i'd rather be

suna is straightforward. he won’t deal with your bullshit, and he learns that you won’t deal with his either, which makes you so appealing. when he starts letting more and more of you in, he feels you slipping through his fingers. you wanted to be friends, so you treat him as one. he doesn’t remember when he started wanting more.

↪ “chandelier (instrumental version)” by paquin: koganegawa kanji

instrumental so no lyrics lol

koganegawa is bubbly. he’s a bouncer: he bounces between social circles, bounces colors behind his eyes, and bounces back after adversity. he’s an amiable guy, and it’s landed him plenty of friends and opportunities, but best of all, it’s landed him you.

↪ “l-over” by u.s. girls: ushijima wakatoshi

my lover has no heart / magic moving blood around that body / he's cool to the touch / i don't see him much / but when I do, he does nothing for me

can you imagine trying to get / some satisfaction out of a stone?

spare me any talk of your future life / i don't know what I'll do without you

ushijima is stubborn. he’s deadset on achieving his goals for the future, and if you can’t work with them, you better work around them. you’re tired of how he grounds you; you thought it was a blessing at first, having a guy that knew what he wanted and would always act as a constant in your life, but you’ve started to see that he’s not a lighthouse anymore, he’s an anchor. he’s an anchor that’s chaining you to the ocean floor and will drown you if you, even for a second, stop kicking your legs to stay afloat.

↪ “magic!” by リアムMAZE1981: bokuto koutarou

and when you smile at me that way / well you can warm the coldest day / it's magic

and all i have to do is think of you / to make the music start to play / then i dance down the street / and the people I meet stop and say hey hey

and when you want me you just clap your hands / and I'll be with you right away / then we'll float on a breeze / while the leaves in the trees softly say hey hey / magic ways, my friend / you love the girl with magic ways and it's true / i might as well give in

bokuto is bright. he tramps around the world with the light of the sun illuminating his face. there is nothing in the universe that could ever drag him down, especially not with you around. you’ve cast some kind of spell on him, he’s sure of it, because your very presence makes him certain that he’s immortal. he must be, because when he’s with you, he’s withstanding the heat of a thousand suns that erases the darkness in every shadow, corner, and crevice of his life.

↪ “i hope that u think of me” by pity party (girls club): kuroo tetsuro

i hope that you dream of me baby / nightmares are what dreams are baby i-i-i / i think I'm fallin' out of love

you tell me that it's easy to be / you tell me that it's easy to be with me but you lie-i-i / why do you lie all the time?

kuroo is focused. he takes note of everything when he’s working on a task, down to dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s. he often finds himself with tunnel vision, unable to think of anything but the current responsibility at the top of his every-growing to-do list. somewhere along the way, he lost track of you—must’ve loosened his grip on your hand and your fingers fell through empty space. he’d look for you, back in the void, but he’s busy. he keeps moving, unaware that you’ve turned back, walking in the opposite direction as him to find the life before him that you barely remember.

↪ “the leanover” by life without buildings: hinata shoyo

kiss me, break my mind, close the door / black steel, break my mind, close the door

if i lose you in the street / i say, i say, i say, i say, i say, i say / wassup, wassup with you? / wassup with your friends?

hinata is unfazed. he knows that, when things go bad, there’ll always be something there to right them. so when your paths diverge—maybe your schedules don’t work out, your dates get canceled, your nights home become more and more sparse—he’s not worried. not one bit. because at the end of the night, he knows that you’ll always find your way back to one another, and you’ll always greet him with open arms. and he’ll always do the same.

↪ “ladyfingers - edit” by funding secured: kita shinsuke

instrumental so no lyrics lol

kita is polished. he works hard during the day to be with you at night, dancing in little circles in the small kitchen of your shared home. he looks at you with fondness and appreciation, thanking his stars a million times over for granting him with someone like you. he’s a tree, stable in the harshest of gales, but even trees like to sway with the wind sometimes.

↪ “black madonna” by cage the elephant: terushima yuuji

makes no difference here, so let's be real / black madonna, my black flower / nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide / you're not havin' fun, i think that you should ride

climb so high, don't hear a sound / don't you forget what goes around, comes around / climb so high, tell me how to feel

call me when you're ready to be real / black madonna, my hallelujah

terushima is hedonistic. he’s never concerned himself with thoughts of the future, or of the past, or of anything, really. all he can think about is making each moment as willing to be lived as possible. you, on the other hand, are practical, too practical in his opinion, and he wants you to let loose, lighten up a little bit. maybe in the long run, it won’t be the best idea to let him take you by the hand and on a midnight adventure, but you haven’t thought that far ahead yet. guess he’s already rubbing off on you.

↪ “mother nature’s bitch” by okay kaya: iwaizumi hajime

everybody / please give a warm welcome to / to this current mood

here i am / easy to please / here i am / okay with it

here i am / desperate for attention / here i am / being mother nature's bitch

iwaizumi is hardworking. he does the best he can with everything he tries; sometimes that amounts to something and sometimes it doesn’t. most times it doesn’t fulfill his expectations, as high as they are. when you’re around, his borderline hatred for himself disappears. when you’re there to tell him how great he’s doing, the tension in his shoulders dissipates.

↪ “smithereens” by rasharn powell, ab001: miya osamu

found my power / and my brethren / in a tussle with the world itself

see if I’m david, you’re goliath / there’s some power in defiance / put my heart in a slingshot / we been cycling away for days

searching for freedom always / likeness of an orgasm been had / empty with a peace that just don’t last / petite mort, then born again

osamu is pioneering. he opened a small business and eventually branched out, managing chains of his restaurant across the nation. it may not be a flashy job, but it’s a solid one, and a draining one. there are days of back-to-back shifts, afternoons overwhelming catering orders, and nights spent sleeping over on a cot near the kitchen. when he dreams, curled up with the smell of onigri still lingering in the air, he can only think of ‘what if’ he’d chosen another path, a path with a more obvious end, a more obvious definition of glory. but he still wakes up at dawn, conquering his own corner of the sky, knowing that his life, while it may be small, is not insignificant.

↪ “must be” by lou phelps: kageyama tobio

must be the henny on the ice / must be the diamonds that I buy / might be the shit that I write / whatever a n**** do and say, that's what I like

i'm on the cloud as i walk the front door / that's a boost, that's true, that's loo

yeah, um, i'mma need my space / 'cause you's a bum-bum, can't be standing next to me, uh / forgive me for my sins / don't tell me this is wrong if it feels right

kageyama is cocky. he’s good at what he does, amazing, actually, and he sure as hell knows it. he’s surrounded by people that make him better, people that he makes better, and he can’t think of a place he’d rather be. he’s on his way to carve his way into the moon and he’s not going to tolerate anyone that wants to keep him on earth.

↪ “jealous” by eyedress: sakusa kiyoomi

you could have anyone you want / why would you want to be with me? / you know, I'm nothing special

don't tell me about your problems / if you're not trying to solve them / don't ask me for my help

sakusa is independent. he’s not one to see himself as part of someone else’s orbit, opting to act like a random rock, floating in space with no origin and no destination. he’s worried that, if he gets too close to you, he’ll end up getting drawn in by your gravity and either crash land or burn up. neither seems appealing, and the idea of a safe encounter hasn’t even crossed his mind, so he’s going to keep moving on an endless trek towards the stars.

#haikyuu!!#haikyu #hq #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #kenma #akaashi #oikawa #suna #koganegawa #ushijima #bokuto #kuroo #hinata

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obwjam · 4 years

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the tiniest jedi

okay folks, here we go... i’d like to introduce you all to my oc, Jedi Knight Jayla Nor’al! she is five inches tall, 22 years old and the former padawan of good ol’ yoda. she was knighted so she could fight in the clone wars, and now she’s off to help command her first-ever battalion!

when i rewatched clone wars recently i basically took note of episodes where a tiny could fit into the plot (spoiler: there’s a lot lol) so this is part 1 of the first installment of me recreating the filoniverse into the obwjamverse

i hope y’all enjoy <3 love you all sm

the hidden enemy, part 1

>> part two

To say Jedi Knight Jayla Nor’al was nervous would be a tremendous understatement.

It had taken a lot of convincing that bordered on begging to get the council to agree to this. Having Anakin vouch for her seemed like a good idea in theory, but in practice it usually ended with Obi-Wan rubbing his eyes while the council fiercely debated the merits of Anakin’s argument.

Anakin was always sticking up for her. She was a few years older than he was, but more than anyone, he understood what it was like to have a tough life. They first met one day when he was a padawan, no more than 13 years old. Obi-Wan was sent off on a mission by himself to retrieve a holocron and a disgruntled Anakin went to Yoda to continue his training. He was far more advanced than the group of younglings he was with, but before he could complain too much, something -- no, someone -- caught his eye.

She was standing on a table at all of five inches tall, arms crossed in a dim corner of the room. The other younglings were practicing basic combat stances. She looked rather bored with it all. Anakin would have probably glossed right over her if it wasn’t for the tunic she was wearing.

“Master Yoda, who is that?” Anakin asked while the group was taking a break. She had now sat down, cross-legged, with her eyes closed and her shoulders relaxed. He marveled at how her tiny silhouette almost blended in with the scenery entirely.

“My padawan, she is,” Yoda stated.

“Padawan?” Anakin was shocked. Obi-Wan never told him Yoda had a padawan.

Yoda hummed. “Surprised, you are, hmm?”

Anakin could only nod as Yoda trotted over to her. “Well, it’s… she’s…”

“Padawan Nor’al, ready, you are?” he asked quietly. Anakin gasped at how Yoda practically towered over this tiny person. She calmly opened her eyes and gave a single nod.

“Younglings, gather here,” Yoda called out to the group. He nodded to Anakin, who curiously followed. He heard a couple of the other younglings snicker in disbelief. “Demonstrate Form III, my padawan will. Close attention to footwork, you must pay.”

Anakin’s eyes widened as a training remote whirred to life. To a normal-sized person, practicing with a remote could sting if you didn’t know know what you were doing. But she was not a normal-sized person. That remote must look like a tank to her!

“Master Yoda--” Anakin started, but Yoda held his hand up.

“You may begin.”

What Anakin witnessed next may or may not have changed his life.

It was like she knew where the blasts were going before they were even fired. She was so quick that Anakin’s eyes could barely adjust to the blinding speed she seemed to be moving at. She firmly stood her ground as she deflected blast after blast, her eyes moving wildly as she deciphered the shooting pattern of the remote. She found her opening, charged forward, leaped up and sunk her lightsaber straight through the metal. The droid sputtered and sparked before falling to the table, lifeless. She hopped down and gave Yoda a small bow as if nothing had even happened.

“Thank you, padawan. Continue to practice, younglings. Much work to do, you have.”

Still in shock, the younglings picked up their sabers and began to practice, some yelping in surprise when the blasts stung at their legs. She had made it look so easy.

She was taking note of the younglings’ form when she paused to raise her eyebrow. Anakin was still standing there.

“Staring is rude,” she said shortly. Looking at her up close, Anakin could clearly see how she was nervously eyeing him.

“That was really cool,” he said, crouching down a bit so he didn’t loom too large.

She gave a small smirk. “Master Yoda is a good teacher.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Jayla... Jayla Nor’al,” she said, giving Anakin heavy side-eye. What does he want?

“My name’s Anakin. I’m Master Kenobi’s padawan.”

“Anakin Skywalker?” she asked incredulously. “What -- what are you doing here?”

“My master is on a mission and didn’t want to take me.”

She scoffed. “That’s silly. Padawans should always be with their masters to learn.”

“Tell that to Obi-Wan,” Anakin sighed. “Does Master Yoda take you on missions with him?”

Anakin’s lips pursed into a frown as she sat down, looking dejected. “Mostly, yeah. But sometimes I think he thinks I’m too… well… you know.”

“Too small.”

She gave him a surprised look. “Yeah.”

“A little ironic, coming from him.”

Jayla laughed. “You can’t say that!”

Anakin laughed back. “Sure I can.”

It was hard for Jayla to really grow close to anyone, no matter how hard she tried to befriend the others. Anakin knew exactly how that felt. The two were lonely, and they found each other. Their friendship only grew stronger as they got older -- Jayla helped Anakin learn to trust in the Force more and Anakin helped Jayla grow her confidence. Obi-Wan admired how well they complimented each other.

Yoda eventually began to take Jayla on more dangerous missions. Spending time with Anakin and Obi-Wan had diversified her skill set more than most padawans and, as the Jedi Council sensed the growing discourse between the light and the dark, Jayla and Anakin were both knighted so they could fight in the Clone War.

But everyone had underestimated the fierceness and enormity of the conflict.

It was evident from the beginning of her training that Jayla was fearless -- that she would not let her size stop her from doing anything. She was a fierce negotiator; a skilled fighter; she had a deep and powerful connection to the Force. And yet, her size was the very thing stopping the council from giving her any responsibilities outside of putting together training recordings, teaching younglings and spearheading negotiations.

“I can’t believe this,” Jayla groaned to Obi-Wan one rare quiet day on Coruscant. Anakin was off on a recon mission. Obi-Wan had duties to attend to, but he would always take a pause to talk with Jayla.

“If Master Yoda and the council feel this is for the best, then you need to listen.”

“I didn’t become a Jedi to play it safe. I just… I don’t understand why Yoda keeps babying me.”

“You’ve only recently become a Jedi knight,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “You need to be patient.”

“Yeah, the council did that so I could fight in the war.” Jayla got up, pacing around the windowsill. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense! I’m trained in combat. I have useful skills. I’ve been out there before, Obi-Wan! Why spend my entire life telling me ‘size matters not, hmm’, then use it as a reason to hold me back?”

Obi-Wan frowned. He hated how her frame seemed to get swallowed up by the bustling backdrop of the Republic captial outside.

“Can I be honest?” Obi-Wan asked slowly. Jayla’s expression softened as she plopped down, resting her elbows on her knees and meeting Obi-Wan’s gaze a few feet from her.

“Always.”

“Well, I shouldn’t really tell you this, but I think it’s important that you know. The council has its reservations, but they mostly agree that you are more than capable of being a general. It’s… it’s the Chancellor who has persuaded them into keeping you here.”

“The Chancellor? Why would he care?”

“It’s my understanding that many in the senate feel it would be a sign of weakness if you were to command a battalion.”

“That’s ridiculous! It’s not even the senate’s decision to make!” she cried.

“On military matters, it is. And until Chancellor Palpatine changes his mind, then I’m afraid there’s nothing that can be done.”

Jayla tried to forget about that conversation every time she got upset. But as the conflict raged on and Republic forces took beating after beating on the Outer Rim worlds, Obi-Wan felt the situation was becoming dire. It was less about who had strength and more about who had the tactical advantage. The better strategy. The better intelligence.

Yoda too felt desperate. He was engulfed in the war and convinced that winning it was the only way to save the galaxy from certain doom. He heard the plight of his former padawan day after day, to the point where he began to question if his gut feeling was really right. He hadn’t been meditating as much lately. The Force always gave him the guidance he needed. Between Anakin, Obi-Wan and her own former master, the council was able to convince Palpatine that allowing her to lead stealth and recon missions was a perfectly reasonable starting point.

Since it was nearly impossible to plant a conventional spy into the droid army, Jalya and Anakin had conspired and came up with the idea of using her as a spy. Mace Windu was concerned about her being captured. Anakin argued that her life sign registered so faintly on scanners that capture wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Ki-Adi-Mundi feared she would get lost in the blur of so much violence. Obi-Wan said that all she needed was a wrist comm and someone to use as transportation and protection.

So after months of debating, planning, talking to Yoda and gear-building, the perfect situation had arisen. Today, it was finally going to happen.

And she… didn’t know how to feel.

She was accompanying Anakin and Obi-Wan on the Resolute to Christophsis, where the GAR was getting whalloped day after day. Most recently, a secret plan was thwarted before it had even gotten underway. It was obvious that the Separatists were somehow accessing Republic intelligence. And it was Jayla’s job to find out how.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

From the comfort and privacy of sleeping quarters, she was perched pensively on Anakin’s shoulder; which, in retrospect, was probably a bad place to be with the way she was fiddling with her hands and bouncing her leg.

“Don’t ask me that when you already know the answer,” Jayla mumbled.

“I didn’t, actually, but thanks for confirming it for me.”

Jayla groaned. “I’m not nervous about going into the field.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be.”

“It’s…” she started, but couldn’t bring herself to admit. She was hoping Anakin could connect the dots.

“It’s… what? It’s the ship?” Anakin knew how much she hated flying.

“This isn’t my first Star Destroyer. It’s the starfighters that make me sick.”

“Okay, so it’s not the ship. Is it Obi-Wan?”

Jayla sniffed a laugh. “Why would it be Obi-Wan?”

“Well, it took a little bit of convincing to get him to agree to this.”

“You mean a lot of convincing,” she sighed. “I can personally guarantee you that Obi-Wan is not making me nervous.”

“Well, Tiny, I’m at a loss--”

Anakin was cut off at the sound of his wrist comm beeping. She quickly grabbed onto a stray piece of his hair for support as he moved his arm up.

“Anakin, Jayla, come meet me at the bridge. Captain Rex will be arriving here shortly.”

“Copy that.” Anakin turned his head slightly to meet Jayla’s gaze, and the Force flashed in a brief moment of worry. Anakin furrowed his brows.

“You’re nervous about Rex?”

Jayla sucked in a deep breath. “No -- not particularly -- no. No, I’m not nervous about Rex.”

Anakin knew she was lying, but he wasn’t about to push it. After all, he didn’t want Obi-Wan lecturing him for being late. Again.

Jayla clung to Anakin’s robe as they made their way through the gray halls of the ship. Even from her perspective, the walls seemed suffocating, so Jayla kept her eyes trained on the ground, avoiding the gaze of every trooper that passed. The rigidness of clone armor was… off-putting.

As they approached the bridge doors, Jayla cautiously took a seat and closed her eyes. When all else failed, the Force was always there for her, guiding her and bringing her to a place where she felt at ease. Going into this mission with any apprehension would be fatal, and she knew it. The Force was pulling her toward the battlefield -- to Anakin, to Obi-Wan, to the citizens of the worlds they were helping to protect. The Jedi Order was her life, and that meant she was forever in service to the people of the galaxy that needed her. She was chosen by the will of the Force; bestowed this great power that so many lusted after. In the galaxy’s biggest conflict, she could finally start making a difference. She could finally be worthy of the gift she was given.

“There’s gonna be a lot of clones in there, you know.” Anakin’s tongue-in-cheek remark broke her from her meditation. “You could always turn back and let me and Obi-Wan handle this.”

Jayla sniffed a laugh. “And let you have all the fun? I’m alright, Anakin, I promise.” She paused, took one glance up at her giant friend, and stood up. “I’m ready for this.”

Anakin smirked. “Well then, here we go.”

The vastness and buzzing energy of the bridge brought about a sensation that Jayla would never get tired of. There were clones on the lower levels punching buttons and pulling levers; there were clones standing around tables, going over strategy and making sure they were ready for the fight. Then there was Obi-Wan, standing in front of a star map and pretending to read it. His mind was occupied with other things.

Anakin nodded his head to Obi-Wan. “Master.”

“Ah, Anakin. And here I thought you’d show up late.”

“For Tiny’s first mission as a general? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Is now really the best time to bring up nicknames?” Jayla groaned. It was times like these she was glad she was small; nobody could see her blush.

“I thought it’d help loosen the tension.”

“Sure you did.” She wasn’t going to admit it, but in his weird Skywalker way, it did help bring her back down to earth. This was her first mission as a military general. She outranked nearly everyone in the room. To the clones, that meant everything. Even if they didn’t want to listen to her… they had to.

It was then she noticed a tiny brown bag on the holotable below. Just poking out of the side was something that looked like armor.

Armor fit for a tiny.

She slid off Anakin’s shoulder and flipped down to the holotable. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but grin as she pulled out two shoulder pads, two wrist guards, a pair of black gloves and a torso pad. They fit perfectly.

“We couldn’t have you going out in the field unprepared,” Obi-Wan said as she practiced some stances in her new armor.

“Huh. You look like a tiny Obi-Wan,” Anakin smiled.

“I thought we were done with the degrading comments,” you said smugly.

“Oh, very funny, you two. It’s a wonder the council took this long to allow you both to work together.”

Jayla was prepared for another quip when the main door slid open. Her eyes first fell on the wide shoulder wing, then to the Jaig eyes painted on his helmet. She had never seen clone armor quite like what Rex was wearing. She blinked and straightened her posture.

“Captain Rex. Nice of you to finally join us,” Anakin joked.

“Sorry sir. Needed to help Fives find his other blaster.”

“He lost it again?”

“...more like misplaced,” Rex clarified.

“Good to see your troops are on top of things, Anakin,” Obi-Wan quipped.

“Sorry sir,” Rex repeated. Jayla could sense… unease. “So, where’s the new general?”

Anakin’s lips curled into a smile. He had told Rex that the 501st was to be accompanied on this mission by a Jedi knight who was a master of stealth. When Rex asked who it was, Anakin refused to say. He wanted it to be a surprise.

“Rex, I’d like you to meet Jedi General Jayla Nor’al.”

Rex was glad he had kept his helmet on, because the look of confusion on his face would not have done him any more favors.

“Uh… sir?” Rex asked cautiously, trying his best not to sound too lost. Is this some kind of joke?

“You know, I think it’s helpful to scan the entire room before saying something.”

Rex’s stomach dropped. That voice… that voice was coming from the holotable. Ever so slowly, he tilted his head down. He tried to keep his body language as neutral as possible, but he had a sinking feeling that all three Jedi in the room could sense his surprise.

“Oh,” was all Rex could utter for a moment. It was like this Jedi had stepped right out of a holoprojector and onto the table in front of him. This has to be some kind of test. She’s only a few inches tall! She won’t survive five seconds out on the battlefield.

Anakin cleared his throat. Rex snapped back to attention.

“Right. Uh, sorry about that, sir,” Rex fumbled, giving this General Nor’al a nod of acknowledgment. “Nice… nice to meet you.”

Rex tensed up when Jayla ever so slightly rolled her eyes. He was surprised he could even see her do that.

“Likewise, Captain. General Skywalker has told me all about you.” She smiled softly when she sensed Rex’s heartbeat escalating. “All good things, of course.”

She turned to Obi-Wan and, without either of them saying a word, Obi-Wan placed his hand next to Jayla and she casually stepped on, using his thumb for support as she was lifted up from the holotable.

“You’re going to be offering General Nor’al support in the field,” Obi-Wan said, tapping the holotable to life. “We’ve drawn up a plan to get her to the chief tactical droid stationed here to extract information and battle strategy.”

“I think we can finally turn the tide if we can get ahead of the Seps like they seem to keep getting ahead of us,” Jayla added. “Once I get the information, I’ll need an extraction team to get me out of there quickly.” Without warning, her tone shifted from stern to somber. “The last thing I need is to be caught by those stupid battle droids.”

Obi-Wan and Anakin exchanged a brief glance.

“I’ve got to finish some mission prep,” she said quickly. “When are we getting to Christophsis?”

“Should be there within the hour, sir,” Rex replied immediately.

“Great.” She tried to peer through Rex’s helmet, but unsurprisingly, she only had the downturned expression plastered on the front to work with. Rex was not expecting to see a five-inch-tall Jedi -- that much was obvious. Her worry lied more in the possibility that she was embarrassing him just by being here.

“I’m sure Anakin will become bored and come join us in, oh, five minutes or so,” Obi-Wan cut into her thoughts with a smug smile, throwing a glance to his friend as he walked out.

“For mission prep? You know me so well,” Anakin shot back with a smirk, turning back to the window.

Before Obi-Wan left the room, he turned to Rex, who was all but frozen to his spot.

“Do come and join us when you’re done here,” he said shortly. Rex could only nod.

Once the doors finally closed behind him, he stiffly made his way to Anakin’s side and took off his helmet.

“Rex…” Anakin sighed, already prepared for the conversation they were about to have.

“Sir, you know I mean no disrespect…” Rex paused to see if Anakin would say something witty to that. He didn’t. “...but I’m not sure how well my men are going to respond to taking orders from someone who can fit in the palm of their hand. Especially someone who hasn’t done this before.”

“Rex, she’s a Jedi knight, just like me. She wouldn’t have achieved that rank if she wasn’t fully capable.”

“I--I believe you, General. It’s just… well, they’re used to the way things work. We’re used to a Jedi leading us through battle.”

“And she can’t do that?”

“Well, it’s not like she can cut through clankers like you or General Kenobi.”

Anakin was prepared for this, but it still didn’t change the awkwardness of the conversation. He knew how fierce of a Jedi she was. Rex didn’t. He was hoping this mission could change things. He knew as well as anyone else that a warrior of her size would wreak havoc against the Separatists if used properly. Plus, he knew how painfully boring it was to be stuck inside the temple all the time. He wanted this to work for her.

“Her strengths lie in other areas. She doesn’t need to cut through droids like me and Obi-Wan,” Anakin said, putting his hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Given the world she’s grown up in… the things she’s had to overcome… I’d say she’s the bravest out of all of us.”

Rex hummed and turned his gaze to the front of the ship. He never really grew tired of the swirling brilliant blue of hyperspace. He found himself wondering if it looked any different five inches off the ground.

“...I should go brief the men,” Rex said finally.

“Yeah,” Anakin said, pursing his lips. “You probably should.”

#g/t #writing yoda is so fucking funny to me i laugh every time i try and reverse engineer a sentence for him #can you believe this is the first oc i've ever posted to the internet #it's so intimidating but i rlly hope yall enjoy!#writing star wars is so daunting to me but #i have so many ideas for one shots and things #so expect more soon :)#star wars g/t #giant/tiny

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wtf-yoongi · 4 years

Text

Stage lights. ‹‹part II of III››

pairing | jungkook x reader

summary | you visit jungkook on tour for the first time

genre/warnings | high levels of fluff + relatively new relationship + warning: features jk being extremely tired in between sets + but it’s ok because you look after him afterwards and now my heart is clenching

words | about 7k total (part II is 2,357)

✨ read part I here ✨

note | kinda belongs in the same universe as this one, but can be read separately. i got carried away and wrote this huge thing, so i decided to separate it into three parts lol do i even have a life

A little bit over half an hour goes by and you’re back in the organized mess room, as you like to call it. If anything, things are even more chaotic now as showtime is just around the corner, staff members running everywhere while Jimin and Taehyung seem to be quite relaxed, warming up their voices with a little game they play. Soon enough, Hoseok joins with the biggest of grins.

It’s surreal. As you’re stuck in your little corner of the room, sitting next to Jungkook’s own mess, you can’t feel anything but astonishment. Yes, it all looks like utter chaos, but everyone seems so focused on their jobs – on getting everything done perfectly and on time –, you can’t help but feel impressed and a little bit uncomfortable. It all looks so much like a well-oiled machine you’re scared to disturb it even in the slightest.

Jungkook notices you’re quiet for a while, arms close to your body in what can only be a very uncomfortable position. The truth is you’re just trying to look as small as possible so you don’t feel like an intruder or like you’re bothering someone else’s job. The less space you’re occupying, the smaller the chance of getting in the way, right?

“Hey,” he calls, turning his eyes in your direction as he’s trying not to move his head. He’s almost done with his hair now, final touches before he can finally stand up to warm up as well. Jungkook extends his hand for you. “Are you ok?”

You nod and smile back at him, taking his hand to play with his long fingers. “Are you?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Don’t you get nervous before going on stage?”

“Usually, no. Not anymore. Unless it’s something very special,” Jungkook shakes his head slightly. Suddenly, he’s smirking. “You’re here today and this is your first BTS show, I think it qualifies as special.”

“Don’t be nervous. You’re going to be great, I know it. You all are.”

Just as you finish your sentence, the hair stylist behind Jungkook taps his shoulder and says something, taking a step back to put the hot tool she was using away and moving back with a bottle of hairspray instead. He then holds up a finger, letting go of your hands and closing his eyes so she can lay a heavy coat of the product on his hair.

When she’s finished, he opens his eyes again and you can’t help but laugh at his actions.

“You’re such a baby. I can’t believe your hair stylist has to warn you before applying hairspray,” you say in between laughs. Jungkook rolls his eyes slightly, but plays along, laughing as well. You could be wrong, but there was a smile on the hair stylist’s face as well and you ask yourself if she understood your words and thinks the same.

Just as you finish your sentence, a grave voice invades the room. You can’t understand what it’s saying, but as people start moving you know the person came in to tell them it’s almost showtime. Jungkook stands up quickly, turning around only to turn back to you again.

“Almost forgot, give me your phone,” he asks with his palm facing up while he picks up his own from the table in front of you. He takes your device and starts taping on the screen while looking at his. “This is Hae’s number, she’s supposed to babysit you while we’re on stage,” he says and smirks, eyeing you from behind his long hair. “She’s probably running somewhere now, but text her if she’s not here in, like, 15 minutes or so, ok?”

Jungkook hands back your phone and you look down to find a new contact added. You chuckle.

“Diplomatic Hae? Seriously?”

Jungkook has the slyest of smiles plastered on his face.

“I have to go now,” he says in an apologetic tone. When you look around, the room is significantly less crowded. “Text Hae if you need anything, ok?”

It is quick, but Jungkook leaves a peck on you right cheek before your brain can even process what he’s doing. He takes a step towards the door, but changes his mind, turning in your direction yet again.

“Fuck it,” he whispers and you’re the only one close enough to listen. He then holds your face in between his hands and kisses you firmly. “Thank you for being here. It means a lot.”

You blink twice, three times, before managing to find your voice again – however weak it is. “Good luck.”

The next moment, Jungkook is not in the room anymore. When you look around, only a few people are left and they all seem to be working on making things look less chaotic somehow, putting some stuff away in their designated boxes or throwing bottles and paper cups into plastic bags. Even if no one’s really paying attention, you can’t help but feel your ears burn and you hope to God you’re not as red as it feels like you are.

You take a deep breath and sit back on your chair, checking the time on your phone. You don’t think even three minutes of scrolling through social media pass before Hae’s boots are in front of you and, when you look up, she’s not wearing the orange jacket anymore, opting for a fashionable gray sweater instead.

“Hello again,” she greets with a much warmer smile this time. “Jungkook said you like macchiatos, so I ordered this for you. No sugar.”

Hae finally shows the hand that was hiding behind her back, a medium-sized cup of hot coffee appearing right below your nose. You smile at her and take the warm drink.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that,” you say quietly, taking a small sip. “I’m sorry that you have to look after me today, I imagine you already have a lot on your plate.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Hae waves her hand in front of her face, looking much more laid back now and you wonder if Jungkook mentioned something to her. She sits on his chair and exhales as if this is the first time today she has a moment for herself. “It’s good to have you here. A different face, different accent. It’s my pleasure to show you around.”

The last staff member leaves and now the two of you are left alone. Silence fills the room for the first time and you feel the warmth spread through your body as you drink.

“So… You have two options today,” she starts out of nowhere, eyes sharp again as if ten seconds of not working were enough of a break for her. “You’ll have to watch the show from the side of the stage anyway, but you can choose between stage level or ground level.”

“What would you recommend?”

A few minutes later, you have your black cap on top of your head again, following Hae through the dimly lit area below the stage. It looks, once again, as chaotic as ever, people with tiny flashlights running around to make sure everything is good to go before the stage lights up. You actually have to make an effort to follow Hae around and not trip on your own feet, as you’re nowhere near as used to this environment as she is. After a little while, you can finally see where the structure ends and the screams get even louder somehow.

“How does this view look to you?” She asks, pointing in the direction of the stage.

When the first song starts, you really have no words. There’s something truly magical about it all – the performance, the lights, the stage, the fans – that you can’t quite explain or put into words. For the most part, the first few songs leave you with your mouth hanging open and, when you look to your side, Hae’s smiling and laughing at your reaction. Just as she looks back to the stage, there’s something in her eyes, a sense of achievement and happiness – and you know she’s absolutely proud of her job and how it helps in bringing all of that to life.

∆

“I’ll have to take you backstage,” Hae speaks close to your ear so you can listen. “Jungkook has asked me to bring you back before his solo stage. Is that ok?”

Instead of responding, you simply nod and raise your thumbs up. Hae has a tight smile on her lips and you’re back to following her around the place, careful not to lose sight of her. Soon after, you’re below the stage structure again, but she’s leading you to an area you didn’t cross before. You can still hear the muffled sound of music playing in the background, but at least you can understand her words properly when she speaks again.

“If you need me, I’m going to be right there,” she points to a corner where the line of chairs to your right end. “They’re all going to be here in a couple of minutes. It gets kind of crazy and I don’t want to get in the way.”

“What about me?” You ask with a raised eyebrow. “Am I not going to get in the way?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Hae offers an apologetic smile. “Just stay here. This is Jungkook’s area and he’s going to be here with his staff soon.”

The next few moments, after Hae leaves you to get out of the way, you kind of understand what she means. The area around you starts getting crowded, people hurriedly taking their positions with an assortment of objects in their hands as if they’re preparing for war. You press yourself closer to the metal part holding the structure together, trying to make yourself appear smaller.

The song stops and you feel the tension build up. There are a few seconds of nothing but screams before another melody starts playing to fill in the gap between one performance and another and you guess there are only a couple of minutes before someone – you honestly don’t know who – takes the stage again.

And then, it comes like a hurricane.

The first person you see is Yoongi, running towards the end of the line of chairs, and Namjoon follows soon after. Each of the men must have four or more people around them, forming some sort of bubble. Someone’s offering a drink, another one patting the sweat dry. As soon as Namjoon sits, right next to Jungkook’s space, there’s someone else blow drying his hair and yet another with an ice pack pressed to his neck.

You don’t really have any time to process this, as member after member comes through and their own individual teams start to work around them, making the space feel even more crowded. Suddenly, Hae’s it gets kind of crazy sounds like a complete understatement.

The last to show up are Jimin and Jungkook and you swear you have never seen two people look more exhausted in your whole life. Only about half of the set has passed and you start to wonder how can they even finish it by the way they look right now.

When Jungkook catches a glimpse of you, however, he displays a weak but sweet smile on his lips. It’s hard to examine his face given there are many people around him blocking the view, but what you’re able to see leaves you wanting to bite hard on your lower lip. He looks completely spent, hands on his hips as he’s breathing heavily. Someone yanks his in-ear monitor and headset, making him disconnect his hands from his middle by dragging his jacket off of his shoulders. Jungkook doesn’t do anything, he just stands there looking directly at you, letting his team do what they are set to do without any reaction.

When he finally sits down before you, you don’t think he has enough air in his lungs to say anything yet – and he, in fact, doesn’t. The hair stylist you saw earlier is blow-drying his hair with quick hand movements while a makeup artist is patting his face dry for a second time. He takes your hand and you hold it tightly, wishing you could do something, help in any way, but you can’t see how – and it breaks you inside.

If you had a timer you’d see the staff takes two minutes very seriously. You only disconnect your eyes from Jungkook when you notice people moving back to where they all came from just moments before. The first to move again is Yoongi, in completely different attire and absolutely put together somehow, accepting the microphone someone’s offering him while walking down the corridor into the darkness.

As soon as the song shifts and you hear loud cheering again, things seem to settle down a little – almost as if the mission was to get just one, one single member out as fast as possible. All around you, people still work quickly and focused, but a little bit more relieved now the most critical mission was a success.

“Please don’t look so scared,” Jungkook says with an affectionate voice and you look back at him with a startled expression. The makeup artist is gone now and the only person left is the hair stylist, who’s fixing his curls. “I’m ok, we’re all ok,” he assures you.

“Are you, though? Is this your ok?” You ask just loud enough for him as you’re not sure you want Namjoon to overhear this conversation.

Jungkook squeezes your hand. “I know that this is difficult to understand sometimes, but it is our ok. This is our normal,” he says just as someone comes back with a bottle of a drink you can’t recognize. He takes it and sips on the straw. “I’m actually glad that it is like this. It means we’ve made it.”

You look at him doubtfully. “I just…”

“I know what you’re thinking, I worry about that too. But we’re ok, we’re healthy and we do our best to stay that way, ok?”

You nod and hope to God it really does stay that way.

🖤 read part III here 🖤