#13th Unchanging: Touch

[lucabyte]

Your gender thought type essays have made me curious about what your oc creation/development process is like! It seems to be something you put a lot of thought into and that’s very interesting (especially cause my circles don’t often go into detail in that area)

I'm delighted to hear you're curious!! I'll give as thorough an answer as I can manage, though it'll likely be a bit disorganised. Okay, so... I'm gonna use a couple examples for this, and since you specified gender stuff I'm gonna go for some where gender/sexuality are integral, even if in seemingly counterproducive ways (but that'll be the last few...)

So. The first character that comes to mind here for me in terms of like... A lot of thought going into their gender is Lavender.

So going all the way back... Lavender was made in 2015.

Spreadsheet puts her at the 13th character in the setting, creation-date ways! So she's Been around a while.

Part 1: A Core Idea

Now, why was Lavender made? This is the first step of character creation. Well, she was made to tick a bit of a box. I realised my only girls at the time were all tomboyish so I needed a cute girl. And this was 2015, so she arose in the form of a Waifu Joke. She was intended to be a side-character with no real plot ties, so I just designed a character as cute as possible, named her simply (Lavender Wafeu == literally Colour and Waifu) and was basically done? 7 months later I would make Mafioso to slightly further the joke, in that giving Lavender a girlfriend makes her unpursuable* as a waifu. This also gave me a stark butch/femme pair, and I recall around this era there was a joke going around on tumblr of 'Indestructable Lesbians' as opposed to buried gays. This kinda became their thing. Two lesbians the plot wouldn't touch and they wouldn't be endangered.

.... And then that was kinda it. She was a cute girl who was fun to draw, shy, and reserved in nature. An opposition to Mafioso's brash (but secretly a little nervous) demeanor. I would literally just liken this to flutterdash outright. I was basically just doing flutterdash in terms of their personalities.

SO: This is the first step to all my characters. Find a core concept, or more likely, a core joke. Lavender's core joke is a very rough and (frankly unfunny) "your waifu isn't going to fuck you" joke. But you can see how she was built out of it. And we'll get to how that building happened next.

(^ Weird 2015 era lavender with her total lack of emotive range and flat characterisation)

Part 2: Dormancy

Lavender stayed unchanged for quite a while, in this flat state. She picked up a few things, mostly little 'twists' to her character. ie. she could hold her own in a fight, is surprisingly quick to jump to (cartoonish) violence, and likes a good steak. All very basic little things, obvious "oh bet you didn't expect That" contradictions.

She didn't recieve much attention during this time despite me really liking her design still. Mafioso languished even worse in this era, with her mother Omerta picking up most of the development instead. Overall, these two were very, very boring. No amount of little superficial additions could save them from this.

But it... hints at something, right? It hints that maybe there's a facade somewhere, that maybe the perfect-cute-girl thing might actually take a little bit of effort to upkeep...? Hrm...

Part 3: A Fresh Perspective

So, sometime in 2020, I was finally remaking my 2016-era spreadsheet of all my characters from the ground up, since I needed to remove a lot of ms excel specific formatting it had in it.

And while going through, I was being helped by @samhainian, who I had befriended in the years between. And they remarked that I didn't have enough directly trans characters in the cast, to which I agreed. I had a handful of tokens at the time (Adder and Angel spring to mind?) but not many more, so we literally just went down the list with suggestions. And when Sam suggested Lavender, I reacted with confusion. Because... Wait. Is she not trans? But she's so feminine? All of my characters lean extremely gender-neutral in presentation unless they're trying to do gender on purpose...?

And this just, unlocked her whole character like a skeleton key.

I was making her do her gender on purpose. The reason she had those contradictions is because she's putting in the effort to appear like this perfect, girl-next-door, waifu type. Something that doesn't really work if she doesn't have girlhood to prove.

From here, her coy 'maybe she has more to her than cute girl' hints were instantly recontextualised as a thing She was Doing. And instead of being random superficial tidbits, they were Depth. And her cartoonish 'extremely mild-mannered and polite persona' suddenly became a very human facade.

So, she had a new core to build around. And her lack of anything going on before in terms of backstory suddenly felt contextual? She's clearly fresh new to this. She had already had the backstory of being a very young (about 19~21) person who had moved to a new town to live on her own-- Suddenly that makes sense. She's forging a whole new identity. Her polite 'never really talking about herself because she's an object for the audience to desire' quietness becomes intentional evasion. She doesn't have a backstory, because she doesn't want it to be any of your business.

And ironically, this immediately Gave Her the backstory she had been missing. Her wiles and hidden 'smarter than she looks' becomes so relevant as to be real character traits...

I already somewhat went over this (and a number of other gender thoughts, including my thoughts on my myriad 'cis but not' or 'nb in a specific direction') in a thing I wrote, woof, 2 years ago: (LINK) which was a ramble about a lot of my character's genders... In that I summarised Lavender's gender as such:

Part 4: In practice

Okay so it's all well and good that I realised Lavender is Trans Gemder. But that's not where it ends, because she finally became refined and polished to the point of um. Quadrupling her image count on toyhouse. because of Purrgatorio.

See, the other reason I was getting my spreadsheets in order was for Purrgatorio (the original flavour of it, the visual novel) and I needed to just do some general housekeeping.

Lavender, Mafioso and Ess shared a route in VN!Purrgatorio, being that I saw them as a triad of characters. While this characterisation of her basically did nothing interesting, aside from showing her fiery side, this would later become the basis for her being one of the first characters met in actual purrgatorio, where she, being polite and nice, and established back in 2016ish to be one of the few characters Chrome isn't a total asshole to--- She gets to meet Ali.

Now this is where I would say a lot of the real development happened. Right there, in action, in putting her to the test of real writing. All of her characterisation stops being hypothetical, and instead something I have to portray. And I found as I wrote, she grew more deep simply by giving her such an odd situation to be in. And of note, by having Ali be intimidated by talking to cute girls, it gave her the upper hand in the dynamic-- Really allowing me to show off her ability to lead a conversation, and her quiet confidence in herself-- as well as hinting at the thing she isn't quite so confident with.

It's also allowed me to start thinking about her sexuality, too. This is another thing that goes back to her flimsy core concept. The Waifu is generally a sexless being in their own right, having sexuality projected onto them by the narrative or audience. In fact, a lot of shounen girls don't get to be romantically forward-- both because it risks alienating the intended selfshipper-audience, and also because showing too much confidence and autonomy in their sexuality can be too threatening for the chuunibyo audience, who aren't yet comfortable with their own sexuality and-- wait! Look at that! Another part of the core concept I can toy with! Wouldn't it make sense, if she's meant to be a deconstruction of The Waifu Archetype, for her to have that confidence and autonomy? This is what 2015-me was clumsily trying to grasp with the whole lesbian thing... So why not just re-angle that into her being confident and forward. It fits with her new personality, so it works!

*oh hey there's that asterisk. I also realised she had chemistry with Ali! Given the way she is level-headed and rather logical deep down, her curiosity drives this. She's not going to pass up a chance to know a literal Alien... But it also further illustrates how badly Mafioso has been left in the dust by her. (She's been quietly tinkered with behind the scenes ready for her reintrodcution, but for a while, I was really struggling!! Like, considering overhauling her character levels of struggling!! But, we managed, I think. She's yet to be introduced and put into practice yet, but it's upcoming.) To the point where I've broken them up! At least for now. Mafioso needs to prove herself I think, since now she can't rely on Lavender being waifish and easily won over.

TO SUMMARISE THE MAJOR POINTS THERE:

Any joke/idea can be a suitable core, even if flimsy, you just need to find which parts are interesting to either double down on or deconstruct

It's okay for characters to take a long time to form! If you don't feel connected to a character they might need a shake up, but also YOU might need a shake up. Lavender needed a new perspective from someone with a different approach to gender as me, and for I myself to become more comfortable with Real Sexuality (ive literally just aged nearly 10 years itll happen) before she could really shine.

Following on from the above you basically never need to throw a character out completely. You should try and find what it is you like about them, or consider core, and perhaps try and reframe or refract those elements. A character might get demoted to non-main status sometimes, but why throw away that depth? They can hang out on the sidelines if that's better for them.

Sometimes a character won't feel done until you write them! You can do this with RP if you have the ability, but I wrote Purrgatorio instead, which is intentionally low-stakes and non-canon so I don't get too freaked out about writing it. It's a playground for testing characterisaton, and putting characters in weird pairings they otherwise wouldn't to see if something interesting arises.

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES FROM MY BACK CATALOGUE:

Lavender is a bit of a daunting pick, given that she's spent nearly 10 years slowly rotating in my brain, only to finally become realised in the last 3-4 or so. But I do have some more recent quick examples, as well as another giant thing you can read if you want to.

GIANT THING TO READ IF YOU WANT IT: I've posted abt this before way ages ago but I wrote up a whole gigantic thing on my probably 2 most in depth characters. It can be found here (LINK) and also has a longass diatribe about their genders, sexualities, and the core thing they were originally riffing on. (Which was like. a specific type of anime boy ship i was a sucker for, that I eventually realised I was making way more interesting than most anime i was into was bothered to do)

It's a very thorough look into my thought process, including ANOTHER diatribe on purrgatorio granting me some good boons of character.

OTHER EXAMPLE 1: ALI

Okay Ali is too complicated to get into thoroughly here, but they're another good example of a core idea spiralling out.

Core idea: Blank slate visual novel protagonist, so gender neutral and a bit of a flimsy everyman. No real name, only a default name if you left the entry blank. (Ali, a shortening of the canon surname). #FFFFFF skin to keep the jokey ambiguity and pink hair to reference Dante's silly red hat.

Twists: Canon assigned surname of Alighieri, implying them to be some descendent of The Real Dante. And they're in a VN so there's a spooky easter egg where you can roll a death screen that shows them as an ominous demonic Thing instead of a regular human.

The, VN!Purrgatorio got shelved, and because they were human instead of a furry they got shuffled into other projects. A furry version of them showed up in a different project riffing on the demon thing, making them a child-friendly antichrist with 2 siblings based on the tragicomedy masks. Then that furry version's stuff got shoved onto the human version who was just a half-demon kid in Creature Feature. THEN we decided they'd be half-succubus to keep the ability to shift between the sexes (referencing the blank slate gender ambiguity of the VN). THEN that became 'nerd who is freaked out by being a sex demon and doesn't like the ethical implications of their existance but is still kinda miffed that they arent Getting Any' who STILL HAD the antichrist stuff from the furry version....

(^ technically a completely seperate ali ive not done anything with in years lol)

Like you get it. It's a giant katamari of STUFF from all different settings. This is what I mean by 'you never really need to scrap a character'. Because after all this shoving them around into different projects and them accruing things (the 'guy who is really concerned with informed consent is a succubus/incubus' angle really informed them here, as well as deciding that they're apathetic about the magic sex characteristic changes.) we threw them right back into the original setting of Purrgatorio and it went WAY BETTER once they actually had some character traits!

But that core idea still stands a little. Not in them being an everyman, but in prompting them to become an altersex character when fleshed out, and in the way that they're distinctly still tied to that second-person-narration that VNs have, and the eventual 4th wall break they got in the VN informed their powerset as 'narrative manipulator'.

also as a note here: DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY WHILE YOUR SETTING ISN'T DONE!

VN!Purrgatorio got shelved because I redid a bunch of MYMK's setting when I was finishing it up. But It was worth it even unfinished.

Ali themselves when in Current!Purrgatorio has spent, up until very recently, their whole time with their home setting (Creature Feature) in a state of being deeply unfinished and in need of a reshake. It's finally getting that now, but it was still fine for me to reference what I knew likely wouldn't be changing! They were able to function just fine without their home setting being solid for upwards of 2-3 years. Obviously this shouldn't be done for *finished* works, but when you're just playing, like I am with Purrgatorio, it's okay to keep things fluid and effectively quietly retcon things later.

OTHER EXAMPLE 2: PEACH TRACY

Peach tracy is an actually recent character, and is under @samhainian's purview, as with the rest of Moraine. Now, she was made with a very distinct gender/sexuality in mind, unlike a lot of my characters who stumble ass-backwards into one.

Peach is the 'token girl' of her group (the other two being Red, a closeted and unaware transfem, and Toyon a he/him butch.) and well, her gender is basically "tik tok girlie", as is her core concept. She only works if she's a pampered cisgender straight girl from a rich background. She's nice! But she's privileged.

Her twist however, is that she is wracked by the guilt of her and her group letting a friend take the fall for an Illegal Youtube Prank to save their own skin, and as such her entire character unravels from there.

Because she has all this guilt, it stands that her Girliepop Persona must be somewhat constructed. She's leaning in to the femininity as a shield and a deflector. She's, y'know, a white girl.

So her gender ends up being overperformed, and she's petrified of expressing her sexuality due to it being tied up in this image of purity. She's the exact type of person to psyche herself out into believing those 'having a crush on your friend is problematic' tumblr posts.

But none of this would really work if she did not start as a (white) girl, able to use that shield. If she were a dude or nonwhite-coded she would not have the ability to react to her situation that way. Ergo, she is actually built out of her identity this way.

(As for her sexuality, she is unhealthily self-flagellating about it, so it ends up just being unpleasant. This was a genuine surprise to myself and @samhainian when we were discussing it. We hadn't thought about it prior to starting some lighthearted riffing about assigning characters kinks literally bc we were bored when we had the horrifying realisation that Peach would not be safe about this shit AT ALL due to a lack of self preservation and way more ambient suicidality than we realised she had until we dug here. We quickly resurfaced from the joke conversation into an actual deconstruction of how she's internalised a lot of blame and decided to go distinctly carceral with it for herself. so there's another tip: Even if you aren't making nsfw content, poking around a character's sexuality will sometimes reveal raw truths that come from sexuality being very vulnerable by default.)

Peach is overall an interesting contrast to Lavender, since they're both Girls Being Feminine On Purpose, but one is transfem and one is. Well god idk what peach will end up but she'll need to unpack it.

(I note that peach is white also, since while I rarely intentionally racially code my characters, sometimes i SUPER do.)

OTHER EXAMPLE 3: VIRGIL MALACODA

Okay because I've talked about a number of girls so far lets be brief about a fuckin Dude.

Virgil is like, some real toxic masculinity shit. He would probably be fucked up in some different way if he were born a girl, but he's distinctly falling into a lot of traps due to his upbringing as "A dude who was promised he'd get power when he grew up".

His dude-ness is a very flat fact to me in that way, and he's similar to Tabitha in that regard since it's one of the ways they're meant to reflect each other. Dudes who's place as patriarch-to-be saved them from being pawned off as a wife, but is still responsible for a lot of their misery. Certainly the better of the two options, but could still be better!

Virgil's themes of masculinity being a simultaneous shield and blinder is a simple one but I go back to it a lot because it can be true a lot of the time in antiquated social situations like, say, the upper class. So, being a villain, he does end up being a condemnation of the structures that disincentivise healthy masculinity. He's necessarily amab because he is the result of how particularly regressive views of masculinity can shape a child into a repressed and miserable adult.

Whether or not virgil stays a dude or not if he ever figures out his way of viewing power structures was Fucked Up and Bad is anybody's guess. It's not really Masculinity that was hurting him, so much as a rich asshole's narrow view of it. So there's no real reason for him to reject a healthier version of it outright, it's just whether he'll ever get there...

CLOSING REMARKS:

Okay writing in the tumblr post editor is starting to scare me with errors so I should probably close this out. But yeah this is a little bit of a run down of where my head is usually at when making characters. A lot of it is just batting jokes back and forth until they become something more solid, which I don't know that I really got across here.

Like, a lot a lot of my characters are built around a core joke. Usually what-ifs like.

"What if a shounen-type card game anime protagonist was just as brash and head-full-of-air as the rest of the, but a girl"

"What if Ed Sheeran had a cheating scandal with two tboys and it made the radio fucking horrible to listen to"

"What if a wrestler was really, really wide and also clearly into rubber"

"What if somebody took the 'blonde anime boy who barely shows emotion' trope seriously because that kind of repression can't be good"

"What if a guy was specifically interested in becoming a Soil Scientist from like, age 4, and never gave up that dream"

^ If you can figure out who's who then you win a prize (a kiss)

But yeah. Jokes upon jokes upon jokes. Assign them classpects and pokemon and put them into speed/power/fly formation and just joke for as long as you possibly can until you hit on something. And if a joke feels really right, or completely off the mark, try and dig in and find why.

Like. I joke about the sexuality thing but it does help since it's so disarming and immediately a bit childishly funny often. Sometimes you'll end up with say, something as serious as "Despite being friends with The Fence, Selene probably shouldn't be left unsupurvised in kink spaces because she ABSOLUTELY does not have the ability to restrain herself and not take her anger issues out on strangers" and sometimes its as silly as "even outside of being asexual, ess is never jackin that shit because if he got caught in any kind of mildly embarrasing scenario it'd ruin his whole year so the cost/benefit analysis of that really doesn't work out"

Because like. both tell you about the characters, and you can also read them more broadly now. Selene ruins relationships by letting anger at unrelated things get in the way, Ess keeps himself from doing even utterly harmless things out of deep social anxiety.

Like yeah, i got to them via goofing about sex but it's still character analysis at the end of the day so long as you put The Reading first*

*DISCLAIMER: im asexual im only ever doing stuff for the read lol . it might be more difficult if youre allosexual . or maybe itll be easier. i dont know just dont get too lost in the sauce. think with ur brain not ur other parts

ALSO gender and sexualty often end up linked so it makes sense to end up at one from the other a lot of the time. It happens.

And as an addendum if you wonder where i tend to literally Design characters? Like visually? It's usually at some point between the first few jokes and before naming them. Though sometimes names come first.

OVERALL: A character should have a core concept to them to start with. This core concept CAN SUCK and be flimsy, or a joke, or even a joke you no longer find funny. But you can always refer back to it when building a character up. If you want to capture the concept, work toward it, if you want to deconstruct or mock the concept, then do that instead. If you sour on a joke, maybe find a way to satirise or deconstruct what you're no longer finding funny.

Sometimes this core concept is steeped in a specific cultural thing, be it race, gender, sexuality, ect, and those necessitate thinking about. Sometimes it's not and those things can practically be an afterthought, but once you lock it in it's likely to begin informing the later choices as it becomes part of the scaffolding.

(To hop back to why you even asked this Q: I so thoroughly read Siffrin as amab BECAUSE they had so many themes about Not Having Changed and clinging to what they knew, and so working backwards from that it only made sense to me that they mustn't've done a big overhaul YET or made any big decisions about that YET by the time we see them in game, because that's what gels best with their themes of being Too Afraid To Change and being a contrast to Isa who has changed a bunch, and a comfort to Mira who hasn't changed at all in their gender. Then it was a case of looking through the game for more evidence either for or against this reading, and I found a lot of evidence for it, in my opinion. But I did so Because I noticed that the themes were Stronger if read this way, and because I conceptualise characters as themes and concepts FIRST it made sense to try and work back to those themes.)

But yeah. TL;DR:

Ground yourself with a Hook for the character, sometimes making it sillier makes it easier to think about.

Try and think about how they would be formed by the world around them, or what their behaviour says about how they must've been formed

Don't worry about things taking a long time. Sometimes a character needs someone else to make a suggestion, or for you to grow and change a little before they click

Putting it into action helps a lot, even if its just roleplay or short snippets. If you can't 'feel out' what a character would do in a situation, that's when it's time to think about their goals for how they want to be seen as a person (including, if they don't want to be seen at all...!) and what hard boundaries they have say, morally.

I am by no means a like. Expert on any of this. I'm fumbling through it all just as much as the next guy (AND... I'M ACTUALLY SOMEWHAT OF A HYPOCRITE. I THINK CHARACTERS ARE BEST SEEN AS 'NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTS' RATHER THAN 'PEOPLE', SO ALL THIS ADVICE BEING SO CHARACTER FOCUSED RATHER THAN NARRATIVE FOCUSED IS MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES LOL....) but apparently people do Like my characters? So, what do I know i suppose LMAO

[ohsharethekmusic]

Song : She Said

Artist : Shinhwa

Album : 13th Unchanging: Touch

[dead-dead-deadski]

#NowPlaying “Super Power” by Shinhwa

[townbros]

SHINHWA 13TH - UNCHANGING – TOUCH_OFFICIAL MV  

[vopegist]

touch of love - kth

sequel to taste of love | can be read as a stand-alone !

pairing : taehyung x fem! reader

genre/au : fluff, cafe! au, strangers to friends to lovers, pining (oof)

word count : 1.6 k

rating : PG-13

warnings : none, except for some kissing

summary : Day and time do not determine your return to your favourite place, for your favourite person.

taglist : @ggukkieland ​​ <3

a/n: i have no excuse for this i’m (not) sorry wjfwieuiefsj. also, please just pretend it’s 13th of february for the sake of this drabble. hope you enjoy <3

— written for @bangtaninn​‘s xoxo event ○ prompt : “I’m only doing this because you’re cute” ○

Your mouth falls ajar as your feet halt in front of the cafe you have grown so familiar with.

“Oh my god.”

Blinking twice, you scan the place again. Goût d'amour is what you would normally describe as a cosy, aesthetically pleasing cafe dripping in warm hues. Everything around usually is a pretty shade of beige and soft brown, or in the case of the patio tables sitting just outside the entrance of the tiny cafe, a deep shade of ebony.

It brings a smile to your face, reminiscing about the time the influx of new customers had entailed Taehyung to install additional tables around the entrance. And you, like the good friend you are, had offered him a helping hand.

The one thing you love about Goût d'amour is that it is unchanging in its style and service. Somehow, though, an abundance of red decoration has overtaken the place between the time you last visited, the patio tables draped with red ribbons and everything.

You click your tongue once you realise what all of this is about.

Today is the thirteenth of February. Tomorrow is Valentine's day. Ah, yes. That is what all of this is about.

From the glass panes, you peek inside, and indeed it looks like Cupid has barfed all over the place.

Classic Taehyung.

You observe from the outside, looking around for any sign of the man, before you spot him atop a precarious stool, barely making it into sticking heart-shaped balloons up the walls.

Debating whether to walk in or not while he’s working, you remember Taehyung had often asked you to stay around during his working hours if you wished to. He appreciates it, so he says.

You just wish you had opted for more layers of clothing as you scurry towards the entrance to escape the cold. Of course the sign reads 'closed', but you've grown close enough with the owner to know you can step inside regardless.

The bell chimes, and Taehyung's head whips in your direction, face lighting up just as he sees you.

“Hey,” he smiles, “how does it look?”

Now that you are on the premises, you glance around again. Heart-shaped balloons, red napkins, red flowers, everything's red. Beautiful, nonetheless. Taehyung's got a knack for decoration, as you have figured out with time.

“Awful,” you guffaw out, eyes glimmering under the amber hues of the fairy lights— which, unlike the other decorations, is a regular— as you shrug off your coat. “Wow.”

Taehyung snorts. “Sorry, I’m a little confused here.”

“No, no, it’s,” you pause, whirling to face him, “beautiful, really!”

“But… you hate Valentine's day?” He fills the words for you.

“Yes,” you heave a breathy chuckle. “And you, as expected, are an ardent lover of it, or so I can tell.”

“As expected?” eyebrows pinched, Taehyung jerks his head back, almost falling off in the process before you rush forward to his aid, firmly grasping the stool. “Thanks,” he breathes.

Shaking your head, you giggle.

“Now, would you mind elaborating on your statement?” Taehyung prompts, cocking a single eyebrow.

The gesture isn’t an intimidating one, but you find yourself gulping nevertheless.

You should be immune by now, with your frequent visits and extended hours of stay at his workplace, you should be able to resist the urge to crumple to the floor every time you receive gestures alike. But you’re not, and it doesn’t make it better, that damned, near-deafening thumping of your heart every time he’s around.

It started off slow, the warm feeling, and you most certainly did not expect to fall in this deep. Sure, Taehyung was attractive… well, more than attractive, but you presumed the effect of it to just form a ripple before subsiding, not knock you out like the unexpected wave that hit you.

“Hello? Earth to Y/N.” Snapping fingers revert your attention back to him.

“I don’t know. You’re quite easy to read,” you shrug. “Like, you would be the kind to prefer hot chocolate to coffee.”

Taehyung stares at you, eyes wide and mouth falling agape. “How do you know!”

His mildly alarmed face entices a hearty laughter from you while you shrug once again.

“See, it’s easy to tell.” Dragging your feet backwards, you rest your back against the wall Taehyung has been working on. “You’re like a starry-eyed romantic, fall in love with a stranger you met, write songs for them kind.”

Taehyung stills.

Fuck.

You did not mean to say it out loud and in the fashion that you just did. But it’s out in the open, and you cannot eat your words now.

“I mean—”

“It’s easy to tell.” Your mouth clamps shut when Taehyung turns to stare right at you, his face painfully inscrutable. He gulps, “I know, you said it.”

Hopping off the stool, Taehyung dusts his hands clean, offering you a swift smile. You feebly return one, despite the growing embarrassment gnawing your insides.

You flop onto the nearest chair, while Taehyung has already made his way behind the counter, busy with something you think your curiosity can do without.

You withhold the urge to plant your face into your palms as your gaze wanders to anything and everything, except Taehyung.

You’re not sure how to take this. On some days, you feel like you’re reading into signs that don't exist. On others, you catch him being not so subtle with his lingering touches or stealing glances, sometimes even blatantly staring at your lips.

Like today.

Taehyung does not avert his gaze, like he usually does when you catch a glimpse of him staring. Today, he smiles, head-on. 

And they’re back again, signs you cannot decipher. It’s beginning to drive you crazy, and all you want now is to collapse to the ground. Maybe run your hands through his soft hair and firm chest before you collapse, though.

Maybe. 

“Can you,” his voice snaps you out of your reverie.

Taehyung has his hand extended towards you, holding out a spoon lathered in some sort of white condiment. “Do you wanna taste? It’s white chocolate mousse.”

“Sure.”

Sauntering up to him, you pluck the spoon out of Taehyung’s hand, giving it a tiny lick.

“Mhmm! I usually charge for taste tests like these, but,” popping the spoon into your mouth, you lick it clean. “This is really good.”

Taehyung laughs, offering you small bow. “You’re doing me a favour.”

“I'm only doing this because you're cute.”

He freezes, and this time you’re actually fucked. No amount of damage control will hide what you have finally admitted after months of beating around the bush.

“You,” he gulps, voice falling an octave deeper, “think I’m cute?”

You avoid meeting his gaze. “I mean, you don’t need me to tell you that. I’m pretty sure you are used to people calling you that,” you laugh in a pathetic attempt to cover it up.

“It matters more when you say it.”

Your head snaps sideways to find him looking right at you. He’s close, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his body.

“Huh?”

“I like you,” Taehyung breathes out, and the room seems to spin a little under your vision.

“I like you,” he repeats. “I really like you and I can’t stop thinking about you and we’ve been flirting for almost three months now so would you like to go out with me? I have some songs I can play and we can go grab something to eat somewhere.” 

Taehyung mumbles all at once, not pausing once to breathe, but now that he did his usual reluctance has resurfaced. “Or here. I have a cafe, right, almost forgot about that for a second. But if you don-”

“Shut up.”

Faltering, his mouth slacks open. “W-What?”

And just like that, you press your lips to his.

Pulling right away, you almost don’t want to open your eyes again. You did what you had to without worrying about what is to come. Taehyung has confessed his feelings for you, but somewhere the uncertainty of it looms– whether you’ve kissed him too soon, whether you should have waited until he had finished. 

Fluttering your eyes open, you finally see him: waiting, like some intangible leash binds him firmly, and only your approval can free him from its confines.

You let out an audible puff of breath.

One, two, three.

And his lips are on yours again.

Now that you’re actually kissing him – all reluctance tossed away with his hands winding around your waist, your hair – you can really feel what you had missed. The taste of his lips, the tenderness of it.

They’re soft, eager. His lips glide over yours with such haste, yet they remain undeniably gentle, and you're reminded yet again that certain things only Taehyung is capable of doing.

Like gradually restoring your faith in previously disdained traditions (read: Christmas and Valentine’s Day). Or having his tender caress melt you into a puddle of warmth on a cold february evening.

Taehyung giggles into the kiss when you smile, pulling away.

“Should I take that as a yes?”

You snort, an incredulous smile plastered on your face. Your cheeks are beginning to hurt from the way you haven’t stopped grinning so wide, but you still tilt your head to peck his lips one last time.

“Okay, then that’s a yes,” Taehyung laughs dreamily.

Whipped. Absolutely whipped.

You are still in his embrace, you realise. But you don’t want to peel away from it. Not yet.

Is it too fast? You’re not sure. But you do know you haven’t felt this way in so long, and you trust yourself this time. You trust that this is right.

Because it doesn’t feel like you’re falling. It feels like you’re soaring.

And you can feel it in his touch, that what is too early for you to acknowledge, to say out loud. But you can feel, and for now, that’s all you need.

okay, i might just turn this into a drabble series because i can’t stop crying over this fictional couple that i have created. also because this is very self indulgent and apparently im a taehyung simp so... see you soon (hopefully)

thank you for reading! feedback and reblogs are highly appreciated <3

[descendantofthesparrow]

Arwen; older teen design 2.0

on the left we have the OG design from January, and on the right we have Arwen's new design! gave her her own style instead of just-taking Gils d2/d3 outfit and just slapping it on there with jane motifs. so now Arwen has a mixture of their pallets with her own style. (janes pallet is darkened and toned down and Gils is unchanged) removed her Netherite shin guards since that metal is poisonous/magic draining to Arwen as she's a fae, so yeah, changed em to ankle/foot armor since she wont accidently touch that. changed up her face n hair a bit, just enough to where it makes more sense. oh, and i gave her tattoos

*not-pictured; the wolf tattoo on the outside of the right side of her neck*

most of these tattoo’s appeared around her 13th birthday, when a fae truly comes into their magic. the only one that had to be actually tattooed is the runes on her right arm (and the wolf on her neck), which she did herself while learning arcane/rune magic. all these tattoo’s glow when Arwen uses her magic, colored the same as her eyes (iridescent purple)

[galloperthompson]

Regarding Galloper Thompson’s clothes

Including his (slutty, thigh high) boots

It’s been brought to my attention that galloper’s slutty thigh high boots actually look like ankle boots with the thigh high part tucked into the boot. So I’ve decided to go beyond my jokes about him being a slut anyways and make this post going over his clothes. And buckle up folks, it gets long.

I’ll be honest, it’s pretty difficult to find details about 13th century (and 12th century) Scandinavian life specifically, especially since I’m using google. For this post, I have just used general European fashion, but in the future I’ll be mixing viking things with general European things from this time (but I’ll mostly try to keep the general European things to German and English/Irish stuff). I’ll also be referencing things from both the 13th century and the 12th century, since galloper “lived” during the early 13th century (and every website seems to think the 13th century started in 1250).

But anyways, an English knight from the mid 13th century apparently wore something like this on his bottom half (underneath other layers):

Now as you can see in this terrible quality picture (sorry about that, but I did try to label it), the hose are thigh high just like galloper’s leg coverings, which is what gave me the idea that maybe it’s hose he’s wearing. So let’s begin.

I would explain the whole system they used, but this does it better than I could (you only need to read until it starts talking about chausses since we’re only talking about the hose). The linked text is a bit weird and may (or may not) be unreliable, but it’s compact, explains things well, and has pictures (it’s where I got that *stunning* photo I labeled). However, keep in mind that it depicts a mid 13th century English knight, and galloper is from early 13th century Scandinavia, so while there may be similarities, there’s also definitely differences in how he would’ve dressed. Braies were apparently longer in the first half of the 13th century, for one, and didn’t really become “underwear” for everyone until the second half and later. Hose were also referred to as stockings, and apparently hose and stockings didn’t really refer to different things until later on. Additionally, clothing differed between class, but we’re not going to go over that today.

So how does this relate to galloper? Well his lower half actually sort of resembles the picture above, doesn’t it? His “hose” are thigh high, with ankle high shoes over them, just like the picture. Despite the similarities, though, there are differences. His “hose” aren’t pointed, and so there are no ties for them. Apparently, hose didn’t have to be pointed, and those thigh high hose that weren’t pointed were held up with pins.. but there are no pins to hold them up either. Without one of these mechanisms to hold up the hose, they would not stay in place. And considering we can see where the thigh high part ends, we should also be able to see at least part of what’s holding them up. The thigh high part could also theoretically be “leg bandages” that extend above the knee. However, his “hose” don’t look like wrapped or crisscrossed cloth, they look solid, so leg bandages are unlikely.

Now, I wanted to present hose as an explanation based (somewhat) in history, but I don’t actually think he’s wearing hose. We’ll go over why later in this post, but let’s keep going for now.

On to his tunic and coat. Well I say tunic, really it isn’t a tunic by medieval standards. Back in the 13th century, tunics didn’t have buttons—at least not on the front. And his coat.. well it’s not something you’d find in the 13th century. Longer coverings, down to the knee or lower, were the style then. Shorter coverings with buttons down the front didn’t appear until the 14th century in the form of things like doublets. Those “things” were usually very padded and form-fitting, however, and neither galloper’s shirt or coat seem to be padded or exceedingly form-fitting at all.

The history of gloves (in everyday wear, at least) is surprisingly complex, so I won’t be touching his gloves. I’m also ignoring his belt because I don’t have much to say on it, but they did have leather belts with “single-looped” buckles (whatever that means) in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Moving on to his cape. Ah yes, his tattered little cape (which matches his mare’s tattered little saddle blanket!). Who knows why the fuck he wears it. There doesn’t seem to be a hood (like the medieval chaperon) or a part that comes around to cover the shoulders, and it’s too short to be a cloak. My best guess is that it was a design choice based on the fact that such a short cape doesn’t need a fluttering animation. Why not axe (lol) the whole idea of a cape? Well, all the coolest characters have capes!

His weird ass shoulder pad I can’t come up with an explanation for, though (or at least a medieval one). If he had a neck, the shoulder pad would be digging into it based on the position. Maybe it’s supposed to be like those shoulder pads with tassels on some formal military uniforms (technically “epaulettes” with “fringe”)? Except instead of tassels it’s feather looking things and also there’s only one shoulder pad for some reason?

All of this is to say that none of what he’s wearing can realistically pass for 13th century clothing, except maybe his lower half, and that’s still stretching it.

His entire outfit actually most resembles military uniforms from the 18th and early 19th centuries, as @inkowl13 pointed out in this post. When he floats, you can even clearly see his tattered coattails, which are his trademark green on the underside. In the case of 18th century garb, his shirt would be a waistcoat (he doesn’t seem to be wearing an 18th century shirt underneath his “waistcoat” at all, but maybe we just can’t see it or distinguish it from his “waistcoat”), and his jacket-thing would be a uniformed soldier’s coat. His lower half would be breeches with either a. ankle boots and over-the-knee stockings, b. ankle boots and thigh high gaiters (those things with buttons that go over the top of the shoe), or c. thigh high boots, which appeared as riding boots in the 15th century and remained common until the 19th century—including in military uniforms (in fact, some cavalry units today still use them in their ceremonial dress uniforms). His shoulder pad would, in fact, be a strange attempt at an epaulet/epaulette (which were used in the 18th century (and beyond) to denote rank) with fringe the color of his trademark green. The fact that there’s only one also makes sense within this period; whether the epaulet/epaulette was on the right, left, or both shoulders indicated rank (Galloper’s “epaulet/epaulette” is on his right shoulder, our left). The issue of glove history is also eliminated since it seems military uniforms in the 1700s made use of gloves. Men’s capes/cloaks at this time went to the knee or below it, so my explanation for his cape is unchanged. Through this lens, things start to become clear.

This is a mannequin (is that what you call the fake models of historical clothing? does mannequin apply in this context?) wearing an 18th century cavalry uniform:

As you can see, he looks incredibly similar to galloper, despite the many differences.

And these are two sets of 18th century soldiers (again, sorry for the less than ideal quality):

On the left there’s a pair of soldiers with over-the-knee boots and on the right there’s a pair with over-the-knee gaiters (see how they go over their shoes). Thigh high boots would make more sense for a horseman, but thigh high gaiters would explain some things about his lower half, like how his boots and the thigh high part are different colors. However, there are no buttons on the sides (like gaiters have) or garters at the knee (like both stockings and gaiters had), and the thigh high part is tucked into the shoe, more like stockings rather than gaiters. In these pictures you can also see how his upper half looks incredibly similar to all four soldiers, again, even with the differences.

Now, unless galloper was keeping up with fashion until the 18th century when he stopped (he gave up I guess? said “fuck that shit” and hasn’t changed clothes for the past 300 years?), he shouldn’t be wearing an 18th century military uniform. Especially since he was shown wearing the same clothes in his execution scene (which I don’t put too much stake in considering the Jarl was in his ghost form and even the soul riders don’t have 2 sets of clothes in game).

So why does he look like this, then? The reason why he looks like a revolutionary war soldier can be traced back to the inspiration used for his design. According to Jorvikipedia, his “...design takes direct inspiration from author Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow...” which explains why he looks the way he does. Jorvikipedia has been wrong before (they list his place of birth as “Jorvik (presumably)” which doesn’t fit with his backstory), but if Galloper’s design was based on the headless horseman of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (which it very likely was), it would provide justification for the 18th century look of his clothes. Washington Irving’s horseman was, after all, (alleged to be) killed during the revolutionary war in the 18th century.

It’s obvious his upper half is based on 18th century uniform, but the intention behind his lower half remains a mystery. Whether it’s meant to be stockings, gaiters, or boots, I don’t know. Theoretically, his lower half could even have been intended to be hose, braies, and shoes. But considering his entire look and the inspiration behind his design, an 18th century explanation seems more likely (I just don’t know which 18th century explanation, exactly). It would be pretty strange if half of him was medieval and the other half was from the revolutionary war era. Though, I’ll admit, it’s not completely impossible.

My theory for the contradiction between his design and his backstory is that his backstory came after his design. The 18th century look of him, along with his inspiration, and the lack of medieval elements in his design all make a compelling case for this theory. The only thing I can think of that may disprove it is his mare’s y-shaped bridle, but even that could be explained if she was designed after galloper, while his backstory was in its first stages of development (I’ll probably do another post on his horse’s tack, since this post is already long, but that’s for another day). But that’s just a theory; the star stable team could very well have just not done any research on 13th century attire, instead modeling his look on depictions of Irving’s headless horseman and adding the bridle as an indication of the origin they had already established for him.

Ok, but what about the rest? The other parts of his and his mare’s designs (color scheme, hanging pumpkin jack-o-lanterns) can be attributed to the fact that he is the halloween event character. Though his color scheme could be inspired by the headless horseman in World of Warcraft, who was introduced in 2007 (I found out about this horseman while looking into other possible inspirations for galloper’s design), all the colors seen on him and his mare (black, green, red, orange) are general Halloween colors. The hanging jack-o-lanterns are not historically accurate for the Middle Ages (or the revolutionary war era, actually) as pumpkins were not introduced into Europe until Columbus “discovered” the Americas, and did not become commonly carved into jack-o-lanterns until the 19th century in America -which was when and where “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was published (though the pumpkin “head” was not even carved in the original story). I suppose galloper could have developed an affinity for pumpkins (and for carving them) later on (Jorvik seems to have a lot of them), but it’s more likely that they added them (to the keep and his mare’s design) based on modern halloween practices instead of historical halloweens or consideration of galloper’s feelings on pumpkins.

Ok, so we’ve established he’s not historically accurate for the 13th century, but what would his clothes look like if they were actually historically accurate? The answer is: I don’t know! Maybe I’ll do another google deep dive and make a post on that, but for now we’ve come to the end.

All of my information about historical clothing came from sorting out google results, so take the historical bits with a hefty grain of salt (more like a bowl of salt actually). If you have any actual knowledge about history, please feel free to correct me.

[magicalgirlsandcerulean]

Thanks for watching episode 6. This image is by Masayuki Nomoto, who did the key frames for Ranmaru's transformation and enka.

Here's a Sirius from Shouko Nagasawa.

(Potential spoilers for episode 6!) Lynn voiced Chika. See what she had to say about it here.

If anyone's in Japan and is hoping on catching up with the series, episodes 1 - 6 are going to be free on GYAO! until the 20th of May 2021.

A video message from Sakata regarding episode 6.

The first (Japanese) DVD/BD goes on sale on June 16th. The bonuses include a special booklet and the DVD Et Fran de Muse After School (1).

Hori has entered Bar F. See more details about the post (dated May 13th 2021) under the cut. Spoilers below!

(Lately, they've been cutting the posts really close to the premiere of the next episode...It's to the point where I managed to watch episode 5 and then look at Hori's post, even though I'm on a 1-week -behind schedule.)

Hori says, "Everyone, good morning! Today's breakfast is curry!" He then introduces himself and after saying thanks for the real time comments (part of the campaign), he warns this post's a long one.

Hori calls the woman's opening "pillow talk" "sexy".

Instead of the usual もどして (return), it was もどしたりもどさなかったりしろ (something like "returning or not returning, do it anyway") so he laughed because it was far too lax. Hori's written that it was in the comments somewhere, but it's not in the episode or the tweets...(I translated the phrases assuming this was in the script regarding the transition around the cat scene, but if anyone can tell me where these are from, then please help me correct it!)

Hori smiled (he uses a grammatical structure that suggests he wasn't intending to smile) at Juka and Ranmaru being a comic duo. He says they have a good tempo for dialogue.

Hori notes Takara gets away with lying to the Queen.

Hori doesn't believe the name of the grocer is Yaochou. (Yaochou means “fixed game”, but it’s a pun on the word for “grocer” (八百屋, read yaoya and sharing the first two kanji, hence the CR translation of “Fixed Grocer”.)

The client's name is Ruise Emu (Japanese name order). Notably, "Ruise" is similar to the word you'll get if you reverse the sounds of セール (sale).

Hori puts a snake emoji around here because the exclamation バイトぉ！？ (Baitoo?!, "A part-time job?!" - it's derived from the Dutch arbeit, apparently) makes it sound like "(snake) bite". Also, Hori's moniker is "Snake Bite" because one time he was pointing and he kind of looked like a snake. Someone called him "Snake Bite Hori" around that point and that name's stuck ever since (see 52:05 in this live stream).

Hori notes even the "cool" Uruu was relieved to not eat curry and he (Uruu) called the food "delicious".

Hori notes the banknotes Oshida and Ruise have have pots on them and exclaims Oshida's intro as a debt collector was too formal.

Hori calls Takara, who doesn't hesitate to use his money even though he loves it, "cool" and says the scene where Takara does that was emotionally touching.

To the B part!

Hori notes you can now see Sirius's face in the shadows.

Hori calls Ranmaru "cool" for being straightforward (when Ranmaru asks about "carnal relations" (CR translation)).

The documents Emu gets are documents for an aged care home, a real estate contract, a man's photo and a marriage registration.

Hori notes the doors (leading to the Heaven's Room) have a different design based on who created them. (You find, several lines further down from this one, that the mental worlds are called ヘヴンズ空間 or "Heaven's Room".)

Hori notes the name of the enka is Ai no Kanjou, but does not link it.

Hori notes the art style of the Heaven's Room is cubism.

Oh...so the pun in Oshida's name is from 押し出し (oshidashi, to be pushed out of a sumo ring). Fuhen means "inevitable" or "unchanging".

Hori calls the attack Takara uses (with that chest armour) the "nipple drill (LOL)".

The background music after Oshida was defeated gave Hori goosebumps.

Turns out there's also a quota for the "aren't you wrong?" anomalies, as well (e.g. when Oshida denies he was in the wrong in this episode).

Hori also mentions there's merch of the keys.

Takara's pose after yelling "Go to heaven!" is the same one Hori takes in the Ayashiku Get Your Heart music video.

The new lawyer at the end of the episode has fake Kansai-ben.

Hori notes Takara seems to have no intention to make anything aside from curry (LOL).

"あ、なんだフィクションか。ちくしょう、また騙された…ッ！" - "Ah, it was fiction, was it? Damn, we were deceived yet again...!"

"こんなに格好いいキャラクターを演じさせて貰えて、この作品に関わらせて貰えて、堀は本当に幸せ者です。" - "Hori was able to portray this kind of cool character and be affected by the work, so he's really happy." (<- Yes, he's referring to himself in the 3rd person.)

Hori then talks a bit about the Nico Nico Douga screening, including the fact he lost a "staggering" amount of calories after laughing a lot from the comments.

He wants to one day do an (in-person) cheering event where the fans will watch the episodes with the voice actors once again and says, "その日が来る事を心待ちにしながら、今は何より皆様体に気をつけて、いつか必ず光があると信じて、今この時を乗り越えましょう。" ("As we all look forward to that day, let's take care of ourselves and overcome this time [of COVID lockdown], believing that one day there will be light.") <- For those of you coming from the future, this is referring to the fact several large metropolitan areas of Japan are currently under COVID lockdown as I type this, including Tokyo.

Finally, he thanks everyone for cheering on Fairy Ranmaru.

Takara's comment (turns out Takara (Hori) still does comments at the end even when it's his turn): "ま、カレー食っておきゃ間違いないって事やね" - "Well, having to eat curry isn't a bad thing, is it?"

Update: Sorry, seems I can't fix the cut without deleting the entire post...It looks fine in the editor...

Update 2: Seems like the cut fixed itself. Also disambiguated a dot point and added more to a different dotpoint.

Update 3: Fixed the snakebite stuff and disambiguated a dotpoint.

[gossamerandshadow]

Zane Holm: The Door

Zane frowns. He had been to this part of the library before, hadn't he? But he'd never seen this door before, he's certain of it. Now, is he lost or is this a trap or…? They've never attacked him in the Palace library before - too many priceless books - so he doesn't think it's a trap. Not by them, at the very least.

He glances around at the surrounding tall bookcases filled with books that make this small area of the maze that is the Mirtran Librarian. Yeah, he's almost willing to bet his life he's where he thinks he is.

Could it be a trick from the ones that supposedly want him dead? He ponders. No, he doesn't think it's that. He's pretty sure he'd been in pain if they were close. He very much remembers that from his 13th birthday, even if he has no recollection of them - are they even real? It could all be just a lie from them, he honestly wouldn't be that surprised.

Zane shakes his head. He's been standing there in the poorly lit library all alone in the middle of the night for too long. Just letting his rambling thoughts go at a mile an hour. Fuck these stupid be alert for days exercises. What he wouldn't give for a good night of sleep in his lovely bed.

The door is still there. It looks solid. Made of dark wood. It does not seem to fit the rest of the decor but it also doesn't stand out that much.

Zane sighs. Perhaps interacting with a mysterious door isn't the smartest idea but he's sleep deprived and has nothing better to do.

He takes the small wooden key from around his neck and, with barely a thought, let's it take its other form. The small dark green stone with gold veins on the bow starts to glow brightly, engulfing the rest of the key, the light then growing thicker and longer on Zane's hand until he's holding a tall staff of twisted branches with small stones like the one on the bow scattered all over.

Just because he's about to do something stupid doesn't mean he shouldn't be careful.

Zane touches the door lightly with the tip of the staff and waits.

Nothing happens. The door is still there, unchanged.

"Hum…" grasping his staff tightly with one hand, he touches the door lightly with the other and closes his eyes, focusing deeply on the door, trying to feel its intentions (and begging not to fall asleep).

It doesn't feel like any harm will come to him from interacting with it.

"Alright, guess no one'll tear me a new one if I open you," he tells no one.

Zane moves his hand from the door towards the knob, slowly, still not 100% certain it won't decide to attack.

But it doesn't. After another moment of hesitation, he twists the knob. Locked. Not a problem. He casts the unlocking charm and twists the knob once more. There-still locked?!

He frowns. A locked door that doesn't seem to belong and refuses to open?

It takes him a few minutes to process it, the cogs in his mind turning slowly.

"Oh!" He gasps once it finally clicks. Could it be? Could this be a Door?

Suddenly awake with a rush of excitement, Zane wills his staff back to a key. It should work, he read it in one of the books.

He approaches the key to the lock and the small stone begins to glow as the key enters. Zane attempts to turn it and… There! He heard a click, he's certain of it!

He shoots for the doorknob and opens the door and, on the other side, he sees a long corridor with many doors of all kinds, openings leading to other long corridors and stairs. So many stairs.

He can't help the half choked giggle that escapes him. He found the Stair! The Stair only his staff can grant access to! Well, it's the only thing in Mirtran that can without any risk of failure. As far as the books say. And only as long as one finds a Door 1st. Which he's pretty sure he just did.

But there is no time to lose! He can get out of this place! Sure, it hasn't all been bad but… fuck! He needs a break. A break from this madness. Just a little vacation. Most who ventured into the Stair with his staff made their way back. He won't be any different. Right? Right! … Maybe he should get some things 1st. Just in case. He's not planning to never come back. Not really. Is he? No. It's-it's not that bad. He just wants a few days without so many expectations. And fights. He'll leave a note! That way they'll know where he went. Plus, it's not like they'll be able to enter the Stair before he decides to come back.

With his mind made up, Zane rushes out of the library and up the stairs to his bedroom where he quickly begins to pack and summon all he thinks will come in hand. A notebook and pens, some changes of clothes. Some yarn? Some food and bottles of water might be a good idea too. The Palace is pretty deserted at night and the rooms are soundproofed so he can be as loud as he wants. They won't notice he's gone until either he falls asleep or it's morning.

The small green and purple dragon snugly sleeping in his bed opens their eyes with a disgruntled groan. "It's late…!" comes the low squeaky complaint.

"I found it, Sugarplum!" Zane informs his small companion. "The Grand Stair. We leave now. Just for a few days." Or maybe a bit longer? He should have at least some weeks before they can go hunt him down. Oh! The note! He mustn't forget about the note!

With everything packaged in a large travel suitcase over half his size and a heavy backpack, and the note on his bedside table, Zane scoops up the sleepy dragon and returns to the library where he goes through the door.

[hearts-shinhwa]

The same underwear XD

[ohsharethekmusic]

Song : Heaven

Artist : Shinhwa

Album : 13th Unchanging: Touch

[msmemaaaa]

When the legendary ShinDorks give some tips for the perfect fansign,, ask for a kiss, ask for a slap, wash your hair, etc ... coz normal tips aren’t in Shinhwa’s dictionary ..lol (trans © malpabo)

[kyuu00]

Shinhwa 13th Studio Album “Unchanging - Touch” Part 2 (Photobook)  ;3

They are looking so good in this album >///<

Part 1 Album

[siltheexplorer]

Shinhwa Touch SBS Comback Stage + No.1 PD’s Note Official Photos Tune 7+1P bonus 

P.S.Andy Happy Birthday~!!

Bonus 1P : MinJin!!

[unknownverses]

[destinygyo]

touch - minwoo solo dance