#BUT GAAAHH LOOK AT HIM

[silverselfshippingchaos]

LOOK AT HIM GO!!!!!!!! he's still the same little shit as always <3

[dangregreal]

so normal abt her stupid ugly ass today

[strayflowersstarsandlove]

of monsters and milk (dad!hanjisung)

can ya'll tell i have the biggest fucking soft spot for dad!han 🙈

"Weeeeeee-gaaahh".

"AH. CRYING BABY"

Han jolts into a sitting position, all senses on high alert, eyes wide and his messy head of hair all fluffed out and tousled from the abrupt start.

He quickly slips out of the rumpled sheets and crawls over to the bassinet at the feet of the bed just as you start to stir awake, ever so slowly.

"Mmh...Nari?".

Han swiftly picks up his crying baby, he retrieves her discarded pacifier and gently sticks it in her mouth as too soothe her quickly, all the while rocking her in his arms gently, "I got this, shh, go back to sleep", he instructs softly, leaning in to kiss your forehead.

In your hazy, still dreamy state you catch but a jumbled murmur of his words and whiff on Nari's baby powder and milk scent before you drift off to sleep incredibly quickly. After all being a parent for the second time with a toddler and a 2 months old baby gets the best of you. Reason why you and Han take turns for night feeds and cuddles and just overall baby duties.

Perhaps the both of you combined might eventually get 8 full hours of sleep in a week. Not 8 consecutive hours of rest but ... Still.

Nari is not quite calm yet but the pacifier holds off her hungry crying at least until he has successfully padded his way out of your shared bedroom and into the hall, ""ts alright Nari-ah, milk is coming, milk is coming", he mumbles, pressing soft kisses to her downy little head as he makes his way down the hall  and is almost about to unlock the kids safe gate perched on top of the stairs when he hears a wail like scream followed by loud whimpers.

"MONSTAH MONSTAH WEEEE".

"Oh ... Another crying baby". 

Han barely has any time to kneel down on the floor, carefully balancing Nari on his hip while still holding onto her head and neck so it's pressed into his chest when Daisy comes screaming down the hall, running straight into her father's unoccupied arm, spread out for her: "what happened? baby what happened are you okay?", he tries to calm her down by hugging her to the best of his abilities.

It partially works. Nothing like daddy's magic hugs to calm down a crying baby. Daisy burrows her little face into her father's chest and sniffles quietly, "i had a mare mare...wit monstah". A small but painful crack in his heart, Han pulls his older daughter tighter to him, "aw you had a nightmare and a monster was there,sweetheart? I'm so sorry, it must have been scary yeah?", he says calmly, recognizing her fear and distress.

The little girl nods vehemently and sticks her tiny hands in her dad's pjama pants pocket, timdily asking for comfort and shelter, "very scawy, he took Quokki", she confesses, her big brown eyes still glossy with unshed tears, "oh no, not Quokki. I'm so sorry Daisy girl, we should make this bad monster go away shouldn't we? I bet Quokki is scared too", Han says softly, gathering up his two lovely bundles of daughters as he slowly stands up again.

Daisy clings to his legs and looks up at him expectantly, very much wrapped around his finger for Oppa is always so good at helping her through nightmares. "Alright, let's go chase out this bad guy so you and Quokki can go back to sleep", he explains patiently, walking towards her room.

Nari fusess about in slight impatience, her suckling on her pacifier growing sloppy with anticipation for the milk she's been promised, that much Han knows very well. But he's determined not to wake you up again, despite the dark circles around his tired eyes and the overall sleepiness and exhaustion from the numerous sleepless nights, he still takes the time to tackle one problem at a time, help one daughter at a time.

As soon as Daisy walks back into her bedroom she lunges for her HanQuokka plushie, which she has funnily renamed Quokki, and holds him tight to her chest, a sight so heartbreakingly devastating Han crumples on the inside out of pure endearment.

"Good girl, Deiji girl, cuddle him close, he needs you right now", he instructs before bending down on his knees again so he's more eye level with his daughter, "okay, first we have to chase Mr. Monster away from Daisy's little mind and Quokki's too right?", he says and waits for Daisy to nod her approval, "you know how we do that? with a kiss!! Monsters are very afraid of kisses, because kisses are magic!".

Ah the fervent imagination he nurtured with years and years of songwriting and bed time story impromptu making. Han Jisung the artist and the loving father where one and the same: wizards. Little genius brain faces of the same man.

Daisy's adoring eyes go wide with utter bewilderment, her mouth even opening in awe, "what were going to do is daddy gives you a kiss, here on your forehead so Monster flies straight out, and then you give Quokki a kiss on his little forehead so he's protected too!", Han enthuses, admiring how his daughter lights up at the suggestion,"YES!!", the 2 year old exclaims excitedly, now jumping up and down, almost rousing her little sister whose sleepy but inquisitive big eyes are looking around, taking in her sourroundings.

Emphasizing the smack of his lips on her forehead, Han kisses his first baby and taps her head gently, "take that Mr. Monster!", Daisy squeals in happiness and places a resounding kiss onto her plushie, which catches Nari's attention, the infant squirming and whining softly, "ah I think your baby sister might want a magic kiss too!", Han states, immediately abiding to his instincts. Which Daisy promptly replicates by puckering up and standing on her tippy toes to reach her sister.

A tender spike to his heart, Han bends down and watches that blissful moment as Daisy kisses her sister's forehead, looking immensely proud. He still is just astounded at how sensitive and smart and perceptive his first flower is. Actual tears threaten to spill right out of his eyes.

"Gooood girl, good big sissy. Now we're going to open the window so Monster can finally get out", he affirms then, walking over to the moon illuminated window, opening it wide for a brief second, "Mr. Monster we need you to go and leave Daisy alone now, bye bye", he mocks waves his hand bye, his older daughter imitating him, "buh -bye monstah", she exclaims resolutely in her tiny voice.

Once the window is closed Han spins around and holsters up Nari who's now growing restless for her milk, "okay, monster's gone now. Do you want to have some warm milk like sissy before going back to bed?", he offers, "yes, daddah", Daisy beams upnat him and he holds oir his hand for her, "downstairs we go,then. Hand please", he instructs again so they can walk out and then downstairs safely.

He's done this a million times, really. Ever since she started walking and then running and then figuring out how ro climb the stairs, Han knows she's a big girl now, she's careful and capable of moving around on her own quite well. Yet to hold safely that tiny hand while walking downstairs feels like the most precious thing still.

If he could hold her hand forever, through whatever hurdles might come here way, if he could shield and help his daughters bu Just holding their hands forever he would, in a heartbeat.

The clever little older girl climbs on her chair by herself, she patiently waits for her dad to slide said chair closer to the table so she's safe up there and quietly plays with her Quokki while Han warms up some milk. Nari drools all over herself, squirming around in her father's hold when she sees her milk bottle approach, "one second baby girl, it's hot, it's very hot", he says through a yawn, ultimately, finally! sitting down at the table, ready to feed his girls.

He hands Daisy her sippy cup and she takes it with both hands, as if accepting a gift, just like her dad taught her, "there you go, darling", "thank youuu appa". Smiling warmly at her, Han brushes her hair gently, so proud of her manners, the way she's still so young but so talkative and bright. The way she started picking up Korean so well and she spontaneously switches in between languages. He loves their little conversations.

"Kkkksss ahh milky's finally here yeah? Hi sweetheart, hi", he coos softly, feeding Nari who slurps up her milk ravenously while he gently settles her head in the crook of his elbow, right against his chest so her neck is supported and tilted right.

Oh that lovely baby smell intensifying, her tiny sounds and hiccups, Han gazes lovingly into his other daughter's eyes, holding her bottle for her.

He's split between the two loves of his entire life, not sure how to contain all the love stored within him. It's the quiet moments like these that make his heart flutter, just him and these two small humans he helped bring to life. 

"All done dadda", Daisy exclaims, showing her empty cup, a little sleepiness in her eyes, "you're all done baby? was it yummy? do you want some more?", Han asks, smiling encouragingly, "no thank you, 'm good", she replies through a small yawn, shaking her head,"okay, can you wait two more minutes until sissy's done with her milk or would you like to go to sleep right now?", he inquires, gently tilting the bottle so Nari can easily suck up the last few drops of milk, "Daiji waits", murmurs the little girl, rocking her legs back and forth as she waits patiently at the table.

As soon as Han's done feeding Nari, he grabs a towel and drapes it over his shoulder expertly, he promptly lifts his baby up to his shoulders so he can pat her back and help her digest, silently praying she doesn't spit up her milk while he walks around slowly.

"Can I hol' shissy?". Han stops in his tracks and grins widely at Daisy, who's looking expectantly at her father, he walks over to her at the table and bends down on his knees, "of course you can hold sissy, little daisy flower. You want to be very gentle okay? Dadda helps you".

With a bit of careful maneuvering, and with the strong support of his arms, Han places a now very sleepy very calm baby Nari into her older sister's lap, the little girl cradling the baby so sweetly and hesitantly Han feels his heart swelling and swelling.

"Nari is preeetty", she mumbles under her breath, "yeah she's is very pretty, and you are very pretty. And mum's very pretty too, and you both look just like her", Han replies sincerely, unable to contain the joy manifesting on his face, he kissess both of his daughters' cheeks, so endeared he might cry.

A few goodnight kissess and nuzzles and diaper checks later, once he has made sure Nari's fast asleep in her bassinet and you are still soundly asleep, Han makes his way back to Daisy's room, tired and sleepy beyond comprehension but still willing to tuck his daughter to bed like he promised he would.

Daisy's already all snuggled up to her plushie, a few messy wisps of hair peeking out from underneath the bundle of sheets and blankets she has buried herself in. Han chuckles at the sight and pats her head tenderly, "Deiji baby...", he whispers, loud enough for her to hear while not disrupting her sleepy state too much.

Squinty sleepy eyes finally look back at him, a mischievous little grin spreading on her lips as she giggles and lifts her blanket up to her face again, hiding underneath, "ah! are we suddenly playing hide and seek now?", Han plays along, tickling her first and then squatting down on the floor so when Daisy removed the blanket she only sees the top of his head.

They play like that back and forth for a few minutes, at least until the little girl starts yawning more frequently and Han recognizes the heavy eyelids falling upon her eyes, "time to go back to sleep", he says sweetly, already adjusting the blankets and tucking her in, "appa is really really proud of you, you are such a good little helper and an amazing older sister to Nari, I love you so much".

Daisy smiles sleepily and cuddles Quokki to her chest, bleary eyes hardly open right now, "I love you dadda", she says in her tiny quiet voice, her father melting entirely. He kissess the top of her head and pats Quokki once, his knees straining with effort when he finally stands up straight again, "I love you more. Sweet dreams baby, sweet dreams Quokki".

[bwabys-scenarios]

IM JUST INLOVE WIGH THE WAY U WRITE SHALNARK GAAAHH HES such a CUTIE POOTIE!! 🤞🏽🤞🏽❤️❤️ anyway, I was wondering if you could write some hcs for him as your partner? Sfw and nsfw if you’re up for it, and preferably gender neutral, if not, then afab is fine!!! I hope your day is going well and I just want to say you’re an amazing writer ❤️

Shalnark HCS(SFW+NSFW)

!!REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!!

warnings: creampies, anal, period sex(very short mention), pet names

SFW

-he is the cuddliest mfker ever. like he wants to have you in his lap, his arms, or cuddled up next to him at all times

-loves soft things, so if you have a soft tummy, thighs, boobs, or ass he’s very happy!!

-very mischievous and loves to prank you

-follows you around like a lovesick puppy when he realizes he has feelings for you

-great texter. he’ll be in the middle of a fight and still find time to text you back

-gets annoyed when people take your attention away from him

-has a collection of pictures of you he keeps on his phone to look at when he’s sad/misses you

-struggles to fall asleep without you(will make you call him so he feels like you’re sleeping next to him when he’s gone)

-can’t take anything seriously, and sometimes this can be annoying

-would do anything for you. I mean that

-he’s weirdly in tune with current celebrity gossip. he knows more than you so by a long shot, and sometimes he knows things he definitely shouldn’t…

-can’t stand being away from you for too long. makes him antsy, and as soon as he’s dismissed by chrollo he’s SPRINTING to your apartment

-“lovebug I’m hoomeee~”

-“shal, baby, did you just break in?”

-“the door was locked :(“

-“you could have knocked 😭”

-he’s so silly

NSFW

-he’s up for pretty much anything. Would 100% let you peg him if that’s what you wanted(he’s whipped for you really, and kinky all on his own)

-switch, dom leaning. but he’s very easy to boss around, mostly because he’s putty in your hands

-likes to cum on your face or on your tummy!! usually doesn’t cum inside unless you’re on birth control(he’s not ready for kids lol)

-has fucked you on your period and will do it again

-literally cannot get enough of your pussy. if you’re in his vicinity there’s a good chance he’ll be sneaking up behind you to bend you over and eat you out

-loves anal, but your pussy is his favorite thing to fuck <3

-give him a blowjob and look up at him with your pretty eyes he’ll bust immediately

-call him your good boy or your puppy and he’s on his knees!! those nicknames specifically drive him WILD. he is like a puppy after all, and is hopelessly devoted to you!

-he can be a bit selfish when it comes to sex at first, but improves over time. when he wants to, he can make you cum on his fingers and tongue alone all night long, and other times he’s pushing in without any fore play besides a little bit of rubbing at your clit

-will eat his cum out of you upon request(please ask him)

[astaroth1357]

Ships A'hoy:

*it's a Saturday night at the HoL and Leviathan has managed to rope Mammon, Satan, and Asmo into an anime marathon with him. They've been watching the fantasy rom-com, Neko-Neko Paradise, for about 4 episodes now*

Levi: GAAAHH that scene between Kenji and Ruko-san was so cute!! I can't even-they're so my favorite ship!

Satan: I really don't see how that couple could be so popular... There's no way that they could survive being stranded together.

Levi: That's not tr-!!

Levi:

Levi: Wait.... what?

Satan: ?

Satan: The ship... They wouldn't make it alone on a boat together. They would be miserable.

Levi: .... that's not....

Levi: Satan. Ship is short of relationship. It's not a boat!

Mammon: Wait, shipping ain't about boats??

Levi: NO! Where did you even get that?!

Mammon: Well you kept sayin' stuff like, "My ship is gonna win!" I thought it was like a boat race!

Asmo: *looks up from painting his nails* I thought you wanted your favorite characters to have a romantic boat ride~!

Levi: That's not it at all!!

Levi: Have ALL of you guys been thinking I'm talking about boats?!

Mammon: I mean, it kinda fits...

Levi: *wants to crawl under the couch to hide from his second-hand embarrassment*

Levi: We're done here... I can't deal with this right now....

Mammon: But your show-!

Levi: We'll finish it later!!

[skidtheperson]

HEAVY HEAVY SPOILERS

GO WATCH THAT ENDING RIGHT NOW THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!!!

Beautiful... It was.. Beautiful. That is the ending we deserved!!

First things first, gay people basically confirmed.

"My theory was right" of course it was.

My babies had some part in this! And the fact they just were doing that with the hope it worked, so now they're proud they looked cool, FGIBIRBKEBIBS I LOVE THEMMMMM

Go family!!! You got this!!! Survive together!!!

NOO HE'S A BABY, HE'S A LITTLE KID, SHAKING AND CRYING, NOOOOO 😭😭😭

The fact Lightbulb and Clover are STILL happy and all cheerful even when faced with becoming a ghost forever gaaahh

THE ARCS THE ARCS THEY OVERCAME EVERYTHING LET'S GOOOO

WE ARE SO BACK WE ARE SO BACK WE ARE SO BACCCKKK

The fact she acted scared but then was like "Don't move" to the others, she knew, GO GIRL!!!!!

YEAAHHH DIE DIE DIE DIE ABUSER ROT IN HELL DIEEEEEE CHEESY REACTION IS ME YESSSSS

They both knee slapped. We've evolved. People are fine with his goofy jokes now I love Cheesy <3

NOOOOO HE GHOST NOOO but at least he's still here SO YAAAAYYY!! Wonder where the others that got hit by the beam are.

Kinda sad Knife lost, but hey, Suitcase deserved that win after all this. She really evolved. Love her. Go girl, girlboss, you the best!!!

Everyone is happy... Yay... .. There's 14 minutes left.. THERE'S 14 MINUTES LEFT OH GOD PLUS BACKUP AIN'T HERE YET SO

Man.. Wish he didn't leave, but you know, sometimes you gotta...

GF vs EX.

Nevermind we good, the backup was this guy. Thankfully. Glad to see him back! Now they can be together and live a happy life without their abuser of a "father".

Mepad Dedication Ceremony. He deserves that. Moment of silence for Mepad...

The fact Nickel was so happy he could join in with stomping, GAHHHHHH MY HEARTTTT 💖💖💖💖

THROWBACKS TO THE SONGS YEAHHHH LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

I have to do ANOTHER post to fit all of the pictures and my thoughts so yeah

[sweetkiitsunez]

❞ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐝 - synopsis: being breed and carrying Lord. Finely's kid

❞warning: somewhat dark content (?) + nsfw content (18+) + f!sub (afab!reader) + Dom!Finely Grosvenor + overestimation + breeding + pregnancy kink(?) + creampies + dubconish and nonconish bcs readers wants him to stop, but wants to keep going + nosebleed + aftercare + yandereish??

a/n: gaaahh!! im so hungry for aknk corn :3

PLAP! PLAP! PLAP!

The sound of yours and Lord. Finely's skin slapping againist each other and the sound of your moans and cries echos in the empty bedroom. You could feel the moonlight shining on your skin. Finely blocks the moonlight as you could see his silhouette hovering you.

"A-Ah!! Ah! A-Ah! N-ngh!! S-Stop!! N-no more!!" You let out a loud crying moan, squirming as you toss your head on the wrinkle white bedsheets. His hands pinning both of your hands above your head as he continues to thrusts his hips against your wall.

"Ngh...! D-don't worry...! A-aAh! F-fuck... I-I'll... ngh!! Take care...! V-very good! A-ahh...! F-fuck! Ngh! Of y-you...!" Lord. Finely thrusting his hips, quite in a harsh pace while he is holding you down.

He wants something from you. He wants it badly. You underneath him, crying and moaning his name as he couldn't control his body. He couldn't control himself. You will be a perfect wife for him. He caught you caring for a lost child in the street, who got separated from their parents. You're good with kids. He wants to have kids with you. He doesn't want any nobles nor the devil butlers or angels touching you. He wants you all for himself. He wants to see your belly full, plump with his kids inside your womb.

Yes... yes... that's sounds like a good idea. He will have to breed you. He sees your teary eyes as you pleading with him to stop. Your legs are on his shoulders as he did a mating press position.

PLAP! PLAP! PLAP!

He loves it. He loves it when you are getting overestimated. Your body is covered in sweats and fluids.

His eyes is fully foucs on you. He loves you. He loves you very much.

"Look at you... ngh! Aa-ah...! Y-you're shaking, my dear..." He moans as he smiles at you.

It's been forever. You don't remember how long that you had came. You felt dizzy, tired, and couldn't fight your consciousness. Suddenly you felt something dripping on your face as you shifts your eyes to look at him.

Finely notices your reaction as he stops thrusting as he lets go of your wrists as he wipes his nose with his finger.

Crimson red... Crimson red nosebleed dripping from his nostril. Ah, he is having a nosebleed while he is trying to breed you.

"F...Finely... are you okay...? you reached your hands to touch his face, but he gently swatted your hand away from him.

"My dear..." His cleaned hands wipes the bloodly drops off your face. You seems to worried if he is overworking himself to pleasure you. You laid there on the bed as his eyes looks at yours. He wipes his nose, but still has a blood stain on his face as he wipes it.

He kisses your forehead as his thumb creases your heated cheeks. His cock is still inside of you. "...Just look at me, dear..."

You shifts your eyes to look at him. He is hovering you as he places your hands on yours. "I'll take care of you..."

"Just relax for me, I'll make it feel good..." he whispers in a low voice. "Please... I want a baby inside you..." he begs softly.

"I want... a family with you..."

"... someone to take over the Grosvenor families..."

"Please... let me breed you... dear..."

This is the first time, that you heard him beg. He rarely beg. He sounds desperate to have a child with you. You don't really seem him a type of family guy. He is hugging your body close to him, until he lifts your face to look at him.

You could still see the crimson red blood stain on his nose when he wiped it, slowly turning into darker red, leaving him a dry blood stain.

"Please..." he begs one last time.

You just sighs. "...Fine, please take care of me..."

Finely kisses your lips as he held your hands as he harshly thrusts his hips, quite roughly. You have to admit, it feels good as the tip of his cock kisses your cervix.

You felt like your orgasms is approaching. Finely quickly pulls away from you as he is moaning while thrusting. He feels like a heated animals.

"I can't- please- I can't-" you moans as tears forming through your eyes. Your legs and thighs are shaking. The room is filled with echos of loud wet skin slapping.

PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP! PLAP!

"N-ngh! Aa-ah! T-That's good, d-darlin-!! N-ngh!! A-ahh...! K-keep d-doing that...! F-fuck!!" Finely groans as he grabs your thighs as he continues to shove his cock deeply in your walls.

Finely is turned on even more when he heard your cries and screams. You felt something squirting inside as Finely creams your insides as he fills you with his semen. You let out loud orgasm cries as your body is jolted like an electric shock. Your eyes and head rolls back. However, this doesn't stop Finely as he still continues to plunge your insides as you let out a scream.

"O-one more... darling... one more..." Finely panting like a wild animal in heat. He grabs one of your thighs as he toss it on his shoulder. He pulled you closer to him. You are trembling as you are tired. Your sides resting on the bed as you look horrified. This isn't the Finely that you've met in the gathering nobles party. He is like a completely different person.

"I-I need it! Aa-ah! Mmgh! Please! Darling!" Finely choked as he grins at you with his flushed cheeks and sweaty face. He seems dizzy... his blood is gushing down to his cock. He is hard... as he notices that his semen is dripping out of your hole.

No... he must keep going... it's a waste to spill his children. His head is feeling lightheaded as you notice that he is slowly grinds his cock into your hole.

He fell on top of you as you screamed for the maids and servants to take care of the Lord. Finely. His eyelids is heavy as his vision has become blurry. He could head the commotion, but your skin... is warm. He wanna hold you. He wanna touch your pregnant belly, just to feel the bump again.

Finely was awoken as he was lying on his bed with new bedsheets, changed into a nightgown, and already cleaned up. His nosebleed is gone. He smells like champagne scented as slowly sat up from his bed. His head feels wussy.

He almost forgot about you as he quickly turns to his side, just to see you lying down on the bed next to him with your eyelids closed. He brushed his fingers on your flushed cheeks. You're warm...

However, he is disappointed himself that he couldn't fill you enough for him. Maybe... next time. At least you're by his side.

He kisses your forehead as he joins you in bed as he hugs you tightly, not wanting to let you go. He couldn't stop imagining himself with his hands around your pregnant belly.

No one can have you. He only wants you for all to himself.

[blingblong55]

gaaahh I love your platonic TF141 x reader!! I was wonder if we could get some more, but for a Gn!Reader?

for context I find it hard to swap pronouns when reading, but if not that's fine lol!

and if you want, have some writing prompts!

-Southern!Reader gets drunk, acting like a fool, they're accent the strongest it's ever been, and TF141 is just "wtf are they even saying?"

-general shenanigans with Gaz and Reader, pranking ghost >:]

-SNOW DAY! the boys have the day off, and it ends up with a snowball fight, soap, ghost, and reader VS. gaz, price, and könig (yes I added him I am a simp for this man)

-Reader gets hit on in public, and 141 acts like big brothers + father and beat the crap outa whoever was unfortunate enough to pick on Reader

-DAD PRICE. just. him teaching Reader things, giving pointers, and being protective off-field

anyways sorry for the long ask! hope your doing well :]

Sweet Creature -141+König

ofc! I always try to make my readers comfortable when reading so never shy away for asking this!

This is a collection of moments your boys have been through with you...(there is mentions of an American reader, but if you please it can only apply to the first one.)

GN! Reader, Plantonic! Relationship

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

(I had to look up southern sayings so if this part doesn't make sense I apologize. (feeling too brit today..sorry))

After a much needed out in the town 141 had been deployed to, r/n decided it would be great to compete against Soap in a drinking game. Drink after drink, your once good basic American accent left your lips and was soon replaced with your souther accent. Price at first found it funny, until he couldn't tell exactly what you were trying to say.

Gaz: that was until I dropped it all

R/n to Ghost: That's 'bout as useful as tits on a bull, wouldn't ya'say?

Price: *chuckles* what does that even mean kid?

R/n: o' bless ya heart sir (apparently it means idiot,,,so don't come for me) y'dumber than a mule

*a woman passes by their table and Gaz starts checking her out*

R/n: look at him price, he's grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet tater

Price: seriously what does that mean?

Ghost: think they mean he looks like a dumb arse

Gaz stands up to try and talk to that woman

R/n: soap tell em somethin'

Soap: go get her tiger

R/n: No, no,,,you hold your horses now...she ain't even turn to ya and yo're hotter than hell al'ready?

Price: right...let's get you home r/n

R/n: I can take 'nother one....

Ghost: not today *he picks you up and off to base you go*

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

After an uneventful evening Gaz and r/n decided to annoy Ghost, a ritual Price had gotten used to, after Ghost came in to complain every week. Price would always discard them because he loved having his children smile and be young and happy.

There was one time where you placed syrup on his tea. Another time, you kept calling his phone, pretending to be some religious group, this went on for 3 months. One time you made him believe the whole base left him, you stole his phone and clothes, best believe you never saw the devil until that day.

2 weeks ago, Ghost was tricked into eating some expired MRE, that man got sick so easily, Gaz was tricked into taking the blame. Meanwhile you enjoyed some banana with soap as Ghost chased Gaz for 30 minutes, until you tripped Gaz and ran to price.

R/n: dumb bitch!*you ran so fast, soap swore it was you being chased*

----

This happened at 2 am, Ghost's room.

You and gaz know how much ghost hates dirty bed sheets. So you did this:

Gaz: r/n pass me the chocolate

R/n: why are we doing this again?

Gaz: its fun

R/n: how will this even work?

Gaz: it'll melt under his body and make it look like he shat himself

R/n: this is so cool

Gaz: shh

you two walked into Ghost's room, he was dead asleep, when he shifted to his left side, Gaz placed the chocolate near his bum, you two successfully ran out and waited outside all morning.

Ghost opens his door, anger flowing through him

Ghost: where are these little twats

That's when you and Gaz ran away to Price's office, he eventually caught up and complained to Price. (I'm picturing that office scene when Dwight and Jim are complaining to Micheal. Yes, the American one. )

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

This time the team was deployed to Switzerland, for everyone it all felt like home, spring and summer was quite lovely, that's until Price was told this deployment would be longer that expected. Winter rolled in, everyone was prepared for a harsh winter, except you, who had never experienced snow. You had told soap how every year when you're away from home, snow has hit hard, and that you had never seen snow in real life.

This had become a perfect opportunity for him to show you how much you meant for the team. So once he had told price about the sad story of yours, they planned an entire day out.

Soap: c'mon r/n its time for your surprise.

He bought you gloves and a scarf,( he knows how easily it is to get cold.) Once outside, you ran around screaming in delight. "This is awesome!" you said as you tackled soap onto the snow.

Gaz was the one who started the snowball fight. Price took his side. Ghost and soap took yours. Poor König was stuck in the middle, deciding who to join, until price dragged him to his side and that's when the fight seriously started.

(Picture that SpongeBob snowball fight)

Soap tripped multiple times, your face was covered in snow because you couldn't stop laughing at him. Ghost did most of the dirty work, he seriously took this serious.

He pulled you both down, "right, so while I get price, r/n you get König, he'll feel bad for throwing things at a midget and quit, gaz will soon give up, so soap he is all yours.

"That was mean man" you said but all he did was push you to the floor, where you got stuck for 2 minutes. He eventually helped you up and continued the fight.

Even though he was a trained soldier, König never threw anything at any of you, he was too afraid of getting anybody injured. Best believe this man walked out and waited until things became friendly. He eventually built a snowman. The same one soap ran through. "awh, my snow friend" he sadly spoke. (please imagine this with his cute little Austrian accent and his giant figure just looking down and picking up the sticks and hat from his snowman..)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

This time around you encouraged the team to go out once more. It was September in some other country. After years of working with your boys you never expected them to be your guard dogs. You went up to the bar to order your drinks, until two people walked up behind you and sat at the stools beside you. (I'll let ya decided on the gender ;) )

"What is a cute thing like you doing around this place" one spoke, while the other got too close for comfort.

" Look whatever it is..I'm not interested" you answered,

The guys know you're able to fend for yourself, after all they've seen you kill men with your bare hands, but you had become their little sibling. They all swore to protect you no matter how big or small your problems were.

"You're just here by yourself love?" the other said, while reaching for you.

Price tapped that persons shoulder, "leave them alone," as price spoke to them, soap took you and brought you to the other side. "You stay here, understood?" he cupped your face in his hand.

All you did was nod. "good" he walked away and the four men took them out the back. "you don't touch them ever, or else I swear you'll go back home in a bag" Ghost towered over them,

"this is nonsense, they aren't even good looking!" one said.

(this is very...manners maketh man...vibes )

Price swung and hit ones jaw, "you fuck!" they said holding onto their face. "run you pricks" gaz threatened. "Soap hand me your gun"Price never took his eyes off of them. Ghost took out on of his pocket knives, he caressed it and looked at them. Gaz did too, man would he defend you.

But before soap handed his gun to his captain they had ran out.

Once inside, you sat there. Starring at them with those kind eyes of yours. They immediately went soft. "Got your favorite drink, kid?"

"yes, can I asked what happened out there?"

"nope...after this we can get some McDonalds, that's if you never ask about this again" man was he good at deals you thought.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

(For this one I'll put you as a 23yr old, who specializes in hand to hand combat, and demolitions, as well as a training sniper, mainly bc i feel you need a little background.)

Price never understood how his colleagues could afford love for their kids. He didn't get how one little human would change their ways of being. That's until you arrived at base. Fresh off boot camp.

The day he met you, he understood why his friends back home retired after having kids. It went from him sparring with you, just to test your limits to making sure you were getting sleep, (this man for sure tucked you in)

"Sir, you're telling me that if I boil that liquid it will actually turn into a quality beverage?"

"How do I change my tire?"

"wait..how do I check for my oil?"

"price? are you sure I can go home? I don't want to be alone."

" can you please kill it? I'm scared man."

After teaching you from the most basic things in life a father should teach to what a military dad would teach, he grew fond of you.

Around December he found you roaming base, all alone. The rest of the team (except him ofc) was sent back home, to spend time with family and friends. Once you explain how you had no family to go back home to, he made you pack your bags and head to his. Funny enough, Ghost was already heading to his, it had become a thing between them.

He told you about his wife, how she wasn't able to conceive and how excited she was to met you. Later that week, she called you her child. You and Ghost had found a forever home with him. "These are my children." she proudly said to anyone who asked about the two socially awkward people standing next to her.

A week before Christmas, he took you and ghost hunting, that day he let you have a puff off of his cigar. "be careful now, don't inhale too much." he pointed at you, like he was talking to a child.

After the holiday, you were allowed to call him dad, pops when you were at his place.

Out at bars, he would keep you close. And when someone would clearly flirt with you, it was in him to remind you "no person will ever be good enough for you, understand kid?"

He even cracked dad jokes with Ghost and you. He made sure to update his family portrait from him and his wife to one of the four of you.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Tags: @thatonesimpyknow

a/n: I know It really long..but I hope you did enjoy it!

REQUEST ARE OPEN!!

[mindibindi]

No Place like Home...? 🌈

So what...Ted Lasso just goldfishes his way into forgetting about his big diverse found family so that he can return to humble, hometown heteronormativity? Look, I get that "be a goldfish" is a cute moment from s1 and an idea that has some (limited) practical value. But isn't it also emblematic of Ted's initial overly positive attitude which ultimately just served to ignore difficult emotions, interactions or situations? This is his big advice to his son and his parting words to his audience? Wasn't the whole point of his time in Richmond and his return to his son to establish and encourage an alternative kind of masculinity? One that expresses, not represses? One that deals with difficulty maturely rather than just avoids it? One that actively and ethically chooses rather than simply doing what's always been done?

Honestly? There was plenty of stuff about the finale that I really liked. Colin's kiss was the best bit. That godawful wedding moment the worst, for many reasons. But I'm unsure how to even read Ted's ending, and not in a oh-gosh-it's-so-rich-and-ambiguous way but in a whaaaa....???-this-is-not-consistent-storytelling-this-is-missing-the-mark-for-me kinda way. When Ted looks at the camera, are we supposed to feel happy for him? Happy that he is happy? Is it a happy ending? Is he happy?? He doesn't look happy. Or sad. Or content. Or much of anything really. He just looks kind of vacant. Which is how he looked most of the episode. The final game (which wasn't even the final game and I suppose they justified not showing it for "creative" reasons, okay, sure, whatever) was the only time he looked engaged, and even then it wasn't fully. Most of the time, he did look like a gaping goldfish with a 6-second memory.

When it was time to say goodbye to everyone, there was no sense of nostalgia for the past 3 years and no sense of those relationships continuing. There were no promises or assurances of visits or skypes or calls. Phones, planes and the internet suddenly ceased to exist (when they'd served him and Henry quite well up until then). While the corniest song choice ever played (yes! we get it! the sacred struggle of fatherhood! GAAAHH), one family was sacrificed for another because both couldn't possibly co-exist. Two things at once makes brain hurty. After all the good work they did around dismantling traditional models of masculinity, in the end they reinforced a version of masculinity which centred supposedly noble self-sacrifice rather than ethical self-actualisation, regression over growth and singularity over plurality.

Sure, it bookends the series poignantly, if predictably. And truth is, Ted leaving Henry was baked into the premise of the show from ep 1. It's actually a pretty big emotional leap to take with a character but, as the audience, we made that leap because we understood that this extraordinary move away from his son was necessary for adventure, narrative and growth to occur. In real life, this move would've been highly questionable (esp for a female parent). But we are in a fictional reality here so we are bound as well as freed by the rules of genre, character and narrative. Without Ted leaving Henry, there is no story. We also understand that Ted's adventures will ultimately benefit Henry, who gets a dad who is fully engaged, professionally challenged and supported by a community of like-minded peeps who think he's super cool. By sending Ted back (or at least sending him back in this way), it implies that there is no more story to tell, Ted's story is over, his growth is done. It robs him of further growth and adventure, robs his son of a happy and fulfilled dad and robs the audience of imagining future failures and glories all shared by an indefatigable Richmond FC.

The whole point of this show was to show Ted building a new life, home and family after the disintegration of his marriage. This marriage did not provide the space or opportunity for him to heal childhood wounds or expand as a man. He was a small man, living a small, limited, conventional life. Which would be okay, if he wasn't suffocating in the process. He needed to find a bigger pond. It's possible that Ted's panic attacks were not a sign that Richmond was unhealthy or overwhelming for him. It's possible that there, he could breathe for the first time in years, he had the time and space to feel his feelings, pay attention to his past pain, move up and out and onward. Are we supposed to believe after that 3 years away and maybe 1 of therapy that that's it? He's done now, all healed, squared away? What exactly has changed in Kansas to assure us that he will be any happier there than he was prior? Henry was there then too. Little has changed with Michelle. His mum delivered some food and guilt then left. The show hasn't spent enough time in Kansas to assure us of Ted's happiness or continued growth. Literally, all we know is Henry is there. And BBQ sauce. (And Michelle's boyfriend has turned into a dick suddenly, conveniently).

What we do know well is what Ted is leaving behind. A rich and challenging world, wacky and wonderful experiences with a diverse community, a loved and actively loving chosen family. So are we supposed to read this ending like "The Wizard of Oz" which has the most disingenuous final line in movie history? Yes, Oz has some dangerous territories and menacing figures (represented by Rupert etc). But Oz is also where Dorothy's friends, her found family are. Oz is in bright technicolour. It's surprising and bizarre and bright. It's larger than life and full of weird characters and unexpected episodes. Oz is where we all want to be, to live, to stay. Richmond is Ted's real life Oz. It's where we want to be and want him to stay, even if only in our imaginations. In the finale he says: "There's no place like home but there's no place like Richmond either" (or something similar, only watched it once). This implies that Richmond is not his home, that homes are just where you come from. Homes are not found or created or collaborated on together. They aren't malleable, moveable. They aren't out there in the wild, potential beyond. They are behind us always, defining us by our often sad pasts.

Again, this idea is entirely contrary to the premise of the show and the progress of its characters who banded together under Ted's leadership to create a home, a family, a community. Unlike Ted's small, conventional family unit, his found family is queer-coded (as all found families are, since they suggest an alternative to traditional nuclear family units based on shared biology but not necessarily values). Logical families are the family you find after you have been ejected from the traditional biological family unit. They are sought and created, based on common interests and mutual support. They are made up of people who are likewise separated from their homes, due to distance, circumstance, fracture, whatever. The home world is displaced, but it is still home (and all the more precious for it). In this case, the queer-coded found family of TL includes and celebrates LGBT+ folk (took a while for them to get there but eventually they did), women, people of colour and any man choosing to do masculinity his way. This is the environment the show set up. This the environment the creators invited us into. This is the environment Ted left behind.

Now, I do think there could have been a way for Ted to return to Kansas and Henry (but not Michelle) that would have been consistent with and faithful to this initial set-up and its themes. But that isn't what we got. Like Dorothy waking up to a dingy black and white world where there's nothing to do but talk to your dog about all the adventures you long to have over the rainbow, Ted's Kansas looks grey and dull and muddy. And Ted looks like he only half-remembers the most vivid and important things he's ever seen and done. "Be a goldfish" is a useful idiom for dropping baggage that weighs you down. If you burn your tongue on your coffee but don't wanna be irritated all day, then it works. It doesn't work for a scenario in which you need to deal with the reality that you and your co-parent/ex have carved out very different life paths. Simple, wilful ignorance is not a solution to the sort of complex family circumstances that grown adults face every day. Just forgetting the past 3 years and moving on like nothing ever happened does not in any way guarantee Ted's happiness or his success as a father. Attempting to find fulfillment through that one! special! person!! is unlikely to end well. Whether it's a parent, partner or child, the burden on them is unfair.

Ted's predicament is a huge one but it's also one that has been there from the very beginning. They had 3 years and 30+ episodes to resolve it satisfactorily, using all of the freedoms that fictional realities can afford. And yet, when Rebecca brings up the various ways in which she is willing to adjust to Ted's fatherhood, these suggestions are made to sound ridiculous, impossible and totally futile. But are they? Are they anymore outlandish than any of the other highly optimistic plot points they've gleefully included? Ted flourishes personally and professionally in this milieu. And had they made a move earlier in the series, Henry could also have integrated into it and benefited greatly from it. (He clearly enjoys the club when he's there). As Rebecca implies, Ted has the opportunity to offer Henry a richer, wider and more diverse view of the world than he would otherwise have. He would have access to a queer-coded community that includes and celebrates, experiments and strives. He would see his dad loved, celebrated and supported. This show takes some BIG optimistic swings. If audiences were able to make the emotional leap of accepting Ted leaving his son in ep 1, then they can probably be trusted to make the leap of him staying, esp. if the writers took the time each season to establish how they will manage their relationship and the benefits each will glean from such an arrangement.

After all, Ted is not one to back down from a challenge. Taking the job at Richmond was a bold and brave move. This is the same man who pledged to "win the whole fucking thing". This is the same man who looked Rupert Manion in the eye then promptly whipped him at darts. But when it comes to distance co-parenting, he's not even open to suggestions? No "I appreciate you" for the boss/bestie, just oh-so-sage resignation? Please. These writers set up this predicament then refused to resolve it in a satisfactory way. Instead, they reduced Richmond FC to a dream and Ted to a memory-challenged goldfish who flails about when faced with the reality of a pre-existing predicament of his own creation. He rejects the help of others who could actually provide real-world solutions. Nor does he seem to register the possibility of a mature relationship with a woman who wants him and connects with him. Instead, he chooses to forget, keep swimming, paddle backwards -- not onward, not forward. He has a big pool, a new home, a found family that represents human complexity and plurality. But he chooses the small, simple and singular. A traditional three-part family unit that was supposed to make him happy but never did. He had his little holiday jaunt in technicolour land, a fun lil detour into an expansive rainbow family community. He came in, tinkered about with some people's problems: gave a middle-aged woman confidence here, supported a sad gay there. But rainbow families are not just a temporary playground for white cishet dudes with a saviour complex to get their own admirable values reflected back to them. In the end, Ted's found family had something absolutely vital to teach him that he did not stick around long enough to learn.

[waitmyturtles]

Well — I can’t believe it’s over. Moonlight Chicken was… I’ll get the words for it. Satisfying is the first one that comes to mind. And MC was my first beginning-to-end fandom on Tumblr. The big brains, the META, the psychological and cultural analyses! I’m a peon in a sea of passionate geniuses here. I love this community so much.

Where do we start. Moonlight Chicken, episode 8/finale thoughts and impressions. As usual, quick hits first, then the big thinks.

1) So much wonderful fan service. And I know that fan service can often take a show out, and when fan service is included in a script, I’m sure that at times, it makes directors and screenwriters grit their teeth. But I’m REALLY THANKFUL for all the fan service with all the couples, and yes, I’m including First and Khao here, because — come awn, the way these two almost OVERACTED their relaxedness at the bank and the food truck at the end, I was giggle-crying. Had we seen Alan smile any bigger at any other point in the show than at the food truck? THE SWAPPING OF THE CHAT IDs? THOSE CUTE LOOKS? KHAO’S little head shakes? THE TURN AFTER RECEIVING THAT MYSTERY CHAT? THANK YOU, AOFFFFF, thank yoooouuuu! Thank you for knowing exactly what you were doing for us and our ships, ha.

A dear anon recommended My School President to me, and I’m gonna definitely watch it, because I’m officially a GemFourth stan. More on this later, but I absolutely adored that their storyline took up a huge chunk of screentime. Besides the storyline interweaving beautifully with the major theme arcs of this last episode, their chemistry just could not be better. It’s been well documented how Fourth has been EATING his role, but Gemini, too! The TEXTS! The knowing looks! How much Gemini is able to communicate just by looking at Fourth. SO SATISFYING AND FULFILLING, GAAAHH.

And, and, and — forgive me for being sentimental. Because I’m still so new to this wonderful world of Aof’s work and Thai BLs, I didn’t have to wait as long as so many of y’all in the family for Earth and Mix to reunite in such a good script. But I was still feeling the nostalgia early in the series at seeing these two together, and I felt it so strongly in this episode. Jim FINALLY breaking out of his shell. Calling Wen his boyfriend. Leaning in to make a move (on the wonderful couch). Holding Wen’s hand and squeezing it in response to Wen. Gah. Too great.

Just, like….. how are these GMMTV couples SO GOOD? HOW ARE THEY SO GOOD TOGETHER? (Yes, not quite accurate to call AlanGaipa a couple, but shhhhh.) Anyway, sighs of happiness.

2) LENG. Gossipy. Luv u. Sneaky b.

3) I know we kinda despise her (and by “we,” I mean all of my inner children who want to grab these guilt-stricken, “what do I do nowwwww” whine-whine parents by the throat), but umm, Jam’s a 10! She cute! I liked her mall outfit, I cannot lie.

Jam came full circle. She admits to her shit. She figures out how to come thru in the most sensible way she can. I’ll offer more thoughts in a bit, but I’m actually a little glad that we didn’t get the rage scene that I so WANTED to see in episode 7. She’s ready to pony up for school. That’s the best way she can help, and I’m glad she was written as figuring that out.

What did I see happen to Jam? She leaned into the kind of parenting and family building that she could manage at this point in her life. What she was CAPABLE of, she did. She created a family table for ALL her family. To show that kind of blended family, eating all together, at peace, with a small child in their presence…. to have created a warm environment where Jim could finally, comfortably come out without judgement. She replicated the same table that Jim himself had created at his diner. She’s paying her dues back to BOTH her brother AND her son, both of whom she rejected and abandoned.

I have to hand it to Aof. My inner child’s heart is wrecked at this, but I have to hand it to him. He treats bad parents with compassion. ATOTS, Bad Buddy, and now here. He doesn’t blame bad parents for who they ARE — he instead skewers WHERE THEY CAME FROM, the culture from which these styles of parenting are borne. God, Aof. That’s not necessarily emotionally purging for Asian kids traumatized by the unexplored impact of filial piety. But it’s much more of a realistic artistic meditation, a FAIR one. I see what he did with Jam, and I ultimately have to appreciate it, even if I was dying for a rage episode. I appreciate that Aof, as an artist, will not succumb to base emotion simply because it’s the surface feeling. He will always dig and layer what ends up truly working as an emotionally balanced meditation.

4) Big themes. Once again — a return to the balance between old and new cultures and perspectives, and how us oldies get pulled along into the new age. But also, in this episode, we were reminded of what youngsters bring with THEM, from THEIR pasts, into their future.

This episode focused on Jim’s movement and Li Ming’s movement. Oh, my heart. I’ll start with Li Ming.

Li Ming is really a hero of mine — I think what he demonstrates for me is that youthful FEARLESSNESS towards change that we admire youngsters for so much — while us oldie parents are also worried about them, we fear for them, because we know that there are potholes and pitfalls when change can happen quickly and blindingly.

I think that's what Jim was referring to when he says to Jam that Li Ming helped him (Jim) find his maturity. That was at the core of the night talk that took place in episode 7. I think Jim saw, in Li Ming, what Jim *needed* to see in Li Ming to trust Li Ming with Li Ming's own growth. Jim needed to see that Li Ming could consider his options, and be more emotionally sophisticated and aware than Jim ever has been.

And, I think -- that helped Jim TRUST Li Ming. That wonderful short conversation between Li Ming and Jim, where Jim confirms with Li Ming that Jim is just *worried* about Li Ming, like a parent.

When Li Ming says, "love isn't that big of a deal." When Li Ming talks about other ways that life needs to be sustainable.

Li Ming KNOWS Jim, and knows HOW TO TALK TO JIM.

How brilliant is that, to see that in someone so young, just dominate you, an older person, by way of emotional knowledge and sophistication? Jim had no choice, in my read, but to trust Li Ming -- and, maybe, take some inspiration and take that sophistication, and internalize it, so that he (Jim) could begin to relax and find happiness as well.

5) The other story about Li Ming's movement is between him and Heart, and as I said before, I'm just totally sold on GeminiFourth as a pairing, because their dynamic was really perfect for the growth that needed to be demonstrated between the two of them.

HEART! We saw Heart shoot his shot, dang it! HEART! With his wanting a boyfriend, with his parents learning sign language, with PEOPLE AROUND HIM LEARNING HOW TO TALK TO HIM. On multiple levels, even if we didn't see all of it actively (like with Heart's parents), Heart made demands and shot his shots, just like Li Ming did with his own family.

GOOD GOD -- could Aof have used this motif more wonderfully, so EFFICIENTLY? Young people get shit done! No holds barred, they can bolt through their own obstacles, their own barriers, to get shit done. Young people aren't held down by the past, like some old uncles we know.

And yet. Young people CAN ALSO RESPECT THE PAST, AND BRING LONG-STANDING CULTURE WITH THEM -- as Heart and Li Ming showed at the temple, as Li Ming danced as a lion, bringing in the Lunar New Year (FULL CIRCLE from when the series premiered, y'all!) AND THAT'S GROWTH. That's how the world spins, that's how Pattaya spins -- a place caught in the middle between the old and the new, the historic and the modern. Just like Li Ming and Heart, they are always growing, always maturing, and fast, like young people do, before they get stagnant-ish and older-ish, like Uncle Jim.

6) And then we see the growth paradigm with Jim, as reflected in the mirror of Li Ming. We see Jim -- finally -- loosening up. We see Jim come out as paired up with Wen to his sister. We see them on a date, a romantic date on the beach. (Sure, Jim is still an old dad, complaining about the food or whatever, geez, Jim.)

We see him close the old place, and open a new place. We see that new place as a new and modern way to hold over the old culture -- khao man gai, outside, under the stars, the way it's supposed to be eaten in an equatorial country.

I'm borrowing the following screencap from @hummingbirdsinjune:

We see Jim, finally, reflecting. We see him reflecting on how people were able to move forward, people like Jam and Gaipa, while he reflected on how he was held back. We see him figuring out how he won't hold himself back, and won't LET HIMSELF BE HELD BACK, anymore. He cancels the lease to let go. He, finally, wants to be in control. He sells the car, one of his last links to Beam. And commits to moving forward in so many ways.

And he stays in Pattaya. So we know -- he's still going to be connected to the old ways, the historic culture, of Pattaya.

And when Wen choose to decline the job. When Wen -- AND JIM -- decide to build a home together. Home isn't anything modern. Home is HOME. Home is history. Home is building history together. Jim is both leaving things behind.... and leaving nothing behind. Because he's building all he needs in his life once more.

The building of home with Wen. That's what ultimately took me out about this episode.

7) I believe I finally got the khao man gai analogy to the show that I long wanted before the show premiered. As with Jam's table at her husband's house, when the guys were sitting and eating at the diner before the diner closed. Jim's family, Jim's community. How food brings everyone together. That was a presage, I think, for the home he was going to eventually build with Wen. Y'all know I wanted this, and I'm so glad I got it. Yay, chicken rice.

I'm totally going to have more thoughts over the next few days, but this is what I got for now. I'm so in debt to Aof as an Asian fan of his dramas for giving us such unbelievable commentary on culture and family. We are INCREDIBLY LUCKY to have this artist making these shows. They are so important to me as an Asian, as a lover of my culture and Asian cultures, as an Asian child and mother also struggling with the balance of old and new values and cultural rituals. Aof's shows teach me so much, about extra- and introspection, and Moonlight Chicken was absolutely no exception.

[grunge-innie]

______________☆______________☆_______________

Talk too much [🦊]

Genre:fluff,blurb,established relationship

Pairings:Yeonjun x GN!reader

Pronouns:none

Warnings:one curse word,and slightly suggestive at the end

Summary:Kissing in the night,on a hammock,in a nature is everyone's dream,right(not just me?)

A/N:this is fully inspired by TALK X TODAY season 4 ep 9 so if you haven't watched it i recommend you do just for the better visuals and understanding.But you can ofc still read this without watching it,it's just a very comforting video for me.This blurb is inspired by a song Talk to Much by COIN,so I recommend listening to it while reading.Enjoy😊

________________☆____________☆_______________

After a very fulfilling and upbeat day it was safe to say that you were exhausted.

You see,the boys were swimming in a pool for the majority of the day and their upbeat and excited behaviour wore off on to you and other staff members.

You are mutual friend of these guys and you were very grateful that they decided to invite you to their little vacation,even though you wouldn't be able to talk to them as much bcs of the cameras.

After spending some time with Beomgyu watching him blow the balloons and seeing what Soobin,Hyuka and Taehyun were doing,you decided to check up on your boyfriend Yeonjun.

You weren't really sure where he actually was,so you were kind of just walking around with two cups of coke in your hands.You didn't mind walking alone though,because the night was so beautiful and it contrasted the vild morning and day that you had.

After some walking you finally saw a familiar head of black hair lying on a nearby hammock,camera pointing at him.

You approached the hammock from the behind,slowly putting cups down on the ground.

"BOO"You said grabbing Yeonjun's shoulders.

"GAAAHH"He screamed almost falling off the hammock."Oh it's just you"

"Yeah,who did you think it was?"You said crouching down and taking the cups of off the ground.

"I don't know one of those assholes."He said sitting up so he can make some space for you."Most likely Beomgyu"

"Nah,he's really calm right now,just blowing the bubbles in the corner"You said pointing a cup in his direction,which he gladly took with a silent thank you.

You two just sat there in a comfortable silence enjoying the scenery around you and your alone time without any cameras until Yeonjun saw you slightly shivering.

"You cold,sweetheart?"

"Kind of"You said rubbing your arms in an attempt to make yourself warmer.It seemed like you underestimated the cold summer nights.

"Here"Yeonjun said taking off his flannel and wrapping it around your shoulders.

"Better?"

"Yeah,but now you will get cold"

"No I won't"

"Yeonjun you are literally in short sleeves right now."

"It's fine,better me than you"He said sending an over the top wink your way,which made you punch his arm.This made him let out a dramatic groan and wrap you in his arms pushing you both into a lying down position,with you on top of him.

"Now none of us will be cold"He said kissing the top of your head.

"You're too much Junnie"

"I know"He said showing you one of his charming smirks,which made you raise your eyebrows at him.

"Oh,you know you love it"He said referring to his flirty persona.

"I kind of do."You said raising your head to look at him in the eyes.

"Oh,just kind of?"He said holding your chin in his hands and pulling your face closer to his,now speaking his word right next to your mouth,your noses touching.

"You talk too much Yeonjun,I want to see you in action"You said with a sudden urge of confidence in you.

"You want some action,alright,then honey put your lips on mine"

And put your lips on his you did,slowly moving them in the silence of the night,with crickets in the background.Yeonjun placing his hands on the back of your head and pulling you closer to him,like asking you for a challenge on who could hold on longer without oxygen.At the end you pulled back but still kept your face close to his.

"You still think I talk too much?"

"For sure"

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[shiningwonderland]

Syo Kurusu (Repeat)

Translator: Terry (Twitter: turtlemudge), Raz (Twitter: agnadance)

Editor: Snail (Twitter: herbert_snail)

December — Upbeat Dance

Last month, to convince Kaoru-kun to return home, Syo-kun and I pretended to be dating, but…

… I guess something about doing that has made me feel strangely self-conscious, and I've been unable to look Syo-kun in the eye ever since. 

I'm aware that it was just for show, of course, but… still… 

I thought he was about to kiss me… While that left quite an impression, I ended up realizing that if it was Syo-kun, I would probably be fine with that…

I can't help remembering that moment every time our eyes meet. 

I thought that I would stop feeling so flustered after a few days, but… it still hasn't stopped. 

I can talk to him, and it hasn't stopped us from working together normally… or so I hope, but then again I should probably be making eye contact when I speak to him. 

Syo Kurusu: Um, so… Haruka. About this month's—

Haruka Nanami: Y-yes! W-what is it?

Ack! I get so startled that I squeak a bit when I answer him. 

Syo Kurusu: Ah… well… Y'know what, never mind....

Haruka Nanami: …

Ren Jinguji: Hey, Icchi. What do you think that was...? 

Tokiya Ichinose: … What do you mean, "that"?

Ren Jinguji: Is it just me, or have things between the Lady and Shorty been a bit awkward lately? 

Tokiya Ichinose: I agree that there's been something strange between those two lately. You do realize that it isn't something we should involve ourselves in though, don't you?

Ren Jinguji: You're so cold. You won't get many fans that way. 

Tokiya Ichinose: I apologize if I seem cold. As their friend, I am concerned about both of them.  

Ren Jinguji: Then don't you think we should do something about it? As their friends? 

Tokiya Ichinose: … I truly think this is a situation in which outsiders shouldn't interfere. If we get mixed up in it, we may only complicate things further. 

Ren Jinguji: There is that, but it depends on how we handle it…

Tokiya Ichinose: … What are you getting at? 

Ren Jinguji: Heh. You just sit back and enjoy the show. 

Tokiya Ichinose: You're such a pain.

Syo Kurusu: Uh so! About the Christmas dance…

Haruka Nanami: ??? The Christmas dance…? 

Syo Kurusu: Yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to…

As Syo-kun is speaking, Jinguji-san comes over, slipping right next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. 

Ren Jinguji: Yo, Lady. Have you chosen your partner for the Christmas dance? 

Haruka Nanami: … It's a dance party…? 

That's right, Syo-kun was about to say something about dancing…

Ren Jinguji: Yeah, it's the Christmas event. Male and female students pair off for ballroom dancing. 

Haruka Nanami: Um… I… I've never done that kind of dancing, so… Um… I don't really think I can…

Ren Jinguji: Oh, really? In that case, let me show you. 

Saying this, Jinguji-san wraps an arm around my torso. 

Haruka Nanami: U-um…

Ren Jinguji: Your hand goes here. 

Haruka Nanami: Eh… uh, okay…

As instructed, I place my hand on Jinguji-san's shoulder. 

Ren Jinguji: Bring your body closer… Close enough that you could bury your face into my chest…

He pulls me firmly towards himself.

Haruka Nanami: Ah, you know… actually…

Ren Jinguji: That's it. Just keep your eyes on me, Lady. 

Syo Kurusu: Gaaahh!! Let go of her, you womanizer!!

Syo-kun gets between me and Jinguji-san and pulls us forcibly apart. 

Syo Kurusu: You!! 

Haruka Nanami: Yes, sir!! 

Syo Kurusu: Don't give him an opening like that! Or actually, from now on, don't go near him ever again!! 

Ren Jinguji: Hmph. So that's what you're going with? What right do you have over her? It's not like you're her boyfriend or anything.

Syo Kurusu: Shut up! This has nothing to do with you!

Haruka Nanami: Syo…kun?

Syo Kurusu: I just don't like it when I see somebody all over you.

Ren Jinguji: You're being a jealous child. How about you be a man and tell her that you like her?

Syo Kurusu: Shut up! That's not… what I mean… Don't lump me in with you!

Syo Kurusu: Romance isn't the only meaningful connection between people! 

Syo Kurusu: Stop making this all about dating! She's…

Syo Kurusu: She's my one and only, irreplaceable partner. There's no one who could ever take her place!

Syo Kurusu: I care for her. I will protect her with my own two hands.

Syo Kurusu: That's why I don't want her to get close to people like you. Got it?

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun… I also care about you.

Select the Phrase!

パートナーだと思ってます。 I think of him as a partner. (+10 Love +5 Music)

Syo Kurusu: Haruka… you think so, too?

Haruka Nanami: Yes! You're my valuable partner. No one can ever replace you.

Syo Kurusu: I see… Sorry for yelling earlier.

Haruka Nanami: No, it's fine…

Syo Kurusu: I don't hate Ren, but I know how many girls he's made cry…

Syo Kurusu: I don't ever want you to cry…

Ren Jinguji: Wow, that’s harsh. I’m an ally to every woman. That’s why I can’t settle on just one.

Ren Jinguji: I just think the little lady is very cute. I would never steal her away from her knight and make her cry.

Syo Kurusu: If that's what you really think, then be careful about how to approach her! You're going to make her freak out! Sheesh…

Ren Jinguji: I felt like messing with you because it's so frustrating to watch you two. Why not just be honest with yourselves…

Syo Kurusu: What are you spouting off about…

Haruka Nanami: ???

Ren Jinguji: I see, you two still don't understand, do you? Well, take your time. I'll be watching from the sidelines.

大切な人だと思ってます。I care for him. (+20 Love +0 Music)

Haruka Nanami: You are my idol who is dearer to me than anyone else.

Haruka Nanami: I want to do my very best with you from now on.

Ren Jinguji: I see, you two feel the same way about each other.

Haruka Nanami: ???

Ren Jinguji:  It's fine. Taking it easy has its own appeal.

友達だと思ってます。I think of him as a friend. (+0 Love +0 Music)

Haruka Nanami: Um… so… He's not my boyfriend, or anything. I just like him as a friend…

Ren Jinguji: A friend… That's a convenient excuse. Oh well, that's fine, I guess…

Later that day after school…

We enter the recording room and start practicing, but for some reason, I still feel awkward around him.

We stare at our music sheets without uttering a word for some time…

Syo Kurusu: Um…

Syo-kun opens his mouth abruptly.

Syo Kurusu: So about the dance party that Ren was talking about this morning…

Haruka Nanami: Yes?

Syo Kurusu: Well… do you have anyone to dance with?

Haruka Nanami: Huh? Ah… um… I… am very bad at dancing… I think I'd just cause trouble…

Syo Kurusu: You can just practice!

Haruka Nanami: Yes, I know, but…

Syo Kurusu: Then… how about I dance with you?

Haruka Nanami: What…?

Syo Kurusu: I'm… your partner, after all… Also, it's a prince's duty to look after his servants.

Syo Kurusu: I'll teach you how to dance, so… um… don't dance with anyone else…

Syo-kun… Could it be that he had been trying to invite me this morning?

Haruka Nanami: Yes, sir. I will do my very best.

I bow my head in a humble manner.

Syo Kurusu: Great! I'm a strict teacher, so get ready to break a sweat!

His words are stern, but he grins from ear to ear.

Select the Phrase!

はいっ！Yes, sir!  (+5 Love +5 Music)

Syo Kurusu: Alright! Better keep up!

優しくしてください。Please be gentle with me. (+20 Love +0 Music)

Syo Kurusu: G-Gentle?! What are you saying…

Syo-kun's eyes shift nervously. Maybe trying to teach gently is difficult? But…

Haruka Nanami: In any rate, I know nothing because I've never done this before… I would like you to teach me step one…

Syo Kurusu: From step one? Gently…?

Syo-kun looks like he's thinking very hard about something.

Haruka Nanami: Yes… That's why… I would like you to teach me the beginner course!

Syo Kurusu: Course…? Okay, I'll do my best to teach you.

Haruka Nanami: Thank you!

厳しくお願いします。Please be strict with me. (+5 Love +5 Music)

Haruka Nanami: I don't want to cause you trouble during the actual dance, so please be as tough on me as possible!

Syo Kurusu: Of course! That's what I was planning from the start! I would expect nothing less from my servant. You've got guts!

Haruka Nanami: Yes, sir!

Syo Kurusu: First, I'll teach you waltz. You know the tempo of a waltz, right?

Haruka Nanami: Uhh…

Select the Phrase!

2拍子です。2/4 timing. (+0 Love +0 Music)

Syo Kurusu: You silly. Waltz is ¾ timing.

Haruka Nanami: Ah… I see…

3拍子です。¾ timing. (+0 Love +10 Music)

Syo Kurusu: Yes! It's ¾ timing! Great job!

He rubs my head.

When he praises me, I get so happy and feel like I want to try even harder.

4拍子です。4/4 timing. (+0 Love +0 Music)

Syo Kurusu: You dummy. Waltz is ¾ timing. That's obvious!

Haruka Nanami: Ah… Is that so…

Syo Kurusu: Sheesh. Your grades may be good, but you’re lacking in other places.

Haruka Nanami: I'm sorry.

Syo Kurusu: I'll show you the proper way of doing it first. Try to do the same after watching me.

He starts doing the steps in front of me.

Syo Kurusu: You have to make clean steps. First, you step from your heel, and gracefully lower your foot starting from your ankle…

Ah… he's so cool!

Syo-kun is short but has good posture, so even when he is just walking, his movements are very precise and beautiful.

Haruka Nanami: So, like this…?

I try to move the way he taught me.

But something's off. He made it look so easy, but when I do it, it's completely different.

Syo Kurusu: You're exerting yourself too much. The tips of your toes are also facing outwards. Loosen up a bit.

Syo Kurusu: One, two, three. One, two, three. Like this!

Syo-kun stands right by my side and teaches me by placing his hands on me.

Haruka Nanami: Umm… One, two, three. One, two, three.

Syo Kurusu: Yes, like that! You can do it if you try! And… when we're dancing, don't think of us as prince and servant, but as prince and princess.

Haruka Nanami: Me, a princess…?

Syo Kurusu: That's right. Princes dance with princesses. I've never heard of a prince dancing with his servants.

Syo Kurusu: So since you're my princess right now, you better dance gracefully like one!

Haruka Nanami: Yes, my prince!

I… I'm a princess… I need to do my best!

Syo Kurusu: Okay, we're going to dance together now. Here…

Haruka Nanami: ...Okay.

He holds his hand out to me. When I place my hand on his, he pulls me to him.

Syo Kurusu: Hey… Grip my hand properly.

Haruka Nanami: Y-Yes…

Syo Kurusu: Also… if you don't get close enough to me, you won't be able to read my dance cues.

Haruka Nanami: L-like this…?

I step closer to him and press my belly against his.

Syo Kurusu: Yeah… but you have to get even closer… Yes, you have to be this close.

Haruka Nanami: Um…

Select the Phrase!

ドキドキします。My heart's pounding. (+20 Love +5 Music)

Syo Kurusu: Wha?! What are you talking about… Your heart's pounding?

Haruka Nanami: Can it be that you're feeling the same way, too?

Syo Kurusu: Huh? Ah… No! I've never felt that way in my life! Ever!

He blushes bright red and stammers. I hear his heart throbbing from our chests that are pressed against each other.

ちょっと恥ずかしいね。This is a little embarrassing. (+15 Love +5 Music)

Syo Kurusu: D-don't say that. This is just practice, so… there's nothing to feel embarrassed about…

Syo Kurusu: …

Haruka Nanami: …

I become self-aware and my face flushes.

顔・・・近いね・・・ Our faces are so close… (+5 Love +5 Music)

Since our heights are similar, our faces have ended up very close to each other's.

Syo Kurusu: Y-you idiot! Don't say that! Ahh, geez!

Bright red, his steps become a little uneven.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

My heartbeat and his heartbeat start accelerating. 

Syo Kurusu: Hey, Haruka… Look up. Don't look down…

Haruka Nanami: O-Okay…

The moment we make eye contact, my heart makes a loud thump.

Without missing a step, our faces go beet red and our hands heat up…

Syo Kurusu: Ugh… ah… Haa… haa… ha…

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun…?

Syo Kurusu: I'm fine. Don't look at me like that. I can keep going. I want to dance with you a little more.

He pulls me in by my waist even tighter.

Syo Kurusu: You… can relax more… Leave it all to me.

Haruka Nanami: O-Okay!

Ah… It's so easy to dance. Syo-kun is leading me so I can dance easily.

He has a good sense of rhythm. Every move he makes is sharp and unique to him.

Instead of forcing it out, he adjusts to his surroundings and knows when to make the right move.

He's still trying to accommodate me, but he brings out his best moves when he can.

I don’t think he does this consciously; this comes naturally to him.

I can feel this is Syo-kun's unique rhythm.

This is a chance for me to take inspiration from this feeling and put it in song.

I feel like I can make a song that can really accentuate his charm…

I want to feel more of him… his beat…

Syo Kurusu: Yeah… I think you've gotten a lot better. You have a good sense! That's what I like about you…

Syo Kurusu: Your songs… your rhythm… they feel good. I want to sing them forever.

Syo Kurusu: Forever and ever… I want to keep dancing with you, but…

Syo Kurusu: Ugh!

Syo-kun grimaces sharply, backs into the wall and sits down.

Syo Kurusu: Haa, haa, haa…

His breath is shallow… He's in pain.

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun… A-are you okay? Should we go to the nurse's office? Or should I call the ambulance…?

Syo Kurusu: No, don't call them! This isn't a big deal!

I sit by Syo-kun's side and hug his shoulders.

I can't be of much help for him but I still want to support him.

But…

Syo Kurusu: Urgh…!

Syo-kun stands up.

Syo Kurusu: Sorry… I'm… going to cool off.

He runs outside.

Syo-kun… Is he… really alright? I'm so worried…

After that, Syo-kun frequently becomes ill when we practice dancing.

My heart hurts every time I see him clutching his chest with a pained look on his face. I don't want him to overexert himself and suffer.

The dance for the school festival will be different… but I'm still worried.

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun… This is too much. We need to stop.

I stop dancing in the middle of a lesson.

Syo Kurusu: Why? I'm fine.

Haruka Nanami: I know that you're fighting through the pain as we dance…

It's okay for us to not attend the Christmas party. Please, let's stop.

Syo Kurusu: Don't say that. I… want to attend the party with you…

Syo Kurusu: We're only in this school for one year. I want to make as many memories as possible. I want to live with no regrets!

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun…

I want to make memories too, but I’m worried that he's going to push himself too far…

On the day of the dance party, I  suddenly get called to the principal's office.

Haruka Nanami: Um… Did I do something wrong?

Shining Saotome: Hahaha… You're still fine, for now.

Shining Saotome: BUT it'll be too late if something were to happen, so I'm warning you now. That's because I'm very VERY nice.

Shining Saotome: Romance is against the rules. I know you already know this, but Mr. Syo is especially off limits.

Haruka Nanami: Why is that…?

Shining Saotome: Mr. Syo's heart is like a bomb. It's dangerous for his heart rate to accelerate.

Shining Saotome: Idols are always subject to pressure.

Shining Saotome: Who knows what will happen if you add lovey-dovey feelings in there. Be extra careful!

Haruka Nanami: Lovey-dovey… feelings…

Shining Saotome: Be extra careful if his face goes bright red or his heart starts throbbing like crazy! Avoid that at all costs!

Face going red… heart throbbing like crazy…

That has happened a lot whenever we’ve practiced dancing…

Select the Phrase!

わかりました。 I understand. (+0 Love +0 Music)

Haruka Nanami: I'll be careful!

Shining Saotome: Hahaha, good girl, good girl!

He ruffles my hair.

はいっ！ Yes, sir! (+0 Love +0 Music)

Haruka Nanami: Strenuous exercise and exhilaration… I'll be sure to avoid them as best as I can!

Shining Saotome: Hahaha! Do your best!

・・・ … (+20 Love +0 Music)

If… something happens to Syo… Just thinking beyond that causes my legs to tremble on the spot.

I have to stop his heart from racing…

I should stop us from dancing together tomorrow…

What should I tell him…

It's the day of the dance party.

Everyone has come to the party dressed glamorously.

I also am wearing a dress, but I don’t feel like dancing. I stand alongside the wall and watch everyone from afar.

Syo Kurusu: Haruka! There you are! Geez, I've been looking everywhere for you!

Syo-kun waves his arm and runs over to me.

Haruka Nanami: I'm sorry…

Syo Kurusu: Um… That dress looks good on you. I thought you were someone else.

Haruka Nanami: Thank you… You look handsome, like an actual prince…

Syo Kurusu: R-Really? I'm not used to these clothes so I'm just a little nervous…

Haruka Nanami: …Is your heart racing?

Syo Kurusu: Huh? Ah… yeah, a little bit…

His face is red…

His heart is a bomb… and… lovey-dovey feelings…

He was suffering so much even as we practiced. If we dance in a place like this, he'll…

Syo Kurusu: Come on. The song changed, so this is a good time to start dancing.

Syo Kurusu: And um… today's a special day… so take my hand, my princess.

Syo-kun straightens up and holds out his hand.

But….

Haruka Nanami: I'm so sorry… I can't dance with you.

I don't want Syo to suffer anymore.

I can't bear to watch him make that pained expression again.

Syo Kurusu: Why? We practiced so much…

Haruka Nanami: Because your heart races…

Syo Kurusu: Huh? What're you talking about?

Haruka Nanami: You suffered so much even when we practiced. If we dance right now, your heart won't take it.

Haruka Nanami: The principal told me that I mustn't put any more burden on your heart because it's dangerous…

Syo Kurusu: So?

Haruka Nanami: Are you angry?

Syo Kurusu: Yeah, I'm angry! You'll stop because it's dangerous? That's just running away.

Syo Kurusu: There's nothing gained from just running away. If there's a mountain, climb it. If there's a wall, go over it.

Syo Kurusu: If you give up before you start, that's the same as death. I won't stand living like that.

Syo Kurusu: We don't know when we'll die. That's why I refuse to back down. I'm living right here, right now!

Syo Kurusu: I'm going to make the most out of my life and keep living. I'll do every single thing that I can and make my mark in this world. 

Syo Kurusu: I want to cherish this life because I don't know when it'll end!

Syo Kurusu: I want to dance with you! I want to see more of your smile! So come with me, Haruka!

Syo-kun pulls my hand and runs.

He pulls me in and leads me with a strength that is unimaginably strong for such a small body.

He really is a man…

My heart starts racing.

Will his heart start racing if he were to hear my heart beating?

I get scared when I think about that.

Syo Kurusu: Don't look down. Look up. I'll be okay!

Haruka Nanami: But…

Syo Kurusu: It's fine. Believe me!

Haruka Nanami: Okay.

Syo Kurusu: Good!

He flashes the brightest smile I've ever seen from him.

His lead is powerful and graceful, and his movement is refined down to his fingertips.

It's as if he has become one with the music and I feel so good.

My heart is becoming one with Syo-kun and the music.

Female Student A: Ah, look at those two!

Female Student B: Wow… How wonderful!

Syo-kun's dancing is so graceful and polished that everyone around us starts sighing from admiration.

I can't believe I'm dancing with someone as skilled as him…

Syo Kurusu: Hey, don't look away. Look only at me.

Haruka Nanami: Okay.

Syo Kurusu: This is really nice. I love dancing with you. It feels great!

Haruka Nanami: I also love dancing with you.

Syo Kurusu: Listen up. You're mine for the rest of your life. Never ever dance with anyone else.

Haruka Nanami: Syo-kun…?

The music stops and we end our dance.

We take a pause and then…

Syo-kun hugs me tightly.

Syo Kurusu: In exchange, I'll always be by your side. Be with me always, right here with me…

Syo-kun whispers into my ear.

Haruka Nanami: Of course.

I don't know what will happen from now on. I think his heart is going to race more frequently if we're together.

But I will continue supporting him… right by his side.

The party ends, and Syo-kun and I walk towards the dorms.

Syo Kurusu: Ahh! My shoulders are stiff. I guess that's what happens when you wear clothes like these.

Haruka Nanami: Yeah… I agree. But I had a lot of fun!

Syo Kurusu: Yeah… I got to see you in a dress… and you were… very pretty.

Haruka Nanami: Th…Thank you.

Syo Kurusu: Umm… I want to tell you something.

Haruka Nanami: Tell me what?

Syo Kurusu: Umm… You don't have to be my servant.

Haruka Nanami: Ah… so this means you're firing me?

Syo Kurusu: Huh? Uh, yeah… You're not helpful at all. You're an absolute clutz. Heck, I end up taking care of you most of the time… 

Haruka Nanami: I'm sorry…

I didn't know that I was causing this much trouble for Syo-kun…

Syo Kurusu: You idiot… Why are you making that face?

Thump.

Syo-kun lightly taps me on the head with his fist.

Syo Kurusu: What I mean is… you've been promoted from being my servant to being my princess.

Haruka Nanami: Princess…?

Syo Kurusu: Meaning… I'll date you. There, I spelled it out for you…

Haruka Nanami: Date? Me and… Syo-kun?

I'm so incredibly happy that I can’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes and overflowing down my cheeks.

Syo Kurusu: H-hey. Don't cry! Does that mean… you hate me?

Syo-kun looks into my face, flustered.

I shake my head.

Haruka Nanami: I'm happy…

I tell him my feelings as best as I could.

There's so much I want to tell him but I'm crying so much that I couldn't form words.

Syo Kurusu: Erg…!

He hugs me.

Syo Kurusu: Hey, that face is too much to handle… You're too cute!

He loosens his embrace and looks into my face.

Syo Kurusu: Haruka… I love you.

He leans into my lips…

This isn't acting. This is real… a real kiss.

Syo Kurusu: Nn…

After giving me a brief kiss, he gazes into my eyes again.

Syo Kurusu: I won't let go of you for the rest of your life. Brace yourself.

Haruka Nanami: Okay.

I won't ever let go of him. I want to be by his side forever, and ever, for the rest of our lives…

Mini Game

Ryuuya Hyuuga: Hey, Nanami. Sorry for calling you here. I want your opinion on composing.

Ryuuya Hyuuga: Here are some unfinished lyrics by a student. They're still stuck on what to write.

Ryuuya Hyuuga: What kind of phrases would you put in while considering the melody? Can you pick some out of the choices?

Ryuuya Hyuuga: Just approach it the same way as you did with the previous lyrics test.

Ryuuya Hyuuga: However, nothing's finished so there isn’t really a right answer.

Ryuuya Hyuuga: In this case, think about what would feel right here… Nah, it's fine.

Ryuuya Hyuuga: Are you ready? Time to get started!

S RANK

Syo Kurusu: I was surprised. You and I think the same way. We must have the same kind of sense… Birds of a feather!

Haruka Nanami: Maybe we are!

It would be nice if we are. I would be happy if we have the same music sense.

Chapter End

[rotting--scientist]

*a particularly cold snowball spikes subspace in the back of the neck...*

GAAAHH!!! WHAT THE HELL??? It's not winter season yet, you know??!!

[ as he shouted angrily, Subspace looked behind him . ]

[fixfoxnox]

I forgot to yell about Roach letting go of Simon and AHHHHHHHHHHH

I Was crying, got concerned looks from my grandma aksing if I’ve broken up with someone and Nana let me tall ya something LET KE TELL YA SOMETHING

This hurts more than a break up, I am HURTED BEYOND HURT and the line “We’ll meetagain soon”

Cant help but imagine Ghost rememering everything from his past life (if sito 2 does take place) and just dropping on his knees CRYING because he did some stuff he’s not proud of in the past because he thpught Roach had the hearts for his then 1 boyfriend and he kissed soap and did all romantic shitin front of Roach who is just so upset thatGhost pays him little to no mind at all—he hurt roach so much in the past OH GOD HE LEFT HIM CRYING AT SOME POINT TOO

Anyways how u feelin Luke? Cant wiat for assasin roach gaaahh

I'm telling y'all, its gonna be so fucking depressing if these other boys ever get their memories back from the first life. Like genuinely a bunch of tears and distancing themselves, and trying to figure out how to handle their memories.

That beginning part with Simon I cried while writing, especially the part where Roach talks about all the pictures he's taken in his new life and how his and Past! Simon's relationship was defined by "should have's" because it just shows how much he's changed and how far he's come to be able to actually recognize those things shdjdbdj ah I'm so sad over them

Feelin' good and anxious babes, I've been working on lots of different stuff. I have an ultranationalist Roach drabble to drop later today, a Makarov POV thats over half way done, the beginning of the Dragon AU written out, and the Assassin AU I'm supposed to start on this weekend 🧍lots of writing to do sjdnjdjdjd

[yourbestpalpercy]

More of the last post because I have more ideas

“Pal….”

What…?

“Pal.”

Is..someone there…?

“PAL!”

“GAH-!” Pal sprung awake from unconsciousness, sputtering and coughing. Kacy was standing beside him, looking worried.

Kaaa…Kacy..?

“P-Pal..! Thank g-god- goodness you’re alive..!” Kacy looked like she had just been crying, hugging Pal tightly despite his clear distain.

Wh-What happened..?

“I-I-I don’t know..! You suddenly hung up during our call, muttering some random things-! A-Are you okay? I-Is your leg okay..?”

My..leg..? Y-You worried about my leg?! What about my damn glowing eyes?! That’s not a cause to WORRY?!

Kacy stepped back from the shout before shaking her head. “Pal..after the event, please tell me you went to the hospital.”

I-I don’t need to! I told yo-!

“But you did! Your right leg would’ve healed and been back to normal within a month or two and now look-! All that extra moving and putting pressure onto it had put it into a state where they had to amputate it!”

Amputate- y-you don’t even..-!

“But I do…! I lost my finger to a table saw. Remember? It’s nowhere near as bad as your injury but I know what I’m talking about.”

Kacy finally took a breath, calming down with deep breaths. Pal’s eyes still dripped with the substance that seemed to permanently stain the bed with it’s toxic glow.

“Pal…are your eyes okay..? Th-The doctors said that it’s, as you said, a parasite of sorts. It’s..not radioactive though despite the glow.”

….Why would my eyes be okay..? I can barely SEE KACY! FUCK- whatever I can see is like I’m still looking through that STUPID MECH’S GLASS! It’s all computery..! My voice is computery-! I’m like a machine-! OF COURSE I’M NOT FINE! I’m not okay! I’m…so…tired…

I feel like I’m shutting down…resetting.. entering power save mode..! Kacy- I don’t like this…! I-I want to see Nick again. I hate myself for what I did and it burns to know I did it-! I hurt my pal..and for what- because HE DECIDED TO WORK AT HIS DREAM JOB?!

So WHAT IF I DIDN’T COME ALONG-?! GAAAHH!!!

Pal was about to continue on when Kacy wrapped her arms around Pal tightly, stunning him.

Ghhhnnn…?

No words were spoken. Everything was silent except for the soft beeping of the heart monitor. O-Oh…Pal hadn’t even…realized it was there. Guess it really was bad…

Pal stared out before gently hugging Kacy back. The substance dripped onto the ground, acting as true tears for once. Pal began to sob, his soft whimpers filling the room.

……Tell Nick….I’m so..so sorry

[sseanettles]

nothing grows in corpses (in the earth of me)

dream x hob gadling | mature | Finally cross-posting my take on the fandom classic of the show progresses as the comics do, even to The Wake. Until Death resurrects Morpheus and forces the choice of "redemption" upon him instead of suicide. It goes...horribly. No good. Very bad. Instead of learning the lesson, Morpheus (in his infinite wisdom) opts instead for a highly effective existence strike until one day Hob Gadling stumbles upon his ghastly handiwork and immediately decides that this just won't do. Man Who Refuses To Die vs. Man Who Refuses To Live: fight.

Dead Dove, Do Not Eat for the following: graphic depictions of starvation, illness, suicidal ideation, self-harm, blood and gore, loss of autonomy, etc. etc. This is some classic old world whump, folks! But I promise it's also supremely healing in the end.

CH. 19: hope | 4.8 k | AO3 link | prev part | final part

(or: the one where the lesson is finally, finally learned.)

“Jim!” he yelled and tried to drag himself forward as his husband reached back for him with fingers that tugged weakly at the earth before giving up. “Come on,” he grunted but knew it was in vain. “Come on!”

It was always in vain. The ice box had landed atop the back of his knees, robbing him of the leverage he needed to kick it off; the weight of the rubble across his shoulders was heavy enough to prevent him from turning at the hips to push himself free. In fact, it was heavy enough that in about thirty minutes, his thrashing attempts to free himself would bring more debris tumbling down upon him in a brutal avalanche, and it would crush him into the earth until his heart ran out of room to beat.

He knew this. He always knew this, every time.

“It’s okay,” Jim whimpered and gave him a watery, reassuring smile with lips that were steadily turning red as he watched Hob fight to no avail. “It’s okay, love….”

“No! I can—I can do this, just—gaAAHH!”

He knew he would dislocate his joints trying to break free instead of listening to what his husband had to say to him in these final moments. He knew he would claw at the earth until he drove stones and metal deep beneath his nails trying to get closer.

“It’s…it’s all okay…”

“No, Jim, look at me! Look at me, love, come on! Stay with me!”

He knew, no matter how he strained, he would never be able to grab hold of Jim’s outstretched, sailing-calloused hand. He knew that the last thing Jim would see, smiling at him through his own fearful tears all the while in an attempt to make this okay—it was not okay, it would never be okay—was Hob’s sobbing, anguished face as he stretched as far as he could and came up just a finger’s width short.

“I…I love you,” Jim had sobbed in the end, trying valiantly to hold that smile, to hold that love in his eyes even as they darkened.

“Don’t. Don’t, don’t you dare, don’t you dare!”

The sobs turned to bloody chokes and then finally to those dreaded gasps…and Jim’s weakly reaching hand went slack.

Why didn’t I say I love you back?

WHY DIDN’T I SAY I LOVE YOU BACK?

“Gadling,” a voice distantly called, a voice that did not belong. “Come away from here.”

It’s okay, he returned, even as he let out a heart-rending cry and screamed for help that would not come for hours. Let them come. Let me see them all over again…one last time.

He rocked on a resplendent bed—the finest one money could buy with the softest sheets and mattress (even if it was hell on his back, because Eleanor loved soft things, and he had all of time to have the kind of bed he liked)—now covered in the blood of failed childbirth. He wailed into his wife’s cooling neck with his hand fisted in the back of her dark, sweaty curls, her pregnant belly still and heavy between them. Robyn, Robyn was outside, he knew, and he should not be hearing his father like this. He should be stoic and solemn and bear the loss with a stiff upper lip.

“Gadling…” Morpheus said.

Let me have them. Let me love them.

“Ellie,” he sobbed, pulling her as close as he could, pulling them both as close as he could, trying to make them safe within himself. “Oh, Ellie, no, no, no—”

Something tugged at him, Morpheus’ distant voice pleading, and he slammed into the edge of a physician’s table, catching himself as his knees gave out beneath the wracking force of redoubled sobs.

“Not this one,” Morpheus pressed from where he watched the scene in the corner of the room. “You need not relive this one—”

Allow me my grief, Stranger! I need my grief!

Robyn. Robyn, his boy—his brave, loving, stupid boy—lied before him, run through the heart in what the doctor promised had been a quick death. The last of his family, the last of his Eleanor, gone, and not of the old age he had prepared himself to witness but of something so stupid, so juvenile, so wasteful. A duel: what had he been thinking, did he not understand that life was precious, Hob wanted to throttle him, he….

He picked up his son as he had once picked up his mother and cried and cried and cried as the physician bowed from the room.

Morpheus had gone gray, gaunt with the empathy of a father who knew this pain well.

“How do you live with this?” he asked, unable to look away from the horrid memory. “How do you live with these pains?"

 Grief is human, Hob’s voice murmured, permeating the air around them even as he continued to sob and cry over his son. Necessary.

Morpheus watched Sir Robert Gadlen rock his child, watched him ease him back to the table and follow him down. His head rested atop the still chest and listened for a heart that would never beat again as he brushed his fingers through his boy’s hair and cried.

Hob stood behind his own self, watching.

My grief is the proof that I loved. Hob met Morpheus’ eyes without speaking aloud from over his own quaking shoulders. And that I love, still.

And when Morpheus still stared at him in disbelief, he gave a small, marveling huff.

“These aren’t nightmares to me, friend,” he said aloud with a tired, faint smile. “They’re just the memory of dreams.”

He stepped back, pulling Morpheus in his wake like an undertow, and the once-Endless fell to his knees, his mouth parting in a wounded gasp as he saw where they now stood.

It was the Dreaming. And it was a funeral…the one funeral he could never attend.

Hob Gadling stood among beings older and more powerful than he, turning about in bewilderment and mounting grief.

“Hang on,” he was saying, dressed in his ragged fare of their first meeting, so ill-suited for a proceeding so grand. He looked to all of them, begging someone to tell him otherwise. “The Dream-King. He’s dead?”

Bast closed her eyes rather than meet his beseeching gaze and bowed her head.

“He’s dead,” Chiron confirmed as he solemnly descended the stairs. “Yes.”

Gadling could only watch the centaur as he walked slowly to meet him, the great mentor of the Greek heroes, figure of legend and tales for eons past and eons to come: a being nearly twice Hob’s height and certainly twice as broad. And as Chiron arrived before him, Hob saw the truth. In his ancient eyes, there rang no lie.

And so, he did the only thing he knew how to do as the helplessness and despair welled within him to bursting. He charged Chiron with a grief-stricken roar, fists swinging, and Morpheus rushed into the dream himself as Hob struck and hit with all the effectiveness of a child to a towering tree.

“He can’t be dead! You’re LYING!” Chiron grabbed the insolent human by the wrist and then the shoulder, hauling him clear off the ground as he continued to yell and kick and hit. “It’s not TRUE!”

Powerful arms locked around him, pinning him in place as easily as if he were an infant, and the air filled with rain as he sobbed and hung from Chiron’s embrace.

“I’ll tell you what!” his voice echoed through the storm, chasing after a man who would not be caught. “I’ll be here in a hundred years, and if you’re here, too, it’ll be because we’re friends! And no other reason, right?!”

Rain turned to sleet turned to snow, and a shadowy visage of himself and Morpheus took shape amid the flurries around them, speaking words that made sense now far too late.

“—learned to pick up on, it’s the smell of death. I mean, it’s almost like a real smell. You sniff it on a bloke and two weeks later he gets his throat cut in an alley,” Hob was saying, so close to truth and missing it all the same. “And mate, you stink of it. I worry. You take care of yourself.”

Morpheus had smiled at him. He’d smiled at Hob, and Hob bared his teeth and redoubled his struggle against Chiron’s arms as he allowed himself to fall to the nightmare’s pull and hurt transformed to rage.

“Thank you, Hob,” Dream had lied, that smile on his face. “I shall.”

“You LIAR!”

The mighty arms gripping him from behind thinned and grew familiar. The ground returned beneath his feet. 

“YOU GAVE UP!” Hob bellowed, bucking against Morpheus’ embrace as the other man held him close, hiding his face in the meeting of his neck and shoulder. “HOW COULD YOU GIVE UP?!”

He grabbed Morpheus with all intent to rip himself free, but as soon as he felt him, real and warm beneath his touch, his temper cooled. Fawney Rig’s influence withdrew like curtains from a window until only the grief remained. Only the displaced love that now finally, finally had somewhere to go. Hob pressed his head to his friend’s with a quaking breath as his knees began to buckle, and Morpheus followed him down like a shroud.

“I never gave up,” he whispered with a sob and clung tighter to his friend as he felt Morpheus’ still-living breath on his skin. “I never…how could you? How could you give up on me?”

The black of Morpheus’ robes swept around them in a consuming swirl, and they pitched into drifting nothing.

“Because I destroyed worlds,” Morpheus murmured, his voice reverberating through the void of himself. “I coveted their hope and happiness for myself without a thought for those I robbed to attain it.”

The screams of a universe going mad rent the air. Planets burned, systems imploded, stars went nova far before their time, and at the center of it all stood the little girl with the blue skin and the red triangle upon her forehead, smiling so kindly and sweetly and reaching her hand to them. Her visage burned and folded in on itself, and the old woman with the graying hair and the lovely smile stood in her place. A golden annulet glinted upon her finger as she held her own bloody heart out to them with a kind, understanding smile. Crimson poured down her chest from the ragged wound her own wrenching hands had made in sacrifice, until she too, disappeared. In her place was left the girl with the rainbow locs and eyes that were so much more somber than her age, old and hard with a righteous anger.

Calliope and Hippolyta’s screams as they fell amid the eviscerated remains of their children, their shrieks of Oneiros both damning and begging, echoed behind the triumvirate. And as Nada plummeted to the only freedom left to her from a mountainside, doomed to reformation and violation at the Endless’ uncaring hand all the same, Morpheus moved to pull them away, to hide in shame.

Gadling held him firm. And as Nada hit the ground, Morpheus found himself drifting deep beneath the surface of a lake, watching as a dim figure thrashed in its dark depths and screamed until there was no air left to scream and yet wailed still. He was bound hand and foot with shackles that refused to break and fastened to a heavy stone that must have required multiple men to move. But around him, there floated hundreds more dead, all of them African, and they stared with vindicated eyes as Hob Gadling drowned in an eternal hell. Far above him, past the distantly glittering surface, Gwen watched him suffer from the sunlit world, damning, hardened. And though he screamed and fought for life because he could not keep his body from its instincts, his eyes as he beheld them all were accepting. 

Deserved, their calm said. This was deserved.

The water drained through the silky lakebed in a smashing slam, and Morpheus landed upon a gruesome battlefield. The bodies slain beneath his feet belonged to no single era or walk of life. They were anyone and everyone, spanning even ages.

A solitary, surviving figure walked toward him across the butchering ground that drowned in blood and the dead, a claymore that dripped in kind drawn at his side as he went.

…A grim, selfish reaper clad in Hadean armor who walked with Gadling’s step and stature.

“Haven’t we all?” he returned.

“I let down those in my care,” Morpheus pushed back, “I failed to protect them. All because I was tired.”

The Dreaming’s carnage at the Furies’ and Hippolyta’s avenging hands razed Hob’s battlefield into one Morpheus knew deeply. His Dreams and Nightmares alike laid dead and dismembered around them, and he tried not to look at the butchered mass he knew to be Fiddler’s Green.

The eldritch beasts frolicked about the kingdom while Morpheus rotted away in his own dungeons, and little Delight’s mind fractured under their irreverence until only Delirium remained.

Nuala stood before him, crying as she held her boon aloft, begging to know why…why did he make her play this role in his death? How could he, didn’t he know that she loved him?

Of course, he did. That was, after all, why he had done it.

The final moments of countless dreamers filled the space around the little fae in a unified moment of finality, flickering out atop each other like candles at their ends, and Morpheus struggled to understand what was happening until he caught sight of a common soul through them all. The altar from Gadling’s home loomed large in the form of a mausoleum wreathed in ivy and shadows, crafted this time of bones, of cairn stones and pyre wood and time-weathered tombstones.

“You are not alone in that my friend.” 

The doors creaked open on a dying breath, and upon its central tomb, at the heart of Gadling’s house of grief, lay the stone effigy of Lord Morpheus.

“How could you give up on me?” 

“Because I needed to change,” Morpheus whispered. “I could not be one who wrought all that pain anymore.”

“And you couldn’t do that yourself?”

“I am immutable,” Morpheus snapped, the weight of hot, self-loathing tears lacing every syllable. “I am Endless, what I am is what I shall always be, there is no changing my facet—”

“Bullshit,” Gadling spoke. “I just saw it myself—your kid sister changed. Heard talk at the funeral that you had a brother walk away from it all. I’ve seen enough faces of Death to know she has multitudes.” He paused, damning and sure. The black about them, about this temple of homeless love, sparked with color and lights that flickered away, and the scent of blade oil and the unknowable followed in their fading wakes. “So, I ask you again: how could you give up?”

And there, standing in the face of Gadling’s blistering honesty and the heart of his loss, of their two souls fully bared, Morpheus found he could not summon forth a worthy answer.

“You are not alone in what you’ve done,” Hob promised again as the monument to undying love rippled away into blackness. “You are not unworthy of change, and dress it up however you like but suicide is not self-love.”

The writhing dark fluttered back like great wings, like a passing shroud, and deposited them once more upon the cliffs of Naxos without ceremony, grace, or warning. Hob stumbled through his sprawl, only just keeping his feet under him, and spun in a sharp circle as he hunted for any sign of the dreaded temple. He found none, but the Dreaming was not happy around them, or at least, Fawney Rig was not. The skies were dark and roiling with a banshee-like wind kicking up, and the Nightmare’s borders seemed closer than they had been at the start, distorted and losing their shape as they collapsed steadily inward.

Seconds behind him, Morpheus arrived only to let out an anguished cry.

“If I am not alone in it, if I am not unworthy, then tell me why I always end back here!”

Hob turned and found his Stranger once more braced like a wild, drunken man at the end of his rope.

The prison of Orpheus’ head again claimed his hands like Gadling’s drowning stone.

Hob pressed his palms over his face with a groan, and he crouched down with his weight sat back on his heels and tried to think. 

With nothing else left to him, Morpheus fell to his never-ending cycle for the innumerable time, pulling with the little strength he had left and only growing more tired the longer he struggled in vain. The storm worsened by the minute until Fawney Rig groaned and screamed around them, the territory shrinking down and cannibalizing itself beyond the borders of this one cliff rise. They were all that was left now: just Robert Gadling, Fawney Rig, and the one Dreamer they could not seem to get to confront his demons. Hob squinted through the border winds as he saw the outline of Dream of the Endless, his robes whipping around him in a frenzy as he stood in observation without raising a hand to preserve the Nightmare’s fabric. They held each other’s eye through the chaos, and he heard the Dream Lord’s intention as clearly in his head as if they were speaking face to face.

This must happen. It was always written so, and he would do nothing to intervene.

“Please,” Morpheus begged his son’s mangled head as he collapsed in surrender, utterly exhausted. “Please, not this. Not again, I cannot do this again.”

Hob stumbled against the twisting winds that buffeted him in seemingly every direction to drop to his knees before his friend. He planted his hands on Morpheus’ lap, pinning him in place much to the other’s alarm.

“Stop running!” he called over the storm.

Morpheus shook his head, wild. “I cannot.”

“Yes,” Hob nodded, just as exaggerated back to him. “Yes, you stubborn prick, you can!” And without asking for permission or giving chance for argument, Hob gripped Orpheus’ head alongside him and guided him to look up at his father. “I know you’re tired, I know,” he said as Morpheus tried to pull away, and he held him fast by his hands. “So, stop running. Dig deep, come on.” He waited until the man looked back to him…and, finally, to his son. “At the very core of it all, what is there?”

For a time, Morpheus said nothing, refusing to dive into those two little words that had haunted them since they began.

“…So live,” he finally whispered.

“Yes,” Hob said. “What did that mean?”

Morpheus gritted his teeth. His expression screwed into one of disgust, of hate and pain that wrenched cruelly back around into gnawing, relentless grief.

“When…when Eurydice died on their wedding day…Orpheus came to me. Afterward. He asked….” Morpheus closed his eyes, tugging against Gadling’s hold in a gentle, persistent back and forth that settled into a twisted sort of self-soothing sway. “…He asked me to approach Hades on his behalf. To reclaim his wife’s soul.” He forced himself to bear his son’s unblinking stare. “I refused. That refusal led him to seek his own way to Hades, and…” He stopped, and Hob watched him breathe his way through the pain of memory until he could once more speak. “And what is told in myth came to pass.”

The winds howled and screamed.

“They tore him apart,” he managed, and his voice shook apart into sobs of the deepest empathy, “and still he lived.” 

Christ. Hob held him tighter, gripped Orpheus’ curls and his father’s hands in the same sickened seize that left all three of them melded into one. Christ, Christ, bloody Christ—

“Until…” The tears began to stay, his breaths steadying, and Hob’s heart skipped at the numbness he saw settling into the other man’s eyes, the cold lead of it that filled his bones and sank him down to the ocean floor within him.

…that despair that drove so deep that little remained to feel at all but its bite. 

“...until I ensured he lived no longer.” 

Hob’s eyes flinched shut, and he leaned to meet Morpheus, catching his heavy head upon his collarbone as he stared with that mounting numbness into his boy’s dead, mutilated face. Hob kept his hands fixed to the lad’s skull, refusing to leave his father to bear its weight alone.

They stayed that way for a time, their heads pressed to each other’s in steadying comfort amid the maelstrom. But as the winds continued to mount, screaming all the while with voices long gone, Hob forced himself to withdraw. He nuzzled his Stranger’s head as he went to guide their eyes to meet, and Morpheus followed him readily, longingly—seeking after him for any contact he could. Hob gave him a moment, let him come back to his senses and himself, before pushing on.

“What is so live?” he gently pressed.

Morpheus swallowed a few times and conjured his final confession.

“It was what I told him…when he came to me to ask the favor. I told him that he was mortal, and as such, mortal lives ended.” Hob’s eyes glistened, and Morpheus tried to unfocus his eyes, tried not to see his child in his hands. “The only thing he could do was to mourn his wife, to attend her funeral…love her and release her and know that her loss would linger with him always, though it would lessen as the time passed.” He paused. Hob’s hands squeezed his in steady comfort against Orpheus’ skull. “At the end, I told him, she is dead. You are alive. So live.”

Hob swallowed and barely found his voice once more beyond the lump in his throat.

“That was uncommonly kind of you, my friend.” He moved one hand to Morpheus’ shoulder, squeezed as tightly as he dared, and smiled softly through the grief. “I am sorry your son didn’t know how to hear you.”

“No,” Morpheus shook his head in sharp denial, his voice gumming in his throat. “No, it was not what he needed to hear—”

Hob switched his grip to the back of Morpheus’ neck, wincing as he painted him in Orpheus’ blood, and guided him to meet his earnest eyes.

“Yes,” he insisted. “It was. It just wasn’t what he wanted to hear.”

Morpheus looked into Hob’s eyes, those graveside shots of whiskey, and let his solemnly spoken truth sit in him like a stone.

So live. So live, so live, so live, so live.

The man who killed himself beheld the man who refused to die, and he recalled their final meeting in a previous life. For a moment, he imagined a world in which Gadling had truly confronted him on the stench of death that followed him, on the premonition he had that his Stranger was about to do something stupid and that this was the last time they would see one another. He imagined Gadling trying to extol him on the wonders of life, trying to talk him out of his pain and grief with platitudes and greeting cards and vague poetic nonsense that did nothing to address his very real and present anguish.

So live would have been laughable.

And he realized in a sickening jolt that he could relate to Orpheus’ struggle…to not wanting to hear his own words.

And he realized why his son haunted him so.

Redemption or death, the Kindly Ones had offered him. And he…he had chosen. Despite the wisdom, the philosophy, the truth of existence he claimed to espouse, he had chosen.

“I…” He stopped, afraid, and Hob carefully released him.

“That’s it, Stranger,” he said and shuffled back, keeping on his knees, until he was sure the man had enough space. “Stick with it. Come on.”

Morpheus looked from Hob to his son with a level of anxiety that would have been comical in any other circumstance, and Hob nodded to him in encouragement as he struggled to articulate the answer he had found. His chest rose and fell in unsteady cadence, and he swallowed as he met his son’s lifeless eyes where they watched him above his hand’s imprisoned strike. He now knew the words. But to speak them….

Hob Gadling watched him with all his heart’s love glistening in his eyes, and Morpheus stepped off the edge of a towering pillar of earth into free-falling nothing.

“I am sorry I did not live,” he whispered, and something in his chest cracked wide open, flooding his lungs with an almighty hurt. “I am sorry I am refusing to live still.” His voice wavered, and he spoke the final truth, the words biting out of him in self-hatred for their admittance, in hatred of everything that had come to pass, of everything that had led to this moment, and especially of his own folly at the center of it all.

“I am sorry I did not choose to live.”

In an almighty release, Morpheus’ hand pulled free. He tumbled back with the force of it, his child’s head toppling from his grasp as he went, and he clutched his arm to his chest as he landed in a breath-starving bang. It dripped with viscera and brain matter that oozed through his fingers and spattered him like rain, and…

…and slowly turned to golden ichor and stardust.

Orpheus sat before him where his head had fallen: whole and well and watching his father with loving, pain-stricken eyes.

After a time, he stood, and he paused with a sad, sympathetic smile as Morpheus flinched from him. And with the same grace his father possessed, with the same quiet intensity and his mother’s love in his eyes, he approached the man who killed him.

Morpheus watched him come: hardly daring to breathe, his chin quivering, his eyes shining. And he closed his eyes with a spilling of tears as his son reached wordlessly for his bowing head. He was okay with this ending. He could end like this, knelt before his child, in perfect symmetry. It was okay. It was all….

Orpheus caressed his father’s face with a touch as gentle as a little boy’s, and Morpheus’ eyes flew open, his breath paralyzing in his chest. His son’s fingers passed to cradle the angle of his jaw, and he tipped his father’s tear-tracked face up with a cautious delicateness until their eyes met. Morpheus reached for the folds of his himation, uncertain at first, and then gripped the white silk as tightly as he possibly could, not daring to let him go.

Not again.

There came a moment of silence, of quiet beholding.

Then, Orpheus began to hum. He hummed the melody that led Eurydice from the Underworld, the melody he performed at their wedding, the melody impossible to hear and live to recall. And as Morpheus gazed upon his child and silently wept beneath his serenade, Hob Gadling sank back on his heels, unaware of the tears falling from his own eyes. The sound…stars above, Orpheus was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, and he almost cried out in relief as two hands slipped over his ears from behind him, turning the song distant and muffled. And now, the trance gone, he wept harder to see his Stranger, his dear friend, in such rapture at the end of it all. He reached for the hands and gripped their wrists in vicious comfort, and he smiled through his tears as he recognized the wrapped, gem-embroidered gauntlets as Dream’s.

As he recognized the salt-kissed skin as Jim’s.

As he recognized the embroidered hems of heavy, billowing sleeves as Eleanor’s.

As he recognized the small wrists of his littlest Robyn.

He leaned back into Dream’s legs, surrounded by the little ghosts he let walk on with him, his heart lighter than it had been in an age. The Endless took a step closer and caught him as he came.

Orpheus bowed to kiss his father’s head, his hummed song accompanying him all the while even though he had stopped singing himself. Morpheus still clung to his robes, crying in earnest, and Hob wept for him still, the hands of all his past loves and past shames upon him in well-loved company as he watched. Fawney Rig was unfurling from the beast it had twisted itself into, restoring its crater to a valley in a cathartic maelstrom of a release that tore and pulled and pushed, and Hob raised his hand to shield his eyes as he felt himself caught in the riptide. The father and son stood untouched at the center of it all, and this was the eye of the storm—

Morpheus gazed into his child’s face as the blessed kiss withdrew on an ending world.

And Orpheus, with his beautiful voice and godly face and his gentle musician’s hands still cradling his father’s head, gave his parting command, his final sagacity.

“So live.”