#I feel like this is overly complicated but at the same time she does have to figure this stuff out

[dreamersparacosm]

jeon jungkook - off the record (part two)

part two ; top secret arrangements

warnings ; none! (unless you count oc threatening murder about 293939 times as something that warrants a warning.)

prompt ; in which you’re paired with your insufferably charming ex-academic rival turned coworker to cover a congressional scandal, and suddenly, professional boundaries becomes the only thing holding you two apart.

note ; greetings my loved ones! ah yes, another part that i deliriously edited at 3am bc my corporate job sucks the soul out of me <3 anyways! all your comments on the last part were so sweet and i appreciate every single one of you. MWAH.

this chapter is fun — we learn about oc’s family dynamics, watch her threaten murder a few times, even get to see her ambush an unsuspecting press rep. you guys are oh so lucky to be fed. and you’ll remain full because i just ran the calculations and… next chapter is nearing 15k words

playlist here

series masterlist here

“Have you talked to your boss about your promotion timeline?”

Your mother’s voice crackles through the speaker, overly crisp and awake for this hour. She always sounds like she’s calling you from inside an interrogation room, even though you know she’s sitting at the kitchen counter in her robe, nursing a mug of instant coffee with one slipper half off her foot.

“No,” you sigh, balancing your phone between your shoulder and cheek as you try to zip your pants. “Not this week.”

“You said that last week.”

You groan out some animalistic noise. “Moooom.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues, undeterred by your sound effects, “these things don’t happen unless you advocate. You’re not a college kid anymore. You should be thinking about upward mobility, and your brand.”

She says mobility like she’s delivering some pathetic TED Talk in kitten heels. You make a face at your closet door and tug on a button-down that still smells faintly like the press room.

For all her perfectly cynical practicality, your mother has always reminded you of a bloodhound — relentless, sharp-nosed, and born with an uncanny ability to sniff out fear or any hesitation you try to disguise as composure. She’s the type of woman who taught herself how to file taxes on a borrowed library card and once negotiated a hospital bill down with nothing but a polite smile and the threat of local media.

She’s not cruel. She’s just focused. And being raised by someone like that, someone made entirely of high standards and survival skills, means you learned early that love can sound like a to-do list.

You grew up in a two-bedroom apartment with six feet between the couch and the kitchen. Rent was a monthly feat. Every leftover was frozen, labeled, and scheduled for a future meal. Your parents stretched paychecks like rubber bands and made “making it work” a sport. Maybe it wasn’t glamorous, but it was honest. Your mother didn’t believe in luxury, but she did believe in work and never, ever wasting potential.

So, of course, she calls every week. And evidently, she asks the same question every time.

“Are you working hard?”

You deadpan at your reflection in the mirror as you swipe on concealer. “Always.”

“Are you doing your best?”

The mascara wand in your other hand shakes a little. “Is there any other option?”

There’s a moment of silence. Then, her own exhausted voice: “You sound tired.”

The nerve.

You let out a small laugh. “It’s the White House, Mom. We’re all tired.”

Unimpressed, she hums. “Just don’t let anyone outdo your work.”

“I know that, Mom.” Really, you do. Does she mistake you for some fool with an Ivy League degree?

“We know you do. Quick reminder though.” She references your father quickly. The relationship between them has grown complicated, you’ll be the first to admit it. However, your desire to analyze the ins and outs of two people with avoidant tendencies feels like the last bullet on your list of priorities.

You stare down at your phone like it betrayed you. “How is Dad, by the way?”

“Good.”

Another agonizing second of silence.

You pinch the bridge of your nose and inhale through it. “Cool. Do you need money?”

It comes out sharp, but not unkind. It’s muscle memory at this point.

Ever since you started this job — also coinciding with when your apartment started having more than one window — you’ve asked her this every time she called. Sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end, but always without fail.

Do you need money? Are you okay? Do you need anything?

It’s the ritual you’ve carved into every phone call, a breadcrumb of care disguised as annoyance. She never says yes. Always waves you off, tells you she has enough, tells you to save. But asking makes you feel like you’re still doing something. Like you’re still useful.

“I’m fine,” she says now, predictably. “But thank you.”

You press your lips together. Nod to no one. Nearly knock over one of the many awards on your shelf while you shuffle around the bedroom.

Pulling your hair into a low, half-hearted bun, you glance at the time. Shit. Somehow it’s 8:50 AM again and you’ve given more time to this check-in than you wanted.

“Gotta go,” you say, grabbing your press badge and keys. “Talk soon?”

She makes a noise that sounds vaguely like approval.

“Be smart,” she chastises. “Be faster.”

And then, thank God, she’s gone.

You exhale. Look down at your phone. Try not to think about how expectations weigh on you like a slab of concrete.

Whatever. That’s a lot for a Wednesday morning.

By the time you get to work, the humidity has already declared war on your hair, your Celsius is sweating in your hand, and you’re pretty sure the inside of your flats have decided today is the day it slowly starts to detach just to humble you.

You swing into your usual hallway with a nod to the security guard who never remembers your name, badge swinging off your hip like a stressed-out FBI agent in some HBO drama.

Like every morning for the past few months, you find Emma already at her desk, hair twisted up in ponytail, glasses on, earbuds in, typing like the building is on fire and she’s the only one with a hose.

You plop down next to her, all theatrical effort and long-suffering sighs.

Nothing.

It doesn’t even earn you a glance.

“Good morning to you too,” you mutter, unwrapping your breakfast wrap that you snagged on the way in. “In today’s breaking news: the cafeteria is advertising something called ‘Tuscan Bean and Egg Wraps.’ Thoughts and prayers.”

Still nothing.

You lean toward her, waving the food like a white flag. “Do you think ‘Tuscan’ just means they dump a can of white beans into a tortilla and hope for the best?”

Emma blinks, looks up, finally clocking your existence like you’ve materialized out of thin air. She pushes one earbud out and glances at your breakfast. “Do not project your poor food choices onto me before 10 AM.”

“Bold of you to assume this has anything to do with choice.”

She snorts, pushes her glasses higher. “Eat your sad wrap and suffer in silence.”

“You have no empathy.”

“Correct.”

You settle in, taking a bite and immediately regretting it. There’s a faint remnant of bean paste. Why is there bean paste?

Emma’s already halfway through what looks like a policy brief and a media prep outline, and you find yourself watching her out of the corner of your eye. She’s been getting here earlier lately. A little too early. You’ve noticed it; how she’s always already seated when you walk in, coffee half-finished, eyes glued to the screen like the world might fall apart if she looks away.

You could ask her about it.

You want to. You’re good at asking things on paper. Sometimes though, with your friends, it's never the right things. The things that might mean someone has to ask back.

So instead, you pick the safer option.

“So…” you say around a mouthful of regret wrap, “Monroe and Delgado, huh?”

That gets her attention.

Her eyes flick to yours, and for half a second you think you see it. A flicker of something. Interest. Irritation. Annoyance?

“You heard anything else?” You ask casually. Like you weren’t up until 1 AM refreshing Twitter and trying to decode leaked parking lot footage like it was the Zapruder film.

Emma shrugs. “Same as you probably. Everyone’s scrambling. It’s a mess.”

You nod. “Jenna’s losing her mind. She thinks it’s going to blow wider.”

There’s a momentary pause again. God, you’re really starting to hate these silences people in your life keep inflicting upon you. You go back to dissecting your wrap.

Then, Emma muses, “So… you think Jenna’s gonna put you on the press pool?”

You briefly peek over at her. “Probably. She hasn’t said anything official yet, but she made comments the other day.”

Emma blinks. “Like what comments?”

“Wanting to send me since I’m apparently intimidating? Whatever that means in Jenna’s language.”

She hums, eyes flicking back to her screen. “Well. Would make sense.”

“You sound thrilled for me,” You raise an eyebrow.

“I am thrilled,” she says, tone even. “Who wouldn’t want to spend a week attached at the hip to every misogynistic correspondent on the Hill?”

You pause, mid-chew. “I’m choosing to believe that was sarcasm.”

She avoids eye contact. “Believe whatever gets you through the week.”

Leaning back in your squeaky chair, you stare at the ceiling. “If I do get picked, I swear to god I’m packing tranquilizers.”

Emma doesn’t respond right away, just goes back to typing slower now. Subtlety simmers beneath her usual calm, but she masks it well.

You mutter something about needing another energy drink and whether Tuscan Bean Wraps are a sign of punishment, and Emma’s now moved on, two sentences deep into her reply to a senator’s communications rep, hands steady, mouth pressed in a straight line.

Something in your soul feels the need to disturb her peace again.

“I mean, obviously I’m honored or whatever. Yay, journalism. But also.. Jungkook.”

Now that intrigues her. She looks up again, brow raised. “You two gonna kill each other if you get chosen for the press pool again?”

“Unclear. Depends if he tries to mansplain joint bylines again.”

She smiles at that, pearly teeth unveiling themselves. “God, don’t let him outwrite you.”

A scoff leaves your lips, “Please. He’s still mad I beat him in college. He’ll implode before he gives me the last word.”

Emma turns back to her screen, but there’s a fleeting moment in the way she exhales. Not jealousy, really. The kind of thing you’d never catch unless you were looking for it.

You’re not. So you don’t.

You just keep eating your terrible wrap, think about your tasks for the day, and pray to god the lunch options are better than breakfast.

Outside, the city hums with noises through the one tiny window the rest of your team cracked open before you got there.

You’ve always loved Washington.

You came here for the first time when you were fourteen, cramped on a yellow school bus with your debate team and a $20 bill your mom told you not to lose, and it felt like stepping into something cinematic. The marble, the flags, the constant buzz of ambition in the air. Everyone here had somewhere to be and something to prove, and you remember thinking how do I get in?

You weren’t the loudest kid, or the one with the shiniest shoes, but you were intelligent. You had a hunger most people couldn’t see, the kind that made you rewrite arguments three times and memorize congressional committee names like flashcards. You didn’t come from legacy. You didn’t have connections. But that just meant you had to work harder.

Washington never made you feel small, not even when it tried. It made you feel like you could stretch yourself until you became something unignorable.

Which is why, when Jenna breezes into the room like she’s delivering news from Mount Olympus, you sit up just a little straighter.

“Morning, queens,” She sing-songs, coffee in one hand, iced green tea in the other, sunglasses still on despite being very much inside.

Emma perks up immediately. “You’re unusually chipper. Did something explode?”

“Exploded in our favor,” Jenna grins, handing you your coffee without asking your order. She hasn’t asked in over a year. She shows up with the perfect, soul-saving, too-expensive iced oat milk latte situation like a fairy godmother in a tailored pantsuit.

“Be honest,” you begin, eyeing her suspiciously. “You only get like this when someone quits, gets canceled, or calls you brilliant.”

Jenna sips her drink like it’s the blood of her enemies. “Guilty.”

Emma’s chocolate brown eyes widen. “Spill.”

Jenna shrugs off her coat, places her iced green tea down, drapes said jacket on the back of your chair (rude), and leans against your desk with the energy of someone about to ruin your life with a statement.

“There’s movement on Monroe and Delgado,” she clasps her hands together excitedly. “Source confirmation just came in. We’re about to be a few days ahead of the rest of the nation.”

Your stomach tightens, but you keep your face neutral. “That’s great.”

Here it comes.

“It is great,” Jenna nods, popping the lid off her green tea. “Because it means the press pool is going to heat up fast.”

Emma raises an eyebrow. “And who’s going?”

Jenna glances between you both, grins deviously “Oh, her. Obviously.”

Your heart betrays you, skipping a beat with phantom excitement.

“Me?” You point at yourself as if there’s anyone else she could possibly be referring to. Suddenly, the bean and egg wrap taste feels lodged in the back of your throat.

“Who else would I send?”

Emma doesn’t say anything to that at first. Just slumps a little lower in her chair, like her spine suddenly forgot what good posture was. It’s subtle. But if anyone were watching closely — which you aren’t — they’d see it. The slight downturn of her mouth, the way her fingers hover over her keyboard.

“Literally anyone,” you retort immediately. “A well-trained intern. A potted plant. A ghost.”

Emma chokes on her saliva, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

Jenna laughs, although you’re not joking. “Relax. You’re the best we’ve got. Also the only one scary enough to intimidate the other networks out of quoting us without credit.”

Emma’s back is upright again. Mask back on.

“Flattering,” you mutter, taking a long, bitter sip of your iced latte like it’s going to protect you from what’s coming next. “Who else is going?”

You actually know exactly who else is going. The name is flashing across your frontal lobe in neon lights.

Jenna shrugs, like that’s a you problem. “Check the list outside. Should be posted by now.”

“Cool,” you cross your arms over your chest. “Super helpful. Really loving the clarity.”

Jenna taps your desk twice before snatching her green tea off your desk. “I’m gonna go steal someone’s yogurt. Be amazing.”

And then she’s off, gliding through the room like she didn’t just drop a career-altering bomb in your lap.

You sit there in stunned silence for a second, brain buzzing, caffeine doing nothing to calm the impending doom crawling up your spine.

Emma gives you a knowing look.

“Goddamnit,” you murmur. “Fuck me.”

Emma bites back a grin, the screen of her laptop illuminating her features. “You gonna go check the list?”

The list. Ah, yes. It’s been your best friend and your worst enemy. The first time your name appeared on the list, it was your first year working for CNN, and it felt like the puzzle pieces were sliding into place. Now it holds the same kind of excitement for you that someone on death row would probably have for the electric chair.

“I’m gonna pretend it’s not Jungkook and then collapse when it inevitably is.”

“You’re a beacon of resilience,” She places a hand over her heart in mock sympathy.

You stand up anyway, dragging your feet toward the hallway bulletin board where updates are usually tacked up with passive-aggressive thumbtacks and outdated formatting. Half of you is praying it’s not him. The other half already knows it is.

For everything in your life, the universe has taste. And apparently, a vendetta too.

You don’t rush. You walk with purpose, which is basically the same thing except your bun stays in place and you don’t look like a deranged intern sprinting to deliver coffee. You push past a gaggle of hungry correspondents hovering by the board like vultures, shoulder your way around two guys from the Wall Street Journal who once cornered you at a happy hour with “do you think it’s hard being a woman in political journalism?” like it was a pickup line. You sidestep a couple of overachieving interns whispering about embargoes and then, finally — there it is.

The List.

Printed out in 11-point Times New Roman and taped to the hallway bulletin board like a college theater audition call sheet. Which, fine. It might as well be. People are already murmuring behind you, trying to read over your shoulder.

You plant your feet. Press the tip of your nail to the column marked CNN. Drag it slowly down the page.

[Y/N, L/N]

In bold too. Curse the managers who used fonts and bold letters and other keyboard tactics to torture you.

Jenna has never once not picked you. You don’t know why you’re surprised. Your brain tries to say called it, but your stomach flops anyway.

Although your finger stays on CNN, your eyes keep scanning. Past NBC. Past Reuters. Past AP.

You’re not looking, not really, but your body betrays you before your mind can stop it.

Fox News: Jungkook, Jeon

You exhale like someone just unplugged your soul.

“Fuck me sideways.”

Some correspondent looks at you with a bewildered expression at that, but you’re too busy wallowing in self-despair to care.

You stare at his name for a second too long, as if the sheer weight of your gaze will make it disappear. It does not. It remains bold. Centered on the page. Clearly, the universe got bored and decided to make your existence recreationally miserable.

“Of course it’s Jungkook,” You sigh, pressing your forehead lightly against the wall, because humiliation rituals are best served on drywall.

Behind you, someone coughs.

You straighten quickly and pretend you were just squinting at the lighting or something equally embarrassing. Grab your phone out of your back pocket. Snap a photo of the list like it’s evidence in a trial and not your own personal descent into madness.

You know what this means.

Early mornings. Late nights. Shared interviews. Shared documents. Communal air.

You remember the last time you two got picked for the same story, a few months back. You both nearly got escorted out of a press van in Iowa for arguing over whether a quote was technically on or off the record. He kept repeating “just admit I was right” under his breath like it wouldn’t lead to his timely death.

And now here you are. Yet again.

You pivot and walk backwards in the direction of the CNN office, fast enough that your shoes move with intent but slow enough that you don’t draw attention. You pass the Wall Street Journal guys again. One of them winks.

In your dreams, fucker.

Mental curses ricochet through your skull like a smoke alarm — God, no. Please. Just once. Can you catch a break?

Possible strategies start flooding your brain. Maybe you can trade assignments. Fake mono. Throw yourself down the Capitol steps and hope it earns you a leave of absence.

“Oh, don’t look so devastated. I thought you’d be thrilled.”

You whip your head again — there goes your cervical spine — and sure enough, Jungkook is leaned against the wall a few feet away from the bulletin board, arms crossed, sleeves rolled halfway up like he’s starring in some Gap campaign for Congressional Casual. His hair is still damp like he just showered and didn’t bother drying it.

You stare at him like the audacity is physically painful.

“Were you… just waiting there?” You ask, brows amusedly raised.

“I was reading,” he replies, innocence deceitful. “Is that not allowed?”

You glance back at the list. “Slow reader, I presume? Take you that long to sound out your own name?”

“Time flies when you’re visualizing your shared press pool victory.”

You snort. “Please tell me that’s not what you call it in your head.”

“I mean—” he adjusts his position against the wall, slightly coming off it “—it is a victory. Two great minds. One huge story. What kind of snacks do you want me to bring?”

“I will set those snacks on fire.”

His smile is bordering on shit-eating territory now. “You always threaten arson when you’re nervous.”

“And you always mistake disgust for nerves.” Behind him, you glance at the clock. You didn’t really pencil in time for ‘argue with Jungkook’ on your calendar.

Jungkook pushes off the wall and walks closer, casual as if he’s not purposefully entering your personal space bubble like he’s been doing since freshman year.

“Relax,” he says, eyes glinting. “I’m excited. It’s been a while since we’ve been in the same room, working on the same story.”

Not that long, Jeon. You can count the months on your fingers if you really wanted to.

“Well, the last time it happened, you tried to quote me mid-sentence and almost caused a media blackout.”

“Allegedly.”

“You handed a live mic to a source on Capitol Hill and asked if they wanted to ‘clarify the vibe.’” The air quotes you make are condescending at best.

“It was a bold strategy. You have to take risks in this field.”

“You’re a walking liability.”

He smiles like it’s a compliment. “See? I’ve missed this.”

You take a deep inhale through your nose. Do not murder anyone before lunch. You just bought this button-down.

“Look,” you step forward, keeping your voice even, “I don’t care what story you think you’re writing. You stay in your lane, I stay in mine. We don’t sabotage each other, and we make it through this without an ethics investigation. Sound fair?”

Jungkook tilts his head, looking painfully unbothered. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“You’ve said that so many times I’m starting to believe you actually will,” he holds up his hands defensively. “I feel like that’d be hot. You all bloody, with a knife in your hand.”

Your gaze trails down to the tattoos that litter his arm, and you swear he has the sleeve half rolled just to prove no one is going to come and yank it back down for him.

Any color you had drains from your face. “Did I mention you’re deranged?”

He pats your shoulder, the touch searing through you like Satan just came up and personally felt you himself. “Tragically, you’re stuck with me.”

Your eye twitches. “There has to be a loophole. Some kind of clause.”

“Oh, I checked,” he comments brightly. “We’re bonded for at least a month. Like a very sexy journalism duo.”

You stare at him. A remark you hope will be scathing builds up on the tip of your tongue, but you’re interrupted by one of his winks before it can escape.

For the first time all morning, you seriously consider filing for witness protection.

Being in a room like this, with every top correspondent from every major news outlet packed shoulder to shoulder, all of you corralled into neat little rows like Type A livestock, feels less like journalism and more like being a zoo animal in a glass cage.

Everyone’s circling. Microphones are being tested. Cameras blink red.

And at the front of the room, Monroe’s press rep sits like he’s preparing to wrestle an alligator with his bare hands and call it diplomacy.

You’re gripping your notepad so tightly the edges have started to bend into soft curls. The same line has been rewritten three times just to keep your pen moving. Across the aisle, NBC’s political correspondents are arguing in hushed tones over language choices. To your right, a New York Times rep is chewing on his own thumb.

You’ve already rehearsed your questions at least 2,939 times. You know which quote you’re fishing for, which phrasing will work. You’ve triple-sourced the angle, practiced tone variations in the mirror like a lunatic, and cross-checked your questions against Jenna’s latest “make them squirm” rubric.

CNN has always been known for getting answers. They’re the “people’s news.”

You breathe slowly through your nose, eyes flicking from Monroe’s press rep to your legal pad and back again as a Wall Street Journal guy throws out a lukewarm question about committee oversight that gets swatted down with the elegance of a cat batting a fly. A few heads turn. Everyone’s circling the story but no one’s made contact yet.

“Would the congressman like to comment,” another recognizable deep voice says, “on whether Delgado’s trip to Puerto Rico last spring had any overlap with Monroe’s?”

Checkmate.

There’s a sharp inhale somewhere near the Reuters team. Someone else whispers “Jesus Christ.”

Your brain — your brilliant, well-trained, self-controlled brain — short-circuits.

You must have committed a devious crime in a past life. There's no other explanation for why the universe keeps hurting you like this.

That was your question. You’d buried it in your notes as a backup, a longshot, a play you’d pull if the answers were dry and the mood was right. Granted, this time, you did not plant it for him to find somewhere around the Hill.

This one was thought of with his very own brain cells, which somehow concerns you more. How some imbecile with a penis for a brain put together that invasive, probing question.

Jungkook read your angle. Now he’s thrown it into the fire like it was his to begin with (even though, yes, technically it was. Neither here nor there.)

Your hand shoots up so fast you nearly dislocate something.

The rep hasn’t even fully answered yet, but you’re already in motion. Already powered by pure professional rage and something that might be vengeance but might also be the ghost of college you screaming don’t let him win, don’t you dare let him win in the back of your skull.

The moderator acknowledges your hand. So does the rep.

“CNN?” They nod toward you.

You clear your throat, smooth the edge of your shirt with one hand and hold your notepad with the other. “To follow up on that,” you say dryly, “would you say Monroe’s own itinerary during that trip coincided with any other meetings not yet disclosed to the committee?”

You feel Jungkook’s beady eyes imprinting on your back.

The rep stutters. There’s a shuffle of pens moving, papers rustling.

You’re not sure what wins feel like for normal people, but for you, it’s this: a perfect follow-up delivered, a headline taking shape in real time, and Jungkook rows behind you, no longer smiling.

The answer you get is cagey and tactful but relevant. Enough to lead the narrative, to throw red meat to Jenna, to start sketching out the bones of what could be a front-page exclusive. You jot down a few key phrases, underline them, circle the most damning one like it’s a lover’s name in a diary.

You’re glowing a little. Still warm with the righteous satisfaction of a public takedown. The floor is yours, the quote is yours—

“Fox News?”

Your spine stiffens like someone just cracked a ruler across your back.

“Has there been any internal response from the committee regarding Monroe’s travel reimbursements?” he badgers politely. “Or is the team planning to handle that… informally?”

You flip your notepad to a new sheet so fast it’s a miracle you don’t give yourself a paper cut. There’s scribbles and venn diagrams that look like conspiracy boards until you land on your next question.

Hand up.

You could power the city grid with the force of your blood pressure alone.

The moderator blinks. “CNN…?”

The poor rep looks like a human paper straw. Wilting. Already on the verge of folding under the collective pressure of 25 ravenous correspondents. His tie is crooked and eyes are darting like a substitute teacher who knows he’s lost the room.

“Is there concern from the office about the appearance of misconduct regarding campaign funds being used for that trip? Especially in light of the allegations?”

You say it like you’re reading him his Miranda rights.

There’s an overhead light that keeps flickering. A few people scribble messily in notebooks, on post-its. A woman exhales, low but impressed.

The representative gives a forced nod. “We’ll be… issuing a statement later today,” he looks like he’s going to pass out. “We’re confident in our transparency.”

Translation: please stop asking us things.

You don’t admit victory. You just shake your head up and down, jot down statement = stall tactic, and allow yourself two full seconds of pure, undiluted smugness.

But before the moderator can even finish her next breath—

“Would the statement include a projected timeline for releasing that financial report to the public?”

You turn around so fast your chair squeaks. They really need to raise the budget on housekeeping and get chairs that don’t speak to your every movement.

Fucking Jungkook is leaning back in his seat like he’s posing for a campaign ad.

He lifts one hand in a lazy little wave and smiles over at you. Like he didn’t just hijack the pacing of the entire goddamn briefing. Like this is fun for him.

You imagine launching your pen at his face like a dart.

One time, he edited your op-ed with red ink and then smirked while asking if you wanted him to walk you through AP style. This is more dehumanizing than that.

He’s not just competitive. He’s observant. He watches your questions build, your rhythm form, your angles take shape and then undercuts you by milliseconds.

Turning slowly back around in your seat, your teeth grind like a dial-up modem. You write murder is free if you do it with a pen in the corner of your notepad just to calm yourself down.

Behind you, Jungkook clears his throat, essentially his mating call for war. You’ve known him long enough to catch on to even the most subtle of his quirks.

Quite frankly, you’re going to burn him to the ground.

It goes on longer than you’d like it to, though.

Back and forth. Ping. Pong. CNN. Fox. CNN. Fox. CNN. goddamn Jungkook. You.

There’s a strategy you’re both playing at now — nonverbal warfare. If he sees you flinch, smirk, or breathe too obviously, he’ll take it as encouragement.

The New York Times correspondent beside you keeps trying to interject, his hand half-raised in that tentative way journalists get when they’re not sure if they’re about to get obliterated. But every time he opens his mouth, Jungkook’s voice cuts clean across the room like it’s been waiting in a slingshot.

The other guy next to you sighs loudly and mutters something under his breath about “overachieving twenty-somethings.” You don’t acknowledge it. You can’t. You’re too busy jotting down your next question and preparing to strike like the world’s most caffeinated viper.

You prepare to go again — ask about Monroe’s office phone logs from last quarter, fully aware that the phrasing is risky but too good not to use. It lands like a bullseye. The press rep stammers over his own words, a few chuckles surfacing around the room. You bite your cheek to keep from smirking.

Across the aisle, you can taste Jungkook getting ready to respond. Probably some sly dig about his text messages.

You shoot your hand back up because absolutely not.

It’s gotten ridiculous, the two of you fencing with weaponized diction while the rest of the room slowly becomes collateral damage.

By the eighth exchange, someone coughs pointedly. By the ninth, a guy from Politico leans back with crossed arms and full-blown exasperation.

“Maybe…” the moderator says, voice cracking, struggling with the effort of staying professional, “maybe CNN and Fox News aren’t the only outlets in the room today?”

The tension breaks like a needle to a balloon.

Some dude near the back murmurs “thank god.” The New York Times guy next to you raises his hands to the ceiling in silent gratitude, like he’s been rescued from a hostage situation.

There’s a smile that threatens to unleash its full glory onto your face. Your ears catch Jungkook’s laugh across the room. You want to staple his mouth shut.

The pen gets wrapped around your thumb and pointer finger again, and you scribble stop reacting to him, you’re a professional at the bottom of your notepad. Then underline it four times.

The moderator clears her throat. “Alright, uh… Reuters, I believe you had your hand up?”

This is fine. This is normal. This is just another day in the press pool jungle, and if Jungkook thinks he’s winning this war?

He better start taking better notes.

The session wraps not long after the rest of the outlets speak, questions slowly fizzling into half-baked comments, reporters distracted by their own looming deadlines or the promise of free donuts in the next room. Monroe’s rep offers a pathetic and dull closing statement about transparency and continued cooperation, which is ironic considering he’s sweating through his collar.

You’re already grabbing your bag before the word “adjourned” finishes echoing through the room.

Success can only be determined by one person: Jenna. And until she gives you the proverbial thumbs-up (or better yet, a bottle of tequila and the words “great job, babe”), you are in full damage control mode.

You push past a specific breed of reporters, muttering random ‘sorry’s’ while speed-walking with the urgency of a woman who just saw her ex on a Tinder ad. Sometimes, you’ll hide behind the door and wait for the press rep to walk by to badger them for any last comments, but not today.

You make it about twelve feet down the hall before you hear it.

A cough.

That very specific throat clearing that says hey bestie, remember me? The bane of your existence?

There is a stupid, traitorous whiff of cologne wafting into your nostrils right about now. Woody. Warm. Expensive in the way that only someone with emotional detachment issues could pull off. You’ve never known the name of the cologne, but you know what it smells like: ego.

“I swear to god, Jeon, if you try to do a post-game wrap-up—”

“That was fun,” Jungkook interrupts, matching your stride and appearing beside you like a thief in the night. “Really took me back.”

You roll your eyes so hard it’s a miracle they don’t fall out of your head. “To what? The last time you tried to steal a quote and nearly caused an internal investigation?”

He shrugs. “To simpler times. You, me, the scrawny dude up there sweating bullets. Felt like college all over again.”

“You mean where you coasted off other people’s research and called it collaboration?” you clarify.

He gasps, mock offended. “I offered to footnote you.”

You stop walking, hold your ground. “Footnote me?”

Now that you're standing there under the lights that make anyone look horribly pale but, regrettably, work wonders for his alabaster skin, you take in his appearance.

He catches your gaze, “Like, ‘[L/N], et al.’ It had a nice ring to it.”

Your mouth opens — possibly to insult him, possibly to commit verbal homicide — but before you can say anything, the sound of approaching footsteps cuts through the corridor.

You squint in unison with Jungkook, twisting your head to see who possibly would dare to interrupt the two of you. You two uphold an unfortunate reputation on the Hill at this point.

Sadly, it’s the rep from the press pool. Jogging. Actually, it’s more like sprinting toward the two of you, tie askew, phone in hand like he’s about to drop breaking news and/or collapse.

Jungkook leans into you, whispers under his breath, “Oh no. He’s doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where they chase us down because we either scared them or accidentally got too good of a quote and we need to redact it.”

You glance at him. He’s oddly close to you, past the imaginary no-no square you’ve put up two feet within your body. There’s a faint scar you’ve never noticed on his right cheek.

And then you quickly snap back to peer at the rep, who’s panting now, almost there, waving his hand like an unpaid intern trying to stop a runaway bus.

You grimace at this man’s appearance. “Goddamnit.”

“Don’t worry,” Jungkook adjusts his sleeve, tone calm. “If it’s about me, just deny everything. If it’s about you, I’ll deny everything and throw in some fake tears for flair.”

You side-eye him. “You don’t even have tear ducts.”

“I have range.”

The press rep skids to a stop in front of you both, chest heaving, face that same color of chalk that the hallway lighting bestows upon pathetic people.

For some reason, you’re already bracing yourself for whatever act two of this absolute circus is about to be.

He’s got that “once interned for a senator, now drinks four Red Bulls before noon” vibe. Mid-30s, maybe? Hard to tell. Balding slightly. His face is trying to look calm and in control, but his body is screaming “I am being hunted by scandal.”

“Hi,” he exhales, clearly winded. “Sorry—hi. Yes. Hello.”

Naturally, Jungkook offers him a charming little nod, hands in his pockets like he’s not actively considering setting this man’s tie on fire.

The rep straightens his blazer (badly), pats his front pocket like he’s making sure his wallet is still there, and finally extends a clammy hand to no one in particular.

“I’m Mark. With Monroe’s team.”

His voice is wheezy, but trying.

You don’t take the hand and Jungkook doesn’t either. It kind of lingers there, awkwardly floating mid-air.

“Right,” you say after a beat, nodding stiffly. “And you… sprinted here because?”

Mark chuckles nervously, wipes his hand on his slacks. You’re starting to think it’s his first day on the job. Poor dude. Does he know there’s still time to escape?

“Just wanted to, uh, confirm,” he gulps, glancing between the two of you. “You’re the press reps? For CNN and Fox?”

Tentatively, you show signs of agreement. Jungkook, because he’s a show-off, salutes.

You’re standing there thinking: who the fuck is this guy, really? If you had to put money on it, your guess is some overpaid puppet with a job title like ‘Special Communications Liaison to the Chief of Staff.’ Probably thinks he’s the next Olivia Pope. You see the scuffed shoes, the fraying cuff on his blazer, the desperate gleam in his eyes. This guy’s not the mastermind.

He’s a chess piece. You want Monroe.

Mark lowers his voice like he’s about to hand you the nuclear codes locked in the Oval Office. “So… just between us, okay?”

You arch a brow, interest piqued.

Jungkook blinks, arms crossed. If this was Halloween, you two would be pulling off an honest interpretation of Bonnie and Clyde. “Is this off the record or…?”

“No! Well.. technically no,” Mark scratches the back of his neck. “But, like, also… you know.”

You do not, in fact, know.

“Right,” your voice is flat. “Very clear. Continue.”

Mark leans in, glancing over his shoulder like the ghost of Monroe might apparate in this very hallway.

“This thing,” he gestures vaguely as if the scandal is floating above you, “it’s messy. We’re trying to get ahead of it. We think it’s important that the public sees this the right way. Context is necessary. It’s.,, nuanced.”

Context. Nuance. Hmph. All words you equate with overachieving reps who are doing anything to keep the rumors afloat.

You fight the urge to pull out your recorder and hit play with your middle finger.

He keeps going. “And obviously, CNN and Fox… massive reach. Opposite ends of the aisle. But you kind of… shape the public opinion.”

You exchange a glance with Jungkook, who looks vaguely amused, like someone just asked him if he wanted to share his Netflix password.

“Get to the point,” you motion with your hand.

Mark nods, like he’s been waiting for your permission. “We want you two to help us tell the story.”

The ghost of Monroe may have actually possessed his body. There’s no other explanation for this.

A snort escapes your body. A real life snort. “Oh, nice try, buddy.”

Jungkook tilts his head at him. “I’m sorry, are you trying to pitch us a collab piece?”

“I’m sorry,” you add, “did you just chase us down the hallway to ask us to… team up and play Monroe’s PR Barbie?”

Mark flinches. “It’s not like that,” he insists. “We just think, if you two handle this with balance, with neutrality—”

“Neutrally report your version of events,” you clarify.

“Exactly.”

What the fuck is happening? you ask yourself silently. Your mind is still completely, absolutely blank with nothing but insults and denials loading into your brain in a single-file line. “Do we get stickers afterward?”

Jungkook turns toward you. “Maybe matching tote bags. ‘I survived a government scandal and all I got was fired.’”

Mark’s eyes are doing this twitchy thing now, scanning between the two of you like he’s starting to regret every decision that led him here. “We’re just saying… you’re already on it. We know you’re both on it. We’re just… trying to offer cooperation. A foot in the door. We’re hoping to help shape the conversation before it spirals.”

You look at Jungkook again, and for a flicker of a second, your eyes glimmer in that weird, quiet way they do when something actually is serious.

‘Mark’ is right. This is them trying to control the damage, trying to spin you both into pawns.

You didn’t claw your way from a rent-controlled walk-up in New York City to regurgitate talking points from a man who’s probably laundering donor funds through his third wife’s consulting firm.

You spin back to Mark.

“Thanks,” your voice is sugar-sweet. “But if we wanted to write her story, we’d be working for her team.”

Mark’s lip twitches. “So… that’s a no?”

Jungkook gives him a polite, diplomatic smile. “We’ll be in touch if anything changes.”

Code for: if our editors call us stupid, we might pick up the phone and beg you for a second chance.

You both walk off into the abyss of the hallway without another word. The shared satisfaction of a very well-executed fuck off lingers in the air. Honestly, you’re a little proud and surprised by Jungkook’s actions; for once, the man isn’t trying to pull the rug out from under your feet. He is choosing to deny a leg up on the competition, a—

“Wait! I have something you want!”

You and Jungkook halt mid-step.

Like the ghost of Monroe has returned to haunt you, you both whip around in unison. The hallway lights sparkle off Jungkook’s silver watch as he adjusts his cufflink. You fold your arms over your chest because if you don’t anchor yourself, you might actually sprint back and shake the answer out of Mark yourself.

Mark, for his part, looks like he wasn’t expecting that to work. He steadies himself, then offers a sheepish, almost triumphant smile. “I wasn’t finished.”

“I don’t know. Sounds pretty done to me.” Take a hint, Mark.

But he’s barreling towards you again, straightening his blazer like it makes him more credible, “Monroe. She’s been… cautious about this. About the media. But if the two of you together handle it…”

You frown. “What does that mean? Handle it how?”

“You want a puff piece?” Jungkook mirrors your current position, beefy arms crossed over his chest.

“No. Not a puff piece,” Mark refutes quickly, “I told you, we want neutrality. Credibility. That’s what the public needs.”

What the public needs and wants is an article with the likes of a Korean drama.

You narrow your eyes. “Cut to the chase”

Mark hesitates, then puffs out his chest. “She’ll talk. Off the record at first, but open to recording if she feels she can trust you. But only if you two do it together.”

The words drop at your feet, fall below the building, plant themselves in the dirt.

You go unresponsive. Hands fall to your sides. You swear the hands of the clock on the wall nearest to you stop ticking.

For the first time in a long time, you have been rendered utterly and completely speechless.

“Monroe will speak,” Jungkook enunciates slowly, as if trying to confirm that Mark hasn’t just had a stroke. “To us. Together..?”

Mark nods like a broken bobblehead. “Only to you two. It’s optics, if you think about it. It keeps her from looking like she’s hand-feeding one party.”

Your stomach churns, all giddy and horrified at the same time.

Oh, god.

This is the story.

This is exclusive access to the eye of the storm, a one-on-one with a political figure who’s been dodging cameras like they’re carrying the plague. This is headline-making, career-elevating, promotion-sending-you-to-the-moon type shit.

You actually might faint.

Then it all comes crashing down like Jenga blocks toppling over after a five-year old pulls out the middle one on purpose.

The catch. You… Jungkook… same room. For an extended period of time. Trying to extract intel while also trying not to throw a chair at his face.

You glance sideways, and of course he looks unbothered. No, ctrl, alt, delete that. He looks excited. Like he just got picked for the varsity team again and fully intends to score the winning goal.

His jaw tightens, the smallest flicker of hunger flashing in his eyes. He wants the story.

You know that look. You’ve worn it. Slept in it. Shaped your entire career around it.

For a brief second, you hear Jenna’s voice in your head. You hear her saying “great job,” hear the “we would love to offer you the position of Senior Correspondent.”

You’re entirely certain Jungkook wants the intel, and the promotion.

Honestly?

Fuck it. So do you.

“Fine,” you agree, stepping forward. You hold your hand out toward Mark. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Mark exhales like he’s been holding his breath for six years. He shakes your hand then turns to Jungkook, who gives a little half-smile and nods like, well, this should be fun.

You peer at the two of them. Under your breath, you mutter mostly to yourself, “I’m going to regret this.”

And beside you, Jungkook beams ear to ear. “I know.”

You’re not entirely sure this is a good idea.

Scratch that. You’re very sure this is a terrible idea.

You can already envision it: Jungkook slowly rotating in his chair mid-interview like a comic book villain, trying to slip cyanide into your iced coffee while simultaneously plagiarizing your closing paragraph. He’ll flash that dumb, media-trained smile, quote Monroe’s confession word-for-word, and beat you to publication by six minutes and forty three seconds.

But two things are true.

One: you are not about to sabotage your chance to get firsthand information out of Monroe — the kind of scoop that makes editors salivate and might get you an actual door to your office instead of a desk by the printer.

And two: you’re playing to win.

And you’ll be damned if you lose to Jungkook.

masterlist + ask

taglist ; @somehowukook @lovingkoalaface @moroe-blog2 @almatiarau @hanamgi @yooniepot @strawberryberrygirl @rossy1080 @libra04 @kenzierj11 @senaqsstuff @dtownbae @xumyboo @bellefaerie @chimchoom @satisfied18 @arcanekookz @vintagemoonsstuff @brokebitch-101 @taolucha @songbyeonkim @oopscoop @mochibites00 @whatevevrerr @lessthantmr @nesha227 @mar-lo-pap @jazzyb22 @lachesismoonmist @indyuhhhhh @sky-23s-world @swimmingweaselzineegs @jiminshi20 @khadeeeeej @withluvjm @anishasingh1233 @jksusawife @btstrology @youphoriajk @jadestonedaeho7 @diamondjeon @sharplycoldpaladin @annafarrr @tteokbokibyjk @prxdajeon @tatzzz-25 @magicalnachocreator @younhakim29 @purplelanterns @134340-kr

[grimm-the-tiger]

My FL main went through some really weird, organic development over the...oh god, I think it's been five years since I started playing now.

So my main is named Skadi Larkin. They are a little bastard. They started out extremely 2D; I named them after my favorite Norse goddess and the protagonist of the book I was reading at the time. I originally wanted to make them female like both of their namesakes, but the second I saw the third-gender option, I thought it was too good to pass up. This is where they got their primary base characterization as a mad scientist who wanted to Cause Problems.

Then I started the Nemesis ambition and forgot which option I'd chosen for who I was trying to avenge, so they lost both their lover and their older brother under tragic circumstances (only the lover was killed by Nemesis's antagonist, though).

Then I got an Exceptional Friendship and had to give my tragic backstory in order to gain entry to the House of Chimes. Skadi pulled said tragic backstory (orphaned in a hansom accident) more or less out of their ass, but it did establish that their parents are dead.

Somewhere down the line, I realized that technically Skadi is a linguist, since the Correspondence is a language, and I made that their profession on the Surface as well.

Around this time, I started working on character designs for my fan comic. I got really into messing around with skin tone, and somewhere along the line thought it would be fun to draw Skadi (who was originally white) with darker skin, and it stuck.

Then I abruptly realized I was taking a lot of options that increased my Melancholy, and almost all of them were based on the Surface. So now Skadi has a longing for the Surface.

I left the game for a few years, but somewhere during this stretch of time, and I don't know how this happened, but I decided Skadi was now Native American; specifically, Metis. I changed their design to incorporate a sash woven in a style characteristic of the Metis, which also added a bit of color to their design (which was mostly black or grey at this point).

During this time, I started incorporating Skadi into my fan comic. This would eventually lead me to actually flesh out their backstory in greater detail. When I started playing the game again, I also created my first alt by total accident (long story), and I decided to weave her backstory with Skadi's.

So Skadi is in the interesting position of being an Indigenous person who is what we'd probably consider Two-Spirit today but they'd just call "Bollocks to that gender crap". They never belonged on the Surface, since the Metis are in a bit of a liminal space compared to other tribes due to their interesting background (the Metis are the descendants of French settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, mostly Cree), and Skadi exists in a liminal space within that liminal space due to only being half-Metis and raised primarily in white culture, although they still maintained a connection to it through their late mother. They also never belonged because no one else on the Surface outside of the communities they already felt isolated from would ever accept them for their gender. London gave them a chance to express one of those, but not both, and despite knowing that the Surface hates them just for existing, they still long to return.

[a-cute-radiation]

I doubt we'll explore that, but I am so curious how Metal feels about Sage and how their relationship is like with Eggman as well.

Sure we have seen them in TMOSTH, but come on.

So here is my overly complicated take on it! (Transferred from my Twitter, so formatting might be off)

Imagine, you have been doing your father's biddings for years, barely getting a crumb of recognition, yelled at and discarded on a whim...

And then one day your father returns from an adventure along with some AI he calls his darling little daughter and sings his praises to!

You get commands & scolding, while watching her be fully embraced...

That's Metal for ya now!

Makes me think if Metal wonders why it couldn't be him. Why Eggman just had to create Sage to finally "feel proud of his creations"

Eggman had never known familial love and affection for himself. So it's no surprise he shows nearly none to Metal- but when Sage shows up, he does.

A cruel fate, for Metal only has two tasks:

-Eliminate Sonic the Hedgehog

-Seek fatherly approval from Eggman / Love unconditionally

Task 2 seems to be the bigger priority of the two, if it truly comes down to it

He is a unable to succeed at the first task.

He will never defeat Sonic and prove himself as the "real one", no matter how hard he tries. His coding works against himself here. He can realise at times that he is not the real one... but his programming will overwrite any shape or form of progress.

Assuring that task 1 stands firm, causing him to constantly struggle with his identity as it is

And now he has to deal with competition for task 2.

Competing with a perfect golden child.

Previously it was only him + Orbot and Cubot. None of them posed any opposition at ALL. Eggman is annoyed by the two at best. They're just the invisible middle children (and prolly deserving of their own thread)

So this is new and it probably bites.

And since Ivo brought up the comparison with Maria himself- allow me to use it as well.

"Back then... was she [Maria] anything like Sage is now?"

Perhaps Ivo was somewhat like what Metal is now. Utterly undervalued & desperate to prove himself.

Intentional or not, Ivo has raised Metal Sonic with the same baggage he has. Heck, the first biodata Metal copied is Eggman's!

No wonder he tried to take over the world himself the SECOND he became Neo. Same "genes", same upbringing.

Which begs the question, in conclusion, does Metal resent Sage in similar vain to how Ivo resents Maria?

Or perhaps it's entirely different? Perhaps Metal can view Sage as his own version of Tails and learn to love her? Be charmed by her, despite it all?

Who knows? Who cares? Thanks for attending my rambles.

[klaus-littlestwolf]

Sorry it took so long. Almost finished, just one more chapter to go.

@a-beaverhausen @ranisingsnew @ronswhoree @susannahmikaelson @skulliecadaver-blog @yeaiamme2 @nataliewalker93 @luz09

Series Masterlist

Waking up alone was disappointing but Y/n didn’t expect anything else, knowing that if Klaus had stayed until morning he would have been shot God knows how many times.

2 Days. That’s all she needed to wait, just 2 more days and then she could get away from this house, the constant guards, a mom that ignores everything that goes wrong around her and her father. Her father who she had loved and adored more than anyone in the world, her father who had been her hero only to become the man who ignores her existence and shoots her pet.

Just 2 Days…

Klaus knew he needed to tell her the truth. Getting her to leave with him and depend on him needed to happen first, he knew once she loved him that she could accept anything about him.

He also knew that she would willingly turn for him, Y/n was exactly the kind of girl who would want to be with him for eternity, already overly sensitive about the idea of being abandoned. After her father had abandoned her without ever leaving the same house, what else could anyone expect?

He had been working in the time away from Y/n on his Hybrids, having to go back to Mystic Falls to find out Doppleganger blood was what he needed to turn the wolves. Sadly he didn’t get back to Y/n until the third day away and he was worried that she would be upset with him. However, the house was finished thanks to compelled construction workers and interior designers working around the clock, his Hybrids guarded the house as he instructed them to and he was finally able to pick her up.

Sadly though he was not quite as sneaky as he thought approaching the house this time and he ended up snapping one of the guards necks before climbing up to the window. Klaus saw her on her bed drifting off to a movie on the TV and he tapped the glass to see her head pop up and her eyes widen in excitement making her jump up and nearly fall from the bed as she fumbled to yank the window open.

‘You’re late!’ She snapped, though her smiling face pointed to her not being overly upset about it before she pulled him in and hugged him.

‘I’m so sorry Princess, there were complications finishing the house and I wanted it to be perfect. I’m sorry if I made you doubt me-‘

‘No! I didn’t, I promise! Thought…maybe my dad had…I-‘

‘Oh baby. I’m so sorry, come here!’ He hugged her to his chest tightly, kissing her head before the tears could fall. ‘Are you ready to go? I had a complication getting in here so we need to hurry.’ Her head popped up with a startled look before she jumped to grab the large duffel bag under her bed, pulling it out and setting it on the bed before moving to her dresser and grabbing sweat pants and a long sleeved shirt. She changed fast as Klaus opened her bag to inspect it.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ll get you a new laptop, your father can use this to track you, can’t bring it with us.’

‘Oh shit!’ She moved to grab a flash drive from her drawer before plugging it into the laptop and saving several things before deleting a bunch of things. ‘He’ll look through everything like he always does and find my journal. Wish I could see the look on his face when he sees how I really feel about him…both of them.’ There was a smile on her face but Klaus wrapped his arms around her from behind, seeing how sad she really was about it.

‘You’ll never have to listen to anything he says again. You’ll be happy with me, I promise.’ He swore, picking up the bag and moving to the window, watching her pull the sim card from her phone before tossing it onto the bed and following him. Klaus took hold of her and lifted her into his arms before jumping out the window, smiling at her small gasp as he did, quickly moving through the trees to get to the car he had left and setting her into the passenger seat.

‘Where are we going?’ She asked, clearly excited and clutching his hand as he began to drive.

‘We’re going to the airport-‘

‘My father will be able to find us there, he’ll find out where we-‘

‘Impossible. I have a jet fueled up and waiting, only the pilot knows where we’re going. He will not be able to find us, I promise.’ Klaus assured, kissing her hand and holding it firmly, watching as she tried to relax though he knew she wouldn’t until they were on the jet, far away.

He left the rental car with someone at the front before leading her through security quickly, compelling a security guard to fast track them through to get to their flight. ‘It’s so weird not being surrounded by guards in a public place, I feel like I’ve been let out of a bubble for the first time since I can remember and it’s like I can breathe deeper…does that sound stupid?’

‘Of course not Love, you’ve been confined your entire life, it’s normal to feel free now that you’re away from it all.’ He enjoyed watching her look around with a smile on her sweet face.

‘What’s that smell? It’s…sweet. It smells so good!’ She exclaimed, looking around in excitement.

‘The cinnamon buns maybe?’ Klaus said, pointing to the shop. ‘Do you want one?’ She nodded quickly and he led her over to grab a few of them for the flight before taking her to the jet that was waiting on them.

‘Woah…this is bigger than my Dads…I didn’t think that existed.’ The hybrid couldn’t help his chuckle at the clear innuendo that went over her head as she looked around, Klaus buckling her in and making her blush at even the small gesture of care he showed her as the jet took off. He couldn’t help but smile as the tension in her body seemed to completely disappear as they ascended, finally free from her father and his control.

The fact that she was now completely under Klaus’ control was a detail he didn’t think needed mentioning…

Somewhere in the Woods in New York

‘Where Is She?!’ He raged, holding his best friend by the front of his jacket.

‘I don’t know Buck-she must have gone out the window-‘

‘I have guards everywhere! How did she get passed them, Huh?! What do you-‘

‘Hun, whatever Y/n has done isn’t Steve’s fault and you’re going to regret killing him. You love him.’ His wife reminded, gently removing his hands from Steve and pulling Bucky close, feeling all of his muscles tensing at the idea of his baby being missing.

‘Someone has taken her, who should I be killing?!’ He demanded only to be met with a stern look from the mother of his child.

‘I don’t know who you think you’re talking to like that but it isn’t me.’ He sighed, pulling her into him and burying his face into her neck. ‘I know you’re worried, I’m worried too but this was inevitable. She did tell you she was going to leave-‘

‘She was being dramatic! She knows I love her, she wouldn’t…someone has taken her, only explanation!’ He insisted, beginning to pace across the floor, waiting for his men to check the security cameras.

Bucky is willing to admit that he isn’t the best father but he loves his daughter more than anything in the world. After all that has happened, all that he’s lost, he couldn’t risk losing her too. And maybe he held on too tight sometimes but he loved his baby more than he had ever loved anything. Every time he looks at her he sees that precious little bundle he was handed by a nurse, he was the first person to ever hold her and he swore to her that he would never let go.

‘Boss…you’re not gonna like this…’ Bucky looked up from where he sat with his wife holding onto him, the only thing keeping him grounded on this planet right now.

‘What is this? Where is this?!’ He demanded as he watched the video on the laptop that Sam handed to him.

‘It’s a camera from one of the back roads to the property. No one but security even knows they exist, we don’t know how anyone got there.’ Sam explained, standing just out of Buckys reach in case he decides to lash out.

‘What is he doing? Is…she’s kissing him…how does she even know him?! She’s always had security, who-‘ Bucky cut himself off as he thought back to Tony’s party the week before. He had seen this man before, he had smiled at him at the party, smirked more like it, and Bucky had wanted to slap that look off of his face…he should have killed him when he had the chance!

‘I’m not surprised.’ Buckys head snapped up to look at his wife who was clearly upset but no where near as physically upset as he was. ‘With how you treat her, smother her? An attractive man came along and promised her the world, of course she ran away with Prince Charming. Especially after what you pulled last week, I told you that dog thing would come back and bite us in the ass.’

‘Seriously?! How are you not upset-‘

‘I’m furious! But I’m also able to see how this came to happen and it is our fault. God knows what he’s promised her, but I’m not shocked she jumped at the first chance to get away from you-‘

‘She knows I love her-‘

‘No James, I don’t think she does.’ Buckys face fell as he heard his wife say this. Every fight they had, every punishment or mean word, he had always comforted himself by remembering that his daughter knows that he loves her and that he would kill or die for her. Now to hear that she might not truly believe that, Bucky swears that he heard his heart crack. ‘When she was young she did but you changed when she got older and I have no idea how she feels about you anymore. She doesn’t talk to me because she knows I will tell you everything. We fucked up, and we have to get her back.’

Klaus Mikaelson Masterlist

[tranquilskies2]

Rozfink general headcanons

At first glance, this is understandably a bizarre pairing. Two completely different species and lifeforms. The uncertain legality of this ship certainly doesn't help. A robot who's a fish out of water and a fox with some underlying trauma. They're the type of couple where you don't know they're dating unless they tell you. Their rare moments of pda are truly a blink or you'll miss it events.

Boy, the romance between these two is one hell of a slow burn. How slow is this slowburn? They raised a child till adulthood for almost a year together and yet neither still had the courage to confess to each other. Seriously, they have a complicated situationship where they're between the thin line of friends and lovers. Roz is just getting the hang of emotions and Fink has started opening up to others. Fink would be the first to realize his feelings. There is no overly dramatic confession scene with hearts & sparkles in the air. Instead, they both just quietly acknowledged each other's feelings.

Roz and Fink never really consider each other as "boyfriend & girlfriend" or "husband and wife". They don't believe labels are necessary for their relationship. They just find their love for each other enough to be valid as a connection. Even after their love confession, they still at best usually refer to each other as "partners". However, they occasionally use petnames (such as "dear" & "darling") and don't mind others calling them "mates".

Roz's love language to give are acts of service. As a robot, she generally has trouble processing and expressing emotions. Serving others is in her programming-so she'll want to show Fink how much she cares for him by helping him in any way she could. This can range from housekeeping, baths and even the smallest things like finding comfy new straw for him to sleep on. Whenever Fink gets sick, she'll go into nursing mode. The love language Roz loves receiving are words of affirmation. She'll be highly pleased whenever she gets praise & expressed gratitude for her services. Fink makes sure to never run short on expressing appreciation for everything Roz does.

Fink's love language are physical touch. Before meeting Roz, he's hated by mostly everyone on the island and he hates most of them back. He's an isolated individual who could only best express though actions instead of words. Typically, foxes express physical affection by cuddles, grooming, biting, playing and nose rubbings. Fink would only express the following with individuals close and dear to him. Fink loves receiving physical touch just as much as he expresses it. The bulletin point after the next following one will go into this point further.

Due to their completely differing physical forms (along with their drastic size difference), these two have to be creative about expressing physical affection. Roz either would have to crutch down or Fink has to take a ride on her shoulders. Roz obviously doesn't have a mouth-so she unfortunately, can't kiss. Fink ofc can't express affection the same way humanoids could. So, as an alternative to kissing, the two would nuzzle their heads together. The first time they hugged, Roz almost crushed Fink's bones by accident (she nearly forgot to control her strength at that moment). Like I said earlier, their pdas are usually quick & discreet whenever no one's looking.

Fink believes that Roz gives the best belly rubs. Ever. And massages too. He also loves receiving nose boops, pats on the head and cuddles/hugs. In particular, he loves to nuzzle his head close to Roz's neck. On the flipside, Roz loves it when Fink gently presses his snout in the center of her face. She finds it cute whenever Fink rubs his head on her body. She'll briefly stop functioning whenever Fink licks any part of her face (and her neck).

As adoptive parents without a strong support system, Roz & Fink rarely have time to themselves, let alone dates. As much as they love raising & caring for Brightbill together, they occasionally wished to have time without worrying about parenting. However, they know that almost no one on the island would be willing to babysit or be safe as a babysitter. It can be easy to lose individuality since everyone on the island knows them as parents than individuals.

One of their favorite spots on the island is for sure the cliff side. In the daytime, they can witness the entire island from that view and watch the sunset together. At night, they'll be closer to the stars to stargaze. Sometimes, they'll peacefully rest there together under the stars and wake up to watch the sunrise. This spot is where Fink & Roz confessed each other's feelings.

With such contrasting personalities, Roz & Fink are bound to have some bumps on the road, especially in regards to parenting. Whenever they have a disagreement, they'll usually try to be civil as much as possible mainly for Brightbill's sake. If they feel a disagreement could escalate, they'll have the discussion when Brightbill as asleep for the night. They'll even take it outside so that Birghtbill couldn't hear them. This was especially prevalent when Birghtbill was a chick since neither have experience in parenting, let alone parenting together. As Brightbill got older, these disagreements became less frequent.

Brightbill is obviously the first supporter of the relationship (with Paddler & Pinktail being secondary). Him bringing Roz & Fink together as a couple is purely unintentional. Brightbill never questioned his parent's relationship until he migrated for the first time. One of the reasons he initially resented the animals on the island is because of the uncalled for remarks about his parent's relationship. During migration, Brightbill almost had a physical altercation with another goose who said that it's a "blessing" that his parents can't procreate together.

Due to being completely different species with a not-so positive reputation (Roz being ostracized more than Fink), many animals on the island initially disapprove of their relationship. Although Roz & Fink never outright tell others about their relationship, it doesn't take long for others to put the pieces together and for nasty rumors to spread. From time to time, Roz & Fink would hear others whisper in hush tones vile gossip about them. Some of the animals even went as far as to vocalize their disdain for their relationship right in front of their face (often resulting in Roz having to hold back Fink from attacking the naysayers). Notably, some of Fink's own kind feigned pity for him, saying that he's "desperate" to have a "monster" as his mate since no vixen wants him. It's a slow process for other animals to be at least tolerant about their relationship.

Fink and Brightbill are the last animals Roz ever talked to ever before leaving the island. Fink & Roz didn't officially break up per say. They more so put their relationship on hold for now. The night Roz left, Fink was quite heartbroken. He didn't think it's ever possible to have someone who loves him in this way. He & Brightbill consoled each other. However, sharing their favorite memories with each other about Roz is what inspired Fink to share the story about Roz throughout the island.

[kwistowee]

"The 1994 movie bears a much stronger resemblance to the source material, to the graphic novel, than this new movie does. And not in that "is it the foot vs. the torso" photo-finish kind of way, but we're talking by a clear mile. This movie tries to over-explain everything... right, why not overcomplicate a simple concept? It's the concept of crossing death for love.

"It's a movie that feels like it was adapted by someone who had never seen 'The Crow' or read 'The Crow', but had heard about 'The Crow' from someone and made a movie accordingly. You have a guy in the costume, but the guy doesn't actually feel like the spirit of the character.

"It's easy to say on the surface, "Yeah, Eric Draven comes back to kill people." But you're missing the fact that he's actually kind, even funny. He's a person who loved life; therein is the tragedy. He got Darla clean so that she could least try to be a good mom to Sarah. I feel like this guy (2024 Eric) would join in the on the drug use. (In the 1994 Crow,) even when he went in to kill Skank, he gave everybody in the room the opportunity to bail. Then everyone at that table chooses war and they go down, but he gave them the opportunity. The dude in this movie just massacres folks and doesn't give a ****. It's less likable and relatable as a protagonist.

"The reality of the situation is: do you go to the movie theater to overpay for a movie ticket to watch this new Crow movie, or watch the existing 1994 Crow movie in the comfort of your own home? The answer is simple: it's the latter.

"This 2024 Crow movie is both baffling and fascinating, by way of being very surface-level simple and overly-complicated at the same time. It gives you the feeling of, "I've seen everything in this movie elsewhere, and in those movies they did it better." You want a better Crow movie? Watch the original Crow movie."

- Jeremy Jahns The Crow (2024) Movie Review

[drowned-cypress]

I love your interpretations of AL-AN! What are your thoughts on how AL-AN speaks / communicates?

I imagine AL-AN as very very intelligent... to a point where he has to cut down everything he thinks. Not quite because he thinks lower of others intelligence, but moreso that Precursor thoughts are beyond anything that can be captured in language or communication. So everything he says isn't what he means, but rather whatever is close enough.

It does go the same way for him however, he can't quite fully understand whats going on as much as he learns about it, giving him a bit of obliviousness. Sort of like trying to imagine the viewpoint of a second-dimensional creature - We can make comparisons and simulations and come very close, but we'll never truly know, and likewise he will never truly know what humans experience even if he observes it.

Okay, okay, thoughts on Al-An speaking and communicating. So English isn't Al-An's first language. In fact, I'm not sure he has a first language. Architects are telepathic. They probably don't need to use words to communicate, they just transmit their thoughts directly using whole concepts. Using language adds an extra step he doesn't normally need.

Architects do have a written language, but I figure that's either a product from before they built a species-wide network to store all their information, or it's a programming language, for communicating with machines. Probably both. Either way, I don't think it involves using words as representations of sound. I think it's more like hieroglyphics, where each symbol or group of symbols represents a concept. It wouldn't be possible to read the Architect language aloud.

So Al-An using verbal language to communicate feels to him like he's writing something rather than doing his version of speaking.

He does have a couple of interesting verbal patterns though. He always uses a lot of overly complicated words instead of simple words (they are more precise, he protests!) like he downloaded a dictionary and then started using all the words in it regardless of how commonly they get used in actual everyday speech. This is fine with Robin because she has a PhD, and you don't get that far into college without having a good vocabulary, but it does make it difficult for fic writers sometimes (don't look at my thesaurus history!) He also never, not once, uses a contraction in the game (I checked.) It's always 'do not' instead of 'don't,' or 'I am' instead of 'I'm.' This may in fact be because he downloaded the dictionary and only knew how to use vocabulary contained in it. This is great because it provides an interesting tonal contrast every time he talks to Robin.

Also, when and how did he learn English exactly? I figure he couldn't have been completely cut off from the outside world in that cube. Sensory deprivation for a thousand years while still conscious the whole time would be hard on any species, no matter how advanced. It might be moreso for Architects because they're used to being connected to the network at all times, which is probably a lot of sensory stimulation. Anyway, the storage cube has to have sensory input from the outside world because if it didn't, he wouldn't be able to hear Robin when she talks aloud in the storage sanctuary. But I figure his cube also had access to transmissions, possibly even interstellar transmissions. How else would he begin to suspect that Alterra's motivations didn't align with his own?

Furthermore, we know that humans have been in space--even in the local area of space--for a long time (relatively speaking.) According to the wiki, the wreck of the Mercury II is anywhere between 30 and 100 years old. (Also, fun fact, there's a data download that indicates the crew of the Mercury II intercepted Al-An's distress signal. He's been asking for help for at least 30 years, minimum.) Al-An could have been intercepting signals and trying to figure out what they mean for just as long.

Oh, speaking of Al-An's distress signal, it's actually Morse code. The specific pattern he uses is SOS, an internationally agreed upon pattern to indicate distress, usually used by ships. How the hell did he know how to use that? I figure he has to have learned it from somewhere. Maybe human spacecraft continued using SOS as a basic distress signal even in space. Think about how many ships must have been shot down over the years by the quarantine enforcement platform that was only necessary because of Al-An's mistake, and how many survivors tried to send an SOS signal out because they had no other communication methods left to them. Think about Al-An intercepting those signals and wondering what they meant even as the signals all faded as their senders slowly succumbed to the deadly bacterium that he was responsible for accidentally releasing into the environment. Think about what he must have felt when he realized what the signals meant. Think about how he must have felt when he realized he needed to use it himself if he wanted to survive. Yeah.

But on the topic of interstellar transmissions and how Al-An learned English, it's entirely possible he intercepted all those transmissions with no context and had to reverse engineer the entire concept of a verbal language. It's also possible he received transmissions in multiple languages and had to separate them out. He might be able to speak multiple human languages as a result. He's probably been sitting in that storage cube puzzling over these weird transmissions for decades! He's been doing amazing anthropology science on them! And then Robin comes along and he's able to actually use what he learned! He's doing such a good job at communicating! He's going to get a good grade in Human!

And then because he's pragmatic he went and downloaded all of Robin's PDA data, including the dictionary that would inevitably need to be built into the AI program.

But yeah, I think he finds language as a concept very limiting. It's limiting for us too though, we just don't really think about it all that often. Language is always, always an approximation. We cannot transmit thoughts directly, we can only use symbols, metaphor, simile. Words themselves are symbolic of the concepts they represent. So it's not so much that Precursor thoughts are beyond anything that can be captured in language or communication as it is that verbal and symbolic language and communication are simply inadequate for capturing thoughts, no matter the species. But we're used to it and Al-An isn't, so he struggles with it more.

The same thing also applies to Al-An's ability to take the perspective of humans. If you really stop to think about it, nobody can ever truly understand another person fully, not even other humans, simply because it's impossible for us to experience other people's experiences. Even if we did experience other people's experiences, it's still possible we wouldn't know what to make of what we found. People have different sensory perceptions. Some people have four retinal cones in their eyes instead of the usual three. Some people have synesthesia and can taste colors. If anything, Al-An has an advantage; not only is his species telepathic, but he's also experiencing Robin's sensory perceptions directly. He might not know what to make of those sensory perceptions, especially since he's used to different sensory organs, but he still probably understands Robin better than just about anyone. His problem, and the reason why he's so oblivious sometimes, is that he lacks context for a lot of the stuff Robin says and does.

Like, think about it. His culture has incredibly different social conventions. He spent his entire life in a pseudo-hivemind where all information, including thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and factual data, were shared freely across his entire species. He's going to have a hard time with empathy and perspective taking because he's never had to do it before; he's always just been handed the information directly. He doesn't have that kind of link with Robin. He can't actually read her mind, or else he would have no need to ask her questions. The best link he has with Robin is her sensory perceptions, which give him clues about her thoughts and emotions, but still require him to guess.

But guessing is hard if you don't have any practice. He's also missing a lot of information about human culture. He's never seen a movie. He doesn't know what a meme is. He doesn't even understand the concept of sarcasm because telling falsehoods, even obvious ones for rhetorical effect, is simply not something Architects do. A lot of humor is going to be beyond him simply because he's never heard of any of the things it's referencing. He's missing sooo much context! An entire species' worth of context! That's why he comes across as oblivious or tone-deaf sometimes. The good news is, that means he has the ability to learn. It'll just be difficult for him. He will struggle. That struggle is honestly part of his appeal as a character.

[utilitycaster]

I'm glad to see you mentioning how disconnected the PCs are from Marquet! I'm a little surprised that I haven't seen more discussion of this in the fandom at large (although maybe I'm looking in the wrong places), since it was a point of discussion at the very beginning of the campaign in a couple of private PoC tabletop/LARP groups I was in. The consensus in the aforementioned groups at the time was that maybe the cast didn't feel comfortable representing characters coming from cultures that were explicitly based on real world PoC cultures (but the decision to have almost everyone be an "outsider" in a PoC-coded culture had unfortunate Orientalist overtones). This was very, very early campaign (like e10 maybe), though, before we really knew the trajectory of the plot (or that they'd spend so little time in Marquet).

It definitely came up a lot early on and I think a lot of the people who felt this either left Campaign 3 quite early and said "this isn't working for me" or else said, as I did, that it is what it is.

I think my issue here is that like...Imogen and Dorian are the only Marquet-born characters and while I have complicated feelings about how people see Imogen (see my previous comments about the bizarre bordering on creepy glorification of a very white-coded Southern culture that have spread into like...white anglophone but not United States portions of the fandom) she and Dorian are both very much coded to North American cultures (Imogen, accent aside, honestly fits any rural agrarian portion of the country and honestly reads closer to the great plains than the south, and Dorian is influenced by Native American culture). I actually do think that Taliesin did a good job making Ashton feel like they were part of Bassuras (and they aren't from there originally, but did grow up there culturally), but the fact is I've seen multiple people ignore that "Bassuras" is specifically taken from Tagalog (and that Makenzie de Armas was one of the Marquet designers) and hc it as Central American rather than Filipino despite Matt explicitly saying it's the latter.

I do think that the answer, if the cast was not comfortable playing Marquesian characters (and I am not a POC so take this with that grain of salt, but I also think, with some effort and some sensitivity work, they could have done so, particularly since Marquet is inspired by but not one to one), the answer should have been to either be clearer this wouldn't be centered in Marquet and would simply start there which would have lowered those expectations and to perhaps plan an EXU in Marquet that does primarily star actors who are from north Africa, or western, southern, or southeast Asia; or just set the campaign in Issylra or something. I get that Marquet is more central and cosmopolitan than Issylra by far, but we're now in an awkward position where we might have a campaign set mostly in Fake North America; a campaign set virtually entirely in Fake Europe/debatably central/northeast Asia; and a campaign that was ostensibly set in Fake SWANA/SEAsia but really was mostly about the moon. Like, the cast doing a thoughtful but perhaps imperfect go at Marquesian characters would have, at least in my opinion, been preferable.

If it helps I think the way Matt and the worldbuilders describe Marquet it doesn't feel (to me) overly orientalist and the fandom has definitely had way more "do you see this shit Edward Said" moments than the cast, despite the fact that only half the characters had spent significant time in Marquet. Really, the narrative issue is "the characters don't feel tied to this place or invested in the same way in this plot because the plot isn't tied to this place", and the unfortunate overtones come from the fact that it was the Ostensible Marquet Campaign that got the plot that's not really about Marquet.

(as someone running Netherdeep - I will say that helps. The bulk of that story is in a lovingly and sensitively reworked Ank'Harel. I'm hoping TLOVM also does a better job than C1 with Ank'Harel.)

[pouralaura]

This is like THE question of the ages but here goes. Is your Raphael capable of love? It is my understanding that devils are capable of an obsessive, manipulative, perverted version of it; but the Raphael in your fics has a particular human fallibility that is endearing, and a willingness to entertain those follies (for the sake of his favorite mouse) that I’m wondering if it’s possible that he would (accidentally) fall in love in a mortal sense, going against his fiendish nature (it would have to be a very special mouse). I’d love to hear your take on his fiend/human dichotomy. 🫶

what a fabulous question. thank you for asking! I've thought a lot about this and I always come to the same conclusion: yes, my Raphael is in fact capable of love. there is a "however" which I will get to shortly.

let me first say that I really simply do not care about canon. bro lives in my head rent-free as his own entity and does not necessarily fit DnD/BG lore in that space. that's just a disclaimer, take it as you will.

Raphael's love with my Tav (both generic and my Eris specifically) is definitely just magnetic obsession at first until they realize how hard they match each other's freak. he power plays and power plays and power plays, letting his mouse in ON HIS TERMS ALONE until it's too late and she's as much a part of him as he is of her. fwiw, Tav/Eris's love is the same as his - but his makes him more human and hers makes her less, all for better or for worse. and I think his capacity for love has so much to do with the other person in the equation, which is extremely human of him - Tav pushes him back and needles him but also worships him in her own way, taking on some of his traits the more time she spends with him. some of that is unconscious and some is fully intentional. it's all a part of the Game, which, for her, is Understanding (literally figuring out what makes him tick), while for him it's Winning (taking what he knows of her and using/manipulating it however he wants). Raphael is a narcissist and naturally loves himself most of all, but once he sees himself reflected in another person I think that unlocks a new layer of longing and deep connection within him.

I've used the lyric I won't speak of love since the beginning of writing about the two of them and it's always gonna fit. Tav/Eris knows what the feeling is on both sides, because she is 100% human and overly perceptive, intuitive, and insightful. but she is smart enough not to push that understanding onto Raphael because attempting to force him to admit what he perceives as a weakness would destroy their dynamic.

which brings me to my main point: again, yes, he is capable of love. he is even capable of unconditional love.

BUT

he will not accept that about himself, even for a moment. his love is obsessive and manipulative and perverted OF COURSE but it's also his purest emotion, which is an embarrassment. he will ignore the truth of what it is fully out of pride. if Eris pushed him to acknowledge it he would drop her in an instant and shed all remaining traces of his humanity. it's simultaneously the strongest connection he has with anyone and the thinnest tightrope of a line they could possibly walk - but they complement each other so well that they've somehow found that perfect unacknowledged balance. Eris is prideful too but understands that to maintain the status quo she MUST swallow some of her pride and allow Raphael to keep up appearances for his own sake - which is one of her major ways of showing love from her side.

he loves her purely and earnestly and deeply but he will ALWAYS love himself and his image more. some might say that means he is not capable of real love but I think the two can coexist! people are complicated!

this is fun to think about and I really hope it makes any kind of coherent sense all written out.

[boopboops22]

hello!❕heads up this isn’t a draw request bc ik you have a lot of those rn❕i saw you request chronic pain gon art on twitter and was wondering if you had any thoughts on that au? do you think you’d ever incorporate it in your post canon hxh lore? as someone who is realizing they might have chronic pain i just love the idea of gon having chronic pain after canon. i especially love him having a great support system for it :)

Oh my gosh I'm so happy to hear you also like the hc! I do have a lot of ideas for it actually

Ramblings about the hc below :-)

These are some doodles I did for the idea a little while back. This idea started from me projecting onto Gon losing his nen and seeing it as similar to the disabled experience.

I feel that Gon would have a huge complex about his pain and deny any aid for a while. When he does seek out assistance he treats it like an episodic thing, rather then somthing that is constant. Like, pushing through the pain and his limits for a while until he breaks down, then once he recovers from the break he goes back to pushing himself. In his head his disability is only present in these break downs allowing him to ignore it until it becomes too much. Over time though he would learn better habits and how to not push himself to a breaking point.

For his support system he definitely has so many people there for him!!

When on Whale Island Abe and Mito are the first to encourage him to slow down and be there for him when he's dealing with coming to terms with his pain. I especially think Abe would get on his case for internalized abelism and be the most understanding with him, Mito would be very supportive in caring for him but she wouldn't really understand imo. I feel like she was the one to instill hard working habits into him which can be an unhealthy mindset to keep when disabled.

When it comes to Killua I think that Gon has a bit of a complex over his pain in realtion to Killua. He'd likely wish he could tolerate pain to the extent Killua can and feel inadequate or weak for being bothered to the extent he is by the pain. Also Killua would likely feel even more compelled to protect Gon and Gon the prideful creature he is would feel insulted if Killua got overly protective.

In the end despite those issues and emotional complications, Killua is definitely who Gon would be the most soothed by when in pain and Killua would want to be there to support Gon. I think there's a lot of opportunity for softness between them because of it. Killua catching onto Gon's pain when he's trying to hide it, Gon seeking out Killua as a distraction when it gets bad, there's many cute scenarios.

Gon would absolutely be the worst at dealing with his chronic pain and with it being a side effect after being healed in this au, I think be would feel that he deserved the pain as well. Despite feeling like he deserved it he would hate being less capable from it and cause a lot of issues with his self worth. I think him accepting it with time and then learning how to work with his pain, knowing his limits and when to push them, and actually seeking aid, he would develop a much healthier relationship with his pain. I really love the idea of his character growth being reflected in him learning to take care of his condition!

I'm a person with fibromyalgia and migraines so when I picture what his pain is like and how he goes through it I'm imagining what I experience but in the future for any chronic pain Gon stuff I make I think I might make the pain a little vague so people with different kinds of chronic pain can relate!! As for incorporating this hc into my hxh lore, I'm kinda treating it as it's own au separate from most of my post canon hxh stuff. I have a pretty thorough outline worked out for my post canon lore and I don't want to shoehorn this hc into that so I'm treating it as it's own thing

I hope you gain some comfort in Gon suffering the same as you and getting enviable support from his loved ones, I love living vicariously through fictional characters 🫶

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

Team Green: Sorry your faves are boring 😊🤷‍♂️ Sure you're supposed to root for the Blacks but the Greens are just more fun. Jace is boring I'm here for my angsty disaster mess 💚

You realise that's bad writing, right? This is a family civil war drama. One side of that family civil war shouldn't be populated with blank slates. If no effort is made into making Rhaenyra and Daemon's children as fleshed out as Alicent's children then that is bad writing.

Some people find the Lannisters more fun than the Starks, but the Starks are still fleshed out characters (and considering in the books Jace is 14/15, Luke is 13, Joffrey, Baela & Rhaena are 12, Aegon the younger is 9 and Viserys is 7 - these kids ages almost map straight onto the Starklings so they were so meant to be our Targlings). It didn't have to be a zero sum "you can only have ONE side that's interesting". The show is poorer for it. Game of Thrones was a disaster in many ways, but at least the different sides of the conflict had equal screen time and attention.

How hard would it have been to flesh out Jace, or at least give him a half-decent haircut? He could have been a mirror to Jon Snow (they technically have the same initials). One is a bastard who does not know he's a targaryen prince, the other is a targaryen prince who discovers he is a bastard. In a world that hates bastards, that insists they are 'wanton and treacherous by nature', there was plenty of potential to explore some complicated emotions, to give weight to how he feels about being a bastard. The whispers that would have followed him, the scrutiny he would have felt, the internalised guilt and shame, his protectiveness over his little brothers and wish to spare them the truth. Maybe after Alicent confronted Aegon over the pig there could have been a shift where Aegon turns his bullying away from Aemond and towards Jace (more in keeping with book canon). Maybe Jace could feel anxious about lessons with Criston Cole due to his open hatred of him. Maybe he could be equal parts devoted to and resentful of his mother over his parentage, maybe he could be driven to perfectionism to prove himself worthy.

The show made Jace more violent in the fight with Aemond than in the book, by changing who started the fight (from Aemond to Rhaena and co.), by narrowing the age gap to make Jace more of a match for Aemond, and by having him draw a knife instead of a wooden toy sword. But they didn't earn that moment. How much more satisfying would it have been if both Aemond and Jace were given equal emotional weight in the build-up to the fight? If the hurt and anxiety at discovering he was a bastard had been building and building until it burst out. The entire reason the show changed the age dynamic between Rhaenyra and Alicent to make them peers and best friends was supposedly to make their conflict more dramatic - why would you then drop that approach with their kids? How does it make the civil war story better if one half of the next generation of characters aren't really characters?

They didn't even have to put much effort into Baela, as GRRM already had her brimming with personality on the page, but they just... ignored that and made her a non-entity. Oh she gets one punch in, and there's a blink and you'll miss it background shot of her trying to hit Aegon (at this point I don't think the actors were even directed to do that I think they just took it upon themselves). Meanwhile Baela in the books is wild and fearless and deliberately provocative and quick to anger and fiercely defensive of her loved ones and wrestles squires in the training yard and has a pet monkey and sneaks out in search of adventure and brings home 'unsuitable' friends. Including a legless beggar, a blacksmith's apprentice whose muscles she admired, a street conjurer, twin prostitutes and an entire troupe of mummers. And she alarms everyone due to being 'overly fond of boys' and gets epic lines like this when it is suggested she marry Lord Rowan:

“I’ve bedded two of his sons. The eldest and thirdborn, I think it was. Not both at once, that would have been improper.”

She could have been an absolutely chaotic presence onscreen. Rhaena meanwhile is a little more like Sansa to Baela's Arya, but would have needed more work to flesh her out onscreen. Her insecurities and wish for a dragon seemed promising at first, but they were dropped as soon as Aemond lost his eye. Because that was ultimately the narrative purpose she served - to provide a new reason for the fight to start that wasn't Aemond hitting and pushing a toddler into a pile of dragon poo. She helps Aemond's image by being the one to start the fight instead of him, and from then on she becomes a voiceless non-entity. We watch Aemond fly away victoriously on Vhagar, we don't see Rhaena tearfully watching the last link to her mother vanish over the horizon.

Considering the prominent role of bastards during the dance (especially the dragonseeds), the uninterest in exploring bastardy in Jace makes little sense. Considering the centrality of gender to the story (and considering a certain event involving key players during the dance), the lack of effort into Baela and Rhaena makes zero sense (the show doesn't even bring up their right to Driftmark in an episode dedicated to discussing the rightful heir to Driftmark).

Considering especially that in fantasy black women are so often consigned to minor Missandei roles, the fact that we were robbed of Baela and Rhaena as main characters particularly stings. Baela in particular was an easy fan favourite in the book, and its a role that black women and girls so rarely get to play. If you had told me before the show that Helaena would be a fan favourite over Baela, I wouldn't have believed it. And don't get me wrong, I like that they fleshed out Helaena in the show, like Rhaena she didn't have much of a presence in the book. But it is so typical that the relative non-entity that they kept white gets to be fleshed out, while the more fleshed out character that they made black becomes a non-entity. And Helaena is skinny now, of course (all love to Phia Saban, but I am mourning plump Helaena).

And don't get me started on Kylo Raemond.

[dramadramallama]

EP 7 - extremely charmed by how they decided to use the "asking foR a FRienD" trope to speed up the romance for the simple reason that instead of making it stupid/overly-complicated, and having the character mess it up somehow, tae-ha just... followed the advice given to him (and it worked lol)

he was told to "be straight-forward", and with it, he was also:

very quick

very precise

very unambiguous

very prepared

the Quickness™: literally the next scene we see him ready with a gift for my girl yeon-woo. no hesitation on what to get, no fumbling on what to do, straight-up "move, i know my wife"

the Exactness™ of it all: not only did he notice, but he remembered she is obsessed with choco-anything. full-on, "if yeon-woo-ssi was an exam i'd get 100/100." she would have loved the fancy box of chocolates, if he had managed to actually give it to her

the transparency: and just when you think it can't get any cuter, any better, he just straight up tells her he likes her (dimples making a quick appearance!). also he does buy her some chocolate after all. no ambiguous flopping around, no silly denial at the last minute. just a cute, dorky :] smile after telling her

he kept going???: the chocolate didn't really count so he went for another gift, just as thoughtful, if not better than the first. 100% sure he had a couple of other ideas in case this one didn't work out either. he was all cute with it too (dimples on full display, very dangerous)

idk, i liked that he wasn't disastrously awkward, that he didn't agonize over his feelings, wasn't accidentally offensive for comedic effect, or to maybe create superfluous conflict before they get together. just very satisfying to have the couple be aligned and on the same page, at the same time.

yeon-woo is just as worried, just as charmed by tae-ha as he is with her. it distilled just enough sweetness in this otherwise quite tense episode. there's only 12 episodes, angst will come (pretty soon too) but like, let us have some of that sweetness first.

[kroosluvr]

hi!! as a fellow royal trio-truther ive been ADORING and loving your posts so much <3 you mentioned that you've like mentally re-wired shusumi so i was curious if you had a list of head-canons for how they develop in the game/post-game!! Im super curious to hear (: also any head-canons for the akesumi dynamic would be great bc I hate how little the game developed them together !!!

OMGGGGGGGGG HAYYYYYYYYYY ok so. first. look at this (idr if i posted this here already but if i did look again heh..)

ok now ill actually talk under the cut

note that some of this is headcanon territory bc i just be frolicking at this point

some backstory i fell in love w sumi as soon as her art was revealed i was like omfg peak design PEAKKKKKK i love her so much so i was really excited abt her but i feel like there were so many loose ends w her confidant and namely her crush on protag sometimes doing her a disservice (it turned ppl off from her (understandable bc i also dislike when writers make a female character out to be dependent on a male character) but also made other ppl weird abt her in the same breath....... shivers. people who overly-romanticize/sexualize mentally ill characters (especially girls/women) freak me out sorry

anyway that put me off frm p5 fandom for a hot minute. BUT regardless. i think people often focus on like "shy cute sadgirl kouhai crush-on-protag" for her which on top of atlus's.......mediocre handling of her also does her character a disservice... shes so multilayered!! she houses such insane convoluted levels of distress and fear and anger and reluctance and most of all STUBBORNNESS. i think her headstrong personality is not really emphasized in fandom but i can totally see it (maybe its just me but).

ok moving on to my shsm delusions i think to turn sumire's canon crush on its head i want to make them doomed to never get together. i think 3rd semester is so tense and high-emotion that royal trio are so deeply intertwined w each other:

like they all are mildly-to-a-lot suicidal so they hold onto each other so tightly to make sure none of them spirals and does anything bad. i think in the end they just want the other two to be Okay, even if they themself doesn't. if the other two are ok, then it's all good.

ok back to shsm LMAO i think seeing their relationship as like an odd high-emotion situation makes sense. they love each other, obviously, and provide each other comfort, but the idea of a relationship slips thru their fingers like water. is that right...? is that how it is? like i said up there they just crumble under the weight of their own love. tldr theyre in no place to "date" each other........ but they have their "almost." they're inseparable, they love spending time with each other, but knowing in the back of their heads that it won't last, and they'll have to leave it be one day. "sometimes when i really love someone i leave them alone forever." peak shsm to me. "let's run away together - but what if it's not enough? what if all of this fear and sadness still stays? i take a man down to the river and he throws away his sadness but hes still left with his hands, he's still left with the river (paraphrased richard siken). peak shsm to me. i think they try to treat eachother so softly and gently that it fucks it all up, actually. peak shsm to me. it's not codependency in the sense that theyre not trying to save each other - they're just trying to salvage out some love from it all. all of these terrible things that happened: there's still love, right? there's still love. but the pain can't all be sifted out, and everything still hurts. but they still love. (they just don't date or even talk to each other much after graduating and i think they talk to akechi but to each other its suddenly COMPLICATED. i hate these guys)

ironically i think if you throw akechi in the mix it stabilizes out and i think shuakesumi could totally have a happy married ending. but shsm as a pair i dont see endgame for them. peak for me is that theyre in love and then they spend the rest of their lives trying to forget each other (they don't)

(If this sounds ridiculous and stupid im sorry. i just like shoving too-many-emotions onto my favs sometimes (a lot of the time))

IN REGARDS TO AKESUMI i think my latest 2 comics describe how i feel abt them pretty well!!! link 1 and link 2. actually i think akesumi's friendship is a great way for me to explore how i see/portray/feel about sumire, because i see them as way more similar than the game pays attention to. they're both stuck in their ways: sumire in her cowardice, hiding from the incident and refusing to move on, and akechi entrenched in his own traumas and feeling like he doesn't deserve more than that. their self-hatred manifests in two opposite ways but its very similar at the core. they both like. have no fucking clue what they're doing in terms of handling their pasts so that's why i think them working together to get around their own respective traumas is so fascinating: akechi is terrible at it, pushing sumire too far, but at the same time that perspective is something that she needs. meanwhile, her sensitive and observant personality shows akechi that like, you can have This too: a soft, good love. to have someone care about you unconditionally, so gently. you deserve that, too. yeah i can explode my head off now

i did not proofread this.

[aolyxe]

For OC ask game! :3 For Ao!

🌹- What's this OC's biggest fear

🌼- What's your favourite thing about this OC?

🌵- How does this OC feel about physical affection?

🌾- How does this OC get along with people they just met?

🌟- Is this OC good at expressing themself through words or do they have to use other means?

🌳- Does this OC collect anything?

⚡- How well does this OC sleep?

I'd love to ask about your other OCs, too! But sadly, I don't know how they look 😭 I hope we get to see your other OCs soon once you feel ready to share them <33

They all sounded so nice here! 🥺💞 Also, take your time in answering!!

Hii! thank you for taking part! ❤️

🌹- What’s this OC biggest fear?

Hmm.. I think Ao's biggest fear is to return to the laboratory where she was born, or to see the workers of this laboratory again. She has a lot of bad memories of this place. This is a painful topic for Ao, and she prefers not to talk about it.

🌼 - What’s your favorite thing about this OC?

Ah, my favorite thing about Ao is that she's a robot! Ever since I created her (it was in 2022), I really liked technical topics and anything related to robots, so I thought it would be interesting to create a robot character! I really love her eyes-screens and a tail in the form of a wire, as well as her technical features!

🌵 - How does this OC feels about physical affection ?

Ao doesn't mind at all! She's not hyper tactile, but she loves hugging, friendly kissing or holding hands. She really really likes when someone ruffles or pats her head, and she really doesn't like when someone pulls her tail. Usually from the beginning of acquaintance Ao asks the interlocutor not to pull her tail.

🌳 - Does this OC collect anything?

Yes, Ao often collects all sorts of cool trinkets or shiny things that she finds. It can be either a beautiful candy wrapper or a randomly found keychain on the street. If the thing is broken, then even in this case Ao will take it with her, maybe even fix it somehow (stick a patch on and kiss it hoping that the item will recover). Others often tell her that it's just garbage and it should be thrown away, but Ao refuses.

🌾 - How does this OC get along with people they just met?

Usually Ao starts the conversation first. She's a little weird and straightforward, and sometimes it's hard to understand her. Sometimes she forgets that people can be shy and quiet, so Ao may seem too loud and energetic. This is because Ao really likes making new friends, so she gets too excited. However, if you tell her that you are uncomfortable, she will immediately apologize and try to be quieter. In fact, Ao tries very hard to make the interlocutor interested in her!

🌟 - Is this OC good at expressing themselves through words or do they have to use other means?

I think so! Ao is good at expressing herself thoughts words. She is very talkative and says whatever comes into her head. She doesn't use overly complicated words and expressions, and speaks directly. However, sometimes Ao makes speech mistakes, and it sounds silly...

⚡️ - How well does this OC sleep?

In fact, Ao does not need a regular sleep. Like a robot, she needs to recharge. That's why she has a tail-wire. When the others go to bed, Ao connect her wire into an outlet and charges in this way. But in order to charge faster, she goes into "sleep mode", and it looks like an ordinary human sleep. If Ao sleeps without recharging, then this simply will not replenish her energy, but will save it for a while. If Ao doesn't recharge for a long time, she will look sleepy. Probably this can be compared to a phone? If you put the phone on charge and use it at the same time, it will charge more slowly, and if the charging percentage is low, then the phone switches to energy-saving mode.

[lostyesterday]

I’ve seen several people say that they dislike Neelix and the Neelix and Tuvok dynamic in Voyager because of the way Neelix consistently pressures Tuvok to be less Vulcan or to do things he’s not comfortable with. This perspective is really interesting to me, because I do think it’s a valid reading of their relationship, but at the same time, I personally don’t really hold that perspective. I like Neelix, and I enjoy the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic in most episodes. I want to unpack why I think that very different readings of their relationship are simultaneously valid readings of a text that often portrays characters and dynamics inconsistently.

There are definitely scenes in Voyager – especially in the first few seasons, where Neelix says things to Tuvok that can be easily interpreted as pressuring him to become less Vulcan or to abandon his cultural ideals, particularly in Neelix’s desire for Tuvok to express certain emotions toward him. I absolutely understand why scenes like these lead some people to view the Neelix and Tuvok relationship negatively.

However, I personally read the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic as significantly less one-sided. For nearly every scene in which Neelix wants Tuvok to display emotion, there is a scene in which Tuvok is dismissive of or condescending toward Neelix. Especially in early Voyager, I think Tuvok views Neelix as overly emotional and in some cases incompetent. He is reluctant to accept Neelix’s advice, which he sees as being emotionally based and therefore invalid, even when Neelix is right. Especially in early Voyager, Tuvok believes he is better and smarter than Neelix. Tuvok doesn’t really pressure Neelix to be more Vulcan and less Talaxian, but this is because he doesn’t believe Neelix is capable of becoming a more logical person. The way I see it, both Tuvok and Neelix are in different ways disrespectful toward each other and each other’s cultures. Their dynamic is a cultural clash, with both of them gradually learning over time to accept each other’s different approaches to life.

I think it’s useful here to compare the Tuvok and Neelix dynamic to the Spock and Mccoy dynamic in the Original Series. I have complicated feelings on the Spock and Mccoy dynamic personally, but I think it is absolutely worth pointing out that Spock is the only Vulcan on the Enterprise, while Mccoy is one of a vast number of humans. Spock is clearly positioned as part of a minority culture in the narrative, even if Vulcans aren’t technically a minority in the Federation, which gives their dynamic an element of inequality. Neelix, on the other hand, is the only Talaxian on Voyager. If anything, Neelix is arguably narratively more part of a minority culture on Voyager than Tuvok is. (Although I think B’Elanna is the character whose narrative treatment most closely parallels that of someone from a minority culture.)

I also think it’s worth mentioning that Neelix isn’t the only Voyager character to demand emotional responses from Tuvok. Tom Paris does this frequently too, and Tom is often more openly derisive toward Vulcan culture than Neelix is, but I haven’t seen many people mention this. At the same time, I think it’s worth mentioning that Tuvok is written inconsistently in regard to his respect for other cultures – particularly in relation to B’Elanna. There are several episodes where Tuvok is incredibly dismissive toward B’Elanna and her perspective, seeing her as being inherently more emotional and less rational because she is Klingon (a good example of this is in the episode Random Thoughts). Tuvok is far from the only character to do this to B’Elanna, and other characters such as Tom Paris do it more frequently. But I think it is absolutely worth pointing out that Tuvok is sometimes written as dismissive toward other species and cultures, measuring them by the standards of his own culture.

Fundamentally, whether you view Neelix or Tuvok or Tom Paris negatively because of the way they are written in these contexts is a complicated question. The writing of all three characters was hardly consistent across all of Voyager. I think it’s fair to argue, for example, that the writers who wrote Tuvok as saying racist things about B’Elanna were not writing Tuvok consistently with how he is portrayed in the rest of the show. Multiple readings of different characters can exist simultaneously, and sometimes multiple readings are equally supported by the text.

[colourful-void]

alright closing umineko for the night!! i had a great time with it so far!! i really like the writing style, and for the most part its actually a lot less dense than i was expecting. I thought it might be some house of leaves stuff but no this is pretty easy to read, at least so far! im rlly glad for that like it doesn't feel too simple, not too complicated, its good!

current character thoughts run down, though i've barely started so i dont know much yet: ginzo: he sucks he totally sucks and im convinced that he made some kidna deal w/ beatrice in order to take advantage of the earthquake and war and such. not entirely convinced hes not about to just murder the whole family bcs he seems like he would do that. krauss: also sucks. just a real dick, but in like. he's a standard asshole really. natsuhi: much in the same vien, but she's got that matriach of the family thing going on i hope will b explored more <3 jessica: she's neat i like her! looking forward to more on her. Eva: i was digging for her a while and then i saw how she treated shannon and it went out the window hideyoshi: ive yet to expirence a thought on this man George: he's very tropey in a good way and i enjoy he's friendly guy swag. looking forward to it inevitably falling to pieces rudolf: DICK!! kyrie: girl leave your husband. i can treat u better <3, im glad she has some decency but my mind aint set on her yet battler: HES SO CRINGEEEE <333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 sometimes he does genuinely offput me but mostly he's just stupid <3 rosa: be a bit nicer to ur daughter, but beyond that shes chill i think. no big thoughts here. i do like her dynamic in relation to the rest of the siblings so far maria: MARIA MY DARLING MY DEAREST SHES SO SWEET AND SILLY AND CLEARLY OMINOUS I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT DARK MAGICS OVERTAKE HER OR WHATEVER <333 maria for whatever the fuck she wants 2024 love her so much no crazy thoughts on the head butler or doctor but i think in a different world the butler and ginzo had crazy gay sex shannon: shes soooo sweetie <3 suspiciously so this game wants me to like her so bad and i do <3. i am aware of one key spoilery fact about shannon uncovered in some content warnings i recieved, but its kinda fun seeing the set up for that! everyone be nicer to my girl kanon: hes suspcious but overly so and i wonder what his deal is. i also think all the servants need to be treated better this fucking furnature stuff <3 its awful i love it narratively gohda: i think he would kill someone with very little hesitation. i wanna try that panna cotta. kumasawa: shes like a grandma to me <333 i like her!!

i havent met beatrice yet but im looking forward to it she looks super neat.

i also apperciate how slow burn this is, a few hours in and very little has happened yet it's nice. there's already a lot building but like. nothing big yet it's nice. i like it. it feels like it's moving at exactly the pace it wants to and i enjoy it a lot. the sound design is also rlly good. the music is really nice a couple times i got distracted and just listened to it in the bg. the sfx r nice too.

i do not regret my sprite choice i like these designs they're fun, but i do think maria looks a little off for her alleged age of 9, but it's easy to ignore after a min or two.ironically when i was loading the game and saw her on the steam page it def aligned better, but at the cost battler to my eyes is now yassified. he cant be a pretty boy to me he's too lame.

voice acting is great everyones putting fucking everyting into it and i enjoy that. fully commited to the enviroment and its great.

where i left off: everyone just finished having lunch! kumasawa covered for shannon not knowing the red sauce's ingredients. that's all for now! not sure when ill paly more, probably tomorrow, but its been good!! good game so far i like this setg up!! im also eagar to get more into the murder and violence and witch stuff but like, it does a good joib of setting up the characters so i dont feel impatient, and unlike a lot of games w/ murder n mystery that get right into it i kinda find it refreshing how slow this one is to start its like we all know itll get there so the tension of everyone being relatively calm is great.

anyway, umineko day 1: it was good =D