#WHO let that go through the draft stage and did they watch the original series?????

[arosnowflake]

Wait the Legend of Korra seriously made Toph a cop???? Toph???? Toph "My Character Introduction Was Being An Underground Fighting Champ And I Spent The Entire Series Kicking Against Authority And Doing Crimes" Beifong???? THAT Toph????? A cop???? I genuinely thought you guys were joking about that????

[rynnaaurelius]

Titan’s Curse But Make It Time Loop: Nico di Angelo Edition

-Okay so I’m at work and not doing much and who wants to actually edit your shit drafts for your actual WIPs so that they’re less bad? No one, that’s who

-So I had an idea: The Titan’s Curse. Also known as the book where people start to die. It sucks to be a demigod in this book--for the first time in the original series, it really does.

-Not everything is fixed, not everyone is saved, and people start to have to make really tough decisions.

-So we fix it. Not by throwing Percy, or Annabeth, or Thalia, or, hell, even Bianca or Grover into the mix.

-Throwing the marginally more grown-up, more trained, and more knowledgeable demigods into the fire, who’d get everyone alive and safe by the third time ‘round? Nah.

-We’re making Nico fix this.

-Because here’s the thing about Nico di Angelo: Sure, he grows up to become a major badass, the Ghost King, so on and so forth. But not yet.

-For now, Nico is baby, a ten-year-old whose experience with any kind of fighting consists of one (1) Capture The Flag game and who’s still half-reliant on Mythomagic to explain what the fuck is happening.

-He’s also got the worst knowledge makeup possible! He knows he’s a son of Hades, which is bad, he knows to stick monsters with the pointy end of swords but nothing else, he knows that Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace are Very Big Deals (But also doesn’t know why beyond parents), and he’s, at best, vaguely aware that there’s some kind of bad prophecy hanging around.

-Also by the end of the book, he’s just been told his last immediate family who isn’t Hades is dead in one of the worst ways possible, and he--pretty irrationally IMO, but Nico’s a kid who has been through a lot recently, so we’re not holding that against him--blames Percy Jackson.

-Literally, you probably can’t pick an angstier or worse choice to run through the time travel trope. I love it.

-We’re making this kid save Bianca’s life via time loop, which happens due to. . .hmm, we’ll say the Fates did it.

-So, Loop 0 = Canon, only at the end of the day on December 21st, after the conversation with Percy, Nico falls asleep only gods know where only to wake up the day he meets Percy Jackson:

Loop 1:

-Nico doesn’t actually change anything meaningful at first.

-Spends most of it shellshocked and not unconvinced the last week (For him, anyway) wasn’t a horrible nightmare; shellshocked and staring at Percy Jackson, anyway.

-(Percy’s wondering what’s up with the silent kid his sister had talked up as a cheerful chatterbox)

-It’s only when Bianca agrees to join the quest for Artemis that he starts kicking up a fuss; demanding to go, screaming that she can’t leave him even more, not again.

-(Bianca hesitates; briefly, enough to remind Nico that she loves him. But she’s not their mother, and she needs this)

-Bianca still dies. Percy comes back pale and guilty. Nico doesn’t yell at him when he returns--he already knows. He accepts the Hades figurine so that he can throw it into the lake.

-He slinks off back into Cabin Eleven and falls asleep, hoping desperately that he gets a third chance.

Loop 2:

-He does.

Loop 3:

-After a very painful death at the hands of Dr. Thorn, Nico, generally being a straightforward person at this stage of life, takes the obvious path this time around: He tries to tell Bianca--who brushes it off as a dream.

-Annabeth still goes over the cliff when Nico takes the initiative of attaching himself and his sister to Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace at the dance. He tries to tell Percy and Thalia when Bianca still joins the Hunt, promising Nico that whatever he saw, she’ll be extra careful.

-(Bianca’s fearful of what Nico's saying, and thinks that if these sworn sisters can’t keep her safe, who can?)

-Artemis gives Nico a speculative look but agrees when he begs her to protect Bianca at all costs.

-He doesn’t get on the quest. Being a reasonable demigod of questionable parentage, he sneaks out of camp.

-He gets caught, because despite being aware of his awesome new powers, he doesn’t know how to use them, and is still a ten-year-old who can barely hold a sword the right way.

-He gives Percy the puppy dog eyes and shows off said awesome new powers. Percy forces him back.

-Nico follows him.

-Repeat until Percy dies saving Nico from the Nemean Lion in Washington, DC.

-Nico can’t find it in himself to be terribly sad--especially when he doesn’t make it much longer.

Loop 4:

-He’s really stuck like this, huh?

-Oh, Di Immortales.

-(Before Percy gets his chest ripped to shreds by a lion and Nico meets skeleton cats, he learned how to hold a sword properly and curse fluently in Greek. Percy probably only meant to teach him one of those things)

-In unrelated news: Having a big crush on a guy who thinks he’s only known you for a couple hours? Terrible.

-Trying to hate the guy who let your sister die when he’s that stupid and nice? Even worse.

-That stupid lion.

Loop 5, 6, 7, 8, 9:

-Nico repeats: That stupid lion.

-Somewhere in Loop 7 he starts to steal supplies out of the camp store when he follows Percy following the quest.

-They forcefeed the lion enough trail mix and frozen ice cream in Loop 9 that they don’t die this time.

-At least until someone called the General shows up and Nico’s dead before he can raise his sword.

Loop 10:

-Nico wakes up in his and Bianca’s room in Westover and starts crying. Bianca tells the headmaster they’re both sick and Nico lets her hold him all day.

-They fall asleep and Nico swears he won’t let her die again.

Loop 11, 12, 13:

-He wakes up and he still can’t get out of bed without feeling that blade cutting between his ribs, burning like it’s on fire.

-Gods, he’s so sorry, Bianca. Dispiace tanto.

Loop 14:

-He can get up without feeling like he’s about to die again. Bianca fusses but assumes it was just a bad dream.

-Nico is caught stealing and can’t follow Percy until it’s too late.

-Everyone assumes this means he’s a son of Hermes, however, and Nico can’t correct them without opening his mouth and letting the sobbing laughter out.

-Figuring he’s about to get another chance next round anyway, he takes Travis and Connor Stoll up on their offer to learn a thing or two so that he doesn’t get Cabin Eleven slapped with kitchen duty from now until Doomsday.

-He likes the Stolls. He spent most of the time, pre-looping, actively avoiding everyone at camp as he waited for Bianca and Percy to come back, but they’re not that bad.

-Percy comes back with the figurine and no sister and Nico remembers why he’s stuck.

Loop 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23:

-After Loop 12 and being killed in Washington DC again, Nico realizes: He needs to learn how to fight.

-Unless he gets killed early or refuses to leave Westover, the loop resets after seven days. So, he has seven days to train each time.

-He gets to camp, finds the arena, and meets Clarisse La Rue. He demands she teach him how to kill monsters.

-She laughs, and tells him that attitude in his size will make monsters easy to kill, they’ll laugh so hard.

-Clarisse teaches him how to swing a sword each time--but only after mocking his unamused face.

-Somehow, Percy coming back with news of Bianca’s death only hurts more each time.

Loop 24:

-Nico wakes up before Bianca this time. He looks over at her bed and knows. He’s got to try this time.

-It’s disturbingly easy making friends with Percy Jackson after the last loops.

-Bessie’s new. Cute, but new.

-Nico wonders just how much he’s missed in the past--he thinks of Annabeth Chase, and hopes she hasn’t been dying each time.

-Percy doesn’t even argue when Nico shows up in the stables with a bag slung over his shoulder, and the sword he’s been stealing out of the shed strapped to his hip.

-Nico suggests the ice cream--again--to Percy in DC before

-Nico might be getting the hang of this.

Loop 25:

-Nico is not getting the hang of this.

-Zoë Nightshade’s refusal to accept Percy and Nico on the quest--violating a prophecy, and gods, Nico’s curious if that prophecy ever mentioned this--has so far gotten them attacked and killed by spartoi once.

-And again. As Nico bleeds out on the floor, he watches a panicked blond man--a demigod--plead for mercy.

-Isn’t he on the other side?

Loop 26:

-His name is Luke Castellan and he apparently wants the gods dead.

-Nico can relate at this point.

-The General is Atlas, and Nico knows enough about Greek mythology, real and wrong, at this point to know that is bad.

Loop 27:

-Twenty-six tries, but they finally make it out of DC. Threatening the questers with Atlas killing them all is more than enough.

-For the first time, Nico doesn’t know what happens next. He glues himself to Bianca’s side and glares at anything suspicious.

-With help that Percy refuses to name, even when Nico tries his hardest, they go to New Mexico.

-There’s a boar and it’s so close, they make it to what the others are calling “the junkyard of the gods”.

-Nico sees the Hades figurine on the ground.

-Bianca grins in delight and picks it up, calling for him.

-He can’t help it.

-Nico starts screaming.

Loop 28:

-His sister’s murderer was never Percy Jackson.

-His sister’s murderer was a force of mechanics that makes Nico fully understand, for the first time, what the gods are, beyond stats on a card.

-Talos.

-Nico is going to destroy him.

Loop 29:

-She dies.

Loop 30:

-Again.

Loop 31:

-Again.

-Loop 32, 33, 34, 3536373839FortyFo r t y O n  e--:

-Again. Again. Again. Again again againagainagainagainAGAIN--

Loop 42:

-Nico gets out of bed. He finds Percy Jackson at the dance, hugs him, and tells him he’s sorry.

-Nico walks outside and waits for Dr. Thorn in the snow. He can feel the shadows curling at the edge of the wood like a sixth sense, now. Waiting for him to summon the restless dead out of them.

-So many attempts to save his sister, ranging from sacrificing himself to sacrificing Percy--not that Percy needs the push, Nico has found--to any and all members of the quest.

-She dies. Always, always dies. Whatever Nico does, that junkyard is full of the death of Bianca di Angelo.

-He tried avoiding it. Once. Loop 33. Nico threw such a fit he’s surprised he wasn’t sent back to Camp Half-Blood by the Hunters, but it kept them out of the junkyard.

-He tries not to remember how little was left of his sister’s body by the monsters that time.

-Son of Hades. After all this time, Nico’s beginning to wonder if this is what it means. Death and death and death.

-Dr. Thorn walks outside, and Nico can feel a ghoulish grin crossing his face that has no place on a ten-year-old.

-One of them is going to die, this loop. And Nico will not go to New Mexico.

Loop 43:

-Nico wonders if there was a past life of his he needs to remember. Who could he have made this angry?

-He lies to Bianca and they stay in Westover again this time. Better than death, anyway.

Loop 44:

-Nico tries a different tack this time. A more roundabout way of things.

-He takes Bianca and throws the two of them in the way of the battle with the manticore.

-After all this time, he still doesn’t know much about Annabeth Chase. She gets kidnapped and returned safely to Percy every time, to the best of his knowledge.

-Nico dies holding up the sky, but at least Bianca lives, under the protection of Artemis.

Loop 45:

-Nico looks in the mirror and studies the new grey streak with fascination. And, maybe, some hope.

-Things can change.

Loop 46, 47, 48, 49, 50:

-Nico gets kidnapped a few times. Once, he’s killed in a rage by a Titan with horns, but it’s quick. Mostly, he holds up the sky to get Artemis out.

-She looks at him strangely each time and Nico wonders if she can see what he’s done.

Loop 51:

-They figure out he’s a son of Hades. They offer him Olympus. Olympus and Bessie--the Ophiotaurus, rather.

-Nico says no.

Loop 52:

-Nico says yes.

Loop 53:

-Being on the verge of overthrowing the gods and keeping everyone he’s grown to care for--in the case of several Hunters, against his will; in Percy Jackson’s case, Nico loves him as much as he hates him at this point--doesn’t do much, apparently.

-Nico stays in Westover again. He resists the urge to tell Bianca that would-be destroyers of Olympus don’t need to brush their hair, whatever she says.

Loop 54:

-Nico goes over the edge of the cliff again, but with Percy Jackson.

-This isn’t the first time; in Loop 46, Percy had taken the sky for both the sake of Artemis and Nico until it killed him.

-What’s different, is Nico’s in the middle of what’s become the usual panic attack when he’s about to die for the hundredth time, and his powers react.

-Percy holds him close and calls him cousin. Tells him he’ll never leave Nico.

-You have no idea, Nico whispers. You can’t leave me.

-You think I want to? Percy whispers back. You’re not alone, Nico.

-Nico’s sobbing sounds like laughter.

Loop 55:

-Nico tells Percy the truth for the third time. This is the first time he hasn’t told Bianca first.

-They’ve just found the Erymanthian Boar, Thalia’s told Nico his goth needs work--whatever that means--and Nico’s bracing himself for the junkyard again.

-Getting kidnapped by the Titans really gets old after a while.

-He still has the grey streak, and no number of excuses will fully soothe his sister, but the Hunt’s a good distraction from it.

-Nico doesn’t blame Bianca anymore for it. He thinks.

-Nearly a year into this loop and Nico’s finding it hard to blame anyone for much of anything, anymore. Especially when he sees what she’s faced. Again. And again.

-For now, this time, Percy Jackson is staring at Nico with wide eyes at what Nico’s told him--through these loops, Nico’s starting to wonder if he now knows more about Percy than Percy’s own best friends--and says he believes him.

-Once, Nico would’ve exploded from joy. Now, he just sighs and nods.

-Percy tells him how to condense the conversation for the next loop. He advises Nico to research Talos, “like Annabeth would.”

-He advises Nico to warn Percy’s next loop self about Annabeth’s kidnapping. Nico wonders if he’s gone insane that he’s considering it.

-Bianca dies.

Loop 56:

-Nico makes the executive decision this time to try and befriend Annabeth Chase. As such, he takes Percy’s advice.

Loop 57:

-It takes him two tries to befriend Annabeth Chase and learn about Talos.

Loop 58:

-Three times.

-But the nail. The nail in the ankle of Talos.

Loop 59:

-He hangs back at camp again this time and meets Charles Beckendorf, head of Cabin Nine, and son of Hephaestus.

-Nico figures that short of finding the god himself and committing temporary suicide--not that it hasn’t crossed Nico’s mind--his son will have to do.

-(He’s tried his hand at summoning ghosts, but Daedalus refuses to show, for some reason)

-Beckendorf frowns and tells Nico he would have to see Talos himself.

-Nico hadn’t realized just how much cursing he had picked up off of Percy and Thalia until that moment.

Loop 60:

-Nico knows what the prophecy says. One shall be lost in the land without rain.

-He knows it’s why he’s been failing so much.

-The trouble is, he no longer cares.

Loop 61:

-It took him a try, but he gets Beckendorf on the quest, prepared to defeat the Talos prototype.

Loop 62:

-Strike that, two tries.

-Nico really hates the Nemean Lion.

Loop 63, 64:

-Nico has solved half a problem: How to defeat Talos without putting someone inside the robot.

-The other half of the problem is now that they are all electrocuted by a dying automaton for their efforts.

Loop 65:

-Beckendorf’s crush--girlfriend? crush, they’re both insisting--Silena Beauregard comes along this time. Nico won’t complain over the extra manpower, even if he’s positive that eight campers and Hunters are patent overkill for one quest.

-Silena pulls Bianca out of the wreckage. Nico’s heart stops.

-Silena’s crying when she mentions that if they had been a bit earlier, she could have been revived.

-Nico wonders if Thalia’s going to stab him as he starts whooping. And takes notes about where Talos falls.

Loop 66:

-Nico swears, if Percy Jackson tries to sacrifice himself for Annabeth Chase one more time--

Loop 67:

-Bianca.

-I found you, he sobs. I found you.

-Gods damn the Hoover Dam.

Loop 68:

-And again.

-Despite having the distinct inkling at this point that he doesn’t much like like girls, Nico could kiss Silena Beauregard and Thalia Grace when they manage to revive his sister each time.

-She’s shaky and leaning on him and was dead, he could see her soul floating away--

-But she’s there.

-Nico refuses to let his sister out of the sight at the Hoover Dam and Percy befriends the Naiads this time.

-At least, until the Titans--who Nico made the very big mistake of taunting at DC--sends monsters he can’t control.

Loop 69, 70, 71, 72, 73:

-They keep dying in various combinations at the Hoover Dam now that Nico’s figured out how to save Bianca.

-At least, until he gets separated from Percy in Loop 73 and he meets a redheaded girl with a penchant for calling Nico pint-size.

-Athena dislikes Percy, Nico, Bianca, and Thalia in equal measure. Having learned of the Great Prophecy in Loop 16 and Percy’s mooning over Annabeth in. . .well, every loop, Nico can’t quite blame her.

Loop 74:

-Her name is Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Nico likes her. She takes none of their shit and if it weren’t for the fact that they already have eight people on the quest, he’d want to take her along.

-Bianca gets in a fight with the Old Man of the Sea. Thalia electrocutes him when he throws Bianca in the bay.

Loop 75:

-Nico wakes up in Westover with the distinct feeling that he was drowned on dry land.

-He stays in bed shivering, that day.

Loop 76:

-Atlas is the father of Zoë Nightshade. Nico learned this around Loop 50. He had realized around five loops ago that this probably meant she was going to die “by a parent’s hand.”

-He hadn’t realized that it was going to hurt to watch.

Loop 77, 78, 79, 80, 81:

-Now that he’s figured things out to about San Francisco, it seems the world is out to get him. The number of fights or mistakes that he either makes himself or has to head off are ridiculous.

Loop 82:

-Nico is so very tired. And wishes he felt ten years old again.

Loop 83:

-If Thalia gets in one more fight with Nereus, Nico's going to walk into the sea.

Loop 84:

-He wanders off, in this one. Grover had been killed in Hoover Dam, so Nico’s waiting for the reset at this point.

-In the meantime, Nico figures there are worse things to do than enjoy a good afternoon in San Francisco. He even meets a boy in a purple shirt.

-His name is Jason and he has hair like the sun.

-If he ever fixes this, Nico wants to find him.

Loop 85:

-Nico’s not fast enough in the junkyard.

-In San Francisco, he tries to find the ugliest, biggest trouble he can find.

-He finds a pair of teenagers in armor who yell Latin at him instead.

Loop 86:

-There’s a dragon that will attack them in the Garden of the Hesperides if they make it angry enough and Nico is so tired.

Loop 87:

- Zoë Nightshade is dead. They’ve won.

-Funny definition of “win”, considering they’ve all almost died this loop about a dozen times each, and Nico can’t explain why he’s crying on the body of a Hunter he only met a week ago, in their eyes.

-She hates him, some loops. More loops, she looks at him with ghosts of old grief in her eyes and hands him a knife.

-The gods execute Bessie, and then, Nico watches as his father turns to him and Bianca with sorrowful eyes.

-Nico should’ve figured, after almost ninety loops.

Loop 88:

-Luke offers one of them the entrails of Bessie again.

-Nico takes them.

Loop 89:

-For all the good it does. Nico wakes up as he does every time now: Powerless, in bed, and with only a grey streak to show for his efforts.

Loop 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98:

-Nico doesn’t know how to save Zoë Nightshade. Bianca, he could trick and fight his way into it. Beckendorf and Silena and Percy and a loophole in lost could save his sister.

-Her, she just. . .dies. Sometimes in DC, sometimes in San Francisco, sometimes on the hills of Mt. Tamalpais. Always at the hands of Atlas.

-Always, being murdered by her father.

-It’s not as gutting as watching his sister die, but it aches more in his chest, somehow.

Loop 99:

-He sticks close to Zoë this time. Same as he’s done with Percy, Annabeth, his sister, Thalia, and Grover, time and time again. But not her, Nico is realizing. Not the clinging he’s achieving now.

-Hoping for. . .something.

-He knows better than to tell the immortal Lieutenant of Artemis the whole truth. The loneliness is enough.

-She’s less frosty to him from the start than to, say, Grover or Percy, after Annabeth goes over the cliff again. When he shows up in DC, she’s much less angry than he’s seen her.

-Along the way to New Mexico and then San Francisco, he listens. He’s grown better at it, this far in. When the others are asleep, when Bianca is being fussed over after Talos, when everyone but them is asleep by the fire, he listens.

-And she tells him about her sisters. About her father, when the world was young and Atlas had looked on every daughter of his with pride. She tells him, pride glistening in her eyes, of the battles she has seen, the hunts she has overseen at the command of a goddess, the monsters she has killed, and the epithets she has been given.

-He doesn’t ask anything of her. Not until they’re in the house of Annabeth’s father, drinking lemonade the night before the battle, and Nico knows she is about to die again.

-What do you want, he asks. You’ve done everything. What’s left?

-She stopped, ice seems to creep over her again, and Nico wondered if he’d hit some sore spot.

-He’s opened his mouth to make his apologies when she answers, so quiet and quick he thinks he’s imagined it.

-To be remembered. When my lady has taken another lieutenant, as she must, and I have gone to where all gods go when they die, I wish for my memory to remain. And. . .

-Nico waits, and ignores the sudden, terrifying thought that he no longer knows what he wants.

-I wish to see the stars again. I was born a nymph of the sunset; starlight is precious to me. I want to see it again.

-Nico dies to preserve the memory of Zoë Nightshade.

100:

-Nico di Angelo wakes up in Westover Hall. He hopes for the last time.

-He does everything right: Annabeth goes over the cliff, his sister joins the Hunt, Percy is soon his friend, and he convinces Silena and Beckendorf to join the quest.

-The Nemean Lion never stands a chance, and Nico is glad to be rid of it.

-His sister lives.

-Nico watches Percy watch Rachel Elizabeth Dare go, looking like he’s just taken a frying pan to the face, and fights the urge to snicker.

-Thalia doesn’t start a fight with Nereus, but Percy certainly does. Nico could’ve sworn he saw the boy with sun-hair again, watching with curiosity.

- Zoë Nightshade dies in the arms of Artemis and is made into the stars she loves so dearly. Nico promises her soul that he will remember.

-For, he has found, the dead have a tendency of remembering things they shouldn’t.

-Annabeth and Percy now have grey streaks to match Nico’s, and Nico can’t wait to spend the rest of his life trying to explain that.

-It’s closer than he would like, but much less close than other lives with Olympus. The Ophiotaurus is alive and safe, and they are all alive.

-As Nico walks out of the council, he looks off to the side. By the fire is the familiar girl with red eyes--the Lady Hestia, looking much closer to Nico’s age than that of the Olympian she is.

-Besides her are three old ladies. Nico’s heard about them from Percy, in Loops 26, 53, 61, and 62.

-One lady holds a ball of string that is the color of a warm umber. The other is knitting what looked suspicious like socks. The last. . .

-Scissors, in one hand. Just as expected. Nico swallowed.

-In the other, was a knot of burnt string, tied to the socks. Behind her, Nico could see discarded string of all colors: an electric blue, a stormy grey, a black that seems to glisten with the promise of a storm, string the soft, hopeful pink of love, yarn run through with bright copper.

-Glowing threads that Nico could only describe as the color of starlight.

-As he walked out, firmly between Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace, the Hunt of Artemis behind him, Nico hears one last promise:

It is done, Nico di Angelo.

[hhjs]

summary ➝ "I don't get it." You cock your head to the side and investigating the painting at your feet with an obstinate want to understand how it's supposed to depict love. "It just looks like they slapped on paint."

"Look here, dummy!" He slaps your pointer finger jokingly, grumbling under his breath.  Taking your palm and slowly splaying out the digits. Traces the rough pads against its silky texture, a map to somewhere, a blend of blue and pink, silhouettes reaching out for each other when the world intends to tear them apart.

You sigh, contentedly and think this must be it; because never was love meant to be understood.

It was meant to be felt.

word count ➝ 16.6k words.

alternatively➝ university premise.

genre ➝ angst, romance??? comedy??? a smidge of drama??? idk

pairings➝ han jisung. x fem reader.

warnings ➝ recreational drinking, use of profanity, suggestive.

note➝ i suspect that i have a vague emotional attachment to this. Please note that it used to be a jeonghan fic originally but is now rewritten.  i've been toying around with my writing style, idk if this has met what's expected :c but... this piece is a proper example of the idiots to lovers trope. 

a huge thanks to @emhpathy​ for beta-reading. 

 also i felt indolent and didn’t edit. :(

loosely based on the Coldplay song in question, ‘A Message’.

After. 

The air smells like seasalt. Like having a foamy blanket of  waves draped over your face until you let go, slowly, let all the air leave your lungs. 

In the distant rhythm of the rattling wind, you can barely hear the ring of childish laughter. It's an old bicycle Minho last rode when he was 13. Jisung's driving too fast. But you don't care, you don't care because you feel just so alive. You can feel your heart on your tongue. Under your fingertips. Inside your chest.

You can't believe it's true. Can't believe this is your life. Can't believe you're real.

The city is a haze of blue and yellow and red. Jisung slows down by the sidewalk, leaning into the wash of colours and it  stains the side of his face a little. The breeze is caressing his hair. Patting stubborn gelled strands out. His shoulders rise and fall with every little movement, upwards and downwards. When he breathes in and when he breathes out. Everything seems to slow down. Every second feels like a minute. Every minute like an hour.

 Then suddenly- and it surprises you a little - Jisung pauses, cranes his neck back to smile at you. It's lopsided, toothy. He looks so much younger. Suddenly, so utterly boyish. You commit the sight to memory, the sliver of his teeth, the glint in his eyes, the curl of his mouth -

You hope you never forget this.

 Because this is how you know. This is how you've always known.

You wouldn't change anything. Even if you could go back.  

Not for a second. Not when it hurt. Not when it was hard.

Not even once.

...

Bach's  Toccata & Fugue in D Minor. 

You're in your bedroom, you can hear the music in your head, the crescendos and diminuendos, the feather light piano, the strum of a guitar and the gargling of a trumpet, fingers buzzing with an intense desire to write it all down. But then the sound of an organ rips through the air, the curtains pull apart. Your bedroom floor gives away from under your feet. There is a stage, there is an audience impatiently staring up at you, watching you, measuring you and you don't know what to say.

So you run, run, run home.

You remember standing in front of your mum's bedroom. Knocking. When she lets you crawl back under the covers and she runs a caressing hand down your back, you say nothing. (There seems to be a gaping hole in your chest. And you don't understand it. Like something's missing.) . When she traces the shape of your jaw and says trouble sleeping? you say nothing. Then the rain pelts the windows, the curtains are  pulled; suddenly it's so much darker, so much colder, you place a hand over your heart and then look up at her, up to her large, concerned eyes and say, "It hurts."

 But it's okay. It's okay. You'll forget all about it by tomorrow morning.  Because your mum smells like home, like the earth after it rains. It's okay because the world is less scary when you're a kid. When you don't understand.

 Then you're on a train, it skids against its tracks and your hand hurts from holding onto the handle for too long. You hold your draft against your ribs.There are too many people. Shoulders. Heads. Standing. Sitting. Their lives are different. Even when they're together. 

From here, you can make out a woman stroking her toddler's cheek, a teenager with a copy of A Tale Of Two Cities in hand, a tall man, with his head hung low. He is smiling down at his lover. His fingers splay against her throat. She is looking at him. They say nothing. 

 She stands on her toes and kisses him. And something inside you suddenly comes alive, an absence, tries to gnaw its way out of your ribcage. Tries to tell you I've never left. 

The train finds itself in the belly of a tunnel. Outside, it's so much darker. So much colder. There's a blinking streetlight ahead. Yellow and lime green. It must have been raining. You don't know your stop.     

All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. This is a stage. 

The passengers are impatiently staring up at you, watching you, measuring you and you don't know what to say. You can't run this time.

(You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here. This city. Something is missing. Something is wrong. You need to get away.)

Now you wait for a room. A door. A bed. And miss your mother with an intensity that's akin to taking a punch to the gut. You don't remember what the earth smells like anymore. Everything in the city is platform and concrete. And soot rising from tall  chimneys.

Suddenly, you can't believe childhood is over.

Spurts of light found themselves against the hallway ceiling, you wondered how long you'd been thinking about that nightmare for it to take so much of your attention. A mic involuntarily roars to life, reminding you that you were still at the varsity and you had to find Jisung. 

Which sounds easy, had it not been for your history with him. Avoiding him was getting progressively hard a task to maintain because you were in the same department, sharing minor courses that prompts you to think that nothing much had changed and you'd be lying if you said you mind. He is a stubborn page which keened on flipping over in the youthful chapters of your life, refusing to be left behind and some part of you is too scared to know what would happen if you had.

You sigh, looking at the clock nailed to one of the pale yellow pillars and then close your eyes to try to ease the tension in your shoulders. Breathing in. Breathing out.  This morning, you put on a thin cotton dress but the humidity had somehow prompted it to appear somewhat translucent.

Summer brushes up against the back of your neck, you rub your eyes vigorously, placing your sweaty palms on them, dapples of light settled atop  the lids. Coating the little twists of purplish veins pink and white, becoming brighter and brighter and brighter. Any minute now and you would muster up the courage to face him.

You push the field door open.

Football players for the born-again team are loitering about in the heavily populated room, expectants look on most of their faces. You begin to feel twice as much nervous than you did before. 

See, the possibility of stuttering nonsensical sentences and potentially embarrassing yourself in front of Jisung and nameless strangers, again, wasn't the most thrilling idea for you but if you don't make the deadline this time on this group assignment, you'll fail your linguistics course, so it  would be tough to bounce back from for the both of you.

The coach, who is a lanky man, with an alarmingly ruddy face and tufts of snow white hair spiralling out of his head, experienced a lot of difficulty blowing it away from his line of sight. With the  door held back, pressing a curious looking opaque board to his chest, he scans the entirety of the team with an owlish stare, when he was satisfied with the number of persons attending, he stepped in.

"Game starts in 10 minutes." he pauses, allowing the candidates to settle in. A feet away from you, Changbin produces a series of garbled profanities before going back greedily guzzling down the rest of his gatorade.

Once the coach clears his throat, his beady eyes travelling from one curious face to another, flitting between each person, it finds you briefly then it darts curiously across the scenery behind you, as though an explanation for your presence is out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered.

You hold the assignment packet against your chest, feeling the weight of gel blue letters under the rough pad and then slowly fold it open.

Han jisung. You tell him, that's who I'm looking for. 

It takes you awhile to navigate your gaze to the owner of the name amidst the maze of students huffing and puffing about schedules and missing lectures and deadlines, some shouldering their way out in bored frowns, some smiling excited smiles, rushing to grab a suitable seat. Like a blur of faces you catch on the subway and eventually forget, the little snippets of another person's life. Glimpses of them from car windows pressed together in traffic, just a few seconds before the light turns green. One minute you think you know them, put yourself in their shoes and imagine their life for them and the next, you go back to being strangers. 

To you, Jisung's face is an unmistakable, unforgettable kind of face. 

Taunting you from posters of his many swim team accomplishments, under which his name stood in big bold yellow letters, plastered on the noticeboards, on the  walls where the paint was starting to crack. The search didn't prove to be very difficult even though he didn't stick out like a sore thumb without his signature bleached blonde hair.

A varsity jacket is discarded on his body. Under the blue and yellow fabric, Jisung's chest rises and falls with every breath, his lanky legs perched up on the bleachers.  You wonder how he managed to doze off in the face of all this tension about getting clocked in face with a football. 

Aside from by accident, you were positive he hadn't tried to speak to you ever since your previous, unspeakably embarrassing encounter. 

That was a long time ago. 

It was certain that had it not been for this assignment, things between you would remain that way. In spite of this, you've gathered, because people never stop fawning over this prominent character, that not much has changed since you were in school.

Jisung managed to secure an attention drawing position wherever he went and upperclassmen wanted to be his friend even though he mostly indulged only in his own company. 

His head rests on folded arms, his foot is propped up on his knee, which he keeps shaking.  Sunlight crawls up the expanse of his exposed cheek, allowing burnt orange to  bathe half of his face, ribbons of liquid light tapering to smudges down the side of his jaw and disappearing.

Jisung has a boyish face, his eyes are big and kiddish, paired with a sharp nose and a convenient, small, pinkish mouth inherently pouted out to accentuate his puffy squirrel like cheeks but slimming down around his jaw. His raven hair falls in sleek, wet tufts clinging to his forehead and grazing his rosy cheeks, giving him a strange resemblance to a cherub loitering around in the real world.

Come to think of it, Jisung looks, like he invariably does, just slightly out of place.

You drop your bag on the grass. The action makes an unexpected thump. His eyes stir  faster behind closed eyelids, as though he were stirring awake from an ardently produced dream, like a newborn baby, divorced from the worries of the world. Jisung opens one of his eyes, then another, glaring confusedly, his lips pursed in unspoken surprise.

What's the big deal, right? At best, he'll start cooperating with you. At worst, you imagine, he'll toss you across the field for disrupting his sleep.

Of course, no one in their right minds would opt for the latter option, the rational part of you reasons - but you show him the packet,  just for safety measures.

"I thought we ought to go over how we're going to work around this assignment and you weren't in class so..."  You explain. When Jisung just blinks up at you in a curious fashion, you consider that he might not recognise you at all, that, for some reason, bothers you. "You probably don't remember me I-"

"I remember." He interjects firmly, acknowledging you with a fluent utterance of your name that gives you enough evidence of his claim, followed by a watchful, stoic gaze, he motions for you to take a seat beside him. 

You hesitantly sit at the end of the row,  keeping a calculated distance between your bodies. You find that even after all this time looking him in the eye was just as unnerving as it had been the first time they shyly flickered back to yours from across a thick spined A levels Calculus textbook. There's still an intimidating air about him, something that seeks to be constantly impressed without asking to.

Jisung sits up straighter, setting both his legs on either side of the bench, he keeps his gaze trained on your face, not looking away once. "Go on." He suggests, his voice low, "What do we have to do?"

You perk up at this, taking the contents out of the packet. Setting them down before you, you reiterate the instructions rendered in class, trying to include every important detail which contributes to the making of the project.

"We have to attach a PowerPoint part too." You paused, "Let's do that bit today."

Jisung listens intently, never cutting you off, he nods occasionally, making suggestions when you were trying to look for suitable loops in your schedules to work on the scheme, you recommended  several premises, ranging from cafés to parks to libraries to food courts, even your place because it's the closest from Jisung's flat and he refuses go beyond the distance on a Sunday morning. You casually let in the fact that your flatmate would be there in order to insinuate that you hadn't made the offer because of your previous feelings for him.

 You sigh, taking a minute to stretch back and take a deep breath. The bench is cool under your thighs, soft caresses of a warm summer breeze brushing the hair from your face away, pale yellow pours from the canopies, staining the grass, football players prepping in the distance, their zealous partners egging them on with excited smiles, shouting encouragements from the other end of the court.  You imagine lying down on the grass, spreading your arms out and not having a care about anything.

"You still wear that bracelet." 

"What?" You yawn, brows furrowed in confusion. You look at him from the corner of your eyes,  finding that his brown orbs motion to the source of comment, they dart from your cheek to your wrist, where surely the platinum accessory is tied to its loosest hoop, it used to be your go-to add-on in school. 

Surprised, you touch the item briefly, before retracting your hand slowly. All you can think is he remembers, he really remembers,  "...Yeah."

...

Instead of running about playgrounds with a mouthful of kiddish laughter and building cartoonishly  architectured sandcastles, you remember spending most of your childhood with your nose dug deep inside a fairytale, splurging much time on committing the glide of milky pages to memory, eyes widening, face twisting with each vicissitudes of emotions that would come over you with each stage of exploring a story. It was your own little world, a catharsis for all that you were holding inside, a window you could crack open and when the real world felt stuffy. 

Fancying Jisung was, your younger self imagined, fantastical, like something out of those fairytales.

You don't know when you started liking him, maybe it was the first time you saw him. It was your last year in school and Jisung's unfamiliar face was a new sight against the fuzzy background of sleepy students pouring into the hallway, it was the kind that demanded to be noticed, even though he simply  looked bored with an enormous pair of headphones looped around his thin neck.

Jisung was born to go through life being the embodiment of an all rounder, now that you think about it, there's not a thing he wasn't good at, always  having a proclivity to outshine others.

 He was a transfer student with stellar grades in spite of mostly routing his interest  towards composing  obscure music you'd found floating about the net. In all honesty, he truly was the master of all trades and the jack of none and every room was a keeper of attention, enveloped in an intangible but unanimous, wordless veil of interest towards the new character.

But  maybe it wasn't as theatrical as you remembered; maybe it was the love at  first sight nonsense, maybe it wasn't something you realised overnight, out of the blue, maybe it all happened at a slow, infuriating pace, maybe you started liking him for the small, stupid and unimportant things, like when you dropped your pen, the thin stick rolling away between your desks and he picked it up, flicking it between his fingers curiously, carefully curling his fingers around the metal, observing it before putting it back on your desk, maybe it was in class, when he zoned out in class, not bothering to look apart until he realised it had caught your attention, he then blinked away, the rosy hue of his cheeks more prominent with each passing second,  maybe it was when you were sure you were about to flunk the history pop quiz and Jisung whispered the names of warriors and poets and the fallen while keeping his gaze firmly poised on his paper.

You were so shy, cloistered, intensely egregious and he kept seeking you out in some new manner, causing you to be an element of mild interest not only amongst your peers but also people who actively seeked his romantic interest.  Although, conversations  on your part never stretched beyond differentiation and stealing cautious glances at one another, (which wasn't a shocker because you didn't know how to compute a chat with him and Jisung was unusually timid for someone who acquainted himself with well known rambunctious personalities), you genuinely enjoyed his company.

So you obliged. Even though it was utterly improper and you were sure he liked someone on the cheer squad. It was just that you were a kid and you wanted to wear your heart on your sleeve just once before tucking it away forever.

He poked his head out from the water, wordlessly upon hearing his name, looking at you with a cocked brow and you were quick to say it, like you had to before you ended up changing your mind, it took a lot of courage to mutter a simple confession after all,  in spite of the fact you didn't at all picture him reciprocating, whisking you off of your feet with a wide grin, in a grand affirmation of all the rubbish pop culture has spoon fed you. 

It was a stereotypical teeth rotting, sweet crush that bound you to want to be around Jisung in a way he didn't, something lodged deep inside of you, the same thing that was childish and clung onto its fairy tales for dear life, hoped that he would share the same feelings, in spite of knowing it was undoubtedly unrequited. 

 Jisung had an indecipherable look on his face, he parted his mouth to say something but paused as if looking for the right words.  He simply settled with a sigh, before lowering his body down into the pool. You replayed the scene over and over again for the rest of senior year, until it drove you to a point of absolute insanity. You even considered googling what a sigh was supposed to convey, if fishing through dictionaries wasn't going to tell.

That was notably the last time you spoke in school.

But your strained relationship stayed with you like an embarrassing tattoo  and in trying desperately to  conceal it, afraid someone would see too much, know too much, you would only make it more apparent. 

You had to push him away to the farthest corner of your mind so you didn't have to wonder anymore, didn't have to interpret every action like your life depended on it - because love to you was so immense that it was overwhelming. You've wanted love to rescue you in some way, looked for it in the soft murmur of pages, in the chilling words to a song you can't seem to forget, you've waited for love like an impatient eagle anticipating its opportunity  to leap in and swoop up its shot at satisfying its undying hunger. You needed to uproot those budding feelings before they took abode inside your chest, grew stronger, into something massive, unignorable, something like love.

Avoiding Jisung in hallways, in class and really everywhere was some form of a habit you were developing - but that didn't stop him  from entangling himself with your ponderings; you thought of all the things he did without paying much attention to the act, like his petulant whining when he wanted something he wasn't getting, you thought of the way he tapped his pen against the wooden desk, silently eyeing chalky math problems on the board before uttering the answer with an ease only he could carry, you thought of his petulant front during arguments and how he always ended up winning, you just missed being around him without the added tension - which was funny because you're the one to blame for it. 

To your knowledge, Jisung didn't know to speak in puzzles, even when he didn't want to say something, he always found an agreeable way to deliver it,  often unknowingly wording them as they were, he didn't understand the complexities with which people conversed, needing everything to be black and white, as clear as the summer sky, so everyday felt like he owed you an example of his unintentional transparency, a explanation even though you knew he didn't.  

Maybe that's it, you thought, maybe that's all. 

(Sometimes you would sense his gaze searing into the side of your face, as if he was on the verge of uttering a greeting.

But graduation came along. And you never heard anything from him.)

You began to understand that all those tear jerking, unhappy endings were inevitable, like not being able to take your eyes off the stage during  Giacomo Puccini's Sono Andati, like being exposed to Mimi's excruciating death, losing something you can't put a finger on - and suddenly, the plays, the window, the catharsis wasn't enough, the child in you wanted to scream and  kick and throw, the child in you wanted to forge her own ending, the one that made sense, the one you could anticipate.

Running his palms along the cool glass, Jisung pauses from time to time to look at you, as if expecting you to address the elephant in the room, the same elephant that followed you all the way from campus, to his car, to the café downtown. It wasn't until the waiter went away in the pursuit of getting your order did he pose the inquiry. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

You shake your head slowly, a nervous laugh escaping your lips.

 "What's there to talk about? It was a long time ago and I'm over it."

 Saying it out loud like this feels weird, it feels so real and disappointing and embarrassing, you feel reduced to a child coming clean about that one time they tipped over a vase and dusted the debris under the rug he is about to step about on, hoping he wouldn't notice. 

The statement makes you feel guilty, like you're lying. You don't want to know if you really are.

"Well, does that mean we can be friends?" Mutters Jisung against the opening of his straw, sipping miserly as though not wanting to finish the rest of his Americano. He opens his mouth to say something but stops, looking blatantly confused, like that was the only explanation he had for your fallout. "I don't understand." 

Not having thought that far, you stop typing, the click clack of keys muting, Jisung's thick rimmed glasses rest atop the jut of his nose and he's peering over them to look right at you with big wide eyes, genuinely interested in being supplied an answer.  The sixteen year old you would be overwhelmed with bouts of fluster right now. But you stopped being that person a long time ago, in fact, that person is to you a bleary recollection of a mere stranger who you thought you saw somewhere but couldn't put a finger on the location.

Shrugging, unsure, the question comes after a lengthy pause, "I guess it does?"

You sit in temporary silence after the short conversation ends, never going off topic again and giving into irrelevant chats even though Jisung is actively trying to initiate conversation about things which had nothing to do with work. You wonder why, wordlessly admitting that it was getting harder to resist the urge to talk to him with every passing second.

His car was parked a few lanes away from the café so you were obliged to walk after getting through the first portion of the assignment.

"So." Jisung starts, biting the side of his cheek, "What have you been upto lately?"

Talking to Jisung isn't as difficult as your younger self made it to be, he could hold a conversation well, jumping from serious topics to lighter ones to keep the balance, making witty comments here and there that had you laughing without really meaning to and every time, you'd catch a look of satisfaction glinting in his eyes. 

 The pair of you walk by an ice-cream parlour where a short bald man with a perpetually happy  face is handing out samples. A mint green board is attached to the appendage of a stall, outstretching from the original store, it says La Petite Glacière. 

You raise your brows, literal nomenclature.

"Journalism could suit you." The comment is off-handed, a product of you thinking out loud, imagining Jisung running around with a recorder, with his big, friendly eyes, queries posed with an an easy jovial attitude; it's so befitting, you just couldn't help but notify him. Even if it was an involuntary notification. You left out the part where you always pegged his love for composing would eventually materialise instead, this was unexpected to say the least. But Jisung described music as a getaway, something he was willing to do out of passion and not duty.

It was to his credit that he didn't laugh in your face when you said you wanted to be a playwright, specialising solely in the field of fiction. That's one thing he doesn't have in common with your parents. (Who didn't hesitate to point out that it was an obsolete branch of writing.)

"Yeah?" Jisung grins archly, glancing at you, as insinuating the memory of you playing Iago when you were expecting to land Desdemona is still impressed on him. "I could say the same for you."

You only wave him off, rolling your eyes. Some things are better left forgotten.

It's hot and you're really thirsty. You're knee deep in lengthy conversations engineered to catch up with one another, which consisted of ping-ponging inquiries about everything and anything, like how it was moving away from your family and new hobbies and pet peeves and casual strolls down memory lane but then the tension would settle and you would grow awfully quiet, like you're doing something you aren't supposed to, like you're walking into the inviting mouth a ginormous tiger whilst convincing yourself that it won't gobble you up.

"Okay. I have one." you start, he's nodding in encouragement,  "Have you been dating a lot?" 

Jisung laughs at your obvious curiosity, wiping his sweaty forehead with a spare napkin, strolling really fast, long legs promoting his speedy gait, you have to jog from time to time to keep up.

"Why?" 

He tilts his head to you, the teasing spark in his eyes glinting knowingly, he becomes shorter and grows taller walking up and down the slopes of the bumpy road.

  Your eyes widen. You were curious! You haven't spoken to him for a long time and you're just catching up. Exactly, you tell yourself,  that's believable, that, you think, makes sense. The other explanation, the one you're deigning to not look in the eye, that a part of you would be disappointed if he had said yes doesn't.

You flounder for a response, something, just a word or even an awkward noise, anything to formulate a proper retort. When that proves to be delayed and difficult, heat begins to pool into your cheeks, shooting up to the back of your ears and budding under the skin of your neck.

"Just asking."

 He hums, ghosting his fingers along the small of your back, careful not to touch you as he shoulders his way to your side without bumping you off of your feet, the gesture prompts something inside your gut to twist and twist and twist. "Well...yeah, but it's never been serious."

You're waiting for the red light so you can cross the road to the parking area. Jisung is towering over a sea of the heads, he's not much taller than the average person, hands tucked in his pockets. The wind is messing his hair up to the side, he keeps running his fingers through the stubborn strand to get it to sit right but when the endeavour proves to be futile so he just scoffs, as if berating the strand whilst stubbornly repeating the action. 

Looking at him like this, you imagine falling in love with Jisung is easy. Like gliding a hot knife through butter. It must feel just right, even if it doesn't last long, like holding fire in between your palms and pretending you own it, feeling the warmth kissing your skin before it nips and burns, like speeding across comets, stars and the moon, waging wars in the name of romance and producing litanies about love and then - finally, inevitably, unwillingly - letting go, like you always knew you would.

 You imagine the aged memories of blurry faces behind cobwebs of raindrops and curtains of mist, the faces of people who he could've loved but hadn't.

And it scares you for some unknown reason.

There's something inexplicably lovable about Jisung, his babyish features have always possessed the tendency to catch you off guard, even though you've known him for a long time; it's gobsmacking and too winning to be real, like something out of a dream, the milky planes of an acrylic face. The smooth buttery texture of his skin, the subtle, narrow jut of his nose, the pouted shape of his mouth and pearly teeth. You think he doesn't know this, doesn't see himself the way you do even when he pretends to be confident with his boastful jokes, they are just jokes after all. Only further evidence of how he doesn't want to believe any compliment rendered his way.

"What about you?" He poses, looking over from the hood of his car while unlocking it from the driver side, "Dating anyone?" 

The truth is, you've tried the atrocities of blind dating and online dating and casual dating but they all have been deficient and you're too tired to go through the never ending cycle  of being on disappointing dates again: your expectations are too high, some might even say, for the way you seek familiarity with absolute strangers; you're stubborn, awkward and sometimes, simply unapproachable,  but for the sake of not deflating your ego, you decide that Jisung doesn't need to know this. 

You shake your head, failing to understand why Jisung is grinning through the cracked window, whilst you're pulling the door open and plopping down on the passenger seat.

"Why are you smiling?" You furrow your brows, watching as the lopsided grin grows bigger. 

"Because." He shrugs, tucking his hands in his pockets.  

"Because?" You look at him expectantly, but he just looks back at you without expanding the brief explanation. You're so close that you can make out the thin layer of mist collecting on his eyelashes, his arched cupid's bow, his eyes have so much brown in them. You'd liken the colour to that of a muddy lake, like the bare earth, they catch sunlight and turn golden, just for a second, for just one second, it looks like what magic must be like. Realising that you have been staring at him for quite long, you tear your abashed gaze away. Piloting it to shift from the buskers to the other cars, buses, pedestrians, traffic lights, looking for a sight distracting enough.

"I'm not telling you!" Jisung mocks your tone like a child with a violent shake of his head, putting his keys in ignition. The engine roars to life, wheezing like a kettle. Why he drives a Comet Convertible when he could've gotten any other alternative is a wonder; not that you mind, you like it, it’s  like sitting  inside a giant jewelry box, the inside is smooth red leather, velvety smooth black paint on the outside.

"Why not?" You frown.

Jisung rolls the steering wheel with one hand, keeping his eyes trained to the approaching traffic while turning lanes, he giggles, "Because."

...

You'll have to admit that it's quite... challenging coming to terms with being friends with Jisung. Not because he's practically everywhere but  just since Jisung tends to demand your attention when he realises he's not getting it.

When you try to dodge him on mornings after he cheats at UNO, scurrying away behind swathes of sleep deprived university students, hoping you don't catch his eye, he calls your name in that  loud, clear and intentional way that he does, dragging a heavy arm around your shoulder to squeeze it against the back of your neck before tousling your hair or some other action to effectively ruin your get up. When you zone out in class, musing absently about something that has nothing to do with scale efficiency and accidentally catch his gaze, he winks at you, snapping you right back into attention. 

Your friendship is, to say the least, interesting, for everyone around you.  It's like everyone is always on the edge of their seats, waiting for a chance to poke fun at your apparent chemistry. It means nothing, you're just friends, you remind yourself over and over again, defensively, succumbing to the urge to grow closer and closer to him without paying mind to the annoying voice in your head.

Jisung texts you in the middle of the night, when he's parked out front, to meet him for a midnight drive out that you're sure no one knows about and you tell yourself you're getting away with it - only to be confronted by a smirking Sunwoo in the morning, likening the situation to a teenager  caught red handed sneaking in through the window after a clandestine night of partying.

 But you're not spared the teasing even out in the open. Though while you squirm awkwardly, sink into your seat and refute offendedly, Jisung doesn't have a lick of such knowledge or care, he easily slumps against you, resting his head on your shoulder in class and dozing off, indifferent to the multiple pairs of eyes zeroing in on you.

Even though the bartenders smile their coquettish smiles, offering drinks on the house and people laughed a little more than necessary, twirling their hair around their fingers at anything and everything he said, thence offering proper chances to ditch you completely, he remains close to you at pubs, putting his long fingers on your shoulders and resting his chin on your head, shooting some creepy guy who just wouldn't stop insisting on buying you a drink a look that said he wouldn't mind taking a stronger stance, had the creep not backed off. It was what anyone would have done, you tell yourself, ignoring the underlying pang of a gut feeling that begged to differ.

You envy the obvious charm Jisung holds over everyone, easing his way out of the jokes to do whatever he wants, you wonder what he would do if someone asked him if you were just friends, if he would dismiss them with a wave or provide a positive response, if it would hurt, if it would matter.

"Hey!" 

You jump at the tone. It's breezy, light and followed by a scoff at the end, you recognise it, sighing once the initial surprise oozes out of you to be replaced with familiarity, Renjun is halfway through a complaint about acrylic paint, his mouth half open while his eyes travel over your head, where you're certain the owner of the voice is jogging up to the pair of you. 

"I'll er...catch you later." Renjun purses his lips, while you turn your gaze back to Jisung, he's coming from practice, so his hair is wet, cheeks flushed red, he looks younger like this, completely barefaced. He's wearing a  plain white t-shirt and light wash jeans, even in such an ordinary attire, a few bypassers' attention latch solely onto him.

The sun has long laid on a cotton soft sheet of clouds, letting a blue evening straighten its back against the dark firmament, the crowd at campus is reducing dramatically, you were walking to the metro, deciding to rest by the park bench as he mimics the pose, sliding from the opposite end when you try to keep a distance.

Jisung nudges you with his shoulder. "We’re having a party at our new place. You should come."

It wasn't willingness that took you to loud premises. You aren't exactly a party animal, far from it, maybe an animal that blends into the background, wordlessly observing  masses of sweaty people who will wake up with horrible hangovers the next morning, wishing the night before had never happened. If such an animal exists. 

 But you're genuinely curious about meeting Minho, who seems to have assumed the position of  one of Jisung's best friends while you were absent from his life. You found yourself wondering if he was different from Bang Chan, who in spite of being the former's friend, is someone you could deem yourself more similar to than he is to Jisung; shaking your heads and groaning into your palms, Chan would pinch the bridge of his nose and cautiously glance at you as though to convey You get me, right? while Jisung showered the karaoke bar manager with grandiloquent blandishments into giving extra minutes for a lower price.

Despite this, it is the undeniable but sheer adoration for your fun-loving mutual friend that binds you two together the best, the shared looks of appreciation when Jisung  scolds you for neglecting your health, when he surprisingly remembers a minor detail about you or when he indulges in appreciative chats about crayon drawings with loquacious kids who would come running to display their paintings when you were looking to take an indolent walk in the local park, he would listen attentively, moving to a sitting position, nodding his head like he understood what the kiddish gibberish meant; one thing is certain -  there was certainly more to Jisung than people pegged and if anything, those undiscovered traits only made him more endearing.

"Okay….but make sure we don't end up playing strip poker or something." You shudder at that thought, grimacing exaggeratedly to make your point.

"Why?" He raises his brows, a small simper playing on his lips to give away that he was only teasing you, "I like that game."

But under all that banter, it was well received that Jisung would never put you to the obligation of doing anything you're not comfortable with, so you just play along, narrowing your eyes, "That's because you're a pervert." You say, stifling a laugh whilst his grin dissolves to drop to a blank face.

 Jisung glares at you, nudging you with his knee, effectively putting you on the verge of falling.

"Hey!"  You scoff, repeating the action but Jisung doesn't roll across the grass like you wanted, he doesn't even budge. Instead, he laughs at your frustration, shaking his head and glancing back at you with an entertained look in his eyes. 

(Something inside your chest is growing, like an epiphany, its vines pushing up against your lungs, your heart, its thornes prickling, injuring the flesh, something that tells you this is so much more to you than you'd admit, you press it down, ignore it; just a little longer, you think, just a little longer before you start to see this for what it is. )

"Why are you staring at me?" Jisung questions, you can't help but notice how he tilts his head, moving his curious face closer to yours, inspecting, like just before he makes his final move and mutters Checkmate but he doesn't actually know what he's doing, doesn't realise the weight of his actions.  "Do I have something on my face?" He tilts his cheek to you, as though offering you to examine it and then, immediately his mouth lowers down to form a deep set frown. Is he really that goddamned clueless? Doesn't this affect him at all? 

"No." You clear your throat and lean back, moving your weight on your palms,  "It's getting late. We should get going." 

...

The earliest memory you have is from when you were five, your parents had taken you to the beach and that day, while the sun shone brightly and the sand was warm, like home under your feet, with big curious eyes, you gazed off into the brilliant blue water. 

It was just so beautiful. 

And you so badly, wanted to wade into the welcoming foamy arms of the sea. If only the immensity of the water hadn't scared you as much as it did, you thought. It was like a blue giant that was reaching to steal the sun off of the sky and if you  dared to test the waters, the liquid Goliath could whisk you right off of your tiny feet and drag you into its mouth.

 That, you think, is what you're really afraid of, that deep down inside , you never really stopped holding back. That you'll never muster up the courage to do anything you really want.

In the midst of the chaos of an alcohol induced party, your head feels like it's about to explode.

It stopped raining. And you haven't had the luxury of running into Jisung ever since he went off to get a drink for himself.

The windows are open. Though there's not a flutter of a cool breeze or anything. But there are assortments of crisps, juices and other suspicious looking snacks. The cool curve of the stair railing pressing up against your side. It's unspeakably loud. The frat house, as typical as it sounds, welcomes an obnoxiously large crowd, it isn't surprising, considering people here have a reputation for social adeptness, the house being big enough to capacitate a crowd twice as big as its guests is just a plus point.

 Once the majority of the crowd  had  long thinned out to participate in a curious sounding game of  beer pong, the aftermath is that everything smells like sweat, vomit or both. You're tipsy, tired and alone. It's been an hour since you arrived. Your patience is wearing thin. 

 You down the remainder of the watered down scotch, even though the liquid could secure a horrible case of nausea if you couldn't hold your liquor well tonight.

In the mess of too many heads, too many hands and too many bodies, pushing, pulling, dancing and kissing  with shocking hostility, suddenly, the view starts to shift, from left to right, from upwards and downwards, like you're on a rollercoaster but without the lap bar. It's certainly a symptom of  the  splitting migraine you're sporting. It's too loud downstairs for you to summon anyone and besides, the search for a familiar face seems futile.  

You fish out your phone, wondering if you should send Jisung a text, squinting at the glaring blue screen but decide against it - hoping to God that you don't walk in on anyone shagging while looking for one of the rooms to crash in. 

Now, that...would put them in an awkward position. You mentally high five yourself for the joke. 

Though the amusement is  mostly transient, soon replaced by a rapid jerk of pain. Wincing in an attempt to stand with little control over balance, you try to ease the pain from your briefly twisted foot. 

When you've made it to your desired destination, an inconspicuous looking room at the end of the long hall, you kick off the death traps for heels off of your feet and all but fling yourself on the mattress.

Stacks of comics are carefully  placed on the top most shelf of the bookshelf pushed against the wall, their polished spines sticking out.

 The rest are overflowing with vinyls, set in alphabetical order. You can tell because each row has a tag taped over its head.

Everything is surprisingly clean, the walls are crisp white, there's a single black wall on which a large painting sits. A night light glows dimly, perched up on the bedside table. Whoever's bedroom this is, has the blandest taste in interior design. Or a lack of it since they moved in not long ago as Jisung informed.

 You stare owlishly at the blue ceiling, following the undulating spines of bricks, stacked in. Upwards and downwards. Like a map. Like a  staircase to nowhere. Then you close your eyes. 

Imagining that you're staring up at the sky at dawn, when it's  a swirl of milk tea. Golden. Buttery white. Autumnal Yellow. And pumpkin spice. Brown curls against the background of a milky white firmament and if one bothered to look closer, they'd catch stars peeking from behind slowly darkening clouds, waiting to come out. 

When you were a child, you liked to stick a curious index into filled tea cups, as if to study the khaki liquid , not quite grasping the connoisseurship of hot beverages just yet. The experience would always end with a mouthful of biscuits and your grandmum's tickles engendering your stomach to ache a good kind of ache.

Now, the memory prompts you to raise a finger to the air, as if you were dipping your digits into the whirlpool of maroon. For a moment, you feel as if you're still that little girl stuck in someone else's body, like you hadn't grown up at all. 

But in the hurtful manner that reality often made itself known, yanking you right back from your dreams, the door creaks noisily and then closes.

Out of the corner of your eye, the character looks more like a funny sketch on a chalkboard than he does a person. All blurry and messy. Like someone tried to rub him out. 

The flash of light radiating from his phone, a sliver of neon, silver, you recognise his face, you've seen the same expression right before he's about to choose between  his favourite ice cream flavour; eyebrows knitted in concentration, lips pursed, emerging from the shadows.  He's typing really fast. You blink, adjusting your vision. The unobstructed sight of his face broadens. "Jisung?" 

 He looks at you, positioning his phone towards your face to get a good in the barely there light. 

"Yeah?"

You furrow your brows in confusion, "What are you doing here?" 

"That's a good question."  He snorts.  "Indeed, what business might I have in my room?"

You jump, sitting straighter, then stand up. Just in case he thinks you're a fucking creep. He probably doesn't even want to be friends with you anymore and you understand, you wouldn't want to be friends with you either. "I...I didn't know."

Jisung laughs loudly at your fluster, rolling his eyes,  he plops down, the mattress dipping under his weight, groaning noisily. He pats the spot beside him. "Relax..."

You wear a doubtful look, under the impression that he'd break into a laughing fit with a quip about you caving in so easily.  You narrow your eyes even though you're quite tempted to take his offer. 

He tuts, yanking you by the arm so you sink down beside him.  

"I just saw you coming upstairs, wanted to make sure some asshole wasn't picking on you." He explains, his face contorting to momentary peevishness just at the fleeting thought. 

A crappy pop song is buzzing in the background, you can hear it, you can smell the salted popcorn in the air. His fringe is brushed forward, cheeks smoothed over, moisturised, in this intimidating proximity, you pick up that Jisung always smells really good. Like aftershave and something strong, woody, earthy — but just the right amount, not overpowering.

 "Have you considered trying something more...erm... colourful?" You  scan his room, deciding to change the subject, attempting to dodge the heavy feeling of fluster in your chest; you guess it was showing on your face because the corners of Jisung's mouth begin to quirk upwards. If there’s anyone more awkward than Jisung, it /s definitely you. "This isn't really you."

 With his mouth lopsided, his nose scrunching upwards, his teeth showing, his eyes turning to crescents, Jisung chuckles, as if perceiving your attempt to digress but choosing to let it slide.

 "Then what is?" He raises a brow.

"I don't know." You pause, trying to picture a suitable tint, "Something bright."

Someone starts blasting Ed Sheeran outside, putting the volume all the way. It creates a proper distraction from the conversation to go beyond simple suggestions, it was a sudden reminder of just how badly you wanted the party to be over.

 "You know the more I think about it, the more I come to acknowledge that this is really not my scene."  You confess absentmindedly, backing up on the mattress so your feet dangle, your headache kicks back, beating inside  your ears, knocking against your skull. You lie back on the mattress, curiously blinking up at Jisung's frowning face.

 "Why didn't you tell me that before?" He says, a pinch in his brows pushing the shape up in utter concern. 

"Because I wanted to come." You say honestly, prompting Jisung to heave a deep sigh, relief gradually washing over his rigid features, "I don't know, maybe I'm just not fun enough."

"Yeah. That's probably it." He jokes, grinning from ear to ear. But the shape drops immediately when you jut your lip out instead of mirroring the mirthful action. "You really think so?"

 He blinks at you, not expecting the forwardness, "No." He says, and you note that this is the most serious Jisung has ever sounded around you.

Your face is growing increasingly hot as the weight of his remark started to kick in. It’s so unfair, isn't it? He has no idea how every little thing he said to you meant so much more than it ought. It hurt when you found yourself automatically deducing his trivial actions, all the while knowing it hadn't meant anything to him.  To him, you're just a friend. And you aren't going to let your emotions ruin that, not again. 

 "What's the party for anyway?"

You furrow your eyebrows in genuine curiosity when the silence has become unbearable. Constantly needing to be disrupted. 

 "It's a stupid frat house tradition, they do it every time we move."

“Sounds like a cult activity to me."

You hear him hum, as if feigning contemplation, then open your eyes.

 "Well, that...That's because it is."

It's very typical of Jisung to try to make jokes whilst trying to keep a straight face. In most cases, he doesn't fool anyone. His voice rises  to a cartoonish volume, his mouth pouted out when he speaks as though to hold back a laugh, it’s his eyes, widened, twinkling with a notorious spark in them that ultimately gave it away. In rare instances, however, they deluded strangers into thinking he was being serious when he really wasn't; like that time he told Chan the pool was pre-heated just for the latter, who trustingly dove into the water, to swim up with clattering teeth and ice cold skin to the surface finding that Jisung was grinning deviously. It was an obvious payback for the time the older male hogged Jisung's share of cheesecake as a daring attempt at pranking.

Maybe, you guess, you just knew him too well.

  "Interesting." you raise your brows, playing along, "I'm surprised there isn't any nude dancing involved."

 "Wow...you sound so disappointed.” 

 Jisung laughs, his chest heaving upwards and downwards with every laboured breath.  It's a pleasant sight, knowing you get to have this moment to yourself. For reasons you'd like to ignore, something inside your chest begins to ache, thrumming against your ribs. It isn't until you put your hands over your face in an attempt to get rid of a thin layer of sweat, do you realise that you were smiling.

When he calms down, he keeps looking at you. "I take that you made the submission?" He presses, knowing well that you were intending to put off the matter from the dodgy look in your eyes. "Right?"

 Before, Jisung stubbornly pressed on the matter, it was unheard of for you to allow your writings to be read by anyone other than yourself; it was only fiction, your little secret, you reason, even though you knew the underlying cause of your unwillingness was that you simply cannot take rejection well, it is truly terrifying but an automatic reaction to think that your work is boring and somehow unworthy of praise every time  you are on the verge of sharing it. Your parents never showed any particular interest in it and you assumed that was a universal desire. 

But Jisung is incredibly obdurate when he wants to be.

 Sometimes, you think he's the only person in your life who's truly honest with you, he doesn't shower you in false accolades, not hesitating to rip the band-aid, to point out the less likable bits from the likable ones even if he knew it would make you unhappy. It was interesting prying your wounds open around him, he wouldn't suppress his thoughts and blurt euphemisms like it's going to be okay, he would grimace and gag and then he'd clean them, he would sit patiently with them and try to dress them up for better - and somewhere along the way, while you may have cared about other people's opinions, your concern for what he thinks of you is starting to become far more significant. And it petrifies you.  "No." 

Jisung shoots you a look of annoyance, staring at you like he's awaiting an explanation. You can sense the lengthy talk coming from the back of his throat, something which surpassed the regular limits of you should do this and you shouldn't do this, he relentlessly pushed you towards your career which you claimed you were passionate about but needed his stern berating often when you would stagger back in indolence and you'd be lying if you said it isn't effective - albeit, the scoldings sometimes led to the two of you bickering back and forth, giving each other the silent treatment until one of you would cave - whatever it was, you know you could never turn down Jisung, even if he was bruising your ego to ask you to get your shit together.  "Why not?"

 "It's just a stupid draft, Sungie..." You laugh nervously but he doesn't give into the fit like you imagined, instead, he just dons a solemn look on his face, something that seems to show that he'd been peeved by your response.

  "No it’s not." He shakes his head slowly and there's sort of a firmness in his retort that surprises you, far from how he usually jokes on about,  that tells you there's no room for argument, "It's not stupid at all."

Jisung tears his gaze away, his expression softening once he notes the worried look on your face, it's as though he had suddenly changed his mind about the lecture he was surely planning  to give you,

 "Look I don’t want to fight.” He sighs, “You’re always talking about how much this means to you and if it’s something that you really want, don't put it off. I'm your friend, I can only encourage you — but at the end of the day, it's your job to pull yourself up. Goes without saying that it’ll be a complete waste if you don’t pursue play writing because you - and I don't care if you don't agree with me -  really do have a lot of potential.”

You blink in wonder, ”You think so?"

 "I know so."

 You don't remember the last time someone said something like that to you, if at all. Tearing your gaze away from him, you’re met with the inability to shake the feeling of craving something you don't want to understand, mired in your own musings and for no particular reason but to avoid the desperation of confessing to yourself of the warm tight feeling inside your belly - you give into the temptation of placing your palm over the nightlight, watching the light turn from bright yellow to muted blue, it stings slightly. 

Too cheesy, you would groan out under any other circumstance where you hadn’t been so fazed.

Instead, you just gulp, eyes wide at his forward comment, his praise is the equivalent of being splashed with ice cold water when one is half asleep, now you're all wide eyed and incognisant of what's real and what isn't, it prompts a jolting sensation to traverse all throughout your body, "Thanks." 

This scene was no exception, Jisung tips his head back against his palms when he's thinking about something, while keeping his calm gaze posed on you, he smiles, rolling his eyes. “You’re too hard on yourself, loosen up just a little. I'm not always gonna be around.”

You muse that your mum said the exact same thing when you moved away for university but chose not to mention it, it's not true though, you want to say. Because Jisung is always there for you.

 See, the universe exists on this dreadful thread of balance  and you've been hanging on by your last finger for as long as you remember, taking every step on the basis of a fear of tumbling off to be greeted by the gasps and complaints of an imaginary audience, for the longest time, picturing  your play to be dissected like a lab rat, for a delirious critic to point their scalpel and announce, the misshapen heart is here, that's the pudgy head.

But nowadays and you'll never tell him this, when Jisung talks about you  like that, you almost believe it, believe in yourself and don't think he understands what it means to you, how grand that is  -  to imagine seeing your play come to life, something severely intimidating about watching it, spotlight gingerly kissing up the actors' newborn faces as the audience spews quiet comments, critics' expressions morphing with  nuanced understanding, the anticipation is tangible, the walls closing in by the second, tension squeezing the air out of their lungs -  until the curtains part and a story draws them into another world. Then everything falls into a formidable silence.The inexplicable feeling of being one wrapping its limbs around everyone and cradling them to its chest like a loving mother, awestruck strangers listening in on the heart wrenching dialogues, the belter of a riveting tragedy prompting their hearts to lurch forward and sit on their tongues, then they'll look around, spot bits of you in your characters and think I'm not alone. I never was.   (The people you've both never known but known your entire life.)

It's better to slip, to put everything on the line for the sake of making way to what you want on a feeling rooted deep inside your gut than to cower behind the fear of disapproval and have nothing at all. Being brave enough to tell your story is not the absence of that fear which keeps you, but it is telling the tale despite, toppling that fear.

There's something relieving about that theory.

 "I want to lie down..." You mewl, in spite of already lying down. It's a sign of how the constant toiling through exams was finally taking a toll on you, the sleepiness coupled with hours long lethargy from the party seemed to be weighing your body down, making your eyelids heavier by the second. He moves your hand, leaning into the light. A wash of colour is spreading  across his face for a brief moment, exposing the skin to scrutiny, all veins, curves and crinkles around his eyes. Jisung smiles at you. Your eyes dart all over his face, resting on the curve of his mouth briefly, then his eyes, you catch the yellow flickering in them , the brown turning to dark copper. 

Your heart drops to your stomach when he blinks away slowly, the disappointment assuaged by something foreign, dumb and utterly clichéd stirs in the pit of your stomach as his thumb briefly swipes across your knuckles,  "You don't say, sleepy girl!" Jisung scoffs, bringing his arm under his head.  

Unconsciously, entertaining the thought of staying alone in his room, you find yourself feeling safer because of his presence instead, divorced from prying eyes, "Thanks for staying." You say, wanting to talk to him more and more,  contemplating fashions  to contribute to the conversation again and again just to cut the silence.

"Well, you had a lot to drink." 

He reminds, as if the reason for his staying is that obvious;  worry laced in his voice and you understood why -   even though you aren't completely doused in a state of inebriation, you kept swaying all the way upstairs.

"But you missed out on.." you drag the consonant unintentionally, "all the fun, though."

"Do I look like I care?" Jisung snorts, staring up at the ceiling, leaning back on his hands and dropping down against the bed, he laces his fingers together over his chest, digging into his pocket and fishing out his phone. It isn’t a question.

His wallpaper is of a kid gazing up from the water, he peers up at the camera, grinning ear to ear. This is definitely Jisung. Because even with his front teeth missing, his smile is all too familiar. His cheeks were chubbier back then, face rounder, softer around the edges. Subconsciously, you rose a finger to poke at his cheek, as if to examine it. Jisung shoots you a glare.

"You were cute."

You coo, leaning onto his shoulder, the closeness should not intimidate you, given the amount of time you spend like this. But it does anyway.

"What do you mean were?” Jisung scoffs, “Nu-uh, still am. I'm the resident cutie pie, if you will."  He sings, narrowing his eyes briefly, thereon chuckling at the look of sheer disgust on your face. 

You wrinkle your nose, "I can't believe you just said that..." 

The rest of the night is spent in a comfortable quietude, except for the times when either of you perk up to initiate conversation and Jisung gives you aspirin for the throbbing migraine. 

Your shoulders are touching. Jisung breathes. Slowly. Then fast. Then slow. And then he tucks an earphone into your ear, it was an unspoken ritual you two practised when you were alone, oft in a different venue, sitting languidly about campus, while you read and he winked through the glaring sun to get a distant view of the landscape.

Jisung yawns, the grapple on his speech loosening and loosening.

You remain quiet, closing your eyes again. Words feel liquid in your mouth, letters wobbling on your tongue until you feel like you've lost complete control over what you're thinking of saying.

You can see the scene unfolding inside your head, can feel the earth under your skin, can hear birds chirping, can feel the dusty orange, morning glow kissing your faces. As if you're the only two people there. "Coldplay, right?" 

"Uh-huh..." Jisung replies, he sounds unsurprised by your aligned tastes. You look at him and find that he's mirroring you. His long lashes casting shadows on the apples of his cheeks, eyes clamped shut. 

"It's beautiful..." You murmur, dropping your head back against the mattress, you think Jisung hums in response but you can't be too sure. It's like you're slowly, slowly and slowly drifting far, far away. Letting slumber wrap its welcoming arms around you. 

For a second, you feel the weight on your shoulders lighten, you imagine that you're soaring, soaring, soaring, like you could look down and see the rivers and seas and lakes pulsing against the  Earth's body, as though they were a bundle of nerves belonging to a round, green vessel of a body, and somehow - then immediately, you're being pulled to your feet, at great speed, you're falling, falling, falling - so fast that you feel like there's a fire budding inside your lungs, budding under your fingertips, inside your heart. 

Then it begins.  This must be a dream, this must be a dream, this must be a dream. The soft murmur of scripted words. Parted curtains, an open window allowing you to stare in wonder, dusk stretching across the entirety of the landscape, blue, then pink. You think of the big sapphire sea, the warm sand and someone waiting for you before it.  You think, this is it. This is it. This is it. And run, run, run. Sprinting to the broadening view. You recognise the back of his head, the curve of his neck, tufts of raven hair fluttering about, his white cuffed shirt, his footsteps like a trail of breadcrumbs, feet dipped in frothy water, You call his name, surprised  but think I knew it, I knew it, I knew it all along. He looks back and smiles at you, offering you his hand. (You're not over him. You don't think you ever were. And this is what you want, you want it so bad, after all this time, are you going to hold back? Are you going to hold back? Are you going to hold back?)

Just for a moment, in the split of a second, just now,  just once, you aren't afraid. 

You jolt awake, the earphone straining against the sudden movement, "Hey." You whisper, looking up at him. His Adam's apple drops with a slow gulp, the rosy colour of his parted lips. The slope of his nose. You don't know when you  nuzzled your face into his chest, his long arm is draped around your waist, pulling you flush against his body.  Your heart is beating noisily in your ears, on your tongue. 

To your surprise, Jisung hums in response, eyes still clamped shut. You're so close, just so close, he brushes his slender fingers against the back of your neck, the touch feather light, as though reminding you that he had heard you. Your breath hitches inaudibly.

"Let's..." You say, with your tongue starting to limp inside your mouth, "go to the beach sometime."

...

A shower is running, loud, water gushing down and thumping against the tiles, the sound echoing and growing thinner by the second. 

You sit up on the empty bed, the recollection of last night lodged deep inside your head like a butcher knife. 

The realisation that you aren't at home isn't startling as you momentarily grow distracted in examining the room, the photos, the turntable, the white paint, the portraits, a light adjusted above, bits and pieces of a person scattered around.

Jisung's t-shirt is discarded carelessly on his reading table, your eyes widen when you acknowledge the occupant in the shower to be him, leaping up with a haste, everything comes back to you  with a force equivalent of pulling the butcher knife out and slamming it right back into your skull.

"It's you!" You gasp, partially  because the cheerful exclamation sends pangs of pain to your head, having made all the way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, only to find Minho whipping up pancake batter in a bowl. As opposed to his old Instagram photos, with the new complementing pink hair, his feline like features are even more staggering, eyes narrowed to amused slits, behind which beady black orbs stare you down in absolute curiosity.

"Right, we met last night." He reminds you, uttering your name quickly, finding that you already recognise him. He holds the spatula up, paused in surprise as if he really wasn't expecting to see you right now, the position only eases when you wave your hands dismissively and say it's not what you think.

  He smiles, there's a strange disappointed quality to the demand."Sit down, let's have breakfast."

It's awkward, Minho spares you a few interrogating stares while you silently dig at your meal, the sound of cutlery and ceramic sounding through the open kitchen. You wish Jisung would come down already if the floor beneath your feet isn't going to open up and swallow you whole to save you from this discomfiture.

"They're really good." You nod, shoveling more of the unevenly cut portions of the pancake into your mouth.

"Do you still have feelings for him?" 

You choke, coughing on the gigantic bite, patting your chest as you slowly as you begin to regain your composure. Minho's eyebrows are weaved upwards, hinting that he expected an answer despite offering you water. God, he cut right to the chase, you aren't used to people as blunt as that. When you don't say anything, he blinks at you, tilting his head to examine the evasive expression on your face.

"He talks about you a lot..." He notifies, as though it was an explanation for something.  Minho's arms are crossed over his chest, proudly before announcing, "I think I practically know everything about you."

Funny, you could say the exact same thing about him. Jisung likes to babble on about people he cares about, which albeit is a handful, you are just as special as any of them. And that reminder as a consequence of his constant prodding makes you a little angry. 

"Look, he doesn't like me if that's what you're trying to say." You blurt out, you don't want to get your hopes up.  It's weird saying something so grave to someone you only recently  came to know. Having already accepted your one sided feelings even though you struggle to try to suppress them and the hopeful part of you reasons that Jisung probably didn’t initiate a kiss because you weren’t exactly sober — but the real reason, and you know this, is that his withdrawal last night was just cherry on top of the  big fat I-don't-feel-the-same-way cake. 

You made the mistake of ruining your friendship because of a stupid confession in the past and you aren't going to make it again, not when you're closer than ever now.

"That's not what I asked."  Minho comments. He is pretty great at appearing intimidating. Or rather, he sees right through you. You can't tell. But he's practically cornered you with his witty questions whilst his perceptive eyes keep an intent watch on you.  Minho had a curious  quality to him when he looked at things, he seemed to notice everything.

You laugh nervously, rubbing your nape when his gaze is practically unblinking in anticipating a reaction. 

"How was your Gimpo trip?" You digress.

 Minho's ears perk up, his eyes blown to big, happy circles, he nods his head excitedly, properly distracted from pressing the previous topic further. 

The conversation fizzles away in a haze, Minho rambles on in a cheerful tone, his eyes glossed over in enthusiasm. He speaks  of his three cats and asks you to commit their names to memory with a dead serious face, moving onto ramble on about his childhood, an entanglement of being the only child who dreamed laboriously of pursuing a career in ballet and succeeded. You listen attentively, not breaking your focus even when he gets up to do the dishes. 

By the time Jisung lazily drapes a towel around his neck, all the while hopping down the stairs, you feel like you've overstayed, digging your feet into the heels from last night while Minho holds the door open for you. 

"Need a ride?" Jisung asks, standing on his toe to look at you from behind Minho. 

 You shake your head, suggesting that you were to take the subway instead, keeping your eyes fixated on your sore feet as a reminder that you're opting for the alternative not by choice but because you don't have the energy to render Sunwoo an explanation of where you'd spent the night at with his constant teasing, Tightening the strap around your leg, while balancing yourself with the free arm, Jisung's long fingers quickly grab onto the underside of your arm, letting you balance your weight whilst posing the question, "You’re coming tomorrow for the group study, right?" You ask.

 It was an uncharacteristic gesture, outright surprising, because of his renowned proficiency in that class, when Jisung suggested that he didn’t understand the volume of topics you were going over.

Jisung glances cautiously at his best friend, who has a stupid smirk on his face for some reason, like he knows something you don't, “Yeah, yeah...” He says, reaching out to pinch your cheek despite your complaint. 

“Are you an alligator?” he calls out, prompting you to shoot a confused look over your shoulder.  "What?"

It's just one of those things Jisung says instinctively, his eccentric humour getting the best of him in silences and you, well, you walked right into this one. 

 "You know...cause I'll see you later!" 

In your peripheral vision, you spot Minho pinching the bridge of his nose at the quip, muttering a quick Jesus Christ.

...

During the day, the portrait is much more confusing. 

It's carefully placed on the paper covered floor, the room smells like fresh paint and sweat. Jisung suggested that you go paint shopping in the  pursuit of looking for a suitable colour to liven up his walls and the end of the semester meant you had enough time to put the purchased product to use. 

There is a blob of red on Jisung's jaw and the colour gets smudged all the way to his cheekbone when he makes an unsuccessful attempt to itch the skin with the back of his palm. You don't tell him this. 

"I bought it from the local display." He breathes out exasperatedly, the paint roller is placed on the paper, "The artist said it was about an unlikely romance or something like that. Looked pretty dope to me too and—"

 "I don't get it." You cock your head to the side and investigate the painting at your feet with an obstinate want to understand how it's supposed to depict love. Or anything that bears semblance to it, you never did have a good eye for art,  "It just looks like they slapped on paint."

 "Look here, dummy!" He slaps your pointer finger jokingly, grumbling under his breath.  Taking your palm and slowly splaying out the digits. Traces the rough pads against its silky texture, a map to somewhere, a blend of blue and pink, silhouettes reaching out for each other when the world intends to tear them apart. 

You sigh, contentedly and think this must be it; because never was love  meant to be understood. 

It was meant to be felt. 

...

"Why do you have that dumb look on your face?"

 Sunwoo speaks, chewing through his snack, his fringe is glued to his forehead in a thick layer of sweat. You aren't surprised. The humidity is skyrocketing. A cut in your salaries have made you compromise the use of your obsolete air conditioner. It's a terribly humid Sunday morning and you're getting ready for a trip to Minho's beach house.

It wasn't hard to convince you. Such was possible because Minho's offer was reiterated through a number of ways and people over the span of last week. Even from Sunwoo. 

He and the rest of the boys have started  to get along pretty well, so well that you often end up acting as an amused spectator, simply watching the boys cosying up to one another while you're effectively camouflaging in the background of utter silence. Your friends  teamed up to produce quips here and there, stopping to chuckle into their napkins, cheeks rubicund like ripe apples whenever you went out for dinner. It was becoming a regular occurrence, at this point. Not that you minded; you genuinely enjoy the time you spend together.

As a final move, Jisung reminded you of your slurred request of wanting to go to the beach, beating the purpose of you claiming you wanted to stay home doing nothing when really you were just looking to avoid encouraging how you felt for him. You constantly found yourself suppressing the desire to want more and the last few weeks had been the toughest because you had trouble ignoring how you felt although you were careful not to show it. Jisung was spending more time with you than usual since you were on summer break and were relieved of your studies for a short while. You couldn't forget that night at his place, the memory made your gut wrench in a desire you couldn't fulfill. 

But  while it was hard being around him, you just knew you couldn't help it.

The trip was, nonetheless, a reminder of how Jisung always gets what he wants, even if it is as easy as snagging his favourite items off of the super store shelf or something which demands  more patience to be possessed, something that needs to be drawn out with unwavering persistence.  

Come to think of it, you never really understood what it means to live like that. 

"What dumb look?" You ask, averting your gaze from your phone, twiddling your thumbs for a response to Jisung's text notifying that they were taking the lead on the journey by setting off earlier than you to set up the place.

 It won't take them as long as it will for you because it's a familiar premise for them. Your arm is starting to hurt from holding up your suitcase.

Sunwoo mimics a grin, stretching the corners of his lips awkwardly and flattening his lips like that of a frog, a string of dried milk sits on his chin to finish off the impression. He points to his face, "This one."

 "I don't know what you're talking about." You roll your eyes, "Hurry up. Jisung messaged me the location." 

Sunwoo nods, then pauses, then his eyes widen, a teasing grin making  its way on his face, insinuating that he finally understood why you packed chocolate cake last minute in spite of you not having a particular preference for the item. "Does he know you have a big puppy crush on him?"

Sunwoo makes up for your social ineptness, amongst other things, and there are times when you don't understand what you'd do without him, times when you're relieved he's your friend even though you're essentially opposites - now is, certainly, not one of those times, now you wish he wasn't so close to you  to have access to this information without telling. 

"Are you hearing yourself? I don't have a crush on him." You lie, glaring at him, when your flatmate ducks his head to display that he didn't quite agree, you groan, 

"I don't!"

…

"Do you take me for an idiot?"

Sunwoo pulls his sunglasses down to pretend to study you, his big brown eyes scrutinising you from head to toe.  The  strong stink of diesel is still emanating  in the air in spite of the image of the gas station being wiped out long ago in your peripheral vision. You kind of like it, it contributes to boosting the anticipation of what was to happen when you reach your destination .

"Oh absolutely..." Sunwoo says, driving in the direction of the beach house the GPS pilots him to, Lauv hums faintly from the dusty speakers, the familiar lyrics filling the air  whilst you unconsciously bobbed your head. The vague distraction allowed Sunwoo to buy time to gather his thoughts, 

 "You need to tell him how you feel before someone else does. You need to tell him how you feel, period."

“I'm not doing that again.” you warn him, he speeds down the highway, your beach hat threatening to fly about under the weight of your hands at the sudden gush of wind. "Need I remind you how it went last time?" 

"Last time was different." 

"How?" 

"You barely even spoke to each other!" He exclaims frustratedly, pointing out the obvious, "Now you're good friends and he seems to feel the same way considering he always puts up with you...like...voluntarily." Sunwoo mocks, looking at the corner of his eye to note that you're rolling your eyes in annoyance, "Maybe Jisung's out of his mind."

"I'm not that bad!" You defend, quieting down once again when the memory of your admission flashes before your eyes in vivid details - the years of distance and silence that stretched between you because of it was hard - if that were to repeat itself now, when you're more used to him that you were before, you don't think you could bear it.  Or maybe you could but you don't want to.

It's enough to just have Jisung around and not be yours than to lose him by admitting.

"I'm not putting us in that position again just because of how I feel. It's kinda selfish, don't you think?" Your statement has a touch of finality to it that shuts Sunwoo right up, he wordlessly pulls up in front of the huge beach house, another jeep and the Comet Convertible is parked; before which far off near the shore, you couldn't help but notice the two unfamiliar figures by the boys, one of them is wearing a bikini, standing incredibly close to Minho, who's setting up their small grill, the other (and it makes your stomach turn) is talking animatedly to Jisung, he nods and smiles in that way that makes you think you'll never quite stop loving him. Chan is holding up his phone to take a picture. 

 Sunwoo honks loudly,  pulling you out of your trance. You can hear the I told you so sitting on the tip of his tongue when he shoots you a look of pity. You don't like it. The way that makes you feel like a toddler who can't keep herself from sticking her fingers into electric sockets in spite of being precisely instructed not to. Now, you think, the ‘I told you’ so would've been much more agreeable to your pathetic but injured emotions.

Jisung snaps his head around fast, raising his lithe digits to the air, waving at you languidly.  The girl spectates the exchange in an engrossed fashion, slowly routing her inquiring  gaze to yours in thought. Not all that seemed black and white is black and white between you.

"Are you coming?" Jisung screams over the noise and distance, away from the spot you're completely frozen in.  

(A pang in your chest tightens. Tightens. Tightens.  And you don't want it to mean something. But it does. It does and it always will.)

...

Minho once learned to set up tepee fires in scout camp, with twigs, a small heap of leaves, wood shavings and loosely screwed newspaper in the centre. Now, he only prides his younger self for setting up the fire once in their backyard and decides roasting marshmallows on the grill demands less of the expertise that he's lost overtime.

"I've actually heard a lot about you before we met." Sunwoo garbles out, clearing his throat.

You've been ignoring Jisung ever since you arrived. Now the group is sat down on the sand, in a misshapen circle, the two girls, now you know their names and the root of their invitation - Junhee and Shoshanna are merely bypassers the boys met when they arrived this morning. They're on a weekend trip like you and their visiting resident is a few houses away from yours. You wanted to act on your peevishness  and groan out a loud What are they still doing here?  everytime Shoshanna took the seat beside Jisung or asked him to set her marshmallows but that would, amongst other things, make you look like a crazy jealous idiot who has no right to step into a situation of that sort, even though Jisung seemed hesitant, cautiously looking at you every now and then. 

Jisung's brows rise and fall, gaze darting between you and your flatmate, surprised, "Is that right?"

Sunwoo laughs, "Yeah."  He chews carefully, trying not to choke, as if the source of his knowledge doesn't need to be pointed out. 

"Only good things I hope."

Skeptical, Jisung glances at you with a cocked brow, in case you oppose but you avoid his gaze, glaring down at charred marshmallow on the tip of the stick and thinking of ways to strangle Sunwoo, who chuckles at the former's apparent doubt, furrowing his eyebrows in bemusement, "Only good things."

"You're on the varsity swim team, right?" 

 With a mouthful of food, Sunwoo poses the question, the grin only widens when Jisung replies with an equally enthusiastic nod. 

"Did you know that this one can't swim?" He points his marshmallow stick at you, keeping his eyes trained on Jisung's surprised face. "I tried to  provide assistance." Sunwoo insists, "But when someone is really bad around water, like screaming at the top of their lungs-I'm going to drown in a kid's pool- bad, it's quite a challenging task."

Minho produces an animalistic laugh at this, patting his thigh like he's rendered a vivid image of your embarrassing experience while Chan shoots you a concerned look, as if sensing an underlying tension in the air that the others can't. You don’t know which one you dislike more.

"I can hear you, you know!"  You scowl, crossing your arms over your chest. Suddenly having lost your appetite. 

Sunwoo widens his eyes, with a hand atop his chest, mocking you,  "Really?"

You open your mouth to continue bickering with him because it was the only way you could hold yourself back from jumping across the sand and grabbing him by his collar in case that should stop him from further embarrassing you, but Jisung  interjects, blinking inquisitively at you.

 Jisung pouts. "It isn't that bad, you'll see, we can go for a swim anytime. That's what's the pool for anyway."

"Sungie,  I could use a swim now. Can we go, please?"  Shoshanna piped up jutting her lip in a way that made her more attractive, she hooked her arm with Jisung, pulling him to her side and he simply blinked at her, surprised by the gesture. Only you called him that  —  when did she pick that up? Why doesn't Jisung seem to mind at all? Are you seriously seeing what you are definitely seeing?

 Without meaning to, you imagine them floating about in the water, while she curled her arms around his neck to keep balance and him leaning down to grin invitingly.  And it feels like you're losing something.

You feel yourself jumping up to your feet. The sudden movement gains the attention of all your friends except Sunwoo, who keens on sparing you the smug grin which insinuates that he sparked the entire conversation intentionally.  You hope the universe would miraculously  render you telepathic powers so he'd start to choke on the stupid marshmallow. 

"Uh...I mean...I gotta." You gulp, "I'm going to go grab a beer."

"Wait."

Jisung frees his arm to get to his feet, powdery sand dusted off of his sweats.

"I'll come with you."

You walk in silence, wrapping your arms around yourself. In your peripheral, you catch the sight of his pockets swelled around the area he stuck his fingers in, you don't think Jisung's ever been that quiet. It makes you feel guilty. You're acting out because you simply can't get a grip and it seems to have taken a toll on him. You want to punch yourself in the face.

 It's not like you desire to stand in the way of his merry-making, it had to happen eventually, right? Jisung is free to get involved with whoever he pleases. He doesn't know how you feel and even if he did, you don't think he would reciprocate. 

And despite everything, your heart still aches for him. 

"Why are you avoiding me?" Jisung  tells you. There's a sadness to his voice that supplies that you can't escape this conversation because you simply cannot stand it when something prevents him from being his happy-go-lucky self. But you can delay it. 

You pull the fridge open slowly, scanning the items, alcohol, milk and a few other things that are necessary to spend the weekend. They definitely were newly bought. 

 Jisung pushes the fridge door wider, sighing, he pulls a can and hands it to you. "If this is about the girls, I'm not-"

"You don't have to explain it to me, Sungi—I mean, Jisung." You stare down at the perspiration collecting between your fingers and  the can, then set it down immediately in fear of it slipping out of your hands. Jisung stiffens at the transition, a faint look of pain flashing in his eyes. What did he do that is so wrong? 

You feel horrible for making him feel bad, aren't you supposed to be an adult? Aren't you supposed to have a strong grapple on your emotions? This isn't good for the two of you, you don't want to hurt him because of how you feel, Jisung needs you to be his friend and you can't accept, even after so long, that that's all you are to him. 

 "I don't think we should be friends anymore."

"What?" He purses his lips, furrowing his eyebrows. "Why?" He provides, raking a frustrated hand through his hair when your mouth parted instead of giving him an answer. "Did I do something? You could have just talked to me about it but..." He muttered shakily, repeating, "Why...this?"

Jisung glares at you, he looks so clueless, angry, blatantly hurt and  it's such a selfish thing to ask of him, the least you can do is be honest with him, though you couldn't fight the annoyance from seeping into your tone because he apparently had not a clue. 

"God, don't you see it?!" You placed a warm hand against your forehead, "I'm...in love with you...I love you, okay?"

You start to panic when the tense expression melts into his  features, replaced by something you couldn't put a finger on, "Don't get me wrong, I don't expect you to reciprocate or anything. It's stupid, I thought I was over you but I'm…I'm not. And I can't...I can't watch you get on with someone who isn't me, especially when…" you trail, preparing to admit the truth to yourself once and for all, "...you don't already love me back. I can't...It'll hurt too much…" 

"So...I think...it's better for the two of us to not continue this friendship anymore." You gulp, your palms shaking by your sides, those words have been taking refuge inside you for too long and saying them makes you feel empty, like you've lost something that keeps you grounded and you'd be aimlessly floating about for the rest of your life. 

"I know I'm asking for too much…"

Jisung interrupts you with a wry laugh, the sound startling you. He never spoke to you that way, not even when you argued before.

"Yeah, you're right, you are."

"Well, I'm sorry."  You breath out. 

He leans closer so your hip presses against the cool counter. He drags his fingers from the exposed skin of your collarbone to your neck, tilting your chin up with his thumb while the remaining digits splay against  your throat, "Sorry doesn't cut it." 

 The kiss sends a chill down your spine, prompting you to straighten up from your slumped position. Your knees feel like jelly, like they could collapse any minute. Jisung deepens the kiss, grazing his teeth along your bottom lip, he props you up on the counter and you sense yourself wrapping your legs around his waist, tugging on to his hair to draw out a groan from him; touching him feels so surreal, even though it's a reminder of just how real everything that's happening is. 

"I…" he breathes heavily, "I love you. I'm in love with you. I didn't know what to do with how I felt and seeing you again...it just made me realise that I couldn't ignore it anymore. There were times when I couldn't help myself, I felt like I needed to see you when I couldn't, so I did, even if it meant I had to lie. I love taking care of you. I love our dumb inside jokes and I love the way we can't go long without talking. Hell, I love everything we do together." He chuckles, "But I didn't say anything because you told me you were over it. I... just assumed you were only interested in being friends with me." You don't think you've properly registered the sentences, maybe it's the suddenness of it all, maybe it's because you've never actually pictured this. You told yourself, this is how it's supposed to be, that Jisung was never supposed to feel the same. Just with that alone, you had axed your own foot, screwed yourself over more than anyone else did.

Jisung's face breaks into a sudden grin, he pecks your pouted mouth. "But I'm glad I was wrong." 

"Did you just kiss me?" You joke, touching his face, tracing your fingers against his cheeks, the skin glossy and pinkish under the touch, his pupils are blown to large black circles, the brown in them barely visible. 

"I don't know, did I?" Jisung deadpans, narrowing his eyes jovially. 

 He eases into the embrace when you slump against him in a tight hug. The chuckle comes out all muffled against the fabric of his t-shirt.

"Hmmm, can't be too sure."

You wrap your arms around his neck, it's like you just can't stop smiling. When you think about it, that's what being around Jisung was like, really. Your digits traverse from the side of his jaw to cup his cheeks, eyes peering into his. You watch as he blinks incredulously, there's something impatient about the way you look at him. Then you tilt your head and kiss him, gathering a faint taste of chapstick whilst your tongue prodded at his bottom lip. 

A low moan thrums against his chest, his mind failing to produce a single coherent thought. Because, God, he knows exactly what you're doing. 

This time the gesture is needy, desperate, as though to convey a strong desire to be completely consumed by him,  to be ruined by him. You raise your hips to brush against his lower abdomen, eliciting a low groan from his throat. 

"Baby not here." He breathes out, gauging your intention whilst resting his forehead atop yours. His palm traces the skin of your thighs, travelling up your sides, a free hand which rests at your neck coming to rest at your jaw. His delicate thumb journeys upwards, tugging your bottom lip out and then slowly retracting the digit. Somehow, the gesture makes his eyes darken even more, if that's possible. "Let's go upstairs."

You're so breathless and shocked and have your head stuck way  so far up  up in the clouds that the statement sounds imperceivable. "What?" You blink dumbly, with your hands on his shoulders.

A husky laugh made reverberates inside his chest, "We can’t...here."

As if on cue, you whimper needily at the weight of the implication. The thought of what is to unfold upstairs making your throat close up. You understood the purpose of his statement, the rest of the boys would soon gather into the beach house because it was getting dark soon, the sky was gargling its throat in the distance too, it would rain and neither of you were keen on PDA.

Jisung's teeth graze along your throat, his fingers around it to keep your head pressed to the door while your thighs are snuggly bracketed around his lithe waist. His need is apparent when he grinds up into your body. You're all but putty under his touch.

It's dark. But you can still make out how absent the room's paraphernalia is, just a bed which is stripped to the bare essentials of a white blanket and scratchy sheet, giving away the fact that visits aren't made too often. You don't care about all that though, Jisung pushes you back against the mattress, pulling his shirt over his head before resuming his position on top of you. 

You can't understand how you kept away from him for so long. 

...

Between your short, bitten and misshapen fingernails, the word Premiere reads on the tickets  in bold red slanted letters. 

You can't believe what was once a figment of your imagination, a rubbish script you wrote whimsically on too much caffeine and too little sleep was going to unfold right before your eyes.

It's crowded inside the subway, you stare at the heads, faces, shirts, jackets, arms and legs and your heart is beating too loud, like you ran a marathon or drove a sports car way past its speed limit, rammed it into a tree and flipped it over.

 All the world's a stage and all men and women merely players.

(You should be scared, you should be scared, you should be scared.)

 Delicate, lithe fingers quickly travel down your palm to squeeze the tense digits at the end, his free hand is rubbing circles on the back of your neck; you stare into those brown eyes and without really thinking, press a quick kiss to his pouting lips, it's difficult, he keeps grinning against your mouth but you pay little attention to those things now. 

"That was a good move, champ." Jisung winks briefly, tracing his thumb along your cheek as he nuzzles his nose against yours, "You always kiss people on the subway?"

You grin, with a slow shake of your head, "Just the hot ones."

(This is a stage. And the passengers are waiting. The Tale Of Two Cities. The couple. The mother. Like that nightmare you used to have. 

But, you think, it doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter anymore. 

Because you've got your silver lining.)

[davidmann95]

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

*  Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.

[yoonia]

❥ Content Creator Year in Review

☞ tagged by @yeoldontknow, @chillingkoo, @inkedtae, @onherwings, @moononthejoon, @kpopfanfictrash (my precious, talented bubs. I love you! Happy almost New Year!) and retagged by @flurrys-creativity @jimlingss 

⇀ first creation and most recent creation of 2020: I kicked off 2020 with the release of Carousel Epilogue (Yoongi). That was a defining moment for me because it truly felt like I was ending one specific era to start another. Which was true, by the way, because Carousel had marked the rise of my blog at one point and it had been a part of my long journey in writing fanfiction that releasing that epilogue and ending the series then had become a true turning point for me and my blog. My most recent creation was Blurred Lines (Seokjin, ongoing). I never meant this one to be a series, but somewhere in the middle of writing it, I felt like the story needed to progress in small paces to build up the momentum. I have always had a hard time writing for Seokjin, seeing the actual person himself has multiple layers that we tend to misidentify him with the persona he normally shows us in public. I simply wanted to show that part of him in this story, while creating a new persona for Seokjin that I’ve had in mind since way back then when I wrote Hazy. 

⇀ one of your favourite creations from 2020: I’ve mentioned a few favourites a while ago, but the one that sticks to me the most personally was Spotless Minds (Hoseok). I wrote this based on my favourite movie, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Minds, taking the original idea of introducing two characters who erased a part of their past but giving it a more in-depth backstory compared to the movie itself. I still added a few elements that you may find from the movie but written here differently: the beach house, the waiting room, the stages where Hoseok was slowly losing his memory, and I added a few things that may help readers who haven't watched the movie to understand the aspects of the story a bit better without having to go back and watch the movie first. What pleases me most about this fic was the writing style that I used then — the sequences of the scenes, the back and forth between the timeline to reveal all the twists and turns — and then putting them all together. It was just fun creating this one.

⇀ a creation you’re really proud of: Oh, this one is the hardest to decide. I can’t choose between We Are All Dreamers (Jungkook) and Never Falling (Jimin). WAAD was a bit challenging to me. I love soulmate aus and I believe I had gotten stuck on this story right in the middle of it until I decided to add Jungkook’s pov in it to help with the story’s progression. I’m proud of how it came to be (and I can’t wait to share the continuing story for it) and how I’d gotten through the process of writing it. NF took me quite a while to finish, but I love every single thing about it. The story building, the tension, the momentum, and I think the characters I created in this story have become the pairing that I have grown to care the most this year aside from Strip!Jimin and his OC.  

⇀ a creation that took you forever: The Half-Lycan (Taehyung) and Of Bears and Bonds (Seokjin). Both stories took a while to work on due to their part in the Shifters series, which required me to take my time in planning and working things together to make sure that the story and the timeline would line up perfectly with its origin story, Blood Moon Rising. THL was actually planned to be posted on Tae’s birthday last year, but it took me 6 months to finish. OBB was planned to be posted immediately as both stories correlated between each other, but then things happened and what was planned to be an extremely long one-shot had ended up becoming a trilogy (the original word count was 69k words lol). 

⇀ a creation from 2020 that received the most notes: The Half-Lycan, I think? I know it went over 2k notes while the others remain somewhere around 1k or less lol Idk man, I don’t keep up with notes. I’m grateful for all the feedback, the reblogs, and the comments, so I remember those the most compared to the numbers. 

⇀ a creation you think deserved more notes: Ravished by Two (Namjoon, Seokjin), Spotless Minds (Hoseok), Red Series (Yoongi). Seriously, I love writing for Hyung line, but they don’t get enough love from everyone :( I must add Bed & Boyfriend(s) (Taehyung, Yoonkook) too because I worked hard on that one and I need it to get some more love lol

⇀ a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it: I’m starting to get into Stray Kidz and Ateez more lately. I haven’t made any creation for them aside from adding Wooyoung (Ateez) as a side character in Spotless Minds haha I did write Simon Says for Simon Dominic though. 

⇀ a creation you made that breaks your heart: Slow and Steady (Jungkook) took the front seat on this one. I’ve fallen in love with the original idea when it was sent to me for a commission. I knew it would cause a lot of heartbreak and it did spark some reactions from my readers that I enjoyed reading through once the fic was up. I just didn’t think it would hurt ME in the process as well :/

⇀ a ‘simple’ creation that you really love: Let’s see… Pay By Play (Jungkook), Red Lipstick (Yoongi, from the Red Series), the drabbles I’ve made this year for Carousel and The Stand-In. Can I really call these ‘simple’ tho? Hahaha 

⇀ a creation that was inspired by another one: Strip! (Jimin) was a spin-off for Bad For You. Though I had originally started this series since October the year before, I still have to mention this one because I only began working on the final chapter after I was done with Carousel at the beginning of the year. The Half-Lycan was actually inspired by its drabbles. I’d never intended to expand Blood Moon Rising’s universe into the series you are seeing now, but when I was writing Rapture during NaNoWriMo 2019, I began to imagine Taehyung and his wolf pack to become a part of Jimin’s story. Since I was already planning to introduce the members as a pack in BMR in future chapters, I decided to link the two universes together and have Taehyung from Rapture to have his own story before I get to introduce the others. This decision was what had led me to create the entire Shifter series universe. 

⇀ a favourite creation created by someone else: umm...I haven’t had a chance to actually read a lot of fanfics this year as I have gotten into original stories more and the year has been crazy busy. The ones that I’ve read and shared are listed in my side blog, @diaficrecs. But here are a few that I’ve read but haven’t gotten a chance to write down my comment or feedback on and they are now sitting on my rec blog’s draft until the day I can get my thoughts together T^T — Inner Needs by @avveh, Divine Intervention by @opaljm, Third Wheeling by @untaemedqueen, Molotov Cocktail by @yeoldontknow, Aphrodite in War by @jungblue, Always Trust In Pixie Dust by @readyplayerhobi, daechwita by @ironicarmy, and I have to mention the one I’ve been re-reading the most, When You Watch by @gardentulips 

⇀ some of your favorite content creators from the year: aside from the beautiful people mentioned above, here are my beloved, talented friends — @jamaisjoons @suqakoo @softyoongiionly @randombtsprincessa @hungline @guktro @underthejoon @gukslut @gukyi @floralseokjin @ladyartemesia @baebae-goodnight @hobidreams

⇀ and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love: omg I don’t think I can mention them one by one so let me just drop my masterlist here, here, and here :) 

⇀ tagging: everyone mentioned above who hasn’t done this yet...and if you don’t see your name here, feel free to do this if you want to and add me so I can add new stuff on my to-read-list :)) 

[emperorsfoot]

I started watching the 2002 He-Man series recently. I never watched it back when it was still a thing in the early 2000s because 1) I don’t know it existed, and 2) I wasn’t really into the Masters of the Universe fandom at that time anyway so I had no reason to seek it out. So, these takes are coming at you from someone with no prior knowledge of the show and no emotional investment in the world or characters save for what I have already learned off the Grayskull wiki before watching (and what I have learned through ‘pop-culture osmosis’ here on Tumblr). 

There is one episode in particular that kinda bothers me. 

Season 1, Episode 15

The Mystery of Anwat Gar

The episode begins with Sorceress have a prophetic dream about Skeletor gaining new and formidable power from the ancient and mysterious island of Anwat Gar. Which was once home to the (now almost extinct*) Gar race. 

This is pretty average for Masters of the Universe cartoons as almost all MotU cartoons are made to sell toys. Unsurprisingly, the climactic fight of the episode features both He-Man and Skeletor getting gimmicky new armor which I’m sure Mattel happily turned a profit on. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Back to the summary. 

Hearing Sorceress’ prophecy, He-Man and Man-at-Arms rush off to Anwat Gar to stop Skeletor from gaining this fearsome power. 

While there, they are confronted by multiple traps which they must, thwart, escape, or overcome in order to get to their goal. Most of their strategies for getting out of these traps seem to be breaking or outright destroying them.

Finally, they get to the center of the island in which there is a large temple modeled after Japanese architecture (which provides a flimsy excuse for Mattel modeling their gimmicky new toys after samurai armor). There, they meet the guardian of the power, our newest action figure available at a store near you! 

Sy-Klone

Tell your parents to buy him now, kids! 

Anyway, Sy-Klone explains that the power He-Man and Man-at-Arms are seeking is sacred to his people and that he cannot let outsiders desecrate the temple and loot it. He-Man tries to reason with Sy-Klone and explain that they don’t want to steal it, they just want to take it back to Eternos with them to keep it away from Skeletor. (Ya know, cause that’s not “stealing” at all.)

There’s the obligatory fight to show off Sy-Klone’s action figure features. This show was made to sell toys, they have to.

At some point while Sy-Klone and He-Man are fighting, Skeletor has already managed to get inside the temple and steal the power for himself. There’s the traditional gloating in front of his enemies before Skeletor uses it to do a magical girl transformation that gives him to fetishized sci-fi samurai armor pictured above. 

Skeletor cackles evilly and then exits stage left, vowing to use his now power armor to destroy Castle Grayskull and claim it’s power for his own, blah, blah, blah. Standard villain shpiel. 

He-Man then goes and grabs the second set of overtly culture-coded armor for himself and goes to fight Skeletor. 

They fight. 

He-Man wins. 

Skeletor escapes. 

There’s not much else to be said about that. It’s pretty standard fair for a shallow children’s cartoon who’s purpose is not to tell a story but just to sell merchandise. You really can’t expect much. 

He-Man returns to the temple with both sets of armor. 

Now, one would think this is the part where the “hero” returns these very significant cultural artifacts to their rightful place in the temple under the custodianship of the guardian who is a member of the culture these artifacts are from. This is a kid’s show and -presumably- is also meant to tell some sort of moral to each episode beyond just “buy our toys”. 

But no. 

Instead of giving them back, He-Man fucking obliterates them. 

Right in front of the guardian who’s life’s mission was to protect them. 

Sy-Klone tries to stop him, but is thrown back by the force of He-Man’s power and can do nothing but look on in horror as these sacred artifacts of his dying culture are reduced to nothing but dust. 

And I’m not exaggerating. 

I mean -literal- dust.

Watching that, I 100% expected Sy-Klone to become an enemy. Really, and truly. I would have become He-Man’s enemy if I watched him destroy something significant and sacred to my culture. And I’m pretty casual about my cultural identity. But Sy-Klone devoted his entire life to preserving and protecting these items. So, as pissed as I would be, he’s gotta be that times 1000, right?

Wrong. 

After the artifacts are destroyed, Sy-Klone doesn’t even bat an eyelash. 

He’s just like, “My life’s purpose is gone? Oh, well. Guess I’ll just go die now.”

(This being a Japanese-coded society, I can only assume he was going to commit the Gar equivalent of seppuku.)

But He-Man stops him and is all like, “Listen, I know I just destroyed one of the last remnants of your dying culture and made you watch while I did it, but how about you come join my crew.”

And that’s what Sy-Klone does. 

The End

And, like the original He-Man show from the 80s, and the New Adventures of He-Man show from the later-80s, this one had a “moral” at the end of the episode. 

The “moral” of the episode was this:

“Doing your duty is important, but there's more to it than just following orders. The most important duty of all, is to do what’s right. Until next time!”

But like... what the fuck was “right” in that episode? How the hell are we, the viewer supposed to know what “the right thing” was. 

We just watched our hero... 

break into a sacred site

demolish ancient buildings and statues from an already vanishing culture

and outright destroy artifacts of particular cultural significance while a native of that culture looked on and begged him not to

Like, what the fuck, He-Man!?

I thought He-Man was supposed to be the good guy. But, I really don’t think there were any “good guys” in this episode and I cannot fathom what the writers were thinking when they drafted this episode or what the producers were thinking when they pushed it through production. 

I just-

This episode really, really bothered me and I had to vent about it. 

--

* Gar being nearly extinct is not mentioned outright in the show, but it is implied since the island is a ruin, and on the Grayskull wiki and the Classics line of the toys outright call the Gar a “rare race”.

[asotin]

Five Stages

This was an early draft of Seven Steps that didn’t quite work, but I got attached to it. It’s still messier than I’d like, but I think this is as good as I’m going to get it. So here’s 3.7k of an AU where Tobirama died instead of Izuna, which comes with its own problems

1.

Hashirama has never forgiven Izuna.

Madara watches them together, and while Hashirama is never less than polite, there's a distance between them even strangers from other clans can see.

There's a distance between Hashirama and Madara as well. It’s new in the scale of the time they've known each other, but it's older than the shrine in Hashirama’s house.

They don't talk about the shrine.

Other than the practicalities of growing their village, they hardly talk at all. The growing silence is making Madara nervous.

He needs to know what this means, and if Hashirama won't say anything on his own, Madara will make him.

They’re up on the cliff where they first imagined Konoha, away from the rest of the village. When he wasn't in his office or at home, Madara knew Hashirama would be here.

Bracing himself, Madara asks, “You’re thinking about Tobirama, aren't you?”

Sitting beside him, their legs hanging over the edge like when they were children, Hashirama nods.

“Izuna bore him no ill will,” Madara continues when Hashirama says nothing. “Your brother died because our clans were at war and Izuna was stronger.”

It's true, and it isn't.

Madara’s brother knew what Hashirama seems not to understand- Tobirama loved him.

After years of deadlock, all it took for Izuna to get the upper hand was a feint toward Hashirama.

From the way Hashirama has been acting, he doesn't know that, and if Tobirama decided not to tell him, Madara has no reason to speak up.

“I know he didn't,” Hashirama says. “People die during war. That's why I worked so hard to end it.”

Madara tilts his head, studying Hashirama. “Then you also know you keep Izuna at a distance, don't you? The rest of the village can see it, and they avoid him.”

“And the rest of the village understands why,” Hashirama points out. There's an edge to his voice that appeared when Tobirama died. It's a legacy of sorts- Tobirama died, but his standoffishness took root in his brother. “He was my only remaining brother, Madara. Would you have welcomed Tobirama if he'd killed Izuna?”

“No, but you're a better man than I am,” Madara says. He won't pretend to be benevolent. They both know better.

“I'm not.”

“Aren't you? Izuna lives. You won't welcome him, but you won't hate him either.” He shrugs. “You won't even send him out on missions where he'd be in danger. As your brother must have told you, we’re prone to self-destruction. If you set him on the path, Izuna would get himself killed.

“Yet you don't. You won't accept him, and you won't make use of him. Make up your mind.”

Hashirama draws a long breath in. “What purpose does this serve, Madara? We've made peace. Our families are flourishing in the village we built. Why are you trying to make me fight with you?”

“You're too quiet,” Madara says simply.

He could elaborate. He could list the signs he’s seen of Hashirama losing his confidence. He could tell Hashirama that even other Senjus are beginning to worry. He could look Hashirama in the eye and tell him that no one can understand why he's mourning so hard for a brother he didn't love.

He never feared Hashirama on the battlefield, but he doesn't want to show his guts to this man who won't show his own.

Madara has tried to have this conversation before, but Hashirama has always dodged it.

Out here, they don't avoid each other.

Hashirama sighs. “I miss Tobirama.”

“And?”

Hashirama frowns at him. “And? That's all. Tobirama was here, and now he isn't. So I miss him.”

“It can't be that simple.”

You didn't actually love him.

“Why not?” Leaning forward, Hashirama looks out over their village. “You only knew Tobirama as an enemy, so I don't blame you for having no love for him. He was stubborn and too smart for his own good. He saw the world as it is, not as it could be. He didn't know how to make peace, and I don't think he wanted to. But he was still a good man.”

Madara shakes his head. “I'm not questioning that you loved him.”

“Aren't you? You're a poor liar, Madara.” Without waiting for Madara to answer, Hashirama sighs. “You don't understand why his death bothers me.”

“We’ve both buried far younger brothers. What is it about this one that's so special?”

“You're still trying to provoke me into a fight.” Hashirama closes his eyes. “I understand now. Thank you, Madara, but I can't be angered out of this.”

The longer Madara looks at him, the worse the prickles of fear grow. “You'll stay like this, then?”

“Not forever.”

Unsettled, Madara says, “I've never heard you talk like this.”

“You've never heard me talk about Tobirama.”

“Can you blame me? You're the hokage. My clan’s position-”

“Is secure!” Hashirama snaps, eyes snapping open. His voice is loud enough for the words to echo, and his forehead is furrowed in anger when he turns to glare at Madara. “I've encouraged the other clans to extend their welcome to the Uchihas. Already, there are friendships forming between your clan and the others, mine included.

“In what way, short of embracing Izuna, have I not shown our village that I want your clan here, Madara? Tell me so I can address it.”

Madara considers the question.

“There aren't any,” he admits slowly.

“Then let me have this.” Hashirama rubs his face. “I just need time to stop feeling like I’m holding Tobirama's body.”

Madara remembers the way dread crept up his chest when Hashirama noticed Izuna standing over his brother.

Tobirama had caught Izuna’s fireball squarely, but he hadn't died immediately. Izuna had been intending to drive his sword through Tobirama in an act of mercy.

Madara had called him away before he could, unwilling to risk Hashirama misunderstanding, and Izuna had run to him before Hashirama reached Tobirama.

Being touched must have been excruciating, but Tobirama had only let out a single, agonized whine as Hashirama gathered him up, ignoring the way his own body was being burned by Tobirama’s nearly molten armor. His skin had cycled between burning and healing.

Tobirama’s head had lolled unnaturally against Hashirama’s shoulder, his breath rattling. Hashirama had begun to walk away, only to pause when Tobirama said something, his voice too low to reach Madara or any other Uchiha. Whatever it was, Hashirama’s eyes had gone wide before he took another step.

Madara had felt the same sense of foreboding the rest of his clan must have as Hashirama carried Tobirama away.

As one, the rest of the Senjus had retreated silently.

They'd met on the same battlefield the next morning, and if Madara hadn't known Hashirama, he would have thought the look on Hashirama’s face was simple exhaustion.

Hashirama hadn't called for a truce like he had in the past. He'd sprinted forward alone, his clan hanging back as his hands formed a series of seals Madara hadn't seen before, and in the space of a second, a massive wall of roots had erupted from the ground, throwing nearly every Uchiha into the air and wrapping around them before dragging them back to the earth. Madara had been the only one who'd escaped it. He'd braced himself for Hashirama’s next move, but he'd had no way of preparing for what Hashirama had actually done.

Tobirama must have taught his brother something new before he died because as Hashirama ran toward Madara, a second Hashirama had materialized behind Madara and forced him to the ground.

It hadn't been a clone; clones have no substance. Madara’s Sharingan can see through them easily.

Pinned to the ground, legs bound by roots and hands pinned by this second Hashirama, Madara had found himself at the mercy of a stranger.

“Yield,” the original Hashirama had said when he arrived. He'd looked down at Madara over his double’s shoulder, features pinched. “Please, Madara. Don't make me lose you, too.”

As Madara lay on the ground, immobilized, he’d known one thing with absolute clarity.

If he refused, Hashirama would kill him.

In the present, Hashirama rubs his forehead. “I’m sorry, Madara, but I'd like to be on my own now.”

The look on his face is eerily similar to that day, so Madara nods and leaves.

2.

Madara crouches in the brush near Hashirama and waits.

Hashirama has a habit of talking to himself aloud; eavesdropping on him when he thinks he's alone is the easiest way to figure out what he's thinking.

It doesn't take long.

“Well, Tobirama,” Hashirama says, squinting up at the clouds, “the impossible dream wasn't so impossible.

“I found the scrolls you told me about, and I think I picked the right people to make your plans real. The Academy I wanted to build is almost ready to open, and the children have already begun to adjust to their new playmates. The adults will take time, but even Madara is optimistic.”

Madara fights a snort. Optimistic is overly generous.

That's Hashirama, though, isn't it? Always seeing the best outcome. Tobirama must know to account for that.

“But you should know,” Hashirama says, tone darkening, “I had to destroy some of what you left. I know you made them as a last resort, but, Tobirama, some of what you created was evil.” He shakes his head. “I'm glad you died before I saw them, because I would've had to ask you if you'd tested them and you would've told me that you had.

“You always did take after Father.” Tilting his head back, Hashirama sighs. “Was it my fault? Was I so consumed with making peace with Madara, I didn't notice how far you’d gone? Or were you always going to go this far?

“Konoha may be safer without you. Do you know how much that hurts? To be relieved my own brother is dead? You were the only one left, Tobirama. You were the only one who became an adult, and I can't even mourn you properly.”

Hashirama hits the ground next to his hip with a fist. “And you had the audacity to tell me as you died that you wanted me to make the life with Madara that I wanted. How long did you know? Could you really only tell me to be happy with him because you were dying?”

Recognizing an opportunity when he sees it, Madara gets to his feet and emerges from his hiding spot. “No, he said it years ago.”

Hashirama looks over sharply. “Madara? Didn't you leave?”

“Obviously not. You should pay more attention,” Madara chastises as he returns to Hashirama's side. He sits down heavily. “As I said before, I have no ill will toward your brother, so it costs me nothing to tell you he said nearly the same thing to me.”

“When did you and Tobirama see each other when I wasn't nearby?” Hashirama asks. His brow is furrowed again, but without anger to make it threatening, he only looks confused.

Madara chuckles; the memory is a favorite of his. “It must have been a decade ago. I was feeling nostalgic, so I went back to the river. Your brother was there, washing up. I didn't recognize him at first.”

“You didn't recognize Tobirama?” Hashirama asks, suspicion heavy in his voice. “Even without the ruff, he wasn't difficult to identify.”

He gestures at his face and waves his hand above his head.

“I couldn't see his face, Hashirama.”

“Oh of course.” Hashirama nods. “He would have been washing it.”

Madara lays his hand on Hashirama’s shoulder. Hashirama’s brain is trying so hard not to accept the obvious. “I came up behind him, Hashirama. That part of him didn't match his face.”

“Madara!”

“He didn't notice me at first either, oddly. He must have been too absorbed in what he was doing around front-”

“Madara!” Hashirama hisses.

“He was cleaning that stupid mantle while he bathed,” Madara tells him, having a good time now that Hashirama isn't so distant. “I saw his back, nothing more. Don't be disgusting.”

“Could you please get to the point?” Hashirama asks, pained.

“The point, Hashirama, is that Tobirama was naked in a river, I caught him by surprise, and he wasn't stupid enough to try to fight me unarmed and undressed. So he glared at me pissily. He’d already squeaked when he spotted me, unfortunately, and there's no coming back from that.”

Madara had spent years poking fun at Izuna about not being able to beat a sensor type who got so caught up washing his clothes that Madara could have killed him.

The joke isn't funny anymore, but for a time, Madara had finally had a rejoinder for being unable to outwit Hashirama.

“I don't know why I didn't try to kill him,” Madara continues. “Regardless, I didn't, and he told me that if you and I made peace, I should remember how happy you and I had been together. If there was a way to make you happy like that again, I better take it. He was quite emphatic about that.”

A high, miserable sound bursts out of Hashirama. 

Madara lifts a hand and squeezes his shoulder. “Izuna told me once that he wishes he hadn't told our father about you. He was trying to protect our clan, but who knows? Maybe if he'd spoken to me first, you and I could have made peace in our own way.”

“You think Tobirama felt the same way.”

“I didn't know your brother, but it seems likely.”

Hashirama leans into Madara, safe from the knowledge of how much Tobirama loved him. “Is it terrible to wish he'd lived because he'd do paperwork for me?”

Madara snorts. “I've heard your cousins express a similar wish. It was Tobirama who kept your work in order when our clans were at war, wasn't it?”

“He was so organized,” Hashirama says wistfully. “He was a pain in the ass, but he was a good second in command. Everything I came up with, he improved. Our clan became more dangerous simply by becoming more effective.”

“This is the most pathetic thing I've ever heard, Hashirama, and I heard you ask me out.”

Hashirama slumps over with a whine, leaning into Madara heavily. “It wasn't that bad!”

Madara huffs. “It was mortifying. I almost said no just to preserve my own dignity.”

Hashirama whines again, leaning into him harder, and Madara shakes his head.

“You could argue that the hokage making a fool of himself to ask me if I'd like to get dinner wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me, and you did pick a nice place.”

Madara moves his arm so he can rest his hand on Hashirama’s waist.

“And you made a fool of yourself after dinner,” Hashirama says smugly. The tables turned, he perks up. “Having to be escorted home, how embarrassing.”

“Shut up!” Madara hisses. “I'd been drinking.”

“Perhaps because you were nervous about being on a date with me?”

“Don't think you're too old for me to throw you in the river.”

“But you're so small, Madara. Are you certain you could lift me? I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

Temples throbbing, Madara gives Hashirama a pointed shove, and Hashirama yelps in surprise as he tips over.

“I could have fallen off the edge!” he complains from the ground.

“If you couldn’t recover from a little nudge, you'd deserve whatever happened.”

Eyes narrowing, Hashirama asks, “Is that so?”

Madara nods. “Of course.”

“I see.”

Madara sees the counterattack coming, so when Hashirama flies at him, Madara is ready for it.

They wrestle on the edge of the cliff like they did years ago. Madara resists the urge to cheat and pick Hashirama up- he's so big, no one tries to lift him, so he doesn't know how to get free.

Madara has a suspicion that isn't the real reason Hashirama’s eyes go wide when Madara manhandles him, but that's a theory for another time.

He pins Hashirama in the end anyway.

“What's with that face?” he asks, poking Hashirama’s cheek.

Hashirama’s expression shifts from distant to rueful. “I was just remembering that the other kage think I’m incompetent.”

Madara hums. He went to the kage summit with Hashirama; he saw everything Hashirama did. “A mistake on their part.”

“A potentially lethal one for our people. If Tobirama were alive, they wouldn't think they could take advantage of us.”

He's probably right.

Sitting up, Madara puts his hands on his hips. “I'm smart, you know, and I’m not hamstrung by liking people. That's why people think you aren't smart. You're too friendly.”

“That does seem to be the problem. Unfortunately, you get this look that says you're thinking about doing something reckless, and everyone knows you're impulsive,” Hashirama adds pointedly.

Madara lifts his chin. “I’m not that bad.”

“Yes, you are. I know you.”

He does and he doesn't. Hashirama doesn't see darkness, only places where light could be. He refuses to accept that there are places that have to be kept in the dark. 

Tobirama understood that. He, like Madara, lived in the world where men like Hashirama can't go. He saw the necessity of violence and didn't try to reason with it.

Madara can only guess at the contents of the scrolls Hashirama inherited. Perhaps they were indeed unconscionable, but perhaps they were practical plans for surviving the inevitable threats that will come to them. He doubts Hashirama will ever tell him.

“You know me well enough, I suppose,” Madara allows.

He’ll do the things in the dark that Hashirama can't.

Hashirama reaches for him, and Madara lets himself be tugged down until he's lying on top of Hashirama. He doesn't like the position; it leaves him vulnerable.

The weight of Hashirama’s arms resting on his back has slowly begun to feel more like a shield than a restraint.

“Tobirama kept a list of all our dead,” Hashirama says slowly, his chin brushing the top of Madara’s head. “Not just that they'd died but how they'd died and where they were buried. Our father used to tell him it was pointless. I thought he was keeping a tally of lives to get revenge for. We both told him to stop, but from the stack of scrolls I found, he never did.” He takes a slow, deep breath in. “Looking back, I think it was just his way of accounting for them. He wasn't good at showing love, but he did feel it.”

“You want to continue what he started,” Madara surmises, “and you want Tobirama to be the first name.”

“That’s right. Although, I was thinking of doing something public and less detailed. This is everyone’s village. I want our names to be recorded beside each other as comrades.”

Madara thinks it over. A public record of all the ninjas who died for their village feels right, and to mix their clans would build camaraderie.

“Individual clans would still keep track of their dead?” he asks.

“Of course.”

“And the recording of names- how would it be done?”

“By when they died. If we don't have a precise order, we’ll go by name.”

Nodding to himself, Madara accepts that Hashirama’s idea for the memorial is a good one.

The problem is Tobirama.

The Senju name is all over the village. Giving Tobirama, who died before Konoha was more than a wish, such a place of honor would further tilt the scales toward Hashirama's clan, but denying Hashirama a way of acknowledging his brother will only upset him, which Madara has no interest in doing.

“Dedicate the memorial to him,” Madara suggests after a long moment. “This wasn't his home, but the tradition came from him.”

Hashirama hums thoughtfully. “Instead of inscribing his name on it first, you mean.”

Madara nods. “Let the honor of being recorded first go to someone who belonged to Konoha. If it's a Senju, so be it, but it shouldn't be your brother.”

Hashirama squeezes Madara hard.

“This is a new world,” he says, voice rough, “but none of the brothers I wanted it for got to see it.”

Madara thinks back to the brothers he and Izuna don't talk about. None of them will see Konoha either. They aren't even water to nurture Konoha’s growing roots. They're just dead, buried without ceremony or a name on their hasty graves.

“That's the cost of surviving,” Madara reminds Hashirama. “Even in this village, we’ll have to carry our dead as we move ahead.”

“I should live for them as well as myself, you mean?”

Madara scoffs. “Don't be absurd. Are you going to make every choice according to your dead brothers’ desires? What will you do when those desires conflict?” He lays his head on Hashirama's chest. He doesn't know what his other brothers would have wanted; they died too young to live on in anything more than name. “You carry them by remembering them.”

How does Hashirama remember his brother? What love does he have for Tobirama that's so small he let Izuna live?

“Then I’ll make sure Konoha flourishes,” Hashirama says, his voice low and determined. “So long as someone who calls Konoha home survives, Tobirama will, too.” He squeezes Madara too hard for comfort. “We’ll all live on in each other.”

Madara lets Hashirama keep this dream. Leaving things to others has never been in Madara’s nature; the future is too important to be delegated so flippantly.

“Did you know that when you disagree with me, your nose wrinkles?”

Hashirama sounds tired, so Madara only nods. They can argue later.

It's the middle of the afternoon. The hokage shouldn't be out of his village’s sight for long, but Madara is going to keep Hashirama here for a while. No one else can stop Hashirama, and for the moment, that's what he's going to be.

“Let's go drinking tonight,” Hashirama suggests. “As war buddies.”

Madara hums his agreement. They'll remember the dead, rib each other for strategic fumbles, ramble about the future, then stumble home together. They'll crawl into their shared futon and fall asleep together, and when they wake up in the morning, Hashirama healthy and Madara hung over, they'll continue living.

They'll carry all they have and more because a good shinobi endures.

[zero2heroyesindeed]

So Tangled the series ends in just a few hours.

What can I say about this show, this wonderful wonderful show. I still remember my reaction to that first promo image in 2015 and being excited since this was the first Disney movie to series spin off in years and with how much the landscape of tv animation had changed in that time (much more focus on overarching stories and continuous, in-depth character arcs) it would no doubt be interesting to see. I remember everyone HATING that the hair was back but I didn’t mind as long as it made sense and was part of a good story and OH MY WAS IT PART OF A GOOD STORY.

Tangled the series is a show that somehow feels like it’s been around forever yet also feels like it’s not been around long at all. I watched Before Ever After the day it came out and same with What the Hair. A few months later I binged from Rapunzel’s enemy to Max’s enemy and fell in love with this show. The stunning art style and flowing animation, the respect and attention put into making the returning characters feel exactly as we remember them while also perfectly integrating every new character flawlessly into the world. The show completely eclipsed the original movie in every possible way in my opinion. And it only got better the further we got into this story and lore.

Instead of continuing on about how amazing this show is and how grateful I am for it’s existence as both a Disney obsessed teen and animation fan and I just wanna sing the praises of the crew, there are countless posts more we’ll put together than mine that accomplish that. So what i’m gonna do is instead throw it all the way back to the first season and go in chronological order and pin point the 10 most important moments in the series as a fandom. These are not the most emotional or impactful moments, just things that were a huge deal in the fandom.

1: Life After Happily Ever After

The first ever real impression of the series we got and an indication of what a ride we would be in for. Bringing in Alan Menkin to continue writing the music showed just how far this show was going to go to create the most faithful continuation as possible. It was also the introduction to our precious Cass and showed Eugene getting ready for the first of many proposals we would see throughout the series.

2: Eugene and Rapunzel talk after the coronation disaster

Who could ever forget when Rapunzel and Eugene officially became the most developed and healthy Disney couple. This was basically the moment most people fell in love with the series and it’s not hard to see why. Tangled the Series wasn’t just cute Princess hijinks with some action thrown in, it took it’s characters and their relationships seriously in a way now Disney show had ever done up to that point and could be mature. Rapunzel asking Eugene to be patient with her to this day still gives me chills and showed the direction this show was taking Rapunzel’s character and we were all along for the ride.

3: Rapunzel dreams of Gothel

OOH BOY this moment. While the fandom was still relatively small by this point this moment sent everyone into an absolute frenzy. While Before Ever After featured mentions of the Sun Flower and the King’s ptsd of losing Rapunzel, this was when the flood gates opened for all the angst and tears. Rapunzel’s trauma of the tower and Gothel’s treatment of her were not gonna be glossed over, they would be explored in excruciating detail which to this day is still one of the greatest elements of the series. Just because Gothel is gone doesn’t mean the 18 years of abuse she put Rapunzel through magically heals (pun intended).

4: Varian’s introduction

I don’t even need to say anything for this one. It’s Varian. (gonna be honest. It is 3am in my corner of the globe and I am struggling to find the energy to keep writing this much, so we’re just gonna rush through the rest of these).

5: Big Brothers of Corona/ aka Eugene is a perfect human being

This was the episode that cemented Eugene as one of my favourite Disney characters of all time. I can not count how many times I have rewatched the ending to this one alone. But it was also a fantastic episode for developing Lance’s character and integrating him as part of the shows main cast moving forward despite this only being his second appearance. Also I forgot how small Red and Angry (or the girls formally known as Red and Angry) were.

6: You promised!

This is still my favourite callback to the movie the show ever did. To me Rapunzel saying she never breaks a promise in the original movie feels out of place. Like Rapunzel keeping her promises was going to be a huge part of the story early in development and that line is just a reminant of that draft that should’ve really been taken out. But I don’t care because it gave us this beautiful moment. Also this moment cemented Nigel as my most hated character on the show.

7: “Difficult decisions are what make us who we are”

I can’t with this scene and just how brilliant this episode was at dealing with the fall out of Queen For a Day and how crucial it was to Rapunzel’s character development in retrospective. Everything she has done in season 3 and every action she has taken can be tied back directly to what she learned in this moment. If that ain’t good story telling then I don’t know what is.

8: The Tower Falls

I’m just gonna say it. This is my favourite scene from the series. Everything in this moment is perfection. The music, the staging, the visuals, the emotion. It all builds to an absolutely devastating climax as Rapunzel watches her childhood home crumble to the ground leaving behind one pieces of the walls she used to paint on. If wanna frame the moment Rapunzel starts tearing up as the tower collapses and display it on my mantle because I love it so much.

9: Rapunzel reaches her limit

I couldn’t finish this episode for hours after seeing this first scene. Rapunzel finally took a stand against her father and I was just making inaudible gasps throughout my first time watching it. Then there’s that bombshell at the end where Raps compares her father’s actions to that of Gothel’s that never fails to shake me to my very core no matter how many times I rewatch it.

10: Ready As I’ll Ever Be

What? We’re you expecting the biggest song this show was turned out to not make the list? I mean it was the first time Tangled the series was able to get the attention of those outside the fan base and hooked so many people into checking the show out. This was the moment Tangled the series just left the movie in the dust and from there it just kept pushing further and further with each season.

Not really sure how I should end this. I am very emotional and very tired but I refuse to go to sleep. I am staying up until this finale drops because I am not going to go to sleep knowing i’ll wake up in a world where Tangled the Series is over. This show is a once in a lifetime experience that is in my top 5 television shows of all time. It might not have had the legacy of Phineas and Ferb or the popularity of Gravity Falls but it had so much love, energy and passion behind it and you can tell everyone making this show loved it just as much as we did. I’ll probably end up doing lists like this for season 2 and 3 when I get around to binging the entire Tangled franchise (which will probably be around Summer).

Thank you to the indescribably talented crew of writers, animators, designers, and directors (and I am so sorry if I missed any other positions out but you are all so amazing). Thank you Mandy and Zach for giving your voices to Rapunzel and Eugene and letting us explore their life after Happily Ever After and letting their journey continue. Thank you Eden, Jeremy and James for bringing life to Cass, Varian and Lance who expanded the world of Tangled and felt like perfect additions to the main cast. Thank you Alan Menkin and Glen Slater for continuing to write phenomenal music and putting in your all for something you clearly didn’t even need to do in the first place. Every piece of music for this show has left me breathless (and not just from belting Waiting in the Wings to myself). This 3 year Journey has been simply sensational and I can’t wait to see how it all ends.

Next stop anywhere!

[dazais-guardian-angel]

This post has been sitting in my drafts since like mid-November around when I finished replaying the game, long enough for me to write and upload a fic about some of the concepts I wrote here, what the fuck. DGS brainrot is real. But aNYWAY finally, here are my massive thoughts on Unwound Future, the golden child of the PL series. This is literally *checks* 8k words, because I can never shut up!! and because there is just SO much going on in this game at all times, so many different interweaving plot threads and funny moments and incredible, fascinating characterization, especially combined with the games that come after it; I just had SO much to say. So much analyzing and headcanons and crying galore. :’) There’s a reason this is considered the best game, and that’s why I had so damn much to talk about.

behold the incoherent, rambling, unconnected mess of a novel that I hope makes a modicum of sense under the cut:

Continuing the trend, this game has simply AMAZING graphics/art/music, with a huge uptick in cutscenes and voice acting, and I feel like the sound/music quality is greatly improved too? I love the main bgm for London in this game, never really remembered loving it before, but it’s just *chef’s kiss* and so is the song that plays in other areas like the hospital and subway

Quickly mentioning the gameplay, I really love all the minigames, and the storybooks are especially hilarious to play with putting the wrong things in the spaces to create mad libs-esque crack that makes no sense; it’s so fun lmao

The beginning flashback segment with the time machine demonstration is honestly just so funny, for so many different reasons: Dimitri droning on and on with time travel technobabble while Luke, Bill, Chelmey, and Barton represent the definitive last four brain cells. Hershel being skeptical about successful time travel after all the magical shit they went through just like a year or two ago. The way that Bill’s sprite slowly and nervously shuffles onscreen after Dimitri calls him to the stage, like omg I don’t know why that cracks me up so much but it does. Dimitri’s lowkey savage shade he’s throwing at Bill throughout this whole thing. The way Bill says “wHAT” when Dimitri asks him to help, clearly about to shit his pants. Dimitri just standing there completely unfazed as the smoke from the machine flies past him. And of course, “sOmEtHiNg’S gOnE vErY wRoNg!”

…okay but in all seriousness, am I just stupid or do they never explain how they get Bill to the underground city, like the machine CLEARLY explodes with him in it, there was no secret elevator built into the thing like at the clock shop, so…???

also the presenter’s voice is really funny lmao

Still disagree that this is the biggest mystery they’ve ever encountered, despite being near the top; Luke you say that literally every game!! so what is the truth!!

Spring’s face is terrifying as FUCK in the two cutscenes in the clock shop… why they decided to show both of them in ominous, shadowed lighting in those scenes I do not understand a;lskdl;fds

I need someone to draw a diagram of how exactly the shop looks as a giant elevator because frankly I still can’t wrap my brain around it-

THE FACT THAT WE NEVER GET TO MAKE UP WITH HAZEL IS A TRAVESTY, HONESTLY

Belle… why…… ugh

Wish they’d had “Schrader” drop a casual nod to the events of Diabolical Box; it would have been cool :’) (especially since this is Paul so he’d know about all that)

College-age Hershel is just….. the pinnacle of adorableness. someone protect him from all the pain

One of the few flaws/plot holes in the story of Unwound Future that I only noticed during this replay with more media under my belt, is the that the developers didn’t really decide on what kind of time travel they wanted to portray, or more likely just didn’t scrutinize Clive’s fake role enough when writing it. This is blatantly obvious upon the very first meeting with Clive where he desires to test Hershel to make sure he’s really him. Obviously in a closed loop scenario, everything Luke and Hershel are doing “Future Luke” should remember doing himself in his past, so a test would not be necessary; this is a major trip-up on his part that it’s very odd Hershel doesn’t notice for how smart he is, imo. However, later on when meeting “Future Layton”, Paul calls Dimitri out on this exact principle, proving that he’s not actually Future Layton because he doesn’t remember the absence of a pen in Hershel’s pocket in this moment in his past, and it’s a nice little touch that Paul, on the other hand, an actual scientist, would mention this. Back to Future Luke, though, he should know how everything goes down with stopping Future Layton, because he lived it all as a child with Hershel, which makes it even more dubious to the fact that after seeing all this, Hershel still goes dark and everything plays out the exact same way it’s portrayed in the “future” of the game; it’s the idea that destined fate can’t be changed, but the suspension of disbelief is quite high, especially since we already doubt that Hershel would ever do such a thing, knowing what kind of person he is. Of course this wouldn’t be the case in an open-loop/branching timelines universe, but since the game uses the former type with the pen argument (and something else important I’ll mention in a second), I feel like the rest of the game should have adopted this idea as well and addressed it. Because Dimitri is outed via the fact that he should have memory of things he doesn’t, so it would have been easy to simply add Hershel adding that argument into his final explanation in the bar (”my suspicions were first raised when we first met Big Luke, and he didn’t know if I was really who I said I was- [etc etc]”). Even if they didn’t want Hershel to bring this up early else the entire story would fall apart, they could simply draw attention to the fact that he notices something in these moments, like with a “...” or “Hmm”, and then he explains it at the end like I said. Interestingly enough, Clive actually addresses these concepts at one point in the game with Luke in the statue plaza: he doesn’t want to tell Luke how things play out in his future, so that… things play out the way they’re supposed to…? Even though his entire story here is that he wished Hershel hadn’t gone dark and distanced from him, and ruined the city? But then he makes the suggestion that they could instead be operating on an open-loop/multiple timelines system, where in his past he never travelled to the future, but in our Luke and Hershel’s timeline they do. This is only a hypothetical he gives though, with him seeming unsure of how things truly are, which… again, in this story he’s concocted, he should know for sure, because if he doesn’t “remember” time traveling and how everything went down, then they’re operating on different timelines and it shouldn’t matter how much he tells Luke about his future. You can definitely argue that in-universe Clive didn’t think all this through when planning his dialogue for this role (but I honestly find that hard to believe, since he’s so intelligent, and he nailed the realism of everything else to a T), but it’s obvious just that the writers didn’t think it through, because like I said Hershel really should have picked up on his blunder when they first met, as well as later when Clive is surprised to see Flora suddenly with them and didn’t know for a fact that she and Chelmey/Barton would arrive there. Since the time travel scenario in 99% of the game isn’t actually real, I don’t entirely fault the writers for not getting every single detail right… and yet, that 1% exists where time travel is real, with Claire’s situation. It’s a very isolated incident though that wouldn’t be replicated, with only her going to the future… and yet, she does return to the past again, if only for a split second before dying and thus not enough time to do anything with her future knowledge, the real thing to note here being that they took care to show that she was wearing the same outfit when she died that she gets in the future, one she wasn’t wearing when she entered the lab originally. So they DID think about some things very well, like such a minor and easily-overlooked detail here (but that blows your mind once you realize it). All this is hardly enough to ruin the game or break the immersion completely though, especially since the player is already predisposed to heavily doubt everything with PL’s “the town is a lie” track record lmao, but I can’t help but be bothered by it now after playing games like Zero Escape and watching time travel shows like netflix’s Dark, which have bootstrap parodoxes and timeloops galore looool. My friend who watched me play the game blind this time around brought up all these questions as Clive said things, as someone who didn’t know if it would end up being real or not, and so I spent a lot of time puzzling (har har) it out with her… even though it wouldn’t matter lmao.

……In short, if it wasn’t obvious, despite Unwound Future’s time travel setup being completely fake, I’m really fascinated by the notion of how it would all work if it was real. >.> …and I mean, I know I’m not the first one; monocle Layton aus are popular, after all, but I don’t really care quite as much about the allure of an “evil Layton” as I do just about how everything else would be, I think.

Because, like, lets be real? taking the prequels into account with Unwound Future’s proposed setup, the potential is endless. It honestly KILLS me that the prequels didn’t exist yet at the time of UF, because!! so many people from Hershel’s past!!! SO MANY REASONS FOR HIM TO WANT TO HARNASS TIME TRAVEL AND CHANGE THE PAST, NOT JUST FOR CLAIRE’S SAKE. FOR RANHENGELA’S SAKE. FOR LUKE AND EMMY’S SAKE. FOR HIS PARENTS’ SAKE. FOR DESMOND. listen, listen, you don’t understand how much the idea of Desmond being involved in UF’s concepts destroys me. I wrote about this in my last fic but. imagine if Desmond learned about Hershel going down a dark path for his sake and everyone else’s, just like he did. Or imagine if, instead of Hershel being the one to do it, it was Desmond himself; he’s willing to play the bad guy once again, one very final, this time definitely final, time, if it means he can undo everything that caused all of them so much pain in the first place: his betrayals, the death of his former wife, he and Theodore’s separation, their father’s betrayal, ALL of it, and Hershel would never know. When Luke first is like “oh it’s gotta be Don Paolo right” and Clive says no, i LITERALLY screamed “BUT IT COULD BE DESCOLE!!”. JUST. PAIN. And where would Randall be in this future; what would he, too, think if it was Hershel going after time travel? Imagine him trying to smack some sense into him just like Hershel does in MM, trying to tell him that despite those lost 18 years of his life, despite everything wrong he ended up doing, he’s still happy, and so are Henry and Angela. So is Desmond. And Emmy, she wouldn’t want undone those years she had with Hershel and Luke and then Aurora and Desmond, despite how sadly it ended. Just… so much pain. So much potential. I hurt :’)

and adding on to this, i love love LOVE the idea of Clive knowing about some of this stuff in Hershel’s past, in order to faithfully play his role as Future Luke. Like obviously he wasn’t in Misthallory with them all, he wasn’t on the island in ED, he wasn’t at Monte’dor, and he wasn’t on the Bostonius or at all those Azran ruins that I can’t remember the names of right now, of course he wouldn’t know the intimate, specific details of what all went down, but if there was just one npc who was in the right place at the right time at any of these locations, who knows what beans they could spill? Maybe even an ex-Targent person or something. Hell, fucking Bronev is in jail for at least a little while before the events of UF. There are possibly MANY people Clive could have gotten information from to pull off this role - he’s a reporter, he’s skilled at digging for stuff. Not to mention just reading and hearing about large incidents in the news. And this makes his character so much better because he’s admired Hershel for so long, grateful that he saved his life all this time, to the point that he asks him to unknowingly come and save him again… and he most definitely didn’t know back when he first encountered Hershel that he’d already experienced so much loss and pain as well (some of which Hershel hadn’t even gone through yet by that point), but learning about everything he’s suffered? I think it would really affect him, and possibly contribute to why he asks him for his help in the first place in UF: because Hershel has suffered just as much as he has, and he feels a connection to him, feels like he can relate to him, and wants someone who can empathize with him, and show him how to cope. All of these reasons and emotions would probably be completely on an unconscious level, but they would exist - he’d use this limited but meaningful knowledge to try to connect with Hershel more when he’s still in Future Luke mode, to try to convince him he’s really Luke, at first, but unconsciously it’d be an effort to get closer to him emotionally, which is what he truly desires deep down, until his so-called act somewhat stops being an act, and talking about these things makes his vulnerabilities start to show (again, i wrote a fic about this). This all just adds to why Hershel is the perfect person to help and support Clive - the prequels make their similarities even stronger, more than just with Hershel losing Claire, and those accidental parallels when the writers hadn’t even conceived the prequel trilogy at the time of UF are just *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

THE CASINO SCENE IS JUST ICONIC, IT’S SO FUNNY. LUKE BEING SCARED OF THE SHOOTING AND HERSHEL JUST DITCHING HIM. CLIVE’S LITTLE HOP AND ROLL BEHIND THE SLOT MACHINES. THE SLOT MACHINE GUN IN GENERAL. THE CLONE FAMILY MEMBERS FALLING OVER LIKE DOMINOS UPON BEING HIT. BOSTRO CRYING AND SPLINTERS AND LOCKJAW RUNNING IN CIRCLES PANICKING WHILE LAYMAN JUST IS LITERALLY PUSHED BACK SLOWLY WITH ONLY A CHAIR TO DEFEND HIMSELF, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW FUNNY LAYMAN AS A CHARACTER IS TO ME. it’s just so glorious, oh my god. this series is ridiculous i love it so much lmao

Luke wanting to use the time machine though… there are so many reasons why he might want to, mainly from Azran Legacy. :’)

The statue is the worst thing ever for multiple reasons. The fact that it represents Hershel & Luke’s relationship, the two main characters, who have been through so much together and have such a strong bond that can never be broken, and how it ties into the whole Evil Layton scenario and seems to foreshadow that their bond does end up breaking, as “Future Luke” seems to be proof of (though the game doesn’t really put much emphasis on this; Luke is more worried about the fact that he’s moving away soon straining their relationship, and not the whole Future Layton thing. imo it would have been interesting to see his actual thoughts on/feelings about it, since he’s surprisingly calm throughout the entire game before the reveals happen; you can argue he just has complete faith in Hershel and doesn’t think he would ever go dark, but then why doesn’t he bring this up, insist that this can’t be true? I think he should have). The fact that as I just said it foreshadows how Luke will leave Hershel at the end of the game, something that Luke worries about later on in the game. And most of all, the biggest, worst thing it foreshadows… Hershel’s relationship with Clive. Clive had that statue made himself, put it in his giant set. He WANTS that kind of mentor-student bond with Hershel, that’s how he sees them, just from their one interaction in front of the exploding buildings… or at least, that’s how he wants to see it. He sees how close Hershel and Luke are throughout the entire game, and he yearns for that kind of bond with Hershel, too. The fact that the boy in the statue story has an illness that he eventually dies from, but that their friendship withstands… it’s probably meant to represent Clive’s insanity, that he hopes Hershel will save him from - he is Clive’s light of hope in his despair. Or, to be more accurate to the statue, even if Clive’s madness ends up killing him (which it very nearly does, and by that point he fully expects that it will), he’ll still have had those memories of that time he spent with him, and Hershel will never forget him, and that will mean something special. man though can you imagine an AU where Clive is literally terminally ill too, and that’s why he’s yolo-ing this entire thing so hard and doesn’t care if it ends up killing him in the end, at least he got to be with Hershel one more day; ahahahaha turn up the angsttttttttttttt-

Shmelmey and Shmarton do not at all look like Chelmey and Barton, smh

For everything Clive accounted for with his role and setting, he’s honestly way too rude and crass sometimes to be Luke lmao, even if you try to imagine a world where Hershel did go dark and Luke was changed by it… at least imo

the like 4 puzzles that give Clive’s solving animations/dialogue are the most serotonin-boosting things in the world

“you will come back, won’t you?” Clive asks Hershel about his trip to visit Chelmey, desperately wanting him to stop him before it’s too late :’)

Rosetta and her....... sessions....... with Hershel........ hajkkALSKDLD

Okay but Hershel is kind of dickish sometimes though, despite his whole “gentleman” thing??? There’s the elephant in the room which I’ll Get To, but like first he guilt-trips Chelmey into getting him access to confidential information about the lab explosion, and then he has the absolute balls to tell him “Bill Hawks is being held in the future” and that’s IT. No explanation, nothing else, just THAT, and then he LEAVES, after he’d promised to share every last detail with him. I don’t blame Chelmey at all for tailing them and barging in to get information himself, like damn Hershel, why so savage sometimes in not a good way

which brings me to Ranting About Flora’s Treatment, Part 3: The Finale. Y’all I literally cannot even BEGIN to describe how much the way Hershel and Luke treat Flora in UF specifically makes me seethe..... It was already bad in DB, no doubt, but in this game they are straight-up rude to her, mostly Hershel, for absolutely no reason, and I CANNOT fathom why. He constantly makes the excuse that he’s concerned for her safety, and that the places they’re going to are too dangerous for her, but it all exudes a level of thinly-veiled annoyance, even confusion as to why Flora is so upset that they never bring her along and wants to go with them at all... almost like her “frail” feminine appearance (which isn’t helped by how the games make her feel sick or dizzy or tired multiple times), compared to someone like Emmy who could fight and has more masculine traits, means she’s less capable in Hershel’s mind, which, like, even if it’s unconscious on his part... how about no?? I could accept being worried about her, even if I’m still frustrated at her being left behind, and her constant kidnapping (which isn’t Hershel’s fault, even if he probablyyy could do a better job both times at protecting her), but I CANNOT excuse how short and dismissive Hershel is with her in this damn game; it honestly borders on ooc to me for him, I don’t know what the writers were thinking; do they just hate Flora that freaking much??? He treats her like a burden the entire time, apologizes to people for her, acts irritated at having to accommodate for her, when poor Flora just wants to spend time with him and feel like an equal to him and Luke. Meanwhile Clive of all people is the first one to treat her with kindness and respect and pleasure to see her when they first meet, like when Luke bitches about Flora being excited to see the river and not taking things seriously and Clive tells him to go easy on her (Clive, the one who has been rushing them along this entire time himself). honestly can see why it’s so easy to ship them, when literally everyone else treats her like crap It’s SO depressing honestly. Flora asks them if they thought to wonder where her future self was, and Hershel is just like hhhhh we’re kinda busy thinking about... you know.... important things... sorry not sorry....... like BITCH I WILL STRANGLE YOU, BE NICER TO YOUR DAUGHTER!!! Luke at least is a kid, but Hershel??? there’s no excuse!!! Luke be like “damn I hope Becky doesn’t look down on us for leaving Flora behind... >.>” THEY KNOW. THEY KNOW IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT THEY DON’T CARE AND DO IT ANYWAY. I’M SO MAD

Beasly just gets... straight-up murdered yo... between him and Subject 3, what were they smoking when coming up with the animals in this game, jfc. Test subject animals?? that’s unnervingly dark, despite how glossed over it is and how hilarious Subject 3 is a;lksd

LUKE LOVES SHERLOCK HOLMES THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THE DGS CROSSOVER IS WAITING, LEVEL-5 AND CAPCOM. MAKE LUKE’S (AND MY) DREAMS A REALITY

the intentional zoom-in on Clive’s sinister face in front of the tower will never not amuse me, and baffle me as to why they drew attention to it lmaooo

And okay back to time travel bullshit shenanigans, WHY the fuck does Dimitri not pick up on why him not remembering about the pen is such a big deal as soon as Paul first brings it up?? bruh. bruh. aren’t you a fucking TIME TRAVEL SCIENTIST. WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW SUCH A BASIC CONCEPT THAT BREAKS YOUR WHOLE FACADE IN SECONDS. It’d be one thing if he just couldn’t provide the right answer, but no, he straight-up HAS NO IDEA WHY HE SHOULD HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT THE PEN. “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW-” bruhhhh. Dimitri. my dude. i love you but you are actually so dumb sometimes, like holy shit (more on this later though)

Paul talking to Dimitri about his plan is really good; he has a “...” moment before telling him what he’s doing can’t be excused, like “oh shit let me jump on board, wait fuck i gotta stay in character, Layton is a wuss he would never agree to this god dammit Layton-”. jokes aside though, I’m honestly confused as to how much he actually knew before Dimitri’s exposition in the pagoda, and why exactly he goes along with helping Hershel stop him... and what Dimitri was thinking roping him into this. Because I can’t really figure out Paul’s motives here and how they changed, if they did at all. The only information we get about how he first became involved is that Dimitri was paying him a lot of money to get Hershel to the pagoda and to him - he knows that “future London” isn’t real, he knows Future Layton isn’t real, so the extent of his knowledge seems to be that “this man wants to screw Layton over somehow and is giving me $$$ to get it done; there’s no downside here, never mind this suspicious as fuck fake London and all these people that shouldn’t be here”, but then Hershel gave him more information, probably that Claire was involved in what Dimitri was doing, and his concerns about a traitor being involved if he had already begun to suspect Clive by that point, and then he suddenly decided to turn against Dimitri? Even though you’d think saving Claire would be a reason for him to want to help him...? Or did he plan to turn against him from the very start, and wanted Hershel to come because he knew he could stop all this (part of his character development)? The latter is the most likely, though I still don’t entirely understand or maybe I’m just having a brain fart, that’s very likely too. And Dimitri on the other hand, did he know that Paul liked Claire too and would want to save her (and maybe about his salt for Hershel too), and that’s why he got his help? That makes more sense... but also doesn’t, cause as I said it seems like Paul didn’t know Claire was involved until Hershel told him and then Dimitri told everyone at the pagoda, so maybe he literally just said “here’s some money, help me fuck over Layton, not telling how” and just trusted in him that much, even though Paul is an evil genius who could and does put a stop to all his plans with his machines... once again, Dimitri looking dumb....

Clive, in the most deadpan voice ever at the top of the pagoda: oh no, the prime minister is in danger, someone help him

Flora as they’re escaping the tower: “professor no please take me with you instead of future Luke” Hershel: *ignores her feelings and makes a decision for her yet again* Clive: “shhh don’t worry Flora; i know i’m going to kidnap you in like an hour but i’m just trying to rescue you from these insensitive jerks. not Don Paolo though; he’s a gentleman.”

It’s interesting to me that Luke and Hershel keep acting as if Future Luke and future London are legit even after Future Layton has been revealed to be a fake. Hershel at least probably knows none of it is real by now, even if he hasn’t exactly figured out Clive’s role in everything yet, and is just not revealing his knowledge for now, but Luke is still rolling with it... wonder what’s going through his mind by this point. again, it frustrates me that Luke really has no emotional reaction to anything in UF, aside from the statue and his worries about leaving Hershel soon and how that in particular will affect their relationship

I also wonder what Clive is thinking by this point. Now that the Future Layton jig is up, what kind of story is he going with now? We never find out because Hershel reveals everything completely the next time Clive joins up with them again, but in the (unreasonable) case that he hadn’t, would Clive have just acted like he didn’t know that Alain Stahngun was actually someone named Dimitri, who was actually pretending to be Layton, and that the real Layton was somewhere else out there that they needed to find? I don’t know WHY I’m so interested in details like these that don’t matter at all in the long run a;lksdfklfd, but I am... he tells Flora to continue the “investigation” without him, so clearly he still had something in mind, and didn’t expect Hershel to out him quite so soon after that even if deep down he wanted it

Chelmey really cares for Barton and it’s actually so sweet, oml :’)

I didn’t really praise Paul’s character development in this game enough before, but I really do love it, even if I don’t quite understand the circumstances that started it. It’s not something I would have expected with how he’s presented in CV and DB, but it’s very nice to see this be the culmination of his character, and it’s kinda sad that it feels a bit more natural than Descole’s sudden shift in backstory/character between ED and MM/AL... It’s very funny and good to see him and Luke bicker at each other, and how he seems to have a soft spot for Flora... it’s all cute. I just wish there’d been a bit more time for him to talk to them, but that’s what fanfic is for

Don’t make me have to see Hershel beaten up in the street :’(

The sprite of Dimitri standing in the bar is incredibly hot.... damn why are all the older male characters my type >.>

Alright but it’s about time I finally talk about Dimitri without dissing him for being stupid sometimes and say that in short, I love him. He might even be my favorite new character in UF, even more than Clive; I don’t know if it’s just the Liam O’Brian Tragic Sexy Tired Villain effect or what (nah let’s be real, that’s a huge part of it lmao), but he’s fantastic and utterly breaks my heart, in a much more understated way than how the game shoves Clive’s angst in your face, but his tragedy is nonetheless impossible to ignore. The flashback with young Dimitri is my favorite scene in the entire game, it is devastating and feels so cinematic, so raw and painful, and I’m glad they animated that part because it humanizes him so much more. Claire was his everything, he loved her so much, but it is so obvious to me (and to a lot of the fandom too, I think) that his love was entirely selfless - he might have been a little sad, but he was still mostly content letting Hershel have her, and when it comes to after her death, Dimitri would have been absolutely happy not being able to have her if he managed to save her life; he just wanted her to live. He was in love with her, yes, but he also loved her, as a friend, as a scientist, as a person whose time was cut far too short for entirely selfish and unnecessary reasons, and the majority of his anger and bitterness and drive came from a desire to fix such an injustice - to save an innocent person’s life. And the saddest part of him doing all this and trying to sustain Claire’s existence in the present once he finds her, if you go with the closed loop time travel theory, is that Dimitri should already know it’s impossible for him to succeed in this as long as he remembers finding her body in the past - him succeeding would create a paradox, thus, he can’t save her. But he’s so deep in his despair and obsession and insistence on preserving her life that I don’t think he ever stops to think about this - or he does, but refuses to acknowledge it. I’m sure he was incredibly sweet and kind and soft in the past, with her, and with his passion, and it’s heartbreaking to see how broken he is now, how miserable and tired he is, how much everything changed him. And wanting to get back at someone like Bill, who had it all to begin with and then carelessly used them to gain even more, well, I don’t blame him for that. >_> Not to mention his relationship with Clive, which is all kinds of fascinating to think about: the most chaotic, dysfunctional mess of a half-business partnership half-father/son relationship there is, ahaha... Both of them are unhealthy to the extreme in different ways, but with how much time they spent together, it’s inevitable they had vulnerable moments around each other... Clive is the only other person Dimitri would have around during his research to possibly grow to care about, even if it was entirely unconsciously. Learning he was using him would, well, ruin their relationship even more than it was already messed up, but maybe he would visit Clive in prison at least once, assuming Hershel was. I just crave content for them, ugh. Dimitri just deserved so much better, he makes me so sad </3 and I honestly hate that we don’t get to see him say goodbye to Claire at the end before Hershel; sure it would have utterly killed me, but surely he deserved that much...

The utter, frankly amazing, stupidity of Flora’s kidnapping has been stated everywhere, we all know it, but just.... yeah. smh

Seeing the mobile fortress be like *war flashbacks to the Detragon* “Not This Shit Again” Hershel why tf you putting Luke in more danger AGAIN???

The car scenes with the mobile fortress are, at least to me, the funniest parts of the entire game, even better than the casino, oh my god they’re AMAZING. Luke screaming and flailing his arms while Hershel deadpan flings the car towards the fortress, all the bumps they hit riding across it later on, the car just FALLING and Bill almost falling out of it, and then the plane, all the while Hershel displays no more than mild frustration while everyone else is PANICKING... “a plane? This is an automobile!” ...iconic. top PL moments ever. Luke don’t you recall the time when Hershel built an entire mini plane out of a chainsaw and a barrel in ED, come on now

Onto Claire. Claire doesn’t get much screentime, but some of the moments she does have are very good; she’s one of the best and most fleshed-out female PL characters imo, and like a lot of things, I appreciate her a lot more after this replay than I did years ago... LayClaire is a cute ship and all, but I was never really obsessed with it; rather, I’m realizing now I’m more invested in what Claire has to offer by herself. I hate to use the term “strong female character” cause that sounds so cliche... but she really is strong. The entire part with her wanting to save Clive, their conversation, and her bringing him out... god it gets me, it really does. She’s known she’s going to die for ages, and at this point in the game she knows it could be any moment now, so she has no reason to try to keep herself safe; she’s doomed no matter what, so she might as well spend the last few minutes of her life saving another life, and not just anyone: someone who’s just killed countless people, who anyone else would see as insane, who doesn’t care for her, doesn’t care if he lives or dies - but Claire is compassionate enough that, despite everything, she fiercely believes he deserves to live. Because of her own guilt and sins she believes she bears, yes, but also simply because she believes he can still change, and doesn’t deserve to die, despite the HORRIBLE atrocity he just committed. She’s just that good a person. It’s no wonder she and Hershel loved each other and were made for each other; both of them are such kind, loving, selfless people who see the best in anyone no matter what. Perhaps she hoped and suspected that Hershel would look out for and care for Clive once he was in prison, so she wanted to make sure that could happen, even if she wouldn’t be around to ever see it.

sorry I just get really emotional about this part, about the entire mood and tone of Claire desperately trying to save this kid, and the way the camera focuses on the massive scale of the fortress and how it dwarfs them in size... It’s a really powerful and melancholic scene (just like Dimitri’s flashback scene; have I mentioned how much I adore the atmosphere and cinematic direction of this game? cause god I do) with the knowledge of her real identity and circumstances, the visuals and the music are so good, ugh i just have so many feels. mom Claire hurts me </3 she’s so good... Despite the fact that she dies, and so much of what everyone is doing is because of her death, her presence in the story is so strong, and it never feels like her only purpose is to die for everyone else’s development and that’s it (unlike... well, a lot of other pl females :’); she has her own things to do, she stops the fortress alongside Hershel, and literally saves the main antagonist’s life. Seriously I just adore the fact that she of all people is the one to rescue Clive in the end even though she wasn’t at all obligated to (although I’d be interested and cry over an AU where Hershel saves him instead; it honestly surprises me that he wasn’t going to until Claire said something...), because Clive is the only character (of the adults) who doesn’t have a direct relationship with Claire, but they’re still connected by the explosion, and so it makes for an interesting and terribly sad dynamic, even if they only have a few minutes with each other, for all the reasons I said earlier. Claire doesn’t think what he did was right, but she knows what she and the other scientists did wasn’t right either - and it’s too late for her now, but it’s not too late for him; she knows he has a kind heart, deep down, and that he needs help if he wants to redeem himself. She feels responsible for him, feels like she owes him that second chance, after indirectly taking his parents from him and causing him such misery and brokenness... She’s so brave and strong-willed to be able to do and admit all that she does; I just love her. It clearly kills her to leave Hershel, I don’t think she intended at first to ever let him know who she was (hence Celeste), but she’s not too upset in the end, because she (rightly) knows that he will be all right. ;; She’s so beautiful, too... wish we could have seen her interact with so many of the other characters </3

and so my favorite “insert Descole into the main trilogy” AU is where Descole intercepts Claire and makes some sort of body for her, like how everyone headcanons that for Aurora post-AL. (or/also just mobile fortress vs. Descole robots, that’s cool too lol)

And finally, Clive, the infamous star of Unwound Future, thought I talked about him a bit already (and also in this post a few weeks ago). Clive is probably the PL series’ best written villain Anton excluded, I absolutely love him, like everyone does. Nothing really about him hasn’t been done before elsewhere, but that’s not a bad thing; when I was younger and first played the game I really only paid attention to his sympathetic side, but now I’ve also grown an appreciation and fondness for that kind of unabashedly awful, manic, evil insanity a villain like him has, it’s just SO entertaining to watch. If PL was a more mature/higher rated series I’d love to see his chaotic crazed energy played up even more, just to really hammer in how messed up he is, ahaha, but of course that would make it harder to sympathize with him..... and unfortunately, it already is kind of hard, because.... shit, the number of people he must have killed? It’s a LOT. A FUCKTON. The level of sympathy the game gives Clive and the way it presents him at the end is not at ALL relative to the astronomical amount of people that had to have been squashed to death by his machine, to the point that it honestly makes me uncomfortable, and I try to just retcon that in my head, as hard as it is to imagine a scenario where that thing could have come up to London and not hit any houses, because like..... There’s no coming back from that. He knew exactly what he was doing, madness or not, and I honestly just... don’t want him to be such a mass murderer. Maybe it’s wrong to ignore it, but the game wants me to feel sorry for him and see his potential for redemption, and his relationship with Hershel is so good... dammit game, why’d you have to show those houses being crushed. Ugh. Because Clive is so compelling as someone who feels betrayed by people in power, who desires revenge not only for himself but for all the people who suffered just like he has that he says he bore witness to as a reporter; it’s a very relatable position and a good story, for his well-meaning intentions to be skewed and lost in the midst of his rage and despair and hatred and insanity, where his very valid point of “hey people in government are fucked up and don’t give a shit about us and that needs to change” gets turned into “they all need to die even if the very innocent people I want to save get hurt by this as well”, and I really wish that whole angle of it had been played up a bit more, and there had been more of an opportunity for Hershel to reason with him and argue that in the midst of his blind need for revenge, he’s become even worse than the people who need justice handed to them (cue some Descole allusionssss). He wouldn’t have to win him over, Clive is already too deep by that point despite how much he wanted to be stopped, but just having more of that than just what happens in the surveillance room would have been sooooooo good, I love that conversation. It would have made Clive even better and really drive home that he’s 1) kinda right about some things and wants better for people 2) still very fucking wrong and selfish at the same time and has taken it all way too far 3) very fucked up and broken. Not that the third point isn’t already abundantly clear, but... yeah. It would have given him even more depth, made him more sympathetic, and helped juuust a little to offset how much the game handwaves his mass murders... just a little... One of my favorite Clive scenes though is when the fortress is breaking down and he’s still there, desperately trying to save it, still in denial about the fact that all his plans have failed and that everything he’s done (and himself) is about to go up in flames; I know everyone loves making fun of him and that that scene is pretty memeable (he does get bodied so much in the game, lmaooo), but it makes him look so vulnerable, all alone in there by himself, like a child, which is what he really is, deep down: he never truly wanted to do something so abhorrent and evil, but his emotions and mind spiraled so badly out of control and it led him to such a dark, horrible place, where he couldn’t stop himself, no matter how much he wanted to, and in the end all he can do is watch helplessly as the reality of what he’s done and his unwound future all comes crashing down in front of him, never to be salvaged. And he believes wholeheartedly that he is going to die, that he deserves to (this is my favorite Clive scene; he’s so hurt and resigned, the voice acting kills me ugh), he doesn’t understand at all why Claire wants to save him, especially if he knows she’s one of the scientists (as his line of “why are you of all people helping me” implies), because he always thought none of them ever cared about him and people he saw as like him, thought everyone was like Bill Hawks, but Claire still cared enough to want to save his life, even though she was one of the people he was actively targeting with his revenge... I wonder how he would have felt at the time if he had known about her situation and that she was dying. </3 I just want so many good things for him, as so much of the fandom does. He’s so messed up but that’s what makes him so interesting, and his potential relationship with Hershel that the ending of the game suggests could happen is so touching and lovely and uplifting, one of my favorite kinds of relationships in fiction: Clive’s issues would persist for so long, for forever, really, but Hershel would support him and help him heal, and be there for him always, no matter how much Clive would feel like he didn’t deserve it. I eat this dynamic up, I really do, every single time I encounter it in a story, and it’s made even better by the fact that as I’ve said, Hershel has so much in common with Clive, and so they would get along very well for that reason, and Clive could unknowingly help Hershel just as much Hershel tries to help him. They’re so good for each other. Add Luke too, and Flora, and Desmond...! just ahhhhh........ there’s so much goodness. Clive you absolute glorious, fucked-up mess of a character, I love you. :’) and I love fic writers who explore facets of his personality and write about him. He’s only in one game, and there’s still a few hiccups, as I said, yet he’s handled far better than Descole or Randall in my opinion (though I love them too)... just an amazing fucking villain, and character. I wish UF could have gone deeper with him than it did, but even so, the possibilities with Clive are endless. I love him, so much ;;

and some of the themes of the plot in this game, uhh, hit a little close to home in good ole’ 2020/21 time we live in? :’) #FuckBillHawks

Hershel saying goodbye to Claire.... god. One of the top scenes in the entire series, probably the #1 most iconic I’d even go so far as to say. I don’t even really ship LayClaire, but there’s an indescribable emotion that finale gives me... it’s just breathtaking, in the most gutwrenching, nostalgic, beautiful way. I still maintain that Diabolical Box’s ending is sadder than this one, for a multitude of reasons, just comparing the stories and situations the characters are in, but I 100% don’t blame people for bawling at this scene more than any other, just because of the way it’s done yes I know I won’t shut up about the cinematography; the lighting, the camera angles, the pacing of it, Hershel’s fucking kicked puppy faces, the dialogue oh god the dialogue; it ALL hits like a TRUCK and comes together beautifully. At this point in his life Hershel has been through so much loss, so much so that it is unbearable - when he cries that he doesn’t want to say goodbye again, that he can’t say goodbye again, that he refuses to, nothing in the world is more true: this man has been through too much, and he’s hit his breaking point. even if you don’t have the prequels in mind when watching this, as most people don’t/didn’t the first time through, the overwhelming sense of burden and loss Hershel is feeling is so palpable, so painful - you get the sense that this isn’t just about Claire; Hershel has never shown emotion like this before up to this point, so for him to finally break down like this... it speaks volumes. After so many years of holding everything in, he finally can’t take it anymore, and basically stabbing me in the fucking chest would hurt less </3 I complain about Hershel never showing emotion like this (never crying) in the prequels whenever he’s hit with an equally horrible bombshell, and I still feel that way, but at the same time a part of me is also glad that’s the case, because it makes the very last (two) scenes in the entire series hit so much harder, knowing that he finally loses his composure after dealing with so much. As the titular character of the series, Hershel’s development is very understated and subtle, so it’s all the more meaningful when he actually snaps, because it makes him feel so much more real and human than he ever is the rest of the time, when he maintains his facade of being a perfectly composed, calm, and together gentleman; this scene finally say that, no, Hershel is a person, and he is broken in a lot of ways, because some puzzles you just can’t solve no matter how hard you try, and it’s so sad. And this sad tone of loss and longing permeates the entire cutscene; the way the title is dropped in Claire’s dialogue (both versions equally haunting imo), and Hershel taking off his hat for the first time ever, and the pan up and transition back to show the falling snow as “Time Travel”, my favorite instrumental in the series, kicks in... y’all there is no other feeling in the world like the feeling that elicits, there really isn’t ಥ⌣ಥ ❤️💔 the only thing that might even come close to it is the ending of Azran Legacy with Surely Someday, simply because it was the ending of the series, but the ending of Unwound Future hits me harder knowing it’s the end of the timeline, and with everything else in hindsight. And then an unknown amount of time later, even with Luke gone and Hershel only having Flora there with him anymore unless we headcanon DESMOND COMES BACK BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DID RIGHT, Hershel is still no longer wearing his hat, to show that he’s finally started to heal from his pain, and accepted the loss(es), because throughout all of UF Hershel had never really gotten over Claire’s death no matter how much he tried to pretend like he had, but you don’t realize that until you see the ending, until he got one final chance to see her. I just... ugh I love it so much, so much. It means so much, for Hershel and for the series, and that’s why it makes me cry (and don’t even get me sTARTED on Luke’s goodybe, and how upsetting yet beautiful THAT is. yes, Luke isn’t a gentleman yet, and Hershel finally learns that maybe he doesn’t always have to be one, either :’’’’’’)

Unwound Future is a masterpiece. Diabolical Box has my favorite characters and story for the new characters, and favorite settings, personally, but Unwound Future is such top-tier storytelling and writing; it feels so epic and sweeping and (here i go again) cinematic, it’s so polished and everything flows so well, the pacing is wonderful, everything ties up so perfectly and there’s very little I would change Flora bitching aside and practically nothing that feels like filler, even though some of it technically is. The tone stays consistent and they really push the boundaries of how serious and heavy these games can be, and it works, and doesn’t feel silly or glossed over or too unrealistic or too heavyhanded like some of the other games are at times; the plot twists/reveals feel the least absurd and the most grounded in reality, despite still being wild, and it focuses on some really relevant stuff and themes (again, it feels really grounded and raw, and the least fantastical, which isn’t a bad thing for the other games/movie per se, but being more realistic works in this one’s favor. No one is going to have their family separated and murdered by a criminal secret organization working to unearth ancient advanced civilized ruins, or lose years of their life and memories in said ancient ruins, or have their life ruined in an eternal unaging state from hallucinogenic gas, but being screwed over by people in government who will do anything to make sure they never have to face consequences? now that’s a mood). It’s just a really fucking good game, by far the best Professor Layton game, and I’ll always stand by that, despite preferring DB just a bit more cause it hits more of my personal tastes (DB is still very good too though, don’t get me wrong), and it’s also enhanced even more by the prequels, though it stands perfectly on its own. The perfect culmination of Hershel’s character arc, and the absolute high point of the series. It’s one of the ones I keep coming back to the most, just because it has so much to offer; as someone who is absolutely enamored with near-perfect stories of this caliber, I couldn’t ask for more. ❤️

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Season 1 Episode 6 “Rage, You Damn Nerd”

mysterylover123

Episode 6, with the best most hilarious title ever! Tells you exactly what you’re in for.

Finally, Bakugo’s reaction! I seriously was waiting through all three episodes for this. Like a Hitchcockian bomb under the table. Almost literally!

Bakugou .exe has stopped working.

Aizawa starts his pattern of lying to Class A to get them to do their best. He kinda stops doing this after a while, I’m guessing because it doesn’t take lying anymore, just let Wonder Duo go running off at the mouth and they’ll do the job just as well.

Momo’s first line! I think we’re introduced to her in a method meant to make her seem a bit smug and condescending, which is interesting - Momo has a similar trajectory to Bakugou in some ways, introduced as Hot Shit and embarrassment used to break that ego, so this is important to keep in mind.

Aizawa and All Might seemed like they were gonna have a rivalry in early drafts and that got dropped. Anyway, I’m noting the timeline here, as All Might drops the info that this is April 8 (April Fool’s day was Last Week).

The friendship trio forms! Yay! (BTW I ship Uraraka and Iida, if you didn’t know.) We get a quick sum up of life at UA (sob why can’t my school be more like this) and then transfer on to the start of the Battle Trial Arc. Here it goes!

Everyone’s in costume! I figured I’d use my fave Costumes for my ranker today, so I’ll comment on them below. (BTW I loved this arc a lot the first time around. I adored how perfect it feels as a simulated Heroes v Villains exercise.)

All the detailed info on designing costumes and enrolling quirks is another thing I enjoy about BNHA; it feels like such a well-realized world, probably the most fully realized one I’ve encountered in some ways. Horikoshi is so obsessive over details, I love it.

And it actually serves as a means to illustrate character. Since they designed the costumes themselves, everyone’s choices tell you a little something about who they are. I think that both Deku and Kacchan’s costumes are designed to look like All Might’s - both have pointy hoods like his spiky hair, both have metal gear around the neck, etc. They look alike, yet opposite.

Deku’s first costume is so doofy looking, though. And it’s kind of symbolic of his whole issue at this point: he wants too badly to be like All Might, so he covers up his own face with a mask that has this weird, distorted fascimile of All Might’s hair and smile. He really needs to up that confidence! 

This is followed by an adorable sequence of All Might trying to be a teacher and explaining the rules of the BTA. I totally empathize with All Might here; starting at a new job like this can’t be easy. (now I’m thinking about the “Even Idiots Can be Teachers” joke in Episode 52 and laughing)

I wish there was more to comment on with the BTA teams. A few of them feel important. Kaminari and Jirou, of course; one of my ships, they hang out a lot. Also , Ojiro/Tooru, and Tsuyu/Tokoyami get teamed up here (but not Momo and Shoto or Kiri/Mina, so I refuse to call it a shipping pattern). Ashido and Aoyama have a bit of a rivalry going on that starts here. Everyone else’s is pretty random.

And now the fated showdown of destiny! Well, the first time, anyway. I could watch these two fight all day. The whole series could just be them fighting each other back and forth and yelling while YSR plays and I’d be fine.

Bakugou is so salty about Deku! The first time around, of course, he just comes across as an asshole. Rewatching it though, it does seem fairly reasonable to be pissed off that Deku’s apparently been lying to him this whole time (because he doesn’t know about OFA, and Deku didn’t even both to lie to him like he did to his mom), and they are fighting in an organized combat mission, so his behavior here makes total sense in hindsight. Amazing how that character development works.

Uraraka is initially really blase about doing well. in hindsight, I think one of her flaws (at this stage, anyway) was that she basically didn’t know what she wanted and pretty much coasted on Deku (she says as much during the sports festival). She gets over that quickly, but flaws make good characters, so I wanted to point it out.

Incoming Deku “Kacchan Sugoi” moment #1. I love this little twist, too, on the way we perceive Deku. He doesn’t want revenge on Katsuki or something like that. He wants to beat him (”the incarnation of victory”). Deku is not some frail flower needing protection from the world. Don’t let his cuteness fool you.

Deku is so effing cool here, TBH - brilliant, tactical, strong, and brings his rival down to earth by judo-tossing him. Damn, the animation on Baku hitting the floor though, you can feel that impact. No wonder he was so pissed! (Deku’s strategic mind is one of my favorite things about him. Also the symbolism in Baku blasting away part of his All Might mask! 1/2 of the whole!)

“From now on, Deku is the name of my hero!” Once again that trio of foil-y ness between Deku, Kacchan and Uraraka. I wonder if it’s a relic of when the series was originally gonna be them as a trio, a la Naruto/Harry Potter/etc, so they were designed to all foil each other in some way? It’s not as much in the series proper, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, You Say Run! Down the bottle! (3rd episode in a row).

In sum, I love this episode. Costumes! All Might teaching! The Battle Trial Arc! Bakugou being crazy (I mostly gush over Deku a lot, but I love Kacchan too. Crater-sized faults and all). And of course, all of the...

BKDK Corner:

Cute flashbacks! Adorable flashbacks are adorable. Little Bakugou is so arrogant; if he was an adult he would be insufferable, but because he’s just a kid it’s cute.

Now to get into a little analysis! This ep marks the first time we actually delve into the depths of Bakugou’s psyche, and basically to sum it up: He’s scared of Deku because he deep down knows that Deku is better than him, fearing that Deku will surpass him, and doesn’t understand why. It’s amazing how the characters introduced at this part of the series as simple archetypes (relatable hero, bully, nice girl, uptight boy) become so complex as the series goes on. Not to be taken at face value.

Uraraka changing the meaning of Deku is another moment that parallels the Deku/Kacchan and Deku/Ochaco dynamics. Again, I’m not sure what that means in the long run, only that paralleling Izuku’s romance subplot with his main rivalry has interesting implications.  

“So, you know Bakugou? He’s kind of mean to you, right?” ‘“Yes but he’s also super amazing special awesome and cool and did I mention amazing? Let me present my eighty page thesis to you on why Kacchan is cool.” OK, exaggerating. But it is interesting how much Deku admires and looks up to Kacchan despite him being such a jerk, so seemingly the opposite of what Deku wants to be as a hero. Basic 2 sides/same coin stuff, of course. Kacchan has all the self-assurance, power and pride that Deku lacks (at least at this point).

Deku speaks fluent Kacchan and predicted exactly what he would do. He knows his S/O so well. 

“I took notes on all amazing heroes, including you” Subtle, Deku. Wanna make your crush a little more obvious? (also check out the BNHA smash comic of this, where he takes it up a notch and reveals what a full-blown stalker he actually is).

This is definitely their lowpoint of antagonism, though. This early part of the series, where they’re both mad at each other. I do think that Deku never really hated Bakugou, though; he hates things about him, but not him as a person. (Deku is way too forgiving.)  Bakugou hated him, but I think that’s fading away in the current timeline (so weird, the last time we saw these two in the manga they were chilling on a couch together and drinking tea. Such a crazy contrast with rewatching this!)

Best Girl of the Episode: Kyoka Jiro!

more info on her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FVXWFFm4w&t=481s 

Ranker: Favorite Hero Costumes

5. Nejire Hado’s!

I’m not sure why, but she has one of my favorite costumes of the whole series. it looks so good on her, it’s simple and tells you who she is.

4. Izuku Midoriya’s (3.0)!

Deku’s third costume is amazing and looks cool. It’s sleek and powerful and badass, somehow taking that dopey baseline design and turning it awesome.

3. Camie Utsushimi’s!

It’s so simple yet so great. Bodysuit, white boots and that awesome Shiketsu hat. Yet it works. It looks cool, even with the boob window.

2. Katsuki Bakugo’s!

It’s so ridiculous and yet so perfect. Exactly what you’d expect Bakugo to design for his outfit. Keeping in character and suitably dark.

1. Ochaco Uraraka’s!

My favorite in the whole bunch. It looks so much like a space heroine super suit - I especially like it with the helmet. It’s all there for her quirk, too - there’s an explanation behind each piece of gear. (BTW, Bakugou and Uraraka had the same designer. They really lucked out!)

[desdemonafictional]

27 Club

Original fiction

short story (rough draft)

zombies/disturbing imagery

--

The guard at the gate was wearing sunglasses. It was ten o’clock at night.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “it’s at capacity. No more tickets.”

 “Lynda’s my ride home,” Althea said. Her nose ring flashed as her nostrils flared. “She can’t just go now! I’ve got work in the morning!”

“Please,” Lynda said. She was wearing one of the four identical Fight Club t-shirts she’d bought from the sales rack at the Wal-Mart and chopped up in a series of miniscule different ways in search of some kind of post-corporate statement. This was the one that Althea had made: the most daring cut and the clumsiest stitches. “I’ll just hang out at the merch table, I promise.”

The venue was out at the edge of town, a long way from either of their homes. They had been over at Craig’s house, talking about the scene lately, when Althea casually unfolded the letter of invitation she had received the night before from a friend of a friend down at the club, resplendent with one small, free ticket. In strange old-fashioned type it listed the times and the location of the venue, and Althea, by name. They passed the paper around and around, but nobody seemed to know who had booked the stadium out at the edge of town. Kent Kinley, who had been drinking Sierra Mist and vodka at the back table, knew almost every single band that passed through, even the dad-rock ones, and he had no idea who or what the performers were.

 “It’s probably Reignstorm’s side project,” Althea said. She leaned forward, cleavage flashing under her tank top. “Mcleod’s been awfully cagey the last couple times I’ve talked to him.”

“I don’t think so, Thea,” Kent had said. “He can barely fill a venue downtown, and the stadium is big.”

Lynda watched Althea consider a series of propositions with the careful poise of a judge presiding over a courtroom, egging the argument on each time it threatened to die down again, and she had thought: this is something Althea likes. And then, as if someone else had opened up her mouth and spoken out of it, she had said: “If you want to check it out, I’ll drive you.”

The look on Althea’s face as her attention finally fell on Lynda—delight, calculation, shrewd interest—made Lynda feel ten years old again, holding out the glittering creature she’d snared to the pretty girl on the swing set whose brown curls flashed gold in the sunshine. The Althea of that distant playground and the Althea of this queenly basement court never seemed so much the same as that moment. Her heart fluttered like a butterfly in her child hands.

Just like it always had been, by the time Lynda realized what she’d done, it was too late to back out.

So here they were, just the two of them together again for the first time in almost a decade, as Althea gradually got more and more bent out of shape yelling at the bouncer. Lynda hung back, unconsciously hovering just outside of the splash zone. At the gate there were posters for old country singers and some pop star’s reunion tour, but nothing with tonight’s dates, and nothing that seemed to match the sound coming over the wall. From the moment she’d stepped out of the car it had seemed to clutch at her, a bass thump that rattled the pebbles on the sidewalk, a rhythm like it was running to catch up with itself and tripping forward into terror.

She jumped as Althea grabbed her hand, startled by the sudden touch and unnerved by the darkness. “Fine!” Althea said, “the band sounds shitty anyway!”

Lynda trotted after her, trying to keep up, until they were well out of sight of the bouncer or the gate. The sound of something like a violin gasped over the top of the wall, setting Lynda’s teeth on edge. It seemed to keen, more like a wounded animal than an instrument.

Althea skidded to a stop. “Okay,” she said, “stand next to the wall. Back up to it.”

Lynda slowly scooted towards the wall, until Althea impatiently pushed her flat against it and pushed a finger into the concrete right at the top of her head. She glanced up from it like she was measuring. Her brown curls flashed green and gold in the street lights. “Shit. You’re not tall enough,” she said. “I won’t be able to pull you up after me.”

Lynda looked from the top of the wall to the marker-finger to Althea, who was scanning the sidewalk. She did not want to hop a fence, and she certainly did not want to get any closer to that keening whine on the other side of the wall, but it had been her idea to come out here and she couldn’t afford to back out now. She had no idea how she’d managed to pull off even this much. Althea had hardly said ten words to her in a month of Craig’s Friday night basement parties, despite how much she’d tried to make herself available for conversation. It had seemed like such mystic serendipity when Althea had first seen her shopping for shirts in the Wal-Mart, stepping out of the aisles like a ghost from a childhood dream. Grown up but still somehow the same as ever, in her winged eyeliner and shrewd eyes, she had paused at the sale rack and Lynda had said – “Althea? Is that you?”

That Althea had spoken to her, remembered her, and extended her casual invitation to basement Friday nights? Incredible enough. But that she had come back across town with Lynda, like it was the easiest thing in the world, to supervise the slicing and stitching of shirts? That whole day seemed unreal to her now. In the sunlight that poured through the carport, Althea had threaded a needle with her beautiful but clumsy hands, talking about music, making the air shine with her laughter. She held a shirt up to the light. Scissors flashed in her grip. For months, Lynda had been raking through the glitter and kohl, trying to find that Althea again.

What had she come here for if not to catch Althea’s attention? What was the point of any of this if she gave up what little gain she’d made now?

“What about the trash can?” Lynda said.

Althea peered down the curve of the wall and spotted the trash can, one of the vaguely coffin shaped kind with the ashtray on top. Teeth flashed under her shiny dark lips. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s try that.”

With the can tipped over on its side, Lynda was almost able to stand on it and touch the top of the wall. She boosted up Althea, who huffed and puffed and pulled herself up onto the flat top of the wall, and then pulled Lynda, who was lighter, up off the trash can after her. From the top of the wall the whole stadium was bathed in lavender light, pulsing and flashing. They lay there for a moment, panting into their elbows, as the whine of the music plunged right through them and dripped down onto the street on the other side. The stage was set with what looked like enormous crystals, maybe carved ice, jutting up into the light. Whoever was on stage was howling into a microphone, not without some melody but with—Lynda couldn’t think of a better way to say it—a brutal kind of mourning. Beside her, Althea sucked in a sudden breath.

“Son of a bitch,” Althea said, and the same time that a man’s voice from the other side of the wall called, “Hey, is somebody—”

“Jump,” Althea whispered, and then she vaulted down onto the grass, landing in a crouch.

Lynda broke out in a cold sweat, hesitating for a moment too long between two bad alternatives, thinking of her ankles and her ribs, and then finally rolled off after Althea just as the first beam of a flashlight passed through the darkness beside her. Her wrists screamed as they hit the ground. Her boots broke right through the soft turf.

“How are we going to get back out?” she wheezed.

Althea was already straightening up, brushing off her dirty hands on her jeans. “Same as everyone else,” she said. “Through the door.”

“But the bouncer—”

“We’ll just leave with the crowd. No problem.” She had turned her attention on the stage, to the howling performer, her eyes narrow with interest. “I feel like I recognize him,” she said. “Let’s get a closer look.”

Hadn’t the bouncer said the venue was full? The crowd seemed awfully small to Lynda, who had expected a production big enough to account for ice sculptures and a light show to attract at least a couple hundred. It seemed like it was just the enormous thrashing mosh pit, and whoever was up in that box they’d erected over it. She’d never seen anything like it. Opera houses she’d seen, sure, with viewing boxes. Actual sports stadiums too. But never anything quite like this.

“He kind of looks like Nathan,” Althea said. She was squinting down at the stage, trying to block the strobe lights with her hand. “You wouldn’t know Nathan, he stopped coming around before you got involved. Craig was sure he was about a year away from signing on with somebody, he had this killer EP he’d produced himself. Some of the guys think he just ditched us for the LA scene but I’m sure he didn’t, he wouldn’t have gone without saying anything—”

As they circled the hill above the mosh, Lynda looked down into the heaving crowd and drew her arms up around herself, unnerved and unhappy and unsure why. Something about the figures below felt wrong, like furniture in a familiar house all moved slightly to the left, like the way the legs of a spider move.

“He would have at least told me,” Althea said, “he never would have left without telling me.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” Lynda whispered, dashing to catch up from where she’d lagged behind.

“Did you think we jumped the fence for our health?” Althea said. “Come on, there’s a space in front of that thing. We can get a good look from there.”

The spectator’s box glinted up at them, a pavilion of curtains and shadowy bodies mounted on strata just high enough to put it at the same height as the stage. It hovered over the sea of frothing bodies like a pirogue floating over the bayou.

“Indie artists are so flaky,” Althea muttered, “I don’t know what it is about them, one day they’re vaping into a paper bag in your parent’s basement and the next day they’re just gone! No calls, no texts, not so much as a hey thank you for the mix CD I really liked the folk metal.”

As the hill dipped down into the bottom of the stadium, a hundred upraised, grasping hands lay at Lynda’s feet. She watched them, blue and purple in the relentless alien light, pumping their fists in time to a catastrophic breakdown. Some of their fingers seemed mashed and flattened, boneless against the dark. Digits seemed to flop from their knuckles. Lynda did not want to go down into that mass.

“Must be a private event,” Althea said, still shading her eyes as she peered through the gloom to the pavilion. “Probably some bougie wanna-be rockers with cash to burn. What do you think would happen if I just walked right in there? I could probably jump from the edge of this hill. Do you think they’d notice?”

“Althea,” Lynda said, “I don’t like this. I think we should go.”

“Where are you gonna go?” Althea said. “Bouncer’s still out there.”

“Couldn’t we just,” Lynda said, “wait in the girl’s room until it’s over?”

“Yeah, that’s where I wanna spend my Friday night, in a trashed bathroom ten feet away from the actual show. Christ Lynda, it’s like fifth grade all over again. Well I’m not missing out on the party because you’re afraid of a ten dollar Target ouija board this time, so you can stay or you can make a break for it, but you’re on your own.”

Lynda rapidly blinked away any water her eyes before it could think of becoming tears. It was fine, it was nothing to cry about, it was just—Althea being Althea. She didn’t mean to be hurtful. It was just these new contact lenses irritating her eyes, that’s what she would say…

“That is Nathan!” Althea shouted, grabbing a fist full of Lynda’s shirt all at once and shaking her. “That rat! He got signed and he didn’t tell me!”

Lynda found herself being dragged forward by the collar, the hasty stitches down her sides popping and tearing against the force of it. As she stumbled down the hill, her feet seemed to touch the ground so little that it felt as if she was flying, or falling. They descended, hair whipping out behind them, and Lynda thought for a moment that she met the eye of someone inside the pavilion—for a crystalline moment, a pair of eyes almost glowing with the lights from the stage, narrowed on her. And then they were down in the pit, with the rest of the crowd, looking up at Nathan’s sunken face. It was hard to see what Althea found so interesting in him; his skin was drawn tight around his bones like paper around a frame, his knuckles clutching the microphone seemed like the segments of some sickly worm. Althea shrieked and waved up at him, doing her best to be heard over the deafening noise, but Lynda drew back from the stage.

There was no security in sight. Bodies bumped and thumped into each other, never quite crossing the invisible line between the front row and the bottom of the stage. There was no gate. As Lynda turned back to find someone in the crowd who might stop and explain it to her, she found herself face to face with a man caught in the frothing, wide-eyed throes of an overdose, his eyes fixed on the stage above as he was bounced from shoulder to shoulder in the fray. He never fell. He only continued to surge forward and stagger back, blue in the face and white at the lips, his eyes as glassy as a corpse’s, his hands reaching up, up—

Lynda tore out of Althea’s grip, almost clawing at the grass in her hurry to get up the hill again, like a child so frightened to climb the dark staircase that she went on all fours. She collapsed partway up, remembering Althea too late. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t go forward. She scrambled up onto her back and drew her knees up to her chest, watching the crowd thrash below her in numb dread. Who were they? What were they? In the flashing darkness she could just make out one jawless horror, skin blown back and glittering sticky with what had to be blood. At their head Althea was still shouting at the stage, jumping in time to the music as it coughed and howled. There was no rest for the band between melodies. They plunged forward without a pause for breath, or water, or tuning.

A persistent flash of motion at the edge of Lynda’s vision drew her finally away from the macabre scene before her. Inside the pavilion—now almost level with her again—a figure was beckoning her forward. They gestured to the gap between the hill and the banister, miming something like a leap across the gap. Their beautiful high cheekbones and darkly shadowed eyes could have been male or female or anything in-between, but their expression was like the sharp interest of a child watching an insect, fingers already green with the guts of previous playmates. Lynda looked from the stage, to Althea bobbing furiously in the ghastly crowd, and finally back to the pavilion. What had shaken Lynda down to her gut, Althea hadn’t even noticed. Right now, Lynda knew from dismal experience, she was a buzzing fly at the edge of Althea’s vision. Her eye was always fixed on the next big thing, and tonight that thing was Nathan. Maybe if Lynda knew something, maybe if Lynda could bring her something bigger and juicier than Nathan, she could lure Althea up away from that damn stage. What other option was there? Lynda climbed to her feet and, with a breath so deep her chest ached, took a running leap at the edge of the pavilion.

         The edge of the banister punched the wind out of her chest. As she scrabbled to pull herself over, eyes watering, the beautiful stranger only watched with delight. Lynda slid to the floor of the pavilion, panting, and looked for the first time at the inside of the spectator’s box. There were maybe a dozen people lounging across the array of furniture, drinking something pale and bubbly from crystal flutes. The ones nearest her all watched surreptitiously from the corners of their eyes.

         “Look at you,” said the one who had beckoned her over the gap, showing a set of pearly shark-tipped teeth. “I don’t believe you were invited to the show.”

         Lynda pushed herself up, a hand on the banister. “Sorry,” she said, “it was Althea’s idea. Sorry. We didn’t realize it was a private event. Is this, like, somebody’s sweet sixteen?”

         But even as she said it, she knew that couldn’t be right. What kind of birthday party was full of scores of dying metal heads? The stranger wore a jacket that was something like a military dress uniform, glinting with silver buttons, too sharp and clean to be entirely punk. They were all like that up here, sharp and clean and whole and strange, none of them a day over thirty or an hour under eighteen. One, with her long hair pulled back like shining raven’s wings, lifted her hand and took a drink from a passing tray without ever looking away from Lynda.

She swallowed.  “I’m Lynda, with a ‘Y’,” she said, as she always did, face hot with embarrassment. She was aware that no amount of stylish ‘Y’s could make her name sound any less like an advertisement for mom-jeans. She knew that, and she still insisted on doing it, the same as she’d done since she’d first introduced herself to Althea a decade ago, lying to feel a little closer, a little cooler. The day they met, Althea had already been a kind of royalty, with her fairy tale name and her endless curls. A fifth grade lie she’d lived ever since. By the time Althea left, everything that had been Linda Dacule was lost in the world of the false “Y” forever.

“Hello, Lynda with a ‘Y’,” the stranger said. “You can call me Robin Goodfellow. What do you think of the show?”

She glanced back down at the pit, but only for a moment. She couldn’t bear to look for any longer. “What’s wrong with them?” she asked. “They should be in so much pain. Some of them look like they’d keel right over if everyone else stopped shoving them around.”

Robin leaned over the banister, flashing eyes fixed on the world below. “I think rock’n roll is immortal, don’t you?” they said. “It’s a religion. It’s got its pantheon of saints, its Kurt Cobains and its Janice Joplins. If you live fast and die young, you can go on forever. Your friend gets it.”

Lynda followed their gaze, trying to spot whatever they were looking at, but all she could make out was the 27CLUB emblazoned across the drum set on stage. She shifted uncomfortably against the banister. “I’m sorry?” she said.

“Your friend,” Robin said. “She’s one of those girls who’s going places. Maybe not everyone likes her, but she’s always welcome. She’s bright, but not too bright. When she walks into the room, everyone makes a little more room for her.”

“Uh,” Lynda said. “She’s always been like that.”

At the front of the crowd, Althea had stopped shouting for Nathan’s attention. Now her hands reached up, as if in supplication, and she surged with the same urgent need as the rest of the crowd. Standing where she was at the head of them all, it was almost as if they were following her, riding her tide against the unforgiving shore. Out of all of them, she was the only one perfectly whole, a queen among the legions.

 “Out by twenty-five, dead or alive,” Robin remarked.

Lynda looked down at the crowd. There was something too perfect about their synchronization, something inhuman in the rhythm of their surge. She was certain that if she could see Althea’s eyes now, they would be as black and hollow as Nathan’s.

“Why don’t I feel it?” she said. “What’s so special about me?”

“Special?” Robin repeated, delighted. “There’s nothing special about you! You’re absolutely ordinary. Designated driver Lynda. Boring, supportive, ordinary Lynda. That’s why you can’t feel what she feels. She’s a star, and you’re just a stage hand!”

Lynda went red in the face, fixing her furious stare at her boots. Surely she was more than that. No matter how she shook out her memory, she could find nothing else but dutiful offering after dutiful offering, a pair of clapping hands, a set of keys—a no one, an empty space. Even when they were children, Lynda had had trouble keeping Althea’s attention. The world was so big, and Althea wanted all of it. When they were thirteen, the world had finally won the war for Althea’s love. Lynda had watched the car door close on Althea and the boy with the brand new driver’s permit, and even then she had known that it was ending. 

“We should,” Lynda said, “we should go. Sorry for crashing your party.”

“She won’t go with you,” Robin said. “You can try, if you want. She won’t, though.”

“Why not?” Lynda said.

“There’s nowhere to go from here,” Robin said. “This is the cutting edge, Lynda with a ‘Y’. The bleeding edge. Even if you managed to drag her home, she’d only dream of us.”

“She can dream all she wants,” Lynda said, “but we’re going.”

“Pearls before swine,” Robin said, clicking their tongue. “Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of kids are dying to join this party?”

“It doesn’t seem like so many,” Lynda said, looking pointedly down at the pit.

“Well not everybody has what it takes,” Robin said, with a shrug. “You certainly don’t.”

Lynda tightened her fists.

“Oh, no, don’t be angry. Why don’t you stay a while,” Robin said, soothing now, voice softening. “Have a drink with us. Watch the show. You’ll have something interesting to talk about when you go home, won’t you? And with Althea gone, people will be looking for someone interesting to talk to. You know you don’t have to be a stage hand all your life, Lynda with a ‘Y’. Have a drink with us.”

As smoothly as a clockwork scene, a server passed just beyond them. Robin reached out, lifting a single glass of champagne from the silver platter as it went. Not a drop spilled in their hand. They held it out to her, bubbles glowing in its pale depths.

“Besides,” Robin added, “we both know you’re too afraid to go back down there. You can’t even walk home in the dark alone. You slept with the closet light on until you were sixteen. That’s awfully old for such things.”

Lynda paused with her hand half way to the offered glass, shaken. What—what had she been doing? She snatched back her hand and retreated.

“Thank you for having us,” she said, heels sliding across the floor. “Enjoy the rest of your party.”

“She won’t thank you for it!” Robin called after her. “She won’t love you for it! How could anyone ever care for an ordinary thing like you?”

Lynda paused, one foot on the banister. She would have liked to turn and say, no, that was a lie. But the truth was, she didn’t know. She was afraid that Robin was right. She was afraid of everything that lay below her, the clawing pit and the howling singers and Althea’s dead black eyes. With another deep breath, Lynda climbed over the banister and leapt down to the slope of the hill. I am afraid, she thought, but if I just move fast enough—it’s like the stairs, you have to climb them so fast that there’s no time to think about it. You have to run.

Lynda flew down the hill, down past the grasping hands of the pit, past the breakers that surged towards her, down to where Althea was. She battered away scores of reaching arms. “Althea,” she gasped, “we have to go, we have to—”

The moment she put her hand on Althea’s shoulder, the crowd broke over her. Their bloodied and boneless and grasping hands closed around her, dragging her away from Althea, who was deaf to everything but the stage. Stitches pulled and snapped down the sides of Lynda’s butchered Wal-Mart shirt. Hands smeared their gore across her skin, endless fingers slimy with sweat, nails tacky with blood. Hairs all down her arms prickled under the chill ooze. She was afraid to try and pry them all off—if she let go of Althea, she was certain they would drag her back under before she could peel herself free.

“Althea!” she shouted, “listen to me, you know me!”

Althea didn’t so much as flinch. A heavy hand clutched at Lynda’s neck, fingers digging into her windpipe. She coughed.

“Thea!” she said. “Look at me! God damn it, will you look at me for once in your life!”

Althea reached for the stage, her fingers grasping at the limelight, her eyes reflecting back the glittering darkness. She was gone, she was as surely gone as she had been when Chase Conner looked at her first the first time in eighth grade, with his new learner’s permit and his acoustic guitar, and his mysterious high school savvy. Lynda had never been enough to hold her back. There was a gulf of a hundred unanswered texts between them, more than half a decade of silence, and all the little lies that Lynda had built this bridge to her out of, starting with the first paltry “Y”. She didn’t even like folk metal! But she had pretended to, for an excuse to sit next to Althea on Friday nights in Craig’s basement, picking through the glittering queen to find shards of the girl beneath. The girl who couldn’t hold a needle properly, who sat in the evening for hours and laughed at her own stitches, that girl could—that girl might—

“Why is nothing ever enough?” Her fingers slipped over Althea’s shoulder, fear and sweat threatening to tear them free. “Why am I never enough?”

Tears burned her eyes as she dug her nails into Althea’s arm. She’d thought that serendipitous day in the carport meant something, that it was the start of something, but maybe she had only been kidding herself. Maybe there had never been anything to resurrect.

“Just tell me you want to stay!” Lynda shouted. “Thea, if you tell me you want to stay I’ll let go! Just say something to me, anything! I loved you, I loved you and I love you and if you didn’t love me then that’s fine, but at least have the decency to tell me goodbye!”

There was a glint of light on Althea’s cheek. It startled Lynda. Her hand flinched open, just for a moment, but long enough for the clawing of the crowd to drag her back, their ruined but relentless fingers closing over her shoulders, drawing her back into the froth and ooze of bodies frozen as if forever in the moment of their deaths. She reached—her sweating fingers slipped—and Althea caught her, hand tight around wrist. Althea’s face was wet as she pulled, locking her grip and reeling Lynda back out of the crowd, over the invisible line that kept the pit at bay. Lynda fell into her arms as she finally broke free. They stumbled back against the edge of the stage, where the thud of the drums rumbled straight through their bodies. Althea said something, weak and lost in the wash of the music. In front of them, the pit threw themselves against that invisible edge endlessly, maybe reaching for the two of them, maybe just reaching—

Althea took hold of Lynda and ran. They crested the hill, passed the pavilion full of glittering, unblinking eyes, flew past the empty merch stand, and crashed into the ticketing area. Behind the booth, the bouncer turned his blank sunglasses to face them.

Lynda froze on the threshold, with the howl of the stage behind her and the icy silence of the ticketing ahead. The bouncer sat perfectly still. His face was expressionless. Althea pulled her friend close against her side and walked slowly past the booth. He followed them like an owl, his head slowly turning, as if his eyes were pinned in place behind those glasses.

“Goodnight,” Lynda whispered to him, fixing straight ahead until she couldn’t see him anymore. She did not look back.

The street outside was silent and dark. Not even the relentless thump of the drums could be heard through the wall, which had nearly vibrated before. Her ears rang with the deafening quiet. At her heel, a playbill from last week’s show skittered over the concrete, caught in the wind. She shivered, wondering if the bouncer was still watching them but too terrified to check.

“What was that,” Althea said, sounding as dry-mouthed and miserable as if she was caught in a brutal hangover. “What the hell was that.”

Lynda hesitated. “I don’t think it’s a place many people leave,” she said. “They wanted you to stay.”

“Oh,” Althea said, screwing up her face. Even sweaty and miserable and scowling, there was still something about her. “They were singing about diamonds,” she said, rubbing ineffectually at her smeared cheek. “And dry flowers—yellow petals—the sound of drowning—”

“Let’s get you home,” Lynda said, scanning the parking lot for a sign of her car. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere else.”

“It was so goddamn sad,” Althea mumbled. For a moment, her cheek rested against Lynda’s shoulder. “They were singing it for me. I could see Nathan’s eyes…”

Althea reached up clumsily, fingers bumping the skin below Lynda’s eye. Lynda froze.

 “You used to wear glasses,” Althea said. “Why’d you stop wearing glasses?”

Lynda felt herself soften, carefully closing her hand around Althea’s. “You said they were lame.”

Althea made a sound half like a snort and slumped against her side. Her flannel jacket flapped in the wind, the only sound on a silent street. “Did I say that?”

“Two weeks ago,” Lynda said. “In the kitchen. You poured me a vodka cranberry.”

Althea pulled back her fingers, gentle as the flutter of an insect’s wings. Her nails glinted as golden as her hair, a halo of mussed curls against the street light. “Damn,” she said. “Why the hell did I say that.”

She shook her head. The playbill skittered away from their tired feet, twisted in the wind, and melted away into the night.

“I heard your voice,” she said, “in the song. Yellow petals—the loneliest thing I ever heard—and then I heard your voice.”

[sage-nebula]

I choose Alan!

First impression:

I first became aware of Alan because someone posted a screencap of the end of one of the Ash and Alan episodes where the narrator was like, “but little did they know that the world is slowly sliding toward destruction” and the person captioned it with, “Not again, Alan” and I was like, “what do you mean ‘again’?!” So my first impression of him was that he had somehow ended the world at some previous point, and that made me go watch all the TSME episodes. (Of course, he didn’t, but this wouldn’t be the PokéAni fandom if it didn’t unjustly blame him for everything.)

Impression now:

HE’S MY VALIANT DRAGON SON AND I’LL DEFEND HIM ‘TIL MY DYING DAY.

Favorite moment:

Part of me wants to say the moment where he finally finds his voice and is able to stand up to Lysandre, given that Lysandre was his abuser and that was such a powerful moment for him.

But the more indulgent side of me says that it was the moment where he spent all of .01 seconds before he threw himself out of an aircraft, swinging down by rope in a piece of stunning animation, to go out on the ice and save Lizardon in TSME 3. Good god that was incredible.

Idea for a story:

Let’s see … in my Works in Progress folder I currently have:

- The sixth chapter of To Devour the Sun (he’s not actually in that chapter, but the story focuses on him primarily, and he’s mentioned a lot).

- Lizardon’s origin story, which is from Alan’s point-of-view and details how he found and hatched Lizardon’s egg.

- A fic where Alan, age eleven, gives a presentation at the annual League funding science conference (it has a more official name than that, I don’t remember) because Sycamore is too sick to do so, and if they don’t attend and do a good job at the conference, the lab will lose its funding. Note that Sycamore does not send Alan; Alan sends himself by enlisting Gabrielle (Sycamore’s garchomp) to cut the cord to Sycamore’s alarm clock.

- A fic where Alan, having newly become Champion, gives a speech / answers questions at his induction ceremony pertaining to what happened in the Flare arc and what his plans are for the future, showing how far he’s come in his recovery.

- A fic in my Immortality AU where Alan and Ash time travel thanks to Celebi shenanigans and interact with Sycamore during XY(&Z). Or at least, this used to be in my WIPs folder, but it was lost when my folder was mysteriously deleted a while ago, RIP. Anyway, I still have a bit of it saved in a draft, so you can have a snippet of it since all the rest was deleted:

“Alan, you can have Lizardon fly you down, can’t you?” Augustine asked, and he smiled as Alan looked over at him, eyes wide. “I saw on television that he had evolved. He should be able to carry you—maybe both of you, depending?”

Alan bit his lip, holding Augustine’s gaze for just a moment before he shook his head and turned away, facing the waterfall’s edge again. “No. I can’t call on Lizardon right now.”

Augustine frowned, his heart skipping an unpleasant beat in his chest. “Why not? Steven said he had healed after the incident in Hoenn. Was he wrong?”

“Steven?” Alan looked back, his brow scrunched in confusion, but before Augustine could answer the confusion cleared and he shook his head. “Oh, yeah—no, he was right. Lizardon recovered from that just fine.”

“Then why can’t he carry you?” Augustine asked. Alan didn’t answer, and instead shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking along the edge of the waterfall, down the slope that led along the bank. Ash cast a frown Augustine’s way before he turned and started to follow Alan. Augustine stared after the pair of them for a second—since when had Alan ever just walked away in the middle of a conversation like that?—before he started after himself, a knot of stress building in his chest. “Alan, what’s wrong with Lizardon?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Lizardon,” Alan said, and though he raised his voice to be heard, he didn’t look back. “Come on, there should be another path down over here.”

- A much longer fic involving an organization named Panacea that wants to take over the world, and is doing so by challenging each region’s Champion—and, further, is doing so by challenging them with people who have specifically trained to challenge them. In particular the starting fic had Alan’s antagonist, a woman named Florence, showing up in Isolé Village (where he lived the first five miserable years of his life), and Alan has to go there to chase her out. He encounters the villagers who “raised” him for the first time in seventeen years, and it goes … mmh. It goes.

And probably others, but I can’t remember them right now.

Unpopular opinion:

Oh boy, where do I begin.

- Alan deserved to win the League, full stop. I love Ash, but had Greninja beaten Lizardon it would have been the strongest show of plot armor imaginable. Mega Charizard X outclasses Battle Bond Greninja in every way, especially when ‘Zard X has Thunder Punch which, no, cannot be blocked by Water Shuriken, that is nonsense.

- Alan was not remotely responsible for what happened to Hari-san. Hari-san was able to wander off and become comatose due to Manon’s negligence as a trainer. That was in no way his fault and the fact that no one took the time to tell him that he doesn’t have to blame himself for everything is a crime.

- For that matter, Alan had every single right in the world to decide not to travel with Manon anymore, especially since she never asked to come with him in the first place, and instead just kept stalking him and ignoring his “no” until he gave in. Manon continuously ran roughshod over Alan’s boundaries, ignored his consent, argued with him when he explained his feelings in a way that completely ignored those feelings, and ultimately just had no respect for him as a person, instead only thinking about herself and what she got from their partnership (i.e. talking about how much she can learn and grow, saying she’ll get through danger as long as he protects her, et cetera). Frankly, the fact that it took so long for Alan to actually yell at her just goes to show how nice of a person he is. If it were me, I would have yelled like that back in TSME 1 (instead of just calling her annoying and continuously ditching her like he did).

- To that end, I think that Alan and Manon’s relationship as it is at the end of the series is pretty unhealthy, since Manon never once apologized or learned from any of her behavior (thus she stayed pretty static / will no doubt keep making the same mistakes again and again), and Alan now feels as if he can’t do anything that will upset her because that will make him a Horrible Awful Person Who’s Ruining Her Life. And I mean, we kind of already see this happen; in XYZ045, Alan does try to tell her that he doesn’t want to dance (and he looks seriously panicked and uncomfortable about it), but everyone, including Sycamore in a move that really disappointed me, pressures him to do it anyway. And what ends up happening? He gives in, and he’s not smiling during the dance scene, either. Honestly, that scene triggered me really badly because it brought up memories of times when my own boundaries and consent were completely railroaded—where I was explicitly told that what I wanted didn’t matter—and the resulting panic attack was so bad I got sick and had to bring it up with my therapist. Anyway, while I prefer to write their relationship post-canon as being healthy (at least with regards to Alan not giving into all of Manon’s whims), as it is in canon it has the potential to be so bad, and we’ve already seen that. It’s gross.

- To that end, imagining them romantically is also gross. I think it speaks to the heteronormativity of this fandom that they look at a fifteen-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl (particularly one who acts like she’s eight) and think, “Hm, yes, this is true romantic love.” The maturity gap between them is palpable. Manon huffs and throws tantrums like a little kid. Alan has to watch over and take care of and protect her. Setting aside that their behavior is much more similar to that of siblings, the fact remains that they met at a stage in their lives where Manon looks to Alan for guidance and protection and Alan, however reluctantly, offers that. This sets the stage for how their relationship will continue to grow and develop. Speaking from experience, Alan’s not going to look at her one day and see a romantic interest. He’s going to still think of her as a kid. And again, I’m speaking from experience here; I know that my nephew is now almost eighteen years old, but when I think of him, I still imagine him as he was when he was a small child. I have step-cousins who are not blood related to me at all that I’ve known since they were small children, and it always blows my mind when I’m reminded that they’re now graduating high school and going off to college. I still think of them as kids, and Alan would be the same way with Manon. And even if one wanted to argue that wouldn’t stop Manon from having a precocious crush on Alan—and I agree, it wouldn’t—that doesn’t mean that Alan would (or should!) return her feelings. Again, she acts like (and in-universe is often compared to) Bonnie. She’s less mature than Ash, Serena, and Clemont, who are supposed to be her age contemporaries. Thinking that Alan would view her romantically makes him out to be really very gross, and I find it extraordinarily insulting to his character. (And again, in this case, even if you age them up it won’t work, because they met at a time when Alan had to be a caretaker for Manon. That makes it squicky.)

And before anyone comes at me — age gaps are NOT inherently bad. My own parents have a sixteen year age difference between them, so believe me, I’m NOT against age gaps as a whole. But when and how you meet (as in the context of your meeting) is important. My parents met when one was forty-six and the other was thirty. They were both adults, they had both been married and divorced before, they met on equal footing. Alan and Manon have not met at an equal footing, and they’ve met at very important developmental stages in their lives. Again, maturity is a HUGE part of it, because it’s the maturity gap that’s squickier than the age gap. If Manon had the maturity of, say, Ash I could see arguing for it, but as it stands she acts far more like Bonnie, and it’s squicky. This ship is a NOTP for me for so many reasons (including the above mentioned how Manon continuously ignores Alan’s consent and runs over his boundaries), and this is certainly one of them.

And last but not least: I know this is all blunt and harsh. I know this. But listen: In the past, when I’ve tiptoed around my feelings (either by writing very vague tags in a blank post that did not mention either Manon OR the ship by name), I’ve received hate for it. I’ve had people vagueblog me, I’ve had people send me rude messages, and I’ve had people yell at and block me for daring to politely voice my own opinions on my own posts when they brought the subject up (i.e. I made the post about something different entirely, they brought up Manon, I tried to state my opinion politely, they got mad and blocked me). So if tiptoeing around the situation and being diplomatic gets me hate anyway, why bother? I’ll be honest about how I feel, and how I feel is that I hate this ship, I think Manon should have been made to take responsibility for her behavior in canon, and her stans have made it incredibly hard for me to like her at all considering how they vilify Alan (or else just reduce him to her trophy boyfriend), constantly excuse everything she does, and resort to vagueblogging, rude messages, and yelling when they encounter anyone who doesn’t like her, no matter how polite or diplomatic they are about it. I still treat her fairly in the fics I write (i.e. I don’t vilify her, I write her as being successful in the future, et cetera), but at this point I’m done pretending outside of fic that this fandom hasn’t ruined her for me, because they absolutely have.

- I don’t think he should have immediately left on a journey again at the end of the series. I think he should have stayed at the lab instead, especially since Sycamore said that Alan was needed there. Alan should have stayed at the lab to rest, heal, and recover, and then later he should have taken the Champion challenge. That he was sent out on a journey again was super lazy writing.

- I also think that he should have been able to keep the Mega Stone and Key Stone, but repurposed into pendants by Sycamore, to give Alan a true fresh start and remove any taint that might have been on them. But that’s less important than all of the above.

Favorite relationship:

It’s a very close tie between his relationships with Lizardon and Sycamore, and an honorary mention to his relationship with Ash.

Alan and Lizardon are platonic soulmates and I love everything about their relationship. I love how Alan moves closer to Lizardon whenever he’s feeling nervous or anxious. I love how they talk to each other, and how Alan perfectly understands what Lizardon’s saying even when they just exchange looks. I love how Alan was willing to risk his life to protect Lizardon without a single thought. I love how Lizardon similarly shielded Alan during the Flare crisis to prevent him from getting hurt. I love how they respect each other so much, to the point where, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, Alan extends his hand toward Lizardon but waits until Lizardon moves in for petting and cuddling right after they win the League. Alan doesn’t just pet Lizardon, he waits for permission before he pets and cuddles Lizardon. Alan respects consent and boundaries, and doesn’t consider himself entitled to Lizardon cuddles just because he’s Lizardon’s trainer (sorry, partner). 

Alan and Sycamore also so incredibly sweet, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of them in canon. Sycamore is Alan’s dad in everything but blood, and there’s so much in the show to point to this … and yet somehow, not enough. But I love how supportive Sycamore is of Alan, how understanding and loving he is, and likewise how Alan will do anything to protect Sycamore, given how Sycamore saved him when he was young. They’re precious.

Finally, honorable mention is to Alan and Ash, because they helped each other so much during Kalos and I honestly love the relationship they had. So many people are tied up in the “rivalry” that was hardly that, and it saddens me so much because they’re missing such quality content. Ash managed to make Alan smile, laugh, and feel excitement and happiness at a time when he was so critically depressed that he couldn’t. Post-canon, he gave Alan a reason to keep living, which Alan says himself saved him. (He also is the one who inspired Alan to fight back at the start of the Flare crisis, on Prism Tower.) Meanwhile, Alan was someone it was okay for Ash to lose against. Ash was put on such a pedestal throughout Kalos that losing was practically deemed unacceptable, and gave him a whole damn crisis around the Snowbelle City time. But Alan and Ash met when Alan and Lizardon were a pair of Big Damn Heroes (the light of the dawn behind them and everything) saving Pikachu from Team Rocket (and protecting Ash from their attacks!). From the get-go it was acknowledged that Alan was so strong that, if Ash lost against him, it was fine. It wasn’t seen as “shocking” like when Ash lost to Shouta. Alan was someone that Ash could just have fun battling against, without something serious riding on it. They have a natural comfort around each other, familiarity like you’d expect best friends to have. I really love their relationship, too.

Favorite headcanon:

Pretty much everything in all of my post-canon fics, haha, but I’m really attached to the matching pendants I gave Alan and Lizardon for their Key Stone and Mega Stone, respectively. (Or rather, that I had Sycamore give Alan and Lizardon, haha. But same thing, really.)

[mad-madam-m]

So I'm just curious, how do you get yourself to write? And do you use prompts and if you do where do you get them? I meant to use NaNo to get me to write but it took 4 days into November for me to realize November started so I failed lol. I've been meaning to start this original thing and it's just not...working.

First of all, anon, you could start writing RIGHT NOW (yes, with 10 days left in the month) and you would not fail NaNo. You might not hit 50k (although I know people who have hit 50k in that amount of time, or less), but you won’t fail. NaNoWriMo isn’t about hitting 50,000 words so much as it is about putting a stake in the ground and saying, “Here. Today. I will start writing the project I’ve always wanted to.” And doing it. Doesn’t matter what that project is—original novel, short stories, fic, poetry, revising something, a series of blog posts—NaNo is about just. Fucking. Doing it. And you still have time to Do It.

To answer your questions:

Do you use prompts and if you do, where do you get them?

For original stories, particularly novels, I usually don’t. For fic, particularly short fic I’m writing for events, I do. Tumblr has a wealth of writing prompts that range from “here’s a situation” to “here’s a line of dialogue GO,” and I tend to reblog them under the tags “fic prompts” or “writing prompts.” Honestly, most of them would work for either original fic or fanfic, so if you are a writer who likes to work from prompts, go forth and enjoy!

How do you get yourself to write?

That’s kind of a big question, and uh, the answer to it got long. Very long. (I said once that if you give me half a chance, I’ll talk about writing all the live-long day, and this answer is no exception.)

Different things motivate me for different projects, and as with all writing-related advice, YMMV, but here’s a few things that really help for getting myself to write:

1) Develop your story.

The current original story I’m working on, for example, I have not really had to struggle to get myself to write at all because 1) I’m stupid excited about it and 2) I have developed the hell out of it.

I’ve talked before about outlining my stuff here, so I won’t go too much into it again; suffice it to say that I have done about the same amount of development on my current original story that I had on ADA by the time I started writing. I started around the very end of September developing my characters and spent a good chunk of October working on setting, worldbuilding, plot, and finally my notecards.

Shockingly, having some idea of what’s happening and where I’m going is making this story easier to write.

Right? Like WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

Because of that, I’ve been excited about writing my story, so getting myself to write on it has been (comparatively) a cakewalk.

That’s not to say any of the writing is good (oh God no) or that there aren’t parts that need fixing, or that I haven’t been stuck. But it’s been stuck like “how do I describe seeing a tree-covered mountain in the middle of fall from the POV of someone who has never seen something like this” rather than “I have no fucking clue what happens next uh…”

The stories I struggle the most with writing are the ones that I’ve worked the least on developing. The stories that have been the easiest to write have been the ones I’ve spent at least a month doing prep work on before I ever start drafting.

2) Love your story.

Being in love with a story makes it a lot easier to write, at least for me. Because here’s the thing, ideas are easy.

If you’re a creative person, you’re going to end up with a file of story ideas—maybe prompts you liked, dialogue that stuck with you, one of those “humans are space orcs” tumblr posts that’s just really clicking in your brain—that will be longer than you could conceivably write if you had a hundred lifetimes. That’s okay! That’s great. But it means a lot of them are never going to get past the idea stage.

For me, the stories that get finished—the ones that not only get started but actually make it through the first draft and then three rounds of editing and revisions—are the ideas that I’ve been percolating on for months, if not longer. They’ve been cooking in the back of my brain while I’ve been doing other things, sorting themselves out, and most importantly: they will not let me go.

Coming up with ideas is easy. Finding an idea that will last and sustain a story and my interest for at least a year, if not longer? That’s harder.

Y’all know how much I’ve been talking about Tiger & Bunny over the past year? We’re talking that level of obsession with a story that I want to write, whether it’s fic or original. Sometimes it takes months or years for all the puzzle pieces to come together. Sometimes the whole thing will congeal within a few weeks, or there will be one crucial piece of story that will just make EVERYTHING come together, I will literally shout “OH MY FUCKING GOD” and that’s it, I’m off to the races. (In this particular case, it wasn’t anything I’d done in the first two weeks of poking at steampunk-y ideas; it was the realization that I could put a circus on an airship. The whole story just went WHOOSH after that.)

BUT. But. Sometimes you don’t have that. These stories are great and I love them and they remind me why I love writing so much (and if you’re writing something that’s gonna be 90k+, like I have a tendency to do, you need to be in love with it, IMO), but sometimes you’re in situations where you just have to get it done. In those cases:

3) Resort to bribery.

I’ve been poking at the third part of Alpha & Emissary, oh, basically since I posted the second part. My problem is that my fandom focus has been, shall we say, split for the past year. *coughs delicately, shoves Tiger & Bunny fics under the bed*

But here’s the thing: I hate having a published WIP on AO3 (it’s why I don’t publish long!fics until they’re completely drafted and mostly edited). I hate—HATE—having an unfinished series on AO3.

So that’s the rub: I have an unfinished series that I want to finish because I hate that it’s not finished. I also have a new fandom that is wresting my attention and inspiration away from said series. What’s a girl to do?

A girl tells herself she can’t write any more Tiger & Bunny fic until she finishes this one WIP, that’s what she does.

And it’s motivated me to sit my ass down and work on that WIP, because goddammit, I have a “but there was only one bed” TaiBani fic that I would really like to have up by New Year’s.

Your bribery will be different. Maybe you get to watch 1 episode of your favorite show per every 1k you write, or you get to try a new knitting project when you finish this short story. Maybe you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite anime if you exceed your NaNo goal. Or you write 50 words and get a cookie. The point is, find what works for you to get it done.

4) Figure out a minimum daily goal and stick with it.

For me, this was 500 words a day. 500 words. That’s it. That’s one 30-minute word sprint for me. That’s something I can do without stressing myself out.

Because of this point and point 3, I wrote more than 7000 words on a story I’d been stuck on for the better part of a year before I had to stop to work on NaNo stuff. Another 7k, and I’ll probably have it finished.

Your minimum word count will almost certainly be different. Maybe it’s 300 words a day, maybe it’s 1000. Hell, maybe it’s 100 words. Again, find what works for you, what you can write regularly without stressing yourself out.

Another important thing: If I didn’t hit 500 words, I didn’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I wrote 350. Or 220. Or just 93. The point is, did I write? Yes? Then I did good. I got myself a sentence or a paragraph closer to finishing. And it all adds up.

(And hey, you don’t have to write every day. I do, or I try to, because that’s what works for me. If it stresses you out to do so, then find another way to make it work.)

5) Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

This one’s hard because I can rarely keep a deadline that’s not set by an external source. If you tell me on December 20 that you need a story by December 22? Then on December 22, you’ll have a story, edited and ready to post. But when it comes to something I set for myself, the chances of a deadline working are 50/50.

That being said, it is something that helps me keep on track and even if I don’t finish something by a self-imposed deadline, it does get me writing.

6) Sprint with friends!

NaNo is really great for this because all your writer friends are coming out of the woodwork going I need to hit 5k by the end of today, will you sprint with me? Sometimes it just helps to have that kind of accountability. You all get together (I’ve used Discord, Google Hangouts, IRC, and Twitter DMs for this), set a timer, and write for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Then, when the time’s up, you post your word count, everybody congratulates everybody else, and then you take a break before doing the next one.

Sprints are the reason I’ve been able to make some pretty significant headway on my word counts, and few things get me writing like knowing I’m going to have to tell everybody in my group what my word count is in 30 minutes or less. >.>

Like I said earlier, YMMV on all of these. What works for me may work for you, or it might not. But if you aren’t sure, it’s worth giving it a shot.

Happy writing!

[italicwatches]

Magical Girl Ore - Episode 12

Let’s wrap this bad boy and get out before the wheels fall off. It’s Magical Girl Ore, episode 12! Here we GO!

-Opening!

-So right where we left off, the manager wants Saki-kun to defeat him…!

-Episode 12! Magical Girl - Wabash

-While outside, Sakuyo-kun continues to war, even driven to the last…This fight cannot, will not, end! This body all not yield! You, will not, reach Saki!

-As back in the chamber, the manager tries to perk Saki-kun up. He doesn’t have any special moves, or any secret forms, or three-stage boss battle or whatever. It’ll be easy! You’ve just got to make it look good, so they can both do their jobs…

-Saki-kun summons her mother’s staff…And slams the business end into the ground. This isn’t how this ends.

-Yeah it is, Saki. The manager kicks some electricity down the rope he’s tied up Mohiro with, making the poor lad scream in agony! Fight him, Saki. Fight him, defeat him, and save the boy you love! That’s the only path you have.

-And Saki-kun…Starts to smash the set, instead! The cameras, the artifice, the entire structure! Then she slaps the manager hard enough to put him flat on the ground, looming over him with fury and frustration. How DARE you do this?! How DARE you put people at risk for her career?! What sort of hero is she, if people are hurt before she can get there solely because she exists?! What right does she have to call herself a hero now?!

-Saki-kun breaks down into tears, into bitter pained tears over what this has all become…And over being asked to actually fight the man who’s been there for her since the beginning…

-But he insists, there’s no other choice. He’s done terrible things by both world’s standards, Saki. He abandoned his pride as a demon and the laws of man both. There is no place for him anymore. Ending this in a way that cements your legacy…It’s the only path left for him. As he gathers electricity behind him…And uses it to drop a stalactite upon himself, sacrificing his own life for her story!

-Yet when the dust clears…He’s not crushed. Because Mohiro yanked on the line the manager was still holding, and pulled him out of the way! Saki-kun races to him, and Mohiro’s voice has given out…He’s forced to write his words into her hand. Just as you have saved him so many times, Ore-san, just once, he wanted to be there for you…To help someone so clearly important to you…

-Saki-kun is moved to tears once again…She has never truly saved you, Mohiro-chan. It was her fault you were ever in danger at all!

-No. Whatever the origin of things were, you threw yourself into danger. Whatever was going on behind your back, you fought hard to save people. You tried to do right by those around you. That’s all you ever had to do, Ore-san…That’s all it took, to be his hero.

-Saki-kun, so moved, so awed by the purity and honesty of Mohiro, leans in…closer, coo—

-Hyoe-san to break it up! You MONSTER! But he’s not alone, either. He brought a whole crew of fairy muscle to save you guys, but look at what he found! Impure relations are not allowed in the magical girl industry, Saki. This isn’t okay. But, still, he brought the muscle, so it’s time to wrap this shit up. Sit tight, Mohiro. They’re ending this.

-…Mohiro has no idea why Hyoe is here. He still doesn’t get the situation. God, he’s lucky he looks good, because he sure doesn’t have much of a brain. …Anyways, about the manager. Hyoe throws a binding ring onto him, and it’s over, man. Take him into custody. A few of hyoe’s crew grab him up, and go to open an inter dimensional portal to take him out of here…But the portal won’t open?! What’s…

-Outside, Sakuyo-kun finally collapses, out of power…And the demons’ eyes start to glow, as they abandon their foe to march for the boss chamber as one…

-Hyoe races to the demon command console…And shit. This is bad. Manager! What were your orders for the demons?!

-To fight non-lethally and try to stop the magical girls…And they have limited learning capacity, right? Yeah, these are just vat-grown copies, with no way to get stronger…But…Oh no. He had to ramp up the respawn rate, and start using the bodies as biofuel for the next generation…

-…Exactly.

-The whole horde system is built on biological automatons, with a strictly limited capacity for independent thought. That only works so long as every copy is clean. But if you keep reusing the same material, foreign matter starts working its way in…They start coming out with more information still in their heads. And, generation after generation, they start to learn.

-They’ve put the whole facility on lockdown. Because they’ve figured out that they can win, they can live, if they manage to put down the magical girls for good. So this is…Bad? Bad. Kokomo. How many troops can you put to task? Including himself, thirteen. And then Hyoe, Saki, and…Well they’re going to ignore Mohiro…

-Manager. You just got drafted.

-A full group of 300 demons arrive, and the war is ON! The fairies bring everything they have, but really, all they and the manager can do is cause pain…They’re not able to actually kill them faster than the demons can reconstitute…They’ve figured out how to directly recycle their own forms on the fly…The manager and Hyoe find themselves back to back, as Saki-kun protects Mohiro…

-Because she’ll fight, and win, for you! There’s no other option left! As the demons swarm, all of them filling the room…

-But then, the walls shatter! PRISMA has arrived, bringing Sakuyo-kun with them! You’re not fighting alone anymore, Magical Girls…Now throw it all in!

-Sakuyo-kun and Saki-kun reunite, combining their power for the Love Power Ultimate Super Dangerous Final Episode: Rainbow Miracle Super Delicious Pretty Hyper Love Power MAX SPECIAL! By love itself, they come down as a mighty explosion of power, their strength sweeping through the facility…Even through the command console, to undo the budget-draining beam’s effects on the city…!

-And as the dust clears, Sakuyo-kun clings tight to Saki-kun, finally able to rest…Though I’m not sure if that much clinging counts as rest.

-Also, Saki-kun has a lot of questions of what’ll happen to the manager. He’ll go into custody. It won’t be cruel, but he’s not coming back here ever again…And, hey. You saved him. The man was willing to die, and you gave him a chance at living as an honest man.

-So before he goes, Saki-kun and Sakuyo-kun properly shake their manager’s hands, as a fan of their work…And they both swear to do this right. To be idols for real.

-But now, it’s time to go home, hand in hand…As Mohiro watches, smiling. For though he may have not won Ore-san’s heart for himself, he can know the one he loves his happy…

-Eventually, things settle. And Saki and Sakuyo…Are…As pathetic as ever. Ko-san is also not anywhere near as kind as their old manager ever was…But they finally get their first sale!

-While Michiru and Ruka are living their normal lives, now that the threats are done. And Michiru finally realizes that Ore-san was a transformed ordinary girl…Ruka even pokes fun at her by saying that Saki and Sakuyo over there, one of them could be Ore-san! You don’t know!

-Also, Ko-san gets a ring. They’ve got some plain work ahead of them! Some punks are causing trouble, and roughing up…God, poor Mohiro.

-But Saki-kun and Sakuyo-kun appear, much to Mohiro’s delight, to end the trouble rather definitively!

-Credits!

Well, that was pretty fun, I have to say. I would have liked more legit fights, but that’s true of basically every parody series like this. And hey, it still did a lot of really solid comedy out of poking at all the silly parts of real magical girl shows.

Also jeez, they sure teased us there with a “are we gonna make Mohiro go magical girl?” hint. That’s just cruel, guys.

So, okay, what’s up next? Well, considering I wanted more legit fights, I think it’s time we do a show all ABOUT fighting. What do you say? We’ll see what you think next time! Wait for it!

[elizabethhollowswriting-blog]

Writing Process Questions!

So I was tagged by @gold-from-straw and this seemed like a fabulous, fun thing to so, thank you!

If you want to hear me answer questions about my writing process, please click the cut below :)

1. What are your favourite genres and/or styles to write in?

Fantasy and Science Fiction are my top two. I love being able to create the world, cultures, creatures, abilities and histories of different planets and the fantasy worlds a character lives in. It’s kind of “anything goes” and that allows me to be as creative as I want. It’s fabulous!

2. What was the last writing project you finished and felt successful with?

I always feel excited about finishing anything! I do love completing a story idea that’s been in my drafts for a long time or one that I’ve been working on for a number of months. I get so much satisfaction from knowing that it’s finally had it’s time to shine.

I did feel particularly excited when I finished my “Assorted Short Stories - Collection 2″ since I had struggled with it at the beginning of the year. I ended up switching out a number of short stories and just letting what inspired me take control. It meant only two of the original tales remained, but I’m really pleased with the success of finishing it :)

3. If you have a WiP how do you feel it’s going? What stage are you in?

The current story that I’m working on is a homosexual romance that is set in the 1920′s called “Courting Me Softly”. It’s on it’s fourth chapter of an estimated seven or eight. I’m really exited for this one since it’s been on my “closet writing list” for a number of months now. 

I’m also looking to post this story to tumblr when it’s complete as a free OC story that will be update every week or so for you all to enjoy! It’s going well so far apart from some “meet the family” dynamics, oy vey. 

I’ll let you know more about this story when it gets closer to finishing :)

4. What are your favourite places to write?

I only ever write on my computer and I prefer to be in a room in my home where it’s dark, quiet and isolated. While I will sometimes write when I’m at a cafe/out and about, it’s rare. I like solitude and comfort and I find that best in a cosy spot in my home.

5. Do you prefer to write with long hand or type? Or some other method?

Type. 

I have the penmanship of a drunken chicken. The only time I can get my handwriting to be something legible is if I’ve typed the prose out first and can take my time copying it down. My writing can’t keep up with my brain and it becomes a smeared, scribbled mess I can’t always translate. 

I love writing on a computer as my quick speed/touch-typing allows me to keep up with my brain as paragraphs are created. I also like the fact that everything I might need is readily accessible: internet for research, music for background noise, apps for friends who I can pester with questions and all my documents saved in one place. Typing and computers are the way for me!

6. Do you remember your first character? If so can we meet them?

Oh man. I was 12 and I started writing a novel called “The World of Green” it started with a young girl who was tending the garden with her dog Bongo and having difficultly finding those “whatcha-ma-call-it” tools. I can’t remember the girl’s name but I know her search was interrupted when she was asked to go pick some strawberries from down by the river in a nearby forest. She took a basket down there along with her dog. I think Bongo located something from another world and she ended up going to that world with him. But I... really can’t remember the rest and the document is long lost, heh.

7. Where do you get your inspiration?

Um, from everything? I can be watching a TV show, hearing a news report, see a picture, hear a song, think up a hypothetical question/scenario, talking to someone, hear a turn of phrase, see a bird fly past me - and suddenly, my brain asks a question or imagines a different scenario and bam, there’s a story idea. It’s why I have hundreds upon hundreds of story ideas just filling up dozens of folders on my computer.

I’m also really bad at coming up with a single idea and not making additional novels, series, etc from it. I’ll have a “short story” and it will become a novel because there’s just too many new pathways that form the more I look at the idea/character/world. I’m getting better at telling my brain “no” and not sequel-ing things, but it doesn’t always work ^^;

8. Do you outline a story before writing it, or does it all live in your head until the first draft gets put down?

It depends on the idea but most of the time when I come up with an idea I open a document and start rambling about it in this giant flow of free thought, just letting it go where it needs to go and pen what is in my head. The more I type it out, the more it can snowball and give me additional details on the story, character backgrounds and motivations.

Sometimes, an idea might only be a single sentence long other times it might be pages upon pages. Once my notes are complete and I’ve “got the story out of my head” I can usually save it and shelve it to be picked up at a later date. 

When I start writing a story, I tend to expand on those notes as new things are developed through the prose and character interactions. Some stories will follow the original notes completely, others will end up completely different and disregard a lot of plans along the way.

So I suppose I do outline a story even if there’s little method and many holes. It develops as I go and I spend long periods lost in my head running scenarios and creating the characters as I go about my daily tasks (before rushing back to dump more information in the documents before I forget them).

9. Where do you go/ What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?

Depends on the level of “stuck”. I will usually either sit back and contemplate what the problem is and different scenarios I could take to find something to push the story forward. Sometimes I will go do housework or shower and spend the time picking at the problem and try to untangle it, other times I’ll message a friend and ramble at them about the story (this is usually a great way to unblock myself since I’m forced to explain the situation to them and that means articulated description).

Other times, I can open a document and try to work on a story only to just know that it’s not going to happen. Something in me just goes “nope”. I usually switch to a different task when that happens and go away from my laptop so I can come back refreshed and revitalized. I may also open a random, new document for some “fun writing” in a fresh new setting, depends on how encompassing that “nope” is :)

10. What got you starting writing/doing Art? (Because I always love origin stories)

When I was a child--I’m talking like six or seven--my mother used to read me stories at night. My Dad didn’t like reading stories so when it was his turn he used to “make one up” and since (as he claims) he was not very creative he used to prompt me for what happens next. I only have vague memories of this, but I would usually be the one taking over and telling the story. I also used to create large dramatic productions with my stuffed animals and get irritated when my friends used to get bored but I was in the middle of the tale and wanted to see what else happened!

I don’t know when I first started writing stories but I do remember writing a bunch around the time of “The World of Green” and then I just never stopped. I loved writing and did it during most of my free time. Then I realized that it could be a career in late primary school and well, that was me set. I can’t ever imagine doing anything else. I love it so much <3

Now, as for the tagging, I pick: @hardlyhalcyon, @staglynxspider @sentient-teapot @rmh8402 and anyone else who wants to participate!

And if you have any other writing (or general) questions, please feel free to send me an ask! I love asks :D

[leonajasmin-writeblr]

25 Questions

Thanks for the tag @rain-likes-to-ramble ! It’s the longest tag game I’ve done, so I’ll put it under the cut. Be warned, it gets progressively more sarcastic.

1. Is there a story you’re holding off writing for some reason? 

I’ve been wanting to try and rewrite some of my fanfic from when I was 13/14 for a while to make it less cringy and have a direct comparison on how my writing has changed. But the main thing I’m holding off is a novel(la) called The Scramble. It’s in the same universe as my other WIP’s (with some of its events being mentioned in The Indignant including an appearance from Chris) but it can be read standalone. I’ve got the cast and rough plot sorted out but as it was originally fanfiction, it’s taken a while to weed the fandom parts out of it. 

Brief summary: Sigurd Losnedahl, being the backstabber he is, decided to get involved with the Norikan Civil War despite insisting to his two sons he wouldn’t. Now Eirik and Halldór are stuck in the epicentre of the battle and since neutrality is even more dangerous than picking sides, they’re scuppered. After being taken under the wing of enigmatic Taisto Astergaard, Eirik is entangled with the man’s adopted daughter, Christine, and the only way the polar duo will live is through them ending the decade-long war. The only problem is, his father’s so obsessive with his cause that he now will do anything to put a bullet in his head. And Halldór’s disappeared- how convenient.

2. What work of yours, if any, are you embarrassed about existing?

The fanfiction that I mentioned in Q1 that I plan on rewriting. 

3. What order do you write in? Front of book to back? Chronological? Favourite scenes first? Something else?

Front to back. I tend to leave exposition and descriptions out of the first draft (unintentionally) so I’ll fill in those when I feel like it.

4. Favourite character I’ve written?

Phineas. He was originally a one-dimensional villain (I created him when I was 9) but he’s now one of the most complex characters in the series with the undoubtedly the most well-developed backstory. He’s also developed a great sense of humour over time, and his relationship with Jonathon (who I haven’t introduced on Tumblr yet but I need to. He’s a close second) is one of my favourite things to write.

5. Character you were most surprised to end up writing?

Vladislav. In my plan, he was only supposed to appear in 2/41 chapters. After his personality change, he quickly became one of the major characters. Originally, he was a vain flirt with an ego out the roof. Now he’s a sensitive but righteous boy training to be a lawyer to persecute his mass murdering uncle. Pretty big development for someone who was only created 7 months ago.

6. Something you would go back and change in your writing but it’s too late/complicated to change now.

I’d have added a District based on somewhere in South Asia and also one based on somewhere in Africa. I’m thinking about adding them at the end (since I’ve already stated in my novel that more Districts will come with time), but it’s too late to add them from the beginning.

7. When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I love telling people I write but hate the follow-up questions, “Tell me about your book!” *pulls out garbage which doesn’t even reflect what my novel is about*

8. Favourite genre to write.

Speculative Fiction. While making characters is my favourite part of writing, I also love world-building. 

9. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

I actually play High School Story, Hollywood U and The Sims with my characters inserted. It’s been helpful for one-shots and AU’s more than anything but has given me traits about characters to add to their dimensions for my main works, so it’s win-win.

10. Write in silence or with background music? Alone or with others

Background music and alone. The music has to be a specific genre though.

11. What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

How I portray emotions. In my older drafts, characters recovered from the deaths of their close friends/relatives in 10 minutes and seemed callous. Now they are all crybabies to compensate.

12. Your weakness as an author?

I rely too much on dialogue and miss out a lot of description.

13. Your strength as an author? 

I write a pretty mean villain (pun intended). This man was reading my work over my shoulder since I mostly write on the bus home and the first thing he said after, “Are you okay?” was “I like Rylan even though he’d scare me sh*tless from the looks of things.” I think I should put that as a review on the book’s cover once it’s (hopefully) published. A 70-year-old man I met on the bus does sound like a reputable source.

14. Do you make playlists for your work?

I have a playlist for Cyrus and that’s it which 90% is Eurobeat since he has a needo for speedo. There’s only has one chapter in his POV.

15. Why did you start writing?

I was a cocky six-year-old and thought I could write a better version of a film I’d just watched. It ended up being about two best friends in a milkshake parlour despite the original film being about a castaway girl. The connection still makes more coherent sense than the fact I got the idea for The Mastery from Mario and Sonic at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

16. Are there any characters who haunt you?

Alex in his angsty stage. He would threaten to kill people 25/8 because he found out he was adopted.

17. If you could give your fledgeling author self any advice, what would it be?

Keep writing. If you’re that dedicated to your project that you have to write it straight away, remember you can always edit in the future if it’s not up to your standards. And even people who’ve been writing decades are still improving as writing is wayyyy too subjective to be ‘perfect’ at.

18. Were there any works that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? 

George Orwell’s 1984 has affected my world-building. Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses and Maggie Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series gave me the idea to write under two characters alternating POV’s.

19. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?

Charahub and a timeline which I’ve drawn by hand on the back of some unused wallpaper.

20. Do you write in long sit-down sessions or little spurts? 

Either 5 words or 5000, no in between. It depends on whether I feel inclined to write or have inspiration.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work? 

Cringe at all the unnecessary words and repetition- one sentence in my 2012 draft of The Mastery is literally, ‘Alex got up off his bed, walked out of his bedroom door, walked down the stairs, walked into the living room before standing in the doorway of the dining room’. 

22. Are there subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Anything to do with extreme physical or sexual assault. Or sex in general since I’ve not written much smut before. 

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

Meeting my biological father at 16 rather than knowing him from birth. Also, one of my characters has impaired vision like me so its easier since I knew all the terminology and experiences without much research.

24. Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Handguns. I’ve used rifles before (I’ve gone clay pigeon shooting before) but since handguns are illegal where I live, I’ve not seen one in person nor had any idea of their usage or the terminology. Quite a few of my characters own them as a precaution so I had to learn. 

25. Copy and paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you are particularly proud of.

(It’s not short but I freaking love how Chapter 36 of The Mastery panned out. Note this is the chapter 70-year-old man liked)

“Cyrus, Keung. Not the most ideal reunion. How has the family been since I was disowned?”

Keung’s jaw twitched, “I think the reason you kicked out was valid enough. You killed your own grandmother, Rylan.”

Rylan, another one of my many cousins, let out what from his mouth movement looked like was a hearty laugh but sounded like a giggle, “It sounds more impressive than getting disowned for supporting the black sheep in an argument, does it not?”

Keung’s hand had been on his spoon all this time, and he was clenching it to the point his arm shook, “I know grandfather wants nothing to do with either of us Rylan, but that doesn’t mean I want to associate myself with a murderer.”

“You stayed under the Xu thumb for long enough. There are fewer fingers in this room than the number of people Tatsuo has killed. Some are justified, I’ll give him that, but others were falsely accused with no chance at justice.”

He leaned at an angle so that he could stare at me, “It’s good to know that you’re being independent for once in your life, Cyrus. Regardless, it’s a real shame you subsequently allied yourself with another family of murderers.” 

“What else could I have done?” I said, “The Ninth District needs allies, and I have genuine friends from Ivanska, Phinea and Willsborg.”

He cooed as he came to lean against my back, “Considering how we’re he half-breed scum of the family, I thought you’d have considered an alliance with me. You’re the only relative of mine I like and who hasn’t seemed to have fallen under Xu indoctrination.”

“Grandmother accepted the fact we didn’t decide to be half-breeds,” I hissed, “Out of everyone you could have killed, why her?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, “I intended to kill Tatsuo. The fact she drunk the poison I’d slipped into the Mansion was a mistake. I don’t have many regrets but that is one of them.”

He distanced himself, “I have little in common with the man who I once saw as my dear grandfather, but one of the few things I’ll admit is that if we need to, we’ll both use blood to make a point.”

-

My tags are (don’t feel obliged!) @unico-rn-ffee and @alittle-writer