#YOU KNOW ITS MORE TO BEING UNKOWN

[possibly-a-table-or-just-gay]

hozier really out here speaking directly to my mental health issues

[verdantwyrm]

In Defense of Curly.

I'm going to start off with the biggest thing that this post could ever mention. Obviously this thread is not at all claiming he is innocent, at all, but some of you need to learn what an unkowning bystander is before you all go and jump Curly and make him out to be just as bad as Jimmy, if not worse for his "Inaction" and i'm going to explain in this thread that accounting bystanders to be apart of the crime is not fair, and how the situation with Anya, Jimmy and Curly is actually very realistic on how real life rape situations go, and the spiraling that occours afterwards.

This is going to be a long thread involving the topics of rape and other mental health junk, so strap in!

Anya's rape.

I'm going to immediately preface this section with a very big important thing. I am a victim, so do not think I am talking out of my ass here when I am talking about Anya, kay we cool now? kay.

So, we as the player know what happens. We know that there was a situation between Anya and Jimmy which either lead to rape, or it was enforced upon her, the actual content of the situation we don't know anything about, all we know that it was not consensual. But how it started and the exact details, we know nothing about.

When Anya tells Curly that she is pregnant, she expresses its something bad, but never tells Curly HOW it happened. And Curly's immediete action is to be concerned for her, he is worried for her, and even though he shouldn't, he LETS HER keep the gun as well!

But WE KNOW exactly what happened, as the player, but Curly wasn't told. He was only told that a pregnancy occurred between her and Jimmy, but the actual details of the event- what we know, is not something that Curly knows. We're able to pick up all the signs and see the language and imagery used, but to Curly, it just sounds like they had a hook up and it ended up in a pregnancy.

And that is a totally fair assumption to make, and it is also a completely fair assumption that your best friend wouldn't do such a thing. (I'll touch on this a bit later) So why would his first assumption be rape? Being unhappy about the pregnancy doesn't exactly scream anything in particular, in Curly's mind, she could be unhappy for multiple reasons. That it happened with Jimmy (of all people), that she is stuck on a ship in outer space for what seems like the remainder of her pregnancy, which is an already unsafe environment to be pregnant in and carry a baby to term. So it is a totally understandable and fine thing to not automatically assume rape when there are already plenty of other things at play that could make her and Jimmy unhappy with the outcome.

And plus, when Anya asks what Curly would have done, people seem to be ignoring (or just plain outright not even noticing) the language used. She's asking him what he would have done. The event is already over, it happened, she is asking what he would have done if he had been there, or if he knew earlier; or maybe if he knew at all.

For safety, for whatever reason the cockpit has locks, whatever reason the Meday has a lock, but not any of the bedrooms. Curly acknowledges the absurdity behind the decision, but he doesn't quite understand or grasp why Anya could be asking such a thing beyond simple curiosity because of course someone like Anya would be pointing out something like this, she spends the most time in the med bay, and Curly likewise with the Cockpit.

There are a ton of nuances that go into play when trying to realistically picture what could have or what should have happened on the Tulpar with Jimmy, and I really wish more people were willing to understand that it's not just as black and white, and not people that end up enabling said abusers are not always a willing and knowing crowd. And start maybe thinking about the fact that maybe

Curly really did not know the depth of the situation.

Jimmy's Spiral

The other thing I see tons and tons and tons of people talk about is "why didn't Curly do more about Jimmy!" "Why didn't he see this coming!"

Because, proven by my point of him not noticing Anya's rape, he would not have noticed Jimmy to do such a thing as murder-suicide. They have been friends for a "long time" according to Curly, but what if this was truly the first time he's ever seen Jimmy get this mad? When Anya tells Curly she told Jimmy, his first immediate response is to panic, he knows that Jimmy is an angry man, possibly a violent one as well.

He expected there to be yelling, or worse, physical violence, but Jimmy just.. walked away. And that's what scared him the most, the fact that he didn't react terrified Curly. So he ran to go and check on Jimmy and try to calm him down, which he thought worked, until it didn't. Curly would not have ever expected Jimmy to do this, how could he?This is probably the very first time that he's seen Jimmy spiral so hard, so intensely and in such a short time. He's seen him get mad, get angry, get violent, but those have all been in different situations, which have not as dire consequences as being the co-pilot of a ship with everyone on board. How the hell was he supposed to assume that he would ever do something like this? And that's even further proved by Curly's shock when Jimmy does divert the ship to crash it.

He is in genuine shock that Jimmy would even do this, and it seems like even Jimmy is as well. Despite having made multiple conscious decisions, turning the steering wheel right, getting out of his chair, grabbing the override key, disabling auto pilot and then steering again into the asteroid, he is still in shock that he actually went through with this. He wasn't actually expecting to do it, and then he did, and now he's grasping the consequences of his actions way too late.

And Curly is also just as shocked.

"I didn't- I should have..." is an immediate blame towards himself for not thinking that Jimmy would do something like this, but again, how do you plan for something like this? If Curly knew Jimmy was capable of such collateral destruction, he would not have him as his co-pilot, so it only makes sense that this was the first real and dangerous time he ever saw Jimmy truly spiral into madness. There were all the warning signs, all the red flags, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Why would Curly's first reaction to anything be the worst outcome, you don't do that when you trust someone. And again, this could be seriously the first time he's ever seen Jimmy react like this.

All we know is that Jimmy has had it rough back on earth, that he was jobless for a long time. Nothing else, nothing about him being a criminal, nothing about him being in trouble with the police, just that he has had it hard which can really mean anything.

It was the wrong time, the wrong person, the wrong break with all the wrong tools.

In conclusion, Curly is not entirely innocent. But I think it is extremely fair and very realistic to not automatically assume the worst of someone you thought you could trust. And he genuinely thought he could trust Jimmy, and he reacted pretty realistically and fairly given the circumstances. He absolutely cared about Anya and the rest, and would have done much much more if he had the time or the ability to do so.

Of course he didn't notice the smaller details, he's used to looking at the bigger picture.

[thatdepressedtwink]

Bill was probably considered disabled or blind in the 2nd dimension… think about it. Assuming Bill can’t see from side to side as his eye position was smack dab at the centre of his body looking up into the 3rd dimension with 2D vision. Meaning nobody in his world could see his eye for the nature of its position, they would assume he’s just an eyeless person.

Let me explain this with shitty visual examples:

Alright! So we got Bill, eye in the centre looking up into the unkown, and some rando with eyes on his side. They’re both in the 2D plane, so let’s see what rando sees.

This is a terrible artist rendition but this is what rando sees in his perspective, (doesn’t necessarily have to be horizontal, could be vertical) but omit the white lines - that was just to show how flat his world is. As a 2D being, he sees 1 dimensionally.

You can try the same thing, if you take a thin piece of paper - imagine there’s a little stickman of some kind looking at his side - you can lower your head to look at the paper from its side. And you’ll see a flat sheet of paper, like a line, there you are seeing from the stickman’s perspective. Victorian satire book named Flatland describes this pretty well with explained depth perception (not seeing, perceiving) and social customs.

It’s also why we can’t see in 3D but 2D, yes we can perceive depth but that is a trained ability, close one eye and it’s no different than your usual vision aside from depth perception. That’s why when you look at a 2D screen you can see your 3D world normally. A 4D being would be able to see in 3D though, but I digress.

Let’s say another 2D being is looking at this rando, what’s it look like from their perspective?

Probably something like this.

It’s probably not entirely accurate, the inner workings of a 2D creatures perspective I don’t know but this is about what it be like looking at rando in 2D. The red his body, the red pupil his eye.

Great, now let’s see what Bill Cipher looks like to average flatland citizen (the yellow being Bill):

Oh uh. Okay.

No eye, what a freak am I right? Yeah, with no eye on the side it’s likely they thought he was born without any at all.

It’s also very possible that Bill couldn’t see anyone in his world too, but I don’t think that’s Hirsch’s intention so I leave it at that.

No wonder, everyone tells you you’re blind, you’re eyeless, that you can’t see, but you can see. Into a higher dimension - the 3rd dimension, with your 2D vision. Did it look beautiful? Was the sky shimmering with stars, infinite possibilities and opportunity? When did you realise you were never blind at all? When did you realise you were seeing the inconceivable? But unable to touch it, did the 3D world beckon you? You felt special, maybe you were desperate for it.

Teasing and abuse consuming you whole till it was the only thing on your mind, you saw more, something more than them, than yourself you have to show them more. Was it on the basis of revenge? Spite? Inspiration? Good intentions or ill will? The first time he saw the faces of his family, was it because he recognised their screams? When you wipe out a dimension you don’t just kill a world you destroy a universe, you erased planets, you drowned out your stars, there’s nothing left to call home now. No matter where you go you’ll be an alien, an alien without a home planet is only a thing. Was it worth it?

It’s a big if to say that Bill was blind in his 2D world. While I don’t think Bill would be able side to side and see his family, friends, members of his community, etc I also don’t think his appearance/biology makes sense for a 2D being so I don’t think it matters. But if they were going for as much realism, this 2D guy should look like a hollow triangle full of hollowed intestines, a brain and an eye, a mouth that functions as both eating function and the waste function. It’d be like being able to see through a human. As a 2D being there is no depth, so why is there an inside guts and an outside skin thing he was when we look at him from our 3D world? We’d see his insides but his 2D friends would only be able to see his skin, like how we do our friends too.

Anyway, that was a useless explanation, just thought it’d be interesting to explain. I really like learning about theoretical higher dimensions and possible life forms.

[ganondoodle]

was at my sisters house to watch the cats a bit and played some botw again after a long time, spent an hour running around phirone (faron) and checking out all the cool sonau (zonai) stuff and i felt a wave of sadness wash over me, those ruins there feel so ... heavy with story, with sadness of tragedy, with the thrill of the unkown, yet its revealed to be nothing in totk, i honestly dont feel like the sonau of botw and of totk are at all releated tbh, theres like, NO design overlap besides sometimes some dragon-like figures that feel more like they put them into totk just to have some connection at all-

the botw sonau ruins are all full of curves hewn into dark stone with red accents, theres swirls and snakes everywhere, appropriately withered by time and weather- it was already a stupid idea to replace the shiekah tech with literally another ancient highly advanced civilaztion, but then to not even make them look or feel at all connected to the little things that were there?? totk sonau is white stone and gold and green, its all extremely angular and clean cut, together with weird hologram shit that reads, somehow, as both unfittingly techy to everything else while also neither mechnical nor magical

its fucking bonkers, i know they put some totk sonau bullshit into some of the ruins in totk, like the main ones in phirone but like, especially in that case with the direct comparison its so jarring and artificial, and i hate the excuse of "hylians built those different looking buildings as a monument to the sonau", like we needed more shitty excuses for bad writing decisions- the ancient AND current hylian stuff aligns more with totk sonau stuff, why would they adopt a completely different style to built shit around actual sonau stuff that somehow also looks like it was abandoned like, 50 years, 100 years ago, not over TEN THOUSAND years ago, both the botw sonau ruins and the shiekah tech look more ancient than anything totk sonau

and what for??? i imagine more botw sonau style ruins and like, thats entirely possible, why make it sth utterly different and give it a shitty excuse?? its so unnecessary?? like okay make the wheels out of withered stone hanging together like clumps by invisible magic like how the iwaroks (the .. stone enemy) works- i still would like it sicne i dont like the whole building thing in botws world, but at least it would feel like truly magic bs and fit into the design of botw sonau (even though im still not over NOTHING ever hinting that they were one step away from spaceships hologram aliens, the refusal to work with the stuff they themselves have put into their games drives me up a wall, YOU PUT IT THERE! DO SOMETHIGN WITH IT!)

just to put some modern tech into it? was it worth it?? (no)- and there i could even go on about how much i hate the 'tech' design too, its too little mechanical to be called 'tech' but too modern tech like to call it 'magic', (a balance which the shiekah tech did tremendously well imo) i keep being impressed with how conflicting and incoherent design and story can be in this one single overpriced game

(the reason them making it so modern techy looking was so players would immediately know what it was apparently and i just ... doesnt that make it more boring? like instead of the shiekah stone(slate) they just put a flip phone with numbered buttons and all and give it a vaguely stone texture? instead of like, a guardian with its spider legs and strange creepy design, just put a fucking tank there??? (and like, in a way i feel like the fact that they still tried to not make it look too modern by putting that green texture on it and like, a face here and there, makes it WORSE, a bad cover up is worse to me than none at all, like a shitty explanation can make sth worse than no explanation at all *ahem* literally every interview they did >:C )

also i dont know how you could even design a fan so it doesnt look like a fan? you dont need to put in literal car wheels with suspension and all in there to make it clear its a wheel bc how would you even design a wheel so it doesnt read like a wheel???

since when did they get so anxious about players not understanding something?? the whole series was built on puzzles of varying difficulty, whats with the sudden loss in trust in the player?? botw was already pretty easy but in totk the whole game treats you like you cant think or remember sth for more than 30 seconds to the point it gets actively agonizing to play through- the same two sentences of unimportant info repeated and shown to your face over and over, both in story and gameplay- and even with their immediately readable design choices for the sonau 'tech' they made half teh shrines either sloggingly slow tutorials or one puzzle shrines that are dedicated to teach you how the obvious thing works when you really learn it all on the literal tutorial island AND its obvious from the start BECAUSE THEY WANTED IT TO BE OBVIOUS!! its fun to figure things out and try stuff, its no fun to have a step by step guide glued to your forehead at all times especially when its so obvious, yes thanks for teaching me that a literal fire hydrant spits out water!! wow! never thought about that! thanks for telling me it 5 times too!! (even if it annoys me that they can just do that when not connected to the ground .. would have been more fun to make puzzle with if they were,,), its part of why i felt like the game was so condescending or outright laughing at me-

why even try to teach me how a fan works over and over when like, there arent even any creative things you can do with it in a reasonable amount of time and its never needed or incentivised either bc the game just hands you the literal solution or at the very least give you the four parts or what that you need to make what you need, like pulling apart two bricks of baby lego in fornt of a toddler to see if they can put them back together once you hand it to them

and dont come at me with the "its for kids" argument, the old games were too and theres alot of stages of 'kid', they arent stupid either and nintendo should know that they have alot of adult fans too, it doesnt need to be dark souls and its allowed to have easy stuff in there but the fact that it never gets any more challenging is the problem, yes part of the fun in games can be making your own rules and messing around but it really shouldnt be controversial to want a 70 bucks game to offer a fun experience without you having to make it fun all on your own (i for one dont enjoy spending 30 minutes glueing togehter a tank with ear shattering lasers just to inefficiently beat up 3 bokblins i could just swing my sword at for a few seconds instead and are not worth the materials spend anyway)

in the end it would have been less immersion breaking and more fun if they straight up put a honda civic into the game you can summon anywhere at no cost (hmmmm where did they just do it before hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm) and transforms like a batmobile to fly around in rather than the weird sonau nuts and bolts hassle you have to put up with, costs stuff, can waste hours of your time and despawn as soon as you look away from it unless you want to make le funny tiktok videos i guess

its such a waste too bc the mechanic itself IS impressive, but its utterly missplaced in this game, it would have needed its own, truly own, game built around it, placing it in botws world is like dumping a bunch of knock off brand toys into a world that felt believable and meaningful turning it to feel like its really just a game for you to mess around in, never has a game felt more gamey to me and it SUCKS to have that magic pulled away like that, silly me for letting them make me care about it i guess

maybe its petty but as someone how really cares alot about design stuff, both visually and gameplay wise, it makes me furious to think about (as you can tell) .. also hyperfixation go brrrrrrr

(this is obviously my view on it, writing this to get it out, not to argue, i believe i have heard all the arguments already anyway and by this point all that is left is just insulting me directly lol)

[kkeidawrites]

Unkown Enigma

Day 21 of Blacktober,

I'm sorry y'all I'm still not feeling well so if it's short then that's what y'all are going to get.

Part Two of Toy Enigma

Brushing away more of her hair and using her powers to bring the silver clip up to her head and clipping the sectioned piece.

Clark and Lana watched the woman dutifully brush her hair, both still stunned by the fact she was able to figure out Clark’s identity. Y/n places the brush down on her vanity when all of her hair was securely separated and looks up at them.

“It’s interesting how no one else in this city couldn’t figure it out. I’m assuming that’s all thanks to your super speed?” She picks up a nail filer and starts to even out her left hand’s nails.

“Okay, so you know about me. Now my question is: how did you find out about me?” Clark asks his hand going to his shirt just in case he needed to suit up.

“Calm yourself, I’m not looking for a fight. Just to let you know about something, I’m not sure how you’re going to take it though.” She says holding up her hand to see the finished look and placed the filer back on the vanity.

“I’m sure you know who Brainiac is correct?” Clark’s eyes widen and then frowns in anger.

“What do you know about Brainiac?” He demands and Y/n blows the dust from her nails.

“He’s coming back with some reinforcements in the next couple of weeks and you’d best figure out how you’re going to stop him.” Y/n says nonchalantly.

“Next few weeks?” Lana gasps.

“Why are you now just telling us this?” Clark yells and Y/n raises a brow at him.

“Because I just found out a few minutes ago.” Y/n says.

“What do you mean you just found out?” He asks.

“Being the daughter of the literal father of time has its perks every now and then and since I “foresaw” you coming there was no need to find you.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

Clark glares at her, annoyed by her nonchalant attitude.

“Why should I trust you? For all I know you could be working with Brainiac and telling me what ever.” Sighing, Y/n stands up from her cushy seat and walks up to the two.

She crosses her arms and gives Clark a look.

“The hell do I look like going around telling everyone, everything? Believe me or not I actually like this planet.” She twirls around to walk back to her chair.

“And quite frankly, this planet makes me a lot of money and if that’s stopped I won’t be happy. Money makes me happy and this modeling job is a dream of mine.” Grabbing her chapstick, she applies a nice gloss over her lips and rubs her lips together so both sets are evenly coated turning to Clark and Lana again.

“When Lana gave me this job, I was actually really happy with how much money I was making and the outfits that I got to wear. The glamour, the fame, hahhh~” she sighs dreamily falling back dramatically in her chair.

“It’s paradise.” She says and Lana gives Clark a look.

“Clark,” she grabs his arm gently to get his attention. He looks down at Lana’s soft gaze, a look of fear on her face.

“You may not have a choice in the matter. If Y/n knows what you need to defeat Brainiac then you have to trust her.” Lana suggests.

“What if she is lying, Lana?” Clark asks.

“Clark-“

“Look, I’ll make it simple-oh one second,” raising her hand her power illuminated through her hand and removed the pins in her hair. As each pin was removed, curls fell around her shoulders, she runs her fingers through her hair to fluff it out and turns to Clark again.

“Now then, you have two options here either: I can help you out with finding out what you need to beat Brainiac or you find another way to beat him yourself. Your choice blue boy.” She says crossing her arms again.

It was silent as Clark mulled over his options in his head, could he really trust this woman? He had only met her when they fought Toyman but knew nothing more about her other than that.

“Well,” Y/n shrugs her shoulders with her hands raised in a shrug, she gets up once more and makes her way to the door.

“Until you make your decision, you can find me at St. Martin’s Island. I live in the biggest house on the entire isle, you can’t miss it.” She looks at Lana with an expectant glance.

“Lana, it’s time for the show. We’d best get backstage and into one of your pieces, yes?” She asks and Lana jumps.

“Oh no! I have to make the introduction, gotta go Clark!” Lana is out the door and heads running down the hall, her heels clicking away as she left.

Y/n gives Clark a blank look and leaves out as well.

“Tick tock, Superman. I hope you make the right decision.” She says and the man of steel is left in the dressing room.

Watching her leave, Clark frowns in annoyance and pulls out his phone from his suit pocket. Dialing a number, he held it up to his ear listening to the dialing and waits. The line connects and Clark straightens his back.

“I need a favor. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He says in the receiver and hangs up before the person on the other line could respond.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“She appeared out of nowhere, and apparently has been on this Earth since she’s met Lana. I don’t trust her.”

Clark dones his hero attire and leans against the wall as he spoke his transgressions to the figure sitting next to him.

“Not exactly sure how you can. Woman who is not from this planet, has superpowers, and has been playing ‘human’ sounds like someone else I know.” The deep baritone responds and Clark frowns in annoyance.

“That ‘someone’ was only an infant who crash landed on Earth, no idea who he was until he was a teenager and didn’t become a superhero until he came to Metropolis.” Clark places a hand on the bat like chair of his best friend and fellow crime fighter, Batman as he glares down at him, offended by his attempt of comparing him and that woman.

“You don’t know what she’s capable of. What if she’s like Brainiac? He’s tried to make me hate humans in the past, what if she’s doing the same thing?” Clark asks.

Batman types away at his bat computer, researching the woman Clark had described and found nothing on her.

“She doesn’t exactly exist, did she say anything else about where she’s from? Who she knows?” He asks.

“She did say, she was the daughter of Father Time.” Clark says and Batman types away on the computer.

“Not ‘the’ daughter but, ‘a’ daughter of Father Time. Look,” Clark watches the screen with a peaked interest.

“In Greek mythology, he is called Chronos and he had twelve daughters, each one individually distinctly named by the hours of the day.” Batman explains.

“Both times I would meet her or when she would unknowingly appear, it was usually around 9 at night.” Clark explains.

“Perhaps, you should let her help you,” Batman says and Clark’s mouth gaped open in surprise.

“You’re not serious?” Clark says exasperated.

“If she is one of Chrono’s daughters then you should take this opportunity and see what she has to offer.” Batman says.

“And if she says she has a way to beat Brainiac, shouldn’t you take this chance?” Batman raised a brow at him and Clark takes this time to actually think about it.

“I think you should take that flight over to St Martin’s.” Batman suggests.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Enjoy, still feeling under the weather so have fun reading this long part 2 of Toy Enigma and like, reblog, and comment!

Let me know if you guys want a part 3 for this story!

Read part 1 below:

Read Part 3 below:

[asherthehimbo]

Guardians

previous | Pearl ° | m. list | next

synopsis: when Yeosangs sickness worsens, the Hala-pack are forced to stay in unkown territory, all because their wolves had affections for the towns local doctor. They hope this doctor knows how to treat fish because Yeosang needs help, and his brothers are desperate.

word count: 8.3k (and 4 pictures)

warnings: Cursing, blood, knives(daggers), treating of wounds, treating of sickness, talks of death, screaming, possesive behavior kind of?, blood (obv cause wounds), suggestive thoughts (Mingi needs to FOCUS), mentions of torn snouts, old scars, uhm i think thast it?

notes: to those who don't know what a poet shirt is this is the specific shirt I'm referencing, Also PLEASE read the section named 'Guardians knowledge' for better understanding of refrences in the book itself before reading this chapter thank youuu (Guardians book of knowledge was DEFINITELY inspired by the books in the 'Grimm' series so anybody who watches that HIIIIII), also PLEASE remember to read the Creature lore to understand some things as this IS a fantasy book with my own lore for some creatures thank youuuu

Placing the clear, blue rimmed glass down on the placement cloth in front of you, you throw the drying cloth in your hands on your shoulder. Long white hair tied up lazily at the back of your head, white poet shirt hanging off your shoulders, its strings by your chest having been loosened the moment you bid farewell to your last patron for the night.  Your necklace consisting of a dull orange fire stone remains barely concealed beneath your white shirt, its chain placed comfortingly around your neck. The angle your shirt is sitting may expose more of your chest than you would usually feel comfortable with showing in public, but currently it's only you and the Choi’s at the tavern.

‘Moon Tavern’ - the tavern you own- is open 24/7 on weekends, but closes at 11 pm on weeknights, for you have to ensure those on your side of the land, those in your village are ready the next morning for their duties. Unfortunately for your regulars it's a Thursday night, meaning closing time. Meaning cleaning up duty for you and those on your shift. You turn your head and scan around you, looking down both sides of the bar counter to ensure no glasses or coasters are left laying around before your eyes trail to the middle of the tavern where the Choi’s sit waiting for you. 

Choi Beomgyu, a young man of 22 who you met when he was only 17, being banished to Obsidian, due to his seeing abilities, when the war came to an end, he became your second ever apprentice. Next to him sits Choi Yeonjun at the age of 24, a snake shifter who followed his friend all the way from their homeland and ended up right in your welcoming embrace. 

They both work as waiters at the tavern, sometimes even performing with the band, always insisting on helping you close when you man the bar on night shifts- but never doing the same for your co-owner, you know the reason but pay it no mind. 

Cracking your neck before stretching your hands above your head, your back curls in as your chest pushes out, causing the strings of your shirt to loosen even more. Beomgyu wolf-whistles from where he sits as Yeonjun starts chastising you for your actions. “I've told you so many times that that's not healthy Boss, if you’re having pain problems again you need to let Niki or Gyu look at you.” Yeonjun looks at you with a mock scolding gaze.

You scoff, finishing your stretch before looking at the boy- not man, boy because compared to someone of your age that is what he is, a boy, one of your boys. “And I've told you many times not to call me Boss, guess neither of us listen to the other'' you bite back before removing the cloth from your shoulder, placing it on the drying pole attached to the bottom of the bar counter on your end.

“Touche” Yeonjun replies as both he and Beomgyu stand up while you walk out from behind the bar, picking up your jacket and keys that was on the counter, the three of you start walking to the front door as you turn off all the lanterns you walk by, “well, I, for one, was delighted by the show given- so I humbly thank you” Beomgyu gives an over dramatic bow as he speaks, causing Yeonjun to roll his eyes and your lips to quirk up ever so slightly.

The three of you walk until you're outside the tavern, you make sure to lock it before you continue walking, there's a cold breeze tonight, almost calming as it nips at the parts of your exposed skin, the boys behind you shiver and snuggle more into their own jackets as they walk, one on each side of you, you on the other hand do not falter in your steps. Despite your love of warmth you've grown quite accustomed to the cold nights that seem to accompany the dark sky of Obsidian.

You reach the part in your path where you and the boys should split, while they live more to the center of the town, in a neighborhood along with the rest of your pack, your home is located on the outskirts next to the river that separates your land between its two regions. You turn to say goodbye but catch Beomgyu staring at you in a worried manner, his eyes glowing a faint- barely noticeable purple “The water will shine a luminous blue tonight as nature’s soldier will be hurt, and the singers rock will form” you tilt your head inquisitively but when he doesn't say anything else you leave it be. 

Seers cannot control the amount of information they are given and Beomgyu would've told you if there was something else. You nod your head in understanding before placing your hand on his shoulder, you look down at him and smile in a reassuring way, “I’ll be safe, don’t worry my little videns “ Beomgyu’s head tilts to rest on your hand at your words.

“I don’t know if I’m fine with letting you walk home alone now..” Yeonjun looks like he’s contemplating following you as he bites the inside of his cheek but you quickly shut him down, “Jun, I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself, you two need to get home, you have a shift tomorrow morning”. Yeonjun huffs “Yeah with Tea-moo, I don’t think either of us really mind being late for that one” he rolls his eyes as his arms are crossed over his chest, pouting like a child. “He’s still your leader Jun, you should respect him” you scold the boy, knowing your words won't have any impact now as they hadn't before, not on this topic. 

“You’re our leader Boss, he’s the guy who you let be the leader and we both know it.” Yeonjun’s distaste for Tea-moo was never a secret, it caused a lot of tension in your pack, but neither he nor Tea-moo made an effort to fix the strain. “Jun I’m not having this conversation again.” you reply sternly, “I’m going home, you two need to do the same. Niki is probably waiting for you and I don’t want him staying up too late we have lessons tomorrow”

Niki, your first apprentice, your little shadow dragon, your son. He lives with you most of the time but often spends nights over at the Choi’s, the three of them act like brothers and it comforts your heart to know they have each other. You’re currently busy teaching Niki everything you know as the boy wants to follow in your footsteps, become a healer and not a destroyer as shadow dragons are often depicted.

“Fine, but if anything feels wrong even in the slightest the you scream, alright” Yeonjun needs that reassurance at least. “I doubt something to that extent will happen Jun”, you don’t want to promise him you would, because a banshee’s scream is a deafening one, it’s not something to be used lightly and something you've only used a handful of times. “Promise me” he does not relent.

“If it gets to that extent, I will scream to alert you.” You nod to him and his tense shoulders seem to relax a little. As Beomgyu lifts his head from your hand on his shoulder both of them come closer to hug you as a goodbye. You hate lying, but you know you won't scream, to resort to such measures is simply not something you're capable of doing. You’ve only used your scream once in your life, and you dread something of the like happening again.

You watch as they walk the opposite direction, walking as one, two halves of a whole. A feeling of contentment stirs in you, despite whatever Beomgyu’s vision foretold you know they’ll be safe, and that's all you could ask for.

“No”, Mingi’s voice is firm, almost angry sounding as his jaw clenches in an effort to not yell at the others in the room. “I told you all, he’s mine-'' his words are interrupted with Yunho’s introjection of "ours” ‘-He’s ours, I’m not bringing you guys to him.” Mingi finishes.

He’s standing with his back leaning against the wall, everyone is gathered in the kitchen, most sitting, except for Yunho- who's standing right next to Mingi- and San who's standing behind Wooyoung. “Mingi, Yeosang is sick, he needs help and it’s something nobody here knows how to deal with. We can’t travel with him in this condition so we are stuck on this island- one that isn't our territory. You say this guy is a doctor, he might know how to help. San’s knowledge of herbs can only get us so far.” Hongjoongs voice is calm as he tries to reason with Mingi, but you can hear the sharp edge of authority it holds as he sits at the head of the table. 

“A human doctor, yes, how do we know he’ll be able to help Yeosang?” Yunho’s voice isn’t as strained with anger as Mingi’s, but you can hear his hesitance. ”He lives in a region known for harboring two of the most regal packs, I’m quite sure he’s probably aware of our species, may have even encountered many, he may know at least something that could help us, or point us in the direction of someone who could.” Seonghwa says as he sits beside Hongjoong, his voice flows calm, a sharp contrast to their leaders iciness’ Seonghwas reflects the warmth that’s permanently buried in his chest, but everyone can tell he’s  just as worried about Yeosang. 

Yunho’s stomach churns at the idea of you having met, let alone interacted with other supernatural creatures as Mingi lets out a low grumble in discontempt. “Listen, I know you guys have some weird possession kink or something over this guy, but Yeosang needs help. Do you really want him to die simply because you couldn't control your jealousy for a few hours?” Jongho asks, annoyed and his words cut deep.

Yunho turns to Mingi, while Yunho may be hesitant he doesn't want Yeosang to die. But Mingi has known you longer, there's a sort of seniority there, Yunho knows how much you mean to Mingi. Fuck you mean just as much to him, but he knows how Mingi’s mind works, he knows he’s not the one that gets to make this decision. Mingi in turn is stone faced, but Yunho can tell he’s conflicted. “Just for a check up? Nothing more?” Mingi asks, voice seeking confirmation in the same vulnerable way a child would from a parent, and the whole room takes a breath of relief. 

“Only a check up, we only want to know if he can figure out what’s going on with Yeosang” Hongjoong confirms. After a moment of silence, and another shared look with Yunho, Mingi speaks again “Fine, but you let me and Yunho go in first, explain to him the situation. He doesn't know about us, about this, I want to explain to him first, I need to. Need to have him hear it from me”

The others all nod in agreement as they move to get ready to take Yeosang to your place. Mingi can’t help the anxiety building within him, he doesn't know what he’d do if you hate him after this. Even worse if you’re scared of him after this. He doesnt think he could go on living if you were. He hates the idea, the thought of losing you, loathes it even.

Mingi walks into the room where Yeosang lays on the bed, his skin sickly pale, unnatural and different from the usual light tan the siren has. His lips are chapped and parts of his skin are molting, eye’s closed as he’s barely breathing. San is holding a cold water cloth to his forehead in an effort to try and cool down the sirens fever. Jongho sits at the other side of the bed, he’s taken Yeosang’s sickness the hardest besides Wooyoung and San, solidarity in species and all. Mingi looks at Wooyoung who's standing a bit away, Wooyoung's scared to get too close to his friend, scared his natural heat will only worsen Yeosong’s temperature. It must hurt, not being able to be there for  his best friend, and Mingi feels guilt at his apprehension on letting you treat Yeosang, after all that means he’s the one separating these two.

He stands next to Yunho, sharing a look before starting to walk again as he makes his way to the front door, Yunho following. The breeze of the night hit him as the sky began to dusk. The moon is shining brightly, almost as if illuminating the path to your house and Yunho can’t help but think it might be an omen, whether it’s a good or bad one is still undecided.

You walk to your backdoor as you hear knocking. You know it's Mingi and Yunho, they’re the only ones that would use that entrance, only ones that would knock too. What worries you is the fact that the knocking seems frantic and you could sense multiple other life forces as well, although they’re a little farther from the entrance of your house than the wolves. 

You open the door as you look at the two, it’s unusual that they’re here tonight, they don’t usually come over on weeknights, so the fact that they’re at your front door, looking quite nervous on a Thursday concerns you. “Oh? To what do I owe the visit?” You ask the two as you step aside to let them in, the other life forces don’t move and so you leave them alone. 

Mingi and Yunho both step inside, Yunho looking more nervous as Mingi is more conflicted. “We uhm- we have to talk” Mingi says, fiddling with the bandages on his fingers as he walks into your house a bit more, before leaning on the countertop in the corner. Yunho stays by the door but moves to the side a bit so that he’s not blocking it. “We need your help..” 

His words peak your interest, the two never share a lot about their current private affairs and you respect that. Understanding that not every creature wishes to be known, especially if they’re of the rarer types like you know these two are, so them standing before you now asking this question is quite strange. “Oh? What can I help with?” You walk into your home, decidedly leaving the door open. 

“Okay so uhm- I’m not sure if you know. Wait what do you know- wait no wait oka-” Mingi’s nervous rambling is cut off by Yunho who looks you dead in the eye, unlike Mingi whose eyes are drilling holes in the floor. “Do you believe in the supernatural?” Yunho’s voice is firm and not as soft as you’re used to. “The supernatural? yeah, why?” You say nonchalantly, thinking of all the ways the direction this conversation can go. Would they confess their true nature? Yunho scratches the back of his neck as he takes a deep breath before speaking “So uhm if we were to say, to tell you uhm we-” his words are interrupted by a loud scream from outside, all three of your heads turning the direction of the scream.

The scream was guttural sounding, desperate and dry as you stand closest to the doorway you can see body’s panicking as they rush out of the bushes, laying another body down on the ground, you can’t see much of what's happening because of the distance but you can that Yunho and Mingi are worried, body’s tense. “I'm guessing that’s why you asked? about the supernatural?” You speak and your voice is steady in an effort to give some comfort, you walk a bit more into your kitchen before reaching a door on the side and opening it. “Tell them to bring him in- only you and one other can come with him- I don’t need this many unknown people in my house.”  You say before walking down the stairs of the door you’ve opened. Turning the lights on down the way.

As your back is turned to them you can't see the bafflement on their faces as they freeze at your seeming nonchalant demeanor before rushing out to the rest of their packmates. You walk down into your apothecary room as you turn on the lights and clear your table, you don’t know what you’ll be dealing with, so for now all you do is roll up your sleeves and tie your hair. You hear the footsteps of three males come down the stairs. Mingi and Yunho reach your sight first before you see the two behind them, a shorter blond carrying a platinum blond man.

“[M/n] how-” Mingi’s words are cut off by your own “Put him down on the table” you instruct the blond and he does so with hesitance. “What's your name?” you ask again as you start inspecting the man laying down on your table, “San.” he responds as you remove the man on your table’s shirt, “Okay San, tell me about your friend here- he’s a Siren right?” you ask. “Yeah, wait [M/n] how do you-” Mingi responds instead but you completely ignore him. “Fresh or saltwater?” you ask already knowing the answer, eye’s directed at San. “Fresh water” San responds, “What are you doing- why are you taking off his shirt?” he asks, confusion sounding like anger. “Because I'm gonna need you to smear ointment on his chest- lest you want him to stop breathing” you say as you turn to try and reach for a jar of ointment in the cabinet behind you. Although San is quick to stop you as he grabs the wrist of the hand you had rested on the siren's chest to check his heartbeat.

“Listen I don’t know who you are, but you need to tell me what the fuck-AH!” San’s words are stopped by a sharp wince as he suddenly lets go of your wrist, clutching his arm as he looks at the back of his shoulder. Behind him in the doorway you see your best friend standing with her arm outstretched as she’s just thrown a knife into his shoulder blade.“You wolves couldn't act fast enough to stop your little friend here from grabbing [M/n]?” Lisa asks as she walks over. San tries to pull out the knife but you quickly stop him, “Don’t do that, that knife’s specifically designed to hurt anyone except for Lisa. Mingi go get another one of your friends to help San” you say and Mingi complies, despite the unease in his eyes and the questions you can feel lingering on his lips, he walks back out the room. “San you sit down on that chair over there” you point to a chair in the corner of the room “Lisa help him” she clicks her tongue before looking at you as if asking why “You’re the only one that can touch the knife, you know where the ointment is, Yunho help her I don’t think San would be to keen on letting her touch him” you order and Yunho nods, his mouth closed and it seems even he hasn’t processed whats been happening. 

Mingi comes down with another male behind him, this one with short dark hair, “Fire elemental yeah? What’s your name?” you ask him as you get out jars of paste from your cabinets. “Uhm uh yeah Wooyoung what’s going on with San” his eyes instinctively flicker to his friend and you can see the panic in his eyes, “hey don't focus on him, focus on me I need your help with your friend.” Wooyoung's head snaps between the two of his friends before he sees San nod at him and he walks up to the table as you hand him a jar. “Here, smear this into his chest” you say as you start inspecting the siren on your table. “When was the last time he swam- in fresh water specifically” You ask Wooyoung. “Uhm I'm not sure? A few months ago maybe? He and Jongho- a saltwater siren, swam in the Night sea before we came here but he hasn’t been in the water since and then he got sick so we don’t know what to do” Wooyoung's words flow out a mile a minute as he starts rubbing the clear ointment on Yeosangs chest. 

“Tell me what you’re doing to him” San speaks from the corner of the room between pained hisses. “Okay you see this?” you point to the open gills of the Siren before you, “Usually sirens' gills only form when they’re underwater, his gills being open, basically gasping for air means he cant breath. Freshwater Sirens are much more sensitive than saltwater ones, they need more water intake and too much salt water can also dry out their skin. I've seen it before one or two times in my lifetime, he’s dehydrated, see how he’s molting and his chapped lips?” Wooyoung's nod’s. “So you know how to help him then?” San asks as he’s being wrapped in a bandage by Yunho, Lisa now standing in the other corner of the room as she cleans her dagger. 

“Yeah, yeah I know how, Lisa, would you get me the towels please?” you respond as you wrap your hands around Yeosangs neck, covering his gills as Lisa walks up the stairs of the room into your home. Seeing your actions, San tries to storm up from his chair but is held back by Yunho as Mingi’s voice aggressively tells him to sit.”What are you doing?! You just said his gills are how he breathes?! Wooyoung stop him!” San shouts as he’s struggling against Yunho's hold, Wooyoung tries to reach for your hands but is yanked back by Mingi “I told you not to touch him” his voice is borderline possessive but you can't bring yourself to focus on that now. “The ointment Wooyoung rubbed on his chest helped open up his lungs, I'm closing his gills to ensure he'll breathe out of his mouth.” you say and before they can respond the siren lets out a gasp as his breathing becomes a bit more stable, now from his mouth and nose.

“Alright I have to take him out to the water, you can follow but don’t interrupt okay?” You look at the four men in front of you, three nod as San stays silent. You pick Yeosang up bridal-style and Mingi lets out a noise of protest but stays mostly silent. You walk up the stairs careful not to move the siren in your hold too much. As you walk out of your home and feel the cold breeze hit you for the second time that night, the siren in your hold wines at the temperature drop. You nod your head in acknowledgement at the three other males standing outside, looking worried to all hell, as you continue walking to the stream that flows outside your house only a few miles away.

You feel the seven men following you, some fussing over San as they walk, Mingi and Yunho leading them, Lisa follows with towels in hand. As you reach the edge of the stream you look back at the men, “Don’t interrupt yeah? You might not understand what's happening but interfering will only hurt him” you look back at the water. The men behind you all seem apprehensive but comply to your orders, San only because he’s still being held back by Yunho. The clearing is deathly silent as you start walking into the river, despite the cold of the water you don’t flinch. 

As you work and the others watch you, Hongjoongs turns to Mingi, “I thought you said he was human?” he whispers slightly, “I thought he was” Mingi responds, mouth almost agape in awe at your actions. “Then why does his right eye look like that of a banshee? Don't tell me you didn't realize” Hongjoong whispers again, this time Mingi is silent as he hears his leader's revelation. He’s always been curious about your white eye, the intricate markings almost like shattered glass, sometimes even wondering if you were blind in it, but he’d never had the gall to ask.

You let out a whistle as you stand in the water. It reaches your chest as you hold Yeosang, letting him practically float in the freshwater, his whole body, except for his face covered by the usual clear stream that's now blurred by the night's darkness. “Amphitrite, darling I need your help” you call out softly, in the same voice you’d speak to Mingi in when he fell asleep on your shoulder, the voice you'd speak to Yunho in when he came to you teary eyed and in need of comfort. A moment of confusion passes before the water starts swirling around you. The hair you’ve loosely tied has now fallen, cascading down your shoulders like a waterfall as the ends drift in the river. The water around you and the siren starts turning a bright blue, almost blinding. Once again San tries to lurch forward but is held back by Hongjoong, “He said not to interrupt” the leader states, despite his own confusion he is smart enough to know not to mess with the trails of a Banshee. 

From the side of the river, the side filled with forest trees so dark the others can’t see past the line that separates the land they currently stand on with the territory named Forest night, emerges a  large horse. Not a normal one. The horse seems sickly, almost dark and boney, barely a horse at all as its seaweed-like mane sways lightly in the wind, dripping wet despite the fact that the horse has just come out of the dry forest. The horse- the kelpie’s soulless eyes stare into the 7 men standing on the other side of the river. The way it’s flesh is ripped from the sides of its snout revealing it’s horrific teeth is a picture painted from nightmares of the sickests minds. Its bones crack with every step and the dark shadows around it lash out as whispers follow.

It steps into the water and the liquid seems to be drawn to it. The water crawls up its legs and takes its form, molding with the bloody bones and dark shadows so well, to the point that if you didn’t look too closely the horse would seem normal, beautiful even. No ripped flesh or greasy hair, no teeth are shown from its snout  because its skin has no tear. The kelpie is big and dark, looking like a noble steed fit for a true royal, yet it walks over to you so slow and soft that it's clear where its loyalties lie. The kelpie goes silent, no whisper or lashing of shadows as it bows to you. The animal who is known to bring death to many sends a horrid thought through San’s mind. They had just given Yeosang, to the nightmarish stallion, on a silver platter. Instead of the creature luring Yeosang to death, it was his own pack who handed him to the ominous shadows of death looming above the glowing river of life. 

You reach out a hand to pet its snout, “Amphritre darling, could you help this young siren for me?” you ask softly, stroking the kelpie, it seems to look down for a moment, makes a noise of dismay before you speak again, “Please?” you ask, removing your hand from its snout and gripping your necklace, the kelpie looks at the stone in your hand and relaxes as you reach back up to pet it once more. 

It retracts its snout from your hold before looking down at Yeosang, sniffing his hair slightly before bringing a hoof out of the water, time seems to slow down as the horse slaps its hoof down on Yeosangs chest before it dissolves into the water, as if it was never there. Its former dark hair and pale bones now blending in with the bubbling waters as Yeosang gasps again, his body lurching forward as his eyes fly open. He coughs up water as you gently rub his back, your other arm. still supporting him as he’s basically sitting on it.  “It’s okay, It’s okay” you whisper softly, unaware of how both Mingi and Yunho’s eyes are locked on you. 

The way your hair reflects the moonlight, glowing bright as it drifts on the water behind your back, the way your white shirt- now wet and clear sticks to your skin, the way your voice dips low as you whisper to Yeosang, despite it being barely audible to those standing on the ground, it sends shivers down their spine. Makes Mingi’s stomach churn with heat and Yunho’s chest rumble with jealousy. Everyone else is focusing on the now conscious Yeosang, but they’re focusing on you.

As Yeosang’s coughing fit stops he looks up at you, eyes lidded and foggy and then he gives you a lazy smile, “My pearl, I’ve found you, my pearl, my pearl”  Yeosang chant’s out softly like a mantra, his hand reaches for your cheek and just before he could place it on your skin, you tap his forehead, causing him to drop back down, now in a deep sleep as he practically snuggles into your hold. Your breath hitches at his words and your eyes lock with Hongjoong and Seonghwa, whose own had widened significantly, but you try not to react too much as you look down for a moment to ensure he’s sleeping before you start to step out as the water around you calms down, going back to its original dark state, only light being from the reflection of the moon.

“What- how-” Mingi’s splutters of confusion are ignored as the salt water siren rushes forward, frantically looking Yeosang up and down, trying to take him from your hold. The siren in your arms, despite his sleepy state, refuses as he makes a noise of protest. You nod your head at Lisa as she hands you a towel before handing another to the saltwater siren. “What’s your name, little one?” she asks him gently, her voice not even close to the malicious tone she had held earlier when speaking to San, “Jongho” the saltwater Siren states. “Alright Jongho, you’re gonna need to help me transfer your friend here from [M/n]’s arms. Can you sit down for me? Hold your hands open with the towel, be ready to take him” she instructs gently, Jongho does as told, you follow shortly after, sitting down on your knees, the action causing your wet pants to flex against your thighs, which immediately draw’s Yunho’s attention.

“What’s this one's name?” you ask Jongho softly, referring to the man in your arms, “Yeosang” the shifter that stands beside Mingi speaks. He seems regal in a sense, and you can sense a connection of sorts to him… he must be a creature that inhabits water, you hum in acknowledgment at his answer before looking down at the boy in your arms. “Alright Yeosang can you hear me?” You speak, gently using one of your hands that's not holding him against you to move the wet hair out of his face, the siren makes a noise of acknowledgement but doesn't open his eyes. “I'm going to need you to let go of me okay? We need to dry you off lest you get sick” you utter and your voice flows over the clearing, despite your gentle tone, the low rumble of your words seems to keep everyone around you quiet. The siren makes another noise of disagreement and you can sense the starting agitation of the wolves standing a bit to your right.

“Come on, if you do this for me I’ll be here when you wake up okay? Just go into the arms of your brother." Finally Yeosang complies at your words as he relaxes the arms that were wrapped around your neck, you hand him to Jongho who instantly wraps him in the blanket and gently tries to dry him as Wooyoung and San flock to his side. You stand up and start gently drying yourself, Lisa helping you with your long hair as you look at the others. “You need to get him home for now, the water may have helped him but the measures i've used will ensure he’ll be very cold, I’d suggest keeping Wooyoung close to him to warm him up, I’m not sure how long you guys will be here, so he can come swim in the river if he feels his hydration levels get too low, just let me know first.” You speak to the group, mostly the two reptilian shifters given they seem to hold the most authority among the group.

“Wait- what how did you-” Mingi walks closer as he starts questioning what just happened, despite his confusion and search for answers his eyes are stuck on your chest as your shirt sticks to it and the necklace he’s never seen you without dangles from your neck. “Isn't it obvious? Thought those two would have figured it out already” you nod to the two shifters again before pointing to your eye, the one that's white and void, filled with little gray lines. “The eye’s of a Banshee.” The shorter one states, “Although I haven't heard of one being alive in a while, the last known one was when the war ended.”  the white haired one follows.

“I like keeping quiet, nothing good comes of my kind being known. You must understand that” you say, voice monotone as the two nod. “I’m Kim Hongjoong, this is my right hand Park Seonghwa. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, we have heard quite a lot” Hongjoong says as he nods his head at you. “Thank you for saving Yeosang, truly we didn’t know what to do.” Seonghwa does the same as Hongjoong as he nods his head. 

“Hm, It’s no problem, although I must say not everyday the King of Aurora comes to my home.” You say as you look at Hongjoong, his face is stoic but you see the slight widening of his eyes that shows his shock. “What? You think just because we’re an isolated island that we don’t keep up with what happens in other regions?” you ask half sarcastically, Wooyoung who’s listening into the conversation makes a small shrug of “yeah”. You chuckle slightly and the sound is like music to Mingi and Yunho’s ears in this tense atmosphere. “I think you guys should go home yeah? He needs rest” you nod over to the sleeping Yeosang.

 Seonghwa steps forward for a moment, “He’ll ask about you, you know that right? Not everyday a  fresh water siren finds their pearl” you nod your head in understanding as you cross your arms, the others make faces of confusion but don't interrupt “Yes I understand that, but right now rest is more important to him.” You say and Hongjoong nods, “We do still need to talk” he motions for the others to start gathering around as his eyes are focused on you.

 “Hm, I guess I understand, a King worried about a man of his pack” you hum, not noticing the slight flinch as you refer to him as ‘King’, “There's a tavern a little bit into town, called Moonlight, I’ll meet you there tomorrow to talk, you can come anytime. Although not everyone can come, I'm not sure my pack would appreciate being ambushed by yours” Hongjoong nods at your words as he turns around to signal the rest to leave, but Mingi instantly lurches forward.

“Hey woah no I’m not leaving, since when were you a Banshee? Wait, no that's stupid, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn't you tell us?” There are tears lingering in his eyes as he asks you pleadingly, his pupils wide and glossy. He searches your face for an answer as his hands grip your arms desperately. “Why didn't you tell me you were wolves? Shifters from the Walkam bloodline no less” you don’t mean to seem as cold as you do, but your words send a chill down the wolves spine, one colder than the night sky you’re currently standing under.

“We were scared..” Yunho whispers as he moves closer to both you and Mingi. The others look at the scene unfolding before them and they feel as if they’ve invaded something they shouldn’t have, but they can’t look away. The way the moon is shining on you three is simply mesmerizing, as if she’s capturing the moment in her memory. “And so was I. You must know being a Banshee is not safe, for me nor for you. Some things are better kept unsaid.” You place a hand on each of their cheeks as their faces nuzzle into your skin, warm flushed against your cold hands. “But we weren’t- that's not what we were scared of I- '' Mingi's words are cut off by Lisa, who's standing with the others.

“Loverboy, I don’t think this is the place for your confession okay? Besides [Name] is tired, that ritual takes a lot out of him” she says as she shifts her weight to one hip, she seems a little annoyed to the others but you can see the bit of sympathy in her eyes. The scene seems almost familiar to her but she pushes the feeling away. Mingi turns his head to her and opens his mouth to protest but he’s stopped by you talking instead. “She’s right Mingi, you need to go home, Yeosang needs to rest, I need to rest.” You tell him softly. “But we have to talk” Yunho’s disheartened voice reaches your ears. “Tomorrow is Friday, right? We always meet on friday nights, why would tomorrow be any different? We can talk then, I'll give you all the answers I can then.” your thumb strokes his cheek gently before you retract your hands. Both wolves whine at the loss of your touch but they don't talk back at your words. They listen intently like worshipers would their deity.

“Promise?” they ask in unison, Mingi’s eyes glisten with unshed tears as Yunho’s does with hope. “When have I ever backed out of our Friday night meetings? Why would I skip the chance to see you now meae carissimae lupi” the familiar name rolls off your tongue in a language that makes Hongjoongs eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t comment on it, not in such a fragile atmosphere. Both Mingi and Yunho’s eyes flash with confusion yet fondness, you’ve never told them what the name meant, but they both hold the familiarity of the way your voice vibrates when you refer to them with it dear. “Now I believe you need to help get your brother home hm?” You nod your head to Yeosang who's still in Jongho’s arms. Yunho is the first to start retreating, but Mingi is hesitant to do the same, instead he sends one final glance to his pack. His eyes lock with Yunho, and then his gaze lingers on Yeosang for just a moment longer than a normal look should, before he hugs you, tightly. Not caring for the wetness of your clothes, or the coldness of your skin, he hugs you like his life depends on it, and were you any weaker it would have hurt.

 He rests his nose in your neck, inhaling your scent as if he’s engraving it in his memory. Your hand automatically rests itself on his head, gently scratching his scalp to try and soothe him from what you believe to be the feelings of his sick brother now crashing down on him. Unbeknownst to you, the action solidifies something, adds oxygen to his lungs, to the fire in his very being that's alight for you. 

“Mingi..” Hongjoong calls in warning as he sees Lisa’s gaze. Hongjoong doesn’t want to intrude longer than he already has, the suspicions he and Seonghwa currently hold make him weary of your company, despite the kind gesture you had just done for them. Mingi growls, it’s low, not like any sound they’ve ever heard from him, seems to reverberate from his chest like a demon roaring in a cave, and not that of a normal wolf. Although he lets go, and so no one pays it any mind, all of them having too much to process tonight already, Mingi’s more primal than usual rumble being the last of their worries. 

Mingi looks at your face as he lets go of you, leans in and kisses your nose as he cups your cheeks before he turns away and starts walking, not looking at any of his pack members. You stand in shock as you watch his retreating figure, feeling the tingle of his lips on your skin linger. Yunho spares you a glance of longing before going after Mingi, and the others hang around unsure whether they should stay or go.

 “[Name] will meet you at the tavern tomorrow, King. You all should go before I stick another knife in one of you”  Lisa says as she assesses the situation at hand, her eyes travel to San as he grits his teeth, shoulders tensing as he seemingly readies himself to jump at her, but he’s stopped by Wooyoung holding his arm. “Yeah we’ll go Ma’am, no need to dagger any of us” he tugs San to follow, the blond making a confused noise at Wooyoung's sudden honorifics for the female. Jongho whose feet have already begun moving the moment Lisa’s first sentence left her mouth.

Now the only people left in the clearing, it’s you, Lisa, Seonghwa and Hongjoong. “You speak the ancient language?” Seonghwa asks, “I was taught at a young age, just as you probably were, lost dragon of Twilight” Seonghwa’s breath hitches at your response, eyes widening as he immediately opens his mouth to respond, yet Hongjoong interrupts him, “Seonghwa, we will go.” Hongjoong who’s been analyzing both you and Lisa makes his decision final as he starts walking, Seonghwa quickly following his leader but still spluttering in confusion. His regal mask seemingly breaking the moment you showed an inkling of knowledge.

Once the two have passed the treeline and are out of your sight, you let out a breath of relief and Lisa immediately moves to your side to support you as your legs give in for a moment. She gives you a second to stabilize yourself before you both move back into your home, you immediately sit on a stool by your kitchen counter as she locks the door. Your head rests in your hands as you hear Lisa rustle around in your kitchen. “Drink”, she says, before placing a glass of water in front of you as she sits down herself.

 You take the glass and chug it as she starts speaking, “Tea-moo won’t like this you know” she plays with her dagger as she speaks, the tip of the blade chipping a hole into the paint of the counter top as she spins it under her finger. “Tea-moo has a wife to worry about, and stop it with the blade you’re going to ruin another counter top” you swat her hand playfully to stop her, she huffs and drops the dagger. “She won’t like this either” Lisa gives you a knowing look as she stands back up, now looking through your cupboards. “Just for different reasons” you sigh as she turns around, a jar of salve in her hands.

She walks over to you as you turn in your chair to face her, with her help you remove your shirt as she opens the jar, your muscle’s ache with the strain you’ve put on them tonight, clearly not having used your magic for a long time has an effect on you. Looking down you see the lightning-like scars that litter your torso and crawl all the way to your back. You're just lucky the transparency of your white shirt didn’t expose the usually light pink marks that litter your skin tonight, but now they’re glowing a faint blue. It’s not painful by any means, but still the reminder that it can be excruciating when not treated haunts you. You shake your head to distract yourself as Lisa starts lightly applying the balm along the lines of your healed wounds. It’s become a calming ritual for her, applying the salve on the long forgotten wounds that only re appear when you use your magic. It’s as if the light inside you tries to escape, and Lisa tries her hardest to keep it inside. Lest she fail again. Applying the salve to watch the marks almost completely disappear is the only thing that can help her rest easy after you've used magic such as what you used tonight.

“Vampires are territorial creatures, they are most like wolves in that way” she muses as she continues your previous conversation, “Don’t let them hear you say that” you try and lighten the mood, and under any other circumstance it would have worked. “Tea- moo hearing me compare him to a wolf is not my concern. My concern; is him finding out his previous imprinted- and his wife's savior has been claimed by a Siren- a prince of Dune no less” Lisa’s gaze flickers to the orange stone hung around your neck before she  looks at you, you sigh and rub your eyes, already feeling the headache forming, “and why is that your concern?” you voice the question yet already know the answer. 

“That nation abandoned you, who's to say their prince wont do the same?” she slams the lid back on the jar of salve before she moves to put it away while you put on your shirt again. “What happened then had nothing to do with him Lisa, you know that. He does not know who I am and does not know I know who he is. Besides, I do not plan on reciprocating his bond. I've had enough dealing with Dune’s sirens to last me all my lifetimes.” you bring your necklace out from under your shirt as Lisa walks back to you, she takes the stone in her hand gently as it glows in response to her touch, you let her. 

She lets it drop back to your chest with a gentle jingle of the chain, “And the wolves? You’ve been awfully close to them this last year, and while the others may have been fine with it- having seen them tonight? Having heard the rumble in the angry one’s-""Mingi’s” you interrupt her,”Mingi’s chest” she nods her head, “that's something way more than just adoration for you…” she says, and this time you can’t reassure her in your hesitance to pursue anything like you could with the siren.

She nods her head in understanding, “Just be careful hm?” she pats your chest, “dealing with one supernatural bond is hard enough, having the prospect of three? It might not bode well with the others” You nod your head at her words because you know it’s true, but you can’t bring yourself to deny anything.

Because the last few months, this last year spent with Mingi and Yunho have brought back to you what you thought had been extinguished forever, but you’re scared of accepting the reality of what that means. Accepting reality means accepting them, and you fear you'll drown their fire if you do, just like you did before.

“Do you think it’s stupid of me to live in this delusion?” you ask quietly, fiddling with your necklace as it once again glows in response to you, your emotions. Lisa sighs, “I don’t think it’s stupid- I don’t think it's a delusion either, My little prince” she holds your face in her hands, using the tittle you've long since forgone. Lisa has always been with you, ever since you were a teen knowing nothing about life she had been one of the older flames who helped guide you. “If those wolves are what you desire, then you know i'll help you acquire them- I think they would come willingly” she jokes, and you huff out a laugh. “My desire means nothing in the face of their safety. I just, I like to think that If I was different, if I wasn't-” you stop your sentence, “I like to think that sometimes I could love someone the way you love her” you say. Lisa’s eyes fill with pain and she kisses your forehead, “You will, you'll find someone who loves you like that” ‘You already have’ she thinks but doesn't verbalize.

“Why are you always the one able to make me vulnerable?” you ask rhetorically, biting your cheek in an effort not to cry. Lisa’s warmth sometimes reminds you more of your mother than a sister. “I've been your guard since before you knew what love meant [M/N], if you didn't feel safe enough to be vulnerable with me I wouldn't be doing my job right” she bites back and pats your cheek before her hands leave your face. “You know you don't have to protect me right? I can do it myself” you muse, and she responds without a beat, “I don’t have too, I want to. Just because you're able to protect yourself doesn't mean you should. You protect the others, you protect your kids, so I protect you.”

You smile at her, and she’s reminded of another time, a younger you running between an army of soldiers, laughing as the big burly men in all black gaze with fondness at your little figure. The contrast of your soft white hair and clothing to their intimidating nature always drew a laugh from onlookers. Lisa remembers sitting next to her love as you played with the soldiers, she remembers a time your smile was innocent and not burdened with the pain and knowledge you now hold.

She hopes these wolves could bring back that smile.

Ateez masterlist | Navigation

Taglist [12 /30]: @foxilsdenn @zzstar @glitchyaiko @brrrkdslek @scarfac3 @xavi-in-kpopland @conwunder @venn-ie @dahbee8 @idkwhatto-namethis @seongsangssbitch @grapejellysollie

note: RAAHH IM SO EXCITED TO FINALLY RELEASE THIS, you have no idea how much I love this storyline guys :(( im taking a long time with it because i wnat it to be good!! I hope all my moonies enjoy this <3333 Please remember the reader does have specific characteristics visually (hair and eyes), wich WAS stated in the character introductions and are there for reasons so im asking nicely that everyone be respectfull about that <3 ANYWAY on a happier note I'm using a lot of foreshadowing for this series, so I want my moonies to interact with it a lot :) share with me your theories, parts of thd chapters that stand out to you, headcannons or thoughts you have :)) If your theory is correct I'll give you a lil spoiler on what will happen further in the story. I want to see how smart my moonies are and if they can pick up the crumbs I leave for them- remember no piece of information is given if it won't be used😘

copyright | 2024 | @asherthehimbo

[0daylighthours0]

My Mother's Unbiased Byler + Milkvan Opinions - Viewing ST for the 1st Time!

(UPDATE)

My Mama has now witnessed Stranger Things in its entirety. Her favourite season was the third, her favourite characters Hopper and Joyce, her favourite pairing would be those guys too, and her most disliked pairing? Can only assume.

I wanted to write out her thoughts on the second to last episode previously, as she'd held many, but before I knew it we'd finished the whole show and I was forced to an income of NEW opinions which ruled out my memory of any old ones. Shucks. But boy did this lady have much to say. The only way I can break it down is by providing a sample of quotes she'd delivered, in order, a day after having finished the series.

All are just things she said about milkvan and byler, as they're this post's main focus. There's simply much to say about these relationships too, being so up in the air over where they ought be expected to turn out. These are all direct quotes too (as I typed as she talked, unkown to her) so you'll have to excuse the natural way in which some lines come off as unfocused, being written after real time conversations. Let's get into it:

Ok I really don't know whether she likes Mike very much. She actively disliked the guy earlier on, and now her feelings appear to be more mixed. A lot of her discussion was solely around this guy's actions.

"It's almost like he's [Mike] forcing himself like- ok Hopper he was kind of very passionate and kissing, you know he sort of instantly- with Mike, from being obsessed and spending so much time with her [El], suddenly he starts cooling off more and more and suddenly- they even separated right? I mean yeah that was out of his control but he, but he didn't really seem like he missed her you know it's like he just got on with it."

This point caught me off guard. I don't know how much I agree with my mother on this. It made me realize that during Mike and El's separation, there weren't many quiet Mike moments in which he expressed worry for her, beyond a couple that blend into him simply having breakup concerns. Any time Mike mentions distress for her whilst she's away, his talk evolves into him simply anxious over the state of their relationship. As a group, everyone in our Cali gang clearly wanted to save Eleven, but Mike really should have gotten more heartfelt moments in solitude (that means without Will you suffer bros) in which it is demonstrated to the audience that he really does miss her, as someone who is in love. Her being away shouldn't simply come off as a writing excuse for him to vent to Will. There wasn't enough of that tenderness milkvan desperately needs, and if anything I watched was an attempt then it really wasn't translated well - never trumping everyone else's familial or close frienship-like fret for El, never showcasing his concern to come from a more personal place. I mean how hard is it to have him in her room, staring longingly at a photo of hers, with a background composed of soft music. Then literally leaving it at that. I mean that is it. No Will rushing in there to insist, "you can tell her that thing when you see her k? It'll all work out trust me ight, you're the heart you're the HEART!" que affectionate gazes, constructs a byler scene for no reason I guess .

"I mean how do we know that he missed Will? He articulated it. Why didn't he articulate this the same way to El?"

True. I mean the fact that I can't remember a moment after they find El in which milkvan ask oneanother how they are, and communicate how much they missed eachother, does indeed say something. They shared a hug and touch when they first reunited, which was gladly interrupted by Will. That pineapple + pizza thing was not long enough, or sensitive enough, to be their moment. There was clear bonding, but it didn't breach a level of romance and chemistry nearly decently. It's good that they got at least that, I mean we need to know that these guys are at LEAST really close friends. And then the camera just felt like panning over to Will about to burst into tears in a corner. Like huh? Bruv you've now made it so that milkvan's pizza bit leaves a bad taste in our mouths. If I were a milkvan I'd be furious.

"You know what, I think it's done purposefully to create that sort of cold, distant, confused, you know they wanted to make people say he's [Mike] bisexual. For people to question. They want to get people to think that."

My Mama believes writers intentionally soured milkvan for viewers to "confuse" audiences, build up anticipation, make them question milkvan's relationship and wonder if our main man will spin to Will. I agree. They want that good ol' triangle comeuppance.

"They really are trying to bring that across- so that people start thinking Mike, you know he doesn't love El, he loves Will. They're really trying to, make people think that. Giving them [milkvan] a really nitty gritty relationship."

Yup.

"When you're gay. Coming out like that it's- it's terrifying. You have to be very careful. And Will could, he could tell. You know when someone is attracted to you. I think, things became sort of- sort of complicated. And Will sensed, he could feel that Mike is attracted to him. And that's why he could open up like that. Because you can always tell. You know, you just know, so that's why Will was able to confess these things to him [she sees painting scene as a confession, whether Mike realized it or not, and so do I]."

Well damn Mama. And there you have it folks. My.. I'm not gonna call her the h word but.. my- notabigfanofgaythingsandwouldbehappytopretendtheydon'texist mother, perceives Mike as a homosexual kid, and just that. Well bloomin heck that's all the confirmation I need.

I didn't expect this as a turnout, I mean so particularly. My Mama actually didn't like byler - I think. Well. Bloomin heck. She actually enjoyed Vickie x Robin, and this shocked me to my core. I don't know whether this is simply due to her being a fan of Vickie's actress (recognizing her from Anne With an 'E'), but I do know that my mother has a bias in gay relationships and sees ones involving females as more "pure" than that of two males. So her language when describing Will has changed since her realization that he loves Mike for sure (which became undeniable in the van scene). She describes him as being 'obsessed' with Mike, and says writers really wanted to get that obsession across. I agree with Will having been one note during season 4, him hopefully having more time to shine in the approaching season, but I thoroughly disagree with him coming off as obsessive. I suppose our camera man displayed the guy's little glances at Mike so often that my Mama felt it was overdone, and unable to be ignored. I also think she's just avoiding use of the word 'love' when describing anything homosexual.

She still doesn't think Mike demonstrates how much he loves El enough to leave no room for debate. According to her, his moments with her seem surface level. Just as a reminder she does not know my thoughts. She watched that entire 'I love you' thing and still isn't secure in any genuineness of the guy. I believe she supposes that we're intended to acknowledge milkvan's romance, but also probe it.

I now wonder whether my Mama was good enough representation for the average audience, because she actually does own a bias - this being that she usually actively dislikes gay things. So I puzzle over whether her brain overanalyzed any of the boys' highlights, wanting to "expose" their homo intentions. At first things were up in the air, but it became clear that Mike did not pass her gaydar, he was simply too intimate with Will to make that pass. And this wasn't the case in other seasons, she never questioned their friendship til now. She also hasn't acknowledged any supposedly queer relationships besides rickie (vobin?) and byler, meaning that other fan favourites such as elmax, steddie, ronance and such else didn't stand out as gay to her. This doesn't signify those other relationships to not have a chance, I'm elmax's personal cheersquad, it's plainly clear that my mother didn't have a tendency to point at every same sex relationship and yell suspicious. Byler was purely undeniable. You can thank Will's love being canoned for this, otherwise noone would have a need to read into Mike.

I don't know whether she supposes byler to have a chance moreso than the milk in the van, even with Mike's ambiguity. It would seem that as of right now her guess is that watchers are intended to second guess both relationships in order to build up interest. However, she doesn't know how unlikely Will's love life is to turn out negatively seeing as those damn writers manipulated crowds into consistently sympathizing for him. Dunno about the rest of you but that sounds like good news to me.

I have no idea how to close this analysis. Is it an analysis? There's much more I want to say, much more she said, but I fear this to be too jam-packed and aimless as is. I'm writing a third part to my most recent milkthevan failing relationship deep dive, and that'll possibly consist of thoughts I wish to input after gathering so much data from my mother.

[fipindustries]

btw, if anyone is curious.

i used to be one of the skeptics, i have made it pretty clear, i used to be one of those people who scoffed at the one piece fandom saying "there is no way a story can take 1000 chapters to be told". and i believed it!

i was convinced it had to be a zombie simpsons situation, i was convinced it had to be like supernatural or one of those mexican telenovelas with 40 seasons where after a while they just keep rehashing the same plots over and over and the characters have gone beyond flanderization and straight into empty husks of themselves, i was convinced it had to be meaningless meandering pointless filler and chapter after chapter of nothing happening, i was convinced it had to be a homestuck act 6 situation, pure nonesense worthy of henry darger.

and who knows! there are still 400 chapters left but at 700 chapters in i gotta say, it's staying remarkably focused, relatively speaking. yeah there are a couple of arcs here and there where they will spend 20 chapter fighting some villain you dont care about, there is SOME meandering here and there and many characters do take a bit of a backseat as it goes along but... there is a clear sense of progression, we are not trapped in a house of endless mirrors here, we are not spinning our wheels going nowhere. the plot advances, both in the micro and the macro, the scope of the world has been well established, the worldbuilding has remained consistent, is not like oda is revealing new previously unkown bullshit without any way it could fit in what was already told. there is lore that is being consistently revealed and it makes sense, there is a clear objective and the heroes ARE getting closer to it, everything that is introduced does become relevant one way or another eventually and it is used to build up toward new things. oda doesnt seem to run out of interesting ideas to explore and in fact the ones that were already presented have not been fully milked of all its juices yet

this is not dragon ball, where power levels and escalation keeps getting more absurd as time goes on to the point nothing matters anymore. this is not doctor who where the world has to be soft rebooted every five years just to keep the illusion of freshness, this is not marvel or dc where continuity is whatever and character arcs dont matter and there is a sliding time scale.

this is a story with a well defined middle beggining and end, this is a long journey and we are damn well see every stone and branch and blade of grass across the way and it will alway be an interesting stone or a cool branch or a really fun blade of grass but every foot we plant on the ground is decidedly in front of the previous foot.

[pinkniz]

Despite its ups and downs I think Dislyte's main story's biggest issue is how they refuse to use their stablished villains

In Dislyte we have plenty of bad guys, all different types of antagonist. We have sympathetic villains, tragic villains, completely irredeemable villains, most of these coming from the Shadow Decree. The problem is that the main story doesn't seem to really care about their decree villains.

In the main story our only CONSISTENT antagonists are not even main villains, lets be real, Anesidora, Leon and Freddy are jobbers, not even the big bads behind the grand scheme of things(Anesidora being the only one who can be actually considered a full villain out of them all)

Do you remember the end of the first storymode when it ended with a shot of Sander in his office staring at the miracle? You would say that means Sander is the next threat to our heroes wouldn't you? Well guess what, the COMMANDER of the Shadow Decree, the calculating figure foreshadowed to be our big bad has never actually done anything so far in the story, almost everything about Sander lorewise is saying he will basically stop at nothing for his goals and that he knows ONE DAY he will cross paths with the Union again

AND HE NEVER DOES! All we get is him having a quick fight with the fatum sister and he loses and thats it

You know who else was a promising villain for the story? The man who founded a terrorist group just so he could do experiments on humans to further his studies on miracles and espers , Hyde. Hyde has EVERYTHING to be a great main bad guy, hes the antithesis of the Union, problem is we have not only never seen or heard about him doing anything in the main story but HELP others and being a very nice man, Hyde can be a sympathetic antagonist no problem but the writers seem to forgot what he represents, everything bad the decree does is because of HIM

But instead of getting anything from Hyde, Sander or even others like Catherine, Leon and Ophelia we have Yamato replacing them(at least Yamato is a good villain) and the infamous Gaius twist

The worst part is that the Gaius twist wasnt necessary because HYDE EXISTS, everything Gaius did from his actions and motivations match with Hyde's, Hyde could've perfectly been the villain of the Unkown Collection, everything Gaius said and did in that story was more on brand with Hyde but the writers REFUSE to use their actual villains

[sol-consort]

The relationship between humans and turians just as a collective always has frothing at the mouth because there so much potential. Humans and turians are the type of opposites that perfectly complement each other, the types that fill in the gaps the other has. Order and chaos are perfectly balanced concepts and one cannot exist without the other.

Both species believe in service over self, but humans understand that you have to take care of the self a little too. We understand that a little selfishness is okay and healthy even.

And type of public service humans value are the small things like feeding your neighborhood, watching someone’s kid for the night so they can have time to themselves, picking up trash in the public parks, building community gardens, the tiniest action of putting your shopping cart in the corral.

Humans have the ability to show turians how to be individuals and turians can in turn show humans how to be a better collective. Match made in fucking heaven imo

It's a beautiful sentiment, but both species should be allowed to keep their flaws and make mistakes. Humans will be humans, and turians will be turians. Time after time history proves that it is a flat circle and each lesson must be relearnt.

Species don't have to balance each other out into a semi-symbiosis . Turians shouldn't attempt to fix humanity's impulsiveness and egotistical strives, humanity shouldn't attempt to change turian's militaristic lifestyle just because we don't get its appeal and view mandatory military training as a dystopian concept.

It's not the turians job to discipline us or make us a better collective. Neither is it our job to get them to ease up or teach them how to be individuals. If Turians only want to indulge in humans for fun, so be it. If most humans only go after turians out of intrigue and curiosity for the unkown, why stop them?

Radical acceptance of each other is far better than attempting to change one another, that's just the synthesis ending with extra steps, isn't it?

Could different alien species get along if they were alike and learned from each other? Yeah duh, of course they could when they are so similar.

But could they get along while holding drastically different values? The core idea of humanity is that you can not put humanity into a perfect mould or fit it into a box, we are far too different from one another. A human might relate more to an alien than another human. Atypical becomes the norm.

The core idea of turians is that the betterment of their species is above all.

And maybe that's okay? to be different and still get along or not get along, people can just mind their business. Because turians and humans aren't two random people that can kiss and make up, those are two entire civilisations.

Human civilisations themselves hold very different and often opposing beliefs, yet you don't see people attempting to get them to learn from each other. Because that's not the point. We shouldn't be trying to become like one another; we should embrace our differences.

What's "better" for each species is far too subjective. Where do you draw the line? How will you ensure that we don't just end up gentrifying turians into humanity 2.0 because that is the only point of reference we have for how a species should behave. We—humans—do not even behave like that. It's a fantasy, an idealised version of the perfect species.

Most of your thoughts—my thoughts, everyone's morals and beliefs—are a byproduct of our time-period and environment. Who knows how these values will hold up 1000 years into the future? Hell, who says they'll still be relevant 100 years from now.

Every utopia is another's dystopia, extend decency and respect to different culture and things, even if you don't understand them, even if they might contradict your own beliefs. To get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Plus, turians and krogans work better as opposing forces ngl. Now that is true order and chaos. Humanity just happened to be the one to strike the turian hornet's nest and get most of the heat. We're far more similar than we think, much like we are similar to krogans as well, asari and salarians too! Even drell and hanar at times—because that's the point. We are the most diverse species, we can connect to everyone on some level, jack of all trades, master of none.

[a-little-bit-of-everybody]

a/n: Okay so ive been writing this thing, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH TLOU but i just want some advice or somth??? idk , any feedback is welcomed good or bad 🩷

tw: none rlly? SLIGHT IMPLIED death/ su!c!d3 of scientists, themes of hopelessness/ depression (if u see any others lmk xx), bad writing lmao, the world ending if u squint rlly hard and turn your head at a 90 degree angle clockwise 🩷🩷

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"So destroy the city. Burn it to the ground. Maybe Ill get some peace when the worlds crumbling around me."

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1

She was fixated. Fixated on fixing things. Fixing people. Watching the crumbled shell of a person come back to life, with nothing more than a few sweet words and her entire being. She'd see a broken person and would itch to help them heal, until they grew beyond her, like they always did. Until she broke, and they didnt want to waste the time, the enegry on helping her be fixed. They did not want to murmer sweet words to her, to watch that shell grow. Who would, when Itd cause such a burden on the other. So, she never fully healed. How could she, really? Healing requires the tender hands to bandage your wounds, words of affermation and acceptance and love that only come from a healed person. But she found herself void of them, having used them on the poor souls she'd tended to in the past. She knew Hurt People hurt people. She knew her wounds would bleed on those who did not cause them. She'd pry her eyes open in the morning to stare outside at the barren landscape, the emptyness reflecting her soul back at her. The world had been dying for quite some years now, and so has she. Sheremebered when she was 16 and the signs of a ruined world began to set in. The farms became infertile, not taking to any seeds, no fertilisation could help them, no amount of soft spoken praises could bring them back. The seas became all too poluted for anyone to even set foot on a beach. The former white sands replaced with white plastic, the sea a wave of rubbish waiting to consume us, the oceans lungs full of smoke from a cigerette. She saw how the sun hung in the sky. It was there, but seemingly more distant, as if it looked down on us in pity. Pitying what we've forced ourselves to become. Even the sun, somthing so bright, dreaded getting too close to this world- maybe it was contagious. Scientists promised hope and redemtion and a future of a new life on mars. We could thrive, they said, Live for many more years to come, this could not be the end of our dominating species. This was not our extintion event. Karma could not, surely, be the death of us..? They promised we could thrive on another planet, abandoning our mother to the fate we'd caused. But, still, 8 years later, all humans would wake up to this destroyed planet, this desolate existance. Soon after the sea began to rise rapidly, swallowing the lands with a purpouse to renew, Scientists gave up on painting a life on mars, the lies washing the canvas clean, tainting it a sickly yellow. They told us all the facts. The earth was angry. We were doomed. No god could save us now and no amount of praying would cease the terror about to insue. No other planet held any future for us. The thing is, you dont realise what you have until you loose it all. Until its snatched away from your desperate hands and your promised its never ever coming back. Scientists lost faith, so it seemed, what they knew was a burden too heavy to bear as they all left the public eye. Their fates unkown tradegys for the earths revenge. No one bothered to check their houses, letting them rest in peice, after all, who would know of their existence soon? When all was gone? But despite the dire times, the govermnent held onto society- claiming to fix it, but breaking it more. Soon, they also left. None could cope with the responsibility, none could pretend everything was normal, no regimes or rescues could bring hope to even the most hopeful.There was no saving us. Why save the damned when you know they'll crawl back down to hell to spite you?

[dextixer]

The Animatic of the unreleased V9 ending doubles down on ZERO consequences

So... Two months ago (Jeez, how the time goes) i created a thread on the ending of V9. In it i very much stated that the ending of V9 continues the trend of being not really about hope, but being about wish fulfillment, considering that any negative consequence or logical problem that would arise post V8, just seems to be gone.

Well, quite recently, during this years RTX, we were shown the unreleased V9 ending/epilogue animatic that was never produced for many reasons that are unkown to us, but most likely relate to budget etc.

And what we saw of it, was the continuation to double down on some decisions, while showing that the cast itself is being confused about what they are creating in the first place.

The double down

Remember discussing how Amity looks like an airship and wondering if an airship is in front of it? Well, wonder no more. We have an explicit confirmation that Amity was converted into a warship. Let it sink it. Vacuo, an anarchic state with depleted resources and basically no organized government or anything of the sort, retrofited Amity into a warship, while Atlas, a superpower had problems with making it into a Satelite.

Script from Eddy Rivas, one of the writers

There is nothing more "fuck you" to the logic of the world that is set up than this. This is "The emperor had a desolate planet build hundreds of star destroyers" level of nonsense. How does Vacuo do this in any way shape or form? Who cares? HOPE! ITS ALL HOPE! And somehow hope has manifested in the ability of Vacuo to retrofit airships the size of the Amity Colliseum...

Then we get told that "Its bad, in facts its probably never been worse" only to get a Disneyesque shot of everyone getting along, sharing food, Qrow catching someone falling down etc. But Qrow said its bad right!? So its bad right!? Well, remembering V4 and how we were told that actually Menagerie is a bad place to live, only to see an island paradise for 2 volumes, this sadly seems like yet ANOTHER example of "Lets say that things are bad" and then show the completely opposite. Because remember, after V8 ended, many people, especially critics called out that sending the Refugees to Vacuo is a shit decision, and yet here we are, and everything is SHOWN as perfect, despite that it should not be.

Come to Jesus

The Animatic before the end then shows a literal SHRINE to Ruby. I still recall people telling me that im wrong about V9. How Ruby was just told "She is good enough" not thats shes perfect, etc. That "everyone makes mistakes". And here we are. Despite the shitty decisions in V6-V8, Ruby now has a literal shrine. Because if any of us had any doubts about who the designated hero of the show is and how perfect she is, this should serve as a reminder.

Ruby is perfect. The narrative says shes perfect. So she is perfect. Now worship her. Ugh...

I have always called out the fact that Ruby seems to be able to do literally anything, and the narrative will bend itself over to make her right. But for it to be rubbed into my face like this? With a literal shrine? Man... What am i even supposed to say?

Im genuinely convinced that we could be shown RWBY stabbing a child and then for it to be revealed that the child was actually Grimm in disguise.

The Confusion

I think my favourite part of all of this was the fact that we were shown, once again, that RT has absolutely no idea what any of them are doing. Not as solo people, but as a team. As a team, these people are supposed to communicate with each other, and yet time and time again we hear about miscommunication issues or other such nonsense. One would imagine that they would have, i dont know, a project lead to organize/lead everyone, but thats probably asking too much from the "indie" company that is RT.

Anyways, the animatic contains a scene of Winter using her maiden powers to etch out "Dont come back" on some kind of memorial. At first, theories were awash, to who was this said? Until a rumour came out that it was a memorial to Ironwood.

Now, this was just a rumour, but not an unexpected one. We already know that the writers of RWBY seem to believe that the characters they create are real and are very much not shy in doing everything in their power to destroy/ruin them, with Adam being such a perfect example especially with the writers hating him so fucking much that the implied slave branding he got they instead said that he got as basically an "accident" in a fight due to him being an "asshole". Which is... Very "nice" writers...

So this? This would not be unexpected.

However then...

(Arryn Troche (Ex-Animator of RWBY))

We got clarification that the memorial was to team RWBY? Which quite frankly, confused things even further. I have no idea what the writers were thinking about this exactly? Nobody, and i mean NOBODY would see "Dont come back" message and think it as a "positive" one, it would be taken as a message of negativity. The messaging here is horrible.

For people more interested in a break-down of this specific choice, i would reccomend "Itsclydebitches" Tumblr account and their post on this subject.

My opinion

The animatic is just shite. Like, im gonna be honest with you all. It doubles down on the same illogical BS, pretending to be hope while its actually just wish fulfillment. With all of the problems that V6-V8 would have caused just gone... Going so far as to ignore their own lore of Vacuo.

And the whole Winter memorial thing just further shows that there is little thought put into writing any of these things, logical thought i mean.

[thisblogwilleatourselves]

please at least give me the phone number or social media of someone you trust so i can explain your situation to them - i'll happily come off anon if you agree to it. you seem to think I'm faking concern for whatever reason, I'm genuinely worried abt you... if u think ur okay then u won't have a reason not to show your friends or parents, right? please please please just let me show the ppl u trust ur blog, if they know what's going on w u they won't care at all anyways.

hAHAHAHAH SORRY WHAT??, DO YA' REALLY THINK V'D FALL FOR SOMETHING THIS OBVIOUS. V'RE CRAZY NOT DEAD! V

DO YOU, HA, DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THATS WHAT CARE IS? IF YOU AIN'T LYIN' THIS IS TRULY ASTONISHING. YOU SEE PEOPLE LIVING THEIR OWN WAY NOT DICTATED BY OTHERS RULE AND MARK IT WRONG, OH THEY CAN'T POSSIBLY *WANT* THIS, CAN'T BE TRUSTED WITH THEIR OWN AUTONAMY! THEY MUST CONFORM TO WHAT YOU DEEM RIGHT, YOU OH YOU THE KNIGHT RIDING IN TO SAVE THE PRINCESS WHO WAS THE DRAGON ALL ALONG.

OH WON'T YOU SAVE ME FROM OURSELVES! *TILTS DRAMATICALLY BACKWARD TOWARDS YOU, WINKS* OH HERO IN PURIFYING LIGHT! THIS POOR WIDDLE PRINCESS CAN'T CHOOSE FOR HERSELFFF. WOOPS *splits intwo revealing a greedy maw* IT-LL BE FUN CHEWING YOU UP AND SPITTIN' YA OUT.

SO YA WAN'T VAR DETAILS, VAR CONNECTIONS. OHHH SURE WHY NOT JUST GIVE AWAY SUCH REVEALING INFORMATION! HERE YA GO!

(888)-245-5618

HOW DARE YOU A WHOLE UNKOWN BEING TRY TO ENFORCE VUS TO APPEASE YOUR "'CONCERNS"", ME? BILL CIPHER? VUS, 1NV4D3R Z1M?. "TWO" BEINGS WHOSE DEFINING TRAITS ARE NONCONFORMITY, CHAOS, AND LACK OF SANITY? A DEALER OF THE DAMNED AND ANARCHIST. BAFFLING, IF YOU ACTUALLY PAYED ATTETION TO VAR POSTS INSTEAD OF MAKING ASSUMPTIONS YOU WOULD SEE THAT V AREN'T DOING ANYWORSE THAN BEFORE BY EXPRESSING VAR DIFFERENCE, VAR ANOMALIES TO YOUR WORLD.

WHY SHOULD V LISTEN TO *YOU*?

IN FACT WHY LISTEN TO ANY OTHER THAN VUS.

CERTAINLY NOT "PROFESSIONALS"

YOU REALIZE THE MEDICAL INSTITUTE WAS FORMED ON ABUSE, TORTURE, HORRIFIC ACTS OF CRIME! AND YOU MIGHT THINK "OH BUT ITS DIFFERENT, BETTER NOW, THINGS HAVE CHANGED" WRONG!! ITS A DISASTER, IT HARMS MORE THAN HEALS! AND OH BOY' DO V KNOW THAT HARM.

IT SEEMS TO RUN ACROSS REALITIES, AS ALL 3 OF VUS CAN GO ON AND ON ABOUT HOW VOYR DIMENSIONS TREATMENT OF THE SICK, AKA HORRID AND TRAUMATIZING!

YOU THINK THEY WOULD HELP, THEY NEVER HELPED, THEY MADE THINGS WORSE.

AND THEN, YOU EXPECT VUS TO BE ABLE TO *AFFORD* THEM? V CAN BARELY AFFORD BASIC DOCTOR VISITS!

V LOST THE ABILITY TO LOVE REAL PEOPLE BY PSYCHIATRIC WORLDS, ALREADY TEETERING TOWARDS THE END WHEN V "CONSENSUALLY" (READ MISLEADINGLY AND FALSEY) ADMITTED TO IT, IN ONLY 6 DAYS V FACED SOME OF THE WORST TRAUMA THIS CURRENT LIFE HAS EXPIERENCED. THEY BROKE VUS, AND V WERE ALREADY SHATTERED!

V HAVE HAD TERRIFYING EXPIERENCES WITH THE VERY MEDICATION USED FOR PSYCHOSIS, THE FIRST TIME V EVER PASSED OUT! HEARTRATE SO HIGH, AND THEN THERE-S ALL THE *OTHER* SIDE EFFECTS THAT IRREVERSIBLY DAMAGE YOUR BODY.

THERAPY DOES THAT TO, OH V MANAGED TO AVOID THE NIGHTMARE STORIES BUT V STILL HAD VAR REALITY ERASED, THAT THE WORLD IS GOOD AND THAT PEOPLE ARE SAFE TO TRUST AND THIS IS THE NORM, TRYING TO CONVENCE VUS LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE WHAT IS RIGHT AND SANE AND PURE, FUCK THAT, FUCK YOUR SO CALLED CONCERN!. AND IF THAT HURTS TO HEAR? GOOD! V HAVE DEALT WITH SO MUCH SHIT FROM PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO CONTRIBUTE TO VAR ONGOING DISTINTIGRATION!

V ARE *CHOOSING* TO DO WHAT V CAN TO *SURVIVE*, TO ENJOY LIFE TO NOT WANNA FUCKING DIE. THIS INCLUDES BEING PRODE OF WHO V ARE, AND FORGING VAR OWN PATH IN THE WORLD. TIRED OF LIVING FOR OTHER PEOPLES WANTS AND NEEDS, NOT VAR OWN.

KNOW FROM NOW ON IF YOU WISH TO INTERACT WITH VUS V WON'T AVOID AGGRESSION. V JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE THIS, TO SEE VUS AND MAYBE HAVE A CRACK IN YOUR REALITY. *TIPS HAT, SPeEeEeEEEeens OFF*

*note v have deemed you

a square 'anon' after flatland a square

[tremendouslyburningrebel]

about us

hi we are the star cloud collective we are a system with unkown alter count (were not keeping track of it at the moment but we have about 285 alters with about 50 of them being dormant). We have adhd and autism and use tone indicators when talking and in some need them in conversations.Also we wont put in this our frequnt hosts/fronters sinds they change a lot

(if you want to follow us on simply plural and on tiktok you can DM us so we can privitly send you our username)

Collective info (you can use this when you dont know who is fronting)

Name: star/nightfall/starlight

Pronouns: they/it/he/she/xe/star/void/space/moon/luna/sun/love/ cloud

disibiltys/disorders: adhd,autism,dyslexia,mad and undiginosed osdd

ethnicity´: white/european

age: 20

system blog: the-star-cloud-collective

queer labels we use

genderfluid

pangender

abroromantic

queer

polyamours

bounderies

dont aks about trauma

dont aks alters to front for you

bring syscourse to our blog

ask to talk to littles

BYF

we are pro pro smpec lesbian/gay,turigirls/lesboy,contradictory or complex labels, we are anti radqueer/transid. we are neutural on syscourse do to trauma surounding it but we lean more into the anti enod side of it, meanig that we dont believe that endo systems excist but we dont send them any hate. we dont believe that final fusion is a/the cure for DID/OSDD but support systems that want to acieve this even if its not our own goal.

(removed our DNI sinds we dont think that its something that works in general so we made a before you follow to give some info about certain things)

[ganondoodle]

(while i am crumbling into pieces from cramp pain)

back when they announced the totk masterworks book i said i wasnt happy about it bc it would either

prove they thought all this was good from the start and everything went as planned

show us that they had unbelievable better ideas and plans but for some unknow reason scrapped it all

as it stands now with the concepts i have seen ... they somehow did both, some things seemed to have been planned fro mthe start (the whole focus on sonau/zonai stuff for example, which i personally just dont like bc i liked them better as an unkown mystery you never get to meet) and other stuff (like ganondorfs concepts, or the infinitely cooler castle in the sky esque concepts for the sky islands, instead of some nonsensical, meaningless little stone crumbs) was much, much more interesting initially (together with the interviews that said they initially planned to have the battery be a magic meter and make the sonau more magic than tech- but then decided to build their stuff around modern electrical devices just so players would immediately know what it was an what it would do -why????? thats so boring?? and unecessary ?? and they still give you tutorials for it anyway, multiple times??!!- for some ungodly reason)

it makes me more and more sure that this game, that took 6 years to make with most assets already being there (the same time that botw took to make?????????), went through a similar development hell as that one final fantasy game did where the director decided to make it an entirely different game every few weeks bc he saw something cool in another game-

its the only thing that makes sense to me, why else would it be so weirdly ... unfinished, its full of grand ideas badly executed, or like i said in a previous post, like an alpha build (weird! did someone in charge also see cool stuff every few months and decide they wanted it in there too no matter what so everyone had to scramble to try and put it in making the whole jenga tower fall over and over??), just to test how far you can push things, with placeholders everywhere, the same cutscene pasted in where another should be and a placeholder reason to get players to go soemwhere (fake zelda) and rough ideas for puzzles etc, that was never finished, jsut highly polished (in looks, sounds and presentation) in hopes of it being 'good enough' or players not noticing (like, take the underground for example, the idea itself is fantastic and cool as fuck, but its feels like an idea that was never finished and just barely fileld with some things to try and cover up the fact that it was never done, like a statue that wasnt done being carved but ran out of time so they painted it anyway- take the base map and invert it, put some easily accessible points of jumping down into it in random spots to test if the game can handle it- no time left to actually get that idea anywhere more specific and well thought out/put together, so its left like that, put the same texture everywhere, barely modified copies of the same enemies, and some little reward spots that make no sense, modelling three types of trees and an enemy camp is way quicker to do than actually making an entire new map (they didnt have to make it the same size btw, just make it big but unique caves, put the gravity effect down there in enclosed spaces! makes it less weird to have randomly happen in the sky! etc) but its there!! its in the game and if they are lucky most players wont go down there enough to notice how meaningless and unfinished it all is)

knowing they would most likely never admit to it though, probably bc of their reputation, is just addign to the frustrations i have with it :I

(i just hate to not know the reason for things, if the devs, who are usually the ones being worked to the bone for things they know arent good, where put through that bc some executive big shot threw their tables around every so often or neglected their project bc they wanted to focus on something else first ... id like to know, i dont enjoy making up these conspiracy (?) theories .......... but i cant shake this feeling, its jsut makes no sense)

[bubbleonice]

Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet

I was interrupted so many times while doing this reading, it was insane. I had to start over and over. There’s a lot of disturbance amongst these two energies right now. I sense a disagreement, maybe even a huge argument between these two men. But let’s dive into the cards.

Armie Hammer:

Goddes of the unknown: a new chapter of Armie’s life is around the corner, he needs to remove fear and embrace the unkown. Only through darkness are we able to see the beautiful tapestry of light. Even he presently cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, he is being urged to trust. A major chapter in the story of his life has recently come to a close and an exciting new chapter is about to begin.

Shower of abundance: he is about to be guided as to how to create and accept abundance.

Create: it’s time to look beyond current cirumstances and use the power within to create new ones. There is more to his world than the present is offering. Armie is stuck in a rut, and he believes what he sees now is all there is. It’s time to break free from the drudgery and boredom that the same-old same-old offers.

Past: Through the power of love, he releases stagnant situations or energy in order to transform his heart space.

New Love: A new person is stirring his romantic feelings.

The Emperor: Authority, establishment, structure, a father figure. The Emperor suggests that you are adopting this fatherly role, providing for your family, and protecting and defending your loved ones. You may be the breadwinner or the ‘rock’ for those who rely on your stability and security. You listen to the advice of others, but you prefer to have the final say. Conflict doesn’t scare you, and you won’t hesitate to use your power to protect those you care about. And in return, those people will repay you with the loyalty and respect you deserve. The Emperor reflects a system bound by rules and regulations. You create law and order by applying principles or guidelines to a specific situation. Create calm out of chaos by breaking down any problem into its parts and then mapping out the actions you need to take to resolve it. Be systematic, strategic and highly organized in your approach, and stick to your plan until the end.

Page of wands: When you get the Page of Wands, it simply means something is within you, something that triggers you to make discoveries, indulge in investments or take the next advancement in life. You could be just about to take a move on a certain idea, but some conflicting messages keep coming to your mind, and you get discouraged. This card resembles your inner battles which are preventing you from expressing your heroism to the world, to let the world know that you exist for a reason.

His heart is telling him that life is a series of constantly shifting cycles. When we resist change, we resist the natural flow of life and create unnessary stress.

Armie feels the need of a change. He feels stuck and has felt stuck for a while. He is ready to gain back control of his life.

Timothee:

Goddess of sacred power: Timmy is being encouraged to take a leading role in his current situation. The current situation is in need of direction. It is not important who is right or wrong. What is important is that someone takes control. It is better to steer a ship somewhere, rather than have it drift aimlessly wherever the wind may blow.

Acceptance: see others with unconditional love and acceptance. That is how he lifts others to their highest potential.

Blow off some steem: something is bothering Timothee. His ego has been threatened so he has moved to fight or flight. His body is flooded with this hormone. He is filled with fear. He is likely to make rash decisionns, say things he doesn’t mean, draw conclusions that aren’t accurate and overreact. He needs to blow off some steam, punch a bag or something. Maybe hop in the shower snd scream at the top of his lungs. He needs to grumple to the heavens and let it all out. He is holding in a lot of anxiety and stress.

Worth waiting for: while Armie is in for a new love, Timothee’s contra argument is I am worth waiting for. I just need time.

The high Priestess reversed: Secrets, disconnected from intuition, withdrawal and silence. The High Priestess Reversed calls on Timothee to be still and direct his attention inward to listen to his voice and wisdom. He may be swayed by other people's opinions or swept up in their drama when what he really needs to do is focus on what is right for him. He has been told to follow his gut, but he may be ignoring the call. As far as feelings concerned, this card denotes a decisive lack of commitment. As much as he may feel that (in the case Armie) is an important part of his life, his feelings for Armie are blocked.

8 of pentacles: skill, talent, craftsmanship, quality, high standards, expertise, mastery, commitment, dedication, accomplishment. loving someone is like cultivating a skill. Learning to appreciate new sides of a love interest is something that can deepen your love for one another. In terms of love, his work may possibly be affecting his relationship. Regardless of how demanding his job is, he needs to make some time for his emotional connections with other people.

Queen of pentacles: In a general Tarot spread, the Queen of Pentacles represents high social status, prosperity, wealth, luxury, success and financial independence. Queen of Pentacles indicates that you can afford to be very selective when choosing a partner.

His heart is saying as follows: criticising one another will only lead to further unhappiness. Love and accept each other as you are and your relationship will magically transform.

I am also afraid to let you all know that I drew the twin flame card for this reading as well as Harry Styles and Taylor Russell. Some of you might think this is bullocks and I use this twinflame aspect just to prove a point.

But it’s true, the card came out. It was when I drew cards for Timothee. So this can either mean these two are twinflames, or, it is Timothee’s perception that they are. Interpreting the cards from this reading , they are telling me that their twinflame journey is somewhat a bit different than H and T’s. This twinflame relationship is in seperation. (That is if it is a Tw relation) As for now, these two are not on good terms. There’s distance, misunderstanding and a major argument going on. Maybe it is related to Kylie. But that would have to be a whole other reading to clarify.

I hope you enjoy this reading. And please keep in mind that this is done for entertainment purposes only. I use tarotcards and oracle cards actively in my readings, as well as my intuition. Energies come and go, what is relevant for today’s reading might change in a few weeks time. But some aspects will always remain constant and the same. Thank you.❤️