#a lot of translation channels also died

[taonpest]

Holy shit PinocchioP's Anonymous M..........

[mochacoda]

what is love? | chs

Pairing: Chwe Vernon x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: It’s been 2 days since you confessed to your best friend that you love him, and it’s been 2 days since you’ve talked to him. Now you're hiding in the bridal suite of your friend's wedding, avoiding him.

Content: Angst, Fluff, Comfort | Friends to Lovers

Tags: bridesmaid!reader, groomsman!vernon, insecure reader, jihyo appears, dino's getting married in this one lolz, intense pining, lots of internal spiraling, vernon's facial expressions get flamed, 2 kdrama fall moments, a little konglish w/ translations, a kiss, no "y/n"

Word Count: 6.4K

Masterlist

What is love? If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that it’s what you feel for Chwe Vernon. Unfortunately for you, though, you really didn’t know any better, and now you’re facing the consequences of your actions. 

It’s been two days since you confessed to your best friend that you love him, and it’s been two days since you’ve talked to the man. Honestly, you have no one to blame but yourself, but you’ve convinced yourself that it’s everyone else’s fault for encouraging you. Maybe, if they hadn’t kept pushing you to confess to him—insisting that he definitely was into you—then you wouldn’t be in this position. 

Said position involves taking turns hiding in the bridal suite and bathroom of this wedding venue. In fact, you’re so committed to your act that you’ve practically become one with the shadows.

If anything, Vernon should be grateful that you’re going out of your way to avoid him. That way, he wouldn’t get bombarded with the secondhand embarrassment from remembering that horrible day. 

The only reason you’re here right now is because both Chan and his bride are close friends of yours, and you wouldn’t want to miss their wedding for the world. Plus, you’re also a bridesmaid. 

It was on you for blurting a disastrous confession to Vernon a few hours after the wedding rehearsal. 

But the bride and groom don’t even know that things have changed between the two of you. Given the chaos of wedding preparations, you withheld the fact that you and Vernon are going through a rough patch right now—if not the end of the friendship entirely. You didn’t want to add to their stress, but now you feel like you’re on fire. 

After all, Vernon is one of the groomsmen. What’s worse is, the wedding plans involve bridesmaids and groomsmen walking down the aisle in pairs, and you’d been placed with Vernon without a second thought. 

In other words, you’re completely screwed. 

“T-minus 20,” your friend and fellow bridesmaid Jihyo says, nudging your side. “We should go now.”

You feel a faint pulsing at the forefront of your head, a headache creeping up on you. God, what if when he sees you, he shakes his head and makes an X or something with his hands, insisting that he won’t walk down with you? What if he finds you physically embarrassing to be around, and just walks away? You’ve been running away from him all day, so it might not be a stretch to consider that he might have been trying to get away from you, too. 

You groan, scrunching the root of your hair, somewhat messing up your carefully curled hair. No, he wouldn’t just leave, that would ruin the wedding. He has too much love for Chan to do that to him. If he protests, he’d either do it subtly right before or confront you after it’s all over. 

You shut your eyes and take a deep breath. No one knows about your falling out except for you. And, well, Vernon, of course, but that’s not who you have to keep this secret from. You have to do your best to act normal and not at all like your heart is on the verge of bursting. 

“Has anyone ever died of embarrassment?” you suddenly ask, fingers dancing to find something to channel your nervous energy into. You fist a bit of the dress you’re wearing, then release it when you realize you can’t wrinkle the pretty material. “Shit.” You smooth over the fabric with shaky, sweaty hands.

“What is going on with you?” Jihyo’s eyes narrow as she looks you over. 

“I’ll tell you later,” you manage, bouncing your leg up and down. 

“Later, as in when?” 

“After the wedding,” you grit. You want to bury your face in your hands, but the expensive makeup gives you pause. You settle for lowering your head, staring listlessly at the white tiles on the ground. 

“Is this about what happened with Vernon?” 

You whip your head up. “You know?”

Jihyo slowly blinks, then deadpans, “Uh, yeah? A, both of you have been weird. The last time I saw you two not together was like, five years ago. And B, you’re literally the least subtle person I’ve ever met.”

“Oh,” you squeak, then quickly ask, “Wait, what do you think happened with Vernon?”

She stares blankly at you, as if the answer is obvious. “You confessed. He said nothing. You ran away.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, eyes growing comically large. Then, a frown replaces your shock. You don’t need to ask her how she knows. If anything, it just adds to the notion that even your other friends knew that he would’ve rejected you.

Jihyo sighs, coming over to the loveseat to sit next to you. She gives you a warm side hug, rubbing your back. “He’s a massive idiot. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s just get it together for the wedding, hmm?”

You swallow roughly, then nod. 

She continues, “Seriously, though. I’ve known Vernon for almost as long as you have. He’s not great at talking when he’s caught off guard—you know that, too.”

You blink at her words, the tiniest spark of hope igniting in your chest. But you quickly stamp it out, remembering the face he had made when you blurted out that you loved him.

Brows furrowed, open-mouthed, eyes wide, dead silent—he had to have been looking at you with disgust. That was the only way any sane person could decipher that look, really! There was no way that that face was the look of a man who was in love with you, as your friends have claimed.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say, wrinkling your mouth into a smile that anyone could tell was faked. “I’ll get through it.”

“Yeah, it’s not that deep. Just walk down the aisle with him. It’ll take 10 seconds, tops.”

You’re very sure she’s exaggerating, but you wave it off. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” she says dryly.

You glare at her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good, that’s the right mentality,” she says, clasping your shoulders, shaking your upper body. “파이팅! [Fighting!]”

“해야지, [gotta do it,]” you mutter. 

Jihyo’s right. You’ll have to see Vernon anyway, so you might as well do it with as much dignity as you can scrap together. 

Except, the little dignity you have left demands some more time to procrastinate and linger in your regret.

Jihyo stands up from the couch, but you don’t. Your limbs feel impossibly heavy, as if they’ve been held down by a massive boulder.

You groan, “Just go without me, I’ll leave soon. I wanna go as late as possible.” 

Jihyo looks at you with what you can only describe as immense pity. “Okay. I’ll see you in five?” 

You nod numbly, watching her walk away to open the doors of the bridal suite. 

Vaguely, you can hear some absentminded chatter across the room from the hair and makeup artists, mother of the bride, and maid of honor, all crowded over the bride. It’s all but a buzz in the back of your mind, though, since you’re preoccupied with trying to convince yourself that you have it in you to face Vernon. Knowing you only have five minutes before needing to walk down the aisle with him, your mouth feels dry—too dry. 

At that realization, you force your heavy limbs to get up, then walk over the fancy rug to the table where a myriad of miscellaneous objects have been strewn about. You reach for your bag to take out your water bottle, but your hands falter when you look at the little keychain attached to the bag. 

It’s a silver charm bracelet you’ve repurposed as a bag charm. It has a turtle and retriever puppy on it, representing the animals you’ve viewed each other as being. Seeing the charms causes a pang of longing to cut deep into you, reminding you of how much you’ve missed him in the last two days. 

Could you ever forgive yourself for ruining your precious friendship? For getting too greedy, for asking for too much? 

Your hands grip the edge of the table roughly, searching for something to stabilize your body, which is dangerously teetering in the high heels you had convinced yourself you’d be able to walk properly in. You’d bought it because the color of the shoe perfectly matches your dress, but the razor thin heel is proving to be an issue. 

Subconsciously, your hand reaches out from the table corner to your bag, gently rubbing the golden retriever charm Vernon always said looked like you, and you’re hit with a sudden intense wave of sadness—but not for the confession. 

No, instead, you turn your regret to the insecure internal ramblings that have ravaged you lately. 

The earnest, bright eyes of the little puppy charm makes you conscious of the hollow ache spreading throughout your body. How could you have been so mean to your poor, fragile heart? 

Alright, maybe you and Vernon wouldn’t be friends anymore. Maybe you would have to live without seeing him ever again. 

But you’d have to live with yourself, and it wasn’t right to treat yourself like this. 

Technically, Vernon didn’t even say anything to you. He didn’t outright reject you just yet, and he certainly didn’t say you weren’t someone worthy of love. So it was completely unfair for you to jump to those conclusions yourself, putting words in his mouth. 

And most of all, it would be even more unfair to you, represented by this adorable puppy charm, to lose yourself to heartbreak. 

Straightening your back, your other hand reaches into your bag for your water bottle. Upon chugging the remainder of the water, you close your eyes, concentrating on making your pulse slow down. It works, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

You might have to live with the fallout of this confession, but you could also live with the truth. Loving Vernon wasn't a mistake, and it wouldn't feel like one, no matter how he responded. He deserved honesty, and you deserved to stand by it. Even if this was the end, you wanted to leave this part of your story knowing you'd done right by both of you. 

You nod to no one in particular, having made your mind up. After the wedding, you’ll go to him and be upfront about it all, bearing your soul to his response. 

For now, though, you’ll help him enjoy the wedding by continuing to stay out of his sight. If he can’t see you, he can’t get reminded of his need to reject you—which is important, of course, because you don’t want his memories of this wedding to be of you crying after he lets you down. 

With this renewed clarity, you steady yourself. Vernon doesn’t love you, and that’s okay. You’d do enough loving for the both of you.

────୨ৎ────

Vernon steps into the bridal suite, a thrum of nerves coursing through his veins. He’s spent the past half-hour searching for you in every nook and cranny of the venue, dodging curious glances and knowing jokes from the other groomsmen about his obvious distraction. Jihyo’s the one who finally pointed him in the right direction, murmuring something about how it’s been over five minutes, and how he’s the only one who can get you to show up.

When he sees you standing by the table, shoulders tense, your hands gripping the edge like it’s the only thing keeping you upright, his breath catches. There you are, beautiful and strong and fragile all at once, lost in your thoughts. His chest constricts. How did it come to this? How did the best thing in his life become the one thing he feels he’s on the verge of losing?

“Hey,” he says softly, taking a step forward, calling your name softly.

Your head snaps up at the sound of his voice, and the sudden movement sends you teetering in your high heels. Eyes wide, you twist toward him, your balance faltering. “Vernon?”

It happens in a split second. One of your heels trips on the edge of the rug, and you stumble forward. Vernon darts forward instinctively, grabbing you just before you hit the ground. His arms wrap around you tightly, steadying you.

For a moment, everything stops. Leaning against his chest, you can hear his heartbeat, a frantic rhythm that matches your own. God, your near face plant must have scared him a lot?

But just as you start to regain your footing, your heel accidentally digs into his foot, and he lets out a yelp of pain. 

The abrupt shift in weight sends him off balance, and the two of you tumble onto the floor in a tangled heap.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Vernon’s crazy seagull call of a laugh cuts through the tension. 

It’s infectious, and before you know it, you’re both laughing, the sound filling the room. It’s ridiculous, it’s messy, and it’s the most alive you’ve felt in days.

When your body relaxes all of its tension, you realize that you’ve missed him with every fiber of your being. That something in you has been waiting for him, like you’ve been in withdrawal without hearing his laughter in the last two days. 

You’d planned on continuing to avoid him until the end of the wedding, so that he could enjoy his night without you, but that idea is crumbling right before your eyes. You might not be able to bring yourself to stay away from him any longer. 

And then, oh, then—the laughter fades, and you realize how close you are. 

Vernon’s face is inches from yours, his warm breath fanning across your skin. His eyes, dark and soft, hold a depth of emotion that makes your stomach twist. And for a fleeting moment, you think you see something raw and unguarded in his gaze—something you’ve seen before. 

It’s how he looked when you confessed to him.

Your chest tightens, and your thoughts spiral. Is he mad, reminded of your confession? 

You scramble to put distance between you, pushing yourself off him and stepping back hastily. Too hastily, really.

“I’m so sorry,” you stammer, smoothing down the fabric of your dress as if that will somehow restore your composure. “I didn’t mean to, I swear—”

“It’s okay,” Vernon says gently, sitting up. 

He reaches an arm out for you, but you’ve already retreated several steps, an apologetic smile plastered on your face.

“We should get going,” you say, your tone overly formal. “It’s almost time.” Without waiting for his response, you turn on your heel and stride toward the door, your movements stiff and hurried.

Vernon watches you go, his hand dropping to his side. He flexes it, then exhales sharply, frustration bubbling beneath the surface of his calm exterior. 

You’re running again, and he’s running out of time to fix this. 

Pushing himself to his feet, he follows you out of the suite, his long strides easily catching up to you.

The two of you arrive at the line of bridesmaids and groomsmen just as the coordinator starts organizing everyone into pairs. You avoid Vernon’s gaze, your hands clasped tightly in front of you. 

But when it’s your turn to step forward, he’s there, holding out his hand to you. 

It shakes a little, and your breath hitches when you notice a flash of silver on his wrist. It’s a charm bracelet, and it’s unmistakably the same one you’ve kept on your bag for years, the little turtle and retriever puppy charms glinting under the soft light. 

Surely not? 

Surely, he doesn’t?

Tentatively, you place your hand in his, your fingers trembling. His grip is familiar, warm, and steady, grounding you even as your emotions threaten to overwhelm you. 

As you walk toward the aisle together, you don't look at whoever you're supposed to be looking at, whether it's the officiant or the people clapping in the crowd. Instead, your eyes are trained on the jewelry peeking out of his sleeve, and how his hand feels so soft and warm and dependable against yours. 

Then, it suddenly occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, you saw it wrong that day. Maybe he wasn’t looking at you like he was appalled by your audacity to tell him your feelings. He might have actually really been confused, allowing for you to misinterpret his surprise for rejection. 

But as soon as the thought enters your mind, you dismiss it. False hope definitely wouldn’t do anything for your precious feelings. Especially when the hope was that Vernon, of all people, would love you as much as you love him.

Desperately avoiding eye contact with the man in question, you stare straight at the bridesmaid-groomsman pair in front of you. 

If Vernon loved you back, then he’d say it. He’d show it somehow, some day. Today wasn’t that day, and that’s okay. 

You’d be alright without him, eventually. Probably. Hopefully?

With that rationale, you do your best to ignore your trembling legs, burning ears, and constricting chest. The bride and groom deserve a perfect procession, and you would play your role well. 

────୨ৎ────

It was a beautiful ceremony. And, three hours into the reception, you’re proud to say that you’ve survived. Promptly after the procession, you separated from Vernon, finding refuge within the bridesmaid group. Ever since, you’ve flitted around different tables, dancing with random people, all in the name of protecting him from seeing you. 

You’re actually incredible at avoiding people, if you do say so yourself. Every time you’ve seen Vernon within 50 feet of your vicinity, you’ve grabbed someone new to dance with or talk to. And for especially close calls, you’ve dragged Jihyo into the bathroom. 

This time, though, you’re hiding in the bathroom without her. She’d finally refused to go with you for the nth time. The brat had thrown you to the wolves, essentially. No girl code—the nerve of her!

Patting down the roots and length of your hair, which had gotten a bit frizzy, you stare at yourself blankly in the mirror, watching a shiver run down your spine from the cold air-conditioning blasting in the small space. 

Despite your efforts to calm down, a heavy sigh escapes your mouth, your shoulders feeling far too heavy. What are you doing, hiding?

God, you love him so much. So much that you’re willing to dance around him so he doesn’t get reminded of you, so that he doesn’t worry about how to reject you all night, so that he can just enjoy the wedding. 

What even is love? 

You’ve heard that love is sacrifice, and if what you feel is really love, then, well. You’ll have to try not to love anyone but yourself from now on, because unrequited love is somewhat horrible. 

You’ll get over him someday, right? 

Right?

Before you can psych yourself out of leaving the freezing but rather safe haven that is the restroom, you march over to the door with a new mantra. You shake your shoulders and roll your neck, cracking the joints in your fingers. 

“I’ll get over it,” you murmur. “I’m over it. I’m over it! Over, over, over.” 

Pushing the door open, you continue rambling to yourself. “I’ll get over it. Over, over, over, over...”

“Over what?” comes a familiar voice.

Oh, shit.

Wide-eyed, you look up to see Vernon blocking your way past the bathroom and back into the hallway leading to the reception. 

“Oh,” you gasp, limbs frozen. your eyes flit back to the door to the women’s restroom again, contemplating ditching him cheaply (again). 

Vernon steps closer, his gaze softening as he notices your hesitation. His voice is low and gentle—too gentle—when he speaks, almost as if he’s unsure how to break the silence.

"Hey," he says softly, his hand reaching out, fingers brushing against your arm. "You don't have to hide from me, y’know."

You glance up at him, your adrenaline flowing through your veins. You want to back away, to keep putting distance between you, but something about his insistent stare makes your legs freeze.

"I know it's been awkward," Vernon continues, his words more measured now. "But I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just—I just want to talk." He brings his right hand up to his chest, like he’s swearing that he speaks the truth. 

You shake your head, your voice trembling. "You don’t have to. I don’t want to make things worse."

Vernon furrows his brows, stepping closer, as if he can’t bear to see you pull away from him again. "You think that running away will fix it? You think I want you to hide from me?"

You swallow hard, avoiding his eyes. "I don't know. This is all new to me."

"Then let me say it.” Vernon’s voice is strangled. "I don’t want to lose you, okay? I didn’t want it to happen like this, I…” His voice trails off as he clenches his fists, shutting his eyes tightly before opening them again. “Please don’t think I shut you down, I just—I needed some time to process everything. I care about you a lot—so much more than I know how to show, sometimes. Or,” he huffs with red-rimmed eyes, “a lot of the time."

A silence settles between you, thick and heavy, but Vernon doesn’t seem to notice. He looks at you with downturned, shining eyes, and you feel your defenses slowly start to crumble. 

You’ve never seen him so devastated. 

"Come here," Vernon says softly, his arm reaching out to tug you closer, now fully clinging to your side. "Please don’t keep running. Please?” He says the last word like it’s a prayer—and, oh, is it a powerful one.

Every part of your body stiffens, caught off guard by how warm he is, then immediately relaxes at how gently he’s holding you, as if you would break if he held on any tighter.

"Please don’t run from me anymore," he whispers, his breath hot against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. 

You think you could melt into his arms, and it takes everything within you to trust him, to not back away like you have for the past two days. With each passing second, you feel your spine relaxing and leaning into his touch. Then, in the midst of your relaxation, it occurs to you that he’s awaiting your reply.

But before you can answer his pleas, the sound of hurried footsteps echoes through the hallway. Jumping apart like fugitives before the law, you both turn to see Jihyo skidding around the corner, her face flushed with panic.

“There you are!” she exclaims, eyes wide. “The bouquet toss is about to happen! Get over here!” 

Before you can even blink, Jihyo grabs your wrist, pulling you away from the delicate warmth of Vernon’s embrace. 

“Now!” she shouts. 

You twist your back around to send him a helpless look, and all he gives you is an encouraging nod and the cutest, awkward little wave. You see the sincerity in his boyish smile, which makes your chest feel tight, as if all the air had been sucked from the room. It’s bad enough for your delicate heart. 

But then, most wickedly, you catch the adorable, anxious eagerness in his crinkled, watery eyes—and, oh. 

It really is all over for you, isn’t it?

You really won’t be able to love anyone else, will you? 

There is no “getting over” Chwe Vernon.

The last threads of your resolve crumble as you follow Jihyo. You barely register the steps that lead you back into the grand reception hall. She has a vice grip on your wrist, tugging you along with such urgency that your shoes almost trip you on the way inside. The room hums with energy, and you can’t help but feel out of place in the frenzy of people excitedly whispering and glancing toward the front.

Everyone has gathered in a semi-circle, eager faces all pointed at the bride, who is holding the bouquet high above her head. Your pulse is speeding up by the second, but it’s not for the reason the other single women are likely nervous for. All you can think about is how you’ve been dragged here with nothing but the love you have for Vernon—a deep, endless kind that threatens to burst out of you in a wildly embarrassing public display of affection.

"You're gonna be fine," Jihyo says with a grin, though it’s a little too wide, too bright. You’re not sure if she’s referring to the Vernon fiasco or the bouquet toss, but you force a smile back at her anyway.

"Sure I am," you mumble under your breath. 

She doesn’t hear you, or if she does, she doesn’t acknowledge that she heard it. She’s already turned her attention back to the bride, her arm brushing yours as she steps forward, positioning herself with the other women who are trying to catch the bouquet.

You stand awkwardly behind her at the edge of the crowd of single women, feet shuffling, heart still pounding from your conversation with Vernon.

Then, the live orchestral music shifts, and you feel a slight weight in your stomach, despite knowing the chances of the bouquet toss heading your way is slim to none. Still, it’s happening now, and you’re now on the single ladies floor, so there’s no backing out.

When you shift your back to brush away some of the hair obscuring your vision, you make eye contact with the very man who has been occupying your every thought this evening. Vernon had probably followed you and Jihyo as she pulled you away, since he’s now standing near you. And, oh, he’s close—only an arm’s distance or so away from you, standing at the front of the larger crowd. 

The closer the moment of the throw gets, the harder it is to ignore his burning presence. He’s standing with a group of other men who are watching the floor full of gorgeous, single women, but his attention is entirely on you. 

A subtle smile plays at the corners of his mouth, and the air between the two of you suddenly feels too thick. You have so much to say to him, and you don’t know how to get it all out in an eloquent way. 

But your deliberation of what to say to him is cut short by the screams announcing that the bouquet has launched into the air. 

You lift your chin up, squinting as the light of the chandeliers temporarily blinds you. By the time you blink away the flashing spots in your vision, you see the trajectory of the bouquet. 

It arcs high above the crowd of waiting women, catching the light as it spins toward the back—toward you! If you don’t move, the bouquet will crash into your face. 

Your arms instinctively reach for the flowers, reaching beyond what you’d thought was capable for yourself. But the second after your back stretches and feet jump to accommodate the move, your left heel completely gives out, sending your balance completely off-kilter.

Your arms flail uselessly as your ankle sharply twists, and the world tips sideways. The air rushes past your face, cold and sharp, and you brace yourself for impact—ready to collide utterly gracelessly with the hard floor. But before gravity can win, a pair of strong hands clamps around your waist, arresting your fall with a jarring yet steady pull.

The warmth of his touch spreads like wildfire through the thin fabric of your dress, grounding you in an instant. Vernon’s hands are firm, almost possessive, his grip both steady and urgent, like he’s afraid to let go.

Your chest presses against his, the faint thud of his heartbeat syncing with the chaotic rhythm of your own. His scent hits you next—a subtle mix of cedarwood and something distinctly him, crisp and comforting all at once. The tension in your body melts slightly as his arms secure you closer, your trembling legs finding balance in his hold.

“Hey,” he says shyly, his breath fanning across the shell of your ear. It sends a shiver down your spine, his words calming and electrifying in equal measure.

Your fingers instinctively clutch at the lapels of his jacket, the soft fabric brushing against your palms, anchoring you to reality. His thumb brushes lightly against your side, the touch barely noticeable yet searing, and the warmth from his body radiates into yours like a shield against the world.

Slowly, he adjusts his grip, one hand sliding to the small of your back, the other ghosting against your shoulder as he steadies you on your feet. The gentleness of his movements is stark against the adrenaline roaring in your ears.

When you finally look up, your breath catches. His face is so close—closer than you were when you fell in the bridal suite, closer than you’ve ever been before. Close enough to see the individual strands of his long lashes, to see the beautiful shimmer in his brown eyes. His eyes, wide and searching, lock onto yours, the emotions swirling in their dark depths rendering you speechless.

“I’ve got you,” Vernon says, his voice barely more than a whisper, but the words reverberate through you like an earthquake. “다친 데 없어? [You’re not hurt, are you?]”

You shake your head without much thought, the back of your neck and your ears burning up at how tender his touch is. 

His fingers linger at your waist, the subtle pressure of his touch still burning against your skin. Even as he pulls away just enough to give you space, the absence of his warmth feels like a loss you’re not ready to accept. Without thinking, your hand darts out, fingertips brushing against the sleeve covering the charm bracelet you saw during the procession.

And that’s when you notice the bouquet—clutched awkwardly in your other hand, its delicate petals trembling just as much as you are. The flowers are slightly askew from the near disaster, and it all comes crashing down on you. 

You wince at the ridiculous public scene you’ve made, but the smile that spreads across Vernon’s face is enough to make you forget about everything, humiliation be damned.

“Perfect,” he says softly, though you can hear the teasing edge in his voice. “You got it, princess.” 

Princess, the joke he started calling you after Disney movie marathons in which you mocked the main characters always needing men to save them—you were definitely having a princess moment right now.

Vernon reaches to brush a strand of hair out of your face, and you feel your cheeks heat from the decidedly intimate nature of his touch. 

And that’s when the room erupts. 

Cheers fill the space as the guests begin clapping, laughing, and shouting in celebration. You see Chan whistle, while his newlywed wife shouts, “Finally!” The noise surges around you, but you can’t focus on anything except the way Vernon is looking at you.

You don’t know how on earth you could have misinterpreted it before—his wide eyes, slightly furrowed brows, half-open mouth. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly, and it’s suddenly clear he’s just as affected as you are. 

He’s looking at you like you’re the only one in the room, like you’re the only one he can see.

He’s looking at you in the same way you look at him.

Your breath catches in your throat as you stare past his shoulders to see the waiting eyes of the entire room. It’s as though they’ve known all along, most having been there to see the constant teasing, the not-so-secret glances exchanged, and the tension that’s been building for what feels like ages. Everyone knew before you two did, really.

The realization hits you all at once, and a nervous laugh escapes you. You’re caught in the act—the act of love—and there’s no denying it. 

You exchange an uncertain look with Vernon, and something flickers in his eyes. It’s something deeper, like the three words you told him two days ago, only to be met with silence.

“Looks like it’s fate, huh?” you joke weakly, shaking the bouquet, trying to regain some control over the situation. 

But Vernon doesn’t laugh. His expression just softens, and his voice is so, so deep when he speaks, it’s barely audible over the noise of the guests. “Y’know, you don’t have to joke your way out of this.”

You swallow hard, but before you can respond, he steps closer to you, his gaze unwavering, presence overwhelming. He reaches for your hand, gently pulling it into his, where it fits just so, and the warmth of his touch sends a wave of electricity through you.

“You know I’ve been looking for you, right?” Vernon continues, his voice slightly choked, making your chest tighten. “All day. All day, yesterday and today. I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything that day. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, I do,” he pauses, tightening his grasp on you. “It’s because I care too much, really.”

Your breath hitches. What is he saying? Your brain is practically numb from the excessive overthinking you’ve been doing for the past two days. He needs to just spell it out.

“What?”

Vernon exhales a short laugh, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His hands, buried deep in his coat pockets, tense visibly as his shoulders lift slightly. “I feel like you don’t get it,” he says softly, the words teetering on the edge of vulnerability.

Your heart skips a beat. “Get what?”

He looks at you—really looks at you, staring intensely into your eyes, weighing whether or not to say the next part. His jaw tightens for a brief second, the muscle flexing as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He pulls a hand out of his pocket, raking it through his hair. His fingers linger at the nape of his neck before dropping back to his side, curling loosely as though they’re bracing for impact.

“That I’m here for you,” Vernon says, his voice barely above a whisper. He steps closer, not quite closing the distance but close enough that you can feel the addictive heat radiating off of him. “That I’ve always been here for you. And not…” He clenches and unclenches his fists. “Not just as a friend.”

Your breath hitches, and you feel his gaze flicker to your lips for the briefest moment before darting back to your eyes. His own are wide, filled with uncertainty but also a quiet kind of determination.

He shifts again, this time slipping his other hand out of his pocket and holding it out, palm up, like an offering. His fingers twitch slightly, betraying his nerves, and you notice a faint redness creeping up his neck, the telltale signs of his composure cracking.

“I didn’t say anything sooner because…” His voice trails as he bites the inside of his cheek, eyes dropping to the ground. When he looks up again, his expression is raw and completely unguarded. “Because I didn’t want to mess things up. But I can’t keep telling myself I don’t feel this way. I’m sorry I’m so late.”  

Your chest tightens as his words settle over you, finally registering the weight of them.

“Please don’t get over me,” he says all at once, breathlessly. His eyes are shining, his gaze ever so hopeful.

His hand lingers in the space between you, waiting, hoping.

“Please?”

You stare at his outstretched hand in disbelief, limbs locked by pure shock. Is this real? 

You can feel the effort it’s taking for him to stay still, his thumb twitching every few seconds like he’s fighting the urge to pull away and retreat.

When you don’t immediately respond, Vernon exhales shakily and starts to pull his hand back, his lips parting as if to apologize. 

But before he can, your fingers move instinctively, brushing against his.

The contact is brief, but it’s enough to make him freeze. His eyes snap to yours, widening as if he doesn’t quite believe what just happened. Slowly, hesitantly, his fingers curl around yours, the warmth of his touch steadying you as much as it does him.

“I mean it. I don’t want you to move on, because I love you,” he says shakily. “I’m in love with you, and I don’t know if you still feel that way for me, but… I need you to know how I feel.”

In the depths of his eyes, you see the vulnerability he’s always tried to hide, the intensity of the emotions he’s been holding back for so long.

And it’s as if the whole room vanishes, leaving just the two of you standing there. The bouquet is forgotten, and so are the guests, their cheers having long faded into the background.

Your heart feels as though it’s about to explode from your chest, but the words spill out before you can think. “I love you, too.”

Vernon brightens, eyes lighting up his, his grin stretching from ear to ear, and you fold. He’s handsome and sweet and a little awkward and brilliant—and yours.

Before your next breath, he’s leaning forward, closing the distance between you. 

His lips meet yours in a kiss so soft, so gentle, that you barely feel it at all. Impatient, you eagerly lift your chin up for more of him. Wrapping your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss—oh, is it something to live for. You never want to let go. He tastes like chocolate and feels like a dream come true—he’s your very own prince, if you’re the princess. 

It feels like the world has finally clicked into place. You and Vernon are on the same page, and it’s indescribable, really.

When the roaring in your ears subsides, you hear some wolf whistles, and you suddenly realize where you are. You barely bring yourself to pull a few inches away from him, laughing softly, and he smiles, his eyes sparkling with so, so much warmth and love. It’s all for you. And you realize that here, in his arms, you feel full. You feel so warm, so cared for.

This, this is love. 

Masterlist

Author's Note: he's a bit of a loser in this, but i think he made up for it

Disclaimer: nothing i write is representative of how svt acts off camera, take their names as stand-ins for oc's!!

Taglist: @syluslittlecrows - @junplusone

[renshengs]

Hi!! I see you post occasionally about cdramas. I went to China this summer and I learned a little Mandarin (like enough to say, “I don’t speak good Mandarin.”) Would I be able to muddle through cdramas with captions? (Also any suggestions on which ones to watch and where to watch them?). Thanks so much <3

ooh i hope you had lots of fun there! with subtitles i think you could absolutely make it through most cdramas; it depends on how good the subs are, honestly, because alas translating mandarin chinese to english (or any latin-based language, for that matter) is i think one of the most difficult language translations possible because the chinese language is just so rife with chengyu (idioms).

as for recs, i do have a handful i watched recently enough that i feel more confident in trusting my own taste LOL. i almost exclusively watch historical dramas, so these are definitely going to be very skewed to my personal preferences.

also, this will be long because i love my cdramas. bear with me!

word of honor/山河令 (2021)

episodes: 36

genre: wuxia (chinese martial arts fantasy; think of crouching tiger hidden dragon), dangai (cdrama adapted from a chinese gay romance novel), adventure, political intrigue

arguably the most explicitly gay cdrama that's come out in the last decade despite censorship issues in chinese tv broadcasting

a lonely ex-assassin retires and begins a slow 1-year suicide by poison, but his death plan is interrupted by a flirtatious (& dangerous) man with a mysterious background + a newly orphaned kid he accidentally becomes responsible for. cue politics and drama!

if you don't mind dealing with low-budget CGI—though the show is so immersive it hardly makes a difference—the story features: fascinating & subversive themes about life & morality, a well-written cast of bloodthirsty women, an incredibly charming found family, and an absolutely fantastic, dramatic, devoted slow burn between the two male leads

if you prefer more mature romance—lots of flirting & sexual tension between two highly intelligent & capable men who are 1) attracted to each other from the get-go 2) constantly trying to outmaneuver each other & figure each other out... this is the one!

if it means anything, i am recommending this one first because it's my all-time favorite cdrama! especially if you are queer like me :)

you can watch it subtitled on netflix or fully free & subtitled in HD on the official youku youtube channel

the double/墨雨云间 (2024)

episodes: 40

genre: historical, romance, political intrigue

if you too are tired of stories about shallow, badly-written girlbosses with no dimension... this is the show for you!

protagonist is a happy woman who gets framed for adultery & buried alive by her husband—she survives and returns to enact revenge upon those who hurt her & her loved ones by assuming the identity of the young woman who died saving her. she makes many enemies and allies along the way + catches the attention of the emperor's notoriously cold & keen-eyed right hand man, duke su, who eventually becomes her very supportive love interest <3

high stakes & a plot that makes you hold your breath, GORGEOUS cinematography

a long list of complex and important female characters, most of them nasty and corrupt, all of them sympathetic and interesting. the show is good at making you assume at first that their characters won't be done justice, but just wait :)

from your resident het romance skeptic: excellent dynamic! protagonist and her duke are both confident, calculating schemers always trying to outsmart each other, but eventually join hands against common enemies. extremely slow burn with lots of tension and a refreshing lack of miscommunication

you can watch with subtitles on netflix, youku, and definitely some p/racy sites for east asian dramas

mysterious lotus casebook/莲花楼 (2023)

episodes: 40

genre: wuxia, adventure, mystery

a heroic & famous swordsman suffers a defeat at the hands of his nemesis and vanishes and is widely presumed dead. timeskip a decade, he's been living in disguise as a doctor to escape the burden of his identity when the past he's been hiding from starts to catch up to him when he scams a talented & stubborn young swordsman whose past is connected to his

if you like sly 30 yr old protagonists, identity shenanigans, & mystery-solving with gay polycule undertones, this is the one for you!

as for potential shipping: if you like age gap stuff and/or devoted puppyboys and/or "A has idolized B (adult) since they were a child; now A is grown-up and wants to protect B" trope. OR if you like 30 yr old nemeses who act divorced. the 3 main guys all have chemistry; pick and choose your ship at will!

to save text, last year i made a passionate powerpoint post explaining the whole show, spoiler-free, in more detail!

you can watch it with subtitles on iqiyi for free or on aforementioned [redacted] sites

love between fairy and devil/苍兰诀 (2022)

episodes: 36

genre: romance, xianxia (chinese high fantasy), adventure

high budget CGI? in MY cdrama? it's more likely than you think!

please ignore the horrendous english title. a translation of the original chinese would be "the parting/goodbye of canglan", canglan being the main characters. the story is tragic but ends happily!

on the surface appears like an old-fashioned good girl x bad boy love story, but is far more emotionally interesting & 100% deserving of its sheer popularity

brave & kindhearted low-ranking 1,500 yr old orchid fairy spirit accidentally soulbonds with a 30,000 yr old demon lord war prisoner who just happens to be the nemesis of her realm, except she reaps all the benefits and he just suffers (hilariously)

very star-crossed, VERY funny bodyswapping, & with far more heart and consistency than many people assume. the romance is difficult in ways that make sense! genuinely thought my picky ass would not be charmed by this show and found myself fully crying by episode 8

oh, and gloriously stunning costuming. everyone looks good, all the time, even when they're covered in blood <3

if you're interested, here is the powerpoint post that convinced me!

you can watch with subtitles on netflix, or iqiyi & viki for free!

a journey to love/一念关山 (2023)

episodes: 40

genre: historical, romance, adventure, political intrigue

also female-centric! an infamous and deeply complex assassin protagonist hellbent on revenge against the people who framed her finds herself making a deal to train a timid princess into becoming a political force of nature, ft. her supportive and equally capable male love interest, his group of incredibly lovable and memorable best bros, a gorgeous cutthroat young marquis with an oedipus complex & a complicated backstory (who absolutely steals the show whenever he shows up), & a headstrong tomboy princess with a sweet and loyal heart

a fast-paced plot that never drags + excellent soundtrack + incredible action scenes + a genuinely convincing crossdressing plot where the female character actually passes as a man

unreasonably funny considering the political drama. i truly cannot understate how Fun this was to watch, especially if you like deadly domineering women who are badly socialized and hilarious, and female characters establishing positive and meaningful bonds with each other.

if you've never watched a cdrama, i will warn that most of them Do Not Pull Their Punches when it comes to making viewers cry. this one has shakespearian tragedy levels of death, including of major characters

you can watch with subtitles on iqiyi, and i'm sure some [redacted] sites also

hoping this list can be of help to you, anon! i cannot state how happy it makes me to see anyone express an interest in watching cdramas. i grew up on them, their long dramatic storylines and star-crossed romances, and they shaped my taste in fiction in more ways than i can say. if at any point you get around to watching any of these, feel free to yell in my inbox about it, and most importantly have fun and enjoy! <3

[thesmpisonfire]

Okay so, I wanna talk about my sonboy Richas, my guy Felps, their relationship, and everything about yesterday as well

So, lets go :D

First thing, Felps actually really don't like taking care of Richas when he's without his armor

Felps has the terrible memory of being the one (together with Cellbit) to watch Richas first death. The three were at a cave and Felps and Cellbit were taken down first and had to watch Richas getting swarmed and die far from their grasp

The death was reverted, but still, when Felps logged in next time, Richas had JUST died to the bull again, so he already had 1 life. It was the very same day, just a couple hours after. Felps always reinforced about the armor, to the point he didn't let Richas take it off even when safe at Foolishs place when he could see Leo didn't wear it

Felps fucking loves that kid, he's just the quieter dad. He won't scream that much, when he panics, he shuts down and focus on the problem. He's the best dad to talk about feelings and often is the one who talks Richas out of his spiraling self deprecating thoughts, while other dads don't have the same touch

Felps has the patience to talk with Richas and hear Richas points. He always is the one talking him into a shower even if it takes a whole trip beforehand so Richas can have fun before it. He sings a lil song to get him through a shower. Ever since he came back from the lab, he trusts Richas a lot with his own strength, he knows Richas can defend himself even better than Felps can defend himself

It means a lot that Felps is the only dad Richas will listen to more easily, even if sometimes it takes a lot of talk and bargain to do so. Richas is a difficult kid, he channels all his sadness and pain into being silly and overly courageous, which means he will be a disobedient kid, he will put himself in danger, he won't listen to his dads if he can make a joke about it and it has been getting worse lately

Richas is Not doing okay, he's constantly scared of losing the ones he love, he feels easily replaceable which makes him panic and act out in 'jealousy'. He has said before he fears his siblings don't really like him and it's why he always wants to have family around, he knows he's a problem and has even apologized to Bad about it once. He thinks he can't express his love through words when he has written so many beautiful things, he paints bc its how he thinks he can better translate his care

Yesterday, after Bad took him and Felps to the graveyard and out of it, Richas went back with Felps and put some flowers around their graves. A small talk started when Felps wondered if the dead eggs were looking down at them, but also couldn't really believe it because they'd be too far up there to actually see anything. Richas then said how people used to tell him Bobby was up in between the stars, but they stopped telling him that 'story'. Then, this talk happened

"Do you think they'd [Dead eggs Richas never met] like me?"

"Ofc they would! Everyone loves you! They'd love you, Richas"

"If I had died today, would I meet them?"

Felps goes quiet for a couple seconds here, then goes back to talking

"Maybe, maybe not. We can never be sure, Richas. What if you died and it's just nothing after, huh? It's a big bet. You can't keep thinking like that and then go throw yourself in front of a zombie horse to find out if they're at the other side"

"Yeah, I wouldn't be able to annoy all the dads, it wouldn't be worth it... I'd miss you all so much" (He used the word saudade)

"Awwn... But you would be dead, Richas. We would be the ones missing you, we would be the ones staying behind"

And to me this is a very telling moment. Because Richas didn't realize people would miss him as well, he just thought about how he'd miss being with the others. He also says how he'd be in hell, missing his family but also laughing at tragedy. When Felps asks why hell, Richas goes "You really think I'd end up in heaven? With the way I am?"

Felps spends the rest of the stream hyping Richas up, telling him how much he's loved and how much everyone cares for him. Felps manages to get through Richas after a while, and they have a nice moment together. Richas already arrived to the square without armor, after having recently argued with Forever about it, and Felps didn't mind bc that area was all lightened up so less mobs were spawning, plus the aforementioned trusts he has on Richas

No one expected the horse because it came from outside the square, right out the border, and literally fell on top of them. Felps was quick to go after it, and Richas was caught out of surprise and got height damage as well, eating through 2 totems (and also having to switch out the other ones from his hand due to the rule)

Felps was smart about the horse, he always hit up high so there wouldn't be any risk of a misclick, he hit crit after crit pushing the horse away so he could better kill it without risking Richas, and he did it! I understand BBHs scare but everything was already solved and Richas was halfway being revived already

If anything, the trip to the cemetery scared Felps more than it did Richas. Richas is well used to the threat of death, he plays with it by jumping into mines and purposefully walking without armor around Forever. But Felps isn't. He wants his kid safe, he wants him alive. Felps was willing to never come back if it meant Richas could have an extra life, he would die over and over for that kid

After everything, he talked with Richas, and the kid didn't rlly need to be convinced to wear his armor now that he knew how the square can be tricky. Felps didn't need to yell, or compare Richas to anyone, or play lil games. Just a talk, and Felps' trust that Richa would now do his part, and he did!

Each mob they encountered next, Richas and Felps stayed side by side. Felps let Richas kill them first bc he knows Richas likes it, but always helping and telling him how he was doing it well. When they were rowing around later in the boat, music playing, Felps went on about how it was all that mattered

Richas was alive, Felps was alive, they got a scare but they were okay now. And it was all worth it for these calm, happy moments. These were the ones that should be remembered, the ones that made it all worth it

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Some books and stories that I think are worth reading in conversation with Yellowjackets

Shirley Jackson, all works but especially The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson might or might not need any introduction in this fandom. The Sundial is her take on doomsday preppers, Hill House is of course her haunted house novel (one of the classics of that genre), and Castle has a female protagonist who makes Shauna look like a plaster saint.

Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away. O'Connor's work has some of the most pervasive darkness and brutality of any major American writer (maybe Ambrose Bierce comes close), and the second of two novels that she completed before her death is no exception. (The first, Wise Blood, is also very good; the intended third, Why Do the Heathen Rage?, only exists as a fragmentary short story.) Francis Marion Tarwater is kidnapped and raised in the woods by his great-uncle, who is convinced that Francis is destined to be a prophet. The great-uncle's death commences a bizarre adventure involving auditory hallucinations, sinister truckers, an evil social worker, arson, developmental disabilities, and baptizing and drowning someone at the same time. Content warnings for all of the above plus rape. O'Connor is also a fairly racist author by today's standards--she was a white Southerner who died in 1964--so keep that in mind as well.

Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness. Teenage protagonist is schizophrenic and also a channel for a genuinely supernatural force; well-intentioned but poorly-considered efforts to treat one of these issues make the other worse. Sound familiar? There are supporting characters who are affectionate parodies of Slavoj Zizek and Marie Kondo. A minor character is a middle-aged lesbian who cruises dating apps for hookups with much younger women. Some people find this book preachy and overwritten, but I really like it and would plug it even if I didn't because the author is someone whom I've met and who has been supportive of my own writing.

Yukio Mishima, The Decay of the Angel. Can be read in translation or in the original Japanese. This is the fourth and last book in a series called The Sea of Fertility but I wouldn't necessarily recommend the first three as particularly YJ-ish; Decay is because it deals at great length with issues of doubt and ambiguity about whether or not a genuinely held, but personally damaging, spiritual and religious belief is true. There's also more (as Randy Walsh would put it) lezzy stuff than is usual for Mishima, a gay man. Content warnings for elder abuse, sexual abuse of both children and vulnerable adults in previous books in the series, forced abortion in the first book if you decide to read the whole thing from the beginning, and the fact that in addition to being a great novelist the author was also a far-right political personality.

Howard Frank Mosher, Where the Rivers Flow North. An elderly Vermont lumberjack and his Native American common-law wife refuse to sell their land to a development company that wants to build a hydroelectric power plant. Tragedy ensues. I haven't read this one in a long time but some images from the movie stick in my mind as YJ-y. Lots of fire, water, and trees.

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers. Yes, this is the same Leonard Cohen who later transitioned into songwriting and became a household name in that art form. Beautiful Losers is a very weird, very horny novel that he wrote as a young man; it deals with the submerged darkness and internal tension within Canadian and specifically Quebecois society. One of the main characters is Kateri Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Iroquois convert to Catholicism who was probably a lesbian in real life (although Cohen unfortunately seems unaware of this). This one actually shows up YJ directly; the song "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" that plays in the season 2 finale takes its lyrics from a particularly strange passage.

Monica Ojeda, Jawbone. Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. Extremely-online teenage girls at a posh bilingual Catholic high school in Ecuador start their own cult based on such time-honored fodder as Herman Melville novels, internet creepypasta (no, this book does not look or feel anything like Otherside Picnic), and their repressed but increasingly obvious desire for one another. The last part in particular gets the attention of their English teacher, whose own obsessive internalized homophobia grows into one of the most horrifying monstrous versions of itself I've ever read. Content warning for just about everything that could possibly imply, but especially involuntary confinement, religious and medical abuse, and a final chapter that I don't even know how to describe. Many thanks to @maryblackwood for introducing me to this one.

Jorge Luis Borges, lots of his works but especially "The Aleph," "The Cult of the Phoenix," and "The South." Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. The three works I list are all short stories. The first deals with mystical experiences and the comprehensibility (or lack thereof) of the universe, the second with coded and submerged references to sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular, the third with leaving your well-appointed city home for a ranch in the middle of nowhere and almost immediately dying in a knife fight, which is surely a very YJ series of things to do.

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Dreams in the Witch House," and "The Thing on the Doorstep." Lovecraft in general needs no introduction--the creepiness, the moroseness, the New Englandness, the purple heliotrope prose, his intense racism (recanted late in life but not in time to make any difference in his reception history) and the way his work reflects his fear of the Other. These short stories are noteworthy for having settings that are more woodsy and less maritime than is usual for Lovecraft's New England, for overtones of the supernatural rather than merely the alien, for featuring some of his few interesting female characters, and for their relative lack of obvious racial nastiness. Caveat lector nevertheless.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. It's Moby-Dick. Once you realize that Captain Ahab is forming a cult around the whale and his obsession with it you can't unrealize it.

[fairuzfan]

My country has only been independent for 39 years now. Generally, it is known to be a very boring and strict country, since there is not much to do here in terms of typical entertainment - no concerts, extravagant malls, and so on. Some want to move out once they can find a job overseas. There are also concerns that the youth are more fluent in English than our native language. It bothers me a lot and I am afraid we will lose our identity and culture.

However, ever since the recent surge in support of Palestine, my perspective has since changed on the matter. I have found myself deeply affected by how strongly Palestinians are fighting for their home. Rather than feeling pessimistic about a future possibility, I now feel I should channel all that emotion into appreciating our traditions and further understanding our language. And if I think about it, compared to those who want to leave, plenty of people are living happy and peaceful lives here, and so much of the youth if working toward the development of the country. Many of us will continue to be here like we always have.

We have an idiom - “hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri, lebih baik di negeri sendiri”, which roughly translates to “raining gold in a foreign country, raining rocks in your own country, it is better to stay in your own country”. It is our home after all and we belong here, and we must appreciate and protect what we have. Whatever happens in our land we will stay. It is only recently that I felt the meaning behind this idiom in my bones, and it is the Palestinians I must thank for it. Many of my people will agree with this sentiment.

I am still young. I’m still looking for a university to go to, and I have a whole life ahead of me. But I hope I can carry the conviction I found in these past few months with me for the rest of my life.

Insya Allah we will see a free Palestine in our lifetimes.

I hope truly, truly, that you have a wonderful life in your country as you flourish to do all the things you want to do while celebrating your heritage. InshaAllah we will all live in a world that is free and filled with self love. Thank you for sending this.

[twistedblunderhand]

Overblotters watching disney/pixar movies

this might be a series but idrk, it depends how lazy we are or not lol ((also spoilers for the movies obviously)) Riddle: Tangled - would probably have to watch it with someone else or in a group, since hes not used to watching movies for fun, especially on his own - listened to "mother knows best" and understands it so hard - scoffs at when Flynn and Rapunzel run from the law/break the law - cries or almost cries when Flynn gets really hurt - cheers when the mom dies - afterwards gets into the stars a bit and studies some star charts Leona: Encanto - like riddle, would probably have to be shown it. that or it came on and he was too lazy to change the channel - will probably need to be convinced not to fall asleep tbh - assuming he does pay attention, he wont mention it, but he feels seen by Mirabel - probably would have a black/white view of the abuela till someone talks about the nuance - you might hear him humming some of the songs under his breath afterwards, but he'd deny it - probably would show it to Cheka when babysitting Azul: Luca - would watch it to somehow profit off of it or cuz someone showed it to him - he'd love Giulia both for standing up for herself and others and also making a profit, being both impressed and wished he knew someone like her growing up - if hes alone, would cry so hard at the ending tbh. if he was with others, he'd probably step out for a sec or hide it - he'd probably put pasta on the menu of the lounge afterwards - "so.. theyre gay right?" Jamil: Soul - either watched it because kalim showed it to him, or he was forced to take a break ((could be alone or with someone else)) - loves the music in the movie and that the character has such a passion for it - probably thinks 22 is annoying at first tbh - That one part where Joe realizes its the little things worth living and is playing the piano thinking about all of the things 22 picked up, he cries so hard. he dosent realize why at first, but it just kind of comes out all at once - would probably try to take things a bit slower for a day or two afterwards Vil: Ratatouille - watched it either because he just wanted to or as a group activity - probably knows a bit of french and so translates parts he can in the song when watching with someone else - hed love the theme about passions - knows a lot of movie trivia so would point it out if watching with someone else Idia: Turning Red - probably just bored and turned it on at random - Relates so hard to Mei, especially with all of the "I grew up in Y2K" stuff - that scene where she was drawing her crush? he audibly screamed because he KNOWS. he UNDERSTANDS - He'd probably relate with the "generational curse and trying to adapt" but its not a 1:1 parallel obviously - would for sure listen to 4 town on his own afterwards Malleus: Wall-E - had to be shown it, which also makes it much more special to him so he would be extra attentive to the movie - Loves the animation so much. Im going to assume hes never seen a movie before, so its really beautiful - would feel so much connection to Wall-E, especially with the "being alone and wanting connection really badly" thing - Afterwards would probably thank whoever showed it to him, and the next few days he'd go star gazing - also hed ask to see more movies lol

[asha-mage]

Lesbian Rand AU?

[Send me a potential AU and I'll answer with five things from that story!]

Oh boy, here we go-

A lot depends on the setup. A big part of Rand's character is reckoning with the failures of his past life and the foundation of a lot the interesting ways Jordan interrogates the gender binary is built on the idea that those mistakes are a remix of Paradise Lost/The Fall. LTT is at both at once Eve and Lucifer. Eve in that he acts without the consent or permission of his other half (Latra Posae Decume- the Adam of this version) and runs of on his own in defiance of her will. Lucifier in that in his pride, he believes he can match or surpass the Creator, by attempting to Seal the Bore with only saidin. As a result, paradise is lost- the AoL is destroyed in the breaking by LTT's sin, an entire Age results where all men take the blame to a greater or lesser extent, for the original sin of one man. Of course, Jordan isn't just running with this premise as simple fact- he's interrogating the idea of original sin, salvation, and redemption and raising inherent and complicating questions. Does it make a difference that LTT's intentions where pure and genuine? That he didn't know and couldn't have predicted the consequences of his actions? How does Rand suffering for LTT's do any justice to those who suffered and died in the Breaking? Is chasing the splendor of an Age that could shatter so easily even a worthwhile endeavor, or should the focus be on letting go of the past and building something new? Does that mean forgetting and forgiving and is that fair?

All this to say is that, I think for a Lesbian Rand AU to work the story would probably need a reversed gender dynamic to the one that is present in the books- which I don't know that I could ever write both because it would veer very uncomfortably close to the most misogynistic elements of our own historical societies, and probably have to exceed them in brutality to work (something I'm not very good at, since a lot of my world building energy is usually directed at reshaping and re interpenetrating those historical societies through more queer and equitable lenses), and because a lot of what I connect to in Rand's story has a lot to do with the specifically queer male reading of it. That said if I could or would do that, I think it could also work very effectively as a queer female reading in the same thematic ways.

Rand and male channelers in general in the WoT verse already fulfill a lot of the tropes commonly associated with medieval witches- individuals tainted by an otherworldly power that is poorly understood and inherently transgressive to the gender roles of their society, as well as threat to the established social order (to put it mildly). It's not hard to translate that to a theoretically tainted saidar and the feelings of a resulting broken world onto a theoretical female Dragon. Rand in this context fulfills a pretty familiar role- Joan of Arc, Himiko of Yamatai, Elizabeth Woodvile, etc- savior and hero to some, witch and monster to others.

My brain of course goes to female Mat to be Rand's love interest in this AU- trickster and guile heroine. Mat's specific brand is easy to imagine transcending into a female character in a strict patriarchy, both because Mat's role in the series is already pretty gender transgressive (as befits a trickster shapeshifting archetype), and because it's easy to imagine again that simmering homoerotic temptation Mat and Rand's relationship inherently invokes, but gender flipped: Mat representing a liberation a refusal of the traditional gender roles that Rand can't quite decide if she truly wants or only wants because she was raised to want them. Rand specifically being homosexual rather then my bisexual head canon means that, I would probably air on the side of it being compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity- and genuinely wanting the life of adventure and liberty offered by Mat's promises of running away together.

I could also see Min (again as her Gender Weird makes her surprisingly easy to translate into a traditional patriarchy without loosing core elements of her character) as Rand's love interest- again in largely the same role as the series. Someone who Rand could just be....herself around, who couldn't overawed or terrified or brow beaten into seeing a monster, but rather just a person- a woman sacred and overwhelmed and being crushed by the expectations of a savior, and all the fears of being a monster. Conversely I don't know that either Avihenda or Elayne's relationships would still function the same- not without flipping their genders as well which defeats the idea of the premise. A few extra thoughts (since 1 and 2 are basically just big disclaimers)-

While I find the idea of Lesbian Rand having to learn from Short Gay Ball of Anger Uncle Moiraine very funny conceptually (Moiraine is already a pretty strong riff of mentor characters like Obi Wan and Gandfalf, but genderflipped, and I find the idea flipping that back but keeping the more unique aspects of Moiraine's character to be interesting), I also can't help but find the idea of Moiraine as an older, slightly rattled/mad, female wilder Moiraine with the same motivation as in the series just as intriguing as a mentor figure to Lesbian Rand. It would give the entire series a very different vibe, but that's just a natural outcome of the premise as well. I once said Moiraine is a woman who, if she had be born into a patriarchy would have easily been burned as a witch- but the truth is, the idea of Moiraine as a witch to clever to burn, a witch who is surviving the curse of her power, and struggling to see the savior who may yet be able to reverse that curse and save their world...their is an Appeal There.

It's scary conversely, how easy it is to fit the Aes Sedai in general into a gender flipped Randland, and I think speaks to how effectively Jordan wrote them and their institutional flaws. Mired in traditions, secure in their power, comfortable in ordering the world to their will- a mix between the Catholic Church and an order of magi, angry and resistant to reform and change that alters the base of their power, presided over by ancient and yet ageless cabals of entrenched elders. The scene, easily one of my favorites, in the series, in Fal Dara, is almost sickeningly easy to imagine with the genders flipped- a young woman still bright eyed and scarred of what she is and what she is capable of, with three thousand years of tales of women going mad from power, declaring themselves the Dragon falsely in greed and lust for power and leaving the world to suffer for it, walking into a a room with three ancient wizards who tell her that this is her fate, to be this messiah and destroyer both, it hits sharply and exactly the right way.

Again, I don't know that I would do it, and I find what Jordan is doing with gender and sexuality already in the Wot Books inherently more interesting and....less....I don't know sticky? But it's a fun thought exercise.

[chernobog13]

SUPERARGO vs. DIABOLICUS (1966)

What do you get when you mix masked wrestlers, spies, superheroes, and a total disregard for logic and common sense?

This crazy flick, featuring a hero who is equal parts Santo, James Bond, and Batman. I first discovered this bizarre Italian/Spanish co-production on New York City's Channel 5 Saturday movies at noon (where I first encountered the Starman series of films) when I was a wee lad. So many, many, many years ago.

German lobby card for Superargo Versus Diabolicus. The German title translates to The Red Phantom Strikes.

Superargo is a masked wrestler, like Mexico's Santo. In fact, he's the World Champion, having one 123 matches in a row. Also like Santo, he never removes his mask. However, where Santo will wear suits and regular clothes with his mask, Superargo NEVER takes his costume off.

Superargo's girlfriend, Lydia, encouraging her sweetie to mow down some bad guys.

In the opening of the film Superargo is in the wrestling ring defending his title from the vicious El Tigre. Superargo defeats El Tigre by throwing him out of the ring. However, El Tigre lands on his head and dies. Wracked with guilt, Superargo quits and spends the next several days moping about his house - still in his mask and costume!

Diabolicus preparing to torture Superargo.

His girlfriend, Lydia, can't stand to see him in such a state. She puts Superargo in touch with an old friend, who is now in charge of the Secret Service. Seems there's a problem with some villain named Diabolicus that the Service needs help with, and Superargo is just the man they need.

It's then that we learn that Superargo is not just any masked wrestler. He has greater-than-normal strength; super stamina; his blood coagulates super fast, so wounds heal almost instantaneously; he can hold his breath for longer than 7 minutes; he is immune to extreme hot and cold; and he can regulate his blood pressure to stay normal even under great exertion. He is vulnerable to electricity (aren't we all?) but, while it can hurt him, it can't kill him.

He is also allergic to bullets. So the Secret Service outfits him with a new, bulletproof costume, as well as several gadgets typical of the spy movies of the day, including a Geiger counter disguised as a cocktail olive! To sweeten the deal, they also throw in a nifty new sports car. Then Superargo is sent on his way to track down and stop Diabolicus' mad plan for world domination.

"What is that plan?" you ask.

Well, in a nutshell, Diabolicus had discovered a way to turn base metals into gold. He then wants to flood the markets with the gold, destroying the world economy and bringing civilization to its knees.

There is just one problem: in order to make the fake gold Diabolicus needs plutonium. Lots and lots of plutonium. Hence the martini olive.

No, Superargo's not trippin' on LSD. This is part of the bizarre credit sequence at the beginning of the film.

After that, the film follows the typical Eurospy movie formula: car chases, fights, beautiful dames, fights, the hero confronting the villain on his secret island base, the hero fights the hordes of villainous minions, and the secret villain headquarters getting blowed up.

Let's be clear about one thing: this ain't no cinematic masterpiece. But it is an amusing, entertaining little flick. And it contains two things things that give it extra panache: a totally whacked-out opening credit sequence that is kinds disturbing to watch, and the absolute worst secret island headquarters miniature you'll probably ever see. I think the director's kid made it in an afternoon and filmed it in the family pool.

It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for some superhero silliness. Last time I checked it was streaming on Amazon, and there's a blurry version of Youtube.

[practically-an-x-man]

1 4 6 7 for the secret oc ask game! Your choixe, whoever has been feeling left out or you wanna talk about. 💚

Thank you so much!!

Secret OC Ask List

1) Does your OC have a voice claim, if so who?

I don't usually think much about voice claims as separate from faceclaims, I usually just attach it to the faceclaim I have linked to the OC. If the character has a different accent than the faceclaim, I might think about a different voiceclaim but I usually just go "eh, they're actors, they'd put on an accent"

That being said, I think I've mentioned this before but I do see Jimmy's mannerisms, and hear his voice, as more similar to Anthony Perkins. Jimmy's got a bit of a stronger accent (though Anthony Perkins is also from New York), but the cadence of how he speaks is very similar.

4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?

Going to answer this one for Kestrel and Jasper!

For Kestrel, I see Fair by the Amazing Devil as a really big song for them and Warren. It's all about looking at those little, domestic moments, and just being overwhelmed by the love you feel for your partner, which I think describes Kestrel's situation very well!

For Jasper, I'd say Hell to Have You by Our Last Night - not a whole lot of deeper symbolism there, but that's literally what Kyle does with the whole "died and was brought back to life" thing

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

Going to answer this for Vivienne, Prometheus, and Kestrel since they're my fantasy-based OCs!

I like to think that Vivienne would still be some sort of sailor, or perhaps a sort of live performer - I mentioned a while back that I could see Vivienne as a drag performer, with the "siren vs. human" dichotomy instead being expressed as its drag persona versus it out of drag.

Prometheus... I'm getting the image of someone who used to work in security, either as a celebrity bodyguard or even something like a prison guard, who later leaves that career and chooses to become a social worker - similar to their canon story, beginning with a more violent and potentially destructive path, but channeling that energy into protecting the young and vulnerable instead.

And Kestrel would still be a biologist or wildlife researcher, just for mundane animals rather than magical ones!

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race?

Hm... I'll answer this for Ophelia, Spider, and Quinn!

Ophelia I'd see as some kind of tank character - a barbarian, and probably something like a dragonborn or half-orc. She is merciless on the battlefield, she wants to do as much damage as she can and she's not going to shy away from pain or injury, so she'd be the absolute trauma sponge of the team.

Spider, on the other hand, is a rogue. He's speedy, crafty, quiet as a whisper, and able to scale the sides of buildings like it's nothing. As for race... I think he'd probably just be human, but I could also see leaning into his lanky, gangly build and making him either elf or half-elf instead.

And as for Quinn, I'd see her as an assassin, but in the story of the game she'd be more the former assassin who now supplies their unsavory clients with poisons, weapons, and gossip. As for fantasy race, it could be interesting to translate her "fall" into something more fantasy-inclined and dramatic - she's an aarakocra who was struck by a mage mid-flight and lost both her ability to fly and much of her mobility outside that.

[abdulraveman]

Nishikido Ryo × Cookie!

Hitotoki Kyuukei-Shitsu 2023.12.15 part 1

Nishikido Ryo & comedian Cookie! sat down for a casual chat for "Hitotoki kyuukei-shitsu" on Japan Tobacco's official YouTube where they talked about SNS, hobbies, opinions on work etc.

link to part 2 —

Translation below:

Ryo immediately recognise cookie’s jacket is from Lewis as he used to go there often.

Ryo is a regular viewer of Cookies channel, because they have similar interests & hobbies.

Ryo owns 2 Harley Davidson motorcycles (one of which is an old Knucklehead bike which was his first bike he ever bought) & one vespa.

Ryo’s father loves motorcycles. He bought his dad a Harley for his 50th birthday. He wanted to ride motorbikes with his dad, so he got himself a heavy motorcycle license.

When asked if he achieved his dream to ride alongside his dad, Ryo said he did! And he done it several times already. ·Cookie is asked if his dad still rides motorbikes, ryo said yes & he's still healthy. cookie joked it would be awkward if ryo said his dad had died lol · Cookie wants to exchange contacts with Ryo and Ryo said he would love to.

When Ryo first opened his Instagram, Cookie was one of his first followers. When Ryo asked why, cookie said there’s no way he wouldn’t follow Ryo. Ryo in the beginning cookie used to like all his photos but hasn’t done so recently. Cookie said it’s because Ryo doesn’t update his Instagram much anymore LOL. He also asked Ryo if the reason he doesn’t update is because he’s bored of ig. Ryo said no, it was because he didn’t know what to post, so there were fewer updates. Ryo said he regularly watches cookie’s ig reels despite rarely updating his ig. Cookie said he because of his daughter he mostly posts videos bc that's the only thing she will watch. Ryo said he watches all his ig reels and thought cookie must be really energetic & free to edit all his videos. Cookie got embarrassed lol 

Ryo's hobbies. Ryo said "I think I do more work (vs. time spent on hobbies). My hobbies are also things that lead to work. I was very into golf for a while & played it a lot. I also surf, snowboard... I dabble in skateboarding & occasionally do kickboxing." Ryo added that both golf & surfing are similar in regards to waking up early. Cookie said he should take up golf, but he doesn't have the "sticks," lol. Ryo then invited him to golf & he will also provide the "clubs"

[mochacoda]

[teaser] what is love? | chs

Pairing: Chwe Vernon x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: It’s been 2 days since you confessed to your best friend that you love him, and it’s been 2 days since you’ve talked to him. Now you're hiding in the bridal suite of your friend's wedding, avoiding him.

Content: Angst, Fluff, Comfort | Friends to Lovers

Tags: bridesmaid!reader, groomsman!vernon, insecure reader, jihyo appears, dino's getting married in this one lolz, intense pining, lots of internal spiraling, vernon's facial expressions get flamed, 2 kdrama fall moments, a little konglish w/ translations, a kiss, no "y/n"

Word Count: 6K (full)

Full Version: January 25 -> RELEASED HERE

Masterlist

What is love? If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that it’s what you feel for Chwe Vernon. Unfortunately for you, though, you really didn’t know any better, and now you’re facing the consequences of your actions. 

It’s been two days since you confessed to your best friend that you love him, and it’s been two days since you’ve talked to the man. Honestly, you have no one to blame but yourself, but you’ve convinced yourself that it’s everyone else’s fault for encouraging you. Maybe, if they hadn’t kept pushing you to confess to him—insisting that he definitely was into you—then you wouldn’t be in this position. 

Said position involves taking turns hiding in the bridal suite and bathroom of this wedding venue. In fact, you’re so committed to your act that you’ve practically become one with the shadows.

If anything, Vernon should be grateful that you’re going out of your way to avoid him. That way, he wouldn’t get bombarded with the secondhand embarrassment from remembering that horrible day. 

The only reason you’re here right now is because both Chan and his bride are close friends of yours, and you wouldn’t want to miss their wedding for the world. Plus, you’re also a bridesmaid. 

It was on you for blurting a disastrous confession to Vernon a few hours after the wedding rehearsal. 

But the bride and groom don’t even know that things have changed between the two of you. Given the chaos of wedding preparations, you withheld the fact that you and Vernon are going through a rough patch right now—if not the end of the friendship entirely. You didn’t want to add to their stress, but now you feel like you’re on fire. 

After all, Vernon is one of the groomsmen. What’s worse is, the wedding plans involve bridesmaids and groomsmen walking down the aisle in pairs, and you’d been placed with Vernon without a second thought. 

In other words, you’re completely screwed. 

“T-minus 20,” your friend and fellow bridesmaid Jihyo says, nudging your side. “We should go now.”

You feel a faint pulsing at the forefront of your head, a headache creeping up on you. God, what if when he sees you, he shakes his head and makes an X or something with his hands, insisting that he won’t walk down with you? What if he finds you physically embarrassing to be around, and just walks away? You’ve been running away from him all day, so it might not be a stretch to consider that he might have been trying to get away from you, too. 

You groan, scrunching the root of your hair, somewhat messing up your carefully curled hair. No, he wouldn’t just leave, that would ruin the wedding. He has too much love for Chan to do that to him. If he protests, he’d either do it subtly right before or confront you after it’s all over. 

You shut your eyes and take a deep breath. No one knows about your falling out except for you. And, well, Vernon, of course, but that’s not who you have to keep this secret from. You have to do your best to act normal and not at all like your heart is on the verge of bursting. 

“Has anyone ever died of embarrassment?” you suddenly ask, fingers dancing to find something to channel your nervous energy into. You fist a bit of the dress you’re wearing, then release it when you realize you can’t wrinkle the pretty material. “Shit.” You smooth over the fabric with shaky, sweaty hands.

“What is going on with you?” Jihyo’s eyes narrow as she looks you over. 

“I’ll tell you later,” you manage, bouncing your leg up and down. 

“Later, as in when?” 

“After the wedding,” you grit. You want to bury your face in your hands, but the expensive makeup gives you pause. You settle for lowering your head, staring listlessly at the white tiles on the ground. 

“Is this about what happened with Vernon?” 

You whip your head up. “You know?”

Jihyo slowly blinks, then deadpans, “Uh, yeah? A, both of you have been weird. The last time I saw you two not together was like, five years ago. And B, you’re literally the least subtle person I’ve ever met.”

“Oh,” you squeak, then quickly ask, “Wait, what do you think happened with Vernon?”

She stares blankly at you, as if the answer is obvious. “You confessed. He said nothing. You ran away.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, eyes growing comically large. Then, a frown replaces your shock. You don’t need to ask her how she knows. If anything, it just adds to the notion that even your other friends knew that he would’ve rejected you.

Jihyo sighs, coming over to the loveseat to sit next to you. She gives you a warm side hug, rubbing your back. “He’s a massive idiot. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s just get it together for the wedding, hmm?”

You swallow roughly, then nod. 

She continues, “Seriously, though. I’ve known Vernon for almost as long as you have. He’s not great at talking when he’s caught off guard—you know that, too.”

You blink at her words, the tiniest spark of hope igniting in your chest. But you quickly stamp it out, remembering the face he had made when you blurted out that you loved him.

Brows furrowed, open-mouthed, eyes wide, dead silent—he had to have been looking at you with disgust. That was the only way any sane person could decipher that look, really! There was no way that that face was the look of a man who was in love with you, as your friends have claimed.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say, wrinkling your mouth into a smile that anyone could tell was faked. “I’ll get through it.”

“Yeah, it’s not that deep. Just walk down the aisle with him. It’ll take 10 seconds, tops.”

You’re very sure she’s exaggerating, but you wave it off. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” she says dryly.

You glare at her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good, that’s the right mentality,” she says, clasping your shoulders, shaking your upper body. “파이팅! [Fighting!]”

“해야지, [gotta do it,]” you mutter. 

Jihyo’s right. You’ll have to see Vernon anyway, so you might as well do it with as much dignity as you can scrap together. 

Except, the little dignity you have left demands some more time to procrastinate and linger in your regret.

Jihyo stands up from the couch, but you don’t. Your limbs feel impossibly heavy, as if they’ve been held down by a massive boulder.

You groan, “Just go without me, I’ll leave soon. I wanna go as late as possible.” 

Jihyo looks at you with what you can only describe as immense pity. “Okay. I’ll see you in five?” 

You nod numbly, watching her walk away to open the doors of the bridal suite. 

Vaguely, you can hear some absentminded chatter across the room from the hair and makeup artists, mother of the bride, and maid of honor, all crowded over the bride. It’s all but a buzz in the back of your mind, though, since you’re preoccupied with trying to convince yourself that you have it in you to face Vernon. Knowing you only have five minutes before needing to walk down the aisle with him, your mouth feels dry—too dry. 

At that realization, you force your heavy limbs to get up, then walk over the fancy rug to the table where a myriad of miscellaneous objects have been strewn about. You reach for your bag to take out your water bottle, but your hands falter when you look at the little keychain attached to the bag. 

It’s a silver charm bracelet you’ve repurposed as a bag charm. It has a turtle and retriever puppy on it, representing the animals you’ve viewed each other as being. Seeing the charms causes a pang of longing to cut deep into you, reminding you of how much you’ve missed him in the last two days. 

Could you ever forgive yourself for ruining your precious friendship? For getting too greedy, for asking for too much? 

Your hands grip the edge of the table roughly, searching for something to stabilize your body, which is dangerously teetering in the high heels you had convinced yourself you’d be able to walk properly in. You’d bought it because the color of the shoe perfectly matches your dress, but the razor thin heel is proving to be an issue. 

Subconsciously, your hand reaches out from the table corner to your bag, gently rubbing the golden retriever charm Vernon always said looked like you, and you’re hit with a sudden intense wave of sadness—but not for the confession. 

No, instead, you turn your regret to the insecure internal ramblings that have ravaged you lately. 

The earnest, bright eyes of the little puppy charm makes you conscious of the hollow ache spreading throughout your body. How could you have been so mean to your poor, fragile heart? 

Alright, maybe you and Vernon wouldn’t be friends anymore. Maybe you would have to live without seeing him ever again. 

But you’d have to live with yourself, and it wasn’t right to treat yourself like this. 

Technically, Vernon didn’t even say anything to you. He didn’t outright reject you just yet, and he certainly didn’t say you weren’t someone worthy of love. So it was completely unfair for you to jump to those conclusions yourself, putting words in his mouth. 

And most of all, it would be even more unfair to you, represented by this adorable puppy charm, to lose yourself to heartbreak. 

Straightening your back, your other hand reaches into your bag for your water bottle. Upon chugging the remainder of the water, you close your eyes, concentrating on making your pulse slow down. It works, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

You might have to live with the fallout of this confession, but you could also live with the truth. Loving Vernon wasn't a mistake, and it wouldn't feel like one, no matter how he responded. He deserved honesty, and you deserved to stand by it. Even if this was the end, you wanted to leave this part of your story knowing you'd done right by both of you. 

You nod to no one in particular, having made your mind up. After the wedding, you’ll go to him and be upfront about it all, bearing your soul to his response. 

For now, though, you’ll help him enjoy the wedding by continuing to stay out of his sight. If he can’t see you, he can’t get reminded of his need to reject you—which is important, of course, because you don’t want his memories of this wedding to be of you crying after he lets you down. 

With this renewed clarity, you steady yourself. Vernon doesn’t love you, and that’s okay. You’d do enough loving for the both of you.

────୨ৎ────

Vernon steps into the bridal suite, a thrum of nerves coursing through his veins. He’s spent the past half-hour searching for you in every nook and cranny of the venue, dodging curious glances and knowing jokes from the other groomsmen about his obvious distraction. Jihyo’s the one who finally pointed him in the right direction, murmuring something about how it’s been over five minutes, and how he’s the only one who can get you to show up.

When he sees you standing by the table, shoulders tense, your hands gripping the edge like it’s the only thing keeping you upright, his breath catches. There you are, beautiful and strong and fragile all at once, lost in your thoughts. His chest constricts. How did it come to this? How did the best thing in his life become the one thing he feels he’s on the verge of losing?

“Hey,” he says softly, taking a step forward, calling your name softly.

Your head snaps up at the sound of his voice, and the sudden movement sends you teetering in your high heels. Eyes wide, you twist toward him, your balance faltering. “Vernon?”

It happens in a split second. One of your heels trips on the edge of the rug, and you stumble forward. Vernon darts forward instinctively, grabbing you just before you hit the ground. His arms wrap around you tightly, steadying you.

For a moment, everything stops. Leaning against his chest, you can hear his heartbeat, a frantic rhythm that matches your own. God, your near face plant must have scared him a lot?

But just as you start to regain your footing, your heel accidentally digs into his foot, and he lets out a yelp of pain. 

The abrupt shift in weight sends him off balance, and the two of you tumble onto the floor in a tangled heap.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Vernon’s crazy seagull call of a laugh cuts through the tension. 

It’s infectious, and before you know it, you’re both laughing, the sound filling the room. It’s ridiculous, it’s messy, and it’s the most alive you’ve felt in days.

When your body relaxes all of its tension, you realize that you’ve missed him with every fiber of your being. That something in you has been waiting for him, like you’ve been in withdrawal without hearing his laughter in the last two days. 

You’d planned on continuing to avoid him until the end of the wedding, so that he could enjoy his night without you, but that idea is crumbling right before your eyes. You might not be able to bring yourself to stay away from him any longer. 

And then, oh, then—the laughter fades, and you realize how close you are.

Masterlist

Author's Note: hi it’s RELEASED HERE!

Tags: @syluslittlecrows - @junplusone

[midnightpillsnacking]

[Loulou*di S3V4 L 3-17] Hana-Doll 3rd Season THINK OF ME:DEJA VU Translation

Translation below the cut. Google Drive link | Listen to the album on Spotify

Rui: Toki-bou.

Toki: Ageha-san, Rui-san, good morning.

Ageha: Ah, good morning, Toki. Did you hear from the medical team?

Toki: Yes. The medical staff will be coming along just in case.But I think it’s a bit much, since we’re only gonna promote one song for the music program. … Rui-san, is there something on my face?

Rui: No, you look fine. Are you sure that you’ll be alright?

Toki: I’m in tip-top condition! I apologize for being an inconvenience while I was taking a break.

Ageha: Toki. When you return, give a performance befitting of Loulou*di. As long as you can do that, then there’s no inconvenience at all.

Toki: Ageha-san…! Yes, I will. I’ll give a perfect performance!

-

(Audience cheering.)

Host: Presenting the ones who gave us that outstanding performance, Loulou*di! Please give them all a warm welcome!

Ageha: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and to Loumiels.

Host: That was a flawless performance, backed with such incredible vocals and choreography. It was amazing!

Ageha: Thank you very much. It would be an honor for us to leave an impression on everyone’s hearts, even if it’s just for a short moment.

Host: The positions of the cameras to the compositions were all Loulou*di’s ideas, right?

Ageha: Yes. We worked closely with the staff to ensure that we would be able to effectively convey our appeal.

Host: After the replay, you’ll be announcing the track list, right? As well as your new music channel.

Ageha: We wish to bring our voices and performances to the many people who have been waiting for Loulou*di, and we also want to broaden the scope of our activities.

Toki: And as a new member, I would love to have more chances to show off my charm!

Host: So what you mean is that the new Loulou*di cherishes their fans and wants to continue to maintain the high quality for them?

Ageha: We are not ‘maintaining’ the quality. Our goal is somewhere higher, above the unshakeable heavens. Right now, we are still working towards it.

Host: This level is still a work-in-progress? If that’s the case, then your junior unit Anthos* has got their work cut out for them!

Ageha: !! Anthos*, you say?

Host: If they see their senior Loulou*di as a goal, then they would surely be able to reach their full potential, don’t you think? Not just with the Dream Jam Festa, but they would also be able to challenge themselves with various genres as they try to keep up. Ah, but with the new release rankings, Anthos* is more–

Ageha: The production of the performance earlier has been synced with many parts of the new music video that has just recently been released. We hope that with it, you would be able to experience Loulou*di’s worldview.

Host: Eh? A-ah, yes, you’re right! Could you share with us your intentions of doing so?

Ageha: Gladly. For example, right before the hook, that is, the lead-up to it, there is a part in question…

-

Toki: It’s been a while since I last worked with both of you, doing work for Loulou*di. It was super fun!

Rui: I see.

Toki: Ageha-san, Rui-san, did you see? The costars and the staff and the audience were all taken in by our performance. Their mouths were wide open the whole time! (giggles) Gaping just like fish!

Ageha: (sighs)

Toki: Huh? Ageha-san, the green room isn't that way.

Ageha: Head back first.

Rui: Ageha, where are you going?

Ageha: That’s none of your concern.

Rui: …

Ageha: Take Toki and return to the green room. Now.

Rui: Understood.

-

Ageha: (winces in pain) Shit… what a disappointment… just this much and already…

Rui: Ageha.

Ageha: Rui. You ended up coming with.

Rui: If anything, I didn’t feel like calling out to you.

Ageha: Damned mongrel that can’t even heed its owner’s orders. I told you… to take Toki back to the green room.

Rui: Toki-bou is in the green room. There’s no need to worry.

Ageha: ‘Worry’?

Rui: You don’t look well. You’re sweating a lot.

Ageha: Don’t touch me! Since the start, I believe I’ve been telling you… to stop concerning yourself over me…

Rui: I’m not concerned about you. I’m simply being realistic. (opens the interface on his ring)

Ageha: Hey, what do you think you’re doing?

Rui: I’m calling the medical staff over.

Ageha: What?

Rui: The staff that came with Toki-bou are in the green room. They will surely rush over if we contact them.

Ageha: Stop that! (groans in pain)

Rui: Ageha.

Ageha: … Quit doing things that are unnecessary.

Rui: Calm down. I’ll make you feel better soon–

Ageha: I told you not to touch me!

Rui: Breathe slowly. It will be more painful if you struggle.

Ageha: Shut up… Just leave me alone…!

Rui: …

Ageha: Hey!

Rui: I can’t undo your buttons if you keep moving. 

Ageha: (struggles)

Rui: Ageha.

Ageha: Do you have any idea… how humiliated I am to let you see me like this?!

Rui: Ageha. What do you wish for?

Ageha: What?

Rui: If you would let me, I will grant whatever wish you have. I’ve always watched you, so if it were up to me…

Ageha: Don’t fuck with me. That’s a horrible sick joke!

Rui: Ageha…

Ageha: I–urgh…

Rui: Earlier, you said that you were disappointed in yourself. You put your utmost faith in yourself and carry on despite being bogged by pain. Ageha, you cling so desperately onto life. And to be as such, you are more beautiful than anyone else in the world.

Ageha: Rui, let go of me…!

Rui: Save your pity. You’re putting more unnecessary strain on yourself.

Ageha: Stop talking nonsense! Like I’d ever want your help!

Rui: You won’t know when that will change. Trust me, and try to catch your breath. You’ll feel better soon.

Ageha: …

Rui: Even as Ageha suffers, he’s still a noble, unyielding man in my eyes. However, he’s ardent, and the driving force that keeps him going is… It’s not me. It’s always Yuuki Mahiro, Chihiro, or… President Amagiri. No matter if there’s no other that’s the most like Ageha like myself, no matter how much I understand him, no matter if I give myself to Loulou*di as fodder to scale to the top, I can’t become the reason for Ageha’s will. It’s not me. Not now, not ever. Just what am I… thinking about now?

-

Ageha: Rui… hey, Rui!

Rui: … Ageha.

Ageha: What are you spacing out for? That’s enough. Let go of me.

Rui: But you’re still–

Ageha: Try adding displeasure and discomfort and see what you get!

Rui: Your resolve doesn’t waver even as you tremble.

Ageha: What did you say…?

Rui: No, it’s nothing.

Ageha: … Let’s get moving. We can’t leave Toki alone.

-

Ageha: Seems like the green room is plenty lively.

Rui: The medical staff… What are they doing?

Staff Member A: Ah, you two. Thank you for your hard work today.

Ageha: Is Toki asleep? It looks like he’s not conscious.

Staff Member A: It’s been some time since he’s been at work. All the medical staff are planning an examination for him.

Rui: Toki-bou said that he felt that his condition was perfect.

Staff Member A: There’s nothing to worry about. He’d probably return to the dorm in two to three days. You there, quickly take Sakurai Toki to the car.

(The staff members carry Toki out of the room.)

Staff Member A: With that, we’ll excuse ourselves. Once both of you are ready, please return to the dorm. We’ll prepare for a car to pick you up at the exit.

Rui: Understood.

Ageha: Doctor, I believe I’ve said this before. If you do something to Toki, to Loulou*di… you understand what will happen, right?

Staff Member A: …

Ageha: Please… take good care of Toki.

-

Rui: Ageha. Is there something on your mind?

Ageha: Rui. Not a word from you.

Rui: But–

Ageha: I said keep your trap shut. It’s annoying.

Rui: Alright. I won’t say anything until we reach the dorm. I don’t wish to agitate you.

Ageha: We’re not going back to the dorm yet.

Rui: Where are we headed to?

Ageha: To somewhere where I have something I must do. (enters something in the interface)

Rui: Amagiri Production?

Ageha: That’s right. We’re headed to where he is.

[callipraxia]

oh, ALSO--📓. tell away, friend.

Ooh, don’t mind if I do…Though I’m unsure how much sense 2/3 of this will make, as while there are some GF daydream fics, the ultimate daydream fics are for completely different fandoms.

One would be to pick up where the S2 (and, ultimately, series) finale of Marvel’s Agent Carter left off, and write season 3 through Whatever Season Ended Up Getting Us To Whatever I Decided Felt Like A Good Stopping Point. I don’t know enough Marvel lore to even attempt such a thing, but…a dream’s a dream, I suppose. First I’d have to decide if <character who gets shot in the last few seconds of the last episode> died or not, and S3 would presumably involve a lot of investigation into that; overall, it would probably serve the plot best to kill the guy, alas, and then you get the opportunity for a murder investigation, meddling feds now that one of their main means of controlling the SSR is dead, an excuse to get the survivors back to New York…then, if we run with the theory that the “M. Carter” file Jack tried to blackmail Peggy with in S2 was actually about Michael Carter instead of Margaret, we get to throw in some epic family drama plus more angst for Peggy now that her love life is mostly resolved…except for how a sort of prototype of Black Widow is still on the loose and certainly feels…some kind of way about Peggy, anyway. Plus the mob may be after her as well for the outcome of the whole Whitney Frost thing, and…etc etc.

If anything, the other two absolute daydreams would be even harder to pull off. One is a War and Peace-style epic about the first Voldemort war from the Potterverse - politics and violence and angst and motive decay and moral ambiguity and good and indifferent people slowly going different flavors of bad and betrayals and an excuse to show off that I used to study Russian and all that kind of good stuff. So, War and Peace with more pretentiousness, less humor, and pseudo-Dostoyevskian themes. Plus I’d soft retcon various stupid bits of canon, fix up bits that were handled in the most boneheaded fashion possible, etc.

As for the third…this requires some backstory to make any sense, I’m afraid, so I shall write some here. Once upon a time, the Harry Potter executives tried to make a knockoff of Pokémon Go. Never played it (I’ve never been much of one for games), but I read the guidebook in the grocery store one day and the framing device story *fascinated* me. A group of witches and wizards, apparently completely unconnected, all vanished into thin air one day in London. The trouble came in because one of them was a *very* well-connected sort of person: she was an Auror herself, and her mentors had been Harry and this other guy high up in the Department of Mysteries. Her husband was also an employee of the DoM, a guy whose speciality was in translating ancient languages and studying unregulated, unstable forms of magic. Said husband had also been orphaned during the Battle of Hogwarts in book 7, when he was about 12, and while he had seemed to take that pretty much in stride, he went off the deep end when a) his wife vanished, with the supposed best investigators in the world unable to find anything but her cracked wand lying on the ground without explanation and b) he realized there was a government conspiracy afoot to sweep the whole matter under the rug, as the unexplained disappearances had become politically…inconvenient for certain high-ranking persons. So the guy tried to press things through more or less legitimate channels for a while, but when he was told he was losing his mind, that it was time to move on, etc…that went poorly. Instead, he disappeared, just about the time magical sites in Prague and Japan started complaining about thefts and something went catastrophically wrong with the Stuff Wizards Use To Prevent Detection, leaving magical sites exposed, magical creatures wandering around the mundane world, and, oddest of all, people’s memories just sort of cropping up, completely free of context, in inexplicable places all over Britain. And then they went through the guy’s things and find out he had gotten it into his head that he could combine some ancient magics, one of them possibly connected to the infamous Love Room in the DoM and one of them said to help you find what you want most regardless of the impossibility of it being found….

Alas, the game apparently flopped in every respect besides backstory and the story was never finished, and so I would love to novelize the heck out of it. Only trouble is the same as with Agent Carter: I do not feel capable of coming up with a good enough ending with the amount of information to lead in with that I have. With Gravity Falls, there is already a good ending, and for some reason, this makes me feel much freer somehow? Like, I didn’t have to come up with Bill’s plan to write FWJB, I just had to think through how a diversion of the timeline would affect its implementation/everyone else’s efforts to thwart it. I’d be plunging into dramatically uncharted waters with any of these daydream-projects, and the fact I happen to know a fair bit about magic in the ancient world on top of knowing the Potter magic system (such as it is) inside and out would…probably actually hinder things further, as very few people other than me would be likely to find the research-heavy bits remotely interesting.

In Gravity Falls ideas that will never happen, though…y’know how we all agree s2 is full of absolute brilliance that suffers in places from the storyline being too tightly compressed? I wanna decompress it. By that, I mean “write the episodes between the bits we saw” - go back into s2a and flesh out…I dunno. Definitely our government boys’ plot line, anyways. McGucket’s plot line. What-have-you. Then, once I had enough extra episodes to fill out s2, treat either NWHS or ATOTS as the s2 Finale, then take s2b, fit in the two Lost Legends stories that seem to fall in that part of the timeline as two more episodes, and then…write more episodes, until I have a hypothetical s3/August of twenty episodes to go with s1 and the filled-out s2a, which would now just be s2. Flesh out Pacifica’s redemption, and whatever the heck Gideon was up to, and Stan’s psychological spiraling, etc, all leading up the canon final quartet of episodes. It’s possible some of these ideas could make it to one-shots someday, but the overarching project seems, much like my ideas for doing unholy things to the premise of Relativity Falls, too ambitious to pull off. Ditto, actually, for full-blown sequels to FWJB set in either of the two ‘good’ timelines - and, for that matter, the ‘mundane’ variants of the ‘bad’ timeline, though a direct sequel to the ‘chapter 26’ timeline is…not out of the question. It keeps trying to develop in my mind, lately, to the point of writing those scenes the other week where Ford got killed and adult!Mabel unexpectedly entered the plot….

But first I gotta finish Tracey’s Journal. And the saga of Ford, who is definitely not a wizard, teaching at Hogwarts in 1989 or thereabouts. And I’m several books deep in research for the mother of all essay projects…as in, I might end up writing a nonfiction book about GF at this rate. And etc etc etc.

[velvet-vox]

My first pipeline of future ideas.

I'm currently working on a part 2 to my "The complete and utter alienation of Tai Lung" post, and at this point in time, I've come up with various ideas for what I want to write in the future and wanted to share those ideas with you all to get a feedback on what do you want me to focus first.

Here's the list:

The dark side of Steampunk: Nox. (Made Qilby, made Oropo, so of course the mummy grandpa had to come out at some point. This one in particular is inspired by a Schnee video where he talks about the deeper meaning of Steampunk and why it is the way it is.)

My Murder Drones rewrite. (I've separated the show into three seasons and made season 1 self conclusive, thus fixing the rushed feeling of the current season.)

My top 10 favourite female villains of all time. (The counterpart to my male tier list, this one is even spicier as it contains some truly unusual picks.)

La mia top 10 migliori cattivi maschi di tutti i tempi. (The Italian translation of the aforementioned tier list, for Italian readers and learners.)

Oropo; the ideology of power behind being god: part 3 (I don't even know if this is going to be the final part, I actually have more to say about Oropo than I've ever expected.)

Also, while these are all of the ideas I'll be working on in the immediate future, I also have some more concepts that I'm not motivated about but could still tackle if I see there's some interest in the comments:

The paradoxical nature of Qilby: Part 3 (While I love Qilby, I don't have a lot of things to say about him when compared to Oropo; part of the appeal of Qilby, at least for me, is how much my interpretation of his character varies from that of other people. I could still gush about him if you all want me to.)

Theory+Analysis, is Cyn going to be redeemed? (I gave up on this idea when I realised I don't have the necessary understanding or interest of Cyn to pull it off, plus, I prefer to analyse what's already there rather than what might happen in the future.)

Why I think Doll prefers to kill children. (Wanted to write this before episode 7, I'm less motivated now but I could never say no to Doll content when it drops, even if I'm the one dropping it. It's about that scene where Doll thanks Khan for raising Uzi.)

More DuckTales 2017 content: despite being one of the highlighted interests of the channel, the only thing I've ever talked about was that shout-out to Lunaris fans. I could fix that if someone gives me any ideas.

[kxlinthesky]

EPISODE 6 PART 2 LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 5-10 English Translation

The next day:

“Come on, please?”

“No way.”

“....”

“You’re not getting out of this one, Owl.”

Owl groaned, long and loud and despairing. How many hundreds of times had they had this conversation already?

“C’mon, Owl, give it up. Ralph’s outside, and so’s Hannah – she looks furious, by the way. There’s no way you can escape.”

“No way.”

“So this is how you betray me, Nick... Ellie....”

“It’s not like we want to, y’know.”

“No way.”

Nick plopped down on one of the wooden chairs with a heaving sigh... and rested his chin on the edge of the bed in front of him. Ellie did the same next to him.

Owl was sleeping in that bed. Or, more accurately, someone was forcing him to sleep in the bed.

It had been a full day since the tumultuous events that had plagued the city.

Owl had been admitted to a medical facility that Tristan ran. He’d sworn up and down that he didn’t need it, of course, but every other person around him strongly disagreed, and he wasn’t going to win against their combined might. He’d looked so worn out and shabby after the dust settled, with his golden hair caked in dried blood, and it had taken every ounce of effort he had just to stand after he’d completely drained his magic reserves... so of course he’d been summarily bundled into the hospital. He’d actually been pretty docile at first, but as soon as he got word that neither he nor Ellie had been infected with the Black Rose Disease, he’d immediately demanded he be discharged so he could “look into ‘those guys’ as soon as possible.”

He’d only been hospitalized for four hours.

Naturally, his discharge request had been quite firmly denied.

When official channels didn’t work, Owl decided to take matters into his own hands. It didn’t matter how many times he tried to sneak out, though; Ralph and Hannah had set traps, and they kept catching him and marching him back to his room after every single escape attempt.

Which led to their current conversation.

“On top of that nasty blow to the head, you’re also suffering from some broken ribs and magic exhaustion. You really should be taking it easy.” Jack slipped a thermometer out of Owl’s armpit.  “And look, you’ve even got a bit of a fever, too. I prescribe complete bed rest. You really shouldn’t have been moving around so much with a head injury in the first place.”

He made a show of waving a pair of bloodied gloves around – the very gloves he’d lent to Owl, the white ones with the healing technique embroidered on them that Owl had used for first aid during the battle against Krinos. They weren’t really “white” anymore, though, not with the extensive bloodstains marring the fabric.

Owl’s face pulled into an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry I got them so dirty,” he said. “I know they mean a lot to you.”

Jack’s eyebrows nearly shot off his face. “I’m not mad about that!” He lightly ground his knuckles into Owl’s bandaged forehead. “You can use them all you want, I know Eliza doesn’t mind! What I’m mad about is you not taking good care of yourself!”

“... I take care of –”

“You rushed your treatment as soon as you were brought in and then you went right back out there to help the people who were infected with the Black Rose Disease! And you were going around left and right shooting your disassembling bullets to treat everyone who was Demonized! Did you really think you could use that much alchemy in a single day without resting properly?! Of course you used up all your magic! If you had messed up at all you would have died!”

Owl’s eyes widened. He’d never seen kind, gentle Jack so angry before. The furious fire in his friend’s narrowed eyes looked almost foreign on his face, in fact, for just how much it clashed with the Jack he’d come to know. “Even you’re mad...” he mumbled.

“Of course I am! My friend was out being unbelievably reckless with his health! I’m furious!”

“... Sorry.”

“Yeah, you’d better apologize. A lot.” Jack glared for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped in a sigh. “But I know you probably had to be a little reckless, given everything.” He reached out and took Owl’s hand in a handshake. “On behalf of everyone you saved, thank you. Thanks to you, most of the people who caught the Disease were saved. They’re carriers now, of course, and they’ll need to get follow-up exams, but they’ll be able to get back to their normal daily lives soon.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that. Honestly, I don’t really remember much of what happened.”

“That’d be because of the head injury.”

“Besides, you and Tristan took care of the important stuff, right?”

A complicated expression flitted across Jack’s face. “Sir Tristan and his state alchemist friends, yes,” he replied. “They were also the ones to study why Miss Maud... no, sorry, Miss Matilda’s body remained after she died.”

“Wait, what? They did?”

“Yes... as it turns out, she’d been clutching a certain stone fragment in her hand when she passed. The power of the stone preserved her body, apparently.”

“A stone... I didn’t realize she was holding one.”

“It makes sense you didn’t, its power in and of itself was extremely weak. But it was a healing power, we think.”

“A healing power?”

“Or rather... maybe not a ‘power,’ per se, but a powerful wish stored inside. The stone had been stolen from Miss Matilda’s mother’s body, actually, so maybe she was drawing on her mother’s love?” A faintly bitter smile rose to Jack’s face. He was well aware how strange it sounded coming from a doctor like himself.

“How could you tell it was her mother’s?” Owl asked.

“She told us herself. Quote, ‘my father stole this stone from my mother,’ unquote.”

“What?”

Jack sighed. “Put a bunch of state alchemists in one room and you get to see some absurd power being thrown around. Sir Tristan used that stone as a base to reconstruct what we would call her soul. It was a stroke of luck that they found her own azoth in the ruins of the salon. She... wasn’t really resuscitated, though. It was more... he combined the last bits of magic in her body with the ‘soul’ of her mother in the stone she’d been carrying, or something like that?” He shrugged with a thoughtful hum. “Well, there’s no real precedent for what he did, so I don’t exactly know how to describe it.... It was so high-level, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.... But in any event, Miss Matilda’s magic was strong enough that he was able to restore her soul, though half of it is actually her mother’s soul sort of stitched together with hers.”

“So... what you’re saying is...?”

“She’s alive and well. She’s got no relatives, so once she’s all healed up we thought she might work here at this facility. It seems she has quite the gift of foresight.”

“No relatives? What about Duke Fitz?”

“You could say he incurred Sir Tristan’s wrath, I guess? From what I hear, his title was revoked. He’s not a duke anymore.”

“Ahh... I see....” Something in Owl uncoiled at that, all the tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying finally slipping away. His voice lowered to a relieved, almost trembling whisper. “I’m glad.... Thank you, Jack, really, thank you....”

Jack’s face did that complicated little dance again. “Like I said, it wasn’t me, it was all Sir Tristan. I couldn’t even give you the proper support you needed, and I won’t lie, that’s been weighing on me a fair bit.”

“That’s not true. You were working your hardest to help. I’m guessing Tristan was keeping your nose to the grindstone? Making all these unreasonable demands?”

“Well... things were busy?” Jack hedged. “But it was all a learning experience. I’ll study up so that next time I can help you properly.”

“I thought you were plenty help as it was. If anything, I feel like I should apologize for you having to look after both me and Tristan.”

“No, there’s no need for that. But if you’re feeling a little guilty, maybe you can at least promise that you won’t do anything rash from now on?”

Owl went rather tellingly silent.

“Otherwise, I might just suggest that Sir Tristan build a hospital right next door to your agency.”

“... Mmgh.”

“Well?”

“... If a case crops up, I’m going to pursue it. So....”

“So?”

“... I can’t make any promises.”

“You –” Jack blew out a sigh, then jabbed Owl in the shoulder. “Are the worst. Then at least no more escape attempts for the next week, got it? You can be discharged next week! No sooner! Understood?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“And if you try, I’ll have you tied to the bed until the week after that with Eliza’s special restraints.”

“... Yeah, heard you loud and clear.”

Jack nodded with a cheery smile after that final threat and finally left. Nick snickered as the doctor walked out. “Yeah, I really like him. It’s a good thing he’s your friend, Owl.”

Owl nodded. “He’s a good guy, right?”

“Oh, yeah, the best!” Nick flashed him a thumbs-up, Ellie copying him not a second later. “Which is why I completely agree with him about you resting. At least stay here until your injuries are all closed up and your ribs aren’t snapped like twigs anymore.”

“Don’t call people’s bones twigs. They’re just a little cracked.”

“Says the guy who can’t even hug Ellie.”

Owl twisted a little in his bed, expression darkening mutinously. “... I’m bored. Too much free time and nothing to do. And I can’t sit still with Tristan hovering over me.” Mostly because he could never tell when exactly his adoptive father was going to show up for a visit.

“Aww, but Papa Tristan’s so sweet!” Nick leaned back a little, completely relaxed. “And he’s the reason you’re staying here and getting treatment are free. Right, Ellie?”

Ellie nodded along. “Papa... gives me sweets.”

Owl jolted and leaned forward without thinking, suppressing a wince as the movement twinged his ribs. “‘Papa?’” he repeated incredulously. “Since when did you guys call him Papa? Do not tell me he won you over.”

“Who, me?” Nick pressed a hand to his chest in mock affront. “Come on, Owl, don’t be silly. He’s not gonna get me on his side just because he treated me to one measly, very delicious steak dinner.”

“Steak? You had steak? When?!”

“... Man, it was so good...” Nick mumbled.

“So tender and so yummy...” Ellie agreed.

The two giggled to themselves. Owl stared in horror. “He absolutely won you over!”

“Nuh-uh, no he didn’t.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I don’t believe you! How do I know he didn’t turn you into his spies?”

“He didn’t, we swear.~”

“We swear.~”

A knock at the door interrupted the trio’s back and forth, followed by a head poking in – Ritz. “May I come in?” she inquired.

Owl turned to the newcomer. “Hey, Ritz,” he greeted.

“You feeling okay since you woke up?” checked Nick. “All your tests and stuff done?”

The two were treating her like normal. Ritz relaxed... but there was still a shadow of embarrassment lingering about her as she shuffled into the room, her head slightly bowed. Once she was at their sides, she bowed even lower. “I, er, wanted to... apologize, for all the trouble I caused.... I know that what I did can’t be fixed with a simple apology, of course, but still, please allow me to properly express just how truly sorry I am for what happened.”

Owl and Nick silently traded glances as she continued to spout apology after apology. When she finally paused for breath, they shrugged in unison. “What’re you talking about, Ritz?” Nick said.

“Huh?”

“You kind of always bring us trouble,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. “Why’s this time any different?”

Ritz opened her mouth to argue, but upon reflection closed it again. “... That... I suppose that’s true,” she admitted. In fact, it was altogether too common. “But this time was truly embarrassing. Because I was so immature and inexperienced... you all suffered so horribly....” Her eyes flicked up for a brief second to the bandages wrapped around Owl’s skull before flicking away again. “You were even hurt....”

Nick rolled his eyes. “No, really, why’re you saying this now? We knew from the start you were an untrained, incompetent cop.~~~”

A growl rumbled from Ritz’s chest. Normally she’d snap back with something like, “And just who are you calling incompetent?!” But today, she couldn’t muster up the energy for her usual retorts. She curled in on herself with a pained grimace, her feet tapping anxiously against the floor.

Yes, her feet. Attached to her completely normal human legs.

Ritz had reverted back to a human form, no trace of the Leviathan she’d been to be seen. That stark-white, mermaid-esque Demon she’d been almost seemed like a dream... but no, it had been real. She had become Leviathan. It was an indelible, inescapable fact.

“Don’t worry about me,” said Owl. “I’ll heal up soon enough. I’m more worried about you – you’re a carrier now of the Black Rose Disease, that has to be a big shock.” Mental and emotional scars wouldn’t heal as easily as his physical wounds and could open up again at the drop of a hat.

“It is a shock, but....” Ritz placed a hand over her heart and gave a single nod. “I’ve decided to see this as an opportunity. There are certain things that only a concerned party could understand when trying to relate to those who struggle under unfair oppression.”

“Ritz....”

“Besides, I can’t stay depressed forever. I was lucky to be highly compatible with the disease, but even so, there’s a chance the Demon will manifest again someday, and I require practice. If I pretend it never happened, everyone around me may be placed in danger again.” Ritz straightened up, eyes blazing. “I need to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen!”

Owl’s eyebrows shot up. “... You’re so strong,” he murmured. She’d been so flustered at first, but she’d bounced back remarkably fast. Was it the unshaking, unwavering belief in her core that refused to bend or break? Or....

“That’s a police officer for you!” cheered Nick, completely oblivious to Owl’s contemplation.

Ritz pouted. “Even though I’m ‘incompetent’ and ‘untrained,’” she grumbled.

Nick side-eyed her, his eyes narrowed like a cat’s. “Well, I mean, yeah? But you’re the most honest, hardworking cop of them all. You’re the coolest.” He sounded like he was just stating another fact of life. The sky was blue, the grass was green, Ritz was amazing...

... and her face instantly flamed red. “I-I know – I know that I’m ‘cool!’” she hissed as she turned away to hide her blush.

Nick twisted to try and peer at her face with a leer. “Oh-ho, what’s this? Are you feeling shy? Are you all red?”

“I – I am not shy! You’re just mean!!”

“Aww~~, and here I was thinking I distinctly remembered you calling me ‘clever!’”

“I never said that!”

Ritz continued to twist away from Nick’s prying eyes, even as he continued to twist to try and get a better look. Owl watched the two with the distinct sense that he was intruding on something again, despite the fact that this was his hospital room. Nick noticed his partner being quiet and glanced over. “What’s with that grin on your face, Owl? You’re thinking something weird again, aren’t you?”

“No, just reflecting. Looks like I made the right call.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Just, you’ve always called Ritz a police officer.”

“I mean... yeah? ‘Cause she is. ‘Course I did.”

“Right. Of course you did.”

To Nick, it was a given, and that warmed Ritz’s heart more than anything else. Nick didn’t see her as a “woman,” a “li’l miss,” or a “girly” – she was a “police officer,” and that was that. At some point his simple acceptance of who she was had become something that always brought her joy, and he’d become someone she could trust wholeheartedly.

It was for that exact reason that she’d reacted so strongly to his voice back then.

With a sarcastic little chuckle, Owl muttered, “Well, it looked like the chocolate cake also had a hand in bringing you back to your senses.”

As if in response, Nick sniffed the air. “Hey, d’you smell something sweet?”

“Sweet?”

“Yeah, sweet and... savory? Hm? Where’s it coming from?” Nick prowled the room like a bloodhound, his nose twitching in the air as his meandering path slowly took him toward the door.

Owl’s eyes tracked him in turn. “Oi, Nick?”

Ritz sniffed the air as well. “You’re right...” she murmured. “Something does smell sweet.”

“Me, too...” added Ellie.

What were they all picking up? Owl’s head rose, nostrils twitching –

Knock knock. Jack poked his head in. “Hey, Owl, you’ve got a package,” he announced, holding out the sizable basket in his arms. “Someone left if at the entrance, addressed to ‘the people of the Owl Detective Agency.’”

“Really?” Nick bounced on the balls of his feet. “What is it? Who’s it from?”

“I’m not sure... the card only says ‘B.’”

“‘B’...?” Nick accepted the basket from Jack and sniffed it. His face lit up. “The smell’s coming from this!~” he crowed and yanked the top open.

“Oi, be gentle,” Owl admonished, brows furrowed a touch anxiously.

As Nick opened the basket, a delectable scent filled the room. Nick peeked inside, as did Ritz and Ellie. “Ah!” he gasped.

“Chocolate cake!” cried Ritz.

“And a meat pie, too!~~”

“Freshly made...!”

They stared starry-eyed at the glossy cake and crisp meat pie stacked inside the basket. All three of them started hopping up and down in their excitement.

“It looks so yummy....”

“Yes! Awesome! Let’s all dig in!~~”

“Hold on, you two, let’s not be hasty. This is a gift for Owl, so we can’t just grab whatever we like ourselves,” reasoned Ritz.

“Ritz, you’re drooling.”

“I – I am not!”

Owl watched their lively discussion from his bed with raised eyebrows. “Wait, are you guys really going to eat something from someone who we don’t know sent it?”

“But we do know!” Nick shot back. “This has to be from Byron! We’d know his cakes anywhere!”

“He’s absolutely right! These are Byron’s cakes without a doubt!”

“It has to be.” They were completely confident that they were right.

“... ‘B,’ huh.” Owl took the card from Jack and squinted at the “B” scribbled on the little square. The tenseness in his shoulders eased a little. It was, admittedly, vexing that Byron would send a care package without actually showing his face, but Owl simply sunk back into bed told the others, “One slice each,” before turning his head to stare out the window.

The sky outside was still the color of lead.

“It’s still not back,” he muttered to himself. “... Can it come back?”

As memories from the previous day flooded his mind, his eyes slipped shut. Two figures flashed through his mind’s eye – one vampire, and one....

“What were they doing...? What are they hiding?”

After they’d defeated Krinos, they’d both left again without explaining anything. He still had no idea what they were up to or why.

“Am I not strong enough to help them...?” A strange sense of alienation, of powerlessness, swept over Owl. “Will they ever tell us what they’re up to?”

And then there was what that young man had shouted at the light back then. He’d been barely conscious, so he hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy, but he did hear what he’d muttered as Byron flew off into the sky:

“I feel so awful for you... Byron.”

Owl slowly opened his eyes again to the ever-overcast sky and a plate in front of him bearing a meat pie and a slice of the cake. “Let’s eat together, Owl,” said Ellie.

“Yeah, thanks.” Owl took the plate.

“There’s seven slices each of the pie and the cake,” she told him. “Can we give some to Doctor Jack and Ralph and Hannah?”

“Of course.” Owl reached for his food, ready to take a bite... but then he paused with a blink. “Wait. You said seven slices?”

“Hm?”

“There’s seven slices each? Of the cake and the pie?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“....”

“What is it?”

“There’s not enough.”

“Huh?”

Owl traced a circle in the air with his finger, then sliced up, down, and diagonally both ways. “Usually when you’re cutting a whole cake, you’d make four cuts to make eight pieces, right?”

“Oh... you’re right. They were both missing one....” Ellie peered into the basket. “Where do you think it went?”

It was easy to cut a cake into eight pieces. It was much harder to cut one into only seven. That meant either one slice had been removed from the start... or....

Owl stared down at the pie and cake on his plate, then glanced over to Nick. His partner noticed his gaze and turned, his cheeks bulging already. “What?” he said thickly, head tilted.

The detective’s mouth twisted in a pensive frown. “... Are you cheating on me, Nick?” he asked.

“Cheating?~~” Nick stared at Owl. What was he talking about? Yeah, he’d accused Owl of cheating before, but never in a million years did he expect him to flip the script like that.

“I was wondering... if maybe you’d made some other friends besides me,” the detective muttered.

“Other friends? You mean like Brat?”

“No, I mean the person who gave you those weird things.”

“What weird things?”

“Those cards you had?” Owl traced a rectangle in midair and leaned toward Nick. “With the alchemy infused in them?”

“Ehh?~~” Nick’s shoulders slumped almost comically, very obviously not meeting Owl’s eyes. “Those were... what were they, huh?~~”

“Uh-huh?”

“....”

Owl stared at him doubtfully. “Just so we’re clear, I’m grilling you about that later,” he told his partner, then took a big bite of pie. The savory batter crunched and squished as delicious, juicy meat flooded his mouth. A groan unconsciously bubbled out of his throat at the superb, nostalgic flavor.

He ate silently, bite by bite, until in the blink of an eye the slice of pie had vanished down his gullet.

And as he wiped the last traces of sauce from his lips with his finger, a bubbly voice gasped and said:

“Ah, Louis! Looks like you’ve got something good there!~~”

“Pipe down while we’re in the labs, Tino.”

“What’cha got? And where’s mine?~~”

“There’s none for you. I only had the one slice of each.”

In a lab at the Royal College, a young man eating his lunch in a corner of the room shoved a young lady away as she came running at him and swept away the pie crumbs scattered across his textbook. The slice of cake by his elbow, however, remained untouched.

“What about the cake?” she asked.

“No, that’s mine.”

“Cheapskaaate!~ C’mon, just one bite....”

“Not a chance.” And to keep the greedy girl from claiming his prize, the young man stuffed the whole slice of cake into his mouth in one go. Once he swallowed, he told her, “Can’t go to battle on an empty stomach, right?”

“What’re you talking about? You gonna go fight someone, Louis?”

“... Not really a fight, but....”

He licked his lips and stood up, shutting his textbook as he went.

“I’m going to go make a declaration of war, I guess.”

He gathered his things and left the lab. Tino stuck her tongue out at his retreating back. “What a weirdo!”

END

original written by Nagaya Kawaji here