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zwy01 · 7 months

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Blood Moon AU!! Part 2 - More werewolves

Second part (continued) of my second major AU, Blood Moon AU. The nobles and werewolves basically have a race swap in an almost brand new setting.

For more info, check out my first two posts where I explained the general lore and setting of this AU (highly recommended for a better understanding):

The characters.

Ladybug: Father of Cloudy, whom he had with an unnamed werewolf woman. Many people mistake Ladybug for a dangerous, evil person due to his creepy appearance, but he’s actually a pretty nice dude. The sockets of his eyes are just very deep and people can’t seem to catch a glimpse of his irises no matter how hard they look, hence the assumption that he’s about to suck every passerby’s soul and transfer them to himself to extend his lifespan. Doesn’t help that he’s always smiling. It almost looks like he’s sneering. Ladybug doesn’t mind. He’s too old for this shit. He’d just chuckle and go along with it. He’d strike a menacing pose and bare his fangs, and they’d all run away screaming. Haha, that was fun. Felt great, might do it again.

No one knows how old Ladybug is. It seems like he’s been around since forever ago. The werewolves even call him a living fossil. He takes it as a compliment because it means he’s wise and timeless. Ladybug would be minding his own business and he’d happen to eavesdrop on some werewolves talking about an old story, and he’d spook them by appearing from behind a bush and saying “Oh? Didn’t know the things I did in my youth are being told as Mother Moon’s tales now. Care to recite from the beginning for this old man?” Once again they run away in terror. Oh, poo. Tsk tsk, young pups these days are so sensitive and can’t stand humor at all. At least his daughter understands him and fully embraces his weirdness.

Ladybug lives with his daughter Cloudy, whom he had as an old man. Cloudy’s mother is alive and well; she just doesn’t live with them. Ladybug raised Cloudy for the most part, who is very attached to him. As a retired warrior, Ladybug does farming as a hobby and grows a variety of delicious crops because Cloudy doesn’t eat meat. He breeds special types of vegetables, fruits, and grains for her to enjoy. Currently, his goal is to create the perfect crunchy, tangy sweet berry because his daughter likes those very much. He can’t wait to bake a delicious pie for her with these ingredients and see her smile.

Ladybug’s favorite color is green because his daughter’s eyes are green. It’s also the hair color of his daughter’s mother, who was his lover.

Ladybug is not your typical werewolf warrior. He is also a master of magic, and you can always count on him to know the specific spell to your specific issue if you need help from him. He can both harm and help you, if he chooses to. There’s probably even a proverb that says “if you get fleas up your buttcrack on a full moon night, Ladybug will hunt you down and cook you in a stew” or something. Yikes. Probably made up anyway. Eh, still giving it some credit because it’s a good way to scare the kids and get them to quiet down and go to bed without making a fuss. Lord Peach’s adopted daughter Rosemary is a student and fan of Ladybug. She calls him “Teacher Buggy”. He is extra nice to her because she is part of Cloudy’s core friend group and his daughter always talks about how nice “Rosie” is. Usually, he would reject those who come to him asking for magic lessons, but he gives private lessons to Rosemary. Dang, she must’ve bribed him, lol. Thanks to Rosemary, Ladybug has learned about a certain noble streamer named Zivon Tradio aka “GlitterDream KittyPaws”, who is also a magician. Ladybug isn’t his fan, but he sometimes watches his streams just to criticize his spells. Rosemary thinks it’s hilarious.

Ladybug has no other living relatives aside from his daughter.

Grub: Son of unnamed werewolves. Unlike Ladybug, who just seems creepy but really isn’t, Grub is creepy to the core. It’s just him being… him. 100% original Grub guaranteed. He’s either lying still with his face planted to the ground and mumbling to himself, which can last for hours, or he’s hyper and jumping from tree to tree and finally off a cliff. Once he even tried to dive into an active volcano. There’s rarely any in betweens. It’s okay if he gets hurt, he’ll heal up in no time. It even feels good to get hurt. Fractures, burns, external and internal bleeding, almost-decapitation… he has a new to-do list everyday. He’ll even feel itchy on the inside if he doesn’t let himself bleed every now and then. That’s what the werewolves’ superior healing is for, and he’s totally abusing this ability. He would just shrug it off when people point out to him that he’s basically addicted to self-harm. It’s just called having fun! He would then cackle and squeal and bark back and forth on a crescendo and decrescendo like a total maniac. The werewolves would just assume that he’s under Ladybug’s curse or something, because he clearly isn’t in his right mind. Oh well, it’s not like they have to be friends with him. And who knows if it’s contagious or not, so better leave quickly to be safe than sorry.

Grub’s current self has something to do with his childhood. He was born into a big family, as his parents had many children back to back, litter after litter. He’s just one of the dozens of children. Grub is a quintuplet and the runt of his litter. Initially, his parents wanted to abandon him, as it would’ve been a waste to feed him since he would just die anyway. But little Grub cried and squeaked and howled for milk, as if he didn’t know what giving up was. Then his parents changed their mind. Perhaps they ended up giving him a chance because they were entertained. Sure, they’ll be generous this one time and see how things turn out. If he dies, they’ll just eat him. They even named him Grub out of spite; crawling on the floor on his hands and knees and struggling for life just like a grub. Befitting of such a weak, unimpressive pup.

Grub was strong. He was resilient despite his circumstances. He managed to survive, but his growth is permanently stunted to this day. His childhood was less than ideal. When it was meal time, his parents left little to no prey for him, and he could only watch his brothers and sisters wolf down their dinner because he was too small and weak to even fight for the scraps. He filled his belly by gnawing on bones and whatever had been left over after his family had their share. He learned to break bones and suck on the marrow. Sometimes he’d crush and eat the bones too when he got desperate. Other than that, he’d stuff himself with dried grass, snow, and even dirt in order to stave off hunger. This is why Grub is short and small even in adulthood. Sure, he’s lean and compact, as he’s been eating well ever since he left his hell of a family and taught himself how to hunt, but his height is stuck at where it is now. He’s just a smidge taller than what would be considered a short werewolf woman. Perhaps the lack of nourishment during his vital childhood days had also done something to his brain. Either that, or he was born creepy. Or both. The werewolves are scared of him, but they also pity him. He didn’t choose to become like this anyway. Grub taking extreme measures to hurt himself is probably just his way of coping.

Grub is a warrior, but he isn’t allowed to spar without having many other warriors chaperoning the battleground because Grub doesn’t spar to train. He fights to kill. He disrespects the protocol and has no sense of honor, and won’t stop even when his sparring partner has yielded. There was a time when the warriors had to collectively restrain Grub and pry his fangs off the neck of his sparring partner whom he had defeated in a duel, because he just wouldn’t let go. He wanted to draw blood. More blood. Even more blood. To him, he’s not done until he crushes his opponent’s throat. To this day, the incident’s witnesses haven’t forgotten about all the bleeding and crying and the gruesome screams that had echoed throughout the mountains. Grub’s victim had retired from fighting ever since and went into hiding. And Grub? He never apologized.

Grub doesn’t really have any hobbies other than thrill seeking and self-harming. Maybe he just hasn’t discovered anything yet. Well, he should apply for a job as a communal alarm clock because you can always bet that he’d be screaming and howling by 4:00 am sharp. Even Mother Moon needs her beauty sleep. Grub disagrees.

Grub doesn’t have a crush on anyone as of now. Some werewolves doubt his ability to even recognize members of his pack as his own kind. Can he even see them that way? Hard to say. Grub isn’t dumb in the slightest, he’s just crazy... good for him, then.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for future posts!

#kori’s blood moon au #noblesse #manhwa #myart #fanart #lagus tradio #gradeus

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startledstoat · 10 months

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i’m literally just pointing out that people in the fandom have noticed that the apparent standard in their fanart is hourglass figure, 0% body fat, massive thigh gap lol. i am obviously not hating on those bodies (that is literally what i look like!!!), just wondering why none of their characters have any sort of meat on their bones, especially regulus who canonically looks to be at least mid-sized

with what you said about remus - i agree! my favourite fics are the ones that delve into his body image and eating disorder as a result of his lycanthropy. with regulus, i don’t like it as much, mainly because people (cough cough jegulus writers) use it as a way to be like “well yes he was a massive racist prejudiced death eater voldemort fanatic but he had an eating disorder :((((( so it isn’t his fault he needs jamie to come save his wittle self :((((“

anyways thank you for your nuanced response i do appreciate actually debating with people on here instead of people just going “SKINNYPHOBIC AND MEAN LMFAO” which is like. yes maybe i am mean but skinnyphobic?? 😭

Love that you responded nicely!

When I think of Reg with those HCs I think of the EDs going along with the trans Reg idea, stemming from his body dysphoria and also having to do with him being raised with the pressure of being an upper-class pureblood "girl" who was expected to be the picture of flawless beauty, which would've been a very toxic beauty standard for someone in that position during that time (flat stomach, thigh gap, hourglass waist, full hips and chest). This is definitely not a HC that works for everyone, expecially those who don't HC Regulus to have been abused in his childhood or don't HC him to be trans.

The addiction is a separate HC and I'm not saying your take on it is wrong but my thoughts on it are a bit different. It's more what I think would have come around the same time he started realizing that he was on the very wrong side of the war and wanted out but couldn't see a way that he realistically could get out bc Voldemort isn't a dude you just go up to like "yeah man listen we had a good run but now I'm realizing that this is so much more fucked up than I thought and now I don't wanna be part of it anymore". (I like to think that he didn't betray Voldemort just because of what happened to Kreacher, but more like his doubts and fears were building up for a while and Kreacher being tortured was just the last straw)This guilt and self loathing that would likely have ensued would have been a very slippery slope, especially when paired with the pressure of being the new heir following Sirius being disowned and their father dying as well as the trauma from his potentially abusive childhood, I think he could have turned to things like calming draughts and dreamless sleep to initially calm his nerves and moods, but then fell in too deep. And it's fine that you don't like that as much! As long as you're being respectful to the people that do, because it's not a HC that's harmful to any real life people.

His redemption arc, both the canon and the fanon parts, definitely don't just erase the fact that he was a death eater that likely tortured and killed people, but the fact that he tried to do the right thing in the end does count for something. Not to mention that he was literally a teenager that was raised in that environment and was taught nothing else until age 11 when he went to hogwarts. 11 years of one type of propoganda being taught to him, during his developmental years no less, doesn't just go away. Yeah he was 18, and as a 19 year old myself I can say that he was both old enough to have learned right from wrong as he went through school, but still young enough that it's perfectly normal for him to have been terrified of turning his back on the family he knew and outright defying a genuinely horrifying maniac that killed people for fun. 18 is still a child in so many ways even if it's also an adult in some other ways.

It's unrealistic to think that Sirius and Andromeda didn't struggle themselves with nature vs nurture when they first started being taught other things in hogwarts and started hanging around other people, even if we wanna say that they were morally perfect right from the beginning and didn't have any internalized prejudices to work through.

I got off track lmao but anyway

I've actually noticed that more artists now draw plus sized characters than there used to be, and maybe that's still not a lot, but it's not a change that's going to happen overnight. It's like the difference between white james in older fanarts and indian james in newer ones. HCs come and go, and I do really hope more people get on the plus sized characters idea because I think it's great, but even people who do share that idea are still going to have different ideas of which characters it fits based on their own HCs.

The most important thing is that characters who are plus sized in canon stay that way in fanon. Characters who were never given a specified body type in canon (or maybe were specified to be skinny but not given a real reason to be skinny) are fair game for however people want to think of them.

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wishi-selfships · 1 year

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[i am on my little hands and knees] pls hit me with some gabi x denji facts. who is the protective one. who is the better cook. they seem so cute i need to know MORE

Omg haiii ｏ(*≧∇≦)ﾉ hai hai haiii ty for giving me an excuse to talk about Gabi n Denji :3ccc

▪︎ I like to think that they're both protective over the other 💭 Maybe equally so, it's just a little hard to tell. Denji is more physically protective. He wants to make sure Gabi is safe!! Because he values her and doesn't like seeing her hurt. He isn't overwhelmingly protective, but if she's going somewhere? He's going too (so he can keep her safe !... and so he can spend time with her but shh)

□ Meanwhile, Gabi is protective in the more emotional sense. Ofc she's also protective in the physical sense, but moreso emotionally. She doesn't wanna see Denji hurt in a way that he can't drink blood and heal from. Looks out for him and steers him away from people who only wanna use him!! Gently reminds Denji that he's got people in his corner. Let's him know when someone is ... suspicious. Stuff like that! Or something idk it's like really late right now :3

▪︎ Denji is a better cook, but Gabi is the better baker. In situations where they live together, they'll take turns cooking, but Gabi will always make meals that she doesn't need to make from scratch, like salmon or whatever, whereas Denji would be fine with making things from scratch... sort of. He's definitely willing to learn, at the very least. Gabi? Not so much. She likes baking, though. Finds it easier than cooking, for some... odd reason.

▪︎ I've mentioned this before sometime in the past, but they definitely have promise rings. It's nothing serious, of course. Just an idea that Gabi played around with for a little while that started off as something silly (getting them silly spider rings from Party City) but soon developed into something with a little more merit (getting thin, gold bands). At first Denji wasn't really into it but I like to think he accepted it after a while 💭 And by "accept it" I mean he probably gets really petty when Gabi takes hers off to do something.

"Does that thing mean NOTHING to you?!" And she's just trying to put on some gloves to season some meat or smthn💀

▪︎ Gabi acts as Denji's impulse control. Goes "Hey, let's think about this for a moment!!" When she sees Denji about to make a not so smart decision. She doesn't dictate what he does, she let's him do what he wants at the end of the day. She doesn't like being controlling, and wants Denji to be able to make decisions for himself. But she does let him know when something doesn't seem like such a good idea.

She will, however, put her foot down if he tries to eat raw meat. Or trash. Or something that fell on the floor.

"Put. That. DOWNN."

She's serious when it comes to his health. Will let most things slide w/ his decision making unless it'd directly harm him (eating.. tidepod for $5)

▪︎ Denji sometimes has to squeeze Gabi just to confirm that she's real. Gives her a hug and holds on tightly. Squeezes her hand. Stares at her for a bit before smooshing her face. Yknow. Just to make sure.

▪︎ They're both like.... really jealous people. Sort of ties in to the protective thing mentioned earlier, but Denji's the type of guy to side eye a dude if he's talking with Gabi. It's usually just a feeling of " >:/" because guys don't really approach Gabi and Gabi is ... not a very big fan of speaking with others in general. But sometimes when he feels like there's some ulterior motive behind an interaction, he starts to get more obviously jealous. Definitely whines to Gabi afterwards about how that guy was "totally checking [Gabi] out" and how he didn't like that guy .. He was just asking Gabi for some directions </3

□ Gabi gets jealous easily, but it usually doesn't really bother her. I'd always imagine that, while Denji is insanely loyal, he's still very partial and bias for women. He won't beg for attention from girls, but like ... yk. Ykk. He'll act as a chair for girls, or he'll do things for them if they ask, and Gabi will sometimes be a little iffy about it, but she's got enough trust in Denji not to get too upset. It's really a 50/50% chance if she does something if a girl is like... actively flirting with Denji, though. Sometimes it makes Gabi uncomfy to the point where she's awkwardly standing there, mentally going "who tf ..??", but sometimes Gabi will be petty and not so subtly drop hints indicating that she's his s/o and that things are pretty closed. (Both of their jealousy issues probably stem from .. like.. GENUINE issues tbh but I can't think of what those are rn)

▪︎ As nice as Gabi finds it that Denji would like to help her with her hair, she does NOT let Denji in her head. He wants to play with her hair? Sure, fair game as long as he's careful about it! But she'd rather not let him help her wash her hair out, nor does she want him styling her hair. She knows he'd be willing to learn, but had decided to make the executive decision to. Not let him.

□ Gabi LOVES being in Denji's hair, though. Likes playing with it, running her fingers through it, washing it for Denji. Despite the hypocrisy, he let's her do it with minimal complaints (but the complaints aren't complaints, just him whining that he wants to do her hair too)

▪︎ I like to think that they take baths together 💭 Not all the time because Gabi prefers showers (and she takes them alone) but sometimes they'll hop into the tub for some bubble bath time. I'd imagine that they'd help each other wash off 💭💭 also. Prime time for Gabi to wash Denji's hair for him :3c Although ... Gabi probably did try and drown Denji once but it's okay she was j playing ☆

▪︎ Denji is sort of into Sonic, but only because of Gabi. She's the one whose super into it. In a modern timeline, Gabi forced Denji to watch her play Frontiers (he had to comfort her when she sobbed over the ending. He didn't get why she was crying so hard though </3)

▪︎ Gabi and Denji usually live separately, but want to move in together. But to be honest? They might as well be considered actual roommates considering how much Gabi comes over to Denji's place 💀 Like you sleep, eat, and just chill at his place atp you might as well pack your bags and stay there (lowkey it's because of the dogs. She loves em!! But there's alot of them and unfortunately Gabi is much more of a cat person </3)

▪︎ In instances where Gabi's debut is in part one, their first ever date was a dinner date ♡♡ They prepped and ate Makima btw (delicious)

There's.. MORE about them in my brain but I don't wanna ramble </3 Also my brain is fried !!! Because I haven't eaten yet so my hungry brain is kinda. pffttt. Yk?

Anyways ihihi thank u for the ask 🫶🏽🫶🏽

#selfship #self ship #gabiden my beloveds♡#denji my beloved♡#⛓️🪚 GabiDen [ship]#or whatever the tag is idk i forgot #ashtoberr tag #TY 4 ASKINGG AGAIN 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽#wishi's moots!#self shipping #selfshipping #im sure more will come to mind one of these days . idk im a little all over the place ♡♡

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wrightanatomyau · 11 months

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A flan story

If you asked Ninten which food is his favourite the answer was a no brainer. Prime Rib. But if you asked for his favourite dessert, well, it was a no brainier too! Flan, he loved flan. Soft, sweet, perfect to enjoy on every season!

He loved a good portion of ribs, but besides the type of meat, ribs were essentially ribs, all you could do to change it was to change with what you served it. It wasn’t something bad per se, but he liked that flan came in many forms, you had the classics vanilla and chocolate flan with caramel, but you could also make it with coffee or cheese, and even combine them! It was a dessert of endless possibilities.

So, it was no surprise to anyone (but Ana) that he felt more than a personal offense, more than just an attack, but betrayal itself when uncle Giegue one day searched on his freeze, took one of his precious flans, opened it, smelled, made a disgusting face and threw it to trash.

“Nephew, you had something dusting here, I threw it away for you.”

Ninten was so shocked by what he heard and by what he had witnessed, that he was frozen in place as his uncle happily grabbed some cookies from the cabinet and went outside to talk with his mom.

The hurt of the betrayal had been so big that Ninten was sure he had developed some kind of PTSD. Why do you think he thinks that? Well, because right now, his secret crush (a secret for anyone but Ana) was looking at him, pretty mad, like about to commit murder kind of mad. And why was his crush looking at him mad?

Well, long story short he had bumped into Claus at the hospital, both of their shift had ended at the same time. Taking his chance Ninten had decided to walk with Claus to his car, and this way he could make as much small conversation with him as possible before he had to leave to pick his daughter. In that small walk, of not more that 5 minutes Claus had casually mentioned that he and his brother loved omelettes, and Ninten, with the gracious of a cat on catnip falling from a roof he had jumped to the chance of talking about flan.

But man, oh dude, he did more than that.

Before Claus could said anything else, like, for example, that he didn’t like flan, he continued talking, and talking, eventually Claus told him he had to leave, and he simply got on his car and accompanied him to get his daughter, and he keep talking about flan! But he like, couldn’t stop you know? What if Claus didn’t like flan too? He couldn’t live with that! So, he kept talking, and accompanied Claus to the kindergarten to get Lil Marsh, and he just couldn’t shut up about flan.

So now with Marsh looking at him weirdly (not good if he wanted to score points with her) he kept talking and talking. And they continued their journey, all the way back to Claus’s and Lucas’s flat. And now, an hour later, with daughter, father and a Ninten sitting at the table, he finally shut up.

By the end of his over an hour-long monologue, Marsh passed from obvious confusion to smiling. Luckily for Ninten she was finding the whole thing hilarious, Lucas was working late, so he was saved from embarrassing himself in front of the twin, and Claus.... oh sweet, adorable Claus. He had been probably plotting his murder for the last 15 minutes or more.

Marsh left her fork and giggled. “Can you rep-” Claus put one of his hands over her mouth and looked at her as if saying. ‘Don’t you dare do it!’ Lil Marsh simply laughed, for the little kid the whole situation was extra super dupper funny. Claus sighed and pointed his very sharp knife at him.

“My favourite flavour is vanilla with caramel, do this again and I will stab you with this.”

Ninten could care less about the threat. Claus liked flan! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! He got so excited that he started to ramble about flan yet again, to which Claus slammed his head against the table, and by this point Marsh was having the perfect night! Daddy’s boyfriend was funny!

That night they all eat flan, and Ninten decided, that although all flans were great, vanilla flan with caramel was now his favourite.

Now, if only he could get Claus to stop calling him dumbass that would make everything perfect.

The End

Happy Luness wishes you the hive mind! And surprise! The super duper important pool was to choose Ninten’s favourite flan 😎 Because ✨B✨ and I couldn’t decide for ourselves akskd Thanks for voting! (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*💕

✨L✨

#wrigth anatomy au #fanfiction #clausten #fic #luness #claus mother 3 #ninten earthbound beginnings #ninten #claus #happy luness!#lil miss marshmallow

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watchingspnagain · 2 years

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Rewatching Metamorphosis

Welcome to “I swear to Chuck, Dean Winchester, if you say Man Pig one more time…: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

Up today, s4e4: Metamorphosis.

In the suburbs, a married man is becoming insatiable for meat. And maybe… human flesh? He’s scaring the bejesus out of his wife (and himself), but when two incredibly handsome young men clad in flannel show up and tell him it’s because he’s a monster, he’s not buying it. (Always believe handsome young men in flannel when they tell you you’re a monster.) Turns out the dude can NOT become a full-on monster as long as he refrains from eating human flesh. Once he does, there’s no going back. But the boys are divided on whether he can be saved—Sam argues that he’ll be able to control himself and be fine; Dean is sure he is doomed to be a monster. This, of course, echoes their positions on what’s going on with Sam and Ruby and how they each feel about THAT. The episode’s climax involves a lot of ew and gross and an old hunter friend of John’s being awful. And our boys… are FRAUGHT.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

[and we begin:]

Mace:

Interesting. I don’t think Sam gets objectified like this often (“slutting around”)

Lor:

no, I don't think he does

oh Dean

I FORGOT that he finds out by spying

Mace:

yeah

Lor:

"is that Ruby?" and the LOOK

Mace:

right?!

Lor:

oh he's maaaaad

they are so FRAUGHT

Mace:

he really is

Lor:

ooo Sammy's wearing one of his BEST shirts

Mace:

HE IS

oh Dean, you don’t wanna leave

HEY NOW, LAY OFF MY STRINGBEAN

Lor:

oh Dean, that's it, cycle that violence

Mace:

YEP

Lor:

OH! Sam's being influenced by Ruby BUT Dean's being influenced by Cas. and they both CAN be influenced bc something in there lets them be, but I never picked up on the parallel before

Mace:

YEP

Lor:

I feel a little dumb right now. like, it's RIGHT THERE

Mace:

snork

Lor:

but Cas is definitely not a love interest for Dean. definitely not

Mace:

NOPE DEFINITELY NOT

JUST FRIENDS

Lor:

only bros

Mace:

we don’t need to discuss how there’s 1000% more sexual tension in the scenes between Cas and Dean than Ruby and Sam...

Lor:

lol nope

not beat down after five or six years of marriage to JOHN

Mace:

and the fact that Sam and Ruby are married in real life now so there must have been actual tension between them but still Misha and Jensen provoke more sexy vibes…

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

RIGHT?

I was just trying to figure out how to say something very similar

Mace:

Lor:

"weird with crazy on top"

dude, have a string cheese. this is what they are FOR

Mace:

YEP

HAHAHAHAHA

this one is just kinda gross

Lor:

yeah

WOULD HE? or would he find something to criticize

Mace:

enough with the pointed snark, Dean

oh he would totally criticize

Lor:

"is that made up? that sounds made up"

yeah, Dean is passive aggressiving today

Mace:

LONG PIG

Lor:

LOL

I love that it's Sam who knows what it means, not Dean

Mace:

yeah, that doesn’t seem right somehow

Lor:

yeah

I suspect it was sloppy, but I kind of like the against-type of it

Mace:

yeah

Lor:

so props for calling the jerk out but points off for the fatphobia

Mace:

yep

i do love that they do things to make the ‘bad’ guy sympathetic

Lor:

YES

Mace:

SAM SAID LORE EVERYBODY DRINK

Lor:

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

ooof Dean, people pleasing and managing the people/conversation

Mace:

YEP

okay so here we have Dean on the side of black-and-white and Sam on the side of greys

Lor:

Travis, you dick, YES they have not eaten in days, you KNEW their dad, you jerk

yep

Mace:

we should keep score on these because I think I remember they flipflop several times throughout the show

Lor:

oh yeah, they definitely do

ooo, retrograde marital dynamics

fun

Mace:

HA yeah

um, WHOSE emotions are getting in the way, Dean?

Lor:

I think they flip on the grey thing depending on what's going on with them. Sam wants monsters to be okay sometimes bc he's afraid he's kind of one. Dean wants it to be black and white bc he wants Sam to just STOP using his powers. you'd think they'd learn at some point though

RIGHT?

Mace:

yeah

Lor:

Dean can never resist upset Sammy

"hungry hungry hippos levels" DEAN

Mace:

I wonder if part of why Dean’s panties are so bunched about all this is that he has always felt wrong/inadequate/not-enough (thanks to John) and so he tries to protect Sam and keep him normal

HAHAHA

Mace:

STOP. SAYING. MAN. PIG. DEAN.

Lor:

oh YES

LOL

Mace:

he feels like he’s failing Sammy so he’s angry at himself and taking that out on Sam

Lor:

YES

DEAN. stop being a little shit! NO PIE

Mace:

Come on, we all know you’d give in in a heartbeat and give him pie

Lor:

....

yeah, it's true

I can't even pretend it's not true anymore

he's just little and he's never done anything wrong

Mace:

HAAAAHAHAHA

“we should go” “yeah"

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

"we're here to save you! i guess"

Mace:

BOYS

Lor:

HAHAHAHAHA

so he only wants to eat women?

Mace:

well, eating men would be kind gay

Lor:

it feels like there's a sexual component here they are not addressing

Mace:

HAHAHA

Lor:

HA! and no one would want THAT. not on the Man Show

Mace:

nope

OH DAMN I forgot about this part

Lor:

so not that all options here aren't awful, but Travis is aware you can... not have a child without killing the woman?

Mace:

that wouldn’t be the Christian thing to do, though, now would it

Lor:

splutters in 2023

Mace:

HAAAAAHAHAHA

oh Travis is dead. how tragic.

Lor:

yes, I weep

OMG LOCK YOUR CAR WHEN YOU LEAVE IT ON THE STREET

Mace:

SNORK

Lor:

correct, Sammy

Mace:

YES

ew.

Lor:

yeah

omg stop hitting Sammy in the head!

Mace:

omg STOP HITTING SAM IN THE HEAD

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Lor:

HAAAAHAHAHAHA

Mace:

my Bean’s gonna have the brain damage

Lor:

seriously

look. when the Winchesters show up and tell you to do something, you do it. that's how you don't end up a monster who can't see your family.

Mace:

ayup

for the life of me I can’t understand how anyone could say no to either of them

Lor:

interesting choice to have Dean lying down like this for this scene

RIGHT?

Mace:

well if they didn’t then he’s have burned the dude without chatting first

Lor:

it's definitely not as sexual assaulty as somethings they do to him, but

Mace:

and they needed Sammy to have his little existential crisis talk first

Lor:

well, he could be unconscious in a chair or something

Mace:

mmm

Lor:

LYING

Mace:

YEP

Lor:

oh boys

Mace:

yeah

#watchingspnagain #watchingspnagain 4x04 #spn #supernatural #spn meta #spn spoilers #spn 4x04 #watchingspnagain boy king of hell #watchingspnagain cas as love interest parallel #dean and assault #watchingspnagain dean's responsible for sam #watchingspnagain fraught #watchingspnagain monsters #watchingspnagain gray #watchignspnagain sam and assault

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ultimateplaylistmaker · 1 year

Note

That feeling when you realize Makoto and Hajime are both boring/plain in their games, but you can tell what type of plain they are based off their clothes. Makoto is plain by Ultimate standards because what madlad, what absolute unit, what secret genius would think of wearing a blazer on top of his hoodie. A hoodie that is actually pretty drippy? Like, is there air conditioning? That's a lot of layers! And the little dude just looks so cool! To top it off by how he's Ultimate Plain, you wouldn't find anyone else wearing his outfit. Maybe an alteration, but an everyday occurrence? It's probably rare!

Hajime is regular plain. You can find his outfit pretty much everywhere. Everyone is bound to be wearing a shirt, and maybe even a tie with a shirt. And who wouldn't wear sneakers? He's on a (probably) budget and he makes it work.

Makoto Naegi is only plain and normal when compared to the ultimates really, he canonically eats kangaroo meat at home Makoto Naegi is like "aw man im the most normal man ever" and then he goes and accidentally stops a robber by tripping and ripping the guys bag full of jewels. He's normal on the fact that he despite it all mostly has normal interests and has no real interest in trying to seem quirky, he's normal in the sense he just kinda lets himself exist, he's not trying to be anything more then Makoto and he doesn't really go looking for attention, so he comes off as normal, that kid you saw a few times in class but never thought much about because he didn't do anything really, normal.

Meanwhile Hajime is DESPERATE for approval and recognition, which is why he dresses in a more basic way with a tie and everything. He wants to be seen as responsible and capable and smart so he dresses for it, his outfit is just another costume towards his pursuit of being seen as more then just some dude. He comes off as normal and regular because thats a pretty common costume for people to have, to dress responsible and well to be taken as more mature or more seriously even if he doesn't have as much money as some of his peers. Which gives him that air of responsibility, but means hes also kinda generic because it's based off the generic "look im responsible" aesthetic.

#trigger happy havoc #goodbye despair #musings from the music manager #i do think its funny makoto 'i swear im normal' lasted for like 20 minutes before he like mentions kangaroo meat or whatever #anon chaos

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intrepidradish · 2 years

Text

Media: Farscape

Year/my age: 2019/29

This one is going to be enormous. Cant' be helped.

What drew me to the media:

Sometime in 2017, the boyfriend, later husband, was watching a show called Farscape. We lived in a different states. He was really enjoying it, and I wasn't in the mindset to watch a show. I was trying to watch Star Trek the Next Generation and was failing miserably. He said I should watch Farscape instead, and I don't take show suggestions because I'm a stubborn jackass that likes to be an enigma. Classic Classic. Nothing has changed. I did not watch Farscape.

Fast forward two years, I'm in a pit of despair because I can't watch anymore Dr. Who. I finished the reboot material, don't want to go back to the earlier Whos and can't afford the Jodi Whittaker's on prime. I'm lightly sobbing (because I'm a lil baby) about needing a new show that is both funny, campy, and also trauma inducing. Once again the boyfriend is like "dude, watch Farscape." and I'm like "no, no. I'm not going to watch the muppets-in-space show."

We all know how this ends.

OKAY BUT SEASON 1! John Crichton! Aeryn Sun! The MAKEUP! The Props! The SETS! The Muppets!

I'm engaged, you know, I'm there watching.

I think early season John Crichton is yaknow... he's an arc type of a white guy in space. He was on top of the spaghetti on Earth being a cis straight guy, kind of a bro. He's got that solid mix vibe of both your quarterback from highschool but is smart enough to also be your biology tutor. He's got a heart of gold. He's going to stand up for the nerd getting the toilet swirly.

He's an arc type we see a LOT in science fiction, and the normal route for these kinds of dudes is they get in an unfamiliar environment and take over. Since I was worried that was going to be his trajectory, I was a little more skeptical of him from the start.

What is really refreshing about Farscape right out of the gate is that John Crichton is off kilter. He does not get in and take *anything* over. His unfamiliarity with the situation constantly is a disservice to himself and others despite trying to get on top of it, he can't. His heart of gold does win him a few friends though. Even though they all think he's nuts, which he is, and definitely is going to get crazier.

Anyway for the next 18 episodes, hour long apiece (its also crazy that seasons used to be 26 episodes, the 90s were blessed), I was happily invested in watching a man screw up a lot but also save the day. I love plots that revolve around a HUGE misunderstanding, because that's what motivates the plot for most of season 1.

What made me a fan:

Look, to defend myself here before we even get into it, I'm kind of a strange person. I look very 'cute woman', I'm dominantly tall for being only 5'9." I have blue eyes and dark hair, and weirdish teeth that makes a great smile. If you put me in a room with other people, I can be very charming. However, if you put me in sweats alone at home, I transform into a monster; a genderless, venomous freak that wants to eat raw meat, claw at dirt, and spit at people.

Inside, I am a freakish goblin person.

I've come to terms with this.*

(*she had, in fact, not come to terms with this in 2019)

I find it really funny that a lot of people are attracted to media because characters resonant with them. This very rarely happens to me. I can pick little bits of pieces of this character or that character that I like, but it's always me *liking* a character, not me relating to one. People generally don't put freakish goblin characters in shows. It's not like... a common character to make for a show, or book, or movie, or for anything for that matter.

Shocking to me, Farscape introduces a freakish goblin character late in season 1. Scorpius shows up.

'Neat' doesn't really cover it.

You know, it really is so nice to be represented for once in media. It really feels pretty great. Why yes, I am both that strange alien lizard man and why yes, I also want to rail him. That's the trans identity in a nutshell.

What did Hannibal Lector say to Clarice in Silence of the Lambs

"First, you have to covet. And how do you being to covet, Clarice?"

"You covet what you see everyday."

Right, I'm getting off track and poetic.

This is the first time I got interested in a media not for a ship but because of a single character. Scorpius is interesting enough on his own. He doesn't need someone to fix him or complete him. I want to take him in my hands, hold him, and then free him in every single animal enclosure just to watch what he does. And that *chef's kiss* is the perfect character, no ship needed.

Why do I like Scorpius?

I'm so glad you asked!

One. Look at him. He's a lizard man. He's got a weird bdsm outfit. He's got liquid latex pants, a codpiece, and an impish false tail (which doesn't get captured enough on video in the show's lighting). He's not ripped, he has a nice belly (belly.) He's got a cowl for fuck's sake. Also what's the deal with his gstring face mask? His gray pallor. His dark lips. His sharp teeth. But then they left his very human blue eyes. Love that. Apparently they thought about giving him lizard eye contacts and I'm so glad they didn't. He's great! He looks great. Moving on.

Two. He also has a great voice. I love creature actors! They have all this latex on their face, so their mobility for expression goes way down. But the greats always have fantastic voices. Doug Jones! Armin Shimmerman! Iggy pop (lols)! One of my fav things to do to introduce the character is send people the first torture scene, and Scorp has this liquid smooth, soft voice. LIKE SHUT UP. I'm sorry I'm a voice slut, but I am. He sounds great. He sounds like a ASMR whisper video that could put me to sleep.

Three. Harvey. Harvey is the head clone Scorpius put inside John Crichton. He's actually...more of my favorite... than Scorpius. (Ah!) Mostly because he's so fucking funny. And eventually, I got into the mind set that they are two sides of the same coin. That in order to understand Scorpius, you need to understand Harvey. And only when you sync the two, you get the whole man. Scorpius doesn't say a lot. Harvey says too much. You need both of them to understand.

Four. He's disabled. He has a genetic disorder. He suffers from chronic pain. If he gets too hot, he experiences excruciating pain. He's come up with a weird way to deal with it: a temperature suit and a giant cooling rod inserted in his brain. The cooling rod eventually craps out and he gets too hot again. His body regularly tries to kill him. It might be giving him brain damage.

Five. He is obsessed and stubborn and difficult and determined and willing to do anything. He has no allegiances (but he's also pretty nice to the people that work for him). He's motivated solely because he thinks it's the most efficient way to save the galaxy. (Don't worry, it's also a self-invested decision. He's still a bad boy.) Unfortunately, he thinks he'll need to commit genocide. He's wrong, but that makes him even better.

Six. He's smart, but not too smart. He makes mistakes. Season 3 is probably my favorite season, because that crushing finale. Lord.

Seven. He's a product of his upbringing, which was fucking shitty. He's ultimately an underdog. Ah! Yeah Season 3 Incubator! I honestly think Season 3 is the Scorpius season. It was the season they made him empathetic to the audience. He's a rape baby. He's a science experiment! He's not even a very good one. He's probably the only one that survived. He's alone in the universe. FUCKING ROUGH.

Eight. John Crichton will never forgive him. FUCK. This is one of my favorite plot points. Their entire relationship is just so shitty. John snuck into a Peacekeeper base as a Sebaccean. Scorpius, literally walking by him, knew he was lying, and captures him for torture to discover why he's breaking into a PK base. Because John is there for his then girlfriend, John tries to hide it. Quite separately, Scorpius see all his information about Wormholes, and is like 'huh that's a good way to destroy an entire race. tell me more.' Scorpius cares so little about John's stupid girlfriend, that she accidentally gets killed, and yaknow, being a smart dude, tags his catch and release with a clone brain chip. (As you do. It's completely understandable.) Unfortunately, the brain clone makes John go crazy for an entire season and kill his second girlfriend. JEEZ.

I might be misremembering things. I'm sort of on Scorpius's side at this point. It's been four years.

THE POINT IS. The entire thing is a HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING again. Like John doesn't have the info Scorpius wants out of the gate. Scorpius wasn't even supposed to be torturing him. It's shitty KISMET. They are on opposite sides for no reason! (it's almost star crossed lovers) Because of how John enjoys Harvey towards the end of their run, these two guys could've been friends. And that's a tragedy. To me. This person that watched a show and enjoyed it.

Nine. This guy looks like a KINKY FUCK and HE IS. I honestly thought when he first showed up they were going to neuter him. I'm too used to disney villains obviously. I was like 'oh...right, gimp man. he is going to be slowly deprived of every ounce of sex appeal like an orange in a juicer. they can't allow that thing to be sexy. it goes against the very integrity of expected normal television' BUT THEN THEY DIDN'T. He is every ounce the kinky fuck you want him to be the entire show. Including sucking blood off John's finger. Licking Meeklo Braca's face. Wearing a dog collar and drinking out of a bowl. Eating food weird. And literally having sex. He also moans when he's in pain. It all makes me feel pretty electric, and disgusted. I love it.

Ten. He wins. yup. 'nough said.

Have I written fanfiction for it? Why or why not?

You bet your ass I have. In the year of our lord 2019 having just been godsmacked by a character I strangely related to, I had to write some fanfiction. I was actually pretty confused about what I adored about Scorpius at the time. Since its a twenty year old fandom, I expected to uncover a treasure trove of other people already dealing with the same shit I was going through.

Like what's the deal with this hot lizard man? What kind of wicked sex he be having? What's his damage with John? How many different ways do they do the nasty to deal with their tension?

Surprisingly, the fandom did not deliver on these questions. Either, it was the 90s-00s and like...the nonbinary trans gay agenda wasn't really a concern for the founding show of a new tv network or a lot of the gay was lost in the fanfiction.net purge or the internet had changed just too damn much (forums didn't last 20 years).

Instead, I ran into a lot of fanfiction stories that didn't talk about his sexuality at all or made him into a huge rapist but didn't like...actually talk about rape or abuse or question any of that. I read the rape ones because I don't have a lot of options, but I was a bit irritated right. (Admittedly, I'm projecting on a weird lizard man, so I probably shouldn't get too bent out of shape about it. But I do. Meh.)

The first two stories I wrote, are definitely me trying to figure out something about my own sexuality vis a vis a weird lizard man. I entered with Harvey, because he was easier to grapple with.

Moments in Multitudes is just... so weird. But mind palaces are some of my favorite tropes.

Black Mirror was originally only 3 chapters long, but I expanded it when I was writing Far Horizon (the more plot driven story) because I was horny.

They are both weird stories. I think chapter 2 and 3 of Black Mirror are some of the best writing I did for the fandom. Too bad they are hidden in a no-touchy kink exploration of two characters that are the same person in a mental space. Ooooops.

Ultimately, I was writing for myself, and using a story to address my own approach to the monstrous.

I read this great article at the time.

It's a great article about identity and action. A person's identity has nothing to do with how they behave or how they are perceived.

But I also really liked this article's breakdown that desire and disgust live on the same spectrum. It's why men that claim to love women are also disgusted with their sexuality, bodies, and their sex.

I'm a cerebral person, so I needed more understanding of why Scorpius, a character that makes me a little wigged out, is something I'm also very attracted to. Fascinating stuff.

Around the time I was writing Scorpius like this, I also got a really wicked intense crush on a femme nonbinary person. Yay. Coming to terms with being bisexual. Thanks Scorp!

I don't have much to say about Far Horizon. It wasn't supposed to be horny, but some scenes don't leave a person alone. I sometimes think about taking out the masturbation scene, since the story can standalone without it. But meh.

Like I said before, I was writing for myself, and I very much enjoy rereading these stories.

Exceptional is one of my favorite stories I've written. It's very full circle of my exploration of Scorp. It's about his mom issues (but secretly) but it's also more about an OC than Scorp himself. I don't understand why people click this story but don't kudos it. It constantly makes me sad. Maybe it's too long. Maybe the sex scenes are too perverse. Maybe I humanized Scorp too much. Maybe the writing is actually bad. Maybe Natalia isn't likeable enough. I have no idea. I love this story though.

I think about scratching the serials off to try to market it, but without Scorp as an existing character in an existing universe, I don't think it works as well.

Opinion on the fandom:

Confusing! I found this show at the wrong time. The old guard is off living their lives. The young guard is like ten years younger than me. It's a very quiet fandom.

The best part is I found Iterations from posting on Ao3, and she supported me as a friend through the pandemic. She dragged my ass into predators (which I'll talk about shortly. It was awful lols) We collaborated on a predators story. We were writing partners for a year or two.

Getting blocked by an artist I really enjoyed was awful too. I don't think I've ever been blocked by someone I wanted to interact with before. It was the first time I was aware of being blocked in my entire existence on the internet!

It's strange because Farscape is SO HORNY. But I want to write the WRONG HORNY.

Like not a lot of people enjoyed Exceptional based on the kudos, but during the time I was taking over the Farscape tag for 26 consecutive weeks, there were SO MANY HORNY SCORPIUS STORIES. I like to think that my story inspired a lot of people. I have to go find it but the Daddy Scorp/Little John was WILD. Someone wrote about the scarran blood pact. We got the insane watersports story. We got the BUG SOUNDING DEAD DOVE. It was a fucking buffet of perverted Scorp stories.

And I remember someone in the midst of this buffet published an Aeryn/John and tagged it like *normal sex* not like all you *freaks*

I went and found it:

Iterations and I went off to giggle about this normcore fuck head trying to slow our roll. Like way to announce you're a boring prude to the public. Let us have our short lived fun.

The Farscape tag is uh more tame right now. People like short reads. Apparently, people still don't kudos. Meh. I don't get it. Sorry I'm horny, guys. I think its in the spirit of the show though.

Would I read again?

Yeah. I actually dig up Scorp stories all the time. It's the only thing I read though. I'm very narrowly focused.

#my personal take

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nerdy-alto · 1 year

Text

Curse you, AC/DC, Mormonism, and/or Laziness

(In honor of Twitter's continued death throes, I figured why not repost one of the favorite long-form things I've written.)

I listened to a lot of music growing up. As the oldest kid, most of what I listened to in my very early childhood was my parent’s music; Linda Ronstadt, Doobie Brothers, Barry Manilow and various classical composers. It was a mark of my growing independence when I got my parents cast-off hi fi systems and was able to find my own radio station to listen to. And boy, did I listen to it. When we ran out of Star Wars topics to cover during recess we talked music. My big favorites were Duran Duran, or at least any band that wore make-up and had keyboards. Beyond the obvious and well-documented prepubescent attraction to non-masculine dudes, what totally attracted me to certain songs was their utter incomprehensability.

Telegram force and ready I knew this was a big mistake There’s a fine line drawing my senses together And I think it’s about to break If I listen close I can hear them singers oh-oh-oh Voices in your body coming through on the radio-oh-oh The union of the snake is on the climb Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break through the borderline

Seriously, wtf does this even mean? But it didn’t matter to me, because this wasn’t your ordinary, Barry Manilow type song about some girl named Mandy, or dead showgirls (1) – this was deep. And maybe I didn’t understand it now, but when I got older – maybe mature enough to have a boyfriend, or wear makeup, or have a boyfriend who wore makeup it would all become clear to me, and I would listen to these songs with a profound understanding. Yes, I’d surely cogitate, this is the Union of the Snake breaking through borderlines. Good thing I got that telegram force!

I can hear your cries of protest now – But surely you weren’t an idiot, nerdycellist, why did you just accept that kind of nonsense? To which I reply, Why thank you, no, I was of course a very smart child (2) but those crucial years of cerebral cortex development were marred by Mormonism. (3) Among Mormonism’s many fine doctrines and articles and rules and crap is the concept of “the milk before the meat”. Both the History and Theology of Mormonism is sometimes less than salubrious (mountain meadows massacre), and frequently insanely wacky (Adam-God doctrine). Since Mormonism’s also big on converting people, they try and keep the crazy shit from the new recruits until they’re far enough entrenched in the cult that they’re willing to suspend disbelief. The official party-line is the analogy that a baby must first learn to drink milk before it can eat meat – too much too soon and you’ll puke, I guess. So I figured that I can’t smile without you was like how Jesus Loved You and the reflex being a lonely child waiting by the door was the idea that my husband would have lots of other wives with me in heaven.

So I had a certain comfort level with not understanding stuff – hell, it may have been a superiority complex – and I listened to a lot of radio. Also kiddies, in those days there was no internet to look up song lyrics, so if you didn’t have the album, you didn’t have the liner notes which only sometimes had lyrics printing in them. I was quite willing to settle for my ear’s first guess when it came to songs.

The last piece of the puzzle here is my laziness; this has always been the bane of my existence. I learned to read very early and with that came a certain amount of knowledge in other school-related pursuits.(4) One of those was spelling, which is a terrible subject for english speakers and learners – it doesn’t make any sense! They only way you can learn how to spell is to be exposed frequently to the word. The other is just by rote repetition. My 5th grade teacher, Mr. Coombs, a favorite mostly because he tried to keep up with important pop cultural references (5), had developed a great strategy for lazy smarty-pantses like myself, who would normally get incomplete marks on take-home spelling homework that I deemed pointless busywork – he gave us 10 minutes on Monday morning to review our list of 20 words, then gave us a pre-test. You only had to do your spelling homework on the words that you missed and then you had the real test on Friday. I hardly ever missed any words on the pre-test, and so was able to skip the bogus busywork. I also pretty much aced the Friday tests. (6)

So let us combine these points into a final scenario: A Friday spelling test was always a nice way for me to usher in the weekend. I had aced the monday pre-test and not had to waste any time copying words out or using them in sentences. Mr. Coombs would always use them in a sentence anyway when calling out the test, which was good in this case, because I had been zoning out when he first pronounced the second to last word, but he used a song lyric to illustrate it! Rad!

I put my pencil to paper…

“… dirty deeds and their Dunderchief.”

huh.

I knitted my eyebrows. That was one of those words, like wah-lah, that I had only heard but never seen written down. And that was from a part of the song that I wouldn’t understand until I was emotionally prepared to deal with the consequences of the full knowledge of that song. I was just going to have to use the context clues of the lyrics to figure out how to spell it. Dirty deeds and their Dunderchief… like an Indian Chief, only because they were Dirty deeds (and not Indian Deeds), they had a Dunderchief. You know, like a dunderhead. Yes! Now “i” before “e”…

This made sense to me. Or at least enough that I scribbled it out in enough time to catch the last word on the quiz. It is to his credit that when Robbie Elmer passed back my corrected spelling test that he didn’t circle the word and write “stupid” or “what is this supposed to mean, idiot?”, but the big red (X) next to #19 was enough to shame me into blushing furiously while considering not turning in the paper at all so Mr. Coombs would never know that I mistook “Cheap” for a made up concept of a Leader of Dirty People.

Also, please note that any spelling mistakes in this essay were left in deliberately, as an excercise for the reader.

*******************************

Footnotes:

1. Holy crap, do I love this song. Also Manilow, but had to be closeted about that back in the day.

2. So smart in fact that I was used as a lab rat for some UofU grad students for their dissertation of kids who can pronounce all the words in Tolstoy but don’t really understand it, or doing stuff with mealworms or something. All I know is I got out of class for like an hour on the days I didn’t get out for orchestra practice! Score!

3. Man, is there anything that can’t be blamed on Mormons?

4. Manifested itself in Kindergarten, when I zoned out during reading because I was already done with Dick and Jane, and then zoned back in during math with the shock that I couldn’t make a 5.

5. He also brought his guitar sometimes and taught us Ghost Riders In The Sky – or was it Ghost Riders in Disguise? Also he demonstrated important scientific concepts by taking us out in his cessna two at a time to do barrel rolls and shit.

6. OK, I think I’m done bragging about my own clerverness now. But I will leave you with one final piece of evidence to my own brilliance – I was so smart I repeated 8th grade!

#way too long #exmormon #spelling #gen x #neurospicy #so many words #maybe some adhd?#dork shit

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gallusrostromegalus · 4 years

Note

If you ever want to do a "Top 10 home gardening tomato cultivars" segment, I'm here for it. (My folks mostly plant Early Girls, but they have a ridiculously short growing season up there. I grow Sweet 100s, because they taste good enough and I gave up on growing anything other than cherries due to bastard squirrels who like to take exactly one bite out of larger tomatoes.)

IT IS NOW TIME TO INFO DUMP

CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED

Ok so the actual thing with tomatoes is there are- checks google- about 10,000 tomato cultivars out there and every single one of them is different, so you should tailor your tomato breeds to what you actually want to do with them. 10K is a lot a breeds to break down, but fortunately, there are ways to Do That:

1. Determinate vs. Indeterminate

Determinate tomatoes grow to a genetically predetermined size and start fruiting. Pros: Tends to have a short time between planting and fruiting, don’t get bigger than a certain size if you only have so much space. Cons: Once they’re done fruiting, that’s it. you really only get the one crop out of them. Also tend to have sad, watered-down flavor.

Indeterminate tomatoes grow as big as the space will let them, and start fruting when they get around to it. Pros: Maximum Plant for minimum investment, which can be like 10x as big as a determinate plant. Will KEEP fruiting until it gets too cold, so if you can get it in a pot you can move inside you could potentially still be harvesting tomatoes after thanksgiving like my MIL was this year. If you live somewhere warm like SoCal or AZ, you could keep it alive all year. Cons: MUCH longer time between planting and fruiting. Indeterminate tomates Get there when they get there. Also may be more prone to disease and pests than the more-modified determinate plants.

There are determinate and indeterminate tomatoes in all 5 of the Greater Tomato Archetypes. Speaking of:

2. The 5 Tomato Archetypes

I’m so good at segues!

So tomatoes come in 5 basic types, each which is generally better for something culinary than the others. You CAN substitute different types of tomato but your food generally doesn’t come out as good.

1. Cherry: Cherry tomatoes produce fruits that are about the size of cherries. Some people put Grape and Saladette tomatoes in here but they are WRONG, both of those belong in the “Round/All-Purpose” group because Cherry tomatoes specifically have thinner skins, more soluable pectin, and more dissolved glutemates, which means they cook VERY differently. Cherry tomatoes also produce a shitload of fruits at a time and might be some of the heaviest producers. Tend to be more heat-tolerant. Good For: Fresh tomato sauces (i.e. takes less than 20 minutes to make), salads, snacking on directly off the vine like you are a small tarsier discovering a hidden bounty of fruit.

Top reccomendations are: -Indigo Cherry or Dwarf Black Krim if you can find it. I always reccomend dark-pigmented tomatoes as I find they have better flavor, pest resistence and UV tolerance. Taste fruity but not over-sweet and Very Tomato-y. -Sweet 100/Super-Sweet 100/Sweet Millions: All varietals of the same mass-producing Cherry Tomato. Makes absolute buckets of Tomatoes, sweeter and more fruity than the Indigo cherry, good disease resistence and long growing season.

2. Paste: Paste tomatoes are thin-skinned, meaty and soft tomatoes that... well, they make good tomato paste, the basis for all long-cooking tomato sauces and recipies. They tend to be kind of Oblong and sometimes grow in fun extras like lil tomato “dicks” or weird cthulian shapes, but this doesn’t effect the flavor or nutrition There’s a shitload of great varietals in this category, I’ve yet to hear of a Bad Paste Tomato, just Less Excellent ones. Good For: Long-cooking Tomato-based dishes like: Bolognese, chili, ketchup, BBQ etc. Also can and freeze well.

Top Reccomendations are: -Amish Paste: MEATY, and well-suited for growing in a variety of conditions. Paste is smooth and velvety. Good for Chili, BBQ and Bolognese. -Opalka tomato: Russian Tomato, little more on the acidic side, grows well in places prone to surprise late frosts. Paste isn’t as smooth but very thick. makes great ketchup. -San Marzano: THE tomato for making Marinara Sauce (also does good bolognese). Sweeter and lighter, with a slightly runnier paste that clings well to pasta. cans and freezes excellently, does well in places with HOT summers.

3. Beef: Beef tomatoes are BIG motherfuckers that kind of take a long time to grow but are very rewarding. Beef tomatoes are firm, have a very solid meat and are best eaten raw, typically sliced onto a sandwich or seared under a broiler for a NZ Mousetrap. Not only are the fruits big but so are the Plants, so they take a long time to reach maturity and the fruit takes FOREVER to ripen but if you like a sandwich, they can’t be beat. Also they look hella impressive on instagram. They also tend to be more prone to Blossom End Rot (which is just a calcium deficiency- just make sure to fertilize with some eggshells and don’t over-water them), and despite the size, don’t tolerate cold well. Good for: Slicing on sandwiches, eating raw like you’re biting into the still-beating heart of your nemesis and enjoying that sweet, sweet revenge, searing quickly under a broiler or putting on a Kabob.

Top Reccomendations Are: -Brandywine: Hefty, great fresh tomato flavor, and PINK. -Big Zac: Goddamn Massive Tomato. A Real Heckin’ Chonker. meatier flavor and lots of firm flesh with few seeds. -Beefmaster: One problem with Beef tomatoes is that a lot of them are heirloom varietals that aren’t as widely available. Of the ones that are easy to get your hands on, Beefmaster is the best, but it lacks the flavor punch of Brandywine or Big Zac, but it’s not a BAD tomato.

4. Round/Early/All-Purpose: The Workhorse of Tomatoes, the Round Tomato does it all- sauces, salsa, sandwiches, salads, and snacks. But it doesn’t do them quite as well as the other, more specialized tomatoes. Also, some of these tomatoes have been Over-Worked and bred to fruit early and transport well, at the expense of it’s Flavor. I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU, EARLY GIRL AND BETTER BOY, YOU FLAVORLESS TENNIS BALLS, YOU INSULTS TO THE MIGHTY HOUSE OF NIGHTSHADES. Love yourself, don’t get Early Girl or Better Boy. If your season is too short for anything but the earliest of tomatoes, it may be better to grow Something Else than put all that effort in for Disappointment. That said, there are many types of Round/All-Purpose tomatoes that haven’t been overbred into corporate blandness, and I can reccomend them in good concisence if you’re not totally sure what you want to do with your tomatoes: Good For: Indecisive people, people just learning how to grow plants, using one plant for a variety of purposes, people who are not yet prepared to enter the world of Tomato Opinions. Top reccomendations are: -If you really must have an early-fruiting tomato, the Wayahead is an heirloom that people swear comes in early with good size, flavor and firm structure. I have not personally tied this varietal but people I trust like it. -Black Krim: GOD-TIER TOMATO. It’s got it all- flavor, high yields, firm structure, pest and disease resistence, fucking purple stripes. Cans Well, Freezes well, seeds well and breeds true. Fuck yes. Other tomatoes fucking WISH they had what this Hot Bitch has. -Invincible is a damn-hard-to-kill tomato that isn’t very large but fruits reliably and preforms well all around. it also ripens 3 fruits at a time so you’re not constantly overburdened with Tomato. Probably my top pick for beginners that need an Emotional Support Crop.

5. Fun: This is not, strictly speaking, a traditional type of tomato, but I feel like it’s an important category for people who want to do something different or really enjoy all Tomatoes have to offer. Good For: Trying new things, taunting the garden gods with my hubris, showing off at the garden FB group, discovering new flavors of plant.

Top Reccomendations: -Mr. Stripey: it has a goofy name, it’s yellow-and-pink striped, and it smells and tastes almost exactly like pineapple, but it doesn’t try to digest you back. I love it. -Japanese Truffle: Dark Brown tomato that looks like someone tried to make ferro rochers at home and bungled it, and has a LONG maturation time, BUT it’s got a chocolately flavor and even at maturity has green insides which give it this. Lightness? it’s hard to describe but it’s a fascinating flavor. The plant also is more branched and elegant than most tomatoes. Very different, very cool. -I have not personally tried Cherokee Purple but I have heard good things about it. We’ll see how it does in the garden this year. -Tomatillos and Ground Cherries: Not actually tomatoes, but closely related. Neat herbaceous sort of flavor, like thyme but to the left. Also comes in a fun Organic wrapping paper. -Ketchup ‘n’ Fries: a Sweet 100 tomato top grafted onto Kennebec Potato rootstock, so it grows both tomato AND potato! Grafting was invented prbably about a week after the concept of agriculture was, and consists of taking two or more closely related plants and taping a cutting of oone into a hole in the other until the plants heal together. Like that one gorilla-dude from Umbrella academy, but without the angst. You can get them pre-made or attempt to make them at home if you’re feeling adventurous and are OK with potentially killing a bunch of starts while you learn.

Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

#Long post #tomatoes #the garden of earthly HOA violations #njelruch

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sfb123 · 2 years

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Do you guys remember before I wrote fics, when I used to write food reviews for TRR? Well I did, and I do still plan to get back to that someday.

Today, I am going to return to my roots… kind of. There was just so much terrible food, and food related activity that I felt like it was my duty, as a fictional food reviewer, to comment on it. So may I present…

First of all, Chef Martin looks like an asshole. Probably the most punchable face in Choices history. And his menu options only made me want to punch him more. Fuck this guy.

If you know me, or have followed A Taste of Cordonia, you know I’m a girl that loves a good glass of champagne. Is it mostly for the aesthetic of looking fancier than I actually am? Yes, 100%.

*Side note, since our last culinary journey, I have made a discovery. Edible glitter. Throw a spoonful of that in your champagne and it’s extra fancy as fuck. That was my New Year’s Eve.*

This concoction however, I am torn about. Berries, great. Love a good berry. Except raspberry, not really my scene. I can get past it in a drink if I have to, could we throw some Midori in there instead? No, wait, never mind, that might be gross.

Wait...

Would it be? Should I try it? I think I might try it...

... with GLITTER! ✨

As for the bourbon situation, that seems like a drink for the old timey business man types that will inevitably be invited to the wedding. They’ll sneak away with their gross old man drinks and some cigars on the veranda while making off color jokes about “the good old days.”

I chose the champagne cocktail.

What the actual fuck. They know there are going to be seven year old boys at this wedding, right? Is there going to be a kids option of like chicken fingers or something? If so, can I opt for that?

OCTOPUS?! Gross dude. First of all, I’m pretty sure it’s well known at this point that I do not do seafood, of any kind. Not even the normal stuff. If you’re going to braise something, shoot ya girl a short rib.

How do you even eat that thing? Are you supposed to eat the suction cups? Or do you just suck the meat out of it like with lobster?

Second of all, I know they’re different, but I am an adopted member of House Beaumont, in squidly solidarity, I am utterly appalled that they would harm such a majestic creature. Yes, I know, wrong book. So sue me, my heart will always be in Cordonia.

Bean salad just sounds gross. Could it be because I don’t like beans of any kind? Yeah, probably. And if you zoom in on that picture, it definitely looks more like a soup than a salad. I also don’t do soups, so strike two.

There is honestly no winning here, they both sound gross, they both look disgusting, and I bet they both smell bad too.

I chose the bean salad. At least there won’t be a bunch of octopus that have died in vein when nobody touches their abomination of a “dish”.

Whatever happened to chicken or beef at a wedding? Yes, fish is also a suitable option. And I guess duck is kind of a version of chicken? But I feel like a swanky wedding like this would have some kind of fancy steak option.

... that I would get without question, because if you eat red meat and don’t choose it when you’re invited to a wedding, you’re doing it wrong.

I’m about to say something incredibly hypocritical, I will be the first one to admit it, so I don’t need you guys pointing it out to me. Okay, here we go...

I love ducks, I can’t imagine ever eating one.

Yes, I love pigs, and I still eat the fuck out of bacon and other pork products. Yes, I love cows, and y’all just heard my rant about fancy steaks at weddings. Chickens are cool, but I’ll fuck up a good chicken parm, and don’t even get me started on chickey fingies (that’s what I call chicken fingers, because I am emotionally 5 years old most of the time).

My dream in life is to have a pet duck and name it Duckster. I don’t dream about getting pet pigs, or cows, or chickens, so that’s the difference in my head. It’s stupid, and irrational, but have you heard some of my reasons for not eating things? Then I’m sure you’ve come to expect it from me.

Now that we’ve ruled out the main feature of the dish, let me tear apart the rest of it. I don’t like red wine, so I can’t imagine I would enjoy that sauce. Polenta? I literally had to google it because I thought that was a kind of cheese (I got polenta and pimento mixed up). Google defined it as “cornmeal mush”. I truly do not think they could have made it sound any less appealing. It sounds like baby food or something, not at all like something I would ever want to put in my mouth. And definitely not something that should be served at a fancy rich person wedding.

The other option, is more seafood. FML. Let me say it one more time for the people in the back, I. Hate. Seafood. It’s gross, it makes me gag to even just smell it, let alone have it anywhere near my taste buds. What this option did have going for it, was the pesto. If you ask me, pesto is the best-o (that’s just a fun little joke I like to throw around from time to time 😉). But here’s the thing, shouldn't the pesto be over the salmon, not under it? That is how sauce works, right? It’s basically asparagus pesto with a hunk of fish dropped on top of it.

I chose the salmon. One, because I couldn’t do that to my dearest Duckster, and two, because at least it had pesto. I’ll just save my roll from the bread basket (unless it’s not normal bread and they do some weird thing with it, which they probably will), and dip it in the pesto. That should hold me until I hit the drive thru on the way home.

That being said, do you think Door Dash will deliver to a wedding venue in Mexico?

Alright, now we’re talking. Let me at that cake! Yummy in my tummy!

Pretty standard offerings, which is appreciated after the parade of yuck that we’ve been dealing with. Chocolate and vanilla are my jam. Dream option, mix the two and have a marble wedding cake. Strawberry is fine, but it will never be my first choice for a dessert (unless they are actual strawberries, dipped in chocolate).

In the real world, when you have a multi-tier cake, you could usually pick multiple flavors (fun fact, my wedding cake was 3 tiered and our flavors were red velvet, vanilla with some kind of fruit or berry thing between layers, and funfetti). But Chef Asshole only lets you pick one. Apparently his pastry chef can’t handle multitasking.

I went for the vanilla, I felt like it was a lighter, simpler, choice for a wedding.

------

Then things get kind of weird...

Diamond scene in the restaurant kitchen, violated probably like a million health codes. And 100% there was probably a sous-chef, or that damn pastry chef in the pantry or something trying to get ready for the dinner rush when these two horn dogs come barreling in and making a mess of everything.

I like strawberries. Preferably dipped in chocolate or whipped cream (which also makes them sexier, BTW), but I do go back to basics and eat them plain as well. I actually had some earlier today as a matter of fact.

I like strawberries, but I don’t really like strawberry flavored things (ice cream, cookies, cake, etc).

That’s all I’ve got on strawberries. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Seriously? He decided to use red hot chili peppers? Sam Dalton, suck my kiss (IYKYK. Also, sorry not sorry).

But for real, what a horribly unsexy idea. Here was his reasoning behind it:

“Chili peppers get your heart racing and your adrenaline going... stimulating the body.”

You know what else they do, Sam? Give you bad breath and the runs. What the fuck is sexy about that?

Also, where do you think you’re putting your fingers after you touch those things? Because ouch.

I don’t like any heat in my food, so this is an immediate no for me.

This is clearly some kind of a soufflé or lava cake, not chocolate sauce. But it’s chocolate, so let’s go. Can someone grab me the rest of those strawberries from before?

No? The strawberries are gone? Okay, I’ll need to put the chocolate on something else then...

Perfect! 10/10 for presentation (for either option, honestly).

I mean, what can I say about chocolate? I love it, it’s delicious. I think it’s quite obvious that I’m a fan. Let’s just have a Willy Wonka themed wedding and make the whole menu chocolate. The invitations cold be golden tickets, it would actually be super cute.

That’s me, I’m Augustus Gloop.

#choices #play choices #choices stories you play #The Nanny Affair #choices the nanny affair #tna #choices tna #TNA Spoilers #Sam Dalton #sam dalton x mc #choices sam dalton #tna3 #the nanny affair book 3 #tna fandom #choices fandom #the nanny affair fandom

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natashas-widows · 3 years

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christmas shopping with bucky

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

summary: you go christmas shopping with your overprotective soilder.

warnings: nun but if you count overprotective bucky then yayyyy :)

author’s note: you guys can leave requests now !! just dm me on here and i will try to make your dream come true <3!

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You loved Christmas, the scent of the Christmas tree, warm light of fairy lights and presents giving to the person you loved makes that holiday more magical. You already knew that Bucky isn’t a big fan of shopping, but he insists to go with you, even tho he hated it but you begged him and he couldn’t say no to his best girl. You were in the big mall for about an hour and you still need few presents, you decided to also buy some food and you hoped that you will find the rest of the presents soon.

“You wanted to go eat something after shopping?” you asked, looking at him. “Yeah doll, I’m so hungry after that run between shops. You could train recruits with that shopping trips.” he kissed the top of your head. “I told you I can go alone.” “I don’t want you to go alone,” he whispered, “I’m protective type doll.” Well to be honest he wasn’t really he just likes being around you hehe. “I know,” you said, kissing his lips. A loud noise took your attention, you turned around to look what happened when you saw a man and a woman, arguing about something, but after a moment the man walked away.

You kissed Bucky once again and went away to look something for dinner. Bucky looked at the fruits once again, he hated when you walked away and he couldn’t go after you to protect you. It was his weakness, ( which he absolutely hated ! ) He lifted his sight looking at the woman you both starting at only minutes ago. She was sad and Bucky couldn’t stop looking at her. It was something in her that bothers him, something sad and terrifying. At once he heard a loud voice almost yelled into his ear. “Are you staring at my girl?” the man asked, clenching his fists. “Let go, man,” Bucky answered. “What’s going on?” you asked, putting meat to the card in front of Bucky. “Your boyfriend was staring at my girlfriend.” he took a step towards you. At once Bucky was in front of you, shielding you with his own body. You didn’t know what that guy wanted, but you were sure that if he will act like this towards you, yelling and dangerously waving hands in your direction, Bucky can hurt him. Badly. “Just walk away while you still can.” “Or what?” the guy yelled, poking Bucky’s metal arm, “dude! Are you some kind of freak?” he said, almost laughing. “Come on doll, let’s go home.” he wrapped his flesh arm around you. “Next time just leave my girl alone!” he yelled, “maybe yours want to know how it is to have a real man?”

At once you felt Bucky’s muscles froze, his metal hand clenched. But he held his metal hand t stop him from hurting the man, instead bucky turned and looked at the man and the man became scared all of a sudden. “Apologies,” he whispered. “For what? it’s not my fault your girlfriend doesn’t have a real man.” he said with a smile on his face, “hey! You can always come to me, I’ll show you what fun is, babe.” he yelled at you. In one swift motion, Bucky took his hand in a tight grip, making him kneel. They man cried from pain, trying to lose the grip of the metal hand. When Bucky spoke to him again the man was nothing else like crying baby upon his feet.“Apologize.” Bucky repeat. “I’m sorry!” he yelled, “I’m sorry.” “Good. Now, you will leave the store without even looking at your girlfriend. I bet she will find a ‘real man’ quickly.” Bucky’s metal hand lose the grip. letting the guy stood up and when he did it, he almost runs to the door. Bucky turned to face the girl, who was now standing in front of him with tears in her eyes. Who was you. He apologized and hugged him while wiping your tears. You took a few steps towards him, he was shaking from the amount of adrenaline or just because he was so mad. You had never been afraid of him, not even once when he was mad or sad or after a nightmare he just had, you just knew. You knew that no matter what he will protect you, he will never hurt you on purpose. You pulled him closer to you, holding the hem of his shirt, looking straight into his ocean blue eyes. Your nose touched, your lips gently brushing his, while your hands were resting on his big chest. You pulled away and looked in his eyes.“I’m proud of you,” you whispered. “Proud? I almost killed that dude!” he shrugged. “Almost.” you said, smiling, “I think you deserve a present..“Yeah? What kind of present?” he asked. “I’ll show you there.” you pointed at the lingerie alley, “I’m sure you will like this one.” “I think that I’m starting to love Christmas,” he said, squeezing your ass while going to chose the sexiest lingerie at the store.

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( guys i know you probably have seen this before, it was my friend story but she doesn’t write anymore so i asked could i share this story so yeah ! )

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan smut #dad!bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes series #dad!bucky #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #fatws bucky #bucky x y/n #bucky x you

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flowerwrites06 · 4 years

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break my mind’s eye special — jjk

Plot: Jungkook thinks marriage is the only way to seal a deal.

Pairing(s): Druglord!Jungkook x Fashion Designer!OC (Name: Belle)

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Word Count: 7k+

Genre: Mafia | Angst/Smut/Fluff

Tags & Warnings (for entire series): drug dealing, marriage through trickery, explicit smut, drug use, dubious consent, prostitution, miscarriage, lots of manipulation, impregnation through manipulation

Walking through the dark halls of permanently stained apartment building, Jungkook finally stood in front of a familiar number written on the text. He rapped at the wooden door a few times hearing a couple of grunts and rummaging from the other side. He sighed. “It’s me, Hoseok, you don’t have to hide the weed.”

“ Oh! ”

A few locks clicked here and there before the door swung open to welcome a light air of smoke mixed with the stench alone that could make Jungkook high. Hoseok gave him a loose smile, holding onto his arm as a wide grin spread across his lips. “You finally made it!”

Jungkook hummed trying not to grimace too much at the smell as the older male closed the door behind them.

“Come on, tell me…” Hoseok patted his back, prancing towards the couch where the coffee table was exuding smoke.

The apartment was miniscule with one bedroom door open on the left and a tiny kitchen on the right with a window next to the fridge. Another one near the dining table. Walls were a gross green tint and the floors a dull brown with black velvet couches that were ripped a little at the edges. But Jungkook could not complain.

“Tell you what?” The younger male dropped his bag on the floor and sat on the couch next to him, burying his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

Hoseok picked his joint back up and hovered it near his lips. “What was prison like?” He sucked in his cheeks causing the ambers to light up at the end before he blew the thick smoke away from Jungkook.

“Like living with a bunch of criminals. What else?”

“So just like old times then.” Hoseok smirked.

Jungkook glanced at the male for a moment before scoffing out a chuckle. “Yeah…pretty much.” Except there was one difference. Every time he pranced with criminals like himself in the past, he was a leader. In prison, he was young, fresh meat. Before he would also come back home to a warm embrace in bed instead of a steel bed alone with a stinky roommate.

“Well it’s all over now.” He blew out another puff of smoke, shifting to rest his head back against the couch. “You can start doing something else with your life. Something different. Not a lot of people like us get that chance.”

For the first time, he noticed a slight sadness in Hoseok’s tone despite being pumped with artificial endorphins.

His eyes flickered down to the coffee table, noticing the burger wrappers and scattered newspapers. One of them immediately caught his eye. Jungkook sat up again, pulling one of them out of the pile, the right corner of his lips twitched seeing the familiar face.

‘ FAMED DESIGNER KIM BELLE RULES TOKYO FASHION WEEK ’

A side by side picture of a model wearing violet and gold ensemble which almost resembled the traditional kimono with a modern, royal twist. The picture on the right showed her. Belle wearing a simple black dress with her gorgeous waves out and a gracious smile spread across her lips.

‘ Twenty seven year old fashion designer Kim Belle takes all the popularity and buzz with her winter designs for Tokyo Fashion Week. Showing her long love for traditional Japanese fashion culture along with an inspiring movement for domestic violence and trafficking victims by showcasing broken chains and kimono style gowns. An elegant mix of grace and fight for personal freedom. Truly an impressive successor to the legend that was Madame Saito and we are definitely going to keep an eye out for more of her daring projects. ’

“She made a big damn name of herself.” Hoseok broke through the thick coat of silence Jungkook had around him.

“She deserves it.” More than I ever did.

The older male searched his expression for a moment, scoffing a little. “Dude, I have to ask.”

Jungkook met his gaze as he leaned back onto the couch again with the newspaper still in his hands. “What?”

“Why her?”

His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you—literally could’ve had anyone in the entire country to pose as your fake wife or whatever. But you chose a fashion designer who barely knew anything about you to begin with…” Hoseok shook his head with a light wince. “What was your angle?” Some part of him did not want to believe Jungkook simply blackmailed someone for his own amusement because he knew the man was better than that.

Jungkook wished he had a decent reason to blurt out to him. Maybe he was just inherently evil and wanted to hurt Belle for his own pleasure. Maybe he wanted to fuck her one time just for kicks before dragging her out a little further until it was too much. Maybe he was just sick in the head, wanting to claim a girl who could not say a word against him because her and her brother’s life were wrapped around his finger. Except none of them felt like the truth. “I honestly thought she’d say no.”

“Oh fuck off—”

“Seriously I…” He shrugged a little. “I really thought she was going to punch me and storm out of there with her brother.”

“But the guards wouldn’t let her. I mean—no offense, buddy but you would’ve probably killed her. Knowing you from back then.” Hoseok scrunched his nose lightly.

“She did something ten times more dangerous though.” Jungkook couldn’t resist the jolt of pride bursting in him. “I destroyed her—so she waited until she destroyed me.”

Hoseok chortled a little, voice incredibly raspy. “I wouldn’t call going to jail for your crimes destroying you but sure…”

Jungkook shared a small laugh, nodding as he looked at her picture again. He could almost still feel her soft skin underneath his palm. How her hair smelled when he would hug her from behind as they slept, the way it soothed him to a calmer sleep.

“It’s a thing of the past though…” He tilted his head as his expression turned a little more serious. “…right? No more pulling her into shit she doesn’t deserve?”

“Yeah—yeah, of course.”

“Good…cause Belle’s the star of the city now. One wrong move towards her, you’re back in jail or worse.” Hoseok raised his brow a little making sure there was not a hint of determination on that young face of doing anything stupid. “You don’t have guards or power by your side and Taehyung isn’t addicted anymore. Has a wife and kid…he’s got the dad anger. So he will beat the living shit out of you if you give him the motivation.”

“I know, Hobi.” Jungkook chuckled, patting his thigh gently. “I don’t want her to go through it again either.”

Hoseok hummed a little taking another waft from his joint as he looked out the window, the sky tinted purple. “Alright. I’m gonna go and eat my girlfriend out.” He patted his shoulder, walking up to his bedroom.

“You had to look at the time for that?” Jungkook winced despite the grin on his face.

“Brother, when you’re together for this long, things need schedules.” He walked out of the bedroom with a black duffel bag putting out the joint onto the ashtray. “Food’s in the fridge and there’s Netflix open on the laptop.”

Jungkook waved him off before the door clicked close leaving him in his thoughts. For some reason, all he could do was look back at the newspaper and try to salvage that warm feeling again. The feeling of a true home that could never be.

Purple faded into a deep blue across the skies as Jungkook paced around the apartment in his bare torso, scattered with more imperfect tattoos. One cellmate liked doing tattoos because it calmed him down so the younger male did not hesitate much to let him use his skin. He was a nice man who had been thrown in jail for being a drug mule all his life and Jungkook could not help but have a nauseating guilt in his stomach.

Drug mules were essentially trafficked human slaves from Jungkooks’ experience. Their owners use their lives and bodies to transport goods without being detected and usually they start off terrifyingly young or desperate or both. All this service was done for almost little to no money. They were more abused victims than criminals but the legal system were not good at telling the difference sometimes.

Jungkook allowed his body to be used as if giving himself some kind of cathartic relief allowing the broken soul to control something else for a while instead of being controlled. Thus his skin now littered with designs of devil horns, tiger flowers and his own personal request was a tiny print font ‘B’ on his collarbone. No one could truly see it up close but he wanted to feel it there.

Chugging a generous sip from his beer bottle, he quietly observed the night sky glimmering with stars while the city shone in neon. The one thing his mansion lacked was the clear view of how alive everything looked at night.

A knock sounded on the door causing his head to shoot to the side.

Hoseok should not have been home at this hour. Even if he was, the man would not knock in his own apartment.

Jungkook opened the kitchen drawer and brandished a knife before making his way over to the door. Another knock sounded again. It was a gentle knock. Almost shy. But he knew better than soften up so easily. Carefully, he peeked through the peephole trying not to make too much of a sound even though the wooden floors creaked far too much.

His heart jumped right up to his throat seeing the familiar face on the other side. Jungkook almost dropped the knife on the floor trying to focus as best as he could. Was he drunk already? Was he dreaming? Gulping down, he placed the knife on the side table along with the beer bottle and opened the door.

When the view became clear to him, Jungkook let out a sharp breath. “Belle.”

Her hair was shorter up to her shoulders compared to the length in the newspaper picture except she still always kept her natural waves. Eyes a little glazed while her flushed lips spread into a weak smile before pressing them together again. “I-I don’t–I don’t know why I’m here.” Belle’s furrowed her brows a little.

“It’s okay.” He whispered. “Come in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiled even though a small tinge of sadness shone in his eyes.

He opened the door further for her to enter before closing it behind him. Eyes flickered down to her grey sweatpants and frilly white socks paired with a thick sweater like she just woke up from a nap.

Belle kept her back to him for a few minutes, pretending to observe the apartment even though she was really just trying to figure out why she was here. Questions muddled her mind over and over again. Any valid or logical answer. There was nothing. No reason to be standing here when she tried so hard to walk away from him. She did everything to get away. Now she walked right back without any coercion.

Jungkook tilted his head attempting to meet her gaze but decided not to force it too much. “You cut your hair.” A smile twitched on his lips. “It looks nice.”

She absentmindedly touched her waves, breathing out a small chuckle. “Thank you.”

“Uh—how did you know I was here?”

“Namjoon helped me track you down.” Belle mumbled, guilt pooling in the pit of her belly going behind Yoongi’s back like this. She still remembered what Namjoon said when he gave her the address.

‘I’m only giving you this because I know you’re tough as nails…no matter what people say to you…but the second anything goes wrong, you call me.’ Namjoon had become a close friend in the last few years. He had been escorting her back and forth from home to work.

Yoongi had been disallowed to see her after being undercover so he could get a proper therapy before doing field work again. So Namjoon seemed the next obvious choice to take care of her.

Finally Belle turned around to face him, eyes raking down his torso and seeing new designs etched on his skin. Not as precise as the phoenix but still beautiful. “The tattoos look good.”

Jungkook glanced down at his torso with a soft grin. “A friend did them for me.” He met her gaze again even though she quickly averted it, plunging silence back into the room as they waited for it to be filled. “Belle…why are you here?”

Her body deflated as the question lingered in the air, lump growing in her throat while her knees kept trembling. “I—” Belle closed her eyes. “I mis—I missed you.” She smiled sadly before trailing her glossy gaze away again. “It sounds stupid when I say after so long.” Her voice kept getting constricted from the lump, tears filling at the brim of her eyes. “But I still think about you…I still kept that—stupid letter after all these years.”

A familiar warmth seeped through his veins knowing she missed him but it still mixed with dread and guilt. Jungkook scarred her memories forever with his presence and she was so confused on what it meant. He could see the way she shifted and looked away as if trying to push reality away but face it all the same. “I hurt you a lot. I’m so sorry—if I—if I could do it all over again, I’d do it better.”

“How could it have been better?” Belle shook her head. “We met when my brother owed you a debt.”

Jungkook raised his shoulders. “Maybe we’d have met at your boutique.” He attempted to smile a little at the thought of just walking into that boutique and falling in love the normal way. The happy way. “I’d have flirted with you a lot and you’d roll your eyes at me. We’d travel together to Paris or Tokyo, explore the things we love and eat ice-cream until our stomachs ached.” A tiny chuckle passed through his lips.

Belle had to suck in her trembling bottom lip as tears began escaping down her cheeks. “And?”

“We’d get married…properly. Away from my family, we’d relax somewhere at a beach.” The visions in his mind played without any effort causing his eyes to flood knowing it was all an impossible dream now. “We’d have children…we’d love them so much, Belle—”

She couldn’t hold in the sobs that shook through her body. At the very mention of children, Belle felt a tingle under the skin of her belly, memories of the aches still lingering. “Why didn’t you just take the money?”

“What?” He whispered.

“Why didn’t you just take the money? And don’t tell me it was because of business or keeping up appearances. Why? Why me?”

The ever burning question. Even the interrogators asked them the question. What was the motive to taking in Miss Kim? A lot of people owed you debts. Jungkook only answered with a vague, menial answer that had no real connection to his deeds as a boss.

“It was—it was just an impulse…”

Belle’s expression hardened even though her eyes still looked so vulnerable and broken. “An impulse?” Her voice was small and meek. “That’s it?”

“I didn’t think you’d—say yes.”

Saying it to Hoseok was easy. Saying it to Belle felt evil. Jungkook noticed the darkness clouding over her beautiful features, a mixture of heartbreak and pure rage.

“You put my brother’s life on the line and you thought I wasn’t going to say yes?” Belle winced, tone rising back to its original power. A harsh slap of reality learning that one of the most traumatizing experiences of her life happened because one man had an impulse decision to use his power over her.

“Belle, it was years ago—”

“So why am I still getting nightmares about it?!” She shrieked leaving a tense silence to plunge into the room while her voice still echoed through the walls a little. “W-why h-haven’t I stopped seeing t-that mansion every time I close my eyes? Wh-why do I wake u-up scared that I’m still in that room w-while they watch—” Belle let out a loud, trembling breath closing her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks, dripping to her chest from her jawline as she hugged herself tightly.

Jungkook stammered, swallowing down the painful lump in his throat as he attempted to keep his composure. “You didn’t have to come and see me.” He whispered.

“I wanted you to see me.” Belle sniffled shakily. “Staying away from you doesn’t help because you could always push it out. I can’t—I can’t push it out because it’s inside me.”

“You think all this has been easy for me? That I just pushed it out?” Jungkook shook his head with a pained expression as their gazes met again. “Yeah our first meeting was an impulse but that didn’t mean it was always like that. I stopped a lot of contact with my family when you told me you were pregnant. That letter was meant to be the last thing I said to my parents before we left.”

Belle wanted to argue that he just started getting sympathetic after her pregnancy but she would be a hypocrite. Even she felt softened knowing a child was growing inside her. “You wanted to kill the mayor too, Jungkook, how long would that have taken?”

“Overnight if it meant I’d be escaping somewhere with you.” Jungkook spoke without hesitation, still remembering all the plans he had in place for their move.

“But I would’ve lost the baby anyway.” She smiled sadly. “It was natural causes.”

The male took a few careful steps forward, trying not to intimidate her but hopefully close a little more distance between them. “I didn’t just do it for the baby, Belle.” Jungkook sighed. “I did it cause I love you…but I knew we couldn’t be happy if we were at that mansion and I was still running the cartel.”

Belle sniffled. “I wish you didn’t love me.” Her chin trembled, her body tired of brewing more sobs as tears filled her eyes again. “I wish I didn’t love you. Maybe all this would be easier.”

“When has it ever been easy between us?”

“That’s the problem.” She pressed her lips together. “Love shouldn’t be this difficult. Maybe sometimes but—every single day wondering whether what you’re feeling is real…or worrying that something terrible is going to happen if I stay with you for too long.” Features contorted in pain as she stumbled on her feet a little.

Jungkook’s inhibitions banished immediately seeing her trip slightly, rushing to her side and gently holding onto her arm. Before he could say anything, he felt Belle rest her head on his chest. A burst of butterflies soared across his belly having that familiar smell touch his nostrils and the warmth of her body radiating onto his cold bare skin.

They didn’t say a single word as Jungkook properly wrapped his arms around her body, fingers brushing through her soft hair. Her sobs were quiet but her body still trembled and his embraced tightened a little. As if praying that all of her pain could be transferred to him so she did not have to suffer through it all.

Belle should have pulled away the moment he touched her but the warmth was too much. Her body felt heavy against his, melting onto his skin almost like they could join as one. Maybe that could repair some of the damage. Breathing became steady as she allowed herself to relax. A protective part of her still tried ensure she was not too vulnerable but another part said it was too late.

In this particular weakened moment, she was his and he was hers.

15 unread messages.

Namjoon: How did it go? Are you good?

Namjoon: Taehyung said you didn’t come home last night.

Namjoon: Belle?

Namjoon: I don’t want to have to track you down.

Namjoon: Please tell me if you’re okay.

Namjoon: Yoongi and Taehyung found out, I’m sorry.

Belle: I’m okay.

Namjoon: Jesus, don’t scare me like that.

Namjoon: Where are you?

Belle: I’m still at Jungkooks’ place.

Namjoon: Okay. Is everything alright?

Belle: I don’t know.

Namjoon: What do you mean? Did he hurt you?

Belle: No.

Namjoon: Just tell me what happened.

Namjoon: Look I’m not Yoongi or Taehyung. I won’t get mad, alright? You can tell me.

Belle: I slept with him.

Namjoon: Okay that’s fine.

Belle: No it’s not.

Namjoon: Did he hurt you or force you or anything?

Belle: No, no it was consensual.

Namjoon: Then I don’t see an issue.

Belle: How?

Namjoon: Considering he’s a former drug lord, I expected far worse things done to you then you two just consensually having sex.

Belle: Are they really angry?

Namjoon: I’ll handle Yoongi and Angel’s handling Taehyung. They’re grown men, they’ll get over it.

Namjoon: Just come back up again.

Belle: Okay. Thank you, Joon.

Namjoon: Anytime.

Belle let out a sigh, chest falling a little as she hugged her phone for a moment before placing it on the nightstand. Eyes scanned the ceiling, a few brownish stains here and there but nothing far too putrid. Her old apartment usually had those stains after a storm. She felt Jungkook shift a little, his arm still resting over her body while his face buried into her neck. It was so easy allowing the warmth to coat their little bubble.

Except it was not a bubble of theatrics. She was not pretending to be Mrs. Jeon anymore. She was a fashion designer with her boutique and Jungkook was a regular man trying to get by in the city. They were two normal people with no real threat to be together but they were here.

The ache between her legs still pulsed a little when she remembered the night before.

The very minute she resorted to hugging him, Belle knew it was going to be difficult to turn back from it. Deep recesses of her mind surfacing up to whisper in her ear that it would be okay just this once.

To feel him again.

To have his head between her legs at this moment, kissing and nibbling on all her sensitive nub while his fingers pads dug into her thighs. Jungkook took his time. Licking a stripe tantalizingly slow, tasting her juices until it was the only remnant on his tongue. He let out a breath through his nose as his lips wrapped fully around her clit, suckling passionately until her thighs closed up around his head only making him moan.

Belle whined against the vibrations on her aching, sensitive skin as her fingers found themselves knotting in his hair. Chest rising and falling she faced the ceiling. Lower belly burned and tightened as Jungkooks’ movement did not falter, shaking his head a little to jolt more of that head-spinning heat.

…

Bed creaked as Belle straddled him, bouncing at a steady pace while her hands rested on his torso. Moonlight painted her sweat glistening skin through the window. As if the whole city could see her relishing in her own guilty pleasure. Except the guilt was nowhere to be found.

His hand trailed up her abdomen to cup her breasts gently, digging a little into her tender skin to earn a small whimper from the woman. Then he moved up to her neck. Jungkook cupped the side, thumb tracing her bottom lip while the other hand gripped at her shaking hips.

Belle suckled on his digit muffling her moans all the while clenching tightly around his member until it sent shivering tingles up her spine. She hummed in satisfaction as Jungkook groaned at the pressure.

“You feel so good.” He pushed in his thumb a little further watching her slightly drenched curls fall over her face. A smile curled up at the corner of his lips hearing the sinfully loud squelch sounds their thrusts emitted. “So fucking beautiful.” Jungkook whispered. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, wanting to take every second of how she tried to suck on his skin harder every time she dropped down roughly.

“I’m close.” Belle’s words were a little muddled against his thumb. Her thrusts grew desperate and relentless, pussy squelching violently as their incessant moans swirled in the sex scented air.

Bursts of searing heat and unbridled pleasure shook through their limbs, pulsing through her veins as Belle’s movements became sloppy. Jungkook had his head pressed deep against the pillow as his muscles tensed feeling her walls clench around him before he pulled himself out, release spewing out onto his belly. Belle cheekily reached down to touch his reddened member, giggling lightly when he jerked against it.

Jungkook followed with a breathless chuckle of his own as she rested back on his chest, uncaring of how messy they were.

It was the first time they laughed after sex.

Granted it was not much but last night gave her a dreamless sleep. A welcomed type of sleep. They cried, hugged, moaned and laughed. So many sensations all at once was bound to make anyone have such a deep sleep that they do not want to wake up the next day. A wonderful feeling. It would be temporary before her other dreams settle in again but Belle was not going to let them get to her this morning. She wanted to relish in this new, momentary peace.

Jungkook began stirring more, light hum under his breath until he finally opened his eyes to a calming sight. Tired vision still a little blurred but he could always make out her face. “Sleep well?” His voice grumbled despite the smile creeping on his lips.

Belle turned to meet his gaze, mimicking his gentle smile. “Really well.” The curl slowly disappeared from her lips as reality seeped through their comfort. “We can’t see each other anymore. You know that, right?”

He nodded although solemnly. “I know.” Whatever red string they forced themselves to tie around their pinky finger had to separate one day. Even when reluctance settled in. “Like you said, love shouldn’t be as difficult as ours was.” Jungkook shifted so he lay down his back, one arm curled so he could rest his head on top of it.

“I don’t have to leave now though.”

“What, you want more?” Jungkook licked the inside of his cheek as a smirk formed, one of his hands reaching out to gently touch her lower belly.

Belle pushed his hand away with a chuckle. “No…I meant something else.” She pulled the sheets up to cover herself a little, goosebumps forming on her skin when the room brushed a little cold. “Ice-cream. We could get ice-cream.”

A jolt of nostalgia burst through him as he remembered the last time that request was passed between them. Despite expecting a child back then, Jungkook preferred this more knowing Belle was sitting here by her own volition. That was what mattered most. “Yeah…we can get ice-cream.”

Tiny slab of pink and mint down the food line of the city. Belle somehow managed to make his black T-shirt and her sweatpants look strangely put together while he buried himself in his hoodie. They walked inside the cute parlor immediately greeted by a kind boy at the counter.

Making their orders, the couple took their ice-cream cups to a booth at the corner.

Thankfully the parlor was empty since no one bought ice-cream this early in the morning so it would be difficult for them to be spotted.

Journalists eventually grew bored of doing stories on Jungkook and Belle’s ‘tragic love story’ but she knew the moment, a single person saw them, it would be chaos.

“Did you have any trouble these few years?” Jungkook asked feeling a sense of joy in his mouth as the sweet taste touched his tongue.

Belle shrugged lightly. “Apparently there was a hired hitman for a while but he was quickly detained. Then a stalker which lasted for a few months.”

“What did he want?”

“Namjoon found out he was a spy for a gang called Pogpungu Pa.”

“Fucking tongue twister.” Jungkook scoffed. “They wanted a large percentage of my cocaine supplies in exchange for prostitutes.” He waved his spoon. “Told him I didn’t work in that line of business so the Don got pissed.”

“Well he’s also detained. Namjoon’s been very quick in dealing with them. Probably happy to be out on the field again with Yoongi still at his desk.” Belle suckled the remnants of brownie bits from her spoon.

“Why is he at his desk?” His brows furrowed.

“Standard procedure, I guess. Every detective is meant to have a few months of therapy and leave from field work. But I’m pretty sure it’s a new thing that the mayor advised.”

“They’ve been doing a lot of things.”

“A lot of good things.” Belle corrected, narrowing her gaze even though her expression was not completely serious.

Jungkook smiled lightly picking up another small scoop of his ice-cream. “You’ve been doing a lot of good things. The Tokyo fashion week.”

Her eyes almost immediately lit up when the topic was mentioned and Jungkook couldn’t help but feel accomplished that he initiated it. “You knew about that?”

“Saw it in the newspaper. It looked good.”

Belle grinned from ear to ear, eyes shining in the bright lights of the parlor. “Angel helped me with the movement. She wanted to create a shelter for domestic violence victims like her. So I offered to promote it in the fashion shows.”

“Oh yeah Hoseok told me…Taehyung and Angel, they have a kid, right?”

“Yeah…” She giggled lightly. “A little baby daughter.”

“That’s good.” Jungkook nodded with a wide smile. “He’s all okay now?”

“Clean and sober for four years. He—relapsed another time but when they got married and then started trying for children, he never went back again.” Belle murmured still remembering the happiest look on Taehyung’s teary eyed face when he first held his baby. That was all she ever wanted for her brother. True happiness. “I kind have you to thank for that.”

He hummed in disapproval. “Don’t, please—the way I did it was wrong.”

“Yes but everything happens for a reason. I think if that didn’t happen…he might not be here at all.” Belle shook his head. “He also did technically meet Angel in the Sangria House. The only reason we even had her booked was because I met Seokjin at the party with you.”

Strange how time fools you in that way. It makes you feel regretful of the bad things that happened in the past except you could not possibly take them back because it would mean diminishing the good things along with it. Delicate and strange thing time was.

“I would’ve never been free from that place if you didn’t go behind my back.” Jungkook smiled down at the cup. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“Speaking of which…how is it like being a normal joe in the city?” Belle asked with a cheeky glint in her eye as she tapped her fingers against the ice-cream cup.

“Apparently you have to pay for grocery bags now.” He waved his spoon around.

“Yes for recycling and it’s been happening for a very long time.” She smiled.

His bottom lip jutted out in a little pout. “Not from what I remember.”

“Since when have you ever shopped for groceries?”

Jungkook scrunched his nose a little poking into the mint chocolate ice cream to pick out the chips. “Since yesterday.” He mumbled. “But I’m happy…” He nodded letting his words linger in their comfortable silence. “Or at least now I can do things that make me happy.”

“You could travel to Tokyo and Paris, eat ice-cream until your stomach aches…” Belle grinned. “You can get married to someone you love dearly and have lots of children. No more deals though.” She raised her index fingers as a warning.

Jungkook laughed. “No more deals, I promise.” He mixed around his melting ice-cream for a bit enjoying the little swirl. “What about you? What’re you going to do?”

“My therapist said I should take some time off from the boutique when I get the chance.” Belle quoted her therapist mostly but she never really thought about the prospect on her own until she discussed it with Yoongi. “Yoongi suggested we could go to Norway to disconnect for a little while.”

“Yoongi…wait, are you two—”

“No, silly. As friends.”

“Ah.”

“You think if I had a boyfriend like Yoongi, I’d sleep with you again?” Belle scoffed even though a smile tugged at her lips.

“Hey I’m pretty tempting.”

“Not that tempting.”

Jungkook scrunched his nose at her before chuckling as he practically slurped on his ice-cream at this point.

The couple sat in silence for a few moments finishing their breakfast desserts, unable to keep smiles off their faces.

“We go our separate ways now, yeah?” He spoke the truth this time. The satisfaction in his belly along with the warmth in his heart softly stating to him that it was time.

Belle smiled, a slight twinge in her chest but nothing compared to the relief brewing inside. A whisper in her ear telling her it was okay. It was okay to move on. “Yeah. No more looking back.”

Throwing their empty ice-cream cups away, the pair walked out of the parlor towards Belle’s car. Jungkook’s apartment was a few minutes’ walk away. She wanted to drive because it made it that little bit easier to go back home immediately. At this point, they both deserved one thing to be easy.

Belle gave him one final smile before climbing into the car and driving away.

Jungkook didn’t wait a second as he turned on his heel and walked back to his apartment.

This was the true final time they saw each other. They would not turn back. There was no need to anymore.

As soon as Jungkook walked into the room, it smelled a whole lot more different than it did the first time. The only smoke emitting was from the pan exuding a warm, delicious scent. Morning sun beaming through the windows making it look a tad bit brighter and the floors almost shone clean now.

“There you are!” Hoseok announced with a grin. “Did you go out for a jog?”

“Yeah…a little bit.” He answered absentmindedly.

A figure with short, black hair stood at the kitchen counter setting some bacon and eggs up on the plate. She looked up and immediately give him a similar bright smile as Hoseok.

“Ah—this is Rosyne.” Hoseok touched the womans’ shoulder. “Rosyne, Jungkook.” He gestured over to the younger male.

The two exchanged greetings before Hoseok invited him over to the kitchen counter to have breakfast. He wanted to tell them that his stomach was a little full from the ice-cream. But it felt so peaceful when he saw the giggles shared between them while eating, random conversations that no one really cared about but it made them smile.

Jungkook stayed still for a moment watching them so easily be vulnerable and happy around each other. “Hey, you guys want to go to Paris?” He sat down on one of the stools.

Rosyne’s eyes widened a little as the request lingered in the air while Hoseok looked amused but taken aback at the same time.

“Why the sudden interest?” Hoseok chuckled, sticking his fork into some scrambled eggs.

He shrugged. “Might be cool to disconnect for a little while.”

“Prison wasn’t disconnecting enough?”

Jungkook nudged his arm with a light scoff. “You know what I mean. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’ve—always wanted to see the Louvre in real life.” Rosyne raised her shoulders, giving Hoseok an adorable smile.

“Don’t spoil him, Ros.” Hoseok glanced at the both of them for a few moments before letting out a defeated sigh. “We’ll think about it.”

Jungkook did not argue any further after that and began taking careful bites of the breakfast even though it might give him a stomach ache later. The thought of something actually exciting happening this year or the next year made him happy enough to keep going on this new life.

Carefully padding into the apartment, Belle’s footsteps were soft and barely echoed across the walls but there was no use in being discreet. Especially since Yoongi, Taehyung, Namjoon and Angel were all in the sitting room. Bloom sat on the floor completely focused on banging her little drums that Namjoon gifted her on her first birthday.

Once Angel looked her way, everyone else followed suit. Yoongi was the first one to shoot up to his feet and stomp towards the woman.

“What took you so long?” Yoongis’ words sounded more like pleading than anger. “Are you hurt?” Eyes frantically examined her body until his gaze darkened as he stopped at her neck.

Belle hovered her hand over the patch of skin that definitely had a few purpling marks scattered but she kept a calm expression. “Everything’s fine, okay? Nothing happened.”

“No something happened.”

“Yoongi, fuck off.” Namjoon grabbed his shoulder and led him to the side. “Good to have you back in one piece, B.”

As the two men sat near the paneled windows muttering a few things to each other, Belle caught another figure coming towards her from the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath keeping her gaze on her brother.

Taehyung looked so much taller now. Loose emerald shirt with golden vectors as opposed to the old black hoodies, his eyes were a little darkened from exhaustion but this time it was to take care of his baby rather than an accidental bender. The serious expression on his face added more to the fact that Belle had her older brother back. He was sturdy in his appearance and confident in his stance. The look of a man who had gone through a tunnel of hell and found happiness at the end of the trail.

“How’d it go?” He asked.

“Pretty civil…” Belle nodded, playing with her fingers a little. “…considering the circumstances.”

Taehyung hummed in approval. “That’s good. And that?” He waved his index finger across his own bare neck while looking at hers. “Good or bad?”

“Good.” She smiled faintly. “Really good.”

He grimaced a little. “Gross.”

“Shut up.”

Taehyung could not seem to keep his serious expression as a light chuckle broke out of him, shifting on his spot to loosen up. “But—no more, right? We’re gonna try to get back up again? Start over?” He would be the last person to ever judge Belle for her impulses. What he did know is that the impulses were not meant to be a constant.

Belle did not hesitate to nod. “I uh—I wanted to go to Norway. With Yoongi…” She glanced over to the side seeing Yoongi give her a more apologetic look which the woman smiled in response. “And maybe you guys too? Get away from the city for a while.” She shrugged. “Might even give me inspiration on the new line.”

He thought on the idea for a moment but quickly had a wide grin on his lips. “Angel’s been talking about going on a holiday. We could talk about it over breakfast.”

“Let me just go freshen up.” Belle patted him on the shoulder before making her up the top level of the apartment to her bedroom.

Being the owner of a prestigious boutique came with its perks when she managed to get a big enough apartment for three people including safety for children. It was in the highly populated areas of the city which is meant to be the best area for the position they were in. With Angel’s first husband and Belle’s connection to the Jeon Cartel, the more witnesses around them, the better.

Walking into her bedroom, Belle had one thing in mind before going to shower as she opened her walk-in closet. On the top shelves a box had been hidden under some folded sheets. She reached out and pulled it towards her feeling the light trickle of dust flow through the air making her sneeze.

Sniffling a little she brought the brown box and sat down on the bed with it. Belle paused for a moment, a very light tinge of dread brushing through her but there was a strength that seemed to power through it. Taking a deep breath she clicked open the box. Two tiny yellow shoes on the right hand side causing her to let out a shaky sigh, smiling a little as a few tears filled her eyes.

Belle held the shoes gently, hugging them to her chest before placing them on her lap. Then her eyes moved from the bracelet to the piece of folded paper. The warmth in her belly soared again taking the letter, unfolding to reveal the heavy promise scratched across the surface. The promise that kept her up at night for this many years. How much words could impact a mind was both fascinating and terrifying.

No more though. It was time. Something her therapist said to her in one session Belle would never forget.

It’s never about one solid destination of healing. You will never know exactly when you were healed. All you can know is when you decide to start or keep healing. That is what’s important. After that, everything will flow by you…in the future, it will all seem like a dream. But you’ll feel so proud of yourself when you look back, Belle. Even more proud than I am of you now. You’ve done so well and I hope you’ll keep healing.

Belle placed her fingers at the top of the letter and ripped it half, letting out a deep of relief as she put them together, ripping it again. Smaller and smaller the pieces became breaking off like petals from the already withering flowers in her heart. A smile widened on her lips as she let out something in the mixture of a chuckle and a sob, tears freely leaving her eyes. Teeny tiny pieces piled on the bed. Helping to remind her that they were just words after all.

With steady hands she gathered them together and threw it into the bin under her nightstand.

Then Belle took the yellow shoes and walked to the living room.

The group were already settling around the kitchen counter when she arrived. Angel had Bloom in a high chair feeding her some custard looking mush which she seemed to enjoy though slightly confused by the taste.

Belle walked over to where the child was and gently placed the yellow shoes on her socked feet. She could not help but grin seeing how it fit perfectly. Everything happens for a reason.

“Those are beautiful.” Angel gently touched the soft fabric. “Did you make them?”

“I got them from the market years ago.” She softly brushed through Blooms’ thin dark hair as the child tried to peek at what her aunt put on her feet.

“We were just talking about the trip to Norway.” Taehyung spoke up leaning against the counter next to Angel.

“Yeah, why was I not invited?” Namjoon pouted a little.

Belle stammered, chuckling lightly. “It was Yoongi’s suggestion…we can all go together. I thought you wanted to do field work for the rest of the year.”

“Still would’ve liked to be included.”

Bloom squeaked in response to Namjoon’s mumble, bouncing up and down her seat.

“Might need a babysitter if Taehyung wants to get laid.” Yoongi mused.

“Ah, language.” Angel covered Blooms’ ears but the baby only grinned wide looking at Yoongi.

“She’s not going to know what it means.”

“Listen, we’ll go together.” Belle silenced the group for a moment. “Namjoon forgets to take breaks from work anyway so it’d be a good way to force him out somewhere relaxing.”

“Norway does have a low crime rate.” Taehyung spoke.

“So it’s settled. We’re going to Norway and forget about our problems for a month.” Angel announced glancing at each one of them for a nod of approval.

Belle grinned seeing the group dive into their conversations about what to do in Norway and what hotels to book or the sights to see. No worries of any impending problem or event that could ruin everything. It was just peace in the loudest way possible. All you can know is when you decide to start or keep healing. That is what’s important.

She broke for her family once.

Now she was going to keep healing for it too.

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