#and also I am endlessly fascinated by his weird little brain

[nico-di-genova]

Decreeing it Alexander Rossi lore drop night and bringing my own gathered pieces of info:

He hates tea/warm beverages (other than black coffee or espresso shots in the morning)

He’s a Diet Coke drinker and can tell you exactly why McDonald’s Diet Coke is statistically superior (there was apparently a study conducted on the way McDonald’s Diet Coke is produced and Alex knows the full details of it because of course he does).

Likes his little treats, most often in the form of Diet Coke but will occasionally stop for a Starbucks iced latte (must be iced, because again, he hates hot drinks)

Hates all hot and cold desserts. Get that ice cream with hot fudge the fuck away from him.

If he eats something like warm apple pie he will request they not include cold ice cream with it. It’s his ick, don’t serve it to him, he’s picky and knows what he likes.

Has said, and I quote that he, “likes cold apple pie better,” because he is deranged and insane.

Favorite beer: bud light. Because of course it is. He bleeds red white and blue, his favorite sound is probably a bald eagle screech. He’s painfully American to degrees that Logan Sargeant will unfortunately never be.

[yourheart-inmyhands]

My brain is acting up again 😭

Yan! Diluc, Zhongli (I swear I love this man) and Dottore having a conversation with their darling and out of nowhere they spill facts about how to hide a body or make it decompose faster.

If they ask how they know they just chuckle and continue their conversation.

They got it from Reddit fr 💀

- Weird anon ✨

ah i am also obsessed with death and decomposition, with a good mix of anatomy, though i try to avoid just finding random facts, i buy textbooks and research books about the topics to further my knowledge on the subjects :3c

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including obsessive behaviors, mentions of violence, lots of talk about death and facts about death, creepy behavior, as well as other potential topics. Please read at your own risk!

Diluc:

He finds it amusing at first, not really commenting on it and simply letting it be. Soon enough though he starts sharing facts of his own, making minor corrections or suggestions to the ones you bring up. Sometimes he even adds on to what you already have, changing the course of the conversation momentarily.

It’s not talked about often but Diluc is no longer allowed in Snezhnaya for a reason, he’s seen more than his fair share of bloodshed and has no problem offering you better suggestions than what you previously thought to be best. 

He makes a little game out of it, even going as far as to offer to test your claims. Diluc doesn’t see the harm in it, if anything he’s merely indulging in your interests, bonding with you over it. Strange as it is, he thinks it’s fun.

“Did you know the main reason why corpses smell so bad is because when people die, their bladder empties out?” Diluc chuckles at your question, the conversation shifting from possible dinner options to that of death was nothing new to him, yet it never failed to amuse him. “I did. Did you know it’s because when you die every muscle in your body relaxes, which means anything in your bowels is emptied out, no longer held back?” A bit of a tangent never hurts, especially not when it comes to a topic you seem so sporadically fascinated with. Diluc could sit here and watch you talk about this endlessly, the way your face suddenly lights up as you blurt out a random, off-topic fact. It was like seeing a kid walk into a candy store.

Zhongli:

Zhongli takes it a bit too seriously, often correcting you on common misconceptions or myths. He’s still lighthearted about it, but he doesn’t want his beloved darling to be in the wrong about this kind of thing.

He’d hate to see your spirit crushed by someone else, their offense to the sudden topic change springing up as a rebuttal. He’s simply protecting you this way, making sure that no one can challenge anything you say.

All his knowledge doesn’t come from nowhere though, so do keep that in mind should you ever try to challenge him on anything. Not only has he lived far longer than you, but he and his spear have seen, and done, many things

“Zhongli! Did you know that after death, your hair and fingers still grow for a short period of time?” Pausing mid-explanation, Zhongli processes what you said before smiling fondly at you. “No, my gem, they do not. It is actually the skin shrinking back from loss of moisture. That movement of the skin gives the appearance of the nails and hair growing.” Zhongli doesn’t falter even the slightest in his correction, merely stating it as if it were common knowledge, which it ought to be. This is a fairly common occurrence, with your little interruptions being met with either encouragement from Zhongli, or simply corrections.

Dottore:

He’s probably the worst to bring this up around as he likes to make a competition out of it, going back and forth about gruesome facts until one or the other caves.

Not only has Dottore learned a lot about death, but he’s been responsible for just as many. His knowledge far extends past the random facts you collect.

It’s not surprising that Dottore knows more than you, he never holds it against you though. Every time he wins a little bit of the banter between the two of you he sees it as a win for both of you. You get more facts and he gets to assert his position of higher power over you.

“Rigor mortis occurs 6-12 hours after a death but can last 18-36 hours before the body returns to being soft and floppy.” Dottore doesn’t even falter as you shift the conversation, easily following your lead. “Suffocation is more than just a painful way to die. Oftentimes victims of suffocations will try to free or save themselves to no avail as their limbs will cease function, this is because their brain is trying to preserve oxygen which leads to them being unable to free themself and dying.” The smile on his face is only a few inches wider than normal, his eyes twinkling with the same challenging shine that always comes through when you bring up death. If you weren’t well aware of his affections for you, you’d almost believe he loved talking about death more than he loved you.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

oh my godddd dude holy shit fuck okay taking a break from worm reading to send u an ask about william wight because goddamn i need 2 talk abt him. hello!!!!!!! feeling SO unwell about the clarences cape but red thing. awesome.

OKAY U HAVE LIKE. THE MOST PERFECT TIMING IN THE WORLDDD because literally on . tuesday this week my freak week art got a random note out of nowhere and made me start thinking about the villains again and thinking about william wight specifically because i love him a lot. ok. so its always ALWAYS been my assumption that. this is the version of william who mal got his greasy little claws in.

william fell off the cliff and died. the wisps chose him, and he came back. mal, who has been obsessively watching the wisps since clarence's death, sensed them choosing the next whisperer and swooped in before william could even stand back up. hes disoriented, hes scared, everything hurts, hes at a bottom of a cliff and he honestly doesnt even know if hes alive or not anymore, and this stranger walks out of the forest and offers a chance to explain everything. wiwi mystery brain! he knows this is weird but he also knows like.... i dont know whats happening maybe i AM dead and this is just... waht the afterlife is like. so he goes with mal. william wisp the 16 yr old from deadwood is. well. dead. he went missing, nobody ever found his body, his family mourned him.

meanwhile the whole time mallard conway was taking william wight under his wing and training him to be a replacement. mal calls him whisperer, william is in his rebellious teen phase and wants to be called something cooler which is why he named himself Wight (a type of vengeful spirit. specifically one who was once alive and then was brought back from the dead. lol) william is still! technically half alive. so being in the spirit world for extended amounts of time (which is NOT something mortals are supposed to do, planeswalker or not,) kind of broke his brain a little bit? which is why Wight is LIke That.

williams whole thing when he was alive was solving mysteries and chasing down monsters, so that became (and forgive my use of dp fanon here, i have to) his Obsession. (obsession with a capital O because its.. ghost logic. whatever a ghost died doing becomes their core motivation in the afterlife etc etc dp fanon not sorryyyyy) so he has this. uncanny obsession for tracking down monsters when hes out of the spirit world. being separated from the spirit world for any amount of time kind of drives him nuts, hes so used to being around the dead that being around the living for extended periods of time is unsettling. hes super paranoid. he inherits mal's need for total control over a situation, which is why hes so lax about possessing people with the wisps to get them to do what he wants.

perfect that his best friend turns out to be the absolutely diehard loyal guard dog. (side note here i think he also has williams super high pain tolerance from dead nerves so he lets kota gnaw on his arms and shit) . virion is a mystery to him and he LOVES it, he cant figure this guy out, hes like an endlessly fascinating puzzle to crack open. studying him like a lab rat on a dissection table.

i think about him a normal amount. as you can tell.

Mac i am TOO FUCKING DRUNK to peroperly respond to this but oh my god. oh my godddd yehah. the obsession thing???????? Hello??????? putting that in my pocket!!!!!! ohhgh he’s paranoid being around living people he’s a control freak he’s sooo fucjed up <33333333 he absolutely lets kota chew on him like a chew toy <3 and he can’t get a proper read on virion so he’s obsessed w trying to peel back his layers and learn as much as he can!!! throwing ashe into the mix is like. doubly fascinating for him. bc i think villain ashe would b secretive enough about his civilian identity to intrigue william(<<wants to disguise that he could possibly have any connection to wavelength the hero) and wiwi is INVESTED in trying to figure out him and virion!! what r their secrets!!! he NEDSS TO KNOW!!!!!!! to me his vibes r kinda like the weylin twins. u feel me

[rawliverandgoronspice]

forgive me if I sent this before sdfg But I sorta have this headcanon about the Gerudo? Gender is fucking weird to me anyways, so my brain looks at "they only have a man every 100 years and he's destined to be king" and i'm like 'but why tho'. I like to think their view of gender just doesn't translate well into Hyrulian/a language with gender binary. There are technically trans* people born into the Gerudo (*everyone is assigned 'female' at birth) so they are able to sustain themselves just fine. But the role of like, champion or king or whatever you want to call it, there's a distinction from the average person. Ganondorf isn't special because of his, err, equipment or anything. But this nuance is lost on Hylians, and centuries of misunderstanding contributed to this idea of "ah gerudo only have 1 man" (always did find it backwards that divinity is feminine in this series, yet it's almost always Zelda's father The King who is in charge and gets to be a character)

Ohhh the famed question of Gender Among Gerudo!!!

Okay, so. I think I'm a little weird in that regard. First, I think I need to be a little transparent about how I write, because it changes the way I go about this sort of things. I tend to be the sort of person that kind of gravitates around fictional cultures with really weird gender components and pressure points and then want to scratch at them and push them to their breaking point, because it interests me to see characters struggling to make sense of their identity in these contexts.

Again, all of this is about my own approach/my own creative curiosity and not at all a rebuttal of any other approach!! I'm super interested to see gerudos interpreted across the fandom, it's always so endlessly fascinating!!

(I'm putting it under the cut because I don't know if my own approach interests you, so just in case!)

So. While I think that it would also make sense for gerudo to think of gender in way that are radically different than hylians, I'm personally interested to take the claims at face value and see what sort of people that would create --for better and for worse. I am a big fan of the gerudos, but I also see gender (and especially masculinity) as one of their messiest pressure points.

The reason why that interests me is that an enormous part of Descant's subtext is Ganondorf being completely overwhelmed by the notion of masculinity and its expectations. Having no real blueprint to even understand what being a man is even supposed to imply beyond old legends about kings long dead, more myth than people, the contradictory, vague and messy expectations of the gerudos women who hardly know any better than him (but might say that they do, right Koume&Kotake), and hylian men who are literal threats to his life, actively hated by his people and who get imprisonned/killed if they ever get inside gerudo lands... How in the world are you expected to construct a stable perception of yourself in a context like this? And that's excluding the differences between hylian and gerudo perception of masculinity, or the insane stuff that hylians do project upon him based on their own understanding of gender and gender dynamics. In the end (in Descant), it's Darunia who does the most for him in that regard, though pretty much without realizing it nor the importance that it holds for Ganondorf, and then uhhh everything goes well forever and nobody's people gets eaten by a reanimated dragon very importantly.

I am taking a rather dark interpretation of the gerudos in OoT by taking their situation so literally, buuut I'm that kind of writer unfortunately for everybody involved. :((( This makes their relationship with hylians and their own brithrates very very dire in a war context, makes Ganondorf's appearance in the equation all the more important --but also very... questionable in a lot of ways. Extreme arbitrary gendered power combined with absolutely crushing gender expectations you can't really run away from, and expectations that are far from neutral (that's some wild shit to project onto a literal newborn is all I'll say). I think a Ganondorf raised in such a context might try to do anything for his people, buuut a part of him might also cultivate some resentment for the role bestowed upon him and the fact that he can't just be. This would have uhh implications once he gets a whiff that divine power (so self-definition at its most absolute) is a goal he can strive for.

What can I say, I'm interested in the mess!!!

But I also think trans gerudos are completely fair game, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a social space for trans gerudo to exist without this kind of pressure, especially when, culturally, masculinity is also a function --but I also think sheikahs might be much, much better at the whole gender thing than gerudos are as a culture tbh.

And as far as Goddesses being feminine while Zelda not holding actual power... I agree that it feels weird. I decided to handle this as hylians using it as an excuse to have the Goddesses relegated as religious passivity --blessed symbols of balance-- while having the concrete messiness of down-to-earth power be the domain of men; less pure and heavenly, but also, by definition, more power.

(I think this also changes a lot across Hyrule's history, but again I'm talking OoT era)

Thank you so much for your ask!! I hope I didn't overspill with my own headcanons haha

[mmph-hudda-huuh]

CHEMIST'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE OTHER MERCS !!

Below are how I imagine Chemist interacts with the other mercenaries, and how they spend time together. None of it is explicitly shippy, even Spy, but as a very enthusiastic multi-shipper I will 100% draw my oc kissing hot tf2 men and encourage everyone else to do the same. I am cringe but I am free.

Scout

He has a weird rivalry with Scout where he's endlessly fascinated by the man's ability to drink radioactive soda and not die, but will still call him an Elmer's-eating fucknut if Scout so much as breathes at him. It's a mutual thing and over time becomes less about malice and more of an inside joke. It's very common for competitions to start during work hours, leading to both of their performances skyrocketing.

Soldier

Soldier is his ride or die, it literally took two seconds for them to recognize the autism in each other and become inseparable. Chemist is a smart guy and generally holds the brain cell, but the second you put him next to Solly he loses any form of rational thought. They cause endless chaos. It's beautiful.

Pyro

Pyro and CJ are a force of chaos both on and off the battlefield. Pyro watched this nervous scrawny man walk into the base and went 'Hm. Yes. This is a friend.' Cooper sees them like a younger sibling, except he will under no circumstances be responsible in their presence. If left alone for too long these two will 100% destroy anything that can be burned or corroded. They both have their weird little destructive obsessions and egg each other on.

Demoman

CJ and Tav like to put their heads together to make horrifying objects. They're the type to get piss drunk together and invent a bomb that could end the fucking world. When they aren't giving the admin more grey hairs, their usual time together consists of testing hang-over solutions each morning to make a fix-all for those types of consequences. OH and they both watch soap operas. Together. They cry and gasp and talk to the screen like losers.

Heavy

Heavy and Chemist get along well, both commonly in the infirmary. They both enjoy literature, and Heavy's quiet, calm nature goes well with Chemist's nerves and habit of info-dumping. They aren't the closest, but CJ thinks very highly of him and Misha enjoys their talks, often seeking out Chem just to get into a debate over symbolism in books they both have read.

Engineer

Engie amazes Chemist. The man has 11 PhDs! That's damn impressive! His machines are so intricate, and the Gunslinger is a genius idea in his opinion. Plus, he reminds CJ of his gran, with his kind words and bomb-ass food. It's hard to feel alone in the world when a sweet little southern man is offering you some mild alcohol and an ear.

Sniper

CJ actively dislikes being around sniper because of his disinterest in hygiene practices. They have a few things in common, however, in that they both suffer from social anxiety, and that their parental figures don't support their job choices. They often bond over this, but from a comfortable distance.

Medic

Chemist relies heavily on Medic. He's terrified of how lax the man is with safety rules, but his medications and healing beam can help dull his symptoms. It makes life much easier, and for that, CJ is endlessly thankful for Dr. Ludwig. Besides that, they also feed off each other's mad scientist energy, and Medic has been working to find the cause of his issues since the moment Cooper joined. The doctor is well aware most of the symptoms are commonly caused by stress, but some of them are quite strange in their own ways, so he is happy to experiment.

Spy

Cooper is very weird about Spy. The team has no idea if it's a crush or just admiration, but Chemist often strives to gain Spy's approval, praise, and attention. They can be seen together frequently because if Spy appears somewhere it doesn't take long for CJ to seek him out. They can be seen playing chess together, talking(gossiping) in French, and on the battlefield, they always have each other's backs. Despite this, if asked, Spy will deny that they are anything more than acquaintances, and Chemist will simply dodge any questions related to the topic with visible discomfort.

[skribblz]

Fics??????? *very eyes, much emoji*

If sooo I recently just came up with another SenGen scenario-

I feel like Senku would question why Gen walks around barefoot all the time. He did offer some shoes for him one time but Gen declined cause I hc that for him it feels nice to walk around barefoot, and that since they're in the Stone world he has freedom to do so without getting called out, which Senku agrees nevertheless. But he does offer to clean his feet for him cause of how dirty they are sjfjsjfjsjf Gen ur gross /j /lh

and I think u know where this is going heehoo 👀👀👀

hehehehEHEHEH yay sengen ty angel <3

"Don't your feet ever...hurt?"

Gen tilts his head, a grin starting to spread across his face, "Aww are you worried about me, Senku-chan?"

"Just answer the question, damn mentalist." The scientist scoffs, earning a giggle.

"Of course it hurts if I step on something sharp," he replies, poking the other on the cheek, "but otherwise, nope! It's kinda like a nice little massage!"

"Don't tell me you have cuts on your feet." Senku starts, ready to go off on a whole tangent. "Someone like you knows how deadly infections can be, especially-"

"Especially in the Stone World, blah blah." Gen imitates, smirking as he received a glare from the other. "It's not that hard to say that you care, you stubborn thing."

Senku glared harder, pink faintly dusted across his cheeks since he couldn't honestly refute that statement. "You're just a-"

"Useful ally, I know, I know." The magician sighs dramatically, "Just another person to exploit."

Suddenly, a rough hand grabs onto his arm, pulling him out of his performance. His single audience member drags Gen along, who honestly doesn't mind. It did give him more chances to annoy the younger man.

"Fine, allow me to repay you for all the work you've done, as well as prevent your feet from falling off later. It's ten billion percent efficient."

"Ooh, where are you taking me, Dr. Ishigami? And please be gentle."

Senku groans, rolling his eyes. "Ew, shut up."

This was way too much fun.

It doesn't take long for Gen to realize that they were heading toward a nearby creek; all those trips to collect flowers for his tricks gave him decent knowledge of the land. Senku leads him down to the side of the water and allows Gen to roll up his the bottoms of his pants before obediently stepping in.

"It's cold!" He whines immediately.

"Deal with it, you big baby." Senku snickers at the mentalist's discomfort, letting this go on for awhile more. "Alright come on, get over here." He sits. "Give me your foot."

Gen backpedals a bit, trying not to fall into the freezing water. He’d prefer not to be soaking wet after all. Senku’s words did surprise him though, and he voices his concerns with a titter. "W-what? Who would've thought you were into stuff like this, Senku-chan!"

"Don't make it sound weird, I'm just cleaning your feet for you."

"I can do that myself-"

"You're the one who says how caring I am. So let me show how much I care." The scientist deadpans. He didn't understand why Gen was being so reluctant, unless there was actually a reason he didn't want his feet touched? Was he trying to hide an injury?

He frowns at Gen, offering his hand expectantly. The other shifts nervously, slowly sitting down on the grassy bank before placing his right heel onto the hand.

Senku immediately starts inspecting, taking note of the (thankfully) shallow scratches. Though when he starts prodding around for anything broken, Gen jolts and his face scrunches up all weird.

"Sorry, does this hurt?"

"No, no. I'm fine." The magician squeaks, willing himself to stay still as Senku shrugs, continuing his lighting poking and tracing.

After what seemed like ages, the sensations stop and Gen breathes a sigh of relief. He hears the bag rustle and Senku pulls out a bar of soap and dunks it into the water a few times. And without warning, he starts scrubbing the surface of Gen's sole.

And Gen squeals, instinctively yanking his foot out of the scientist's loose grasp.

"Oh yeah, you have some scratches so it might sting a little, but I thought you could take it?"

"A little too late for a warning don't you think!?"

"Just let me finish. It's your fault for not wearing shoes in the first place."

"And that's my choice!" Gen cries, trying to crawl away.

"And I'd rather not become the stone world's first amputator so you're just gonna have to bear with it." Senku remarks, snatching up the foot with a firmer grip.

"No means no!"

"Can you not?"

“Can you noEEE- NAahahaha!” The mentalist cackles as the scrubbing begins again. Although he noted that Senku was a bit gentler this time, it didn’t really help with his predicament. Gen’s back hits the grass as he clutches his stomach, desperately tugging at his trapped foot while the giggles fall endlessly from his mouth.

The scientist quickly puts two and two together, finally realizing why Gen was so reluctant to have his feet cleaned. It also explains the constipated looks he got during his inspection. "Huh, you're ticklish.” Senku says, mostly to himself. He watches the other squirm with great interest, cataloging each moment Gen twisted his head, face cherry red and mouth decorated with the cutest smile. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

"Behehecause it's- hAHahaha! Embahaharrassing! Nonononohoho!"

“I guess so.” Senku throws out casually, opting to dig his fingers into the magician’s toes. And Gen goes berserk, hands thumping the ground as he throws his head back, bright laughter filling the sky. He even almost kicks Senku in the face.

Senku, however, found this whole ordeal rather fascinating. He is very amused to find out how such a simple action could prompt such a large reaction. All that smooth-talking and witty remarks, turning into dorky, uncontrollable giggling. “Y’know, I think I like this side of you better, mentalist. Way more easier to deal with.”

And Gen wants to protest and argue and rebuke, but how could he? Nothing but chortles would come out; the ticklish sensations from his foot overloaded his brain, causing him to flail around madly.

The scientist decides that this is enough for now, dropping the foot back into the river. And Gen doesn’t complain this time, chest heaving grateful breaths. Each exhale produces a string of residual giggles, making Senku’s heart flutter just a tiny bit. Gen didn’t need to know that, he determines.

“Thahahat....was so...cruel.” 

Senku shrugs in response, “Again, your fault for not wearing shoes.” 

Gen ponders for a moment, was pushing Senku’s buttons right now really worth it? Sitting up slowly, he looks at the younger man through half-lidded eyes. “Well if you continue to give me special treatment...maybe I won’t ever put on a pair of shoes~” 

“That is extremely illogical and you know it.” 

“Maybe I think it’s nice having you touch me like this.” He really couldn’t help himself. Gen smiles flirtatiously, expecting to be met with wide crimson eyes and an equally crimson face. 

But instead, Senku smirks back, eyes not wide, but calculating. He’s not skillful enough to hide the tint of pink dusting his cheeks though.

“Yeah? I’ll touch you more if you’d like.” 

“Ooooh, how dirty~” 

"Hand over the other foot, mentalist." Senku's grin morphs into something more sinister.

Gen’s jaw drops, a look of betrayal spreads across his face. Asshole. He grits his teeth and then presses his lips into a thin smile, "...Please be gentle?"

[scullysflannel]

1/4: Hi! Weird, but genuine, Chris Carter question I'm having trouble verbalizing. So, I find people who have a special gift to be fascinating. Ex: GA. What is it like to be such a GOOD actress? *wonders* And I keep thinking about Chris Carter and am confused. B/c he did/does (??) have a gift, right? Brought XF universe to life, written some good episodes, etc. But, gifts don’t go away, do they? I mean, GA can’t backtrack & all of a sudden become a bad actress. So, what happened with Chris?

Was he never gifted to begin with and just got SUPER lucky with an idea? Did he pull from a source that he could no longer pull from? There is arrogance/pride/borderline-malicious-glee in his actions, BUT arrogance doesn’t cancel out talent. So, I genuinely don’t understand the brain process here. He *made* it, but back-tracked even though his platform remained. And the demand for XF as well. Is it a long case of writer’s block? Is he doing this on purpose b/c of a personality disorder since he’s still rewarded regardless (I assume he’s filthy rich and will always be filthy rich??) I guess, in my simple-mindedness, his case is weird to me b/c usually when a talented person seems to backtrack, there are external factors we can point to. Celebrity turned to drugs! Or shifting audience tastes! Studio interference! Global pandemic limitations! But, with him, every door was opened. He's retained creative control throughout. He could hire whoever he wants. Hell - he could even plagiarize ideas from the best fanfic writers. So, what is the deal here? How do you switch that flick off once it’s on? And, does it make me a terrible human being to be so happy he’s not found success outside of XF while those around him did? (although, I guess not everyone found the success that Vince/Frank/Howard/Shiban/Wong/Bowman have with Homeland/Breaking Bad/Ozark, etc) I just wonder endlessly about this!

okay, lots to unpack here. I’m also fascinated by Chris Carter’s range (in quality), but this is not the angle for me. I don’t care about the personal side and don’t feel good speculating on it. plus it seems convoluted to celebrate that he hasn’t had much success since The X-Files, because if he were capable of evolving, then the later seasons of The X-Files and the revival probably would have been better in the first place... very snake eating its own tail. it’s just celebrating the same animal that bit us. also, for obvious legal reasons he could not plagiarize ideas from fanfic!! that is how a person gets sued. and plenty of artists have flop eras, or don’t fit as well with one story as they do with another. or they just have off days. a gift is mostly just hard work, and results are going to vary. 

what gets me about Chris Carter’s writing, and The X-Files as a whole, is how often the best and worst things about it are the same. the things that didn’t work in the end are the reason the show works in the beginning. he was right to keep it “platonic” at first, because it builds the foundation of Mulder and Scully’s relationship on their trust and respect for each other as equals, which was radical in an early ‘90s TV context and is obviously the sexiest thing about them. he was wrong to deny Scully a healthy sex life as a result, to write her as a fantasy of chastity and then abuse her for drama. he was also wrong to resist letting Mulder and Scully’s relationship evolve after a certain point, and he misunderstood what a romantic relationship on screen would look like for them and how little it actually needed to change the surface of the show. he was right to understand that what is not shown, and not spoken, is always more interesting than what is. he was wrong to extend that lack of communication to the point of absurdity.

this goes for the mythology too. the power of The X-Files comes from the clarity of the initial setup (two people fighting for truth in a corrupt system), and when the story lost that power it was because Carter got too attached to the wrong details at the expense of the big picture. he was right to create a nameless villain who embodied the whole faceless system and wrong to keep him alive way past his sell-by date. the whole point of CSM was that he was a cog in a bigger machine. he should have died in the season 5 premiere, and the tragedy should have been that it didn’t fix anything; there were other men in suits lined up to take his place. Chris Carter built a world where the real monsters are weak men who want to hold on to their power. he didn’t recognize that by refusing to let the story move forward, he was just becoming his own villain.

the revival really hammered home the problem with how he sees the show. he kept the wrong things (CSM, martyring Scully, a “breakup” meant to uhhh reset Mulder and Scully’s relationship, which means he forgot they seemed married by episode 3). it highlighted issues that were there the whole time, like the way the show relies on violence against women’s bodies for shock value. I think Chris Carter writes The X-Files very stubbornly, and because it paid off a few times (fighting to cast 24-year-old Gillian Anderson over the “blonde bombshell” the network wanted) he felt justified in getting even more stubborn. so he didn’t listen when anyone (certainly not the star whose career he made by casting her at age 24!) dared to suggest that maybe the revival should be more serialized, or that maybe violating his heroine was bad.

I’ve noticed that when Carter gets asked in interviews why he wrote something (like the breakup), his answer is usually “I thought it would be interesting.” there’s no interrogation. I think his instincts for the show were dead on in the beginning, but I don’t think he likes to think too hard about them. he knew what Mulder and Scully’s partnership should look like and what the moral landscape of the show should look like but didn’t really care to ask why. the actors and other writers are the ones who got the why. 

and even then, there’s something perversely interesting in watching a show like that! The X-Files is driven by the tension between how it was written and how David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson played it, like they were writing a different show behind his back. they found more life in it. other writers and directors kind of did the same thing. there’s a weird push and pull on this show between formula and reinvention. like, I was in the room for that panel conversation where Carter talked about how The X-Files didn’t have a show bible, and he didn’t mean “we didn’t keep track of what had already happened on The X-Files” (although clearly they didn’t do that either, and that was a mistake). he meant “we didn’t start season 1 with a long list of rules we would never violate.” and that’s good. the best things about The X-Files usually happen when it breaks its own rules, like Darin Morgan writing comedy. but there are always boundaries it won’t cross; no one can really grow up or die or get together or have a kid they don’t lose.

it almost makes me want to boil that tension down to Chris Carter vs. everyone else: he set the formula and everyone else reinvented it. it’s not as simple as “all the rebellion happened when he looked the other way,” because he wrote and directed some fun experimental episodes (Triangle!), and I’m not going to let the men around him off the hook for humoring him, either. it’s not a one-man show. but I don’t get the impression that Carter fostered an environment where other people (writers, directors, stars) felt comfortable calling him out, and he definitely didn’t try to bring in writers and directors with perspectives that would actually challenge his, which is part of how the show wound up with so much underlying racism and sexism.

anyway. in a weird way I’m more confused by how bad his directing got than I am by his writing. I have no answer for how the same guy directed How the Ghosts Stole Christmas and the Struggles. at least with his writing I can see where it went wrong: he wouldn’t throw anything out of the fridge when it expired, because it used to taste good. I appreciate Chris Carter’s creative control over the early seasons of The X-Files. I wouldn’t just call it luck. but it’s probably fair to say that his skills as a writer were all laser targeted toward getting this one exact show off the ground and equally terrible at letting it grow and become something new.

love to think about this, clearly! and obviously I don’t mean the bad things get a pass because they can’t be separated from the good things. I just find it so fucking fascinating. if you think about it too hard it starts to feel like original sin.

[moondustaeil]

ᴄᴏʟᴏᴜʀɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴇᴄʀᴜ ⊰❀ ᴋ.ᴊᴡ

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ✧☾.·:·. colourized ecru

⠀ ⠀⠀ about

⋅  genre : soulmates!au - fluff, angst, suggestive content

⋅  pairing : Jungwoo x reader

⋅  word count : 25.8k

⋅  warning: it gets a little bit suggestive at the end, but no actual smut

⠀ ⠀  ⠀ ⠀

⠀ ⠀⠀ synopsis

⋅   “Pick a colour” said lady Cyan who was strangely familiar. Your fingertip had endlessly trailed over the palette, but you picked ecru. Every day that goes by: you sit under the Daimyo oak that protected five little daisies, little did you know one of the five daisies is willing to give you a “loves me” or “loves me not” with Jungwoo, the boy from the enchanted soulmate library...

⠀ ⠀  ⠀ ⠀

⠀ ⠀⠀ colours

⋅  this is a collab created by @neo-cult-ure​ , where me and other writers went for a soulmate concept but each went our own ways with a specific plot. I would like to take the time to thank everyone in this collab: for the friendship and for the process that we underwent together ! Please check out their fics as well. [Author’s note is at the bottom]

「ᴡʜɪᴛᴇ : # ꜰꜰꜰꜰꜰꜰ」

Sat with your back against a tree, it nearly appears that you're one of the stereotypical nature-lovers on earth. It would have looked like a regular thing to do, if only you held a cliché poetry book, or if you weren't sitting there whilst clouds were turning into a very dark shade of blue. The if-only scenarios were only fiction as in reality you were sitting against a tree in the middle of a weather transition, your hands empty and your eyes shut.

"pick a colour," a faint but comforting voice tells you, you nearly feel comfortable due to the sugary sweet undertone in the voice if it weren't for the pair of eyes you were greeted with. The cyan-coloured eyes look straight into yours even if yours were shut in reality.

Upon hearing the request, your eyes open themselves to do as you are asked. A soft layer of dust seems to coat your eyelashes which causes your eyes to flutter open a couple of times before you're greeted with the world. Your expectations don't meet up with what's actually in front of you, the last thing you had in mind was an empty landscape on each angle that your eyes explored. No one with a cyan-coloured pair of eyes staring into yours, in fact, no one is around you at all. There is no colour palette from which you can pick a colour, the only colour palette is that of the scenery. Just a stereotypical scene surrounds you: green grass, white daisies, and a very dark rain-filled sky.

It's going to rain, and it's a shame that you have to find out the second it's too late. Little droplets rapidly leak from the dark clouds, not enough to get you soaked, but enough to make you realise it was time to leave. You get up from under the tree, setting off in a fast walking pace as you leave the park. You don't run as you don't want to look like the fool who sat in the park whilst knowing it would rain, that embarrassing feeling is not something you want to give yourself. Whatever you were doing under a tree on a rainy Sunday evening is forgotten momentarily.

The world seems strangely different but one thing that stayed the same was the way to your apartment, and you're lucky it's only a ten-minute walk, nine if you continue to keep up the slightly faster walking pace. Though thanks to the weather, the walk seems a bit longer, but still only exactly nine minutes pass when you sprint up to the stairs towards the second floor.

You close the front door behind yourself once you're inside the apartment. The first thing you do is kick off the wet pair of Vans on your feet, you leave them in the middle of the hallway before stepping over them to get into your living room. You stare at the decorated living room, staying silent as there is no roommate you have to greet, which luckily allows you to glue yourself onto the sofa for the rest of the night. Dinner could have been made but you're not in the mood to make a mish-mash out of leftover ingredients.

For everything in life, there's a useful app, just like there's a useful app that you use to order your dinner with. Unfortunately, there's no such thing that gives you an explanation for your own weird actions like sitting underneath a tree for god knows how long. You pay for your dinner before throwing your phone aside, leaving social media to drown in its toxic nature.

You stand up from the sofa and head to the bathroom. You wash up by taking a quick shower, brush your teeth, do your overly extensive skincare routine even though you don't feel like it, and lastly change into your most comfortable nightwear. Right when you leave the bathroom and are about to settle yourself down on the sofa, the intercom stops you and tells you the food arrived. Luckily for you, you already paid and the delivery man is nice enough to drop off your food right in front of your door instead of two floors down.

"thank you!" you say extra loud so that the delivery man manages to hear you even when he's already on his way downstairs. You lift up the bag with food and instantly take it inside before any of your friendly neighbours come outside to have a healing talk. Once you close the door again, you decide that it's the moment to lock yourself in for the rest of the evening. A house party by yourself seems the perfect way to name what you're about to do: watch abandoned Netflix series while you occupy your sofa as a dining area.

You slowly start eating whilst Netflix provides you with entertainment. Yet, the series isn't interesting enough to keep you distracted from your thoughts, that or your thoughts are very determined to keep the subject alive. The view of two characters getting in a petty fight over money is replaced by the same view as earlier: the pair of cyan-coloured eyes that were staring into yours, followed by the sight of the tree you had been sitting under not long ago. There was something about the scene that seemed too important to forget as it constantly returned to your mind.

But why was it that you couldn't forget about it? Your eyes close as you give in to the thoughts before they consume your entire brain. It seems like a bunch of little white clouds start to form in your mind, each of them is filled with a tiny piece of information about the unforgettable encounter. Despite your confusion, you’re willing to make those little clouds pop in order to receive some new information. Firstly told was that you weren’t allowed to forget the tree or lose focus of it, another cloud tells you to remember the tree because it might not be there forever. The little clouds fill the blank spaces in your mind, but it’s not enough.

You indeed never saw the tree before, it is something you can conclude after you went on a train of memories. Before today, you had been in the park numerous times to situate objects and pieces of nature, it was a little bit too familiar to say that you had no idea whether you saw the tree before or not. A piece of your heart interrupts your thoughts, without words making your interest in the tree bigger with each second you thought about it. Perhaps you would listen to yourself and keep an eye out for the tree, just to check if you weren’t betraying yourself.

After sighing, you shake your head to yourself. “You’re going crazy,” you tell yourself in a whisper, taking the glass of water from the side and sip from it to wash away the stream of useless thoughts. Fortunately for the future, it’s a mission you would fail in. Unfortunately for you, the thoughts wouldn’t get washed away for quite a while.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

7:05 am

You wake up with a jerk, immediately catching your breath as you came back from running a marathon. The faint voice in your mind disappears, leaving you alone in your dark bedroom. The distant sound of rain drumming against your window makes your eyes open, searching for the little patch of light in the darkness until your eyes are fixated on the window.

It must be raining outside and you must be in your room. Unlike a minute ago when you found yourself in the park once more, sat underneath the same tree as yesterday with the cyan-coloured eyes staring at you from a distance. Your tensed body falls back onto the bed in relief, you're happy to be in bed even though the urge to go to that specific spot is eating you from the inside. Slowly but surely you turn your body towards the window, eyes focused on the patch of light that shines through. The sky seems grey like it's grieving for the start of a new week, but you're just grateful that you're not completely consumed by the darkness in your room.

When you think about something so much, people would say that you're in love, but clearly, you can't be in love with a tree, can you? If it was up to you to explain your feelings towards the tree: it would be a mix of hatred due to the constant thoughts about it, but also fascination because of the unknown meaning behind it. It's no secret that by now, you actually start to believe you're either way delusional, or that faith is on your side but you're not sure why.

"Fuck it" you quietly tell yourself as you get your sore body out of bed, starting the day rather impulsively as you would have preferred to stay in bed for a little while longer. Your nightwear is ditched on the sheets as you almost shoot yourself into yesterday's outfit. There's a sauce stain from last night's dinner in the middle of your shirt, but the dried-up spot is something your eyes miss or don't even care about at this moment. It's too late to question what you're doing before you realise it, you've already left the bedroom.

Similar to other and more rushed mornings, breakfast is something you forget about, though now it seems like abandoning it willingly rather than just forgetting about it. You walk past the kitchen and directly into the hallway, exchanging your bare feet for the wet shoes you left in the middle of the path yesterday evening. It seems like you're rewinding yesterday's events even though this time, you sprint down the stairs instead of up.

The moment you walk out of the apartment complex, you can feel the little droplets of rain layering onto your hair, it's like taking a shower first thing in the early morning. The feeling is annoying and it could lead to you getting sick, but you don't think of the consequences, neither are you caring about them right now. The sprint turns into a fast walking pace as you're greeted by a still calm street. Luckily at this hour, there aren't many people around, and if they are then they're in a rush to get to work.

Your feet speed up lightly as the urge to get to the park grows only bigger knowing you're only ten minutes away from the place. You walk further towards the park even though it's hard to keep yourself from going past the walking pace, luckily you're just very determined to keep your bit of dignity. Ten minutes isn't that much in reality, even if it takes up one of the six parts in an hour and one of the three parts in half an hour.

When the park comes into view, you opt to ignore the presence of a few early birds that jog towards the park, just like them you start jogging. The remaining minute turns into a matter of seconds as you run through the unofficial entrance and straight towards the tree that you feel captivated by. You don't care that you're running over the grass rather than the ground, it's not like the bit of dew could make you slip.

Your feet come to an abrupt halt once you're close enough to the tree, only taking smaller steps towards the piece of nature until it seems like the tree could engulf you in its branches. You greet the tree with a smile, unaware of your own little gesture. With the bit of distance between you and the tree, you reach out your hand to touch the trunk. "What makes you so special?" you ask quietly, it's more like a rhetorical question as you feel like you have to find out the answer for yourself.

Your hand pulls itself away with a slight sigh, the calmness spreading through your body after a second of contact between you and the tree. You turn your body and get into the same position as yesterday, your back pressed against the trunk while you look at the scenery. The spot that you claimed allows you to stay out of the rain, the branches and twigs catching a couple of droplets before they can get to you. It takes a minute for you to settle down in that spot, but once you do, it's like you're sitting in the perfect spot.

The view you have from this spot is amazing, especially seeing people rushing in their lives while you're sat under a tree that gives a protective vibe. But you're aware that you must be sitting here with a goal, and you have no idea what that goal could be. You cock your head to the side, allowing your eyes to check the little flowers that you find yourself in between like you ruined their little get-together.

Five little daisies proudly standing amongst other big trees and plain green grass, their two simple colours stand out compared to the other naturistic elements around you. It were the kind of flowers you would make a flower crown with when you were still a child and the flowers you could use to determine whether your crush really loved you. Not that you did that many times as you were too realistic, or at least that's what you thought about your years as a child.

A tingling feeling spreads itself starting from your wrist and all the way towards the ends of your fingertips. You break eye-contact with the white-yellow coloured flowers and use your eyes to inspect the palm of your hand. But, you don’t see anything more than just a simple hand quivering to the unexpected intensity of the tingles. Your fingers clench themselves until they’re hidden in your fist, pressuring the tingles to go numb. 

The set of strange events make you close your eyes to ponder, trying to ignore the reality to just silently wonder about them without having to go through the experience once more. Yet, the moment you close your eyes you seem lost in one of those events, one that you’re encountering for the second time. The Cyan-coloured eyes stare into yours eyes, a determined and yet comforting look that make you feel responsible over something you’re not aware of. “Ecru? That’s a fantastic choice, darling. Your world is now colourized ecru” the voice says in a soft tone. The voice seemingly fits the fawn colour that you can imagine when saying ecru. Your mouth opens to speak, but before you can push one word out, the pair of eyes are gone. 

Once again, you're left in the park with your eyes closed and your hands empty just like they were yesterday. Only this time, the world had changed, or perhaps it had before but you were too dumb to realise.

The world is now colourized ecru

「 ꜱɴᴏᴡ : # ꜰꜰꜰᴀꜰᴀ 」

"Your world is colourized what?" Sicheng asks you, making it clear you had to clarify the story for the third time today. His eyes glance over at you like it would make him understand the words a little bit better. You would have sighed if it wasn’t for the fact that you would do the exact same thing if he told you a similar story. You wouldn’t have understood either, perhaps you wouldn’t even bother believing it.

Getting the words on the tip of your tongue again, only takes up a few seconds, you could repeat them whenever you wanted and your head provided you with the same voice as the person that told you.”Your world is now colourized ecru” you repeat again, this time saying the words slower since the language gap could make it harder for him to understand what ecru meant, even though it isn’t language-related as you had to google the colour too. “The voice told me that” you add, explaining more than needed just so that Sicheng could understand and believe your story.

“Colourized ecru, isn’t that like the beige colour?” Sicheng asks as his feet take slower steps just like his mind is processing the entire situation in a slow pace. To you, it is almost too slow, as being headed to the park became something you are weirdly enthusiastic for, or rather than that, you simply long to find yourself sitting underneath that tree. “I thought so too, but apparently it’s not. I saw a pinkish shade in it but Wikipedia said it was greyish-yellow. So I don’t know anymore” you answer his question, leaving your best friend even more confused now that he doesn’t know which colour your world really became.

The rest of the walk to the park is as blank as it was before, with Sicheng asking questions and you giving vague answers because Google wasn’t always as smart as you thought. Eventually, you realise that you would have to find a way to answer your own questions instead of letting Google do it for you. And aside from mental support, you’re sure that Sicheng can’t help you with answers either. 

“This is the tree,” you say as you walk underneath it with Sicheng, allowing him to sit first between the five daisies that he hadn’t even noticed yet. You sit down on the free space next to him, stopping the urge that your eyes get as you don’t want to close them while your best friend is around. “Do you know what kind of tree this is?” Sicheng asks you, his head raising to look at the branches, twigs and the leaves hanging from it. He fails to see the way you shook your head but already expected a no from you, or well, he had never seen your interest laying in the origins of a park tree.

Through his lensless glasses, Sicheng looks at you again. “Perhaps you should visit the library, they must have some books about trees,” he suggests, his head turning unexpectedly when his hand touches one of the five daisies hiding in the grass. Before you’re able to catch up with what happened, he quickly places his hand next to them instead of on top of them. “And flowers” he adds quickly, giving you an innocent smile.

"Did you ever play the loves me, loves me not game with daisies?" Sicheng asks as he motions to the little miracles of nature with his free hand, your eyes immediately go towards the flowers, something you almost instinctively do as you would stare at them each time you came here. “I didn’t, I wouldn’t know who would love me” you answer with a small shrug, still convinced that you never played those silly games during your childhood. The loves me, loves me not game was made up out of lies, a flower would never be able to tell you who you belonged with. “Your soulmate loves you.”

“My soulmate?” you ask as you hear the word soulmate go past Sicheng’s lips. The word isn’t unfamiliar, perhaps it’s a bit too familiar as there is a lot of doubt to the existence of soulmates in the world. Some claim soulmates are just for people who meet each other and symbolically label themselves like that, others say soulmates could meet each other in special circumstances, and there was a group of people that completely deny the existence of the phenomenon. You have no idea which group you belong to, neither do you know what Sicheng thinks about it. Never have you pondered about the possibility of meeting your other half. 

Sicheng hums in response to you, a tiny smile coating his lips as he reaches out to one of the flowers and disconnects it from its long stem. “You just go like this” Sicheng says as he ignores your soft protests against what he was doing, something felt wrong when he plucked the flower from its safe spot. “Loves me, loves me not” he says as he starts to demonstrate, leaving you to watch how he throws away something precious. It makes you feel emotional, with petal after petal falling to the grass after getting plucked from the yellow-coloured disk. Each of those petals seem to represent how close you are to having tears in your eyes. You felt sick with apprehension.

“Loves you not,” Sicheng says whilst the last petal sadly falls onto the green grass, laying scattered next to the other petals that he had plucked away. Just like you predicted seconds ago, tears are burning in the corners of your eyes, threatening to run down your cheeks, but you refuse, you don’t want to be the person to cry over a flower. “That means you’re not my soulmate and I’m not yours,” Sicheng simply says, whatever was left of the flower falling from his fingertips and ending between the few white petals. 

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The feeling of melancholy continues to follow you everywhere after what had happened. It started as a small pit in your stomach the moment Sicheng first separated the flower from its natural habitat, but as the hours go by the pit only grows bigger and leaves you unable to feel a different emotion.

After Sicheng left you with an apology for possibly fucking up something you desperately needed in your life, you had found yourself grieving over the flower for two complete hours. Those hours go by with tenderly holding the remains between your aching fingertips, and telling yourself you had four flowers left that no one would pluck away from you. Yet, when you left the park, there was the fear that a stranger or child would pluck them for fun. You had been hesitant about leaving, but you couldn't stay with the flowers day and night.

That’s how you end up marching to the local library, following up the at least useful piece of advice Sicheng gave you. You were no longer angry at him, perhaps you even blamed yourself for not making it clear enough how important the flowers were to you, how they seemed to connect to you and the ecru world you found yourself in. Grateful for the suggestion he made earlier: from the suggestion about going to the library, to the suggestion of a so-called phenomenon called soulmates.

You had no idea what time it was when you found yourself in front of the library, neither did the sky really tell you much because you weren't looking up at it. Your eyes were too busy to make sure you didn't bump into any people or objects whilst your thoughts were working overtime. Your steps were quick as the stairs only counted a few of them before you were right in front of the wooden door. Something else you didn't notice were the opening hours hanging on the left, you would have been able to see it was a quarter past closing time when you arrived. Your fingers wrapped around the door handle, trying to pull it down in order to get the door open but the handle merely moved an inch before getting stuck in its position. "Shit"

The spark of hope you had was taken over by the large part of melancholy once again, you didn't even need the opening schedule to know that you probably were standing here because it was closed already. This was one of the reasons you had to make sure before getting hopeful for things, especially now that you were obligated to wait the entire night before you were able to possibly let your thoughts rest. You couldn't help but pull the handle down once more, or attempt to as this time too it had no intention of letting you in.

In the end, there was no other option but to go home for the night and be tortured by your strayed thoughts. The walk home being extra long due to your unnecessary stop at the park to check if the tree and flowers were still there, waiting for your return tomorrow. But perhaps that's not the only thing waiting for you, perhaps a soulmate is waiting somewhere as well. Waiting for you.

「 ʜᴏɴᴇʏᴅᴇᴡ : # ꜰ0ꜰꜰꜰ0 」 

For the third day in a row, you're already waiting in front of the library ten minutes before the building opens its doors. For the third day in a row, you manage to find a spark of hope somewhere inside of your body that tells you that today is the day that you will find something. But finding the right books is harder than expected: somehow writers don't really dive deeper into the wondrous world of soulmates and books about trees take ages to thumb through just to get to the right illustration of the tree. It's hard to find what you're looking for, especially as you have no idea what you're actually looking for.

But today you're determined to find anything the book is willing you tell you. You hope having a picture of the tree would make it easier to receive information, even if you have no idea if any of the people around are skilled in giving you the answer to which kind of tree it was: the books are supposed to give you the answers but how are you going to recognise your tree between many others? Something else that could help you were the daisies, you know the name but never imagined there to be a meaning behind them until you thought back about Sicheng sadly removing one from the world.

You’re shaken out of your thoughts when the door is unlocked and soon opened for the public, even though right now no one but you stood in the invisible queue. The feeling of victory is quick to spread through your body the moment you step inside, the high shelves don’t make you feel small, if anything, they give you more motivation.

“Good morning,” A voice speaks up without you realising it, you unfortunately ignore it because you’re too focused on finding the books you need for your progress. If you had heard it, you would have been able to tell how oddly familiar the voice was, and you could have linked it to the weird experience you had in the park. It was a missed chance, but more chances would come in the near future.

Your footsteps take you up the stairs where you had been going to for three days now, it became a part of your routine. Nature-related books were usually found upstairs as not many people were interested in the miracles of life these days. You admit that before, you were one of the people that took nature by granted, something that changed drastically in a short period of time. 

You sit at the empty desk near the corner, a popular space you know from experience, but as no one is there, it’s yours for the rest of the day. You’re quick to turn on the computer in order to check out the catalogue, a catalogue of which the books don’t change but each day you scroll past the same ones in hopes that a new one gets added. Your fingers hesitate over the keyboard, hitting a letter befoe deleting it again as you remember searching for the word yesterday. “Can I help you?”

You look away from the computer screen when you hear the voice, a fake, friendly smile appearing on your lips as you get ready to give a fabricated response. “Not really I don’t know what I’m looking for but I don’t think you can help me,” you tell the person in front of you, giving her only a brief glance which makes you seem uninterested. “Perhaps I can help you, you can tell me what you’re looking for and I will help you with finding the right books” she offers you. Out of annoyance, you hand the person the little, coloured post-it note with the keywords on.

“Tree, daisies, and soulmates” The voice reads the keywords on your paper out loud, her words flow out like she’s familiar with them. Your handwriting must be near enough to read it without trouble. “Yes,” you mumble in response, already knowing the words by head so there was no need for anyone else to say the words like the woman just did. Okay, perhaps it had been a rude thought of you and it was uncalled for, but you’re convinced that no one is able to help you and you weren’t willing to waste time on someone who wanted to try. “What kind of tree are you looking for?” she asks you but before you can answer, she interrupts you again “do you have a picture or a name?”

You hastily fish your phone out of the pocket of your pants, after unlocking it going straight to the gallery to find the set of pictures that you made yesterday. All of the pictures look overly similar, but having multiple pictures gives you more proof. “Ah, I think I know what tree it is” she says when she gets a glance of your phone, or rather, the picture of the tree. “This is the Quercus dentata, or daimyo oak if I’m correct. I can find some books about this tree for you?” she inquires after blowing you over with the difficult name and her cleverness to recognise the tree immediately. She hands you the note back even though you immediately discard it beside the computer keyboard.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what I need” you admit to her, slowly turning in your chair to properly tell what was going on. The last thing you want is spilling the story to anyone gullible and willing to listen, but there is a sense of trust between the two of you. Indeed, you don’t know what you need and one of the reasons that you’re here is to find out what you need and why you need it. “You don’t know what you need?” She asks you, but still smiles as she says the words, she seems like she knows more and she’s about to share it with you. You shake your head, an almost desperate gesture as you want help even from a librarian who perhaps had no idea how to help you. “Seeing the keywords on your note, I would say you’re here lurking for information about something specific that overcame you. And you must be looking for an explanation because the tree, the flowers, and the soulmate part all seem to blend together?”

Having someone next to you, saying the words from a perspective that was unfamiliar to you, it was like one of your millions of questions just got an answer. The answer was so easy, perhaps because the question was a simple one too. “Is that true?” she decided to ask because the look in your eyes revealed how surprised you were by the words. You slowly look up at her face, promptly staring into the pair of bright-coloured eyes. The unnatural cyan-colour rings a bell in your mind, and it only takes a second to remember the times you had seen the eyes before. “Y-yes, I think so” you respond in a softer tone, barely getting any words out of your mouth because of the shock that numbs your ability to speak or think. 

The elderly woman can only nod at your words, something you don’t see as you are too busy staring at everything but her face. Right now, you’re looking at the name tag pinned to her shirt. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see her name, but yet, “Cyan” is typed down in a Verdana-lookalike on the tag. The numb feeling completely takes away your ability to speak, or you’re just speechless at this point. A couple of days ago there was nothing, then the tree came in your life, and now you feel as if you’re close to figuring out the ecru world you live in. Yet, you don’t have half of it figured out, barely a quarter. 

"So, can you help me?” You ask out loud, your posture straightening more unknowingly. You expect a no but still hope for a yes, and you can’t tell beforehand which one of the two it’s going to be. Cyan -if that’s what her name really is- seems to hesitate, her eyes simply staring at you with an emotion that you can’t name. “I’m not sure, I already helped you to realise what you’re looking for” your shoulders immediately slump back against the wooden chair, a sigh slipping from your lips as you try to admit this was exactly what you expected even when it wasn’t.

You nod sadly as your eyes leave her to focus on the computer screen again, this time you know what to type in the search bar but you feel too unmotivated to make it through on your own. “Thank you anyway” you say soft as you give her one last glance, your eyes almost begging for her to stay so that she would give you more information. You’re convinced that this Cyan, is the same Cyan that brought you in this strange ecru-coloured world. It’s something you can’t accuse her of, but deep inside you know that you’re right about them being the same person: some people that you come across in your dreams, are real people, just like Cyan.

"You're welcome, don't let it get plucked away from you, you will find out"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Exactly fifty-nine minutes before closing time, you still find yourself in the same spot in front of the computer, though this time, the screen is pure black and your eyes are scanning every few words in the book laying on the dark table. 

The work that you’re doing now isn’t ever going to meet up with any work you used to do for school, this took a lot more energy but at the same time, you feel more useful and smarter than the times you would make a paper about concentration because it was easy to copy from others. When the teacher back then said that making the paper had seemed to help you a lot with your skills, you were sure that you were good at faking such things. But if there was a teacher to evaluate you now, you wouldn’t even have to fake anything.

Thanks to Cyan you got onto the right path, or at least you are trying to convince yourself that you are walking on the right path. The pieces of evidence next to you give you a good feeling, it seems like literature is more important than you used to believe, especially the pages where little post-its are pasted between to look back on. However, you don’t seem to realise there is no more time to look back on any of those things, you had been so caught up in the available literature that you forgot about the standard needs of a human or the opening hours of the library.

You flip the page of the book as quick as you can once you read the last few words of the sentence, another soft sigh leaves your lips as you realise this book about daisies isn’t going to get you far. Perhaps there was a limit to the amount of information people could receive in a day, but at this point, you’re convinced that you’re way past that limit. Your eyes meet with a new chapter, the boldly-typed title staring at you but you’re too busy translating the words from their original language into English, even if the English words are written a dozen times over the upcoming paragraphs. 

effeuiller la marguerite

Quietly and almost inaudible, you translate the words for yourself. When you say them in French, it doesn’t ring a bell despite the little knowledge you have of the language. When you repeat the same words in English, you instantly think back about the day you and Sicheng spent in the park. The way he used one of the precious daisies to demonstrate how you were supposed to play the simple, but childish game of “loves me, loves me not.” You could still taste some bitterness of the moment on the tip of your tongue, a consequence of Sicheng unintentionally ruining the flower. 

The first paragraph provides you with a definition of the game, something perhaps not useful even though school always taught you the definition before anything deeper. Even if the context was the more important part, you still needed some framework to understand.

“She loves me, she loves me not or he loves me, he loves me not is a game of French origin, in which one person seeks to determine whether the object of affection returns that affection.” The words are literal, perhaps a bit formal but not in a university-level. It gives you the hint that you are the person looking for an object of affection in this ecru world. It is you, you that has to search for the other person, for a he, she or them that would possibly love you, or not.

“How does it work really?” you ask yourself silently as you read past some French paragraph that you don’t feel attracted by, it seems like the next paragraph nicely explains how you’re supposed to play. It’s quite silly to think of it, you exactly know how to play the game, but don’t believe yourself and go for an unscientific instruction in a book about daisies. “A person playing the game alternately speaks the phrases "He loves me," and "He loves me not," while picking one petal off an ox-eye daisy for each phrase. The phrase they speak on picking off the last petal supposedly represents the truth between the object of their affection loving them or not. The player typically is motivated by attraction to the person they are speaking of while reciting the phrases. They may seek to reaffirm a pre-existing belief, or act out of whimsy" you read in a whisper-tone, sometimes stumbling over your own words because of the stiff and formal use of words. However, the moment you look back at the words, they don’t seem as formal and stuff anymore, they make sense in some way.

The chapter is no longer than two pages long, yet those two pages had managed to provide you with a lot more information than other chapters did. Added to your story were now the flowers that fit right in the framework Cyan made for you, it’s like being one step closer to knowing what you’re supposed to do. A sad hunch overcomes you as you finish the chapter: there are only four daisies left, four daisies that you can’t recklessly use to play the game. You need to find the matching object of affection.

Your hand pulls back the thick side of the book against the other to close it, resting it on top of the other books that you had been browsing through today. For a second, you allow your eyes to close as they’re exhausted from the endless focus, yet it didn’t mean you were going to give up. On a different pile were two books left: one of them is filled with more information about trees, the other is a magazine that has an article about soulmates. Unfortunately, that article is the only copy that has the words “soulmates” in them, meaning that no other existing source was available to you.

“Sorry to bother you, but it’s closing time. And I think you really need some rest, love” Cyan who had helped you so dearly before was now about to ruin part of the progress you made, or she was trying to help you by giving you an opportunity to go home and rest. Though, you opt it’s the first option as you feel too far into it to stop. Perhaps Cyan wasn’t aware yet, but she would find out soon that you came here on a daily basis ever since three days ago. “Can’t I stay for a little while longer, just until you closed up. I need to read some more” you say in a soft tone as you motion towards the two sources that still have to get scanned by your inexperienced eyes and mind.

Cyan takes the magazine from the pile, reading the word “soulmates” on the cover and immediately she knows which magazine it is. It’s one that most beginners want to read, but at the same time, it’s the most useless piece of literature in the entire library. Yet, it seems like you’re willing to read the public source as they don’t have any others. “You can come back tomorrow, can’t you?” she asks simply, dropping the magazine back onto the pile before looking at you to scan your facial expression. The emotion displayed on your face is mostly desperation: it makes Cyan want to give in, but the tiredness in your eyes is what holds Cyan back from telling you to stay until she closed up. It wasn’t like the article was helpful and you would regret staying longer just to read it. 

"Come with me"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Cyan paves the way to a place you had never witnessed in the few years of regularly visiting the library - not that you visit overly often, or at least not before the entire ecru-world circumstance - , but you are positive that this hall was one of the places you had never walked through.

Walking there takes long enough, long enough to forget that you left most of your stuff on the desk in the corner. A vague idea tells you that you’re going underground: mostly because you had been taking many steps down rather than up, and also because of the musty smell that is sticking onto the walls surrounding you. Cellars always look old but you’re willing to have a debate over this cellar being older than a few centuries. 

You want to ask Cyan how long there was left and how many more steps in the staircase, you have no idea where you’re headed and the eerie feeling seems to double itself with each step further. You stop yourself from asking though: you don’t consider yourself as a six-year-old who continuously asks his parents when the car ride is finally over. You purse your lips as you hold the question even if that means you have to breathe through your nose.

“We’re here” Cyan announces after coming to a halt in front of a large iron door. The door is large enough to let a giant pass if it’s not for the obvious fact that it’s closed. Your own steps stop as well, aligning perfectly next to Cyan’s. From up close, the door is heavily decorated by different elegant shapes. Yet, there’s no keyhole that indicates the requirement of the longitudinal grooves. The door is a masterpiece, it seems like it belongs in a museum more than as an actual door underground. “Won’t you open it?” you ask Cyan quietly, only tearing your eyes from the door to see when Cyan would open the door. 

Cyan’s first response is to shake her head as a sign that she’s not going to open the door for you, in response to that, you let out a huff of annoyance and disappointment. How are you supposed to get in when the librarian doesn’t even want to open the goddamn door for you, it’s not like you know a secret way through. “You have to open it, darling,” Cyan says when she notices that you’re not amused, by far, you look irritated. 

“How am I supposed to do that?!” You ask loudly, drawing a long sigh from your mouth as it was another feature that you weren’t prepared for. You set another step closer to the door, not looking back at Cyan because you don’t care if she follows you or not. You’re not a magician like your friend Kun is, you’re clumsy and still didn’t figure out how to do the magic trick with the glasses that he always shows you. “Hocus pocus!” Leaves your lips before you can stop it from happening, whether it is for the laughs or for the deadly-serious expression on your lips, it doesn’t matter as the door doesn’t bother to react.

The string of magic spells leaves your lips, at once, calling out each one you know and unmagically cast them onto the iron door. Yet, none of them have the intention to pull the handle down and open the door for you. Cyan can’t be any more amused, but she is aware that you would still be here for hours if she leaves you to cast these spells. “Opening the door is like opening a new world for yourself,” Cyan tells you in a quiet voice, just loud enough to overpower your voice that casts the last spell you know. The hint is amateur level, even you find the answer within a minute. 

You swallow away the bundle of nerves that want to spread in your stomach. What you are about to say can, either way, be foolery or the start of something unidentified. Just like Cyan mentioned, opening the door is like opening a new world, and you are ready to be a part of it. 

"Ecru"

「 ᴀᴢᴜʀᴇ  : # ꜰ0ꜰ��ꜰꜰ 」

When you wake up from accidentally falling asleep with your head buried between a formal-worded book, you hear the large doors closing themselves slowly, and you guess you must have missed the moment they opened due to your tiredness. The non-rhythmic footsteps are unrecognisable but there must be only one person that has unlimited access to this place, Cyan. Your guess is confirmed when you hear her voice telling you: "you look tired.”

“I’ve been looking through these books for nearly three hours” you answer with a deep sigh leaving your lips, your fingertip tiredly points to the large pile of books of which you only managed to read one in those three long hours. But that one book is enough to make it seem like you read everything in this entire underground library. 

Cyan let out a quiet hum at your words, stepping closer to you with the same unstable sound of her footsteps on the floor. “That’s why I decided to get some coffee for you, you slept for over an hour,” she says in a sweet tone as the cup of coffee is delivered to the moon-shaped table you sit at. A small smile coats your lips thanks to Cyan’s sweet gesture, and you know your non-verbal message has been delivered when she smiles back at you. Every now and then she would deliver coffee to you, you didn’t even ask for it, she would disappear at random times and return with a cup of coffee for you. Your inner coffee addict was happy with that.

"Did you find out anything new?” Cyan asks as she has her eyes on you and one hand placed on the pile of books like she’s trying to suck the magic out of them. That thought is one you dismiss soon, you can expect a lot but that beats all of the other ridiculous thoughts you had. You reluctantly shake your head in response, hesitating because you had found many amazing things but you doubted if they were useful. “I guess so, but at the same time, I don’t think so. I don’t understand any of the words in the book” you admit, your eyes still reading over some of the words.

The book gets pulled from under your elbows by Cyan who takes it between her two hands as she begins to read at the point where you left off before falling asleep. “You’re reading the wrong book. I told you to follow your heart and choose a book based on that, not on an interesting title” she immediately scolds you for choosing what you did, she read less than a sentence but it’s enough for her to know that this book isn’t going to give you the answers you need.

"I don’t know how to, it’s harder than you think” you complain with a deep sigh, putting the cup of coffee down on the porcelain saucer before looking up at the elder librarian. “How am I supposed to know what my heart wants?” you ask, the question sounding both genuine but also mocking. You don’t believe in letting your heart decide which book to take, if it was true, you would be reading an easy and understandable book that wasn’t part of this underground library’s catalogue. 

Cyan closes the book and can’t help but sigh just like you did a second ago, she sounds disappointed even if she doesn’t use any words to confirm the feeling. It’s not an uncommon thing for people to choose the wrong book, everyone at least does so one time, especially when they judge by the cover. But after years of sneakily doing this, Cyan had a steady set of expectations from humanity, especially those looking for a soulmate. 

“y/n. Think about your soulmate, close your eyes and let your soulmate pick the book for you. Listen to your heart, it’s commissioned by your soulmate” Cyan says in an overly sweet and soft tone, dropping the thick book on top of the others as a sign all of them were useless in your story. You admire her for the way she says the words because you wish it’s as easy as it sounds, but, you hate the words because it’s not as easy as that. How is your soulmate going to recommend you a book if he doesn’t even know about your existence? 

Your phone vibrates steadily next to the pile of useless books, even though the moon-shaped table is in front of you, you huff because you are too lazy to lean forward and take the device in your hands. For an unknown reason, you flag your phone as an unnecessary accessory down here: there is no WiFi and you don’t expect anything from the phone reception. But clearly, your phones proves you wrong when it vibrates a second time. 

You lean forward and pick up the phone from the book-filled desk, finally giving it some screentime and giving yourself some ‘me-time’ as you would always name it. The lockscreen gives away the time, but you only have eyes for the notification of your best friend Sicheng. You feel bothered that he messages you, it wouldn’t be bothering if you weren’t in this almost-enchanting library.

Sicheng [ 2 : 35 pm ] : I found some more daisies around, plucked them and they're in front of your door

Sicheng [2 : 35 pm ] : sorry for wasting one the other day, I didn't know they would mean so much to you ):)

You can't help but smile soft, a certain feeling of warmth spreading through your tiniest veins and dropping once they reach your heart. It's obvious that Sicheng feels sorry for what he did to the daisy, and he must think that you’re not answering the door because of that.

It is a fact that you hadn’t been speaking to him since the day in the park, not because you were angry -as you weren’t -, but because you isolated yourself in the library after he advised you to. Sicheng was someone you couldn’t be angry at, he was soft but also because he had given you a little push onto an unknown path. You were still walking on the path he pushed you on, however, he isn’t walking on that same path and you feel bad about it. 

“Will you not write a message back to him, darling?” Cyan asks you as she notices the way you can only stare at the messages you received, and your fingers are resting on the edges of the screen rather than the keyboard that is waiting for you to send a message back. Your eyes stay on the screen, they never break eye-contact from the messages, not even when Cyan asks your attention by questioning you. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I think he thinks I’m angry because he took one of the daisies and showed me how to play the game” you explain to Cyan. She can see your facial expression growing bluer as you think about it. 

“But you’re not angry. So make him bloom again, his smile is precious to the world” Cyan says before you can continue telling the story with even more details, she is aware of the things that happen but still listens when you tell her the story about the little daisy. 

y/n [ 2 : 39 pm ] : just as much as you mean to me, you're a precious bean x

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Apparently, and without warning, you're not the only soulmate-searching human in the world. The first time you realise it's simply because Cyan decides to tell you one minute before a girl that's also looking for her soulmate walks in, the time after you notice it's before the iron-grated door opens itself after receiving the name of a chosen colour. You're never facing the door but you're still able to hear how many different voices there are and how many times the door opened itself.

Three free moon-shaped tables are moving away from the centre of the library, each one getting closer to one of the bookshelves but simply so that everyone has bits of privacy in the process of finding their soulmate. Your table was right in front of a bookshelf already: probably because Cyan thought it was needed for a beginner to receive lots of written knowledge.

Among the variety of people around in the underground library, no one looks familiar to you. You don't meet eyes with them but you can put the blame on the fact that their noses are buried between antiquated books. Even those who are already familiar with one another, don't waste more time than the few seconds a small greeting takes up, simply because they're too disciplined. It makes you feel awkward, as you're too new to step up and introduce yourself to the hardworking set of people.

Silence fills the room to the brim, leaving only the furniture to take up the rest of the space. The only sound you hear is quiet breathing and when a slightly moist fingertip tries to turn the page of one of the books. Whilst everyone is busy with the literate, you are not. The books on your table are shut, still labelled as useless ever since Cyan said that they had no value in your story. But you can't bring yourself to figure out which one your heart wants, or which one your soulmate would recommend to you. Cyan probably was right, but that doesn't tell you how you should find the answer to the question, nor how to find the right book.

You stand up from the decorative stool, trying not to make any noises which you succeed in as you can easily slip off the piece of furniture. You let go of a breath that you had been holding in but it's even quieter than your footsteps as they approach the nearest bookshelf. It's only a few steps before your feet come to a halt in front of it and your eyes take over to complete the next task.

Your eyes stare at all of the books that you find yourself in front of, it's a lot to take in with all of the different colours and letters coming to you at once. Unknown writers and complicated book titles, but as Cyan said, you try not to judge the book by who wrote it or how interesting the title sounds. Society just got you adapted to thinking difficult was always the right choice when it came to literature.

It's like you're standing at an intersection of choices, but there are more than four choices, and perhaps there's only one right option amongst the hundreds of possibilities. Fortunately for you, you can't see how insecure your back looks from this angle: others see the way your shoulders carry a responsibility but they also remember how they had been at the exact same spot not long ago.

"You don't know which book to take?" A voice asks you, the male voice making you spin on your heels immediately just to politely face whoever was speaking to you. The man in front of you has a sweet smile on his lips, you immediately notice that once you look up to his face. The sweet smile tries to indicate that he's being friendly but also gives away that he's happy. You can't help but wonder if he's close to finding his soulmate.

You sigh softly, a monologue that you have been participating in a lot more these past days. Sometimes you sigh because you're frustrated by this endless hunt for answers, other times it's because you feel like you should give up and move on, and other times you do it because you just don't know. The thing you don't know is also hidden behind something you don't know, even though that doesn't really make sense to you. "No, I can't seem to figure out which book is mine" you answer honestly.

"That's totally fine, we all started at this point,"  He tells you, never stopping the smile from hovering over his lips. You realise that maybe out of experience, he's willing to help you more than Cyan is, or at least his advice could help you more than Cyan's vague instructions. "You indeed have to let your soulmate pick the book for you, but there's a catch to it all. The things you think you've researched outside of this library are the things you have to research here again. You're not looking for what a soulmate is, but who your soulmate is."

You're obligated to admit, the words make you think more clearly than Cyan's do. Cyan's words leave you to sleepless nights of wondering what they mean, the words of this man make you think twice and you already know what’s expected of you. Specifically, the last bit of words are what stick to your body and follow you behind even now that you're still standing in front of him.

You're not looking for what a soulmate is, but who your soulmate is.

"There's no right or wrong definition to soulmates, everyone describes it differently. But you have to focus on the things you experienced and find the meaning behind them, after that you can connect them to your special person" He says, the explanation seems never-ending but you willingly accept every single word that leaves his lips right now. The scowl from earlier turns into a grateful smile, you are genuine about the gesture as you feel helped by what he offered you. "Thank you…" you say to him, hesitating to end your sentence as you wish you are able to say the name, but you can't say things you don't know of.

He lets out a tiny laugh as he realises he had been stupid enough to help you before asking whether you need it, and without politely introducing himself, but he's used to helping everyone here now that he's so close to meeting his soulmate. "I'm Johnny, the one who usually helps others around here" He introduces himself, clearly it's not the first time that he does this but you had already figured that out the moment he gave you some useful advice. "I'm y/n, I guess I'm new here. Almost like a high school student on the first day of the first year."

Johnny can't help but let out a soft laugh at the latter part of your introduction, simply because he said something along the lines of that back when he was the youngest of the group here. In a matter of months or even weeks, that position drastically changed. "Everyone is like that at the start, but some new people will join sooner or later. Before you know it, you will be helping them as I helped you."

The words - just like before - stick onto your brain, luckily not onto your heart like his other set of words did. You break the eye-contact with him to instead stare at the many books waiting on the shelves, hoping that magically your soulmate would make one of them fall in the palm of your hand. But it's not as simple as that: your soulmate won't connect the dots for you, it's you who has to do that and your soulmate might create a shape out of it.

With a soft sigh, your eyes flutter themselves shut to get into a moment of peace. It's the scenery of the park that always does the trick for you: it's calming despite knowing there is a life-altering meaning behind it. The tree engulfs you between its branches, and you're safe under the oak with the daisies by your side. The daisies where the book showed you a ritual named "effeuiller la marguerite" of. But it's the tree that keeps you from harm, that invites you to come back over and over again.

It takes a few seconds to remember the scientific classification Cyan gave you, as she probably read it in the same book that you read on that day. Nonetheless, the Quercus dentata unconsciously became a part of the baseline information of which you thought you had it organised. But Johnny was right: you had to focus on things you experienced.

The daimyo oak that engulfs you in its branches seems to want to tell you something, it's an enchanting moment even though it's only a daydream that you find yourself getting lost in. The information that it gives you is purely its existence, yet it's linked to the existence of your soulmate too.

You tilt your head as you have the impression that someone is walking up to you with slow steps, yet it's like that because your heart tells you to live in the moment. The footsteps don't look like Cyan's unstable pace of steps, and on top of that, it's more like a manly figure which you notice by his legs and shoes. It's vague but the individual details will together give you a clear view, layer per layer.

Despite the fact that you're aware it's not Cyan walking up to you, you can't imagine someone else doing so and you have no other option but already think of the outstanding features that strike the starring role in your daydreams. You start to get twitchy with each step the person takes closer to you: it's an eerie feeling that you don't know what to think of. It's a daydream that you're living in, but it all seems a bit too real to be just a dream during the early hours of the evening.

In your daydream, you close your eyes, in hopes that when you open them, you won't be able to see anything but the peaceful scenery around you. Yet, luck isn't always by your side and for once, that's a good thing. You open your eyes and immediately met up with a pair of soft-sentimental-looking eyes. They're brown, in a shade that could be defined by the world's most cherished colour of brown.

"You coloured my heart ecru"

「 ɢʜᴏꜱᴛᴡʜɪᴛᴇ # ꜰ8ꜰ8ꜰꜰ 」

Blank-faced, you look up from the syllables that form a term together, your eyes are slow to react to the sound that triggers your other senses easily. The iron door creaks open as slow as your eyes focus on it, but you're quick to give up the hope that you're going to be the only one in the library tonight. Cyan's voice is quiet but still gets louder with every step she takes inside the library, symbolically taking the young man under her protective wings as he walks into the library after her.

The thick book closes as your elbow moves from between the two separated parts, but it goes unnoticed as your eyes are drawn to Cyan's new -victim- soulmate. A rare warmth spreads around the room and circles him like it's his aura presenting him, he's the young lad your existence softens for.

"I assume this is the library you've been looking for" Cyan announces to the stranger as she smiles at his sudden humbleness. His hands fold together politely as his feet are tightly pressed together to only take up one tile out of the hundreds that embrace him. "A little disclaimer before the library overwhelms you with useless information: pluck the book your heart chooses for you, it's commissioned by your soulmate."

You can see the expression change on his face, there's a universal set of facial expressions of emotion, and surprise seems to be one of the six universal possibilities right now. He doesn't show any of the critical signals aside from the arch that his eyebrows form into. "How do they tell me which book?" He asks once the surprise makes space for an emotion that you can't read so well.

"It just happens, Jungwoo. It might take some time but they will naturally come to you"

With the useless piece of advice, Cyan decides she has given him enough to leave him to his task. She walks away from the new test-subject and moves to a set of books that the others left behind a few hours ago. You can still recognise the cover of the book that Johnny had been reading earlier, and the book Ley read about life after meeting your soulmate. The two of them were awfully close to meeting their soulmates, with Johnny already knowing what the name of his soulmate was. Unlike you: you only possessed of the birth date of your soulmate.

When Cyan's footsteps are the only ones you can hear, your head slightly turns to the side to see around the room and catch the stranger standing on the same tile as before. He seems glued to the tile, the tips of his Nike-branded shoes rub over one another in an attempt to soothe himself, but it only shows how unfamiliar he is with the situation. You can't blame him, you had been like that too not long ago.

"You should sit if you want to" you break the uncomfortable, nearly timed, sound of Cyan's footsteps against the floor. The sound moves to a layer in the background as your voice is now the centre of attention combined with the presence of the young man.

You don't expect an answer to your words as it was a mere offer. But the silence makes your voice fade out instantaneously. One layer less, another chance for silence to fill the room like it did when you were sitting here alone. The stranger can only nod in response, clearly feeling shy when his feet shuffle to the moon-shaped table that is diagonal of yours. He quietly lowers his body and takes a seat on the low stool.

Unfortunately for the stranger, you don't have a lot of time to make him feel at ease in the library. It's self-discipline, something you badly need when you're isolated in this place for almost ten hours and that six days a week. There's more than enough work to do, and much like exams, distractions only cause more harm than help.

Your book is still closed on your desk, a result of getting distraught by Cyan and the stranger bursting into the library not long ago. Soon you notice what happened to your book and let out a tiny curse to yourself, your hands working quickly to open the book again. It's a hard task to find the exact page you left off at: any page between the numbers two hundred nineteen and six hundred eighty would be the one you read last. You know you're to blame for this, not Cyan, not the newbie. More discipline wouldn't be a bad idea.

Your fingertips tumble over each page hastily, starting at page two hundred nineteen to continue browsing over every page that follows after that. If you see the word you read last, you know which page it is, but to do that, you still have to turn each page until your eyes encounter the word. Now that you think of it, you don't even remember which word it was, but hope to retrieve it soon.

On the other side of the library, there are ten fingertips that aren't actively browsing from page to page in a book. Rather than browsing in a book, they're tapping onto the moon-shaped table continuously. It's a composition of instrumentless and voiceless music, a song you never heard, but you don't prefer having to hear it twice.

"I'm sorry but can you stop? I'm trying to focus" you announce in a questioning way, not losing the politeness in your voice as it almost sounds like it's only an option for him to quit. Luckily, he does as you expect of him, causing his fingers to tremble from the sudden lack of stress-relief. "Sorry," he says in a soft tone, sending an apologetic smile your way but the innocence in his voice already causes you to forgive him. "I guess I was trying to call out to my soulmate or something," he says, not holding back the snippet of laughter that nervously bubbles from his lips.

You don't know why your lips curve up into a smile at his lame joke, perhaps because it's amusing to see someone being nervous about being here. Now you now why Cyan works in this library, she can laugh at people's stupidity on a daily basis. You still remember how entertained she was when you said numerous spells to the door when you only had to say the colour you picked out to open the door.

"It's okay" you say back to him and smile, but you notice from the look on his face that he's filled to the brim with nerves. "You must be nervous" you suggest, giving him the opportunity to open up if that's what he needs right now. You, like no one else, are aware of the unfavourable feelings that the soulmate context brings along. After days, you still don't have a label to paste on the feelings from back then, simply because you still don't know what to feel now either. "I am. One of my friends already met his soulmate, and my parents are soulmates too. They suggested for me to visit this place as they said not everyone can find their soulmate randomly" he explains even if he doesn't state the reason why he's so nervous. Perhaps the pressure is the reason: pressured to find his special person because his friend did and his parents obviously did too.

You nod at his explanation, making sure he knows that you're listening, but you don't interrupt as you want to hear how he feels. His story reminds you of Sicheng who made you believe even more than you perhaps did before. Whether you were a believer or not, is something you don't remember because you simply didn't think about it that often. Perhaps you were a believer, or one of the more sceptical people, or you could have been a non-believer. Whatever you were, it didn't matter anymore, you are a believer now.

"My name is Jungwoo by the way," He says before you can respond to his explanation, he probably saw your facial expression as you were trying to form a correct answer and also didn't feel like telling you an uninteresting story of how he found out someone was his soulmate. To say it easily, the subject changed.

"I'm y/n"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

It's twenty-five to eleven when you take the small steps to reach the street again, spinning on your heel to see Jungwoo sliding down the railing that separates the stairs evenly.

The sight makes you clasp your hand over your mouth in an attempt to silence the laugh that threatens to leave your lips. But only after you see Jungwoo losing his balance unexpectedly which causes his little playful moment to come to an end a little too soon. His feet stumble over the last two steps of the stairs before his body bumps against yours with full speed.

Not by speed, but by force, your body is dragged backwards and you almost hit the floor with a shocked Jungwoo in your arms. But before that happens, his fast reflexes are able to catch himself and you before the unfortunate event takes place. Yet, it doesn't stop the two pairs of feet from trying to find balance on the evenly divided ground.

"I'm sorry" Jungwoo immediately apologises as he makes sure your two feet can find balance without his arms holding you up, but the mere distance between your bodies causes his own feet to be unstable. It's a feeling he needs to shake off, his soulmate is somewhere waiting for him, and your soulmate must be waiting for you somewhere as well. "I was just trying to make you laugh, not fall"

"But I didn't fall, and I had a good laugh. Trust me, I had more fun in those seconds than in the past days" you admit easily to Jungwoo, it's the downside of being isolated in an underground library, but hopefully not a future consequence of looking for your soulmate. "Ah" is the only thing that slips past Jungwoo's lips at your response, it leaves both of you in a communal cloud of wondering what to say to not make it any more uneasy.

You simultaneously look into the same direction when a flower-shaped shadow seems to dwindle down from a large tree. "Did you see that?" You ask as confusion spreads over your face, your eyes torn between looking at Jungwoo or the shadow that slowly disappears once it hits the ground. The soft landing must have taken the silhouette to blend their shades into one.

"Sorry?" Jungwoo asks as he looks at you again, his head tilted to the left as he tries to find the reason behind your confusion. The beanie that refrains his hair from moving too much doesn't prevent his bangs from moving in the same direction as his head.

The reaction leaves you speechless and stumbling over your own words before you even say them, "the flower. A daisy just fell from that tree," you say as you point upwards to the large creation of nature. Jungwoo's eyes can't help but follow your fingers up to the leaves of the tree, he can't see the colour of them in the darkness, but daisies are absent in the almost-chromatic view.

"I don't see anything" he responds to your words as he tries to make his eyes work harder, but no matter how much he squints, the enlarged view shows a total lack of flowers in the tree, especially daisies.

Tiredness is clearly ruling a position as CEO while you're only a personal assistant for the feeling. "I'm tired, I bet it was something else or my eyes are just clowning around" you mumble in disappointment when you realise Jungwoo is right. When you look at the tree again, you don't see any daisies, and you become aware that daisies don't commonly fall from trees that aren't specific daisy trees.

"Sounds like you should go home" Jungwoo mumbles to you, letting a soft smile coat his lips and you're sure your clumsiness has been forgotten unless he's planning on teasing you with it for the upcoming time. It's something you see him capable of as earlier, he had a good laugh about a writer's odd name. But the soft smile that displays on his lips makes you trust him not to tease too much.

"I think I will" you confirm Jungwoo's suggestion, trying to give him a similar soft-looking smile in return, but you're too tired to control the muscles that make the gesture possible. Like a stereotypical teenager from a sappy romance, Jungwoo hides his large hands in his jeans pockets. "Will I see you tomorrow?"

Your response is a soft hum before you confirm it with your words. "I'm here every day, most of the day. So expect to see me a lot" you answer his question.

"I'll look forward to it" Jungwoo quickly tells you, the genuine tone in his voice refraining you from walking away without saying goodbye.

An hour later and you find yourself tucked in a thin sheet that is supposed to keep your body heat at a stable temperature for the rest of the night. Though, it's not the sheet that keeps your body at a pleasant temperature, but rather the little train of comforting thoughts that rides around in your mind.

From the little moments of laughter you shared with Jungwoo, to the sweet brown eyes of your soulmate that you continuously gaze into whenever you close your own.

It makes you feel warm inside

Your eyes - as they usually are when you're in bed - are closed as you want to go over all of the little big things of today. Yet, by now, you should know that it's a task you won't be able to fulfill.

While the colour is sometimes considered dull, the brown colour of his eyes seem to create other feelings. Feelings of warmth and wholesomeness as you gaze into them. The green palette of the park surrounds the two of you and you can feel the trunk of the Quercus dentata against your back.

"Don't pluck me daisies. Just make me be your flower"

「 ᴡʜɪᴛᴇꜱᴍᴏᴋᴇ # ꜰ5ꜰ5ꜰ5 」

"I don't understand what else I have to find out, Cyan" you breathe out as you drop the heavy-weighted book on top of some others that you had been scanning through for the past four and a half hours. Another two hundred seventy minutes wasted, and yes, wasted was the right word to use for all the time you spent in the library so far.

Cyan easily notices the high level of pressure, she already noticed when you first made your entrance of the day. "What do you mean by that?" She asks you as she tries to lift her body to sit on the side of the moon-shaped table but eventually just leans against it before accidents happen. "I already found out I have to play a game with the daisies, and my soulmate's birthday is February nineteen. What else do I have to find out?"

The way you say your words makes it easy for Cyan to see through them and bump into a big lump of exhaustion. It's a price many people pay but at the same time no one asked them to pay the fee, it's something people do to themselves because they're so desperate to claim someone to be theirs. You're no different from anyone when it comes to that, no one is any different. At least humans have one thing in common even though it doesn't make them less unique.

"Potentially, you could look for your soulmate"

A scowl coats your entire facial expression, your muscles doing work without you having to ask about it. You open your mouth to speak up but silence yourself from the string of curses and confusion that blend together to a feeling called bitterness.

"What?" You ask as you wish to get rid of your confusion, you swallow the curses you want to throw at her. You shouldn't curse at her, seeing that aside from her vague way of phrasing things, she's a blessing. The bitter feeling on the tip of your tongue is something you want to out but just like tastebuds, they stay in their place for you to enjoy the lingering bitterness a bit more. "You mean I've been here 24/7 for nothing?" you ask her, quick to hold her back because you receive a vague answer to your surprised exclaim, but even if this time your question is unmistakable, you still expect a similar answer.

"Darling," Cyan is about to continue but you hold up your hand in aim for her to stop. You know where her "darling" leads you in life. And that destination is non-existent.

Despite your tries to stop, she doesn't. "Listen to me y/n. You can go out and find your soulmate right now, no one ever told you to stay inside the library. If you know how to find your soulmate, go for it"

Now, that is something Cyan doesn't need to tell you twice. Instead of cursing at you, you now want to hug her tightly and press numerous pecks to her cheek to thank her. It's something you don't do though, but you could if you follow your current happy hunch.

It's the isolation that took a toll on your well-being and affected your way of coping with different emotions and situations. Before you entered this enchanted place, you were as sweet as a strawberry but now that you were allowed to leave, you walked out as a bitter cranberry that was kept in the fridge for one day too long.

"Are you serious?" You just want to hear her say the words once more, confirm that it was what she truly said before. You expect yourself to run out of the library within an instant, but your feet are attached to the tile as you wait for her to repeat the words once more.

She doesn't repeat the words once more, she simply nods and drifts off before you're able to stop her from doing so. Your eyes follow every movement she makes in the direction of another door and disappears behind it before you're able to see what is behind that door.

With your feet securely attached to the tiled-floor, you had no other option but to awkwardly stay still for at least sixty seconds. Your thoughts go blank at you look around the library.

Jungwoo is still sitting where he usually sits, his head buried between a book while his right hand is holding a pen in case he has to make notes. There is a white pair of earbuds in his ear so you assume or hope that he didn't hear the exclamations you made during the conversation with Cyan.

Generally, things aren't any more filled or less empty as they usually are. If anything misses, it's the presence of the other soulmate-searching humans. Today there's no Johnny, Ley, Isabelle, Donghyuck or any of the others that would usually be around at this hour of the day. You're aware they don't come every day, but you're so used to their presence filling up the ancient space even if they constantly read.

Your feet take you a step backwards, going towards the door to head outside. It's too early to celebrate that you can finally leave this antiquated hellhole because there's a hint of truth in Cyan's words, and you fear not being able to come back once you leave permanently.

"I'm going to go out for some air" you announce to no one in particular, it's not like anyone is available to you, but you still feel like telling so that Cyan and Jungwoo both know that you'll be back in a matter of minutes. You mean to see that Jungwoo nods, but realise soon that he's only bobbing his head along to a pop song.

You spin around and take the silence as an opportunity to leave for a few minutes, it doesn't have to be long, just some time to properly think and put everything on a non-organised timeline in your head. The iron door closes as you take your leave and follow the stairs up, right now they seem to lead to temporary freedom.

Once you're outside, it seems like you haven't seen the world in more than a year, even if it's been a matter of days, not even enough to make a sum that ends in enough days for a month. You have no idea what time it is until you look up at the sky and imagine this must be what the sky looks like when it's afternoon.

Your freedom only lasts for a minute, before you know it, you're claimed by whoever is making your phone vibrate in your back pocket. How did you even forget about the little device you used to be obsessed with?

Your hand slips in your pocket, clutching the phone between your parted fingertips before pulling it out of the pocket. It's only a matter of seconds before the phone is facing you with a bright screen, revealing that it's not just a text message but that someone is calling you.

Called ID is no other than your best friend Sicheng, and you waste no time in picking up the phone to hear what he has to say. You breathe into the speaker without realising that you do, already looking forward to hearing a voice other than Cyan's.

"y/n? Are you okay?" Sicheng asks, hiding a cough because he thinks he disturbed you in a heated moment, yet that's far from what is going on right now. "I am, sorry" you quickly say, regaining control over yourself to not pull such weird stunts once again. The last thing you want is Sicheng to think about your bed-activities.

"I've been trying to call you for the past two hours now, but it never went through" Sicheng breathes out himself but it's a sigh of relief that he finally gets to talk to you. He's not the type to call, so he must have been in a state of distress when he wasn't able to reach you. "I was busy, sorry" you apologise once more to him.

Sicheng sighs for the second time, it's another exhale of pure relief. "I have to talk to you, do you have time? It's important," he says before you're able to ask why he called you non-stop for the past two hours. You opt to nod but after a few seconds, realise that he can't see it. Normally he's next to you but now you're hearing his voice through the phone so he can't see you, and you can't see him.

"Of course, I have time" you answer Sicheng as you try to speak in a comforting tone, not aware of what Sicheng is about to say but it already sounds like it's something serious. "What is it?" you ask when your eyes don't pick up any response, no sound, nix.

"It's about the daisies"

You are all eyes and ears once he mentions the little flowers that have become so precious to you. Your eyes even glance to the spot where you thought you saw a daisy dwindling a couple of days ago, back when Jungwoo must have labelled you as lunatic.

"What about the daisies?" you ask back carefully, your hand fumbling with the edge of your shirt as your heartbeat picks up the pace. Through your veins spread nothing but fear, because deep in your heart you know exactly what happened to the white-coloured flowers.

"How long has it been since you were in the park?"

The question doesn't take you by surprise but it makes your nerves build up even more. The pit in your stomach now seems to take up al available space and even then, it only seems to grow bigger and bigger. Your mind has to dig through countless of book pages to get to the asked piece of information: when was the last time you had been in the park?

"A few days ago?" you answer in a questioning tone, admitting the words take you by surprise. It gives you time to reflect on yourself: how you abandoned the park for the library, and the real tree for a fantasia daydream of it. All of that for your soulmate, even if it's your own fault.

Sicheng hears how unsure you are by the underlying tone in your voice, it gives away that you're either way insecure or scared. He opts for the second one: it obviously wasn't going to be good news if he had been trying to reach you for over two hours just to happily talk about your visits to the park. "I was there today, y/n."

"And?" you impatiently urge for him to continue speaking before you properly processed the words that he went to the park. It's nerve-wracking to wait until he finally speaks up, even if you doubt that you want to hear what he has to say.

Nix.

"The daisies are gone, someone plucked them off. Only some stems are left"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

When you wished for freedom, you didn't wish for the four daisies to be plucked away from you.

Your fingers dig through the grass in an attempt to find remains of the daisies, or find new barely-blooming daisies. You run your fingers through the cold grass multiple times, your eyes observing between the blades of grass to hopefully encounter something.

Sadly, you have to conclude that everything is gone, aside from the stems that are hidden between the grass. Clearly, the non-beautiful pieces were left even if they were critical to the white-yellow-coloured flower. There is a torn piece of a white petal laying in the depths of the grass, and you grieve over it.

Tears are endangering the soft and dry skin fo your cheeks, but the wet tears stay hidden in the corners of your eyes for as long as you're strong enough to hold them back. "Why?"

You don't get a response to your question, simply because you're not asking anyone, and no one is around you to answer. You know it's a question you can answer for yourself, and there is only one answer possible: you're the one to blame.

The blame is put on yourself, for various and valid reasons. For starters, you abandoned the park to spend your time in a library where books guide your feelings instead of your heart. Second, you were the person that wished for freedom and it heavily affected your chances to ever meet your soulmate in this life.

The combination of thoughts trigger the tears and they take their chance to slowly roll down your cheeks in grief. You feel your cheeks getting wet with remains of sadness, regret and grief. Before the first one falls onto the green grass, another one already rushes out and follows the wet trail.

You want to close your eyes and disappear from reality, but you don't allow yourself to see your soulmate's soft orbs when you close your own. Instead, you can only stare at what should have been the flowers guiding you as you walked on the path to your soulmate.

Whatever there is left to grasp, you grasp between your fingertips. You pull pieces of grass from the earth in the process of taking the leftover stems from their designated growing space.

When you stand up from your kneeled position, you faintly notice that the jeans fabric that covers your knees became a mixed colour of green and brown: the colours of grass and dirt. But the discoloured jeans are the least of your concerns right now.

With the stems of the daisies tightly clutched in your fist, you leave the daimyo oak alone by running out of the park. There's only one place you can go, and only one person that can tell you what to do: Cyan.

Your feet had never been this fast whilst running to the library, nor had your eyes done an effort of this kind to make sure you didn't bump into fellow humans or objects. That was one less disappointment for you to worry about. You had no idea for how long you ran when you finally arrived at the library, it seemed to have taken hours but in reality, it must have been a matter of minutes.

"Ecru" leaves you lips before you run through the barely-opened door to get inside the library. You look around frantically, searching for Cyan but you can only see Jungwoo who is still studying whatever he got to know about his soulmate.

Your feet skip over the large tiles as you march over to Jungwoo, trying to be understanding but you pull at the cord of his earbuds so that at least one of them falls from his ear. His lips are parted in surprise and it takes him a second to turn his head and realise that it's you who did it.

"Where is Cyan?"

Jungwoo doesn't answer your question immediately, causing you to only get more anxious. Tears start to rapidly flow down your cheeks, they do it gracefully but the sight looks far from that in third-person view.

"Why are you crying?" Jungwoo asks you worriedly, grasping your arm in an attempt to pull you into a comforting hug. But your trembling hands don't allow it, yet, they're too weak to stay together to protect whatever is left of the little daisies.

The remains sadly fall to the floor, descending from between your fingertips and onto the cold tiles. Your eyes meet Jungwoo's momentarily but as soon as you become aware of the emptiness in your hands, your blurry vision shifts to your hands, and towards the floor.

One droplet, two droplets and still flowing. Falling on the sadly fallen flower stems and petals.

"They plucked my daisies" you croak out in a broken voice, staring at the floor where the faint green colour becomes the eye-catcher of the scenery. Your blurry vision leaves you with nothing but hues, you can't even recognise the shape of a stem in the little heap that was on the floor.

You still feel the stems falling from between your fingers even though you're left empty-handed.

"Your daisies?" Jungwoo asks as he stares at the floor as well. His vision clear enough to see blades of grass, mixed with a couple of while petals and next to them some more greenery that he can't particularly name because they look the same as grass but a different texture. It's the little petal that makes him realise what you mean when you say the word 'daisies' but it still doesn't click in his mind.

His hand awkwardly moves towards you as you continue to sadly drop your tears over the greenery, his hand is reaching towards your back but pulls back in hesitation.

Before Jungwoo is able to make up his mind about the right way of comforting you, your name is called by Cyan who almost spurts from the hidden room within the library. She marches over to you with quick and heavy steps until she's right in front of you.

"y/n, what's wrong?" Cyan asks as her foot hovers over the stems unnoticeably, her hands move to your shoulders to make looking into your eyes possible. Her hands instantly straighten your shoulders but your eyes never leave the stems that are now crushed by a pair of elderly-woman shoes. You don't have the guts to say anything about it, if anything, it makes you realise that your chance to meet your soulmate is crushed.

"My daisies" you start to say but you can't finish off what you said so far. The daisies were the only living organism that mattered to you aside from your soulmate, and now, both of those were lost. Your arms that limply hang from your body bring a movement to your index finger, merely pointing down to where Cyan is standing. The effort goes by unnoticed, even by yourself.

"Your daisies?" Cyan inquires but the tears that freely run down your cheeks give away the answer before you even have to tell her what's going on. Better than you know, she is aware of your task and aware of the five daisies that led you to your soulmate. She doesn't judge even if she knows, she listens.

You nod your head, hiccuping due to the lump of sadness that is stuck in your throat. "Someone plucked my daisies and now they are gone."

Cyan's hands that had been on your shoulders, rapidly move to the back of your head as she pulls your body against her own. Her lips part as she wants to say everything will be okay any upcoming day, but that sadly wasn't the truth, nor would you believe it if she said that.

"Look at me," she tells you, once again holding onto your shoulders as she distances your bodies. Your tear-filled eyes are slow to react and ignorant as you can barely focus them on her. "This doesn't mean the end, y/n. I'm going to help you look for a way to make this right."

You want to trust her, you really do. But you can't bring yourself to put a grain of trust in her words because they seem unrealistic, just like everything else that is happening in this library.

"y/n," she says your name effortlessly because she knows you're listening even if you are not willing to. "I'm going to help you. Together we can still find your soulmate" she tells you, just the same words as earlier but with different words and phrases.

You take her hands away from your shoulders and shake your head in response. Your earlier wish for freedom becomes the wish to never remember any of the things that happened, a wish for the daimyo oak to permanently and magically disappear from the park so that you never have to look back at it again.

"Sorry Cyan," You say to her, the words hide the exact phrase that you're giving up or you've already given up at this point. Once more, your eyes meet the floor in sadness.

A virgin-white petal stares at you from its position on the floor, it's as damaged as your heart is, yet, its condition doesn't make you feel less lonely. You bend down, not caring if both Cyan and Jungwoo are staring at you whilst you grieve over the lost and broken petals.

Your fingertip reaches out for the petal, carefully lifting it as it rests on your fingertip.

You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted

「 ʙᴇɪɢᴇ # ꜰ5ꜰ5ᴅᴄ 」

Your fingertip caresses the outline of the daisy that is printed on the spine of the book, your finger lifting slightly when it comes across one of the raised bands in the middle of the spine. It's useless to open the book but you can't help it, you open the book until the gutter is steady enough to separate the two parts.

Another illustration of a daisy stares back at you as you observe it, it's the anatomy of a daisy, something you surely knew by head at this point. Why did you still remember it even when you would never be able to use the knowledge?

Your heart hurts, almost symbolically sinks when your thumb tumbles over a few chapters, a new page greeting you with the uses of a daisy. Your eyes follow the different uses: culinary when its young leaves are between other edible greenery in a salad, herbal medicine when their juice is extracted to heal wounds, soulmate when it's destined that a person looks for an object of affection through the French game effeuiller la marguerite.

You swallow away the lump of sentiment in the back of your throat, trying not to gaze upon the infamous word, but you read out the word silently at least five times, once for every flower you abandoned in the park. Your thumb moves to the corner of the page, over the page number in hopes to skip over the page.

Yet, two minutes later, your eyes still read over the words while your thumb is frozen upon the digits that you don't want to change. It's like you're sentimentally obsessed, a bad consequence of not being able to say goodbye before your grieving process began.

Donghyuck who has been studying a book about dreams -as he has been dreaming about his soulmate and still would dream about them until the day they would meet one another -, stands up from his stool as he sees you lurking around the bookshelves in distress and grief.

"Are you alright, y/n?" he asks with a caring smile on his lips, you miss the sight because your eyes are endlessly pasted on the page of the book. At first, you only nod in response before muttering out a quiet, "yes."

Donghyuck shakes his head, his hand pulling on the top edge of the book to take it from your tight grip. "Focus on me for a few seconds, please. I know you're not alright," he says as he manages to conquer your weak grip, receiving the book between his hands even if it was never your intention for it to end up in his hands.

"I don't want to talk," You say as you look at Donghyuck but only momentarily, not allowing him to look at your tear-filled eyes for longer than a handful of seconds. You lower your head, facing the floor and mistakably see the green hue of the stems even when the floor is clean and only matte in its own dark-blue colouration.

"I know," Donghyuck responds, his hands gently put away the book on the nearby bookshelf before he takes your hands in his to hold. "But you can't give up now, your soulmate is waiting somewhere for you. Are you going to give all of that up because of the daisies?"

Even if you don't want to listen to what he has to say - because you've heard the same words at least twenty times in the past week - you can't help but listen to every word and consider it in the depths of your mind. "I know," you answer to his words but leave his question unanswered.

Yes, you are going to give up the progress you made because your daisies are plucked away. There is no reason for you to continue the search of your object of affection just to please your inner-soulmate personality or dreams. The longer you think about it, the more doubts you start to have with everything that has happened. No one could change your mind thus far: not Johnny who came by to say he met his soulmate, not Émilie that took your seat the times she was there, not Cyan who tried her hardest to be a positivist in this situation.

"Don't give up yet," Donghyuck said as he looked at you, a sad smile coating his lips because he felt emotional by just the sight and thought. If he were to lose the one thing that could lead him to his soulmate, he would have given up too, perhaps even earlier than you did. "You still have the daimyo oak in the park right? Please don't give up so soon."

You don't plan on replying to Donghyuck's endless pleading about you giving up, but a response is not anticipated anymore when the noise of the iron doors opening suddenly interrupts the conversation. All heads turn to the door, even yours is quick to react by giving all of your focus to the door instead of the melancholic-looking floor.

You catch a glimpse of who is running out of the door before it slowly starts to close again.

Black-haired Jungwoo who had been dressed in his usual jeans with nothing but a simple shirt to dress him up casually for the daily library visits. The white Converse-branded shoes on his feet take him out of the library as fast as his feet allow him to go. Walking is not even an option, he is running.

"What is going on?" Donghyuck and you simultaneously blurt out when seeing the young boy run out like his life is depending on it. Even when the iron-grated door slowly closes again, your eyes don't recolate, too astonished by the sudden unexplained and unexpected situation.

Cyan slowly steps forward towards the door as she sees it closing, she carries a smile on her lips as she knows exactly what is going on. She glances proudly at the closed doors, her eyes slowly blinking as her imagination is prepared to show her what is going to follow next. "His soulmate," she answers shortly, giving you and Donghyuck a soft look "flowers are blooming on his path, he must know the way."

The words leave you and Donghyuck clueless, but it's the smile displayed on her lips that make you the most confused that you have been in a while. You have the perception that Jungwoo found his soulmate, or at least is one step further than he was last week.

As you feel your heart breaking, you experience happiness that Jungwoo found his soulmate.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The minute hand ticks around the clock twice, it signals four times in two hours: when a new hour is announced and when that same hour passed halfway already.

One hundred sixty-six minutes pass by on the clock, you don't count any of the minutes but you're aware enough of the time each time you take a small glance. Due to the observing skill, it's not hard to count how many minutes pass by.

The minute hand is about to move a millimetre under your watching eyes, but you get distraught by the sound of the door opening. It can only be one person, the person everyone waited for: the person Donghyuck and you stayed longer for, the person Cyan dropped her work for.

Jungwoo appears inside again with a jubilant smile coating his lips, he looks like he won a singing contest but is out of breath due to the timeworn use of his voice. He breathes deeply as the doors close, giving him a cool breeze even though his body feels too warm to get cooled off.

"y/n," he starts immediately as his steps approach you, his pace fast but the rhythm in his footsteps are off due to the running back and forth he did. Twelve steps further, he stops when he is only two steps away from making physical contact with you.

You stay silent as you're taken by surprise, surprised by the sudden unexpected scenario that is yet to unfold right in front of your eyes. Speechless, even after a few seconds, you still can't utter out a response.

"I was in the park," Jungwoo says as he notices your silence, his breathing faintly coating a layer of warmth on your cheeks due to the condensation. His hand reaches out to yours gently, running only the pad of his thumb over the skin of your hand. "In the park?" you ask him soft, your expression brightening by a whisker, but it's enough for Jungwoo to see the changes.

"I was in the park" He repeats again, his other four fingertips slowly embracing yours until he is properly holding your hand in his. Your hand is trembling in anticipation or fear, for whatever is about to leave his lips next.

You nod in response, urging for him to continue speaking, you want to pull the words out of his mind so that you can hear them sooner, but realise he must have seen something unforeseen. "I went to the park for you, because I heard you talking about the Daimyo oak. So I immediately left and went there, and under the tree was a daisy."

A daisy. Those are the only two words you process out of all of the words he said. It's quiet when you try to once again process and accept what he said, your imagination running wild over the thought of one single daisy blooming under the oak, giving you another chance to meet your soulmate.

"Are you for real?" you ask as a smile slowly creeps onto your lips, your lips desire to curve upwards but you don't let them because your heart doesn't want to be harmed in case it was only a sick joke on your grieving process.

Jungwoo excitedly bobs his head up and down as a yes, he's excited but at the same time he has never been so serious about something before, he's torn with what way to bring over the news to you in order for you to believe it. But the young man can't contain the positivity that streamed through his veins when under the Daimyo oak, he saw a tiny daisy growing.

"You have to get to the park," Donghyuck says with a bright smile, Jungwoo's excitement clearly getting transferred to Donghyuck because he's unable to control the happy expression on his face. His eyes shift to Jungwoo and then back to you, not even considering Cyan who has been standing with you as well. "Go!"

Cyan clears her throat before you can do as Donghyuck says, it doesn't stop you from taking a step towards the door but does stop you from running out of the library to check if a daisy is really growing in the spot where the other four had been plucked away. She calls your name to make you turn towards her, which you do as you become aware that she wants to say something.

"Don't let it get plucked away again," She starts saying in a serious tone, almost strict as this might truly be the last chance you have to find your soulmate. You react by nodding your head, not giving her words attention, nor do you use your own words to reply to her.

It turns out to be Donghyuck who triggers you into ignoring Cyan "go!" he shouts and in reaction to that, you take off running. You exchange the library for the outside world again, this time not for freedom, but for your soulmate who might have given you one last chance.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Desire is like a storm. Things get broken

There is a quote saying "where flowers bloom, so does hope."

Hope bloomed in the depths of your heart as you ran all the way from the library to the park, running over the grass instead of the path just to get there a few seconds faster. From afar you weren't able to see if your tree engulfed a little blooming daisy.

But once you came closer, close enough to observe small-scaled details. One thing you're not able to observe is the growth of a little miracle in the grass.

Green is the only colour that paints the grass-filled space underneath the tree, you're not colour-blind, as no petals nor disks stare at you as you stare down in search for them. There are no daisies growing, peeking from out of the grass to grow even taller than the green blades.

"Where is the daisy?" you ask yourself quietly as you glance around your aura, circling around like a clock but it's useless. Nothing is growing, nor blooming, aside from the pain in your heart, even though you're embraced by the branches of the Daimyo oak.

Your view lowers itself another notch, this time in disappointment as there is nothing more to observe. Whether Jungwoo played a joke on you, or the flower got plucked away between the time that you and Jungwoo separately observed here, is something that doesn't matter. It's not Jungwoo's fault, nor is it the tree's that didn't protect its fellow natural miracle. It's your fault, you couldn't even live life as a natural flower, you bloomed like an artificial flower.

「 ꜰʟᴏʀᴀʟᴡʜɪᴛᴇ # ꜰꜰꜰᴀꜰ0 」

Your slouched shoulders effortlessly moved along with the natural movement as soon as you sigh, the walls seem to tighten after you let out the sigh. You feel closed in but the walls are so far away, it feels like you are left alone in a place you don't recognise anymore.

The physical sensation you feel when you sigh makes it clear that you're heartbroken, if not any feeling that is even worse than heartbreak. Even though heartbreak is the excellent word to use right now, broken not by your soulmate, but by yourself.

There's a hot cup in your hands, hot from the heat of the beverage, but it doesn't warm up your cold fingertips, nor does your heart feel warm by the little source of heat.

Less than one week ago, your days still felt enchanted. Filled to the upper brim with magic of the unexplained. Your warm beverage had tasted like the loveliest love potion, and you had willingly drunk every sip until the last drop fell on your tongue.

Each day was different but no less magical, if anything, each day that passed was more magical than the other. The twenty-four hours in a day resembled one step towards your soulmate, thus you walked the path for countless hours, and got one step closer to the promised land with each day that appeared on the calendar.

Dull. Days no longer felt magical or enchanted. Days were endlessly filled with dullness: every twenty-four hours, all one thousand four hundred forty hours, and the many seconds you could convert it to but that would fall into more depressive thoughts about never being able to walk the path.

Flowers had wilted on the path, blooming was something that wouldn't occur again. It was one of a kind opportunity to see the path filled with flowers. Unforgettable. Now you're doomed to walk on the same path and notice how the shades of reality coloured life but left the wilted flowers monochrome.

"ecru"

The word is hidden behind the muffled scoff that you let out but you can hear yourself saying the words. You don't expect a large door to grant you access to a library this time, if anything, you wish for something grander. Whether your grand wish has something to do with your soulmate is something you don't even know: you wish to meet him but at the same time you wish to forget everything that happened. Even though you're sitting in your own home, you hope that you can forget the past weeks and return home. A world without Daimyo oak and daisies.

Next to the post-it note where the term of the colour is scribbled down on, is your phone that has been endlessly occupied with its buzzing indications. It's something you opted to ignore for the past forty minutes even though the buzzing is more bothersome than the person who is spamming you with possible supportive messages.

You let out a soft sigh when the buzzing finally comes to a halt for longer than five seconds, you can't see it yourself but a sense of relief is washing over your facial expression, coating the sadness momentarily.

Now that the obnoxious buzzing isn't filling your eardrums, you feel tempted to pick up the phone and look at the messages, perhaps even force yourself to reply to some of them. Your temptation is hard to neglect, and within a span of nine seconds, the phone moves from the table into your hand.

The plain lockscreen of a professionally photographed scenery makes you think negatively about the way people see reality, it's them that see all of the nice colours while in reality, things are as coloured as you make them, and you're not planning on continuing your life with a pair of ecru-coloured glasses sugarcoating the world.

You're about to press the button to make your screen go black but get reminded of the many notifications because of the little border that restricts you from seeing the full picture on the screen. You take a second to stare at all of them: not individually even if multiple messages and useless emails have been displayed there, the global look seems to be your concept for picking who is important enough to reply to.

One name catches your attention, a name that you put in your contacts but never received a message from, nor ever sent a message to him: Kim Jungwoo.

Jungwoo [ 9 : 59 am ] : please reply, Cyan said that you shouldn't let the daisy get plucked away

The message makes you press the screen multiple times, once to say you want to read the message and twice to confirm to your phone that opening the messaging app is all you want at this moment. The coloured lockscreen disappears from your sight, instead, you're greeted with at least a dozen of one-sided messages, waiting for a response from you.

You scroll up lightly, until the moment your screen nearly hits the top of the saved conversation. Intensely, you read them word by word even though minutes ago, you swore you became a non-believer

Jungwoo [ 9 : 10 am ] : are you awake? There's something I need to say

Jungwoo [ 9 : 31 am ] : the daisy is under the oak in the park

Jungwoo [ 9 : 31 am ] : please believe me this time, I swear it's there

Jungwoo [ 9 : 46 am ] : let me go to the park with you, I'll show you

Jungwoo [ 9 : 48 am ] : please believe me. This oak is my birth flower and I believe in the magic that it would grant you a daisy because it did. I swear the daisy is there

Jungwoo [ 9 : 50 am ] : I'm staying here until you reply

Even though it was a waste of time, you still read the remaining seven messages to yourself, they all said the same, they all told you to reply or get your ass to the park as fast as possible. Another element that returned in more than half of the messages: the daisy.

Your feet are steadily placed on the floor, your legs seem to make it a forceful feeling like you're preparing to start running a marathon any second now. Indeed, you are ready for takeoff whenever the last straw triggers you into doing so. There's only one destination, one path, one marathon trail and that leads you straight to the park.

But it's your mind that runs a different marathon and prevents you from putting stupid thoughts into action, your mind endlessly avoids both of the paths there are: to go or not to go. You have enough reasons not to, seeing last time there hadn't been a daisy. If there is a reason to go, it's for your soulmate.

There is nothing you can lose by going, or at least that's what your heart tells you to tone down the loudness of your mind's unsteady footsteps. Plus you still trust Jungwoo, despite him being incorrect about the daisy last time, but you convince yourself that he stood under the wrong tree…

"The wrong tree?" You question the words you tried to convince yourself of, it's a thought that didn't cross your mind before but he had never explicitly said the Daimyo oak was his birth flower. It meant that he wouldn't be able to choose the wrong tree, there was only one Daimyo oak in the park, and apparently, it was accompanied by one daisy.

Jungwoo [ 10 : 13 ] : please come to the park

The buzz from the phone almost went through your veins, triggering you into the takeoff you had expected. Without responding to the text, you put the phone in your pocket as you got up from your chair.

Left your house, door wide open, heaven knows.

The daisy is so worth it, it is.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The unbuttoned grey trenchcoat that Jungwoo is wearing immediately pulls your attention, almost no one could pull off being so tall and make a trenchcoat look shorter than it proportionally was. Yet, it is the pure-looking facial features that bring the small sign of happiness to your lips.

"Finally!" He breathes out as you take the last few steps towards him, removing his hands from the 'storm' pockets to immediately run them through his black haircut instead. His body is filled with healthy tension and perhaps fear as well, because he badly wants you to believe him, after all, he had been speaking the truth all this time.

"How long have you been here?" You ask worriedly as you imagine him being here for way longer than you might realise, especially when you think about the forty minutes that he begged for you to come to the park. Jungwoo shrugs in response but there's a mischievous smile that tells you everything you need to know, "not too long".

As you look at Jungwoo, the Daimyo oak seems to naturally catch your attention by being as tall as it is. You don't need to tell the black-haired boy in front of you about the oak, nor about your newly-found excitement and hope about the daisy because Jungwoo can almost feel your emotions spreading through the many veins in his body.

"Oh!" Jungwoo reminds himself when he remembers why the mischievous smile was on his lips and the reason why he had been waiting here at the park for over an hour. "You have to come and look at the daisy," he said as his hand leaves his hair and immediately reaches out for your hand.

It would have looked like him dragging you along if it weren't for your own fast-paced footsteps that match Jungwoo's as you march towards the oak. You stay quiet as you anticipate the appearance of a little daisy, but Jungwoo can only let out a happy sound that almost sounds like a giggle.

You heard those happy giggles before, years ago, when your friends played "loves me, loves me not" with the daisies in the park and you wonder if soon you will be the giggly person because there is someone who answered you positively. You might not be at the appropriate age to giggle about such things, but better late than never. And when you're old: nostalgia is nostalgia, no matter at which age you were giggly over a lover you met through a game of loves me, loves me not.

Your feet move slightly faster than Jungwoo's when you're only a few steps away from being under what seems like your safe haven. Jungwoo takes it as a sign and slowly lets go of your hand, stopping his feet from moving before he's able to step into your safe bubble.

His eyes follow every movement you make, his eyes shining with happiness for you but he feels a little piece of his heart hiding the feelings that he isn't supposed to feel. He doesn't want to feel as okay as he feels, he wants to tear up but something tells him it's okay to be okay. His thoughts take him to fragments of time: when he saw you laugh or when he saw the tears rolling down your cheeks, all of the times he can look back on with his honest heart that stays hidden for the outside world.

"Jungwoo?"

Your voice pulls him out of his thoughts, he doesn't need to move his head to be able to see you as he had been staring at you and the scenery unknowingly. Nervously, his hand itches the back of his neck but still doesn't get the hint that something is expected from him.

"There is no daisy," You tell him even if it is too quiet for him to hear it, you only hear yourself say the words. You wish you were in a phase of denial, a phase where your mind will sugarcoat the sad story with something untrue and non-realistic. "There is no daisy!"

The second time the words leave your lips, Jungwoo can clearly hear what you said. "What do you mean?" Jungwoo asks incoherently, confusion fills his mind but he can't see anything because you're standing in front of the spot where he saw the daisy before.

His lips part slightly to speak but nothing comes out, he swore he saw the daisy here before you were here, and the time when you didn't show up at all as well. There was only one flower so how would he be mistaken so much? His breathing is stuck in his throat from the bundle of nerves that block the way.

With heavy - almost plumbum-feeling - feet he drags himself under your safe haven and his birth tree. Just like all the times before this one, he feels a sense of warmth engulfing him like the tree is holding protective branches around his body and above his head.

His feet come to a halt right next to you, like an anchor sinking to the depths of the sea, he stranded to this particular spot and isn't able to move another step. He moves his head to the right slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of the green grass that should surround the white flower. "The daisy," Jungwoo exclaims in a whisper as there are no white petals of which the colour deviates with the green of the grass.

Geen madeliefje

"y/n," Jungwoo starts anxiously as he placed his hand on your shoulder, the grip barely non-existent as the happiness from before is replaced with a heap of other mixed feelings. He feels sad for you, he truly does, on the other hand, he can't help but feel blank and empty now that there is no flower that grants your wish to find your soulmate.

Your lower lip nearly trembles as you hold it back from parting to yell at the world, yell at Jungwoo for once again saying he saw a daisy while there is no daisy waiting for you. It bothers you more how his warm and comforting hand is placed upon your shoulder.

"Jungwoo," you repeat his name as he said yours, the difference is found in the tone: whereas he sounded anxious, you sound broken. It's a symbolical thing but Jungwoo can almost hear your heart breaking in pieces when you say his name like that, even though, your heart would never react in any form or shape when saying his name.

Your body turns to him, causing his hand to limply drop to where it is supposed to be next to his body. Your eyes are closed but you find the courage to slowly open them to look at Jungwoo, you hope disappointment isn't the blinding emotion in them because you try to keep it hidden.

"It's okay, thank you for trying," You say in a soft tone, curving your lips into a smile but the corners stay as tight at they are now, not even moving the tiniest inch because you keep them in tone. "I'm sorry, I really thought I saw a daisy here," Jungwoo noiselessly admits, his eyes non-stop going between you and the spot where he saw the flower blooming.

You look at him to meet his eyes, knowing you can believe him when he says that, and you want him to know that you believe him but at the same time that you're disappointed in yourself for allowing the situation to get out of hand. The brown eyes seem familiar, a little too familiar as you swear you've been staring into them every time you close your eyes.

Jungwoo tilts his head as you look into his eyes, confused by the sudden change in your non-verbal attitude even though he unknowingly feels the same emotions as you do. The more you stare at him, the further his head tilts as he continues to gaze back.

Something as tiny as a snowflake appears in front of your visions, Jungwoo sees it as it dwindles down in front of your eyes, you can see it peacefully falling from his hair and onto his grey trenchcoat. Your eyes want to shift to the sky but you're stopped by the colour contrast going on in Jungwoo's hair.

White petals elegantly rest on the black strands of hair and a single minuscule daisy is trapped between the locks of his bangs. The white petals contrast against his black hair and the yellow-coloured disk makes the look wholesome. Disbelief spreads through your body, causing your eyes to widen as you try to make sense of the situation.

"There is a daisy in your hair, Jungwoo," you whisper nervously as your fingertip points towards the non-artificial flower in his hair. The sight makes your heart beat faster: a nearly adoring feeling spreading from your heart into your tiniest bloodstream.

You're standing under Jungwoo's birth flower, the Daimyo oak. While you're standing there: you are looking for a daisy to find your soulmate with and Jungwoo is next to you with multiple petals in his hair and one daisy to complete the look.

"In my hair?" Jungwoo asks as he uses his hand to almost comb through his hair, causing a few of the petals to fall from his hair and onto his fabric-covered shoulders. He feels the softness of the petals under his fingertips and can almost feel his quickened heartbeat in the tips of his fingers with each touch he leaves onto the petals.

You don't have to conclude, it's premade and there's only one possibility. Jungwoo is your soulmate.

Saying the words out loud isn't something beefed, by the time the conclusion is given to you, Jungwoo already has a bright smile on his lips. Smiling like a flower receiving a bit of sunlight to grow towards, smiling like a person who just found his soulmate.

His gaze is locked with yours, staring at one another as the droplets of reality sink in. The brief silence that follows is as tender as a rainstorm of daisies.

"It's you," you whisper to break the silence, your eyes endlessly locked on your soulmate who can't help but mirror your actions because he's stunned. A smile breaks through your facial expression as the last sigh finally pushes past your lips.

The flower in your heart was blooming and you could feel the effect it had on you. The person that you had fun with and cried with, the person you motivated into searching for his soulmate. He was your object of affection.

Jungwoo slowly nods even if he is still trying to grasp the situation with both hands, his fingertips slip from reality and dip into the ecru world he unconsciously chose for when Cyan told him to choose a colour. "It's me, " he says in a soft tone, a nervous chuckle slipping from his lips as his ecru world no longer seems divergent from reality.

Under the embrace of the tree, Jungwoo reached his arms out to you and within seconds engulfed you in his arms. His arms felt warm and sincere, feeling the desperation by the strong grip he had on you.

Your eyes were closed, as were Jungwoo's, almost overly used to the vague image of one another. But the heartfelt moment keeps you in reality, the freshly-bloomed love between two soulmates.

"Their desire was silent yet magnificent, like a thousand daisies attuning their faces toward the path of the sun"

「 ᴇᴄʀᴜ # ꜰᴀꜰ0ᴇ6 」

The chorus of your alarm needlessly plays its tune to wake you up, it's only on the bedside table so you have no trouble in reaching out your arm and pressing your index finger onto anything that feels like a phone screen. It's a Sunday morning, a day of only domestic softness and time for loved ones.

"Why did you set your alarm?" You hear the voice next to you question out loud even if it only sounds like a mumble, the slight chilliness makes everything sound louder than it truly is. The sheets even produce slight sounds as Jungwoo turns his body to you, pulling your body against his until there is no space for gaps to breathe. "I have no idea," you mumble in response, your heart relaxing after being awoken by the music.

It's too late to fall into slumber again and you would rather spend your time looking at your soulmate, Kim Jungwoo. You slowly turn your body around until you're facing him and smile once you see his somewhat swollen cheeks from laying on them all night. "Stop."

You let out a small laugh at Jungwoo's simple request for you to stop staring at him, his voice makes it sound effortlessly adorable and from that, you conclude that he must be happy with the specific way of affection you're giving him. Still, you don't follow his request and stare at him for a few seconds longer: giving him your coloured eyes full of admiration and love.

"You're still doing it, flower ~" Jungwoo sings almost impossibly high, his morning voice straining his throat which results in him letting out a small cough. After giving your boyfriend a worried look, you let out a hum as you know you've been caught in the act.

"Gotta admire it before it gets plucked away"

Jungwoo scoffs in response to your words, his fingertips pressing onto your skin like it is a sign that he wouldn't get plucked away and wouldn't let you get plucked from his life either. It's a soft feeling on your warm skin, his fingertips caress protectively. "I won't get plucked away," Jungwoo says to ease your mind a bit from the worries, he can imagine the thoughts that go through your mind on this lovely Sunday morning "but you'll have to water me every day," he whispers against the shell of your ear, hoping to hear you laugh at those words.

It is not the joke that makes you laugh, it is not the dirty undertone of the words, but it is Jungwoo simply being himself that makes the smile return to your lips. Worries fade like the moon does in the sky who temporarily exchanges his position so that the sun can make flowers grow a little more towards the light.

"Was that supposed to sound as dirty as it did?" You ask him as you can finally find the laughter in his words and you seize the opportunity to make this morning a good one. Jungwoo's facial expression deadpans but it's noticeable that he's trying to bite the corners of his lips with the intention keep them on the thin verge of curving upwards. "Nope," he says, his lips pressed together but laughter breaks the non-existent glue between his bottom- and lower- lip.

"I don't believe you, look into my eyes and say again that those words were not meant to sound dirty," you request from him as you get yourself comfortable on the free space of his pillow, making it easier to look into the homely-brown pair of eyes. Which he does: his eyes travel from the exposed skin near your chest, up to your lips and into your eyes. "Those words were not supposed to sound dirty, your interpretation was wrong… but I guess you just think about sex often," he teases.

In disbelief, you playfully roll your eyes at what you've been told about yourself, by none other than your own soulmate. "You think so? I think you should go out for a walk and reflect on who has the dirtiest mind here," you suggest, using the same playfulness from when you rolled your eyes.

Jungwoo's laugh fills the room, ringing decibels louder than your alarm did before you were awake. But the sound is music to your ears: it's the perfect song, played at a loud volume that it deserves to get played on because everyone should hear his laugh. Seconds after he started, his laugh slowly dies down as his lips gaze towards your lips again.

"Maybe it's me," he admits in a serious tone as his lips copy yours unconsciously, making slow movements like yours as you part your lips to respond to his words. His serious tone doesn't make you laugh but it still sounds strangely sincere, perhaps because his mind did shift to a sexier setting once he saw your lips moving like they usually did.

Once you catch up with his newly-found interest for your lips, you also catch up with his confession of why he is the one with the dirtiest mind between the two of you. You become aware of your lips being the centre of attention and play along at the moment by biting the right corner of your lower lip. "I bet it is".

Jungwoo huffs when he realises your teases are not a coincidence, nor an accident. But he's quick-witted and pulls your body on top of his without hesitation: giving you no other option but to once again look into his brown eyes. His expression is unreadable: he doesn't look like he's playing around anymore, but the same softness is still displayed in the depths of his orbs.

He puckers his lips and pouts them upwards, getting more and more desperate until he finally reaches your soft lips with his own. The kiss that he initiates is soft for the first few seconds and he can feel your smiling lips against his out of happiness.

Soon his lips start to move against yours, the kiss getting more heated as you notice his body is yearning for certain touches and that special kind of affection. Energy and excitement mix together and spread through his limbs and even his lips get affected by it: his lips that were moving against yours slowly lower themselves in a trail filled with open-mouthed kisses. He doesn't stop until the moment he kisses the side of your exposed neck, the kisses finally arrived at the planned destination.

The soft breath you let out as reaction only makes Jungwoo press more kisses in your neck, knowing by the reaction that they make your morning a little more pleasurable. His unoccupied hands trail to your hips, keeping you still before you can even start to make slow grinding motions on top of him, his fingertips squeeze your covered skin whilst his imagination starts running wild.

"Is it not too early for this?" you ask soft as your head lulls to one side, allowing his kisses to take up more space and press on the more sensitive spots of your skin. A hum leaves Jungwoo's lips and you feel the vibrations of his hum against your throat "it's never too early for this," he whispers against your skin, placing another kiss down before he pulls away from you.

Jungwoo sits up on his knees and rids himself of his layers of nightwear: the shirt that covers his skin and the pair of sweatpants that hide the hairs on his legs. His boxers are tightly covering the crotch area and it only gets worse as he winds himself up over the thought of your body. Once he's undressed, he gapes at you as you do the same he did seconds ago. Your shirt is discarded and your shorts soon join to coat the floor with a layer of fabric.

"Look at you," he whispers as he smiles at the sight of you bare, it's not just naked, it's bare and outside of that, it's beautiful. More beautiful than watching blooming flowers in the park but he shouldn't pluck petals, he only waters them so that they grow.

After taking in the sight of your body once more, he leans down to your abdomen and runs his fingertips over every little bump of your skin, every soft little patch and every rough one too. When he reaches the waistband of your underwear, he loops his fingers through them and starts to remove them in a teasingly slow manner: first an inch on the left, then only half an inch on the right. The fabric feels smooth as it runs over your legs but it's his fingers that provide warmth.

Your underwear soon joins the little heap of discarded clothes on the floor, you opt to look at where it lands out of habit but Jungwoo pays no attention to the piece of clothing.

Unlike your previous position, Jungwoo now hovers over you instead. His lips press kisses over every spot of your skin: what you expected to be a heated moment of not-so-delicate touches ends up being a moment where his lips caress over your skin with adoration.

"I love you so much," he whispers to you, his lips pressing against your earlobe to give a tiny kiss there before his loving path continues down your body. Your response follows minutes later when his lips have almost reached the lower part of your stomach but you're simply in bliss due to these soft petal-like kisses. "I love you too," you whisper back to him, sucking in some fresh air but it results in your mouth allowing a quiet moan to slip out.

The way his soft lips press kisses against your sensitive skin makes the moment last longer, it makes you more impatient for more but you're enjoying the slow pace towards a possible love-filled morning. His lips press together on the smooth path of your inner thigh: giving both sides an equal amount of kisses but teasingly kisses towards your sensitive areas more.

"I want to make love to you," Jungwoo mumbles against your smooth skin, his warm breathing reflecting on his cheeks that start to feel slightly damp but he doesn't care. "Can I?"

Luckily he looks up at you when he's asking the question, he sees you nod almost right after he says the words. A smile changes his current appearance and he looks even softer than he did a few minutes ago, you wonder how it's even possible that he looks even more soft and loving.

"Yes?" he asks as you don't reply to his words by actually saying something, even if he is content with the nod, he still wants to hear your voice and have your consent. "Yes," you breathe out, repeating his words without the questioning hue.

He sits up slightly, straightening his back as he is admiring you for a few seconds. His impatient hand runs over the many spots that have been touched by his lips before, it's a teasing trail full of little twists and minimal touches that leave you wanting more. His index finger reaches the most anticipated spot once his trail has been hiked.

"Sex is the seed and love is the flower"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Jungwoo hides your hand together with his in the sleeves of his trenchcoat, even though the warmth is provided by the sun, you feel more warmth from his - unnecessary - gesture.

The colour palette that is used to create the scenery of the park comes into view, and you can't help but smile as if you're seeing it for the first time in your life. It's like an ancient painting in a museum, you have seen it on the internet but never in real life, but in reality, it's just been long enough for you to forget the many shades of nature.

Almost six months ago, this would have looked like the stereotypical scenery but minds change, and views change too. From afar you can see the green grass and some white collectables of which you know that they are daisies, they fill the grass like butterflies fill your stomach each time you look at Jungwoo.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Jungwoo asks as he notices the smile on your lips and the way your eyes are trying to catch a glimpse of the park that suddenly isn't as far away anymore. He knows why you smile, but he still asks because he is delighted to hear the story being told from scratch. The story is the book his soulmate picked out for him and his heart willingly read every page.

"Because the park," you respond to him as your eyes shortly move to him but you don't want to lose sight of the real-life painting in front of you, you don't want it to get plucked away. Jungwoo looks away from you to look at the same piece of art, getting lost in the familiarity that sparks a collectibles in his mind.  

The world seems strangely different, the painting seems strangely different despite its familiar setting. The only thing that stays the same is the love between you and Jungwoo as you walk hand-in-hand towards the park. It's only a few seconds away, ten to be exact, nine if you pick up the pace a bit.

Jungwoo's feet halt before he's about to step on the grass field, not because it's something not everyone appreciates, but because his eyes observe why the world seems strangely different. You don't seem to notice yet, your sight is blinded by the colour ecru and you're not aware that the effect might wear off soon.

"y/n"

Your attention goes to your boyfriend again, the scenery that you've been vaguely looking at is replaced by the sight of two very surprised eyes. You hum in response as you continue to look at him, not questioning his look until he mentions it himself, which you're positive of that he will.

"W-where's the oak?" He asks as he looks at you before his eyes drift back to the missing piece of nature in the center of the park, he can see the tree in his imagination but notices its absence when he dips into the river of real life. He thickly swallows even though his throat is waterless.

Your head moves a few degrees to the right as you can only look at your boyfriend, "huh," you ask him as you eye him with your confused orbs.

"The oak," Jungwoo says in a more steady tone even though he has to keep himself steady, for some reason his long legs seem ready to give out any second. His hand untangles itself from yours to point towards the place where he met his soulmate, under a tree that was no longer there, but he was, and you were too.

Your eyes follow his fingertip until you can't see his finger in your eye-width anymore. The greenery of the park doesn't state it but your eyes officially discover the absence of the familiar oak: Jungwoo's birth tree, the tree where you found your soulmate under, the tree where daisies dwindled upon your shoulders once Jungwoo leaned towards you to hold you for the first time.

The memories are close in your embrace but you're no longer held by the tree that made all of those memories possible.  You lower your head, noticing the vague image of little daisies that are spread out all over the field, endlessly gracing every few inches with their appearance.

"Did it get plucked away?" Jungwoo asks soft as his voice almost stops cooperating, he's filled with confusion and emotions, his mind going over at least ninety-nine scenarios and he loses you in every single one of them. His hand is close to yours and he takes the opportunity to hold you tight before - just like the four daisies, and the oak - you get plucked away.

From the uninhabited space in the park, your eyes go to the movements on the little pathway of the park. A pair of unsteady footsteps shuffle over the stone-filled ground but they come to an abrupt stop when she bumps into a young man: as she stumbles back a notch, a smile coats her lips. As the young man helps her by placing his hand on her upper arm, you can see the bright colour of her eyes. Cyan, that's the exact term to the colour of her intoxicating eyes.

"Pick a colour," you read the words that fall from her lips and you can't help but mouth them in relay one second after she does. It's a familiar phrase and you even taste the remains of the colour you picked on your lips: it's a soft shade with a not-so-matching name.

Ecru.

The word effortlessly brings a smile to your lips: it's the colour of your soul and the colour of Jungwoo's love for you. Ecru: ecru was the colour of your world, ecru was atmosphere, ecru was the little steps on your path, ecru were tears when the path was unreadable. Ecru was and is magic.

"I don't think it did," you finally respond to Jungwoo has been looking at you until the answer fell from your lips. Your lips press a small peck onto his to ease his nerves. "We just planted the seed elsewhere, and it's blooming right now."

A U T H O R S N O T E / I N S P O 

hello, little daisies. With this, you must have reached the end of “colourized ecru,” it’s been an honor writing this. I know it’s not the best writing, not the best fic, or anything but I feel happy that I was able to finish this. For the longest time I put off writing this, even to the point where I wanted to tell the other writers that I wasn’t going to go through with the collab. But I did start writing and neatly finished the fic the day before it’s due. Thank you for reading, thank you for existing 

Inspo [music] - winner, remember ; d.o, that’s okay ; yesung, here i am ; yesung, paper umbrella (jungwoo acts in this mv if you didn’t know) ;  lee taeil ; one man (cover and yes I love taeil y’all know) ;  . . .

love, ambrosia aka moondustaeil  🌼

[ranmanjuu]

—gen z mc with uesugi-takeda + misc. forces

ahh, i’m so glad people liked my gen z oda hcs! lol it’s usually pretty slow from my writing blog experiences until now, but i’m rlly happy! i was planning to do u-t and the others but then i decided to stop at oda and continue another day. thx for the asks tho! and yeah, i do take requests but it’s more of a pasttime, since this whole blog is just my stupid ideas written out and shared out there.

also someone said that a gen z mc could be old enough to romance the warlords, like, early twenties. and yes, very fair if u wanna romance ur mans with memes and existentialism go for it!! i just think it adds more to the comedy side of this child they have to babysit, while not fearing death or any consequences from their dumb of Ass decisions. someone who fears no death and armed with no braincells is a fool, but a Child who fears no death and armed with no braincells is also a fool, but more bizzare and has That Vibe y’know

@niphredil-14​ and @arthotsglasses​

tw: s*icidal, violent jokes treated in a light manner

also spoilers to some things of their characters

—kenshin:

who is this,, , sassy lost child??

he first saw you prepared to throw hands with ronins who were being Elite Dickheads. ofc, armed with nothing compared to the sworded-adults, he had to interfere.

no matter how cold he treated you, masking his secret !!!-like concern, you seemed so unfazed through it. you still interacted with him like normal,,,,, why?? do you want a death wish?

and each time he threatened you with,, anything, you responded with, “the only one who gets to hurt & kill me, is ME”

...... what?

he’s convinced you’re the biggest fool of a person. and he’d be right but even so, he has a weirdly strong need to protect you as you two got closer. you’re often with sasuke, so it’s harder to avoid you.

even with all the Horrible jokes you make on a daily basis, if your passionate side with everyone having equal rights of being treated as human, for him it shows a side of you that makes you seem precious and pure and kind hearted.

and the overprotective side increases.

which is, ,, a bit problematic sometimes cause you have the tendency to target and piss off anyone in a 10 meter range by just one (1) sassy comment, along with your lack of impulse control and blurting out everything in your mind. it’s made you a lot of short enemies in the sengoku period, and kenshin would always be ready to slice them down behind you.

sasuke has to tame him down with his Masters degree in kenshin-wrangling.

at banquets, kenshin would often have you beside him. if you’re too young for sake do age for drinking exist in sengoku? probably not. it’s more of sasuke advising for him to not give you alcoholic drinks he’ll have you pouring for him or just munching away at pickled plums or food.

—shingen:

(ngl i kinda had a hard time with this since it’s erasing a big part of his overall character,,, flirting)

once he heard the news that oda had taken in somone as young as you during honno-ji,, ,,,he’s in a very “how dare that demon >>:( taking such a pure soul,....”

and when you’re taken to kasugayama as a captive, you’re,,, surprisingly very calm and whelmed. you don’t have much sign of fear or anxiety in your overall demeanor meanwhile you’re busy dissociating and spacing out to feel those

you actually don’t seem to hate your captor. but shingen isn’t sure if your ‘fingerguns’ is a good thing or not cause it depicts you pointing guns @ him,, (dw is good shingen)

while yes being held hostage—no matter how good you’re being treated—isn’t ideal and kinda not very cash money, you consider shingen v chill. man has a kindheart!! “i diagnose you with good vibes.”

if he ever sees your righteous side, as everyone else, he’ll deeply admire you. he himself is someone who believes in such as well. and hearing the circumstances in the modern world regarding those things (blm, etc.) his heart truly does go out for you. he feels sympathy for such a young person like you having to take action

also your dirty humor around him, echigo’s player, kind of makes him question where and how you learnt it

and,, his illness.

through getting straight to the point and not falling for it each time he changes subject/dodges the question, you managed to get to the bottom of his illness. shingen himself thinks it’s not something you have to burden with knowing—you’re so, so young.

but that doesn’t matter to you. the world’s given you such a shit time, you’re mature enough to understand the situation at least.

and as he finishes his explanation, all there was is silence. it felt wrong to say any of your usual quips,, so all you did was slowly came there and hugged him.

that was more than what he’d ask for.

—sasuke:

oh hell yeah

you are in your element with him. the chillest guy to talk to, and probably the first one you’re the closest to

your phone was dead after like 2 days of use, and you were miserable while hideyoshi, like a typical parent, told you to go outside and into town. sensing your bad mood, sasuke asked what’s up. you deadpanned, “my phone game ended and now i’m ready to commit not breath.” you oslemnly look out in the bustling streets and clutched your fist like an Anime Protagonist, “those boomer memes were right all along... i am absolutely Miserable and Useless(^TM) without it.”

in response, you could’ve sworn he did the Anime Glasses thing as well, “then we at team Moderately Awesome Sengoku Ninja are happy to announce the launch of a DIY phone charger, made with the electricity from a fruit and the main functionality of a solar panel. and has more durability than samsung’s.”

there were Stars in your eyes now. with a big grin, you thank him, “i’d die for you, sasuke.”

“then perish.” he said with a blank look. (yukimura, in the bg: ???!!!??!??!?)

the next day he consentually breaks in through the ceiling and gives you the weird contraption. you’re now saved, soul-wise.

the memes start coming and they don’t stop coming from the two of you. in any situation. whether it’d be at a teahouse, or at a battlefield that can determine your life and death.

and you can have discussions about current world events, or the past ones, with him and he’d understand completely what you’re talking about. it’s those rare nights when you’ve been thinking and have a deep conversation with him in his room, and as an adult, it makes for interesting results as well.

the others are endlessly confused, but you’re both so unapologetically yourselves.

and he’s super protective if the circumstances are tough. he feels bad for dragging another person in the sengoku with him—much less when they’re so young like you.

if you’re enough of a lil shit, once you’re taken into kasugayama, in the nights where you can’t sleep because brain at what would be 3 am, you’d probably trudge over to his room and wake him up to tell him what kind of mind-blowing shit you realized.

—yukimura:

when he saved you from falling to your death, your reaction already set off weird Vibes inside him. what do you mean, “you stopped me from fleeing this fleeting world by the sweet embrace of death” ?!?!?! are you crazy?? yes

he doesn’t waste time getting blunt with you at all either.

once he goes into azuchi as a merchant, he silently observes you talking to sasuke for a bit. what’s with your weird language?? and crude humor???? never in his life has he met someone in your age act like that wtf

even so, he still operates on the basis of ‘‘if sasuke trusts you, i trust you’’, no matter how utterly concerned you make him feel

you have a dirtier mind than him! unsurprisingly. along with everyone else, you often tease the poor soul, a nd you’d gladly tell him what the innuendoes mean ( 69, etc.) and maybe sprinkle in some gay jokes in there

and why do you keep mentioning this “bromance between him and sasuke” ?? what us,,, a bromance????? and why is sasuke in it??

he takes you out to teahouses to eat chestnut dumplings and other desserts with you. you always seem to target the one he doesn’t like the most and have a bit of banter

your relationship is built on banter but what’s different rlly

he treats you much more maturely than other people your age. as in, he doesn’t pull back his punches in words most of the time. you don’t seem to around him also, it looks like.

and, he’s also very protective of you. he regards you as his little sibling, as rat as you may be. and he does care about you—he might just be a bit unwilling to say it

—yoshimoto:

you think he’s very chill, if a bit unique but who were you to judge. and he is, if you ever meet him in echigo or even azuchi

his big liking to art and something of apathy to people is osmething you can respect. there’s something about that kind of Vibe that you find oddly a mood.

and oh boy oh boy you wasted no time pulling up your phone and showing images of what art is in the future. whether it’d be a screenshot of anime, fanart, aesthetic-like ones, palette-themed—the whole shabang. 

and, somehow, you were left ranting to him  about how some artists in the future get it so shitty for theft, reposting, not crediting, the list goes on (please be a decent human being to artist, sincerely the author) and he can’t help but just listen in silence and kind of thinking about how you’re so passionate about the Struggles of artists. and it isn’t something he sees often in the sengoku era—where war rules most things.

and he does find art from the modern times interesting, how they’re so different and vast in styles. and not only that, it’s not like the future only has one major style like then, each hand can draw such different pictures and still have beauty in each. he appreciates and admires that.

and he does tell you his thoughts ^ while you give your own insight. it’s so fascinating to see someone like you having strong opinions on this.

because, well, rn art is a big thing in our lives as we’re stuck inside. a part of entertainment is looking at any media of art—and he finds his view of art and yours quite the same. you two came from a time of turmoil (one moreso than the other) but still think art isn’t exactly irrelevant just because it isn’t a cure to diseases or the Ultimate Weapon.

you had to Surgically Remove him from your phone so you can use it and to stop him from draining your battery looking at the art

and he often drags you out to town and admire pieces when you’re holing yourself in too much. your comments are always unknown to him, “radical”, “that’s one i can vibe with ngl”, and the list goes on.

and you occasionally call him pretty boy as a compliment rlly

—kennyo:

when you first saw him at honno-ji, and he won’t forget the one (1) line you gave him, all you said to his warning of ooo spooky demons was, “that’s lit fam gtg tho”

and that alone was enough to stun him for a few seconds

honestly you told the others of your meeting with kennyo before they told you it could be kennyo. just a throaway line of “oh yeah there was this dude with a scar across his face.” / “,,, ,....that’s kennyo. he’s really dangerous actually—” / “oh, poggers”

you’re probably kind of half the reason the oda forces found who dun it.

and it was an eye for an eye, kennyo himself found out that you were their child chatelaine, and very close to the others. as per his villain-schedule, he kidnaps you .

he laments about how “such a pure soul such as yours is not to be stained by the demon’s hands”

oh how Wrong he was.

you were the definition of the opposite of pure. and you seemed unfazed, which surprised kennyo but shrugged it off. he was willing to face you screaming and panicking, along with shouldering the sin of doing the deed. but instead, he was met with a raised eyebrow and, “this is unexpected and probably not welcomed but what am i doing here.”

he was stunned for a moment before explaining what he can. 

“......... fuck.”

he cringed ever so slightly at your curse. but your attention seems to stray so quickly off of the fact that you were bounded and helpless, to the fact that you have the man doing unspeakable things to civilians and you absolutely don’t approve.

throwing your common sense to maybe be civilized, you went off on a rant of how human rights and how to not be an ass to him. all he could do was just listened, shocked to even cut you off.

when he did, he gave the whole ‘unsaved demon’ shtick, and you weren’t taking that kinda shit. he believed he was truly unsaved—you knew that. but that doesn’t make it okay.

eventually, he left you with a cold end of the conversation.

he admires your spirit in a way—but with what he’s experienced,,, it’s a bit of unreachable for him.

if at any point you saw the soft side of his with animals, you just gaped at him for a split second and whispered, “the gap moe is strong with this one.”

also old man died inside when you said that you’d fight god, along with many things.

all in all, to him, you’re insufferable. but weirdly,, fascinating.

you’ve totally ok boomer’d him once cause he rlly looks old

—motonari:

,,. if your speech to kennyo was bad, he’s going to rant hell.

motonari already knew you were interesting even when his men just spied on you. your behavior, so brash and impulsive, is going to be so fun to have, he thinks.

through some planning to stir up more chaos, he kidnaps you and brings you unto his ship. same as kennyo, you showed no clear sign of surprise, and that’s when he decided you were either used to this in any way, or a fool. both answers, he liked.

you’re kind of really confused on why he’s doing what he’d doing. “i get it, i like to stir up chaos myself but it’s harmless,, most of it—but not until the people are in danger, bitch.”

and by that line, motonari leans towards you with a deadly smirk, “now, i can bite, ‘kay kid? you don’t wanna be in the receiving end... do you?”

“do it, coward.”

and before he could let out even a wheeze of laughter, you continued on on a lecture of, again, not being a dick and letting people live their life in peace. and much less all of this damage, for what? chaos?? yeah you wanted to see the world burn but it wasn’t literally.

however, his patience was running thin. he shuts you up forcefully, and leaves.

even so, after a cooldown period, he still talks to you (,,,, well, that’s kind of a generous term) because, right he was, you were so fun in his eyes.

an interesting observation he made,,, was that you picked up on his big dislike of physical contact. and he’d think with how annoying you were at times, that you’d weaponize it. but you didn’t—in fact, you kept your space (not that you were planning to get close) and respected his boundaries.

he thinks you a bit of peculiar for that decision, some wary, and perhaps naive.

one of the days—the more dangerous ones—he was planning to take you to the oda as bait or something. and you weren’t taking it like that. two days before arrival, a storm racked up. you stood upon the edge of the ship with the rest of the crew watching you like you were a madman.

“the oda won’t want me if i’m dead, would they now?”

motonari stands in his composure, guffawing, “all i need is to make sure they believe you’re alive, kid.”

a smile that showed absolutely no fear and 1000 percent spite spread in your face, “not unless i decimate my own body until all the trail left is my blood. the only one who gets to do that shit to me, is me.”

finally, a look of wavering shows in his face.

you were saved last minute,, and the rest is history.

[ofmccnlight]

𝙷𝙰𝙿𝙿𝚈 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 (𝙽)𝙾𝚇   /   five seven dynamics !

&&.  𝙻𝚄𝙽𝙰  𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝚂𝚄𝚂𝙰𝙽  𝙱𝙾𝙽𝙴𝚂  /  (  @cursedbcnes  )

listen . this one , i did not anticipate . i am very much in love with this soft / fond dynamic that these two have sort of fallen into with no planning from either of us , i think ? we were just on the same page with this one . your susan is probably my favorite iteration iʻve ever seen of her in that itʻs never really acknowledged how sad of a character she is . you highlight all of her tragedy incredibly well and everything you write her never fails to showcase how she shoulders all of it . i think thatʻs where we find this pretty little space we have for luna and susan , where everything about their interactions are tinged with that sadness they both carry but are altogether very kind . it just feels kind , and i donʻt really know how else to explain it . iʻm very fond of it and i would like you to know that youʻre the fucking cooliest .

&&.  𝙼𝙸𝙺𝙰𝙴𝙻𝙰  𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙵  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙴𝚄𝙻𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙰  𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙵  /  (  @taciiturns​  )

i am obsessed with the kcu and all that it entails , but particularly eulalia and her step-children . the careful way that mikaela and eulalia talk to each other is fascinating to see . theyʻre both silver-tongued and quick-witted and very much still testing boundaries with each other and i am in love with this sort of . . . begrudging respect for each other that they share . itʻs a complicated relationship between the two and it is so entertaining to see play out . i think , as very strong , very sharp women , the two of them are so similar and yet they have this one glaring difference in opinion that hangs over their heads . it colors all of their opinions of each other and i find myself enamoured with the idea of the what-could-have-been if they did not have that one defining aspect ( anton , you shithead ) that divides them the way that he does . iʻm really vibing with them so far and i am super stoked to see what happens next with them .

&&.  𝙱𝙻𝙰𝙸𝚂𝙴  𝚉𝙰𝙱𝙸𝙽𝙸  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙰𝚅𝙰𝙻𝙾𝙽  𝙱𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙾𝚁  /  (  @avalcn​  )

alyssa , darling , i would like to start this off by saying that i missed you very much and that i think about this reply all the time because it still sends me . miss avalon is an absolute gift for taking the piss out of blaise in exactly the way he deserves at any available possibility . we literally only have this interaction but i love it very much and would like to see avalon destroy blaise once again because the world needs that . please keep him humble . avalon has always been really cool to me , i think , because you have carved her a little place in nox canon that fits very well . her easy antagonism of blaise kinda shows that , while she didnʻt fall in with the slytherin crowd , she also wasnʻt estranged from them . itʻs a really interesting duality to her character that i like a whole bunch . please , iʻm so glad youʻre back , this is so much fun . 

&&.  𝚁𝙾𝙽  𝚆𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙻𝙴𝚈  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙻𝚄𝙽𝙰  𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴���𝙾𝙾𝙳   /  (  @spelltorn​  )

the way that i would absolutely die for this ron weasley , amanda . itʻs the only right reaction to your absolutely stunning rendition of one of the best boys . i will never not get overly emotional about luna and the weasley family and the way that ron , in particular , has never hesitated in stepping in to protect his girlies ( or anyone , really . heʻs a good egg like that ) . the weasleys give luna that large family dynamic that she never knew she wanted and ron plays a major part in that and in being a steady presence and safe space for her . thereʻs this implicit trust and fondness and tender appreciation of all the best parts of one another that your phenomenal prose encompasses so well . there is a soft spot in my heart for the solace they can find in each other and the steady presence that they are to one another in different ways . this duo means a lot to mean and i will never stop squealing about it . 

&&.  𝙴𝚄𝙻𝙰𝙻𝙸𝙰  𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙵  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙰𝙽𝚃𝙾𝙽  𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙰𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙵   /  (  @dolors​  )​

these two are so sexy , i donʻt even know what else to tell you . absolutely ecstatic that this wc caught my attention and i decided to fill it . iʻve never really played a character that was married before and this being my first foray into a spousal dynamic is hilarious to me . these two are as equally weird as they are incredibly sexy to me and i have so much fun with them . it is endlessly both funny and compelling to think of the two of them and the idea of them being as besotted as they are with each other , because how else is a narcissist meant to fall in love if not with a mirror image of themselves ? this is just such a nuanced dynamic to see and i think it was very sexy of us to develop them like this . i love these goddamn murder spouses and i love you so much , cherry , this is so fun i canʻt wait to see what else they do .

&&.  𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙾𝙳𝙾𝚁𝙴  𝙽𝙾𝚃𝚃  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙱𝙻𝙰𝙸𝚂𝙴  𝚉𝙰𝙱𝙸𝙽𝙸   /   (  @tiimetvrners​  )

my favorite little cowards . i love the idea of these two being the ones to run and ,  yet , having differing thoughts on that all these years later . thereʻs a juxtaposition between the two , with theo trying to be better and blaise not changing all that much but still being so similar at their core . i donʻt know , i just really like theoʻs growth and his job and the fact that he definitely got his shit rocked at work only a few months ago but still tried to come to peopleʻs rescue this month . heʻs neat like that . these two are such testaments to how paths diverge for people and similar choices donʻt always have similar outcomes . them still being friends that give each other shit at all times is very endearing to me . youʻve got such cool characters , wizards of maverly place , i adore you and them <3

&&.  𝙻𝚄𝙽𝙰  𝙻𝙾𝚅𝙴𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳  𝙰𝙽𝙳  𝙶𝙸𝙽𝙽𝚈  𝚆𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙻𝙴𝚈  /   (  @petriichvrs  )

rachel , my love , you have my whole ass heart . i donʻt know if you know this but you really do . all of our dynamics are so fucking cool and easy to find our grounding in . every single one of them , i think , never fails to hit it out of the park with how entertaining they are . i go back to this one because i think itʻs the obvious dynamic to look for as someone playing luna lovegood , but you really just hit the nail on the head when it comes to these two . this one is a classic and this is everything i could ask for and more when it comes to the two of them . theyʻre a very nostalgic sort of duo and both of them are so affected by the war , both products of being in the dead center of it all . but all the time they spend with each other --- not even the stuff we see on the dash , but also the sneaking out of their childhood homes and thinking of each other during drinking games --- it all reads as very youthful , which i think is nice for products of war like them . luna lovegood loves the weasleys something fierce  but she always loved ginny weasley first and for all that they lost , they still clung tightly to each other . i donʻt think that would be as clear as it was if i didnʻt have your ginny to play off of , rachel , youʻre brain is so SEXY -

[heartslogos]

the declassified texts of the inquisition’s elite [140]

(262):  At some point i am going to say to you "i have this really bad idea! You in? " just go with it. - (225):  So you're saying that I ended up challenging a dude to Uno then proceed to punch them in the face? -

“Why can’t we ever come up with better code phrases and secret signals? Something that sounds…reasonable?”

“You mean to say that Aclassi turning to you, telling you that he has a shit idea, and then asking you if you’re buying into it with him, isn’t reasonable?” Bull turns to Stitches who has the self awareness to look a little sheepish when Bull lays it out flat like that. “What do you want the code phrase to be? If you spout off some pretentious bullshit like some shit summer action movie I’m going to throw you out of this car and you can walk to the rendezvous point. I get enough of that corny bullshit from Sera and the Adaars, I’m not getting it from you lot also. There’s a time and a place for it.”

Stitches gestures at his phone, “Look. It’s just — it’s too mundane. Aclassi could tell me that at any time and I’d think it was just his regular antics. What if he says it and I don’t realize that it’s go time and I end up bumbling around like an idiot? Speaking of — why am I going in? I’m a doctor.”

“You always end up bumbling around like an idiot anyway.” Skinner kicks the back of Stitches’ seat. “It’s part of your charm. It’s, perhaps, your only charm. Your helplessness.”

Stitches turns to glare at her. “I was a soldier and an emergency room doctor. I spent years during tours of battlefields administering emergency aid while in hostile conditions. I am not helpless. Knock that off!”

Skinner’s been using her free hand to mime Stitches’ talking and the other hand to help steady the plastic tray Grim’s balancing on his knees as he works on making an extra hard copy of the map.

“Are you upset because you’re once again being reminded that you’re the Charger’s token damsel in distress?” Skinner teases.

“I am not! Grim, back me up on this.”

Grim ignores them both, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he carefully writes out the specs of a coded lock to the side of the paper in small print.

“Fine, see if I ever help you pop a pimple on your back again.”

“If you could all stop fighting, could one of you read the latest update from Aclassi to me? Since I’m driving and can’t look myself. And it seems like all of you get mad whenever I try to look at my phone when I’m behind the wheel.”

Stitches reluctantly turns back in his seat, focusing on his phone again.

“He’s saying he isn’t sure if he can pull off a convincing distraction without getting the wrong side of drunk. How much longer until we’re there? I don’t think he’ll be able to stall much longer.”

“Tell him to do what he’s got to do and if something happens we’ll figure out a way to switch him out. We’ll be on location in fifteen minutes and then it’ll be another five or six minutes for you to get to find him probably.”

- “I think I’m going to have to stop using my uncle’s accounts to access content banned for people under certain ages,” Malika says. “I think he’s pretty mad about this one. It’s a digital punch.”

“Digital punches hurt digital people,” Evelyn says, “Why are you using your uncle’s accounts?”

“Because I’d sooner die than sign up for some of the social media platforms he’s chosen to stick with. But they’ve got some nice desktop browser based games and I get bored. Also he never logs out so it’s like — if he really didn’t want me using his social media to play games he’d log himself out.”

“Don’t you have your own computer?”

“He’s not logged in on my computer.” Malika fiddles with the fraying ends of her hoodie’s drawstring. “Anyway, I think he’s pretty mad. He used the word dude. But it was mocking. I could feel it.”

“Kids these days,” Evelyn mutters. “I don’t know what goes on in your heads. I can’t follow some of the connections your brain makes and it gives me a small measure of fear for an uncertain future. But also pride? A weird sense of pride.”

“It’s because we took you and made you into a meme. But a good one.”

“I never thought I’d be famous.” Evelyn pauses. “Well. Internet famous. Technically I sort of am famous already. But it’s a whole different sort of thing, being popular on the internet with the younger generation as a meme. It’s almost wholesome. If only I could have that particular fame to my name without the rest of it.”

“They did declare you innocent of murder and destruction of a cultural heritage site.”

“Only after half a year of constant fighting and then the real culprit coming out of the woodworks to try and kill me. And even then they were kind of reluctant to take back the accusation. I’ve still got people saying I’m the real villain here and all of this is a conspiracy for me to take over the world like some dictator.”

“Well…”

“Don’t you start with me, Malika.”

“My lips are sealed on that specific topic.” Malika wraps the drawstring around her finger. “So. What are we doing here?”

“Well,” Evelyn looks around. “You’re telling me about your latest issue with your uncle.”

“Right, and?”

“And we’re waiting for Kaaras to show up. Because Kaaras had some work in the area and he asked us to meet up with him so he can show us what he’s found.”

“Us specifically?”

“Me, specifically. You’re here because you saw me leaving and asked if you could come with and I said yes because I like having you around. As I said. The way your brain makes connections is endlessly fascinating and fearsome.”

“You make me sound like a lab experiment.”

“The entire Inquisition is a lab experiment.”

[paintednailsandsoftdetails]

Fine Line: rambles & rankings

hello here i am eleven hours after being knocked on my ass by one miss harry e styles with some thoughts if anyone is curious!!

1. Golden- the sad bop to end all sad bops!! the dichotomy of this music being the most fun and bouncy (the da das on tour!!) while his voice is the lower, steadier element of the song is so interesting to me? also the pessimism of this song is *chefs kiss* even if the idea of his vulnerability being an undesirable trait to his partner is heartbreaking

2. Watermelon Sugar- she slaps and we been knew!! this wins for best dance number for sure and i can’t wait for us all to be grovin and yelling “high!” back at him

3. Adore You- i think after a week ive concluded that this was my least favorite of the 3 released songs, only just slightly? but i absolutely love singing along to this, and ofc the eroda aesthetic is forever connected to it and absolutely incredible

4. Lights Up- baby light of my life :’) i love lights up and i will always love lights up, shes always gonna be special to me knowing what it means to harry and the way he decided to release it on coming out day with that video, and i hope he continues making art like this for a long time to come

5. Cherry- i? wasn’t?? prepared??? to be perfectly real, i wasnt anticipating this being a fav from what we heard in reviews, BUT THIS? musically this is so exactly the sound i want from him (hozier meets bon iver but make it harry?? BLESSED) and im absolutely in love with it. and his voice!! pulled the first tears out of me on the listen through :’) the way he harps on “don’t you call him baby” in the softest most fragile way over top this melody is art, put it in the moma

6. Falling- MA’AM THESE VOCALS. i love that this is pretty bare bones musically to really highlight the vocals and the emotions, both of which go absolutely off. its maybe not the most ~interesting~ to listen to compared to others, but the power of this LIVE? holy shit thats 100% where this is going to flourish

7. To Be So Lonely- starting with “I was just a little boy” PLEASE BE QUITE im not okay. anyways there is something about the way these lyrics sit in the pocket of the music that im obsessed with. i wasnt sure how i felt about either one their own, but god the way the “arrogant son of a bitch” line is weaved in with these instruments (the strings on this!!), i feel that shit in my CHEST

8. She- hello to what i feel are the most hs1-esque vibes on this album, except definitely different and COOLER!! its weird bc this is a sound that i already easily associate with harry, but lyrically/conceptually this is fascinating territory. There are layers to be unpacked here and ive already seen some galaxy brain interpretations so im excited to let this one marinate (the falsetto and “plays pretend” lyrics… okay ma’am) also the “sleeps in his bed” vocal FUCK! and of course mitchell went off and i cant wait for harr to be all over him on tour

9. Sunflower Vol. 6- MY FUNKY LIL BABY this is so sugary in a way thats not at all cheesy but makes me smile so! much! the gasp, the sounds at the end… could not be more babie and i just know im gonna fall in love with the bits and bobs of this more and more every time i listen. shout out to the Queen vibes i got from the “tonight tonight tonight” parts! and also did i mention the end is the cutest thing what the fuck

10. Canyon Moon- these absolute VIBES shes THAT GIRL!! this is so sweet and tender im soft. the “Im going”s are so fucking PRETTY? the beautiful dulcimer sweetie you are doing so great. idek what else to say this is the soundtrack to the gay indie roadtrip movie i want harry to star in and i love it with my whole heart thats it

11. TPWK- hating on this is literally illegal?? babie made this for and about us and the space we mutually created on tour THIS IS OURS. hes feeling good in his skin and dancing with us!! even if he doesn’t have all the answers!! the Queen vibes in this too we love, and we are going to have SO MUCH FUN singing n dancing with him to this :’) the “loooong enough” vocal and then his “all together now” stuff at the end is so happy, healing and sweet i love him so much

12. Fine Line- *sigh* what am i supposed to say? what can i do? musically and vocally this is everything ive ever fucking wanted (again i didnt quite realize that harry styles pulling a bon iver was exactly my niche but guess what it absolutely is). HER FALSETTO HER VOICE THIS DELICATE TENDERNESS?? Cannot think of a single thing ive heard thats more stunningly gorgeous than the way he sings “we’ll be a fine line/we’ll be alright” so guess thats it for me lmao. similar to cherry, on paper these lyrics are not a hit for me (at least without analysis), but god it doesnt fucking MATTER bc they come across so abstract and transcendent in context (and open my mind to so many other interpretive possibilities) that i cannot not be in love. And then of course the horns come in and we get the hopeful turn…this song makes me feel things on a level nothing he’s made before ever has. 

Overall this album threw me for the loop of a lifetime; its so different from what i was expecting and even hoping for, but without a doubt the most special thing i’ve listened to in as long as i can remember. these songs deliver on a level hs1 barely scratched the surface of, and i cannot wait to see how harry continues to grow and reach even higher places across his career. endlessly proud of him, always.

Extremely tentative ranking 100% subject to change bc this is impossible:

fine line >> sunflower vol. 6 = cherry = canyon moon > lights up > tpwk > to be so lonely > watermelon sugar = golden > falling > she > adore you

[secondsofhappiness]

How Robert Sugden Stole Christmas

I have to say, I have been watching Emmerdale for nearly 23 years now and that was hands down the most batshit crazy episode they've ever done.

This could be a long post...!

First off, I think the premise was clear: delve into Robert's head and offer an insight into him, his past and his future and to try to tie up some loose ends including issues with family, Aaron and his own mental health. That much was obvious and I think they achieved a lot of that but I think it could have been done in a much more simple way with less confusion (some moments baffled me a little) and a little more clarity in storytelling.

We have Rob realising, through his dreams, that his actions cannot continue, being smacked in the face with the possible outcome of his behaviour...

I mean, not only is the inside of Rob's brain INSANE, it's fascinating what it focuses on - high fashion (did you see Charity's HAT?!), guy liner, Jimmy's underpants (what the ever loving hell?!), Aaron in a suit (obvs), Doug's incessant rambling and Dan dancing in a velvet suit. Christ. Frightening.

The thing I adored was that it started with The Sugdens and ended with them too. He woke up to them in his dreams AND his reality. The focus on them as a family was the best part of the whole episode to me. I'll get back to that...

- Aaron would die if Rob didn't change? I mean, I get that in the past Aaron's self harming was an issue and Aaron alluded to his mental health being so bad that he'd end up in a dark place but it didn't make sense to me why Aaron would be dead. Or was this just a way to shock Rob into realisation?

- Seb. Why did Rebecca say he was ill and no longer around? What on earth was that about?

- Lawrence still has feelings for Robert? What was the whole cheek stroking moment?! Are we still there?!

That aside - VALERIE EFFING POLLARD. The fact she appeared sitting on her gravestone, sassing everyone and making terrible jokes at Rob's expense. Perfection. I am SO SO happy she was the returning character and it made me realise how desperately I missed her. She made the first half for me.

Ryan was endlessly wonderful, especially with the wide eyed "what the hell" moments as they progressed and the sass. His one-liners never ever fail to make me smile hugely. Ryan delivers them like no other and I enjoyed the many Jimmy hugs. Again, WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH JIMMY'S underpants? Rob's subconscious is bloody screwed up!

So Rob learned a weirdo lesson. It was all a little heavy handed, abstract and confused but I got their intention - he needed to be shown that his actions have consequences that he normally doesn't see or isn't faced with the reality of.

I LOVED Rebecca's portion of the "lesson" for her words. They were GOOD words. The whole speech about the attraction of Rob, how he has no friends and generally slapping him in the face with reality was so refreshing as it was all about Rob and his character and it was very aware. The show does know who he is and I was so giddy that they really displayed that.

On a hilarious note - Rob in guyliner being kicked into a grave was bloody hysterical, not to mention Chas in her dramatic "mourning mother" outfit. The whole thing was camp and ridiculous and crazy fun even if it was a little too wacky to make that much sense at times hahaha

Then we have the reality. The Sugden scene right off the bat was my favourite part of the episode. We have gotten so used to Rob dismissing his family, showing little interest in spending time with them (unless he wants something or can't escape them) and I've felt so disappointed of late that Rob and Vic never seem to have a sibling relationship. I felt it so deeply in this episode with her teasing and her cuddles. That whole scene was simple but full of such warmth. Rob even gently teased Doug. Diane was a true mother figure and Vic was such a little sister. It was so lovely and watching Rob slowly feel grateful for them ending with a cuddle that clearly meant a lot to him... it was wonderful to me. All I could think was that when they left, who else will visit him? It was very Scrooge-esque. I truly felt Rob's loneliness and isolation in the moment that Vic was perhaps going to leave. What a sad sad moment that was and Rob's teary eyes were gut wrenching.

Then there's the Aaron of it all.

Now, I feel like the episode was designed to end two strands of storyline:

1) Aaron's path to self worth, agency and confidence

2) Robert's path to realisation, a healthy lifestyle and acceptance of his behaviour

I liked the Rob we saw. I LOVED the recognition that Rob has done this before - the whole seeing the light bit - and has a poor record of carrying through. That was EXCELLENT. It's true and it's so important for his character to recognise that.

I loved his line about loving Aaron more than himself. That was so well written and illuminating. It's so unhealthy that he feels that way. We've seen it time and time again. I also really loved the moment he accepted that his relationship with Aaron was intense in good and bad ways. It's so true and it was a WONDERFUL moment of clarity for him. His behaviour with Alex was also crazy illuminating. It's not the first time he has recognise that Alex is "perfect" and what Aaron "should be with". Fine, he's simple and easy to love and just generally inoffensive and good. That's a brilliant thing and Rob sees this as what Aaron should have. Aaron should be with someone who makes him happy and treats him well but we all know Alex isn't it. He's way too plain for him but, for now, he's easy and gentle and the antithesis of Rob and well, isn't that the point?!

The final scene was really something.

This is the progress I wanted for them all along. It's the redemption I wanted for Rob all along.

His strength of character and his self awareness was striking to me and I was so stunned by him this whole episode especially during the scene with Alex. He was like "if you like Aaron, you are insane and a total coward if you don't fight me for him." Jesus. Character development or what

The fact that he OPENLY admitted that he'd be a crying heap on the floor or throwing himself out of the window. The fact his feelings were on the surface of his skin. The fact he let people care for him. The fact that he was honest with Aaron in such a vulnerable way... it was all truly something to cherish as a fan of Rob's character. He has never been given so much insight before and it was so special.

I loved that a few things were made very obvious:

- Rob did this for Aaron

- Rob also did it for himself despite how much it hurt

- Rob is focusing on himself and being better

- Rob is allowing his family in a little

- Rob loves Aaron very very much

- Aaron loves Rob very very much

- Aaron is the person in control of his own life and his own choices (this was really important after the past few weeks of people dictating to him)

- Aaron and Rob CANNOT be without each other in their lives in some way

- Robert has a friend (which we all knew he had anyway but him actively declaring his friendship with Aaron as something so vital and important... lovely)

All of this was so final but in a "mid point" kind of way. It was healthy and a rather lovely way for them to find some peace. It turned an INCREDIBLY complex relationship into something rather simple - we both care deeply but romantic shiz isn't on the cards so we are committed to be friends

This didn't seem like friends in the cop out sense. It seemed very firm and accepted and truthful. Aaron wanted it and it meant a lot to him, clearly. Rob, well, he wants is desperately and means it but the hurt will take a little while to lessen.

All in all, it was bloody weird. Good but weird and emotional and I haven't a flipping clue where we go from here but if there's one thing you can't deny, it's that Danny and Ryan have RIDICULOUS chemistry and their scenes - no matter the subject matter or tone - are forever incredible. Ryan carried that episode and god does he have range - he can flip from comedy to heartbreak so rapidly it's a joy.

So yeah! I'm off to rewatch again as my family are all asleep so I'll no doubt have more random thoughts. I'd love to know what you all think though ☺️

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x05 watching notes

I’m not used to getting what I want.

-

Expectations: holy crap am I excited to see Billie again. Yeah yeah Cas or whatever, we know he's back and would be coming back from the moment he died, and all the rest is just flavour text... BILLIE is an utter treat and given A: how she died (not just dead reaper killed off for man pain as a minor thematic antagonist, but also woman of colour on the show which was a bummer and at least she alters their post-death appearances dismal stats even if she isn't back-back as her full and healthy self a la Cas as a worst case scenario >.>) and B: the themes she embodied, and C: that Cas just got punted back OUT of the Empty, well, I am ridiculously pumped to have her (or the image of her >.>) around again, because of the utterly fascinating thematic conundrum she'll represent and because Billie was the most freakin awesome character ever, and Lisa Berry just exudes this raw calm power, and I went and watched Shadowhunters over hiatus 90% because she was on it in like 3 episodes and lo and behold she was a powerhouse in her scenes there too :P

Of course I have a personal stake too and as a meta writer it's not quite so obvious, as a shitposter you might have caught me endlessly referring to it, and as me personally inside my head, I know that I introduced Billie to Terrible Coffee AU to be a side character to the drama, meaning to embroil her in it as a voice of amused-warning-to-later-friend for Cas, and began constructing an entire narrative to explore cosmic consequences in as if post-death the show's Billie had wandered over to my silly AU and was using her extreme disappointment in them all to add another level of irony to the characterisation (listen: imagining what face the canon character would make at their role in your AU is a great way to characterise and people think I'm good at it, so free writing tip :P) and I had to make Billie proud about what I wrought. 

I failed to actually write that section in time for this episode, had no idea there WAS an expiry date and that Billie would come back, but here we are and I've accidentally over-thought Billie to an absolutely astronomically disproportionate degree to probably most people around these parts for the sake of having her tease Cas about Dean from the deck of a boat while they were sipping cocktails together. :P

I can and will mentally insert a cocktail into Billie's hand in her scene(s).

-

OH AND THEN THROW IN THAT THIS IS A YOCKEY EPISODE. Of all the current writers, he's the one who makes me lose my chill completely. He's got an incredible way with character and emotion which I absolutely adore, so I find it pretty hard to worry about all the nervous little things I worry about aside from how much the grand scheme of things will let Billie back. And season 13 seems to be going pretty in my favour as a viewer and meta writer so. Super sublime chill.

-

Oh boy the recap people are trying to put us out of a job.

Superimposing Dean's speech to Patience over Sam crying over Dean nearly dying in 2x01 and ghost!Dean lurking behind him, which of all the reminders that they die a lot is a... lot of a thing. Because John etc. Season 2 theeemes everywhere. And then of course them getting shot as ghosts in 4x15 aka time to save Tessa. And Dean wasn't having an easier time in that episode, hell-damaged and talking to Tessa about how he wished he'd gone with her. Could just be subtle reaper reminders because the next shot is Sam detoxing demon blood in 4x21, nudging us into new territory for Jack theeemes. But that's part of the "pain" in his speech, "horror" is Dean hilariously dying in 3x11 when hit by a car, which, well, wasn't hilarious at all for Sam or the rest of that episode for us once the dying montage was over, and just reminds us how much they're dicked around with by the universe... And then "Death." Over. Death's hand.

Look, I am a simple person with simple wants. I would have been satisfied to just have this about Billie but now you're making me want to see DEATH again and see what the heck happened with him. I mean I've always sort of wanted to see him back again because if Billie would be pissed at them... :P But I could accept she was his stand in from now on. That she WAS the new Death all along, even, for our wild spec. Now I am MADLY excited about how they're going to utilise all this stuff because oh hi have you met me the reapers and death stuff is my absolute favourite stuff on the show. I was always hoping this wasn't going to be a cop out with the tasty sounding title, and it seems like they want us to really be on the ball about the themes here, to whatever end.

(Just having paused it to squeal here, it could be a fake out about Death because the first shot of him in his killer intro montage was his hand with his ring because in season 5 that was the cue we needed to know that was the ring we needed and that Death was who he was supposed to be... Logic dictates the ring crumbled in 10x23 but if they wanted to invoke Death without bringing Julian back...)

Weeeeeeeehheeheheheheeee Death's "affront to the balance of the universe" speech in 6x11 where he was resentfully giving Sam's soul back on one condition... The same thing Billie was pissed about in 11x02 onwards. Is he here to cover for her reappearance and make this seem like it's all just a big cosmic theme? Because something tells me this episode is about their deaths somehow or another, either temporary, threatened, or big picture :P

Or it's confirming that Billie is Death, there's always that because the next transition is Dean killing Death to Billie LITERALLY CONTINUING DEATH'S SENTENCE FROM 6x11 - "you cause disruption on a global scale -- so next time you die and your brother bite it, we're going to toss you out into the Empty."

"And *nothing* comes back from that" *stab*

Leaving it there with Cas - no cutting to him back alive in the bramble patch. Instead the last note, the only one ABOUT the Winchesters in season 13 aside from Dean's 13x03 speech being used - is Dean saying Sam needs to keep the faith for him, which was the comment only answered in dramatic irony by Cas's return. No comment on the dominoes of Cas stabbing Billie, getting stabbed himself, going to the Empty, and coming back from that. No comment on the deal. This is all stuff we're either meant to know already or isn't strictly relevant right now... But we'll see :P

-

Sort of scared to play the cold open because eye horror in the promo pics and I don't wanna see the doctor drill some random person of the week through the eyeball :P

-

Oh no, it's kids. I think they're still alive because of the promo where they refer to talking to some kids. Or one of them with the implication both made it out the house although I assume their time is numbered regardless.

They're visiting a house which used to be a mental health clinic, which has weird overlap to last episode and the fact the guys went to a fully functioning house with a modern day therapist in it. Mel pointed out the Asylum direct visual reference in one of the props we see in the fast promo so I suppose that's a good season 1 reference to keep in the back of your head.

The floppy haired kid with the backpack (aka the Jack mirror?) is more uncertain about doing this but encouraged by his friend to go along with it. His friend is a dick.

I hope someone's had a good look at the stained glass window because I can't tell if we've seen it before or not. This may or may not be set re-use >.>

You can tell the boys apart because one is half battery (the dick) and one has full battery still (our sympathetic guy)

Don't touch the plague masks!!!!

Literally that was your entire fault and at least the one we were rooting for legged it with a minor wound. I think even some other ghosts were yelling at them for waking up the doctor (I HOPE that's not a parallel to The Empty and Cas waking him up)

But yet... sam and dean seem to have visited both? Was it only "minor" brain drilling and the other kid comes back home slightly altered? Mel also made promo shot comparisons to Naomi and her drilling... Brrrr.

-

Anyway Dean is making himself PB&J so I don't have time for you all. Ouch.

Did Sam literally just compliment Dean for making himself a sandwich?

is it a recovery sandwich?

I get the feeling if we're seeing this and the promo was a lil later on and some investigating further into the episode then maybe we're basically seeing Dean's breaking point for being babied through his grief by Sam's attempts to cheer him up.

Makes you wonder why they picked that instead of this, but this could be a relatively dull opener and Sam trying to talk Dean into going to a strip club was too funny to resist, because it kind of was :P

-

Sam has been on screen 6 seconds and he's annoyingly peppy

I love Sam btw, like, you are not allowed to judge me for how I may talk about Sam in the coming stretch of episode because I get the sense he's in full on cheer up mode, which turns anyone into the most irritating person on the planet and then you throw in Sam's eyebrows and basically I can't with him :P It's not a judgement on his character, I know he's trying to help Dean because of what Dean told him, but Dean just wants to operate a shell of himself for a while and Sam's trying to dig him out of it because it's painful to see him like that and he doesn't know that Cas is reconnecting with them soon, and if not today then next week and also probably by the second half of the season Mary will be back with them.

-

Anyway Dean just carries on stoically making his sandwich and we all talk a lot about the symbolism... I think in this context perhaps it's loosely linked to Kevin operating as a ghost out of this kitchen after dying halfway through his PB&J and coming back for the crusts as unfinished business. He was mourning his mom while he was alive but then it turned out she was alive but too late he was dead.

The PB&J is also symbolic of humanity so idk. He could just be making it because it's sweet and he has a sweet tooth, it's vaguely reminiscent of pie filling but not enough to be traumatic and it's Dean's "I'm doing 1 good thing for myself today" personal quiet method of getting better in the long slow aftermath that Sam wants to rush.

-

"GET THIS" Sam is on full on Sam-ing

-

Awww Jack's watching DVDs. I assume Sam HAVING a stash of DVDs is stuff he's collected as an adult with a Bunker to go on a nostalgia kick. I assume they have a PO Box pretty much for Sam's Amazon deliveries. Like, he hasn't been lugging DVDs around with him since the start of the show and before that they had a bunch of VHS tapes in the back of the car or something :P They grew up dependant on what was on motel TVs and picked what they liked to come back to as adults with a settled address.

Also: the clouds part and bestow on us: a thing Sam likes!!!! That's like at least 4 songs, a couple of movies including Star Wars stuff, HP Lovecraft, and now liking old bad fantasy movies that even Dean judges him for.

Or, I assume, Dean has watched and may or may not reference if the opportunity came up but he needs to box something off as Sam's weird nerd shit that makes him unappealing to the ladies, while Dean, obviously, has never liked anything nerdy, and has had lots of straight edge manly sex with women and all comments about Zorro masks are stricken from the record.

Sam, being in a magnanimous, my brother is grieving, mood, just literally takes the hit and keeps going. Jesus Christ Sammy.  

I would swear he's worn his worst plaid today just to give Dean something else to judge him for :P

-

Oh uh anyway point is Jack is being stashed in the Bunker just like Sam once stashed Cas with his netflix. Sam's being responsible for the pop culture education of 2 generations. At least Netflix lets you pick whatever you want once Sam's not trying to be helpful, and in 11x06 Dean related to Cas to switching to bad TV, rather than watching Sam's picks of the good stuff you're meant to watch.

Less chance of Jack going on a complete rampage through trash TV, but still if nothing else Dean's hands-off approach to the kid means that Sam is being allowed to mould him however he likes :P

-

I just went back and watched again just because I realised the credits were ALREADY over after 5 names. It was like, J2, Misha (yay!) and 2 people I hadn't heard of who I assume are too important named characters in this episode to skip but also not reoccurring characters. I wonder what the slippery slope is when you don't put Lisa Berry's name in the credits of an episode you've advertised she's in. Even people who've checked on TV guides will know... But I guess you treat the episode as internally self-spoiling and ignore what everyone knows for the sake of the person who buys the DVDs and watches through without even reading the descriptions in the sleeve or whatever. Anyway glad she wasn't spoiled but it does make me like *itchy teeth* about Death being in the recap, because naaah. Naaaaaaah. NAAAAAAAH. they wouldn't. they're not. it isn't. She's making like, a hallucinatory cameo for theeeemes and I got to stick with that until the episode proves me wrong, never mind bringing Death back :P

-

As a fan of Death and the reapers (probably already a band name) I'm like... so on edge right now :P

-

Oh wait also Dean said "what about Jack" - he's using his name even to Sam now. Not teasing him about the anti-christ

-

Ya know, based on how beer for breakfast (name of my band) went over and letting Dean be Agent Page (oh the promo is so the breaking point - Dean already is calling him out on all this IN THE TEXT, using his words to point out the weirdness) I am actually thinking that Dean would have actually quite liked to go on another job with Jack. That he was starting to see the use of him and to warm up to him ever so slightly as a person since he showed effort and did a good job and saved Sam and dug the graves for them. I don't think Dean would ASK out loud but if Sam had said, "Jack comes and that's final" Dean would have done that face shrug expression and let it happen without much complaint.

Sam is bending to Dean's apparent desires and being like, well Dean doesn't like Jack, this could be a chance to get Dean out of the bunker without Jack and let him forget all his troubles for a bit...

-

Like, I don't wanna worry you Sam, but last time you decided you needed to cheer Dean up from his extra super special worries about Cas, you took him out into the woods for a fun werewolf hunt, got shot and strangled and had to kill literally every single werewolf in the episode with your bare hands while bleeding profusely from your stomach, while Dean had a random encounter with Billie in the depths of utter despair that he'd lost everyone he ever loved and the world was now going to end without you all.

Dean's a drama queen about a lot of stuff but when he tells Jack your plans don't usually work out, this is the sort of shit he's referring to :P

-

*Sam looks so freakin smug with himself walking off after the badge exchange and Dean's like... what. What?*

-

Poor kid with his great big bandage on his forehead.

He "can't even talk" because the trauma was so bad and we cut to him apparently drawing in his room, which makes me think right back to 1x03.

Omg lol of course Dean walks in the door alone to chat to him. And sees him drawing repeatedly the MotW. We bonding over trauma so bad we can't even talk about it again?

-

OH there's 3 boys. Shaun/Sean (I'm gonna pick Shaun because this is America and I assume you all don't spell stuff proper - FYI to Americans reading this, please remember to read this all in a shrill British accent, what what) and Evan who was presumably the one who died in the cold open, and Mike is the third, who they're inseparable from but was NOT there in the house with them that night, and by nightfall at the promo scene they had not spoke to him yet.

What a frikkin rug pull though, to have 2 boys in the open, so you think they're a duo of best friends, and it's like NO WAIT THEY COME IN THREES... Bahahahaha

-

Dean back upstairs with Shaun, and he's sat down to talk to him with a "you know" and at this point I am pausing and getting a stuffed toy because he's either gonna open up to a kid who won't squeal about it because he can’t talk, or say something completely awful because he's in an awful place and either way I don't need Emotional Honesty Hour from Dean Winchester at 9:30 in the morning without a friend :P

-

On no, Dean talking about knowing what it's like to be scared of monsters, but then trying to reassure the kid that he can at least make it go away PHYSICALLY even if the horrific psychological trauma can't be erased. Comforting!!

-

Promo sceeene!

Which we already picked over but aw yeah so Shaun didn't tell Dean anything after all, except for the plague doctor drawings (and he didn't show he had the mask with him? Really?? Did he drop it earlier?) so Dean really did just open up to the kid about understanding his pain but being the thing monsters are scared of... A better Dean pep talk than Patience got at least, since Shaun was a regular victim and Patience might have been angling to join the life... and it mostly just served to make him say that :P

-

Since I've been barrelling through all the Wayward Sisters old episodes this month, I am reminded that I spent a good long while wallowing in Yockey vs Sam knowing Dean's porn habits and outing them to Jody in 12x06... 

I think Sam trying to make the sacrifice to go to a strip club with Dean (and I can't believe this is the third time I'm putting myself through watching this exchange because omg second hand awfulness and yet I went back and watched it twice it was so good) probably fits under this characterisation umbrella. 

Of Sam vs performing Dean, as much as the callbacks to season 1 and Dean vs Sam's Jess grief that I was talking about last night thanks to an anon nudge. And parallels to 12x16 and their chat about the swimming pool outside a similar hotel set (although this one is infinitely lower rate :P) - the writers playing with the knowledge that Sam and Dean have grown up completely latched onto each other like this and Sam's been dragged to strip clubs by Dean almost certainly and they just kinda know more than they want to about the other's personal habits, and they have low, bad boundaries. 12x16 was asserting some back, letting them have separate rooms, and showing Sam grossed out by the thought of Dean skinny dipping which, I mean, fair (if you're Sam anyway :P) but they don't really GET those boundaries. 

So there's some re-poking season 12 specific themes here as well, just in that Sam, who has historically had his own walls up about Dean's porn and interest in strip clubs (because they're extremely not his thing) is willing to cross a line for Dean and just go with Dean to a strip club and buy him a lap dance from a place with a decent online review. Which also shows low bad boundaries that he would try and manipulate Dean back to happiness this way, just like in 1x19 especially, Sam had to angrily re-assert his boundaries about Dean constantly trying to set him up with Sarah, and Dean had to point out he has a stake in Sam's sex life too, even if it's just having to put up with Sam being cranky and miserable. Historically, Sam having to put up with Dean's sex life is considerably more on the "ugh, TMI" range for him :P

-

... sorry, yelling "promo scene!!" usually means I stop analysing for a moment and just watch, because I already went over this ground last night, but I guess there's more untapped depths :P

-

Holy shit, though in the reaction shots for Dean after talking about the Clam Diver, he's standing with his back to some stuff that on my screen makes a beautiful bi flag. What the hell. I was thinking how colourful the backdrop was last night but...

I mean that's the blurry background to his close ups on this.

I THINK it's just the road lit up behind him but oh gosh getting it in the background of the shot for THIS conversation about the Clam Diver? GUYS what are you DOING. 

Who directed this??

I overshot and landed on "how you ever got laid" "heh, tell me about it" I can't BELIEVE, STILL that Sam just gave him that win. For some reason it reminds me of Swap Meat where he judges Gary for being a virgin based on the Star Wars stuff, even though Sam is an established Star Wars nerd of more than the general audience variety, and mostly likely read the old tie in novels :P Sam owning that his nerdy interests as a teen didn't exactly make him very sexy is probably the most frank thing he's ever admitted to Dean and he's just trying to help Dean. 

(Tbh, again, it may have helped Dean more if Sam just reacted all prickly and got wound up, which is generally what someone teasing wants - a reaction, not rolling over and showing your tummy. Anyway more on the pile of Yockey probing their sex lives in relation to how they see each other, with Sam letting Dean be the one with the more manly sexy interests and letting the performing Dean layer that all comes from win, and then trying to pander to it some more by looking up places to make Dean feel even more manly and in control)

And holy crap I'm glad I have no yoga today because Yockey's got me talking in loops and I've been back to this conversation in the kitchen 3 times and it's nearly 10am and I've made such bad progress. Mental contortions instead :P

Ooooh directed by John Showalter. I'm pretty sure he's been around for aaaages and contributed more than his fair share of nonsense... :P

I just looked him up on the superwiki, saw he directed the episode with HP Lovecraft (and that ridiculous "I was busy having sex with women" or whatever line about Dean not reading the novels) and basically I am gonna hit the brakes on this thought and just watch the episode or I'm going down a rabbit hole I don't come back from until 11am :P

-

Oh but the thing I was trying to confirm was... Not that I knew I was looking for it except in the most abstract sense that I was thinking of it in one hand and thinking maybe there was something by this director in the other without realising it was the same hand... the blue & red light falling on Dean in 10x16 which looks an awful lot like the bi flag and shortly preceded Dean confessing all that delicious confessional stuff?

Yeah guess which director according to Superwiki.

Now i'm done.

-

I want to know what metric The Clam Diver got "four and a half" of on whatever site Sam was reading about it.

That's in Sam's browser history.

-

"Is it my birthday? Did I win a bet that I don't know about??"

"I'm just trying to be nice."

"W h y."

"Because..... you know why."

"I'm f i n e."

Sam, back off, he's gonna stab you :P

-

I got to ask... is the automatic door not working an improv because the door broke, or thematically relevant, because that's the sort of random thematically relevant detail I could have a nerdgasm about for absolutely hours of typing while Sam is harassing Dean into the building talking about him not believing in anything. The higher powers aren't doing shit for Dean even when he waves at where he thinks the sensor should be, so he gives up and just opens the damn door himself.

The door has a sticker that says, quite clearly, "warning automatic door" and at the very least for the shortsighted is a great big yellow warning sticker on it, so I'm gonna have to go that they're signposting that it's supposed to open, so this is something either scripted or added with full intent to metaphor and my brain hurts.

-

Sam is trying to understand this massive great big VOID of misunderstanding and it's... frankly awful. He's babbling about his understanding about Dean and his confusion

"You're not, Dean. you said you don't believe in anything, and that's not true! you-you-you do believe in things, you believe in people, that's who you *are*, that's what you DO. I know you're in a dark place and I just want to *help*"

This is telling us a lot more about how Sam sees Dean than Dean's faith arc. Of course Dean believes in people and saving people and that the planet is worth saving. That's a baseline assumption around here. Dean and *faith* though, in believing in things, in how the universe treats them... it doesn't even open automatic doors for them. Cas is DEAD. Cas is where Dean's belief arc centred in the last minute of 4x01 and Cas is where it has freakin' remained for the next 9 years. Cas lost faith in God and Dean chucked away the amulet because he lost faith in everything - Cas and Sam and himself and their ability to save the world that didn’t want to be saved. Cas became God and Dean lost all hope he may have had left. Cas came BACK to Dean and his faith was restored but in THEM. GOD came back and Dean and Cas had similar and unchanging positions on it right down to Chuck basically telling Dean not to confuse him with his own father, but the ridiculous superimposing over John over Chuck and Chuck as Cas's failed father who Cas now just ignores outright and Dean lashes out on his behalf because he knows Cas doesn't believe. That Chuck broke Cas back in 5x16 and... Yeah. Cas is gone now and what does Dean even have left in his personal faith? Chuck didn't answer, the automatic door won't open even when he waves at it...

Sam sees Dean as having no faith in God (while Sam has had the much more complicated journey there with his personal faith, and feeling it in a religious way) but instead he tries to get a read on Dean's personal compass, and god dammit Yockey *takes a shot* in Wendigo of course Dean sits down with Sam and tells him HIS personal philosophy on why he does what he does: saving people, hunting things, the family business. The thing is, Dean has already in this episode reached out to Shaun and described himself and Sam as the people who know about the monsters, the ones who can't erase the trauma but they can erase the monster, and help what little they can there... Save *other people* from it - yeah it's a message full of regret and defeat that Shaun already got hurt and that's probably why Dean couldn't get him to open up because he didn't come in bubbling with wide-eyed optimism about saving the day, but heavy eyes that had seen this too much. But oh does he still care about the people, and saving them. He just doesn’t trust what HE can do, what they can do against the tide of awful. It's not in his speech to Patience, because it's not the motivation to be a superhero any more - he is just a guy doing a job. And he's lost his heart in many ways. But he will still fight to protect and help people because baseline, Sam is right, that IS Dean and even damaged like this he'll go on hunts and protect people. Take Jack into the Bunker with them in 13x01 expecting it to be a self-destruct thing where base case scenario they can take Jack out with them or something and contain the blast...

But yeah. 13x04 expressly ended linking Dean's lack of faith, via dramatic cast-iron irony, to Cas coming back as Dean voices what losing Cas has done to him.

And then Dean gets to say his bit -

"We've been down this road before, and I've fought my way back and I'll fight my way back again" which HONESTLY echoes Cas in the Empty telling his depression to stuff it and that he'll fight and fight for eternity if he has to.

Dean is trying to get better, he made himself a PB&J, he's just taking this all at his own pace, and Sam's starting to smother him.

-

"How?"

"Same way I always do: bullets, bacon and booze." Dean regrets his no bumper sticker policy because that and the "whole bottle of Jack" comment from last episode are both iconic Dean talking about his coping methods out loud way.

Also throws back to 10x11 and how Dean did that list of 3 things which he was getting back to when he lost the Mark and left a blank space which should have been "babes" or something and just put more booze into it. The swap of sex for food happens a LOT with Dean. For some reason the Dean vs cake explanation I wrote recently was floating around tumblr again last night, in which the middle of season 10 conveyed clearly that cake was stuff Dean hadn't tried yet (and 10x16's confession tied it all together - we're really delving deep into the stuff that was explored back then and I've thankfully been in fandom for so have the language down really well but I hope I don't have to explain this entire complicated web over and over later :P) and pie was coping methods heterosexual sex with women - tying what Dean wanted in 10x07 in the hook up he didn't get, to pie in 10x13 via that gross dating app... All this with the cake, croissookies, and that comment in 10x11 where Dean was trying to detox and eating egg white omlettes (hi 12x18) and cutting out booze.

And, of course, there's the whole bacon = bisexual experimentation thing from 8x13, 9x13, 11x21, and I guess now :P Cass had a much more thorough bacon masterpost somewhere out there which I may have to dig out and reblog with a knowing look...

-

And Dean slams his hand down on the bell to punctuate this statement and hopefully bring an end to the conversation by summoning a hotel receptionist.

-

Cue screaming kid having nightmares about what he's seen.

His mom kisses him on his forehead where the doctor drilled him, and leaves the door open so she can be concerned about him.

Oh no, his backpack DOES have the mask in it. Dr Monsterface used it to get to him :<

(Oh wait hi yes that thing Jody said about the Dr Sexy leviathan in 7x02 is still fresh in my mind. Leviathans as a depression metaphor in a way The Empty rapidly escalated.)

-

I saw/maybe reblogged a post about how Jack might have Kelly used against him and 13x04 was the nice version, but he's going around carrying his grief about her in a backpack. We have to hope like hell Mia gave him catharsis enough or he might carry that grief with him and things can use her image to get into his head.

(That and the 2x "shoot him!" order about Dean from Miriam and Buddy to the sheriff and Mia, 2 people who wanted to help, are causing foreshadowing concerns)

-

I love the cuts between the doctor coming for Shaun, though - the bell ending one conversation to Shaun waking up screaming, and then he gets up and pretty much goes to confront the doctor head on rather than cower - but cut to an empty bed.

-

Dean's empty bed, but he seems to have left the keys?

-

Ah, he went and had some, uh, catharsis somewhere. I swear to god those are probably the sunglasses from 1x19 dug up again and stuck on his head just to haunt Sam.

-

The fact his tie is tied around his head makes me feel like he was probably blindfolded at some point in all that... Hehehe. I doubt his tie is tied so nicely around his head with a pretty bow because he did it to look cool :P It would just be the same knot but on his head in that way.

-

Sam's like "oh great" but doesn't kick Dean awake? Like on a normal day when dumping a glass of water on his face and telling him to suck it up would be the correct thing, Sam's like, "Sam's got this!" goes and gets dressed, takes the keys, and leaves Dean passed out on the floor. In 1x19 he hit the horn to wake Dean up because serves you right.

-

(if he only went to a strip club he may have just made off with someone's underwear thrown on him for being a good tipper rather than actually having sex with anyone... I kinda doubt if he was THAT drunk he'd be more than a very generous customer they don't mind kicking him out at closing with a bra still on his head :P)

(I'm gonna assume Dean did not actually have sex but just went out and had some very drunk miserable fun and made a friend last night and now he's gonna be dependant on Sam for cash for a while until he can scrounge some back up :P)

Also, um, what is he holding when he rolls over? Is that a fun kinky times toy whip? Exactly what sort of place did he find last night, and please, for the love of god, tell me it was not the place Sam was diligently reading the reviews for between his fingers yesterday, apparently.

-

Listen say whatever you want about the fact he walked home holding it, if that boy had his tie tied around his eyes he was not the one holding it while he was having fun :P

-

I like Mike. He's a burly farm worker hefting hay outdoors in the sun, which makes him like 3 different directions of Cas parallel (the strong one in the dynamic, sun, hay), and also he was sensible enough not to be running around in a haunted house for youtube hits.

...

Look, at some point Cas hefted a bunch of hay out of the back of his truck and onto the side of the road and that happened in canon and no one ever mentioned it

thank you Yockey for acknowledging off-screen hay hefting.

-

Aw no he's lying because he's scared and Sam makes him tell the truth and it's that he WAS scared and he thinks not going to the house was cowardly, but now his friends are missing and hurt (so far as they know because Shaun getting killed overnight might not have made it to them yet)... He does tell the truth in the end. He's also in DEEP denial about their deaths.

-

Is that enough bacon, Dean.

-

No, no it is not.

-

Sam, you're gonna kill him if you give him more beer right now. Is he smuggling local ales to Dean?

I don't think I can actually watch Dean eat this entire pile of bacon with Dean's bad mood eating habits. This pause is just to procrastinate dealing with that.

-

Wait also the friend is called "Mike" which, uh... Michael? is a thing we should be more worried about? What happened to that guy anyway?

-

Man, we're 16 minutes in and where's Billie?

-

I feel like Dean being hung over for the rest of this case is probably not going to help with him getting caught and threatened with a drill by a regular old ghostie.

-

I'm snooping Sam's tablet before he delivers the cliff notes exposition, and aside from the creepy images at the top, including an old school newspaper article in the top image results that is illegibly small, but seems to have photos of the doc alive, the first and only legible article mentions a woman with depression who goes to the doc because she had depression because her son drowned... Which makes 2 son drowning deaths in 2 episodes, with the kid in 13x04 who killed his mom in the car. Also reminds me of 7x14 where when Dean confronts the guy behind all the nightmares, it's because his little brother drowned in the sea and he could never let go of that guilt. 

I think drowning is the metaphor for depression here - people losing a part of themselves metaphoric to small son, who is overwhelmed in the water... Dean related to that loss and used it against the Plucky's guy, and that was in the slight turn around section of season 7 - the part where he began confronting the loss of Cas through mirrors because of course Cas was coming back. In season 13 the plan has been set in stone and can be done briefly and with HEAVY dramatic irony that we're all aware of because we only actually have 1 episode without Cas so far, even if 1 was his death and one was his waking up, he's surrounding Dean's grief in a layer of dramatic irony. Dean may be overwhelmed and drowning. We may have SEEN the memory of Cas drowning in the Empty, but it's all done with dramatic irony, that Cas is not lost to Dean but presumably finding his way back.

-

Dean had better not puke at the grieving mother's house after all that bacon and beer for breakfast after a hard night out.

-

I love the cut between Sam asking what happened in one scene and the woman saying "I don't know" in the next - there's some good thematic transitions I've noticed already, especially this way of skipping exposition here, but I liked Dean ringing the bell for the hotel and Shaun waking up screaming, because Dean was about to go out on his grief metaphor night out and for all I know get the sexy kind of drilled while Shaun was getting the unsexy kind... and then the cut to Dean's empty bed, because this is how bad his grief was hurting him.

(Also after Sam tried to control and placate Dean's grief, he resisted Sam's attempts to smother him but he still has been accepting the offers, and did eventually go out and get wasted and Sam had encouraged it - just Dean did it on his terms and without Sam, just his tacit approval that Sam wouldn't bitch about it.)

-

ALSO WOW AFTER 13 YEARS YOCKEY FINDS A WAY TO SUBTLY WORK IN THE COLD SPOTS FOR GHOSTS.

-

LOOK HOW INTELLIGENT THAT MAKES OUR BOYS LOOK WHEN THEY READ THE SUBTEXT OF A SCENE FROM A SURFACE READ OF SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT GHOSTS BUT IDENTIFIED THE SIGNS AND THE PEOPLE WHO KNEW WHAT TO LOOK FOR COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING WITHOUT HER SAYING IT AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING JUST FROM INFERRING IT

WOW

-

Night time and they go to the house and we're at 18 minutes in. I mean we have time for a jump scare, some bad shit to happen, and then the ad break before pt.2 of the episode.

-

Buzz buzz

-

"What's up, doc?"

-

*ad break*

*back to Dean getting drilled*

-

Sam saves him and on with pt.2 of the episode.

-

All the masks are back in place.

-

Oops, don't touch the masks. *horrible screaming from elsewhere in the house*

-

Well, except to burn them. Sensible to stay in the room, defend their turf, and get to the burning asap instead of poking around or investigating the screaming any more. 13 years and they have learned a fair amount about ghosts and I am admiring how competent they are. Sam especially has the lead here, probs because Dean is off his game by an enormous degree to him.

-

Ahahah and Sam did a round circle at the door so we see the doc get partway through the door, realise there's salt, and have to awkwardly back out of it to have a second go and honestly that is the funniest shit a ghost has ever done on this show even though it's also terrifying :P

-

*burn burn burn*

-

So rescue Shaun?

-

What can possibly happen next with nearly 20 minutes left

-

LIGHTS BLOWING DOWN A HALLL

-

Now they dealt with the advertised ghost I'm just waiting for Billie to show up, because they're about to be mobbed by a ton of ghosts and she can save their asses, or else... well idk I have to watch, but I'm just laughing because of lights blowing down a hall - 3 times already this season, for Jack, for Patience at least with them flickering rather than exploding like this...

-

These are all the whispers about the doctor which we heard in the cold open

-

I love the Winchesters running around shouting sensible ideas about what the ghosts are doing though.

-

Is this going to be Dean's torch everything solution?

-

YIKES, no, it's 4x15/11x17. BAD IDEA, DEAN. i can't believe he even carries a pre-prepared take me to the veil kit. Like, that's the reckless nothing to live for might as well die trying to do something dramatic toolkit. We also get shades of 11x16 with him doing that in a super haunted house.

You can NOT pass into the veil in a super haunted house with just your brother to watch over you and stop these 1000s of ghosts killing you.

Jesus Christ Dean.

-

Wait is he literally doing this

-

Sam is like FFUCKING HELL RIGHT HERE WITHOUT EVEN A SALT RING? ON THE FUCKING STAIRS UNDER THIS SYMBOLIC STAINED GLASS WINDOW THAT LIZZY DIDN'T ANALYSE EARLIER?

DEAAAAN

-

And yeah this is 2x01 all over again with Dean walking down the stairs trying to get the attention of a ghost.

-

Wait back up new reaper with a customer service calm grief counsellor voice, but what did she say her name was? :P

"Hello, my name is JESSICA and I'm here to lead you to your next life"

... well I hope she survives the episode just because I always root for the reapers and she's clearly just a random obstacle to Dean who is doing her job, a regular old part of the natural order, but that is not a name you use at random :P

-

I'm just sitting here running my hands through my hair trying to deal with this right now. Gonna play a few rounds of Pokemon shuffle because I sort of knew this was coming since they showed 5x15 and 2x01 in the opening recap, but the way Dean did it and then walking immediately into a Jessica? Yeah I need a mo.

-

Dean maybe never told Sam what he did in 11x17 because he didn't at the end of the episode and idk if that's one of those things you don't just bring up at the breakfast table.

-

JESSICA.

-

"Hi, I'm the spectre of the loss of the most important romantically loved loved one in your life, do you feel like moving on from them to the next thing"

"sorry I can't come to the phone"

-

YOCKEY I AM DISTRESSED.

-

Accidents don't happen accidentally.

-

"Oh god."

She knows what she's got herself into.

-

Sam takes 20 seconds to set his waych and sdakdfjgkl hang on who cares about Sam

WE'RE IN REAPER HQ

-

"Dean Winchester is the the veil!"

Please say this whole thing goes to red alert.

-

Where's his file. It it like 5000 times the size of all these little ones?

-

Sam put down enough salt for Dean but not himself.

-

I don't think that's ghosts blowing lights any more, I think that's emergency lightning from the cosmos.

-

SHAUN! Oh no, you're dead :(

-

At least he's talking again.

-

Generally the freshest ghosts are the more talkative ones, and as Bobby showed us back in 7x19 which I generally try not to remember or rely on for ghost lore, because the older ones are fading and falling into patterns and the fresher ones still have a stronger sense of self and their old life.

-

OH NO Shaun got possessed because of course that's how he got back here with the mask. I think we saw a smaller ghost in a t-shirt in some of the promo stuff, but I thought it was a kid, not a teenager.

-

"I miss my mom" he's on the other side of the grief from Jack, who misses his mom because he's alive and she's dead. The doc said he'd feel better and he froze and let him kill him. Also Kevin parallels just of a kid whose most important relationship is his mom and now he's dead.

-

Dean's thinking clearly for the first time in a while because he's not in his body. All soaked in alcohol and grief. He realises he let Shaun down by not being there to protect him. Which may have all happened this way in another episode, but that PB&J, man. It was a Kevin thing all along. (I SAID it was a Kevin thing and you all were like blah blah Cas blah blah Jack, look, don't doubt me on my Kevin knowledge, guys, I am still RAW about his death and it was 4 years ago :P) Dean's remembering in the middle of grief that it's "saving people hunting things" after he let Patience down with that speech. Or so I hope. They used Dean's speech over the open of the episode like in a season 1 episode they'd usually layer the more optimistic and simplistic "saving people hunting things" from Dean's like, second day on the job, not where he's all messed up and old.

Anyway Shaun is an emergency Kevin patched into his life to make him feel bad about failing people, and I guess that puts Dean at similar crossroads to the middle of season 9. Hopefully to a different end, just like this should be subverting 11x17 for why he just abruptly decided to cross into the veil, because Jessica is not having a good day :P

-

DEAN GOING INTO THE VEIL TO HELP LOST PEOPLE is doubling up the job of a reaper. Reapers CAN'T COMMUNICATE across the veil to the living, and don't wanna solve the cases. They come to move on the one person with a ticket upstairs in a house full of hundreds of ghosts and just ignore them... Dean actively dives into their turf to solve the case and find out how to move the souls on. He SAYS he wants to help move the souls on.

I have such a huge love of Dean blurring the lines with being Death, and being a reaper. It's just such a symbolic thing. Their job is moving people on, basically handing souls to the reapers to carry on the job, when it's ghost cases. They're the human agents of the reapers breaking the ties that hold ghosts to the earth so that the whole process can carry on and the world doesn't fill up with ghosts - like it did when the veil was broken. (or is it still? Again, the whole Kevin thing not quiiiite answered, although maybe/maybe not that was a sign Chuck was fixing the thing... But then there were a whole bunch of souls Billie for for them out of the veil like 2 episodes later...)

-

Reaper lore is fucked up on this show :P But Reaper HQ just in the first glimpse looked aaaawfuully empty adjacent...

-

I'm guessing even though Dean's got back with the info he needs, and Sam's about to wake him up because the clock ran out, the reapers are going to intervene...

-

WAKEY WAKEY DEAN

-

Oh look Billie's back.

"Hey Dean"

-

I haven't been this happy in about 1000 years. Like seriously Cas getting back was great and all but HOLY SHIT have you seen Billie? I would set this as my desktop immediately but my mum and Cat are both gonna have to watch this episode with me and probably see my desktop in the process, so... Saving a screencap for later ;)

-

This is literally the best thing.

LOOK AT HER.

LOOK AT THAT SCYTHE. HOLY SHIIIT THAT SCYTHE.

-

Billie's understated attitude is just *clenches fist*

She just shows up!! LOoking LIKE THIS!!!!

I don't even wanna hit play, I don't wanna move past this point, I just want to bask in this one image forever.

-

THE COAT. NO one has shown up in a floor length leather coat in the entire show so far, because no one has been good enough for it.

-

"We need to talk" Yeah no shit babe.

-

LOL getting right to it - Dean like, Cas killed you. Billie like, "how's that working out for him?" - does she know? Either way, she's rubbing it in. Because of course she has eeeevery right to be pissed. :P

-

UTTER GLEE.

-

I have a sudden feeling... Billie says, "certain rules - after you kill one "incarnation" of Death" (Hey 1000 points to trisscar) "another one takes its place" and dude.

Death died and within 10 seconds Billie was singing "o Death" and following the Winchesters around, annoying them, making deals with them, making ultimatums with them... Like, the reapers aren't exactly itching to kill EACH OTHER and promote someone, and I guess just one biting the bullet and taking one for the team doesn't work... But this suddenly explains EVERYTHING about Billie getting all up in the business of the people who basically fuck up every deal and ally they make and hanging out with them... doesn't give you much of a life span.

Back in 12x06, Billie taunted Dean, made fun of him for not getting what he wants, and said she wanted something from him. Came to Mary and said she was there to reap her when she was ready. She LET Dean make another deal, a deal where one of his family would have to die, or he himself do it. In a car full of Winchesters, one of them is gonna take one for the team, or ruin everything and kill the reaper who's been bothering them, holds so much over them...

-

I'm thinking very hard about changes of state right now - that Billie and Cas had mirrored deaths, and Billie came back improved, and Cas... Well, we don't know how he came back except he's been put on a better path, for his character narrative, in confronting and overcoming the symbolic depression, and he has a better coat. Not much to go on yet, and I haven't been participating in the wild flailing about all the ways he MAY have come back different, but this makes a veeery interesting mirror about returns and changes of state, upgrades after death. Now I'm interested in what may have happened to Cas.

-

But, like, to a magnitude of difference to how utterly delighted I am that Billie won the game :P

-

But yeah this is a bit of a lore fudge but who caaaares because it brings Billie back and powers her up and makes her into THE BEST CHARACTER ON THE SHOW IN A TOTALLY INARGUABLE WAY.

-

I love her new ring :P

-

"This universe can be so many things, and sometimes it is poetic."

Hell yeah it is Billie. I've been saying so for ages, but this really puts it in such a beautiful way. This is Dabb's entire job. He makes this universe *rhyme* with itself. This is what his mirrors and parallels and character repeats have been doing. I even compared scene transitions in 13x03 to the way poetry ends each line in a verse. It's something all the writers have been doing - making the story rhyme.

Gaaaaah. THIS is Dabb's writer meta commentary, perhaps. I think I can trust Yockey to spell it out this way :D

-

She took him to Reaper HQ!!! Like Cas he's passing through states - I assume he'll be back in time to finish the hunt, but in the mean time... He's got to work through some shit, just like Cas did last episode. Rhyming with each other.

-

Dean is wearing a black and grey plaid with thin red lines, and a black jacket. He's bringing like the only colour here to all the blackness.

-

yeah, Billie, keep the scythe away from him.

-

I love she set her desk up in the W section because even though it's not the middle of the alphabet, she's keeping a CLOSE FREAKING EYE on the Winchesters.

-

Ooh she knows Dean went to the AU... She's interested in Jack. Dean's chance to protect him!!!???

-

Billie looks INCREDIBLE how did I ever let myself talk myself into doubting she was here to run the game?

wait shit Dean's doing epic character stuff. Not bargaining with his life, or asking for Mary or Cas back. He just wants to complete the job and free the ghosts because freakin sshdfkjsjlks PB&J brought him back to his senses and he needs to save Kevin-stand-in rather than let him wallow in the veil for 3 seasons again

THAT is one heck of a thing, Dean. I love you so much

not as much as billie but it was a beautiful character moment

-

Billie is STUNNED.

-

Jessica gets to take all the ghosts back. She thought this was going to be a terrible day and it actually worked out.

Again, with like 10 minutes left of the episode so this isn't how it ends.

-

Now Dean's talking about trust, and Billie brings up how they keep breaking cosmic bargains. I think he may be stalling - even planning to NOT give up Jack even though Billie went first... Or he's gonna tell her but... Natural order? She can't just go... kill him...

If Dean's still uncertain about Jack he could always make a query about IF she could kill him, but not give away enough, or have her as the weapon in his back pocket should Jack be a problem... something for him to regret later, maybe?

-

This is stressful

-

Dean spills. "Lucifer's son. Jack. When he was born it created a little rip."

-

What does Billie know about the AU?

Well she knows how the multiverse works, and she knows a "big dumb Winchester" is fairly statistically likely to be the one to knock it all down.

The warning not to try and get Mary back? Now Cas is back? The consequences may still be on Mary, however she's returned to them, intentionally or not, she could topple it?

Ugh I hate spec but all these lines are so leading :P The comment that Sam's plans don't work out, in this light, for example, is realllly nerve-wracking. And we know from spoilers the AU is going to become a more immediate problem at some point...

-

"That does sound like us."

-

"You've changed." Billie reading Dean deeply and now we get to the character part of this where she's just... analysing him.

"The Dean I know and love" look I'm die hard Destiel to the bone but Dean x Death is something I've always thought the dynamic for was absolutely stunning since their first meeting, and I hate to say it but making Death into Billie is making it aaawfully tempting to ship :P

Please show him his massive folders.

-

She's currently just calling him out on how bad he feels. Pure awful character exposition.

-

"I don't matter." OH DEAN NO.

He and Cas totally rhyming with each other about their passing through these dark other worlds...

Dean couldn't save mom, he couldn't save Cas, he can't even save this kid... But he already saved the kid with that bargain with Billie, and Cas is... out there somewhere. And Mary is a whole other problem and the one he can't solve right now. If she's alive, she's on the other side of a wobbling house of cards he can't touch. But the difference in the way he gets finality on Mary vs the finality on Cas? 13x01 vs this episode as Dean slides from dealing with Cas to dealing with Mary? Getting this blunt exposition from Billie about it...

I think Billie would have thought it was funny to show Dean his file, but then realised because he's changed she needs a different approach to intimidate and interrogate him. She sees that he doesn't feel like a hero any more, not the guy who saves the world. All his crushing losses have made him feel like he's still utterly helpless to make anything good happen in his own life.

And Dean can't work through it, won't work through it, and he knows it - this is the thing that has broken him hardest... That at this point there will be NO recovery except the story handing back Cas to him, and even then that's one hell of a shake to what he believes he can accomplish... If they wanted to scare him back down from "i kill gods" Dean who then went and killed Death too, to show him the universe his huge, and keeps on ticking and his actions have put Billie in charge and the natural order keeps on ticking... But he still can't get mom and Cas back...

-

I am literally sitting in that room in Alice in Wonderland where she's floating around on her tears.

I mean in my head, anyway :P

-

My heart is broken.

Billie's "don't you?" though when Dean says he doesn't matter... I wonder what she knows that Dean doesn't :P

But Dean starts ranting to her about how Sam's been trying to help and he's useless... :(

"You really believe that. You want to die." Well, yeah the universe has become a crushing hard place where no one makes sense and Dean doesn't even believe in the blaze of glory death, doing something HEROIC now, let alone not believing in it because he thinks he deserves better and a happy ending at the end of this all...

Lowest point, unlocked! \o/

-

Oh, ALL those notebooks are his individual deaths... How he dies. "heart attack. burned by a red-haired witch" HEY ROWENA

Are they potential deaths or ones still looming over him, disappearing as he passes those marks? Or are they his entire history of deaths not died?

-

"Unfortunately, none of these books say you die today"

....

So are they potential future deaths or what?

-

I mean, Billie just introduced hope to his life.

-

"I stand witness to a much larger picture" they could not have picked a better character to be Death. She has such DEPTH and WEIGHT to the way she speaks, and such an amazing calm, powerful aura of energy. I just love her so so much.

-

OH GOSH this camera angle with the scythe in the background behind Dean's face... Gotta save and remember to add that to this, because after telling him all the ways he dies, Billie moves onto his big picture cosmic weight. That he's important. And Dean has the scythe symbolically pointing at him as she talks, telling him he's at those crossroads of life and death but not today... Is this going to be a burden like the one Chuck laid on him, or Billie reminding him that a heroic life is not such a bad thing?

I really think this is one of the best episodes of the show and I got a few minutes left of it and don't know how this resolves :P

-

SHE IS LITERALLY giving him the 4x01 Cas speech - "you have work to do" and telling him he's important, telling him he deserves to live... Kinda still like I hate you but you're important, and setting aside past grudges. There's more for him to do.

-

"And trust me, having my eyes opened to the importance of any humans, especially Winchesters, is not a thrill." HA. yeah, she's an anti-Cas but she and Cas are literally bouncing off each other in the story anyway since he stabbed her and then got stabbed himself in turn.

Rhymes. Rules. Reason. Billie is the best character on the show and I love her.

-

"So, you wanna die, but I say, keep living." "Hmm."

This is NOT the same as what happened with Cas - but he may not remember it - but it works in sort of mirrored ways. Cas utterly defeats the Empty with his will to live, may not remember it, and may have to piece his newfound will to live together himself in this new hopeful return to life. I hope. Dean has no will to live, and orders of work and purpose are just the way his life goes, the orders endlessly being placed on his head by every cosmically powerful figure... God, Death that time in 6x11, Billie now, JOHN every day of his life from aged 4 to 27 and then one final order to haunt Dean to his first grave...

-

"I need to know. My mom" *wakey wakey*

Oh, and there's the so far missing hope. She can't lie to him and say Mary's dead, so she cuts him off in indecision and uncertainty, and THAT, unfortunately, is a massive step  up from where he was in total despair that there is no one he can save...

And Cas may very well be back in his life to give him the hope that it can be done again by the end of this episode... Aaaaaaaaaaaah.

-

Anyway Dean goes wakey wakey at last and the house seems to be wrapped up, yay.

-

there's exactly 5 minutes left, which is always the omen. :P

-

Sam comforts Shaun's mom, and wanders through the scene, looking small in the chaos, to rejoin Dean at the car.

-

And like in 11x17 Dean lies again.

Sam is too smart for that, chases it up when Dean tries to brush it off as luck, and says that when Dean says they talk about it later, it means they won't talk about it and it's Dean's way of shutting off a conversation from ever happening...

Sam calling out their communication issues? I am LIVING

-

Dean glances at the mom, and is reminded that they do this job for a reason, that he bargained to save the souls of the children... Sold out the info about Jack for it...

"I saw Death. The Death."

*Sam does the eyebrows*

"He's dead"

"No she's not"

*EYEBROWS*

"it's billie"

And Dean goes on to even say that she wanted intel, and does Sam pick up on it?

... no he doesn't. He doens't ask or guess what it was...

Dean repeats the line about work to do, which is also, especially in the context of Sam and Dean talking, what they say in instances like for example 2x22 when Dean had just sold his soul for Sam, when they're about to go back to work with their regular job. The open the trunk of the car and look at their gear and announce they're going to go kick ass phrase. (Which, of course, in 4x01, Cas was subverting the context by saying it to Dean away from Sam, putting the burden on him - Billie at least made it about Sam and Dean both but that she was talking to Dean)

But they're sitting on the back of the car, keeping the trunk closed... Not moving on

And Dean starts talking about how he's not okay.

And how he always believed in what they did - saving people hunting things - that losing John or Bobby or people they cared about was a hit he could take for the higher purpose. Billie has just REMINDED him that he is bound to a higher purpose. But he's so lost, and he's lost people who he CAN'T lose. Mary and Cas at once is just TOO MUCH. It makes the universe cruel not poetic...

(I say, having it paused here but knowing Misha's in the credits again as an awful TEASE :P)

He just needs a WIN.

And he may just get one because he told 90% of the truth to Sam, conveyed exactly what was going on behind that line about not believing in anything from last episode, the power of which narratively brought back Cas because that was a huge step in his grief arc, to admit it. Now he's explaining it, telling Sam how badly it's all got to him...

Oh god where is Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

They're driving off and there's music, which... agh.

-

drive drive drive sexy car

-

Omg we're going back to the house... More grief on the mom for her son... Just really WALLOWING in how much loss hurts everyone, and even when the soul has moved on, that Dean got a win for their knowledge of the afterlife, that they know ghosts can go to a better place, the mom doesn't, she has lost Shaun and that's it for her. No closure, just pain.

-

drive drive drive

Billie reading Dean's book

-

I think Billie really has a huge interest in Dean... :P

-

drive drive drive... Okay so Yockey is the new Robbie montage guy.

-

Also Sam is asleep while Dean drives - this seems to parallel 12x20 where he was asleep and Dean checked his messages from Mary...

-

Bring bring?

-

BRING BRING.

Called that like a boss :3

-

WHAT, NO "HELLO DEAN" ON THE PHONE?

FUCK YOU YOCKEY I TAKE IT ALL BACK I HATE THIS ENTIRE EPISODE

-

I mean there probably was one under the music if that was Cas...

-

Well this alley has that cross from 11x06, aka the start of Cas's depression arc, the one where Metatron was teasing him about a real life angel on camera...

-

drive drive drive

-

Cross reflected in the car

-

Hey, bison sign

-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

-

Has he just been waiting at that phonebox for hours.

-

I'll just wait here then... I'll wait for you...

Well that got fucking tied up with a fucking bow, from all the left over crap Robbie left lying around.

-

God I don't even have anything to say... Cas waited. For Dean. Like the love ballad warned he would. Because he's Dean's real life angel, and Dean's win. It was FOR Dean. Dean's arc narratively brought Cas back into his life, but on Cas's side of the story they fully fleshed out the end of his depression arc and made Cas bring himself back on his own terms so it doesn't shove Cas into a subheading for Dean even when the bigger story is handing Cas on a plate back to Dean...

And that, my friends, was one hell of a fun game :P

[strangeremembrances]

Is the film as good as the book Megan? 🙏

WORLDS COLLIDE! Hannah! 

Oh god, this is a question. I have a free evening so you’re getting my full attention and I’m always in the mood to talk CMBYN and unleash my ridiculous love so here goes!

First off, I will try not to be spoilery…. BUT THIS IS HUGE AND I HAVE OFFICIALLY GONE INTO HEART EYES MODE BUT HERE IS MY OVERVIEW.

I have loved the novel for so many years that it holds such a special and important significant for me so that’s difficult to compare anything to. I was 19 when I first read the novel and I’m nearly 29 now so that’s nearly 10 years of adoration….

That’s why I was terribly nervous when I heard they were making a movie. That kind of changed when I saw Armie’s instagram wayyyyyyyy back when in January 2017 around the same time as Sundance and he tagged it #billowyblueshirt - I pretty much lost my mind!!! I mean, THAT IS OLIVER. That’s how I pictured him  (minus baby Harper of course!). He was a little younger looking in my head but Armie looked SO MUCH like the Oliver in my mind.

And then this came out:

I was so stunned because I didn’t really know much about Timmy. I recognised him from Homeland but that was it and yet, he looked like Elio. Again - I had the same response! He looked like the Elio I’d imagined in my head and that tiny clip made me so excited. It still didn’t stop me from being nervous as you can’t get much from a little clip but by the time the main trailer came out, I was BEYOND excited because so much of what I’d imagined was in front of me and so close to how I’d always pictured in my mind. Plus, the shots were so pretty and almost art house that it didn’t feel like they’d cheapened it or gone for the obvious adaption they so easily could have. 

The trailer I first saw was this one:

I swear to you, the moment I saw the part where Elio says “listen, when the time comes, this is how he’ll say goodbye to us…Later”, I stopped being nervous. Completely. That scene still kills me.

I desperately tried to get tickets to the BFI screenings but they sold out so I could only see the movie opening night in the UK on 27 October but it was one of my favourite and one of the most memorable cinema experiences I’ve ever had, second to possibly seeing Titanic when I was a kid.

Yes, there are parts of the book that I wish were in there that sadly didn’t make the cut. I made a post about that ages ago. I have a tag on here that has all my ramblings under (HERE!) but I think I talked about that. 

Does it have some flaws? Of course! There are a few editing moments that I thin would make non-novel readers unsure and some of the dialogue remains unexplained… unlike in the novel but I do wonder whether some of that is by choice to allow the viewers the ability to make up their own mind. I am definitely able to cast a critical eye but I am so fond of the movie as a whole and a novel!fan that I can’t help but be overly descriptive and gushy haha. It’s a marmite kind of thing for many and none of the characters are perfect in the book or movie but that’s what I love. They just happen to be fascinating and interesting to me.

SO NOW FOR THE RAMBLING……

The movie is different from the novel. There is about 1/3 of the novel in the movie. The entirety of Ghost Spots is gone. Most of San Clemente Syndrome is also gone. But yet the movie doesn’t suffer because of it. Luca has talked endlessly (and oh god i have wanted every single interview he’s done for this movie, I’m sure. I’m sure an admirer) about his decisions for the movie and one of the big ones is that he wanted the audience to grow with Elio. He didn’t want the novel’s reflective nature or the Proustian thing clouding the audience’s judgement of what was happening. He didn’t want voice overs or a narrator and, in my view, it is HANDS DOWN the best thing he did. You experience EVERY SINGLE MOMENT with Elio. From start to finish, you’re with him during his summer and you disappear. The movie is so immersive and beautiful for that, I’m so grateful to him. 

PLEASE GO SEE THE MOVIE IN A CINEMA. That’s the best advice I can give. I hope it’s showing in the UK still where you are. Just take that time out and go see it. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is. From the second the credits start (and i swear, they’re some iconic bloody credits. The second I hear Hallelujah Junction *goosebumps*) it’s just the kind of movie that lifts you out of your life, drops you into Italy in the Summer and you spend every moment experiencing every second with these characters.

As for the comparison of the characters in the novel to those on screen. THIS IS WHERE I GET EMOTIONAL. Elio. Oh Elio Perlman is my sweetheart. The first time I read the book, I got him. He taught me so much about being brave. But novel!Elio is DRAMATIC as I’m sure you’re aware if you’ve read the book. He is hormonal and ridiculous and weird as hell. He’s so OTT and it the world’s most unreliable narrator so to play THAT right is just the most difficult task and it was what I was most frightened of. Let me tell you…. everything, EVERYTHING, that critics said about Timmy’s acting and his portrayal of Elio is spot on. It is one of my favourite piece of acting I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. All of those Elio thoughts and feelings in the novel, all the internalisation and the intense thoughts he has… getting that across is a TASK and you read them all on Timmy’s face. I can’t even list them. It’s every damn scene. Moments of note are the dinner table scene where Oliver doesn’t show up. I even made a post of this because it stunned me to much (HERE!). The scene in Mr P’s office when Oliver’s showing off about his apricot knowledge and novel readers know that Elio is already enamoured and thinking filthy thoughts…. it’s ALL THERE on Timmy’s face. I could go on and on and on about him and how he quite frankly blew my mind but the main thing I keep coming back to is that movie!Elio is a JOY. He is an absolute delight to behold. Novel!Elio is so intense and because you’re inside his mind, it’s difficult to see him the way the world does. Movie!Elio is so lovely. He’s every bit as intense and kind of difficult and bold and hormonal as novel!Elio but he’s also light and fun and playful and SWEET. He’s EXTREMELY SWEET. There are some tiny little moments that are so effervescent and make me smile so much because Elio sparkles on screen. He dances and shimmies and lazes about, he touches everything in sight, he climbs Oliver like a tree, he smiles and argues and fusses and swoons and is just PERFECTION. I’m not going to go on and on because I’d spoil stuff…. the ending thought. The very final 2 seconds of the movie are forever etched into my brain. 

As for the movie itself. It’s blissful. The cinematography is breathtaking. You feel part of the home and the landscape and Luca’s heart is in every frame. It’s like a painting. The music is wonderful and fills every scene with nostalgia and this sense that the Perlman’s are effortlessly cultured. The editing AHHHHH. GOD. There are some editing choices that I could kiss Walter Fasano for. It has an arthouse feel (MY FAVOURITE), and is SO LONG. It’s a very long movie and that was the biggest treat. There are directorial choices that I want to cuddle Luca for, namely how certain scenes are framed - especially the nosebleed scene and the entire MIDNIGHT sequence. That sequence is long and drawn out but constructed with little details so beautifully.

The other characters are so RICH and I was devastated to let them go when the movie ended. Annella is so much more than in the novel and I adore her. Marzia is WONDERFUL. Mafalda is every bit as sassy and great as the novel even if her part is smaller. But the VP is Mr Perlman. Reading the novel, anyone will remember and feel moved by his speech to Elio about life and love and letting yourself experience life: good and bad. The movie version moves me to tears from start to finish, every single time I see it. Mr Perlman is a GIFT in this movie. Every single character was so real and warm and the family moments are some of my favourites from movie.

Finally, the chemistry. Everyone has chemistry with EVERYONE. Notably, Elio and his parents. The level of affection in this movie is off the charts. Everyone hugs and kisses and cuddles and touches and it’s the most refreshing thing. But obviously the chemistry everyone wants is between Oliver and Elio and it’s so natural and almost unstaged (especially the midnight scenes) that I was speechless. They are wonderful together. It’s so clear that Timmy and Armie became friends. They shot the movie chronologically and much of the way the movie developed and occurred was how Timmy and Armie met and became friends. Watch any interview… haha. They are special on screen together.

My absolute FAVOURITE thing though is how the movie is so thin on dialogue. Compared to most movies, it is sparce and treats the audience intelligently because so many of the BIG moments are simple and delivered through nuanced acting (specifically by Timmy and notable by Armie in the goodbye portion of the movie). There’s no exposition, very little emotional talk as it is SHOWN and that is hands down the reason this movie resonated with me so well because that’s what I wanted from an adaption of the book. I didn’t want Elio TELLING us, I wanted to see it. And you do. VERY WELL.

So yeah, ESSAY DONE. I could ramble on and on. I truly ADORE the movie. It is up there with my all time favourites and I said after seeing it for the first time, that gratitude is the overwhelming thing I felt when I walked out of the cinema and after I’d picked my broken heart up off the floor…. my feelings haven’t changed.

If Luca sticks by his intention on sequels to follow Elio’s life, well I’m on board. I’d have NEVER said that last year. I’d have never wanted anyone to touch the novel or expand on the novel for a second. But I trust Luca. I’m pretty much a bloody disciple at this point hahaha. I fell head over heels for these characters and I don’t want to never see them again - especially Elio. Once you’ve seen Timmy’s Elio, I’d defy anyone to NOT want more.

So, in summary. THE MOVIE IS MAGICAL. It is different from the novel in some areas, in some it brings to life the pivotal moments in the first portion of the novel and although it misses out some of my most cherished portions of the novel, in my view, the movies doesn’t suffer for it. I hold them both dear for different reasons and they compliment one another in the loveliest way!

[dianamjackson]

Dance (2020)

“What you can’t have with a man, you’ll experience onstage, ten times as intensely! Ten times? A hundred! Sublimated… As if I were making love with God? That’s right, you can dance everything, understand almost everything through music. Go on, get dressed!” ~ Birmant & Oubrerie, 2019, Isadora. And so went the lines that made me buy this book. It’s a brilliant graphic novel by Julie Birmant and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie about Isadora Duncan, the mother of modern dance. I was led to this book. I wasn’t even going to enter the bookshop but something compelled me. In the music section, which is where I usually go, I was looking for the dance section. I finally found it (it was tiny), and the name ‘Isadora’ in red letters on the spine so compelled me that I couldn’t stop staring at it. My other favourite line is when she’s in a cafe nursing a beer, having just turned down Loie Fuller’s offer to join the latter’s dance troupe: “Whom to share this strange feeling with, of Greek temples without sky or infinity?” Indeed, whom to share my view of life with. Story of my life. I called my website a lover’s dance because I consider all my activities dancing and I’m a lover. I love a lot of things, including love itself. I’ve always been that way; a floaty-headed romantic. I only ever draw pictures when I’m in love with my subject, I only ever record music when I felt compelled, and I only ever write when I have something to say. I have never been a Puritan when it comes to my arts. This “inspiration finds you at work” thing — please. In the past fifteen years I’ve recalled exactly two instances of boredom, each lasting about five minutes. I am always inspired and so there is always something to do. (Actually, Michael said something fascinating about “writer’s block” that I never forgot. He said that merely uttering the phrase creates writer’s block, because you ‘speak things into existence.’ He is absolutely right. I’d heard of this phenomenon but, as I’m always inspired, had never experienced it myself. Furthermore, I knew that acknowledging the concept would create it. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. In art and design classes people talked about “fear of the blank page.” I had no idea what they were on about; to me a blank page was the most exciting thing ever. I guess these are the “ordinary people” Michael laments. One downside of being perpetually inspired and creatively active is that many people can’t relate to you. But more on that later.) I’d always loved the idea of dancing but was far too self conscious to ever do it in front of anyone. I was even too embarrassed to dance alone. But my love and fascination grew until it became stronger than the fear, and I started dancing. Now, I can’t help it. Before I encountered Michael (September of 2018) I was planning on going to clubs just to dance. But the problem with clubs is that people often go there to pick up, there’s not enough room and sometimes the music is bad or too loud or the sound is poorly balanced. There are so many problems with clubs. A fascinating thing about dancers, the really good ones, is that they do everything in a dancerly way. The way you do anything is the way you do everything, said Tom Waits. For me, all movement is an opportunity for dancing — whether walking to a door, typing on a keyboard, playing guitar or just sitting in a chair. When Miles Davis was going to clubs with Clark Terry to check out the musicians, he said that they could tell whether a guy could play by the way he was standing. I’m fascinated by the act of moving. I love creating graceful movements with my body — movements that look as beautiful as pictures. Dancing is a freer, more dynamic and more exciting way for me to draw. As I say in my Gold Dance commentary video, each frame is a painting — that’s thousands of paintings in a single short film! Far more than I could ever hope to produce as paintings in my lifetime. Not that quantity is so important; it’s just that there are so many poses I’d want to paint. With dancing, I can do them all, and quickly. There’s a kind of ‘move lightly’ principle at work in me — an economy of movement and contact. Some people are really profligate in the way they move; I can accomplish the same task in far fewer movements and with less contact. Michael has this economy too, I’ve noticed. Strangely enough, our tentativeness of contact is combined with a strong sensory desire for and enjoyment of contact. The tentativeness comes from being highly sensitive: watch any highly sensitive child among non-sensitive children and they will be the last to try or approach anything. This is obvious in footage of Michael playing in the snow with his brothers, aged about 6. His brothers are furiously playing in the snow and M is way off to the side, observing and not getting involved. The sensory sensitivity is evidenced by the way we touch things: watch the way Michael touches anything. When he strokes kids’ heads, he uses his whole hand, lovingly. This is exactly how I do it too. He’s enjoying the sensation of the kid’s hair and warm head on his whole hand, and it calms them both. We do the same thing with animals. There’s a fascinating video of M aged about 19 combing a little boy’s hair at a party. I love seeing the way he combs the boy’s hair: gently but deftly and swiftly, just like his dancing. There are no girls at the party; all the other boys are showing off or cracking jokes and M is in the back holding the little boy on his hip like a mother, not really participating in the revelry, just focusing on the kid. Idiots will infer sexual indecency, but it’s not. It’s because we’re highly sensitive, sensory types, and M is a very feminine and therefore maternal person. When we’re sitting down I’ve noticed we minimise the degree to which our bodies are in contact with other things. A characteristic pose will be one leg resting horizontally on the other knee (to stretch it out), but the contact between the ankle and the knee will be minimal; the whole pose is balanced and looks elegant. It’s like we’re always posing, always seeking a balanced stance; like our entire existence is an aesthetic project (it is). Along with economy is grace — whenever we move, we’re dancing. Everything is an opportunity for dancing — whether we’re actually dancing, or just picking up a cup. It does betray a real joy in being alive, in being in a body. What a beautiful privilege to live like this, when all movement is exciting.

I touched on the “leg thing” in my piece My Guy (2020) in Dance notes (www.aloversdance.com). I first noticed M doing this in a picture sitting at a table reading a book. His left leg is completely stretched out resting on a chair, while his right is bent normally. I’d done this for years without ever thinking about it or asking why I do it. I’m doing it right now, as I write this. Upon reflection, I think it might be related to the discharge of energy. We both have a lot of tension in our bodies  — he probably has more — and stretching the body out in space is a way to dissipate this energy. Dr Christiane Northrup says that the body has a crystalline grid that discharges energy when we stretch. No wonder stretching feels so good. When I was little I was obsessed with cats (and still kinda am). I watched their movements very closely, obsessively studied pictures of them in cat books and drew them endlessly. I emulated their movements — the way they climbed, hunted, batted with their paws, licked milk from a bowl and walked on their tip toes. I scared people all the time because I’d walk up behind them without making a sound. I loved wearing socks, and still do. In my music film Moles (2020) I am dancing in sparkly socks on a table top. I loved climbing trees as a kid; M says this is one of his favourite things to do. If I were an animal, I’d be a cat. Maybe a lioness or a black panther. Michael would be a deer, I think. He really likes deers, and looks like one with his thin frame, thick neck and gigantic eyes. A cross between a deer, a cat and a praying mantis. He does have a weird reptilian thing with his pet boa constrictor and enjoyed scaring girls (and Quincy Jones!) with his pet snakes. I’ve never liked snakes; I think they’re gross. I’ve had many nightmares containing snakes. So that’s one thing we don’t have in common. So we both have a lot of bodily tension, which is largely responsible for our body rhythm, as I call it — the characteristic rhythm with which we do everything we do from singing to talking to writing to dancing. I’m fascinated by the way tension builds up. This became abundantly clear one day on the tram unable to stretch my leg out because there wasn’t enough room. It built up so much that I actually got angry. Certain activities build tension, and others dissipate it. Concentrating on a difficult problem using beta brain waves builds tension, while meditation using alpha brain waves eases it. Certain types of music create tension, other types ease it. Movement of any kind also eases tension. The Buddhists say that all movement is dukkha or suffering. But where would this suffering have originated? In the case of highly sensitive people growing up in largely non-sensitive households, their subjective experience of growing up in that household is considerably more traumatic than for the non-sensitives. For me, growing up in my house was like a daily war zone. No doubt Michael felt the same growing up in his house. All that trauma is registered by our cells, determines our gene expression and ingrains certain pathways that we carry into adulthood. We then have to live in ways that alleviate all this accrued suffering. It seems to me that we’re always in fight-or-flight mode because of that early conditioning; we’ve a constant vigilance. This is stressful for the body, so we find ways to calm ourselves through fiddling, dancing, avoiding stimulation and taking depressant drugs. I’m quite sure that Michael would not dance the way he did if it weren’t for his childhood experiences of trauma. Dancing is self-expression, and a person dances the way they do because of who they are and the experiences they’ve had. And, much of it depends on the music, I find. (As for dancing without music, as M did in BoW, I’m not sure what to make of that as yet.) I think of high sensitivity as having a ‘more porous’ body than non-sensitive people, so things ‘infect’ the sensitive person more strongly. Intense, hard music makes us dance hard and intense; soft, beautiful music creates soft and beautiful movements. I came across a great article by Lubov Fadeeva, a flamenco dancer. He describes Michael’s dancing accurately and intriguingly, and emphasises the importance of individuality in artistic creativity: “He dances in the flow of free creation. It should be noted that even the moves he performs on stage over and over again are not mechanically repeated like a stuck record. No, he can continue any of his dances by free improvisation at any moment. And it never looks out of sync with his personal style; instead, it opens new facets of his fathomless inner creator. This is what no impersonator can do. Only the creator of the dance can update and renew his dance naturally and improvise freely, and still be himself. No one else can plunge into his sacrament. This is his personal domain, just like every person has his or her own body and his or her own place on Earth.” How marvellous. “When Michael Jackson hit the stage, he danced in ecstasy. And it’s obvious to the spectator. All the best dancers and musicians enter a peculiar state of mind when they create. Art in its highest form is impossible without the ability to work with the subconscious, and without using altered states of awareness and intuition. Without this, it’s not art but simply cheap craft.” TBC Read more of my work at www.aloversdance.com